New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-12-27
FICTION.
Il Good Portrait Of a WOnsqn of the
SirticS.

Emo PIP. S15. John Lane.
THE BLACK FAMILIARs. BY L. b, Walford.
12mo. pp 80. Longmans Green & Co.
THE DAUGHTER OF A MAGNATE. By Frank
limo. PIP. 27a Charles Scrbner's Sons.
UNDER THE 5JACK-sTAFF. BY Chester Bailey
Fernald limo. PIP. 10. The Century Com
pany.
Mr.. Stephenson understands the art OF maxi
ing good beginning. In the first chapter of his
new novel. Eleanor Dayton" the reader is in
troduced to the studio of French artist in the
time of the Second Empire, where various dis
tnguished guests are examining a number of
portraits, among the latter being one of the
heroine of this story. who is herself present.
The Emperor soon enters and the one canvas
in which he is really interested proves to be. Of
course. the one representing Eleanor Dayton.
He compares the portrait with its original. and
says to Miss Dayton: Your portrait is the
pect you would wear after you had passed
through a great tragedy He calls for wine,
drinks ito the great American people" and
leaves the room. The heroine does not see him
again until they accidentally meet for a moment
at Chiselhurst, after Napoleon's fall. Neither
does the reader catch any glimpses of the great
man between these two meetings. The bulk of
the story has to do simply with Miss Dayton's
character and romance, and it is, indeed lit
tie difficult to just why Mr.. Stephenson
should have dragged In his figure from French
history. except on the hypothesis that he
how well he could seize the readers attention
by the scene in the Partisan studio. Certainly
in that the heroine attracts US, and
thenceforth we follow her adventures with gen.
uine concern. The Civil War comes to compli-
cate affairs for her. and for others IN the book.
Fortunately. however. the author does not at
ito ,yet0
again. His object Is to paint the portrait of
woman Of that time, and he Is faithful to it
throughout She is an indvidualized woman
and she is given delightful reality in these
pages The book is admirably written. MIR. Ste
phenson has refinement and repose, and gives
his work a certain delicate quality that is none
too often encountered in the fiction of the day.
The author OF that piquant and winning novel
1.-THE Baby's Grandmother" was ill advised in
her recent excursion into the byway of histori-
cal melodrama A clever chronicler of modern
domestcities. she struggles Intellectually with
the archaic. Her heroine is very charming in
her little Victorian way, but IT is not a way
which provides verismltude in a story of
Elizabethan days. Quite as comic too is the
mixture Of sixteenth century phraseology with
that OF the nineteenth. Mrs. Walfords piece
de resistance is "percase," a word which per
Ease seeIhS 10 her TO carry cheerfuly whole
pages of the talk of modernity. The story turns
on the greed and jealousy of a woman of rank
who to be rid OF her only child, her husbands
heress secretly surrenders the girl 10 the In
QUESTION.
She starts upright, breathless every rsr.
throbbing. What is il? What is it?
And now 1t is not only that sound again b,,.
something moves The blood is whirrins In ~
veins; the eyeballs starting from their SOL
cts. Slowly, slowly, the great wardrobe Soona
swing open, and forth emerges-oh horrorI %
form SO awful that never while life Iasts ,T1