The Savannah morning news., 1904-03-20
BOOK REVIEWS
AND
LITERARY NOTES

TIC Gordon IElopement. BY CAROLYN
Wells and Harry Persons Taber
New York: Doubleday, Page & Co..
81 Union Square. Price, $1.25.
More than 2So pages of delightful
whimsicalities! There is not a serious
line in the whole story, unless per-
chance it is in one of Aunt Zip's"
lectures to Joseph Rodman Payne"
the most marvellous dog in Maine. The
elopement is a joke, on some expected
company; the outing following the
alopement is in the nature of a Joke
two weeks long, and all of the peo-
pie in the story are unendingly joking
each other. There is love story in
the narrative, to be sure, but it is droll
sigh in sympathy. To put the matter
very bluntly, this is an impossible story
of impossible people, by two very wit
ty authors. The characters in the
book are made to say awfully clever
things, on the spur of the moment, that
would not have occurred to real people
until two or three days afterwards.
But it all comes along so naturally
that one is almost persuaded to i'm
agine that, indeed, there may be peo-
ple in the world who think and say
the smart things at the very time they
would be most effective. That, of
course, is an egregious error. The
smartest things are never really said;
they are always first written, and are
the result of more or less severe men
tai effort Miss Wells, for instance,
probably wrote, in a wrapper and slip
pers, of jokes that had been carefully
incubated; and Harry Taber, minus a
coat and smoking a pipe, put on paper
the results of his ruminations during
long hours. But, whatever may have
been the preliminary process, the re-
suit is indeed pleasing. And not the
least pleasing thing about the story
is it's utter contempt for vulgar dol
lars and cents. Not one time is there
a suggestion of the cost of anything.
When a New York hackman drives
the So called elopers from the lower
end of Manhattan into Harlem and
back again to the Holland House, there
is not the slightest reference to the
Sc he must have charged, or to the
swearing of Robert" at the extortion,
which is proof positive of the high
breeding and serene good nature of
ROBERT" also of the fact that, being
a young lawyer, he was either doing
mighty we'll or had inherited a COM
petency.
The collaboration is clever. 1t could
not have been otherwise, considering
the collaborators. Still, one cannot
help wondering why it took two smart
Tsaople to produce a book that is not
s1arter than either of them.
Sir Mortimer. BY Mary Johnston,
author of ITO Have and to Hold"
prisoners of Hope" etc. Cloth
binding; pp. $50; illustrated by F. c.
Yohn. New York: Harper & Broth
ers. Price $3.50. For sale at the
Connor Book Store.
est in English literature, and among
the most exciting in adventure. Then
the New World was just coming to
be family known. The riches Of the
terra incognita" across the seas
stirred and warmed the blood of SOL
diers of fortune, and moved specula-
tors and promoters to strange risks
and stranger propositions. London was
crazed with speculation; England and
Spain were rivals for leadership. in ex-
plotting the riches of the marvellous
West. And as a reflex Of it all, the
court of Elizabeth blazed in the glory
of the golden age. Amidst such scenes
and in such time-when chlValry was
still alive-Miss Johnston places the
which seems destined to be one OF
her best known works; and that is pre-
dieting a good deal. During the recent
past. that is to say within there of four
years, writer's of romance have paid
extraordinary attention to incidents in
English history, and have woven about
them some more or less meritorious
and entertaining fiction, based on fact.
Miss Johnston has done this, too, but
with more than ordinary skill and
dramatic effect "Sir Mortimer" is
tale of absorbing interest, that the
reader will be 10th to put down until
the last chapter has been concluded.
Artistically and mechanically the vol
ume is one of the handsomest of the
season.
Running the River. BY George Cary
Eggleston. Muslin cover; PIP. 295.
New York: A. S. Barnes & Co.
Price, $3.50.
Mark Twain wrote down" to his
boys and up" to his educated men of
the Mississippi Mr.. Eggleston puts in
to the mouths of immature boys the
language of grown-up folks; makes
the younsters think and talk as their
elders might be expected to do. With
the solitary exception that some OF