The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-06-17
NEWS OF THE BOOK WORLD
An Unconventional Love AffaIr--strange
Letter Of a Young Woman, Who is About
to Die, to a Young Man Book OF Short
& Stories by Alice Brown

| An Unconventional Love AffaIr-stranae
Letter Of a Young Woman, Who is About
4 to Die, to a Young Man--Book OF Short
Stories by Alice Brown.
Life must be hitched onto the eternities
otherwise it Is meaningless. Something to
that effect was quoted by The Uneasy
Chair from book noticed few days
ago. The same thought is made the mo-
tive OF some of the short stories in Alice
| Browns latest book, High Noon, book
to entertain delightfully."-, but book to do
much more--a book to make one ponder.
Books that deal with the hitching ION pro-
cess, or the hitching- on desires Of men
when some Of the ties have been apparent
~ broken, always lead to pondering unless
they touch the subject so lightly, so care
lessly or so coarsely as either to fail to
compel attention or else to repel the
reader
In the very first of the stories OF sHigh
Noon the author deals with one of these
interrupted ties; a tie formed only to be
severed, for all the senses disclose. The
Chalr can picture its readers at this point
skipping to the next book notice in
search OF subject and a motive less
ackneyed. Those who do will see that
they made a mistake if some day they
should pick up the book and read the
story. The situation is an unusual one.
as may be seen from the following letter
With Which the story opens:
| Dear Mr.. Stafford: I in rather peculiar
circumstances. and so 1 am going to make
rather peculiar request of you. Since came
tine you have been very dear to me- If you
We're woman, should have said so long ago,
and tried to make you familiar friend If
had been man, l should have run in at least
| three times a week to smoke a pipe with You:
and we might have heard the chimes at mid
night: But being what we are and the fabric
OF our social system being what it is, l acqui-
esce In the fact that you probably knew best
how to order your own affairs.
some days ago i learned quite by accident
| (for the family meant to keep the secret to
| themselyes), that am not to live many weeks.
Yet am very comfortable and I crave a little
more of life than life seems likely to offer me-
Gould you come to see me sometimes while am
visible, and let me know you a little in the
way have often dwelt on in fancy as If there
We're no conventions and no human fallbility of
understanding? l have two reasons for asking
tms want to see you more than any one
whom do not see. and l can talk freely to you
with the certainty you will not be in the least
moved, except from general and humane point
OF view, by the fact that 1 am to die. Will
you come! Edith Prince.
Of course Mr.. Stafford went. not onlv
once, but many times. Just as certainly
the author who would invent such a sit
uatlon would not let the conversation drag
or the interest lapse into the common
place. And just as surely, too, "the GER
talnty that MIR. Stafford would not be
IN the least moved proved only fiction
| OF Edith's mind. But Mr.. Stafford learned
some things that it did him a great deal
OF good to know; for example, that, as
writer, he was ''cultivating the vice
of clever speaking and the affectation of
believing in nothing and nobody-becarse
| 1T pays, as many another is doing. Be
sides, he learned something that no life
is complete without. But that The Uneasy
Chairs friends had better read the story
to find out. The Chair will vouch for
the fact that they will find what they
find neither trite nor tritely written
Short stories are not often good reading
on which to calm oneself, but in this book
are some on which when we get tenn
! pestuous we can read ourselves calm. .
There is little Of the intense about them
There is much of the serene and more
than enough that appeals to heart and
mind to entice the reader into their ave-
nues Of peace.