New-York tribune., 1905-11-04
yrp Fiction bg Dir. CrazCford, DIR.
Haneker and Others.


,rsJoSARIEs, BY James Huneker. l2mo PIP. VIII
VI 20 Charles Scribner's Sons.
- MOUNTAIN OF FEARS. BY Henry c. Row
TIE HIhsnd. illustrated. l2Ino. PIP 9l- A. S. Barnes
Co.
,osFR,s LUCK Being the Questionable Enter
b'9i1ies prises OF YacftsInan Princess and Certain
TanSy Jackson. 12no, PIP S27. Henry Holt & Co
posE O THE. RIVER BY Kate Douglas wiggsi1na
.tHHoaghjon, Mifffin & Co.
The experienced reader of fiction must always
-, a new novel about an operate singer with
n.-tain dubety. For one author who can
-5.e a mastery book on the theme. like George
,,,ore's Evelyn Innes," there apt TO be a
so-sn who get into their books nothing save
-. tinsel and general artiicality of stage hfe
~ one could have expected Mr.. Crawford 10
-. bis Fair Margaret" which has opera
x,,eer for its heroine. anything like the moving
s.udv Of e human soul with which Mr.. Moore
.,,gbted his readers but, the other hand,
.,,s new romance is very far from falling into
=. .econd category to which we have alluded.
- occrnies a middle place. the author being
.s.-v Of psychological analysis, and at the same
.t,a careful to avoid the crudities of the merely
..,satioual novelist Mr.. Crawford's heroine is
sorered Of course. with an Incompatible voice.
,s after the familiar fashion Of the singer IN
4,+;on she scales the ladder of success with the
oss and celerity Of q hardened steepleJack'
s+ with the craft Of old hand, the author
taans her proceedings from seeming in the least
unnatural Moreover. he introduces the calcium
ugb. as little as possible. and while, with his
nndaunted passion for local color, he takes pains
n give US sufficient glimpses Of what goes on
,ebtnd the scenes in a modern opera house. ne
manages TO suggest all the time that the real
.,int at issue is not so much Miss Margaret
names public career 1t is her escape from
,bs tolls Of villanous Greek called Constan-
tine Logothet
We are 10 hear more Of the career. The book
coses with an intimation that there is to De
g sequel But in the mean time Mr. Crawford
&c content 10 describe his heroines first hlghls
,nto romance. They are interesting nights am
they are made the better worth the reaoer S
while bv the appearance Of several attractive
figures upon the scene. and by the inclusion In
the book OF much sprightIy dialogue Mr. Craw-
fnrd hits off the talk of his characters with a
LIGHT -o,lch The whole book has, indeed,
snontaneitv which has been lacking TO some
NJ his later productions There is one parsonage
IN Il too Madame Bonanni. an elderly prl1la
donna, upon whom he has lavished so much
really interested care that she disputes the cen
ire Of the stage with the heroine. Not in
long time has Mr.. Crawford done better piece
of work than he has done in this portrait of an
eccentric somewhat ridiculous and even vulgar,
specimen of the artistic temperament.
Mr.. Huneker's '"visionaries' is a collection Of
short stories resembling his "Melomaniacs in
some ways but leaving, on the whole, a less
favorable impres-.1n than was left by that
very clever book 1t treats, like its predecessor,
Of men. women and things morbidly fantastic.
The authors hero is apt TO be an excessively
unheroic person. a mediocre musi, an hocus-po-
hat he iS
q decadent Of the school of Huysmans, brooding
over new purple" sin; cafe waiter falling
in love with a beautiful shape of dread; plan
tst performing under the influence of hasheesh
in the mysterious hall of a half barbaTic prince,
and SO on through a list of subjects, all
more or less mad Mr. Huneker has imagina-
ton, and he carries off nearly every tour dc
force IN the book with the self-possession that
is half the battle in such audacious work He
holds the reader-whch is good deal for him
TO do in the circumstances-and what is more
he often touches him with a sense Of some
thing genuinely weird and interesting. But more
often he repels through rousing suspicious that
his imagination powerful it is. has been.
after all enslayed by the effects" of other men.
1t was plain when he published 'Melomaniacs"
that he had been reading Baudelaire and the
rest but IT was palmer that he had original
qualities Of his own Now his originality takes
the second place and in reading Missionaries"
think more Of the influences that have
formed him and less of the temperament of
which we had come TO expect much.
The book is forced In place of the iegiti-
mately H1dcdbre element. which he appeared at
one time destined TO handle with the authority
Of really gifted man. there is merely morbid
strain Instead Of doing something new with
out effort he does over again, in The Eighth
r..
sort that has already been done much better
in "a Rebours"-and the effort shows. The
trouble seems to be that Mr.. Huneker has been
much taken up with decadent literature and
where a man of his brains and brilliant capabil-
ities should have laughed himself of
the experience. has gone on taking ii serious
ly. He has stopped at the halfway house."
TO saturate himself in ideas which he should
have left TO immature minds. No longer look
ing at life or art in rational perspective. but
on the contrary. yielding to the hypothesis of
the latter-day schools. which would make the
world out to be a kind of nightmare. he deals
In sckly impossibilities though they were
the only things worthy of an artists ambitions
His declension is the more deeply to be deplored
because he simply brims over with ability to
do fine things if he only chose TO do them. He has
knowledge Of books and art, he has instructive
taste and the skill of born writer. But he needs
10 think more soberly. and to look with more
sympathy upon the things that the decadents
disdain, # he IS to rise above the status of the
merely clever man and take the place which he
deserves to take among writer's of lasting value.
The author Of The Mountain of Fears seeks,
like Mr. Huneker, 10 add new shudder to lit
erature but without any of the latter's re-
source. Mr. Rowands tales are not fantas-
tic, they are simply careful studies In the hor-
rh,a ". shn,.-s rs -,ler overcome hX nameless