The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1906-04-08
LITERARY NOTES.

The double X, or let us say triple Y, of
commentator can unhesitatingly be
marked upon the short story by Jennette
Lee in the latest number of Collier S
Weekly. If you wish TO read something
that will delight you from its realistic
start to its idealistic finish, that will sur
prise you with it's distinction of sane and
wholesome beauty over the ever-pressing
crowd of nominally first-class but dis
tinctly lesser literature, and that will give
you daringly original but true, sensible
and delicious view of the higher possibili-
ties of life and love, then be sure to get
the glimpse of womans heart as given
by Mrs. Lee in this story of the way
Mary Searle dealt with a love that came
involuntarily in her heart.
Jennette Lee, it will be RENE mbered, is
a mistress of English literature. She has
trained the girls at Vassar how to appre-
ciate it's excellences and how to use its
spelI-charms. She now holds the chair of
English language and literature at Smith
College, and is writing books and doing
literary work for various first-class pc
riodicals She won one of the Collier
prizes by writing the short story pub
lished last summer called The Village
Child
The name of the new story is ION the
Face of the Waters" This title is prob
ably taken from the words which are
among the sublime sentences at the begin
ming of the Bible. There had been dark
ness over the deep until the spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters, and
then came the command that there be
highland there was light. The skill with
which that title was chosen you do not
become fully aware of until you have read
the last line of the little story. The sub
title of this little masterpiece is IAN Old
Story With New Ending" There is a
rare pertinency in that secondary title.
too. The "old story to which the author
refers is what is sometimes called THE
eternal triangle meaning thereby the
man and his wife and the other man. A
story that is so old, indeed, that as COM
monty told. literature is flooded with it,
and 1t is tediously stale-and, as often
told it is as offensive in its staleness as is
that quality in eggs. Oh. but the new
ending that this writer of prize stories
gives the old theme of the muititudinous
story writers-that Is SO surprisingly
fresh and so delightfully."- satisfying!
The world of men and women might
roughly be divided into two general
classes as to the great matter of love
and the sin love. One class boldly or
weakly yields to the inclination to sin
when they love contrary to convention's
regulations; the other class in a similar
case of involuntary affection are afraid to
love at all, for fear of sinning-as If the
love itself were a guilty thing-though
without one act of impropriety, and be-
cause of this cowardice they deliberately
cultivate GOODNESS of heart where natural
promptings mad awakened affection. In
other words, they murder the beginnings
of love which might become divine, if
rightly controlled and directed, because
they dare not drag that love out of the
darkness where it trembles on the preci-
pices of possible sin or Stiffness out into
the open light. where they can boldly
confess 1t and by divine help lift it
beyond the danger of either shame or fu-