New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1906-02-10

womanly but wholly unnatural. and her fend-
ishness as the tale proceeds little by little
ceases to carry any conviction whatever. We
feel the more critical for the very reason that
Mr.. Phillpotts has plainly endeavored to make
this drama drama Of fate. to show Dodd Wolf
erstan In the tolls of an irresistible destiny. But
in failing to make Primrose a perfect embodi-
ment OF such destiny he has seriously dnin-
ished the weight of his work. She is too lurid
and too crude a type. and the issues involved are
tnsidiously robbed of tragic dignity by her mel
odramatic character. There are hints of Hardy
in this book, and at two points there are more
than hints of him. Dodd's fond reflections
among the cenotaphs of highborn folk. bearers
OF his name will recall TO every reader
certain episode in Tess" and the expedient
used by Primrose to stir the hero's passion in
the thirteenth chapter will recall another in
Jude" But there larger things for Mr..
Phillpotts TO learn from Mr.. Hardy before he
can hope to raise Dartmoor to the eminence of
Wessex He will have to achieve profounder
insight into human life: to raise his imagination
to higher plane and. when he is writing a
story like The Portreeve" to express a tenn
pest-tossed woman in truly tragic terms.
There is tragedy in THE One Who Saw" but
its quality does not matter. for this is not tale
to be taken seriously. 1t is one of those elab-
orately ingenious narratives in which pro-
digiously wicked person is allowed to make sew
eral innocent men and women very unhappy,
until at the end god from the machine arrives
10 punish the evildoer and ring wedding bells
for some of those whom he has tried to hurt.
Mr. Hills fiend is doctors assistant named
Narndyke The god from the machine Is an
incorrgible small boy, the of burglar. In
spite of the illustrations these individuals and
others, turn out to be very good company as
the figures in books of this sort go. The plot.
if not at all remarkable has nevertheless enough
mystery in it to keep the reader with curiosity
awake. In short. this tale of crime and Its
detection elicits mild approval. The author
might have won more general verdict If he had
given little attention to the art of condensa-
ton.
THE Passenger from Calais would likewise
have been improved if the shears and the blue
pencil had been brought to bear upon it. 1t
is unnecessarily complicated story of the
abduction of a child by its own mother, and the
pursuit undertaken by it's worthless father. The
author has not much to add to the situation
with which he starts. but simply spins out the
record of marchings and countermarchlngs'
until scarcely know. or care what has just
happened or what is next going to happen Pa
thence is exhausted long before the last page Is
reached.
Mr. Scraggs introduced as a friend of Red
Saunders the authors pet hero, is a reformed
or recalcitrant Mormon who appears as the CEN
trail figure in eight self-related episodes of an
eventful Western existence. The basis of each
tale is a humorous anecdote expanded into a
short story by the addition of broadly farccal
details told in the phonetically written dialect
of the plains The yarns are amusing. which is
all that they are intended to be. Red Saunders
appears but S listener and an occasional COM
mcntator on the matters in hand.