New-York tribune., 1910-01-08
Nesc Fiction By Henry James,
Mrs. Freeman and Others.

Harper & Bros.
THE WINNING LADY. BY Mary f. Will
kins Freeman. illustrated l2mo, pp
eSS Harper e. Bros.
ANNE OF AvoNLEA. BY J.. NJ. Mont
gomery. lsIno, PIP. 36I. Boston: L. c.
Page & Co
DIANA DETHRoNED. BY W. y. Let's
lamo. PIP. 81 The John Lane Company.
DoRRIEN CARFAX. 4 Game OF Hide
and Seek. By Novel; Grlnth. LIMO,
pp. tx, 37l The John Mcbride Company.
THE ISLE OF DEAD SHIPS. BY. critten-
den Marriott With illustrations by
Frank McKernan. l2rno, pp. 269. Phila-
deiphia: The J. B. Lippincot Company
The beauty OF the novelst's heroine
snd when is she not beautifpl?-is al
ways causing trouble, and often enough
It brings distress temporarily upon the
head OF the lady herself But in the case
Of MISS Julia Bride the Inconvenience of
heing fair TO look upon is put in a new
and fairly bewildering light. She is the
daughter OF a woman with a passion for
divorce, and this formidable person is
slso something OF a picture. Between
them they have rather muddled their
social affairs. and when we first meet
Miss Bride her efforts to make some
thing satisfactory out of life are COM
promised not only by her family history
but by the face which would seem 10 be
her key 10 fortune. Mr.. James exposes
her mood ia these words:
Had it ever yet befallen any. young
woman in the world TO wish with secret
intensity that she might have been, for
her convenience. a shade less inordinateiy
pretty? She had come TO that, te. this
view of the bane, the primal curse, OF their
lavish physical outfit which had included
s7'erything and as 10 which she Jumped
could. by the 'i Whole lie idiotc consensus. be
nSflline Gut 5 prettv a'yS You could get into
nothing but tight places. out Of which you
could then scramble by nothing but masses
Of fibs. And there was no one. all the
while, who wasn't eager TO egg you on
eager 10 make you pay to the last cent
the price Of your beauty.
Shall Julia Bride pay the price? she
hates TO do 1t, and makes a desperate
struggle. but the harder she tries 20 get
out OF her coil the deeper in it does she
find herself. Mr.. James analyZes her
trouble with his wonted ingenuity. and
puts Miss Bride on the rack with ex-
ernplary fidelity to that conception OF her
prettiness as an inexorable Nemesis
which lies at the base OF his slight fab
ric. Yet we can hardly regard this tale
as one of his happiest performances.
There is something far more obnoxious
than pathetic about his heroine, and the
situation in which he places her, while
preserving some contact with reality, is
not. on the whole. convincing. It is GER
tainly Of no great interest. All that is
left to appeal TO the reader is the
authors sIeiglt-of-hand, and TO that we
are so accustomed that we wish for
something more, for the exercise Of the
old adroitness upon a motive better
worth while.
The Winning Lady is q collection of
eleven short stories, none Of which ap-
proaches in importance those earlier
tales which made their authors reputa-
tion. but all OF which show the sure hand
Ct the trained artist bent upon achieving
the daily task We are in New England
again in these sketches. but we are in
vited 10 look at the placid little comedies
that leaven the seriousness of it's life Of
self-repression, not its tragedies, and
twice childhood is the theme. In fact,
one is inclined TO like best Of all Little
Girl rl-Afraid-of-a-Dog." she is such a
pathetic mite OF martyr TO duty and
conscience, whose every transgression in
desperate self-defence turns into her
crown and her reward. The mongreI she
imprisons in the corn house to be free Of
The terror of it's barks and snaps, and
then releases. driven by remorse, be-
cause ii may starve to death there-an
act Of child heroism whose grandeur
loses nothing in the teIling-turns i'm
rnediately into her worshipping, tail
wagging slave and protector. And some
wears later, another story informs us,
when the girl herself is imprisoned in
the corn house, it is the faithful mongrel
that brings about her release and with it
fbe Boy. for by this time Emmeline's
young fancies have begun to turn to
thoughts Of love. THE Winning Lady,
Itself (or should one say herself?), the
opening story. is an example of deft
workmanship, a miniature in which not
line is lost or wasted in the delinea-
ton OF character and the environment
that has gone tC its shaping
Anne Of Green Gables" made so MANY
friends for herself and her creator that
new book devoted to her lovable per-
sonality and impulsive, delicious quail
ties might have been predicted as a fore
gone conclusion. So here is Anne Of
Ayonlea." in answer. no doubt to the
old, old demand, Tell us another story"
which we keep repeating from childhood
10 the grave. Sequels are not always
successful, but this one IS. for the au-
thor has not forced the note; Anne re-
mains spontaneous and convincingly
real She is a schOolma' am now, if YOU
please, at sixteen, bu. the high serious
ness Of her conception of her mission in
the world only serves to accentuate. by
contrast. the lovable simplicity of the
girl. Nor should we forget TO mention
her new neigbbor. Mr.. Harrison a bach
eioT whose crustiness willis before her
temper and disappears under her charm,
or the boy Paul Irving, who says the
quaint things that Anne, at her age. no
longer can say herself. The first book
received as hearty n welcome from older
readers as from their juniors; the second
is likely 10 have the same experience.
Mr. Gibbss frontispiece looks as if he
really had read the book before attempt
ing to draw Anne's imaginary portrait
l. he