New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-05-28
FICTION
Stories of the American on His,
or Her, Travels.

THE BEGGAR IN THE HEART. By
| Edith Riclsert. 12mo. PIP. S48. Moi
fat Yard Co.
THE DUKES PRICE. By Demetra and
Kenneth Brown. Illustrations by A. @.
Learned. limo. PIP. 2s2 The Houghton
SALLY BISHOP: A ROMANCE. BY E.
Temple Thurston. 12mo, PIP. 42A
Mitchell Kennerley.
THE BLINDNESS OF DIR. GRAY; OR.
THE FINAL LAW. BY Canon Shee-
han. D. D. 12mo. DIP. ass Lonemans'
Green & Co.
Put not thy faith in "blurbs." The one
| on the slip cover Of 1.-The Beggar in the
Heart" informs us that 1.-The scene Is
rural England" which is exactly. OF
many places, the one where it is not, ex-
cept In q few pages toward the end. The
story starts in New England. stops for
while In Paris and then wanders all over
Europe, settling down finally In County
Council building Cwhat we would call
model tenement) in Westminster. Lon
don. Here the love story Of Yankee
old maid begins, and 1t is delightful
story all through, imaginative and in
genious IN its mingling Of poetry with
the hard facts of life as the poor live It.
OF course, the Yankee spinster has been
polished and rounded by her rolling life
with her painter uncle on Montmartre
and on their modest travels in search of
such art treasures as their slender purse
could afford but she was romantic and
| fanciful from childhood. when she first
found her other self in the dim old mir
ror at home, which remained her COM
panion and confldant and counsellor ali
through the great adventure Of the noble
| lord who proved to his own satisfaction
that her ancestry was better than his,
not on account Of the Mayfower connec-
ton, but of a dissolute younger son who
had been cast off by his father in the
days of Charles II. The book is fairy
tale pure and simple and sweet, with
most Enthusiastically matter-of-fact, re-
| alistic twentieth century setting. The
reader will like the mature heroine, with
her un-Puritan nickname of Petty
Zou,'' and become interested with her in
Pip and the many other children Of the
neighborhood and their mothers, and
Tudor the Constable, and Eleanor and
Mr.. Lawrence O'Neill. known over the
footlights as Audley Mortimer" and
| Bumpus and Mrs. Barker, recipients of
Petty-Zou's charity, and Rosa Gungle-
wick, whom she called 'Pouf." and the
Countess Of Savernake
THE Dukes Price, a novel Of inter-
national marriage, will go to swell the
numbers of this kind of fiction without
adding to the lustre of the genre or
throwing new light upon a much dis
cussed social phenomenon of the day.
The fact that the noble husband Of this
story is gentleman. not a blackguard,
| is somewhat of q novelty in a story of
this sort, to be sure, but unfortunately
the plot Is a hackneyed one, that of the
misunderstanding between husband and
wife which is not cleared up until after
many days and much danger Of marital
| shipwreck, when love finds the way at
last The American heiress overhears
some words spoken by her French
mother-in-l law, and jumps at once to the
! conclusion that she has been married for
her fortune; the ducal husband Is proud.
and accepts the attitude she takes
| toward him in consequence. The rift is
easily widened to the proportions of an
| estrangement by the treachery of
woman and a man, scandal wags its
tongue, but all comes right in the end.
tu-t as 1t came right years ago in the
books Of Miss Marlitt and E. Werner,
and. later in Ohnet's "Maftre de
Forges' There is no question here of
pla giarism, but simply of the exhaustion
of the material upon which writer's of
the international marriage novel can
draw. So many tales on the subject
have been produced in the last few years
that an author could happen only by
mere accident upon an original situa-
ton; no amount of planning and plot
ting will evolve 1t. 1t would be we'll for
our novelists to leave the topic alone for
a while, unless, indeed, they should hap
pen upon a really new combination OF
the familiar materials. The Dukes
Price would have had a better chance
Of success some years ago. To-day 1t Is
and characters. And the Partisan smart
set has little novelty left for us.
In the letter of dedication to Mr.. Ger
aid du Maurier prefxed to sally
Bishop" the author, Mr.. E. Temple
Thurston, expresses uncertainty (and in
difference) concerning ''the attitude of
the critical mind" toward Chapter " in
Book / and 1.-The sensitiveness of the
delicate mind when 1t crosses it's eyes on
Chapter VI Of Book IL" So far as
Chapter " of Book / is concerned. the
| critical mind of the present reviewer
can reach only one conclusion, which Is
that the incident there described Is IN no
| way essential to the development of the
story, and therefore questionable art, as
well as in doubtful taste. AS for Chap
ter VI OF Book II, that Is so eminently
In keeping with the emotional processes
of the heroine and the moment that the
| delicate mind" will understand L.
whatever may happen to its sensitive
ness" For the rest, this romance" u.s.
In everyday parlance. an excellent piece
of realism-a page Of life whose scene
happens to be London, though any other
city in Christendom. and. for that mat
ter, IN partsoM irfdeltsns q we'll might