The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-05-28
BY G. WALTER BARR.


wise more or less logical, may dis
agree with the above estimate of this
novel issued yesterday by Bobbs-M er-
rill; but most of us never had much
concrete use for that character of crit
icism which calls Bakers Saints Rest
and Buffers Evidences of Christianity
models of observation-disclosures they
certainly are models of much use in
mental training.
This latest novel is not in that
domain of art; 1t belongs to another
phase of art, which nevertheless is as
much art as the books named, just as
Gibson and Christy are as much art
lists as are Turner and Corot.
The Haunted Pajamas," is the
veuve cliquet of stories; it does what
champagne is said to debut cham
payne really does no such thing, and
this book does do it. 1t is stimulat-
ing entertainment, clean, clear, whole
some, genuine, nerve resting entertain
ment tending toward greater sanity
of mind and better attitude toward
the world.
The story is as impossible as any
told in the Arabian Nights collection
and by that same token is entertain.
ing and amusing. 1t frankly has no
other object but t, entertain the read
er There is no pretense of actuaiity
in it-and yet it is the real thing in
the art of story telling. 1t is more en-
tertaining than the Arabian Nights be-
cause it's motif and incidents are in
this second decade of the Twentieth
century and require no historical nor
chronological footnotes to make them
understood. 1t Is more amusing than
the Arabian Nights. because the lat.
ter was written in the adolescence OF
humanity, and the humor and wit of
Mark Twain-first of the score OF
Keokuk authors, as Frances Perry
Elliott is the last-or of a Joseph
Jefferson are more amusing today than
the practical jokes and silly pranks
of lot of schoolboys-even high
school roysterers.
The art of the book Is shown in
every page, in detail. and in the
whole novel as whole. 1t is a piece
OF literary architecture of fine strue-
tural lines and beauty of friezes. 1t
is a string of incidents, not merely
strung on an apparent string, but
amalgamated, and fused into one
story. This is bit of workmanship
which every literary craftsman can
not accomplish, but Mr.. Elliott has &C
complished it perfectly.
Now, each incident, similar in
cause and a part of the whole, has for
its chief character a very different
person from any of the others. Each
of these different types of personality
requires different treatment by the
writer-a young girl and big China
man with sloping forehead, chalky
face and rattail mustaches can not be
written about or be produced in a
novel in the same way by any manner
of means. Each of the half dozen very
different incidents introducing half
dozen very different. kind of persons
is treated as i. should be treated
standing by itself-and yet all of
them are welded into one mass so that
it takes some careful analysis to
separate them.
Some of these incidents could have
been spoiled so easily that the writing
of them-the imagining of them-was
like skating through the atmosphere
on an aeroplane. Most writer's would
have tumbled down into some of the
holes in the air over which this
author glides as gracefully and as
harmlessly as the mockingbird of his
native Tennessee. 1t is SO abomin-
ably easy to be near-coarse when
writing such incidents as those in this
book. 1t is almost impossible not to
have here and there mite of must
ard or of capsicum. But this artist
in fiction seemingly finds this impos-
sibility as easy to accomplish as flying
is to the aviator.
One specially difficult task was the
picturing of the girl under the spell
of the pajamas. or the relator under
the spell of the pajamas when the girl
appears-at any rate the reader is un
der the spell of all three. One could
give the bare outlines of that scene
in fifty words that would be seem
ario-but a scenario as deceptive as
to call miladys fur collar scrap of
skunk skin For the author treats
the scene with the girl in wonder
fully delicate, modest, pure, whole
some way. Any young girl may read
it without suspicion of harm-for
there Is not the least harm in it for
anybody who can be harmed. The
delicacy of the entire book is delight
full and one of it's chief charms. Con-
sidered as a specimen of an art. it is
to be CLASSIFIED with a peachblow
vase or a Beaugureau painting.
Writers are not good book review
ers, because they are apt to pay too
much attention to good technic-as
pianists sometimes praise the difficult
gymnastics of performer who is not
making much music. But in the case
of 1.-The Haunted Pajamas," the de-
lightful entertainment and the whole