The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-12-22
MOTIVES IN ENGLISH FICTION"

aged as deciding to buy farm or resolving to save
more money From This Time On. 1t is even more
useful than these other annual performances. 1t is
a kind of parlor insurance against stubblng your
intellectual toe 1t prevents you, when somebody
asks you what you think of Jane Eyre, from saying
that you haven t been to the Winter Garden for
years It enables the reader to know just when to
give the appreciative nod and the comprehensive
glance. A tired business man, after going through
history of English fiction, will remember for
year that RICHARDSON, FIELDING and SMOLLETT
were not members of the Chicago Cubs and that
Colonel Newcome had dramatic death.
TO all persons ready and willing TO brush up on
the staples of English literature recommend
Motires in English Fiction, by ROBERT NAYIOR
WHrrE7oRD &C. P. Putnam Sons. So Even if
the reader has progressed so far intellectually that
he knows OWEN JOHNSON from SAMUEL and can
pretend to like The WGy bf Al Flesh as well as
ErerkOr, he will find DR.. WHrTEFORD's book
pleasure.
The Unhappy Authors Passion.
What life Dr. WHITEFoRD must have led to let
him write this book Evidently the inspection of
English fiction, old and new, good bad and mdlf-
ferent, has been passion to which he has aban-
doned himself. 1t is easy TO spot the genuine
slave Of passion; he revels in details. The pas
sionate plumber will tell you, without sparing
words how many elbows, ASS, couplins, unions and
Tt he used in the Jones house as compared with the
Job at SMITHS The passionate follower of the
turf will recall the exact time it took HAMBURG to
run the third furlOng of his race against BOWLING
BROOK The passionate bartender (Harkl It's the
passing bellI will spend an hour explaining the
exact virtues of the various vermouths And felton,
while it is not as necessary plumbing, as intricate
as horse racing or as old as bartendmA is deep
and fascinating study for one who will go jump in
the Pierian spring with his mouth open and come
up only for air.
This DR. WHITEFoRD, who is a professor of Eng
lsh litc Azure in Toledo University, has done. He
has travelled the route from Sir THOMAS MALLORY
to WILLIAM DE MORGAN, even taking i'll ARNOLD
BENNETT; a brave, tireless patient and comprc-
hending man. whose virtues shared by his new
book it is so admirable that the proofreadng can
almost be forgiven Do not be appalled, by the title
The "motives' are those of the fctonal characters,
the engines that whirl hint or her and the author
on to their fate. glorious or otherwise.
A Genealogy of Ghosts.
Wouldst have recalled to you the birth of the
Gothic romance the spine chilling yarns about muir
ders ghosts and secret panelS-the good old stuff
that America Tapped up in the WdUcrIey Magazine?
It's natal year was 1896, when THOMAS DEIONEY
wrote Thomas of Reading. In that classic the
wicked old landlord and hiswife first pulled the pins
from under the guest bed and dropped him into
the Boyling Caldron. The line of shmddcr passes
right down through SMoILETT's AdrentUTes of
Ferdinand, Mrs. RADCLIFFE Mysteries of UdOlphO,
LEwIs's The Monk MATURTNs MelmOth, ScoTT's
The Monastery, EMILY BRoNTE's Wathering
Heights and CROCKETT The Black Douglass. Yea,
it is in Alice for Short, and although DIR. WHITE
FORD does not say So that very Gothic chill is to be
had, little changed from DE1oNEY S time, by open
ing CONRAD at The Inn of the Three Witches.
Dr. WHITEFORD does not merely catalogue these
novels. He knows every ghost, every groan, every
haunted chamber in English fiction and he coates
them delightfully."- He is speaking of CLARA REEVE,
who wrote The Old English Baron:
"a Her postuate of GOthicsm seemed TO be this
ghost should be seen once or twice; and a grOan,
preceding such visitation, should not be than
thrice repeated"