Notes on Literature

THE MODERN NOVEL

The "North American Review" has an article on "The Content of the Modern Novel," which seems to be a review of the stories of the year disguised as an essay; and the Rochesterian only alludes to it because it has enabled him to see at a glance how fast he is falling behind in the matter of literature. The essay opens with the sententious remark: "The Victorian novel is the heir of the Elizabethan drama." To a plain man it seems rather curious that the heir delayed 200 years in taking possession of the estate; and that he did not inherit the old business. After a prelude about the development of the modern novel in which George Eliot figures as the main influence, and not a few strange characters of fiction are mentioned as familiarly as household words, we come to the days we live in-and to a sense of literary humiliation. The "two best" novels of last year are given as "The Garden of Allah" and "The Divine Fire," and the "two best" novels of the year, as "The Wheel of Life" and "The House of Mirth." Alas, the Rochesterian has only read one out of the four immortal productions! And he has glanced sadly over the long comparison of the lady who wrote the third book with the lady who wrote the fourth, and sighed at his inability to study with intelligence the contrast of their respective methods and merits. But a worse humiliation was in store. An ample account of "Sturmsee" by the author of "Calmire," follows, and though his name has a familiar sound the Rochesterian confesses with contrition that he has

never set eyes on one or other of these works. There is a somewhat puzzling notice of "The Deluge," a sensational success, followed by brief remarks on “The Day-Dreamer," "If Youth But Knew," "The Evasion," "The Spirit of the Pines," "The Clammer," "My Lady Baltimore," "The Lake," and "The Shadow of Life," three of them written by familiar authors and only one of them familiar in itself. The comment on the familiar story is that "the style is Biblical and forced, but at times has a charm of its own," which is so amusing that one regrets the lamentable ignorance which prevents his appreciation of the comments on the others. To sum the matter up, the Rochesterian only knows well one book with which the essayist deals; and naturally he has pondered over her review of that with keen interest. Here is her somewhat disdainful account of it: ""The Conquest of Canaan' is a very cheerful and pleasant little story. It bears a very faint resemblance to life, just enough to make it easy reading. The hero has all his ills at one time; and then, toward the end, in the twenty-third of the whole twentysix chapters, the face of the universe changes, and the heavens, which have showered nothing but misfortunes and slights, send down fame and fortune, friendship and love, all in a bunch. The heroine, who goes to Paris to learn to dress, completely wins the hero by this noble achievement. She has lavished loyalty and tenderness, faith and devotion upon him in vain. He never noticed her; but, when she came back in Parisian clothes, he instantly forgot his welldressed dream of love and fell ardently in love with the clothes. They wooed and they won him. There is one pretty little touch, very true to nature, and both pathetic and diverting, in the last dancing party to which the heroine goes before she learns to dress, and

this chapter of utter frustration and humiliation is the truest and the cleverest bit of writing in the whole book." Now to the Rochesterian, this exquisite story seems to bear a very close resemblance to life at many points; and it suggests the very spirit of an Indiana town, and some of the characters are plainly sketches from the author's experience. The hero does not have all his ills at one time, but during a succession of years; and not until the last chapter does the supreme certainty of happiness come. The heroine goes to Paris, intending to learn to dress, but not simply for that purpose; and when she comes back, the beauty, the intellect, the loyalty, the courage, and the tenderness, of her girlhood return with her, refined, enriched, strengthened. To the hero who had been her playfellow in her hoydenish days, her personality is a revelation. He was a fool not to love her, as she loved him, in the time of their comradeship, and the Parisian gown may have had a share in the new enchantment; but this hero was a simple-hearted fellow, with not a few faults, who had been cherishing an odd worship, such as boys are given to at times, for a girl who was socially above him and would not deign to look at him; and one is glad over his awakening from the delusion. The dancing party alluded to by the critic is indeed a true and clever bit of work, but the strength of it does not lie in the description of the chagrin of the young heroine, but in the pathetic folly of the hero who hides on the porch during the winter night to catch a stray glimpse of the girl he adores, dancing inside. Of course the critic's sneer about the heroine's clothes and the hero's admiration of them is very clever, and there is just enough justification for it to make it effective; but "The Conquest of Canaan" none the less is a beautiful little story, written in a quiet suggestive style, wherein the

instinct for humor, the sense of pathos, and a delicate literary quality blend together into something rich and strange. In a word, Booth Tarkington has written an American idyl; and if the critic be so chary of praise and so free of censure for it, the Rochesterian wonders over the unknown and to him unrevealed glories of the much lauded novels. They must be too grand for his humble perusal.-June 2, 1906.

THE DIME NOVEL CHARGE

A few days ago, according to a special despatch to the New York "Times" from Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy, Wilhelm Klein, bought a cheap revolver and started down Unter den Linden with two young comrades, at 10 o'clock at night, bent upon highway robbery. They were caught in the act and sent to a reformatory; and then the German authorities, seeking to strike at boyish corruption in its source, proceeded to suppress all translations of American dime novels. There is something very funny in this attempt to trace incipient lawlessness to foreign sources, for it is a notable fact in the history of Germany that two of the greatest writers of the nation-no mere makers of detective stories-so wrought upon German sentiment in drama and novel as to popularize highway robbery and suicide, and identify German influence for a time in other countries with ideas of lawlessness. So easy it is to endeavor to shift responsibility to the far-off outsider. In 1774 appeared Goethe's "Werther," for the sake of whose hero the people excused suicide, and in 1781 appeared Schiller's "Räuber," for the sake of whose hero the people sympathized with robbery. It is said that Goethe's novel led young men by the score, all over the world, to shoot themselves, and Schiller's play made it fashionable for romantic Germans to take to the road; and

now forsooth it is claimed that the flimsy dime novel of America is responsible for the fact that a little boy tried to rob an old man in the streets of Berlin.-May 28, 1906.

THE HEROINE IN A NEW LIGHT

What will be the effect of the new light on literature? The rumor is that the cathode rays not only make it possible to photograph the inside of things, but actually illuminate what lies beyond the surface, so that the ordinary observer can look into the interior of any object and study the secrets of its composition.

What will the analytic novelist do with this searchlight? Hitherto we have had to be content with the merest catalogue of external beauty in the description of a heroine; but may we not reasonably seek for more intimate information hereafter? The lover of romance, when told that the lady in the novel had dark languishing eyes, that her cheeks glowed like the rose, that her form swayed like a lily on a ripple, was fain to shut his eyes and try to picture her to his imagination; but the time has gone by for such glittering generalities. The impatient reader will no longer muse over hints and suggestions so vague, but sternly turn to the storyteller with the demand: "How does she look under the cathode rays? No matter for the languishing glance of her eyes; do the brain cells show signs of weariness? I don't care for the roses in her cheeks; are there any traces of tuberculosis in the lungs ? Never mind the graceful curves of her bosom; is the valvular action of the heart all right? The satiny softness of her skin is all well enough; but what is the condition of the mucous membrane? The dimple on her cheek is very pretty, but are there any bacteria in the muscular tissue?" And who will undertake to rewrite all the old love songs and adapt them to the new knowledge?