[and much more knowable than, the women
lof real life. As in real life, too, one gets
[acquainted with her little by little. The
^presentation of her physical aspect and
tcustomary moods is only the beginning,
\ior on a hundred pages are revealed dis-
'tinctive traits, one by one and they all
harmonize, all consist, in an actual imper-
fection which is itself artistic perfection,
or something very like. The presentation
of Warkworth is less elaborate, but not
less successful. Carefully balanced on the
line between dislike and contempt, he
never crosses from the one into the other,
and when he dies a man'3 death in his
country's service one has no feeling that
fate has been too kind to him.
The book is a study in heredity, as its
title indicates, and it has both strength and
brilliancy. Its emergence from the dusky lim-
bo of serial publication is a literary event of a
magnitude not immediately to be appreciated,
perhaps, for Mrs. Ward has outgrown her
first public, and its members will be as slow
to forgive her desertion of them as will those
of the new public from which she now seeks
recognition to pardon her failure to seek them
out in the beginning of her career. (Harper.
$1.50; 2 v., $3; $5.) Times Sat. Review.
Augustus Caesar.
Mr. Firth^s volume bridges a strange
cliasm in Roman history, there being, curious
as it may seem, no other adequate biography
of Augustus Caesar in English, although his
life has, of course, been written times with-
out number in connection with the history of
tiic founding of the Roman empire. This his-
From "Augustus Caesar." Copyright, 1903, by G. P. Putnam's Sons.
IN THE BRACCIO NUOVO^ VATICAN LIBRARY, ROME.
tory, however, has greater interest in the
form of a life of Augustus than it has in
niore impersonal form. There is not a dull
page in the whole book, from the early poli-
tics of the young Octavius's triumphs over
hi less able rivals, through his incessant war-
fare to maintain his power at home and
abroad, and on to the end of a life which
also marked the end of the republic and the
erection of the empire. "But for the em-
pire and the system inaugurated by Augustus,
there is every probability that the Roman civ-
ilization would have been as thoroughly wiped
out in Gaul and Spain as it was in Northern
Africa, and as the civilization of Greece was
blotted out in Asia Minor and Syria. . . .
Augustus started the Roman world on a new
career. He made it realize its utility for the
first time." (Putnam. $i.3S net.) Public
Opinion.
I02
THE LITERARY NEWS.
[April, 1903
The Woman Who Toils.
This book, or at least Mrs. Van Vorst's
part of it, does not need to be bolstered up by
President Roosevelt's prefatory letter. Mrs.
Van Vorst has studied the lot of working-
women in the same way that Mr. Wyckoff
studied that of unskilled workingmen, and
though her narrative is not so dramatic as his.
nor so original, it is fuller of keen observation
and wholesome feeling. She appreciates, as
Mr. Wyckoff apparently did not, that her
position as a wage-worker, able at any time
to leave her tasks, was not that of the ordin-
ary workingwoman, who must stick at them
or starve. Furthermore, she has more gen-
uine democracy in that she finds herself one
with the women she works among, sees their
point of view and shares it. In this there is
r.othing whatever that is forced, and in what
she says both of her fellow-employees and of
her employers there is nothing that indicates
the effort to establish a theory or support a
prejudice. What she vrites about the pay of
women being less than that of men wage-
earners is extremely valuable in measuring
both the extent of the difference and the
causes of it. The women workers she found
were of three classes : those who had to be
breadwinners to which class all the men be-
longed those who expected in part to support
themselves, and those who merely worked to
provide themselves with luxuries. While many
of the brightest workers belonged to the lat-
ter class their irregularity in coming to their
Frcm "The Woman Who Toils." Copyright, 1903, by Doubleday,
Page <k Co.
MRS. JOHN VAN VORST AS "ESTHER KELLY ''
Wearing the costume of the pickle factory.
work and their readiness to leave it were in a
degree responsible for the sweeping generali-
zations about the unreliability of women work-
ers. Mrs. Van Vorst thinks that if the women
of the third class would devote themselves to
iiidustrial art hand-weaving, wood-carving,
and the like their competition would no long-
er be so severely felt. The remedy of course
is not a far-reaching one, but the book is
not one of remedies, it is one of experiences
and observations, and is thoroughly good.
(Doubleday, Page. $1.50 net.) The Outlook.
iTum "The Woanan vVho Toils." Copyright, 1903, by Doubleday,
Page A Co.
MISS MARIE VAN VORST AS "bELL BALLARD '
At work in a shoe factory.
Two on Their Travels.
The motive of this author in describing her
wedding journey is "to add a tiny bit of mirth
and enjoyment from my own superabundant
store to that of less favored folk." With
such an aim, and in the full tide of that new
happiness which invests even familiar scenes
with an unwonted charm, she would have
been successful if she had not left her native
shores ; but when it is "the golden window of
the East" which she opens to her "shut-in"
readers, their enjoyment is assured. She
has other qualifications for her task, how-
ever, than that of an unselfish motive. Pos-
sessing both literary and artistic skill in an
unusual degree, her bright, vivacious word-
pictures are accompanied by numtious
sketches, some of which in color are exceed-
ingly attractive. Naturally she leaves the
discussion of the serious topics which a jour-
ney in the East inevitably suggests, to her
April, 1903]
THE LITERARY NEWS.
103
husband, the well-known traveller and au-
thor, Archibald Colquhoun, and dwells upon
the trivial, every-day sights which, after all,
constitute the chief enjoyment of a visit to
foreign lands. Digressions, grave and gay,
are numerous, but even when they take the
form of severe criticism, as of American
manners, an underlying mirthfulness is al-
ways evident. Altogether, "Two on Their
Travels" has that indefinable charm which
the companionship of an entertaining woman
who has seen much of the world always gives.
After a somewhat startlingly familiar in-
What Manner of Man.
It is quite probable that a good many peo-
ple will not share our liking for this book, but
it is one which is sure to provoke discus-
sion. Out of the novels produced during the
past quarter century, it would be difficult to
pick out two others more dissimilar than
'"L'Qiuvre," by Zola, and William Black's
"Princess of Thule," and it is quite likely that
Edna Kenton never read a line of either of
them. Yet take the central idea from each of
these books, intertwine them, and you have
Ihe plot of "What Manner of Man."
Copyright, 1903, by A. S. Barnes & Co.
MOUNTAIN ROAD AND PADUY-FIELDS.
troduction of herself and "Andrew" to her
readers, her narrative takes them from Sin-
gapore to Java, "the garden of the East,"
and from thence to Borneo, the Philippines,
"the land of sunsets," and Japan, "the play-
ground."
The homeward journey was by the Sibe-
rian Railway, and if Mrs. Colquhoun is to
be trusted, eastern Siberia is not prosperous.
The people live the lives of brute beasls,
have no education, no amusement, save per-
haps to listen to a crazy accordion or musi-
cal box, and but one change of clothes in
t^e year. (Barnes. $2.^0 net.) The Nation.
Kirk Thayer is the artist, a man already
well on his way toward fame. He is painting
a highly ambitious picture, a "Supreme Mar-
tyrdom" of a Christian maiden before Nero.
He has hunted long and vainly for a model,
one that would combine the faultless figure
with the innocent and sensitive face demanded
by the subject. He remembers that far in the
north, on one of his island voyages, he had
met a girl with a perfect, supple figure, won-
drous, red-gold hair, and the look of startled
iiiiiocence that he needs. He seeks this girl
out, woos and marries her in cold blood, as
the quickest means of getting his model. A' id
104
THE LITERARY NEWS.
April, 1903
the tragedy of it is that the girl beUeves in
hjni and worships him silently. Even when
called upon to aid him in his work upon the
gieat picture her faith is unshaken and she
overcomes her repugnance, and gradually, as
the work progresses, the look upon her face
v/hich had delighted his artistic instinct, and
v/hich was essential to his subject the look of
outraged delicacy fades into tranqiiil confi-
dence. By the time that he has finished the
figure, and is ready to begin upon the head,
the crowning task of the painting, she has be-
come useless to him. He shows her brutally his
one purpose in wooing and winning her; and
then, while she stands there, upon the model's
pktform, dazed by his brutal frankness, shud-
dering with horror and with shame, he paints
her paints as he never painted before, in maa
haste to catch on his canvas the agonized look
in her eyes, before it fades into merciful un-
consciousness. Altogether it is a daring story,
written with an unconventionality and a sin-
cerity that compel attention. It does not need
a trained critical faculty to recognize that the
book is something more than clever. (Bobbs-
Merrill. $1.50.) A'. Y. Com. Advertiser.
A Popular Writer.
Edward W. Townsend, author of "'Chim-
mie Fadden," is one of the most devoted por-
trayers of New York in fiction, and the an-
nouncement of two new stories by him, both
laid in the metropolis, will probably arouse
further interest in the man himself. The
books referred to are "Lees and Leaven"
(McClure, Phillips & Co.) and a volume in
lighter vein, "A Summer in New York"
(Henry Holt & Co.).
Courtesy of Henry Holt & Co.
EDWARD W. TOWNSEND.
Mr. lownsend is a clean-shaven man of
forty-eight, who was born in Cleveland in
1855. He came to New York and engaged in
newspaper work, remaining comparatively un-
known, till all of a sudden in his fortieth
year the publication of his "Chimmie Fadden"
stories gave him a reputation as a humorous
writer on American life that perhaps has
oOnly been equalled since in the vogue of "Mr.
vDooley" and George Ade. The humor and
humanity of Bowery "Chimmie" won him a
universal welcome, and his argot became as
popular here as the cockneyisms of Chevalier
in London. "Chimmie" was the central fig-
ure in "Chimmie Fadden, Major Max and
Other Stories" (1895), and in "Chimmie
Fadden Explains, Major Max Expounds"
(1895), as well as in a play that met with
considerable success. Then his creator laid
him on the shelf for six years or more. When
he re-emerged in Harper's Weekly in the
"Chimmie Fadden and Mr. Paul" papers it
was obvious that the author had added sev-
eral cubits to his Uature, along with an in-
crease of genial informal philosophy. This
third "Chimmie" appeared in book form in
1902. During Mr. Fadden's long retirement
Ml. Townsend produced "A Daughter of the
Tenements" (1895), "Near a Whole City
Full" (1897), "The Yellow Kid in McFad-
den's Flats" (1897) and "Days Like These"
(1901).
Mr. Townsend has written other plays be-
sides "Chimmie Fadden," including "The
Marquess of Michigan" (in which Sam Ber-
nard made his stellar debut), "A Daughter
of the Tenements," "The Sergeant," etc.
Though he loves and knows his New York so
well, he is at present living in Upper Mont-
clair, N. J. He is an able reader of his own
works and is frequently called upon to use
his talents in this direction. He has but re-
cently read successfully from advanced sheets
of "A Summer in New York" before the
Boston University Club and the Harvard
Union. In response to a request for auto-
biographical confessions he replied in a se-
rious vein : "Perhaps, then, it may be of in-
terest though why Heaven alone can know !
that while I write fiction to live, I live to
pursue historical sources and inspirations of
the Federal Constitution. It is my only intel-
lectual enthusiasm, and if something is not
done to restrain me I'm as like as not, some
day, to write something on the subject. . . .
I have but little erred and strayed from the
v;ays of commonplaceness, and yet there is no
good in me, autobiographically."
April, 1903]
THE LITERARY NEWS.
105
From "Story of My Life." Copyriijht, 1903, by Doubleday, Paje & Co.
HELEN KELLER .AND MISS SULLIVAN.
Autobiography
One of the important books of the week is
"The Story of My Life" by Helen Keller.
Much of the material used in the book has
been brought out serially, but, nevertheless,
(he publication in book form is worthy of
note. Helen Keller has never ceased to in-
terest scientists and psychologists since her
remarkable case first became known, and her
newly acquired power of speech is only an-
other evidence of the wonderful development
she has made. Those who have read her
story will recognize something more than the
story of a blind deaf mute. It has a rare lit-
erary value, aside from all this. Only the
other day she made a speech before the Mas-
sachusetts Legislature, which gave another
view of her versatility. She made an appeal
for legislation for the blind, and the appeal
had that quality of value which did not de-
pend alone on her own sightlessness. When
one stops to think that this girl cannot see
anything in the world and cannot hear a sin-
of Helen Keller.
gle sound, the wonder over her remarkable in-
tellectuality is most profound.
At the present time Miss Keller is an ac-
tive student in Radcliffe College. She spends
seven or eight hours every day reading and
studying hard and .now that the strain of her
first college work is over, she is in lirst-rate
health and spirits. Her powers of enjoyment
arc most marvellous, and her eagerness for
study is the cause of worry on the part of her
friends. Her autobiography was brought
about through the co-operation of her teacher,
Miss Sullivan, and Mr. John Macey, one of
the editors of The Youth's Companion. Mr.
Macey is the authority for the statement that
the story is exactly as Miss Keller prepared
and approved it. It is to be hoped that the
book will have a large sale, both because of
the value of the book and because of the ben-
efit which Miss Keller would receive through
a handsome return in royalties. (Doubleday,
Page & Co. $1.50.) Brooklyn Times.
io6
THE LITERARY NEWS.
[April, 1903
Tolstoy, as Man and as Artist.
It is very difficult for us to get a just
opinion of the great men of other nations.
This is especially true when the great man is
obscured behind a difficult language, so that
his countrymen's estimates of him are inac-
cessible to most readers. When such an esti-
mate is translated, it is likely to be a shock
to our preconceived ideas. This is certainly
the effect of the recently translated book of
Dmitri Merejkowski on his distinguished
countryman, Tolstey. This writer paints Tol-
stoy in the light, not of a great Christian re-
former who has given up the things of the
world to return to a sirnpler and purer mode
of life (the light in which the American read-
ing public has been wont to consider him),
bin as a great pagan who somehow has gotten
tangled up with Christian ideals which are
quite foreign to his nature and in direct op-
position to his acts. According to Merejkow-
ski, Tolstoy's attempt to renounce his worldly
goods has been only a pathetic failure; his
attempt to lead an austere life has resulted in
a life of austere but perfect luxury. Whether
the reader is or is not convinced in the end,
this Russian critic makes out a very telling
case against the latter-day apostle. To
strengthen his most vital arguments, he uses
tl.e testimony of Tolstoy's devoted brother-in-
law, Bers, and that of other intimate and
sympathetic family friends. Nowhere does he
convey the idea that Tolstoy is consciously
a fraud, but simply that he has utterly failed
ill living the life he aimed to live, and has
.;, merely shirked where he pretended to re-
nounce.
Merejkowski's opinion of Tolstoy as a wri-
ter is no less interesting and individual. He
gives him, of course, a place among the high-
est in the Russian literary Olympus. But he
admires him, not as a psychologist, but as a
writer who more than any one else has under-
stood the physical life of the people. He is
the "great seer of the body," and he describes
the bodies of his personages, not their souls.
The later portion of the book is devoted to
contrasting the subtle, curious, and tortured
art of Dostoyevski with the obvious and physi-
cal work of Tolstoy. The works of these two
men complete each other, Merejkowski thinks;
by their very difference they Interpret each
other.
The author has managed to make his book
of criticism as dramatic as a romance. He
has set into vivid relief two of the most in-
teresting figures in Russian literature. (Put-
rum. $1.50.) Literary Digest.
Youth.
The art of Mr. Conrad is exquisite and
very subtle. He uses the tools of his craft
v.'ith the fine, thoughtful delicacy of a mediae-
val clockmaker. With regard to his mastery
of the conte opinions are divided, and many
Clitics will probably continue to hold that his
short stories are not short stories at all, but
Tc'ther concentrated novels. And the conten-
tiOH is not unreasonable. In more ways than
one Mr. Conrad is something of a law unto
himself, and creates his own forms, as he cer-
tamly has created his own methods.
A critical writer has said that all fiction may
roughly be divided into two classes : that deal-
ing with movement and adventure, and the
other dealing with characterization, the analy-
sis of the human mind. In the present, as m
every one of his previous books, Mr. Conrad
has stepped outside these boundaries, and
made his own class of work as he has made
h;s own methods. All his stories have move-
ment and incident, most of them have adven-
ture, and the motive in all has apparently
been the careful analysis, the philosophic pre-
sentation, of phases of human character. But
he has another gift of which he himself may
be less conscious, by means of which his
other more incisive and purely intellectual
message is translated for the proper under-
standing of simpler minds and plainer men.
Ihat gift is the power of conveying atmos-
phere, and in the exercise of this talent Mr.
Conrad has few equals among our living writ-
ers of fiction. The title of the present volume
is perhaps a little misleading, but its sub-title
er^plains : "Youth : a Narrative, and Two other
Stories." "Youth" is a wonderful narrative,
an epic in little of the life of those who use
the sea. It might very well have been called
b> any other name, since the mental attitude
of its hero, of youthful zest and youthful ap-
preciation of the dramatic and adventurous
in life, is incidental to the story, and the most
carefully drawn character is that of an old
man, the skipper. There is not a wasted word
in it, and it forms a valuable record, as well
as a beautiful and vivid picture. "The Heart
of Darkness" is a big and thoughtful concep-
tion, the most important part of the book, as
"The End of the Tether" is the most fas-
cinating. The first deals with life on the
Congo and the Belgian ivory-hunt; the sec-
ond is the story of a fine old merchant-service
captain who finds himself rapidly becoming
blind, and who, for the sake of the daughter
who relies upon him for support, retains
command of a coasting steamer among the
April, 1903]
THE LITERARY NEWS.
107
Malays (where keen eyesight is perhaps a
skipper's most essential qualification) long
after he has ceased to be capable. A more
deeply moving story it would be hard to find,
vivid, full of movement, even of stirring inci-
dent, yet piercingly analytic. (McClure,
Phillips. $1.50.) The Athencciun.
v;hich is one of the glories of the treasury of
St. Mark's. The Earl goes to the Cardinal to
see if he can buy the cup. That being im-
possible, he resolves to steal it, whereupon the
Cardinal interests himself in the transaction,
ill a way and with results that are altogether
delightful. It is a pretty story, told with art.
from " The Tuniuoise Cup." Copyright, 1903, by Charles fccibLui s Sous.
THE CARDINAL .\RCHB1SH0P S.\T ON HIS SHADED BALCONY.
The Turquoise Cup.
Mr. Smith's two stories are both charming.
"The Turquoise Cup" is the tale of an English
Earl, an Irish heiress and an Italian Cardinal ;
flif scene is laid in Venice, and llie episode in
which the author finds his account has in it the
lightness of comedy. Lady Nora declares to
the Earl that if he is to marry her he must
first place in her hands the turquoise cup
Its companion. "The Desert," is even more
beguiling in a totally diflferent manner ; in fact,
the serious note that is struck in this com-
position gives, perhaps, a better measure of
the author's powers. We enjoy the first stoj>
for its vivacious plot, for its daintiness and
its atmosphere. The second we enjoy chiefly
for the human nature in it. (Scribner.
$1.25.) A^. Y. Tribune.
io8
THE LITERARY NEWS.
[April, 1903
Conjuror's House.
Another world is opened wide to us in
Stewart Edward White's new romance a
world of limitless forests and arctic rivers,
f 1 long and terrifying winters and short and
brilliant summers, a world peopled by In-
aians and half-breeds, with a handful of
white men from whom the isolation and utter
loneliness of existence in the far North have
shorn away the veneer of conventionality and
srug respectability, laying bare the elemental
passions of love and hate, quickly aroused
and fiercely maintained.
As a story "Conjuror's House" is simple
in motive, but it pulsates with life, is sincere
in purpose and vivid in description. It tells
how Ned Trent, Free Trader of the forest, is
brought a prisoner to the hillpost settlement
of Conjuror's House, where Galen Albret, the
Hudson Bay Company's factor, holds su-
preme command, controlling the voyageurs
and holding the Indians in subjection while
exchanging their pelts for the flour, ammuni-
tion and other necessaries of frontier life.
Twice before has Ned Trent been intercepted
by Albret's men and warned against hunting
and trading in the company's territory; but
besides being an intrepid and experienced
Moodman, he is also actuated by the wish to
avenge his father's secret death at the hands
hi a company's servant, and, moreover, knows
that the charter of the company for exclusive
trading has expired, and that Albret has ar-
bitrarily maintained the right through the
ignorance of the traders, therefore, he has
disregarded the threats and, as the result, is
now captured and brought before Albret for
sentence. All this is preliminarj^ to the real
narrative, the action of which occupies only
forty-eight hours. This is time enough, how-
ever, for Albret's daughter, a
child of the wilderness, yet by
reason of her father's position,
a veritable queen of this forest
kingdom, to fall under the
compelling charm of the cap-
tured voyageur. Mr. White's
skill has never been more evi-
dent than in his portrayal of
the conflicting emotions in the
hearts of this man and girl,
each confronted by circum-
stances of most desperate char-
acter; while the vindictive hate
of the old father, defied first
by Trent, and then by his
daughter, is depicted with
surest touch.
This book is indeed an idyll
of "the free forest," pervaded
by the freshness of beauty and
nature untouched by man.
(McClure, Phillips. $1.25.)
Froai " Conjuror ^ 1 1 m., ' ' opyright, 1903, by Mi Clure, Phillips & Co.
VIRGINIA GASPED AT THE CHANGE IN HIM.
Lovey Mary.
Every one who made the ac-
quaintance of that genial, home-
ly philosopher, Mrs. Wiggs,
will rejoice in the opportunity
to continue the acquaintance
which this second little story
provides. Lovey Mary is an
orphan, whose thirteen years
of childhood have been spent
in the loveless atmosphere of
an orphan asylum. The little
creature is starved for sympa-
thy and interest. She finds a
April, 1903]
THE LITERARY NEWS.
109
vent for her own pent-
up affections in a baby '
boy, who is given into
her care. Tommy's moth-
er is a young, frivolous,
wayward girl, once an in-
mate of the asylum.
Lovey Mary's devotion
to the baby rouses all the