In an article, “Some Samples of Yankee Shrewdness,” appearing in the American Magazine, Mr. Lincoln has told stories of Cape Cod captains he has known. Acuity of observation, caution joined to a quality of going in head-first if one goes in at all, and a singularly dry humour are a large part of the “shrewdness,” as Lincoln makes it out. In the course of the article he offers this admittedly serious statement:
“In all my forty-odd years of experience with Yankees I do not remember ever having met one who habitually whittled. I have, of course, known some who whittled occasionally, when they were making a ‘bow ’n’ arrer’ or a boat for one of the children. But I never knew one who whittled when he was making a trade.” Sic transit the “Yankee” of one species of “fiction” and drama. But it is time to look at Mr. Lincoln’s own fiction; then, perhaps, we may revert for a closing glance at the puzzle of Yankee shrewdness.
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The newest Lincoln novel (1923) is Doctor Nye of North Ostable—Mr. Lincoln has something of a gift in titles for his special kind of book. There is a comfortable assurance in knowing that one is going to read about Dr. Nye, or a place called Fair Harbour, or an individual named Keziah Coffin, or the sure-to-be-amusing process of Extricating Obadiah. That last has a music of the syllables; it is solitary in this respect among Lincoln titles which are also easily affected by climatic changes, so that Galusha the Magnificent had to be altered in England to The Magnificent Mr. Bangs. But to return to our fishing—
Ephraim Nye, M.D., a “sympathetic” hero, self-sacrificing, a man with a deal of humour, has a black cloud over his past, as all North Ostable knows. The story opens with his return to that Cape Cod village. All that day Marietta Lamb (“Mary’s Lamb”) had been scrubbing away at a great rate in the old Dillingham house, so long untenanted, and Henry Ward Beecher Payson, in full working regalia of overalls and wooden leg (for “best” and Sundays he had a cork leg) was busy in the yard. Miss Althea Bemis, who lived across the road and missed nothing that went on among her neighbours, asked innumerable questions, learning nothing. Judge Copeland, Cyrenus Stone and Cap’n Mark Bearse, “natives,” and “the three most influential men in North Ostable” appeared on the scene. The Judge and Stone were bitter political enemies, always flying at each other’s throats. Stone, who owned the empty house, admitted to Cap’n Mark Bearse that the place was being made ready for someone whose coming would be a great surprise.
Then, at nightfall, Doctor Eph arrived in a ramshackle gig.
People sat up late that night in North Ostable. In the home of Shubal Bash discussion ran high as Shubal and his wife, Angelina, tried to tell deaf old Aunt Lidy the story of Ephraim Nye. After studying medicine, the young Ephraim had married Judge Copeland’s sister, Fanny, and had returned to his native town to practise. Fanny was fond of clothes and jewels and the Doctor worked hard to give them to her. Respected and liked, everyone turned against him when it was discovered that $7,200 of the $10,000 in the fund for the new meeting-house, of which he was treasurer, had been stolen. The bank had exhibited a check for $7,200 signed “Ephraim Nye, Treasurer,” and the Doctor admitted the check to be his. His wife was very ill at the time. After her death, which occurred shortly, Ephraim Nye was tried and sentenced to five years in State’s prison. Later the money began to come back in instalments until it was all paid up. Always the sums were sent through Doctor Nye’s lawyer.
The two enemies, Cyrenus Stone and Judge Copeland, have, respectively, a son and a daughter; and Tom Stone and Faith Copeland are young lovers.
The stage is now set for Mr. Lincoln’s story. And immediately, in a backward glance, one gets the rapid impression that the plot consists entirely of typhoid fever. Such an impression, however, is quite unjust. Doctor Nye is one of the more carefully articulated (or more carefully complicated) Lincoln novels. In addition to the revelation forming the climax of the story and putting Ephraim Nye in a heroic light, there is a fully-constituted early love affair for the Doctor, brought back and actively developed; there is the pair of young lovers, Tom and Faith; there is the prolonged duel between Judge Copeland and the Doctor; there is a considerable variety of minor incidents essential to the movement of the tale and to its final outworking. All this, mind you, aside from the real end sought by most readers of Mr. Lincoln’s work—the exposition of “characters” and the continuous oscillation into humour.
It is the humour, then, that most deserves our scrutiny; for many of the Lincoln novels, practically plotless beside such a tale as Doctor Nye, have only the assets of their “characters” and humour to sustain a popular interest which they have not failed to feed. If there is any question about this, a glance at the technical “descriptions” of half a dozen of the books ought to settle the matter. Here, in a sentence, is what some of them simmer down to: