It was a cherished wish of the dutiful daughter to put herself in a position to buy a little home in a beautiful country district and a little pony carriage for her mother and herself. With this in view she wrote 'A Romance of Summer Seas,'[20] which she had first intended to call 'An Unconventional Experiment.' She had contemplated writing a novel of which the scene should be laid at Hong-Kong,—a novel of a more ambitious nature than 'A Romance of Summer Seas.'
The 'unconventional experiment' consists in a young girl's being forced by circumstances to travel under the sole guardianship of a young Englishman from their home, Penang, off the coast of the Malay Peninsula, to Hong-Kong and Yokohama. The summer seas of the Orient and the two cities last named form the background of the story. The pair are very reserved and stand aloof from the other passengers until these begin to gossip about them and to whisper that the relations between them are not just what they should be. This causes two or three fights, two challenges, and one duel, all of which might have been avoided if the people on board had minded their own business. It also brings about a marriage between the young man and young girl in question, who have been awakened by these rude happenings to the consciousness that they love one another.
The characters are well-drawn and lifelike. Bush, the Globe Trotter, who tells the story, proves to be a very entertaining raconteur in spite of the reputation he has of being an insufferable bore. He is loyal and true, and does not hesitate to risk his life for his new-found friend. Malcolm Ralstone and Minerva Primrose, the pair in whom the interest of the story centers, are not idealized but thoroughly human. Guthrie, the Kansas cattle king, is the best-drawn character of all; he is kind-hearted and manly, but the personification of vulgarity,—one of that type of Americans who travel much because they think it is the thing to do, make themselves very conspicuous by their loudness, bad manners, and ignorance, and do all they can to bring our country into disrepute. They are aided in this noble work by such vulgarians as the American consul at Hong-Kong,—these creatures who owe their prominence to the abuses of our consular system. Miss Edwina Starkey is a revised but unimproved edition of Mrs. Jellyby,—what Mrs. Jellyby might have been if she had become a sour old maid. Though an apostle of 'The Brotherhood for the Diffusion of Light,' Miss Edwina has about as much of the true spirit of Christianity as she has of personal beauty. Among the minor characters Doctor Clark is admirably drawn.
The book contains many charming bits of description; one has the feeling that Miss Davis must have visited these scenes which she so vividly paints. The life on shipboard seems very real. We find evidence of the closest observation of the world, and the results of this observation sententiously expressed. A quiet humor pervades the story, which is realistic in the best sense and quite healthy.
I insert a few extracts.
"We were all up on deck enjoying the black glory of the night,—stars set in a velvet pall overhead, and, below, the phosphorus fringes that edged every ripple in the water and made the ship's wake shine like a reflection of the Milky Way."
"As I sat there heedless of time, the light in the west faded, and the great blue dome blushed with a thousand delicate gradations of color, from the deep sapphire overhead, where the first stars twinkled, through fainter blues and apple greens, until everything melted into the gold of the horizon."
"So he went off, leaving me alone in the white glory of the tropic night. No words of mine can convey the magic of that moonlight, enveloping everything, and culminating in a glittering path across the water. Every now and then a fish jumped, and I could see its wet sides glitter; or a ghostly gull swept by on silent wings, for when the full moon rides in the southern sky, not even the birds can sleep, but wake and sing their songs fitfully throughout the night."
"They sat at the window waiting, and watching the heat-lightning play in the west and the reflection of the ships' lamps that lay in the water like long yellow smudges. As the night closed in the threatened storm swept up out of the sea, deluging the city and whipping the quiet harbor into a foam; the thunder crashed incessantly, and the flashes of lightning showed stooping figures running along the bund to shelter, and hooded jinrikishas tearing by, the coolies' grass cloaks dripping at every blade."
"When one woman wishes to wound another she always strikes at her heart."