An interesting type of story shows an ordinary person in an extraordinary situation. In Robinson Crusoe, for example, an ordinary Englishman is left alone on an uninhabited island; in Stockton’s The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine two good old New England women with little worldly experience are wrecked on a mysterious island in the Pacific; in Howard Pyle’s The Ruby of Kishmore a peace-loving Philadelphia Quaker is suddenly involved in a series of bloody encounters in the West Indies. Such stories always arouse interest or develop humor by the astonishing contrast between setting and characters, and they always emphasize character by showing how it acts in unusual circumstances. Thus Robinson Crusoe at once attracts our interest and awakens admiration for the hero.
A Source of Irritation is especially clever in every way. There could be no greater contrast than that between old Sam Gates’ usual hum-drum, eventless life, and the sudden transfer to an aeroplane, a foreign land, the trenches, battle, and the search for a spy. Very rarely, too, is a character presented so emphatically as this 69-year-old gardener, with his irritable moods, his insistence on the habits of a life-time, his stolidity, and his real manliness. Equally rare is a story told so effectively, with just the proper combination of realism and romance, with quick touches of comedy and of tragedy, with a closeness to life that is indisputable, and a romance that is unusual. In its every part the story is a masterpiece of construction.
Stacy Aumonier is an Englishman of Huguenot descent.
Swede. A Swedish turnip.
Shag. A fine-cut tobacco.
“Mare vudish.” Merkwürdig, remarkable.
A fearful noise. The English made an attack on the German aeroplane.
Uglaublich. Incredible.
A foreign country. Evidently Flanders.
Boche. German.