Two years old at the time that the deliberate treachery of William H. Seward provoked the rash Confederates into firing upon Fort Sumter,—the costly folly against which Bob Toombs protested in vain,—Mr. Harben heard and saw much of the actual marching and countermarching of the ensuing four years of the most utterly insane war recorded in History.
Having been given a private education, the young man embarked in business enterprises, and it was not until after 1886 that a mediocre business man was offered up, a willing sacrifice, to a first-class literary artist. Harben, the business man, means nothing to anybody, but Harben, the literary genius, means a vast deal to everybody—for he is, today, the most distinctly original and creative literary genius in America.
David Harum took the world by storm because of its unique portrayal of a typical American business-man—shrewd, strong, persistent, humorous, rough in most places and soft in spots. Banker and horse-trader, David Harum knew human nature like a book, and was chock full of that rare article called common sense.
Abner Daniel was in all respects the equal of David Harum, without being an imitation; Pole Baker was superior, in some respects, to Abner Daniel, and Ann Boyd enters a different class altogether.
The creations of Dickens and Thackeray offer nothing better, nothing more human, nothing more symmetrically natural and fascinating, than this heroic woman—tender-hearted, pure, brave and true—whose husband forsakes her, whose child is taken away from her, whose enemies persecute her, whose friends drop away from her, but who, standing at bay and battling with the whole array, CONQUERS.
It is pathetic and it is grand.
How the proud woman covers her wounds and complains not; how the strong soul finds itself sustained from within; how she brings a stupidly narrow, prejudiced and malicious neighborhood to confusion and utter defeat, is a story that makes one thrill with sympathy and admiration.
This number of the Jeffersonian Magazine begins the serial publication of Mr. Harben’s greatest book.
Read it carefully.
Few better books have been written.