Frances Davidge set herself too difficult a task when she attempted to make the characters in her novel. “The Game and the Candle,” speak in epigrams on every other page. The consequence is that the story, with its really brilliant beginning, develops into a commonplace love-story, and is only saved from absolute banality by its unforeseen and dramatic ending. In the field of literature which attempts to picture New York society the story will not find an enduring place, but it serves its purpose very well. The novelists are numberless who have sought to satirize our men and women of wealth and leisure; but few have given us any books that have lived longer than their allotted span of one brief season. The big society novel has not yet been written. Miss Davidge evidently knows a great deal of the foibles, the follies and the manners of the people of whom she writes, and her career is worth watching. At present she seems a bit immature and prolix, but there is no doubt as to her ability to write amazingly clever dialogue and to tell a story logically and well. Some of her characters are greatly overdrawn. One wishes that there were less of Gussie Regan, the hair-dresser; and Emily Blair, lovable as she is, could never have existed. Altogether, however, the story is pleasing and will find, doubtless, a large and appreciative audience.
H. C. T.
The Carlyles. By Mrs. Burton Harrison. D. Appleton & Co., New York.
In “The Carlyles” Mrs. Burton Harrison relinquishes the modern field which she has occupied for so long and with such marked success, and goes back to Civil War times for the scenes of her story. The Reconstruction period has been covered by innumerable writers. Indeed, it has been so frequently used by novelists and proven so fruitful a field, that one is apt to be overcome at the courage of an author who selects it now as the background for a tale; but Mrs. Harrison brings a certain freshness and charm to a subject that, it would seem, could inspire none. The opening chapter, which describes the impoverished condition of the Carlyles, brought on by the ravages of war, reveals the author at her best, and shows her intimate knowledge of life in Richmond in the ’60’s. The splendid fortitude of old Mr. Carlyle in the face of his calamity and financial ruin, and the pride of the aristocratic Southerner are depicted with faultless art.
The story itself is the old one of a girl who is unable to choose between two lovers, one of whom, of course, is a Yankee soldier and the other a Southerner fighting as a lieutenant-colonel under Lee. The usual complications occur. Lancelot Carlyle, a cousin and lover of Mona, the heroine, is imprisoned at Fort Delaware, and of the long period of his confinement Mrs. Harrison writes graphically, describing minutely the terrible ordeal of prison life. Fine as this portion of the novel is, however, it is in the chapters dealing with quiet domestic scenes that Mrs. Harrison writes with most force and distinction. The incident of the Christmas dinner-party, with the unheralded return of Lancelot and the sudden death of old Alexius Carlyle, is handled with consummate skill. The author has written no finer passage in any of her previous novels, nor one more certain to move her readers to tears.
H. C. T.
The House of Mirth. By Edith Wharton. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Undoubtedly no novel during the past season has elicited more favorable criticism and more numerous letters from constant readers than “The House of Mirth.” The book had a certain artificial success from the start, because the impression went abroad that here at last was a book about Society, meaning the smallest number of the narrowest brains in any community from Kankakee to New York. On this very account there are a few millions of people in the United States who would not care to read it; but in view of the fact that some of the most serious critics have hailed “The House of Mirth” as a great American novel—only the bookseller now speaks of the American novel—a good many of the few millions, being persons of means and intelligence, would be tempted to indulge themselves in the rare luxury of such a boon. We cannot profess to treat the book as a true picture of American Society; because while we know how to wear the clothes and order the things to eat and drink, when we have the money, we have never, in our best-dressed and best-fed moments, been able to convince ourselves that we are anything but hopelessly middle class. Yet we are happy—sometimes; and we are bound to marvel at some of the things the society people in “The House of Mirth” do. For the most part they act like those people in New York who are loosely described as Fifth-avenue bohemians, which means they are people of much money, thoroughly informed about the decorative issues of life, with nothing to do but bore themselves and with a taste and intelligence that, in literature or the theatre, never craves anything more exciting than a musical show or a third-class novel, written by a man in Chicago, about lords and ladies of some corner lost and forgotten in Continental Europe. Our marvel that these society people should seem so underbred is only an exhibition of our unfamiliarity with a certain social stratum. We would have no right to make record of it, if it were not for the fact that so many people, of the better class themselves, have written letters of protest to divers publications, protesting against the impression that “The House of Mirth” is a story accurately representing New York society. We quote one letter from the New York Times Saturday Review:
“I am not a literary man, much less a literary critic, but I look forward each week to the appearance of The New York Times Book Review with renewed interest and read the various criticisms of your readers as to the merits of “The House of Mirth,” which in almost every instance meets their approval as a literary production of unusual merit. The writer, however, an octogenarian, born and bred in New York City, member of one of its oldest families and presumably familiar with its society, can but look upon “The House of Mirth” as a gross libel upon that society, and as an insult to a class as pure, as refined, and as intellectual as may be found the world over....
“That such a condition as is therein described does exist in the lower strata of New York society, which may be termed swelldom, composed largely of “newrich” who swarm from other parts of the country to exploit their newly acquired wealth in showy equipages, wondrous wardrobes, and loud manners to the disgust of refined people, cannot be denied; but why a lady who has the entrée into the best society should elect to open the sewers of its lowest strata and allow its fœtid airs to escape through the medium of her pen is beyond the ken of your contributor.”