Chapter IX (7)

A book which the publishers announce as the first “to deal in any adequate way with our great Arctic possession,” is John S. McLain’s “Alaska and the Klondike,” McClure, Phillips & Co. Mr. McLain accompanied the sub-committee of the Senate Committee on Territories on their visit to Alaska in 1903, and, of course, had unusual opportunities to gather interesting facts.

The trip was a comprehensive one, and the result, now embodied in this book, shows that its author lost no chances to observe and record important and more or less unfamiliar matters that will entertain as well as instruct his readers.

The book is written in a natural, unpretentious, flowing style, and the material is skillfully handled so as to concentrate the attention and stimulate the imagination. Besides this, there are a great many half-tone reproductions of photographs, which help to make the narrative more graphic.

* * * * *

“Miss Bellard’s Inspiration,” Harper’s, is William D. Howells’ latest story. It is one which, if it could be subjected to the right kind of adaptation, would make a successful and refreshing little comedy. For, in spite of the shadow which Mrs. Mevison casts over the tale, the very human qualities of Mr. and Mrs. Crombie and the self-communings of Miss Bellard, the results of which neutralize the British directness of Edmund Craybourne, make a delicious combination with Mr. Howells’ good-natured cynicism, which, indeed, is so good-natured as to be humor rather that cynicism.

The story is rather a slight one, too slight, in fact, to be called a novel; it is one which can be read in the course of a couple of hours and with fully sustained interest to the end, when Miss Bellard explains and acts upon her inspiration. She supplies all the novelty in the story; she is by no means a commonplace character. Her manner of falling in love, her reasons for breaking her engagement with Craybourne, and the inspiration which led to its reinstatement are not what might be expected by the veteran novel reader. But she is vindicated in the end by the fact that she is a woman, and a beautiful woman.

Mrs. Crombie plays her part with a good deal of sprightliness and adds not a little to the humor of the story. Her rather fierce rebellion at the idea of being imposed upon by her niece and her subsequent abject surrender are all very funny, the more so because she has no idea of being funny.

* * * * *

It seems a long time--possibly it isn’t really--- since a story of adventure, so thoroughly good as “Terence O’Rourke, Gentleman Adventurer,” has appeared. It is written by Louis Joseph Vance and published by A. Wessells Company.

It is, of course, crammed full of action, one episode following the other in quick succession without tiresome descriptions or unnecessarily prolonged introductions; episodes that are fresh, vivid and full of color as different as possible from the hackneyed type that has been familiar for years. But the love interest has not been neglected. It is a very pretty story of the loyalty of the light-hearted Irishman, the thread of which runs through the whole book, its climax being reserved as the hero’s reward at the end.

As the central figure in the series of adventures described is O’Rourke, so the most conspicuously meritorious piece of literary work is the delineation of his character. It cannot, of course, be called a character study, inasmuch as the author’s obvious intention in writing the tale, was to create complications for his hero to overcome rather than to solve questions of psychology. But he has, nevertheless, presented in the person of “the O’Rourke of Castle O’Rourke,” a clean, generous, whole-souled Irish gentleman, one of a type that is always lovable.

* * * * *

The title of William J. Locke’s novel, “The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne,” John Lane, is somewhat misleading, for there is nothing in the book to show that the character of Sir Marcus could be made the subject of serious criticism. His aunt’s grim disapproval and ready suspicion of him may fairly be attributed to causes quite foreign to the question of his thorough respectability. It may be, however, that the reference in the title is, not to his personal morals, but to his “History of Renaissance Morals,” upon which he was engaged.

He was considered by his superiors steady enough to be a good schoolmaster, and his accession to the family title does not seem to have marked any material change in his personal habits, although the sudden appearance of Carlotta was a disturbing influence in his life, as it might be in that of the most sedate among us. Carlotta’s introduction is somewhat unusual, if not improbable, but it is to be remembered that a bright, attractive English girl, most of whose life has been spent in a Turkish harem, cannot be expected to conform, all at once, to English standards of conventionality.

Ordeyne’s tribulations, growing out of his enforced guardianship of this extraordinary young woman, may be easily understood, but will hardly be considered a reason for condoling or sympathizing with him.

The end of his “extravagant adventure” is obvious enough. It is, in fact, the only logical conclusion under the circumstances. Naturally Judith and Aunt Jessica disapproved, though for widely different reasons.

* * * * *

Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith has done us all a service in his volume of short stories to which he has given the name “At Close Range,” published by Scribner’s. One of the principal charms of these stories lies in the unpretentiousness of them; they are modest little tales about modest people; people who sometimes seem to have little tenderness or generosity about them, but who, after all, confirm the author’s theory “that at the bottom of every heart crucible choked with life’s cinders there can almost always be found a drop of gold.”

Each one of the stories has just the one touch of nature that always makes its appeal irresistible. Steve Dodd, Sam Makin, Jack Stirling and Captain Shortrode are common enough characters, and of a type from which not much is usually looked for except the energetic pursuit of business, but under the proper stimulus they show traits and impulses similar to those of the Dear Old Lady.

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The Twenty-five Best Selling Books of the Month.

“The Marriage of William Ashe,” Mrs. Humphry Ward, Harper & Bros.

“The Orchid,” Robert Grant, Chas. Scribner’s Sons.

“The Accomplice,” Frederick Trevor Hill, Harper & Bros.

“At the Sign of the Fox,” by the author of “The Garden of a
Commuter’s Wife,” Macmillan Co.

“A Dark Lantern,” Elizabeth Robins, Macmillan Co.

“The Missourian,” Eugene P. Lyle, Doubleday, Page & Co.

“Constance Trescott,” Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Century Co.

“The Clansman,” Thomas Dixon, Doubleday, Page & Co.

“Sandy,” Alice Hegan Rice, Century Co.

“The Beautiful Lady,” Booth Tarkington, McClure, Phillips & Co.

“Mrs. Essington,” Esther and Lucia Chamberlain, Century Co.

“Pam,” Bettina von Hutten, Dodd, Mead & Co.

“The Princess Passes,” C. N. and A. M. Williamson, Henry Holt & Co.

“The Purple Parasol,” George B. McCutcheon, Dodd, Mead & Co.

“The Divine Fire,” May Sinclair, Henry Holt & Co.

“The Garden of Allah,” Robert Hichens, F. A. Stokes & Co.

“The Rose of the World,” Agnes and Egerton Castle, F. A. Stokes &
Co.

“The Man on the Box,” Harold MacGrath, Bobbs-Merrill Co.

“The Master Mummer,” E. Phillips Oppenheim, Little, Brown & Co.

“The Plum Tree,” David Graham Phillips, Bobbs-Merrill Co.

“Terence O’Rourke,” Louis Joseph Vance, A. Wessells Co.

“The Memoirs of an American Citizen,” Robert Herrick, Macmillan Co.

“The Breath of the Gods,” Sidney McCall. Little, Brown & Co.

“The Image in the Sand,” E. F. Benson, J. B. Lippincott Co.

“The Great Mogul,” Louis Tracy, E. J. Clode & Co.

Transcribers’ Notes:

The articles in this magazine were written by different people, and some of the articles contain dialect. So, inconsistent punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were not changed.

Some text in double-quotation marks contains double-quotation text within single-quotation text.

In the original magazine, the articles’ titles and authors mostly were enclosed in illustrations, while the poems’ titles followed headpieces. In this version of this eBook, all titles are shown as normal headings, with placeholders following the articles’ headings and preceding the poems’.

In articles beginning with a quotation, the publisher omitted the opening quotation mark.

Page 35: “We maun run for it!” was printed that way.

Page 67: Missing closing single quote added after “and my laundress.”

Page 91: “morever” may be a misprint for “moreover”.

Page 102: Missing closing single quote in the phrase beginning “‘more life, fuller life” not remedied because the proper position is uncertain.

Page 119: An opening double quotation mark is missing before “She held up the decoys”, or a closing double quotation mark is missing at the end of the quotation just before it.

Page 143: “And Huldah went” was printed that way, not as “Aunt Huldah went.”

Page 152: “Capus in French is always exhilarating” was printed as “in always” and has been changed here.

Page 158: “indentical” may be a misprint for “identical”.

Page 156: The introduction to “For Book Lovers” ends abruptly after the word “month”.