Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905

It is the story of the evolution of a young priest from an inexperienced celibate to a fully developed man, by which phrase is meant spiritually and intellectually developed by the desperate method of temptation.

Father Everett embraced the priesthood and committed himself by irrevocable vows with all the enthusiasm of ignorant youth and without the slightest comprehension of the significance of his manhood. He naturally, under such circumstances, never questioned his fitness to advise and rebuke and absolve sinners. But with the appearance of the woman, another and hitherto unrecognized side of his nature began to stir, and his torture was prepared. That his love for Roona Lawless was reciprocated, instead of bringing them joy, only added to the horror of their situation, and it was well for them both that the man had access to the shrewd kindliness and the worldly wisdom of his vicar, Father Michael.

The old priest showed his surprise when the climax of his curate’s confession brought out the fact that the latter’s transgression was limited to the exchange of a kiss, and when the young man exclaimed: “Glory be to God, wasn’t it enough?” the other replied, dryly: “Faith, it’s well you found it so.”

It is, to be sure, an old enough story. But its merit is that it is told with a vigor and a dramatic insight that makes it read like a narrative of actual fact. If it has any fault, it lies in rather unnecessary multiplicity of physiological details.

It is to be hoped that Mr. Chesterton, who has recently confessed to a weakness for reading detective stories, may be able to get a copy of Charles Carey’s book, “The Van Suyden Sapphires,” just published by Dodd, Mead & Co., for in it he will find all the diversion that he needs, and possibly some information as to the art of plot construction – if indeed it is an art and not a science.

It is a little bit uncertain as to whether or not Mr. Carey intentionally emphasizes Miss Bramblestone’s rather abnormal intuition, or whether he is trading, for the purpose of his story, upon the popular superstition – maybe it is not a superstition – that this faculty is essentially feminine. But it is not a matter of the highest importance whether he has or not; it is not even worth while to be hypercritical in a discussion of the artistic quality of the story; it would be a waste of time and space to undertake to throw doubt upon the probability of any of the story’s episodes, for when one is forced to make the acknowledgment that Mr. Carey has written a book that will not surrender its hold upon the attention until the last word is read, what more need be said in its praise?

It is as good an example of the peculiar fascination exercised by so-called detective stories as we know of; and besides this it contains – as most of these stories do not – a lot of people who command both our interest and sympathy, from the heroine to the self-confessed criminal, Harry Glenn, who is, in spite of his wickedness, a very captivating young man, as Miss Bramblestone found out, and as her lover, Captain McCracken, was finally forced to admit.

“The Unwritten Law,” by Arthur Henry, A. S. Barnes & Co., is extremely interesting, and written in a curiously circumstantial style, so explicitly worked out as to details of scenery, location and so forth, that it constantly produces the effect of fact rather than fiction.

Various seamy sides of society are shown up in pretty plain colors, and the author does not hesitate to draw conclusions from them, too strongly convincing to be questioned by his readers. The old engraver, Karl Fischer, his wife and two daughters, are typical products of the time, especially the pretty and sensual Thekla, whose physical exuberance and innocent carelessness of social decencies are such a manifest result of her environment.

These four form the nucleus of the plot, and have to do with the destinies of other characters, all equally pronounced types. Adams, the young lawyer, is interesting in his defense of old Karl, on trial for counterfeiting; the Vandermere and Storrs families might be portraits drawn from our own acquaintance; more’s the pity.

But the story is, nevertheless, far from commonplace. It will not make us laugh, yet will keep us absorbed till the last page, and we lay it down feeling that we have seen certain phases of life with some intense lights thrown upon them.

Baroness Von Hutten’s poor little “Pam,” Dodd, Mead & Co., with her contradicting intensity and innocence, and her distorted notions of matters social, is as interesting a study as can be found in recent fiction. It might be as well not to leave her in the path of conventionally-brought-up young persons who have not her antecedents – but their elders will understand her as a product, and perhaps even perceive that she points a moral while adorning a tale. Pam is the child of a mercenary English girl, well born, who has fled to the Continent with her lover, an opera singer, who has left his wife. Contrary to the usual result of such unions, the two are completely happy in one another; too much so to bestow any special attention on Pam, except the explanation to her, in most explicit terms, of her social limitations as their offspring. Her wanderings from one situation to another with a maid and a monkey, her shrewd childish distrust of the conventional virtues, her slow awakening to the absorbing passion for the man she loves, and her final realization of the barriers which stand between them, make a strong story, absorbing in its interest.

Two more detective stories are “The Amethyst Box” and “The Ruby and the Caldron,” by Anna Katharine Green, the latter published in the same volume with another short story, “The House in the Mist,” by the same author.

The two volumes are the first of a series which the publishers – Bobbs-Merrill Company – call “The Pocket Books,” designed to represent “the three aspects of American romance – adventure, mystery and humor.”

They are happily named, for they are small volumes, which can be conveniently slipped into the pocket and read at odd times.

“The Amethyst Box” and “The House in the Mist” are tales of mystery of rather a grim sort, for there are violent deaths in both, but, as in all of Mrs. Rohlfs’ stories, justice is finally executed upon the guilty, and the reader’s sense of the fitness of things is satisfied.

The only unpleasant feature of “The Caldron and the Ruby” is that suspicion of theft is directed toward an innocent person; but inasmuch as, in order to make a detective story, the innocent must be under suspicion and must be ultimately vindicated, this cannot be considered in the light of a defect.

Of quite a different character is the tale of Morley Roberts’ “Lady Penelope,” L. C. Page & Co. The reader spends most of his time, as it were, in the wake of a gaseous motor car. Such audacious defiance of the conventionalities on the part of the heroine, such mystery and scandal as to her matrimonial ventures, such “racing and chasing” and automobiling, such varying suitors – all individually represented by full-page illustrations – such a precociously impudent boy of fourteen meddling with the plot and acting as Penelope’s prime minister, such mixed-up situations and harum-scarum talk, cannot be found between ordinary lovers, but the result is amusing, to say nothing more. The best character in the book is the old duchess, for whose mystification Penelope’s scheme is planned, and who only at the climax discovers, like the rest of us, which of six men her niece has married, though all of them lay claim to that honor.

“Return,” by Alice MacGowan and Grace MacGowan Cooke, L. C. Page & Co., is a new version of the taming of a shrew, though in the case of Diana Chaters, the cure is effected without the intervention of a Petruchio.

This is the pith of the theme of the story, very briefly put, for, as she is introduced to us in the opening chapters, she is, with all her beauty, as hopeless a termagant as can well be conceived, and when she bids us farewell at the end of the book, the transformation has been made complete.

The book is filled with color and action, the background of which is the rather motley life of colonial Georgia, or rather of the time during which Georgia was being established as a colony for insolvent debtors through the efforts of General Oglethorpe. The suspicions and uneasiness existing in the midst of the heterogeneous population attracted to the new colony, the constant state of alarm from the threatened incursions by the Spanish from the South and the presence of Indians and negroes, furnish plenty of material for an exciting tale of which a high-spirited and refined young woman is the central figure throughout. That she should suffer humiliations at which she bitterly rebelled is not to be wondered at, and, in spite of her arrogant pride, one cannot help sympathizing with her in her troubles and rejoicing with her and with Robert Marshall in their reunion.

The material used in the book is peculiarly difficult to handle on account of its complexity, but the authors are to be sincerely congratulated on having constructed out of it a very interesting and coherent tale.

Mr. Harris Dickson has furnished another demonstration of the fact that a man can do two things – though, perhaps, not at the same time – and do them well. It is safe to assume that his professional life has been a busy one, for a lawyer who attains a judicial distinction, as a rule, has to work hard, but in spite of it he has found time to write an exceedingly good story.

“The Ravanels,” published by Lippincott, is a characteristically Southern tale; Southern in setting, in character and in action. Whether justly or not – probably not – it is more or less widely accepted as a fact that less regard is shown for the value of human life in the South than in the East, and it may reasonably be said that a defect in Mr. Dickson’s story is that, in some measure, it tends to give color to this opinion, for its theme deals chiefly with one of the feuds of which we read so much.

Stephen Ravanel, the hero and a scion of a distinguished Southern family, grows up cherishing a bitter resentment against his father’s murderer, Powhatan Rudd, who has escaped punishment for the crime. His earliest recollection is that of his dead father, whose body is shown to him by his aunt.

After he has reached manhood, the spirit of revenge still alive, Rudd is killed under circumstances which point to Stephen as the slayer. It is the trial of the young man on the charge of murder that supplies a most exciting and dramatic episode in the story, and it is extremely well done, for all the essential particulars are produced without undue emphasis.

There is, of course, a love story, a very attractive and convincing one, of which the heroine, Mercia Grayson, is a characteristically fascinating Southern girl. It is a tale of which the author may well feel proud to have written.