Recent Fiction, Part I [pp. 102-105]

1887.] ~ecent Fi~tion. 105
but that is what Thomas Nelson Page did three collections we have just noticed. Mrs.
by "Marse Chai~." He has published since Jacksoii was singularly at disadvantage in
several others -" Unc' Edinburg's Drown- story-writing -a curious contradiction
din'," "Meh Lady," "Ole`Stracted," "No enough, when one thinks of "Ramona"; but
Haid Pawn," and "Polly." The half dozen for the most part she struggled with, and only
are now collected in a volume (with a cover partly conquered, a curious crudity both of
"designed by the Tiffany Art Company"), manner and matter when she turned her
under the appropriate title Jn Ole Vtrginia. pen to fiction. Yet her stories were always
None of the later stories has the pathos and popular, and the earliest ones-the "Saxe
beauty of "Marse Chan;" but they give Holm" stories-made some little stir on
fuller play to the genial humor only hinted their appearance, and are much read yet.
at in this earliest one. Those who knew A few of them were admirable, free from
old Virginia testify to the truth of Mr. Page's any touch of the sentimentality that afwork (he is a young Richmond lawyer, we fected the others; and all had a sort
are now told); and any reader can appreciate of excellence about them. These later,
its dramatic vividness, its feeling and intelli- acknowledged stories are written with a
gence. "No Haid Pawn" is decidedly in- firmer pen, and all are fair magazine
ferior to the others; but with this exception stories —but scarcely more. "The Capthey are models, in their way, of the short tain of the Heather Bell," to our mind
story. is to be excepted from this, for it touches a
Some C/tinese O7tosf~ is a delightful little height of pure and ardent feeling that sets it
group of paraphrases from Chinese sources. apart from the others. Several of them
The legends have been selected, says their have been printed before; one is only a
author, with reference to their weird beauty. fragment from an unfinished longer story.
He has in every case expanded into a tale Cro~~'ded Oi6t is a very unpretentious,
the mere outline given, in dry brevity, in paper-covered, ill-printed volume, containthe original; and the reader, unless he be ing about a dozen sketches two or three
so fortunate as to know a good deal of decidedly poor, tv-o or three decidedly
Chinese literature, cannot judge whether good, and the rest either indifferent or
the quaintly poetic rendering is the para- mixed good and bad. One or two are
phraser's own, or is an imitation of Chinese not stories at all, but sketches only; one
style in extended narrative. It is, at all or two are somewhat elaborated stories;
events, very pretty; and the stories them- the rest are between the sketch and story.
selves are very pretty, even though several They are almost entirely Canadian in scene,
involve deeds of rather ghastly heroism. and appear to have good local color. The
It may perhaps seem undervaluing the alternation of passages of real thoughtfulstories in Beft~een fViii/es to intimate, as we ness, gentleness, and perception of human
have done above, that they are of special in- nature, with artificialities, suggests a writer
terest only for the sake of the place their of no inconsiderable ability, but wanting in
author has held in our current literature: critical discrimination~ —whether because of
but we cannot rate them as of any such youth, or newspaper work, or some other
value in themselves as those of either of the cause, it is not easy to guess.