FICTION.
THE HEROINE IN BRONZE.t
IT would be interesting to illustrate the distribution of literary talent in the United States geographically, and to contrast the characteristics of the New-England, the Southern and the Western writers. Such a survey, we imagine, would establish the fact that in the domain of romance the Southerners had a quality peculiarly their own. Mr. Cable, Mr. Owen Wister, the late J. C. Harris ("Uncle Remus "), and Miss Mary Johnston readily occur to one in this connexion, and pleasant memories of The Kentucky Cardinal suggest the addition of Mr. James Lane Allen to the list. It is true that the scene of his new story is laid throughout in New York, but it is called "A Pastoral of the City"; the narrator-hero hails from an old Southern farm house; his roots are in the old Southern life ; and by temperament and outlook he is entirely detached from the typical New Yorker. He is fully alive to the sinister picturesqueness of the great skyscrapers, the city's "jagged sky-line" which sometimes made him think of it "as the Wolf of the World lying on his back with his mouth open and his fangs showing." But Fifth Avenue.
• Journal of the Comte d'Espinchal daring the Emigration. Edited from the original manuscripts by Ernest d'Hauterive. Translated by Mrs. Rodolph Stowell. With 17 Portraits. Loudon: Chapman and Hall. [12.s. O. net.] t The Heroine in Bronze. By James Lane Allen. London : Macmillan and Co. [Es.]
"that long, hard, stately, palace-crowded, diamond-bedusted, world-weary road," was to him a " Via Dolorosa," and the lights of Broadway at night were " demoniac fires."
What appealed to him most of all was Central Park, " that Arcady of Nature in town," and the old houses, such as that in which the heroine dwelt, with their "humanized counten- ances" and "mellowed dignity." The choice of New York as a residence by this sentimental idealist was, however, natural enough. He had chosen the career of letters, and to justify
his choice found it necessary to keep in touch with editors and publishers. So we find him at the outset of the narrative installed in a tiny tenth-floor flat, and cultivating the Muse,
if not on a little oatmeal, on the New York equivalent of that frugal fare.
Young Donald Clough, though poor, is by no means friendless. He is a frequent visitor at the house of a wealthy New Yorker, a great clubman and yachtsman, and he has lost his heart
to "the Commodore's" daughter, Muriel Dunstan, a young lady whose personal attractions are enhanced by high academic distinction. Young Clough is fully aware of the difference in their social position, as measured by the crude test of wealth ; but he has good ground for believing that she harbours for him a feeling something stronger than mere liking, and he is resolved to prove the sincerity of his attach- ment by dedicating his talent to her service. A sudden inspiration comes to him to write a story having for its theme the glorification of the American college girl, and at the close of an interview, in which she has virtually declared that she returns his affection, he divulges the plot—with disastrous consequences. From his rough scenario she not unnaturally interprets it to be a roman, a clef with herself as the principal figure, with her college triumphs and personal conquests writ large for all who possess the key. She resents the scheme as a vulgar intrusion on her privacy, and, starting at a few
hours' notice for Europe with a party of friends, parts from him before he has had time to correct her misapprehensions or appease her misgivings. So the young author is left to spend a broiling summer in New York, without a letter or
message to solace his loneliness. He writes his story, however, but when once it is started all possibilities of offence vanish. The heroine is not his innamorata, but his own grandmother, a typical Southern beauty of the ante-bellum period. But he writes another book, in which he pays homage to his lady love in an indirect but none the less effective way. Every day he records some scene or action that he has witnessed testifying to the nobility or gentleness of human nature—a sort of variant on the Boy Scout ideal—and in every instance he views it, as it were, through her eyes. When, then, the young lady returns from Europe, where she nearly died of typhoid fever and remorse, a renewal of their old meetings speedily disperses all mutual misunderstanding. The book of good deeds prepares her for the ordeal of hearing the other book read aloud to her, for the author is determined that she is to know the worst before committing herself finally. An epilogue reveals the young couple happily married, but illustrates the capacity of the heroine for making moun- tains out of mole-hills in her jealousy of an imaginary rival. Satisfied with this proof of her devotion, her husband speedily reassures her by confessing that the other woman was only a, bronze statuette—a dumb counterpart of herself—from which he had drawn solace and inspiration during the weary months of their unnecessary estrangement. There are many excellent points in Mr. Allen's story, apart from the charm of his style.
He shows us, in the person of his hero, that a devout lover may also be infected with the egotism of the artist. He shows us, again, in the person of his heroine, that high intellectual ability and delicacy of feeling afford no guarantee for the possession of common sense. When Muriel unbends she is delightful, but like her lover she is apt to take life and herself somewhat too seriously for her happiness. In fine, the senti- ment of the book is a trifle exalted for the plain person, and
tends to a certain preciosity of emotion. This is the more to be regretted because in his lighter vein Mr. Allen shows a charming whimsicality. In proof of this assertion we cannot do better than quote the passage in which he describes his hero's attitude towards the attentions of the advertiser :- "In such typical apartment buildings the poorer tenants are intermingled with people of wealth and social and professional awfulness; but there is no partiality in the attentions which all receive from advertisers of their wares, Thus it came about that I, of no consequence to anyone in a commercial way, was enabled vicarious/1y to enter into the sensations of the rich and powerful. A famished spider, I was permitted to sit at the centre of a golden web ; and hundreds of firms in the course of a season agitated the web and warned me to run out and seize my easy prey—on my own terms. That day five letters were dropped into the glittering net. A real estate agent, having complimented me upon being a gentleman of such luxurious tastes that I could not possibly do without a residence in both town and country, felt sure that I should like to purchase on alluring terms a fine old estate on Long Island. I concurred in this sentiment of the agent. A wine merchant begged the privilege of reminding me that I had not yet enjoyed at my dinner table some of his finest grades of wines ; otherwise I would have opened an account with him which he now insisted that I do ; and on the list of his vintages he had made his personal little pencil mark opposite Mouton Rothschild. I upheld this contention of the wine dealer. And even a pencil mark which connected me with anything called Rothschild was a stimulant. Even though it were but a wine called mutton. Even had it been mutton called wine. A third letter was from a general agency which stated that it was prepared to do everything. But I thought that an agency prepared to do everything was prepared to do too much. A fourth letter was addressed to my wife. It conveyed to her the intelligence that her name had been placed on a favoured list of charge-persons ; and that upon ' visiting the emporium' she would merely be put to the trouble of mentioning her name to the sales-lady and of buying whatever she liked. I bowed myself to the dust before this dis- tinction accorded my spouse. Still it was rather disquieting to have even a manufactured wife thus publicly designated as a charge-person ; it almost suggested that a real wife might become a charge. The last letter was signed with the formidable name of Lucile. The writer stated that having held various positions of a secretarial character, she had now opened an office of her own and was prepared to put the manuscript of inexperienced young anthers into shape to secure their acceptance from the leading publishers at the highest rates of royalty : she gave these manuscripts, she announced, an unprejudiced reading and supplied ideas to strengthen and embellish. I acknowledged with humbleness the amazing wisdom and goodness of Lucile. These gallantries some- times led me to wonder what would have become of the remnant of Don Quixote's brain, had he armed himself and ridden forth toward the chivalries of New York trade. What might have been the fate of a tradesman now and then as the Don ran him through with the spear that knew no shams ? "
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