Life — June 1, 1899 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

U TAALSON TRANCALS Eve ZZ A. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. “Sumy, Wor's Dk ENOLISH O' DaT sion?” “wny, Miss Wilkins Turned Humorist LONG with the multiplicity of books which are offered on the oneside in ever increasing quantities by enterprising pub- lisher has come on tho other side a wonderful sense of discrimination on tho part of the purchasing public, Thero aro 80 many books nowadays, and such a largo proportion of them are “deadwood,” that when one has been fooled a number of times, ono learns to be careful. The average barguin-hunting, market-tinged, grocery- eclored woman has learned to apply to the buying of books the same mercenary shrewdness which she has gathered unto herself by countless combats in other flelds, Sbo will run her band over half a dozen volumes on the counter In. as many different colors, take out one, look at the title, read the first two lines of the first chapter, MY SON FRANCIS, “pean me! wor of course! glance through tho last pages, give it an appreciative sniff, and say condescendingly, “That looks good." If a book doesn’t look good, that settles it. She may be mistaken (something that does happen, but less frequently all the tima), but {t will take tho strong recommendation of some one who has read the book before her opinion is shaken, Mon do not buy books, But upon tho “that looks good” of the average woman rosts the loss and gain account of some of our principal publishing houses. It seems probable (although it is a hard matter for the ordinary man to take upon himself the responsibility of saying what a woman's Judgment will bo under any cir- cumstances) that Miss Wilkins’s “The Jamesons” (Doubleday-MeClure) will pass this first test. It comes in an attractive green, which 6 a fashionable color for books this year, and is interspersed with colored pictures—not many of them to bo sure, but what thero are are really worth while, and add much to the author's text, They are among the fow diminutive colored pictures that really convey some {dea of the book. On the other hand, tho mercenary individual will notothat the pages are smail and widely margined and that the book can bo easily read inan hour, This might bea positive advantage in somo instances, but BLESSIN' A EDDICATION 18, TO BE scRE!” with Miss Wilkins, one 1s inclined to feel at the start that this is perhaps: too little pabuluin for the monoy. So much for the appearance which counts ao groatly these days and which should of course be noted as much in a review as tho text, Tho text itself is pretty good. Ara. Jameson, & woman of departed wealth, compelled by reduced cireumstances to board in a Now Eugland village, endeavors to “improve” her now neighbors. The story {8 told by one of them, which takes away somewhat from tho harshness of describing a character directly. Miss Wil- kins i@ not solemn anywhere, which is a good point in her favor, and she maintains 4 gontly humorous tone throughout which is admirably sustained, Morcover, sho brings up to the surface occasionally a little thread of satire, suggestive of a deoper vein underneath, ‘The Jamesons, who did not like baked beans and never cooked them, had bought, or had given. them, @ humber of old bean-pots and had them sitting about the Moor or on the tables with wild Sowers tn them. . . . Flora Clark sald that for her part her bean-pot went into the oven with beans in It, Instead of Into the corner with fowers into it, as longas she had her reason. But I must say I did not agree with her... . I told Loutsa, that I could not see why the original states of