Life — June 1, 1899 — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

N OT long ago a distinguished novelist remarked in my presence that he could not understand why our native story-tellers had done so little with what is usually termed “ high life.” “But,” I replied, ‘*it seems to me that a great many of our writers have dealt with high life. There’s Henry James—he certainly devotes himself to high life; and so do Robert Grant, Mra. Van Rensslaer Cruger, Mrs. Burton Harrison, and—quite a lot more.” “And which one of these, except Henry James, has given us a really strong, interesting and truthful picture of New York society?” continued the novelist. And I held my peace. The fact is that I had always taken it for granted that New York's ‘four hundred” were as well taken care of in fiction as they are in the society columns of the newspapers, and for that reason had troubled myself very little with what are termed ‘‘ society novels.” The words of my friend set me to thinking, however, and go it came to pass that I read Mrs. Burton Harrison's novel, ‘'A Triple Entanglement” (Lippincott), in order that I might gain some idea of how our native swells look when they are encountered in the pages of fiction. I was disappointed in more than one particular. In the first place, the book cannot be described as a novel of American society, although it deals with persons of excellent social position ; therefore I must do ome more hard work it I want to find out what a New York society novel really 1s. Some of the principal characters in this book are native to our soil, but they spend most of their time abroad, and the scenes of the story are laid, for the most part, in Spain, London and Scotland. In the second place, I was disappointed in the characters themselves. Not one of them is individual enough to stamp itself upon the memory of even the most impressionable reader, and they are all fools enough to make the story possible. That is to say, the life of each one seems to be made up of a series expenses of his rival, the book, has completely won the heart of the charming and innocent young Enid. and I liked it because of its abundance of incident. nearly every page, and that something was usually violent. of the mistakes and errors uf judgment and vision that are the backbone of old-fashioned, farcical pieces. invested by the author with a pair of blinders, to prevent the seeing of what is obvious to everybody else. that reason engages himself to some one else, while she persistently hides from him because of the strong affection that she bears for him. He hunts for her in London, without success, although her whereabouts is 8o plainly indicated that even a New York detcctive would find no difficulty in tracing her. He writes her a letter, which is iotercepted—a novel device, that, for prolonging a lover's agony—but in the end he succeeds in winning her, after an amount of There is not a character in the story who is not } Wallis is desperately in love with Enid, and for work and trouble that the average Mormon would disdain to expend in the wooing of a whole family of wives, Moreover, he lives to pay the funeral & preposterous cad who, in the early portion of The last society novel I read before this one was by Miss Laura Jean Libbey, Something happened on People fell down wells, were thrown from horses, arresicd for murder—in short, all Miss Libbey’s characters were kept very busy from the beginning of the first chapter of the * Mad Mocking Mysterious Marriage at Midnight” until the end of the last. her great contemporary, but in regard to what seamstresses and pew-openers call ‘fine writing” the author of ‘A Triple Entanglement” need not fear comparisons, strains,” and other excellent and mellow phrases, which will no doubt com- In point of incident Mrs. Harrison's work is inferior to that of It abounds in ‘cravings of the grosser man,” ‘ mellifluous pensate largely fur the absence of information regarding real society people in real American secletts James L, Ford, [FOUR NEW BOOKS. 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