Life — April 12, 1900 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

More Black Silk Stories by Miss Wilkins. HE material for a short story by Mary E, Wilkins usually consists of an old and shiny black silk gown, a belated lover, an unreasonable conscience, and an obdurate parent. These simple properties can bo mingled in a surprising number of combinations with an effect of novelty, A change of half a century in time, for instance, will give an air of ancient respectability to tho story. Or movo tho setting of it from a bleak hill town toa thriving factory village, and tho talé takes on the air of modern realism, Put a ruffle or two on the black silk and a bit of old lace at tho throat, and a gran- damo rustles gently through the pages, Shorten the skirt, and Ict there be a fleeting glimpse of a litac silk stocking, and tho story is as near giddy as Miss Wilkins ever permits it to be. In her latest volume, “The Love of Parson Lord” (Harpers'), Miss Wilkins tarns the samo old bits of glass in tho kaleidoscope with pleasing effect. Always ber combinations have an artistic air about them, The bits of color fall into their geometric places, Fate 1s kinder now than it used to bo in ber earlier stories. Tho old black silk used to end in forlorn senility and often fond itself in a coMln, But in these recent stories it has a way of blossoming into “a rich brocade” to an accom- paniment of wedding bells (with or without the consent of the obdurate parent). There is u touch of pootic fancy in them all and they aro written in beautiful English, from which dialect has been climinated. It is good workmanship, and any craftsinan will grant her that praise ungrudgingly. Parson Lord, in the first story, is of tho stern parent type, but she has added that touch of concealed tender- ness in which Bunner used to delight. The whole story reminds one of Bunner, and recalls the graces of a stylo and fancy that aro soldom seon now. It is tho age of the flaunting banner and tho brass band in writing. Polite comedy has been succeeded by romantic drama, . . . ~ CHOOL and college life bave found a great many © interpretors recently, Each of the older univer- sities has its volumo of fiction to represent tho life of the undergraduate. And most of them aro well written, In fact the gift of expression is moro mature in recent graluates than tho ideas expressed, They bave “ learned the trick,” as they would say, Tho girls’ colleges are also on hand with their stories. “Smith College Stories” (Scribner's), by Josephine Dodge Daskam, are a clever oxpression of tho life there I phases, They ary meant to “ humanize” the college girl, and they succeed in making her very much the same sort of impulsive and irresponsible creature that her brother is at his college. Students in herds aro always vory young—and they ought to be. “Ono world at atime,” and theirs is the college world. It is fall of the zest of life, and the poetry and the imagined heart-acho of aspiration. It is life in ferment and is an interesting process, Miss Daskam, like her brothers, has “learned tho FIFTH AVENUE, WHERE DRIVERS OF HEAVY TEAMS ENJOY THEMSELVES. comicbooks.com