Part 19

_Francis Marion Crawford._--“The most versatile and various of modern novelists,” if Mr. Andrew Lang’s opinion is to be accepted, is Mr. F. Marion Crawford. Not only has he been prolific in a high degree, having written over thirty novels, but his scenes and characters have a wide range both in time and in place. He was born at Bagni di Lucca, Italy, in 1854, the son of Thomas Crawford the sculptor (who was of Scotch-Irish parentage) and Louisa Ward Crawford, a sister of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Prepared for college at St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire, he entered Harvard, but remained there only a short time. He spent the years 1870-74 mainly at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1874-76 at Karlsruhe and Heidelberg, and 1877-78 at the University of Rome, where he studied Sanskrit. In 1879 he went to India and for two years was connected with the Allahabad _Indian Herald_. Returning to America, he spent two years in New York and Boston, continuing his Sanskrit and Zend studies under Professor Lanman of Harvard. No other American novelist save Mr. James has had so cosmopolitan a training. Relating a story of a Persian jewel merchant’s adventure in India to his uncle, Samuel Ward, he was advised to make a novel of it; the result was the fascinating “Mr. Isaacs” (1882). Soon afterward Mr. Crawford returned to Italy, where, near Sorrento, he has since lived.

Mr. Crawford has a gift of rapid composition, sometimes completing a novel in less than a month; but his work as a whole is markedly free from slovenliness or signs of undue haste. His stories can be only briefly described: “Dr. Claudius” (1883), a highly romantic old-fashioned love-story of a learned Heidelberg Ph.D.; “To Leeward” (1883), a clever story of a wife’s infidelity and of Roman society; “A Roman Singer” (1884), the story of an Italian peasant boy who became a great tenor and married a German countess; “An American Politician” (1885), which deals, in the style of Henry James, and with indifferent success, with the corruption in American politics; “Zoroaster” (1885), a strong romance written also in French, and brilliantly treating of the court of King Darius and the prophet Daniel; “A Tale of a Lonely Parish” (1886), a quiet and charming story of English rural life; “Paul Patoff” (1887), “a tale and nothing else,” the scene of which is laid in modern Constantinople; “Marzio’s Crucifix” (1887, written also in French), which is exceptional among his works in that it portrays Italian lower- and middle-class life, and which is considered by many his best work; “Saracinesca” (1887), “Sant’ Ilario” (1889), “Don Orsino” (1892), and “Corleone” (1898), four novels forming a sequence and presenting on a broad canvas a remarkable picture of Roman society in the last third of the nineteenth century; “Greifenstein” (1889), a tragedy of the Black Forest, “a true story,” containing accurate descriptions of German student life; “A Cigarette-Maker’s Romance” (1890), a perfectly constructed romantic and absorbing story of Russian and Polish people living in Munich; “Khaled, a Romance of Arabia” (1891), of which a genie is the hero; “The Witch of Prague” (1891), which deals with hypnotism, a theme difficult to handle in fiction; “The Three Fates” (1892), a realistic story of New York society life and the best of Mr. Crawford’s American studies; “Marion Darche” (1893), another story of New York and of the devotion of a forger’s wife; “The Children of the King” (1893), a melodramatic story of Calabrian peasant life; “Pietro Ghisleri” (1893), in which both romantic and realistic elements are found and which pictures the gay society of Rome; “Katharine Lauderdale” and its sequel “The Ralstons” (1894), chronicles of a New York family; “Casa Braccio” (1895), a melodrama of passion; “Taquisara” (1896), an unpleasant story of the last representative of a great Saracen family and a princess of Acireale; “Via Crucis” (1899), a historical romance of the Second Crusade; “In the Palace of the King” (1900), a tale of passion, the hero of which is Don John of Austria, and the scene of which is the court of Philip II. of Spain; “Marietta, a Maid of Venice” (1901), a fifteenth-century story; “The Heart of Rome” (1903), the _motif_ of which is modern Rome’s treatment of its artistic heritage; “Fair Margaret” (1905), published in London as “Soprano, a Portrait,” recounting the fascinating career of Margaret Donne, who becomes a successful opera singer; “Whosoever Shall Offend” (1905), an effective story of crime; and “A Lady of Rome” (1906), a study of character moulded by strong religious belief.

Of this remarkable series, the most noteworthy, though probably not the most popular, are those dealing with Italian life. Mr. Crawford has been markedly successful in his portraiture of Italian middle-class life, and only a little less so in writing of the aristocracy. He excels in representing agreeable, well-bred men and women; under his touch they are natural, human, lifelike. He is fertile in invention and lavish of characters and plot-incident, using in quite a subordinate connection materials which other novelists would reserve for the main plots of future novels. In general, his plots are skilfully constructed; occasionally, as in “Taquisara” (which is almost two separate stories), he fails to weld his material insolubly together. He has a remarkably bold and vigorous imagination, and does not hesitate to introduce daring conceptions and incidents; a romantic cast of mind is necessary if one would fully enjoy him. A Roman Catholic himself, he has had the amplest opportunity for studying the Catholic temperament and point of view, which he interprets admirably; it is natural that he should be weakest in portraying the characters of unbelievers or heretics. He is always dispassionate, calm, never losing himself in any storm of passion. His fiction as a whole is remarkably even, and it cannot be affirmed that his latest work shows deterioration. For the skill with which he has utilised vast stores of learning, for the effective though restrained use of a virile and picturesque imagination, for “astonishing literary tact” and breadth of view, Mr. Crawford has not his equal among living American writers, and his place is among the writers who only just miss the first rank.

_Frederic Jesup Stimson._--Frederic J. Stimson, a native of Dedham, Massachusetts (born in 1855), has led a busy life as lawyer, legal writer, Harvard professor, and novelist. His earlier novels were published over the pen name of “J. S. of Dale.” He has written, among others, “Guerndale” (1882), “The Crime of Henry Vane” (1884), the plot of which is unconvincing, “First Harvests” (1888), “Mrs. Knollys and Other Stories” (1894), “Pirate Gold” (1896), “King Noanett” (1896), carefully worked out, an exciting story of mystery and adventure, “Jethro Bacon of Sandwich” (1902), and “In Cure of Her Soul” (1906). Mr. Stimson has not taken high rank as a novelist, but his stories are generally interesting and the later ones may be commended to those who are fond of good romances. “The Weaker Sex” (_The Atlantic_, April, 1901) is a powerful short story.

_Henry Cuyler Bunner._--Henry C. Bunner (1855-96), for many years the editor of _Puck_, wrote many short stories and some good novels. He was a native of Oswego, New York, and received his literary training in the school of journalism, being connected first with _The Sun_ and then with _The Arcadian_, a literary weekly. “A Woman of Honor” (1883) gave some promise in plot and incident. “Love in Old Cloathes” (_The Century_, September, 1883) brought him a reputation as a clever story-teller. His next novel, “The Midge,” an ingenious story of the New York French quarter, appeared in 1886; it was followed by “The Story of a New York House” (1887), the somewhat melancholy history of a house, typifying the family which occupies it. “Natural Selection” appeared serially in _Scribner’s_ (1888). “Zadoc Pine, and Other Stories” (1891) are tales the skilful construction of which shows how carefully Bunner studied Boccaccio; while in “Short Sixes” (1891), his most popular stories, he avowed his discipleship to Maupassant. He was more successful in his short stories than in his novels.

_Arthur Sherburne Hardy._--Arthur S. Hardy (born in 1847 at Andover, Mass.), in 1902-6 United States Minister Plenipotentiary at Madrid, has had a varied career. Graduating at West Point in 1869, he served for a year in the Third United States Artillery, then became in succession professor of civil engineering, first at Iowa College, later at Dartmouth, professor of mathematics at Dartmouth, editor of _The Cosmopolitan_, and United States Minister to Persia, to Greece, Roumania, and Servia, and to Switzerland. Well known for several mathematical publications, he is the author of three novels, two of which are distinguished for happy description, graceful diction, and profound reflection rather than for individuality of plot or able development of character. “But Yet a Woman” (1883) is a story, somewhat deficient in local colour, of the coming of love to a French maiden destined for the convent. “The Wind of Destiny” (1886) is a story of a weak woman and two men which, though it lacks dramatic interest, offers some compensation in “the peculiarly noble air which pervades it, the extreme beauty of many of its passages, the revelation of life flashed occasionally as from a diamond of light, and perhaps more than all for the very subtle charm which hangs over the whole movement of the story.”[19] “Passe Rose” (1889) is a charming poetical romance of Provence in the stirring times of Charles the Great, and is decidedly Mr. Hardy’s most successful novel. His latest story is “His Daughter First” (1903). With rare sympathy, which he makes no attempt to conceal, he has interpreted several diverse types, and his men and women are alive.

_Mary Hallock Foote._--Born at Milton-on-the-Hudson, New York, in 1847, Mary Hallock early showed artistic talent and at sixteen began to study design in Cooper Institute, New York City. She was married in 1876 to Arthur D. Foote, a California mining engineer, and travelled extensively in the Southwest. Her varied experiences have been utilised with marked literary skill in a series of stories, the first of which was “The Led Horse Claim” (1883), in which the story of Romeo and Juliet was repeated in a California mining camp, though with a happy ending. “The Chosen Valley” (1892) is a study in contrasts, recounting an episode in the reclaiming by irrigation of the waste lands of the West. In 1894 appeared “Cœur d’Alene,” a love-story with a background in the labour troubles. She has also written “John Bowdoin’s Testimony” (1886), “The Last Assembly Ball” (1889), “In Exile” (1894), and “The Cup of Trembling” (1895). Her latest stories, “The Desert and the Sown” (1902), a study of ideal self-sacrifice, and “A Touch of Sun, and Other Stories” (1903), are hardly up to the level of her earlier work, which, in its vivid representation of wild Western life, entitles her to a place with Bret Harte.

_Wolcott Balestier._--The promise of the too short life of Charles Wolcott Balestier (1861-91) deserves record. He was born at Rochester, New York, studied at Cornell University and the University of Virginia, and became first the editor of _Tid-Bits_ and then the junior partner of Heinemann & Balestier, publishers of _The English Library_, an attempt to popularise British and American books on the Continent. His interest in literature was intense, and that he would have produced stories worth remembering, doubtless in the vein of Mr. Howells, whom he greatly admired, is evidenced by his few published works: “A Patent Philtre” (1884), “A Fair Device” (1884), “A Victorious Defeat” (1886), “A Common Story” (1891), “The Average Woman” (1892), three stories, with a memorial note by Henry James, and “Benefits Forgot” (1891), first published serially in _The Century_. With Mr. Kipling, his brother-in-law, he collaborated in “The Naulahka” (1892).

_Robert Grant._--Born in Boston (1852), Robert Grant graduated from Harvard in 1873 and became Ph.D. in 1876 and LL.B. in 1879. He has followed law and letters side by side. In 1893 he was appointed Judge of the Probate Court and the Court of Insolvency for Suffolk County, Massachusetts. He has written, among other things, “The Confessions of a Frivolous Girl” (1880), “An Average Man” (1884), “The Knave of Hearts” (1886), “The Reflections of a Married Man” (1892), “The Opinions of a Philosopher” (1893), “The Bachelor’s Christmas, and Other Stories” (1895), and “Unleavened Bread” (1900), his best known and most powerful story. Mr. Grant is a trenchant satirist of the foibles of certain aspirants to social prominence. Selma, in “Unleavened Bread,” is a veritable incarnation of ignoble social ambition.

_Henry Harland._--Henry Harland (1861-1905) was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and was educated at the College of the City of New York, Harvard, Paris, and Rome. In 1886 he removed to London, where he became well known as the editor of _The Yellow Book_. His earlier stories, including “As It Was Written” (1885), a musician’s story, “Mrs. Peixada” (1886), “The Land of Love” (1887), “My Uncle Florimond” (1888), and others, were published as by “Sidney Luska”; they circulated widely but were later condemned by Harland himself as trashy. He later wrote “Mea Culpa” (1893), “Comedies and Errors” (1898), “The Cardinal’s Snuff-Box” (1900), which scored a decided success, and “My Lady Paramount” (1902). His brilliance and geniality are reflected in his works, but his vein was not an extensive one.

_Thomas Nelson Page._--One of the leading novelists of the South to-day is Thomas Nelson Page. Born in 1853 at Oakland, Virginia, he studied (1869-72) at Washington and Lee University and (1873-74) at the University of Virginia. After practising law for some years, he turned, like many other lawyers, to literature. “Marse Chan” (_The Century_, April, 1884) met with great favour, and was followed by other short stories, which were collected in 1887 under the title “In Ole Virginia.” The life in Virginia before and during the war was further presented in “Two Little Confederates” (1888), “On New Found River” (1891), “Elsket, and Other Stories” (1891), “The Burial of the Guns, and Other Stories” (1894), “Red Rock, a Chronicle of Reconstruction” (1898), “The Old Gentleman of the Black Stock” (1900), and “Gordon Keith” (1903). Mr. Page has a strong affection for the Old South, and vividly and powerfully delineates the life of the aristocracy and the negroes. While sympathetic, his descriptions of the system of slavery are free from bitterness and are entitled to consideration as truthful and convincing. Probably he has never surpassed his earlier short stories, which exhibit most distinctively the charm of his style; but “Red Rock,” at least, has demonstrated his ability to write successfully also on a larger scale.

_Thomas Allibone Janvier._--Thomas A. Janvier (born in 1849), a native of Philadelphia, became a New York journalist and then a writer of stories. He has been especially successful in depicting the Bohemian life of the metropolis. His “Color Studies: Four Stories” (1885), reprinted from _The Century_, narrate the struggles of a painter in New York; though slight, they are realistic and agreeable. Having made an exhaustive study of Mexico, he put his knowledge to good use in “The Aztec Treasure House: a Romance of Contemporaneous Antiquity” (1890), a successful romantic novel dealing with a legend of buried treasure and a story of wholesome flavour and sustained interest. He has also written “Stories of Old New Spain” (1895) and several others.

_Some New England Women._--Here may be grouped several gifted daughters of the Puritans, some of whom deserve more space than can be given them. Mrs. Jane Goodwin Austin (1831-94) wrote several readable historical romances of colonial New England. Among her works are “A Nameless Nobleman” (1881), “Dr. Le Baron and His Daughters” (1890), sequel to the first, “Standish of Standish” (1889), and “David Alden’s Daughter and Other Stories” (1892).

Mrs. Rose Terry Cooke (1827-92), a native of Connecticut, was known as a poet for many years before she began to write short stories. She published the following collections: “Happy Dodd” (1879), “Somebody’s Neighbours” (1881), “Root-Bound” (1885), “The Sphinx’s Children” (1886), and “Huckleberries Gathered from New England Hills” (1891). “The Deacon’s Week” (1884) may count as her best story. In all her stories the humours of New England Yankee character are set forth with vigour and relish. She wrote a single novel, “Steadfast, the Story of a Saint and a Sinner” (1889), dealing with early New England church life, and ranking much above the average novel.

Mrs. Annie Trumbull Slosson, likewise of Connecticut, has shown skill in dialect stories, of which “Fishin’ Jimmy” (1889), “Seven Dreamers” (1890), “The Heresy of Mehetabel Clark” (1892), and “Dumb Foxglove, and Other Stories” (1898) may be mentioned. The grotesque elements of New England life especially appeal to her.

Mrs. Clara Louise Burnham (born at Newton, Massachusetts, in 1854) has lived in Chicago since childhood, but is fond of locating her scenes in New England. She has written many stories, among them “No Gentleman” (1881), “A Sane Lunatic” (1882), “Dearly Bought” (1884), “Next Door” (1886), “Young Maids and Old” (1888), “Miss Bagg’s Secretary” (1892), “Dr. Latimer” (1893), “The Wise Woman” (1895), “A West Point Wooing” (1899), and “The Right Princess” (1902).

Alice Brown (born in New Hampshire in 1857), after teaching school for several years, devoted herself to literature, and is now a member of the staff of _The Youth’s Companion_. She has written “Fools of Nature” (1887), “Meadow-Grass” (1895), short tales of New England village life, “The Day of His Youth” (1897), a story of disillusionment, “Tiverton Tales” (1899), “King’s End” (1901), “Margaret Warrener” (1901), “The Mannerings” (1903), and “High Noon” (1904). Her stories are skilfully constructed, and she writes with commendable restraint and dignity.

_Mary E. Wilkins Freeman._--The more sombre and less attractive aspects of New England village and country life have been presented with great success in the numerous stories of Mary E. Wilkins (since 1902 Mrs. Charles M. Freeman). Born at Randolph, Massachusetts, in 1862, she was educated at Mt. Holyoke Seminary, South Hadley, Mass. Her stories include “The Adventures of Ann” (1886), “A Humble Romance” (1887), “A New England Nun, and Other Stories” (1891), “Jane Field” (1892), her first novel, “Pembroke” (1894), generally considered her greatest work, and distinguished for beauty of style and truthful and delicate character-drawing, “Madelon” (1896), “Jerome, a Poor Man” (1897), by some ranked higher than “Pembroke” in that it has a stronger central interest, “Silence and Other Stories” (1898), which includes some of her best work, especially “Evelina’s Garden,” one of her most artistic tales, “The Love of Parson Lord” (1900), “The Heart’s Highway” (1900), a historical romance of Virginia in 1682, “The Portion of Labour” (1901), “Understudies” (1901), “Six Trees” (1903), “The Wind in the Rose Bush” (1903), “The Givers,” eight stories (1904), and several magazine stories. Her place is easily in the first rank of those who have delineated New England life.

_Harold Frederic._--Harold Frederic (1856-98) wrote a number of realistic stories, chiefly of country life in New York. A native of Utica, in that State, he began his career as proof-reader; at twenty-six he was editor of the Albany _Evening Journal_, and in 1884 he took charge of the foreign bureau of the New York _Times_, with headquarters in London. “Seth’s Brother’s Wife” (1887), first published serially in _Scribner’s_, minutely describes the prosaic round of farming life and country journalism and elections. “The Lawton Girl” (1890) gives us the turmoil of a small manufacturing town. “In the Valley” (1890) is a Mohawk Dutchman’s story of the Revolutionary struggle. “The Copperhead, and Other Stories of the North” (1893) and “Marséna, and Other Stories” (1894) are collections of Civil War stories, vigorous and daring. His best stories are “The Damnation of Theron Ware” (1896, published in England as “Illumination”), an absorbing study of the intellectual career of an earnest but narrow young Methodist minister and of the struggle of two religious ideals in his life, and “The Market-Place” (1899), a thoroughgoing study of the London Stock Exchange. His untimely death cut short a career of notable achievement and great promise.

_Archibald Clavering Gunter._--Archibald Clavering Gunter (1847-1907), a native of Liverpool who became a California mining and civil engineer, chemist, and stock-broker, at forty began to write novels which violated most of the literary canons, but which in plot and incident were of absorbing interest. It was his avowed rule to make something happen in every five hundred words. This explains why a million copies of his first novel, “Mr. Barnes of New York” (1887), have been sold. He wrote thirty-nine novels in all, the best of which, in addition to his first, are “Mr. Potter of Texas” (1888), “That Frenchman” (1889), “Jack Curzon” (1899), and “A Manufacturer’s Daughter” (1901). He also became well known as a playwright.

_Octave Thanet._--Octave Thanet is the well known pen name of Alice French (born at Andover, Massachusetts, in 1850), who has achieved enviable success in her short stories of life in Iowa and Arkansas, a field in which she has few rivals. These stories include “Knitters in the Sun” (1887), “Expiation” (1890), vigorous, truly coloured, and accurate in details, “Stories of a Western Town” (1893), Iowa sketches, “The Missionary Sheriff” (1897), and “The Heart of Toil” (1898), full of the pathos of an unequal struggle with economic forces. Miss French writes sympathetically, with her eyes on the men and women who furnish her with characters.

_Margaret Deland._--One of the most popular of living novelists, and justly so, is Mrs. Margaret Deland. Born Margaretta Campbell, in 1857, in Manchester, now a part of Allegheny, Pennsylvania, then a village “of dignified houses, pleasant gardens, and meadows sloping to a picturesque river,” she was left an orphan at three and was cared for by an aunt. At sixteen, like Mrs. Foote, she entered a class in drawing and design in Cooper Institute, New York; she graduated at the head of her class, and won an appointment as instructor in design in the Girls’ Normal College, a post which she filled till 1880. Then she was married to Mr. Lorin F. Deland and went to Boston. Eight years later appeared her first novel, “John Ward, Preacher.” It is the story of the conflict of rigid Calvinism and modern liberalism, and it has been compared with Mrs. Ward’s “Robert Elsmere.” Two love-stories, one of which recalls Mrs. Gaskell’s “Cranford,” relieve the tragic gloom of the narrative. Ashurst is an idealised Manchester. In “Sidney” (1890) the author studies the question of the value of mortal sexual love; the problems of faith and doubt also recur. “The Story of a Child” (1892) delineates an uncontrolled imagination. “Mr. Tommy Dove, and Other Stories” (1893) is a collection including typical humour and pathos. “Philip and His Wife” (1894) has to do with an unhappy marriage. Her recent stories are “The Wisdom of Fools” (1898), “Old Chester Tales” (1899), “Dr. Lavendar’s People” (1904), and “The Awakening of Helena Richie” (1906). Big-hearted, shrewd Dr. Lavendar, who figures in her last two stories, is one of the most lovable characters in American fiction; and her latest books show a distinctly stronger grasp of life and greater narrative power.