A Psychological Counter-Current in Recent FictionHowells, William Dean
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A Psychological Counter-Current in Recent Fiction
Howells, William Dean
Authors, American; Fiction; Literature -- Criticism and interpretation
This is mighty well said, and the like things that are said of
Petrina's sister-in-law, who has married an English title, are mighty
well, too. "She had inherited a countenance whose expression was like
the light which lingers in the sky long after sunset--the light of some
ancestral fire gone out. If in her face there were prayers, they had
been said by Pepperells and Vassalls now sleeping in Massachusetts
churchyards. If in her voice there were tears, they had been shed by
those who would weep no more. She mirrored the emotions she had never
felt; and all that was left of joys and sorrows and spiritual
aspirations which had once thrilled human hearts was in that plaintive
echo they had given to this woman's tone, and the light of petition
they had left burning in her eyes."
No one who reads such passages can deny that the author of "Let Not Man
Put Asunder" can think subtly as well as say clearly, and the book
abounds in proofs of his ability to portray human nature in its lighter
aspects. Lady de Bohun, with her pathetic face, is a most amusing
creature, with all her tragedy, and she is on the whole the most
perfectly characterized personality in the story. The author gives you
a real sense of her beauty, her grace, her being always charmingly in a
hurry and always late. The greatest scene is hers: the scene in which
she meets her divorced husband with his second wife. One may suspect
some of the other scenes, but one must accept that scene as one of
genuine dramatic worth. Too much of the drama in the book is theatre
rather than drama, and yet the author's gift is essentially dramatic.
He knows how to tell a story on his stage that holds you to the fall of
the curtain, and makes you almost patient of the muted violins and the
limelight of the closing scene. Such things, you say, do not happen in
Brookline, Mass., whatever happens in London or in English country
houses; and yet the people have at one time or other convinced you of
their verity. Of the things that are not natural, you feel like saying
that they are supernatural rather than unnatural, and you own that at
its worst the book is worth while in a time when most novels are not
worth while.
Footnotes
"The Right of Way." A Novel. By Gilbert Parker. Harper & Brothers.
"The Ruling Passion. Tales of nature and human nature." By Henry Van
Dyke. Charles Scribner's Sons.
"Spoils and Stratagems Stories of love and politics." By Wm. Allen
White. Charles Scribner's Sons.
"Foma Gordyeeff." By Maxim Gorky. Translated from the Russian by
Isabel F. Hapgood. Charles Scribner's Sons.
"Circumstances." By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D. The Century Company.
"A Japanese Nightingale." By Onoto Watana. Harper & Brothers.
"The Marrow of Tradition." By Charles W. Chesnutt. Houghton, Mifflin
& Co.
"Lay Down Your Arms. The autobiography of Martha von Tilling." By
Bertha von Suttner. Authorized Translation. By T. Holmes. Longmans,
Green & Co.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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