RECENT FICTION.
Our books of short stories this season show a higher average than the novels. The short story used to be considered the more difficult test of an author's power; but it was only necessary after all to catch a trick of condensation, and it was much the easier art, as a quatrain or song is easier than an ode, once the elementary fault of diffuseness is conquered. Nowadays, more writers of good short stories than of good novels are to be found.
Foremost among those before us for review is T. B. Aldrich's Two Bites at a Cherry,[1]—half a dozen most readable and refined little stories, ranging from grave to gay in topic; but however grave, never without the light, fine touch by which Mr. Aldrich holds himself above altogether giving up to the pathos he suggests. One must read these stories over more than once to appreciate how clear and nice is the workmanship; and yet if one does this, he realizes that the flavor is evanescent, for like others of Mr. Aldrich's tales, they depend on a surprise at the end for their effect, and that is spoiled after the first reading. Most of the stories, if not all, have been in magazines before being collected into this book.
The latest collection of Miss Jewett's stories goes farther afield than many of her books. There are two Irish stories and the scene of another is mostly set in St. Augustine,—a sailor tale, on the same strain that Mrs. Phelps Ward touches in "A Madonna of the Tubs" and similar stories. Miss Jewett's is more true to life, it seems, than Mrs. Ward's and its pathos is certainly less evidently sought. The name story is a touching sketch of a prosperous politician and an old-time school sweetheart, who, cooped up in her little native hamlet, yet follows his career and in intellectual matters keeps herself the peer of this senator and man of the world. "Decoration Day" is a pretty story of the veteran of thirty years after the war; and "The Flight of Betsy Lane" is a narrative of a little woman who goes from a poorhouse to the Centennial. But it is unnecessary to tell the charm of each of Miss Jewett's stories, they are her stories and in her best vein, and that is enough for the discerning reader to know.[2]
A book of short stories, absolutely new in its field to most American readers,—unless indeed they go back far enough into childhood days to recall Jack the Giant-killer and his honest Cornish giants,—is The Delectable Duchy.[3] The tales have more of variety than Miss Jewett's and yet they fill much the same field. They tell of the honest poor, but with a touch of the ancient folk lore that is charming and foreign to Miss Jewett's work. There is broad fun in the Irish St. Piran legends, touching pathos in "The Conspiracy Aboard the Midas" and "Mr. Punch's Understudy." "The Paupers" might have been written by Miss Jewett herself so close and sympathetic is its study into the feelings of the old couple on their way to the poorhouse, and the little final touch where the poor old people walk beyond the gate, that the man in the cart may not see them enter, is exquisite. In this story is shown strikingly the difference between the old country poverty and that of even the oldest and most barren parts of America. Country people here go to the poorhouse some-
- ↑ Two Bites at a Cherry. By T. B. Aldrich. Boston: Houghton, Mfflin, & Co.: 1893.
- ↑ A Native of Winby. By Sarah Orne Jewett. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.: 1893.
- ↑ The Delectable Duchy. By Q. New York: Macmillan & Co.: 1893.
