No, not so far as we can see; not to amount to anything-except maybe Griz's feelings." "And what about Mrs. Hiram's feelings?" Jonathan laughed aloud. "I was inside with Kit, and she called out to know if she could help." "And what did you say?". Did "So that was why she came back? you really say, 'Not on your life!' or did you only imply it in your tone, while you actually said, 'No, thank you very much '?" "I really said it. At least, I don't remember conversations the way you do, but I didn't feel a bit like thanking anybody, and I don't believe I did." "Well, I wish I'd heard you. One misses a good deal-” "You can see the stable to-morrow. That'll keep. They must have had a time of it! The walls are marked and splintered as high as I can reach. And I don't believe Kit'll cringe when Griz passes her any After that the two did get along peaceably enough, and Jonathan assured me that all horses had these little affairs. One day we drove over to the main street of the village, on an errand. "Will she stand?" I questioned. "Better hitch her, perhaps," said Jonathan, getting out the rope. He snapped it into her bit-ring, then threw the other end around the post, and started to make a halfhitch. But as he drew up the rope it was suddenly jerked out of his hand. He looked up, and saw Griselda's patient head waving high above him on the end of an erect and rebellious neck, the hitch-rope waggling in loops and spirals in the air, and the whole outfit backing away from him with speed and decision. He was so astonished that he did nothing, and in a moment Griz had stopped backing and stood still, her head sagging gently, the rope dangling. "Well I'll-be-" I didn't try to remember just what Jonathan said he would be, because it doesn't really matter. We FREE PUBLIC LIBRAKE SAXTA ROSA, CAL 385 both stared at Griz as if we had never seen her before. Griz looked at nothing in particular; she blinked long lashes over drowsy dark eyes and sagged one hip. "She's trying to make believe she didn't do it, but she did," I said. 66 Something must have startled her," said Jonathan, peering up and down the deserted. street. Two roosters were crowing antiphonally in near-by yards, and a dog was barking somewhere afar off. "What?" I said. "You never can tell with a horse." "No, apparently not," I said, smiling to myself; and I added hastily, as I saw Jonathan go forward to her head: Don't try it again, please! I'll stay by her while you go. in. Please!" For I had detected on Jonathan's face a look that I very well knew. It was the same expression he had worn that Sunday he led the calf to pasture. He made no answer, but stood examining the hitch-rope. "No use," he said, quietly releasing it and tossing its coil into the carriage. "It's too rotten. If it snapped, she'd be ruined." I breathed freer. I privately hoped that all the hitch-ropes at the farm were rotten. "Griz stands perfectly well without hitching," I said, as we drove home. "Why do you force an issue ?" "I didn't. She did. She's beaten me. If I don't hitch her now, she'll know she's master." "Oh, dear!" I sighed. "Let her be Where's the harm? It's just your master! vanity." "Perhaps so," said Jonathan. When he agrees with me like that, I know it's hopeless. The next night he wheeled in at the big gate bearing about his shoulders a coil of heavy rope. "It looks like a ship's cable," I said. "Yes," he responded, leaning his bicycle against his side and swinging the coil over his head. "I want it for mooring purposes. Think it'll moor Griz?" "Jonathan !" I exclaimed. "You won't!" "Watch me," said Jonathan, and he proceeded to explain to me the working of the tackle. One end had a ring in it, and, as nearly as I remember, the plan was to put the rope around her body, under what would be her armpits if she had armpits a horse's joints are never called what one would expect, of course-run the end through the ring, then forward between her legs and through the bit-ring. "Then, when she sets back, it cuts her in two," he concluded, cheerfully. "But you don't want her in two," I protested. "She won't set back," he responded; "at least, not more than once. To-morrow's Sunday; I'll have to hitch her at church." I hoped it would rain, so we needn't go; but we were having a drought, and the morning dawned cloudless. We reached the church just on the last stroke of the bell. The women were all within; the men and boys lounging in the vestibule were turning reluctant feet to follow them. "You go right in," said Jonathan ; "I'll be in soon." I turned to protest, but he was already driving round to the side, and a hush had fallen over the congregation within that made it embarrassing to call. Besides, one of the deacons stood holding open the door for me. I slipped into a pew near the back, with the apologetic feeling one often has in an old country church—a feeling that one is making the ghosts move along a little. They did move, of course-probably ghosts are always polite when one really meets them—and I sat down. Indeed, I was thinking very little of ghosts that day, or of the minister either. My ears were cocked to catch and interpret all the noises that came in through the open windows on my left. My eyes wandered in that direction, too, though the clear panes revealed nothing more exciting than flickering maple leaves and a sky filmed over by veils of cloud. The moralists tell us that what we get out of any experience depends upon what we bring to it. What I brought to it that morning was a mind agog, attuned to receive these expected outside sounds. To all such sounds the service within was merely a background-a background which didn't know its place, since it kept pushing itself more or less importunately into the foreground. I sat there, of course, with perfect propriety of demeanor, but my reactions were something like this: rather high and uneven. I think I could make out Jonathan's through the loopholes in it. . . . There! What was that, I wonder? Sounded like shouting-oh, why can't he talk softly! 'Let us unite in prayer.' Ah! now we'll have a long quiet time, anyway! If only he wouldn't pray quite so loud! Why pray aloud at all, anyway? I like the Quaker way best: a good long strip of silence, where your thoughts can wash around in any fashion that— There! No— yes-no-it's just people going by on the road. . . . Maybe he's in the back of the church now, waiting for the close of the prayer. Seem's as if I had to look.. Well, he isn't. 'For thy name's sake. Amen.' And then the collection, with an organ voluntary the while now, why an organ voluntary? Why not leave people to their thoughts some of the time? And at last, the sermon: "The text to which I wish to call your attention this morning" My attention, forsooth My attention was otherwise occupied. Ah! A puff of warm, sweet air from behind me and the soft, padding noise of the swinging doors apprised me of an incomer. A cautious tread in the aisle-I moved along a little to make room. In a city church probably I should have thrown propriety to the winds and had the gist of the story out of him at once; but in a country church there are always such listening spaces, the very pew-backs and cushions seem attentive, the hymnals creak in their racks, and the little stools cry out nervously when one barely touches them. It was too much for me. I was coerced into an outer semblance of decorum. However, I snatched a hasty glance at Jonathan's face. It was quite red and hot-looking, but calm, very calm. I judged it to be the calm, not of defeat nor yet of settled militancy, but of triumph. I thought I detected the flicker of a grin—the mere atmospheric suggestion of a grin, as if he felt the urgent if furtive appeal in my glance. At any rate, Jonathan was all right; that was clear. And as to Griz-whether she was still one mare or two half-mares-it didn't so much matter. And now for the sermon ! I gathered myself together to attend. As we stood up for the last hymn, I whispered, "How did it go?" "All right. She's hitched," was the answer. After church there was the usual stir of sociability, and when I emerged into the glare of the church steps I saw Jonathan driving slowly around from the rear. Griz walked meekly; her head sagged, her eyes blinked. "Good quiet little horse you've got there," said a deacon over my shoulder; "don't get restless standing, the way some horses do." Yes, she's very quiet," I said. I got in, and at last, as we drove off, the flood-gates of my impatience broke. "Well ?" I said. "Well ?" Jonathan, you drive me distracted! You have no more sense for a story-" "But there was nothing in particular-" "Now, Jonathan, if there was nothing in particular, why didn't you get into church till the sermon was begun, and why were you so red and hot?" Jonathan smiled indulgently. "Why, of course she didn't care about being hitched. I thought you knew that. But it was perfectly easy." And that was about all I could extract by the most artful questions. I took my revenge by telling Jonathan the deacon's compliment to Griz. "He said she didn't get restless standing, the way so many horses did. I thought of mentioning that you were a rather good judge of horses, in an amateur way, but C then I thought it might seem like boasting, so I didn't." After that, of course, I didn't really deserve to hear the whole story, but the next night I happened to be in the hammock while Jonathan was talking to a neighbor at the front gate, and he was relating the incident with detail enough to have satisfied the most exacting gossip. Only thus did I learn that Bill Howard, who had wound the rope twice round the post to give himself a little leeway,. was drawn right up to the post when she set back; that they had been afraid the headstall would tear off; that they had been rather nervous about the post, and other such little points, which I had not been clever enough to elicit by my questions. Now why? Probably a man likes to tell a story when he likes to tell it. I find myself wondering how much Odysseus told Penelope about his adventures when she got him to herself for a good talk. Is it significant that his really long story was told to the King of the Phæacians ? As to Griz, it would perhaps not be worth while to recount her subsequent history. It was a curious one, consisting in long stretches of continuous and ostentatious meekness, broken by sudden flare-ups which, after their occurrence, always seemed incredible. She never again "set back when Jonathan was the one to hitch her, but this was a concession made to him personally, and had no effect on her general habits. We talked of changing her name, but could never manage it. We thought of selling her, but she was too valuable-most of the time. And when we finally parted from her our relief was deeply tinged with regret. I have sometimes wondered whether such flare-ups were not the natural and necessary means of recuperation from such depths of meekness. I have even wondered whether the original Griselda may not have-but this is not a dissertation on early Italian poetry, nor on the nature of women. SOME RECENT FICTION The novels of the past few months do not furnish material for those interesting and often misleading generalizations in which critics are tempted to indulge. In this crisis in the affairs of the world many stories are pervaded by a very serious spirit; many others, however, are simply entertaining. The old moralities are defined afresh by more than one novelist of ability, and absolute ignorance and disregard of the old moralities is taken for granted in stories from another group. It is wiser, therefore, to let each novel stand or fall by its own merits and to refrain from either prediction or general characterization. For, after all, novels are like nations; they are not all of one kind; they are as individual as the writers; and to speak of them as a whole is as misleading as to say that all Americans are open-minded, all Frenchmen frivolous, and all Italians lovers of beauty. Hugh Paret1 is the son of an eminent lawyer of austere probity and rigid orthodoxy in religious faith and professional conduct. Between him and his imaginative son there is mutual respect, but very little mutual understanding. The boy goes to Harvard, becomes interested in literature through his association with an unconventional but stimulating teacher whose personality suggests a wellknown name, is fairly industrious, is held back from dissipation more by good taste and home teaching than by moral convictions, studies law, and enters the office of an able and attractive lawyer in a city which is in the near future to breed millionaires by the score and to furnish a free field for the exploitation of lawless business and of that interlocking of this kind of business and that kind of politics which is called practical to distinguish it from service of the public. Hugh is capable, flexible, agreeable; under favoring circumstances he would have remained honorable, but conditions are not favorable, and he lacked the clear-sightedness and moral vigor which would have enabled him to resist the powerful and insidious tendency to sacrifice integrity to success. He becomes the servant of men who manipulate legislation in the interest of vast business enterprises, and who justify their methods on A Far Country. By Winston Churchill. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50 the ground that the character of politicians makes bribery necessary, that prosperity means the good of the nation, and that able men have a right to manage affairs to fit their own ends because nature and capacity for work have put affairs in their hands. The methods of combination, exclusion, and silence which were possible ten years ago and the ways of persuading legislators and judges are described in great detail; at times in too great detail for the rapid movement of the story. Hugh does not set out for the far country, nor does he go there at once; he makes the journey slowly and does not see clearly whither he is going. He remains a conventionally respectable lawyer, rapidly making a brilliant career and a great fortune; he builds a great house, he is on his way to the United States Senate; but he is paying the price and the far country has become the near country. His wife, who has striven in vain to clear his vision, and his children are entirely outside his real interests; religion has gone, the capacity for enjoyment has been atrophied; he is on the point of the last and gravest moral disaster, when he awakens and finds himself living on husks, a stranger to himself in a far country. The story is told without hysteria, as quietly as if. it were a narrative of fact. It is, of course, fiction, but it is the history of thousands of so-called successful men. Its art lies in the clearness with which the gradual descent is traced, and in the relentless working out of the moral problem in the deterioration of the man's whole nature. The price he paid is calculated to the last dollar, and no man who goes Hugh's way to success ever escapes full payment of that price he pays as he goes. "The Far Country" graphically shows the peril to the soul from which this country has escaped, and is a luminous explanation of the popular uprising of the last ten years. It is by no means a faultless story. The characters are less clearly drawn than in " Coniston," and are, in a way, submerged in the movement of the story. But, with something of the quality of Balzac's "César Birotteau," "A Far Country" is a vivid and highly vitalized study of a critical period in American politics and business. Mr. Hewlett's "Lovers' Tale" is a suc A Lovers' Tale. By Maurice Hewlett. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.25. cessful venture in literature; it has no relation to the life of to-day; it expounds no point of view and enforces no moral; it is a Norse saga humanized and made coherent and intelligible by a novelist of imagination, experience, and artistic feeling. There is plenty of the primitive Norse daring and force in it; there are hot blood and stern fighting in it; but it is more than a mere recital of incident, it is a striking study of temperament. Cormac, the lover, has the directness of his race and age; he goes to his goal with primitive singleness of aim; for the moment there is no one in the world for him but Stangerd, Thorkel's daughter, a big, fair woman of sluggish blood but not unresponsive to a lover who is a poet and boldly celebrates her in the ears of the world. For Cormac is a poet as well as a Viking, and therein lies the tragedy. He is arrested by an inward impulse at the very moment when his love is on the point of passing out of the region of idealization into an every-day relationship. He can neither take Stangerd wholly to himself nor can he suffer another to take her; he changes unaccountably from the radiant mood in which the whole world sings in his ardent improvisations to the dark, sullen mood which sends him lonely and baffled into solitude. The problem is an old one and has often been stated in terms of sophistication and with the subtlety of the psychologist; Mr. Hewlett presents it in terms of almost savage simplicity. It is a very plain tale told with beautiful skill. Monsignor Benson was a cultivated and devout man; a son of Archbishop Benson and a brother of Mr. Edward F. Benson, the author of " Dodo," and of Mr. Arthur C. Benson, of Magdalen College, Cambridge, whose thoughtful essays have found many readers in this country. Father Benson's conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1903 is described in a frank and tender biography by his brother ("Hugh: Memoirs of a Brother," by A. C. Benson, Dodd, Mead & Co.). He was a man of great purity of nature and energy of temperament, a tireless worker and a stout and at times aggressive defender of his convictions. He was an earnest and popular preacher and was heard many times in this country. His literary work was incidental to his active duties as a priest, but it was done with care, skill, and a fine idealism. In aim and quality it stands in high contrast with much of the fiction of the day. It is stamped by refinement, breeding, restraint; the character studies are full of delicate strokes; the style has a kind of distinction very grateful in an age of careless writing. Although Father Benson's novels were the work of a busy man, they carry the sense of ripe culture and of a leisure enriched by association with life and literature. His semihistorical novels, of which "Odds-Fish" is a good example, were written in a minute rather than a broad style. "Loneliness "1 tells the story of a woman of brilliant promise as a singer who, on the eve of marriage with a Protestant, suddenly loses her voice. Like Initiation," it is a story of renunciation as a preparation for return to the Roman communion. Father Benson's novels were not written as contributions to fiction or literature; they were frankly expositions of the Roman faith and as definitely dogmatic in intention as were his sermons. This purpose diminishes their importance and blurs their beauty as works of art. Unlike most con verts of his breeding, Father Benson was often bitter in his comments on the faith and associations from which he had separated himself. His prejudices impaired his insight. "It is not unjust," writes his brother, "to resent the appearance of the cultivated and sensitive Anglican, highly bred and graceful, who is sure to turn out hard and hollowhearted, or the shabby, trotting, tobaccoscented Roman Catholic priest, who is going to emerge at a crisis as a man of inspired dignity and solemnity." There is no reason why a novel should not end in the Roman Catholic Church, or in any other church, but it must be as the inevitable development of a character and not as a calculated means of preaching church doctrines. A group of young English novelists are awakening a good deal of interest and are receiving an unusually prompt recognition from the critics and the reading public. This group in point of time comes just behind Messrs. Wells, Bennett, Galsworthy, and Locke, and registers, on the whole, a radical advance in the direction of minute realism. A recent volume from a member of this group which has appeared in this country is "The Invisible Event," 2 a study of a man and a woman made with great minuteness and presenting two diverse types of character in sharp if not in bold contrast. Jacob Stahl, the hero, if he can be called 'Loneliness. By Robert Hugh Benson. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $1.25. The Invisible Event. By J. D. Beresford. The George H. Doran Company, New York. $1.35. |