Rev. of A Mountain Woman
by Elia W. Peattie
"A Mountain Woman"
By Elia W. Peattie. Stone & Kimball.
The Critic 29
(8 Aug. 1896): 88
Page 88
"A Mountain Woman"
By Elia W. Peattie. Stone & Kimball.THE SCIENCE of leaving out, and leaving off when one is through, seems to be as difficult for story-writers to master as for the good old brethren who speak in "experience meetings." Of the distinguished few who have mastered this delicate art, and given us the short story in the quintessence of its perfection, highest rank has been taken by Poe, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Stockton, "Adirondack" Murray, Mary Wilkins, Richard Harding Davis, Ian Maclaren and Barrie; and now comes a woman, from the land of wheat and prairie blossoms, who has shown herself worthy to be ranked with our very best short-story writers. Mrs. Peattie's sketches are republished from several magazines and, in this case, we are thankful for the re-collection.
The first tale, which gives its name to the book, is realistic in a sense that would redeem that term from all its stigma, were Mrs. Peattie's methods adopted by the trivial detailer of commonplaces who dignifies his platitudes by the name of realism. There is fine local color in "A Mountain Woman," as in all these stories, and many a man or woman has duplicated the experiences of the heroine who could not live without the messages from the mountains she had known from her birth. The insight and outsight displayed in the author's study of character in this book are marvellous. Especially fine is the lifelike photographing of "The Three Johns," which is a little gem alone worth the price of the book. The author of these sketches is something more than clever; she is rarely endowed with a fine, subtle sympathy, that blends with all her thinking and announces her belief in the common kinship of all mankind. The twin qualities of pathos and humor are in evidence from the first chapter to the last. When one adds to these characteristics a keen instinct for the "inevitable phrase," and a spicy originality, one understands why and how Mrs. Peattie has succeeded in making a really notable addition to American literature.
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