theatre-goers, and the
Salvationists sing before the saloon on the corner. In four pages he
reproduces the life in a by-street of a great city, the little
tragedy of the small shopkeeper. There are many ways of handling
environment--most of them bad. When a young author has very little
to say and no story worth telling, he resorts to environment. It is
frequently used to disguise a weakness of structure, as ladies who
paint landscapes put their cows knee-deep in water to conceal the
defective drawing of the legs. But such description as one meets
throughout Mr. Norris' book is in itself convincing proof of power,
imagination and literary skill. It is a positive and active force,
stimulating the reader's imagination, giving him an actual command,
a realizing sense of this world into which he is suddenly
transplanted. It gives to the book perspective, atmosphere, effects
of time and distance, creates the illusion of life. This power of
mature, and accurate and comprehensive description is very unusual
among the younger American writers. Most of them observe the world
through a temperament, and are more occupied with their medium than
the objects they see. And temperament is a glass which distorts most
astonishingly. But this young man sees with a clear eye, and
reproduces with a touch firm and decisive, strong almost to
brutalness. Yet this hand that can depict so powerfully the brute
strength and brute passions of a "McTeague," can deal very finely
and adroitly with the feminine element of his story. This is his
portrait of the little Swiss girl, "Trina," whom the dentist
marries:

"Trina was very small and prettily made. Her face was round
and rather pale; her eyes long and narrow and blue, like the
half-opened eyes of a baby; her lips and the lobes of her
tiny ears were pale, a little suggestive of anaemia. But it
was to her hair that one's attention was most attracted.
Heaps and heaps of blue-black coils and braids, a royal
crown of swarthy bands, a veritable sable tiara, heavy,
abundant and odorous. All the vitality that should have
given color to her face seemed to have been absorbed by that
marvelous hair: It was the coiffure of a queen that shadowed
the temples of this little bourgeoise."

The tragedy of the story dates from a chance, a seeming stroke of
good fortune, one of those terrible gifts of the Danai. A few weeks
before her marriage "Trina" drew $5 000 from