human
Blix. Last winter that brilliant young Californian, Mr. Norris, published a remarkable and gloomy novel,
gpt
McTeague, a book deep in insight, rich in promise and splendid in execution, but entirely without charm and as disagreeable as only a great piece of work can be. And now this gentleman, who is not yet thirty, turns around and gives us an idyll that sings through one's brain like a summer wind and makes one feel young enough to commit all manner of indiscretions. It may be that Mr. Norris is desirous of showing us his versatility and that he can follow any suit, or it may have been a process of reaction. I believe it was after M. Zola had completed one of his greatest and darkest novels of Parisian life that he went down to the seaside and wrote
human
La Reve, a book that every girl should read when she is eighteen, and then again when she is eighty. Powerful and solidly built as
gpt
McTeague is, one felt that there method was carried almost too far, that Mr. Norris was too consciously influenced by his French masters. But
human
Blix belongs to no school whatever, and there is not a shadow of pedantry or pride of craft in it from cover to cover.
gpt
Blix herself is the method, the motives and the aim of the book. The story is an exhalation of youth and spring; it is the work of a man who breaks loose and forgets himself. Mr. Norris was married only last summer, and the march from
human
Lohengrin is simply sticking out all over
gpt
Blix. It is the story of a San Francisco newspaper man and a girl. The newspaper man
human
in fiction, so to speak, in the drawing room of Mr. Richard Harding Davis, and has languished under that gentleman's chaperonage until he has come to be regarded as a fellow careful of nothing but his toilet and his dinner. Mr. Davis' reporters all bathed regularly and all ate nice things, but beyond that their tastes were rather colorless. I am glad to see one red-blooded newspaper man, in the person of
gpt
Landy Rivers, of San Francisco, break into fiction; a real live reporter with no sentimental loyalty for his
human
and no Byronic poses about his vices, and no astonishing taste about his clothes, and no money whatever, which is the natural and normal condition of all reporters.
gpt
Blix herself was just a society girl, and
human
Landy took her to theatres and parties and tried to make himself believe he was in love with her. But it wouldn't work, for
gpt
Landy couldn't love a society girl, not though she were as beautiful as the morning and terrible as an army with banners, and had
human
and
gpt
For while
human
Landy Rivers was at college he had been seized with the penchant for writing short stories, and had worshiped at the shrines of Maupassant and Kipling, and when a man is craft mad enough to worship Maupassant truly and know him well, when he has that tingling for technique in his fingers, not Aphrodite herself, new risen from the waves, could tempt him into any world where craft was not lord and king. So it happened that their real love affair never began until one morning when
gpt
Landy had to go down to the wharf to write up a whaleback, and
human
Blix went along, and an old sailor told them a story and
gpt
Blix recognized the literary possibilities of it, and they had lunch in a Chinese restaurant, and
human
Landy because he was a newspaper man and it was the end of the week, didn't have any change about his clothes, and
gpt
Blix had to pay the bill. And it was in that green old tea house that
human
Landy read
gpt
Blix one of his favorite yarns by Kipling, and she in a calm, off-handed way, recognized one of the fine, technical points in it, and
human
Landy almost went to pieces for joy of her doing it. That scene in the Chinese restaurant is one of the prettiest bits of color you'll find to rest your eyes upon, and mighty good writing it is. I wonder, though if when Mr. Norris adroitly mentioned the
gpt
of the banjo
human
Landy played, he remembered the
gpt
of Keats? After that, things went on as such things will, and
human
Blix quit the society racket and went to queer places with
gpt
Landy, and got interested in his work, and she broke him of wearing red neckties and playing poker, and she made him work, she did, for she grew to realize how much that meant to him, and she jacked him up when he didn't work, and she suggested an ending for one of his stories that was better than his own; just this big, splendid girl, who had never gone to college to learn how to write novels. And so how, in the name of goodness, could he help loving her? So one morning down by the Pacific, with
human
Blix and
gpt
The Seven Seas, it all came over
human
Landy, that