The Gold of Chickaree

Excerpt

“It is said to criticise The Gold of Chickaree, or stories like it,
without making use of such violent methods as excite the scorn of
those who criticise the critics.  They say mere denunciation is of no
service and should never be employed; as if there were not too
many books already without truth or beauty, which cry aloud for
some one to point out in print, as every one does in conversation,
their utter worthlessness. The Gold of Chickaree is a continuation
of Wych Hazel, and the two stories are as much alike as two
halves of a slate pencil.  Wych Hazel herself is rich and
insufferably pert; her lover, Rollo, Dane, Duke, or Olaf, as he is
called indifferently, is rich and in his ways ‘masterful.’  The earlier
novel ends with the engagement of these two, and here is
described their sudden marriage, which they forebore announcing
even to their guests at dinner, who were unexpectedly delighted by
witnessing this wedding later in the evening.  This is a capital
notion for entertaining company, and far superior to music,
singing, or charades.  The other incidents of the novel are of the
flimsiest sort; round dancing and the theatre come in for intolerant
abuse.  All the poor people get Christmas presents, and one son of
Belial, who is anxious to run away with his neighbors wife, is
bought off for thirty thousand dollars, a mere bagatelle in this
moral Monte Christo.  For the same sum of money it might have
been possible to close a theatre for a winter or to bribe penniless
young men to give up dancing a dozen Germans.  Besides their
lavish extravagance, the most noteworthy thing about the people is
their morbid self-consciousness; they are never at their ease; they
are forever trying to impress one another with their own brilliant
wit.  It is a poor story.”