Читать книгу The Women Who Make Our Novels онлайн

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Published by George H. Doran Company, New York, except the following, which are published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston: The After House, The Street of Seven Stars, K., Through Glacier Park, Tish, The Altar of Freedom, Long Live the King! and Tenting To-Night.

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“MRS. NORRIS,” explains William Dean Howells, “puts the problem, or the fact, or the trait before you by quick, vivid touches of portraiture or action. If she lacks the final touch of Frank Norris’s power, she has the compensating gift of a more controlled and concentrated observation. She has the secret of closely adding detail to detail in a triumph of what another California author has called Littleism, but what seems to be nature’s way of achieving Largeism.”

Of course, this is the method of Kathleen Norris, the method in her madness, to use the word madness in its old sense of being possessed by something. What is Mrs. Norris possessed by? Why, the irresistible impulse to put things before you and make you consider whether they should be so. H’m, a preacher might do that. Well, had most preachers the presentative skill of Kathleen Norris there would be ticket speculators on the sidewalks in front of their tabernacles!