A NOTABLE WORK.

In Mr. Cudahy’s remarkable book entitled The Pawns of Chance there are Sixteen Women who Did. Its sure success is prophesied on this account, for of the five novels that have made ten-strikes during the past year each has contained at least One Woman who Did, and in two instances Several.

And right here, before referring further to Mr. Cudahy’s book, I wish to place on file a modest word of protest concerning the modern sex novel.

Just now the stage and story-book seem to vie with one another in putting on parade the Men and Women who Did for the delectation of those who Have or May. The motif in all these books and plays is to depict the torturing emotions that wring and tear the hearts of these unhappy mortals. The Camp of Philistia does not boast that there are in it no People who Did, neither do we deny the reality of the heartaches and tears that come from unrequited love and affection placed not wisely. But from a somewhat limited experience in wordily affairs I arise to say that life does not consist entirely in these things, and furthermore that the importance given to the Folks who Have is quite out of proportion to their proper place with the procession. There are yet loves that are sweet and wholesome; there are still ambitions that are manly and strong. Let’s write and talk of these.

But still even in spite of a morbid plot and many incidents that are rather bluggy, Mr. Cudahy has produced a work that probably will outsell any of the other volumes issued by Chicago’s Enterprising Decadent Publishers. This book has a few positive virtues. Evidently it is a collaboration. I think the author has employed some exceptionally bright apprentices and like Dumas the Elder, Mr. Cudahy is to be congratulated on the rare discrimination shown in choosing his help. In literature, as in commerce or war, much depends on selecting one’s aides: every good general must be properly reinforced.

The prospectus of The Pawns of Chance describes the binding of the book as “a symphony in pig-skin.” And the volume is certainly very pleasing to the eye. The paper is hand-made—deckle edge; the illustrations and etchings on Japan paper; and the portrait of the author that serves as frontispiece is a genuine work of art.

The space in The Philistine at my disposal will not admit of an extended criticism, so I will briefly trace the plot, and make a few casual remarks on the more important situations, trusting that my readers will procure the work and each read for himself. For while its faults are many, yet there are here and there redeeming features, and in the moral at the close is a suggestion that is worth one’s while.

Now for the story:

James Hunks, known on the bills as Signor De June, was in 1875 proprietor of a Ballet Troupe. The corps de ballet consisted of sixteen ladies who were personally selected by Signor De June, and trained by him so that they performed some very wonderful terpsichorean evolutions. Eight of these women were blondes and eight brunettes. Surprising to state, none were over thirty and none under twenty years of age. But they were all Women who Did—that is to say, Ladies with a Past.

Not that they were selected on this account; indeed, Signor De June did not interest himself in their Experiences—he only wanted form and intellect—but mostly form. Yet a coryphee must have brains, else she could not learn to conduct her airy shape through the mazy evolutions of the dance.

But it came about by degrees that Signor De June learned that all of his ladies were Ladies with a History. And being a philosopher, he reasoned it out that the ballet was the only respectable calling that was open to a woman who had been the victim of misplaced love. Such is the bitter cruelty of a sham-virtuous society.

And thus on page 141 Signor De June muses as follows: “Had my ladies been possessed of homely faces and crusty manners, no temptation could have come to them, and they would all have lived and died virtuous maidens; or at best been the contented (or discontented) wives of farmers, molders, bricklayers or mill hands. But being loving and gracious and sympathetic and withal beautiful, they have been unfortunate. Furthermore no woman should ever speak of her virtue unless she hates her husband and loves another man.”

So Signor De June was very kind and gentle with these ladies—aye! tender. He loved them all; he guarded and shielded them from every fierce temptation. It was a pure paternal love—more properly Platonic. He only wished to make them happy—that was all.

They gave exhibitions in the principal cities of the United States and were everywhere successful. Occasionally a husband or a former lover of one of these Women who Did would appear upon the scene, and whenever this happened the Signor, who was a large man and ambi-dextrous, would take the offender neck and crop and throw him out. This always cooled the most amorous follower, but it kept Signor De June quite busy. Yet it must not be thought that the Signor was brutal—far from it: all were welcome to worship his ladies, but it must be done from the parquette or dress circle.

So they were all very prosperous and very happy, until one day the wife of Signor De June appeared and camped upon his trail. He had gotten an Indiana divorce from this woman five years before, but the courts had pronounced it invalid, and now she was upon him neck and crop, just as he had been upon the lovers and husbands. He tried to explain to her that he loved the Corps de Ballet, not the ladies individually. He loved them as a Whole, not singly. Moreover, his love was idyllic—Platonic. The wife explained that the thing did not exist except in books, and further stated her belief that the love was Plutonic if anything; and moreover it must cease.

No doubt the woman really loved Mr. Hunks. He, too, had a little regard for her, although they quarrelled. But he was essentially commercial—a man of peace. He had no stomach for a legal battle with his wife’s attorneys, who had taken the case on speculation, and he could not run away. The woman utterly refused to be bought off for a reasonable sum, and she also declined joining the Ballet herself, in spite of De June’s assertions that he could love seventeen as well as sixteen, for in love capacity increases through use.

“Try it for a month and you will see that it is Platonic,” said De June.

“I’ve no doubt I’d find it so,” said the wife.

She still was firm. He must choose between her and the Troupe. If he chose the Troupe he’d have her, like the poor, always with him. If he chose her alone she would still resemble the poverty stricken; but there would come times when vigilance might relax and he could slip a way.

But what to do with the Troupe! He could not throw these beautiful, susceptible women on a struggling, seething, wicked world. He could not put them on a farm, for who would look after, correct, discipline and restrain them as he had done? If allowed to scatter they would marry, and marriage according to civilized methods, so-called, was a failure; had he not tried it?

But De June was a man of resource (he was from Chicago). They were in Denver and women were scarce. He would select husbands for his ladies, himself.

He did so, choosing sixteen strong fine young miners. Calling the men out one side, he made known to them his plan. Each man was to have a wife on payment of the trifling fee of two hundred dollars “matriculation” (Sic). The men were delighted—but had the ladies been consulted? No, that was not necessary—there was to be a return to primitive methods, which indeed were ever best: civilization was artificial, unnatural and corrupt.

These sixteen ladies were all of fair intelligence, good hearted, able to work, willing to obey. More than that they had great capacity for loving, for had not this excess of love been their misfortune? The love only needed proper direction, like all of our other gifts.

The sixteen gentlemen that the philosophic De June selected were of fair intelligence, healthy and good natured, prosperous and all men of fine physique. There was no choice in the men; there was no choice in the women; they were on the same intellectual plane—they were well mated and De June would not defeat the God of Chance by allowing any personal selection. One man offered a thousand dollars for first choice, but Mr. Hunks was a man of honor and could not be bought.

The gentlemen were to be in the parquette. When the ladies appeared on the stage, at the word “Go” from De June, the sixteen men were to make a rush for the stage and each seize his future wife. All after the manner of the Romans who captured the Sabine women—and I guess the Roman Nation is not to be sneezed at! Cæsar, Antony, Brutus and all the rest of those honorable men were products of just such marriages.

The rush was made—the women screamed, some fainted, but each man held his prize. The electric lights were turned off, the audience got out as best it could. Then the doors were locked, the curtain dropped and Signor De June stepped forward and in gentle words assured the sixteen ladies that no harm should come to them. All had been arranged for the best. They must be good honest wives, and the men must be good honest husbands, and Mr. Hunks, being a Justice of the Peace, declared them all man and wife—that is sixteen wives and sixteen husbands.

The women, it must be confessed, had grown a trifle weary of the De June Idyllic Plan; and in the good old-fashioned womanly way, oft in the night season, each had confessed in her own heart, that one loving husband for each woman was what Nature intended. So they accepted the situation, and each began to use those winning ways that Herbert Spencer says are woman’s weapons: woman conquers through her intuition.

At a word from De June the women repaired to their dressing rooms and soon appeared in customary feminine attire. This time the ladies had to pick their mates, for the change in dress greatly mystified the hirsute miners. There was a slight scramble among the ladies when three of them selected the same man, but the Signor soon brought order out of chaos. This scene, which occurs in chapter XXXIII, is quite dramatic.

All being amicably settled De June gave each woman a chaste kiss on the cheek, shook hands with the grateful miners and went sorrowfully back (with his $3,200.00) to the hotel where his Mary Jane sat up awaiting him.

That night Mr. Hunks and his wife left for Chicago. There he went into real estate and was very successful. Having resolved to face his fate, he treated Mary Jane as gently as he could and she repaid it all in kindness. So things were really not so bad as the Signor had imagined.

Ten years passed and Mr. Hunks went back to Denver and found that the sixteen couples were living happily. Many little pledges had appeared to cement the bonds. All were content and perfectly mated, although several of the men were a bit henpecked—but a man soon gets used to such things. (See page 491, line 16). The women having had Experience were resolved to hold their new found mates with love’s own bonds; and the men fearing to lose such beautiful treasures were ever kind. There was a little doubt in the minds of all concerning De June’s commission as Justice of the Peace, and then certain requirements of the divorce courts had not been fully met, but these irregularities put all on their good behavior. For it is a fact that if a mortal knows that his mate cannot get away he is often severe and unreasonable.

And the curious part of all this is that the story is true. Mr. Cudahy protests it on his honor, and declares that these sixteen worthy couples laid the foundation for the elite of Denver society, and are now the leading lights in that beautiful city.

The story is somewhat marred by such ungrammatical expressions as “has came,” “shouldn’t ought,” etc. There are also a needless number of French and Latin phrases, culled from a lexicon I fear, and a striving after Latin derivatives. It is also a pity that more pains was not taken with the proof reading, as exasperating errors are on nearly every page. Still these are minor points.

In the last four chapters there is considerable symbolism, which one cannot but wish had been put in plain English. Like Zangwill’s The Master, the moral is left for the last. It is a little clouded, but I take it that Mr. Cudahy believes that civilization’s plan of selection is very faulty. He suggests indirectly that Congress should appoint Matrimonial Commissioners for each district—men of discretion, experience and judgment. The Commissioner is to select from society sixteen marriageable young women and place them in a room, and then take a like number of young men and let them make a rush, and this, says Mr. Cudahy, would doubtless do away with many of our matrimonial misfits.

Lovers of literature will look anxiously for Mr. Cudahy’s next book, and in the meantime I am sure that the Young Decadents will reap a rich harvest from The Pawns of Chance. I am in receipt of a letter from the distinguished author wherein he says that he is positively declining all invitations to lecture in the provinces, but that he may appear late in the season in a few of our principal cities.

It may interest the Philistines to know that R. G. Dun & Co. rate Mr. Cudahy Z Z xxx 1, while Hobart Chatfield-Chatfield Taylor is only Y x 2 3·4 and Mrs. Reginald De Koven ranks K x 4. At the present moment I can recall but two residents of Grub Street who have ratings so high as Mr. Cudahy, these being William Waldorf Astor and Walter Blackburn Harte.

Elbert Hubbard.