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In 'Louisiana' Frances Hodgson Burnett returns to her favorite scheme of idealizing the lower ten, not having made a marked success of her temporary aberration 'Haworth's,' in which there was only an attempt at the unconventional marriage so dear to her heart. It must be admitted that she is at her best in her ingeniously varied versions of the story of Cinderella, and loses something of the dramatic force which characterizes these when she essays representation of any of the facts of life. Louisiana is a beautiful young girl whose life in North Carolina has been simple and placid until she meets Mr. Lawrence Ferrol, a highly-cultivated literary man from New York. She has never heard of Ruskin, or John Stuart Mill, or 'The Scarlet Letter,' or Worth; about Michael Angelo she is not sure, but is ignorant of "what he did." Nevertheless, after a complication, in which Mr. Ferrol unwittingly affronts her by laughing at her father, who is an ultra North Carolina rustic with quaint ideas of grammar and homely notions about the fine-arts, she becomes Mrs. Ferrol and a great success in New York society. This last circumstance is, of course, told briefly, not portrayed. Burnett is wise in always stopping as soon as her heroine is married, instead of attempting to interest us in the wedded bliss of educated men and beauties ignorant of etiquette, though possessed of noble natures and quick intelligences. She creates her own material and handles it very ably; the dialect, and indeed the characterization of Louisiana's father, are excellent; the affection of the two is delightfully exhibited, and there is much real pathos in the story. One of the advantages of a story written from Burnett's point of view is that one can be comfortably thrilled by its pathos, undisturbed by the distressing reflection that it has any typical significance.
And our other story...
'The Pretty Sister of José' is delightfully written; and the bull-fight scenes, especially the last, are pieces of genuinely graphic description.
As simple and unassuming as the story is, it is nonetheless as artistic as anything which its distinguished author has written.
It is altogether a vivid, bewitching, tropical little story, and one which leaves in one's memory a fragrance as of the flowers of the far South. It shines among modern stories like a scarlet-plumed tanager among sober sparrows and linnets. Too many such tales might dazzle and weary, but an occasional one, like this one can brighten the day.
