Publisher's Synopsis
Penelope's Suitors.In a daintily prepared and printed little brochure containing only about 7,000 words Mr. Bynner tells in charming style a charming story of very early Colonial times in New England. His romance is founded on this fact briefly noted in the second volume of Winthrop's History: "The Governor, Mr. Bellingham, was married. The young gentlewoman was ready to be contracted to a friend of his who lodged in his house and by his consent had proceeded so far with her, when, on the sudden, the Governor treated with her and obtained her for himself. He excused it by the strength of his affection."A modern writer treating of Mr. Bellingham's power of fascinating the fair Penelope would have a made it the subject of the closest psychologic analysis. Mesmerism, mind-reading and other occult forces would have been duly considered, and we should have had passion so reduced to minutiae that the reader would probably have been unable to put it together again and believe in it as a powerful entity. Mr. Bynner's method is simpler and more direct. He is content to describe results, and his descriptions, though clad in plain, almost archaic phrase, lack nothing of force, as witness this passage describing what occurred after the hero first told his love: "All this like the outpouring of a volcano, with such a mighty torrent of emotion and such a wondrous change of countenance as I never beheld in any man. Anon, before I saw his intent, he snatcheth me up like a straw or feather, claspeth me to his bosom, toucheth my lips with a kiss like scorching fire, and was away as the passing of a tempest."And take this: --"I sat scarce alive. The vast throbs of my heart broke upon my ear with awful clamor. I was giddy. The floor uplifted beneath my feet. I rose and anon sought my chamber, reeling like one in liquor. My hands and feet, me thought, were lumps of ice, my head was a coal of fire, and so have they ever since remained. I am indeed like one bereft of reason."After all has been said in favor of analysis, it may be urged that the child who does not pull its doll to pieces to get at its inside is generally happier than the one who does. The characters of our novels are often the dolls of our maturity. We should have welcomed a longer work by this author, and we look upon Penelope's Suitors as only a sop to that eagerly waiting Cerberus, the public.--Epoch, Volum