GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN [1866- 1 EVELYN SNEAD BARNETT GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN, the daughter of Francis and Ann Louise McKenzie Madden, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, May 3, 1866. She is of Scotch and Irish descent-the first through her South Carolina mother, the second through her father. She was a sensitive child-imaginative, impressionable, conscientious-qualities still hers in a rare degree. Owing to delicate health, her education was desultory-a month or two at a time in the public schools. Perhaps her most fruitful impressions were fixed by these detached school periods, interrupted by trips to the far South in search of health; each new teacher and school experience stood out by itself instead of making the continuous record usual to childhood. The result is shown in her best work. So interesting is Mrs. Martin's personality, her Boswell has to resist many temptations. Perhaps she most resembles a fine violin, responsive to the lightest touch, but even in discordance giving out a true tone. Her face has been described as having "no features and all expression." She is fair-skinned, blue-eyed, sunny-haired, tall but delicately built. She has a superfluity of nervous energy, and lives on her nerves. Fond of society, and always charming, she can go long and far. In both appearance and mind she offers perplexing diversities. Hers is one of the most complex natures possible to be imagined. If she were simple she never could have portrayed simplicity as she has in Emmy Lou and Letitia, her two best characters. Perhaps the keynote of her character may be found in her ever-present desire to be surrounded by an atmosphere of happiness. From a desire to make her friends happy and have things "go smoothly," she is ready on the instant to sacrifice her own comfort or predilections. She makes and keeps many friends. In 1892 she married Mr. Atwood R. Martin, an officer in a trust company of Louisville, a man of marked literary taste and critical ability. Three years after her marriage Mrs. Martin published her first story. The Youth's Companion, that discerning critic and friend to young authors, saw in "The Story of Don Soldier" the promise since made good. Mrs. Martin's style is an anomaly-unmistakable, insistent rather than energetic, yet reflecting changes like a prism. She paints nature as she sees it, which is far out of the common range of vision. She delights in contrast and variety, choosing the psychical rather than the physical. While every character of her creation wears its distinctive mark, it also always bears the stamp of introspection. Her sense of humor is pervading, delicate, and charms by its unexpectedness. Her work is too fine and refined ever to be listed in the wildly popular, sweeping-the-earth class. In the mass, the public is too ignorant of literature as literature to appreciate fully such stories as hers. They attract the general reader by their humaneness. It is only in the higher courts, where good work counts, that her inability to slight, her careful technique, and conscientious revision, have received. their full measure of praise. Her early style inclined to mannerisms. She had a tendency to avoid pronouns, repeating proper names wearingly. This tendency. in Emmy Lou' was happily used, imparting the effect of simplemindedness for which she strove. Carried to excess in stories of adults it often delayed the action. But while her later work may show greater ease she has lost some of the "effervescence" that characterized 'Emmy Lou.' With this her critics have something to do. Her taste, reflecting her character, is for delicate detail, for complicated, hidden currents; and it is a mistake to urge her to leave her natural bent for the broader, so' called dynamic springs of life. Perfection is not claimed for Mrs. Martin's work, but it is this critic's opinion that it offers one of the most interesting studies of literary evolution to be found in American literature. She is emphatically a modern product. In style she most resembles Henry James, though where he has glitter she has feeling. Her 'Emmy Lou' is in line with James's 'What Maisie Knew.' Both see adult life through a child's eyes, but where Mr. James has created a lovely but unfortunate child, Mrs. Martin has made a lovely but happy one. Perhaps Mrs. Martin's chief lack is her inability to see life as a whole. She sees it episodically, and for that reason her books are lacking in plot. The short story, that most difficult branch of fiction, is emphatically her forte. 'Emmy Lou' and 'Letitia' are far better than the House of Fulfilment,' her one continuous narrative. This is because her art recognizes the delicate, inner emotions, taking but little count of outer media. Her characters live moment by moment, each moment being carefully portrayed; they grow, but the reader has no sense of gradual progression to a forcordained ending. In considering Mrs. Martin's work in detail, it will easily be seen why 'Emmy Lou' is so far her best. She was a creation, and with the Boyville Stories' introduced a type that has since had many imi tators. Emmy Lou was born to be loved, and her counterpart exists in many a home; in increasing numbers, since her character has furnished a key unlocking the understanding of ambitious but mistaking parents. Running serially in McClure's Magazine during 1900, 'Emmy Lou' was, in 1902, presented in book form. To teachers, parents, and pupils it was a revelation. It called forth praise from all advanced teachers and caused anger to those who saw in their profession only a way often the only way of earning a livelihood. In addition to its general appeal it fascinated an audience of higher critical powers than the omnivorous and vagarious-minded reader. After six years of publicity it remains that delight of the publisher, a "steady seller." It has just gone into its fifteenth edition. 'Abbie Ann' is the only story for children that Mrs. Martin has ever written. 'Emmy Lou' and 'Letitia' are both about childhood, but in the light of adult retrospection; ' Abbie Ann' is from the point of view of the little heroine herself. Many critics have seemed to miss this point in comparing Abbie Ann' with the former studies. According to recent statistics, most literary masterpieces have been produced by authors between the ages of fifty and sixty. Mrs. Martin has just passed forty, hence it is fair to predict that with her powers still in their upward growth her greatest and best work will be produced in the years to come. Evelyn Snead Barnett BIBLIOGRAPHY (Prior to 1897 several short stories appeared in the Youth's Companion, Harper's Weekly, The Independent, Short Stories, St. Nicholas, and other magazines.) His Children. Ladies' Home Journal, May, 1898. The Case of Mrs. Burrows. St. Nicholas, March, 1899. Catherine of Arrogance. Ladies' Home Journal, August, 1900. Emmy Lou Series. McClure's Magazine, July, 1900-'02. Emmy Lou, Her Book and Heart. McClure, Phillips and Company, October, 1902. The Rights of Man. Harper's Magazine, February, 1903. A Warwickshire Lad. Collier's Weckly, June 20, 1903. God Rest You, Merry Christians. McClure's Magazine, December, 1904. The House of Fulfilment. McClure's Magazine, 1904. The House of Fulfilment. McClure, Phillips and Company, October, 1904. Abbie Ann. St. Nicholas, 1906. Abbie Ann. The Century Company, September, 1907. Letitia Nursery Corps, U.S.A. American Magazine, 1906. Letitia Nursery Corps, U.S.A. The S. S. McClure Company, November, 1907. HARE AND TORTOISE From 'Emmy Lou.' Copyright, McClure, Phillips and Company, and used here by permission of the author and the publishers. THERE was head and foot in the Second Reader. Emmy Lou heard it whispered the day of her entrance into the Second Reader room. Once, head and foot had meant Aunt Cordelia above the coffee tray and Uncle Charlie below the carving-knife. But at school head and foot meant little girls bobbing up and down, descending and ascending the scale of excellency. There were no little boys. At the Second Reader the currents of the sexes divided, and little boys were swept out of sight. One mentioned little boys now in undertones. But head and foot meant something beside little girls bobbing out of their places on the bench to take a neighbor's place. Head and foot meant tears-that is, when the bobbing was downward and not up. However, if one bobbed down to-day there was the chance of bobbing up to-morrow-that is with all but Emmy Lou and a little girl answering to the call of "Kitty McKoeghany." Step by step Kitty went up, and having reached the top, Kitty stayed there. And step by step, Emmy Lou, from her original alphabetically-determined position beside Kitty, went down, and then, only because further descent was impossible, Emmy Lou stayed there. But since the foot was nearest the platform Emmy Lou |