Walter Phelps Dodge - As the Crow Flies

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

THREE GREEK TALES.

16mo, pp. 173. Price, $1.
The Geo. M. Allen Company.

PRESS COMMENTS.

REVIEW OF REVIEWS.

The three tales which compose this little volume have been previously published in the Hartford Post. The author frankly acknowledges himself a disciple of the romantic school, and his stories have the dreamy, remote atmosphere which he has aimed to produce. There is much beauty in these pale, pathetic creations and they have doubtless a certain affinity with the scenery of Greece, as Mr. Dodge suggests. It is the present day Greece of a modern mans imagination, however, and we must not take the title Greek Tale, as at all applicable to the stories in the classical sense. They might in some truth be compared in style with Mr. Winters poems.

NEW YORK COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER.

* * * They are, all three, quiet, unpretentious, gracefully told stories that almost all classes of readers will enjoy.

NEW YORK RECORDER.

* * * In method and scene alike the book is a pleasing variation from the conventional.

TOWN TOPICS.

There is a charm in Walter Phelps Dodges Three Greek Tales wholly in keeping with the classic scenery in which they are laid and the classical associations it suggests. Of those fair isles, dear alike to the artist and the littrateur, story and picture each take on qualities borrowed from its rival, and these tales of modern Greek life are enjoyable largely for their picturesque setting.

NEW YORK TELEGRAM.

* * * A young author could hardly have a more auspicious introduction to the public than this small volume gives. If there is no realism or pretence to analysis of character, there is something far better and rarer, in these days of over-stuffed and over-seasoned roast and boiledthere are characters that stand out and that live and breathe by reason of a few fine outlines of suggestiveness.

NEW YORK WORLD.

* * * Love stories, all of them, well told in the main.

BY
WALTER PHELPS DODGE
Author of Three Greek Tales

three leaves and a nut

NEW YORK
GEO. M. ALLEN COMPANY
1893

Copyright , 1893
GEO. M. ALLEN COMPANY
New York
THE ALLEY-ALLEN PRESS, NEW YORK

TO MY FATHER
D. STUART DODGE

Acknowledgment is made
to the Editors of the Hartford Post
and the Hartford Courant ;
in whose papers these letters first
appeared

decoration

B

BASTIA.Nice is too attractive to leave without regret at any time, and we felt particularly sorry for ourselves one evening towards six oclock when we saw the disreputable little tub of a steamer that was to take us over to Corsica; and as we penetrated the odourous mysteries of the cabin we devoutly hoped that we might see Bastia in the morning without foundering, for the berths were suspiciously like the long, narrow coffin shelves in family vaults and had been built apparently for children, so cribbed, cabined and confined were their proportions. We said little as we put away our portmanteaux and cameras and took our rugs from the strap, but our looks spoke volumes and we were careful to sprinkle plenty of Keatings powder about the place.

A fine, drizzling rain soon began and we were compelled, much to our disgust, to leave the comparatively unobjectionable deck where sturdy, bare-legged sailor boys were shouting and singing and throwing ropes and chains about to no apparent end. As soon as we had reached the depths of the noisome little cabin, dinner was served, and oh, the mockery of that dinner! Everything was scented with garlic, and when the flavour of that questionable delicacy was absent it was replaced by the taste of rancid oil. We did not sit the meal out, and although it was barely nine oclock, threw ourselves on our shelves to try and forget the too perceptible motion as the little boat quitted the sheltering harbour of Nice. Although the sea was calm enough, the small size of the boat unconsciously suggested the idea of a rough sea.

Our sleep was more or less brokengenerally more, and at six we were awakened by a fiendish blast of the whistle which was near our berths, to an overpowering sense of certain strange and gruesome odours. The cabin had been hermetically closed on account of the rain, and on the floor about the tables were stretched in various attitudes of abandon several human forms, who proceeded to rise and shake themselves. It is needless to say we had thrown ourselves down fully dressed, and we made a sudden rush for the companion way, for if ever there was an odour that could be cut it was the one in the tightly closed little cabin of that dirty little steamer off Bastia in the rainy, chill darkness of that December morning.

A hasty fee to the stewardand the next moment saw us on the quay at Bastia, holding fast to our valises, threatened by a ragged mob of urchins who would have had but little respect for the doctrine of meum and tuum. We scrambled into a musty, damp hotel bus and, half asleep still, were rattled over the badly-paved streets to our hotel. And what a hotel! We were received in a mouldy courtyard by an antiquated porter in undress uniform, with a farthing tallow dip, who gruffly informed us that we could get no coffee for two hours and who then ushered us upstairs to the grimy little room reserved for us. I dont know yet how high the hotel was, but it seemed as if we were never to reach the top as we struggled after that wavering candle. No wonder tourists who think nothing of a run to Colombo or Aden or a trip to New Zealand shudder at the thought of doing Corsica or Sardinia, for anything more uncivilized than the ways of getting there I have never seen.

The time passed drearily on as we waited in the cold, stone-floored room, but eight oclock finally came and we hurried down eager for coffee and eggs. The dining room was sui generis and the cloth and napkins were not above reproach, but we managed to make out a fair meal with the exception of the bread, which was hard and sour; and then sallied out to do the town.