Reviews of Mary Tappan Wright’s The Test (1904)
compiled by Brian Kunde
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| Advance, 4/28/04 | Anaconda Standard, 7/10/04 | Atlanta Constitution, 4/10/04 | Baltimore News, 8?/04 | | Baltimore Sun, 5/26/04 | Booklovers Magazine, 12/04 | Boston Evening Transcript, 6/1/04 | | Chicago Daily Tribune, 4/2/04 | Christian Register, 10/20/04 | Congregationalist & Christian World, 4/30/04 | | Critic, 9/04 | Dial, 6/1/04 | Everybody’s Magazine, 9/04 | Hartford Courant, 4/30/04 | Interior, 9/29/04 | | Lamp, 5/04 | Leslie’s Monthly Magazine, 7/04 | Life, 5/12/04 | Literary World, 8/04 | | Minneapolis Journal, 4/23/04 | Montgomery Advertiser, 4/17/04 | New York Evening Post, 8?/04 | | New York Sun, 4/04 | New York Times, 1/30/04, 4/30/04 | New-York Tribune, 3/26/04, 5/15/04 | | Omaha Daily Bee, 6/29/04 | Outlook, 6/18/04 | Salt Lake Telegram, 3/5/04 | San Francisco Chronicle, 4/10/04 | | Saturday Evening Post, 6/11/04 | Springfield Republican, 2/15/04, 4/10/04 | St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 6?/04 | | St. Louis Republic, 3/19/04 | Walden’s Stationer & Printer, 4/25/04 | Washington Evening Star, 3/26/04 | | Washington Post, 3/26/04 | Worcester Spy, 4/24/04 | These contemporary reviews of Mary Tappan Wright’s The Test are reproduced complete, with both positive and negative judgments intact, in the order of their original publication. —BPK, March 12, 2008. As of the latest update, this page features 40 reviews. —BPK, July 17, 2015.
<— New York Times, January 30, 1904, page BR66: Some February Books. Charles Scribner’s sons will bring out in February two novels. One is “The Test,” by Mary Tappan Wright, author of “A Truce,” “Haggards of the Rock,” and “Aliens;” the other, “The Sailor’s Star,” by Anna A. Rogers, author of “Sweethearts and Wives.” Mrs. Wright is said to have added a further and remarkable volume to a noteworthy group of stories by her new novel. The situations in it show her art even better than “The Aliens” did. [Note: remainder of paragraph, on the Rogers novel, is omitted.]
<— Springfield Daily Republican, February 15, 1904, page 11:
NOTES AMONG THE PUBLISHERS.
A new novel, entitled “The Test,” by
Mary Tappan Wright, whose story of
southern life, “The Aliens,” [sic] won high praise
a few years ago, is to be published soon by
Charles Scribner’s Sons.
NEW AND FORTHCOMING BOOKS. Varied and Interesting Reading for
<— The Salt Lake Telegram, March 5, 1904, page 7:
COMMENT AND GOSSIP
<— The St. Louis Republic, March 19, 1904, page 10: Two novels, forming the vanguard of the Scribner spring fiction, will appear on March 17. One is Mary Tappan Wright's "The Test," the other Anna A. Roger's "Peace and the Vices." Mrs. Wright's story has all the intensity and power to move shown repeatedly in her "Aliens" and the situations are such as to call out her exceptional literary art to its fullest capacity. ... [Note: remainder of paragraph, on the Rogers novel, is omitted.]
<— New-York Tribune, March 26, 1904, page 11:
THE TEST. By Mary Tappan Wright. 12mo. pp. vii, 360. (Charles Scribner’s Sons.) A tale concerning contemporary American men and women.
<— Evening Star, Washington, D.C., March 26, 1904, page 11:
THE TEST. By Mary Tappan Wright. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Washington: William Ballantyne & Sons. Many things happen in this story, and it must be said that most of them are decide[d]ly unpleasant things. But they are all in the way of life, as it is to be observed in the smaller cities of this country. A young man jilts his fiancee on the eve of their wedding and marries another woman. The jilted girl later suffers an awful penalty for her indiscreet confidence in the man, and out of the circumstances thus created arise many new conditions which cause much social earthquaking before the surface is again smooth, after several years. In the readjustments ordered by a kind providence men and women alike are strengthened and softened. They pass the test in their several ways and within their limitations. Mrs. Wright's narrative of these happenings makes a strong appeal to the sympathies of her readers. Her theme is distinctly and frankly disagreeable. But it is perhaps the function of the novel, revealing life as it is and not as the idealists would have it, thus occasionally to depict the darker scenes. Throughout "The Test" runs a fine vein of subtle discrimination which makes for power and commands attention. It is a book to live while the ephemerals are passing.
<— The Washington Post, March 26, 1904, page 14:
THE TEST. By Mary Tappan Wright. New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons. Washington: Ballantyne
& Sons. Cloth. Price, $1.50.
<— New York Sun, April[?] 1904:
By MARY TAPPAN WRIGHT Author of “Aliens,” etc.
The New York Sun says:
12mo. $1.50 “Will not be forgotten soon by those who read it.”—N. Y. Sun. [Quoted in Scribner’s display advertisements in The New York Sun (!), April 9, 1904, page 7, The Lamp, May 1904, page 348 and the New-York Tribune, June 3, 1904, page 3 (not all portions of the material are quoted in all the advertisements, and the “note” is added in a repeat printing in The Lamp, June 1904, page 439); the quotation following the note is from a separate Scribner’s display advertisement in The Lamp, August 1904, page 64 — presumably it is from the same original review. Complete review not yet located.]
<— Chicago Daily Tribune, April 2, 1904, page 13:
BY ELIA W. PEATTIE.
. . .
<— Atlanta Constitution, April 10, 1904, page C6:
“The Test.”
A strong novel of contemporary American life by a writer whose early short stories, “A Truce,” “[As] Haggards of the Rock,” and others equally remarkable, showed her the possessor of a very individual and original talent, the noteworthy development of which was strikingly shown in her recent thoughtful novel of the south, “Aliens.” In this new novel, “The Test,” Mrs. Mary Tappan Wright’s singular intensity and power to move, so repeatedly shown, are at their strongest, and the situations of the story are such as to call forth all her exceptional literary art.—Charles Scribner’s Sons, publishers, New York, $1.50. Sold in Atlanta by Buel Book Company.
<— The San Francisco Chronicle, April 10, 1904, page 8:
“The Test.”
An admirable character of a woman has been drawn by Mary Tappan Wright in Alice Lindell in “The Test.” She has loved not wisely, but too well, and the opening of the story finds her overwhelmed by the information that her lover, young Tom Winchester, son of the Senator, has married another woman in a fit of drunkenness. Social ruin stares Alice in the face, but her hesitation before taking her own life and bravely battling through life is only momentary. She decides in favor of the struggle. Alice’s first act is to have an explanation with Tom Winchester, in which she briefly states their conduct, saying: “We have broken, Tom, and must pay—I in base coin, shame and agony and disgrace: but, Tom, you must pay in gold, in honor, in glory, in self-conquest.” The career of the man is merely outlined, his correction of his vices and his rise to high political position. The long story of the debt paid by the woman through nine years of humiliation, family dissension and the promptings of her heart, furnishes the material of “The Test.” She is sustained nobly by the Senator and his daughter, and to a certain extent by her sister, but Alice’s worst trials come from her mother, a woman of violent character and unrelenting bitterness. One of the satisfactions to be derived from this novel is its every-day reality of situations. As there is said to be no royal road to learning, so there is no smooth way to be trod toward rehabilitation. It is a rough road on which the tender feet of Alice Lindell are often made to bleed and never to grow callous. “The Test” is a story of life as it is, not only as to the main characters of the story, but also as to those of subordinate importance. Such, for instance, is that of Alice’s sister, Gertrude, whose engagement with John Prescott, a young minister and future Bishop, is allowed to remain in abeyance for years owing to his narrow and intolerant self-sufficiency and selfishness, and involves scenes with his mother in which her keen perception and disdainful humor appear forcibly. Mary Tappan Wright has gone profoundly into the female heart in “The Test,” and its reading cannot fail to strongly affect its women readers. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons: price $1.50.)
<— Springfield Sunday Republican, April 10, 1904, page 19:
IN THE WAY OF LITERATURE
In “The Test” (Scribner’s), Mary Tappan
Wright (whose admirable earlier novel of
the middle South, “Aliens,” deserves a
much more conspicuous place than it has
had) takes a bold subject and treats it in
a daring way, yet with such honesty of
purpose as to take away all offense. Beginning
with excellent judgment in the
middle of her tragic story, she shows us in
the opening chapter Alice Lindell, a clever
and well-educated girl, wronged and deserted
on the eve of marriage by Tom Winchester,
son of the senator whom Alice has
served as a confidential secretary. Tom
had been sincere in his love, and is as
sincere in his remorse, but has been led
away by the coquetry of an unprincipled
woman, and has married her while he is
under the influence of drink. He is ready
to desert his wife and make Alice such poor
reparation as he can, but she is an honest
girl and declines to sanction any measures
toward a divorce. Nor will she leave town
to hide her shame among strangers. Senator
Winchester takes her part, and insists
that she continue her work as secretary.
Heavy as is her burden, no less severe is
the blow upon the rest of the family, which
though poor is unusually intelligent and
has held a high place in the little college
town in the West. Alice’s younger sister
Gertrude is engaged to a clever and strenuous
young clergyman, who wants to do the
right thing and yet can hardly bring himself
to marry into a disgraced family. The
study of his scruples and of the relationship
between these lovers is one of the most
skilful parts of a well-written book. If
any part of the novel is open to question
it is the very part that is meant to be the
strongest—the singular relationship between
Alice and Tom’s wife Harriet. Harriet
losing her own child, takes a morbid
desire to have Alice’s daughter Anna, and
Alice finally yields. The author has not
quite succeeded in making this part of the
story natural. Nor does the story of Sallie,
the sinner of a lower sort, introduced by
way of a parallel to Alice’s downfall help
the novel. It may be imagined that to end
so peculiar a tale was no easy task. Mrs.
Wright has chosen the most obvious and
perhaps to most readers the most satisfactory
ending. Yet the development of the
story is by no means equal to its opening,
or to the admirable art with which the
tragedy in the Lindell family is depicted.
There is much of the skillful exposition of
character that appeared in “Aliens,” while
in dramatic intensity the novel suggests
some of Mrs. Wright’s striking short
stories, in the volumes entitled “A Truce”
and “Haggards of the Rock.” [sic: “As Haggards
of the Rock” is meant, which is not a separate
volume but a story in A Truce.]
— SOME OF THE RECENT NOVELS — BY MARY TAPPAN WRIGHT —
<— Montgomery Advertiser, April 17, 1904, page 11:
NEW BOOK NEWS
Ever since the publication a few years
ago of Mary Tappan Wright’s early short
stories, “A Truce,” “Haggards of the
Rock,” and others equally remarkable,
there has been recognized in her a very
individual and original talent promising
unusual things for the future. This
promise was partly fulfilled in her striking
and thoughtful novel of the South,
“Aliens,” the impression of which is not
yet forgotten.CONDUCTED BY MARTHA YOUNG — In the new novel, she makes a further and remarkable addition to a very noteworthy group. The singular intensity and power to move, shown repeatedly in “Aliens,” are here at their strongest, and the situations in “The Test” are such as to call out all Mrs. Wright’s exceptional literary art. —
<— The Minneapolis Journal, April 23, 1904, page 16:
NEWS OF THE BOOK WORLD
A Book Portraying the Gloomy Consequences of Youthful Error--An Error that Proved After All a Test of Character . . . .
Error's sorrowful consequences long
drawn out are the burden of the story told
in The Test by Mary Tappan Wright. I
use "burden" advisedly, for by the time
one has read the 360 pages of the book to
the last word he is somewhat aweary of
the sorrows he has been making a pastime
of.
* * * Oh, a crime will do
BOOKS RECEIVED
THE TEST. By Mary Tappan Wright. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Minneapolis: N. McCarthy. Price $1.50.
<— The Worcester Spy, April 24, 1904, page 5:
“The Test”
This is one of the most interesting
books of the year. Mrs. Wright is
already well known as the author of
several books, among which are “A
Truce” and “Haggards of the Rock.” [sic]
Her new story, “The Test,” is intensely
strong and dramatic throughout. It
is the love story of a young man and
woman in every way fitted for one another.
He has one drawback to an
otherwise perfect young manhood and
that is love for drink.
<— Walden’s Stationer and Printer, April 25, 1904, page 50:
PUBLICATIONS CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS’ SPRING LIST. “The Test,” by Mary Tappan Wright, author of “Aliens,” is a very strong novel of contemporary American life by a writer in whose early stories was recognized a very individual and original talent. In this new novel she makes a further and remarkable addition to a very noteworthy group. The singular intensity and power to move, shown repeatedly in “Aliens” are here at their strongest and the situations are such as to call out Mrs. Wright’s exceptional literary art.
<— The Advance, April 28, 1904, page 532:
Fiction. —Why such a dreary unwholesome book as The Test, by Mary Tappan Wright should be written is a mystery. The heroine “Alice Lindell,” with her sinning, weak logic and unpleasant determination gives us a feeling of aversion. There is no sound of laughter in the entire story and with the possible exception of the “Senator” not a character we should like to meet again. The public is willing to accept realistic stories from great masters who can dip their pens so far into the human heart that our own beat with sympathetic rhythm whenever the name of one of their characters are mentioned, but a weak story like The Test results only in the proverbial bad taste in the mouth. (New York: Scribner’s. $1.50.)
<— Congregationalist and Christian World, April 30, 1904, page 612:
The Test, by Mary Tappan Wright. pp. 360. Chas. Scribner’s Sons. $1.50. The situation which Mrs. Wright presents is a painful one, involving terrible experiences for both hero and heroine in her unquestionably powerful story. In the end the courage and endurance of the sinning woman prove sufficient both for her own moral recovery and for the upholding and transformation of the man she loved. The story moves in a small college town of the middle West. The picture of the inevitable unhappiness dogging the footsteps of sin is clearly drawn and the moral interest holds the reader’s attention strongly throughout. Mrs. Wright’s women are more convincing than her men, yet the latter, if not entirely true to life, have the interest of a woman’s ideal of what a man should do and be in difficult circumstances.
<— Hartford Courant, April 30, 1904, page 18:
(BY ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL.) “The Test.” By Mary Tappan Wright. “The Test” by Mary Tappan Wright is a remarkable story both in style and in incident. That its purpose is a serious one and that the question it presents is taken seriously and with a true regard for the fundamentals underlying life and society, no one who knows Mrs. Wright’s strong and intelligent work will doubt. In “The Aliens” [sic] she treated the question of the practically irreconcileable [sic] differences between the North and South in an impartial and penetrating spirit making a story full of suggestiveness and conviction. In the present book she takes the old motive of the too confiding love of a young girl for a man who is false to her in deed rather than in intention, and of her subsequent life with the far-reaching consequences of her fault; placing them in the environment of a college town, with the ordinary population of such a town about the woman—the man only appears now and then within the circle in which he was brought up—she presents the situation, shorn of the romance with which it has so often been invested, but full of difficulties and productive of bitterness and with circumstances perplexing and arbitrary in their exactions. We have said that the incidents were remarkable, not, naturally, in the initial situation, but in the use which Mrs. Wright has made of it. The position and character of Alice Lindell concern not only herself but her sister, her mother, her sister’s lover, the more or less critical observers, not so closely allied to her fortunes: more than all, the man with whose future her own is forever linked. They become a test of character in the way in which they are considered by each one. The presence of the tragedy at their doors affects each man and woman who is a witness of it in one way or another, for better or worse; the great opportunity was given Alice of taking the bitter consequences of her error in the nobler or the lower way—that she chose the former, even in the midst of her despair, was a crucial decision not only for herself but for others, prolific in a good which Providence or life— some will call it one, some the other—brought out of evil. That the question is treated without sentimentality, with strength and with delicacy, is a notable fact, and whatever may be thought of certain details of execution, remains the important thing in a book of such striking and, in some respects, daring conception. The opening scenes in which the reader is confronted with the existence of the tragedy as suddenly as Alice herself is confronted with the faithlessness of Tom Winchester who has married another woman while intoxicated, are very forcible and very skilful. There is a breathlessness of despair in them which is the more effective from its very restraint, and while the girl does not at any time escape the judgment of the reader she never fails to awake an intelligent sympathy even as she wins that of the Senator, whose heart and brain are both at her service. The scene of her final triumph (for such one feels it to be) in which she refuses to make matters worse by escaping with her lover is a fine one and the Senator’s summing up of her attitude something more than felicitous. Personally the character of Mrs. Lindell seems to us rather less than convincing; or perhaps it is that one wishes she were not let off quite so easily; the wreck of her pride has not the effect of tragedy because she does not belong to those whose pride is in the grand manner — she is bitter and narrow and petty—almost commercial. The book might be considered, by those stern moralists who are always on the lookout for ethical errors rather than artistic achievement, as a dangerous one if the consequences of Alice’s mistake were all in the way of improvement, but while it is demonstrated that even evil when once recognized and courageously met and turned aside, may be productive of benefit, there is not shirking of the despair and bitterness of repentance and of the daily goads and suffering which are the penalty of certain disobediences. But it is a story worth telling as well for its reasonable message of a retributive justice tempered by the imperishable mercy of expiation, as for its interest and humanity. (“The Test,” My [sic] Mary Tappan Wright. Charles Scribner’s Sons. $1.00. Belknap & Warfield.)
<— New York Times, April 30, 1904, page BR296: A STUDY OF CONSCIENCE.
WE have found some difficulty
in getting at the purpose,
ethical or artistic, of Mary
Tappan Wright in giving to
a world of novel readers in
search of entertainment her
new book, called “The Test,” which the
Scribners publish. This is a book distinctly
well written, if to write well, in making
fiction, is to so write as to hold the attention
of even an unwilling reader and
compel him to note with something like
admiration the skillful development of the
traits of personages for whom he feels no
liking whatever. Presumably it is as a study of the human conscience, its powers and its limitations, that we must regard this new novel, if we are to regard it at all seriously. Alice Lindell, because she wanted to get away from home, because she was dominated by a stronger personality, because she foolishly believed that if a good girl marries a bad man she can make him good, promises to marry Tom Winchester, and before the day set for the wedding is no longer a good girl. Then Tom, under the influence of liquor, suddenly marries another girl. There is a chapter describing how Alice spends her wedding day. There are many things Alice might do—kill herself, borrow money of Tom’s father and go far away, run away with Tom, as he proposes, when he comes to the parental home with his bride—but her conscience compels her to stay in the town in which she was born, sordid, petty, unlovely Genoa, (presumably in the Middle West,) and take her penalty of shame and contumely, bear her bitter mother’s taunts and the world’s jeers, and compel Tom, by force of her example, and by personal appeal, to make the best of his life. Alice’s conscience compels her to this course and holds her to it. Presumably the result is triumph. She lives down a great deal of shame, and in the climax is relatively happy. We are quite sure that this story, which is human and likely enough, could be told so as to impress the reader more strongly, to uplift his thoughts from the sordidness and baseness of common life, by a writer of larger gifts. Genius can illumine mean subjects. Even then, would it be worth telling at this late day? Better, it seems to us, tell a tale of decent love and humor or adventure to entertain the multitude, a tale that may charm for a while and soon be forgotten, then to waste talent so genuine on a picture of life which is not large enough or broad enough to be accepted as typical, and which many worthy folks will be inclined to call untrue and base. Mary Tappan Wright has a keen sense of humor, good descriptive powers, a good working knowledge of human nature, an effective style. She can tell a story well. She ought to be urged to tell pleasant stories. We have too many of the other kind.
<— The Lamp, a Review and Record of Current Literature, May 1904, page 318:
BY ELEANOR HOYT
SPRING fiction, up to date offers few
sensational features; but it includes
a surprisingly large number of
readable books, and, on the whole, a
high average of merit in a season’s
fiction argues more enjoyment for the
novel-reading public than spectacular
interest attaching to a few meteoric
successes.
<— Life, May 12, 1904, page 468: The LATEST BOOKS A novel which is not for girls is The Test, by Mary Tappan Wright. This is rather an unusual story, for America. It is an interesting study of very individual Characters and, while it condones a form of Christian charity not over-popular among Christians, it is thoughtful and sane.
<— New-York Tribune, May 15, 1904, page B9:
Four New Books by American
THE TEST. By Mary Tappan Wright. 12mo. pp. 360. Charles Scribner’s Sons. Mrs. Mary Tappan Wright’s latest novel is undeniably interesting. The author carries the reader with her to the end. But, arrived there, he may well pause and wonder if a girl with the strength of character and purpose of Alice Lindell, the heroine of “The Test,” could ever have made the fatal misstep putting to the proof those fine traits of character which enabled her to live through and down the despair and the shame of the bitter years that followed. Here is a beautiful, intelligent, well educated Southern girl, poor, put of good family, and at home in the best society of a college town, engaged to the son of the local magnate. She is wiser, stronger, nobler than he, but she sees and admires the latent possibilities of his character, and, loving him devotedly and believing in his love for her, is confident of her ability to steady him and to make a man of him. Ten days before the day fixed for the wedding Tom Winchester is called to another part of the State on legal business, in a town where another girl lives who also loves him. Within a week she has married him, he not being quite sober, and then, Alice Lindell learns that the sacrifice she has made to “hold” her lover has been in vain. She resists the temptation to kill herself and the solicitations of her family that she go away. She resumes her position as secretary to Senator Winchester, accepting thus the only reparation the father can make for his son’s perfidy, and lives in order that her example may strengthen her faithless lover to be true to his wife and himself, and so help him to rise to the better things of which she knows he is capable. By pure force of character she not only succeeds in this, but in regaining the respect of her townspeople. She does this. The author will not allow you to doubt it, nor to lay down the book until she has proved it. But the reader continues to wonder.
<— The Baltimore Sun, May 26, 1904, page 8: THE TEST. By Mary Tappan Wright. (73/4x51/4. pp. 360. $1.50. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. [Nunn, Baltimore.] Alice Lindell is a woman whose betrothed lover in a moment of unaccountable folly forsakes her and marries another and repents as quickly. The tragedy of separation is deepened by the consequences of an intimacy during courtship warranted only by actual marriage. The sufferings brought by the lapse from virtue upon the heroine, her family and her child when grown to intelligence are described with much power. The just and sheltering conduct of Senator Winchester is contrasted favorably with the bitter and pharisaic temper of the community in which the scandal occurs. The heroine assumes the burden of the guilt, attempts neither to conceal it nor to evade its responsibilities, renders filial service to a cruel and inexorable mother, shows a mother’s love to her child and lives a self-respecting and blameless life, until, by the death of his wife, Tom Winchester is again free to fulfill the pledge once shamefully violated. This is announced by the publishers as a “novel of contemporary American life,” and it does no doubt portray conditions in many a small community. There is an air of reality in some of the characters. The headings of the chapters lend us to expect a good deal of the hysterical, but in this we are luckily deceived. There is much violent passion, but the author keeps it well in hand and produces a clear and well-conducted narrative. As a study of life it may perhaps be pronounced a success, but it is more suitable for the contemplation of the social philosopher than for young men and women. The heroine’s weakness before her tragic betrayal does not prepare us for her exhibition of strength afterward. The impression is made that the surrender of virginity before marriage is pardonable unless the marriage fails. The subject is unfit for fiction. When love has descended from the spirit to the flesh it has no right to a place in virgin minds. The story is debasing. The so-called “unfortunates” have a right to humane treatment, but we object to having their story obtruded upon us; the pathology is not pleasant; we prefer to visit a hospital.
<— St. Louis Globe-Democrat, June? 1904, page ?:
THE TEST
“Intense human interest holds one to the last paragraph.”—St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
[Quoted in a Scribner’s display advertisement in the New-York Tribune, June 3, 1904, page 3, The Critic, July 1904, and The Lamp, August 1904; complete review not yet located.]
<— Boston Evening Transcript, June 1, 1904, page 18:
BOOKS OF THE DAY
The Test The Test. By Mary Tappan Wright. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
It is the greatest of pities that Mrs.
Wright should use her undeniable talent
of literary style in the development of so
unhappy a story, with a plot and a moral so
impossible that, to most of us, it must be
incomprehensible. “The Test” is inevitably
melancholy: one turns from pang to pang,
from heartbreak to heartbreak, and every
emotion is torn and wrung until the wonder
is that any survive such unkindly
handling. When there are so many sorrowful
things in the world why write of misery,
especially the misery that has none of the
fine, romantic flavor of “old, unhappy, far-off
things and battles long ago”? The
moral, as has been said, is obscure; indeed,
the only moral that one sees, the author
never intended. But it is evident that no
physical sin for the sake of love justifies
that sinning.
<— The Dial, June 1, 1904, pages 368, 370:
NOTES ON NEW NOVELS.
A social rather than a racial problem forms the theme of Mrs. Mary Tappan Wright’s “The Test” (Scribner), setting it far apart from its predecessor, “Aliens.” In this newer novel a young girl, affianced to an erratic but lovable fellow, yields herself to his desires on his plea that it will help him to walk the straighter by giving him a feeling of possession. This done, he drinks too much, falls under the temporary domination of a girl in a distant city who has always wished him for a husband, and marries her. His father has served as a senator of the United States, and has been utilizing the girl’s intelligent services in the care of his correspondence and the preparation of a history of his times. He stands her friend when the trouble comes, while her widowed mother, in outraged respectability, turns upon the girl and rends her. In the course of years the patient sufferer redeems herself in the eyes of the rest of her townsfolk, small-souled as most of them are. The situations in “The Test” are powerful and controlled, and the book deserves well of those with a taste for true literature.
<— The Saturday Evening Post, June 11, 1904, page 17:
Their Ways and Their Work The Test, by Mary Tappan Wright (Charles Scribner’s Sons), will have a succès d’estime. It is not a book for light reading; it is not what is somewhat vaguely called “a pleasant book”; but it is well written, carefully considered, skillfully developed, and, in places, delightfully characterized. It ought to offend no honest, healthy-minded reader, despite the dubious ground it skirts, and, lacking genius, it shows decided talent and a rare fidelity to the sincere, less showy traditions of the novel. A novel it surely is — not a piece of gingerbread or a breadth of passementerie. And that in itself is something.
<— Outlook, June 18, 1904, page 422:
Mrs. Mary Tappan Wright also draws the portrait of a child of passion, but with a difference of temperament and of manner as marked as the difference between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. There has been from the beginning a touch of the uncommon in Mrs. Wright’s stories, and in none has she departed more widely from the motives and manner of average current fiction than in “The Test” (Scribner); a story of searching analysis, of insight into those difficult problems in which passion and will are alike powerful, of clear, strong, courageous handling of a very difficult subject. “The Test” is the story of a woman’s fall through a mistaken idea of the influence of complete surrender, and of heroic self-recovery in the community which knows every stage of the disaster. There is no evasion of the inevitable, no slurring of penalties, no weakening of the force of the inexorable law, in this moving story. There is no attempt to simplify the problem by excluding some of its most tragic elements. On the contrary, full force is given to all the punitive elements in the situation, and the blows fall on the head of the sinning woman with merciless severity. The story has faults; it is overwrought; there are moments when the reader feels as if the strain were too terrible to be borne even in sympathy. Out of this fire of punishment comes a noble and winning character, redeemed by her own heroic submission to the consequences of her deed, reinstated in the regard of her fellows, and holding the hearts of her readers. The construction of the story is not perfect, and the style often lacks ease and free movement.
<— Omaha Daily Bee, June 29, 1904, page 10: "The Test," by Mary Tappan Wright. This book is a strong novel of contemporary American life by a writer whose early short stories, "A Truce," "Haggards of the Rock" and others, showed her the possessor of an individual and original talent. In "The Test" Mrs. Wright is at her best, and the situations of the story are such as to call forth all her exceptional literary art. Published by Scribners.
<— Leslie’s Monthly Magazine, July 1904, page 338:
“THE TEST,” by Mary Tappan Wright.
<— The Anaconda Standard, July 10, 1904, page 4: NEW BOOKS IN THE BUTTE LIBRARY “The Test,” by Mary Tappan Wright. A strong American story wherein the human conscience plays a most important part.
<— Baltimore News, August? 1904, page ?:
By MARY TAPPAN WRIGHT 12mo, $1.50 “A striking and powerful work.”--Baltimore News. [Quoted in a Scribner’s display advertisement in The Lamp, August 1904, page 64; complete review not yet located.]
<— The Literary World, August, 1904, pages 235, 236:
The Book Market
NEW YORK, July 15, 1904.
. . . There has
been increased demand of late for “The Test,” by Mary
Tappan Wright, which was published early in the spring.
F. R. H..
<— New York Evening Post, August? 1904, page ?:
By MARY TAPPAN WRIGHT 12mo, $1.50 “A powerful story of American Life.”--N. Y. Evening Post. [Quoted in a Scribner’s display advertisement in The Lamp, August 1904, page 64; complete review not yet located.]
<— The Critic, September 1904, page 279: An Unconvincing Novel.
In contrast to the foregoing book [Joan of the Alley, by Frederick Orin Bartlett], “The
Test”* is one of the most unconvincing
novels that the present reviewer has ever read.
With the exception of one incident,
it is psychologically false
from beginning to end in respect
of the main situations. The exception is the
fact that an inexperienced, trusting, refined
girl might commit her honor to her lover in
the hope that she might hold him and guard
him from temptation. Vain the hope and
foolish the girl! But many times has it happened. C. S.
* “The Test.” BY MARY TAPPAN WRIGHT. Charles
Scribner’s Sons.
<— Everybody’s Magazine, September 1904, pages 428-429:
Volumes are turned from the press daily that drain the mind dry of reflection instead of saturating it with thought—as, for that matter, some of the so-termed “classics” do as well. Not so with Mary Tappan Wright’s “The Test.” No turgidity, no melodramatics, no high-flown attempts, but a simple situation among ordinary people, carried out with consistent concentration to the end. The test of true womanhood and manhood is the power to
Rise on stepping-stones
This theme is developed concretely in a story of two young people who love and sin, but who school themselves to bear faithfully the results of their misdoings, and at last, working out for themselves the moral problem of sin and suffering, reach a future higher and more secure than the one originally before them. Incidentally, others, not so strong as they to endure, stop by the wayside and are left behind. Here, then, is a book sincere and strong, that one feels repaid for reading.
<— The Interior, September 29, 1904, page 1257:
THE TEST, by Mary Tappan Wright. This is one of the most sincere pieces of writing contributed to fiction in many a day. Mrs. Wright is a woman of fine attainments, of rare culture. Her whole life has been passed in such surroundings as the college town she describes in this novel. Her father was president of Kenyon College in Ohio, celebrated for the high caliber of its faculty and student body alike, and twenty-five years ago she married Professor John Henry Wright, then associated professor of Greek in Dartmouth, but for the last seventeen years head professor of Greek at Harvard University, where also, since 1895, he has been dean of the Graduate School. However long Mrs. Wright may have been writing, she has been publishing (at least in places that “count”) but a few years. A volume of short stories from her pen appeared about nine years ago, and two years ago she published a novel. This third book, to which she has brought such splendidly mature powers, ought to put her at once in the very forefront of living novelists. In it she proves herself possessed of an understanding of the great fundamental things of the soul, and an ability to express her understanding dramatically, which rank her very high among her contemporaries. “The Test” is a story of sin and suffering; it seeks out the depths of feeling and from them ascends the scale triumphantly to the top most top. No bald statement of the story’s outline can begin to do justice to the pity and purity of its tone, the power and passion of its execution. When one says it is a tale of a sweet, good girl deceived, deserted on the eve of her wedding, and left along to bear not only disappointment, but shame, one has suggested only an old, old story, though one that is, more’s the tender pity, always new. What one cannot say in a paragraph, nor in a page, is what Mrs. Wright has done to invest this old story with the sublime dignity of regeneration. Her tragedy is enacted not in the squalid nor yet in the tinseled “slums,” but in surroundings of culture, in a setting of quiet, refined life in a small college town. The people in this town, or those of them who play any part in the story, are drawn with skill and fidelity difficult to overpraise. Their various attitudes toward the tragedy of poor Alice Lindell make up [a] large part of the story. The rest is contained in her development under her terrible ordeal, and in the development of the man she loves and who loves though he has so cruelly hurt her. She will not run away, but stays on the ground and lives down disfavor by the sheer goodness of her life. The plea of the book is merciful but distinctly not sentimental. There is no blinking at the suffering sin entails, no maudlin crying out that it should be so. But one doubts not the world would be a better place to live in if more people interpreted the gospel in the spirit in which Mrs. Wright interprets it. Aside from its main issue, the book is remarkable for the finish of its literary workmanship and for the excellence of its portraitures. It is one of the most noteworthy studies of contemporary American life contributed to our fiction in a decade. [Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. $1.50.
<— The Christian Register, October 20, 1904, page 1164: THE TEST. By Mary Tappan Wright New York: Scribners. $1.50.—The crime that serves for the test in this instance is the old problem of the woman who trusts too much and is betrayed by the fate she has herself tempted. It is not a common solution of the question, but it is a clear study and an interesting story. The development of character is subtly indicated, and the reader is left to formulate his own convictions as to the relative worth of social and individual standards. Parts of the book are touching with the pathos of literal truth, and the atmosphere and setting are realistic.
<— The Booklovers Magazine, December 1904, Advertiser section [pages not numbered]:
DECEMBER LIST ISSUED BY THE BOOKLOVERS LIBRARY, PHILADELPHA THE NEWEST FICTION
1771. Test, The Mary Tappan Wright
These reviews were originally published in the journals credited.
The works here reproduced are in the public domain. All other material in this edition is
©2008-2018 by Brian Kunde.
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