A Lost Lady* Miss Cather Reconstructs the West of the Railroad Kings
The Story. Some 40 years ago— in the days of the railroad aristocracy, when life was more spacious— the Forrester place at Sweet Water was known from Omaha to Denver for its hospitality and a certain charm of atmosphere. There lived Captain Daniel Forrester, pioneer-hearted, a man whose age was the age of a strong pine, and Marian, his second wife, 25 years younger than himself. It was from her that the charm of the house proceeded— that delightful and airy lady, vivid as her garnet earrings. Niel Herbert, young friend of the Forresters, grew up with the touch of that charm upon him—it is through his adolescent eyes that we see the story of her tragic decline.
One of the greatest shocks of Niel's life was when he discovered Marian Forrester's intermittent liaison with dashing Frank Ellinger. He could not understand it—nor Marian—nor Captain Forrester, who seemed to know all, and yet to continue his trust and love for his wife. The great days passed—the Forrester fortune evaporated—Captain Forrester, crippled by a fall, spent years in dying—the pride of the house was brought down—yet Marian seemed to face Fate with a light, inflexible courage. She only broke down once, when Frank Ellinger threw her over and married—till Captain Forrester's death. Then (he had been her balance wheel), inscrutably weak as she was inscrutably strong, she lost poise —let her charm stoop pitifully to attract such men as the hard, sly, bumptious Ivy Peters. She passed out of Niel's life, leaving him full of sorrow and anger that so inimitable a creature should come to such base uses. Later he heard she had married again—a rich, cranky old Englishman, who lived in South America —and in that marriage recovered for a few years before she died a little of the luxury and spaciousness that seemed to belong to her. And Niel was glad. For, as he came to middle age, he realized that though he had known many women, he had never known one like her and that, though he still failed to comprehend her entirely, to him she had and always would have the power of suggesting his youth and the great days and things much lovelier than herself, "as the perfume of a single flower may call up the whole sweetness of Spring."
The Significance. This brief novel, told with perfect simplicity and skill, creates at least three characters as living as any in our fiction, and summons up a ghost—the ghost, the soul, of an entire period in our national life—when the West was the West of the railroad kings. It establishes Miss Cather firmly as among the very first of our novelists.
The Critics. Fanny Butcher in the Chicago Daily Tribune: " A delicate, lovely, fragile piece of literature . . . that very rare thing, a perfect thing in parvo."
The Bookman: "More novelette than novel, but it is almost perfect of its kind."