THE SUMMIT
HOUSE MYSTERY
OR
THE EARTHLY PURGATORY
BY
L. DOUGALL
Author of
"Beggars All," "The Madonna of a Day," "The Zeit-Geist," etc.
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK and LONDON
1905
Copyright, 1905, by
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
[Printed in the United States of America]
——
Published, March, 1905
PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTORY NOTE
"The story's the thing" is a creed to which novel readers are supposedto give unanimous adherence. Art, literary style, study of character,and other of the higher, subtler elements of fiction, good as they areacknowledged to be, must yield first place to "the story," andafterwards shift for themselves the best way they may. How manyso-called novel readers adhere to this creed is a matter ofquestion—probably not as many as its exponents believe. Unquestionablythere are two forms of fiction—the one in which art, and style, andcharacter are pre-eminent, and control the course of the story, and theone in which "the story's the thing," and often the only thing. But whyshould not these two forms of fiction be blended? Why should not the artof George Eliot or Mr. Meredith be wedded to the thrilling action andabsorbing mystery of Anthony Hope and Sir A. Conan Doyle?
In this story, "The Summit House Mystery," Miss Dougall has illustratedso well the possibilities of combining an exciting story with the charmof real literary art, that it must be considered as a model for a betterschool of popular fiction. In[Pg 4] substance and in form it is unusuallysatisfying. The mystery with which it deals is so impenetrable as tobaffle the cleverest reader until the very sentence in which, literallyin a flash of light, the secret is revealed; yet from the beginning thestory progresses steadily, logically, and without straining ormelodramatic claptrap, to the inevitable solution. It is not, in theordinary sense, a detective story, altho the two elements of concealmentand search are present. It is not a "love story," but love, of thenoblest order, supplies the cause and the support of the terriblemystery throughout the book. It is, as one has aptly said, a story ofmystery "into which a soul has been infused." The rare distinction ofits style and the beauty of its language place it far above stories ofits class. A wonderful setting is given, high up on the summit of DeerMountain, in Georgia, and the story seems to take on a quiet dignity, aswell as a deeper atmosphere of mystery, from the lofty solitude. Seldomhave the beauties of the mountains, "in all their varying moods ofcloud, and mist, and glorious night," been painted in truer colors. "TheSummit House Mystery" must inevitably set a higher standard for suchnovels, and the public will thus gain more than this one good story ifit shall have, as it deserves, an immense popular success.