The Damask Girl and Other Stories

Certainly what Mr. Swift wants is not audacity! On the contrary, these stories (no disrespect intended!) have a splendid mendacity. They are beyond question original, if occasionally a bit crazy. "A Very Rash Doctor" is as bad, — i.e., as good, — at least in its plot as one of Stevenson's "New Arabian Nights." "The Scientist's Wife" may preach a little lesson against entering upon psychological discoveries assisted by one's wife. Women (we have read) do not take naturally to psychology when their own hearts are to be dissected. On the whole, the story which gives its name to the book is the best of all the tales. It really carries to a delightful degree the accumulation of horror upon horror — train robbers, railroad disasters, and what not — only to show that the true Boston girl is never really so alarmed as to abandon the strictest proprieties and decorums. The story is worthy of a place among the books devoted to the exploitation of the impossible, the incredible, and, shall we say (not at all in disparagement) the gigantically absurd! –The Unitarian Register, Vol. 86