UNCUT GEM AND POLISHED PASTE

Henry Brinsley

MR. TREVENA'S publishers make of him a somewhat romantic figure, an invalid of about forty, driven from the smoky air of town to live for many years in an isolated little cabin on Dartmoor. Here he has been an unusually acute observer of the warped and rugged life about him, and in his novel "Granite," he has embodied an astonishing number and variety of his observations. "Just as granite is worn away imperceptibly by the rain," says the printed prospectus, "so is a man's better nature by his constant giving way to temptation." With this theme running through the story, the author draws a vivid picture of the struggles of two men of widely different character, birth, and education, to become worthy of a woman. This is but the theoretical plot of the book: it is really a vast portfolio of sketches (and astonishingly good ones) rather than a novel. The struggles of the two men— one a curate, a secret victim of dipsomania, the other a peasant who educates himself, and becomes a preacher against intemperance— have about the importance of the two parallel colored silk threads in a bank-note,—you know theyare there and now and then your attention is focussed on them, but they occupy very little of the field and merely authenticate the issue. The larger field is a little community at Fursdon, on the great granite-strewn moor. The portraits fit into the rough quality of the landscape with a startling, poignant appropriateness, their grimness occasionally relieved by a humor of an exquisite delicacy beneath its Boeotian surface. It's a very long book and not an easy one to read. There is in it something of the spirit and quality that make "The Return of the Native" so deeply luminous; but "The Return of the Native" in addition to its lyrical import is a masterpiece of beautiful workmanship, whereas "Granite" is like a great fine gem as yet uncut,—you deplore its amorphousness and its harsh angles, and at the same time recognize its rare beauty and value however rough its surface as a whole.

IF "Granite" is an uncut gem, "The Letter of the Contract" is a bit of polished paste. The publishers describe it as "a story of men and women who find themselves face to face with one of the greatest problems of the day. Brave in its honesty and tender in its uncovering of human weakness." Somehow I can't take the author, the Rev. Basil King, quite so seriously as this, but nevertheless let us envisage his great problem and consider his bravery and tenderness. A certain Mr. and Mrs. Chipman Walker resort to divorce, because, although they adore each other, Chipman has kept on a mistress of his bachelor days and this Mrs. Chipman—Edith—is unable to condone. Edith travels abroad, and some years later, still adoring Chipman, marries a Mr. Lacon. Chipman, still hopelessly adoring Edith, after her second marriage himself marries again. Eventually Edith and Chipman meet and discover their real feelings. The kindly Mr. Lacon also discovers them and offers to release Edith, if Chipman also will get a divorce and remarry her. Chipman and Edith consider the harrowing situation, and finally conclude that as three sets of children and four adults will have a somewhat confused future by this new arrangement, Renunciation is clearly indicated. If you put all this on a purely fashionable plane (and the Rev. Mr. King's literary environment is nothing if not fashionable) the problem however "great," in the sense of intricate, becomes emotionally a bit jejune; but if to be honest is to be "brave" and to uncover weakness is to be "tender" Mr. King is impeccably both. Although his people are curiously unalive, his discussion is animated and impressively moral, and his style (with the single quaint exception of "opted" for "hoped") is quite fashionably polished. He even revives the polite occasional use of French.

MRS. ATHERTON, in "Perch of the Devil," employs a style that is an odd compound of philosophical jargon and racy colloquialism. Here's a tiny but characteristic example: "Gregory, who by this time was reduced to a mere prowling instinct projected with fatal instantaneity from its napping ego, was as helpless a victim as if born a fool." I feel throughout the book that Miss Laura Jean Libbey might write this way if she had Mrs. Atherton's outlook. But as the English regard Mrs. Atherton as one of our important and significantly American writers, it is worth while, occasionally, to read her. Certainly "Perch of the Devil," in that part which deals with Butte, Montana, is vividly indigenous. The striking name is simply that of a mine, not an eminence of immorality: morally the book is as sound as artistically it is bewildering. The chief personages are Gregory Compton who discovers a mine on his ranch, Ida, his wife, the beautiful and, at first, vulgar daughter of a worthy local washerwoman, and Ora Blake, wife of Gregory's business adviser and friend, and an exponent of eastern culture (culture, perhaps, in its more recent German sense). Gregory's struggles with his mine and his rapid rise to millionairedom are really interesting: Mrs. Atherton has ground up the subject of copper mining very conscientiously, and it's an essentially fascinating subject. Ida's struggles to become a "grande dame" under the tutelage of the more intellectual Ora will,

I am sure, be more interesting to feminine readers than to the mere male critic—who becomes a bit dazed when the two ladies frequently get their hair washed and talk chiffons. The end, where the two struggle for the possession of Gregory, with pistol shots in the mine, is satisfactory melodrama. It's quite a busy, varied little novel. It is said that Mrs. Atherton was the only serious rival to the title of Queen Victoria's favorite authoress. I honestly don't know which I prefer myself.

BUT enough of "Literature." Here are notes of three other books I have read during the past month, books for which their publishers would make less portentous claims and the kind which the hopeful reader snatches at a railway stall, hoping with them to beguile his journey. "The Wall Between," by Mr. Ralph D. Paine, is easily readable,—nice large clear type, nice brisk clear style, good sound conventions: the manly adventures of a "gentleman ranker" in the Marine Corps, first at the "Sagamore Navy Yard," then in Nicaragua during a revolution, with a satisfactory love affair running Ji/ough all. "The Wall Between" is the rigid etiquette that divides the hero, a sergeant, from his lady, the commandant's daughter. Some of the figures t are conventional, especially the "villain," an officer imported from civil life, but, as I said, they are conventional along well tried, acceptable lines. Once in a while, in a book that one reads merely for the story, it's a relief not to have to cope with new and subtle varieties of personality. Mr. Paine reminds me somewhat of Captain (or is it General?) Charles King,—a little better, perhaps, because less interested in the minor, petty intrigues of his military society, and brisker and more, up to , date.

"THE LIGHTS ARE BRIGHT," by Miss Louise Kennedy Mabie, is "a story of industrial intrigue with, curiously enough, a lovable and altogether feminine woman as the central figure." Right here it is well to note that a woman's idea of a "lovable and altogether feminine woman" is nearly always bound to be a bit more femininely "fluffy" than a man's. (Mrs. Eleanor Hallowed Abbott constantly proves this to us.) Also a woman's idea of a fascinating villain usually differs widely from a man's. With these reservations in mind the indulgent male can derive a certain amount of pleasure from Miss Mabie's book. He can at least enjoy the well managed intrigue whereby a certain magnate tries to wrest from the orphaned heroine, Theodora, the business and factories she has inherited, even if he doesn't know the precise nature of the industry involved. Theodora's manager is a good fellow, and wins out both in business and in love against the wiles of the fascinating villain whom the magnate has imported as an instrument. There's a good deal of deftness in the manipulation of the tale and an agreeable lightness in its telling. It's what we have come to know as excellent "magazine work."

Books Reviewed

GRANITE By John Trevena

Mitchell Kennerley, New York $1.35

THE LETTER OF THE CONTRACT By Basil King Harper & Bros., New York Si.00

PERCH OF THE DEVIL By Gertrude Atherton

Frederick A. Stokes Co., New York $1.35

THE WALL BETWEEN By Ralph D. Paine '

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York $1.35

THE LIGHTS ARE BRIGHT By Louise Kennedy Mabic Harper & Bros., New York $1.25

THE VANISHED MESSENGER By E. Phillips Oppenheim Little Brown & Co., Boston $1.30

Continued on page 86

Continued from page 35

Mr. Oppenheim, in "The Vanished Messenger" does his usual accomplished conjuring trick. He can juggle a plot with complete nonchalance, and he doesn't care any more about such matters as reasonableness or plausibility so long as a breathlessness of suspense is maintained. But his legerdemain grows mechanical, and the appeal is increasingly to less intelligent audiences.