New Fiction
Continued from Precedirg Page.
rest of their lives seem worth the
living. As the silent, sleepy cliff
. slid away behind the train it seemed
almost like an old friend setting out
upon a long journey."
Whatever the miracle of the lady
was, it is not quite done when it has
set right the lives of that old quartet.
Twenty years later when the
impudent engaged young woman and
her husband have fallen upon similar
gray days, and most of the parents
have gone their way, there is a mysterious
conversation with Something
in the same room where the mysterious
lady had lived for a summer.
Perhaps the best summary of the
secret is the statement:
We are all treasure seekers in
the beginning, . . . pitched
into life one way or another, but
all convinced that there's hidden
treasure somewhere. ... I
think she knew where the treasure
was. . . . Not in you or me.
But in Emily's idea of you which
must, so to speak, be pulling you
up a bit higher than yourself, all
the time. And your idea of Emily
. . . working the same way.
And so with me, and Joan; . . .
just t a o ordinary mortals, living
together, and believing in one another:
. . . it's that which is
tho TTn/1 vincr Thintr
It is a book which by its nature
defies cold, bald analysis. The essence
of it would evaporate in any
such attempt. It is rather like a
complex piece of music which must
be heard to be understood. But for
the understanding hearer it has a
message. HENRY WALKER.
BARBARA JUSTICE. By Diana Patrick.
E. P. Dutton & Co.
MISS PATRICK is another of
the younger generation of
British novelists who are
making a definite and, quite possibly,
a lasting mark in current literary
history. Her work should be better
known here than it is, as It has
.qualifies tbat demand serious attention
as well as the commoner elements
that make for popularity. She
is able to combine tragedy that is almost
Green in its severe dignity with
a strain of romanticism, of sensuous
beauty, without producing a discord.
It is rather like a musical resolution,
from one mode to another, with
perfect understanding of the harmonics
of it and the rules of such a
transition. In addition, she has an
impish humor, and is even capable
of excellent grotesques in her character
drawing. There is a tenseness
and a curiously feminine quality in
the story that remind one of Emily
Bronte and "Wuthering Heights"
(not that there is the least outwaru
similarity), but she is a grown-up
Bronte, free of the inhibitions and
incompletenesses that went with the
Brontean era. An J she successfully
brings her story out into a quiet
sea of hopeful, happy romance, without
doing any violence to the plot?
in itself a notable achievement.
Miss Patrick is thoroughly of today
in her frankness. She does not
evade brute facts, and when Barbara
is attacked a^l overcome by the
"primeval brute" man there is no
mawkish reticence about it. But
neither is there any of the too common
modern leer. It is stark tragedy,
naked and uncompromising in
its hideousness, and it is thrown up
into sharper distinctness by following
directly upon a tenderly beautiful
love idyll. From that point onward
Barbara passes through a series
of emotional crises, including further
tragedies, but always keeping
her courage and her own cleanness
of soul, to emerge finally Into quiet
n-ato-c T? i? VvoniiHfulK. rl, .n?
In part, it is the familiar theme of
the young girl, with a Gipsy ancestry,
lowly born, but with the soul of
a poet and the longing to escape into
a finer life, to rise above sordidness
into a cleaner upper air. After her
first ; tragic mishap she gradually
comes to realize that she was still
essentially the same, that "self respect
was wounded but not slain."
The whoie further process is unconventional,
but entirely convincing.
She runs away from her home, after
her mother's death, and after a brief
service at a country inn she becomes
one of a troupe of "diving girls" who
give swimming exhibitions at a seaside
resort. Here another sort of
adventure comes to her in the devotion
of an artist, Tracy, who Is an
Invalid, aware that he has but a fewyears
to live. He loves her, with a
""luetic, chivalrous devotion, and with
*" Kn'dtifjost'fantastic manner that reminds
one a little of some of Locke's
THE NEW YORK
eccentric heroes. He finally marries
her in order that she may inherit
his small fortune and be safe, but it
is merely an outward union. It is a
difficult situation to make plausible,
but Miss Patrick achieves it. At
Tracy's death the original hero,
Eliot, returns and all is well.
If there is a weak spot it is in this
youthful hero, Eliot. He is a little
conventional and lacks something of
the solidity of the others, but one is
willing to believe in him, for Barbara's
sake. Altogether, it is a fine
piece of work. H. L. FANG BORN.
SUNNY-SAN. By Onoto Watanna.
George H. Doran Company.
A SIMPLE little story' engagingly
narrated, with a practiced
skill that makes much of
small things. A Japanese girl of
mixed bloods stands in the center of
interest. We see her first as novice
in a tea house, trying her timid steps
with a saddened heart, for her beloved
mother, the star of the establishment,
lies dead in an upper room.
A patron, old and ugly, desires
Sunny. She turns from him in anger
and thereby risks severe punishment.
But four young Americans, traveling
with a tutor, save her by carrying
her off in dashing Western style.
Then they find themselves with a
ward on their hands. Being young
men of means they form the "Sunny
Syndicate," finance her, and leave
ber in charge of an American missionary.
Sunny comes to America,
much to the embarrassment of the
four, particularly Jerry, the instigator
of it all. The embarrassment
at her coming turns to a contest for
the honor of housing her when they
see how very charming she is in her
smart American clothes. Jerry wins
out, by Sunny's own will, and she
stays with him in his studio.
But even in Bohemian New York
no young architect can share his
studio apartment with a particularly
pretty girl without some trouble.
The trouble comes through Jerry's
aristocratic mother and the girl she
wants him to marry. Sunny leaves
the studio and learns something of
the seamy side of New York life. But
she finds a girl friend and finds also
her runaway American father. It all
comes right in the end, just as we
want it to come.
Japanese and American ideas of
politeness?and other matters?are
neatly differentiated, with fairness to
both. But it must be admitted that
the art of learning to please, which
is taught the geishas as their chief
life philosophy, has much to recommend
it.
And we all?except, possibly a few
inveterate Broadwayites who cannot
live but in the midst of unseemly
noise?will sympathize with Sunny's
feelings as she wandered the streets
alone and disconsolate.
She sensed the fact that she was
in the Land of Barbarians, where
every one was racing and leaping
and screaming In an hysteria of
speed. Noise, noise, incessant noise
and movement . . . that was
America ! No one stopped to think ;
no polite words were uttered to the
stranger. It was all a chaos, a
madhouse, wherein dark figures
rushed by like shadows in the dark
and little children played in the mud
of the streets.
And yet the difference between j
i the sweet, clean, quiet Oriental land |
! of her birth, where the beauty of'
orderly existence cloaks the cruelty '
of one individual to another?and of j
sex to sex?and the true kindliness I
of individual to individual that un- j
derlies the noisy, messy thing we call I
life in America is well portrayed in .
the incidents of the story and the j
bits of wisdom floating throagh it.
The four young men of the Sunny
Syndicate are quite real, more or!
less, and Katy Clarry is a delight. '
Sunny herself is a novel little hero
ine and somehow quite believable,
even if we don't understand why th?
conscientious missionary who had
j her in his charge all those months j
j did not teach her better English.
GRACE ISABEL COLBROX.
| ' t
; MEN OF AFFAIRS. By Roland IVrtwee.
Alfred A. Knopf.
MR FERTWKK certainly gives
the reader who is in search
of "thrills" even more than
his money's worth in the abundance
of this tale. It takes two very able :
bodied, up-and-coming heroes to '
carry it off. and, of course, two heroines,
although one of the ladies
hasn t much of a speaking part. And
he is also liberal with his villains; a
whole "syndicate" of them, aided by
others who are practicing villainy
on their own hook. Fortunately the
two heroes look so much alik* that
: HERALD, SUNDAY,
they are perfectly interchangeable; 1
wh*n one approaches the point of i
exhaustion and has to give up the i
center of the stage to recuperate, the 1
other steps into his place and the '
performance goes happily on, witn- '
out having to stop to lake breath. <
The point of it lies in the astonish- 1
ing resemblance of the heroes; the >
only noticeable* difference between 1
them being that one has a merry 1
twinkle in his eye and the" other is a '
solemn chap. The solemn one, Barraclough,
has discovered a marvelous
field of radium where the mineral
just lies 'round in chunks, and he is
trying to escape from London with
the aid of the good syndicate of "men
of affairs" who are backing him, to
nail down the necessary concession.
No one but Barraclough knows the
secret of the location. The other
wicked syndicate is trying to block
him. The other hero, Richard, is
hired to impersonate Barraclough so
that he can go on and clean things
up.
Richard is kidnaped J>y the bad j
syndicate and put through a won- !
derful "third degree," a surprising |
example of torture with modern im- I
provements, including poison gaa
But being a hero he is of course suf- i
ficiently tough to stand it.
The best figure in the story is the !
independent villain, Smith, who does '
some sleuthing for his own purposes !
that would do credit to even a Sherlock
Holmes. One feels a little sorry
that he has to be foiled in the end.
mere is a pleasant numan toucn, too, l
about Barraclough's mother, a mildly I
humorous old lady of quick wit and '
indomitable courage. Mr. Per twee can
do better work than this, on a higher
level?as he has demonstrated io
other books?but this story is a very
good one of its kind; genuinely entertaining
in spite of its extravagance.
THE GRAY PHANTOM'S RETURN.
By Herman Eandon. W. J. Watt
& Co.
THE many friends of the infallible
and gentlemanly crook
by choice, known as the
Gray Phantom, will welcome his return.
This most ingenious and resourceful
personage comes out of
his pleasant country retreat when he
hears that he is suspected of murder.
To clear his own name he sets out
on an attempt to find the true murderer,
whom he believes to be an
agent of the Duke, his chief rival in
the Underworld. Scarce has he set
foot in New York when his adventures
begin and follow so fas* and
furious that the reader lags breathless
a block or so behind.
The victim of the gang was an old
tobacconist, suspected f being a
"fence," and the mystery was how
the murderer escaped. This last the j
Tbantom sets out to discover, for the .
dyiiig man is said to have named him i
as the killer. He finds himself be- '
| ^ TwoGre
ll A
| American
| SA!
| H"
"The story is told with I
^ sight, and moves forwan
^ nificent climax. It is a bit
^ From the beginning thi
^ gripped and swept onwai
^ tale. 'Saint Teresa' is
ij original and unique."^
Endeavor World.
1 English
I A nr
i ; aui1
! j Ann
||j "Incomparably conceive
||j comparably developed. I
|H highest form of fictioi
PI New York Globe.
|H "An extraordinary book.
H| breath of life emanate?
||j pages, and it is into!
H breathe it." llildegard
||j in the New York H-rald.
m Each 92 M at ITSVl Tr 11
g ail buokaturr* IlUUUfl
MAY 14, 1922.
tween two camps of hunters, the
Mice who want him for the murder
and the Duke's sang, who wai t him
because of orders from their chief.
The interesting peculiarity of the
Phantom is not that he eludes discovery,
but that he is always I ting
discovered, tied up, bound, gigged
and handcuffed, not to mention an
occasional dose of chloroform, and
pet his keen brain and strcrg, skillful
hand got him out of any pos'tion,
Continued on Following Page. I
By the author of "The
THE R J
AGAINST CI
The Menace or
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The grim blight w eh h
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