The Silence of Mrs. Harrold*

Ο

NE feels, in reading this story, that the author has made the book an

occasion for delivering himself of sundry brain burdens in the way of private philosophies, superfluous knowledge upon trusts, Wall street methods, etc., and personal opinions regarding certain evils. and blessings belonging to our own age. "The Silence of Mrs. Harrold" fairly bulges with matter; there are in it a complicated plot, a multitude of interests, characters and situations, while every manner of novelistic device that could with any propriety be dragged in has been employed.

A girl runs away with a circus performer; her father follows, kills the husband and leaves the wife prostrated by the shock. A child is born, is taken away by the father-in-law and the woman regains consciousness only to find the past a blank. A doctor interests himself in her, cares for her and afterward marries her. He dies and a little later she meets Mr. Harrold, a New York attorney, who falls in love with her. She marries him on one condition; that he shall ask no questions regarding her past. All goes well until an enterprising artist obtains a clue to her identity. Suspicion is aroused on the part of her husband, there is a tragic scene and she leaves him. Her going leads to the finding of her child, now grown into a beautiful girl. Finally, after much intricate searching and piecing together the mystery is untangled, and Mrs. Harrold returns to New York and to her husband.

Woven in with this narrative are the business transactions of a Mr. Bartholomew Dean and Lloyd Winslow, brother to a popular actress, Norma Winslow;

the romance of Miss Winslow and Mr. Dean's son and the budding romance of Mrs. Harrold's daughter and the artist, Conners. The Theatrical Trust and Wall Street come in for a goodly share of treatment.

The tale is admirably written, with an

easy, orderly style and logically arranged

incidents. The author has mastered the

*THE SILENCE OF MRS. HARROLD. By Samuel M. Gardenhire, author of "Lux Crucis," etc. Harper & Bros.

art of allurement, so that one feels the strongest inclination to peruse the story to the finish. At the same time, a final impression remains of a drama overcrowded; of too great an abundance of material, with no economy exercised. The minuteness with which each scene is described lends the idea of one endeavoring to air an extensive information; nothing is left to imagine, and the movement is handicapped by detail. In another order of novel this might be less apparent, but Mr. Gardenhire's story is one of modern life, especially of modern business life. Details appertaining to the subject are abundant in the newspapers, as well as in the short stories and books of numerous contemporary writers. This gives "The Silence of Mrs. Harrold" the appearance of a concoction into which have entered in naof not a few, recent popular pieces of ficture, that is to say, the principal elements tion, with the contrivances of some of the older forms of novel, incorporated to lend still greater zest.

Yet Mr. Gardenhire has been painstaking in his work, and displays a real skill in formation and treatment, as well as in character portrayal, wherefore, taken as a whole, his second novel may be said to represent the best that the present is offering in the particular line of fiction to which it belongs, and to which it is an addition. The Mysterious Mr. Sabin

TH

HIS latest contribution to fiction by Mr. Oppenheim seems strangely familiar. Indeed, we are beginning to look for a clever juggling of "The Prince of Sinners" and "The Yellow Crayon" plot whenever we take up a new book from the pen of this clever writer. The situations and characters, speaking generally, have become so familiar that we meet them again like old friends. In the present case the author has even troubled himself to make the story a little more like a time-honored acquaintance by borrowing of Mr. McCutcheon a princess in disguise, one of the line of Bourbons. about whom can be woven a neat little

plot for the restoration of the monarchy in

France.

*THE MYSTERIOUS MR. SABIN. By E. Phillips Oppenheim, author of "Anna the Adventuress," etc. Illustrated. Little, Brown & Co.

Mr. Sabin is a more fascinating old sinner than was even the "Prince of Sinners" and, by introducing hypnotism among his accomplishments, Mr. Oppenheim succeeds admirably in furthering the melodramatic elements of the tale.

In all, "The Mysterious Mr. Sabin" has been concocted with as much speed and as little expenditure of original idea as possible, and a more ingenious contrivance, manufactured from things second-hand, we have rarely had the fortune to meet with. Neither have we ever seen more atrocious grammatical construction in a work by a writer of reputation. "Lit" for "lighted" is continually an annoyance, while pronouns every here and there agree to disagree in number, and a plural verb often marks the loss of a singular noun when, perchance, a clause or phrase has intervened.

Speaking frankly, "The Mysterious Mr. Sabin" is an example of what happens when a man publishes two or more novels a year, and each of them proves a bestseller. That Mr. Oppenheim has a generous inventive faculty we know, and he can write a delightfully interesting story. But he has lately sacrificed high standards of work to the necessities of restricted time, with the result of a certain loss of prestige, among the critical, at least.

The Queen's Knight Errant COOKS with a genuine old-world

B

flavor are like luscious fruit on a hot Summer's day. One partakes of the feast almost grudgingly, lest the end. come too soon, and carefully for fear of missing even the smallest portion. Solitude is ideal for a proper enjoyment of the treat; selfish as it may be, intrusion is generally to be greeted with impatience.

A delightful volume which breathes all the fragrance of Shakespeare's day and world is Miss Beatrice Marshall's book, "The Queen's Knight Errant." In it Elizabeth flaunts her gross conceits and vanities; Sir Walter Raleigh flatters and scrapes and makes love to his mistress's honor-maid; Sir Richard Grenville's ship goes down on the high seas; the great

*THE QUEEN'S KNIGHT-ERRANT. By Beatrice Marshall. Illustrated by T. Hamilton Crawford. E. P. Dutton & Co.

Armada is vanquished and-in the midst of it all, a Devon lad and an Irish maid, his foster-sister, the originals, as the author fancifully makes them, of Raleigh's "Phillida and Corydon," serve the Queen and the Queen's favorite, and live their own little romance right bravely. Iris, the child rescued from the ocean and reared by the good Esquire Fane, Iris with her purple eyes and her elfin gestures, there is an elusiveness, an intangibility about this child of the Irish chief, this sister of the scholar and necromancer, Gervase. The mystery that surrounds the infant clings to the girl; her strange gift of secondsight removes her still farther from the realms of the commonplace. By the time the full truth is revealed, the impression has been too surely made for even the most ordinary of incidents and events and explanations to sink Iris to the level of the conventional woman.

In the meantime, we hear Spenser read parts of "The Faery Queene" before his exacting sovereign; we meet Kit Marlowe feasting in Sir Walter Raleigh's hall, and we hear scraps of gossip about Master Shakespeare's company of players, the Queen's last progression, Sir Francis Drake's daring deeds on the Spanish main. And Elizabeth scolds and rants and pets and luxuriates in her bolstered-up vanity; she lends gracious ear to Essex, is delighted with Raleigh's nimble compliments, but puts him in the Tower for marrying her most lovely maid-of-honor.

They were gorgeous days, days of the color of old-gold, yet to live near and with Elizabeth, great queen though she was, meant by no means basking in softened sunlight on "beds of flowery ease." The Summit House Mystery*

for natural beauties.

To tell any of the facts of the story would seem unfair to the author, as in a tale of this kind, enjoyment is largely dependent upon ignorance of the conclusion. It may be well to say, however, that the scenes are laid in one of the Southern States and that they form themselves around the figures of two women who are closely connected with a sensational crime. committed some years previously in New York, a crime revolting yet mysterious, the unexplainable phases of which are only revealed through a second crime that takes place on the premises of the Summit House, where, at the time of the present story, the women are living. The denouement is entirely unexpected, though the explanation is in every way plausible.

In "The Slanderers," Mr. Deeping gives a relishable picture of life in an English village, a picture that is full of artistic coloring with a strong pathetic element. The hero, a Bryonic youth, of poetic tendencies, marries unhappily and later meets the woman that is, in nature, meant for him. Pure as is the relationship between the two, it feeds nonetheless the insatiable greed for gossip that exists among the village women and gives his wife ground for procuring a divorce. The young man's father disowns him, but he marries the together for an existence until the truth girl notwithstanding, and the two struggle of his innocence and his wife's duplicity for the sake of another man is brought to light. Then the matter is readjusted and a happy conclusion is arrived at.

The character study is excellent. The unsophisticated, noble-minded girl, reared without home-training, brought up in the sordid atmosphere of a miser's house; the weak and very susceptible to both physical young man, greatly aspiring, just a little. and spiritual beauty; the group of chattering, scandal-hungry women, working their ills under the disguise of good churchwomen, yet at heart Pharisaical to the last degree; each and every one is a convincing. figure, an interesting individuality, even down to Mrs. Mince and Mrs. Marjoy.

As for the manner in which the tale is written, it is always pleasing, with a happy strain of the poetical and an opulent descriptive power. The vocabulary employed is one rich in euphonious words and a sure skill manipulates them.

"T

HE House of Hawley" is a plain, unassuming story of life in a country town in the southern part of Illinois. The story pursues a calm, even tone throughout; there are no thrilling climaxes, there is no intricate, interwoven plot, but just a plain, pleasant narrative of life as ordinary people live it.

The pictures of the different types of inhabitants are interesting, but not drawn with the same touch of feeling that is given to the description of times and places. Without a great stretch of imagination, the book might have been modelled on one of the clean, pleasant plays of rural life seen so often on the stage, and always life seen so often on the stage, and always

with the same touch of kindly fellow-feel

ing. Old Squire Hawley, first a Democrat and afterwards a Christian, is the central figure, and his numerous children, grandchildren, dependents and friends, their hopes and fears, their comings and goings, make up the tale. The Squire's granddaughter, Christine, is the most important from a feminine standpoint; her maiden fancy, contrary to the Squire's express wishes, centering upon Norman Colfax, first a Christian and afterwards a Republican, a lawyer by profession and a gentleman by instinct.

Failing to gain the Squire's consent, they are married clandestinely, estranging themselves for a year or so from him, but the story closes with the reconciliation of all three, and almost in the words of the old fairy tales they are presumed to live happily ever after.

R. W. BRACE.

for beautiful things, an Italian Duke, the inevitable love story, and a wonderful jewel casket, figure. This casket has been made by a long-ago forbear of the Duke, who, impecunious, offers his castle, "The Pallazzo da Sestos," for sale, with its treasures, and it is inspected by our rich Americans, a Mrs. Gordon and her niece. The Duke falls in love with the latter. There is a Richard Hume in love with her also.

The tale is skillfully woven about the discovery made by St. Hilary, the art dealer, that somewhere in Venice has been buried for many years a wonderful casket. The key to the secret of its hiding place, the search, the somewhat theatrical incentive given not only to Hume, but to

the Duke as well, by the fair American, using the delivery of the casket to her as a hostage to her favor, the maze in which the search involves them all, is told in

the most interesting fashion, furbished by word paintings of Old and New Venice, with its muddy channels, its picturesque palaces and towers, and its singing gondo

liers. Did one ever read a book whose scene was laid in Venice in which the gondoliers did not sing?

"She leaned toward me, and I caught her in my arms," says "Hume" at the close of the volume, after he has been the fortunate one to deliver the casket to her. B. J. ROTART. In the Name of Liberty *

M

ANY stories of the French Revolution have been written; the horrors of the Reign of Terror prove strangely fascinating to the reading public. In most of these books Robespierre or Marat have been made to figure as chief characters. "In the Name of Liberty," by Owen Johnson, is, however, a story of the people of Paris, centering around an orphan girl, a seller of cockades. We are shown the moving spirit of the Revolution, not the spirit of the leaders, but the unrest of the people.

*IN THE NAME OF LIBERTY. By Owen Johnson, author of "Arrows of the Almighty." With a frontispiece by Andre Castaigne. The Century Co.

Mr. Johnson has in this book fulfilled the promise given by "Arrows of the Almighty." He has written a strong story, full of life, the story, not of the French Revolution, but, taking it for granted that the reader has some knowledge of those turbulent days, the story of Nicole, a child of the Faubourg St. Germain. Using the Revolution as a background, the author makes his characters stand out boldly, and holds the reader's interest until the very end of the tale.

Barabant, Dossonville, Genevieve and the others are vitally necessary to the story. The strange fascination that the guillotine holds for Louisson is very skillfully developed. But the reader is most interested in the growth of the character of Nicole. We see her first a happy child, interested in the affairs of the nation because they are exciting. Then, when she has met Barabant, the world centres about him. The book is a tragedy, culminating in Nicole's sacrifice of her life for that of Barabant.

Mr. Johnson has caught remarkably well the suppleness of the French character. We feel intimately the excitement of the taking of the Tulleries, the devotion of Nicole for Barabant, the curse which shadows Louisson, and through the whole book Dossonville stalks, a perfect Don Quixote.

O.

C. EDNA BRAMBLE.

Cabbages and Kings* HENRY has christened his collection of South American stories with rather a far-fetched title, taking it from a verse in the immortal story of "Alice in Wonderland," and perhaps hoping that Alice's idiosyncrasies would explain or excuse some of his own. As the author makes no apologies, however, offers no explanatory preface and proffers no reasonable excuse for calling the attention of an unsuspecting public to his book, it is surely unnecessary for anyone else to attempt it.

Should the book be read with the idea of obtaining a solid literary feast, disappointment would result, since its literary quality does not partake of the solid British meal of roast beef and potatoes, but is *CABBAGES AND KINGS. By O. Henry. McClure. Phillips & Co.

more like a dish from the country of the story, tamales, served extra hot and with an added dash of Tobasco.

With some of the stories we are already familiar, as they have appeared in recent issues of magazines, and in collecting them the author has arranged them in a semblance of sequence, voluntarily intimating that the whole thing is a sort of vaudeville performance by a stock company. The country, where the scenes of the stories are located is "somewheres down South, and which, by the foresight of Providence, lies on the coast, so the geography man could run the names of the towns off into the water." It is a pleasure to add, though, that as vaudeville is entertaining, so "Cabbages and Kings" will prove to be; a lot of good-natured cynicism, a bundle of kind-hearted raillery and a touch or two of real love, and to quote again from the book,-"the two-walk close, close, for after all, what is the world at its best but a little round field of moving pictures with two walking together in it?" R. W. B.

L

Dear Fatherland* IEUTENANT BILSE wrote a book called "Life in a Garrison Town," for which he was court-martialed.

Society might well outlaw him for the

coarse brutalities he lays at her door in "Dear Fatherland." There is no American counterpart, and with disgust and loathing we turn from its vulgarities.

We live in a little world whose breath is squeezed out by the big god militarism. These pictures of the annoyances, the miseries, the depression of the service give an answer to some of our military questions. We know that while ours is the best paid and the best fed service in the world, in time of peace the desertions are frequent and seem increasing.

A service so beset with difficulties and with rare oportunities is not likely to attract Americans. The limitations are writ large here, and it is well to pause and ask why they are forced on a strong, free people.

"How I envy a stone-breaker," the soldier sighs after a review. "He pockets

*DEAR FATHERLAND. By Lieutenant Bilse, author of "Life in a Garrison Town." John Lane.