(whose first name is not mentioned), and when she met him "there was a spot of crimson over her heart." From the first she loved him, and as she looked into his blue, determined English eyes she saw things exactly as they were. "It was less to him to have done with her than to be subjected to annoyance or humiliation. But she was not the first woman knowingly to give a good love for a poorer one and be happy over the barter." After the first few meetings it was Anne who sought Harnett, not Harnett who sought Anne. They met at midnight in a dark and gruesome quarry; and Harnett, with his English reserve, took this delicate little attention as a matter of course. He was not in a position to marry, being financially dependent upon an uncle, and Anne was too big and fine to demand anything of him. Gossip is quickly spread in the parish by persons to whom the semblance of evil must be evil, and Anne's good name is besmirched. Harnett goes away, and Anne refuses to listen to any one. Her mother "wears a mournful smile of forgiveness" whenever she comes near her, and in the faces of the men who approach her she sees her degradation before herself. After a time Harnett returns-married. Anne has grown thoroughly reckless and promises to go away with him. But just here Miss Overton steps in and takes Anne in hand. She reasons with her with her through her brother. Up to the present time the voice of religion has fallen upon wilfully deafened ears, but now things are different. A woman has come into the life of Jean Carmel, and to save him for the Church Anne renounces Harnett for all time. This is an inconsistent ending, and on this point we take issue with the author. The real reason, we believe, that Anne Carmel did not go with Harnett was because his nature was not strong enough to dominate hers, not because of any higher purpose.

The book, as a whole, shows considerable power, but the narrative is broken by descriptions of the curé's parishioners who actually have little to do with the story. Miss Overton's style, too, is clumsy at times. The figure of Anne Carmel herself, however, stands out strong, still, enduring.

F. M. Mandeville.

VI.

THOMAS DIXON'S "THE ONE WOMAN."*

O

NCE a preacher, always a preacher. The Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr., is no less an exhorter since he dropped the clerical prefix from his name and turned novelist. He can abandon the pulpit and write about the leopard's spots, but he can't change them. His calling is fixed for life. So it is not surprising that his new book turns out more a sermon than a novel. It is both by turns, but the moral is more often to the front than is the truth.

It is no derogation of the preacher to say that he has the defects of his virtues; and one of them is that his work does not mix well with fiction. A preacher who isn't trying to convince you of something isn't worth his salt; a novelist who is convincing is impertinent. The man with a moral to enforce, if he sets out to write a novel, is going to show you that moral triumphant, life to the contrary notwithstanding, instead of giving you, as he ought, a few real people working out his idea as best they can, independently of his prejudiced guidance. The minute you know that Mr. Dixon disapproves of socialism, and that the Rev. Frank Gordon, in his book, is a socialist (and you learn both facts before you have read many pages) you know that the fictitious clergyman is bound to come to a bad end. He is there to prove Mr. Dixon's theories right. Perhaps he proves them to you, in which case the author is justified as a moralist. But if you are on your guard against an author's bias, it is more than likely that in vitiating life for the sake of a theory he has, for you, vitiated his conclusions.

Socialism, in the person of the big, blond, oratorical, posing hero, is rampant in The One Woman; and socialism, with Mr. Dixon, means sexual license and the disruption of the family. Within the space of two pages there are quotations from Fourier, William Morris, Robert Owen, Grant Allen, and Karl Pearson to back this idea. The array of names is imposing alike to socialist and individualist; yet the uneasy conviction grows,

"The One Woman." By Thomas Dixon, Jr. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company.

from page to page, that Mr. Dixon has not been fair to the belief he has set up to combat. It takes a big man to be entirely fair to theories in which he does not believe, and only the biggest men are entirely fair, in having no theories to believe or disbelieve. To a mouthing, playacting sort of fellow like this preacherhero, socialism may mean the license to leave his wife for the first handsome woman who takes his fancy, and then crawl back, self-confessed a contemptible, cowardly murderer, when the woman of his fancy avails herself of the same liberty. But socialism does not always mean this, and never merely this. Mr. Dixon has frankly libelled Herr Most and his fellow leaders of advanced thought; the most rabid anarchist of them all has never made his social tenets the excuse for such weak-spined blackguardism as characterizes the Rev. Frank Gordon.

Since Mr. Dixon elected to put his preachment into the form of fiction, there must be a story to carry all the weight of his rather cumbersome moralizing. Apart from its anti-socialist lessons, it is a good, healthy story that cannot only stand on its own legs, but can even "take up weight" and run a good race for the valued stakes of sensationalism. Many a melodrama that finds favour with the theatrical gods of Third Avenue is less prolific of thrills. Mr. Dixon has none of the puling sentimentalism that takes. fright at vigorous action and exciting

"situations." When he gets his preacher and both wives by chance on the same train, he does not balk at a wreck which shall give wife number one the opportunity to show her forgiving disposition by rescuing wife number two from certain death. When the hig-hearted reformer murders his best friend and then plays Porphyria's lover with the woman for whom he had fought, a very dramatic snowstorm intervenes to keep the police from his trail for two days. When he has been convicted and sentenced to death, and the ever-faithful consort of his earlier days has successfully interceded with the Governor (who happens conveniently to be an old lover) Nature again waxes dramatic. A storm lays low the wire that should carry news of the pardon, a wreck stops the special train, and the race with death develops an exciting finish. "The warden put his hand on the electric switch. There was a shout and a stir without, the thump of hurrying feet, and the butt of a guard's gun thundered against the door. The warden sprang forward. 'Stop! The Governor!' he heard faintly shouted through the deep-padded panels."

Mr. Dixon has, I am confident, tried honestly to write a readable novel. Being a preacher, he is not entirely to be blamed for his inability to divorce his story from an anti-socialistic tract, without which it would be very good reading of the blood and thunder variety.

Edward Clark Marsh.

A

central motive, capable of being embodied within the brief space of a telegraphic blank. The big novels of the past, those that really deserve a permanent place on our shelves, can nearly all of them be summed up in a ten-word sentence; and this includes not merely problem novels, a class which in its essence propounds a definite, clear-cut problem, but also the big stories of adventure, the romantic novels of the Scott and Dumas type, even a book like The Three Guardsmen, con

taining episode after episode and story within story, can after all in its simplest form he reduced to the ten-word limit: "How four heroes saved the Queen's honour and outwitted Richelieu." Of modern novelists the French in this respect are distinctly superior to the English and American writers. They confine themselves much more closely to the point at issue. Having selected their problem they try to reduce it to its simplest terms, to eliminate extraneous events and characters and make the case they are studying a typical rather than an exceptional case. The great trouble with a large proportion of our own writers is that in their search for novelty, in their desire to produce something original and startling and bizarre, they complicate and confuse the central theme until one is often left in doubt whether they themselves have a clear idea of just what they are trying to do.

Among the novels of the past month. there are two or three which, without being especially remarkable, stand out among the others because they do show a certain definite attempt to develop the central theme logically and consistently. One of these is The Millionaire's Son, by Anna Robeson Brown. It is an attempt to show how an inherited instinct for money winning may hamper a man in the choice of his life's work. Paul Ellicott is an instance of reversion to type; the scholarly instinct of a long line of college bred ancestors-an instinct with which his father has no sympathy, has unexpectedly cropped out again in him. The

"The Millionaire's Son." By Anna Robeson Brown. Boston: Messrs. Dana, Estes & Co.

"The Law of Life." By Anna McClure Sholl. New York: Messrs. D. Appleton & Co.

"The Silver Poppy." By Arthur Stringer. New York: Messrs. D. Appleton & Co.

"A Doctor of Philosophy." By Cyrus Townsend Brady. New York: Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons. "Eleanor Dayton." By Nathaniel Stephenson. New York: John Lane.

"Monsigny." By Justus Miles Forman. New York: Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co. "The Fortunes of Fifi." By Molly Elliot Seawell. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co. "An April Princess." By Constance Smedley. New York: Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co.

"A Parish of Two." By Henry Goelet McVickar and Percy Collins. Boston: The D. Lothrop Publishing Co.

father is a type of self-made man, absorbed in playing the game of life, in moving men like so many pawns on the huge checker board of the financial world; and his great ambition is that Paul shall follow in his steps, and in his turn take a hand at moulding the destinies of railroads, and banks, and corporations. But he knows that his own lack of culture has handicapped him in the struggle. And for this reason he determines that his son shall have in abundance the education which he himself missed. But when Paul's college days, supplemented by a year of two of post graduate work, are over, the time comes when his father expects him to settle down to serious work, and here the struggle begins. Paul suddenly finds that he is at war with himself. On the one hand he has inherited from his father a keen knowledge of men, a clear head for business ventures, a love for the feverish excitement of playing the big game for its own sake. On the other hand, he has the scholar's love of knowledge and research, and he finds himself slipping away from the office at the earliest possible minute, even in the midst of a financial crisis, to gain an extra hour over his books. The turning-point in the story is rather ingeniously worked up. There is a thriving young University in the city where the Ellicotts live, and it suddenly attracts attention by the announcement of a new and munificent scholarship, the founder of which is to remain anonymous until the ensuing commencement day. When commencement arrives, great consternation is caused by the discovery that the millionaire's son is the successful competitor for this scholarship, which is the secret gift of the millionaire himself. The unexpected coincidence, looking as it does very much like a preconcerted arrangement, robs the old man's gift of much of that halo of glory which he had expected to gain from it, and incidentally causes a lasting breach between himself and his son. It serves the purpose, however, of proving to the latter that his true path in life lies in the direction of letters, rather than the stock exchange.

The Law of Life, by Anna McClure Sholl, is another instance of a book written with a pretty clear conception of what the author wanted to do. The theme is not a novel one; it deals with the old

problem of what will happen where youth weds old age, mistaking sympathy and gratitude for love. There is, however, a commendable novelty about the stage setting a thriving Western university which has just secured a new and energetic president, one it is hinted for whom they outbid even Yale itself. Barbara Dare is a member of the Freshman class -for the University is co-educationaland she is the ward of old Dr. Penfold, the most absent-minded professor on the faculty. An orphan from childhood, Barbara knows little of the fundamental facts of life. Marriage to her means simply a wider opportunity to be useful to the old professor, to take his dictation, and copy his manuscript for him. So at the close of her Freshman year she becomes his wife. It is only afterwards that the woman in her awakens, and a younger man, Dr. Penfold's assistant, brings her to an understanding of what love really means. It is at this point in the book that the author shows a lack of courage. Barbara and Waring have drifted to a point at which in real life there would be no turning back, nor would there have been in the book without the intervention of a third person, and the manner in which this is managed is by no means convincing. Granting, however, that the two are to be saved in spite of themselves, the manner in which they finally separate is worked out with considerable dramatic. strength. The question whether a certain notorious millionaire shall become one of the trustees of the University shakes that institution almost to its foundation. Waring is most bitter in his opposition to the new trustee, and after the latter's appointment he continues to fight a losing battle with the full approval of Barbara, although they both know that the inevitable outcome will be a request for Waring's resignation, which will effect a permanent separation between them.

A clever story with a rather unfortunate title is The Silver Poppy, by Arthur Stringer. It introduces us at the outset into certain phases of New York's literary and artistic Bohemia; and readers who are familiar with this side of metropolitan life will no doubt amuse themselves with attempts to identify more than one of Mr. Stringer's characters. The hero is a young Englishman, a stranger in the city, and at a literary gathering in

a fashionable studio he meets the woman who is destined almost to wreck his life. Her first introduction into the story is distinctly dramatic. Long after the details of the scene have faded, one still retains the impression of a sinuous figure, clad in clinging folds of yellow silk and of the strange and curiously thrilling tones of a soft, Southern voice. And throughout the book one is not allowed to escape from the memory of that clinging silken robe, the echo of that voice, with all the unspoken and unspeakable thoughts that it suggested, a haunting suggestion of a beauty that had, nevertheless, something malignant about it, like a poisonous flower. This woman is reputed to be a famous author; she has the credit of having written the novel of the hour, The Silver Poppy. It is an open secret that she is engaged upon still another story, and she promptly fastens upon the young Englishman and flatters his vanity by interesting herself in his work, and by soliciting his advice regarding her own. Almost before he knows it, the young Englishman is fast in her toils. That her new book is worthless he sees at a glance, but the underlying idea is good, and soon he finds himself collaborating with her, concentrating his attention upon the task of revising the book, giving himself up to it body and soul and making it his own by the splendid transformation which turns it into a work of genius. And in the end the woman, like the soft, treacherous, yellow vampire that she is, after draining the very life blood of his genius, appropriates the whole fruit of his labour to her own greater glory, bringing it out in her own name, just as she previously did in the case of her earlier victim's work, The Silver Poppy.

An excellent example of a good idea spoiled in the development, apparently because the author was not quite sure of what he was trying to do, is Cyrus Townsend Brady's latest volume, A Doctor of Philosophy. It would seem as though Mr. Brady had begun by mulling over the question whether our attitude toward the colour line is a matter of education or of inherited prejudice, and he ended by evolving this specific case. Take a young man and a young girl, each to all outward appearance of pure Anglo-Saxon blood. The man, however, is just one-sixteenth negro, and he knows it; he has always

known it. He has grown up in conscious acceptance of the fact that his interests and his life work are allied with the negro race. The girl also is one-sixteenth negro; her mother was an octoroon, but the fact has been carefully concealed from her and from the world at large. She has grown up to all intents and purposes a white girl, with all the advantages that money and social position can give her. Now the question is, if the truth is suddenly revealed to her after she has reached womanhood, can she throw aside her life-long prejudices, frankly recognise herself as belonging to the coloured race, and be happy in a union with a man in whose veins there is precisely the same taint as in her own. This problem, although palpably artificial in its construction, might have been interestingly worked out, but Mr. Brady has introduced so many complications and side issues that the central idea has been almost lost sight of. He has amused himself through several chapters by satirising the conservatism and the self-complacency of the more exclusive circles of Philadelphia society. He has represented his heroine as the daughter of a millionaire, a man who could easily buy up all of Philadelphia's aristocracy if he so chose, but who has failed to win recognition from them because he happens to reside too far north of Chestnut Street. The girl, however, has sufficient beauty and charm to win her way inside of this exclusive circle, and she is on the point of marrying into one of the oldest and proudest families of them all when the revelation of her origin forces her in honour to break the engagement. It is at this point in the story that the girl, in order to put a permanent barrier between herself and the man she loves, and also to force herself to recognise her own inferiority, marries the coloured man. Her subsequent desperate act when she finds her married life unendurable Mr. Brady would have us believe was wholly due to racial antipathy, but he has so obscured the issue that the reader cannot help feeling that it was in part the revulsion of feeling not unnatural to a woman who has recklessly married one man, whatever his colour, while her heart belonged to

another.

Nathaniel Stephenson is a writer who in the past has shown himself са

pable of singling out a clear-cut theme and following it logically to the end. In this respect The Beautiful Mrs. Moulton was an excellent piece of work, and deserved a good deal more attention than it received. And that is why Mr. Stephenson's new story, Eleanor Dayton, comes as such a distinct disappointment. The scene opens in Paris, the Paris of the Second Empire. The elite of the city are flocking to a fashionable studio, the studio of Saint Antoine, who has just completed a portrait of a beautiful American girl, the Eleanor Dayton of the title. The portrait is a rather remarkable one. It is not merely the picture of a beautiful woman, but the artist by subtle intuition has infused into it a half-veiled expression of mature knowledge and suffering which causes comment and arrests the attention of no less a personage than the Emperor himself. Desirous of judging for himself whether the artist has produced a faithful portrait, Napoleon summons the young girl before him in order to compare her with the picture. "Mademoiselle," he tells her, finally, “let me say that I have proved Saint Antoine to be a romancer. You have much to suffer before you look like that portrait." But as he says these words there comes over the girl's face a subtle change. “As if the Emperor's words had touched some hidden spring that released her emotions," and gives Saint Antoine courage to whisper, "Sire, am I not justified of my creation?" The fact is that Eleanor is standing upon the brink of a tragedy, and the greater part of the volume is taken up with retrospective chapters, explaining the events which led up to the final crisis. If Mr. Stephenson had any definite purpose in writing the story beyond that of producing a readable story, the present reviewer failed to discover it. In fairness, however, it must be acknowledged that the book is readable, and the chapters have a way of stopping short at crucial moments-a trick that ought to have made it eminently successful for serial purposes.

There are just a few writers who have a peculiar lightness of touch that enables them to take their materials from moonlight and rainbows and gossamer webs and weave them into light and airy little tales that seem full of blue sky and the song of birds and the perfume of spring.