Various

By Archibald Lowery Sessions

Practical purposes served by stories of trade and commerce. Something more than entertainment. Among the interesting new books are “The Common Lot,” by Robert Herrick; “The Master Word,” by L. H. Hammond; “The Plum Tree,” by David Graham Phillips.

Spring has brought with it a multitude of gay volumes. American bookbinding has at last reached such a point that, whatever the nature of its contents, a novel may at least make an impression by its good clothes.

Trade stories almost overcrowd this brilliant assemblage. Of course, it is what might be expected of American commercialism, that our literature should open its doors to all phases of business and manufacture. Most of us feel particularly at home and in our element, as it were, when finding amusement for a leisure hour among mills or stock markets.

And these tales, like the Rollo books, impart much valuable information to the uninitiated. We can remember feeling a slight degree of impatience some years ago, when Mr. Hopkinson Smith gave us his careful demonstration of the building of stone piers in the pages of “Caleb West.” But in the end we recognized thriftily that he had given us, for the small price of the book, enough points to be available for carrying on an intelligent conversation with a stone mason; a decided addition to one’s accomplishments in those days of social misunderstanding.

That book came with the first advances of the tide. Now hundreds of such volumes are washed up at our feet, out of which we may accumulate regular trade libraries if we like, from which a young student can learn the ins and outs of all professions and commercial ventures, their temptations or advantages, and their relation, as well, to the mysterious workings of love. What a possession for a would-be-well-equipped worldling!

The only difficulty is, what are we going to do when these resources are used up?

However, there is no real need to worry. We can still encourage the unsuccessful author, who has been befogged by romance and idealism, to peg away for a year or two at some, if possible, unique form of manufacture, going into it from the bottom and learning its tricks and its manners. He will have at least the opportunity of becoming a good mechanic, and probably some chance of getting up a paying novel in the hereafter—with a seductive cover.

There can be no doubt that “The Common Lot,” by Robert Herrick, Macmillan Company, is among the strongest of this year’s books, and one which should take high rank as a thoroughly representative American novel.

From beginning to end it absorbs attention, is virile in the depiction of character, and most of all notable in its absolute fidelity to human nature and the modern point of view, even where it points an overwhelming moral. The story of Jackson Powers’ career, his promising beginning, the natural temptation to overlook a bit of dishonesty, and his equally natural response to it, followed by his deterioration as an architect who sacrifices his ideals to commercial interests, is a fine piece of work; so is the portrait of his strong wife, and her slow but crushing realization of his weakness.

The delightful little doctor in the slums, and the defiant product of conventionality, Venetia Phillips, supply plenty of humor, and for sensation, one need not look further than the thrilling description of the Glenmore fire, which, in its awful tragedy, reveals Powers to himself as a criminal.

Not the least powerful scene is that in which his confession and attempts to atone are received by the contemptuous man of the world, who sees in them only weakness and cowardice, despite his scorn of the crime.

No reader will put down the book without having experienced some stirrings of heart and some reminders of personal experience, or without a keen interest in the story.

As “The Cost” dealt with finance on a big scale, so David Graham Phillips’ latest book, “The Plum Tree,” Bobbs-Merrill Company, deals with politics on a big scale.

In these two stories, Mr. Phillips depends for the success of his narrative rather upon theme and plot than upon style and characterization; not that these two elements are slighted, or that they are not skillfully and masterfully handled, but that one feels that they are purposely subordinated to the subject-matter and to interest in the development of the tale.

That it is an intensely interesting book cannot be denied; it is so because it is near enough to the facts of politics to make the stirring and dramatic episodes it describes seem like the account of a phase of vital human life.

The story is that of young Sayler’s development from a green, inexperienced and impecunious young lawyer, to the seasoned man who controls the politics of the country through his unerring manipulation of both party machines; the maker of Presidents, the master of Congress, the terror of the financial world. The methods by which he achieves these results make up the action of the story; they are such as we are all familiar with, except, perhaps, in the combination which Mr. Phillips makes of them.

The love element is of minor importance, and doubtless, to some minds, it will be considered unattractive. But no one can deny that the story, as a whole, is one of more than ordinary power.

The Harpers publish another new story by Warwick Deeping, “The Slanderers.” It is a novel which, in style, so suggests George Meredith as to make one suspect that the author is a pupil of the older writer.

A pair of idealists, quite realistic, nevertheless, in their introduction to one another, and in the attachment which follows, are the chief actors in the plot. Gabriel Strong, the dreamy son of a prosperous English squire, falls in love with Joan Gildersledge, the equally dreamy daughter of a bestial and intemperate miser. Gabriel marries an unsatisfactory young woman in the vicinity, Ophelia Gusset, and retains Joan as his consoler and friend in a virtuous but high-strung companionship, out of which the country gossips, who hear of it through a spying servant, develop a slander.

Gabriel’s wife, meantime, is amusing herself with a military man at a watering place. The clearing up of this situation, and the pairing off of congenial couples with various striking episodes, among them the death of Zeus Gildersledge, and his denunciation of his daughter, and the final reconciliation of Gabriel with his father, by whom he has been disinherited, make up a tale in which interest is sustained to the very end. The book is full of dainty descriptions of landscape, and the few leading personalities are well and strongly drawn.

“The Master Word,” by L. H. Hammond, Macmillan, is described upon the title-page as “a story of the South of to-day.” Its background is placed in the phosphate region of Tennessee, and the author assures us that many of the incidents described, “especially those more or less sensational in their nature,” actually occurred within her own experience. The purpose of the story, she says, furthermore, is “in full accord with Southern thoughts and hopes.”

It is hardly necessary to say that it would not be a story of the South if it did not deal in some way with the race question; but it would be premature to conclude from this that it is essentially a problem novel.

The opening chapters introduce this question, growing out of the distressing circumstances of a wife’s discovery of her husband’s infidelity, and the problem is interwoven closely with the plot in the presence of the latter’s illegitimate mulatto daughter. Her career and end are the more unpleasant to the reader because of the conviction that they are detailed with facts as they exist in the South. The pathetic interest of Viry’s story, though properly subordinate to the main plot, forces itself on the reader’s attention.

In other respects, also, the truth of the conditions described is impressed upon one, even though he may be unfamiliar with the facts.

It is a very strong tale, full of color, with a consistently developed plot, constructed with a fine sense of proportion and vivid characterization, except in one respect, which constitutes the weak point of the story—that is to say, the character of Dick Lawton, who is somewhat priggish and altogether disappointing.

Miss Geraldine Bonner has very wisely selected a theme for her story, “The Pioneer,” Bobbs-Merrill Company, with which she is thoroughly at home. Its subtitle is “A Tale of Two States”—viz.: California and Nevada, and, therefore, as may be correctly inferred, it is a mining story, or at least a story in which this element plays an important part.

The action takes place during the years almost immediately following the Civil War, and leads up to the period of the Bonanza discoveries in Nevada, in the early seventies. With such material as this afforded, it is easy to see that an extremely interesting tale can be constructed by so experienced an author as Miss Bonner.

The story involves, of course, the consecutive gain and loss of fortunes many times repeated; it pictures the social life of San Francisco and the rough life of Nevada mining camps, and gives attractive glimpses of the valleys of California, all with a degree of descriptive power that is a little unexpected.

The character of the old pioneer, Colonel Parrish, and the two sisters, June and Rosamund Allen, and the reciprocal affection of the three, furnish the large element of human interest in the story, for they are very attractive and lovable people. The relations of the two girls with “Uncle Jim” arrest the attention and stimulate the sympathies of the reader even more than the love affairs of the former.

The narrative flows on pretty evenly, with no strikingly dramatic situations and no overwhelming climax, but interest is held tenaciously all through.

Another of the late Guy Wetmore Carryl’s posthumous books is “Far From the Maddening Girls,” published by McClure, Phillips & Co.

It is altogether a delicious piece of nonsense, serious neither in style nor intention, filled with puns so atrocious as to make the reader admire the author’s audacity, the recklessness of which adds much to his entertainment.

A bachelor, hopelessly cynical, as he thinks, on the subject of women, who deludes himself into the conviction that he can successfully and permanently escape from them, is not only a fair mark for any sort of ridicule, but also a fruitful theme for a farce. The particular bachelor who figures in this narrative devised a means of effecting this end by building himself a country house—of all things! The result is, of course, obvious; as, indeed, the result of a farce ought to be.

Doubtless some critical souls will call the story flat, but to such people we can only say that there is a lot of harmless fun in the book that will act as an efficient corrective for jaundiced views of life.

A very charming story is “The Princess Passes,” by C. N. and A. M. Williamson, the authors of “The Lightning Conductor,” which will be recalled with a great deal of pleasure by a multitude of novel readers. The new book is published by Henry Holt & Co.

Like “The Lightning Conductor,” the new book has for its theme a European tour, partly by automobile and partly on foot, undertaken by the hero, Lord Montagu Lane, at the urgent solicitation of his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Winston, to cure a serious case of disappointed love.

That he should find ample consolation for the loss of Helen Blantock, and in the end lose interest in her and her titled grocery man, will not surprise the reader. The manner in which it is effected, however, involves some rather unconventional details, worked out, of course, through the agency of a delightful American girl. Anyone who has read “The Heavenly Twins” will doubtless find something to stir reminiscence in the intercourse between Lord Lane and the Boy. In this the chief interest in the plot centers.

It is altogether a charming narrative, full of pretty descriptive passages, and colored by the evident satisfaction the authors took in writing it.

“The Secret Woman,” by Eden Phillpotts, Macmillan Company, is a little tale of English farm life, with a picturesque setting, great intensity of action and passion, and some indefiniteness as to what code of morals the rather unpleasant performances of its characters should be judged by.

As adultery, usury, murder and suicide are among these little eccentricities, offset against superstition, religion and rationalism, the reader may take his choice of theories. Interest is sustained without question, and the two women—an older and a younger one—who as heroines and wrongdoers enlist our sympathy, are attractive and painted in clearer colors than the men. One or two minor personalities, however, are clearly drawn, and the dramatic element forcefully developed.

It would be difficult to hit upon a novelist who shows wider divergences in his work than Booth Tarkington, not because he gives in it any special evidence of versatility—a word which implies something like genius, or at least talent. This peculiarity is due rather to an arbitrary method in the choice of themes.

In his latest book, “In the Arena,” published by McClure, Phillips & Co., he has given a striking demonstration of this. It is a collection of six short stories, dealing with the subject of State and municipal politics. The question of cause and effect here is comparatively unimportant; whether Mr. Tarkington went to the Indiana legislature to get material for short stories, or whether he has written these because of his experience as an assemblyman, is not a matter of literary interest.

The narrations are not particularly convincing. Those who are familiar with the practical politician, and his followers and their modern methods, will find few parallels in the characters and descriptions in these tales. Political bosses nowadays seldom resort to the crude device of ballot-box stuffing and threatened blackmail to defeat reformers, and reformers are unlikely to be so easily frightened as Farwell was. The game is much more complex than it used to be, principally because the reformers have learned to play it more intelligently, and those who fail to give them credit for astuteness know little about the rules; the politicians themselves have ceased to make the mistake of underrating their antagonists.

The female lobbyist is a character that “once-upon-a-time” flourished at the national and in State capitals, but modern methods have made her, to a large degree, superfluous, and now the high-priced lawyer, representing the Trust, deals directly with the party boss instead of the individual lawmaker. It is cheaper and quicker.

Mr. Tarkington’s friends, Boss Gorgett and Mrs. Protheroe, belong to a species that is extinct—at any rate, outside of Indiana.

“The Chronicles of Don Q,” by K. and Hesketh Prichard, J. B. Lippincott Company, is a picturesque tale of adventure, told, however, with a restraint that lends dignity and a fair degree of plausibility.

Being the story of a Spanish bandit, there is, of course, an abundance of murder and sudden deaths; but as the right persons survive, and a majority of the villains die, with more or less violence, the sensibilities of the reader are not much shocked.

In spite of Don Q’s profession and associates, and a temperament somewhat pessimistic for a highwayman, he is not really a bad sort of fellow. His idiosyncrasies are due, doubtless, to an early disappointment in love, on account of which allowances are to be made, particularly as he retains his courtly manners, a careful regard for the misfortunes of others, so far as his occupation permits, a very efficient sympathy with the weak and a devotion to the Church manifested in many practical ways—his piety being of the kind imitated, with more or less success in America, by persons said to belong to the same class as Don Q.

Though apparently absolutely isolated from the rest of the world in his mountain retreat in southern Spain, he keeps in touch with affairs outside so far as they affect him, and is able, in mysterious ways, to anticipate, and so defeat, all attempts to ensnare him. Surprise is impossible for him, as it was for Sherlock Holmes.

If his portrait, by Stanley Wood, is a faithful likeness, the influence of his presence is not to be wondered at.

“Constance Trescott,” by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Century Company, stands out among the stronger books of the season. He takes for his heroine a not unfamiliar type of woman, reared by an old uncle whose antipathy to religion has made her, as she describes it: “Neither religious nor non-religious—open-minded.”

She is, however, docile because of her deep love for her husband, under the latter’s attempts to interest her in the faith which he holds dear. Trescott, who compels admiration by his fine, straightforward course, takes his wife to a small Missouri town, where Southern prejudice is still rife and laws are lax, and where feeling is bitter against the uncle of Constance, the absentee landowner, who has sent Trescott to represent him in enforcing evictions from a tract of land to which he claims ownership.

Greyhurst is Trescott’s opponent in a consequent lawsuit, a picturesque and passionate character, with a mixture of Creole and Indian blood. While he admires Constance, he hates her husband, whom he labors unscrupulously to defeat.

The court scene, where Constance is called to give certain testimony, and does it to the confusion of Greyhurst, is interesting; and still more dramatic is the murder of Trescott by Greyhurst, after the decision against the latter.

The rest of the book turns upon the revenge which Constance, undisciplined as she is by nobler inspirations, devotes her life and fortune to wreaking upon Greyhurst, and its sensational consummation. The story is one of Dr. Mitchell’s most characteristic efforts, and, like all he writes, is well worth reading.