The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1892-09-16
ABOUT A BOOK.

WHEELER WILCOx's new volume OF
poems just published by LOWELL, Cor
YELL & Co, New York, entitled "Ar
Erring Woman's Love-" with a copy Of
which the author has favored US. The
book is profusely illustrated and ex'
pensively gotten up, and apart from its
literary merit, is a work of art.
The illustrations are by LOUISE MEARs
and w. p. HOOPER, who have interpreted
their theme with a delicacy of touch and
faithfulness of d%elineation equalled only
by the writer herself, adding greatly to
the beauty and attractiveness of the
work. The book is published in two
styles binding, the h~andsomer, illus.
trated in cloth, selling at 50 80, while the
same without illustrations is sold at 81.
The volume contains all the latest and
hitherto unpublished poems of the au-
thor, and from a literary standpoint, the
best which have yet come from her.
Though a triie ardent as with her earlier
productions, "Maurine" and Poems of
Passion" there are throughout its pages
many passages of real beauty-passages
ascending to sublime heights of magma
tive fancy or descending into the deepest
depths of the human heart.
The leading poem'in this latest collec-
ton, can Erring Woman's Love-" is.
the author claims, the best work of her
life, and no one perhaps is better quail
fed to Judge. AS with the majority of
her poems, while possessing all the
rythmic melody for which her verses
are distinguished, this is a story of real
life rather than a flight of fancy-it is a
story with a moral and is written with a
definite end. 1t deals with great social
p~roblem-the problem of morality regu-
lated by sex it lays bare a human heart
in the winding paths of sin it is the de-
spairing cry of a social outcaSt in the
birth pangs of a virtuous love it is an
eloquent plea for erring womanhood de
spised and rejected by erring manhood
a compassionate apology for the poor
suicide who, seeing the bridges burned
behind her and longing to escape from
the fatality of a blighted life, plunges
madly into the river to hide her shame
in its dark bosom.
The keynote of the poem is found in
the following:
"When woman drifts from good to bad.
To make her final fall complete,
She puts her soul beneath her feet.
Mans dual selves seem separate:
He leaves his soul outside sins gate.
And finds it waiting when he tires
Of carnal pleasures and DESIRES"
And again:
when God formed worlds He failed to
make
\ path for erring feet to take
Back into light and peace again
Unless they were the feet of men,"
"* y Il = Love came
So like a swift, devOuring flame
And burned my frail, fair-weather boat
And left me on the waves afioat,
With nothing but a broken spar.
The distant shores seem very far;
cannOt reach them, so / sink"
n greater boon my soul could crave
Than just to toll, a galley slave,
Through burdened years and years of life.
If, at the last, you called me wife
For one supreme and honOred hour"
=
Following the same line of thought
though treating the subject widely diff
is "a Married Coquette," a famil-
lar figure in society and one which calls
forth the authors severest
They break no commandments and do all
their duties
As christian women and spOtless wives"
But with dropping of lids and lifting of
And barring of shoulders, and well-timed
signs,
And the devil knows what other subtle
You are mental wantons, who sin with the
eyes"
"In the game of hearts, though a woman be
winner.
The odds are ever against her. you know;
The world is ready TO call her a sinner.
And man is ready to make her So"
THE Little White Hearse" finds o
place in every mothers heart and can
only be appreciated By those who have
felt the shadow of its presence:
Somebody saw it go out of her sight.
Under the coffin lid-Out through the door;
Somebody finds only darkness and blight
All through the glory of summer-sun light;
Somebody's baby will waken no more"
know not her name. but her sorrow l know:
While | passed on the crossing | lived il once
more,
And back TO my heart surged that river of woe
That but in the breast of a mother can flow:
For the little white hearse has been, too. at my
door"
In a lighter vein The Yellow Covered
Almanac" and The Summer Girl" will
be enjoyed by all readers, while in the
Wall of an Old Timer" we have some