The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-05-21

The Blind Goddess: Being a Tale of
Today. showing some of the undercur-
rents of big city BY Randall Irving
Tyler. illustrated. stuyvesant Pub
fishing Company, New York.
In this novel the events of a celebrat-
ed poisoning case that recently oc-
CURED in New York are cleverly work
ed UP into a plot of considerable inge-
nuity and interest. The heroine re-
ceives through the mail a gold holder
containing a bottle of effervescent
headache powders. She recommends 1t
to her father and goes to a party
whence she is summoned by the news
that her father and friend have been
killed by taking some of the powder.
The hero. who is handsome and I'M
mensely wealthy, and, beside, lover
of the heroine, is charged with the muir
der, and both he and she are confined
in the toombs. The coroner's inquest
and trial occupy the greater part OF
the volume. There is no sentiment or
character painting, but the interest is
we'll sustained, the plot is unhackneyed,
and the book will be sure to entertain
a large class of readers.
a
Burton Harrison. Illustrated Lip
pinoott Company, Philadelphia.
Mrs. Harrison's reputation will hard
~ be extended by this, her latest story
which presents a somewhat threadbare
plot and characters that are not suffi-
GENTLY differentiated to be interesting.
The foreign color is the most inviting
part of the book, for the people in it
travel about in Spain, Biarritz, London
m, TIL
CLEMENT will be sure to find many
readers, for it is easy to read and mild
ly entertaining, and then, the young
person invariably likes Mrs. Harrison's
novels.
The Miracles Of anti-Christ. Trans
hated from the Swedish of Selma Lag
erloef by Pauline Bancroft Flach. Lit
tie. Brown & Co., Boston.
This strange but powerful story gets
Its title from a Sicilian legend that IS
quoted on the title page when Anti
christ comes, he shall seem as Christ.
There shall be great want, and Anti
christ shall go from land to land and
give bread to the poor And he SHAH
hnd many followers" The Antichrist
of the story is socialism. The scene is
laid in Sicily, in the vicinity of Mount
Aetna, and all the characters are S.
cilians, ranging from the rank of peas
ants to that Of gentlefolk What is
most striking in the novel is the at
mosphere and style, both of which are
extraordinarily naive. The child-like
ignorance and piety of the people are
finely reproduced, but sometimes at
the expense Of the plot which is de-
layed by the detail andrepetitive diction
Of the author. One of the most power
full episodes deals with a rich English
woman who came to Diamante, the
little Sicilian town in which the story
goes on and with Anglo-Saxon energy
gives occupation and incomes to the
poverty-stricken population, who in re-
turn adore her. One day she gives a
fete and the starved townspeople have
for once enough. to eat. In their radi-
ant happiness they ask the English
woman to sing and she mounts the
stage of the old Greek theatre which
her money and enterprise have tex-
cavated and essays to sing an ar
by Bellini that the audience knows by
heart. She sings out Of tune and her
auditors, their stomachs filled With her
food and wine. hiss her unmercifuily
and make her sing again and again
After that the woman whose executive
ability had been the main source OF
Mealtn to Dlamants retired to her pa