The Washington times., 1901-10-06
Recent Fiction.

Recent Fiction.
"The Right of Way" 10y Gilbert Park
CT, is in scmc ways the best work the au
thor has yet done. and is certainly in
ferior to none Cf his other novels The
hero is brilliant young lawyer Charley
Steele. whose life has come near being
ruined by the vice Of drunkenness. BY
a strange chance he is cast into the midst
of little French-Canadian community il
a scrni-imhccile condition, and when he
finally awakens to a sense Of his identi-
ty and Whereabouts it is to ind that he
is dead TO the community in which he
once lived and that the circumstances
have made it practically impossible for
him to go back. The interest Of the sto-
~ is ethical and psychological, but there
is plot enough. clearly and strongly de
veloped, to furnish forth two OF three av-
erage novels Several OF the situations
are intensely dramatic. but there are
other writer's who can conceive dramatic
situations, and not many who can SO
clearly and skillfully follow a line of
thought, and do it in a way which is not
like sermon, but like the talk of a
Thoughtful and clever man. The scene in
which the young lawyer, in the midst
of a drunken bout in a lumbermens re-
sort, delivers a sermon to a crowd OF
rough rivermen, is one of the most pow
erful in the book, and in reproducing il
one may give some idea Of the author S
way Of handling an extremely faseinat-
ing subject:
What more incongruous thing than
this fianeur in patent feathers and
red tie, this 'hell-of-a-feliow with a
pane of glass in his eye as Jake
Hough, the horse doctor, afterward
said. surrounded by red and blue
shirted rivermen. woodsmen, loafers,
and tOughs, singing a sacred song with
all the JUNCTION of a choir boy, with
magnetism. too that did its work in
spite Of all prejudice II was as If
he were counsel in one of those cases
when. the minds ana Sympathies of
Judge and Jury at first arrayed against
him. he had ire sistibly c!oven his way
to their judgmCnt-not stealing away
their hearts, but governing, dOmlnat-
ing their intelligence Whenever he
had done this he had been drinking
hard; was in a mental world created by
drink serene. clear-eyed. in which his
brain worked like an inyinCible ma
chine perfect and powerful. Was II
the case that, as he himself suggested,
he was never so natural as when under
this influence? That then and only
then the real man spoke, tnat then
and only then the primitive soul
awakened: that il supplied the thing
left out of him at birth.
In an even. conversational tone. in
French at once idiomatc ana very
simple he began:
My dear friends this is a world
where men get tired. II they work
they get tired. and if they play they
get tired. If they look straight ahead
of them they walk straight, but then
they get blind by and by; if they look
round them and get open-eyed, their
feet stumble and they fall II is
world of contradictions. If man
drinks much he loses his head and il
he doesn't drink at all he loses heart.
If he asks questions he get into
trouble, and if he doesn't ask them he
gets old before his time. Take the
hymn We have just sung:
On the other side OF Jordan,
In the sweet fields of Eden
Where the tree of life is blooming,
There is rest for you!
"NVe al like that because we all
get tired, and it isn't always summer,
and nothing blooms all the year
round. We get up early and we work
late, and We sleep hard, and when
the weather is good and wages good.
and there's plenty in the house we
stay sober, and We sadly sing "On
the Other Side of Jordan" but when
the weather's heavy and funds scarce.
and the pork and rolasses and bread
come hard, we get drunk and we sing
the comic chansOn "BTigadier, Nous
Avez Raison. We've been singing a
sad song tonight when were feeling
happy We didn't think whether it
was sad or not, We only knew it
pleased our ears. and We wanted those
sweet fields of Eden, and the blooming
tree OF life, and the rest under the
tree. But ask a question or two.
Where Is the other side of Jordan?
Do you go up to IT or down to it2
And how do you go? And those sweet
fields Of Eden. what do they look like
and how many viii they hold? Isn't il
clear that the things that make us
II 81 in fE rF4~1d ~ h.
We go for blind?
He paused. Now dozen men came
a step or two nearer and crowded
close together. looking over each
others shoulders at him with sharp,
wondering eyes.
s. Isn't that so?" he continued. DO
you realize that no man knows where
that Jordan and those fields are and
what the flower of the tree of life
looks Ike? Let US ask question
again Why is IL that the one being
in all the world who could tell us
anything about it, the one being who
had ever seen Jordan or Eden or that
tree OF life-in fact, the one Of all
creation who could describe heaven.
never told2 Isn't it queer? Here he
waS-that one man-SJanding Just as
am among you. and round him We're
the men who followed him, all ordin-
AIRY men, with ordinary curiosity. And
he said he had come down from
heaven, and for years they We're with
him. and yet they never asked him
what that heaven was like; what it
looked like, what it felt like, what
sort Of life they lived there. what
manner of folk Were the angels, what
was the appearance Of God. Why
didn't they ask. and why didn't he
answer People must have kept ask
ing that question afterward, for man
named John answered II. He de
scribed, only an Oriental Jew
would or could. a place all precious
stones and gold and jewels and can
Fv, al La no GTt1apgfd
and auriferous. But why didn't those
twelve men ask the one man who
knew, and why didn't the one answer?
And why didn't the one tell without
being asked?
He paused again and now there
came shutting and a murmuring. a
curious rumble, a hard breathing, for
Charley had touched with steely fin
ger the tender places in the natures
Of these Catholics. who. whatever
their lives, held fast to the immem-
orial form, the sacredncss Of Mother
Church. They were ever ready to
step into the galley which should bear
them all home. with the invisible row.
ers OF Cod at the oars, down the wild
rapids, to the haven Of ST. Peter.
There was saVagery in their faces
now; there was peril FOR Charley
Steele
'He saw. and could not refrain
from smiling as he stretched out his
hand TO them again with little qui-
citing gesture and continued, sooth-
ingly:
But why should we ask? There's
a thing called electricity. Well, you
know that II you take u slice cut OF
anything, less remains behind. We
can take the air out Of this room, and
scarcely leave any In IT. We can take
a drink out Of a bottle, and certain
ly there isn't as much left IN IL, But
the queer thing Is that with this cleo
tricity you take II away and just as
much remains. II goes out from your
toe, rushCs away 10 Timbuctoo. and
is back in your toe before you. can
wink. Why No one knows What's
the good Of Jsking2 You can't see il: