The courier., 1901-12-28
The Usurper

Mr.. William ]. Locke is an English
writer whose novels are not yet of wide
circulation in this country. He has
written Idols. Derelicts, The White
per, Mr.. Locke's latest book, published
in October of this year. is a study of
an adventurer who found a sick man
in an Australian wilderness. The man
was out of his head and the "Usurper'
takes care of him until he thinks he
is dead. Then before he leaves him he
examines his pockets for identifying
papers. He finds a deed to farm in
Australia made out to Jasper VellacOt.
He concludes that this is the dead
mans name. He takes the papers and
the name, claims the farm and settles
down on it. The soil of the farm is
black sand and a traveller tells him
that the reason nothing will grow on
his land is because it is rich in tin.
The farm is turned into a mine and
produces for Jasper VellacOt an income
of several million dollars year. But
the rich mans conscience torments
him. He lives in the plainest lodg-
ings and gives his income away to feed
and clOthe the poor, with but little
alleviation to the inner monitor. To
add to his misery he falls in love with
the woman, who, if he were Jasper
.ellacot in reality, would be his COUSIN.
He can not ask her to take a name to
which he has no right himself. Love
makes some men honest; love trans
forms some honest men who before
were satisfied with poverty, into
crazed spectators or into pecula-
tors This man with a conscience
already tortured by his false posi-
ton Immediately wishes to relin-
quish his name and his money.
But as a kind of expiation and
because he is a real lover of his
kind, he has built hospitals, kinder
gartens and asylums. These he pre-
fers to administer himself in so far as
selecting the heads of departments
and keeping watch of their service to
the people he wishes to benefit is con-
cerned. Should he relinquish the in
come which he uses solely to conduct
these institutions, hundreds of unfor-
tunates. who have a right to suppose
that his benefactions will continue, Will
be thrust back into the wretchedness
and hOpelessness from which he
rescued them. 1t is, therefore, the
most exaggerated form of selfishness
for him to secure salvation and love at
their cost. Just as he is revolving In
his mind this new renunciation, the
man from whose pockets he took the
deed to a farm that was a tin mine,
appears at his office door. He is dis
solute, drunken wretch who cares for
no miseries but his own, and asks help
of Jasper Vellacot, whom he has en-
tirely forgotten. 1t seems he had push
madness" a disease peculiar to the
bush and which destroys
the memory. The man with secret
takes him in and feeds him and gives
him several thousand dollars year
His appearance makes the "Usurper
more than ever determined not to
abandon his poor folks to his short
mercies. The problem is an interest
ing one and so far as l know it is new.
The latter virtue in this day of the
of books is rare and to
be priced accordingly.
Every lover of poetry may be CRATE
full to the author for supplying him
with this definition or rather charac-
terizatiOn of poetry: There is
thirst in the souls of men for the same
magic of the music that can harmo-
nize all the complexities of their life
into that which is elemental, unchang-
ing, eternal" Until the young poet,
who is the Adonais of the book. ap-