The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-14
With Makers an0 Lovers of Literature
SOME POINTED TIPS
 FROM A CRITICS QUERIES

There has been so much clamor about Lady Roses Daughter that we are be- ginning to wonder if there has not been lot of "clacking' and just bit of booing would be in order; more especially when we regard this latest book of Mrs. Wards along with that of a young Amer ican, Norris.
 Appearing practically simultaneously, one has heard much less about "The Pit" than of Lady Roses Daughter" Perhaps one reason for this is that Nor ris is an American; perhaps another, be- cause Mrs Ward has a distinct, cultured and deserved audience. for she has done better.
 One is thoroughly impressed with the artificial tone. the artificial lights and the artificial thread of the plot. witi It's artificial climax, in Mrs. Wards book. found it impossible to be impressed with note of sincerity beyond that crippled, but brilliant-minded old lady's constant complaining against Julie Le Breton who certainly was a treacherous and de- captive young parsonage. She was paid to attend to the errands and permitted a maid to misattend to them Most as- suredly she was a servant not worthy of her hire; but that Is beside the question, snd Is hardly more than note of per- sonal indignation.
 
 may be found in Merediths ."Diana of the Crossways." But Diana appealed much more to the reader. I am sure. If one Is interested in books like Mrs. Wards latest, Meredfths volume is sug- gested, for the former has paraIIeIed much of the latter. even to the same method of saving a willing heroine who determines to throw convenfionaIity to the winds. take her lover to her arms and defy family and the world at large. l can imagine no man, who fs sane playing the part of the constant lover to and finally wedding the hair-brained Ju- lie Incidentally that faithful lover is probably the stupidest lover that fiction has ever furnished
 One hears the sizzle and f1ickering of calcium throughout Lady Roses Daughter"
 In The Pit" Norris produced before his death book that is strong. crude In parts, but always sincere and Working toward the ultimate actions desires and sacrinces of genuine red-blooded human beings
 With consummate skill and a complete knowledge of his facts. he has worked out a novel that reads almost like a news ac- count of market raid His theme is so much part of American high-pressure
 
 one has been in Chicago, Norris's tremen- oously dynamic descriptions of the life and the movements there are understood to be unexaggerated and wonderful,
 He has seen the gloomy side of the sit- uation. but he has seen the side that is mirrored in real life oftenest while the victims are forgotten; the successful ones are neralded and toasted, the others like swift descending plummet make hardly splash as they disappear in shifting tides of humanity,
 The conflicting emotions of Jadwin, his total absorption by the whirlpool of the grain market. his gradual weaning from his beautiful and immature wife; her temptations and her victories; the side light on the ruin Jadwin's ascendancy brought into the home of his best friend, and the final crash which hurls Jadwin to the ground are told in style that is far above the pigmy catholicism and dil- ettante word picking of the more poll ished. Norris is savage. he is crude, but he has a nobility of purpose and bigness of views that strain even his large abili- ties to express in that titanic fashion the subject demands, He has written about vital things-things of now, problems that confront not only Americans today, but that reach their dragon-Iike lengths almost around the continent.
 Placed side by side (and perhaps it is unfair to both) "The Pit" and Lady Roses Daughter are worlds apart; in one shines the great sun of the world, ob- scured now and then by fieecy