The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1903-03-12
Wv and SOCIETY
Anna SoIny: a Rus
sian Type in Fiction.

With the quietude of the Lenten sea-
son. there is more opportunity for read
Ing and a glance at some of the new
books may be interesting during the Len
ten hours.
1.-The Circle" by Katherine Cecil Thurs
ton, lDodd Meade and Company is a
fascinating story that holds the interest
of the reader with the intensity not I'M
like that with which blase theater-
goer watches the development of
complex emotions. And, like an
intricate plot. the threads of which
are sometimes lost, the author leaves
some unforgotten strands to be un-
raveled by the imagination, and when
the story is finished the reader IS con-
scious that the plot while unfolding and
naturally, negleets in the end to disen-
tangle few of the delicate and subtle
threads.
I'm youth we dream that life is
straight line: later, we know it to be
circle in which the present presses on the
future the future on the past" is the au-
thoTs theme which reveals itself In the
life of Anna Solny. a young Russian girl,
who with her father is an exile in Lon
don, that part of London which is unat-
traotlve in the day and even more unin-
wiling In the night. The author describes
the London squalor and before she lifts
Anna above it the reader shares the
latters longing to see lfe-that life which
measured by human grades makes
journey from the southeast to the west Of
London longer than the crossing of the
desert"
The incident that changes the current
in the life of the Russian girl concerns
the recovery of some jewels, voluntary
errand which she makes to restore a
single pink topaz to its owner
Johann. an Austrian, a hunchback, is
commissioned by jewel merchant in VII
emma to take the jewels to London. He
goes to Belgium by the least frequented
way and reaching Antwerp, crosses to
London by the sea. The story opens with
Johann's escape from a set Of London
swlndlers who had tricxed him and got
the Jewels, with the exception of a pink
topaz. It was thus that Anna found Jo-
ham outside the door of the little curlo
shop
Johann tells her the story, and unmoved
by her sense of honor refuses through
cowardice to inform the jewel merchant
of his loss. Anna through generous i'm
pulse offers to give him a room above
the little shop, "a mouse hole in the
bigness of London and later takes the
pink topaz to its owner, Mrs. Maxstead,
and tells the story without revealing the
name of Johann.
Mrs. Maxstead comes into her life.
Mrs. Maxstead is one of the most brill
liantly drawn figures in modern fiction. 1t
is unusual that two women so widely diff
ferent in character are drawn so closely
together. Anna never comprehends Mrs.
Maxstead but Mrs. Maxstead reads the
Russian girl unerringly. There are few
stronger types than Mrs. Maxstead-the
strength not of greatness, but the strength
of intelligence, experience, courage the
strength that Mrs. LeMoyne and Minnie
Madden Fisque give to their roles
But Mrs. Maxstead makes mistake.
She Is inexpficsble. There are some who
will think she is cruel. There are others
who win understand her.
1t would be unfair to the reader to re-
veal the story in detail. Briefly, the Russ
sian girl sewers her old ties, leaves her
father to his manuscripts and his curios
leaves Johann, who werships her. and
becomes through a subterfuge a protege
of Mrs. Maxstead. Years later all Lon
don Is at her feet. She has become an
actor and Mrs. Maxstead is exultant that
her dreams of greatness for the gifted
Russian girl are realized.
1t is not essentially a new story, that
of an obscure girl achieving fame. 1t
has it's parallel in history as well as
In books. 1t is the telling that makes
instructive and interesting the story of
Anna Solny and Jeanne Maxstoad, or
rather the vlvidness of the authors style
in revealing the varying emotions of each
character. 1t Is a story and a sequel COM
bined, just as life is a story and sequel
If we only read to the end. A *. w.