The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-05-25
NEWS or THE BOOK WORLD
The Road to Paradise Every Man Must
Make Ills Own to Earthly Paradise
Four Roads TO Paradise" Shows a
Striking Picture Q. the Roads Four Men
Made and What They Led to.

Ihere Is a road to Paradise for every
one OF u.s.. Each makes his own as he
goes in fact. Some never reach the shin
ing goal, others reach it too late, only
rev find 1t to be the land the distant
prospect promised. We are speaking now,
please note, Of earthly paradises-the
goals OF ambitions-and there is usually
an Eve IN them. Four typical roads are
sketched In Maud Wilder Goodwin's Four
Roads to Paradise, and four typical trav-
elers fare along these roads. One has
chosen the way Of financial success an
other that of influence, a third science,
and the fourth doesn't choose, but hits
upon the course of true love. The fourth
only nnds his paradise worth the having,
once 1t is attained.
Inc Eve which three Of these paradise
hunters see in their distant Edens is the
same woman, Anne Blythe, charming
young widow. who has inherited millions
from her husband and her father-in law,
put. VINO must give up all but paltry
hundred N, thousand If she marries again.
me story begins in New York and
shorty arterWard shifts to Florence. Italy,
place than New York city.
Wlthm year each of the four reaches
his paradise, but only one enters in peace,
and he falling to moralizing upon the
fact, says:
It is terrible thing, Anne, this modern idea
Of destiny, which makes it not some malign OUT
| side power doing spitefu1 things to us, but the
| SLOW inevitable working out Of our own natures
| Il seems to be of little consequence what we
say or do, when what we are Icons above us
driving US on to our fate.
The tale is worked out with more than
ordinary skill, the characters are appar-
emily sketched from life, and the incidents
are such as one would watch with deep
interest if come upon in his own going
and coming upon the face of the earth.
The chief interest centers in Mrs. Blythe,
a woman Of many contradictions and vet
Of many attractions, who as the possible
Eve Of three distant types Of paradises
holds unique position in fiction. She
mas recently been freed from association
with hateful father n-law who made
life WEAKNESS to her. Her husband, who
was worse, had died before his father.
| NOW she declares: II have had enough
Of vice and misery. The corners Of nv
soul are full of their germs; want q
great wave Of happiness to wash it all
clean. And so she sets about finding that
happiness, apparently in responsibility
but only apparently, for one Of her adj
mlrers discovers that she has "been do
Ing her duty with one hand, then shaking
her fist at it with the other.''
Ihere is something Of novelty about q
little scene between two Of the characters
from which we shall cut out the names in
order to preserve in part at least the
edge. Of the portion Of the story from
which it comes:
asks She tgas d I7I -
lyon would strip the veil Of privacy from the
most sacred emotions of the human soul, y replies
4 Very likely, but did your
Il eyes, -. p
1 .'What did you say q"
..Im afraid you must. It's quite necessary. .
well, then, nearly as 1 can remember,
said, Susan, let us build little house in the
! garden and go and live in it. I will be the
Kitchen, If you will be the wife and bring Jam
| and cream from yours was and she was g.
and our gardens adjoined, which was convenient;
I share of the providing I imposed upon poor
] Susan = "
! smile trenbled across --'a lips
excellent proposal she said ''brief and
4 What is 1t, -?"
i Suppose we build a little house in the gar.
den. You might be tho husband and that is,
If I We're urged
4 But in: all this pursuit Of happiness
4 which some find and some do not, there
| is the reminder that none finds 1t fol
i long. II can't imagine finding happiness
4 in anything which we realize as LASTING
only for moment" says one. eve
must hook our lives onto the eternities
i to give them any significance" That Is
4 the deepest note in the book. Perhaps
4 it would not have been such good art
\ but, after the partly successful and partly
/ futile efforts in chasing the butterfly 81
4 happiness which the story pictures II
would have made an excellent moral.
| The Uneasy Chair.
/ TO MY MOTHER.
i MY little baby lies along my arm;
And looking at her there, the glad tears
press,
i And, like a tidal wave Of tenderness
i The years Of love since I lay Graded
i 5.-%ss& So
Unfathomed love EMBEDDING me from
4 harm
Return and flood my life. For now
4 I know.
BY Ann Devoorse, in scribner's Maya.
| zine for June.
i An important book on the fall list Of the Mac.
milan company is the biography of the English
artist, Sir Philip Burne-Jones. The book will
contain reproductions Of many Of the artist 8
most famous pictures, for the most part, it is
| said, never before reproduced.