The San Francisco call., 1904-06-26
" Magnetic North ="
an ALdSkdR Tale

THE reading world believes that
Jack London, he of the bone and
blood in fiction, has proprietary lien
upon Alaska. Indeed, that land OF
the ice and the grim stalking death
which yielded to this young man
treasures not of gold has had no other
interpreter in fiction worthy of note
until the present. Now comes a
woman, Elizabeth Robins, with
novel Of remarkable power, THE Mag
netic North" TO divide il not to con-
test this literary field with the young
Californian. For there is ample room
for a division of the Alaskan bread
that has hitherto been the whole loaf
10 London. That a woman should be
the one 10 essay tale of the north
ern gold fields which reflects so much
Of actual experience and personal OBJ
servation as does The Magnetic
North" is more remarkable than the
fact that therein is something which
must share honors with The Call of
the Wild" or The God of His
Fathers"
Bigness is the first characteristic of
Miss Robins story that strikes into
the readers mind. It is broad, it is
full and deepS The novel is a COM
plete transcript from the living mar
rative of that remarkable incident in
lnOQGIn
world, the Klondike godd rush. Rich
in its significance Of reality and in
stinct with the power that comes of
the whole telling of a big story, The
Magnetic North" lays claim to con-
sideration as one of the really solid
novels Of the year.
As comparison with Jack Londons
Alaskan stories is, of course, inevitable
in the consideration of Miss Robins
Ta1 . rc al L. ~,
outset so that suggested elements of
contrast made manifest by closer view
OF the storys detail may be better
comprehended. At first off this one
fact appeals: that woman though the
author is, her book has nothing of the
womanly in its spirit 1t softens moth
ing, skips nothing, colors nothing with
cloaks anything with a veil of
woman's finer sensibilities. " The
Magnetic North is masculine
to the core. 1t has to deal
with men in a mans struggle.
In this it yields nothing to the virulent
man-strength of Jack London. The
powerful masculine spirit of Mrs.
Stee's stories OF the Mutiny is dupli-
Gated in Miss Robins book. In this
element, subtle and difficult of exact
definition, does The Magnetic North
differ from THE Call of the Wild;
the element of the heart. Jack Lon
don's men are all bone and sinew, in
spired by London's own characteristic
concept of life as the eternal tooth
and-claw rending and tearing whereby
only the f1ttest survive. London finds
In man the animal always, the spirit
rarely. Miss Robins sees in her men
of the north brutality, yes, but more:
a fine essence Of the soul, of the some
thing which we are, glad to believe
makes man a little lower than the
angels rather than little higher than
the anthropoid apes. London's stories
are soulless; Miss Robins is warm with
trust in the God-given spark of ex-
altation above the beasts given to
the creatures made in His image.
Not all to the grim terror and the
blind fate of the great north is "The
Magnetic North" devoted, nor is the
spirit Of the book that of ceaseless
battling against the relentless hidden
springs of relentless natural force
Man is not pitted against the white
silence, fighting for a foothold and a
freehold. Bloody sweat does not reek
from every page of the book The
story is not about men made strange
new creatures, half beast, in the
strange land under the aurora, but on
the contrary, it follows the fortunes
of normal men who remain normal
enough under the unwonted condi-
tions Of the new land, changing only
as they fit themselves to their sur
roundings. There are tragic uplifts
to the tale, but it is not all tragedy.
The colonel from Kentucky the
boy" from Florida, Potts, the Den
yer bank clerk; MacCann, the Nova
Scotia school master, and O'Flynn,
lawyer, of San Francisco-these are
the five men, gathered from five cor
ners of the continent. whose fortunes
are followed through Miss Robins
tale. Thrust by the icy hand of win
ter into cabin of their own building
on the bank Of the lower Yukon, these