The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-05-21
AMONG THE BOOKS
An Original Novel Is "A Cling
ham Rose
Pleasing Story of Young Girls
Trials.
GLIMPSE AT THE PLOT
Has Elements of Strength and
Also ImprObability.
Another Has Picturesque VigOr
of Expression.

The opening scene is a masquerade
dance at an art school with sim
young thing in pink cotton Ioek
with long black brafds down her pack
as the center of attraction for most OF
the young men present. Her name IS
Anne Preston and you feel from
the start that the author would never
have been so reckessly lavish as to
waste all that wit and charm on a mi
nor character When some one calls
her. with reference to her pink frock
and hair ribbons. a Bingham rose the
secret is out. For a Bingham Rose
is the title of the story and of course
ANNE Preston" is the heroine.
She is a slip of a girl when the story
begins. only 16 in fact, and if it hap
pened any place except in novel we
should all be shocked at the idea OF a
I6-year-Old girl away from home alone
at an art school She has people TOO
at that time, but later she loses them
and all her money and we meet her
next at her home in Chicago, some
years after preparing to return to New
York to seek her fortune with her pen.
For although she has attended an art
school and talks very learnedly about
'technic," and handling" and so on it
is to be a literary lady that she as
pires. In New York she runs across
one of her old admirers of the art
school. John Warren by this time
an arriving illustrator who threatens
to become the fashion. This Warren
is a good looking. ambitious. conceited
young ass and the Bingham Rose VINO
was always impudentIy frank with MN
in their old school days does not hest
tate now that they renew their ac-
quaintanNe to criticize his studio pick
his work 20 pieces and tell him that
his fiancee is not suited to him. The
fancee is. out Of the city by the way,
and Warren" spends most if the sum
mer with the Bingham Rose She visits
him at his studio and poses for him in
a dear. stiff old-fashioned lowered silk
and they take little Sunday jaunts to-
gether. One Sunday evening they go
TO Central park and have dinner at a
cafe and afterwards wander around in
the dangerous dark where Anne has
one of her moods lOf which the author
makes much without ever explaining
very clearly just what they are) and
whispers airy nonsense in the ele-
plant ears that grow on the border
of the lake and IS so spontaneously
clever and bewitching and unconven-
rfonaI that Warren loses his head,
forgets about his 6ancee up in Vermont
and kisses her. This is only what
. Anne might have expected after the
way she has been flirting with him for
the past six chapters but she is very
indignant and chides him sternly- They
ride back to her boarding house in ST
Ience and part coIdly.
And that is the last fAnne" sees
of John Warren for several months
OF course she is in love with him
has been in fact since their school
days, and we are given to understand
that she suffers something grievous'f
on account of her loss of confidence in
him.
But meanwhile another old lover of
"Anne's" art school career turns up
in New York This is Victor Stet-
son" who was a newspaper man in
Chicago while Anne" was there and
who has loved her long and faithfully.
He has money now but also 4 case of
tuberculosis and has come on to New
York to consult of specialist, an old
friend of his fathers. He spends the
next several months in this physi-
clans sauftarium and "Anne" visits
him regularly and wins the old doc
tors heart and just at the critical mo-
ment when the publishers refuse her
stories and her money has given out
the PHYSICIAN saws that Victor" must
go to New Mexico and that he can't
go alone OF course you can guess
the rest If you can't the authors
efforts to make you see what a fine.
true. brave hearted and unSelhsh girl
her heroine is have been wasted. She
offers to marry Victor and go with
him. It looks pretty easy. It is to be
civil contract, a marriage in name
only, as our old friend Bertha NJ. Clay
would say. She is to be merely the
invalid's companion. married to him
for the sake of appearances. A train
ed nurse goes along to do the work.
If he doesn't get well she is a rich
young widow. If he does
But he doesn't Does she go back
to New York and marry John War
rem" after alp No fair telling. But
her character and her genius develop
under affection COT course) and she
writes a very successful novel which
John Warren" illustrates. Alice
Ullman is the author of the story and
the book which is attractively gotten
UP with the frontispiece a posterish
looking girl with her hair over her
ears whispering into an elephant
ear, by the author is published by
the BObbs- Merrill people of Indian
apohs It sells for $50 and is doubt
less worth the price for those who
like to read the new fiction. The book
IS evidently the work of a young wO-
man, but it gives promise of consider
able strength when some of the crud-
tiles have been smoOthed out There
is a decided attempt at an art "atmos-
phere' thrOughOut-an abundance of
color and tone" and all that sort
of thing Women ought to like the
book, there are so many charming
costumes described in it. It is almost
as good Tor fashion hints as the last
number of Vogue. The epfgrams-
there are good many of them=are
somewhat studied and there is an evil
dent straining for origina lity at times
but after all there is something fresh
and sane and sweet about the little
story. If the author took herself a
little less seriously perhaps. But