The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-11-06
rnc orr world .

A book which may well be the sen. satfon of the season, the success oi many seasons. The story tells witn almost brutal plainness of those uni. vefsal and rarely wcrded sensasions q childhood and of earliest youth. Tness sensations. perceptions. wnetever tne, are, leave us when the mind entangies sfself with pleasure, business. the cares of the world.
 Rut who is there that cannot hari back to childhood and recall the tfmes when a. sudden realization of the un. seen has come when one has said: T have done this before" of the most tr,,lv novel experience--in this life. Or: This has been said before" oi T have been just here before" when the ground was surely untrodden--in this life.
 Then the vague impressions of a sorrow were known that suddenly dim the light of child's day.
 The clear insight into the character. the reading of the motives of those about us with knowledge passing all the possible experiences of childhood. With taking on the burden of practi- cal things these impressions usually depart from us.
 Not so with the hero of the Grey World" The author claims that he truly knew with knowledge that was practical, knowledge that was real as any fact of science, actual as intimacy with any tangible tnfng.
 A little boy of the slums lay recov- ering in a hospital in London. A visit from his mother and bun surrepti- tiously slipped to him by that we'll brought a relapse.
 uaro Fol1oxue one nf the most mar vellous stories of souls drifting to death ever written. No idealism, no fiuttering of angels wings. no rolling of the thunders of life and death in conflict for a soul. Only chtld's frantic futile effort to stay here.
 To stay in the only world 1t knows. To hold fast to the senses that come with birth. To bear the noises that are dulling, to see the forms that are diminishing, to. just at the last. keep the brass knob of the bed shining in the filming eyes.
 Then the drift out into The Grey World. The only desire of the loosed spirit the wish to get back into the poor little body, the aimless beating about the hospital ward. The drifting out into the world. The old familiar world now grown world of shadows, the old busy world turned into a play ground of futile games. The trafiic of London all a-hurry and astir--for what? The people all hasting after shadows. The little ghost can hear no word of the old world he cannot make himself heard. He is really haunting firesides and no one knows 1t, all are busy with their own shadowy guests.
 Out of the silence of his once familiar world he finds his ear altered ~N ~l~fk world of drifting shadows. The only sound he can recognize even true is a futile crying for the things of sense laid unwillingiy aside. He tries to join in the throng of spirits crying dis contentedly as they are yet finds nc companionship there. Then all the force of his soul cries for life again life even though he knows now that the thing we call life Is most shadowy thing in all the universe.
 The wish Is life to him. He comes into a second birth. As the child oi q middle class English manufacturei and his commonplace, but kindly wife the little soul begins anew the journey of life.
 The memory of his lost life Is with him. The actual knowledge of the futility of life is with him.
 The real experience of the Spirit World Is his. He is the one soul that need not speculate. He knows the value of all life's stock market. His knowledge is more complete than study of four-score years can give.
 The rest of the story follows the ordinary course of life successes. boy never understood, some dulling oi the spirits sense Gin this case actua experienced by the study and sport oi a boys school. The seeking for companion spirit, In the dreamer Ste phen, in the alluring Elsa. in Mildred Failing always to find the understand ing one until meeting Hester. the ladI of the world welded heart, mind, sou to a dead husband he finds the com panion who requiring nothing of hin he is able to draw from-and he al nearly content as may be.
 This type of advanced young maj with some sort of chilly fluid fl the veins instead of good red blood i not new in literature. We have me him several times without the back ground of the Grey World. however.
 The book Is full of stirring scenes and novel episodes.
 The scene where Willie takes thu shadowy form of his dead mother Il his arms is belovable. How true thu ICSCHlmChS OA bhO PAdSthO@A CASc " the household at the intrusion of , spirit! We are rarely ready for tn return of our own ghosts, else wouit they come to us oftener
 The chapters on book-building arr full of delightful quality.
 The book has much real humor The uncommonness of the volume fl that the mystic and the ghostiy ar, dealt with in so commonplace q way The unreal Is given us with all tn, sanity and reality with which the unreal is served to us.
 The book Is full of every day wit wisdom and philosophy.
 Its mysticism is of a uniquely prac tical sort. The Grey World. By Eve Ivn TIpderhilI