The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-04-02
CHE That Eateth Bread With
Ne" Dissected.
Will Satisfy Those Who Love
Problem Stories.
HERO THAT is WEAK.
After Deserving Wife Again
Falls in Love With Her.
Attempts to Shed New Light on
Divorce Question.

If you like the Lovely Character il,
fiction, the wronged woman who re-
fuses to cry out but who "sits like
patience on a monument smiling at
GRIEF while she is dying Of a broken
heart you Will be mighty well pleased
with Katharine Mackemer, the
heroine Of HE That Eateth Bread
With Me-" a new story on the divorce
evil, by H. A. Mitchell Keays. Appro-
priately enough in view of its subject
the scene of the story is laid in Chi
cago. When it opens the hero has only
one wife, Katharine but he has grown
tired of her and has fallen in love with
another woman and before many chap
tiers he has this new wife in an apart
nent mouse down town and the old one
out in one of the lake side suburbs
and he is living with the first but visit
ing the second in order to see their
son whose custody the wife has been
given by the court. The prejudiceS of
the author, evidently a woman, are
obviously with Katharine who is pic
tured as something so near a saint
that one suspects she was a trifie too
good for every day worldly purposes
If one is of the earth. earthly, one is
rather inclined to sympathize with the
husband Mackemer who at first seems
a natural, manly fellow caught unWill-
ingly and in some respects innocently
married to one good woman whom he
once loved but has tired of, and deS-
perately infatuated with another who
is beautiful talented. charming and
who understands him and satisfies his
nature as his pale, coloriess and saint
ly wife is incapable of doing. But later
when Mackemer having divorced
Katharine and married Isabel, herself
and Wanton instability falls in love
again with his first wife and wants to
give up Isabel and return to her, one
is so disguised with him that 1t is rain
er difficult to overcome ones nausea
and go on with the story of his check
cred love affairs. The worst of it is,
the author has a weakness for MIN,
pictures him as a hero, tell of his
Vaccinations which no woman could
resist" and tries to create the impress
sion that he is a martyr when ne sticks
to Isabel even after he talls ~ love
with Katharine for the second time
This rebirth of his love Tor his frst
wife is shown to work his regeneration
of soul and he becomes almost as
tiresome as Katherine
If one sympathizes with any CHAR
acter of the books several unconV1nc-
ing ones 1t is with Isabel. who is just
a woman without any ideals beyond
looking her best and holding her nus
bands love. The author hates her ana
gives her the worst of it at every pos
sible opportunity, but in spite of that
she is human, consistent, reasonable.
and as constant as Katherine herseH
to that silly Mackemer. Moreover her
fate which the author deals out to her
ruthlessIy and apparently without re-
greet is pitiful and terrible. There IS
any amount of maudl1n sympathy TOT
Katharine who is snatched from the
grave bV IsabeTs death, which leaves
Hackemer free to remarry her ana
grow tired of her again, but none Tor
the poor, unhappy creature whose
Wretched end bought their happiness
Of
overdraWn story comes none too soon
for the readers patience. 1t Is illogical
and premature. The last chapter of a
story of the loves of a man like Mack
youth health, good looks and vanity
And the book sheds no light on the
divorce question. solves none Of its
problems and proposes no remedy for
its evils. The authors idea evidently
is that the law had no right to Sunder
the tie that bound Mackemer to kath-
arine but she entirely Overlooks the
fact that as long as they We're mar
ried he cared nothing for his first wife
and that as soon as he had the sec
ond he wanted the first again. al
though it would be more in acceptance
with masculine nature as revealed by
the divorce records If ne had had his
eve on a third. A divorce for such
man certainly seems traVesty on JUS
tice, but at the same time Wnat sell
respecting woman in Katharine's place,
knowing as she did that her husband
had ceased to love her. would be will
ing to continue TIC live with him? II
the author wishes to imply that II the
law had not freed Mackemer he would
still have outgrown his fancy for Isa-
bel and returned to his devotion to his
wife, she presuPposes a singular ignor-
ance of the ways of such a man, who
only values what he doesn't possess.
He That Eateth Bread With Ne, Dy
H. A. Mitchell Keays. Published by
Mcclure. Phillips & Co, New York
Price $3.50.