The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-08-21
THREE BRIGHT BOOKS.


 Dorthea-Maorten Maortens in his brilliant novels full of incident and color yet manages always to take his text from that page of the heart which we love best to read from: Good Con- Quers. His doctrine is: Gods Fooi wins out at last. His Don Qufxotes do vanuuish all windnills. His wise Fools marry poor beauties for love and live in secure comfort. His Idealists line up to the spirit of their belief and yet as grasps ali the good things of Realism. It is a blssser belief and the world would be a happier. better con- ducted place if all lived under so un- worldly and truly wise laws.
 The characters are drawn from Dutch High Life, people of that ster- linr character which can only be built by generations of well-bred ancestors beuueathing certain iniyaible qualties to their descendants. A moneyed aris tocracy may buy many things put no. those qualities, they are things wnon the all grasping commercial spirie mas not yet put on bargain counters.
 Of Egon Roden's heritage m tnese things our writer gives us this terms pararrapt: Nature had gracced nm with a simple heart, but or course n could not remain ignorant or tne that he belonged to the prouoesl . Pr0t4nStant it, never forget it, fathers HaNi to his sons. so,
 That Martens thoroughly under stands that a day of change In these matters is upon all the world witness his descriptton of Dorothea's awaken . inc to realization that things in the great world are not as they seem IF the little village of Brodryck: sud denly it seemed to her as If she nad
 
 cannot earn money, but can only IT, herit or steal it; the up-to-date upper class of Europe. its promiscuous so- cfety.' the scum at the top.
 sIe demi monde. on the lips or Dumas, meant the fringe of the great one.
 "Conditions have changed, and. with the disappearance of the contrast We no longer understand, but can only misapply the term.
 There Is no great world now. There is only above the quiet. constant aris- tocracies of the hearth and home and mart and village, the noisy crowd Of bIackguards that are rich."
 Changes that must come every sew eral generations and which being fn- evitabIe, must also be salutary. Those Normans. numerous ancestors or the future, who ''come over with the con- queror," must have seemed very no- veau to the Saxon nobility. The Puri' tans, also ancestors of a progeny that is numberless, who "came oyer in the Mayfiower" must have seemed queer enough to the Chieftains and the mo- bilfty of the forest. After so long a season all new must become old and all old must need replacing.
 Martens characters always do lot of living on their own account, the read CT never sees the hands that make and move his puppets. though he feels that the head that guides the hands Is a very wise. philosophic and observing one.
 Uncle Tony. who, having nothing to do, Is always busy; the Aunts. the Colo mel, the Head, the General and tho Generalin all are as real as the people to whom we bow and speak today. Uncle Tony and Aunt Elm keep up their lifelong comfortable courtship, some of no morning of matrimonial quar- rels. and comforted in an abiding trust. each in the others determination to sTive single" Aunt Mary has her trust fin heaven. Aunt Elm in Tony.
 'ewhatH you bet me, my dears, that we'll have her back before she is twen ty-twof"
 '"The Lord Is Mighty" said Mary.
 "A box of cigars" said Emma.