New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1904-11-20
a TRUE POET.
His Portrait Dra7Cn by the Hand of a
Novelist.
THE DIVINE FIRE. BY May Sinclair. 12mo. p
591. Henry Holt & Co.

what has hth. rto seemed to be the impossible;
she has created in work of fiction poet whose
| genius inspires greater confidence than that
| invited by many a poet walking the earth to-
day. We all know the man who goes in pursuit
of the Muse through the modern novel of liter
| airy life. He is a fixed type and whether he is
| satiriZed exalted he fails to persuade us for
moment that he has any real relation to life
to poetry. When he is represented brilliant,
we have to take his brilliance on trust like the
charm of many heroine in fiction. We do not
! have to take Savage Keith Hickman on trust.
| All that May Sinclair represents him to be he
| actually is; he lives and moves and has his be-
| ing In this novel so naturally and so wildly
| that we venture to count him already among
! the memorable figures in romance a great char
acter, true to himself from first to last. His
! portrait is superbly painted in THE Divine
| Fire" and partly by virtue of that fact, partly
because the author has the dramatic instinct in
| abundant measure, this book is breathlessly in
teresting. 1t ought to give May Sinclair at once
high rank among the novelists of the day.
She has done several things which most writ
ers have neither the courage nor the ability to
do. In the first place, she has lodged the soul
Of great poet and a perfect knight in the
frame of obscure Cockney and she has set
forth the story of his emergence upon the higher
planes Of life without attempting to abate the
pressure Of the conditions against which he has
to struggle, or TO work one of those miracles Of
which the average story-teller is fatuousy
fond On the contrary Ricknan's development
is all Of piece; he does nothing from beginning
to end save the things which man of his
ture would be bound to do, matter what the
stratum of society into which he born. No
doubt, it might be argued that Miss Sinclair has
the historic of Keats to serve, to a certain
extent, as her warrant, but as matter of fact
her hero is the kind Of man for whom you
feel that precedent is needed He is a genu-
inc human being, that is obvious. and there is
more to be said on the subject. But there is
much to be said about the authors conduct in
this matter She goes against all the established
rules Of what may call easily written popu-
lar fiction. She causes her hero to SOW some
wild oats; to fall in love with a woman far
above his station in life; to write master
pieces of poetry; to engage himself to the one
shallow creature in the world peculiarly dis
qualified to make him happy. and to do. in the
midst OF it all, well nigh incredible deeds of 10y
atty and self-sacrifice. She causes him to act
in a word, as your ordinary novelist might have
caused him to act, but with the difference that
whore in other hands the book might have been
made to reek of sentimentality and melodrama
she has made it fragrant with sincerity setting
the mark of truth upon every page of her long
and fairly complicated narrative
If there is one side of her task where she has
falered, it is the side which relates to her hero
inc. Lucia Harden is not realized as Hickman
is, and all the other characters in the book
are. There moments in which her traits
| are interpreted with an insight that takes us
| captive but in the main she through the
| book rather phantom wise, not creature of
| flesh and blood. We do not feel of her
| as we feel sure of Hickman and the rest. It
| may be, however, that if Lucia is somewhat
| insubstantial. it is because the author means
her to be so, means her to stand for ideal
| rather than for 4 personality She may not be
sufficiently tangible for u.s. but she is, after all,
! the divinity for Hickman. and the interesting
thing is that by some strange compelling power
the author makes feel that for the poet she
! is Individually q woman, not merely the en-
bodiment of an ideal. 1t is part of Miss Sim
| clair's skill to give each one of her persOnages
| his or her proper place in the scheme of Keith
! Rickman's destiny. If in fulfilling this obliga-
! through intention, we have indicated blurred
our vision of that important figure in her book.
we can forgive her for the sake of the vitality
| in her portraits of Jewdwine, the donnish editor
and superior person, the type Of all that is
anemic and conceited in the modern literary
hedonist; of Flossie Walker. the beguiling and
pathetic little vugarian in whose tolls Hickman
! finds himself at a critical stage in his career;
of Kitty PalliSer, Lucia's worldly wise but