Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-01


Copyright. 1903, by Harper x Brothers.)
ties. Her work has been characterized by
breadth of conception, grasp, experience,
by passion intense and conscious Tender
ness is the revelation.
'You-you really and actually want to
marry me? You remember about my
mother? And you know what l told you
about my temper" cries Kitty, the pitiful,
the fascinating. You must listen. 1 have
"a wicked. odious, ungovernable temper. L
should make you miserable And again:
Il should be the ruin of you. 1 should spoil
everything. You don't know the mischief I
can do. And 1 can't help it; it's in my
blood"
William Ashe, equipped by nature and by
circumstances for social and political sue
cesses, with a moral equilibrium that prom
isesa larger kinds of victory, takes into his
life at the very eve of his career a flutter-
ing, passionate, tempestuous child. He has
fallen under the spell of her ethereal love-
illness. She is strange, unruly and capri
cious, but at the heart of her there is some
thing helpless and infinitely sweet. He lifts
her like some affrighted thing into the clear,
even sunlight-of his disposition. He frees
her from her, painful environment. He
counts on this. with the optimism of his
easy, alf-humorous good temper. But the
forces of heredity are arrayed against her.
From this he cannot set her free. Here is
their tragedy.
The story proceeds to a catastrophe. The
treatment is intimate and charged with
DaIlOS. ! ct Somehow III Inc ulIuSl VI IL
the creative genius seems TO waver. Is
there a conflict between the artist and the
moralist? There is a loss of assurance, a
reiteration of incident. The temperaments
brought into play seem for a while to force
no issue. And at such moment moral
formula is brought forward. But the life
and vitality Of the action have been so
great that theory drops, inadequate. The
story ends almost without solution. But
the scene at the last is transformed into
fitting close py that exquisite touch OF
sympathy and of tenderness which makes
OF the whole human document.
CHATHAM. By Frederick Harrison.
New York: The Macmillan Company.
Washington: Brentano's.
The career of William Pitt is one of the
most fascinating studies in all the range of
British history, equalIng in intensity of in
cident and Importance of activity the lives
of the foremost of Britons. Mr.. Harrison,
in his excellent account of Chatham's
work, character and motives, declares that
in eight centuries England has known but
four great creative statesmen-Ni lliam the
Conqueror, who made all England an or
ganic nation Edward l, who conceived and
founded Great Britain; Cromwell. who
made the United Kingdom and founded the
sea power. and Chatham, who made the
colonial system and was the founder of the
empire. Yet 1t is significant that Chatham
lived 10 see the BRUSH coioAId4 sS Steil te-
ceive its first body blow in the separation
of the American states. A strange perver-
sity prevented the king from employing
Puts great talents for constructive govern
ment to the end of retaining the western
colonies There was always an avowed an
tagoniSm for the occasional premier on the
part of the crown. He was feared and was
baked at every turn. His days of greatest
physical and mental as well political
power had passed when the crisis came, and
Chatham was forced to watch the crumb-
ling of the structure that he had built.
In this presentation Mr. Harrison holds
himself under admirable restraint and pre-
sents a compact study of the subject that
will be of use to the student who desires
brief summary of Chatham's character and
an index TO the broader biographies that
have preceded.