The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-07-23


 He writes the sort of things that ev- erybody thinks and nobody says. 2
 For a plain, unvarnished story of politics, graft, wire pulling. .n1anfpula- tion it is complete. .--~-. .s
 What have we here but the true story of how poverty takes the life out of a young man? What have we here but the plain statement that perfect honor Is a luxury hardly to be anordedI
 That one fact more than any other marks the difference of the man Of today and the man of yesterday.
 Yesterday honor for a man was a necessity, a mans word was good as his bond. man knew no subterfuse. tergiversation, sophistry. equfvocation. evasion. Is 1t so today?
 Not only as a political romance Is The Plum Tree far and away beyond the usual novel in fostering interest of the reader. but as human document 1t Is as strikingly revealing.
 The loveiess marriage with all its quiet sailing. the expedient marriage to the girl with money that insures a successful corner has never been so exactly put into print before.
 That the sainted mother suggested and urged this marriage Is the most natural touch in the book. How often really good women have a sense of profitable adjustment of wrong means to successful ends that rank sinner would never dare plan for.
 That Sayer thoroughly acuuiesced with his mothers barely suggested plans Is not more natural than that his whole life should lack even through all its buoyant success and triumph that rare sweetness that transcends the per fume of flowers the glory of the stars. the magnificence of music. How many lives are lived through with that lack never present
 How few are permitted to draw to themselves at the end out of the past the old love and the old ideals: And as for the span between-the business. profession. career-how colorless, how meaningless it would be but for her."
 Happy the man who, through strength or through luck. guides his whole life by the star of his youth. Happy. but how rarev MT. Phillips has written with force, with strength. with realism. There is less of grace and charm than of pow CT and truth, but 1t Is a book that should live
 The BandoIero. By Paul Gwynne. An operetta of novel with the bandit, the cruel Mayuse. the torero in the heat Of the bull light. the noble maiden reared on the y, the lost son and heir returned; over and through all the gay music of the cas- tanents and oft the bolero.
 There are fanciful and exciting scenes enough to fill a half a dozen stages, the two lovers treadinR the wine press. the two rivals. gay girls of Spain dancing to the music of the one they love. the gathering of the bande- leros in the mountain farm house, the quick. sharp battles of police and bandits in the mountain strongholds The good Padre Domingo is the port lv good angel of the play. The old Mad Marquis the william. The bando- lero Conrad the noble soul, ignobly wronged and foully wronged living for revenge and reaching repentance. gay tale with no motive but to amuse.
 The later chapter following the great bull fight in the ring of Moton, the discovery of the lost heir, supplies an anti-climax. After the discovery of the percentage of Bias the toredo we had best have the wedding bells without scene of fight and blood on the hills and in the bandits dens. But alfs well that ends we'll. A merry tale well told. ".. The Motormanincs. By Lloyd Os- bourne. The latest of a series of Pocket Books that have been appearing throughout the sum mer. The others of the series have been gay and delightful. This by the step son and colaborator of Stevenson is disappointing. It were more inter- esting to read for oneself a sober treatise on the sceience of motoring than a story when bits of automobile phraseology are put into puppets nov elettes. When will we cease to havs novels of things instead of people. It is clothes, and ties, and dog col. lars and bubbles again. The reader wearies of the stock society story. Mrs. Donell. By Foxcroft Davis. The charm of the Virginia girl who neither golfs. nor hunts, nor plays tennis. nor flirts, nor writes, nor reads, nor sings Is well set forth in this read able novel.
 There are two heroes both of whom | had the enormous advantage of good | birth. good breeding, and the urgent necessity of making his own way in the world" We have the gentleman of the old school: Your true Virgin ian! he is socially the wisest person in the world because he Is the sim plest. Nobody can patronize him, mo- body can snub him. He takes notice of royalty with the same unconscious ease that he does the rapturous salu- tation of a negro barber who belonged to him 'befo' de war sir.' always po- lite. considerate, mindful of the small | sweet courtesies of life"
 l It Is a novel of society. But of a society wherein real people move. not where puppets are jerked and squeaked for.
 The story moves with natural ease | from Washington, to military post ir India. to England and back to Wash tington.
 The flare and fan fare of the newl, rich multi-millionaire is contrastet ] with poverty of the broken order the simple ease of the old leisure class retaining their well seasoned wealth It is a novel of love anC temptation, error and correction. deb' and axiety, wealth and misery. 4 very excellent study of life of oui capitals; of people we meet in the best because, like the Virginian. the sim plest society; of the worst elements that do always attach themselves tc the best. A book of polished styl, holding the careful not absorbing in terest of the reader.
 | Personal and Pertinent.
 The mile posts of life.
 What they show us. Not only how much farther to the goal, but how much journey left behind.
 As we glance up at the numbers
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