New-York tribune., 1906-08-11
THE SEAMY SIDE.
Ne5o Romances of Occidental and
Oriental Life.

DIGIT OF THE MOON. AND OTHER LOVE
STORIES FROM TIE HiNDQo. Translated %
With four illustrations. l2mo. pp. iv, AL G. P.
With frontispiece in colors. 12mo. PIP. SsS. Dana
Estes & Co.
SANDY FROM THE, s1ERRAs;, BY Richard
Ransom. 12mo, PIP. xii, 3ls. Moffat, Yard & Co.
THE VOICE OF THE STREET BY Ernest Poole
With slx sslx illustrations 4 by Joseph Stella l2nlo
THE CHALLENGE BY Warren Cheney. With
four illustrations by y. G. Wyeth. 12mo. PIP.
viii SSs. The Bobbs- Merrill Company.
In "a Digit of the Moon" Mr.. Balm has gath
cred four stories taken from the HindOo, and
each one, like so much of Eastern fiction, is
made the vehicle for many shorter tales. The
story which gives the title TO the volume, the
author states. is but the sixteenth part Of
much longer work, entitled THE Churning OF
the Ocean of Time" the Sanskrit manuscript of
which came into his possession in curious
manner which he explains at some length Mr..
Balm has chosen this particular tale because it
differs "in a remarkable manner from other
classica! products OF the Hindoo Muse in the
simplicity of it's STYLE" exhibiting fewer of the
'gaudy rhetorical and effeminate literary pref
illnesses" that have "desiccated and broken the
spring of the Hindoo mind" Whether these
stories and the others which follow In
truth actual translations from mysteriously
acquired and hitherto unknown manuscript or
are the original creations of a mind saturated
with Hindoo literature and folklore. they are
as characteristic they entertaining. They
are marked by delicacy OF sentiment and poet
ical imagery, and are infused with Oriental
philosophy that, nevertheless seems often TO
have a suspiciously Occidental application.
In his latest novel. '"The Sands of Pleasure"
Frilson Young-who is revealed on the title page
as the Guy Thorne" who wrote when It Was
Dark" and "A Lost Cause" the two High
Church" novels which have caused more or less
excitement in England-has ventured
widely different theme The book is an attempt
to idealize temporary attraction OF the hero,
a young English constructor of lighthouses, for
a gaudy and nercenary member of what he
awkwardy terms the half world" whom he
encounters in Paris The subject into which
Mr. Young goes with elaboration of detail, is
one which is ordinarily avoided by writer's Of
English fiction and he has undertaken to JUS
tify his course in an elaborate predatory ex-
PLANTATION. The arguments which he brings for
ward would be more convincing had he failed
TO write the story which follows. To his credit
be it said, his knowledge of the life which he
affects TO portray is superficial. The sentiment
in which he INDUCES is artificial and at times
even grotesque, when the lighthouse builder.
having convinced himself Of the impossbiity of
his Fictitious romance, finds all his old feelings
come over him with a rush upon discovering the
sirens toothbrush in his valise.
In his first novel, Sandy from the Sierras,"
Mr. Barry exhibits the same qualities of vrility
and hysteria that characterized his former book
Port Arthur: A Monster Heroism." The hero is
a lad born in the mountains, where he early
shows signs Of his superiority over man and
beast by defeating his schoomates in fistic
counters and training a team of gophers to
draw d cart-which made him famous for
miles about He seeks his fortune in San
Francisco. beginning a newsboy and rising
to the heights of reporter a daily news
paper. His associates are chosen indiscrimi-
nately from the lowest and the highest in the
Pacific Coast social SCALE so that by his IA
milianty with the intended operations of a gang
of burglars he Is able TO be on the spot con-
temporancously. and so to get the first news of
the lootng of the home of his society friends
for the paper which he serves. Through the aid
Of a typical political boss" he becomes a power
in the state, and of course in the end throws
his influence in favor of good government and
''marries the girl" The story sheds some weird
lights the peculiar methods of San Francisco
newspapers and politics before the fire." and
the reader wonders. if they were really charac-
terstic, why the city so long remained immune
from a general conhagration
Another newsboy hero IS Lucky Jim in Ernest
Pooles story of East Side life in New York
entitled The Voice of the Street" Lucky Jim
has voice OF his own, which promises TO bring
him fame and fortune If properly cultivated
and he is fortunate in finding in cafe orchestra
an old German musician who is willing TO under
take the task Bat the call of the voice of the
street" is more potent than the call of Jim's own
voice at times and the tale is one Of the oppos-
ing influences of the life of pleasure and excite
ment that is short and of the vocal art that IS
long. Fortunately for Jim, the German musician
has an attractive daughter, who eventually turns
the scales for Jim in favor Of his art-and of
herself-although only after a sacrifice OF her
own ideals that it is difficult for the reader to
accept The story has many Of the same quail
tiles as Mr. Barry's. though In less exaggerated
degree Crude though it Is IN style and con-
struetion there is some excellent characterize
ton in IT,
In ..The Challenge" Warren Cheney tells
story of Alaskan life before the cessiOn Of the
PENINSULA to the United States. The characters
are lower class Russians, whose impulses and
motives whose supersttions and mental proc
esges are so foreign 10 own that il is difficult
for the American reader to follow their actions
and romances with any degree OF sympathetic
interest. An unherOic hero who feebly gives up
his sweetheart in the face of parental opposi-
ton and consoles himself BY falling I'm love with
her sister; a military officer who allows himself
70 be frightened into heart failure by the ring
ing Of a bell three times day by crazy priest
who himself has been driven insane by the
execution OF his wayward son-are the leading