New-York tribune., 1906-05-26
REALISM AND ROMANCE.
Stories of College Life, Graft and
Adventure.

AUCCUIUI u
THE Pp T2wFR % Ssarsy By Ma T2pga ons Wright L mo-
With Hi six iia5tratioSs iFFnbS f Sy Fd" hrthur William
Brown. 12mo PIP. 824 Little. Brown Co.
THE VINE OF sIBMAH A Relation Of the 1;eP!Id PTr-
tions. limo, pp viii. 1872. The Macmillan Com
pany.
BY WIT OF WOMAN. By Arthur w MaTchmr;9Gnt r;G.rt
trations by Frank T Merrill 12mo PIP. S62
Frederick A. Stokes Company.
Ideas like some diseases, seem to be epidem
ical. Only the other day were reviewing
Herbert NJ. Hopkins's novel, The Mayor OF
Warwick" in which the heroine was the daugh-
ter of a bishop who managed the affairs of
small American college. the hero being one Of
the professors, whose rooms were in tower
The three leading characters in Mrs. Wrights
latest story, THE Tower" occupy similar rela-
tions to one another and to another small Amer
lean college There. however. the similarity
ceases The people in Mrs Wrights novel
far less positive in their characters far more
circurnscribed in their interests and more wa
vering in their purposes than were the people
in Mr. Hopkinss tale. or than were those Of
Mrs. Wright's previous story, THE Test" THE
Tower gives a truthful enough picture of life
in a second class denouinational college, with
tions and it's incidental romances, yet it is
little difficult to conjure UP any great amount
Of interest IN the personages of the tale or in
their rather insignificant activities and incon-
sequential love affairs. There is a lack OF vital
itv in the characters and of direction in their
aims and efforts that battles the sympathies OF
the reader Nobody seems to know his or her
mind for any appreciabe space of time, with
the exception of the bishops daughter, whose
otherwise colorless character is dominated by
the persistence of her girlhood love for an old
time student who returns after eighteen years
as one of the instructors in the institution Con-
sistently enough she reaps her reward. in which
there Is nevertheless, an element Of tragedy and
disappointment. There is plenty of realism in
the story, but it is the realism of the common
place.
Mr.. Stringer has laid the scene OF his novel,
The Wire Tappers." in the under world of
graft. yet he undoubtedly succeeds in enlisting
the sympathies of his readers in the struggles
Of his hero and heroine to escape from the
whirlpool of crime and duplicty which tends to
drag them further downward. The unconvinc-
ing character Of the highly exciting adventures
in which they are engaged is admiralty glozec
over by the authors faciie use Of the technical
terms of electrical art, which lends an air Of
verisimtude to the most preposterous situa-
tons The hero IS a practical teegrapher and
electrical inventor who, through hard luck be-
comes enn1eshed in actual wire tapping con-
spiracy against a prominent poolroom. The
heroine is an English giri Of excellent antece-
dents who forced to earn her own living, finds
temporary employment in fake brokerage
concern and is gradually drawn into the more
intimate activities of her employers The author
makes adroit use Of episodes familiar to news
lV fO on
force a moral while writing highly colored in
ver,ed detective story of the type made popular
by Mr. Hornung and Miss Nicholson.
1.-THE Vine of Sibmah"-readers familiar with
the Scriptures may recOIect that its plants are
gone over the sea"-is a tale of early Puritan
davs in New England. The story is told by one
Nicholas Dexter. a sturdy soldier Of the Com
monwealth with a remarkably twentieth CEN
tury point Of view which is in constant and en-
tertaining conflict with his seventeenth century
environment and habits Of speech Having res
cued child of tender years from highwaymen
I'm his youth he cherishes her image in his
heart and, promptly falling in love with her at
their next meeting, ten years later he finds his
sentiment reciprocated Immediately separated
from her by a violent and tragic adventure and
supposing her dead, Dexter escapes to Boston
in the ship of Captain Pratt, a genial seaman
vovng settlers to America with reprisals against
4ha Spaniards at whose hands he has suffered
Ills Dexters sweetheart who has also escaped
10 America in the disguise of Quaker, receives
little consideration in Massachusetts, and the
story is a succession of lively episodes in which
the two play game of hide-and-seek with each
other until the space limitations of a modern
novel compel the author to bring them together
and to disclose the not very mysterious mystery
Of Beatrix's birth and parentage Excursions
among and against the Indians. into whose
hands his lady love has fallen. are intermngled
with buccaneering expeditions to the West India
Islands and with conflicts with the religto-civil
authorities Of the colony who portrayed in
no hattering colors. While the plot is purely
Fictitious. the narrative is engagingly written
and sufficiently diverting.
Those who delight In a tale of political in
trisue in which the arts of willy European dip
loroats are set at naught and their deep laid plans
cruropled up like a bit Of waste paper through
an inoxperienced Am -ican girls clever insight
win ind ample entertainment In Mr.. March
rnopt's rev novel, BY wit Of Woman Setting
forth ,naided and alone 70 vindcate the memory
Of her father who had fallen a victim to
conspiracy 10 set up an independent Hungarian
Lfnydon Christabe Won Drescher finds herself
ir,o,ved in the neshes Of incipient rebellion.
from which she extricates the parental reputa-
ton herself husband, and various other VIC
tins, de unexpected appearance Of one of Ehon