The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-05-26
Simmer Fiction.

The automobile In pushing its way into
fiction much faster than need be. We
doubt II those who have the motor fever
can find time to read or " those who do
not use automobiles care much for the
emotions inspired by those engines. The
author who ventures 10 write from the
point Of view Of those threatened by the
automobile will find q wide and sympathetic
audience. In The Pink Typhoon' by
Harrison Robertson (Cha rles Scribner's
Sons) the emotions of the incipient automo-
bilist are combined ingeniously with a
pretty, il rather improbable, love story.
The two children are too charming to be
showed into the background by their elders.
To the political novels must be added Mr..
William Sage's THE District Attorney
little, Brown and Company. The lines
are put on thick. Virtue is very %virtuous
and strenuous and successful; vice is very
bad and stupid. The wiokedness Of the
trusts in crushing Town the independent
operators is shown; also the corruption OF
municipal government. Blu the noble
District Attorney brings them all TO shame.
There are many indications that the author
could write a good story II he confined
himself to fiction, It is a pity that he should
try to mix it up with reform.
Adventure is the one motive Of THE
Treasure Trail" by Frank L. Pollock q. C.
Page and Company, Boston, and the reader
will meet with plenty Of it, from stealing
rides on express trains to a combat at sea.
He will get more looomotion. however, for
the hero is constantly trying to get m
where and girdles the earth at least onoe
In his quest. The ohara cters, with one
exception, are adventures. whose gambling
instincts are presented dispassionately il
not, with admiration. The question OF
morals arises only at the end, and then the
reader may wonder at the way the heroine
settles it. The excitement Of the story is
kept ND skilfllly and the threads of the
plot join together.
In a mythical land with mythical political
intrigues anything may happen, but even
the complaisant reader will balk at the
omniscience and omnipotenoe Of the young
female Sherlock Holmes who relates the
story in Mr.. Arthur W. Marchmont's BY
Wit of Woman" Frederick A, Stokes Com
pany). The narrative is brisk enough and
events follow rapidly on one another, but
the author does not solve for the reader the
problem hrst set, and winds up with an
added complication. II is poorly con-
structed work of its kind.
The we'll known theme Of the kidnapped
heir is jointed rather ~awkwardly into a story
of labor strikes and anarchists by Mr.. Fred
erick Upham Adams in The Bottom of the
Well" e. W. Dillingham; Company. He
thus has the chance to write some bright
scenes of smuggling in the West Indies,
and IL he had kept on might have turned out
a pretty, IL conventional, romance. The
anarchist business is pretty we'll bungled
however, the only rational explanation Of
his m %illionaire's be havior being insanity,
and the conduct Of the trial at the end is
amazing. 1t looks az il the author had
thrown up his story for the sake Of preaching.
Parts of the book are exciting, parts in
tolerably dull. Some of the characters
are drawn we'll enough to deserve a better
fate than to be lost in such a story.
A we'll written story, careful in historical |
details, is Mr.. Andrew Macphail's The Vine
of Sibmah" Macmillans). 1t relates the
| adventures that might befall a Puritan ad-
venturer in the days of King Charles II,
in England, on the high seas, in the Ameri-
can wilds, among the Indians. These are
! varied enough to keep the reader interested
if he can forgive occasional fragments of
historical antiquarianism.