The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908, 1907-10-26

III OlQllits 9A AAhItH i4Od5oR
Sdrnett. Frederick A. Stokes Company,
New York.
Perhaps ths most ambitious novel Mrs.
Burnett has yet designed. 1t is wider IN
scope, bigger and more significant in
theme than anything she has before writ
ten. Oneais inclined to believe that she
would prefer to allow her literary reputa-
ton 10 rest upor the strength of this than
any one OF her other works.
1t is a romance of International mar
riage. This is a subject one hears almost
daily talked OF il he newspapers, and II
is a. subject of peculiar present interest
on that account. The book will doubtless
get the advantage of this newspaper sort
Of tinleliness ir In reased sales. But on
that alone. the life of 1.-THE Shuttle" most
assuredlY does no, depend. The book goes
far deeper and fur,her.
The, theme Of The Shuttle is the weaV-
Ing Oh the two worlds of America ana
Britain constantly closer together, through
community of interest in the arts and IN
affairs into asunlon that, most of all, the
blood kinship and then the growing free
dom of communication materially and
otherwise between the Two lands is max
ing indissoluble. The novel is intended to
reveal the processes of the weaving of the
Shuttle. guided by the great hand OF
Fate" drawing the lands unconsciously
closer so that what had at first been mere
llttuOc VI SONCdIl1i was tnIfi -
whose strength m time none could COM
pute whose severance could be accom-
plished but by tragedy and convulsion.F
On the question of International mar
rlages as such Mra. Burnett takes no de-
eisive stand. Two such marriages figure
in the book. Both involve the daughters
of an America. multi-millionaire. One OF
them. contracted on the husbands side
for purely mercenary purposes, turns out
as badly rs might be expected. The other,
the romance ending in which forms the
greater part of the story, is a pure love
affair. and its happy result is unmistak-
ably foreshadowed.
Resale Vanderpoel. the older of the sis
tiers. had married. when but an Immature
girl. a profigatt brute, who beat her and
,bullied her and so cowed her that he sue
ceeded In keeping her from all
cation with her family of Il sort damaging
to his own purposes. He kept her in this
subsection for eleven years while the other
handicapped daughter, Betty, was growing
from childhood to womanhood. Following
4 long previously formulated intention,
Betty seeks out her sister to discover for
herself the truth about the marriage.
Betty firds Rosalie but a shadow of her
old self, and the mother of a hunchback
boy, deformeo for life through his fathers
cruelty to Resale before the boy had been
born. Most of the story is concerned in
ltlllIl Vi Dolly , tilQtaNOi W ~ ~
sister back to health and happiness, and,
for the sboy's sake, to build up the fine
old English estate going to rack and ruin
through its owners neglect. Her loving
conquest of the whole countryside, mobiles
and villagers, including u reciprocated pas
sion for a neighborlng earl, lord
of another impoverished estate and
loo proud to declare his love for
her. her regeneration Of her sister
and courageous war of wits and success
lul battling with Sir Nigel, her villain
aus brother-in-law are described in a way
that makes tremendously entertaining
reading. Many of the incidents involved
are most dramatic, not to say melo-
dramatic.
AS 4 study OF social conditions in Eng
land and America the book has much to
interest. Mrs. Burnett has lived for years
ir both countries. and knows whereof she
writes. Though her book so closely assoc
Gates the two countries, most of the action
takes place in England, and it is of Eng
iish scenes. we are inclined to think, that
she finds it most congenial to write. Her
character drawing is exceedingly well
done.
Betty is represented as a girl of Won
derful beauty and charm and culture, COM
bined with a grasp of business conditions
acquired through her comradeship with
her father, that enables her to confront
e. h-Ni tht " libub Ia
that she finds at her sisters home. She
is not, considering the parentage and edu-
cation her creator gives her, a human i'm
possibility, but her beauty and capabilities
are made so prodigious that one feels for
her less of affection and sympathy than
in the case of poor. weak Rosalie. There
is n bit of melodramatic exaggeration, too,
i'm the blackness of the character given
Sir Nigel. though he also has had too
many real-life prototypes to be denied pos
sibility. Convincing work has been done
in the picture of Lord Mount Dunstan,
Betty's lover, and of Reuben S. Wander
pool. her father, both of them excellent
types of strong men,, and there is a clever
little sketch of a slangy New York type
writer salesman that adds much bright
ness.
The manner in which these characters
are manipulated sometimesa seems a trife
arbitrary, though 1t is all unquestionably
Justified by fctional license. 1t is Il COM
plinnent to the books grip upon one to say,
with disappointment, that in 1t things hap
pen Just as they do in books" Mrs.
Burnett has filed her pages with so much
that is vital and genuine that one balks
ALI the more at the least sign of the arti-
fetal.
But the faults of 'The Shuttle are
minor and the exeellences are overshadow-
ing. 1t has real power and art. It has
dramatic intensity. 1t is Accordingly en-
Pertaining. 1t is a book that should and
will be widely read. We venture the
opinion that 1T is the biggest, finest thing
its author has yet done.
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