Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-04-27
MOTHER. BY Maxim Gorky. With eight
l. Illustrations by Sigmund De 1vanow-
ski. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

SKI. ne" 1OTk. l.. AppletOu q W.
It is to be hoped that the American pub
lie, which rejected the weaknesses OF the
man, may prove hospitable to this work or
Maxim Gorky's genius. For fine piece OF
work Mother undoubtedly is. 1t is,
moreover, Notwithstanding the sordid and
painful conditions upon which the frame
work of the story rests, a work Of unde-
niable idealism, of poetic charm and OF
great human tenderness. The conception
of the central figure is as inspiring as 1t Is
unique. For the downtrodden peasant
woman, the dumb victim of her husband
brutality, of the benumbing social condi-
lions into which she was born and in which
she has existed begins when she has passed
forty years, an amazing era OF mental ana
spiritual regeneration. On the death of the
brutalized tyrant of the household the son,
Pavel asserts his position as breadWlnner.
An era Of calm follows certain quickly
ended excursions into the sordid dissipa-
tons of village life. Pavel, fundamentally
spiritual and humanitarian, becomes inoc-
ulated with socialistic doctrines. The house
becomes the center of ardent meetings OF
growing propaganda. The novel contag1on
of fellowship seizes upon the starved wom-
an; the young men and women who are
pledging their lives to the uplifting or their
fellow-men grow dear to her. She expanas
into loving service; she becomes mother
to them all. She hears their doctrines,
tries to follow their thought; she regains
again by painful effort her forgotten knoWl-
edge of reading. At every point she grows
until she grows into likeness with their de-
votion She adopts their thoughts, or,
rather. they seize upon her. She sur RS
heroically through the dangers ana lmpris-
onment that haunt her son and all of the
devoted band. Like them. she learns to
look at certain disaster with smile. FINAL
ly, her son banished. she takes upon herself
his interrupted work and dies a martyr to
her adopted cause. The great strength OF
the book is that it is by the elevation of
her natural functions that this woman be-
comes social force. For 1t is by the ex-
pansion of her innate genius for motherlng
that she takes upon herself the woes or
her kind.
POWERS OF THE AMERICAN PEO-
PIE, CONGRESS, PRESIDENT AND
COURTS, According to Evolution OF
Constitutional Construction. By Ma
suji Miyakawa, Del, LID, lecturer
of the law school of the University of
Indiana Washington: The Wilkins
Sherry Company.
Prof Miyakawa, who has the unique dis
tinction of being the first Japanese at
torney ever admitted to the American bar,
has produced a book peculiarly interesting
as the expression of eastern study of gov
eminent in America. 1t is not unusual to
have access to the comments of the Eng
lish, French and German minds on Ameri
can conditions, as, for instance, the vol
umes of the English ambassador Mr..
James Bryce, whose American Common
wealth. is now a classic, or Prof Hugo
Munsterberg's THE Americans" While
Prof Miyakawa's book has not the scope
of these works, it is a study made in
thoroughly philosophic manner and with
the patience of scholarship. 1t aims to
make a perfect exposition of the theory
and practical character of the powers in
the hands of the people and of the three CO.
ordinate branches of government of the
United States, and incidentally has the OBJ
ject of showing that the newness of the
American system in no way lessons its
interest or value to the student investiga-