The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-06-21

a book to their credit as a result the
 whole south simply threw up their hands
 and yelled, whether the book was any | good or not. But that time has long | passed So many southern men, and 1 women particularly, have won fame and
 fortune (more or less) through success l ful books published that the south Is
 more discriminating now, as to it's rebel ! yell of praise.
 , Miss Amelle Rives even before she became Mrs. Chandler, was one of the
 first southerners to benefit from the aforesaid partiality shown by southerners ! to their own writers who had been able to catch, throw, tie and brand the noble l steed Pegasus or was 1t, as Mr. O. Henry
 would put 1t, "A Dark Horse?" "The | Quick or the Dead" In which lot of ci-
 gar ashes figured against the Vaccinations
 in the flesh of hero, who was somewhat
 wooden-heade then "The Witness of
 the Sum-, to say nothing of her drama, l "Herod and Marianne, boosted Miss
 Rives quite considerably on the heights, now called the "best sellers" throne, of her day.
 Miss Rives, now the Princess Troubet-
 skoy, has been for some time in a sort of literary retirement, and to tell the ] truth right here, If she cannot do bet
 ter than the book she has just published, | "The Golden Rose-The Romance of ] better for her own reputation and the | feelings of her readers to remain in lit
 erary seclusion. On the theory that we i southerners must look for everything good possible in a book by one of us, ! even then on that theory. there Is no pay-dirt at all in "rhe Golden Rose,'
 nor is 1t even interesting. The book is
 not even close enough related to "The Quick or the Dead,' although the theme of a dead husband and a new lover does I enter, even to give us thrill mel | dent to the usual book from the "feshy
 school of fiction" which Is disappointing, | to say the least. When an author takes
 this quotation, What the wind Is to | bonfire and a match, absence is to love; i 1t kindles a great passion and extin-
 guishes small one," and puts 1t on the | title page, we have a right to expect an | attempted proven case-but in ''The Gold
 en Rose there isn't any case whatever
 proven or otherwise. It is simply filled
 with lot of tiresome dissertations given
 forth by a morbid, exotic woman, who
 at the slightest opportunity or without
 one, discusses her soul with capital
 "S until all readers will either believe
 she never had any or if she did, some | thing ought to have been done to have
 1t incarcerated. And then, too, in the face of human experience, 1t doesn't make
 any matter how many quotations one uses In a book or on the title page, 1t
 is a very difficult job to prove that ''ab- sence makes the heart grow fonder" of
 any one except the other fellow"
 | "Meraud Cabell" was a woman, lovely
 beautiful-everything desirable-who had married her cousin, now dead, of the
 same name in Virginia; and she and, no
 doubt the dead husbands had time Of
 it during their married life. When the book opens Meraud is congratulatng her | hxr af
 mouther all through the book to her
 dear friend and worshiper, "Anice," J poor crippled handmaiden whose only duty in life seemed to be, Judging by the book to tell Meraud how charming the | latter was T am freed from passion, ] fear and anger" said Meraud to Anice,
 and then proceeded to prove it in the first
 chapter of the book. It Is a long, tfre- l some argument, that of young, beauti- l full woman attempting to prove that she 1 in her prime IS entirely through with love | and passion. It will not only not go down with a sophisticated reader of books or viewer of life, but it is very tiresome l Then, too, we all know that before the | story finishes some one man will enter to demolsh all the theories of the soulful he- l roine. It always happens that way. Me- | raud had two great friends-Anice, afore- sad, and Dr. Dundas, her physician. | These two friends spent most of their l time discussing Merauds soul, her 1ndi- l yiduality her "differentness," her way
 abov human desire condition of mind and body While a great many arguments | entirely too many--were going on, enters the hero. Every reader had been expect
 ing him, even before he came. He was l MT Steven Gordon Trafford," who was making a history of Virginia and had
 come to Meraud's home to get some inn | portant data. Suffceth to say here that | nd ford 1 Trafford knew it-he was quite sensible | chap-but Meraud didn't realize the com | ing of the little god with the bow and | arrow at all. She fought her love; she l insisted continually that she never could | be happy again." she told Trafrord so; but If he was willing to love her not on 1 the hungry" but on the thirsty order
 whatever those distinctions may mean | then Meraud, after many pages of dull 1 inane mouthings, would try to make Traf- 1 ford happy But he must go away and | write her letters; she must sound her l capital "S'' soul; she must make poor
 Anice suffer with "communings;' and as
 for Dr. Dundas, he simply quit the neigh 1 borhood-and in time so did Trafford. l Trafford went to Africa on an exploration, | loving Meraud as much as he or any man | could So did Meraud love him. but she | didn't, or wouldn't, see it. Her love was | different" not the kind of love that linen | want" hers was platonic-no giving of | herself to her loved one; it should be en- tirely platonic all the way through. Now Trafford goes away and writes letters by the ton-so does Meraud. Then he comes
 back-not before Meraud finds that she can love again like all human beings do, but Trafford presumably must have communed with himself, too, a great deal
 while away-for when he reaches New York via steamer there Is Meraud, who,
 not being able to withstand her real love,
 had gone to meet him, being too lmpa- tient to wait until he could come to her | ford has changed;" he is no longer the lovely. 'idealistic'' creature loved by Me- ,audein fact, he doesn't. want Meraud in any way She discovers 1t, tells him of her discovery, that they had best wait to see if love will kindle again. So they
 senarate Meraud returns home. Traf- | ford If would be a safe wager to make) | coas any old place and thanks his stars
 for his delivery. But poor Anice has to 1 ro hack with Meraud to Virginia to listen ; to the latter's comments on love and
 things-poor Anice!. The women do suf- , fer and no mistake. Take Dr. Dundas.
 for instance; he simply kept out of Me
 raud,s way. But Anice couldn't, or 1 wouldn't.
 ! There Is hardly any excuse for the book
 at all. If any other person without the
 reputation of the Princess Troubetzkoy had submitted ''The Golden Rose' to publisher-it Is 100 to shot-the pink slips of rejection would have been con tinually busy. The author even makes an
 error on page 24--where she puts in a story that "a great writer had once told