The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-27
Literary Lights and ShAdohs
BY s. MAYS BALL.

street broker with a beautiful wife and
 two children. had appropriated trust
 funds for which crime he spent five years
 in prison before the opening chapter of
 The Ancient Law" This notable book
 opens with picture of Daniel ordway
 returning on foot 10 his native state, Fir-
 ginia after he had served his time in
 prison Ordways wife, Lydia, after his
 conviction and sentence to prison in New
 York state, had very sensibly accepted
 the proposition of Ordway's father that
 she and her children return to Virginia,
 cutting off all communication with her
 husband that the child II and herself
 might be taken care of and the boy and
 girl educated. Ordway's wife and chll-
 dren had, therefore. gone to live at "Bote-
 tourt," Virginia, where his father was
 When Ordway was discharged after serv-
 ing his sentence in the New York prison
 he was returning on foot to Virginia
 when this book opens-to begin his life
 all over again at a little town called l "Tappahannock,' near Botetourt, as he | didn't care to embarrass his family with
 the presence of jail-bird around them. l At Tappahannock, Ordway secured work | in good old BaXter's tobacco warehouse
 under the name of Daniel Smith, Very 1 soon, indeed, did Ordway or Smith now, l win the esteem, later the friendship. of
 practically all of the people in the little
 town. His special friends were Baxter, 1 the tobacco merchant (a splendid speci- men of descriptive personality)' Banks,
 the young tobacco buyer: Milly Trend,
 whom Banks loved, and dear Emily | Brooke, the fine young school teacher | slaving to support her brother Beverly
 Brooke. a broken-down, lazy, no-aeeount | Virginia aristocrat Soon, too, Ordway, l fell in love with Emily Brooke. He was still married of course although he had | not even had any communication rom ] his wife or any of his family. The motif
 or theme of this splendid story is 'The | ancient law," namely, that if We sin in l this world we may go to prison for II, l or we may not but we can be certain 1 that our sins will find us out and pursue
 us all the days of our lives. The prin- | cipal reason being our own l@owledge | of our transgressions and because the | witnesses of our departure from the path of rectitude will never in this world all | low us to forget our false step. We will be forgiven all right but we will never be allowed to forget that we have been ! forgiven or that we have been covered as 1t were with the cloak of charity which is said to cover a multitude of all
 
 giving friends and relatives will ever
 keep the thought fresh and green in our l minds by suggestions. The plot of "rhe 1 Ancient Law is simply the old one of l the man who pays the penalty of his | crime in prison. He comes out to begin i honestly a new life. struggles to build up | a new character for honesty and correct living, but there always appears on the scene of his labors some fellow-prisoner ! who pi1rA 1 the reformed man to find a new location 1 for his ambitious experiments in new 1 character construction. In "The Ancient Law Daniel Ordway under the name 1 of Smith was about to be elected mayor of his little town Tappahannock when l the bubble broke from Ordway attempt l ing to save Milly Trend from marrying a ! bigamist (hs former fellow prisoner), the ] truth of Ordway's life is made public. 1 Emily Brooke loved OrdwaY and he loved l her Just when the news comes out about 1 OrdHay's prison life he is about to flee l to greener fields and pastures new. Ord | ways father died just at this time and he ! is sent for. He returns to Botetourt and 1 the story of course shifts from Tappa- l hammock to Botetourt. from the working 1 classes of Virginia to the higher social 1 cultivated classes to which OrdWay right 1 fully belonged. Ardway arrives home in | time to attend his fathers funeral. after 1 which he struggles against the cold ice l wall built around him by his family and l friends, all of whom were exaggeratedly l glad to sec him but they felt and made
 1t plain to Ordway that he was different | he had been in prison-he must never for l get that. True he had suffered for his ! crime, still one could never forget that 1 he had been in jail-how could he? Ord
 ways daughter. now grown to a beauti- ! ful young woman, impulsive, difficult to | control, very like her father causes a | great deal of trouble to Mrs Ordway ! with her love affars-later her marriage
 Mrs. Lydia Ordway the wife, Is one of ! those characters that to know is well
 worth the reading of any book Miss | Glasgow and Miss May Sinclair in "The | Helpmate' both understand and use su- perbly the description of this kind of woman. For Lydia was saint Mean 1 inc Lydia and her friends were firmly ! convinced that she was a saint-whicn I conviction to a great many people is the
 same thing as fact. One of Lydia's rela- | tives, little more independent than oth- ! CTS of her family, demurely inquired whether Lydia was really a saint, or was it just the way she wore her hair' which question fitly describes in a nut shell Lydia's type of woman, of which type, alas, there are many Ordway',, daughter, extravagant. in continual rows with her husband to secure money to buy more dresses, forges her husbands name to a check This being discovered, Ordway, loving his daughter, assumes the crime, leaves his home, no doubt de- | lighted of an excuse to get rid of Lydia and starts out to lose himself anywhere convenient. In time as his uncle. noting | the great sacrifice made by Ordway for | his daughter, he allows Ordway to have l Slo00o0 left in trust for him by his father | Ordway accepts this money. returns with | 1t to Tappahannock, buys the cotton ! mill there and operates it on the coop erative plan for the benefit of the poor | people of his little town. The book closes just as life closes in a certain unsatis- factory manner. in that it has no hap | py ending and that authors who cater | to the tastes of ordinary readers usually | give us. For which leto us all give due l thanks. Of course when Ordway returns | to iappahannock there he finds Emily l Brooke again. He is still married. re- | memper, and the reader leaves these two l poor creatures deeply in love with no | nope ahead of them, unless Lydia will l die, but Lydia's kind never die. So that l one can see from this outline of .The An
 cent Law just what great book Miss | niasgoW mas written to add to her great | lame. It Is to an extent depressing. cer ] tainIy not gay-but neither is life scjnti l lating at all times. Then, too some | readers have said of Ordway that he
 seemed to let himself down in the end of 1 the book. Of course he did, why notq
 lie was only poor human. struggling against fate; only a rod could have over-
 come his limitations
 l The Ancient Law is one of the hool,s