The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14
Literary Lights and Shadohs
BY s. MAYS BALL

'"The Climber" by B. F. Benson. tDou-
 bleday, Page & Co).
 Everybody began to talk about this MT. Benson (there are three brothers who wrote, E. F., A. c. and Rev. Ben son), when his book "Dodo" made its appearance several years ago.
 Since then MT. Benson has done very much better work than "Dodo'-but you can ask anyone in regard to this authors stories and usually get the re- ply: "Oh. yes, I know his novels; l am | just crazy about Dodow
 His novel of last year, "sheaves." :" was first-class. It did not appeal to as many people as did "'Dodo," simply because "Sheaves" was a much strong | CT book.
 '"The Climber is the story of an ann bilious girl who was poor but beauti- | full. Lucia Crimson" had been at school with Maude Edis. When this novel opens Lucia and Maude were sit ting at window in Maude's home, both gazing off into space, while Lucia suggested to Maude few things that 1 1t might be well for her to compute in reckoning up in her adding machine i the plans of Lucia's life.
 Lucia was as chilly as piece of steel, which had been in cold storage i for so years, say. Lucia knew it; she realized that she had no real feeling that was not selfish for anybody or anything. As young girls are said to do, Lucia and Maude were communing | on the prospects of young ladyho ood. Maude's parents were rich, so that her ! scheme for a good time was well ar ranged. Lucia's mother and father 1 were both dead, and she lived with two maiden aunts at Brixham, near Lon don.
 i During this conversation above re- ferred to when Maude was endeavor- f ing to get from Lucia an outline of | what the latter proposed to do in the way of love and all about 1t, Lucia 1 gave forth this
 f T don't think like men. But they like me. But among all the bad things 1 which I assuredly am, 1 am not a ! f1irt. I suppose I should be, if it | amused me. It doesn't. I think-I think might like a kind old man most awfully and be willing to kiss him and | and do all that sort of thing. But I don't like young men. Oh, Maude, I am turning round like a person who is being tried onl
 1 T want-I want horses and carria ges and motor cars and dances and thea tres and money. I used to enjoy those things when they came in my way, but now l find they are what I want. It's sad revelation, isn't it? It means am worldly and material and all the rest of the modifying things on which our affections shouldn't be set-but | there it isl I have been nobody be- fore; now I am beginning to be my self. Not a nice self, oh, not nice at all, but it is so much better to be one self than to be nobody
 l want him to get tn e Pleiades to wear in my hair; I want to wear the moon as pendant round my neck; I want Saturn and Jupiter to shine in my girdle; want venus.'' All that describes as much as can be | done in a review Miss Lucia Griscom who had ing but beauty and brains but was determined to buy with that beauty everything else she didn't have, needed and intended having.
 The two most powerful things in the world, the moralists to the contrary notwithstanding, are brains and beauty. 1 Lucia had both. With both you are likely to fall down, so to speak, in your hunt for happiness and success, but with them you will have at least l the opportunity to fight for what you | wish, which would be denied to a less i fortunate creature.
 Maude tells Lucia of her love for Edgar Comber. Edgar at that time was just 1 an ordinary chap with no money, nothing, | not even good looks, to push Edgar along. But when Lucia goes down to Brixham | to live with her aunts, Edgar, through the death of his cousin, Lord Brayton, l becomes a lord of lands, money and much l influence; he also became immediately in Iucia's eyes an instrument for her use The new Lord Braytons country seat was near Brixham. Lucia, knowing Maude' S affection for Edgar, began at once to rope, tie and brand him for her own | She succeeded.
 Lucia became Lady Brayton. The story deals with Lucias experiences. She had no heart; didn't know what such thing was, and wouldn't have known what to | do with 1t had she met one in the road She was having, as she stepped on other peoples hearts, what she called a great time. Old wooden-headed Edgar thought Lucia loved him; she was able to whang- l doodle anybody that she deigned to work upon.
 It Is only when her best friend Maude marries Charlie Lindsay, cousin of her husband. and Lucia begins to fascinate | this new tool, that the fates are noticed 1 to be exasperated with Lucia for trying | to get so much. Through this foolish move, made only to bother poor Maude 1 from whom she had first taken Edgar, now Charlie Lindsay, her husband. Lucia | sees her house of cards go tumbling to | the ground. All of the results of her | scheming her sale of herself, body and | soul, to mammon or anything you wish to | call it. went tumbling over the fight for 1 something she really didn't care for-just l wished to show her power Lucia was simply trif1ing with fate. Fate declined to be trif1ed with and the reader knows the answer.
 There is not one unreal character in ''The Climber Among all the real char acters there are only two, Maude and Lucia's Aunt Catherine that anyone would ever wish to meet and know in life, much less live with.
 Lucas husband was a wooden-headed, pluperfest ass; Charlie Lindsay a cad. ciety set were simply awful, even to read about-and Lucia,
 Well. you hear people say that Lucia girl in real life. that there couldn't be and so on.
 Let that pass, if not in violation of the Hepburn bill, as Fra Elbertus puts 1t. But the fact of the matter is that the world is full of Lucias. They are crowd ing the real women to the background. You can see them everywhere. Ready, willing-yea anxious-to do just as did Lucia. Not as successfully as did Lucia, because most of them haven't any brains. We all know that most people haven't any sense at all The world is respon- sible for the Lucias, too We hear peo-