The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-11


 The book was The Adventurer," pub
 lished last year; a search-for-t treasure
 book. whieh>has to be very well done to make 1t all readable.
 MT Osbourne was the step-son Of Robert Louis Stevenson and made not able by collaborating at one time with Robert Louis Stevenson, has jumped from the search for gold on strange ships which traversed both these and the land. as described In The Adven- turer" to a journey of exploration into
 much more difficult pursuit, to-wit; A womans heart, or what she often | uses in It's place-see "Infatuation.' When an author discussing the move
 ment or whatnot of his heroine's heart or makeshift tells us that the owner
 of the object discussed. he knows, did this or didn't do that for that or this reason-anY man reader (particularly)
 one who has had his neck broken some considerable number of times, Is com pelled to smile and know that MT. Os- | bourne may be making a mighty good guess as to the workings of Alice, Jane, | Kate, or as the case may be- Mabels
 heart-but that he knows not as no
 man knows. anything about It. But taking a basis of permitting
 MT. Osbourne to enter his guess as a | fact in "Infatuation"-th book is real good volume of the more or less | light class of novels.
 It tells the story of a rich young | woman who had in life everything that money. birth, good breeding and all
 the supposed good things could give
 her. Her father was president Of l large railroad system; wlooWer whose only dread was that this beau- tiful daughter would marry some chap
 and leave her dad. Two engagements
 fin Washington, in which there was | more smoke than the proyerbial ire, l ended to the satisfaction of papa Phyl-s lis Iadd the heroine, discovered in time. fortunately, that she didn't love
 the two men In question.
 Phyllis goes to 10-2O-S0 matinee
 in her home city Carthage" Moths, that thriller" was on the boards in
 which Cyril Adair," took the part of
 "Correze"-the noble artist struggling
 against illicit passion. "Cyril' was
 of course handsome; diamond Tn the
 rough-very rough, and Phyllis, sitting In
 the theatre box at that matinee received the stab from the little god with the bow
 and arrow.
 Of course after that all peace was
 gone Nothing mattered. for every thing oentered on Phyllis mind around the ch cap actor
 MT. Ladd. the father of Phyllis, be- came aware of the "infatuation' hold
 ing sway with Phyllis for Adair, so soon as Phyllis had been able to meet the actor by writing a note. EVery- thing was done to disgust Phyllis with Adair. Nothing doing. lnfatuatlon was on the job and when 1t Is there Is nothing on earth one can do, be he or she mamma or papa, but to take the sufferers from infatuation out ana shoot them. When are mammas ana
 papas ever going to discover that un- deniable fact? They went through the
 same thing years before, but they forget it so quick The fool capers or
 lovers have absolutely nothing new In
 them. The hard-hearted papa or ann
 bilious mamma, those most so, are
 pretty apt to have been worse in their salad days than the progeny now SiV- ing so much trouble to parents who only wish to see them well cared for all of that sort of thing.
 Well, Phyllis was infatuated all right. Adair soon became to be so and notwithstanding gadzooks and some 1 judge they were married. Phyllis traY- | eled around with her cheap actor, who was of course a genius if he could | only have exerted upon him the re- | straining power of love and marriage. l Both worked all right and in the end | of the book we see that Phyllis through 1 her infatuation for her husband carried | him very far up the ladder of theatrical | success And papa comes and begs their | pardon.
 | A sweet, lady-like plot? Certainly. But | MT. Osbourne has made a good story out | of it and the book is well worth reading l in so far as not doing one any harm 1 and killer time.
 ''The Diary of Show Girl" by Grace Luce Irwin (Moffat, Yard & Co., You have heard this reviewer affirm
 many times before thss that unless diary was unusually well written that
 there should be some law against their
 notification. That affirmation is still good But when a diary is a good one, off goes the headgear. Meaning that in
 .1rhe Diary of a Show Girl' Grace Luce
 Irwin has a bow coming to her. Here if isl The diary simply tells the experi- ence of chorus girl in New York who
 went there from the little town of Paris, Ohio.
 In six chapters entitled The Kickoff; On the Run The Scrimmage; Bucking the Line; The Touchdown and the Goal
 Kick, there is all that can be told Git to print fthe struggles of the average girl who goes to New York to win sue cess on the comic opera stage. The book is very bright and funny, filled in many places with up-to-tne-min- ute slang, the reading of all of which
 will occupy very pleasantly an afternoon or evening.
 The book Is artistically illustrated by Wallace Morgan-he of the Fluffy Ruff fes notoriety.
 If you wish a few good laughs, all to the merry-merry, you can get them from
 ''rhe Diary of Show Girl "Arminel of the West" by John Ire
 vena. (Moffat. Yard & Co) Mir Eden Phillpotts has been holding as his very own, not much dispute about 1t, practically most of Dartmoor upon which to base his very interesting
 worthy novels When Mr. Trevena's
 'Furse, the Cruel" made it's appearance last year, the reading public began to
 take notice that MT. Phillpotts has no
 mortgage on Dartmoor, for here was an other writer in the same class. just as
 good as Mir Phillpotts but we might wait to see If he does another book (as prom
 ised) so good as ''F'urze, the Cruel"
 MT Travena promised a triology. We'll here is "Arminel of the West just as good if not better than Purge,
 the Cruel" for it is written in a lighter
 vein which most readers prefer. This department employed as many su- perlatiyes on ''Furze, the Cruer' as the law permits In discussing this newest
 book from MT. Travena's gifted pen, there isn't much to be said other than
 to commend it most highly and to add that it Is one of the gems of the literary
 world of the past six months.
 Armtne was a lovely girl Born of a
 lowly family, the head of which was an
 "oilman' who delivered his Illuminating
 material at great profit to all around about and sent Arminel to school, un-
 fitting her for her station in life, but real
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