New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-05-07
NEW YORK
A Strong Novel of Life in the
Metropolis.
PREDEs7INED: NOVEL OF NEW
YORK LIFE BY stephen French
Whitman. 12mo PIP. 464. Charles
Scribner'S Sons.

PREDESTINED: A NOVEL OF NEW
YORK LIFE ia., By ste EN- Fh rereg
ScribnerS Sons.
Mr.. Whitman's novel inevitably sug-
cests reflection upon the curious made
uuacv of New York's representation In
fiction Here is a city teeming with
human material far richer and infinitely
more variegated than that of Dickens<
London, and yet. what have our novel
lists done with ii thus far? The upper
crust they have broken and cultivated:
they have strayed into it's Bohemia and
found the traditional romance of that
international region rather than its local
realism: they have explored its wall
Street, its politics. its underworld, but
the chain that links the city's life to-
gether from top to bottom they have not
followed link by link in one continuous
narrative. deferred. no doubt, by the diff
ficulties of the trea tment of so complex,
SO overwhelming a subject. Fragments
Of the chain-links from every part of II
have been presented to our view by
sentimentalists and Cynics, by roman
ticists and realists, by humorists and
sociologists and criminolOgists in fiction:
the great realist whom New York
awaited, and whom it stood ready to
reward according to his knowledge and
insight and talent has been lacking.
The author of "Predestined" has
stretched large canvas and painted on
its expanse a panorama that reaches,
link by link. from the palace in which his
foredoomed hero is born to the howell in
which he ends his miserable existence
II is not all of New York that he pre-
sents, but Ito change the figure) his lon
gitudinal section is complete, and on the
way he cuts many transverse section
for closer revelation. His is the realistic
imagination that reasons true from things
observed, and if his picture be depress-
ing one the reader cannot cavil at 1t.
for what he presents on il one feels and
knows is true.
-.Predestined'-the Calvinistic word is
used in its modern, scientific signlf1-
canoe Here is a study Of inefficlency,
of fatal weakness that is inherent and
cannot be overcome, of aspiration with
out determination, talent without will,
Of the flaw of character that condemns
to failure in life from birth. New York,
who fawns upon her conQuerors, is
ruthless in her brutality toward those
she vanouishes. The rewards she offers
to the stIong-the pleasures OF intellect
and the senses-she turns into pitfalls
for the weak. To most who come to her
eager for the fray, confident of success,
she offers one opportunity, no more.
Thereafter she smiles on those who grasp
Il, but thrusts down, deep down, those
who tumble and miss: the field Is so
crowded, she cannot afford to waste time
and effort. Felix Piers has his chance
and lets il slip from his nerveless I'm
gers, predestined here by the flaw in Ills
equipment as in all the subsequent Ut
any OF his decadence.
The canvas is crowded with figures,
with successes and failures, with sun
shine as the disinherited see IT from
afar In the shadow Of their doom, with
lives upward as well as downward, with
the pitiable tangle that is still tragedy
TO those who feel, but no longer COM
edy to those who think. This is no fable
teaching a moral; IL Is a grim chronicle
OF facts behind which there may lie some
as yet uncomprehended truth OF exist
cree, for the tragedy is true not OF New
York alone but of all human life, ac-
cording to the measure of its circum-
stance. In the bald, Unconditional lingo OF
the artistic workshop, 'Predestined" is
..bie thing" an Overwhelmingly big
thing But for its lack Of q high degree