Los Angeles herald., 1910-05-15
SOMETHING
ABOUT HER

HAS Mrs. Humphrey Ward been
II drawing from life in her latest
j H novel known in England as THE
! Canadian Born" and in Canada as
Lady Merton, Colonist?" Up in OF
tawa they think so, and they assert
confidently that w. l.. Mackenzie hlns'
! dominion minister of labor, posed I'M
| consciously for the principal character
/ in the book.
Mrs. Ward first met the Canadian
when, some years ago, he had travel
! ing fellowship from Harvard unlVer-
sty and was in England. Then, Wneh
| she went to Canada on the trip that IN
splred the story Mr.. King gave a tea
for the eminent writer.
The book is called Lady Merton
! Colonist," in Canada in compliance
with the requirement of the Canadian
copyright laws that books written in
England bear a different title in Can
ada 1t deals with trip over the Can
adlan Pacific railway of titled Eng
! lishwoman of wealth, a widow, with
her brother, a semi-invalid. They
| travel in a private car, and where the
| line is blocked she meets q young can
adian, George Anderson, in the employ
of the Canadian Pacific railway VINO
| has all the physical and mental at
tributes that a hero should have in d
new country and who eventually saves
! her brothers life.
George Anderson is a westerner.
Therein the character bears no similar
| ity TO Mr.. King. who is from Toronto.
Mrs. Ward gives Anderson pioneer
grandfather. Mr.. King Is grandson
on his mothers side of William Lyon
Mackenzie, who led the revolution of
1887.
The hero of the novel is about to run
for parliament, with assurance of sue
cess arising from successfully aVerting
| for the railroad company strike when
would have caused much financial loss
and industrial suffering. Mr.. King got
| his foothold for a rapid rise in Can
adian public life by settling serious
coal miners strike in Lethbridge.
| There are other points of similarity
as well, and so all Ottawa is convinced
that King is indeed Anderson. OF
course they regard the "love element
in the story as fiction, for Mr.. King Is
still bachelor
Mrs. Gertrude Atherton, who, on oc-
| casion, has written most charmingly of
love, does not herself believe in the
tender passion. She confesses as much
in recent article in Harper's Bazaar
| on Loves Illusions Mrs. Atherton
| doesn't think so very highly of men,
either In fact she says that the better
| young women know men and the more
men they know better the less inclined
| they are to enter into the marriage rela-
| tion. Occasional exceptions she declares
| to belong to the class of the "undeviat-
| ingly maternal" women, those in whom
| love of children is so deeply implanted
that no amount of contact (save matri-
moniaD can rub off the masculine
| halo"
It's too bad that Mrs. Atherton should
insist upon that halo. A halo is an
awful nuisance to a man. You see, he's
got to live up to 1T just as though it
were blue china. And man usually
doesn't much care about living up to
| things; he's usually too busy living
down other things.
| Continuing, Mrs Atherton writes:
"One thing that the generalizers
never take into consideration POSSIBLY
because they do not know it, and gener-
! ally because they are men or old-fash-
| ioned women) is the enormous percent
| age of non-maternal women. Whether
this was the case in ancient times, or
whether 1t is the gradual result of edu-
cation and leisure, increased indepen-
dence and the facilities for knowing
men before marriage, 1 cannot say, but
| the fact remains that thousands of
women that are married ought not to be
are the dutiful mothers of children
whom they secretly regard as enemies.
! They have married in their springtime
because tradition and youthful instinct