New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-06-18
SUMMER STORIES
New Fiction by Four Popular
Authors.

SIMON THE JESTER. BY ". ]. Locke
Illustrated by James montgomery
Flagg. II mo. pp. S52. The John Lane
Company
AN INTERRUPTED FRIENDSHIP. By E.
L. Voynich. u mo, PIP. 401. The Mac
milan Company.
ARMS AND THE MAID; OR, ANTHONY
WELDING. By Rafael Sabatini- II
mo, PIP. 367. 6. P. Putnam's Sons.
JUST BETWEEN THEMSELVES. By
Anne Warner. Frontispiece in color by
VIII Crete. II mo, PIP. 215- Boston:
Little, Brown & Co.
Time was when Mr.. Locke mirrored
the tragi-comedy of life through the in
tellect, in Where Love Is" for in
stance It was this aloofness that gave
Marcus OTdeyne" its distinction. Then
came the turning point Mr. Locke ap-
pealed to sentiment instead Of to
thought; the Beloved Vagabond' was
born, and behold, Anglo-Saxon senti-
mentality took him to its heart. Mr..
Locke, seeing. understood, and took the
hint 'Septimus' was but the Vaga-
bond with his face washed. his clothes
brushed, his personal habits improved,
made respectable, and therefore pre-
sentable to a still larger circle Of senti-
mentalist novel readers. Good material
can be used more than once. if 1t be
skilfully done. Hence. perhaps. also, the
striking resemblance between Ordeyne's
French housekeeper and the Vagabond's
girl companion. Now comes Simon the
Jester who is, in ingenious, indirect
and subtly changed ways. but another
Sir Marcus
Simon learns from his physician that
he has but six months to live, wherefore
he decides to play a little benevolent
game with death as we'll as with life.
His wealth, which is of no further use
to him. shall buy happiness for others;
and he believes that one in his peculiar
position can afford to NEEDLE In other
peoples affairs of the heart. In the
process he awakens to the meaning of
life and the beauty Of its emotional pos
sibilities. There is, of course, a twist in
the plot. which must not be revealed
here. It Is an ingeniously constructed
story, amusing. clever, whimsical, the
work Of finished craftsman, but-UoaIH,
as the French have it. The book will
be popular. no doubt. for II is readable
and sounds deceptively genuine as new
fable with the old moral of happiness
through unworIdliness. But "Sin1on the
Jester win not count heavily In the
casting up of the artistic account OF Mr.
W. ]. Locke.
Mrs. Noynich IS an occasional novelist
Thirteen years have elapsed since the
publication OF her sensationally sue
cessful "Gadfy," which was followed
at long intervals, by two other books
from her pen, neither of them OF any
very moment0us significance. In IAN
Interrupted Friendship she returns to
the period OF her earliest novel the first
half of the last century. but. though the
Gadfy is again the hero, oppressed Italy
is its scene only in an episode toward
the end. The patriot conspirator and
man of much suffering is picked up in
Ecuador, starving and in rags, by a
French expedition sent out to explore
the northwestern tributaries of the Anna
zon. The adventures of this company
IN the wilderness are told vividly, but
The interest centres ever more insistently
in the mysterious waif who guards his
past so jealousy. yet gains the good will
and then the affection OF them all The
character study is far more subtly enig-