New-York tribune., 1910-08-13
HERE AND ABROAD
Local Color in Some Recent
Fiction.

L 4Sk4OAs
THE RAMRoDDERs, A novel. By Hel-
man Day. 12mo, PIP SOD. Harper q
Bros
PoePY The ; Story Of toasIsG South ,,md AdrGsn sp
Az G. P Putnam's Sons
THE LEAD OF HONOR. BY Norval
Richardson Frontispiece by Frank T.
Merrill. 12mo, PIP. 541. Boston: l. Sc
Page & Co.
THE FRUIT OF DESIRE. BY Virginia
Demarest i2mo, PIP. SS2 Harper a
OTHER STORIES. BY Frank Harris
12mo, PIP 264 Mitchell Kennerley.
THE Ramrodders" is as entertaining
a story of practical politics of the most
practical kind as one can find 1t is not
| a undertaking story-with a-purpose' per-
| formance, but plain tale, whose moral
the author wisely permits to take care
! Of itself. The party faces defeat at the
next governorship election-in which
state we are not told, but We are al.
lowed to guess from many indications
! and something has to be done quickly.
1t is done, and so efficiently and rapidly
| lowing the Vaccinations of the upstate
boss, beside whom the state chairman is
but pygmy and the Governor who hopes
to be nominated a nonentity- Reformers
who are honest and reformers for their
own benefit, honest party men and mere
machine workers, they all are made to
fl into the plan Of the old rural giant, a
mixture of honesty and rankest political
deceit, who is starting his grandson on
his public career The book is varia-
tion of the picturesque genre: it entertains
even while We disapprove. The love
story, begun early in the narrative and
brought to romantic ending in the clos
ing pages, is really not needed, but, one
suppeses. Is a concession to tradition,
and a satisfa ctory concession it is.
A change of scene, if cleverly handled,
occasionally serves 10 give an appear
anCe of novelty. or at least piquant
tang, TO old characters and situations.
POPPY" is the eternal mysteriously tenn
peramental woman whom we have had
with us these last ten years in increas-
ingly large and strong doses. Interest
!
familiar as a convention. and the situa-
, tions and adventures which life deals to
the whole sorority have become only
variations on a hackneyed theme. Not
that Poppy is not a good specimen of
the school, bat she comes rather late in
the day, when the study of her leads to
comparisons with other women of her
kind in novels, and no longer TO a rec
ognition Of life at more or less twisted
first hand. The scene-NataI-is novel
only comparatively speaking, and here,
too. other authors have gone before. and
they have dene better. Dclf Wyllarde,
for instance. The men are the stereo-
typed figures women neEelists make use
! of, vaguely seen and exaggerated in the
/ drawing. The newt-fangIed woman ap-
pa rently loves at heart rake as much
as did the old-fashioned one-at least in
the fiction she writes and reads.
The career of Sergeant Smith Prentiss
has avowedly served as the model of Mr..
! richardson's THE Lead of Honor" The
story is consequently picture Of life in
the South in the first half of the last
century, in Natchez and on a plantation,
and of the dignity and elaborate cour-
tesy, the gambling and convivial habits
and point of honor of its leading clti-
Zens. The picture is conventional and
; rather superficial, historical information
being introduced here and there by
primitive, direct methods, as in the very
beginning of the tale, where the hero,
but just arrived from the East, dis
l,sr,
TO the yictors belong the spoils," and
the United States bank. And, of course,
still later the hero, like the real Prentiss,
fills the country with his golden elo-
quence while on the stump for Har-
rison.
The Fruit of Desire" is an amazingly
aInateurish piece Of work for novel
written by a successful author with q
wide reputation in particular field,
who has chosen TO hide behind pseu-
donym because this story is OF to-
tally different kind An eX-conVict,
who has taken upon himself his broth
er's guilt, and is in reality the soul Of
honor and chivalry, finds work in
Southern village as a railroad book
charged At the same time a young
girl, who has disgraced herself in the
ewes Of the world, though in truth she
is innocent, decides to run away from
home. The two waits leave the village
together, and are mistaken for husband
anc wife on the train. The mistake
serves their purpose of disappearing
without trace. wherefore they do not
set their new acquairtances right The
story is one long record of opportunities
lost by the author. or, rather, one must
assume, deliberately neglected by him
(or more likely herr for the sake OF a
theory, which is that d purely spiritual
union is the highest one that can bind
a man and Woman together on this
earth. The theory, by the way, is not
PARTICULAR new. The author makes
little OF tbs mans peculiar position as
an outcast branded by the law, and
nothing at all of the depth. the breadth.
the mass OF New York where these two
seek a livelihood