New-York tribune., 1910-07-23
NEW NOVELS
Studies of Motherhood and Tales
Of Crime and Adventure.

Inc f1ouSiilcit 4hiiifiii oCiiil'dLS-
THE EDUCATION OF JACQUELINE. By
Claire de Pratt. l2mo, PIP. 341. Duf1eid
& Co.
THE SHERIFF OF DYKE HOLE. BY
Ridgven Cullum. Frontispiece by the
Kinneys limo. pp AZ. Philadelphia: ::
The George W. Jacobs Company
THE RUNNING FIGHT. BY, William
Hamilton Osborne illustrated by Har-
rison Fisher and George Brehm. 12mo,
pp. 378 Dodd, Mead & Co.
THE DRAGNET. By Evelyn Snead Bar
nett. 12no, Pr. 3S3- B. W. Huebsch.
THE RED FLAG. By Georges ohnet
l2mo, PIP BIZ The G. W. Dillingham;
Company.
The delicate verify, matter Of elusive
mood and intensest, tenderest feeling, OF
q atmosphere rather than of statement,
gives these twelve Letters to Ny Son"
little place apart in the fiction of the
hour. Indeed. their beauty leads one to
wish that they are the record of one
wonans highest hopes and dreams-and
fears even-of an actual personal expe-
rience. that they are a page of real life
rather than the product of an excep-
tional ina gination allied to great literary
skill. The book, SO the publishers IN
form u.s. is the work of a well known
English author, whose name is withheld
by her own desire" Whatever its au
thorship it deserves attention for its
own sake, as a delicate, touching, ap-
pealing record of the expectancy and
! conservation of motherhood. One can
say but little more of it in a review,
| brief quotation will tell far more of it's
| quality. In her dedicatory preface ad
dressed to the son she hopes for, this
mother that is to he writes:
Oh. little thing. if your nanny has to
leave you and by any chance gets to
Heaven, they won't want her thera very
long! She'll always be leaning ont of a
top story window. trying to catch sight of
her baby as he gees out for his walk, or
else forgetting 10 do her singing while she
worries about his CATERS being long enough
or his vests warm enough. Heaven and
| earth will have changed places then and
l shall be on the wrong side. But l shall
| have had YOU all the beautiful time you
| were coming.
1t is a vast subject with which Claire
de Pratz attempts to deal in The Edu-
| cation Of Jacqueline" nothing less. in
! fact, than an experiment in the educa-
| ton of French girl on the freer Eng
| lish plan The girls mother discovers
on her husbands death that he had de-
ceived her. but concludes that the fault
was as much hers as his, since her ira
dtional home and convent education had
kept her in ignorance of life and not
fitted her for the intelligent companion
! ship of marriage. SO she resolves that
her daughter shall be trained in a more
modern way. The chief result is that
the girl with her greater freedom, en-
counters before marriage the dangers
from which she would otherwise have
been shielded until after that event. The
authors conclusion, as suggested by one
of her minor characters, evidently is
that more liberal social and educa-
tional regime for the French girl is un-
wise unless it be accompanied by the
introduction of a change in the teaching
of the young men of the nation, which
shall give them higher ideals of life and
modify their attitude toward woman.
The story, while not going very deep,
suggests reflection, especially to our
French friends.
The leading figures Of the Old Frontier
have grown into literary conventions
whose continued power to please us de-
pends entirely upon the skill with which
they are reproduced. First hand study
has become an impossibility, since they
| belong to a past that is gone. At best
can they be drawn from memory, but
mostly the modelling is done after
earlier sketches. THE Sheriff of Dyke
Hole is representative of the Wild West
of our fiction, Of its picturesquely figu-
rative speech, its dry humor, its quick
action, its courage and chvalry. He has
/ all the virtues the novel reader has ac-
quired the right to expect in him, and
| Six Shooter Kit is a woman who
matches him perfectly and fits the tradi-
tlon to overfiowihg. The "tenderfoot"
Englishman is not overdraWn-he might
| be from our own East-and the other
characters evil and good, are drawn to
| fit. The story. with its two romances, is
decidedly amusing. The old material
proves TO be still servicea BILE; it will con-
tinue to be so for d long time to come,
for a new reading public will spring up
to which the early SOS of the West will
be but a distant tradition.
FTen2ied finance once more. Nothing
less than fifty millions have been looted
from a string of trust companies, and
the looter is ready 10 withdraw with
his spoil It ali looks sufficiently real
istic. Then follows an Indictment, and
the Running Fight in the courts is
begun. Mr. Osborne manages to make
the legal strategy quite understands bic
to the ayman, and also the defending
counsel's opinion from the first tnat his
client will be convicted. Hence his at
tempt to cast an anchor to windward by
gaining control of the executive who has
the pardoning power. The author con-