The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-22
EXCELLENT NEW NOVELS

The best novel of New York wrttel
 in many year. nor would one knov
 where to turn to find a better on
 written in any year. It is a novel no
 Of any mere action of New York bu
 of all of that grset city where th'
 worlds work is done, where soonei
 or later all the work done in all tn,
 world must come for its "try out.
 That gay. gloomy, glorious, greedy
 generous New York whose every nool
 and corner teens with life, with work
 with art in the making, with ingather' ing of art as the older world has made 1t. New York that fills every waking
 moment brim full of interest, where keen interest strikes into every crew ice and corner of consciousness.
 The main interest of the story cen ters about the three children of the murdered Governor Lyman Innes, the much loved and lauded martyr to the
 cause of justice and labor. The studio of these three on Washington square is
 the sun about which revolves solar system of bright stars of the literary
 and artistic world David Innes is the
 book reviewer Of one of New York s l great dailies. For birds eye view of
 the work of a literary editor, for knowledge of that splendid system, that
 stupendous labor of letting all the
 world know of all the work being
 
 ing that gives a clearer idea than the
 few pages in this book describing l David's work and the way he doss it.
 Johnny lnnes is an actor. Rather an astounding profession in which to find q governors son, but one suited ex-
 actly to Johnny, spoiled darling of fate and family, beautiful, 1ovable, ire l sponsible, always accustomed to win all attention, to be in the center of the stage, to (unconsciously) love to show himself in the glow of the spot light. Moreover, in New York, with it's fine siftings of semblances and realities, one l learns a different scale of values to those learned, perhaps, in the old south where political preference social po- sition, and here and there scholars | pre- e-erninence make up the sun of ann bition Rose Innes describes herself as a mere person among the O1ym- plans" One of her friends. and her l friends are all of those who are delft with words and the means of express sion, describes her as 'everyb ody' S best and most beautiful dream confe true"
 Of those bright stars that glitter about the Armament of Roses apartment there Is the great author Ansel Rodman, First sight of Rodman ia as he follows per- forming bear to the place where he plays well his bears part on the stage of the Royal theatre. The Royal is one of those tiny places where far down In the city the blessing of the moving pictures comes with all its variety to cheer the poor. To the Royal David and Rose fol- low Rodman as he follows the bear. So closely does this book belong to the actual that here the film described is in reality one that just yesterday as it were, went the way over the moving picture routes. Rodman has probably just dlned at "Cecchina s." Who would have thought to have come on Cocchina's in a novel. Though many a novelist dimes there. passing through that kitchen ever rodo lent of luiciou,s highly seasoned chicken and the ever Variously served and all
 ways tempting spagetti, to dine in one of those quaint booths in' the wee city back yard. At Cecchina's Rodman has dined at some other as quaint foreign table d hote south of Union Square called in journalistic jargon 'tne red ink belt" for every 90 cent diner has his quart bottle of red-inky claret set be- fore him-and a look of amazement the waiter turns upon the diner who asks for water instead. At the Royal Rod
 man has fallen in with a stranger. q man interested in life,' and therefore interesting to Rodman, for, like good novelest, it is life and all Of life that Rodmap depicts. The stranger does not remain a stranger long and he leads the group. Rose. Rodman, David to bit of a theatre where certain Marionettes are disported Those Marionettes are the heritage of one Italian family since the days of the crusades and have played (with infinite repairs) their long seasons on the tiny stage in their own country and now in a book of America-that land of ours which receives all things of all nations. That is one of the charms, that is part of the infinite variety of New
 York. Here are to be found types and the most vivid types of all the nations of earth. It is as if each mother na- ton had thrown across the oceans in | semi-conscious rage, or in mad pride, the children likest her own image, that they might paint Cor tainD our western world with the most typical tints and traits, and charact eristics of the ancient peoples Of this man met at the Royal thea tre Ballard Creighton, by name, much js to be said. At the end he gives his life to save a girl whom he has never seen, because he knows we'll the bit terness and misery to which she has been snared by the glitter of a little cheap gold-a modern Theseus vainly trying to ielease modern youth from the snares of a modern Minotaur He knows his part of New York, his part 1t has been that part that at 1 o'clock
 at night heads for the bread line. Creighton, now lifted out of want, burns to give these of the bread line the help they most need, help to life that lives not by bread alone: 'I know what it is to be hugry for food he says, but that isn't the worst hunger these men suffer. Their worst hunger whether they know it or not, is for something not just to sustain life. but to make life seem worth sustaining; something to take them out of their
 miserable reality and make them feel like men the world needs. That's why they drink-most of them--its the only way they know to how get away from themselves and their awful impotence
 If you could reach them now, If you
 cculd get behind their dull pre-occupa-
 tion and leave a spark there--some-
 thing that would kindle a glow! l Books cant do it-because they don't 1 read books And theatres can't do it. because no theatre but the noblest has
 the enkindling spark. and no theatre | but the meanest wants these men
 patronage. And pulpits can't do it. i because these men won't listen to what 1 the pulpiteers say. You're got to get
 them on elemental principals-liSe
 story telling to children and to child
 like races of men" No truer words
 were ever spoken or written. Joy is l the thing needed to reform the world. i Misery is tho great sin of the world, 1 for that sin follows right in the path
 of misery. Who ever heard of a happy
 person committing a great sin? Fill up a life cup of joy and there is no
 room, no desire for sin. The reformer | fails because he so often is a misera
 ble specimen himself and offers noth- Ing but dullncss and misery to those 1 who follow him. A smoky lamp and a
 complaining, eXacting. nagSing mother
 or wife at home has made more