Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1911-07-29
The Evening Star $ Weekly Review Of Books
The Views Of Messrs. Jacobs and Sinclair on the Matrimonial
Bond--The Life of a Move.
BY WILLIAn HAMILTON OSBORNE

Genuine happiness hoes not consist in
a life free as the air. A free fife has
it's ranking letters, too. Real happiness
consists in the performance of plain
and simple duty. You can't find hap
piness In any other way. Who was 1t
said: Happiness is like a little yellow
dog. Pursue 1t and it runs away Go
about your business and 1t follows at
your heels" Love is a business; mar
rage is a business; the raising of chill
dren TO be men and women Is a BUSH
ness. Those who transact it well and
ably are those who are genuinely
happy. They are not sordid, selfish;
they never feel the letters chafe. To
disprove his own theory all that Mr..
Jacobs has to do Is to reverse his
characters. Audrey Chittenden. in law
full wedlock, would have been su-
premely happy; Mrs. Jesse Church, out
of it, would have been distinctly miser-
able. The story Is dramatic and the
legal end of 1t correct.
Co
NOW FOR LOVES PILGRIMAGE"
This is written by a master hand, 50
far as the faithful setting forth of
conditions Is concerned. Mr.. Sinclair,
besides being particular that a spade
shall not be known by any other name,
Is a champion dissecter; he takes de-
light In laying bare the hidden places.
OF course, he did 1t In the Jungle
but the Jungle was about disagree
able things, and Loves Pilgrimage
Is about love-apparently an agreeable
thing. This is Mr.. S~lnclair's method:
Let us say for instance that you are
wonderfully fond of flet mignon with
mushrooms; let us assume that they
are very nourishing so far as o are
concerned; let us say you are very hun
cry. You think about 1let mignon de-
i~iciously, ecstatically; you go to a fine
restaurant; you give your order; you
eat; you are happy. That is all you
care about.
Now, would MI. Sinclair stop there?
Not a bit of it. He knows that that
fllet mignon has got to go through
the processes of mastication, saliva
ton, deglutition; that the gastric juices
have got to tackle it, that 1t must as
simulate. He doesn't believe in its
merely pleasing you and nourishing
you. He's got to see what it does to
you and what your complicated system
does to 1t. That's his game. Well. he
treats love in exactly the same way.
He takes a pride In telling everything
that happens, anytime, anywhere, any
how. He portrays conditions-not a
doubt about that. But he portrays
more than he has any right to do. His
story is of a boy and a girl, both low
ers, evidently, of the ideal. They call
each other Thyrsis, n Corydon. This
is their marriage ceremony, set forth
on pages 142-143 (shades of Ferdinand
Pinney Earl!): 81 have been to we'd
dings,' she said, land so l know how
they do 1t. / take thee, Thyrsis, to be
the companion of my soul. I give my
self to thee freely. for the sake of love.
and l will stay so long as thy soul
is better with me than without (who,
for heavens sake, may we ask, Is to be
the Judge of this p. But If ever this
should cease to be I will leave thee.
for If my soul is weaker than thine l
have no right to be thy mate"
CO
EQUALITY OF SOUL rs INSISTED
upon here. Thyrsis, the boy, repeats
the same formula. He, too, says; III
my soul is weaker than thine 1 have no
right to be thy mate"
Now she exclaimed, with an eager