New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1911-11-18
FICTION
A New Novel of American Life
by Robert Herrick.
THE WOMAN THAT He GAVE YOU


THE HEALER BY Robert Herrick
12mo. PIP 49,. The Macmillan COMPANY
In Mr.. Herricks hands fiction is a
criticism of American life Of the present
day. He searches the past for the uni
versal fundamentals of human nature;
he ever aspires to what may be in the
future-he. too. would change thls
scheme of things entire-but his chiel
occupation is with the here and the now
Fictional criticism of life reaches be-
hind conditions to the men and women
that create them. profit and sufer
through them, revolt against them or
acauiesce under their compelling
strength. In some of his earlier books
Mr.. Herrick has made these conditions
the main subject of his analysis and at
tack: in others, his more recent ones, he
has concentrated his attention and ours
far more upon the men and women hav-
ing their being in them, and-this is not
the least interesting feature Of his vitality
interesting studies of us-as he has pro-
crossed the weight Of his criticism has
increasingly been shifted from the
American man TO the American woman.
The neutral scientific observer has given
way to the champion of his own sex
. against the other. What criticism or
the American man is found in such
books as Together" for instance, seems
to be unconscious on his part. 1t has
even been said that this novel certainly
the one of all his books that has reused
widest discussion, is, Notwithstanding
its structures upon the woman of the
hour. in reality a condemnation of her
mate. If Mr.. Herrick could but see it.
THE Healer" is distinguished by
wider vision of the life in common of
our men and women Of to-day. Ii
searches more deeply, 1t takes into ac-
co Int more clearly those human funda-
mentals to which, through many evolu-
lions, we have fallen heir. Mr. Herrick
no longer sees the American woman as
new" woman, to be pleaded with and
lectured TO. She Is the old woman, he
knows now; the chosen instrument of
the 'life force" in the words Of George
Bernard Shaw, whose MAN and Super
man" repeatedly comes to mind in the
reading Of these pages. Woman does
not dream, she plans and works, driven
herself by her mission in this complex
civilization of ours as in the cave of her
remote ancestors:
Wild dreams are beautiful. and lovers
songs and worship: but good fireside,
secure place in the world for themselves
and their children-that is the highest wis
dom of women-so the sizzling log on the
hearth in the comfortable drawing room
seemed to proclaim.
And so the Healer. the man born with
the mysterious gift to cure, which is
more than all his skill as surgeon and
his knowledge of the human body and
mind, has his one year Of wild dreams
and visions, of lovers songs and worship
ia the wilderness; then, driven by the
| womans purpose and diplomacy, he al
most imporceptbly turns into the money
maker. the famous head of a sanatorium
in the wilderness, and-loses his gift
He that hath wife and children hath
given hostages TO fortune for they are
impedments TO great enterprises, either
Of virtue or mischief" 1t is. after ALL a
problem old as the race, young as the
day that will die tonight. And the the
ory of The eternal war Of the sexes is
revivlng The man revolts. he sees wild
dreams and his high mission once more
for a moment in the eyes of a woman
who will not clog his fight, but II Is too
late. The wife from whom he separates
his tanned him. clipped his wings-she
has "civilzed" him.
Mr. Hcrriclis structures upon the pres
ent day practice of medicine, from the
! specialist in his palace 10 the humble
practitioner and the ouack in the slums,
! must be left to the reader, as must his
| advocacy of the organization of medicine
as part Of the civil service Of the state.
/ He would substitute healing for human
| service for healing for gain. Yet here,
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