The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-07-16

Century Co.,, New York. s1.2O.
 A diverting piece of braggadocio.
 Quite the brightest book of the sea-
 son.
 Morley Roberts by way of Thorpe, has
 worked off all his pet beliefs (which are
 social atheisms) and all his dearest en-
 mites against the old, the out-worn, the
 inert. He might have well put his the
 ories in form of essays, but then she could not so effectively have touched the
 Philistine on the raw"-for the Philistine
 is not given to essay reading. The pills
 that the Philstine swallows must be
 sugar-coated with fiction, indeed the
 Philistine has been known to profess
 preference for the sugar-coating without
 the pill-his way of stating the prefer
 ence being this, '1 never like a problem
 novel" Poor Philistne, mental inertia
 is his state, new idea in any form
 sadly disconcerfs his sluggish system.
 In an essay the author could as well
 have stated his definition of sin: @Sin means doing what isn't done, or saying what isn't said. You can sin by being
 behind or ahead of your times The
 good reformer always suffers from a sense of sin, if he Is really advanced" The Philistine sees to 1t that the true reformer shall suffer in many ways for
 his convictions. By the way the original Philistines did not at all approve of
 the march of the Israelites to possess the Promised Land which heretofore had been their own, and showed that dis
 approval strenuously for some hundreds | of years. But progress and power (whom the 1sraelites called Jehoyah) were with the new corners and they won
 the Promised Land So today the Chil- dren of New Time, the host of Eternal Youth, have marched in to possess the Promised Land; the Today and the To- ;aI i+aJ,I md Progress has promised to them-as ever the Philistine puts up stout fight to hold bacS the all conquering horde. But | the victory is predestined before ever the first shot is fired.
 | This author, like an intrepid Joshua, blows terrible Tong blast with the rams horn," makes a fearsome sound of the trumpet and leaves not a breach
 unguarded by which the beset Philistine
 may with any grace retire from the con- l flct. Thus where the mother and the | adorable Molly come to the parting of | the ways: '"To Molly the view of her
 mother took was intensely repugnant, and in way the older woman could
 never have comprehended. The good peo- l pie of decayed morality cannot under | stand that their most sacred opinions | stink in the nostris of the new world. | Their morality Is immortality; their vir- l tues have ceased to be of good report.
 And" cries this Joshua, determined to
 make the walls of the Philistine strong 1 hold fall flat: If the elderly guardians of religion and morals knew as much as that, they would know more and the world would be rather more pleasant than | 1t is."
 | Morley Roberts. through the lips of Dis hero and scapegoat might in an essay have agtated a follower of the Baconian l theory, by intimating that after all so much was not claimed for Sir Francis: "Shakespeare is an English god, and I'm an atheist-He was the greatest word-
 merchant that ever traded on the weak ness of the British-being essentially a writer of pot-bolers, he never put any human nature into his works-Shakes- peare has been an evil influence in this un- fortunate country. Every literate ass in
 England implies that the. best has been done. But literature and the arts are only just beginning. Shakespeare had low ideas. His highest passion was patri- otsm, which Is the noblest point in any canibal. There has been a conflict be- tween Shakespeare and nature, which has ended in England and Germany, in the death of nature. Look at his women.
 The critics think if a woman is like
 nature she Is false to Shakespeare. In stead of going back to nature we are to | go back to Shakespeare. who carved na- | ture for us for al ltime. Oh, the cult is a calamity for all concerned" Could lit- erary atheism farther go? No wonder Morley Roberts prefers to employ a fic- ton figure to "blow on the rams horn"
 rather than do it himself in the form of an essay!
 It is Thorpe who Is made to give this
 dictum upon morals: Morality, as it is
 understood by the vulgar, is allowing the dead to legiSlate for the living" It Is
 Thorpe who believes in marriage mot as ture for us for all time. Oh, the cult is stroy the homes most of them-witn joy" who pronounces the family to be
 the last refuge of tyranny" It Is
 Thorpes sister who declares that 'there is something about the everlasting sur
 render of marriage that kills one to think
 of-there are many, ohl many women
 who can't bear being shut up in home Git sounds like a place or reformation,
 doesn't it?'D It is the same emancipated sister who has chanced to observe that religious people put on dogmatic clothes to keep warm instead of taking exercise putting the crooked straight"
 As the author warns to his work he leaves the amiable Thorpe, to know whom lis a liberal education in anarchism,'' and speaks for himsel, anent duty: 'There | is nothing that deserN os more scrutiny than duty; 1t is the paren. . more cruel ties than religion" He gives a disserta- | ton upon elders: "The elder generation | is always afraid of youth 1t ever eXerts J its authority in haste which is born of | terror" Nor does he call Thorpe to the | fore to depict his idea of modern woman: From their feet to their necks women are fairly civilized, and still progress,
 but on their heads savagery still sits | triumphantly. Through maternity and tha
 milliner they keep secure hold on primi- | tive nature" Or the modern womans
 idea of men: Though the male was never takens at his own valuation by
 women, for the first time in modern his- author reaches his top notch of daring theorizing when he sets Thorpe to writ
 ing and essay developing scheme of
 society contemplation of which would bring a palsy of horror to the presen.
 generation, but which may be accepted quite naturally by those a bit farther
 down the circles Of the centuries-but
 that is left for the readers to discover foi
 themselves; that as well as his excellent
 definition of "bores and blighters,"
 his afraignment of insoent curiosity.
 Thorpe's, and his creators theories quite
 convince that Morley Roberts possesses good supply of that genius which con- sists in being mad enough to say what one thinks
 Theories, however, have not been al- lowed to run away with the interest | of the story. Thorpe, in spite of his very radical views of marriage, makes | a very gallant wooer and very medi- aeval runaway marriage; the necessity f,v, ALt y.- l. <r1,k hxr fI., h