The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1911-11-26
REAL INCoMPATIBILITY.

The Healer. BY Robert Herr!ck. The
Macmillan Company. Publishers. New
York.
In this story society party is IN
the wilds of Canada where the head oil
the family has large numbering inter
ests. There the daughter meets with
a serious accident. and is healed by
the skill OF a surgeon who is peer or
the great ones in his profession, but
who has buried himself In the woods,
it is found, by reason of personal char
acteristics and tendencies. He is
found TO be infinitely sympathetic and
tender at the bedside Of one who needs
extremely hostile to those whom he cas-
ually meets Naturally he and the
young woman whose life he saved mar
~ after good deal Of difficulty, but
their ideals finally separate them. In
the meantime the healer has had a
wide repute, and he soon builds up
great sanitarium in the wilderness, pat
ronized by numbers of invalids who
need his care The necessity of max
ing money destroys all his ideals, and
he loses his gift as a healer, sinking
in some degree into the mere sordid
professionalism Of earning money,
something which in his better state,
he has utterly scorned. In the absence
of his wife there comes to the sanitar~
ium woman tagged and weary, but
who is Just the one to revive the droop-
ing spirit of the doctor and restore
him to his former estate as far as may
be. in pursuance Of tho higher ideals
he practically breaks up the establish
ment, loathing the money that it
brings him, and n great scene eusues
between him his wife. Later the doe
tor comes to the city in order to find
his work among mankind that needs
him. Finally he is brought into fresh
fame and notoriety, as head of an IN,
friend OF his whom he cured while in
the woods. restoring him to fresh vicor
Just as he seemed TO be sinking into
senile decay. The DOCTORS views are
fully expressed that healing should be
by the State through institutionalized
means. Everything, including employ
ment of the doctors, the furnishing of
the implements, the hospitals, clinics, the
should all be provided by
different schools of medicine would be
reconciled to this sort of institution
alizing. but it is assumed that every
thing would 60 well. A fresh problem
confronts the doctor in his youngest
daughter Dorothy, whom he has not
seen for many years; and at the last
the contact with civilization so wears
upon MN t1aI ne is seen pending nls
thoughts and stops towards the wilds
once more.
The book is a deep study into the
mismating Of men and women, and OF
the conservative feeling Of women who
are. much more than men, inclined tt
accept the state of society in which
they are brought up, and to insist that
that is the right thing. The healer is
an idealist without much practical abil-
ity, and with deep loathing against
putting his gifts at the command Of
money. The work is the bringing for
ward in new form Of the old doctrine
of incompatibilitv, and the incompat-
ibles in the book are separated as
quietly and irreyocably as they were
enthusiastically united 1t is a dreamy
sort of book without any practical
basis; the effort made to assimilate the
sort Of character herein depicted as
the wild one," with the common
standard is, as naturally ought to be
expected, a distinct failure; but in
the aDalyzing of motives and in the
working out Of tendencies, the book is
great success from the artistic point
of view. In is realistic also in the
most pronounced sense, in that it brings
to attention the realisms Of life and
the advisability Of keeping apart in
the first place those incompatibiities
which cannot be assimllated. As
study in mismatlng the book is bril-
liant