The Washington herald., 1913-09-07

aside has been due entirely to a great
| love, fused with an artists passion
! for the development of her talent, a
| combination of forces too strong for
! her to withstand.
The story is told pleasingly by the
| little brown-haired widow, Evelyn
| Drake. who, with her limited income
and aristocratic connections, feels her
| self ground between the upper and the
neither millstones of New York life.
The photographed manner that tells
il without padding that one has grown
TO look for, the clever feminine touches
that show the places and the people,
the fugitive humor, and that cOmpell-
ing, absorbing characterization of Bon
aventura render the work distinctive.
Evelyn, coming to live in a boarding
Louse in the upper seventies in New
York after years of unhappy mar
riage and foreign exile. makes the ac-
quaintance of BOnaventura, the singer.
who later becomes famous as an opeT-
attic star. She learns the secret of ner
life-the story of her error. And then
Evelyn finds that Bonaventura has
come into the life of the man whom
Evelyn herself loves and whom she had
expected to bring to her the affection
which she missed during her first mat
rimOaial Union. Evelyn sees a way to
Of hearts. But her honorable nature
revolts.
THE WOMAN THOU GAvEsT NE. BEING THE
STORY OF MARY O'NEILL. Written by Hall
Caine. PHILADELPHIA. B. LpTincUtt Company.
1t is the prevailing fashion in certain
circles to scorf at Hall Caine. The finger
of scorn is pointed at him, and he is
made a warning to ambitious novel
writer's, who may be tempted to follow
him along the downward path of popu-
larity. Since he began to wear the
preachers garb, Hall Gains popularity
has increased. The public loves to be
preached to in one form of another. The
longer the polemic novel, the most SEN
sational its plot, the most insistent its
moral lesson, the more pungent its
realistic atmosphere-the more eagerly
it is sought. The most popular Of all
English novelists, IL not the greatest
was a persistent reformer and prea cher,
and although it may be heresy TO speak
the name of Dickens in the same breath
with that of Hall Caine, in one respect
they belong to the same school. The
difference lies in the fact that Dickens
was cheerful, humorist and an opti-
mist, and that Hall Caine has become
cheerless and a pessimist.
In THE Woman Thou Gavest Me-" all
that is Hall Cainish is summoned up in
a preposterous title that screams az
US. Nothing could be more forbidding
than such a title, yet, at the same time,
it was probably deliberately chosen be.
cause of its appeal to the susceptibilities
of the populace. The mechanism of the
story likewise is compounded of good
and had elements, to deceive US into be-
lieving that we are reading the real
story of a real woman. 1t is put forth
as the rewriting and editing by the
novelist of a manuscript written by a
young woman during the last months
OF her life. Here and there the narra-
tive is interrupted by a memorandum
of Martin Conrad" the man who enters
most largely into the life story of Mary
O'Neill; and at its beginning is offered
note entitled, Martin Conrad to tha
Author" To clinch the appearance of
truth the title page is followed by a note:
The Author to the Reader" in which
he says: How much of the story of
Mary O'Neill is a y ork o. my own imagi- |
nation, and how much comes from an |
authentic sourse, 1 do not consider Il |
necessary 10 say. But as / have, in this |
instance, drawn more largely and d. |
rectly from fact than is usually the prac-
tice Of the novelist l have thought IL /
my duty to defeat all possible attempts
at personal Identification BY altertnR and