Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-03-22
BOOK REVIEWS.

THE BLINDNESS OF VIRTUE: a Play
i'm Four Acts. BY Cosmo Harriilto ton,
author of The Wisdom of Folly,
etc New York: George III. Doran
Company.
~UST now there is tramp thought
going about, the very mention
of which is soaring folks into
fits TO the most its bare con-
temptation is unspeakably shock
ing This fact Of itself removes the
theme quite out of the neighborhood
Of acquaintance and fair treatment a
handful of people-no more-roughiy
embody this vagrant thought In the
urgent contention that the greatest sin
against youth is committed py us
fathers and mothers through the tacit
world wide conspiracy to hold thelr
children vigorously to an ignorance of
the supreme facts surrounding their
being in the world at all. These few
maintain moreover, that by all ODDS
the greatest number of the miseries or
the world grow out of this ignorance
Of the children.
In this drama Mr. Hamilton sets out
TO house and clothe, to give bed and
board to this unwelcome conviction, In
the hope that he may bring 1t up
to condition where these sensitive eld-
ers will at least consent to look at the
despised and outcast theory.
Two girls. equally ignorant and, so,
equally defenseleSS, center the play.
one a clergymans beautiful and be-
loved daughter, lives In a garden close
Mary Ann, the old bargemans girl
walks the open way. Both are dream
ing the young girls dreams, those OF
which their mothers are so desperately
ashamed. These two stand for all the
oh
and the unsheltered. One day the
lovely little Mary Ann disappears. long
months after coming back to have her
baby at home. When the chance comes,
as it does come, the minister's daughter
offers herself as freely and as lnno-
Gently Mary Ann did. A Mortified
father and mother rush in to save
her from the fate of Mary Ann.
The play works out in the natural
atmosphere of a most delightful home
life. Deep love is there. and q splen-
did comradeship between the girl and
her father and mother. Good fun and
keen bright spirits animate the sur
face of the play. An ideal situation,
save for the uncalculated bad faith of
the minister and his wife toward their
daughter, an ashamed and tender
neglect that leaves her helpless and
unarmored for everything outside her
garden wall.
This play is clean-cut, close-jointed.
finished in it's workmanly build. The
pathetic and unstrained. Yet one Is
OF opinion that this is not an actable
play. At the single crucial point one
wonders IL there are two actors in the
world who can send across the foot
lights what the author wishes the play
to say with tremendous force. This is
exactly the kind of thing that Frank
Wedekind's awakening of SPRING nut
before scandalized and protesting
public.
THE NECESSARY EVIL: A One-Act
Piayt By Charles Ram Kennedy
author Of The Servant in the
House." New York: Harper &
Bros.
The theme covered by this title, this
ironic title, is prostitution. The play, in
gum, is the prostitutes charge against
the male. Like the Damaged Goods
OF Brieux, it is an unfinching scrutiny
OF one of the tragic and irrefutable facts
OF ase-oia ciVlnzation. In effect. it is
personal and poignant view of this most
ancient of trades from the market-place
Of the slave herself. A sermon embodied
in drama, the most vivid and objective
relation that an author is able to estab-
Hsh between himself and the public IN
q degree this particular message is
: 1fawed by certain manifest theatrical
1ty, an obyiousness of the stage, an OBJ
trusion of the mechanism of lights of
the consciousness of posture, of the over
accent of personality. Otherwise, this is
a fine and fearless drama.
THE NIGHT-BORN. BY Jack London
author of The Call of the Wild"
New York: The Century Company
From Alaska to the South seas these
tales OF adventure flock to book Equally
broadcast is their sweep of theme and
circumstance. Nor in workmanship even
do they approach one another much more
nearly than in these matters of climate
and event. However, with one accord
they come together in being young and
muscular. Justify proud of their Drawn
and Dragging bit of their primitive bru-
tally. Wherever situation demands
the ruder forms of offense or defense
man lighting nature, man at fists with
man. man against beast, or one beast in
combat with another-Mr. London
stories leap swingingly to thrilling close.
The Madness of John Harned"-a bull
fight in Quito and John Harned's part in
this amusement-is one of the best of
these adventures. As piece of work of
story sculpturing ITO XII Man is ad-
mirable. When the World Was Young
put UP beside DIR Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
or Kipling's ''The Finest Story in the
World '-all three akin in theme-suffers
eclipse. Just because the subject Of multi
pie personality requires for it's embodi-
ment in drama or tale the sublimate quail
tiles of insight and Interpretation that
more than likely Mr.. London will not ac-
qutre in this particular journey through
the world. Nevertheless and despite GER
tain little lapses from his best, these are
fine, stirring stories we'll calculated to Sc
cure Mr.. London more firmly in the
hearts of his friends.
THE HEART OF THE HILLS. Ry
John Fox. jr., author of The Trail
Of the Lonesome Pine" etc New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Washington; Woodward d Lothrop
From the elements put into this ro-
nance one naturally looks for harsh
black and white contrasts TO dominate its
course on the one hand, there is the
new Kentucky, its industries revived,
manufacture and commerce rushing into
the state. the sharp practices of competi-
ton. labor difficulties and politics. On the
other hand, is the body OF marooned
mountaineers, subsisting chiefly on dead