The Washington herald., 1913-06-08
By A. d. JACOBSON.


PARROT q CO.: By Harold MscGnth. Illus
trated' The BoSbs-Merrill Company. lndianapo-
lis Price. $50.
Harold MacGrath has written many
romances that have been accorded high
place among the fiction productions Of
the last quarter of a century, but in
none does he carry the reader so COM
pletely away with him and entertain
him is in his latest novel. Parrot & Co,
in pure romance-it is tale OF the seven
seas. Mr.. MacGrath has felt the fas-
cination OF the Orient, and his powers
of observation have supplied him with
many details of life and color that are
both pertinent and convincing. With a
strange fascination, he places his story
somewhere in the middle Of the world
between London and New York. where
all things are East of one and West OF
the other" We are constantly reminded
of the land of Kipling. a land OF ro-
nance and adventure. for somewhere
to the Southeast lies Mandelay and RAJ
COON, the halfway house of the dereiicts
Of the world farther South.
A mysterious young Americana man
of the world, the kind of fellow that
is equally at home on Sahara sands in
a London fog. or at the busy busting
corner OF Forty-second Street and
Broadway, New Yoyk-is the typical hero
of this typical MacGrathian story. He
has been engineer, stevedore, deck stew
ard, haberdasher, and mine superintend-
emit. For years he has mingled with the
dotsam and jetsam of decsdent Oriental
society But despite his checkered career.
he has remained a gentlman-young
enough to dare old enough to love, and
experienced enough to understand. And
this Is the story:
He meets a girl. an American girl,
who possesses all the chic and charm.
grace and beauty of a MacGrathian
heroine. She seems to recognize him
from his remarkable resemblance to her
fance. She finds him reticent at all
times, backward in telling about himself
No one seems to know who he is. The
natives call him 1.-THE man who never
talks of home" and "Parrott & Co" But
besides the hero and heroine, with his
usual tact and skill. MacGrath has
brought other figures into the narrative.
There are the hero's native servant and
his pet parrot. Rajah. to whom he looks.
Crusoe-like. for sympathy and consola-
ton and who comes to play an impor-
tant part and add greatly to the excite
ment before the tale is ended. There is
a discredited gambler, who longs again
to see the dazzling lights of Broadway:
a brutal. but successful. planter; an ap-
parently reserved, yet whole-souled, Xix
able old British colonel. All of them are
real and true TO life familiar transplanted
types from the far East.
TO THE LosA FRIEND; A SONNET SEQUENCE:
By Auguste Angellier translated. Boston
sherman. French & Co Pnce. 81.
These sonnets are TRANSACTIONS of Au-
guste Angellier's romance in verse, "A
Jamie Perdue." II is the story of an
love-the poets own: but
out of defeat rises victory. for it was !
the purity and greatness of the love it. |
self that barred its own contamination. |
The sonnets breathe forth spirit Of self |
a virility and sense of the worth |
of the human soul. that speak nobly for |
the eternal in man. There is nothing |
morbid in this story of passionate, ro- |
mantle love; il is spontaneous and with |
out a false note. Add to this a remark |
able vividness Of language and sincerity |
OF feeling, and the world has gained a |
series of love poems that stand above |
anything in modern French literature.
The love which il discloses so clearly |
through the vague outlines of story |
so dimly defined that it might belong |
to almost any hour or region of human
experience, has qualities which do not |
come from the perishable and mortal
part of our life. 1t will be treasured
among things rare and precious and per- I
tect in their kind
The translators have made a literal