The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-12-07
THE POINT OF VIEW"

BY Elinor Glyn D. Appleton & Co, pub
fishers. New York.
Elfnor Glyn's books have been dis
cussed and read from the vital one to
her latest, 1.-The Point of View always
with pleasure, always with deep interest,
and always with curiosity.
In the Point of View she has
achieved pronounced success, perhaps
the greatest since she becomes a writer
and those who contemplate reading It
have. rare treat in store, for it is quite
worth while from every standpoint
Perhaps her own statement as to her
books, under the caption What NY
Books Mean" throws more light on the
subject than any reviewers pen might
do-and concerning 1.-The Point of View"
she says:
for Paris, where I am going to live in
the future. should like to tell the Amer
lean readers of my new novel, THE Point
OF View little of why 1 wrote 1t, and
what I wished to show in it.
A year or two ago I was in Rome with
my daughter, when, while we were seated
one day in the restaurant of the Grand
hotel the very strange type of Russian
whom have described in my novel came
In and sat near us.
HE was the type I had been looking
for, who could make one imagine that his
nation and circumstances had permitted
him tire to graduate in the philosophy
of life so that he could see clearly. I
wanted to thresh out this question of the
meaning of marriage, and the, to me- ter
ribly hypocritical view that some highly
good and rigidly moral people take of it..
So I have made this Russian state my
exact ideas upon the subject in his scene
twth Eustace Medicott Ell
'"As to the heroine, and there are hun
dreds of Stella Rawsons in England, Just
as there are numbers Of young men like
Tristram in The Reason Why There
are none of them individual and particu-
lar characters, like the Russian In The
Point of View They merely come out Of
the commonplace by the force Of, circum-
stances, and the awakening power pos
sessed, and used by these magnetic OBJ
jects of their affections. Stella Is lust a
nice girl who has been very narrowly
brought up and is sound asleep to ali
realities.
Numbers OF people do not like one to
draw realities. If they personally have
prejudice against a wolf, let us say, and
yet one was admittingly drawing a wolf
and they were admittingly reading about
one they would still prefer that one gave
curly white coat and a woolly tail,
and suggested the portrait of a lamb
Now the thing which | will never do
as long as l can hold a pen and have CO.
herent thought is to draw unfaithful por-
traits. If any one cared to take the
trouble to analyze the characters in any
of my books, he would find that they in
varia bly, act reason. look and behave ex-
actly as such a wolf or such lamb would
do in real life. not as the different preju-
dices of the different readers would have
them 10. regardless of likelihood. think
this is the. only way to WRITE even II one
is pilloried for it. as l was when I wrote
my Three Weeks which, far from being
an immoral story, had profound moral
and a deep psychological truth In its
stddy of the meaning of love at its zen
tth, when 1T becomes a trinity"
PRAYER: WHAT 1T IS AND VIVA T
IT DOES"
BY Rev Samuel McComb, d. d. Harper
Brothers, publishers New York
In a little volume of less than 40 pages
entitled Prayer: What 1t Is and What
1t Does" the Rev. Samuel McComb has
written a most beautiful treaties.
In every touch the author is human and
practical and explains specifically and
satisfactorily the relation of prayer to the
Individual, and how much is depended
upon sincerity and earnestness and what
is gained by such an attitude.
On the "flyleaf" Is most eloquent
prayer printed which opens the way for
the talk, for 1t is nothing more than a
heart to heart" talk that the Rev. Nc
Cohmb give his readers concerning
prayer.
The prayer is reproduced:
30 Thou Source of Holiness Health and
Beauty! Open our eyes to the glory and
the wonder of life touched with mystic
experience and filled with spiritual oppor-
tunity. Renouncing all faithless fears
and vain regrets, may We live In the glad