The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1914-06-21
"wORLD.S END


BY Amelie Rives princess Troubetzkey).
With four Illustrations by Alonzo KIM
ball Frederick \. Stokes X Co, pub
fishers. New York.
Amene Rives Ohe Princess Troubetz-
KEY is never bromide.
That can be depended upon.
Whenever she writes a story it is abso-
lutely unique. di1Feent. original, her sui
phitlp brain cre/Gng the most extraordi-
nary eharactef, situations and condi-
tions
We meet the types. these children of her
clever brain, every day, at least some of
them.
In worlds End" (Which isn't story
as might be expected from the title of
the last day." the millennium any
such far fetched thing, we find a group
of people, Virginians mostly, placed in
the most extraordinary circumstances.
Worlds End" is the country place of
the Randolphs, and here most of the
comedy and tragedy of the story take
place.
brilliant opening chapter introduces
Owen Randolph and his nephew, Richard,
about whom the story revolves. at
social affair at the Ritz Carlton in New
York, which is patronized by the smart
and exclusive set. Here we see the author
at her best
Epigramatic. brilliant, sarcastic and hui
morous, her descriptions of the various
peopel present her original description of
the latest dances and the general air of
modernism which accentuates the story,
whets the appetite of the reader for what
is to follow
Around the heroine of Worlds End"
Amelie Rives has woven a curious sort
of web.
She has introduced US to a sweet, in
nocent, weak, frail, girl, whose love for
an exotic, supersensitive, silly boy places
her in a predcament which is all but
fatal.
Richard is the type of 'jeunesse doree"
of Partisan society-petted, spoiled, over
educated. effeminate. unstable, but alto
gether amusing.
That anybody could love him Eek
cept his adoring mother-not even a
young country girl like Phoebe Nell
SOM is almost beyond the range of
possibility, but she thought she did, and
when the awakening came she, like
everyone else, dubbed him contempta-
BILE, unmanly, and an migrate!
Owen Randolph is almost too good to
be true"
That such a man ever lived in flesh
and blood is beyond the dreams of the
fondest, but he is at least good to read
about.
isSdAiNiilS tIdl HIS utpiltW mas IulnPu
the young girl Phoebe, and without
ever allowing her or him to know that
he (Owen) knows of the condition. he
marries the girl and introduces her into
the best society at home and abroad.
She is young, beautiful and an I'M
qualified success.
But with all this comes the racking,
conscience stricken misery that only
comes to the guilty-and the poor crea-
ture is all but spent. when her splendid
manly husband by his Kindness and
goodness to her, inspires a tremendous,
glorifed love and she is saved through
his noble character and fineness.
1t is the awakening of woman's
conscience, the finding of q woman's
soul that the author has brought about
and presented In a light which hereto
fore has been untouched upon, and the
holds out the hope to erring mortals
that although a woman may make a
mistake in her life-it Is not necessar-
ly fatal.
That owen Randolph could live and
breathe and have his being in real
life, would be a Godsend to humanity.
and that all such rubbish as Richard
with his disgusting, loathsome ideas of
marriage and life In general could be
obliterated, would be a boon indeed.
Richards mother is one of the tensest
characters in the entire story
wretched offspring and her protection
of him a the expense of everything and
everybody is a beautiful example of
mother love-even though selfish in a
nature like Sally's.
The tragic climax when owen Ran
dolph avenges the insult offered to his
young wife by Richard at the house
party at Worlds End" is fitting eli
max to a very clever and readable
story.
Certain it is that Amelie Rives has
reached high water mark with World S
End"
Certain 1t is that it will prove one of
the "best sellers of the day.
And
Certain 1t is that no more brilliant de-
scriptions, clever repartee, original views
of life, and more appealing characters
have appeared in any story of recent
date.
Congratulations to the fair princess
upon an achievement which has not been
surpassed or scarcely equalled within the
past decade.