New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-06-05

taph, drags forth the secret Of his life
without vanity and without shame;
sncers or chuckles at his own hypocri-
cies or 81 the lies on his tombstone;
or. in rare cases. yields up the per
fume Of a happy life. There are tn
terconnections among the characters,
and now and then pair stand facing
each other on opposite pages, lronl-
cally contrasted. There is Roscoe
Purkap.le, who complains that his wife
loved him 80 much that nothing ne
could do would make her divorce him
not even his running away for year
on lark and telling her when ne
came back that he had been captured
by pirates on Lake Michigan. And
there il Mrs. Purkapiie. who knew and
dcspised her husband all the time;
Put a promise is q promise. and mar
ria.e is marriage. and out OF respect
for nv own character ] refused TO be
drawn into a divorce" There Is Mrs.
Charles Bliss. who was persuaded by
the Rev. Lemuel Wiley not to divorce
her husband: But two of the chill
dren thought he was right, and two OF
| the children thought | was right.
and all were torn with the
guilt Of judging, and tortured IN soul
because they could not admire equally
him and me" And there Is the Rev.
Lcmuel Wiley, who preached four
thousand sermons and conducted forty
reyiya,s and whose proudest achieve
mc7t is that he saved the Blsses from
divorce and caused the children TO
grow up into moral men and women,
happy themselves. credit 90 the VII
laCc'
Irony is the dominant impulse Of
the book clean, cold, biting irony.
But there is sometimes, "a IN lbsen,
an ecstatic mood which seems TO fol
low upon the lronic as sort OF re
action. Ike the complementary color
of an aftcr-imaCe. This il the mood
Of "Aune Rutledge," OF Jacob Good
pasture" and Of William and Emily. "
Sometimes, TOO, there IS a piece Of
satire more moving ard more difficult
than the ironical tragic satire, as
IN Caroline Branson':
Had we but passed from
wooing. Ike notes of music that
run together, into winning, in the
inspired improvisation Of love!
But 20 put back Of Us cantcle
ended the rapt enchantment OF
the flesh, in which our souls
swooned, down down, where time
was not. nor space, nor ourselves
annihilated in love, To leave these
behind for a room with lamps:
and TO stand with our Secret
hooking itself, and hiding itself
amid flowers and mandohns, stared
al By all between salad and cot
zee. And TO see him ticmble, and
feel myself president, as one who
signs d bond not flaming with
gifts and pledges heaped with rosy
hands over his brow And then, o
night deliberatel unlovely. with
all Of our wooing blotted out by
the winning, IN a chosen room IN
an hour hat was known 10 all!
We have taken the liberty Of print
iul. the passages we have quoted as II
they were prose. We have done so for
the simple reason that they arc prose.
Can any one guess where one line
ends and another begins" Mr. Mas
terss style bears not the slightest re-
scmbiance 70 poetry. Il is certainly far
Tess like poetry than Millions prose, or
Sir Thomas Brownies prose, or, for
that matter. much Of Arnold's, Rus
kn's. or Newman's prose is like poetry.
Nor is it even thank Heaven! -rers
HIRE Tcrs librc-if we understand
what is meant By that absurd contra
diction IN terms is a form Of compo-
sition in which one makes ones lines
scan when one can do so without much
trouble. and when one can't one