The Washington herald., 1915-01-30
THE LONE STARRANGER
BY ZANE GREY.


may mean that the story is in a peculiar
way convincing and interesting, or, on
the other hand, that II Is overemotional
and untrue to life. One hesitates, there
fore, to characterize tale so realistic in
detail so free from excess of sentiment,
and so searching in its analysis Of
highly interesting type of character as
Zane Grey's new novel, "The Lone Star
| Ranger" QIarper & Brothers), by an
adjective so questionable; yet, judged by
I its effect upon the reader. Mr.. Grey's
\ story is most Of all a romance-a romance
capable OF reviving in a mature man his
| boyhood sensations in reading The
Deerslayer" or ''The Three Musketeers-"
The truth is, of course. that there may
be good romance and bad. Romance i'm
plies in the reader a certain craving for
| what is unusual and eNciting-a craving
| that may be morbid, but that is, with
proper qualifications, natural and legiti-
mate. In the writer, romance coannates
the art OF heightening certain values
| found in life; in the romantic story emo
tions are made more absorbing, motives
clearer, situations more dramatically in
tense: persons and events are so de-
scribed as to impress the imagination
more powerfully than is often the case
in our muddled. humdrum. everyday life.
Most Of all, romance idealiZes charac-
ter; il creates heroes and heroines; 1t
gives us such figures as Robin Hood.
Natty Bumpo d'Artagnan. The art OF the
romantic writer is an art of eNaggeration.
IL you like. and it may, of course, be
cheap and false: but at its best 1t is
anything but cheap, and il Is by no
means inconsistent with truth. II only
the writer have the skill to invent plot
and to create character along true and
natural lines. we gladly accept his SUPER
- II. u naa1NT
gifted hero. and we rightly place high
value upon both.
In THE Lone Star Ranger" Mr.. Grey.
by perfectly legitimate means, has made
hero of a Texas outlaw-one of those
men whose careers and characters fas-
cinated and puzzled, among other highly
endowed observers. Mark Twain. Buck
Duane became au outlaw through force
OF heredity and circumstances. His
family was held in high respect; in
young Duane himself there was not
single bad or lawless instinct except
the instinct to fight. But his father
had been a fighter man subject to
fits of binding rage that made him
for the moment a mere killing-machine,
as hot at heart. though outwardly as
steady and impersonal as a Maxim gun.
No man was kindlier. no man less likely
to kill on insufficient prOvocation. but
when provocation passed certain
point. Buck Duane inherited this tenn
permanent, this almost uncontrollably
violent and swift reaction under insult
or threat-a kind of reaction normal
and necessary to self-respecting man
hood in a lawless and dangerous en-
vironment. But already in Texas this
temperament was becoming less suited
to the conditions OF the time. With
the ranger service, law and order were
coming into the outlands. AS was in
evitable, Buck Duane was bullied by
vicious ruffian. met his man, killed him,
and fled to the wild country bordering
the Rio Grande. an outlaw.
Duane. with his speckIess courage.
his cleanliness OF mind, his clear-Cut
decisiveness and efficiency. singularly
captiyates ones imagination. and. al
though no glamour Is thrown over
hemicide, II is remarkable how per-
sistently ones sympathy follows him
through all his adventures-adventure
to be sure, in which there is not one
really unjustifiable killing. With pos
sibly a single exception, Duane is the
quickest man 'on the draw" who ever
lived In the West. The mere attribution
of amazing skill is. of course, insuffi-
Gent by itself to arouse interestru
instead. But Mr.. Grey makes Duane's
exploits convincing. He understands
his man thoroughly; he shows us the
outlaws state OF mind on the verge of
conflict, makes US feel the reactions %
his nerves, causes US to pass in imaE-
ination through the sudden, intense, yet
somehow unreal experience Of the gun
fighter, enables us to appreciate the
subsequent reaction. which may shake
= E-UA kar NhnNNrrh "a
be. In short. Mr.. Grey appears to un-
derstand the psychology of the gun
fighter as few have understood II. II
know all the bad men around here"
says one Of the characters in the story,
"and every one says the same thing.
Something eIplodes inside of him. and
then there is another dead man at his
feet" Mr.. Grey's story does for the
individual fighter what Stephen Cranes
"The Red Badge of Courage" did for
the soldier in battle. 1t portrays him
truly. sympathetically. and with insight;
il shows how he feels, and, as we
read, men of a kind that seemed, per-
haps, wholly -blooded and brutal
become very human to us-masses OF
palpitating nerves, minds haunted by
imaginings and fears, souls not wholly
corrupted. For one sees, OF course,
that the outlaws and bad men" who
own kind must have been creatures of
rather high organization in some ways
men not lacking in certain admirable
human qualities. And, indeed, few
of them proved this in no uncertain
way when they turned, as Duane did, to
the side of law and order.
As we read on in Mr.. Grey's romance
We become increasingly aware that the
story contains a rather large proper
ton OF reality. The satisfying convic-
ton superyenes that the author Is not
only imaginativea but thoroughly familiar
with what he describes. We follow
Duane to the river region. And what
country that Is. AS picturesque and re-
mote, as fitNfor romance surely as the
Scotch highlands or the ''Doone country"
And the outlaw leaders who hold these
strongholds-are we to call them simply |
vulgar criminals while we exalt the Scot |
tish chieftains who were also something |
in the way of being 'cattle-Tustlers" and
bad men" into finely romantic figuresE |
To an unprejudiced mind Duane's es-
cape from pursuit in the Nueces country. |
his fight through q willow brake bar
rer on the only open side by a river and |
quicl<sands-this true-seeming adventure
is as strange, as vividly spectacular as
any exploit OF Rob Roy or Alan Breck, |
and much more thrilling in its truthful
presentation OF the psychology Of the
hunted. The reader will not soon for
get the inside Of that willow brake. with |
its tail. green stems. its sheltering gloom
Ia little world IN itself-nor the impress