The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-07-10
FICTION AND MORE
SERIOUS BOOKS
OF
A Knight Of the Road, an English-G German Marriage
and Other Subjects Of New Novels.
Dangers Encountered by City Children-Mor About
the Montessori Method Commercial Training.
on the Hudson, and Other Themes.

The fantastic b~ceinnins Of Holman
Days THE ~Landlupcr" tHafpers) is
delightful. His knight Of the road Is
q very pleasant fellow. and as nc
meets one eccentric after another the
reader par himself for a lot of
fun, all the more amusing because the
vaga bond romance is in "A New Eng
land setting. tnluckily Mr.. Day
chooses to turn serious. he wants to
show that a man has duties To others
as we'll as to himself. and instead
Of continuing in the light toni with
which he starts. which could have
been made perfectly effective. he takes
to fictitious politics, and reform poll
tics at that. with the Frcnch-Cana-
dian factory operatives and the tell
ing tragedy Of polluted water, which
rouses the hero. the art Of the story
ends. After that comes the descrip-
ton of "a campaign such rs many
another novelist has cssayed with the
same result, forgetting his story. re-
sorting TO commonplace melodramatic
devices, coarsening the character
drawing. The brutal vulsarity Of the
villain. the mess into HE the
heroine is drawn n the explanation
Of why the hero takes to the road
will hardly satisfy intelligent read
ers. they belong To the moving pic
ture sensations. The story will he
read to the end. but with increasing
regret that Mr.. Day has subsidized into
the commonplace after his brilliant
start.
II Rudolph strait intended HIS
English Wife" which 4. {. Curtis has
translated into pretty slanry English
edward Arnold, Longmans. Green
and Company. AS an exposure Of
British faillngs the book mus he
something Of a boomerang, for it
shows up much more distinctly Ger
man weaknesses and faults. To he
sure. there is much exaggerated OBJ
~jursation Of English worship of
money. love Of sport, snobbishness and
national conCeit. The persons in
whom these faults are eNemplified are
not English. however, hut Germans
brought up in England. Against these
the author is particularly bitter. His
hero belongs To a peculiar family,
in each branch of which one works
while the rest sponge on him. a type
Of family extremely in
the German middle classes. He is an
impecunious German officer who has
heen supported 10y his elder brother.
He visits England Is mistaken for
a spy in an amusing scene. makes "A
rich English cousin fall in love with
him and marry him with ridiculous
haste. obtains "A large dowry with her
and proceeds To make a splurce in the
little garrison town where he is quar-
tered. He regrets her English habits,
but rapidly acquires n taste for them
himself. He soon finds that they
conflict with his duties as an officer,
Then begins IA conflict between his
sense of duty and his craving Tor a
rich mans life. which lasts til the
book ends. The girl Is singularly me-
chanlcal: she serves simply to give
replies to the hero. she has been
brought M in a%fflucnce and Is
abnorma!ly ignorant of any other kind
Of life. Both are equally obstinate.
In the end, however, she Yields, money
IL found to replace whai they a
suuandcred and they settle down as
Germans. The author represents an
other praiseworthy German, a clerk
trained in a London business house,
as holding M his principal for a part
nership at a critical moment, and on
being refused going Ia a rival German
house and ~betrayinG his employers
trade secrets. He depicts German
life as ~inaCcuratcly as he does Eng
lish life and uncOnsciously libels hls
countrymen more thaa ne does the
English.
The one lesson to Ice learned from
Lorraine Catlin Brewers The Vale
Of Illusions tThe Reilly and Brittor
Company. Chicago. though we i'm,
agine the author did no; intend it. /,
that a man should hold his tongu
about previous amatorN experiences
when he marries. The whole subject ot
an equal standard of morality for thu
two eNe is discussed at great length
but the three mon who marry al
deceive their wives. The heroine /,
an attractive. self-ccntrod American
girl with a high opinion Of what Il
owing to her. She becomes engage,
IN m man who tells her honestl,
that he has had an affair with anothe
oma before meeting her. She break
on the engagement and at once mar
ries another man without asking an,
questions. After some years she dis
covers hat her husband had bee,
no better than the first man. where
upon she leaves him and goes 4
Europe, All this involves much de
batting of the morality question, II
Europe she picks up a stranger, enter
on a very unconventional Irritation
Disgusting the fact that she is mar
ried, and on discovering hat he is
prince who Cannot marry her /
tempted 20 yield to her passion. In
stead she ~persuades him to marry
princess who loves him, She return
to America to her husband who /
sick and has some Very frank talk