The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-05-30
THE LADDER. '"

fishers, New York.
 The frankest of genuine autobographies could hardly be more quaintly true to life than is the novel by Philip Cur tis, entitled "The Ladder" Again and again the reader grins with joy over the revelations of the solemn farces en- acted on social planes so far asunder as boys secret society and a large in- surance company All sorts of human follies, from the vicious affectations of a "club" of young toughs and loafers to the spacious enthusiasms of a number of social reformers, are satirized with amusing outspokenness. while all the time the author makes us feel the i'm portance of the essentials-sanity and character.
 The story is told in the first person and the supposed narrator is an Irish lad named Farnk Connor. Frank. who is an orphan, lives with his Aunt Louisa on farm near the New England village of Babel which is a place of somewhat ele- gant summer homes. Weary of endless chores, he is glad to accept the office of house boy in one of these splendid man. sions; but his career there Is short. He proceeds to ''see life" in Plummers' Falls, where he obtains employment in a fac tory. After taking part in a sngularly and futile strike on the part of a hastily organized union, he joins the general exodus to neighboring large city. Here he drifts into low company, but on the outbreak of the war with Spain, In 1S9S a fortunate determination to become soldier saves his character. His superior officers see good in young Connor and make him lieutenant Dur ing the campaign in Cuba, Frank sees of the heroism of common men and also of the seamy side of war
 After leaving the army he has an amusing but expensive experience with a sham business college, and then. when reduced to his last cent he obtains po- sition in the stamping department of an insurance company. Having distin- guished himself in the Insurance League he finds 1t easy to obtain in Leicester college" and after helping with his bat to raise that wealthy but obscure institution to the po- sition of ''real' university, he becomes for several years an athletic tramp, acquiring, rather to his own surprise, certain amount of education through his attendance at various colleges. At last fate brings him back to the vil- lage of Babel, where he Is received as a guest by the family of the former cap tain of his regiment Winning the TO- mantle attachment of a girl who had seemed, in the old days, infinitely above him, he lives in a fools paradise for awhile, until true love open his eyes. The spirit of persistent youthfulness and op- timism that runs through the story, the authors unusual point of view, and his whimsical truth telling are refreshing 5,,o fo1a hot of ffafaf ion through it's unmistakable actuality.
 JOHN THE FOOL"
 By Charles Penney Jackson. Illustrated
 by Hazel Roberts. The Bobbs Merrill
 Co.,. publishers, Indianapolis.
 In this story of Louisiana Charles Ten ney Jackson has come into his own. Un- der the mantle of Robert Louis Stevenson, he has found himself and the thing he can do best. It is twentieth century TO- nance. with Just enough sixteenth cen utry adventure to" give spirit and action and not enough to weaken the illusion of realism.
 The romance is as brilliant and frag- rant as the Louisiana delta itself, as exciting as pirate gold and buried treas ure, and as modern as young woman with matrimonial ideas and a hard working, practical idealist hero can
 
 worthy" adventurous in a noble eause'- and Is so fitted to it's environment as to seem wholly plausible Through the nar- rative are bits of Jacksonian philosophy that give strength and dignity to the per formance, without weighting 1t down. The literary style is above reproach, the work of an artist in words
 Not even Cable has found an odder spot than this lost corner of Barataria; ha hig deeply in the languorous atmosphere. The Creole passion, poetry, humor, romance, idealism, lawlessness and high nobility, are fused with so modern, so practical theme as reclamation. Whether it be nature with her beautiful, soft, yet heavy hand, or daring deeds, or dreams of chiv- airy and courts, or real, sacr1fcial love- or the incurable visions of Creole nature pr engineering problems, big business, le- gal entanglements, it is hard to say where the authors hand Is the defter. The book has the quality of hasheesh; 1t plunges the reader into dreams, 1t transports him 10 places of strange loveliness. it carries him through flowing adventure that never breaks the spell
 Nor is the author less felicitous when he turns to human nature. to special types. He is best left to speak for him self since no other words will do him iustice The character of the Baron John Bernal who is John the Fool as well as the covert that was so named long be- lore his advent. A runner, gambler, pri- vateer. life had been a pageant and he had seen: a brawl and he had fought. q kiss and he had had the sweetness. lie boasts that he has been lat "A the best sword sman in the Moravian Cuirassiers At 30 the best pistol shot in the Crimean regiments of the Czar; at 40 the best gun captain in the Confederate privateer serv- ice" And he might add that he was later -he slayer who left his hulk to rot in the marshes. and. at SS the cheValer or the girl who had no one else to fight for her inheritance Always ready for service and a love-"a flower. phrase, d a sacrifice, cause-Jupllantiy he arose to then.'' With his great bulk his fantastic plans, his antiquated courte- sy, he may seem, at first, knight gone to seed, but when he tells of the single handed fight to send the three outlaws to their death, the reader recognizes that the greatest fighters are the greatest losers, that the absurd old man is "a dog gone proper knight"
 The story as a story Is entertaining from the first paragraph to the last
 THROUGH STAINED GLASS.
 By George Agnew Chamberlain. The Century Co, publishers, New York
 ''Through Stained Glass is the title or the second novel by George Agnew cham berlain. His anonymous novel, Home 1t will be remembered was distinct sue cess two years ago, when 1t was pup lished first as serial in The Century Magazine, and later in book form. MT. Chamberlain is still United States consul at Lourenco Maraues, Portuguese East Africa.
 "Through Stained Glass opens m Brazil, and concerns itself in the begin hing with some of the southern people