The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-03-05


 each accepting his lot from then on as the common lot of the married. The man lives his business life entirely apart from his conjugal interests, the woman bears and rears children and keeps home intact, and though she may be conscious of the fact that Mans love is of his life thing apart.
 'Tis womans whole existence"
 she does not worry about it-she is a married woman with her man, her children and her home and that is sufficient for her, and, therefore, she does not trouble her head about it, nor, consequently, her husband! But, on the other hand, there are just as many. men and women alike, to whom the problems presented in this book are real and personal ones, and of these, the thinking, the observant, and the intelligent, there is not one to whom it does not come home-and come home with a punch,
 We are given, as the central figures, two young people, each of abounding vitality, great strength of character and keen intelligence. who fall deep ly in love with each other and marry after a short, whirlwind sort of court ship-we are shown the rapturous first months of their married life-and then the struggle begins, the effort of the young wife, unconscious at first, to merge herself utterly into her hus- bands life, and on his part, the strug- gle to prevent the absorption of his life into hers. We see dawning con sciousness within her mind of the be- lief that the only attraction she has for her husband is that of sex, that outside of that she has no real part in his life, and her gradual absorption of his own theories as to the economic in dependence of women, their position as wives, and the physiological difference of the sexes, and finally her complete conviction that nothing which has not been paid for by effort, struggle and even suffering is worth while and that their happiness depends upon her gain ing his friendship and respect through those very mediums. How she sets about to obtain her desire by leaving him and her babies and making her own way, first as chorus girl in Chi cago, then on the road Ca tragic, heart breaking, bitter record), then as a milliner in little Illinois town. and finally, as a successful designer of theatrical costumes, makes story of absorbing interest.
 A less clever writer might have inn posed upon the intelligence of his readers by lived happy ever after ending, but MT. Webster leaves us realizing that these two must work out their problem themselves, just as we all must do, but, just as they had a surer foundation upon which to build after their lesson had been learned by such soul searching experi- ences, so may we be enabled to build more surely for having read of them.
 Surely the tides of human thought which, receding, leaves so much of useless drift upon the shores of lit erature, do not often bring to us so great a treasure as "The Real Adven- ture"
 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE (WITH THE RED CROSS IN FRANCE)
 By Edward T. Poland. Introduction by
 Owen Mister. The Macmillan Co.,, pub
 fishers, New York.
 Perhaps the best idea may be gleaned of Edward D. Toland's book, entitled ''rhe Aftermath of Battle,' from an in troduction by Owen Mister, in which he says:
 Most of these pages are, like the photographs which go with them, torr fresh and hot, so to speak, from the diary of a young American, just as he dotted them down day by day in thu war hospitals of France. In those hos pitfalls he served the wounded Ger. mans and allies. He carried them upstairs