New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-08-19
TIE HEART or RACHAEL.

! THE HEART OF HA'HAhL ~ hathi'e'
i2mo, Do ius Doubleday. PAGE Go.
IL is 10 be regretted that Mrs. Nor
ris's publishers have chosen to insist
so pointedly, in their announcements
of this new novel OF hers, upon its
mission, it's purpose. 1t is, we are in
formed on the slip-cover, "a story OF
the corroding influence of modern SO
ciety on domestic ideals" and, most
of all. a plea for the indissolubility OF
marriage. But in reality it is a grip
ping, swiftly moving, well written story
of the progress of one woman from
worldliness and hardness and glitter
TO love of husband and children and
home, tale Of many trials and trib-
ulations with a happy ending that
makes the reader turn the last page
with T. feeling of contcntment. The
story has no such wide significance as
the publishers ascribe to il. The
society il deals with is not that OF
America at large, but of one of those
swift sets which are found in our large
cities and their suburban annexes, and
which figure so much more largely IN
our press than i'm the shaping of our
domestic destiny. And. as for the at
tack upon divorce, Rachael is hardly
logical. Our divorce laws are chaotic,
a disgrace to the nation, a danger TO
our moral standards, she holds-ergo,
divorce itself is wrong. What is needed
is uniform divorce laws, not the aboll-
ton of divorce. But 1T is RachaePs
heart that speaks out of the fulnesss
of her own experience, not the cool
mind of a sociological student.
RachaePs early environment has
taught her to value the material
things Of life to the exclusion Of all
appreciation of its emotional and in
tellectual possibilities. When still a
young girl she begins the hunt for a
rich husband. At twenty-one she finds
him-a widower with an only child, a
little girl who, indeed, forms the first
link of union between them. His first
wife has divorced him. lie knows that
Rachael does not love him, he does
not love her, but admires her beauty
and cleverness and social tact. She
is, in fact, a most ornamental wife and
q conscientious stepmother. IL is, in
every respect, suitable worldly
match.
But Rachael grows Disconnected with
her bargain, not with the wealth II
has brought her, the snowy life and
social leadership that accompany 1t, not
with ali the comforts and consider
ations it buys, but with the emptiness
that is the price OF il all. Her hus-
band neglects her, he and his growing
daughter band together against her in
a community of love and selfishness
that excludes her, and his growing in
temperance becomes unbearable. Then
she meets the great surgeon. She loves
for the first time.
SO Rachael. having married di-
vorced man for his money, divorces
him for the sake of love. She
marries the physician, who is as
rich as his predecessor she loses
nothing and gains what she has missed
and Immediately proceeds to develop
conservative views on the subject OF
divorce. She wishes that she had not
been married before-which is love
speaking. But she also discovers that
her social status has subtly changed,
even in her fast set, which paid def
erence 10 the neglected wife that it
frankly withholds from the remarked
DIVORCE. Her women friends congrat-
ulate her and flippantly declare that
they would do the same thing II occa-
sion Of1eredt OF lne deplh Ol heI lo'c'
of the happiness that is hers, of hei
new dreams and high aspirations they
have no mixing.
And then after eight years and the
birth of two sons, comes the little
actress to threaten her heart and
home. 1t is one of those infatuations
to which men of fifty are prone. The
actress, creature of contradictory i'm
pulses, coolly tells Rachael that she, a
divorced woman herself, cannot pos
sibly refuse to set her husband free in
her turn-and then begin the inner
struggle and the outward battle which,
in the end. are mercifully reduced by
the sympathetic author to the easy re-
conquest, by dignifed though heart
broken aloofness, of middle-aged man
who repents of his folly the moment
he sees its possible consequences.
Mrs Norris is kind to her heroine;
she is severe upon the fast Long Island
set from which she rescues her. 1t is
most readable fiction, vivid, full Of
movement and emotions. but as tract
against divorce it cannot, and need not,
be taken too seriously