The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-04-16

.' pertaining to successful marriage, which is always important to young men and women.
 BEHOLD THE WOMAN"
 By T. Everett Harre. J. B. Lippincott
 company, publishers, Philadelphia.
 This is cruel story, and yet one of ab- sorbing beauty; a tremendous, artistic monument, and yet a mode! of simplicity; a story, in short, that will wiring the souls of men and women, and yet raise them to the heights of heaven. The heroine, or leading figure, is Mary of Egypt, the queenly Alexandrian cour- tesan, whose beauty was the glory of Egypt" The story is of her passing through carnival of sin with a body degraded, but with soul unsettled, ay, sanctified! How can one call this book, as some will call it, immoral when the experience is so patently true. We read of a womans quest of love amid the vices and excesses of an age in which wantonness was an art, and woman be- came eminent only through their shame, and of this woman's finding redemption and her soul 8 desire in that divine Christ who through all ages will know no utter condemnation but only forgiveness.
 We have rarely read a book in which there is such magnificent com bina- tion of oriental imagery, sensuous de- scription and spiritual depth and un- derstanding. From the opening para graph, which is the simple sentence, Tt was night in Alexandria, to the last, referring to that last night when the terrific sandstorm swept the Arabian wilderness and plotted from the face of the world all trace of the physical Mary, there is but one shimmering, en- trancing, vital description con- versation after another.
 The volume is of great significance in American literature, since it marks the fact that the origins of civiliza : tion are as much the field for the American novelist as they are for the French or Polish. And as to the style, we are carried into new realms by de- scription after description such as, "Tremulantly, softly caressive, an am- orous breeze from the sea flutteringly waited across the gardens the blown petals of unvirgined flowers. Far away in an inner courtyard a bulbul, with leaping, mounting clarion trills, began deliciously to sing" when we have ac- tion we have the same tremendous clar- ity with which the author describes emotions of love and aspects of the beautiful.
 Rome under Nero did not compare to Alexandria at the close of the fourth century. Magnificent, barbaric. cruel corrupt. the splendid city of the fourth century Is described by Harre III a manner we feel to be authentic we know to be intensely human and dra- matic
 There is little need to tell the story it is there to be read by all whose minds ascend above prudish criticism and to be gloriously appreciated by all who have a shred of pity, religious conviction, historic curiosity or love of oriental mystery.
 WHERE THE PATH BREAKS" By Capt Charles de Crespigny The
 Century company, publishers New
 York
 An extraordinary tour de force of fiction, possessing tenseness and swift ness of action. unbroken unity of plot and style and characterization, and an unflagging rise of the story to a climax of beauty and tenderness and passion, is Capt. Charles de Crespigny's book entitled, where the Path Breaks"
 The power and genius of Poe is re- called by the weird. fantistic opening chapter. It gives the feel-the feel of mind as well as of body-of a wound ed man swinging slowly, yearningly back to consciousness from a point that seemed to him on the far side of death
 But that is only the beginning. The scene shifts from Europe, submerged in blood, to the peaceful glory of Americas far west; and the love story that is shadowed in the first chapter comes to an end, so far as the book tells it. in a rose covered cottage on the outskirts of Santa Barbara, Cal.
 Woven through and through the novel, always felt but only as help to the swiftly flying story, is phil osophy rich in the hope that men hold dearest.
 THE MAN OF PROMISE. By Willard Huntington Wright The John
 Lane company, publishers, New York.
 MT. Wright has here written a most penetrating and unusual novel. It's con- ception, it's point of view. it's frankness it's freedom from all prejudice, and its form are in accord with the highest stand ards of the best continental fiction.
 The central character-'the man oi promise despite his potentialities of ge- nius, Is an intensely appealing and sym pathetic figure. In his nature are com bned strength and weakness cruelty and tenderness, virtue and vciousness. Ir short he is inherently human, ca pable ol ascending a the heights, yet capable also ol sinking to the depths of life's degrada. tions.
 
 boyhood to middle age, is centered about many women who touch his life The book is in no sense a prea achment, but an absorbing and dramatic psychological study of man who struggles agains the many antagonistic influences in his career. The stordy reveals tremendous battle between strength and weakness.
 'The Man of Promise goes deep into the undercurrents of life. and it is not s novel any man or woman can afford tt miss reading. It is powerful stor, and in many ways a ruthless one: but both in conception and execution it strike. new note in American fiction.
 THE SHADOW RIDERS By Isabel Patterson. The John I.an.
 company. publishers. New York
 Western Canada is the background fol "The Shadow Riders The title is ar echo of the old west, "the lost land which now lives only in the memory oi the pioneers The story itself is con- cerned with a newer west, which has not yet been pictured in fiction; coun. try of the young. It reflects the feverisf hopes, the quick successes. the amazing social bouleversements only possible when all the old clements of society have beer poured together and shaken up pell men It is not a melting pot, but a grab bag
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