The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-11-10

l RupiShefS, New | OFk,
 Industrial and social unrest mark the
 pages of Winston Churchill's latest novel dealing with American life, entitled 'The Dwelling Place of Light" and in his fla
 miliar virile. forceful, style, the author pictures a most interesting and appeal ing coterie of characters conditions and aspects.
 The place of the story is in and near a New England manufacturing city, and it's most prominent character, the one in whom the author seems to personify his theme of s changin Amer Iica, is Janet Bumpus, the descend
 ant of many generations of New Eng flanders whose long line of upright, ca pablo, and energetic families has gone 1 to seed in her father He is hollow shell,
 d sort of simulacrum of his ancestors, 1 still wearing the facial mask of dignity and refinement, but lacking will. pur-
 pose, energy, ambition. As satcheeper
 to the huge Chipperins mills he crawls ! through his daily routine, his chief in : terest in life afforded by his incessant study of the pedigree of the Bumpus ia 1 fly and commonplace, futile correspond
 ence with other Bumpuses whom he has never seen. His wife, Hannah sEo-
 merged in the daily tasks of housekeep- ing in their ugly. threadbare flat, is q i joyous, subacrid person, who accepts without complaint the dun, ceaseless 1 treadmill of her life.
 1 But tragedy is born into the very souls of their two daughters. in whom flames personiffed the spirit of twentieth cen l tury revolt of groping for readjust-
 ment, or clamorous demand for life. In 1 Lise, the younger one who is a sales lady" in a department store, the revolt 1 is wholly material. She wants the cush- 1 ions and the roses and the perfumes of | life. In her has survived none of the old l New England moral austerities, none ot | it's ability to live by and for the spirit But Janet, the older one who is a ste- l nographer in the Chippering mills, is of ! tended by her sisters coarser fiber and sordid soul. She, too, yearns fiercely for | something in life that would mean beauty i and light and sweetness, and is hurt to | the depths of her being by the barren, dngy. ugly environment in which their poverty forces them to live. But her in tellectual endowment is better and her | needs more spiritualized.
 l When the spirit of revolt is aflame within her it lights up, unconsciously to her face face and personality not usually striking to vividness that chal- lenges attention. Claude Ditmar, mana 1 ger of the Chippering mills, Q person.
 age of consequence in the business world l forceful, accustomed to dominate, hap 1 pens to see her at one of these vivid moments She rouses his interest, he ad- yances her, presently makes her his pri- 1 vato secretary. and little by little sur
 renders himself to deyouring passion /, for her.
 | The central thread of the story is fur nished by Ditmar's virile and masterful desire for Janet and her response to his I passion.
 ! Janet is supposed to have inherited all the New Englanders fads and fancies, 1 which her father missed, but except in her intellectual curiosity and eagerness, would have been as exotic creature in l the New England of 100 or 200 years ago as in the environment in which she ap- pears.
 1 Opposite her stands Claude Ditmar, suc- eessfIl business man, a wonderfully realistic figure, true in every line of him. bold, aggressive, and vital, as alive es 1 If he had been transferred bodily to the pages of the novel. Many of the minor characters are presented, if more briefly with an equally skllful and lfe-giving | touch. Brooks Insall. quizzically hura5r- ous. large-hearted, living all things, both ereat and small, is a figure that de- mands to be remembered. Rolfe, the |. l ". W organizer, is particularly vivid. Johnny Herman, dealer in hardware one really seems to have known, if one has | ever lived in New England town. Mrs l Brocklehurst, though she appears but once, and that for only few moments, I Is as clearly realized as an etching, and is a faithful embodiment of the in
 curing, altruistic spirit trying to ex-
 press itself in the life of woman of wealth. Janets sister, Lise, who rapid 1 ly toboggans down into degradation, and | their parents are all graphic, strongly
 drawn figures of lifelike fidelity. And
 the appalling lack of parental supervision over the two girls Is an indictment or
 American parentage that is all the more l terrible because it is so widely true. | As story the novel is rather less in- terestfng than former books by Mr. Churchill. He has been concerned legs with telling a story than with picturing 1! the life of a New England mill town filled with men, women and children of dozen ! races of Europe and Asia. His Hampton ! is melting pot in which the metals have not fused. But they boil up and over when the great strike takes place and the leaders and organizers of the I. W. W. appear among them. The ] many pages that deal with this strike are. both as story and as account s.s industrial unrest, particularly interesting, perhaps the best in the book And. final ly. one senses that apparently Mir Churchill meant to suggest to the reader 1 that the way to the dwelling place is light Is by means of the kind of life
 of which Janet finally has experience, the Kind for which she has the native af- ! finity, where there is plain. fine living, 1 human sympathy, love for fellow-beings. | the spirit of service. It is pleasure 10 bear witness to the finer, truer taste with which MT. Churchill now writes. Scarcely anywhere in the book does one 1 find any of these occasional lapses which ed so much in his earlier work. But this does not hold true of the ending of l the story. Not since the deathbead of Little Eva has there been anything more
 banal than the last pages of this novel.
 THE GOLDEN EAGLE.'' By Allen French. Illustrated by c. M. Relyea The Century company pub I fishers, New York
 1 An adventure story for boys and girls by the author of those popular books "The Junior Cup" "The Runa- | way" etc. The scenes of his latest narrative are along the New England i coast during the summer season, much of the spirited action taking place on a sailing boat.
 The story is filled with the whole | some vigor and freshness of the sea. The characters, a group of unusually interesting boys and girls. are good ] to know: and the plot. involving a number of exciting situations. espe-
 oially thrilling boat race at the end, with girl pilotiRg what seemed forlorn hope to victory, is tense and l startling with surprises.
 | Mir. French whose gift of swift mar ! rative is well known. is at his best | in "The Golden Eagle"