Evening star., 1917-04-15
Reviews of New Books

senlbiance of realism that he appears
to have wished to secure in the per.
son and surroundings of the center OF
the tale, Violet Vesprie of Nesprie
Towers.
HER OWN SORT AND OTHERS. BY
Charles Belmont Davis, author of
The Stage Door" etc. illustrated
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Washington: Brentano's.
Here are ten first-class short stories
that Charles Belmont Davis picked out
yesterday and today from the seeming
hodge-podge Of our part-colored eX-
istence. The outstanding idiosyncra-
sizes of the present moment are on pa :
rade here The show gfrl-the movie
star-the home girl declaring her IN
dependence and going out to show
what she can do with life. the discon-
tented wife bedaZzled with dreams of
what she might have been If she had
not-and so on. and so on No, these
are not all stories about misguided
women. Some of them are about men
and things. The octopus" is New
York. slithering insiduously around its
ignorant victims. when johnnie Came
Marching Home"-the best of them all,
one thinks-is about boy whose be
setment was woman-any old sort OF
woman-but whose altogether lovable
qualities finally redeemed him from
even so hopeless an obsession as the
one that possessed him. There is good
workmanship here to keep company
with this finely dramatic sense of the
present movement of things Every
one of these stories is put together by
a skilled workman, one who sees to it
that there shall be no shiftless cor
ners and no shaky stretches to the fine
general progress of the work.
IN A LITTLE TOWN. BY Rupert
Hughes author of Clipped Wings"
etc. New York: Harper & Bros.
Rupert Hughes makes use of a little
town out west somewhere to prove that
folks are just folks wherever they may
be found-that the city man and the
countryman are one and the same per-
son. dressed up in different clothes. Just
about the same run of human traits and
desires everywhere. To get at this fact
Mr. Hughes merely slips from city raj
ment into something rough-and ready
and goes after the same old human that
he has followed around New York so
faithfully. There are dozen or more
of these proofs" And they are de-
as natural as life and
Just as human as people are. now and
then, on the soft and lovable side of
themselves. For these are. the most of
them, stories with good tender streaks
laughable, the laugh is never wry
one, for there is no bitterness In the
little incident to twist ones smile into
n grimace. One will not find in many
day a. more amusing and a more touch
ing story than the first one here
Don't You Care" And all of them,
each in it's own way and weight. is
joy to the reader, as well as bit OF
substantial evidence in Mr.. Hughes
original contention as to the oneness
of human nature independent of par
ticular environment.
THE HIDDEN HAPPINESS. By Steph-
en- Berrien Stanton. author of Soul
and Circumstance" etc. New York:
Charles Scribners Sons.
Here is a book of the sort to remind
one. all over again, of his niggardliness
in words Of gratitude to the fine and
forceful essayist. This is the kind of
writer who does not get behind a story,
or play, or poem. On the contrary, he
comes out in his own person to tell US
what the world looks like to him. what
he makes out of this or that in its dis
concerting and bewildering behaviors.
The Hidden Happiness is the book of
wise man-of a man who impresses
one as something of an expert account
ant in the subject Of life's values. And
these values-these with which this
wise nah deals-are the everyday