The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-10-20
"vIRTUoUs WIVES :.

ueeply as we thlnk we can bear, those
 things aren't permanent"
 l 'VIRTUOUS WIVES l By Owen Johnson, illustrated bv C. H. 1 Taffs. Little, Brown & Co. Publishers | Boston.
 The significance of war is primarily
 Tn the effect 1t will have on our social I life. Abroad there has been A reyoIu-
 uon worked already in the status of woman The society which Mir Johnson l depicts in this novel and the type which ! he has created of the vituous Wife is changed society. It has not vet entirely :. changed, but already we are seeing the healthful and invigorating effects of a l great soul-test of war No book can
 De more pertinent to the new period of | self-examination through which we are passing than this novel which takes up 1 ana analyzes the causes-bad education er-sentimentalization, freedom from | responsibility-which produces the type
 of virtuous wife brought up on sensa- | ton and knowing no other aim in life l than the pursuit of pleasure in contra distinction to the pursuit of happiness
 His heroine, Amy Forester, the young wife of a New York business man, has wealth, beauty, sensibility, and-at first | ideals, but the growing need of mental
 excitement and emotional stimulus which l her life of idle luxury creates, leads her ldTtncF ana farther Into a W0rid where the one aim is to seek amusement Little 1 by little Amys sensibilties are dulled, 1 her ideals fade and vanish, and it needs 1 the shock of tragedy to open her eyes to her own real status and that of her friends, virtuous wives though they deem themselves. A highly interesting and truthful story of married life in a well known social environment.
 "A DAUGHTER OF THE LAND" i GA STORY OF AMERICAN GRIT). BS Gene Stratton- Porter. Illustrated. Doubleday, Page & Co.,, Publishers Garden City,, N. Y. "A Daughter of the, Land," by Gene Stratton-Porter, is as near the great
 generation. and we wish to emphasize both adjectives. It is as great as it is American and it is American through
 and through.
 Big-boned, -muscled, strong, charged
 with human nature, centered about heroine as big and clean and fine ant strong as an American woman can be. this book has about it all the splendid courage of Kate Bates, whose story Il tells. It is crowded with incident, with detail, with the emotions of a whole lifetime; it is an American epic. a saga of the middle west. history of growth and a song of triumphant achievement It has literary values as we'll as life values.
 The absolute sincerity of Gene Strat- ton Porter, her honesty, her unspoiled and fresh look upon life, are what have taken her,to the clean and decent hearts 1 of the hundreds of thousands who do not persuade themselves that they like a thing because it has literary values, but who know they like book because lit has lifes values
 "A Daughter of the Land" was pub lished on Mrs. Porter's 5oth birthday, making the seventh of her wonderful novels and the past years we readily see have but added to the native charm of Mrs. Porter's pen a new and vitally interesting sincerity of purpose. Her latest novel is as stimulating in its traditional appeal as any of her pre- vious books. yet far surpasses them in genuine inspiration.
 Kate Bates, true Daughter of the Land" is an American as the Goddess of Liberty. She fought for her free dom against long odds, renouncing the easy path of luxury that leads to loss of self-respect. She learned her great that only through sacrifice and sorrow is character builded and happiness at tained.
 The whole book is in tune with the earnest mood of the times. It is es- sentially patriotic in spirit, and em- phasizes the tremendous importance to the nation of the lives of those who till the soil.
 sTHE HEEL OF MARS" By. Culpeper Chunn. Edwin Day Sib- ley, publisher, No. 62 Reade street, New York.
 "The Heels of Mars" is a collection
 Of poems from the pen of Culpeper
 Chunn, changing in style and senti-
 mental in thought The critics of the
 book have paid it many wonderful com
 pliments and the following will give
 an insight into the worth and merit oi
 it's pages.
 "yimy Ridge is in my opinion the
 most stirring poem that has come out
 of the war, and The Soldiers Cruel
 fix, the tenderest Two wears ago told