The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-03-09
mrHE YOI1NG DIANA"

By Marie Corelli: George H. Doran company, publisher, New York city. Marie Corellis latest production is
 made up partly of realism and partly rof the widest sort of romance-about one third realism to two-thirds TO- nance, the one leaving off where lhe other begins. The opening of the story. though related in the author usual and somewhat grandiloquent style, is interesting and rather ap- pealing. Diana May, aged 40 and more' has spent the best seven years of her life waiting for the lover, young officer with expectations" who promptly threw her over as soon as those Expectations" were realized and married a younger woman. The only child of well-to do and extremely selfish parents, she was great dis appointment to them and they were unpleasantly conscious that all their friends sneered at her as "an old maid, l That she was intelligent and gener- ous, warm-hearted, a student and fine musician, interested them not at all. They cared nothing for her, and were not at all grateful for the unsei- fish and competent way in which she looked after their comfort One friend she had however-Sophy Lansing. an independent, energetic and clever woman, herself a spinster, but With two thousand year of her own Sophy was convinced that there was a great deal to be said in favor or single blessedness, and that "a bachelor wom- an with two thousand year doesn |7want a man to help her spend it." This friend often urged Diana to come ana live with her in London, where she could easily find work and many things to interest her, instead of dragging on a monotonous existence in her parents stupid home. But Diana, obsessed with the notion of her duty to her father and mother. refused to leave them un- til tiny incident proved to her how
 very glad they would be to get rid of
 her. whereupon she departed in a man.
 ner which was certainly effective if
 more than a trifle melodramatic. The
 Diana of this first part of the book,
 plain and middle-aged and love-
 starved, is a real and pathetic person,
 even though her too angelic disposi-
 tion does make the reader little in-
 patient with her.
 With Diana's departure the story
 also leaves for the realms of fantasy.
 The scene presently shifts to Switzer-
 land and the beautiful chateau of
 remarkable Russian scientist, who has
 made an extraordinary discovery,
 nothing less than the discovery of one
 of those secrets men have talked about
 and sought for through the ages.
 Dlana becomes the Wiling SuDJeCl "
 his mysterious experiments. and vari-
 ous strange things happen to her.
 From 1t all she presently emerges. en-
 dowed with youth and with marvellous
 beauty, creature "of an ethereal mat-
 ter which has never walked the earth
 before. and with which earth has noth-
 ing in common" She no longer, So
 she says. has anything to do with
 such base trifles as human vengeance
 or love. having become what the au-
 thor seems to regard as something
 more, and the reader Is inclined to
 consider a good deal less than human.
 There is great deal about the ds-
 spicable qualities of men in general In
 the book. and, with the single excep-
 tion of the elderly scientist, who seems to have been introduced for the sole purpose of securing Diana's financial
 future, those who appear in 1t are a
 distinctly sorry lot, mean and sensual
 and selfish. The women are a good deal better; Sophy Lansing is a rather
 likable person, and Diana May, at least
 in what we may call her first incar-
 nation. represents a pathetic and rap