The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-03-30


at first sight having raptures over Mar.
tAg Schiller, book whose authors name
was still to be made. The Westminster
Gazette went fantee: I" that work
Of the younger generation for which we
have been waiting the most re-
markable analytical novel ever written by
On Enghshwoman"- Humphry
Ward is expected to recover"
the first fine novel of the age" no less!
"a surprising, disconcerting, intriguing,
but certainly convincing work of real i'm
agination,' opines the London Times
Gan astonishing book-calm, simple,
straightforward and overwhelming"
chimes the Duly 8e.Cs, which has read it
twice and is ready TO read it again at the
drop of the bat.
If this babe in the literary woods does
not achieve painless Immortality, it
won't be for lack of covering up with
adjecivesl
Martin Sc.sGIer is one more novel about
. musical genius, but with refreshing
difference. Some time ago all such fc-
ton was like The First VioEn. Later it
was learned in Max Nordan, recently in
Freud. Here comes Romer Wilson with
o piece of it which is neither sentimental
nor quasi-seientifc; if anything she had
read inspired her, it seems to have been
Wagner's letters, and accounts of his pri-
vate life. She offers no moral reflections,
no dispositions on psychology. Writing
a simple, quick march style, she presents
her engrossing conception Of the nature
and development Of superman. It is
nine-tenths emotion and every bit imagi-
nation the imaginative force Is extraor-,
dinary," as the Daily Nes0s correctly says,
though anything except "calm."
But Romer Wilson's critical faculty Is
covering in the corner, out Of the way. It
is wholly in character for Schuler, ruth
less young egoist, full of his projected
grand opera, to sneak into the garnet Of
his friend the minor poet and pilfer the
Gbretto from the mattress under the poets
dead body. But why on earth should the
ibretto be theref The sick man set no
great store by it, had no grudge against
the composer and no jealousy concerning
posthumous fame. That manuscript is
in that mattress merely to afford an e1-
ample Of the stick-at-nothing selfishness
of genius-and to provide strong incl
dent. The thing could have been far bet
ter managed, with all its values retained.
Similarly, when at last this grand
opera, begun in Sehulers salad days, Is
finished and performed, overpowering
everybody with its stupendousncss, Schu-
Ter, now in his 30s, having burned him
self out on the work, dies In his box dur
ing the premiere. What IN thunder does he
die of T. Nothing but Romer Wilson's ap-
petite for a powerful romantic ending.
1t is Eugen's death, desaccharinated and
scored for the full orchestra. And if there
is anything IN the, eorld which Romer
Wilson does not suppose she is writing, it
Is romance. Oh; ii ..:..... ......= ,
For courage, for independence, absorp-.
ton and unfagging inspiration, for gen.
eral wide winged and full fiedged eapa-
bility, Martin Schuler is certainly i'm.
pressive, rather awesome-evcn its faults
challenge critics to step up and put their
fingers on them; and we won't be sur
prised if it makes a stir and spellbinds a
considerable public. But before we send
up any floral tributes of superlatives we
want TO see all this natural power do
something else in the bride Of a matursr
artistic conscience.
Romer Wilson is remarkable Ito ap-
preciate a detai) at indirect and sug-
gestive conveyance of the more remote re-
actions of her characters. Sometimes her
subtlety at it runs to seed. Here is a
specimen of it at its best-Steinbach is a
deep if doggish young man, particularly
attracted to Martin Schiller, and pre-
pared to devote everything to him and
his selftfulflment, even to throwing the