The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-09-21
By HERBERT S. coRMAN.

lust what assertion to make regard
- ing Sheila Kaye-Smitlfs most recent
expression OF life among the Sussex farm
lands is problematical. The Foar Roads
is not the best title for the book by any
means; rather than that diffuse locating
of the action Worges would have been q
better title. Worges is the farm where
the Beatups produce the bare means of
livelihood by the sweat of their brows,
1t is from Worges that Tom Beatup, the
eldest son, goes forth to the wars in
France. 1t is Worges that awakens the
second son, Harry, to realization Of the
serious purpose of life and determine
ton to make the stony farm produce and
so aid Tom and his companions to defeat
"Kayser Bill" Worges again is the
scene of the hopeless love affair between
Nell Beatup and the young minister,
Poullet-Smith. To Worges, mad with
love and jealousy, comes the gypsy, Jerry
Sumption, to plead his passion with Ivy,
the Oldest Beatup daughter. Even the
shadow Of the blacksmith preacher, Jer-
RVS father, hovers over Worges.
The -Four Roads is essentially novel
of character, but so, too, is it novel Of
plot not without romantic element.
There is a realism, starkly expressed and
stony as the Sussex fields, that might
somewhat discourage the lover of roman
tic fiction from reading it, but this real
ism merely strips away the false husks Of
romance and leaves the integral core.
Like practically all English novels Of the
past few years it is concerned with the
war. Miss Smith is quite clever in bringing
the war to the four roads without unduly
obtruding it. In some measure Tom Beat
up reflects the Sussex attitude toward the
war. He does not want to 60, for his
father drinks, and his younger brother,
Harry, is wild young heather more bent
on mischief than farm work. With sink
ing heart Tom imagines the complete fail
ure of the farm, Worges, through wilful
neglect after he has gone. Therefore it Is
not as hero but with tagging steps that
he answers that summons which is to
bring him both happiness and death. But
surprisingly enough Harry pulls himself
together and carries the farm on into
stage of development that Tom had never
dreamed possible. These two brothers are
amazingly fine creations, the plodding
Tom and the ignorant though jealous
Harry.
War brings a renewed courage to- Tom.
II giyes,him the confidence to ask Thyrza
Honey to marry him. Marry him she
does, and the child that is born Of that
union serves as a symbol. After Toms
death in battle Thyrza is comforted by
the words of Sumption, the Particular
Baptist preacher. "There's your Tom,"
he says, pointing to the cradle, "risen
again both. for you and for his country.
Take him and be comforted."
Sumption is a fanatic. A blacksmith
to whose dreaming mind came the divine
call of religion, he is obviously a Ipisft
in his black habiliments. His creed is the
old cruel attitude of literal fire and brim-
stone. The subtleties of religion are be-
yond him. He is a pulpit thumper, a
hoarse voiced exhorter. But the burden
of sorrow that is laid upon HIM makes him
always sympathetic figure to the reader.
His son, Jerry, is the result Of marriage
with gypsy woman, and the hot, per-
verse blood Of the wanderer is in the boy.
He is reckless, unthinking lad with the
conflicting RACES of wildwood creature
in him. His hopeless and raging love for
Ivy Beatup, who so candidly carries on
her f1irtations with different men, is even
tually his death. When he is shot down
for desertion in France his father is
dragged through the lowest valley Of sor-
row and desolation. 1t is then that the
preacher throws off his clerical garb and
sets forth to fight. The realization comes
to him that he never was meant for a
preacher. He has always been the black
smith, the welder of red hot iron, whose
soul is like that same red hot iron,