New-York tribune., 1919-10-04
The Story Of a Lover
Book Is Record of a Protesting
Puritan With Very Bad Conscience

THE STORY OF A LOVER" Boni &
Liverght.
"The Story of Lover" which is
printed anonymously by Boni e. Live
right. seems to be the record of pro-
testing Puritan with bad conscience.
Puritans, taken by and large, do not
transgress the social codes any more
extensively than other people, but they
take their sin much harder than any
one else. A Puritan never sins glori
ously and with abandon; he always
leaves a trailing cloud of shame to
smudge the flowers on his primrose
path. Modern education has cmanci-
pated many Puritans so far as their
reason is concerned, and they are
found here and there breaking the
rules with mpunty. But in most cases
education has no effect on a Purtan's
conscience, and with it he is left fet-
tered A Puritan's logic may tell him
he isn't SHINING when he breaks over,
but in his conscience he knows secretly
that he is; and assuredly, everywhere
in human conduct, to feel that you are
committing a sin is to sim A bad con-
science turns man sour, leaves him
furtive and protesting to himself, ire
spective of how fine his logic may be
to the contrary.
The writer of "The Story of Lover"
seems a rather neurasthenic Puritan,
apparently somewhat damaged in his
early life by lack Of contact with any
decent, ordinary, hard boiled persons,
and going through the rest of his life,
by the salt Of commonplace human re-
lationships The result is a tendency
in his life and his narrative to compli
cate life much more than it is compli
Gated without the conditioning back
ground of actuality, and to read into it
all kinds Of subtle moral retinements.
lnasmuch as his book is a ledger, a
kind of log or daybook, of his attempts
to absolutely win one woman-who is
for the larger part Of the narrative his
ife-relieved by his wayside attempts
to realize the Significance Of living in
ntimacies with other women, his
subtleties finally take on the appear
ance of an accumulation of apologies.
What might not be evil in wholesome,
unscarred pagan becomes evil in the
protesting Puritan.
On the whole, this lovers story
makes a painful and even an immodest
book. 1t is not immodcst for any
specific quality of style, which is, 70
tHc IlOHl' pdtt, icStldlHtu ana even
austere and scholarly. Its immodesty
lies in. the fact that it discloses 9
soul painfully eager to exhibit Itself
in its naked state. 1t implies too
grossly mind at odds with itself and
with life.
If the book is a fiction, it is bad fic-
ton, because it owns none Of the com
mon details that are essential to an
ample picture of reality. The persons
in it are figured in a kind of vague
poetic way. The woman is beautiful
and it is made plain that she has a
kind of FURNISHED skin, when it might
be much more to the point to say that
she had big feet or, while disclosures
were going on, that she had a large
mole on her back. AS fiction, it woul9
even help to impose her upon the
imagination to say that she baked good
pie or was good at sage dressing, or
she had a good line of cuss words
when occasion offered the need. But
all this is left out. AS fiction, it
might even have some value as
ated Recommendation of a Puritan's mind
under stress kiad Of clinical value.
But as a record of the quality Of HI
man relationships between nearly
Olympian beings in their most funda
mental processes, which, I would haz-