Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-02-07
NEW FICTION OF
MIDWINTER SEASON
A Novel Of Adolescence,
Short Stories by Maxwell
and Mrs. IrtUin

''Pirates of the SPRING is another
fictional study of adolescence by For
rest Reid, who attempted with much |
tender understanding and acutely re-
called memories the same sort of
psychologist task in ''The Spring Song"
This is the field in which Mr.. Tarking-
ton has been so successful in this coun-
try with his ''Penrod." Seventeen"
Ramsey Milholland'' and similar
works. Mr.. Reid is an English-or
more probably, despite the name, Irish
writer. He casts his scenes in a
school in the north of Ireland. his CEN
tral figure being a high spirited, not
brilliantly intellectual, honest textured
lad, the son of a southern Catholic
mother and an Ulster Protestant father.
However, there is no religious discus
sion, no proselyting, no changing of
faith, though the incidental contrasts of
the two creeds are interesting, in that
they seem to give the lie to the much
advertised religious chasm of the north
OF Ireland. A delightfully."- drawn and
very human Jesuit is one of the charm
ing characters. The boys mother, a
widow of rare loveliness, is likewise
charmingly and keenly drawn. But the
main values of characterization are in
the pOrtrayals of the boy and his friends
of diverse sorts. All the intensities
and loyalties of schoolboy friendship,
the yearnings. aspirations, jealousies
and misunderstanding of this flowing
tide of life toward the flood are sym
pathetically presented. The book seems
deeper than Mr.. Tarkington's. less con-
cerned with the physical manifestations
and external ways of youth and more
concerned with the inner feelings and
controlling moods. And though Mr..
Reid is an acute Psychologist, he is
reticent and delicate, and his book has
none of the pathological unpleasantness
of Frank Wedekind's Fruehlingser-
wachen."
Life Can Never be the Same" is a
collection of short stories. some of them
written during wartime in the trench
es, by w. B. Maxwell. Mr.. Maxwell's
the Lamp" confirmed his command of
fictional technique. These short stories
on the whole do not show a like COM
mand of the short story form. One of
them, ga German in the Village"
however, is a superb specimen of the
short story writing as an art. It is
comparable both for content and for
contour and character to De Maupas-
SAINTS "Mademoselle Fifi." 1t shows
deep knowledge of French peasant char
acter and of human emotion. The other
stories are readable-talented- the
one mentioned has the flash of genius.
The stage is the background of "The
Old Card" novel by Roland Pertwee,
who was an actor and a painter before
he became a playwright and novelist.
The droll. sometimes pathetic, hero is
an outmoded English thespian, past his
histrionic prime. In his declination he |
meets unexpectedly with his sweet
heart of the old bright days of life's
springtide. He devotes himself to his |
adopted daughter, thus acquired, and |
there are many pleasant pages devoted |
to her romance. Some of the episodes
dealing with the provincial boards have
the delightfulness of Thackeray's de-
fellows in "Pendennis, while the parts
set back of the London footlights are
as modern as the glimpses that Gilbert
Canaan gives in "Mummery."
THE Happy Years" tells of the mid
die age of Phoebe and Ernest, those de-
lightful personages lifted from real life
decade or more ago by Inez HAYNES
Gilmore that was. AS Iuez Haynes
Irwin she has lost more of her powers of |
shrewd observation, none of her tender
and occasionally half ironic sympathy
for projecting character on the page
believably and developing a situation
cOrvincingly. Phoebe, it will be re-
called, married Tug Warburton and |
Ernest also acquired a wife and home
of his own.@ Mr.. and Mrs. Martin, the
father of Phoebe and Ernest, reappear
frequently and the scenes are again laid |
in the pleasant suburb of haywood, |
outside Boston. Birth and death, trial !
md low vnttth nd mid III
age, all give serious or humorous turn
and tang to these stories of Phoebe
and Ernest, and their parents and their
children. They make agreeable and |
sometimes touching reading.
PIRATES OF THE SPRING. BY Forrest
Reid. Boston: Houghton Mlfflin Co. 81 90
THE OLD CARD: BY, Roland Pertwee. New
York. Boni Liyeright. 81 80.
LIFE CAN NEVER BE THE SAME. BY
": r. Maxwell Indianapolis; Bobbs-
THE HAPPY YEARS. By Inez Haynes
Irwin, New York: Henry Holt Co. Si.eo,