New-York tribune., 1921-01-24
Books u.y.,,sS By s,.u,

And speaking of The Next Corner.
oy Kate Jordan writes Don Waldo y
Manhattano, "there was something
worse about Elsie than just cigarettes
and cosmetics and visible body and
her Illicit love for Arturo. For when
she said pour la charme, she slipped
up on her gender, charme being for
some reason masculine. And she right
IN Paris, too! All the rest might have
been forgiven, but this never. Let us
hope that the closing chapter really
shows her digging away on French
grammar in a wild effort to redeem the
past"
"A contemporary of yours" writes
M. G., II belong to that generation
which is emerging from youth into
middle age. AS such l have for some
time been carefully watching myself
Tor symptoms Of the mental hardening
OF the arteries which usually accom-
panies that transition. I have not
doubted that the time would come when
/ should admit disgust for my literary
youngers-s should find them intolerant,
cocksure, crude and especially vulgar,
and that should preface such state
ments with Il may be old fashioned.
but What worries me, however, is
that to date have not been able to ex-
perlence any such approved reaction
In tact, all | can truthfully say is Il
may be modern, but the one thing L
cannot swallow is the intoerable vul-
garity Of my elders 1 always knew,
OF course, that many of them were
tedious old bores and not to be taken
seriously, but what I did not realize
vas how downright shocking, heartless
and immoral some of these bores were.
81 have had this feeling frequently
in reading the recent fulminations of
Katherine Fullerton Gerould, Alice
Brown (not the robbers daughter) and
all the other rebukers of youth, but it
reached its climax the other day when
came across Margaret Deland's Old
Chester Secret, which, if it were no.
so appallngly silly, would be, should
say, one of the most vicious pieces of
American fiction ever perpetrated. It
is, OF course, a DR.. Lavendar story and
usual this tires ME old gentleman
IL busy saving souls
The secret-a particularly open one
concerns the parentage of child
adopted by an Old Chester spinstor.
His parents we're unmarried some
three months before his birth. owing
to the sel6shness of the girls father.
who had decided in his parental umui-
science that it wouldn't hurt them to
wait. Although they subsequently mar
rled and left Old Chester, they could
not face the scandal imminent if The
facts became known and so gave him
with adequate financial provision to
MISS Lydia Sampson. They were, Of
course, far from heroic, as Mrs Deland |
amply realizes. What she fails utterly
to realize, apparently. is that there is
anything to be condemned in an atti
tude toward their situation which !
would drive two unfortunate young
people to such lengths. How much |
they had missed, these two,' she phil
osophizes, who instead of the JOY ana
wonder and mystery Of going AVA
together into their new world, were
driving off, scarcely speaking to each
other. tasting on their young lips the
stale bitterness Of stolen fruit!'
Opinions differ, of course, as to the
\ ft.p %hot
1t would probably occur to any one but
the implacably virtuous Mrs. Deland
that the hideous attitude of her be-
loved Old Chester in such matters. and |,
Vt tho gril'a father In particular, whose
helpful contribution to the situation