The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-03-09
By DOLLY DAL.RYMPLE

that is presently 10 spread and widen until the whole situation goes to pieces. Lee is an extremely an alyticaI person. constantly question: ing his own sensations and motives, and it is by a minute following or Lees mental processes. and not by any comments of his own. that Mir. Hergesheimer displays his elaborate picture of a modern marriage and its collapse. Brought up in highly dosmatic form of religion, when Lees reason took his childish beliefs away from him he had nothing left, no re Iigion of any kind, nor any definite code of honor or of morals. An in- dividualist of the most pronounced type, he discovers that, like most Of the men he knows. he has been bent and modelled into conventional shape. This molding seems to him the result of womens intluencei working through and by marriage in the details, the details which, enormously multiplied, filled Hte
 women were omnipotent. No man could withstand the steady friction
 the inexhaustible wearing. of fem mine prejudice; forever rolled in the
 resistiess stream of women's ambi- ton. their men became round ana
 smooth and admirable, like pebbles
 And he did not want to be pebble
 So this restlessness. largely the re-
 suit Of his mistake in choosing h's profession, steadily increased and
 markedly so after the purchase or the
 doll which he called 'Cytherea the
 name of the mysterious goddess ot love. Venus. of the principle the f2 S sion of fife stirring in plaqts and
 men" The force of life which is sym
 bolized by the doll Cytherea is the
 one which to Lee Random seems domI 5 nant. Among men. only the tortu- nate few who have work which ab= sorbs their interest escape from the
 eternal pursuit of Cytherea. w
 make her out of our longing and dis content. an idol of gilt and silk and , perverse fingers, and put her above the other above everything, discoN ering her barrenness only when Il E too late. when a detachment has been produced which sees the end Of al things as atrophy.
 What then are mere mortalS to do Go on in an enforced hypocricy? To love one woman though this life
 would be blissful if II
 were possible. there might be grea' deal saved-but by somebody else in heroically supporting such an Ely | sian tenet: Lee Randon definitely hadn't the necessary Utoptanism' fte had solaced himself with amourettes affairs of small account, though theS annoyed his wife. Then came this 1 meeting with Savina and the force 1 not overwhelming but distinctly en- l ioyable. of passion purely physical i having in il little of the brain ane 1 less of the spirit. so that when it was ! over he did not even miss her.
 Profoundly ironical from start tC ! finish Mir Hergesheimer dominates his book in this fashion even unto tho death of Savina-leaNing Lee Randor entirely uncomprehending of hei
 pathetic fate-her tragic life,
 Mr. Hel.yesheimer Is q delightfu
 vocahularist Cmy own coinage); "Cy- | therea" is very beautifully written 1 the author in his exhaustive vivi-sec i ton of the subject in hand, fails ut , terly 10 offer one single solitary so- 1 luton, of the important question.
 But then maybe he didn't intend ! to,
 He sets forth the cold. hard, gray ! facts. in q yivjd. lurid sort of 1igh1 | from the mans standpoint, the wom' ] ans side iA distinctly excluded. whtcf 1 is distraetlng to say the least of it ' since it is the woman. who. suffering
 more perhaps than the man. many 1 times from a lovely. hopeless sort o marriage holds together the hoiA vows of matnimony even when there | is an intervention on the part of "Cy l thereaia