New-York tribune., 1922-11-19

under fifty, and failure in the eyes
cf his wife, his children and his neigh
Dors. "At the age OF fourteen he had
appeared, with his father, as prodigy
vtolinfst. At fifteen he went to Paris
and froki Paris TO the Conservatoire Of
Music at Holzgarsen. When he, was
twenty-five ne reappeared in London
With him was his wife, Elizabeth
| whom he had carried off from pan.
| sion for the daughters of English gem
ZIG men. She WIS already q little afraid
o. Petrie. . .st.@ 1t was then that
Sylvia was BORN Cynthia was born
at Leeds seven years later. The birth
OF yet another daughter five years
after Cynthia only served to confirm
the mood of bitterness and general
pessimism into which the father was
gradually falling. When Conrad was
bern after an interval of three more
years Petrie had got beyond making
| any comments. upon the incidents Of
this description"
Some time before the novel opens
Hetrle had definitely, isolated himself
m the midst of his own household
HIS bedroom and his study were' in
Violate territory; his only regular
communication with his family was in
| the form Of trays than came and went
with his meals. Conrad, his younges st
child, "knew him as one to be merely
lgnored-as one ignores, in practice
the functions of Saturn or the moon'
From his retreat, where he sat with
his dead art, Petrie emerged only for
purposes Of business; he made d
modest income by writing letters in
several foreign languages for, certain
business houses in the town of Pel-
chester. As musician he was
finished. It would seem that his life's
| story had ended, but in reality it was
just beginning.
It is singular household into
which the reader is introduced and
one that puzzles him when he is first
set down in it, which no doubt ac-.
counts for the slight irritation that !
felt through the first score of pages.
the baffled feeling of o man whose ears
are assailed by the kissing wasps of
an unknown language. But the
strangeness passes, and the people
take shape and vitality. Petrie, of all
of. them, gains most in stature; but
the wife's character is just as skill
fully presented. Cynthia lives, and
the boy Conrad is an individual and
at the same time youth itself.
Perhaps the finest thing in the book
is the presentation Of Petrie's rela-
tion with his daughter Cynthia. 1t is
sufficiently remarkable to come upon d
father who considers one of his chill
dren as human being rather than as
8 laboratory for educational and dis
| ciplinary experiments or as the body
servant Of his waning years. Petrie
with his fetish of independence and
his firm belief that one person can
never really "do" an. thing for an,
other Is rather pitiful, but wholly ad-
mirable, in his effort to give Cynthia
some fraction Of the knowledge tha.
ne has won from life. His profoune
| love for his daughter seeks an expires
sion that will not awaken his horro
Of all sentimentality. He knows s.,
we'll that the individual, to succeed
must stand clear of human relation
! ships, and he struggles SO hard t.
point the way for her without exert
/ ing upon her life an influence that his
/ philosophy would brand as unpardon.
/ able,
| But what promises to be Cynthia's
/ story is, throughout, and dramatically
at the last, Petrie's. 1t is tragic and
it is triumphant; an unhackneyed, q
remarkable tale that never strains our
belief because we believe in the man
OF whom it is told.