Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-02-28
II also Is human drnma, and that It's
setting and the nationality Of its char.
acters are Of secondary Importance.


IHcTe ~ nOthtng tn0t people are more
interested In than In other people.
THE new novel is about the adven.
L lures Of Andivius Hedulio, a young
Roman nobleman, wrongly sus-
pected Of plotting the death Of
Emperor Commodus, and forced to
flee for his life and 90 into hid.
ing. lie lives under one disguise or
another for eleven years, has many
narrow escapes from death, Is finally
caught, identified and sentenced to
death just when he had hoped that the
assassination of Commodus would make
It possible for him TO clear himself of
suspicion. But he finally Is cleared by
one of the many ingenious devices which
the author has used to extricate his hero
from the apparently impossible predic-
aments into which he gets entangled,
and the story ends happily with Andiv-
ius married to the young woman who
had given him up for dead three times
and was yielding to the persuasion OF
another suitor only to learn before 1,
was too late that her lover was still
alive.
But this novel would deserve atten
/ ton even II It were less interesting n:
n story. So far as I know It Is unique
in literature in that It was not con
sciously invented by Mr.. White at all
Indeed, he says that he could not hav'
invented so complicated a plot with III
parts interlacing and all converging t.
definite end.
The phole story came to him IN q
dream, pith aH its characters and incl
dents aud many Of the speeches, dnt
he wds the hero OF It.
DUT he does not harbor for momen
d the theory that he was living ovel
In his sleep the experiences OF a pre-
vious life, although much less convinc
ing evidence has been cited by believer
IN the transmigration Of souls as proc
Of their theory. He says he has ha'
dream adventures for years, which hav
usually taken the form Of stories o
which he was the hero. He has seeme'
TO rend these in his sleep. He Is awar
of all that goes on in the mind OF tn
characters, but he does not know whn
is to happen in the dream story sav
as It happens. The story unfolds itsel
to him. In this way he dreame
"Andivius Hedullo," and" when b.
awoke in the morning the scenes an
experiences we're as vivid In his mem
ory as il he had lived them.
He has n rational explanation 10
much of the dream. an explanation
based not on any Freudian theor
of complexes, but on the older fashione
theory that the sleeping mind take
what is in the working mind and ap
parently plays with 1t, forming 1t int
new and surprising combinations. !
a note to the reader Mr.. White ha
explained with unusual' frankness til
origin Of many of the incidents in tn
plot and what suggested some OF tn
scenes. For example, in his dream h
entered a fashionable jcwclry store !
Rome which presented itself in all II
details clearly to his vision; when h
awoke he recalled that this jewelr
store was "a decorated "reminiscences {
a glove shop in Rio de Janeiroo,' whic
he visited In 1885. Commodus kille
two lions with club in the dream an
in the novel. He traces this to stor
from the French in st. Nicholas tha
he read when he was eleven years ole
A thrilling incident in a chariot rart
which in the dream was acted in hi
sight he traces to the memory Of tn
chariot race in ben Hur' and to
peculiar runaway accident in Drui
Hill Park in Baltimore in which tw
vehicles collided with injury to neither
And so it goes for incident after incl
dent.
Every one has. had similar drear
experiences. but it has not heretofor
happened that so prolonged and compli
Gated a dream has been remembers
and written down or that the dreame
has been 30 we'll able to discover tn
melting source of so many of its de
tails.
Coleridge dreamed a long poem,
Is true, but when he awoke he coul
recall only a few lines of 1t. and the
were only high sounding words wit
little meaning.
G. w. D.