New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1922-09-24

was college professor. His name was
Mark, 80 you know all about him. In
fiction, men named Mark cannot be any
thing but high-minded unwordly per-
haps trifle shabby, but how loveable!
Mrs. Richmond's style fits her story
exactly. One could not improve on it
for the purpose.
Then there Is Edwin Balmer; one
cannot doubt that he knows Chicago,
the scene of his novel "The Breath of
Scandal" Presumably, also, he has en-
countered both working girls and debu
tante daughters of the rich But the
difference in his presentation of back
ground and character is that between
certainty and guesswork.
Girls, of course, are extraordinarily
difficult to portray, no matter what
their class; hence fictioneers have SEN
sibly reduced them TO few stock stem
debutante another; Mr.. Balmer has
done his best to shatter the mould, but
not with entire success. He admins
ters enough of shock to his heroine,
Marjorie Hale, to fracture any ones
set notions, and places her in situa-
ton which should have been fruitful
of very interesting reactions. That is
to say, into her sheltered existence
there crashes the knowledge that her
father, whom she both loves and re-
spects, has been leading what is tech
nically known as q double life, and has
reaped the wages of sin in the form of
a revolver bullet. He has been shot
and seriously wounded by the divorced
husband of his mistress, Sybil Russell.
Mrs. Hale does not know, and Marjorie
no m
from her She has also to reconstruct
her own notions of what men and
women really are and what she may
expect of them and Of the future.
In search of a basis for her new
scheme of things, she goes out to look
for Job and further information. But
are the two worlds and the two classes,
in America at least. so radically differ
ent in tone as Mr.. Balmer depicts
them? Working girls frequently have
homes, parents, social sets of their
own and rigid rules of conduct, strict
respectability and comparative poverty
are often yokemates. The adventures,
or whatever you choose to call her, tho
Sybil Russell type, comes from all
classes, and is quite another matter.
With Sybl, ALSO Mr. Balmer has
striven for originality, even past the
bounds Of probability, by making her
fanatical on the subject of self-sup
port. Why she should be- or why
Charles Hale should suddenly break
with her when the shooting was all
over, one cannot understand. Mr.. Bal
mer sets his stage admirably, but pulls
the strings of his puppets clumsily, so
that one sees them for what they are,
especially when the show is done and
he is packing them away: 1t is only
necessary to recall Arnold Benefits
Gamma of the Five Towns" to perceive
what possibilities the theme has. But
the tale is smoothly written, and a
reader who enjoys the game Of working
out what really might have happened
by comparing fiction with life will find
something to think about in this effort,
which, as such, is worth while
Now Norval Richardson's "Cave
Women" considered coldly, seems in
trinsically impossible, yet he has
made her credible, at least, while the
book is being read. She is complete
egotist, rendered dangerous to society
first by her striking beauty, and sec
ond, by the great wealth she has OBJ
tanned through her beauty. She is in
capable of love, but n creature of
strong desires, unchecked by the slight
est scruples; she simply has no moral
sense. though possessed of enough
brains to keep her from gross i'm
morality Hence, when she sets her
to her that he is happily married, and
actually dislikes her. Nor does she
stick at finding herself constructively
if not legally murderess; she would
not stick at being legally so, for that
matter Like the dear old Mounted
Police of the movies, she "gets her
man" But, material minded as she is,
the slow realization Of what she has
got and what missed, eats up by de-
grees her satisfaction in the achieve
ment. Consistently enough, she does
not repent nor reform; she follows her
chosen way to inevitable destruction.
No egotism is great enough to defeat
destiny, because character is destiny,
and every act inevitably brings it's own
punishment or reward. To grasp
thing does not mean that one may
enjoy it. Mr. Richardson's plot, like
his central idea, is half melodrama,
but the other half is genuine drama;
he has written an unusual story, if not
q contribution to literature.
In Tremendous Adventures" by
Dion Clayton Calthrop, and John Over
tons My Lady April" we swing to the
opposite extreme, of people too pleasant
to be real, though not too much SO to
be readable. Neither is more than
rewriting of Cinderella and Little Red
Ridinghood; you know all the while
that the fairy godmother will save
Cinderella from her ashes and Riding
hood from the wolf and send Prince
Charming to marry them and live
happy ever after. What does that mat
ter? it is nice to hear it again. Mr..
Calthrop especially has the ideal fairy
tale style, graceful, lucid and fanciful;
when he describes rose you can smell
1t and feel its satiny petals; and when :
ne describes girl, whose name is