New-York tribune., 1922-11-19


v v fully returned the ticket. He
could not accept the world
as anything but the torture chamber
OF the Grand Inquisitor, nor in the
earher and weaker manner of Raskol-
nikov did he ever find peace out of
pain or benevolent design in nature
founded on mutual destruction, Mad
ness was the price of his rebellion,
but he preserved the scathless passion
of his SOU that would come to no terms
with the heartless mystery of life.
Alice Browns "Old Grow" John Raven
likewise returns the ticket. He cannot
accept the world after the war, or q
hateful legacy binding him to admins
ter sentimental charity. In the bleak
uplands Of New England he hopes to
find that quietude and reinsurance de-
ried him by the disillusion following
the war. Instead he is meshed in the
sinister network of new tragedy.
To his hillside cabin comes Tfra
Tenney, uncouth in grammar and lovely
in appearance, fleeing from the jealous
madness OF husband who has found"
religion. Ravens hermitage is fur
ther complicated by the arrival Of Nan
! Hamilton, whom in his vigorous middle
age he loves and does not know that
he loves, and young Richard Powell, a
rather futile young man who writes
poetry.
In despite Of his rejection Of the
world Raven busies himself in the Ten
neys until the inevitab comes to pass
in the sad fashion of these New Eng
| land dramas. Nan refuses young
Powell, but still Raven does not relax
4 from his scrupulous bachelorhood. In
an effort to kill Raven Tenney shoots
| o+lo En
baby. Tira browns herself In the
convenient mountain stream; young
/ Powell RECEIVERS and joins the recon
structfon work in France, and Raven
finally brings himself to say, kiss
me, my Man."
Through the interminable leisure Of
| Miss Browns recital sounds mourn
fully the old sorrowful dilemma Of
| the world. How can we trace the in
tention Of a divine benefcence In a
universe stepped in death? At first
John Raven does return the ticket,
though not respectfully; but it turns
out to be return-trip ticket, and he
comes to "adore and accept" the
universe through the discovery of q
manuscript written by Old Grow, the
former occupant Of his cabin.
The school of New England fiction
owes it's inspiration largely to maids
marooned in middle life, farmsteads
vowed to mortgages, and the garrulous
wisdom of "queer" characters. Old
i Crow Is no exception to the estab-
lished rule. He is another of the
"queer 'uns" without whom no tale
of the New Egland village is complete
In his very odd moments he writes 8
dairy Of metaphysical speculations
ro"ched in the vernacular rather more
than less. When Raven acquires this
u4afy we must not prepare ourselves
for the shuddery tales which diaries
a found In moldering attics are won't sc
delightfully."- to unfold. Old Crow doe.
not give US another "Meimoth the
Wanderer" or {despite his name,
; "MS. Found in Bottle" or ever
"Northanger Abbey" His chronicle
\ negotiates only the sternest inquiries
. into the destiny of man.
Old Crow has refused the world
but by the coming Of an inner ligh
he is won to the mysterious ways o1
Providence. He questions, but he ac
cepts; he adores, even when the rab
bits scream in the claws of the ow
tells him its leit-motif of horror in
forming the supposed harmony o.
things. Old Crow directs the nara
tive like an influential and inspired
yogi fathomless in wisdom In him tn,
New England dead command. When
soever Raven is torn with doubt o
the~ half-mad Tenney, the inarticulat
out ever lovely Tira, the impulsive an,