Evening star., 1923-08-05
Reviews of New Books

maybe of Long Island. maybe New
Jersey. Not exactly clear. the place,
but that it is a prosaic spot, not given
to queer doings of any sort, is the
point. The inside of that decrepit
barge is a surprising bit of bizarre
makeup of oriental character. And
here the haunted folks assemble
in mysterious ceremonial of meet
ing. Around the table each tells his
tale. a tale that bears upon the mys-
terry in hand and that bears, as well,
upon curious personal experiences
and adventures. An odd company A
dereliCt, a man with homicidal mania,
gargoyle. man who thinks him
self god, beautiful princess.
There are others, but these are enough
10 indicate the character of a de-
velopment that the author carries
out with originality. and a good deal
of the art of plausibility-the art of
making impossible things comport
themselves in way calculated to
convince one that there are surely
strange things in this world.
SURPRISING ANTONIA. BY Dorothy
Foster Gilman Illustrated by Thel-
ma Gooch. Boston: L. c. Page &
Co.
Three girls-more or less-can do
almost anything. So there is moth
ing unbelievable about this story. 1t
stands az a true record of what might
easily have taken place under favor
ing conditions. Suppose the young
, daughter of a houSe-her name would
have to be Antonia-were left alone
! for the summer. save for maiden
aunt safe distance away in another
part of the town And suppose that
| she and her two dearest friends. de-
sirous of turning an honest penny
for some legitimate girl purpose,
should decide to rent the house for a
period, they, themselves acting in the
capacity of servant equipment That
sounds all right. Well. at any rate.
that is what these particular girls
did. and they did ii with no end of
gusto. and fair capability and enough
OF crisis and near-CriSiS to make any
reader, OF any age, wish for IA genuine
part in this -and-Coming adventure.
To be sure. girls will like this story
rather better than their elders will
but for any and all il is no slouCh of
d summer story.
THE MATHERSoN MARRIAGE. BY
Ruby NJ Ayres. author of The Ro-
nance of Rogue" New York:
George II. Doran Company.
y clear Cat-and-dog relation be-
tween husband and wife is not un-
common in actual life so il is said.
NcveliStS. however-except such as
are conSecrated TO realism as d
method of tiction--for good and OBJ
vious reasons do not make use of this
fact as the motive power of their ere
ationS. And one suspects that this
author had no such design in working
out the story of the MatherSonS.
Such. nevertheless. is the effect If
one take the pains to step aside from
the general rumpus to find out who
is doing all of this swapping and
NnarlIng. II turns out to be the hus-
band. clear case of overemphaSis
oh"Cures everything in this domestic
situation except the fact Of hus-
! band with both grievance and a bad
/. temper. He has grievance. The
girl married him for release from a
dull girlhood. She gets the release
and then in every possible way with
holds payment. A nice amiable girl
enough. but fatally lacking in that
business sense which prompts
straight behaviors in business deal
ings. The man is resentful. And.
! being a badtempered fellow he runs
wild under his real grievance The
girl loves somebody else-at least she
comes to this And the road to re-
lease is a tiresome path along which
the reader goes, not with gladneSS,
not with any admiration for the one
where sympathy is plainly expected.
oh. yes, the girl stands for a class
'iZable class at that. These are wom-
en- who marry for some sort of free
dom without ever giving a moments
consideration TO their own decent part
in a relationship that can by no
stretch of the imagination be called
a partnership. With better re-
straints, with "A clearer estimate of
proportions this would have been
more consistent and more con-
vinCing story Of a phase of modern
domestic life.