Evening star., 1924-01-01
NEW BOOKS
AT. RANDOM
THE GAsPARDs OF PINE CROFT
alr Genr1a Il. Daran

THE GASPARDS OF PINE CROFT
Ralph Connor. George H. Doran
Company.
The making of Paul Gaspard-this
is Ralph Connor's new story. Now, a
man in the making provides the most
exciting of spectacles for those who
have the eyes and the mind and the
heart for this SURPRISING adventure.
1t Is a common and open business, too
this manmaking-going on around
us, and within us, every minute day
and night. But so many are the con-
cealing interventions, so fleeting and
broken are the views in any given
case, so feeble are our powers of
transcription and application. that
were it not for the novelist we should
be In large part shut out from the
contagion of the great adventure. We
should miss the sight of it's triumphs
and defeats-pluck and persistence on
the one hand, feebleness and futility
on the other. Both of equal service
to US in checking up the uneven and
unequal ways through which charac-
ter finally emerges or falls back into
mere indeterminate human stuff.
mother had contributed a deeply re-
Iigious strain. From the father he
took a joyous love of life, an artists
elation over the sheer beauty of the
world. A man of easy accommoda-
tions, Hugh Gaspard, these set off
against the mothers infiexible resist
ance to compromise. A good little
rha
therefore interesting. When we come
upon him first he is, under the moth
er's tuition, engaged in the strenu-
Gus business of learning the cate
chism, interrupting the lesson with
a hundred intimate questions as to
the feelings and doings of God in re-
spect to his own small person. The
daily task ended, he is off and away
out into the open under the lighter
guidance of the father. A happy child
hood that moves out into boyhood
and youth where trouble waits for
him. The mother fades and passes
under the austere loneliness of the
big northwest. Hugh Gaspard, not
possessed of the fiber to endure, seeks
to escape trouble by running away.
Heavy responsibility, coupled with
deep personal grief, comes early to
Paul Gaspard.
This is the point at which the story
moves out into the current of COM
mon interest, becoming, in a sense,
the story of countless sons and
daughters who find themselves pos
sessed of legacy Of unfuIillment, for
their taking or for their leaving. It
is worth while going along with Paul
Gaspard here. for he accepts the in
heritance of his fathers defeat. There
is, first, the big ranch beautiful Pine
Croft" 10 be held till his fathers re-
turn against the designs of those who
everywhere stand ready to gather
personal advantage out of rich but
endangered enterprises. A man-size
job, this. that puts good muscle on
young Paul and sharpens his wits as
we'll There is later, besides, the ter
rible effect of complete moral lapse
on the part of Hugh Gaspard, fed
again into the Indian country where
years before also he had sinned
against the law of race, the white
mans immemorial pleasure and self
constituted right the world over.
Such is the situation and such the
process by way Of which Ralph Con-
nor projects this man-in-the-m making
Such the cross-seotion of life that
produces Paul Gaspard. 1t is signi-
ficant that this character is drawn
from the deepest personal intimacies
of the author himself. Here is the
environment with which
his own hctive career has been SOL
completely identified. Here the an
cestral Scot strain is fundamental in
he oh Of hnf
there Is a profound sense of God i'm
minent in the world of nature and in
the world of man. One heSitates to
call Paul Gaspard a pious man. for
the term has gathered allen meanings
that would surely serve to diStort the
picture. More nearly does he fit INTO
the concept of the modern mystic
directed, sustained by an
intelligence that I0hetrates the whole
of life, waiting only for man to be-
come conscious of it's nearness and
power. A valiant and shining youth,
Paul Gaspard. who in circumstances
as dramatic as they are. altogether
fashion so natural and simple as to
give him the quality of true great
ness. Paul Gaspard moves out of
this book, going along with one, the
chosen companion Of many a satisfy
ing hour.
And have you read Grant Overton's
story of The Man Called Ralph Con-
nor? If you have you know that
Ralph Connor is, in fact, Charles Cor
don, boy out of Scotland, a student
in Canada, "a missioner among the
lumbermen and miners, a friend of
the Indian, pastor of a big church in
Winnipeg. and. finally, soldier, Maj.
Charles w. Gordon, chaplain of the
43rd Battalion Cameron Highlanders
of Canada. 1t was he who said when
the great war broke that Canada
must send half a million men. And
Canada sent the half million and
over sixty thousand didna come
back" 1t was the western front
from Ypres salient, Sanctuary Wood,
the bloodshed of the Somme and back
again to Arras. In that time Ralph
Connor saw the regiment shrunk from
full strength to two officers and six
ty-five men. He knelt down amid the
roar of guns and hailing of machine
gun bullets to do last rites for his
own men and comrades. On the eighth
day of October 1916, the outfit
stormed the Regina trench on the
somme. Unable to advance. they
wouldna retreat. So they died where
they stood"
man, all through, you see, this
preacher of the northwest. One likes
to picture him in the earlier days,
too, q tall, slender, serious young fell
low, living among the lumbermen and
the miners where life is bare to the
bone. Fighting men, often drunk,
men OF f.coarse speech and rough ways.
But even rough men have troubles of
their own, and 1t was then that Char
ley Gordon proved himself as much
man as the toughest ones of the lot.
There were no end of things that he
wanted to do for these folks. So, un-
der the advice of a friend, he becan to