Evening star., 1925-08-30
OLD BRIG'S CARGO. BY Henry A.
PuIsford Frontispiece by Frank
NJ. Rines. Boston: The Atlantic
Monthly Press

W. II
NJ. Rines Boston: The Atlantic
Monthly Press.
THE New Englander will never get
L over the old sailing days. He can't.
The clipper ship will in many genera
tons yet to come stir the New Eng
land blood at the very source of its
pride and patriotism. SO the prime
adventure of sailing days will be met
with the glad hand of heartiest wei
come And here is just that very
kind of adventure No, not a boys
story alone. even though boy goes
through mighty tight places BY way of
the sea and a clipper ship. Boys will
read it with a wistful JOY, but grown
folks will read 1t, too. Pretty good
reading that about the boy who was
carried off with a sailor friend Of hfs
by crew of Portuguese and taken
hither and yon till chance of escape
let them off for still more in the way
of hazard and ingenious device for
getting clear to meet the next thing
on the great program Of involuntary
sea service. There is treasure to be
certainly. All old stuff. yoI
see. But everything else, either in life
or in fiction. is old stuff. 1t is the
of it that makes all the diff
ference between fresh interest and a
stalled Indifference. The right ap-
proach here in the spirit of the
writer-a youthful and zestful ap-
proach. Then. knowing how to spin a
capital sea yarn, the matter of a most
tale is settled. And here
it is.
THE SPLENDID ROAD. By vingie
E. Roe. author of "Nameless
River" etc. New York: Duffield
& Co.
THIS is the road of adventure in a
wild country. That which distin-
guishes 1t from a thousand other roads
of romance is that woman Is the ad-
venturer who travels 1t. There is no
reason why a woman should not be q
miner. a gambler. a homesteader. a
whatnot. If she wants to be and can
deliver the goods. All of these Sandra
Default determined to be, because to
her the road to these ends seemed to
be a splendid road" Just a gallant
woman who but for some inscrutab BILE
chance would have been a man. The
story runs upon the ventures of San
dra Default, accompanied by the extra
exactions made upon her by nisundeF.
standing men who simply couldn't be-
lieve what they actually saw. Quite
nh SiIlSl dllu SNCu CfSllllS
story that enlists one heartily on the
side of the girl who is setting herself
so tremendous a task. There is. how
ever. an inevitable Waterloo for both
the heroine and the author of this kind
of story. And that disaster lies so
deep in the nature of woman herself
that heroine denying this nature
ceases to be a woman, while the au.
thor. is at the end condemned to the
humiliating gesture of turning tail
and running away" So Sandra at the
close of this story crumples up in the
arms of a man-of course she did.
And Fingie Roe-well, probably any
Ntngie Roe would think more of the
most improbable of romances than Of
the simplest and straightest of reali-
ties.
THE GREAT VAN. SCTTART MYS-
Terry. BY George Agnew Cham
berlain, author of THE Lantern on
the Plow," etc. New York: G. P.
Putnam's Sons.
SINCE Edgar Allen Poe dressed up
- old and forgotten ways of the mys-
terry tale and set them out in a beguil-
ing freshness of their own, on through
to Sherlock Holmes, master of more
or less logical deduction applied to
crime. nine-tenths of all the mystery
stories, in defiance of the laws of con-
struction, have set the climax of the
matter in the first chapter, leaving
the end Of the adventure to the slim
enects Of clear anti-climax The
book in hand is an exception to a habit
that from overuse has become tire
some. Therefore. to this extent at
least, this story is a refreshment. A
good adventure is we'll of it's interest
ing way before the advent of any alb
Sorbing mystery. 1t has another point
in It's favor-that of re-creating a pic
turesque quarter OF old New York,
where devious ways lent mystery and
charm to the days and nights of that
obscure corner of greatly populous
town. The affairs of little boy and
girl. neighbors in this packed locality,
engage one heartily in many interest
ing episodes before any question of
mystery impinges upon the open ma
ture OF the case as a whole. Indeed,
the best of the story lies in the friend.
ship grown UP between the street boy,
Mad, and the little lady girl, Cor
nelia. In an ingenious cleverness the
author finally brings these two to-
gether in a straight blood-bond out of
the clearing up of mystery that for
20 years had lain undiscovered. A
good invention, covering pleasing
change in the, habit of the common
rule for crime detection in tales Of
fiction.
PEARLS OF DESIRE. BY Austin ].
Small, author of The Frozen
Trail" Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company.
PURE adventure, pure romance,
pure invention. The South Sea
islands once more; treasure to be
found; a lovely lady to be succored; a
native prince and princess to be res.
cued from captivity and the brutality
or a black birding rascal. Oh, no, this
does not all come about at once as the
set program of a couple of adven.
turers. Indeed, the most of it is the
result Of chance, that kindly deity
that waits upon adventurous youth.
The story opens dramatically-the
dark young prince tied to a tree, be.
fore him the brute of a white man
almost tasting the savors Of the deadly
lash held in his hand. Rescue is the
frst move in an adventure that there.
after, while varying its several forms
or strenuous emprise, never halts for
a minute through a series of hazards
and escapes that serve to cover the
entire gamut of South Sea possibili.
ties. Interesting? First-rate in that
respect. You are not asked to believe
1t. Instead, just go along, keeping
up. II you can, with the wondrous
to-do.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
NEWMAN AS A MAN OF LETTERS
BY Joseph ]. Reilly, Ph.D., author
OF Lowell AS a Critic" New York;
The Macmillan Company.
AMERICANITIS- Pressure and
Nerves. By William S. Sadler, NJ
D., F. A. c. S., etc. New York: