Evening star., 1929-12-15

the great tree roofs, IL OlQ not even
have to be mined; simply scooped up by
steam shovels. How the devil are ye
goin' to sink q shaft into this stuff?"
scornfully asked a veteran CorniShman.
This here can't be an iron mine. It's
got no hangin' wall, no foot WALL"
How the Merritt OUTFIT found it and
mined 1t and what the final outcome
was is told in this book by a man who
has been able to make microbes as in
teresting reading as elephants, and
their hunters much more so. 1t Is
not we'll to tell too much in advance Of
the plot, or even the style and atmos-
phere OF a book on this order. Suffice
It to say that it is a Skillful combina-
tion of the epic and romantic. The vol
ume has seven heroes instead Of the
usual one, not to mention couple, or
three, villains. AS you turn certain
pages you can actually smell the camp
fire and feel on your own face the Sleet
that pelted these dogged timber cruisers
who travelled always with one eye cock
ed aloft at the white pines and the
other cast down for that iron which the
old man had declared must be there.
! Their neighbors rather pitied them,
| but trusted them implicitly. They
knew them as the sort who, when their
first business venture went on the rocks
in the form of a wrecked schooner and
they found themselves in debt to the
tune of $500, promptly knocked on
merchandising, went into the woods as
sawyers and stuck there until from
their wages they had saved enough to
square themselves. Then, and then only,
did they resume their other activities.
When they rode the crest of the wave
Of widespread public approval and, for
brief time, of sudden prosperity, their
neighbors rode with them, some of them
longer and more successfully than they.
How they could not quite hold on to
what they had found is sad enough.
How their great open ore pits teamed
up with the great established steel mills
to transform the United States from
sprawling bucolic giant amusing him
self with iron into an eff1ctent titan
whose very vitalS were Of iron, is inter-
esting enough reading. But far more
interesting is to read what sort OF men
they were; of their persistent patience
and unquenchable optimism; their 10y
atty to Leonidas, their leader; even OF
their occasional darned foolishness-
that Is the big thrill. 1t is often said
probably was said during the infancy
Of Daniel Boone-"Ah. but America
doesn't breed that sort of men any
more!" However, she does, and the So
luton of progressive problems proves
it. No matter who he may be, one can
not help wishing, as he turns the final
page, II wish I were little more like
that" r. M. K.
SINCERITY: A Story of Our Time.
BY John Erskine, author of Pencil
ope's Man: The Homing Instinct"
etc. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Mer-
rill Co.
TWO and three years ago-or three
l. and four--John Erskine, school
master, went adventuring, first with
Helen of Troy and then right into the
Garden of Eden with the mother OF all
creation herself. A comedy OF laugh
of these romantic outfarings of the
pedagogue. It was no doubt dificult
for even this facile f1ctionist to get on to
the curves, so to speak, OF Helen and
Eve, those beauteous ladies OF far-on
days, but this could have been nothing
compared with the task set for him.
self in the new novel, Sincerity" For
the sake of it, and for the sake Of us,
Mr.. Erskine has moved up into the
present. Here is q drama Of telling the
truth. A novel-but, a1ack and alas,
not one with the happy ending that
the hearts of readers demand! How
could it have joyous finale with every
body telling the truth! It couldn't.
Here 1t is-two women and the nus
band Of one of them. The wife sent
her friend to the husband for the
smoothing out of q dif1culty between
the welded pair. Error one. No wife
is going to do that. The explanation
took on a tender turn-much too ten
| der. Said the woman friend, "I shall
tell your wife just what we did!" Error
| two. mo woman on earth is going to
do that particular thing-sincerity or
no sincerity. The expected followed.
The wife left her spouse and set out
| for Europe. The next mistakes come
not in a failure to be sincere, but in
the fact that John ErSkine should have
well, anywhere except where she could
have an attendant to keep her within
bounds. One pities the poor thing,
trying to appear waywiSe when she Is
so blatantly yet unborn to the world.
/ So she wandered around France for a
period and then came home to flnd the
husband living in complete respecta-
bility with the betrayed lady who went
| to him on the domestic peace quest.
In q new corner of the country they
appeared to be as much married as the
rest of the community. The wife
promptly filed her prior claim in q good
deal Of distaste for the domestic ir-
regularity before her. Somewhere in
the heat of accusation and counter at
| tack she also became sincere" admit
ting her own two or three excursions
| into the wide ATTITUDES and longitudeS
of Illicit interest while across over there
where the Puritan has long ceased
from troubling. Error three-but what's
the use! The "errorS" have gotten quite
out Of hand. One is bound to fall back,
| not upon the plain truism that actual
sincerity is obsolete, that it has re-
naming only current academic moral
slant for publicity purposes. No, one
goes further back to meet this par
ticular situation. back to the fact that
John Erskine has lapsed from the good
| comedy centering around Helen and
Eve to the pure farce of these two
women of the modern day playing at
being sincere. No good, these two wom-
en-, no good even to John Erskine. since
| they fail utterly in holding up the lit
erary hands of this joyous comedian
who has run away from school to flnd
current comedy rich as that with which
he has already adorned the lives Of two
| u,nn1en of the mast