Life — February 5, 1914 — page 26: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

~L PFET: The Latest Books NE is tempted, before speaking of Eden Phillpotts’s new novel, “ The Joy of Youth”, to hang out a sign | THE LINE FORMS ON THIS SIDE | Because, once the news gets around that a real love story—a genuine, delectable, anti-nuptial love story with the lifting and driving power of a first-class mind actually beneath and behind it—has been published, there is liable to be a rush, if not a riot. However, now one comes to think of it, no one can ever tell in such matters. I have seen a grass-fed mountain cayuse pull back on its halter with snorts and stand trembling in nervous terror before a proffered half-peck of unfamiliar oats. And I've seen a young spanicl, brought up on the hardwood floors and concrete door-yards of New York, thrown into con- vulsions by its first sight and scent of real dandclions bloom- ing in real grass. There's no telling what effect a real story of young love may have on that by no means inconsiderable portion of the present reading public during the whole of whose experience the best fiction has sometimes begun at the altar, but never ended there. They may snort and draw back from the delicious egotisms, the glorious cocksurenesses, the dear delusions of Mr. Phillpotts's world-owning young- sters—this young painter from Rome and this young girl from rural England. Or they may stiffen, cataleptically, at the fictionally unknown, but instinctively family sap of huma spring, stirring in these youngsters’ veins, and bourgeoning into a splendid give-and-take of talk about art and Italy and each other. Or it may take a guard-rail and a policeman to keep them in line at the bookstalls. Here's hoping it's the latter, But however this may turn out, the rest of us may be sure that if we have in our make-up a vestige of the real love of youth or a modicum of real interest in art, this novel will prove treasure trove to us. RA HARRIS'S “In Search of a Husband” (Doubleday, Page, $1.35) must make its appeal in quite other quarters. One of the many splendid things about our United States to-day—one of the interlocking phenomena that make this tumultuous because reconstructive age such a breathlessly interesting time to be alive in—is the astounding number of men and women, awakened or awakening or just beginning to stir in their intellectual and spiritual sleep, who want to know. Never since the world began have so many people at one time in one place craved so variously—so fiercely, so clamor- ously, so hopefully, so pathetically, so dumbly—to be shown. There are a thousand grades in the receptivity of this craving host. And Mrs. Harris's story, because of its preliminary protestations of serious purpose, of special knowledge and of complete frankness; because of its pose of sophistication and its maintained rapid fire of epigram, near-epigram and pseudo- epigram; and because of the worldly wise appearance of the cynicism it makes parade of, will be welcomed with head- shakings and solemn “Ah, she knows!” by the ranks of the newly disillusioned young. What a deliciously absurd phase it is, that blasé intermission between the wonder-conscious days of youth and the wonder-conscious days of maturity. But some of us never emerge from it. And to them, too, Mrs. Harris's book will seem “basic And some, just daring to climb hesitatingly out of cynicism into comprehen- sion, will be overborne by the book’s air of authority. For the rest this young married woman's alleged confession of her thoughts, purposes and tactics during her career as a belle in a southern, city, together with her views of life and her estimates of her friends, will appeal not at all, or only as an industrious scratching of the surfaces of things and the light- ing of verbal matches by the friction. R old friend, Conan Doyle, is making rather desperate . efforts to entertain us these days. His latest, “ The Poison Belt” (Doran, $1.20), uses for thriller purposes and asa basis for plunging his readers into a sensational situation, the idea developed some years ago for other uses by H. G. Wells in his “In the Days of the Comet”. The earth swings into a belt of poisoned cther and all life is struck down by the effects of it. And the young journalist who accompanied Professor Challenger in “A Lost World” watches the ca- tastrophe in his company and tells us of it. It’s a fine yarn if you can manage to believe it during the necessary two hours. But it takes a good swallower to do it. J. B. Kerfoot. The Airman, by Captain C. Mellor, C. E. ‘The diary of a student at the Etampes aviation school. A book that sets your imagination flying. Down Among Men, by Will Levington Comfort. The tale of a war correspond- ent turned prophet. A graphic beginning with a denouement of short-circuited mysticism. The Escape of Mr. Trimm, by Irvin S. Cobb. Readable short stories in senti- mental-humorous vein. Folk of the Woods, by Lucius C. Par- dee. Something new and attractive in the presentation of wood lore. Animal studics in a fairy tale setting. Gold. by Stewart Edward White. An account of his adventures by a supposi- titious Forty-Niner. A good yarn that successfully recreates the spirit of its time. In Search of a Husband, by Cora Har- tis. See above. Confidential Book Guide The Joy of Youth, by Eden Phillpotts. above. he Life of the Fly, by J. H. Fabre. More interesting and charming sclections from the work of the French entomolo- gist who has the singular distinction of ranking as a scientist among scientists and as a poct among pocts. Men of Mark, by Alvin Langdon Co- burn. Interesting portraits of English celebrities by an American photographer. Mothering on Perilous, by Lucy Fur- man. Local color of an unusual sort. The author has charge of the younger boys in a settlement school in the Kentucky feud district. O Pioneers, by Willa Sibert Cather. A story of early years in Nebraska that has expressed the maturing spirit of a new community in the simple story of a few lives. Our Eternity, by Maurice Maeterlinck. In which the man who is generally called a “mystic” sums up with exquisite suc- inctness and clarity the gropings of science and philosophy into the unknown. The Poison Belt, by A. Conan Doyle. See above. The Publisher, by Robert Sterling Yard. In which the editor of the Cen- fury most entertainingly discusses the book business with us as between friends. Salt Water Ballads. by John Masefield. Early verse reprinted for the collected works. There are some stirring bits in it A Traveler at Forty, by Theodore Dreiser. In which the forthright author of “Jennic Gerhart” tries to confess himself a la George Moore with unpleas- ing results. T. Tembarom, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. A thoroughly delightful anach- ronism: being a melodramatic romance written with literary grace, intellectual conviction and a contagious spiritual en- joyment, comicbooks.com