Life — July 6, 1916 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

Locating the Trouble “ Thirty-four Baltimore débutantes have signed an agreement to re- frain from extravagance in enter- tainments, on the ground that larger contributions may be made for the relief of suffering.” ILTER read this statement to his wife from the Times. “Don't you think,” he said, when he had finished, “we'd better give up that dinner-dance party of ours? Is it too late?” “No,” said Mrs. Bilter, “it isn’t too late. We don't absolutely have to give i” “Then call it off. How much would it cost?” “Oh, about three hundred dollars. There's the butcher, the grocer, the caterer, the florist, the garage—then I had planned a fountain which the plumber will have to fix, and there is also some work for the carpenter, not to mention the furniture movers and a lot of others, It all counts up “Well, cut it out, and help the suf- ferers.” The next morning Mr. Bilter, hav- ing estimated that he had saved three hundred dollars by not giving his en- tertainment, felt so generous that he actually sent a check for ten dollars to the Belgian Relief Fund. Mean- while, the butcher, the grocer, the caterer, the florist, the plumber, the garage man and maybe twenty-five or thirty more worthy gentlemen, each one of whom hoped that business would pick up so much that, in addi- tion to making a living, he would be able to satisfy his own generous im- pulse and contribute to the sufferers, waited in vain, That evening Mrs. Bilter, looking over the paper herself, this time, said to Mr. Bilter: “My dear, seems to me we ought to be doing more in this country than we are to relieve the frightful suffering there.” “Yes,” replied Bilter, seriously, “ we ought. But you see, my dear, the trouble is that business is so poor. People who ought to be spending money are not spending it as they ought to.” ‘LiFe + The Latest Books ERY little fiction of any quality has, as yet, come out of the war. But, since fiction of quality bears the same relation to experience that wine bears to the grape, this is not to be wondered at. The mills of the gods are the great source of inspiration; but one does not bottle their wine during the treading of the grapes. Hugh Walpole, the English novelist, has, however, been serving with the Russian Red Cross since early in the war, and his new story, “The Dark Forest" (Doran, $1.35), proves that cer- tain aspects of his experience have passed from ferment into clarified per- spective, His story deals with the per- sonnel of a small Red Cross unit at the Gallician front during the Russian re- treat, and its theme—uncanny to a de- kree, yet successfully, if a trifle insistent- ly, “gotten over "—is the power of war to make mystics out of the most intract- able and hard-headed human material. L* us hope that the war, or some other source of inspiration, will pres- the once so fanciful and, withal, human springs of William J. Locke's fiction. His story of a young coquette’s playing fast and loose with the affections of two men—an awkward, self- distrustful under-dog of an elder brother and a successful, arrogant and patroniz- ently refill ~ $1.00) it is called—i Viviette” (Lane, almost incredibly Its situations ing younger son—' un-Lockish and banal. are trite. Its psychology is cheap, showy and shallow. And reading it is like meeting an old friend and finding him emaciated almost beyond recognition and apparently near to dissolution, HE. preparedness and anti-prepared- ness propagandas have been brought as confrontingly face to face as the con- ditions of the moment admit of in two books just published : “ Awake! U! S.A.” (Doran, $2.00), by William Freeman, and “Inviting War to America” (Huebsch, $1.00), by Allan L, Benson. Both books recognize our national situa- tion as critical and the crisis as the great- est in our history since the Civil War. But they advocate diametrically opposite methods of solution. R, FREEMAN'S book is a sledge- hammer marshalling of facts—facts the European situation, military, naval and financial; facts about the Asiatic situation, military, naval and financial ; facts about the American situa- tion, military, naval and financial. It takes the present social order for grant- ed; not as an ideal order, but as the de (Continued on page 35) about “COD LOVES THE IRISH, BUT HE HELPS THE SCOTCH” comicbooks.com