SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2600, 23 October 1915, Page 9

SOME RECENT FICTION

THE ROBBER-BARON-AMERICAN VARIETY. Quite the most impressive and fascinating American novel that I have read for some time past is Mr. Theodore Dreisler's "The Titan" (John Lane). The principal, the ever dominant figure in Mr. Dreisler's story, is a Chicago financier named. Frank Copperwood. Cowperwood is the mediaeval robberbaron resurrected in t-ho nineteenth century, the exact period being the twenty odd years which followed tho great Chicago fire. Cowperwood is not a Westerner by birth. He moves to the marvellous city on Lake Michigan from his native Philadelphia, whero he had been in business as a banker, and had. alas, served "a term in the penitentiary—"done time" as the colloquialism goes—for what he himself declares to have been merely a technical breach of "a fool-law." His imprisonment not-1 withstanding, he lias saved enough out of the Philadelphia wreck to enable him to start business anew in Chicago, where he soon becomes known as a daring and successful speculator. L'appetit vient en mangeant, and as bis wealth increases ho sighs for new worlds to conquer, and by a combination of shrewdness, audacity—and dishonest dealings with city aldermen and officials upon whom he secures "a pull" —ho rapidly secures control, first, of the gas-companies of the city, and next of the major part of the strest transport, or, as we should say, the tram system. How he marches on from one triumph to another, ruthlessly crushing those who dare thwart his will, until the city recognises in, him a tyrant who must be dethroned, is told by ilr. Dreisler in a powerfully written, inter-est-compelling story. It is, however, as much as a study in psychology as an addition to- the already numerous novels which describe how American cities are preyed upon by men of the Cowperwood typo that "The Titan" stands out as fiction of the first rank. For the strong minded, iron-willed Cowperwood has his weak point. He is an incor-. rigible amorist. His first wife divorces him.- and he marries his mistress, a beautiful womau whose ambition it is henceforth to be a queen in Chicago society just as her masterful husband is a monarch on 'change. Cowperwood's fatal weakness leads to quite a long procession of women becoming his slaves, sometimes, - too, despite the man's desire to use women as instruments of pleasure only, whilst sternly denying them any influence over his will, - playing a helpful or antagonistic role in the development of his financial ventures. His second wife, the first of the long line of mistresses, open or secret, .. deliberately avenges hqr husband's infidelity, by similar conduct on' her own. part and drops out of the story as it nears its conclusion as a hopeless drunkard. The "Titan" himself, more powerful a financial magnate ■ than ever, is caught in the toils of a younger ;woman, whose personality is yet stronger 'thapi his owni a woman herself "weary, yefii brilliant, turning to other's for recompense for her lost youth." "The Titan" is strong meat, hardly 'a story for.the young person! Yet neither un,wholesome nor wrong in such moral as the reader shall find therein. It is a terriblo indictment of the Selfish Rich of America. Many previous indictments have found fictional presentment, but none so unsparing, so coldly analytical of the baseness of the search for wealth for wealth's sake, and more, if one reads it in the right spirit, affording more conclusive proof of the bitterness of the "dead sea fruit" of ill-acquired gold and unbridled passions. A very notable book.

"THE ETERNAL WHISPER." Mr. Charles Inge, whose "Square Pegs" was such an excellent piece of work, gives that novel a successor in 'The Eternal Whisper" (Eveleigh Nash). Mr. Inge now presents us with a very intimate and convincing study of a woman's complex character. The heroine, born on an up-country Indian station, and married to a Portuguese half-caste, much_ older than herself and greatly her inferior in intellectual force, comes to London with her husband, and suddenly discovers a new -world—a ivorld of art, literature, and of a mental outlook of the existence of which she had scarcely dreamed. The yearning to work out 'the dictates of her newly awakened personality is increased by her husband's pettiness of thought and vision, and eventually she leaves him and en-' deavours to find "her true self." Her experiences in search of employment bring her into contact with somo very queer people, hut eventually, becoming an artist's model, she gravitates to a certain mild liohemianism, and makes the acquaintance of a young artist, who shows her that somo measure of happiness is -within her reach. The "eternal whisper" of conscience, however, makes itself felt, and, restraining, stamping out, in fact, the influences which have been at work, she suddenly breaks with her new associations, and sails for Ceylon, to rejoin the commonplace husband, and to renew tho search, amidst domestic and conventional surroundings, "for that self which she had thought to find by nujning away." Tho struggle which, goes on in Hetty .Home's heart and mind is cleverly analysed, but some, at least,of tho London episodes are by this time almost hackneyed.

IRISH LOW COMEDY. There is some good fun to be found in tho pages of Mr. Alexis Roche's "Journeys with Jerry the Jarvcy" (G. Bell and Sons; per Whitcombo and Tombs). The-Irish car-driver is traditionally a very humorous fellow, and from Charles Lever's time doivn to that of tho present day ho lias furnished material for many a good yarn. Mr. Rocho's friend and confidant, Jerry, is no exception to tho rule. Ho has a vast stock of comical reminiscence upon which to draw, and is, as is often tho case with a natural humorist, gifted with much shrewdness of vision in detecting tho shams and hypocrisies of life, enunciating a homely, genial, and often very practical philosophy of his own. Jerry s views on tho possibilities of Homo Rule are perhaps not the best' thing in tho book, but a sample extract will show that Jerry is not exactly an' optimist a3 to the political future: Wait a while till all the tlireo factions of 'cm will bo shut up together in tho won house in Stephen's Green. 'Tis then you'll ■ liavo music. If John Redmond has einse, the first thing ho'll do is to lay steam on in tho House of Commons, 'an liavo an engineer for vSpaker that can blow tho wbistlo wlionover five or six Minibers do he tangled in won another. Believo 1110, sor, the stoker must mind his job well, or he'll run out of steam fit tho first sitting I don't rightly know how many Redmonditos there'll bo, or what titles they'll have, but whether they're Chancellors or Councillors, or only blood relations, 'tis suroly tho same pay they must get, for isn't won man as good as another, an' a d n

sight better, as long as he isn't a Protestant or an O'Brienite. From this out we'll have a dale more elections than we used to liavo; so a man's vote will bo a valuable property to him. The class of man they're electin', as a rule, will never havo tho constitution to stand the salary. Did you over reckon up, sor, how miny gallons of whisky goes to - a hundred pounds Jerry's reminiscences of certain "coort" cases are vastly amusing. The whole book is very readable.