MATERIALISM, OF COURSE.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 57, 4 September 1926, Page 21

MATERIALISM, OF COURSE.

j?; There is certainly'a. centixl theme. ;• \ It is -the progress, physically and spiriti-' suaily, 'of Christine .Mayne, a present- ! "day bachelor woman —-an Australian, '; 'once a stiiclent at the Columbia Univerl ' si|y, but who had since seen a good • deal of the world. The author faces 1' the" fact's of life, and takes. pains to I . fill in the details. Christine acquires a ti{M€ftt.:la an unfashionable quarter and 'I;'" sub-lets so that: her own apartments '" .-cost-only'fifteen dollars' a month. Then I"" "there is work with the. Bod-' Cross at ,'*',, twenty 'dollars' a Tveek, on which she !;"","<flWost;'starves.- Influence enables her j; ••"'-to'obtain 200 dollars a month. . There ■" jris-a novel published, but it is hardly a ■J financial; success. The war over, she "'._:.'bbco"mes a free lance journalist and works in with the group of advanced' thinkers who have started the "Week-—,-ly.-Critic." From then on finance is not altogether a shaping force in her ..life, It ia her opinion that "there /fecpujd be little real friendship between i- ~-i~--ii<3 rich and the-poor in. New York; she i*i£-'!ynLB convinced of that because the !-s''-|>eople who'could- bridge the gap would v-.-i Jjath have to value, the things of the !;=' / spirit above all else in the world. And 1 * in New; York people valued- material success more than'in any place she had known. The person who could dispense With it 'in his estimation of - others }yould bo supdr-humaii." ~'in Bpita of Christine's comparative jsoVerty she is the friend-of many rich people, but most of these have something more than riches to commend them. The story is one. of friendships. Thoro are romances, there are deaths, ttiere are suicides—in- one case the suic"lde' of a beautiful but. discontented ■Woman of fortune, whom the unreality of- -things destroys —and there _ are other' tragedies; hui all these are incidents which in the city of sensations are;forgotten: in an hour. Christine herself has a love affair, but that too . is an incident in her life and in the itorjr. Tao central idea of the work is Neve York itself, and its effect Upon human character. to a skilful management of her host of-characters and with the aid of her ever-changing and innumerable scenes Mißs.Mander.ha3 been ablo to givo a remarkable impression of the restless "jj-pfjjjdestroying city, wherein neverthe■Jess'f riendliness and hospitality flourish. Her, central figures are certainly the small group of the "sophisticates," but she fills in the background with the

■ 'teeming millions. *w-#*HE GREAT AMERICAN NATION. Out of tho mouth of Redman Foltz the American nation and New York

are judged. Feltz is one of the most remorseless of the younger vivisectors of the poor diseased American spirit. He becomes the editor of the "Weekly Critic," and he is heard declaiming at the parties where bootleg whisky and champagne of fabulous price are consumed until 6 o'clock in the morning. "(Jan't twist your tail, eh? Well that's one place where you dear English beat us. I will admit it. You can stand any amount of criticism. We can't. If the whole world isn 't patting us on the back we get huffy, and fall back on flag-waving and statistics. We scream about the great American nation, and tell the world how high our buildings are, and how many men wo have with an income of a million a year. Our entire conception of life is based on figures. We reduce our emotions to figures. Point out an object of beauty to an American and he immediately begins to do a sum. How high, is it? How many years has it been there? How old was the man who made it when he died? (Somebody muttered the word "tragic") Tragic! America never rises to tragedy about anything. It can only fall to bathos. We can't be tragic. That is to be spiritually great. We can only be Tidiculous. We are a nation of marionettes perpetually doomed to make futile gestures. We will go down to history as the nation that sent a crazy idealist and a bunch of callow collego students in a silly little ship to' stop the biggest war in history."