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ROOK REVIEWS THE WHEEL OF LIFE. Doubleday, Page & Co. The iconoclast is one with whom we have little sympathy—far be it from us to pull down where we would build up,—at the same time, we are frank to say we cannot subscribe to general opinion simply because it is that. “The Wheel of Life” is Miss Ellen Glasgow’s best book. We grant that. But that it is the great book it is claimed, we are not so fast to agree. There are points which take away from an otherwise highly finished work. The four distinct groups of characters are rather many, seeing that one at least bears little relation to the others; and the very style of high-sounding phrase ology lauded by some becomes at times a little difficult without close attention. We have no desire to criticise, but simply rather to dissent from a universality which appear to us too easily satisfied. And this we must do, even though it leave us as lonely as was Laura Wilde in the house of her family; a family, by the way, extra ordinary, to put it most mildly, in its makeup. Un cle Percival who in our first meeting delivers him self of a remarkable string of worldly wisdom, and thereafter lapses into a senility as painful to the reader as to himself, is hardly less trying than the aunt in the closed room above; and we can never turn us toward the house in Gramercy Park wherein the divine Laura erects the altar to which all the men of the story bring their offerings with out a sense of the decay and futility of all things earthly. That picture of the aunt pacing up and down, back and forth, endlessly in her self-appoint ed cloister, and eating her heart out with shame over the one mistake of her youth, is a most un necessary blot on the canvas. Laura’s home was an unfortunate one to place a heroine, though she might have been as self-centered anywhere else. Connie is another difficult creation. And Adam’s goodness may be a little overdrawn. His high char acter, which sets him apart, is hard to reconcile with the attraction existing between himself and Kemper, and between him and Bridewell. That he is one of the finest characters in modern fiction, will hardly be disputed, but how such a high culture can exist in such environment and continue to grow upward and lift others with it, rather staggers the compre hension. That so fine a soul should find its best in Laura, the disappointed and irresponsible, appears but the final crucifixion of one born to suffering. It is a fine story, could the author have waited a year before giving it permanent form. At the end of that time she would doubtless have seen that it could have been told in less than five hundred pages, and even with something left out altogether. AT THE EMPEROR’S WISH. . D. Appleton & Co. Oscar King Davis, the war correspondent, has written a most delightful little Japanese story, which he gives the suggestive title of “At the Em peror’s Wish.” “The Emperor’s law reaches ev erywhere and touches everything,” the heroine, O-Mitsu-san, reminds her Samurai lover; but what so sensibly impresses the reader is the devotion of his people, regardless of caste o" “’ondition—his Excellency’s wish is law, and to abide by it the high est honor and happiness his loyal subject can know. Eta, or Samurai, it is the same; individual will or preference there is none, but to be chosen for the Emperor’s service, even if it mean certain death, is the very height and sum of a young Japanese’s ambition, and the fulfillment of the best that his parents have had in their dreams for him. The joy of this parental offering is the most touching trait of the national character, particularly, as set forth in the story, in the Eta, the outsast, whose lot has been a hard one, indeed, until the edict of the Em peror which shook off his shackles and restored him From an Unbiased Viewpoint. By A. E. RA MSA UR. The Golden Age for March 8, 1906. to manhood, permitting his son to do what had never been permitted him—to bear arms for his country. The story is that of the house of Kudo Jukichi, gentleman, reduced to poverty and need, and his Eta neighbor, Kutami Chobei, whose success in bus iness has made him rich and useful despite his despised name of Commoner. Each has a son, the hope and pride of his father, and Jukichi has also a lovely daughter, but between the children of the two families is a great gulf fixed—the impassable gulf of caste. The haughty Samurai youth has naught but scorn and persecution for the son of the Eta, but his sister, shyly and without the know ledge of her father and brother, forms an attach ment for the strong, noble boy who is kind to her at the school they all attend. This is the begin ning. And out of it ripens the romance that such conditions would result in. Without Jukichi’s knowing it, Chobei, the Com moner, has befriended him, and through a success fully planned scheme provided for the military training of the sons of both. Jukichi, the younger, ignorant of this, is insultingly overbearing to the son of his benefactor, at the school and later in the army where he, a Samurai officer, is over the Eta private. But the Eta has in him the stuff that he roes are made of ; he is too guarded and soldierly for the watchful and unfreindly Jukichi; and his heroism, when his hour offers, is such that even Jukichi surrenders before it. The love story is charming, and its setting al together so, as in imagination we stand near the old Shinto shrine and look down to where “the verdure-covered hills*ring in the town, and beyond the billowing roofs of blue-gray thatch and tile stretches the shining, island-dotted sea, warm and soft in the enormous blaze of summer.” Os all the Japanese stories that have come our way, this pleases us most. Written from the Oc cidental point of view it appeals to us more. TOM DUNHAM’S NEW WORK. Col. Tom Dunham by permission of Rev. Sam P. Jones, has recently issued a neat little book contain ing three of the great sermons of the noted evan gelist. These sermons make a hand book of about 172 pages that can be easily read in an evening. Through the courtesy of Col. Dunham we have received a copy of this little book and found it so fascinating that we read it through at one sitting. Nobody but Sam Jones could ever have produced such sermons. They are rich, rare and racy, yet through them runs a vein of deep seriousness that ■cannot fail to stir the noblest feelings of one’s better nature. We sincerely wish that a copy of this little book could find its way into every home in Georgia. The price is only fen cents and Col. Dunham expects the first edition of ten thousand copies to be speedily sold. Price, 10 cents; SI.OO per dozen; $7.00 per hun dred by mail. Tom Dunham. Cartersville, Ga. The woman who toils and struggles in the garish light of publicity, in fields however high of human endeavor, may do her work and receive her plaudits in the public’s presence and in the commendation of the multitudes and in the vigorous applause of men. Is it too much to say that the nobler woman and the nobler service is that which makes the home the factory of men, of citizens and of publicists? And although unheralded and by the world unknown, a woman builds best in her faithful aspiration and in her gentle inspiration the monuments that en dure when factories crumble and when stately tem ples are in the dust.—Exchange. V// 1* * i $ REV. J. C. SOLOMON, Superintendent Georgia Anti-Saloon League. Startling Honesty. A Saloonkeeper Tells it All. According to a recent story in the New York Tribune, Tombstone, Arizona, claims credit for the frankest saloon-keeper in the United States. He keeps the Temple Bar Saloon, and advertises his business with most surprising frankness. “Allow me to inform you that you are fools,” he says, yet his place is usually filled. He maintains that he is an honest saloon-keeper, and that it will not hurt his business to tell the truth about it. He has had printed an advertising card which would make an excellent manuscript for a temperance lecture. Copies are being circulated through the Western states and are attracting much attention. The card reads as follows. “Friends and neighbors, I am grateful for past favors, and having supplied my store with a fine line of choice liquors, allow me to inform you that I shall continue to make drunkards, paupers and beggars for the sober, industrious, respectable part of the community to support. My liquors will ex ci I e riot, robbery and bloodshed. They will diminish your comforts, increase your expenses and shorten life. I shall confidently recom mend them as sure to multiply fatal accidents and incurable diseases. They will deprive some of life, others of reason, many of character, and all of peace. They will make fathers fiends, wives widows, children or phans and all poor. I will train your sons in infi delity, dissipation, ignorance, lewdness and every other vice. I will corrupt the ministers of religion, obstruct the gospel, defile the church and cause as much temporal and eternal death as I can. I will thus “accommodate the public,” it may be at the loss of my never dying soul. But I have a family to support—the business pays—and the public en courages it. I have paid my license and the traffic is lawful; and if I don’t sell it somebody will. I know the Bible says: “Thou shalt not kill, no drunkard shall enter the kingdom of heaven,” and I do not expect the drunkard-maker to fare any better, but I want an easy living and I have resolved to gather the wages of iniquity and fatten on the ruin of my species. I shall, therefore, carry on my business with en ergy, and do my best to diminish the wealth of the nation and endanger the safety of the state. As my business flourishes in proportion to your sen sibility and ignorance, I will do my best to prevent moral purity and intellectual growth. Should you doubt my ability, I refer you to the pawnshops, the poorhouse, the police court, the hos pital, the penitentiary and the gallows, where you will find many of my best customers have gone. A sight of them will convince you that I do what I say. Allow me to inform you that you are fools, and that I am an honest saloon-keeper.” 13