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Show THE CITIZEN K ' 3.' ' J fllliHHIIIUIIUIIUIUIIIHIIIHIIUlHIIUIIIIIItllllllUIIIIIIIUIIIIIimilUIIUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIUUtlUllllllUIttlllllllllUlllllllllllllUIIIIIIHHIlHIUUimUIIIIHIIMIUIItlUlllllUfllllllllllllll creation of the young; girl,' Olga-Flnh; ' To me she is one 'of the most poignantly tragic girls of literature. In the work of American authors, I can recall just three that Lwould put in the same class, Carrie Meeber, Antonia general Shmerda and Susan Lennox. And While all four are vividly living' ceratures, I .1' really think that. Olga is.ipre.mas-- , terfully drawn and will . have . a . more . lasting appeal .than any. of the other, three. And now, with the years, intervening, I have a deep feeling that Olga Flynn, the wife of a plodding Canadian. pioneer, perhaps the mother of a brood of little ones (doubtless already, old in her youth through struggle and care and worry, will look back with a yearn- lng. that never has. and never will be satisfied, and having been , thus hurt by life, she will feel that its rules .and . conventions of morality are in tljem- selves perhaps .immoral in tb$ir cruelty, paradoxical as that may seeim. I have to speak Of Brute Gods with almost equal f. avor; in fact .in.. v. places the writing and the expression of passionate power are above .the . other book. Its people, however, will not live so long nor. so ..vividly. WiL kinson postulates,. Ask, is Love, divine? And then in 'the lives of every person of the. book one perceives .that from his view point,, though love may be divine, it certainly is not everlasting. To all those people Love, or. their idea of it, turned out to be .but a ... Brute God, something that made hearts suffer. Some of the scenes between y . ! 1MINGS BOOKISH Edited By WILLIAM C. WINDER, Jr. it. . r -.- t-; - . . - When I receive a new circular from Mr. X.7 A. Knopf, 'the- publisher, '.announcing his season's offerings, invariably the first name I look for is that of .Mr. Louis Wilkinson.. In the list of any other publisher this would have hardly the same significance, but Mr. Knopf: has gathered under the. Borzoi a very select and mark the' works-osuperior group of artists, at least some of the'best" of every country, and selected with a very marked care and skill. JApd .this inian Wilkinson, adds no little lustre to the worthy group. it is a curious fact that there are but few men or women of equal merit who are writing in English today who are so nearly unknown in this country ashe'is although it is possible that his comparative youth and his few books are partly- - responsible for; this- condition. I have yet to find a person who, , having i:pnce read one of his books, : does not iook forward eagerly and expectantly to the enjoyment of the next; Owing to this fact that read- f . . . -- ers generally are uninformed regarding him, I find it not amiss to remark that he ' is an Englishman, ' born in Suffolk in the year 1881. His' father was a preacher) a significant fact when one knows a little of the rebellious nature of the youth. It is strange though true that? most young rebels, especially those who amount to something, select preachers as fathers for themselves. ;; Or is this rebellion, perhaps, just a natural reaction against the atmosphere of. too much suppression, and repression? .. One of the most significant facts to me'in.the early life of Louis Wilkinson was one' of the seven En-- . is: that-hglishmen who. sent wreaths to the funeral of Oscar Wilde at Paris. And although there was at no time any personal intercourse between the brilliant Wilde and the Suffolk youth, yet the former-ido- l, of intellectual England wfelded a tremendous influence on the thought and work df young Wilkinson. Even at Oxford, where he was iu continuous strife with the majority simply for the privilege of living and thinking as" he chose, his attachment tci: the clever writings of Wilde was used as a: method of forcing'.him. out f I J j LOUIS WILKINSON deeper understanding of humanity ana its trials thanhad Wilde. While these books are all written of England and her people, their author is widely informed. His is the intelligence and culture of- the continent, as well as that of his native country, nor have his many visits to America left him in ignorance regarding us; and though he writes of the home folks and the scenes he knows best, he has prepared for himself a splendid cultural background from which he can see his own people at their true artistic - . , - . . . value. The books, of which there are but three, The Buffoon, A Chaste Man and Brute Gods, are all largely concerned in showing up the cruelty of convention, in dissecting the pompous phrases of the idealists and in followlng thejr jeas to their empty, ultimate conclusion. Yet in this there is no hint of the dogmatist or the savior with a universal panacea.. If an idol is offensive to his sight, he will not wait until a more beautiful one is created before knocking the old one in the dust It is far better that we learn to face existence in its nakedness than that we so fool ourselves in demanding that all facts be entirely covered with, an array of painted veils. Whether it be in the class struggle, smouldering or in open conflagration, or in the multitude of lying conventions and laws and rules with which we bedeck ourselves, he knows that whatever class wins or whatever new conventions may be born, yet so long as men are. what they are, the new idols will be but little better than the old. We may go forward, but so. very, very slowly, and the slave, suddenly made master, is often a more terrible tyrant than the one whom he cast down. You may kill, trample upon, exterminate your . ' , .. iiimiuiiiuiiiiiuiiuiuuiiiiiiiiiuiiuiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiuiiiuiiuiiiiiuiuuuiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiuiiuHiiiiii? i' in I ' , . . s . . ; ; . . . , - . - . i Alec Glaive and Gillian Collett, the girl seven years older, ' reach' splendid yet authentic heights. ' Human beings with intensely human emotions are here before us. The girl, though, realizing the impending trag- - ' edy of the difference in their years, difference which would actually grow greater each year, decides that the pain of renunciation now will work less havoc than the pain which would ultimately come; and in so deciding, her nineteen-year-ol- d a' intellectual honesty proves stronger than the pangs of her heart. But how could a boy of nineteen, almost with--ou- t experience, understand such things and in their true light? Life had struck' Brute Gods, but out of the ashes fragments of the old ones will be born his idealism, which he had thought was new idols, and they, too, will be Brute of a nature apart, a savage blow. And then in his depression he found that Gods. A Chaste Man, published in 1917, perhaps the essence of his feeling for has lingered in my mind during these this girl had not been so entirely six years as fondly as has any other idealistic as he had supposed; that book of fiction I have ever read. It after all there was something the same in this intelligent girl and the is a fine, original piece of work, capably planned and adeptly done. It little dancer, the daughter of his landcontains some writing of a very high lady; that although the two were so ; of the school. Of course this was order, and also a group of living, palpi-afte- r dissimilar, yet the attraction was not The shock of this discovery the. Irishman fell into disrepute,1 tating human . beings, whose memories unlike. . of even instead for refuse to depart. : Of the minor.people seemed to have a positive physical great schools, and piay, must' of the book, Mr. Crockerton Deavitt force ; it smote his ' brain,' then clutch fair standing for justice echo the snarls-o- f the pack as with might well have been a child of ed it and held it, motionless and: fascifang and daw it tears its victim into Wildes brain, a man living in and for. nated, up against the full face, the immortality. sheer cleverness. Such men may exist brute and punitive face of the fact disThe .writing, too, of Wilkinson is and doubtless do, but I, for one, admit closed. And in the recognition of that never having known one nor do I exnot without its .traces of Wildes inphysical response, he felt that his I fluence. How with his rapier point of pect the privilege, but dare say that dream of what love should have done wit he opens, one after the other, the it is no small feat to create such a for him was shatttered. Were not the s of convention! And throughperson even on a few pages of paper. Brute Gods tearing at his heart? out the books one finds time and again The method used in disclosing the afBut, after all, the story of Alec Glaive is but another chapter in the brilliant, sophisticated epigrams that fairs of Cyprian Strange and Letty LawWilde, himself, would surely have been rence, toward the end of the book, is age-olstory of the quest of the Holy is a piece Grail. As a youth, wherever Alec proud to claim as his own. But, while simply beyond reproach; it of brilliant work. But after1 all, the moved, life struck out at his most senpossessing not a little of this glittering 'Cleverness, Wilkinson has a far lasting merit of the work lies in the sitive nerves. In his young love he e . ; , gjis-bag- thmight he had 'found solace1, rbut Uiel gods intervened.: He turned then, in. despair to the monastery, but all who knew the boy felt that here : the new' gods would be' of: a. nature no 'gentler, and that hig::probation period, would never be successfully consummated-Ale- c assured himself that he would never1 leave the Order Whatever; might happen," however he might feel, he would never leave it. The strength1 y of that resolve would be something to-- ' live in, whether- he believed in elsb or Hot. Resolved, he walked v cut out before" on, fronting him by his maimed , revengeful' will. In refuge, he paid homage; paid blind-lnow, to those outraging brute forces-greatest tribute, their ultimate-tribute. But the books are all real. Even The Buffoon is far ahead of the. author. average book' of a first-ratThere is a sound merit found in all. In them Wilkinson deals with deep themes; there are tragic moments; yet throughout there is a brilliant illumination of wit and humor, and a surpassing human understanding. I look over these books anew with even more of joy than at the first reading, and I am sure that when the next list comes 1 will look first for the name of Louis ? ? ' - any-::-thi- ng the-trac- y, - " ?r ? e Wilkinson." Democrats Celebrate Thomas Jefferson Day, April 6, will be a. state affair and the Democrats have made big preparations for the anticipated celebration. The commencement plans for the banquet was prompted by a communication received by Burton secretary of the state committee, from David C. Dunbar, state chairman, who is in California. Mr. Dunbar has been detained on business, and, wishing to have work started preparatory to the big event of the year for the party, he advised Mr. Musser and other Democrats to begin plans W,-Musser- f: . . 1 Work Begins Vice President L. F. Rains of the Columbia Steel company has instructed the contractors to get busy on the first blast furnace land coke ovens, and the opening work now hinges on how soon the contractors can secure their men and material for opening construction: work. Mr,. Rains says that every detail of the proposed plant has been worked out and every phase of the work contracted. - . i Simultaneously the coal properties at Columbia, Carbon county, and mines near Iron Springs, Iron county, will be rushed to a. productive basis. These. deposits, are already be-- , ing reached by the building, of railroad spurs. .When the steel plant-is ready for operation .next springy there will be plentyiof coal and iron ore ready to. start the mills and coke ovens going and to keep them going indefinitely. the-iro- n . . -- . . . . d 1 What. beat did the editor, Fledgling Coroners, give physicians and undertakers. Old-Tim- er you,-son- ? . Oh, the dead Washington Sun Dodger. Old-Tim- er beit. ty |