The most notable novel that has been published during the past year is “SALT OF THE EARTH” by Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick. For months it has consistently headed the lists of best selling novels and deservedly so, for nothing has been written that shows the soul of Germany as this remarkable book does.
“We are the Salt of the Earth. God has chosen us to regenerate the world. We are the apostles of Progress,” said the Kaiser in his famous speech at Potsdam. Mrs. Sidgwick has spent most of her life among these “supermen”—studying, observing, assimilating. She is the most competent person to write this type of novel and that she has done her work well is best proven by the success of her book.
Here are a few specimen pages. “SALT OF THE EARTH” is for sale wherever books are sold.
XI
All through the night it had been touch and go with Brenda. She had undressed and gone to bed, but not to sleep. She had got up, half dressed again, and sat at her open window staring at the silent summer darkness of the garden. Suppose she did it! Suppose she stole out of the house with the few pounds she possessed and sent a telegram to her mother or left a note assuring her that she was alive and well, but could not marry Lothar. It had been done before, and still the world went round. But she would have to walk up and down London all night, and probably be molested or taken up by the police; and the police were so stupid and yet so knowing that they would probably find out who she was and bring her back in time for the civil wedding which was to take place at the nearest Registrar’s office at eleven. There was no hurry. If she decided to go, six o’clock would be time enough, just before the servants were up. The quiet coat and skirt she meant to put on for the morning lay ready for her. Her wedding gown was in a wardrobe with her veil and wreath of orange blossom. She was wearing no myrtle. She knew that German brides invariably wore myrtle, but she was English and wished to remain English. She had taken her country for granted till now, when she was going to leave it for ever. All the liberty and sweetness of life here she had taken as a matter of course, and even joined in the laughter against England that seems amusing while you live there enjoying all it gives. She had thought it would be a pleasant adventure to set up house in a foreign land and taste its strangeness; but she had not thought enough of the way back, a way closed by marriage. She could never come back except as a visitor and by permission of Lothar. He had promised her that she could come back every year for some weeks, and unless she stole out of the house now at the eleventh hour she would have to depend on his promise. Altogether she would be dependent on him, it seemed—dependent on his pleasure and displeasure, on his opinions, on his family. Her own family would be a long way off henceforward. She lay down, half dressed, outside her bed, weary, dispirited and in doubt. So her mother found her, fast asleep, next morning. She had slept through the hour when she might have escaped, slept fast and dreamlessly as she had not done for a week.
“It is ten o’clock,” said Mrs. Müller. “I would not allow them to wake you. But now you’ve only just time to dress.”
“I meant to wake at six,” said Brenda, still dazed with sleep.
“What for?” said Mrs. Müller, whose hands were full of letters, telegrams and parcels. Her question remained unanswered, but she did not notice it because a maid came in with a breakfast tray and because there were various things to look at and discuss. She was not quite happy about her daughter’s marriage, but it never even occurred to her that anything could stop it now.
Anyhow, nothing did stop it. At three o’clock Brenda came out of church married, for better for worse, to Lothar, and at five o’clock she departed with him in her father’s car. They were going to Dover that night and to Paris to-morrow. The wedding had been a crowded one and well arranged. Eight bridesmaids and two pages had followed Brenda to the altar, a full choral service had accompanied her marriage vows, her friends had given her an affectionate send off, and as she took a last look at her old home she saw her own people in the foreground, her father and mother, Jem, Violet and Thekla, and Thekla’s two little girls, Mary and Barbara.