That book came with the first advances of the tide. Now hundreds of such volumes are washed up at our feet, out of which we may accumulate regular trade libraries if we like, from which a young student can learn the ins and outs of all professions and commercial ventures, their temptations or advantages, and their relation, as well, to the mysterious workings of love. What a possession for a would-be-well-equipped worldling!
The only difficulty is, what are we going to do when these resources are used up?
However, there is no real need to worry. We can still encourage the unsuccessful author, who has been befogged by romance and idealism, to peg away for a year or two at some, if possible, unique form of manufacture, going into it from the bottom and learning its tricks and its manners. He will have at least the opportunity of becoming a good mechanic, and probably some chance of getting up a paying novel in the hereafter—with a seductive cover.
There can be no doubt that “The Common Lot,” by Robert Herrick, Macmillan Company, is among the strongest of this year’s books, and one which should take high rank as a thoroughly representative American novel.
From beginning to end it absorbs attention, is virile in the depiction of character, and most of all notable in its absolute fidelity to human nature and the modern point of view, even where it points an overwhelming moral. The story of Jackson Powers’ career, his promising beginning, the natural temptation to overlook a bit of dishonesty, and his equally natural response to it, followed by his deterioration as an architect who sacrifices his ideals to commercial interests, is a fine piece of work; so is the portrait of his strong wife, and her slow but crushing realization of his weakness.
The delightful little doctor in the slums, and the defiant product of conventionality, Venetia Phillips, supply plenty of humor, and for sensation, one need not look further than the thrilling description of the Glenmore fire, which, in its awful tragedy, reveals Powers to himself as a criminal.
Not the least powerful scene is that in which his confession and attempts to atone are received by the contemptuous man of the world, who sees in them only weakness and cowardice, despite his scorn of the crime.
No reader will put down the book without having experienced some stirrings of heart and some reminders of personal experience, or without a keen interest in the story.