As “The Cost” dealt with finance on a big scale, so David Graham Phillips’ latest book, “The Plum Tree,” Bobbs-Merrill Company, deals with politics on a big scale.
In these two stories, Mr. Phillips depends for the success of his narrative rather upon theme and plot than upon style and characterization; not that these two elements are slighted, or that they are not skillfully and masterfully handled, but that one feels that they are purposely subordinated to the subject-matter and to interest in the development of the tale.
That it is an intensely interesting book cannot be denied; it is so because it is near enough to the facts of politics to make the stirring and dramatic episodes it describes seem like the account of a phase of vital human life.
The story is that of young Sayler’s development from a green, inexperienced and impecunious young lawyer, to the seasoned man who controls the politics of the country through his unerring manipulation of both party machines; the maker of Presidents, the master of Congress, the terror of the financial world. The methods by which he achieves these results make up the action of the story; they are such as we are all familiar with, except, perhaps, in the combination which Mr. Phillips makes of them.
The love element is of minor importance, and doubtless, to some minds, it will be considered unattractive. But no one can deny that the story, as a whole, is one of more than ordinary power.
The Harpers publish another new story by Warwick Deeping, “The Slanderers.” It is a novel which, in style, so suggests George Meredith as to make one suspect that the author is a pupil of the older writer.
A pair of idealists, quite realistic, nevertheless, in their introduction to one another, and in the attachment which follows, are the chief actors in the plot. Gabriel Strong, the dreamy son of a prosperous English squire, falls in love with Joan Gildersledge, the equally dreamy daughter of a bestial and intemperate miser. Gabriel marries an unsatisfactory young woman in the vicinity, Ophelia Gusset, and retains Joan as his consoler and friend in a virtuous but high-strung companionship, out of which the country gossips, who hear of it through a spying servant, develop a slander.
Gabriel’s wife, meantime, is amusing herself with a military man at a watering place. The clearing up of this situation, and the pairing off of congenial couples with various striking episodes, among them the death of Zeus Gildersledge, and his denunciation of his daughter, and the final reconciliation of Gabriel with his father, by whom he has been disinherited, make up a tale in which interest is sustained to the very end. The book is full of dainty descriptions of landscape, and the few leading personalities are well and strongly drawn.