Potter, Rt. Rev. Henry Codman. Drink problem in modern life. [**]30c. Crowell.
A frank exposition of the drink problem as Bishop Potter views it. He believes that the secret of mastery over the great evil of intemperance lies not in “legal enactment,” but in “the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” He says, “The world waits, we say, for better laws—or for better men to administer the laws! No, my brother, it waits for love—the vigilance of love, the service of love, the sacrifice of love.”
“... Loose texture and somewhat irrelevant quality of much contained in his pamphlet.”
| + — — | Reader. 5: 788. My. ‘05. 230w. |
Potter, Margaret. Fire of spring. $1.50. Appleton.
A mother, regardless of the sleeping fires of youth, marries her young daughter to a millionaire plow manufacturer of Chicago. The girl, excited by the whirl of preparations, gives little thought to her fiance and when she realizes at their first tête-à-tête dinner, that this bald, red-faced man audibly eating soup, is her husband, she loathes him. A cousin, handsome and worldly, appears and intrigue, suspicion, quarrels, and other unpleasant things follow. In the end the cousin meets a death of the husband’s planning, and the ill-assorted pair, less lovable than when they first met, forgive, and come to care for each other.
“The story has the fault so frequently found when women handle sex problems; as though fearful of not being understood, it insists upon unsavoury details with unnecessary and repellant frankness. The book is irritatingly uneven.”
| + — | Bookm. 21: 182. Ap. ‘05. 680w. |
“Miss Potter has evidently aimed at writing a ‘strong’ novel, and has certainly succeeded in producing something very rank.”
| — — — | Critic. 46: 564. Je. ‘05. 80w. |