AMONG THE BOOKS.

Otago Witness, Volume 23, Issue 2684, 23 August 1905, Page 79

AMONG THE BOOKS.

AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY: A PLEJC FOR INDIVIDUALISM.

By W. Dennis Macks,

Philadelphia : Paterson and White Co

Through the medium of fiction which" ihe author assures us is more than half truth Mr Macks endeavours to answer the question he asks in the preface, which he prefers to Kill an "Apology" — "Is it impossible to create a social system in which, submissively recognising oiir utter helplessness in opposing the laws of Nature, we shall" yet so change the existing laws of man as to give gladness to the people, and to every living human being an equai opport unity?" Despite the wideness of the subject he thus desires to solve, Mr Macks narrows the intellect and sympathy of has leaders to the consideration of one man and one woman — at anyrate -for the largest part of the book. Elliot Gray, the hero, is a man verging on middle age, with hair already tinged with grey, while stilt maintainin;g in his magnificent physique the perfections of manly beauty. Thocasual observer would describe Gray as a handsome man; the close observer would 1 note the somewhat heavy mouth and ohia as promising a strain of sensuality likely to combat this fine intellectual development of the bead ; but the abiding impression 02J one and all would be that of power. A widower with .young daughters, a wealthy man of fine social position, one is led to anticipate some great social, political, or industrial achievement which, with Gray as its illuminating fores, shall solve the universal problem of "for every living being an equal opportunity." Events, however, resolve themselves into the mere record of Gray's supreme infatuation for an extremely beautiful and fascinating girl whom he meets at the country house of afriend. We are" somewhat accustomed to "tall talk" on most topics from American writers, but the luscious superlative of such descriptions as the following can only be taken in homoeopathic doses: — "When, he dared too?aise his passionate eyes again to htx face sfhe was looking at Lira with all her beauty trebled to the tone by the glad lov>k of gratitude that had come into

it. ... He could not move; he seemei quite helpless and very weak, while his surging passion for the glorious woman before him slowly changed into sdior.ition like to that of a martyr condemned to death and praying to the Madonna."

Certain inexplicable coquetries of the girl, who carefully poses to him as a kindred spirit in intellect and sympathy, jar so unpleasantly on Gray that he avails himself of the information procurab l^ through a private inquiry office in order to sclve the erratic contradictioins of Valentine's life.

The result of these inquiries is a stupendous sLock. Valentine is a mere tool in the hands of a set of iinserupul<jjis blackguards ! Unable to free himself from the curiously ebbing and flowing tide of her influence, however, Gray maintains a relationship with the lovely girl which finds its expression in correspondence (of which the reader is deluged with samples), in gifts of every kind, and finally in the acceptance by Valentine- oi a settled income from Gray. Firmly resisting all the efforts made by Valentine to draw him into closer relations, Gray throws himself into business and the exposure of certain commercial frauds with an ability and earnastne«ss wfhjeh completely alter the tenor of his life, amd we fina him leaving America for a prolonged tour A shipwreck, with many wildly imaginative details, and the arrival in a hitherto undiscovered land afford tLe author tho necessary machinery for placing his hero in surroundings from which the evolution of an equal opportunity may be wrested. Time does nob admit vi any attempt to detail the legislation of this Arcadia ; suffice it to say that in it on© more solution of the eternal socia-1 problems of civilisation is attempted Aftei many adventures. Gray, on returning to America and taking up the quiet life of a coimtry sjentleman, prepares to spend the remainder of his life in passionless and cheerful content. A piteous appeal summons him to the death -Led of Valentine, from whose hideous end the lesson of a moral life is taught. As a mere to!e, "An Equal Opportunity* is r either better nor worse than a hundred other contemporary tales ; as a problem; novel it is insignificant, being completely; «werweighted with fiction and sentiment. < In all seasons WOLFE'S SCHNAPPS is an, 1 iavfthsftbl® tonic.