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.

* * * * *

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 mach