"That Bright Heat" is the story of Clarion Lawless, who grows up in physical beauty and spiritual turbulence in the St. Louis of the eighteen eighties. His mother had died at his birth and his father, embittered by frustration, in Clarion's early boyhood. Clarion wants "that hard unbroken ecstasy which does not exist for any man." His father, with the same desires, had taken refuge in another creature, Clarion's mother, whose death left him face to face with bleakness.

Clarion seeks the same refuge, but all too blindly, and loses it through his inability to meet anything actual in life. As a boy, he falls in love with Clover Halliday, a high-hearted girl as impatient as he of social restraints, but with a petulant lack of understanding which contributes to the tragedy toward which the story is obviously pointed. Clarion's passion inevitably kills the thing he loves. He waits to declare and at once to consummate his love in one brief hour before Clover's marriage to another man. Then he gives her up, impetuously, because he has lost the family fortune in a mining venture, engineered, it turns out, by a man whom he has once befriended. Clover does not wait the necessary minute for him to change his mind. She marries, bears Clarion's child, and dies without seeing him. Clarion goes away with an octaroon whom he believes to be a Creole, returns presently to find himself ostracized for this breach of good manners, and kills himself in a burning building. The story is further complicated by the incidental appearances of a third woman, a stagy day-dreamer, who imagines herself to be in love with Clarion, collapses at every point where her dreams touch disillusioning reality, and takes to drink. And there is a brief interpolated melodrama of the ruined and embittered poet whose fraudulent mining scheme hastens Clarion's downfall.

This is all, of course, pure allegory. It is written with passionate sincerity, in a fine prose. But its characters have the quality of figures in an allegory. With the best will in the world and some understanding of Clarion's defects and his compensatory qualities, it is not possible to be moved by his tragedy. As a human being, his claim to interest would be as a psychological study; there, he could be analyzed on the simplest Freudian basis. As a figure in an allegory he symbolizes the revolter against social usage, the man who cannot be satisfied with the outward aspect of things and people, the tragic seeker after spiritual values in a material world-above all, as the man so dazzled by that bright heat which is life as to be blind to that smoky but intermittently flickering hearth-fire which is

California, the American Riviera

Calling you who have been there before and you who have yet to sense its bewitching charm. The Union Pacific West calls you to a vacation that will live forever in your memory, to the most stupendous, wonderful and beautiful things to see on earth! Geysers hurling columns of boiling spray hundreds of feet skyward, waterfalls with sheer drops of half a mile-mountains, thousands of them thrusting bediamonded peaks from green forests high into cloudless skies. Canyons of bewildering grandeur, filled with gigantic architecture of stone painted with all the colors imaginable! Trees, forests-full of surpassingly big trees that were saplings 5,000 years ago!

Motor trails along the seashore to the heights, to mountain lakes and streams, cool valleys, luxurious but inexpensive highland chalets far from modern smoke and hustle.

And don't forget the cities-they're different too. Denver, the mile high Queen City of the plains; Ogden; Salt Lake City, capital of the Mormons;

Portland, the Rose City; Seattle and Tacoma on lovely Puget Sound; San Francisco by the Golden Gate; Los Angeles, the metropolis of the movies -each with its individual atmosphere and charm.

Come out into the West this summer the West of recreation, romance, adventure, mystery, and you will never be satisfied until you return again. And it's not expensive on a low cost independent or Escorted All-Expense Union Pacific tour.

Low Summer Fares via the Cool Summer Route to All the West

California, Yellowstone, Pacific Northwest and Alaska, Colorado, Zion and Grand Canyon National Parks, Bryce Canyon, Ogden, Salt Lake City.

Fill in Coupon and Mail Today---
General Passenger Agent, Dept. 206
Union Pacific System, Omaha, Neb.
Please send me complete information
and booklet.

California Colorado Yellowstone
Zion-Grand Canyon National Parks
Pacific Northwest and Alaska

Dude Ranches

Escorted All-Expense Tours

Name...

Street.

Hawaii

City....

State.

CANADIAN girl, 30, desires position as housekeeper or companion. Protestant. Cheerful, capable. References. Pearl Rupert, care Ryan, 202 Grenedier Road, Toronto.

EDUCATED French lady, capable, wishes position in family for summer as companion lady, young girl, or take care children. Could tutor French. Travel or residence. Highest references. 8,400, Outlook.

GRADUATED nurse, German-American, unencumbered, cheerful, excellent traveler, or supervising servants, nurse-companion with couple or gentleman. Highest credentials from distinguished New York doctors. 8,318, Outlook.

GRADUATE nurse, with 15 years' dietetic experience in hospital sanatorium and institutional work, desires to be placed in summer camp work in connection with the feeding. Location in the East preferred. 8,361, Outlook.

MISCELLANEOUS

NIFTY scientific bird houses: Blue bird, $1.25; wren, $1.50; postpaid. Box 270, Jamestown, N. Y.

TO young women desiring training in the care of obstetrical patients a nine months' nurses' aid course is offered by the Lying-In Hospital, 307 Second Ave., New York. Aids are provided with maintenance and given a monthly allowance of $10. For further par ticulars address Directress of Nurses.

WILL take small baby in private home in beautiful village, thirty minutes from New York City. Love and efficient care. High-st references. P. O. Box 352, Ridgewood, N. J.

CLUB papers, speeches, articles prepared. Authors' Research, 500 Fifth Ave., N. f.

ous thread; his characters, a parade of types, ample or limited according to his personal experience; but his atmosphere, his emotional key, is unfailing and unmistakable. He looks in his heart and writes. He looks in his heart and knows himself as many creatures in one child, tyrant, mother, lover, martyr and fallen angel, and failure and success. So that he can match any joy and any sorrow with a joy and sorrow of his own, and knows by heart the words and music of any triumphal chant, pæan of praise, or dirge. Thus he becomes the inevitable protagonist of all his novels. Each one of them is his spiritual autobiography.

Why Is a Best-Seller?

(Continued from page 634)

haven't reached me." With $40,000 in royalties coming his way and a press book jammed with laudations, such unawareness constitutes an excellent protective device against diversion from his craft.

He is a slight man of medium height, or less. His manner is divided between boyish naïveté, as when he would burst. out with an expression of delight at the sensation of being interviewed, and scholarly introspection, as when he was analyzing the literary influences which have helped shape his style. His slight mustache and large tortoise-shell glasses seem to be his chief physical characteristics. He speaks in eager streaks of animated conversation. It is possible that the success of "The Bridge" will take a little more time in penetrating his consciousness, after which his manner will adjust itself to the consciousness of success, and then we shall have a new Wilder. For the present we have a prebest-seller Wilder. And it is this Wilder who, when asked whether his plans for the future included the surrender of his school post, said:

"Partly because I have a routine I enjoy and teaching is rightly a man's full day's work-I cannot think of giving up

640

teaching for writing. When one considers the milieu against which the writing career may develop, teaching is as good as any. The New England background from which I come is not friendly to the idea of retiring to the Riviera and writing exclusively. Writing in itself is not a sufficient occupation in a world in which there is so much to do. It is not in the New England conscience to be a writer

The Movies

(See page 627)

"The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands.”— A British film; well worth your while. "Beau_Sabreur."-Pepless desert drama. "The Big City."-Lon Chaney in a flat picture. Maybe some one stepped on it. "Chicago."-See what the movies can do when they try.

"The Circus."-Charlie Chaplin's newest, and one of his best.

"The Count of Ten."-James Gleason and Charles Ray in a good ring drama.

"The Crowd."-King Vidor is a great director. The story is slim and depressing.

"Czar Ivan the Terrible."-Hectic, but interesting Russian-made film.

"The Divine Woman."-Greta Garbo has a tough time with this one.

"Dressed to Kill."-Excellent crook melodrama. "Drums of Love."-A big eyeful from D. W. Griffith.

"Finders Keepers."-Laura La Plante, and some hard-pressed humor.

"Four Sons."-Beauty, skill, tears, and hokum. "The Gaucho."-Douglas Fairbanks. "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."-Plenty of chuckles for the business man.

"A Girl in Every Port."-A pretty feeble vehicle for the large Victor McLaglen. "The Jazz Singer."-Al Jolson + Vitaphone Price of Admission.

=

"The Last Command."-Emil Jannings in a picture worthy of him.

"The Last Moment."-Interesting

tricks, if you like them.

photographic

"The Latest from Paris."-Something pleasantly innocuous, with Norma Shearer. "The Legion of the Condemned."-After "Wings." A long way after.

"Love Me and the World is Mine."-For insomniacs and very young cash-girls. "Mother Machree."-For the Irish vote.

nice.

Very

"The Noose."-A pretty fair Richard Barthelmess picture.

"Red Hair."-Clara Bow and Elinor Glyn. Decide as you see fit. "Rose Marie."-Run!

Here's the Mounted Police

again. "Sadie Thompson.”-Gloria Swanson and Lionel Barrymore trying not to play "Rain." "The Secret Hour."-"They Knew What

They Wanted" dolled up for the screen with Pola Negri and Jean Hersholt. Good. "The Showdown."-Tropical mix-up, and how. "Simba."-See it-you'll thank us.

"The Smart Set."-You'll die outside, seeking air. "Soft Living."-A nice enough little drama, with Madge Bellamy.

"The Student Prince."-A Lubitsch production. Don't miss it. "Sunrise."-The best picture on any screen today. "Tenderloin."-The talking picture. They'll have to do better.

"That's My Daddy."-Reginald Denny in a pleas

ant farce.

"The Trail of '98."-Big Alaskan melodrama, with some grand scenes.

"Two Lovers."-Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky in a romantic picture of the sixteenth century. "We Americans."-Melting-pot drama with good

spots.

"Wings."-A war picture with a big wallop.

and not have some valuable daily task. Perhaps I began writing too late to acquire the habit of working, say, from nine to noon. My idea is to write briefly and only intermittently, against the background of a useful job."

From his publishers I learn that he is planning to do something very serioussomething that may take him as many as four or five years to complete. He cannot tell them whether it will be an obscure or a simple book, a mystical or a realistic book. To me he said that he would like to do a child's book, and, later in the interview: "I would like to do a picaresque novel, for which the chapter on Uncle Pio is a hasty sketch. I should like to do his boyhood especially the case of a purely parasitic, conscienceless gifted boy who carves out through endless trials and errors his own odd but convincing rules of right and wrong. The background would be the shady side of all Europe."

Is America, I asked, turning to the introspective novelist? According to Wilder, the rule of the realist is ended. It was from his lips that I heard the most philosophical explanation for the success of "The Bridge," although it was not presented in that light. “Until about ten years ago," said Wilder, "experience was very valuable as a preparation toward the writing of novels. Authors who had been stokers and barhands did bring something valuable to America in the process of discovering itself. But now the notation of objects has been done so well through such men as Sinclair Lewis that from now on the profounder assimilation of a little experience rather than a rapid view of a great deal is the more desirable. Literature, now that America has discovered itself, could spring from solitude and reflection, with less emphasis on observation and more on intuition." He cited the example of Emily Brontë, who, living all her life in a little village back yard, wrote novels that suggest experience of a universal order. From Sinclair Lewis to Thornton Wilder!

THE OUTLOOK, April 25, 1928. Volume 148, Number 17. Published weekly by The Outlook Company at 120 East 16th Street, New York, N. Y. Subscription price $5.00 a year. Single copies 15 cents each. Foreign subscription to countries in the postal Union, $6.56. Entered as second-class matter, July 21, 1893, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., and December 1, 1926, at the Post Office at Dunellen, N. J., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1928, by The Outlook Company.

Two things struck us forcibly as we finished reading Judge Lindsey's article on Companionate Marriage, printed in this issue. The first was the immense price in courage, strength, reputation, and peace of mind-which Judge Lindsey has had to pay for advancing a social idea which his experience has convinced him is valuable. The second was the astounding fact that, despite all the ignorant hue and cry, the editorials, sermons, arguments, letters, speeches, scarcely a few thousand of us have read his book and actually know what he is talking about.

Is a man, then, right or wrong, to be shouted down by ignorance, passion, prejudice? Is that the best an educated democracy can do with any proposed solution which involves genuine differences of opinion? Even one proposed by an admittedly honest man, a good citizen, and a reputable judge?

It would seem so.

PREACHERS have used Judge Lindsey's suggestion to draw crowds. Magazines have printed dozens of articles which reinforce current views on the subject of marriage, and so have secured more subscribers. Newspapers have reported everything which possessed even a faint hint of anything startling concerning his proposal—and so raised their circulation. But not one person in ten thousand has taken the pains to read Judge Lindsey's book and honestly and carefully weigh the merit of his suggestion. Even the magazine which originally printed his articles used them only for sensational purposes, and made no sincere effort to examine their worth as a solution for a social problem.

AND what is this revolutionary proposal of Judge Lindsey? "Legal marriage with legalized birth control and with the right to divorce by mutual consent for childless couples, usually without payment of alimony."

THE editors of The Outlook have not yet made up their minds in their judgment of Judge Lindsey's proposal. All the evidence is not yet in. But we are glad to print this statement of a man who has admittedly given more thought to the subject than have most of us, and who has the courage to advance his conclusions. In our view, the outcry against him is both disgraceful and absurd.