A STORY THAT DELIGHTS WITHOUT OFFENDING

The Gay Ones: by Charles Hanson Towne. New York. The Century Co., 1924. $2.00.

At last I have read a story of modern society life that is not actually coarse with the grewsome details of an illicit love; at last I have found an author who, with all the opportunity in the world, refuses to revel in blasphemy and obscenity. This does not mean that "The Gay Ones" is fit for wide distribution among the Sunday schools of the country--for there is illicit love, and a dear innocent little girl is born of necessarily bad parents, but it is all told in a "nice" way, with a great deal left to the imagination, or at best barely hinted at. There are some "damns," but no "God damns," and there are only a few places that will puzzle the little children, who should not be allowed to read any modern "literature" anyway. Yet withal, the story was well worth the hours I spent reading it.,

Mr. Towne has hard work to redeem himself from a rather poor start, from the point of view of the average reader. The introduction is too much after the style of the well-known Sir Walter Scott to excite any wild applause over the first hundred pages, but things eventually do begin to happen. The heroine is presented, some very vividly, phrased little incidents take place, and by the time the last chapter is reached, the characters are just tearing through the years.

Description Holds Back Action

Looking at the story as a unit, I can commend the author for daring to lot description hold his action back for so long at the beginning. All through the book the very graphic word picture of life in the Long Island smart set is drawn with fascinating dexterity and every situation is handled with unusual finesse. Mr. Towne's evident delight in character, delincation and even in ordinary description tend to minimize the importance of the conventional plot--the old eternal triangle, although when he changes his scene of action to France during the war, omitting for a few chapters his continual tirade against that senseless, useless, time-eating game of bridge, interest is shifted for a while to what happens, rather than how it happens.

The author can make things happen, as the intense reality of the sordid Mr. Schreiner's call at the Kemper-Merritt's palacial home, and the dramatic accusation against Patty for cheating at bridge show, but is as a descriptive artist that he excels. His amazingly vivid and never trite phrasing makes the reader actually see the characters; his carefully constructed and cleverly told hits of action hold the reader with their nicety; and best of all, his delicacy keeps him within the bounds of decency, however immortal his theme may be. "The Gay Ones" is simply yet very well written, which cannot be said of many of the novels of today.