Sight to the Blind Part 3

One of the most remarkable books ever written is Jacob Riis' _How the Other Half Lives_. At the time of its appearance it created nothing short of a literary sensation, and it is still found among the widely read and discussed publications. The present volume is a continuation or an elaboration of that work. In it Mr. Riis tells with that charm which is peculiarly his own and with a wonderful fidelity to life, little human interest stories of the people of the "other half." He has taken incidents in their daily lives and has so set them before the reader that there is gained a new and a real insight into the existence of a cla.s.s which is, with each year, making its presence felt more and more in the nation. These tales, though in the garb of fiction, are true. "I could not have invented them had I tried; I should not have tried if I could," Mr. Riis tells us in a prefatory note.

The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman

By H. G. WELLS.

The name of H. G. Wells upon a t.i.tle page is an a.s.surance of merit.

It is a guarantee that on the pages which follow will be found an absorbing story told with master skill. In the present hook Mr.

Wells surpa.s.ses even his previous efforts. He is writing of modern society life, particularly of one very charming young woman, Lady Harman, who finds herself so bound in by convention, so hampered by restrictions, largely those of a well-intentioned but short-sighted husband, that she is ultimately moved to revolt. The real meaning of this revolt, its effect upon her life and those of her a.s.sociates, are narrated by one who goes beneath the surface in his a.n.a.lysis of human motives. In the group of characters, writers, suffragists, labor organizers, social workers and society lights surrounding Lady Harman, and in the dramatic incidents which compose the years of her existence which are described by Mr. Wells, there is a novel which is significant in its interpretation of the trend of affairs today, and fascinatingly interesting as fiction. It is Mr. Wells at his best.

The Rise of Jennie Cus.h.i.+ng

By MARY S. WATTS

In _Nathan Burke_ Mrs. Watts fold with great power the story of a man. In this, her new book, she does much the same thing for a woman. Jennie Cus.h.i.+ng is an exceedingly interesting character, perhaps the most interesting of any that Mrs. Watts has yet given us. The novel is her life and little else, but that is a life filled with a variety of experiences and touching closely many different strata of humankind. Throughout it all, from the days when as a thirteen-year-old, homeless, friendless waif. Jennie is sent to a reformatory, to the days when her beauty is the inspiration of a successful painter, there is in the narrative an appeal to the emotions, to the sympathy, to the affections, that cannot be gainsaid.