and on to the Senate of the United States. This is one of the oldest
themes in literature, one of the themes most certain to succeed with any
public: Dick Whittington, the Industrious Apprentice, over again. Mr.
Herrick, however, cannot merely repeat the old drama or point the old
moral. His hero wriggles upward by devious ways and sharp practices,
crushing competitors, diverting justice, and gradually paying for his
fortune with his integrity. In the most modern idiom Mr. Herrick asks
again and again the ancient question whether the whole world is worth as
much as a man's soul.

That mystical rigor which permits but one answer to the question
suggests to Mr. Herrick two avenues of cure from the evils accompanying
the disease he broods upon. One is a return to simple living under
conditions which quiet the restless nerves, allay the greedy appetites,
and restore the central will. The Master in _The Master of the Inn_,
Renault in _Together_, Holden in _The Healer_--all of them utter and
live a gospel of health which obviously corresponds to Mr. Herrick's
belief. When the world grows too loud one may withdraw from it; there
are still uncrowded spaces where existence marches simply. Remembering
them, Mr. Herrick's imagination, held commonly on so tight a fist, slips
its hood off and takes wing. And yet he knows that the north woods into
which a few favored men and women may withdraw are not cure enough for
the multitude. They must practise, or some one must practise for their
benefit, honorable refusals in the midst of life. The architect's wife
in _The Common Lot_, Harrington's sister in _The Memoirs of an American
Citizen_, the clear-eyed Johnstons in _Together_--they have or attain
the knowledge, which seems a paradox, that selfishness can fatally
entangle the individual in the perplexities of existence and that the
best chance for disentanglement may come from intelligent unselfishness.