Sweet & Strong

GREEN LIGHT--Lloyd C. Douglas-- Houghton Mifflin ($2.50).

Greensickness is defined as "an anaemic disease which mostly affects young women about the age of puberty and gives a pale or greenish tinge to the complexion." Present-day letters, which some doctors have diagnosed as convalescing from a long siege of bilious morbidity, is breaking out in occasional patches that seem reminiscent of the same sort of adolescent sickliness. Author Douglas' high-minded story has a strong, sweet flavor about it that will attract followers of the late Gene Stratton Porter, members of the Oxford Group et al., but its color is definitely green.

Newell Paige, a rising young surgeon, was assisting his admired senior, Dr. Endicott. at a difficult operation. Dr. Endicott was more worried about the tottering market than about the job in hand. He made a fatal blunder; the patient died. Paige, horrified, took the blame, left town, threw up his career, changed his name, brooded, talked to his dog. When he met the dead patient's daughter it was mutual love at a glance, but she found out who he was. Their ways parted--it seemed, finally. But thanks to a crippled old clergyman, who was a perfect dynamo of spiritual energy, their stories began to knit together again. Like a beneficent spider Dean Harcourt sat in the midst of things, giving out his potent secret of the desperate flies that came into his parlor. His comforting message: The race of men is what counts, not the individual. Finally even Dr. Endicott got it: "No matter. A few are hurt, here and there. Some fall down, and have to be gathered up. But nothing can stop the Long Parade. It carries on. . . ."

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