SPEAK TO THE EARTH. By Sarah Comstock, Doubleday, Page and Commany, New York. 1927. $2.00.

THE theme of "Speak to the Earth," in the hands of a competent writer, might have been worthy of the excellent title, but the author of this novel has bungled it. A discouraged ex-service man tries sheepraising on the Bad Lands of the West, and fails; as he is on the point of suicide, he meets a stray from the East, a shop-girl from Newark, who has been induced by a lady real estate agent to come to a boom town which has failed to boom. What could be more natural than that the hero should take this waif to his ranch, on the theory that two can starve as cheap as one?

They do not starve, but with the inspiration of Effie, Victor overcomes tremendous hardships and makes the ranch go. The worst misfortune they suffer is the ostracism of the frontier community, because for some reason which is not made clear the two outcasts have not bothered to marry. In the end Effie dies in childbirth, while Victor is off with the sheep; but he has learned to carry on.

There are occasional vivid phrases of description, but the writing as a whole is poor. The book is divided into small sections, after the manner of Sinclair Lewis; one of these sections is as follows:

"Silence.

Miles.

More silence.

More miles."

Even this wild effort at modernity, however, cannot save the staleness of a good idea gone wrong. Victor Trench might have been a memorable figure, but he is little better than a strong silent man who is rather dumb. How his hatred of women melts before the gentle magic of Effie's home-making, how his better instincts are aroused in the struggle to protect her, how, when she is dead, he feels her spirit urging him to stick it out--all this makes a thoroughly bad novel, and nothing else.