---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - O’Reilly, John Boyle
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 23
number: 3
published: 1920-01
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'O’Reilly, John Boyle, "What Is Good?," *Improvement Era* 23, no. 3 (January 1920): 228.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2303unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera2303unse
start_page: 228
end_page: 228
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1920-01)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2303unse
  publication_year: 1920
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1920, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# What Is Good?

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230                       IMPROVEMENT ERA

longer in the attitude of disputing the sacred account of the
risen Savior's personal appearing to his disciples after his return
from the Spirit World. (Luke 24:36-39.)

Belasco and "Peter Grimm"
    That the creator of Hamlet and Macbeth believed in
       and made plentiful use of them as part of his "celestial
spirits,
machinery," is evident from the works of the master dramatist;
and that his talented disciple, David Belasco, likewise favors
such usage, is plainly shown in that intensely interesting book
and play, The Return of Peter Grimm. Let me briefly review
the story.
     Peter Grimm, an honest, elderly Dutch-American, carrying
on the business of florist at Grimm Manor, a suburb of New
York City, has a friend and family physician in Alexander Mc-
Pherson, who, I need not say, is a Scotchman. He is also a
spiritualist, deeply interested in the laws of psychic phenomena,
and exceedingly tenacious of his occult views.
     Grimm is bluntly skeptical upon the subject, and he and his
Scotch friend have many a warm debate thereon. Finally Mc-
Pherson proposes a compact to this effect: Whichever one of
the twain passes away first, his spirit will return, if possible, and
communicate with the other, making known the secrets of the
after life.    Grimm laughs at the idea, even ridicules it, but at
last consents, and with a flash of humor suggestive of his name,
says:      "If I find I am wrong, when I come back I will apologize."
      Alittle later the florist dies suddenly of heart failure. He
passes into the Spirit World, and there obtains leave to "revisit
the glimpses of the moon," as Hamlet puts it; in other words, to
return to Grimm Manor and rectify a mistake made by him
                      —
while in the flesh a mistake affecting the happiness of his
adopted daughter Kathrien, who, yielding to his insistence, has
given up the man she loved, and has agreed to marry Grimm's
nephew, Frederic. This young man is a villain, whose unworthiness his uncle discovers after his arrival in "that undiscovered country, from whose bourne" he now proposes to "return" and prevent the marriage previously planned.
     The wrong is to be righted by the delivery of a message.
But how "get the message across?" That is the problem of the
play.   "Not every one can receive a communication from the
Spirit World." So McPherson had said in one of his conversations with Grimm, adding that "the receiver must be a sensitive,
a medium."
    Strange to say, the old Scotch physician is of no help whatever in the predicament now facing his departed friend. He

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