Evening Star Newspaper, April 13, 1930, Page 102

THE GOTHICK NORTH: A Study e?Mediacval . Life, Art and Thought. By Bacheverell :Sit- £ i a;:E i Efig‘i'%ga T # el H § g £ I 'gi it H £ £ie i £ : T l'-g g b Northman in that one's conception of life his achievements in civilisation. A very inter- esting thing to do, it turns out. At least Mr. Sitwell makes it absorbing. To trace the de- ences is a great ativenture. This adventure Mr. Sitwell confines to the Nordic art and institu- ‘dons, to Nordic modes of thought and schools historian, over some this or that, out from which he draws finally an illuminating episode that stands for a complete period of artistic -develop- ment. Yet it is not for the fact, authentic and complete, that ones goes along here. Rather for the man, talking seemingly ‘to himself, does enwtollow, to catch the opinions that he gathers gut of rock or stone or old tower or fading tapestry. To catch, as well, ‘the re-embodiment of these fragments into the completed unity from which they have fallen, and upon ‘which they point for fulfiliment. Now and then others join this wanderer—or are they pure inventions, to serve an audience snd spur to his own wpeech? No matter. They give companionship Shrough the long, long way chosen 'by an idling poet, who at times becomes the most rigorous of investigators upon the themes of ‘history, architecture and its aitendant arts, upon tapestry and other expressions of the cold, clean-cut, rigorous, exacting agencies ‘that carved the face of the North and ‘that, naturally dominated and directed the course of its his- fory, its music, its paintings, its woven pic- tures—that shaped, indeed, the full sum, of most un-Higginslike behavior. Aride from him, the others lived up %o the mark of old Hen- @erson himself—and what a mark! TLet's stop @ ‘minute here to pay tribute to an author, a t that, who can conceive and deliver % the pages of & movel such splendid men. Good men? ‘Ne, not at all good! Masterful, srregant, unreasonable, uncontrolled themselves, THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, APRIL 13, 1930. A Study of Medieval Life; Art and Thought. AV ariety of Novels for the Reader Who Prefers Fiction. is a story w be told, one wherein these are but elements and agents. And here it is—the of the Higgins dynasty living out across mountains, yet in the near East. Just a story of carrying on in the human fashion— loving and marrying, getting -children and gaining some property out in the new land. And, since this is » Higgins record, it is the story, also, of running the town, dictating its It is the story of a man's world— and adroit, Mrs. Andrews suggests by way of two of these women, that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Hendy's wife is a wise young woman, beautiful, too, who makes woman's headway here. And Ellen—Geod bless her!—old and fat, with warts and things on her face, dumpy “like Queen WVictoria, looks like her, too"— Ellen is wise enough and kind enough and stanch enough to win, finally, the heart of every Higgins, -‘even the hard-shelled heart of old Henderson himself. High moments, hard. moments and tender ones .illuminate the course of shis story of an American family living in the circumstances of a .century ago. A novel to delight readers who enjoy good work, a dramatic .imagination, the sophisiicate outleok of & waywise intelligence. A ready wit, a quick turn of werd, a gallant outlook of confidence in the human, no matter how outrageously he may act up now end then. A finely com- petent piece of literary work steps out here for our acceptance and appreciation. ARROWS OF DESIRE. By Judith Clark. New York: Minton, Balch & Co. Jm CLARK merits attention. Not by ‘virtue of her name nor her individual self. Chanee has brought her this way, so it is as Judith Olark, representing a new idea in the business of writing, of literature, that she is invited to stand up ‘here, for the minute a type. How plain ‘it is growing ‘to ‘be—that the young woman is eoming on. Coming on in the right way, too. In the orly way. This is a college girl. Armies of these are growing. Educated— as ‘the name. of that university experience runs—she is now, only now, ready to begin. +To begin what? To learn a profession—in this case the profession of novel writing—whese founda- tion is the training of that college course. 8o fiction-making is :a 'profession? That's what she says—many, many of her are now working upon this ‘theory—and ‘they .are going to make the grade imposed by this very logical -exaction. No longer dees some inspired maiden turn out best sellers on the thin “I've just scribbled all my life,” or other such futility. "Twen't do. Not any longer. This Judith Clark—these hundreds of her—nowadays work like cart horses over suitable themes, what they hope to do 'with these, where—oh, where?—to find the characters, the line of action, the back- ground for the whole, the outcome, the literary imagination for a 'bodily projection of this rounded and proportional vision. All of this and infinitely moye goes into this architectural dream of writing to\the young woman of the day. Here is a sample—this of the one and only Judith Clark. The type has disappeaxed. The young woman, in her own body and mind, is mow offering “Arrows of Desire,” her first novel, the first fiction in preof of her prepara- tion as an actual student in a real college. “The World War chang:d life in many striking ways. ‘Only one of these startling divergences from honored convention comes into this novel. However, it is rather vital; so suppose we pick it out from its surroundings for a closer look at it. Here a young woman, deeply in love and faithfully in love, changes the tide of human behaviors by way of making the marriage pro- posa] herself. This is at ‘the very end of the story, of course—its climax, in fact—but the narration is at the moment of 1sss account than the incident of which we are talking. The young man is reluctant to .accept the offer—indeed, comes near to turning it down completely. Now, what do you think of that as & bomb thrown straight into the ciosed garden of maidenly reticences and withhold- ings? I've read the story—in deep delight throughout—and, having read it in a good seizure of the circumstances, in a thorough enjoyment of the excellence of its conception and structure, T'm for the girl, convention or no convention. You will be, too, when you follow the full course of this war period as it worked its strange ways here in Washington and across the bridge in Virginia. Fully at home here, Miss Clark creates a thoroughly realistic picture of this locale at that time. A minor matter, but you Washington readers will take a keen pleasure in these familiar streets and houses and ways of the folks roundabout. The war tension comes into the matter, not ponderously, but very much as it was. Then there is the news—bad news and fair news— and finally the serious wounding of that one young Virginian who counted so completely with the girl of the story, Barrie Chamberlain, The great war wasn't so much—not to this girl—compared to the fight she had to put up win this half-man, this crippled wreck of war time, to a dim notion that any om¢ & ohe could—oh, not possible! You read it. g world Read it for what it tries to do—and does do. Read it for its realism and romance arifully welded. Read it for the freedom of its gesture toward life, for the drama that any day may project in your own path, for the poetry of its imagery, for the plain sense of its eoncept of human behavior. A salute to the young college women, learning to do things and to do them right, is due right here—to the Judith Clarks, to this ene in particular. You read that story and feel yourself grow in understanding, to say nothmg of your frank enjoyment of & romance 100 per cent meodern. PAL: The Story of an Airedale. By Alexandra C. Jenkins. Pictures by Kurt Wiese. New York: D. Appleton & Co. ANXIBUB moment in the dog shop when that kind-looking pair steed, hesitating, before Pal's cage. But—it was in a minute, and Pal was out and on his way, leav- ing a deal of growling behind ‘him among the disappointed pups over the silly choice of Pal; “a spot on his side,” “one hind leg not exactly up to the scratch with the other three” and so on, much like folks in shuations not unlike this one. Beyond that point of release the happy story of ene year in an airedale's life is ‘taken over by the dog himself. ‘Geed story, too, from whese clean-out pictures many a ‘writer ‘with pen in hand might learn a thing or two wbout the high art of narration. A modest pup, is Pal, so engrossed %n ‘the endless chain of being actively and completély alive that he has not time for more than the facts themselves and no moment at all for the pause to scratch himself in a “good doggie” meed. Yet in this shert autobiographic pass—not mere than half an hour long—those qualities that have set the dog so high in the scheme of creation simply eoze out from the rough hide of ‘this friendly and joyoué pup. No need to count them over. ¥You know them—the love and loyalty, the uncanny sense of partaking in the meods of those gods-of-the-hearth to whom kindly fate has assigned him. ¥ou know. Pal appears to have them all in some ‘measure. As & good story always does, this one ends on a high note of anticipation. No casualities, no tragedy—to be sure at one crigis Pal passes quickly over “and then I got my first lickin’,” but with no hard Teelings about it. Rather as if it were coming to him. The Summer over, & .Summer in the .country, Pal and the folks, a5 the matter eomes to a close, are packed and away for a back-to-town adventure. The ‘pleasure here, to the reader, is that the airedale is left alone to tell the thing as it looks to him. An artful and companionable piece of work. .Books Received WHAT HAPPENED AT ANDALS? By John Arnold, author of “The Murders in Surry Wood,” etc. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. WOMEN HAVE TOLD; Studies in the Femin- ist Tradition. By Amy Wellington. Illus- trated. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. BALONS; Pictures of Society Through Five Centuries. By Valerian Tornius. English version by Agnes Platt and Lilian Wonderley, New York: Cosmapolitan Book Corperation. FREE. By Bhair Niles, author of “Condenmed to Devil’s Island.” New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. GATHER THE STARS. By Diana Patrick. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. INDIA IN BONDAGE; Her Right to Freedom and a Place Among the Great Nations. By Jubez T. Sunderland, M. A, D. D, former president of the India Information Bureau of America, editor of Young India, author of “India, America and World Brotherhood,” etc. New York: Lewis Copeland Co. THE CRYSTAL ICICLE. By Katherine Keith. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. THESE LORDS' DESCENDANTS. By Glovia Geoddard. Wew York: Prederick A. Stokes ‘Co, AMERICA SET FREE. By Count Hermann Keyserling, author of “The Travel Diary of a Philosopher,” etc. New York: Harper & Bros THE RUNNER; A Romance of the Niagaras. By Ralph Connor, author of “The Sky Pilot,” etc. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co. WALTHER RATHENAU; His Life and Work, By Count Harry Kessler. New York: Hare court, Brace & Co. ON . BOARD THE EMMA; Adventures with Garibaldi’s “Thousand” in Sicily. By Alex- andre Dumas. Translated with an mtroe -duction by R. S. Garnett. WNew York: D. Appleton & Co. DAMPIER; Explorer and Buccaneer, By Clen- nell Wilkinson. New York: Harper & Bras, GOD HAVE MERCY ON US! A Story of 1918, By Willlam T. Scanlon. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co. EDWARD COKE; Oracle of the Law. By Hastings Lyon and Hermar Block of the New York Bar. Illustrated. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co. JOHN MERRILL'S PLEASANT LIFE. By Alice Beal Pearsons, author of “The Insider,” etc. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. FRANCE: A Nation of Patriots. By Carlton J. H. Hayes, professor of history in Columbia University. New York: Columbia University Press. CROWD YOUR LUCK ON DEATH. Ry Harry Kasputin. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. THE MISSIONARY. By Edison Marshall, Tllustrated by Jules Gotlieb. New York: Cosmopolitan. CARQL OF CRANFORD HIGH. By Earl Reed Silvers. New York: Appleton. THE ADVENTURES OF POLYDORE. By Stanley Hart Caufiman. Philadelphia: Penn. THE TOWER STAIR. By George W. Harring- ton, author of “The Garden by the Sea,” etc. Boston: Cornhill. AFRICA; and Some World Problems, including the Rhodes Memorial Lectures delivered in Michaelmas Term, 1929. By Gen. J. C. Smuts. Oxford University Press. 3 Now read 4 . " No wonder i they loved her! “Inhnutely cleverer than the other ‘ex’ books The pages gleam with the rhinestone brilliance of Broadway ™ g — 8t Paul Diparch $2.00 o all bookstores BERNARR MACFADDEN —what manner of man is he? =what are the inside facts of his phenomenal rise to power? —what are the methods by which he exerts his influence upon millions of Americans? Bernarr Macfadden by CremeNT Woobn This 'book ' is an appraisal and interpretation of the physical culturist and leader in the publishing industry, ‘whe stands today as the pre-eminent exponent of health ‘The author analyzes Macfadden’s remarkable career and evaluates his rela- and vitality through right living. tionship to medern America. $3.00. The True Story . Bernarr Maciadden by FurroN OursLER A FACT-NARRATIVE of a much discussed American— boy who won health and An intimate biography that starts from boyhood and reveals, step by the true story of a peor wealth, -education and power. Macfadden's rise to fame. $2.50. Chats with the 1 a figure of profound interest to Americans in all walks of life—is now for the first time intimately revealed and critically appraised: Bernarr Maecfiadden A Study in Success “One of America’s mosh inspiring true stories.’'— Huntington (W. Va)) Herald Advertiser. “Talk about human in- terest! Here we have it.”" —St. 'Louis ‘Globe- Pemecrat. “4n honest appraisal of a great man.”—Indian- apolis Star. “A remarkable character with an unusual eareer.” —Miami Herald. of step, complete ‘handbook - flA Maciadden Family - s by Grace PErkiNg Here is an Intimate visit behind the scenes-—glimpses into the lives of one of the most interesting families in the eountry—the actual demonstmtions of the value of Mr. Macfadden’s principles of family life. Boston Globe. “Sensible and sivaight- forward.” —Atlanta Jour. $2.50. nal. At All Bookstores or from LEWIS COPELAND C0O., 119 W. 57th St., New York ~ i ! _§ :