Evening Star Newspaper, October 25, 1931, Page 90

16 THE — REVIEW/ G N Englishman takes, naturally, to the saga. An American, as naturally, does not. That blend of Northern myth, legend, romance and history, fits Eng- land’s conception of its own high source of power and pride. Here is the glori- fication of some great hero and his line of descent, the epic waxing from age to age under - the liberal accretions of time. From father to son, to son, to son, a progression that lies at the root of all English institutional life. Laws of inheritance, economic policy, political pat- tern, foreign outlook—the entire whatnot of - British natioralism draws from away back, back - to Genesis even, in its strict and explicit linecal . “begats.” So the saga makes straight appeal to the ton. Poetry and fiction take note of this. does history, whose source is, invariably, of legendary nature. Poets and romancers gen- . erally are making much of this long throw- back to that ancient form of tale-bearing from age to age. The honor of the tribe, the perpetu- atlon of tradition, this is one of the paramount purposes of English art in its various forms. Particularly in the form of the novel. See, Mr. Galsworthy, Miss Sackville-West, Hugh Wal- le. ’oA different situation fronts upon the Amer- . fcan. He is three centuries and more away from the atimosphere of “noble birth,” descent pure and undecfiled. Here in the New England, 8o remote in time and circumstance from Old England, once his home, he has lost the keen &£dge of veneration for family lines, long and old. Moreover, the climate has served to wean him. Its tonics and invigorations have faced him upon the future, rather than upon the past. Work, hard work, has weaned him from those tales of ancestry. He is learning by way of it, by handwork and mindwork, to be his own ancestor. A heady experiment. Calculated to foster self-pride and a host of other selfiisms. But that is better, much better, than lying back upon the soft cushion of sentiment toward dead-and-gone forbears. For him, this Amer- ican, the saga is too long, too involved with current irrelevancies. Its tempo lags behind that which is so speedily and engrossingly push- ing him forward. A good brisk story of English family life from & competent hand? Is that not worth while? Decidedly worth while, as choice of reading generally proves. But, the long pursuit, in vol- ume after volume, of this man, or family, or tribe, or clan is not a close fit to the American temperament and its reading choice. Is this plausible? Or is it not? It seems to - me to reflect fairly the bulk of feeling about this matter. And one can arrive only by way of himself and such slight help as he may draw from the outside. I'm feeling along, you see, in an effort to account for the eager recep- tion of the fine English novel and for the - clearly discernible abatement of that pleasure before the series of novels bent upon the English saga. Among the very best of their writers have chosen to illuminate period, or family, or other phase of history in this way. And among these “best” here is Hugh Walpole - out with an announcement that he is already - at the middle of his four-volume course in local English history by way of the Herries tribe. Rogue Herries, source of this picture of Eng- . lish Highland life. . JUDITH PARIS. By Hugh Walpole, author of “Rogue Herries,” etc. New York: Double~ day, Doran & Co. JUDITH PARIS is the daughter of old Rogue Herries and the gypsy girl, Mirabell. Both - parents dead, immediately following her birth, Judith from the beginning looks into a future certainly of loneliness, if not one of hostility, “ Rogue Herries left a grown-up family to meet and, In large part, to resent the new Judith. A romantic rescue of the new baby lying in the cold beside its dead parents, by Tom Gauntry, not only sets a highly romantic key “to the sequence of immediate events, but it also establishes Gauntry as the refuge of Judith in many of the tempestuous times to come. Judith was born to tempests. She is the daughter of that social and moral weather- | breeder, Rogue Herries. An adventurous young- ster, more boy that girl, yet, from the begin- ning, with so much of security about her as to . make her an engrossment from the minute of " her first tomboy adventure to the final hero- “isms of her independent, fair-dealing and es- . sentially great character. Indeed, the spell of Judith Paris is her clear currency with the modern day. And this, despite her time, so llllny years ago—at least more than a century ago. Outfitted with the customs of her day and place, even though resenting them and more often than otherwise setting them brusquely aside, Judith Paris, essentially-of her own time, is a modern woman. That is not the reason why we like her. That is the reason Why we understand her—and then like her. The young woman of the present is more direct, more outspoken than those of earlier days. She has less of pretense about her. The traditions of proper behavior have in large measure fallen away from her, leaving a sin- cerer person than her grandmother was, a person less obsessed with petty proprieties, more resolute toward realities and a sturdy way of meeting them. Judith Paris, away back in that romantic setting and in that day so different from our own, is of the pattern of this new girl. She has courage, she is practical, a girl of action, of swift decisions and a prompt carrying out of these. Not overawed by the small customs that seem to have right of way among the females; not awed at all by the resentments of the older branch against this gypsy upstart, she more often than otherwise takes their clut- tered matters in hand for their simplification and better efficiency. To be sure, Judith mar- ried unwisely—another modern touch. Age- oid, for that matter, too. Storm throughout * for Judith Paris, but ever the girl is a capable SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON . B C, OCTOBER: 25, 1981 e because Betty took the Pom upon her lap. No Importance of the Saga to Englishmen and Americans —Hugh Walpole’s Newest Novel—Other Worth-While Fiction. pilot, that, not able always to make the smooth haven, never does come anywhere near making wreckage of her small craft. The story of Judith Paris is one of engross- ment. Call it history, if you will, and it is history in a sense. Call it anything you will of impressive naming as authentic source of knowledge about England or any part of that *fsland at one time in its high career. Speak of it as one step in the great adventure of Hugh Walpole in the picturesque and romantic story of his country. I'm sure it is all of these things. But, primarily, to most readers it will be the story of a finely human woman, of great strength in times of stress, of much folly in times of ease—but always the woman of our own understanding, of our own admiration, once in a while ¢f our own envy. A modern Judith, despite the actual period of her exist- ence and despite the careful work of Mr. Wal- pole in keeping her within her own day. Just couldn’t be-done, in its effect, however. And that is one of the great points in a story that will receive no entl of praise and appraisal. TWO PEOPLE: A Novel. By A. A. Milne, au- thor of “When We Were Very Young,” etc. Illustrated by E. H. Shepard. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. ARRIED. The “two.” Another novelist, almost any other, would have made mere episode of the wedlock, a short-term sentence, so to speak. Only a conjurer could produce permanency plus happiness out of such a union. For Sylvia, party of the first part, has not one grain of sense. But, Sylvia to look at——Oh! Pearl and rose, azure and gold, that is Sylvia. A thing to flutter and then to settle deep into a man’s innermost, to its great dis- quieting. And so they were married. The girl and the young novelist. They “lived happy ever after.” Such the purpose of the story. Designed, no doubt, as an offset to the ribald volumes on marriage that so prevail as current reading. Having, however, made the beautiful creature that he did make, Mr. Milne seems to have lost his head over her, just as the new husband did. Seduced away from serious intent, Mr. Milne must have decided, sensibly, to turn the pastoral into a comedy of modern sophistica- tion. The story moves along by way of the h¥s- band's growing success as a novelist. In no time at all, however, he discovers that he has in his keeping very little to sustain the de- mands of happy wedlock, save something to look at. Not so much of actual resource in that. “Yes, darling,” “No, darling,” just about budgets the mind of Sylvia and 1its recordings in speech. Now what could any one do, save to make play of an episode that was meant, originally, to be an idyl, maybe a message? Nothing at all. And that is what Mr. Milne does. The garden spot of Westaway expands beyond its first Edenic limits to include the social and literary purlieus of Londos as the celebrity of the new author grows. And here, too, Sylvia goes her dumb but dazzling way to the con- founding of maledom. Happily, the young husband has the secret resource of every poet and novelist. He is able, through the divine gift of imagination, to eke out the shortages of his womankind by inventing women of his own with whom he holds communion, irreproach- able as it is undivined. A smiling story, Milnesque in every line. Gay whimsicality, genial mood, genuine humor, mark the masterly shift of this novelist from the true picture of “A Happy Marriage” to the subtle, softly ironic lines of comedy, based upon the seemingly unanswerable problem of modern domestic life. NORMAN DOUGLAS. By H. M. Tomlinson. New York: Harper & Bros. M. TOMLINSON engaged In literary ap- « praisal is certainly worth attention of highly expectant sort. Recall literary criticism by—well, say by Henry Mencken and those who follow after the methods of this writer. You are sure not to be offered anything like those devas- tating performances. It will be something else. First it will be a reasonable outlook, based upon pretly wide and fairly deep understanding of the case in hand, of the writer in question. Here we find Mr. Tomlinson engrossed in Norman Douglas, who has n his time evoked praise and blame, both ardent and feeling. The blame over-topping the praise, in bulk, maybe. Now it seems to this critic that the only stand- point to take is to get at the man himself. What about him as a man, under the writer, under this high-tensioned prolific writer? The man 1is super-active as such, interested in a host of things, expert in many things. Mind and writing hand go along with these numerous enterprises. Stories, travel tales, adventures of fact and of fancy, too, spill from the writing machine in such abundance as to worry slow- going folks. A man of exceeding versatility is Norman Douglas. And here upon this foundation does Mr. Tomlinson rest the whole of his discus- sion of the work of Douglas. By this alone does he account for the great variety of theme used by Mr. Douglas. Here, too, he places the im- petuosity and plunge of his writings, sourcing charges against Mr. Douglas of inconsistency, even of contradiction. And, mildly, Mr. Tom- linson suggests that inconsistency is not only common, but that is as often a viriue as it is the opposite of that. And so the visit of Mr. Tomlinson to Norman Douglas—and that is about what it is, in effect—goes on with this basic versatility of an exceedingly brilliant man as the groundwork of any complaint worth notice that may rise against him. But that is not the whole of the book. The rest of it is the spirit of H. M. Tomlinson himself and the way of the man with his own words, so convincing and so inspiring besides. HALF A LOAF. By Grace Hegger Lewis. New York: Horace Liveright. ITH vehemence, in itself suspicious, every- body declares a dislike for gossip. All unite in stout denial of any interest in the pri- vate personal affairs of others. Yet dealers in print, editors and book publishers, astute in common psychology, know that the keenest concern of readers centers upon the tittle- tattle of gossip rather than upon matters of zo0d substance and general importance. At this moment there is a perfect rabble of clamor over a new book about Washington. The rush for it is extraordinary. An inconsiderable docu- ment as a whole, questionable in fact, care- lessly written, projected in sheer bad taste. Upon the whole, a quite deplorable close-up of the author’s own stripe of mind. Not a thing to commend this creation, save that it purports to unlock the closet doors in all the houses of the prominent ones whom the public itself has sent to Washington to carry on the business of the Government. Seems a long way from “Half a Loaf,” Mrs. Lewis’ new novel. Onmly next door, as matter of fact. The first wife of the popular author of “Main Street,” Mrs. Lewis has written a novel whose theme is the domestic life of cne who, like Lewis, has reached wide favor with novcl readers. The husband and wife and child, in their advance from the status of the average small family to that of a sought-out celebrity, become the theme of “Half a Loaf.” Prcmptly the public scents autobiography instead of fictional creation. Therefore, time that in the second case would be spent in the enjoyable reading of a novel goes into ferreting out shreds of actuality, scraps of to-and-fro in the reali- ties of domestic disagreement, matching up this rumor with that occurrence of the story— and so on from garret to cellar in the private life of these two. The book is no novel, these say. Record of fact instead. And there you are. Without such unfortunate setting, here is an interesting story, strong here, not so streng there. As a whole, however, it is clearly bent upon an impersonal study of character and temperament in their reactions to an uncom- monly rapid rise in the world’s esteem and in the backwash of this upon earlier obligations and situations, Next time, farther away from such domestic handicap, Mrs. Lewis will be able to prove herself without quite so much of meddling on the part of the public. Good courage and a good story stand here as war- rant for a better story to come. THE OREGON TRAIL. By Francis Parkman. Philadelphia; John C. Winston Co. OT more than a month ago Melville's “Moby Dick” came to us from the John C. Winston Co., a model of beauty and book craftsmanship. Now comes Parkman’s great story “The Oregon Trail” in an equal distinc- tion of art applied to the making of a book. Two volumes calculated in equal measure to gratify the growing desire for great literature to be appropriately outfitted in its externals. Co-operating with the Oregon Trail Memorial Association, this publishing house has included here an introduction by Howard H. Driggs, president of the Memorial Association and professor of English, New York University. The quite remarkable illustrations are the work of William H. Jackson, undertaken and carried out for the association. Notes by Mabel Dodge Jones, Ph. D., supply points of illumination to the text. Here is the historic tale itself, the great record of a great adventure. To it are added from highly competent sources every means of rounding the whole to a perfection of usefulness and beauty, One does not see two volumes quite so desirable and at the same time quite so available as these two issues from the John C. Winston house. BINGO IS MY NAME. By Anne Stoddard. Pictured by Berta and Elmer Hader. New York: The Century Co. INGO is like the movie star. He can't keep out of the picture. And, between you and me, if the screen star could register and deliver with the vim and veracity of Bingo, why, then it would be indeed of a celestial radiance for which the world would be the happier. Two feet of dog—more or less—clad in silken wire from tail-end to ear-droop—or ear-lift when life is looking up. That's Bingo who here grants the close-up of a single episode in his crowded life. Jealousy is the theme. A pampered Pom came visiting the family. “A dog?” said Bingo with a scrutiny that Jean Fabre himself might have given to the object. “That is an insect.” Page by page, pictures un- fold the misery of Bingo under the jabbings and proddings of that devil of the green eyes. That time when he lay “in the cellar all day” more of grief and gloom could be depicted in any human, under like affliction, than in Bingo, prostrate and alone, no future, no present exe cept two feet of palpitating hurt. Then the lit- tle shrimp, or bug, or whatever it was, got into trouble. The roughneck dog next door tock a notion to eat up the Pom. Well a man, or a dog, cannot go on wallowing in agony when the call of chivalry and decency comes. So Bingo pulled himself out, long enough to give that brute what, clearly, was coming to him. And when he came out cf the fray something had happened to Bingo. He had a sneaking feeling for that finger-pinch of a Pom that made him ashamed, at first. He actually rather liked the midget. Or at any rate a fellow can't see a thing like that go on and not do some- thing about it. Every mood comes cut here page by page, in so inspired a fashion, in so tlear a picture of the man-dog nature, that this little Bingo story turns out to be so positively a moving picture of both Bingo and the rest of us that—well, here is without doubt a “best seller” of an art book on the subject of Bingo. “Is it not a child's book?"” asks the literal lady. “I don’t know. It's my book.” It will go every= where, and should. DAGGER AND JEWELS: The Gorgeous Ad- ventures of Benvenuto Cellini; A Romantic Novel. By William Dana Orcutt, author of “The Moth,” etc. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. A VERSATILE man, William Dana Orcutt, Novelist, book collector, author of books on collecting, traveler and almost every other whate not of joy in life. Once journeying in Italy he settled there for a period in order to collecg Benvenuto Cellini in his own proper setting of Italian scene and legend and atmosphere. Not so difficult a task, in general, since Cellini so copiously and splendidly collected himself for the use and deight of those to come after him. But, in particular, Mr. Orcutt’s plan differed markedly from the self-glorifying orgy of tha “Cellini Autobiography.” Rather has his dee sign been to set out in body and spirit the Italy of that period and within it to discover this genius who is at the same time adventurer in love, in factional strife, in personal quarrel and encounter with some show of occasion, or none at all to start troubles of spreading exe citment and danger. With an age and a hero so close of kin to his own picturesque seizure of life, Mr. Orcutt has produced an absorbing novel whose human content is as engrossing in its behaviors as its historic pageant of war and art is authentic, as the natural and storied beauty of Italy it self is reproduced in deep appreciation and in splendid portraiture. Books Received BORN IN CAPTIVITY. By Barbara Starke. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. MARY FAITH. By Beatrice Burton Morgan, author of “The Flapper Wife,” etc. New York: Farrar and Reinhart, Inc. GOOSE STEPS TO PEACE. By Jonathan Mitchell. Boston: Little, Brown and Come pany. SERMONS TO MY FRIENDS. By E. J. Mor= ris, D.D., author of “Prejudiced Inquiries,” etc. Boston: The Stratford Company. THE VICTORIOUS KNIGHT. By Estella M. Kaiser. Boston: The Stratford Company. MARRIED LOVE: A New Contribution to the Solution of Sex Difficulties. Authorized Edition. By Marie Carmichael Stopes, Doc= tor of Science, London; Doctor of Philoso= pby, Munich. Preface by Dr. Jessie Mure ray. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. MODERN HEBREW ORTHOPEDIC TERMIN- OLOGY AND JEWISH MEDICAL ESSAYS, By Henry Keller, M.D. Foreword by Ezekiel Leavitt. Boston: The Stratford Company. BEAT 'EM OR JOIN 'EM. By Clement G. Lanni. Illustrated. Rochester: Rochester Alliance Press. PRISONER HALM. By Karl Wilke. Trans- lated from the German. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. POISON AT COURT: Certain Figures of the Reign of Louis XIV. By Marie Cher. New York: D. Appleton and Company.® THE COMPANY OF SHADOWS. By J. M. Walsh, author of “The Black Ghost.” New York: Brewer and Warren, Inc. SILVER TRUMPETS CALLING. By Lucille Borden, author of “The Candlestick Mak- ers" ete. New York: The Macmillan Company. THE COMMON SENSE OF DRINKING. By Richard R. Peabody. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. PRACTICAL WATER-COLOR SKETCHING. By E. G. Lutz. New York: Charles Scrib- ner’'s Sons (with practical instructions for making wash drawings in color and black and white). THE WRITTEN CONSTITUTION AND THE UNWRITTEN ATTITUDE. By Charles Ed« ward, professor of political science, Chi= cago University. New York: Richard R. Smith, Inc. SHUDDERS. By Lilian E. Austin. Boston? Meador Publishing Company. EROS BOOKPLATES — REDUCED! Ultra modern woodcuts 2 colors Identllv your books with EROS E. IBRIS. Use Holiday cards. Your nlme Drlnted Bnlendm inexpensive gifts. Send 10c for large sam= ples; 25 for 50c. Desk S-T-9, EROS BOOKPLATES, PHILA. PA. 1609 N. Broad St.