Evening Star Newspaper, November 29, 1931, Page 97

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., NOVEMBER 29, 1391, n OLAND came into its recent and per- sistent general prominence through Woocdrow Wilson's steadfast espousal of its claims in the peace conference and settlements of the World War. Since then “the Polish corridor” has been accepted currency of diplematic exchanges. An uneasy bit of coinage, to be sure, shifting from pocket to hand and back again throughout international deliberaticns. Yet clearly calcu- lated to endure, to wear. Prior to such re-emergence into the world’s open Poland was, to the average, but a part of the huddle of European states budgeted as “the Near East.” A vast area, over which armies had marched to and fro innumerable times, conquest the cbject, a new alignment of sovereignty the goal, new names to designate changed imperial power. The great battlefield of Tartar and Slav, Goth and YVandal, Teuton and Hun—in an inexact and .omewhat indis- criminate citation. Yet about Poland itself there has ever re- mained an aura of ancient glory. Dim heroic figures, pivotal pcints of time, epical events— these pass vaguely through the far years. The feeling, persistence of a lost estate, of power gone—but remembering and remembered. EWILDERING days, these. The earth but a spinning electrified atom, bringing the far and near together in immediate touch and communication. The past is now the present. Today is a millennium away in some ancientry of human life. Today is a thousand years to the fore, projected by the vision and achieve- ments of the great wizard, Science. A bewildering time, discouraging, too. “So little done, so much to do.” Yet one must start somewhere. And no better point offers, maybe, than the somewhat near past of peoples who, like us, were making what they could of the experiment of being alive and human. In the dilemma of the present there are, however, sources of help that do brighten the prospect of getting in touch, a little, with great facts. Science has joined hands with history, with every branch of common life, with fiction even, in an effort to clear and amplify itself to the common mind, to the average of us desiring. A case in point here, where history and romance have united to throw an illumination over the Poland cf 500 years ago. JADWIGA: POLAND'S GREAT QUEEN. By Charlotte Kellog. - Preface by Ignaz Jan Paderewski. Introduction by Frank M. Sim- monds. New York: The Macmillan Co. RS. VERNON KELLOG of Washington and otherwhere offers a great romance to readers, projects a chapter of history that is already more than half a thousand years away from us, in an alien and vanished past. The familiar historical novel? Not at all Not a scrap of burial garment clings to this resurrection. No damp mustiness of the tomb upon it. Instead, here is a live thing, at the beginning buoyant with youth and hope. Later a subdued and conforming thing that sacrifices persoral life to the life of the people and the nation. That is the story, in substance. Yet that conveys no notion of the vitality of this great drama that played itself out upon a stage so far away in the background of years. Jadwiga is a little girl when the story opens. Yet she is the center of the sumptuous wedding ceremcnial that joins her to another royal child in what was then known as “the false marriage.” A bit of statecraft, common to the age, which placed a mortgage on cradle and nursery for the security of future blended sovereignties. A happy childhood for these playmates offers a quite idyllic hour to readers. A short hour, after all. For another alliance of deeper significance in the making of new kingdoms or the strengthening of old ones cocmes the way of this royal Jadwiga. And here is renunciation of purest patterm. It is here that Jadwiga ceases to be the girl, the woman, and becomes the type of patriotic devotion. A heroine. A great figure, an honor to her country, a saint of self-sacrifice for the coming years to adore and, just possibly, to emulate at one small point or another, But, child, girl, women, savior and saint, Jadwiga remains vibrantly alive. She does not move out into a thin atmosphere nor up to some unattainable height of aloof heroism. And that is, in the main, the distinction of ‘“Jadwiga: Poland’s Great Queen.” Plenty of writers could have set down the facts of Poland’s history at the time. But here is a re-creation, that is the result, it seems to me, of intelligent, pains- taking and persistent research on the part of the writer. That, but a little more than half of the essence of such success. But, as student alone, Mrs. Kellog has proved herself. Not only the story demcnstrates this, but the co- operation and suppcrt of learning and states- manship indicate the substantial place she is holding. All said and done, however, it is the artist who wins in a work of this sort. To endow the romance with life, with an effect of current life, with incidents such as are everlasting in the human heart and mind. Then to shape and fashion to roundness and symmetry, to senti- ment, harmony and balance with time—any time, all time—this, I take, is the foundation, is the logic, of this re-creation out of Poland’s past. Tribute goes to the author of a new and great historical novel. THE ALMOND TREE. By Grace Zaring Stone, author of “The Bitter Tea of General Yen,” etc. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co. GRACE ZARING STONE of Washington has already been placed by Book League and Literary Guild awards as a novelist of individual distinction. A writer, besides, whose qualities are of the quietly substantial sort that hold regard, after winning it. In fact, one has the feeling now and then thai this lady has The Case of Poland, Today and I'ive Hundred Years Ago—“The Almond Tree” and “Finch’s Fortune,”’ T'wo of the Autumn Novels. done something very fine, has done it, too, when many folks were not looking. Kind of an abused feecling takes hold of an up-and- coming reader, in such case. I remember waking up to “General Yen” in a sudden sheer delight. That should have taught me. But— you know—a million books on hand—are a million books—or less. Still the coming-to was only delayed. For here I am making my best obeisance to Grace Zaring Stone for having done it again. For having projected in quiet and composed certi- tude a new noval out of the later, and big- ger, outloock of writers upon the novel as a meidum of illumination as well as a source of passing enjoyment. Washington backs the romance. A family sets it to action. The background is of a piece with the spirit of the story, with the spirit of the artist as well. There is here no literary blazonry of the capital, such as writ- ers have tried to produce, in clear failure. Alusions to an old quarter, to one or more historic houses—and that is about all, save for glimpses of city vistas and the feeling of its Spring sunlight upon the streets. No more, save as medium for action involves such locale. A family of women, three sisters and a daughter of one of them. A spinster, a divorcee, a widow—the daughter. A manless world, in effect. What to do about this un- usual, unnatural, situation becomes the busi- nesse of the romance itself. An old family of discreet outlook. So there is to be no modern capering here. Rather a serious on-looking to find out how women, alone, fill themselves and their days with the “stuff that life is made of” in an almost fantastic destitution of the most common, and intimate, of social re- actions. The family bond holds good. Yet divergences within the blpod come out in the varied situations. The spinster, a trifle sap- less, in her clear authority as head of the clan. The divorcee—well, behaving in char- acter, a high character upon the whole. The widow disconsolate and mourning—for a time. The young girl longing to get out, to be free, to do things—but in a measure held. The current drift of the feminine world is embodied in “The Almond Tree.” Its emergence into the open, timid or bold, its makeshifts between the past and a most de=- manding and disconcerting future, its shed- ding womanhood, womanhood in the old sense; its perplexed and frightened poise upon the thresheld of tomorrow—all here, in a quiet and unassuming self-conviction that takes hold of readers to their own stimulation, even excitement, FINCH'S FORTUNE. By Mazo de la Roche, author of “Jalna,” etc. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. OOKS like a company of gified women this morning, dossn’t it?” Well, it is something like that. With Mazo de la Roche and the Whitecaks of Jalna we are at home, eager to know which of the masterful tribe is, for the moment, in the saddie, so to speak. And to speak almost literally, since horseback and saddle were their commonest sitting places. This time we follow “Finch,” really a minor member of the family. Or minor till he, to the surprise, and dismay, of every living White- oak, inherited old Adeline’s fortune. No one among them more embarrassed than the lucky Finch himself. What to do with the money? That was his problem. So, to Renny and Piers and Meg and all the rest of the tribe he began to give-this, and that, and the other as each seemed to nced or desire. He himself, taking along Uncle Nicholas and Uncle Ernest, went over to England on a visit to their sister, Augusta, Finch's aunt. Jalna and England, together, give the story & most interesting spread of scene and action, revealing Finch along the way as being much more of a Whiteoak than the autocratic Renny had divined, much more of a human being and artist than even he himself had hoped. You know the Whiteoak folks and you know Jalna, to say nothing of Miss de la Roche her- self, to whom most novel readers are in debt. Hardly any current writer has quite the con- trol of her people, the mastery of character, that this one possesces and makes use of to depict the varied Whiteoak temperament, to portray the different aspects of the Whiteoak - temper, to draw out, nevertheless, lovable and engaging traits of family fealty and really deep affection. Now and then, tired of the noisy tribe, one likes to get away with one or an- other of them alone—that is, alone except for the author. Then the country blossoms under the hand of Mazo de la Roche, a tender and competent poet of the open. A best-selling author without question. All that remains for cne merc admirer to do is to join in with all the cthers who so heartily acclaim this creator of Jalna and the White- oaks, a saga of that Canadian clan, LADYBROOK. By Eleanor Farjeon, author of “The Soul of Kol Nikon,” etc. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. UST people of the South Downs, of Sussex, step out here at the call of Eleanor Far- jeon to live their lusty days and nights in the open of a story book. A good robust tale, that, somehow, makes a reader feel hearty and capable, too. Nothing pallid here, nothing sick. Human? Oh, tremendously! Work has its easements in love-making, troubles are not shy and retiring in the face of so much invita- tion to disaster out of mere human nature—but the whole is cleansed, washed and rinsed, in English rains, dried in English suns and comes out sweet and good-smelling to thé senses of any reader. A touch of the Cinderella is not amiss, Debby, the dairy maid, wins some sort of love from the squire’s son. Another leaf from life makes concrete demonstration that a man may love two women at once. Query: If two why Notes of Art and Artists Continued from Fourtecnth Page shire Summer School of Art, a member of the California Print Society and other profes- sional organizations. He has made a specialty of block prints in color, and those he produces are charming. MRS. MARGUERITE NEUHAUSER has cpened a studio at her home, 1847 Kalo- rama road, where she is showing at the present time landscape paintings, murals and deco- rated articles of use, such as trays, screens and boxes. Mrs. Neuhauser will open this exhibition with a tea on the afternoon of November 28. The exhibition, however, will be open to the public from the 29th through December, or longer. It will be recalled that Mrs. Neuhauser and Miss Critcher held an exhibition for a few days at the Mayflower last year, at which time the public had an opportunity to see some of Mrs. Neuhauser’s decorative werk as well as her‘ paintings, both of which called forth much praise. AN exhibition of illustrations and decorative work by Hugo Inden will be held at the residence of Dr. and Mrs. Philip S. Graven, 2007 Massachusetts avenue, from November 29 to Deceinber 6 from 1 to 4:30 p.m. each day. This exhibition also will be cpcned by a tea on Saiurday afternoon, November 28, for which Dr. and Mrs. Graven have sent out cards. Mr. Inden is a member of the faculty of the Abbolt School, and his works have been seen in exhibitions at the Arts Club and else- where. He is a modernist, but one whose mod- ernism has its rosts in tradition. HE Society of Washington Artists has just issued the snnouncement of its forty-first annual exhibition, to be held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art January 1 to 31, 1932, Entry blanks and further information can be obe- tained by addressing the secretary, Roy Clar, at 144 Uhland terrace, sts ANNE FULLER ABBOTT will enter- tain the Art and Archaeology League Sate urday, December 5, at 4 o'clock at a studio tea and private view of the Winter exhibition of students’ work of the Abbott School. She will give a talk on “Modern Tendencies in Commercial Art.” The work of American and foreign artists will be used to illustrate the lecture, when methods of training these artists and their various styles will be discussed. Rice I ndust;y Progresses HE sowing of rice seed keeps apace with mode ern progress. Former tedious methods have been thrown in the discard by some of the more up-to-the-minute farmers of California. Now they flood their rice fields and scatter their seed with an airplane. The water then distributes the seed. The work has been ime measurably speeded up by this new method. Insects Take Apple Toll 'NSECTS take rank among the largest con- sumers of apples in the country. It is esti~ mated by Federal experts that from $20,000,000 to $40,000,000 worth of apples every year are destroyed by insects, which cuts a big piece out of the $200,000,000 annual yield. i not a dozen, or more, or less? On the who however, this is a tale from which even most prudish need not shy. Possibly such regularities as do exist seem innocent harmless beside.the much of deep errancy wi which the present is stamped. But why to try analysis upon the obvious and open of this uninvolved—really uninvolved—past of the persisting English countryside, ! BAYBERRY LANE. By Sara Ware author of “Thc Harbor Road,” ete. delphia: The Penn Publishing Co. NEW ENGLAND to the very center, this talj of Belleport. A fishing town on the coas§ of Massachusetts provides the undilute Yankeq, . to readers in his shrewd good sense, that oth where is named philosophy. In his thrifty wa; that draw out scorn from the shiftless and waster. In the full sum of those qualities stamp the Yankee as just that, a man to enj and to honor. However, this is a story in the countryman, and the New England man have little part save as a_sort of flavor, spicing to the whole. The itself has do with a great house, Bayberry Lane, W without any sense at all was bequeathed to three Snow girls, girls of an older vin What to do with this estate, a “white elephant if there ever was one. But flashes of inspiras tion are likely to strike anywhere at any s One did in this case. The “girls” moved and, one day, cne said, “We'll make this a memorial to good old Uncle Issachar.”’ big undertaking, but they carried it through a community center house, filled with activiti of neighborhood pattern, grew out of Baybersg Lane, an otherwise useless old mansion, Active in the New England way, filled the clean stripe of local sense and good se: of odd humors and odder sayings, “Baybe Lane™ is admirable. A refreshment of !h;::fl A new window open to the sea up New way. & Books fieceivea’ MASTERING YOUR OWN MIND. By Alexander, author of “Thought-Control Everyday Life,” etc. New York: Funk ‘Wagnalls. TWO MEN IN ME. By Daniel-Rops. Franis lated from the French by Gil Meyniefy Chicago: Thomas S. Rockwell Co. WHY BE AFRAID? The Psychology of 7 tional Disturbance. By Leon Mones, Ph, Boston: The Stratford Co. WHY WE DON'T LIKE PEOPLE. By Donald Laird. New York: The Mohawi Press. THE ABOLITION OF POVERTY. By Harrisog} E. Fdyberger. New York: Advance Pulw Hshing Co. THE UNIVERSE WITHIN US; A Scientifij View of God and Man. By R. O. P. Taylots REFLECTIONS OF A RESIDENT EXPATS RIATE. By Gerald Chittenden. New Yoril§ Longmans, Green & Co. THE BOOK OF AMERICAN PRESID] By Esse V. Hathaway. Illustrated by Bernard Scaeffer. New York: Whittleseg] House. . THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MOD] NATIONALISM. "By Carlton J. H. professor of history, Columbia Universityg New York: Richard R. Smith, Inc. THE OUTLINE OF MODERN KNOWLEDG! Edited by William Rose, Ph. D. New Yor! G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 7 THIS MAN-MADE WORLD; The Story of Ini vestions. By Anthony R. Fisher., Dra by Ernest Richardson. Chicago: Thomas Rockwell Co. ' OUR SUPERCONSCIOUS MIND. By Edi Lyttleton, D. B. E. New York: D, ton & Co. PATE IN THE MAKING; Revelations of Lifetime. By Cheiro. Illustrated, York: Harper & Brothers. RACES OF MEN; The Story of Ethnology. B} J. V. Nash. Drawings by Don Nelson. Chie cago: Thomas S. Rockwell Co. STARK INDIA. By Trevor Pinch, formerij editor of Civil and Military Gazette, Jam dia. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 DISTRIBUTED LEISURE. By L. C. Wi ’ author of “The Office and Tomorrow's Buse iness,” etc. New York: The Century Oy IF WE WERE CHRISTIANS. By E. M. Lawe rence Gould, pastor of The Church of Neighbor, Brooklyn. Foreword by B Francis J. McConnell. New York: B, Dutton & Co. LIFE IN NATURE. By James Hinton. by Havelock Ellis. New York: The Press. JOE BUYS NAILS. (Delightful!) By EKur§ Wiese. New York: Doubleday, Doran & THE LEWIS CARROLL BOOK. Edited Richard Herrick. Illustrated by John Tene niel. New York: The Dial Press. Lewis Carroll has “gone omnibus,” like so other English and American writers., In one book are “Alice in Wonderland,® “Through the Looking Glass,” “The Hunti of the Snark,” along with other members the Carroll story family. [ YELLOW JACKET: The Story of a Domestid Cat. By Russell Gordon Carter, author of “The Singing Dog,” ete. Illustrated by Ralphi Carlyle Prather. Philadelphia: The Penm Publishing Co. LAUGHING LAD: A story of Modern France, By Helen Coale Drew, author of “Singing Seamen,” etc. Illustrated by W. M. Berger, New York: The Century Co. THE DRAPER GIRL: A Story of Three Sisterg, By Elizabeth Corbett. New York: The Cen= tury Co. JOYOUS PEGGY. By Lillian Grace Oopp. I lustrated by Russell H. Handy. New Yorkf Cupples & Leon Co.