Evening Star Newspaper, February 24, 1935, Page 53

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON MAY AID NATIONAL GALLERY Proposed . Andrew Mellon Gift Expected as Definite Step Toward This Dream of Years—Great Collection Would C, FEBRUARY 24, 1935—PART FOUR. 'IEARLY SPRING BOOK FRESHET Publishers Already Sending Out Some of the Season's Best Volumes—Autobiography by Francis Stuart Be Supplemented by Other Doners. By Leila Mechlin. OR more years than, perhaps, it is now good to count, it has been rumored that some day Mr. Mellon was goinz to give his valuable collection of art end a gallery to the Nation. Last ‘Tuesday the rumor became a reality. With the suddenness of a bolt from the blue, Mr. Mellon declared this to be his intention and he authorized publication. Originally it was said that $10,000,- 000 would be given for a building and $10,000,000 for maintenance, but the gift will, it seems, far exceed this in proportions and beneficence. It is,| however, not the money value, but the quality of the collection promised | which signifiles. The Mellon collec- tion, very quietly assembled during a considerable space of time, is of extraordinarily fine character—finer, in fact, it is thought, than any other collection of paintings in this country or abroad privately owned and as- sembled. It is a collection of master- pleces such as the leading museums of the world would covet. Because Mr. Mellon has gone about his collecting so quietly and has kept his purchases in his home, or homes, | few realize to what an extent he has acquired works of great distinction, | but to one following the exhibitions, | a loan here and a loan there credited | to Mr. Mellon, has in late years given | more than an inkling of the richness | of the collection as a whole. | ‘To the first Century of Progress Exhibition, at the Art Institute of | Chicago, 1933, Mr. Mellon loaned a painting by El Greco, “St. Ildefonso, | Writing,” which had at previous times | been owned successively by Millet and | as we see here in the East, with gen- | by Degas; and to the second Century of Progress Exhibition, in 1934, he loaned Goya's delightful portrait of “Senora Sabassa Garcia,” which was included during the preceding Winter in a notable Goya exhibition at Knoed- lers, in New York. In an exhibition of masterpleces held in New York for a | charitable purpose some Winters ago | there was a fascinating child portrait | of Edward VI of England. by Hans | Holbein, which, upon consulting the | catalogue, one found to have been loaned by Mr. Mellon. Indeed, the truth is that scarcely any great exhi- bition of this sort has been held in recent years that has not drawn upon the Mellon collection, perhaps more heavily than generally known, some anonymous loans being thus credit- able. Possibly the most spectacular of | Mr. Mellon's purchases have been the | five paintings from the Hermitage | Galleries, founded in St. Petersburg, | now Leningrad, by Catherine :he) Great. When a few months ago it was said that Mr. Mellon had bought the “Alba Madonna,” by Raphael, for $1,500,000, it was denied. The fact is | that the purchase price was $1,-| 166,400. But the picture is his, to-| gether with a “Crucifixion,” by Peru- gino; “Adoration of the Magi,” by Botticelli; “Annunciation,” by Van Eyck, and “Venus With Mirror,” by ‘Titian—all at one time in the Russian national collection. These five pic- tures alone cost over three and a quar- ter mililon dollars. They are matchless ~—invaluable possessions. Such works establish the foundations upon which ' tradition is built. ‘When In the early days of our Re- | public, statesmen of Virginia planned to build a capitol, Jefferson adjured them to take as criterion of the best those works of the past which “gen-‘ erations had agreed to admire.” The | paintings in Mr. Mellon’s collection are all works of this type—works, the knowledge of which, will inevitably raise standards. There has been a good deal said in recent years about | discarding the past, but unless we | would break down civilization this is the utmost folly. To have such works here in our midst, available to all, must prove of inestimable benefit. It is an interesting thought in this connection that what in the older countries of Europe has been done by paternal governments, has here in the United States almost invariably been done in & fraternal spirit by indi- | viduals. Our Government has not as yet seen fit to build and endow a Na- | tional Gallery of Art, but Charles L. | Freer gave us the Freer Gallery and | collection; W. W. Corcoran, the Cor- | coran Gallery. From Harriet Lane Johnston came the collection which called & National Gallery into exist- ence, enriched in time by the Eyans collection of American paintings, the Ranger bequest to a like end, the Ralph Cross Johnson collection. The great collections belonging to the art | museums in Boston, New York, Phila- delphia, Cleveland, Toledo, Chicago, St. Louis and elsewhere have been built up through private munificence. | ‘Mr. Mellon is reported to have said | that he does not wish the gallery which is to house his collection to A painting of English setters in a colorful Autumn landscape, by J. Duncan MacGregor, jr. Included in exhibition bear his name, that he envisions addi- tions made to the collection by other collectors and that he hopes the plans drawn up by the late William H. Holmes, when director of the National Gallery of Art, for a great national in- stitution will eventually be fulfilled. The idea of a National Gallery of Art worthy of America is not new. Before Mr. Mellon became Secretary of the Treasury it was eagerly dis- cussed in art circles. Royal Cortissoz of New York wrote an article for the American Magazine of Art on the value and importance of such an in- stitution. Through the intervention of the American Federation of Arts, W. K. Bixby of St. Louis gave $10,000 to have suitable plans drawn for a National Gallery building. The late Charles A. Platt, architect of the Freer Gallery, undertook the commission. At that time it was thought that the building would stand adjacent to the then new National Museum, to which these plans therefore conformed. \ k- Later, when the great triangle plan was made, & new site was selected for a National Gallery and new, better plans sketched at the suggestion of Mr. Mellon. That site has been used, and again it is suggested that the Naticnal Gallery be placed on the Mall in the vicinity of the Museum. But wherever it is, it will be welcome. In our present swift moving life the need of those things of the spirit—art, music, literature—is greater than ever before and it is Mr. Mellon's rec- ognition of this fact which has un- doubtedly induced his proposed gift. Mr. Mellon has unquestionably pur- chased under the best advice, but, in- herently, he is an art lover. To him more than many collectors, the paint- ings which he has acquired have artis- tic significance, are beloved for them- selves, known through intimate asso- ciation and sensitive perception, valued wccordingly. To this percep- tion and understanding the quality of the collection is largely due, and through it the spirit of the gift finds expression. 'WENTY oil paintings and 10 water colors by Mary Butler, president of the fellowship of the Pennsylvenia Academy of Fine Arts, were placed on exhibition in theé Arts Club, 2017 I street northwest, last | Sunday afternoon, and they make an exceilent showing. The ofl paintings are hung in the gallery and are very cffective, breadly painted with a tull brush, extremely virile and direct. 7or the most part these are mountain pic- tures, painted in the and elsewhere. Not such mountains tle slopes. tree clad or carpeted with “Shoulder of Mount Allen,” a painting by Mary Bu.ler. verdure, but jagged peaks, piercing the sky, sometimes snow-capped, with glaciers creeping from their heights, grandly beautiful, but awe-inspiring. With great sureness of brush and understanding of form and color, Miss Butler interprets these imposing scenes. There is not one atom of self-consciousness evident in her transcriptions and never does shc fumble. Not only are her composi- tions good, but her color :s charm- ing, clear, fresh and harmoniously adjusted. If her pictures are siern, it is the stornness of strencth—the eter- nal which speaks through Nuture's boldest creations. Two of the paintings included in this collection are of the sea, pre- sumably on our rockbound northern coast, when a cold Autumn wind dy2s the water a deep blue, like sapphire. These have the same rugged strength observed in the mountain pictures. | And, strangely enough, so have, in a measure, the two still-life studies which lend color and charm—one of peonies and other Spring flowers, tbn‘ other of “Bear Grass,” which has a flower-like appearance. To those versed in such matters, the way paint is put on canvas by a competent painter, is in itself a delight, and even to the casual observer, uncon- sciously, this evidence of craftsman- ship makes appeal. Miss Butler's way of handling oil paint is very engaging and the effect she attains is so l.on- estly derived that the longer one lonks at the Junior League. the deeper becomes the understand- ing. Miss Butler is by no means mod- ernistic, but none could say that her work in ofls was not youthful in spirit and essentially modern in simplicity and vigor. ‘The water colors which decorate the walls of the drawing room possess much the same qualities, but they are less individuglistic. Three are of flowers, one or two of mountains, one—especially striking—is of the old picturesque city of Carcassonne fron the Cite, a fascinating theme well handled. This exhibition will continue for another week. BARKBDALI ROGERS, who was to have exhibited cartoons and cari- catures in clay at the Arts Club at this time, was unable to get her col- lection together for various unavoid- able reasons, in place of which, in re- sponse to an urgent eleventh-hour request of the Art Committee, 8 group [} Canadian | Rockies, in Norway, in the Pyrenees | of 11 etchines was lent by Benson B. Moore. These are all of small dimen- sions, but interesting subjects and very well done. Several are of local themes such as “Old Wharf in Wash- ington Channel,” “In Washington Harbor,” “Tidal Basin, Evening,” “Winter on the Upper Potomac” and “Sycamores, Upper Potomac,” all in- dicative of the abundance of pictorial material close at hand and also the etcher’s indefatigable search beauty in composition and effect. Two | of these prints arc of birds—“Ruffed | QGrouse,” a line etching, and “Ameri- | can Bald Eagle,” done in tone, both | skillfully rendered. What more worth- | while souvenir of Washington and | its environs could one find than these | delightful little etchings, priced, by| the way, s0 low that even those of | slender purse may acquire them? for | COLLECTION of lithographs of Boulder Dam, by Willilam Woolett of Los Angeles, was placed on exhibi- tion in the Natural History Building, United States National Museum, Feb- ruary 14 to continue tc March 1. These 39 large-size prints represent of the lithographer, who is an archi- tect by profession, and shows this gi- gantic plece of engineering almost two or three years' work on the part | Vi A Wil o vinay L P ABYE Sria MK S T LF ALY e Lrros st mas v ATHE VI SURY OO T YO )5 & Mi»x "?::m AR KICTVE HENDRET Hsni Aorwneg N TAMEE TV FACTA, PAKEN TS Lorme MOMIVON ALK (VO mm:mmfn«i yaswe & DABE MABEY. ST QNG KEUTE ISR v THRVININCERY TOSSTY, BRI i b Portrait of Edward VI at the age of 2 and when Prince of Wales, by Hans Holbein, One of the great paintings of the Mellon collection, from 1its inception to completion. Primarily, these lithographs are illus- trative and their greatest interest is subjective. To each is affixed a short explanatory note which makes it pos- sible for the visitor to know what it is all about. And how stupendous this work is, paralieling to an extent that other herculean engineering feat, the building of the Panama Canal! In these lithographs one sees the work viewed from various angles— | ing career, Born in Albany, he re- ceived his general education in the | schools of California and studled | architecture at the University of Min- | nesota. For a time he worked in | the office of James Gamble Rogers, | in New York, but since 1930 he has been associated with his father, Wil- liam Lee Woollett, architect, of Los Angeles. For the last five years he has been chiefly engaged in recording In exhibition at the Arts Club. | above, looking down; below, looking up; the work of drilling, blasting, tunneling, filling, the building of titanic walls and gates, spillways, etc. That man in his puny dimensions dared to essay such effort and suc- | ceeded in conquering such dispro- | portionate forces is, indeed, occasion }ror wonder, as one envisions through | these lithographs the work in progress. In one print is seen a portion of the lining for a great tunnel being lowered into the canyon and looking for all the world like a child’s napkin ! ring as it swings free of the towering rock wall. In another print a dra- | matic moment is illustrated when, through the breaking of a rope, a | workman drops, not into the depths |of the canyon to sure death, but, miraculously, into the outstretched arms of the workman suspended be- low him. One cannot see this series of litho- graphic drawings without holding one’s breath and recalling Joseph Pennell's “Wonder of Work” litho- graphs, among which was the Panama Canal series. But between these and Mr. Pennell's lithographs there is a marked difference. Joseph Pennell’s emotions were greatly stirred by the spectacle of the work in progress and was filled by wonder of it, but never for one instant did he cease to be the artist, and what he drew | had primarily artistic content. When | he pictured the great derrick at work, | the drills or other means to the en- the progress of the large construction projects in the Southwest. He has exhibited in New York, at the En- | gineers’ Club and Architectural League, in Oslo, Norway, and in his own State. EGINNING tomorrow and continu- | Chapel Hill. During the present sea- ! ing to March 24, a collection of etchings by Yngve Edward Soderberg will be on view in the division of graphic arts, Smithsonian Building. Born in Chicago of Swedish parents in 1896, Mr. Sodenberg studied first at the Art Institute of that city and then at the Art Students’ League in New York. He has specialized in etchings of sailing craft, inheriting, no doubt, a racial interest in the sea. His studio is on an island near Mystic, Conn,, and there he keeps his own boats, about which he likes to putter and in which to sail. His “Jibbing Around the Bouy” is in the Art Insti- tute of Chicago's permanent collec- tion. His work will be found to speak for itself. IN THE Junior League Club rooms, 1518 Connecticut avenue, an exhibi- tion of paintings and drawings of pure-bred dogs and sporting scenes, by J. Duncan MacGregor, jr., will open tomorrow. Mr. MacGregor studied in the School of Fine Arts, Yale Univer- sity, under Sidney Dickinson and Eugene Savage, but he has specialized with success in portraits of dogs. These, it has been truly said, require |on the part of the artist a love of animals and a knowledge of canine | anatomy, both of which Mr. Mac- | Gregor is reported on good authority to possess. Here, too, it is a question of subjective interest, not dominating, | but rather dominated by artistic effect. Lewis’ characters. LOST HORIZON—James Hilton. readers. A HOUSE DIVIDED—Pear] Buck. Ambitions and intrigues of “The Devil.” $ The difficulty with a majority of the dog pictures of today is that this order is reversed. One of the best etchings of dogs produced in recent times is, without ~question, that by Sybilla ‘Weber of two racing greyhounds, entitled “Speed,” in which, with a great economy of line, the effect of swift, onward motion is perfectly sug- gested. One recalls, too, the paintings by artists of the earlier English school, of fox hunts, in which dogs in action take prominent place. Again we are reminded that it is all in the way it is done. '‘HE Division of Fine Arts, Library of Congress, has placed on view a collection of etchings by the late Otto Henry Bacher, given by his | widow. Bacher was born in 1838 and | died in 1909. In Europe he attained :grtat reputation and was considered |one of our ablest American etchers. | The London Times once referred to ;hlm as “a most formidable rival of | Whistler.” To his “Venetian Serles” Seymour Haden gave high praise. Bacher had the best and most distin- And Another Story of Russia. By Sarah Bowerman. THINGS TO LIVE FOR. Notes for an Autoblography. By Francis Stuart. New York: The Macmil- lan Co. T USED to be that old men wrote their autobiographies as the final chapter in tbeir life work. Many of them still do, but now also young men write theirs in order to give their views about the world into which they have been projected and to satisfy the natural craving for expression of their personalities. Fran- cis Stuart has already through fic- [tlon revealed a personality dreamy, emotional, rebellious against smug | conventionality. His four novels, | “Pigeon Irish “Glory” “Try the 8ky” and “The Coloured Dome,” have also placed him in literature among the young Irish mystics and symbolists. He took part in the Irish civil war of recent years, was cap- tured by British government troops and sent to Maryborough military prison, which he assisted other pris- oners in attempting to burn down. went through a hunger strike, learned to fly in one of the first civil airplanes to come to Ireland, has worked at | Lourdes as a brancadier for sick pil- grims, has run a poultry farm, trains race horses and keeps one or two | “when financial circumstances per- | 'mit,” and writes books. And, since he was born in 1902, he has done all this in 33 years. “Things to Live For” gives no con- nected story of his life. It gathers i from the depths and shallows of his ' memory the experiences which have | affected him most profoundly, either | | intellectually or emotionally, with| . pain, indignation, repulsion, joy, rare | ecstasy. He is in love with life; the | guished masters—Duveneck, Carolus- | iDurun. Boulanger, LeFebvre and others—then Whistler and Blum, with whom he worked in Venice. In fact, he lived with Whistler in Venice and wrote a book of reminiscence in con- nection therewith entitled, “With ‘Whistler in Venice,” published by the Century Co. in 1908. Bacher was an {llustrator as well as an etcher and lms works frequently appeared in the ;Cemury Magazine, but his illustra- tions were less important than his etchings. The etchings now on view take their place in our steadily grow- ing national print collection, begun by the late A. J. Parsons before 1900 and gradually built up by his suc- | cessor, Prof. Rice, and Leicester B. Holland, head of the Department of ‘l"me Arts of the Library of Congress. | ELIOT O'HARA left Washington the middle of the past week to motor leisurely to Savannah, Ga. where, under the auspices of the Telfair Academy, he will, beginning tomorrow, conduct for a second season sive three weeks’ course in water-color painting. Later in the Spring Mr. O'Hara will give a similar course at the University of North Carolina, at | son, under Southern Art Projects, a | collection of 30 water colors by Mr. | O'Hara has been exhibited in cities of Georgia—Augusta, Athens, { ledgeville and Veldosta. An exhibition of Mr. O'Hara’s water colors was opened in the art gallery at Yale Uni- versity about a fortnight ago, and a sequel to his book, “How to Make Water Colors Behave,” which will be | entitled “How to Make the Brush Be- | have,” is announced for publication shortly. AN EXHIBITION of architectural drawings of modern houses, by Henry Kiumb, opened at the League of Washington, 1503 Twenty- first street northwest, February 22, to continue to March 14. Food Shortage Averted. JAPANESE foresight has prevented & serious food situation. within the island empire, threatened because of a shortage in rice production which resulted in a crop lower than any since 1913. This year’s yield of cleaned rice was 16,286,000,000 pounds, 27 per cent under last year's production, yet be- cause of the policy of the government in laying up emergency stocks during the past few years ample rice is on hand to meet all needs. The carry-over last year was in ex- cess of five billion pounds. These Are Season’s Best Sellers FICTION. HEAVEN'S MY DESTINATION—Thornton Wilder. An American evangelist-salesman behaves like one of Sinclair THE FORTY DAYS OF MUSA DAGH—Franz Werfel, An episode of the Armenian persecutions, Four Englishmen learn philosophy from Himalayan monks. GOOD-BYE. MR. CHIPS—James Hilton. An eccentric, lovable English schoolmaster has charmed his ‘The final volume in a Chinese trilogy. ROAD OF AGES—Robert Nathan. Exodus of the Jews of all nations to the Gobi Desert., ANOTHER CAESAR—Alfred Neumann. Napoleon III, by the author of SO RED THE ROSE—Stark Young. gineers’ end, it was from a vantage point in the matter of composition and with the pictorial effect in mind. In comparatively few instances does this seem to have been true of these lithographs by Mr. Woollett of the building of the Boulder Dam. One of these exceptions is No. 13, a great gate in a solid rock wall which sug- gests the entrance to an enchanted castle and, incidentally, has a focal center of interest with lights and shadows so distributed, or concen- trated, that they produce unity of effect. The eye does not wander, Another is No. 10, rising walls of rock like miniature mountains, beau- tifully delineated, with the minimum of apparent effort and the maximum of charm in effect. Pethaps Mr. Woollett was so absorbed in verae clously recording this wonder of work that he dared not allow his artistic instincts free play. But the two are not in reality antagonistic. Mr. Woollett has had an interest- A An Alabama family during the Civil War. DELAY IN THE SUN—Anthony Thorne. A strike of autobus drivers delays & group of travelers in Spain. FEBRUARY HILL—Victoria Lincoln. Rollicking adventures of an impoverished family. Popular for months. NON-FICTION. WHILE ROME BURNS—Alexander WoollCott. Miscellanies on all sorts of subjects by & popular writer. PERSONAL HISTORY—Vincent Sheean. One of the best of the “testaments” of youth, by a journalist. SKIN DEEP—M. C. Philipps. Shows women the harmfulness of some beauty aids. THE AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC GAME—Pearson & Brown. Mirror turned on statesmen and diplomats. R. E. LEE—Douglas S. Freeman. Outstanding biography, in four volumes, of the Confederate general. . WHY NOT TRY GOD?—Mary Pickford. Probably popular because of the suthor’s favor with the public. EUROPEAN JOURNEY—Philip Gibbs. More comments on international affairs. FORTY-TWO YEARS IN THE WHITE HOUSE—I. (Tke) Hoover. Reminiscences of many Presidents, by the late chief usher, ‘WINE FROM THESE GRAPES—Edna St. Vincent Millay, Her latest poems, including an epilogue on humanity. HEAVEN HIGH—HELL DEEP—Norman Archibald. Adventures of an American avistor in the World War, | i inten- | Prancis Stuart, whose autobiography, the most important symbols, and to his contemporaries in that age, to Carlyle, who liked him, but thought he wrote “vaporous sentimentalism”; to Thackeray, with whom he quar- | reled; to Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Cock- burn and Lord Houghton, whose titles he reversed. In fact, the re-creatsd Victorian scene is one of the chief attractions of Mr. Kingsmill’s book. Charles Dickens, novelist of the | people, broad caricaturist, social re- | former, master of pathos and bathos | and of sentiment and sentimentality, is not a hero to Mr. Kingsmill | Neither is he the complete cad he has | been made to appear through the | recent publication of letters and other | data in connection with his separa- tion from his wife. Mr. Kingsmill finds that Dickens was all his life a chronic hypochondriac who drama- tized his own emotions and in so do- ing of course exaggerated them. He probably never felt as deeply as he tried to persuade himself that he felt. His life was a sentimental journey. ‘The poverty and child labor of his| boyhood made him long for wealth | and position and, specifically, a fine house, so when he attained his de- | sires and became the master of Gads Hill, between Rochester and Grave- | send, he was perhaps too complacent | for good taste. The failure of his | marriage may be accounted for by the psychological theory that he fell in love with all three of the Hogarth | | sisters, Mary and Georginia, as well as Catherine—that is, to as great an extent as was possible to him after his love for Maria Beadnell, which left him “an incurable emoticnal hypo- | chondriac.” His self-pity throughi life made him incapable of genuine pity for others, except for the chnr-\ acters in his books. “His efforts to | briefly in power. creator of Pecksniff—hypocritical. T think they are mistaken * * * Dickens’ books offer proof of a sensitiveness so acute that it is impossible for us rea- sonably to accept an accusation of cruel or dishonest character.” This extract shows the point of view of M. Maurois, that of admiration for the most popular of English writers and of interpretation based almost entirely on his works. That is justifiable for the criticism of his literary work, but is hardly adequate for an estimate of his character, when there are so many authentic details of his life. Some of these details move M. Maurois, in spite of his admiration, to say: “But there was plenty of selfishness and unfairness in Dickens’ attitude. He had charm and kindli- ness, but he was an egotist and highly strung. * * * To be a novelist's wife is truly dreadful.” And he admits that the publication by Dickens in his own paper of a long account of his difficul- ties with his wife was “in rather bad taste.” But he asks how detractors can “pass such stern judgment on the private lives of departed heroes when every one of us experiences every day the pitfalls of emotional and domestic life.” It is the old problem of the at= tempt to make a complete hero of a favorite author, of trying to find his personal life as fine as his work. Dow- den tried to solve the problem in his “Life of Shelley,” but did not succeed. ‘The problem is usually insolvable and the antithesis between life and work remains. In the case of Dickens it is particularly embarrassing, because of the excessive sentiment in his works for domestic joys and harmony, for kindliness and unselfishness. But Forster, who perhaps knew him better than did any one else, long ago in his comprehensive biography revealed that Dickens was not only self-cen- tered, but was also lacking in fineness of feeling for others and in the funda- mentals of good taste. SO BRIEF THE YEARS. By Natalie B. Sokoloff. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. JATALIE SOKOLOFF was one of the fortunate who were able to escape from the Red Terror of Russia. Her father, of old military stock, had decided to make his home in the United States before the Bolshevist revolution took place, but with his family, had returned to Moscow for a short stay in 1918, when the Kerensky government was They were caught in the second revolution and re= | mained for a year in Soviet Russia, from which they escaped into Poland, | “thanks to father's truly Cossack ! narrative and courage.” This novel, which she has been writing for two years in New York, is about a woman caught in the Red Terror and finally its victim. The story opens in the Moscow of Lenin, with Stalin in the near back- ground. Both men appear in the their pictures are drawn from life, for Miss Sokoloff has reen them both at close range, and without the inadvertent aid of Stalin she might not have escaped rom Russia. ‘Terror, misery, cruelty, sordidness, despair, mark the course of the nar- rative. The beautiful Zinaida loves only one man, but is forced to sub- mit to man; 'one of them, the Hawk, she meets “Things to Live for,” has just been published by MacMillan Co. deadness. life is not peace, but death. Of all the | strange varied people I have met it has not been the sinners, the de-| graded, the drunkards, the gamblers, the crooks, the harlots, who have made me shudder, but the dead. the re- spectable dead; cut off like a branch | from the tree” He finds children more interesting than grown people, | and his own recollections of childhood. of “mysterious, emotional, fantastic | childhood,” are poetry rather than | prose. Boyhood days at Rugby, when | women seemed goddesses, homesick- ymess for the boglands of Antrim was | acute, and the pigeonholes of his desk {were filled with his early literary ! compositions, now seem to him remote. Racing he has always found “the best game of all,” one method of re- storing zest to life. “Always when life gets a little stale, a little tarnished, I feel I must go out, go out and do something to recapture that sense of adventure, of romance. Buy a race horse, go on a pilgrimage, write a great novel, see new places. And| always it works.” One of his most ecstatic experiences was in serving the sick pilgrims at Lourdes. In all the manifestations of suffering humanity, some already claimed by the grave, he saw the “image of the cross.” He has “fallen | in love so that life glowed and shone and sang.” Writing novels he has found almost as adventurous as a race or a fight or falling in love. With all his tremendous vitality and love of life, he accepts illness and physical pain as part of life. “But why cling so tenaciously to health? I ask myself. If my object in life is to have a good time, to have ‘fun’ to amuse myself, then certainly to be ill is terrible. But that is not my object. ‘What I want from life s much more than all that. And to gain it I am ready to risk all. What I want ulti- mately is that inner serenity which can only be won at a great price, and pain and illness are a few more chips thrown onto the table.” In what sometimes seems, if judged by con- temporary literature, a world of dis- {llusioned youth, Francis Stuart stands apart from the pessimists, a con- vinced and deliberate romanticist, in| " love with life. “To me there has been no such thing as disillusionment. Always in life the nearer I have ap- proached the truth, the more inspir- ing I have found it.” It is & pleasure to turn from some of the styleless egotistic outpourings which are pub- {lished in such numbers to the dis- closure of & rare personality like that iof Francis Stuart, offered in poetic prose of great charm. 'HE 'AL JOURNEY. A Life of Charles Dickens. By Hugh Kingsmill. New York: Willlam Morrow & Co. AMUEL JOHNSON became a con- ceited, testy, greedy, multiple- diseased, lonely, extravagantly gen- crous eccentric, as well as the great lexicographer and idol of Boswell, under the hands of Mr. Kingsmill Charles Dickens is here treated with . the same regard for patent facts and j the same lack of reverence and dis- carding of tradition. Mr. Kingsmill likes a fsulty human being better than an embalmed paragon and takes it for granted that his readers do also. He relates Dickens to the Victorian age, of which he has become one of \ only complete catastrophe for him is | help others nearly always took the | struggling “Protecting oneself against | form of a dramatic performance, or | beings. an after-dinner speech. . . . Few phil- | anthropists escape the suspicion of | being more interested in themselves than in the objects of their benevo- lence, and Dickens was particularly open to this suspicion.” Mr. Kingsmill traces some of the numerous autobiographical elements in Dickens’ novels. “David Copperfield” is generally accepted as the mos nearly autobiographical of the novels, with Dickens himself as the hero and Mr. Micawber representing his father. Dickens told friends that all his im- portant characters were copies from life. Little Nell was identified in his fancy with Mary Hogarth; Mrs. Gamp, one of the most popular of his comic characters, was doubtless suggested by some of the nurses who attended Mrs. Dickens in her frequent confine- ments; Mr. Dombey, the wealthy merchant, was “the type Dickens most esteemed, and in his practice, allowing for his peculiar tempera- ment, most resembled”; Georgina Hogarth was probably the model for Rachael in “Hard Times”; Maria | Beadnell was in his mind when he | drew Dora, the child-wife, and in his | mind again as Mrs. Winter, at 40, | when he drew Flora Finching in “Little Dorrit,” who causes her old | lover to shudder when he views her | bulky form, and Ellen Ternan, the woman whose name was associated with Dickens at the time of his sep- | aration from his wife and after, un- doubtedly furnished the characters | of Bella Wilfer, Estella and Helena | . “Our Mutual Friend,” |: Landless, in “Great Expectations” and “The Mys- tery of Edwin Drood,” the novels written by Dickens during the last 10 years of his life. Mr. Kingsmill has written & most interesting interpre- tative biography, with emphasis on personality, not literary criticism, based on secondary sources, neither |- very scholarly nor fictionized, a de- cidedly readable book. DICKENS. By Andre Maurois. Trans: lated by Hamish Miles. New York: Harper & Bros. 'HE half of this work on Dickens which is devoted to his life and | specific works is so brief as to be al- | most an outline and contains little | either of fact or interpretation which is new. Monsieur Maurois, following his practice in the case of his “Byron,” “Disraeli” and “Ariel” (Shelley), has drawn his material from the best ex- isting blographies of his subject and makes no claim to the discovery of | new material from original sources. ‘The value of all his work is to be found in his crisp, ironic style, which is con- | veyed even in translation, and in his | French point of view applied to Eng- | lish notables. In this case the most | important part of his book is the lat- | ter half, in which he gives his own estimate of “Dickens and the Art of | the Novel” and “The Philosophy of ! Dickens.” “The studies which make up the volume were written in 1927 and M. her death. The scene shifts from Moscow to the territory of the Whites, to small villages and across all of Russia, and everywhere is the dreaded Ogpu, everywhere chaos. The story is not, however, a mere docu- ment. The people are real, vital, and suffering human Zinaida is always at the center of the action, but equally well delineated are her faithful com- panion Nannie, the man she loves, Andrey: the cold and brutal Hawk, Zaharov the Jew, Ismailov, chief of the Ogpu, the girl Katya, the White general, old Mme. Voronov. The vio- lent, turbulent plot fairly rushes along to its tragic climax, harrowing, but never dull. This is Miss Sokoloff's first novel, but she has written stories and sketches for newspapers and magazines, including several for Mus- solini’s_paper, Popolo d'Italia. Genenlagies, local histories, and coats of arms are listed In our new 178-page catalogue\ (No. 230), which will be sent for 10c in stamps. Write Dept. W-2 - Goodspeed's Book Shop, Inc., o RHEUMATIC PAINS Because “Ben-Gay" goes deep and stays in, it kills pain quicker No matter how deep those rheumatie pains...“Ben-Gay” will seek them out. For “Ben-Gay” works sure and fast. It gets at the pain in a flash, and stays in the area until the pain is routed. For this original Baume Analgesique pene- trates through skin, flesh, muscle . . . Insist on the box with the red “Ben- Gay.” None of the imitators possesses the same hyposensitizing (pain-relieve ing) action. Maurois gives as his reason for pub- lishing them now that the recent pub- | lication of certain letters and docu- | ments (those concerning Dickens' | separation from his wife) has caused critics and biographers to “depict the character of Dickens in a rather un- pleasing light,” “as vain, unjust and | even—a serious against the | RUB PAIN AWAY WITH G BAUME BEN-GAY" IT P-E-N-E-T-R-A-T-E-S