Evening Star Newspaper, April 28, 1935, Page 60

F—4_ THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON D. C, APRIL 28, 1935—PART FOUR. NOTES FROM THE REALM OF LITERATURE AND ART THE STORY OF A GOOD QUEEN E. F. Benson Writes Entertainingly of Victoria and Her Reign. Many New Spring Novels, the Greater Portion of Them Written by Women. By Sarah Bowerman. QUEEN VICTORIA. By E. F. Ben- son. New York: Logmans, Green & Co. UEEN VICTORIA has in Mr. Benson a sympathetic ad- mirer, not a caustic_critic. Himself a Victorian who has lived into the post-war age and managed to adapt himself to it, he appreciates all the excellent quali- ties of the Victorian era, which it has for some time been the fashion to ridicule. In “As We Were” he wrote both appreciatively and humorously of that period; in “As We Are” he wrote understandingly, but rather sadly, of the present time. He has had access to previously un- released documents in the royal ar- chives and so is able to add some new material to his narrative and esti- mate of Queen Victoria. To him she is equally the Queen and the woman, and not, with a sneer, “the old lady of Windsor.” Mr. Benson's “Queen Victoria” and Lytton Strachey's *“Queen Victoria” are in spirit and emphasis almost direct opposites. Perhaps both are needed to make the complete picture, Queen Victoria was not always an old woman. Mr. Benson makes us remember that. the throne. in 1837, on the death of her uncle, William IV, she was a high- #pirited girl, resentful of the domina- tion of her mother, the Duchess of Kent: much under the influence of her Uncle Leopold, King of the Bel- gians, and his German ccnfidential agent, Stockmar. Before her acces- sion she had fallen in love at their first meeting with Prince Albert of Baxe-Coburg, whom Leopold had eelected as her husband, though the prince seems to have been rather bored by his English visit and impressed by Victoria only to the extent of finding her “amiable.” As woman, Victoria was a devoted, almost infatuated. wife and a fond mother, though she ac- cepted without question the strict discipline the Prince Consort imposed on their children. She never recov- ered from the grief caused by the Prince Consort’s death and was less ® queen because of it. so that her min- isters, especially Gladstone, often made themselves unpopular by goad- ng her to her duties. Her long strug- gle with Edward, Prince of Wales, was partly that of the Queen, jealous of her powers and unwilling to delegate them to the son who was to succeed her, but was perhaps even more that of the woman, grieved and indignant that her eldest son had departed so far from the teachings and example of his father, her idolized husband. humorously, | At her accession to | gold band which pushed back~ her projecting teeth and brought from the sideboard a shell-covered box. The box contained her treasure in life, small horses of all types cut from illustrated papers. “I don't like peo- | ple,” Velvet said frankly, “except us and mother and Mi. I like only horses.” And at night she prayed: “0, God, give me horses, give me horses! Let me be the best rider in England.” The poetic platitude, “To every haven of desire the yearning opes the portal,” is usually a delusion, but to Velvet it proved an inspired truth. In a village lottery, for a shilling, she won a piebald which no one seemed to think a great prize. The piebald and her dreams led her to the open portal, and within a year she won the Grand National. Improb- able? Yes, very, but as Enid Bagnold tells it the story seems perfectly plausible and is altogether absorbing. It is the more plausible because the bubble burst, and then Velvet rated only a couple of sticks in the news- papers. At 15, “Velvet had shone, a wonder, a glory, a miracle child,” but had been “offered wine too young.” The story of Velvet is also the story | of the whole, original Brown family, | headed by enormous Mrs, Brown, who mn her youth had swum the Channel | breaststroke, trained for the feat by the father of Mi Taylor, and Mi was the fidus Achates of Mr. Brown | and the indulgent friend of all the | Brown children. Enid Bagnold is | the wife of Sir Roderick ‘Jones and lives for much of the time in a | cottage in Sussex which was formerly < which she loved, we were not so sure about that inferiority; in fact, we decided that “A Few Foolish Ones” is & very worthy successor to “As the Earth Turns” and to be especially commended because it in no way imi- tates the first novel. Gus Bragdon married gentle, ro- mantic Sarey Gray, soon after the night when she followed him from the meeting which he deserted in indig- nation because the elders refused burial in the churchyard to Keturah Linscott, one of the lawless Linscotts, who had given birth to an illegitimate child. A daughter of Gus and Sarey was to marry that child some years later. Gus may or may not be taken as a typical Maine man of his period, which ended with the end of the post- World War boom. Hard work, thrift, penuriousness were the standards Gus upheld for himself and his family. They were not the standards of the dreamy, religious Grays, nor of their | daughter Sarey. and once at least be- | fore her death Sarey summoned cour- | age to face Gus and demand a bit of profit sharing. Then she had a brief, and foolish. fling. piece of fulfillment in her hard-work- | ing and discontented life, tained fulfillment. He himself did, and died with great satisfaction, thinking of his valuable farm and wood lots and his four bank books, each representing thousands of dol- lars. Kate, at 60, finally reached ful- fillment in the carrying on of the farm, in her passionate love for the country, long after her early love for the vagabond Stephen Blaine had settled into a wistful, protective | friendship. Ben, neither gifted nor | energetic. despised by his father, | | longed for an education in order to be a preacher, but died young and | embittered without ever having savor- | ed life Jeff, whose standards were | the replica of his father's, lacked the strong fiber of Gus. Lovice, weakest of the children was all Gray, with no Bragdon firmness or love for the " land. Her one great effort was in moving her family from Derwich Vil- lage to Fall River, from their roomy farmhouse to a tenement. An effec- tive late scene in the story is a Sun- day gathering at the farm of Gus, when the children and their children are present, to listen to Lovice's son, | James Aaron, as his solo with the Boston Symphony Orchestra is brought to them over Kate’s new | radio. THE WIZARD OF MONTE CARLO. By Count Corti. New York: E. P. It was the one | Of all the family of Gus few at- | E. F. Benson, who has written a blography of Queen Victoria. 2] | proach has been to study Renoir in comparison with the great painters of the Venetian school and of the eighteenth century in France, whose traditions influenced him. The book has, therefore, a wide scope objec- tively. Subjectively, its aproach is scientific, based on the philosophy of art in its relation to life expounded | Iby John Dewey. The psychology of perception, expression and form is the | | subject of the early chapters. To ap- preciate the book fully it should be ad in connection with John Dewey's rt As Experience.” In an appendix many of Renoir's most important paintings are analyzed. Probably the | most exhaustive study of the work of Renoir ever made, the book should i find a place in every art library. | | RESTLESS DAYS. A German Girl's { Autobiography. By Lilo Linke, | New York: Alfred A. Knopf. | (QNE of the generation which grew | up following the World War, Lilo Linke was a child of 8 when she re- turned with her mother to Berlin in August, 1914, from their holidays in ! East Prussia. From that time to the through outdoor life and the healing power of nature; so denounced as the cult of license and libertinism. At first the groups in the movement had strict regulations against political activity, then they were inevitabiy drawn into it. Lilo Linke was first a fighter in the ranks of the Democrats, then with the Social Democrats. She | could accept neither Communism nor Fascism, for personal liberty was her | most cherished belief and hope. Now | she lives in England. Her book is of the type of Vincent Sheean's “Per- sonal History,” but has a narrowcr background and is more closely lim- | ited to personal experience. | TURKESTAN SOLO. One Expedition from the Tien Shan to the Kizil Kum. By Ella K. Mail- | lart. Translated by John Rodker. | New York: G. P. Putnam’s sons.} WITH a distinguished record of athletic accomplishment, in ski- ing sailing. swimming and hiking, and a hardy Swiss and Danish an- cestry, Miss Maillart has the trained body and the adventurous mind which made a journey alone across the | LOCAL ARTISTS SHOW WORK Twelve Hundred Pictures Are Exhibited in Nine Washington Stores—Harrison Cady‘s Water Colors, Drawings and Etchings on View at the Smithsonian. By Leila Mechlin. T IS an Mteresting thing that at l this time of year, when nature | is putting on her gayest and best new Spring garmerts, the works of Washington artists have been | taken from studios and house walls and set forth in a series of exhibi- tions to an unprecedented extent. To be sure, tkere are those who declare that there is no relation between art | ces Wheeler. Among the flower paint- and nature, but the ccnviction that | there is, is so deep rooted that it u} hard to eradicate. The great masters from Leonardo down have all thought 50, and go‘ng from gallery to gallery | now occupled by the Independent Ex- hibition the conviction grows upon | the visitor. Certainly the best works | that are shown are {hose which glve“ indication of close observation on the part of the artist and a desire to in- | terpret nature truly as well as beau- | tifully. Every genuine artist is a seeker after truth. This does not mean thav an artist is an imitator of nature. Far from it, for truth is not always to be found in the obvious. Nor does it mean that the realist suc- ceeds in coming nearer to the truth than the idealist. There are many | cler Park.’ | painting, “Spring Along the Potomac,” House,” Highway, Rowland Lyons' “King's ” and Emily Steuart’s “Gla- " Much also may be said in praise of Eliwabeth E. Graves’ quite in tune with the season. There are some excellent still life | studies in this exhibition, as, for ex- ample, “Copper Kettle,” by Cornelia Yuditsky; “Light,” by Ruth Porter ‘Ward, and “The Blue Ball,” by Fran- ings are three of petunias, one by Elizabeth Mulhofer, another by Mar- guerite Munn and the third by Eva G. Colburn—very different in render- ing, but equally true and effective, Mary Lukens contributes an excel- lent painting of tulips, and from | Florence Bryant has come a flower | study in the manner of the old Dutch school, “Antiqued,” for decorative pur- poses. | Egdar Nye's painting, “Vermont” which won the W. B. Moses & Sons purchase prize, is given the place of honor at the end of the long gallery, where it is seen to special advantage, | 2nd, as an additional compliment this firm is setting forth in conjunction with the Independent Exhibition a special collection of Mr. Nye's paint- troduces white spaces in middle dis- stance between blacks and grays. Quite different in treatment and kind among his etchings is one of two fat women of the circus or side show, “Fanchon and Doll,” done with com- plete veracity and yet .without the | slightest touch of vulgarity. A some- what similar subject by Mr. Cady was shown in a Gloucester exhibition ‘& . where it was seen and ired by a woman of the most exclusive North Shore social circles, whose avoirdupois was equally as great as that of the subject and sense of humor no less keen than the artist's. Mr. Cady's water colors are also well out of the ordinary. Some are almost in outline and again reminiscent of | the Chinese—paintings so decorative in quality and simple in character that | they would admirably serve as block prints on cotton draperies. Others are in the more conventional manner, but very clear and sharp. “Eastern Pont Light” is a typical example. “Shipyard and Gloucester” and “Rock- port Harbor From Pigeon Cove" are both likewise true portraits of place, but into the facade of the Portuguese church in Gloucester “Our Lady of the Good Voyage” and the figures of | deserts and mountains of Turkestan | a temptation. Her starting point was Russia, where the officials did not | fail to point out to her the difficulties. | Jacket design for “A Few Foolish |, ~Dutton & Co. | present, when she is, like so many Ones,” by Gladys Hasty Carroll. ‘ EN have made their names others, living in a foreign country, — S A - famous in many ways, through | her experiences have been typical of | As Queen, Victoria was far more @ble than many of her critics admit. She was never dominated by her min- those of young Germans of the lower isters. Disraeli acquired the greatest influence over her, but even he was obliged to use his utmost shrewdness n dealing with her, and recorded that he found flattery useful. She had deep Kipling's. She is the author of “A Diary Without Dates,” which caused her dismissal from the military hos- pital where she was working during the war; several books of travel, war, statesmanship, science, literature, art. Francols .Blanc immortalized himself by building the two most celebrated gambling centers in the | world, Monte Carlo and Homburg. In class. She was indueed to write this | autobiography just because it is so representative of what the youth of | Germany have lived through, by Storm Jameson, who has herself and parties about to start out refused her company, Hastily collecting food and baggage, she left Moscow by train and as far as Alma Ata, capital of Kazakstan, on the Turkestan-Si- comprehension of both domestic and | poetry and children’s stories and an | 1806 posthumous twins were born to | berian Railway, had friends with her. | written of restless days in England “Mountaineer’s Cabin in the Great Smokies,” a dry-point included in exhibition of Harrison foreign affairs, and formed her own opinions, which she held to tena- ciously, often unreasonably, for she was by no means free from prejudices. During the life of the Prince Consort his influence over her was almost un- limited, and after his death she at- | anonymous work which aroused con- sideraole sensation in London. “Na- | tional Velvet,” cleverly written, full of | interesting people, and a good horse | story, is _the excellent choice of the English Book Society and the Amer- ican Book-of-the-Month Club. tempted to look upon public probleras | as he would have done. Her sympa- thies were almost always with the Conservative party and became more completely so as she grew older and after Disraeli had made her Empress. It may be said that she had the femi- #ine failings of prejudice and the emo- tional, personal outlook, but so many masculine rulers have had these same failings that perhaps they may be called human, rather than feminine. Mr. Benson, whose style is uniformly felicitous and distinguished, has writ- ten not only an admirable “Life of Queen Victoria,” but also & verbal pageant of the whole period. HARVEST. By Selma Lagerlof. Translated by Florence and Na- both Hedin. New York: Double- day, Doran & Co. N “HARVEST” another chapter is added to the already rich auto- biographical material which Miss Lagerlof, foremost Swedish novelist, now 75 years old, has already pub- lished in “Marbacka” and ‘‘Memories of My Childhood.” The Nobel Prize was awarded her in recognition of the whole body of her literary work, but her bedt fiction is the trilogy, “The Ring of the Lowenskolds.” though the first story to make her known outside Bweden was probably “The Story of Gosta Berling.” “Harvest” is, as the title suggests, a gleaning from Miss Lagerlof's literary fragments, consist- ing of recollections, legends of her own Varmland, a few biblical legends, travel sketches, literary essays and four addresses delivered on special occasions. ‘The first and longest group, * ish Legends and Recollections,” is by far the most interesting. In one brief sketch is related the visit of old Jan Asker, the clarinet player, to Mar- backa after the father's death, when Miss Lagerlof and her mother and sister had come to realize that they could not afford to keep the family home, but had not had courage to speak to each other about it. Old Jan, who had played at Marbacka for all the Christmas and birthday celebra- tions, came to thank them for “all the bright and beautiful things which he and others had enjoyed at our house,” tacitly showing that he knew they must give up their home. This broke their silence and they were thankful to hear their doom in this way. Another sketch tells how Miss Lagerlot, a school teacher at Lands- krona when Marbacka was sold, “took heaven to witness that from that mo- ment I would have no other aim and desire than to regain the property of my forefathers,” and how after many ears she accomplished this desire. e relatives and neighbors in Varm- land, an fron district which is the setting of many of Miss Lagerlof's novels, are the subjects of some of the other sketches, all written with such simplicity and in such a confi- dential tone that she might be talk- ing to us as to familiar friends. “Swed- NATIONAL VELVET. By Enid Bag- nold. Drawings by Laurian Jones. New York: William Morrow & Co. VELVEI‘ BROWN, daughter of the butcher in Sussex village, “can- tered” home at tea time over the chalk road, carrying in her hand a little paper race horse cut from the Bystander. She burst into the sit- ting room, separated from the siaugh- ter house by only a thin partition, and without greeting her three sisters, Edwina, Malvolia and Meredith, “golden greyhounds,” bent, over their lessons, tore from from her mouth the - SUSAN AND JOANNA. By Elizabeth Cambridge. New York: G. P. Put- nam'’s Sens. SET in the Cotswold hills. the village of Bract and the neighboring farm of Node are the scene of the growth to maturity of two girls, friends from childhood, and their difficult ad- justment to the men they marry. The | setting is the author’s own country- side, and by her intimate descriptions she almost makes it ours. We see | every room at straggling Node farm, | home of Miss Laura Coppen and her | nephew Garry and later of Joanna | Cato; at the meticulously kept home in Bract of Simon Anderson and his | daughter Susan; at the chill, decayed | vicarage of Bract, home of the vicar, Alec Cato, his wife and daughter | Joanna, and the yellow-striped cat | | Tobit, who plays a very important part in the story. We walk about the streets of Bract and of the market town not far distant and back and | forth over the field path between | Bract and Node farm, enjoying the | larks, the willows along the stream, | the celandines and new grass as much | as Susan does. | Susan, motherless daughter of a | father who Is & selfish recluse, is, in | her complete humility, quiet com- etence and unruffied poise a rarely | fine character, contrasting effectively with her friend Joanna, scholarly, managing, self-confident, but entirely Jacking in tact and far less equal to emergencies than Susan, who has no | opinion of herself whatsoever. Garry Coppen, not capable of loving any one well, stubborn in his demand for personal freedom at the expense of | the welfare of his farm, obtuse where | the feelings of others are ‘concerned, | extremely sensitive where his own are | oncerned, considers first Susan, | then Joanna, as a wife. Susan’s sub- | tle perceptions and substantial com- | mon sense prevent her from making the mistake of becoming the mistress of Node. Her scientist husband, Blan- ;don Armstrong, is impractical, blinded by his absorption in his research, but | he is reliable, has no selfishness and loves and values Susan. With Joanna and Garry it is different, and the story closes with a nightmare scene in | which their life almost ends in su- | preme tragedy—almost, but not quite, for Miss Cambridge is a kindly nov- Pelist and does not ruthlessly mete out tragedy to the people she has | taught us to like. “Susan and Joan- na” is at least as good a novel as “Hostages to Fortune,” and that is saying a great deal. A FEW FOOLISH ONES. By Gladys Hasty Carroll. New York: The Macmillan Co. HEN we had read the first 50 pages of “A Few Foolish Ones,” and had made the acquaintance of the Bragdons, Grays, Linscoits, Blaines, Joys, Dockhams, Allens, Cheneys, Shoreys, Seldens, Elys and Hamiltons of Derwich Village, and had seen the disorderly meeting which marked the reopening of the Derwich meeting house, with Elder James Gray in the pulpit, we felt re- gretfully that this novel was going to-be far inferior to “As the Earth Turns” and that no one of the Der- wich villagers, not even independent Gus Bragdon, could compare with Jen Shaw, But when.we had finished the last page and had seen Gus through his 80 years and °left his daughter Kate, so like him but with a strain of idealism from the Grays, sitting on her doorstep alone at night, gazing at the dark line of woods P | the widow of a poor tax collector near | Avignon. Their mother did all she | could to educate them and was then | obliged to turn them loose to make their own way. Both had a decided turn for gambling, first in small way, |then on the rise and fall of French rentes. Soon they were in business |in Bordeaux, where they opened a small bank. In 1837 they were on trial in Bordeaux for having obtained illegal advantages in speculation by corruption and bribery. They were adjudged guilty, but no penalty was enforced and the brothers moved to Paris and continued gambling on a larger scale. In 1840 they signed a contract with the Landgrave of Hesse- Homburg, who had long been anxious to develop Homburg as a resort, to build a pump-room and secure a con- cession for gambling. The fortune of Homburg was made and Edward | VII, as Prince of Wales, made it world famous. Louis Blanc died dur- ing the early Homburg days and Francois, with the help of his clever second wife, went on alone with his managerial gambling career. In 1863 Francois Blanc acquired from the cession at Monte Carlo, where a num- ber of others, whom he feared as rivals to Homburg, had already failed to make the place pay. Monte Carlo grew, while Homburg declined and came to an end shortly after the Franco-Prussian War. Many impor- tant persons, royalty, nobility, mil- lionaires and others of lesser degree, made and lost fortunes at the two famous gambling casinos. Count Corti, author of “The House of Roths- child,” has in this bit of special his- tory written also an exciting, pano- ramic true story of adventure. LEAVES FROM A GREENLAND DIARY. By Ruth Bryan Owen. Illustrated. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. THE diary of Mrs. Owen's Green- land trip starts with July 28, when, on board the Disko, she set forth with about 50 other passengers from Copenhagen, amid cheers of the throngs on the Greenland wharf. She had not before realized to what an extent Greenland was a closed coun- try, protected by the sensible Danes from ordinary tourist incursions, on account of the susceptibility of the natives to diseases of civilization. But under the auspices of the Danish government Mrs. Owen had no trou- ble in gaining entry. From her jour- nal she has chosen extracts which give her- impressions of the country and the people and her own personal experiences in making calls on Eskimo families, visiting schools, churches, hospitals, fish canhing factories, and climbing mountains. Of course, the American Minister to Denmark was entertained by all the officials in Greenland, and altogether had a very fine time. She left with regret. “Greenland has already woven her spell about me. I know that I, too, will say, ‘One wants to go back again.’ 1 know that I, too, will often look past walls and pavements into this realm— longingly.” THE ART OF RENOIR. By Albert C. Barnes and Violette de Mazia. New York. Minton, Balch & Co. WITH the aid of 158 illustrations, the authors here give a thor- ough study of the work of one of the most original and independent of the French impressionists, whose skill in depicting flesh color and skin texture was rivaled only by his art in paint- ing landscapes, fruit arid flowers. As John Dewey explains in his foreword, the book has as its definite objective art education and is based on study of oir in the the 175 ‘paintings by collection of the Barnes Foundation, supplemented by the important Re- noirs in publie private galleries in many cities. and One , Prince of Monaco the gambling con- | method of ap- in her sutobiogarphy, “No Time Like the Present.” Lilo Linke recalls, wita the vividness of a mind made abnor- mally alert through suffering, the war | and all its hardships and horrors, the | mild revolution and the flight of the | Kaiser, the collapse of the sturdy middle class through inflation, Lhe 1unsuccess(ul efforts of the repubiic |to preserve democracy and the final triumph of Hitler and dictatorzhip, Confronted with the downfall of all the stable life they had been old enough to remember before the war, the youth of Germany, at least in the lower class, adrift and bewildered, | broke away from enfeebled domestic | control and lived in an unwholesome | search for excitement, Lilo Linke, on ing school, became an apprentice |in a book shop and turned to men, chiefly casuals. for escape from ner restless days. In 1924 she became one of the leaders in the Youth Movement, | so eulogized as & means of salvation Books Received | NON-FICTION. A REBEL WAR CLERK'S DIARY. At | the Confederate States Capital. By J. B. Jones, clerk in the War De- partment of the Confederate States Government. A new and enlarged edition, edited with an introduction and historical notes by Howard Swiggett. Two volumes. New York: Old Hickory Bookshop. THE, MEANING OF SHINTO. By J. W. T. Mason, New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. THE GODS IN PLAIN GARB. A study in Psychalogy. By Emil Humble. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. WHAT ABOUT GOD? A Business Man's Philosophy. By Roger W. Babson. New York: Fleming H. | Revell Co. 4 | LOW CEILING (Verse). By Lincoln | Kirstein. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. CAPITALISM AND ITS CULTURE. By Jerome Davis. New York: Farrar & Rinehart. ENQUIRY ON NATIONAL PUBLIC WORKS. Series of League of Na- tions Publications. VIIIL. Transit 1934. VIIL 8. RANDOM VERSES. By Everett Max- well. Louisville, Ill.: Published by the author. B MATERIALS FOR A LIFE OF JACOPO DA VARAGINE. I. A Maker of the Italian Language. By Ernest Cushing Richardson. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co. HAMPTON AND HIS RED SHIRTS. South Carolina’s Deliverance in 1876. By Alfred B. Williams. Charleston: Walker, Cogswell Co. THE SILVER HORN. And Other Sporting Tales of John Weather- ford. By Gordon Grand. With illustrations by Ralph L. Boyer. New York: Windward House. MEN AND WOMEN. By Magnus New York: G. Putnam’s Sons. THE ROUND TABLE. A quarterly review of the politics of the British Commonwealth. March, 1935. New York: The Macmillan Co. WHY NOT ENFORCE THE LAWS WE ALREADY HAVE? By Howard ‘Watson Ambruster with the col- laboration of Ursula Ambruster. Westfleld, N. J.: Ursula Am- bruster. FICTION. STORK'S NEST. A story of Alsace. By Katharine Adams. Illustrat by Margaret Ayer.. New York: The Macmillan Co. For girls of 12 and over, N READ A NEW STORY NOW. By Hattie Adell Walker. With illus- trations by Keith Ward. Chicago: Beckley-Cardy Co. Animal stories in.verse for little children. 'S Evans & Then they returned to Moscow and | she went on alone. Durjng the exces- | sive heat of Summer and the bitmg‘ cold of Winter she wandered with | much satisfaction about Kirghizia, | between the Tien Shan, or Celestial Mountains, and the Kizil Kum, or Red | Sands. End-paper maps show her | route. The camel was her chief re- liance for transportation, though trains, automobiles and an airplane were a help. Her journey ended at | Kazalinsk, near the Aral Sea, whcre there was no further likelihood of {adventure. On her journey Miss Mail- lart was as alert for interviews as any | reporter in a natiomal capital. Eer subjects were all who crossed her path —the women of Moslem households. vendors in native markets, school- | masters and their wives, Russian cci- | tors, cotton pickers, an anarchist in | exile, an Oriental president, veiled | women of Tashkent, officials of the| Kirghiz, people in the bazaars. She tells of her experiences in a pleasanily conversational style which aids the | reader’s visualization of the places 4 and,people she describes, | Art Notes TH! National Gallery of Art has issued invitations to the opening of an exhibition of studies in pastel | of peasant types made in Egypt by | delphia Thursday, May 2, 2:30 to 4:30 o'clock. This exhibition, which will | continue throughout May, will be un- der the patronage of the Egyptian Minister, H. E. Ibrahim Ratib Bey; the former Egyptian Minister, H. E.| | Sesostris Sidarouss Pasha, and the founder and director of the great Coptic Museum at Cairo, H. E. Marcus | | Simaika Pasha. Mr. Stratton comes of | | an old Quaker family, but has all his | | life been associated with art and art | movements. He was for many years | | director of the School of Industrial | Art in Philadelphia and did much to | | raise the standard artisticaily of cur | industrial output. Some of the leading | craftsmen of today studied under him. He has traveled exupnlvely and the drawings that are to be exhibited were made some years ago during a pro- longed sojourn in Egypt. They have been highly commended, not only be- cause of artistic merit, but on account ; of anthropological significance. Es- | Egyptian scholars. Mr. Stratton will | | be present at the opening. 'HE Phillips Memorial Gallery an-| nounces a lecture on “Giotto, El| Greco and Modern Art,” to be given | by C. Law Watkins, assistant director, Thursday evening, May 2, at 8:30 o'clock in the gallery. This follows in interesting sequence a lecture given last Thursday under these same auspices by Ralph Flint 6n “Modern Art—Its Inevitability.” The Phillips Memorial Gallery has been entirely rehung, with enly two galleries reserved for works by masters not to be reckoned of the modern school. One gallary has been set aside exclusively for the works of ‘Washington painters. wn.u.u( STEENE, portrait painter of New York, is spending some weeks in this city and has brought with him some of his recent works. A native of Syracuse, pupil of Henri, Chase and others iIn New York and the Julian Academy in Paris, Mr. particularly in North Carolina, and his are to be found in some of | Howard Fremont Stratton of Phila- | S pecially did they find favor among | ]| Cady’s work at the Smithsonian. kinds of realism, some of which are | very far away from the truth save that which lies on the surface. And what is more, unless an artist com- mands his medium, no matter how correctly he sees or how deeply he feels, he cannot find artistically ade- quate expression. There is an enor- mous amount not only in choice of subject but in the way it is inter- preied—the mere matter of putting paint on canvas. That so many in the current ex- hibitions show such competence, and that as a whole so good a standard is upheld, is rather astounding. So, also. is the amount of the output. In the nine co-operating department stores at least 1200 works are on view, and 200 or 300 held in reserve, | besides which there is a large exhibi- tion of paintings by local artists to be seen at the present time at Inter- | national House, the Y. M. C. A.'s home | for transients. on E street, between | Sixth and Seventh streets north- | west, some of the Washington artists® are represented in the Corcoran Gal- lery's Biennial Exhibition, and quite | an imfertant group has lent flower | paintings for a seasonable display in the Women's City Club, to say noth- | ing of the exhibitions in the public libraries, the Phillips Memorial Gal- lery and Studio House. | OME years ago the distinguished leader of the Philadelphia Orches- tra interrupted a symphony concert to lecture the audience on the im- portance of listening to music with a quiet mind. No one, he insisted, could get the best out of music other- wise. A symphony concert, in other words, could not be slipped in on an over-full program of shopping and social functions. The same is true | of the other arts. No one can make the rounds of the nine sections of the Independent Exhibition’ in a single day and get enjoyment from it. A picture or other work of art that does not induce lingering cer- tainly fails to score, but for even the most ardent art lover there is 4 limit to the amount that can be seen and absorbed. This exhibition will continue for three more weeks and those who are wise will not at- tempt to see it all at once. HE collection at W. B. Moses & Sons is especially well hung, and comfortable seats encourage con- templation. - Here, over a mantel, is hung a portrait study by Mrs. Leisen- ring of a “Young Pianist”—a girl in a green dress seated in a red chair. At one end of the spacious gallery the water colors are grouped and in an adjacent loft room have been hung more works in this medium, drawings and prints. Among the water. colors may be noted as of special interest a painting of the fountain in Dupont Circle by*Mitchell Jamieson, rendered with exceptional strength and direct- ness. Here also are two very excellent works by Jawn *Allen—a painting of “Byrd’s Ship” and a still life. Robert Gates, who won the first prize for water colors, is represented at his best in a painting, “Late Afternoon,” a landscape painted in the hill coun- try. “Washington Market,” by Lesley Jackson, is charming in color and; very competent in rendering. “Wash- ington Flower Cart,” by Margaret Zimmele, a large painting in oils, like- ‘wise has local flavor, and that of the most pleasing sort. Among the land- scape here one finds very excellent and engaging transcriptions by Will Hutchins, Philip Bell, Edith Hoyt, Minor Jameson, A. H. O. Rolle, John U. Perkins, O. R. Carrington and others. There js real beauty of color 8s well as strength in transcription in portrafts the leading Southern colleges and 3 s Gladys Nelson Smith's “Little Red P ings in sales rooms on two lower floors. Egdar Nye studied at the Cor- coran School of Art and has painted for the most part in or near Wash- ington. In his choice of subjects and manner of transcription he may be said to be modern. As a rule, how- ever, his paintings are well con- structed, broadly rendered and strong. Seen at a distance, they are effective. Lut they seldom sound the note of beauty. It is with real satisfaction that one comes across etchings by C. Allen Sherwin, who is twice represented here, first by his tiny but very effec- tive etching of the Lincoln Memorial, and second by a portrait “Sandy,” a dry point admirably bandled. Minnie Briggs, W. M. Geety and Mary Ball make interesting con- tributions among the etchers, and in the black and white section a “Gate- | way” by Cary Millholland is notable for merit. Unique features of this exhibition are portraits carved in wood in high relief by E. J. Almquist and needle- work pictufes—one of dogwood, the other of a Japanese lady—by Hope Willis Rathbun. There is also an interesting group of sculpture of varied characters, including Vicken Von Post Totten's “Little Boy Blue.” To this particular section of the Independent Exhibition seem to have fallen an especially large number of meritorious Wworks, but each of the eight other sections will be found to contain excellent examples and to be no less worthy of careful study. A well-informed hostess—in most in- stances, an artist—it to be found and may be consulted in each gallery. All visitors are urged to vote for the | painting or other work individually preferred. A VERY diverting and altogether delightful exhibition of etching, water colors, lithographs and drawings by Harrison Cady opened in the Smithsonian Building last Monday, to continue until the middle of May. Mr. Cady is & humorist, and the subjects he chooses are distinctly the “Amer- ican scene,” but his humor is of the most subtle kind and his subjects are never prosaic. The majority of the 18 etchings included in this exhibition are of scenes in the Great Smoky Mountains, and in almost all, moun- taineers figure prominently. These people, who Mr. Cady pictures, are odd characters, and the story of their lives is full of romance of a sturdy sort. By presenting them on a very small scale as compared to the moun- tains among which they live the artist has emphasized the forces of nature which have influenced and molded their modes of living—in fact, their lives. Grim as it may seem, there is underneath the glint' of | humor—but Mr. Cady laughs with and not at these simple people. De- lightful is the etching, “Mountaineer’s Cabin” in which a sun-bonneted woman, pipe in mouth, is seen astride a lean mule with four youngsters seated “aft” and “astern.” The pro- cession halts for converse with the man who wields the hoe. Dogs and hogs look, root and listen. Amusing also are “Crossing at Short Toe Creek,” “Kincald’s General Store” and others. To say that Mr. Cady has taken a leaf from the book of the old Chinese artists may seem an exaggeration, but between his drawings and theirs is a certain similarity. Witness, for instance, his deliniation of mountains, the way in which he conveys the impression of great height, and also how he sug- gests that there is something on the other side, tempting the imagination by a tree-top seen peeping over a high ledge. It is interesting also to note how he uses accent and to what excellent purpose—how, also, he in- 2 study, | | two priests walking along & roadway in the “Province of Quebec” there en- ters something which is not only seen, but felt, and is memorable. There are only two lithographs, “A Corner of the Harbor” and “Old Rock- port,” neither for sale. The latter is very fine. Among the drawings three are of Charleston—St. Michael's Church yard, houses, a donkey cart and Negroes—familiar sights in that charming city, and all possessed, as are Mr. Hutty's etchings, with the feeling of the place—the picturesqueness which allures visitors and appeals to the imagination. | For 23 years Harrison Cady made illustration for Life, besides which he made drawings for children’s books |and magazines and found time to write some children's stories. It was he who created “Peter Rabbit,” and for the nature stories of Thornton W. | Burgess he made literally thousands | of illustrations. He is a member of the American Water Color Society, New York Water Color Club and other | professional organizations. L& has | traveled much and exhibited exten- | sively. Born in Gardner, Mass., he spends his Winters in Brooklyn. N. Y., and his Summers at Rockport. De- | spite his prolific output, he is still under 60 years of age. }THE Corcoran Gallery of Art will open, about May 1, an exhibition of miniatures by the leading American miniature painters. These have been | assembled by special invitation and | Wil number between 50 and 60. The | intention is to make this a continuous exhibition, changing it from time to time through the withdrawal of works | and substitution of others, in order | that this field of art, a very charm- | ing one, shall have in the Corcoran Gallery adequate representation. | REDERICK BALLARD WIL- LIAMS of New York, representing not only the American Artists’ Profes- sional League, which he heads, but 15 other professional art organizations, such as the National Academy of De- sign, National Arts Club, National Sculpture Society, Allied Artists of | America, etc., has addressed a letter | to the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Morgenthau, urging the creation of |a division of portraiture under the | already existing Painting and Sculp- | ture Section of the Procurement Di- vision of the Treasury Department, which would be charged with giving commissions for official portraits, whether in painting or sculpture, and their installation in public buildings, also stipulating that these portraits shall be by American artists. This, it was pointed out, is in a fleld not touched by existing Federal projects having prearranged architectural set- ting and would widen the effort being made to advance the standard of Gov- ernment art in aid of artists. It is & matter which has long mer- ited attention. A large number of such commissions are given, for the most part arbitrarily, with the result that the portraits procured have, to a large extent, not been of estimable character—at least not outstanding as works of art. Neither the Commission of Fine Arts nor the new Painting and Sculpture Section of the Treasury De- partment has jurisdiction in this field, but to aid the situation the latter has begun assembling data on American portrait painters, photographs of their works and estimates of cost, which will be made available as informative ma- terial to all within the Government who have these commissions to give. This, at least, is a step in the right direction, 4