Evening Star Newspaper, June 16, 1935, Page 60

" F4 THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JUNE 16, 1935—PART FOUR. - REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS : THE MORGAN MINIATURES AMONG EARLY SUMMER BOOKS German Author Contributes a Novel of Genuinely Serious Value—"The Citizen and His Government,” by Alfred E. Smith—Early Victorian Novelists. CONDEMNED TO LIVE. By Johann Rabener. Translated from the German by Geoffrey Dunlop. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co. T HAS always seemed to be of first importance in estimating & novel to place it in its appropriate cate- gory rather than to praise or dis- it. The vast output of printed fiction and the heterogenous nature of the bundles—called novels— that reach a reviewer's desk today make this classification of real impor- tance. For conceivably the same mail may bring the work of a recognizable brother of Cervantes and something in the genre of the estimable War- wick Deeping. Both are novels. Both, for their intent, are good—the one for eternity and the other for a hopeful hundred editions. 'The reviewer, with only one vocabulary to hand, inevit- ably will feel the need to do some de- fining of the species before calling up | adjectives and applying them to the individual works in question. This need is particularly keen when # work of serious value makes its rela- | tively rare appearance. The adjec- tives, dulled by long application to the pleasing and mediocre, demand a spe- cial purging for such an occasion. It may be said, then, without further preliminary, that the first novel of Johann Rabener, “Condemned to Live,” is first to be taken seriously as contemporary literature. What its young author may do in the future is of no import here. He has done one thing that can command the attention of readers who look to the novel for a substantial art form, relevant of the profound problems of human life, and not merely for a vehicle for impres- sionistic satire or passing entertain- ment, the two most common novel forms of the day. “Condemned to Live,” to be sure, | has already been compared to the work of Wasserman and Dostoiveski, which would seem to define it pretty well. Issue may be taken with the essence of either comparison. In this work is found neither the Russian’s ultimate simplicity, against which the multi- tudinous complexities of life are made 80 pitiful; nor Wasserman’s Olympian technique in the handling of his monu- mental materials. Notwithstanding, the comparison is justified to some degree and the reason for it is per- fectly plain. There is a noticeable similarity to Wassermann’s method; the canvas is a large one, crowded with vivid scenes and much realistic physi- cal detail. But, where in Wassermann the great procession of characters passes before the reader with the sad- ness of classic tragedy, in “Condemned to Live” it vociferates with the anger of an outraged mob. The resemblance to Dostoiveski is more & likeness in theme; the book is a deep ransacking of the human spirit in relation to its | day and a voicing of that persistent “Why?” which must be the under- theme of any story of human futility and defeat. The action centers about the brief career of Feodor Feuerhahn, a young German musician, whose youth coin- cides with the era now known as post- war, the opening date being 1924. Feodor is of a financially comfortable class, the bourgeoisie, but is early spewed out of his home and cut off from his expected birthright by a mania of his mother, Beate. With this mark on his soul he struggles with the problems of earning an independ- ent living and at the same time of de- veloping _his genius as a composer. Through the strengthening force of the love of a young Jewess who becomes his wife in everything but name and bears him a child (it is her family’s dislike of Christians which prevents the actual marriage) he succeeds to some extent in cleaning up his soul: but the material horrors of his exist- ence, recurring unemployment and poverty, force him again and again to go back to his mother for assistance, until at last an impossibly hideous situation overwhelms him. He kills Beate and, with his sweetheart, throws himself under the wheels of a train. The book has already been labeled *“post war,” and certainly post-war conditions are set forth in it with | One of the | vast and bitter detail. most eloquent passages is that which deals with unemployment, which, the hero declares, is resulting in not merely the financial proletarianization of a cultured generation, but the pro- letarianization of that generation's very soul: “People aren't wanted—that's the slogan. Unemployment is the last form of torture which human deviltry has devised, a far worse, more refined and bestial form than any previous one. Look back through all the annals of human tyranny and you'll find that | whatever forms it took in the past, men were still necessary. They needed men in Rome to row in the galleys or be thrown to the beasts: they needed men in the middle ages to burn them at the stake as Jews or heretics. To- day they just ‘aren’t wanted.’ That's the worst thing that's ever been done to them. However much this or that doctrinaire scientist may try to smile away this reality, it remains true that nowadays, in this century, human beings have been degraded to more or less unnecessary machine-minders, and our generation is the first which is getting a real taste of what this means. Lots of us can't stand up against the pressure and we break down. What good does it do fellows like that to have every fifth-rate poli- tician shouting at them, ‘Hold out! What you need is grit!’ ” Likewise, theré are richly ironical descriptions of the post-war specula- tions on the bourses of Berlin and Amsterdam, and a tracing of the effects of these speculations on the lives of workmen whose livings are sutomatically snuffed out when this or that financial giant takes a loss. And there are also introduced a variety of post-war viewpoints as to the possible bands of hope to whicn the post-war youth may turn. We have Gregowitch, the Communist, fat, smooth and glib, with his patter about the “soclalist- self? A dirty bandage, torn off the wound of a man bleeding to death.” But, in spite of the violence of these concepts, it cannot. be said that the figures of the book are simply “types.” They are not even Germians. They are human beings, and the American who looks about him today at our disinherited generation—in camps, in shelters, on the road—may find simi- lar human beings, of similar view- points, although 11 years have passed since 1924. In view of the book's preoccupation with post-war conditions, the ques- tion raised by its treatment of the mother, Beate, is interesting. Does Herr Rabener mean to symbolize in her the attitude of nations toward their young—making conveniences of them then dropping them aside and making no provision for them? Or does he mean to place the blame on the pre- ceding generation, charging against its blindness, its selfishness and jingo- ism the present chaotic conditions? Certainly it is impossible to accept Beate simply as a person; of all the characters in the book she seems marked to be a “symbol.” For if we. are asked to accept her as merely a woman, then it would seem that the suthor should accord her the pitying understanding that he gives the others, for if she is only a woman she is no worse than insane. But | the treatment of her aberration by | the author differs markedly from that | of any other character. There is no | pity for her. Instead, the pages deal |ing with her are informed with a livid hatred, as the result of which she exceeds belief as a person, in her vileness, and must be questioned as a symbol. “Condemned to Live” is, as has been Alfred E. Smith, who goes into the machinery of Government in his mew book, “The Citizen and His Government.” said, undoubtedly a serious contribu- tion to contemporary literature. Its viewer, is 2’ certain arbitrary stag managing of incident, together with a youthful satisfaction in violent ex- pression. But the book has both humor and tenderness; consequently its stage-managing cannot make it artificial nor its youth immature. It | should be read by any one interested in the development of the serious con- tmporary novel. | THE CITIZEN AND HIS GOVERN- MENT. By Alfred E. Smith. New York: Harper & Bros. | THIE book is advertised on its jacket | as one which tells the citizen “all | government—“how it works from the bottom up; how to get into politics; how to judge political and party is- sues.” These phrases, however, are no more accurate than jacket blurbs usually are, Mr. Smith has not written ment as it exists in this country today by any manner of means. What he | has done, however, is to write clearly | and forcefully out of his own political | this experience. | Mr. Smith, as the world knows, is |a New Yorker. His book, therefore, | being out of his own political past, is |In so far as it deals with political imlnfinflon, New York organizations are used as the models. Successive chapters in the first part deal with political clubs as the unit of organiza- tion, the needs of the present charter of New York City for modernization, the State (New York) Legislature and how it works, the duties of the Gov- ernor of New York and the manage- ment of a national campaign. Except for the first and last of these, it will be seen that they are all dis- tinctly marked as the product of Mr. Smith's own well-known battlegrou Even the last, the chapter on pres dential campaigns, 15 frankly drawn from the author's own experience. But, as there -is small reason to be- lieve that one campaign differs very radically from another, this chapter may be taken to have some general significance. The second half of the book is like- wise pretty well limited to Mr. Smith' political territory, Its chapters have more general headings; they are, sue- | cessively, “The Government and Per- sona} Welfare,” “The Law of the Land ahd Its Observance,” “The Public for monstrous and idle purposes and | worst fault, it would seem to this re- | | about” the practical workings of his | a full text on the business of govern- | experience and to set forth certain con- | | clusions which he has drawn from almost exclusively a New York work. | ] " Eigsigéggfii primitive population which he to persuade to consent to vaccination. It takes time, he seems to sigh: it takes education,'and above all it takes some | day they may get around Yo it. | meantime the record is thus. It is, inevitable that one should wonder, In view of the vastly in- creased scope of Pederal duties in re- | cent years, what would be the pro- | cedure of so practical a political sur- | geon if ne were to assume a position | of central authority.” But Mr. Smith himself, except where he describes his i presidential campaign. makes no men- | tion whatsoever of Federal responsi- | bilities. It may be, of course, that his | silence 1s significant, At any rate, | because he is such a man as is con- | sidered by the public siguificant in all his processes, even his silences, the speculation is an interesting one. Another aspect of value to be gath- ered from the book is the revelation of the manner in which so seasoned | a campaigner regards the party sys- tem. This revelation, Lo be sure, must | be drawn chiefly by the reader’s infer- | | ence. Mr. Smith does not discuss the | lquemon openly. He deals with it rather as-a thing too obvious to be mentioned—if one is to play chess one | must use chessmen. But at times his unthinking commitmeat to the sys- tem cannot but amuse the reader whose political thinking is so dilet- | tante as to be non-partisan. For example, after telling with great| the Goverr.or by friends and support- ers to appoint incompetents to office | as a reward for their nelp, and of the ratural human difficulty in refusing such requests, he then remarks that | irdependence in such matters is really | best in the long run, because, he says, | it will assist the executive to secure | re-election and, incidentally, he adds, it also helps the party. A practical man, indeed. This occasional naivete adds to the entertaining quality of an otherwise pretty solid book, and gives rise irre- | | sistibly to the reflection that, if the | | sohphisticated thinker is apt to be inept in the world of affairs, the exact | reverse inay be equally true. Viewed | in this manner, Mr. Smith's book | | becomes even more ‘nstructive per- { haps than its hopeful jacket writer | has imagined. For it gives not only | a description of the political institu- tions of one of our great States; it gives also an insight into the mind of a man who has distinguished him- self as the outstanding political real- ist of our day. The book itself has | pothing to do with political trends, but the student of trends may still | find a value in it, in this one cir- cumstance alone. | EARLY ' VICTORIAN NOVELISTS. By Lord David Cecil, author of “The Stricken Deer.” Indianap- olis: The Bobbs Merrill Co. THIS book is published with the author's own prefatory remark that it is “slight.” Accepted as such, there is little more to be said of it | in a critical vein. It i+ a series of | | eight essays—one on the early Victo- | | rian novel in general, and one each | | on Dickens, Thackeray, Charlotte | Bronte, Emily Bronte and “Wuthering | Heights,” Mrs. Gaskell, Anthony Trol- | | lope and George Eliot. | The material from which these es- says are gathered was a series of lectures which the author delivered at Oxford University. And, while the work is done with scholarly urbanity of manner, perhaps an agreeable, placid, didactic, undergraduate quality is its outstanding critical charac- teristic. The author’s enthusiasms and his (far rarer) rebukes are tem- pered with a benign gentieman-schol- arly quality which makes them very good reading. To perusz the book in- deed is to remember, with a sort of nostalgia, the more amiable aspects of | undergraduate English courses and even to hear, behind the sentences on the page, the eager professorial voice calng the sternal freshman | to look dewn from the great heights | of youth—on literature. It is evidént that the author’s ac- guaintance with his subject is as loving as it is intimate. He appar- ently feels toward his novelists as the Dickens lover feels toward Sam Wel- ler or Mr, Micawber—as if they were privileged old friends, whose faults are sometimes glaring, but who must be cherished for the beauty Which their presences bestow, There are as- Suredly many pedPle today who love the works or the illustrious septet which this book celebrates. 70 all these it will be mellow and profitable reading. And to those whose ac- quaintance with the eminent Victo- Tiany is slight (if there be say such) the work may be genuinely instruc- tive. M-C.R. THE LAST OF FREE AFRICA; the account of an expedition into Abys- manners, customs and traditions of the Ethiopians, with some pungent remarks on the anomalous frankness of the pressure brought on |- sinia, with observations on the | B! ete. Second Edition. New York: D. Ap- gt 15 > £ GE : 4 ’ H TE| i | | 2 i { i Johann Rabener, whose novel, “Condemned to Live,” has just been published. by what is perhaps the worst railroad in_the world, needlessly tortuous for deliberately uneconomical reasons, he set about to do some hunting, going first after a great man-killing bull hippopotamus of which report reached him. He had some thrilling adven- | tures, some narrow escapes, and ac- quired a great deal of information | that would be denled to the average | traveler content merely to reach the | capital, see the King, note the ex-| traordinary customs of the people, suf- fer the torments of & tropblesome climate and then emerge with the materials for an average travel book. That, as noted, was several years | ago. But the net of European Intrigue and design was drawing in upon Abys- | sinia even then. Now it has been tightened, and hence the reprinting of the book, with a new preface and an added chapter, bringing it up to date | in the sense that it is now a document of interest and importance relative to the newest scene of possible conflict, with incalculable chances for the in- volvement of the major powers in war. ‘This is frankly a pro-Ethiopian doc- ument. Mr. h sees in Abys- sinia-Ethiopia the victim of avarice, commercial and political. The map tells the story. In the northwestern section lies Lake Tsana, the source of the Blue Nile, from which come | the enriching inundations that keep | Egypt fertile. Great Britain has a | very keen interest in Lake Tsana, which lies somewhat dangerously close 0 Italy's colony of Eritrea, and the | waters of which could be diverted from | the Blue Nile by a charge of dynamite. On the eastern side is French Somali- land, British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland, with British territory completing the cordon on the west and south. Just at present there is an acute issue between Ethiopia—to give it the old-new name which is now official— and Italy, ostensibly cver a vague boundary on the southeastern flank of the realm of Haille Sellassie, the Emperor. Swords are rattling over in Italy, men are marching, supplies are being transported. In London, where the Italian moves are being Jealously watched, there are some plain intimations regarding the pos- sibility of forbidding the use of the Suez Canal in case llaly should un- dertake a war against Abyssinia. At | Rome the memory of the humilistion suffered at Adowa, just on the Ethi- | opian side of the Eritrean boundary, | in 1896, rankles more and more bit- | terly. In his new foreword to the re- | printed book Mr. MacCreagh swiftly reviews the course of Ethi tory, revealing the intrigue that has beset that land for many years. For | a long spell there was a lively war of diplomacy between England and Ger- many—that was before ihe shots were | fired at Sarajevo, followed by the | outburst of the greatest. most mur- derous cannonading the world has ever known and resulting in the elim- ination of Germany as a factor in African affairs. Then later came an overturn in Ethiopia whereby Ras Ta- fari, nephew of the great Menelik, | overthrew Lij Yassu, Menelik’s son and immediate successor, a decidedly | promoted overturn. Now, with Ger- | many out of the picture, the scene | shifts from time to ume, always to- ward the envelopment of Ethiopia. “But the Blue Nile,” says the au- thor, “still rises in Ethiopia and must | never be diverted from the Anglo- | Egyptian Sudan. There is still much { gold—and platinum ahd ofl—in the ‘western hills. still has her fertile valleys and salubrious white man’s climate. Italy still has her arid deserts. France still has her strategic railroad. Alas for poor rich Ethiopia!"” ‘That strategic railroad is now joint- ly owned by Italy and France and Fiction. By Millard Ward., New By_ Barbara Doubleday Doran & Co. . DAUGHTER OF DINA. By Allene w&&“" York: Farmar & | connection with the Land Grant Col- the former is seeking ‘o acquire all the shares. Just a few miles across the Straits of Bab El Mandeb lies the British-controlled Yemen, which safeguards the southern entrance to the route to India, and just around the corner is the strategically im- portant port of Aden. So Great Brit- ain’s interests are not altogether those of sympathy. And in the inte- rior of Ethiopia, in .he higher areas, is a vast area of dust in the hot season and of the stickiest mud in the world In the wet season, which may prove to be Ethiopia’s best de- fense against invasion, far better than her wretchedly poor armament, chief- ly consisting of ancient weapons and equally arcient and generally non- fitting cartridges. Such is the picture which Mr. Mac- Creagh paints, vividly, humorously, | briskly and with avowed partisanship for the oldest government in the world. G.A.L. SGrvice Bnnd Conceru. THI United States Navy Band, Lieut. Charles Benter conducting, will play the following schedule of concerts during the week, beginning today: Sunday, 5 p.m., Ampitheater, Ar- n. Monday, 10:30 a.m., “Hour of Mem- ories,” Sail Loft, Navy Yard; 7:30 pm.. east front of the Capitol. Tuesday, 7:30 p.m., District of Co- lumbia World War Memorial, West Potomac Park. Wednesday, 7:30 pm., bandstand, Navy Yard. ‘Thursday, 10:30 am., Sail Loft, Navy Yard: 3 p.m., Naval Hospital. mdu. 2 pm. St. Elizabeth’s Hos- ‘The schedule of the Marine Band for the coming week will include the fol- Sunday at 2:30 pm. the Marine Band will participate in the American Legion's first observance of National Church Sunday, Washington Cathe- dral. Monday at 12:30 p.m., special broad- cast at the Marine Barracks sponsored by the Department of Agriculture. Monday at 8 p.m., concert at the Marine Barracks. Tuesday at 5 p.m., dress parade at the Marine Barracks. The public is invited to attend. Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., concert at the United States Capitol. Thursday at 7:30 p.m. concert at the District of Columbia War Me- morial, Potomac Park. Priday at 10 a.m., patriotic “Shut-ins Dream Hour” concert at the Marine Barracks. The schedule of the United States Army Band includes the following concert to be given during the coming week : Monday—Concert at 5 pm. in _the band suditorium. Concert at 7: p.m. at the District of (-olumbia World War Memorial, Potomac Park. | Tuesday—Concert at 6:30 p.m.. in the formal garden of Lthe Walter Reed General Hospital. Wednesday—Concert at 10:30 am.. | in the band auditorium. Concert at | 12:30 p.m. in the band auditorium in | lege program of the “Farm and Home Hour.” Concert at 8 p.m. at the Syl- | van Theater, Washington Monument Grounds, in connection with the first Summer festival program. » Thursday—Concert at 6:30 pm. at the Tuberculosis Hospital. Fourteenth and Upshur streets northwest. Priday—Concert at 3:15 pm. in the band auditorium. Concert at 7:30 p.m. at the Capitol. “The Star Spangied Banner.” Concerts by the United States Sol- diers’ Home Band, bandstand, Tues- day evening, beginning at 5:30 o'clock. March, “The Kilties Band”. ... Morris Overture, “Poet and Peasa Von Suppe Entr'acte, (a) “The Angelus”........Massenet (b) “Au Moulin” (the mill) . Gillet (b) “Kiebeslied”"— Composer Musician Emil Spitser. Scenes from the opera “Madame Butterfly” Ballet music from “The Queen of Sheba” (La Reine de Saba)..Gounod 5y ly won through to an amasing, hap- PICTURES RICH IN ROMANCE Morgan Miniatures, to Be Sold at Auction in London, Tied Up in Drama and Intrigue, and Their Value Is Beyond Estimate—"Paintings in Little” By Ina Wolfert. NEW YORK, June 15.* RT experts and dealers—the men whose business it is to 88y, “There is $18,679 worth of paint on that" shrug help- lessly when asked to estimate the cash value of the J. P. Morgan collection of miniatures, which will be sold at auction in London June 24<27. The concensus is that the collection is worth at all times what the trafic will bear. and that the traffic will bear less now than it would have five .years ago. Gaoveraments, museums, dealers and private eollec- tors in all parts of the world will bid against each other and what they buy | will be, in addition to works of art, = record of fabulous times. According to noves in Mr. Morgan's private files, romance and rragedy, thievery in high places, bitter, re- lentless drama and strokes of good | fortune are wrapped up with the gold, the jewels, the paint and the genius that have gone into the mak- ing of these “portraits in Dttle.” Further, the collection as a whole is of inestimable value to students of history and literature as well as of art. There is no way of telling exactly how much the collection cost the Morgan family. The eider Morgan never kept any records of his art expenditures. He bought his minia- tures on his own and for his own pleasure. Prequently nn one was pres- ent when the deal was made except himself and the selier. Thus the present J. Pierpont Mor- gan, who preserved his father's col- | lection, but did not add to it be- zause it was s0 large there was noth- ing much left ‘o add, will not know if the sale will ve at a loss or profit. It is generally ucderstood that Mr. | Morgan is selling the collection to fput his estate in more inanageable form for inheritance taxes. He is now in his sixty-eighth year. He owns four large houses, town and country homes, both here and in England, and nearly every room is rich with | | treasures. They are the accumula- tions of four generations of Morgans, all ardent collectors. The task of approximating the dol- lars and cents value of even 4 zingle item, such as the Jewel, would make any sctuary blanch. On | the case containing the portrait of | Queen Elizabeth, by Nicholas Hiliard, | are four square table-cut diamor.ds set | below five opulent rubles. At the| top and bottom is a design worked in triangular table-cut diamonds. A jeweler could calculate the worth of the stones and of the gold and sil- | | ver. An art dealer might make a | guess as to the value of the Hilliard portrait and the exquisite carving | | worked out in infinite detail to show | the Queen with her hair dressed wi!hi jewels, a hair net set with pearls and | | ! i | Portrait of a Boy—This is & su- perb example of the work of Jean Honore Fragonard. & [ other precious stones, and & necklace | of -shaped pearls. | Bpue'.“whnpneeunbeuv.onmc pleasure an imaginative man might | have in holding this trinket in his | hand and filling out its obscure and | tangled history, which began shortly | after Sir Prancis Drake defeated the | Spanish armada and endured with tantalizing. inexplicable gaps of hun- | dreds of years to today? Historians have not yet decided exactly to whom Queen Elizabeth awarded the minia- ture, nor have they been able to dis- | cover by what route it reached the vaults of the noble family which finally sold it to the elder Morgan. | Then there is Dante Gabriel Ro- setti's exquisite portrait of his un-| happy wife, the only one he ever made of her after their marriage. She was Flizabeth Eleanor Sidall, a flaming beauty from a milliner’s shop. She married the leading talent of her time | in 1860, bore a child in 1861, and died | in 1862 of an overdose of laudanum he forever called “Guggums.” Years later, at th2 Insistence of friends, he had the body disinterred and pub- lished the poems. ‘The miniature is a three-quarter | seated figure of her and is luminous at the end of the sofa and very close to her. Heavy with unspoken sorrow, the miniature lived on long after its painter and sitter had died. and final- igl ; 8§- E s%gég £ £ 7 i m;&igg g the king had finally closed his eyes were his perquisiies. The groom’s daughter stole a min- | iature of Mary, Queen of Scots, from her father, and sold it to an unscru- pulous collector. Another collector, rich and young, bid in the rest of them, heartbroken that the lot was incom- plete. Grimly he waited for the owner of the Mary portrait to die. He knew time was in his favor, and quietly biding his chance, eventually was able to complete the group. The elder Morgan bought it entire from his estate. In the portrait of Henry VIII, most ancient scandal lies. The king pre- ters. famous of the Holbein miniatures, an | | Shute, another genius so obscure that somé critics have labeled him a myth. | But two copies of his book on archi- | tecture are in existence. Some paint- ings of his have been identified tentatively. The Morgan collection contains a miniature actually signed by this elusive personality. This con- clusive identification makes of the picture & touchstone, by means of which his other unsigned works ean be detected. The collection contains sly com- mentaries that would delight biogra- phers and students of history. Mme. de Montespan is represented by a miniature by Nathaniel Dixon. The portrait was painted at & time when The Famous Rushout Beauties—The two miniatures on the right, top and bottom, are of Rebecca, Lady Northwick, and the others are of her daugh- The pictures are by Andrew Plimer, famous for the charm of his work. The settings are studded with diamonds. sented it to Queen Anne of Cleves in 1539 She gaye it'to the Barrett cis Douce for $250. Ten years later Dr. Meyrick. It disappeared from the | doctor’s luxurious mansion. - At one time he thought he had lost it. At | another, he believed he had put it by | mistake in a tin box he had sent to a bank. And at still another time, he | thought it had been stolen. Four years after Meyrick's death | the family solicitor. Romer Williams, | | bought it back under mysterious cir- cumstances. There was a strong rumor | that it had been in possession of the | highly placed Esterhazy family at | Vienna, but they refused to confirm or deny the report. | The portrait had never been re- " |moved from its original ivory case | but the rock crystal covering is flaked !in two places where attempts had been made to pry it loose. For lovers of art mysteries there is an unsigned, untitled miniature that | dates from the early Stuart period. | Oritics are unanimous in hailing it as & work “of great skill and rare tal- ent.” No historian has been able to has been able to identify it as the| work of any known artist. It is ex- quisite and distinctive, and each year ! the mystery grows more baffling. Who | was this artist, this strange unrec- ognized master? There is the strange case of John | family. ‘ In 1826 it was sold to Fran- | he bequeathed it to his old friend, | decide whom it represents. No expert | this darling of her king had annpunced | sensationally that she was fed up with the futility of splendor, that she would retire from the court, and, as the cur- rent saying was, “go into the desert.” Perhaps to memorialize her dramatic dedication to Spartan simplicity, she employed Mr. Dixon to paint her in all her fortitude. But Mr. Dixon eould paint only what he saw, and his miniature reveals with gentle subtlety | that she was not—in the words of the Morgan commentator and annotator— free from the vanities of the world.” Samuel Cooper, whom a contem- porary called “the most of the world for a face, indorsed by present day critics, is rep- resented in the Morgan collection with 25 miniatures. .One of these was dis- covered boarded up behind some panel- ing in an old house. Another is a portrait of that “poor wretch,” Mrs. Pepys, and Pepys records grumblingly in his famous diary that he paid $150 for it. The collection includes work of the leading artists of the English, French, Dutch, German and Italian schools, and covers a period from the begin- nings of true “portraits in little” to the decline of the art in the early Victorian period. The man who buys one is buying “joy,” & dealer said. and “joy has no price beyond what the buyer is willing to pay.” the North American A e. tne.) THIS WEEK'S NATIONAL BEST S ELLERS Green Light...............Lloyd C. Douglas Time Out of Mind... Of Time and the River Francis the First Personal History . Available in Mazo de la Roche ..Rachel Field .Thomas Wolfe .Francis Hackett ..Vincent Sheean Our Rental Library at Vacation Rates o B e Additional days, 3¢ each “New Books W hen New, Good Books Always”