Evening Star Newspaper, September 8, 1935, Page 54

| F—¥ THE SUNDAY BTAR, WASHINGTON D. C., SEPTEMBER 8§, 1935—PART FOUR. NEW .CROP OF EARLY FALL LITERATURE IS ON STANDS A NOVEL OF UNUSUAL M “A Preface to Maturity” Presents the Sensitive Young Womait in Today’s' Struggle for Existence—Other Recent Works of Fiction. . By Mary-Carter Roberts. A PREFACE TO MATURITY. By Jule Brousseau, New York: Thomas Y. Créwell Co. HIS is a novel well above the average run of fiction. In- deed, as far as insight into her character goes, the author may be said to have genius. She has, further, given a uniquely fine picture of the problems surrounding the intelligent and sensitive young woman in the current struggle for existence. If the sentence seems to abound in clinches, the seeming is to be discountgd. Exactly what is said is meant. e phrases have been used many times to describe storles about “modern youth,” but Mrs. Brousseau's book is well above the level of most of that type. She draws a realistic picture, and her realism is not col- ored by conventional concepts of what is “real.” Although she has pro- duced a novel, one cannot but wonder whether her material is auto- biographical. Her story is that of a girl reared in a comfortable home, possessed of | all the usual opportunities to enjoy herself but cursed (or blessed, if you prefer) by a seeking mind which cannot be stayed by material satis- factions. We . see this character through her childhood, her adoles- cence and through two years in col- lege, after which, breaking with her home, she goes out to earn her own living. She has two attachments, neither of which could be called a love affair; she reads, she studies, but without finding what she is seeking. Only after much pain is she able to put a name on it. She calls it “togetherness.” She means a medium of meeting for human spirits that will be devoid of fear and selfishness. The book leaves her there. 1t possibly sounds a little trite, but the writer's approach has nothing of the formula in it. In drawing her heroine she has made a real person, & young woman, not necessarily pecu- liar to this day, but inevitably shaped by certain modern phenomena. With 50 much to be said in her praise it is regretable to have to add the com- ment that Mrs. Brousseau's technical skill sometimes falls short of her ability to read the soul and interpret] its reactions. This, however, is the case. She has shown us, with grave implied humor, how the young college men apd women of today have set up their new gods and how their talk bristles with reference to those thinkers who, | in the past, foretold disillusion and those others who, in the present, have scientifically demonstrated it—Freud, Nietsche, Spengler, Schopenhauer. These< youths, if they picked up a| handkerchief, explained the action by | one or the other of their deities. No churchly neophyte of the twelfth century could have had a mind more enslaved. And yet, having shown us this, the writer herself frequently falls back on these modern credos for elucidation. The result. is, artistically, confusing. Further, Mrs. Brousseau’s style is| sometimes annoying. Her publisher, | apparently fearing that the book | would be beyond the comprehension of reviewers, has obligingly furnished a prepared critique of it, in which it is stated that “the book is written in a beautiful style, rhythmical, vivid, clear and intense.” Until these | terms have been reduced to measur- | able exactness, of course, they will be | open to individual interpretations.| ‘With this license, it may be said that | there are passages in which the style would appear to be anything but vivid, clear and intense. On the contrary, | it at times partakes of a vague semi- mystical exaltation which is distinctly detrimental to the precision of the | idea to be conveyad. But in all it is a novel of distinct worth. It is doubtful that it will be popular. It would seem to be re- moved from the liklihood of general approval by its introspectiveness and failure to arrive at a conventional end. For the heroine neither meets an affinity nor marries. But it will not be the first book of excellence that has not been snapped up for & Hollywood script. LIVING HIGH. By Alicia O'Reaf- don Overbeck. New York: D. Appleton-Century Co. TH!S is the story of an American !” woman who, with two young children, went to live in a Bolivian mining camp. The title is explained by the fact that the aforesaid camp was 16,000 feet above sea level. The going would seem to need explaining, t00. That was because the woman's husband had accepted a job in the camp. He was a mining engineer. Some of Mrs. Overbeck's narrative has already appeared in various mag- azines in the form of articles. Har- pers, the National Geographic and the Forum have published these ac- counts. The present book, however, contains much beyond these. It is & substantial volume running well toward 400 pages. When one has read it, one feels very much acquaint- ed with the life which the high-hung camp offered. . The barriers of space * and unacquaintance have gone down before the sharpness of the author's reporting. The reader feels that he could move into Pongo tomorrow, if occasion called, and not encounter a single surprise in doing it. ‘The narrative, on the whole, is ore of those pleces of personal writing which women commit. It is a highly superior example of the type, how- ever, Mrs. Overbeck is not chatty nor “delightful.” She writes com- petently. But her viewpoint, in her mountain-bound perch, was the view- point, essentially of the housewife. She tells us of her servant problem, her domestic establishment, her chil- dren’s {llnesses and schooling and the social code which prevailed among the camp bitants. ‘It is a tribute to her of humor that she makes these matters good reading. But there is also something about her ac- counts that is saddening, and one must wonder, reading them, that a woman of such tolerance and insight should have been so absorbed by the minutiae of existence. For example, in the section of the book which describes her vacstion trip with her husband into the in- terior (domesticity on this expedition being impossible), she displays rare insight and appreciation of the hu- man beings whom she met, oddities coming from centuries of mixed breeding, living in & curious confusion of primitiveness and luxury in their jungle-bound fincas. The possibil- ities of inquiry contingent to her po- sition plainly touched her. But she has done little more than brush them | over in this book, And having done that, she comes back to her camp homemaking with a rush. Notwithstarding, her book is in- teresting and absorbing. There is a certain gallantry about it. No one, purchasing it, is likely to regret his venture, BLACK TENTS OF ARABIA. By Catl | R. Raswan. Illustrated with photo- graphs by the author. Boston: Lit- | tle Brown & Co. TO THE austerely beautiful body of Engligh letters which has been de- voted to Arabia there comes, in this book, & romantic addition It is the story of riding, day by day, With one of the great Bedouin tribes by a Eu- ropean who-had been accepted by the | | the ordinary level. The account of the | dent Ebert makes this clear. chief as a blood brother. Natufally a man on such a footing | is capable of reporting intimately the | desert life. And so Mr. Raswan writes | of the “black tents.” He tells of the existence within them in many phases, | WOLFGANG ‘Whose book, “Rubber Truncheon: 13 Months in a Nazi Concentration Camp,” is being published by Duttons. ERIT giving his estimate of his captors. His book makes clear an appalling de- light in foulness, as well as a mass sadism that is unbelievable—save that it is vouched for by honorible men and women. In summing up the springs from which, in his opinion, this cor- ruption rises he is dispassionately plain. It should be said that the ‘author is not a Jew, nor of Jewish descent. Political hatreds would seem to be as much the motivating force behind the atrocities of the concentration camps and prisons as racial antipathy, for, while Herr Langhof himself escaped special brutality (he was in- sensible and had most of his teeth knocked out, but this, he says, was not special), other non-Jewish prisoners were singlegl out for persecutions ahove treatment of the son of former Presi- ‘The Jews, indeed, may have fared better in the long run, for, such was the treatment they receiyed, they died or went mad fairly sooh. Either even- tuality would be welcomed, if this book is to be credited at all. It is a curlous thing to write a review of a factual book, in this LANGHOFF, of the strange code of hospiulityl which rules there, of marriage and | death, of hunting and falconry, of raids and a code of honesty no less foreign to the occidental concept than is the Arab concept of a guest. His book has the feeling of genuineness in its essence, although one wonders at times if the actual episodes have not | been romanticized a trifle for the sake of immediately improving the story. | The great interest of the work is in! the chapters which describe the mi- gration of the Ruala tribe—300,000 camels—beyond its own boundaries in search of pastures after a disastrous drought. The author was one of the group which was sent to beg the chief of the neighboring tribe for the use | of his land; he was, in fact, the only | European who witnessed the negotia- | tions. The permission was granted, after long talk, and the ambassadors lay down to sleep. In the morning, when they woke, they weré alone on the desert. The neighboring tribe had kept its pledge. It had already moved in order to allow the” Ruala to occupy its pas- tures. The beauty of this gesture im- presses the reader deeply. It is hard, therefore, to have to relate that on the return trip, the ambassadors were ambushed and several of their num- ber murdered. This did not mean that the permission was withdrawn. It was merely by way of a minority report from a disapproving tribesman. Apparently, it was taken in perfectly good party by the Ruala, as a protest within the man’s right. They moved | into the new pasture, but seemed to make no effort at reprisals. Mr. Raswan, a German war vet- eran, has spent years among the Arabs, and writes as one who knows his materials. The romantjc quality of some of the episodes in no way de- ;ron.:cu from the substantiality of the k Not the least metit of this book, 1t should be added, is the beautiful photogtaphy which is used to illus- trate it. RUBBER TRUNCHEON. By Wolfgang Langhof. Translated from the| German by Lilo Linke. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. THIS book is another of the weary- ing and horrible works which have been written by men and women who have suffered imprisonment at the hands of the Nazi government of Germany. Like most of its predecessors, it is highly interesting. And like most of them too, it leave the reader with one overpowering thought: “I hope this is not true.” But, again like the great number before it, it has impres- sive evidence of its authenticity. The author is one of the uncounted number of jpdividuals who have been taken under “protective custody” by the Nazi government, which is to say that he was arrested and held without a hearing. He was a young actor. At the time of arrest, he was playing leads in Dusseldorf. He had engaged in no political activity, but he had contributed his services to workers) entertainments. Accordingly he was included in a general round-up of Communists, which the March elections of 1933. He was held The record of this imprisonment does not differ much from those that have gone before. It is a tale | foolish wars, panics and famines; we twentieth century, and observe that the words “sadism,” “brutality,” “‘obscenity,” “torturings,” and so on should stud thelsentences. But there are no other terms to do justice to | this account, no matter what the century. Readers are warned that it | is & story of horrors, physical and | spiritual. But they are also warned | that it comes to us with impressive testimony as to its accuracy. THE STUFFED MEN. By Anthony | Rud. New York: The Macaulay Co. | THIS is & mystery based on the de- vious dark behavior of a group of Chinese criminals. Unlike other | groups of Chinese criminals, they have an object in their crime a trifie more explicit than the destruction of Occidental civilization. They want to monopolize the manufacture of spu- rious Ming pottery and white rivals are giving them competition. But they are just as devious and dark as those of their countrymen who, in the pages of our best sellers, patriotically brew dreadful poisons and breed hor- rid insects to the end that the white man shall perish. They operate on Long Island. As mysteries go, this is not a bad one. A new use is made of radio and the hero has a narrow squeak escaping thé Death of the Heated Rat, though, to our grief, the Death of the Thousand Slices is never ex- plained. Intuition is called into play but once. That is in solving the crime. We can recommend it. NATIONS CAN LIVE AT HOME. | By O. W. Willcox. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. TH!: author of this book is an agro- biologist. He is not an agricul- turalist nor an agronomist nor a bi- ologist. He is an agrobiologist, And speaking for his fraternity, he ad- vances a fine new plan for saving civilization. The agrobiologists have it, he tells us. They know the way. If we fol- low their teaching, we may avoid mady live well and securely. If we do not—well then, we will continue pre- sumably in the way we are headed and, if woe betide us, it is not be- cause the agrobiologists did not tell us_ better. It is an engaging idea, anyway. Says Mr. Willcox, the cause of wars is pressure of populations on the soil. And pressure of population on the soil means that the sofl is not pro- ducing all that the population needs to live by. 1If, therefore, every nation would produce its own necessities in abundance, there would be far fewer armed conflicts. Struggles for markets would be reduced, need for new terri- tories would be cut down, competition would be less likely to become destruc- tive and in general better conditions would exist everywhere. & But can the nations, from their own soil, produce as much as they require? Mr. Willcox states, and brings forward impressive tables and equations to prove it, that they can. Agrobiology has made it‘ possible, Agrobiols made of agriculture ° 4 5 R S . Tllustration by Ingri and Edgar the Northlights,” one of the outstan published by the,Viking Press. . L4 TURNS WITH THE BOOKWORM . |Some of Sir Isaac Newton's Errors Are Pointed Out in a New Biography—The Theory of Genes Set Forth by Prof. H. S. Jennings. Parin d'Aulaire, from “Children of ding recent books for young people, | sults are assured. He tells us in de- tall about some of the tests. | One cannot but ask oneself, reading | this thesis, “What about overproduc- | tion? Has it not been blamed for all our troubles, or most of them? Shall we then start applying a new science which will multiply production far | above anything that has been ac- complished in the past?” | Mr. Willcox refutes this objection | with the statement that it is not overproduction that has caused our economic grief, but faulty and un- planned distribution. If enough were produced, he says, and that sufficiency properly distributed, no one would go hungry. And, in the light of agro- | biology, he asseverates, enough can be produced. The matter of distribu- | tion is not his affair. It sounds irrefutable. If enough really were produced, and everyone got his share, certainly no one would | be hungry. But, somehow, it seems | a little easy. The sclentist may grasp | it instantly, but it leaves the lay reader looking for the catch. Books Received Fiction. WHO GOES HOME. By Richard « Curle. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Mer- rill Co. MADEMOISELLE KID. By Tod Wil- llams. New York: The Macaulay Co. FROST AT MORNING. By Beatrice | Kean Seymour. Boston: [Little, Brown & Co. MISS MARVEL. By Esther Forbes. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co. | MISTRESS PAT. By L. M. Mont- gomery. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. | Arden. Houston. New York: D, Appleton- Century Co. The Gold Chase. By Robert W. Chambers. New York: D. Appleton- Century Co. B Tough Little Trollop. By Helen Adams., New York: The Hartney Press. ‘The Enchanted Spring. By Clive Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill The Endless Furrow. By A. G. Street. New York: The E. P. Dutton Co. Non-Fiction. PHILOSOPHY AND THE CON- EPTS OF MODERN SCIENCE. By Olive L. Reiser. New York: The Macmillan Co. THE FRENCH PARLIAMENTARY New York: D. Appleton-Century Co. Safeguard”Productive Capital. By Louis Wallis. Garden City: Double- day Doran & Co. Y Washington's Appeal. By Stephen P. Anderton. New York: Covici Friede. The Law of the Sphere Governs the Universe. By Thomas H. Ryan. 8t. Louis: James Mulligan Printing & Publishing Co. Mysteries. The Rose Petal Murders. By Charles G. Givens. rill Co. The Machine to Kill. By Gaston Leroux. New York: The Macaulay Co. THE GRINDLE NIGHTMARE. By Q. Patrick. New York: The Hart- ney Press, Inc. JUVENILES. THREE CIRCUS DAYS. By Edna Turpin. millan Co. SYSTEM. By Robert Kent Gooch. | Indianapolis: Bobbs Mer- | New York: The Mac-| By I. M. P. ARREN REEDER wishes to announce that he doesn't believe in the atom. . . . Nor in genes, . . . He has never seen an atom or a gene, and does not propose to swallow any sci- entific theory on faith. . As he re- marks: “Science teaches us to have a*doubtful mind until anything is proved beyond a doubt. . . . In 1906 or thereabouts a very learned pro- fessor of mathematics sadly concluded that it was mathematically impossible for & heavier-than-air machine to be suspended in air. He proved it in a very nice little arithmetical set-up. The Wright brothers were too dull to | read the problem, and spoiled the whole show. . . . Even Sir Isaac New- ton once mi a ludicrous error about the human eye that retarded the de- velopment of the refracting telescope for a century; and who knows about it today? Somebody, you see, doubted Sir Isaac and found the mistake.” ‘We applaud Mr. Reeder's sturdy skepticism. . . . However, he will find a chapter on Newton's struggle with | the problems of optics and the nature | of light in a recent weighty biography, ! | l ROBERT B! ‘Whose book, “Europa,” is being pul Lady By Marriage. By Elizabeth Carfrae. New York: G.P. Putnam’s from confiscated slot machines, are | Sons. | QGypsy Weather. By Margaret Bell ' Aluminum and coppgr, stripped sold for scrap at public auction by the police of Oakland, Calif. bones about Newton's errors, and thus | SUNDAY CROSS-WORD PUZZLE Across, 1. Edible starchy tuber. Springs. Season. Barrel maker. Public speaker. In addition. ‘Wing-shoped. Reach a con- clusion. Hereditary. Fitful. Located. Electrified paggicle. Moisture. Delays. 33. Things of law. 34. Feminine . name. 35. Musical 7 11 15. . 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 28. 29. 30. 32. 3. Caroline group. County. Spread hay. Units of dis- tance. Uncanny. French pro- noun, Previous to. Witty remark. Spanish priest. Those who try to excell oth- ers. Gave. Pronoun. Scotch purse. Sprucer. Feminine name. 42. Subject. 64. Pertaining 1o 100. Tunes. the sun. | 101. Woridly. A kind of 103. Clever. curved roofing| 105. Subject of a tile. Visionary: poet. Vows. Lacelike fabric. Pouch. Number, Narrow en-| gaged pil- asters. | Warnings against sud- den attack. More impaired from inaction.| 78. Builders. 80, Meals. 82. Illuminated by Luna. 84. More tender. 85. Analyzed grammatically/ again. 88. Pipit. 90. Herbs of the mint family. 93. Wear away. 94. Sparnish hero.| 96. Letter of the) alphabet. 39. 40. 41. 42. 46. 47, 48. 49. 52. 54. 57. 58. 59. 65. 66. 67. N 70. 1. wer-Lytton. 106. Scotch river. 108. One of 17 popes. 110. Pen. 111, Brine from the ocean. 112. Magiclan, | 114. Carousal. | 117. Pronoun. 118. A size of coal 119. Title. 120. Distinguished. 124. Dash. 125. Digit. 126. Liquid foods. |128. Born. 130. Part of a pedestal be- tween the base and the cor- nice. | 131. Vehicle. 132. Acknowledge. 133. Pertaining to Sixtus. 135, Arid. 137. Covering the hand. 3. 5. for 138. All, 140. Makers wills, 97. Land meas- of novel by Bul-| 107. Harden again.| 142. Charge with| 20. Mark the time | again. 27.Lurking places. 31.One of a mixed Italian Teutonic, Cel- tic people in S. E. Belgium 33. Storekeepers. 36. E x clamation of contempt. 38. Hunter for certain gems. 40. Form of in- surance. 41, Craze. 43. Prussian re- sort. 45. Layer. 47. A maxim. 48. By. 50. Periods of prosperity: colloq. 51. A rower. 52. Fifth son of Jacob. 53. Mound. 54. Portico. 55. Cure. 56. Offhand. 58. Balloon basket. 59. Those who make spiteful rejoinders. 60. Sandarac tree, 6l. Buds on s gas. 144. Part of compass. 145. Wings. 146. Worm. 147. Maker clothes. | 148. Thoroughfare. 149. Ailments. 150. Rip. 151. Dignities con- ferred by "a sovereign. Down. 1. Officers of law.| 2. Bird. 3. A fur_worker.! 4. Fed oneself. 5. Amphibian. 6. Flemish paint-| er: 1491-1542. 7. Downcast. 8. Urged. +9. Quadrupeds. | 10. Below the Mason and Dixcn Line. 11. Ridicule, 12, Isolsted. ) 13. Etruscan gods of house. 14. Undertake. | 15. Inclosed. 16. Raw metals. 17. Mouths:Latin.| 18. Felt sorry for 19. Leveler. of| i pillar; are chaic. 109. Light brown. {111, Japanese coin. ¢ 112. A Spanish seaport in Morocco. [113. Bow. 114, Certain num- bets. * 115. Celestial body. 116. Raver. 118. Stations; French. {121, Mexican food. 122. Manager of a publication. 123. Those who lavish fond- ness. 125. Peep. 126. Mexican hemp. 127. Sleep noisily. 129. One of the Musss. 132, Shield border. 133. Exchange for money. 134. Ireland. 136. Perind of time. 139. Fish. 140. An Indo- Chinese, 141. Rested. 143. Liberate. | potato. 63. Filaments. 65. Artist. 66. Feeler. 68. Gaze fixedly. | 70. Uncomplain- | ing. | 72. Quantities land. Thorough- fares: Abbr, Drunkard. Inlet. End of month: Abbr. Act of with- drawing from union. 83. Barterers. 85. Peruse. 86. City in Penn- sylvania. Command. Citadel “of Mostow. Vehemence. Troops. Combats be- tween two persons. Stabbed. Billow. Suffer. Armpit. Explosive. Female of the ruff. 108. Cspital of » ’ | 4. 76. 7. | 9. 81. 87. | 89, 91. 92. 95. 98. 101. 102, | 103, 104, 107. rather enhances the greatness of his achievements; for the marvel of the human mind is that it does strive toward truth in spite of its imperfec- tion. . . . Newton went off the rails even more conspicuously on another occasion; he wasted a lot of time figuring “the Number of the Beast” from the Apocalypse; which should be a permanent object lesson of what happens when a scientific thinker quits his own specialty. . . . There are hundreds of alleged thinkers now, with no original achievements to their credit, who misapply technique to every subject under the sun and fondly offer their conclusions as science. R. REEDER should also be inter- ested in the works of Professor H. 8. Jennings, author of “The Bio- logical Basis of Human Nature” and “Genetics,” which set forth lucidly the theory of genes and its experi- mental basis. . . . Incidentally, Pro- fessor Jennings quietly punctures many of the large claims made by sqciologists with a smattering of ge- netic information. . . . So far as our own meager qualifications permit us to fellow him, he seems to talk serise. Gustav Eckstein, author of RIFFAULT, blished by Charles Scribner's Sors. “Isaac Newton,” by Louis Trenchard ! and “Hokusai,” whose llbonwry‘ More. . . . The biography makes no | training gives him a better right than | ours to an opinion, once remarked | to us that biology as a science is neces- sarily limited by the fact that it can consider only mechanism; it cannot, within the scientific framework, take into account the fact that it deals with living organisms—and yet that is the main point! . . . Something escapes | from measurement—indeed, the effort .0 measure it probably affects the find- | ings. That is, observations on con- trolled subjects are also controlled ob- servations and will not tell you exactly what the same creatures will be and | do if you haven't got them under con- trol and therefore cannot observe | them rigorously and continuously. | Take away what can only be called | free-will and natural conditions—well, | call them what you please—and you | have eliminated an important element | of the original set-up. . . . Even fruit flies kept in a laboratory, Dr. Eckstein suggested, may be so bored that their behavior, their very chemical reac- tions and mutations, may be different. ... We suggested, incidentally, that maybe people live about as long as they want to and no longer. . . . He agreed. . . . This doesn’t mean that you can't kill & man with an ax or that one might live forever; but within reason, and sometimes beyond obvious reason, it has truth in it. . . . Perhaps this makes us a Vitalist, but, since we are more or less alive, we have no objection to the epithet. .. . }NOW h ere is an advance quotation from “Man, the Unknown,” by Dr. Alexis Carrell, whose scientific achievements entitle him to a respect- ful hearing: “We must liberate man of physicists and astronomers, of that cosmos in which, since the Resais- sance, he has been imprisoned. De- spite its stupendous immensity, the world of matter is too narrow for him. Like his economic and social garment, it does not fit him. We cannot adhere to the faith in its exclusive reality.” What an astonishing confession! . . . What makes Dr. Carrell suppose that any one but himself has been “imprisoned in the world of matter’— we don't know whether he has been or not, but where else did he get the impression? . . . And if he has been, science will never get him out of it. + . . The door has been open, every one with the capacity to do so has been looking out, going out, all the time. ... Art, literature and morals have never been confined in that prison. ... We cannot read a poem or look at a flower or tree without looking through the open door. . . . This is not mysticism, but common experience which any human being of average sensibility will confirm—we clai;m no peculiar powers or exceptions. . . . “The day has come to begin the work of our renovation,” Dr. Carrel says. . . ."He may speak for himself, but the general asumption is rather curi- ous for a scientist—it’s a reversion to special creation. . . . “It is our only hope of escaping the fate common to all great civilizations of the gast,” Dr. Carrel affirms. . . . ‘There again he is contradicting him. self—the fate of gll great civilizations of the past was to change, that is all. + « « Doubtless ours will be so; why should we hope to escape? . .. ARRY MERRILL HITCHCOCK dropped in to talk about “Death in the Desert,” by Paul I. Wellman, “Lives” | from the cosmos created by the genius | | the American Indians, the theme of the book. . . . He remarked that the prevalent belief that human life can | be subjected to a rational order is one of the recurrent phenomena which marks a period of transition, a down- swing or time of decay, before the new forms become visible. . , . All the “planning” of the world now is reac- tion, no matter what it is labeled; it is a“deathward impulse, for the rigidity of forms is the preliminary to their | breaking. . . . Organic form is not | rigid; it adapts itself instead to re- !qumng the living content to become | set in & mold. . . . “Plans” are indis- spensable for dealing with purely ma- terial objects, but that is their sole use; when they are confused with principles they are deadly. ... Well, we have decided not to worry about the future. . . . It seems a little | silly to take on the future when we can't cope any more effectively with | the present. . . . We can’t even manage the past. . Dr Carrel just wipes it |out, but we've tried that, too, and there is always somebody else who in- conveniently remembers , , . The New Masses and John Day Co. | announce that their proletarian prize novel contest has been won by Clara ‘Weatherwax of Oakland, Calif. . . . Her novel is entitled “Marching, Marching.” . . . It's the author’s first novel. . . . The scene is Washington State, where she was born, and the material comes out of her experience |as a working woman on the West | Coast. | ERE'S & book on “The Achieve- ment of Happiness,” by Boris Sokoloff, who has been through war, | revolution and all the everyday human | griefs, and thinks it was worth while « .. We can't accept his axiom: “Man is born to be happy,” but if it helps him to believe that, then he will be- leve it. . . . Man is born to be both | héppy and unhappy—we do not state | this as an ethical precept, but as a | matter of fact, since that's what hap- pens to everybody. . . . If one gets a 50-50 break, that's pretty good. . . We like the courage of the heroine in Ellen Glasgow's “Vein of Iron,” but |in our opinion she should have in- sisted on getting a little more happi- | ness. . . . The defect of the Puritan | philosophy is that it makes a virtue | of putting up with some things that one doesn't need to put up with. . . . | Sometimes we get indignant letters from readers who think we have such a good time we can't sympathize with the woes of others. . . . The.truth is that we are least sympathetic when | we are brooding over our own troubles. At such moments we feel that no one else really knows the meaning of trouble. . . . But when we have a little fun, or even remember having | & little fun, we feel kindly and sym- pathetic and willing to help any one have a good time. WE DON'T even care to be cheered up when we feel blue. . . . May Lamberton Becker cheered us up the other day, and we didn't get over it for hours—and only then by thinking up a nice insult by way of reply. .. . So she said she was living in a nest of alligators, meaning us, and the phrase gave us such joy that we de- cided to go on a while longer. . . . All the above tends to prove that there is no recipe for happine: If it took a war and a Ru lution to teach Dr. Sok: happy—incidentally, he was anti-Bol- shevik and was very nea shot for it—the cure is too drastic for con- tinuous use. Supposing he had | been shot, would that have been a | lesson to him? | our artists have gone off to give | themselves a good time on a cruise, and they haven't sent our pictures: | so if they get seasick, we hope some one tells them to cheer up. P. S.—Pictures arrived by last mail, with note from our young artists, Margaret Van Doren and Tom Bevan, explaining that, as they don't know what we are doing, they illustrate their own activities—peeling potatoes against a heavy ground swell, Fhile rebuffing the attentions of a group of sea-going flies and observing the carefree antics of a 40-foot black fish. | Monday, September 2, going to | . . . . Labor day to us is just Corn Loans Repaid. ARMERS who borrowed from the Government to the extent of about $11,000,000 on their corn crops last year have repaid almost entirely the | amount of the loans. Somewhere around 300 loans, totaling $200,000, remain outstanding. The Government loaned at the rate of 55 cents a bushel During the past season the borrow- ing was not so heavy, for the price of | corn went sufficiently high to make | the loans unnecessary. Prompt mar- keting obviated the need for loans. THRILL of the SEASON | AND THE BRJLEOPARD MEN ST OUT, this exciting new novel b; | *‘L Jungle King's creator. Edgar Ricy Burroughs. st No long waits for the Book You Want! 6e MIN. | 3 centsaday | No Deposit Required ' | The HECHT Co. RENTAL LIBRARY b:ummumdnuymmmq 3