Evening Star Newspaper, December 26, 1936, Page 14

B—2K By Mayry Carter Roberts. A BOOK HUNTER'S HOLIDAY. By A. S. W. Rosenbach. Boston: Houghton, Miffiin Co. T WOULD seem, on the whole, that l the attitude toward books of this famous collector, Dr. Rosenbach, is as sensible & one as a person eould have. For Dr. Rosenbach does not disturb himself at all about the merits of written works; he does not enter into critical battles or have any heart burnings over sales. To him, books are a sport. They are just ftems in a game of skill. It is doubt- ful it any one in the whole line of professions and trades represented by book publication gets any more fun out of print than he does. At any rate, his present work, describing his collector's adventures, reads like the account of & rarely enjoyable good time. And, indeed, the quest of the col- Jector brings to light enchantingly curious things about the human kind, as Dr. Rosenbach sets it down. His chapter heads give an idea of the manner of his material: “Letters That We Ought to Burn"—or an ac- count of various indiscreet love let- ters which great men and women have Jeft behind them; “Old Mystery Books,” in which he brings out that the first known mystery story was titled “Dracole,” and that its fifteenth eentury locale was the same as that of Bram Stoker’s nineteenth century *Dracula”; “The Trail of Scarlet,” which deals with manuscripts and books relating to aberrations and crimes; “Extra! Extra!” the story of early “broadsides” which were the ancestors of our modern tabloid news- papers; “Mighty Women Book Hunt- ers"—and so on. It is all intensely interesting and done without use of such technicali- ties as would puzzle the layman. It 13 fllustrated with many reproduc- tions of scripts and pages from fa- mous collectors’ items. On the whole it is & delightful volume for any one who has the good fortune to regard the printed thoughts of man with amusement and curiosity. It is rec- ommended. TWENTY-TWO BROWNING LET- TERS. New York: United Fea- ture Syndicate. Tl-u! handsome special edition con- tains 22 hitherto unpublished let- ters of Elizabeth Barrett and Rob- ert Browning. They were addressed to Mrs. Browning's sisters, Henrietta and Arabella Moulton-Barrett. Their publication is made possible by J. A. 6. Altham, grandson of Henrietta. They were a part of a small packet kept by the Altham family when the | majority were turned over to Brown- ing editors many years ago. ‘They pertain mainly to family af- fairs and consequently do not contain much of importance to Browning students. The family details in these Jetters shed light on the Browning tradition only where light has been shed amply before, & picture of the absolute devotion of the poet and | his poetie wife and their anhappiness | over the Barrett family’s attitude to- | ward their marriage. There is nothing sensational about these gracefully written family epis- tles, but they are indisputably from the pens of two loved poets, and that, slone, would make them weicome. E. T THE ROMANCE OF LLOYD'S. By Comdr. Frank Worsley and Capt. Glyn Griffith. New York: Hill- man Curl, Inc. % Tlfl name of Liloyd's is & byword +* throughout the world. In the United States it is known from Wall Btreet to Main Street. The man in the street can tell you the odds Lloyd's fs quoting, possibly even the rate for | & new type of insurance. But the ' same man probably knows exactly | nothing about the origin and back- | ground of Lioyd's. The story of Lioyd's is almost the | story of commercial development of | the British Empire. While the em- | pire has achieved success at ses, Lioyd's has become the greatest ma- rine insurance house in the world. Lloyd's started as a coffee house. The story of two British officers takes Liovd's to its palace of modern times, to a place as underwriters for the | world. Today there are about 1,400 underwriting members of Lloyd's and | about 140 syndicates, all participating in and sharing marine insurance and | Fisks. | Edward Lloyd no doubt never | pioneer family of 1855. Composed as | and philosophical observations of the | author as set down in her 92d year, the | simply lovely to work for!” thought that his name would be per- petuated through world commercial history when he opened a coffee house in Tower street in Londonm, either in 1686 or 1687, Lloyd died in 1713, but | the coffee’ house stayed in his family. | Merchants, tradesmen and seamen ! came to the coffee house to transact | their business. The name of Lioyd's | came 1o be associated with the sea. | From this beginning the coffee house gradually evolved into an association of marine underwriters. Later in its history Lloyd's entered other fields, C. F. MacIntyre, author of “Poems” (Macmillan.) profiteer and the metaphysician make up the former group and the laborer, the artist and the scientist constitute the latter. Using these seven classifications as the basis of his book, Rado attempts to present a cross-section of human | endeavor dating from the amoeba to | the present day man, and in 256 pages. | His success depends on whether one | reads the book for the excellent satiri- cal treatment of the material or for the subject matter alone, which may not be so excellent, depending entirely on which school of scientific thought anent man's whys and wherefores one endorses. Here his tendency to dismiss | briefly and authoritatively questions which are still regarded as sources of puzziement to many leading scientists is & bit disconcerting, to say the least, “Seven Ways to Make a Living” is not, however, in She least heavy, as it 80 easily could become with the wrong treatment, and Mr. Rado’s vitriolic pen pricks the existing order often and bit- terly. It all makes for interesting, in- formative and highly enjoyable read- ing, whether or not one takes him seri- ously—preferably not. R. R. ONE FAMILY TRAVELS WEST. By | Alice A. Minick. Boston: Meador | Publishing Co. ‘HIS volume, of & unique and re- freshing quaintness, recounts, with utmost fidelity to fact, the saga of the it is of the personal recollections, notes i story presents an insight into the lives and modes of a pioneer people about which in the past so much of purely fictional and imaginative quality has been written. Much information is offered con- cerning travel customs of the day, with interesting sidelights on the aboli- tionist and secessionist movements. Both to the seeker of entertaining nar- rative and to the student of the period the author presents s volume of ex- ceptional merit. W.G. H THE STORY BOOK OF FOODS | FROM THE FIELD. Written and | illustrated by Maud and Miska | Petersham. Philadelphia: 'rhe: John C. Winston Co. | OMANTIC legends are combined | with plainly told scientific facts | R THE EVENING STAR, WASHIN FAMOUS COLLECTOR CURIOUS THINGS ARE SHOWN Browning Letters Are Welcome Because of Personalities Behind | Them—Romance of Lloyd’s Has Value for Those- Who Observe Development of System. in this charmingly done history of the four great foods, wheat, corn, rice and | sugar. How they were first grown, the beliefs and rituals connected with them by primitive peoples; the methods of harvesting and preparing them for eating employed throughout the ages by different countries, and the various ways in which they are used are all fully described. ‘Without in the least taking on the appearance of a text book, this volume contains really worth-while and help- ful information for the school-age child. The illustrations are, of course, superbly done in the inimitable Peter- sham manner; many of them have been inspired by old pictures and uten- sils found in ruins and now ensconced in great museums. The colors are vivid and arresting; the scenes and figures portrayed seem literally to be bathed in golden harvest sunlight. The text is set in large, readable type, and the stories are simply and quietly told in & clear, pleasant man- ner. A worthy successor to previous books by Maud and Miska Petersham, this new offering will win for them additional friends and admirers.—B. C. | THE DESCENT OF THE IDOL. By J. Durych. Translated frofin the Czech by Lynton A. Hudson. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. IEWED as a dramatic record of the period of the Thirty Years War, “The Descent of the Idol” unmistakably has the ring of truth. It is a portrait of the times, often painful in its faithfyness to de- tail. ‘Throughout the book there is a slighf love story, but gruesome scenes are sd carefully painted that the reader can feel the horrid details. Yet, strangely enough, one's sympathies are never aroused in & personal way for any of the characters. In spite of all the grisly word painting, the char-! acters remain what they are, figures in & book or in ancient history. Hor- | ror and contempt for a rotten period | in human history are the natural re- action to this book. ‘While “Descent of the |Idol” cannot be recommended: as entertaining read- ing following a seance with the Sunday funnies, it can be recommended as worth-while reading to any one ,who is at all interested in history, church | or war. R.R.T. A DOG AT HIS HEEL. By Charles J. Finger. Philadelphia: John C. 1 Winston Co. NOTHER of the Christmas crop | of dog books, but one that is. eminently readable, with a good plot simply told and a dog hero that is all dog doing & dog’s work and does not essay into the superhuman and | supernatural. Adding interest to the story is the description of two widely separated sheep countries, Australia and South America. The story of the huge ship- | ment of pure-bred sheep from | Australia to Chile and the long drive from the port to the sheep ranch is interesting as a bit of historic fic- tion. And the description of the celebration and sheep dog trials at the end of the trip has the ring of authenticity. Mr. Finger, quite evidently, knows dogs, knows the Antipodes, and knows how to tell & story to hold the interest of a boy or adult more interested in dogs and stories than in art with a capital A. R.R.T. CONGRESS PHONES (Continued From Page B-1.) cloak room, please call me” Mrs. Daley’s young ladies certainly have to know their current events! BUT the girls “love it!” as they de- clare, one and all. Mrs. Daley is echoed by all her force when she says, “Representatives and Senators are It takes the new members a little time to “get |onto the ropes” as Mrs. Daley says, |OF |but when they do, the little lights | We have representing their telephones on the long switchboard wink and blink with the rapidity of the old timers. The Capitol switchboard is in op- eration all the time, between, as well as during sessions. This is necessary, of course. as many of the offices are always open and there is constant need of telephone communications with the Hill. Offices are functioning, secre- taries are on hand, and calls must be put through Naturally, between sessions the num- ber of calls falls far below the average for & day when Congress is in session. But there is a constant flow of work, nevertheless, at all times across the | Capitol board. Intensely interested in her work. Mys. Daley pointed out some of the sidelights that she finds absorbing. | For one thing, it is interesting, she | “Get the Congressmen over here;” or “It’s time to vote. If they didn’t hear the bells round up the Congress- | men.” or “Tell Senator X he is want- ed over here to vote.” are some of the | frantic calls upon the expedition and | ingenuity of the force in the telephone offi | hen we all have to get busy and calljthem one by one,” says Mrs. Daley | with & smile. “Maybe some of them | | didp't hear the bells or were detained rgot about it or something, and to kind of jog their memories | | & little. The phones are busy when | there is important voting on. Some | ? of them depend on us, too, to remind | them they are wanted on the floor.” | One of the phases that is particu- larly delightful in connection with Capitol Hill work, Mrs. Daley points | out, is the unfailing courtesy of all | | the offices. The Senators and Repre- | sentatives and their entire secretarial | | personnel are kindly and courteous | : over the telephone, she declares. | “Sometimes a newcomer, exasperated | or worrled about his unfamiliarity | | with this or that, will get out of pa- | tience. But that occurs rarely,” she | says, “and it has never happened without that particular member’s be- | coming s considerate as any of them | | when he realizes that his telephone is irecelvtnx extraordinary service. I always set out to watch what we term GTON 'MAKES BOOK D. C, Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach, dean of American Book Collectors and author of “A Book Hunter’s Holiday.” Company.) Brief Revievgrs of Books Non-Fiction. UP FROM A SOD HUT. By S. Benny Benson. Grand Rapids: Zondervan | Publishing House. | ‘The minister of the Kent Street Re- formed Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., tells | his life story, which includes a pioneer boyhood. ‘THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. By | Robert R. McCormick. New York: D. Appleton-Century Co. History of freedom of the press from the Middle Ages to the present day, with a survey of conditions in Amer- ica. By the editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune. ‘WE OR THEY. By Hamilton Fish Armstrong. New York: the Mac- millan Co. A contrast between autocracies of one kind or another, and our own democratic system. By the editor of Foreign Affairs. LIFE WAS LIKE THAT. By Mary Doyle. Boston: Houghton Mifflin The energetic life of 8 woman who progressed from news-stand girl at | the Waldorf to star reporter on the | | New York World. Gossipy stufl. SANTA ANNA. By Wilfred Hardy Callcott. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, The biography of the villain of the Alamo. Impartially done. HITLER OVER RUSSIA? By Ernest Henri. New .York: Simon and Schuster. The author of “Hitler Over Eu- rope?” continues to worry. Fiction. THE MAN WHO 'CAUGHT THE WEATHER. By Bess Streeter Ald- rich. New York: D. Appleton-Cen~ tury Co. Short stories. Undis- tinguished and harmless. CANDLE INDOORS. By Helen Hull. New York: Coward McCann. One of those novels that women write about family life. Poetry. POEMS. By C. F. MacIntyre. York: The Macmillan Co. Somber collestion by a talented writer, Worth examining. Juveniles. WAGONS WESTWARD. By Arm- strong Sperry. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Co. ‘The Santa Fe Trail for young folks. ‘Well illustrated by the author. New Charles J. Finger, author of “A Dog at His Heel.” (John C. Winston Co.) The Public Library lN CELEBRATION of the holiday Year poetry by modern writers. streets northwest. VERSES FOR HOLIDAY WEEK. season the Public Library presents extracts from Christmas and New All of the books mentioned are in the Central Library, at Eighth and X Christmas. “Two thousand years of time, and still Poems, 1919 to 1934, by Walter de la Mare. YP.D3717a2). | “Though other saviors have in olden lore A legend, and for older gods have died— iThough death may wear the crown it always wore And ignorance be still the sword of pride— (Houghton Mifflin y| SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1836. S HIS GAME OF SKILL L3 YEAR’S TORRENTS OF BOOKS Writers on Economics, Politics and Sociology Succeed in Furnish- ing Mental Food for Each Other—Many Biographies, and Some Admirable Novels. ByM.C.R. HE year seems to be about ended. Book reviewers every- where are celebrating the fact by compiling lists. It is & vain .endeavor but an inescapable phe- nomenon. It is, in short, an institu- tion; it is an Expected Thing. The present reviewer, however, con- fesses & curicsity, alive for some time past and now conveniently in the acute stage, as to the quantity of books. With her this has quite over- ridden considerations of quality. Books, as is well known, are written. It takes time to write one. For every book, foo, there is an author, sitting somewhere in earnest concentration, doing his little best. The reviewer's aforementioned curiosity has recently taken a pictorial slant, and she has been trying to visualize the numbers of bowed heads and cramped writing hands in secluded chambers, literary reference rooms, Summer cottages, desert studios, third floor backs, early American farmhouses, small town bedrooms and, mayhap, even the traditional attic, getting thoughts on paper. It is a slightly dreadful speculation, but still a fascinating one. So the reviewer has taken a turn with the statisticians, who are now in such very good fashions. And here are the findings. i, Exactly 3.96 books have been de- livered daily to the Star offices from January 1, 1936, to date, counting Sundays and holidays, making a total of 1.412 volumes. With Mr. Benjamin de Casseres doing one a month (and publishing it at his own expense) and & few other authors producing two works in the- period, this brings the | total number of writers down a bit. | But the figure still remains awe- | inspiring. And for everyone who has | published, let not your mind wander to the hundreds who have labored without that patent to literary no- bility! For that way lies madness. It simply cannot be thought on. And has this been s good year? Well, in 1935, from January 1 to December 31, the volumes received totaled 1450. With 10 days to go, 1936 should top it by exactly 1.6 volumes, Pretty regular, apparently. So that, if it interests you, would seem to be about the usual state of the literary vineyard. And about what have these touching | slaves been writing? On this point the reviewer’s curiosity went with | | vitriol to the subjects of economics, politics and sociology. How many times—how many times, indeed, in the past twelvemonth has she opened a delectable-looking package and come upon economics, politics and | sociology! Her own answer to that bitter question would be, “Entirely too many.” But, more factually (having turned statistician herself) she is able | to reply, “Exactly one hundred and | eighty-seven.” Yes, exactly. That is, among the 1.412 volumes | recelved, as many as 187 have been devoted to economics, politics and sociology. the line between the subjects, for- tunately, thus saving much statistical labor, for our politicians are econ- omists in the cufrent fashion, our sociologists today are openly (as they probably have always been desirously) politicians, and the modern economist is everything except intelligible. Thus, every 1.9 days for the past of this fascinating character. Thus. too, every 1.9 days for the past 356 a confirmed or budding economist- political scientist-sociologist has re- ceived an acceptance slip from some miserable publisher. Clearly. Demon- strably. Who is there so poor to envy a book reviewer his job? F COURSE, the fact that it was a campaign year should not be overlooked. No, by no means. Yet one wonders if the course of a single human event has been altered in the tiniest respect by a single one of these | works. Does it seem likely? | contrary, it seems that they will be | litical scientists and sociologists, whose interest will be limited to compari- sons, But, if one must find a silver | lining, it is possible to go to bed1 | these nights knowing that facts are | |not being neglected. One hundred and eighty-seven shining minds are toiling as we dullards sieep, to dig them out for us. Keepers of the | | archives take notice. | 'The next point which interests the | reviewer-turned-statistician was the number of biographies and auto- biographies, particularly the latter. And the finding here is 119. Or | put it as above, every 2.9 days for the last 356, the life of some man lor woman (but overwhelmingly of men) has been written. Every 2.9 days for the past 356, the reading public has been invited to consider |an individual. Does a great person arise in life thus often? Thue question can safely be answered in the negative, for. while a vast number of these works are autobi- It is impossible to draw | 356 the reviewer has received a work | On the | | read only by brother economists, po- | Jaroslav Durych, author of “The Descent of the Idol.” E. P. Dutton and Co. see that they have to talk about it. They fall easily into two classes, as they set themselves down—those who admit and accept the state of things objectively and those who, frightened and disenchanted, turn to seeking remedies. The former are much bet- tobiography” is perhaps the wisest and wittiest of the lot. Coming to novels, the reviewer abandons statistics. For how can any one be statistical about -a subject which has only one classification? And that is the case with novels. There is only one kind—the good ones. The others do not exist. They are written and they are published, but they do not need counting. There is only one attitude to take toward them, and that is the one stated— they simply do not exist. Last year, the reviewer remembers vividly, there was one eminently fine novel. It was “Honey in the Horn,” if you want to know.) This year there are none so good, but & larger number that are on the safe side of the line. Most of these are the work of old- timers who have returned to their early fields to gather laurels there, in various states of freshness. Aldous Huxley, Nathan, Lord Dunsany, William Faulk- ner and Charles Morgan have all done works of fiction this year. Huxley’s “Eyeless in Zaza" is not up to his former work and would not be deemed important in estimating him were it not that, in its last three or four pages, he incredibly goes wistful. Well, you will say, he has been wistful before; indeed, you will say, wistful- ness has been Aldous Huxley's one consistent characteristic. And you will be right. But never before has this child of science badly wedded to sen- | timent attempted to do anything about his wistfulness. For he has been, above all, a discerning artist in the past, and he has known better. But now, it | would seem, the pent-up springs of | tender yearnings have broken out, and, in “Eyeless in Gaza" he turns apostle. Thebook marks this very great change, an interesting one, but of dublous promise. It is not otherwise impor- tant. Sigrid Unset, in her year's novel, a | small one, “Gunnar’s Daughter” dem- | onstrates triumphantly that a story makes a better book than a thousand tracts. She simply tells one, putting it in her favorite medieval Scandi- navian setting, a story of loving. hat- | ing and fighting. There is no better kind of book in the world. “Gunnar’s Daughter” is & minor thing for Mme. Unset, but for the reader impossible to lay down. to the truth as to what makes a good story in his “Absalom! Absalom!” which, like “Gunnar's Daughter,” is pure tale, undiluted with sociology or interpretations of the growth of America westward or disquisitions on the state of labor organizations under Fascist government. It is a black, stormy thing, like nothing so much as the confusion of a storm at night, and it is an excellent artistic performance. William - Faulkner's mind bears an obvious likeness to that of Nathanial Hawthorne. Lord Dunsany likewise knows the difference between a plot and a ser- able job in his “Up in the Hills,” as amusing and absorbing a piece of fan- tastic adventure as one can find any- where in the year. It is a story of Ire- land, but an Ireland which exists east of the sun and west of the moon if it exists anywhere outside the author’s resourceful imagination. “Enchanted Voyage” by Robert with the good quality of Mr. Nathan's mind and turned out in his aimost| perfect prose, so that it, too, must | needs be mentioned. It is s tale of the Bronx, and how a dweller of the ter reading. G. K. Chesterton’s “Au- | John Dos Passos, Sigrid Unset, Robert | William Faulkner also paid tribute | mon, and he has turned out a delect- | Nathan is a slender thing, but imbued | bind the young man's temperament to New England, to localize his strug- gle in terms of geography, badly hampered the reasoning behind the struggle itself. For, whether Mr, Santayana declared it or not, his hero was not unique to New England, nor was his theme & local one. His young man represented a temperament to be found everywhere, and his struggle Was & universal one. It would have been enough to have given him & local background: to insist that that background explained something that is to be found in every land, slowed up a book not notable for its rapid movement _in the first place. But it is & good novel, and s0 must be men« tioned. A second book by one not on the “veteran list,” although he has write ten two previous works, is “Caleb Cat« lum’s Americag” which is so good that it defies description. It is an elegy for the lost American spirit, done, as any American elegy should be, in terms of size. In this case the size is devoted to such beautiful, tremene dous tall tales as could not have come out of any other country. It is rowdy and true and has some beautiful writ- ing in it. It closes with a passage of pure poetry which will make you weep unless you are too stupid to have tears for beauty. In that case, do not read the book in the first place. It will probably shock you. The author is Vincent McHugh, just turned 30. Another good book by a writer of | less than veteran standing is “Steps Going Down,” which won the All-Na- tions’ prize and was remarkable among the prize-winning books of the year for having some merit. It has, indeed, & great deal of merit. It is an Ameri- can picaresque, the story of an at- | tractive young scamp, born of the | slums and bred on opportunism, pick- ing a precarious way through the cogs of a city machine. It deserves to be kept as a document on one stratum of American life today, but this does not mean that it is not a good story, too. It is. Two more novels remain on the list, | both translations. But they are not thus deferred because of a low esteem | on the part of the reviewer. Quite on the contrary. The first is “Salka Val- |ka,” a translation from the Danish. | Its author is Halldor Laxness. The story is of a sordid Icelandic fishing village, and also that of the world. The book has a true universality, and is a fine, absorbing tale, too. It is grim, tender, humorous and beautiful. It did not appear on any best-seller list, s0 far as the reviewer knows, nor did it receive outstanding favorable comment. except on this page. Well, that is where this page was ahead of the others. “Salka Valka” is & fine book. The other translation is from the German, “The Door in the Grim- | ming,” by Paula Grogger. It is a folk story, dealing with a village in Styria where mediaeval superstition walks side by side with more modern enlightenment. It is done with pas- sionately tender understanding, and has been described as “a great epic of Austrian peasant life.” And this ends the list of movels which, for one reason or another, must be put in the year’s front rank. And now for a group of pretty good | novels, just for casual reading. Here they are: “Beauties and Furies,” by Christina Stead; “Cloak of Monkey | Pur,” by Julian Duguid; “Arouse and | Beware,” by MacKinlay Kantor; “Maker of Heavenly Trousers,” by Danijele Vare; “Impassioned Pyg- | mies,” by Keith Winter; “House in | Paris,” by Elizabeth Bowen and—ob- serve this—“Gone With the Wind,* by Margaret Mitchell. And there you are. So much for | the novels. Essays have been scarce, but these are worth having: Agnes.Repplier's “In Pursuit of Laughter.,” E. M. For | ster’s “Abinger Harvest,” James Branch Cabell's “Preface to the Past” and a collection of Hillaire Bel- loc's work, brought out for the first time in America. In poetry as in novels, a number of veterans returned to the fleld this year, and we have Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg. Edgar Lee Masters, Clem- ent Wood, John Masefield and Joseph Auslander, bringing out volumes and a posthumous collection of Housman. They are all worth having. There are also collections of Witter | Bynner’s work and T. 8. Eliot's and | Ford Madox Ford's, an anthology of | World Poetry, edited by Carl Van Doren and a new Oxford Book of Modern Verse. In addition to these, you must get Capt. Dudley Knox's “History of the United Stdtes Navy” and Van Wyck Brook’s “Flowering of New Eng- land.” And there you are. It leaves exactly | 1,053 books unaccounted for. And the writing goes on and on. Solomon was right. Or was it, maybe, Bare num? | | Clemenceau Shrine. | Something is here that’ was not here | the heart | before, | ographies, the most striking of them ‘Turns with an eager yearning to the And strangely has not yet been |go back into history for their subjects. | Wm it possible for him to returr to life. Georges Clemenceau, known as the Tiger of France wner outgrowing building after building as its business expanded. The first great | man of Lioyd's, still known as its | Bronx had a quite impossible adven- ! ture. Charles Morgan's “Sparkenbroke,” ays, to note the reflection of public | the ‘difficult’ phones. They cease to interest in goings-on up on the Hill | be difficult before many days, because “father,” was John Julius Angerstein, | chairman at various times from 1782 to 1795, and prominent in its affairs | until his death in 1823, It was An- gerstein who brought Lloyd's out of the coffee-house era. Later the house was incorporated. ‘The book weaves into the history of Lioyd’s many interesting tales of the On those occasions when legmllllon‘cuu"uy is the watchword of my is under discussion in which the pub- lic is vitally interested, hundreds of calls come across the telephone board | operators on the Capitol switchboard | at the Capitol. Everybody wants to know what is going on, how they are voting, what the result of this or that | 18, and calls his favorite Congressman to find out. Calls begin flashing across the board sea, the greatest ship disusiers and |uy 8:30 in the morning, and from the greatest insurance swindles of his- | tory, development of the royal Brit- 1sh navy, and the progress of insur- ance. Those familiar with Lloyd's will appreciate the opportunity w learn ita history, a story of success by the evolution of centuries. —R. A E BEVEN WAYS TO MAKE A LIVING. By William Rado. New York: Liv- eright Publishing Corp. VER since the first one-celled bit of protoplasm wriggled its way out of the primeval ooze, thereby becoming our ecommon ancestor, there has been & never-ceasing struggle for existence, becoming more complicated as the or- ganism became more highly organized until, when man left the tree-tops and propagated the highly integrated soci- ety of today, the question, “How am I to make a living?” assumed gigantic proportions. Even in the earliest and crudest cul- ture groups there existed two classifi- cations—the drones, or parasites, and the producers, or those who grew lean in their efforts to support both them- eelves and the community’s bloodstick- ers. The politician, the prostitute, the that time on the number mounts to 1‘. high pesk up to the time that the | House and Senate meel al noon. After that there is & lull and decrease {in the number of calls, but from 1 | o'clock to 1:30 and 2 o'clock the calls begin flowing again in increasing numbers until the late afternoon or | dinner-time lull. Many calls are made |at night, too, on the Hill. In fact, except for the periods when Con- | gressmen and Senators are actually {on the floor, there is & constant | stream of calls and few definite lulls once the business of the day is under WAY. rgency calls often come into | Mrs. Daley’s office, and the only re- | quest then is, “Send a doctor to room X" or “Senator X would like you to call his physician.” ‘M | although the girls at the Capitol | switchboard consider it all in the | day's work—is the request to round up members for voting on the floor. “We haven't s quorum,” declares the floor leader U': the switchboard. ORE in the nature of & personal service than an operator’s duty— | | whole organization.” | It is a well-known fact that the | are outstanding in their courtesy. It never fails and it never varies. The | emotions of the hottest-headed legis- lator must cool before it; the frayed nerves of the most harassed secretary | must unravel and be soothed by it. | But, as & general thing, there is every inducement to courtesy, we are assured, because of the consideration | sud kindliness emanating from legis- | | lative offices and from members them- | selves. The entire business of put- ting through and receiving telephone | calls, as s matter of fact, it is not ‘;euuenllnn to say, becomes more of & social grace on the Hill “Telephone work,” Mrs. Daley re- minds us, “is something which must g0 through so many channels. We may be doing our best here, but at the other end of the line we may get into trouble. No matter how expe- ditiously we put through a call o & certain apartment house, let us say, if the elevator boy has to answer the phone and he happens 10 be asleep on the second floor bench we have no control over the necessary wait. Nor, if the switchboard is operated by the janitor and he is showing somebody an apartment, we can't control that, either. But we cannot explain these | things, of course. The fact is, some- | thing has interfered at the other end with putting through eur call. We may have been cut off. Th has been done. | { | 3 18 up to us to get [ small | And hidden manger, sanctified, apart, | That held the infant Jesus, Lord of all!” (From Christmas Night. In the Far Call, by Alethea Todd Alderson. YP.AL23{). | “Each year the season’s earlier, And I, a nature-loving dolt, Am troubled lest the pine and fir Shall lose | molt . . . | (From lines on Those Who Get Their In I Take It Bac by Margaret Fishback. YP.F524it “He shut the stable door. He stopped to look down on the sleep- | ing village. So Ellen had to share He recalled the look on her face. | Sharing. That was what Christmas meant.” | (From Holy Night. In a Moun- tain Township, by Walter Hard. YP.H224m). “Babe of the Blessed Trinity Shall smile their steeds to see: Herod and Pilate riding by, And Judas one of three.” (From & Ballad of Christmas. : Claus in Early, In | = | that call right back, without explana- } tion other than ‘I'm sorry’ or ‘Just & moment, please.” " “For,” adds Mrs. Daley, charming smile and in her gentle Vir- | ginia accent, “I am just as ambitious thing | to make the service 100 per cent to- | day as I was in 1398!" heir grip and start to | with a | . crucified.” (From a Christmas Sonnet. In Poems, by Edwin Arlington Robin- son. YP.R566a2). New Year. “What If we find fresh faces In the young new year that dawns, A guerdon of joy or sorrow, A crown of laurel or thorns— There are sweeter things in the old years | Than ever come with the new.” | (From the Old Year. In the Poetical Works of Ernest Christopher Dow- son. YP.D767). “How fast the slim feet move! | toot; Lips whisper, eyes look love— And Old Year’s dying underfoot!” | (From Old Year's Night. In Verses New and Old, by John Galsworthy. YP.G137v). “I strolled in the midnight homeward along the Strand, And I heard the bells ring out for the new-born year, And the tavern's light and the church's on either hand, Shone, and the sound of a voice was in my ear.” (From New Year’s Eve. In Lesbia and Other Poems, by Arthur Symons. YP.Sy66L). “At length the noisy wait was o'er— New lights ablaze above the way— | Broadway one deep, colossal roar. H nother New Year's Doy!" 1 The fiddles whine, the reedy oboes | Thus we have two men each of whom | has been the subject of three books, and these two are none other than our already well-publicized Founding Fathers, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. No other man on the reviewer's list received such an addition to his bibliography, although Julius Caesar and Hitler were written into personal histery form twice, One woman does take rank with the two Presidents from the point of view of literary interest manifested in the past year, however. This is Lola Montez, dancer and courtesan of the middle nineteenth century. Lola got three books, too. Thus the year's blographical triumvirate. Among those who wrote their own lives the largest group was that com- posed of already established writers, generally journalists. This group represents men in middle life who, to quote one of them, have had “a ring- side se: at most of the world's great events in past decades. It is easy to (From the New Year. In Laughter of Omnipotence, by J. H. Wallis. YP.W162L). “This is the New Year, entering | Our house; who knows what it may | bring? | The times are strange; all this tonight | | Of bells and horns and whirling light May be the drums, the flags unfurled, Of an unknown, new-builded world.” (From New Year's Hymn for This House. In Hill Garden. hv Mar- et WA~ of course, was the source of great| critical battling when it came out last Spring. The reviewer holds to the opinion which she then expressed —that it was a completely artificial performance. brilliantly carried off. And now one comes to the last work | to be listed by veterans who have returned to novel writing, and that is “The Big Money” by John Dos Passos. The reviewer rates it pretentious tripe. It is on the list because of its author’s | conspicuous position as a “prophet” of the twenties, and exponent of the Post-war years and what have you of | the like. It has been a best seller,| and such critics as write their re-| views in the manner of a college cheer | leader getting the gang to show a little pep, have rooted hard for its manifold perfections. But it is about nothing, and that is a flaw which it is difficult to conceal. Mr. Dos Passos should learn the meaning of the word “significance.” It implies something more than an exhibition of energy. And with this one comes to the works of writers other than the vet- erans in the novel field, and there is, of course, “The Last Puritan” by George Santayana. It is a good book, but much longer than it needs to be and lamentably heavy going, too, at times. The superficial difficulty would seem to be that Mr. Santayana intro- | duced his young man as a Puritan| early in his work, and then spent the | rest of it proving what he had already satd, Tea St aq fhe wew he was at the height of his political career, could step into his apartment and find everything ready to pick up his daily life where it left off. The servant of the war-time pre- mier of FPrance has kept everything as his master had it in life, and the apartment has become almost & shrine to French patriots. His slippers respose on the floor just at the point to which he would swing his feet when arising. Alse within reach is his skullcap, and other intimate objects of his daily life are placed where he would find them right at hand should he arise some morning from his bed. Albert, the servant devoted to his master, has kep! this memorial to his master so thal those who loved him can see just how he lived. Gun for Plowshare. TH! Biblical ideal that swords migh be beaten into plowshares ant spears into pruning hooks was at- tained symbolically in a recent cele- bration in Mexico, the twenty-sixth anniversary of the 1910 revolution. Before a large gathering at Torreor Coahuila, the oldest officer remain. ing who was in the 1910 revolution Felipe Munguia, was given the honol of standing before President Car- denas. Approaching the President the officer handed him an old-fash- foned musket. Accepting it, Cardena: in turn presented the officer with ¢ Nl fa ~imnife thet Mesies === turmed x