Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

Т

was President, a hundred pairs of skis IT is a simple chapter in the life of came into camp for the soldiers and the

rangers.

"I never saw him afterwards," said McBride, "but nobody ever came in from Washington through whom the President didn't send his greetings to 'Mac.''

Fiction

Roosevelt. McBride knew, and everybody knew who met him, that a great human being had passed that way; and it is the recollection of those days in 1903 which the old guide now thinks most about in his lonely life away back in the Yellowstone country, with only his

[blocks in formation]

The Book Table

THE BODY IN THE SHAFT. By R. F. Foster. The Siebel Publishing Corporation, New York. $2.

A well-thought-out detective story. The gruesome title need not disturb the most nervous reader, for one cares no more about this corpus delicti than if it were a bag of cement. The reporterdetective is a wonder at deduction, not so miraculous as the famous Sherlock, but closer in reasoning power. The author scorns to detrack his readers by false clues, yet he constructs a mystery unguessable until he chooses to explain

it.

THE PORTRAIT OF A MAN WITH RED HAIR.
By Hugh Walpole. The George H. Doran
Company, New York. $2.

"The man's hair was en brosse, standing straight on end as Loge's used to do in the old pre-war Bayreuth 'Ring.' It was, like Loge's, a flaming red, short, harsh, instantly arresting. . . . For the rest this interesting figure had a body round, short and fat like a ball. Over his protruding stomach stretched a white waistcoat with three little plain black buttons. The color of his face had an unnatural pallor, something like the clown in Pagliacci, or again like one of Benda's masks. The eyebrows were so faint as to be scarcely visible. The mouth in the white of the face was a thin hard red scratch."

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

This is the portrait of Crispin, the man with red hair, in Hugh Walpole's latest fantasy, for it isn't a novel. It is a thrilling macabre story of suppressed horror, ghostly towers, torture, and escape through the fog. There is no psychological meaning nor elaborate allegory in the thing, as Walpole himself is only too quick to admit in his Introduction.

The only literary stunt in the entire book, albeit that is a magnificent one, lies in the description of Crispin himself. Hugh Walpole seems to have been much impressed with America on his recent visit. The hero is an art-loving American from Oregon, and if you will but re-read the opening paragraph you

Edited by EDMUND PEARSON

must agree that Crispin, the "Man With
Red Hair," is none other than our. old
friend Jiggs of "Bringing Up Father."
Jiggs, boon companion of Dinty Moore,
lover of corned beef and cabbage, eter-
nally bound to Maggie the wife, is the
physical shell into which Walpole has
poured the character of this mad sadist
with his etchings and his jade, his tor-
ture chamber and faithful brooding son.

It is a notable tour de force, for never
once does the figure seem incongruous or
the story descend to bathos. Here is in-
deed a book for a winter evening. Would
there were more of its caliber!

SHELTER. By Charles F. Marsh. D. Appleton
& Co., New York. $2.

A sound and sincere novel. The story
is an excellent piece of local color as to
the English Norfolk coast, near Yar-
mouth, where the fisherfolk still say
"bor" and "mawther" just as the Peg-
gottys did in "David Copperfield." It
has three principal characters, each nota-
bly well presented-created, one may
say, not just sketched. Why Phoebe
quickly married Ezra, her backward, not
very young, suitor, after Bob, her fiancé,
was sent to jail for killing a man in an-
ger, and what came from the secret long
after she had accepted the "Shelter" of
Ezra's farm, make an engrossing situa-
tion, one that requires for its develop-
ment knowledge of human nature and
sympathy with hard-pressed, imperfect,
yet honest-hearted men and women. Mr.
Marsh has qualities that are by no means
common among writers of fiction.

Biography

ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER AND FEN-
WAY COURT. By Morris Carter. Houghton
Mifflin Company, Boston. $6.

The life of Mrs. Jack Gardner and the
history of the museum of art which she
bequeathed to the public. Her temper,
her whimsicalities, her insolences, and
her benefactions are all given some men-
tion in this book; there are portraits of
her by great artists and photographs of
the inside and outside of the museum.
A century hence this irascible old lady,

who kept half a dozen fluttering young æsthetes in attendance, will be forgotten and the great lover of art will be remembered. A benefactor of her country; something of a genius, and, like many geniuses, rather impossible as a neighbor.

A

RECOLLECTIONS OF THOMAS R. MARSHALL:
HOOSIER SALAD. The Bobbs-Merrill
Company, Indianapolis. $5.

The autobiography of a remarkable, almost a unique man, the late VicePresident. A politician with a sense of humor! A party man who can say that he once thought that "to be a Democrat was to be an honest man, and to be a Republican was to be a crook." Mr. Marshall also writes: "Of all hypocritical lovers of peace, the pacifist belongs in the thirty-third degree." Mr. Marshall's was a strange and wholesome figure; he acknowledged, after the war began, that he was ashamed he had ever

been neutral. His chief never reached
that height of honesty. Let us have
more Tom Marshalls.

JOHN S. SARGENT: HIS LIFE AND WORK.
By William Howe Downes. Little, Brown &
Co., Boston. $8.

"That the story of his life is to be read in his works, is a truism," writes William H. Downes in his life of Sargent, a handsome volume with forty-one illustrations of the artist's paintings. And of the 313 pages of the book, we find 106 given to Sargent's life and 207 to a list of his works with notes. The output left behind him numbered 950, outside of the murals in the Boston Public Library and the Art Museum, the latter-the last big commission he filled-heroic in design, but delicately done and exquisitely colored. Original, brilliant, and audacious, his first exhibited paintings in London so violated well-worn formulas that oldtimers pronounced him a coxcomb. As a portraitist he was uneven-en rapport with one, out of touch with another. Contrasting opinions made him out "a monster of cynicism," a "paragon of kindliness;" he "read the souls of his sitters," he was "superficial;" he "probed their weaknesses," he was "chiefly con

[graphic][subsumed][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][subsumed][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small][graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small]

KERMATH

BOAT ENGINES

The best all around marine motor in the market. That is what the best and foremost boat fans think of the Kermath.

Boat builders will tell you of Kermath's dependability-its economy-its ability to always get there and back without fuss, trouble or annoyance. All Kermath motors

are built to the most
exacting stands in one
of the most modern
marine motor plants
in the country.

Write today for complete
information and catalog

[blocks in formation]

cerned with externals." In painting his
own portrait he had to act in the dual
rôle of artist and sitter; and again the
sitter resented the artist. The experience
gave him the sitter's point of view, and
it is to be noted that thereafter he be-
gan to pull away from the exactions of
portraiture, definitely abandoning it in
1914. Yet at his death he had begun a
portrait of Princess Mary and Viscount
Lascelles. "The world is inexorable in
its demands upon successful specialists,"
observes Mr. Downe. It is his belief
that Sargent eventually will take rank
below the first-rate men, like Rembrandt
and Titian, but higher than most of the
British painters of the eighteenth cen-
tury. Though born in Florence and liv-
ing in London the greater part of his life,
Sargent was a thorough American, a
descendant of Epes Sargent, of Glouces-
ter, Massachusetts; and his father, Dr.
Fitzwilliam Sargent, though a surgeon in
a Philadelphia hospital at the time of his
marriage with Mary Newbold Singer, of
that city, was of Gloucester and Boston.
IN THE DAYS OF MY FATHER, GENERAL
GRANT. By Jesse R. Grant, in collaboration
with Henry Francis Granger. Harper &
Brothers, New York. $3.50.

These engaging
engaging but exceedingly
sketchy reminiscences reveal the grim
and taciturn commander as a tender and
indulgent parent. The son was often
with his father at the front; at the age of
five he rode a Shetland pony about the
lines in front of Vicksburg, and the next
year he was at City Point. It is the
personal side of Grant that is stressed
throughout. Even in the relation of the
Bristow and the Belknap episodes it is
Grant the man rather than Grant the
statesman that is explained to us. One
must regret that a similar explanation
was not made of the President's treat-
ment of Custer. The book closes some-
what abruptly with the Republican Con-
vention in Chicago in 1880, when Grant
was defeated for the nomination for a
third term.

Poetry

MAY DAYS. An Anthology of Verse from Masses-
Liberator. Edited by Genevieve Taggard.
Boni & Liveright, New York. $3.

the
Poetry, mostly published in
"Masses" or the "Liberator" from 1912-
24. Most of the living American poets
are represented, and there are many fine,
spirited poems. Some of the poets write
of love and nature, but most of them
contribute biting verses about the capi-
talists and the military men. Of course,

“The Book Lovers' Corner" some of the bitingest are from poets who

FOREIGN LANGUAGES

FRENCH SPANISend for catalogue, stat

RENCH. ITALIAN, SPANISH, GERMAN BOOKS.

ing language desired. SCHOENHOF'S, 387 Washington St., Boston, Mass.

prudently absented themselves from the
annoyance of military drill during 1917-
18.

What really bitter verses about
military life some poets, like Joyce Kil-

The Outlook for

mer and Alan Seeger, might have written. if they had not been busy otherwise! And how severe upon their battalion commanders other writers might be if they were not hampered-as few of the "Masses" poets were-by a sense of humor. Political opinions permeate this volume; the kind of political opinion which sheds tears for youth killed in battle, but has never a tear for the old poor stodgy typesetters blown up by the bomb in the Los Angeles "Times" building. They were slaughtered for the "benefit" of Labor-and the murder of innocent men under these circumstances was never cause for sorrow in the "Masses" or the "Liberator." There is much wide, tolerant, Christian love for other nations (except our recent allies, the French and English, of course) in this anthology, but this is counteracted -lest the book should be sloppily sentimental-by plenty of sound, vigorous hatred for Americans.

Travel and Description

PARIS ON PARADE. By Robert Forrest Wilson.
With 15 Illustrations from Paintings by A. G.
Warshawsky. The Bobbs-Merrill Company,
Indianapolis. $5.

Paris, more than any other city, has always the air of being on parade, as if justly proud of her own beauty, and Mr. Wilson has caught the spirit of the city in more ways than one. Probably some of the most pleasurable research work in the world was done in preparing to write the chapter "An Apératif on the Terrace." It describes the Parisian café, which is mother, father, and sister if need be, to its customers. It is amusing to find among drinks that dazzle even in retrospect one called "grog Américain," the Frenchman's favorite guard against the inroads of a chilly winter. Why it is called "grog Américain" no man can say, since it is a drink never known in the United States, but every French bottle of it displays the Stars and Stripes on its label. Paris would not be familiar without some mention of the art of painting the lilies, and an absorbing part of the book is about clothes, cosmetics, perfumes, and other tricks of a charming trade. In this city of specialized trades there is the man who knows better than any other man how to mount stained lizard skin upon ivory for umbrella handles, and the man who carves the best dogs' heads out of boxwood. These craftsmen and others like them keep the secrets of their trade in the family, refusing to hire outsiders, and, despite a complete lack of advertising, the pathway to their doors is a well-beaten one. Naturally, Mr. Wilson has a chapter on "the bookshop crowd," and his insight

In writing to the above advertisers, please mention The Outlook

[ocr errors]

into the literary foibles of some of the young Intellectuals is highly amusing. They are "different even if they have to drop their capital letters." Many things have passed in the last two decades, but the Apache, beloved of fiction and forever hunted by the Brigade Speciale, is still very much alive. The swift revenge of "Petit Louis" is a fascinating story that ends in a well-spilled pool of blood. The charm of the book is doubled by the characteristic and beautiful paintings of the city by A. G. Warshawsky, which are reproduced as illustrations. Mr. Warshawsky, familiarly known as "Buck" in the pages, is a talented American painter living in Paris whose work is widely known and often seen in exhibitions in this country.

[graphic]

Economics

THE TRAGEDY OF WASTE: By Stuart Chase. The Macmillan Company, New York. $2.50.

Dispassionately, with just the right amount of statistical citation, Mr. Chase develops his thesis, which, roughly stated, is that in current production in this country half the available manpower and half the raw materials used go to waste. He sees man-power wasted in three ways the production of nonessentials, idleness, and bad technical methods. His standard for measuring waste is based on a functional conception of industry, a conception of industry as devoted primarily to supplying human wants, profits being a by-product. Of course, under the present economic scheme of things, goods are practically regarded as by-products of the process of making profits; and no doubt the majority are convinced that, human nature being what it is, that scheme of things must continue to the millennium. But, whatever the truth of that matter, all candid readers will concede that the functional conception affords an excellent basis for a discussion of wastes, and that Mr. Chase has conducted the discussion with masterly skill, with humor, and with elegance.

It is indeed a tragedy; probably Mr. Chase has not exaggerated the shadows. Recalling man's record of stupidity, folly, predaceousness, and laziness, he is too honest to offer much reassurance. "Illusions we may have," says he, "but they are pierced with the stark arrows of the repeated helplessness of mankind before its destiny."

Essays and Criticism

AMERICAN HUSBANDS AND OTHER ALTERNATIVES. By Alexander Black. The BobbsMerrill Company, Indianapolis. $3.

Life and letters, but chiefly life in some of its lighter aspects, discussed easily and agreeably in fifteen brief

Motorists need no bright headlights here. See the uniform brilliance in this night-time view-a beaming moon every hundred yards is focused on the road.

Beaming Moons

[blocks in formation]
[subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors]

essays, diversified by occasional interest-
ing criticism and reminiscence.

THE ARTS OF CHEATING, SWINDLING, AND
MURDER. The Arnold Company, New York.
$1.50.

This reprints, with an essay by the
editor, Jesse Lee Bennett, "Maxims on
the Popular Art of Cheating," by Bul-
wer-Lytton; "The Handbook of Swin-
dling," by Douglas Jerrold; and De
Quincey's two essays "On Murder Con-
sidered as One of the Fine Arts." But it
omits the great postscript by De Quincey,
describing the Williams murders. The
editor would have done better to include
this, and to have omitted his own heavy
preface, in which he confuses war with
murder and property with theft. Those
ancient sophistries have never done a
thing to advance the cause of
peace or of
economic justice. It is curious how many
folk think that they can abolish war by
gravely telling falsehoods about it.

EXPERIMENTS. By Norman Douglas.
M. McBride & Co., New York.

$2.50.

Robert

The book contains essays on Poe and
Lord Nelson; book reviews, of which
some as the one on Elinor Glyn-are
decidedly amusing. There is the au-
thor's side of a bitter quarrel with D. H.
Lawrence alas, that the humorist who
wrote "South Wind" should so far forget
his humor as to think that he could make
this quarrel interesting! There are other
miscellaneous articles, but no powerful
reason for the publication of the book
itself, and some one should have advised
author and publisher of this fact.

THE WRITING OF FICTION. By Edith Whar-
ton. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $2.

Would that all our budding tale-
wrights and novel-mongers could be re-
quired to read this book! It might sug-
gest to them that fine story-telling is not
a trick or a trade, but an art, though it
be, in Mrs. Wharton's words, "the new-
est, most fluid, and least formulated of
the arts." "One is sometimes tempted to
think," she says mildly, "that the gen-
eration which has invented the 'fiction
course' is getting the fiction it deserves."
This little study offers no short cuts or
easy roads to high achievement in fiction.
It lays down certain principles which
govern the modern novel and short story,
and then discusses a few matters of
workmanship. From first to last it puts
stress upon the responsibility of the art-
ist both as craftsman and in his criticism
of life or, as she chooses to say, in his
judgment on life: "There seems to be
no escape from this obligation, except
into a pathological world where the ac-
tion, taking place between people of ab-
normal psychology, and not keeping time
with our normal human rhythms, be-
comes an idiot's tale, signifying nothing."

In writing to the above advertisers, please mention The

The Outlook for

[graphic]

So also, when we come to workmanship, Mrs. Wharton believes the first duty of the artist is to select and to control his materials. She therefore finds neither novelty nor merit in the "stream of consciousness" trick of our young novelists, who represent the normal mind as a mere mess of haphazard sensations and reactions never by any chance lapsing into thought. All the great artists, she says, have believed that "in the least in its decisive moments, on fairly world of normal men life is conducted, at coherent and selective lines." Therefore they have expressed "the stammerings and murmurings of the half-conscious mind whenever-and only when-such a state of mental flux fitted into the whole picture of the person portrayed."

Of the novelist's further discourse on the sources and beginnings of the modern novel, on its peculiar qualities, its technical aspects, and on the short story as a distinct form this word of comment can give no fair impression. The book offers much valuable information and suggestion for all serious students and readers of modern fiction.

History and Politics

TOLERANCE. By Hendrik Willem Van Loon.
Boni & Liveright, New York. $3.

This is a disappointing book, and the more so because it contains sufficient evidence that if Mr. Van Loon had taken more time and pains and had consulted the groundlings less and his august theme more he could have given us a very fine piece of work. What an opportunity missed! For could anything be more pat to the need of the age than an adequate discussion of tolerance? But such an achievement would require years of patient, delicate labor, and there's a kind of contagious madness in the air which drives your writer to produce at least one book a fortnight. As Mr. Van Loon has been badly "taken," we ought not to expect much. It is, then, cause of wonder and admiration that this book should be "worth while," and it is that decidedly.

Mr. Van Loon sketches the struggle between Tolerance and Intolerance from the first recorded appearance of Tolerance in the world until this our blessed day when Intolerance, completely recovered of his hard knocks from a succession of paladins of Tolerance, seems by way of administering the coup de grâce to the insolent intruder. For this is Mr. Van Loon's strong point; he is tolerant toward intolerance, humorously recognizing that in primitive stages of society intolerance is necessary to self-preservation. It is only in highly developed and harmoniously balanced societies that Outlook

[graphic]
« PredošláPokračovať »