Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-06-13

A AA/ his account each of them
/. wv big of grasp and surpass-
ingly fine in release. Mr..
Comfort is only thirty-five years old.
mere boy to many of u.s. And here in
S''Mdstream'' he gives out the story of
this first half Of his life allotment-a
curiously provocative thing to do. If one
is inclined. however. to deal cautiously
with this performance. to ascrihe to it
any one of the brood of superficial
motives. he must do this before reading
the book For. having once read 1t. he
will he quite taken up with an altogether
different kind OF comment. This is not
a pretty story. The bedrock truth about
human nature is not calculated to make
pretty reading. It is true story. It is
an unfinching one. Starting back when
he was little boy six or seven years
old. Mr.. Comfort traces the criss-cross
pattern that his life has woven through
the thirty years or less that lie in be-
tween then and now. It is a record Of
waywardness and weakness. undershot
with the right and decent stuff of human
nature. One recoils from this plain deal
ing. The recoi1 roots in the exposure
that this story makes of himself the
reader The far-sourced. unsought.
hated things of our own natures. those
things that we hold in terrified secrecy,
Mr.. Comfort proclains about himself
and us Courage backs this revelation.
The gift of self-searching animates 1t.
Honesty sustains it. And Mr.. Comforts
rare power to seize and deliver his vision
inspires it. II is tremendous thing
the greatest thing that this writer has
Vet done Its first effect is to explain
. Mr.. Comforts novels. One has known
from the first that these novels were in
the largest measure autobiography. that
these were the true stories of a mans
life of the feelings and spirit. That man.
possessed of devil. passing from one
of these novels TO another was unmis-
takably a real man. A million mere
'.studies' could not have produced him.
And Comforts women are divinely real
the big. patient. mothering women of
the world. Mere lovemakers do not care
much for his women. but they are. never
theless. among the great women OF
story and of life. Again. honester
self-avowal could not be made. It is
this quality that gives the book its great
Importance This it Is that constitutes
IT everyhodv's book. that makes it every
hody's urge toward an equally unf1inch-
ing examination of himself 1t ts an I'M
rnense gain to readers that Mr.. Comfort
wrote this story Of himself at Just THIS
point when. so to speak, he Is dripping
in his youth. 1t reaches out after men,
Young men. where the messed over recol-
lections of old age have neither approach
nor grip for them. This book has MANY
in,portaut uses. the most immediate and
consricrous of which Is its power as
pure story.
STORIES OF RUSSIAN LIFE. BY An
ron Tchekoff. author OF 1.-THE Swan
song" etc. Translated from the
Russian by Marian Fell. New York:
charles Scribners Sons. Washing
ton: woodward & Lothrop.
twenty -four of Anton Tchekofrs mas
,erIy short stories make their first Eng
IIsh appearance in this volume. These
stories give remarkable glmpses Of Rus
sian life. brief studies of Russian char
acter and rapid sketches of Russian incl
dent and outlook. They are also illumina-
tons of human beings everywhere. I'm
like many of the Russian writers Tchek-
cheer He is not so irretrievably steeped
and soaked In the gloom of the lower life
Of Russia as too many of her writer's are
Reading him is not an unbroken sadness
as the reading of much of the fiction OF
this country is. And for this reason. as
well as for the surpossing beauty OF
many of his stories and the technical per-
lection of all of them, Tchekon makes
the most desirable Of all approaches to
the reading of Russian fiction.
|CHTTRA: q Play In One Act By
Rabindranath Tagore. New York:
Inc Macmliidn company
Written twenty-five years ago. this
Lyrical drama by Tagore appears to have
been waiting quietly by the wayside for
events in the west to overtake it. Rooted
in an oriental soil and blossiming in orr
entail thoughts and speech, the spirit of
this drama. nevertheless, belongs equally
to the near-lying fields Of the western
world The eastern legend runs that the
daughter of 4 king prayed the gods to
give her surprising loneliness that she
might find favor in the eyes of a man.
The gods listened and answered. Then
like a goddess hidden within a golden
Image" the kings daughter entered into
her possession. For a year the arts of
mmemorial femininity wove an exquisite
dream of love. Then. the kings daughter.
casting off her alien charms and god
granted lures, because she had been born
again. a larger being, said to the beloved
man, Arjuna the Pandara, II am Chitra.
No goddess to be worshiped. nor yet the
object of common pity to be brushed
aside like a moth with Indifference II
you deign to keep me by your side in the
path OF danger and daring. If you allow
me to share the great duties of your life,
hen YOU will know my true SELF
The modern woman is not SO beautifully
poetic as Chitra, the daughter of an ori-
entail king. but this. today. is about the
burden of her plea in the great relation
ship of modern life.
This poetic drama has been acted IN
india without scenery, the actors being
Surrounded by the audience in some nat
|Iral and beautiful out-of-doors setting. 1t
$ delightfully."- fitted for such production
and would without question be a charm
ing spectacle
WHEN WILLIAM CAME, a Story Of
LoadOn Under the Hohenzollefna.
By H. H. Munro author of The I'm
bearable Bassington." etc. New
York: John Lane Company
In order TO say anew what he has said
before and what he is obviously bursting
o say again on the subject OF national
rood sense and the weilbeing of the Brit
sh empire. Mr.. Munro invents this clev-
(rly original satire. Here England. over
brown. becomes one Of the kaisers
provinces. The king is relegated to an
East Indian satrapy- London Is turned
INTO German foreign office. The story,
r what passes muster as a story. deals
With London society in the throes of
adapting itself to the bureaucratic mind
nd manners of German control. Having
ct UP this scaffolding "Saki" whips
bout thunder, over and across-with the
&giiity of our prehensle forbears. Here
ure sagacity voices itself like bleating
amb and mere foolery talks like an
racle. Wit keeps two glancing swords
the air and one in hand, while humor
rats. its face awry in sardonic laugh
err 1t is captivating, an electric per-
ormance. And when the spectacular
ghts wink out one sees for an instant
ne gaunt black skeleton supporting