Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-02-25

mission OF polltlcal lilipoi I
from Young China into the Cobb desert.
The agent of this mission, the center OF
the adventure. is Romney, a young
American. Mr.. Comfort could hardly
have given himself a better chance than
this. He is familiar with the east ana
he is, besides much of an oriental him.
self in temperament and comprehension.
Moreover. he is a good deal of magl-
clan with words, collecting, asserting
and arranging them in such manner as
to evoke actual places and real people.
This background is. therefore, very
much alive with the sights and sounds,
the colors and odors of the east. BY
virtue of a hundred Vltahzlng touches
this writer transports one TO the hai
row streets and curious SHOPS anu
strange byways of the Chinese CITY.
And under the hustle Of modern busi-
ness one feels the movement OF secret
things that stir. and wait. and stir again
out of an infinitely ancient rootage. ANA
the adventure in the desert is a long
vista of desert lonelinesses and SPLEEN
doris of meetings and partings and self
communings. DR.. TT Kung and Ming
lapo. the dealer in inlays of wood, are
China itself. complete, turned into men.
Fine as it is, this would not were it
all, be a real Comfort adventure. For
these exact plunge as well as spread
And for this the author sends the soul
of Romney into the lower regions from
which it returns in the slow and labor1-
Gus strainings of self-rescue. This is.
in fact the real adventure. inclosed by
a perilous political hazard the Two
vitalizing the gorgeous Chinese setting.
A love story of the ideallzed Sort, WIN
out which sort this writer will have no
love story at all, plays an alternating
first and second in the recreation OF
Romney. In the source OF their lnsplra-
ton. in their uncomfortable idealsm, IN
their seriousness. in their sense OF
drama, and in their fine artistry, the
Comfort novels constitute one of the
high marks in American novel writing.
THE MELANCHOLY TALE OF "ME",
My Remembrance. By Edward II.
Sothern. illustrated. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons.
Despite it's titular claim. this is not
melancholy tale" unless 1t be such
through the vague implications OF sad
ness that lie in every case of being
alive, in the mere fact of having had
to come at all. On the contrary. 1t Is
a cheerful, and, one would judge. an
enjoyable. going back Into the rich re.
gion Of Sothern'S past FOR a second
helping to the good things that appear
to have marked his life. Specially en-
gaging is the first part of this tale
the part having to do with me. Here
is a little boyhood that one would love
to go back to and linger over And in
it is a little boy whom Sothern' has
recaptured, whole. and delivered over to
print in complete integrity of pure
boy Beside me" there is here, too.
an Uncle Hugh such as every child
ought to have, and more th IAN tna d
delectable pattern. The play, the gayety.
the insight. the grace and poetry OF
this part Of the story make one think
he is reading poem OF childhood by
Oscar Wilde. 1t is delightful. The later
recollections. those of the stage and
players and life, of Jefferson, Irving,
Mccullough. Sotherns father. Barrett,
Tree, Booth and a host of others, are
stepped in the same insight and sauced
with an equal wit. Nothing appears
here of Sothern's own professional life.
At the last both the fairy godmother
and me" inquire into the cause of
this omission, one of them ASKING,
What were your best achievements?
King Lear. Coriolanus. Cardinal VOL
sey''-- stop! You have never played
these characters" Never! said Soth-
ern How. then. can they be your best
work." Then he tells that these are
you have played? "Hideous disap-
pointments, crippled at birth. bereft of
half their promised Projections. But.
oh, the songs never sung. the pictures
never painted. les " LILO oS'e
King Lear / ever heard of, the best
Wolsey'-but l was talking to the air,
for my fairy godmother had fed up the
chimney. A joy and d refreshment
from beginning to end.
AMERICAS FOREIGN RELATIONS.
BY Willis Fletcher johnson, A. M.
L. H. D., author of "A Century OF
EXPANSION" etc. New York: The
Century Company.
An isolated America is now definitely
a thing of the past. And, indeed. from
the first this separateness was not the
real thing that 1t was generally as
sumed to be- But. such as it was. it
present by Americas full emergence