Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-08-09
SOMERSET WAUCHAWS
GREAT ALLEGORY
"The Noon and Sirpence" Et-
hibitS Crude Elemental
Forces as Men Walking

W. Somerset Vaughan has written
in The Moon and Sixpence" a novel
so unlike the usual run of fiction that
it must stand in a class by itself. In
man of genius. In fact it is an allie
CORY in which one sees crude, elemental
forces as men walking.
Mr.. Vaughan has constructed his
tale with great skill. BY footnotcs
referring to imaginary books he creates
the impression that Charles Strickland.
the hero. is a real person, instead Of
merely the personfication of a great
desire and a ruthless passion. The
story is told in the first person by
writer who knew Strickland when he
was respectable stockbroker in Lon.
don, and came in contact with him at
later periods in his career.
It opcnS in London in the society of
writer's and artists. with whom the wife
of Strickland associates Strickland
himself is introduced at a dinner at
his own house, whore he appears dull
and slightly awkward in evening
clothes, tolerant of his wifc's guests
Then we are told that he has suddenly
cut loose from all his tics-his business
partner, his wife and childrcn-and
gone to Paris to paint. He had been
a kind and affectionate husband. But
when he is found in Paris he is brutal
in his remarks about his family. He
refuses to assume any responsibility
for them. He is interested only in
himself and in his desire to paint what
he sees. He is described as n large,
red haired man with a sensual face
to him because of his manifest sensual
ity; but he spurns them for the mo-
ment. Yet when he wants to CRAFTY
his passion he does it as remorselessly
as he abandoned his family.
Dirk Stroeve, a Dutch artist, is in
troduced by way of contrast. Stroeve
has rescued an unfortunate English
girl and has married her. He is a
type of perfect unselfsh love that will
sacrifice itself for the loved object. He
befriends Strickland, takes him to his
house and nurses him through a serious
illness, and Strickland rewards him by
exercising upon his wife his sex fas-
and taking her from him.
The poor woman is caught in a mae-
strom of passion in which she is finally
wrecked; but Strickland is no more
disturbed by it than a tidal wave is
disturbed by the ruin which it strews
upon the beach. He has set out to do
certain things and he will use whatever
he needs for his purposes regardless of
any one else. The man finds his way
to Tahiti, where he lives with q native
girl and continues to paint, Indifferent
to all the world. He must put on
canvas what he sees, and cares not
whether any one ever sees the can
vases or not. On the way to Tahiti
he passes through Marseilles, where the
reader is taken to the sailors brothels.
reeking with obscene passion. And in
Tahiti unbridied passion is exhibited
in the person of the landady of an inn.
and the impression is given that this
is a fitting place for Strickland to
live, a place where the bestial forces in
restraint in more civilized places have
full sway.
And Strickland. the type of un.
bridled, irresponsible selfshness, rots
to death from a tropical disease, and
Stroeve, the type of unselfish love, has
his life ruined through the tramplins
Of unbridled selfshness upon that which
he held sacred. And Stroeve's wife
dies as the result of her surrender to
the beastly charm of the brute.
When the narrator tells the family
of Strickland of his death. the son, rep.
resented as a shallow thinking clergy
man, remarks that the mills of the gods
grind slow, but they grind exceedingly
small, and one feels that Maugham has
put this trite saying in the mouth of
such a man because he wishes the
reader to feel that it is the most super
ficial and uncomprehending remark that
could be made about the whole gruesome
allegory. The book is an exhibition of
the beast in man, done with such per
feet art that it is beyond praise. It
is full of subtleties of perception far
beyond the ordinary run of novelists.
THE MOON AND sIXPENcE By w. Som.
eerset M4ugham New, York: George II.