The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1919-12-08
are surprisingly good and richly prom

One of the most Interesting recent
books is Short Stories from the Bal
kans (Marshall Jones Coz. collec-
ton of thirteen typical modern stories
from the eleven foremost Czech Mon
tenegran. Rumanian, Serbian, Croatian,
and Hungarian writers. translated by
Edna Worthley Underwood
Each of these tales is distinctly in !
dividua1 and beautifully written. The
book opens a literature all but I'M
known to English speaking readers and
which, il this collection may be re-
garded as representative. holds much
In store for the adventurous trans
lator. It is to be desired that this
book will have the success It deserves.
that thereby Mrs. Underwood, whose
TRANSACTIONS are always remarkable,
may be encouraged to further efforts.
We are an odd race, with our de- ]
votion to tradition and our sentimental
way Of generating the great figures of
our history. We refuse to consider
our national heroes as human beings:
we set them serene upon a pedestal
in the Hall of Fame. thinking always
of them as paragons of spotless virtue,
and forgetting the little weakness that
made them men.
This is the fault of most biog-
raphers; they present the man, not
as he really was. but as hero worship
ing sentimentalists would have him.
But every great man or small has evil
and good impulses. Why, then, is not
both sides of his nature presented?
Why must he be forced to wear in
death an halo of mawkish righteous
ness which in life he would have
scorned?s
Give me, rather than these impossi-
BILE saints, man with the breath of
life in him, like Benvenlto or Angus
| tine. The greatest modern biography
| is Frank Harris Oscar Wilde, because
the author is catholic in spirit and
paints his subject as he was in life,
| in weakness as well as strength.
| John Brown, Soldier of Fortune: A
| Critique tThe Cornhill Coz, by Hill
PEBBLES Wilson, is not the ideal biog-
| ra ply, but it does much to counterfeit
the saccharine trend OF other similar
| works. Mr.. Wilson has made palms.
taking study CT the documents relating
to Brown, and views him as a fanati-
cal adventurer, rather than as a
martyr. The view is original, but a
/ little one sided, unless the present con-
/ ception is altogether in error. The
book stands in interesting contrast to
Oswald Garrison Wizards John Brown
| fIIoughton Miffin), the best of the
biographies partisan to the hero of
/ Harper's Ferry.
Georges Duhamel. whose Civiliza-
ton was honored with the Prix Con
court, appears again in The New Book
OF Martyrs stDoran) translated by
Florence Simmons. I quote in part my
review of this book in a recent issue
of The Dial:
| !. There is a simple. poig-
nant realism in this collection of
sketches of the panorama of pain
and fortitude witnessed by a
/ French military surgeon that goes
far to compensate for the irritating
style In which it is written. NJ.
/ Dunhamel knows the tortured life
he portrays, and only those who
have gazed upon the same suffer-
ing can realize how terribly real
it is, this learning to live in Deaths
J company
He has lived among those braye
men whose lips smile while their
eyes drip tears of anguish; he has
trodden those gloomy corridors
carpeted with pain, between the
long rows of cots laden with de-
spair; and the stories he tells of
the sufferers these martyrs of
: new age are not mere fictionS:
|
5 branches de lavie. of life terrible
/ to contemplate, told with rare
: simplicity and lighted by splen-
: did sympathy. They are new
2 Ave- Caesar, motrituri to salutant.
;, Nietzsche says that suffering en-
S mobiles: and surely it is no COM
: mon nobility to which their marty
VI dom has raised these men. 1t is a
spiritual exalatation that fills
S their souls and transcends the
4 sordidity and the commonplaces Of
S / their lives, and imparts to them a
q higher vision with they feel with
S in them even if they cannot under
n stand it. NJ. Duhamel has seen
l. these things in the dying eyes of
eI his countrymen, and he passes them
ell on to us In The New Book OF
Il Martyrs.
h Futurist Stories mitchell Kenner