New-York tribune., 1919-12-20
A Boy S Idyl
Fine Sketches of a
Small Town Boyhood

FA,R+MiNGToN. BY Clarence barrow.
Published by b. w. Huebsch.
1t would seem to be as fine piece
OF publishers enterprise to rescue from
oblivion an interesting book as it is
to bring out new one. B. W. Huebsch
has accomplished this in issuing Il
new edition oof Clarence Darrow's
Harrington" This was first pub
lished in 1904. when it went through
two editions, and the present new one
serves to point that it is distinctly
worth a new lease of life.
There is in these recollections of a
small town boyhood not only feeling
for youth, but also feeling for truth.
Inevitably, no adult may break the en-
chantment hanging over youth. In that
receding glow all it's growing pains
are so easily softcned to tenderness
and humor that honesty about it be-
comes as rare as it is difficult Mr.
Darrow views his own youth as visit
but he does not capitulate to it with
sentimentality.
These sketches of boyhood spent
in a crumblng old mill in river town
browsing between Pennsylvania hills
have an easy beauty of landscape that
might easily be merely static They
flow with reality because Mr.. Darrow
has kept the stream of his human
values clear. Though the district school.
the old swimming hole, the church and
the wide bury ing ground, the odd char
acters and the swinging round of sea-
sona1 occupations are orthodox SYM
bols of tenderness, there is no ortho-
doxy in Mr.. Darrow's perceptions Of
them. What dclusiOns of the nature
of the world the district school fos-
tered! What absurd Inconsistencies
of human conduct the adult world Of
parent and teacher insisted upon!
What absurd pretensons of noble pre-
cept and what pitiful inadcquacics Of
accomp ishment child might see
about himl
All the homely figures and expert.
enccs that these sketches embody arc
miraculously saved in their common.
ness without congealing into the typ.
cal The old miller, his father whose
thwarted passion for learning made
him tyrannical taskmastcr. is an
extraordinarily moving and human fig
ure. A child has not the adults pas
sion for idealization. In the recreation
OF him and half dozen other figures
in the book there is a child memory
free Of sentimental posturing CAS- to
my father, l am sure I never thought
he was man of extraordinary power.
In fact, from the time ] was a little
child | often urged him to do things in
different way. especially as to his
rules about my studies and my school
ing. | never believed that he ran the
mill in the best way; and | used to
think that other men were stronger or
richer or kinder to their children than
my father was to us. As a
child | had no doubts that any man
could create conditions for himself:
the copybooks had told me so, and tho
teachers had assured us in the most
positive way that our success was with
ourselves. 1t took years Of care and
toll to show me that life is stronger
than man, that conditions control ind
vlduals. This fine honesty results IN
a finer poetic understanding, trucr
tenderness.
The humor o oyhood-company man
ners and girls and rules Of conduct and
all the intense seriousness of youth
are irresistibly present in this book.
Darrow does not stress it as Mark
Twain or Booth Harrington do, but a
fine humor is the ripping undcrcurrent
of piece of work that is distinguished
for its charm and simplicity and truth.