New-York tribune., 1920-10-17

young women in British letters, a
group that includes, with her, Gle
mence Dane. Stella Benson, F. Tenny-
son Jesse and Viola Meynell
We skirt along the Channel shore
and come to Kent, to Joseph Conrad
From the days of his first books Con-
rad has increased his army of readers
1t is cachet of royalty among lovers
of fiction to be able to say truthfully
that one enjoys Conrad. To put the
matter bluntly, you do not know what
good writing is if you fail to appreci-
ate this mans work. There are fire.
quent involutions and recessions in his
progressing themes, but they are the
logical products of mind at labor
with the psychology of a situation or
of q group of related events
In way, Conrad did not fiji readily
into our picture of purely British
novelsts, for his vision is on extreme
horizons and he runs down the quar-
ries of his plots in hooks all over
the Old World. The Eastern seas,
South America. Spain, have all yielded
inspirations and given of the colors of
their majestic, mournful and glowing
settings. He ever sets man and woman
against nature and frequently merges
the temperament of human factor
with that Of the physical world at
hand
Conrad, whose first story was
scribbled out on a ship at sea- is again
or the ocean or at the close of q voyage
in his The Rescue doubleday, Page
g. Co... An English yacht, stranded on
a Malayan shore, gives over its three
white passengers to net of con-
splracy, The throne of a prince is
involved. A great moment arrives in
this book that in which Tom Lingard
balances impulses. Shall he go on with
his plot or shall he abandon it and
save the woman who has been flung
into the current of his life and of his
schemings from the decks of the yacht?
What contrast this novel affords
when set up in row with the two
Sussex stories just mentioned Yet
how typical it is of the sweep of Eng
lish imagination over the wind-sown
corners of the globe 1t is not a record
Of quiet countryside, but there is
in it dash Of the Briton emergent
from the tolls beyond distant latitudes.
Wars Reaction
Agnes and Egerton Castle expert
enced the violent reactions of the war
with their compatriot authors. 1t is
far cry from the days of The Pride
of Jennico and The Bath Comedy
to those of the trenches in France and
the hospitals in England These two
writer's, collaborators, so well known
in America, have contributed two
books to the years output, from their
home in Surrey. The first, Little
Hours in Great Days tDutton), was
collection OF short papers divided be-
tween intimate, reposeful sketches of
their gardens and their roses and de-
hneatons OF moments with wounded
returned from France The second. an
afterwar tale, John Seneschal's Mar
garet (Appleton), in its opening pages
relates the narrowing experience Of
John Tempest in Turkish prison. suf
terlng from head wound Tempest.
who has lost the sense of his Identity
as result OF his wound, is brought
home to England, to Wessex. where
he is received as one John Seneschal
and admitted TO the society of tran
gull people. AS Seneschal he meets
Margaret, Seneschal's childhood friend
and sweetheart. The girl receives him
as the bona fide John of early days.
Naturally, there comes a moment when
affairs become beautifully complicated
We leave the rest to the two Castles.
whose penchant for the good d-time
romantic crisis in story is still in
evidence
Many men and women in the United
States who have read a number OF
the Castles novels viii learn with
rsgret that Egerton Castle died recent
ly. Strangely enough, the news came