The New York herald., 1921-01-16
Asquith Parody
Amuses London


MARGE AsKINFoRIr. BY Barry Pain.
Published by T. Werner Laurie, Ltd,
London.
Some prefaces are decorative. Some
are explanatory. Many are written for
advertising purposes. Barry Pain has
employed his preface to protect him
self in case of LIBEL for in II he says:
IA parody of an autobiography
should not be q caricature of the
people biographed--some of whom
must already have suffered enough.
Nobody in the parody is intended to
be representation of any real per-
son, living or. dead"
Under the safe shelter of this bomb
proof he proceeds to tell of the life ana
battles of Margarine Askinforit, whose
name is derived from the Latin MARCO
meaning the limit, and who has al
ways tried to live right up to 1t.
Few New Workers have had a chance
to compare the breezy little yellow
back with the autobiography OF Marge
Askinforit's "Great Example" for the
book has not been placed on sale here.
The stray copies that have been mailed
from the other side. however, are es-
pecially amusing to those gluttons for
punishment (other folks punishmenD
who read Margot Asquith's recently
published story.
For autobioRraphical purposes"
Marge tells us, always treat de-
ficiency as a gift. MY Great Example
(prefaces notwithstanding, the G. e. is
plainly Marg,t) was apparently a
duffer at arithmetic, but she makes you
admire her for 1t. wish had been
one of those factory girls she used to
reclaim in their dinner hour; am
fundamentally honest, but I could
never miss a chance when it was
thrown at me-"
Again Marge quotes from Margot:
"'If had to confess and expose one
opinion of myself which might differ
entiate me a little from other people.
I should say it was my power of love
coupled with my power of criticism -
whereupon Marge follows UP her ad-
vantage:
mo, never mind. The power of love
is not an opinion, and irf<ending SEN
tence It is just as well to remember
how you began 1t. But I absolutely
refuse to let my simple faith be
shaken. Besides, the explanation 10
quite simple, for when my Great Ex-
ample wrote that paragraph the power
of criticism had gone to have the
valves ground in.
my revered model wrote that she
had always been a collector of letters,
old photographs of the family, famous
people and odds and ends l have not
gone as far as this. I have collected
odds, and almost every autumn /
roam over the moors and fll a large
basket with them. but / have never
collected ends. ! do want to collect fa-
nous people. but for want Of a little
education have not been able to do
it. simply do not know whether it Is
best to keep them in spirits of wine or
to have them stuffed in glass cases.
/ have been told that really the best
way Is to press them between the
leaves of some very heavy book, such
as an autobiography, but fancy they
lose much of theIr natural brilliance
when treated In this way"
Here is Marge Askinforit's estimate
Of me, Marge Askinforit, by myself" !:
eff had to confess and expose one
opinion Of myself which would record
what believe to be my differentiation
from other people, 1t would, be the
opinion that am a law unto myself
. and judgment to everybody else"
The drives at the Great Example are
hung together by the adventures of
Marge, who In her capacity as a SER
want rarely kept her places and never
kept her friends. The only thing she
could keep was her diary.