The New York herald., 1921-07-10
A G uid e book
for New England

Tor New England
PILGRIM TRAILS. BY Frances Lester War
ner. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press
I" OR the three hundredth anniversary of
the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers
they have moved the rock from its
little iron cage on street in the town of
Plymouth back to the waters edge, where
the waves may finger it again and the new
pilgrims may more completely create for
themselves the original scene The pageant
which is to celebrate this moment of our
history will centre about it and the guide
books written for these twentieth century
pilgrims have much to say of it's wander
ings from resting place to another. OF
guide books to the past none could better
serve you than which combines with
the accuracy of Baedeker the interest in
forgotten personalities of a novelist.
A thinnish book lin a pale gray color,
with modesty the sub title "A Plymouth
to Provincetown Sketchbook"-this proves
to be amazingly rich storehouse of
knowledge about the ancestor country.
Hero are fresh vistas of New England
presented in. appreciation not too studied,
i'll enthusiasm not forced. The delicate,
half diffident restraint of it is very
legacy from those people and those times
whose relics she has set about to examine.
We should guess that Mrs. Warner
born and bred the premises, departing
later from the chosen land at intervals close
enough to keep unwearied the romance of
early affection. For she escapes alike the
strangers inharmonous accent and the
drab evenness that a surfeit of familiarity
might spread.
All the pleasant quietness of that country
are remembered in her book-hunting for
mayfiower in barren spring woods, ferreting
antiques in snuffy little shops on a morning
when the only sounds are muffied moving
about of some one in the back room, and
the sudden spnsterish bell tinlle of the door
opening to another visitor To the new
conner from Indiana whom the author meets
at the gate of the Winslow house in Dux-
bury, she on foot. he with his family packed
into large touring car what strange
world!
The well known trademarks which he who
runs through New England in automobiles
may read-the hinge the brass warming
pan, the sturdy cradle with its top in three
fiat sections used now for a wood box, are
duly entered in Mrs. Warmers impressions,
but there is much more that only length of
living in a place can gradually divulge. The
feeling of a climb in single. file up following
stair steps to a room where George Wash
ington may may not have slept, the en-
chanted Whit of dampness as they open the
closet where he (perhaps) hung his coat.
shares space with an inhabitants account
of creeping down the straight side of a well
under starry winter sky to turn off the
water. lest pipes freeze before morning.
The smell of old houses-that mildly
acrid. timeless. settled aura of wood and
stone that has weathefed, Mrs. Warner cap
lures, even to the precise quality of aged
ness. She says There are some gabled
houses where the long slope of the roof has
sagged little, just enough to make it
place for moss and shadows, but not enough
tn make IL look fallen in" So it is with New
England a section perhaps beyond the prime
of great achievement. but vigorous in the
pride Of its past and of its ability to hold
itself together "A charge no one.
Each has its personal distinction-the
house built by Standsh of Standish at
Duxbury. speaks aloof ruggedness; the John
Alden homestead, also gambreled and big
chimneyed. a more spreading comfort. Both
these set themselves apart from the town
elegance of that fine square one painted
yellow and white with the carving of fruit
around the doorways. where Emerson was
married to Miss Lydia Jackson.
This is the only wedding. OF genealogy,
happily we hear in pilgrim Trails" little
except for the genealogy of the clam; by the
Pilgrims called first sand-gapers. then
clamps, clambs. clambes. slammes and
ClamneS. MOST human anu knONU
of details about the reverend fathers is that
they did not like these "meanest OF Gods
blessings and such as people fat their hogs
with at low water" Could IL have been
something less thar strict necessity that
brought them to the parched corn diet that
we associate with the period just before the
first experiment upon wild turkey?
Undoubtedly there lie behind ttese new
glimpses hours OF research among old docu-
ments as well wanderings along the his
toric coastline. The book contains delicious
bits cued from writings on such quaint sub
jects as "Hypocrise Unmaskcd" and New
thors whose antique spelling spices the page
like the caraway seeds OF German coffee
cake
And they serve 10 remind grateful
reader how little of the moral tone he has
needed to swallow I'm this unusual book.
The sense for beauty as well OF motive as OF
external gesture distinguishes II, and above
all in such sentence as: You see Barn
stable in mid winter. with its marshlands and
shores packed with cakes OF ice, pink and
lavender in the sunset with sea gulls sitting
upright on the edges, like many PEN
gums on an Arctic foe" The keen fresh
eye, with the habit of making due reserva-
s,ons strengthens her effect. To the last
page II is consistently sketchbook ramble
with indeed moral but moral so charm
ingly expressed that slumbering anmosities
hardly stir. At the end then these lines:
1--WE do well to honor those, who voyage
alone through cross winds and fierce