The New York herald., 1922-02-19


only essential difference In the
lives OF Phanor Enday and his
son Amos as set forth in "The Parlor
Begat Amos" by Arthur S. Hide
brand (Harcourt, Brace & Coz, was
that Phanor married on a very cold
day and his son Amos on a very
hot one. Amos as boy dreamed of
migrating to mental and spiritual
climate completely removed from
that In which he grew up. and this
was the extent of his success.
The parlor that begat Amos was
the parlor of 4 house in Main Street.
We read on the jacket of the book
that it is "a study of the influence
Of the conventional and timid middle
class American family on a sensitive
boy whose life is stunted by wha.
the atmosphere of the front parlor
OF his home signilied. The book is
the story of his struggle TO get out
Of its StuffineSs into the freshness of
life"
1t Is a struggle, it seems, in which
poor Amos never has a chance The
furniture in the old front parlor is
stacked against him. The family
motto Never take a chance, is too
much for him in the end. We are
left to suppose. when Amos marries,
in the last chapter. that his wife
win give him just such q parior as
he grew up in as q boy
When Amos goes to school in the
little town of Wilton he can't re-
member what the exports of China
are because he is too occupied in
thinking of what China is like While
In high school his best effort at
recklessness. an affair with girl
who is looked upon by the good
people of Wilton as not quite nice, is
destroyed because the girl contracts
a fever or something and dies.
Away at boarding school he meets
young lady whose life has not been
wrecked by her front parIor. She
tells him that TO find the larger world
he dreams for he must turn his back
on things that are sure and go ahead
without seeing 4 single step of the
way. But Amos had been taught at
home to avoid above all things I'm
certainty Experiment and Failure.
And SO he takes the train back to
Wilton and marries the nice girl his
mother picked out for him. He ac-
cepts the job in the mill that his
father got for him. the job that
means only dreariness and Wilton.
On the day of his marriage Amos
says: "If I'd known it was going to
be a day like this I'd have been in
favor of waiting" Phanor said the
same thing the day he was married.
All this would lie very well if the
front parlor and what it typified had
never disturbed Amos. Eut as it did,
we think it much more likely that
he. like SO many other boys and girls
who were begotten of horse hair par
lors would have found his way TO
Greenwich Village and hung studio
In orange and black. Such vague
yearnings as seethed in the breast of
this young man demanded 20 be
poured out over the tea at The Pink
Chimpanzee or filtered through the
jazz at The Maroon Moose.
We must confess to a lack OF trust
In the potency of front parlors. A
slab sided log cabin begat Lincoln.
and many armor hung halls OF Eng
land begat young men who drive
stages in British Columbia. Some
times we feel that this mysterious
influence. early environment" is a
bogey pure and simple. even without
falling back on that ancient supersu-
ton the iniauitous destiny of every
minister's son. People are always
surprising you by telling you where
they were born.
We may be wrong, bat we think
Amos would have become conf
dence man or that he would have run
away from home to do the loop the
ionD IN tha ripcus