The New York herald., 1922-06-25

ing Onc
Nevertheless the summer book
habit has come to stay. The vaca-
ZIONIST will continue to slip book or
two into trunk or suitcase and the
stay at home will still bestow rec
tangular parcels upon departing
friends. There is just one golden
rule. whether buying for yourself
or another: buy the sort of book
that you are sure you or he would
enjoy at home--then your effort has
not been wasted, for the book will
be read after the vacation is over.
If not sooner, and with all the more
pleasure because of it's chance con-
nection with pleasant memories.
There are. Of course, certain
classes of books which are so OBJ
viously vacation books that 1t seems
almost superfiuous to mention them.
Few places are SO out of the beaten
track as not to have their share of
readable travel books that are almost
fiction or novels that are guide books
in disguise. To take a hackneyed
example. visit to Florence is not
quite complete without a copy of
"Romola'; in Constantinople one
naturally reads paul Patoff." and
in Bermuda MARY Paget" is the one
ubiquitous novel. Every generation
has its own best sellers of this class;
back in the 70s a man would as soon
have thought of going to the Adiron-
dacks without his rod and fayorite
flies as without volume of "Adiron-
dack" Murray's inimitable fishing
yarns.
But when people speak of summer
reading they don't mean travel books
of this sort any more than they
mean Baedekers or tfmetables
Without being quite aware of Il,
what they really have in mind IL
certain volumes that have fingered
in the memory. inseparably asso-
ciated with fields and flowers and
country lanes. They were read per-
haps years ago, and still are vividly
recalled by the scent of lilacs, tho
flash of a birds wing, the sudden
leap of a trout. Often there is no
logic in these memories; it just hap
pened that the book in question was
read one midsummer day and held
you In its spell, despite the call OF
open road or tapping waves. But
one thing is certain: such books all
have at least two points in common
they are full OF ozone. and they
have the zest and tingle of buoyant
youth. 1t is worth while. now and
then. to see how many old time fa-
vorites one can recall. Such a lis,
is always largely personal and tho
making of IL rather amusing-the
tragedy begins when you try 10
reread those masterful pieces Of
day.
William Black. Ouida, the Duchess
arc lust a few of the names that
come surging back from remote days.
No one seems to reSd them any
more They are mere aim traditions.
Yet Black. in his mild mid VICTORIAN
fashion. was for a time a veritable
prince of summer novelists. In Tho
Strange Adventures of Phaeton" hs
was the painter par excellence or
the English landscape; in THE
Princess of Thule" in "Madcap Vio-
let" In white Heather" he em-
bodied the quintessence Of epic bat
ties with reel and line: in a score Of
volumes OF blended humor and hope
and heartache he caught and mir
rored back a nostalgia for the far
northern coast and isles of Scotland
so lasting that the very words peat"
and heather" recall them with the
old vividness. Ouida, too, though she
chose to write pretsntiously of titled
harradens and prircely ogres. who
talked In a linguistic me aange un-
known to Ollendorf. and treated un-
happy maidens with helty bor-
rowed from Grimm's "FAlry Tales
is best remembered sn her simpler
vein, when she pictured the sunny
vineyards of France or of Italy. and
l I'll Tl,e