New-York tribune., 1922-09-17

/ reading. 1t is pudding with many
| plums. Listen to this familiar lament
the hands may be those of Esau Pan
zini, but is not the voice that of Jacob
! II. L. Mencken?
| 'Italy's greatest evil is that it lacks
an aristocracy! That the healthy
| forces of the nation are not organized
aristocratsl wish to live, we must be
silent One day there appeared among
US a man of genius. He challenged
the common herd with magnificent in
vective: 'Wretched slaves, fit only
to open the doors through which the
burden, fit for nothing but to bear
the weight of the nations glory No
truce with the canaille. Let us raise
the gallows for them, while we still
have time"
But Sooner. the business man. said
that the trouble with Italy is that she
hasn't leaned how to advertise her
self. By which one perceives that if
there is no Rotary Club in Milan, there
ought to be; it would fill long felt
want
Then the poet. he despised them
both H. wrote "Hermetic songs"
Gazing at a group of cottages upon a
hill, he saw them as young girls un-
dulating in rhythm. aa-in.-: Oh, oh,
oh! "And any one" he maintained,
who cannot get that reaction is a
rhinoceros." Beyond doubt, he wrote
for the Milanese version OF "Thc Dial"
It is probable he would say that the
Little Review" is not modern"
enough.
All, all arc there, the old familiar
faces, but tricked out in new caus and
curls of Panzini's stinging, good hu-
morcd satire. The translation is eX-
cellently done by Frederick Taber
Cooper, into graceful yet coloquial
E'RANK A, M'ALIsTER does "The
u Last Mile grimly--in dead earnest.
His hero, Ralph Broadhurst, -yturned
from the war expecting to iind that
new world which the orators and senti-
mentalists promised. for which they
told him he was fighting He was
certainly a rather simple soul even
before the war. when as Princeton
sraduwtc the sight of an orange and
black flag threw him into
paroxysms of joy" 1t is unlikely that
he is representative of the American
soldiers in general - that they were
either greatly illusioned or greatly dis
illusioned by the war and the peace.
But some surely were; and they have
a right to complain, because Broad
hurst was simple was no reason why
his simplicity should be traded on On
the other hand, his expectations we're
so vague and nebulous that even his
creator is unable to define them ex-
actly. He expected, seemingly, that
commuters would cease to be compla-
o. vi hot Il,
longer run to cliches and forced en-
thusiasm-he had job with an ad-
vertising agency; that majorities
would be tenderly solcitous of the
rights of minorities. One recalls dim
ly that people did talk of the war as
a rcgenerative agent, as if there had
never been a war before and mankind
were not still on the buttered slide.
But it was chiefly extoled as a moral
tonic; no one hoped it would do much
for the world in the way of intellectual
advancement. Probably people knew
their morals were rickety, but thought
they didn't need any more brains. Only
/ this Broadhurst, for chiefly the after
| radical largely for the mental s.imulus
of it. His turning constitutes the
story, and the end is in a way like
the end of the old-fashioned love
stories. That is to say, one wonders
how long ne lived with his love. Radi-
calls, too, deal in clichGs. Indeed, thev
manufacture them. And that rootless,
febrle, unfruitful group of ideoloeists
whom Broadhurst fell in with would
quickly pail on man who could not
endure the platitudcs Of the middle
class.
There is the germ of a worth while
novel in this book, but as it stands it
is very ineXpert performance 1t is
tormloss, humorless and dryly written.
he author might learn from his Ital-
ian confrere that, even if nothing else
can be done with this weary world, it
can be laughed at
The Mountain School Teacher" re-
states very old solution for human
Ills, and surely the best ever proposed
but shows it rejected. as it was in
the beginning. Mr.. Posts theme >is
not new even as the framework of a
story, but neither is it stale. Many
have essayed it, but it belongs to all
and its difficulty renders it inviting.
That is to say, Mr.. Post has suggested.
very delicately, what might happen if
Christ came to earth again in the flesh
and chose to live, as a mountain school
teacher, in the backwoods of Kentucky.
1t Is slender book, written with re
stralnt and good taste; the incidents
dlmly suggest or parallel certain por-
tions of the Gospels. and the final out
, come is, spiritually, the same. The
Teacher is unrecognized. driven away.
at last slain. But the Word remains.
The motif of "The Captive Herd, "
according to its summary on the Jacket.
Is tho return Of a rebellious individual
to the safe captivity of the human
nerd the social organism. But it is
unfolded in such curious, stilted
phrases and by. means of such creaky
and incredible plot, that one finds it
hard to follow through, in spite of
large tyne, short chapters and good
paper. There is something about a
Jewish plot TO dominate the world, a
Japanese counterplot a jade Buddha-
all mixed up and getting nowhere. Be
SIDES the name of the hero is Vacla
Melfort, and the villain is called Vine.
var. Can such things be?
MARGARET WIDDEMER, being poet
A'A as we'll as practicing novelist. has
very graceful knack of handling
words; she gets her effects serenely anC
without strain. Thus far one gains
from h"r prose chiefly the impression
Of practive-not of fumbling or uncer.
tairtv. but as if she meant to learn he,
medium throughly before attempting
any large or serious work The prob
lens Of her characters are all of the
conventional. literary kind; so are the
characters themselves, for that matter
and one cannot feel +ha+ +ba ,,,+l -,