New-York tribune., 1922-10-22

4 Il Nv q
| A. " .R. other warriors, they came,
they saw, they lectured. Lest
we forget. Glow could weg) They have
sent US now some solid reading matter.
! What can | do about it?
To hold forth upon these famous wits,
moi. separately, as has been the easy
| task OF so many generations of toast
masters, but together in the same tent,
! is an assignment Of some delicacy To
| introduce them without joke or two
| were inadequate, but to laugh outright
seems hardly the thing. To state briefly
and concisely that a thin lady and fat
gentleman have been in our midst,
which is really all that has happened,
| is too simple and sensible To remark
that ] wish they had stayed at home
would be but another mad, beautiful
futility.
The reviewer is reduced In this ex-
tremity to saying a few words, yhumor-
GUS. II possible, in the circumstances
I about his advertised subject---the AS
qulth and Ckesterton books. The fun
niest thing that occurs to me to say
at the moment is that Mrs. Asquith's 8
1 opus is by far the better Of the two in
every way. Nature. even art, may
abhor it. But don't.
| have my reasons. read "My I'm
pressions Of America" the other eve
ming after furious day spent in chas-
ing the Chestertonian paradoxes up
alleys, through ,keyholes and along the
| Milky Way. Insomnia leered. Coue failed
me. Chesterton had walked me up, ap-
parently for ever. Mrs. Asquith put
me to. sleep. Therefore, ] believe the
time has come to strike blow for
Cor at. if you cfoose) Mrs. Asquith.
Let as examine seriously whether
| Mr.. Chesterton's alleged superiority
to Margot is founded upon the facts.
1 In his content? In his manner Of writ
| ing ! must admit that he has his
| irtues. In the use of every known
reade saving device he is nobody's
col. He has tanned them all. Meta
lepsis, catachresis and periphrasis eat
,ut of his hand. His troches trip and
his slow spondees stalk. His peripi-
| ties turn somersaults and loop the
| loop. And he swings mean anacolu-
! thon.
! Does not all this SAVIOR too much of
the artist? Mrs. Asquith has tran
| scended these specious tricks, but not
from ignorance; from conviction.
"Brilliance," says she, "while stimu-
hausted me. / prefer the clumsiest
| thought to the most finished phrase"
And this preference, which she nat
| uraily attributes also to her readers, has
been her guiding star throughout her
book. Her ratiocination, so to speak,
| is graceiess to fault, and her phrase
logy is not only isnpeccably unhn-
| shed, but practically, as Seneca might
| have averred, non est inventus. She
does not exhaust us, as do God and
Mr.. Chesterton, with suns and stars
| ayI o%n nj y1,Sf %-a >f
colored glass beloved Of Francis Bacon,
nor with the gems of paste that
| troubled Bebe Daniels in her latest re-
| lease. Her literary birthstone is not
4 the diamond, but the less glittering
/ onyx, or perhaps the more mortuary
granite.
Her manner derives from the great
lest examples of antiquity, yes, from
!, the Stagirite himself, for her chapters
and paragraphs, even her sentences,
are modelled always upon the Aristo-
telian precept that 1t is well to have
a beginning, middle and an end. Her
beginnings may not always be happy;
her riddles are frequently sad. Her
I endings, if they do not always have a
dying fall, yet they strike the tynl-
panum none the less conclusiveiy with
the next best thing-a sickening .thud.
Stylisticaliy, Mrs. AsGuith has created
l new shudder.
G. X. c., as we all know, banks on
) ideas. He is full Of them. Margot is
| aware that one idea is as good as an
other, if not worse. OF course, they do
4 say that intellectual activity is what
differentiates us from the blue baboon.
I They say. They say so man things.
They say the owl was bakers daugh-
| ter. | don't believe it,
/ Is important incident lacking in Mrs.
! Asquith's work? By no means. though
lit is subjective, rather than crassly
4 Flaubertian. She fe't humble in Bos-
ton, fatigued in Phiadelnhia and
peeved in Providence. In Toronto she
| had brandy for supper and in Kansas
i City porridge for breakfast In Kala-
| mazoo she was embraced b woman
from Peebleshire. An old lady in Ball
timore told her she had both grace and
genius. Some one was always telling
her something The gynsies told her
that she would always be young enough
to make love and to inspire it. yari-
GUS persons told her they liked her
lectures.
I Nor does she, neglect more trivial
topics. She declares. apropos prohi-
sSbition. that strong drink has ruined