Evening star., 1923-03-17
The Library Table
BY The BOOklOver


is the specter which turks in the
shadows ahead for every man and
woman who has reached forty. and
it seems to be almost equally dreaded
by both sexes. To some it means
the end of sex conquests; to others
laying aside cherished work and ac-
tive interests; to others merely in
creasing discomforts and infirmities;
but very few agree with Brownings s
mood:
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be.
This disinclination to accept old
age willingly probably dates from
the earliest times. H. G. Wells tells
US in his Outline OF History that
among primitive peoples the old man
of the tribe monopolized the best
place by the camp fire and the best
tidbits from the hunt, until he be
came too much of a nuisance, when
he was knocked on the head by one
of the younger chieftains. Who can
doubt that the old man of the tribe
disliked the thought of old age?
x 4
Discomfort on the subject has
always been so acute that from the
dawn of civilization search has been
made for a preventive or a cure for
old age, whether in the medicinal
springs of some unexplored country
or in new chemical combinations in
an obscure laboratory. If Gertrude
Atherton's new novel, "Black Oxen"
were only truth instead of fiction the
cure would be at hand and we should
soon see about US only youth and
charming early middle age, as all the
old could so easily be rejuvenated.
X X
In BLACK Oxen" Mary Zattiany,
almost sixty, who has been a New
York belle of the eighties, returns to
New York in 1928. after long years
of residence abroad as the wife of a
Hungarian nobleman. But she re-
turns as a charming, beautiful
woman, apparently not over thirty,
the replica of her former self. but
with a difference, due to the wisdom
of experience. Her old friends, now
grandmothers and either fat or with
cred representatives of the old
regime. fail to recognize her At a
them and explains the transformation
that has taken place. The most re-
cent and wonderful of biological dis
coveries, she says, are that old age
Is due to the atrophy of the ductless
glands and that these glands may be
re-energized by X-ray treatment.
She has undergone this treatment In
Vienna with complete success. She
tells her astonished hearers that a
new proverb must now be adopted,
"A man is S old as his endocrines'-
and then she has to explain "en-
doctrines"
Guild Library, just published, is the
play "R. L. H." by the Czecho-
slovakian dramatist, Karel Capek,
which is now running in New York.
The letters of the title stand for Ros-
sums Universal Robots: but. knowing
this, the unsophisticated person is
about as much in the dark as ever
The first act of the play soon devel-
ops the fact that a Robot is a ma
chine-made man or woman with
highly developed labor efficiency and
entirely lacking in all the human
tastes and emotions which interfere
so sadly with industrial output Inc
invention of the Robots was the work
of the Rossums, father and son. The
play is a clever, singing satire on
modern industrialism. In It's satlr!c
treatment of human selfishness 1t
suggests Swift's voyage to the
Houyhnhnms" in its story of the
alton of life it suggests Mrs. Shelley S
gruesome romance, "Frankensteln."
X X
n
watched eagerly for each weekly
number of Harper's Young People in
order to follow the adventures or
Toby Tyler, who ran away with the
circus. will soon be glad to join the
children in going TO see Toby in the
movies, as James Otis juvenile IA
vorite, Toby Tyler: or. Ten Weeks
With a Circus" will soon be released
Readers interested in folklore and
anthropology who have heard of the
fame of Sir James George Fraser's 1.-The
Golden Bough; a Study in Magic and
Religion but who have hesitated when
they learned of the extent of the COM
plete work. will be pleased to know that
an abridged edition is now available in
printed pages, but the author states that
in large part the language of the orig
inal work has been retained and that
condensation has been largely secured
by the omission Of foot-noteS and bib
biographies. This remarkable work, ex-
hibiting at once prodigious scholarship,
unrivaled powers of presentation and
penetrating analysis. was originally pub
lished more than thirty years ago in two
volumes After ten years a second edi;
ton was issued in three volumes. and
in it's third edition, published about ten
wears ago. 1t had grown to twelve vol
umes 1t is an eminently readable book
written in a lucid, captivating style; In
this respect it differs from many books
in this field. One critic of the third edi-
tion refers to THE Golden Bough" as
! that golden treasury of stories for
| erown-up children; to read it, he says,
| is "a liberal education in social anthro-
| pology."
Shakespeare's seven ages of man, as
propounded by the melancholy Jaques
are paralleled by Compton Mackenzie ir
his latest novel, 1.-THE Seven Ages OF
Woman" 1t must be confessed that the
novel lags a long way behind not only
| "As You Like IT. but also all of Mr.
Mackenzie's own earlier novels. As
! Mary Flower progresses through hel
| seven ages, as infant. child. young girl
! wife, mother. widow and grandmother
we find ourselves wondering again ano
again whether she is worth all the
analysis bestowed upon her. AS an in
dividual she certainly is not. The cen
| trail symbolical idea Of the book. how
| ever Is Of interest. AS her life unfoldS