Evening star., 1923-07-28
The Library Table
BY THE BOOKLovER

true. AS most persons ADVANCE TO ola
age they shrink more and more from
facing reality, or at least from dwell
ing upon 1t. In their reading, their
music and their theater- going they
seek to escape from the real to the
ideal. The young and those in their
prime may enjoy Balxac and Zola
and Hamlet" and King Lear" but
those on the threshold Of old age will
usually prefer Dumas and Scott and
"As You Like 1t" and Twelfth Night"
woman of sixty-five said to me the
other day Il can no longer bring my
self to read the Russian novelists,
though / used to enjoy them. feel
that must have in my reading ideals,
beauty. hope and some humor. Life
is SO hard that one must get away
from 1t in ones reading" I believe
that Is very general attitude. OF
course, there are persons who are
able to preserve to the end of their
! lives the impersonal, world point of
view and can appreciate all literature
for its intrinsic value, but the ma
jority feel the need of something to
counteract the growing sadness of
life, and look for 1t in literature. For
this reason "the intellectuals" should
| not be too hard upon the readers OF
Zane Grey, Harold Bell Wright. Ethel
Dell, Rider Haggard. Anna Katharine
! Green and Joseph Lincoln.
*k
A volume. entitled These United
States" edited by Ernest Gruening.
| contains a collection of monographs
on twenty-seven states, written by
distinguished authors who are ma
| tiyes of the various states. Some Of
the chapters are eulogies of the beau
ties or the achievements of certain
| states; others are frankly destructive
of some OF the traditional ideas re-
garding some states Zona Gales
writes OF Wisconsin. Robert Herrick
of Maine. Mary Austin of Arizona, II.
L. Mencken of Maryland Sherwood
Anderson of Ohio. William Allen
White of Kansas and Dorothy Can
field Fisher of Vermont. The chap
ters appeared originally in the Ma
tion. 1t is understood that there
viii be a second SERIES and that
the District Of Columbia will be in
cluded-even though 1t is not a state.
The creation Of Utopias Is a pleas
ant pastime for many who find the
existing world far from satisfac-
tory place. II. G. Wells is the most
persistent of Utopia manufacturers.
His latest book, Men Like Gods" is
on the highest level he has yet
| reached in writing books of this
type, and undoubtedly the modern
reader will find this new Utopia of
his more interesting and more plausi-
BILE than those created by Plato and
Sir Thomas More The hero of this
Wells romance is Mr.. BarnstapIe.
editor of the Liberal. who is tired out
from too much work and too much
family, and starts off in his roadster.
the Yellow Peril, for an aimless va
cation. Only a short distance from
his home, on the Bath road. he rounds
corner and suddenly enters Utopia.
Then his adventures and instruction
begin. Some of the things which do
not exist in this "happyland" are
private property. politics. national
boundaries. business competition and
central government Our education
is our government" the Utopian says.
Doing away with national boundaries
has ended war. and there Is peace on
earth" AS the overcrowding of the
world was the fundamental cause of
all evils. this has been done away
with in Utopia by birth control, and
consequently there are no detectives,
criminals, lunatics. cripples or pau
lums. Mr.. Wells picture is that of
! an ideal world state. with education
as its foundation.
True stories of wild animal life,
| drawn from much personal expert
ence, form the greater part Of Will
liam ]. Longs Mother Nature: A
Study of Animal Life and Death"
, Mr.. Long disputes the scientific the
ory that warfare Is the rule of ex-
istence in animal life. His observa-
tions have convinced him that in
their native surroundings wild ami
| mails are not engaged in continual
i struggle but live in a state Of CO.
the wolf in his family pack and the
elephant in his herd. This theory Is,
of course. a direct challenge to the
Darwinian theory of the struggle
for existence and the survival of
form of letters. biographies and men,
oirs, have always been to me the
most interesting type of the litera-
ture of fact. We all have our favor
ite biographies. Mine are Boswelrs
Life of Samuel Johnson" Trevel-
yan's Life and Letters of Lord
Macaulay," Lockhart's Memoirs of
the Life of Sir Walter Scott" Mrs.
Gaskelps Life of Charlotte Bronte,"
Leonard HuxIey's Life and Letters
of Thomes Huxley" the Letters of
n
rett," the Memoirs" Of Saint Simon,
the Moneypenny and Buckle Life
of Disraeli'' and Beveridge's Life of
John Marshall" In his chapter on
biographies in his Confessions of
e%as Maafss apa aa1ss Vaed Efsa s
of his favorites. They include Let
ters to People in the World" by Saint
Francis de Sales, the Letters" of
Madame saae. ds s,ev sevisfe the
Saint Vincent de Paul (Which he says
he "adores"), the Autobiography"
of Benjamin Franklin, the "Autobi-
osraphy" of Anehony TrUllops the
Pepys Diary" Cardinal Newman's
Apologize pro Vita Sua," the Let
ters" of William James and "The
Education Of Henry Adams"
X y
The excavation of the tomb of Tut
ankhamen and resultant interest in
his character, life and period seem
likely to produce a body Of literature
comparable to Caesarian or Alexan-
drian literature, and, when historical
material fails. a Tut myth may easily
come into existence. A native of AL
exandria. Egypt with an English and
French education. named Bishara
Nahas. has Just written q book called