Evening star., 1924-12-13
The Library Table
BY THE BooKLovER

Il
The. recent deaths OF Bertha M.
Clay Cat least one of her person
alities) and Laura Jean Ldbbey re-
call to home of us the days OF our
uncultured youth When at school. be-
hind the. friendly screens of our
desks, we perused the sugared and
spiced fomances Of these and sister
authors of similar literary standards.
Last Summer in a typical country
store of q small mountain, town l
saw shelf Of paper-covered novels
with the sign above it "All the novels
of Bertha NJ. Clay, Is cents each" For
the sake of auld lang .syne | bought
one and read It. but. the oldtime thrill,
or kick" as the moderns call 1t, did
not come again. Bertha NJ. Clay was
a sort of Homer. that Is, according
to the modern criticism which makes
Homer a composite name for many
bards. The earlier works written un-
der the name OF Bertha M. Clay were
by Charlotte M. Braeme, an English
writer, and after her death the work
was taken UP by other writers. some
of whom were men. The style of sew
eral hundred novels, II style they can
be said to have, seems to be fairly
uniform. In them all stereotyped,
sentimental incidents are related In
stereotyped, sentimental lang uage.
The titles show some SKILL. as Lady
Muriers Secret" Fair. But Fai4-
less" Welded and Parted" The
| Earls Atonement," 1.-THE Tragedy Of
Lime HALL" "A Haunted Life" The
Actors Ward" Laura Jean Libbey,
Mrs. ". NJ zStilwell of Brooklyn, N.
", always had a reputation for
l. austere morality In her novels, some
of the most popular of which are
| Lovers once But Strangers Now"
| Miss Middleton's LOVER "A For
! hidden Marriage" and when His
| Love Grew Old"
| n Is X e. -.-aEl
| Mrs. Henry Wood 81 reputation rest
ed chiefly on her heart-rending trag-
| edy Of East Lynne" probably as
| popular in It's form of stage meio-
drama as in book form. Augusta
Evans Wilson exceilsd In the crea-
! tion OF situations In which beauti-
\ full, sensitive and abnormally brill
liant young girl adores a tyrannical
man many years her senior, usually
iher guardian, who finally condescends
| to marry her. Hundreds of school
girls have pored over st. Elmo" with
sentimental pleasure The 1apper of
| today seems to prefer a different sort
of hero. Mrs. Southworth. a Wash
ington. writer. was perhaps one OF
| the most dramatic of the novelsts of
her type and won the. distinction OF
| tran s1a tfon into several foreign lam
guages. "Retribution," The Hidden
| Hand THE Fatal Secret" "Mother's
Secret" and An Exiles Bride" sug-
| gest by their titles the mystery SO
well loved by their author. OF a
rather lighter nature and possessed
| of more humor are the novels of The
| Duchess, Mrs. Margaret Hungerford
of County Cork, Ireland. AS l re-
member them. Airy Fairy Lillian
| Molly Bawn" and "a Conquerins
Heroine" contained some good repair
tee. Mary Jane Holmes was more
serious and heavy. but her popularity
was extraordinary. Many private H.
brarIes used to have complete sets
of her novels ranged behind glass
doors. and Tempest and Sunshine,
| Lena Rivers "Milbank" and Marion
Gray" were likely to be we'll worn
May Agnes Fleming was not as pop
| ular as some others of these fluent
noyelists, but her % novels found
many readers among young girls and
! housewives who craved a more col
orful life than their prosaic domestic
! affairs offered. "A Midnight Mys-
terry" has undoubtedly caused many
! a kerosene or gas lamp to burn late
and perhaps even some electric lamps
The novels Of all of these writers are
characterized by extreme sentimen-
| tality, love of mystery and sensat ation
| and an obvious moral tone. They
have usually been considered detri-
| mental reading for many young peo-
pie because they might ruin taste
But l question this conclusion. Many
| a woman who today reads with ap-
probation Henry James, Edith Whar-
ton, George Meredith, Thomas Hardy
| and Joseph Conrad has earlier in life
saturated herself with the trashy
novels of the Bertha N. Clay type.
Almost equal to the maxims of La
Rochefoucauld are some of the bits
of worldly and philosophical wisdom
| to be found in Susan Ertz's recent
novel. Nina" Here arc a few OF
| them: !
Are there such things as new
epochs? They come in trailing so
much of the earth and dead leaves OF
the old upon their skirts, and with
such wan and backward looks, that
they generally seem old enough. Ger
! tainly. the postwar epoch was born
old, though II came holding by the
hand such hopeful and. fresh-faced
children as the League of Nations and
| Disarmament"
The happiest marriages are the
! ones that begin by being lukewarm
and reasonable"
It's strange the way that some
places hold old thoughts of ours, the
way she'll holds a murmur."
| Our first last and greatest love
|. q. is self-love. 1t is the only love
suicide. we seek to kill that which
we love, it is only due to desire to
protect it from some greater evil"
TT is often those who are leas,
| conscious of the pain of others who
are most sensitive to their own"
| "Seif-esteem is vitality necessary
to all of US If We are to escape
suicide"
Were they all busily engaged in
treading into the mud all small and
delicate plants that bore no fruit:
Scoff1ng at gifts that had no marke,
value? Was that what it meant to
be realist?"
1t will be remembered that, the au.
thor of "Alice in Wonderland" was
primarily a mathematician. and tina,
when Queen Victoria asked him tc
send her his other books he sent heI
several very abstruse works on geom.
etry and algebra. A present-day
| Is III StepHeH LedCOCk
whose main occupation Is that of pro.
fessor of political economy at McGil
| University, Montreal. He has pub.
| lished several books on various phases
Of "the dismal science" but is better
known as a sort of Canadian George
AIDE. His latest book, 1.-THE Garden oi
Folly" is a series of humorous
sketches, to which there is prefixed
an imaginary Quotation-from Con.
fucius. or Tut-ankh-Amen, the author
forgets which-reading: This pooI