Evening star., 1924-10-26
Reviews of New Books

novel is projection-a highly dra-
matte and genuinely humorous pro-
jection-of the good god. Luck.
operating in the background of
American life with its endless rich
ness of opportunity. You've already
seen this god at work in the open.
In print it's realism looks like the
most reckless of inventions. Never
theless, YOU know 1t to be the truth,
very little overemphasized here,
only enough to draw the most salient
of it's facts within the compass of
story requirements. And Jerry Garri-
son is abundantly alive. one of a
kind that is familiar to all of US.
The medium, the shape and quality
of this story, fits Jerry Garrison so
admirably that one reads and laughs
and mods across to Jerry for the per-
formance, SO contained within HIM
self, that he is putting across for US.
THE GARDEN OF FOLLY. BY Ste
phen Leacock, author of Literary
Lapses.'' etc. New York: Dodd,
Mead q Co.
Confucius said il, maybe-or maybe
Leacock himself. He's not clear
about it, but here it is: This poor
old world works hard and gets no
richer; thinks hard and gets no
wiser; worries much and gets no
happier. 1t casts off old errors to
take on new ones; laughs at ancient
superstitions and shivers over modern
ones. 1t is at best but n Garden of
Folly, whose chattering gardeners
move a moment among the flowers
waiting for the sunset" 1t is into
this garden that stephen Leacock
invites US, that we may have Il
chance to laugh at our own follieS
as these are patterned out by this
joyous comedian. Humor is. accord
ing to him. 4 comforter, reconciling
us to things as they are in contrast
to things as they might be- So, in
the comforting company of humor we
go about the garden looking into this
and that foolishness Of Hfe-"The
Perfect Lovers Guide" THE Human
Body: It's Care and Prevention"
"Romances of business" and so on
and SO on. The humor Of stephen
Lcacock is. by popular agreement.
sound and lusty, buoyant with the
contagioE of laughter. Applied to
appetite and taste in reading, how
ever, humor is but sauce for savorins
the food itself. One cannot dine on
condiments. no matter how spicy or
how Subtly provocative to the palate
these may be. So--a book by stephen
be taken in little parts-a page or
chapter here and there in the between
whiles of other reading. One tires of
nothing else more readily than of un-
intermitting laughter. Taken, piece
meal, stephen Leacock's fun becomes
the real humor of all sorts of things
that we take with over-ponderous
seriousness. THE Garden of Folly"
under this acceptance. becomes true
garden through which we walk de-
lighted and refreshed.
HUSTLER JOE. and other stories. by
Eleanor II. Porter. author of
Polly ana" etc. New York: George
II. Doran Company.
The critics are plainly out-voted by
the general public in the case of
"Polyanna' and all the rest of the
Eleanor Porter romances. Average
readers have no anguish over a tale
that refuses the thorny path Of ar-
tual fact. On the contrary they de-
light in these romances that are SO
clearly under bond to a happy end
ing. in spite of the hundred and more
obstacles to any such conclusion. If
trouble. and then more trouble, is the
best a story can offer, readers may
as well give up reading. so they say,
and sit by looking cut on life itself
instead. Here are four of Eleanor
Porter's short stories-an of the
Pollyana stripe, though. upon the
surface not closely resembling this
joyous maiden. AS a matter of fact
the Pollyanna essence is the Eleanor
Porter essence, so there is no getting
away from it in any other of this
Joe" as an example. You'll like the
fellow. So much established. at
about the second page, you follow
him through incredible opportunities
that lead from n miners camp and
the grimy hardships of a miners life,
to a gold mine and wealth, to success
full business and substantial stand
ing, to an equally successful court
ship of the rich neighbor's daughter
and all along the way no end of
chances for Hustler Joe to distinguish
himself as hero an honest man and
fine fellow. and all the rest of it,
To he sure, you, reading. know we'll
enough that not all of these things
could really have come the way of
just one young man-but, never mind,
on you go as credulous as the child
with his fairy tale. till at the end
you are shouting with the rest OF
the populace over the 100 per cent
quality of Hustler Joe.
THE SHAMELESS INNOCENT. By
Maxwell Laurie New York: Duff
field and Company.
Most difficult, today. to envisaee
a girl so cloistered as Glorinda
That achieved, however, the abysmal
ignorance Of the girl comes along to
ones mind as matter of course. A
new Eva, this, still unawakened in
the Garden of Eden. This, the
groundwork of subsequent events
which suddenly rush the girl from
Eden to Mayfair and on to Southern
Italy. That week in Mayfair pours
upon Glorinda a bewildering mass Of
fact, chiefly by the hand of a mill
tant new woman. The body Of the
romance develops in Italy where
Glorinda wakened to love by the
presence of u wounded English SOL
dier proceeds promptly to follow the
impulses of her nature, ignorant
wholly of the superimposed conven-
tions of a sophisticate world. Claim
ing the reluctant and abashed young
man for her own to nurse to life
and to nourish in her bosom for
ever thereafter, Glorinda becomes the
storm center around which circle
astonished guardians and solicitous
friends and a deeply embarrassed
lover, while the girl herhelf stands
aloof and unconcerned-some
like the principle of motherhood and
race perpetuity embodied in the
form OF this lovely girl. An in
genious tale. in some respects, yet
the author does not wholly succeed
in surmounting its element of in
credibility. 1t is as If the art at
his command is not altogether able
to project an elusive vision by way
of a romance of modern life.