Evening star., 1924-01-15
NEW BOOKS
J AT RANDOM
Tristan :. TuppeS.
George II. DorAn Company.

Tristan i. Tuppes.
George H. DorAn Company.
A pity to withhold beauty from the
multitudes that crave It. YetI-how
to- deliver It.; Handling ,defaces 1T
The ordinary claptrap OF criticism
hides It completely. Why not, as ex-
pertinent try lifting 1t over bodily
for q glimpse Of its transhguring
power such as Tristan Tupper SO
|triumphantly, discloses here? .
His name was Jay Singleton of
|Sinsleton, down in the valley Of the
Shenandoah, He. owned q tannery
and the town hall as we'll. Just
village. two or. three hundred men
and women and SO many children that
no one tried to count them. The
trouble with jay Singleton was that
no ono could tell him from plain-so
folks. Never talked big-"This is my
tannery. This Is my town" Nothing
like that. Did not know how to make
sr1 adoa hgs ne sers mads m
chestnut oak. in the world Beats
that bark from Normandy. Beats that
IL. Say: Hal. hook at this piece Of
sole leather! Look at the bloom!
That's Blue, Ridge chestnut oak mix
ed. S' The smokestacks OF the
tannery with q purple cloud above
In and out, the crude red buildings
Pompeian red, sunken deep In the
perennial green of the Blue Ridge
seemed vaguely to suggest q crater
all this. Night floods the valley of
the Shenandoah and. like g. tide, rises
until the peaks of the mountains be-
come submerged IN darkness. And 1t
was then, with. the dusk, there sprang
Singleton. .....--.,
Only man in Christendom who,
alone at night. ever learned his
Greek and Latin, siapping mosquitoes
whom they nipped his bare chest.
Thought 1t kind of fun to ponder
battling words, liked to look them UP
and make them into phrases, there
beneath the lamp on sweltering sum-
mer nights. A scholar was Single
ton Of Singleton. And, oh, how he
could sing! Used to chant Greek and
Latin TO the Little Calfpasture creek
as 1t hurried down to the Shenandoah.
Used to fntone strange meters when
the stars were swimming through
the dark sky. Night In the Shenan-
0OaR. ana the moan OF tHe Wluu IN
the trees, and the murmur OF the
Little Calfpasture. and Jay Singleton
alone on hiSAnarrow porch, twangfng
a guitar with the z string broken,
and singing-sometimes in Greek,
sometimes in Latin, and sometimes
the songs that were made In Amer
lea Take a smarter man than Aris-
totle to understand Jays pronuncia-
ton. Learned 1t .himself-down IN
the valley OF the Shenandoah.
|. The Little Calfpasture was just as
good as any other creek-when the
moon made 1t sparkle and the over
hanging trees made It shadowy and
deep. and the night concealed the
red brown stains that came from the
tannery. Chatty little creek, for it
had a way of saying, I'm going to
ing, and 1t seemed to pause when Jay
twanged the guitar, and 1t always
Joined In when he chanted songs
from the old Greek song birds about
men who went adventuring.
n
On such night Jay Singleton dis
covered the most beloved singer of
all the ages. Not in Lesb1an starlit
dawn, but beneath smoky lamp in
the valley Of the Shenandoah. Found
her in a book. And he liked the cut
Of her verses-Ethree pentameters
followed by a dfpody. and he liked
the cut of her clothes-sort of loose
and careless before the Christian
era mo use in falling In love-" said
Jay Singleton to himself. she sang
her songs 600 years B. c." But he
pored over another fragment, trans
each word. strung them together.
made a kind of rime. In a>word. Jay
Singleton tried to improve a bit OF
the inimitable Sappho. And that night
out on his porch where no one could
hear. not even at the post office
quarter of a mile away, he struck the
strings Of his guitar and he sang this
surprising Sapphoic:
Man is peer of gods In those moments
after
Love has silenced song and has ban
ished laughter;
Then-to her who smiles at him
softly through tears
He has no peers
Sort Of loose and careless before
the Christian era
He laid aside his guitar and lit his
pipe, that made a pink glow In the
darkness. He tried to, form in his
mind an image Of sappho and of her
Isle OF Lesbos; tried to wander back
through the labyrinthine ages, ages
misty with music, dusky with gold,
red with wars. and blushing with
roses--forgotten wars, faded roses,
mingling to form the perfume of the
centuries cent He pulled on his pipe.
to imagine Sappho. with her ivory
throat, her violet eyes, and sandals OF
golden dawn, back in the golden
dawn Of poetry. He tried to imagine
! her beside the Little Calfpasture
creek, signing, laughing, singing her
lyrics. NO use falling in love.
Sang your songs twenty-five hundred
years ago! But the night itself had
become Sapphoic. And 10! the banks
OF the little stream suddenly seerSS
to blaze with oleander and wild
had become murmuring olive groves;
the valley of the Shenandoah a tide
less sea- wherein bathers laughed
through tire dusk. 'Lesbos!" muir
INJURED Jay Singleton. NO use falling
In love. No use not to-"
" * + 4
This is how Jay Singleton's adven-
turing began. HAL, got a little old
tub of a boat, named Beatrice, down
Norfolk way. Bought it outright.
Going to row around q Bit" And
the Little Calfpasture was saying,
too, I'm on my way to the sea-"
Then. in a different key, but with no
change of spirit, the adventure takes
nal adventure. A woman. Joe has
the last word, a private word that no
one hears but her pet turtle, ''Soupy."
You may live to be thousand. but
you'll never know how I feel. II
know what he meant when he said
twenty-five hundred years. That's
how feel, that's how long I've loved
him. Tonight. Soupy, think of it.!
Tonight we're going adventuring.
We're going adventuring, you and IL