Evening star., 1924-03-18
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
THE STORY OF NY LIFE. Sir Harry
H Johnston. The Bobbs-Merriii
| Company.

THE STORY OF NY LIFE. Sir Harry
II. Johnston. The Bobbs- Merrill
Company.
The average man--therefore, just
about everybody-finds looking back
along the stretched perspective of
memory a dull business. Nothing
much to see there. save a smoothed-
Off run Of monotony Nothing much,
except a fiat surface roughened.
trifie. by headings OF matched per-
formance. Countless undressings and
dressings, an endless going to bed
and getting up again. In between a
mighty pother Of meals and clothes.
Weddings, births. burials-nothing
much. But once in a long time-only
once in an age, TO speak exactly
there comes along a man whose life
is Of so opulent pattern that 1t ceases
to be the individual possession OF that
man. 1t becomes. common property
instead. Fountain of knowledge to
lesser men, source of inspiration to
mel of vicarious adventure. The stamp
of this rarely occasional man is that
he stands wide open on every side to
all the winds of heaven. to all the
overtures of earth. A versatile man,
turning this way and that, in an
needs and requirements OF other men.
X X
The name of the man is Sir Harry
Johnston. He turns over here the
story of himself In a book 50 packed
with work and its fruits that one just
naturally falls to wondering what the
rest of us do with time that for this
man has been made to yield such
breadth of experience, such sum and
variety of achievement Here Is a
man-Just one man with only one
mans lease on life and work-who
has accomplished SO much in so many
fields that his story reads like that
Travel, exploration, research, adven-
ture, spread spectacular picture
here--or would were not the per-
sonality of the man himself preclusiye
of any such effect.
Explorer in hitherto unknown parts
Of Africa; worker with Stanley in
the Kongo and with Cecil Rhodes in
his imperial Cape-to-Cairo project;
student, intellectually alive to native
customs and beliefs; linguist, deeply
concerned with characteristics of ma
tive speech, with relationships of
tribal dialect; naturalist discovering
to science new animals and plants:
biographer of Livingstone; writer on
subjects pertaining to the Kongo and
British Central Africa; diplomat, pro-
consul, treaty maker, novelist. painter.
An astonishing summary. An amaz-
ing man. from whom ones mind slips
hack, involuntarily, something like
400 years, to that prime pattern and
prototype Of human versatility. To
the great Leonardo. who added glory
to the splendor of the Renaissance
ttself, as painter. sculptor. musician.
writer. scientist inventor. engineer,
who foresaw the airship and many
another scientific invention that only
the stupendous progress of the pres
ent age Is bringing to fulfillment.
stance, however, 1t is Theodore Roose-
Welt who suggests Sir Harry's wide
range of active and productive in
tereGt. The two men were friends
linked no doubt by their common zest
for the adventure Of life at its top
exaction.
The practically unique expansion
of this remarkable career set me to
wondering about its causes and be-
ginnings. points over which I must
have hurried In my zeal to get at
the real business of being Sir Harry
Johnston, adyenturer. Now. this is
an important point, I said to nv
self, one that might prove highly
illuminative to parents generaIly
that clearly enfeebled class that
possesses neither imagination nor in.
genuity. nor intelligent sympathy for
the actual concerns of childhood. In
stead, they appear to have for chill
dren only patterns, and more pat
terms, or some sort of material sue
eternal business of fitting square
pegs into round holes goes gayly
on from age to age. went back
TO the parentage and early days of
the ooy who was to become Sir Har-
ry Johnston. / took notice even of
the general state of England as a
point possibly potential here. This
last suggested, probably. by the re-
cent war times when all over our
own streets there sprang sponta-
away to shrill but tuneful declara.
tions that THE Yanks are coming"
and adding. moreover. that they would
not, not come 1hs,oa.c back tn, tn ft" was over
years ago, was as dun as ditch water M
to a boy. No stir there. ONLY
stodgy home reforms going on, with
Disraeli and Gladstone succeeding
each other. monotonously. to a prime
ministry dictated by conservative or
liberal majoritieS on the one hand
or the other. And nothing out of
the usual, either. about the parent
age of Sir Harry Johnston. Amiable
parents, kind, indulgent A throw
back. maybe. l said, to the true par
entage of some adventuring forbear
AT sight, the boy himself appears
much like his companions. But the
usual physical exuberance of boys,
SO like that of a growing puppy in
both urge and object, takes on a
real difference here. Instead there
| is a definite selection of interest and
pursuit, determined choice of ac-
tivity, that point full upon the ul-
innate career of the man. This is
a wholly unconscious selection.
The boy Is no paragon. 1t is, how.
ever. tremendously important, in
deed vital factor of wide sfgnifi-
cance. Left free to follow himself, we
find him. very early. absorbed In
drawing and sketching. preferably
animals in the geological gardens,
studying art by day, absorbing
French. Spanish. Italian, Portuguese
by night. And under these pursuits is
shaping the dream for which they
stand as definite and distinct prepara-
ton. The passion of the boys life
comes to be that ~ travel. the lure of