Evening star., 1924-08-30
The Library Table
BY THE BoOKLOyER

| Ho'ei, Isle OF IhornS, an early work
| recently published in his country
Sally Odiarne, a young cookney with
| aspirations toward authorship, has
| abandoned the sorjidness of Londo.
and taken to the road with Strangely
| Show, to find fresh air and to be fr.,k
| In the fields, and Perhaps to pick up
| literary material. "ISobody in London
| cares twopenny blank for any ons
outside it," she says; you'd think
| England was all London and nothing
else. And every ones got the Same
deadly conventional way Of being un-
conventional. Oh, ! felt that If I
stayed in London a day longer I'd
lose my soul" Certain elements of
her tramp life shock Raphael Moore
and he determines to save her from
her Vagabondage. His efforts after
many vfcissitudes, meet with such
complete success that Sally, the con-
scienceless, consents, under his infiu-
ence, to go to prison for her own
| crime rather than to let some one
else, who is under suspicion, pay the
penalty.
Raphael, on the other hand, is in
need of salvation from too great
ghteousness-perhaps self-righteous-
| ness. Sally tells him this, without
convincing him. "FYou came OUT
| says Sally, to save my soul-you have
failed; but in the struggle I shouldn't
wonder IL you hadn't saved your
own" Moore was speechless. He
stared at her and for the first time
she saw actual rage creeping into his
eyes. Yes she continued, I shouldn't
| wonder IL all this hadn't been the
making of you-given you the shak-
ing up and dressing down. My
God, Sally. This is the limit How
nicely you swear! It's just as ] said
you've saved your SOUL" Later
Raphael gradually comes to realize
the truth of her charge and at the
end he says to her: "In life, in death,
Sally, you will always be my dearest
one, my honored one-the woman who
lifted me out of my past, who saved
me from my prejudices, who taught
me to play the man, to use my fists,
| to love my child-the woman who re-
deemed me-"
X X 4 X
The making of anthologies has be-
come an important industry. The
Booklover wonders whether the sup
ply is not outruning the demand.
Time was when anthologies We're
| chiefly composed of poetry and that,
too, of verse that had survived for
some little time. ALI that has now
been changed. We have now not
only annual books of the best verse
perhaps several competing volumes
but each year brings US the Best
American Short Stories" the Best
British Short Stories and the BEST
Moving Pictures" of the year. Even an
annual volume of Best Sermons" is
announced for publication. To all
these other annual garnerings of
grains of wheat from the superabun-
dant chaff is now added the Best
News Stories of 1925" edited by Jo-
seph Anthony. The compiler states
that about 400 newspaper editors
were invited to submit from three TO
fifteen of the best news stories of the
year. The stories selected are pub
lished under the names of the authors
and the newspapers in which they
were published. They include exam
pies of straight reporting, foreign
correspondence, sports, human in
terest" stories, features, interviews.
obituaries and personality stories.
No doubt such book will be of inter-
est and value in schools of journalism
and to other beginners. Others will
probably be content with the news
stories of today and will pass up
those of last year.
The malignant, almost diabolical
quality of Africa is the dominant tone
of Llewelyn Powys' book, BLACK
Laughter" a record of some of his
experiences in primeval parts of the
Dark Continent. The book is grue-
some, but fascinating. 1t is not
book to give to a nervous invalid. 1t
is full of nightroving lions, crouch
ing leopards, moaning hyenas, yelp-
ing jackals, coiling. writhing ser
Srn
thirst, famine, torrential rains, pesti-
lential swamps with vaporous MAS
mas, witch doctors, wild spells and
incantations and always the screams
of the blacks and their black
laughter" At night Mr.. Howys says,
"the soul of Africa would become ar
ticulate," and its cry was XIII! Kill!
kill! "Often at night, when
we went to draw water from the rain
tank at the back of the house, we
could hardly hear each other speak,
so audible had the great continent
become, that continent which all day
long lies in a dull sleep under the
hypnotic rays of an evil sun, only TO
grow III the high noon of midnight
so wild, so mercilesS, so alarmtngly
vocal"
If the books were to be absolutely
the scholarly critics would probably
not be much disturbed, for they have
said about all there is to be said, but
what would be the predicament OF
the candidates for A. B. and A NJ
degrees who contemplate writing
theses in English literature! Min
gled on library shelves with the val
liable commentaries on Shakespeare
by Furnivall, Furness, Dowden, Hud-
Icra nd nf "a
volumes of nonsense. often serious
enough in intent written to prove
some personal theory or prejudice
Such is the volume which explains
the tragedy Of Hamlet" by the theory
that Hamlet was too fat to move
about easily and that the inertia of
fatnesS not weakness of will. pre-
vented a prompt vengeance on his
part. Support for this view is
found in the line
20 that this, too, too solid flesh
would melt!"
Now comes a book by Lille B C.
Wyman, Gertrude of Denmark"
which attempts to reha bilitate the
character of Hamlets mother. The
author considers Gertrude a high
minded. unselfish woman, the victim
of circumstances, and that, believing
Claudius innocent of her husbands
murder, she married him simply with
the motive of keeping her son Ham
let the foremost prince of the king
dom This argument would have
more weight were it not for the fact,
plainly emphasized by Shakespeare,
that Hamlet would have been king in
his fathers stead if his uncle had not
usurped the throne. The author also
overlooks the famous indictment of
his mother by Hamlet, in which he
accuses her of being far from high
minded and unselfish.
X
The psychiatrist-critic DIR. Joseph
Collins, in his volume, The Doctor