Evening star., 1924-03-11
NEW BOOKS. =
AT RANDOM
HLL-TOwNs OF THE PYRENEEs.
Amy Oakley. The Century. Com


HLL-TOwNs OF THE PYRENEEs.
Amy Oakley. The Century. Com
pany.. p.
Everybody ia. at heart. q .vagabond.
He has to be. That is his lineage
blood current set away back when
man was beginning to be man and
continuing in updjluted. now for
countless ages thereafter. The one,
settled fact Of, that early map's ex-
istence was that there could be for
him no settled abiding place. lNhollys;
dependent upon the free frpitage of,
the earth he, periodically having eat
en- himself out Of house and home, so
to speak. was forced. to move on 60
fresh fields of.food and forage. I IN.
the course of long ages thisrestless
to and fro passed from the mere he-
cessities OF the body. into the quality
on in the blood into the essence of be-
the nature. And that's how every
body, speakin' by and large, is deep
within himself good deal OF a vaga-
bond. Thats why there comes to the
fecurrent urge to be off and away out
OF the clutter of things and things
that, In the name of civilization, have
trusted and thrown US.
.
brother SHES away from that name
vagabond. Nevertheless, it Is a azheau-
tiful name, of clean Latin parentage
II holds freedom and; the long road
It holds the good green earth and the
superlative palship-me and my dog.
It pictures sheep and cows feeding on
the gentle up1ands. 1t carries within
IT also the feel OF rain upon the body.
And AM; for bed: the laid boughs of heal,
and the law have tried in a partial
success to give the name a bad char
acter. So. the timid folks give it a
wide berth. Whatever the English
the vagabond, it has, in definition;
succeeded clearly. in adding lure to
the Joyous existence of these brothers
of the road-"strolling fellows such
as wake on the night and sleep on
the day and haunt customabie tav-
erns and alehouses and rout about,
and no man, wot whence they came
nor whittier they CO." That, all by
itself, is enough to set the brother
hood of vagabonds high in its own
esteem.
*** ! *ss r.
And now the sun is on its norther-
ing way. And the earth is quicken
ing to its approach. The sap is ready
to lift. "The red gods make their
medicine again." So from far and
near are you but tuned in to it, you
catch the feet of the young man beat
ing, you hear the cadenced call of the
great brotherhood. "f'f-'t 4
And we must so-to--eo sway from here! :
Send the road Is clear before you when the
old spring fret comes Ger you,
And the He'd Gods call for you.
The big trek is about to- set in. The
true vagabond goes by shank's nag
or rude bateau. The make-beIieve by
\ + y
take the -Oakleya = "n'sieu,
madame" Not 20 much at first be-
cause they promise the Pyrenees. Not
so much at first because they tell of
other wanderings through this range
and the intimate friendships that have
risen from these. Neither of these, at
first. Rather because 1 had heard
them declare stoutly for the mule
against the motor, for the lone trail
against the open highway. That
Eoeclaration stood, to me, as the sign
in good standing.
And here we are in Perpigan, whose
red roofs light the whole city in a
rosy glow which we construe into a
warm and, friendly. welcome. It is.
here that the Pyrenees, having fh-
ished more or less successful Job of
standing in between France and Spain
step on eastward into the blue, of. the
sea, into "the deep, rich 3iediterran ea NJ
spiendor which breaks the heart IN.
your BOSOM, 1t is so beautiful"
.i;mh cmafk ,he Twain; Uan;; speaking.3 Here we,
about, debating the life of the peo1
PIE, shaping their thoughts and be-
lleIs, coiorIng such dreams as these
practical folks permit themselves.
r1cIng west-for westward the course
Iot this adventure takes it's way-at
the right we look down into a rich
and storied corner Of France. At the
ieft, down upon the restless and pro-
pressiVe Galatians who are at this
Inoment busy spreading separatist
propasanga against the government
of the more progressive and deeply
patriotic Alfonso XIII.
But governments are none of our
present business. And so we move
along. We climb dazzling heights.
We niggle around the sharp shoulder
OF this peak or that one. We sing
small and move warily along narrow
paths that overlook eternity on the
one hand and scan the sheer wall of
heaven on the other. From point to
point we gather views as apocalyptic
in splendor of beauty as were those
that held the hypnotized vision of
John himself. At lower levels soft
pastoral scenes relieve the tension of
an over long grand manner on the
part of the Pyrenees. And by and by
we are facing the Atlantic, having
'traversed the Pyrenees from end to
END. Looking backward over the ad-'
venture we are deeply impressed with
the manner of these mountains. The
history which they have witnessed.
and in great part shaped, is all here.
Whereas in most other regions each
period succeeds, finally, in a pretty
effectual effacement of those that
have gone before, here it is not so.
Here they stand side by side, the
modern set off against the ancient.
each complete in it's own integrity
regular outline of history-quite sIf1,
the useful and Illuminating fashion
of the modern historian. ..., a.
\ x X
War. it is clear, has been this way
often, as it has elsewhere. Wars with
racial and religious hatreds at the
heart of them. These are pictured in
falling battlements and shaken hrt-
resses, in crumbling monasteries and
abbeys. Set down among these ruins
folks, who cultivate the smiling fields
in good proof that the ways of pro-
ductive peace must outlive the de-
structive ways of war. Among the
mountains are little racial units in
the very pattern and blood purity of
centuries gone by. This complete and