Evening star., 1925-07-12
IDA GILBERT MYERS.

Of Mystery Fiction.
IDA GILBERT MYERS.
MAY FAIR. BY Michael Arlen. au-
thor of The Green Hat" etc. New
York: George II. Doran Company.
A RLEN runs thin in May Fair"
~ Perhaps the wonder is that he
"A has run full and free for 50
4 a long. To the purely casual,
unprofessional onlooker there
appears TO be something serious the
matter with a young writer who de-
liberately handicaps himself by way of
an exterior of supreme sophistication
which he eXudes in social satire. The
sum of his work in this situation be-
comes criticism in effect-a process
that is narrow. dull and sadly reitera-
tive when its theme is of shallow root
age and meager growth and scant har-
vest. And Arlen's theme is all of
these, since it deals unvaryingly with
the most uninteresting and the least
considerable folks on Gods green
earth
Having chosen these people of social
exclusions and vapid manifestations.
Michael Arlen gives himself no choice
at all, even We're he TO desire so TO do.
His creative work becomes formula.
It's first foundation is the Tenth Com
mandment, the particular thou shalt
not of its very beginning. Its second
one is the seventh verboten of the
Decalogue. With the first Arlen makes
pretty business of approaches and
Fecessions. Lovely women and way
wise men gambol around the edges of
this green field in a pleasant drama of
clever words and subtle meanings
the polite surface of a really crude
matter. But even the adroitnesS of
Michael Arlen cannot keep the folks
forever upon this purely tentative
ground. SO Arlen relieves the monot-
onous uncertainty by retreating three
PAGES to the unambiguous foothold of
that position. That ends the matter.
And this is the Arlen formula. whose
only possible variety comes from
changing the order of these two ele-
mentS. Now. TO be sure, there is a
deal of clever talk going along with
this prime industry of the smart set.
And one enjoys greatly the Arlen drift
and touch of this talk. There are
pleasant manners and no end of good
clothes and many ingratiating inven-
tions on the part of the author. There
is, besides, good art of story struc-
ture, all agreeable. even exciting at
first. And everybody calls for more
Michael Arlen. Then the suspicion
grows that the boy has shot his bolt
and would better be left alone in what
may prove to be recuperative while
May Fair" adds to this suspicion.
This claims to be the last appearance
of These Charming People" One re-
calls their first appearance and the
deep delight of the book named for
them.
When man grows sick everybody
hastens forward with a remedy. Why
not, Michael Arlen, go down to China
ru~sN IT,.
other real place with a real man. for
the sake of the actual substance of
life projected in a selfess and straight
simplicity?
SONGS AND BALLADS OF ROBERT
BURNS. Illustrations by Nora
England. London: Stodder &
Houghton. New York: George H.
Doran Company.
A BEAUTIFUL book, wherein Rob
a ert Burns sings all of his old
songs over again and chants all the
old ballads once more. Aud Lang
Syne, My Hearts in the Highlands, =
20 Vert Thou in the Cauld Blast"
"Ye Banks an Braes o. Bonnie
Doom" and many another remind us
again of the debt we owe to Burns for
the very loveliest of our songs today
Besides the songs themselves, there
muniCable pictures of a quaint artistry
suggestive of many things that mere
color and line do not record. How
ever, the grouped songs and ballads
are the thing. Made to sing, these
overflowings of the heart of Bobby
Burns. The Ayrshire shepherd we
hear him called, the plow-boy of the
Scotch countryside. But the songs
serve to cast him in another role
They tell us that the consuming and
constant prepoSseSsion of this Ayr
shire lad was Jean, and Mary Morrison
and Meg of the Mill, and Mamie and
fair Eliza, and Clarinda, and Chloris
and an interminable company of lassies
besides who so rayished the heart
and consumed the spirit of Robert
Burns, the singing lover of all woman
kind. Separating and collecting the
songs stands rs a complete arraign-
ment of the bard as the incorrigible
lover A beautiful book, that looks
much like the herald of a Burns re-
vival-maybe a general revival of the
poetic forms that still stand with the
most of us as one of the essentials of
poetry itself.
THE SPIRIT OF THE HIVE. BY
Dallas Lore Sharp. author of
Watcher in the Woods" etc. New
York: Harper & Bros.
HSHOW me the beekeeper-even the
American beekeeper-and l will
show you one who might have been a
poet, one who is bound in time to be-
come something of a philosopher. a
lover of life and of waters that go
softly, like Shiloh; one with the
breath of sage and of pennyroyal
about him, a lover Of nature and of
his fellow men. Dallas Lore Sharp
talking, somewhere along the course
of these Contemplation of a Bee
keeper" Clearly with no intent of
drawing his own portrait in this sum-
mary, ii turns out, nevertheless, that
this particular beekeeper is true
lover of life and quite enough of a
poet to embody that love in many a
song of nature and in many a panegy-
ric of the wonder of its ways Many
a man keeps bees and takes away the
honey and sells it, and that ends the
matter. But here is one who not only
keeps bees but finds himself lost in
amazement over the complex economy
of life of the hive, over the instinct
that outruns intelligence seemingly,
over the organization of the swarm
and the architecture of the comb, over
the feeding and the creation of the
right social order, the provisions for
good government and the ruthless sac
rifice for the security OF that govern
ment. From these facts-plain dis
coverable facts about an order of in
sect life-he draws many a lesson
upon human existence itself. But
these do not sound like lessons-not
like the lessons from which we so
naturally recoil. Rather do they seem
s1r~ rsrs1