Evening star., 1925-04-18
THE LIBRARY TABLE
BY THE BOOKLOyER

| A happy childhood seen in retro
spect through the deepening haze of
years makes of Selma Lagerlof's Mar
backa' real autobiography.
The loss of the use of her legs through
some mysterious hip disease when she
was only 31a years old-a. terrible af-
fiiction in the eyes of her parents-be-
| came for Selma herself the most ro-
mantle fact of her existence. She
tells of the beginning OF this paralysis
| one afternoon when she had been put
TO bed for her nap in the gable nurs-
cry. On awakening she found her
brother and sister gone from their
| beds. '"They were perhaps out in the
garden playing? She felt a bit hurt
at their running off like that, leaving
her all by herself in the nursery. She
| had better crawl out of bed, she
4 thought, and hurry down to them.
:. But now that she wanted to rise
from her bed she could not. She tried
again and again, only to sink back.
Her legs did not seem to belong to her;
she had lost all control Of them. :.
| The telling of utter helplessness which
came over her when the body refused
to obey was something so dreadful she
! remembered II long, long afterWard-
aye, all her life.' To her first terror
| succeeded almost Immediately feel-
! ing of satisfaction and superiority be-
cause of the attention which was given
her by every one. Her nurse, Back
Kaisa, a stern, morose woman, sud
| denly became tender and devoted to
| little Selma. The clever old carpen-
ter at Askersby made her little cart.
| Whenever visitors came to the house
| she was carried in for them to see
| and make a fuss over" 1t was no
| longer necessary for her to be as
obedient as the other children, who
could stand on their feet. Above all,
she did not have to eat food that was
not to her liking" Instead OF stewed
carrots and spinach and eggs and ale
| soup, she was fed with fried chicken
and new potatoes and wild strawber-
ries and cream, and at times even de-
clined to eat anything except pastry
and preserves.
Fortunately for her character de.
velopment, recovery came after
year. The whole family from Nor
backs went to Stromstad, on the
west coast for a holiday, and espe-
cially in the hope that the sea air
and the baths might help Selma. One
day when they were all visiting a
merchant vessel in the harbor the
little girl was deposited alone for a
moment on the deck. She had been
eager to see a stuffed bird of para
disc which she had been told was in
the captains cabin. The cabin boy
said, Come along and you shall see
!him." He gave her a hand and, with
out thinking, she walked with him
down the dark companionway TO the
cabin, where her astonished family
found her a few moments later gazing
in alteration at the bird of paradise.
! 1.-The grown folk said it was the
splendid baths at Stromstad that had
| wrought the change. With tears OF
joy and gratitude they blessed the
sea, the air. the citv and all therein
glad they had come. The little girl
meanwhile had her own thoughts
about it. She wondered if it was not
the bird of paradise that had helpei j
her"
| Tales of the Lagerlof grandmother
! legends of the Marbacka neighborhood
and bits of family history contribute
| to the romance of the book. Belief
| in signs and visions was common
| among Selma's elders, especially the
! women. Her grandmother as young
woman with two babies, had on a
Spring night seen a vision Of snow
| storm raging outside her window
| with a procession of gaunt wolves
| carrying struggling infants in their
mouths. A few weeks later a band
of haggard, sick, returning soldiers
had camped in her grandmother S
1 yard and left behind the contagion of
| a bloody fiux," from which both the
/ grandmother's babies died. Selma S
Aunt Lovisa, unmarried at 40, used,
| condescendingly, to make bridal
wreaths and help to dress the peasant
brides of the village. 1t was a sacred
/ loI - OF
be myrtle, but once, when myrtle was
! scarce, Aunt Lovisa had woven into
a wreath for the peasant girl Kaisa
| some sprigs of whortleberry. Kaisa
| discovered it after her marriage and
/ came back to accuse Aunt LoviSa, on
| the very day when Aunt Lovisa her
| self was betrothed to an elderly
pastor, a widower with four children,
| The housekeeper sent kaisa away
with the assurance, "As sure as
Mamselle Lovisa's own bridal crown
| will be of myrtle was yours of myrtle
| and of nothing else" When Aunt
Lovisa heard of this. she went white
as a sheet" and cried out: You
said my crown would be of myrtle
(. as surely as hers was. Now you'll
| see, Maja, there will be no bridal
| crown for me,' Sure enough, she
| never married the widower- pastor.
I
| covery seemed strangely changed and
| never wrote to Aunt Lovisa, so she
| finally sent him back his ring. In
| the postscript of ''Marbacka" Selma
| Lagerlof tells of her visit on her
| fathers centenary to the graves Of all
| her family. MY sad heart wept over
nv loved ones who lay sleeping there.
Father and mother, grandmother,
! Aunt Lovisa and the old house
| thQn
away"
A timely book of interest in the
| struggle between fundamentalism
and modernism in the churches of this
country, recently published, is Duel
| With the Vatican" by Alfred Loisy.
The author, an eminent French
scholar and for the last 10 years, ever
| since his communication from the
Catholic Church, has been professor
of the history of religions in the Col
lege of France. He tells the story of
his attempt to induce the Roman
Catholic Church in France to recog-
nize the results of modern scholarship
in relation to biblical and ecclesiastical
tradition. The translation is by Rich
ard Wilson Boynton, Unitarian clergy
man and professor of philosophy in
| the University of Buffalo. He had
| written, some six years ago. an esti-
mate of Alfred Loisy's Catholic career
and of the significance of the issues
involved in it, which was originally
published in the Harvard Theological
| Review and is used as an introduction
to this volume. He sees in Loisy's
career and his long struggle with the
/ Vatican a heroic effort to win a
standing ground in Roman Catholic
teaching for the principle of the COM