Evening star., 1925-07-26

moro enjoyable than ths thing that
couldn't have happened.
THE SINS OF SAINT ANTHONY.
BY Charles Collins. Chicago:
Pascal Covici.
HALE a dozen stories, all except
= one about the theater. That one
exception, the story giving title to
the book, is about young man who
was compelled to Invent for himself
the legend of Don Juan and Lotherio,
| combined in order to register any
| thing at all In the interest of the fair
ladies of his acquaintance. The whole
business of this light little story is
| taken up with the ways and means
| resorted to by Tony Osgeod TO rid
| himself Of the deadly blight OF being
lust nice fellow" Sound as to its
| foundation, the story itself is an
the merely good man." the nice
fellow" is as negligible to most
women as Tony was till he provided
| himself with a perfectly good alibi
in this respect. The. other tales deal,
| not SO much with the theater itself,
not with the play and the stage and
| the actors and the audience. Rather
are these gathered up as background
against which the author sets this
one or that to show something of the
interplay between the actor and his
| medium. And here are all kinds
just as there are all kinds in every
other field-the vain, the silly, the
weak, the vicious. the selfish, the
mean. with little splashes of the
| opposite of all these-just as with
| everybody else. These qualities Mr..
| Collins gathers up as human beings
| whose common medium is the stage
| life. An understanding man, who
clearly knows the stage In all of its
parts, who knows human beings be-
Fsides. Little stories of ironir turn,
| since there is really no other turn
for stories of the human to take. Art
full inventions whose form is d spe-
cially good fit for the substance be-
meath. Amusing, but q good deal
more than that, since together they
sum to very knowing attitude to-
ward a deeply interesting profession
THE MYSTERIES OF ANN. By
Alice Brown, author of "OlG
| Crow" etc. New York: The Mac
milan Co.
A Nm, settled on a long course ot
"a mystery tale reading, became
convinced that even child on mis-
chief bent would cover its tracks bet
ter than these book criminals com
monty led TO do. Moreover, was she
OF decided opinion that the piling VI
of makeshift clues tended only tC
clutter and confusion. Now Ann
being of dramatic turn, determined tc
invent mystery story of her own
To fortify herself against the weak
nesses decried by her in other au
thors. Ann created a host of minor
situations in the neighborhood round
about, all bearing upon the cOncep
ton Of her own literary problem and
It's solution. Curious behaviors on tht
part of Ann this period of experiment
and preparation produced. Public ut
| teranceS, cryptic TO outsiders but quite
in character for the story PERSONAL
ties that AIMS brain was begetting
fell from her lips at times and place,
calculated to make of Ann herself {
good deal of mystery. Then, sud
denly and mysteriously, Cousin Jasor
died. And Ann. to the delight of hel
dramatic soul. found herself suspec
in reality and in a fair way to out
run the great mystery tale of he1
own invention. Humor of a sort tha
in another step or two slips into farce
is the keynote of Spinster AIMS ex
pertinent in literature. A late turn IL
The Mysteries of Ann" is toward
sentiment, a too-late turn, since humol
has been in full possession so long
time that laughter cannot give owe
to the sobriety of tender sentiments
. Better it would seem to have let tn,
matter run its course on it's origina
impulse of amusing situation than t,
have given II last-minute turl
toward serious and romanti
solution.