Evening star., 1925-09-06
REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS

gan. Then, on another day. Tailor
Tidd is home again--a strange Tidd,
with a CLINT in his eye, before which
completely subdued woman sings
low and steps lightly. Colonial days,
these, with kings men strutting the
land. working havoc with the peace of
colonial ladies. And there are love.
makings and elopements of elaborate
gesture. according to the ways of the
day. But the real business is that of
the wild goings-on of Dixy Bull. Or
was it DiXy Bull, after all? The mat
ter plunges ahead with great gusto
and in farcical humor that is ire
sistible.
AN AFFAIR OF HONOR, BY stephen
Mckenna, author of ITO Morrow
and Tomorrow" etc. Boston: Lit
tie, Brown & Co.
Mr.. McKENNA this time projects
A'A a comedy of the newspaper.
The real business is that Of getting
the oxford Post up on its feet and
into the full tide of popular cfrcula-
ton. The ways and means of doing
this are discussed by group of un-
dergraduates, friends of the editor, at
a dinner of convivial turn. One thing
becomes clear-in this day and age
nothing short of a whale of a sensa-
tion will turn the trick. They then
and there stage the sensation-a duel,
an affair of honor, based upon an
aspersion cast upon the character of
Queen Elizabeth. Pursuant to the
carefully laid plan, they the next
morning set out in due form to sat
isfy the code. Almost at once the
appearance of the police takes the
matter out of the hands of its pro-
moters. imposing an entirely new line
&c . ir
trouble at all about the publicity,
though its nature is of different cast
than that proposed. Expanding gen
erouSly, the comedy admits two per-
fectly good romances and other un-
foreseen by-products of that nights
planning for the recrudescence of the
oxford Post. A light and laughable
to-do. carried easily forward by the
practiced hand of Mr.. Mckenna.
NUMEROUS TREASURE. BY Rob
ert keable, author of Simon
Called Peter" etc. New York:
G. p. Putnam's Sons.
POBERT kEABLE, writer of nov
L els, suggests the free indulgence
the oyerindulgence-that is likely
to follow sudden release from irk-
some restraints in certain directions.
Like the man who, kept from food
falls upon it savagely when 1t is finally
put before him. like the boy, house
held by weather stress, who rusheS
wildly out into the belated sunlight;
like the professional moralist who
secretly cheriShes salacious thoughts.
and who, when freedom comes, riots in
words and phrases to fit the obscene
pictures of his mind. Now, with Mr..
Keable the sex side of the man-and-
woman question appears to have an
irra SiSti a n kaan
talking about 1t and writing about it,
he can't hold himself away from Gre
ating certain situations in this rela-
ton, nor from wading around in them
up to the neck. He no doubt calls his
work realism. Writers are likely to
when they are either specially dull or
uncommonly dirty. And the question
that these writers raise is not one of
morality nor of art, though they claim
one or the other for their motive ard
method. 1t is, after all, only a ques-
ton of good taste or bad taste-just
that which relegates certain habits to
privacy, like brushing the teeth and
similar personal acts. However. here
is Mr.. Keable with a story of the
white man among the islands of the
Pacific. Opening with a chant of
Walt Whitman. Il think | could turn
and live with the animals" Mr.. kea.
bic projects his romance, not ip the
spirit of this pronouncement which
Whitman amplifies very nobly, but in
the spirit rather of the white mans
reprisals against the natives of these
islands. Eating, sleeping, dalliance,
under lovely skies and in the midst
of beautiful island growths-then
more eating, sleeping, bathing and
dalliance. Then the same all over
again.