Evening star., 1925-01-17
The Library Table
BY THE BoOKLoVER

Ben Ezra" and Matthew Arnold, in
"Growing Old" Browning says:
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet TO be,
Matthew Arnold says:
What is 1t to grow o!d7
Is 1t to lose the glory of the FORM
The lustre Of the eye:
Is 1t for beauty TO forego her WREATH
Yes, but not this alone.
1t Is to spend long days,
And not once feel that we were ever young;
1t is to add immured
In the hot prison of the present, month
To month with weary pain.
It is with Matthew Arnold's view
that Hugh Walpole seems to be in
accord in his novel THE Old Ladies'"
There are three of the old ladies, all
over 70. living in shabby, cheerless
rooms in a rickety old building in
Pontlppy square, Polchester. Mrs.
Amorest and Mrs. Payne were won
derfully strong women for their age,
but Miss Beringer felt her back a
good deal" Yet Mrs. Payne's legs
have a habit of giving out, so that
she never dares leave her room, and
Mrs. Amorest feels tired strangely
soon whenever she goes for a walk
in the High street or to the cathedral
for afternoon service, and especially
when she climbs the steep, dark stairs
to her room. All three are wretchedly
poor, and Mrs. Payne and Miss Ber-
niger are completely alone in the
world. Mrs. Amorest has a son some
where, from whom she has not heard
for several years. Each of the three
thinks the other two show their age
badly.
Tn he al
has drawn three distinct types, alike
only in their age and their loneliness
Mrs. Amorest is a pretty old lady and
loves pretty things. She has given to
her room an air of refinement, with her
rose-colored silk screen, gatelegged
table and little bookcase containing
Tennyson's complete works, IL volumes
of Macmillan's Magazine and the four
books of poems and plays written by
her husband. She is deeply religious
independent and courageous; she asks
nothing OF any one and only one thing
or Hfe-that her son Brand may return
to her Mrs. Payne is a coarse woman
and malicious-rnore than half crazy,
we suspect. She is lazy, a glutton and
uncleanly also and passes her days
rocking herself in her chair, lying back
In 1t wearing her soiled red wrapper
and her shabby crimson Shoes" and
ii4uiINAiiB nOuBdI from paper bag.
Her passion for brilliant color has been
dominant characteristic from child
hood to old age. "She had hated her
husband for many reasons, but chiefly
because he had thrown a gay hat Of
hers into the fire. Miss Beringer IS
the poorest OF the three and the most
lonely, because she has not even a past
TO look back upon. She has always been
superhuous. Her parents, with too
many children, were never interested
in her, her brothers and sisters slighted
her because she was gawky and homely
and her one friend married and pro-
ceeded to forget her entirely. She is
a stupid woman with a kind and gen.
erous heart; than that there is nothing
more aggravating, exasperating, touch
ing and pathetic to be found in the
human kingdom" She Is also a crea-
ture Of fears. "She had always been
frightened of everything; now. with her
old age, her fears had accumulated upon
her"
Commenting on his three old Ia
dies and others like them, Hugh Wal
pole says: People talk of poverty
and they talk of loneliness, and in a
majority of cases do not understand
the true meaning of either word.
People also talk of the working
classes and their hardships. Very
seldom do you hear anything about
the poor gentlew classes and
their hardships. The poor gentlewo-
men Of this world do, in every civil
uzed country, by their unselfish and
heroic lives, constitute large pro-
portion of the future citizens OF the
Kingdom of Heaven. Verify, they
need that paradisal promise"
The Booklover naturally wishes to see
good books published and then TO have
such books widely read. He is therefore
interested in the diagnosis Of the pub
fishing situation by an anonymous New
York publisher-bookseller in the Janu-
airy Atlantic Monthly. Commenting on
statement of the president of the Amer
lean Booksellers Association, who asks
what has become of the slogan of few
years back, Fewer and better books"
he first points out that as a matter of
fact there has not been a constantly
increasing production" of books. From
1890 there was a steady increase in the
number of books published up to 1910,
when there was a drop, due, no doubt
to the war and the increased cost of
bookrnaking. SO that only about SO per
cent as many books were published in
1928 as in 1910. However, he agrees
that too many titles are published. and
he proposes to his fellow publishers and
booksellers certain remedies for such
overproduction, which he summarizes as
follows: The only intelligent basis for
the limitation of production is to kill
of the admittedly weak and worthless
books, together with their sponsors, and
then by every means in our power to
concentrate on everything left. At
rough guess I should say that the
residue would amount to $500 or 1000
titles year. Below this I do not think
We can safely go, for below this would
be economic underproduction. Above
all we must increase the demand for
good books. We can do this only by CO.
operation"
Il X X
The power of music as a therapeu-
tic agent is advocated by DR.. Agnes
Savili IN her book, Music, Health and
Character" The author herself was
not a natural music lover, but once,
when taken against her preference to
a Chopin recital, she made some dis
coveries concerning the invigorating
and soothing qualities of good music.
Since then she has made many tests
of music as q remedy in the treat
ment of nervous and mental all
ments. She considers certain kinds
of music more helpful than others and
finds the etudes of Chopin, the SYM
phonies of Beethoven and the con-
certos OF Bach especially valuable.
Only classical music, she says, can
have any curative effect on intellec-
tual people. The age, constitution,
education, memories and ideals of the
individual all help to determine the
value of music: therefore the type and
amount of the music must be care
fully prescribed.
X X X x
Henry Georges Progress and Pow
erty" was first published in 1879. 1t
has been translated into all the prin-