Evening star., 1925-10-27
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
l. e.. NJ.

| lIdH 10 lOlIOW the IIletuou VI sunny
! Dark himself in the making of the
| book. And this leads one, as II led tho
author also, along the way of Joseph
/ Pennells mellow and Illuminating art.
Assembled here are more than half a
! hundred of the high points of Pen
nells London. Westminster Abbey,
| the Clock Tower, st. James Palace,
Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross, the
| Strand, Fleet street, st. Paul's, White
| chapel. Piccadilly, Lincoln's Inn and
many another high light from a long,
| eVentful past shining out perpetually
! through tn" settled mists and fogs of
/ the gray old town. Each Of these pic
| lures is merely a matter of black and
! white and intermediary gray. But
| what blacks and whites and grayS are
| these. SO disposed and blended and
| directed by the craft of the artist, so
| Informed by the spirit and feeling Of
! history, so lifted on the wings of inn
| agination and poetry that each picture
| stands upon it's page an alive and
| evocative presence from which In fluid
ease Of entrance and exit great events
| and famous men seem to gather and
| move and fade away imperceptibly
| into another and still another as
semblaGe and disappearance.
! In the close neighborhood of each Of
| these pictures of Pennell's London
| Sidney Dark takes his stand.
| London is everybodys city, certainly
| the city of every man or woman the
! world over whose roots. no matter
/ how far back. sprung from English
soil. Blood and language do not fail.
! To this interest in perpetuity Shake
| speare with his band of poets and
| playmen contributed nightly. Dick.
ems and Thackeray brought TO it re-
! freshment. The recent Matching of
! Michael Arlens and Thomas Burkes
! is carrying on with 1t one brood from
Mayfair with Thackeray. the other
| with Dickens from the Isle of Dogs.
! And events themselves have set Lon
don deep in the hearts of Englishmen
| everywhere. Kings and queens, too
| in their living flesh, have given deep
! appeal by way of this town of London
| Good queens and futile queens, to say
| nothing of Il host OF kings mistresses.
! And lords and commoners, and high
! events, and the rif-ram Of the streets
/ and the alien sWarms of the tene.
| menJs all of these together have
| served TO steep the great gray city in
1 an Irresistible brew of strong human
f, favors. Therefore, a new story OF
| London, or a new way Of telling the
| old tale. is sure to draw q deeply in.
/
| "rs. In this case there are two OF
| them-Joseph Pennell telling il one
! way, Sidney Dark in another.
Among the many chances offered
! here, lets take that of looking into
/ that street OF adventure" as Sir
Philip Gibbs has named it. newspaper
! row. Fleet street. In the Pennell
| picture OF IT, gray-towered St. Dun
stan's dominating, is fianked by rows
| OF buildings that, somehow, convey
| the erect of tremendous activity
fever of news set agoing. no doubt.
! when that apprentice OF CaXton him
self set up IA printing press in Fleet
street. in the very year when 90
! lumbuS was sailing toward Il New
! World. With Sidney Dark beside Us
| pointing here and there in identified.
ton of this person and that focused
stir of interest, the movement of the
! picture takes on definite intelligibil.
ity. That low building not far from
| ST. Dunstan'S IS the Devil Tavern,
! and the man just entering the little
door is Ben JOnson on the way tc
meet his cronies. And now. many
| years later, the two whom YOU see
foregathering at the old inn are Ad-
olson and Swift. This one, later,
| again. Is the greatest of all the Fleet
street WORTHLESS DIR. Johnson NOV
ing grandly in upon this daily rem
devious. That tavern over the way,
on the north side of the street, is
| the Cock, and the gay philanderer, d
| lady on his arm, vending his way
thither, is PepyS, the amorous play
boy OF his period. who would stay out
o nights tin near midnight" even
! though certain that this outrageous
hour would bring upon him chastise.
| ment at the hands of the alert and
suspicious missus.
Here is the Cheshire Cheese. goal
Of every American tourist, to whom
| London offers no greater privilege
| than that of sitting at table in this
hostelry in the very chair occupied
in days of yore, so 1t Is said, by the
great DIR. Johnson himself. At the
elbow of the great man Oliver Gold
smith chatters away just as Garrick
said he did: Wrote like an angel
but talked like poor Poll" Lovable
Goldsmith, that idle orchard-robbing
! schoolboy," according to Austin Dob
son, "a lounging, lettering, fair
haunting, tlute-playing Irish buck
een.' He had tried both law and di
vinity and crossed the threshold OF
| neither. He had started for London
out for America and arrived at Cork
Judged by ordinary standards. he had
wantonly wasted his time. And yet
as things fell out
In Fleet street. right in that house
in this time of Elizabeth, Izaak Wal
ton lives and so continues to live
through to the day of Charles II. AT
old man whom we honor nowadays
for his famous "Compleat Angler" ant
his blessing upon the whole tribe o.
gentle fishermen. Many, many famou:
men walk here before US in this stree,
of adventure-Milton and Pope ant
Byron and the author of Clarissa Har
lowe and Sir Walter Scott and host.
of others whom we know. Sidney
Dark himself says, Il have seen many
strange sights In Fleet street, bu
none stranger or more memorable
than Mr.. CheSterton one evening read
ing the proof of his Daily News ar
ticle under a Fleet street lamp-pos
and chortling with glee at his owl
jokes. 1t is good, indeed. that the. mod
ern Fleet street should be associated
in ones mind with Mr.. Chesterton
since of all the Fleet Street ghosts
one thinks most often of DIR. Johnson
walking from his house in Cough
square"
y r = y
I This is Trafalgar Square that Mr.
Pennell has projected in a maze o
lovely half-lights out of which lift:
the Nelson Column, the oterlord O
the square itself. Curious''-Sidney
Dark talking-'that In erecting
monument to the greatest of it!
heroes, England should have placed
his eftigy so high in the sky that M
man can possibly see it except from
an aeroplane. Nelson was intensel,
human. Few great fighting mel
have been less aloof. He was, a
Mr.. Bernard Shaw has pointed out