Evening star., 1926-05-29
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By tie BookiOUer.


The ina sinstive man must always
lead q divided Iife-ths life Of fancy
and the life Of actnality-and some
times the life of fancy becomes to
him the more zeal Of the two. Car.
lyle, in his "Essay on Burns" noted
this conflict and attributed the pa
thetio failure of Burns to his ina bill
ty to rise above the sordid facts Of his
poverty and lose himself in poetry.
Sherwood Anderson makes this the
central thought of his autobio8ra PHI
ical volume, "A Story Teller's Story"
He calls 1t "the tale Of an American n
| writer's journey through his own I'm
aGinativs world and through the
| world of facts" He believes that one
has some freedom of choice in the
division OF life between fact and
fancy: but il he chooses to give fancy
the better part he must always be
| willing, IL need be. to accept the attic
| room, or no room al all, scanty fare
the garb Of the tramp and the com
pa nionship Of vaSabondia. I'm the
life of the fancy there 10 no such thins
as good or bad. There are no Puri-
tsns in that life. The dry sisters Of
Philistia do not come in a t the door
They cannot breat the in the life Of the
fancy"
y y
An amusing episode Of "A Story
Teller's Story" illustrates how the i'm
aginative man often 50 coDfuses fact
and fancy that he IL himself not quite
| sure what is real. The practical
, everyday person ia not SO easily he
fuddled. At one time Sherwood An
derson was a factory worker in a
dirty industrial city. and lived in
dirty rooming house with other Ia
borers. Hungarians.A Swedes. Irish.
Italians. He and the daughter of the
, woman who ran the rooming house
entered into a desultory senti-
mental friendship. which in no
/ way interfered with NorA's en-
sasement to marry q young sailor
on a lake boat. In the eve
nings. while they walked along the
docks on the lake front. or in the
parks, Or the length OF some 6ne
residence street the story teller prac.
ticed his art upon Nora and related
to her his own heroic exploits, highly
colored by his ims Sination. One eve
ming he told her of fight he he'd had
at the warehouse. when four men had
attacked him, and he had Laid them
all out like dead men by making
feints with my right and whipping
my powerful left TO tho jaw OF my
opponent Nora list tened in silence
until they came TO a street lamp,
when she took his left hand and
turned 1t to tho light. The hand was
unmarked by any bruise, and Nora
the unima yinative. merely said
Huh
Sherwood Andersons father was
also Of the stOry.teller type. but he
never succeeded in making his story
telling bring in an income. Rent was
rarely paid and the family was con
tinually moving from one wretched
house to another. Also. while the
father was touring the country giving
houses the family was often oblige
to resort 10 queer expedients TO obts In
food. On Halloween night 1t was Gus
tomary in the Ohio town for the boys
10 raid the ca abbase fields in the cOun
| try around. bring the cabbases tO
town in bugsies and with them pelt
the doors OF houses along The streets
If the residents made on demonstrs
tion. the revelers passed on. but ii
any householder ca me to the door and
protested, called names. and threat
ened the law. veritable shower OF
ca bbs ses would follow. SO on Hal
loweens when the Anderson family
larder was very low, the mother wait
ed behind the front door. the knob in
her hand. When the hrst ca bba e
came she burst forth and hurled de
nunciatiOns and threats at the boys
Delighted. they returned again and
again. 1T was worth while throw
ing cabbases at such q house" When
the sport was over the mother and
her small sons fell to and gathered in
the spoils. The next day a long trench
was dug in the backyard and the cab
bagee were buried for the Winter
food supply. often a. ma ny a. zoe
or 500 csbbages came our way and
these were all carefully gathered in.
A literary hoax. clever but not
clever enough TO have deceived the
critics. is the DIARY Of a Young Lady
Of Fashion, in the year 17s4.1765, by
Cleone Knox" edited by her kinsman
Alexander Blacker Kerr. Known
through her diary, the young lady OF
i.1764 seems surprisingly like young
lady Of 1926. In his foreword, her
supposed kinsman. Mr.. Kerr. says
that Cieone Knox was an ancestress
of his mother, was the daug hter OF q
wealthy Irish landowner. and was
born at Castle kearney County Down
ireland, In 1744. Her diary, he con
tinUes. was written In a fine Ita lia n
hand and waa contained in fous
lea Their bound note books. The period
Of the diary was one in which a love
affa In with q Mr.. David Ancs ster, an
impoverished neighbor Of good IA mily
had reached a. crisis. Mr.. Kerr men
tons the poor sra mmar and spelling
Of his ancestress. without apology, for
such deficiencies were common among
eighteenth century ladies. The very
independent Caeone begins her jour
nal: '"Fhis morning had q vastly un
pleasa mt interview with my father
The cause Of the unplea "a nj ness was
that her father did not favor the at.
tentiOns Of the dashing but impecuni
Ous Mr.. Ancaster, whom he had
caught attempting to climb up 10 his
daughters window by way Of an ivy
vine. Shortly after. the diary records
that her father has arIs nged O. ara nd
tour of Europe. Offering a. his reason
mis- ca rnest desire that Ned and me
should see more Of the world than is
possible i'm this uncivilized country
and thus be enab bled to enlarge and
| cultivate our minds.'' C1eone con
cludee quite correctly that Mr.. An
caster win not be invited to accom-
pany the party, and writes: Would
the sight Of the finest churches and
palaces be more agreeable to me tina
a loving glance from HE wicked black
eyes? Plainly no." The tour is de.
smibed with humor and compla ints
suggestive Of Matthew Bramble's &C
count Of hia tour in Sm0llett' q
"Humphry C7inker."' Father Knox q
plan for removing his daughter from
da niger IL productive Of disastrous re
suits to his son. On May -. in
Venice, Ceole writes: "a most terri