Evening star., 1926-03-07

THE MAN MENCkEN. BY isaac
Goldberg. PHI. d. New York: Simon
& Schuster.
TIME is the chief ingredient of
the legend. So the schoolmen
!, used to tell us. There would
i be a grain of truth, they said.
or maybe no more than a shred
of fancy, at the heart of the matter.
But upon this-and here is the main
point-the slow accretions of long
ages must settle to produce the marvel
and the glamour which, together, coL
stitutes the legend.
Nowadays all is changed. A scien-
tific and magically electrified world
has so speeded up events and achieve
mentS as to make each passing decade
equal in effect to many of the preced-
ing centuries and to promise Tor lhe
next 500 years more of growth than
the whole of the recorded past can
show. In this general speeding up the
legend is no longer of necessity the
product of time. Indeed, nowadays, IL
may be made while you wait, as SUITS
are pressed and boots heeled. NOW
adays, indeed, man may stand by
looking on to see himself Translated
into the stuff of hoary myth ana
fable.
here Is ii case III DOlhI' ~ @'AS--N
Mencken" is the record of such trans
lation. The seed kernel of truth in
this legendary growth is that Men
cken is different. SO different Is ne
from his contemporaries, both average
and exceptional, that he is lifted above
them to a high remOteneSS when III
a horizontal and receding proJectloA
would carry him back and place him.
clearly, among the Wonder-men OF an"
cient story.
Now whether or not this Mencken
from Baltimore committing to New
York for the purpose of his peculiarly
inflammable professional pursuits Is
really of legendary implication does
not greatly matter. That which does
count is Isaac Goldberg's handling of
"The Man Mencken." He goes at him
with Rabelaisian gusto. Not enough
to picture the fellow. He stands
Mencken up before one, measuring
him, pointing to the color of eyes and
hair, touching this physical stamp
and that one-the stopped shoulders,
the horn-rimmed glasses, the selfman-
toured hands, the sort of tie, the num-
Der of ladies who have proposed to
this confirmed misogynist joyously
paying his bachelor tax with a gleeful
shout that it lis worth it." From the
easily and competently becomes the
biographer and the critic, tracing with
Dunctilous care the Mencken tribe
from it's European source, to gather
if may be, certain influences that nave
produced the Baltimore Mencken, this
savage youth cutting right and lett
wherever q head shows above the
bush. DIR. Goldberg, historian, IS as
podding and exact as "a German
scholar habitually is. As critic he Is
above all fair minded. citing Mencken
facts and Recommendations, poems
articles, formulated theories of art In
more than one of it's aspects and pur-
poses. These. for the support OF MS
critical judgments. AS a writer he is
brilliantly concrete, pointed, VIVID, PIC
tl1resuue. This is a subject exactly
fitted to his hand, and to 1t he does
a rich and satisfying justice. Such 4
man as Mencken coupled with man
like Isaac Goldberg-somethln lke
a legendary pair creating such stlr
that "a part of the wonder lies IN the
fact that one pair of book covers can
hold the two! M
): x X X
THE LOST DOMINION. By AL.
Carthill. New York: G. p. Put
nam's Sons.
HNTY purpose in writing this treatise
4NA is merely to give an account of
the fall of the British dominion in
India" And to meet this purpose the
author goes back to Tudor days when,
under the impetus of trade and the
desire for markets, England reached
out and finally became into practical
possession of India. from this point
he advances along the way or Eng
lands imperial policy toward this new
domain along the way of her many
changing plans to meet the greatly
difficult situation in the East Where
huge population was broken into
elements inharmonious toward one an
other, unwilling as whole TO submit
to the domination of race distinctly
alien. 1t is in substance and effect
an account of the gradual opening of
India toward self-government. 1t is
the record of England's plan to en-
courage such self-government.
One gathers from the straightfor-
ward setting out of the facts here that
the plans of England while In har-
mony with the liberating spirit that
now so generally animates govern
ments. are, nevertheless, running
ahead of the fitness of this eastern
part of the empire to govern itself
Here Is the implication that such
plan is premature, that 1t Is therefore
dangerous plan, not for England alone,
not for the people of India alone, but
for every part of the world that mas
progressed beyond the status OF this
populous and unorganized native CEN
ter. An impersonal account, dealing
with facts. never with individuals who,
in India, have represented the crown.
MANY are the lost possessions of Eng
land. From some she has been driven
in battle; others she has abandoned
through negligence; others she has
surrendered as useless and noxlous;
some have been bartered. The case of
India is up to the present the first
and only example of the abandonment
of a valuable possession on moral
grounds" A premature relinquish-
ment for the good of the world itself
such is the gist of this clear and
straight and impersonal analysis of
England's policy in India.
X X X
ANDREW BRIDE OF PARIS. BY
Henry Sydnor Harrison, author Of
"Queed," etc. Boston: Houghton,
Miff1in Company.
To his own countrymen the expatri-
= ate is an interesting character. That
is. he remains an object of keen inter-
est so long as there is hope that he
may finally come to his senses in a re-
turn to his native land. When this
hope fades the self-banished one fades
too, quite out of the concern of the
home folks. So it was with Henry
James and William AstoT. They final
ly ceased to count on this side. An
drew Bride is not of Paris at all. OF
Columbus, Ohio, instead. But a touch
of genius and breath of distinction
in critical and poetic writing went to
the head of Andrew Bride. He was
honest about it and sincere. The boy