Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-02-19
By the BookIoper.

| everywhere than today, has been made
the central idea in a number of big
| novels. Thackeray, in The New
comes" shows us all the inside affairs,
ana characters, of the various branch.
eS of the London family of Newcomes
"a not very magnanimous lot. In
recent years the family novel has be-
come frequently praCticed type, yet
not too frequently, Tor it is a difficult
type to carry out convincingly. Gals
worthy, in his "Forsyte Saga" has
permanently placed both the material
istic, business Forsytes and the ideal
lStlc, artist Forsytes among real
English men and women. Thomas
Mann, in "Buddenbrooks," has re-
counted the prosperity and downfall,
through three generations, of a family
or Hamburg merchants. Kathleen
MOTIFS, in the one novel which rises
ABOVE her popular average, Certain
People OF Importance" has traced the
family fortunes of the Crabtrees from
before the Civil War until the early
part OF the twentieth century.
X X i. n
q. E. Stern in her two novels, THE
Matrlarch' and "A Deputy Was
King has created, or drawn from
lie perhaps BOTH, unique family of
Vienna Jews, whose branches spread
out from the original ancestors, Simon
and Babette, over all Europe. Through
seven generations and two centuries
the Rakonitz have migrated, have
lntermarried with Israelite and Cen
tile, and have fulfilled the command
o. Jehovah to the ancient Hebrews,
BE fruitful and multiply, and re
plenish the earth" BY degrees, how
ever, through the generations, the
family wealth and prestige have les
sened. The men have died early, the
women have been exceedingly long
lived. Excitability, imperiousness, the
gambling instinct, hospitality and
family loyalty have characterized
losses through speculation in precious
stones have brought the Victorian
generation low. The twentieth CEN
fury members of the family are all
mOderns, the products of their age.
but they still remember that they
are RakonitZ and an appeal to family
feeling rarely remains unanswered
In 1925 the matriarch, Anastasia
Rakonitz, dies at the age of SO. Her
granddaughter. Toni, most modern Of
moderns, yet recognizes in herself,
only just past 80, many of the traits,
both admirable and unadmirable, of
the old Anastasia. Other members OF
the family recognize more of the traits
than Toni admits to herself, and Sc
cretly call her 1.-The young matriarch."
She, of all the younger generation,
accepts, or seiZes, the responsibility of
becoming the family center Of equi-
librium. So, when she finds that she
| must leave her beloved London and
make her home at San Goffredo, in
the Italian hills. she buys large
house instead of the cottage that
would be sufficient for her immediate
family. II want spare rooms, quite a
lot of spare rooms" she says. she
could not quite confess how
her secret longing was to
have room for any members of the
Rakonitz tribe who might at any
time need to be sheltered and fed"
So she has II bedrooms, and they are
all filled most of the time with Rako-
nitZ guests.
Cheerfulness is suggested by Grace
S. Richmonds title Cherry Square"
and cheerfulness and good humor
pervade the story. Its scene is the
old Cherry House, on Cherry Square,
in the village of Cherry Hills, not far
from Stamford. Mrs. Schuyler Chase,
whose husband is a New York clergy
man, Is one of the Cherry family.
Her aunt, old Miss Eldora Cherry.
left her the Cherry House in her will.
At first Mrs. Chase had no especial
use for it, but after two or three
years, when her husband goes to
Europe, she brings her children to the
old family house at Cherry Hills for
the Summer. There some mild ro-
nd
Is already married, two attractive
young unmarried women are intro
duced for the purpose, Josephine
Jenney and Adelaide Sturgis.
y \ \
The beginning of the age of metal,
succeeding the stone ages, is mag
inatively described by James Henry
Breasted in his Conquest of Civiliza-
ton" He says: ut was probably in
the peninsula of Sinai. at least 1000
Be, that some Egyptian wandering
thither may have CHANGED to bank his
campfire with pieces of copper ore ly-
ing on the ground about the camp.
The charcoal of his wood fire would
mingle with the hot fragments of ore
piled around to shield the fire, and
thus the ore would be reduced as
the miner says-that Is, the copper in
metallic form would be released from
the Jumps of ore. Next morning, as
the Egyptian stirred the embers, he
would discover a few glittering glob-
ules, now hardened into beads of
metal. Before long, as the experience
was repeated, he discovered whence
these strange shining beads had come.
.. Without knowing 1t this man
had stood at the dawning of a new
era, the age of metal and the little
bead of shining copper which he drew
from the ashes, if this Egyptian wan
derer could have seen it, might have
reflected to him vision of steel
buildings, Brooklyn bridges, huge fac
tories roaring with the noise of thou
sands of machines of metal, and vast
stretches of steel roads along which
thunder hosts of speeding locomotives.
For these things of our modern world,
and all they signify, would never have
come to pass but for the little bead of
metal which the wandering Egyptian
held in his hand for the first time on
that eventful day so long ago."
X X X X
Cesare Borgia was whitewashed
last Summer by Rafael Sabatini and
this Winter Charles III and George "
have been whitewashed by job"
Drinkwater and Shane Leslie respec-
lively. Both Charles II and George
w were evidently delightful mon
archs, not at all bad for England. as
has long been supposed, and not so
very much more immoral than others
of their times-that is. not more so
than kings were entitled to be. These
two defenders of kings do not deny
any of the frivolities. drunkenness or
mistresses, but imply that some Of the
mistresses were far more interesting
than the two queens, Catherine of
Braganza and Caroline of Brunswick,
That Charles accepted brides from the
King of France and that George com