Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-01-08
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the BOoklOuer.

ton, with all his virtues, has been
proved human; Cesare Borgia, with
all his vices, has been shown to be less
inhuman than early writer's painted
him. Rafael Sabatini in his Lille or
Cesare Borgia" claims not to be
white washing" this son of Pope
Alexander VI about whom have gath
cred 80 many stories of assassination =,
poisoning, Righteousness, rapine ana
tyranny. Sabatini's thesis Is that both
Roderigo Borgia pope Alexander w
and his son Cesare were men OF the!r
time, no better than their cotem-
poraries. but no worse. If Pope Alex
ander VI was guilty of simony ana
nepOtism, so were most other ropes
Of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen
turtles. If Cesare BOrgia led armies
against other tyrant dukes ana de
prived them of their territories; Il ne
sacked towns, took vengeance on MS
enemies, and was a. man with Whon'
no woman of youth and beauty was
safe, well---he was only one of many
tyrants OF the Renaissance Of whom
all these things were true. Alexander
vi was a Skinner unqucstiouably
y and great one; but q
human sinner and not an incarnate
son.
So Cesare Borgia was not an in
human monster. There were many
occasions, says Sabatini, on which he
did not behave as badly as he might
have done. and many others on which
he did not commit the crimes which
rumor and scandallOving chroniclers
have attributed to him. There IS no
evidence whatever that he killed his
brother, the Duke Of Gambia, nor the
husband Of his sister Lucrezia, the
Duke Of Biselli. There is, on the
other hand, overwhelming evidence
that two Of the ladies whom he was
accused Of abducting, Dorotea Carac-
ciolo and the Lady panthasilea Bagu-
oni dAlviano, were the victims, not
of Cesare. but of other less well
known Adventures. If he had Paolo
Orsini strangled and perhaps connlVcd
with his father In poisoning Cardinal
Orsini. sit is unfair to consider the
deed in any but the light of political
execution" as the OTsini had plotted
the overthrow of the Borgias. lie
did, 1t is true, make war against
Rimini, Pesaro, Imola, Forli, Gamer
inc, Faenza and other states, on the
pretext that they had not paid their
yearly tribute to the church; but the
tyrants of those territories were as
bad as Cesare himself and sometimes
so much worse that the populace wei
coined Cesare as deliyerer. SO,
Cesare Borgia is. if not white
washed" by Sabatini, at least painted
a medium shade of gray instead of
black.
A New England not made up OF
Mayflower descendants. with Puritan
traditions, but of ghettos, little Italics,
little Polands and Portuguese, Lith-
uanian and Armenian peasant hold
ings. is the New England described by
Chauncy Brewer in 1.-The Conquest of
New England by the Immigrant. -
During the past century the native
New Englanders have been moving
out, going westward, and the Euro
pean immigrants have been moving
in and taking possession of the cities
and the country. First came the
north Europeans, the English, irish
and Scandinavians-the "old Imnll-
grafton wave. The new immigra-
ton" of later years has brought the
south Europeans, and until checked
by a more stringent immigration law
was a veritable flood. Much of the
"old immigration" passed on to the
West, though the Irish have gener-
ally remained to rule Eastern States
and cities. More of the new imni-
grafton has remained in New Eng
land and now operates its shoe fac
tories and textile mills and buys up
it's abandoned farms and makes them
productive. Mr.. Brewer sees the
New England of the future as a lit
tie Europa little Europe of unde-
sirables--unless something is done to
solve the problem.
X x
In answer to a question put to Dan
Streeter, author of "Denatured AT
rica," concerning the ideal conditions
under which an author should write.
he said: Though new to this work,
have become very temperamentai.
For example, L can do no writing If l
have had mulligatawny soup for
lunch. Neither does the spirit move
me unless j wear a pair of lavender
socks and have two buttons of my
vest unfastened. Recently, when /
found myself completely stymied, | en-
ployed a girl, chosen because she was
easy to look at, whose duty it was to
play on a one strirged Hungarian lutte.
This removed the stymie at once, and
was able TO put my mind on my work
in a way that would surprise you. You
can see at once that l am an author"
1876
When Theodore Roosevelt came to
England in 1910, after his return from
big-game shooting and travel in Africa,
it had been arranged for him TO go on
a walking expedition with Niscount
Grey to hear and study the songs of
English birds. Lord Grey and Roose-
Welt, knowing that the success of their
trip depended on making themselves
as inconspicuous and unobtrusive as
possible, asked the newspaper report
ars not to accompany them. They went
alone and for some 20 hours were lost
to the world. Viscount Grey was at
first apprehensive about Roosevelt's
interest in birds and thought an hour
Or so would find the American satisfied.
But, he writes in "FallOdon Papers"
Il need have had no fear about his
liking for birds. Col. Roosevelt not
only knew more about American birds
than l did about British birds, but he
knew about British birds also. What
he had lacked was an opportunity of
hearing their songs. When a song
was heard l told him the name of the
bird. AS soon as / mentioned the
name it was unnecessary to tell him
more. He knew the kind of bird it
was, its habits and appearance. He
had one of the best trained ears for
bird songs l ever have known. If
three or four birds were singing TO.
gether he would pick their songs, dis
tinguish each and ask to be told each
separate name"
* X X X
Du Rose HeVWard's "a n e.nln 10 az,