Evening star., 1927-12-10
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the BOoklouer

Young's novel Love Is Enough
Four loves of varying intensity come
into the life of Claerwen Lydiatt be-
fore she is 40. One comes in her girl
hood. carries her away into a dream
of bliss and suddenly leaves her. at
first desolate. but later to think of
1t as only a short dream rapidly re-
ceding into the misty past. The sec
ond. at first her joy. becomes later,
through inevitable lack of sympathy
and through jealousy. her torment.
The third. never deep. arouses in her
mingled respect and irritation. The
fourth, which seems to her as she
approaches her fortieth year the best
\of all. perhaps because it is the last.
is marred in it's perfection by the
realization that to accept it she must
thrust aside the claims of older
loves. 1t is hard to close her heart
to pity for her broken husband. Dud-
ley: even harder to be callous to the
selfish and bigOted demands of her
son Steven, arrogant in his own
youth and happiness.
81 X X
But throughout her life Tffdown.
the Midland country home, which she
first sees when she walks there
through hedged lanes with her young
lover, never disappoints her, is her
most unchanging love. After the first
visit she and Ralph go again. with
note book and measuring tape, and
while he jots down dimensions, she
selects the place for her piano. by a
window Of the low-ceiled drawing
room of Annabel Ombersley, its
eighteenth century owner, where she
dreams of watching the sunset light
over the hills, while she plays Bee
thoven and Bach. In the dark shadows
of it's beeches she takes refuge until
she can regain self control when the
first grief of her young life comes
upon her. There. after time mas re-
stored her joy in living, she spends 10
happy years with her growing boy
almost in isola ton, satisfied with her
child, her music, her garden and
woods, the mellow old house. To
Uffdown she returns, through the
pale gold of frosty afternoon in
early December, after a sordid IN
terlude of five years spent in a
standardized suburb of the smoky
manufa cturing town of North Brom-
wich. She approaches through the
beech avenue, where her feet SINK
deep in dead leaves. and walks over
the close-cu turf of the lawn whose
farther side is bordered by the rose
mary hedge which has always sym :
bolized to her remembrance OF
much JOY and sorrow. Beyond the
hedge, she knows, are her rose gar
den and rockery, but it is growing
dark and she follows the path past
q late blooming clump of lavender
iris, "waxen petals of black hellebore
and wintry stars of cushion saXl-
frage" to the house, whose serious
windows surveyed her kindly. COM
placently awaited her approach.
The conviction comes to her tnat,
after all, Uffdown is the great love or
ner life But even Uffdown is subject
to change, even Uffdown is finally lost
to her. When Steven marries. it be-
comes his, and his wife sees no beauty
in the dark, paneled hall and Anna
bel Ombersley's dim drawing room.
She has the hall panels enameled
white and replaces Clare's Bechstein
in the drawing room by pianola'
always Uttered with sheets of rag
time music. The rosemary hedge is
uprooted because it is so horribly
stra and red geraniums are
planted in it's place, to give Splash
of colour" Clare takes refuge in a
new country home, Ashfurlong, "a
small Elizabethan manor house full
of good timber, with mullioned win
dows, string courses of red brick
dogs tooth and slender clusters OF
chlmneys set diagonally. For all Its
age il had none of Uffdown's graces.
But Clare sets herself to build new
life. for she knows that at the same
time she has lost both Steven and
Uffdown.
On his return from a walking trip
in the Hartz Mountains in 1924 the
young poet Heine wrote to Goethe, ask.
ing the older poets permission to call
upon him as he passed through
Weimar. II shall not trouble you
much" the letter ran. Il shall only
kiss your hand and depart. l,
too, am a poet. My name is II. Heine.
l am a Rhinelander." But the visit
proved disa Heine wrote
afterward: IT had thought out on
so many Winter nights what sublime
and profound things l should say to
Goethe if ever were able to see him,
but when at length l did see him I
could only say that the plums on the
road between Jena and Weimar
tasted very good" Heine's sense of
the comic must have been a great
boon to him through all the dis.
appointments and i'll health that he
suffered in the course of a tempestu-
Gus and passionate career. After
months of paralysis and blindness he
announced cheerfully one day that his
constitution was even worse than that
Of Prussia! And when he was put
on a diet consisting chiefly of greens
he dubbed himself NebuchadneZZar
the Second. He said to visitor. "Ah,
you find me now utterly stupid"
"Ill, you mean," the other suggested.
mo, stupid" the invalid insisted.
You see. Alexandra WE'LL was just
here and we exchanged ideas" The
new biography of the poet--"That
Man Heine," by Lewis Browne-gives
in vivid fashion the story of Heine's
boyhood and his career as poet, politi.
cal writer, pleasure lover and wit.
Here he is in his briliance and
spurts of bravery. his stormy life
with the selfish and ignorant
Mathilde, whom he never ceased to
adore; and through it all runs the
tragic weakness of character and
physique, in spite of which he wrote
the lyrics that have brought him un-
dying fame.
Mrs. Comar, chief character in the
novel Sack and Sugar." by Mrs.
Alfred Sidgwick. tells her experiences
in Europe in a style that might have
been initiated from Nine. de Sevigne.
Though born in London. Mrs. Colmar
had preferred other parts Of Europe
for residence Her four children.
Henri. Gerda Eva and Victor. were
born. respectively in Madrid, Baden
Baden, Naples and Rome. A cosmo-
politan familyi The father of the
family is deceased at the time of the
novel. Henri has become a French.
man from choice; Gerda is a roma n.
tic. whose romances all go wrong;
Eva is sensible and marries a steady