Evening star., 1927-10-29
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the BooklOuer.

Magellan probably allows his imagi-
nation to play about the physical eX-
periences and emotional reactions of
Magellan when he first saw those tor
tuous channels and the clustered
anoW-cappcd peaks which guard them.
James Bryce on his trip through the
Straits in 1910 rose at am. and
spent hours on the bridge in order
to miss no detail of the wild land
scape. He wondered how Magellan
managed to navigate the narrow
channel against the strong head wind
and whore he mOorCd for the night
and imagined his tears of joy when
his little vessel rose on the long surges
of the Pacific. In "The Land of Ma
gellan," w. S. Barclay has written a
book OF stirring description, history,
adventure ana romantic legend con-
nccted with the desoate region about
Cape Horn and Tierra del FuegO.
Only one who had seen and felt
deeply could describe as Mr.. Barclay
does the gloomy charm of the head
lands against which dash stormy
wfves. the jagged, icy peaks whose
tops are lost in cloud. the lonely,
Wind-swcpt pampas and the confusion
of forests, streams and fells. Here
the fret and stress of the world of
smoky cities drops away like a solid
garment. Man is so little here and
nature so omnipotent, while the power
that fashioned them, small ~ great,
broods endlessly over all. The his
tory Of this extreme tip of the West
ern continent, almost entirely one of
cXplora ton, has been as stormy as
the region itself Magellan dealt with
mutiny and death as he sailed through
the Straits. Sir Francis brakes free
booting voyage around the Horn,
Cavendishs tragic Patagonian eX-
periences and the Inflated colonial.
ton expedition OF the Spanish Pedro
Sarmiento, who started with % gal
Icons and reached the Straits with
but 5, are all narrated with dra-
matte detail. The dealings of white
explorers with native Fuegans and
Pataconians form some Of the darkest
details of the various stories. The
treacherv of Magellan toward the
Patagonians resulted in hostility to
white arrivals from the natives for
generations afterWard. Modern mis-
sionaries have, according to Mr.. Bar
clay, not been more beneficial to the
native PataGonians than the early eX-
plorers. Clothes and other benefits
of civilization" have weakened their
pnNSlcdl stamina anu CduScu d lliSH
death rate.
Since Defoe's "Apparition Of Mrs.
Veal" it has been hard for writer's
of ghost stories to create anything
better in the way of convincing spirit
returns. Many are the tales, hair
raising and blood-curdling, but not
convincing, which have been and con-
tinue to be written. Only one that
can be recalled at the moment really
makes one almost believe-that most
subtle story of Henry James, "rhe
Turn of the Screw" The stories in
the coHectin edited by Cynthia AS
quith, "The Ghost Book" are more
or less original and effective, as we'll
as gruesome, eerie, uncanny. horrible,
haunting and all the other things
ghost stories are supposed to
be- Included in the collection are
stories by d. Fl. Lawrence, May Sim
Webb. Hugh Walpole, Clemence Dane,
Oliver Onions and Arthur Machen.
X x X
Two plays and a collection of minor
religious verses are contained in the
volume by Sheila Kaye-Smith, Saints
in Sussex" The plays. are on the
Nativity and the Crucifixion and AS
cension. The scenes are near Rye and
Winchelsea. In the minor verse the
saints of the Bible are represented
as coming to Sussex, that part of
Southern England used so many times
by Miss kaye-Smith in her novels of
the soil.
"St. Peter sits on Caburn Hill,
ST. Paul sits high on Beacon Down.
And there, each side of Wakeland's
Mill,
They guard the way to Lewes Town."
X x X X
An illustration of the hereditary
character of longevity supported by
so many eugenists, is to be found
in the family of James Bryce, former
British Ambassador to the United
States. II. A. L. Fisher in his biog-
raphy, James Bryce" says: Ulster
Scots are proverbially a tough race,
but surely few even among the stall
wart families of Ulster can claim to
eclipse the Bryce record for longevity.
The subject of this biography died
with his Zest for life still unsatisfied
and Unsuitable at SO. His mother
lived to within three weeks of so. His
father showed every sign of long
career when he was killed at a little
over co. Oy the fall upon his head of
some blocks of stone dislodged while
he was geQlogizing on the shores
of Loch Ness) ''in what appeared to
be the bloom of robust manhood. His
Uncle Reuben John failed to reach
90 by three months. His Uncle Will
liam, botanist, physician and golfer,
died at 90, his Uncle Archibald at so.
His Aunt Catherine lived to be 80.
his grandfather, the Minister of Kill
laig, was active at 80, and preached
two sermons on the Sunday before
he died. OF his maternal uncles, one
Che Right Hon. Robert Young of Bel
fasO lived to be "a, another to be
over so. while a maternal aunt CMrs.
Lyle, Aunt Elizabeth died at Sc.
a brood of men and women more hale
and vigorous it would be difficult to
find"
Lawrence +. Abbott in his book,
Twelve Great Modernists.' defines a
modernist as one who believes in
life, in progress in spiritual and in.
tellectual tradition The IL mod
ernists he has chosen to discuss be-
long to widely differing periods, from
the fourth century Be. to the nine
teenth century AID. They are
Herodotus. Erasmus. st. Francis of
Assist, Voltaire, Beethoven, Jefferson,
Darwin, Pasteur, Francois Millet.
Stephenson, John Marshall and Emer-
son. In all these men Mr.. Abbott
finds the spirit of courage and prog
ress." The sketches are biographical
to a certain extent, but are even more
analyses of character. Each man is
studied in relation to the events and
ideas of his period.
X X x X
''The Woman Who Stole Everything,
and Other Stories" by Arnold Ben
nett, might have been given the title
of the famous collection of DE Maui
passant stories in English. 1.-THE Odd
Number" for there are 13 of them.
They are popular magazine stories,