Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-09
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the BOOkl0uer

novel, They stopped to Folly" seems
! to be the changing (almo6t the over
throw of all standards existing before
| the opening OF the twentieth century
| standards Of taste, manners and morals
Illogical as 1t may seem, ana yet en-
| tirely true to reality, the character in
the story who adheres most closely to
traditional standards Is young woman
Mary Victoria Littlepage has done war
work in Europe and has gone back aft-
erward to help in the reconstruction OF
| the suffering Balkans; she has all the
! modern ability to take care OF her own
affairs, all the independence, all the
efficiency; yet, whenever there Is test
of fundamental ideas, hers are the old
ones. Her mother, weary with forty.
year struggle to do her duty, be q good
meanwhile, inwardly wonders whether
it has all been worthwhile; Mary Vic
| toria could never wonder about the
! worthWhileness of anything she had
done Even Aunt Agatha, for years rel
egated to the seclusion Of back bed
room in her nephew's house because OF
sin, or folly" Of her youth, Is really,
with her appetite for movies and pa
mana sundaes, more radical in her inner
thoughts than Mary Victoria; The older
people in the story, like the younger
| haps according to temperament-thoSe
who, like Mr.. Virginius Littlepage end
| Miss Louisa Goddard, however much
| they may play with radical ideas. are
essentially conservative; and those who,
like Mr.. Marmaduke Littlepage, Milly
| Burden and Martin Welding, are essen
/ TALLY adventurous and lawless.
~ 4
! The thread of story in '"They STOPPED
! to Folly" is slight. the characters are
interestingly real, but the npigrammatlc
1 style is what most distingu dishes the
book. Epigrams are spicy, but one can
| easily have too much spice in food.
Also, II spice Is a trifle stale, 1t falls to
please the palate. At their best, Ellen
Glasgows epigranS are amusing. Here
are some of them. "Virginills admired
frugality in woman almost as fervencly
as he respected chastity mo lady
Of the nineteenth century would
have asserted an tnalienable right to
her life" Louisa had attained the per-
| feet sophistication which finds social
nisdemeanors less exciting than the
imponderable sins Of psychology" IF
only she could realize that life isn't
| spent either In Heaven or Hell, but In
! the sultry isthmus Of Purgatory!" He
had suffered the painful process OF be-
ing moulded into an ideal" How can
there be any civilization without regu-
lar hours?" You" can't take art very
seriously when it doesn't bring you a
living" mrs. Dalrymple :. had
been blessed with sex attraction, but
would have preferred, as she grew older.
a moderate amount of card sense or
even a strong religious belief" "Vic-
toria fails to accept the greatest mod
| ern discovery that nothing we do or
say matters to the universe" mo ideal
Is so obstinate as a habit" Though
she had little exact knowledge. that hit
tie was an elastic measure, and could
be stretched, with thinning substance,
over a variety of unfamiliar topics.
For of all things moving on earth,
nothing seemed to her now to matter 50
little as words" After sixty-five years
of God, 1t seemed TO her more than
time for God to do something about
it."
"An Echo from Parnassus," by Hen
rietta Dana Skinner, Is q book Of rent-
niscence Of the time when the author
daughter of r. H. Dana, author OF 1.-TWO
Years Before the Mast" was young
girl in a social group, which includec
Fields, Agassiz and Sumner. Mrs. Skim
ner says: Poetry and poets formed sc
large part of our school tradition that
We took them very much for granted
If any one had said to me, is not your
grandfather a poet?' should probably
have replied, Why. yes. Isn't yours?
The Longfellow children even made
jokes about poetry. in which their father
aided and apetted them"
David Alec Wilson, in his many-vol'
uuned biography Of Carlyle, quotes tn
following comment made by the dou
first saw Macaulay: "Macaulay," wrote
Carlyle, "is a short. squat, thick-set mar
of vulgar. but resolute, energetic appear
ance. Fair-complexioned, keen gra!
eyes, large cylindrical head close dowr
between two strong round shoulders; thu
brow broad and fast receding, tn
crown fiat. InclineS already to cor
pulence tho not five-andthirty. Thu
globular will one day be his shape,
he continue. likened him to a manag
ing ironmaSter with vigorous talent fol
business and little look of talent TO
anything else. He is the young man o
most force at present before the world
Successful he may be to great length
or not at all, according as the time
turn; meanwhile the limits of his wortl
are discernible enough. Great thing
lie not in him, intrinsically common
He Is the only young man of any gift
at this period, who is a Wing; anothe
characteristic. He may be heard OF
and loudly" Talleyrand met Macaula!
soon afterward and his verdict was
They said he was a great man ant
he's only big book"
There are in India, perhaps rarely
women who stand out from the rank
of general Indian womankind and b,
their character and work help great.
in the advancement of their race. Thu
life of such woman is told by he
husband in a recent book, "a Woman
of India. Being the Life Of Saroj Ma
lini (Founder of the Woman's Institut,
Movement in India)," by her husband
G. S. Dutt, with a foreword by Rabin
dranath Tagore. Mr.. Dutt, an oficia
in the Indian civil service, spent sew
eral years in English colleges. His wifi,
was girl of 10 when she was married
and had had no education outside he
home, yet she realized the need Of ed
ucation for the women of India ant
soon after her marriage began tn,
women'S institutes in Bengal, organiza'
tions for the education of girls, the i'm
provement of hospitals, the training o
midwives, the teaching Of domestic sci
ence, the promotion Of domestic indus
tries which would enable widows to sup
port themselves, the encouragement o
social communication among the purdal
women. Saroj Nalini died in 1925, bu
she lived to see the institutes federate
much after the manner Of our Stat
women's clubs.
Il \ 4
In his biography DIR. johnson
Christopher Hollis does not accept ..
the whole Of the law and the gospe
what Boswell said about DR.. johnson
He has collected the opinions of many
other persons who knew him we'll
Mrs. Thrale, Walpole, Fanny Burney
Mrs. Montagu, Hannah More and Rey