Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-03
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the Booklouev

AoCbinAquC. Tic TlBlulty bnQ HhTSHucSs
OF the German drill system, the COM
radeship developed in the trenches, and
the severance of the young men Of the
war from their youth. The novel Il
photographed and the author repre-
sents his comrades as feeling as he
does. He describes the establishment
following enlistment: When we went
to the district commandment to enlist
we we're class of 20 young men, many
OF whom proudly shaved for the flrst
time before going to the barracks. We
had no definite plans for our future
Our thoughts Of career and occupa-
ton were as yet of too impractical a
character to furnish any scheme OF
life. We were still crammed full OF
vague ideas which gave to life. and
to the war also, an ideal and almost
romantic character. We were trained
in the army for 10 weeks and in this
time more profoundly influenced than
by 10 years at school. We learned that
a bright button is weightier than four
volumes Of Schopenhauer. At first
astonished. then embittered and finally
indifferent, we recognized that what
matters is not the mind but the boot
brush, not intelligence but the system,
not freedom but drill. We became
soldiers with eagerness and enthusiasm,
but they have done everything to
it was no longer incomprehensible to
us that a braided postman should have
more authority over us than had for
merly our parents. our teachers, and the
whole ganut of culture from Plato to
| Goethe. With our young, awakened
eyes we saw that the classical concep-
ton OF the Fatherland held by our
teachers resolved itself here into a re-
nunciation OF personality such as one
! unlHld q ell ~ hn
! Statutes, springing to attention, pa
rade marches, presenting srms. right
wheel, left wheel, clicking the heels in
suits, and thousand pettifogging de-
tails. We had fancied our task would
be different, only to find we were to
be trained for heroism as though We
were circus ponies. But we soon &C.
! cuStcmed ourselves to 1t. We learned
in fact that some part Of these things
was necessary, but the rest merely
| show. Soldiers have fine nose for
/ such distinctions"
! Bitterness over the loss Of youth and
connection with any previous life Is ex-
pressed over and over again: Our early
life is cut of from the moment we came
! here. snd that without our lifting a
! hand. We often try to look back on it
! and TO find an explanation, but never
| quite succeed. For us young men Of 20
| everything is extraordinarily vague. for
| Kropp, Muller, Leer and me, for all of
| us whom Kantorek their teacher calls
! the Iron Youth" All the older men
are linked up with their previous life
They have wives. children, occupations
and interests. they have background
which Is so strong that the war cannot
obliterate 1t. We young men of 20, how
ever. have only our parents and some.
perhaps, a girl-that is not much-for
at our age the influence of parents is al
its weakest and girls have not vet got
hold over us. Besides this there was
little else-some enthusiasm a few hob
bies and our school. Beyond this our
life did not extend. And of this moth
ing remains. Kantorek would say that
we stood on the threshold of life. And
so it would seem. We had as yet taken
no root. The war swept us away. For
the others. the older men. it is but an
interruption. They are able TO think
beyond 1t. We, however. have been
gripped by it and do not know what
the end may be. We know only that
in some strange and melancholy way
we have become waste land"
The Comtesse de Noailles. one Of the
leading poets of France today. named
Anna de Brancovan before her mar
riage. is Rumanian on her fathers side
and Greek on her mothers. Her hus-
band is French. and French is the Ian
guage OF her choice-a language which
she uses with great skill and subtlety
in her poetry. She is a member of the
Belgian Academy. but not Of the French
Academy, which does not admit women.
The young Vermont poet, Charles
Malam. author OF the volume OF verse,
Spring Flowing" received the Rhodes
scholarship appointment for the State
Of Vermont and is studying English
literature at Oxford. He was also
awarded a fellowship for foreign study
by Middlebury College, from which he
was graduated year ago.
*&
Mrs. Julia Peterkin. author of Scar
let Sister Mary" the Pulitzer prize
novel for 1928, lives on a South Caro-
lima plantation and knows the Negroes
Of that part of the South as well as
Du Bose Haywood does. The novel is
full of the atmosphere Of cotton fields,
SWamps. pine woods. the sluggish river,
Negro cabins, heat and sudden storms.
There are many such vivid pictures as
the following: The Quarter street was
quiet. except for the children playing
their mothers we're in the field picking
the first cotton that was opening. The
stiffness was peaceful except when
merry iaugher drifted in from the cot
ton picksrs. Contentment filled the
world as Mary went about her tasks,
humming low to herself so as not to
wake the baby, stopping now and then
to look at him as he slept. Sunshine
fell on the floor through the open win
M cheerful
and bright. Outside in the yard, the
clean clothes were hanging on the line,
drying. Inside, all the pots on the
hearth steamed merrily the possum
was roasting, new potatoes were soften
ing in the ashes. When the rooster
hoped up on the doorstep, tapped his
wings three times and crowed, Mary
stopped to listen, for that rooster had
sense He always knew when somebody
was coming and gave her notice"
Senior Salvador de Madariaga. for
merly director of disarmament in the
League of Nations Secretariat. now
professor of Spanish studies at Oxford.
has put some of his ideas about ma
tional psychologists into book, Eng
lishmen. Frenchmen, Spaniards." Many
of these ideas are already familiar to
us from his magazine articles and his
talks here in Washington not very long
ago. In some of the articles our own
psychology here in the. United States
is the subject of not altogether fiatter--
ing comment, but we are not included
in this book. Senior Madariaga has
theory that in each national. group
there is a psychological center OF
gravity" In the English it is In the
body-wilI; in, the French in the intel
lect: in the SpaniardS in the soul. Cor
respondingly. the English keynote is
action: the French, thought; the Span
ish, passion. The political institutions
of each nation reflect the national
psychology. It would not be desirable,
L. rorriI,in that all \, atinnS should haVn