Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-09
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the Booklover

reader In LyttOn StracneyS 'EllZabetn
and Essex" Mr.. Strachey holds the
balance In q brilliant manner. At So
Elizabeth fell in love with Essex, who
was less than 20, and a woman of that
age In love with a boy is not an ad-
mirable figure, even though she be a
Queen. The fascination which Essex
held for the capricious daughter of
Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn lasted for
many years, through many quarrels,
until, when Elizabeth was SO and Essex
"a, she sent her favorite to the block
on Tower Hill and then spent the last
two years of her life in mourning for
him. Mr.. Strachey'S characterizations
are vivid, yet free from sensationalism.
He sees Elizabeth as a real woman,
not as q triumphant heroine of a
magnificent age. Under the serried
complexities of her raiment-the huge
hoop, the stiff ruff. the swollen sleeves,
the powdered pearls, the spreading,
gilded gauzes-the form Of the woman
vanished and men saw instead an
image - magnificent, portentous, self
created - an image Of regality, which
yet, by a miracle, was actually alive.
But what was the woman apart from
the inflated garments? THE lion heart
the splendid gestures - such heroic
things were there, no doubt. The
sharp and hostile eyes of the Spanish
ambassadors saw something different;
in their opinion, the outstanding char
acteristic of Elizabeth was pusillanimity
They were wrong, but they perceived
more Of the truth than the idle on
locker. They had come into contact
with those forces in the Queens mind
which proved, incidentally, fatal to
themselves, and brought her, In the end
her enormous triumph. That triumph
was not the result of heroism. The
very contrary was the case: the grand
policy which dominated Elizabeth's life
was the most unheroic conceivable, and
her true history remains standing
lesson for melodramatists in statecraft.
In reality, she succeeded by virtue OF
all the qualities which every hero
should be without-dissimulat pill
ability, INDIGESTION, procrastination. par
simony" The Queen is described in
her court, surrounded by fiatterers, over
whom comes a sudden hush. Looking
round. she saw that Essex had come
in. He went swiftly towards her; and
the Queen had forgotten everything, as
he knelt at her feet" The marriage OF
Essex enraged her for only fortnight.
"She stormed and ramped; then re-
membered that the relations between
herself and her servant were unique
and had nothing to do with a futile
domesticity. The fascinating BRIDE
groom pursued and cajoled her with
ardours as romantic as ever: and she
felt that a'Queen could ignore a wife. y
- 4. -
OF Importance almost equal to that
of the two chief characters in the story
of Elizabeth and Essex" is Francis
Bacon. He might be considered the
villain of the tragedy. "One wishes to
turn away ones gaze from the un-
conscious traitor, the lofty-minded
sycophant, the exquisite intelligence
entrapped and strangled In the web OF
Its own weaving" Essex over and over
again risked his own favor with the
Queen in order to secure for Francis
Bacon first the attorney generalship,
then the solicitor generalship: but when,
after the disastrous Irish campaign OF
Essex, the Queen carried on conf1den-
tial conversations with Bacon concern
ing the earl's loyalty, Bacon seized the
opportunity for his own advancement
dIlO ny LIilucLIuO dLACO III tAIC oO"AAoiA
of the man who had been to him so
in his element. He felt that he could
thread his way through the intricacies
that surrounded him with perfect
propriety To adjust the claims of per-
sonal indebtedness and public duty, to
combine the feelings of the statesman
and the friend. to hold the balance true
between honor and ambition-other
men might find such problems difficult.
If not insoluble; but he was not
frightened by them: his intellect was
capable of more than that. AS he talked
to Elizabeth, he played upon the COM
pick theme with the profound relish Of
a virtuoso He had long since decided
that, In all human probability. Essex
was a ruined man; he owed the earl
omething-much; but 1t would be
futile to spoil his own chances of for
tune by adhering to a hopeless cause:
1t was essential to win the good graces
of Robert Cecil; and now, there was
this heaven sent opportunity-which it
would be madness to miss-for acquir-
ing something more important still-the
confidence of the Queen. Besides-he
could doubt 1t no longer-Essex was a
mischievous person. whose activities
were dangerous to the state. While he
was clearly bound to give him what
help he could as private individual. he
was certainly under no obligation to
forward the return of such man to
power: 1t was even his duty to insin-
uate into the Queens mind his own
sense of the gravity of the situation.
And so. with unhesitating subtlety, he
spun the web of his sagacious thought"
a. -
"The Turn of the Screw" by Henry
James. Is one of the most horrible OF
ghost stories. William Lyon Phelps once
said IN a lecture that, after reading it,
he felt distinct hesitation about going
downstairs to turn off the hall light,
because he would be obliged to go back
upstairs in the dark. 1t is a story Of
ghostly decentralization of children, so
that it's horror is moral as well as
mental and physical A recent ghost
story by Clemence Dane, though entire
ly different, suggests by its subtlety of
method 1.-The Turn of the Screw"
Clemence Dane has written a four
part novel Of the history of a family,
THE BabylonS" The four parts are
called Third Person Singular" Mid
summer Men," Creeping Jenny" and
Lady Babylon" and each part is a
complete story. The first part is the
ghost story mentioned. 1t is q story of
Medealike vengeance on the part of the
ghost Of a Tilted woman, and might
possibly be explained away as a problem
OF psychiatry, but its haunting horror
cannot be explained away. The pursuit
on their wedding journey through
Europe Of the pathetic young pair,
Jamie and Menella. Sir James and Lady
Babylon, by specter of which they
are at first unaware, Is cumulative in
Its tragedy. Wherever they go they are
Stunned and assisted to leave as soon
as possible. The climax comes at Milan
when they are almost mobbed at the
opera and escape by the aid Of the
manager through a private exit and a
back alley to their hotel. Their journey
back to England in their coach ut Is a
Georgian tale) is attended by increas-
Ing gloom and morbid apprehension on
JAMES part and uncomprehending de-