Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-21
THE LIBRARY TABLE
BY the Booklouer

have read the early books Of Maud
Diver, Captain Desmond, ". c." and
"Desmonds Daughter" and some of the
| others, continue to read her many later
! books, in spite of what modern taste
| would call supercargo Of sentiment
tally, Is that she has the gift of ere.
ating characters which are, for the time
being at least, as alive as any real peo-
, pie. She has the habit, ike many other
writer's, OF continuing some of her char
acters through many books, SO that we
J come to know well the Desmonds, the
ChallonerS and the Ardens. In her
most recent novel, "A Wild Bird" we
meet number of old friends. Capt.
Desmond, now Sir Theo, is merely men
toned, as in his eighty fifth year, "alert
as ever. more supple in brain and body
than the average man Of so, who sinks
into slipnere5 ease and meets scail:ty
halfway" Most of his qualities may
be recognized IN his grandson, Lance
Desmond. who cherishes the ambition
OF becoming viceroy Of India. Here are
of the northwest frontier province of
India. and his wife, Thea, daughter of
Sir Thee and Lady Desmond, heroine
OF "Desmond's Daughter" We remem-
Der them in their youth, when Vincent
Leigh, sensitive, scholarly man, al
most yielded to the temptation to give
up the ambitions of soldier in India
and become the recluse he longed to be,
when Thea Desmond had married him,
! so to speak, in spite of himself, in
| spite OF that amputation below the
knee, which debarred him from further
! o'diertng," but did not prevent his
reaching high administrative position.
They are now the parents of six chill
dren and we watch the love affair OF
their daughter Mary, whose serious
gray-blue eyes came from her grand
life of Sir Vincent and Lady Leigh has
been a happy one, when it so easily
might not have been, for Thea is a
woman who. for all her natural gift of
companionShip, understood and re-
spected his frequent desire to be alone, p"
and her natural gift for the role Of
great lady had eased much that was
uncongenial to his incurable shyness,
his dread Of human beings in the
mass" Col. Ian Challoner, revenue
commissioner in India, though his
death from typhoid darkened a former
book with tragedy, still lives in "A Wild
Bird" for his memory and the feeling
OF his spiritual presence fill the lives
Of VanesSa Vane, the woman for whom
he acknowledged his love only a few
days before his death, and his daugh-
ter. Eve, the wild bird of the story.
In Eve we see not only the appearance
Of her father. but his shyness,. his love
OF music and OF nature, and his mySti-
cism. Other old friends in "A Wild
Bird are Anne Verify. "Astra," who for
so many years was secretly loved by Sir
Henry Arden, and Sir Give Arden, the
son who tried to write his fathers biog-
raphy and was prevented by the haunt
ing presence of that father, who had
known that no biographer could avoid
discovering his hidden life with Anne.
X X X 4
Another charm of Maud Divers
novels is their penetrating atmosphere
| of India, perhaps too romantic, too
highly colored. but capable of arousing
delightful imaginative pictures. In "A
Wild Bird" we are again taken to
Peshawar, on the great northern from
tier plain of India. and to Kashmir, with
its residency gardens and its fir forests
and lofty mountain peaks. Eve Chal-
| loner comes to Government House at
Peshawar for stay and there renews
her memories of seven years before,
when she was only II. There was the
separate entities. the first British. the
second native. The first is an armed
camp in wild country, circled by q
barbed-wire hedge 6 feet deep and 4
feet high" with many guarded gates
closed from dusk to dawn" The second
is the "city of a thousand and one
SINS" where Englishwomen do not go
! alone. It Is a city of baZaars, where
copper and brass and silver are ham,
mered into designs; where the potter
| works at his wheel; where Hindu mer-
chants preside over bales of printed
cotton goods; of houses rising in tiers,
with jutting, carved balconies and fiat
roofs, where secluded women gossip: OF
barbaric noises and colors; of a medley
of human beings-Sepoys, RajputS in
turbans, tribesmen in peaked caps,
bearded Mohammedans, boys with red
and green kites, women Of mo class"
with challenging eyes, dromedary
border camelS with tinkling bells and
performing monkeys in petticoats and
caps mo vestige of ordered, purpose
| full control in this restless. unbridled
City of Peshawar: a city without we'd
ding garment, without imposing palaces
and mosques hotbed of secret vice,
the Paris of the Pathans; men Of
strong limbs and strong desires, luStful
and treacherous, yet loyal up to their
lights and unafraid; an alarmingly
| virile world" When the hot weather
comes, Eve, with the other inhabitants
of Government House, takes flight for
the hills of KaShmir. Srinagar. with
roses and Strawberries In the reSidency
garden in May, and in the distance the
blue hills and cleaning snow peaks be-
You'd; Sonamarg, above the Sind River,
facing naked gray peaks: and Gangabal,
lake of pilgrimage, three miles OF tur-
quoise-blue water flowing close under
glaciers and ice cliffs and stark walls OF
rock that eliminated in the northeastern
buttress of Haramokh; all the foreshore
bright with marsh buttercups and
Alpine flowers" are all described by one
who knows and loves India.
X II X
One realizes how few of the great
figures of the World War are still in
public life, how many are dead, in read
ing such a book as Statesmen of the
War in Retrospect" by William Martin
foreign editor of the Journal de Geneve
Biographical sketches are given OF
Kaiser Wilhelm II, Francis Joseph
Nicholas II, Pachitch, Won Bethmann-
Hollweg, Tisza, Poincare, Lord Grey
Cardinal MERCER, Sonnino, Venizelos,
Jon Bratianu, Asquith, BRAND, Hoover
Ador, Woodrow Wilson, Col. House,
Czernin, Masaryk, Benes, Pilsudski
PaderewSki, Lloyd George and Clemen-
ceau. Mr.. Martin is enthusiastic about
Woodrow Wilson. He considers that
he exercised a great moral influence
over Europe. IL Is Strange W Ie1lecl
that this man, whom Europe so often
accused of lack of comprehension, whom
she so long misunderstood, first fat
tering him. then illuminating him, but
never understanding him, was the only
one who really OWNED Europe and
her needs!"
X X X
1 In the preface to his recent book,
1.-THE Mansions of Philosophy" Will
Durant says: This book is an attempt
at consistent philosophy of life.
Human conduct and belief are now
underonino transformations nrofounder