Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-09
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

| lies in the handling of such material
| with sympathetic insight. Sympathy
is a quality far tranScending kindli-
ness.
Sometimes sympathy may seem even
cruel, but analysis will reveal 1t TO be
q character builder-that Is, such aid
comes as the knife of the surgeon.
cutting away something superfluous 50
that strength and, health may follow.
Leonardo the Florentine Is MADE to
live again In this matches book. Gan
excellent translation. by the way. may
be secured for 95 cents in the Modern
LibraryD
He lives because the reader, as the
result OF TRUE sympathetic ihterpreta-
ton of materials, Is put in possession
of the many sides of a many-sided
character.
The dreamer and the practical man
were exceptionally blended in Leo
nardo. He is all things to all men.
self in him.
As a picture OF humanity in the So
called Middle Ages, the Romance" is
of exceptional interest. There is per-
hapS no other work in general circula-
ton which contains such mass OF
material as this book.
The author has searched .endlesSly
archives and musty rolls, books falling
into Shreds. art galleries curious dOcu-
ments and mighty tones.
The rich yield of this toll is painted
in a series of word pictures. The dis
corning reader, especially he who has
had any personal experience with re-
search, will applaud the toll while lie
is admiring the result.
The alchemiStS live again. Here
come to life the strange dOingS in the
name of holy religion, little peeps into
the lives of human beings--fich, great,
poor, unknown.
Somehow those years just on the
threshold of modernity are a formless
void to most of us, although we may
have studied Medieval History" as
such, or be able to give dates glibly
enough.
Those of lis who are honest know that
in the background of our minds we
have no real conception of the states
of mind OF human beings III those days,
and we equally know, or think We do,
which is the same thing, that unless
one actually realizes such states Of
mind We can by no means enter into
the literary heaven set before us.
The glory of our author is that he
Is able. with basic material open TO
women, placed amid mass of detail
which lends lifelike qualities to them
separate from their own personalities.
Who has not read some historical
novel in which q small number of
characters live eXcitedly over vast
range OF country? Yet was there not
a feeling even as one read, that some
how the thing was unreal, because there
were no pictures Of the crowds, no
little incidents which brought out the
huge background?
In recent years there have been
some attempts on the part of American
authors TO correct this faulty canvas
without background by telling story
by the expedent Of giving tremen-
dous assortment OF pictures" snatched
at random from the national life.
But it will not do. The thing Is too
disjointed. The only artistic treat
ment is the one employed by Merej-
kowSki, and the only reason that more
authors do not use 1t is that they are
unwilling or perhaps unable to put in
the necessary research to get enough
widespread basic material.
We can recommend The Romance
of Leonardo da Vinci" to any reader.
of any age. It grows tiresome at times,
but so does life, does 1t not? And in
that, too. our author scores.