Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-25
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the BooklOVsr

OF the poetic temperament his domestic
delinquencies during the year of his
married life. In doing so they have
often slurred Lady Byron, representing
her as the commonplace wife Of great
man, incapable of understanding him.
The fact is that before the year was
over she understood much about him
which, had she known 1t earlier, would
have prevented her marrying him, Ill
spite of his fame and personal charm.
Ethel Colburn Mayne has written one
of the fairest of the lives of Byron. She
is also fair to Lady Byron and has re-
Gently written 1.-THE Life of Lady
Byron" AS interpreted by Miss Mayne,
with thorough knowledge of the Byron
documents, Annabella Milbanke, Lady
Byron, was before her marriage at the
age of % an attractive, though not
beautiful, girl of unusual character, with
love for poetry and a tendency to
moralize. Byron, who was Just then
trying to free himself from an affair
with Lady Caroline Lamb, was attracted
to Annabella Milbanke and perhaps
hoped she might furnish a means to a
more peaceful and regular life. She at
first refused him, because his reputa-
ton was known to her, but afterward
reconSidered and tacitly invited Byron
back. After the engagement Byron
showed many signs of wishing himself
free, but they were married, and on the
wedding journey Byron was savage and
insulting. He did not speak until they
reached Durham, where the bells rang
in their honor, because the brides
father had once been a member of
Parliament for the district. Then he
remarked with a sheer, Ringing for
our happiness, suppose?" And later,
on the journey, he told the Inundated
Annabella, "It must come to a separa-
toni You should have married me
when first proposed" Almost imme-
diately Augusta Leigh, Byron's half
sister, appeared in their home, and
gradually, all the while fighting her
growing suspicious, Lady Byron came
to know what were the relations of the
two. Once her knowledge was certain,
she could no longer remain with Byron.
and after the birth of her daughter,
Ada, she left him and returned to her
parents.
OF Celtic simplicity and prinitiveness
similar to that of Synge are the tales
of Liam O'Flaherty in 1.-THE Mountain
Tavern" They are concerned with birth
and death and work. His characters,
like those Of Synge, often gain their
livelihood at sea and suffer the treach-
cries of the sea. The wives wait
whether or not they are to be widows.
There are quarrelS over the possession
of small pieces of land, over women,
over catches of fish, over farm animals
Some of the stories are about animals.
There is small boy who frightenS an
enraged bull with a little white dog;
two men watch at night for the birth of
a calf; there is the tragedy of a pair
OF blackbirds when the mother and
the eggs are frozen on the nest and the
father goes OF wailing into the wind.
Altogether, these stories are equal in
power and variety to those in the earlier
volume OF O'Flaherty, Spring Sowing"
X X 4 X
William Dean Howells was always
kindly and helpful to younger and less
successful writer's than himself. This
is evidenced by many of his letters, pub
Eshed in the two volumes Life and
Letters OF William Dean Howells,"
edited by Mildred Howells. On enc
occasion he wrote to Sarah Orne Jewett:
You have precious gift and you must
know 1t, and can be none the worse for
your knowledge. We all have tender
pleasure in your work, which there is
no other name for but love. think
no one has shown finer art in a way
than you, and something which Is so
much better than art besides. Your
voice Is like thrush's in the din of all
the literary noises that stun us So"
HowellS' courtesy and friendly spirit
were quite different from what appears
to have been the selfish rudeneSs of
Anthony Trollope. Introduced by Henry
James, HowellS once spent a night at
the home of Trollope, but Trollope
barely spoke to him during his stay.
4 X X
Mary Webb, who died not long ago,
just after her unusual novel, Precious
Bane," had met with SO much ap-
probation, was Mrs. H. B. l., Webb,
formerly Mary Meredith. She was
born and lived most of her life in
Shropshire, whose atmosphere, geog-
raphy and legendary history are
woven into all her stories. She loved
every rugged hill, desolate heath, lonely
tarn, and ancient legend of her native
Shropshire and makes all her readers
love them in Precious Bane," her
most mature and strongest novel of the
soil. In this her background is so init
mately blended with her story that the
harsh advice OF Gideon Sarn seems the
inevitable accompaniment of her sur
difficult soil and the
dark, sinister lake. The poetic love
story Of his sister Prue reflects equally
the lighter side of the Shropshire land
scape, the poisoning hedges In the
Spring, the waving masses Of grain at
the time of reaping, the full moon
hoattng over the downs. In addition
to Precious Bane," other books by
Mary Webb which have been published
Earth, THE House in Dormer Forest" /
Armour Wherein He Trusted" Poems |
and the Spring of joy and THE |
Golden Arrow" The novel left UNI
finished at her death, Armour Where
in He Trusted" is an experiment In
the Gothic. Sir Gilbert Poirebec leaves
his beloved and goes on a crusade in |
the cause of Christ. The style of this |
fragment is as poetic as the song in |
the knights heart as he rides away, |
God bless the thornl"
Lord Haldane. one of the most dis |
of British statesmen, was |
not too proud to acknowledge In his |
that he once failed to |
win or hold, the love of a woman to |
whom he was devoted and that his own /
love enriched his life. He |
says: But there was no moment in |
which either blamed her or pitied |
myself. My feeling was that somehow /
had failed. To this hour / treas
lre the memory of these five weeks,
and bless her name for the return she |
made on them to my devotion to her.
/ came to realize afterward, when /
the pain was past, that my love for her,
though 1t failed enlarged the
meaning and content of life for me-"
X X y
Some Of the lectures of Count Her
mann Keyserling have been published
IN two volumes, Creative Understand
ing" and 1.-The Recovery of Truth"
The essays of both volumes are re-
statements Of the now familiar philo-
sophical ideas of the founder of the
Oarmstadt School of Wisdom: the
Oriental ideal of quietism, the impend-