Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-11-08

towns of Italy Basque settlements
of the Pyrenees. Nearer home, it
Is not different Virginia in its Tidewater areas
becomes the neighbor next door. And now its
twin-a bit beated to be sure for that exact
designation-Eastern Maryland, steps of with
its mate in vital accounting Of its past and
present.
Paul wilstach may be a superb picture maker.
He is. But, besides, he is historian, geographer,
economist, and the other whatnot of each quar-
ter with which he deals He pays deep heed to
the basic factors from which special aspects of
settlement and civilization derive. Climate and
soil, water and land in their contacts and &C
commodations In this book he, in effect, digs
T1dewater Maryland out of the ground, plucks
its from the air. fishes it out of the sea. These,
invited settlement, shaped the daily life of the
newcomers, piled custom upon habit, until the
whole took on attributes and personality of the
commonwealth itself.
Work and more work lie behind this study.
Lie behind Paul Wilstach, investigator and
writer. Yet, one reading passes in easy de-
light from picture to picture-beautiful old
plantation houses, social customs of ceremony,
sporting days of excitement and color, industrial
life set by soil and circumstance. The growth
OF the community and its honorable part in
making of a New World. From a neighborhood
the record passes into a national significance.
This lovely book, it seems to me, will At best
the hand Of the old Marylander, Of one whose
roots are deep in that Tfdewater reach. He can
himself relieve 1t all by way of father and
grandfathers, by way of old story and remem-
bored legend Great names come into the
record. I know a man, and there are many
OF these, to whose hand this book will At like
his own glove. He will browse in 1t, like sheep
In . rich pasture. tasting his own name and
that Of his fathers away back One openly
envieS him this adventure.
Yet despite the beguiling glamour of those
early days to one whose rootage Is there the
book has wider reach. It is substantial his
tory. painstaking in both large movement and
small, an ordered setting out Of the facts of
this region a dramatic series of stresses and re-
leases, mounting steadily to the climax OF
Eastern Maryland as a sturdy and competent
actor In the great business of creating and sus-
tanning the Federal commonwealth.
THEIR FATHERS GOD. BY O. Z. Rolvaag,
author of Giants in the Earth" etc. Trans
lated from the Norwegian by Tryvge M
Ager. New York: Harper & Brothers.
CO many novels go in threes nowadays. Trilo-
~ gies they call them. The purport Of such
continuation of family and tribe Is to provide
better perspective on human behaviors from
period to period, somewhat measured concept
Of individual character and personality through
$lipeS Of descent" II the novel Is to reflect
and to interpret life. as it is often said to be,
then this continuation habit Il, undeniably q
good one.
o. H. Rolvaag has quite special point and
purpose in this plan. His literary mission is to
objectify the Scandinavian settler of the
Northwest and Middlewest States as an Ameri-
can citizen. It Is to explain the quality and
drift Of his accommodations to o new order
~0aants of the Earth" and "Peder Victorius"
contributed in succession to that end. Their
Fathers God" passing from the material side
OF re-growth in a new land moves into the
more sensitive domain of spiritual acconmoda-
icons. Catholic and Protestant make uneasy
bed fellows. And this Is the problem Of the
new novel. The tough-minded Norseman mated
with the equally tough minded, but infinitely
more agile and alert, Catholic furnishes q field
OF exploration that is calculated to illuminate
o wider reach than any one locality of the
United States. However, Mr.. Rolvaag, himself
D Norwegian, holds strictly to the character and
point of his drama. An expanding drama that
takes in the greatly increasing demands upon
every side of life spiritual and material. Plainly
almost stolidly, he works within this prolific
field Of discord and disagreement in the we'd
ded life of the Irish Catholic girl and her
Morse Protestant mate.
Mr. Rolvaag is, clearly, making romance do
the work of historic fact. He is setting to
drama that corner of Norwegian life in its pas
sage to substantial Americanism Yet, he Is
no preacher. No dogmatist. True, he Is
teacher, but a flexible one. He Is making lit
eratlre that is sure to stand among aNthentic
records Of the settlement Of the West. Absorb
ing novels, picturesque, humorous at points
revealing, and as workmanship, among the
best Of American literary achievements.
LIFE WAS WORTH LIVING; the Reminis-
cences of w. Graham Robertson. Fore
word by Sir Johnston Forbes Robertson.
New York: Harper g. Brothers
A SINGLE regret, just one, follows the read
ing OF this lusciously pleasurable book
There should be more than one Of this man.
Only another way of stating the conviction
that the majority of us could be vastly more
interesting, immeaSurably more charming than
we are. Too lazy. in the main to emerge from