Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-09-06

out daringly, yet 50 delicately to It's effect OF q
lovely fragile piece Of art.
THE BOOK OF FRANCOIS WILLOW. Intro
duction by H. de We're Stacpole Boston.
International Pocket Library. Edited by
Edmund r. Brown. Printed by arrangement
with Dodd Mead {. Co.
LIVE HUNDRED years, thereabout. Is quite
some time for a man to linger upon the
earth. Proof, too, that he remains by his own
deserving and not by suffrance rests In the fact
that throughout this long lettering doors q
many opened to him in every one of the years
and friends were never far away from him in
that long time Francois Villon.
This book of the fifteenth century poet is in
good faith pocket" book. Made for unavoid-
able waitingS at station and store and club and
such othervhere OF miSft Appointment. mere
trifle of a book In bulk. To its big substance.
however, have contributed-hrst of course, VII
lon himself In the immortal Little Testament"
in ballad and fragment, in epistle and epitaph
and ROUNDED The translators, In themselves
poets and critics, are Algernon Charles Swim
burne Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Payne.
The introduction by Mr.. Stacpole Is both
analysis and appreciation. it Is also . graphic
picture Of the Paris Of Villons day. The cry
Of the wolf smiling the wind Mt the city gates
crosses the Christmas bells"-Paris In 1456.
Such clear and pictu esque view Of time and
place does much for q proper seizure Of the
man himself, Villon.
In olden times in middle and modern times,
the unchanging standard of judgment has been
self. Self alone or gathered into groups-moral,
religious political, social. He Is not like me,
not like us. He Is wrong. Never any effort TO
re-visualize time and place, circumstance and
personal quality. Under such outlook the past
suffers at the hands Of the present. 1t always
will. So Villon, along with many another
genius Of earlier days, Is deserted. not so much
for lack Of genius-of which these seem to
know nttle-as for some slight divergence from
our way, the right way. Words lose caste In
the course of time. Behaviors change. And
50 upon these drifting surface signs every
present loses much Of the past's wealth Of art.
To the few lovers Of the gifted ones Francois
Villon is still a burning bush. And to these
this pocket book holds true riches.
RIVERS OF DAMASCUS: And other stories.
BY Dom Byrne, author of "Messer Marco
Polo" etc. New York: The Century Co.
DONN BYRNE once said: Il would as little
- think of sending a story friendless into the
world as 1 would of sending a child, horse or
dog.
But when a man starts hurriedly on the
longest road of all his child and his horse and
dog have to look to others. Maybe they'll
find kindness, maybe they won't. So it IS
with his work. Somehow 1 feel these stories
will find friends and welcome and so send
them forth.
"DOROTHEA DOM BYRNE.
Goodman Castle Klbrittain, 1881"
You know they will lind friends and well
come" Mrs. Dom Byrne. You may be sure
that every lover of the Dom Byrne stories will
feel that this volume Is addressed to him, in q
sense dedicated to him.
All up to the markSet early by their author
these IL stories Romance always, now
tragic now comic, but always constant in their
sardonic slant of establishment Not bitter
merely waywise and therefore not expecting
much from life. Negro jockey, cockney cad
dies, q New York gambler. an Oriental lady
East or West-these stories OF Dom Byrne
gather beauty from every quarter where human
beings are working out each his own way under
his own Illustrations of blood and BIRTH of time
and place. A refuse heap serves Dom Byrne
for beauty and truth to life, where only the
palace on a hin would cali to less sincere and
less poetic purveyors Of art.
Like a Christmas morning another uniform"
volume Of Dom Byrne which The Century Co.
is providing for the devoted readers Of this
gifted Irishman.
THE INEVITABLE HOUR. BY Hilda Sylvaine
New York: Sears Publishing Co., Inc
CTRIKING fact that the first paragraph Of q
- first novel should project two features calcu-
lated to seize upon the reader promptly and to
hold him fast in curiosity and expectancy
THE Inevitable Hour opens exactly In that
manner First here is unusual mode Of
writing. Staccato In effect, intolerant toward
paddings. This manner-style If you will
holds measurably throughout the story. A
sensitive conformity in literary tempo to the
general movement Of the day and time. Stimu-
lating in effect spirited and attractive In its
advance upon the theme And next there Is
the picture embodied in this leading paragraph
Less than nine lines long. Yet it holds, IN