Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-15
% IDA GILBERT MYERT
Tales 0fL0st Mines and Buried Treasure.
conquest ofLife" and "The Road to
Culture? 1.-THE February No0eLs.

man is careful to give you nothing Of the I'M
tried or half-baked conclusions freely fly
ing about. Nor, on the other hand, does he
approach to any top-heavy, pretentious dogmas
of punditS and book scholars. Just life In
a sense, life gathered from the street and home,
from the days work. So, throughout this book,
there is wisdom, ripe and easy to the teeth.
Experience that has gone through the mill Of
this teachers grinding. Old learning
made new by its application to this fresh need
Of growing world, an improving world and
more exacting one. 1t is a pleasure to read
this book, so clear of pedantry, so balanced
and sane and Immediately applicable to the
day and hour. I could quote from it to my
own delight and to your lettering I'm going
to do better than that I'm going to say, Get
hold Of this book and settle that riddle of
culture at once. You will find 1t not only
simple thing but under this kindly and cul-
t1vated spirit, possession greatly to be de-
sired, with the way of its seizure, really a way
Of delight, even though it be road neither
short nor easy" I'm thinking that If every
pedagogue in the world could come out Of it
with the gusto Of this one, with the compan-
ionable spirit in which he spreads his lessons
and drives them home, why in that case there
be only joyous effort in the tremendous bust
ness Of getting learning and then Of getting
wisdom. Culture is an abiding and salts
factory state of mind, private or public"
Culture is q pathway out Of nature into the
world Of humanity" This is DR. Shaw himself
speaking-a quiet, reasonable, knowing man
who doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't have
to. This all sounds as If may have been
reading q best-seller novel I've dos. better
than that. I've read The Road to Calture'
and shall read 1t again, more than once again.
RACHEL MOON. BY Lorna Rea, author Of
six MRS. Greens" New York Harper &
Bros.
HK<xzr civil pach.I Hxoo- l.. - . -,
A not uncommon growth even to this day
Spindling, true, these depleted offshoots Of
such victims those of Smithfield and Tyburn
Hill and other points. Certainly no proper
stun for either scano3d or stake. Happily, these
no longer impend Admirably mt, this modern
spirit Of martyrdom for the many "causes'
daily crying to be cuddled and nursed and
finally, sent into the open to support some
personal vanity, or, possibly, some honest self
delusion.
Rachel Moons cause" Is her mother In
Stantly there rises a maternal clamor of ap-
proVh Tor so hltal daughter, for so dutiful
child "Oh, don't know!"-but the ques-
ton is too big, too shut against solution, too
open toward controversy. SO, come back to
Rachel and her mother. A parylitic, uncon-
Scious, blind, deaf, motionless save for au-
tomato processes of swallowing food and elm
mating wastes Two years of it and more
Nurses in plenty. Care abundant and good
But Rachel must have her martyrdom It's in
the grain. She doesn't know it and in fact
carries OH the role sincerely and well Mean
while, young friends take their leave lover
says good-by. Youth itself is bidding the girl
farewell in terms OF constant lassitude and
faded cheeks and dulled mind That's the
story. Not quite. sisters death leaves a
little son in need. The brother-in-law is a fine
fellow. Quite possibly, in the two-part role
OF stepmother and second wife Rachel may
have another chance to appease that uneasy
eft in hoef<l har
soul 1t looks like prime chance to me-
An exceptional story. Sinister? Not entirely
Not even little sinister compared with the
one that stands waiting to take the place of
TINS one and single step ahead of it.
novel conceived in actualtieS. Projected in an
assurance Of moderation. A planned story such
as good workmen exact. It runs with the times
therefore, 1t is fortnight, frank fearless now
witty and all the time wise. One of the con-
Siderable distinctly considerable new novels
CHINA SEAS. BY Crosbie Garstin, author of
THE Owls House." etc. New York: Fred
erick A. Stokes Co.
WHEN Marco Polo returned to Venice after
those amazing years in the East nat
urally he could talk of nothing else Nobody
could in like case. Chock-fun Of fabulous adj
venture he must spill the overflow. No doubt
he became bore to old friends and new
ones. Certain it is that not q soul believed a
word Of the tall yarns that he was forever set
ting up. And out of the situation there came
into use new phrase to indicate disbelief to
carry even an accusation of lying. What q
Marco Polo!" was a potter challenge that Is
often heard today from tired skeptics toward
the bTaggart and self-glorifer
The day of the Marcos and Munschausens Is
over. 1t is the acceptance Of this fact that
constitutes the excellence of Crosbie Garstin's
novels Of China. Knowing the East well, he
accepts it as If it were New York. Yet out Of
this acceptance he pictures that great and
mysterious country in much Of its beauty and