Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-10-25

descent the epic waxing from age TO age unGer
the liberal accretions of time. From father to
son. to son, to son, progression that lies at
the root of all English institutional life. Laws
OF inheritance, economic policy political pat
tern, foreign outook-the entire whatnot OF
British natioralism draws from away back back
to Genesis even, in its strict and explicit hncal
"begats.'
So the saga makes straight appeal to the
Rriton. Poetry and fiction take note of this.
So does history. whose source is, invariably, Of
legendary nature. Poets and romancerS gen.
orally are making much of this long throw
back to that ancient form of tale-bearing from
age to age. The honor of the tribe, the perpetu-
alton of tradition, this is one of the paramount
purposes of English art in its various forms.
Particularly in the form of the novel. See, Mr..
GalSworthy Miss Sackvie-WeSt, Hugh Wal
pole.
A different situation fronts upon the Amer
ican. He is three centuries and more away
from the atmosphere of noble BIRTH" descent
pure and undedled. Here in the New England,
remote in time and circumstance from Old
England once his home, he has lost the keen
edge of generation for family lines, long and
old. Moreover, the climate has served to wean
him. Its tonics and invigorations have faced
him upon the future, rather than upon the
past. Work, hard work, has weaned him from
those tales of ancestry. He is learning by way
OF it, by handvork and mindwork, to be his
own ancestor heady experiment. Calculated
to foster self pride and host of other selfiisms
But that is better, much better, than lying back
upon the soft cushion of sentiment toward
dead and-gone forbearS. For him, this Amer
lean, the saga is too long too involved with
current irrelevancies. Its tempo lagS behind
that which is so speedily and engroSsingly push
ing him forward
A good brisk story of English family life from
a competent hand? Is that not worth while?
Decidedly worth while as choice of reading
generally proves. But, the long pursuit in vol
ume after volume, of this man. or family, or
tribe. or clan is not a close fit to the American
temperament and its reading choice.
Is this plausible? Or is it not? It seems to
mo to reflect fairly the bulk of feeling about
this matter. And one can arrive only by way
Of himself and such slight help as he may
draw from the outside. I'm feeling along you
see. in an effort to account for the eager recep-
ton of the fine English novel and for the
clearly discernible abatement of that pleasure
before the series of novels bent upon the
English saga. Among the very best of their
writers have chosen to illuminate period or
family, or other phase of history in this way.
And among these best" here is Hugh Wapole
out with an announcement that he is already
at the middle of his four volume course in local
English history by way of the Herries tribe
Rogue Herries, source of this picture of Eng
nsh Highland life.
JUDITH PARIS BY Hugh Walpole author Of
ROGUE Herries." etc. New York: Double
day, Doran & Co.
JUDITH PARIS is the daughter of old Rogue
Herries and the gypsy girl, Mirabell Both
parents dead, Immediately following her birth
judith from the beginning looks into a future
certainly of loneliness, if not one Of hostility
Rogue HerrieS left a grown-up family to meet
and in large part, to resent the new Judith.
A romantic rescue of the new baby lying in
tho cold beside its dead parents, by Tom
Gauntry, not only sets highly romantic key
TO the sequence of immediate events but it
also establishes Gauntry as the refuge of Judith
IN many of the tempeStuous times to come.
Judith was born to tempestS. She is the
daughter of that social and moral weather.
breeder, Rogue Herries An adventurous young
ster. more boy that girl, yet from the Begin
ming. with so much of security about her as to
make her an engrossment from the minute of
her first tomboy adventure to the final hero
tSms OF her independent, fair-dealing and es-
senttally great character. Indeed, the spell Of
judith Paris Is her clear currency with the
modern day. And this despite her time so
many years ago-at least more than a century
ago. QUILTED with the customs Of her day
and place, even though reSenting them and
more often than otherwise setting them
bruSquely aside Judith Paris essentially of her
own time, is a modern woman That is not
the reason why We like her. That is the
reason why We understand heT-and then like
her.
The young woman of the present is more
days. She has less of pretense about her The
traditions of proper behavior have in large
measure fallen away from her, leaving a sin
cerer person than her grandmother was a
person less obSessed with petty proprieties, more
reSolute toward realities and a sturdy way of
meeting them.
Judith Paris, away back in that romantic
setting and in that day so different from our
own, Is of the pattern of this new girl She
has courage. she is practical girl Of action,
OF swift decisions and a prompt carrying out
OF these. Not overawed by the small customs
that seem to have right of way among the