Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-04-12
The Race for Culture

tale of subtle humors and believable TODD. In
a word Sir Philip Gibbs romance. "A novelist
gone for quiet out Of London down into the
country. A family Of two girls with q father
and mother who are, after a fashion, holding to
the ordered life that was theirs before the war.
A woman who frankly is going to make no con-
ceSSions to changed times. Her due is adula-
ton, adornment, pleasure. She is out for her
due. And gets It, Pretty girls those two, grow
ing uneasy over the unpromise Of their own
future. So one goes out into things into
hatShop, to be exact Looking for freedom. She
finds q man. That's the answer, for he turned
out not to be anything but freedom. The other
girl stays at home, doing happily what she can.
fine person, the pick Of the group. But that
counts not at all. Life translated into terms
of wooing young men or into prospects Of
worldly success, does not seem to desire the
pick OF the group" of any group. The novelist
is, of course, the center of interest, though he
seems not to know it. He writes his 50 many
chapters day and in free times roams through
the country with the girls, plays game or two
as EngliShmen must, writes some more and
never dreams that three women laboring
to work out their destiny by way of him right
before his eyes. Mr.. Gibbs doesn't warm up,
not dangerously, toward love story, but since
this is a romance by intent its man must
have some vulnerability toward the soft seduc-
ton He has. At any rate, he is passive under
attack. The waywise woman demanding her
due from life secures the unreSisting fellow. But
Providence is kind. sometimes, and airships
have many uses flight the part of the
lady who must have the latest excitement
and there are but three left for conclusions.
When the matter ends new romance is under
way the right one. A quiet, waywise unlocking
at the exciting play, the present day.
THE PATH THROUGH THE WOOD. BY J.
Lewis May, author of Cardinal Newman"
New York: Harcourt, Brace g. Co.
I EISURE command of an unmortgaged hour
Of time-a true beatitude, this. Fleeing, as
it must be and should be. An evening here, a
halliday there. For leisure is one of those
delicately precious gifts. 1t blurs with over
use, dims with excess.
In one of these free and ample moments go
with Lewis May along his Path Through the
Wood" Just a lettering back through the
family trailed forest of his own recollections.
childhood in Devon. Youth and later years
in London. That's all. Not AL" by long
way. Devon is strange to the most of us.
London, too. Yet one is but a stretch Of land,
peopled in the main by average men and
women. The other, but a new Babylon, its
counterpart multiplied around the earth.
These memories, rooted simply in familiar
things, become IN effect, the readers own A
slight shift OF scenic composition some trifling
climatic change-gpiritual as well as meteoro-
logical-and Devon is Delaware or some other
West-Atlantic locale London, like New York,
Is merely another monstrous human beehive
The neighbors roundabout the odd or pictur-
esque character-these all one And so the
reader trails backward with Mr. May partaking
of an identical past with him. In the later
years Of this man it Is different. Here is per-
sonal literary achievement. Associations upon
another level experiences of wider significance
than those the reader has known. Now, in
stead Of fairly even sharing with this writer,
one sits by to listen to his recollections Of
fEa Vn1a ~
names to them and with deeds back Of the
names as q rule. Pleasantly typical Is the
company Of Some Bards Of the Nineteenth
Century" into whose presence there is a genial
welcoming. lie Caffeine, John Davidson,
Ernest Dowson, Oscar wilde, William Watson,
Stephen Phillips, Francis Thompson Thomp-
son-"poor, broken, starving, laudanum- drink
ing outcast this ex-medical student newspaper
hawker and cabtOut wrote poetry that places
him forever among the immortals If his feet
were in the gutter, his eyes were on the stars"
Journalists and publishers and booksellers come
into this shining back trail of shrewd comment
and kindly appraisal. Come into the circle Of
this melody Of words turned to the uses Of
picturtng q personal past Of projecting wildly
some features Of cultural London toward the
end OF the last century
STORIES WITHOUT WOMEN BY Dorm
Byrne. New York: The Century Co
HE letter that came my way is right 1t
was "Messer Marco Polo" that set us In
bond, primarily, to that adventuring poet, that
word-loving 1rishman, Dom Byrne. Oh, the
ravishment Of that taleI And then came THE
Wind Bloweth," and Brother Saul" and
Blind Raftery," and "OAalley Of Shangan-
agh," and the others. And. then, that sunny
morning by the Irish Sea-and the far call,
the long halloo to Dom Byrne
After that morning, with US, it was all over
again, "Messer Marco Polo" THE Wind
Bloweth," and the rest.
Then, someone, barking back 10 Yeas ard