Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-15

painted glowing picture of chang
ing times" is true, abundantly true.
But who cares about that? Who,
nowadays, finds himself "lit up over
oustles and bicycles, over towering pompadours
and trailing petticoats? Over, even, the sheer
nakedness of the youngsters roundabout who
triumph SO gleefully over the bedraggled women
that their mothers were? Not in any apprec1a-
BILE measure are the pictures Of changing
hmes' the pith and point of my Story" Rath-
er does it seem to me that the robust joy OF
living and the sheer gusto Of doing with which
this life story carries on, with which it rusheS
out to revitalize the rest of us, with which 1t
stirs us this minute and shames us the next
this all this it seems to me, is the road this
book is going to take out in the world, where
It is bound to have, still, many things TO do.
A good story? Sure!- splendidly fine story,
rs lust that With 40 books to her account all
of them not only acceptable, but widely-pop-
ular this writer should be able to tell her story
with vigor and effect. She does. She has done
this over and over again. MY Story is With
out doubt high tribute to the art OF the mar
rator YET after all, its surest and longest
call rises out of the fact that there is more OF
the author in it than there could have been
In any other of her books. Mary Roberts Rlne-
hart is a distinguished and notable authN.
Yet the woman herself surpasses the writer.
Such unfaltering zest for things, for the world
lust going round and round, is amazing. Such
a partaking-a sort OF body-and-soul partak-
ine-of innumerable activities is almost beyond
belief Such industry and business method and
practical acumen, such spirit of gayety, OF
Joy of life-wen, one could go on here 1ndeh-
nitely in praise of an individuality, of a per-
sonality' so rounded and rich and varied as
to draw out every sort of regard, not forgetting
that of envy. This, so hastily sketched, is what
my Story" yields to one wonlan's reading. I
don't know the writer. I've never seen her. So
don't accuse me of being influenced by the per-
sonal contact. I'm not that Out of my Story
and other sources there seems to me to emerge
the all-around American woman, the fine flower
of American citizenship Eulogy? All right
let it go at that.
OLD NEW ORLEANS. BY Frances Tinker and
Edward Larocque Tinker. Frontispieces by
Joseph Pennell. Decorations by E. G. Cas-
well. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
ENGAGING from the outset, "Old New Or
~ leans" Four small volumes all alike, all
made to fit the hand of leisure, made also for
smooth entrance to the case provided for them.
Sounds like little thing. 1t is not. Books run
to bigness these days, to heavy and forbidding
editions. So when the little books tumble out
from the box all of them dressed in lowered
muslin, as they should be, the reader catches
the thrill Of foresight A good time at hand.
And so it turns out.
Each volume covers 10-year span. Forty
years all told Each has name of its own,
volume, widows Only" covers the war period
of the sixties Strife" gathering the tensions
and enmities following the Civil War, marks the
spirit of the seventies. The eighties is con-
cerned with the romance of Creole family, an
outstanding and picturesque element in the life
of Louisiana. The last of these charming books,
the nineties, is gay with Mardi Gras and the
buoyant play spirit of that surviving festival.
"The most atmospheric of American cities,
New Orleans"-so it is said. Mixed racial ele-
,Ts,- to
leisure and romance and adventure, a long un-
disturbed upper class" ceremonial dalliance
of love-making, intoxicating scents of jasmine
and wild honeysuckle hot tempers and swift
reprisals in the sensitive field of "honor'-an
these, long stewing in their own juices, have
embalmed the old city Of the South in an
imaginative and fanciful redolence that time
let us hope, will never quite dissipate.
All of this-the magical charm Of New Or
leans-is here, and evocation from the facts of
this historic city as these have been seized
upon and worked into their true essence by
these two writer's. Both deeply waywise to the
substance and spirit of the place and the times,
these delivered over to readers with so much
Of beauty and understanding.
THE PINKERToNs: A Detective Dynasty BY
Richard Wilmer Rowan Little, Brown e.
Co. Boston.
IF you are a reader of thrilling detective yarns
= or true stories of romantic sleuthing, this
Rowan volume the work Of the Pinkerton
dynasty will not please you. The thrills are
few and quite far apart: there is no scientific
deduction of crime; there are few hngerprints
that require microscopic investigation. From
the first native of Scotland by the name of
Pinkerton who went into professional detective
work out in Illinois, before the Civil War this
family dedicated itself to ferreting out crime
by what might be termed the Shadow
method"-that Is following a suspect or using
disguise to worm way into friendship with
the suspects friends. OF course this method
is legitimate as far as solving mysteries is con-
eerned, but it certainly does not form itself into