Evening star., 1932-09-18
THE FOUNTAIN. BY Charles Morgan. author
Of Portrait in a Mirror" etc. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf.


gether, spread Of landscape for background,
a set of made-up doinss And there he Isl
Possibly, a best seller" emerges from the
melange to ease fears for an otherwise dubious
future
Oh. not SO easy as all that Read q thou
sand novels. more or less. Make q note of
the cu,iously routined and rutted course that
all Of them, good and bad alike. have been
forced to take. And the closer they stick to
life. narrower is the allotted groove The
great theme of the novel is love. In effect
this is its only theme. Now love. both in life
and letters, is of formula. Rise. fruition
decline The rise all ecstasy and expects tion
The fulfllment. an instant Of npening wherein
like the rest of nature, love spends itself like
well, the earlier saying used to run. like
drunken sailor. Then. weariness decline. ex-
tmction. So it turns out that the novelist
is. perhaps, the most circumscribed of work.
men. If novels had to depend alone upon
this unchanging formula. they would all die
Of starvation, of boredom. And with no
reader in sight. Happily for the case. how
ever, novelists have private and independent
resources of their own. An outlook upon
human nature q whole. q seizure Of per-
sonality and character. Imagery, q sense of
picture. q feeling for the color and texture OF
incident. firm hold upon sequence and
structure. affinity for the proper climax.
With these he is able nov and then. to make
that imneuaoriai matter OF love iliumina-
tion Of life itself. An engrossment Of literary
Joy to readers. besides Sometimes the great
story is fable or allegory. In these later days
1t Is. however in the main realism
The Fountain" almost touches the ale
gorical Rather. instead. does its deep under
current overflow upon the surface 1t many .
point. As modern love story, it runs much
~ the usual fashion. An episode of wartime
near the Western front. Two friends. Eng
lish. man and girl. meeting here. The girl
married to a nobieznan and living ancient
castle of the continent The man interned,
with others, for . period facing upon the end
of the war
The story itself. the really beautiful and
impressive story issues from the nature and
inner life Of Lewis Alison. the British officer
one Of those interned in the Dutch fort near
the castle of the Van Leydens Solitude and
books are the life of Alison for he is upon a
more mognentous business than that of human
warfare. Deep within himself. he has upon
rare and speeding seconds found the man
that he really is. the human that every one
is. deep buried under the piled-up passions
and strivings that man has accepted rs the
sum of life. 1t is these instants Of iilumina-
tion for which the reader waits It Is these
lightning flashes of the spirit out Of depths
Of soituce and thought for which one waits
as he follows the surface Of this episode of
closing wartime. To be alone to have
only books. through which, maybe, the deep
fountain of himself would stir to the real
meaning Of himself. a al existence
From almost any page something deep, like
this, surges out toward the reader: 1t was
the patience Of books that he loved. Their
absolute passivity which endured all things in
man. miracle. that . book neglected for
years. being taken down At last should sing
instantly with Sheiieys voice and that the
voice should be unchanged By all the OPERA
tiOlg Of fortune he
OF books that he loved. the blessed inhumanity
of books" Not a cold inhumanity Rather
heat transcending that of life which dwelIs
in them IS the heat of the sun may be said
TO dwell IN An oak tree. And In some such
way page by page, this fountain of contem-
platlVe truth hows out to meet readers who
themselves, feel the stir of it unde, SO clear
and beautiful an urgency of its power
greatly stirring adventure of mind and spirit
under the hand of this admirable artist in
truth and life
A great book The Fountain" to those for
whom it planned and projected
HOUSE OF VANISHED SPIENDOR. By
William McNally. New York: G. P. Put
nams Sons
A NOVEL to sit with IN hours of aprreciative
pleasure. I'm talking now about the
workmanship Of this story. I know There
seems to be a glow. entirely Fictitious, about
the novelist who turns off his stuff between
breakfast and dinner. Well. it reads that
way, too. And there are thousands too many
of this kind
Here. instead. is story in whose company
is rather proud to be found. An amazing
amount of skilled and engrossed work has gone
into it. story of the great Northwest North
ern Minnesota and its neighborhood The
opening up of this region when emgrant set
Tiers added to the moving population of French
Canadian voyageurs, fur-trading in that AREA.
The romance centers upon the family of
John Victor Knott, prosperous realtor, he would
be called today, who at Swans Wing, cliff
perohed above the Mississippi, lived in feudal
state reminiscent of the Southern plantation