Evening star., 1932-05-13
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

The best novel Of 1882 to date?
That is as impossible question te
answer as which bird is the prettiest
or which variety Of gladiolus the mos1
charming.
The reader who asked 1t Of us might
as well have asked what Is the name ol
the greatest march in musical history
or who is the greatest base ball player
who ever lived.
Foot ball authorities seem pretty vel
agreed that Jim" Thorpe, the Indian
was the best all-around foot baller who
ever played.
But there were plenty of other ex-
perts, when that opinion was garnered
to disagree with the verdict.
When one comes to books, and espe-
cially to fiction, it is not possible to
call any one book the greatest"
What one can do, however. Is to say
which story one personally found the
most entertaining and delightful.
n X
This novel, for us, Is Call Home the
Heart" by Fielding Burke Oongmans
Green).
This story, like so many others in the
history OF the novel, Is particularly
good because Of its chief feminine
character, Ishma, a mountain girl.
This does not mean that it does moi
have other virtues. For sustained in
terest there are few recent productions
which have made such an appeal to this
reader, and he is rather severe in hi,
judgments, too
II novel does not please us by tive
or three chapters, We put 1t down, never
to take 1t up again.
There are too many fine works in the
world, too many which we, as every
reader. will miss, to spend ones time
Wadlng through book which does not
hold ones interest by sheer impact oi
mind on mind.
The story must be there. first of all
II IL Is story we are reading.
4
This is q fair attitude, and Call
Home the Heart" amply met the test.
But more than that, Ishma was the
girl who won this readers heart, as we
feel reasonably sure she will almost
every other reader.
BOOK girls, to be real girls must have
q definite feminine charm about them.
At the same time the author must
abstain from telling the reader how fine
she is, how charming, how beautiful or
how ''peppy."
He must let these matters take care
OF themselves, as they will, If he knows
his work.
What the lady does, what she saws
these will speak louder than all the
words the novel writer can muster.
The character, one feels, happily
| enough, Is telling the author, not the
author telling the character what to do
and say.
y y y
Tch Trh d l.
| girl, who is just queer enough to be
delightful book company. In reality
she is not very unusual, but simply one
OF the human beings who refuses to
accept life as 1t comes without question
For her. everything must be put
through the strainer of the human
mind before it takes on that validity
| which facts often have for other types
of human beings.
Now this Is one Of the fundamental
, splits in human character. Every one
! must take q stand, either consciously or
unconsciously. There Is no middle
ground. One either dares to think, or
he does not attempt it.
Thomas Paine was not writing about
bodies when he said, These are times
which try mems souls"
He meant souls.
AT CcfIaln peiiooS III iIstoly you al
either your own man or somebody
elseS man.
II X \
Ishma our book girl is not content
| to be a mountaineer woman. toiling
through the years, bearing children,
without thinking 1t all over as she goes
along and testing her own life by mind
and heart.
She is her own woman before she is
Brett's.