Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1932-05-29
PANAMA IS BURNING. BY Philip Lindsay.
New York: Farrar d. Rinehart.

New York: Farrar d. Rinehart
4 IUCH the larger part of history Is pure ad-
W. venture To be sure, later, many Of its
achievements and facts settle to the drab
brieties of innumerable sober accountings. But,
In the making, history is action, adventure the
gain loss Of individual courage and daring.
So when . young writer thinks he wants to
work as a novelist in this particular field, what
better thing for him to do than 70 reach back
there or yonder or over there, for some figure
that did. in his day and hour. add to the long
story OF what man has done at one point or
another along the line Of human advance?
This. at any rate. is what Philip Lindsay did,
as many another before him has already done.
Looking across the world for some spot OF
reckoning some glamorous hero to command
he caught Sir Henry Morgan, buccaneer, In the
very act of marching the narrow, tangled
isthmus, on his way to despoil the rich old
Spanish town of Panama.
And this is the stuff Of which he made q
pirate story. The brutal band hungry, latter
demalion, ferocious; the jungle no less relent-
less and rapacious; the jeweled city across the
bitter stretch: the peaceful citizens, the great
governor and his lovely daughter-even pirates
run aground all too soon II there be not lovely
daughters here and there for revivals and re-
heartenings. All these are gathered and ar
ranged. They are pointed with battle and re-
prisal with love episodes, with treacheries and
intrigues with the full count Of pirate proceed
ings as these have been perpetuated in history
and legend, in folk tale and sheer makebe-
heve
But. overpacked with incident and color and
marvel as it may be- the novel sounds like fact.
And that Is the whole matter. One who can
make myth read like the Bible, one who can
turn fable into truth by the necromancy of
stringing words together in exactly the right
way, one who can beguile the dull hours OF
common existence with dreams that fit, rain
bow-hued out of the heaven Of fancy, one even,
who can turn the old years Of daring over to
the drab day Of accepting-why, that one has
written story, for you and for me
An artist, this Philip Lindsay. His father is.
You know Norman Lindsay. Well, let us have
another one. 1t is good family from which
to expect things.
CLERICAL ERROR. BY Anthony Rolls. Bos-
ton Little, Brown & Co.
III lP to quarter past 3, Mr.. Pardicott might
- have been described the gentlest Of
rural clergymen; at 20 minutes past he was a
criminal of the most dangerous kind In
dizzy moment Of revelation he saw that he had
been chosen to be the destroyer Of Col. Cargoy."
Now, "a soldier demilitarized is about the
most helpless and the most useless thing on this
good earth" That was Cargoy. Yet, you can
not have D. S. o. in the community without
putting him on the parish council. Cargoy
again. A nuisance. bore. An obstructionist
pattering rain Of talk Of what he did at the
battle of Arras Unbearable, was till revela-
ton showed Rev. Pardicott his clear duty to
the public.
scholarly man, Gregory Virgil Pardicott
given to research primarily in the interests Of
his profession, but In almost equal measure to
any Of his projects. And here, certainly, was .
project If ever there was one. So, long and