Evening star., 1932-09-04

Garden City, ". Y Doubleday, Doran 6E
~ HELTER-physical. social, personal
necessities, all three, that have kept
step with the rise of man in response
to his need for protection and Sc
curity.
Primitive contrivances to SHIELD from
many weathers issued, finally, in architecture
and its allied arts. The first groupings Of
men for common safety, service, COMP nonship,
became the nucleus from which rose the mod
ern social structure. Personal inner protec-
ton is an instinct against maraudings of the
curious, against assaults upon ones self-pos-
session
richest novel derives broadly from these fun
daxnentals OF material and spiritual shelters
The sanctuary of self. Cleared from old
and ciutterirg ents nglements of time and cir
cumStance. the story, for point and drama
moves up toward the present and becomes part
Of the social tradition of Virginia A traai-
tion broken. in large measure, by two great
wars. One, destroying that institution upon
which was reared an ar-Socracy of the South
The other, an even greater emancipation to
individual outlook and enterprise.
The Virginia village of Gueensborough is the
physical setting of ''Th- Sheltered Life" as
it has been for another novel by Miss Glasgow
So, We Immediately feel at home there Dis
tinctly marked now is the trespaSs of trade
and industry upon the ordered leisure of old
QueensbcFough. Strange smells and smoking
stacks of factories penetrate to tie aloef and
aging macsions OF the town. New ideas are
stirring. new ways appearing. The carrier shell
terS and SeciaSionS are weakening
However. the true background of this story
Is spiritual the reminiscent mind Of an old
man re-creating the past. as he views the
present and the future with many a question
many twinge of anxiety. Around this fine
gentleman, Gen. Archbald, is his fsniIy women
and uirfo prue
granddaughter, Jenny Blair Archibald n child
facing the new era, Across the way the
BtfasongS Eva and her husband George
These, in the main, carry on out Of the past
inss fading present and forward toward a
bewiidering future
Upon the background of memory. Gen Arch
bald, through many muSing hour, rebuilds
the past. his own youth and with 1t those pleas
ant baronisl days of the earlier South Days
when men were knights of chfvalry and women
were OF a loneliness indescrihable Frail things
To be sheltered by the watchfuI gaIlsntry of
their men, Thesf stfif dreaming in his chair
his mind would slip across the street where
George ard Esa Bfrdscng lived Eva an almost
perfect evoestfon Of that past of beautiful
dependent and sdering women. A need for
oaegssion from her male, of protection of de
-votfoa to her womsnaeo5 Suggestive of legend
1s Eva Birdsong. Growing thin and futile,
too as legends do. George Birdsorg is of today
rowing eye ard bidding smile. Devoted to the
lovely wife, but STRIP ahead of the sheltering
day for womankind And of course this
breaks the heart Of the beautiful Southern girl
OF tradition who has strayed over into this
era Jennie Bsair Archibald is. frankly of the
future. A. child, all she knows is that she Is
Med wish joy at being here right now I'm
alive. alive, alive" she goes singing So it is
with this little girl, IS the years come along
tnee part OF the tragedy plays itself toward
an end. Shut in, sheltered as she has been
Al her HE by the chnsing customs of the
.fanaiiy and the locality, stilL emancipation is
in the new airs that are biowing-and friendly
George Birdseng lives only across the way
All expansive story whose wide-reachings
bring the past up close to the present so close
as to give giimpseS of different future to the
srSdftoned South. In this respect the novel
savors OF history itself, social history Realism
In respect to people, to the characters carry
ing on here is outs. .anding in this work
Knowing the human, wise to his ways tolerant,
respectful amused and fntulgent engrossiugIy
concerned with him, Miss Glasgow has by
way of The Sheltered Life" again made a
period OF Southern life vivid, objective and
most interesting. by way Of distinguished
competency in the crestive art of the novel
TROPIC SEED BY Alec Waugh, author of
"The Loom OF Youth etc. New York:
Farrar & Rinehart. Inc.
G URPASSING Nothing short of this! A
- tale 800 years long of the Caribbean Is
lands. Seed ground. these. of the slave trade
to America, of slavery itself in the New World
An enterprise that ravaged the African coast
and built an immense carrying trade in black
ivory between that continent and America An
industry encouraged by Gcds chosen people in
Western Europe and in this country. more than
likely under some miSsionizing hocus- poeus
wherein God and Mammon clasped hands in
fellowship against heathen world
Economy is the first demand upon an author
in a record three centuries old. Responding to
this requirement, Alec Waugh sounds not a lit
tie like the Book of Genesis The generations
of Adam were this and this The genera