Evening star., 1933-03-19

all the year. but for Horace Prescott that would
De burial alive. She is willing to spend her days
over the interests of her husband and children
and the limited activities of a luxurious New
YORK apartment, with occasional game of
contract or visit to the hairdresser but one
thing she does wish fer in her hours Of intelli-
gent, whimsical thinking-that her family
might be aware Of her as a personality and
not lcok upon her merely as needed assistance
in the satisfaction Of their greedy demands.
Hardy Perennial' IS not a tragedy, not
problem novel. 1t is novel of reality as it is
lived by thousands of women even in these days,
when the completely self-sacrificing doormat
woman Is very much thing of the past.
Miss Hulis art Is perhaps best demonstrated by
her skill in making her reader enter at each
phase into Ccrnelia's thoughts and feelings;
for example, her exultation in the cold air from
the snow-covered hills and the smell Of wood
smoke as she walks a.ong the Vermont road
from the school where she has been visiting her
sick son, and her outraged feelings when, on
an unexpected visit to her ccuntry place on
the shore, she di-covers there her college
daughter camping cut with her recently
acquired husband CT Wi,om the family have
as yet no knowledge The repetition Of petty
details, however realistic scmetimes becomes
wearisome, as the showing of colored Maggie's
8oV tccti, tuS Oh ASH Trays tne
drawing of water for baths. the manipulation
Of lounging robes (Cornelias velvet, Horace's
broadcloth), and the reiterated boundings and
barkings Of the dog Wilful, which convince
us more than ever that city apartment is
no place for dog. But this may be carping
criticism, and whole-hearted dcg lovers may
enjoy the omnipressnce of Wilful and not feel
as Horace Goes, that he is nuisance. Hardy
Perennial is more than a light novel Its
philosophy is that of Cornelia's reflection: It's
that something irrev bic persists in my rela-
tion to him, persists between any man and
woman, between two human beings who have
made a relation. You can never escape it.
know now the penalty for faithlessness Not
to be on hand. You wanted 1t reciprocal,
this being on hand. But you weren't let out
yourself becaue you saw no shelter for your
own despair"
THE ENCHANTED WINTER. BY Martin Hare.
New York: Harper g. Bros.
THE first few pages Of The Enchanted Win
ter" bring to reader the delight Of dis
covery. Here is novel that has delicately
ironic humor understanding of human motives,
enough Of sentiment but no sentimentahty.
Here Is q novel which is not prudish but does
not aim to shock the sensitive by being ruth
lessly frank. Here is a novel whose style still
recognizes the fundamental usages of good
English. As the second Miss Palliser lies in
her warm bed in Klmartin rectory at $50 in
the morning and wonders whether she may
have q headache and absent herself from the
usual breakfast porrdge, unpalatable. and &C.
companied by her mothers reminder that there
are plenty Of poor children in large cities who
would be delighted to have the chance Of eating
1t" we hnd ourselves entirely in sympathy with
her and, a little later quite at home with the
whole Palliser family. The family consists Of
Rev. Ralph Palliser who ''rebuked his children
out Of sense of obligation and not because he
enjoyed it, as his wife did, the aforementioned
wife and four children who hates the
idea that she is 81; Dee, the only son, who is
nightly admitted to the house at small hour
by the next sister, Elizabeth. 16 to whom it
never occurs that it Is "Dee's privilege to look
after his own neck" and Clodagh, Is, altogether
too sophisticated for her age and "a liar who
drew none Of the usual distinctions between the
lies that everybody tells and the lies that nobody
ought to tell"
As visitor to this engaging family comes
Philip Silver, "a kind of seventh cousin" from
Liverpool. He enters into the absurd doings Of
the domestic and limited social circle and be-
comes interested in the revolutionary political
activities in this Ireland of 1920-21. IF you
woke in the night (or, more often, lay awake)
and heard the drumming of a motor car on
Cne IOdO you wondered II IL was your
turn to be shot at, burnt out. taken to an un-
known destination as the saying then went, or
otherwise inconvenienced." When the "en-
chapted Winter is over and Philip returns to
the bank in Liverpool where he earns his living
Dee says to him, as they wait for the train:
"Odd how you appeared out of the blue last
November and none Ct us had ever heard Of
you before. And now none of them will ever
be quite the same again. .. The people who
hadn't heard Of you in November The
parents, Frances. Lcok what you've done to
Frances. Jagoe: Clodagh." The several love
affairs remain incipient, but that does not dis
appoint US: for the charm Of the book is not
keyed up to intense emotion. Martin Hare" Is
the pseudonym of Zoe Girling, daughter of .
Protestant clergyman of County Cork, Ireland,