Evening star., 1933-10-21
THE LIBRARY TABLE
BY SARAH C. BONERMAN.

THE HoMEsyCK MILLION. Russia-
out-of- Russia. BY w. Chaplin Hunt
tngton. Boston: The stratford
Co.
1.-TWO thousand Russian oficers and
professional men drive taxis In Paris"
terest formerly was court society. has
educated her son and daughter and
now supports her blind mother and
invalid husband BY giving manicures
and selling silk stockings." 'The nifty
nine Romanovs Of 1915 have been
reduced to little more than half as
many. The old are dying Oh, the
young are marrying commoners or
aSistocrsts not Of ruling houses. The
countries Of the Old and the New
World" These sentences from Mr..
Huntinston's book paint the tragedy Of
the Russian refugees, those who were
SO unfortunate as to be unable to pass
the proletariat test. Mr.. Huntington,
formerly commercial attache Of the
American embassy in Petrograd, was
presented to Tsar Nicholas II two months
before his abdication. He witnessed
the Russian revolution Of March, 1917,
and knew personally most Of the mem
bers of the Kerensky government. He
was In PetrogrAd at the fall Of Kerensky
and the beginning Of the dictatorship
Of Lenin and Trotsky. He saw the i'm
poverishment and terrorizing Of many
Of his friends and acquaintances, the
| exodus Of those who were able to es-
cape from their country, and some
years later, in Paris and the United
States, met numbers Of his exiled Rus
sian friends and learned their out-of-
Russia histories and. their longing for
their country. which Is no longer their
Russia. Because Of Its wealth Of In
formation, not general but detailed. and
its clear narrative method, Mr.. Hunt
ington's book Is Q valuable addition to
the literature about Russia since 1914.
There Is temptation to quote from 1t
at length the stories Of individual Rus
slams of culture and high social posi-
ton who have shown their fundamental
strength Of fiber by refusing to be
crushed by their debacle.
GODS TENTH. BY Doreen Wallace.
New York: Harper & Brothers.
| The struggle Of man with the soil has
always been one Of the fundamental
struggles Of life and as such has been
reflected in literature from very early
time. In the anonymous romance OF
the 18th century, "Aucassin and Nicol-
ette." q group Of peasants discuss their
raj elements and the greed Of their
overlords. Some Of the best Of modern
novels have had the same theme, such
as Knut Hamsun's Growth Of the
Soil," Ladislas Reymont's Peasants
and Sheila Kaye-Smith's Sussex
Gorse." The capriciousness and harsh
ness Of Nature Is the same in all Pc
RODS; the feudal overlord has been re-
placed by the modern tax collector
Doreen Wallace's young farmer, An
thony Harden, and his wife Laura
might have won in their struggle with
the land, in spite Of Anthony's close
Lauras broad and urban Incompatible
ity, in spite of the acts Of God which
manifested themselves as blight. frost
and drought, if it had not been for the
tithes. The last straw, coming in addi-
ton to other taxes, Is the tithe for the
national church-God's tithe. When
the Hardens become almost over
whelmed and Anthony's health has
failed, Laura attends tithe protest
meeting. Like the rest of the impover-
ished audience, she Is not ENJOYING be-
ing uncivil to the church. but they are
all at the point Of ruin.
|
with the protesting parishioners. IT'D
like to get my pay" he says to Laura
from the voluntary contributions OF
those who still loved q church disestab-
ushed and disendowed-we'd know how
the religious life Of the country stood
If that were so; we'd get RIO OF tnis
awful apathy. I dare say wed
get less pay, but we'd get what oul
people felt we deserved" In the end
Anthony falls behind on tithes and al
his other charges, because England's
agrarian prosperity has collapsed. He
chooses voluntary Liquidation instead o.
bankruptcy, and he and ms fanny
move into a small house with a few
acres around it, which he Is able te
retain from the sale. Middle aged
they look ahead to o life devoid OF pros
perity, In which they will be able to &c
little for their children, but when they
take stock of the wreckage, they dH'
cover they still have more than they
have lost. They realize that IN spite ol
ali the difference in temperaments, the
Misunderstanding, all the petty un'
kindnesses, all the unnecessary quarrels
all the withholding OF comfort, tne!
possess for each other an abiding lovt
which almost surprises them GOO
Tenth" Is q story of sane, quiet reansm
With a KEYNOTE Of courage and stability
well conceived and well written.
THE MERE LIVING. BY B; Bergso1
spiro. New York: Frederick a
stokes Co.
| Miss spiro is related TO Henry Berg
son, French philosopher, and to Malce
Proust, leading French exponent OF TN
mper-analytical stream OF conscious
ness type Of fiction. In this. her nfst
novel something Of Marcel Prousti
method appears, but in its brevity ant
simplicity it Is q long way from "A ia
recherche du Temps Perdu." The It'll
/ Was suggested by q line In Browning
"How good Is mans life, the mere Nv
ing" But the goodness Of mere nvinl
is not strikingly evident in Miss Spiro'
account Of q day in the life Of tn
Sullivan family. Henry Sullivan. Esq
opens his morning mail grumpily, espe
cially when he notices that one OF nj
two letters Is lone Of those final notic'
insults" from the company which fur
nishes his household gas. The othe
letter is for his daughter Nancy, practi
tioner in beauty parlor, whose face n
slaps at dinner time because she refuse
to tell him where and how she ha!
sbent her free afternoon. The day o
the Sullivans is divided into four part!
by the simple measuring rod OF mea
times-breakfast time, lunch time, te'
time and dinner time. At breakfas
Mrs. Sullivan wonders why her huS
bands false teeth click 50 disagreeabl
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