Evening star., 1933-01-01

family partnership. In aduiIlon he DeSan
early to write, poetry at first, and was success
full from the very first poem BY the time he
was 43. 'Waverly,' the first of his long series of
novels, had just been published he had be-
come the owner of Abbotsford, had an unusually
large income for the time, and was considered
one of the most prosperous landowners of the
Tweed country.
Had Scott been content to remain country
gentleman and writer, he might perhaps have
lived to enjoy for many years longer Abbotsford
and the lands he was continually adding to
his estate But he made what proved costly
mistake when he conceived himself as buSi-
ness man. Friendship contributed to lead him
aStray in this respect. His secret partnership
in the printing business with his old grammar
school friend James Balantyne, in which Scott
furnished most of the money, was the begin
ming The establishment of a publishing house,
as branch Of the printing business, under
John Ballantyne, brother of James, was the
next step. The two ventures, as time went on
and the lack of financial ability on the part
of the Ballantynes became apparent, absorbed
all of the large sums which Scott made by his
writing. In 1926 came the financial crash in
which both the Ballantyne firm and Constable,
whose affairs were inextricably entanged, be-
came bankrupt Scott could have shared the
bankruptcy, personally, but he chose instead to
attempt to pay the creditors in full-that is, to
assume burden of debt which ultimately
crushed him. Thenceforth he knew no leisure,
but his life became a state of servitude to his
pen. MY own right hand shall pay my debt,
he said. and this literally accomplished.
Between 1926 and 1881 he wrote eight novels,
in addition to Tales of a Grandfather" and
a History Of Scotland" In 1882, the slave
of the lamp as Stephen Gwynn calls Scott.
released and happily at the end his mind
was so clouded that he thought his debts were
all paid-those debts which killed him and
which we're finally settled by the income from
,fC off I,Se rlaofh In
estimate of Scott Mr. Buchan Gays: Carlyle
spoke truth when he said that a sounder piece
of British manhood was not put together In
that eighteenth century of time"
THE NARROW CORNER. BY w. Somerset
Vaughan New York: Doubleday Doran
g. Co.
THE technique of "The Narrow Corner" is
backward moving Operating a lugger in
the Malay Archipelago is certain Capt Mich
OILS, whom we suspect from the start to have
had an unsavory past. His chronic dyspepsia
might easily be of the nervous type, due to an
uneasy conscience, but it turns out to be caused
by bad tceth-a lost opportunity on the part
of the author to point moral. On board the
lugger, as passenger or deck hand is a youth
called Fred Blake-we know that is not his
real name-who is so afraid of something
some one that he also obviously has past
from which he is trying to escape. With these
two, voyage from Takana to a regular
ship port, is a doctor whom Mr.. Vaughan has
drawn with great skill and sympathy. DR..
Saunders is kin to Sherlock HolmeS-world
weary, entirely dislusioned about humanity,
yet ready to help any individuals who need
him past all possibility of being shocked, COM
pletely self-dependent He is deliberate exile
from England. living among the Chinese of
Fu-chou. DR.. Saunders is summoned to Ia
kama to operate for cataract upon a wealthy
Chinese merchant and. when his patient Is on
the way to recovery, departs on the lugger.
The lugger stops, because OF a storm, at an
old Dutch settlement on one Of the Kanda Is
lands and there the already fated Fred brings
upon himself further tragedy. The episode of
the Dane Erik, who to his disastrous undoing
lives in his own ideals, and Louise Firth, out
wardy the perfection of girlish innocence, is a
story within the story. Through the converse
tions of DIR. Saunders and Capt. Nichols we
learn little about the life of the latter, except
that he Is thorough scamp and that he has
wife somewhere who always finds him. how
ever hard he has tried to conceal his where
abouts, and appears just as he has begun to
feel false security. Incidentally, she does ap-
pear at the end Of the story and remarks:
You want 3 shave If you ask me, captain"
After the tragedy at the Kanda Island Fred
confdes to the doctor the story of the crime
which has made him an exile. It is a pathetic
tale OF youth ensnared by maturity and of
youth repudiated by those responsible for its
existence. So. almost at the end OF the story,
we learn the mystery of Fred and know at the
same time that for him there Is no solution.
In its subtlety of style and vividness OF Far
Eastern atmosphere THE Marrow Corner" holds
the grade established by Mr.. Maugham's earlier
novels
BATH BY Edith Sitwell With a jacket
drawing by Rex Whistler. illustrated with
contemporary prints New York: Harrison
Smith & Robert Haas.
OATH of the eighteenth century was not all
- fashion and frivolity, swashbuckling gal
lants and fan-coquetting ladies' Miss Sitwell
tells us that the fine coat of Beau Nash '.hid