Evening star., 1933-12-16
THE LIBRARY TABLE
BY SARAH C. BOWERMAN.

THE CRIMSON QUEEN. Mary Tudor.
BY Daniel Henderson. New York:
Dufheld g. Green.
Bloody Mary" was in all early his
tories painted as a nightmare person.
ality, prosecutor of English Protestants,
treacherous sister to Elizabeth, who
after Mary's death became England's
popular Queen. hated by high and low
alike, both in England and on the con-
tinent. Modern historians have found
in her character much to balance this
earlier Judgment, much to excuse her
undoubted sins. "The Crimson Queen"
a large extent in gossip and scandal.
Mr.. Henderson does, however, attempt
to interpret Mary Tudor as a product
of heredity and environment. Henry
VIII was not father to pass on to his
children health either of body or mind
and Catherine Of Aragon, deeply relig-
ious and bigoted, ignored and insulted
at her husbands court, naturally took
refuge in her religion and brought up
her daughter in an atmosphere of
mingled suspicion and austere religious
observance. SO. Mary, shy and re-
pressed, learned before she became
Queen to be suspicious Of every one. She
also learned vengeance and practiced it
against the enemies Of her mother, but
her prosecutions, which gained her the
title bloody" were due not to ven-
geance. but to her intense belief that
England must be saved from the Prot
estantism newly established by her
father. Her marriage with Philip II of
Spain was intended to help in this re-
hgious salvation, but she also loved the
oour Philip, in spite Of the obvious in
dlfterence, even dislike, he felt for her
and his poorly concealed preference for
Elizabeth. whom he tried to marry after
Mary's death. THE Crimson Queen" is
written much in the style Of fiction, with
many domestic scenes which have local
color OF the period. Mr.. Henderson has
goodly list OF authorities consulted and
gives all the important political and
social facts OF Mary's period, but to her
character he supplies his own interpre-
tation.
OSCAR WILDE. BY G. J. RENIER
Ph. D. New York: D. Appleton-Cen,
tury Co.
The life of Oscar Wilde well illus
trates the rising and falling action of
a drama. From 1873, when the young
rHhman, Just down from Oxford, came
10 London and proclaimed himself a
professor Of esthetics," until 1892,
when he wrote Lady Windermere's s
Fan" lone of those modern drawing
room plays with pink shades" and short
ly found himself in possession of an in
come OF 5000 pounds, the action of his
HE was steadily r'zing. Soon after, the
railing action began and by 1895 he
was on the way to that physical de-
struction that would have come, even if
society and the law had not ordered the
catastrophe in an unexpected manner. 4"
DR.. Renter understandingly analyzes the
character of Oscar Wilde in all its con-
tradictions. He was a devotee of the
cult of beauty, a new thing in Victorian
England, almost revival Of the Ital-
ian Renaissance. There was in his de-
votion a mixture Of the genuine and a
pose. His conversation was brilliant
but never weighty; he cared more for
the phrase than for its content. He
appreciated excellence and sanity of
conduct in others but was unable for
himself to avoid cheapness, ostenta-
ton, vanity, and arrogance. He had
the artistic temperament without great
artistic gifts. Fundamentally, he was
unstable, incapable of any but an emo
tional response at a crisis. His perver-
sion has been made the subject of study
by many psychiatrists. With his COM
plete debacle and his prison term, the
remnants of his personality went to
pieces. On his release he took refuge
in France, where he was ostracised by
English residents. All the interest which
was shown in him was that of morbid
curiosity. His health declined rapidly
and he died in 1900. DR.. Renier, who
is Dutch historian. residing in Lon
don, has concentrated on the person,
ality of Oscar Wilde and has attempted
little in the way of criticism of his
plays and verse What he does say con-
veys the impression that his opinion is
that of most critics, namely. that Oscar
Wilde's literary work is mediocre and
would have attracted little attention but
for his exotic personality and the scan-
dal of which he was the center.
SOUTHERN MAIL BY Antoine de
Saint Exupery. Translated by Stuart
Gilbert. New York: Harrison Smith
e. Robert Haas.
This is NJ de Saint Exupery's second
face its dangers and meet its surprises
His first. Night Flight" appeared about
a year ago. Many young men are turn
ing to flying for the adventure 1t offers
or for commercial advantage. Few see
in it epic and romantic literary signlh-
canoe as this French aviator-author
has seen it. To him the air is a mystic,
poetic medium, with its unexpectedness
of fogS and currents and storms
Southern Mall opens with night in
the Sahara, which ''raveled out its sands
under the moonbeams." The airmail
from Toulouse into Africa is late. AT
the French post Of Capt JUDY. far away
in the desert. the friend Of Jacques
Bernis. the pilot. is receiving anxious
staccato telegraphic messages from air
ports along the route regarding the
whereabouts of the mail plane. We
know that disaster threatens, has per,
haps already happened. The method
employed in telling of the last flight
of Jacques Bernis and of the sad fu-
tility of his love for Genevieve is eluS-
i've, irregular, moving backward and
forward, always poetic. His plane is
shot down by Arabs in the desert and
the tragic end is told by the final mes
sage which reaches Cape JUDY: Saint
Louis Senegal to Toulouse. France
America mail located East Timerous
stop bullet holes in controls stop hostile
forces in vicinity pilot killed machine
damaged mail intact proceeding Dakar. u
In the intervals of messages, the whole
story of the love and of the details OF
the last flight of Bernis is told. His
friend mourns him: Last night, Bernis,
you lay out on this dune, your arms
spread wide, your eyes fixed on the dark
blue gulf and villages of stars. How
lightly then your body weighed upon
the sand! That one frail thread.
my friendship, was too weak to hold
you. Like an unfaithful shepherd ]
fcreswore my trust, and slept"
y
RADETZKY MARCH. By Joseph Roth.
Translated by Godfrey Dunlop.
New York: The Viking Press.
The Trottas were a new family. Their
Yrosnoritu horoy, uit1, the Rattle 0f G0l-