Evening star., 1934-01-20
THE LIBRARY TABLE
BY SARAH C.. BOWERMAN.
THE STRANGE LIFE OF LADY
BLESSINGTON. BY Michael Sad
leir Boston: Little Brown & Co.

THE STRANGE LIFE OF LADY
BLESSINGTON. BY Michael Sad
leir. Boston: Little Brown 6 Co.
The Lawrence portrait Of Lady Bles-
| sington in the Wallace Collection, Lon
| DON shows face Of rather childlike
beauty. without subtlety, looking gently
| and truStfully out at the world. Per-
haps the artist idealiZed; perhaps Cic-
ero was deluded when he said: The
countenance is the index Of the mind"
Certainly at the period Of the portrait,
about 1920, when Lady Blessington was
| just past 80, she was, according to all
reports far from being innocent or
! chIldlike. Mr.. Sadleir, who has already
in his Edward and Rosina," the story
of the unhappy marriage Of Bulwer-
| Lytton, joined the ranks Of the writers
i Of the new biography. writes Of the
| tragic life of Lady Blessington not only
sympathetically, but defensively. He
| considers that through the marriage
| with the brutal Maurice st. Leger Far
mer, into which she was forced at IS by
her drunken and impoverished father,
she became incapable Of love. though
by her beauty she continued all her life
| to arouse 1t. She remained with Far
| mer only three months and shortly
after to escape from both him and her
father, went to live with Capt Jenkins
Of the Light Dragons on his Hamp-
| shire estate. The Earl of Blessington,
/ meeting her there, decided that she was
| his ideal Of countess, offered jenkins
fl0 900 in compensation for his expendi-
lures upon her. installed her in house
OF her own, and started divorce pro-
ceedings on her behalf against Farmer,
A tYp Ia Hxyf fol
| from window while drunk and being
| instantly killed So Margaret Farmer
| became Lady Blessington.
! Travelling in Italy with her wealthy,
titled husband, Lady BleSsington be-
came the intimate friend of Byron ana
| Walter Savage Landor She had al
ready met In London the young Comte
d'Orsay. who later married one of Lord
| Blessington's daughters. Before the
marriage Of her stepdaughter took place
Lady BleSslngton was reputed to be the
mistress Of d'Orsay. Whether or not
this was true. scandal broke loose about
her when little later she returned to
London widow. Her attempted salon
was frequented by many prominent
men, but by no women. Her stepdaugh-
ter and d'Orsay separated, but her own
connection with him, always the sub
|
until her death, in Paris, after her
bankruptcy. She and d'Orsay are bur-
led side by side in a mausoleum in the
village Of Chambourcy. Mr.. Sadleir
finds In Lady Blessington not only
charm and brilliant mind. but also
nobility of character. He is much more
| charitable in his constructions than
other writer's have been. She appears
to him as a modern Aspasia.
| ~
A CENTURY AND ONE. Life Story of
william Robert Gambler BY Henry
E. Gambler. New York: G. P. Put
MANS Sons.
Rummaging about In his attic, Henry
Gambler, the son. came across the dia-
mes OF his father and his great-grand-
mother and collection of family
letters. On account Of them he found
himself caught up into the back cur
rents Of the past and, inspired by his
fathers 97th birthday, he undertook to
construct from the letters and diaries a
more or less coherent story of the past
| His book is the story of his fathers life
William Robert Gambler was born in
England, in 1882, shared his family's
struggles through the hungry 4Os," and
came with them, after a perilous sea
voyage. to America, just at the time of
the California gold rush. A tedious
journey brought them to primitive De-
troit," in 1849, when the city streets
were achieving the dignity of paving
with cobblestones. 1t was nearly 10
years later that the construction Of a
city sewer system was begun, to replace
the use Of the Savoyard River as an
open sewer This loosely Joined tale of
| the life OF William Robert Gambler Is.
| from this point on, equally the tale of
Detroit. Before the Civil War Detroit
was on the line of the UNDERGROUND
Railroad and the Gambler family, like
many others. were quite likely to find
fugitive slaves hiding in their barn. The
problem thus presented was solved by
different householders according to
their personal prejudices or consciences
Some returned the slaves to their own
ers: others helped them on their way
to Canada. William Gambler risked the
penalties Of the fugitive slave law and
smuggled refugees on their way. The
Gamblers shared in the development OF
/ the shipping Of the Great Lakes. As a
tion business. they acquired a fleet OF
eight lake ships, which carried freight
between lake ports. The fragment OF
| industrial history contained in "A Cen
| tury and One" ends with a visit o1
Henry Gambler. in 1888, to the birth
place Of his father, Colchester, England
when he aligned himself with the mod
ern age by flying from Colchester tc
London.
THE DOLLAR, THE FRANC. AND IN.
! FLATION. BY Eleanor Lansing
Dulles. Phi. D. New York: The Mac
milan Co.
| Imitation, according to DR.. Dulles. will
| neither solve the debt problem nor bring
back prosperity. 1t will. in the Ions
run, make matters more dificult for the
small debtor: for the faster values are
changed the more the big financieI
prof1ts and the more the small one suf-
lers. stable domestic prices and stable
international exchanges are necessary
Tor q return OF prosperity. In 1929 DR.
Dulles published The French Franc. .
which shows thorough knowledge OF
postwar imitation in France She holds
in this present book that the situation
in the United States today resembles
the earlier situation in France. In
| France debts were the chief cause of
inhationarys theory and measures, but
results have been disastrous to all the
! thrifty classes. She asks II the United
States cannot profit by the experience
OF France and avoid some of the suf-
fering and loss brought about by the
weak financial policy. In connection
with control of imitation, she says: "Al-
most all conceivable methods of limiting
f1uctuation were either tried or pro-
posed. Many Of them seemed to be
effective for short times, others created
an effect exactly opposite to that which
was intended. None of them inspired
confidence for any prolonged period, be-
cause the changes in policy and the
fluctuations in value undermined the
effect Of the more constructive govern
ment intentions at some Of the critical
moments" Her conclusion is that 1T