Evening star., 1934-10-14
BY SARAH BOWERMAN

journalistic gift in interviewing and
gives the stories of many men and
women whom she met and questioned
in prison and in carrying on her work.
Her style is vivid and informal, such
as might be used in intimate letters.
y 4
THE AGE OF CONFIDENCE. Life
in the Nineties. By Henry Seidel
Candy. Illustrated by Albert
Kruse. New York: Farrar g.
Rinehart.
WITHOUT satire, such as Edith
Wharton employed in her
novel, The Age Of Innocence" but
with the attitude Of the social his
torian, DR.. Candy delightfully."- re-
cords his own recollections of the life
OF the nineties in small city on the
Delaware River, whose pioneer ante
cedents were Quaker. It was an
age Of confidence" as 1t appeared to
a boy and young man; he disclaims
knowing anything Of how the girls
felt about our golden age of roman
tic relationship" but probably a
thoughtful girl would have felt much
as he did. 1t was an age of COM
Portable security, Of intense re-
spectability, Of confident conven-
tion," of laissez-faire. Life in the
Delaware city was probably much like
that in many other American cities
OF similar size, except that, on the
border between North and South, it
possessed characteristics of both sec
tions.
The society Of DR.. Canby's boyhood
was bourgeois" though the word
was not banded about then as it is
today. The best people in Whining
ton had family histroy; the plain
people" had none, or at least had no
sense of 1t. The houses were
"squarish," of red or painted brick,
heavily corniced, with porches, iron
fences to separate lawns, and tree
lined brick sidewalks before them.
They were large enough to accommo-
date the children and innumerable
play-fellows in their big rooms and
back yards, and were well supplied
with Negro servants, who were the
childrens friends. The man who
could not support good home and
the woman who could not keep it well
were scorned, not tacitly, by their
neighbors. The father of the family
was not infreQuently an autocrat,
but was also not infrequently man
aged Subtly by his dependent wife.
Homes were usually peaceful, chill
dren were deferential and parents
liberal. Society was simple, religion
was accepted but had lost its fire,
education was believed to be the in
evitable result Of going to school and
was not yet highly specialized. Sex
was not discussed and there were not
as many victims Of supposed repres-
sions as there are today, probably
because they were fortunate in not
knowing what was the matter with
them. There seems to have been less
appendicitis, tool" In his whimsical
and sagacious description Of one sec
ton of life in the last decade Of the
nineteenth century, DR.. Candy has con-
tributed something to the historical
material of the period, but, more i'm
portant, he has written a gratifying
piece of literature which, his best
work, will enhance his reputation as
one of our leading American es-
SayiStS.
\ \
TPRKESTAN REUNION. BY Flea
nor Holgate baltimore. Decora-
tions by Eleanor Frances Latti-
more. New York: The John Day
Co.
ELEANOR HOLGATE ELATTIMORE,
wife of Owen baltimore, authori-
tative writer on Far Eastern affairs,
is convinced that 1t is perfectly safe,
and pleasant, for a woman to travel
alone in the unsettled parts Of China,
Siberia and Turkestan, because of
the gallantry Of men Of all types
along the way. We are inclined to
add as Q postscript, provided the
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