Evening star., 1934-11-25
In the World of Books

I pleasant hours browsing through
Chaucer's 14th century with Mr..
Sedgwick.
WHAT I LIKE IN POETRY. BY
William Lyon Phelps. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons.
THE principle of selection in this
anthology is not subject matter
or mood poetical form, nationality,
historical period or author type, but
simply the taste of critic well known
to all the American public. Those
who do not like this haphazard meth
3D." says Mr.. Phelps. have the priv
ilege of disliking it; and to those
who do not like the name of the VOL
ume I will merely reply in the words
of Orlando: There was no thought of
pleasing them when it was chris
tened" The book is a companion
volume to the cordially received
What I Like" a prose anthology.
Translations have been omitted, be-
cause poetry is so difficult to trans
late If there is an attempt to pre-
serve matter, spirit and metrical
form. and because also there are
more great poems written in the Eng
lish language than in any other"
The triple index, of poets, titles and
first lines, work of the practical
scholar. shows both Mr.. Phelps cath
/ olic taste and his favorites. Brown
ing comes first with "a poems, and
Wordsworth second with II. Among
the older poets, Burns, Emerson, Her.
rick, Keats, Longfellow, Milton,
Shakespeare, Shelley, Stevenson and
Tennyson are represented by
goodly number; among the moderns,
Frost, A. E. Housman, E. A. Robin
son, Francis Thompson and Yeats.
MIR. Phelps evidently loves the older
poetry better, but does not believe
that all poetic impulse died with the
Victorian age.
X
VICTORIA, THE WIDOW AND HER
SON. BY Hector Bolitho. New
York: D. Appleton Century Co.
A FTER the passing of the idolized
- and idealized Prince Consort,
Queen Victoria became unifiedly the
queen, though Gladstone thought that
she sadly neglected her royal duties
and made himself unpopular by re-
spectfully prodding her to perform
them more aSsiduously, and the clever
Dlsraeli welcomed her frequent inertia
as an aid to his own power. The in
ertia was partly the result of increas-
ing years, but much more of her gen.
uine and carefully nursed grief for
Prince Albert. Mr. Bolitho's closeup
picture is here of the widow, the
widow who insisted that her eldest son
and heir to the throne should mold
himself in his fathers pattern, but in
sisted in vain. This volume is the Sc
quel to Mr.. Bolithos biography of the
Prince Consort, Albert the Good"
For both books he has had access to
the royal archives, which he has used
with discretion and perhaps under
some prohibitions, and to the recol-
lections of people still living Since
1925 he has lived at Windsor Castle
and has collaborated with the dean
of Windsor in various Victorian me-
moirS.
Mr.. Bolitho is not, however, a stilted
court chronicler; he is more of court
gossip, and writes most entertainingly
He shows us Queen Victoria, at IS,
sitting at the piano and singing. I'm
Called Little Buttercup." from H.
M. S. Pinafore'; vetoing the presenta-
ton of the execution of Mary Queen
of Scots in tableau by her ladies in
waiting; sitting in her rooms at Wind
sor, whose walls were covered with al
n1nSf C60 niPtnroc ooph afha u,ir
through which she looked at some
cherished memory" The reason why
the Prince of Wales did not please her
in his conduct, Mr. Bolitho says, was
that he was more like her than like
his exemplary father. Not until he
was A did the Queen permit him to
know of official decisions and changes
Of policy before they were publicly
announced 1.-THE old fear still haunt
ed the Queen; the fear that had begun
when the Prince Consort was yet alive;
that her son would usurp her hus-
bands place and thus jeopardize her
own" The gossip prevalent during the
Queens life, which has cropped up in
lationship with her Scottish servant,
olONIl, was SI1OJlOIldl, even lIldI LIleY
were secretly married, Mr.. Bolitho says
could not possibly have had any basis.
Her character was one of the great
est candor; she liked and trusted her
servants unreasonably. and she had
no regard for expediency, only for
right and wrong. She did yield to
expediency, however, when Lord Da-
wilson, dean of Windsor, her friend
and contidant, told her he would re-
sign from the deanery if she published
a memorial monograph she wrote on
Brown after his death. The mono
graph was not published.
BURMESE DAYS. BY George Orwell.
New York: Harper g. Bros.
KIPLING's India is one of high
~ minded British military and civil
officials, with few exceptions, for
Kipling is in part realist, but his
India of "the white mans burden" is
not the one Mr. Orwell has known
He was born in Bengal and in 1922
returned to India. after an English
education, to join the Indian Imperial
OllSC. I1C SCl NCo Dull 1Ol 1ltC
years. then resigned because he could
no longer stand putting people in
prison for the things he or any one
else would have been likely to do
under existing circumstances. In 1888
Mr.. Orwell wrote Down and Out in
Paris and London" his own expert
ences and observations as a voluntary
and an involuntary tramp. Since 1881
he has been at work on Burmese
Days" his first novel, and the result
shows not only complete saturation in
his subject but most finished work.
manship.
The stark truth which is Mr.. Orwell's
theme is the same as that of E. M
Forster in his Passage to India"-that
the race barrier between British and
Indians is insurmountable; but Mr..
Orwell handles his theme without even
such thin gloves as Mr. Forster wore
Parallel with the race antagonism,
which becomes a phobia in the lowest
type of British official, is the rapid
personality disintegration which takes
place in all but the strongest under
the influence of the isolated ingrOWing