Evening star., 1934-09-09
BY SARAH BOwERMAN

older than Emmanuel, whose love for
her begins before he is 80 and at
first seems like a case of calf love.
Their separation, for the hackneyed
reason of old-fashioned romance that
Juliet will not risk injuring his career,
is responsible for the permanent flxa-
ton Of his love. Juliet, on concert
tour in America or in her villa on
Lake Como, becomes an obsession with
him. Not even the high event of his
business career, when, as acting man
ager of Gollantz g. Sons, during his
fathers absence, he successfully bids
in for Gollantz and for England a
famous Reynolds for which America
is competing, can for long Danish
Juliet from his thoughts. So his mar
riage with Viva, another Of the Heriots,
is by Viva competently engineered
into the discard, for Viva is worldly
and not at all romantic and has an
other marriage in the ofing. 1t must
be confessed that the melancholy
Emmanuel, with his large sad eyes,
handsome, slightly Hebraic features,
and triply rolled "r's," a veritable
Werther of romance, becomes a trif1e
wearisome. His Juliet appears neither
clever nor in any way unusual, but
we are told that she is very beautiful.
Viva is more interesting. Most in
teresting of all are the elderly Max
and Angela, in their lifelong devotion
to each other, in her gallant efforts
and his pathetic inability to under
stand and make concessions to the
next younger generation. -Four Gen.
erations" is a novel far above the
average in character portrayal and
general workmanship, If it does not
quite reach the level of the master
pieces in the genealogical type.
" n y
THE OLDEST INHABITANT. BY
Eden Phillpotts. New York: The
Macmillan Co.
THOMAS OTTER is another Of
Eden Phillpotts' Devonshire
ancients, of whom he has in late
years, like Joseph Lincoln with his
Cape Cod worthless, produced some
thing of surfeit. If old Toms age
is, as he claims, 88, he has an un-
usually intriguing mind for his years
not at all the philosophic mind of the
superior old man nor the mind con-
cerned only with physical comforts OF
the inferior old man. He is so much
more clever than his son and grand.
children that he furnishes them with
the ideas for managing their daily
lives and then carries out most OF
the ideas. His grandson, the village
Communist, who is rescued from the
just consequences Of his own be-
havior only because he happens to
be as handsome as MichelangeIo's
statue Of David, calls old Tom "a
silly old blue bottle" Sidney Bun
clark, a youth in his sixties, Toms
friend and companion at draughts for
half century, estimates him more
correctly than do his family when
he says to him: IT don't wish to say
anything unkind, but a artfuller and
more utterly devious and downy ole
man than what you are don't draw
breath, Tom"
John Otter, old Toms son, q
widower, and a thatcher long out Of
work because the Devon farmers and
villagers have come to prefer states
to thatch, has never had enterprise
enough either to learn a new trade
or to find a new wife. The two
granddaughters, Amanda and Henri.
eta, have both been cleverer thar
their father and have found them.
selves prospective husbands, but there
are difficulties. Old Tom straighten.
these out, finds both a wife and some
money for his son John, and, by 9
shifting Of matrimonial candidates
manages also to supply his FRIEND
Sidney Bunclark with a wife, though
Sidney is by no means certain that