Evening star., 1935-03-17
Bv Sarah B0cverman.

IN ABOUT the middle of his novel
of over 900 pages Thomas Wolfe
supplements the key which he has
given in his subtitle. He says:
Mans youth is wonderful
thing; it is so full of anguish and of
magic and he never comes TO know 1t
as it is until it has gone from him
forever" Contrasting with the anguish
of youth is Mr. Wolfe's terrible pic
ture of diseased, hopeless, fearing old
age, as he describes the old men on
the hospital porch in Baltimore, where
Will Cant, father of Eugene, is slowly
and agonizingly dying. Mr.. Wolfe is
not the first who has written COM
paratively of the tragedy of life, early
and late. The Victorian Matthew Ar
mold wrote, less repulsively than Mr..
Wolfe, but with as great poignancy. of
Growing Old" and said in another
poem, youths Agitations," And sigh
that one thing only has been lent To
youth and age in common-discon-
tent"
"Of Time and the River is osten-
sibly the story of Eugene Cant
through a few years of his youth and
young manhood, during which he
leaves his home in Altamont, town
of the Southern mountains; goes to
Harvard, to New York, to oxford, to
France and Germany. and finally re-
turns to America, which has caused
him untold bitterness and repugnance,
but which is still his America. The
major course Of the story checks with
the events of Mr.. Wolfe's own life
and "Of Time and the River" may
probably be taken to be to a great
extent autobiographical. In fact, in
relating the unhappy experiences Of
Eugene while teaching in New York
City, Mr.. Wolfe once forgetS the f1c-
tional screen and says: Accord
ingly, the love letters which this great
nosed innocent now wrote to them, and
read to me, were extraordinary and
unwilling productions of defense and
justification" But "Of Time and the
River" is not one-man story; it is
too big for that Eugene is its CEN
ter, but it is also the story of his
drab little mother, his neurotic sister
Helen, his stammering brother Luke,
the rotten spot which would eventu-
ally destroy him; the earnest, bombas-
tic Abe Jones, the numerous young
women whom Eugene leaves but never
forgetS, and many others who cross
Eugene'S path and make an impress
sion on his susceptible and cropping
mind. Mr.. Wolfe's versatility and
penetration in character creation seem
unlimited.
Interrupting the narrative at inter
walls are prose lyrics, little essays. ex-
pressions of feeling which intensity
the very personal quality of the style.
Such are the paean to immortal
drunkenness. the ode to October. one
of the beautiful passages in a book
not too full Of beauty, and another
ode to the Hudson River, which
drinks from out of the inland
slowly; it is like vats that well with
purple and rich wine" Mr.. Wolfe's
eating scenes rival those of Dickens;
where food is concerned he is both
epicure and poet. There is the MASTER
piece of description of Eugene and
Starwick at the Posillipo restaurant in
Boston, ordering viands with the par
ticularity of gourmets, which to-
gether make up the regular table
d'hote meal, the only one served.
There is the raid on the refrigerator
when Eugene is visiting Joel Pierce
at his country home on the Hudson,
which produces "a noble roast of
beef "a plump broiled chicken" a
smokily pungent Austrian ham, vege-
tables in their CONCEALED butter, mel
Ions, berries and whole compartment
of cream. During these years of Eu-
genes life many luscious meals are
ordered and relished also many
times Eugene is hungry, both physi-
cally and spiritually. This second big
novel of Mr.. Wolfe shows a great
advance in maturity over his earlier
novel, Look Homeward, Angel"
which caused Sinclair Lewis to say
that Wolfe may have a chance to
be the greatest American writer" Mr..
Wolfe's work is strong meat. His
attack on life is fierce, bitter, de-
mandatory. He finds in it much that
is obscene, but also much of magic.
THE FOOL OF LOVE "a Life of
William Hazlitt). BY Hesketh
Pearson. New York: Harper &
Brothers.
COUNTED in his own day as one of
the chief English prose writer's,
member of the group intimate with
Coleridge, Wordsworth and Lamb,
William Hazlitt is an illustration of
the theory, recently reiterated by
Andre Maurois in his biography of
Dickens, that the private affairs of a
man of genius should not be too
severely judged by ordinary people.
Acceptance of that theory does not,
however. prevent authors from in
vestigating and readers from enjoying
all the scandals that can be unearthed
in connection with the lives of the
great or the prominent. That is why
Byron and Empress Elizabeth of Aus
tria are such popular subjects of
biography; why Tennyson and Long
fellow are so comparatively neglected
Mr.. Pearson, a brilliant writer, has
done only casual justice to Hazlitt's
work as an eSsayist and this Life can
hardly be considered complete
biography, because it is so centered,
with minute details, upon the one
love affair of Hazlitt's many which
unbalanced his unstable nature most
disastrously. The title, however, in
dicates the orientation of the book,
so neither readers nor critics have
cause for complaint. Such criticism
as Mr.. Pearson does give of Hazlitt's
essays is sound and untrammeled by
old conventions. He estimates his
minor essays, for example, more
highly than his more pretentious
works. characters Of Shakespeares
Plays" and the Life of Napoleon
Bonaparte," by which he is usually
known in histories of literature.
William HaZlitt was an Unsuitable
sensualist, to such an extent indeed
that he should probably be pro-
nounced mentally abnormal. One
romantic love affair followed another,
from his youth almost to his death,
always accompanied by an obsession
of inferiority on his part. Other
asSociotjonc neither romantic nor