Evening star., 1935-01-12
THE LIBRARY TABLE
BY SARAH G.. BOWERMAN.
OPINIONS LITERARY AND 9TH
ERWISE. BY Hen1y w. Taft. New

Of1N1ONS LII E4AnO8 AN0 SA1-
ERWISE. BY Hen1y W., Taft. New
York: The Macmillan Co.
! It is as bibliophile and philosopher,
not as lawyer, that Mr.. Taft has from
time to time been writing these es-
says, not the first of his published
works. Having passed the biblical
limit Of three-score years and ten
and still having the strength" with
out the 'labour and sorrow" Of the
Psalmist, Mr.. Taft sits back and re-
fleets on the world Of the past and
the world today, on genealogy, on
books, music and drama, on old age.
The tone of his comment Is mellow,
tolerant, kindly, though not alto
gether uncritical. If I have occa-
sionally drifted into ironical or CEN
serious expressions, they have not
been actuated> by any feeling of bit
terness or intolerant impatience. They
have, on the contrary, been based on
honest conviction, though sometimes
unconsciously affected, perhaps even
straitened, by attachment to stand
ards and customs prevailing in earlier
generations"
The first two chapters are about
genealogy in general and the geneal-
ogy of the Taft family, with episodes
| and oddities" Mr.. Taft records that
in the fourth generation in this coun-
try an exceptional woman was brought
into the Taft family by marriage,
lone Hannah, of whom a descendant
writes that she was Scotch woman
| of CRATE strength. 1t is said she could
take up barrel of whisky and drink
| out Of the bung g-hole-indicating not
| only strength, but an irrepressible
craving, which, according to the fam
lily history is singularly absent in the
Taft race, despite their Caledonian
origin" In the chapter, Formal
| Autobiographies and Informal Ex
| ploitations," Mr.. Taft expresses his
unfiattering opinion of the autobio-
graphies which are ''the offspring Of
an exaggerated ego, manifested
through the pen Of highly paid ghost
writer's" In discussing Books" he
ranges from don Quixote" and Iris
tram Shandy," whose originality and
charm he finds time unable to stale,
to Tolstoi's Anna Karenina" and
1 wal dllo 3ChCCt Nll1IIl OOullNo
among the greatest fiction. He closes
this chapter with a quotation from
the astronomer. Sir John Herschel:
"Give a man this taste for reading
and you can hardly fail Of making him
happy man." The final chapter,
"Observations on Old Age Suggested
by Views of Cicero, Montaigne and
Schopenhauer," contains a cheerful
philosophy, which includes not only
useful activities, but "any kind Of
frivolity which gives momentary en-
| joyment or excites pleasant emotions,
without effort and without weariness." T"
Mr.. Taft believes that age does not
| ipso facto make 1t unsuitable to do
things done in earlier life; by contin-
uing activities which interest him a
man will combat superannuation
and postpone dissolution"
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RECON-
| STRUCTION IN THE UNITED
STATES. International Labour
Office Studies and Reports, Series
B Economic Conditions). No. 90
Geneva: International Labour Of
fee League Of Nations.
This report of the International
Labour Once has especial docu-
mentary value for our country as
part of the record Of New Deal activi-
ties for reconstruction. It covers
and analyzes the social and economic
measures Of the first Is months Of
the Roosevelt administration. The
| IL chapters discuss the course Of
| the depression, national recovery
legislation of 1888, relief Of unem-
ployment, the Presidents re-employ-
ment agreement, the industrial codes,
| wages, hours of work and other
conditions Of employment, prices,
production and other trade practices,
industrial relations under the N. r. A.,
the organization Of agriculture, bank
ing and investment, monetary and
financial policy, and give compact
mary of codes Of fair competition for
certain important industries and a
classified list Of 374 industrial codes.
Though the primary concern Of the
International Labour Office is with
facts and deductions Of interest and
advantage to labor, this report in
cludes many other measures not di-
rectly connected with, but, Of course,
having important indirect bearing on
| the problems of labor. DR.. Leifur
Magnusson Of Washington is the d.
rector of the International Labour
| Office.
EDITORS CHOICE. BY Alfred Das-
HELL. New York: G. P. Putnam S
Sons.
The managing editor Of Scribner's
Magazine here gives his opinions about
what makes q good short story, how
1t should be constructed, how editors
select stories, and has followed his
essay with 16 short stories which he
thinks come up to his requirements.
Magazine editors, he says, do not have
in their offices big charts Of the points
desirable in a story and marking sys-
TENS for judging. Their decision on
the acceptance Of story rests upon
the answers to two very simple ques-
tions: /. us what the writer has to
say interesting and significant" q
HAS he said it well?" The section
of his discussion headed "Why the Old
/ N1aSLSES OdGc cApldlAAo, ~ CAPAnAA@
tions were needed, why the moderns
fill the pages Of the magazines. He
saws: "The world in which the great
short story writers of the past lived is
so different from our world that their
stories lose much Of the significance
which they conveyed to the writers
contemporaries. Stories from the past
and from other lands are all additions
to background. The foreground is
| occupied by our own culture and our
own time" This Judgment relegates
to background Dickens Christmas
Stories" and Hardy's 'Life's Little
Ironies," yet both are, according to
public library reports, much read
Probably a certain number Of people
prefer background to the foreground
furnished by some of the writers in
cluded in EDITORS Choice" We can
recall none of the ''modns," as Frank
Swinnerton calls them in his recent
book, "The Georgian Scene" who
have produced any such timeless story
as Henry James 1.-THE Turn Of the
Screw" Some of these "modns" chosen
by Mr.. Dashiell are Thomas Wolfe,