Evening star., 1935-04-14
By Sarah B0werman.

By Sarah B0werman.
GERALD: A PORTRAIT By Daphne
du Maurier. New York: Double
day, Doran e. Co.
~ 9TH lovingly and critically
- Daphne du Maurier writes Of
her father, who, as the lead
~ ing actor manager of London,
for many years dominated the
English stage and, when the twilight
of the legitimate stage set in, doggedly
refused to 60 to Hollywood to remake
his career and his financial fortunes
Her portrait of Gerald du Maurier
shows him as a child who never grew
up, who demanded that life itself
should be play, that every one
should continue the spelling begun by
his mother. that he should be always
amused, that he should have a pretty
woman to lunch with him every day
and should be able to flatter and
philander with them all without their
misunderstanding his attentions and
bothering him. Yet he was not joy
Gus man. He feared boredom acutely
and not all his own efforts and those
of his devoted wife Muriel, could
save him from it on occasions. A dark
cloud of melancholy often descended
upon him, under which he would Won
der what everything amounted to
his success, his happy home life, the
three daughters with whom he could
never quite achieve companionship.
And when he reached 60--and he
membered his fathers complaint that
it was not gay age. His family feel
ing was unusually strong and he had
the grief of outliving not only his
parents, but also his brother and three
sisters. On the night before he went
to a serious operation he followed his
routine of kissing the family photo
graphs. reflected that the Du Mauriers
were not long-lived and silently
called on his dead brother Guy for
help.
The first part of this portrait biog-
raphy is briefer, but very vivid por-
trait of George du Maurier, father OF
Gerald du Maurier, artist. and author,
after he was Sc, of Peter Ibbetson."
'Trilby" and THE Marian" The
elder Du Mauriers, happy and en-
tirely original. is delightful. Kicky
George du Maurier) was always
able to work at his easel with two or
three children tumbling about him.
Penn, or Mummy, found time for
everything-reading to her husband,
who had early lost the sight of one
eye, applying camphorated oil and
wrapping the throatS of her five chill
dren at the first Snuff1e or cough, and
spelling her "ewee lamb" Gerald.
Guy, the responsible, fathered the
other children; Trixie bossed them
hilariously, Sylvia was the wistful
dreamer, May, with her quick brain,
was her fathers true daughter;
Gerald knew how to manage his
mother so perfectly that he obtained
whatever he wanted. Daphne du
Maurier, whose undoubted literary
gift may be legacy from her grand
father, has in this biography given
remarkable impression of a fascinat-
ing playboy and an equally remark
able one of his more stable father.
1t is a superior example of portrait
biography AS novelist she has al
ready established her reputation by
that rare mystical novel, The Loving
Spirit
WOODS AMERICA. BY
Charles Morrow Wilson. With Il
lustrationS by Bayard Wootten.
Chapel Hill: The University of
North Carolina Press.
RACKWOODS America is not con-
fined to any one section. 1t is to
be found in Vermont and Northern
New York, in Kentucky and Ten
nessee, in Arkansas and Missouri. in
Montana and Wyoming. Mr.. Wilson
was born in the Arkansas Ozarks and
is now living on hilly Vermont farm.
He has written articles and stories for
many magazines about the life in
backwoods America, where, though
electric lights, refrigerators, vacuum
cleaners and even bathtubs may be
lacking, there are yet to be found
men and women with good, old
fashioned, sterling American qualities,
contentment in simple living and
time to sit in the sun. The sketches
in this book are all concerned with
"Ozarkadia," which provides splen-
did laboratory from which to study
the true living ways and resources of
the Nations peasant domain" They
are concrete, giving names, photo
graphs and anecdotes of real people.
Tom Puddister gave up his job as a
railway conductor and became as
thorough an Ozark man of the earth
as can be found. Sammy Blankhall,
a native frontiersman, having be-
come too old to do farming or WELD
an ak, paid off his debts by hulling
and picking out black walnuts for
town confectioners. Doc Abernathy,
in the hills of Arkansas, possessed the
confidence of every one for miles
around, and no wonder, for he took
out Pap Mulholland's appendix on
the kitchen table. by the light of his
flash, with two farm hands as as
sistants, and Pap, though 70, was
good for at least another 20 robust
years" "The night before he had
taken out set of gallstones by the
light of dashboard lantern" The
part OF American life revealed in
"BackwoodS America" far removed
from that of cities and towns, is full
of primitive human interest Its peo-
pie and its folk ways should be pre-
served in literature, and Mr.. Wilson
has contributed both informatively
and entertainingly to this end.
TOWARD UNDERST STANDING
JAPAN. Constructive Proposals for
Removing the Menace of War. BY
Sidney L. Gulick. New York: The
Macmillan Co.
THE new situation, rather alarming,
- which arises as the Washington
treaty ends, is diagnosed by DR.. Gulick
with insight which is the result of
many years of residence in Japan,
during which he came to understand
japanese psychology, ambitions, Ian
guage, economic problems and political
complications. He was formerly secre-
farv of the Department of Interna-