Evening star., 1935-09-22

customs. would not love It. When,
after marching $4,000 kilometers, I
again presented myself at its from
tiers, in 1882, ." considered that
I was offering it an affectionate
homage; 1 had the impression that
I was arriving in land that was
friendly and akin, whose language
and spirit I knew, where I knew the
trees by name, as well as the rivers
and devils, where could take the
little children in my arms and de-
clare, as it were off stage, to make
them laugh: Here are the merry
fellows who killed my father'!"
So it is no scientific study. merely,
that is presented. But equally it is
not travel book" of any common
formula 1t is. instead, a rare fine
piece of writing rejecting an original
mind, mind of trained sensitivity
and almost inhuman detachment. It
is, in short, literature.
One would like to write more about
a thing so beautiful, but there is no
need. The reader will see for himself.
Indeed, he will see very shortly, for
the opening passage, description of
a caravan fording the Nile, which Is
masterpiece.
But perhaps space should be taken
to explain the title. a literal transla-
ton of the French Les Flambeurs
D'Hommes." 1t derives from a chap
ter descriptive of the execution of a
would-be assassin of prince. 1t was,
as may be guessed, an execution by
fire. No more severe test could be
given to an authors style than the
reporting of so frightful scene, but
when the style survives the test, its
perfect objective unimpaired, no more
deadly estimate of the shame of the
procedure could possibly be achieved.
Such writing is rare. 1t is exactly
as rare genius. But when one finds
it, it makes one doubt Leonardo's s
verdict that the brush is always su-
perior to the pen. There have been
many paintings of executions, but
none of them show more plainly the
shape and size of the human animal
so engaged than does this chapter.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. BY
George Seldes. indianapolis: Bobbs-
Merrill Company
IN THIS crusading book a veteran
newspaper man diagnoses the con-
dition of the Fourth Estate and finds
the patient very i'll indeed AS Don
Marquis once said of pathos, so Mr..
Seldes of press liberty: There amt
none any more"
He takes it up from every angle
and still he sees the blackest sort of
picture. Advertisers influence news,
big business wields club, propaganda
RACES rampant and so on. Only in
one thing can he see any hope. That
is in the recent formation of the
American Newspaper Guild. This
organization, he thinks, may do some
cleanup.
Mr.. SeldeS seems to be genuinely
distressed, and one cannot but feel
some sympathy for Him. But, after
all. why the grief and astonishment?
He has been working on some paper
or other since 1909. Does he really
think that this is news?
THE NEW IMPERATIVE. BY Walter
Lippmann. New York: The Mac
milan Company.
THE new imperative which Mr.. Lipp-
mann discusses in this small
volume is the obligation on our Gov
eminent to assume responsibility for
social and economic conditions We
have come, says he, to the end of
laisSezfaire. The Government from
now. on will have to take a hand.
The sardonically minded might
recall that never in the past has any
administration failed to claim full
responsibility for prosperity and in
quire if Mr.. Lippmann simply means
that now the group in power has to
face both sides of the music.
Anyway, he informs us that the
New Deal-based on his new impera-
tive-came into being in 1929 and
that it was the unique contribution of
Herbert Hoover to the political
scheme. President Roosevelt, says
Mr.. Lippmann, merely took the idea
from the preceding administration,
and there has been no real change of
policy since Mr. Hoover left us. Well,
well, well.
Mr.. Lippmann does not seem to
write as well as he used to.
JOSEPH CONRAD AND HIS CIR
Gle. BY Jessie Conrad. New York:
E. P. Dutton & Co.
THIS large domestic volume un-
doubtedly contains much material
which dyedin-the-wool Conrad devo-
tees will want to have. There were
many of such devotees a few years
ago, and although one does not hear
so much about them now, one sup
poses that they still exist and retain
their enthusiasm. But 1t should be
said that enthusiasm OF more than an
ordinary degree will be needed to
cause the reader to endure the wifely
style in which the widow of the late
genius cloaks her "reminiscences.
There is nothing wrong with the
style, of course, except that it is that
-wifely. 1t bubbles, it gushes, it
plmges with uncomfortable abandon
into irrelevancies. One cannot escape
the conviction that, if Conrad were
living, he would very shortly die of
embarrassment. 1t is literature, In
short, in the very best bed and board
tradition.
Women who have known literary
men often do something of the sort,
as witness the feminine outpourings
which followed the death of D. H.
Lawrence. If his laundress has not
yet published her memoirs, do not
despair. She will. So will his cook
and his grocer's unmarried aunt. So
will the telephone girl who operated
the board In his hotel. So will the
female taxi driver in Melbourne who
once had passenger who wore a
beard. It was not Lawrence, but what
of it? It might have been. Or, In
the style of most Of these friends of
greatness, it might of been.
Mrs. Conrad, in substance, tells Of
her husbands literary friends and
LII - - rotyn rnnpn,1ftinv,