Evening star., 1936-02-26
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
FAITH, HOPE, NO CHARITY. BY Mar
garet Lane. New York: Harper l.
Brothers.
Margaret Cevmond.

| A study in contrasts is presented in
this first novel by young writer who
| is regarded as London's most famous
woman journalist and who several years
ago won the admiration and esteem Of
reporters throughout the United States
while she was fulfilling in this country
an assignment by the London Daily Ex-
| press. Those who recall her tour of
duty here will remember also that she
| possessed veritable genius for being at
the scene of action wherever big things
might be happening, and that on more
than one occasion she scooped all Amer
ican reporters on a first story of impor-
tance. Miss Lane, who in private life is
Mrs. Bryan Wallace, has since Joined
the staff of the London Daily Mail as a
special correspondent covering most of
the countries of Europe.
With such an abundance of funda-
! mental experience in the study, dissec-
ton and evaluation of individual and
collective human beings of all kinds and
castles, she is especially well equipped to
draw from knowledge the characters
typified in this story of one of London S
| forever poor districts and the motives
which actuate their day-by-d day struggle
for survival against poverty, illness and
| hopelessness
| Two young women, of equally poor
parentage. arrive by widely separated
! roads at a Fun Fair, go for walk
together after the fair has closed for
the evening and thereafter become asso-
ciated in strange bond of friendship
that on the one side is tinged with
the knowledge of undeniable equality,
and on the other is accepted and appre-
ciated without recognition of the desire
or the need for understanding
| Ada's home is cottage in the court of
a once prosperous straw yard. Poverty
| and hardship are the substantial facts
with which she lives. Having experienced
| no other sort of life, she has no con-
trasts, no comparisons with the comforts
of less strenuous and less limited sur
roundings. Faith and hope are as ele-
mental in her being as they are universal
among the very poor-for they ask and
expect so little. Charity is the unsus-
pected spiritual impulse which guides her
devotion to others without thought of a
returning kindness.
Charlottes home is wherever conve-
nience or opulence dictates. Having left
! her family in early youth to seek fame
and fortune in the bright light district
| of entertainment, she Is now a successful
| dancer with an acquired refinement and
| culture forbidding even self-acknoWl-
edgment of her mediocre heritage. Her
faith lies wholly in her belief in her per-
| sonal power to gain her own ends. Her
| hope is wholly selfish ambition to find
| permanent means of ease and luxury.
| Her charity begins and ends with her.
| SELF
Charlotte's visit to the Fun Fair held
| in the old straw yard in which Ada lives,
| is the qualification of whim conceived
| in spasm of assumed artistic tempera-
ment. DESERVING the friends who take
| her to the fair, she takes fancy to Ada
| and invites her to go for a walk. The
| result of their midnight stroll is kindly
| to both. The one walks into a beautiful,
| though short-lived, romance and the
other acquires good maid.
These two young women are the bone
| and fiber Of an exceptionally strong
| novel of character portrayal that accords
| to both an unbiased, unprecedented pres
| entation of motive in the shaping of
| their lives in conformity with the limited
vision and realism inherent in the one
| and the selfish ambition of the other
| But, with all her faults, Charlotte is not
altogether cold toward the rest of hui
| manity. There is warmth and tender
| ness about her that wins sympathy, and
eventually the truly genuine spirit rises
to the surface.
Since its publication in England last
October the book has been best seller.
Its advent in the United States is accom-
| panied BY warm expressions of praise
| from the London Observer and from
James Hilton. It is, indeed, splendid
wholesome novel that will undoubtedly
win large American audience.
WYOMING COWBOY DAYS. BY
Charles Arthur Guernsey. New York:
G. p. Putnam's Sons.
There has been a definite trend in the
| past year or so to present in an inter-
esting semi-historical style, authentic
stories of the pioneer and frontier years
which have been the source of endless
| stories of adventure and romance ever
since the great trek westward began, but
which few writer's have been induced to
record without fictional trimmings.
In this volume it has been the en-
deavor OF Mr.. Guernsey, whose name
is so closely identified with the history
of the Territory of Wyoming, to present
an accurate account of the outstanding
events in the development of the Terri
tory from the vast store of knowledge
accumulated by him since the early
cattle days and the first major political
strifes to the days of railroads and state
hood. 1t was in 1880 that he left his
home for the great open spaces of the
West, and from then until now his de-
votion to the scientific, economic and
political welfare of Wyoming has never
tagged.
The volume is fully illustrated with
photographs of many varieties, number
of them dating back to the art of tin
type So far removed from civilization
was the Golden West in those early days
that one interesting incident in Mr..
Guernsey's first thrilling experiences is
worth telling here. He sent tin-type
OF himself in his regulation cowboy
regalia to an intimate friend in Boston.
That highly conservative gentleman had
never seen or heard of the extraordinary
clothing worn by the riders of the rough
Western country and was somewhat
shocked by the apparition reproduced on
the small bit of tin. In Acknowledgement
OF its receipt. he wrote Mr.. Guernsey:
your picture came, but without your
knowledge, of course, your clothing was
not properly adjusted, so did not show
1t to my wife"
It is not possible tn pen the history of