Evening star., 1936-12-05


FORD MADDOX FORD,
Author OF "C0llected Poems OF
Ford MadOr Ford" (OItOrd
University PreSS.)
self sufficient. pure and just. The
curious thing about the work Is that
q man with such \ mind, having one
of expression. should have
found it necessary to write at all. But
Gauguin reiterates that his writing
was solely the outcome of necessity.
He repeats again and again that he
is full of desire to talk" How
understandable that most futile Of
desires is!
The Journals" was Gauguin's be-
quest to Andre Fontainas. to whom it
able TO find q publisher for 1t CD and
presented it to Gauguin's family. 1t
Is his son, Emil, who now gives 1t to
the public. For the gift thanks are
certainly due, SO 1t becomes perhaps
graceleSs to remark that the preface
by Gauguin fils is out
of keeping with the rest of his fathers
work-text and illustrations. 1t in
PRODUCES, somehow, defensive note.
and Paul Gauguin, by his own life
and work, needed no defender.
With reminder Of the qualifying
note above, the book is recommended.
1t is the random record of q great
mind
FIGHTING ANGEL. BY Pearl S.
Buck. New York: Reynal &
Hitchcock.
WHEN Mrs. Buck published her
w biography of her mother last
year, under the title of "The Exile"
there were those who felt that she
had dealt rather hardly with her
father. She really told little about
him, however. She only indicated
that he was devoted to his divinely
ordained work as missionary to the
heather to a point of such selfiessness
that he had little left to bring to his
duties as head of q family. His wife,
therefore, bore more than the usual
motherly responsibility for her chill
dren; she was obliged to be both
parents, and that in circumstances
of unusual difficulty, the circum-
stances of a white family alone in
the interior Of China in all kinds
of international weather. But now
Mrs. Buck makes handsome amends
for her previous negative picture Of
her parent.
She shows him, in this biography,
in his positive aspect, that of the
man of God, quantity
devoted to Sound doctrine" and
hating the strange gods Of the idolater;
courting hardship, courting martyr
dom even; aScetic, sc0rnful Of easy
posts, happy only when actively and
bringing the heather to
dedicated man, in other
words, and one who interpreted his
dedication in the most rigorous puri-
tanical sense of the word, applying it
to himself even as he applied it to
Others. The picture that she gives is
sympathetic, even admiring, although
it lacks the personal emotion which
colored the book on the life Of Carrie,
her mother.
HE wandered about China" she
says, "for more than half q century"
Yet, when she asked him to write
an account Of his life there for her,
he could only produce rs pages. He
considered that complete. 1t con-
tanned the record of his quest for
souls; all else was omitted. He did
refer once, she says, to his wife, and
he also listed his children, but he
forgot one of them, one who had
lived to be years old. He wrote
only Of his mission. 1t is doubtful,
by implication, that he remembered
else.
Curious that . man SO obsessed
should have aroused love in any one,
especially in q foreign people to whom
his movements in great part must
have been mysteries. Yet Mrs. Buck
records that the Chinese came to have
an affection for him. They called
him "the Old Teacher" and regarded
him indulgently.
Beyond giving this half-heroic, half
n th atin rniotftra hn
to the record Of "The Exile" Pic
lures .of the hardships OF family life
in the distant reaches of China, of
makeshifts, of privations, these I'LL
up much of its pages. As has been
said, 1t lacks personal warmth, and
one feels that Mrs. Buck did not
know her father as she did her
mother. But then, q man who has.
no self Is hard to know-although
sometimes easier to remember and
often impossible to forget.
PEARY. BY William Herbert Hobbs.
New York: The Macmillan Co.
THIS sympathetic biography of the
great explorer combines a scien-
tific narrative of his various expedi-
tions with romantic, almost reverent,
picture Of his character as q man.
Peary, as Prof. Hobbs sees him, be-
longed to the race of heroes, the SELF
less great dreaming men who find
their deStinies in the acceptance Of
vast challenges. The work Is in no
sense sentimental. however. Indeed,
the chapters devoted TO exploration
are written so much from the scien-
lists viewpoint that the lay reader
will probably find them difacult.
It is work which ought to ind .
public. People In general know that
Peary discovered the North Pole. Be-
yond that, however, they know little
of him. Prof. Hobbs gives an inter-
esting picture Of his early life, when
he worked as . surveyor and in the
Geodetic Survey. showing from letters
and journals that Peary felt even then
that he had not found the career to
which he could devote himself. He
used his great nervous energy on vari-
Gus expedients. He sketched. he rode