Evening star., 1936-08-15
By Mary Carfer.Roberfs.

tory, 1918 to 1865" 1t is, he
says, the first volume of a
humber in which he hopes TO
sketch the literary history of the
United States 1t covers the lit
erary New England OF the period in
tiicated, and will be followed by a
work which will carry the same theme
from the Civil War until 1915.
Few works have come to hand in
recent months that have been so
genuinely pleasurable to read. 1t is
scholarly: it is also picturesque. 1t
Is brilliant, evenly gsyly written.
It. is essentially an impressionistic
picture. and not. in the ordinary
sense, work of criticism. Mr.. Brooks
has been concerned in giving living
idea of the New England mind, as it
manifested itself in the living men
and women of letters. He has writ
ten more OF his writers and the inf1u-
ences which governed them than he
has OF their works. The sum OF his
effort is a vivid picture of an amazing
group of people. living in an amazing
nlu Mig az boono
under the stress of ideas which seem
today as far removed from Ameri-
can prsctica bility as the Deluge.
These were. says Mr.. Brooks, the best
days Of the Republic, and one will
think twice before diagreeing with
him.
He treats OF Boston, Cambridge,
Salem, Concord Brook Farm, the
North American Review and Harvard.
collectively. He also writes chapters
on various individuals. He sees the
early years of the century preoccu-
pied with history and criticism, with
fiction and poetry still timidly serv-
ing the English model. He gives i'm
portance to the influence of German
thought and writing, first brought to
Massa chuSettS by George Ticknor
and Edward Everett: Goethe and
Nine. de Stael he finds the greatest
forces in creating that break with
the old seventies which took place
with the younger generation of the
4Os. He analyzes to some extent
the aims OF Emerson's transcendent-
aiSm and it's effect on his various
disciples He proceeds from decade
To decade, tracing the growth or de-
cav of the figures prominent in each,
and striving at all times to group
his characters in relation to each
other and to the peculiar culture
which they shared. The grand total
can perhaps be best expressed in his
own words:
1t is obvious, almost strikingly so.
that this movement of mind in New
England followed the typical pattern
of the culture cycle as Spengler has
convincingly described it one
f1nds in it the same succession of
phases that one finds in the great
culture cycles Here we have a
homogeneous people, living close to the
soil, intensely religious unconscious,
unexpressed in art and letters, with
strong sense OF home and father
land. One Of its towns becomes a
'culture-city' There is Springtime
feeling in the air, a joyous sense of
awakening a free creativeness, an
unconscious pride expressed in the
founding of institutions, intellectual
humanitarian. artistic, and-at first a
little timid, cold and shy-the mind
begins to shape into myths and stories
the dreams of pre-urban countryside.
Then gradually the mind, detached
from the soil, grows more and more
self lf-conscious Contradictions arise
within it and Worldlier arts supplant
la fvnn
through which the poetic mind has
taken shape. What formerly grew
from the soil begins to be planned.
The Hawthornes yield to the Henry
JameSes o"
This fairly conventional concept
however, does not mean that The
Flowering of New England" Is a con-
ventional book. 1t is alive with
brilliant sense of the reality of its
personages and their peculiar dreams;
it is radiant with the strange, aus
tere, rich light OF its time; it is, in
short, a work of pure fascination. 1t
gives reality to the nickname Athens
of America" To enter its Boston is
to enter a city dedicated as Athens
was. and, in proper piety, Mr.. Brooks
invests his Yankee citadel with the
properties Of vanished demigods.
POEMS OF PEOPLE. By Edgar Lee
Masters New York: D. Apple
ton-Century.
THIS is a collection of poems
written on themes of history and
historic personages. Some of them
have been published before; they date,
we are told, over the years since 1923.
They are, for the most part, in Mr..
Masters happiest styles-the ballad
and the swinging narrative poem.
American themes dominate, as in the
verses on Daniel Boone, Perry, Law
renee. Jefferson, Jackson and Mark
Twain. There are also, however,
poems to obscure persons, holding such
Characterization as the author used
In Spoon River. The level of the
volume is uneven Some of the work
Is first-rate, notably in the ballads.
Elsewhere 1t is fiat-footed and verses
seem overlong. On the whole, how
ever, as any volume of Edgar Lee
Masters work will hold something.
one can commend q purchase Of this.
THE LIFE OF EMMELINE PANK-
HURST. BY E. Sylvia Pankhurst.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.
lew persons it would seem, would
be better qualified to write the
life OF Emmeline Pankhurst than her
daughter Sylvia, If one bases ones
standards on acts. For Miss Pank-
hurst undoubtedly has q close and
intimate knowledge of her famous
mothers career. 1t could be wished,
however, since the subject is so pic
turesque, that the writing had been
done by some one more qualified as a
biographer For. as it turns out, the
filial volume is difficult reading. Miss
Pankhurst takes for granted that her
public will share her own great
knowledge Of the ins and outs OF
British party politics, and. in her
interest In her theme, rushes along
without adeouate exclamation OF many