Evening star., 1936-08-15

Author OF The GOtden Leg
end of Ethiopia" d. Apple
tOn-Century Co.
it is worth knowing. One feels that
her story is one of those which throw
valuable, though saddenins, light on
human motives. and therefore IL
should not be forgotten.
Whatever the faults Of the daugh-
ters story. Emmeline Pankhurst stands
forth as a woman who accomplished
an extraordinary thing-the forma-
ton and government of a body OF
feminine solidarity. For women are
notably hard to organize, being in
dividualists where men are gregariols.
Women do not care to march in pa
rades, women despise mass movements,
women have little interest in causes
generally; woman leaders of causes
there have been, to be sure. but the
rank and file of their supporters has
usually been men. To organize the
suffrage movement and hold it to-
gether required a great power Of
leadership. Mrs. Pankhurst probably
sensed that when she assumed the
inevitable martyrdom of militancy.
While she does not seem to have been
person who reasoned consciously,
she must have known, instinctively,
that only the glory OF martyrdom
would hold her ranks together.
Any such analysis of her character
as this is lacking from the present
work Miss Pankhurst simply gives
the outlines of the causes in which
her mother labored, the names of the
bills which embodied the causes, the
number OF votes. pro and con. the
number OF days In prison and so on.
Her book will be a valuable source
for some more curious interpreter who
Is vet to come. That would seem to
be its highest recommendation.
THE COUNTESS FROM IOWA. BY
Countess Nostitz de Fernandez
Azabel. New York: G. P. Putnam's 5
Sons.
THIS is the story of Lille Bouton
whose career took her from an
Iowa village to the Broadway stage
and thence by the route of marriage
to the courts of old imperial Germany
and Russia She tells 1t herself. and
it reads much as similar memoirs do
it abounds with brilliant names and
with anecdotes concerning the names
owners. 1t is pretty good, if you
enjoy the sort Of thing it is.
In America, TO 90 little into de-
tail, Lilie-or rather. Madeleine. for
that was her stage name-knew the
Barrymores. the Sotherns, Bennett.
Mansfield. Drew, Virginia Harmed and
others Of like fame. She was starred
in the Palmer stock company and was
a famous beauty. Her photographs
attest the latter claim. and give dig
nifty to her recollections of the horid
compliments Of the day.
In Germany, as the wife of an i'm
poverished baron. she attended VIII
liam lis court and won the approval
of the severe Junker society. Later
1907-19l8) as wife Of q Russian
count she lived in st. Petersburg and
Paris. The least personal, most vivid
part of her narrative comes when she
describes events before and during the
Russian revolution. when she and her
household felt the savsgery Of the
nj rd aria to
and on several occasions were only
saved because she was an American
citizen. Her husband died as the re-
suit of hardships endured in that Pc
riod. and now. the wife of Senor
Manuelo Fernandez A7abel. whom she
describes as "a sportsman, q mag
nificent horseman and a noted anna
teur bullhghter," she is living quietly
at Biarritz.
Books artlessly written by indiyid-
uals whose talents have lain In other
fields than writing are likely to be
more revealing of the author than
those which come from the hand of
the practiced journalist. In the pres
ent case one is reminded that the
tactics Of the social triumph are
scracely those of letters. Had the
author of this work deliberately set
out to describe herself, she probably
would have given a much less coher-
ent and complete picture than now
lies between her lines, evident to any
intelligent reader. In such
sentences as the following, for ex-
ample, a world of revelation Is to be
found:
Il have passed through storm and
sunshine. A whole rosary OF expert
ence slips through my reflective mind.
have been feted-the incense Of
alteration has been burned at my feet.
have known love as 1t Is given to
few women to know it-and / have
known devouring jealousy
Yet l would not have it otherwise. I"
A complicated life she has led, Ger
tainly. But q simple soul as she
stands revealed in the merciless
measure of print. CountesSes, some
how. usually write good confessions"
the word being used in the sense of
the current school. The dictum still
stands that it takes writer to pro-
duce o book.
ENGLAND HAVE MY BONES. BY
T. H. White. New York: The
Macmillan Co.
keep my soul and England
have my bones" This Is the
line which gives the present book Its
title. Its moral seems to be q getting
back to earth, real earth, to the au-
thor's native land In the literal sense
that that land Is earth, and leaving
of soulful things to God, even as the
words declare. For the book, q jour-
nal, Is about earthly things, and our
late preoccupations. such as our COM
plexes, egos, psyches and the like.
nowhere get so much as a look-in.
1t may mark taxing OF for new