Evening star., 1937-12-12

mas Travelled widely In search OF in
spirations for her dance creations,
carrying her studies into England,
Spain, Africa, France, Germany and
Greece. Her book Is almost exclu-
sively the record of her work; she tells
simply how she went here and there
and how this scene or this accumula-
ton Of scenes gave her an idea for q
new dance episode. It is almost as II
the reader listened to her talking to
herself. An appreciation of her artis-
tic aims, a love of the dance and an
understanding Of an artists tempera-
ment are essential If any one Is to
enter fully into the spirit Of the work.
Granted those commodities, however,
readers should find this q highly ab-
sorbing record.
Miss Enters is unique among
dancers-that is granted. She has
little patience with the followers Of
tradition or with holders Of theory
that is, with holders Of mere theory.
Her book reveals her creativeness in
the dance as an effort to find and ex-
press the purposefulness of human
life and emotion in relation to Ger
tain racial and historic backgrounds.
She has attempted, in her various
creations, to body forth the vivid
spirit Of time through portrayal of
a typical but credible individual of
that time, or Of series of such in
dividuals.
Thus, in her Elizabethan England
episode, she includes a dance called
THE Shaking of the Sheets" in
which she expresses the constant fear
of the plague which hung over the
people of that day. In her series on
18th century Spain she shows the
various manners in which the pro-
found weight of religion affected
women of various temperaments.
Her aim, therefore, will be seen to
be that of an creative art-to show
human life in both the universal and
individual focus A novelist has ex-
actly the same task set for him. She
declares, however. that the dance and
mime offer the subtlest and most per-
feet medium of Interpretation.
1t is interesting to know that Miss
Enters attributes to the Spanish civil
war her determination to write this
autobiography. She was in Spain
when the revolt against the Commu-
mist government broke out, and she
witnessed some of the horrors of the
fighting. She is bitterly in sympathy
with the unhappy noncombatants of
the country. She says that it is not
a matter of Right or Left, but one
of human freedom against tyranny.
Her bias is toward the loyalists and
she apparently attributes all outrages
to the rebels She condones, for ex-
ample, the loyalists' destruction of the
Alcazar, but is enraged by the de-
struction of other national monu-
ments by the rebels. It is an inter-
esting sidelight on the mentality of
the artist who, in her own field, thinks
clearly and dispassionately.
PEPITA. BY v. Sackville-West. Gar
den City: Doubleday Doran Co.
THE second literary Englishwoman
to confess this year to highly un-
conventional family history is v. Sack
ville-West. The first was Daphne Du
Maurier. Both writer's have written
the histories of their families through
the last three generations. Both admit
an ancestress of irregular connections.
And both attribute much of the fam
ily's color and singularity to this some
what nI,osfjo,,o hla forhaor
It was one Mary Anne Clarke, if the
reviewer remembers, to whom Miss
Du Maurier traced her origin. Mary
Anne was an English beauty of no par
ticular family who had had q love
affair with q member of the ruling
house. She was the grandmother of
George Du Maurier and the great
grandmother of the modern author of
her history.
V. Sackville- West tells an even more
romantic story. Her grandmother it
is who gives the name to her book
"Pepita Pepita was not only
beauty, but a famous dancer, Span
lard and half-gypsy to boot. More
than that, it cannot be said with final
ity that Pepita was, like Mistress
Clarke, Of no particular family, at
least on one side of her house, for
there is reason to believe that her
father was the Duke Of Osuna, fabu-
lously wealthy member of the Spanish
branch OF the Borgias. Be that as 1t
may, however, there seems no reason
to doubt that her mother was a
gypsy circus tumbler who later became
a peddler Of secondhand clothing.
Pepita, says her granddaughter in
the present book, needed only to be
seen to be loved She was an irresisti-
bic charmer. She seems to have been a
bad artist, however, for, though her
fame became great in France and Ger
many, she was never able to get an en-
gagement to dance in Madrid-this
though she called herself an Interpreter
OF the Spanish dance. But, as q Ma
drid impressario put it, she apparently
was only good enough to dance the
dances OF Spain in other countries.
Notwithstanding, she was seen and
loved by young Sackville-West, a men,
Der of the English foreign service in
Germany. They established q liaison
which lasted for many years. Pepita
had five children, all of whom Sack
ville-West acknowledged.
OF these children, a daughter named
Victoria was the mother of the present
writer. She was taken to England
after Pepita's death and at the age of
18 came to Washington with her father
when he was appointed Ambassador to
the United States. She was his host
ess and became great center Of at
tention to Washingtonians, who had
heard, OF course, Of her romantic his
tory. President Arthur was in the
White House at that time and the
present history records that he be-
sought the beautiful daughter Of the
dancer to become his wife.
She refused all offers, however, and
when her father inherited the title
Of Lord sackville she returned with
him to England to become head Of
his household in the famous country
seat. Knole. There she met her
cousin, the heir to her fathers estate.