Evening star., 1938-12-04

the volume. Some of them, to be
sure, are pretty pale thin versions
of their idea. But in them all there
is the force of free mind, and the
enchantment of a mind with a
vision, the effortless movement of
great vitality, and the music of an
artists prose. The reviewer heartily
dislikes superlatives, but she is going
to commit this one to record: Not
since the young Aldous Huxley
broke on postwar world, uttering
its determinedly jaded thoughts so
we'll that in time it became pleased
to think them, has she encountered
so accurate and unhampered an in
terpreter of period. And that,
from her, is praise, indeed, as read
ers of this page will understand.
She may some time want to eat
those words; she knows it. But, for
the moment and until Mr.. Saroyan
joints union of unionized thinkers
and attaches time clock to his
brain, she stands by them. He
knows our country. He writes
beautifully. To reas him is a down.
right rest.
A STRANGER CAME TO PORT.
BY Max Miller. New York: Reynal
& Hitchcock.
1t is always a pleasure when NIX
Miller writes a book. He opens the
door of his rich, quiet mind to his
readers and takes them through
it into a better-reasoned world. Here
he is giving them his first novel,
a very slieht thing, hardly more
than a long, meditative short story.
And, the reviewer will say, as far
as she is concerned Mr.. Miller is
all right without fictional props to
carry him. She would just as soon
or little sooner-have him covering
the water front with Mexico around
him. Fiction, somehow, seems to
get between him and his reader and
he needs no bush. But, even so, his
present work is himself, quiet, wise
and completely persuasive.
The story is not based on a new
plot. 1t is that old one in which
successful man of business runs
off from his factories and family
and loses himself in new environ
ment. In Mr.. Miller's instance the
environment is the waterfront of
a California town; his hero gets a
tumbledown houseboat there and
lives as one of the local poor, some
times taking a job on a tuna boat,
sometimes helping the harbor scav-
enger. No one knows that he is
a rich man and he makes some
delightful friends. By-and-by he
meets with an accident, the papers
get the story and his vacation is
over.
That's all there is to it, but it.
is full of thought and wisdom. There
is likeness between Max Miller
and Robert Nathan. Both seem to
be able to write wisdom into stories
which, in other hands, would be
trite. Still, the reviewer hopes that
Max Miller will not leave off his
non-flction altogether. 1t is much
too good to be lost.
LOUIS XIV. BY Hilaire Belloc.
New York: Harper g. Bros.
Mr.. Belloc is writing here of mon
archy rather than of a particular
monarch. He has seen the great
Bourbon as the arch-type of the
kingly ruler and has chosen him as
the figure about which to weave a
dissertation on kingship in principle.
The reviewer found his interpreta-
ton highly diverting and. in view
of the clamor today against abso-
lutism, she cannot but wonder about
the reception which the book will
get. No one, of course, is going to
expect Mr.. Belloc to be modernly
orthodox. But when in the fourth
decade of the Goth century, writer
speaks out in favor of monarchical
government, it would seem that
there might be some protest, even If
the author is Hilare Belloc. Well,
that remains to be seen.
Mr.. Belloc's interesting contention