Evening star., 1938-12-04


defenders of the common people
against the money power, and that
lacking strong power vested in thu
kingship, the people are always op.
pressed. AS for democracy, he dis.
poses of that by saying that 1t l.
not possible except In small and iso.
lated communities, such as, for ex.
ample, Andorra. Ourselves, he says
have monarchy in everything but
name.
THE United States are monarchi-
cal in the government of their great
businesses, Of their great cities, OF
their component districts, and espe-
cially at the center of Federal power
where, in the President, all the fac.
tors of enduring monarchy are COM
bined: the personal choice and
action Of one will, its support and
restraint by impersonal institutions
and by tradition, above all the popu-
lar character of the office: Its stand
for all the people as against sections
or privileged groups. -"
With such an Interpretation of
his theme in mind, he traces Louis
life. dividing it into periods and
then dividing those periods into ex-
ternal and internal events, the for
mer concerned with the history of
the reign and the latter with Louis
private life. 1t cannot escape the
reader that Mr.. Belloc deals very
cavalierly with established history
on many points; nor can one avoid
thinking that in his zeal to make
his case he is arbitrary in his ex-
positions. However, he writes in
geniously and, for what it is, his
book holds together. There can be
no doubt that the people in the
day OF the great kings did regard
those kings as their necessity. But
whether the ignorance of the peo-
pie entered into that regard or not
is a question which would seem to
merit answering. Mr.. Belloc is not
interested, however. He Is inspired
with an idea, and here is his book
to show it.
THE FLASHING STREAM. A Play
with PREDATORY Essay. BY
Charles Morgan. New York: The
Macmillan Co.
This is a very silly play about
nothing in particular. In it pair OF
mathematicians, male and female
meet to work out an invention which
is to put an end to aerial bombing
They fall in love, but work comes
first. They suffer about work COM
ing first, but still work comes
first. By-and-by work is completed
and they agree to marry. And there
you are.
Sle theme might be made inter-
esting, but Mr.. Morgan does not
make it so. He makes his hero and
heroine stilted, fiat figures whose
torments can only move a reader tt
bored hilarity. There Is no discern
ible reason for the books publica-
ton, unless it be that Mr.. Morgan
has two best sellers in the past to
his record. But there is less of un-
derStandable reason in its being
written. How any mature person
could have interested himself in ii
for a period long enough to COM
plete its composition is a mystery
Well, the reviewer has for long
time suspected that Mr.. Morgan was
not mature person. His novels
while written with certain cold
vitality, have been crude and child
ish in theme. And now this play
without the power of his flctional
style to support the bare dialogue
bears out she suspicion of his un-
development. It is pretty con-
elusive. But a man who has written
two best sellers has impressive au-
thority. One supposes that Mr.. Nor
gan will go on, and that publishers
will continue to advertise him as q
genius.
WAR IN HEAVEN. BY Philip Barry
New York: Coward McCann.
In THE Flashing Stream re-
viewed elsewhere on this page, we
have an example of successful nov
elist turning out very bad play. In
this book, we have the reverse of the
situation. Mr.. Barry has done some
highly successful plays in the past
notably Paris Bound" The Animal
Kingdom" and Hotel Universe" But
here he produces a novel in which
all life is lacking, stiff piece OF
dialogue in which any effect would
depend on the visual sense and stage
effects. The two works together
seem to arplle that the shoemaker