Evening star., 1938-01-30

dillettante student OF history. Those
who prize volumes Of correspondence
should have 1t by all means.
ONE AMERICAN AND HIS AT.
TEMPT AT EDUCATION. BY
Frazier Hunt. New York: Simon
& Schuster.
WE HAVE here one more auto
w biography of a newspaper man
1t is probably the twentieth which has
come out in the last Is months. and
vivid though it is, it cannot escape q
certain SameneSs. Its author is one
of the writer's who went into Soviet
Russia during the early stages of the
revolution; in the later course Of his
peregrinations in search Of stories he
interviewed Gandhi, Villa. Hitler,
Chang Kai-shek, Queen Marie, the
Prince Of Wales and Bernard Shaw
and he began life as farm boy back
in Indiana.
Naturally, such q career cannot
avoid being interesting, particularly
since it Is told by a veteran writer.
But, most unfortunately. the 20 pre-
ceding volumes have told very much
the same sort of story, and they, too,
come from the pens of veteran writers.
The reviewer can only repeat what
she has said before-that if the cor
respondents would agree to prorate
their life histories they would all profit
by it. Coming as these volume do.
one Immediately after another and
sometimes three in a week. they dull
the readers appetite for news-gather-
ing adventures. They could not pos
sibly help doing so.
Each correspondent, to be sure, has
one particular individual adventure
to tell, and that is how he got his Big
Story. With Mr.. Hunt that would
seem to have been bringing back the
first copy Of the Versailles peace
treaty to reach the Senate. Ironically,
this was not his own scoop, as he
freely tells. The treaty had been kept
darkly secret by the negotiators and
the Senate was raging for glimpse
of it. Spearman Lewis, Chicago Trib-
une representative in Paris, by pure
chance, got the precious document.
He dispatched Mr.. Hunt to America
with the copy at once, and the Tribune
officials appointed him to the job Of
presenting it to Senator Borah. SUBJ
sequently he was credited with having
originally gotten the treaty, and Lewis
part in the matter was overlooked.
But this was by no fault Of his, as he
tells in his present volume.
1t is a racy, adventurous piece of
writing and we'll worth reading. So
are most Of these newspaper mems
autobiographies The reviewer has
said as much many times before.
SINABADA. BY Elinor Mordaunt.
New York: The Greystone Press,
THIS is the autobiography of Elinor
Mordaunt. English writer and
traveller. 1t is an extraordinary tale.
Mrs. Mordaunt, as she tells, was
the daughter of an extremely horsey
English country family She was
engaged to marry at the age of 10.
but her fiance died while leading an
expedition into unemployed territory
IN Africa, and she subsequently mar
RED Mauritian sugar planter-for
no reason apparently but that she
was at loose ends and saw nothing
else to do at the moment. Her hus-
band debonairly put her up as
stake at card game a short while
after the marriage and presently
she left him. She wrote a book
about her life in the tropics, then
went to Australia in a sailing ship
and lived in Melbourne in incredible
poverty, earning her livelihood by
painting and designing patterns for
embroidery. Presently she began to
write again, met with success, and
writing and travel have occupied her
from that time on.
She has followed an enviable trail
over the world. She ventured into
strange islands in the South Seas
where no white woman had ever
gone before. She not only ventured,
but went on her own expeditions.
accompanied only by native guides
and porters. On one occasion, In
the Trobriand Islands, she was as
signed a group of prisoners for bear
ers, being given her choice as to
she would have thieves or
murderers and deciding on the latter
for the reason that she held thievery
to be a habit, but murder more or
less an isolated incident in most lives.
Similarly bizarre adventures have
befallen her all through her life,
and this is the full story of that
life. Usually her forays into strange
places have been productive of books
and the person who has read her
previous works will find some matter
here that is familiar. But in the
volume she tries to explain
herself, and how it was that she
felt obliged to wander and That into
strange and dangerous places.
1t not only makes a fine story; it
also personality which is
and marked with genuine
In a time when most
books fall heavily into categories,
such a work ought to be welcomed
by the discriminating.
TOMORROW THE ACCOLADE. BY
Janet Dietrich. Garden City:
Doubleday Doran.
THIS novel by a Washingtonian is
a pleasant little tale about life
in army posts. 1t deals with the prob
lens which can arise when q young
man goes into the army because of
army tradition in his family and finds
himself unhappy in military life, but
held to it by the expectations of his
relatives. 1t is told through the love
story of such youth with the daugh-
ter of q colonel whose existence is
bound up, seemingly inextricably, with
army tradition. The author knows
her subject and her background. Her
book should provide agreeable reading
for those who are looking for q novel
not too serious and not to light.
KINGS COUNSEL. BY Roland Wild
and Derek Curtis Bennett. New