Evening star., 1938-01-09

NATHAN IS VIOLENT IDEALIST
His Book on Theater Season Resonds With Familiar Views
Overlooks Fact That Old Objects of Attack Have
Passed Beyond the Horizon.

is tender. wise thing that just es-
capes being sweet. Mr.. Nathan has
fine hand at this, and there are
few authors who could tell just the
same story without falling into senti-
mentality; he well knows, however,
the thin line which divides tender
ness from the maudlin. And, fur
thermore, he writes beautifully-as,
surely, one does not have to say. The
result Of his labor this season u a
book which can be recommended to
almost every one. It Is q very slight
thing, but, as has been said, for
what 1t is, practically perfect
LETTERS TO A FRIEND. BY Wini-
fred Holtby. Edited by Alice
Holtby and Jean MacWilliam. New
York: The Macmillan Co.
W1NIFRED HOLTBY is probably
best known in America by her
last novel, South Riding" It was O
work which remained for some weeks
on our best-seller lists and which
0N11lOAAoVA A1C0 AL 40 ouIklO1 u IAlCut
for serious, well-planned work. Miss
Holtby died in 1895. Then 81 years
Of age, she was regarded in England
as novelist Of considerable promise.
The present volume consists Of letters
written to q woman friend between
the years 1920 and 1926, when the
young author was preparing her first
books and feeling her way as an
artist. The collection shows her mind
in this formative period, sensitive,
eager and growing. That is the chief
impression which the reader will draw
from the volume.
The reviewer cannot honestly say
that she found the letters particu-
larly interesting. They are written
with an up-guShing feeling which,
while it is unquestionably sincere,
seems compounded of frail emotions
too intensely felt. Miss Holtby, in
South Riding" seemed to the re-
viewer to reveal herself as a we'll
brought-up young woman first and
novelist afterWard She had learned
craftsmanship by the time she wrote
that work, she planned we'll and she
showed an ability to draw a wide va
riety of characters into her story.
But the characters themselves seemed
to be surface painted creatures. They
had verisimilitude, but no depth.
Miss Holtby wrote, in short, like a
nice girl who had a good mind and
wanted to be a writer.
Now, real writer's are not developed
in that way. Real writers are COM
pounded out of a knowledge of the
suffering, sin. sorrow, obscenity, COM
edy and sublimity that is life They
may lead impeccable Ives themselves,
but they do not have the nice or
''well-brought-up' mentality. Or if
they do, by accident of surroundings.
find themselves with it, their first step
is to lose it. But Miss Holtby did not
lose hers. She wrote of suffering, sin
and sorrow. but she did so always
nicely. Her heroines were schoolmis-
tresses. There is a great deal more in
the statement than the mere fact.
In the present volume We have re-
vealed the background against which
she lived while she tried to make an
artist of her sensitive and intelligent
self. 1t was background of boarding
schools, committee meetings, tea par
| ties, welfare movements, lectures and
earnest reforming souls. 1t was. in
short, genteel. 1t was founded on an
awareness of the worlds bad places
and sense of responsibility for max
ing those places better, but it was all
painted in genteel colors and perfumed
with genteel fragrances. Miss Holtby,
to be sure, seemed happy in that en-
vironment. 1t plainly suited her vivid
but bookish She pokes little fun at
it occasionally. but one never detects
in her the slightest hint of real re-
bellion. She was of her environment
as we'll as in it. And that is the chief
thing which the present collection of
her letters shows.
The reviewer cannot feel, as some
critics have gone on record as feeling,
that if Miss Holtby had lived she would
have been a novelist of great power.
1t llhCly lILSlCdu GlldO CllC "oulu
have gone on producing biennial vol
umes devoted to problems. And lee
turing here and there to societies de-
voted to solving those problems. 1t is
not to say that these are unworthy
pursuits; it is. however, that they have
little to do with the creation of living
literature.
AFTER 1903 WHAT? BY Robert
Benchley. illustrated by Gluyas
Williams. New York: Harper &,
Bros.
NO MATTER what you may think
of Mr.. Robert Benchley's powers
as a humorist, there are at least two
good reasons for acquiring his VOL
umes. The first is his marvellous con-
coction of titles-as Twenty Thou
sand Leagues Under the Sea or David
Copperfeld," my Ten Years in a
Quandary and How They Grew or
The Treasurer's Report, and Other
Aspects of Community Singing" Are
they not blithe bits of mockery? And
now After 1908 What?" With
what satisfactory blandness does Mr..
Benchley thumb his nose toward our
more anxious, serious thinkers as he
puts this new volume on the market!
That, he remarks, for the forward
lockers, wherever they be lurking.
And the second reason for acquiring
. Benchley shelf is Gluyas Williams.
Never were two minds more perfectly
complementary than those of these
two collaborators. If you find the
Benchley humor getting more than q
little mild, getting almost impercep-
tible, indeed, as 1t is likely to do, then
you can get a laugh out of wicked
innocence of the Williams cartoons.
And quite possibly if you open to a
page on which there Is no cartoon
you may find a Benchley bit which
is not tepid and no way impercepti-
BILE. So the two. go together, as you
can see, very well. indeed.
The reviewer has to confess that
she likes humorists. A good book is a
merry ora And feu, rao1 frouodior ox