Evening star., 1938-12-18
Story Leonardo Da Vnc Continues Attract Writers Public
HIS LIFE EXPLOITED MANY TIMES
Sympathetic Coolidge Book Is From Pen of William Allen White
Who Knows His Subect-Stephen Leacock and His
Philosophy-Recent Works Reviewed

opinion; he sees the former Presi-
dents mistakes and faults, but he
likes him anyway. And that, as
near as the reviewer can make out.
Is about the way most Americans
feel today. even after many events
and much talk designed to make
them regard Mr.. Coolidge with
retrospective misgivings.
Mr.. Whites book is a mine of
information about its subject and
can be commended heartily to any
one who wants q statement of
the former Presidents career. AS
for furnishing an Interpretation of
Mr.. Coolidge as a human being,
however, 1t left the reviewer about
where she was when she began it
and this in spite of the fact that
Mr.. Whites chief preoccupation has
been to bring out the human" side
of his hero. The conclusion to be
drawn is that MIR. Coolidge simply
did not have the kind of human"
side which can be set down in
words.
That he was. on occasion, kindly,
generous and affectionate, Mr.. White
shows. But these flowers of gentle
intercourse grew out of the soil of
uncommunicativeness, and only
serve to mark how fatty unbroken
that soil was. A reader is obliged
to think. after putting MIR. Whites
book down. that Mr.. Coolidge not
only never said anything unless
necessary, but never felt anything
except on the same terms. He is
shown in this book not simply as a
man of caution in words but as one
Of extreme economy in emotions.
This, one feels. is to be taken as ap-
plying to emotions of every descrip-
ton. The Coolidge ideal, seemingly,
was complete lf-containment, with
the self to be reduced to the smallest
dimensions possible.
1t is curious that book designed
TO show a man so inward could be
interesting. One would expect Mr..
White to be driven to dullness from
the very determined refusal of his
subject to have any color. But that
is not what has happened The
work is amazingly interesting There
are points in it where one feels that
it is over-written; where the lively
flow of the authors spirit hardly
harmonizes with the frozen quality
of the hero's. There are places, too,
where Mr. Whites effort to dram
atize the Coolidgean silence fall fiat,
as in the case of the story of the
Boston police strike, where, in its
essence, Mr.. Cooldige's course was
nothing more than passing the re-
sponsibility on the Mayor. But on
the whole the work is we'll carried
out. Certainly it has highly read
able quality.
MODEL MEMOIRS. BY Stephen
Leacock. New York: Dodd Mead
g. Co
The cheerful philosopher, Prof.
Leacock, gives us here one more VOL
ume of his brief essays on our fol-
lies. His range is wide, he runs
from satirical monologues purport-
ing to come from the mouths of
foolish matrons to pointed little
pieces setting forth first-hand his
own objections to current political
developments. He is, as always, very
slight, but very wise. He has un-
doubtedly that happy gift of put
ting q bomb in q thiStledoVn. His
book should please the serious who
are tired of working at it.
The reviewer, not unnaturallS,
was particularly pleased with the
good professors observations on cur
rent literary tendencies. Several of
his essays consider these, and all
with sense. There is, for example,
a most worthy reason behind his
bit of pleasantly called "Overwork-