Evening star., 1939-03-19

verbal blue black of the ravens wing, but
truth the proverbial waxen whiteness of the
camelia. Her eyes are blue. All this is simple
category of facts. but above it all lies the spirit
that illumines the perfection of line and
proportion.
The spirit, heaven knows. she comes by
rightly and naturally, from the Polish mother
and the French father who were endowed with
as much zeal and spirit as any man and
woman in the history of the world She is a
product of the crossing of two races, of two
bloods that should produce what the French
call the .fnesse de FesbrH phrase that
remains somewhat untranslatable. And with
the cross has come not only the thing that
produced on one hand French civilization and
on the other individuals such as Chopin and
Paderewsk and Madame Curie, but human
ness as WE'LL When Eve Curie enters room
it is not only beautiful face and figure that
comes through the door = but something else.
Perhaps it is the perfect Towering of the
crossing of two great races.
But the quality of Eve Curie is not al
together an accident She might have been
born the child of French father and Polish
mother. both of them remarkable people, and
still she might have grown up savage. Those
parents were not only great scientists; they
were great scientists who were great parents
as we'll One might have expected that two
people with lives so dedicated might have
neglected their children; exactly the opposite
is true. Both Eve Curie and her sister, Irene
were never treated as children. shunted away
in nursery to be cared for and educated by
hired strangers. They were always accepted
as a part of the family life and circle; their
comments, their childish observations, some
times so penetrating and shrewd, were re-
ceived with respect.
They were accustomed as children to the
company of the great. They knew and
played with Lord Kelvin. Henri Becquerel
Einstein and countless other men and women
with the great minds of our day. And so Eve
and Irene acquired as children the great
qualities of dignity and simplicity. and that
greatest of all possessions sense of gen.
uine values
The great parents did more than all this
for their two small daughters and the children
of their friends The children we're taught
languages. and by the age of eighteen were
able to speak French. German, English
Italian and Polish Eve later acquired Spanish
The whole world and humanity of peoples
we're opened up to them. Irene turned to
science as she grew up and Eve to music. Eve
became an excellent concert pianist played in
recital and with orchestras and received ex-
cellent notices; and then. suddenly, she gave
up a great career in music because she was
unwilling to be known forever as the daughter
of Madame Curie an advantage she felt
was unfair to other young musicians.
This she could afford to do because music
was not her only accomplishment; she became
a dramatic and music critic for one of the
great Partisan newspapers. and because she
knew many languages she came to know the
treasures of literature that each one of them
held. She adapted into French for the Paris
stage Dangerous Corner" and Spread
Eagle" both of which had great successes.
She became known internationally when she
wrote the story of her mothers life.
Out of all her experience and education she
learned early in life that it is neither money
nor possessions which are the ultimate measure
(Continved on pooe 16)