Evening star., 1939-01-22
THE SUNDAY STAR WASHINGTON,

has helped us all-and then not read
It, 1t would be very good general
rule.
But with little Mr.. Corrigan 1t
might be we'll to read at least a
part-as much, anyhow, as makes it
plain how flying can take hold on
a boys mind and dominate his
whole existence. Corrigan, from
the time he took his first flight, and
long before there was coined the
word minded" was air-mind-
edness' self. He went without all
the things which young people, for
the most part, today consider theirs
by right, in order to be able to oper-
ate some crate" or other. AS fast
as he earned any money he put 1t
into a plane. He was hopping back
and forth across the country for
years before he flew backward into
fame, as persistent a winged crea-
ture as migratory duck-and as
unnoticed by the general public.
How many such young fellows are
there. one wonders? Is that where
the romantics among us are to be
found-While the conventional souls
agitate for security (the youngD and
talk of larger doles and unemploy-
ment insurance?
THE MAN WHO MADE THE
PEACE. BY Stuart Hodgson. New
York: E. P. Dutton Co.
This is brief biography of Neville
Chamberlain. eliminating IN a dis
cussion of his conduct in the Czecho-
Slovakian trouble, Europe's latest
headache, in case you have already
forgotten. Mr.. Chamberlain, of
course, has been greatly in the public
eye since that time, and partisans
have been peculiarly violent over
his conduct. The reviewer cannot
think of any one who has been car
tooned more unpleasantly, and yet
she has not read word of sugges-
ton as to what Mr.. Chamberlain
could have done that he did not do
except, of course, declare war. One
must conclude that the unhappy
minister was cast for the role of
goat and that his enemies, and the
considerable body of anglophobes,
have not neglected the opportunity
The present book is a word on the
other side of the question. 1t is for
the Prime Minister, most unquali-
fledly. Unfortunately, its author
overbalances. He is so deep in ad-
miration of Mr.. Chamberlain that
he loses his sense of proportion. He
is positively tender about the beau
ties of the prime minister's charac-
ter; one might almost say that he
croons. Such work, of course, is
neither informative to the public nor
helpful to its subject. 1t must stand
as lost effort.
MUSE ANTHOLOGY. New York:
Carlyle Straub.
This book, now published almost
year. is memorial to Edgar Allan
Poe, prepared by a group Of con-
| temporary writer's. 1t is comprised
OF seven parts. The first consists of
tributes and essays and poems to
Poe, the second is Poe's essay on
THE Poetic Principle" and his own
poems, the third is a collection of
lyrics by modern writers, the fourth
is a collection of sonnets, the fifth is
collection of quatrains and light
verse, the sixth is given over to vers
libre and the seventh is addenda,
including facsimiles of the original
manuscript of The Raven" and
of the pages in the Evening Mirror
and the American Review on which
the poem was first published. The
volume is almost 900 pages long.
AS far as the Poe material goes, it
is excellent. The volume has been
prepared reverently and is gift fit
to be offered in the name of Poes
greatness. John Gould Fletcher,
Charles Hanson Towne, Clement
Wood, Edwin Markham, Burton Ras-
coe, Joseph Auslander, John Erskine
and Nathalia Crane are among those
inscribing the tributes The print
ing OF the book has been done beau
tlfully and its physical appearance
is harmonious to its purpose.
AS for the material in the anthol-
ogy sections-Sections 3, 4, S and g.
1t is the same stuff, in the main,
which seeps into all contemporary
anthologies. There are some eminent
names among the contributors, to
be sure-Robert Bridges, G. K.
Chesterton, Padraic Colum, Countee
Cullen, Walter de la Mare, Robert
Frost, A. E. Housman, Aldous Huxley
to mention only few. But with
all these there is a leveling residue
of mediocrity, too.
PORTRAITS FROM A CHINESE
SCROLL. BY Elizabeth Foreman
Lewis. Chicago: John C. Winston
Co.
This volume consists of a num-
ber of formal, conventional char
acterizations of Chinese citizens
done in the oldtime geography test
book manner. For instance, the
Chinese merchant is characterized as
a shrewd trader whose word is his
bond, the usual conventional patter.
However, each of these brief sum-
maries is followed by sketch or
dramatic incident which gives life
to the otherwise dull formalizations.
The merchant, the coolie, the tailor,
the beggar, the scholar, the clerk.
the woman. the child, the postman.
and that usual concomitant of life
in China. the foreigner, are all de-
scribed. The tales which follow these
descriptions are rather tenuous, for
the most part, but have some ele-
ments of drama which stick in the
memory. This is particularly true,
OF course, of the more frankly
propagandistic ones.
The illustrations by Virginia Hol-
linger Stout are particularly appeal
ing and have much the effect of
weu-done etchings.-R. R. T.
A GOOD HOME WITH NICE
PEOPLE. BY Josephine Law
renee, Boston. Little, Brown &
Co.
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