Evening star., 1946-06-16
A New Monument
To the IdeoIism
OF fAmericu' S Past
AMERICAN LEGEND

- .
AMERICAN LEGEND
Selected by Robert and Dor
othy udn Gelder. ID. Apple
ton-Century; $3.75.)
It is always hard to review ar
anthology. Short of taking up every
separate selection such volume
contains, I have never been able tc
work out a formula for the job which
satisfied me. have not worked one
out in this case. But the compiler,
Of the volume have worked one out
for me and, with gratitude to them
shall make use Of 1t.
The book is a collection Of novels
selections from novels and stories
reaching a length of 535spages ano
some 100000 words. The common
theme of the material Is the United
States of America, its history. That
does not mean that the material
itself is patriotic in the schoolboy
sense of the word. Here is what Mr.
van Gelder has to say in his fore
word about the occasion Of its
choosing.
He and Mrs. van Gelder, he
writes, were vacationing near Lake
Placid last summer. "The Lake
Placid Club, nearby. had become an
Army post quartering soldiers who
had lately been in combat and were
there to relax. I" =" We noticed that
the returnees, as these soldiers were
called, showed little interest in golf
tennis, swimming or horseback rid
ing. They kept the juke boxes in
the PIX going and drank cokes
played a round of miniature golf or
. game of croquet and had another
coke, shot pool for half an hour and
ate a chocolate marshmallow sundae
as an appetizer for. dinner.
IT wondered If, looking back on
their stay, the soldiers would re-
member it with pleasure. I saw
none Of them who seemed entirely
happy at the moment, who was
luxuriating in the equipment avail
able at the place. The air was op-
presSive with restlessness; thought
that I could sense in 1t the odor OF
burnt-out time"
Mr.. van Gelder then goes on to
describe the "liveliest" soldier at the
post. He was a young man who had
q habit of hitting his fellow soldiers
over the head. It was explained
that he had been In a lot of action
In Italy. He had seen a dog deco
rated for wiping out a machine gun
nest and he could not get over
thinking how a dog could do soldiers
duty as well as the soldiers them
selves. It bothered him. So he hit
his friends hard whacks on the head
The atmosphere in the surround
ing country was quite as "acrid,
says Mr.. van Gelder. The place
was overrun with highly prosperous
Germans-refugees-wfo had an
tagonized the Americans by expect
ing favors in all things. There
were endless stories of how rich
these people were, or how rude they
were, or how hated they were" Then
came the end of the war and the
vacationers responded mainly by
ordering double and triple rounds
of drinks as they suspected that the
bar would soon close"
But MI. van Gelder continues,
"ny own reactions were not so ade-
ouate that I could deny ceusinly
understanding. The revolution
from war to law, accompanied as it
was by the employment of an agent
(the atomic bomb which has the
power to reduce the world to a puff
of light, indicated the utility of a
temporary veil against the toe
astonishing present"
So he and Mrs. van Gelder set
out to make the present book. They
did not appease the present with
juke boxes or drinking; they turned
instead to the markers and keep
sakes, the nementoes, OF the past
Their book reaches in historical
time from the Salem witchcraft
scare GA Mirror for Witches" by
Esther Forbes to the 192Os c"The
Night the Bed Fell" by James Thur
ber). It's auctorial time, however
Is almost all near the restless pres
eilt. There are selections from
'Moby Dick" and "Huckleberry
Finn; there are stories by Ham
lin Garland, George w. Cable and
Bret Harte. But most of the ma
terial is the work of recent or con-
temporary writers. Edith Wharton's
novel, ''The Old Maid" is included
in full, as is Eudora Welty's "The
Robber Bridegroom" There are
pieces by Clarence Day, Booth Tark-
ington, o. Henry, Conrad Richter
and Stephen Vincent Benet-the
latter that old anthology set-piece,
1.-The Devil and Daniel Webster. =
The two which pleased me most
were Jessamyn Vests ''The Battle
Of. Finney's Ford" and John W.
Tnomason. jr.'s. Gone to Texas"
One feels, as one reads the selec-
tions, that one knows what Mr.. van
Gelder means. The dreariness and
cynical acceptance with which the
American public took its latest in
volvement in Europe's perennial war
find little parallel in our native
past. They are not familiar feel
iags to us as a nation. They may
come to be, as Europe draws closer
tosus. We may not infect Europe
with our health-it may infect us
with It's disease. But that will be
a development of the future. The
Van Gelders' volume is monument
to the optimism and idealism of the
American past.
TimeIess Verse
MID-CENTURY
BY Frances Frost. lCreative
Age; ST.
A delicate but durable quality
marks this collection of short poems