davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Evening star., 1948-08-29

I Married a Dead Man, by William
Irish. u. B. Lippincott Co.; s2.75D
! The author OF Phantom Lady
takes another excursion out of the
whodunit circle to tell the woes of
girl who assumes another's identity
to gain security for her unborn child
only to lose her chance at the
moment of greatest promise. A man
who deserved to be murdered gets
murdered. The case is closed with
out an arrest, but the girl who was
almost happy and the man who loved
| her are doomed to the lasting pun
ishment of uncertainty. Here is a
well-told tale of girl who got
everything she wanted but found
she had nothing without peace of
mind-and that she could not have.
Save = Rope, by H. C. Bailey.
Doubleday 81 Co.; so
Crime Club.
Discovery of a parcel of bones
(the skull missing high lights a
controversy between two English
villages, sets of q chain Of violence
in which the survivors are curiously
reluctant to talk, and at first puzzles
Reggie Fortune. The dialogue is
frequently brittle to the point Of
unintelligibility, but bear 1t if you
can. There are clues tucked away
In the not-so-idle chatter.
4 4 ~ =
The Room Upstairs, by Mildred
Davis. (Simon 81 Schuster, Inc, $2.)
inner SGnctum.
The fear in the Corwith household
was almost solid enough to touch.
Swendsen. the new chauffeur.
noticed it at once. Somehow or
other, he figured, he must enter
the locked room in which, the other
servants whispered, Kitten Corwith
was recovering from disfiguring
auto accident. Could Kittens acci-
dent have produced the fear that
distorted her sisters otherwise
pretty face and drove hsr father 70
Evening star., 1948-08-29

This is useful selection of
Wasaingtons writings and en-
tirely adequate for the library OF
the average man.
The reader will find little of
literary style or facility of ex-
preston. Washington made no
pretenses in those directions.
But occasionally there will come
from Washingtons experience
and the predicaments he and his
country were in, such line as
this written in December, 1776:
mo man, / believe, ever had q
greater choice of difficulties and
less means to extricate himself
from them
What does come out of his
writings is a realization anew
that here is man of sound
judgment and of those other
qualities which we group together
and call character" Had it not
been for these our history would
be different.
He saw the fundamentals OF
problems untroubled by on-the-
other-hand conflicts of opinion.
His judgments are sound today
where the premises are the same.
Evening star., 1948-08-29
Crime and Mystery
By Mir;iom Gutenberg

absent minded helplessness? And
why was the Corwith family so
anxious to leave town-even more
anxious as Swendsen's curiosity ex-
banded? Swendsen was right on one
point-an answer lay in the room
upstairs, but not the whole answer.
Fragments of conversation. half
explained episodes, snatches from a
diary and the mystery of Swendsen
himself all contributed to tension
that snaps in an unexpected docu-
ment.
The Ugly Woman. by william O'Far-
rell. CDuell, Sloan & Pearce;
s2.50.)
Bloodhound
If you can accept the premise that
woman of surprising girth and
revolving ugliness could hold three
men in thral. through sheer bril-
lance, what happens to the affected
parties may seem less unbelievable.
Obviously, the men were all a trifle
touched or they wouldn't have got
ten involved with Alice Abbott TO
start with. The one who wound up
getting observed In Bellevue Hospi-
tai for trying to break with Alice
obviously deserved medal After
all the hysteria that goes before, the
eventual murder is sheer anticlimax
and the earlier death OF college
chum is strictly on the ho-hum side.
The Trouble With Murder, by Roger
Bax. tHarper e. Bros; $500
AS the murderer Of Uncle Charlie
ultimately discovers, the trouble with
murder Is the unforeseen that points
the finger at the guilty party. Since
the reader is handed blueprint OF
the crime In advance, the suspense
necessarily hangs on whether the
law will make the most Of the un-
foreseen. If that isn't enough,
there's q love story and . hair
raising climax at sea to dress up the
tale.
Evening star., 1948-08-29
Scholarly Work
Hard to Digest
THE WHITE GODDESS
BY Robert Graves. (CreatiDe Age
Press, Inc; $4.50.)
Reviewed by
ROBERT X. WALSH.

This historical grammar of
poetic myth" is hard to swallow
and digest. 1t nevertheless tempts
any taste for rare bits of infor-
nation and strange, saucy mixtures
of fact and fancy.
The theme as we'll as the ap-
parent objects of attack in this
heavy but often fiashingly brilliant
work is far too serious for merry
making. No one aware of the deep
and diversified literary output of
Mr.. Graves. the startling, scholarly
English poet, will accuse him of
having tongue in his cheek as he
concocts witch's brew of theory,
research, opinion and philosophy.
All true, pure" poetry, Mr.. Graves
holds, Is bound up with the ritual
of the ancient pagan cult of the
White Goddess OF Birth, Love and
Death. In trying to prove his main
thesis that the language of poetic
myth was a magical language tied
in with popular religious ceremonies
in honor of the Moon Goddess or
Muse" he jumps, among other
ways, to a conclusion that Chris
tianity is not a suitable religion
for the poet.
His new intellectual approach to
myths and sacred literature is at
least open to. challenge by theolo-
gians, historians and others. But,
despite the Graves yawning at en-
tertainment value, general readers
will revel not in his deductions
from magical elements and dab
blings in mystic formulae, but in
his discussion of the origin of words,
customs and symbols.
Poets by profession may be the
best friends and severest critics of
this book. Mr.. Graves provides some
unusual if not unique reasons why
so many young poets stop writing
poetry and why "the bulk OF mod
ern poetry ceases to make poetic,
prosaic or even pathological sense"
Nor is he f1attering to prose writ
ers. He finds that what passes for
simple prose nowadays is a mechan-
ical stringing together of stereo-
typed word-groups without regard
to the images contained therein"
The White Goddess" itself IS
something of stringing together
of devious and occasionally dull
arguments and not always clear
logic and demonstrated fact. But
it's ideas and images never can be
called Stereotyped.
Evening star., 1948-08-29
THE GROWTH OF
PHYSICAL SCIENCE
BY Sir James Jeans. Macmillan, !,
81
Reviewed by
T. r. HENRY.

The late Sir James Jeans was
one OF the great intellects OF the
English-speaking world whose dar-
ing brilliance in the field of theo-
retical astronomy was combined
with the Imagination of a poet and
The universally of philosopher. He
became the most widely read and the
most Illuminating of the priesthood
of the new physics and the new
astronomy-the physics Of relatively,
the astronomy of expanding uni
verses-which represent the culmi-
nation of mans intellectual grasp
of creation in this generation.
In this book he attempts to trace
the development which has pro-
gressed from the earliest concept of
numbers and divisions OF time and
space at the dawn of civilization to
the present-day speculation on the
meanings of cosmic radiation and
the motions of external galaxies.
It is a brief. simply written history
of mathematics and physics.
But this last work of Jeans hardly
can be considered one of his best
efforts. The originality and imagi-
nation, the flashes of poetry, which
had come to be associated with his
name are lacking. 1t is an excellent,
compact reference book of scientific
history whose chief importance lies
in the fact that it is the last work
to come from his pen. And one gets
the impression that the amazing
advances had reached the point
where their meanings were not clear
to Jeans himself.
Evening star., 1948-08-29

9 n - e 1 i z IL Y z D. f'A"''
Reared in the Transvaal, his imagi-
nation was exposed at an early age
to all the mystery and romance
which surrounded him. Since then
and for half century he has hunt
ed every type of wild animal. He
has stalked such animals as the
lion, leopard, rhinoceros, gorilla
and bush-buck and has shot a total
of 557 elephants.
1t was while tracking the giant
pachyderms that he had some of
his most breath-taking adventures.
On one occasion he shot six ele-
plants with as many bullets Give
elephants charging him at once. At
another time he was grabbed and
tossed Is feet in the air by a mad
dened bull, luckily being thrown
over the animals back. One of his
effective yet hazardous ways of fin
ishing off an elephant was to put in
spine shot. forcing the animal to
sit, and, then run up his back and
kill him with shot in the neck.
Field Marshal j. C. Smuts writes
in his foreword about this quiet.
gentle little man, his chief scout in
the East African campaign during
World War I. The fire that lay un-
der those quiet features, he mar
rates. made his very person like a
can1ouf1age. During this campaign
Maj. Pretorius was responsible for
finding the German cruiser Koenigs-
berg, which had gone far into the
jungle up the Ruff River to escape
the British fleet.
He sums up impressively the spirit
by which he lived in deepest Africa:
Living dangerously is twice
blessed-it blesses the moment with
elation; it blesses the after-day with
warm memories"
Evening star., 1948-08-29

The timeliness OF some of his
observations are particularly
striking when he speaks of the
Army. And pertinent to the con-
stitutional amendment now be-
fore the States is this: "' I
can see no propriety in preclud-
ing ourselves from the services
of any man who, on some great
emergency, shall be deemed uni
versally most capable of serving
the public"
Mr.. Commins precedes each of
his 242 items with an explana-
tory note which serves as a link
with the complete story.
The District resident reads
against the background of his
familiarity with Mount Vernon
and of other ground which Wash
ington trod, and of the aware
ness, perhaps subconscious, of
the Monument dominating the
Capital Mr.. Commins' selections
are sufficient to the comprehen-
sion that the Monument perhaps
matches Washington in sim
plicity and austerity. but. great
though it is, it is only a symbol
of the greatness of the man.
Evening star., 1948-08-29
Novel of Civil War
Gives Spy View
'Of South's Defeat
NO BUGLES TONIGHT
BY Bruce Lancaster. (Atlantic-
Little, BrotDn;. S3.)
Reviewed by
COURTENAY PLASKITT.

fL6VleWcO ny
COURTENAY PLASKITT.
Take, for instance, Tennessean
Name her Penn Granger. In 1861
the month is January and the first
shot of the Civil War is fired or
Fort Sumter. Penn has choice tt
make between debts of loyalty.
If she suffers qualms about hel
course Of action, they are not dealt
with in this historically accurate
novel. She becomes spy for the
Union forces. working through
Union islands" all over the South
Whipple Sheldon of Kinnyard's
Independent Ohio Battery takes
the lead and through him as the
principle character Bruce Lancaster
tells with admirable precision OF
several of the most exciting and OF
the most decisive events of the war
The Andrews Raid vies with the
Battle of Missionary Ridge for being
the most colorfully told.
The plan for the Andrews Raid
was for "a men, out of uniform, to
meet at Marietta, Ga, lying deep In
Southern-held territory, to steal a
locomotive with several boxcars and
run it 100 miles north to Chatta-
nooga, burning all bridges, running
tracks and cutting telegraph lines.
Had the raid, which took place on
April IL, 1862, been successful, the
Confederate forces would have been
cut in pieces. Several railroadmen
took up the chase of the General
in another locomotive, believing
that it had been stolen by deserters.
One point might be made clearer
James Andrews, depicted here simply
as being a Virginian, actually was
born in Hancock County. w. Va,
which never seeded; spent his boy
hood in Missouri, later moving to
Flemingsburg, KY, where feeling
about secession was more divided
These added facts make more easily
understandable his outstanding ca
reer as a Union spy.
Vicksburg, July, 1868, and the
Battles of Lookout Mountain and
Missionary Ridge, November, 1868,
are too we'll known to summarize
here, but mo Bugles Tonight" in
cludes a well-done picture of the
action there with sympathetic por-
trayals of Gems. Grant and Sher-
man.
Concurrent with the war adven-
lures of Whip Sheldon and Tom
Madden, as spies and soldiers, are
the revealing accounts of espionage
as conducted by the right sort Of
people," as they were won't to call
themselves. In this field of en-
deaVor Penn Granger and Sharon
Mcdaniel work industriously and
valiantly. With this foursome ro-
nance works out satisfactorily, as
hearts askew are finally set straight.
On the last pages we have a
passing glimpse of Gen. Sherman as
he sits his horse atop a ridge near
Knoxville, contemplating his devas-
tating march to the sea, which was
to begin five months later.
Evening star., 1948-08-29

over Glle OSGdll. MI. MIllGE WTlleS
charmingly of its weathers. its ways
and its characters fixed and
transitory
OF the permanent residents,
Perky" the man who had a dozen
trades and was equally at home at a
lobster trap or in a drawing room,
is the most engaging. And the in
effable Mrs. Billings is the most
amusing She was Stunned by the
cocktail set and yet she managed to
give the liveliest parties in town.
There were the tourists, trampling
over everything and respecting no
ones rights. There were the re-
tired people who had come there to
live out their lives-a week, five
years-who knew how long?
The book is suffused with a prac-
tical sort of philosophy and much
subtle humor. In some chapters
| 1t is true, Mr.. Miller seems to be
merely turning out copy, but even
that he does in an engaging way
Evening star., 1948-08-29
Sir James Jeans and F. S. Northrup ADD
Materially to the Library of the Sciences
THE LOGIC OF THE SCIENCES
AND THE HUMANITIES
BY F. S. C. Northrup. (Macmil-
Ian: $6,j


AND THE HUMANITIES
BY F. S. C. Northrup. (Macmil-
Ian; $6.J
Reviewed by
MILTON M. PLUMB, Jr.
information Officer, The librory Of Congress
Unable to read Greek, the poe
Keats had nevertheless heard much
from his friends about Homer be.
fore he came upon the translation
by Chapman, which for the first
time permitted him to catch q
glimpse of Homer's true greatness
Then" he wrote in his impassionec
sonnet describing his emotional re.
action, felt I like some watcher OF
the skies when new planet swim!
into his ken" His poem, ON FRS
Looking Into Chapman's Homer" il
probably the greatest book review
ever written, and yet from our per-
Spective of today We see that thu
reviewer considerably overevaluatee
Chapman's work.
Despite this example of the danger
to correct critical appraisal tina
overenthusiasm engenders, othel
careful readers of Prof. F. S. c
Northrup's new book may join mt
in wondering if this work is not s
new sun of the intellect that ir
years to come will dispel man,
clouds of human confusion. For
philosophy far more than most peo.
pie realize does reach down through
the ages to shape our very thought!
and experience. Our common
sense" is the philosophy of yester.
Gay, while the new ideas advanced
by the philosophers of today will
provide the common sense" of man.
kind tomorrow.
AS Hegel established, 1t is a mark
of tine greatest philosophers thai
by their insight they are able tc
resolve existing intellectual conflicts
through establishing a new syn.
thesis. In The Logic Of the
Sciences and the Humanities," By
demonstrating that while there is nc
one correct system of logic thai
is applicable to all levels of in.
quiry, yet several systems may each
be true at different levels, Dr.
Northrup has, to my mind at least
taken modern thought out of its
logical befuddlement. And, oddly
enough, by establishing pluralism
in the field of logic, he unif1es it
and makes logic logical.
1t would be unjust to the orig
inal to translate into still another
language from a translation, ano
since DR.. Northrup's work is, in a
sense, a translation of existing sys-
TENS of logic into one of new mean.
ing, it would be unfair to the
achievement of his book to attempt
10 condense an explanation of its
system of logic into the confines o1
a review. Suffice it to say, there
fore, that his philosophy is an all
encompassing one and that it seems
to work when applied to all branches
of knowledge Although each is
shown to rest upon different systems
of logic, such different fields ol
intellectual thought as religion, arl
and science are all proved to be
logical and valid, and DR.. NorthruE
has made a constructive contribu.
ton to the philosophy of epistemol-
ogy and axiology, as well as logic
in his work.
Evening star., 1948-08-29

employed she was able to delve ex-
tensively into biblical lore. The
authenticity of the background for
David has been attested by the
scholar, Fleming James. :.
AS a young woman, Miss King
travelled over Europe collecting ma
terial for her series: 1T Happened
in :" She also wrote the ABC
game books and some 18 story books
for children. One time Junior tennis
champion of the District, Marian
King lives at 47O7 Connecticut ave-
nue. NV.
1t is interesting to note that all
of the conversation for David is
from the King James version. Siz-
able quotes from the Psalms enrich
the work because they are not forced
into the story. They seem to- belong
there to explain David's emotional
situation at the time, H l.,
Evening star., 1948-08-29

follows the Mr.. MeLavsfts.
races, borrows from everybody he
can touch and Is not above steal
ing on occasion. John and Mary
have four grown children-two
daughters and two sons-and John
worries most about getting them
a decent education and good start
In life. Bob, bachelor, lives with
his half-sister Nelly.
The light Mr.. McLaverty sheds on
these characters is penetrating and
vet softened by compassion. The
brothers are entirely different in
temperament. John Is simple
man, decent, unselfish. Bob Is sour
and tight-fisted. d. j. Is always
turning up to sponge and harass
them both. John has son, Frank.
who has dropped out Of medical
Evening star., 1948-08-29

IlS l. IL l " u III
African wilds In
search of big
game. His lure
was the thrill of
the chase, the
challenge of I'M
explored hori-
IONS, and his
p a sport an
a d e p t n e S in
handling hostile
natives.
Jungle Man"
Is Maj. Preto-
RUS life story
Of these jungle
w a vi an , G
Evening star., 1948-08-29

guaranteed literary 1mmorGallCy.
It is in the creation of character
that Miss Crone reveals a mastery
that is her strongest bid for endur-
ing fame. Since the setting Of her
novel is a sparsely populated coun-
tryside, few people pass through the
scene, and she studies the appear
ance, motives and background OF
them all with such care and compass
sion and portrays them so roundly
that there is ne room for Freudian
fancy or unsatisfied curiosity. She
shows them in their understanding
of themselves, their relation to each
other and their response to their
surroundings. They stride from the
Irish earth into the readers mind,
alive and memorable.
A Pawn Of Spiritual War. =
Miss Crones theme is the bigotry
which runs like a river of dark
ness between the Protestant and
Catholic inhabitants of the beautiful
border country of Fermanagh. Her
heroine is Bride Steen, child of
nature, who is the pawn in terrible
spiritual warfare waged for the pos
session of her soul. Orphaned
daughter of mixed marriage, she
is brought up by her Uncle James
and Aunt Rose Anne. The latter, an
aggressively pious Catholic, instills
in the child feeling of guilt for
her mothers "unforgivable" sin in
marrying a Protestant.
1t is in the companionship of her
gentle Uncle James and in the
changing loveliness of the bogs that
Bride finds her solace. The chap
tiers relating to the alliance of these
two simple souls and their shared
delight in the laughs and hells
around them have the quality OF a
pastoral and are the most beautiful
passages in the book.
Brides desolation at Uncle James
death and her quiet interval as a
servant to the doll-like old Miss An
derson in that neat little lady's i'm
maculate little house are but a
preparation for the greatest crisis
of her life.
Grandmother Is Magnificent.
Through newly discovered
cousin, William Henry Steen, she is
induced to go and live with her
grandmother Alica, a rich, flercely
proud Protestant landowner, whose
bitterness at the loss of youthful
love was renewed when her only
and adored son married Bride s
Catholic mother. The grandmother
is a magnificent Characterization
worthy of Emily Bronte, and her
girlhood with its wildness and pas
sion is like something out of "Wuth-
ering Heights" AS bigoted in her
own way as Aunt Rose Anne was
in hers, she sees in William Henry
an ally in her campaign to make
Bride turn.
She subjects the young girl to
narrowing emotional pressures which
alternately terrify and fatter humble
Bride Poor Brides dilemma
heightened by old fears and a new
love, is presented with much COM
passion by Miss Crone, who per-
forms the amazing feat of never re-
vealing her own religious sympathies
There is not lazy line in Birdie
Steen." Miss Crone writes with the
vigor and solidity of the great Eng
lish prose masters and her story is
constructed with mastery skill. II
is full of pathos and passion ano
restraint. Miss Crone has done
much to restore an almost forgotten
dignity to the English novel.
Evening star., 1948-08-29
|NewDeoIC Critic
Finds Non
In Roosevelt
THE ROOSEVELT MYTH
BY John T. Flynn. fDepin -Adair
Co.. $500
Reviewed by
JOHN C. HENRY.

JOHN C. HENRY.
The jacket cover of this book
labels it "a critical account of the
New Deal and its creator" At this
approximate point the publishers
retire from the field of describing
the product and content themselves
inside the jacket with quoting Mr..
Flynn's own evaluation of MIR.
Flynn's book. Modestly enough. Mr..
Flynn concludes that it is "a picture
of Mr.. Roosevelt as history will see
him"
If time and an objective analysis
of the Roosevelt era prove Mr.. Flynn
to be right, it Is indeed black pic
ture that Is being left for history.
For in Mr.. Flynn's eyes, Mr.. Roose-
welt was q political accident. an
uninformed charlatan, unprincipled
and deceitful. He was . scoundrel,
according to Mr.. Flynn, surrounded
by a personal and ofncial family Of
like qualifications. Those who feel
otherwise about Mr.. Roosevelt and
his times, Mr.. Flynn implies rather
clearly, are not quite bright-includ-
ing White House reporters who
were grouped several times week
in simple ignorance around the
Presidents desk"
Mr.. Flynn is an experienced and
skilled workman in the writing
trade. In 400-plus pages he has
presented here a forceful and vio-
lent case against the man who made
political history in our times. Few
OF the charges and accusations are
new ones, but never before have they
been marshaled In such massive
array and launched with such ma
jestlc thunder as Mr.. Flynn packs
into his assault. 1t may be possible
that history will not reach quite all
the conclusions reached by Mr.,
Flynn but it must be recommended
seriously that the latters case
against "the country squire in the
White House" be given a reading.
1t is, at least. one side in what
promises to be long and bitter
displlfe
Evening star., 1948-08-29
Poets Recorded

Poets are making recordings OF
their poetry under the auspices OF
the Library OF Congress. Five al
buns of five large records apiece
are already being prepared from
the spoken works of Mark Van
Doren, w. H. Auden, Marianne
Moore, T. S. Eliot, Louise Began
William Carlos williams, E. E
Cummings, Robinson Jeffers. Ro-
bert Penn Warren, Karl Shapiro
and others.