davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Evening star., 1951-01-07


States who has come to join her
husband, a scientist, who is some
where up one of the forest hidden
rivers. They are looking for the
unknown River of the SUM-"
described in Indian lore as an
Ell Dorado of fabulous resources,
winding into hills free of the
jungle. The scientist, Nils Barna,
turns out to be an amazing char
acter, who has decided to retire
from the so-called. civilized world
for reasons you'll discover in time
There is on the final stages OF
the journey, which is made on two
lashed barges pushed by bat
tered launch, giant Negro called
in Portuguese, "Touro," the Bull
He is from the United States. has
been in Amazonia for years and
is foreman of a rubber planta-
ton. To me he is as memorable
as the title character in The
Niger of the Narcissus." A rene
gade North American named Cobt
is another of the cast likely tc
stick in your mind. But every
important character is distinct.
BY the time you reach the enc
OF the flier Mark Allison's adven-
ture you'll have a panorama oi
the Amazon country-lonely, SOM
Der, mysterious, harried by heat
and insects, plagued by fever.
and other perils. You'll have
morever, some phases of life tt
think over. "River of the Sun
is a Book Of the Month Club
selection.
Evening star., 1951-01-07

children's work comes along of
such unusual character as to de-
mand mention. Such is the case
with the exhibition of 100 paint
ings by Turkish children, on view
at Howard University's art gallery
through January Is. 1t was as
sembled by Mrs. Timothy Pfeiffer
of Robert College, Istanbul. from
among 500 pictures submitted in
a contest held by the Turkish chill
dren's. magazine, Dogan Kardes
(Brother Dogan. 1t was lent
through the courtesy of Arne w.
Randall, specialist in fine arts, of
our Office of Education, FSA
Annemarie Henle Pope, director of
the American Federation of Arts
exhibition service, was so i'm
pressed with this show that the
Federation will take it over for a
national circuit after it's close here.
The pictures have exotic subject
matter from our standpoint: Camel
trains, storks' nests, mosques and
minarets. There is much variety
due to Turkeys geographical di-
versity and her position astride two
continents. exemplified in the brill
liant. often strident color employed
in the Yozgat paintings, charac-
teristic of Central Anatolia, and
the strikingly contrasted paintings
by Thracian Turkey, the little strip
that lies in Europe, showing SUBJ
tier color schemes and more con-
ventional subjects. Furthermore
some of the pictures display con-
siderable technical skill, while
others are quite unsophisticated.
Evening star., 1951-01-07
Art Book Review
ART NEWS ANNUAL, 1851

(Simon & Schuster, Inc; $500
The most complete and varied
exhibition of Goya yet held in the
United States, was that shown at
the Wildenstein Gallery. New York
City. in November and December
And during 1851. great exhibi-
ton of work by Henri de Toulouse
Lautrec sent to America by the
museum of Abb, his birthplace,
will travel through our country,
commemorating the semicentenary
of his death. Hence this annual
issue Of Art News, featuring these
two masters who were important
influences on modern art. Is es-
pecially timely.
The appreciation of Goya by
Andre Malraux is the more schol-
arly and subtle, but the personal
"reminiscences of Lautrec by Tha-
dee Natanson and the discussion
of him as an artist, by Alfred M.
Frankfurter, are the more inter-
esting and make him live" more
understandably.
These and two other features,
an Introduction to Abstract" by
Thomas Hess, and "Art in Silk" by
John Goldsmith Phillips, as we'll
as the comprehensive review of
the year October. 1949-Septem-
ber, 1950) make this issue un-
usually good.
Evening star., 1951-01-07
Administration Chances

January I'd was the Official
date Of three important changes
in personnel of Washington insti-
tutions. Thomas c. Parker, director
Of the American Federation of
Arts since 1910, was succeeded by
George Burton Cumming. Mr..
Cumming, a native of Connecticut,
is a graduate of Harvard's Fine
Arts School. has had experience as
a teacher of art at Union College,
Schenectady, as assistant director
of the Albany Institute of History
and Art and as director of the
Milwaukee Art Institute for five
years. In accepting the federation
position, MIR. Cumming said:
"This is the best opportunity in
the field of American art today"
The Corcoran Gallery of Art has
change of assistant directors.
John Palmer Leeper, jr., who has
held that post for little over a
year, has left to assume the di-
rectorship of the Pasadena Art In
stitute, California. Henry Cald-
we'll has been appointed to sue
ceed him at the Corcoran. Mr..
Leeper came to Washington just
after graduating from Harvard's
Fine Arts School to become keeper
of the Clark collection at the Cor
coran, and after a year in that
position, he became assistant di-
rector following Willis Woods.
The Washington Hebrew Con-
gregation's executive director,
Sydney Kellner, accepted an invi-
tation to hold the same position
with the Baltimore Hebrew Con-
gregation, and left here for his
new post after January !. He had
served here for four and a half
years, and was responsible for de-
veloping an active social and cul-
tural program, besides admins
trative work at the temple.
Evening star., 1951-01-07

simultaneously with the Jubilee
Exhibition.
Moving on through a German
Renaissance room, and several
galleries of Spanish, later italian
and Flemish, and Dutch paint
ings, one reaches the French
school, set forth in a series Of
galleries, adjoining which are
several superb original French
rooms of the Louis XIV and XVI
periods, complete with furnish
ingS.
The only quarrel with the show
is that while it includes paintings
by five contemporary French
Matisse, Picasso, Rouault, Braque
and Duchamp-no living Ameri-
can is represented. The survey
of drawings has one by John
Marin and one by Georg Grosz
American citizen for the past Il
years. The show doesn't do right
by our native school.
An important feature Of the
drawing section is works by severa
of the greatest masters, not rep.
resented by paintings: Leonardo
Michelangelo and Durer. All three
lof Leonardo's drawings in the
United States are shown, and the
only American-owned Mcclellan.
gelo, the Metropolitan Museums
"Libyan Sibyl."
Many Americans travelled to see
the Berlin and Vienna painting
exhibitions when they toured oul
country. The Philadelphia Mu.
seum's Diamond Jubilee Exhibitor
is quite as worthy of attention.
Evening star., 1951-01-07

for the Smart Set or. more often,
filed their work away in attic
trunks" 1t was six years before
they became co-editors. Dur
ing the Mencken-Nathan regime,
''for almost a decade there was
scarcely a major writer in the
country who did not trace his
career from a first acceptance by
the Smart Set"
The more materially successful
American Mercury, started in
1924 under the Mencken- Nathan
editorship. was, with its much
greater circulation and its instant
prestige, vastly more influential,
but in another direction. Mr..
Mencken lost interest in literature
and concentrated on politics, espe-
cially in lambasting such quack
causes as prohibition and in fight
ing censorship and other oppreS-
sions. Mr.. Nathan, still immersed
in the fine arts, inevitably broke
with his partner and withdrew
from the magazine. Mr.. Man
chester realizes the "dichotomy,"
the division, in Mr.. Mencken's s phi
loSophy, so that in the '20s he ap-
peared an ardent liberal and in
the '30s an arch-conservative. Mr..
Mencken had, meanwhile, revealed
another amazing facet, scholar
ship, as early as 1919, when he
published the first edition of THE
American Language"
The Germans Amazed Him.
There are some omissions in Mr..
Manchester's account, but not
many. For instance, in describing
the triumphant Mencken tour of
the South and the West in 1925,
the biographer does not, as Mr..
Kemler did. mention the most
dramatic episode, the suicide of
George Sterling. San Francisco's
beloved poet and Mr.. Mencken's
friend. Mr.. Menckens pro-Ger-
man attitude in the First World
War is not CLOSED over. 1t hardly
could be-he belabored the citi-
zens of Baltimore with it. But
Mr.. Manchester does blow UP the
charge Of Mr.. Mencken's enemies
that he was favorable to Hitler.
Mr.. Mencken called Hitler a Ku
Kluxer, nor was the Sage ever
anti-semitic or for any of the
Nazi goals. He was, rather, amazed
at the Germans for following such
mad demagogues.
Mr.. Manchester is %. and it is
remarkable how well he has cap
tured periods he could not possibly
remember. The book is a first
rate achievement.
Evening star., 1951-01-07
"A Fabulous Beauty
On Fire to Get Old
THE LOVED AND ENVIED

BY Enid Bagnold. doubleday &
Co.,; $3J
An authentic sparkle lights Enid
Bagnold's witty, graceful novel
about fabulous beauty who is ION
fire to get DID," At SO, still loved
and envied. Ruby Maclean is
anxious to lay down the burden of
her f1awless face and enter into
emotional retirement. A special
case she is-not one to fall into
the province of the recent Fed
eral conference on the aging-but
Miss Bagnold finds her and makes
her worthy of bemused considera-
ton.
For Lady Maclean, the passage
to the quiet of all passion spent is
not easy. She can hardly walk for
the people at her feet. With her
celebrated turquoise gaze un-
dimmed and only a silver thread
or two among the gold, she cali
still inspire the most demanding
kind of passion. This she arouses
in James de Bas-Pouilly, who was
a mere boy when she was at the
height of her power, when she
looked like a rose and a lily both
and talked like a man at his
club"
This withdrawal from an I'M
welcome love is just one of the
glinting lines in Miss Bagnold' S
essay on the coming of age. Ruby
ministers to her admirers with a
solicitude rare in one so blessed.
Her days are taken up with deli
cate missions: Trying to reconcile
a burnt-out playwright with his
bitter, divorced wife; informing a
60-year-old mistress of her 10
year-old lovers death; sitting with
a fat. subtle duke in his last hours;
commiserating with his duchess,
who had been his cook.
For all its glitter, Lady Maclean
is poignantly aware of the coldness
at the center of her life. Her hus-
band, dour Scot, is burning with
mysticism. Her daughter, stiff.
awkward girl, resentful in the
shadow of a gorgeous mother,
limps home from one disastrous
marriage and proposes to make
another equally unfortunate.
The conversation is the soul of
the novel. Whenever the charac-
tiers meet they waste no time in
chit-chat, but Immediately plunge
into searching, epigrammatic dis
cussions on love, life, beauty, lone
illness, old age and death. Or they
tell each other their life stories,
which are uniformly fascinating.
They are constantly on the alert
for piquant personalities, and the
most striking Miss Bagnold pre-
sents is an old Scottish duchess
who "bristles with spiky habits"
and secretly mourns for her hus-
band, the only person she ever
knew who made fun of her to her
face.
Miss Bagnold, the author of
National Velvet" does not strive
to make THE Loved and Envied"
appear to be of any great conse-
quence. But it Is most diverting
and full of worldly wisdom. If the
characters, who move about in
gilded luxury from chateaux to
villas. seem removed from the
ordinary run of human beings, 1t
only adds to their charm.
MARY McGRoRY.
Evening star., 1951-01-07
Chess
By Donald H. Muqridqe

All interested in the future OF
organized chess in the District
are reminded of the annual meet
ing of the Washington Chess Di-
van Friday at $3.50 pm. The fol-
lowing Friday evening, January 10.
will see Senior Master I. A. Horo-
witz taking on 80 opponents at
2445 Fifteenth street, NV; Philip
Bell is taking reservations Q32
Irvington street S.W.; 10. 3-6258.
This will begin at 8 pm. instead
of the usual $3.50. and there will
be no round of the Divan cham
pionship on the following day.
Two names were inadvertently
omitted from the list of USCF
ratings Of District players given
last week. Nathan Robbins, 1896.
and E. M. Knapp, 1875, are on
the low side.
Weaver w. Adams was one of
the FIVE visiting masters invited to
meet five British experts in this
years Christmas congress at Hast
ings, England. Adams. unfortu-
Inately, got off to one of his bad
starts, and after six rounds was
near the bottom of the list with
1lz-412. Nicholas Rossolimo Of
France and Wolfgang Unzicker
were tied in the lead with 5-1, fol-
lowed by Alberto O'Kelly (3la-
212), Jonathan Penrose (3-2) and
Vincenzo Castaldi (21a-22).
In the District League, Paragon
won good victory from the Naval
Gun Factory in the sixth round:
Evening star., 1951-01-07
New Books
FICTION.

~ 1o4S.
EARLY STORIES. BY Elizabeth Bowen
thor Of THE Death of the Heart" etc
with preface written for this volume
by the author. So.
GRAND BOUQUET. By Charles Gilbert
stahli apneT Wstlins L. a novel in the Amer
IT'S ONLY :, TEMPoSkIAART. SIsAs. By 3,a,s. cha5ls,
noyel of iii. IN a modern housing de:
our SPOONS CAME FROM WOOL.
WORTHS. By Barbara Comyns. Holt
The story of a young English girl who
marries an irresponsible artist on Lon
don's Bohemia. $2.75.
The sREhh By Gustav 5reIer ~ M9agn
w1Ta WIFI RINGS s9S ON MY FINGERS. By
Dorothy Minnick.. Dorrance. love
story of two people living in q widen
ing world Of inter-racial tolerance
THE YOUNG MAY MOON. By P. H. New
terment and Reconciliation. S3.
NON-FICTION.
THE AIR FORCE WIFE. BY Nancy Shea
Harper. What the wives of officers and
airmen ought to know about the Gus
toms OF the service and the manage
ment Of an Air Force household. 50.
bower Dogn 6sltIcs study of secret
EUROPE BETWEEN THE ACTS. By r. H
Waldeck. Doubleday. A report on post
war Europe by the author OF ''Athene
Palace" and "Lustre in the Sky" So so
Evening star., 1951-01-07

reporter on Jne bdlClmOre Sun.
In 'Distu1oer of the Peace
Mr.. Manchester has done fully
as good a job as Mr.. Kemler did,
in some respects a better one.
In the first place, Mr.. Manchester
has set down the salient facts
of Mr.. Mencken's life with thor
oughness and yet with a rare and
commendable conciseness. Sec
ondly, though not less important,
his story is written with clarity
and charm. Indeed. there could
hardly have been more gusto in
the writing-unless Mr.. Mencken
had ghost-written it. Sometimes
it does seem as if the enfeebled.
aging Sage of Baltimore were
leaning over the biographer's
shoulder debating a phrase here
and there, for there are Mencken-
ian stylistic touches. But this
simply reflects Mr.. Manchester's
close study of his source ma
terials. including of course a vast
amount of Mencken writing. If
the biographer had grown up
in the '20s. he'd have found whole
campusfuls of literary aspirants
trying, consciously or uncon-
sciously, to write with the sure
strokes of their hero, Mencken.
This book is more sympathetic,
less critical than Mr.. Kemler's
study. But if the not-uncompleX
Mr.. Mencken does not emerge as
a human being, almost tangible,
certainly audible, from Mr.. Man
chester's work, then he never will
from any biography.
Mr.. Manchester emphasizes in
particular Mr.. Mencken's more
positive achievements, which came
in the earlier years of his career,
when he was still a literary critic.
He espoused the most promising
of the new writer's and encouraged
every young person who showed
a gleam of talent.
The Old Smart Set.
Mr.. Manchester is the first, at
least in the years since the mag
azine disappeared and was for
gotten, to evaluate accurately the
old Smart Set. He points out that
at the time Mr.. Mencken and
George Jean Nathan took over,
respectively. as book and drama
critics. in 1908, America had
touched bottom in current litera-
ture. I'm the publishing houses
and magazine offices of New York
no serious novel. no vigorous play,
no verse with the stamp of indi-
vidualism had a chance. Writers
who tried to tell of life as they
saw 1t, and there were few, wrote
Evening star., 1951-01-07
The Fireside Theoter
Has on Anniversary

Christopher Fry is the most
striking contemporary playwright
to- send audiences thumbing
through texts, but he Is appar-
emily not the only one. The
Fireside Theater sends out 10000
plays a month to subscribers all
over the country.
The Preside Theater, which has
most of its members outside New
York City, is celebrating it's first
anniversary this month under the
wing of the Literary Guild. It
is actually the brain child Of an
Indianapolis couple. Paul and
Nancy Briney. who launched il
IN 1946 on the assumption that
many people who were deprived
of the fun of watching the house.
lights go down and the footlights
go up would get a great deal OF
pleasure reading the lines that
were being spoken in Broadway
hits.
| Carrying on all the business OF
such an organization in spare
time proved to be quite a burden
though, and when Mr.. Briney's
work took him to New York, he
offered his idea to the Literary
Guild. which has the machinery
for such operations. Now Mrs
Rriney has editorial supervision o1
the Fireside Theater in the
guilds Manhattan office.
| The current selection is VOL
colt Gibbs smash comedy, "Sea-
son in the Sum-" which will be fol-
lowed by John Van Druten's BELL
Book and Candle" Among pre-
vious books offered and accepted
and the group has the highest &C.
ceptance rate of any of the book
clubs-was Come Back, Little
Sheba." which is promised for the
Gayety in the near future. Wash
:ngton's 119 members of the Fire
side Theater will probably be well
up or their lines when it arrives
II II II
| Yesterday was the 73d birthday
of Carl Sandburg, the white
haileo poet and biographer of
Lincoln. To mark the occasion,
Broadway Music Co. issued Carl
Sandburg's New American Song
bag" which contains words and
music of some threescore con-
temporary folk songs. Those
maddened by Good Night. Irene.
will be happy to hear that among
them is Tell Irene Hello"
On January 81. Harper's will
publish John Gunther's biography
of General Macarthur, entitled
Riddle of Macarthur" It was
formerly called Caesar of the
Pacific"
Evening star., 1951-01-07

BY James Ramsey Ullman. Zip
Here, with the new year a week
old, is an outstanding novel,
which may be a good augury for
the fiction Of 1851.
Several years ago Mr.. Ullman
brought out THE White Tower"
a novel of mountain climbing
which was both popular and high
ly regarded critically. He has
written other books concerned
with mountains and with other
hazardous places. In River of
the Sun" he returns to the Amazon
country, which he seems to know
as well as any intruder can.
River of the Sun is story of
adventure, but it is far more. 1t
may be observed, >parenthetically.
that there is nothing wrong with
adventure, even if your literary
standards are high. Conrad's
books are filled with the excite
ment of perilous journeys. The
difference is that when an ordi-
nary writer deals with adventure
he is concerned only with building
up suspense. leading to clashing
climaxes. The literary artist also
employs his story to bring out
character and perhaps to point up
some typical way in which life
uses people.
AS a story, River of the Sun"
moves swiftly and faulty. Its
careful characterizations and iron
ical overtones and the lyrical
descriptions of that desolate, lost
world up the Amazon never bring
the narrative to a dead halt. as
when less competent novelists try
to write" These shapes and COL
ors are woven in so skillfully that
they are part of the novels fabric.
The story never stops.
Up the Mysterious Amazon.
It's narrator, commercial flyer
who piloted a bomber during
the war, has given up flying
and settled down to a clerical
position in a grimy Brazilian ghost
town to forget a tragedy for which
he blames himself. He is per-
suaded by a Brazilian friend to
join an expedition up a tributary
of the Amazon in search of oil
There is aboard their up-river
steamer a young woman from the
Evening star., 1951-01-07

Woman Working and things like
that to hang outside my door.
Labor misses a great deal by
not having part-time jobs for
women. They should be home
when their children come from
school, but they could have some
kind of a job to keep up their
interest"
She came back to her specifica-
tions for the biography she would
like to write. II don't want q
wife who just inspired her hus-
band. or an actress. Not that
have anything against actresses,
but want some one who is origi-
nal and constructive. not just a
performer. I don't want a queen
who just got there by accident" /"
Anybody know ANYBODY?
Evening star., 1951-01-07
Ar
Philadelphia Museum
OF Arts Diamond
Jubilee Exhibition
By Florence S. Berrymon


Few Washingtonians are able to
visit more than a small number of
the admirable art exhibitions pre-
Sented in other cities during the
course Of season. But the Dia-
mond Jubilee Exhibition of the
Philadelphia Museum of Art is of
such exceptional quality that any
D. c. art lover who can take day
off and afford round trip transpor-
tation will find it completely re-
warding. It was mentioned briefly
here when 1t opened early in No
vember. It will extend through
February IL.
The exhibition is in two parts
100 of the greatest paintings in
the United States and 100 of the
finest drawings. with total valua-
ton of SIT million, have been as
sembied from nearly so museums
and private collections from coast
to coast and from Canada to
Texas.
The National Gallery of Art is
one of the seven largest lenders,
having sent 4 paintings and II
drawings. The Phillips Gallery
has lent two paintings. Only two
came from outside our borders:
Rembrandt's "St. Peter Denying
Christ" from the Rikjs Museum,
Amsterdam. and Corot's Bridge
of Narni," from the National
Gallery of Canada. But to see all
the others, one would have to
travel as far: To New York City,
Boston, Cleveland. Chicago, De-
troit, st. Louis, San Francisco,
Houston, Sarasota and many other
places.
The paintings (actually 1922
were selected by Henri Marceau,
associate director of the Phila-
delphia Museum. and the 119
drawings by Carl Zigrosser, Gu
rator of prints and drawings.
The two exhibitions have a
range of eight centuries of art
history, as the drawings begin
with the 18th century, the paint
ingS with the 14th. Besides this
time range and the geographical
range mentioned above, the sur
vey covers all important (Occi-
dentaD schools, Italian, Flemish,
German, Spanish, Dutch, French,
British, American and Mexican.
The shows are arranged in evo-
lutionary order. In the painting
galleries, early Italian and Flem-
ish works of the same centuries
are mingled. In the first gallery,
OF Renaissance architecture,
among important early paintings
is the exquisite Van Eyck, "St.
Francis Receiving the Stigmata," 4"
miniature in size, but large in
conception. The adjoining GAL
lery, containing 18th and 10th
century paintings. is embellished
with Italian bronzes and cassoni.
Connected with this gallery, but
outside the exhibition proper, are
three galleries containing 26
Italian paintings of the 10th to
18th centuries, given to the Phil
adelphia Museum by the Samuel
H. Kress Foundation, and opened
Evening star., 1951-01-07
Modern Sculpture

Another exhibition which will be
circulated by the American Fed
Grafton of Arts is that of sculp-
ture. to open January 81, at
American University, whose art
department staff prepared it. 1t is
a further development of the ideas
embodied in the book, Tradition
and Experiment in Modern Sculp-
ture," by Charles Seymour, jr.,
published last year by American
University Press. The exhibition
consists Of about 20 pieces of
sculpture, with sculptors' drawings,
photographs and explanatory
labels,
Evening star., 1951-01-07
Turkish Children

Important though exhibitions of
children's work in art media are
from psychological and other
Istandpoints. I do not think they
should be regularly reviewed in art
columns. any more than the con-
.coctions of elementary cooking
classes are discussed by newspaper
critics of sophisticated cuisine.
At intervals, however, a show of