Evening star. [volume], February 07, 1932, Page 15, Image 85

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Three Notable Books by an Eminent
Colombian Statesman, Dr. Antonio
Jose Uribe, former Minister of
Foreign Affairs.
Reviewed by L. S. Rowe,
Director General of the Fan-American
Union.
IN three notable volumes the former minis
ter of foreign affairs of Colombia, Dr. An
tonio Jose Uribe, presents what amounts
to a history of the foreign policy of Colom
bia as related to American affairs. The
first volume deals with the relations of
Colombia with the United States, including
all the negotiations relating to the Panama
Canal; the second, with the relations between
Colombia and Peru in the settlement of the
boundary dispute and the question of the free
navigation of rivers, and the third, with the
relations between Colombia and Venezuela,
Costa Rica, Ecuador. Brazil, Nicaragua and
Panama.
In these three volumes the student as well
as the general reader will find set forth with
great detail and with broad statesmp.nlike vision
some of the most important questions of Pan
American interest and significance. In addi
tion to being minister of foreign affairs for
many years. Dr. Uribe has also served in the
Senate as chairman of the Committee on For
eign Relations. He has, therefore, not only
been in constant contact with international
problems, but has been largely instrumental in
their solution. To the student of international'
affairs on the American Continent these three
volumes are indispensable and constitute the
most important contribution that has been
made in recent years,
COLUMBUS CAME LATE. By Gregory Mason.
Illustrations and maps. New York: The
Century Co.
LISTEN to the author himself for a minute
as he sets out to make clear, in part, at
least, that Coiumbus was quite a bit behind
time in his proffers, of Spanish culture to an
uncivilized America. Mr. Mason, scientist and
enthusiast done up in one. says: "To a certain
extent this is a mystery story; but it is not
one conceived in the fertile brain of a Gaboriau,
a Van Dine, a Poe. It is also a tale of great
human achievement; but it is not one imagined
by a Scott or a Dickens or a Conrad. How
ever, if you like tales such as these, you should
like this one. For it is true and the hero is
not a single individual, but a group of nations
with a high civilization composing an entire
people—the people of ancient America "
Archeologist, self-exacting student of com
parative researches and findings in that field,
enthusiast in support of a certain theory, pic
turesque and often poetic in speech with fre
quent homely out-thrusts of challenge and de
fiance, Gregory Mason bends these powers and
arts to the telling of a great story about an
ancient America that achieved civilization
while both Europe and Asia were still on the
far side of that high goal. He, himself, along
with others, has seen old bridges and roads and
aqueducts in their relics and remains. He
himself has helped to clear old temples from
the jungle burial, lvas learned to decipher old
glyphs on stone and pottery and textile inter
weaving. In high enthusiasm he reconstructs,
in part here and part there, various phases of
the old Mayan, Inca, Toltec, Aztec successions.
The Incas were the first Communists. The
greatest pyramids of the world belong to Mex
ico The cities of that far day were agricul
tural in toe main though, upon the whole
“ancient America was built by business men.”
A most fascinating "mystery story, wmcn
Is taking hold of readers, of average readers
as well as select ones, in a sort of passion of
pursuit and engrossment.
That America grew up alone, that Americans
were one people, this is the contention, force
fully and challengingly declared of Gregory
Mason. No Atlantis, no sunken Pacific conti
nent of Mu served as bridge for either European
or Asiatic. America made it alone—so this
writer many times avers, dragging his evidence
after him.
Mr. Mason grows savage and blusters a bit
at those' scientists who are shut tight against
the theory of a self-developed culture on the
part of America. He cites evidence that they
are wrong, that he and his school are right.
The main point with us, however, with you and
me, is to gather in another magnificent story,
"mystery story"’ though it may be about the
ancientry of America, about its hitherto un
known and unsuspected peoples accomplishing
much that this amazing day itself has not sur
passed nor even reached. Mexico, Central
America, Peru and our own southwest of Ari
zona and New Mexico are at the moment vital
focal points in the true history of America.
A gorgeous historian and story teller. An
out-and-out fighter besides.
FINDING LITERATURE ON THE TEXAS
PLAINS. By John William Rogers. With
a Representative Bibliography of Books on
the Southwest by J. Frank Dobie. Dallas:
The Southwest Press.
THE general delight in "Coronado's Children,”
by J. Frank Dobie, comes back with inter
est added now through this intimate picture
of Frank Dobie drawn by John William Rogers.
And as frontispiece to the little volume is
Frank Dobie himself, mounted easily and a
shade lazily, looking much more like a plains
man than like a college professor. About as
much one as the other it turns out. Mr. Rogers
tells us the things we want to know about
this man who hunted down for us the treasure
of legend that Texas has held from away back
about hidden mines, caches of silver and gold,
deep caves of hiding for unimaginable riches.
What kind of a boy this Dobie youngster was—
what set him to an errand that trailed thou
sands of miles, off and on, for the sake of
: i :
Three Books by a Colombian Statesman—Did
Columbus Come Too La tel—A lariety of
Novels From Well Known Writers.
Magazine Notes.
some old story said to be held by some ancient
days away—these are the things that Rogers
tells. And other things, too. About schooling
and college and teaching. Then about these off
times of scouring the country for some of
the good stuff that made the body of "Coro
nado's Children.'*
At the University of Texas not so long ago
Mr. Dobie gave a course, the first of its kind,
on "Life and Literature of the Southwest."
A simple and informal class room course. But
so interesting in its range and quality as to
suggest extending it beyond the immediate
purpose of its origin. And here it is, the
complete and useful bibliography of literature
in this locality. History showing the Spanish
and French influence. The influence of the
Indian on record and story. Memoirs and
journals, fiction making good use of the Texas
Rangers, of ranch and cowboy life. Here are
cowboy and Negro songs, stories of bad men
and so on. All by title and author's name,
publishers and date of issue. A complete and
valuable study. Better than that. It is inter
esting. Think of a bibliography having inter
est! A little volume, this one, a limited first
edition, only 300 copies—and I have one of
them my name all written out under that
announcement. Lucky? Well, yes!
UP-SHIP! By Lieut. Comdr. C. E. Rosendahl.
Illustrated. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.
IIQTAND BY! Up Ship!” "And there rose
O quietly and without effort from the
sandy field at Lakehurst one serene
September afternoon in 1923 the latest addi
tion to our Navy's aerial armada, the ZR-1,
Fleet Airship No. 1.”
So begins Capt. Rosendahl's story of the
lighter-than-air ship. The record runs from
those early uncertain days to the present stage
of speed and practical efficiency for this kind
of craft. A record of human hazard, besides,
of escape, of tragedy. A recital of unquench
able courage and of starting all over again.
An account of such success as to promise revo
lution in methods of transportation, of busi
ness outreach, of tourist travel.
A straight story that any one can read, since
It is free from technical terms and the language
of specialized processes. Once the reading is
commenced there is no place to stop till the
end is reached. For here Is an absorption
of activity so strenuous, so tnnmng, so momen
tous as tf> east fictional adventure overboard -
for good and all, or so It seems under the
urgency of this literal personal experience.
No more thrilling tale could be found than
the “Loss of the Shenandoah.” Capt. Rosen -
dahl, himself one of the handful of survivors
from that calamitous flight, gives a first-hand
report of its every new aspect In an impersonal
particularity of this man's prompt attention
and service, of that one’s coolness and cour
age, of the other one’s practical zest in meeting
each new moment of peril. Not the least in
value here is exactly that unity of action,
that tribute to the competency and the cool
hardihood of all concerned in saving the ship
and then in saving one another. A great story,
that one chapter. It should be taken out and
given special place in the annals of the man,
heroic.
The entire story is an engrossing record of
fact concerning man's latest defiance of the
time-old limitations set upon the nature and
extent of his achievements.
A book for the student of air transportation.
A book for the reader as well. Therefore, here
is a text book, if you will. Here also is a
tale calculated to make the Munchausens and
Vemes admit the validity of that worn old
saw, "Truth is stranger than fiction.”
SUMMERS NIGHT. By Sylvia Thompson,
author of ''Hounds of Spring,” etc. Boston:
Little, Brown & Co.
ONE of the verities, unchanging, unchange
able, lies deep at the bottom of Sylvia
Thompson's new novel. The disparity
between dream and reality. Old John Donne,
keen to life, embodies both theme and title
of "Summers Night":
"So lovers dream a rich and long delight,
But get a Winter-seeming Summers night.”
So much for the foundation of the romance.
The familiar of every love adventure, world
over, time through. But a novel, like a
house, must carry superstructure as well as
cellar wall.
In "Summers Night” such work above ground
has to do with an essential of English life
since the World War. Rich war profiteer on
the one hand. Devouring land taxes and an
impoverished nobility on the other. Compro
mise and accommodation the paramount im
perative Such adjustments have been of a
frequency to create panic throughout the old
order and a lust of aristocratic seeming in the
new. Great estates, centuries old, have passed
to the new millionaires. Daughters of the
new-rich have passed Into the traditions of the
nobility by marriage with titled and penni
less sons. This second way out of dilemma
is the way of Sylvia Thompson'* latest novel.
The surface movement carries toward the
marriage of the rich Jew's daughter, Jasmin,
with Charles Bitterne, son of the old, old
masters of Melcombe. As mere courtship and
marriage this Is no more than one of the 57
varieties of that special form of possession
and prepossession Save only that Sylvia
Thompson is an adept in the use of detail
as the only means of delivering words over into
life itself. So here is a finely sensed seizure
of two complete disparates approaching each
other along the old road leading to wedlock.
Even this momentous matter is not the high
point In "Summers Night," though it serves
so powerfully to bring the true essence of
the story into the open. That high point,
that open, is the portraiture of contrast be
tween an older England and the one of today
that carries this novel to a level certainly not
rwr.ched before, e\en by Sylvia Thompson.
Living pictures, innumerable, little and big,
animate the theme and bring every turn of it
straight to the eye and mind. And this gives,
it seems to me. the most permanent and most
significant quality to the novel as a whole.
A new way with words, a staccato way, is
less pleasing than the substance of the matter
is. A drift toward epigram and caustic phrase
also scales off a shade from the usual work
of this writer. But the story as a whole is
quite conclusively big and fine.
THE SILVER BRIDE By Ethel M. Dell,
author of "Storm Drift," etc. New York:
G: P. Putnam's Sons.
A BRIDE of the silver-wedding variety, I take
it, since the pair had already been mar
ried long enough to achieve a couple of
children, many disagreements, and a rather
complete disenchantment. That Is, on the part
of the lady herself. This was in World War
times. Patriotism called and. the lady went to
the front as hospital nurse. One night enemy
bombs stormed the building. Out of immediate
death menace, the nurse and her patient were
saved. A common peril and mutual gratitude
are provocative influences and so the two, quite
naturally, fell in love with each other. But,
you recall, there was back in England a hus
band and two children and home. So, Marcia
Templeton went back where she belonged. How
to manage? What to do in respect to the new
call? Being a woman, Marcia developed a
theory of the benefits to be derived from family
ties broken for—say a week each year. And
that was the way of it for a qyite considerable
time. Several years, maybe. Then, one day
the soldier lover brought the lady back to a
perfectly good husband, with the cheering
word that the husband had. all the time, been,
in reality, the object of his wife’s dreams, to
say nothing of her waking moments. A frank,
and manly, avowal with assurance, tacit but
none the less sincere, that here was a precious
package of positively undamaged goods. But,
why, in even slight measure, mar the joy of
Ethel M. Dell’s thousands of readers in an
other romance from this writer who for 26
novels has held them in thrall! These will
accept the outcome by virtue of the one offer
ing it. Had providence turned the trick, or
any other of the gods of life, these readers
would have said. "Nonsense!" "Pish!”
“Pshaw!" "Pooh!" But Ethel Dell is a
magician with words and inventions and, so, to
her large following she has become a sort of
literary manna provided, periodically, for the
refreshment of this host.
On the Book Room Table.
THE Spring Issue of the quarterly Hound
and Horn contains, besides much other
substantial and interesting stuff, an excellent
section of reviews. Music, the theater, art,
poetry, essays and current fiction are met here
in an alert and waywise spirit of discrimina
tion and appraisal. For the moment, however,
the majority of readers will take special inter
est in Lincoln Kirstein's raking of the new
O'Neill play. Not for anything would one de
prive either those who saw the play or those
who have read it of a first chance at the
Kirstein summary of it. Just a sentence here
and there to provoke interest in a well
considered study will serve the purpose of
individual thinking in respect to It. So, here
we go, snatching along the way outstanding
statements in respect to it:
•For not by the widest stretch of a con
sidered imagination can 'Mourning Becomes
Electra’ be described as a great play.” * « •
"Though Mr. O'Neill’s trilogy follows some
what the plot of the Oresteia, he has written
a formless play; a play unpardonably long.”
• * * " 'Mourning Becomes Electra’ could, per
haps, have been a great play in spite of its
formlessness, in spite of its undistinguished
fiction, even in spite of its preponderant length.
But, unfortunately, and in the last analysis,
the emotional elevation of O’Neill's New
Englanders is inconsiderable, compared with
that of Greeks or of Elizabethans. The Man
nons are a nagging, petulant lot, whose most
consistent feeling is jealousy and whose most
attractive activity is hysteria. There is no
tragedy, no loss in their successive horrors.”
• • • "The play lacks any real motivation.
Search here and one finds, as prime mover,
only the biological vagaries of a woman, per
haps only half articulated in the author's
mind, a woman whose literary pattern is
repetitious to the point of negation." • • •
‘'O’Neill's underlying pattern is vital, but
literary. And his devices are not theatrically
helpful, but merely fill the conventional demands
of what people expect to see, traditionally, as
the decorations of tragedy.” That is enough
to draw acceptance, or rebuttal, enough to in
vite a re-thinking of. the new O Neill play, or
a re-reading of It.
THE Nature Magazine for February as part
of its program for the bicentennial year has
an interesting account by Charles Lsthrop
Pack, president of the American Tree Associa
tion, of the great new army that has gathered
and is gathering in a special celebration of the
year-long commemoration. This is the army of
tree planters. Already more than 12.000,000
young trees are taking root in the soil, respon
sive to this building and beautiful project.
Boys, girls, men, women belong to this increas
ing host. They may enlist singly, one at a
time. They may come in by twos and threes
or in trooping bands. As families, or schools,
or camps, or societies, or leagues, they are wel
come. Probably never before was an army
formed in a spirit of such clear hospitality and
welcome as has been this host of the tree
planters. And each soldier is an owner and
in a sense a proprietor. Planting his own tree,
he thereby files a claim of affection to it and
to the soil that is all ready to sustain it. With
but a touch of the imagination that all possess
in some measure, each planter sees his own
tree, at no very far day, easting a pleasant
shade over the wayfarer, setting a leaf-dance
upon the sunny sward beneath it, providing
home places for sleepy birdlings at nightfall
or joyous songsters at daybreak. Each one
sees his own tree joining with hosts of others
in giving beauty to the world, in helping to
enrich the soil and to save it from wash and
waste and sterility.
It is not easy to think of a more beautiful
or a more useful family than this great army
of planters. And in the story Mr. Pack tells
every detail of joining up here, so that not
any one need stand on the outside looking in,
wishful, that he too might own a tree of
his own planting, that he might feel the warmth
and comradeship of this fine, big army of
American builders and creators.
Plenty of other interesting things in this
beautifully pictured Nature Magazine published
here in Washington.
r~- ---- -- |
Books Received
NEGROES OF AFRICA: History and Culture.
By Maurice Delafosse. Translated from the
French by F. Fligelman. Washington: As
sociated Publishers, Inc.
THE AZTEC CHIEF By Marie De S Can
avarro. Boston: The C .ristopher Publish
ing House.
AFTERWARDS. Herman J. Schick. A. M.,
S. T. D. Boston: The Stratford Co.
BETWEEN THE RIVER AND THE HILLS: A
Normandy Pastoral. By Sisley Huddleston,
author of ‘‘Europe in Zig Zags," etc. Phila
delphia: J. B, Lippincott Co.
WILDERNESS WAYS. By Paul Annixter.
Illustrations by Charles Livingston Bull.
Philadelphia: The Penn Publishing Co.
MURDER PARTY. By Henry Bordeaux of the
French Academy. New York: The Dial
Press.
LADY CHATTERLEY’S HUSBANDS. Anony
mous sequel to “Lady Chatterley’s Lover"
New York: William Fargo, Inc.
THE INTIMATE JOURNAL OF RUDOLPH
VALENTINO. New York: William Faro,
Inc.
WHY WE DO IT: A Study of Normal, Sub
normal and Abnormal Human Behavior. By
Arthur R. Daviau. M. D , health officer and
city physician. Boston: Meador Publishing
Co.
RACES OF MEN By J. V. Nash. Drawings
by Don Nelson. (Chicago: Thomas S.
Rockwell.
ERNEST H. WILSON, Plant Hunter. By Ed
ward I. Farrington, secretary of Massachu
setts Horticultural Society. Boston: The
Stratford Co.
SANTIAGO POEMS: And Ot Verses. By
Herbert Wickenheiser. Bosi The Strat
ford Co.
IN CAESAR’S GARDEN. By John William
Scholl. (Verse), author of 'Cliildren of the •
Sun,” etc. Ann Arbor: Bijou Books.
PENDRIFT: Amenities of Column Conducting.
By Charles Edward Crane. Brattleboro, Vt.:
Stephen Daye Press.
THE MISTICK KREWE: Chronicles of Comus
and His Kin. By Perry Young. Thirty
Color Plates. New Orleans: Carnival Press.
PSYCHIC ADVENTURES IN NEW YORK. By
Dr. Neville Whymant. Introduction by Sir
Oliver Lodge. Boston: May & Co.
LIBERTY AFLAME, 1773-1781. Epic Narrative
of Heroes and Battles of American Revolu
tion. By Henry Brenner. St. Meinrad, lad.
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