580
BRIEFER MENTION
Sareel, by Edith Dart (12mo, 318 pages; Boni & Liveright: $2) steps from the workhouse on the first page of this novel, and with few words and even a Devonshire dialect, manages to arrest attention and hold the reader's interest undeviatingly through the entire record of her adventures as maid-of-all-work in a farm-house, wife of a gentleman, runaway, and mistress of her own fate at last. The plot is not new. The beauty of the book lies in its clear-cut character drawing, and in its alluring reticence.
Ascent, by Frances Rumsey (12mo, 379 pages; Boni & Liveright: $2) is too carefully swaddled in the thick wool of its embroidered verbal quilt, for anything more lusty than an occasional kicking out of the story. And whenever that happens, Mrs Rumsey hastily tucks it in again, and continues to rock the cradle of fine writing. Despite her vigilance, the novel emerges now and then with sufficient authority to suggest that—if she were only a little less solicitous—it would stand on its own legs most satisfactorily.
The Miracles of Clara Van Haag, by Johannes Buchholtz (12mo, 303 pages; Knopf: $2.50) will have a wider appeal as a translation than did Egholm and his God, largely because it is peopled with characters of more universal aspect than those which clustered around Egholm in the previous volume. Here is a lively romance, indigenous and racy, the flavour of which has been well caught in Mr W. W. Worster's translation. Aside from its narrative interest, the novel has considerable value as a picture of Danish life, seen with an informal and sympathetic eye.
Certain People of Importance, by Kathleen Norris (12mo, 486 pages; Doubleday, Page: $2) has—despite the defects of its ambitions—an incontestable solidity and worth. If Mrs Norris had been willing to sacrifice a measure of the solidity for a greater momentum, the achievement would have been more successful. The wish to play the hostess to too many generations has transformed a finely conceived work into a sort of buffet tea, where—although there is food in profusion—one has to elbow one's way towards it. Certain figures stand out with all the author's power of delineation; the rest suffer from a Malthusian impatience.
Admirals of the Caribbean, by Francis Russell Hart (Illust., 8vo, 203 pages; Houghton Mifllin: $3) is a placid and authentic account of those reckless spirits who carried Europe's wars to the shores of the new world and sometimes decided them there. Drake, Morgan, Rodney, Verne, and the Frenchmen Du Pointis and Du Casse are treated with curt thoroughness. There is no mention of Cavendish or Dampier or of those ferocious fellows, Lollonois and Montbar the Exterminator, whose exploits have been the source of so many pirate yarns. One dare not quarrel with this omission since the title excludes mention of these uncommissioned marauders, but it is a disappointment. The book will serve well those who are looking for a comprehensive account of the early history of the Spanish Main and its principal figures. The excerpts from old manuscripts are interesting and the book is beautifully printed and contains some excellent prints and maps.
