12
A
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH...
What Made the
Flower
Fade?
DEIEF FLOWER OF YOUTH
By Grabam Ileath
(Longmans, Green, 73, 6d.)
NYONE who wants to write a novel (any established exposing
Fascism
varloty) is under a heavy handicap. For there comes a point when brutality arrives--- and then the author Ands that the whip and the blackjack have forestalled him. The truth
is more appalling than his fiction.
In this direct, sensitive story, Mr. Heath has solved the problem-and helghtened the significanco of the tale-by leaving the horror, for the most part, to be implied. And the freakiness of his approach be is only twenty-three) is extremely attractive,
Ho records the tragedy of post-war Germany in nine short accues, tu the first of whleh wo nect Richard, a child of five, dreaming over Orimm's fairy tales. "Once upon a time a king was hunting In a great wood. When evening came, he stood still and, looking around him, found that he had lost
s way...."
Richard wanted to lose himself in that wood, too, so, nine years later, he persuaded his mother to take him for a holiday to the Bavarian Alps. It was
an enchanted land to him, al-
at
though he had a glimpse of reality in the war-cripples hobbling along in n pace demonstration in the streets of Nuremberg.
Three years pass and he is in the forest once more, this time at a happy. democratic Thuringian school, where ho falls in love with Erika and visitas n fully in Berlin. There he listens to emiless discussions and is quite inno. cently, involved in a Nazi.riot.
An interval at Oxford. The Bler Culp And Berlin again—a swirl of swastikas, marching men and blaring propaganda. Erikn. by now a Social- ist. is arrested, and Richard is ex- pelled from the country for associating with a "political undesirable."
☆☆☆
Follows an interlude in the Pyrenees, where his exiled Berlin friends are struggling to win a living from a moun- Lain farm. And then the last scene of all. The Withering of the Flower." with Erika shot in a desperate adven- ture and grave-faced legions of the Iter Youth; tramping through the Woods.
The story, aided by coincidence, has come full circle. For a moment Richard fancies he is still under the spell of And then he looks those fairy tales.
down and sees the crushed blossous and the muddy leaves,
You will remember Brief Flower of Youth. It is the most moving frat nuvel I have read for some time.
Empire
THE BRITISH EMPIRE
By a Study Group of the Royal .Institute of International Affairs (Oxford University Press, ̈153.)- A SURVEY OF BRITISH1 COMMON- WEALTH AFFAIRS, 1018-1936, VOL. I. PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY fly Professor W. K. Innepek (Oxford University Press, 255,) THE EMPIRE IN THE WORLD By Sir A. Wlert. B. K. Long and H. V. Hodson
(Oxford University Press, 10s. 6d.j
W
ITII the Imperial Confer- ence in session, Imperial relations and Imperial prob- lems come well to the forefront of So these three books politics. come at the opportune moment,
But even apart from that they are For there is a more than welcome. lamentablo shortage of good book perlimpa because there is a lamentable absence of thinking-about that very important but very strange organism, the British Empire.
The evolution of the Commonwealth Gince the war has been rapid and start- ling: facts have outrun both law and theory. It is time to take slock and revhe outworn ideas. And. each of these books is more than helpful.
The British Empire is a survey- factual and thoughtful at once-of the Fabric" Anch "the Countries."
An English-
icoman, by
flans Hol-
bein the
S
Younger.
THE HAPPIER EDEN
By Beatrice Kean Seymour (Ifcinemann, 75. Gd.)
PARE the plot and apoll the tale. Mrs. Kean Beymour 13 100 experienced a writer over to forget, the importance of that Ilterary proverb. Each member of the Herrlard family in her Intest story has a yarn as well as a character.
The children and grandchildren of a soured Victorias novelist, they struggle towards their conventiona of security and comfort after their fashion.
But the book is mainly concerned with Rome, a woman who married beneath her" and didn't mind in the very least until strange echoes from her husband's past disturbed her quiet.
It all comes right in the end, be- cause the secret he had thought it best to conceal from her turned out to br not so shaltering as he had feared. And
Surveys
"the Problems." A masterpiece of concisten, packed to the brim with fa. formation. amazingly objective in out- lock indispensable for anyone who wants to understand.
Professor Hancock's Survey is not ari It is rather a encyclopædian of fact study of the "new theory of the En- pire than of the Empire itself. 80, in accordance with good scientific prac- tice, it devotes most attention to the paints where that theory seem least Butisfactory, to Ireland and Indla, to Palestine and Malta.
As at Australian Professor in an English University, knowing the other Donlalons well. Dr. Hancock sees his problems frois more than one view- point,
the Gees
Commonwealth
In page after "steadily and whole." pago is Survey is a challenge to one-angled and parochial thinking.
H
BOOKS
Edited by Roger Pippett
WEDNESDAY, JULY
SPA
TUNBRIDGE WELLS
By Margaret Barton
(Faber and Faber, 153.)
ISTORY, thank goodness, is not always in a relentless hurry. Sometimes the sita down in out-of-the-way places under the troes and just lazes the hours away.
the seems to have spent a lot of time being decora tively and interestingly dis at Tunbridge Wells, where Miss Barton, a perfect guide, admirably 11- in this formed and brilliantly evocative, takes
book,
An astonishing number of somebodies and nobodies. famous and infamous, have been associated at one time or another with these celebrated healing waters and Miss Barton, with a fund of knowledge, anecdote and art quotation and a dry humour which keeps any sentimentality properly kind of "Good Old Days
out of the picture, atages for us a fascinating pro- ccasion of royal and noble personages and their hangern-on, leasened with a sprinkling of poeta. beauties, writers, doctor and divities
We are present at the discovery of the pod at water, yellowish-red and scummy, tasting of tron and vitriol, to which Tunbridge Wells owes its existence. Miss Barton takes us through the Civil War, the Commonwealth and the Restoration, with its cynicism and sensuality and artificial versifying, to the eighteenth century of Beau Nash and the ine Here are teenth of Queen Victoria, stories of bigamy in high places, gam. ing. sherping Intrigues, religious ex. eltements, terary ardours and Queer' People
From "Portraits and Studies of Women," chosen and edited by J. Mathey (Faber and Faber, 63.).
the curtain falls with the only dis- agreeable character taking an overdose of sleeping draught by necident and so ceasing to be a menace to the Her- riard happiness.
Not an epoch-making novel, but well- kalt, idly told, plausible and enter- talning.
H
MARRIED PEOPLE
By Mary Roberta finchart
(Cassell, 73. Gd.) USBANDS and wives and the trials of their lives are the ten short subject of the stories in this book, another In- stance of a standardised product which comes up to specification.
Being American, they have more dificulties with ice-boxes and lemon- plo and keeping up with the Jonesee- and less trouble with the vicar and the balls-than their butler and hunt opposito numbers over here.
These differencen in the social habits of that strange but extremely virlie race which we know so well in the magazines and meet so rarely in the leah givo Mrs. Rinehart's sketches n alightly exotic interest.
But, according to the rules of popu lar fiction, human nature is funda- mentally the same everywhere, and the civilisations that border both sides of the long-suffering Atlantle are cum cleatly alike to make Engilsh-readers want to know how the various women in these tales cope with the problems of slimming, looking younger tha they really are, having daughters-in- law about the house or out-of-work husbands too proud to be kept and
60 on....
Considering the apparent odds in favour of these wives losing their hus- bands or pulling on weight. I am mazed at the cheerfulness of Married People.
Lastly The Empire in the World. Something About
which like Gaul is quartered kitc three halves.
Mr Long writes lucldly of the poli- ilcol problems of the Empire. Mr. Hod- sou lucidly of its economic problems.
Bir Arthur Willert, dealing with The World Around Us." subjects the Go foreign polley of the "National vernment to swingeing criticism, which is the more telling because for most at the period Sir Arthur was a high old- clat of the Foreign Office.
"Foreign
It should open the eyes of some who atil believe that there is Office line" on everything.
W. N. E.
R. P.
M. P.s'
Wives
By
ONE OF THEM
A Queer Person was the learned William Wilton, chaplain to Queen Anne, when Princess of Wales, whe used to proceed with er tollet while he read through morning prayers in an adjoining room. Sometimes her ladies deemed it ezredient to close the door.
"One day, Wision, happening to be on duly when the door closed. abruptly ceased reading. At last the door reopened, and the Princess, find ing the servico no further advanced, angrily asked why he had stopped 'Because, indam, he replied sternly 'I do not choose to whistle the Word of God through: a kryhole.""
Every age of this book, which k pleasantly illustrated, has somethin ou it of humour, charm, qualitness or vivid history. Put it on your bedside table-and, like visitors to Tunbridge Wells, you will be a daily dipperi
8. 1
THRILLS
THE LADY IN THE MORGUE By Jonathan Latimer
.
(Methuen, 75. Gd.) MORTUARY, you would think, would be the place for stu! ife. Not at all. At any rate, not in Chicago. Never a dull moment from the disappearance of the embalmed blonde- until her head turns up shudderingly in the hands of Detective No. 1.
"In two days," reenils a colleague, "we start a light in a taxi-dance joint, And a murdered guy and don't tell the police, crash in on a dope mob, bust in on a party, kidnap a gal, steal a car and rob a graveyard."
He forgot the drinks. Or, perhaps he merely took them for granted There are the fastest moving, hard est drinking bunch to have wise- cracked their way through an under- world with the grim authenticity of a nightmare alnce The Thin Man.
By way of contrast turn to another of those M. G. Everhart heroincs docmed to be delivered front unhappy marriage or engagement only at the cost of being suspected of murder. Glave There is also, in Hand In (Collins, 7. dd), the usual faithful dimcult to lover who, for reasons necertain, 1noves the body and causes trouble for everyone.
Detection is muffled in a style which The skips straight statement of inets and
atmosphere. concentrates on melting of snow becomes ghostly dogers beating at a window sill. But let us be fair. More than a militon people have bought Mrs. Eberhart's
P. E. IL
jamales
1937.
Question Time In School
IT is chiefly at question time that
the schoolmaster. comes acrosa those gleama of humour which en- fiven his existence. One teacher, who was taking the English literature class, announced that he would set them a paraphrase of Wordsworth's "Daffodils." By way of simplifying the task, he asked what the poet Incant by the lines:-
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Via Shanghai, Kebe, Yokohama, Honor". San Francisco, Panama Canal and Ilavans.
Pres. Coolidge Pres. Taft
"I gazed and gazed, but little Pres. Cleveland
thought
What wealth the show to me
had brought."
A little, matter-of-fact maiden Immediately shot up her hand. "The money he got for writing the poem, sir," she volunteered.
Sometimes the laugh is turned against the teacher, as in the case of the master who asked, 'Now, James, what are you doing-learning rome- thing?"
"No, sir!" ansivered James quite seriously, "I'm listening to you."
Thien there was the master who was explaining the perplexities of civilisation to his class, and by way of Illustration he propounded, "If you go to the frosty morning, you may find that the water refuses to flow when you furn on the tap. Can any of you tell me why?"
п kitchen on cold.
"Please, sir." an carnest little maiden ejaculated, "you ain't paid the water rate."
Needless to say, it was a Cockney pupil who, when naked, "Where does the Rhine low?" innocently wered, "Down the drain, sir."
ans-
It was in a London schoolroom also that the following incident hap-
children were belag pened. The taught the different values of coins, and the teacher suddenly pounced on one inattentive little boy, placed half a crown on the desk in front of the child, anci naked unexpectedly, "What is that?"
Without a second's hesitation, the reply was eagerly offered, "Eads!"
Here is a story which proves that an unexpected reply may be full of teacher. sound commonsense. The was explaining the functions of the British Consul to his pupils.
"If someone took you up in an aeroplane." he suggested, "and, after in n a long fight, dropped you foreign country, thousands of miles from your own home, con you tell me the first place you would go to?" "Yes, sir!" a little boy soberly answered, "The hospital!"
Sometimes a child's answer will give an unexpected glimpse of the home conditions.
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In one school, the children had Hong Bank Bldg.
to a worm been asked to bring school for observation during the nature study lesson.
we
"Please, miss," one wee lassie ex- cused herself, "I told mother were to have a worm to take to 'Oh! school to-day, and she sald, Take your father then."
was
Agents.
Triestina
Lloyd
And there
case of the was the little ten-years-old girl who
n fourteen-years-old naked about sister who had just left school.
"Oh!" she explained easily, "she's no good at housework, so mother's going to send her to service."
*
It was sheer bonsifulness which was responsible for this howler from a Hittle Glasgow laddle:-
"They asked me a lot of questions at school to-day," he remarked chatllly at night.
"What kind of questions?"
many
"Well, they wanted to know where I was born. And I wasn't going to let them think I'd been born in a women's hospital; so," he added alrlly, "I just sald I was born in Hampden Football Park."
Here is a
a story which illustrates
child. the film consciousness of the modern It was April 23rd, and the school master asked, "I wonder how of you children remember CONSIGNEES NOTICES. birthday it is to-day?"
He WAD mentally speculating would answer, "William or "St. George." when Shakespeare Wou whether to his complete bewilderment, they shouted out, almost with one voice,
Temple's, sir." "Shirley
An original angle on history was effected by the pupil who was asked, "Who was
was Thomas a Becket?" "Thomas & Becket," he pronoun-
WE hear a great deal about MPs. position. One meets her at political
complete with husband of it. A slight-quite unconscious-OLLAND-DOST AZIE LIJN. N.V. WE
but not very much about their receptions,
One notices this also in Ministers' Members' wives wives, and yet they are an interest in smart morning coat and button- glow of superiority surrounds her.
hole. (The Older ing study,
have long learnt that their husbands wives. There le the Young Wife, who be ace "busy at the House" on these haves as if nobody had ever married occasions.)
politically minded does not like limelight,
wife who is not
an M.P. before, She shows tremen- dows keenness, hausts the galleries, She tries to look very self-assured THE loves to take her friends and point as ale penetrates the crowd round brities.
ber husband, hoping people
her husband is fulfilling a
(HOLLAND-EAST ASIA LINE) From: ANTWERP, ROTTERDAM, AMSTERDAM, HAMBURG, GENOA, AND OTHER FORTS The Steamship
"GAASTERKERK"
toolc
"led
a dissipated life, and it Another pupil, asked what he knew of Solomon, insisted that he was very fond of animals. How did he make that out? he was asked. "Because it says in the Scriptures that he had 300
porcupines."
will She is helpful in the constituency, consignees of cargo by her are noti out to them the Front Bench cele- the tea table, talking brightly with but works hard behind the scenes. having arrived from the above poris,ce three nights to kill him
she is not very spectacular,, and at their risk into the hazardous end/ The pollecmen and messengers all think he is a friend she has just met, ofen is her husband's secretary; but ned that all goods are being landed Hell's Wharf whence and/or from have a friendly word with her, sho. She is praying for a friendly face. therefore not of much account in the or extra-hazardous godowns of the is so fresh and interested in every A charming personality in her own Kay world.
little out of her
Always popular is the wife who the wharves delivery may be ab-
tained. thing and so obviously enjoying her home, she is a
Goods not cleared by the 13th July
It was in the Scripiure class also self. I have a dim recollection of element here, rather doubtful about
Ministers, her fellow
1937, p.m. will be subject to rent. this feeling. It was pleasant while her clothes and the dashing new makes jeats shout the constituents, fact, about everything. wives, in
All broken, chated and damaged that another pup got the chance Upstick she was invelgled into buy- pompous
to perpetrate this howler. The lesson it lasted!
Delightful to meet, she is considered packages are to be left in the go-
had been on Elijah and the prophete Then there is the Capable Wife, ing.
downs where they will be examined
of Boal. The teacher explained who is president of this and chair-
She has an interiority complex, a little dangerous.
how Elijah had built the altar and man of that, who runs the consti-
One but is determined nobody shall guess In contrast there is the wife who at lolt's Whorf.
Consignees are requested to apply tuency and her husband too.
is the bullock in pleces and laid them cargo sometimes wonders why he is there if. She is not enjoying herself, but, thinks
after all, she can always write home mission, that to represent so many for a Revenue Omcer in attendance put wood upon it, and had then cut at all-so, I think, does he.
"And then," he went on, Yet he joins in the general chorus to her friends about the "delightful thousands of people is a high calling, when damaged dutiable
how she met the Doubtless very commendable sent being examined.
Claims against the steamer must be ments on her part, but apt to be-
presented in writing within ten days commanded the people to all tour of admiration "My wife, you know, reception" and
after arrival of steamer, otherwise barrels with water, and to pour this she runs the show." And the others Primo Minister.
The Older Member's wife is in come tedious.
over the altar. They repeated this Now why should all talls of her as "Mrs. Bo-and-so, what
quite a different category. She has
On the whole these wives make a they will not be recognized. wonderful
is not very No Fire Insurance will be effected four mes. worker
is this woman, who prides been opening bazaars and presiding
life. There aro frequent by the undersigned in any caso what this water have been poured over
the bullock on the altar?" herself on never having an 1dle over functions for so long that one brave show. Theirs minute.. She is an excellent spenkor feels she must say, as she shakes easy
Bills of Lading will be counter- practically husbandless from Mon- and thrives on the kudos she re- your hand, "It is a great pleasure for journeys, late nights, and one is ever.
me to be here to-day."
day to Friday. Possibly, like sailors, ceives and deserves.
members and their JAVA-CHINA-JAPAN LIJN N.V. She regards the whole business as that is why
Hongkong, 5th July, 1987. THE New Member's wife is rather somewhat boring, but necessary to wives always seem to get on so well
her her status, and she 'makes the best together. proud and
woman!" A
hard
thrilled at
signed by
Agents,
on the altar.
Telephono 28021.
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