1937-07-23 — Page 22

10

THE CITY OF SLEEP

IF you had lived in the agen when

people really believed in dreams, when they were accepted as the channels by which divine warnings, admonitions, and commands were frequently conveyed to mortals, and also an the solemn shadows of things to come, you would have taken your own much more seriously.

There might even have been tintes when you would have been impelled to call in your local interpreter, to unfold for you their inner meaning, instead of dismissing them as mere for Some cause, Hilusions, which

or physical, mental

had been Im- pressed on your subconscious mind.

You might even have bellaved that in sleep, the soul or spirit, escaping for at little space from the bonds of the material body, entered into an- other land,

For have you not sometimes in dreams had the impression of arriv ing at n sort of citadel, whose cloudy and indistinct portal swung back to let you in? Do you not remember that, passing within, you came to a

that place was like, and yet unlike,

a town or city of earth? Did you never walk, almost at once, into a

street

with houses and sunny

fair

prospect, dens, and beyond with towers and spires rising over distant hill slopes, from which came the round of bells, only more softly than they ring on earth? Even when you hear them from far away, on some balmy night of spring, over dewy fields at the rising of the stars, Have you never heard those bells in the City of Sleep

But if you have a fancy that you have been to it, you will know that like City one of the old time saw in vision, it has many gates. And yet as the years go on, according to how often one goes to It, the enter

familiar. It ing in becomes

‚::,Pu passed through the gate that lends to the sunny street, you would see the people who hastened from their

to greet you. If that has to you, have you not won- dered who these dream people are? There is no mystery about meeting in sleep those one loved and parted with on earth It

It would be

be strange

If those you hold unforgettably in our heart did not return in dreams. your.

But to meet in the visions of the night others who seem to know you -people you have never seen any- where on earth, and who have no name, la something that cannot be

Even explained.

their strange,

recalled. gentle accents, cannot be

rather that without datual words. such as one understands them, they hold discourag in language loveller and more comforting than any earth-

ig

ly speech

Have you never gone in sleep down a path that leads to a harbour, and seen long lines of yellow shad curving but and in beneath stretches

on a

of lowering diff? Have you never seen ships in that harbour, rocking a slow-moving tide, - and amongst them one that somehow

you awaited

Your coming? Have never stepped on board and seen the folk cast off from their

knew

you

wind? Have you not felt that wind on your brow as you went out to a far, strange horizon

and spread the sails to the

but

Sure/c7

ad in

in dreams you have walk-

verdant

in woodlands, and known by the fresh boughs above your path, all Alicicering with gold and lights in the sunny air, that it was Spring in the City of Sleep. Have the little. you never seen along beaten tracks, and across the flowery hollows, children come running to greet you, who seemed to know you, and clasp you with joy, and hold you close? Have you never carried in your arms a small, soft child. wondered drowsy and sweet, and when you awoke whose chlid it was, little head hnd nestled on whose your breast?

awny.

*

Of course, clever, practical people will tell you that all such fancies are of the stuft of dreams, and can be quite easily and sensibly explained

That

the sunny street you arrived at in your imagined journey- ing, with a pleasant houses and from which gardens, its fair prospect, came the chiming of melodious bells, was just a picture you had built up in your inner mind, of a place in which you would perhaps have liked to live. That the namelese people who had hastened to greet you, were people you had no doubt met come- where, or seen, even, passing you by In a crowd.

or attruction in the

Some charm fleeting glimpse you had of them. had lingered in your memory, to be reproduced in dreams. And the ko ing on board the waiting ship, was,: undoubtedly, no more than a longing you perhaps Had to adventure to distant lands, that circumstances And may have always prevented. likewise also, the children who ran to meet you in the woodland passes, even the little helpless one you

most carried in your arms, probably like those Charles Lamb children you wrote of the dream once hoped to possess.

were

But if you have and those dreama, such explanations may not altogether convince you. For there may be a City of Bleep, just as there may be with a wall of Jasper, And although the new interpreters are wise in their generation, the old

one

STAR BEGOTTEN

nyt, G. Welle

(Chatfo and Windus, saj 'OSEPH DAVIS was an author, A Very Popular Author with the romantle touch. A tellor of the front-window story, the mother's knee story" of a brave. bright march of mankind which had no time for dissidence or doubt. Joseph was for the show, the banners, the trumpets and the drums.

"Man winning all the time and Right forever triumphant 'against the odda," That was his slogan. His books sold and sold and gold. And then suddenly his mind began to slip and slide. Could it be, he whispered to himself, that all was not for the best in the best of ali possible worlds?

It seemed that it could. "Why do you keep it up, Joseph?" the whisper persisted. "Why do you pretend that à sort of destiny was unrolling? That it was all leading up to Anglicanism, cricket, the British Empire and what no? Look really in the Ince. Then maybe romething might be done about

It."

And then, after a disturbing dis- cussion with some selentists at the Planeturium Club. Joseph kat really rallied. It was a preposterous Idea. but he grew more and more convinced that the child which waS BOON to be born to hlmn-he was sure, of course, that it would be a son-had been fathered by the cosmic rays, those amazing particles of power that is sleeting through the universe inces. santly, day and night."

Of what ppened afterwards--the aprending of the idea that the Mar tians were firing tliere rays at the earth. that the bombardment waLS evolving a new and saner race of men. that our owa silly, valt humanity was doomed-Air. Wells himself must tell in this allegory, which is similar in drive and gilfeance to his recent tale, The Croquet Pluper.

He bag glorious time, dancing round orthodoxy and putting out his Cute at offelaldom, girding-and this han always been his weakness-al nasa movements and whipping up a tremendous general warning to us all, You will, perhaps, be shocked, and you will certainly be stimulated. For

Mr. Wells ta atili Mr. Wells. And here he gleefully throws one more stone through the front window of the world's complacency.

Nothing is Safe

Mthe

By E. M. Delafield (Macmillan, 75. Gd.) *ISS DELAFIELD has Joined the growing company of writers who are concerned about the effects of divorce on children. But she has not fallen into any sentimentul trap, made any plea for the continpition of a disastrous marriage, at all costs or provided a happy ending with love and kisses all round.

She tells her story entirely from the viewpoint bf, the children involved, When Julk learned that the home was to be brokeri up, her first thoughit was what woult become of the dog. Chang, and her second that her elder brother, Terry, would be upset.

For Misa Delafield has introduced a new variation on the theme of the dis- organisation of child-life through the parting.ot parents by her clever sketch of a neurotle boy who is too de -pendent on his sturdy younger sister.

Julia is a healthy, normal child, but she knows how Terry suffers when his stepfather attempts to "make a man " of him or his stepmother leaves him to als own devices. Bho also sonses the desolation that will descend on him when he finds that they have decided to keep him away from her at holiday tune.

Nothing is Safe conveys subtly and sympathetically the tragia helplessness of children. For the rest, the alory has those touches of alry yet devastal- ing humour and those quick, cruel sketches of character that you and I have come to expect of our by no means Provincia! Lady.

Pa

RADIUM

By Rudolf Brunngraber

(Harrap, 89. 6d.)

ESSIMISTS who believe that the novel is finished should read the work of this young Austrian and note how he has en- larged the scope of fiction while maintaining its dramatic interest. In 1800 the research chemist who Curle became Madame afterwards noticed something odd about the photo- graph of a crystal, which led to the discovery of radium. This le the amaz- ing story of its exploliation.

For ages and agen it lies unknown). Almost as soon as it in found-and long before the scientists are agreed about its nature or, its seit 15 hailed as the great curo-all Men rusli to seize it: its value goes up and up: and the humah misery dependent on its production and supply also soars.

As soon as it escapes from the Inbo ratory it becomes a world power. The men liko Dr. Purvis, in this story, who want it simply and solely to cure enn- car. are swept, aside by the men like Pierre Cynac, who want to buy and all it to their own cornmercial advan- tage.

America has almost a monopoly ot the ores from which radium is cx. tracted, and those who own the fabul- ous mountains are first made rich and then involved in a life-and-dently strug- glo with those who hope to find it else. where. And so black men slave in the 'Congo and wiilte wamezi toll in Euro- pean factorles-and what was hailed mas'a blessing is too often a curse.

Radium i'orammed with facts, but, they rend like fiction. so fantastic is the truth about the most precious sul stance in the world. It is also it con tinuously, by human drama.. A fasci. nating, ploneering novel.

R.P.

visionaries were wise also. And has may go to the City of Sleep and you

THE

TELEGRAPH. HONGKONG

FRIDAY,

JULY 23,

1937.

BOOKS

World-Makers

and World-Shakers....

(Hogarth Prea), Iv. 6d. each.)

much can be in

OF THE WEEK H pages, about the

Edited by Roger Pippett

IN CHIEF

H. G. WELLS issues another allegorical world

warning.

E. M. DELAFIELD writes of two children and1

1

a broken marriage.

EUGENE N. MARAIS introduces you to the

empire of the termites.

RUDOLF BRUNNGRABER stages a novel

with radium as its hero.

THE SOUL of the WHITE ANT

T

By Eugene N. Murals (Methuen. 73. Ed.)

18 is a sensible book with a There is no such silly title. thing as a white ant. That is the very, very unscientific name for the termites, the extraordin- ary family of Insects which builds vast concrete skyscrapers all over the African and Australian plains and in most other parts of the troples as well.

Termites are not ants. They have been confused because both races have highly organized communities, better organised. Ju their impersoul way. than those of mighty clod-hopplug Man himself.

than comme: Termites, matter British ants, vind, defenceless-except their soldiers, who can wield polson Han Jets-and dependent on steady heal and abundant moisture, have, in spite of all these restrictions, domin ated the earth in their own haunts juni na effectually as we do in ours,

Imperial Airways, plonesting a route to the Cupe. blows up thousands of termite mounds and pillars so that liners shall be able to land and inks off. Imperini termites, unwilling to r linquish even a square mile of their age-long empire, rébuild diem.

A few men with dyummite wage cont- tual war against many millions of small insects with grains of sand and a sticky recretion which hardens on exposure to the air.... Honours Ar

even.

When termites attack n'town in the tropics, the town falls down, its pillarA and rafters, its chair legs, table tops and books are all methodically hol lowed out to my shells.

Termites

make interminable tunnels wherever there a wood.

Termites dlg vertient wells more than sixty feet deep to find the water ey must have even in deserts. They cultivate fungi, as do certain ants. All thetr endless, sleepless. Inbour is ar ganised communally and none of it is wasted

But how is it organised? And why. when the great. Int exg-laying queen. in her central palace is killed or in- Jured, does the colony, too, ale or e- Pome convuted, unable to work, terr)- fted?

The unawer of the Inte Eugene Marais, who spent most of his life studying termites in South Africa, :: Chat a termítary is a unit, an indivi dual being with a soul, corresponding to the human unit we enlla mas. And each termite corresponds to a corpuscle. in the man's blood stream,

He says there is no other way to account for most of the fantastic things which happen automatically in.. those concrete Mansions of the Blind.

11. P.

eighty

Great Onts at the world? Much more than you think, the authors of the first books in this serica seem to have decided: for they have packed them with mate- rial frequently more stimulating than wordler blographora achieve in books five times a big.

In Socrates Naomi Mitchison and R. H. 8. Crossman have pro- duced a portrait in miniature, a thumbnail sketch or what you will, which will make every reader nok for more.

The background to their sketch Is in itself an admirable Socratic commentary:

....of course, fewer men were killed in their wars than are killed in our modern civilised wars. And if you wanted to destroy your enemies' town you carried off the treasure and statues and things instead of dropping bombs on them and smashing them. And you sold the women and children into slavery, which was very un- pleasant, but not quite so bad as being gassed."

for all the Their Socrates. brevity of this blography, ls pre- sented in the round; the gay Athenian who was too dangerous to live, wisest and most Just man of his time, philosopher whose soul would not burn out.

What Mrs. Mitchison and Mr. Cross- man do for Bocrates, L. B. Pekin does for Darwin and Backville-West for Joan of Arc.

And the fourth of this quartet of mind-stirrers is Marjorie Strachey's Mazzini, Garibaldi and Carour-whem George Meredith called the Soul, the Sword, the Brain of Italy.

These three united Italy and freed it from the yoke of foreign rulers. But their story is unfinished: ..the constitution for which Cavour toiled, the democracy for which Mazzini suf- fered, the freedom for which Garibaldi bled, have vanished from the kingdom of Italy."

Perlinps this excellent series will one day include eighty pages on another liberator..

3. E, R. W.

Coloured Lamps One Of The New Ideas For The Home

(Reprinted by Courtesy of The Evening Standard)

NEW aspects of decorative art have shadows thrown by the green lamp

DANCERS IN been so supidly developed in the are coloured red.

MOURNING

By Margery Allingħana (Heinemann, 73. 6d.)

ONE

NE of the rater pleasures of Ja reviewer's routine is to

watch an author

cliinb steadily to the top of his or her tree. That has happened, in my case, with Margery Allingham.

Police at the Funeral, Mystery Mile, Death of a Ghost, Sweet Danger, Flowers for the Judge.... with each succeeding tale she has increased my respect and delight. And, in Dancera in Mourning, she is better than ever.

The terror that haunts the hosts of White Walls and their guests seta that most human detective. Mr. Campion, a problem which would have battled Trent in his prime. For the corpse of Chloe Pye is only the-but to tell you more would apoll Miss Allingham's deftly constructed story.

From the Astaire-like dancer on the Gust-cover to the pleasant end-paper plan, this is an extremely distinguished performance. The writing shines. The characters five-or die, The excite- ment mounts. In short, it is Mins R.P. Allingham's day,

Rapid Reviews

LIFE IS MY ADVENTURE, by Ear- bara Mullen (Faber and Fader, 81. 6d.j. Yet another autobiography from these Aran Islands. The author ran away for a ten months' tour with *Catherine Leary, tha "World's An Champion Accordion Player," excluing, crowded, top-of-the-morn- ing story.

A REGENCY RASCAL, by Lieutenant- Colonel W. 1. Drury (Hutchinson. 7. Gd.). How that young spendthrift, Jack Peregrine, borrowed money from og alderman and went on to make love to his daughter. And how the death of his father took him half across the world, Romance and gusto.

THE FAMILY GARDEN, by Marguer- "Ile James' (Harrap, 63.). A delight- ful and practical volume Introducing Gardening for Flat-Dwellers." Not forgetting the family garden-plot, lawns, vegetables, common and un- common, and the child's garden. SUSSEX, by Arthur Mee. The King's England Series. (Hodder and Stough. ton, 101. 6.). A four-hundred page gulda to one of the most attractive of the Home Countles. With notes on three hundred places arranged in A BO order. For the holidays. ENGLAND'S greater CHURCHES ¡Balaford, 39. 6d.). A splendid pic torial survey containing nearly a hundred photographla ilustrations, a running commentary and an intro- ducilon by C. B. Nicholson,

also be a sunny atreet, and bells that'

תם

not the ancient Book of the Divine may not return. They who awalt i ring across its sholtering walls; their gentle softly as those heard from far away, Wisdom, which has outlasted the you may tell you, in

comforting speech, that you nges, on every page you turn some- and thing of what Wordsworth has have come at last to stay, until you them for yel called, "the glory, and the dream?" may set out with

But one day you may know. You another country. Where there may

somo

balmy night of spring, bver, dewy fields, at the rising of the stors.

Marion W. Simpson

past few years as that of lighting.

Modern

house decorators have Velvet Panel. realised the double advantages of

A modern decorative effect which using lighting as part of their

In still experimental, but which has Echemes it is capable of

of the most already

been used In practice in artistic effects and, at the same each additional piece of decoration Germany, la throwing light on to a

panel of velvel has a practical value, in increasing A drawing is made on the velvet the amount.

ount of light in a root been rooms in private houses have

time,

Most

by

brushing the outlines against the

shown by research and experiment Pile with a toothbrush. In daylight not to be fitted with enough artifl- the plain velvet panel is all that is seen; but directly a strong light is

cial light to sueguard the eyesight turned on above the picture stands

A lighting

pointed out to out.

me to-day some of the modern advances In decorative Ughting, which are of particular interest with the approach of spring, the tradition al time of the year to effect improve

ments in one's house.

Tubular Lamp.

This solves the problem of grow- ing tired of pictures-providing the householder is a little artistle. Every time the panel is cleaned the pile pleture disappears, and one can have different velvet picture in the room every evening.

Another decorative idea,

It

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OUR BRITISH CROSSWORDS

16

[IB

in

The main achievement of modern the experimental stage, was shown It has been discovered that, lighting is the architectural lamp. to me. This is the long, tubular lamp, need when ultra-violet light falls on cer ing no shade, which can be seen in tain powders, the powders glow in widespread UFC by shops and bright colours.

cinemas,

restaurants

and public

There

It is an adaptation of the method buildings. It is rapidly gaining a already in use to determine the fat place in private houses.

content of margarine, for instance, Its virtue is that it can be had in by ultra-violet rays.

are many technical dim- almost any length, and in a number

before the of different colours. It can outline culties to be overcome the lintel of door. pick out the idea is practical for house decora- ahape of a book case or light up & tion, but lighting selentists are al- picture, edge a window pelmet, or ready working on it to adapt it to be formed into a wall bracket or a cinemas. pendant lamp.

As it is a vacuum lamp, with the Red and Green.

Alament running its whole length, it

can be used in any position, unlike

"Another new idea which I think

19,

ACROSS

1 You probably have often seen this English town tombstonea. A soothing ellxly

This one word implies the use of many

lness that was originally mert-

discomfort

the ordinary gosfilled lamp, which will soon be common-place," added has Ils longest life when it hangs the lighting architect, "is to have a light-metre permanently bulit in to downwards.

of any room The architectural lamp is admit- the lighting scheme

much used for work putting which is

10 tedly more expensive to buy than an

n strain on the eyesight. ordinary lamp, but its running costs

All It is, after

ly quite logical,

11 Soll are about the same, and the effect it

Thousands of people have baro- river in a room is much more strik- meters in their houses to tell them Ing.

what the weather is to be, and ther- mometers in their rooms to tell them whether the heating of the pince is Coloured lighting is being used in proper drdele realise how import

"When people

Built-in Light-meter.

more and more in domestle architec- turn. Building contractors have ant good lighting is to the eyes. even been incorporating. It récently surely it is only natural that they into speculatively bullt houses. should have light-meters to warn Lighting experts have made in them when their lighting is below teresting research into the possibi- standard. lities of coloured lighting. One of "Worn-put lighting is far more the most striking and simple effects difficult to detect than bad heating, is to use two lamps to throw colour and can do far more harm to the ed shindows.

health. A built-in light-meter in The most successful colours are important lighting points of a living- red and green. The two lamps shine room is a practical and quite Inex- from different angles; the shadows pensive idea for making sure that cast by the red lamp are thus colour eyes are not being strained through

and the neglect of lighting." ed green by the other

COUNT THE

"TELEGRAPHS”

EVERYWHERE

12 A definite number have their

place in this 'event

Oddly enough this flower may be whito

13

16 Incorrect:**

10 No, not a young femute fish; 17 A temporary substitute

It is very annoying.

22 Book of the OT.

24 Vessels that Are quile self-

satisfied when upset.

23 Masculine name (you will find

this a gift!). 26 Pine. 20 Make of car 30 "One bite" (onag.)

31 Of no value altogether yet apollt If divided... If it were.pos- sible 32 English poet

DOWN

1 Disloyal behaviour is, of course'

horrible

2 Carriage that is of interest to

connoisseurs in wine

3 Apalindrome

4 Not a preface but a mere ex-

cudo

5 Nurse's proper reparation when

she let baby fall in a puddle

The substance of the matter

7 English town that provides oc- cupation for mony who do not live in it

}

8 Only one old golf club, not a

set

14 No, this cousin of the rhino-

ceros is not a light animal.

15 28 down after this tree would

make a flower

18 Blunt description of an unin

teresting tale

20 Vessel that many a man carries

In his pocket

21 Iron is obtained from this part

of Franch L OTHER

22 Behavimee

23 Mediterranean island

24 The young rook may, havë, re-

marked this bird -

27 French" Marshal

| 20 Wine'

Yesterday's Balatian

כן

P MORDAN T ALBO A W ORIGIN

E WAKEEUL N TAXI

"U LIGHT S "F"N" GLIBUR LEAGUEUR 1 8 1 8

PHYSICS B

36 8D THEN

G GLOBIN-G||| PIBA MRESMOND TF STOPALAN RAFFIAN FIUIN ITMOBLES TRIM L FELLET NË OVEN "BEDE BEGMENT"R"