American nights entertainment
quest of power--religion the sanctification of one, pan-Americanism the
credo of the other. It is this spiritual penetration that makes the
fine distinction of Stephen Graham’s _In Quest of El Dorado_, joined to
the man’s unusual literary skill, taste and sense of form. On the point
of form there is something more than usually admirable in the start
of the book from Madrid and Cadiz and in the conclusion (on a note of
wonder) amid the ruins of Mitla, as if the quester for El Dorado would
do well to seek its whereabouts in the indecipherable inscriptions
placed on their massive memorials by a race that had sunk into silence
long before the imperious advent of the Children of the Sun. These
are the refinements of the book for the reader of philosophical or
æsthetic tastes; but as such matters should be, they are entirely
unobtrusive--present to those who seek them, hidden to those who are
indifferent--and in externals Stephen Graham offers a first-hand travel
study with cowboys and conquistadores, Indians and Mexicans, the Panama
Canal and the jingle of spurs in the changing foreground.
Among those authors whose books of travel win their appreciation from
the personality of the adventurer, Mary Roberts Rinehart seems to me
quite plainly the foremost. The considerable time that has elapsed
since the publication of _Through Glacier Park_ and _Tenting Tonight_
will sharpen many appetites for the camp fare offered in her new book,
_The Out Trail_. With none of the acerbity of her own Tish, Mrs.
Rinehart has to the full that lady’s derring-do. “I have roughed it,”
she explains at the beginning of _The Out Trail_, “in one wilderness
after another, in camp and on the trail, in the air and on water, in
war abroad and in peace at home. I have been scared to death more
times than I can remember. Led,” she confesses, “by the exigencies
of my profession, by feminine curiosity, or by the determination not
to be left at home, I have been shaken, thrown, bitten, sunburned,
rained on, shot at, stone-bruised, frozen, broiled, and scared, with
monotonous regularity.” And she adds that on several occasions she has
been placed in situations of real danger from which she has clamoured
to be extricated with all possible despatch. Two things, if we may
judge by her chronicle, seem never to have failed her, in whatever
emergency: her sense of drama and her sense of humour. At least, they
are keenly in evidence on all the pages of _The Out Trail_, and make it
easily among the most entertaining books of its kind--not infrequently
exciting, too! If someone thinks that the sense of the humorous must
have been missing at the time and have been recaptured later in writing
of the adventures, I suspect he is mistaken; for I recall that not so
long after I had written a chapter on “The Vitality of Mary Roberts
Rinehart” as a novelist, I met Mrs. Rinehart. She was suffering from
one of those ferocious colds which make cowards and pessimists of us
all, but she only remarked: “I’m afraid you will find the vitality you
have just celebrated rather low this morning.” This, I submit, is such
stuff as humorists are made on.
iii
Among books of essays that successfully spread the Magic Carpet for
readers I should like to draw attention to the following (in addition
to those described above):
ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY’S _In the Neighborhood
of Murray Hill_.
J. C. SQUIRE’S _Essays at Large_ and his _Books
Reviewed_.
HILAIRE BELLOC’S _On_.
Other collections of essays, chiefly on literary and philosophical
subjects, are included in or listed after Chapter 15, “For the Literary
Investor.”
iv
In the matter of books of travel, some classification is necessary, and
in addition to the ones just described I am glad to name the following
in all their happy variety:
A GROUP OF BOOKS ON ANCIENT EGYPT AND
PRESENT-DAY EGYPTIAN EXPLORATIONS.
_A History of Egypt From the Earliest Times to the Conquest of the
Persians_, by JAMES HENRY BREASTED. The ninth printing has just been
called for. With 200 illustrations and maps.
_History of Assyria_, by A. T. OLMSTEAD. A companion volume to
Breasted’s _History of Egypt_, and equally admirable. With maps and
many illustrations.
G. MASPERO’S _Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria_, his _Egyptian Art:
Studies_, and his _History of Art in Egypt_. These remain standard in
their field.
TERENCE GRAY’S _And in the Tomb Were Found_ and his _The Life of
Hatshepsut_. The first is a series of historical studies and sketches
including Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid, and Rameses the Great.
Some literal translations of Egyptian love songs are added. The second
book is the romance of an Egyptian princess who reigns as a man; the
work is cast in the form of a pageant for the sake of greater vividness.
PERCY E. MARTIN’S _Egypt Old and New_, a general account with many
illustrations in colour.
PERCY EDWARD NEWBERRY’S _The Valley of the Kings_, which includes the
discoveries by the late Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter in a general
account of thirty years’ explorations.
ARTHUR WEIGALL’S _Tut-Ankh-Amen and Other Essays_ is the work of an
Egyptologist and former Inspector-General of Antiquities in Egypt.
Mr. Weigall was special correspondent for the London _Daily Mail_,
New York _World_ and other newspapers at the opening of the tomb of
Tut-Ankh-Amen.
A GROUP OF BOOKS ABOUT CHINA.
_Audacious Angles on China_, by ELSIE MCCORMICK, introduces the reader
to Chinese life as the Western resident there sees it. The humorous
side of such experiences is to the fore, and one part of the book is
devoted to “The Unexpurgated Diary of a Shanghai Baby”--an American
child’s view of the intimacies of Eastern life.
_Swinging Lanterns_, by ELIZABETH CRUMP ENDERS, is a vivid narrative
of what an American woman saw while living and travelling in China. It
contains much that is unusual, including such matters as the Yellow
Llama Devil Dances, never before described. Fine illustrations.
ROY CHAPMAN ANDREWS’S _Across Mongolian Plains_.
ROY CHAPMAN ANDREWS’S and YVETTE BORUP ANDREWS’S _Camps and Trails in
China_.
HERBERT A. GILES’S _A History of Chinese Literature_, a historical
account written with much charm and taste and offering translations of
the work of various Chinese writers.
THE FAR EAST.
C. M. VAN TYNE’S _India in Ferment_. Mahatma Gandhi and the general
background by a scholar and skilled observer.
SIR HUGH CLIFFORD’S _A Prince of Malaya_ and his earlier book, _The
Further Side of Silence_. These are stories, true, fictional and
semi-fictional, that take rank as literature. The author, a friend of
Joseph Conrad, at the age of twenty-one was “the principal instrument
in adding 15,000 square miles to the British dependencies in the East.”
SYDNEY A. CLOMAN’S _Myself and a Few Moros_. An American soldier’s
lively but not unhumorous administrative experiences, with a good
picture of what the United States has accomplished in colonial
government.
H. O. MORGENTHALER’S _Matahari_. The Frederick O’Brienish adventures of
a Swiss engineer prospecting for tin in the Malayan-Siamese jungle.
THE CALLERS OF THE WILD.
ERNEST THOMPSON SETON’S _Game Animals and the Lives They Live_, Vol. I.
There are to be four volumes.
WILLIAM T. HORNADAY’S _The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals_, a book
of personal observations by one of the keenest living observers and one
who, as director of the New York Zoological Park, has under his eye
and care the most complete collection in the world.
SAMUEL A. DERIEUX’S _Animal Personalities_, including domesticated
animals.
CARL AKELEY’S _Men and Animals: An Autobiography_ and MARY HASTINGS
BRADLEY’S _On the Gorilla Trail_. Mr. Akeley went to the Belgian Congo
on a gorilla expedition, and Mrs. Bradley, well-known as a novelist,
her husband and their five-year-old daughter went, too. Each book
enhances the interest of the other.
WITH ICE.
APSLEY CHERRY-GARRARD’S _The Worst Journey in the World_, describing,
in its two volumes, Scott’s last Antarctic expedition, 1910-13.
MEDITERRANEAN.
V. C. SCOTT O’CONNOR’S _A Vision of Morocco_, which is both historical
and descriptive, and C. E. ANDREWS’S _Old Morocco and the Forbidden
Atlas_, written in a distinguished prose.
C. R. ASHBEE’S _A Palestine Notebook_, the result of administrative
experience in 1918-22. The book has interesting personal portraits of
Sir Herbert Samuels, General Allenby, Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Morley,
the late Lord Northcliffe, Lord Curzon, and others.
G. K. CHESTERTON’S _The New Jerusalem_.
ERNEST PEIXOTTO’S _Through Spain and Portugal_, where the author’s
illustrations are so happily wedded to the text.
ROSITA FORBES’S _The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara_.
SOUTH AMERICA.
C. REGINALD ENOCK’S _Republics of Central and South America_, his
_Spanish America_ (two volumes), his _Ecuador_, his _Peru_, and his
_Mexico_.
LEO E. MILLER’S _In the Wilds of South America_, an account of six
years’ explorations.
UNIQUE BOOKS OF TRAVEL.
GEORGE EYRE-TODD’S _The Clans of the Scottish Highlands_. By an
authority on Scots lore.
VAUGHAN CORNISH’S _A Geography of the Great Capitals_, from the
“capital” of the Iroquois Indians, marked by a sacred fire, to the
capitals of government, such as Rome and London, or of commerce, such
as New York, and including vanished cities as well as existing ones.
THOMAS NELSON PAGE’S _Washington and Its Romance_, really a historical
work. Mr. Page had been engaged upon it for several years before his
death and left completed his account of the city’s early days.
S. R. ROGET’S _Travel in the Two Last Centuries of Three Generations_,
a remarkable history, vivid, personal and interesting, derived from the
records and letters of a single family and showing what rapid changes
transportation underwent in the short period of two hundred years.
B. W. MATZ’S _Dickensian Inns and Taverns_, and his _The Inns and
Taverns of Pickwick_, and also CECIL ALDRIN’S magnificent _Old
Inns_--for all who hear the post horns blow and the stage coach drive
up to the door.
STEPHEN GRAHAM’S _Tramping With a Poet in the Rockies_, the description
of a vagabondage with Vachel Lindsay, with a report of many
conversations which left the ground.
_3. A Breathless Chapter_
i
What actually took my breath away (in the first place) was an
inspection of the “general catalogue” of one of our publishing
houses, and a discovery therein. Now, a general catalogue, showing
all the books published by a particular house and “in print”--that
is, procurable new--is in itself a species of adventure. I admit all
that Mr. A. Edward Newton puts forward as to the amenities of book
collecting--by which, I take it, he means the joys, the sorrows, the
moments of irony and the moments of amusement which fall to the lot
of the collector of rare books. The quest of the book that is out of
print, and must be had at second hand by diligent search and patient
waiting, is an exceptional delight. Nevertheless, a special and more
accessible pleasure lies in the catalogue, whether of a publisher or a
bookshop. All but a handful of us are certain to come upon titles that
kindle the imagination or rekindle the memory. Both were lit for me by
the entry:
GABORIAU, Emile
The Most Complete Library Edition
Each with new illustrated jackets
_The Count’s Millions._ 12mo. 2.00
And not only _The Count’s Millions_, but a roll of eleven others, an
even dozen in all, ready to be re-read after these too many years and
pleasingly freshened up by the new illustrated jackets! There they
were: _Baron Trigault’s Vengeance_, _The Clique of Gold_, and a fine
array of enticing titles that memory doesn’t recall--_The Champdoce