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Wilmette Life (Wilmette, Illinois), 7 Sep 1933, p. 26

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BELIEVE IT OR NOT Houghton Mifflin have an author named George Goodcbîld who writes --»,000 words a.week. Fortunately he d oesn't write mysteries, at least not exclusivély, 50 he can'ýt. benominated as thé successor of Edgar Wallace LEILA'ONES' POETRY The Stephen Daye Press at Brat- tieboro, Verniont, bas. issued in sim- ple formnat a ý.volumew of verse called 'Assent to Autumn," by. Leila Jones. FounainSquaro, Evaniton .Nw Fait NOVELS and witb as many books, has made a name for herseif. The reading public bas learneci to expect of ber books that are good literature, rich. i n feeling and atrnosphere, and keen ini their interpretation of ýcharacter:' Uer first novel, "Tbe Loving Sp>irit," was'in many ways ber best one, but the second, "I'l Neyer Be Young* Again, ".although totally different, was also. an ektremtely interesting piece of work. Naturally, in view of these two books, one' is eager to reaci "The Progress of Julius," but he wbo 'does' idoomed to disapjpointnient. ;Yet there, is almost more, good material than bad in the book! The whole history of this man's. hf e is, drawn so carefully, with sucb devotion to de- tait, with -such faithfulness to a pre- scribed pattern tbat be becomes,> in the eyes of the reader, a morister rather than ,an ordinary buman. That there are sucb men as Juljus Levy I have no doubt but too close a scrutiny robs them of reality., And that is the inistàke 'whidi Miss du Maurier has made. julius Levy lives only in the phrase "something for nothing," and it is around this phrase that the en- tire story is-built. The son of a Frencb womnanand an Algerian Jew, Julius lived just outside of Paris, then in Algiers and finally in London.. Conpletely, and almost impossibly. heartless, he was moved only by. a trefnendous desire for the a2culisi~tionf of monev and, dancing-girl who tollowecl him trom Algiers to London, were brokcen on the wheel of bis enormous greed. And it wasn't until he was defied by bis daughter, wbom he bad brought up in his, own beliefs, that his world began to ýcrumbe about bini. But even thougbý the ending is the in-, evitable one and brings julius into the realm of buman beings, it is too late-he rernains the mecbanized monster that Miss du Maurier's wealth of consistent detail bas made It is true that yachtsmen will get more out of "Paradise Cove" than anybody else-sailing, yachtsmen, that is, for motor yachtsmen are classed with, landlubbers. as the. beasts, that perishý' there is a good deal of tecb- nical, details. that only sailors will appreciate, and ail the non-sailors in theboo are imbeciles, bounders, or worse. But anybody can. appre ciate it wvho values muscular and eéconom- ical 'writing anrd salty character., For sucb a book, this revriewer bappens to be a severe test;. regarding yacht- ing. as a. sport on a. par With cbess or waîti ng for the bloomning of the century plant, he. is the only beretic in a summer colony of madly.enthusi-> astic .yachtsmen. .Nevertbeless ' bc got a lot of fun out of."Paradise Cove." The cove in -question was the an- cestral home' of the. Edens, reduced at. thé time of the story to.old Dick Eden, three sons, aà daughter, and' a GodMorsaken dat.ghter-in-4aw. Old Dick, observing that most. Americans wben they retire from business can- not learn how to play, took tirne by the forelock and retired the day he left college; so now the Edens are in reduced circumstances- andi bave to selI thie swamp acres covered with ee1 grass to wbatever bidder wilI use them for a purpose least destructive to Paradise Cove. The plot depends on the sale of the swamp acres, and the consequences of the arr'ival at the cove of Andy Ferris, whose prowess as. a composer and a spec- ulator is a matter of little concern t-o the Edens;- Andy is a sailor, and no more need be said. Before the bookc ends the famnily1 bhas suffered considerable disintegra- tion, yet something -perhaps the sanative effect of the sait wind that blows through the book-leaves the reader reasonably reconciled, despitei the affection he cannot belp feeling1 for this cantankerous, uselesb, and« utterly. delightful family of what1 should certainly be called he-men if that term- had. not been made ridic- darkest thing in the universe. Dark because of our stili vast ignorance of its nature andi since, because of the radiation phenomena which it typi- fies, wie actually see so, minute a range. AKc7ybo.rd-of RLysý On the famniliar analogy of a kev-. board tbe "waves" of elect romagnetic energy thus ïfar known ,begin on, a "treble" represented by the cosiîic rays, so 1"bard" that they' can'_peiie-. trate sixteen. feet of solid 'lead or nearly 'two hundred feet of watçr before being absorbed. Next corne about fine octaves of X'- and gamma- rays, followed in order by -fi-ve c taves ofulravolet light, one of visi- ble light,* nine o 1f tbe heat radiation. known as "i'nfra--red" ligbt, seveniteen. of Hertzian waves, -and eleven oc- taves of the very long. vave-lengths uséd in wireless and rad'io trans:mis- sion. Out of fifty-three,- possibly 'more. octaves'of radiation the human eye is sensitive to only one somewbere about the middle of the gigantic kel- board from whicb, it would appear, nature draws ber own authentic mu- s ic of the spberes. To> read about ligbt is, tberefore, to get at the very' heart of nature's well-kept secrets. and few guidies are so competent and iucid as Sir William Bragg. * Highly Authoritative The present volum~e carnies one of the highest' recommendations possi- ble in any scientific work offered for the layman,: the substance of it %vas given 'as the 1931 Christmas Lectures before the Royal Institution of Great Bnitain.. To say that this séries of lectures was inaugurated by Michael Faraday and that the standards he, set bave been exacted from tliree generations of the finest scientifi.c talent in England is a guarantee of excellence not only, with regard, to the material presented -but in* clarity and charm of treatment. Those Who remember Sir William's book, -Con- cerning thé Nature of Things" (also given originally as the Royal Insti- tution Lectures in 1923) will need no furtber incentive to read the hanci- snrnelv. i11I1tr2*ate voume. l»YEs at three dollars. The book bas been set vritten with depth and understanding. Hare, a novel of fox hunting squires in Lutetia, with three crisp drawings of human character." Anne Parrish ini southeastern Pennsylvania; and by T'. M. . Cleland. The binding, in describes it as: "Beautiful and deeply "Life in the Unitedi States," a col- Irish linen with blind stamped pat- moving, and.as fresh and alive asa le ction of true narratives by writers; tern, is particularly good. . growing vineé or a troc." from altsections of the counttry.w e'

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