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< Fos WINNETKA WEEKLY TALK, SATURDAY, JULY 11, 1925 13 Are You Interested in books of Fiction, Biography, Travel, or History? For lists write to ESTHER GOULD care your local paper. A RARE STUDY OF A GENIUS "JOHN KEATS" By Amy Lowell Houghton Mifflin Co. One cannot help wondering if Keats is grateful, yet chuckling, over Miss Amy Lowell's scholarly two volumes in his defense. Keats the unwarlike battleground over which for the hun- dred odd years since his death the battle has raged so fiercely. Shouldn't it be amusing to have one's life turned up so neatly as, for example, in this passage: "The Five Courts was the great place for rackets, the precursor of our modern tennis but Keats did not, apparently, play, although we know that on one occasion he met Hazlitt going there for a game and went along with him part of the way." Scotland Yard never worked any better even for Sherlock Holmes, than this! Yet, seriously, in Miss Lowell Keats has an able champion. If you would walk with him from day to day, know how he felt and talked and wrote, understand that inner necessity which makes any life what it is, read this book. There have been criticisms in plenty heaped on the head of the voung poet who seemed to manage some of his affairs so poorly, but Miss Lowell in each case gives us the key to an understanding which goes behind criti- cism. And our harshest criticism crumbles into a sigh of "Poor Keats!" But there is not even very much of "Poor Keats"-ing here. As Miss Low- ell shrewdly says, everyone since Keats has looked at his life with the full con- sciousness of his tragic end. He him- self did not have that consciousness except in a few rare moments, when as any unbalanced nature might, he felt a sort of Doom brooding over him. No, much of Keat's life was happy. His boyhood at school :and the rare vacations when he was at home were happy normal times. The death: of his mother when he was 15 threw a shadow over his happiness, but this only served to drive him to what was 'always one of his greatest and most |" dependable joys--that of reading. Even the years when Keats was ap- prenticed to a surgeon, while they were tearing his desire in two were not un- happy years. He made friends easily and deeply, a rare combination, and took unusual pleasure in their posses- sion. He was genial, lovable, stimulat- ing, faithful in the extreme, in fact a rare friend himself. And all this led to happiness. : . Then above all joys was the extreme Joy of poetry. After explaining the really marked scientific bent .of the poet's mind, Miss Lowell says, "In deal- mg with Keats one must always re- member that, with him, it was never other things less but poetry more." What a remarkable person he was! Not to let the overmastering love for and genius for poetry make him less a man. Unfortunately, though, it did make him less a lover. The sad working out of the tragedy with Fanny Brawne, Miss Lowell treats, too, with patience and understanding. In fact to her, one of the chief triumphs of her book Stolen Idols The strange adventures of Geoffrey Ballaston, following his theft of a Chinese idol he hoped to famous with whose jewels restore the fallen fortunes of his house. By E. PHILLIPS CPPENHEIM $2.00 at all Booksellers Little, Brown & Co., Boston Publishers was the bringing of Miss Brawne into a more favorable light. From hither- to unused sources she has brought to light facts which really do change the persona of the drama not a little. And Miss Brawne becomes a good deal less of a villain and more of a heroine. Of this we may be glad. There are always two points of view and surely critics have too often been blind to hess. Be- sides there is so much bitterness in the story at the end--so many people in- cluding "the world" in general aching to put on the villain's garb and rant and tear, that we should be glad to have one less applicant for the part. For the serious student of Keats, Miss Lowell's book will be a fund of information, some of it entirely new, and much that has been brought to- gether and compared for the first time. Miss Lowell presents many theories, then is never lacking with one of her own. An incalculable amount of thought as well as unsparing work went to the writing of this book. For the student or lover of poetry Miss Lowell is a particularly congenial interpreter. No one could know better than she the struggle of the "modern" in art, and Keats was a 100 vears ahead of his time. For those who delight in Keats as a character there. are numberless pas- sages to be remembered. Such joyous human foolish things as we seldom think of Keats' saying. "O weep for Adonais he is dead" has been too long our thought of him. Brown, his com- panion on a waiking trip writes in a letter home, after describing his own costume : "Don't laugh at me, although Mr. Keats calls me the Red Cross Knight and declares my own shadow is ready to split its sides as it follows me." Sometimes the humor is mixed with an unexplainable pathos. As in this A Novel of Wanderlust ETHAN FOUNTAIN SQUARE EVANSTON Telephones: University 1024 -- Wilmette 600 Suggestions for the Week: "THE MAN NOBODY KNOWS" By Bruce Barton Bobbs Merrill .... ci ovssiss $2.50 "A POETRY RECITAL" By James Stephens MacMillan "COLLECTED POEMS OF HD" First Floor--Davis St. Protection forchildrenandgarden Made of copper steel chain link wre, galvanized after weaving. Durable and attractive. Other types for all purposes. Branch Office: ANCHOR FENCE" A ih MANUFACTURED BY ANCHOR POST IRON WORKS, NEW YORK, N. VY. 543 Wellington Ave., Chicago PHONE BUCKINGHAM 1908 letter to his sister--he was 21 at the time, he describes a perfect room which would satisfy him, and adds "I should like the window to open onto the Lake of Geneva--and there I'd sit and read all day like the picture of somebody reading." In a life which was certainly hectic though it was not entirely un- happy, it is no wonder that he longed even for the repose of "the picture of somebody reading." Chicago Electric Power Rivals That of World All the crashes of lightning in the world produce but little more power than the capacity of electricity gener- ating stations in Chicago's super-power pool, according to computations based on estimates of F. W. Peek, Jr. con- sulting engineer for the General Elec- tric company. There is an average of 1,800 thunder- storms in progress in the world at any one instant, according to Mr. Peek. These give 300,000 flashes per hour, each of about 4 kilowatt-hours power capacity, and make a total power ca- pacity of 1,500,000 horsepower operat- ing continuously. Do You Know Her?-- Janet Fairbank, author of "The Smiths," most popular of all the Best Sellers! Here are the others: "Drums," by James Boyd. : "Thunderstorm," by G. B. Stern. "The Great Gatsby," by IF. Scott Fitzgerald. "The Constant Nymph," by Margaret Kennedy. "The Mother's Recompense," by Kdith Wharton. "B.igham Young," by M. R. Werner. "Anatole France, Himseif,"" by Jean Jacques Brousson. 'Ciuisze of the Nonah," by Hilaire Belloc. THE BOOK STORE Winnetka 1101 724 Elm St. WINNETKA un em --------_------ -- Have you noticed how many fuel wagons are filled with They arc on their way to homes that have taken advantage of the Reluced Summer Prices and are going to Ire ready for Winter with a good, clean, high grade fuel. 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Thisorganizationexists today sub- stantially as it was then conceived,-- a group of companies, each preserv- ing its individuality and applying local knowledge to local needs, but all federated into a single cohesive union in order that nation-wide, universal service may be provided. perfect union' problem was to ILLINOIS BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY BELL SYSTEM One System - Universal Service