BOOKS ON THE TABLE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22319, 5 February 1938, Page 18

BOOKS ON THE TABLE

Suddenly the oldest of the four hags clapped her hands together, the music stopped, a curtain was lifted by invisible hands, and—the surprise* took my breath away—a camel came into the room, a big, mouse-coloured camel, led by a fat, bull-necked man ■ dth a puffy face. The ladies blew kisses to him . . . . He led the big animal into the middle of the room. The fumes from the censers mounted to my nostrils, a strange, sweetish sort of smell I have never met before or since.

Again the old Sudanese clapped her hands, and the music started again, louder and shriller even than before. The camel was nervous and tried to free itself, but the eunuch held it tightly. The singing of the Sudanese witches was a nightmare cacophony, unbearable, but all the women in the room had caught the rhythm and were rocking to and fro ....

The eunuch drew a broad-bladed knife and thrust it expertly into the camel's throat, so that a fountain of blood spurted up over him and over the women squatting near, who shrieked aloud. The camel collapsed, pawed at the ground once or twice, and then fell dead on the floor.

At once those pretty, well-dressed women seemed to become demented, either from the sight of the blood, the intoxicating incense, the terrible music, or a combination of all these excitants. They yelled and shrieked, they made strange, dislocated movements, as though trying to dance and being quite unable to. One beautiful girl in a Paris dress threw herself on her knees by the dead camel, plunged both her hands into the still streaming blood, and smeared them right across her carefully made-up face. Then she jumped to her foot and began to dance like a demon. Two others followed her example. A third one paced up and down with huge strides, reciting something in a voice as deep as a man's. A fourth went down on all fours, mewing like a love-sick cat. From "I Follow My Stars, ’ by Louis do Wold. (George G. Harrap and Co. Ltd. 278 pp. B'6 netj This is the autobiography of a cosmopolitan who has made his living in turn as bank clerk, fashion artist, journalist, novelist, film story writer . . . and lias travelled widely. His travels have been those of the mind, too - they have carried him to faith in “scientific astrology.” and he exhibits very curious evidences. the foundations and strong arches of his faith. Mr dc Wohl is an odd follow; amazing things happen to h;m. Weingarlner is his uncle. He is politically dismissed from Germany. He opens a. forgotten window on the story of Clive in India. He switches the career of Conrad Veidt . . . .

He follows his stars. Their light shifts, now red. now diamond bright. They arc never dull. Do they sometimes wink?

“Once I remember coming down b'- the night train from Scotland. The only other passenger in the compartment was a young girl going up to Cambridge. She began talking about books and volunteered the information that of all modern novelists she disliked most ‘that fellow Mais.’ She then kept me up all the night going into detail about the faults in character drawing, situation, and theme of my novels. When she was getting out, I handed her in'- card. ‘There's just one thing.’ I said to her, ‘about this abject fellow Mais. but he at any rate will always be able to claim that, hate him and despise him as you may, vou have spent the whole of one night alone with him quite voluntarily, which is more than you have done or are ever likely to do with any novelist whom you admire or love.’ “And while we are on the subject of women I’d have you know that Rose Macaulay, who has said a bitter thing or two in her day, described ‘Caged as ‘a very naif and human book.’ ” “Yes, yes,” interrupted the girl, “but you aren’t only a novelist. What about your other books?” “I’m not even mainly a novelist. But novelist is the title they expect on passports, dog-licences, birthcertificates, and things of that sort. So I put novelist first. In point of fact I began by editing a school Shakespeare, a very right and proper entry into authorship for a schoolmaster. Indeed the popular text-book is far more profitable than the popular novel. I’ve sold more than twenty thousand copies of my ‘English Course for Schools’ and ‘English Course for Everybody.’ The critics simply tumbled over each other in their hurry to give me their blessing.” From “All the Days of My Life.” by S P B Mais. (Hutchinson. 388 pp. 10s 6d net. Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd.). This book is described by the publishers as a “great autobiography,” but Mr Mais’s head is not shaped for that crown. It is a lively, talkative book, full of the energies and enthusiasms of a facile writer whom “The Times” once head-lined as “An Enthusiast.” This was when he published his book of literary ap-

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predations. “From Shakespeare to O. Henry”; but ho has deserved the title a dozen ways. His reminiscences show with what zest he has taught his classes, written his books, rambled in exploration of the "unknown island” of England, talked to his unseen radio listeners, encountered his fellow men. celebrated or obscure, worked for the daily press, thrown himself into such causes as the relief of the unemployed. played games, and, indeed, married and raised a family. Some of these pages contain mere chatter, some are a little overpoweringly egotistical: but none are prosy or pompous. and the worst of them will not destroy the reader's appetite for the good and the best.

Before Scotland can be herself once more her sons have three things to do. They must regain touch with the living God; they must regain touch with the land; and they must love Scotland with that single-hearted devotion which has been called the chastity of the soul. This book is concerned largely with the land. We must regain touch with the land for a hundred reasons that lie too deep in our blood for the mind to understand, but there are other reasons that the mind can understand, and among them is our national spirit of independence, which can be sustained only by an intimate connexion with the soil from which we draw our food. Town life is fundamentally insecure, as a war would too plainly show; the sense of insecurity is one of the great evils of our time, and a return of some considerable part of the population to the land would alleviate that sense of insecurity both in townsmen and country folk alike.

The love of Scotland has always boon intimatclv linked with the love of God and the love of the countryside. The three are one right through our history, as they must be one also in our hearts. From “The Scotland of Our Sons, ’ by Alexander Maclehose. (Alexander Maclehose and Co. 302 pp. 5s net.) In this, excellent book a publisher who lias done much to forward the national revival of his country depicts such evils in its condition as the depopulation of the highlands, the decay of the coastal fishing industry, the unhealthy crowding of the cities, and an alarming economic dependence on England. He pleads for the quickening' of the national spirit which will express itself in a demand for a due measure of self-government, the objects of which will be to resettle the deserted uplands and islands, establish rural industries, restore the fisheries, reduce the morbid swelling of the cities, and give back to Scotland the lost balance of its social life. Sir John Orr contributes two chapters in survey of the evidences of decline and of the materia! means and possible technique of reconstruction.