A BRIGHT DISCOVERY

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 133, 29 February 1936, Page 21

A BRIGHT DISCOVERY

“Gretchen Discovers America,” by Helene Sheu-Riesz (London: Dent).

The author of this entertaining little book, a well-known writer of novels mid plays in Austria, has travelled con-' slderably in Europe and America. Through these letters written by a German girl brought up in pre-war tradition are given some impressions of America as seen in 1923-24. In her first letter Gretchen announces her intention of going to America “to discover the new way of keeping the race going, by marriage or some other method if needs be.” A sophisticated American flapper on the boat arouses first her contempt, then unwilling admiration, then a desire to learn this apparently silly creature's secret of fascinating and managing the other sex. Gretchen is an earnest and enthusiastic pupil, and her experiences after lauding in New York show her still avid for a knowledge of life and love. She is hardly to be taken seriously by the amused reader, who watches her plunge with whole-hearted verve into every new craze ami movement that comes her way. She is not' lucking in original ideas with regard to making the world a happier place, and when she approached the Quaker secretary of a chocolate factory with a request for some chocolate for the underfed children of Vicuna . . . his nice well-shaped face twisted a little and his eyes began to glitter, and all nt once I saw two tears glistening in them, and he was not a bit ashamed. He just cried-like a little boy, and I could not help it. I just had Io put my arms round his neck, and my head on his shoulder, and I Bobbed ami ho cried, nud in the end he took out a big handkerchief and dried my tears first, and then his, nnd then be blew his nose, and said: “Would three tons of chocolate be enough?” Gretchen’s activities are still progressing vigorously with the last recorded happy Incident, which in the case of a iterson like Gretchen cannot be thought of as au ending.

In I lie opinion of Miss Clemence Dane, it is the power to be a permanent comfort that turns, in time, a mere modern novel into a classic that is never old-fashioned.