Judge — February 1937 — page 32: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BOOKS BY TED WE WERE a trifle disappointed in “Ro- mantic Adventure” in which that good, greeneyed, redtopped Mrs. Elinor Glyn, spills the inside beans of her life. Obvi- ously unappreciated by her publishers, the book isn’t bound in tiger skin or printed with perfumed ink on pages made of silken bedsheet material. It's just like any other book and Mrs. Glyn’s life's like any other life—in a dismal sort of regal way. For knowing the Glynny partiality for the Tender Emotion and having heard from grammaw how Mrs. Glyn had wed the Tiger to sex and produced French paperback novels in English, we looked ‘or more of a boudoir than a memoir; winchellian peeps into the keyholes of the “90s and ‘00s. Instead we get a pep- less self-appreciation, some old society news, a scattered handful of pointless anecdotes, a good deal of name-mention- ing, a lot of Blather about reincarnation, and philosophic guff no self-respecting servantgirl admirer of Mrs. Glyn would stand for. Described as the High Priestess of Romance, Mrs, Glyn was born in the Canadian backwoods. Her parents were English farmers who dressed for dinner every night after plowin’. Later, trans- lanted abroad, Elinor majored in French wit, which she mentions a lot in her book but gives no samples of. On her way thru life, Mrs. Glyn ran into a lot of people. Curiously vesy few of them were ordinary Misses, Misters, or Mrses. The book's fall of such entries as, “Mr. Stufflebeam (now Duke Fut- terer) dropped in with Mr. Sleeves (now Lord Doorhinge) and Miss Fiditch SHANE (now the Duchess of Vagrancy).”” Some fun. In more recent years, Mrs. Glyn looking down her nose has seen the dingy poor—probably her most fervent readers—and has found a patronizing sympathy welling up in among her Love. Lucky poor! By the way, Mrs. Glyn is pretty proud that it was she who first wore a diamond tiara instead of the usual bride’s wreath of orange blossoms. “We,” says John Strachey in his “Theory & Practise of Socialism,” “inevi- tably long to be allowed to lead our own personal lives against the background of a society, which however imperfect, is at any rate stable. But the society in which we live is not stable. We can no more escape from its perturbations by refusing to take part in the social strug- gles of our times than a frightened pas. senger can escape from a shipwreck by locking himself up in his cabin.” We realize that socialism has become as lively a topic as Mrs. Simpson’s din. ner talk; that the world has had enough headaches as it is without asking you to wade thru 593 pages of Mr. Strachey's restatement of what's what with Marx and Lenin but maybe there's a non- Judge, Jr., among you who may be in. terested. You may not agree with Mr. Strachey’s opinions; he may make you mad; he may misstate here and there; but generally if you're not reading him for laughs you'll find him the most lit. terate expositor of workingman head- achism in the world today. And read him you should if you're not too stuffy, smug, or anxious to see it haj pen here, We have a feeling that Mr. Mergan will "Who the heck brought that seal in here?” “If my borse runs in the money today, I’m goin’ to take that big blonde in the seventh grade to the movies!” read this book, the workingman to whom it is addressed will not, and that Hitler will burn it. So for comic relief we come to R. C. Hutchison’s “Shining Scabbard,” a witches brew to fever the jangled nerve, to drive madmen madder, to make ghouls quake with fear over its shock- ingly good Edgar Allan Poe qualities. The dainty blood curdling idea seems to be that one Rence Severin, married to a French captain stationed in the tropics, leaves the eerie jungles to take her two children to the Severin ancestral home in north France. Renee has a touch of the tarbrush which makes her mystic, sphinx- eyed; Severin is a dash dreamy, a dash feebleminded, a dash given to hinting that Renee must pay no attention to his eccentric family; while the kiddie-wids are (1) Sophie, moonmushed, brainless and vacuous, and (2) Armand, okay ex- cept he's a prodigy who sees things, wants to be a monk. This little happy group, minus pop, manage to struggle its way into France, despite insults, and make its way to the castle. The Severins prove no fun-loving group. In fact they allow no sunlight in the castle and when joy raises its ugly head they bop. Gram- pop Col. Severin turns out to be fightin; an 1870 scandal by malingering in bed. Sister Therese Severin was a great ac- tress, now crutch ridden; while Gram- maw Severin dashes around with an im. becile valet whom she pushes down stairs for laughs. All are nuts, nuts, nuts! Eeeeeeeeeeee! Later Pop Capt. Severin goes to a lot of trouble to join them. For some strange reason, probably only to make the going tougher, he disguises himself as a monk, a corpse and a laborer, arriving at his family's side during the war just before 30 comicbooks.com