Books in Brief

Robert Browning and His World: The Private Face, by Maisie Ward (Holt, $8.50). I had not thought to see the day when there would appear a Catholic biography of Browning—or perhaps I should say, of the Browning, for Elizabeth (as is necessary and proper) is at least a secondary subject of the book and it ends with her death—but I have seen it now. And I am not entirely sure whether I like it. That it is good reading I readily admit, and certainly the faults I have to find lie more in the author’s disinclination to explain instead of describing, than in her Catholicism. Nevertheless I have here, as I do not in Chesterton—who is the spiritual father of this book—a feeling that something comes between author and subject, or perhaps I should say that the author comes between me and the subject, or both. But I would rather wait for the second volume to appear before I make up my mind.

The New Land, compiled and edited by Phillip Viereck (John Day, $12.95). The subtitle, “Discovery, Exploration, and Early Settlement of Northeastern United States, from the Earliest Voyages to 1621, Told in the Words of the Explorers Themselves,” nicely sums up this nice book—but it is no mere catchall of old documents. Mr. Viereck has selected and arranged his materials with a careful eye; the side and bottom margins of each page are filled with crisp explanatory notes, as well as line drawings, both ornamental and elucidative, by the compiler’s wife. The geographical compass is small: the coast from New York to Maine, and the Hudson River valley. Of particular interest are the varying accounts of the natives—“They are full of pity and charity for their neighbors. They are very liberal, for they give that which they have. We became great friends. . .” (Verrazano); “The whole of them, to tell the truth, are not worth much. . . . They are great thieves, and if they cannot lay hold of a thing with their hands, try to do so with their feet. . .” (Champlain).

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Robert Browning and His World: The Private Face, by Maisie Ward (Holt, $8.50). I had not thought to see the day when there would appear a Catholic biography of Browning—or perhaps I should say, of the Browning, for Elizabeth (as is necessary and proper) is at least a secondary subject of the book and it ends with her death—but I have seen it now. And I am not entirely sure whether I like it. That it is good reading I readily admit, and certainly the faults I have to find lie more in the author’s disinclination to explain instead of describing, than in her Catholicism. Nevertheless I have here, as I do not in Chesterton—who is the spiritual father of this book—a feeling that something comes between author and subject, or perhaps I should say that the author comes between me and the subject, or both. But I would rather wait for the second volume to appear before I make up my mind.

The New Land, compiled and edited by Phillip Viereck (John Day, $12.95). The subtitle, “Discovery, Exploration, and Early Settlement of Northeastern United States, from the Earliest Voyages to 1621, Told in the Words of the Explorers Themselves,” nicely sums up this nice book—but it is no mere catchall of old documents. Mr. Viereck has selected and arranged his materials with a careful eye; the side and bottom margins of each page are filled with crisp explanatory notes, as well as line drawings, both ornamental and elucidative, by the compiler’s wife. The geographical compass is small: the coast from New York to Maine, and the Hudson River valley. Of particular interest are the varying accounts of the natives—“They are full of pity and charity for their neighbors. They are very liberal, for they give that which they have. We became great friends. . .” (Verrazano); “The whole of them, to tell the truth, are not worth much. . . . They are great thieves, and if they cannot lay hold of a thing with their hands, try to do so with their feet. . .” (Champlain).