Books: Fair-Haired Carpeteer

Galsworthy & Cherrells

FLOWERING WILDERNESS—John Galsworthy—Scribner ($2.50 ). Many a reader who was captivated by the Forsyte Saga into following cheerfully at Author Galsworthy’s heels wishes now that his leader would sit down and take a well-earned rest. Having finally, after several backward glances, parted from the Forsytes, Galsworthy has now taken up with the Cherrells. has fastened on them with a bulldog grip. Maid in Waiting began it; Flowering Wilderness continues what bids fair to be an over-lengthy serial. Dinny Cherrell, too young to wed in the first book, makes a bold bid for it this time. Unfortunately the swain she picks, one Wilfrid Desert, is far from being the kind of vertebra that fits into England’s backbone. First and bad enough, he is a poet. To judge from a fragment which Creator Galsworthy quotes, Poet Desert rates every ounce of obloquy he gets: Into foul ditch each dogma leads. Cursed be superstitious creeds, In every driven mind the weeds! There’s but one liquor for the sane— Drink deep! Let scepticism reign And its astringence clear the brain! To the Cherrells, who had sound ideas on income (which they pronounced “ink ’em”) but thought more of Service to the State, Wilfrid was not a catch. More, a horrid rumor about him began to be bruited about the London clubs: threatened by a Moslem fanatic in Darfur, he had turned Moslem under pressure! Letting England down, what? Worst of all, the fellow had written a poem about it, had the impudence to publish it. The ensuing scandal ran his book up into a bestseller. Of course most decent men sent the scoundrel to Coventry. But Dinny stuck by him, even in the face of family disapproval. Luckily the fellow had enough grace to leave her, goback to the East where these things do not matter so much. It was a near thing for Dinny, but the implication is that she was well out of it, will be glad later, perhaps will find a real vertebra in the next installment.