Word: wits
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Author Beresford gave up being an architect 20 years ago, to write psychological novels. His characters are structurally correct, the perspective of their situations perfect to a fault. Unfortunately, they remain largely in the blue-print stage, explicit social diagrams which their creator lacks either the wit or power to bring to life...
...story thins into a string of anecdotes as its author's activities and acquaintance widen. Still painting, he sees much of Whistler, something of Oscar Wilde, of which parasite wit Whistler says: "He picks from our platters the plums for the puddings he peddles in the provinces...
Except for Elizabeth Hines and an acrobatic group of chorus girls, the piece is a dire error. It has been adapted from Alice Duer Miller's The Charm School with sedulous aridity of wit. There have been dozens of musical comedies with weak books and strong ankles but few with the contrasts so sharp. If you can stand stretches of ramblings unrelieved to watch Miss Hines and the chorus, now and then, you may like...
...workings of the body politic in Britain, and there is much to be derived from that recital of body politics in general. These are no textbooks requiring a scholarly mind to disentangle their sense, but rather are they full of trenchant observation, clear analysis and an ofttimes sparkling wit, written in the common tongue wth charm, force and a liberal supply of aphorisms...
CAPTAINS AND KINGS-André Mauois (translated by Lewis May)-Appleon ($1.50). As one would have guessed, The French psychologist who wrote the first unprejudiced life of Shelley (Ariel*) can conduct a philosophical argument with delicacy, wit and penetration. From his interest in Shelley, one would also have guessed that M. Maurois accepts the latter half of Plato's apothegm: "There are two kinds of causes; one necessary, the other divine," and agrees with Vauvenargues: "Genius depends largely on our passions." The three compact dialogs of the present volume, between a young platonist-aristocrat lieutenant and his old rationalist...