THE SEVEN SLEEPERSAND OTHER
POEMS.By Mark Van Doren. Henry
Holt and Company. $2.50.
Written in the Emersonlan transcenden-
tal tradltlon, these poems have as their
main themethe search for changeless
unlversal law, the attrlbutes of whlch
emerge In med1tat:ons concernlng such
subjects as eternity, authorlty,nature,
and man."Consult the shorJn,/Beheve
In the unknown." The trouble with most
of the 104 poems in ths collection is
thatthe ideas are superimposed onthe
poems. Theme and languagetherefore
lack logical and Imaglnatlve intercon-
nection. The metaphors are often forced
or so drawnoutthat they neutrahe
each other;and series of subordinate
clauses and repetltlous constructlons,
earmarks of hasty compoatlon,blunt
and obscure themeaningWith a few
notable exceptlons-April, 1942, or
DownWorld,for instance-Mr. Van
Dorenis at hls best whenhe writes
aboutdetalls of intlmate experience, as
in some haK-dozen poems In the section
called The DoubleLlfe. They are charm-
ing, affectmg, and h a d .
YEARS OF THIS LAND:A GEO-
GRAPNlCAL HISTORY OF THE
UNITED STATES. By Hermann R.
MuelderandDavld M. Delo D.
Appleton-CenturyCompany. $2.50.
What were the naturalforces that in
comblnatlonproduced themountslns,
valleys, plains, waterways, mineral de-
posits, and forests of the sectlon of the
earththat became the UnLted States,
and how &d they Influence the settle-
mentand development of the country
ky European immigrants? And what In
turn have Amerlcans done to the land
In theIrarapid exploitatlon of its re-
sources? A histonanand ageologist,
both professors at a Midwestern col-
lege, havecooperated In answering
these questlons,and this notablystlmu-
latingllttle volume IS the result. The
Committee on American Hlstory may
disapprove of it because It 1s shorton
dates, but alert teachers of Phe soual
suenceswlll seize onIt ashvely and
profitable readmgfortheir students.
The maps andlllustratlons are excel-
lent.
GERMANS IN THE CONQUEST OF
AMERICA. By G e d n Arciniegas.
The Macmillan Company. $2.50.
This is a goodintroductionto history
as Latin Amerlcans hke It: llvely, stimu-
lating, very personal, and. perhaps a
little overweightedforthe sake of the'
argument. The story of the expehtions
to theNewWorld financed by the
German banking houses of Fugger and
Welser makes interesting reading, and
the slmpler imperlallsm of the slxteenth
century is not umnstructive. Whether it
demonstrates, as theauthorimphes,
that Spaniards are essenbally tougher
andmoresplendldthan Germans, and
vagnbonds moreapt to foundanem-
pire than bankers, the reader can deade
for hlmself. The intimabon of a paral-
lelwith twentieth-century Nazi pene-
tratlon in SouthAmerlca is more ques-
tionable ; that IS the sort of slmphfica-
tion of hlstorywhlchprevents real
understandlng of elther the past or the
present.
TARDILY, I arch my back and purr
deep-throatedapproval of "The
Curse of theCat People." which I
caught by pure chance, one evening, on
a reviewer's hollday. Masquerading as a
routme case of Grade B horrors-and it
does very well at that lob-the plcture
is In fact a brave, sensltlve, andadmir-
ablellttle psychological melodrama
abouta lonely slx-year-old girl,herin-
adequateparents,a palr of recluses In
a nelghborlng house, andthe chlld's
dead,insane mother,who becomes the
friend and playmate of her Imagmation.
Since you haveprobably heard about it
already fromother revlewers, and slnce
it IS the sort of picture anyhow which
deserves to give one thepleasure of per-
sonal discovery, I wlll not do more than
say that dozens of the detalls are as ex-
cellent as the whole intention. Certain
confusions intheplot-especiallyone
scene In whlch the imaginary playmate,
by plnning a glft to her gown, momen-
tarily seems to categorlze herself as a
mere studlo wralth-suggests thatthe
people whomadethe film worked out
two veraons, one with conventlonal su-
pernatural trimmlngs, the other, the far
from conventlonal story they got away
with. I was ratherpleased than not, in-
cldentally, by the trldc, or accident, or
both,whlch keptmeandthe audlence
uncertain, clear to the end, whether the
ghost was a "real" ghostorthefar
more real fantasy of the chlld. In the
same way I llked the amlbiguous melo-
drama about the daft old actress and her
tortured daughter, in the sinister house;
thoughhere I wouldhavellked even
better bhe much purer, quleter reallsm
which they would have achieved if e"-:2y*-z~ -
had taken their key from the wonder- :.::,-.-. i -
fully chosen houseItself. I wish that the ~..
makers ofthe film, and RKO, might be " 2
glven some special award for the whole
conceptlon andperformance of the
famdy servant, who is one of the
mostunpretenhously sympahetic,intelli- -
gen,t,anti-tradfional, and individualized
Negro characters I have ever seen pre-
sented onthe screen. And I hope hat
the producer, Val Lewton, and the rest
of his crew may be left more and more
totheirown devices ; they have a lot
of taste andtalent,and they are carry-
ing films a long way out of Hollywood.
Even so, theyhave thngsto learn.
Thls had every right to be a really first-
rate movie;butgood as it is, it is full
of dead streaks-notably the writing,
d~rect~ng,andplaying of the parts of
the parents and the kindergartenteacher
-and there are quite a few fallures of
imaginatlonand of taste. The people
with whom I sawthe film-a regular
sharply onto Its faultsand virtues.
WhentheIdeal Playmate(Simone Si-
mon) firstappeared to theimagination
of the infant in a dress and a lascivious
llghting which made herfagadelook like
Times Squarehorroraudiencewere "-
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leadins emall farmex~ert-shows you how to
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.- #!io2
c
n relief mapfrom What Every Young
Husband Should Know, theylaughed
their heads off. Theylaughed again,
with tender and perceptwespontaneity,
when, confronted by snobbery, the llttle
girl caught her shoulders Into. a be-
wildered, lnstlnctlvely pureshrug of
distaste. Andwhenthe picture ended
and It was clear beyond further sus-
pense that anyone who had come to see
a story about curses and were-cats
should have stayed away, they clearly
dld not feel sold out, for an hour they
had been captivated by thepoetry and
danger of d~lldhood,and they showed
itIntheirthorough applause.
That IS, I grant, a speclallzed audi-
ence, unoibstreperous, poor, melropoll-
tan,and deeply experlenced TheWest
Times Square audlence IS problbly,for
that maker, the finest movle audlence In
the country (certalnly, over and over,
it hasproved Its lnfinltesuperlority to
therun oi the"art-theater" devotees-
notto mentlon, on paper whlch must
brave the malls, the quallty and conduct
of Museum of ModernArt film audl-
ences). As long as such an audence ex-
ists, no one m Hollywood has a rlght to
use the stupldlty of thepublic foran
alibi;and I suspect that a few more
films as decent andhuman as thlsone
would lndlcate that there IS a very large
and wdely dlstrlbutedaudlence Indeed
forgood films. JAMES AGEE
THE BudapestQuartet's perform-
ance of Beethoven's Opus132 in
Columbla's new set (545; $5.50) IS a
superb statement of the work ; but its
recorded sound,though spaclous and
clear andbnght, IS cold andhard In
moderate sonorlties,brashandharsh as
it gets louder, strldent In fortlssrmo,
andleft my ears aching at theend.
Also, poor balance destroys the effect of
one of thegreat moments that Ide-
scribed last week-the moment, In the
mlddle of the second movement,where
the melody of the first vlolln, at a
greathelght and as thoughat agreat
dlstance, conveys avlsion of a celestial
joy. as recorded, that melody IS blank-
eted by the figuration of the second vio-
lin And some ofthe breaks between
record-sides are so placed In the music
as to beunusuallydlsturblng. Onthe
other hand the surfaces of my copy are
quleterthan surfaces have been 1~1a
long tlme.
Columbia also o3ers B r a h m s 's
. .
. .
"Schidcsalslied" ("Song of Fate"),
sung in Enghsh, for no good reason, by
the WestmlnsterChoir withtheNew
York Phllharmonic-Symphony under
Bruno Walter (Set X-223, $2.50). The
muslc IS only for the fanatlcal Brahms-
lover that I was once but am no longer ;
theperformance seems to have been
good, butwhlle the recorded sound of
the orchestra IS natural and agreeable,
that of the chorus is dlstorted and
shlleky What I sald about the surfaces
oi- the Beethoven sei holdfor t h ~ sone.
For Its record classlc drawn from Its
catalogue Columbla has chosen Stravln-
sky's own performance of hs "Sacre du
prmtemps"wlththeNew York Phll-
humonlc-Symphony (set 417, $4.50).
It IS a magnlficent performance of thls
powerful work, and the cold, hard clar-
ity of the recorded sound-the best that
Columbla has achleved wlth theNew
York Phllharmonlc-happens to De ap-
proprlate to the character of the muslc.
The surfaces of the new presslng are not
as qu~etas those of the origmalpresslng,
but are markedly quleterthansurfaces
have been.
Tchalkovsky, who loved Mozart's
m u m above all other, wrote once in his
dlary."Of course, In lovlng all of Mo-
zart, I shall not begin insisting that each
unimportant plece of his music IS a
chef-d'oezrwre. No! I know, forex-
ample, that not oneof his sonatas is a
great composltion.Nevertheless,Ilove
every one of his sonatas because Lt is
hls, because hls sacred breath was
breathed intoit."This is the nttitude
one can feel for a great many works of
Mozart that are theuninterestingprod-
ucts of a skllful craftsman trylng to earn
a hng-among them the Divertlmento
K.563for violln, viola, and cello that
Helfetz, Primrose, and Feuermannre-
corded for Vlctor(Set 959; $4.50) For
the most part-except for the charmlng
mlnuet movement--tt goes throughthe
rnotlons of muslcal actlvlty wlthout aay-
thlng really happenrng ; but weare
aware that these motions-the charac-
terlstlc turns of phrase and cadences and
so on-are tile motions of Mozart's
mind, even if thlsmlndis not deeply
engagedmthem ; andonce In awhlle
we hear somethlng llkethe passage at
thebeginning of the development In
the firstmovement (middle of the first
record-slde) wherethe modulatlons are
as bold andthe effect as powerful as
theyare at the same p i n t in thegreat
Plano Concerto K.595.There was a
Columbia set of an exquislteensemble
performance by thePasquier Trio; the
Vlctor set glves us a good performance
- .~ " I " - . .. ~ ".-. >>?"
- _.
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..- ~~
.. -.~
. I _
- - -.,.. _ _ . - . , - a .
.- j-i&N&rnN -
by three solo virtuososrestraining their
usual tendencies to command the stage.
Inthe llvely movements Heifetz plays -
with the smphclty of phraslng that has
been evident In previous recorded per-
formances In whlch he hasappeared to
be Influenced by the impeccable musi-
clanshlp of Feuermann ; but in the slow
movements there are the fussy swells
andthe archnesses of thenormalHei-
fetz style The recorded sound IS excel-
lent, except for asllght tlpplng of the
balance towardthe bass, and a few
buzzes and rattles, and most of the sur-
faces are quleter than surfaces have
been.
Vlctor also has issued aset (961 ;
$3.50) of aSonata fororganonthe
94th Psalm by JuliusReubke,a pup11
of Liszt, who dled in1858atthe age
of twenty-four.It is performed by E.
Power Biggs, who contends that "like
the poet Gray with his immortal `Elegy,'
Reubke wlththlsone r n u s d creatlon
IS assured of a place among the greatest
of the romantic composers, and becomes
aworthy successor to Bach hlmselfin
thedevelopmg stream of organ litera-
ture " Mr Blggs exaggerates; and
whereas I can value in an inferlor work
of Mozart the impress of the mind that
gave us hls great works, I cannotvalue
In thlssonata the impress of themind
of Llszt that I don't like even in Liszt's
own pretentious works. Again I must
wonder at theorlglnal decision to re-
cord theworkwhen so manygreater
thlngs were still unrecorded, and even
moreatthe decision nowto devote to
it the materials, plant,and labor that
are insuffiuent forthe great thlngs al-
ready in the catalogue. The performance
seem goodand is well recorded.
On a single dlsc (11-8566; $1) Vic-
torhas issued the supenb Slavonic
Dances Nos 1 and 3 of Dvorik in
buoyant and brilllant perforqpnces by
the St. Louis Symphony under Golsch-
mannthatare recorded with richness
and spaclousness. On another (11-8568;
$1) are two songs of` nogreat conse-
q u e n c e-Duparc's "Chansontriste"
and Mattel's "Non 6 vet"-which are
agreeable to listen to as sung by John
CharlesThomas. Andon still another
(11-8567;$1) ,is anEtude of Liapu-
nov,a Caucaslan danceentitled "Les-
ghinka," of which Brailovsky plays the
brllliantfast parts wlthout brilliance
and the quieter mlddlepartinan ex-
cessively mannered style.
As forthe set of Frederick Stock`s
orchestral version of Bach's Prelude and
Fuguein E flat for organ-that re-
quires extendedcomment,which It will
get next time. B. H. HAGGIN