BOOKS
BOOKS "Anthony Comstock," by Heywood Broun and Margaret Leech. Albert and Charles Boni, New York, 1927. THIS BOOK has been described by one, at least, as making "a fascinating comedy, out of the...
...THIS BOOK has been described by one, at least, as making "a fascinating comedy, out of the story of "Anthony Comstock...
...It is a book worth reading, not alone for Comstock, but for the reflection of an age, and if one's eyesight be keen enough, a reflection of parts of each of us...
...In this universal fact the reader leaves these pages more tolerant of Anthony Com-stock's intolerance, and with a sense of loss that this tremendous energy did not find expression in some more direct and less twisted channel...
...for is it not a peculiarity of each of us to seek the cause of evil and ills of all sorts elsewhere, and the good within ourselves...
...This is not correct...
...And here perhaps is the key to our sympathy with the man...
...One finishes^ the book with a genuine if somewhat bushel-hidden respect for the man, though one may disagree quite in- ' tensely with his theories and ideas...
...For those of us who feel that the greatest piece of artistry is the creation of human character, one cannot leave "Anthony Comstock" without a sens© that here was a vibrant, fighting individual touched with certain tendernesses, madly rushing to destroy in books, plays and pictures what in reality lay within himself...
...The book itself is fitted together so that one is only conscious of the two pens by the different initials at the end of chapters...
...F. L...
...Apparently the authors have good) eye-sight, for though the book was in part written by the author of the concluding chapter against censorship, the after-taste of the) book has withal a certain sweetness towards life and its various Comstocks.—P...
...In fact, the authors have painted a picture of a personality not wanting in that essential element of greatness, human tragedy...
Vol. 19 • July 1927 • No. 7
