War, Love & Bookworm

THE FOUNTAIN -- Charles Morgan --Knopf ($2.50).

A rare sprout in the English literary herbarium is the philosophical romance: perhaps its most famed flowering is the late Joseph Henry Shorthouse's John Inglesant. Author Morgan's novel, acclaimed with broad "Ahs!" in England, the June choice of the U. S. Book-of-the-Month Club, twigs from the same literary branch. In a rhythmic, hypnotic style it shows philosophic conceptions rising in the lives of its main characters, those characters' lives falling back on philosophical conceptions.

When, early in the War, Lewis Alison is imprisoned with other captive English officers in the Dutch fortress Wierickerschans he, unlike his fellows, welcomes incarceration. In this enforced retreat he will be able to lead a long-desired contemplative life, work uninterruptedly on his history of English 17th Century Contemplative Livers. The other officers agitate escape, burrow tunnels while he burrows in his books. Against his better contemplation he joins the others in trying to escape. They are foiled, but escape is thrust upon him from an unexpected direction.

At the nearby castle of Enkendaal lives wealthy Landowner Baron van Leyden, whose stepdaughter, Julie, Alison wed to tutor in England.

The Baron interests himself in Alison and his friend Ballater, pedrsuades them to leave the fortress on parole, live in a cottage on the baronial estate. In the ancient van Leyden Library Alison can pursue his studies undisturbed. But beautiful Julie, now married to a German, von Norwitz, off fighting in the War, soon disturbs his contemplations. She is restive and Alison soon becomes so. There is more philosophy in her glowing eyes then in all this books, more in her sudden kiss than he supposed all life could contain.

Aghast at the implications of that kiss, Julie send Alison away.

But her life at Enkendal is no longer possible without him: he returns. In the tower over the library are her rooms. There, by means of a secret stairway, Alison climbs night after night. Their love has long been consummated when von Norwitz returns from the war, a hopeless invalid.

Julie tries to reconcile respect for her husband with her love for Alison, but without avail. Soon von Norwitz suspects her affair: once convinced that she has been unfaithful, he resigns his will to live. On his deathbed he consigns the lovers to each other. But the van Leydens have no such liberal ideas. Scandalized, outraged when they discover Julie's behavior, their confusion is twice confounded when she runs off to marry Alison. He has rubbed the lamp of his philosophy and like a lovely genie she must answer its peremptory call.

The Author, Born in Kent, England in 1894, Author Morgan was trained as an officer in the Royal Navy,.served in the Atlantic and China fleets. After the War he studied at Oxford, was graduated with honors in modern history in 1921. Since 1926 he has been the London Times's dramatic critic. Married to Authoress Hilda Vaughan he dedicates The Fountain to her. Other books: My Name is Legion, Portrait in a Mirror.

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