I The Dally Tar Heel Wednesday, September 14. 1977
Southern saga:
two ladies' tales
A Northern lady and a Southern lady are
the heroines of two current and popular
novels: A Dark Lady by Louis Auchincloss
(Houghton Mifflin Co. 246 pp. $8.95) and
Look Away, Beulah Land by Lonnie
Coleman (Doubleday. 492 pp. $10.95). How
different are their ladies?
Louis Auchincloss grew up in New York
state, attended Groton School and Yale,
now lives on Park Avenue and has an office
on Wall Street. In one novel after another he
has drawn skillful portraits of Northern men
and women: orderly, reserved, well-educated
well-bred, affluent. elegant, seemly. His best
novel may be The Rector of Justin, based on
the headmaster of his prep school. Groton.
but equally illuminating of the Northern
character are Portrait in Brownstone, The
House of Five Talents and The Great World
and Timothy Colt.
Lonnie Coleman is a native of Georgia,
worked as a newspaperman in North
Carolina and lived in New York until his
best-selling Beulah Land brought in enough
money for him to buy a home in Ireland. He
has known Southern women all his life; and
one of his most effective novels carries the
title of The Southern Lady.
Mr. Auchincloss' "dark lady" is Elesina
Dart, beautiful, well born, but a victim of too
little money, two unsuccessful marriages and
a weakness for alcohol. An aspiring actress,
she once played the role of "the dark lady" of
Shakespeare's sonnet sequence and was
perfectly capable of playing any role in the
social world which she believed would prove
advantageous to her.
Elesina's greatest admirer and manager
was Ivy Trask, a middle-aged, shrewd
fashion editor who introduced Elesina into
the richly elegant home and priceless art
collection of Irving and Clara Stein, then
pushed Irving into divorcing his wife and
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Walter
marrying Elesina. and finally prodded
Elesina into a steamy love affair w it h Irvine's
son. David.
This is the basic plot of The Dark Lady,
but Auchincloss embroiders his unsavory
story of lust and greed with polished pictures
of the Stem salon, with witty dinner table
conversations about Shakespeare and
contemporary drama, art treasures b
Holbein and Botticelli and New York
politics. The reader may not admire Elesina
Dart Stein, but he mav well admire the
precise elegance with which Auchincloss
depicts this overly successlul northern lady,
who at the end of the book is headed into
Republican politics with the aid ot herclever
homosexual secretary.
Readers of Lonnie Coleman's earlier
Beulah Land, compared in some circles to
Gone With the Wind, will remember the
Kendrick and Davis families living on their
neighboring ante-bellum Georgia
plantations, raising cotton, being kind to
their slaves, intermarrying rapidly and
indulging in a good bit of same-sex activities
under the oak trees. The inevitable sequel,
Look A ay, Beulah Land, carries the story
right on through the Civil War and into
Reconstruction, running from 1864 to 1874
with the indomitable Southern lady, Sarah
Kendrick, managing the plantation, finding
a new husband, befriending a forlorn
Yankee soldier, marrying off two of her
grandchildren and standing off the Yankee
invaders and the invading carpetbaggers
with courage and determination.
The first section of the novel, under the
appropriate quotation from Shakespeare's
The Tempest: "Hell is empty and all the
devils are here." draws a believable and
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authentic picture ol how one Southern
lamily managed to survive the war. even
though the plantation house at Beulah Land
was burned, the black women slaves raped
and a few people killed. I he villain ol the
piece is the greedy black man. Junior F lk.
who connived with the carpetbaggers but
met the end he deserved Other blacks arc
sympathetically portraved. and one ol the
best scenes in the book is the vengeance
taken on Yankee sergeant Bills Smede. who
pillaged and raped, when he is caught by
black Hosd. 1 2-year-old Ben and Yankee
deserter Daniel I odd. I he novel ends with
-books-
By WALTER SPEARMAN
A Dark Lady
by Louis Auchincloss
Look Away, Beulah Land
by Lonnie Coleman
the establishment ot a school lor tree blacks,
set up by money Junior Elk left his good son,
Roscoe Elk.
Look Away. Beulah Land lacks the
vitality of the earlier Beulah Land, as though
Lonnie Coleman realized a sequel might be
popular but lacked any great interest in
writing it. Alter all. Beulah Land had already
prov ided him a new home in Ireland. But any
reader who was already caught up in the
characters ol the Kendricks and the Davises
will be interested to follow them along lor a
lew more years in Georgia. And it is
intriguing lor any reviewer to wonder how
Auchincloss"'dark lady" Elesina would have
handled a Georgia plantation or how
Coleman's energetic Sarah Kendrick would
have fared in New York's sophisticated
salons.
Walter Spearman is a professor in the
I NC School of Journalism.
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Herb expert
tends garden
By K1MBERLY McGUIRE
DTH C ontributor
Most likely you'll find her bent over in
the sun, wearing sneakers and a denim
skirt and a big straw hat to fend off the
90 degree heat. She won't say anything
that sounds like she's doctoring people,
but she'll quickly pick some jewel mint
from her garden to aid your poison ivy.
Mercer Hubbard worked in the
Country Doctor Museum Medicinal
Herb Garden in Bailey, North Carolina'
until she came to Chapel H ill four years
ago. Three and a half years ago. as a
charter member of the foundation
which supports the North Carolina
Botanical Garden, she donated the five
dollars with w hich the herb garden was
started here.
Since then, the garden has grown, and
so have the number of devotees who
value the herbs for their medicinal,
culinary and industrial purposes. "The
H)A is terrified. They can't figure us
out. So we promised not to prescribe
our herb remedies." Hubbard says. Did
you know that Foxglove is used
effectively m heart medicines?
Besides their medicinal qualities,
many of which have been learned from
the Cherokee Indians in this area, the
herb gardeners "like to show oil and
cook with herbs." Hubbard adds,
t.cmon thyme cookies area favorite and
everybody loves "saving herb recipes
and trying to outdo each other." L vet
tried sorrel soup (Irom the herb sorrel)'.'
Rosemary tea is noted for its delightful
aroma, while it works on your memory
and helps you not to torget.
Herbs are usually good pesticides.
" I he pennyroyal plant keeps
mosquitoes from going in the kitchen
door and the dog loves to lay in it in the
summertime. "Saponaria is commonly
called the soap plant and if you beat the
stems and swish them in water, it makes
suds like the Indians used.
Looking around the terraced garden,
build into cinder blocks for proper
drainage. Hubbard remarks. "It's
amaing how all the herbs are so
different; this stuffs fascinating - it can
get hold of you and you'll go cray."
The North Carolina Botanical
Garden is owned by the state and funded
by the Botanical Garden. Inc.. a non
profit public foundation. The real
support and strength of the garden.
which keeps it a growing and active
project, comes from the volunteers who
work long, hard hours.
Many volunteers have specialized and
concentrated on specific plants. The
most notable is Villa Zola, an ex
librarian who donates time at the
garden. Nicknamed the "poison lady,"
she knows practically everything about
poisonous herbs and their harmful
OnCA-THE ONLY ANIMAL WHO
KILLS FOR REVENQE.
RICHARD HARRIS
JWttALE COLOR CHARLOTTE RAMPUNO
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"A CELEBRATION AND A JOYOUS ONE
AND BLESSEDLY FUNNY."
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REGULAR PEOPLE LIKE WAND
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. 13
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Mercer Hubbard bends over her herb garden at the Botanical gardens in Chapel Hill.
An expert in herbs and medicinal plants, she also teaches classes and coordinates
volunteers for the herb garden.
effects. Perhaps the most vital
contribution is made by Charlotte Jones
w ho heads up the "rescue squad." Jones
stands up to bulldozers in the Chapel
Hill area and takes it upon herself to
"save" plants before they're damaged by
construction. She brings them back to a
safe, new home in the Botanical
Gardens where they can survive in a
natural habitat.
H ubbard says that the emphasis in the
volunteer program is on having a good
time. The success and extensiveness of
the program, which now includes 200
men, women, and children, is obvious at
the garden. Forty of the volunteers work
on the Herb Garden with Mercer and
they all have straw hats like hers. "Can't
you see it'.' A bus full of us, headed for
Winston-Salem to visit another garden,
all wearing these wild straw hats with
green ribbons on them!" Hubbard says
laughing.
"This is a teaching garden, where
Flying club ready for take-off
The Chapel Hill Flying Club will hold its
fall membership meeting at 7 p.m.,
Thursday, Sept. 15 in the Carolina Inn.
Club benefits, regulations and fees will be
explained at the meeting and two films,
"Wings for Beginners" and "Flying in the
Bahamas," will be shown. Interested UNC
students, faculty and staff are invited.
Refreshments will be served.
The Flying Club was organized in 1961 by
five people who wanted opportunities to fly
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people may study and find pleasure,"
Hubbard says. There are classes offered
for children and adults where wreaths
and natural dyes and potpourri are
made from the available herbs. Blind
people can learn about herbs, as they are
easily distinguishable by touch and
smell and taste. In the future, casette
tapes will aid the blind in learning more
about herbs. Wheelchair paths will be
built throughout the garden area for the
aged. A "beginner's garden" where
children can come and pinch and smell
the herbs is planned, r - .
Snipping some spearmint (which is a
plant native to North Carolina),
Hubbard says "It's late in the afternoon
and they don't smell as good as they do
early in the morning." She looks up and
adds, "lots of these trees are herbs as
well. The walnut tree there, and the
sassafrass, it's used to make root beer.
There's no end to it, it goes on and
on..."
at a reasonable cost. There are now 60
members and four flying instructors.
Four planes are maintained by the club for
members' use. Two are two-seaters used
primarily for flight training. Two four
seaters are used for cross-country pleasure
and business trips by club members who
have their private pilot license.
All members are invited to participate in
regular meetings, picnics and flying contests.
For more information call Edward Boer,
967-3104.
Suzanne
"Scene after
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unforgettable"
Penelope Gilliatt,
New Yorker Magazine
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