The fear of restraint is named as a prime element in the Russian character, as analyzed by A. G. Tolfree in the "Atlantic." Two somewhat amusing illustrations of this fear are given. "An intelligent, cultivated Russian woman pleaded for hours with her fourteen-year-old daughter to promise solemnly that she would never marry. Her own marriage appeared to be happy enough; her objection to the possible marriage of her daughter was that she would not be always and perfectly free to do as she pleased." A Russian man's reason for choosing the celibate life was similar: “[ could never think of marrying,' said old Prince G 'for I know what my fate would be. Every Russian lives under his wife's slipper.'"

The demoralizing effect of this Russian philosophy, alluded to in the above paragraph, when put in practice, was effectively dealt with in Mr. Ellis's article on ""Gassing' the World's Mind" in The Outlook for April 24, an article now reprinted in pa.nphlet form.

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An American contribution to the matrimonial problem outlined in the foregoing quotation from Mr. Tolfree's article is as follows, from the pen of a woman contributor to the "American Agriculturist." "I have a neighbor," she says, "who never does outside work, never carries wood or water, and her husband helps with the washing, etc. If she doesn't feel like getting breakfast, he prepares it himself. I don't think her home is more happy, neither do I think her husband loves her one bit more, nor as well as some other men do their hardworking slaves of wives, but I do know that this woman looks years and years younger than other women of her age." The kind treatment that this unusual farmer's wife receives has made her a bit selfish, her neighbor declares, but she thinks that in that respect honors are easy as between her and the man who expects his wife to drudge till her youth and good looks are all gone.

The kindly farmer spoken of above has a match in a man at the front who, according to an English paper, was detailed to the K. P. (kitchen police). He wrote home: "Dear Mother-I put in this entire day washing dishes, sweeping floors, making beds, and peeling potatoes. When I get home from this camp I'll make some girl a mighty fine wife!""

corre

The black soldiers knew that they were on their way abroad, a "Collier's spondent says. They were a solemn-looking lot. A minister stepped out to the edge of the embankment overlooking the road down which the Negro troops were marching, and called out, shakily, "God bless you, boys! Good-by! God take care of you, boys!" They answered, in turn somewhat huskily, "Thanky, parson. Thanky, suh!" And another white man, a South Carolina soldier who was standing by, said: "They're certainly good soldiers. I never thought to salute a nigger, but I've been glad to return salutes to those boys. If they die in France, they're going to be just as dead as any of the rest of us. I've been changing my mind awful fast in the last two months. The pull of comradeship in this war is being felt in unexpected places.

"It was when I was a very young man that I grasped one secret of salesmanship," says H. J. Barrett in a new book called "How to Sell More Goods." "I found myself at noon in a little trade center that

WAY

lacked a restaurant. I asked a push-cart man the price of three bananas. Without replying, he selected three, put them in a paper bag, and proffered them, saying, Tenna centa.' You see, by assuming that I would purchase, he exerted a sort of moral pressure which helped to close the deal. The idea can be applied in a variety of ways. For instance, in seeking to secure an appointment with a man, I don't say now, When can I see you?' but rather, Shall it be morning or afternoon-and will tomorrow suit you?'

"Littell's Living Age," which was somewhat more popular with an older generation of readers than it has been with the present, is to appear henceforth under auspices which may again make it prominent among American weeklies. It is now to be published by the Atlantic Monthly Company, which, having won the hearts of a host of the more thoughtful readers of the country with the "Atlantic," is apparently seeking new worlds to conquer. The

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Living Age" deserves a longer lease of life and will no doubt secure it under its new management.

Apropos of the phrase "oblong square," quoted recently in this column, a subscriber writes that Sir Walter Scott, in the seventh chapter of "Ivanhoe," says: "The form of the enclosure was an oblong square, save that the corners were considerably rounded off." Our correspondent adds: “An oblong square with rounded corners has always struck me, since I read it in school, as being a peculiar geometrical figure."

With continual reminders, Johnny's manners had been improving at home, but at what a cost to his appetite when he had an invitation to dine at a boy friend's house! His hostess said, concernedly, when dessert was reached, "You refuse a second helping of pie? Are you suffering from indigestion, Johnny?" "No, ma'am; politeness."

WAR DON'TS

BY JANE DRANSFIELD, OF THE VIGILANTES

Don't sit down and wish the war were over. Start out and work to get it over.

Don't be discouraged. Faith is not a sentiment, but an act of will.

Don't wish you were serving in some different line from that you are in. You are needed where you are.

Don't criticise unless your criticism is constructive, and will help.

Don't listen to what ex-President Taft calls "whispering traitors."

Don't grumble at being asked to do something you have never done before. Fall into line.

Don't forget that we are fighting for Right, and therefore must win. Insert in your morning prayer the now immortal words, "They Shall Not Pass!"

CURFEW RINGS IN ENGLAND (From the London "Observer")

For the first time since its repeal by Henry I the curfew law is revived in London, but in terms and varieties of application as complex as our civilization. There is the theater's curfew, the restaurant's curfew, the gas and electricity curfews, so far as they go, the shop-window curfew, and the blind and curtain curfew, on which a new order was issued only yesterday..

The new curfew is really the drastic speeding up, under stress, of a long tendency to devote the night to its natural purposes. Dining once in Ivy Lane with some friends, Dr. Johnson was aggrieved when his friends rose to go at ten o'clock. Yet they had been sitting since three in the afternoon. Under the curfew regulation now impending these hours would have reconciled his inclinations with his patriotism to a nicety, for not only restaurants, but clubs, are to turn out their dinner lights at 10 P.M. It may have been on this occasion that the Doctor denounced the man who proposes to go to bed before midnight as a scoundrel. It was not until a hundred years had elapsed that Lord Campbell's Act, called the "slap you and put you to bed act," closed the London licensed houses at half-past twelve, thus saving a great part of the population from scoundrelism by thirty minutes. Inasmuch, however, as clubs did not fall under this rule, some thousands of Londoners were able to maintain their respectability until two and three o'clock in the morning, and in some cases all night.

It seems rather a pity that the theater curfew, which was intended for half-past nine, has been changed to half-past ten. Theater-goers will now emerge on streets of Sunday quiet. The restaurants will have had their doors locked half an hour earlier. Going home will be a solemn and almost stealthy business.

Broadly speaking, the public evening will end at half-past nine, and throughout the " summer time people will be at home in the normal daylight of half-past eight. What will they do? It is certainly a delusion to suppose that they will go to bed. Even the children refuse to do that. Lack of locomotion facilities will tend to keep the parks empty. But there will be the allotments, the back gardens, and the doorsteps. We may anticipate, I think, a vast development of pleasant strolling and sitting-out life. The curfew will certainly not damp down the fires of socia bility.

ANOTHER HUNDRED MILLION FOR THE RED CROSS

The American Red Cross asks the American people for a second hundred million dollars. Every dollar subscribed is to go to war relief; not one cent is to go for administrative expenses. This week the new drive is going on all over the land. Whether it yields one hundred million, or more, or less (the former big drive yielded $108,000,000 in cash), there is no question that the people are glad and eager to put working power into the Red Cross.

The vastness and variety of Red Cross activities are so great that, in one sense, this fact is almost a disadvantage. It is all but impossible for the ordinary man to take in the extent of the work. If we read statistics and figures, such as those given in careful and elaborate reports summarized in The Outlook of December 12 last, or count up the departments and the plans for expenditure here and abroad, we are apt to be bored or confused. To most people the idea of the Red Cross is chiefly that of women knitting socks, of other women making bandages; of ambulances purchased, fitted, and sent to the front; of hospital units formed and handed over to the Army Medical Corps, each with scores of trained workers; of the two million women who last month made over twenty-six million surgical dressings and garments at a cost of eleven million dollars for raw material; of money spent here, there, and everywhere for the relief of civilians who have suffered from the war.

Perhaps one may get a more intimate idea of the human side of Red Cross activities by thinking of some odds and ends of happenings noted here literally at random. Thus you see in your daily paper that the Surgeon-General of the United States has directed the Red Cross (not asked, but directed, if you please) to train thirty-five thousand nurses in the current year. You read that a little gift of ten million francs has been made to the French Red Cross from the War Fund of the American Red Cross. You note that in April the Red Cross in France provided eight hundred thousand meals for American soldiers in Red Cross canteens and rest stations. You learn that the Red Cross Purchasing Department in Paris bought ten million yards of gauze and five million rolls of absorbent cotton at one time. You find that the Red Cross supply service in Paris carries on the most gigantic department store in the world; that its stored goods fill five immense warehouses with articles ranging from safety-pins to motor trucks. You find also that one enormous warehouse, known as the "warehouse of donations and gifts," is filled with things sent by individuals out of their kindness of heart-not the regular relief supplies at all, but such things as home-made jelly, patchwork quilts, and from one giver an entire car-load of rosy-cheeked apples.

Again you saw incidentally in your paper last week that over two hundred thousand dollars has been appropriated for the single purpose of buying surgical instruments for Italy; and, speaking of Italy, you remember that you read somewhere else that the streets of Bologna lately were lined with people to see a regiment of Italian soldiers, all of whom had been wounded, marching to the railway station to thank the Red Cross representatives for the aid which had been extended to their military hospital, and that in Naples alone twenty-seven hundred families were being furnished food by the Red Cross at one-third the market prices.

You might have read yesterday that the Red Cross has already made plans and arrangements to send a ten-pound food parcel to every American soldier who is or may be in the future a prisoner in a German prison camp. Or you might happen on an item saying that in Belgium six hundred thousand dollars was devoted solely to removing children from zones under fire.

So, we say, when you remember some of the scores of stories that you must have seen of the human, wide-extended, National,

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and international evidences of what the Red Cross has done and is doing under their motto, "Get the Work Done; Never Mind Who Gets the Credit," you realize that there are indeed, as the President says in his proclamation designating the week beginning May 20 as "Red Cross Week," rare opportunities of helpfulness under conditions which translate opportunity into duty. We do not need to ask where the money has gone and is going if we recall the fact that (to take two items only) four and one-half million dollars has been spent in actual relief work in Italy since the Italian military reverse of last October, while, if we remember rightly, over twenty million dollars-a few millions more or less does not matter-has been spent in actual relief work in France; not official expenses, or anything of that kind, but in helping and saving men, women, children, and babies-especially babies. There may sometimes seem to be too much red tape and excessively complicated organization; but a corporation spending one hundred million dollars a year and having twenty-two million adult members (one-fifth of the total population of the country) could hardly be run like a sewing-bee.

Wherever the Red Cross flag flies it means help and succor for the wounded, relief and support for the homeless, comfort "Red Cross for the soldier and sailor. Americans know this. Week" will testify to that knowledge.

AN INTERESTING PUBLIC DOCUMENT

We wish that Government reports were always as readable and as human as the report of the Railroad Wage Commission which has just been made public. It is a paper-covered book of 150 pages, but its gist is contained in the Introduction of less than fifty pages. The balance of the volume consists of tables, evidence, various kinds of technical information, and diagrams. The readability of the report is doubtless due to the fact that Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, is Chairman of the Railroad Wage Commission. Secretary Lane is an accomplished and highly trained journalist, having been in his early days a newspaper man before he became a lawyer and later on a Government official. We suspect that he had a large share in writing the report.

It states that there are two million railway workers now in the employ of the Government; that wages and salaries now exceed two billions of dollars annually; that to grant all the increases requested would involve "an additional outlay of somewhat over one billion dollars per year;" that a studious investigation (the Commission has been at work since last January) shows that the increased cost of living makes some increase in wages absolutely necessary; and that the Commission recommends increases, in accordance with a table which it has prepared, amounting in all to about $300,000,000 a year. magnitude of this amount is not staggering when the whole expenditure for wages on the railroads is considered. And whatever its effect upon the mind may be, we regard such an expenditure as necessary for the immediate allaying of a feeling that cannot be wisely fostered by National inaction, and as not one dollar more than justice at this time requires.'

The

We confess that we turned with some fear and trembling to the table by which the increase of the monthly wages of nearly two million men is to be calculated. Such tables are generally so highly technical as to be difficult to understand. But the present table is simple and interesting. It fills only seven pages of paper about the size of a standard magazine page, gives the old monthly wage, the percentage of increase, the amount of the increase in dollars, and the total amount of the new wages recommended. First-year high school boys and girls can easily understand it. The tables for mileage payment, hour payment, and overtime are somewhat more elaborate, but they are greatly

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simplified in comparison with the old methods under private operation. We advise all our readers who are interested in what is being done under the new system of Government railway operation to get a copy of this report, which can doubtless be obtained by writing to their respective Congressmen. The spirit in which the Commission has worked is illustrated by the following quotation from the report:

There is high authority for saying that "to him that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." This dictum as to the way of the world we take to have been the recognition of a fact, not the endorsement of an ideal. And the plan we recommend is an expression of the reverse policy. We take from no man that which he hath, insuring him as much as he has now (for no wages are to be lowered), but we would add materially to the fund of those who have least. And of these there are many. It has been a somewhat popular impression that railroad employees were among the most highly paid workers. But figures gathered from the railroads disposed of this belief.

In pursuance of this policy the table prepared by the Commission shows that the proposed increases range from 43 per cent in the case of workmen getting less than fifty dollars a month, to a little more than 4 per cent for those getting $240 a month. We believe the country will generally approve the recommendations of the Commission.

THE AIRPLANE SCANDAL

The controversy over the accomplishments or failures of the Aircraft Production Board has assumed the nature and

proportions of a National scandal. Mr. Gutzon Borglum, the eminent sculptor, had been asked by President Wilson to make a personal investigation and report to him. Charges have now been made involving the impartiality, if not the integrity, of Mr. Borglum as a personal investigator. In justice to Mr. Borglum, to the Aircraft Board, to our soldiers in Europe, to the twenty million patriotic Americans who have just subscribed to Liberty bonds, and to the good name of the entire country, Congress ought to make a thorough, fearless, and public investigation of our aircraft situation. Despatches from Washington indicate that Congress is going to take the matter up, get the facts, and give them with authority to the country. Patriotic American public opinion ought to support Congress in this undertaking. Laymen are not competent to express any judgment or even any opinion as to the engineering details of aircraft production, but there are certain indisputable facts which the general public is competent to understand and for which it has a right to demand an explanation.

The first fact is that very large sums of money, running into many millions, have already been expended to produce military airplanes and American military airplanes in quantity have yet to be produced. The second fact is that the Liberty motor, which months ago was officially pronounced to be the completed and remarkable contribution of the United States to aircraft warfare, is still in the experimental stage. We understand, on excellent authority, that the cooling system of the Liberty motor, which is of course almost the first essential of successful flight, does not yet work satisfactorily.

It is also pertinent to inquire why the Liberty motor has been so designed as to exclude the use of the magneto ignition system. Magneto ignition is unanimously recognized in this country by automobile experts as the best system when cost is not taken into consideration, and the standard practice abroad is to adopt it for military airplanes. If there are good reasons for this substitution, the public ought to know them.

The third fact is that, while waiting to perfect the Liberty motor, the Aircraft Board has failed to make use of motors and airplanes which have been thoroughly proved in warfare and which are used by the Allies in Europe. Here, again, if there are good reasons for not employing European or British designs, the public is entitled to be informed about them.

The delays, confusion, and inefficiency in our ship-building programme have been recognized by the Government, have been corrected, and the country now confidently and reasonably feels that our ship-building programme is going on successfully. The American public, without respect to party, ought to insist that the same corrections and the same reformation of our aircraft

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production should be made. We believe that when President Wilson is made thoroughly aware of the situation he will be among the first to insist upon and support a thoroughgoing non-partisan Congressional investigation and report.

THE WAR: WHAT NEXT?

Very likely the question as to the next great move on the battle-front will be answered before this is read. There has been a comparative lull on the Picardy and Flanders fronts. When the eighth week of the great German offensive was almost ended (May 14) heavy artillery firing everywhere merely keyed up speculation as to whether the Germans (now, it is said, under command of General Mackensen, perhaps Germany's best field fighter) would strike in the Ypres-to-Locre sector in Flanders, on the point close to Amiens, on one of the "legs" of the Picardy salient, or on the line between the two main German salients, which may be rightly called the Arras front. There is strong logic for the last conjecture, because a large success would make the advanced German line one long curve instead of a broken line with deep indentations, as it is at this writing.

At all events, there is good reason to believe that the French, British, and American forces are ready and able to withstand attack. They have been attacking for some weeks themselves, "nibbling" at the enemy's lines, and repelling counter-drives firmly and persistently. The recapture by the British of Hill 44, near Mont Kemmel, scored a point of tactical value.

The report from Canada that American forces are to be held in reserve until a unified American army can be used as a whole has been contradicted by the British Ambassador, Lord Reading, and by the British War Office. In time an American army unit may take its place in the line. Just now American battalions will be put where they can do the most good, side by side with French or British battalions. Secretary Baker's announcement that we have now surpassed his forecast that "early in the present year five hundred thousand American troops would be despatched to France" has been welcomed as cheering news by France and England. A statement from Washington says that more than 1,300,000 men have been called in the draft so far, and are either in France, in camp, or under call to go into

service before June 1.

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In London immense and spontaneous enthusiasm accompanied the parade of American troops, who were reviewed by the King and Queen, the American Ambassador, and Lloyd George. The newspaper despatches describe these troops as "American National Army men, including the New York draftees." The London "Observer" quotes a British soldier as saying: 'The finest sight I have seen since the war began. The men are a fine-looking body and appear to be in the pink of condition. The companies filed past with light, elastic step, keeping excellent time, and creating a mighty favorable impression of their marching qualities and physique.'

ATTACKING THE HUN IN HIS LAIR

When Winston Churchill declared that the British navy would dig out the German ships like rats from their holes, he was accused of vain boasting. But if the audacity of the two recent naval attacks is repeated and increased in scope, Churchill's blazing indiscretion may become plain fact. There was something deliciously audacious in the second attack on Ostend. Not having made as really thorough a job at Ostend as at Zeebrugge, Vice-Admiral Keyes simply came back another day. The old war-ship Vindictive, which made such a splendid

record as the vessel from which the forces were landed on the

mole of Zeebrugge, was now filled with cement and sunk in the Ostend channel. Probably it did not quite block the sea channel, but British sailors think silt will form around it and in time make an effective dam. The British losses were slight.

The enthusiasm in England over these two raids has been enormous. The whole nation has been inspirited and cheered. Some one say Alfred Noyes-ought to tell this story in ringing verse.

DRASTIC CHANGES IN CANADIAN CONSCRIPTION

We talk of hardships and sorrow here in Canada. We have had hardships, and God knows too much sorrow, but we have no

conception of what is going on in France at the present time. Production is absolutely essential, and the most commanding duty of the Government is to see that it is carried on; but if we waited for further exemptions and our men were decimated and destroyed, what kind of answer would it be to say we had increased production?

So spoke Sir Robert Borden the other day in answer to an influential deputation of farmers protesting against the cancellation of all exemptions for farmers' sons of the ages of twenty to twenty-two. The following day an Order in Council was passed providing for the registration of Canadian boys of nineteen. Up to the age of twenty-two no exemptions are being allowed now for those men in Class One who are physically fit. This is the Government's answer to the wholesale granting of exemptions in Quebec.

These drastic changes in the working of the Conscription Law indicate that the Canadian Government considers the war situation to be extremely critical. Otherwise there would be no interference with the youths on the farms. Before these changes were announced Canadian farmers were at a loss to know where to find the labor for the harvest of 1918. To take their nineteen-year-old sons is to make a difficult situation seem almost impossible of solution. Naturally there have been protests, but for the most part Canadians are willing to accept their Premier's judgment that this further sacrifice is imperatively required. Canada has no trace of the jingo spirit, but Canada will "carry on to victory, no matter what the cost.

Incidentally, it is worthy of note that signs are not wanting of a new spirit in Quebec. The French province is submitting to the inevitable with a somewhat better grace. The new regulations will hit that province hard.

LLOYD GEORGE STILL AT THE HELM

The victory of the British Prime Minister in the House of Commons after the debate on the charges of General F. B. Maurice is not completely indicated by the vote of 293 to 106 sustaining Mr. Lloyd George. Not only was the vote much more than two to one in his favor, but each of the three polit ical parties represented (Conservative, Liberal, and Laborite) cast a clear majority in his favor. The Irish Nationalists refused to take part in debate or vote.

One by one the charges of General Maurice were taken up and were shown to be disingenuous, trivial, or related to matters as to which the Prime Minister's remarks were based on statements which came directly from the War Office, of which General Maurice was the information officer. Maurice undoubtedly represented that military opinion which dreads civilian interference in military affairs, and accordingly was disappointed at the success of the principle of unity in command, which he and his faction opposed. Had they succeeded in that opposition, the military situation to-day would be deplorable.

Mr. Lloyd George touched the central point of the situation when he said: "National unity and the army are threatened.

I beg and implore that there shall be an end to this sniping." And, again: "Controversies are distracting, paralyzing, rending. It is difficult enough for any Ministers to do their work fighting this war. We had months of controversy over unity of command. This is really a sort of remnant of that controversy. National unity is threatened, the unity of the army is threatened."

Politically as well as personally Lloyd George's triumph was conclusive. He firmly maintained that if Mr. Asquith's motion for an inquiry was maintained it would be in effect an act of censure, and thus would involve a change of Ministry. The House of Commons, in effect, voted confidence in the Government. The bulk of the people and the press (excluding in one case the few pacifistically inclined, and in the second the "cocoa press," to which he made allusion) believe in Lloyd George's patriotism and capacity, and have ordered him to The forced retiral of General Maurice and the carry on. approval given to the appointment of Lord Milner as Secretary of War are evidence of this.

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The London "Daily Mail" (a Northcliffe paper) sums up: Lloyd George is by far the strongest personal force in British politics at this moment. He represents British democracy and the national will for victory with a completeness greatly beyond that of any other politician. Whatever his personal failings and

the weaknesses of his administration, nobody doubts that Lloyd George means to win the war, and that his daring eloquence and driving power are assets of incomparable value in this crisis. Therefore he is the right man in the right place.

The significance of this crisis in England as related to the interests of all the Allies is discussed in an editorial on another page.

ARMY ATHLETICS HERE AND ABROAD

Every sport known in America is being played in our camps, but such sports as tie up closely with military efficiency are being particularly promoted. For instance, bayonet-fighting is practically "boxing with a gun in the hands." In fact, the Army leaders have come to recognize it as such, and boxing is now included as a regular part of the military routine. Athletics is making much better soldiers; it is developing their spirit of aggressiveness and persistency.

Thus athletics is making a real contribution toward the development of the American Army. It is serving a twofold purpose. The primary one, of course, is to educate our soldier to be a better fighting organism; the second, to provide him with clean and invigorating recreation. In the American training camps of to-day over a million men are engaged systematically in some form of sport, the majority of them for the first time. In The Outlook of May 8 a statement appeared that to the Y. M. C. A. had been intrusted by the Government the supervision of Army athletics. This is misleading, inasmuch as the War Department Commission on Training Camp Activities, in charge of all camp activities in this country not included in the regular military routine, is carrying out a programme of athletics the dominant purpose of which is to organize mass games, contests, and individual efficiency tests so that they contribute directly to military training. This programme is official. The Y. M. C. A. and the Knights of Columbus, two of the agencies co-ordinated under the Commission for recreational work inside the camps, are co-operating with the Commission in supplying athletic recreation. Abroad, in order to avoid duplication in the work of the Red Cross and Y. M. C. A., General Pershing, in an Army order, made the following distinction: "The Red Cross will provide for the relief work, and the Y. M. C. A. will provide for the amusement and recreation of the troops by means of its usual programme of social, educational, physical, and religious activities."

THE AUTHOR OF "THE SIMPLE LIFE"

Pastor Charles Wagner is dead at his home in Paris. He was a leader among French Protestants, but his influence extended throughout France irrespective of religious divisions.

He was a broad-shouldered, sturdy, vigorous Alsatian, sixty-six years old. He was born at Wiberswiller. As a boy he was a son of the soil, a shepherd. He was to become a shepherd of a great flock. His chapel in the Boulevard Beaumarchais was often so crowded that hundreds had to be turned away from the doors. And these hundreds represented people in all walks of life, but especially the workingmen and the workingwomen of Paris. They were drawn to Wagner by a peculiar magnetism which no other orator of the day had for them. One reason for this was the accent with which Wagner always emphasized his sympathy for toil. He would frequently say: "How I love to see, early in the morning, the people of my Faubourg going to work! In their faces one reads real France, as one does not in the faces of the ordinary boulevardier."

Fourteen years ago Wagner came to America. His reputation had preceded him. The author of "Justice," "Courage," and other books, especially "The Simple Life," was received here with marked deference, and the popularity of those essays was emphasized by the personality of their author. President Roosevelt's enthusiasm for Wagner was certainly contagious.

The book which gave to Wagner an international reputation was his "Simple Life." This was partly because the book was a message greatly needed in our age, the luxury, the needless complexity of which wasted not only money but human energy and was beginning to pall as pleasure and to weary as tasks; but also because his clearness of vision and lucidity of stylequalities in the best French writers which English and American writers might well emulate-brought this message home to