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IRST of all, the background is essential, And in the case of William Butler Yeats it is a simple enough matter-tangled glades in which faery shake their milk-white feet, the muttering of wind in the beech leaves, the host of the Sidhe riding by night and day, melancholy voices crying in the shadows, the Celtic twilight. It seems a long way back to "The Wanderings of Oisin," published in 1889. It is a new world now, a cerebral world, not the crepuscular domain of old legends and heroes. And William Butler Yeats is a different personage, one made so by a consistent enough development; he stands sharply defined against the curl=ing mysterious smoke that marked the = inception of the Celtic Revival. Now he is fire, a clear flame; he is no longer the mystic; he is esoteric.

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It is perhaps worth while to indicate briefly the attitude that he originally assumed toward poetry, for, even if "The Wanderings of Oisin" is lacking, there are other examples of his earlier manner in the "Selected Poems." Yeats, first of all, sought an escape from life in his work. He was a mystic, one who read his own beliefs into the ancient superstitions of the Irish peasantry, a dreamer who dabbled in theosophy, who was attracted to Blake and edited a three-volume edition of his work, who could even take Madame Blavatsky seriously. In 1899 we find that brilliant Irishman who writes under the nom de plume of John Eglinton affirming that Yeats's inspiration "cuts itself asunder from the source of all regeneration in art" and accusing the poet of "theory, diffuseness, and insincerity." Yeats looked "too much away from himself and from his age." It is interesting to observe the defense which Yeats put forth.

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He said: "I believe that the renewal of belief, which is the great movement of our time, will more and more liberate the arts from 'their age' and from life, and leave them more and more free to lose themselves in beauty, and to busy themselves, like all the great poetry of the past and like religions of all times, with 'old faiths, myths, dreams,' the accumulated beauty of the age. I believe that all men will more and more reject the opinion that poetry is 'a criticism of life,' and be more and more convinced that it is a revelation of a hidden life." And in 1901, in a volume edited by Lady Gregory and entitled "Ideals in Ireland," I find him stating in regard to the men who were making Irish literature: "Their poetry trembles upon the verge of incoherence with a passion all but unknown among modern poets, and their sense of beauty exhausts itself in countless legends and in metaphors that

Land of Heart's Desire." It is to be felt in "The Countess Cathleen" as well, although both this play and "The Land of Heart's Desire" were rewritten in 1911 at a time when the old magic had given place to a new. There was a passionate intensity, an ardor, in Yeats's early work that no other writer may hope to capture. It founded a school, and the efforts of that school but proved the authentic genius of Yeats. This lyrical beauty is manifest in. such perfect bits as "The Cloths of Heaven," for instance: Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light,

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The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet; '

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Certain immortal pieces date from this early period, "The Lake Isle of

1 Selected Poems. By William Butler Yeats. The Macmillan Company, New York. $2.50.

Innisfree," "When You Are Old," "Into the Twilight," and "The Song of Wandering Angus," for instance. It is with the opening years of the twentieth century that Yeats began to slough this old twilight mood; perhaps the year set should be 1904, although precise dates are always futile. The lyrical lilt begins to be less manifest. It is there, but it is not so obvious. There is an intricacy of thought, a cerebral concentration, a cold intellectual fire. The voice of the young man is still, and in 1913 he can sing

Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave. Yeats is undoubtedly troubled by this change in himself. He mentions it in "Reconciliation;" and in "A Coat," which is to be found at the end of "Responsibilities" (1916) (a poem, by the way, not included in these "Selected Poems"), he seems to take leave of his old style, writing:

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;

But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eye

As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,

For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.

Ah, but the fools never wore it half so well!

There is a certain disillusionment apparent in the later poems. Yeats is conscious always of old age, and it is a note that he strikes constantly. "To a Child Dancing in the Wind" he cries: O you will take whatever's 'offered And dream that all the world's a friend,

Suffer as your mother suffered,
Be as broken in, the end.
But I am old and you are young,
And I speak a barbarous tongue.

In "The Wild Swans of Coole" he rises to an extraordinary beauty as he marks the passing of time. "I am worn out with dreams," he cries in another poem, and in still another he desires to be "as ignorant as the dawn." "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory" is compact with musings over vanished friends-Lionel Johnson, Synge, and others. Hardly a poem but has its retrospective note. Occasionally the old magic makes its brief appearance, as in "The Cat and the Moon," for instance, where he sings with all the old strange wonder:

Minnalushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important, and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.

Disillusionment, a philosophical bitterness that is strangely calm, a satiric note that is viciously edged in such poems as "To a Wealthy Man" and "When Helen Lived," an intellectualism that is never dry, a loosening of tech

nique that sometimes seems to lose all meter-these are the marks of Yeats's later work. The glow of poetry is on them, however; we always feel that Yeats has much to say and that he says it in a manner peculiar to himself and distinguished.

It is from the hand of such a workman as this that "Four Plays for Dancers" 2 comes, a book that will bring the utmost delight to the reader. Just as the wave of Yeats's inspiration seemed to falter, to be coming slowly to a halt upon the high, sandy beach of time, comes this new wave, mounting in its splendor and foaming over the limits that capricious criticism had set. First of all, it should be noted that the four plays in this beautifully fashioned and illustrated book-"At the Hawk's Well," "The Only Jealousy of Emer," "The Dreaming of the Bones," and "Calvary"-were occasioned by an intellectual urge. The great interest of Yeats

in the theater has never lessened since those early days when he was instrumental in forming the small beginnings of the Abbey Theater group. He has always been an intelligent, and sometimes inspired, experimenter and innovator. It was to be expected that when he came across some excellent translations of the Japanese Noh dramas, probably Ezra Pound's arrangements of Ernest Fenellosa's translations and notes, that the idea of adapting the form to Irish and other subjects should appeal to him. There is a spirit in the Japanese Noh drama that must be close to the brooding mind of Yeats. Quite often these plays dramatized an atmosphere more than an authentic plot action.

These Japanese dramas (Noh meaning "performance") are of almost religious significance. There is a faint similarity in their construction to the Greek drama. The subjects treated are generally religious or legendary, and quite often the action is concerned with the results of things, and not with the things themselves. Thus long after a character may be dead the action of the Noh drama may immortalize the place where he died by a stately action, accompanied by music, giving the aftermath of the character's influence on life. Supernatural characters, sometimes are introduced. Always there is grave dancing and singing and the characters all wear elaborately carved masks which express the rôles.

Yeats has taken this form and changed it somewhat. For instance, he has introduced three musicians in each of his four plays who explain the action. They do not wear masks. It is impossible to attempt any descriptions of the plots of these interesting experiments, for the plots are mere utilities. It is the remarkable atmosphere of each play in its entirety that makes each effort a distinguished composition. They are compact with poetry, suffused with a

2 Four Plays for Dancers. By William Butler Yeats. The Macmillan Company, New York. $2.

strange, trance-like magic that renders these figures characters out of time. They move and speak, not like human beings, but as solemn bits of that mysterious liturgy called life. In "The Dreaming of the Bones" we find the First Musician setting the mood with this song:

Why does my heart beat so?
Did not a shadow pass?

It passed but a moment ago.
Who can have trod in the grass?
What rogue is night-wandering?
Have not old writers said
That dizzy dreams can spring
From the dry bones of the dead?
And many a night it seems
That all the valley fills
With those fantastic dreams.
They overflow the hills,
So passionate is a shade,
Like wine that fills to the top
A gray-green cup of jade,
Or maybe an agate cup.

And what an echo of the old Yeats of the nineties is to be found in these lines, taken from the same play:

FICTION

These crazy fingers play

A wandering airy music;
Our luck is withered away,

And wheat in the wheat-ear withered,
And the wind blows it away.

Yet except for occasional flares that old Yeats has vanished. "Four Plays for Dancers" is a book that suggests him. If ever Noh plays shadowed forth the spirit of places, these four dramas shadow forth the spirit of the place where the young Yeats once found his dreams. He has come out of that cloudpale land of mystery where Niamh once cried:

Away, come away:

Empty your heart of its mortal dream.

The wistfulness of mortality is in the heart of Yeats now. He is growing old, and the fact is apparent in his poetry, though never through a lessening of inspiration. It is in a changed attitude. He stands in silhouette against the Celtic twilight listening as "the years like great black oxen tread the world."

GREAT PRINCE SHAN (THE). By E. Phillips Oppenheim. Little, Brown & Co., Boston.

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This time the "prince of plots" puts the scene of his story forward to 1934. This cleverly makes it possible to have the international plotting and counter-plotting at which he is so adept relate to the "next war." Russia, Germany, and the East almost resolve to conquer western Europe, but desist because the wisest and most powerful man. in the world, Prince Shan of China, convinces himself by a visit to England (now supine, pacifist, and helpless) that the result would be an easy conquest but a fatal error for the world's future. As a story the book is one of the author's best; and behind the story there are suggestions for serious thought. GREENSEA ISLAND. By Victor Bridges. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $1.90.

A capital tale of love, mystery, and villainy. All the incidents center around a charming island to which a bluff young ship's mate falls heir by an uncle's death only to find himself heir also to plots of revenge aroused by his evil uncle's misdeeds.

WRONG MR. RIGHT (THE). By Berta Ruck. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $1.75. Lively and amusing. The kaleidoscopic misunderstandings all grow out of the invention by the heroine of an imaginary young man, rich and benevolent, who is credited with doing for poor and proud ladies all the nice things that she does herself.

ESSAYS AND CRITICISM UNFINISHED RAINBOWS, AND OTHER ESSAYS. By George Wood Anderson. The $1.25. Abingdon Press, New York.

These are sermons, not essays; that is, they are written not to entertain, nor to

instruct, but to persuade. They are not didactic in form, but are didactic in spirit. A moral purpose pervades them. The titles of the essays-"Unfinished Rainbows," "Gathering Sunsets," "Beyond the Curtains of Clouds"-indicate their literary quality. It would not be unjust to term them prose poems. They are not always self-expressive. They are too deliberate, perhaps too artificial, to be the highest poetry. But they are short, undogmatic, and may well serve the purpose of sermons to readers who are shut out from church services or fail to get. from the pulpit the inspiration which they need.

TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION OUR HAWAII. By Charmian Kittredge London (Mrs. Jack London). New and Revised Edition. The Macmillan Company, New York. $3.

This revised edition of a popular book is full of the atmosphere of the South Seas and of enthusiastic appreciation of Hawaii. Charmian London always writes with rhapsodical love of her subject, and this book will entrance those who admire a corresponding style of descriptive writing.

WILD BUSH TRIBES OF TROPICAL AFRICA. By G. Cyril Claridge. Illustrated. The J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. Here is a sympathetic study of the na tives of West Central Africa, keen in its insight, detailed in its description, and frank in its statements. The data collected regarding the "souls of black folk" in the Congo region are amazing in amount, variety, and minuteness. The story of the treatment of the natives by the Portuguese is one of the most tragic in the annals of Negro oppression by conscienceless traders-but hardly more revolting than the stories of the natives' barbarity in dealing with their own peo ple.

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I

N the scheme of American life there has been developing a new form of community-not the farm, not Main Street, not the city. It is usually called "the suburbs," but the term is outgrowing its original sense. The rapidly expanding areas surrounding our large cities are more than convenient living adjuncts to business centers; they are. coming to have a purpose and a consciousness of their own. They represent the effort of families to retain the advantages of working in concentrated industrial centers, and yet to secure the satisfactions of fresh air, play space, gardens, and an individual home. Fittingly this new type of neighborhood may be called the Midlands.

Automobiles have made this new development possible in the degree it is The territory at present assuming. around the larger municipalities may be compared to a huge feather fan with railway lines representing the quills, and the myriad automobiles the feathers. For forty miles around the largest cities of the country there is one car for every fifteen persons.

The population around these cities constitutes new groups of urban proportions, for instance:

The significance and value of these figures will be seen when one considers the drift of population in recent years. Every time the Bureau of the Census issues a new bulletin statisticians tear their hair, rural newspaper editors have heart failure, and some one starts a new back-to-the-farm movement (with paid executive secretary).

There is not going to be any addition to the rural population through campaigns on "Keep the Farmer Contented" and "Back to the Farm," admirable and sincere as many of these may be. The psychology of these slogans smacks too much of the urban mind worried over its food supply.

Many economists, however, have discoursed on the effect of the telephone, the motor car, the talking-machine, and the motion picture on rural existence. These inventions are adding to the richness of life in the most remote hamlets. They are making neighbors of families forty miles and more apart. They are making possible consolidated schools, churches, theaters, lecture halls, and community buildings on a par with those enjoyed by the city. The three million motor cars and trucks in rural districts will probably create enough

A. J. DICKINSON, Passenger Traffic Manager St. Paul, Minn.

lessen the yearning of the younger generation to seek crowds; but the spread

of motor transportation is not going to bring back into the country those fami lies now living in the cities.

Some new development has therefore seemed essential if the Nation is going to be able to raise food for its inhabitants. The Midlands is partially the answer. The flood of population pouring over the brim of the city limits and spreading throughout the environs does much to support itself. Hundreds of thousands of families have their own gardens, and thereby raise a part of their own food. Many more could and would do so if the pressure of high prices should become sufficiently severe.

It would be a greatly improved condi tion if the areas at present occupied by large cities could be devoted exclusively to business, with the population being transported back and forth daily to their individual homes. As this condition is approximated long before its consummation, the standard of living may be bettered. As the pressure of population on the suburban area is lessened, more space is left for those who must remain there. Rents are lowered. Those who remain within the urban limits have more space in which to live.

This growth of the Midlands is not a theory. The rapidity of the increase is indicated by the figures of the Long Island Railroad, which every year carries a larger number of New York commuters. The record for the past five years is as follows:

1916

1917

1918

1919

1920 1921

Passengers Carried.

15,932,000

17,601,000

17,692,700

25,426,950

28,891,350

31,000,0001

1 Estimated by Long Island Railroad.

A ride along the routes of this railway will show the inquirer the large part which the motor car is playing in making this increase in passenger traffic possible. Automobiles at every sta tion bring passengers back and forth for miles from the rail lines.

The rise in the motor-vehicle industry from virtually nothing in 1900 to about 10,000,000 in use to-day has come about from an age-long demand for per sonal transportation. This desire, however, is meeting with checks in city life to-day, but there are changes which must be brought about before the Midlands can care for the population to a degree which will have an appreciable effect on rents. Two of the major ob stacles to the fuller use of cars in and around cities are: