ever impressed her. Mrs. Davis was a woman of warmer nature, of less measured discretion, not quite a member of the Southern aristocracy, a little condescended to by her servants. Yet she was highly ambitious, for her husband even more than for herself. His downfall broke her heart; and, though she outlived him many years, it was as a mere ghost and memory of him. For their own sakes, as women of uncommon force and charm in their several ways, the three remaining subjects in this group seem to me best worth knowing: Dolly Madison, Mrs. Butler, and Mrs. Blaine. The famous and engaging Dolly we have known; this portrait but makes her more clear and real. But the personalities behind the names of Mrs. Benjamin F. Butler and Mrs. James G. Blaine are to most of us unsuspected. Mr. Bradford's presentation and interpretation of these two remarkable women are the real feats of this volume. Fortunately, both were letter-writers, and it is largely from their correspondence that we get our memorable impression of them: of Butler's wife, emotional, ambitious, a great lover, avid and generous, cramped by her period and her environment, devoted in everything to her mate,: in whose greatness she ardently believed; Blaine's wife, in some ways so marked a contrast, devoted to her man's career, but witty, a little skeptical, self-contained, analytical even of her husband and yet devoted to "the best man she had ever thoroughly known." To him, certainly, she owed the development of her nature: "It was through that association that her life became so ample and splendid as it was, so wide and picturesque and intensely varied with joy and sorrow." A fine instance of well-rounded womanhood in the despised Victorian time. Fiction "DAWGS!" Edited by Charles Wright Gray. Henry Holt & Co., New York.. $2.50. "Dawgs!" is a well-rounded collection of stories, ranging all the way from battling bulldogs to crêpe-de-chine lapdogs. To mention stories about dogs is to think at once of Albert Payson Terhune, to whom the book is dedicated, and one of his best, "The Grudge," is in it, with a blood-curdling fight between a loyal collie and a great black wolf dog from the hills. The first story in the book, "As a Dog Should," by Charles Alexander, tells how great can be the valor of the weak. A little white streak of a dog, "Ump," has one great moment. Some dogs, like some people, are born to be heroes, and to the dog in "Being a Public Character," by Don Marquis, fame is as necessary as Hamburg steak. 3T-PROTTE To be good, a revolver must meet the three-fold test of Accuracy-SafetyDurability. The Accuracy of Smith & Wesson revolvers is proved by the fact that Smith & Wesson holds the world's records for target shooting at both long and short range. The Safety of a Smith & Wesson is guaranteed by its special construction. The cylinder is double locked. A Smith & Wesson cannot fire unless you pull the trigger. The Durability of a Smith & Wesson is assured by the specially hardened and heattreated alloy steel of which it is constructed. The Smith & Wesson will last for generations. Put a target in your cellar and learn to shoot. We will tell you how you may quickly become proficient. Write Dept. LI. SMITH & WESSON LEARN TO S SPRINGFIELD MASSACHUSETTS Western Representative: Carrigan Company, Rialto Bldg., San Francisco; Los Angeles, Cal.; Seattle, Wash. In writing to the above advertiser, please mention The Outlook "What How the redoubtable Spot once bit a lion and lived on the fatted calf, only to go down in defeat at the teeth of the Blind Man's Dog, his remark on the inadvisability of ever fighting a tight-skinned dog, and his whole philosophy of life make a perfectly delightful bit of canine humor. "Justice in the Painted Hills," by Alexander Hull, is a strange, grim tragedy of the gold fields. Striking in contrast, and highly amusing, is the "Memoirs of a Yellow Dog," by O. Henry, written before the days of prohibition, when a wise dog led his master to the shall we give our boy saloons supplying the best free lunches. for Christmas?" Guns, footballs, dogs and such are necessary adjuncts of boyhood. They help a fellow grow up along the right lines. What wouldn't you cheerfully pay to insure your boy a fine, big manhood? Along with a rifle would you like to give him the instinct to be a "straight shooter"? With a football a high sense of "fair play"? With a bull pup a generous measure of "stickto-it-iveness"? With a sweater a warm respect for trustworthiness, courtesy to his elders? You can't cram ideals into a boy by curtain lectures or sermons or moralizing. Nor by checking his craving for fun, adventure and excitement. But along with fun, you can inoculate him with character, subtly, unnoticed. How? Give him a year's subscription to THE AMERICAN BOY. In this magazine, your son will associate with some of the finest men in the world. Authors who know boys, editors who know the boy mind. AMERICAN BOY stories are not the goody-goody type. There isn't any nice little moral tacked on at the finish. There's life in them, adventure, justice, courage, success, failure. Stories woven around business, science, history, travel. The kind of stuff that shows a boy why the world values and rewards honest effort and square dealing. And how the boys enjoy THE AMERICAN BOY! How they read it through and through! Make your boy a Christmas present of a year's subscription to THE AMERICAN BOY. Let him read it regularly and watch him grow. Include that other boy in whom you are interested. Mail the coupon today! $2.00 a year by mail, 20c the copy at all news-stands. Subscribe for a year or leave a standing order at your newsdealer's. The American Boy THE SPRAGUE PUBLISHING CO. No. 363 American Building, Detroit, Mich. Enclosed find $2.00, for which send THE AMERICAN BOY for one year, beginning with the current issue, to 1 One of the most charming of the stories is Arthur Train's "Old Duke." It has a climax in which the dog is tried by jury, in a Kentucky court-room, for the murder of one sheep. There are fifteen stories and a bibliography of dog literature in the book, and any one who has ever been loved heroically or humorously, or simply, by a dog must enjoy them. PORGY, By Du Bose Heyward. The George H. Doran Company, New York. $2. The grotesque glamour of Catfish Row with its mirth-provoking incongruities and its gaudy celebrations, the languor of the Southern atmosphere, the brooding tenderness on the lined face of old Peter, the swelling rhythm of Negro voices chanting solemn requiems for their dead, or prayers when the hurricane tears at their low-down shanties-these are some of the colorful scenes of Charleston Negro life. Porgy is a crippled beggaran aristocrat at the trade. At night he plays his rôle of lucky nigger tossing the "little stars." Bess gives up her use of "happy dust" and liquor for love of Porgy, and turns from sinful ways-temporarily. The spiritual quality of the ageless Porgy, with his visionary look of waiting and watching the world pass by, makes him a personality above his fellow-mendicants and a legend in the whites' neighborhood. In the end his mellow mood is broken; Porgy's patience and faith have brought him only suffering. The book is a Negro classic; it has fine moral tone and its highly individualized characters are creations. It ends on a high emotional plane with a single impression-the bent solitary figure of Porgy ironically surveying the universe. Religion THE MAN CHRIST JESUS: A LIFE OF CHRIST. By W. J. Dawson. The Century Company, New York. $3. This book was first published a quarter of a century ago. Mr. Dawson had then twenty years' experience as an evangelical minister in London and Glasgow. Out of them had come the strong desire to interpret Jesus "in the terms of the modern mind." For a long time he studied the Gospels with this in view, and a journey to the Holy Land completed his preparation. Then, in a mood of high emotion, he wrote his narrative. He wished "to restore Fra Angelico and to dethrone Michelangelo"-that is, to restore the vision of Jesus as a sweet and gracious being instead of a presence of "inhuman majesty." Now, after so many years, be believes that the world still needs this Jesus Christ. He again offers his book without revision, though with "a few minor corrections." Now, as originally, he accepts the orthodox view of the Gospel story. He chose then to make nothing of controversial and "theological" matters, and he makes nothing of them now. The processes of the higher criticism and the theories of Modernism might never have been, so far as they are recognized in these pages. What we have is an eloquent presentation of the personality and career of Jesus as he lived in the flesh, with all the mystical heightening wherewith the worship of twenty centuries has endowed him. Bishop Slattery, of Massachusetts, has rightly characterized the work, not as a rival of the great scholarly studies of the Christ, but as an excellent book "for devotional reading." Biography THE DREAMER. A Romantic Rendering of the Life of Edgar Allan Poe. By Mary Newton Stanard. The J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. $3.50. "The Dreamer" is a reprint of a book for some years out of print, but for which the demand has never quite ceased, and of which second-hand copies have already acquired something of a fancy value. It was written fifteen years ago, but the style and atmosphere suggest a much earlier period, even one contemporary with its subject. Frankly a romantic rendering of the life of Poe, neither novel nor biography, its romanticism of a rhapsodical, ornate type one feels at once impossible to any writer not Southern-born-seems as inevitably and sincerely the literary attitude of the author as that which characterized the contributors to early Victorian Keepsakes and Annual Garlands. The book is indeed romantic to the saturation point. Were a reviewer of the present willing to revert to the gall which alternated with honey in that era of a criticism as often savage as fulsome, it would be all too easy by selecting a few extreme examples here and there, underlined or pointed with exclamations and with a sneering comment or so thrown in, to make the whole book appear merely silly and absurd. It is often both. But Poe, with all his gifts, was himself a ro In writing to the above advertiser, please mention The Outlook mantic who thought, felt, suffered, and wrote in extremes; who fell not infrequently into absurdities of extravagance and sillinesses of sentimentality. Mrs. Stanard, despite her faults of overemphasis, over-sweetness, over-bitterness, over-ingenuity in dovetailing her hero's literary phrases and fancies into the framework of his life, has yet an imagination that plays with illuminating if theatric effect on the larger facts and probabilities, however much it magnifies or distorts the lesser. True, he who reads her book must be prepared to pick his way on stepping-stones from chapter to chapter through a flowing river of sentimentality and romantic exaggeration, but, though he may laugh or jeer or mentality and romantic exaggeration; a dozen times, it is unlikely he will not keep on to the end; and he will have acquired, moreover, by the time he gets there, a very definite conception of the character of Edgar Allan Poe, even though it may not coincide at all points with the author's intention. The book, in short, gets a curious, clinging hold upon the reader its pages have once ensnared. Unless the present edition, which is issued in excellent form with few but good illustrations, is an extremely large one, it would not be surprising if in another fifteen or twentyfive or fifty years copies should again and more eagerly be sought as collectors' prizes, and a new edition called for. Mrs. Stanard, it must in fairness bet stated, is an authority on the facts of Poe's career and the editor of a recently discovered group of his letters. She knows thoroughly what she is talking about; but she views her subject from an angle and talks about it in a language as remote from that either of modern biographers, modern novelists, or moderns of any kind as are the eighteen forties of Poe's prime from the nineteen twenties in which we live. Travel and Description CHINESE FANTASTICS. By Thomas Steep. The Century Company, New York. $2. "Chinese Fantastics," true to its name, is a series of short sketches about some of the strange customs and stranger manners of the Chinese people. How fantastic some of them seem to us may be imagined when, in a chapter called "Topsyturvydom," the author reminds us that in China one eats dessert before meals, not after; that in building a Chinese house the roof is constructed first; while of course books, as well as the familiar laundry tickets, are read from the back forwards. We have all seen ludicrous signs like the one of the barber described in the amusing chapter on The Best Abridged Dictionary It Is Based upon Webster's New International A gift of lasting, everyday value with its vocabulary of 106,000 words - its dictionary of Biography - its Gazetteer department- its guide to rules of punctuation, use of capitals, abbreviations, etc. - its foreign words and phrases-its wealth of other information. A handsome book with 1700 illustrations. 1256 pages; printed on Bible Paper. Full limp leather, $7.50; flexible fabrikoid. $6.00; art canvas, $5.00 Purchase of your bookseller; or send order and remittance direct to us; or write for information and sample pages. G. & C. MERRIAM CO. 63 Broadway, Springfield, Mass. In writing to the above advertisers, please mention The Outlook ך Leaving New York By the famous (Fifth Cruise) Under the HOLLANDAMERICA LINE's own management The ROTTERDAM 24,170 tons register. 37,190 tons displacement. Has a world-wide reputation for the magnificence and comfort of her appointments, the surpassing excellence of her cuisine and the high standards of service and management on board. 67 Days of Delightful Diversion ITINERARY includes Madeira, Lisbon, Cadiz, Seville, Gibraltar, Algiers, Tunis, Athens, Constantinople, the Holy Land and Egypt, Italy and the Riviera. Carefully planned Shore Excursions. Stopover in Europe. Number of Guests limited. Cost of cruise $900 up. Luxury cruise to the by the Luxurious S. S. VEENDAM For choice selection of accommodations Boston Philadelphia Pittsburgh New Orleans Seattle San Francisco Mexico City Montreal Toronto Winnipeg Or any authorized Steamship Agent Cough-Colds IT T IS not what we say, but what our patrons say of Vapo-Cresolene that conveys the strongest evidence of its merits. Vapo Resolene "Used while you sleep" Our best advertising is from the unsolicited state- THE VAPO-CRESOLENE CO. SWEDENBORG On Four Vital Subjects THE HOLY SCRIPTURE Book of 634 pages, clear print, good paper, substantially bound in stiff paper covers. Endowment enables us to send this book to any address without further cost or obligation on receipt of only Five Cents THE AMERICAN SWEDENBORG PRINTING "The Book Lovers' Corner" FOREIGN LANGUAGES FRENCH, ITALIAN, SPANISH, GERMAN BOOKS. Our stock is most complete. Send for catalogue, stating language desired. SCHOENHOF'S, 387 Washington St., Boston, Mass. "Pidgin-English and Oriental Conversation," who hung out a shingle announcing himself as "Head Cutter." Their mistakes in English grammar often result amusingly, and some of the following rules on the wall of a Tokyo library are worth the notice of librarians: The Limit of Time of Reading is fixed, All novel and thin Book is five Days, All Sciencial Book is almost ten Days, If some soil or destruct of Book we will require duly indemnity. The book is delicately humorous and filled throughout with the charm and beauty of old China. There is a chapter, "Down the Yangtze," that is a sharply etched picture of that busy river where Li Tai-po, China's great lyric poet, is said to have drowned himself trying to catch in it the reflection of the moon. The story of the Manchu maid, Yehonala, afterwards Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi, is a delightful picture of a queen who, if she kept eighty-five clocks going at once in her throne room and was an expert at flying kites, also extended the postal service, supported a university, encouraged foreign trade, and herself devised a plan for the gradual elimination of opium-smoking. This amazing contemporary of Queen Victoria cultivated her own turnip patch in the palace grounds, and always went out to view it, sometimes even pulling a turnip or two herself. On these occasions she dressed in her official robes and was attended by twenty-six eunuchs. There is, as there should be, a chapter on jade, and one on fans. The book is full of innumerable bits of Oriental superstition and fancyabout the little musical whistles attached to the tails of pigeons, making aerial harmonies in the sky, the story of the great bell of China, and the rise and fall of the pigtail. All these and many other things are described by a man who surely knows and loves China. Here is an study of law. The whole body of the law is analyzed into its parts, and these parts are classified to show their logical relationship to one another. It is thus a comprehensive survey of the principles, rules, standards, and doctrines of the law. Schematic diagrams help the exposition. It is with becoming modesty that the author offers his excellent book: he hopes that it may stimulate an interest in the subject which may lead to a better classification. A more skillful artist, he believes, "may paint a picture of the law in all of its variety and detail, accuracy of perspective, and beauty of design and attempt to simplify the In writing to the above advertisers, please mention The Outlook color." But such a consummation may not come for many years. In the mean time the seeker of solutions to some of the painful riddles of the law will find in this book a wise and helpful mentor. Art ART OUT OF DOORS. By Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $2.50. The value of Mrs. Van Rensselaer's book on outdoor art has long been recognized. At the time of its first publication a pioneer in its field, it has held its place unsurpassed by any of the newer books upon the same theme, addressed to-day to a more eager and less unsophisticated public than that of its first appearance, when the iron stag or the central round bed of variegated coleus on the lawn were still fairly representative of the general taste. The present edition of Mrs. Van Rensselaer's little classic, which because it deals essentially with underlying principles, and with details chiefly as illustration, yet remains easily the last word upon its subject, as it was the first, contains three supplemental chapters, bringing it up to date in such minor ways as the lapse of thirty years had made desirable. Business CONFERENCES, COMMITTEES, CONVENTIONS, AND HOW TO RUN THEM. By Edward Eyre Hunt. Harper & Brothers, New York. $2.50. The average small-group business conference, according to current testimony, would seem to be rather a profitless thing, given up to chatter, jest, and personal reminiscence. Here is a book that shows how it can be made fruitful. It is a work on the technique and procedure, not merely of business conferences, but of all sorts of gatherings convened for an exchange of information and opinion. It tells how to arrange for such meetings and how to get from them the maximum of results. Doubtless many persons, hearing of such a book, would be inclined. to regard it as not greatly needed; but even the slightest acquaintance with the contents of this compendium will show its value. It is astonishing how much helpful advice on the subject can be assembled. and Goliath the collie-old friends of the "Lone Winter"-together with Charlotte the pig, a newly instituted flower-garden, and two charming young girls of the outdoor type, one American and one English. Mrs. Greene's love for nature and Do Not Put Off Till January What You Can Do Today animals is deep-seated, thoroughly tested, Plan Now To Get and practical, not merely literary; she is no less able to nurse sick colts through distemper and bandage kicking ponies with sprained legs than to write prettily about their sportive gambols in daisied fields. She is one of those fortunately endowed souls who never permit the prose of life to overshadow either its poetry or its fun; for that reason, and because of the easy grace and humor of her style, this, like its predecessor, is a book to enjoy. Notes on New Books SEA LIFE IN NELSON'S TIME. By John Mase field. The Macmillan Company, New York. The construction and rigging of ships, and life on board them in the days of the great Admiral. OUR FEDERAL REPUBLIC. By Harry Pratt Judson. The Macmillan Company, New York. $3. A brief study of the American Constitution by the former President of the University of Chicago. Opposes continual amendments to the Constitution. THE PRE-SCHOOL AGE. By Minnie Watson Kamm. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $1.50. "A mother's guide to a child's occupation." ROME OF THE KINGS. By Ida Thallon Hill. A WAYFARER IN CZECHO-SLOVAKIA. By E. I. Robson. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. $3. Travels in a country which has become doubly interesting since we have learned how to pronounce its name. ONE THIRD OF A BILL. By Fred Jacob. The THE REAL BOY AND THE NEW SCHOOL. By A. E. Hamilton. Boni & Liveright, New York. $2.50. Boys and education, their life indoors and out, in camp, and in their relations to their friends and teachers. LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY. By William Pierson Merrill. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.75. By the minister of the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York. THE MONUMENTS OF CHRISTIAN ROME. By A. L. Frothingham. The Macmillan Company, New York. $3. A handbook of Roman art and architecture in Christian times. THE RECENT FOREIGN POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. By George H. Blakeslee. The Abingdon Press, New York. $2. THE MOTHER OF JESUS. By Rev. Prof. A. T. Robertson. The George H. Doran Company, $1. New York. By Ed- A text-book of modern British politics. THURSDAY'S CHILD. By Mary Wiltshire. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $2. A novel by the author of "Patricia Ellen." SOCIAL PATHOLOGY. By Stuart A. Queen and Delbert M. Mann. The Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York. $3.50. A case book with comments upon all the difficulties, disasters, sins, and many of the diseases of mankind. THE ADVANTAGE OF A HANDICAP. By M. S. Rice. The Abingdon Press, New York. $1.50. Sermons by the pastor of the Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal Church of Detroit. 7% on January Funds T classes of securities will cause more HE low yields now prevailing on other investors than ever before to turn this January to the proven safety and liberal, dependable income of sound first mortgage bonds. If you are planning to take advantage of prevailing first mortgage interest rates, you will do well, therefore, to make your selection now, before the heavy January demand restricts your choice. Thus you will assure, for your January funds, the security, the maturity and the interest rate that you want. Reservations Accepted Now Current offerings of Smith Bonds, which may be reserved now for January investment, give you the opportunity to get 7% on your January funds, with the protection of safeguards that have resulted in our record of no loss to any investor in 52 years. These bonds ($100, $500 and $1,000 denominations) are strongly secured by improved, income-producing city property, and give you, at the present time, a choice of maturities from 2 years to 10 years. You can make your selection now as to issue and maturity, and reserve the investment you want for delivery when your funds will be in hand. No deposit is required on investments reserved for sixty days. Send your name and address today, on the form below, for descriptions of our current offerings. We also will send you our book 'Fifty-two Years of Proven Safety" which explains the time-tested safety features that have made Smith Bonds the choice of thousands of investors in 48 States and 30 foreign lands. The F.H.Smith Co. In writing to the above advertiser, please mention The Outlook 6-D |