FOUR ENGLISH NOVELS

T

10 a person who reads in the same week Sir Gilbert Parker's "The Judgment House" (Harpers) and Mrs. Humphry Ward's "The Mating of Lydia" (Doubleday, Page & Co.), one point of difference instantly suggests itself: the first is big in subject and purpose, but uneven and at times also positively prolix in the writing; the second is far less ambitious than much of Mrs. Ward's fiction, but it is done with constant ease and charm.

The complexity of some of the characters in "The Judgment House" (and especially of the heroine), and the struggles of some of the men and women of the story to "realize " themselves (a favorite phrase of the author) to the reader's understanding, contrast with the perfect simplicity and singleness of the few and clear-cut characters in "The Mating. of Lydia." Both are notable novels of the season, and neither of them is a book that readers of fiction can afford to ignore.

England in the shadow of the Boer War is the theme of "The Judgment House." We see a crisis for British world-influence and imperial power, and its reactions on society, financial undertakings, and individual character. National and international aspects are presented; historical and diplomatic backgrounds are sketched with fullness of knowledge and a broad sweep of dramatic writing. Byng, a forceful, big-hearted, but coarsegrained capitalist with a fortune at stake in Oom Paul's land, is strongly depicted; and even more so is his half-Boer, half-Hottentot servant Krool, who is at once a Boer spy and the devoted slave of his English master, so that he takes as his just due the half-killing with a sjambok (native whip) which follows the discovery by his master of his perfidy. Krool is perhaps the most vivid, certainly the most striking, person of the plot. The later scenes of the book are laid in South Africa and have fine descriptive quality, bringing close to our apprehension the atmosphere of the veldt and the tragedy and revolting nature of war. This part of the romance, and equally so the earliest chapters, in which news of the Jameson raid is made the center of interest about which men and mo tives are made to group themselves, are admirably wrought out and show the author at his very best. Not so successful, it seems to us,

is the elaborate working out of the temperament of Jasmine, Byng's wife; it is here that the author aims at subtlety and depth, but he does not succeed in reconciling the woman's conduct with her own nature as she reveals it-she seems neither perverted nor weak enough to be guilty of the combination of folly and dishonor into which she so easily slips.

Mrs. Ward's theme in "The Mating of Lydia" is the personal view-point of wealth. As she, or rather her Cyril Boden, says: "How you get it, how you use it, whether you dominate it or it dominates you; whether it is the greater curse or the greater blessing to men: it was the question in Christ's day; it's the question now. But it has never been put with such intensity as to this generation !" So we have Melrose, the selfish eccentric, whose soul is ruined by wealth; Faversham, the young man whose honest desire to do good things with money in the future makes him bow temporarily to Melrose's tyranny and fail to stand against his cruelty; Tatham, indifferent to wealth because he has always had it; Lydia, indifferent to wealth because she has never had it and even over-despises its power-and so on, with a constant under-play around the topic of the evil and good, the power and possibilities, of wealth. All this may sound ultra-economic, but in fact the book is essentially romantic. Above all, it is agreeable and cheerful; as always, it is a pleasure to follow Mrs. Ward's lucid prose and listen to the talk of her well-bred people. There is a melodramatic side to the plot, to be sure, but it is not salient enough to disturb the antisensationalist. In Melrose, the shrewd, brilliant, hateful collector of antiques, who values his treasures more than wife and child, Mrs. Ward has given us a distinct reality, not the less actual and believable because he is so far out of common experience. The picture of English country life is pleasing; the cur rent of narrative runs smoothly; the book ends a trifle conventionally but agreeably.

Mr. J. C. Snaith's "An Affair of State" (Doubleday, Page & Co.) is, in point of reserved power, the best novel he has written. When his Broke of Covenden " appeared several years ago, it gave the impression of tumultuous genius, ability of a high order, but lack of restraint and literary judgment; on the other hand, his " Araminta was a joyous piece of humor, immensely amusing, but

without attempt at dealing strongly with large ideas. Other of his books have given the impression of an author who had not yet fully found himself." But "An Affair of State" deserves to rank with the best fictionproduction of the decade; it is balanced, ripe in judgment, and dramatic in the sense opposed to theatrical. A political crisis in an imagined near future furnishes the topic, but at bottom the story is not of political methods nearly as much as of a conflict of character and purpose between two public men-a leader toward the promise of the future and a reactionary nobleman of the old school. The human interest element soon comes to the front, and once developed is clear and passionate.

Mr. Laurence Housman combines light comedy and political satire in "King John of Jingalo" (Holt). The struggles of King

The Mac

Concert Pitch. By Frank Danby. millan Company, New York. $1.35. The lady who writes under the name of Frank Danby has the knack of creating interesting human beings and telling interesting stories about their experiences of the heart. In the present tale the interest is of the same kind as in The Heart of a Child" and "Pigs in Clover," but the temptation to turn the phrase is too strong to be resisted-here it is not quite up to concert pitch.

Maxwell Mystery (The). By Carolyn Wells. The J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. $1. Miss Carolyn Wells as humorist and writer of vers de société and as author of a detective story are two quite different people. It is unfortunate that in going from one field to the other she left her sense of humor behind her. Nest (The). By Anne Douglas Sedgwick. The Century Company, New York. $1.25.

A volume of short stories by the author of "Tante," "Franklin Winslow Kane," and "A Fountain Sealed." Miss Sedgwick's treatment of not very profound human problems is as far removed as possible from the impressionistic. Not a detail is missing from her pictures. Their creation may have involved exercise of the imagination; their reading does not. John O' Jamestown. By Vaughan Kester. The

Bobbs- Merrill Company, Indianapolis, Ind. $1.35. This is an early novel by the author of "The Prodigal Judge." It seems to us well worth reprinting, although it is entirely different in its subject and treatment from Mr. Kester's later work. It is, as the title indicates, essentially the story of John Smith. The narrative is put in the mouth of a young Englishman who was beaten senseless and put on board one of the ships going to Virginia by private enemies. The narrative is told in a simple and direct way, and

John to find out what rights, if any, he has as a constitutional monarch have their evident bearings on present-day British politics, and there are many clever side hits at certain inconsistencies and conventions which excite the author's derision. Both the King and his too independent daughter land in the police station, but escape from their misadventures with untarnished dignity. The book is an admirable piece of fooling, and it has a positive story-telling ability that holds the reader much more closely than might be expected from the theme. Social welfare, the cause of the suffragettes, and the nullification of royalty by ministries, are among the subjects taken up by King John; but his temerity turns out to be the result of temporary abnormal excitement caused by a blow— no really sane King, it is intimated, would ever dream of doing anything independently!

the history of the early struggles and dissensions in Virginia is made thoroughly readable. John Smith himself stands out as a fine, heroic, and human figure. It is the fashion to pass by historical novels as a little out of the present-day taste for fiction; but where a romance is in itself as strong and clear as this, the imaginary objection disappears at once. The book is not a large piece of literary work; but it is well written, well knit together, and deserves recognition as a sound and true example of its class. Inferno (The). By August Strindberg. Translated by Claud Field. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $1.25.

Of pathological rather than literary interest is this expanded extract from Strindberg's diary. His insane suspicions, his morbid superstitions, detailed with pitiful minuteness and pitiable egotism, furnish neither a fit subject for art nor a fair picture of life. Strindberg's mind, exposed like the flayed body of Marsyas to public view, is not a pleasant nor a profitable thing to gaze upon.

Mere Literature. By Woodrow Wilson. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. $5.

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Three essays, written by Woodrow Wilson in other days, have been put together by the publishers in a volume of which to say that it is one of the Riverside Press Editions is to say that it is an example of the finest book-making, a delight to the heart of the lover of books as things in themselves." The essays are "mere literature," dealing in a genial, penetrating, thought-provoking way with conditions in the Republic of Letters. We cannot forbear to give two selections from the essay "On an Author's Choice of Company." They give too good a taste of the author's quality. He is writing of the Republic of Letters:

But there is a better phrase, namely, the Community of Letters; for that means intercourse and comradeship and

a life in common. Some take up their abode in it as if they had made no search for a place to dwell in, but had come into the freedom of it by blood and birthright. Others buy the freedom with a great price, and seek out all the sights and privileges of the place with an eager thoroughness and curiosity. Still others win their way in with a certain grace and aptitude, next best to the ease and dignity of being born to the right. But for all it is a bonny place to be. Its comradeships are a liberal education. Some, indeed, even there, live apart; but most run always in the market-place to know what all the rest have said. Some keep special company, while others keep none at all. But all feel the atmosphere and life of the place in their several degrees.

Again, he asks, "What is it . . . that renders a bit of writing a 'piece of literature '?"

It is reality. A " wood-note wild," sung unpremeditated and out of the heart; a description written as if with an undimmed and seeing eye upon the very object described; an exposition that lays bare the very soul of the matter; a motive truly revealed; anger that is righteous and justly spoken; mirth that has its sources pure: phrases to find the heart of a thing, and a heart seen in things for the phrases to find; an unaffected meaning set out in language that is its own,-such are the realities of literature. Nothing else is of the kin. Phrases used for their own sake; borrowed meanings which the borrower does not truly care for; an affected manner; an acquired style; a hollow reason; words that are not fit; things which do not live when spoken,-these are its falsities, which die in the handling.

Within the narrow confines of this] volume is something for every one to whom the Community of Letters is of interest, either from without or from within. To the mere observer thereof it will give pleasure; to the dweller therein, stimulation; to the aspirant thereto, inspiration.

Letters to Unknown Friends. By Lyman Abbott. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York. 60c. A year ago or more Dr. Abbott began in The Outlook a series of "Letters to Unknown Friends." This volume, which has been put into extremely tasteful book form by its publishers, contains many, but not all, of those articles, and it also contains letters and replies which have not appeared in The Outlook. In his preface Dr. Abbott states that the correspondence with these friends, whose names often are not known to him, have been of valuable service in enabling him to understand and deal with vital experiences, and have helped to make clear his own conceptions of theological, spiritual, and ethical problems. The number of letters of this kind received, and the conferences and correspondence that have fol owed their publication, are sufficient evidence of the interest felt in them generally.

Plays. By John Galsworthy. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.25.

Of the last of the three plays in this volume, "The Eldest Son," "The Little Dream," and "Justice," The Outlook has already spoken at length. The others are equally worthy of serious attention. "The Eldest Son" is as powerful an attack upon false standards of class chivalry and upon conventional "morality" as will be met with on a Sabbath Day's journey.

"The Little Dream," an allegorical presentation of the eternal warfare between town and country, might have sprung from the pen and the heart of Peter Rosegger himself. It is poetic without any suggestion of sentimentality, fanciful without losing touch with reality. In the treatment of social problems Galsworthy is idealist and realist at one and the same time. His plays, in contrast to Hauptmann's "Before Dawn" and Strindberg's "Dance of Death," are written with the touch and spirit of a great surgeon rather than the gesture of a man flinging an addled egg against a stone wall.

Food and Flavor. By Henry T. Finck. The Century Company, New York. $2.

Mr. Finck is a musical critic, a student of psychology (as was shown in his "Romantic Love and Personal Beauty "), and that he is a gastronomist this new book amply proves. It is a singular, and it must be confessed singularly readable, compound of information, discussion, and suggestion, the fruit of long absorption of the scientific and the literary aspects of foodits choice, its uses, the "noble art " of cooking, national and racial tastes, the "commercial value of flavor," the "gastronomic value of odors," and much else. It would be quite right to describe the book as learned, informative, and amusing. It is not a work of direct reformatory purpose, but it has many hints and bits of fact that ought to aid the search for pure food and healthful cooking.

The Children in the Shadow. By Ernest K. Coulter. McBride, Nast & Co., New York. $1.50. Mr. Coulter was for almost ten years Clerk of the Children's Court in New York, before which tribunal during his time of service passed an army of one hundred thousand delinquent children. He is also the father of the Big Brother movement. Such experience, and such an inspiration, entitle him to speak with authority. It may be added that he not only speaks with authority but that he speaks well. His book is one that tempts the reviewer to constant quotation; it is one of the best discussions of this difficult subject that has come to our attention. As may be surmised, Mr. Coulter is not satisfied with merely painting a picture of " the Children in the Shadow;" he has very definite ideas as to why they live in darkness and what is the best method of letting in the light. He may be described as a militant optimist.

Enjoyment of Poetry. By Max Eastman. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.25. Professor Eastman has chosen an inviting title for his volume, and the invitation is decidedly worth accepting. In the distinction which he draws between the poetic and the practical, in his treatment of the principles of rhythmical English, and in his discussion of the "Practical Value of Poetry ”—to mention the subject of but three chapters-his efforts to arouse interest and

stimulate thought are most happily successful. It is a delight to find a writer who can discuss prosody without miring himself in shop-worn technicalities, who is never pedantic, and who still retains his sense of humor. The combination is not often found.

Panama Canal Conflict (The). By L. Oppen. heim, M.A., LL.D. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. 750.

This is a concise and authoritative argument for the stand which England has taken in the matter of Canal toils. Professor Oppenheim believes, as does The Outlook, that the questions at issue should be settled by arbitration. Autographs of St. Paul (The). By Marcus D. Buell. Eaton & Mains, New York. 35c.

A convenient, scholarly, and suggestive little handbook, of value for the layman or busy clergyman who desires to see the reasons for believing in the Pauline authorship of the first ten Epistles attributed to Paul in our English Bible, with a fair-minded consideration of the objections to the Pauline authorship of the three Pastoral Epistles, I and II Timothy and Titus, and the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews.

Britannica Year-Book (The). The Encyclopædia Britannica Company, New York. $1.75. This convenient and compact Year-Book is the first issued by the publishers of the Encyclopædia Britannica, under the direction of the editor of the eleventh edition of that great work, Mr. Hugh Chisholm. It contains in its five hundred pages a detailed survey of the work and history of the world in 1912. About two hundred pages are devoted to American subjects. The intent, to quote the editor's statement, is to deal "in an interesting way with new events and additions to knowledge, with the existing state of things in every sphere, with substantial changes, real advances, and essential progress." Such recent events as the Pamama Canal controversy, the Balkan-Turkish war, and, going a little further back, the ItalianTurkish war, and the Titanic disaster are among the topics that strike the eye at once. But every department is covered; and the sections devoted to science, political history, and political economy are particularly full. The volume is a valuable reference book, taking it alone, and as a supplement to the Britannica itself will be welcome to all who have that work. What is New Thought? By Charles Brodie

Patterson. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York. $1. The basis of New Thought, as taught here, was taught by Jesus and by Paul:-God lives in man, and man lives in God. Man's spiritual self must therefore be consciously centered in God, and human wills must be brought into conscious unity with his will. Only thus can our higher self master our lower or animal self, and realize the normal life of a child of the Eternal. This is new thought

only to those who have not yet learned it as old. Nor is it new thought that many bodily disorders spring from a disordered state of mind, and need mind-cure only. So also, long before it was announced as new thought, Tennyson

wrote

"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,

These three alone lead life to sovereign power." These and cognate truths for individual and social application are prominent in this volume, and give it a serviceable value which is lessened by its doubtful theorizing on harmonic and magnetic vibration, and its utterly groundless teaching that" all sorrow, suffering, disease, and death have their origin in Fear."

Essays on Taxation. By E. R. A. Seligman. The Macmillan Company, New York. $4. A new and eighth edition of a recognized work of authority. It has been so revised and enlarged with reference to recent decisions and discussions as to make practically a new work. The Penalty. By Gouverneur Morris. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.35.

Mr. Morris's short stories have been original. Now he puts forth a full-sized novel which is too original. It reads like the dream of a modern hashish-eater who had browsed on yellow fiction until he talks of the fantastic and horrible in terms of modern New York, but through incidents that seem to be imagined only in a lunatic asylum.

Nogi. By Stanley Washburn. Henry Holt & Co., New York. $1.

As the first gun boomed out announcing the departure of the body of the Mikado to its final resting-place, a grizzled Japanese soldier and his loyal wife, waiting in their home in Tokyo, quietly took their own lives. Thus died by his own hand the last of a long line of Samurai. General Baron Nogi knew how to unite the spirit of the old Japan with the advanced civilization of the new. That knowledge made him the captor of Port Arthur, the decisive factor in the final battle of the war with Russia. Mr. Washburn had ample opportunity for seeing Nogi at his terrible task of taking Port Arthur. Later in Manchuria the association became closer even to the point of intimacy. In his little book Mr. Washburn has not attempted even a biographical sketch; he has drawn a portrait of

a man against the background of a great war." The portrait is drawn from the life. Of the accuracy of its details those who did not know its subject can hardly judge. But any one who reads the volume cannot help but feel that the portrait lives.

Synonyms, Antonyms, and Associated Words. By Louis A. Flemming. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $1.25.

A convenient and well-arranged reference book containing material originally prepared and adapted as an easy help in time of literary trouble.

The expense of graduation dresses and of the flowers that are often a feature at graduation exercises has moved the Passaic (New Jersey) High School authorities, it is reported, to offer prizes for the prettiest graduation dresses made by the graduates themselves at a cost not exceeding $5, and to prohibit altogether the presentation of flowers. The unhappiness that sometimes mars such occasions for the less wealthy students will thus, it is hoped, be averted.

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William Winter, writing of Edwin Booth in "Collier's," says that when Booth in his latter days had successfully established his clubhouse The Players," he did not wish to travel far from his own rooms in the house. I have traveled so much!" he said; " and wherever I go people want to entertain me, and I have no peace. Here is my bed, and here is the fire, and here are the books" (and they remain there to this day, just as the great actor left them)" and," Mr. Winter concludes, with a pardonable revelation of friendship, "here you come to see me."

"Eight thousand Levantine Jewish refugees have applied for Spanish naturalization," says a despatch from Madrid, " and most of the requests have been granted." And yet it was Spain that expelled the Jews, with merciless severity, in the fifteenth century!

"The presentation of the old Pittsburgh home of Stephen Collins Foster," says Musical America," "is a cheerful evidence of the appreciation of this first characteristic American musical genius." The paper adds that the tradition that Foster's popular melodies were derived from Negro songs is unfounded. The music of "Old Uncle Ned," "The Old Folks at Home," etc., was formed on European models.

The Florence Crittenton rescue work for women is reported to care for from 5,000 to 10,000 women and girls yearly. The work, founded thirty years years ago by Charles N. Crittenton, now has seventy branches in different parts of this country, and also has homes in France, in China and Japan, and in Mexico. It is a pitiful and suggestive fact that, as reported, " 95 per cent of the applicants for help at the homes are of high school age."

"For everything under the sun there's a reason or there's none," says the old saw, and, following its further advice, "If there is one, try to find it," German savants have been disputing as to the reason for the singing of telegraph wires. One reasoner says the sounds are caused by changes in the weather, and that infallible weather predictions could be made from the sounds; another says the sounds are made by a "seismic uniest;" while a third upholds the theory that the wind is the vocalist-the latter seeming to have the best of the argu

ment.

An Eastern traveler, describing the effects of an accidental overdose of hashish, says that when the drug began to take effect, a chance remark set him off into fits of laughter, which continued till he was exhausted. These paroxysms recurred at intervals, interrupted by interminable reveries on subjects most strange and diverse. The retardation of time was a curious phenomenon; the raising of the hand to the head seemed to take several minutes. The intoxication lasted twenty-four hours, and its after

effects were so unpleasant as to dissuade the subject from further experiment.

"Dormant accounts" in savings banks are those which have not been added to or subtracted from for a certain number of years, varying in different States. In Massachusetts these accounts eventually, after being advertised, revert to the State. Boston papers recently contained thirty-two columns of names of persons owning these "dormant accounts." Most of the deposits thus abandoned are, it is said, small in amount.

"Within the next five or ten years," says Mr. Ernest Poole, playwright and Socialist, as reported in the " Dramatic Mirror," "I expect more and more radical plays to get a hearing on our stage, The stage is almost wholly an aristocratic institution -at least where the orchestra seats cost two dollars.

To object to preaching in the theater is like objecting to life there too, for preaching is a very important part of life. People like a play that preaches strongly."

Poultry panaceas, says a Michigan farm journal, are largely fakes. It analyzes one of these hen tonics that claims to "tone up the dormant egg organs and take the hen out of the loafer class," and finds that the ingredients cost about one cent and are hardly worth it, while the farmer is expected to pay 25 cents for the preparation. The analyzer doubts whether any mixture of drugs will make a hen lay eggs when she doesn't want to.

The carefully edited" Christian Science Monitor," of Boston, does not make its creed offensively obtrusive. In a recent issue the titles of its editorial articles were: "Tariff and Books," "Trees to Fringe Cape Cod Canal," "Those Who Rent Must Still Move," "Manhattan's Coliseum," "Japan's Appeal," "Growth of the Motor Truck Industry," etc. These little essays might just as well have been written by one who had not "come into Science," so far as any attempt at Christian Science propaganda is concerned, as they contain not the least allusion to Mrs. Eddy's faith.

The French are sometimes supposed to regard America as "barbarous," but the French Government apparently thinks American social conditions worth studying, for it has sent Mme. Alice de la Ruelle, a member of the French Bar, to the United States to study the life of working-girls here. Mme. de la Ruelle is reported as saying that women in France are taking men's places in certain occupations, but that when the competition grows too strong the men might find a remedy by marrying the girls! A Frenchman with a Teutonic name, Professor Lichtenberger, pays this tribute to Germany: "The worship of force is increasing in Germany. But it must be confessed that the power the Germans revere is not brutal, tyrannical, capricious, and arbitrary force, which delights in stupid oppression or denies all rights. They worship intelligent and deliberate power which imposes itself lawfully through its own virtue."

The oldest war-ship in the world is probably the Victory, Lord Nelson's flag-ship at Trafalgar, which is still afloat at Portsmouth, England. She is now 147 years old, having been launched in 1767. On the anniversary of her greatest victory, October 21, Nelson's famous signal, England expects that every man will do his duty," is hoisted on the famous old ship.