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I

1

T would have been a pity if Mrs. Wharton had allowed the brainless "bromide" that no one wants war novels to deter her from applying her subtle art in depicting the psychology of Paris in war time. She was there; she saw the thing as it was; she herself played a part in it that brought her the decoration of a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Now, in "A Son at the Front," she uses her intimate knowledge, not to describe war objectively, nor to disseminate propaganda of any sort, nor to instill hatred as between peoples, but purely to show the reactions of war on the feelings, affections, and ideals of certain individual men and women. Several of these are Americans, others Parisian to the core; almost all are left behind in the city while their sons or husbands ave called to the front. Personal feelings -love, fear, anger, resentment at war's interference-yield but slowly to the growing perception that they are all part of the war, bound up with France's honor and safety.

Take, for instance, the case of Crampton, the artist, pure American by race but born in France, as was also " his son just returned to Paris from Harvard as the war breaks out. The son is legally French and he accepts quietly and as a matter of course but with no special enthusiasm his call to the ranks. But the father, whose whole affection and interest in life lies in the son, is outraged and afflicted. So is the boy's fond and rather foolish mother. So is the mother's second husband (she divorced the artist long ago), who is rich and influential. The three pull every string to keep the son out of the ranks, succeed in getting him what the English called a "cushy" job, and are amazed when they learn long after that the young man, warmed into the fervor of patriotism, has secretly got himself transferred to the front. He is wounded, recovers, and gets to the front again just in time to be killed on the day before the Armistice. The artist ponders the meaning of this, recalls how an American boy came to him in Paris all the way from New York long before America entered the war and announced that he "wanted to get in this thing," and finally sadly realizes that there are forces and passions immensely stronger than personal interest or affection. Incidentally the study as between the father and the stepfather of love for the boy and jealousy of each other is as fine a bit of analy

1 A Son at the Front. By Edith Wharton. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $2.

sis as even Mrs. Wharton has ever given us.

So it is all through the book; we see slackers, schemers, selfish or supersti

tious women (there is a capital bit

about a fashionable clairvoyant who is in despair because she cannot get real news about her own son), men who

WALLACE IRWIN

are greedy, vicious, ambitious, or mixtures of selfishness and patriotism; yet always the relentless, steady purpose of honor and victory carries France and Paris over and through everything.

Whether as an interpretation of mass psychology or as a dissection of individual emotion, the novel will take its place as a worthy addition to American fiction. It corresponds precisely with a definition lately propounded by Mr. Christopher Morley in his column: "Fiction is creative imagination redisposing the forces of existence in new patterns.".

2

Like most novel lovers, I have been awaiting with pleasurable anticipation the next novel by Mrs. Sheila KayeSmith ever since I read her "Joanna Godden." Now that "The End of the House of Alard" has appeared, I find it admirable, but in quite a different way from its predecessor. There is no one character that dominates as Joanna did in the earlier book, no one person who remains fixed in mind and memory as Joanna does. The new story

2 The End of the House of Alard. By Sheila Kaye-Smith. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. $2.

has its hold through the strength of its situation and its picture of new social conditions in England.

The decadence of the landed (or rather just now land-poor) nobility and gentry, when not bulwarked by the process of marrying more or less vulgar wealth, is fast taking place. To be sure, there are still rich dukes and rich baronets, but they are not as a rule living upon their land rents. The house of Alard hold a glorious slice of Sussex land, but they can't afford a decent cook, their rents are eaten up by the mortgages, they must sell or marry. The head of the house, old Sir John, is an irascible bully; his point of honor is never to sell land. His heir would be a decent fellow if he were not infected by the idea of "the family and the land"-now and forever, one and inseparable. So the heir loses the chance to marry a fine girl who loves him, takes to himself an Oriental-looking lady of literary taste and bottomless purse, and is horrified when his sister sensibly marries a well-to-do yeoman farmer whose people have held their farm for two hundred years but are not "gentry." It is quite a different thing for the heir to marry Oriental moneybags and for the heir's sister to marry a farmer who works with his hands. The first is for the good of the family; the second isn't. Yet, despite this profound conviction, the heir grieves, suffers, and at last kills himself just as his father dies. The youngest son of all, Gervase, is a rebel against tradition and works for his living. The reader likes him immensely, and is sorry that his failure to win the love of the girl his brother practically jilted leads Gervase to join an Anglican monastery and seek the spiritual solace of a form of Catholicism which differs from the Roman branch in little save denial of Rome's ecclesiastical supremacy.

In some ways "The End of the House of Alard" reminds one of the best of Archibald Marshall's stories rather than of "Joanna Godden." It is wrought out with care and deliberateness and deals with its theme in a masterly manner.

Mr. Locke's ability as a story-teller is a recognized fact. His inventive skill is never at a loss. His sense of humor is always behind characters and incidents. All these things are to be found in his new book "The Lengthened Shadow." The tale will be widely read. It is not in the front rank of his long list of stories because in centering the interest in and around an accomplished villain he has done his work too thoroughly-this Moodius is both too accomplished and

3 The Lengthened Shadow. By William J. Locke. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $2.

too villainous; we simply do not believe in him. Timothy, his co-executor over the singular will of the irascible and almost equally villainous scamp, Grabbiter, is a mild edition of "Septimus," not so eccentric but equally simple and noble in mind, the kind of character that makes every one call Mr. Locke "whimsical." The only really happy ending should have rewarded Timothy with the hand of the delightful but over-trustful Suzanne, but fate and Mr. Locke ruled otherwise. Poor Suzanne is left unmarried, in spite of the "blurb's" statement to the contrary.

4

Mr. Irwin's "Lew Tyler's Wives" " in its early chapters impresses one as dealing with the surface of life rather than the depths-all, to be sure, in an entertaining and lively way. As the story goes on, however, and especially in the part relating to Lew's second wife (he had only two, after all, a quite moderate allowance in these days of easy divorce), the author develops a strength in presenting life's actualities and in the working out of character under stress and strain that gives his book a right to be classed with the

4 Lew Tyler's Wives. By Wallace Irwin. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $2.

SHEILA KAYE-SMITH

fiction that is to be taken seriously. All three of the principal figures in the book-Lew and his two wives-are mighty interesting, and their history certainly holds the attention closely from beginning to end.

BOOKS FOR YOUNG FOLKS BOYS' BOOK OF BUCCANEERS (THE). By A. Hyatt Verrill. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $2..

These are true stories of pirates and semi-pirates, written by an author who has to his credit some of the most readable and animated juvenile books of recent years. We are willing to praise everything about the book except the skull and bones flag, which has a singular resemblance to a poison label on a medicine bottle.

JACK GREGORY.

The

By Warren Lee Goss. Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York. $1.75.

We are glad to see that the boys are still fond of stories of the Revolution. Mr. Goss carries on the tale of Jack's adventures in the War of the Revolution in much the same fashion in which he has already related the story of the boy Jed in the Civil War.

TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION NORTHERN NEIGHBORS. By Wilfred T. Grenfell. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. $2. Dr. Grenfell's experiences in Labrador have been many and exciting, and he has garnered them here into a sheaf of stories that will stir the blood of all readers who love the sea and the people who live on it and by it. The style is simple, direct, and forceful. THE MEDITERRANEAN CRUISE. By Rolland Jenkins. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $3.50.

The increasing popularity of the Mediterranean trip as a winter recreation makes this book timely. It is

R. D. TOWNSEND.

matter-of-fact in its descriptions, as a good guide-book should be; but its large type and its numerous pictures make it more suitable for preparatory reading for those who are planning a As visit to the regions described. such it is informative, up to date, and comprehensive.

EDUCATIONAL

THE CHILD AT HOME. By Cynthia Asquith. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.75.

Lady Cynthia Asquith, who is the wife of a son of former Premier Asquith, makes a very able and sympathetic attorney for childhood. One has the feeling in reading her "small book on a large subject" that throughout she is pleading and arguing the child's cause to a jury of somewhat heavy-footed adults, in an effort to induce them not to step too blunderingly upon the fragile and precious rights and pleasures of her small clients. Her angle is, delightfully, that of a grown-up child gifted with adult vision who remembers just how she felt about everything, rather than that of a grown-up, pure and simple, regarding children objectively, as a species.

And yet she has contrived by virtue of unsentimental and humorous common sense to maintain a delicate balance of fairness between the two sides. There is none of that undue modern magnification of the child as the sole personage of importance in the home. She is much concerned for mothers: that they shall get more fun out of

their children than they do; that they shall not worriedly regard childhood. as a "sort of illness' to be lived through, somehow; that they shall be enabled, through imagination and a more impersonal understanding of their children's own psychological

problems, to "duck" discipline sometimes avoid the necessity for it by substituting a pleasant expectation of good conduct, seldom disappointed.

The author's advice is never theoretical or officious, but is conveyed by inference in a series of practical and quaint little sketches of the every-day life of children and their mothers. From the business of choosing a nurse or doctor to table manners, from the absorptions of reading aloud to gardening, from the ecstasy of the first matineé to the pathology of fear in the dark, the gamut of the child's inner mind and of the mother's daily need to know it is run.

POETRY

THE DANCER IN THE SHRINE. By Amanda Benjamin Hall. The George H. Doran Company, New York. $1.50.

This is a first book of poems by a writer who has become known, through the magazines, as a. maker of pleasant verses. The book reinforces that reputation, shows certain more pronounced qualities of excellence, and reveals certain tendencies that constantly menace the dignity and effectiveness of the work. There is scarcely a poem in the book that is not pleasant reading when encountered alone. Some of the poems, like "Too Soon the Lightest Feet" and "Joe Tinker," are rich in imagination and feeling, and carry the authentic accent of fine poetry. What one laments on reading the book as a whole is the ever imminent menace of prettiness and of sentimentality. The title poem is nearly spoiled by these tendencies. Miss Hall writes much of nature and of her spirit's affinity therewith. These poems are competently executed, though not always convincing of more than a becoming attitude, pleasantly phrased. Music and lively fancy and an occasional vividness of phrase are among the rememberable qualities of a collection that is uniformly pleasant, and sometimes more than this.

BOOKS RECEIVED

BOOKS FOR YOUNG FOLKS CENTURY OF CHILDREN'S BOOKS (A). By Florence V. Barry. The George H. Doran Company, New York. $2.

HISTORY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY

LEGENDS OF ANCIENT EGYPT. By F. H.

Brooksbank. The Thomas H. Crowell Company, New York. $2.

ESSAYS AND CRITICISM FRENCH LITERATURE DURING THE LAST HALF CENTURY. By J. W. Cunliffe. The Macmillan Company, New York. $2.50.

SCIENCE

DREAMS OF AN ASTRONOMER. By Camille Flammarion. D. Appleton & Co., New York. $3.50.

CONTRIBUTORS' GALLERY

CHA

HARLES PHELPS CUSHING likes to be known as a free-lance contributor of non-fiction to magazines and newspapers rather than as an editor, although he has had considerable experience in magazinemaking. He served on the staff of the "Literary Digest," then as news editor of "Collier's" and as managing editor of "Collier's." While abroad during the war he was the first managing editor of the A. E. F.'s official weekly, the "Stars and Stripes." The cartoon of Mr. Cushing which accompanies this note was put in at his special request. He thinks that the gentlemen whom he describes in his article may regard this picture as some compensation for the remarks he has made about them.

TEWART B. NICHOLS is a graduate

STEWAR

of Amherst College, class of 1922. He is now in Kyoto, Japan, filling a two-year appointment as a representative of Amherst at the Doshisha University. In the course of his teaching and study there, and from his athletic and social contact with the students, he has been able to gain an interesting insight into the character and attitudes of the Japanese youth of to-day.

Left: Street in York Village, Maine, first treated with Tarvia in 1913.

A macadam road brought up to date. Main Street, Le Roy, New York-Transformed by Tarvia during 1919 and 1920.

The Three Ages of Main Street

WHAT

are the three ages of America's Main Streets? First, the Age of Mud and Dust-the age of the sprinkling cart the age when spring thaws turned Main Street into a mud-hole. Unpaved and untended, the oldfashioned Main Street was a daily affront to the community.

Next, the Age of Incompleteness. In this period, the busiest section of Main Street was given a fine, expensive pavement so expensive in fact that many towns could afford only a few blocks at the most. Then came an abrupt break-off into unimproved country roads.

And today-the Age of Tarvia.

Main Street has been extended. Instead of a short stretch of ultra-expensive pavement, there are miles of moderate priced, low maintenance cost Tarvia roads-radiating out into the country, and bringing business into the town by automobile and truck. Hundreds of towns and counties have found that Tarvia roads are the economical solution of the good roads problem-satisfactory alike to road officials and taxpayers.

For Tarvia roads are not only firm, smooth, dustless and mudless all the year round-they are far less costly to build and maintain than other any of modern highway. type Because of these economies, the use of Tarvia insures the most miles of good roads that can possibly be built and maintained with the road funds available. There is a grade of Tarvia for every road purpose-new construction, repairs or maintenance.

If you will write to our nearest office we will promptly and gladly give you practical information regarding your road problem.

us every day of our lives, and it is to our advantage to know somethingabout them. It would also be of-tremendous advantage to Wall Street, and to banking generally, if the public, instead of having to be educated, had a financial knowledge of at least grammar school standing.

Second on the list of reasons, we should place avarice on the part of investors. The ordinary human being -and who isn't?-has in greater or less degree the desire to get something for nothing, or a lot for a little. This spirit is manifested at bargain sales, around "wheels of fortune," in grab bags at the Sunday school social, and in gambling-houses. The long shot at the horse races always has its appeal; so it has. in the stock market. Long shots win sometimes, and we tell ourselves that if another can do it so can we. We forget that the chances are all against us, and that in all probability our money will be gone before our turn to win has come. Out-andout speculations, or merely unusually high yields, they are phases of the same human desire for easy money. And it seems to make little difference whether the collection of this gambling capital has been slow and arduous, or easy and fairly sudden; if anything, it would seem as if the people with the least money and the smallest right to speculate are the ones who furnish most of the funds for this pastime. Here again this avarice is really a result of lack of knowledge, for the safest investment is in the long run always the most profitable. People who win speculating only prove the rule, and eventually most of them lose all their winnings, anyway.

There are crooked dealers in stocks and bonds, just as there are dishonest people in every other kind of business. Yet these crooked dealers in stocks and bonds could not operate two days were it not for the ignorance of the investing public and its eager desire. for easy money. They trade and fatten upon these two weaknesses, and also upon the public's gullibility-a fourth reason why the business of investing is often SO unprofitable. People through ignorance fail to ask the few vital questions which an experienced investor would propound, and which would immediately put him on his guard; they do not know the essentials of a good investment. The crooked dealer promises large profits coupled with unusually high returns, and so he appeals to the victim's avarice. And as the victim is gullible, through ignorance and avarice, he believes what is told him, the deal is made, and the money changes hands-permanently, as a rule. One crook in Wall Street, or one crooked banker in the banking community, can do more harm in one month than the honest people can do good in a year. Wall Street

"You intimated

this might happen"

ONE MORNING the newspapers published a

dispatch concerning a foreign development which unfavorably affected many American firms engaged in foreign trade. The news was unexpected. It created in certain quarters a feeling of uneasiness.

"Am I surprised by this? No," said one exporter to his banker. "You intimated that it might happen; and during the past two months we have been able to prepare against it."

Because of its familiarity with conditions abroad, and its daily contact with foreign bankers and business men, The Equitable frequently is able to anticipate financial and economic developments, and to make suggestions that benefit its customers.