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All com- munications should be addressed to THE DIAL, Fine Arts Building, Chicago. Entered as Second-Clan Matter October 8, 1892, at the Poet Office at Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879. Xc. 645. MAY 1, 1913. Vol LTV. Contents. PAOB THE MEANEST OF TAXES 363 OPEN MINDS: A TEXT FROM WILLIAM JAMES. Norman Foertter 364 CASUAL COMMENT 367 Fond memories of book-land.— The late Edward Dowden'sliterary achievements.—The public library on the prairie.— How to preserve one's self-respect, though a writer. — The dignity of the librarian's office.—The insistent demand for art in the theatre. —Improvident poets.— A reminder of Balzac.— Mr. Morjjan's library.—A dramatic meeting of extremes. —The full names of well-known authors.—An event of significance in the publishing world. COMMUNICATION 370 Mr. Ezra Pound and "Poetry." Wallace Rice. MR. JAMES'S MEMORIES OF BOYHOOD. Percy F. BiclcneU 372 A DELIVERANCE ON THE DRAMA. Charle* Leonard Moore 374 MAN AS A MACHINE. T. D. A. Cockerell . . .376 THE WRITERS OF THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC PERIOD. Garland Greever 377 A SUCCESSOR TO BARTLETT AND DE VERE. KUlit Campbell 380 TWO BOOKS ON THE SHORT STORY. Henry Seidel Canby 382 BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS 383 A woman's journey through western China.—Sociol- ogical interpretations of history.— A near view of Panama and the Panamanians.— Mr. Dobson's verse in a new edition.— An American traveller in India. — The beaver and its ways.— In the footsteps of Ruskin.— The horrors of a recent inglorious war.— Tilting at Obscurantism. — National songs of the world.— Libraries and library work in Canada. BRIEFER MENTION 387 NOTES 388 TOPICS IN MAY PERIODICALS 389 LIST OF NEW BOOKS 389 THE MEANEST OF TAXES. The tariff bill now under consideration by Congress is, viewed as a whole, a rational embodiment of the pledges of the party which was given control of the administration for the express purpose of enacting such a measure, and, as such, offers cause for congratulation to those who understand the simple proposition that all forms of special privilege are undemocratic and inimical to the interests of the whole people. It makes a notable extension of the free list, and it reduces to reasonable proportions many rates of duty that have been swollen to outrageous figures by the gluttonous greed of the hogs that have been permitted to crowd about the tariff feeding-trough for many years past. But in the general chorus of approval that comes from the throats of all save the above-mentioned animals (whose grunts of dissatisfaction supply the har- mony with its basso ostinato), there is one dis- cordant strain of disgust and indignation that deserves a hearing, because it voices the disap- pointment of all educated men at the discovery that the tax on knowledge is to remain as a disgrace to our statute-book. President Wilson is so obviously and typically a representative of the scholarly class of our citizenship that it seems almost unbelievable that he should not have used his utmost influ- ence to secure the abolition of the import duty on books. When the measure at last found its way into print, we turned to it with the confi- dent expectation of finding that this obnoxious tax had been deleted, and found, to our amaze- ment, that it had merely been made the subject of a compromise—that fifteen per cent had been substituted for the twenty-five per cent hitherto assessed. It is a case in which the principle is so much more important than the amount of the tax that we are unable to say "for this relief, much thanks," and must continue to protest against the new rate, as we have always pro- tested against the old one, as an intolerable exaction, as an expression of a spirit that gives the lie to all our boast of encouraging education, or of caring for the higher interests of civiliza- tion. When even the tax on art is no longer left to shame us in our own eyes and in the eyes of the enlightened part of the world, the far more atrocious tax on learning is, it seems, to 364 [May 1 THE DIAL be perpetuated. Our laws discriminate every- where, and quite properly, in favor of religious and moral endeavor, in favor of the special claims of women and children to protection, in favor of charity and philanthropy, in favor of art and science and education, and here, in a violent contradiction of spirit, they still propose to discriminate against the cultivation of intel- ligence by putting an artificial difficulty in the way of the scholar who seeks to secure the pro- fessional tools of his trade. The physician, the clergyman, the engineer, the historian, the philologist, the poet, and all the others who constitute the class of our most desirable citi- zens must continue to be taxed by the national government upon the instruments necessary to their efficiency. It is surely a topsy-turvy civ- ilization in which such a thing is possible. The amount of the tax, it need hardly be urged, is not the question at issue. The real objection to the imposition is twofold, resting upon both theoretical and practical grounds. As a matter of principle, the tax is indefensible because it places a stigma upon forms of en- deavor that it is the duty of every civilized government to encourage. As a matter of practice, it makes it impossible for a scholar to send to London for a book that he needs, and have it brought to his house by the postman; to obtain an English book that is dutiable is now a complicated enterprise that has to be care- fully planned out. It involves not only paying the few cents of the tax, but also the paying of various fees and a certain amount of vexatious correspondence. In the simplest case, when the victim is fortunate enough to live at a port of entry, it involves an interview with the collector of customs, and a possible altercation as to the value of the book which the postal authorities have delivered up for duty. What it means to a scholar who lives in some town far removed from a custom-house, we can only conjecture, never having had his experience, but it prob- ably means that he will go without the desired book rather than suffer the many annoyances attendant upon getting it. And all for what? To the government, for an amount of revenue that is absolutely insignifi- cant, to say nothing of the moral cost at which it is secured, for an amount of revenue that is perhaps two per cent of that which the govern- ment renounces by putting sugar on the free list. To the American printer, for a remotely possible and minutely fractional reduction in the total of his type-setting. To the American publisher, for a problematical slight increase in the sale of the very few books that may be sufficiently similar to those desired from London to be pur- chased instead. And with every such sale, a burning indignation in the breast of the cus- tomer because he is forced to do with the makeshift. For it cannot be too emphatically pointed out that the taxation of English books does not, except in very rare instances, protect American publishers in the sense of enlarging the sales of their own publications. One book does not, as a general rule, compete with another, and the scholar who is thwarted in getting what he wants is not very likely to substitute for it something which he wants much less, if at all. And yet, every argument that is ever advanced in favor of the taxation of English books is advanced as ostensibly in the interest of the Treasury, the typographical union, or the Amer- ican publisher. Besides these, there is only the chauvinistic plea that all foreign ideas and pro- ducts (especially in thought and art) are under suspicion as corrupting to our robust Amer- icanism. But these arguments and pleas, mis- erable as they are, trivial, unworthy, and narrow-minded, have for many years burdened our intellectual life with what we have called the meanest of taxes, and seem likely to be allowed to continue so to burden it, unless the outcry against the tax shall acquire sufficient volume to force its way into the pachydermatous minds of our national law-makers, and awaken some glimmering consciousness of the unintelli- gence of their present determination in this vital matter of their attitude toward education, and scholarship, and spiritual enlightenment. OPEN MINDS: A TEXT FROM WILLIAM JAMES. William James's vigorous onslaughts on the closed systems of rationalism, together with his insistence on "pragmatic openness of mind," will very likely be remembered when the substance of his philosophy —if one may disengage it from his attitude—shall have been forgotten. Like Emerson, he will doubt- less be finally esteemed as a knight-errant of the human spirit, intent not on gathering his intellectual wealth within an imposing and impregnable fortress, but rather on freeing the aspirations of men and en- abling them to enjoy "a healthy-minded buoyancy" in the wide, open universe. In all his writings, I think there is nothing more typical of his attitude than this phrase: "and thereupon to come to a full stop intellectually." No land could be so fair that one might wisely linger in it; no reading of earth could be profitable if one read only a few chapters. 1913] 365 THE diajl: Movement, to James, is the first essential of mental life—and movement without a terminus. It must be added, though hardly in detraction, that in preaching eloquently the value of open- mindedness, James was not so much a prophet of the next age as a typical voice of his own—our own — time. The open mind is particularly abundant rather than particularly rare to-day. Dogma has perhaps never been so unpopular; written creeds are inter- preted with comfortable laxity, unwritten creeds are very fluid; few men can support a panacea for a lifetime; in the arts, in criticism, one will seldom detect standards. "The bellyband of its universe," says James of rationalism, "must be tight"; but although a few of our philosophers may affect a tight bellyband when they dress up the universe, the age is for the most part shockingly negligie. We do not require that a man, in his acts and utter- ances, be consistent with his past; instead, we merely expect him to look toward the future. No one is re- spected so heartily as the man with the open mind. Now, it would be absurd to regard open-minded- ness as intrinsically more desirable than thick- headedness. Pragmatism, if nothing else, would quickly lead us to that conclusion. As every virtue has its defect if we let it sprawl, so to speak, open- mindedness may mean nothing better than intellec- tual confusion. "Our past apperceives and cooper- ates," writes Professor James; "and in the new equilibrium in which each step forward in the pro- cess of learning terminates, it happens relatively seldom that the new fact is added raw. More usually it is embedded cooked, as one might say, or stewed down in the sauce of the old." But to point out the exact stage of the process when the new knowledge is thoroughly cooked is extremely difficult; and one suspects that, after all, a great deal is added raw or only slightly cooked. To be open-minded often implies, in this strangely confused, mirthful, aspiring twentieth century, that we are fervid in the causes of out-door sleeping, psychical research, woman's suffrage, eugenics, the latest species of socialism, moving pictures in the church, perhaps even free love. If you shy at any one of these, and dash down the road to the old and tried pastures, you are a "reactionary,"—a term of abuse which I venture to think no more opprobrious than Cotton Mather's "Frenchman." (Speakingof Mather one might, by the way, raise the interesting question whether he was or was not open-minded in believing in witchcraft, that curious progenitor of psychical research.) But if you decide to be a "pro- gressive" and espouse the causes of the day, what shall you do in the event of their failing? To-day you are open-minded if you believe in out-door sleeping; but if the physicians tell us to-morrow, as they may be expected to do, when we are all sleeping under the stars, that out-door sleeping is unquestion- ably the cause of appendicitis, why then you will be open-minded if you buy an old-fashioned four-poster and sleep in your bedroom. Readiness to receive anything and everything into one's mental storehouse we might call demo- cratic open-mindedness. Under this form of intel- lectual government all ideas enjoy sufferance, or if you will suffrage. In religion, the democratic open mind will declare that Christ was assuredly divine and that there is no reason why we should refuse to believe in miracles, even though the charming assertions of the higher criticism and of evolution are equally true; in politics, it will accept radical forms of direct popular government and remind you that the idea of representative government must be retained in its purity; in music, it will applaud the person who remarks that Beethoven has never been improved upon, and at the same time it will main- tain that Debussy has ushered in a new and glorious era of musical history; in literature, it will grant the preeminence of Fielding and Thackeray, on hearsay, perhaps, and rise to effervescent enthu- siasm over the novels of Mr. Bennett and Mr. Wells; in painting, it will adore Titian and Velasquez and think that the eccentricities of Post-Impressionism are sublime; in the enchanting world of sports, it will assert that football is superior to any other sport save baseball, cricket, hockey, and a dozen others, that walking is the noblest form of recrea- tion but that an automobile tour is the "greatest thing ever." It will embrace all things with appa- rently the same degree of fervor; and if you suspect it of mental indigestion, will look so robust that you would be quite tactless if you voiced your suspicion. The democratic open mind is so optimistic and genial that it is immensely popular—it is supremely adapted to the mood of society, having no rough edges, no prejudices, no reticences. Indeed, so desirable is the democratic open mind, from the social point of view, that it is often imitated by those who are temperamentally unfit for it. In such cases the result is generally uncomfortable to the imitator and to society. The sense of incon- gruity is as obvious as in cases of "kittenish" de- portment on the part of elephantine persons, or stylish dress indulged in by those whom the styles do not fit. Your imitator of the democratic open mind is always aware of the inconsistencies that his attitude toward life is based on, and they make him very unhappy. He "Knows what he knows as if he knew it not, What he remembers seems to have forgot. His sole opinion, whatsoe'er befall, Centring at last in having none at all." He is not born to the part, and consequently totally lacks the magnificent impudence of the genuine democratic open mind. A much commoner creature than either of the above is the snobbish open mind. The snobbish open mind welcomes only what is unhackneyed, prizes only what has an indefeasible claim on nov- elty. Now, novelty may imply newness of more than one kind. In a period when the leaders of thought look to the past for inspiration and au- thority, novelty will mean what is very old — may apply to Pre-Raphaelitism as well as to Post- 866 [May 1 THE DIAL Impressionism. To-day, however, when the old is anathema, novelty has in strictness only one mean- ing—what is so modern that it would have startled the old fogies. The snobbish open mind is primarily interested in what is recent, and will prefer contem- porary third-rate or fifth-rate excellence to the first- rate excellence of the past. It is in perpetual alarm lest the name or the cause that it celebrates should meet general recognition and thus lose the essential trait of novelty. A few years ago one could easily make a blue-book—or a black list — of the snobbish open minds by recording the membership of the Browning Clubs. To-day Browning has receded into the past, he has won a fairly definite and secure position, and the Browning Clubs, alas, are becoming more and more "respectable." Your snobbish open mind ignores him as it ignores Donne, and bestows its affection on tbe performance of M. Bergson and his fascinating trained bear, the klan vital, or on the scintillant heterodoxy and orthodoxy of Mr. Shaw and Mr. Chesterton. It admires Debussy, though less emotionally than a few years ago, and is inclined to scorn Bach and Beethoven and even the more recondite Brahms. Could Bach have composed a "L'Isle Joyeuse " ?—it does not occur to the snob- bish open mind that Debussy could never compose a "Das wohltemperirte Klavier." The sober, old- fashioned people who shudder at discord and refuse to grant that Debussy has "form," are promptly re- minded that the heresy of one period is the orthodoxy of the next; and if the old-fashioned people humbly suggest that not all heresy is finally orthodoxy, that some of it is merely forgotten, they are asked what they know about it, since the future alone can tell what will happen in the future. From a social point of view, the snobbish open mind is of course less desirable than the democratic. Since there are many people who unite the qualities of excellence and conservatism, the snob finds him- self engaged in incessant petty frays and now and again a pitched battle. Whereas the democratic open mind instinctively adopts the opinions that it encounters, the snobbish open mind is given to a fondness of "contradiction for its own sweet sake," and is a little hurt if you agree with it. It has no love for flabby democracy; if the topic of eugenics is broached, and if you emit a spark of enthusiasm, the snob has no opportunity to display his superiority. If, however, you hint at your disapproval, up goes the defiant chin, the eyes rain fire as from batteries, and verbal arguments pour into you like grape and canister. No quarter is given, the ammunition is inexhaustible, even the call to dinner may afford no refuge; and if you do escape, how bourgeois you feel! One can hardly say that the snobbish open mind is desirable socially. It is vehemently pre- judiced, and may be termed open only in the sense that it welcomes every fad. These several types of open mind wellnigh ex- haust the possibilities. Clearly, they are, as we have intimated, not preferable to the thick heads that oppose them and that help to make this world so delightfully diverse. But there is another type of the open mind, a type entirely admirable, more useful, indeed, than any kind of thick-head educes. It is not democratic—does not espouse everything; it is not snobbish — does not choose the unusual on the assumption that the unusual is superior; it is, rather, aristocratic, in a good sense, holding to that which is best. It is this type, I suppose, that William James implied by his phrase "pragmatic openness of mind," though for my part I suspect that pragmatism tends to be somewhat democratic. The following passage from James's address at the Emerson centenary in Concord illustrates pretty clearly what I mean by the aristocratic open mind: "Such a conviction that Divinity is everywhere may make of one an optimist of the sentimental type that refuses to speak ill of anything [this is onr democratic type]. Emerson's drastic perception of differences kept him at the opposite pole from this weakness. . . . Never was such a fastidious lover of significance and distinction, and never an eye so keen for their disoovery. His optimism had nothing in common with that indiscriminate hurrahing for the Universe with which Walt Whitman has made us familiar." Whitman is an excellent example of the demo- cratic open mind, having as few prejudices as any human being is likely ever to have; and Emerson is an excellent example of the aristocratic open mind, not because he had many prejudices—an open mind, by definition, cannot have—but because he had that love of significance and distinction that James de- scribed so well. Wherever Emerson went, he went as a learner, believing that each man sees Truth from a different angle and might give him what he could not get unaided. He was ready to test the virtue of the most unpromising Transcendental whims, even when they sent him to his study break- fastless. Believing that work in the garden might be ennobling, he plied the spade at the risk, as his little son once remarked, of digging his leg. But having been open-minded enough to experiment, he was also open-minded enough to recognize that the experiments failed — henceforth, like a wise man, he enjoyed his breakfast and did little work in the garden. Without accepting recklessly, he tried everything, believing that "man was made for con- flict, not for rest. . . . The truest state of mind rested in becomes false." His greatness consists largely in his discriminating type of open mind, just as Cardinal Newman's conspicuous limit consists in the fact that his mind, though it contained untold wealth, was deliberately kept shut. The sifting instinct that is essential in the aristocratic open mind is dependent on standards. Emerson's standards were those of individualism,— the unfolding of the self according to natural ten- dency. In Arnold, who had in some respects a more open mind than Emerson, the standards were those of culture, of humanism—the symmetrical development of roan to his highest capacity, which involved a regard for institutional life that was absent in Emerson. Standards of some kind are 1913] 367 THE DIAL the primary requirement of aristocratic open- mindednes8. To-day, unhappily, standards are excessively rare. Those who possess them are gen- erally thick-headed, and at best remind us of Dr. Johnson's highly engaging prejudices. Abundant as the democratic and the snobbish open minds are, we have few aristocratic open minds. And we ur- gently need more of them. Norman Foerster. CASUAL COMMENT. Fond memories of book-land, as it revealed itself to the eager eyes of unspoilt childhood, are cherished by all adults who have not been the victims of literary starvation in those hungry years from infancy to adolescence. A responsive chord will be struck in many a breast by Mr. Henry James's account of the effect produced on his young imagi- nation by "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In "A Small Boy and Others," reviewed elsewhere in this issue, he says: "We lived and moved at that time, with great intensity, in Mrs. Stowe's novel—-which, recalling my prompt and charmed acquaintance with it, I should perhaps substitute for The Initials, earlier mentioned here, as my first experiment in grown-up fiction. There was, however, I think, for that tri- umphant work no classified condition; it was for no sort of reader as distinct from any other sort, save indeed for Northern as differing from Southern: it knew the large felicity of gathering in alike the small and the simple and the big and the wise, and had above all the extraordinary fortune of finding itself, for an immense number of people, much less a book than a state of vision, of feeling and of consciousness, in which they did n't sit and read and appraise and pass the time, but walked and talked and laughed and cried, and, in a manner of which Mrs. Stowe was the irresistible cause, generally conducted them- selves." How much of boyhood's actual impressions, and how much of Mr. James's later conception of what those impressions must have been, or ought to have been, is to be found in his interesting and always characteristic references to books read and things seen and persons met in those formative years, who can say? The late Edward Dowden's literary achievements, in the way of number and quality of his published works, make an impressive showing when summed up in obituary notice of the lamented scholar and critic whose recent death leaves a sad gap in the ranks of the older English writers of solid attainments and recognized authority. His long term of service as Professor of English Literature at Dublin University, where he was educated and where he received his appointment in 1867, at the age of twenty-four, was diversified with the produc- tion of many critical studies for a larger public than that with which he came in contact as teacher and lecturer. His various writings on Shakespeare are among the best fruits of his scholarship and industry, as is also his elaborate biography of Shelley, even after all deductions have been made which the reader of Mark Twain's famous onslaught on the book may feel inclined to make. Wordsworth and Southey were also among Dowden's favorites, and so were Browning and Montaigne; and of them all he wrote with critical appreciation and in a manner acceptable to readers. His various collections of shorter essays, such as "Transcripts and Studies," "Studies in Literature," and ''New Studies in Literature," have brought him deserved fame as a sound literary critic and an engaging writer. Characteristic of Dowden the bookman was the fact, recorded in "Who's Who," that his chief recreation was book-collecting. Born in 1843 (May 3), he had nearly completed his seventieth year when death overtook him. The public library on the prairie is not yet, and for some time will not be, the most conspicuous feature of the landscape. In the State of Iowa, for example, where the Public Library Commission is only about as old as the century, it is announced by the Secretary of that body, in her current biennial Report, that the number of free public libraries on the municipal tax basis has now reached one hun- dred and twelve, with one additional library main- tained by private endowment; also, within the past year, two additional county-seat towns have voted in favor of the establishment and maintenance of public libraries, thus reducing the number of shire towns without libraries to fourteen. A striking contrast this, of course, to the condition of things in the thickly-settled Eastern States, where the town or village without some sort of library privileges is fast becoming the exception. But Iowa has made a good beginning and will achieve great results in time, though when it is remembered that there are in the State not far from two hundred towns with a popu- lation of one thousand or more, of which little above one-half are yet provided with libraries — to say nothing of the smaller settlements — the task for the future will be acknowledged to be a big one. Travelling libraries, however, and local library asso- ciations are sowing the seed of future permanent libraries. An interesting fact to be noted in this connection is the liberality shown by Mr. Carnegie in helping on the movement; either alone or, in a few instances, with other benefactors he has provided with buildings seventy-four of the one hundred and twelve public libraries in Iowa. • • • HOW TO PRESERVE ONE'S SELF-RE8PECT, THOUGH A writer, is a problem of vital interest to compara- tively few, but to those few it is indeed something more than an academic question. A contemporary author of distinction has been heard to declare that he should be ashamed to have written a book that had sold to the extent of one hundred thousand copies. There is somewhere in Crabbe's poems a delightful character, a scholar, who "might have writ a book but that bis pride in the not writing was 368 [May 1 THE DIAL more gratified "—the quotation may not be exact. Charles Lamb, racking his brain for a daily half- dozen jokes for the newspaper press, and receiving a paltry sixpence apiece for his witticisms, and at about the same time writing for the" Morning Post," "where more than two-thirds of his materials are superciliously rejected," as Mr. Lucas tells us, pre- sents a rather pathetic spectacle. In the "Open Letters" of the April "Century" many readers will have noted Mr. Simeon Strunsky's shrewd com- ments on certain features of present-day journalism. In the form of a letter "to a future graduate of the School of Journalism," he amusingly contrasts the methods of the writer for pay and the writer for something less expressible in terms of dollars and cents. To a supposed reporter of the latter class he says, in closing: "You will have to work for a respectable newspaper and be a thirty-dollar man for some years to come. But, after all, is n't it true of every calling that you must pay back your em- ployer for the self-respect he permits you to retain? ... In general, you will be granted the luxury of so doing your work as to inflict a minimum of pain on the weak and the innocent. . . . And I imagine you will find the thirty-dollar job quite as profitable as the other kind, in the long run." Yes, there are destinies more unenviable than that of him who adopts the motto of the early Edinburgh Reviewers and cultivates the Muse on a little oatmeal. The dignity of the librarian's office will be belittled by no librarian worthy of his high calling. Others may here and there be found who hold in too little esteem both that official himself and the position he occupies. Even our honored Emerson, no scoffer in general, allows himself something like a sneer at the profession in his assertion that the custody of books carries with it no guaranty of superior learning in the custodian. Evidently he had not read and pondered the words of that excel- lent bibliothecary, Jared Bean, who in his justly famous "Old Librarian's Almanack " thus expresses himself: "I am sensible that there will be some who will enquire as to what qualities should be possess'd by him who stands thus as Guardian of the Books. These may think (if perchance the hasty and frivol- ous workings of their ill-taught minds may be so dignified as to call it thinking) that it matters little what the character of the Librarian be. Such as these cannot too soon become aware of their error. For how can it be possible that a man can act as Warder of the accumulated record of the world's wisdom, piety, learning, & experience, and hold the same in necessary reverence, if he be not a person of sober and Godly life, learn'd, virtuous, chaste, moral, frugal, and temperate?" A worthy follower in the footsteps of Jared Bean is the head of the Leavenworth Free Public Library, who, entering upon his present duties within the past year, so conceives of the true significance of his office that in the very opening sentence of his current Report, after proper salutation to the Board of Directors, he declares: "Without doubt the occurrence of greatest importance to the Library in the course of the year has been the change of librarians." And the pages that succeed this remark carry conviction to the reader that under its new administration the Leaven- worth Library is growing in usefulness. Its cir- culation advances, its book-collection increases, its activities widen. • • ■ The insistent demand for art in the theatre —for the play with an idea behind it and originality in its accessories — continues to upset the complacency of the commercial managers and to put the thinking public, which is proving itself to be hopefully numerous in some quarters, in the mood for theatrical experiments by managers in the mood to try them. One of the most recent of these is the opening of the Princess Theatre in New York, where a clever and versatile repertory company, under the direction of Mr. Holbrook Blinn, will devote its tal- ents to the production of short plays, such as have made the fame of the "little theatres" of Paris. The capacity of the Princess is about the same as that of Mr. Ames's Little Theatre; and its decora- tive scheme, if not so original as Mr. Ames's, is still unusual and very beautiful. The theatre's policy of producing short plays of merit, hitherto relegated to the menial position of "curtain-raisers" (when they were fortunate enough to be produced at all), is one to arouse enthusiasm in the hearts of drama-lovers imbued with the modern spirit. The opening bill, consisting of two comic skits, and one grimly, one gaily tragic piece, is novel and engrossing enough in material, and played with sufficient cleverness and versatility, to presage some measure of success, at least, for the experiment of the Princess Players. The Parisian flavor of the entertainment is unneces- sarily accentuated at present, but it is not essential to the idea; and as the one-act playwrights discover the Princess and the Princess discovers them, New York's first "the'Stre a cote'" will, we hope, develop a flavor of its own, as clever and as modern as its Parisian counterparts, but saner and more thor- oughly artistic. Improvident poets not only escape the serious censure of posterity for their unthrifty habits, but even have a way of winning added favor by reason of this very lack of worldly foresight. Poe's ina- bility to extricate himself from his pecuniary straits endears him the more to his readers and admirers; Whittier's Quaker thrift gains our approval and esteem, but excites no warmer feeling. Shelley's impulsive giving of his precarious income to Godwin and others, followed by a compulsory avoidance of impatient creditors, seems quite in keeping with the poet temperament; Browning's sleek and pros- perous appearance moves the observer to question whether that can indeed be the author of "The Ring and the Book." The late Francis Thompson, who seems to be more and more coming into his own now that he is no longer among us to serve as fortune's plaything, is said to have been so poor a 1913] 369 THE DIAL manager of his own business affairs that he was as likely as not to throw into the fire the checks received by him in payment for his poems. Another poet (probably less esteemed now as a poet than as an eccentric humorist and a delightful letter-writer) who could show now and then a splendid indiffer- ence to his own pecuniary interests, was Edward FitzGerald. On one occasion, after receiving a periodical payment of interest on a mortgage note from a debtor of long standing, he calmly tore up the bond of indebtedness in the man's presence and told him the payments had gone on about long enough and the account might now be considered as squared. The Woodbridge recluse's habit of Using Bank of England notes as book-markers is a further illustration of his little regard for the sacred ness of property (when it chanced to be his own). A reminder of Balzac, and of the terrors that his manuscript is said to have had for the composi- tor, is about to pass away in the demolition of his house in the Rue Visconti, or the Rue Marais, as it was called in his time. The lengthening of the Rue de Rennes, or other change in the topography of the left bank of the Seine, appears to be causing this removal of ancient Paris landmarks. The storied Passage du Pont Neuf, familiar to readers of Zola's "Therese Raquin," is already doomed, and now the old house in which Balzac established his printing office must go. And this recalls the ruinously ex- pensive method of literary composition adopted by the always debt-oppressed author of the "Comedy of Human Life." His novels were practically writ- ten on a series of printed revises, "Cesar Birotteau" being, it is said, recomposed fifteen times in the twenty days during which it grew and repeatedly reshaped itself under his hand. A compositor, Champfleury has told us, "did his hour of Balzac as a convict did his time in prison." A veritable fiend at cancellation and interlineation the novelist must have been considered by the luckless manipula- tor of the types. Probably Balzac never read (or if he read it he failed to heed it) Chesterfield's counsel to his son not to allow himself on any pretext the weakness and folly of crossing out a word and writ- ing another over it—a sure sign of indecision and temperamental flabbiness, though those are not the Earl's exact words. Balzac's method was that which the careful Pater afterward made his own, without carrying it to such extremes. • • • Mr. Morgan's library, of which he never en- couraged the publication of any detailed description, has for those who are fond of rare books and costly manuscripts an interest and a charm intensified by something of myth and mystery. We know that that beautiful marble building adjoining his New York residence holds the most splendid private col- lection of incunabula and illuminated manuscripts and other literary treasures that can anywhere be found; and it is also averred that, like Lorenzo the Magnificent, the late owner of this princely library not only possessed the taste and the means to acquire the best that was to be had in literature and art, but also was thoroughly familiar with his acquisitions and appreciated their value. A few of the choicest of these treasures may here be named: the " Golden Gospels " of Henry the Eighth, the "Naples Offices of Giulio Clovio," and many other illuminated manu- scripts of priceless worth, Caxtons in considerable number, perfect Aldines and "tall" Elzevirs, Byron manuscripts, Blake's original drawings for the " Book of Job," the originals of Horace Walpole's letters, the manuscript of Keats's "Endymion," Shelley's notebook, letters of St. Francis de Sales and of other saints, the originals of many of Burns's poems, manuscripts of Dr. Johnson, Swift, Scott, including nine of the Waverley Novels, and a great number of other masterpieces in the original manuscript; also rare and costly bindings such as nowhere else are to be found. ... A DRAMATIC MEETING OF EXTREMES i8 to be found in the twentieth-century cinematographic presentation of the "Odyssey," written or sung eight hundred years before Christ. Though the scenes and incidents thrown on the screen may not all be free from anachronisms and other errors, the general effect ought to awaken interest in the great epic and to win for it not a few new readers. The time and money required for the preparation of this elaborate production have been more worthily spent than is commonly the case in motion-picture dis- plays. Whatever the crudities of the presentation, it at least helps to familiarize the public with the name of Homer. A similar graphic introduction to the "Iliad" might be made both instructive and entertaining. Such incidents as the fetching of Briseis from the tent of Achilles, Ulysses rebuk- ing and smiting the impudent Thersites, Patroclus donning the armor of Achilles and driving the Trojans before him, his fatal encounter with Hector, the combat between Hector and Achilles, and Priam begging the body of his son for burial, would serve to outline the famous story of the wrath of the Greek chieftain and its momentous consequences. The people, especially the young people, insist on having their motion-pictures; let them, then, have such as may incite them to the reading of good literature. ... The full names of well-known authors are often as little familiar to their readers as is the fur- ther side of the moon to astronomers. Not one in twenty of those who have read Oscar Wilde could give his baptismal names unabridged,— Oscar Fin- gall O'Flaherty Wills. Likewise few know that Charles Lever's full name is Charles James Lever, that Victor Hugo is short for Victor Marie Hugo (perhaps he had other names also), that Woodrow Wilson was named Thomas Woodrow, that Charles Dickens received at the baptismal font the fuller designation of Charles John Huff am, and so on. A few weeks ago there appeared in the New York "Sun " a communication from Mr. William Henry Bishop in which he says that when he was consul 370 [May 1 THE DIAL at Genoa he one day chanced to find in the official archives a letter written by the author of "Brace- bridge Hall" and signed "George Washington Irving," but that, though he regarded the signature as good evidence of Irving's having been christened in the fuller form thus indicated, he had been unable to confirm this assumption by other testimony. The biographers and the compilers of biographical dic- tionaries do indeed seem to be uninformed of this apparent suppression of his first name by Irving in his ordinary correspondence. But our researches in the matter have not been exhaustive. An event of significance in the publishing world was the recent quarter-centennial celebration, at Philadelphia, of the Jewish Publication Society of America, an organization that has its headquarters in the Quaker City and that has done much to prove to the world the high quality of Hebrew scholarship. It takes pardonable pride in its early recognition of Mr. Israel Zangwill's merit as a writer, and in the fact that some of that author's first works bear the Society's imprint. Good English translations from ancient and modern Hebrew literature are among its noteworthy publications. That the Jew has a way of demonstrating his ability and zeal in what- ever he undertakes is generally recognized. In our public schools, the intellectual battle-ground of the youth of many nationalities, no class of pupils can be found of greater average quickness to learn and desire to learn than the children of the Ghetto; and in our public libraries they are much in evidence as the most earnest and industrious and intelligent of road on. COMMUNICA TION. MR. EZRA POUND AND "POETRY." (To the Editor of Thb Dial.) Our national aphorism, "Some things can be done as well as others," may be, as Mr. John A. Hobson has pointed out, a great asset in material affairs, but when it is acted upon in matters of art its value grows doubtful. We have dramatic enthusiasts ignorant of the art of acting, amateur stage managers unable to manage, compilers of verse without judgment, editors who have never before edited, all seeking to uplift masses eager to learn, yet all placing stumbling-blocks, through their own lack of standards, in the way of those earnestly aspiring to the heights. Though no one can quarrel with literature in its highest form, nor with any periodical devoted to such a cause, one must regret that " Poetry " is being turned into a thing for laughter. No one need offer any par- ticular criticism of the earlier work of Mr. Ezra Pound; it is as he prefers it. But with the practical identifica- tion of " Poetry " and Mr. Pound one may pick a very pretty quarrel, since it involves not only a lowering of standards, but a defense of the thesis, unusual in "A Magazine of Verse," that poor prose must be good poetry. Take this from the April number: "O my fellow sufferers, songs of my youth, a lot of asses praise you because we are 'virile,' we, you, I! We are 'Red Bloods'! Imagine it, my fellow sufferers — our male- ness lifts us out of the ruck. Who'd have foreseen it? O my fellow sufferers, we went out under the trees, we were in especial bored with male stupidity. We went forth gathering delicate thoughts, our 'fantasikon' delighted to serve us. We were not exasperated with women, for the female is ductile. And now you hear what is said to us: We are com- pared to that sort of person who wanders about announcing his sex as if he had just discovered it. Let us leave this matter, my songs, and return to that which concerns us." Is this anything but prose? and dull prose? Is it interesting, except to psychopathologists and students of barbaric survivals in the twentieth century? Does it reveal a personality, or hint at work one would like to know better? "But," some of Mr. Pound's admirers have answered, "it has subtle rhythm." To which the obvious reply is that English poetry has no subtle rhythm, nor can it have until its ictus, the strongest and most insistent in the history of speech, becomes subtle. The technical problem of English verse is largely the variance of rhythm, but the variances, again, are seldom subtle. The subtler rhythms in English literature are in its prose; and, it may be added, if subtlety implies difficulty of immediate discernment, the worse the prose the more subtle its rhythm. Take an instance from another source: "When Narcissus died, The pool of his pleasure changed From a cup of sweet waters Into a cup of salt tears, And the Oreads came weeping Through the woodland That they might sing to the pool And give it comfort. "And when they saw that the pool had changed From a cup of sweet waters Into a cup of salt tears, They loosened the green tresses of their hair. And cried to the pool, And said: "' We do not wonder that you should mourn In this manner for Narcissus, So beautiful was he.' "' But was Narcissus beautiful?' Said the pool. "' Who should know better than you?' Answered the OreadB. 'Us did he ever pass by, But you he sought for, And would lie down on your banks And look down at you, And in the mirror of your waters He would mirror his own beauty.' "And the pool answered: 'But I loved Narcissus Because as he lay on my banks And looked down at me, In the mirror of his eyes I saw my own beauty Mirrored.'" This is not an unusually beautiful example of vers libre. On the contrary, it is Oscar Wilde's "The Dis- ciple," which its author called a " poem in prose." And it is prose — poetic prose assuredly, but prose. Wilde did not write it as it is written here, in what might be called Jerked English, any more than Mr. Pound wrote the previous specimen with the lines run together. Wilde knew his to be prose and wrote it accordingly; Mr. Pound believed his to be poetry and so wrote it. Certainly " The Disciple " is the more poetic of the two. But whether a given literary composition is poetry or not, does not depend upon the manner in which the 1913] 371 THE DIAL type is arranged on the printed page. If this were so, the printer would be the poet, not the writer. When Mr. Pound's various examples of what he considers poetry are printed as prose, they are prose. In con- trast with Wilde's in any form, they are prosy prose. Mr. Pound's admirers insist, however, upon the essen- tial originality of his recent writings, and say that in destroying the conventions of rhyme and rhythm he is expanding the province of poetry. It is possible that, following the manner of Whitman, he is aiding in the fixation of a third form of literary expression, prose in form, poetic in content. But surely, after Macpherson and Whitman, that is no claim to originality. One of Mr. Pound's defenders has said in words what " Poetry " has been teaching by implication, that "formal rhythm is not necessary to poetry." Such a statement involves complete confusion between two sig- nifications of the word poetry. We speak with pro- priety of a sermon, an essay, an oration, a novel, a prose drama, indeed of any work of art, as " poetic," meaning thereby that it arouses in us emotions similar to those excited by poetry. But poetry, like every other Art or art, is concerned with form as well as substance. It is the metrical ar- rangement of words to express beauty, Poe's " Music plus Idea," and formal rhythm is as essential to it as to its sisters by birth, Music and the Dance. To deny that is to deny poetry, alone among the Arts and arts, the possession of a technic, reducing it forthwith below the level of literary prose, which unquestionably has technic; it will be recalled that Walter Pater refused through life to write poetry because it confused this. And it is to deny the technic of ascertained metre unchallenged through thirty centuries. In this sense alone Mr. Pound's work is original. The attitude of « Poetry " toward poetry is that of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy toward Medical Science. Yet, if poetry have no technic and, left formless there- by, is at one with illiterary prose, why devote a maga- zine to it? Every newspaper, programme, advertise- ment contains similar English — and English quite without false pretence. As has been pointed out, technic qua technic possesses charm for the cultivated mind. It is hardly too much to say that nothing atechnical has survived in any Art. Reduced to its simplest terms technic is knowing how — the experience of the ages manifesting itself in practice. Moreover, within the canons of the art there is perfect freedom; without, the baldest enslavement to every passing fad and fancy — as here. Remember that youth essaying his first poetic flights draws strength for his wings largely from the greater poets who precede him and leave him heir to their powers. Every beginner imitates, and one familiar with his predecessors has little trouble in naming the sources from which he chooses his forms of expression, if not his thoughts. It is not until he has outgrown this period of unconscious assimilation and attained his own manner that he is worthy the name of poet. For, as Mr. Pound has observed, " Any donkey can imitate a man's manner." In the April number of " Poetry" there are a dozen examples of Mr. Pound's work. Much the larger part of them are prose, like the one cited. The origins of all are evident. Whitman at his prosiest accounts for much, and in one Mr. Pound insists that he and the older bard have one sap and one root. There are (ouches here and there of MM. Maeterlinck and Albert Mockel, and something of Mr. W. B. Yeats. Nor should Stephen Crane be forgotten. The last instance is Japanese in content, though without the beautiful definition of the Japanese form. In other words, Mr. Pound's lines are derivations, experiments in the man- ner of a novice, searchings after individual expression without attainment. His roots are far back in the- traditional past, inevitably. If one searches for originality of thought, it is not here. Whitman had something to say and said it; Mr. Pound is still occupied with youthful Bohemianism and impudence. His intense egoism, too intense to carry self-confidence with it, is apparent. The power of self- criticism implied in a sense of humor is lacking. A care for syntax has gone the way of other traditions. One of his efforts has the ring of Mr. Roosevelt before a vice commission. Feeling for words and for form is slight. Imagination is in abeyance. The Song of Solomon fathers the most poetic of his work in style and substance. Thought is everywhere tenuous and capable of compression in statement, and the philosophy is uncertain. Some of the lines seem written for inde- cency's sake, which is more than those contending for "art for art's sake " ask for. Most objectionable is the familiar attitude of the charlatan, announcing that his- is the only cure, and that those disagreeing with him are the real quacks. But Mr. Pound may be left to the court of appeal the years will hale him before, if he survive. Many young men write verses, or wish to, and are impatient at the restraints which lack of technic imposes. If one of them lives to attain full poethood, the verses of his- artistic adolescence meet with one of three fates: they are suppressed, they are completely rewritten, or they appear in his published works as juvenilia — itself an apology for their survival. The case is different with the magazine which has chosen to employ and exploit this young man. It has- been able to do this consistently only by a supercilious dismissal of the great tradition of English poetry, using "traditional" as a term of contempt. And there is so- much for it to do by a maintenance of the standards. We have seen the tradition expanded by men dead only yesterday,— Swinburne and William Vaughn Moody. Mr. Yeats has enlarged its boundaries by a little. The- modern social feeling, the growing solidarity of women, the wonders of science are clamoring for poetic expres- sion. Though there be no great poets among us, John Churton Collins has pointed out that from their lesser brethren "it is in some respects but a step to the work of the great poets of the next age." The editors of the usual magazines have their own standards, and many of the singers of the day know their best work to be- at variance with these standards. It was hoped that "Poetry " would search out these poets and such poems, many of them of much significance and beauty. So far there has been little done in these directions. The quest has seemingly been for the bizarre, for the astonishing, for the novelty for novelty's sake, even for the shocking. The paper of the magazine has been poor, the type that of the newspapers, the cover and form inadequate to the dignity of the cause, the proof- reading heedless. The editor too seldom allows a num- ber to go out without containing her own verses, though these show a steady retrogression from a once high standard. Her own sense of self-criticism in abeyance, Mr. Pound was bound to occur. Wallace Rice. Chicago, April 22, 191S. 372 [May 1 THE DIAL &bj I«to lloohs. Mb. Jamks'S Memories of Boyhood.* As a work of art, which from its very authorship it could not fail to be, Mr. Henry James's latest book, "A Small Boy and Others," might be said to belong to the Im- pressionist school, with perhaps here and there, in the extraordinary elaboration of certain minor details, suggestions of Pre-Raphaelitism. Whether any touches of later schools, of Post- Impressionism, Cubism, Futurism, are to be discerned in its pages — this question it might be unwise to answer too emphatically either in the affirmative or in the negative. At any rate, the work is a piece of exquisite artistry, with all the characteristics of its author's style raised to their highest power. Impressions of childhood, veiled more or less darkly by the intervening years, form the substance (though that is too strong a term to apply to things so nebulous in their general outlines) of Mr. James's twenty-nine autobio- graphic chapters. Starting avowedly with the purpose "to place together some particulars of the early life of William James and present him in his setting, his immediate native and domestic air, so that any future gathered me- morials of him might become the more intelli- gible and interesting," the writer soon found his own boyish figure so unavoidably present in the forefront of all those childhood scenes of half a century and more ago, that he gave over the attempt to restrict his reminiscent narrative to its first-chosen subject, considering it a sort of "cold impiety" to suppress even his own part in the juvenile drama now rendered sacred by the death of its senior performer. But any- thing like close companionship with that older brother seems to have been rendered impossible by the immense gap of sixteen months' differ- ence in age; so that the younger "never for all the time of childhood and youth in the least caught up with him or overtook him." "He was always round the corner and out of sight, coming back into view but at his hours of extremest ease. We were never in the same schoolroom, in the same game, scarce even in step together or in the same phase at the same time; when our phases overlapped, that is, it was only for a moment — he was clean out before I had got well in. How far he had really at any moment dashed forward it is not for me now to attempt to say; what comes to me is that I at least hung invet- erately and woefully back, and that this relation alike * A Small Boy and Others. By Henry James. With portrait- New York: Charles Scribuer's Sons. to our interests and to each other seemed proper and preappointed." Pathetic and comical is the picture later pre- sented of the smaller boy offering his company when it was not desired, and of the larger "putting the question of our difference at rest, with the minimum of explanation, by the re- sponsible remark: 'I play with boys who curse and swear!'" The rebuffed one had sadly to recognize that he didn't, that lie couldn't pre- tend to have come to that yet. Not unnaturally, he wonders now, hardly less than he wondered then, in just what company his brother's privi- lege of profanity was exercised; and he con- tinues, in delightfully self-revealing vein: "It was n't that I might n't have been drawn to the boys in question, but that I simply wasn't qualified. All boys, I rather found, were difficult to play with — unless it was that they rather found me; but who would have been so difficult as these? They account but little, moreover, I make out, for W. J.'s eclipses; so that I take refuge easily enough in the memory of my own pursuits, absorbing enough at times to have excluded other views." It is, then, with his own pursuits, his own mem- ories and impressions, that Mr. James chiefly concerns himself in his chapters; and with a few more glimpses of his boyhood world, as seen through his eyes, this review will have executed its pleasant task of introducing the book to the reader. Early in the volume the origin of its author's partiality for England and things English is ingeniously and at some length traced. The pare rite had visited London with their two infant children, and there inoculated them with the virus, or dosed them with the "poison," as the writer himself calls it, which rendered the younger boy, at least, thenceforward unrespon- sive to the call of patriotism. Moreover, a ma- ternal aunt, member at one time of the James family circle, "had imbibed betimes in Europe the seeds of a long nostalgia," and her memories, "through some bright household habit, over- flowed at the breakfast table"—this breakfast table, by the way, having its place alternately in New York, Albany, Fort Hamilton, and New Brighton. It was home talk of this sort that created and strengthened the belief that "En- glish life" was the superlatively desirable life; and furthermore,— "My father had subscribed for me to a small peri- odical of quarto form, covered in yellow and entitled The Charm, which shed on the question the softest lustre, but of which the appearances were sadly intermittent, or then struck me as being; inasmuch as many of our visits to the Bookstore were to ask for the new number —only to learn with painful frequency that the last con. 1913] 373 THE DIAL signment from London had arrived without it. I feel again the pang of that disappointment — as if through the want of what I needed most for going on; the En- glish smell was exhaled by The Charm in a peculiar degree, and I see myself affected by the failure as by that of a vital tonic. It was not, at the same time, by a Charm the more or the less that my salvation was to to be, as it were, worked out, or my imagination at any rate duly convinced; conviction was the result of the very air of home, so far as I most consciously imbibed it. This represented, no doubt, a failure to read into matters close at hand all the interest they were capable of yielding; but I had taken the twist, had sipped the poison, as I say, and was to feel it to that end the most salutary cup." A migratory hotel life at home, varied with occasional sojourns abroad, brought the observ- ant and reflective lad into some sort of personal though quite distant and bashful contact with an occasional person of note, the recollection of whom heightens the charm of his narrative. From these recollections let us quote first a passage relating to certain vaguely-remembered school days at the "Institution Vergnes," in lower Broadway. "To a 'French school' must have been earnestly imputed the virtue of keeping us in patience till easier days should come; infinitely touching our parents' view of that New York fetish of our young time, an • acqui- sition of the languages '— an acquisition reinforcing those opportunities which we enjoyed at home, so far as they mustered, and at which I have briefly glanced. Charming and amusing to me indeed certain faint echoes, wavering images, of this superstition as it played about our path: ladies and gentlemen, dimly foreign, mere broken syllables of whose names come back to me, attending there to converse in tongues and then giving way to others through failures of persistence — whether in pupils or preceptors I know not. There hovers even Count Adam Gurowski, Polish, patriotic, exiled, tem- porarily famous, with the vision of his being invoked for facility and then relinquished for difficulty; though I scarce guess on which of his battle-grounds—he was so polyglot that he even had a rich command of New Yorkese." Recalling his juvenile impressions of current politics, the author says: "The field was strictly covered, to my young eyes, I make out, by three classes, the busy, the tipsy, and Daniel Webster. This last great man must have rep- resented for us a class in himself; as if to be 'political' was just to be Daniel Webster in his proper person and with room left over for nobody else. That he should have filled the sky of public life from pole to pole, even to a childish consciousness not formed in New England, and for which that strenuous section was but a name in the geography-book, is probably indeed a sign of how large, in the general air, he comparatively loomed. The public scene was otherwise a blank to our young vision, I discern, till, later on, in Paris, I saw — for at that unim- proved period we of the unfledged did n't suppose our- selves to ' meet'— Charles Sumner." Boyish memories of famous English artists and actors, as seen in their several perform- ances, on canvas and behind the foot-lights, fill one enjoyable chapter, in which the author blushes to acknowledge that " the grand man- ner, the heroic and the classic, in Haydon, came home to us more warmly and more humanly than in the masters commended as 'old,' who, at the National Gallery, seemed to meet us so little half-way, to hold out the hand of fellow- ship or suggest something that we could do, or could at least want to." From memories of the London stage at that time, the following is of interest: "Our enjoyment of Charles Kean's presentation of Henry the Eighth figures to me as a momentous date in our lives: we did nothing for weeks afterwards but try to reproduce in water-colours Queen Katherine's dream- vision of the beckoning, consoling angels, a radiant group let down from the skies by machinery then thought marvellous — when indeed we were not parad- ing across our schoolroom stage as the portentous Cardinal and impressively alternating his last speech to Cromwell with Buckingham's, that is with Mr. Ryder's, address on the way to the scaffold. ... I was to have my impression of Charles Kean renewed later on — ten years later, in America — without a rag of scenic rein- forcement; when I was struck with the fact that no actor so little graced by nature probably ever went so far toward repairing it by a kind of cold rage of endeavour." We get a passing glimpse of Thackeray, who, the author says, " struck me, in the sunny light of the animated room, as enormously big and who, though he laid on my shoulder the hand of benevolence, bent on my native costume the spectacles of wonder." The "native costume," of which the wonder-exciting portion consisted of a short and tight brass-buttoned jacket, is shown in the frontispiece portrait of the small Henry standing with one hand resting on the shoulder of his father, who is seated. General Winfield Scott is another whose personal ap- pearance photographed itself in heroic propor- tions on the young memory and imagination. "We must have been for some moments face to face," he says, recalling a walk in Fifth Avenue with his father, when the veteran soldier emerged from a cross street, " while from under the vast amplitude of a dark-blue military cloak with a big velvet collar and loosened silver clasp, which spread about him like a symbol of the tented field, he greeted my parent — so clear is my sense of the time it took me to gape all the way up to where he towered aloft." Little, indeed, do we see of the boy William James in all these vivid and engrossing pictures of the past; and this is to be regretted. But there is hope that fuller memorials of him will appear in the collection of his letters to be pub- 374 [May 1 THE DIAL, lished later. The "small boy," however, who serves as the central figure of the book, is sketched before our eyes in such strokes as it is a marvel and, to lovers of Mr. Henry James's books, a delight to follow. The whole is exe- cuted in that master's most unmistakable man- ner; and even the less ardent admirers of his style cannot but feel the charm of the book as soon as they get fairly into the swing of its peculiar mode and method. It is a remarkable piece of autobiographic writing. Percy F. Bicknell. A Deliverance on the Drama.* Can we by taking thought add a cubit to our stature? Can the winds by lashing the waves raise the average level of the ocean a single inch? But at least hy effort and exercise we can keep ourselves supple and undiminished, and the agitations of the sea prevent it from stagnating. In this view all the recent discussion of the things of the theatre, the formation of drama leagues, the production of plays by small reper- tory companies and at half private theatres may work for good. There are two factors needed for the produc- tion of a powerful and significant drama. The first is the appearance of a great dramatist or group of dramatists. These are far more rare than great comets. Hardly more than a score all told can be numbered in the history of the world. The second factor is the rage or mania for dramatic representation sweeping through the general mind. This is similar in its quality and action to other great instincts or possessions which at different times have seized upon the world—the instinct for building cathedrals, for picture painting, for music, or for novel writing and reading. When the two elements in the case come together, we get a drama which is worth while. When they do not cohere, lit- erary creators who are potentially great drama- tists, Scott and Dickens for example, turn to other forms of their art. Or the people at large cease to crave the profound and powerful mo- ments of the drama and use the theatre merely as a means of amusement. Perhaps by much talking to, the people may be headed off and compelled to take an interest in serious dramatic work, if only as a fashion, but creative power •The Foundations ok a National Drama. A Collec- tion of Lectures, Essays, and Speeches, Delivered and Writ- ten in the Years 1BS6-1912. (Revised and Corrected, with Additions.) By Henry Arthur Jones. With portrait. New York: George H. Dormn Co. cannot be so compassed. We may call up spirits from the vasty deep, but will they come? Few contemporaries have a better right to speak about the possibilities of reviving the drama than Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, the distin- guished English playwright, whose "Founda- tions of a National Drama" is recently published. It is a collection of essays, addresses, and letters relating to the modern theatre and its produc- tions. As the book is so miscellaneous in form we cannot do better than give Mr. Jones's gen- eral summary of what he is arguing for, the things really needed by drama and stage. "1. To distinguish and separate our drama from popular amusement. "2. To found a national or repertory theatre where high and severe literary and artistic standards may be set. "3. To insure that a dramatist shall be recognized and rewarded when and in so far as he has painted life and character and not according to his ability to tickle and bemuse the populace. "4. To bring our acting drama into living relation with English literature: to win from critical opinion the avowal that the drama is the most live, the most subtle, the most difficult form of literature: to bring about a general habit of reading plays such as prevails in France. "5. To inform our drama with a broad, sane, and profound morality; a morality equally apart from that practised amongst wax dolls and from that which allows the present sniggering, veiled indecencies of popular farce and musical comedy. « 6. To give our players a wide and varied training in their art. "7. To break down as far as possible the system of long runs. "8. To distinguish between the play that has failed because it has been inadequately interpreted and one that has failed on its own demerits. "9. To bring the drama in relation to other arts: to establish it as a fine art." Three of the points in this list seem to us of supreme importance: to get people to distinguish between real drama and "anything to amuse"; to get them to accept plays as literature and to read them; and the question of morality. There is another point which Mr. Jones does not include in his summary, though he treats of it elsewhere in the book, and that is the issue be- tween the playwright and the player, the strug- gle as to which is to dominate the theatre. Two nations, France and England, have adopted absolutely opposite methods in this matter. In France the play has always been the first con- sideration; in England and America, the actor or actress. The result is plain enough, one would think. In France there has been a living and interesting drama for three centuries. The very best French men of letters have practiced as playwrights. In England there have only 1913] 375 THE DIAL been sporadic specimens of brilliant drama, and the great writers have written poetic plays for the study. Amusement is a necessity of the human mind, and Mr. Jones admits that people will not pay to be bored. "Legs and tomfoolery," he says, are necessary on the stage. The trouble which the serious playwright has to confront is this,—his work has to bring in a large amount of money at once or it cannot appear. His rivals in other serious kinds of literature may be able to wait; he cannot. He must succeed now, if at all. How many copies of the works of Dar- win, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wordsworth, Shelley, or Keats were sold in the lifetime of those writers? If any one of them had been compelled to get a return of from five to ten thousand dollars the first week one of their books was published, the book would never have been published at all. There are apparently only two ways in which the problem can be solved for the serious dramatist. He may throw enough amusement into his work to carry its profundity, or else national, patriotic, or reli- gious forces may come to his aid and establish theatres of a high standard. The question of bringing the drama into relation with literature is a question of getting people to read plays. Once a published play sells even a reasonable edition it will not be ignored. Why the habit of reading plays ever went out is a curious matter to consider. As late as the days of Goldsmith and Sheridan, a playwright after a successful first night could be sure of a large fee from a publisher for his work. And even a later generation, that of Lamb, Hazlitt, and Hunt, habitually read and discussed recent dramatic productions. It was the novel which eclipsed the play, as it did the poem. The last two forms of literature require some intellectual effort from the reader. In the novel everything is done for him,—it is, one may say, predigested food. A good play, which is only one-fifth as long as the average novel, may contain as much mental nutrition,—hence intellectual dyspepsia to those unaccustomed to such strong food. But as our great desire to- day is to save time, as the short story has largely displaced the long novel, the very brevity of the play ought to recommend it to readers. The greatest stumbling-block in the path of the drama, however, is the question of morality. The best way to meet it, is to ask how it is possible to frame a story of any kind without some threatened or actual fracture of a good law, custom, or habit of mankind. You can as little have an action without sin as a man with- out a shadow. Even Sunday-school tales have to project vices such as pride, gluttony, selfish- ness, and so forth. Even our tea-cup American novelists have to deal with infractions of social usage and taste. Mr. Howells in his charming "Lady of the Aroostook" makes an awful tragedy out of a young girl crossing the ocean unchaperoned, though in the care of an elderly sea captain. If we are to have a drama at all we must let it deal with life in all its height, depth, and breadth. Possibly human beings would be better without any such knowledge of life, but to attain a really satisfactory state of ignorance and innocence we should have to abolish Bibles, books, newspapers, conversa- tions, law proceedings, in fact the whole organ- ization of the world. English and American theatre-goers are still in the stage of a country audience which identifies the man who plays the villain with his part and proceeds to throw bad eggs at him. There was an instance of this kind in the early career of Henry Irving. He was inclined towards the gruesome, and what with playing "The Bells" and reciting" The Dream of Eugene Aram" he got on the nerves of some of the London critics, who suggested that an actor with such a penchant for murder must be himself a doubtful character. Irving brought suit against the worst of his libellers and received substantial damages. We do not say that the dramatist who deals with the most extreme exhibitions of passion, vice, sin, and criminality does so primarily with the idea of saving the souls of his auditors. He deals with them because in them reside the most tremen- dous effects of human nature, and every dra- matic instinct in him responds to their appeal. But in all probability they do much to save souls, as thunderstorms clear the air, as the spectacle of the drunken Helot frightened the Spartan youth into virtue. Mr. Jones's book is rich in suggestive themes, and it is impossible to touch on all of them. Here and there we think he betrays a bias. For instance, he is pretty hard on the English dramatic writers preceding his own era. Now we are inclined to think that, admitting all charges of fustian and staginess, such produc- tions as "Virginius," "The Hunchback," "Richelieu," " Money," "The Lady of Lyons," "Caste," " Home," and "Our Boys " are good plays. They have an essential humanity in them, and certainly the breath of theatrical life. They have kept the boards down to a very recent date, and we think it is doubtful whether Mr. 376 [May 1 THE DIAL, Jones's generation of playwrights will furnish as many successes for posterity. Another in- sistence of Mr. Jones's is his demand that play- wrights shall be thoroughly trained in the tech- nique of their art. What technique? Greek, Shakespearean, Sheridanic, Sardouesque; the training of the Lyceum, the music halls, or the transpontine drama? Apparently anything in monologue or dialogue can be put upon the stage and can succeed. It is probably well to have some connected story, but nobody has ever yet solved the mystery of the plot of "The Black Crook." It is probably advisable not to split your play into innumerable scenes,—but "Peer Gynt" has been presented with success. It is probably the right thing to tell your story by means of action rather than of narrative, but the great effects of the Greek theatre were got by narrative. There is absolutely no rule which a great dramatist cannot violate, and which an audience will not ignore if it pleases them to do so. Many brilliant dramatic writers have won their first successes when they were too young to know what training was. Congreve, aged twenty-one, goes up to London with "The Old Bachelor" and makes a hit. Sheridan, at about the same age, goes up to London with "The Rivals " and wins instant fame. Boucicault, still younger, goes up to London with "London Assur- ance " and it is the one permanent production of his life. Here, as in all arts, the intangible unexpected thing called genius is all in all. Mr. Jones's style is sometimes, especially in the addresses delivered to University audiences, a little stilted and extra-literary. When he lets himself go, however, he can be brilliant. He does let himself go most of all in the letters on the Censorship muddle, where he is not only thoroughly sound but very amusing. That is a complication, by the way, which we do not have to deal with in America, — though we believe the Mayors of some of our cities have assumed censorial functions. Charles Leonard Moore. Max as a Machine.* It was inevitable that the general acceptance of the doctrine of evolution should affect our ideas concerning the causes and nature of be- havior. To the question, why do I do this or that, it is no longer sufficient to give a simple •The Science of Human Behavior. Biological and Psychological Foundations. By Maurice Parmelee. New York: The Macmillan Co. answer. Had the verses about Mary and the lamb been written in these latter days, we should have been obliged to refer to the well-known gregarious tendencies of the Ovida?, and a num- ber of other matters, to explain why the lamb loved Mary so. Dr. Parmelee, having in mind the unity of the whole evolutionary process, be- gins his book with the proposition that "psychi- cal and social phenomena should be reduced as far as possible to biological terms, just as vital phenomena should be reduced as far as possible to chemical and physical terms." He therefore discusses the physico-chemical basis of behavior in general, and then the anatomical and physio- logical basis, following the matter up through the different groups of animals, only reaching man at the latter end of the book. We are thus led to see in human behavior a complex and special type of that organic response to stimuli which has been observed all along the line, from the protozoan up; but which has from time to time entered upon phases distinct enough to re- quire separate classification. We also see that this evolution has been conditioned by the evolu- tion of bodily structures, and in particular of the nervous system. It follows from all this that the sociologist or psychologist cannot afford to consider man alone, since so much of what he must observe and describe has its roots in the distant past, long prior to the appearance of our species in the world. It must be admitted, then, that Dr. Parmelee is entirely right in urging that biology and com- parative psychology are necessary for the correct understanding of human behavior, and is to be commended for the attempt to supply, in a clearly written and not too voluminous work, the more essential data for this purpose. On the other hand it seems to me that the book as a whole may be justly criticised, not so much for its own peculiar faults, as for the pedagog- ical spirit which it represents. The author seems to confuse classification with explanation. In classifying animals, it is useful and necessary to note that eagles and chickens alike are birds, and dwell upon the common characteristics which make them so; it is essential to observe that birds, reptiles, and fishes alike are verte- brates, and so on; but the true zoologist never forgets that these great categories are merely, as it were, the bindings of the great books of nature, the pages of which are so numerous and so diversely illustrated. It is necessary to be synthetic, but the tendency may go so far as to be vicious. This we see in our everyday affairs, where so much harm arises from our off-hand 1913] 377 THE DIAL classification of people as good and bad, honest and dishonest, stupid and clever, and so forth. What we need so much in practical life is the ability to see in each other, not examples of classes, but rather special and unique personal- ities, each to be treated on its own peculiar merits. In doing this we are indeed synthetic, in that we find a single personality in the mul- tiple phenomena afforded by the individual, but this is naive or intuitive synthesism, not that of the comparative psychologist or anatomist. Evolution has been so enormously complex, that were we in possession of all the data we could not comprehend them. On the other hand, the fundamental principles of biology, which give us a broad understanding of evolu- tionary processes, are relatively simple; so simple, in fact, that no reasonably competent person should grow up without some knowledge of them. Teaching directed to this end ought to be wholly beneficial, but I believe that it is so only when care is taken not to implant in the minds of young people the thoroughly vicious idea that everything in man and nature is " ex- plained" by a few simple rules. Artificial, bogus simplification is perhaps the dominant error of modern science, as taught in the schools. It represents a necessary tendency carried much too far, and perhaps as a corrective to this we may find it desirable to introduce detailed tax- onomic studies, which will at any rate bring the student into contact with the "number of things " of which this world is so full. As an extreme example of the condition of mind possible to a "reducer" of biological phe- nomena, we may take Professor Parmelee's treat- ment of consciousness. In the following quota- tions I have italicized the significant words: - For the reasons given above, we are justified in be- lieving that consciousness is objective if it exists at all, and that consequently it is possihle to study it scienti- fically. What, then, is consciousness as an objective phenomenon, if it exists at all? I have already suggested that it may be a form of behavior" (pp. 313-314). "We have seen that we have no tangible evidence of such a thing as consciousness" (p. 319). The reader will have difficulty in believing that this is anything but a burlesque on a certain school of modern psychologists and physiolo- gists! The discussion of the theories of evolution, occupying the greater part of two chapters, seems rather inadequate and superficial, and raises the question whether the topics included under this head should not be treated in every case by a biologist. The easy way in which difficulties are smoothed over is shown by the following: "As we have already seen, the gen- erating of the primordial protoplasm, similar to crystallization, takes place in large part as a result of the molecular forces inherent in the ele- ments which constitute organic matter." What will the student gather from this? Literally, it is so meaningless that it is difficult to say whether it is accurate; but it quite leaves out of account the fact that we know actually nothing of the genesis of the primordial protoplasm, and that the occurrence, whether explained by "molecu- lar forces" or otherwise, was perhaps the most tremendous event in the history of the world. T. D. A. COCKERELL. The Writers of the Knglish Romantic Period.* In referring to "the modern vice of reviewing a book without giving a clear image of its con- tents," Professor Elton, of the University of Liverpool, unintentionally sets up a standard that may well appal the reviewer of his two recent volumes. They contain together a total of 830 pages, and the number of words to the page is from four to five hundred. The author's purpose is thus stated in his Preface: "This work has been termed a survey and not a his- tory, though it contains matter for the historian, and his point of view has been kept in mind throughout in the arrangement of the theme. But the historical aspect is meant to be subordinate; and the book is really a review, a direct criticism, of everything I can find in the literature of fifty years that speaks to me with any sound of living voice. As the motto on the title-page may indicate, it is a series of judgments upon works of art. I do not know what literature is unless it is an art. Life and ideas, society and manners, politics and affairs, must always be studied in order to understand that art and to judge of its productions. But on each of these productions our last word must be an answer to the questions, Is it well done? Does it last? What is it to me? Even the further question, How does it arise? is less ultimate and imperative. It is of course equally right and needful to study literature for the light which it may cast upon other things — upon thought or ethics or national character; but that is a different enterprise, not to be confounded with the present one, although the material may often be the same in the two cases." Though he confines himself to a survey, and stresses letters rather than thought, Professor Elton is right in saying that his work contains matter for the historian. To be sure he excludes formal treatment, not only of contemporary life, • but of other interesting topics of scholarship, ■ *A Survey of English Literature, 1780-1830. By Oliver Elton. In two volumes. New York: Longmans, Green, & Co. ■ , 378 [May 1 THE DIAL such as the mental relationships with Germany, and the indebtedness of romanticism to antiquity. He even resists the temptation to follow the side-trails that lead from individual men, such as the discrepancies between Wordsworth's theory of education and that of Rousseau, and Cole- ridge's " plagiarisms " from Schelling and A. W. Schlegel. But he fully understands that "in this second English Renaissance, ... as in the first, there is not only a great and successful flowering of creative art; . . . many of the seeds are brought from other lands, or else are handed down alive, after a long residence in darkness, from the ancient world." And though he may not consider these cognate and germinat- ing forces en masse, he shows their main bear- ings in his treatment of the several authors. "The Prelude," for example, is connected not only with the secular confession which sprang from the desire to expose one's self, but also with the Puritanic or Protestant mania, which reveals itself in Bunyan and even the more re- strained Milton, for recording the history of the soul "for the good of the world." In fact, there is nothing in the survey more praiseworthy than its absence of the provincial note, its easy readi- ness in linking the romantic writers with kindred or contrasting spirits of other races or times. Yet it is mainly concerned in making us see them as literary artists. It is little hampered by the furious squabble between "classic" and "romantic," and is faithful to the motto from Hazlitt: "I have endeavored to feel what is good, and to give a reason for the faith that was in me, when necessary, and when in my power." That Professor Elton admits, though "with some hesitation," summaries and studies of tendency, may be seen from such of his chap- ter titles as "The End of the Classical Verse: Crabbe," "The Novel of .Manners and Jane Austen," "Prose of Doctrine: Scottish Phil- osophy, and Burke," "The Official Reviewers," "Historians and Other Prose Writers." It may be seen especially in the initial and the closing chapter. Here forty pages are consumed in sketching the background and tracing the chief characteristics of the period. Because of the very generalizations which Professor Elton else- where tries to avoid, and because of the state- ment of his conception of the age as a whole, these chapters claim our attention. The roman- tic age is found to inherit three mental features from the period 1700-1780: (1) the impulse of criticism, . . . "a thorough, hostile scrutiny of received opinions in metaphysical, moral, and social science, and in art"; (2) the use of learn- ing and science for reconstructive effort; and (3) the growing tendency of "the shaping spirit of imagination" to recover its higher uses. The last of these qualities dominates the new age. "Poetry is in the ascendant, and nearly all the best prose is creative, and is doing the work of poetry. The imagination is working freely, and not, as it must in history or sociology, under the restrictions of fact. . . . This reunion of poetry and prose under the rule of the free imagination is the great mark of our literature from 1780 to 1830." And the ultimate secret of this changed imagi- nation is "the convalescence of the feeling for beauty." This manifests itself in three ways. "First of all, the senses of the artist are regenerated; this is at the bottom of everything. Secondly, his renewed perceptions of the face of living nature are attended by a vision of humanity, a new passion and humor, the expression of which is brought under the law of beauty. Thirdly, this new knowledge and self- knowledge are read in the light of new ideas; philo- sophical conceptions and visions invade literary art, and are brought under its law." But before these new senses, new sympathies and passions, and new ideas could be brought under aesthetic restraint, the central problem of the new literature had to be solved — the problem of diction. To be adequate, the lan- guage of the age had to be sensuous and con- crete; it had, on some occasions, to regain its fitness for the lofty and heroic style; and it had, at the other extreme, to press plainness to the lowest poetic limit. In spite of mistakes, all three of these necessary ends were attained. Nevertheless it is the study of individual writers upon which Professor Elton throws the emphasis. To "give a clear image" of the sub- stance of each separate study is out of the ques- tion. The substitution of an inquiry into general methods and values is imperative. We shall restrict ourselves to three things — the author's style, the scope of his investigations, and the rightness of his conclusions. The style is clear, flexible, pleasing. It meets the exactions of long journeyman service. It rarely draws attention to itself, and is satis- fied to reflect ideas. Aptness of phrase is not lacking: "everywhere in Lockhart we have the sense of something bigger than his set"; Sydney Smith's " usual tone is that of a man exposing stupidity to the stupid"; the "Annals of the Parish " has the effect " of a piece of history seen through near-sighted eyes"; and some of Scott's songs swing along "with a galloping, abducting kind of tune, like 'Young Loch- invar.'" Yet this aptness is at the farthest possible remove from affectation. The power to condense — as much a habit of mind as of 1913] 879 THE DIAL, language—is revealed again and again. Cow- per, we hear, "was inspired by the love of Milton and the love of simplicity, and his real feat is to have found a poetic language that reconciled these two affections." And once more: "Of women, Landor, Scott, Words- worth, and Shelley always write like gentle- men; while Byron, Moore, and Keats can never wholly be trusted to do so." Another trait — likewise inseparable from the thought behind it—is the ability to make effective comparisons. Two examples must suffice. The first has to do with two sets of personages from the standpoint of the kind of conversations they engage in: "Meredith's make many wonderful strokes and dozens of false ones, but are so heady and high-spirited that they carry the game through and disarm criticism. Peacock, we feel, has scored out every word which he feels will not ring as sharply fifty years afterwards. Yet he does not write, like Sheridan, up to a prepared joke; he does not seem to know himself what is coming; there is the true air of impromptu, only no misses are allowed." The second is self-explanatory: "With Milton we fly by the map, taking our bearings amidst the evenly-whirling spheres, and seeing hell and heaven at a measurable distance in a certain direction. With Keats we fly like a bee, near the ground, from one cup of honey to another, and with long alighting*, But with De Quincey we are in absolute space, which has no bearings, or firm earth, or north or south; and yet it is peopled with human faces and memories and monu- ments—themes to fix and control the imagination, which else would stray intolerably." A study of all the writers of the period strikes one as a pretty large order; perhaps most readers would test its thoroughness by seeing what had been done with such minor figures as Godwin, Leigh Hunt, or the "Ettrick Shep- herd." The present reviewer makes such a touchstone of Gait. But Professor Elton does not stop with men like these; he patiently ex- amines others yet humbler, even such as are not primarily literary at all. Numbers mean little ordinarily, but some idea of the amount of space devoted to out-of-the-way men, period- icals, and topics may not come amiss. A page is given to each of the following: William Maginn, Charles Lloyd, Crabb Robinson, and "Baron Munchausen." Half as much again falls to Dugald Stewart and the researches in the ballad between Percy and Scott. The "Retrospective Review," Robert Eyres Landor, and Hartley Coleridge are alloted two pages each. Scott's narrative metres claim more than three pages, and Praed is given four. It must not be supposed, however, that the author has extended himself in a kind of printer's ink tour de force. On the contrary he has had his say, without troubling himself about the space con- sumed, and without either halting or hastening. When it is perceived that the discussion of every individual, whether major or minor, leaves the impression of completeness, of being everything the author thinks necessary, 830 pages seem amazingly few. The present reviewer recalls but two persons who fail to receive proper re- cognition: surely Lord and Lady Holland were too inextricably interwoven with the literature of the time to be ignored. The method of studying individual men, instead of starting with hard and fast prin- ciples and commending or condemning as these are observed or violated, is justified upon two grounds. In the first place, the controversy between "classic" and "romantic"—a contro- versy that can never terminate in the complete victory of either—has blinded many critics to the actual achievements of the age. In the second place, " there is no orchestra in roman- ticism"; it gives us, rather, "many songs by no means in accord." It is necessary that the writers be studied separately, and it is necessary that each be approached with an open mind. Balance and rightness of judgment, the power to detect the merits of the particular issue, is everything. And the importance of Professor Elton's work rests upon the fact that he pos- sesses this discriminating tolerance. One may not agree with each separate conclusion, but one may be certain that no conclusion is reached in a hasty or partisan way. We are reassured in the opening chapter when, after stating that there are three types of poetry in the age— that which "is content to be very good," that "whose aim is doctrine," and that which "would have been different if questions had not been asked or answered, but . . . are not asked or answered in the poem,"—the author declares that each type is good and that the "aim and theme £of art] may be anything that will admit of its working under the law of beauty." It is in this spirit that he reviews the procession of figures, great and small, that march through the age. A closer examination of his method may be worth our while. Though not disturbed by the combats of literary schools, Professor Elton acknowledges no compulsion to keep his hands off when he wishes to touch debated points. He refutes, partly by reference to Dr. Johnson, the idea that melancholy was an exclusive or necessary attribute of romanticism. He pictures the affinities with liberating forces which underlay 380 [May 1 THE DIAL Jeffrey's tirades against them. And he shows the" downright and daylight genius" of the Wizard of the North by quoting a passage— Waverley alone by the unknown lake—that "unites every element in Scott's notion of romance—scenery, foreignness, literary mem- ories of ballad or lay, the sense of danger and wonder and solitude, and, last of all, the humorous return of Scott upon his hero, or upon himself, as he comes out of his bath of romance and shakes himself, and recommences realist and Lowlander." Moreover, he is not afraid to acknowledge the shortcomings of the romantic writers. He points them out frankly. He finds Byron's greatest weakness as an artist in his lack of the idea of saying a thing once for all. He sees the limitation involved in Scott's habit of extricating his heroes and heroines, of shrinking from the supreme subject of tragic art,—"the play of character in an inextricable position." He realizes that in Wordsworth " the struggle is after all too simple, the circuit too narrow," and the artistry too unsure for him to attain preeminence either as a sage or as a poet. But along with the ability to make distinc- tions and to recognize faults, Professor Elton has the power to appreciate worth. Nor is this too ready to defer to conventional opinion: how many critics would dare to confess that to them personally Byron is "an inspiration and a liv- ing force"? This sympathetic understanding nowhere shows better than in the discussion of technical matters—De Quincey's prose rhythms, Wordsworth's inventions of poetic forms, the metre of "Christabel," and the art element in Wordsworth's autobiographical poems. It shows quite as well, however, in matters where person- ality enters — Scott's lyric gift, the revealing na- ture of Lamb's and Hazlitt's criticisms, Keats's conception of the relations between beauty and truth, the extraordinary progress shown in the last works of Byron and Shelley. If Professor Elton does not startle us with novel conclusions, he opens new vistas of understanding and enjoy- ment, and we feel that even in his treatment of the less conspicuous writers he takes a whole- some pleasure in distilling out the soul of their goodness. It will be seen that this "Survey of English Literature, 1780-1830," is a notable produc- tion, indispensable to the student of one of the crowning eras of English letters. The mechani- cal features of the volumes are worthy of their substance. Well bound and clearly printed, they are more than usually free from the blemish of typographical errors. They contain ample notes, mainly given to bibliographies so distri- buted that only the chief authorities are men- tioned at first and those bearing on special topics are introduced as the need arises. They are also provided with a thoroughgoing index. Garland Greever. A Successor to Bartlett aud De Verb.* The task of compiling a dictionary of Ameri- canisms is beset with many difficulties. There is, first of all, the difficulty of deciding upon a satisfactory principle of selection,—of determin- ing, for instance, whether slang shall be included, or negroisms, or recent importations from for- eign languages. There is the further difficulty of making sure that a word, apparently restricted in its use to the United States, is not also cur- rent elsewhere. And there is always the diffi- culty growing out of the circumstance that our language is constantly changing, in consequence of which no such compilation can possibly be complete. Our latest dictionary of Americanisms, "An American Glossary," by Mr. Richard H. Thorn-? ton, of the Philadelphia bar, makes no preten- sions to completeness. It modestly proclaims itself to be a dictionary of "certain American- isms only,—those, that is, of recognized standing or of special interest"; and it anticipates harsh or unreasonable criticism on the ground of other shortcomings by confessing at the outset that it is not without faults and by inviting additions and corrections, A comparison of this new work with Bartlett's "Dictionary of Americanisms," the standard work on the subject for more than half a cen- tury, makes it clear at once that the earlier work records much the larger number of words. Bartlett records, by a rough estimate, about ten thousand words, whereas Mr. Thornton takes account of only about three thousand. This disparity is traceable in part to the fact already noted,— that Mr. Thornton has not attempted to make an exhaustive collection; but it is mainly due, we suspect, to the fact that Bartlett included in his dictionary a large number of words that are not properly to be reckoned as Americanisms,— words that are neither Amer- ican in origin nor peculiarly American in * Am American Glossary. Being an Attempt to Illus- trate Certain Americanisms upon Historical Principles. By Richard H. Thornton. In two volumes. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. 1913] 381 THE DIAL, their use. Mr. John S. Farmer's dictionary, "Americanisms Old and New " (1889), exhibits the same fault. Mr. Thornton, with the aid evidently of the Century and New English dic- tionaries, has striven to eliminate all superflu- ous items. At the same time, he has succeeded (here again with the aid of these dictionaries and of the Publications of the American Dialect Society) in collecting a good many words that had been overlooked by his predecessors,—a few, indeed, which, he holds, are now registered for the first time. Some idea of the number of new items that he has collected may be derived from a comparison with Bartlett's dictionary for the letters A, M, and W. Under A, Mr. Thornton lists 49 words not recorded by Bart- lett; under M, 91; and under W, 54. The total number of entries made by Bartlett under these letters is 681, of which Mr. Thornton rejects all save 108. It would thus appear that the number of new items recorded by Mr. Thornton is larger than the number brought over from Bartlett. The chief excellence of these volumes is to be found, however, not in the number of fresh items that are recorded, nor in the omission of superfluous items, but in the abundance of the illustrative extracts. Of these there are, accord- ing to the compiler's estimate, about 14,000 in all. Such material is obviously very valuable. It will not only prove extremely helpful to those who will consult these volumes for reference purposes, but it will also be of immense service to future lexicographers. Most of Mr. Thornton's citations are drawn from the first half of last century, the writings of John Neal, Seba Smith, R. M. Bird, Ken- nedy, Lowell, Longstreet, Baldwin, Hooper, and W. T. Thompson being prominent among those laid under contribution. Too few of the illustrations are, in our judgment, drawn from writers of the present generation. And the number of illustrations has not always been evenly proportioned to the importance or to the interest attaching to the words under which they are cited. Under the word bar (" the liquor counter in a saloon "), to mention a conspicuous example, only one illustration is given, although the term must have been in general use in this sense for a century or more; while the vulgar- ism bar (for "bear "), which is seldom heard to-day, comes in for eighteen illustrations. Sim- ilarly the phrases back-handed, back taxes, and black eye, all in pretty common use to-day, receive but one illustration each, from the years 1842, 1788, and 1795, respectively; while balance (in the sense of " remainder ") is given twenty-nine illustrations, boost eighteen illus- trations, gouge forty illustrations, and Yankee a total of fifty-eight illustrations. In the case of words in common use to-day but not fully illustrated, more of comment as to their vogue would have been helpful; and all provincialisms, colloquialisms, and vulgarisms might well have been designated as such. Fault may also be found, as was perhaps inevitable, with some of Mr. Thornton's defini- tions. The word allow, for instance, in its provincial American use, means not only "to be of the opinion that, to admit," but also (as two of the illustrations make plain) "to declare." Backwoods is not exactly "the forest prime- val." To bone up is not "to bristle up," but (as Bartlett has it)" to apply one's self closely." June bug is not "any insect that appears in June"; it is the term applied in the North to a blundering, brownish beetle, but in the South (usually) to a green-backed beetle, which is of a quite different genus. Nubbin, which Mr. Thornton defines as "an imperfect or spoiled ear of corn," is more precisely "a small ear of corn." And to shuck corn is not " to pull it from the stalk," but " to remove it from the husks" (or shucks). To skunk an opponent is not merely "to beat him thoroughly," but " to win all the points, to whitewash him." A water- haul is not, as we know it,"a cheat, a swindle"; and it originated, we believe, not, as Mr. Thornton suggests, in a fraud practiced by cer- tain government contractors in hauling by water while charging for " land-carriage," but in sein- ing. The definition "lady-bird " for lady-bug will be ambiguous to most Americans; as will also " communicate" for commune. Other de- finitions that are unsatisfactory for one reason or another are those appearing under ashcake, backing and filling (is the phrase properly accounted an Americanism?), chunk (first entry), Cumberland Presbyterian, dipper, Eastern shore, like all-possessed, phoebe, poke (second entry), rooter, rush (first entry), and stand pat. Clevis, mentioned in the preface as one of a number of words that survive in America but that have not taken root, is well-known— sometimes with the pronunciation clivis or clivy— in rural districts of the South, all the way from Virginia to Texas; and three other phrases,—doated wood, hard favoured, and het (for "heated "),—mentioned in the same list, are not infrequently heard to-day in some parts of the South. The same holds, also, for the phrase let on, in the sense of "make believe," 382 [May 1 THE DIAL which Mr. Thornton states he is not familiar with. The pronunciation crick, for creek, it may be added, is not universal in America. It is to be regretted, finally, that Mr. Thorn- ton did not enter more fully into matters of derivation and word-development. The phrase "on historical principles," in the sub-title of his work, would seem to imply that a good deal had been made of these matters; but although we do have an etymology here and there, the compilation is, aside from this, historical only in so far as the illustrative extracts are dated and arranged chronologically. Occasional bibli- ographical references—mainly from "Notes and Queries"—tend somewhat to offset this defi- ciency. In his preface, Mr. Thornton ventures a new classification of Americanisms, which serves roughly to indicate the lines along which his compilation has been made. Slang—even col- lege slang — has been largely excluded, in virtue of its ephemeral nature; and vulgarisms receive but small space. Considerable space, however, is devoted to nicknames and kindred appellations popularly assigned to notable persons and places and to political and religious movements, a class of words in which American speech would seem to be peculiarly rich. An interesting list of the books and periodicals on which the compiler has drawn for his illustrative materials is given in an appendix. Killis Campbell. Two Books on the Short Story.* The psychologists are like the armies of the French Revolution. They propose to remake the world,—if not by persuasion, then by force. A few years ago they came to the aid of the advertiser, and the effect upon the high cost of living has astonished us all. Now it is the short story. This invasion, as it is mani- fested in Professor Walter B. Pitkin's book, "The Art and the Business of Story Writing," is not unwelcome. To deny the importance of technique in the short story is to confess ignorance of the form; and as technique in the short story is chiefly concerned with the means of securing a certain effect, and as that effect must be made upon a reader's mind, psychology is evidently needed to explain the processes. * "The Art and the Business of Stokt Writing. By Walter B. Pitkin, Associate Professor of Philosophy in the School of Journalism of Columbia University. New York: The Macmillan Co. Studying the Short Stort. By J. Berg Esenwein. New York: Hinds, Noble & Eldredge. This book contains the first thorough analysis of the means by which character, setting, and plot produce the results for which the contem- porary editor is most willing to exchange his check. Professor Pitkin is as dogmatic as he is vivacious; in his certainty that the effect desired can be accurately defined he allows himself unlimited prejudices against all story methods which do not conform to his conception of narrative efficiency. And yet, since no one before has tried to get to the bottom of our short-story technique, it is unjust to abuse him for a single-minded pursuance of a critical method based upon premises which, if narrow, are sound. Indeed this is a valuable book. Its analyses are keen; its comments sometimes illu- minating; and it should help the writer, even when it angers him. Nevertheless the book is narrow, and a little depressing. The writer is frank in his purpose to teach craftmanship rather than art; and in this he does not limit his usefulness, for both artist and commercial writer must learn tech- nique, and need good books to help them. But though one applauds the usefulness of the pro- ject, Professor Pitkin's book shares a weakness- common to every work of this description which has appeared in English. He is obsessed by the mechanics of short-story writing. In the tumult over "effect," "thematic development," and " integration," that imaginative interpreta- tion of life which is the raison d'etre of fiction is but a feeble whisper, seldom heard and soon forgotten. It has no emphasis, and so assumes no importance in the whole. And thus, not- withstanding its admirable practicability, Pro- fessor Pitkin's text is an impulse towards virtuosity rather than art. Mr. Yeats speaks of "wheels and pulleys necessary to the effect, but in themselves noth- ing," with an indirect reference to contemporary drama which might be aptly applied to the com- mercialized short story. But Mr. Yeats is an extremist, though on the side of genius rather than mediocrity. Still, good evidence of the false emphasis of Professor Pitkin's book is to be found in the impression at closing it that any trivial idea if properly handled may make a great story,—a feeling, we believe, which the author was far from wishing to inspire. And good evidence of the narrowness of his psycho- logically developed criticism springs to sight when one notes that, for example, Tolstoi's "Master and Man " violates some of the most cardinal principles with conspicuous success. This book is useful, practical, and, for the 1913] 383 THE DIAL current American story, sound. ^Esthetically it is narrow, and perhaps a little blind; and its emphasis is entirely upon skilful mediocrity. Skilful mediocrity is perhaps as far as one can go in teaching the short story; but it is an ideal only for that large and useful class who make a business, and a good one, of feeding the American imagination with stories that are not too humorous, or too subtle, or too satirical, or too intense — in short, not too good for the average among a million subscribers. For the new profession of short-story making, Mr. Pitkin's book is best adapted; and indeed if he had called it " The Business of Commercial Short Story Writing: With Suggestions for Literary Workers," we should have little to offer by way of criticism. Mr. Esenwein's book is a brief encyclopaedia of the short story, containing some well-selected examples garnished with abundant quoted criti- cisms, and a critical and biographical sketch for each. With this book the student of a given story has his critical apparatus at hand when he begins to read. The scheme of printing on a half-page with space for annotations and com- ment is ingenious and probably useful. But Mr. Esenwein's own annotations should have been pruned. They are somewhat uncritical, and occasionally irrelevant. Their position, however, like guideposts pointing to a mountain view, is undeniably effective. Henry Seidel Canbt. Briefs on Neav Books. a woman's ^ne Meandering red line running journey through northwest and north from Haiphong western China. to Tachienlu, on the eastern border of Thibet, thence northeast to Chengtu, the capital of Szechuen province, and eastward, down the Yangtse River to Hangkow, whence it turns again north to Peking and thence northwest across the desert of Gobi to Verchneudinsk in Siberia, — this line across the map of eastern Asia marks the long lonely journey of an extraordinarily plucky woman. And yet Miss Elizabeth Kendall discusses her jour- ney in "A Wayfarer in China" (Houghton) as if it were little more than the pleasure jaunt of an ordinary tourist. A teacher of history by profession and instinctively a wanderer and a student of races, Miss Kendall desired to see China as nearly as pos- sible unaffected by treaty-port influences. She, therefore, got into western China by the most direct route, and moved north through the two great south- western provinces of Yunnan and Szechuen. This first portion of her journey—as far as Chengtu — was the most unusual until she reached Kalgan in the extreme north of China proper, and undertook to cross the desert of Gobi in an American buggy. The whole story of her experiences is very enter- taining. The absence of dangerous adventures with the rough element of the population of western China will surprise most readers. Certain it is that no Chinese woman could travel across the United States alone and report to her Chinese readers that she had met with impolite treatment only once, and then in a mild form. Miss Kendall found her chair- bearers and baggage coolies cheerful, willing, and obliging. They extended to her many thoughtful courtesies, — plucking wild flowers for her by the wayside, insisting upon the best accommodations for her at the inns, carrying her little Scotch terrier whenever his short legs gave out. The uniform friendliness between traveller and coolies speaks as loudly for the good temper of the American woman as for the good nature of the burden-bearers. Miss Kendall has many complimentary things to say of the Chinese people, and her judgment of the work of the missionaries is decidedly favorable. One receives from her bird's-eye survey of the western Chinese at home a fresh impression of those sub- stantial race virtues which the friends of China rely upon to insure the Republic a long and honorable career. The force of this impression is not at all lessened by the rapidity with which Miss Kendall accomplished her long journey by chair, ship, pony, and buggy; for she brought to the observation of country and people trained and mature powers, and she shows unusual self-possession, intelligence, and sympathy. Sociological To mo8t readers history means a interpretations record of political developments, an of history. account that notes especially the activities and policies of rulers, cabinets, and legis- latures. There are, however, a number of special types, such as literary, economic, and military his- tory. Recently the sociologist has begun to write history from his own particular point of view, and we now also have what claims to be sociological history. Mr. J. M. Robertson, a well-known En- glish critic, is the author of a new work entitled "The Evolution of States" (Putnam), wnich he offers as an illustration of the sociological type of history. Mr. Robertson's effort has been to find and discuss the great social forces that have directed and determined the careers of the more important states. These are, he believes, to a large extent economic, though he admits that racial differences and the strife of ideas have also affected the course of events. His work is, therefore, essentially an interpretation; a historian in the accepted sense of the word, Mr. Robertson cannot claim to be. He has made no study of first-hand materials: he takes the conclu- sions of men who have searched the sources, and from these he attempts to construct his system of interpretation. Where authorities disagree, he ap- pears to select the opinion that appeals to him or that best suits his purpose; any effort to test the 384 [May 1 THE DIAL correctness of this by documentary investigation is not apparent. The author believes that he has found a principle "which may safely be brought to bear on the study of practical politics, because it is an axiom alike of inorganic physics and of biology. . . . This is the simple principle that all energy divides osten- sibly into forces of attraction and repulsion." His- tory is, therefore, the outcome of constant grouping and constant strife,— strife between classes, between religions, and between nations. It is a dangerous procedure to apply a single principle to the entire course of history, and of this truth Mr. Robertson's "Evolution of States" provides an excellent illus- tration. His theory appears to fit the facts at every point, but it is a carefully selected group of facts. And back of the " principle " lie the questions: what led to the formation of the contending groups? what in each case was the fundamental cause of the strife? To these his "laws of socio-political development" do not give sufficient answers. The work, never- theless, has its value: it shows that the author has thought deeply on social questions in their wider aspects; and his views are always interesting and often rational and plausible. A little more than one- third of the book is devoted to ancient history,—to the political, economic, and cultural forces of Greece and Rome. Another third is given to the Italian republics and the lesser European states; the re- mainder is devoted to English history down to the eighteenth century. Of the greater European states, Austria, France, Germany, and Russia, there is no separate discussion. Of particular interest are the author's views as to the needs of modern democ- racies: "To flourish they must have peace; they must sooner or later practice a scientific and humane restraint of population . . .; they must check in- equality, which is the fountain of domestic dispeace; and they must maintain a progressive and scientific culture." These conditions he finds generally want- ing except, perhaps, in the Scandinavian countries, which with "continued peaceful evolution in the direction first of democratic federation and further of socialization of wealth . . . may reach and keep the front rank of civilization." A near vim, of Mr- Harrv A- Franck ha8 earned Panama and the the reputation of " a born story-teller Panamanian: anom at and loved at Bermuda, and later Bermuda. an(j more briefly at Stormfield, is the unfailingly interesting subject of Miss Elizabeth Wallace's gracefully and tenderly written and beau- tifully illustrated volume, "Mark Twain and the Happy Island" (McClurg). Mr. Albert Bigelow Paine's memorable picture of the humorist in this quiet retreat is filled in with sundry significant and characteristic details by Miss Wallace's deft hand, showing especially the white-haired, white-clad man in his relations with children, the "Angel-fish" of that choice little society he founded and fostered in the last years of his life. Both with pen and with camera Miss Wallace has presented to view the most winning side of her kind-hearted friend. His friend and benefactor, the late Henry H. Rogers, is also effectively included in the picture. A few letters from Mark Twain to the writer, proving the closeness of their intimacy, are added, and a short introduction by his trusted biographer and literary executor opens the book. In Mr. Paine's words, "the world will be the better and Mark Twain's memory the sweeter for these gentle chapters." BRIEFER MENTION. It gives one something like a thrill to open "The China Year Book " for 1912, as edited by Messrs. H. T. Montague Bell and H. G. W. Woodhead, and read '• The Republic of China" as the title of the first chapter. For the rest, the work is an invaluable compendium of statistics and other facts relating to what was so re- cently known as the Middle Kingdom. There is a large folding map. The volume is published by Messrs. E. P. Button & Co. "The Chronology of Modern India" (Edinburgh: John Graut), by Mr. James Burgess, enumerates briefly the important events connected with the history of India for four hundred years — from the close of the fifteenth century, 1494 a.d., to 1894. With its material collected from the most trustworthy historical sources accessible, it forms a useful supplement to the manual of India's earlier history prepared by Miss C. Mabel Duff, and published in 1899. Where irregularities in the spelling of proper names occur, the form here repre- sented corresponds with that in use in the most recent gazetteers and maps prepared by the Indian government A fairly complete index helps to make the volume a practical reference work for the general reader or for the student of Indian affairs. A second edition of Professor T. R. Glover's admir- able book on Virgil (Macmillan) will be warmly wel- comed by all lovers of the humanities. For his revision the author bas profited by the bitter reviews of the orig- inal work, and the net result is a thoroughly creditable and readable treatise as a detail of interest to readers for whom a reasonable price does not detract from the value of a good book. We would mention that the 350 generous pages can now be purchased for two dollars. Miss Margaret E. Tabor's little handbook, "The Saints in Art" (E. P. Dutton & Co.), now in a second and corrected edition, is a convenient guide for the visitor to picture galleries and churches who finds the descriptions in the ordinary tourist's handbook insuffi- cient. There are accounts of the important saints, explanations of their attributes or symbols, and legends connected with them. The alphabetical arrangement and the conciseness of treatment make the volume valu- able for easy reference. A useful digest of business information, "What to Read on Business," containing classified and annotated reading lists for the use of the business man, has been published by the Business Book Bureau of New York. The books and magazine articles listed are principally such as have been published within the last rive years, and the concise descriptions of their contents, prices, etc., make the little volume a convenient handbook for the active business man who desires easy access to summaries of the best that has been published in his field. "The Dramatic Index for 1912," published by the Boston Book Co., and edited by Mr. Frederick W. Faxon, is an index of articles, books, and illustrations having for their subjects the drama. "It is a guide to texts of plays, excerpts or synopses of stories, criticisms of plot and production, notices of premiere performances; to portraits of actors, actresses, and playwrights, scenes and groups from plays, plans and views of theatres." It constitutes a reference work of indispensable value to the thousands of people who are now awakened to the significance of dramatic art as a means of culture. Mr. H. G. Wells's discourse on "The Discovery of the Future," delivered recently at the Royal Institution, is published in tasteful book-form by Mr. B. W. Huebsch. The discourse, thoroughly characteristic of its author, opens wide visions of coming development in the universe of life and mind, and predicts an increasing capability on man's part to penetrate the veil that hides the future, just as he has trained and augmented his power to pierce the gloom that shrouds the past. But " the knowledge of the future we hope to gain will be general and not individual; it will be no sort of knowledge that will either hamper us in the exercise of our individual free will or relieve us of our personal responsibility." From the startling possibility, or even probability, that man is not the highest product of evolution, but only repre- sents one step in an ascending series, Mr. Wells does not shrink. The thought fascinates him, and the un- biased and speculative reader will be fascinated by his manner of presenting this and other suggestions to oar candid consideration. 1913] 425 THE DIAL. Notes. "Joyous Gard" is the title of a new book by Mr. Arthur C. Benson which Messrs. Putnam are about to publish. Mr. Algernon Blackwood has a new novel almost ready for publication. It is entitled "A Prisoner in Fairyland." A translation of "The Education of Karl Witte," edited by Mr. H. Addington Bruce, is announced for early publication by Thomas Y. Crowell Co. The popular low-priced reissue of << Bonn's Libra- ries," which we mentioned in a recent number, will be published in this country by the Macmillan Co. Miss Mary Caroline Crawford is engaged upon a volume dealing with " The Romance of the American Theatre," which Messrs. Little, Brown, & Co. will pub- lish in the autumn. The substance of Sir William Osier's Silliman lec- tures on "The Evolution of Modern Medicine," which he is now giving at Yale University, will be published later in book form by the Yale University Press. "What Can Literature Do For Me ?" is the title of a book just announced by Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co. for publication this month. The author is Professor C. Alphonso Smith of the University of Virginia. "Out of the North " is the title of a collection of Arctic poems by Mr. Howard V. Sutherland which will be published shortly by Desmond FitzGerald, Inc. The late Joaquin Miller contributes a "foreword" to the volume.' An elaborate folio volume on " Animal Portraiture,' consisting of fifty reproductions in color of paintings of animal life by Wilhelm Kuhnert, with descriptive text by R. Lydekker, is announced by Messrs. Frederick Warne & Co. Mr. Thomas Hardy, according to recent reports from England, has given permission for the dramatization of "The Woodlanders." The stage version of this novel will be presented in the autumn by the Dorchester Dramatic Society. Two important books on religious subjects announced for early publication by the Macmillan Co. are "Religion and Life" by Dr. Henry Churchill King, and "The Country Church" by Messrs. Gifford Pinchot and Charles Otis Gill. Dr. Lewis Gaston Leary is leaving this week for the Mediterranean, the principal object of his trip being to procure the latest available data on Syria for his forth- coming volume, " Syria, the Land of Lebanon," which is to be published this fall by Messrs. McBride, Nast & Co. Of unusual interest in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg is Mrs. La Salle Corbell Pickett's volume, "The Bugles of Gettysburg," which Messrs. F. G. Browne & Co. publish this month. The author is the widow of General George E. Pickett, whose division formed the centre of the Confederate assault on Cemetery Ridge, on the fateful third day of the battle. The first volume of the remarkable series of auto- biographical novels by August Strindberg will be pub- lished this month by Messrs. Putnam in an English version entitled " The Sou of a Servant.'' The allusion in this title, as Mr. Edwin Bjorkman has pointed out, was twofold — "to the author's birth, and to the position which fate, in his own eyes, seemed to have assigned him, both as man and as artist." A collection of the Hon. James Bryce's " University and Historical Addresses " is announced for early pub- lication by the Macmillan Co. Three other forthcoming issues of this house, not previously announced, are: "The Life of Edward A. Moseley," by Mr. James Morgan; "The Church and the Labor Conflict," by Mr. Parley Paul Womer; and "The Influence of Monarchs," by Mr Frederick Adams Woods. Three new volumes, all by American authors, will appear at once in Messrs. Holt's "Home University Library." They are: "Writing English Prose," by Professor W. T. Brewster of Columbia University, the American editor of the Series; "The Literature of the Old Testament," by Professor George F. Moore of Harvard; and "From Jefferson to Lincoln" by Pro- fessor William MacDonald of Brown University. Mr. Robert W. Neeser's noteworthy account of his cruise with the Atlantic Fleet — "A Landsman's Log," recently reviewed by us — is already about to pass into a second edition, with its appended statistics brought up as nearly to date as possible. In our query as to the cost of a modern battleship's maintenance, we had in mind the larger type of battleship, not the one of average size, and thus may have conveyed an errone- ous impression concerning the trustworthiness of Mr. Neeser's figures, which were drawn from the latest official sources. The Trustees of the American-Scandinavian Founda- tion have decided upou a plan of work which promises to be of great importance in the cultural relations of America and Scandinavia. The steadily increasing interest in Northern life has created a demand for standard translations of Scandinavian literature, suitable for colleges and universities and for public and private libraries. Beginning in 1914, the Foundation will issue a series of Scandinavian Classics in uniform size and binding. The volumes will be chosen by a committee of scholars with special knowledge of the field, and will be rendered into English by competent translators. The committee plan to make the series broadly representative of Scandinavian literature and to include some of the best books of popular interest along with works that may meet the requirements of students. The list at present contains the Eddas, Holberg's comedies, Bjornson's plays, lyrics, and letters, the works of Tegner, Rune- berg, Drachmann, and Herman Bang, as well as of several living writers, still quite unknown to American readers. It is possible that the first book of the series will be three of Holberg's comedies. The Foundation has also under consideration the publication of a series of learned monographs on Scandinavian subjects. An English version of " Danmarks Heltedigtning," by Dr. Axel Olrik, will possibly begin this series. A volume of "Essays on Chaucer," by Professor George Lyman Kittredge is announced by the Harvard University Press. The Press has also in preparation the following books: "Essays on English Agrarian His- tory in the Sixteenth Century," by Dr. Edwin Francis Gay; "Studies in Anglo-Norman Institutions," by Dr. Charles Homer Haskins; "Hyperbolic Functions of Complex Variables," by Professor Arthur Edwin Ken- nelly; "The Scientific Work of Morris Loeb," edited by Dr. Theodore William Richards; "Architectural Acoustics," by Professor Wallace Clement Sabine; "The Way of Salvation," translated from the original Pali into English by Dr. Charles Rockwell Lamnan; "The Search for Salvation in the Greek and Roman World," by Dr. Clifford Herschel Moore; "Judaism at 426 [May 1