H

OBBY-HORSES in the Jordan Valley, hobbled in the Plain of Jericho! Make-believe horses, put together of sticks and canvas, hitched in long rows on either side of drinking-troughs to deceive the Turks and their instructors, the Germans! Dummy camps and dummy tents; mules drawing heavy drags around at random to make a big dust and suggest traffic! What a joke! German airmen were allowed to draw near enough to see all this and were then driven off and never allowed to return. They reported to enemy headquarters that the Jordan Valley was full of British cavalry and that the British push north would doubtless advance that way.

All the while Allenby was shifting every horseman who could be spared over to the coast of the Philistines to make his great rush up that way, leaving the mock cavalry in the Jordan Valley and smuggling his real cavalry by night onto the broad bosom of the Plain of Sharon, hiding them by day in the deep clefts as they crossed the Judean Highlands. It was a neat trick. It worked wonderfully. In the daytime all was quiet, but at night everybody was on the move. The real cavalry was glad to get out of the awful Jordan Valley, stifling at 120°, and leave the mock cavalry behind to blister and warp. Every night, until the dawn set for the great race, masses of troops and transport kept moving towards the front, to get near the gate of the opening which was to be made in the Turkish line. It was a host pressing forward to sure victory, edging up every night closer, getting into firmer position, orderly according to plan.

Allenby and his brainy little chief of staff had worked it all out: At dawn on September 19, 1918, the artillery was to break up the Turkish trenches, the infantry was to make a hole and the cavalry would pour through and dash up the coast to the Plain of Esdraelon, and so get behind the Turks whom the British drove through Samaria into their arms. It worked like a charm. It was the neatest maneuver in the World War, and it brought about the beginning of the end of the World War.

The night before the orange groves of Jaffa and Sarona, the apricot and nectarine orchards of Ludd and Ramleh, were full to suffocation. Infantry, cavalry, artillery, Peerless trucks, Fords, and camels, amid the cactus hedges, everybody and everything was getting into final position, wrapped in clouds of dust, advancing like clockwork, on schedule time, pushing in perfect discipline towards the starting post of that terrific race, that epic ride which was to rid the Holy Land forever of its fearful Turkish taskmaster and bring the Oriental ally of the Central Powers to his

International
VISCOUNT ALLENBY, NOW BRITISH COMMISSIONER TO EGYPT, WITH HIS PET STORK
One of the hobbies for which Genera! Allenby is well known is his love for birds

knees. The horses champed at the bit
and pawed the dust. They shook their
heads impatiently. Their time had come
at last in the World War to show their
mettle. The men beside them were on
tiptoe, every man set on the mark, wait-
ing for the pistol shot. It was going to
be a clean job. That was the night be-
fore.

Allenby said afterwards: "I was up at 5:30 in the morning, when the divis ion was ready to attack. By a quarter past six three divisions of cavalry began to pour through the gap made. They were told to go right away through the Turkish army"-and they did. It was the prettiest stroke in the World War. Without an error made, the ball was hit square and landed on the green; the club followed through. Turks, Germans, and Austrians fled or surrendered or lay on the field. British Yeomanry and Australians with flashing swords, Indians with sparkling lances, swept by, swept on, squadron by squadron, trotting, galloping, holding the line as on parade, irresistible as law, determined as righteousness, over the land of the Philistines, acting a drama, fulfilling prophecy, racing against time into the Plain of Esdraelon, the Plain of Armageddon, back of the Turks.

The next afternoon by five o'clock the British cavalry had ridden into Nazareth, seized El Afule, Beisan, Megiddo (Armageddon), and was waiting for the beaten Turks to issue from the defiles

of the mountains of Samaria. They came, fleeing in broken bits of an army, shot to pieces, without food or drink, helpless, hopeless. They had been trapped as prearranged in the land of Ephraim. The British wireless had called up the bombing fliers from the airdromes, and they had come, like birds of prey, in flocks to rain destruction on the moving columns of the Turks below. They would bomb the leading troops in the defiles, and presently the whole column would be piled up, a medley of men, guns, and transport. We turned away so as not to see. Wretched Turks, wretched rulers of the Holy Land! The survivors stumbled into the fateful Plain of Esdraelon, into the arms of the British cavalry. All that remained to be done was for the umpire to sound the trumpet. The maneuver was over and the prisoners could be counted.

On September 20, 1918, the Seventh and Eighth Turkish Armies were destroyed, the power of the Turkish Empire was broken. "This way, please," muttered the irrepressible Tommies, as they conducted the Turks into the vast barbed-wire inclosures hastily erected for their reception. There was no resentment in this police work. Just another day's work done in this curious task of regulation, administration, and organization which seems to fall to the British in outlandish places. The significant thing about it was that this particular police work took place in the

Plain of Armageddon. When given a peerage Allenby took the title of Viscount of Megiddo, or Armageddon. Watch this Lord of Armageddon; he is among the great men who have great work to do for mankind.

But that was not all. Haifa fell, the British swam and fished in the Sea of Galilee, then Damascus fell, the Fourth Turkish Army was destroyed, Beirût was taken, Tripoli, Aleppo, and the head waters of the Euphrates. Far into Asia Minor British order penetrated. The Turks were obliged to withdraw their remnants to harmless distances. They were discredited, beaten, without equipment, without money. The Pax Britannica brooded over the Near East in 1918. Why does the Turk trouble the nations again in 1922? Why should he return to-day to vex the world, to massacre, as is his wont, to suck up the moisture of the Near East, to turn back the clock of progress, to make a desolation

of every spot he touches? He was once undone, finished, khalass, as the Arabs say. What is it that has given him arms again and money to buy arms? What secret shame hides behind his resurgence into power after his power had been stripped from him by Allenby, Lord of Armageddon? Must Allenby meet him again in the Plain of Armageddon and defeat him a second time? Will the world wait until the Turk has gathered the vultures from out of Russia, Afghanistan, Persia, India, and the farthest East and raised rebellious hordes at the back of the Western Powers? The Holy Land is a sacred trust. The danger comes from the north. Let those whose right it is stand by, fully armed to overturn and overturn.

Allenby told me in the spring of 1920 that if the Turkish Peace Treaty was not signed soon we would have another war. The war came. Turkey is still in

Europe. France, Italy, and Greece jockeyed each other for the position at the gate-post where Britain stood first; they scrambled for the heritage which was that of the men from the Isles of the Sea, from the antipodes, from the West Indies and India, of the men who had rid the Near East of the Turk. While his neighbors haggled, after his conquerors had returned to the ends of the earth, the Turk armed himself from a secret source and to-day he is still in Europe.

America was offered the mandate over Syria by its people. America was requested to take over Asia Minor. It was not ready. To-day its relief workers are exiled, their stores burned, their girl protégées stolen for Turkish harems. Oh, for an Allenby! Allenby is a namie, and that name means in Arabic, in the language of the Koran, Allah-neby, Prophet of God.

Allenby to the rescue!

L

AST June a great many children and parents and teachers faced disappointment and discouragement, and wondered why. The children for the most part agreed that their teachers expected too much of them and "never explained anything;" also that their parents "didn't understand." The parents with equal unanimity charged the children with being "so difficult these days" and the teachers with "being a mighty low-grade set." The teachers for their part comforted each other with the reflection that "the modern child simply doesn't know what real study means," and that "if parents would stop jazzing around and pay a little more attention to their main job of bringing up children teachers might have a chance."

Thus ended the last school year-substantially as the last fifty school years have ended-with each party of the educational triangle inwardly or out wardly throwing the blame for failure on the other two. Shall we begin this year in the same way? Perhaps we shall; but do we have to? Can't we get together and talk it over? Can't each of us get the other two points of view? Let's try.

Boys and girls, think back a bit. You know perfectly well that we teachers have offered you at least three times as much information as we have ever asked you to give back to us on final examinations. You say we never explain things. How about that time last winter when the arithmetic teacher was explaining just how it happened that you couldn't add three-fifths to seven-eighths and get ten-thirteenths? Do you remember what you were doing then? If you were not in some form of undetected mischief, then you were thinking of the

BY A TEACHER

coming snowball fight at recess or of some other equally unmathematical subject. And when the teacher said, "Does everybody understand? Is there any question?" you remained silent. She had explained and had offered to explain again, but you wouldn't listen. You wouldn't give her a chance.

And do you remember when dad looked over your report card and scolded you for having so many low marks? You thought he was pretty harsh and unsympathetic. Have you thought that perhaps his heart is so wrapped up in your success in life that your failure to do your best has been like a bit of cold steel entering that very vital part of him? Have you thought how you may perhaps feel some day when your children don't do their best? You say now that dad and mother "don't understand." Think it over. Perhaps they are actually looking back at their own childhood failures, and understand only too Iwell what the habits of slackness acquired then have meant in their later lives.

Have you

Parents, you say that children are "so difficult these days." Why are they difficult? Is it not perhaps chiefly your own fault? Are you giving them a square deal? Have you learned to be loving but not indulgent? learned to be inexorably firm but not harsh? Have you learned to give them the liberty that the child of to-day is rightfully coming into without failing to demand a concomitant sense of responsibility? Have you learned to listen to their confidences without tirades of criticism? Have you learned to be a pal without insisting upon being the boss pal? How much, in short, have you tried to get in touch with these "difficult modern children"?

And how about the "low-grade set of teachers" that you complain about? What makes us "low-grade"? Will you "high-grade" ladies and gentlemen come and take over our jobs for a little while, including the forty or fifty restless children, and the gloomy, stuffy rooms, and the hard, immovable benches, and the antiquated courses of study, and the. rigid methods of discipline? Oh, yesand including our salaries? If you could only take our places for a little while, gentle parents, you might see how even the best of us cease to be as "high-grade" as we should like to be. And after you had tried to teach the children now in our care you might think that our results do not measure up quite so badly, after all. Consider also that, if we are actually low-grade to start with, it is because you who have the power of the almighty dollar in your hands have offered so little remuneration that too few really high-grade persons can be tempted to enter the teaching profession. Also think over the amount of moral support you have given us when your children came home and criticised us. How often have you met such criticism with the loyal answer that there must be some misunderstanding which you can clear up by coming frankly and in friendly spirit to us? How often, instead, have you said, "Well, of all things! I never heard of such methods!"

And, fellow-teachers-for it is our turn now to examine our own hearts-how about the difficulties of teaching this enfant terrible, the modern child who has so many outside distractions and who "doesn't know what real study means"? Do the difficulties really lie in the child? Or do they lie in our failure to keep pace with the expanding nature of child life, our failure to un

sure.

And

derstand the new relationship between child and world, our failure to apply the best principles of education to the job of to-day? When the child of to-day rebels and says, "Why do I have to study that dry old stuff?" how many of us have ever answered, "I'm not Let's talk it over and see why"? if in talking it over with the child and his mates we come to see that there is something of justice on the side of the child, how many of us have been square enough to modify our course of study where it really ought to be modified? Again, when a whole class has been lethargic over our presentation of a really interesting and worth-while subject, how many of us have admitted to ourselves that we must be the ones to blame? How many of us have strenuously gone about casting out the beams from our own eyes before railing against the motes in the eyes of our children?

And how about our attitude toward the parents whom we declare to be "not on their jobs"? Have we ever thought how little we really know about whether the parents are "on their jobs" or not? We don't like parents to judge us by the tales our children tell of us. Is it fair to judge the parents by their children? There is a gulf of black ignorance lying between us and these parents. And we have been deepening it and widening it with each generation. What do we do when a parent appears at the schoolroom door? Is it not true that inwardly we sigh or curse according to our natures, while outwardly we preserve an attitude of chilly courtesy or hypocritical delight-unless we break loose and use the opportunity to inveigh against the child of that parent? How often do we say, frankly and in a truly friendly spirit: "Well, Mrs. Blank, I am glad to see you. Won't you sit down and visit us this morning and then come and talk with me after the children have gone home? No, Jimmy is not doing as well as he could, but I believe we can solve his problem if you'll just come and give me what light you have on the subject." I warrant that not many of us greet our parents in any such spirit. But we ought to. That is our salvation-getting together with the parents in behalf of the children.

Failure to get the other fellow's point of view-that is the great stumbling block in the way of educating our children. And, after all, it is we teachers and we parents-for the writer has children himself-who are to blame. At least we are old enough and ought to be wise enough to reform. Our children cannot be reached until after we have reformed. Possibly their reformation will go hand in hand with our own. Yes, probably it will, for they are wonderful little persons when it comes to responding to the influences about them. By all means, then, let us begin to hunt the other fellow's point of view.

In thinking of our children let us reember that from the moment of birth

THE

HE problem of Johnny and his sister, whatever their real names may be, is one which is never far from the mind of the public. Hubert V. Coryell has given us another article dealing with Johnny and his favorite authors, which is a sequel to his widely read article on Johnny and his favorite books.

Mr. C. K. Taylor, whose articles on height-weight standards for boys and girls were one of the notable features of The Outlook during the past year, discusses in another article the problem of finding out what Johnny is good for and how he can be helped.

they begin to have rights of individuality which grow and expand month by month, and that never in all the life of a child has any parent a right to invade the individuality of his child by his own individuality, or to try to shape the life of his child for the carrying out of parental ambition. We must help our children to find themselves. But for our protection, the protection of others in the world, and for the child's own benefit, we must teach a child not to invade or violate the rights of others. We must be firm and constant in our efforts at this sort of discipline. And we must be reasonable-checking childish impulses only when we can show clearly that the safety of the child or the rights of others demand the check.

But it is in getting together as teachers and parents that we can perhaps accomplish the most immediate good. So let us consider ways and means. In the first place, we must frame our minds without antagonism. Each of us must assume that, while the other has probably grave faults and is perhaps not thoroughly competent, he is nevertheless really eager to do the right thing. Each of us must admit to himself that, while he is trying to do the right thing, there is no doubt that he is often failing. Each of us must realize that just as he could give good advice to the other so the other could give good advice to him. And then in humble but frank and friendly spirit each should seek the other.

For instance-and I am taking a real case that has come within my experience-Johnny is falling further and further behind in his lessons. He seems dull and uninterested. Yet now and then there is a flash of unusual intelligence. The teacher is puzzled and doesn't know quite what to make of it. After much consideration of the problem on the part of the teacher, a letter goes to Johnny's father: "Dear Mr. Blank, will you call me up soon and make an appointment to talk with me about Johnny? We don't seem to be getting

the best out of him, and I want your advice." The father comes.

"I want you to understand," says he, "that Mrs. Blank and I are mightily pleased with what you have already done for Johnny. We know he is still not doing all he can, but we don't blame you a bit. Probably it is our own fault mostly. What have you to suggest?"

"I don't want to suggest anything," says the teacher, "until you tell me what you think I can do that I'm not doing."

Whereat the father laughs deprecatingly, hesitates, but finally admits two things: First, that Johnny can't seem to understand the grammar work required of him; and, second, that Johnny has a notion that teacher is down on him.

The teacher considers, resolves to have a quiet personal talk with Johnny, and makes sure that these two obstacles to Johnny's progress shall be removed. "And now," says Johnny's father, "how about us? What can we do?"

It is the teacher's turn to hesitate deprecatingly, but Johnny's father looks friendly and eager to be advised, so the teacher speaks:

"It seems to me that Johnny eats altogether too much candy. Has he perhaps too much pocket money not earned by himself?"

The father thinks a bit, admits the probability, and plans reform. The teacher goes on:

"Johnny is often late. He looks sleepy. Does he get to bed early enough?"

"The eve

Johnny's father blushes. "I'm afraid not," he says. ning is the only chance I get to talk with him, and I guess I let him sit up too late. What do you think is a proper hour for a twelve-year-old?"

The teacher gives his opinion modestly; the father agrees and promises to set forward the bed-time hour; they talk over a few more points about Johnny's régime; and finally they begin to talk about Johnny himself-what his chief interests are, how cleverly he has constructed his wireless set from almost nothing, and what a really intelligent conversationalist he is. The teacher and father separate greatly encouraged, resolved to improve in their handling of Johnny and, above all, inspired by the discovery of a very real common interest in Johnny.

This was not a super-teacher or a super-parent. It was a pair of average human beings blessed by the sane impulse to bury antagonism and to cooperate for the benefit of a perfectly average boy whom they had been mishandling because they didn't know all points of view. And the co-operation is equally as valuable when it is initiated in a friendly and frank way by the parent as when it comes from the teacher.

Let us hope that more such average parents and teachers will be blessed this year with the impulse to co-operate, to get together for the benefit of more average boys and girls.

I

T is best to be off with the old love before we are on with the new; and this is as true of books as it is of girls. Until modern science can supply a book-lover with an elastic house adorned with an extensible library as easily adjusted to an unexpected company of guests as is a dining-table, until this devoutly-to-be-desired guerdon is granted to us, we have to clear out our shelves now and again to make room for newcomers. We have perforce to get rid of the volumes which have ceased to please and to provide shelf room for the volumes which have more recently attracted us. Yet as soon as the discarded tomes have been irrevocably dispersedsold or given away-we begin to doubt our own judgment and to yearn over the dear departed. But it is in vain that we wish them back and that we wonder why it was we were foolish enough to let them go. Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It ought not to have been.

Although I was not born in a library, as Lord Beaconsfield boasted he had been, I grew up in a home where books were made welcome and where I was encouraged to read them and to own them. I can recall that I was not yet proficient in the art of reading when I became the owner of the ten volumes narrating the adventures and misadventures of Rollo in Europe; and as soon as I was able I read them again and again. Before I was seven I had crossed the ocean four times, twice over to Europe and twice back; and I retained vivid visual recollections of the places to which Rollo and his sister traveled. (What was the name of that sister? I remember that she took her canary with her-but, although this fact is adhesive in my memory, her name I cannot now replevin after more than threescore years.) What most delighted me then was the unsuspecting visit of the boy and girl to the Hippodrome in Paris one Sunday afternoon when they had followed the crowd and made their way fortuitously into the huge circus tentwhich (in their American innocence of Parisian manners and customs) they mistook for a camp-meeting. They discovered where they were only when the splendidly adorned horses pranced into the arena; and then they decorously withdrew. Or did they remain? Really my septuagenarian memory plays me strange tricks. I can see the pair of them slipping in, merged in a flock of French children; but I cannot now follow them out.

tomes of Mayne Reid-"Osceola" and the "Scalp-Hunters"? They are lost, strayed or stolen, long years ago, and my fivefoot shelf of boy's books knows them no more. Do the boys of to-day know them, I wonder? If not, my grandson is not now as fortunate as I was. Only a decade after I had become acquainted with these masterpieces I had the joy of meeting the author at a round-up of men of letters (at Mr. Hamersley's, I

Where are those ten volumes now? I wish I had them. They were cased in wine-colored cloth, with an embossed side-stamp of a fashion now no longer seen. And where are the entrancing

TITLE PAGE OF ONE OF THE ROLLO BOOKS, BY JACOB ABBOTT

think)-a gathering to which I had then no claim to be admitted, for I was only a college boy. I saw Mayne Reid face to face, and I noted that one of his shirt studs had fallen out. I did not have speech with him; but my eyes paid him the tribute of boyish admiration. He had recently returned from England on the same boat with a friend of mine,

who told me later that when the ship ran into a storm, so severe that the passengers were ordered below, he had heard Mayne Reid say almost under his breath, "I led the forlorn hope at Chapultepec, and am I now to be drowned here like a rat in a box?"

and that the younger generation does not now share the pleasure I had in his pages threescore years ago. When my friend Clayton Hamilton was editing and annotating "Treasure Island" as a school text-book for supplementary reading (painful words, indeed), he came to inquire if I knew who this Ballantyne might be that R. L. S. held in honorable memory. But when I read the "Knights of the Joyous Venture," one of the best of the tales of "Puck of Pook's Hill"— if it is possible to make a choice where all are transcendent-I rejoiced to observe that Puck's young friends, Una and Dan, had enjoyed the blessed privilege of reading the "Gorilla-Hunters." But I have not seen this book these many years, nor the "Coral Island" either. All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

It was a Christmas before or a Christmas after I had "Osceola" and the "Scalp-Hunters" given to me that I received the "Gorilla-Hunters" and the "Coral Island" of Robert Michael Ballantyne-the "Ballantyne the brave" whom Stevenson companions with "Cooper of the Wood and Wave." I fear that the years have dealt hardly with his fame

I drop a silent tear; and then I ask why it is that no American publisher has seen fit to reprint these cherished classics of my boyhood-the best of Mayne Reid and Ballantyne, the "Green Mountain Boys" of Judge Thompson, and the thrilling "Nick of the Woods" of Richard Montgomery Bird, that fearsome tale of the mysterious and appalling Jibbenainosay. Of a truth such a publisher would reap a rich reward.

How it was that these books of my boyhood deserted me I cannot guess. All I am sure of is that they are no longer mine. Like Hans Breitmann's party, they have gone "avay in the ewigkeit." I do know what happened to some other books that were mine a little later in my youth, treasured tomes dealing with the art and mystery of conjuring. Before I was fourteen I was the happy possessor of the "Magician's Own Book," published by Dick & Fitzgerald, generous benefactors of boyhood; and a year later in Paris I found the French treatise on prestidigitation which had been the font and origin of this American manual of magic. Soon I also acquired the memoirs of RobertHoudin, master of the art. In the decades that followed I kept on adding to my collection, delighting in the succession of clever dissertations by "Professor Hoffmann" and enjoying hugely "Our Magic" by Maskelyne and Devant. I gathered volume after volume year after year, and I guarded them jealously, grateful for the pleasure I had had in their perusal; and I am glad to know that they are now safe on the shelves of the library of the Dramatic Museum of Columbia University.

There are other collections, begun in the early years of my manhood, when I was allured into rambling along the byways of the curiosities of literature. In time I had got together nearly a dozen volumes devoted to macaronic poetry, and a dozen or more devoted to the art of the fan-maker and a score devoted to the art of the bookbinder. I must ha picked up here and there in F

more than a score of volumes setting forth the history of playing cards, catalogues of collections of them, and discussions of their use and abuse in games of chance. These several accumulations I sold, pitilessly ousting them, one after another, as my affection waned and as I moved along to worship at new shrines. I cannot deny that I have more than once had occasion to regret my cruel treatment of these lost loves, maidens all forlorn, dispersed at random, and deprived of the congenial companionship to which they had perhaps become accustomed. My deeds be on my head; and I can blame no one but myself.

There are, however, a host of other books for which my shelves now yawn and which I did not part with voluntarily. They have unaccountably vanished. Like Catiline, they have gone, departed, escaped, broken out. Even to my best friend I have never been rash enough to say, "Come and take a choice of all my library"-as Shakespeare makes a feeble-minded creature say in "Titus Andronicus." I may have lent one or another in a trusting moment and after dinner; but I can never have consented to the abstraction of all of the disparate volumes for which I now yearn. Where are the two little papercovered sixteenmos (or infra) in which I first read "Daisy Miller" and "An International Episode"? I have recently re-read with renewed approbation these first fruits of Henry James's cosmopolitan investigations; they are now to be had in a single seemly tome in the "Modern Library" with an appreciation by Howells as cordially enthusiastic as it is keenly critical. But I cannot help wishing I had them again in their original form, as members of "Harper's Half Hour Series"-a series which contained a heterogeny of lively tales, including, if my memory does not play me false (as perhaps it does), the "Tender Recollections of Irene Macgillicuddy," which Laurence Oliphant wrote in the hospitable home of S. L. M. Barlow at Glen Cove.

There was then-forty years ago, alas!-another paper-covered series, the so-called "Standard Library." I find I still have the "Essays of George Eliot" collected by Nathan Sheppard and containing several articles not included in her "complete" works. But I have lost another volume of that series that I once possessed the "Archibald Malmaison" of Julian Hawthorne, the story which witnessed that he was the son of his father. Nor have I been able to find what I once owned, the "Fables" of George T. Lanigan "anywhere, anywhere, out of the World." Who was bold enough to borrow that little volume? Or did a false friend steal it? It was small enough and thin enough to hide itself in a felonious pocket. It had illustrations by F. S. Church-illustrations worthy of the delectable text. Also missing and unaccounted for is my copy of Stockton's "Rudder Grange," with its illustrations by Arthur B. Frost, little mas"pieces of pictorial humor, at once

X

firm and delicate. Is it because these favorite authors were makers of light literature that their volumes have been so volatile? Or am I the victim of deliberate and indefensible villainy? He who steals my purse, steals trash, but he who robs me of my books is-well, I do not dare to print my opinion of him.

My sentiments were voiced nearly half a century ago by Laman Blanchard in his quatrains on the "Art of BookKeeping:"

How hard, when those who do not wish

To lend (that's lose) their books, Are snared by anglers-folks that fish With literary hooks. . .

For pamphlets lent I look around,
For tracts my tears are spilt;
But when they take a book that's
bound,

"Tis surely extra-guilt. . . .

If once a book you let them lift,
Another they conceal;

For though I caught them stealing
Swift,

As swiftly went my Steele. . . .

I Prior sought, but could not see
The Hood so late in front;
And when I turned to hunt for Lee,
Oh! where was my Leigh Hunt?...
But all I think I shall not say,

Nor let my anger burn;
For as they never found in Gay,
They have not left me Sterne.

FICTION

It is not the standard authors that I mourn, for them I can find in the club library. It is for books of less outstanding fame, which are not so easy to get at.

When I had finished the "Age of Innocence," I looked in vain for three other novels of New York with stories

set in the same innocuous epoch; Orpheus C. Kerr's "Avery Glibun," Dr. Mayo's "Never Again," and William H. Bishop's "House of a Merchant Prince." In like manner, after I had feasted on the hinted but untold horrors of Henry James's "Turn of the Screw," I looked high and low for the "Green Tea" of Sheridan Le Fanu, for the tales of FitzJames O'Brien, and for Jean Richepin's "Morts Bizarres." Nor could I find Mrs. Oliphant's "Little Pilgrim" or her "Beleaguered City." Once I had a rich collection of tales such as the Fat Boy in the "Pickwick Papers" would have reveled in, tales that "would make your flesh creep." As it is, I must go to bed shiverless, with no hope of a nightmare, despite my former ownership of a nest of them. It is small consolation that I have at last laid hands on Bayard Taylor's delightful "Diversions of the Echo Club" and on Frederick Beecher Perkins's "Devil-Puzzlers." What do these trovers profit me, if all their lovely companions are faded and gone? Unlike the Cheshire cat, they have faded away and not left even the grin behind them.

BREATH OF SCANDAL (THE). By Edwin Balmer. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $1.90. A novel of contemporary American family life, sometimes uncomfortable in its realism, but in its happenings a strong argument against conventional ignorance. In this case it is the father of the family against whom the breath of scandal stirs, and the volcanic results teach his daughter that innocence is not safety from injury.

INSTRUMENT OF THE GODS (AN). By Lincoln Colcord. The Macmillan Company, New York. $2.

Tales of the sea and its ships and sailors, enlivened by "chanteys" and ballads of the sea. The volume has variety of scene and incident. NORTHWEST. By Harold Bindloss. The Fred

erick A. Stokes Company, New York. $1.75. "A tale of endeavor, of mystery, and of love, in the wilds of the Canadian Rockies. A weakling, idling away his life and fortune in drinking and gambling, easy prey to the professional crooks into whose clutches he falls, is given his chance to become a man"thus the publishers correctly describe this volume.

HISTORY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY LARNED HISTORY. By J. N. Larned. Vol. I. The C. A. Nichols Publishing Company, Springfield, Massachusetts.

This is the first volume of a twelvevolume compendium of history put together on an original plan. It is based on a five-volume reference work prepared about thirty years ago by Professor Larned, called "History for Ready Refer ence," and now very much enlarged in

scope and contents. It is arranged in encyclopædia form and the articles appear in alphabetical order. They are chiefly composed of extracts from histories, newspapers, magazines, and textbooks, and in this way are chosen to represent "the better and newer literature of history." It is evident at a glance that a great deal of pains and hard work have been put on the preparation of this work, and the first volume indicates that it will be valuable. It is fully illustrated with reproductions of photographs and with maps.

TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION CALL OF THE MOUNTAINS (THE). By Le Roy Jeffers, A.C., F.R.G.S. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $5. Exceptionally well printed photographs of some of America's most beautiful scenic attractions accompany the interesting textual descriptions of this volume. The author, who is Librarian of the American Alpine Club, is thoroughly conversant with this theme and has made a valuable addition to the works descriptive of the continent's wonderlands.

TALES OF LONELY TRAILS. By Zane Grey. Harper & Brothers, New York. $3.

One scarcely expects the accounts of real adventure by a writer of "thrillers" in fiction to be as absorbing as his efforts in imaginary description, but Zane Grey in these pages keeps his readers' pulsebeats going fast. Bear-fights, lion-hunts, and exploring and hunting trips in littleknown regions of the West are de scribed with a zest that imparts its spirit to the reader.