ROBERT HERRICK, NOVELIST AND CRITIC fact, but goes so far as to assign four general is now frank enough "and hopelessly vulreasons for the inferiority that he attributes gar" about sex matters in general. The serito the American novel,-"four ways in ous writer should not exploit sex problems for which it is inadequate and not to be con- the sake of sensationalism, but neither should sidered in the same class with the best for- he "be forced by a prudish and fearful public eign work of the day." In the first place, Mr. Herrick finds that our novels are weakly sentimental. They do not seem to be written for adult persons. "Virile literature," says Mr. Herrick, "must represent both a man's world and a woman's world, with the interests and the values of maturity." opinion, which is not the opinion of the public, into dodging the sex side of life when it comes inevitably into the picture." Finally, our popular novelists are too much preoccupied with the lives and the posses sions of the rich. American women are thought to prefer books about rich and luxurious people, and the majority of our novelThe next count in the indictment has to readers are women. Why, asks Mr. Herrick, do with the treatment of religion in our does not some woman write for us the epic novels. When the religious side of life is of women conquering in the struggle for life not avoided altogether, as is commonly the and achievement? That would be worth case, only a conventionally or negatively re- while. ligious social world is represented. Mr. Her- On these four grounds, then, among others, rick complains that while the social and re- Mr. Herrick finds the American novel lackligious ferment of the time is fully repre- ing in importance, not really representative sented in the novels of Mr. Wells and Mr. of our richest and most significant life. This, Galsworthy, there is little intimation of such as he admits, is a matter of individual judg a spirit in American novels. ment, for "we have no criticism of literature As a third charge against our fiction, Mr. worth the name." Still there is hope. "To Herrick brings an accusation of cowardice, make a literature intelligent and virile, there if not of intellectual dishonesty, in dealing must first be an intelligent and open-minded with matters of sex. The magazines, too, public, and somehow one feels that we are are "still hypocritical, for magazine editors getting that faster than we are getting the are a timid race," but the newspaper press literature." CURRENT THOUGHT IN THE NEW BOOKS SOME MODERN WORLD PROBLEMS E NGLISH and American readers are now fortu- can understand the needs, desires, and limitations nate in having books by the most eminent au- of France and Russia as well, and insists that in thors on how the governments, both of France and all her relations the German Empire is peacefully Germany, are administered. President Poincaré's inclined and on the defensive. He believes that treatise on "How France Is Governed," written the chief lack in his countrymen is an active interbefore he came to the presidential chair, and for- est in political affairs. The translation of this mer Chancellor Prince von Bülow's book on "Im- work from the German has been made by Marie perial Germany," written after this statesman had A. Lewenz. severed his connection with the government of his country, present striking similarities as well as di- Ex-Senator Rafael De Zayas Enriquez, historian, vergences of treatment. Both these writers evince statesman, and one of Mexico's leading men of a wholesome, vigorous patriotism. This, however, letters, has written a compact little volume entitled does not prevent them from seeing clearly and "The Case of Mexico and the Policy of President reasoning calmly about the limitations and weak- Wilson." ." Señor De Zayas maintains that General nesses of their countrymen and the forms of gov- Huerta, whatever his private character may be, is ernment under which they live. Raymond Poin- the legal, constitutional President of Mexico; that caré, if anyone, is qualified to tell how Republican it has never been proven that he had anything France is governed. For twenty-five years he has whatsoever to do with the assassination of Madero been a law-maker, for six a minister of state, all and Suarez, and that President Wilson's policy "is his life an eminent lawyer, and, finally, has been fraught with the greatest danger to both the United elected to the chief magistracy of his country. His States and Mexico." President Wilson, he furwork on French government consists of a series of ther maintains, must do one of three things: recchapters on elementary civics, addressed originally ognize Huerta, proceed to armed intervention, or to young people. They are presented with the devise some other way "better suited to the nation's clarity and lightness of touch which is essentially temperament and his own personality, more effectFrench. M. Poincaré is a man of intellectuality ive and more dignified as far as Mexico is conwho is, at the same time, a man of action. In cerned." this book he recounts for us the obvious things and interprets the more abstract facts behind them. He "Le Problème Mondial," by Alberto Torres, is traces the history of parliament, the republican a study of the motives that guide the nations of constitution, the commune, the department, the the world and their influences in their relations arrondissement, the ministry, the judiciary, the one to the other. There is a chapter on the Monbudget and taxation, national education, and com- roe Doctrine and its international rôle, which is pulsory military service. The last chapter, that on the army, was written before the new law was passed, and is, therefore, unfortunately, out of date. The rest of the volume, however, is exceedingly useful, and its information is conveyed in a direct and attractive style. The translation has been made by Bernard Miall. particularly interesting as representing the point of view of a Brazilian. Senhor Torres was formerly a member of the ministry at Rio de Janeiro, and his book is printed by the National Library at the Brazilian capital. Two little volumes in the series of "Manuals Prince Bülow's book, while indicating an accu- for Christian Thinkers," published by Charles H. rate and detailed knowledge of administrative machinery, is rather a story of historical development and "Japan's Modernization, Kelly, in London, are "Progressive British India" ," both by Saint Nihal and the interpretation of present problems than a Singh, an alert, keen-minded Hindu whose writdiscussion of the workings of government such as M. Poincaré has given. Prince Bülow saw almost ings have, from time to time, appeared in the as radical transformations in Germany as did the pages of this REVIEW. Mr. Singh's work is characfirst Chancellor, the great Bismarck. He was the terized by breadth of vision, impartiality, and wide knowledge of existing conditions. center of the political, social, and industrial movements that have brought Germany to the forefront of nations. He discusses calmly and informingly why Germany became a great naval power, why it expanded colonially, what its domestic problems are, with particular reference to the question of Socialism. Prince Bülow shows an admirably statesmanlike and dispassionate state of mind with regard to the relations between his own country and Great Britain in the matter of naval rivalry. He 1 How France Is Governed. By Raymond Poincaré. New York: McBride, Nast & Company. 376 pp. $2.25. Imperial Germany. By Prince Bernhard von Bülow. Dodd, Mead. 342 pp. $3. 997 A new work on "The American-Japanese Prob- Le Problème Mondial. By Alberto Torres. Rio de By Saint Nihal Singh. 132 pp. 25 cents. 6 Japan's Modernization. By Saint Nihal Singh. London: Charles H. Kelly. 136 pp. 25 cents. 7 The American Japanese Problem. By Sidney H. Gulick. Scribners. 349 pp., ill. $1.75. a policy, he contends, would solve the Japanese problem and avert the Yellow Peril. It would also "put Americans right with all Asia." Japanese, as well as American conditions, is Dr. tion. Eligibility to American citizenship, he mainSidney L. Gulick's study of immigration problems, tains, should be based on personal qualification, with particular reference to the Japanese. Dr. with no reference whatever to race or creed. Such Gulick, who is Professor at Doshisha University at Kyoto, Japan, and has lived in that country for twenty-six years, has been recently visiting leading cities of this country, under arrangements made by the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, including thirty Protestant denominations, to represent missionaries of Japan. Dr. Gulick advocates the limitation of all immigration to 5 per cent. annually of those already naturalized in the case of each different nationality. This rate, he claims, would permit the entrance of all who might come from northern Europe, would cut down immigration somewhat from southern and eastern Europe, and allow only a slight immigration from Asia. Most of all, it would not offend the dignity of any. Five per cent., Dr. Gulick believes, is the limit of assimilable aliens. He sympathetic chapters on Premier Venizelos, Greek urges, moreover, the establishment of three bu- women, Albania, the future of Greater Greece, reaus, of religion, of education, and of naturaliza- the spirit of Hellenism, and "Græcia Irredenta." Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York ARE THE JAPANESE ASSIMILABLE? Believing that the vastly greater proportion of what has been recently written about Greece and the Greek people is inaccurate and disproportionate, that the Greeks are neither "a blessed and childlike folk who live in a golden age," nor "a time-serving and unreliable nation," D. J. Cassavetti, himself of Greek origin, although of English citizenship, has written a comprehensive and somewhat ambitious volume of 350 pages which he has entitled "Hellas and the Balkan Wars." This is an exhaustive study of Greek history during the past half century, but particularly in its relation to the recent conflicts against Turkey and Bulgaria. There are NEW BOOKS ON RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IF we can only come to regard Christianity as Doshisha University, Tokyo, concludes a book "a progressive historical movement still in the on "The Faith of Japan," made up of the Hartmaking that can be shaken free from the numbing ford-Lamson lectures on the religions of the world influence of ecclesiasticism and placed upon a delivered during 1910, together with several arbroader foundation," Professor Rudolf Eucken, the ticles used later in missionary periodicals. Dr. great German philosopher and moralist, believes Harada maintains that the faith of the Japanese that Christians not only can but must remain people is as composite as it is innate, and that Christian. Professor Eucken's recent visit to this for students of comparative religion Japan precountry and his lectures in many of our large sents very interesting phenomena. In fact, she is cities on ethics and the ethical ideal are still fresh now "shaken to the very foundations of society in the minds of Americans. It will be remem- under the influence of Western religion, science, bered that he is Professor of Philosophy in the literature, art, and industry." University of Jena, and was a Nobel Prize man in 1908. "The Christian Church's victory or defeat in Japan will largely determine the future of Christianity in the whole Far East." With this sentence Dr. Tasuku Harada, president of the 1 Hellas and the Balkan Wars. By D. J. Cassavetti. Dodd, Mead. 368 pp., ill. $3. 2 Can We Still Be Christians? Translated by Lucy Judge Gibson. $1.25. 994 Mr. Harold Begbie, whose book, "Twice-Born Men," was noted in these pages a year or so ago, has brought out another volume on "The Crisis of Morals." Mr. Begbie has a vigorous style. His text is found in the words: "where women are honored the divinities are complaisant, where they are despised it is useless to pray to God." The Faith of Japan. By Tasuku Harada. Macmillan. The Crisis of Morals. By Harold Begbie. Revell. Whatever H. G. Wells writes is interesting and impressive, however widely the reader may differ from the point of view set forth. Last month we gave some space to a notice of Mr. Wells's "The World Set Free." Much the same way of looking at things characterizes his later book of essays, "Social Forces in England and America," published in England under the title "An Englishman Looks at His World." Of this book Mr. Wells says that it gives "a fairly complete view of all my opinions." M. Jean Finot, the genial editor of La Revue, which is the most alert and modern of the Paris reviews, has written a number of books on social and philosophical subjects. His "Science of Happiness" has been translated from the tenth French edition by Mary J. Safford. M. Finot considers the nature of happiness, the means of its attainment, and many other allied questions. He lays all science and art under tribute for his sources. Works of philosophy in its different departments of a more specific interest and new books on religion not already noted include: "Criminology," by Baron Raffaele Garofalo (Little, Brown); "Glimpses of the Cosmos: A Mental Autobiography," by Lester F. Ward, 3 volumes (Putnam); "The Mystics of Islam," by Reynold A. Nicholson (Macmillan); "The Haskalah Movement in Russia," by Jacob S. Raisin (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America); "The Montessori Method and the American School," by Florence Elizabeth Ward (Macmillan); "Nuova Critica Della Morale Kantiana" (A New Criticism of Kant's Morals), by Camillo Trivero (Turin: Fratelli Bocca). "The Church, The People, and The Age," edited by Robert Scott and George William Gilmore (Funk & Wagnalls); "Religion and Life," by Elwood Worcester (Harpers); and "The First Chapter of Genesis as the Rock Foundation for Science and Religion," by Albert L. Gridley (Boston: Richard (Whose new novel "Shallow Soil" has recently been G. Badger). KNUT HAMSUN, THE CELEBRATED NORWEGIAN NOVELISTAS PAINTED BY HENRIK LUND translated and is noticed on this page) FICTION WITH A SOMETIMES a novel is more than a description into German, or sold in Germany, or to get government jobs. Meanwhile, their lives are made up of petty jealousies and marital infidelities. Such, he tells us, is modern Norway-"shallowsoil" folk. "It was hardly correct to say that men and women were corrupt; they had simply reached a certain degree of hollowness; they had degenerated and grown small. Shallow soil, anemic soil, without growth, without fertility! The women carried on their surface existence. . They darted around like blue, heatless flames; they nibbled at everything, joys and sorrows, and they did not realize that they had grown insignificant. Their ambitions did not soar; their hearts did not suffer greatly; they beat quite regularly, but they did not swell more for one thing than for another, more for one person than for another. What had our young women done with their proud eyes? NowaBy Jean Finot. Putdays they looked on mediocrity as willingly as on Translated by Carl superiority. They lost themselves in admiration over rather every-day poetry, over common fiction. 1 Social Forces in England and America. By H. G. Wells. Harpers. 415 pp. $2. 2 The Science of Happiness. nam. 333 pp. $1.75. Shallow Soil. By Knut Hamsun. Christian Hyllested. Scribners. 339 pp. $1.35. Some time ago greater and prouder things were tells us in his preface that "Shallow Soil," while 'the best of Hamsun's works, is not the only great one. His first novel, entitled "Hunger," won him instant recognition. 991 Gottfried Keller's story, "A Village Romeo and Juliet,' taken from his "Seldwyla People," brings to English translation a lovely and idyllic love story. His Romeo is a farmer's boy; his Juliet, a farmer's daughter. Between their parents exists a bitter feud, and the story works out along the lines familiar to us in Shakespeare's tragedy, resolving into a romantic prose elegy breathing the smell of fresh soil and the mist-like fragrance of early flowers. The end comes when the bridal bed of the two lovers-Vront and Sali-the great boatload of sweet hay, floats down the river past wood and valley all night under the midsummer moon until the grey of the morning. Then the two lovers-they are still but children-slip down to death in the cold waters. Here is tragedy and poetry touched with the imperishable beauty of love that has been spared disillusion and regret, that recedes in impenetrable silence ere the sun has arisen upon its morning. Edith Wharton, who has written the preface, says that the author simply took the original tale and, "transposing it into Swiss peasant life, let it flower in a series of fresh episodes." Gottfried Keller, although born in Zurich, Switzerland, is classed among German writers. His fame rests on his prose writings, but he was also a poet, and it is his poetic gift that gives the airy and lyrical beauty to his prose. Two early works, "Der Grüne Heinrich," a kind of a Swiss Jean-Christophe in four volumes, and the first volume of "Die Leute von Seldwyla," are considered to be his best. What would be the feelings of an American who had been detained in a lonely spot in Siberia for many months by a lingering illness, and what would he do if he should discover, on his return to his native land, that it had been subjugated by another nation and was rapidly becoming denationalized? This is exactly what happens to an Englishman in H. H. Munro's story of England under the Hohenzollerns,-"When William Came." The action of the story takes place after England has been invaded and conquered by the Germans and after the processes of government have been altered to the Hohenzollern pattern. Mr. Munro's satire is very biting. He makes England fairly complaisant under German rule. Murrey Yeovil, the Englishman who has been in Siberia, holds conversations about changed conditions with memBut there are bright spots. In drawing the bers of various classes, thus bringing out the way characters of the two women, Hanka and Aagot, in which the new order affects society. Each class both of whom fall victims to the wiles of a despi- blames the other for the national catastrophe. The cable poet, Hamsun has shown a delicacy, a mas- bearing of arms or any military service is permittery of psychology, and a finished artistic form ted only to subjects of German blood. The Britthat is remarkable. With all his skill he insists ish subjects were to remain a people consecrated to that not upon the "shallow-soil" folk does the fu- peace,-a "nation of shopkeepers who were no ture of Norway depend, but upon its merchants, longer a nation." The easy victory over British its creators of values, who are despised by the military power had been made possible by Gerparasites. Hamsun has had a remarkable career. many's scientific, aerial war fleet. The Teutons Now in his fifty-fourth year, he has been cobbler, felt no unrest concerning the permanence of their longshoreman, lumberjack, tutor in languages, court messenger in his own country, farm-hand in our own Northwest, street-car conductor in Chicago, lecturer on French literature at the University of Minnesota, and, finally, helper on a Newfoundland fishing-smack. Carl Christian Hyllested. who translated his work from the Norwegian, victory, as with their sea scouts and air scouts they could entirely cut off the food supply of the British isles in a fortnight and let starvation subdue the Translated by A. C. Bahlmann. Scribners. 156 pp. $1. 1 A Village Romeo and Juliet. By Gottfried Keller. 2 When William Came. By H. H. Munroe. Lane. 322 pp. $1.25. |