Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 112. Price, 75 cents. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company. the school is called is a typical quack insti- The Incubator Baby. By Ellis Parker Butler. tution, which through grossly misleading advertisements and a liberal amount of selfpushing, attracts numbers of pupils from the country districts. The principal is not only wanting in musical knowledge, but is also a moral leper, one of those men who are at once the greatest peril and the greatest curse of society. The experiences of Hope in this large school and among the many friends she meets in and out of the school, are described in a series of bright, well-worded chapters. Among her friends is a strong fine man of broad and ripe culture, a musical critic and a writer of distinction. He becomes the Prince Charming of the story; but long before the happy conclusion of the romance many incidents occur in which light and shadow, tragedy and comedy, are interwoven as threads of gold and sable, and in which the human quality is so strong that the reader will find his interest growing as the story rapidly moves to its climax. Stories and Pictures. By Isaac Loeb Perez. THIS is the first translation into English of the stories of Perez, the gifted Russian Jew, who through the medium of the Yiddish language has given the world some of the most faithful and telling pictures of Jewish life that have appeared. Inevitably, perhaps, dealing as they do with the lives of the poor and the down-trodden, all these sketches are depressing, and some of them are tragic to the point of grimness. The author, however, possesses the master-power which enables him to impart to commonplace and even sordid happenings that deep human interest which lifts his work above the plane of mediocrity to that of genius. The stories give realistic pictures of Jewish life and customs in the Old World, but at the same time the reader is made to feel and understand the obscure psychological influences at work among these persecuted and devoted adherents of the orthodox Jewish faith. Among the more notable tales in these Stories and Pictures are "The Seven Candles of Blessing," "What is the Soul?" "In the Dead Town," and "The Messenger." AMY C. RICH. THIS little book is one of the finest satires of the year. Satire that is free from all suggestion of grossness and the poisoned sting of bitterness is rare in literature, and perhaps never so rare as at the present time; but here we have gentle satire at its best. Certain present-day extremes in the scientific theories of rearing infants, and the popular idea that motherhood does not call for the exercise of the tenderest and most sacred functionsdoes not, indeed, demand that the mother be a real mother to her offspring, are here charmingly taken off in a manner so droll and amusing as to delight all readers who enjoy that which is truly humorous; while the book does not contain a particle of wormwood nor any evidence of the biting satire that arouses antagonism. The Incubator Baby deals with the life of a wee little mite that is turned over to the tender mercies of an incubator and that later becomes the victim of a scientific committee that seeks to rear it according to theoretically perfect scientific rules. The rebellion of the child and its final victory, which is achieved when the old family-doctor tears up the rules and demands that the baby be turned over to its grandmother, brings the tale to a happy and sensible ending. It is a delightful story and will be enjoyed by old as well as young, though it will be especially pleasing to the little people. The Story of Scraggles. By George Wharton THIS is an exquisite little story written about the little song-sparrow, Scraggles, to which Mr. James dedicated In and Out of the Old Missions of California. Scraggles was a little crippled bird that Mr. James rescued and cared for in a tender and loving manner. The little creature returned the affection and showed in a thousand ways how dear were her benefactor, his wife and daughter. The tale appears as if written by the little bird herself in autobiographical form, until near the conclusion of the work, when Mr. James describes her untimely death, her burial and the grief which all the family felt for little Scraggles. The book is written in the fascinating style of this wizard with words. It is deeply interesting and at the same time it possesses special value in teaching the reader to love his feathered friends and to remember that all life proceeds from the same great Fountain of being and possesses something of Divinity. It will tend to check the wanton taking of the lives of birds, especially by the young and thoughtless ones. This little work would make an ideal holiday or birthday gift for a boy or girl who loves animal life. Tannhäuser. Wagner's Music-Drama re-told in English, by Oliver Huckel. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 80. Price, 75 cents net, postage 8 cents. New York: T. Y. Crowell & Company. WE KNOW of no writer who has better suc ceeded in interpreting the spiritual message of Richard Wagner as found in his great music-dramas of "Parsifal," "Lohengrin" and "Tannhäuser," than has Mr. Huckel. The present work is a companion to the preceding works in which "Lohengrin' and "Parsifal" were retold in English, preceded by luminous spiritual interpretations; and like these works, this volume also contains a similar foreword which is a thoughtful essay on the music-drama, in which the author while treating of the poem in a critical and inform ing manner points out its great ethical lesson. This essay alone is worth more than the price of the work to lovers of the greatest musical genius of the nineteenth century. The story of Tannhäuser as told by Wagner is here retold in noble, smoothly-flowing verse. Some lines possess rare beauty and will linger in the memory as the sweet strains of a fine instrument. The volume is handsomely gotten up, being tastefully bound in lavender cloth stamped in white and gold. Swinburne's Poems. Selected and edited by Arthur Beatty, Ph.D. Cloth. Pp. 272. Price, 35 cents. New York: T. Y. Crowell & Company. THIS admirable little volume brings the cream of Swinburne's poems within easy reach of all lovers of poetry, and in a handy-sized volume. The work contains about four-score poems, odes, sonnets, metrical imitations and parodies. The selections are most admirable, embracing a large number of Mr. Swinburne's best lines. We are glad to find here his noble tribute to Victor Hugo; also his lines on the monument of Giuseppe Mazzini and other of his fine personal tributes. The poems are prefaced by an excellent introductory chapter in which we have a brief but critical discussion of Swinburne's poems. The Nature of Capital and Income. By Irving Fisher, Ph.D., of Yale University. Cloth. Pp. 427. New York: The Macmillan Company. THIS large octavo of 427 pages has value for students, accountants and promoters, but is of little interest to the average citizen. It enters into the details of questions concerning the nature and source of capital and income, touches upon insurance problems, and deals in a supposedly scientific way with terms used in political economy. We take space for a single illustration of the author's method. He defines capital as a stock of wealth existing at an instant of time. In other words, in the mind of this author, all wealth is capital. This differs from the definition of Henry George, who affirms that capital is wealth in course of exchange, that is, capital is that portion of wealth which is used to produce Fisher, the house in which a manufacturer more wealth. For example, according to himself lives, is capital; according to George, it is not. Now these questions of themselves are of little importance. Provided an author uses his terms consistently with his own definition we care little about what that definition is, but when he is not careful to do this, and when in addition we have a variety of definitions by many different authors, we are led in our discussions into endless confusion. For our selves, we prefer the simple and exact definition of Henry George and his division of the factors of production into labor, land and capital. We believe this work of Professor Fisher's will tend only to add to the general confusion in political science. ROBERT E. BISBEE. The Modern Pulpit. By Lewis O. Brastow, D.D., Professor of Practical Theology, Yale University. Cloth. Price, $1.50 net. New York: The Macmillan Company. DR. BRASTOW, always calm, rational, deepsighted and analytical, is especially so in this volume. No one can read it without recog- of Washington society life and thorough famil nizing the influence of the pulpit and coming into a warmer appreciation of the difficulties, duties and greatness of the protestant preaching of the day. With all its shortcomings, its silence on vital issues, its toadyism to power, its failures at times to grasp fundamentals, its tenacious clingings to worn-out creeds, the pulpit has nevertheless brought life, hope and peace to many millions, raised the standard of morals, quickened the conscience, and paved the way for many reforms. It has kindled the fire which has consumed many of its own sins. In The Modern Pulpit Dr. Brastow takes a very broad and comprehensive view. He takes up the preparative influences of the eighteenth century, discusses also the prominent influences of the nineteenth century, then brings into view the German, Anglican, Scottish and American pulpits with many concrete examples selected from different denominations. ROBERT E. BISBEE. Miserère. By Mabel Wagnalls. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 80. Price, 40 cents. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company. THIS is a charming little story of music and music-lovers, written by one who evidently has a deep appreciation of and love for the art. The story is unique in theme and is delightfully told, with many delicate touches; but it is pitched in a minor key throughout. It is one of the popular Hour-Glass Series of tales with which to while away an idle half hour, issued by Messrs. Funk and Wagnalls. AMY C. RICH. The Dragon Painter. By Mary McNeil Fenollosa. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 262. Price, $1.50. Boston: Little, Brown & Company. WITH the publication of The Dragon Painter the identity of Sidney McCall becomes known, the author being Mrs. Mary McNeil Fenollosa, a Southern lady who has spent much time in Japan and has for years resided in Boston. Truth Dexter, Mrs. Fenollosa's first romance, revealed intimate knowledge of Southern life and of society life in Boston to-day; and the author's second work, The Breath of the Gods, showed equally intimate knowledge iarity with the thought, habits, customs and mental outlook of Japanese civilization. The present volume is a further study of Japanese life. In our judgment The Dragon Painter is far inferior as a novel to either Truth Dexter or The Breath of the Gods. Truth Dexter was unquestionably one of the finest romances of American life of recent decades, -a beautiful love-story charmingly depicting the true outlook on life of two entirely different worlds: that of the old aristocratic Southern families, and that of modern society-life in Boston. The heroine of this work is one of the finest creations by a modern American novelist. The Breath of the Gods is a powerful novel, far greater in dramatic intensity than Truth Dexter. It gives vivid pen-pictures of present-day diplomatic life in Washington and Tokyo, and equally accurate pictures of high life in Japan; but it is so tragic, so gloomy and almost gruesome in its outcome, in so far as the heroine is concerned, that it is not likely to prove as popular as Truth Dexter. The Dragon Painter is a finished piece of writing. Indeed, we think it is the author's most artistic literary creation; yet it is not a particularly pleasing story, in spite of the fact that the two central figures are reunited in the end. And, what is a more serious fault, the book lacks the convincing element, at least for Occidental minds. One cannot feel that the characters are real flesh and blood personalities or that the adventures described actually took place. This is not necessarily saying that such things never occurred or that such characters never lived or acted as did those here described; but the element of unreality, for Western minds at least, is so strong that the reader feels throughout much as he feels in reading The Arabian Nights or Alice in Wonderland. The hero, it seems to us, is a thoroughly impossible character in which the thin partition between genius and insanity seems to be completely broken down most of the time, and it is difficult to enthuse over such a hero; while the other characters are fantastic and unreal in much that they do. The story may be true to certain phases of Japanese life. It may have been on the whole a romance that was actually woven into reality, and yet it is not handled in such a manner as to be convincing. There is much in the life of the Japanese, and especially in the highlife of those who cling to the ideals of old Japan, that is very difficult for Americans to understand and appreciate. Hence it requires a writer of almost transcendent genius to create characters that shall reflect this strange life and its outlook so vividly and humanly as to make the reader feel he is in the presence of real human beings. This we think Mrs. Fenollosa has failed to do in The Dragon Painter. Jewel Weed. By Alice Ames Winter. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 434. Price, $1.50. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. THIS novel is far stronger and finer a romance than the author's former work, The Prize to the Hardy. The really well-drawn characters are more numerous, truer and more typical, and there is a fine ethical purpose dominating the romance throughout. It also presents an excellent glimpse of the great municipal struggle now going on in many American cities, where the electorate is slowly awakening to a realization of its moral responsibility and is uniting for the overthrow of the corporation-owned bosses. In this story the author shows how the public-service corporations have their feelers and tentacles reaching throughout the city and how in one way or another they are able to bring many intentionally honest men who become popular representatives, into their toils. But the chief interest of the romance lies in the dual love-story that runs like a cord of gold and a thread of tinsel through the warp and woof of the romance, and in which we have really masterly studies of two typical young women of the day: the high-minded and conscience-guided woman of feeling, and the beautiful but shallow butterfly naturethe body without a soul. Here are the real and the counterfeit coins; the nature dominated by altruism and moral idealism, and the life wrapped up in self or egoism-the sordid, materialistic existence whose self-absorption closes the eye and ear to the divine symphonies and the glories of the moral order and the unalloyed pleasure that comes to those who recognize the obligations, duties and noble responsibilities that life imposes on all her children. Though not a great novel, this is an excellent love-story written in a bright and pleasing style and very rich in human interest. More than this, it is for the most part true to the life it depicts. The Beloved Vagabond. By William J. Locke. Cloth. Pp. 303. Price, $1.50. New York and London: John Lane Company. IN QUITE a different vein from any of Mr. Locke's former novels is this latest romance from his pen. The Beloved Vagabond is the story of a brilliant but erratic man of genius, half French and half Irish, who gives up his sweetheart in order to save her father from prison. The girl, knowing nothing of the true reason of his desertion and believing him dead, marries a wealthy French count and drags out a miserable existence, after finding out from her husband that her lover is still alive. In the meantime Paragot, as her lover calls himself, although his true name is Gaston de Nerac, wanders about the world, mingling with all sorts and conditions of men, working at times, then going off wherever his fancy may lead him, but ever falling lower in the social scale. He is always welcome among a certain class of Bohemians because of his ready wit and keen intellect, but he has allowed his fine native gifts to be choked out by his mode of life. At the time the story opens he has adopted a little London gutter-snipe whom he whimsically renames Asticot, which means the little grey worms which French fishermen call 'gentles," Together they roam over half Europe, and their adventures as related by Asticot make up most of the story. In time the French count dies, and Paragot is given the opportunity once more to reinstate himself in his former place in society. For a time he and the countess imagine that they still love each other as in the old days, but the time comes when they realize that what they love is their memory of the past. The outcome of the story is quite out of the ordinary. AMY C. RICH. Rich Men's Children. By Geraldine Bonner. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 492 Price, $1.50. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. THIS novel by the gifted author of To-morrow's Tangle is one of the strongest romances of the year. It chiefly concerns the fate of the children of two of California's multimillionaires. The parents of the hero and heroine were poor day-workers in the old mining days, but they discovered some of nature's hoarded wealth imprisoned in the Sierras, which made them millionaires. Dominick Ryan, the hero and son of one of these rich men, falls a victim to the wiles of an adventuress, but not suspecting the early history of his wife, remains true to her, though exiled from his family and while his wife makes a hell on earth for the husband. Finally in despair he runs away from home, goes up the mountains and is snow-bound in a hotel with several other travelers, among whom are Bill Cannon the bonanza king and his beautiful daughter, Rose. The young people are necessarily thrown together, till each falls in love with the other; but the girl, though under the spell of love, has too much of the old Puritan spirit to be willing for Dominick to seek to gain a divorce, seeming to think it better for him and his wife to spend a life of hate and discord together than for them to be separated, even though Dominick's mother is ready to pay the adventuress wife a quarter of a million dollars if she will acquiesce in a divorce. At the moment when all seems darkest for Rose Cannon and Dominick Ryan, the former husband of Dominick's wife appears on the scene and thus the barriers are swept away that separated the young lovers. In Clive's Command. By Herbert Strang. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 450. Price, $1.50. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. THIS is the best boys' story we have read in months. The publishers announce in sending out the book, that Mr. Strang is a successor to G. A. Henty. This we think is a gross injustice to the author of In Clive's Command, as Mr. Strang's book is as far superior to Henty's as are the novels of Dickens, Scott and Bulwer superior to the stories of Mary J. Holmes or Laura Jean Libbey. Mr. Strang has imagination of a high order, which was singularly absent in Henty's stories. He has been true to the historic demands while writing a story that palpitates with action and whose characters are real, live personalities, and not manikins, such as were Henty's. The latter author seemed to us to take some great historic passage and then introduce one or two boys. The history was told in a fairly accurate manner, but without that imaginative power that invests history with realism. Not so with Mr. Strang. In the present book he has given us a vivid picture of real life that cannot fail to delight boys, while their interest will be so quickened in the history of Clive and his wonderful achievements that the more thoughtful ones will not rest content until they have learned of the great campaigns from the histories. A pretty love romance runs through the tale, adding to its interest, while it abounds in exciting and dramatic situations. Romance Island. By Zona Gale. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 394. Price, $1.50. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Those who Romance Island is well named. have enjoyed Miss Gale's quaint and thoroughly delightful stories of Pelleas and Ettarre which have appeared in The Outlook and other magazines during the past year, will, I fear, be disappointed in the present volume, which is as wildly improbable a tale of mystery and adventure as even Mr. Max Pemberton could produce. It deals with the adventures of some New York newspaper men who become involved in the search for the missing American king of a mysterious island located somewhere in the Southern Pacific,- -an island which lies in the fourth dimension and whose people possess all the lost knowledge of the ancient Phoenicians and have solved the vexed problems of aĕrial navigation and eternal youth. The story is thrillingly exciting from cover to cover and there is a delightful love romance running through it which terminates most happily. Those readers who do not demand the element of probability, or even of possibility, in their novels, will enjoy Romance Island. AMY C. RICH. |