My Country, 'Tis of Thee

T

HE pamphleteers who direct their efforts toward ennobling the American scene by showing the American people what cheap bounders and dull-witted opportunists they are might save their breath to cool their porridge. Instead of that, having once, and even twice and again, said their say to the vast amusement of many but the cleansing discomfiture of few, they keep on saying it because, forsooth, they must have porridge to cool. Sinclair Lewis, like his old friend George F. Babbitt and his new friend Lowell Schmaltz, the Man Who Knew Coolidge, has got to eat. And if he prefers to eat abroad, if he likes cervelle au beurre noir and château neuf du pape better than buckweat cakes and hooch, we do not blame him. But what he and other acute and brilliant writers have said might be said in fewer words and to as much or as little purpose. America is not Europe. The American is not as civilized as the European. The European is distinguished by a hard head, a soft heart, and a quick tongue. The American, by a soft head, a hard heart, and a slick tongue. What is to be done about it?

Nothing, by such means. Nothing any more. These that were voices crying in the wilderness have become part of a raucous popular chorus. Whatever be the state of minds and hearts, their tongues are as slick as any.

Two things have to be understood about America. First of all, it is adolescent, as all its critics, foreign and domestic, recognize. It has the typical adolescent faults, which are more conspicuous than the equally typical virtues. America is being its age with a vengeance. And against adolescence the weapon of satire is worse than useless. Sneer at your sixteen-year-old, and he is immediately reinforced by the terrible pride of youth. But get him laughing at himself, and half the battle is won. Better than by a thousand monologues of Lowell Schmaltz or a thousand strokes of

1 The Man Who Knew Coolidge. By Sinclair Lewis. Harcourt, Brace & Co.

the caduceus upon the backsides of boobus americanus anything that can be done by writers to make the adolescent American mass grown up can be done by

THIS list is compiled from the lists of the ten best-selling volumes sent us by wire by the following book-shops each week:

New York-Brentano's;
Rochester-Scrantoms Inc.;
Cleveland-Korner & Wood;

St. Louis-Scruggs, Vandevoort, & Barney;
Denver-Kendrick Bellamy Company;
Houston-Teolin Pillot Company;
San Francisco-Paul Elder & Co.;
Baltimore-Norman, Remington Company;
Kansas City-Emery Bird Thayer.

Fiction

"The Bridge of San Luis Rey," by Thornton Wilder. Albert & Charles Boni. This beautifully written and moving study in the working of God's providence, and of love, the bridge which joins the living and the dead, deserves its popularity. Reviewed January 4. "Wintersmoon," by Hugh Walpole. Doubleday, Doran & Co. You will enjoy this social comedy in Walpole's best vein. Some old names appear, and there is at least one gaging character. Reviewed March 7. "The Greene Murder Case," by S. S. Van Dine. Charles Scribner's Sons. The famous society detective, Vance, is at work again, this time on a complicated and slightly incredible case, which nevertheless is not keeping Van Dine enthusiasts from devouring it.

very en

"The Key of Life," by Francis Brett Young. A. A. Knopf. The author's two most sympathetic settings, the Cotswolds and Africa, are the background for a dramatic story, written with poetic feeling. To be reviewed

next week.

"Ashenden, or the British Secret Agent," by W. Somerset Maugham. Doubleday, Doran & Co. These exciting stories of war, spies, and murder are good light reading. Reviewed May 2.

Non-Fiction

This

"Disraeli." by André Maurois, translated by Hamish Miles. D. Appleton & Co. strangely romantic figure is touched vividly into life by Maurois's hand. You will find this excellent reading. Reviewed February 22. "Mother India," by Katherine Mayo. Harcourt. Brace & Co. This account of some aspects of Indian society is furnishing Americans with lively, if not accurate, information. Reviewed June 22.

"Napoleon, the Man," by R. McNair Wilson.

The

Century Company. In contrast to the familiar conception of Napoleon, this study presents him as the savior of the French revolutionary spirit. To be reviewed next week. "Skyward," by Commander Richard E. Byrd. G. P. Putnam's Sons. This stirring story of achievement deserves a place beside "We" on the American book-shelf. Reviewed May 2. "Strange Interlude," by Eugene O'Neill. Boni & Liveright. This play, in which the dramatist steals some of the novelist's best psychological thunder, is as good to read as to see: perhaps better. Reviewed in "Lights Down,' February 22.

The other thing which must be understood about America, which the able of its foreign critics has left unnoticed, is that it is and has always been convinced at heart, not only of its privileges, but of its responsibilities. This is something no Continental can under stand; it appears to be one of tho romantic obsessions which is peculiar Anglo-Saxon, and our polyglot country adopted it along with English speec In conception it is a version of the me sianic conviction. America believes its heart that it is its brother's keepe This quality, like that of adolescence, has with its virtues its terrible defects. Conviction, amazing strength for c operative effort mark it. So do blind stupidity and intolerance. If you can doubt it, read "Let Freedom Ring" and "The Inquiring Mind." Supple ment the fire of Mr. Hays's pen with the cold steel of Mr. Chafee's. "Let Freedom Ring" is written for popular reading; "The Inquiring Mind," for special Both deal with the greatest danger t the future of America as her founders conceived her that can exist the danger that the country, in "exalting order at the cost of liberty," has forgotten the ideals which underlie her institutions. They deal with the tragic farce of free dom, with blindness and bigotry, with the Scopes trial, the Boston censorship cases, the coal company towns, with the case of Sacco and Vanzetti. No one whose interest in America goes beyond his own immediate fortunes should leave such books as these unread. Perhaps you read Lewis and Nathan and laugh

of a na

and thank God that you are not as other men. Perhaps you see the unlovely surface of America and accept it with a sigh as a necessary evil in a land still young. Perhaps your acceptance rests upon the belief that under the surface all is

Oy Ale well. If so, you fail master to see that that very rance is messianic impulse ustrates which distinguishes scene the American soul, me absurd sincere and great in conception, has be

must become, not ludicrous, hich but blasphemous in leitt fruition. And that ways be is because America ly of is a country whose Dilities people look, as all al can people have a right one to do, to those in

oes

and i

his

high places for spir

The Player Struts and Frets

"Daisy and Daphne," by Rose Macaulay. Boni & Liveright. The philosophy which Rose Macauay expresses in all her novels is the philosophy of Macbeth, staggering to his doom, and soliloquizing upon the futility of life. But that it is her own, doubt. She is amused or scornful or dis

we

st da usted, but always she pities humanity

her

St-th

alting

Forgot

insti

arce a

that struts and frets and then is seen no more. She has a quality of detached maternity, if such an anomaly is possible. Her new book, "Daisy and Daphne," is no exception. It is the story of Daphne Daisy Simpson (her

appearance as two distinct people in the first half of the book can deceive no one); Daisy to her lower-middle-class family, Daphne to her upper-middleclass friends, Marjorie Wynne to the staff and readers of the "Evening Wire" and to the public which absorbs "thirdrate novels;" to God and Rose Macaulay, who made her, "a frail little spirit," whimpering, "Oh, what am I to do?" in bewildered voice and scuttling to cover a study in the inferiority complex, one talented writer says; just a study in personality, we say. Daisy is the child, by an earlier and less regular union, of Mrs. Lily Arthur, of East Sheen. Mrs.

ter and would make "Daisy and "Daisy and Daphne" worth reading if there were no one else in it. She is the wife of a decorator of the papering and painting, not the interior variety-and mother of Ed, a reporter; Amy, a librarian; and Ada, a telephone operator; as well as of Daisy. Daisy's father was a writer, who, dying, left the fruit of his unsanctified affection for the subsequent Mrs. Arthur in care of his sister. In the social stratum of her aunt, Daisy became Daphne.

Daphne went out to a delicious Mediterranean island with the Folyots, as

companion to their diverting young children; secretary to Mr. Folyot, who was something in the British Museum; and

general assistant to Mrs. Folyot, a public-spirited lady, engaged perpetually in listening to, rescuing, sustaining, and parading for the politically disaffected of all lands. On the Mediterranean island

Daisy fell abjectly in love with Raymond, the Folyots' grown son, a cool mond, the Folyots' grown son, a cool young biologist. Daphne became his humorous, care-free companion on walks to look at birds and to capture strange

marine creatures. And Marjorie Wynne

sent back pieces to the "Evening Wire" on "Can the Post-War Girl Make a Home?" In an emergency which called for nerve and a cool head the cowardly lower-middle-class Daisy appeared in

Daphne's place. She was not liked. Daphne Daisy went back to London and her novels and pieces, and Daisy sought consolation in the wide bosom of the Arthur family, where she was "mother's clever girl." But the Folyots came back to London, too. Daphne was reconstructed for them, and Raymond fell a little in love with her. To satisfy Daisy's pride, Daphne's engagement was reported in East Sheen. To keep Daphne going, Daisy's family was misrepresented and Marjorie Wynne suppressed in the Folyot home. This castle of lies was bound to collapse, and so it

does, ignominiously, carrying Daphne with it, leaving Daisy unsheltered to the bitter wind. Raymond Folyot despises

Daisy, nasty little snob and vulgar liar. East Sheen despises Daphne, conceited little snob and ungrateful liar. So Marjorie Wynne, having accomplished a successful third-rate novel, leaves for Amer

A

of us, "since all are, in a manner of speaking, in the same quandary."

Rose Macaulay is highly successful in her contrasted characters and atmospheres. Her admirations and her dislikes are hearty. She is thoroughly British. Some readers will be annoyed by her digressions, and want her to get on with her good story and her real people. We find her sharp running comment on the writing and selling of books, on psychoanalysis, the rearing of children, journalism, and good works an amusing part of her book. And her tricks of style are endearing. She quashes, except once in a while when it will spill out, her poetic instincts and remains sturdily hard-headed. Her deliberate clumsinesses, occasional carelessness-deliberate, too, perhaps her affection for scientific terms and long lists of birds and flowers, all these idiosyncrasies endow her books with a very personal and humorous quality which we find delightful. More than that of any other contemporary writer her work gives a sense of a secret amusing and not a little touching shared between writer and reader. You will have guessed that we like Rose Macaulay.

Curzon and Asquith

By P. W. WILSON

"The Life of Lord Curzon," by the Earl of Ronaldshay. Boni & Liveright. "Speeches," by the Earl of Oxford and Asquith. Doubleday, Doran & Co.

One by one, even the later Victorians, vanishing from visibility, resign their fame to the chilly test of cold print. It is Lord Ronaldshay who, in the first of three volumes, speaks for Lord Curzon, carrying a readable biography to the eve of the Indian Viceroyalty. In speeches, well selected, perfect in form and mercifully concise, Asquith speaks for himself.

It used to be an axiom that Balliol College, over which that Mr. Worldly Wiseman, the late Dr. Jowett, presided as master, produced graduates of a type. Indeed, in a fraternity limited to a hundred or two students and dominated by a powerful personality such a myth was, perhaps, inevitable. Yet none studying the actual characters of Asquith and Curzon-we might add, of Milner and Grey and Lansdowne and St. Loe Strachey-would conclude that they had been compressed into one academic mold. The most perfect of Balliol men, as the phrase has been understood, is that suave, efficient, faultless lawyer, Sir John Simon, and he, like his rival, Lord. Birkenhead, went to Wadham! We ex

aggerate the spell of institutions. If

Asquith had been enrolled at Magdalen and Curzon at Christ Church, their careers and their individualities would not have been materially affected.

Both of these men were scholarly. Both of these men were efficient. Both of these men were obviously of Prim Ministerial timber. If one of them missed the prize which the other won, was for two reasons. They differed in method. They differed in caste.

Asquith economized effort. He wasted not a word on what was other than the worth while. All his work was well done while he was at work. When done, he left the work behind. Curzon made work. On details of no importance he concentrated an exhausting attention. To his correspondence he was an addict As Tamerlane shed blood, so did he shed ink, and it was in reams that he dropp you a line.

So with oratory. For the platfor and for Parliament both men were well prepared. But what prepared Asquit was practice. What prepared Curz was polish. In the one case, the manner was servant; in the other case, the manner was master. Curzon lavished on a phrase the attention that Asquith devoted to a policy.

The men belonged to opposite castes Eight hundred years of continuous res dence at Kedleston linked the Curzon with the Norman Conquest. To rule w their right. By ancestry, Asquith b longed, not to the aristocracy, but to the enfranchised.

due.

At the outset, it seemed as if all th advantages of birth lay with the heir a peerage. When Asquith was languishing in Opposition, Curzon held the high est of all Durbars at Delhi. But a revolution, silent and bloodless, was de The day when the House of Lords elected the House of Commons was fast receding into history. With Labor ca turing the Opposition, obviously the Prime Minister, even if Conservativ must sit when he could give Labor the answer direct. For the highest office, as Lord Curzon was dismayed to learn, Marquisate had become an absolute d qualification.

dis

Of his temperament much has be written, and not too much. No man who worked as he worked can be wholly insufferable. Indeed, he was at times both human and witty, and of his l alty to the Christian faith it is impos ble to speak without respect.

But conquest was in his bones. England-that was an old story. It must be Tibet, Persia, "the glacis of India." F Ireland, for the self-governing Dom ions, for the United States, whence derived his wife and his balance at the bank, he had no real regard. The re tions that Curzon loved were the nations that could be ruled.

Hence he was not really popular even with his peers. He regarded the duk

a

were

efficien

iously a

the othe

and the viscounts with whom he associated at Westminster as he had regarded the Nizams and Gaekwars who ionealaamed at Delhi; that is, as allies in heredity, honored allies, but allies who must acknowledge a sovereign superiority. The Devonshires and the Buccleuchs did not always relish the salutes with which they were greeted as Lord Curzon's rajahs.

They

in caste.

Curan

so did

hat he

the

say,

That Lord Curzon surpassed, let us the Cecils in pride is the reverse of the truth. The Cecils are so proud that they do not trouble to parade it. It was Curzon's misgivings as to his prestige that led him to assert it. Haughtier than Balfour, he was really more sensitive. To the press Balfour, bland and smiling, played the pachyderm. But a paragraph would send Curzon into a paroxysm. He pared dwelt in an age when chivalry was a pared show, not a deed; he was more conse, the cerned with his coat of arms than with case, this armor; if he wore a helmet, it was laviste for the sake of the plume. Serious, not As strong, he raised a smile; and the climax of his career was to serve under Lloyd pposite George.

men

ntinue So with an unstained escutcheon, he thedied with no son to succeed to his acTo cumulation of titles. His daughter was As married to Oswald Mosley and together cy, they joined the Labor Party. It is due

to an indulgent parent to add that his assense of humor enabled him heartily to hth enjoy his own predicament.

"Stonewall Jackson," by Allen Tate. Minton, Balch & Co.

A new story of "Old Jack" must inonevitably have appeared, for circulation Lai would be large, particularly through the South, where, in the nature of things, ons General Jackson was most admired and La where he lives in memory as somewhat a genius. Now comes Allen Tate, to Virginian at heart if not by birth, with ba book for Virginians. To these the memory of the great fighter has been most dear.

of

Mr. Tate, no doubt, has already be touched off a round of chuckles over "Stonewall," has set the oldsters to reswapping the yarns about the doughty eccentric-and many the stories told that never found way into the new book. Not all the anecdotes they tell in Virginia flatter the Civil War hero. There's the one, for instance, about how young Tom jumped from the window of his uncle's mill into the mill-race in order to escape officers of the civil law. Mr. Tate, however, scarcely goes beyond the characterization, "overdeveloped." "Old Jack" does little worse than sit on a Stump and suck a lemon. The author admired, or even loved,

his hero, but he did not love him enough that he could discuss flaws as well as greatness. "Jackson alone, as a soldier, was Lee and Longstreet combined; Longstreet alone was-Longstreet; Lee alone, as a soldier and as a man, was almost God." The author, admittedly, early acquired that belief, and in seeking to uphold that belief he is through

out the book on the defensive.

He has written a concise story of Jackson's military campaigns, showing brief glimpses of Jackson.

Mr. Tate does not understand his man as he could have had he inquired further into the three prime conditioners General Jackson had in his poorness of eyesight, his glandular troubles, and his "obscure stomach complaint." The author scoffs at the idea of considering them or does he, in the intentness of his defense, scoff at the trend of modern biography, which is toward understanding or as far as one can go in that direction? The defense is there; the man is not.

"Good soldier" Jackson was beyond doubt, and active, too, but he was sometimes extremely foolish. "A great opportunity had slipped away" because he would not fight on Sunday, not even if he was about the Lord's business. What couldn't he have done if his acute need for activity had not driven him to attempts at defeating, with his handful of men, the entire Union army, if he had not so often been impatient of delay, if he had been slightly less secretive in his plans? To what heights could he not have gone if he had been more regardful of the Valley Army's brains-his own? Such was his confidence in the belief that God would see him through that he did not take even normal precautions to protect himself. And yet there is that analogue of nature, who in the individual protects the area of "reasoning" with bony structure.

Because of the General's taciturnity one now can only attempt interpretation of what went on in his mind. Some of Mr. Tate's judgments go without adequate, convincing support. Tom Jackson could have been America's "greatest military genius" but for the limitations put upon him by his own nature.

In some of his battle scenes Mr. Tate does some excellent short bits of description. For the greater part, however, his style tends to an abruptness that is disconcerting. He seems to be as devoid of a sense of humor as was his subject. Here is, then, a study chiefly valuable for its résumé of military tactics-tactics that today seem so pitiful in the light of great changes, and which can never be employed again in this era of civilization.

Pirie Macdonald

Literature! Etched in Moonlight

A New Book by
JAMES STEPHENS

Now in its Seventh
Large Printing

"James Stephens' name on a book is like the hallmark on silver." Everything that he touches with his pen is transmuted to the gold of permanent literature. In this book of stories he has once more produced work comparable to the best of all time. Here you have literature today, without waiting for the seal of age.

"Had he never written another line these short stories would establish his claim to greatness. One does not sit down to rave about James Stephens any more than one sits down to rave about the Woolworth Building or the 'Immaculate Conception' of Murillo. One accepts him, and any attempt to heap adjectives upon him comes too close to painting the lily." -The Brooklyn Eagle.

Picked at Random

By WALTER R. BROOKS

Ernest Bramah's

Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat Doubleday, Doran

Subtle, suave, and intricately satirical is this third book of Bramah's, in which the tales of Kai Lung, the story-teller, are strung along the thread of that person's adventures in rescuing the beautiful Golden Mouse from the ferocious Ming Shu. The ponderous, polished, and totally insincere courtesy of all the characters, with its transposition of our ordinary slang phrases into a sort of high-flown Chinese idiom, is delightful. The garbage man becomes one of the Hereditary Confederacy of Superfluity Removers and Abandoned Oddment Gatherers. A petition is not buried in a pigeonhole, it is consigned to the eternal oblivion of the dove's retreat. We only refrain from saying that these books are the best of their kind because we know of no others that are at all like them. They are really unique.

H. De Vere Stacpoole's

The Mystery of
Uncle Bollard
Doubleday, Doran

Jimmy asked Clyde to avenge his father's murder, so Clyde came all the way from London to San Francisco, where the deed had been done. Clyde

And now

district attorney, and then Barry Ki wouldn't have met her and another r mance would never have blossomed. S we're glad Sir Frederic was murdere And we do admire Kirk, who, whe found that his butler had once put po son in a lady's tea, had the courage continue drinking concoctions that worthy prepared for him.

so he called on the old gentleman and asked his help. Uncle Bollard was a wheat operator with several fingers in the political pie. He was certainly a hard egg. And how he did prick up his ears when he heard that Neuberg was suspected of the murder! Clyde couldn't figure out why Uncle Bollard was so sour on Neuberg-not that it made any difference either to him or to the story.

Uncle Bollard's vindictiveness, when there's Captain Duckers's lovely daughter and the more sinned against than sinning Sellers and the vile Neuberg and an exciting man hunt over quite a lot of land and sea? Stacpoole has done better, but he always spins a good yarn.

Earl Derr Biggers's Behind that Curtain

Bobbs-Merrill

The curtain of the past, veiling what happened to Eve Durand when she vanished from Peshawur many years ago, is very deftly lifted by Charlie Chan, the Chinese detective, whose methods and quaintnesses have charmed us before. Of course, if Sir Frederic Bruce, former head of the C. I. D., hadn't happened to be murdered in his host's office in San Francisco, Charlie, like the flowers that bloom in the spring, would have had nothing to do with the Neither would the beautiful lady

case.

"Abie's Irish Rose."-Just like the play. "Beau Sabreur."-Plenty of sand, but no ging "The Big City."-Lon Chaney fails to save it. "Burning Daylight."-Won't set fire to anyth "The Chaser."-Harry Langdon scores a mis "Chicago."-Just like the play-this is praise. "The Circus."-If you don't like Chaplin, yo the funny one.

"The Count of Ten."-James Gleason and Cha Ray are good.

"The Crowd."-A sad story, beautifully direct "Doomsday."-Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear! "Dressed to Kill."-The ace of the crook play "Drums of Love."-Pomp, pathos, and L Barrymore.

"Four Sons."-It's a fine film, but too long. "The Gaucho."-No one is perfect-not

Douglas Fairbanks.

"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."-Pretty girls pretty vague.

"A Girl in Every Port."--Victor MacLaglen is i "The Jazz Singer."-Al Jolson sings, and that's "The Last Command."-The great Jannings.

it.

"The Legion of the Condemned."-The so-ca sequel to "Wings." "Love."-Greta Garbo and John Gilbert. Rec mended.

tagu Love.

"Mother Machree."-A nice, mushy Irish pict "A Night of Mystery."-Adolphe Menjou-just f "The Noose."-A fairly absorbing film, Richard Barthelmess, Alice Joyce, and M "Red Hair."-Clara Bow in her big disrobing "Sadie Thompson."-Gloria Swanson trying ha "The Secret Hour."-Pola Negri in a good pict "Simba."-The Martin Johnson masterpiece. "Skyscraper."-Thoroughly enjoyable. "Speedy." You can't go wrong on Harold L "Street Angel."-A beautiful, tiresome picture "Sunrise." Dr. Murnau's supreme achieveme "Tenderloin."-The first (and worst) talking mo "The Trail of '98."-The grandest scenes now view.

"Two Lovers."-Last of the Colman-Bankys.