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O matter how fond we may be of reading and how we may look back with a sense of delight at some of the most delicious moments of our lives when we were absorbed in some entrancing tale, it still remains true that all of us experience restless periods, when nothing in the way of a book seems to satisfy us.

And the worst of it is, this feeling appears to grow; just the thought that it is growing, that it is little by little getting the best of us, makes us yet more restless. That is, it does if we have a conscience. Singular to state, a large proportion of us still have consciences lingering somewhere about in our systems, although we may not realize this. It is the restless wandering of this conscience as it travels up and down our spinal cord and flops about in our medulla oblongata, only to rise up and patter aimlessly through the bewildering maze of our gray matterit is this that only aggravates our case of literary neurosis. There is undoubtedly, however, a proportion of people who either have no literary conscience at all or who by long practice have succeeded in utterly eliminating it. To contemplate these poor wretches may be of great benefit, because they serve as a warning-they reveal concretely what we ourselves may come to unless we take ourselves in hand. These are the people who go from mystery story to mystery story, who,

like advanced opium-eaters, demand a thrill on every half-page, and who if you should as much as mention to them the novels of Jane Austen would fall into a coma.

But it doesn't matter whether this disease of literary neurosis has only just attacked us or whether we are in the last, say the Oppenheim, stage of it, the quality of the result is the same; only the degree and intensity differ. Let us face it bravely and discover if we can cure ourselves of it.

It is a universal malady. It afflicts the scholar alike with the dilettante. Rousseau writes somewhere of the delights of a vacation where one takes along all the books one has planned to read-and never reads them. There is undoubtedly the greatest benefit in that kind of evasion. Indeed, a most convincing argument could be built up which would show the superiority of the moral progress to be made from not doing all the things we have planned. There may be, indeed, a deliberate intention to evade the things we plan. Thus there is the old jest of the lady who always does shopping without ever buying anything; and most of us have had the experience of laying out a journey beforehand and by some slight accident of having our direction completely diverted to some other destination sud

THE LOST ART OF TRUTH TELLING

The author of many volumes and a veteran reviewer comments on an Outlook book review in the following words:

I must say a word in praise of Willis Fletcher Johnson's review of Van Loon's "America for Little Historians." It is not only a great piece of work, but it shows the highest kind of editorial judgment to publish it. Our periodicals generally are governed by too much timidity. Telling the truth is almost a lost art. If you can keep on reviving it in The Outlook you will command a great audience. The American people are pathetic in their craving for the truth, and to place it before them requires not SO much courage as fine intelligence.

Willis Fletcher Johnson is honorary professor of history of American foreign relations at New York University. His incisive exposure of the inaccuracies in Mr. Van Loon's work, which has been widely recommended by librarians and school-teachers, was almost the first authoritative comment which the volume received. was a type of review which The Outlook is always eager to secure and ready to publish.

It

un

state: "I love deep reading more and more. Every day in every way I am getting better and better about deep reading." Do not fail, in repeating this formula, to add the magic phrase "In every way," because then you can tackle everything. Works on psychology and theology will fill you with delight, and a bound copy of the "Congressional Record" will excite your passionate interest.

But suppose after a fair trial this remedy should fail, as I am told occasionally happens. What then?

I have discovered a method that, although not without its difficulties, is of great benefit. If we come to analyze our motives for doing anything at all, we shall be amazed to see how the incentive comes from outside stimuli. For example, if you have a note coming due at the bank, say, in three months, your attention is very apt to be riveted to that fact and you have not the slightest difficulty in working like mad to be able to pay it. An automobile accident liability policy is the dullest reading there is, but if your car runs into anybody you read every word of the policy with your eyes glued to it. In much milder cases than these the thing works with astonishing power. You are fond of golf, but business has kept you nailed to your desk. Suddenly an old golfing partner drops in and says, "Come on! There's just time to get to the links." You are up to your ears, but the call of the wild golf ball is too strong, and so you fall, like the angels. You are off!

To circumvent literary neurosis, therefore, it is only necessary to cultivate a few literary specialists-say a Walter Scott rooter, a Jane Austen enthusiast, a Conrad crank, or a Shakespeare trailer. At first it will seem as if nobody ever read anything; but little by little you will be able to scare up these literary fans; and to-day our means of communication are so ample that you can reach any one of these anywhere in a few moments.

I recall quite vividly my first contact with a Conrad crank. I had picked up one of Conrad's novels a few days before meeting him, and, being afflicted with an attack of literary neurosis, I had wandered over its first pages aimlessly hoping there would be a killing. I couldn't get on with it. I mentioned this to the Conrad crank. There was a lambent gleam in his off eye; he grew rosy under the gills; then he began on me. In thirty minutes he had me worked up to a Conrad frenzy. I took an early train home that afternoon and sat up half the night until I had finished "Victory."

If you are a victim of literary neurosis with time and a fit of it both on your hands, call up one of your availables. Bait him a little. Say to him:

"Old man, is there anything good in what's his name-Robert Louis Stevenson? What is the best thing he ever

In the same test-tubes

IN

'N 1802 Eleuthere Irénée du Pont de Nemours, at the invitation and with the assistance of Thomas Jefferson, built on the Brandywine River the first du Pont plant the first powder mill to be erected in America. Jefferson had seen the vital necessity to the country's safety of insuring its supply of explosives, and so du Pont became powder-maker to the United States Gov

THE Chemical Engineer is a strange mingling of abili ties-a coupling of the man of science with the manufacturing expert. He is a chemist who knows manufacturing as well as his science, and who can take the chemist's discoveries on the experimental scale and put them into production on the larger scale of commerce. His province is the practical transformation of matter from useless to useful forms. And he has brought into the world's manufacturing plants a new knowledge, a new set of abilities, that has revolutionized industry in the past generation.

The du Pont Company was one of the pioneers in developing the Chemical Engineer. Since its founding by E. I.du Pont de Nemours, who was himself a chemist, it has been building on the foundations of chemistry, for the manufacture of explosives called for increasingly higher forms of chemical knowledge. And in the early years of this century, the du Pont Company had come to have one of the finest research staffs in the country, and in addition a staff of Chemical Engineers, men who knew manufacturing as well as chemistry.

This staff was essential, for since 1802 the du Pont Company's larger service has been to be ready to supply the Government with whatever explosives it might need for the country's defense. And for the same reason, the company had acquired sources of supply for the large quan. tities of the raw materials that it might one day need— acids, nitrates, coal-tar products and other materials that were absolutely essential to the production of explosives. In war, immense quantities of such materials are desperately needed-in peace, very little-yet the supply of materials has to be kept open, for who knows when they may be instantly needed?

But how? The Chemical Engineer found the answer. And in the answer lies the key to the du Pont Company's family of products. For the products that du Pont makes are not unrelated products. Each of them has its root in one or another of the materials used in making explosives.

It may be another use of the same materials as in the manufacture of dyes. It may be a variation in process, as in the case of Pyralin and Fabrikoid. It may be a product like paints, varnishes, enamels, etc., in which the knowledge of the Chemical Engineer is needed, and the colors produced in dyes, may be used. It may be a product like ether, or a long list of chemicals that other industries use, which the du Pont Company produces in manufacturing its other products.

"I regard The Literary Review as by far the ablest in this country and also in advance of any critical periodical over-seas for wide range of information, for brilliant, penetrative comment and for quintessential entertainment."

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W. Dawson Johnston, Librarian, The American Library in Paris, Inc. In addition to its editorials, essays, poems, and reviews, The Literary Review, through May Lamberton Becker's Department, "The Reader's Guide," renders a special service to subscribers by answering individual requests for reading lists, club programmes, etc. The annual subscription price is $2.50. A five months' introductory subscription may be obtained for $1. Send the coupon now.

lent period when desperadoes and gunmen made life difficult for the peaceful settlers of Kansas.

POETRY

HEROIC BALLADS OF RUSSIA (THE). By L. A. Magnus, LL.B. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. $5.

As Russia, in spite of its tremendous concentration in self-analysis and philosophical speculation, is the infant of civilized nations, so necessarily is it the last home of a living folk-lore. The great ballads of the Slav, perfected and crystallized through the fine sieve of an oral tradition, begin in the thirteenth century (a period which marks the full fruition and practical completion of the folk-lore of other countries) and come down to the Turco-Russian War. The literature, music, and art of modern Russia are in great measure based upon these ballad cycles. Mr. Magnus in his book has attempted a digest and narrative account of the earlier balladry of Russia. He, wisely enough, outlines no theories, but contents himself with setting forth the legends as they are. The result is a bulk of stirring and heroic tales, occasionally interspersed with passages in verse which illustrate the ballad meters and methods of composition of this root literature of Russia. His work is to be applauded, although so simple in imagery are the tales it is to be desired that the ballads themselves eventually receive by complete translations the recognition that is their due.

FICTION

TRAMPING ON LIFE. By Harry Kemp. Boni & Liveright, New York. $3.

Has the author of this "autobiographical narrative" modeled his book on Rousseau's "Confessions"? Some of the revelations make one think he has; but, so far as we remember, Rousseau did not include profanity among his foibles. People who can stomach the profanity and the sex stuff of this book will find it decidedly interesting in its discursive and conversational revelations of an un

conventional personality.

VAN ROON (THE). By J. C. Snaith. D. Appleton & Co., New York. $2.

There is a fascination about antique shops, and Mr. Snaith makes good use of that setting to interest his reader in the recovery and restoration of the marvelously beautiful Van Roon painting. Its adventures in the hands of Uncle Si, the miserly dealer, his assistant the super-simple William, and his niece the super-clever June are exciting and duly end in love and prosperity. Not exactly Mr. Snaith's strongest work.

ESSAYS AND CRITICISM WOMEN OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. By Winifred Stephens. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. $5.

The women of the French Revolution have filled a large space in history and literature. Such names as Marie Antoinette, Mme. Roland, and Charlotte Corday rank with Louis XVI, Mirabeau, and Danton in the list of the great characters of that epoch. The author of this book tells in detail and with literary

skill the story of the lives of many of these women and reveals much that will be new to the average reader.

TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION ATOLLS OF THE SUN. By Frederick O'Brien. Illustrated. The Century Company, New York. $5.

Experiences in visiting some of the less well known islands of the South Seas are here described by the author with characteristic vividness and charm of style. The story of the mutineers of the Bounty is retold and brought up to date, and will be read with avidity by all who are interested in that romantic idyll of the Pacific. Some of the natives who figured in Mr. O'Brien's previous books are again met with in these stirring chapters.

IN LOTUS-LAND JAPAN. By Herbert G. l'onting. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. $6.

Lovers of Japan will make no mistake in using this new edition of Mr. Ponting's "Lotus Land" as a gift book. The lure of the pictures and of the wellbalanced text would win over even a Japanophobist to a liking for the wonderful islands and their remarkable people. The color plates are especially dainty.

NIGHTS AND DAYS ON THE GYPSY TRAIL. By Irving Brown. Illustrated. Harper & Brothers, New York. $3.

George Borrow is indirectly responsible for this delightful book about the Gypsies. The author, as a college boy, one day picked up Borrow's "Gypsies of Spain" and became absorbed in it. He learned his Romany vocabulary, and later visited Spain and mingled with the Gypsies on terms of familiarity that Borrow himself might have envied. The pages are full of color, incident, and insight into the character and life of these strange people.

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY INITIATION, HUMAN AND SOLAR. By Alice A. Bailey. The Lucifer Publishing Company, New York. $3.50.

This book is dedicated "with love and reverence to the Master K. H." The Master K. H., it seems, dwells at Shigatse in the Himalayas, where he has lived for many centuries and "is in line for the office of World Teacher when the present holder of that office vacates it for higher work and the sixth root race comes into being." The "initiated" may find something worth while in the farrago of high-sounding words that fill these 200-odd pages, but to the average Anglo-Saxon the book will be useful only as offering a mild form of amusement. LETTERS ON OCCULT MEDITATION.

ReThe

ceived and Edited by Alice A. Bailey. Lucifer Publishing Company, New York. $4. These letters purport to come from a "Tibetan teacher" who prefers to remain anonymous. People of a mystical temperament may perhaps find in them some adumbration of the supposed wisdom of the East. Others may be amused at the long-drawn-out metaphysical disquisitions, akin to the dissertations of the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages. But much of the so-called "philosophy" will remind the reader of the jargon of the

Keely motor cult of a generation goo and

ABINGDON

Gift Books of Permanent Interest

A

BOOK of merit cannot wear out its appeal. Rather it improves with closer acquaintance and frequent delving into the treasures of its pages. Choose those books for Christmas gifts that will invest with appreciation and permanency the remembrance of the donor.

Abingdon Books live longer than the few days of the holiday season. The truths they voice, the artistry of their silent discourse, place them among the favored volumes of every true lover of good books. They are an enduring compliment to the finer sensibilities of the reader and a reflection of the giver of gifts.

Make your selections this season from the volumes bearing the mark of The Abingdon Press.

THE PREACHER AND THE PEOPLE

By Bishop Francis J. McConnell Bishop McConnell has restricted the range of these lectures so that they deal only with the minister as a preacher. It is, therefore, an intensive rather than an extensive discussion. It is essentially a book for the younger men in the ministry, although it contains much that will prove profitable to those of larger and wider experience. Net, $1.00, postpaid.

SHADOWS ON THE WALL
By F. W. Boreham

In his brief introductory note to this volume of his delightful essays the author remarks, by way of explanation of its title and characterization of its contents: "The figures that float across these pages are like shadows dancing on the wall. They show that life is crowded with realities and flooded with radiance, for without substance and sunshine there can be no shadows."

Net, $1.75, postpaid.

THE CHRISTMAS CANTICLES
By George Elliott

This book is the fruitage of "nearly fifty years' meditations at Christmas time on the Canticles of the Incarnation," and has a distinct message as an interpretation of the divine purpose in the sending forth of the Divine Son into the world. Frontispiece. Net, $1.00, postpaid.

THE VALIDITY OF AMERICAN IDEALS By Shailer Mathews

In this discussion of the history and significance of America, Dean Mathews attempts to help the generation that bore the brunt of the war to take up the course of development interrupted by that great tragedy."

Net, $1.25, postpaid.

THE INEVITABLE BOOK
By Lynn Harold Hough

This charming volume comprises a series of stories of the fashion in which men and women from the most varied groups met the time of crisis in their lives. Each comes to the decisive hour in need of a living word to be spoken from somewhere and in each case the word comes from one compelling, powerful Book. These stories show how that Book lives again in lives made different by its presence.

Net, $1.25, postpaid.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYER
By C. K. Mahoney

Philosophy undertakes to explain the facts of existence. These facts are the facts of experience, in the widest sense of the term, and the facts of necessary inference deduced from the premises furnished by experience. Prayer is a real fact of human life and it ought to have a philosophy. In these chapters the author seeks to disclose and explain it. Net, $1.00, postpaid.

At the Better Bookshops

THE ABINGDON PRESS

NEW YORK

LAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY

Lake Forest, Illinois

Announces the publication of the volume

of essays on, "Christianity and Problems of Today, a series of lectures given at Lake Forest on the Bross Foundation, November third to sixth, 1921.

CONTENTS "From Generation to Generation"

John Houston Finley, LL.D., L.H.D. "Jesus' Social Plan "

Charles Foster Kent, Ph.D., Litt.D. "Personal Religion and Public Morals"Robert Bruce Taylor, D.D., LL.D. "Religion and Social Discontent "

Paul Elmer More, Litt.D. LL.D. "The Teachings of Jesus as Factors in International Politics, with Especial Reference to Far Eastern Problems"

Jeremiah W. Jenks, Ph.D., LL.D.

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