nothing but the elegant, the poetic, the joyous, the enchanting. I
picture him in a powdered wig, clad in a gorgeous costume of the Louis
XV. period, playfully lorgnetting life and art, and raving ecstatically
over everybody and everything. I confess, an all-loving person looks
suspicious to me; but Mr. Phillips’ book is so sincere, he adores things
so pathetically, that I cannot help enjoying him. He becomes irritating
only at such moments when he tries to be very much in earnest and breaks
into absurd generalization. His credo is Impressionism—in life and in
art—but what an elastic term is Impressionism to our dear enthusiast.
Giotto, Titian, Da Vinci, Velasquez, Corot, and Dégas were
impressionists, and so were Shakespeare, and Browning, and Keats, and
Yeats, and Robert Bridges and who not! He loves them all, loves
beautifully, touchingly, but he fails pitifully to define his beliefs.
Why should he define? Why not be happy in enjoying good things without
giving reasons, without strained endeavors to form classifications and
definitions? Oh, those definitions! But we easily forgive the author his
absurd statements, we can even sympathize with the pain he gets when
contemplating the Futurists, whom he terms “lawless.” We forgive a lover
everything, for we feel grateful to him for the moments of bliss that he
generously shares with us. Truly, it is a book of religious joy.
K.
Old Virtues in New Forms
_The Age of Mother-Power_, by C. Gasquoine Hartley (Mrs. Walter M.
Gallichan). [Dodd, Mead and Company, New York.]
One is compelled to take Mrs. Gallichan seriously in her visioning of
the future social status of men and of women in the world of sex; for
the results of close observation, research, and computation strengthen
the most reasonable prophecies. She is modest enough to state her big
idea in simple terms. She points out that, since society had in its
primitive days a long and up-tending period of mother-power, or female
dominance; and, following that, a protracted season of masculine rule,
which is only now awakening to feminine rebellion; it is clearly
apparent that a new era is commencing, in which all the old virtues of
mother-right will be re-established in new forms, with the
distinctly modern addition of that solitary virtue of male
despotism—father-protection. This is a theory—only a theory, if one
wishes to preen one’s own prejudice—which the writer approaches and
develops from various angles. She has fruitfully studied history,
legend, folk-lore, savages, and other departments of human life. Her
deductions are carefully and lucidly thought out, strongly original, and
entirely worthy of attention.
HERMAN SCHUCHERT.
A Handbook of the War
_The Great War_, by Frank H. Simonds. [Mitchell Kennerley, New
York.]
The European war threatens to become a prolonged phenomenon. To the
Trans-Atlantic public it is a keenly-felt tragedy; to us here it is an
interesting spectacle, the audience being requested to remain neutral,
to refrain from applause and disapproval. Even so, we are in need of a
libretto. Frank H. Simonds supplies us with a comprehensive account of
the first act of the drama. The lay reader is getting acquainted with
the complexities of the pre-war events and with the further developments
of the conflict down to the fall of Antwerp. The simple maps and the
lucid comments make the book not only instructive, but also readable.
You must read the book if you do not want to play the ignoramus in
present-day floating, cinematographic history.
The New Reporting
_Insurgent Mexico_, by John Reed. [D. Appleton and Company, New
York.]
“Who is John Reed?”, asked the newspapers when, forgetting for the
moment their name-worshipping arrogance, they discovered that the best
reports from Mexico were coming, not from the veteran correspondents,
but from an unknown. The answer is that John Reed is the only
“correspondent” that the Mexican mix-up or the present European struggle
has yet brought to light, who has a really new and individual method of
reporting. These are not dogmatic, cock-sure, crisis-solving “articles”
from the front, but simple, vivid reporting of scenes and actions that
have some reason for being reported. And John Reed is about the only
reporter who has shown us that the Mexican people have visions of a
future. The newspapers and those whose duty it seems to be to uphold the
old idea are now crying that Reed’s simple realism is too slight to be
of value as history, and that he does not “get beneath the surface”—but
these people have still to see which kind of reporting can endure as
history.
Incorrect Values
_Life and Law_, by Maude Glasgow. [G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.]
A secondary title—“The Development of the Exercise of the Sex Function
Together with a Study of the Effect of Certain Natural and Human Laws
and a Consideration of the Hygiene of Sex”—is evidence _per se_ that the
book is inadequate and superficial. In less than two hundred pages no
writer can more than hint at all these topics, and in trying to cover so
much ground the author really covers nothing. She tells over old facts
and frequently gives them what are now accepted as incorrect values. Her
statements are as sweeping as the scare heads of the old quack medicine
almanacs. She describes men as ignorant, intolerable, immoral monsters;
and women as being universally down-trodden and the sexual victims of
man’s unbridled appetite. The book is as full of “musts” and “shoulds”
as the rules of an old-fashioned school master. The author tells nothing
new; veers from science to sentimentality in a most disconcerting way;
and adds nothing to the constantly-increasing library of valuable sex
books.
MARY ADAMS STEARNS.
Sentence Reviews
_Abroad at Home_, by Julian Street. [The Century Company, New York.] So
far as what he will write is concerned we don’t give a rap whether Shaw
visits America or not. Yes, we don’t believe even _he_ could lay out the
statisticians as Street does when he advises us on the purchase of pig
iron; or display such fiendish glee at the chance of hurting the
feelings of a professional Fair booster: or—well, every paragraph of
every chapter is worth reading.
_Reminiscences of Tolstoy_, by Count Ilya Tolstoy. [The Century Company,
New York.] The book is richly illustrated; this is its main value.
Nothing is added to what we have known about Tolstoy’s personality; we
have had numerous, perhaps too many, works on his intimate life;
Sergeyenko nearly exhausted the subject. True, we gain considerable
information about the great man’s son, Count Ilya, but, pray, who is
interested in it?
_American Public Opinion_, by James Davenport Whelpley. [E. P. Dutton
and Company, New York.] The name is misleading: the book presents a
series of articles on American internal and foreign problems, written
from the point of view of a conservative. Why call Mr. Whelpley’s
personal opinion “American Public Opinion”? The articles on our foreign
diplomacy are valuable; they reveal our infancy in this peculiarly
European art.
_Jael_, by Florence Kiper Frank. [Chicago Little Theater.] The
production of this play was treated subjectively in the last issue of
this magazine. In the reading of it the verse impresses one in much the
same manner as the viewing of the production. The two effects are so
similar as to impress one with the coherence and wonderful worth of the
Chicago Little Theatre in harmonizing the value of the play as
literature with the importance of the production.
_The House of Deceit._ Anonymous. [Henry Holt and Company, New York.]
Maurice Sangster had a “conviction in his heart that he was born to make
a conflagration of the Thames”. He came to London and proceeded to
attack the religious, political, and social institutions of the present
day. He serves merely as a blind for the author, who, attacking almost
everything under the sun, is not courageous enough to reveal his
identity.
_The Mystery of the Oriental Rug_, by Dr. G. Griffin Lewis. [J. B.
Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.] To the lover of Persian and Caucasian
rugs the book will surely bring moments of exquisite joy. The author
possesses both knowledge and taste, and he tells us curious things about
the history of the oriental rug.
(_A number of reviews of important books are held over until next
month because of lack of space._)
_You will receive_
THE LITTLE REVIEW
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We will also mail them the December number, to be delivered on
Christmas Day.
_FOR THE HOLIDAYS_
VAUDEVILLE
By Caroline Caffin and Marius de Zayas
_8vo. Cloth, richly illustrated in tint and in black and
white. $3.50 net_
Lovers of vaudeville—and they are legion—will find this a book of
rare fascination.
Caroline Caffin knows vaudeville from the inside; she loves it
too, and she writes with understanding of the men and women who,
season after season, bring joy to so many people in all of the
larger cities. Mr. De Zayas, one of the cleverest of living
cartoonists, furnishes almost two score of his inimitable
caricatures of our most popular vaudeville stars.
Among those who flit through these pages are:
Nora Bayes
Eva Tanguay
Harry Lauder
Yvette Guilbert
Fay Templeton
Ruth St. Denis
Gertrude Hoffman
The Castles
Bernhardt
Elsie Janis
Marie Lloyd
Annette Kellerman
Frank Tinney
McIntyre & Heath
Al Jolson
THE NEW MOVEMENT IN THE THEATRE
By Sheldon Cheney
_8vo. Cloth, with sixteen plates and explanatory tissues.
$2.00 net_
A most comprehensive book. There is not an aspect of the
tremendously interesting new movement in the theatre upon which
Mr. Cheney does not touch. And to every chapter he brings a
wealth of knowledge gathered from a great variety of sources—most
of it at first hand. Furthermore, he writes with charm and
distinction: his book never fails, before all else, to interest.
Gordon Craig, Max Reinhardt, Bakst, and the Russian Ballet; Shaw,
Galsworthy, the German, French and American contemporary drama;
David Belasco, the influence of the Greek theatre, the newest
mechanical and architectural developments in the theatre—all
these and others are in Mr. Cheney’s dozen brilliant chapters.
Numerous interesting illustrations add to the value of his book
and make it one that no lover of the theatre can afford to be
without.
_Order from Your Bookseller_
MITCHELL KENNERLEY, PUBLISHER, NEW YORK
“THE RAFT”
BY CONINGSBY DAWSON
Author of “The Garden Without Walls,” “Florence on a
Certain Night,” etc.
“Life at its beginning and its end is bounded by a haunted wood.
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less and less, they build themselves cities of imperative
endeavor. But at night the wood comes marching to their walls,
tall trees moving silently as clouds and little trees treading
softly. The green host halts and calls—in the voice of memory,
poetry, religion, legend, or, as the Greeks put it, in the faint
pipes and stampeding feet of Pan.”
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The Cruise of the “JANET NICHOL” Among the South Sea Islands
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By UNA A. HUNT
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TALES OF TWO COUNTRIES
By MAXIM GORKY
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After a number of years, the potency of the great Russian’s pen
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others are of Russian life. Gorky’s admirers will find in the
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place among interpreters of life through fiction.
DRAMATIC WORKS: Volume V
By GERHART HAUPTMANN
$1.50 net; weight 22 oz.
CONTAINS: “SCHLUCK AND JAU;” “AND PIPPA DANCES;”
“CHARLEMAGNE’S HOSTAGE.”
The second group of Hauptmann’s Symbolic and Legendary Dramas
gains unity by a recognizable oneness of inspiration. The poet
has become a seeker; he questions the nature and quality of
various ultimate values; he abandons the field of the personal
and individual life and “sends his soul into the infinite.” [A
special circular, with contents of the preceding volumes, will be
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WISCONSIN PLAYS
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Ellery Leonard.
A noteworthy manifestation of the interest in the stage and its
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fruits of the movement. Having met with success in the theatre,
they are now offered to the creative reader to whose imagination
dramatic literature is a stimulus.
SELF-CULTURE THROUGH THE VOCATION
By EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS
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return in culture and wisdom.
THE DEATH OF A NOBODY
By JULES ROMAINS
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