best and most recent is _Fannie Fox’s Cook Book_, by Fannie Ferber Fox,
with the assistance of Lavinia S. Schwartz. Mrs. Fox is a sister of Edna
Ferber, and the novelist has written an introduction for _Fannie Fox’s
Cook Book_ which has all the richly human interest of her own fiction.
In a paragraph which need hurt no feelings, Miss Ferber points out the
tendency to over-emphasis in one or another direction which characterizes
the cookery of most lands; and she gives with humorous eloquence her
personal tribute to the toothsome torte, that cake of rich and crumbling
particles which is included in Mrs. Fox’s recipes. This is a cook book
that covers all kinds of foods but is distinctive by its preservation of
the finest recipes from Jewish cookery.
Another valuable addition to the kitchen bookshelf is Bertha E. L.
Stockbridge’s _Practical Cook Book_, in which a notable feature is the
great number of practical suggestions for menus.
ii
_The Care and Feeding of Children_ appeared in 1894 and was also revised
last year. More than a million mothers have used it, and beyond question
it has saved thousands of lives in infancy. Within the last half-dozen
years, a generation which was raised on the book has, in turn, begun to
raise its own children with its aid. It constituted its author, Dr. L.
Emmett Holt, the foremost authority on babies in America; and as the
years passed he returned to the book, in its various revisions, the
fruit of a wonderful experience which its prestige had brought to him.
Physicians have for years bought _The Care and Feeding of Children_ in
quantity to present to their patients. The hundreds of questions that
every mother must have answered are all answered in this marvelous work.
Bathing, nursing, artificial feeding, changes in food, substitutes for
milk, under-nourishment, health habits, weaning, diet after weaning,
the training of older children, children’s diseases—nothing is left
out. This, to be sure, is largely possible because of the nation-wide
and prolonged use of the book, and the constant additions and slight
reconstructions it has undergone. The book has always been kept of handy
size and at a low price. The thought of what Dr. Holt’s book has done and
is doing tempts to eloquence; but the only eloquence which is tolerable
is the eloquence of the immense fact. We talk about services to humanity;
but the writing and publishing of this book was possibly the greatest
service to humanity in our time.
_The Home Care of Sick Children_, by Dr. Emelyn Lincoln Coolidge, is
likely to be as helpful to mothers who have the care and feeding of sick
children as Dr. Holt’s book has been to mothers generally. Dr. Coolidge
lived for many years in the Babies’ Hospital, New York, and worked there
under the personal direction of Dr. Holt. As editor of the department on
babies of the Ladies’ Home Journal she has had an enormous correspondence
with mothers throughout America and even in foreign countries. And _The
Home Care of Sick Children_ has one great merit: it does not stop where
most other books of its kind stop, with: “Give a dose of castor oil, and
call a doctor.” It tells in every instance what a mother can and should
do, and it invariably tells when to call the doctor in. Not only does
it avoid calling the doctor unnecessarily, but it gives many detailed
instructions that a physician generally has not time to give. Recipes to
tempt the sick child’s appetite, amusement, clothing and the hygiene of
the sick-room are all dwelt upon.
There is a book with which it would be wise to precede Dr. Holt’s.
_Healthy Mothers_ is by Dr. S. Josephine Baker, consulting director,
Children’s Bureau, United States Department of Labor, an authority on
babies, whose articles regularly appear in the Ladies’ Home Journal and
who is constantly asked for advice by women throughout the country.
_Healthy Mothers_ deals almost entirely with the mother’s care of
herself, and tells explicitly how she may best meet her responsibility
to her baby, how she may have better health for herself, and the finer
mental attitude that comes with physical well-being. The relation of a
mother to her unborn child implies a responsibility greater than that
entailed in any other human relationship. It is very largely within
the power of the mother to determine not only her own condition and
future health, but to decide whether or not her baby is to be healthy
and strong. _Healthy Mothers_, without going into technical discussion,
sufficiently explains the general course of pregnancy and childbirth so
that the mother may have an intelligent understanding of how to care for
herself, safeguard her child, and make every requisite preparation.
iii
And the growing child? _Child Training_, by Angelo Patri, is the book for
parents who look unhappily at the child and ask themselves despondently:
“What in the world makes him do that?” Or, “What is the matter with
her now?” Or, “Why does he disobey me?” Or, “Why does she have such
bad manners?” Or, “Why doesn’t he study?” And, at one or another time,
practically all parents are faced with these questions.
Angelo Patri has been training children, and helping fathers and mothers
to train them, for twenty-five years. He is principal of Public School
45, New York. This school faces a garden centered about a sun dial and
fed by a tiny greenhouse. Across the street is a whole block given over
to a playground, its cinder floor padded firm by the play-winged feet of
thousands of children who play on it every day. The school is unusual
in having a great variety of shops and workrooms as well as the usual
classrooms; a swimming pool; and a library. It is constantly visited by
teachers from all over the world, men and women who are anxious to see
the principal and talk with him. Some of them have heard him talk to
audiences, big and little; some have read his widely published articles
on children; others merely know of the remarkable way in which he has
brought home and school together, so that parents constantly come to him
to work out the problem of their child.
There are about two hundred chapters or sections—chapterettes, rather—in
Angelo Patri’s _Child Training_. Each of them is so short that it can
be read in five minutes or less. Each carries pointed wisdom about the
child, and not only for the father or mother but for the uncle, aunt,
teacher, or anyone having to do with children. Very often the point is
conveyed by an anecdote—there are a good many smiles and chuckles in the
book. But Mr. Patri can speak out with definiteness. Perhaps his finest
wisdom is shown in a point that he makes more than once: children do
certain things that bother us because it is time for them to do these
things. When this is true, Mr. Patri is bent on showing just what should
be done to help the youngster over a hard place. _Talks to Mothers_ is
another treasury of Mr. Patri’s helpful wisdom.
Another new book on child training which will appeal to all those who
believe in the power of suggestion is _Auto-Suggestion for Mothers_,
by R. C. Waters, lecturer in English to the Nancy School of Applied
Psychology. This is a practical book on the application of Emil Coué’s
method. The technique to be used is explained clearly and simply. The
possibilities of Coué’s method of auto-suggestion when applied to the
correction of habits, to disease, to education and play are set forth and
examples are cited. _Auto-Suggestion for Mothers_ has been translated
into French by Mme. Coué and has been adopted by the Coué School as a
text.
iv
Every home should have one or more books on keeping well. The old
family medical book, a chamber of horrors, has been made obsolete by
a few general books with, thank heaven, a greatly different emphasis.
But among recent books on the art of keeping well, I know of none more
satisfactory than Dr. S. M. Rinehart’s _The Commonsense of Health_. Dr.
Rinehart, who is the husband of Mary Roberts Rinehart, was a general
practitioner in Pittsburgh for over twenty years. Later he was in charge
of tuberculosis hospitals in western Pennsylvania, and during the war
he was put in charge of all army tuberculosis hospitals in the United
States. Recently he has been in the United States Public Health Service.
His book is wholly popular in character, cheerful, good-natured, and not
in the least afraid of an occasional joke. It is precisely the thing for
general reading by both sexes at all ages. Common and worrisome ailments,
such as colds, are dealt with, as well as certain fairly common and
serious diseases, like pneumonia and tuberculosis. But the range of the
book is wide, and there are discussions of nerves, how hard one should
work, and besetting fears. The information is sound and the style is
entertaining. One class of unfortunate will be particularly helped by the
book—the unhappy man or woman termed by Dr. Rinehart a “symptom hunter.”
We each know at least one!
v
I cannot close this chapter without a short word about books and the
home. You who make the home, you women who are overwhelmingly the book
readers of America, know how necessary books are to make the home
complete. Read yourself, and discuss what you read. Never urge or compel
a child to read a book. If you read the right books and talk about them
afterward (they ought to move you to talk about them) the boy or girl
will read them also. Buy books. In general, never buy them in “sets.” You
ought to know an author, even a classic author, a little better than to
have to do that. Keep abreast of the new books—one of the easiest things
in the world to do, and one of the most fascinating. It is fair that you
should ask that at least as much money go into the purchase of books for
the home as goes into the purchase of magazines, or radio apparatus, or
as is expended in mere diversions such as the picture shows. Last year
thirty cents per person was spent for books in America—far too little.
You can change all that, and no simple change that I can think of will
pay you better.
BOOKS FOR THE HOMEMAKER
_Choice Recipes for Clever Cooks_, by Lucy G. Allen. More than 500
original recipes for those who already know how to cook and appreciate
the best in food and flavor. By the director of the Boston School of
Cookery. Illustrated.
_Table Service_, by Lucy G. Allen. A concise exposition of the waitress’s
duties by the director of the Boston School of Cookery. New revised
edition, with illustrations and diagrams.
_The Candy Cook Book_, by Alice Bradley. A new edition, revised,
containing over 300 recipes and covering the subject completely. By the
principal of Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery. Illustrated.
_One-Piece Dinners_, by Mary D. Chambers. Recipes for dinners where the
meat, vegetables and other accessories are cooked all together and make
a complete, well-balanced and sufficient meal. Directions are also given
for optional salads and fruit desserts. Illustrated.
_Cooking for Two: A Handbook for Young Housekeepers_, by Janet McKenzie
Hill. Instructions for young housekeepers and a collection of practical
recipes for two, grouped according to food values. Fully illustrated.
_Colette’s Best Recipes: A Book of French Cookery_, by Marie Jacques.
This new cook book, by a Breton whose culinary achievements have won
her renown in France, contains recipes for the most delicious and
palate-tickling dishes, from French consomme to the French pastries, of
crispness or creaminess unsurpassed. Illustrated.
_The Science of Eating_, by Alfred W. McCann. A comprehensive book by an
authority on foods; what to eat and why.
_What to Eat and How to Prepare It_, by Elizabeth A. Monaghan. This
combines very definite information on food values with many recipes and
instructions for cooking.
_What to Drink_, by Bertha E. L. Stockbridge. Recipes for several hundred
beverages—ades, punches, fizzes, shrubs, milk drinks, icecreams, sundaes,
sherbets, etc.
_Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent_, by Fannie Merritt
Farmer. A book for those whose duty it is to care for the sick, and
of equal importance to those who see in correct nutrition the way of
preventing much of the illness about us. Important chapters on infant
and child feeding and suggestions as to diet in special diseases. By the
author of _The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book_. Illustrated.
_Canning, Preserving and Jelly Making_, by Janet McKenzie Hill. “Aims
to present the latest ideas on the subject using the methods found to
be simplest and shortest by the experiments of the U. S. Department of
Agriculture, State universities, and cooking experts.”—Booklist of the
American Library Association. Illustrated.
_Marketing and Housework Manual_, by S. Agnes Donham. Clear and concise
information on these everyday subjects.
_Spending the Family Income_, by S. Agnes Donham. “A guide to wise use
of the family or personal income by means of a carefully thought-out
and tested budget. Principles are laid down which apply equally well to
large and small incomes.”—Booklist of the American Library Association.
Illustrated with eight pages of charts in color.
_The Prospective Mother_, by J. Morris Slemons, M.D. Written especially
for women who have no knowledge of medicine by a physician who has made
this subject his specialty. Food, exercise, clothing, the adaptation of
daily work, and recreation are fully covered.
_Healthy Babies_, by S. Josephine Baker, M.D., Consulting Director,
Children’s Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor. The methods and advice
given are intended to be used in keeping babies well, from the minute
they are born until they are past the babyhood stage. The book shows
how mother-love can be directed into the wisest and sanest channels. It
contains three sets of baby record forms. Illustrated.
_Healthy Children_, by S. Josephine Baker, M.D., Consulting Director,
Children’s Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor. Deals with the period
of childhood between babyhood and school age. As its purpose is to
accentuate health, it shows the mother how she may give the child of
pre-school age the same health care available for the baby. Illustrated.
_The Mothercraft Manual_, by Mary L. Read. A young mother’s guide written
by the former director of the School of Mothercraft, Peoria. Some of the
chapters are on heredity and eugenics, the care and feeding of children,
home nursing, education of the child, games, toys, and story telling for
children. Illustrated.
_Nutrition and Growth in Children_, by William R. P. Emerson, M.D. Dr.
Emerson has won nation-wide recognition by his pioneer work in organizing
nutrition clinics in American cities. His study of the mal-nourished
child is of the highest importance alike to the mother, the social worker
and the public official. Illustrated.
_How to Know Your Child_, by Miriam Finn Scott. “A book that should
be in every home where there are children. It is comprehensive and
authoritative, and represents years of experience and study by a
foremost expert. The very best manual on its subject obtainable at any
price.”—Ladies’ Home Journal.
_A Text-Book of Nursing_, by Clara S. Weeks-Shaw. A book on home nursing
which gives the non-professional nurse full directions for the hygiene
of the sick-room, bathing, observance of symptoms, medicines and their
administration, disinfection, surgical nursing, the care of sick
children, etc. Illustrated.
_Sewing and Textiles_, by Annabel Turner. All the stitches, seams and
finishes which go to make up the fundamentals of good sewing. Patching,
sewing and darning are taught on samplers, but otherwise the methods
are applied on useful garments. Materials are also studied and tests
for shoddy are given. The author is instructor in home economics in the
University of Wisconsin.
_Tinkering With Tools_, by Henry H. Saylor. Comment on tools and their
care, with many suggestions as to their use for those who like to set
their hands to such crafts as woodworking, painting, plumbing, masonry,
electric wiring, etc. With illustrations and diagrams.
8. A Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim
i
The other evening I picked up a novel called _The Lighted Way_, which,
although it was published in May, 1912, I hadn’t chanced ever to read.
The page blurred slightly before my eyes, I think, because in going back
over it some of the names and particulars seemed entirely changed. But
this, as I took it in first, was the way it ran:
“Mr. E. Phillips Oppenheim, sole proprietor of the firm of E. Phillips
Oppenheim & Nobody, wholesale entertainers of London and Europe, paused
suddenly on his way from his private office to the street. There was
something which until that second had entirely slipped his memory. It
was not his title, for that, tastefully chosen, was already under his
arm. Nor was it the Plot, for that, together with the first chapter, was
sticking out of his overcoat pocket, the shape of which it completely
ruined. As a matter of fact, it was more important than either of
these—it was a commission from his conscience.
“Very slowly he retraced his steps until he stood outside the
glass-enclosed cage where twelve of the hardest-worked clerks in London
bent over their ledgers and invoicing. With his forefinger—a fat, pudgy
forefinger—he tapped upon a pane of glass, and an anxious errand boy
bolted through the doorway.
“‘Tell Mr. Reader to step this way,’ his employer ordered.
“Mr. Reader heard the message and came hurrying out. He was an undersized
man, with somewhat prominent eyes concealed by gold-rimmed spectacles.
He was possessed of extraordinary zest for the details of the business,
and was withal an expert and careful adviser. Hence his hold upon the
confidence of his employer.
“The latter addressed him with a curious and altogether unusual
hesitation in his manner.
“‘Mr. Reader,’ he began, ‘there is a matter—a little matter—upon which
I—er—wish to consult you.’
“‘Those American serial rights——’
“‘Nothing to do with business at all,’ Mr. Oppenheim interrupted,
ruthlessly. ‘A little private matter.’
“‘Indeed, sir?’”
Now as I say, at this point I went back and found to my bewilderment at
first, but perfect satisfaction afterward, that Mr. Oppenheim seemed to
be Mr. Weatherley, a worthy provisioner; the title, an umbrella; the
Plot, a copy of the London Times; and the alarming commission from Mr.
Oppenheim’s conscience, a possibly no less embarrassing commission from
Mr. Weatherley’s wife. Thereupon everything went smoothly and excitingly
through thirty-seven chapters. But afterward it occurred to me that
perhaps, after all, my blunder, visual or mental, was not an unnatural
one. Who has not had in his mind’s eye a picture of Mr. Oppenheim with a
Plot, or Plots, bulging from his pockets, and with as many titles in his
mental wardrobe as most men have neckties? And what one of his readers
has not felt himself, time and again, personally summoned by the author
to the consideration of a matter—a little matter—a quite private matter
just then upon the author’s conscience....
ii
It is the secret of Mr. Oppenheim’s success, not detected as such by his
readers, very probably not a trifle of which he himself is consciously
aware. This engaging gift of confiding something, this easy air, this
informality of his beginnings, disarms us and interests us as could no
elaborately staged effort to arrest our attention and intrigue our minds.
Even when he commences his story dramatically with such a confrontation
as that which opens his _The Wrath to Come_, the air of naturalness is
upon the scene. And the source of this effect? It comes from the fact
that Mr. Oppenheim is imparting to you all that he himself knows at
the given moment. Yes, literally. For our notion of him as a man with
plots distending his pockets is entirely a mistaken notion. He has no
plots; at least, he has no ready-made plots; he does not, so to say,
plot his plots. “Just the first chapter, and an inkling of something
to follow,” was his answer to some one who asked him how much of his
leading character he saw when he began a novel.[47] What other method,
when you stop to reflect upon it, would be possible for the author of
eighty-six published novels? Certainly no one could map out his tales,
even in essentials, and then write them to that number, not if he were
to do the plots one by one, as occasion arose. He would be a slave,
and the book, as written, would soon come to be lifeless. Nor, by such
a method, would thirty-eight years afford time. In thirty-eight years
the pace would be lost. Only spontaneity is capable of guaranteeing
such a record as stands to Mr. Oppenheim’s credit. “Two or three people
in a crowded restaurant may arouse my interest, and the atmosphere is
compelling. I start weaving a story around them—the circumstances and the
people gradually develop as I go on dictating to my secretary the casual
thoughts about them that arose in me while I was looking at them and
their surroundings. First of all I must have a congenial atmosphere—then
the rest is easy.”[48] And again:
“Writing for the movies is a ghastly business. I speak from experience.
I shall never do it again. The picture people came to me and said, ‘Next
time you have a novel in your head, why not, instead of writing 80,000
words, write a 5,000-word synopsis and let us have it? Then write your
novel from the synopsis.’
“Well, they paid well and I did it. I wrote the synopsis first and then
set to work on the novel. I have never had a harder job in my life. Some
writers, no doubt, do sketch out their plots beforehand, but I never
work that way. When I start a story I never know just how it is going to
end. All I have to start with is an idea. As I go along the idea grows
and develops. So do the characters. I sort of live with them through the
story and work out their salvation as it goes along. It is like a game.
“But when you write for the movies you have to reverse the process. In my
case, it is fatal. Novels, even the kind that I write—and they are solely
for amusement—must have some soul, something that gives them a human
quality. This the author puts into the story as he goes along. When,
however, he writes a synopsis and then sits down to enlarge and expand
it into a novel, the spell is broken. He has a cold and rigid plan to
follow. It nearly killed me to novelize my first scenario.”[49]
He dictates his novels, revising the sheets as they come from the
typewriter, sometimes re-dictating a passage or chapter. In summer he
works outdoors; in winter he may pace up and down his study. “Many a
time, earlier in life, when I used to write my stories with my own
hand, I have found that my ideas would come so much faster than my
fingers could work that I have prayed for some more speedy method of
transmission. My present method is not only an immense relief to me, but
it enables me to turn out far more work than would have been possible
by any other means.”[50] Story-writing, he believes, is an original
instinct, “just as it is an original instinct with a sporting dog to
sniff about in every bush he passes for a rabbit. One writes stories
because if one left them in the brain one would be subject to a sort of
mental indigestion. As to plots, there are only about a score in the
world, and when you have used them all, from A to Z”—which he pronounced
“Zed,” for this was in an after-dinner speech—“you can turn around and
use them from Z to A.”[51] A favorite illustration with him is taken
from a day’s walk in London. “You can take the same walk every day in
the year and you will meet a different crowd of people. These people
contain the backgrounds of 365 stories a year.” One person a day will
keep the typewriter in play, for “I create one more or less interesting
personality, try to think of some dramatic situation in which he or
she might be placed, and use that as the opening of a nebulous chain of
events.”
What he said of himself at 55 is still, two years later, true without
abatement. “Even if, like one of the heroes of fiction, I should make a
million dollars out of a ten-cent piece in Wall Street, I should still
continue to write stories so long as I can sit in an easy chair and my
voice will carry as far as my secretary before a typewriter.” Which is
reminiscent of Hugh Walpole’s remark in conversation the same year, that
he was perfectly sure if a beam fell on his head and made him imbecile,
he would continue to write novels for the pleasure of writing them.
iii