“Three long poems of irregular form, followed by a group of sonnets and
these by the lyrics, while the author betrays the same knowledge of
early Grecian myth revealed in Mrs. Wharton’s verse [Artemis to
Actæon].”—N. Y. Times.
* * * * *
=A. L. A. Bkl.= 6: 15. S. ’09.
“Mr. Hewlett’s verse is the verse of the scholar and the man of letters:
its sweetness is reminiscent, its ruggedness carefully devised, and its
similitudes neither striking nor yet commonplace.”
+ − =Ath.= 1909, 1; 670. Je. 5. 280w.
“One would expect in any writing of his a keen and delicate sense of
words, an ear sensitive to the melody of language and a sharp sincerity
of emotion. And these expectations are well satisfied in his new volume
of verse.” Brian Hooker.
+ =Bookm.= 29: 366. Je. ’09. 400w.
“As a writer of verse he rather emphasizes the Meredithian vice of
obscurity than the penetrating Meredithian vision.” W: M. Payne.
− =Dial.= 47: 98. Ag. 16, ’09. 400w.
“The effect of these classic topics as treated in Mr. Hewlett’s peculiar
romantic and neorenaissance vein, with a good deal of rhythmical
‘insouciance,’ genuine or affected, is distinctly curious. It is like
looking at a clear landscape thru colored glasses—a brilliant and
prismatic spectacle, no doubt, but one singularly anomalous and out of
character.”
− + =Ind.= 67: 658. S. 16, ’09. 100w.
“Mr. Hewlett’s treatment of classic themes has suffered to some extent
from the poet’s temperament.”
+ − =Nation.= 89: 55. Jl. 15, ’09. 300w.
“There is a rare quality to this book of Hewlett’s, something it is not
easy to define, but which is felt.”
+ =N. Y. Times.= 14: 300. My. 8, ’09. 470w.
“The book is one students and lovers of poetry dare not miss.”
+ =No. Am.= 190: 704. N. ’09. 330w.
“Much of the sureness of touch and philosophic insight which makes
Maurice Hewlett the lineal successor of Meredith appears in the little
volume.”
+ =R. of Rs.= 40: 123. Jl. ’09. 40w.
“Is, in the fullest sense of the word, a distinguished book.”
+ =Spec.= 103: 19. Jl. 3, ’09. 430w.
=Hewlett, Maurice Henry.=^{[10]} Open country. †$1.50. Scribner.
9–35789.
“Those readers who are familiar with Mr. Senhouse in the author’s
“Halfway house” will be glad to find him here, four years earlier,
rejoicing in the open country as his heritage. He gives us much of the
simple philosophy which made him one with nature in his letters to the
girl whom he loves. He met her in the open and he loved her well, too
well to enslave her by matrimony, but well enough, when the time came,
not to count the cost in helping her give herself to the man who had won
her heart, a man whom he knew to be less worthy of her than he, he who
had inspired her to be the noble woman he thought her. But Senhouse in
his own great purity knew her pure and felt that her love justified all
things though, because of it, her whole world closed its doors against
her.”
* * * * *
“Will appeal only to cultured readers.”
+ =A. L. A. Bkl.= 6: 55. O. ’09.
“This story is extremely clever, but it is no more. To tell the truth
about Mr. Senhouse, he is wholly unconvincing, and rather a bore.”
+ − =Ath.= 1909, 2: 325. S. 18. 350w.
“On the whole, the book is a disappointment to those who, admiring Mr.
Hewlett’s unquestionable cleverness, have looked for the great comedy
which he has sometimes seemed capable of writing.” E: C. Marsh.
+ − =Bookm.= 30: 263. N. ’09. 1000w.
“The readers of Mr. Maurice Hewlett’s ‘Halfway house,’ who made the
acquaintance of John Senhouse in that charming book, will be glad to
have further intercourse with him in the pages of ‘Open country.’” W: M.
Payne.
+ =Dial.= 47: 237. O. 1, ’09. 630w.
“The performance as a whole hardly shows Mr. Hewlett at his best. Here
more clearly than ever his ingenuousness is seen to be ingenuity.”
+ − =Nation.= 89: 305. S. 30, ’09. 570w.
“It is as if Mr. Hewlett, perceiving that the world knew little of that
actual personal story of Stevenson’s life, proceeded to build it in
around Senhouse, making Senhouse act and talk as Stevenson probably
did.”
+ =N. Y. Times.= 14: 565. S. 25, ’09. 900w.
“We do not read Mr. Hewlett for the story, but for the beauty, and this
is in the book in generous measure.”
+ =No. Am.= 190: 838. D. ’09. 210w.
“As a story the book is a little less attractive than its predecessor,
but Mr. Hewlett’s grace and charming writing have not lost their
quality, although they have in some ways changed their form.”
+ =Outlook.= 93: 276. O. 2, ’09. 210w.
“We lay down the book rather glad to be done with it. The unceasing
click of the epigrams, sham or real: the continual search after fine
allusions, the strain to be if not original at any rate unusual, the
lack of human, overbrimming humour and the pervading acid tone—all these
help to damp our spirits. Still the novel is clever; and, as a great
many folk admire cleverness above all things, we presume that Mr.
Hewlett has his great admirers.”
− + =Sat. R.= 108: 320. S. 11, ’09. 1500w.
=Hewlett, Maurice Henry.=^{[11]} Ruinous face. †$1. Harper.
9–27262.
Helen of Troy is shown to us as a woman with a soul and a longing to be
truly loved as her husband’s companion; but her ruinous beauty dooms her
to be merely the object of physical desire. Her hope for a higher
affection leads her to betray Paris, to murder Menelaus, and finally to
hang herself with her girdle when she reads siren passion in the eyes of
each man who loves her. The volume has marginal drawings and a gift-book
make-up.
* * * * *
“Mr. Hewlett brings to this short story all the subtlety,
suggestiveness, and finish that make his novels notable.”
+ =Dial.= 47: 464. D. 1, ’09. 70w.
=Outlook.= 93: 559. N. 6, ’09. 350w.
=Hichens, Robert Smythe.=^{[11]} Bella Donna. †$1.50. Lippincott.
9–28245.
A humanitarian and great believer in the good that is in mankind marries
a notorious ostracized London woman, reputed equally for her beauty and
her infamy. He transplants his Bella Donna to Egyptian soil where she
finds new health and almost a feeling of youth, and where she comes
under the spell of an Alexandrian man of affairs—a man of sinuous
cunning. His oriental subtlety finds quick response in her nature, under
the sway of which she plans to poison her husband by degrees, but is
foiled by a master physician-detective whose friendship for the husband
furnishes the fine elements of the story.
* * * * *
“His story, in spite of its brilliant qualities, is one of the most
distasteful we have ever encountered.”
− − + =Ath.= 1909, 2: 522. O. 30. 170w.
“Of all the current studies of feminine unrest, the most strikingly
individual and the one hardest to escape from is ‘Bella Donna.’ One
feels throughout a taint of the neurotic and the pathological.” F: T.
Cooper.
+ − =Bookm.= 30: 387. D. ’09. 650w.
“Is more direct and forcible than the usual plot of Mr. Hichens. Its
treatment, moreover, seems to depend less obviously upon an artificial
high flavor. As for the persons, they are more nearly ‘convincing’ than
any of Mr. Hichens’s previous creations.”
+ =Nation.= 89: 541. D. 2, ’09. 500w.
“A few carelessly constructed sentences mar the usually clear-cut
English of the book, and several typographical errors, notably in the
French expressions, have escaped the proofreader. The public has seldom
the opportunity to show its appreciation of a novel of such originality,
charm, and power. Nor can its tremendous message be ignored, the message
inevitable from the fact that materialism is pressed home to its logical
conclusion.”
+ − =N. Y. Times.= 14: 670. O. 30, ’09. 700w.
“Mr. Robert Hichens has never put more careful literary art-work into
any of his novels than one finds in ‘Bella Donna.’”
+ =Outlook.= 93: 643. N. 20, ’09. 130w.
“This is one of the best novels we have ever read, and quite the best
that Mr. Robert Hichens has written.”
+ + =Sat. R.= 108: 636. N. 20, ’09. 240w.
“The book as a whole is a clever piece of work.”
+ =Spec.= 103: 795. N. 13, ’09. 220w.
=Higginson, Ella.= Alaska: the great country. **$2.25. Macmillan
8–33137.
Descriptive note in December, 1908.
* * * * *
“It will be useful for reference and would serve the traveler’s needs
admirably.”
+ =A. L. A. Bkl.= 5: 13. Ja. ’09.
“It has no table of contents and the chapters have no individual
headings. The ordinary reader is so much accustomed to having definite
topics put before him that the absence of these creates a feeling of
hopeless bewilderment.”
+ − =Ann. Am. Acad.= 34: 182. Jl. ’09. 110w.
“Written in a mood of exalted appreciation.”
− =Ind.= 66: 702. Ap. 1, ’09. 430w.
“The most complete as well as the most attractive work on the subject.”
+ =Lit. D.= 37: 984. D. 26, ’08. 130w.
“It is thoroughly a woman’s book, emotional, pleasant-tempered,
picturesque, and (shall we say it?) in cool accuracy not quite careful,
and in discrimination, not quite keen.”
+ − =Nation.= 88: 229. Mr. 4, ’09. 360w
“While Alaskan economic resources are described with great fullness, the
most salient quality of Mrs. Higginson’s book lies in its description of
scenery.”
+ =Outlook.= 91: 384. F. 20, ’09. 330w.
“Mrs. Higginson has put into this volume much more than a mere series of
fleeting impressions.”
+ =R. of Rs.= 39: 252. F. ’09. 50w.
“Up to the moment when the vessel which proudly conveys Mrs. Higginson
sets her prow westward from Sitka, this book has scarcely anything to
recommend it, except its pictures. It is marked alternately by a naïve
lack and excess of information which merely moves us to smile. But as
soon as she gets west of Sitka her book becomes meritorious.”
− + =Sat. R.= 108: 84. Jl. 17, ’09. 850w.
=Higginson, Thomas Wentworth.=^{[12]} Carlyle’s laugh and other
surprises. **$2. Houghton.
9–28426.
The title essay “Carlyle’s laugh” occupies only ten pages of this volume
while the “other surprises” bring it very nearly to the four-hundred
page mark. Of the laugh the author says: “After the most vehement
tirade, Carlyle would suddenly pause, throw his head back, and give as
genuine and kindly a laugh as I ever heard from a human being. It was
not the bitter laugh of the cynic, nor yet the big-bodied laugh of the
burly joker; least of all was it the thin and rasping cackle of the
dyspeptic satirist. It was a broad, honest, human laugh.” There are
twenty-four papers in all in this volume many of which are reprinted
from magazines.
* * * * *
+ =A. L. A. Bkl.= 6: 117. D. ’09.
+ =Outlook.= 93: 650. N. 27, ’09. 160w.
=Hildebrande, Adolph.= Problem of form in painting and sculpture; tr.
and rev. with the author’s co-operation by Max Meyer and Robert
Morris Ogden. *90c. Stechert.
8–1129.
A translation from the fourth German edition with the preface to the
third edition. “Hildebrand discusses the problem of Form, chiefly from
the sculptor’s point of view and with reference to the sculptor’s
materials. The topics treated are: vision and movement, form and
appearance, the idea of space and its visual expression, ideas of planes
and depth, the conception of relief, form as an interpretation of life,
and sculpture in stone. These topics are handled partly from the
technical point of view of the artist and partly from the point of view
of psychology.” (Philos. R.)
* * * * *
“There is a serious typographical error on page 61 which makes some
seven or eight lines quite unintelligible. It is an interesting addition
to the psychology of imagination.” Kate Gordon.
+ − =J. Philos.= 6: 136. Mr. 4, ’09. 340w.
“No intelligent sculptor, or for that matter no painter who cares for
the noble and monumental in art, can read this little treatise without
some stimulation of his faculties and clarification of his ideas.”
+ =Nation.= 87: 612. D. 17, ’08. 340w.
“The book is translated into clear English and is a valuable addition to
our literature on the psychology of art.” W. A. Hammond.
+ =Philos. R.= 18: 91. Ja. ’09. 860w.
=Hill, Alexander.=^{[6]} Body at work: a treatise on the principles of
physiology. *$4.50. Longmans.
9–35903.
“Presents the subject of physiology in such a manner as to be
intelligible to those who have acquired no previous knowledge of
chemistry, physics, or anatomy.”—Spec.
* * * * *
“A thorough, well written work, for the educated reader.”
+ =A. L. A. Bkl.= 6: 117. D. ’09.
“It deals with the subject thoroughly in the light of the most recent
investigations, and any one who reads carefully through it will have
acquired a clear and accurate picture of the present state of a science
which grows and changes daily.”
+ =Ath.= 1909, 1: 169. F. 6. 550w.
“Dr. Hill has given us a book at once instructive and attractive.”
+ =Nature.= 80: 366. My. 27, ’09. 420w.
+ =N. Y. Times.= 14: 276. My. 1, ’09. 210w.
“We have some doubt as to whether his object has been attained. At the
same time, the reader who has the courage to take up this volume will
gain a very sound general knowledge of the principles of physiology.”
+ − =Spec.= 102: sup. 645. Ap. 24, ’09. 130w.
=Hill, Constance.=^{[12]} Maria Edgeworth and her circle in the days
of Bonaparte and Bourbon. **$6. Lane.
“The title [of Miss Hill’s book] is taken from the chapters which tell
of Miss Edgeworth’s visits to Paris in the shifting days of empire and
monarchy, but the story is by no means confined to France. London also
comes into view, with glimpses of Mrs. Barbauld, Joanna Baillie, the
Miss Berrys, and other twinkling lights, chiefly feminine. Miss Hill
draws on letters preserved by the Edgeworth family and hitherto
unpublished.”—Nation.
* * * * *
“The interest of her work is due to her sprightliness more than to any
novelty of material. The book is scarcely as entertaining as her
‘Juniper hall’ and ‘House in St. Martin’s street,’ owing to the fact
that the unity of place in those earlier volumes kept her from that
scattering of effects which is always the temptation of the anecdotal
writer.”
+ − =Nation.= 89: 490. N. 18, ’09. 200w.
=N. Y. Times.= 14: 700. N. 6, ’09. 90w.
“Full praise is due to Miss Hill for the thoroughness with which she has
chronicled the travels, the gaieties in high places, the acquaintance,
the risks of a visit to Paris and a timely flight home, which have such
a curious bearing—or want of bearing—on Miss Edgeworth’s books. This is
so capably done, and offers so many clues of reference which are
consequent, if at times rather fine-spun, that the reader will probably
regret the inclusion of several chapters whose connexion with the
subject is thin to the point of invisibility.”
+ − =Sat. R.= 108: 571. N. 6, ’09. 860w.
=Hill, Frederick Trevor.= Story of a street. **$1.60. Harper.
8–31816.
Descriptive note in December, 1908.
* * * * *
“The book bears evidence of careful study beneath its regrettably
journalistic style, and contributes some fresh material.”
+ − =Nation.= 88: 146. F. 11, ’09. 470w.
“That the facts could be handled in a more entertaining way than they
are in Mr. Hill’s book is doubtful.”
+ =N. Y. Times.= 14: 134. Mr. 6, ’09. 410w.
“Altogether the book will be a valuable addition to the history of New
York, and will be read by many descendants of those whose names appear
in its pages.”
+ =Outlook.= 91: 20. Ja. 2, ’09. 230w.
=Hill, Henry Wayland.=^{[7]} Historical review of waterways and canal
construction in New York state. (Publications, v. 12.) $4. Buffalo
hist. soc., Buffalo, N. Y.
9–13607.
Thirteen years’ training in the New York state legislature naturally
lead the author to consider the development of the canal legislation
with its accompanying financial and commercial aspects. “Of the 27
chapters of the book, the first five are devoted to a history of the
waterways of the state and of the very earliest canals; the next seven
chapters discuss the Erie canal from the dreams of the 18th century
colonist to the opening in 1825 of De Witt Clinton’s ‘Grand’ canal; the
next five chapters treat of the rapid growth of lateral canals in the
ensuing 30 years and of the gradual decline in canal traffic due to the
inroads of the railway; the final ten chapters are on the movement which
culminated in the Barge canal legislation and popular endorsement of
1903.” (Engin. N.)
* * * * *
“A large part ... deals with the legislative history of the barge canal
and the progress of the new canal policy. This part constitutes a
valuable contribution by one speaking from the inside. It is singularly
fair and free from personal animosities for a work of the kind. However,
the spirit of the advocate permeates the whole.” E. J. B.
+ − =Am. Hist. R.= 15: 190. O. ’09. 350w.
“In his earlier chapters, then, Senator Hill is most happy, because he
is there discussing historical facts which no one can deny. But once his
history gets to that time when the railway influence on the canal is
felt, his enthusiastic partisanship overcomes his historical
disinterest. With Mr. Whitford’s book for the engineering history and
Senator Hill’s for the legal and economic, a reader should gain a most
concise knowledge of the internal waterways of the great state of New
York.”
+ − =Engin. N.= 61: sup. 82. Je. 17, ’09. 1100w.
“An important contribution to the literature of the subject. As a
historical review, which is its chief purpose, Senator Hill’s book is
thorough and peculiarly valuable because it covers ground that has
hitherto been neglected.” Forbes Lindsay.
+ =N. Y. Times.= 14: 415. Jl. 3, ’09. 700w.
=Hilliers, Ashton.=^{[10]} As it happened. **$1.35. Putnam.