The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 3

THE OBSERVER, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1913. 3 cleverly created atmosphere of commonplace. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR BOOKS OF THE DAY. FIRST GLANCE. HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

Messrs. Hutchinson, anticipating a large sale for Mr. W. MAXWELL'S new novel, printed a large first edition: The book, however, has- been so widely praised that the demand has been quite exceptional, and a Second large Edition is now at press. ANOTHER FAVOURABLE REVIEW.

I not until we stand well away from Mr. Maxwtls novel, and view It In retrospection, that we realise- ttn amazing cleverness or appreciate its masterly craftsmanship. If Mr. Maxwell had not already made a reputation as a novelist 'The Devil's Garden' would have made it for him. By its power and impress! veness 'The Devil's Garden' easily stands out as one of tho books of the yoar." 7 Ac C'o6 Messrs.

Hutchinson and Co. of Old France which they call attention to a New Romance will publish on Tuesday next ASHES of VENGEANCE By H. B. SOMERVILLE Hutchinson 's Successful Novels new in demand ai all Libraries HORACE BLAKE By Mrs. WILFRID WARD THE TIMES uyi; A novel worth studying, not only, for the high standard of its execution, "but for the interesting character of the proud, sacriBced but ojevoted wife, and the delicate little picture of the disillusioned girl, as well as for the stimulating dramatic kernel of the plot.

The complication is finely treated." 6s. M. P. Willcocks Isabel C. Clarke R.

H. Benson S. Crockett F. Bancroft Mrs. K.

J. Key THE POWER BEHIND (4th' Edn.) THE SECRET CITADEL (2nd Edn.) AN AVERAGE MAN (4th Edn.) SANDY'S LOVE AFFAIR (2nd Edn.) THANE BRANDON (4th Edn.) A DAUGHTER OF LOVE (2nd Edn Messrs. Hutchinson, and Co. announce on Sept. 1 6th 2 New Novels by popular authors THE RESCUE of MARTHA By F.

FRANKFORT MOORE THE BOOK of ANNA By ANNIE E. HOLDSWORTH LONDON: HUTCHINSON AND CO. everyday life that makes the horror of the mysterious murders really horrible. We are involved in poor Mrs. Bunting's fears arid suspicions, and we listen, with her.

for the newsboys crying the last dreadful murder in the fog of a' bitter morning. The book is one snat grips ducuviun more cioseiy man altogether comfortable. Thb Sale of Lady Daventrt. (Herbert Jenkins.) 6 This anonymous book is only saved from being the crudest of melodramatic novelettes by an occasional touch of originality in the tu.ni,Livii unu wi uuuiuur in tne aiaiogue. It is obviously feminine, and, we should say, youthful work at that.

When the author relapses into real life her writing is not so bad. The icy Lady Diventry is of the Surrey sine. 1 ne rtocnester-iiko Adam, with his six teim years uf courtship, is absurd, a school girl's hero, with no life in his wooden ioints, The heroine is somehow alive, though she only settles down to be the centre of the book at page leo. borne touches in the drawing of her suggest that if the writer would leave melodrama and rightful heirs and murderous hatreds alone and write of what she sees around her she might do well. Love in the Hills.

By F. E. Penny. (Chat to and Mrs. Ponny has written a considerable number of Anglo-Indian novels, of which the last is not the least commendable.

The author's knowledge of India and her sympathetic readi ness to study the native point 01 view give to her books an interest which the rather con ventional love affairs of pretty English girls and stern and silent English officers might fail to arouse. ine old sepov. Moussain, wno guarded Nonia Armscote so erimlv. is a pic turesque figure, and the talk of the boy Abdul has a charm that reconciles us to a good deal of the usual trappings in the way 01 races, dances, and talk ot a poor sort among tne Lnelish girls and their triends talk tnat is prooaoiv truthiul as a gramopnone, out is cer tainly dull. When Dick' Pensax comes into the story interest quickens, and the final scenes are exciting enough but the action moves slowlv.

and Warhoroue-h. the strong and silent, carries his impassivity so far that the reader is in danger of agreeing with the inquisitive lafli. u-hrt nim ennHrt.hpjidpd- The Old Tisie Dkfuiie Til By Eden Phillpotts. (Murray, i 6. Only short etories.

tut short stories that smell of Dartmoor and sing of it, and are so strongly of its moorland that one reads them with just the same delight as their author's longer work. Most of tho Widecombe folk are here acain Harrv Hawke, Peter Gurney and the rest. They have pawky tales fp tell of queer courtings and tragic comedies and farcical tragedies all of the Moor. It whets the palate for another of the novels, which all these thir.crs are as it were, to ts author's wonderful studies of love and life, but it will do to go on with while we wait. The Poweu Behind.

By M. willcocks. (Hutchinson.) 6s. xnir, is a novel which in its literary and artistic style, whether or description or ot analysic. ii quite out of the common.

It wants careful reading to bo fully appreciated, mce its authoress is apt to elaborate so many themes and motives that sho often makes the main dritt and lesuo ot ner nncly written story rather hard to follow. But her study of the character or her heroine, oophie, as lnliu- enced and developed by the men with whom she comes in contact, by the old West-Country naturalist who adopts her, by the self-centred young astronomer whom she marries, and by the middle-aged doctor who becomes ner second husband this ctudy is not less illuminating than exhaustive. It tho power behind which is needed in order to give Miss Willcocks's rather weighty fiction the movement dear to the average novel-reader's heart. Her men are less satisfactory creations than her women the eccentric Dr. Prideaux, for example, whom Sophie marries after ho has been practically responsible for her unsatisfactory astronomer's death, remains a puzzle notwithstanding all the revelations due to his self-conscious introspection.

But Sophie is thoroughly intelligible, as well as thoroughly interesting, and she makes The Power Behind irresistible in its somewhat confused charm. Horace Blake. By Mrs. Wilfrid Ward. (Hutchinson.) 6s.

Except for a little spinning out and lack of development at one stage of the story, this study of a small group of deeply interesting personalities is as well constructed as it is significant and sincere. Horace Blake, the genius who has said Evil, be thou my good," for most of his life and whose all but deathbed repentance and conversion make so cynical an impression upon those who thought they knew him best, is a tragic, brilliantly realised figure. Pie has a great and obvious re semblance to another figure, not in fiction, but the likeness is not a copy there are differences and serious ones. The wife who stands by him to the last with open eyes, her loyalty and her wounded heart, her intellect and her splendid honesty, all make a wonderful character- to have created and consistently carried through. The poor little daughter, with her blind hero-worship and her very natural injustice towards her hero's splendid wife, is most human and appealing.

The man whose task it is to write a genuine biography of the great author, and who finds his hands tied by love of the adoring daughter on the one hand and the discovery of some sufficiently horrid truths on the other, is well imagined. It is a brilliant study and a patient one, as good as anything that Mrs. i--ffed Ward has given us. Winds of God. By Hamilton Drummond.

(Stanley Paul.) 6s. The author of Sir Galahad of the Army has a picturesque pen. It sometimes runs away with him, but when the scene was mediosval Italy some violence of colour and fine talk did not seem so very much out of place. In a romance of Georgian days the year of tho '15 is the starting point of the tale and among seafaring folk of the North Riding, it strikes a more strident note of falseness. Mr.

Drummond's people talk too much and too often with the air of having an eye on the gallery. Certainly they can do as well as talk, and" there are stirring matters to be written oi when Joan Sharland and her lover and a good friend or two with a hard-bitten crew set sail for the South Seas and the treasure bequeathed her by her father. There are also moments in the TatheT voyage when a genuine imagination breathes life into the tale. But for the most part it is a little too suggestive of the South Seas and the sailor man as they and he might be seen at His Majesty's theatre. And if Mr.

Drummond must quote Latin tags he or his proofreader might see that they are quoted correctly. The Jumping-off Place. By Ethel Shackleford. (Hoduer and Stoughton.) 6s. The aggressive Americanisms of this story will be found well, say, aggressive.

It has a notion in it and a little myetcry that quite successfully intrigues the reader. At first the giant coincidence which brings the disconsolate wife to the very place where her secretly -adored husband happens to be living revolted the calm sense of probability which afflicts all good reviewers, over whom ten thousand quite unlikely novels pass in vain. When it was made clear that the whole thing was a benevolent little' plot on the part of the lady's medical attendant there was much less to grumble at. The picture of the little mining camp, with its mingled luxury and roughness is a cleveT one. Mr.

H. G. Wells' new novel. The Passionate Friends," will be published by ilessra. Macmillan next Friday.

Messrs. S. W. Partridge and Co announce a now novel by Dorothea Moore, enfitted When the' Moon is Green. Mr.

Gordon Le Sueur's volume, Cecil iBhodes: the Man and His Work," will be fesued this month by Mr. Murray. Messrs. Nisbet have arranged to publish a volume of James Russell Xowell's hitherto uncollected essays and criticisms in' the autumn. important address just delivered a MorJbreel to.

the American Bar Association by the Lord Ghanoellar will be published by Mr. Murray as soon as possible. THE RAILWAY INQUIRY. Sir, With reference to the recent lamentable. railway accident at all the parties will probably be officially represented at the inquiry except the most important class of all namely, tne railway passengers themselves.

The company send their most competent officials and legal advisers the railway men do the same; and also any manufacturers or contractors who are likely to be interested but nobody is ever "present on behalf of the travelling pacsengcrs. When the representatives of passengers who nave lost tneir lives are present tne principal ooject is to secure adequate compensation. Even the Board of Trade officials may sometimes have the interest of their own depart ment too much at heart to be wholly free to consider the rights of the public. Has not the time therefore arrived when some association should be formed to advocate and protect the rights of the passengers tnemselves I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Herbert V. Seweia, B.A., LL.B.

(Cantab). 4, Walbrook, London, E.C. LORD ROBERTS'S "FREEDOMS. Dear Sir, I beg to point out an omission from your article. "Earl Roberts's Record." You say that the gallant Karl has been made a iroeman 01 nlteen cities, xnis should nave been sixteen, as he was made a freeman of the City of Bath in September, 1902.

I may add that in the previous year he was privately presented with a silver statuette of his son, who lost his life in the South African War. This was the gift of the citizens, and Lord Roberts would have received the freedom of the city earlier but for his desire to wait until tne oouth African War was over. Yours truly, H. Keene Ouveb. Journal" Office, Bath, Sept.

3, 1913. DeaT Sir, 1 have read with interest the paragraph which appeared in your issue of the 31st ultimo respecting Lord Roberts, but find thai Portsmouth has Been omi.tted from the list of towns who conferred upon his lordship the freedom of the borough, and I should feel obliged if you will kindly note in your next issue that Lord Roberts was admitted an honorary freeman of the Borough of Portsmouth on tne atn November, ltsaa. Yours truly, John W. Gieve. S3, Clarence-parade, Southsea, Sept.

3, 1913. EARLY MIGRANTS. Sir, Apropos of Mr. Kay Robinson's interesting article, in your issue of last week, I may say that 1 have, within the last ten days, observed the largest flights of brown linnets that I have ever seen, in the oat fields at Kincsdown. Walmer.

The birds appeared to be feeding upon plantain, dock and noppv seeds, and they remained in the same neids for several consecutive days. Since the 29th of August I have not seen more than a few dozen in the gorse on the downs, the larce llccxs, numbering many tnousands, having apparently departed on migration at a date muca earner than is usual ior seea- eaters. Larse flocks of rooks and jackdaws are now assemoling on the downs, and night-jars are more numerous man usual, ana nave rjeeu. frequenting the cabbage fields, owing to the large number of butterflies and moths to be cantured there. Several small nocks 01 curlews have passed flying northwards.

The summer-hatched clouded-yellow butterflies are busily engaged upon their annual futile effort to introduce their soecies, as an indigenous one, and are depositing their eggs upon the clover and other selected plants. None of the caternillars nroduced from these eeeo will survive the winter, but a fresh migration of this species will cross tho Channel from France next -spring, and this process goes on year after year, so prodisal is nature in her supply and distribution of life. I am, (Sf Arnold H. Mathew, Archbishop of the Old Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain. Kingsdown, Walmer, Kent, September 1.

DRAUGHT OXEN IN THE SOUTH DOWNS. I KsI-ova that vou are quite correct in your assumption that in no other part of England than the South Downs are oxen to be found engaged in the work of carrying the harvest, and the excellent photograph which you tn.rlav's issue of The Obsebvek is an interesting record of the preservation of a time-honoured custom in this district. I have mvself made inouiries with the object of dis covering if oxen are made use of in this way in other parts of England, but, so far as I can ascertain, in no other district are oxen so made use of. It may interest your readers to Know tnat on two South Down larms at least oxen are nsml for nlouehine. There is a famous team nf nn nsed on the farm of Mr.

E. J. Gorrinee, J.P., at Chyngton, Seaford, and another on the Possingworth estate, also in East Sussex. The draught oxen used in the South Downs are not a native breed, but are Welsh animals, noted for their great strength, their intense black colour and fine branching horns. Oxen have been worked at the plough by the Gorringe family for more than sixty yeare.

The gradients at Chyngton are very steep, and it has been found that oxen are better at a dead pull than horses, though probably on level ground the latter would do the work quicker than the former. Years ago the treadine of oxen was considered necessary to break up the ground, work which is nowadays, done by rollers. Oxen employed in farm work were until a generation ago shoed with kews." 1 know an old Sussex smith who frequently assisted in the process of shoeing oxen when he was a young man. It was a somewhat dangerous one, for the beast had to lie thrown down and its head pinned to the earth by means of a pitchfork placed over its horns. Draught oxen in Sussex are known as "runts," as already stated, come of a Welsh mountain stock.

The- native Sussex beasts, though formerly used in the plough, are now too valuable for draught work. I am, Sir, yours truly, Aktitge Beckett. Anderida. Eastbourne. Sept.

1. TRAINS TO GUILDFORD. Sir, It is rather difficult to understate Lo. Farrer's contentions with regard to London to Guildford traffic. The report makes it apparent tiiat tht South- Eastern and uommittce were asKtd the price of a season ticket, available by either of tne three routes from London U.

Guild, presumably L. and L. B. ana S. md S.

E. and and was informed that juh tickets were not in existence, and that thse was no pooling arrangement between the tiiree companies. The Dosition. as stated by the railway ocm- is correct, and, furthermore, there neyar has been suon a pooling arrangement or a season ticket issaed covering the tire routes, so one call riot see how this can be described as a new policy of restriction." Evidently the South-Eastern and Chatham Committee do not cater for traffic from London to Guildford, and this is scarcely a Mrstter for wonder, considering the route 61 ths. line.

The system extends to that "place for -traffic between rt and South-Eastern and Chatham stations in Kent, with, which it formj-thi-'direct Were the town, not well served by tie London and South-Western' and Brier ton Companies, Lord Farrer'e comments might better understood, but' certainly it'is not tha public interest to promote unneceEtary competition simply for competiikm's sake. Yours faithfully, Wh. W. DarxxwiTEB. 6, Talbot road, South Tottenham, Sept.

LORD LISTER: HIS LIFE AND WORK. Bj G. T. Wrench, M.D. (Fisher Tjnwtn.) ISs.

net. THE TRAGEDY OF MARY STUART. By Henry C. Bueuey. (Harpers.) lot.

ec t. POETRY AND THB DRAMA. MOODS AND METRES. By Charles Jtevton-Robui- son. iuastaDie.j os.

IN ABCADY. AND OTHER POEM 8. By W. Ouneroa. cErsUne Macdaoud.) 3 6a net.

IDELA: ANfEFOS. By Sarah Benson. (Ersklce Mac dooald.) 2a. 6d. net.

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: From the Romance or Oscar Wilde: A Dramatised by 0. Constant Lounsbery. (Sirapldn, Marshall and Co.) Is. net. ART.

mi! vmvreo tm ART: ITS NATURE. ROLE AND VALUE. By Paul Gaultier. With a Preface by PmilA RfHitraux. Translated from the thtru French edition by H.

and E. Baldwin. (George Allen and Co.) 5s. net. FICTION.

OF ALL By THE ROMANCE (Harpers.) 6s. Eleanor Stuart. THE HOOP OF GOLD. By George Ford. (George Allen and Co.) 6s.

THE Mi GUVNOR. By John Bemett. (Wells, Gardner, Darton and Co.) 6a. LOVE IN THE HILLS. By F.

B. Penny. (Chatto and Wmdus.) 6s. THE LODGER. By Mrs.

Belloc Ixnrndes. (Mcthuen.) 6s. HORACE BLAKE. By Mrs. Wilfrid Ward.

(Hutchin son.) 6s. THE LURE OF THE LITTLE DRUM. By MargaTet Peterson, lueirose. ts. THE REGENT.

By Arnold Bennett. (Methuen.) 6s. MISS NOBODY. By Ethel (Methuen.) 6s. SHALLOWS.

By Frederick Watson. (Methuen.) 6s. THE DEVIL'S GARDEN. By W. B.

Maxwell. IHutcuiOa-on.) 6s. THE SALE OF LADY DAVEMttl. llierDen. Jenkins.) 6s.

SINISTER STREET. By Comptcn Macnenae. Seeker.) 6s. LIGHT FINGERS AND DARK EYES. By Vln-ent Collier.

(John Long.) 6s AN OFFICER AND A By E. D. Henderson. (John Long.) 6s. THE SHADOW OF THE DKAUUJ.

ay i-a-cuia Moore. (Chapman anu aoiw THE ROAD TO VICTORY. By Rose Schuster. (Chap man and llau.) ba. MAGPIE HOUSE.

By Andrew SouUi. (CasseU.) 6s. THE SPIRIT OF THE WEST. By Joseph Hocking. (Cassell.) 6s.

BARBARA OF THE THORN. By SK uyrctl. (Chatto and Indus. t. IS IT ENOUGH? By Harriett R.

Ouapba.1. (Harpers.) 6s. THE MERRY MARAUDERS. By Artnur J. nees.

(Helnemann.) bs. THE -LIZAKD. By H. Vaughan-Sawyer. (Mills and Boon.) 6s.

THE CLOAK OF. ST. MARTIN. By Arrcine Grace. Suggested by 11.

A. samtsoury. ram bug IM. 03. THE CHAPS OF HARTON.

By Belinda Blinders. Edited by Desmond coka. (LT.apinan una uiuij 2s. 6cl. net.

ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT. By Louis Tracy. (Ward Lock and Co.) MISCELLANEOUS. SAFETY: METHODS FOR PREVENTING OCCU PATIONAL AND U1HKB. AUUlUt.Via AJU DISEASE.

By William H. Tolman and Leonard B. Kendall. (Harpers.) lis. 6d.

net. ESSAYS IN REBELLION. By Henry W. INisbet.) 6s. nvt.

THE A.B.C. OF COLLECTING OLD CONTINENTAL POTTEKY. By J. blucker. wun over zau illustrations nnd half-tea and line.

(Stanley l.ul and Co.) 5s! net. WHAT OF THE N1VY? By Alan H. Burgoyne, M.P. ss. net.

CAN WE STILL FOLLOW JESUS? By Allied E. Uarvie. (Oasiell.) Is. 6d. net.

NEW EDITIONS, REPRINTS. THE SEARCH PARTY. By G. A. Birmingham.

(Methuen.) Is. net. THE OSBORNES. By F. E.

Benson. (Nelson.) Is. net. JOHN BRIGHT: A MONOGRAPH. By R.

Barry linen. (Nelson.) is. net. A SERVANT nv THE PUBLIC. By Anthony uope.

(llodder and stoughton.) 7i. net. ALLAN By Rider Haggard. (Hcdder and btougnionj a. net-.

HANDBOOKS, REFERENCE BOOKS, PATON'S LIST OF SCHOOLS AND TUTORS 16th Annual Edition, 1913-M. (J. ana j. raion, 11, Cannon-street, E.C.) 2s. MAGAZINES AND REVIEWS.

EMPIRE REVIEW, GEOGRAPHICAL JUUK.NAL, CENTURY, BOOK MONTHLY. PRINTER'S INK. CHOPIN'S PIANO. BRITISH MUSIC EXHIBITION AT OLYMPIA. The Lord Mayor yesterday opened the British Music Exhibition, wnich will be held at Olympia' until September 20.

It has been organised by the Pianoforte Manufacturers' Association, and has received the support of all the leading colleges and academies of music, and of musicians and composers. The British pianoforte and instrument making industry has made such wondcrlul strides commercially within the last ten years that it was thought time to give an object-lesson" to the world as to the capabilities of the British manufacturer. The result has been the present exbibition, which is the most extensive enterprise of the kind ever attempted in this country. The strength and vitality of the industry may be judged from the fact that there are over worth of instruments now at Olympia. Many of the pianoforte cases are of exceedingly ricfl and beautiful workmanship, and the quality of the tone can be sampled by any intending purchaser on the spot.

Down one side of the hall Messrs. Brinsmead and Son have fitted up a factory, there showing all the stages of piano-making, and Messrs. Kast-ner are showing, by cinematograph films, the evolution of a modern instrument, from the forest to the drawing-room. During the week there will be daily-competitions in solo and choral singing, and playing on' the organ, pnnoforte, violin and violoncello; the competitions being arranged for both adults and children, all ef whom must be British subjects. The test pieces to be played or sung will also be British, the composers ranging from Purcell to Elgar.

Ono of the most interesting features of the exhibition is the collection antique instruments, shown by Messrs. Broadwood and Sons, including clavichords, harpsichords and a spinet. Here may also be seen the last pianoforte used bv Chopin, and a square instrument made in 185 for the Prince Consort, which remained at Buckingham Palace until the death of Queen Victoria. An antique pianoforte, made by John Hawkins in 1800, has a folding-up keyboard, showing that this supposed modern device is not so new as has been commonly supposed. Mr.

Ian Malcolm, M.P., speaking at the luncheon, yesterday, suggested the revival. of the old system of apprenticeship and indenture in connection with the musical instrument industry. He urged manufacturers present to taks one or more apprentices, who were the sons of decayed artists who had fallen by the wavside, of old choirmen and choristers, or son's of Naval and Army bandsmen. If they were able to take such apprentices he would be glad to help them in every possible way. ChaUen suggested, on behalf of Messrs.

Hopkinson, that he would take two apprentices if Mr. Malcolm would give their names. Mr. Maurice Hewlett's new novel, "Bendish: a Study in Prodigality." will be issued by Messrs. Macmillan on September 19.

Messrs. Methaen publish" this week now novels by Miss Marjorie Bowen. "The Governor of by Mr- Oliver Onions, "The Two and by Mr. Rcbert Halifax, "The White Thread." We are to have another volume of stories from Mr. Hardy's pen this autumn, It will bear the title, "A Changed Man, the Waiting Supper and other Tales, conclodinjr with The Romantic Ad rent-ares of Milkmaid.

and will be pubushed by Messrs. MacmillaA. listemn? to Michael 1 1 i rr Via tata nnnlit.v of his feelings, and after a while we want to kick someone. There are wonderfully vivid momenta in tne Dook, delicate pictures 01 things seen, moods cautrht. humours rirfitlv perceived, and a patient reading of the whole snows it to nave some or the bright ana wasteful abundance of life.

But there are certainly times when schoolboy justice seems the only uiiug iur Diicnaei. 'O PIONEERS Pioneers By Willa Sibert Cather. (Heine This is a book of uncommon quality. There is thought in it, and imagination, concerned with more than the fretting of individual emotion. It lacks all, or nearly all, the usual machinery.

Its style is admirable in terseness and economy, though there are odd occasional lapses into American slang, and there are moments when the economical manner has au aridity. It is, however, only at moments that the author prunes her expression to the sapless point. For the most part her few words have the strength of their simplicity, and her story of the land, its mastery by men and its mastery of men, stirs the imagination as space and -sky can stir it. lue land is Nebraska, and John Bergson, who had come from Sweden to the new country, died before hft had mastered it. It was left to his daughter Alexandra to win its Kindness alter the hard years, and Alexandra is something that is kin to the land itseit.

It holds her always. Under the shaggy ridges she felt the future stirring," and we feel in her, too, the future that is welding men of all races into the American. This matter of the alien, absorbed and transfused, occupies many American novelists, and its fascination is easy to nnder- Tl C- T-l awuu. oweues, utjrmans, xxrjemianSi 01 whom Mrs. uather writes are pouring into the American 01 the future their own qualities, but the land itself takes and shares them.

It was to have sons like Emil that father left, the old country," says Alexandra. Emil, it is true, is tragically fated, but even this tragedy, of which the actual telling shows the author strength very admirably, seems smr.ll in contrast with tho power of the land. We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it for a little while." The drawback to the book, regarded as a novel, is that this enduringness of earth gives something transient and slight to the characters. The author shows us their outside habit, and their behaviour is right.

We get dozens of little touches that note the man or the woman sharply, but we wait always for knowledge of the creatures' soul and strength, and wait in vain. They are caught in the atmosphere of the book, which is strangely impersonal. They are no more than pissing things, and seen from above. It is an unusual ard rather an arresting book. Perhaps its most unusual quality is that it aTrcsts without anv trick of violence or dismay.

"THE YOKE OF PITY. The Yoke of Pitt. By Julien Bends. Translated by Gilbert Canaan. (Unwin.) 5s.

net. M. Benda'B novel created a sensation in Paria. He wrote a note to the thirteenth French edition answering some of the critics who had not liked his book, answering them with scorn. One of my critics declares that as a student of philosophy he indulges in a certain amount of mental activity concerning philosophic questions, and fails to see why it should disappear because of some illness be falling one of his children.

I am perfectly willing to believe that the philosoohic activity of this excellent person is compatible wilu iove ior a sick cniia out or such 1 have not written." M. Benda has written of a man who in siders love and pity to be practically syno- ujuious. no is a man 01 creative mental activity, and he finds that pity saps his power of work. There is truth, no doubt, in the thesis, though there is no truth in the idea that love and pity are synonymous. Tho difficulty is that we do not for a moment believe in M.

Benda's Felix. We hardly realise that he cares for work at all until the second half of the book, far too late for us to believe in his mind's creative passion. And as the vitality of Felix fades, so does our opinion strengthen that few creative men are likely to confuse nitv 1 i rtuu iue. uuugeruus is it to try ana lorce a novel to prove a theory. The process invari- amy ends Breaking the storys etiape and vitality.

Mr. Gilbert Cannan has done his work of translation extremely well. AND SOME OTHERS. The Watereo Garden. By Maud Stepney Raw- son.

(Stanley Paul.) 6s. This 'sympathetic tale of a splendid girl who tried to be two secretaries and a gardener," as well as major-domo, conscience, lady's maid and chaperon to a rather frivolous, profoundly selfish but distinctly lovable young woman, with more money than breeding or discretion, is a clever one. Bettina and her garden and her three lovers make a whole that would interest anyone, -the talk 13 here and there a little too elusive and allusive to be quite unforced. The situations drag a bit at times. Still, on the whole, the book marches well to its inevitable and very satisfactory end.

Ella, the moneyed lady, is perhaps the best thing in it a human being admirably alive. Bettina's humour makes her delectablo beyond the lot of many heroines and flowers and the breath of flowers and the love of them pervade the whole without over-insistence or sentimentality. The Morning's War. By C. E.

Montague. (Metuuen.) 6b. Jacob Tonson, as Arnold Bennett used to call himself when he contributed a literary-letter to a certain shy and retiring weekly, once accused Mr. C. t.

Montague, with Ton- sonian ot writing tine English prose in his articles in the Manchester Guardian." The impression that "The Morning's War gives is that Mr. Montague has somehow got to hear of this and. thought those articles were nothing to what he could do if he really tried, away from the rush of the office and the noise of the machines. So he ought, no doubt, to have done but so he most certainly has not done. It is fine writ ing conscientiously hne.

Image is piled on image, ornament on ornament, and the result-of this profusion is that the shape and mean ing of the book are obscured and the characters are hidden in a tangle of language. It is a great pity, because Mr. Montague has some good things to say, and there arc incidents in the book the climb up the mountain, for instance, snd Browne's entry into Brabburn which are clean-cut and powerful. You are left, however, with no idea of the book as a whole, but only of flowers being choked in an intricate brilliant jungle of words and metaphors. The Lodger.

By Mrs. Belloc Lowndes. (Methnen) es. Most of the novels that are built- up round murder mystery leave on' the Teaders mind no more than a cheerful amount of horror. Mrs.

Belloc Lowndes is a writer of very different calibre. She brings to the making of a mystery a literary sense and an imagination tnat puts lite into the tale and into her readers. We have real people Mrs. Bunting, the landlady who had such a sinister lodger, is anmiraoie, everv stroke of tier; i Bunting, her slow-witted husband, with his lest for the evening capers Daisy, the pretty. good-natured, commonplace little, step daughter tne tragical, naunted man wno was the lodger all are almost disconcertingly alive.

We feel that we might be lodging with Mrs. Banting ourselves and taking comfort, ia her intense respectability and her clean hottsa and her -plain cooking. And it is just this I NEW NOVELS. "THE CARD AGAIN. fin Regent.

By Arnold Bennett. (Methaen.) 6s. In The Regent we meet the Card gain Edward Henry, the cuto little Five Town' wonder of commonsense. He builds a iheatre near Piccadilly Circus, helps the intellectual drama, flies to New "gets away his goods," and retiree' to to continue that agreeable' life oi mutual exasperation which is mafrfago in the Five Towns. It begins and ends a squabble.

In fact, i-ne Regent Theatre wouia never have been buiit at all if had not been that Edward Henr differed with his wife as to the importance of he. that their eldest son's bitten log nusrht lead to hydrophobia. He takes it lightly eiiojgh and Chopin's Funeral March on thv p.ar.isto auiicately to score over wife. Xh'-n, as his i-ttle joite was not appreciated at its lull wurtn. ha goes off in a hull to the Hanbrxlge Ljnpire, Mhiere he meets a ma.

with half an option K. tale of a building site for a theatre near Iic-cadilly Cirous. The joke begins a little grimly, perhaps but Mr. Bennett carries it on with exuberance. He obviously enjoyed writing abuut the Card's ridiculous doings, his ludicrous failures and his more ludicrous -ucoeeses, quite as as we enjoy reading about them.

There some-toing extraordinarily pleasant in the cold cmmon6ense manner in which. Edward Henry starts upon the wildest, maddest adventures. He engages a suite at Wilkin's, muc' the unartest botel in London, because a boy in the train bets him balf-a-trown he daren't. There he meets the great Rose Euclid and th greater Seven Sachs, also her boys, who are poet-author and her stage manager they own tl. other half of the option, which he get- from them by a clever trick, and yet ho himself tricked by the wiles of a Miss April to produce ws poet piay in Hexameters, witn lluse bncuu is: tne leading part, though ne disoelieves in if-c-se ana in tne play.

It is ail capital tun his breakfast with the great Sir John Pilgrim, his laying ot the Corner btooe, his first night, and his ruse 01 making even the poetic drama pay. The ruse is worthv 01 nu; genius as a card. He takes tie author with him in pursuit of Isabel Joy, about whom tae worm is taiKingj ior sne is a milium who is ccing rour.d the world in a hurdred days, having wagered in that time to addrj- meetings in five languages, and be arrer-ted three times, tie leaves the author in ew i ork and gets Isabel to appear in his play. All that is convincing and delightful fun the only thing that is neither convincing nor delightful is Mr. Bennett's occasional slip into sentiment; where he asks us to believe that under the wrangling surtace of Edward Henrv and his wife lie two sensible golden hearts that neat as one.

A STRANGE STORT. The Devil's Gabdex. By W. B. Maxwell.

(Hutchinson.) 6s. The theme of Mr. Maxwell's latest book will the strong appeal for popularity that some oi its predecessors have made, but it shows no relaxation of his high artistry. The author has chosen to deal with a sex problem, md one of specially unpleasing aspect. But it will be felt that he has made his story conform to the landscape of life, and, as usual, every stroke is contributory to his main purpose.

William Dale and his younger wife, Mavis, are both true to the world's knowledge of character the woman pleasant, pliable and perfectly "good" by instinct; the man forceful and rather egotistic, but possessed of a keen moral sense. When l)ale aiscovers that his wife, has had a past," and that she has weakly compromised herself again for the sake of helping him in a serious crisis, his agonies ra tempestuous. But he rebuilds his own life ind hers, and hali-way. through the book such i stable equilibrium seems to have been reached that one wonders what is going to occupy the remainder. Then he gradually develops a passion for a young girl, that reminds him of tho man by whom Jus wile's girlhood had been ruined the mair whom he had afterwards secretly killed As the years have gone, and his moral intensity has increased, ho has become lefinicely and sincerely religious." And now thesj tares are springing up among th wheat.

Dale- wrestles with himself, and wrestles not in vain He must seek death to escape the defeat that he feels impending. And he finds it in a heroic act that leaves his wife and family an honoured name. It is a moving, chastening story, with a development that is unexpected, but full of conviction. The antithesis between Dale's concentration and intensity and his wife's innocent lack of self-direction or deeper faith is a piece of admirably quiet, unforced drama. Perhaps the majority will call it a strange book.

At any it is not a negligible one. THE LEISURELY STYLE. 6imster Street. By Compton Mackenzie. (Martin iecker.) 6s.

Mr. Compton Mackenzie has planned on the heroic scale. He gives us in five hundred pages the history of Michael Fane from the days when he made stories about the rails of his crib to the time when he left St. James's 6chool that gigantic red building in the neighbourhood of West Kensington and we re promised another volume of the same length. There is nothing to be said against plenty.

The best of our English novelists nave loved the ample manner, a large stage sod, perhaps, a generation or two of actors. No excuse for extraordinary length in a novel is needed except an extraordinary genius in sa author. The question is whether Mr. Compton Mackenzie, in spite of two novels more than commonly able, has just that large and indisputable genius. He has wit and humanity.

He is keen to observe, and, observation being made, he has a point of view; though it is possible that he thinks with less exactitude than he observes withal; He is not slave to a literary clique. He has a swash-. buckler', freedom of gait that is pleasant in these days when many critics seem to judge the worth of an English novel according to its oearness to some French or Russian model. He will be leisurely, romantic, cynical, fanciful, eloquent, discursive, as he pleases, and let the apostles of selection-and-rejection go hang themselves. 1.

Jn-V are hanged high as Hainan in 'Sinister Street." Here is all that can be caught hy memory, observation or imagination, the essential and the unessential. Michael's nursery griefs and the bogies of his babybooi are so" admirably shown in Chapter One that we look with composure on the five bundr-id pages. But Michael grows with the io- fidelity of Nature. We hear of Christ-niis preients and walks in the Park, and how he got lust and was taken to the police-station, na his mother gave him two canaries. ar.d sometimes they said 4 and then Michael ould say Sweet and a pleasant old lady opposite would Sweet and soon all the people inside the omnibus were savin; iff- the queer dreams Michael had bv night, and a-e shown the time-table his lessons "ith his first governess.

There is no' slacken-ug or sparing in the record. It is certain people will say how ''exactly ukr it.is to their own childhood, and, indeed, 1 iruthfulness cannot be questioned. It is real a thing as rice-pudding. By inches Michael grows into a schoolboy. His egotism, his little shames and vanities.

his religious moods and his irreligious, are truly uunn, out, spite or the accuracy 01 it all, is only in flashes that Michael gets clear and we understand that he could be loved by friends. It looks as though Mr. Mackenzie," writing of him, has been, caught in the atmosphere of egoistic We seem to be ANTHONY TROLLOPE HIS WORK, ASSOCIATES, ORIGINALS. By T. H.

S. ESCOTT. A fine snidy of a long and varied life, with freh information concerning Trotlope's many fnen-ships. TmsUr. JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN THE TEXT OF THE PLAY.

AT "HIS MAJESTY'S." By LOUIS N. PARKER. With Illustrations by Dorothy Parker. In Clolh, 2a. net; In Pper corer, la.

net. Tmvttp, MADELEINE AT HER MIRROR By MARCELXE TINAYRE. 1 Translated by Winifred Stephens. Tundy. OPINIONS OF JEROME COIGNARD By ANATOLE FRANCE.

6a. TiutJaf. CONCESSIONS By SYDNEY SCHIFF. A New Novel. 6a, Tutulajr.

JOHN LANE. THE BO OLE HEAD, VIGO ST. JUST PUBLISHED. Cr. dV'c' A remarkable flrmt novel by a young author rt THE HOUSE OF EYES by Arthur George THE HOUSE OF EYES by Arthur George Tbe sceie of above novel is laid in Milan towards the close of the Fourteenth Century and dels with the fortunes of the ducal House, of Vtsconn.

All the many admirr of BowenV especially "The Viper of thoroughly enjoy ieadi-fi thi exceptional took. MESSRS. GAY HANCOCK announce that they will shortly be publUhine tb two following novels, which have been selected from many offered, for their exceptional intere 1. HELL'S PLAYGROUND. V.

S1MO.NTON. An outspoken narrative ot the condition of life on tbe Vet Coast of Africa. 2. THROUGH A GLASS TREVOR BLAKEMORE. with a coloured frontis piece oy TOM MosTY.N.

All who are interested in Art and in the various phases of present-day life, seen in contrast wi lu in London as it was thirty years' ago. should read this ncel. fW Have your put down at your library for themo books. LONDON GAY HANCOC Henrietta Street. Strand.

An Apology THE BIRTHDAY NUMBER of "TOWN TOPICS" was sold out yesterday. We re-printed last night. Ycu can get your copy TO-MORROW. 2d TOWN TOPICJS 2 The Greatest Sporting, Racing, and Dramatic Weekly. i DRINK CHINA TEA WHY SUFFER FROM INDIGESTION WHEN ONE OF THE MOST POTENT CAUSES CAN BE REMOVED BY DRINKING CHINA TEA INSTEAD OF THE ASTRINGENT PRODUCE OF THE TROPICS If you cannot get a China Tea that suits you, please ipply to the CHINA TEA ASSOCIATION.

98. Great Tower-street. London. E.C.. who win "give: the-name of a local dealer who specializes in China Tea.

---'W; THE PALL MALL GREATEST EVENING.