Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 54

THE HARTFORD DAILY COURXNT: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1931. FANCY BOOK. REVIEWS BOOK REVIEWS Book Reviews by Elizabeth N. Case Entertaining New Galsworthy Play A Clergyman and a Scientist Scrutinize Our Modern Beliefs Conservative Rev. Herbert Parrish and Free-Thinking Julian Huxley Curiously Enough Find Themselves Sharing Common Ground in Thoughtful and Stim Four New Volumes of Poetry 'Offer Moments of Lyric Beauty 'Best Poems of 1931 Selected by Thomas Moult Prove Disappointing, But Latest Works of Olga ErbsIocR Muller, Margaret Emerson Bailey and May Lewis Are Rewarding at this late day because the Ocalled by Mrs.

Muller. Moods of Thornton Wilder, whose new book, "The Lo'ns Christmas Dinner," is published jointly by Coward-M cCann and the Yale Unioersity Press. ts ass of mankind was ready to turn on the ecclesiastics who urged them on. Thei are who would revive persecution today if they were able. But on, the whole, toleration of opinion is established among civilized "The n-crndescence of the spirit of violent Puritanism in our modem world is an alarming symptom.

The old austerity and the crazy asceticism of past ages was fast dying out Then suddenly there broke loose a holy war The impertinence of Prohibition is staggering and The results in criminality and disrespect for all law threaten the state itself with disruption. Prohibition shows what religion gone wrong can do." Mr. Parrish is blessed with an exceptionally keen and sane intelligence, he is clear and clean-cut in statement, and his literary style is direct and forcible. "What is There Left to Believe?" may not answer its own question to the full satisfaction of aU readers, but no thinking man or woman can listen to Mr. Parrish without definite stimulation of his own powers of independent thought, or without a sense of pleasure In such stimulation.

Mr. Julian Huxley's seven essays concern'ng "The Challenge of Modern Science to Human Action and Belief." admirably written, for Mr. Huxley has inherited his share of his grandfather's supreme gift of clarity and exactness In exposition deal with the profundities of the problem of human existence, and do so in a way to stir and stimulate the mind of the least instructed layman. Again and again Mr. Huxiey drives straight to the point in discuising phases of conduct with which we are all familiar in our daily lives, as, when he writes, his chapter on Scientific Humanism that "Self-sacrifice and asceticism can be experienced as of the utmost value: so can self-expression the fullest satisfaction of bodily needs.

is very difficult, however, or some people to think that they any one else can be genuine deliberately practising what are loosely called self-denial and self-tndul-nence at different times. So long, however, as the impulse to either genuine, both can be of value, and is often only the demon of consis vncy which prevents us from aehiev i-ig the needed genuineness of im- sul.se." Read in connection with each other, Mr. Huxley's and Mr. Pa Irish's two boons gain Individually, and it is to be hoped that many readers will make the experiment of their direct companion. Brief in manual which instantly makes itself indispensable as a desk book far lite rary workers, business men and wo- 6trike.

the keys of a tvMwntfr and convenient- planned for practical use, and most sat lsfoc Lirl! com prehensl ve. Book Notes THE BEST POEMS fn 19S1R.ll ed by Thomas Moult; Decorated by Elizabeth Montgomery; Harcourt Brace New York; $2.50. CHILDREN OF THE SUN Poems by Olga Erbsloh Muller; Brentano's, New York; $2. WHITE CHRISTMAS By Margaret Emerson Bailey; G. P.

Putnam's Sons, New York and London; The Knickerbocker Press; $2, RED DRUMMING IN THE SUN By May Lewis; Alfred A. Knopf, New York; $2. Ten years have passed, writes Mr. Moult In his Introduction to "The Best Poems of 1931," since the appearance of the first volume of his annual anthology, The artistic worth of the verse chosen by Mr. Moult has varied from year to year, but few at least in the opinion of the pres ent writer pf the preceding volumes have struck so low a general average of accomplishment as the present.

It may fairly be said that, while none of the verse included In "The Best Poems of 1931" fails to reach an adequate -literary competence, there Is not to be found in the entire rnllAc. tion a single poem of definite distinc tion. agreeable verse, yes; but no more than that. Mr. Moult has made his choice pretty evenly between British and American poets, and such well-known writers as John Galsworthy, Sara Teasdale.

W. H. Davie Dorothy Parker, Alfred Noyes and W. contribute to his anthology. In his Introduction Mr.

Moult pays tribute to the memory and the lovely act of the lamented Katherine Tynan, and one of the high lights of this rather dimly illumined collection is her characteristic and musical poem, entitled "Green Trees." As is usually the case, even with more richly endowed poets than Mrs. Muller, it Is not the long, carefully elaborated poem, entitled "Phaeton." the opening poem of "Child of the Sun." which best reveals her slender but genuine poetic gift, but rather her fervid and haunting lyrics, here presented as "Moods," of nature, love, will and thought. Certain of the Legends and Tales also walk in beauty, and reveal ji fine reminiscent sense ot the authentic ballad rhythm as in the opening stanza of the poem called "Old Song" 'Twas many a mile from town to mart Afar over heath and lea That a fair maid roamed with a sad and heavy heart On the cliffs by the wild, deep sea. We are told that Mrs. Muller's volume of less than one hundred, pages covers the work of 13 years; this is good hearing.

A something of old-world permanence, of leisure intelligently valued, a sense of delving below the surface, is implicit in these poems over which the writer has been content to work with such deliberation. There follows here a two-stanza lyric from the section her book Kirby; William Farquhar Payson, New York; $4.50. "Goals," by H. W. Hurt; Murrayi Book Corporation, New York.

"Afterwards," by Herman J. Schick; The Stratford Company, Boston; $1.50. "Oh compiled Edward Angly; The Viking Presf Nqw York; $1. "Marriage at the Crossroads," by Dr. Wilhelm Stekel; William Godwin.

100 Fifth Avenue, New York; $2. "Successful Living in This Machine Age," by Edward A. Filene; Simon Schuster. New York; $2.50. "Joy Street," by Clifton Cuthbert; William Godwin, New York; $2.

"Sociology," by Ernest R. Groves; J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia; $1. "Righteous Indignation." by the Secretary: The Cosmopolitan Press, 39 East 28th Street, New York.

"The Picture of Dorian Gray," dramatized by Marion Mills Miller; Henry Harrison, New York; $2. "Footsteps," by Georgiana Bole King; Henry Harrison, New York; tl.EO. "Village and Open-Country Neighborhoods," by Walter A. Terpenning; The Century Company, New York; t. "Broken Earth," by Maurice Hindus; Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, New York; $3.

"Clarence Darrow," by Charles Yale Harrison; Jonathan Cape and Harrison Sm'th. New York; $3. "Zodiak." by Walther Eidlltz: Harper and Brothers, New York: $2.50. "The Sheriff of Chispa Loma," by Tardily Printed THE ROOF: A Play In Seven Scenes By John Galsworthy; Charles Scribner's Sons, New York; $1. A brief prefatory note by Mr.

Galsworthy, dated March, 1931, explains that delay in theatrical production of "The Roof" in the United States accounts for this "tardy printing of text" and Mr. Galsworthy adds: "Now that, at last, it appears in American book form, there is nothing whatever that I want to say about It, except that I originally called the play abandoned that title because it had already been taken, and called it 'Fire'; abandoned that titlo because it also had already been taken, and called it 'The Roof." 'The Roof," now just opening on Broadway, was originally produced in London two years ago, in early November, 1929, and was published in England at the same time. The present American edition gives the full cast of the London production. As a reading play "The Roof" proves vivid and arresting, but it falls into a different class from that in which "The Silver Box," "Loyalties," "Justice," and, preeminently, Mr. Galsworthy's masterpiece, "Strife," belong.

"The Roof" is, primarily, a modern morality play, as was "Es cape," but it is less intensively ap pealing than that moving stud? In man's inhumanity to man." "The Roof is concerned with a group of people trapped in a hotel fire, and they are shown, in all the dramatic contrast of their varied characters, under th fear of immediate and terrible death. The hard-boiled cynic of course proves himself the supreme hero, and dies game The dialogue is very typical Galsworthy, and the characters aTe boldly drawn, with all a veteran's skill in gaining his effects. New Books Received "The Long Christmas Dinner," by Thornton Wilder; Coward-McCann, New York; $2,50. "Zealots of Foffman Bir-ney; Perm Publishing Company, Philadelphia; $350. "The Happy Parrot," by Robert W.

Chambers; D. Appleton Company, New York; $3.50. "A Book of Days," by Christopher Morley; The John Day Company, New York. "Diary of a Provincial Lady," by E. M.

Delafield; Harper Brothers, New York; $2.50. "Black Hawk's lYail," by Margaret Bloom; Laidlaw Brothers, Chicago; $1.50. "The Gynga Chief," by Carlt Etlar; Dorrance Company, Philadelphia; $2.50. "President and Chief Justice," by Francis McHale; Dorrance Si Company, Philadelphia; $3. "The Little Maelstrom," by A.

M. Fleming; Meador Publishing Company. Boston; $2. "The Amazing Adventures of AU," by Maud Lindsay; Lothrop, Lee Shepard Company, Boston; $2. "Hemmingway Town," by Raymond Osborne; Meador Publishing Company, Boston; $1.50.

"Lure of a Dream," by Neil K. Reld; Meador Publishing Company, Boston; $2. "Land of Wonder and Fear," by F. A. Mitchell-Hedges; The Century Company, New York; $4.

"Mayflower Heroes," by Gleason L. Archer; The Century Company, New York; $3. "Promiscuous," by Dora Macy; Brentano's New York; $3. "The Wisdom of Wu Ming Fu." by Stanwood Cobb; Henry Holt 6c Company, New York. 'Yankee Ships in Pirate Waters," by Rupert Sargent Holland; Macrae -Smith Company, Philadelphia; $3.50.

"King Albert in the Great War." by Lieutenant-General Galet; Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston; $6. "More Solitaire," by Paul W. Kearney; Jonathan Cape it Harrison Smith. New York. "A Program for America," by Will Durant; Simon Schuster, New York; $1.25.

"Better Left Unwed." by Hazy. Princess cl Guess; The Mohawk Press, New York: $1. "Please Stand by Madeleine Loeb anl David Schenker; Mohawk Press, New York; $2. "The House of Connelly and Other Plays," by Paul Green; Samuel French, New York; $2.50. "The Philosopher's Murder Case," by Jack R.

Crawford; Sears Publishing Company. New York; $2. "Everybody's Book of Numbers," by torna Fantin; Brewer, Warren Ai Putnam. New York; $1.50. "Slaves Today," by George Schuyler; Brewer, Warren Si Putnam, New York; $2.50 "Beyond the Pyrenees," by Marcel Aurousseau; Alfred H.

King, New York; $3.50 "Joyour Peggy," by Lillian Grace Copp; Cupnles Leon Company, New York; ti.50 "Our Superconscious Mind," by Edith Lyttleton; D. Appleton sXom- pany, Ne ork $2.50. "Trench Artillery," by Major P. H. Ottosett; Lothrop, Lee it Shepard Company.

Boston; $3. "An Eaitor Look At Russia," by Ray Long; Ray Long and Richard Ri. Smithnc New York; $1. "The Almond Tree." by Grace Zar-ing Stone; The Book League of America. 100 Fifth Avenue.

New York "What Is There Left to Believe?" by Herbert Parrish: Sear Publishing Company, New York: $2,150. "No Errant Wind." by Eliza Wlllcts; Sear Publishing Company, Inc, New York: $1. "Stepping Westward," by Laura E. Richard: D. Appleton St Company, New York; $3.

"Science Today." edited bv Watson Davis; Harcourt, Bract Company. New York; $2.50. "The Left Bank," by Elmer Rlre: Samuel French. New York: $2. "Highlights A Cartoon History of thi Nineteen Twenties." by Rolitn Volumes of Essays A CONVERSATION WITH A CAT And Others By Hilalre Belloc; Harper Brothers, New York and London; VISIBILITY GOOD: Essays and Ex cursions By E.

V. Lucas; J. B. Lip-pincott Philadelphia; $2. Two delightful books, each by a master of the delicate art of the fa miliar essay on any subject, or any phase ot any subject, that you please.

There are 59 papers in Mr, Belloc's "A Conversation With a Cat," and the subjects of them Include The Sources of the River Seine, the art of mixing Omelettes, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, Dean Swift this being a superbly efficient and also a penetratingly sympathetic commen taryLengthy Titles, and Thinking. There lives no more consummate master of English prose than Mr. Belloc; his fine, marching style has body, and power, a splendid clarity, and a beautifully exact sense of literary values, of artistic proportion. "A Conversation with a Cat" is a book like its predecessors, "On Something." "On Everything," "On On Nothing," "Hills and the Sea," and the rest to welcome as a rewarding companion, and to mark, if you have the happy marking habit, on eVerv page. Mr.

Lucas's "Visibility Good" is made up of twenty-five essays, all of which, with a single exception, originally appeared either in Punch or the (London) Sunday Times; but, says Mr. Lucas, in a brief Note, "everything has been revised and often extended." Mr. Lucas ranges over as wide a field as his distinguished senior, Mr, Belloc, writing with special charm about -certain storied London Squares about Noise, about Maximum and Minimum, and, in response to a challenge from a youthful kinsman, about Custard; all making a thoroughly charming book, as indeed any book by Mr. Lucas is bound to be. Choice between "A Conversation with a Cat" and "Visibility Good" is difficult, and each book comes so close to perfection in its delightful kind, that the reader would do well to possess' himself of both volumes, for each Is preeminently a book to own, and to keep Intimately at hand.

A musing vjiuae 10 English Literature SHAKESPEAR AND THAT CRUSH: Being Angela's Guide to English Literature By Richard Daik; With Illustrations by Thomas Derrick; The Oxford University Press, New York: $1.50. Mr. Richard Dark's "Guide to English Literature'' is delectably amusing piece of work, but Mr. Thomas Derricks illustrations are nothing less than triumphs of graphic wit. One or more of Mr.

Derrick's drawings adorn every page of this little book, and each is a separate, entire and perfect joy to the beholder. Here is a brief excerpt from Mr. Dark's chapter on The Romantic Revival: "Sir Walter was also a poet, though hardly in the same sense as Wordsworth or Keats; that if, he was not always taking his soul out and wiping it and putting it back again, or sighing for lodgings with a sea view and claret-cup and death and things like that. He just threw off a lew thousand lines of brisk stuff about some of the more abandoned Scottish Border families, and Vou should get to know thee girls." The illustrations to Mr. Dark's "Guide" cannot be quoted, but the reader of this brief, inadequate, but enthusiastic notice, may rest assured that they are screams, and worth the price of the volume twice over.

Rousing Sea arns SEA DOGS OF TODAY By A. J. Vtllie.j.. Henry Holt ft New York; $2 50. Mr.

Aliin Villlcrs, author of Uiose rousing personal records of sea ai-venture. "Falmouth for Orders," and "By Way of Cape Horn," has done a stood woi in collecting these narrative of netual sea experience in model days. Mr. felt that "there was yet. some good 'copy' and romance In tlie sea, that nobody was "V.m, although It was to be had for the leathering today" and he set out to gather it; not always an easy task, for.

says Mr. Villiers "Seafarers real are not articulate, not of a literary frame mind. True, they spin good yams; but only in the foc sle. where the company is appropriate and understands." And Mr. Villiers continues "Ashore persons have an idea that a few beers bought for him at any public-house ibut preferably one with a hip model or two in it, and a screeching cocka- tooi will open the mouth of any r.aji- been gone after by Mr.

viuiers, ana retold by him, so tar as possible In the narrators' own words. They are aU tales worth the telling and worth the reading, and they ar illustrated with many striking original photographs. THE ROCK AND THE RIVER: A Romance of Quebec By Ralph Connot: Dodd, Mead Co, New York; $2. A dramatic and effectively told romance of early nineteenth-century Quebec, at the period Just preceding the War of 1812; by one of the most popular and best-loved of contemporary novelists, the author of "The Say Pilot." and "The Man from Glen- gilrtV-" Thought: Reflection. At my feet the whole day long Little children played about: One would give a little song, One would give a little shout, One would beg of me to play With a foolish little toy! Yes, they wasted all my day And my heart is full of joy! "White Christmas" Is the first volume of collected poems by a writer whose work has been recognized with an eager welcome by many a poetry lover.

A clean-cut, insistent individuality strikes the keynote of these frosty poems by Miss Bailey, which carry a suggestion of the Wessex verse of Thomas Hardy. Here is a voice which calls, bringing the' hearer to a sudden pause, in which he listens. Few of these poems fill more than a page, and every page is a challenge to quotation; but one only can be chosen, and0xt it be this: Wiseacre. Only a gardener who leans on my gate; Only an old man nodding his pate: "Frost came early though spring came late." But I who have better cause to remember The Chastening of frost in early September, Reply to the old man who leans on my gate, Say to the old man nodding his pate: "Frost comes early when spring comes late." Professor Erskine states no more than simple fact in declaring that Miss May Lewis is possessed of "the true lyric gift." Miss Lewis's curiously named sheaf of poems, "Red Drumming In The Sun," the title being taken from one of her own poems, called "Rhythm," is a book completely out of the beaten track of the certain of the poems reveal a feeling for nature, for the message of mists, of streams and showers, of meadows, woods and flowers, which carries swift and straight to the responsive Several years ago I came upon a poem by a writer whose name was unknown to which struck me with the keenness of a dagger thrust; I typed its two stanzas and pasted the poem on the flyleaf of one of my mast cherished anthologies, The other day I re-discovered it in the pages, of "Red Drumming In The Sun," and it follows here: Passer-By, He jostled through the crowded train, So grey of face, One glance showed death was following him Swift pace for pace. Oh, Sun, be quick! shine on him now! Be warm! be kind! Another" week you 11 search for him Search, and not find.

Charles H. Snow; Macrae-Smith Company, Philadelphia; $2. "Exit Simeon by J. M. Walsh: Brewer, Warren Si Putnam, New York; $2.

"Black Frontiers," by Sam Kemp; Brewer, Warren Sz Putnam, New York; $3. "Young Man in Leather," by Pitt L. Fitzgerald; Macrae-Smith Company, Philadelphia, $2. "Candles in the Night," by Amy Crocker Lelghton; May Company, Boston; $2. "Just a Letter and Other Poems," by William Ambrose Henderson; May Company, Boston; $2.50.

"Constantinople," by George Wharton Edwards: Penn Publishing Company, Philadelphia. "The Mystery of the Creeping Man" by Frances Shelley Wees; Macrae-Smith Company, Philadelphia; $2. "Elegy in a Country Church-Yard," by Thomas Gray; E. P. Dutton 5s Company, New York: $3.75.

"Manhattan "Side-Show," by Kon-rad Bercovici The Century Company, New York; $4. "Poems and Letters of Howard "Bud' Meador Publishing Company, Boston; $1,50. "Everyman and His Common Stocks," by Laurence H. Sloan; Whittlesey House. New York; $250.

"Karl's Wooden Horse," by Annie Bergmann and Lois Donaldson; Laidlaw Brothers, Chicago; $1, "When Washington Was Young," by Mabel Ansley Murphy; Laidlaw Brothers, Chicago; $1.50. "Free Wheeling," by Ogden Nash; Simon Aj Schuster, New York; $1 73. G.FOX STREET ulating Studies WHAT DARE I The lenge of Modern Science to Human Action and Belief; Including the Henry LaBarre Jayne Foundation Lectures (Philadelphia) for 19S1 By Julian Huxley, Honorary lecturer in Experimental Zoology. King' College, London; Harper Brothers, New York and London; $2.50. WHAT IS THERE LEFT TO BELIEVE? By Herbert Parrish; Hol-ston House, Sears Publishing Inc, New York; $250.

The coming-together of these two books for review at the same time is interesting, and It seems to tha present writer a curiously significant (XJint that these two writers, Mr. Huxley, the man of pure science, and Mr. Parrish, the, clergyman of a conservative faith, who in his preface declares simply that his own beliefs ere "quite conventional and orthodox in a rather narrow sense" should each present the title of his book In th form of a question. That magnificent militant. Professor Thcmas Henry Huxley, grandfather of Mr.

Julian Huxley, would, beyond all doubt, turn in his grave, as the ancient saying goes. If he could, revisiting a transformed world, take up this book of essays by Mr, Parrish, he of the "orthodox" beliefs, and find him stating squarely that Mr. Julian Huxley is "a deeply religious man." Yet so far have we come, by strangely intersecting paths, that man of orthodox, conventional beliefs, life Mr, Parrish, and a reef-ranking man, eminent in science, like Mr. Julian Huxley, find themselves sharing common ground on matters concerning hich it might be supposed tiiey would stand lncalcuabla distance, apart. For a man whose beliefs are conventional in "a narrow sense," Mr.

Parrish reveals an amazing tolerance, an amazing breadth of sympathetic understanding of his fellow men. His 10 essays, severally entitled Basis and Value of Belief in an Outside fluence; Anthropomorphism; Faith; Prayer. Imagination: Problem of Joy and of Life; Reason and Belief; Self-Corsciousness; Daily Conduct and Religious Value of Relaxation: What is There Left to Beiieve'-are intensely interesting, and may be thoroughly enjoyed by the genera! I reader vho isn't deeply concerned with any aspect of religion. Here follow two brief sample extracts frcm the wisdom of the Rev, Herbert Parrish: "We congratulate ourselvet that the ages of persecution over, and well we may. But they are over because people like Voltaire scored them roundly, and were only eviews JOFTRJE By Raymond D.

Appleton Co New York and Lr-ntion $3. M. R-ymond Recouiv hereof e. a companion vo.ume to ni FOcn. My iA i 1 As with nis vivid study of Marshal orh M.

writes ol General joi ire from the standpoint of cose personal acquaintance, and, as a sudy vanoui im Don ant phases of the Great War the pre. only highly Interest'. work not to the genera! reader, but has genuine as well. historic value FROM THE STARS Bv George Eliery Hale, Honorary Ds- i rector of the Mount Wilson Ob- i aen-a'oiy of the Carnegie IrwMtu- tion of Washington; With Numerous Illustration; Chsrtes Scrifer.ers Srj. New York and London: $3.

Exttniely interesting popular handbook on "the possibilities of large telescope the work of an eminent i authority on solar research. The little volume fully illustrated photographs ar.d diagrams. UP SHIP' By Lie iHenant-Cam- I mander C.E Rooendahl; DoddMead Co. New York; $3. A remarkable per.nal record.

which gain in historic value as the years pass. Commander Rosen-ilahl was recently appointed cl the great Akron, and he writes here of hi-, thrilling experience the Ang'-ies. the and t.ne Graf Zeppelin. The volume is y.i.'.v with original pfcr.fjr SCIENTIFIC SELF-DBTINCE-By W. K.

Fairbairn, Superintendent. Shangnai Municipal Second Degree Be.t Kodak an Jtil-jitsu University. Jpr. Frofuxly Illustrated; The Official Tert Book for the Shanghai Mini- rolice gne Kor.gKong Police; D. Appltwr fc Co New York and Jr.iKi', $3 50.

A perfectly fascinating bfick. n'th remarkable photographs every movement described. Mr. Doug. 5-i Fairbanks' Preface, which is Dr.r rpirited, and goes stratgtt so the point, includes the following s'ate- meet: E.

Fairbairn, the a most extensive anA practical i knowledge of this art. I watt forced i tome to thJ eonclusloa when I at- tempted to grapple wi.h him," The Students' Series of Dictionaries: THE STUDENTS' DICTIONARY OF SYNONYMS AND ANTONYMS Compiled from the Best Authorities and Cur.deased by tne Omission of Ohso.cu: and Unlikely Words and Arranged for Fyerv-daj Uaeful-nAs By Lloyd Adams. A. M. Noble it Noble, New York.

An txoellent example of the sort ct in ot or i i i very good reading they are. Quite THE UNIVERSE WITHIN US: AUiflerem from Scott was Jane Aus-Scienutic View of God and Man ten. the first, but unhanDllv not the By R. O. P.

Taylor, Vicar of Rlng-jitet, of cur great female novelists, wood. Hants: Late Provost of Gum- she wrote stones about ordinary mid-brae; Richard R. Smith. Newt die-claw people like ourselves. An-ort; $2, gela, and her young ladies compare SympaUwtic and impressive favorably with the modern flapper.

son. Mr. John Anderson and Mr. Virgil Geddes contribute a brace of studies of Eugene O'Neill, studies which, in their sophomoric pomposity are almost ludicrously inadequate to their theme. Miss May Wynne, author of "The Masked Rider," a picturesque eighteenth-century romance for young readers, recently noticed in this department, is a welfare worker in charge ot St.

Luke's Mission in London's East End. Miss Wynne, who Is well known in England as a writer of children's stories, though 'The Masked Rider" is the first of tier books to be published in this country, gives all royalties from her writings to help carry on this fine philanthropic! work. Putnams, at 2, West 45th Street, have just held what Is believed to be the first bookstore auction ever held in the United States. In England and on the continent leading bookstores have held such auctions regularly, and there is, it appears "a venerable tradition attaching to the custom." It seems extraordinat i to me that book auctions were not established here long ago, and they would, I should suppose, prove stimulating and attractive to book lovers. end of direct benefit to trade.

There is always something exciting about an auction, and for one, hope that this pioneer action by the house of Putnam may bear fruit In many A Lively Study of The Literary Mind THE LITERARY MIND: Its Place in an Age of Science By Max Eastman; Charles Scribner's Sons, New York and London; $2.50. Agree or disagree as you may with Mr. Eastman and you are more than likely to do both in the course of a single one of his pages you will never find him dull. Stimulation follows the. reading of anything written by Mr.

Eastman as Inevitably as from the drinking of a cocktail. "The Literary Mind" is made up of 14 essays, divided Into five parts The March of Science; Literature on the Defensive; Literature in Retreat; Toward a Science of Literature; The Future of Literature; while Mr. Eastman declares, in his Preface, that, this being a volume of essays on contemporary literature, any one of them may be read separately, he states that it Is also "a book about the relations between literature and science, and the essay-chapters are threaded upon a definite argument." There is also included in the volume a Note on I. A Richards' Psychology of Poetry, and the Notes and References are characteristically enlightening and suggestive. It Is always a definite Intellectual experience to read a book by Mr.

Eastman; if he often stirs his reader'! controversial potentialities to boiling point, again and again he soothes htm through the delicious satisfaction of finding his own cherished convictions expressed with an Infinitely finer grace and force than he can himself command. Mr. Eastman writes about modern poetry; about the "New about certain unpleasant literary highbrows, and certain other still more unpleasant literary Mow-brows. He is master of a peculiarly deadly and wholly individual Irony; he i a keen, perceptive, and therefore at times sympathetic critic, and all that he has to say concerning the literary mind and its place in an age of science, make ef entertaining and as rewarding reading as ha appeared from an American critic this season. Young Hawk and His Pony." by Harriet Salt; Macrae-Smith Com- oanv.

Philadelphia: $1.50 At last the long-awaited October number of The Theater Guild Magazine has made its appearance. I had grown self-conscious in repeatedly asking for It at my accustomed magazine counter, and finally secured my copy at an unfamiliar place, but it proves a banner number, and worth waiting for. There is a very striking full-page photograph of Eugene O'Neill, a man of genius whose appearance doesn't come as an anticlimax to anticipation. Mr. O'Neill has the face of a twentieth-century Hamlet which is, after all, pretty much what he actually is.

Mr. Mark Van Doren's critical review of the Shaw-Terry correspondence Is one of the best that I have seen, and the magazine itself appears with a radical change in its outer appearance, for the cover, instead of carrying the accustomed decorative design in color, gives a very effective photograph of two of the Guild's leading players, Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt. Cape and Smith have issued a reprint of Mrs. Belloc'g super-thriller "The Lodger," a book which Mr. Edmund Pearson has declared to be the best novel about murder written by any living author." "The Lodger" sold over half a million copies on its first appearance 18 years ago, and has been a steady seller in the low-priced reprint Issued a few years later.

In the sinister figure of Mr. Sleuth, the "lodger," Mrs. Belloc Lowndes embodies the characteristics of two actual murderers who terrorized London 40-odd years ago; the unknown monster popularly nicknamed Jack 1 the Ripper, a savage killer of wretched women of the streets, whose identity was never officially disclosed, and Dr. Neill Cream, who in the spring of 1892 the year of the ghastly Borden murders in Fall was in Mr. Pear- son's graphic phrase "roaming about the dark streets of London, grotesque in his high hat and sober professional clothes, but venomous as a puff-adder." Dr.

Cream disposed of his victims, also drifting women of the streets, by poison, but Mrs, Belloc Lowndes's "lodger," while his dress and general appearance are plainly based on that of Dr. Cream, is a killer after the manner of Jack the Ripper. Mrs. Belloc Lowndes has many a clever and absorbing novel of murder most of them founded upon actual crimes to her credit, but I think there can be little doubt that "The Lodger," and "The Chink In the Armour." mark the high points of her achievement thus far. "The Chink in the Armour" is in sharp contrast to 'The Lodger." in its scene, a picturesque gambling resort, very near Paris; In its murderers, a brace of them this time, husband and wife; and in their victims, but the tale is genuinely thrilling, and some readers prefer it to "The Lodger." A particular fascinating article in Theater Arts Magazine for November is "Aliens a TOpera Franca by Elisabeth Black, a gossiping.

Intimate, personal remmiscense of the old French Opera House in New Orleans, illustrated with clever drawings by the author, and with fine photographs of the exterior and the auditorium of the dignified and historic building which was burned down in 1910. In the excerpt from the New Orleans Times-Picayune, quoted by Mrs. Black as motto for her paper, we read that, with the destruction of the Opera House "The heart of the old French Quarter has stopped beating." Among the specially attractive photographs In the Nevember Theater Art, ara a highly decorative itudy of Miss Irene Bordont In "The Improper Duchess." the play in which Miss Bordoni appeared recently in Hartford, and which Is still running, a continuing second -season success, on the London tge; and a group from the Russian tory-dratna, 'The i Queen of Spades," to be presented by i Nikita PaliefJ during ti coming eai sion of the eternal mysteries; a book! to interest every intelligent layman. THE SEX FABLE: A Play By Ed-cuard Bnurtiet; English Text by Jane Kinton: Brentano', New York; Here i an English translation of si French play, which reads like original i work; witty as Somerset Maugham and even more cynical The full cast! of "The Sex Fable," as now plavirg at the Henry Miller Theater in New York, is given, and the play makes extremely entertaining reading. FLIGHT INTO DARKNESS Bv Ar-! tiiur Schmtfcer; Translated bv WU-1 Ham Ajirake; Simon Schuster.

New Yors; 2. A typical Schtutrier novel, brilliant- ly translated by Mr. A. Drake. darkling, dexterous study in morbid I psychology, set in a background oi sniart continental society.

THf SCANDAL AND CREDULFriES OF JOHN AUBREY Edited by: Jonn Colter; with engravings bv Ka; I Appleton A. Co. New York; $2 50. A drliciously edited miM-ellanv from i the writings of that remarkable fr.teenth-eentury "characler," Mr John Aubrey, one of the world great; gossips, and a sort of pintual cousin the immortal Samuel Pr-pys Mr. I Collier is me ideal editor for a volume' of selections frcm Aubrev.

and his- witty, penetratire gnrman. It is not so rurulv sympathetic sets the' reader'" triM buying sailors beer, in the exact mood for thoroucn en- 1 Yo" have to go after them yourself." ryment of the selections themselves I Then authemlc stories then, have Every Book Mentioned on this Page Obtainable at Fox's These book are either in stock or will be promptly ordered for you. HIGH HATS AND LOW BOWS-By El.ery Walter; Foreword by William Lyon Phelps; IUitrated; G. P. Put-nam' Sons, New York and London; $3.

Professor Phehj writes a charac- teristically friendly foreword to this record of courntif and gaiety of splr- it under a heavy physical handicap. With one hw crutches the young Elierv Wniter dashes sbovit Eu-j rope, is gi; received by cele-j bnties of all oru. including Hts Huli-jness poje hnnueii. and writes of hi xperli'iicef. with a joyous enthuui- asm and a buoysj.t swd humor which i he is able to cuey straight to his i reader.

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