Book Review Digest Devoted to the Valuation of Current Literature Reviews of 1920 Books (continued 28)

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Nation 111:134 Jl 31 ’20 900w

“A very great deal of it gives the reader the impression of a mind out-stretching itself, to the point of dislocating all its joints, in order to perceive and express something that nobody else has ever perceived or expressed.”

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N Y Times 25:25 Jl 4 ’20 850w

“The book is written in a resignedly magnanimous strain, and passages occur, which, taken by themselves, might affect us as noble. Yet as a whole its absence of elevation in the midst of calls to elevation is confounding.”

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Review 3:347 O 20 ’20 750w

“‘Woman,’ if nothing else, is an interesting psychological study of the type of mind that dwells upon sex and psychoanalysis with a neurasthenic intensity, when the world is full to overflowing with real woman problems.” M. E. Sangster

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Social Hygiene 6:590 O ’20 260w

“It does seem to me that the book might more appropriately have been called ‘A woman.’ For the rest, the book is perfervid in a way that we do not quite like in America, perhaps because we are not wholly acclimated to it. It has pages of unusual beauty, and a high degree of unity and directness.”

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World Tomorrow 3:350 N ’20 350w

MASEFIELD, JOHN. Enslaved. *$2.50 Macmillan 821

20–13322

The long narrative poem of the title depicts courage born of love and begetting the brotherhood of man even in the untamed. A fair damsel is carried off by a pirate galley into the captivity of a khalif’s harem. Her lover follows into slavery to rescue her. He does so with the aid of a brother slave who must kill a traitor to accomplish their purpose. Recaptured and brought before the khalif they are set free because their tale causes human stirrings in the hawk breast of the latter. The other poems are: The hounds of hell; Cap on head; Sonnets; The passing strange; Animula; The Lemmings; Forget; On growing old; Lyric.

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Ath p718 My 28 ’20 60w

“It seems to us that Mr Masefield’s first business is to regain control of his words; and that he can only do this by deliberately attempting a subject that bristles with psychological nuances, and insisting that his language shall accommodate itself to them. Otherwise we fear he will never succeed in expressing that elusive beauty which he sees, but which at present comes to us only in assertion or in fitful gleams through the interstices of an opaque style.” J. M. M.

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Ath p823 Je 25 ’20 2300w

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Booklist 17:22 O ’20

“Mr Masefield is the single poet writing in English today who both in popular esteem and by the most exacting critical estimate legitimately belongs to the august line of poets who are among the chief glories of our race: to his greatness no journalistic cavil can add or take away.” R. M. Weaver

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Bookm 52:65 S ’20 240w

“In this poem, [On growing old], as in so many aspects of the other poems in this volume, one feels the shadows of the world, deepened by the tumult of war, settling upon the radiance of a brave visionary spirit. The thrill, the excitement, the adventures of living are all now subdued to this key of sadness, in which the passion and beauty that was once a flame becomes an effable glow.” W. S. B.

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Boston Transcript p6 Ag 18 ’20 2400w

“The whole thing seems bookish, remote, unreal. The characters do not become sufficiently interesting: seem, in fact, insufficiently equipped with a back-ground of flesh and blood experience.” J: G. Fletcher

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Freeman 2:163 O 27 ’20 1050w

“One of the signs that the times are good in English poetry is the fact that Mr Masefield keeps on writing poems which tell stories.” Mark Van Doren

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Nation 111:sup670 D 8 ’20 310w

“In his latest volume there are some serious offenses against rhyming, euphony, and scansion, but in the larger aspects, in the essential substance and indescribable quality of authentic poesy, he is more richly endowed than any other living writer.” Lawrence Mason

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New Repub 23:340 Ag 18 ’20 1250w

“‘Enslaved,’ his latest book of poems, offers a peculiarly fine view of Masefield in all his variety. There is no poet in England, unless we except Hardy, who possesses keener insight into the hearts of men. It is this attitude toward life, this same fatalism that recognizes the worst, yet sees the best behind, that makes John Masefield one of the finest living figures in the whole field of English poetry.”

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N Y Times 25:1 Jl 11 ’20 2450w

“A volume which reveals anew the amazing power and versatility of that English poet.”

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Outlook 127:68 Ja 12 ’21 450w

“‘Enslaved’ is a dramatic adventure tale. But ‘Enslaved’ is likewise a dreamy, semi-lyrical, murmurous, and caressing tale. It is Masefieldian in its power to be both these things at once.” O. W. Firkins

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Review 3:317 O 13 ’20 600w

“The book is extraordinarily rich, for it contains beside others, ‘Forget’ and ‘On growing old,’ two of the most beautiful poems that Mr Masefield ever wrote, and in this age of singers Mr Masefield remains our poet of greatest achievements.”

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Spec 124:765 Je 5 ’20 500w

MASEFIELD, JOHN.^[2] Right Royal. *$1.75 Macmillan 821

20–18954

“In ‘Right Royal’ Mr Masefield celebrates in a narrative poem the story of a horse-race. The story of Mr Masefield’s poem is that of a horse with great points and virtues, for speed and endurance, but very undependable, having lost a number of races by going panicky from fear. He was bought by Charles Cothill, who believed that all his potential qualities as a winner could be developed. Cothill backed his own horse to the extent of all his possessions, which created a crisis in his love for the woman he hoped to marry. If he lost, his love was lost. In fact, it was win all or lose all.”—Boston Transcript

“It will be acknowledged that the preliminaries of the race, the discussions in the stables, the professional tips and omens, the catalogue of the entries, are sandy soil for the growth of poetry. The best of the poem has no relation to the worst; the worst might have been sacrificed. Even in the best are imperfections, but we have learnt to swallow Mr Masefield’s longer poems without straining at the gnats.” E. B.

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Ath p692 N 19 ’20 600w

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Booklist 17:146 Ja ’21

“It is growing very trite to say that Mr Masefield does this thing or that thing better than any contemporary poet. He does the things that nobody else does and is thus in competition with himself. ‘Right Royal’ may not be as fine a poem as ‘Enslaved,’ but no one can dispute that it is the best narrative of a horse-race that has been written by any modern poet.” W: S. Braithwaite

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Boston Transcript p5 N 20 ’20 1500w

“‘Right Royal’ is a bad poem, both intrinsically and because it fails to satisfy certain necessary expectations. It promised to be as good as ‘Reynard the fox,’ but it is woefully, incredibly worse.” Mark Van Doren

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Nation 111:sup670 D 8 ’20 240w

Reviewed by W. B. D. Henderson

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N Y Evening Post p2 N 20 ’20 1650w

Reviewed by R: Le Gallienne

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N Y Times p17 D 26 ’20 1700w

“The feeling that ‘Right Royal’ deserves to be placed below the earlier volume [‘Reynard the fox’] may be purely a matter of individual temperament on the part of the reviewer. In any case, it is a volume which occupies an enviable place in the field of modern poetry.”

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Outlook 127:68 Ja 12 ’21 120w

Reviewed by G: D. Procter

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Pub W 98:1893 D 18 ’20 320w

“The weather—cloud, sun, wind, and shower—is given more prominence and is better conceived in ‘Right Royal’; but to balance this, the unsuccessful passages are decidedly worse than those in ‘Reynard the fox.’ Another fault it seems to the present writer to possess, which the incomparable ‘Reynard the fox’ does not: it is a little monotonous. As a ‘galloping poem,’ however, it is certainly one of the best in English.”

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Spec 125:675 N 20 ’20 1200w

“He piles simile on simile and each simile is beautiful in itself, each is a patch of ornament stuck on, not woven into the fabric. Mr Masefield has told a brave tale bravely. If his courage had been like Right Royal’s, he would have dared to leave undecorated the beauty inherent in the tale.”

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The Times [London] Lit Sup p734 N 11 ’20 1050w

MASON, ALFRED EDWARD WOODLEY. Summons. *$2 (2c) Doran

20–18656

Harry Luttrell had a strong sense of military honor and of the necessity for self-discipline. The first drove him to join the army, the second to tear himself away from the woman he loved and accept a post in Egypt. His friend and classmate, Martin Hillyard, had had a chequered career: as a sailor; in a three years’ struggle for existence in the port-towns of Spain; as an Oxford student and successful playwright; and during the war his knowledge of Spain serves him in good stead as a secret service agent. Stella Croyle, Luttrell’s one-time love, in his absence eats her heart out in neurotic, undisciplined longing and occasionally has recourse to the comfort of drugs. While on a leave of absence during the war, Luttrell meets Stella again without experiencing the old-time thrill and at the same time he meets and falls in love with Joan Whitworth. Poor Stella commits suicide under circumstances that throw suspicion on Joan. Through his experiences in the secret service, Hillyard is enabled to clear Joan and smooth the way for her and Luttrell.

“An interesting variant of the modern detective story.”

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Booklist 17:159 Ja ’21

“It is a splendid story which Mr Mason has written, based upon his experiences in the war, full of dramatic vigor—a real novel in every sense of the word—and permeated with the atmosphere of England, Spain, and Egypt.”

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Bookm 52:368 D ’20 90w

“This novel is an excellent substitute for a modern detective story. Instead of possessing a single, unified plot it is composed of a rosary of minor plots which endows it with somewhat of the character of real life.”

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N Y Evening Post p21 O 23 ’20 250w

“One cannot help wishing that the important character of Joan Whitworth were less exaggerated and more likable, for she does more than a little to harm the book, but it is easy to forgive this shortcoming when one remembers Martin Hillyard and the picturesque José Medina, the very amusing Sir Chichester Splay, Millie, and several others among the varied figures depicted on Mr Mason’s richly colored canvas.”

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N Y Times p24 O 10 ’20 660w

“Mr Mason, here as always, has an exciting and unusual story to unfold. This novel is hardly the equal of the ‘Four feathers’ or ‘The broken road,’ for the author attempts to ming a not very successful humorous vein with his natural plot-and-action type of fiction writing.”

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Outlook 126:470 N 10 ’20 60w

“The touch of melodrama in the last section of the book is well conceived and exciting. The best piece of writing in the book is the description of the night passed by Martin Hillyard on the shore of a river in the Sudan. This vivid picture of the life of the game-hunter in wild countries affords a striking contrast to the sophisticated chapters at the beginning of the book.”

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Spec 125:539 O 23 ’20 470w

“Mr Mason has shown better form than this.”

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The Times [London] Lit Sup p683 O 21 20 650w

MASON, ARTHUR. Flying bo’sun. *$1.75 (4c) Holt

20–19236

The narrative, the author claims, is of his own experience. It tells of the voyage of a sailing schooner from San Francisco to the Fiji Islands, of the superstitious sailors’ taking alarm at the alighting on the ship of the “flying bo’sun,” the bird of bad omen, the subsequent death of the captain, his haunting of the cabin and spiritualistic rappings. On the return voyage the Hindoo stowaway has a mysterious illness and is left in a state of coma on the captain’s bed while a terrific hurricane is raging. During a critical moment, when all seems lost, the frail little Hindoo is suddenly seen in charge of the wheel giving commands in the captain’s voice with the captain’s ghost standing beside him. With the ship safe and calm restored the Hindoo is found just coming to life on the captain’s bed. He disclaims all knowledge of commanding a ship but is still shaken by the memory of the hideous dream he has had.

“The feeling persists that, with the exception of the spiritual phenomenon, the whole dramatic voyage actually occurred.” S. M. R.

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Bookm 52:371 D ’20 90w

“As a story of the sea it ranks with the best of Jack London or Morgan Robertson, and as a story of the uncanny it is comparable with ‘Dracula’ and ‘The master of Ballantrae.’”

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N Y Evening Post p22 O 23 ’20 200w

“In spite of the undoubted accuracy of Mr Mason’s idiom, however, the discriminating layman is likely to find less of the authentic or communicable essence of the sea in ‘The flying b’sun’ than in the spiritual reaction of Masefield, Conrad, Tomlinson and McFee.”

+ −

N Y Times p25 Ja 16 ’21 340w

MASON, AUGUSTUS LYNCH. Guiding principles for American voters. *$2 Bobbs 320

20–18679

“Mr Mason aims this ‘handbook of Americanism’ chiefly at the newly enfranchised women and at the young men about to cast their first vote. He analyzes the make-up of the government and argues for what he aptly calls a ‘re-dedication to those principles which have made America great’—i.e., a conservative application of the underlying ideas of the Constitution. He objects to radical methods of taxation, to too much government ownership, governmental price fixing, etc., and he sees ‘Socialism’ as a menace.”—N Y Evening Post

“His arguments are cogently presented and supported by carefully examined data: an excellent brief for the preservation of a conservative republic rather than a radical democracy.”

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N Y Evening Post p11 O 30 ’20 100w

“Its purpose is to popularize an argument, and it has no other value.”

−

Springf’d Republican p8 N 9 ’20 50w

MASON, WILLIAM LESLEY. How to become an office stenographer. (Just how ser.) il $1.50 Pitman 652

20–26543

“A handy book intended for the untrained shorthand student who is ambitious to secure a good position without previous experience.” (Title page) The book is adapted for use as a text in business schools and in high school commercial departments. There are thirteen chapters, entitled: Your attention, please! “Safety first”; What business men expect of a stenographer; Preparedness; Your “busy” day; Taking the business letter; Transcribing the business letter; Typing the business letter; Typing business forms; The use and care of the typewriter; Words: their use and abuse; Filing letters; Time-saving office appliances. There are two appendixes giving postal regulations and information regarding the civil service.

Booklist 16:303 Je ’20

MASSENET, JULES ÈMILE FRÉDÉRIC. My recollections. il *$3 Small

19–15403

“An autobiography telling the story of this modern French musical leader’s career, and especially of his many works. [It is] translated, by express desire of the author, by his friend H. Villiers Barnett. Illustrated.”—Brooklyn

“Will be enjoyed by the average reader as well as the opera-goer and student of music.”

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Booklist 16:79 D ’19

Reviewed by H: T. Finck

Bookm 51:171 Ap ’20 180w

“A charming autobiography.”

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Brooklyn 12:68 Ja ’20 40w

“His narrative, like his music, reveals facility, grace, and charm, and is alternately gay and sentimental to the point of pathos. One is not very much wiser after reading the book, but one closes it with a certain regret at parting from such amiable company.” Henrietta Straus

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Nation 111:76 Jl 17 ’20 190w

Reviewed by Lawrence Gilman

Yale R n s 9:872 Jl ’20 1100w

MASSEY, MRS BEATRICE (LARNED). It might have been worse. *$1.75 (6½c) Wagner, Harr 917.3

20–4452

An account of a motor trip from coast to coast taken in the summer of 1919, with notes on roads, hotels, and other matters of interest to travelers. Contents: The start; New York to Pittsburgh; Ohio and detours; On to Chicago; Through the dairy country; Clothes, luggage, and the car; The Twin cities and ten thousand lakes; Millions of grasshoppers; The Bad lands; The dust of Montana; A wonderland; Westward ho! Nevada and the desert; The end of the road.

MASSINGHAM, HAROLD JOHN. Letters to X. *$2.50 Dutton 824

20–26887

“In ‘Letters to X,’ H. J. Massingham discourses on a great many phases of modern life and literature. There is hardly a modern English author of any consequence who does not come under the appraisement of his pen.”—Springf’d Republican

“The book contains many excellences of detail, and reaches at times and maintains for a while a level notably above its average. Perspective is perhaps Mr Massingham’s outstanding quality.” F. W. S.

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Ath p110 Ja 23 ’20 950w

“Familiar, rambling essays of a book lover that will please the ‘gentle reader’ with like leanings, particularly if he be fond of the Elizabethans and Carolines. Their exclusive bookishness will make them seem cold and remote to others.”

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Booklist 17:62 N ’20

Reviewed by S. P. Sherman

Bookm 52:108 O ’20 1950w

“These are essays of rare quality in which the essayist is writing continuously of the alliance between literature and life.” E. F. E.

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Boston Transcript p7 Jl 17 ’20 1100w

“Mr Massingham’s essays are delivered ex-cathedra and in a style both heavy and dense. He is a lover of dust covered books, but he seems widely read rather than discriminating, and though he ranges all the way from Richard de Bury’s ‘Philobiblon’ to John Gould Fletcher, he hardly does much to illuminate the names which he mentions. He declares many enthusiasms but lacks the gift of differentiation.”

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Nation 111:162 Ag 7 ’20 180w

“It is a pity that Mr Massingham has chosen to hide this wise, witty, companionably learned and most comforting book under the bushel of a title which not only gives no hint of its quality, but is actually dry and forbidding. Of the value of good literature, of the qualities which constitute it and of the laws of its making, he says some of the wisest, most pertinent, things written in a long day.” R: Le Gallienne

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N Y Times p7 Ag 8 ’20 2650w

“The word which fits his style exactly is one of the best adjectives in our language which the language is guilty of criminal negligence in permitting itself gradually to lose—the word ‘lusty.’ If it were dead instead of merely decaying, it might be recalled to life by the easy, careless, rushing vigor of Mr Massingham’s undaunted prose.”

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Review 3:172 Ag 25 ’20 360w

“Mr Massingham’s attacks on his own age, sharp, dipped in bitterness, aimed with truth though they are, do not really touch the monster. Bad though the age may be, he is too impatient and petulant with it; and he is divided in his desires.”

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Sat R 129:232 Mr 6 ’20 1050w

Springf’d Republican p8 Jl 10 ’20 40w

“Treating his work as art, susceptible to form, even in the rather strained sense of that word which he adopts, we find it deficient in that very quality, and especially in that element of form, tranquillity, upon which he so insists.”

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The Times [London] Lit Sup p30 Ja 15 ’20 1300w

MASSINGHAM, HAROLD JOHN, ed. Treasury of seventeenth century English verse, from the death of Shakespeare to the Restoration (1616–1660). (Golden treasury ser.) il *$1.50 Macmillan 821.08

(Eng ed 20–10754)

“Mr Massingham has marked out as his claim the most characteristic part of the century in time, and has not excluded any kind except the dramatic. Most of his selections are naturally lyrical, but by no means all; and he has thus been able to find room for at least specimen fruits from the half-wilderness gardens of ‘Pharonnida’ and ‘Cupid and Psyche.’ He has also cast his gathering net unusually wide, and his readers will make acquaintance with authors who will pretty certainly be new to them, such as Thomas Fettiplace and Robert Gomersal. In giving uniform modern spelling throughout Mr Massingham may invite censure from some purists, but certainly not in this place. Whatever may be the case earlier, the printers’ spelling of the mid-seventeenth century is, as he justly says, ‘only externally archaic.’ Half its differences from present use are not uniform and are evidently haphazard. One may not perhaps approve quite so heartily his practice of excluding some beautiful things as ‘too well known.’ The authors are alphabetically arranged.”—Ath

Reviewed by G: Saintsbury

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Ath p40 Ja 9 ’20 1400w

“A fresh, provocative, beautiful little book. Palgrave’s volume was not a bit better gauged for Palgrave’s time than Mr Massingham’s is for ours. The purest twentieth-century principles are in operation here. Mr Massingham’s notes are lively to the end, though often they are cleverly irrelevant and gloriously slap-dash. It is as if Mr Saintsbury were twenty again.”

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Nation 110:151 Ja 31 ’20 370w

“The completeness of the book makes it an excellent compendium for any one studying that era, although it is to be feared that many a general reader will be frightfully bored by the stiff artificiality that marks many of the poems, especially after they get past the Elizabethan era.” H. S. Gorman

+ −

N Y Times 25:21 Jl 25 ’20 170w

“The poems, as a whole, are excellently chosen, and the enthusiasm of the introduction makes pleasant reading. The notes, with their short biographical summaries, are especially valuable. But it needs a certain type of mind to appreciate seventeenth century literature, and if all readers are not stirred to the same joy in it as Mr Massingham, it is not his fault, but that of the period.”

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Sat R 129:39 Ja 10 ’20 480w

“Mr Massingham’s introduction is a delightful essay written in a style that has caught something of the curious felicity of the poets in whose work he has steeped himself.”

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Spec 124:212 F 14 ’20 1000w

“He claims, and with justice, that the ordinary reader will find here a whole body of poetry with which he has never before had the chance of making acquaintance. This is a service for which the student of English poetry will be heartily grateful to Mr Massingham. But if he be a lover as well as student he will probably find it hard to keep down some irritation at an anthologist who sets out with the resolve to give him as few as possible of the poems which he is known to like.”

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The Times [London] Lit Sup p129 F 26 ’20 3400w

MASTERS, EDGAR LEE. Domesday book. *$4.50 Macmillan 811

20–19678

In this volume Mr Masters has told a long story in verse. The body of Elenor Murray is found by the river near Starved Rock in Illinois and the coroner, William Merival, sets out to assemble the evidence, the material evidence from the man who finds the body, the doctor who performs the autopsy and the spiritual evidence from those who had known the girl from her birth or her parents before her. The effect of these testimonies brought together is to throw light on the many-sided character of one human being when all secrets are laid bare and to show how one life, however humble or pitiful, affects countless other lives, its influence radiating like ripples in a pool when a stone is dropped.

“If Masters can rid himself of his oracular airs and the bad Browning-Shakespeare patois with which he wearies his staunchest admirers, there are few limits to his possible achievements. ‘Domesday book’ is too diffuse and prosy to be a masterpiece of poetic fiction, but it contains the seeds and strength—and the hope—of one.” L: Untermeyer

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Bookm 52:363 Ja ’21 550w

“The great American poem of the war has come in the ‘Domesday book’ and come from the hand of the poet who laid the foundation in the synoptic Americanism of the ‘Spoon river anthology.’ The latter was a great work; ‘Domesday book’ is greater.... ‘Domesday book’ is a great national topic of America’s soul symbolized in the character of Elenor Murray.” W: S. Braithwaite

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Boston Transcript p7 D 4 ’20 1900w

“The trouble with ‘Domesday book’ is chiefly that it thins this raw material out until it becomes hopelessly prosaic. The realism of ‘Spoon river’ had the virtue of selection and of epigram. In his latest work, Mr Masters has become extensive without any corresponding enlargement of the imagination and the power behind his broader canvas.” O. M. Sayler

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Freeman 2:357 D 22 ’20 600w

“The total effect is often crude and heavy, now pretentious, now hopelessly flat; and yet beneath these uncompleted surfaces are the sinews of enormous power, a greedy gusto for life, a wide imaginative experience, an abundance of the veritable stuff of existence—all this, and yet not an authentic masterpiece. ‘Spoon river anthology’ still has no rival from the hand of its creator.” C. V. D.

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Nation 111:566 N 17 ’20 470w

“For all its largeness of intention, all its vitality and forcefulness, ‘Domesday book’ is not, to my mind, finally articulated. It seems to me unfinished. I do not mean that the poem is not brought to a conclusion. It is concluded, and, I believe, appropriately concluded. But it has parts that should have been cut away or have been more wrought over.” Padraic Colum

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New Repub 25:148 D 29 ’20 1700w

“It could have been produced nowhere but in America and nowhere so justly as in the Middle West. The epigrammatic compactness of ‘Spoon river anthology’ is lacking in it, but it takes on a huge strength that the former book lacked.” H. S. Gorman

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N Y Times p18 Ja 16 ’21 840w

“If there be any one who does not clearly realize that life is infinitely complex, that it is in the last analysis practically impossible to assign responsibility for evil, that much good may be where convention sees only evil ... if there be any one who is not convinced of these things already or cannot learn them from his own observations and the daily papers, he may derive great benefit from reading Mr Masters’ book. But those to whom these things are commonplaces will perhaps not care to wade through the poem.”

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No Am 213:286 F ’21 900w

“The Edgar Lee Masters, whose ‘Spoon river anthology’ blazed a new trail thru American literature, returns with ‘Domesday book.’ Perhaps he is less sardonic now, but the vision of ‘Domesday book’ is broader and it is, happily, gently suffused with a very human tolerance and forgiveness.” G: D. Proctor

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Pub W 98:1894 D 18 ’20 430w

“The first part is very interesting, and the whole book is readable. Its essence is prosaic, though a back door is left open through which poetry can let herself in in a neighborly fashion, if she chooses. Her visits are infrequent.” O. W. Firkins

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Review 4:15 Ja 5 ’21 1350w

MASTERS, EDGAR LEE. Mitch Miller. il *$3.50 Macmillan

20–17009

Mitch Miller’s story is told by his friend Skeeters Kirby. It is a story of boys and a boy’s town written for adults. Mitch has read “Tom Sawyer” and Tom is to him a living personality. The two boys hunt for buried treasure and try to repeat all of Tom’s exploits. They dig for treasure in Old Salem where Lincoln lived, and an old man who knew Lincoln talks to them of a different kind of treasure. They run away intending to visit Tom Sawyer but are brought back home. Later their fathers take them on a journey to Hannibal, Missouri, where they meet life’s first disillusionment. Mitch is something of a dreamer and a poet. He is killed stealing rides on the cars, and in the epilogue, written thirty years after, the author can say that he is now glad that his chum did not live to face the shattered idealism of the present day.

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Booklist 17:72 N ’20

“The best boy’s story in our generation of American authors has been written by Mr Masters in ‘Mitch Miller.’” W: S. Braithwaite

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Boston Transcript p5 O 9 ’20 1500w

“Those who have neatly ticketed Mr Edgar Lee Masters as a cynic will be obliged after reading ‘Mitch Miller,’ to change their label—if they must have labels. There is, to be sure, a sub-acid quality in the epilogue. But the mood of the book is one of dedication rather than of challenge. Its tone is sunny and fresh and sweet; its beauty quiet and unobtrusive. ‘Mitch Miller’ comes close to being a masterpiece with its breadth of interpretation, and the fineness and singleness of its mood. It is complete, even to the tragedy at the end.” C. M. R.

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Freeman 2:214 N 10 ’20 250w

“The narrative is tangled in a snarl of moods. Its movement is often thick, its wings gummed and heavy. Only in flashes does the powerful imagination of Mr Masters shake itself free and burn with the high, hot light which so often glows in the ‘Anthology.’ There are touches of admirable comedy and strong strokes of character and some racy prose; but as a whole ‘Mitch Miller’ falls regrettably between the clear energy which might have made it popular and the profound significance which might have made it great.” C. V. D.

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Nation 111:566 N 17 ’20 480w

“If fidelity to nature were the whole of art, Mitch Miller would be a perfect book, or almost perfect.... The defect in the author’s method comes out in the end of the book.... Is there nothing in American life significant and interesting enough to make it worth while for a boy like Mitch to grow up? Perhaps there is not; but if that is true, it is an artistic problem to be faced, not evaded through a petulant dismantling of a stage well set.” Alvin Johnson

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New Repub 24:276 N 10 ’20 1250w

“Mr Masters’s novel is put down with mingled feelings. It has many faults, but it has quite as many virtues. There is so much to the book that it leaps into the mind to advise the author to write novels henceforth and forevermore and let poetry rest.”

+ −

N Y Times p20 N 7 ’20 980w

“The book is unusual and captivating.”

+

Outlook 126:600 D 1 ’20 80w

“We are in the habit of looking to Mr Masters for clear-cut character drawing and for sympathetic, if sometimes ironic, understanding of the motives of men but we have often felt regretfully, that he seemed to be too much interested in the morbid side of human nature. ‘Mitch Miller’ comes as a grateful answer to that doubt.” Marguerite Fellows

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Pub W 98:1192 O 16 ’20 300w

Reviewed by E. L. Pearson

Review 3:447 N 10 ’20 630w

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Wis Lib Bul 16:238 D ’20 70w

MASTERS, EDGAR LEE. Starved Rock. *$1.75 Macmillan 811

19–17050

For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.

“Perhaps the poet’s first worthy successor of ‘Spoon River’; but while displaying something of its sardonic spirit the present collection is of far wider range.”

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Booklist 16:162 F ’20

“He is at his ripest and surest in such mordant and merciless analyses as Lord Byron to Doctor Polidori, The barber of Sepo. They’d never know me now, Oh you Sabbatarians! and that profound disquisition on Poe, Washington hospital. And the man who wrote Sagamore Hill, that incomparable portrait of Theodore Roosevelt; who wrote Chicago and I shall go down into this land, manifests an intimate understanding of the American heart at its noblest.” H: A. Lappin

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Bookm 51:216 Ap ’20 250w

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Cleveland p86 O ’20 20w

“In ‘Starved Rock’ there is little music but much food for thought.”

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Ind 104:165 O 9 ’20 40w

“It is beginning to be apparent that Mr Masters neither can nor needs to depart from his original tone and method. He cannot do so profitably and there is no need, since the vein which served them seems inexhaustible. There are not lacking here the old familiar notes of sour, practical tragedy, of hoarse, heroic scepticism, of good, round, pagan, Chicago fleshliness. But [the reader] is sorry for a certain strenuous complacency which has been growing in Mr Masters over a considerable period and which is particularly objectionable in the present volume.”

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Nation 110:557 Ap 24 ’20 550w

“Unfortunately, Mr Masters frequently fails to sing because he fails to simplify. He is a thinker, first of all, and the thinker is naturally more discursive than the singer. And now a word for the best of the book. It is a poem about Roosevelt, called At Sagamore Hill. Here is a poem which has in it truth, dignity, vision, vitality.” Marguerite Wilkinson

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N Y Times 25:4 Mr 7 ’20 1100w

“In ‘Starved Rock,’ the reader will not starve, though he will scarcely feast. There are the usual monologues, of which only two are slimy. There are bulky and hazy philosophies, cosmicisms, idealisms, feeble sedatives for bitter griefs. There is an excellent bit of journalism, self-described in the title, Sagamore Hill. There are landscapes of an alluring but unsatisfying picturesqueness. There are instances of that lyric pliancy and invitation which surprise the ear among the ruder notes of Mr Masters, and there are rare moments of true inspiration.” O. W. Firkins

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Review 2:519 My 15 ’20 650w

“Mr Masters is the same versatile narrator who builds poems of facts rather than of fancies, and who presents carefully analyzed characters and situations in a cold, direct and fearless way. He is still at his best as an analyst or narrator, and he is still unsatisfactory and unconvincing when he wanders from matter-of-fact or satirical verse.”

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Springf’d Republican p10 F 20 ’20 850w

MATHEWS, BASIL JOSEPH. Argonauts of faith: the adventures of the “Mayflower” Pilgrims. il *$1.50 Doran 974.4

20–10629

In this book for boys and girls, with a foreword by Viscount Bryce, there is a prologue comparing the embarking of the Pilgrims on their quest for liberty to the ancient Argonauts’ quest of the Golden fleece. The epilogue suggests that the Pilgrim fathers had their counterparts in the heroes of “Pilgrim’s progress,” and that they laid the keel for a new Argo—the ship of state of a new commonwealth. The stories told are: On the great north road: The stormy passage; The land of threatening waters; The house with the green door; The ship of adventure; The adventures of scouting; A clearing in the waste; Builders in the waste; Greatheart, Mr Standfast, and Valiant-for-truth. There are a chronology, an index, illustrations and maps.

“The story is so well told that it is a pity not to have had it accurate in details.”

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Bib World 54:645 N ’20 190w

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Booklist 17:37 O ’20

“Follows history with admirable care, presents an excellent atmosphere, and tells an absorbing story.” W. H. Dyer

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Bookm 52:126 O ’20 60w

“Of all the books relating to the Pilgrims, ‘The argonauts of faith’ by Basil Mathews has the best dramatic form and the most suggestive content for the story-teller, teacher, or librarian.” A. C. Moore

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Bookm 52:261 N ’20 100w

“It is a very readable account and the impression it leaves is an accurate one.”

+

Ind 104:242 N 13 ’20 140w

+

Lit D p96 D 4 ’20 50w

Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne

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N Y Times p9 D 19 ’20 60w

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Outlook 125:507 Jl 14 ’20 40w

“Basil Mathews has written an old story in an interesting way.”

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Springf’d Republican p9a Ag 15 ’20 180w

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The Times [London] Lit Sup p242 Ap 15 ’20 80w

MATHEWS, BASIL JOSEPH, ed. Essays on vocation. *$1.75 Oxford 174

“The purpose is to inculcate the importance of vocation as distinguished from mere profession or making one’s living, and the spirit of the book is ethical and idealistic. One of the essays, Vocation in art, by H. Walford Davies, is an inspiring piece of literature. The other essays are: Vocation and the ministry, by Edward Shillito; Vocation in law, by Sir E. Pollock; Vocation in the home, by Emily E. Whimster; Commerce as a vocation, by W. H. Somervell; Vocation in industry, by A. Ramage; Vocation in education, by J. Lewis Paton; The career of an elementary school teacher, by Fanny Street; and Sir William Osler’s Vocation in medicine and nursing.”—Ath

Ath p1081 O 24 ’19 100w

“As one might expect, a book of essays on vocation edited by Mr Basil Mathews, with contributions by such people as Mr Edward Shillito, Mr Lewis Paton and Sir William Osler could hardly be anything but good. But a good book on vocation is not good enough. It should possess, especially at such a time as this, a certain prophetic quality. It ought to be constraining, irresistible. But this is just what Mr Mathews’s book is not.” R: Roberts

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Freeman 2:236 N 17 ’20 840w

MATURIN, EDITH (CECIL-PORCH) (MRS FRED MATURIN). Rachel comforted. *$2.50 Dodd 134

20–16938

The authenticity and truthfulness of these “conversations of a mother in the dark with her child in the light” (Sub-title) are vouched for in a preface by W. T. Stead and a note by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The conversations between the author and her dead son were carried on by means of a planchette over a period of years and the mother asserts that she retired from the world and gave up herself, her health and her life to them and that the one essential condition for such communications are a perfect love on both sides. The object of the book is to comfort other bereaved parents.

Ath p589 Ap 30 ’20 60w

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Boston Transcript p7 O 23 ’20 420w

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Springf’d Republican p7a N 28 ’20 220w

MAUGHAM, REGINALD CHARLES FULKE. Republic of Liberia. il *$6.50 Scribner 916.6

20–26544

“The author, Mr Maugham, knows much of Africa, has written on Africa, and, when he completed in 1918 the pages which are now published, he had had for some years personal experience of life in Liberia as British consul-general at Monrovia. He deals with Liberia from all aspects, with its geography, history, administration and institutions, its climate, races, birds and beasts, plants and trees. The words and the music of the Liberian national anthem are supplied, and a very clear account by a practised pen is made more attractive by a number of excellent illustrations and an adequate map.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup

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Ath p431 Mr 26 ’20 80w

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Booklist 16:308 Je ’20

“His study of Liberia tries on the one hand to say pleasant things concerning Liberia, and on the other hand to show British merchants that now and here is their chance to exploit a rich land.” W. E. B. DuBois

−

Nation 111:350 S 25 ’20 330w

“All through the book Mr Maugham gives evidence of genuine sympathy and understanding for the Liberians and their problems.”

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N Y Times p6 O 10 ’20 660w

“An excellent account of Liberia.”

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Spec 124:248 F 21 ’20 180w

“This is a timely, interesting and valuable work, giving a fairly complete description of the Negro republic. It is written in a kindlier tone than has sometimes been employed by other writers on the country.” I. C. Hannah

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Survey 44:310 My 29 ’20 320w

“Of this republic the present book tells us all that is to be told, and tells it well. Owing to difficulties and delay in publication, the book is a little complicated by two prefaces, and the editing or revision has not been immaculate. But, taken as a whole, it is a most interesting and informing book.”

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The Times [London] Lit Sup p132 F 26 ’20 1450w

MAUGHAM, WILLIAM SOMERSET. Land of the Blessed Virgin. il *$2.50 (5c) Knopf 914.6

A20–1263

In this book the author gives his recollections of Andalusia in a series of sketches—the land ablaze with sunshine, opulent with luminous soft color, with cities bathed in light, desolate wastes of sand, dwarf palms and the flower of the broom. The character of the country he finds typified in the paintings of Murillo and the colors of his palette—“rich, hot, and deep”—the typical colors of Andalusia. Some of the sketches are: The churches of Ronda; Medinat Az-Zahrā; The mosque; Cordova; Seville; The Alcazar; Women of Andalusia; The dance; A feast day; Before the bull-fight; Corrida de Toros; Granada; The Alhambra; The song.

“Its objective descriptions are full of rich and vivid color, its travellers’ tales are intimate and charming and its records of the impressions made upon the mind of the author, though not without touches of affectation, are so individual as to be far more interesting than most chronicles.”

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Booklist 17:27 O ’20

“If the reader of ‘The land of the blessed virgin’ is not anxious to visit Andalusia after reading these pages he is impervious to the picturesqueness of the scene and to the rare qualities of Mr Maugham’s style.” E. F. E.

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Boston Transcript p6 Ag 4 ’20 1300w

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Freeman 2:165 O 27 ’20 340w

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N Y Times p24 Ag 22 ’20 650w

MAUGHAM, WILLIAM SOMERSET. Mrs Craddock. *$1.90 (2½c) Doran

20–26573

This is one of Mr Maugham’s earlier stories now first brought out in America. It is a story with one central interest, one woman’s passionate love for a man, its change to hate and gradual cooling to indifference. Bertha Ley, of Court Leys, falls rapturously in love with a handsome young tenant farmer on her estate and marries him in the face of his lukewarm response and the disapproval of everyone else. She is mistress of her own fortune and has but one relative, a keen-minded acerbic aunt who believes in standing aside and letting others follow their own courses. Bertha gives everything into Edward’s hands and Edward proves a model English squire. But as he rises in county estimation, Bertha’s love for him wanes and her abject devotion gives place to distaste. She leaves him, has a brief love affair with a quite different type of man, and comes home again to settle into a state of apathy and indifference from which his death, under the very circumstances she had once imagined with such poignant pain, does not rouse her.

“An unusual character study.”

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Booklist 16:349 Jl ’20

“The merits of ‘Mrs Craddock’ as a story are no less than its high qualities as a character study, and it should have been offered to American readers long ago.” E. F. E.

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Boston Transcript p6 Je 16 ’20 1000w

“It has some subtlety, but moves rather heavily and joylessly.”

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Outlook 125:507 Jl 14 ’20 20w

MAULE, MARY KATHERINE (FINIGAN) (MRS JOHN P. MAULE). Prairie-schooner princess. il *$1.75 (2c) Lothrop

20–15508

A story of the crossing of the plains and the settlement of Nebraska. The Peniman family, Quakers from Ohio, are going west in a prairie schooner when fate throws little Nina Carroll into their hands. Her father has been killed by an Indian arrow but there is reason to believe that it was a white man not an Indian who was responsible. Valuable papers relating to the little girl are stolen and nothing can be learned of her family connections. She is adopted by the Penimans, altho they know that she has enemies who for some reason wish to gain possession of her. Because of their Quaker principles they treat the Indians with kindness and justice and at several crises in the story they are rewarded by the timely aid of their Indian friends. The children grow up, the boys take part in the Civil war, the mystery in Nina’s story is cleared away and Nina and Joe Peniman and two other pairs of young people set up new homes in the prairie state.

“This story of the West has all the atmosphere of the region it describes—that is to say, it is flat, monotonous, and dry.”

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N Y Evening Post p20 O 23 ’20 60w

MAUROIS, ANDRÉ. Silence of Colonel Bramble. *$1.25 (3½c) Lane

20–4463

This light-hearted war book is an interpretation of English, Irish and Scotch character from the point of view of a witty Frenchman. During the war the author acted as interpreter with a Scotch division, a position occupied by Aurelle in his story. It is composed largely of a series of mess-room conversations in which the different characters are allowed to reveal themselves. The translation is by Thurfrida Wake, with translations of Aurelle’s occasional verses by Wilfrid Jackson. The originals of these verses are given in an appendix.

“The humour of the story is somewhat less enjoyable in the translation than in the original; but the reader is still able to appreciate the incisive delineation of the gallant officer who fills the title-rôle.”

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Ath p832 Ag 29 ’19 100w

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Booklist 16:245 Ap ’20

Bookm 51:443 Je ’20 30w

“The volume is interesting for its portrayal of the way a Frenchman sees the English race.”

+

Boston Transcript p6 Je 16 ’20 480w

“Those who have been the guests of British officers at the various staff and brigade headquarters will recognize every scene and every character in the pages of this book. It is distinctly a man’s book—a trifle risqué at times from a Puritanic point of view, but always witty and artistically delicate.” F: T. Hill

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N Y Times 25:208 Ap 25 ’20 800w

“‘The silence of Colonel Bramble’ is the wittiest book of comment on warfare and our national prejudices that we have yet seen. The rendering now published is well done on the whole, but it cannot equal the original.”

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Sat R 128:226 S 6 ’19 850w

“No more sympathetic, and at the same time penetrating, appreciation of British character has appeared than this modest collection of sketches, which, by the way, include passages of unexpected tenderness and restrained power.”

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Spec 123:771 D 6 ’19 1350w

MAXSON, CHARLES HARTSHORN. Great awakening in the middle colonies. *$1.25 Univ. of Chicago press 277

20–7587

A study of the religious revival of 1740 as it affected the middle colonies, supplementing Tracy’s “Great awakening,” (1842) which dealt mainly with New England. Writing so many years later the author found himself “more in sympathy than was common in Tracy’s day with the catholicity of Whitefield and with the democratic tendencies of the revival which were so largely responsible for the destruction of the ecclesiastical system of New England.” (Preface) Contents: Introduction, and pietism in Pennsylvania; Frelinghuysen, and the beginning of the revival among the Dutch Reformed; The Tennents, and the beginning of the revival among the Presbyterians; George Whitefield, and his alliance with the New Brunswick Presbyterians; The year 1740, the great awakening at high tide; The schism in the Presbyterian church in the year 1741; Period of expansion and organization; Whitefield the pacificator; Triumphant evangelism in an age of unbelief; Conclusion; Bibliography (seven pages).

Reviewed by F. A. Christie

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Am Hist R 26:105 O ’20 730w

“This little book is a worthy treatment of a most interesting and important movement.”

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Mississippi Valley Hist R 7:160 S ’20 250w

MAXWELL, DONALD.^[2] Last crusade. il *$7.50 Lane 940.356

20–20028

“With 100 sketches in colour, monochrome and line made by the author in the autumn and winter of 1918, when sent on duty to Palestine by the admiralty for the Imperial war museum” reads the informing sub-title of this book. The author further informs us that hostilities were over when he reached his destination and he had to hurry up with his pictures and get over the ground as quickly as possible. He thus obtained glimpses of things and places from every point of view without rhyme or reason and found, in sorting out his drawings, that he was much better off than he would have been with more leisure. The pictures with his diary and explanatory notes make the story of the “Last crusade.” The contents are: Over old roads; Pisgah Heights; The streets of Askelon; Chariots of iron; Abana and Pharpar; The glory of Lebanon; The coasts of Tyre and Sidon; Sea-plane ships; The gates of Gaza; Armageddon; The valley of death; In terra pax.

MAXWELL, WILLIAM BABINGTON. For better, for worse (Eng title, Remedy against sin). *$2 (1c) Dodd

20–8240

A story based on the injustice of the English divorce law. Feeling herself unloved and unwanted in her own home, Claire Gilmour marries Roderick Vaughan. She knows nothing of marriage and the feeling of admiration and affection which she had confused with love quickly dies. Roddy is a spendthrift and a brute. He squanders all of Claire’s fortune he can lay his hands on and bullies her into giving him more by threatening to take her child from her. She endures every indignity, but the members of her family, who had disapproved of the marriage, are set absolutely against divorce. Roddy goes to America and Claire learns the meaning of peace. He returns and consents to a divorce, but withdraws his consent when Claire inherits money and brings a counter charge of infidelity against her, quite false but easily proved true in court. Roddy and Claire are both declared unfaithful and hence forced to live in wedlock. Claire takes the one way open and goes away with the man who loves her and whose career has been ruined by the divorce scandal.

“The author who sets out deliberately to write a novel with a purpose must content himself with being a little less than an artist, a little more than a preacher. In ‘A remedy against sin’ Mr W. B. Maxwell has chosen to obscure his talents under a wig and gown that he may deliver a tremendous attack against the monstrous injustice of our present divorce laws. Up to a certain point we must admit that ‘A remedy against sin’ is a great deal better than the majority of novels.” K. M.

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Ath p543 Ap 23 ’20 780w

“The end is one that few novelists would have the courage to record, but it is a logical end, although it is not one that readers who seek for a novel with a ‘high moral purpose’ will approve. But since Mr Maxwell is writing the truth about life, he has made convincing the culmination of the tragic tale of the marriage of Roderick Vaughan and Claire Gilmour.” E. F. E.

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Boston Transcript p4 O 6 ’20 1300w

“One of the strongest pleas ever made against the existing law in England. As a work of art the novel suffers little from the evident propaganda, because of the clearness of characterization, and the gradual working out of an inevitable crisis in an intolerable situation.”

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Ind 104:384 D 11 ’20 130w

“One thing about this new novel cannot, in view of its subject, be too strongly emphasized, and that one thing is this: it is absolutely clean. Admirable in its construction, sane and realistic in its development, intensely interesting from beginning to end, this new novel by W. B. Maxwell is a thoughtful, conscientious and notable book, a book worthy of the man who wrote ‘In cotton wool’ and ‘Mrs Thompson.’”

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N Y Times p22 S 26 ’20 1100w

“A more moving fiction character than Claire is not often drawn—and all the more so that the author refrains from forcing the note of pathos. There are a few passages in the book that may offend taste by their baldness of statement, but the impact and purport of the novel are the reverse of immoral.”

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Outlook 126:333 O 20 ’20 150w

“The character drawing is vivid and satiric. As in other books of Mr Maxwell, the tale unfolds with flawless logic—it has the inevitability of a Greek tragedy.”

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Pub W 98:1193 O 16 ’20 300w

“Mr Maxwell’s novel with a purpose is entirely free from that suspicion of dullness which, not always with justice, attaches to this type of fiction.”

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Sat R 129:393 Ap 24 ’20 540w

“The story is told at great length and with considerable attention to detail, but it is difficult to feel great interest in the heroine, whose anæmic personality pervades the whole atmosphere of the book and increases its dreariness.”

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Spec 124:798 Je 12 ’20 120w

“The narrative is well handled—related with force and yet with restraint. The book will, perhaps, excite more curiosity than corrective resolution. But it is at least reasonably lifelike and convincing.”

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Springf’d Republican p9a O 31 ’20 300w

MAXWELL, WILLIAM BABINGTON. Glamour (Eng title, Man and his lesson). *$1.75 Bobbs

20–3060

“The hero of this story is a writer of popular plays who, after being jilted by a very prominent beauty in favour of a duke, marries a more common-place young woman, with whom he is exceedingly content. Unfortunately his old love whistles him back, and his fall so preys on his mind that he is about to commit suicide, when the war breaks out, and he reflects that the enemy can probably ‘do the business’ as expeditiously as he himself. His final redemption of character and his wife’s forgiveness are effectively described.”—Spec

Ath p948 S 26 ’19 900w

Booklist 16:282 My ’20

Boston Transcript p8 Mr 10 ’20 1450w

Lit D p120 Ap 17 ’20 2050w

“It is a good and satisfying book, full of the stuff of life, beautifully told.” Hildegarde Hawthorne

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N Y Times 25:1 F 29 ’20 1100w

“Not a new story, you surmise, only the eternal triangle. But Maxwell has seen it from a new angle.” Katharine Oliver

+

Pub W 97:601 F 21 ’20 360w

Spec 123:478 O 11 ’19 90w

“Mr Maxwell presents his characters with an imaginative intensity and emotional fidelity that win the reader’s sympathy with them in their dilemmas.”

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Springf’d Republican p11a Mr 21 ’20 320w

“In this latter part of the story there are some fine descriptions of phases of the Somme battles; moreover, the change in Bryan from selfishness to altruism and nobility of outlook merging into war-weariness and a more wholesome selfishness, is excellently given.”

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The Times [London] Lit Sup p484 S 11 ’19 650w

MAYNARD, THEODORE, comp. Tankard of ale; an anthology of drinking songs. *$1.75 McBride 821.08

20–18409

In his introduction the author bewails the triumph of the teetotaller and the fact that “perfect social reform casteth out conviviality.” “In this book,” he says, “I have tried to offer to my readers practically the whole cream of our convivial songs. But ... I tried to omit everything that was not English in its spirit and in its authorship.... I have compromised to the extent of admitting poems by Scotsmen and Irishmen, while excluding their work when in dialect.... There are some good American drinking songs, but a prohibitionist nation does not deserve to be represented in the jolliest book in the world.” Only a few modern songs have been included, for the author holds that they lack spontaneity and appear to have been written out of pleasant affectation or in order to point a moral. There is an index of first lines.

Ath p1385 D 19 ’19 180w

Booklist 17:62 N ’20

Cath World 112:406 D ’20 120w

“The collection is sufficiently comprehensive and sufficiently gay for all practical and abstemious purposes.” L. B.

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Freeman 2:21 S 15 ’20 260w

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Nation 111:278 S 4 ’20 60w

Reviewed by B: de Casseres

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N Y Times p7 S 19 ’20 800w

Reviewed by E. L. Pearson

Review 3:229 S 15 ’20 150w

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Spec 122:116 Ja 24 ’20 200w

The Times [London] Lit Sup p699 N 27 ’19 80w

MAYO, KATHERINE. “That damn Y”: a record of overseas service. il *$3.50 (2½c) Houghton 940.47

20–9934

Katherine Mayo, originally prejudiced against the Y. M. C. A., went to France, so she says, on these terms: as a free agent, paying her own expenses, and only receiving from the Y. M. C. A. the right to wear its uniform and to examine its records. Her manuscript was not submitted to any member of the Y. M. C. A. for criticism or approval. The title she has given it she considers a disguised tribute: “They both wanted and expected to find the Y everywhere.... So, as naturally as breathing, always and all the time: ‘Where’s that damn Y?’” She renders a high tribute to Edward Clark Carter, “the head and shaper of the whole Y effort overseas.” The chapters giving her impressions include: The point of view; The key man; Christmas with the A. E. F.; The post exchange; Hot water, by gosh! Never dare judge; The way the people’s money goes; How can we thank them? Contributing facts. There are an index and two appendices: A. Partial lists of overseas Y secretaries killed and disabled in service and decorations and citations; B. Financial statement.

“A very timely and readable book.”

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Booklist 16:340 Jl ’20

“The fullest, completest and most interesting account of Y. M. C. A. activities which has yet appeared.”

+

Ind 104:69 O 9 ’20 320w

“She tells her stories remarkably, with a crisp, dramatic style and with vivid, forceful words. The judicial quality is not often found mated in books with fire and force and vividness, but Miss Mayo has achieved their commingling, in most of her work, with very great success.”

+ −

N Y Times 25:9 Je 27 ’20 2600w

“Miss Mayo’s narrative is of many-sided interest; in style it is both sprightly and intense; it expresses deep feeling and at the same time shows an extraordinary grasp of facts, figures, situations. Every sentence, stinging, appealing or probative, makes its impression.”

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No Am 212:283 Ag ’20 1100w

“It would be difficult to imagine a more complete vindication of the work as a whole than it affords. As to the book itself, it is brilliantly written, with a vivid style, and it is full of humor and pathos. Taken altogether, it is one of the very best war books that has appeared.” F. H. Potter

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Outlook 126:66 S 8 ’20 2450w

“We hope that no one who contributed to the Y. M. C. A. war fund will be deterred by the title from reading this book; for in it will be found the most complete account of the ‘Y’ work in France that has yet been published as well as the ablest defense of its management. It is truly an inspiring story.”

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R of Rs 62:223 Ag ’20 180w

“The book is frankly personal, emphasizes personalities, and in its generous hero- and heroine-worship sometimes fails to do justice to the less spectacular phases of the collective effort that made possible the achievements recorded.” J. D. Spaeth

+ −

Survey 45:72 O 9 ’20 1000w

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The Times [London] Lit Sup p792 D 2 ’20 950w

MAYRAN, CAMILLE. Story of Gotton Connixloo, followed by Forgotten; tr. by Van Wyck Brooks. (Library of French fiction) *$2 Dutton

20–11072

“Although this series of translations from the French is described by the publishers as ‘illustrating the life and manners of modern France,’ the first of the two exquisite tales which make up the present volume has to do, not with France, but with Flanders. It relates the history of the bellringer’s motherless daughter, christened Marguerite, but always called Gotton Connixloo, telling of her pathetic childhood, into which there entered few caresses and little play, and of her love for the lame, red-haired smith, Luke Heemskerck, who for her sake deserted his shrewish wife and five little children. Very delicately, very surely, does the author trace the slow development of remorse and of that consciousness of sin which at last, when the German inundation swept over the countryside, caused Gotton to become a martyr, ransoming by her sacrifice the lives of all those in the village. ‘Forgotten,’ the second of the two tales, is also a story of the German invasion, but a story of a very different kind, and of a very different class of people.”—N Y Times

“The first story is told with a penetrating appreciation of lowly life. The appeal of both stories is to those who appreciate artistic workmanship.”

+

Booklist 17:72 N ’20

“As delicate as two brooches, they are as appealing to the heart as they are fragile to the eye. Set in English by Van Wyck Brooks they constitute an unusual ornament to the library of Franco-American literature.”

+

Dial 70:230 F ’21 60w

“The sympathetic quality, the deep, strong feeling, the lovely style and fine artistry shown by these two simple tales make the volume a welcome and a notable one.”

+

N Y Times p26 Ag 22 ’20 640w

MAZZINI, GIUSEPPE. Mazzini’s letters to an English family, 1844–1854. il *$5 Lane

21–207

In the introduction E. F. Richards, the editor of these letters, gives a short sketch of the career and character of Mazzini with their historical background and describes the various members of the English family, the Ashursts, to whom the letters were written. The value of the letters themselves, she says, lies in their exhibition of Mazzini’s character, his great and tender heart, never yet adequately shown. Explanatory paragraphs by the editor, throughout the book, help to unify the contents. The book contains several portraits of Mazzini and of the Ashurst family, and an index.

“The book has not much fresh information to offer; but it revives the Mazzini legend in all its magic.” D. L. M.

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Ath p433 O 1 ’20 1750w

+ −

Booklist 17:153 Ja ’21

+

Boston Transcript p4 Ja 5 ’21 700w

“A notable addition to the Mazzini literature.”

+

Review 3:652 D 29 ’20 700w

“Mrs E. F. Richards, as editor of the ‘Letters,’ has done her work with a refreshing enthusiasm tempered with a rare conscientiousness and a notable grasp of the events as well as the personnel of her period.”

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Sat R 130:240 S 18 ’20 760w

“The letters do not add much of importance to Mazzini’s biography, but they help to show why he was beloved by his friends. The editor has taken great pains with the introduction and the commentary to these interesting letters.”

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Spec 125:446 O 2 ’20 180w

“The world can never know too much of a man so noble as Mazzini. His life is at once an inspiration and a warning to the world in its present condition. Almost every page is a warning to those idealists who have not learnt that the very alphabet of the art of politics is to act gradually, step by step.”

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The Times [London] Lit Sup p511 Ag 12 ’20 1900w

MEAD, ELWOOD. Helping men own farms. il *$2.25 Macmillan 334

20–10715

“A practical discussion of government aid in land settlement.” (Sub-title) The author is professor of rural institutions in the University of California, and he devotes himself chiefly to the methods and results of land settlement in California, that state having taken the lead in this form of agricultural development. He also draws extensively on Australian experience. The chapters are: State aid in California due to economic and social needs; National carelessness in the disposal of public lands; Australia’s influence on the land policy of California; State aid in Italy, Denmark, Holland, and the British Isles; Methods and results of state aided settlement in Victoria; The practical teachings of Australian state aided settlement; The defects of private colonization schemes as shown by practical results in California; California’s first state settlement; Aid to farm laborers in the Durham settlement; Social progress through coöperation at Durham; The capital required by settlers; The lessons of the Durham settlement; Homes for soldiers; The function of government in social and industrial development. The California land settlement act is given in an appendix. There is no index.

Booklist 17:14 O ’20

+

New Repub 23:180 Jl 7 ’20 840w

+

N Y Times p13 O 10 ’20 1050w

R of Rs 62:333 S ’20 60w

MEAD, GEORGE WHITEFIELD. Great menace: Americanism or bolshevism? *$1.25 (4c) Dodd 335

20–6569

A sensational appeal to the people of the United States to arise and combat the great menace of “ultra-radicalism.” Contents: The great menace; The relation of the people, labor, and capital in the impending revolution; Conditions favoring bolshevism that do not right themselves; and reasons for faith in the people; The new patriotism; Vital messages of religion for today; Appendix: a citizen’s working creed.

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Nation 111:109 Jl 24 ’20 240w

R of Rs 61:671 Je ’20 50w

MEADER, STEPHEN WARREN. Black buccaneer. il *$1.75 Harcourt

20–16856

The story of a New England boy of colonial days who is kidnapped from an island off the Maine coast by pirates. Among the cruel and bloodthirsty crew he finds one friend, Job Howland, a New Englander who is ready to abandon his reckless career. After a terrible sea fight the two make their escape but Jeremy is recaptured and there is every reason to believe Job dead. His life is now more filled with danger than before but a companion is brought to join him, young Bob Curtis of Delaware, who is held for ransom. In the meantime Job, who has escaped, joins Bob’s father in his search for his son and the two boys are rescued. The pirates are captured, Jeremy returns to his home and the buried treasure for which the pirates had sought is found on the very island from which Jeremy had been taken.

MEARS, DAVID OTIS. David Otis Mears, D. D., an autobiography, 1842–1893. il *$1.50 (2½c) Pilgrim press

20–9024

The autobiography is an incomplete record of Dr Mears’ life, written for his children. It is edited and supplemented with a memoir and notes by H. A. Davidson. The whole commemorates the career of a successful minister who was “preeminently a man of vision, of decision, of action.” (Editor’s note) The book falls into two parts: The autobiography, 1842–1893; and the Chapters by the editor. The appendix contains appreciations and resolutions and a list of publications written or edited by Dr Mears. There are five illustrations.

“As a piece of agreeable autobiography the pages by Dr Mears are unusually interesting.”

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Bib World 54:651 N ’20 100w

“The biography has many interesting features.”

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Boston Transcript p8 S 15 ’20 320w

MECKLIN, JOHN MOFFATT. Introduction to social ethics. *$3 (1½c) Harcourt

20–8267

In defining democracy the author holds that equity is more fundamental to it than popular sovereignty and that the insistence of equality must be limited to equality of opportunities. “Deeper than the notion of popular rule or of equality is that of fraternity, of spiritual and moral like-mindedness.” On this basis he looks upon the development of a social conscience as the task of democracy. Part 1 of the book which is Historical and introductory contains: The problem of democracy; The religious background; Calvinism; The triumph of individualism; The great society; Our uncertain morality. Part 2. Psychological, contains: The organization of the moral sentiments; The social conscience; Public opinion and the social conscience; Limitations of the social conscience; The problem of moral progress. Part 3, The social order, contains: The rôle of the institution in the moral economy; The individual, and the institution; The home; The ecclesiastical ethic; The school and the social conscience; The ethics of private property; Mechanism and morals; The worker and the machine process; The ethics of business enterprise; The problem of the city; Political obligation in American democracy. There is a bibliography at the end of each chapter, with a list of magazine articles and there is an index.

“Professor Mecklin’s book, like every other that is vital, contains many provocations to controversy, but from beginning to end it moves in a healthy atmosphere. It is an educative book, not a package of predigested dogmas.” A. W. Small

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Am J Soc 26:245 S ’20 550w

“Largely theoretical; will appeal to the reflective reader.”

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Booklist 17:49 N ’20

“For a treatise on ethics, it is exceptionally interesting; it is unusually well written; it is peculiarly free from the conventional jargon of the schools; in short, it is a very readable book. The main criticism to which he exposes himself is that he does not go far enough, and that he stops short of the natural conclusion of his own logic.” R: Roberts

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Freeman 1:596 S 1 ’20 1450w

“The book offers much good material for college classes and the references at the end of each chapter make it still more useful in this respect. It is a welcome sign of broader ethical interest by the teacher and a contribution to further development of the field.” J. H. Tufts

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Int J Ethics 31:111 O ’20 750w

“The book is excellently written and will be enjoyed by moderate liberals, who will find in it abundant matter with which to buttress their liberalism. To the more radical-minded the book will make little appeal.”

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Nation 111:381 O 6 ’20 610w

“‘An introduction to social ethics’ is one of the most interesting and valuable [volumes dealing with the subject] that have appeared recently.”

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Springf’d Republican p10 Jl 9 ’20 220w

“The chapters entitled Mechanism and morals and The workers and the machine process are particularly good. The chapter on Public opinion sounds somewhat less in touch than the other chapters with the realities of today through its omission of the hurtful effects of the various kinds of war propaganda and wartime coercion. The best thing about the book is its repeated insistence upon a positive and creative conception of democracy.” H: Neumann

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Survey 44:501 Jl 3 ’20 350w

“A comprehensive and useful survey of its subject.”

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The Times [London] Lit Sup p879 D 23 ’20 160w

MEES, CHARLES EDWARD KENNETH. Organization of industrial scientific research. *$2 McGraw 601

20–5221

“‘Conceding the value of a research laboratory, the head of a large manufacturing firm will ask: “What will it cost?... Where shall I get the men?... What should it do? What may I expect to get from it, and when?... What should be its organization?” It is to answer these questions that this book has been written.’ The discussion is based on an extensive study of laboratories both in this country and abroad.”—Booklist

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Booklist 16:303 Je ’20

“The scope of the book and the method of presentment employed in its preparation are excellent, and both industrialists and scientific workers will find it interesting and informative. It is thought, however, that most of its readers will regret that the author has given such brief treatment to certain of the aspects of the subject, that no attention is accorded to the co-ordination of research, and that more space is not devoted to the systematic collection and distribution of scientific information.” W. A. Hamor

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Chemical & Metallurgical Engineering 23:641 S 29 ’20 270w

“The scope of the book and the sequence of chapters are admirable. Many readers will doubtless wish that the author had gone further into detail than is the case in many chapters. In general, however, the book bears the marks of experience throughout, and will well repay perusal.” A. P. M. Fleming

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Nature 105:771 Ag 19 ’20 650w

“Clearly, forcefully, tersely written, this book merits a wide reading in professional and business circles.” O. T.

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New Repub 23:260 Jl 28 ’20 650w

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N Y P L New Tech Bks p37 Ap ’20 150w

MEIGS, CORNELIA. Pool of stars. il *$1.60 Macmillan

19–18455

“This is a pretty tale of a young girl’s friendship for an older woman whom she, together with a lad who strays into the story, rescues from a trying position and restores to affluence and contentment. Its heroine, a young enthusiast who gives up the opportunity for travel in order to complete her preparation for college, makes the acquaintance of a gracious but retiring woman who lives in a simple home on the property adjoining ruins of a more elaborate mansion. That some shadow hangs over her happiness Elizabeth Houghton quickly discovers, and before long, having taken David Warren into her confidence, she applies herself to solving the mystery. All ends well, however, and the story closes with David and Betsy rejoicing in the good fortune of their elders and preparing to enter upon the college career so eagerly anticipated by both.”—N Y Evening Post

“The love of mystery will be satisfied by this book without the ‘blood-and-thunder’ accompaniments of the average mystery story. There are pleasant character studies. Strongest appeal to girls of teens.”

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Booklist 16:176 F ’20

“Is a very well-written story, sustaining until the end a mystery, and good comradeship between a boy and girl of high school age.” A. C. Moore

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Bookm 50:381 N ’19 40w

“A chapter to which boys would listen with delight since it gives color and life to that period of our history following the war with the Barbary pirates, ‘The tree of jade’ is so well told as to completely reconcile the reader to the interruption of the main narrative.” A. C. Moore

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Bookm 51:91 Mr ’20 150w

“The style is vague and indefinite.”

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Boston Transcript p8 Mr 10 ’20 160w

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Cleveland p80 Ag ’20 50w

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N Y Evening Post p3 D 20 ’19 220w

“A story of mystery with melodrama refreshingly absent.”

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Springf’d Republican p13a Ap 25 ’20 100w

MEIGS, WILLIAM MONTGOMERY. Relation of the judiciary to the constitution. $2 W: J. Campbell, 1731 Chestnut st., Philadelphia 342.7

This study of the relation of the judiciary to the constitution is a defence of judicial supremacy. The author’s studies have led him to believe that its origin antedates Marbury vs. Madison and he argues that “the judiciary was plainly pointed out by our history for the vast function it has exercised, and that it was expected and intended, both by the Federal convention and the opinion of the publicists of the day, to exercise that function.” Two chapters on The British colonies in North America and The public beliefs of our colonial days are followed by an examination of cases. There is an index. The author has written “The growth of the constitution,” also lives of Calhoun and Thomas H. Benton.

“This careful volume should take its place among the essays of high authority in our legal literature. The discussion of individual leading cases which Mr Meigs gives us is of deep interest.” S. L. C.

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Boston Transcript p6 Je 30 ’20 550w

“The result will prove disappointing to the special student of the subject, though it is not without value for the general reader. Altogether it seems not unjust to remark that Mr Meigs will probably be remembered for his pioneer article of a generation ago, rather than for this more ambitious but one-sided and unoriginal study.” E: S. Corwin

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Review 3:449 N 10 ’20 300w

MEIKLEJOHN, ALEXANDER. Liberal college. *$2.50 (4c) Jones, Marshall 378

20–18040

The volume is the first of a series of centenary publications to be known as the Amherst books. It consists of a collection of papers and addresses elucidating the author’s conception of a liberal college. The introduction, “Making minds,” presents the three chief misunderstandings with regard to a college education, viz: that it makes minds; that it should not make minds but men; that men are not made but grow and that the college’s part in this is not to be taken too seriously. The papers are grouped under the headings: The determining purpose; The participants in the process; Discussions in educational theory; The curriculum.

“Dr Meiklejohn states his own case and Amherst’s case with rare strength and clarity.” H. T. C.

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Boston Transcript p6 N 20 ’20 260w

“For years President Meiklejohn of Amherst has stood forth as one of the staunch defenders of the liberal college in America, and now we have an able discussion of his faith in a volume filled with terse, well-packed sentences, each of which opens a new line of thought or a new angle from which to approach the problem.” J. W. G.

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Grinnell R 16:332 Ja ’21 440w

“Whether or not the suggestions here made are specific improvements or not, the present volume makes one deeply grateful that there is, in a position of authority, a man so fully convinced that learning is a noble thing, worthy of love and devotion for her own sake.” Preserved Smith

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Nation 111:734 D 22 ’20 780w

“Dr Meiklejohn’s book is noteworthy for its point of view and for the fine enthusiasm for scholarship which it reveals.” T: S. Baker

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N Y Evening Post p8 D 31 ’20 1400w

“It is written in a clear, earnest, straightforward, and convincing style, never abstruse and never platitudinous, but always fresh and always interesting. In spite of the author’s professed fondness for inviting misunderstanding, the book is throughout lucid and single in its aim.”

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Springf’d Republican p8 N 11 ’20 1150w

“Dr Meiklejohn’s discussion maintains a high level practically throughout the book. He meets many of the criticisms that have been brought against the college and liberal education.” J. K. Hart

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Survey 45:545 Ja 8 ’21 660w

MEIKLEJOHN, NANNINE (LA VILLA) (MRS ALEXANDER MEIKLEJOHN). Cart of many colors. (Little school-mate ser.) il *$1.65 Dutton

19–19357

“It is the tale of a small Sicilian lad, dowered with artistic gifts and aflame with desire to make the most of his talents who, at the instance of his wise and indulgent mother and through the kindness of an uncle who recognizes his possibilities, accompanies the latter to Florence, there to study art. The greater part of the story is concerned with his life in the cultured family with whom he makes his home in the beautiful Tuscan town, and through whom he is given opportunity to see Rome, Siena and other cities of note. Its earlier chapters, however, have to do with his happy days in the midst of his own people in Palermo.”—N Y Evening Post

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Booklist 16:247 Ap ’20

“A well-written story of life in Italy. We have seen nowhere so informing and so humanized an account of Italian life in America as Miss Converse gives in her introduction.” A. C. Moore

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Bookm 50:33 S ’19 240w

“Though throughout the tale much stress is thrown on description both of places and customs, yet there is sufficient incident of a simple sort to focus its interest upon the fortunes of Nello and his associates.”

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N Y Evening Post p3 D 20 ’19 300w

“Pictures with insight and sympathy the life of children in Italy.”

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Springf’d Republican p8 D 20 ’19 180w

MEISSNER, MRS SOPHIE (RADFORD) DE. Old naval days. il *$3 Holt

20–20090

The author of these sketches from the life of Rear-Admiral William Radford, U.S.N. was the latter’s daughter and her record abounds in reminiscences, private and public. The admiral began his naval career in 1825 as midshipman on the “Brandywine” which conducted Lafayette back to France after his visit to America. He served through the Civil war and was retired in 1870. The book is illustrated and has an appendix.

R of Rs 63:110 Ja ’21 80w

MENCKEN, HENRY LOUIS. Book of burlesques. *$2 Knopf 817

20–26583

“The present edition includes some epigrams from ‘A little book in C major,’ now out of print. To make room for them several of the smaller sketches in the first edition have been omitted. Nearly the whole contents of the book appeared originally in the Smart Set.” (Author’s note) Contents: Death: a philosophical discussion; From the programme of a concert; The wedding: a stage direction; The visionary; The artist: a drama without words; Seeing the world; From the memoirs of the devil; Litanies for the overlooked; Asepsis: a deduction in scherzo form; Tales of the moral and pathological; The jazz Webster; The old subject; Panoramas of people; Homeopathics; Vers libre.

“Mr Mencken is a clever and witty satirist, with an encyclopædic knowledge of the latest crazes and imbecilities.”

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Ath p322 Mr 5 ’20 160w

Booklist 17:85 N ’20

“The great difficulty about this book is that it will not irritate the intelligent and none but the intelligent can be amused by it.”

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Dial 68:401 Mr ’20 100w

“Satire at times extravagantly and cheaply cynical, but also at times keen and entertaining is to be found in ‘A book of burlesques.’”

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Springf’d Republican p9a F 29 ’20 200w

MENCKEN, HENRY LOUIS. Prejudices: second series. *$2.50 (4c) Knopf 814

20–20969

In the present volume the author continues his tirade on American letters, generalizing on his theme in the first essay, ‘The national letters.’ In spite of the prophetic optimism of such men as Emerson and Whitman and, to some extent, even the pessimistic Poe, we have so far achieved nothing but a respectable mediocrity which he attributes to the absence of a cultural background, and of a civilized aristocracy. The other essays of the book are: Roosevelt: an autopsy; The Sahara of the Bozart; The divine afflatus; Scientific examination of a popular virtue; Exeunt omnes; The allied arts; The cult of hope; The dry millennium; Appendix on a tender theme. There is an index.

Dial 70:232 F ’21 80w

Ind 104:382 D 11 ’20 290w

“As for his second series of prejudices, they are even as his first; his prejudices have not changed; nor his manner of hurling them at the fat heads of us Philistines. Some of his missiles are true dynamite, some—in my humble opinion—are duds; but not one of them is discharged at random.” L. W. Dodd

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N Y Evening Post p7 D 4 ’20 880w

“Nothing is sacred in his hands, and by the same token is he interesting and unreliable. His style is as vigorous and bold as his ideas. It is a little hard to keep up with Mencken, but at any rate you will not be bored if you try.”

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Springf’d Republican p8 Ja 3 ’21 480w

MENDELSOHN, SIGMUND. Labor’s crisis. *$1.50 Macmillan 331

20–17254

“Looking at the question of labor reform from the employer’s point of view, the author argues that the labor scarcity is not entirely due to decrease in the number of laborers, and in support of his contention points to many effects of the unrest itself on production and on labor. In his keen introduction Mr Mendelsohn writes, ‘A labor problem still exists, and in more acute form than ever, but it concerns the welfare of society more than of labor. It is no longer based upon excess of labor, but upon insufficiency of labor; it no longer relates to an inadequate wage, but to an inflated wage; it no longer deals with an oppressed suffering class, but with an all powerful and militant element which is striving for economic dominance.’”—N Y Times

“An unusually thoughtful analysis of labor’s propositions to remedy the existing unrest.”

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N Y Times p11 O 31 ’20 230w

“Mr Mendelsohn’s thinking goes beneath the surface and his little book will be found suggestive by all classes of readers.”

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Springf’d Republican p8 N 9 ’20 200w

MERCER, JOHN EDWARD. Why do we die? an essay in thanatology. *$2 Dutton 236

“Bishop Mercer points out that his question differs from the more usual one, ‘What happens after death?’ He finds it natural that we should speculate upon a future experience from which no one is exempt; but he wonders why no one has asked, ‘Why do we die at all?’ Neither biology nor physiology, he says, has answered this question; nor have the theologians or the philosophers approached any more nearly to the solution of it. The problem; What science teaches; Monadnology; and Higher aspects, are his four heads, under which he discusses Causes of the fear of death, The spiritual body, and other topics, closing with that of Death as a revealer.”—Springf’d Republican

Int J Ethics 30:113 O ’19 100w

“Though it is doubtful whether either scientists or philosophers would heartily endorse all the positions taken by Dr Mercer, it is pleasant to read a book written with good temper and rationality, without appeal to the prevalent superstitions of mediums and table-tipping.”

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Nation 110:269 F 28 ’20 300w

“Bishop Mercer pursues an extremely interesting and richly suggestive line of inquiry. It is one distinctly removed from that involved in psychical research. It is the purely religious inquiry of an eminent scholar and thinker who is familiar with all modern scientific thought, and whose wide culture and liberal mind endow him with vision.” Lilian Whiting

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Springf’d Republican p13a F 8 ’20 700w

MERCIER, DESIRÉ FÉLICIEN FRANÇOIS JOSEPH, cardinal. Cardinal Mercier’s own story: prefatory letter by James Cardinal Gibbons. *$4 (3½c) Doran 940.3493

20–5912

The book consists chiefly of Cardinal Mercier’s correspondence with the German governor general in protest to the latter’s régime as imposed on the Belgians. The work of collecting and editing these letters has been delegated by the Cardinal to Professor Fernand Mayence, of Louvain university, who has supplied them with an explanatory preface. Most of the correspondence is with Baron von Bissing and Baron von der Lancken and some with Baron von Falkenhausen. The correspondence on the Belgian deportations is of special interest.

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Booklist 16:341 Jl ’20

“It must remain among the permanent records of the war.”

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Boston Transcript p6 Jl 21 ’20 260w

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Cath World 111:390 Je ’20 1150w

“It is the sheer courage of the letters more than anything else which makes them impressive, but they have also a dignity, a sobriety and a definite knowledge of facts which makes them peculiarly valuable at a moment when reparations and indemnities are under discussion.”

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Ind 104:245 N 13 ’20 140w

Reviewed by Muriel Harris

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Nation 110:770 Je 5 ’20 340w

Reviewed by M. F. Egan

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N Y Times 25:184 Ap 18 ’20 3100w

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N Y Times 25:191 Ap 18 ’20 220w

“Every one who reads this book will feel that he has come in contact with a really great personality, and will be the better for the feeling. The story of Belgium, in which the cardinal is the dominant figure, is as fascinating, in one aspect, as ‘The pilgrim’s progress.’ The cardinal’s book, too, like Bunyan’s classic, is almost as good a story for the young as it is for the old.”

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No Am 212:139 Jl ’20 1500w

“A serious omission which ought to be supplied in any new edition is the lack of any index.” Lyman Abbott

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Outlook 124:766 Ap 28 ’20 2450w

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Spec 125:146 Jl 31 ’20 1550w

“The correspondence, always written in the lofty tone and closely reasoned manner of state papers, is interesting throughout; but the most engrossing pages of the book are those which deal with the deportations.”

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The Times [London] Lit Sup p392 Je 24 ’20 950w

MEREDITH, MRS ELISABETH GRAY (LYMAN). Terrier’s tale. il *$1 Houghton

20–19080

“Although of a retiring disposition, I have always known that I am a person of importance, but recently I have become a person of note, and I have been asked to write my memoirs.” Thus the terrier begins his tale and it is full of interest and excitement and some wise reflections. It contains: Early days; Domestic life; Concerning baths; Sport; Travel; On being left behind; Fatherhood; Guests; Social life; As to cats; My great adventure; Through the window; Conclusion. The illustrations are by Mia E. Rosenblad.

N Y Evening Post p10 O 30 ’20 70w

MERIAM, JUNIUS LATHROP. Child life and the curriculum. $3.60 World bk. 375

20–8866

A work by the professor of school supervision and superintendent of university schools, University of Missouri. That the subject matter of modern life should be used as the means of instructing boys and girls is his thesis. “In working out the details of this curriculum the effort has been, not, as some critics have erroneously judged, to get away from the traditional curriculum, but, on the positive side, to get as close as possible to the lives of children as found in the home and in the larger community.” (Preface) The book is divided into five parts: Point of view; The traditional curriculum; Principles in the making of curricula; The contents of a curriculum; Methods and results. Supplementary readings are suggested at the end of each chapter, and special reading lists, as well as lists of songs, games, etc., are given in appendices. In addition there is a general bibliography of fifteen pages, followed by an index.

“Not a course that can be adopted in a moment or by any school, but a virile, well presented point of view which has something of value for every elementary teacher.”

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Booklist 16:330 Jl ’20

“The reader may be unable to agree with all of the conclusions of the book, but it furnishes material for critical thought, and will be of interest to those dealing with courses of study. The manner of presentation is somewhat tedious at times, and one feels that occasional condensations would serve to emphasize the content.”

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El School J 21:150 O ’20 680w

“One may find some of his conclusions from well-known studies in the field of education surprising; and may be unwilling to see measurement deferred until after the attainment of seemingly impossible conditions. Nevertheless he will recognize in the book and the experiment it reports a contribution to the great effort to provide a curriculum more closely related to life.”

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School R 28:552 S ’20 560w

MERLANT, JOACHIM. Soldiers and sailors of France in the American war for independence (1776–1783); tr. by Mary Bushnell Coleman. *$2 Scribner 973.3

20–7496

“‘Soldiers and sailors of France in the American war for independence’ is an account of the part played by our allies during the Revolution, written by one who participated in the world war. The author is Capt Joachim Merlant, assistant professor of the faculty of letters in the university of Montpellier, who, after a few months with the territorials, joined an active unit as infantry officer. Severely wounded in 1915 he never fully recovered, and being unable to fight resolved instead to write and talk for his cause. Thus he came to America, and from January to May in 1916 he lectured throughout the country. And through his gratitude toward America he decided to investigate the Franco-American alliance of 1778–1783 and retell the story of Rochambeau and LaFayette.”—Springf’d Republican

Booklist 16:341 Jl ’20

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Springf’d Republican p7a N 28 ’20 420w

MERRICK, HOPE (BUTLER-WILKINS) (MRS LEONARD MERRICK). Mary-girl; a posthumous novel. *$2.50 Dutton

20–8792

“Ezra Sheppard is a man with a consuming ideal. A devout Quaker, it is his dream to build a seemly meeting-house instead of the dilapidated barn where the Friends have hitherto met. The lavish terms offered for the services of Mary in nourishing the Earl of Folkington’s heir would convert his dream into real stone and lime. So he lets Mary go. Mary, poor girl, with the best will in the world, finds when her year is up that the life of a working gardener’s wife is not so pleasant as it used to be. And Ezra behaves badly about it, too. He repents, it is true, and realizes that his idol has cost him too dear, but not before Mary has been brought to shame, and his repentance takes the form of attempted arson.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup

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Booklist 17:34 O ’20

“‘Mary-girl’ deserves something better than so foolish and inept a designation. If it were merely one among a thousand sentimental romances, its title would be unobjectionable, but it is something more than that, and it is a pity that it should be so misrepresented. As a whole, it is a notably truthful record of a soul conflict and an absorbingly interesting story.” E. F. E.

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Boston Transcript p6 Jl 17 ’20 800w

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Cleveland p105 D ’20 40w

“A delightful human and unpretentious story, well written and very interesting, the tale has realism without pessimism, sentiment without sentimentality. A delightful book, vivid, human, dramatic at times and always entertaining, is this story of ‘Mary-girl.’”

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N Y Times 25:27 Jl 11 ’20 750w

“The late Mrs Leonard Merrick was endowed with the rare gift of being able to write a thoroughly sentimental story with undoubted charm. The episode of Mary’s downfall is the least satisfactory thing in the book. It is false to the character, and for all its disguise is mere ‘novelette’ in essence.”

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The Times [London] Lit Sup p157 Mr 4 ’20 250w

MERWIN, SAMUEL. Hills of Han. il *$2 Bobbs

20–6286

“Betty Doane, the heroine, daughter of a missionary, returns to China after six years in the United States. On the steamer she meets Jonathan Branchy, author, explorer and newspaper man and a somewhat unromantic love affair develops between them. The development of their emotions is interwoven with the dangers threatening all foreigners in China from a new society, a recrudescence of the old Boxer organization, known as ‘the Lookers.’ The chief item in the creed of this society is the extinction of all ‘foreign devils.’ Betty’s position becomes increasingly difficult and complicated through the intolerance of her father’s missionary coworkers, and through a want of a sense of humor on the part of her lover. The adventures of the principals attain a climax at the headquarters of a French mining concern; this form of foreign activity excites the particular antipathy of ‘the Lookers.’”—Springf’d Republican

“Both the story and the setting hold the reader though one dislikes the pictures of the mission teachers and the incidents are melodramatic. Some people will object to this.”

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Booklist 17:72 N ’20

“As for the Chinese atmosphere and personnel of the story, one may accept them as sound—if that matters in a story of this kind, and if atmosphere and personnel can be sound when the action is unsound or patently artificial. All this, you may say, is the breaking of a butterfly on the clumsy wheel of criticism. ‘Hills of Han’ is not a butterfly; it is a sort of gilded bat with the butterfly label.” H. W. Boynton

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Bookm 51:583 Jl ’20 320w

Dial 69:320 S ’20 60w

“Samuel Merwin has written better novels than ‘Hills of Han,’ but it offers agreeable entertainment for an uncritical hour.”

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Ind 103:186 Ag 14 ’20 70w

“While neither as entertaining nor as vivid as some of Mr Merwin’s earlier romances, the story is an interesting one and has some dramatic moments.”

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N Y Times 25:205 Ap 25 ’20 700w

“There is good fiction stuff here, but it is clumsily put together.”

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Outlook 125:125 My 19 ’20 80w

“A thoroly absorbing romance, and a most workmanlike piece of novel writing.” E. P. Wyckoff

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Pub W 97:1291 Ap 17 ’20 320w

“Through the color which Mr Merwin dashes upon his background and his descriptions of picturesque customs, and countryside, much of the unevenness of character portraiture is compensated for. Generally, the story holds the reader’s close attention.”

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Springf’d Republican p11a Je 6 ’20 700w