EN CASSEROLE

If We Are Late

There is every prospect that this number will be out unusually late, on account of the choke-up in transportation. At this writing the printer ought to be at work on the paper, which has already been on the way to him—from Philadelphia to Massachusetts—twenty-six days.

We hope our readers will not blame the delay to us, and that their patriotism will cheerfully endure it.

The Kindly and Modest German

Here are some commonplaces that should be iterated in some shape every time an American organ of opinion goes to press.

There once was such a man as the kindly and modest German, and through his virtues he had nearly obtained the industrial and commercial leadership of the world, when sudden wealth and power aroused in him the brute instincts that are latent in the best of us, and started him after more than can be had from industry, and can be had only by force. The brute instincts were nearer the surface in him than in those who have a recorded civilization of some seven or eight thousand years: for the poor Germans, at least the ruling branch of them, have barely as many hundred. Even Russia was Christianized four centuries before Prussia.

Now it is a rare parvenu who is not conceited. Germany has camouflaged the old idea of conquest by that of spreading her Kultur to the inferior portion of mankind—to the peoples that produced Homer, Dante, Shakespear, Newton, Darwin and Spencer—as if those peoples were savages whose territory could be brought under civilization only by conquest, and as if Germany alone had civilization. And this absurd idea she backs up by a crude conception of the Law of Evolution—a conception that stops with the competition of brute forces. Coöperation, mutual help, emulation in well doing do not enter into her idea of evolution. She has thrown away her splendid success in the higher competition, and reverted to the competition of brute force,—camouflaged again by science and cunning.

When a conceited parvenu goes mad, his conceit is as mad as the rest of him. When he is at the same time bellicose and bloodthirsty, he will not stop fighting as long as the conceit is in his system, and the only way to get it out is to whip it out.

It looks as if in Germany’s case we had seriously underestimated one important feature of that job. For a long time we thought that we had got to beat only the military class—that they had merely fooled the kindly and modest Germans we used to know. As lately as this Spring, a British general told the present writer that his people did not expect the war to be ended by a military victory—that without an overwhelming superiority on either side, modern warfare has at last reached the degree of perfection long ago attained by the Kilkenny cats (only the general did not put it in that way), and that before, so to speak, the tails get through fighting, the kindly and modest German people would take matters into their own hands and stop the war, give up the plunder they have got from their weaker neighbors (for after all, barring their sudden occupation of a little of France, they have with all their boasting whipped only little or undeveloped peoples), and pay damages—as far as they can be paid. But it has come to look mightily as if the general and his people were mistaken—as if the kindly and modest German no longer exists, as if the madness has seized the whole nation, and as if there will be no way out before we give one side the overwhelming superiority which was the general’s alternative. Plainly we can’t be too quick about it.

Before the conceit is whipped out of the Germans, they are not going to submit to any peace short of holding on to their plunder, and as long as they have enough of that to be visible, they are victors, and with all their conceit in them. It would drive them into another war as soon as they could get ready, and even meanwhile the conditions would be intolerable—intolerable not only for the small peoples they have conquered, but for the rest of us.

But things are very respectably intolerable as they are. We have barely entered the war, and yet you are exceptionally fortunate if your income has not been pinched, your affairs generally disturbed, heavy anxieties thrown upon you, and perhaps, even thus early, mourning. Possibly you have found a grim consolation in realizing that most of the time since the beginning of human records, our present lot has been the lot of the greater portion of mankind. Perhaps you have found a consolation less grim in realizing that this state of affairs has been diminishing—very notably diminishing during the century preceding this war; and it is to be hoped that you have found a consolation almost triumphant in the realization that a large portion of the world at last realizes that such conditions can be put an end to, and are grimly determined to do it. But unless it is done thoroughly, unless the Kaiser and his gang are as safely disposed of as Napoleon and his gang were after Waterloo, these conditions are going to recur indefinitely.

Waterloo put an end to gloire, but it did not quite end the idea of the legitimacy of conquering civilized people and good neighbors—it did not make impossible the attitude of the German statesman who, when asked by our ambassador Hill why Germany did not conciliate Alsace-Lorraine, answered without the slightest suspicion that he was showing himself a barbarian: “But we have conquered them.” It was this attitude which gradually changed Germany’s preparations against France’s possible revanche after 1870, into a scheme to conquer the world. This antiquated idea of right by conquest, and this barbarous passion for it, have done more than anything else, except perhaps dogmatic religions, for the misery of mankind. This attitude survives, among lettered nations, only in Germany and her allies. We have got to fight until we kill it, no matter how many treaties of peace intervene: and it will not be killed as long as Germany is left in possession of a foot of the territory she has seized during the present war.

All these considerations render the idea of a “Peace without victory” worse than a mere disgusting piece of sentimentalism. They render it a danger, and one that unless obliterated, sooner or later must explode.

But behind all that, it is absurd in its very conception. What could be more ridiculous than a treaty with Germany? It would of course be ridiculous on the part of a nation that did not intend to keep it, but on the part of a nation that did intend to keep it, it would be doubly ridiculous. Nothing can be plainer than that real peace cannot be reached, no matter what treaties and intervals of nominal peaces intervene, before Germany has her conceit whipped out of her, and whipped out so thoroughly that, as in Napoleon’s case, there will be no need for discussion or pretended agreements, but that she will simply be told what she must do, and made to do it.

At one time there was hope that the kindly and modest German the elders among us knew, would take hold and attend to the matter himself. But he is not here to do it: we have got to do it ourselves, and we cannot afford to flinch, or dally, or stop half way.

What the Cat Thinks of the Dog

I am not altogether sure whether I like the Dog or merely tolerate him. It puzzles me to say just what I do, in a manner, like about my house-companion. For a certainty, his manners are very distressing, and they evoke my most hearty disapproval. I cannot abide those rude volcanic barking fits of his. Often, when lying snugly tail-enfolded by the gently warming kitchen stove, lost in a comfortable dreamless doze—how delicious this semi-Nirvana of the senses!—I would suddenly be startled into undesired wakefulness by my friend’s frenzied howls. You’d think he had wanted to call my attention to a mouse recently entrapped or, at least, to the arrival of the butcher with a fat quarter of lamb wherefrom one might expect the carving of good cheer for him and me. But no! nine times out of ten it would but be some uninteresting urchin whom he had caught sight of through the window, and who was sauntering a block away with an insolent swagger that could not but arouse my profound contempt. I sometimes find it far from easy to keep my temper in such circumstances and to refrain from wishing him and his urchin a watery grave the next time they betake themselves to the river for swimming and diving sports. Yet I must not judge him harshly. An unkind nature has granted him a most unmusical, a most nerve-shattering voice, incapable of the least culture.

I take much exception also to the ungentle and ungraceful manner in which he swings his tail, or rather flips it back and forth and jerks it up and down, for one can hardly talk of swinging where no smooth delicately rounded curves are perceptible. How inferior, both by heredity and by training, is the Dog’s handling of his tail to that of the Cat! How little he understands the art of curving and waving and uncurving the tail in the nicely nuanced rhythms and exquisitely designed patterns that are so familiar to ourselves! If the aerial artistry of the Cat’s tail may be fitly compared to the beautifully rounded brushwork of our Chinese laundrymen when, as I have incidentally observed him more than once, he prepares his stock of wash tickets, the tail movements of the Dog remind me of nothing so much as the ugly zigzagging and unsymmetrical lines that my master’s little boy produces, squeakingly, on his slate in his vain attempts to draw a locomotive (at least I gather, from various remarks that I have overheard, that this is what he has in mind). No, there is not the slightest reason to allow for an æsthetic strain in my friend’s psychology. Frankly, I do not believe he knows the difference between an Impressionist masterpiece and a bill-board daub. Nothing, further, can be more absurd than the frequency with which the Dog’s rapid and angular tail movements are executed. No sooner does the master, or his little boy, or the mistress, or even the garbage man appear, than this tail that I speak of is set furiously wagging and swishing, often at the cost of a cup or plate which may happen to be within reach of its tufted point. I wonder that they tolerate him in the kitchen at all. I shall never forget the time that, excited beyond control at the unexpected return of the master from a fishing excursion, he scampered about madly and lashed his tail from side to side with the utmost fury. Well accustomed by this time to his vulgar ways, I paid little attention to the hubbub but continued quietly lapping up my saucer of milk, when I was suddenly stunned by a powerful swish of the Dog’s milk-spattered tail against my face. Angered beyond expression, both by the Dog’s extreme rudeness and by the almost total loss of a savory meal, I was about to scratch out his eyes, but the evident unwillingness of the maid to suffer retaliatory measures, and the reflection on my part that the Dog’s conduct, reprehensible as it was, had not been dictated by any unfriendly feeling for myself, prevented a scrimmage. It was as well, for nothing pains me more than to part company with my dignity, even if only for a moment.

In view of so many just grounds for complaint,—and there are many that I might add,—it puzzles me, I repeat, to say just what I like about the Dog. Can it be that, living, as we do, under the same roof, and thus forced by circumstance to put up with each other for better or for worse, we have become habituated to a common lot, and learned to ignore the numerous divergencies of taste and philosophy? From a strictly scientific standpoint, this is an excellent explanation of our mutual forbearance, but I am afraid that sincerity prevents me from accepting it as a completely satisfying solution of the problem. How comes it that, when the Dog, in company with his master, has absented himself from the house for a period of more than usual length, as once for a week’s hunting jaunt, I find myself getting fidgety and morose, as though there were something missing to complete my usual feeling of contentment? And how comes it that last year, when the Dog’s right forefoot was caught in the door, and he set up a caterwauling (excuse the Hibernicism) that made him a frightful nuisance for the rest of the day, I, who would ordinarily have been the first to resent such a noise, as evidencing a deplorable lack of vocal self-control and taste, did on the contrary feel no small amount of sympathy for the suffering wretch? I imagine that there was something about the tilt of my tail and the glance in my eye that communicated my compassion to the Dog, for the next day he seemed a trifle more considerate of my preferences than had been his wont. I construed this as a species of thankfulness on his part. (Yet I would not lay too great stress on this; he may merely have had an attack of the blues, as a result of his recent misadventure.) And how comes it, farther, that I felt considerably nettled the other day when the neighbor’s boy kicked the Dog three times in succession? Prudence, to be sure, prevented my taking up an active defence of my friend, but I certainly felt at least an indefinite impulse in that direction.

Such incidents seem to argue a genuine vein of fellow feeling, of sympathy, for the Dog, though, I must insist, this sympathy never degenerates into a maudlin sentimentality. After all is said and done, there is never entirely absent a grain of contempt from my estimate of a mere dog, even of the Dog of the House. It is enough to admit that there is commingled with this contempt a certain something of more benevolent hue, a something which I must leave it to others to explain.

A Hunting-ground of Ignorance

Espapia Palladino is dead, and of course the usual amount of nonsense is being written about her. The woman certainly had some telekinetic power, and she certainly pieced it out with humbug, as is generally done when the power happens to exist in a low order of person. And as most persons are of a low order, the power is so pieced out in most cases. The same is of course true regarding telepsychic power.

But that behind the frauds and mistakes there is something genuine yet to be accounted for, is doubted by hardly anybody who knows anything about the subject. If writing about it, and all other subjects, could only be restricted to those who know something about them, how much better off we should all be!

And if dishonesty were only restricted to the inferior type of person! One of the committee who made out Palladino an unmitigated fraud, told us that he signed the report with mental reservations, and that he passed his hands under the table which she held suspended by her finger-tips on top of it, and found it absolutely disconnected with the floor!

Maximum Price-fixing in Ancient Rome

“Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.” The prototype of the aeroplane is found in the myth of Daedalus’ wings; the possibilities of the submarine—some of them—are illustrated in Lucian’s story of the sea monster; and maximum prices, in sober Roman history.

The Emperor Diocletian, at the beginning of the fourth century, made a serious effort to lower the high cost of living, by law. He was apparently one of that school of amateur economists which holds that the business man’s greed is the root of the evil. In his opinion there were any number of people who were expert in the art of running up the rates and charging the poor ultimate consumer, whether civilian or soldier, all that the traffic would bear. And his eye was on them. A part of the preface to the edict which was to abolish all the difficulties at one stroke, reads thus:

Who is so dull of heart that he does not know that on merchandise prices have become more than exorbitant, and that unbridled greed can not be mitigated by abundance of supplies or rich harvests? And so to the greed of those who, though men of the greatest wealth so that they could abundantly supply even nations, still seek private gain. To their greed, O people of our provinces, our care for common humanity urges us to put an end. Who does not know that, wherever the common safety of all demands that our armies be led, there the prices of merchandise are forced up, not four times or eight times, but without limit?

A system of maximum retail prices was to be the cure-all:

We have decided not to determine exact prices for commodities: for it does not seem just to do this when at times many provinces glory in the good fortune of low prices; but we have decided to establish a maximum of prices, so that when there is any scarcity greed may be checked.

If the emperor could have looked down the ages to the year 1918, he would have found that a maximum price of ten cents for sugar is very likely to become the regular price everywhere. He did not know this; but that his law would only be effective if supported by a penalty for disobedience, he knew right well. He decided on a penalty—a penalty which would appear adequate, probably even to the thorough-going Germans:

It is our pleasure that, if anyone in his audacity opposes this statute, he be subjected to capital punishment.

Not only price-raising, but hoarding and speculating were also held to be opposition to the law. The final statement of the edict makes this clear:

And from the penalties of this statute, that man is not free who, possessing the necessities of life, should think that he ought to withdraw them from trade for a time after this statute is in force.

But the emperor did not confine himself to fixing maximum prices for food. His was a more ambitious attempt than any of its modern counterparts. He fixed prices for liquors, and cloth goods and shoes. He fixed maximum wages for workmen in all sorts of trades, and even for men in the professions. In some cases pay was by the day, and in some, by the job. The record does not show that union men were paid more than non-union men.

But this economic Utopia, though supported by all the power of an autocratic government, was not for long. One slight miscalculation ruined the whole scheme. The maximum price, or maximum wage, was put quite low in the first place, and yet in any given case was precisely the same in every province of the empire. In London the barber would shave you for two denarii (less than one cent), and in Alexandria you need pay no more. Prunes from Damascus must be sold there and in Cologne for the same price. Under such artificial conditions legitimate business could not succeed. The result is briefly told by a church father:

Then was there much blood shed for trifles; and nothing was put up for sale, because of fear, and much worse was the scarcity, until the law was repealed of necessity, after the death of many.

Darwin on His Own Discoveries

In connection with the article in this number on John Fiske, we are fortunate in being able to give a letter from Darwin to Dana which is just appearing in the current American Journal of Science. To our readers, comment would be superfluous.

Charles Darwin to J. D. Dana Down, Bromly, Kent, Nov. 11, 1859.

My dear Sir: I have sent you a copy of my Book (as yet only an abstract) on the Origin of species. I know too well that the conclusion, at which I have arrived, will horrify you, but you will, I believe & hope, give me credit for at least an honest search after the truth. I hope that you will read my Book, straight through; otherwise from the great condensation it will be unintelligible. Do not, I pray, think me so presumptuous as to hope to convert you; but if you can spare time to read it with care, & will then do what is far more important, keep the subject under my point of view for some little time occasionally before your mind, I have hopes that you will agree that more can be said in favour of the mutability of species, than is at first apparent. It took me many long years before I wholly gave up the common view of the separate creation of each species. Believe me, with sincere respect & with cordial thanks for the many acts of scientific kindness which I have received from you,

My dear Sir Yours very sincerely (Signed) Charles Darwin

Reflections of an Old-Maid Aunt.

In the elaborately efficient curricula of our modern colleges, although there are courses of instruction in almost every branch from Book-agenting to Motherhood, and from Sewing to Integral Calculus, there is one of endeavor which is, as yet, hopelessly uncharted. I speak of the art, or, of course, it should be science, of being an old-maid aunt!

It seems a simple matter to the casual observer and, perhaps, that is why no one has thought necessary to study the subject and offer a course. We remember how successfully it was done in our youth by those delightful old ladies who came for visits and taught us to knit and were almost sure to have some sort of confection concealed somewhere about their person or room. We remember how they implanted the idea that certain words were beyond the vocabulary of any lady, and that a child’s whole duty in life was to be polite in such matters as “Sir” and “Ma’am”, to be obedient to any of the species, Grown-People, and to be ready at all times to help in the search for spectacles. Their lot was easy enough and the very suggestion that they needed to be instructed in their capacity of aunt, would be ridiculous!

It is no wonder then, with that picture in view, that I launched forth upon a visit to my small nephew and nieces with no premonitions of the shoals which lay ahead. After five days in the presence of the strenuous regime which surrounds and enfolds the modern child, I have returned once more to the quiet back waters of old-maidenhood and to contemplation. And now a sadder and a wiser aunt, I offer some suggestions which might help another unwary one before she breaks into the complicated existence of the newly developed genus, Child.

In the first place, don’t use that obnoxious word “DON’T”. Its use you will find, or more likely be told, curbs the child’s free spirit and destroys his personality. If, thereof you find him with a redpepper as a toy, don’t try to take it from him, for being stronger than he you may succeed and thereby put a dent in his tender young willpower! Just trust that if he should get it into his eyes or mouth the result will not be fatal, and feel confident that thereafter he will seek some other form of toy! Or should you find him standing on a chair, before a blazing fire, reaching for something on the mantel piece, don’t remove him forcibly at once and try to convince him that he should never get there again. No! Rather divert his mind to something else in the room so that he will get down of his own accord, and leave the desired object until there is nobody present to divert him! For do you not see that if you tell him that there are things in the world which he cannot do, you will bind his free and birdlike soul and sadden his little life? Be comforted, though, for, perhaps, when he does fall the fire will be out, or the chair will tip the other way!

In the second place don’t be surprised to hear him cry, nay rather howl lustily, all the while he is being fed. Of course you think at once that he must surely be ill; in your memories of childhood such an occurrence meant only some dread disease. But before you send a hurried call for the doctor, take a look at the food. You will find that a sad and terrible change has come over the stomachs of children! No longer can they digest oatmeal when accompanied by its time-honored companions, sugar and cream, but must eat it plain in a luke warm state. Other cereals have also lost these erstwhile friends, in spite of the alluring but deceptive impression which you may have gotten from advertisements, and are eaten, or rather absorbed, for the doing has lost its gusto, plain. So don’t pity the child when you see him eating a teaspoonful of sugar just before he goes to bed, for that is his theoretical dole of sweetness for the day. Just hope that somewhere in the background is a friendly cook who is not yet aware of the fact that children have lost their powers of digestion!

And most important of all, don’t offer him any sort of refreshment, most particularly not the innocent-looking but deadly animal cracker! When Mrs. Noah, for it must have been she who invented that confection for the small voyage-wearied Ham, Shem, and Japheth, made the first animal crackers, she probably thought that she was doing a great thing and that children throughout the age would call her blessed. And so they have until now a fearful discovery has been made: animal crackers are absolutely indigestible! We shudder as we think of the menageries we ourselves have consumed! To what heights of perfection might our excellent health have risen, were it not for those wolves lurking in the form of sheep or elephants or overgrown curly-tailed dogs! To what size might our present too rotund forms have grown, were it not for those deadly processions marched hither and yon and then eaten in never varying order, head; tail, when present; feet; and then two bites on the body. Farewell, Animal Cracker, you are discovered at last! No more shall you with your treachery delight and entertain innocent little children, unless some fathers, defiant of the new laws of nature and the edicts of scientific mothers, procure you on the sly!

And so it goes. No! The duties of an old-maid aunt cannot be entered upon lightly. It would really be a charitable act for some one to study the subject and offer a course for those of us the numbers of whose nephews and nieces continue to increase. And we in the meantime can only hope that the pendulum of change will not delay too long in swinging back to the old-fashioned child, about whom, inside and out, we have a little knowledge if it is only empirical!

An Obscure Source of Education

Obviously a great deal of education, moral as well as intellectual, and even physical, is coming from the war, and it obviously comes in part from an immensely increased amount of reading on informing subjects, even in the newspapers. But the call for this reading contains a farther, and relatively obscure, source of education worth thinking of. We can no longer risk wasting our time, as it is to be feared most of us have done, by picking up to read the first thing that strikes our fancy. The greatly increased mass of material has forced upon us the habit of selecting what we read. The usefulness and importance of that habit hardly need dwelling upon to the constituency of this Review.

Heart-to-Heart Advertising

I am all things to all advertisers. I like to submit myself to the experiments of some alert young psychologist, in response to whose plan (scientifically conceived, artfully presented), I greatly desire to eat, to see, to hear, to know, to do, to possess, that which he brings to my attention. Being a person trained to jejune classification, I automatically pigeon-hole the “appeal,” and my mind therefore offers to advertisements a hospitable retreat under Ambition, or Culture, or Physical development, or the Senses, or Vanity.

The last quality and the first are not always distinguishable, the one from the other. When a page of insinuating text and startling illustration assures me that the reading of a specified set of books will enable me,—a person temperamentally shy and physically inconspicuous—to convince judges and jurors, and to combine into a glorious whole the abilities of St. Chrysostom, Abelard, Shylock, Daniel Webster, and a Confederate veteran, I am disposed to feel that though hitherto I have been unappreciated, it now rests with me (and the set of books) to alter, even to change, the opinion of my personal public. I glow, too, under the conviction that correspondence courses can transform me into a trained nurse, an O. Henry, a Thomas Nast. My vanity makes the conventional years of hospital service, or a “born” ability to tell a story, or to caricature, seem superfluous in an equipment for success. And I am sure I could raise wheat and apples in the north and oranges and pecans in the south, even though I should bring to my enterprise no capital, no experience, no commonsense.

But while I yield readily and sympathetically to the magazine advertisement, my heartiest response is given to the letter that altruistically offers me counsels of perfection. There is a certain lack of privacy about the magazine advertisement; but the letter advertisement is confidential, even sometimes secretive. True, my name is frequently misspelled, my sex is changed, and the ink and type are glaringly different in the heading and in the letter proper. But these are trifling vagaries: it is my own letter, and the writer knows me intimately. He says this plainly. And he proves it by offering me the book, or the beautifier, or the investment which I had not even known I wanted, but which I do want instantly, and with an intensity that falls short only of cutting from the lower corner of the page the slanting coupon that will procure me farther information.

It is this intimacy of attitude on the part of the writers of form-letters that gives me keenest pleasure. I like the way in which a kindly, tolerant young person—youth will always out—assures me that my manner of life and my personal predilections are as an open book to him. I like the first-aid flavor of his opening paragraph. I like most of all the jaunty soul-brother way in which he dallies with his point.

“The writer of this letter has been pondering a good deal”, begins one of these experts in the personal appeal, “on the sort of letter he would like to get from So-and-So.” And at the conclusion of his clever page, he inquires ingenuously (or artistically): “Is this the sort of letter you like to get from So-and-So?” Bless the boy! of course it is.

And I do enjoy the letter that is designed to make me leap from my seat with the first line: “Tomorrow may be too late!” or, “This idea was worth $100 to one person—it may prove even more valuable to you;” or, “Shakespeare died in 1616!”

Again, the subject may be approached obliquely: “You have read of course, the interesting story in the Sunday Morning Sunshine, entitled “Sparkles.” You’ll remember how Dorothy—” And about the middle of page two I find that the reason why the heroine was a heroine was because she had a piece of furniture, the duplicate of which I am granted an opportunity to purchase, if I act quickly, at greatly reduced rates.

But although the letter-writing section of psychological advertisers gives me keen pleasure, they also give me some anxiety. It seems to me that they waste a good deal of good effort. The reason for this failure to conserve, lies, I think, in the lack of an ingredient that would fuse all of this experimental psychology and engaging personality into a practical working whole. And by “working” I mean money getting: for of course advertisers have their reason for being, in the persuading of somebody to buy something, or to subscribe to something. The ingredient which I miss is businesslike accuracy. Of course I realize that these are merely form-letters, that the mailing list is compiled from any available source. But the advertisers wish each person who receives a letter to feel that it was written for him or her personally, and they take a great deal of trouble to perfect the atmosphere. It is not artistic, or professional, therefore, to destroy the illusion by the address or the opening sentence. It was a disgusted gentleman who received a letter which began thus:

“Dr. John Doe Professor of Latin University of Utopia

Dear Sir:

A friend of yours—she prefers that we should not use her name—tells us that you are the best dressed woman in your city. Our new line of evening frocks….”

And women often receive letters such as the following:

“Miss Margaret Roe, etc., etc.

Dear Madam:

As a man who knows a good pipe from a bad one, will you grant us an opportunity to show you….”

Undoubtedly these charming highly imaginative specialists in advertising give great pleasure. But when business houses month after month send advertising letters which set forth the glories of something glaringly impossible of enjoyment by the person to whom the letter is addressed, then that person is likely to reflect that squandered postage, and inefficient management, must be paid for in the price or quality of the thing advertised.

The literary value of a personal form-letter is not affected, however, by the question of practical usefulness. Nothing could lessen my pleasure in a recent letter that shows me how I may realize the “chummy comradeship of Emerson’s nature poems,” and the “dainty art of Shelley and Keats.” The writer also tells me that he knows what my principal problem is. And the opening sentence of the same letter seems to explain why I enjoy all advertisements:

“To that ‘marvellous interestingness of life’ which Arnold Bennett says literature reflects, is due the fundamental liking for good reading of some kind….”

The Curse of Fall Elections

We have received the usual number of exhortations to do our duty in preparing for the fall elections. Thank you. We will do the best we can, but on account of the war we are already late in getting into the country for the summer, and our doctor orders us away as soon as we can go.

Many of the people who exercise any influence for good are gone already, while most of those whose influence is evil—who live by politics are here and will stay here or within easy reach, to attend to business.

Moreover all those whose laziness, incapacity and crankiness prevent their having money enough to get away—the whole Bolshevik crowd of socialists, synadicalists and anarchists, remain here under the influence of those who live by politics.

If there ever was an invention of the devil, it is fall elections.

Elections should be held early in April, before so many good people go away, and after they have had half the year at home to do their best in.

Larrovitch

Our habitual readers may be surprised at our serving them a book notice. But the circumstances leading to this one are peculiar.

In its thirty-six years, the Authors Club has published but two books: The Liber Scriptorum, and Feodor Vladimir Larrovitch, An Appreciation of His Life and Works, which has recently appeared. The name of Larrovitch was mentioned in the last Casserole; we are now able to describe the permanent tribute to his personality which the Authors has made.

The volume consists of papers read at the Larrovitch centenary celebration (April 26th, 1917—postponed from April 1st) together with others since contributed. The contents page notes a sonnet by Clinton Scollard, Prolegomenon by Prof. Franklin H. Giddings, a personality sketch by Wm. George Jordan, translations and an article on “The Truth and False About Larrovitch” by Richardson Wright, translations of three Larrovitch poems by George S. Hellman, translations of Larrovitch letters by Thomas Walsh, a paper on his recollection of the great Russian by Dr. Titus Munson Coan, who, it will be recalled was one of the original “Friends of Russian Freedom,” bibliography and bibliographical notes by Arthur Colton, whose name is already well known to readers of the Unpopular Review; and a table of references in English, French, German, Spanish and Russian compiled by Dr. Gustave Simonson. There are twelve illustrations in the volume, showing Larrovitch manuscripts, portraits at various ages, portraits of Larrovitch’s parents, the room at Yalta in which the author died, and his grave. The book was designed by William Aspenwall Bradley of the University Press, and executed by Munder of Baltimore, making it a unique piece of typographical excellence.

That the Authors should have picked out this Russian from all the writers whirling in the vortex of literature, is explained in the preface and the dedication. The book is dedicated to the lasting sympathy between the American people and the Russian. And the preface states that the path to peace along which nations can walk to mutual understanding, is the path of the arts—the path of music and painting and literature. This is indeed true.

Our Index

The example of our “Father Parmenides,” is always good, and we shall imitate it in the particular set forth in this extract from The Atlantic for last December:

Following a convention, unquestioned and well-nigh universal, the Atlantic has for sixty years published semi-annually in December and June an index designed for the convenience of readers who bind their magazines. This index with title-page occupies six pages; and while of great service to a couple of thousand subscribers and to a few hundred libraries, it is to eighty-odd thousand readers [These figures make us feel very small.] merely a dead and cumbersome weight. This month, therefore, we are breaking sharply with tradition, … we are printing the index in its usual form, but in a small edition, and as a separate pamphlet, and hold ourselves ready to send it to any reader who applies for a copy within thirty days of the publication of this magazine.

This change will involve the saving of a paper-wastage….

All paper saved tends to lower the price, which has already reached a height obstructive to the diffusion of knowledge.

A New “OUIJA Board” Book

By PATIENCE WORTH

HOPE TRUEBLOOD

A Mid-Victorian Novel by a Pre-Victorian Writer

By the author of “The Sorry Tale” Edited by C. S. Yost

$1.50 net

In this new novel of mid-Victorian days with its pervading sense of dark mystery, “Patience Worth” abandons her archaic dialect, and writes in modern English.

“Whether in the body or in the spirit, the author of the present volume is singularly gifted with imagination, invention and power of expression. ‘Hope Trueblood’ is much superior to ‘The Sorry Tale,’ partly because it is written in good English and partly because it displays far greater ingenuity of imagination … a work approximating absolute genius.”—N. Y. Tribune.

“A novel that George Eliot might not have been ashamed to own up to.”—N. Y. Sun.

“From the very first there is established an atmosphere true to type and convincing. ‘Hope’ is one of the most radiant children we’ve met in a book in many a day. ‘Patience Worth’ has arrived.”—Chicago Daily News.

HENRY HOLT & COMPANY 19 WEST 44th STREET NEW YORK