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sive, and withal warmblooded treatise on modern art that the eyes and minds of even the most wilfully ignorant and prejudiced would be opened by it. "I have chosen", he says, "the primer method-and title-because it seemed to me that what we need most, to widen appreciation of contemporary creative art, is to escape for a while from High Learning and get back to a child's directness of approach." Yes, a child's directness of approach, but a very mature individual's patience and grasp of the problem - the huge problem - set before him. Mr. Cheney devotes most of his time and attention to the pure arts of painting and sculpture, from their branching out from Impressionism to the present; but adequately (for a primer) includes architecture and the theatre, showing their tremendous importance in the creative current. He explains and comments upon Cubism, Futurism, Vorticism, and all the inevitable schools, fads, and sensations tagging on the main movement, the art of mobile color (which he seems to think vitally important), and Expressionism, illustrating his points with a remarkably comprehensive collection of contemporary works, from the slightest sketch to the most massive marble, the automobile to the skyscraper. Even to the enlightened and initiated this Primer is worthwhile, for its clarifying of fundamental artistic issues and its outward beauty of printing and paper.

In spite of its triteness, one must repeat the familiar comparison between dogs and humans upon reading "Dogs and Men" (Scribner) by Mary Ansell, for the dog biographies she gives are well calculated to show the psychic superiority of the best of dogs over the general run of two legged creatures. Yet hers are always consistently doggy dogs, never improperly endowed with a hu

man psyche. Some are dogs of note, such as Luath the Newfoundland who played the part of Nana in "Peter Pan". And there was Porthos, the St. Bernard who invaded the pulpit of a Scotch Presbyterian church to the horror of the congregation. "Dogs in Scotch churches", says the author, "seem liable to lose all control of themselves. A friend saw ... whilst she was waiting for the Holy Communion, a terrier, an Aberdeen, sit up on his haunches and beg before the Elements.” Altogether, a delectable collection of amusing and illuminative dog stories. The physical nature of the dog is very fully considered in "Dr. Little's Dog Book" (McBride) by George Watson Little, D. V. M., who writes both as a qualified scientist and as a veterinary of the widest experience. It is a readable as well as an authoritative manual on the care, training, and treatment of dogs both in sickness and in health: liberally illustrated and well indexed.

Books on religious matters were formerly in the majority on second hand bookstands. Not so long ago, writings on the Great War came into first place. And now that mournful leadership is being contested by literature on Russia. "The Reforging of Russia" (Dutton) deserves a better fate than many of its companions. Edwin Ware Hullinger, who wrote it, was the United Press correspondent in Moscow until he was ejected. He does not pretend to write an unbiased tale; but his prejudices are manifest, candid, and not at all rancorous. His ideal of democracy is the American one. The turn of event which wrought hardship on his friends of the upper classes is obnoxious to him. He dislikes the Tcheka which he blames for his expulsion. And with all this in mind, he writes a good newspaper man's story of the period of the new economic

policy and a plausible interpretation of its meaning. Too bad that Hullinger could not have stayed to tell us of the fall of the Nep.

To talk of little matters of everyday life in a way that is humorous, practical, and pathetic seems to be the aim of Ian Hay in "The Shallow End" (Houghton Mifflin). At the same time he gives us, or tries to, an international viewpoint on a few selected subjects. The first four sections, named for the seasons, deal with London. The atmosphere of Piccadilly Circus, Haymarket, and the moods of the crowds in the parks, cinemas, and night clubs are cleverly depicted. In fact, we wonder just why Mr. Hay considered it necessary to wander from these interesting little studies to New York and the national game there called "Hunt the Hooch". Was it to give English readers a taste of life abroad or to make New Yorkers feel at home? To recent visitors to London "The Shallow End" cannot fail to be of interest; and even those who have never been to London may find a congenial topic in the theatre, boxing, cricket, boating, animals, or human nature therein.

There may be some foundation for a feeling that Howells has been subjected to the process which H. G. Wells (in his incomparable "Boon") has labeled, in ribald fashion, as "greatening". But his solidly enduring qualities no doubt are real enough to survive even injudicious praise. No American man of letters of our day, save Mark Twain, has been so fully discussed by the critics and expositors: the incomplete bibliography of books and articles about him appended to "William Dean Howells" (Harvard) by Oscar W. Firkins covers nearly two pages. Mr.

Firkins's study, however, differs from most of its predecessors in that it is more an interpretation, an illuminating commentary, than a critical estimate. It is, of course, critical and analytic, but its aim is more to portray the man and his work than to appraise him. The conclusion reached by Mr. Firkins is that justice has not yet been done to Howells as critic or as poet, and that "due recognition" has not yet been given "to three great elements in his fiction-its vitality, the surpassing distinctness and variety of its characterization, and its firm grasp of some of the rarer and more elusive aspects of everyday reality". The book is handsomely printed and well indexed.

"A great architecture is something to be seen and felt and lived in. By this criterion most of our pretentious buildings are rather pathetic", writes Lewis Mumford in his "Sticks and Stones: A Study of American Architecture and Civilization" (Boni, Liveright). This reviewer appreciates and agrees with Mr. Mumford's statement. You have but to observe the monotony of skyscrapers and the ugly similarity of the "robot" made apartment houses of this world we live in to realize its truth. Until the coming of the machine age, as the author illustrates, the steadily developing American architecture had many beautiful achievements to its credit, particularly in the New England villages. But architecture without personality is not art, and the machine age does not encourage individuality.

Apparently there is a perennially eager audience for the conventional travel book that appears ever so often from the pen of some painstaking traveler. The formula is a simple one, and consists of a cheery, narrative style

loaded with facts, the ability to brighten a page now and then with anecdote and that is all. It does not matter whether the facts are old or new, significant or trivial. The average reader of the travel book of this sort is hungry for information, either to appease his own unfulfilled desire to roam, or to read at the next meeting of the local foreign missionary society. At least, that is the reader for whom Dorothy Dix was writing when she penned the story of "My Trip Around the World" (Penn). It is the same reader she addresses in her advice to the lovelorn, as syndicated over this broad land. There is nothing in this book that cannot safely be read at any club meeting, and there is even a sprinkling of her well known homely wit that should start a titillation of amusement through the hearers. But, also, there doesn't seem to be very much in the book that has not been done before, and done a great deal better by writers who do not belong to the Aunt Samantha school of literature.

Dr. Maximilian J. Rudwin has compiled a book of 286 long pages entitled "A Historical and Bibliographical Survey of the German Religious Drama" (University of Pittsburg). His work

is dedicated to Wilhelm Creizenach, the old master in this field, and was written because of the incompleteness of similar monographs that essayed the task. It is characterized by intelligent diligence and is indispensable to the student who would like to be guided through this immense mass of material in which convention and love of horseplay applied to a sacred theme played a greater rôle than spiritual originality or æsthetic ability. The work, however, is for reference only.

There are not many who appreciate a sacre du printemps when it is first per

formed; and honor is due Carl Van Vechten for being one of them. Nevertheless, one cannot call him a liberal or even a discriminating critic. If his mind is opened to sacres it is shut to other things; in fact, his open mindedness to contemporary music is only one of a number of eccentric attitudes that are quite irrational even when they can be justified subsequently as many cannot. Mr. Van Vechten says some very sensible things in "Red" (Knopf); one is grateful to him for showing up Krehbiel (he demonstrates "how dull pedantry may exercise an ancillary function to blind obstinacy of opinion" by quoting Krehbiel's attack upon Mahler, outrageous in tone, and caused by Mahler's reducing the strings and doubling the flutes in a Mozart symphony to approximate the proportions in which they were used in Mozart's orchestra); but one must add that he says many things which are quite silly, and rather perverse in their silliness.

Once again E. V. Lucas, the far traveled, sympathetic, and sane, entertains us. In "A Wanderer Among Pictures" (Doran) he has produced a perfect book for those who enjoy paintings in a friendly, untechnical, literary way, and want a discriminating and informal guide to the picture galleries of Europe. He takes the reader enthusiastically through the chief collections of London, Paris, Madrid, Milan, Florence, Rome, Venice, Vienna, Munich, Dresden, Berlin, Amsterdam, The Hague, and Brussels, giving short histories of the various galleries and describing in a condensed, vivid, interesting way those pictures which he thinks particularly fine as well as the acknowledged masterpieces. His charming style, his intelligent and often original choices and criticisms, together with the seventy two excellent reproductions and the

high quality of printing, make the book valuable and attractive.

The courtezan today must toy with riches rather than royalty. A crown is powerless, but a million crowns do many things. So there is a departed romance (if such be the word) in the last of the cult which dug for diadems instead of gold. "Lola Montez, an Adventuress of the Forties" (Brentano) by Edmund B. d'Auvergne is the tale of one who was, perhaps, the relic of a time gone by when her irresistible charms lured monarchs. Because she was the last, this ordinarily written book has an interest which the manner of preparation would not command were the subject less exciting.

In its spaciousness, its easygoing hospitality, its thrift and prevailing common sense, life in "The Manors and Historic Homes of the Hudson Valley" (Lippincott) assumes an almost idyllic aspect to dwellers on crowded Manhattan Island today. Because the Dutchmen were within comparatively close touch of the mother country, their existence, even in its primitive beginnings here, took on an orderly, businesslike appearance. Their manor houses

which ranged from the Dutch rambling family type, distinguished for its picturesqueness rather than its beauty, to the classic severity of the later Colonial period have a richness and variety unequaled in any other section of the country at that time. The author of the volume describing them, Harold Donaldson Eberlein, is both historian and architect. His appreciation of the various trends in exterior and interior decoration gives the book a significance to antiquarians and artists alike. And its effectiveness is increased by many excellently reproduced photographs. Since the political and economic status

of a people is reflected in its home life, such a comprehensive study as this one is an important contribution to historical literature; Mr. Eberlein has spared no pains to make the record accurate and the format beautiful.

Times do change and, with the times, morality. And when morality which, it must be said, is none too definite an expression seems to be taking a metamorphosic spurt, somebody is bound to be concerned. Last year it was "The Nation", among others. The many persons who wrote of the new mores for that weekly are now between covers as "Our Changing Morality, a Symposium" (A. and C. Boni), edited by Freda Kirchwey. Each writer has his own point of view, so a short paragraph about the book can but say that here are answers of and explanations for the great contemporary todo.

The Gentleman with a Duster must be happy, for the Sonntagskinder whom he weighs and finds not wanting in "The Windows of Westminster" (Putnam) are once more in power. Ramsay MacDonald, hater of humanity, and Sidney Webb, theoretical pundit, who fill the people's minds with unpleasant thoughts, are gone. The author would here describe for us the great Conservatives. He would show us their moral and spiritual individualism as they fight the rebellious and mechanistic forces of Labor. To his mind Conservatism represents imperial pride, loyalty, humanity, and a God fulfilling Himself in many ways. Stanley Baldwin is a kind of Gregory the Great, longing for monastic seclusion, but performing his duty with devotion to a high cause. Sir Robert Horne believes in helping the individual. The Duke of Northumberland

sees clearly the inferiority of Ireland, the inferiority of Russia, the inferiority of Asia, and contemplates wordily the benevolent British imperialism that would save these wretched peoples from themselves. Conservatism has done all in this "Golden Legend" of Tory saints. To which one might reply tritely but feelingly, "Interesting, if true."

More and more are publishers coming to realize the immense value of the illustration to the so called travel book. If art and literature go hand in hand, it seems to be nowhere more apparent than in this ever increasing library of volumes that take the fireside reader from Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand, by way of the Canadian Rockies, the Marquesas, and Galápagos. Without overtaxing this vicarious traveler's imagination, Ethel Hueston writes of our own state of Maine in "Coasting Down East" (Dodd, Mead), while Edward C. Caswell's deft pencil decorates her pages with waterfronts, country churches, sea gulls, sailing vessels, and native types. This is no sea voyage, however, but "coasting, you understand, by motor, on the best state roads". Mrs. Hueston is an adept story teller and has certainly put her summer vacations to good use.

We have in Lawrence Gilman about the only musical critic who combines genuine erudition with wisdom and intelligence; but in England such a combination of qualities is more common; in Ernest Newman it occurs to an unusual degree. His "Wagner as Man and Artist" (Knopf), which has been brought out for the first time in this country, begins with a topical discussion of Wagner's life and character; Mr. Newman examines and evaluates

a great deal of evidence on the numerous points of controversy. Far more interesting and less fatiguing is his discussion of Wagner's development as an artist, both in theory and in practice (the two did not always agree), for here Mr. Newman reveals again his extraordinary ability to expound the aims and reveal the achievements of composers with whom he is in artistic sympathy.

William Le Queux unfortunately is much concerned about the impression he has made on important people. What he has done in "Things I Know About Kings, Celebrities and Crooks" (Stokes) is to make a matter of record the number of more or less illustrious men and women who have found, or who have said they found, great delight in meeting Le Queux. Perhaps England is curious about these things, for Le Queux must be better known there than here else, why the book? Strange characters he has met, and he had a splendid chance to tell about them, but Le Queux is so important to Le Queux that he muffed.

Hilaire Belloc in "Economics for Helen" (Putnam) enters the outline school and does a very creditable job. His purpose is to make the accepted theory of what Carlyle called the dismal science, by copious illustration, intelligible to a sixteen year old girl. It must have been a genial task, for Mr. Belloc puts into it not only a deal of lucidity but a great amount of enthusiasm. He first explains such terms as "exchange", "wealth”, and "capital", gives then the stock criticisms of capitalistic and socialistic states, and finally embarks on his own as theorist with exposition of "usury" and "economic imaginaries", which he believes to have been unfortunately