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

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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

overlooked in the past.

The first he defines as the taking of interest on unproductive loans such as the enormous borrowings at high rates when a nation goes to war. The accumulation of interest for a purely destructive purpose, he believes, is bound to result disastrously. Economic imaginaries are sums which appear on paper for taxation but which have no actual existence, when they appear twice or a score of times. The money paid for a bottle of champagne in a fashionable restaurant appears when the manager pays a tax on his gross income; it appears again in his rental, because he must pay an exorbitant rent for the privilege of charging big prices to his customers; and it appears a third time in his local taxes. Anybody who finds economics difficult to take can swallow Mr. Belloc's instructions in a most agreeable homeopathic dose.

At last we have a résumé of the modern movement in art from which the average reader can grasp the connecting link between the art of the eighteenth century and that which seems to him to be a sudden and uncalled for revolution in painting. Walter Pach in his "Masters of Modern Art" (Huebsch) has taken two epoch making events in history, the French Revolution and the Great War, which mark to him the beginning and ending of what we call the modern period in art. Instead of commencing with Courbet or Delacroix, as most contemporary writers on the subject are doing, he begins with an eighteenth century artist, Louis David, a Classicist painter of pre-Revolutionary France, and the master of Ingres. Pach traces the numerous schools and "isms" down to our present day with a clarity and simplicity which ought to appeal to a public which has heretofore not

been familiar with the background of this movement. The book is illustrated with numerous carefully chosen reproductions of paintings and sculpture, many of which have been taken from the famous collection of the late John Quinn. The frontispiece of the book is an original etching by Walter Pach, whose reputation as an artist equals his importance as one of our best critics.

In "America's Interest in World Peace" (Funk, Wagnalls) Professor Irving Fisher is out to "sell" the League of Nations, and the book in fact makes a sophisticated reader as uncomfortable as would the line of talk of an insistent salesman making his points. It resembles a campaign speech in its condensation, its resulting superficiality and unfairness. Professor Fisher does not answer the best case against the League; his arguments are meant for politicians and those whom the politicians have misled. Now it is true that mere hatred of Wilson and ordinary politics and special interests played their parts; but none of these will account for the opposition of a man like Senator Borah, or that of thousands of others, based on an informed and reasoned conviction. It is the reasoning of Senator Borah that Professor Fisher should answer and does not.

"Our Presidents", by James Morgan (Macmillan), contains in tabloid form biographies of the nation's chief executives from Washington to Coolidge. Mr. Morgan has so skilfully concentrated the historical careers of his subjects that in each chapter a complete, well balanced view is disclosed with nothing of apparent importance lost by its brevity. The work should prove a useful one.