HE little volume "Henry Cabot

THE

Lodge" (Houghton Mifflin) by Bishop William Lawrence is a model of what such an appreciative biographical sketch should be. It is just that: an unpretentious tribute by a lifelong friend, a personal evaluation of its subject as man, as scholar and historian, and as statesman. But Bishop Lawrence is not uncritical: nor is he ever fulsome. He has nowhere overdone it, and he has managed to present in brief outline an extraordinarily comprehensive study, with adequate background, so that the book has solid value as a bit of contemporary history. Yet the chief thing that emerges is a strikingly clear, vivid portrait of the man: a portrait that gives the reader a feeling that this is a remarkable likeness. Senator Lodge's place in the history of the past fifty years is, of course, a matter for the critical appraisal of the future historian; pending that, one may naturally expect a complete, critical biography. But this brilliant personal sketch will not be superseded: it is entitled to a place of its own, both as a footnote to history and as a piece of literature.

In view of the flaring commercialism of our times, the materialism that threatens to smother the arts, the political corruption and the economic class rule that brings rigid objections to child labor amendments and minimum wage laws, it is somewhat surprising to be told that America is a "nation of idealists". It is particularly surprising when this announcement comes from one who has written the "History of the Great American

Fortunes" and the "History of Tammany Hall". Yet that Americans are fundamentally humane, benevolent and self sacrificing is the contention of Gustavus Myers in "The History of American Idealism" (Boni, Liveright). The author's method is a simple one: he painstakingly brings to bear numerous examples of American altruism, and quite as painstakingly omits the no less numerous examples of that which could hardly be mistaken for altruism. Quite in keeping with the tone of the book is the statement of Calvin Coolidge, quoted on the jacket: "The chief ideal of the American people is idealism." Mr. Myers himself is fully as original and perspicacious: he demonstrates that idealism is an ideal with us, but not that it is something attained.

In "Mere Mortals" (Doran), the inevitable sequel to "Post Mortem" of startling memory, Dr. C. MacLaurin of Sydney has done his bit in the contemporary psychophysical sweepstakes, and with a degree of fascination. His not to repeat the popular interpretation of great men that slowly broadens down from grandmother to grandmother. His to take a keen professional look at the hero of yesteryear and tell us what ailed him that he has grown so great. If it appears that the character of King Henry the Saint was largely the result of too many spankings in his infancy, that Dr. Johnson was frightened all his life at Queen Anne, that Luther's religious views grew from an earache-well, that is what appears. The Tudors, Ivan the Terrible, Frederick the Great,

Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Spinoza are only a few of the subjects of Dr. MacLaurin's scrutiny. The difficulty of completely explaining such persons as these on purely medical grounds is similar to that involved in squaring the circle or inventing perpetual motion. At least our author has steered fairly clear of the temptation to belittle end products because of lowly origins — a weakness that mars the work of some of the diagnosticians in his field. The intention stated in "Post Mortem" "to throw such light upon them [great persons] as is possible as regards their physical condition; and to consider how far their actions were influenced by their health", has been fulfilled, if we take into account the unavoidable limitations of the method. There can be no irrefragable proofs in the circumstances. Some of the links, as it were, are missing. Dr. MacLaurin himself reminds us that there can be no real diagnosis without seeing the patient. He has not seen the patients, but he has seen their pictures, and is able to exclaim over a painting of Queen Elizabeth, "That is not the portrait of a loose woman!" Here is good reading.

"He knows not France who knows not the Pyrenees." The same might also be said of Spain, which claims a generous portion of this land of adventure that has tempted brigands and gipsies and wandering soldiers of fortune since the days of Roland. In more recent times, it has been the retreat of Charlemagne, Hannibal, and summer voyagers not content with the Strand and the Rue de la Paix. One of these was Paul Wilstach, who came back with a book half written and has subsequently put on the finishing touches. "Along the Pyrenees" (Bobbs-Merrill) is nothing if not thorough. It abounds with facts,

photographs, maps, routes, and suggestions for travel; yet it possesses, in full measure, what so many so called travel books possess not at all charm. To read "Along the Pyrenees" is to promise oneself a glimpse of this region during the next trip abroad. Carcassonne, Perpignan, Mont Perdu, Pau!

Cauterets, Ax-les-Thermes, Lourdes,
Roncevaux!

There is poetry in the sound of the names, says the author; they march, they sing, they trip out with rhythm! And so does the reader sing as he marches along through Mr. Wilstach's melodious pages. Now and then, even the most sedate will find himself tripping rhythmically to the accompaniment of lutes and the songs of forgotten troubadours, and at no time will the journey be a wearisome one.

Are prejudice and legal disability all that prevent women from equaling the achievements of men, asks Dr. Paul Bousfield in "Sex and Civilization" (Dutton). In answer he contends not only that women's physical disabilities are exaggerated, but that their temperamental disabilities, though at present genuine, are entirely artificial, the product of environmental influences from earliest childhood. This he demonstrates as follows: Psychic energy is of one kind in male and female. A normal human being, moreover, applies this energy to various sexual aims in the same order in which they have occurred in biological evolution: first to autosexuality, then to homosexuality, and finally to heterosexuality; and whatever energy is not absorbed by erotic activities is set free for application to other purposes (sublimation). The difference, then, between male and female is only this: The male is allowed to complete the development,

so that such erotic energy as he employs is concentrated on the normal act of sex, is therefore small in quantity, and leaves a great deal of psychic energy to be transformed for other purposes; on the other hand, the training of the female prevents her from completing the development and causes her to retain a large proportion of the infantile forms of sexuality and of activities more properly subordinate to the normal act of sex, all of which absorb most of her energy and leave little for other purposes. "Assuming that every individual has a certain amount of energy or capacity for work, the efficiency of the woman, who is in reality of equal capacity with the man, is considerably reduced by what we may term 'the continual leakage of energy'." Woman will therefore be set free, not by enactment, but by an education which recognizes the equality of the sexes.

There is one book this season which will be the choice possession of all college professors. Its name is "Some Aspects of Modern Poetry" (Stokes). Its author is Alfred Noyes. One opens the cover expecting to see Sandburg, Masters, Robinson, and Marianne Moore, but one finds instead a large group of eminent Victorians all of whom are defended with exquisite kindness against the chaotic minds of today who sneer at Tennyson, who dismiss Alice Meynell as a Catholic saint, who often say that Henley and Dobson are not worth discussing. For Alice Meynell Mr. Noyes has made a cap of pearls. For Tennyson he has shaped a golden crown set with emeralds and garnets. For Henley For Henley and Dobson, six and eight pages each. Shakespeare is there, and following him is Longfellow with trembling beard. These essays are finely

written with the scalding passion and irony of a mind which knows and loves English literature and cannot make room for the present, cannot adjust its imagination to anything but the past and its vivid security.

W. L. George again undertakes to display his extraordinary knowledge and understanding of that most incomprehensible creature, woman, in "The Story of Woman" (Harper). Mr. George not only sets forth his views on the trend of modern woman, but he delves into her history of forty thousand years ago. He is very brave to tackle such a subject in two hundred and fifty seven pages. Beginning with an account of the Neolithic Age, he discusses the days of the patriarchs, life during the height of Roman and Grecian culture, the influence of Christianity, the Renaissance, the seventeenth century, the Victorian era, early rebels, and concludes with a promise for the future. The book gives one a smattering of information which reference proves is not always accurate. To mention only two failings: Mr. George wishes to tell not a story, but the story of woman, yet he discusses only one racial group of women from each period. Also, in his consideration of the position of woman he fails to attach importance to the economic condition of each particular period, which naturally had direct bearing upon her status. "The Story of Woman" is obviously written to sell. It provides intellectual pap for American consumption.

The age of liberalism, believed here, remains still in the grey offing. On a tiny island off the coast of Spain exiled Miguel de Unamuno wrote mildly Machiavellian essays, while Alfonso breathed more easily. Exile can re

sult from many causes, but one wonders at the reasons which prompted the exile of Unamuno. In his "Essays and Soliloquies" (Knopf) one can remark only a strange piety, some not too reddish ideas, and a Victorian veneer of style. The exiled gentleman writes reasonably pleasantly and with a style, if clarity can be called style. But his ideas are such as an aging, slipping Shaw might employ were he making a bid for readers become cold and forgetful. Mildness is here, and quietude and gentleness. There is talk of religious matters and some politics, but if there is harm it is not too apparent. It may be, however, that dark kings with handsome mustaches and unhandsome dictators have their own or at any rate family ideas about the fundamentals of exile.

The traveler who must follow schedule and feels impelled to rush from museum to picture gallery and from one ruin to another, in the most avid of sightseeing moods, will welcome Clara E. Laughlin's "So You're "So You're Going to Italy!" (Houghton Mifflin). Others will find the book disappointing. Miss Laughlin unnecessarily admits in one place that she has "just reread a great many books on Rome", and the number and length of the quotations she uses leaves little room for original work. She has accumulated facts and facts and still more facts, tied them together with a string of trivial remarks, and enveloped the whole in a flimsy wrapping of facetiousness precisely what one would expect from the title. Mechanically, the book leaves little to be desired. It is of convenient size, the type is excellent, and the illustrations far and away better than those found in most travel books. Miss Laughlin considers, in

the four sections of the book, Naples, Rome, Florence, and Venice, and the immediate vicinity of each centre. The hill towns, Sicily, and the Riviera are left for another volume.

It is impossible to read Thomas Moult's selection of "The Best Poems of 1924" (Harcourt, Brace) without getting the feel of the present day poetic trend: its pendulum swing from orthodoxy to radical forms and back again. This is a catholic little book, covering a wide range of expression, yet never swerving from the highest criteria of taste in the various literary camps. The compiler is singularly free from intolerances, either of the very old or the very new. He demands of the poets who are represented here honest artistic credibility and the use of a universal and dignified medium. Freshness of sound, sharpness of imagery, and a poignancy in emotional depth are frequent attributes of the work collected in this volume. From what must have been a fairly formidable mass of verse in American and English periodicals last year, the editor has chosen a satisfying and sensitive group. The word "best" must, of course, always have its private qualifications, but we have no hesitancy in saying that the poems in this little collection are all extraordinarily good. Examples from the English magazines seem rather more capable, more sure in their grasp of difficult and highly cadenced forms. Some of the American pieces are conventional in form: a sonnet by David Morton, for instance, strikes us as being as fine a thing of its sort as we have seen lately. Edwin Arlington Robinson's "Not Always" and the free verse sketches by Carl Sandburg, though characteristic, seem to fall short of the best work of these two really great artists. One wonders if