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The political novel of the future now seldom assumes the cheerfulness of "Looking Backward"; and Mr. Richard Henry Hereford's "The Demagog," published most appropriately with a Spelling Reform title, opens an unpleasant prospect of what may happen when the owner of some millions and some newspapers desires to be president. The author has worked out the scheme very perfectly; the purchase of legislators, judges, private persons, corporations; the artful touches moulding the moulders of public opinion; the enormous bribes; and lastly the betrothal by which the man with the Spelling Reform designation attempts to obtain the votes of the well-born. He is defeated in convention by the district attorney, an Irish incarnation of oratory and all the virtues, but defeated by the narrowest of margins, and by an accident which a Puritan would have called the act of God. The story is well written and should take its place among those forces which tend to heighten the standard of political honesty. Henry Holt & Co.

Mrs. Roger A. Pryor's "My Day: Reminiscences of a Long Life," had it been published twenty-five years ago, would have been called in the phrase of that time a thoroughly "reconstructed" book, for without concealing the bitterness of her manifold sufferings as a dweller in a land harassed by war, and as the courageous defender of such a home as the struggle had left her, Mrs. Pryor finds words of praise for her former foes, words hardly less warm than those in which she clothes her memories of those who fought side by side with her husband. Unconsciously, as she writes, she portrays the ideal

Southern woman, as passionately fond of justice as a man, exquisitely tender, but sensitively proud and a queen of marriage. Among her stories is one recording one of Grant's courteous speeches, as perfect as "could have come from any powdered and velvet coated French marquis of an earlier century," and for that if for nothing else all soldiers and soldiers' kinswomen should hear her. The volume is illustrated with some rare portraits, including one of Walker, and one of Lee early in the war. The Macmillan Company.

If the ten stories of queens in Mr. James Branch Cabell's "Chivalry" sometimes seem as overladen with superfluous forms as a Japanese ceremonial greeting; if the savagery of the men sometimes suggests the violent ward in an insane asylum rather than the castle keeps and kings' palaces of the middle ages, yet must it be said that the author has striven faithfully to be accurate in his art, and to fail in no particular of reproducing the tongue of those chroniclers from whom he takes his stories. He has added much, and between the lines of history he has inserted whole stanzas and paragraphs and conversations, but nowhere has he been careless. One thing is certain! Somehow, somewhere, the author has found the lost secret of Sir Walter, and can persuade a reader trivial of thought, and conscious of lacking every attribute of majesty to fall into step with the march of his pageant, and the pleasure of that exercise is received from very few writers of modern fiction. Mr. Cabell is fortunate in having such an ally as Mr. Howard Pyle, whose twelve exquisite colored pictures deserve a better fate than to be shut up in any book. A cover of quaint design, wrought in rose and ivory, traversed by a winding band of leaf green, encloses stories and pictures and makes a volume which might have pleased any one

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Mr. Madison Cawein's "The Giant and the Star" is dedicated "To my Little Son Preston" and the verses which follow indicate that they were made for the little son and obtained the honor of his approval, even, it may be added, as they would be approved by all boys whose musical ear is sufficiently good to give them real enjoyment of verse. The title poem tells of the giant who enviously blew out the star to his later undoing, and it is followed by "Toyland" and "Candyland," narratives of strange adventure; "Little Girlie Good Enough," so good that she is far too good and nothing but a muff in the boy's opinion; poems for Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, Christmas, all the child's festivals; "Problems." some of the questions which present themselves to the boy and are presented by him to the nearest victim; poems containing the child's explanations of some of the great riddles of existence, and a very few nonsense verses, and at the very end two or three serious poems by which the child's reading may be linked to the ballads which are the bridge made to take him into the land of great poetry. The volume will probably be a holiday favorite not this year only but for many years. Small, Maynard & Co.

It is seldom that a story and its sequel are so nearly similar in literary quality as "Anne of Green Gables" and "Anne of Avonlea," published this autumn; evidently Miss L. M. Montgomery is to be congratulated on having preserved her original conception unaltered during the two years which have elapsed since the publication of the first volume. In the present book Anne's mind is occupied not only with her pupils, whose compositions are magnificently original, but with a Village Improvement Society, which after

the manner of a half organized organization makes quite as much trouble as it mends. Also, one of a pair of twins of whom she and her aunt assume charge misbehaves in a score of embarrassing ways and excuses himself with immense ingenuity, but Anne is almost invariably admirable, although occasionally her celebrated red-headed temper betrays her. "Anne of Avonlea" is an exceedingly pretty story of young girlhood, and as it leaves the heroine four years before her marriage, Miss Montgomery has no excuse for not writing four more, and making a pretty "set." Therefore the small girls must not neglect "Anne of Avonlea" lest they should not quite understand those four. The grown-ups need no admonition. L. C. Page & Co.

The self-made hero is out of favor with the novelists and they gently tell him that he has mistaken his vocation and should seek a schoolmaster, or they assure him that his work is so bad that he should destroy it immediately, and then, being masters of his fate, they compel him to take their advice, and proceed to sing the glories of the heroine's marriage to the other man, a creation of the universities, or of long descent, or of money, or of something else obnoxious in the eyes of elder writers. In Jack London's "Martin Eden," one beholds the latest victim of the new style. He is a handsome, preternaturally strong sailor, untaught except by miscellaneous, unguided reading, when he meets the beautiful daughter of a millionaire banker, and for the love of her, learns to correct his speech, wash his hands, press a crease in his trousers, sound his final consonants, and practise other arts and graces while striving to become a great and famous author. He does not succeed as a writer until he has won her, and has been cast off because his income is still too small to

support her, and when she would re- mottoes in illuminated text,-Give

turn to him, and the world would lavish smiles upon him, he finds that he has worn out soul, mind, and body in the struggle, and he drowns himself, scorning her, his success, and the world. The book is a work of art, and by far the best of Mr. London's achievements, but alas for the selfmade hero! The Macmillan Company.

A bewildering variety of Christmas cards and calendars comes this year, as in former years, from E. P. Dutton & Co.

They are exquisite specimens of the lithographer's art,-the work of E. Nister of Nuremberg. They are of all sizes and are sold at all prices, but as much pains seem to have been bestowed upon those which are offered for a few cents as upon those of higher cost. Among the Christmas cards and booklets there are this year some beautifully illuminated Christmas postcards.

Among the calendars some of the most striking are the John Peel Calendar, decorated with quaint old English designs illustrating the old hunting song which gives its name to the calendar; Golden Childhood, with twelve colored designs showing small children, by Ida Waugh; In Picturesque Brittany, the leaves of which are decorated with designs illustrating life in Brittany; A Year with Keats, a twelveleaved calendar, with illuminated lettering and colored borders and selections for each month from Keats; and Friendly Thoughts, decorated with flowers and birds, and each page containing a quotation on friendship. Then there are smaller turn-over calendars. conveying sentiments upon Cheerfulness, Happiness and Olden Times or giving Friendship's Greeting; exquisite booklet calendars daintily lettered and illustrated, such as From Friend to Friend, Blessed be the Lord, Kindness and A Dainty Diary; and beautiful wall cards, with inspiring and devotional

Thanks Unto the Lord, Like as the Heart Desireth, The Lord is my Shepherd, God With Us, and many others.

The Rev. Washington Gladden's "Recollections" covers a long and interesting period of national and personal history. As he is the grandson of a revolutionary soldier, the entire history of the United States is included in the scope of his family traditions or personal memories, but he allots only a few pages to the former, and adheres strictly to the promise of his title. He was born in Pennsylvania, but chiefly educated in New England; the printing office, the Academy and Williams College completing the structure of which the foundation was laid in the district school. He was called to a Brooklyn church, and ordained at the age of twenty-four, in the year of Lincoln's election, and, in the intervening half century now rounding to completion, he has occupied many important editorial and pastoral positions and has published more than thirty books. He has lived that half century with eyes wide open and ears alert. So he tells what he remembers of the war; the invasion of Pennsylvania; the Vicksburg Fourth of July; the emancipation proclamation; his visit to the Army of the Potomac and his camp hospital work; the end of the war; the horror of Lincoln's assassination; the foolishness of reconstruction; the North Adams experiment with Chinese labor, the Tweed ring, the Greeley campaign and Samuel Bowles; the Swing trial; the Hayes election and administration; the industrial revolution; service at Harvard as preacher and in Columbus as member of the city government; dealings with varying problems, religious, municipal, state, national, social and financial; and he adds a chapter of summary entitled Looking Backward and Forward. The book shows

the life of a real man: a life to make a boy study that he may become a good citizen. Houghton Mifflin & Co.

After more than one patient and conscientious endeavor, Mr. Roy Rolfe Gilson in "The Wistful Years" has made himself a place in that not very strictly defined school which includes Ik Marvel, Mr. Kenneth Grahame, Mr. J. M. Barrie and those other benefactors of the story reader who exercise the double charm of picturing both their personages and themselves while they recount emotions and incidents, paint mental and spiritual development, and make a far deeper impression than can be wrought by broad melodrama or intense sentimentalism. The book tells the story of David from his boyhood, when in summer he was generally seen in the company of a wayward and gentle little river and meditated much on matters of which he never dared to speak until he mentioned them to Margaret, the girl who had once surprised him in an outburst of boyish histrionics and had laughed consumedly. After the happy moment of expression, his unloosed tongue is sufficiently active, as active perhaps as Margaret's, and the talk of the two is wonderfully pretty, surpassing even that one chapter in "April Hopes" in which Mr. Howells daringly ventured to be sentimental without afterwards ridiculing himself. Their letters are even better than their talk, and had they appeared while the "Letter" epidemic was devastating the English-speaking world would have eclipsed all but the leader of the flock, Mrs. Clifford's book, and perhaps two others. The narrative passage with which the story closes is as exceptionally good in its special way as the letters and the conversation, and the most careful search through this season's novels will reveal no prettier wedding scene than its last few pages. If Mr. Gilson can continue at the height

to which he has brought himself in this book he will soon find himself beyond all rivalry. Baker & Taylor Company.

The exterior of Mr. Philip S. Marden's "Travels in Spain" presents a design almost too exquisitely tooled for its simple blackcloth ground, and showing the always fascinating combination of vermillion, turquoise, and olive, in the colors blended with its gold, but the book hardly needs so resplendent an introduction. Mr. Marden travels only in countries which please him, and although he certainly does not approve everything which he beholds in Spain, his pages afford thoroughly agreeable reading. His journey took him through Ronda, Granada, Seville, Cordova, Toledo, Madrid, Segovia, Avila, Salamanca, Burgos, Saragossa, Tarragona, Barcelona and Monserrat, and partly by grace of intelligent questions, and partly by good luck he was favored with sight of many things not shown to all tourists. In Toledo, for instance, he penetrated to the extraordinary region of the cathedral described in the recent novel of Ibanez and obtained tickets permitting him to inspect the maze of chapels, chapter houses, treasuries, and sacristies, in its lower region. Beyond the record of his experiences, Mr. Marden has made some references to racial and social traits, but has been so modest in his ventures that he is less instructive than some authors less qualified to give information. He frankly says that he is by no means desirous that his work shall be judged as a guide book, and there is little danger that it will suffer that injustice; but quiet readers not convinced of their own superiority to nations living under alien skies will derive from him impressions very similar to those which they would receive from making the same journey. The book is profusely illustrated from photographs. Houghton Mifflin Company.

SEVENTH SERIES
VOLUME XLV.

FROM BEGINNING

No. 3415 December 18, 1909 { VOL. CCLXIII.

CONTENTS

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Contemporary Politics in France. By André Beaunier.

11. On Writing Pot-Boilers. By H. W. Horwill NATIONAL REVIEW
As It Happened. Book III.
Friday at the War Office.
Saturday in the Park;

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NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER 707

720

The Chances of Town.
Boyle Gets His Chance.
Sue's Angel Intervenes.

Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
By Ashton

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FOR SIX DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, Tax Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage, to any part of the United States. To Canada the postage is 50 cents per annum.

Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office or express money order if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, express and money orders should be made payable to the order of THE LIVING AGE Co.

Single Copies of THE LIVING AGE, 15 cents.

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