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ization and personnel of the navy, the classes of ships which it contains, the explosives which it uses, its relation to the national defense, the strength and character of its armament, and the building of warships. The author is a constructor in the United States navy of long experience who came to recognize the need of some such handbook through the multitudinous inquiries which he was himself called upon to answer. He has prepared the book without any waste of words or flourishes of rhetoric, and has woven into it an account of what the American navy has accomplished, from its beginnings in the engagements of Captain John Paul Jones to the present time. The book is profusely illustrated from photographs.

"John Temple," by Ralph Durand, is an unusually good historical novel dealing with the adventures of an Englishman who in the 16th century was forced to join a Portuguese conquering expedition in Africa. This attempt, headed by Francisco Barreto, was unsuccessful and so has been neglected by history. The author shows interesting old chronicles and makes a romance which is readable and apparently historically correct. The galleon was wrecked and the survivors had a long and terrible journey afoot before they could reach help. That, however, was only the beginning of their woes, and the book continues with Temple's later dealings with the savages of the Zambesi. A beautiful and unprotected lady whom Temple befriends, loves, and marries is an attractive character, and there are many other clearly characterized types of the period. There are some extremely well imagined bits of description, particularly of life on board the vessel and of the storm and wreck. The Macmillan Co.

A discussion of the possibilities of success, that ought to reach and ennoble

the struggling young men and women who read it, is "The Eight Pillars of Prosperity" by James Allen. The writer takes high ground at the outset declaring frankly that "The moral virtues are the foundation and support of prosperity as they are the soul of greatness." While he emphasizes, wisely, the ethical and spiritual success as more desirable and more real than the mere possession of money and place, confessing that he who in himself is free does enjoy the larger liberty; he emphatically declares that those who desire the things of this life will best attain them while treading the path of righteousness." While he emphasizes, wisely, the ethical and spiritual success as more Sincerity, Impartiality, Self-Reliance. The writer is an Englishman and the treatment of the subject as well as the view of life is frankly and strenuously Anglo-Saxon. The essays are clear and straightforward. Thomas Y. Crowell

Co.

A strange book, a mixture of Hindu transmigration and the nature story at its most realistic, is furnished by H. Rider Haggard in "The Mahatma and the Hare." It is an autobiography inside an autobiography; for the supposed narrator starts off with a vivid account of how he became a believer in the transmigration of the soul and how he used to steal up to "the great white road" and watch the souls of the dead march past. Many spoke to him and reminded him of friendships in former lives. One night a hare came by and told him this story of a creature who had lived on the plantations of an English Squire and heen hunted in all possible ways by the old Lord and his son Tom. From the hare's view the thing is unspeakably cruel and no arraignment of the brutal sports of English "gentlemen" was ever more eloquent, more virulent, more just. The hare's story is exquisitely presented. The

pictures are unusual and reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley at his best. Henry Holt and Company.

Surely to Joyce Kilmer and his slim book of lyrics, which he calls "A Summer of Love," could be well applied the words a great critic wrote over another American poet. "No puissant singer he .. yet one who leaves his native air the sweeter for his song." One feels in the poet the possibility of greater things than he accomplishes. touches with a graceful, momentary hand the little things and all the while there seems in him something deeper, subtler, more interpretative of life than these vibrant fancies over which he lightly flutters.

The blade is sharp, the reaper stout,
And every daisy dies.

Their souls are fluttering about-
We call them butterflies.

He

Verse like that shows the poet's admirable technique, his lightness of touch, and his lightness of subject too. He will doubtless rise to nobler things in the coming years. The Baker and Taylor Company.

"The Call of the Carpenter," by Bouck White, is an attempt to view Jesus from the standpoint of economics. It is diametrically opposed to the usual and orthodox view. The author, feeling that the two most pertinent facts of the present day are the rise of democracy and the decline of ecclesiasticism, seeks to offer a solution in spiritualizing industrialism, and in giving religion an industrial note. The interpretation of the gospel narrative is made on an economic basis, and attempts to prove that the mission of Jesus was to awaken the working classes to a sense of self-respect and spiritual

values, and to organize them against the tyrannical capitalism of Rome. In the crucifixion, according to Bouck White, there is nothing but the narrative of the death of a dangerous labor agitator. In the later Romanizing of Christianity, the author sees the reason for its decay and failure to make good with the men who need it most. It is a bold piece of work, written with conviction, and it succeeds in making Jesus the most interesting figure in all history. Doubleday, Page & Co.

A book of singular open-mindedness, written by Prof. Theodore Flournoy of Geneva and translated and shortened by Hereward Carrington is called "Spiritism and Psychology." The author attempts to hold his judgment on an even balance, neither accepting anything that has not been proved nor rejecting anything which has not been disproved. He succeeds. While accepting telepathy and kindred phenomena with the simple matter-of-factness with which the majority of Continental scientists do accept them, and flinging a word of scorn at Prof. Munsterberg and his American disciples for their a priori rejection of everything they cannot understand, the Geneva savant distinctly refuses to admit any proof of communication between the dead and the living. He feels that every instance can be explained on a natural basis. The translator, still irritated over the exposures of his beloved Eusapia Paladino, begins with angry preface and, while giving an admirable version in every way of this great work, betrays his bias by condensing when the Professor comes out strongly against "Spiritism," but leaving a most able and extended defence of Eusapia unabridged. The book is well worth reading. Harper & Bros.

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III. The Lantern Bearers. Chapter XIX. By Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick,
Author of "The Severins," etc. (To be continued.) .
IV. The Twenty-first of January, 1793. By Sir James Yoxall, M. P.
CORNHILL MAGAZINE 220

V. The Use and Abuse of Machinery. By Edward Spencer

FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 225

VI. Troubles with a Bear in the Midi. By St. John Lucas. (Concluded).

VII. The Dream of Perpetual Peace.
VIII. "Bone of my Bone."

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE 231
SPECTATOR 237

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NATION 240 SATURDAY REVIEW 244

IX. Kings on Tour. By Filson Young.
X. The Impenetrability of Pooh-Bah. By G. K. Chesterton.

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FOR SIX DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, THE 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.

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THE SOCIAL ENGLISH.

The general drift of these remarks will be extremely comfortable and pleasant and friendly, but a few reproving criticisms must occur in the course of them. I am told, and believe, that a critic of painting or music should be able to paint a little or play the piano, but he need not necessarily do it well. Everyone who lives in the world at all must have manners good or bad, but the critic of manners need not be assumed to approve of his own. Indeed, it is likely that the person more than usually keen to observe manners, being more than usually sensitive, should commit many faults of his own, from the acuteness of his feelings or from the over-subtlety of his efforts to study other people's. He will be more easily rebuffed, and, in consequence, silent or awkward, he will appear heartless to the less sensitive from fear of touching on what is painful, and so forth. For my part, I awake miserable in the night from some reminiscent dream of clumsy or offensive acts or words of mine, and I do not know that I can make that excuse. There is always something of a boomerang about criticism of manners, but now no reader is justified in assuming any odious self-complacency in me, no acquaintance in turning an ironical eye on me when next we meet. I am only a critic.

I do not propose to contradict Matthew Arnold. Much of what he observed in our life generally as hideous and base is unfortunately much the same. We revel in stupid murders, and some time ago the "Life Story" of a wretched girl accused of complicity in one of them was advertised, written by her wretched father or mother, as the great attraction of a popular paper. My theme is a much narrower one, being only the English as they ap

pear in the manners and talk of their social life. Even so it might well fill a big book, or a row of big books, for that matter. But since those books will never be written by me I may as well set down the notes which reading and a rather widely varied expe rience have suggested to me, even though they be rather outlines or headings for a more elaborate study than the study itself.

It is my belief that our manners are more agreeable and easy than they have ever been, are indeed distinctly civilized, and a credit to us generally. It would be, of course, a hopeless attempt to prove this conclusively and directly. One cannot quote a number of agreeable remarks and contrast them with less agreeable conversations preserved for us, and if one could the method would be fallacious. What I propose to do is to examine the causes which I think have produced the changes for the better in which I believe, to show how probable it is they should have produced such changes, and invite you to recollect your reading in memoirs and novels and plays of manners, and look about you and compare. I think you will then agree with ine. We shall ramble about a good deal, excusably, I hope, since this article is a collection of notes and not a scientific treatise, and we shall dive now and then beneath the surface of appearances, and possibly-for this is my ambition

bring back with us a little pearl worth finding, a suggestion, to wit, for the quality in our social civilization which distinguishes it from others, and for which, if we are to be overwhelmed and perish, the world would do well to mourn our disappearance. I see in fancy an arching of foreign eyebrows, but let the for

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