an even higher place. The explanation, or at least one explanation-for there may be others seems sufficiently simple. Furze the Cruel was a story of Dartmoor people told from the Dartmoor point of view-it was in no sense a story with a Foreign Setting, in no sense an attempt to explain or interpret the moorland folk either to themselves or to the world at large, excepting in so far as their own character and deeds would serve to interpret them. In Heather, however, we have, in addition to the Dartmoor folk, the inmates of a sanitariumpeople of various grades of society and from various corners of England, but all having in common the quality of representing the outside point of view-so that through their agency Heather becomes in a technical sense a story with a foreign setting, and therefore, to the reader who likes to have his thinking done for him, it is a book more easily understood, and, therefore, a better book than Furze the Cruel. But to those who really understand and rightly value Mr. Trevenna, the relative importance of these two books will seem to be a question that deserves to be decided less hastily and on somewhat firmer grounds.

For

possesses. We are to imagine a young woman, partly French by birth and wholly so by education, married to an expatriated American, and living a life of reckless gaiety in Paris-half in the American colony, half in the more exclusive French circles. She flirts with the skill of a Frenchwoman, and with the openness of an American-and she remains unscathed both in her affections and in reputation-until she plays the game once too often, and with a type of man that she does not understand. the man, chagrined at his defeat, ingeniously lies about her; and when the stories he circulates come to the ears of her husband and a challenge to a duel follows as a matter of course, the husband apparently believes that they are true, because on the field of honour, instead of firing at his adversary he turns the pistol against himself. The story, to which the duel is merely a sort of prelude, really concerns the history of the young widow when, having secretly surrendered all her property to her husband's mother, she comes to America to earn her livelihood; and when, on the eve of marriage with a man who is in position to give her wealth, position and sincere devotion, she finds the wretched story of her earlier flirtations rising up, to bar the path to happiness. Of course, it is difficult for American society to accept French standards; yet one feels that a little plain speech, a little trouble to get at the facts from people qualified to give them would have saved a lot of heartache, and incidentally have materially abbreviated a story that is better written than the substance of it deserves, and for all its good writing is apt to seem needlessly long drawn out.

Frederic Taber Cooper.

I

THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR BOOK OF THE WORLD'S PROGRESS FOR A YEAR*

It is curious to contemplate that no oblivion is deeper than that of yesterday. When yesterday becomes the last decade it takes its place in a recorded procession, but almost every person has felt strangely baffled in trying to piece out the interval and pick up the events not yet permanently registered. From the daily newspaper and the monthly review it is a long cry to the orderly story of the year's accomplishment in any particular fielda story not to be resurrected except by laboriously unearthing and fitting together many separate fragments. This is what the Year Book has done in tabulating, selecting, comparing, and arranging the world's reports of itself for a twelvemonth; and one has only to read with ease and confidence the completed narrative. The Year Book is the apotheosis of the pigeon-hole.

The present volume is also unique in that it is not only much more succinct but wider in its scope than a newspaper almanac or any other annual published the nearest approach to it, the British Annual Register and the Statesman's Year Book, being confined either to politics or statistics. Thus the book should prove invaluable to journalists. and to writers on current topics. To the general reader, however, it is mainly directed. If the touch-and-go ubiquity who passes under that title-a personage who is now receiving more than amends for centuries of disregard-is ever likely to perceive how he has come to be the headstone of the corner and the centre to which the whole arch leans, he may do so by investing in the Year Book. It is for him that this account of the year's doings is no dry itemisation but a lively and embellished story; for him, too, that it is clarified with a half-dozen excellent

*The International Year Book. A Compen

dium of the World's Progress for a year. Edited by Frank Moore Colby and Allen Leon Churchill. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company.

maps of new national boundaries, and humanised by well-selected and exceedingly good photographs ranging from the "Don de Dieu"-the ship of Champlain reproduced for the Historic Procession at the Quebec Tercentenary-to the Atlantic Battleship Fleet entering the harbour of Melbourne, from the start of the Marathon Race at Windsor Castle to a suffragette in her self-imposed manacles being removed by the police. Here the general reader may get the same sensation as when he sees the whole fire department dashing madly along the street to put out his defective flue or reads how many pins go to a paperful, which he buys for three cents. The machinery of the world is at work for him, the wares of the universe are spread before him, and he is the product of the ages.

Lest this be thought too lyric a strain to be struck from a Year Book, the reviewer hastens to confess just such a glow of importance on emerging from his tonic plunge into the 776 pages of this well-sorted and accessible presentation of recent fact that every one should have at his immediate disposal. He has also a glow of gratitude when he remembers how impossible it is for him (or for any reader, general or otherwise) to get a perspective on the year's doings in any field except of his particular interest, and that only when he has the mind and time to link separate items together into a continuous chain. Furthermore, almost everybody has the annual experience of a gap in his year-he goes to the wilds or to Europe, he takes to his bed or his hobby: for some reason or other he absents himself from the routine of his reading and there is a hole in the record, one which never gets filled in unless he makes a business of doing so. In these days, too, when not even the irresponsible general reader is exempt from semi-professional activities, when we are all members of something or other and women prepare club papers while they market by telephone, such a record of fresh knowledge is indispensable. One never knows when he will be haled from his obscurity to enlighten his clamouring fel

lows on Sewage Purification and Street Cleaning or the state of the Balkan Question or the long-distance records for Swimming. Now, when Aeroplanes and Submarines have become table chit-chat, when Factory Inspection and Pragmatism and the Tuberculosis Congress are topics every hostess should have at her finger tips, and when they are crying tomorrow's papers as you go home from dinner, one is doubly thankful for finding some way to keep up. And besides a pleasant sense of his own importance and a lively recognition of a friend in need, the reviewer (since he has become so personal) might as well admit to something like fascination in the volume. Here is, as it were, a tabloid drama of the world's work of the discoveries, inventions, researches, projects, and advances of its mighty corps of workers-a throng toiling to an end they know not, but with a known purpose to help humanity. Frankly he confesses that the very feel of the book is more intimate and human than any encyclopædia he has ever handled.

Much of this feeling, doubtless, arises from its persistent modernity. He perceives at once that it is the only encyclopædia not hopelessly behind before he caught up with it. Of the year alone is the Year Book designed to be a record, and of those subjects only in which change or progress has taken place. Whatever subjects are at a stand-still go unrecorded. Chimneys is inserted only because in 1908 the tallest chimney in the world was completed in Montana; Niagara Falls gets mentioned because the shut-down last year of its power plant proved that the tapping of the river above the falls was almost inconsiderable; under the head Saint Helena the editor even resists the temptation to inform you that Napoleon was imprisoned there; and there is nowhere an allusion to Shakespeare. Throughout is the evidence of this design. Most of the biographies of the Year Book differ from those of an encyclopædia by beginning with death. rather than birth, since the recent death of the subject is as a rule the reason for his admission. It may be for this reason that Theodore Roosevelt, who was to enter into rest on March 4th, receives an

impartial summing up of his efforts. under his own name, or it may be because he is incapable of being contained under any other head. Whichever reason appeals to your humour, you may doubtless find it significant that for Bryan and Hearst you must see Presidential Campaign—an interesting and well-composed essay comprehending the national conventions and platforms, the issues of the campaign, its progress and the results of the election. For the rest, the biographies concern those whose doings are of perennial importance or who came into unusual prominence the prominence the past year. Débussy and Ferrero, for instance, are included because of their American eminence in 1908. One recalls that everywhere the editors of the Year Book bestow Greek honours on the word “encyclopædia" when he perceives that although Esperanto and the internecine conflicts of the International Language Delegates are honoured by lengthy mention, our own particular Reformed Spelling and its recent warfare, offensive and defensive, is passed by without comment. Every State in the United States, the United States as a whole, and every nation and territory in the civilised world receives a comprehensive treatment of its year's record. The major articles are all written by specialists, and some of them are presented with brilliance. There are many tables of statistics prepared with the aid of government officials, and a complete Necrology and a list of Gifts and Bequests. An instance of the thoroughness of the work is a blanket article on universities and colleges and separate mention of each under its own head.

To the worthy general reader abovementioned, of especial interest are the topics of Drama, Music, Painting, Sculpture, and of American, English, French, and German Literature. In 1908 comedy, largely of English origin, continued to be the most popular with the American play-goer, and there was the promising advent of Eugene Walter as a dramatist of high rank. The chief plays of the year in New York, London, Paris, and Berlin are briefly reviewed. The year in music the world over surpassed any previous year as to phenomenal ac

tivity, the production of novelties, and the support of orchestral and chamber concerts. The Metropolitan Opera showed the same undue preponderance of Puccini as the year before; Gustav Mahler surpassed all other conductors ever heard at the house in subordinating the orchestra to the singers; Toscanini brought his Italian fire and melodic appreciation to Wagner. At the Manhattan the success of Pelléas et Melisande made New York the heart of the Débussy cult, and Tetrazzini and Mary Garden determined the repertory as surely as Caruso and Bonci at the rival house. In one way and another New York had grand opera the year around, while the enthusiasm awakened throughout the country led to the projects for permanent opera houses in Philadelphia and Boston. Abroad, the modern French school has been distinctly discriminated against. In Paris the new regime at the Grand Opéra failed to fulfil expecta tions, but Götterdämmerung-presented there for the first time-was an overwhelming success even without cuts. In painting, the dearth of new men in American exhibitions continued to disquiet native art lovers, and the London Academy offered but little of interest. In sculpture, the most interesting exhibition was the work of Saint-Gaudens, while the winter exhibition of the Academy of Design was notable for the first adequate display in New York of American sculptors as a body. In literature, the tables of THE BOOKMAN for the year are drawn upon. The number of successful women novelists still goes on increasing, as does the preference shown in the United States for native novels. At home the tendency to disregard the conventional limitations of American fiction, and both here and in England the recrudescence of symbolism are noteworthy. Of literary biographies there were none of supreme distinction, but there were notable contributions to ethics and philosophy. The reading of playsso indispensable to good drama-is slowly gaining ground in America. In France, the year carried on the reaction of 1907 against radical theories and a resurrection of art for the sake of art. There was an unusual number of good

novels, but, as elsewhere, little striking work in poetry. The French Academy came before the public more than usual in protests against its conservative attitude and its constant antagonism of the Government which supports it. In Germany, literature teemed with intellectual suggestion, but lacked the emotion and the imagination to create a lasting impression. The plays of the year lacked enduring vitality and suggested a return. to older standards. The output in fiction was more satisfactory; recent problem novels showed a more artistic handling of their material, and the ruling tendency was to have the evolution of a human soul from childhood to maturity. The only American authors mentioned as translated are Robert Hunter and Helen Keller.

Enough has been said to indicate that this stupendous compilation has been made unexpectedly handy and attractive. It would seem that only one thing is lacking to comparative perfection-namely, that the year's bibliography, which has been appended to most of the major subjects, be added to all. This, while taking up little extra space, would greatly increase their serviceability. Both editors and publishers should be proud of a work of such magnitude and importance, thoroughly co-ordinated and well discharged. It is to be hoped the Year Book will prove a hardy annual.

II

Algernon Tassin.

PROFESSOR PECK'S "STUDIES IN SEVERAL LITERATURES"*

It was Gladstone, if I remember aright, who declared that Leibnitz was the last man of universal knowledge. Since his time the realms of science and literature have become too extended for one man to traverse. Probably Dr. Peck has never set himself deliberately, like Bacon, to make all knowledge his province; yet his studies have covered an extraordinary range. The volume under

*Studies in Several Literatures. By Harry Thurston Peck. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company.

review, for example, begins with Homer, and ends with Conan Doyle. Even in these modern days, when criticism, according to Matthew Arnold, to be of any account must regard all the literatures of Europe as one, the names of Homer and Doyle mark the limits of a fairly inclusive purview. Nor is it to a single kind of subject that Dr. Peck's attention has been directed. His lateral is as extensive as his linear range. Thus, if he praises Longfellow, so he does Daudet's Sapho (which he spells with a double p); if he approves the Odyssey as a masterpiece of romance, he equally approves Anna Karénina as a masterpiece of life; zestfully he admires those two antithetical pillars of our own ancient literature, Emerson and Poe. He is evidently an insatiable reader, and his retentive memory has guarded a large store from which to draw for allusion and illustration. On the testimony of this single volume, without recalling his writings on the classics, his biographies and histories of our own time, Dr. Peck might justly be branded as an "encyclopædic" writer.

This is, I am aware, a serious charge to bring against a man who is also a university professor of a dead language. It is the ideal combination for the forming of that juiceless by-product of literature, the "scholarly" critic-in other words, the pure and essential pedant. Luckily vital combinations do not always work out with the inevitability of a chemical reaction; the paradox, like the poor, we have always with us. It is a case in point that the man of wide knowledge who is also a professor of Latin happens to be precisely the least academic of critics. Accuse him of a thousand other faults: call him dogmatic, opinionated, prejudiced, self-assertive, inconsistent, frivolous, lacking in due respect. for the conventions; but academicnever! And if there is a single amiable human weakness discernible in his entertaining pages, it is a touch of pride in his freedom from the trammelling orthodoxy of the walks of scholarship.

Not that scholarship, when it is in requisition, is ever at fault. Nothing is plainer than that Dr. Peck's acquaintance with the classical literatures is not only wide, but essentially human. If an argu

ment in favour of the study of the classics is required, it would not be easy to find a better than the essays in this book on Tolstoi and on the modern detective story. Dr. Peck is not more frankly enthusiastic in discussing his favourite Trollope than in translating and annotating the delightful letters of Alciphron. In his translations there is no account taken of the time that separates the Greek novelist-"a Hellenic Hugues Le Roux" from Zola. Perhaps the strongest characteristic felt in his essays is the humanistic spirit in which he approaches all literature, seeking always to draw out its relation to life itself.

But with his abjuration of the pedant's mantle, Dr. Peck relinquishes the opportunity to become the guide of those who would be led in the safe paths of literature. Read him by all means for stimulation, but not for the purpose of getting your opinions ready-made. If there is in your mental composition anything stiffer than the backbone of an earthworm, you will find yourself rebelling as often as not. When you agree with him, he is delightfully informing, intelligent, perspicuous; when he runs counter to your own likes and dislikes he is unaccountably perverse, even irritating. Then he becomes dogmatic and opinionated. It would be a pleasure, had I the space, to point out the numerous critical judgments, the estimates of men and books, in which he is absolutely mistaken. One of his favourite pastimes is what Mr. Chesterton would call "baiting the Realists" and it must be said that, if any one nowadays still holds the theory of realism which Dr. Peck attacks, he will be hard put to it to defend his beliefs. But Dr. Peck himself seems to regard the difference between life and art as quantitative rather than qualitative-as a matter almost wholly of selection. Concerning the novelist's practice of eliminating superfluities, his exclusion of the irrelevant, he says: "This method of writing fiction is essentially artistic, but it is not true to life." Of course, no fiction can in this sense possibly be true to life-and no history as well. Again, he seems repeatedly to test an author's greatness by his "universality of appeal"