of

Meredith Janvier, Janvier, dealer in portraits, prints, and "collector's volumes, and who runs a quaint, delightful bookshop in Baltimore, suggests in one of its items the question "Is It Possible to Tell a New Book from an Old One?" as one finds listed in this catalogue the "first edition," "bds., uncut," of Christopher Morley's Songs for a Little House, a book of verse published quite within the memory of man, last year in fact. Mr. Janvier informs his clientele of bibliophiles that this book is one "for the wing chair at

"We must fight the thought, the philosophy back of this war, if we are to win," says Miss A Librarian Nellie M. Russ, the liRampant brarian of the Pasadena Public Library, in an interview in the Pasadena StarNews. "I recently began a thorough weeding-out, with the result that all books printed in German have been removed, and all modern German philosophy, even including Nietzsche and Treitschke, which many libraries retain. Some three hundred books have been set aside for the term of the war-perhaps longer, and others are being added as fast as they are

to

returned. These books are not only withdrawn from the open shelves, they are interned, where they are absolutely inaccessible and will remain so." No one could question the wisdom of removing books of recent pro-German propaganda from general circulation; but to make them "absolutely inaccessible," even students, journalists, historians, and preachers of patriotic sermons, and to add to the small list of such books which a library of the size of Pasadena's might have acquired the works of such world-figures as Nietzsche and Treitschke and volumes of entirely innocent general literature to the number of three hundred, and to hint that this proscription may be continued after the war, is an act of hysterical piety which would not be endured for a single day by any community in which the spirit of democracy was alert.

The Camel Enters

Is the moral and intellectual fibre of the citizens of Pasadena so poor that the chance discovery in a German book that Germany was not entirely devoid of all the virtues would lessen their efforts to win the war? or have the love of democracy and the instinct of human kindness grown so weak in them that the mere reading of Treitschke and Nietzsche could convert them to Prussianism and brutality? or have they so completely lost their belief in the power of truth and in freedom of thought that they are ready to fight a philosophy by trying to suppress it? or have they exalted war to such an extent that everything German is to be placed under a tribal taboo?-if any or all of these explanations are true Pasadena has sunk into a parlous state and ought to be investigated for the good of the nation. good of the nation. If the camel of conservatism once gets his cold, suspicious nose well under the public library tent it may be difficult to pre

vent him from following it with his whole ungainly body-and the public library is a tent in one of democracy's outposts. But perhaps Pasa dena is only trying to supply her tourists with that quaint, mediæval flavour so dear to the tourist heart, but formerly obtainable only in Europe.

May Sinclair's new book, The Tree of Heaven, has been well spoken of by the "authorities." We found it stupid. It bored us. To be

This Tree Would Not Flourish in Heaven

sure, it is a carefully thought-out study of a phase of the social revolution that was proceeding before the war and is now brought to a crisis by the catastrophe-the renaissance of the human spirit in the Younger Generation, the questioning of institutions, the demand for liberty, the desire for sanity in the ways of living, and of course, the conflict with the Elders whose interest is in maintaining the established folkways; then comes the war and the Young Ones come into their own, while the pressure of circumstance is so great as to break down their resistance and the Elders accept the new order. It is an interesting theme, much is being written about it-perhaps it is the big theme for novelists to-day. But it deals with a situation that is full of promise; we all know that the world is wrong, that society is upside down, that the masses thrust upward apace-but we mean to do something about it, we mean to set ourselves right side up, we see through the gloom of war the promise of better things. Miss Sinclair sees no Promise, she feels the oppression of destiny, she depresses her readers. Wells writes of the same changing order, but the emphasis of his interest is upon the desire of men for betterment and upon the hope of the future; Miss Sinclair sees no hope and feels no desire. If

East. A limited edition of Burke's London Lamps has just been issuedsongs that may not ineptly be called poetic versions of his stories in Limehouse Nights. A few of these verses originally appeared as chapter headings in Mr. Burke's earlier volume, Nights in London, and as the title suggests, they each deal with some aspect of London's ever-changing personality. Before quoting from London Lamps-we must give our readers a few verses simply to arouse their desire for more-let us announce that a new volume of Mr. Burke's will shortly be issued under the title, Twinkletoes, a novel of a Limehouse dancer in which many of the characters of Limehouse Nights will reappear. Now for the verses from London Lamps:

CITY DUSK

The day dies in a wrath of cloud,
Flecking her roofs with pallid rain,
And dies its music, harsh and loud,
Struck from the tiresome strings of pain.

Her highways leap to festal bloom,
And swallow-swift the traffic skims
O'er sudden shoals of light and gloom,
Made lovelier where the distance dims.

Robed by her tiring-maid, the dusk, The town lies in a silvered bower, As, from a miserable husk,

The lily robes herself with flower.

And all her tangled streets are gay,
And all her rudenesses are gone;
For, howso pitiless the day,

The evening brings delight alone.

And one more little poem that must be quoted:

THE LAMPLIT HOUR

Dusk and the lights of home

Smile through the rain:

A thousand smiles for those that come Homeward again.

What though the night be drear
With gloom and cold,

So that there be one voice to hear,
One hand to hold?

Here, by the winter fire,
Life is our own;

Here, out of murk and mire,
Here is our throne.

Then let the wide world throng
To pomps and powers,

And leave us with the love and song
Of lamplit hours.

O. Henry in the Trenches

Frank A. Lewis, who has served in the American Field Ambulance abroad, writes to the Publishers' Weekly something about the need for books in the trenches:

For several weeks no reading matter could be located in the section to which I was attached. Finally, one of the boys received a copy of O. Henry's Options in a package from home, and an hour of insane jubilation ensued. The book was seized by indelicate hands and torn into segments, each part representing a story. The pages of each story were pinned together. The original owner of the volume was selected to serve as Section Librarian. We pored over those stories until the printing actually wore off the pages. When The Head Hunter came to me for the seventh time, the only thing I could be sure of was the title. But I didn't need to re-read it. I could have told that tale almost by rote.

Just to show you what we thought of books, Brentano's Paris store was the second place we visited on our first leave from the front-the first was a restaurant.

Japanese Colour Prints

Collecting is one of the "natural lines of defence" of the confirmed amateur, and he has made a brave stand there, but the spirit of intelligence has been invading this realm as relentlessly as it has every other, and the result has undoubtedly been a greater pleasure for the collector who has been willing to yield. Mr. Basil Stewart has now come forward with a little book On Collecting Japanese Color-Prints to clear up a subject which the amateur has always found rather obscure. He tells what prints are most worth acquiring and why, which ones should be avoided, and how to