“It is not a profound work; it adds nothing to the equipment of the advanced student. But it tells simply and clearly the story of Italy’s rise through immense difficulties to real independence, and shows how she has come within sight of realizing the greatest of her ambitions—the rescue of millions of her people in the Trentino and the Adriatic provinces from the Austrian oppressor. Mr Wallace is an American who loves Italy.”
“Mr Wallace has thrown together a certain number of documents and has eked them out with impressions rapidly gleaned and facts carelessly ascertained. He has made a volume of some 300 pages, but he has not written a book. His work lacks perspective and cohesion, and is sometimes positively misleading. He lacks the sense of style that distinguishes many American war correspondents, to say nothing of the best American writers. It is only in dealing with the present aspects of Italian policy and Italy’s war aims that Mr Wallace’s work becomes tolerably accurate. His last three chapters are fair journalism.”
WALLER, EDITH.English-Italian phrase book for social workers. pa 75c Edith Waller, Morristown, N.J. 458 16-14779
“This book is intended to help the American social worker, teacher, physician or nurse, who in daily work find need for a small store of colloquial Italian.”—Educ R
“The book is exceedingly well done and may be highly commended to those who are at work in these fields.”
“Designed to furnish a small store of colloquial Italian, it contains phrases on buying and preparing food, caring for the sick and infants, registering pupils and conducting a class. Includes a vocabulary and the essentials of the Italian grammar.”
WALLING, WILLIAM ENGLISH.Russia’s message: the people against the czar. il*$1.50 (3c) Knopf 947 17-13587
This work, first published by Doubleday, Page & Co., in 1908 and listed in the Digest at that time, is now brought out in a new and cheaper edition by Alfred A. Knopf. To the new edition Mr Walling has added an introduction, written at some time during the progress of the present war but before the recent revolution. In this introduction Mr Walling discusses the attitude of England, France, and Germany toward Russian autocracy.
“Of interest now as showing the foundation of the great democratic movement.”
“Reissued with some unaccountable omissions and the complete disappearance of the index, as well as of a number of illustrations. But in any form, Mr Walling’s book commands attention.” L: S. Friedland
“There are a permanent value and a timeliness in Mr Walling’s book that make its republication in the climax of the events he foreshadowed worth noting. The student of recent events in Russia will find the news dispatches strikingly illuminated by Mr Walling’s descriptions.”
“Of particular interest is Mr Walling’s account of the progress of the waking up of the peasant population a few years ago, and its progress in enlightenment.”
“It is in part because Mr Walling so thoroughly and convincingly analyzes the policy and motives of czardom that his book is not only informing, but as timely as possible. ... Accurately and in detail, Mr Walling lays bare an economic system that, but for the clearness and appositeness of the evidence he submits, would seem incredible. ... His book is thorough and authoritative—a study of more than transitory value—but also a book of the hour admirably adapted to enlighten and influence American opinion.”
“Written ten years ago after the author had passed the greater part of two years in close contact with Russian government officials, as well as with the leaders of revolutionary organizations after the temporary failure of their uprising in 1905.”
WALLING, WILLIAM ENGLISH, and LAIDLER, HARRY WELLINGTON, eds. State socialism pro and con.*$2 (1c) Holt 335.6 17-17731
This book on state socialism or collectivism, which its editors, both members of the Intercollegiate Socialist society, define as “the policy of extending the economic functions of the state,” is in no sense a brief for state socialism, but “primarily a source book of authoritative selections either written by experts or selected by experts from official reports.” The editors have not tried to give arguments, except in the introduction, but simply to provide the reader with the most important data on which to base a conclusion. The introduction takes up the relation of state socialism to war socialism, to the military state, to related government policies, to democracy, socialism, and nationalism. The excerpts are arranged under the headings: Finance; Agriculture and the conservation of natural resources; Transportation and communication; Commerce, industry and mining; Collectivism and the individual (as citizen, consumer, producer and taxpayer). A good deal of space, though not the larger part, is given to the United States. Chapter twenty-nine, on “Municipal ownership,” is by Evans Clark.
“An interesting exhibit of the world-wide tendency toward broadening the functions of government.” V: E. Helleberg
“The con side does not seem to have received quite as much publicity as the pro side. ... For the man who deplores, no less than for the man who welcomes, this trend [toward state socialism] the volume will be found extremely serviceable. In fact, no other book, no other half dozen books, contain as much information concerning the economic or collectivistic functions of modern states.”
“Within the self-imposed limits of their work the editors have succeeded in presenting a unique and adequate record of the world-advance of collectivism. A chapter on ‘Municipal ownership’ surveys that field briefly, effectively, and with consistent impersonality. ‘State socialism pro and con’ is not recommended for hammock hours. But as a handy reference volume for the serious-minded it will save many days of searching through technical libraries for data on collectivism.” D. R. Richberg
“An authoritative work of reference.”
“One great value of the present survey by Walling and Laidler is that it fixes definitely accomplishments up to the period of the war, and will thus retain its place as an authoritative and important handbook. Its arrangement is excellent, and no book could be easier for quick consultation. The chapter on Municipal socialism by Evans Clark is an unusually capable piece of work.” Frank Macdonald
“The book is a storehouse of material which in itself supplies the argument which the editors refrain from making. They are entitled to make their own selections, and it is no grievance that they are rather pro than con. Nevertheless, they have done their work so well that it would be reassuring to have the other side presented with equal efficiency.”
WALPOLE, HUGH.Green mirror; a quiet story.*$1.50 Doran 17-30042
The second volume of the trilogy of which “The Duchess of Wrexe” was the first. The novel is also related to “The dark forest,” since Henry Trenchard, the Englishman of that story, appears here, twelve years earlier, as a boy. “In the members of the Trenchard family Mr Walpole has embodied all of those distinctively British characteristics that have always exasperated the rest of the world. ... Mrs Trenchard is a personified British matron, inflexible, dominant, a bit stupid, fiercely maternal, and, altogether, a rather terrible sort of person. ... But the British matron meets with her Waterloo in this new novel in which she makes a ruthless, carefully worked out, determined effort to force submission to her purpose on the part of all her family. The breath of another dawn has already begun to blow. ... Then into the circle comes Philip Mark, a young Englishman who has lived for some years in Russia, whose embryonic imagination has been developed in that country, who has ideas and feelings and sentiments that are disconcertingly un-English, that disturbingly suggest a region where Trenchards are not known. He is resented, considered with disapproval and dislike. But he and the eldest daughter of the family fall in love with each other and the drama of the tale grows out of the determination of Mrs Trenchard that he shall not become one of them.” (N Y Times)
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“What Mr Walpole does in ‘The green mirror,’ as a novelist he does well. That is, he tells a good story so that its scenes, its action and its people seem actually to exist. But what he does in ‘The green mirror’ as a propagandist, he does not well at all, for his presentation of the case against family solidarity seems merely to be the typical argument of the social revolutionist.” E. F. E.
“What Mr Walpole has so fully and sensitively absorbed in a case that is perfect of its kind remains essentially undisturbed by storm and wreck on the surface. The character, the exigencies, of the great compromise of the family are too permanent to be called unfashionable because of the war. ... It is a fine novel, grappling bravely with the great ironies of motherlove.” F. H.
“Without any doubt, when Mr Walpole wrote this novel in those dead years before the war he was engaged, quite consciously to himself, in the task of flaying, gently and tenderly and lovingly, it is true, but still flaying with satire the heart and soul of his native land. And he has done the task with such neatness and dexterity and completeness, and also with such tenderness, that the work itself fills the reader with interest and its artistic performance with satisfaction.”
“Distinctly it belongs to the class of major English fiction; it is a story built, as one may say, to last, not to be read and easily forgotten.”
WALSH, JOHN.Mass and vestments of the Catholic church; liturgical, doctrinal, historical and archeological. il*$1.75 Benziger 265
“Arranged catechetically, this volume is intended to be a help to the busy clergy, laity, and converts to the Catholic church. The author has given a clear explanation of the different parts of the mass, the language, usage, and elements used in its celebration, and the eastern and western rites. A full description of the altar, linens, sacred vessels, vestments, and number and kind of lights used at the various services is also given.”—Boston Transcript
“The laity will find much useful information in very simple and brief form.”
“Must be regarded as the best among popular works of reference on the mass.”
“Told in simple English.”
WALTERS, HENRY BEAUCHAMP, ed. Classical dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities, biography, geography, and mythology. il*$6.50 Putnam 913.3 17-4478
“Mr Walters has executed a ‘tour de force’ in compressing within the limits of a handy volume a summary of the information usually sought in four dictionaries of two volumes each.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) “The merit of Mr Walters’s compendium is that it combines with Lemprière’s work on proper names the information contained in Dr Smith’s ‘Dictionary of antiquities.’ ... The book uses material derived from the ‘Companions to Greek and Latin studies,’ and has profited by the researches of many predecessors, including those indefatigable Germans who make no account of time or labour when they sit down to exhaust a subject.” (Sat R)
“It does not of course compete with fuller works of reference, and will not satisfy anyone who desires full information on any of its subjects. And yet it will admirably serve the purpose which it proposes to serve, and will help the student over the ordinary antiquarian difficulties which constantly present themselves in the reading of any Greek or Latin author. The volume is of a convenient size for frequent and familiar use, is on excellent paper, is well printed and illustrated.” F. J. Miller
“Fairly up to date, with the antiquities, biography, geography, and mythology all in one handy volume. In view of the wide scope of the work, covering, as it does, the same field as the colossal Pauly-Wissowa or the combined five volumes of Sir William Smith’s time-honored dictionaries, it is necessarily brief. But the concise articles are, in the main, packed with information upon the essential facts needed by the young student. And the serviceability of the book is greatly enhanced by the wealth of illustrative material selected with the judgment and taste that we might expect from the editor, who is also assistant-keeper of Greek and Roman antiquities in the British museum.” Walter Miller
“Quantities are marked in various words, and the book is clearly not for the professed scholar. It is for ‘the upper forms of public schools,’ also for classical students at the universities. The latter, we should have thought, would mostly be beyond it. ... With its sensible single alphabet in the Latin order and its ample indexes, the book is over 1,100 pages and a weighty affair, which it would have been unwise to increase.”
“It is very much more discreet, as well as more scholarly, than Lemprière, dear to our fathers and grandfathers; it contains a great deal more information than Dr Smith’s familiar work which we used to read at school.”
“These criticisms are offered in the hope that when the book reaches, as no doubt it will, a second edition, some necessary revision may take place. Of its general usefulness there can be no question.”
WALTHER, ANNA HILDA LOUISE.Pilgrimage with a milliner’s needle. il*$1.50 (3½c) Stokes 17-25140
This book is the personal diary of a young Danish girl, “from childhood up to fairly mature age, beginning in Copenhagen and ending in New York city.” (Boston Transcript) She was apprenticed to the millinery business, and as soon as she had learned her trade, started out to ply it in different countries, wandering thru Europe, South Africa and the United States. Her diary tells of more than one love affair and of her conversion to Christian science. There is a glowing introduction by Richard Le Gallienne.
“Her narrative is personal and naively frank in giving emotional details of her own life. It is more readable as autobiography than as travel.”
“The interest aroused by Richard Le Gallienne’s highly appreciating foreword flags in places as the narrative proceeds. ... The finale is startingly tame and commonplace.”
“A series of vivid pictures of places and people. Underlying it all is a charming personal narrative.”
War and the spirit of youth. $1 Atlantic monthly 940.91 17-24228
“Three papers of mystical tendency which recently appeared in the Atlantic Monthly have been published in one volume entitled ‘The war and the spirit of youth,’ by Maurice Barrès, Anne C. E. Allinson and Sir Francis Younghusband. The papers are by a Frenchman, an Englishman and an American, and reveal in all three cases a spiritual temperament. In the first one, ‘Young soldiers of France,’ M. Barrès gives excerpts from letters written by certain young French soldiers at the front. ... Thetwo other papers are philosophical discussions of the spiritual motives behind the present war.”—Springf’d Republican
“M. Barrès tactfully allows the letters of young French soldiers to reveal of themselves the permanent spiritual values which, so it seemed to these boys, made their sacrifices just. ... It is only on reading the conventional and weak deistic apologia of Sir Francis Younghusband that the question of the value of such waste of human happiness for mechanical political ends rises again with unescapable directness.”
WARD, SIR ADOLPHUS WILLIAM.Germany, 1815-1890. (Cambridge historical ser.) 3v v 1*$3 Putnam 943.07 (16-17397)
v 11815-1852.
“Dr Ward has long been known as foremost among English scholars in the study of modern German history, and he reckons among the chief pleasures of life ‘the promotion of a better understanding between two nations now estranged from each other for many a long day.’ ... He is dealing with the Germany that emerged from the rough handling of Napoleon, after the Holy Roman empire had finally passed off the stage, and the German confederation had begun its uneasy existence. ... This period was, as Dr Ward says, a half-century of struggle and humiliation, and the first reflection that follows on the study of action that failed, and reaction that failed equally, is that Bismarck must have been a very great man to build up out of this chaos the powerful nation we know to our cost to-day.” (Sat R) Volume 1, covering the period from 1815 to 1852, will be followed by a second volume carrying the history to 1890.
“No one would question Dr Ward’s high qualifications, for few living English writers have given evidence of more versatile and exact scholarship than the Master of Peterhouse. This volume on Germany from 1815 to 1852 is, however, a grievous disappointment. It is one of the most jejune handbooks ever produced by English writers, who furnish no mean competition in such compilations. The style is prolix and involved, loaded with details and unimportant names, broken by parentheses and totally unrelieved by emphasis. Inclusion by mere enumeration replaces discrimination and selection. ... The bibliography will be useful but it is not above criticism.” G. S. Ford
“Does not replace other histories but is authoritative, suggestive, and impartial.”
“The author has an exceptional command of foreign sources, as his bibliography shows, and studies with care the thought and policy and the various movements which influenced the making of modern Germany.”
“Sir Adolphus Ward’s knowledge of his subject is enormous and his equity and discrimination are no less remarkable than his knowledge. All personages of all parties receive a full measure of indulgence. ... In the fullness of his own knowledge of German affairs the author has perhaps forgotten how meagre is the knowledge of most educated Englishmen.” F. C. M.
“Few English writers are so well qualified to speak on German political affairs as the author of the present volume, and the immediate result is a book which displays profound learning and a thorough mastery of the subject. ... But it is a book for students only and primarily, even for students a book of reference. ... The book concludes with an excellent bibliography, a good index, and a map of the German confederation.”
“This book is at least a clear proof that the English academic mind can remain calm and impartial in the midst of war. ... His book is of very great value as a compressed and exact record; it repays careful study, and a second reading gives greater pleasure than the first.”
“No such compact mass of information about the German states between 1815 and 1852 as is contained in this book has previously appeared in English. The book is not for the most part easy reading. But as a book for consultation and reference as to facts we know of no other like this. ... Sir Adolphus Ward writes on this question [Denmark]—which we take only as an illustration—as on others, in what may be called a pre-war spirit. That is no defect in an historian, for we might have been more inclined to suspect the accuracy of his presentment of facts if he ever showed a trace of passion or partisanship. But in this volume there is absolutely none.”
“We rise from reading the book with the impression that the author has been somewhat overwhelmed by the very wealth of his learning. To tell truth, this book would have gained in force and actuality, even if a certain impartiality had been sacrificed, had it been written frankly from an English point of view as an honest criticism from outside of the tendencies underlying the development of the German idea.”
WARD, CHARLES HENSHAW.What is English?*$1 Scott 808 17-4013
The author calls this “a book of strategy for English teachers.” As a teacher of English in a boys’ preparatory school, he is concerned with the problems of secondary education, and he takes the stand that the first demand on English teachers is that they teach the essentials of good English, putting accuracy in detail before attempts at literary grace. He commends the methods described in Brown’s “How the French boy learns to write.” Among the chapters are: What English is; Intensive spelling; What grammar is all about; Teaching grammar; What is a comma? Present usage in pointing; Themes; Reading.
“To punctuation he gives almost as much space as to the other two subjects combined. Surely this is disproportionate. The book represents a reaction, in the main wholesome, against the notion that the whole duty of a high-school English teacher is to cultivate ‘insight into beauty’ or to teach his pupils to write clever short stories. But the reaction (in theory, at least) may easily go too far.”
“In style and method Mr Ward’s book is itself an excellent object-lesson in effective composition.”
WARD, GILBERT OAKLEY.Practical use of books and libraries; an elementary manual. (Useful reference ser.) 3d ed rev and enl il $1.25 Boston bk. 020 17-178
“A carefully revised, enlarged, reset, and in part rewritten edition. Some of the more important changes from the second edition are as follows: the magazine list has been revised and rearranged; certain sections on debate work, well covered elsewhere, have been replaced by detailed directions for making a working bibliography; the chapter on book buying has been prefaced by a description of the principal sources of information about books, especially reviews.”—A L A Bkl
“A book which all high-school students should be familiar with.”
WARD, HARRY FREDERICK.Labor movement from the standpoint of religious values.*$1.25 (3c) Sturgis & Walton 331.8 17-17728
The author is professor of social service at the Boston university school of theology. The lectures were originally given to students in the university; they were repeated in Ford Hall, Boston, in 1915, as noonday lectures to “men of all classes and creeds, of all ranks, standards and opinions. ... The text is from a verbatim stenographic report, with no changes whatever.” (Preface) The questions and answers of the forum period following each lecture are included. “Contents: Trade unions; Socialism; Syndicalism; The demand for leisure; The demand for income; Violence and its causes; Labor and the law; Democracy and industry.” (N Y Br Lib News)
“An unusual feature of the book is the reproduction of a testimonial adopted in the form of a resolution by the I.W.W. propaganda league of Boston in appreciation of the sympathetic expositions of the cause of labor by Professor Ward. ... A wide knowledge of the various phases of the working class movement is exhibited throughout the lectures.” Alexander Trachtenberg
WARD, HERBERT.Mr Poilu; notes and sketches with the fighting French. il*$2.50 (10c) Doran 940.91 (Eng ed 17-26483)
Mr Ward, author of “My life with Stanley’s rear-guard,” is an English sculptor who, after living in New Zealand and Australia, being in turn sailor, miner, gymnast in a traveling circus and stock-rider, saw five years of active service in Africa, part of the time as a member of Stanley’s expedition to relieve Emin Pasha in the Sudan. In 1900, Mr Ward settled in Paris, but returned to England in 1914 and attached himself as lieutenant to the famous No. 3 convoy of the British ambulance committee, operating under the French army. The book is a series of notes, rather than a connected narrative, giving first-hand impressions of the French common soldier at the front, and of the French army system—a system that is, says the author, “peculiarly adapted to the French temperament; it is in harmony with their intelligence, their love of liberty, and their high state of civilization.” One chapter is devoted to “The women of France.” The forty-eight illustrations in color and black and white are from the author’s drawings of the “poilu” as seen at the front under all sorts of conditions.
“During the last year or two Mr Ward has become well known to Americans by his lectures in this country, from ocean to ocean, in aid of French soldiers and their families. ... Although written with the greatest modesty and with a certain effect of casualness, the book presents a brilliant analysis of spiritual qualities, of temperament, of racial endowment.”
“Certainly claims attention for the artistic merit of its illustrations.”
WARD, LESTER FRANK.[2]Glimpses of the cosmos. 8v v 5*$2.50 Putnam 301
In a series of eight volumes, of which this is the fifth, the publishers are bringing out the minor writings of Lester Ward, with biographical and historical notes. The material is arranged chronologically, so that the mental development of the author may be followed. The present volume covers the years 1893-1897.
“The work is interesting, not only as reproducing numerous papers upon important subjects, but also as a record of the author’s mental evolution.”
“The value of all these minor writings of Prof. Ward is by no means established by their publication, but the principal objection to this collection of his entire works is that they are not arranged according to subjects. As a ‘mental autobiography’ the volumes will be of interest to very few.”
WARD, MARY AUGUSTA (ARNOLD) (MRS HUMPHRY WARD).‘Missing.’ il*$1.50 (1½c) Dodd 17-28797
A war novel not concerned with the soldier at the front except as seen thru the tears and anguish of the woman at home. The central figure is Nelly Sarratt, a war bride, thru whose brief honeymoon the reader comes to know her as a very beautiful, childlike, appealing little soul who has given every ounce of her love to her adored soldier husband. He goes back to the front. Later comes the message that he has been reported wounded and missing. Weeks of illness leave the wife limp and unresisting in the hands of capable friends. A sister who counts everything about war a nuisance, and who cannot forgive Nelly for marrying a poor man, watches with silent approval the solicitous thoughtfulness of a young baronet for Nelly’s welfare. When the moment comes for the sister to hasten to a French hospital to identify a man who had lost his memory but who might be George Sarratt she denies the identity believing that it will spoil Nelly’s prospects. Memory returns; the man asks for his wife; Nelly hastens to his bedside and comforts him in his last moments. Her sorrow turns her frailties to strength. She becomes a nurse, “uplifted strengthened—to endure and serve.”
“It is a pedestrian performance, by no means on the level of ‘Marcella’ and ‘Helbeck of Bannisdale.’”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“If the war must enter fiction, it can scarcely enter it more wisely and more significantly than in Mrs Ward’s latest novel.” E. F. E.
“‘Missing’ might be a contribution to the contemporary literature about woman, as vital in its way as ‘A woman of genius,’ but, like most of Mrs Ward’s work, it lacks reality. It is a cleverly staged, well-managed drama of the Pinero type.”
“The most interesting parts of the book are the occasional glimpses it gives of England and the English at war, glimpses few and very brief. We wish there were more of them, and could easily have dispensed with some of the very numerous descriptions of Lake-country scenery, graceful though many of them are, for the sake of seeing more of the war conditions.”
“In construction the story has little subtlety. The only approach to a plot arises from the extraordinary treachery of Nelly’s sister, an original but not very lifelike figure. The characterisation generally is not on Mrs Ward’s usual level. The civilian representative of Major Dobbin has more airs and graces than our dear old friend, but he takes no hold on our affections. The soldiers are all good men and true—there are no George Osbornes among them—but our view of them is wholly superficial. The aristocraticV.A.D. is more in the author’s earlier manner, and sufficiently convincing as regards her insolence and frivolity, and even her occasional lapses into efficiency; but we are altogether sceptical concerning her underlying goodness of heart.”
“It is a poignant little tragedy, portrayed with fidelity, restraint and verisimilitude.”
“A novelist so well equipped and so experienced as Mrs Humphry Ward could not produce an uninteresting or manifestly faulty tale; but throughout our reading of this new book we felt that this was not a story which Mrs Humphry Ward wanted to tell for its own sake. It has all the sterling qualities of her fiction, but less of the breadth of life, less of the obvious personal interest in the characters and the subject, than some of her novels. ... It is all reasonable, true, and just; a sound story well composed and logically, if lengthily, worked out.”
WARD, MARY AUGUSTA (ARNOLD) (MRS HUMPHRY WARD).Towards the goal.*$1.25 (2½c) Scribner 940.91 17-21840
Mrs Ward’s art as a novelist has been put to the great service of telling to the world how the British are steadily pushing towards the goal of that just, necessary and final victory which shall make the sacrifice of the best and highest in the empire not in vain. In a series of letters addressed to Theodore Roosevelt, written between March 24 and June 1, 1917, she tells what needed to be made graphic of the work of the navy and of the army in France. Mr Roosevelt contributes a preface in which he says “Mrs Ward’s volume is of high value as a study of contemporary history. It is of at least as high value as an inspiration to constructive patriotism.” The prophecy in her first letter that “the logic of facts will sweep the American and British nations together in some sort of intimate union” is fulfilled before the close of the book which is, in some sense, a sequel to “England’s effort.”
“Gives a valuable first-hand account of certain organized German atrocities, such as the brutal treatment of Senlis, about which too little is generally known.”
“As in the case of its predecessor, ‘Towards the goal’ represents a very happy combination. It is authoritative. Mrs Ward has seen the operations in France and she has talked with those who know most of the situation both in England and in France. Moreover, she possesses the imagination and the art which make her readers see with her—an element which gives the book the worth which could never have been gained by the facts in the hands of one less skilled. All through the latter part of the book the strong joy of England is made clear over the entry of America into the war.” D. L. M.
“Distinguished for intensity of feeling, and an appreciation of the meaning of the war to all the Allies.”
“As a work of contemporary history, Mrs Ward’s book must win a lasting reputation.”
“From one who knows the German mind as Mrs Ward has known it, the stinging condemnation of its materialism, its ruthless ambition, and its deliberate inhumanity in war, which she more than once voices, comes with exceptional force; and her repeated insistence that nothing less than ‘restitution, reparation, and guarantees’ will insure a lasting peace is clearly no literary repetition of a political formula, but a conviction from which her personal observations offer her no escape.”
“Mrs Ward is interested always in the achievements and the influence of personality, and this gives color and life to her pages. ... It is a wonderful story, tragic, inspiring, deeply moving, and Mrs Ward tells it well, though with the utmost brevity.”
“Mrs Ward tells us that the letters are written not for Englishmen but as ‘a general account for Americans.’ From this point of view the volume deserves nothing but praise.”
“As in the case of ‘England’s effort,’ she was given every facility by the authorities for obtaining the material for her book.”
“The letters are, in the first place, descriptive of certain phases of the war as Mrs Ward has observed them. The second purpose of Mrs Ward’s book seems to be political. She writes to urge upon Americans the desirability of making the demand for ‘reparation, restitution, guarantees’ the guiding purpose of their representatives in the peace negotiations. While the letters contain but a small amount of fresh information, they are pleasantly, even persuasively written. Mrs Ward is to be specially thanked for her commendation of Lord Haldane.”
WARE, MARY S.Old world through old eyes. il*$2 (1½c) Putnam 915 17-15435
Mrs Ware, “seventy years young,” started off alone in 1912 for a three years’ tour of the Orient. She visited “Japan and the Philippines, China, Burmah and Siam, Cambodia, India, and the East Indian islands,” was a guest at four native courts and had interviews with various other native rulers. She tells us that she has “given little space to descriptions of natural scenery or of national monuments,” because what most interested her in her travels “were the results obtained in colonization and in the government of backward peoples by the Americans, English, French and Dutch.” (Preface) A few pages towards the end of the book give a brief chronicle of Mrs Ware’s life in Paris in 1915. These letters of travel, written to her family, have been collected and printed for her grandchildren. Any money realized by her from the book will be sent, while the war lasts, to French hospitals, and after the war, to French soldiers blinded in the war.
“Its interest is indeed compelling.” F. B.
“She is evidently a woman of strong character and trained intellect as well as large heart, and her book has more of character and individuality than would be found in most collections of family letters from abroad.”
“The author says: ‘I have not followed the usual course of travel narrative.’ ... It is this departure from ‘the usual course,’ this fresh curiosity, this sight of a developing world as a wide-eyed old lady sees it, that is largely responsible for the marked charm and interest of the book. ... Mrs Ware’s little investigation of American rule in the Philippines is most interesting reading. ‘The Americans,’ she says, ‘have a clean government over here.’ It was there that she met General Pershing and had many good talks with him about the islands.”
WARREN, MRS CONSTANCE M. (WILLIAMS).Phœnix. il*$1.40 (2c) Houghton 17-8464
Boston society, with its strict traditions giving way to the encroachments of newer manners and customs, forms the background of this story. Janet, the heroine, is a young girl, sweet and unspoiled in spite of great wealth. She has given her heart to Donald Craig, a boyish sweetheart, and she is waiting in simplehappiness for the declaration of his love. But Donald is poor and he goes away to make his fortune leaving the words unsaid. Hurt and rebuffed, Janet marries Osborne Slade, a man older than herself, but a most desirable person by all Boston standards. The story has to do with her marriage. It is a tepid success for a time, but a crisis arises and at this time Janet meets Donald again. The story closes with the European war in progress and Janet serving as a nurse in France.
“Fidelity to the varied aspects of the present-day life in Boston is to be found in ‘Thephœnix.’ Sometimes, however, mere truth palls, and there are pages of the book where the author quite fails to hold our interest, through her very evident desire to make her picture a faithful one. ... What the author has done supremely well is to create the atmosphere of over-organized hustle and underlying boredom in which so many well-to-do women exist.” D. L. M.
“With the possible exception of one or two of the minor characters, the people in the book are not well drawn, and the novel as a whole is somewhat dull.”
“The final chapters have a bit of the cinema about them. But ‘The phoenix’ is sincere and alive, while the characters, with the possible exception of Donald Craig, are drawn with faithfulness. It is a good specimen of new Boston fiction.”
WASHBURN, MARGARET FLOY.Movement and mental imagery; outlines of a motor theory of the complexer mental processes. il*$1.75 Houghton 150 16-15871
This work by a professor of psychology in Vassar college is published as one of the Vassar semi-centennial series. “The author deals with types of association among movements; movement and consciousness; the spontaneous recurrence of movements; the memory after-image and perseveration; the connecting links in movement-systems; associative dispositions; imageless processes; and cognate matters.” (Ath)
“While the appeal of the book is distinctly to the technical student of psychology, the wider bearings of the conception are well considered.”
WASHBURN, STANLEY.Russian advance. il*$1.25 (3c) Doubleday 940.91 17-2489
This is Mr Washburn’s third volume of field notes from the Russian front. It covers the period from June 5 to September 1, 1916, and is a reprint in part of articles that have appeared in the London Times. He has confined his account of Russian operations to that part of the campaign that came under his own observation on the southwestern front. The book closes with a summary of the Russian offensive to the first of September.
“A strict censorship has made it impossible for the writer to give names and details and explanations that would have added much to the interest of his narrative. But it is full enough for the general reader, and it also has the merit of handling topics not already written to death by dozens of other war-chroniclers.” P. F. Bicknell
“His book is not long; but he has had the ability to choose for his setting forth those salient things that really present the picture of the army, the country, the strategy, the people, the occurrences great and small of Russia’s part in the war; we have a real glimpse of the Russian advance as a whole, and an actual sense of what, in Russia and in Austria, lies behind it.”
“Unlike ‘Victory in defeat,’ wherein the retreat of 1915 is given with considerable technical detail, the present book inclines to the colorful and the descriptive, with particular emphasis on the master-mind that directed the movement.”
“It is a very cheering report.”
WASTE, HENRIE, pseud. Philosophy; an autobiographical fragment.*$1.25 Longmans 17-5129
“Philosophy, fair maid of ever youthful face and wisely old heart, is the fairy godmother in this unique tale of adventuring minds and hearts. Its scene is laid in Freiburg, where the American girl who tells the story in the first person, is pursuing the study of philosophy mainly with the intent to find out all she can about how we know and why we wish to know and whence come and how are governed the motives that control action and the laws that control thought. ... But she is just as human a girl as if she were not so entranced with this high purpose and so absorbed in the mental occupations that will advance her on the way. She is a true daughter of Eve, who was the mother of all philosophy, and, like Eve, her mind is one large question mark before all the manifestations of life. ... She has not long to wait until the signal becomes insistent and the quest absorbing in the matter of the personality of one of her fellow-students. The story of the quick developing of love between them and their mutual attraction for each other makes an idyllic romance wherein philosophy stands ever at their elbows.”—N Y Times
“There is about this book a quality of freshness and vividness which will hold the general reader’s interest even through the passages of philosophical analysis and research.”
“Rather dull and prosy narrative.”