“The illustrations of the old-time locomotives and tickets add much to the attractiveness of the book.” J. B. C.
“This volume makes no pretense at being a formal history, and may perhaps be described as a collection of interesting notes. Many amusing incidents are to be found in Mr Bradlee’s pages, and these throw light on manners of the past quite as much as on railroading.”
BRADLEY, ALICE.Candy cook book. il*$1 (2½c) Little 641.5 17-13104
A preliminary discussion of candy ingredients and necessary equipment is followed by recipes for home-made candies, arranged in chapters as follows: Uncooked candies; Assorted chocolates; Fudges; Fondant candies; Caramels and nougatines; Pulled candies; Hard candies; Glacés and pulled flowers; Crystallized fruits; Fruit and gelatine candies; Dried fruits and nuts; Meringues and macaroons; Popcorn candies; Decorated candies and cakes; Favors.
“Discusses the food value of candy and gives sources of materials. Well illustrated.”
“The work is compiled with the care of an expert cookery book and appears to be reliable in all respects.”
BRADLEY, WILLIAM ASPENWALL.[2]Garlands and wayfarings.*$1.50 Mosher 811 17-25839
“William Aspenwall Bradley has composed extremely artistic verse in ‘Garlands and wayfarings.’ His muse carries him everywhere, from a literary consideration to Jean Moreas and appreciations of nature, to a tribute to Jane Addams and some graphic pictures of sunset on the Connecticut. The various moods mirrored in the verses, however, are all those of a lover of beauty.”—Springf’d Republican
“His is at all times a courteous and gracious muse, vivid, clear and sweet. She deems it by far a more attractive appearance to be dressed in a linen suit with exquisite trimmings than in the sinuous silk of her modern sisters, suggestive and alluring in every movement. No, in ‘Garlands and wayfarings’ are the fruits of a ripe culture, a love of beauty and art for their own sake, an idyllic sensibility to nature and a classic sympathy with the spirit of life.” W. S. B.
“His work is always that of a poet to whom the English language has revealed its secret of rich, lyrical expressiveness.”
BRADLEY, WILLIAM ASPENWALL.Old Christmas, and other Kentucky tales in verse.*$1.25 Houghton 811 17-25830
Some four years ago, Mr Bradley, a Connecticut author, contracted “mountain fever” while exploring the Kentucky Cumberlands and other parts of the southern Appalachian system, and remained there nearly six months, getting acquainted with “the life and character of the mountain people.” This volume, containing seventeen poems, is the result. “The stories,” says the author, “which I have attempted to tell are in no sense offered as generally representative of mountain life. ... All I have tried to do is to invest each story with as much as possible of the peculiar color and atmosphere of mountain life.” (Preface)
“A reading of these Kentucky tales has made me think of the nearness in his accomplishment of an indigenous Americanism, racy, humorous, pathetic, rich in local color, and characterization, more like Mark Twain than anything we have had in American verse.” W. S. B.
“It cannot be pretended that this is a poetry of a high order; but Mr Bradley, in adapting to his use the life of the Kentucky mountain-folk, has hit upon extremely interesting material; he has given us some excellent stories, told in the folk-language, with many quaintnesses of idiom, and, on the whole, with the simplicity and economy that makes for effect.” Conrad Aiken
“It is an interesting book, a contribution to our knowledge of our fellow citizens as well as a piece of creative writing. Mr Bradley makes his readers know the Cumberlands better than Mr Masters made them know Spoon River—and like them infinitely better.”
“The interest and the value of the book lie, as do that of the Russian ethnographical novel, in its folk aspect.”
“They are picturesque, and full of color and atmosphere.”
“For the most part he has tried to duplicate in verse the peculiarities of speech and simile that the Kentucky mountaineers use in conversation. Following this plan, he tells their really poetical stories in a truly native vein.”
BRADY, CYRUS TOWNSEND.“By the world forgot”; a double romance of the East and the West.il*$1.40 (2c) McClurg 17-25243
On the morning of his wedding day, Derrick Beekman is shanghaied onto a vessel bound for the South seas. The man responsible for the deed is his best friend, George Harnash, who also loves Stephanie Maynard and is loved by her in return. But of this Beekman knows nothing when he comes to his senses in the hold of the “Susquehanna,” altho later the words of a dying mate, give him a clue. The steamer is wrecked and Beekman is cast upon an isolated volcanic island, inhabited by the descendants of early Dutch explorers. One of these is Truda, a girl of wondrous beauty who promptly makes him forget the woman he was to have married. An earthquake shatters the island and a tidal wave washes the lovers out to sea, to be rescued by the yacht that the Maynards and the repentant Harnash have sent in search of the missing man.
“As usual Dr Brady’s characters stand out boldly for what they are, some of them strong even in their weakness, his drawing of the two principal women actors being a particularly pleasing series of pen pictures.”
“Dr Brady kept life at a respectful distance when he wrote his latest book. Thus he has given that part of the public who is avid for novels of adventure an exciting volume.”
BRADY, CYRUS TOWNSEND.When the sun stood still. il*$1.35 Revell 17-12713
“For the period of his new story Dr Brady has chosen the time when the various tribes of Israel, under the leadership of Joshua, were busily at work conquering the lands and cities of the Canaanites. The story begins when its hero, Dodai, son of Ahoah, a prince of the tribe of Benjamin, goes with Salmon of the tribe of Judah as a spy to the city of Jericho. ... The tale concludes with the conquest of Gibeon. The biblical narrative on which Dr Brady’s novel is founded gives abundant opportunity for color and for dramatic effects.”—N Y Times
“The historical setting of this new book by Dr Brady is far enough back to take on the appearance of a beautiful picture, brilliant, oriental, and engrossing. ... Dr Brady’s association with moving-pictures has accentuated his tendency to melodrama, but he is always interesting.”
BRAILSFORD, HENRY NOEL.League of nations.*$1.75 Macmillan 341 17-19730
“The volume discusses calmly and dispassionately pretty nearly all the problems which this war has raised. But it is primarily concerned with the scheme for a League of nations associated with Mr Taft to form a guarantee of the peace of the world. Mr Brailsford as he proceeds in the discussion is led to consider ‘The problems of nationality,’ ‘The roads of the East,’ ‘Sea power,’ ‘Peace and change,’ ‘The future of alliances,’ ‘The economics of peace,’ ‘America and the League of peace’—in short, to examine pretty nearly the entire political horizon. ... At the close of the volume are printed two schemes, ‘The war settlement’ and ‘The League of nations,’ a plan for the organization of peace.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“This volume is well and thoughtfully written, and the author expresses himself with moderation.”
“Fully to appreciate the wisdom, insight, and dignity of Mr Brailsford’s book one should contrast it with the boiling mess of polemical literature which is still being brewed on both sides of the long fighting line. Mr Brailsford insults no one, impugns no one’s motives, seeks no merely nationalistic interpretation of this war, and does not attempt to assume the rôle of supreme judge between the nations.” W. E. Weyl
“His review of world-politics is masterly. ... His book is certainly an excellent example of sane and persuasive political propaganda. It is more readable than a treatise and less ephemeral than a ‘war book.’ ... Mr Brailsford has shown in this book that the best tradition of English political thinking has not been altogether forgotten in the fog of emotionalism which the war has produced.” C. D. Burns
“It is manifestly impossible to summarize his book or to criticise in detail statements and views beside which stand queries. Time and again, however, the reviewer has found himself wondering how the author could refer to Germany with such mildness and consideration. ... There is a great deal to think of in this volume—it is by no means negligible—when one has once forced oneself to ignore the absence of generous and righteous wrath and of a disposition not to take the hand from the plough till the furrow is done.”
“Mr Brailsford’s book stresses much more than does Mr Harris’s the importance to Europe, even Europe’s great need, of America’s help in the organization of a league of nations. But he does not show a tithe of Mr Harris’s understanding of the difficulties that lie in the way of our entering that league, nor does he show understanding of the procedure by which such a national action would have to be accomplished. His mistake is the same as that which so many publicists in Europe make over and over again—the mistake of thinking that, since the president of the United States has large powers, he must be able to do as he likes without regard to what may be the opinions and wishes of the people. ... But that mishap at the beginning of his work does not in the least lessen the value of his very able discussion of the general subject.”
“One who writes in form so reasonably earns consideration. He sees the weak points of his scheme and discusses them frankly. ... We are not insensible to the skill and sincerity of Mr Brailsford’s appeal, but we cannot see that there is any such dilemma as that on which he tries to impale us.”
“Futurity is dark for him, as for most candid inquirers. The value of the book is that it will enlarge the horizon of most readers and will convince them that the formation of a League of nations is not so simple a matter, its consequences are not so clear, as its advocates often assume.”
BRAINERD, ELEANOR (HOYT) (MRS CHARLES CHISHOLM BRAINERD).How could you, Jean? il*$1.35 (1½c) Doubleday 17-28076
Jean Mackaye, when she lost her money, not only could, but did take a position to do general housework, because cooking was the thing about which she knew the most. She went to live with the Bonners, two “elderly infants,” who badly needed a caretaker. Mr Bonner specialized on moths, while Mrs Bonner was oblivious to most things except the fauna, flora and folk lore of the Faroe islands. How Jean mothered the Bonners in the city and went with them to their farm on the Connecticut river, how well-to-do Teddy Burton fell in love with Jean at first sight, and in order to make her acquaintance, answered the Bonner’s advertisement for a man of all work on the farm, and what came of it all is pleasantly told by Mrs Brainerd.
“Light, will be popular.”
“The tale moves so slowly that it seems rather the material for a short story than for a book of 337 pages. It shows, however, Mrs Brainerd’s known knack for light fiction.”
Reviewed by Joseph Mosher
BRAITHWAITE, WILLIAM STANLEY BEAUMONT, comp. Anthology of magazine verse for 1916, and year book of American poetry. $1.50 Gomme 811.08
For descriptive note see Annual for 1916.
“A valuable year book for the small library.”
“Whether through inability or unwillingness, Mr Braithwaite seems no nearer learning that there can be little excuse for an anthology which does not select. ... This year’s volume, like last year’s, is for the most part filled with the jog-trot of mediocrity. One must wade through pages and pages of mawkishness, dulness, artificiality, and utter emptiness to come upon the simple dignity of Mr Fletcher’s ‘Lincoln’ (marred by a faintly perfumed close), or the subdued, colloquial tenderness of Mr Frost’s ‘Homestretch,’ or the sinister pattern of ‘The hill-wife,’ or Miss Lowell’s delicately imagined ‘City of falling leaves.’ ... There can be no question that had Mr Braithwaite composed his anthology from books, instead of from magazines, it could have been one thousand per cent better. ... It very seriously misrepresents—or, rather, hardly represents at all—the true state of poetry in America to-day.” Conrad Aiken
“For a book of avowedly temporary interest, for which the literary horizon is quite as significant as the zenith, I think of no one who could hold the balance between age and novelty, between tradition and adventure, more impartially than Mr Braithwaite.” O. W. Firkins
“This is the fourth collection of American poetry which Mr Braithwaite has given us. In 1913 he found the current of what he calls ‘distinctive’ poetry running most strongly in the Smart Set. In 1914 the Smart Set, Bellman, and Forum marked an equal wave, while in 1915 the tide left all these high and dry and buried Poetry fathoms deep. This year we learn that ‘the radical influence of Poetry ... has waned,’ and it is the Poetry Review of America to which the capricious current turns.”
“Decidedly the best of the series of his anthologies, or year-books, of American poetry so far published.”
“The tireless optimism of William Stanley Braithwaite persists as one of the disquieting literary phenomena of the times. It was the dominating note in his ‘Anthology of magazine verse and year-book of American poetry’ last year and the year before; it is even more rampantly dominant in the anthology for 1916. ... Mr Braithwaite is not responsible for the material he has to work with; undoubtedly he is responsible for what he thinks of it. It is therefore not Mr Braithwaite’s fault that his anthology can scarcely compare with such a work as the garnerings of ‘Georgian poetry,’ of which two volumes have appeared in England within the last five years.”
BRAITHWAITE, WILLIAM STANLEY BEAUMONT.Poetic year for 1916; a critical anthology.*$2 Small 821 17-26654
“The substance of the chapters in this book appeared in the columns of the Boston Evening Transcript, in a series of articles called ‘The lutanists of midsummer,’ and in the poetry reviews, which Mr Braithwaite contributed during 1916, to that paper.” (Acknowledgments) The book lacks an index, but the poets considered in each chapter are named in the table of contents.
“It makes a helpful supplement to the year’s ‘Anthology of magazine verse.’”
“For the last five years the largest part of Mr Braithwaite’s work has been criticism. ... A too excessive appreciation has been the charge oftenest brought against his estimate of poets. ... In this book, Mr Braithwaite comes nearer than he ever has before to explaining to the public his ideals for American poetry and his personal attitude toward his work.” D. L. M.
“Though we must give credit to Mr Braithwaite for his labors, and even wonder at his industry, it is in the character of a collector and not that of a critic that his real value consists. A man may have sufficient taste—though Mr Braithwaite’s is by no means impeccable—to make a creditable collection of poems, and yet be incompetent to talk well about them; and hence a bare presentation of his favorites is much to be preferred to this latest method, where the poems are drowned in a sea of talk. For it is talk of the most insufferable sort, namely, that of a literary tea-party—emotional, vague, diffuse, grandiloquent, pompously platitudinous.”
“At the very centre of his attitude toward poetry is the express belief that poetry is a sort of supernaturalism. ... In his present book, therefore, Mr Braithwaite puts a clear emotional emphasis on work which is characteristically sentimental. ... Consequently, such poets as are in the main realists, implicitly critical or analytical of life, or at the most neutrally receptive, are somewhat coolly entertained. ... Clearly, such an attitude reveals in Mr Braithwaite a very decided intellectual limitation. Must poetry be all marshmallows and tears?... The trouble with this book is at bottom, that while it has a rather intriguing appearance of being judicial, it is really, under the mask, highly idiosyncratic.” Conrad Aiken
“Mr Braithwaite, through himself or his proxies, says all manner of things, including some very good things. ... We all know that Mr Braithwaite keeps his praise in a ‘tank,’ and his drafts on that reservoir in the present volume are of characteristic liberality. As for standard English, he seems definitely to have severed his relationship with that archaism.” O. W. Firkins
“If he had called it an appreciative, not a critical, anthology no one could have quarreled with him. But the idea of separation, of a division between black and white, at least, is implicit in the word ‘criticism,’ and of such separation there is little trace in Mr Braithwaite’s purling periods.”
“Among the especially pleasing chapters are ‘The idol-breakers,’ a discussion of free verse; ‘Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos & Co.,’ an appreciation of Edwin Arlington Robinson, and ‘Magic casements,’ which comments upon the poetry of Walter de la Mare, Lizette Woodworth Reese and Bliss Carman.”
BRANDES, GEORG MORRIS COHEN.World at war; tr. by Catherine D. Groth.*$2 (2½c) Macmillan 940.91 17-13334
A collection of essays written before and during the war. The first is Foreboding, written in 1881, just as Bismarck’s state-socialistic ideas were being put into practice. “State-socialism, deprived of the fundamental principles of fraternity and self-government, is by the very nature of things a liberty-sapping doctrine,” wrote Brandes. Other papers written before the war are: The death of Kaiser Friedrich—1888—the death of the real German spirit; England and Germany—1905—the probability of war between them; German patriotism—1913—the glorification of war. Among those written after the outbreak of war are: The fundamental causes of the world war—1914; Different points of view on the war—1914; The great era—1915; Will this be the last war?—1915; The praise of war—1915; Protectors of small nations—1915; Ideals or politics—1916. Mr Brandes writes thruout as a neutral, and his open letter to M. Georges Clemenceau, reprinted in the volume, is a defense of Denmark’s neutrality.
“This book fails to get anywhere. It reflects the despondency of a brilliant man of the republic of letters who cannot comprehend the meaning of grave questions of the empire of the sword.”
“The book is evidence that the expert had better stick to his province. In the interpretation of literature many of us are anxious to hear what Dr Brandes has to say. As a publicist, he is quite frankly third-rate. His book is a rehash of old material and new comment which has no permanent value of any kind.” H. J. Laski
“A more disappointing book on the war has scarcely been written. It preaches a doctrinaire pacifism.”
“In spite of these cosmopolitan ties, or rather because of them, he does not hesitate to deal praise or blame to all of the belligerents with equal vigor, according to his idea of the dictates of justice. He lays down the law like an Old Testament prophet to German militarists as well as to M. Clemenceau and Mr William Archer.”
“The book was completed before the United States had entered upon the contest, but we can infer what judgment would have been passed upon us by the unqualified statement that in 1898 we made war on Spain in order to secure the markets of Cuba. Of the combatant nations in this war, he credits none with any higher motive.”
“Dr Brandes touches with fearlessness and a burning sense of justice upon the various aspects of the war without allowing himself to be biased by any one side.” B. D.
“Not all that he says will be acceptable to American readers, but in these days when it is essential for us to understand the war aims of all the belligerents, his book is at least of value in presenting opinion from a fresh point of view. ... Much of Dr Brandes’s reasoning is reversed by the revolution in Russia and the entrance of the United States into the war.”
“He is not a builder. He analyzes—brilliantly, keenly, cuttingly, yet not unkindly; he does not construct. But it is a relief to read one book on the war which does not propose a final solution of the problem of war. Brandes comes nearest to it when he preaches the gospel of free trade. He persists in looking at the war as a Dane and a Jew naturally looks at the war—detachedly, with a bit of a sob and a bit of a sneer for both sides.” L: S. Gannett
BRANFORD, BENCHARA.Janus and Vesta; a study of the world crisis and after.*$2 Stokes 901 (Eng ed 17-17103)
“Mr Branford is well known in the educational world as a divisional inspector of the London county council. ... His zeal for universal vocational training is the expression of no narrow ideal of ‘national efficiency,’ but springs from a profound study of the conditions of development of the human spirit. It is, therefore, in complete harmony with his passionate conviction that a revival of university life (including a renaissance of the ‘wandering scholar’) is one of the most urgent needs of the time. ... In this connection Mr Branford argues with much force that universities have, during the modern epoch, largely forgotten their catholic mission, and have become, in many insidious ways, organs for the cultivation of national separatism and egotism. As a remedy for this state of things he presses the suggestion of a ‘world university,’ neutral, as the papacy is neutral, to be the guardian of the common spiritual interests of mankind, both western and eastern.”—Nature
Reviewed by F. H. Giddings
“To one at least it seems a noble book, full of a wise and strong humanity, worthy to be classed with writings to which all men pay homage. Any scientific reader who will start with the chapter on ‘Science and occupation’ and follow whither the clue leads will probably reach much the same opinion. ... Though his ideas are often at first provocative, they are generally seen, on candid consideration, to be widely and solidly based. No one concerned with the problems of our State internal or external, can afford to neglect them.”
“An impartial thinker, passionately eager to find a common understanding in every sphere of human life, not by ignoring difficulties, but by honestly attempting to reconcile them and transcend them.”
“The arrangement of the book baffles patience and even curiosity.”
“It is only fair to the prospective reader to warn him that there are some passages in the book that seem reverberantly empty, and others whose content appears to be of the cloudiest; it will be for the reader himself to decide how far any apparent hiatus of meaning is due to failure of expression on the author’s part, how far to his own lack of intuition. This warning uttered, we commend the book whole-heartedly to the consideration of thoughtful people. Besides frequent nobility of thought, it shows much of the keen practicality that always characterizes the work of the true mystic.”
BRASSEY, THOMAS BRASSEY, 1st earl.Work and wages; the reward of labour and the cost of work.*$1.25 Longmans 331 16-9980
“Lord Brassey describes this book on the title-page as ‘a volume of extracts, revised and partly re-written.’ They are taken partly from the original ‘Work and wages,’ which was published in 1872, and partly from other contributions of his to the subject, none of them later than 1879. They belong, therefore, to the past, and do not directly touch the most acute and recent labour questions of the moment.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“This little book should be put in our bookcases side by side with Thorold Rogers, for it adds a great many facts to the ‘Six centuries of work and wages.’”
“The facts recorded and opinions expressed have a historical value, and some of them throw light on problems of perennial interest.”
BRERETON, FREDERICK SADLIER.On the road to Bagdad.il 6s Blackie, London
“The hero of this book has accomplishments beyond those of an ordinary subaltern. During his boyhood his guardian had taken him on many adventurous journeys in Mesopotamia, the pair frequently passing as natives, so perfect was their knowledge of the language and customs of the country. When the theatre of the great war was extended to Mesopotamia, the hero, as a member of the Expeditionary force, found himself detailed for all kinds of adventurous missions.”—Ath
“The story gives a graphic picture of the perils and dangers of the Expeditionary force in this land (Mesopotamia) of desert and marsh.”
“Captain Brereton is an old hand at boys’ books, and he has mingled instruction and adventure well in this narrative.”
BRESHKOVSKY, MME CATHERINE.Little grandmother of the Russian revolution; reminiscences and letters; ed. by Alice Stone Blackwell. il*$2 (2c) Little 17-31436
One of the first acts of Russia’s provisional government, after the revolution, was to liberate Madame Catherine Breshkovsky who for fifty years was not free from police surveillance and for thirty years was an exile in Siberia. Miss Blackwell has had access to three sources of information: the account of Madame Breshkovsky’s childhood and youth given to Doctor Abraham Cahan while she was in America in 1904; a description of her early prison experiences with an outline of her later life, published in the Outlook; and letters, many of them written to Miss Blackwell during the years since 1904. Miss Blackwell has put this material together chronologically, unfolding one of the most dramatic careers of all time. The work is valuable first as a human document; second, as a survey of the social problems that have sent so many missionaries of revolution among the peasants of Russia.
“Her viewpoint on the war is especially fine and valuable reading in this day; she is so deeply the lover of peace and of humanity, and so vigorous and clear-thinking an advocate of the carrying on of the war to a successful end for Russia and the Allies.”
“The letters deserve to live, not only because of their individual charm and interest, but because taken together they give a beautiful reflection from one of the noblest souls who has lived in our time. They are cheerful, often playful, and they are full of human sympathy and human interest. There is in them not a single note of despair, of personal resentment, and rarely is there any evidence of indignation because of her own hateful and wicked treatment.”
“The skilful editing has plainly been a labor of love. Mme Breshkovsky appears in these intimate communications as a woman of unconquerable spirit, acutely sensitive to the sufferings and wrongs of the people, individually or in the mass, appreciative of the wrongs done to herself but much more concerned in acknowledging the kindnesses bestowed upon her by hosts of friends.”
BRIDGES, ROBERT SEYMOUR.Ibant obscuri; an experiment in the classical hexameter.*$5 Oxford 873 17-14043
“In this beautiful volume, one of the fairest products of the Clarendon press, Mr Bridges reprints his paraphrase in quantitative hexameters of part of Virgil’s sixth book and gives to the world for the first time a similar paraphraseof the scene between Priam and Achilles in the last book of the Iliad. His hexameters occupy the right-hand page, and in smaller type under each line is Virgil’s and Homer’s original, the Greek words being printed from an elegant fount in common use two centuries ago. On the left-hand page appear selections, each under its author’s name and date, framed in a cartouche, from the versions of previous translators, both in prose and verse, fifty-two Virgilian and twenty-eight Homeric, distinguished and undistinguished, curiosities like Gawin Douglas and Chapman, poets like Dryden, Pope, Cowper, and Morris, public men like Derby and Bowen, professional scholars in abundance, Conington, Mackail, Leaf, Simcox. Most important of all is Mr Bridges’s introduction, in which he explains clearly enough to all who can follow it the system upon which he has written these English hexameters.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“An experiment of tranquil days, growing up around a friend’s paper on Virgil’s hexameter, lovingly and rather quaintly printed, has ‘loitered on,’ to appear in these tragic times. One may question whether the thing was worth doing, or worth printing when done; but hostile criticism is disarmed by the author’s frank abandonment of any claim.”
“For our part, we see no special reason why any more hexameter verse, whether accentual or quantitive, should be written in the English tongue. The measure is, and remains, an exotic. In the accentual kind the most successful are the ‘Evangeline’ of Longfellow and the ‘Bothie’ of Clough; the former an exercise in romance, and the latter an experiment in fiction. One reads and enjoys them, but hardly desires successors.”
BRIGHAM, GERTRUDE RICHARDSON.Study and enjoyment of pictures. il*$1.25 (3c) Sully & Kleinteich 750 17-12954
This work on pictures is divided into four parts: Principles of art criticism; Schools of painting; Pictures to see in America; Pictures to see in Europe. The author says, “About fifty of the most famous names in painting have been chosen for discussion, ranging from the renaissance down to the present day, unfolding the gradual progress of art, and indicating the motives which have influenced artists as great schools have arisen in one country after another. ... The illustrations have been selected from great artists, but of subjects not yet too well known, and hence they offer material for study.” There are sixteen illustrations. A short bibliography is provided at the end and there is an index.
“The ‘Pictures to see in America’ will help as a quick survey of the chief works of art in the leading cities of the country.”
“Gertrude Richardson Brigham is instructor in the history of art at George Washington university. Her text is sensible but not always free from commonplaces.”
BRITTAIN, HARRY ERNEST.To Verdun from the Somme; an Anglo American glimpse of the great advance.*$1 (4c) Lane 940.91 17-12615
The author visited France in company with James M. Beck, who contributes a foreword to the book. They spent some time with the British forces in the valley of the Somme, visited Verdun and were taken along the battle line of the French front, spending some time with the Russian soldiers who are fighting in France. There is no table of contents, but some of the chapter titles picked out at random are: The Somme; Behind the firing line; On the Peronne road; Tommy Atkins; French airmen; Through the Argonne; To the Russian lines; Rheims.
“Descriptive writers are divided into two classes, those who can paint a picture and those who can take you there. The book under discussion belongs in the first group. ... Mr Brittain leaves out most of the petty happenings. Genial, though his style is, one cannot help the feeling that he has written with his gloves on. The two accounts of his visits to Verdun and to Rheims are exceptions to this lack of generosity on the author’s part.”
“Mr Brittain treats his subject with a freshness and simplicity which will make a sure appeal to his readers. Possibly one of the most interesting divisions of the book is that which deals with a visit to the Russian lines, and gives a short account of a Russian ‘church parade,’ at which the congregation was representative of anywhere ‘from Korea to the Caucasus.’”
“Mr Brittain adds little to our knowledge of the war save his own sketchy views of the front as he found it, which are perhaps as valuable as those of other casual observers.”
BRONNER, AUGUSTA FOX.Psychology of special abilities and disabilities.*$1.75 (2c) Little 371.9 17-11120
The author has made a special study of two classes: (1) those of normal general ability who possess some special disability; (2) those below normal in general capacities who possess some special ability. At present, she says, all persons are divided into two classes: normal and defective. Children are so divided and are taught accordingly. No provision is made for those on the border line who might be better adjusted to society if account were taken of their particular abilities and defects. Contents: The problem; Methods of diagnosis; Differential diagnosis; Some present educational tendencies; Special defects in number work; Special defects in language ability; Special defects in separate mental processes; Defects in mental control; Special abilities with general mental subnormality; General conclusions. The author is assistant director of the Juvenile psychopathic institute of Chicago.
Reviewed by L. S. Hollingworth
“This brief but scientific account of special abilities and disabilities should be read especially by the practicing teacher and the school officer.” E. B. Woods
“Apart from its title, which is altogether too general, this work may be unreservedly commended.”
Reviewed by A. T. Poffenberger
“Public-school teachers will get something of benefit from the discussions of this book as well as those engaged in the technical work of mental examination.”
“The book is very carefully worked out; the conscientious accounts of the work by others are more than mere references, and the theoretical discussion and the actual case-records go clearly hand in hand. A careful study of this book gives one the comfort that instead of the usual mass of generalities dealt out inbooks on education we have at last solid ground for sensible and well directed constructive work.” Adolph Meyer, M.D.
BROOKE, HENRY BRIAN (KORONGO).Poems; with a foreword by M. P. Willcocks. il*$1.25 Lane 821 17-24096
“Captain Brian Brooke lost his life at Mametz, leading his men with unabated courage in spite of wounds. In British East Africa he had a great name as a hunter ... and readers of the foreword by Miss Willcocks will easily see what a splendid man he was. His life was a poem, but he did not write poetry. His verses are like those of Adam Lindsay Gordon, free-and-easy records of ‘The call of the wild,’ close communings with nature, tales of fine horses, lonely souls, and sinners going right at the end, and downright denunciation of some of the humbugs of civilisation.”—Sat R
“Brian Brooke lived poetry rather than wrote it. ... Judged by the critic’s standards, the verses are not poetry at all. ... The bulk of them first appeared in the Leader of South Africa and similar colonial papers. They are direct, sincere interpretations of pioneer life as he saw it, and they do for East Africa much what those of Robert Service have done for Alaska. Like Service’s they are largely narrative.” R. T. P.
“‘That ride,’ a race for the border between an illicit trader and a German whom he has taken unawares, is an exciting piece of direct narrative that may rival ‘How we beat the favourite’—its obvious source of inspiration. The Masai called Brooke ‘Korongo’ or ‘The Big Man’; his friends called him ‘The Boy’—a more fitting epithet, for it is long since we read any verse that was so full of the glorious vigour and recklessness of youth.”
“In spite of the utter lack of literary craftsmanship—perhaps because of it to some extent—his rough ballads of African life are at times curiously impressive. ‘The song of the bamboos,’ for example, will always be remembered by those who have ever camped by a thicket.”
BROOKS, ALDEN.Fighting men.*$1.35 (2c) Scribner 17-21875
The author, who has been war correspondent and American ambulance driver, and is now an officer in the French artillery, uses the knowledge he has gained of the national characteristics of the fighting countries as a background for a series of short stories. Full of the horrors of war, the first interest of these tales is yet psychological. Contents: The Parisian; The Belgian; The Odyssey of three Slavs; The man from America; The Prussian; An Englishman. Some of the series were first published in Collier’s in 1916. “The man from America,” which appeared in the Century Magazine for July, 1917, describes that type of American to whom liberty was dearer than neutrality. He allowed no outsider to criticize his government but before April, 1917, he had died fighting with the Foreign legion of France. The intimate touches which the author gives bring these tales home to the reader as tragedy through which he is personally passing.
“They are the work of a writer who has felt (not pursued) the continental influence, and whose master is de Maupassant rather than ‘O. Henry.’ But they are the work of an American, and they have the direct and personal effect of honest work done at first hand.” H. W. Boynton
“The red realism of war enters into the six short stories that make up this book.”
“To those who have found war too gloriously represented in fiction, to those who would like to know a few of the typical fighting men of the eastern and western fronts, shorn of their civilized demeanor and expressing in action the purely elemental impulses, we recommend ‘The fighting men.’”
“As a piece of writing ‘The fighting men’ is an uneven book. But for the most part it is graphic. And always it is horrible. The three stories, which take up the first half of the volume, are the best. ... ‘The Prussian’ is a terrible tale of war, like the others, but it seems less vivid, less real. As for ‘An Englishman,’ it is a morbid piece of fiction, false, maudlin, unwholesome.”
“The tale called ‘The Odyssey of three Slavs’ is one of the most powerful war stories we have seen.”
“Gradually, however, the realization sinks in that they are something more profound and significant than mere printers’-ink pictures of phases of the great war—they are psychological studies executed with amazing dexterity, comprehension and simplicity of means, embodying, for the most part, in a single character the complex personality, the dominant racial spirit of each of the warring nations.” F: T. Cooper
BROOKS, CHARLES STEPHEN.There’s pippins and cheese to come.il*$2 (5c) Yale univ. press 814 17-29242
“Journeys to Bagdad,” a book of reprinted papers published last year, won a place for the author in the regard of those who still cherish the essay as a form of literary diversion. There are twelve essays in the new volume, that which gives it the inviting title and the following: On buying old books; Any stick will do to beat a dog; Roads of morning; The man of Grub street comes from his garret; Now that spring is here; The friendly genii; Mr Pepys sits in the pit; To an unknown reader; A plague of all cowards; The asperities of the early British reviewers; The pursuit of fire. Some of these have appeared in the New Republic and the Yale Review.
“Whimsical, clever essays with a leisurely atmosphere, reminiscent of Lamb.”
“One of those books which cannot be recommended at all to many readers, but which can be recommended very highly to some. The worst that can be said of these twelve essays, from any point of view, is that they are a waste of time and energy, and fail to stimulate; they are often as futile as Edward Lear’s nonsense books, but at the same time almost as refreshing.” J. F. S.
“Rarely does one find a book so loaded with quiet humor, literary charm, ease of expression and delicate fancy.”
“He has nothing whatever that is new to communicate but his own personal gusto; and he even smacks his lips, as he employs the subjunctive mood, with an antique smack.”