“Not often is the needed authoritative information made available in a form so compact and so interesting as that of Dr Chapin’s little pocket volume. It illustrates the changed emphasis from cure to prevention.” G. S.
“Admirably practical and concise statement of the modes of infection and how a person or community may avoid them. By the author of ‘Sources and modes of infection.’”
CHAPIN, FRANCIS STUART.Historical introduction to social economy. il*$2 (3c) Century 330.9 17-25499
A study, in the light of present progress, of contrasting types of industrial organizations at different historical periods, and of public and private efforts made to relieve the poverty of each period. Elementary in treatment, the volume meets the need of a textbook for an introductory study in the history of social economy. Problems of early Greek and Roman civilization are reviewed; likewise, the industrial development at the end of the middle ages and the great social revolutions of modern times. The transition from remedial to constructive charity and preventive philanthropy is the theme for the closing chapters.
Reviewed by S. A. Queen
“As far as it goes Professor Chapin’s ‘Social economy,’ is a stimulating and valuable book.”
“The work is important in its analysis of the recurrent agrarian problems, particularly land distribution, of the productive systems of slavery and free labor, and of the historical changes in industrial organization.”
“It is rather a wide subject for 300 pages, and it is necessarily a little sketchy. As a general introduction to a great subject the book is sound and valuable.” I. C. Hannah
CHAPIN, HENRY DWIGHT.Health first; the fine art of living.*$1.50 (3½c) Century 614 17-23809
An essentially common-sense book by a New York physician of long experience and high standing. He says: “In order to understand and properly manage any period, we must know the conditions that precede and are liable to follow it, so that we may make the necessary changes in our conduct of life. ... It is believedthat in this way life can be prolonged and made more efficient.” (Preface) Dr Chapin therefore discusses, in a series of chapters, rational procedure from infancy to old age and also considers health from the outlook of nutrition, the avoidance of infection, climatic, local and moral influences. A practical book for the use of the individual reader in home or work. The publishers call it a “first aid to the well.”
“The book is written in an agreeable, terse, and altogether readable style. It is a volume to be welcomed, to be read and returned to with lasting profit. The author is a recognized authority, of course, on his subject, and he presents it in important detail and interesting form.”
“The few pages devoted to infancy contain more useful information than many a volume written on the subject. The description of adolescence is necessarily incomplete. On the other hand, the chapters on nutrition and infection contain the gist of the subject. ... There probably is no other book that covers the subject so well in so few pages.” Medicus
“A reading of the book should stimulate healthful thinking and should lead to the exercise of healthful precautions in daily life. For the application of individual details, however, it were wiser to consult a well-trained physician.” L. A. Jones
CHAPLIN, ALETHEA.Treasury of fairy tales. il*50c (1½c) Crowell
Six old fairy tales retold with sympathy and charm, with the necessary expurgation and change to warrant their having a safe bed-time effect. The stories are: Babes in the wood; Puss in boots; Hop o’ my Thumb; Jack and the bean stalk; Red Riding Hood; Cinderella.
CHAPMAN, ARTHUR.Out where the West begins, and other western verses.*$1.25 Houghton 811 17-7485
The title poem appeared first in a Denver newspaper and it has been copied and re-copied many times. The other poems of the book have a western flavor, too, as some of the titles will show: Cow-puncher philosophy; The sheriff’s report; The diamond hitch; The white man’s road; The herder’s reverie; Little papoose; The old-timer; Out among the big things; The pony express; The homesteader; The mother lode.
“Mr Chapman phrases the old facile philosophy of ‘God’s out-of-doors’ in a manner not very novel or very attractive in itself. The title poem is merely an inept and sentimental phrasing of the braggadocio of the far West.” Odell Shepard
“Mr Arthur Chapman is one of the most popular of American poets, and he counts among his readers many who are not to be classified as poetry-lovers. Yet what he writes is poetry, imaginative and beautiful, but so filled with human sympathy that it appeals even to those who ordinarily are deaf to rime and rhythm.”
“Some are in cowboy language and nearly all are serious in tone.”
CHAPMAN, CHARLES FREDERIC.Practical motor boat handling, seamanship and piloting, il*$1 Motor boating, 119 W. 40th st., N.Y. 797 17-12272
“Twenty-one timely and concise chapters by the editor of Motor Boating upon the subjects of navigation, regulations, lights, buoys, equipment, compasses and charts, piloting, helpful publications, instruments, flags, signals, yachting etiquette, steering, and meals.” (N Y P L New Tech Bks) “Especially prepared for the man who takes pride in handling his own boat and getting the greatest enjoyment out of cruising; adapted for the yachtsman interested in fitting himself to be of service to his government in time of war.” (Sub-title)
CHAPMAN, JAMES CROSBY, and RUSH, GRACE PREYER.Scientific measurement of classroom products. il $1.25 Silver 371.3 17-9714
A book which “describes quite clearly—in fact, often as to a child or a moron—the several scales that have been devised for the measurement of ability in arithmetic, handwriting, reading, spelling, English composition, completion of sentences, and drawing. The authors regard the application of scientific measurement to school products as ‘the greatest contribution which has been made to education in the last ten years’; but they do not minimize the difficulties to be met with in the application of the various methods devised, and counsel caution to the over-enthusiastic convert.” (Nation) There is a three-page bibliography.
“The writer of a text on educational measurement takes upon himself the responsibility of (1) selecting the best representative scales and standard tests to put before teachers, (2) evaluating these carefully, (3) presenting them in non-technical language, (4) showing how they can be and are being used to set standards of attainment and to improve teaching in a very definite way, and (5) supplying the teacher with a completely organized and well-annotated bibliography of tests and scales that are now available. ‘The scientific measurement of classroom products’ is deficient on nearly every one of these counts. ... Because of all these deficiencies, we do not commend this publication as a representative discussion in the field of educational measurement.”
CHAPMAN, VICTOR EMMANUEL.Victor Chapman’s letters from France. il*$1.25 Macmillan 940.91 17-14800
Victor Chapman was a young American who was killed at Verdun in June, 1916. He was in Paris studying architecture in the summer of 1914, and he enlisted at once in the Foreign legion, and became a member of the Franco-American flying corps. This book consists largely, as its title states, of his letters written from France, but there is also a memoir, written by his father John Jay Chapman, together with other tributes.
“Remarkable letters, spontaneous and without self-consciousness.”
“His letters, more than all the short sketch which precedes them, show us the young legionnaire and aviator in his true colors—as one to whom danger was life itself, to whom pretension and heroics were as foreign as fear, who took life, so be it a life of action, as a glorious adventure, and death as the most natural and perhaps the most glorious adventure of all.” R. M.
“The memoir by his father is an emotionally reserved but curiously vivid sketch of the young Victor.”
“Victor’s letters should endear him to readers principally for the whole-hearted enthusiasm shown for the cause for which he fought and for his boyish naïveté and buoyant youthfulness. The letters are interesting as revelations of character. They shed a strong and illuminatinglight on trench conditions and the every-day experiences of soldiers in France. It is a book of touching and pathetic as well as inspiring revelations.”
“His letters express his passion for landscape, for the French countryside he could look down on, for the clouds near which he was so much at home. He and his mother come to life again, and will live with a tragic intensity forever, in this ‘Memoir,’ where Mr Chapman speaks of them with a passion of candor that is lonelier than any reticence.” P. L.
“They are graphic letters that show imaginative feeling and unusual faculty for literary expression, and they are filled with details of his daily life and duties and reflect the keen satisfaction he was taking in his experiences.”
CHASE, MARY ELLEN.Virginia of Elk Creek valley.il*$1.35 (3c) Page 17-10859
This book is a sequel to “The girl from the Big Horn country,” published in 1916, which told how Virginia Hunter left her father’s cattle ranch in Wyoming and went east to school. In the new volume, practically all the action takes place on or near the ranch which is Virginia’s home, and to which she invites her eastern friends in the summer vacation. The only love affair in the story is that of Virginia’s Aunt Nan, and that is touched on but lightly.
CHEKHOV, ANTON PAVLOVICH.House with the mezzanine, and other stories; tr. from the Russian by S. S. Koteliansky and Gilbert Cannan.*$1.35 (2c) Scribner 17-22089
“My life,” the longest of the seven stories, takes up about half the book. The other stories are: The house with the mezzanine; Typhus; Gooseberries; In exile; The lady with the toy dog; Goussiev. “The lady with the toy dog” appears in the third volume of Chekhov’s tales translated by Mrs Garnett and published by Macmillan as “The lady with the dog.”
Reviewed by L: S. Friedland
Reviewed by Alvin Johnson
“Chekhov, with the subtle skill of the etcher, transforms the ordinary into the artistic. This is his miracle of creation.” L: S. Friedland
“He is, above all things, a lover of beauty. If he were not, he could not hate ugliness so much. ... In the present volume his sensitiveness becomes almost morbid. ... Tchekoff is an artist, not a propagandist, and he holds out no panacea for the conditions he portrays. But he places a suggestion in the mouth of Misrail, the ineffectual, wasted idealist, that is very significant—i.e., that in order that man should not enslave his fellows, nor build up a prison house of greed and egotism about himself, ‘it was necessary that all without exception—the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor—should share equally in the struggle for existence, every man for himself, and in that respect there was no better means of leveling than physical labor and compulsory service for all.’ ... The world is coming to see that universal service of one sort or another is a national duty. ... William James has offered it as a substitute for war. Tchekoff offers it as a necessity of peace.”
“The popularity of Anton Chekhov, or at any rate, the attempt to popularize him, is evidenced from the fact that two publishers are concurrently bringing out what must eventually be his complete works. ... There is much overlapping, and as even the most enthusiastic Russophile would not want both sets, the question comes to one of translation. Cursory comparisons fail to settle the question. Mrs Garnett has probably rendered more Russian into English than has Mr Cannan, but Mr Cannan is not unskilled, and imparts a finish to the work, which does not mean lack of fidelity to the original, that makes it read as smoothly as does Mrs Garnett’s version, which is no mean praise.”
CHEKHOV, ANTON PAVLOVICH.Lady with the dog, and other stories; tr. from the Russian by Constance Garnett.*$1.50 (2c) Macmillan 17-15285
“This is the third volume out of the six in which Mrs Garnett’s translations of Tchehov’s tales are to be issued.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) “One or two of the stories have already appeared in different translations.” (Boston Transcript) The longest of the nine tales, “An anonymous story,” takes up about a third of the book. The other stories are: The lady with the dog; A doctor’s visit; An upheaval; Ionitch; The head of the family; The black monk (a story of madness); Volodya; The husband.
“Any one with a turn for sampling stories by looking at the last page might well be put off by the uniform ending of these tales in suicide, disillusionment, or gross abandonment to the sensual sty, and suspect a formula of pessimism and tragedy on the author’s part. But they are various enough in theme, if monotonously grim in colouring; and they belong to various periods in Chekhov’s life, the most poetical of them, ‘The black monk,’ having appeared in English as long ago as 1903.”
“It is said that among the more modern masters of Russian fiction, Chekhov is accorded the first place by his own people. No doubt it takes a Russian fully to appreciate the significance of this, for the writings of Chekhov lack the extraordinary beauty of Sologub’s, the simple charm of Kuprin’s, the deep tragedy of Andreiev’s and the tensity of Maxim Gorky’s. But as the characteristics of all these writers are to be found in Chekhov’s pages, together with a distinct individuality, perhaps he really does give a saner and more truly typical picture of his people, thus explaining the veneration in which his memory and writings are said to be held in Russia. ... ‘A doctor’s visit’ is the unforgettable story of the book. It seems to us to be one of the finest stories of capital and labor ever written.” J. F. S.
Reviewed by L: S. Friedland
“Mr Edward Garnett has said that Chekhov is ‘an unflinching realist, with a poet’s sensitiveness to beauty.’ ‘A true realist’ might better express it all, if we were to permit the phrase its higher meaning. ... Hapless mortals, striving vainly for self-fulfilment, for happiness; frustrate in the end, but not ignoble: such are the figures with which this little world of Chekhov’s is mainly peopled.”
Reviewed by Alvin Johnson
“In one way or another, that opposition between the claims of the ego and the inevitability of ‘what is going on about us’ is almost as persistent in Tchehov as it is in the novels of Mr Hardy. ... Life interested him, hurt him, puzzled him; and the more it puzzled him, it might be thought, the more urgently he felt the need of expressing its effect upon him, touching with the nicest restraint upon the significant though homely details which emphasized the puzzling interest by bringing it to the very doors of his Russian readers. An English reader who does not know Tchehov’s Russia can never, perhaps, appreciate the full force of those details; but many, perhaps most of them, stand good for any civilized country of the modern world.”
“Chekhov can forgive any sin of the body or the mind except the sin against the Holy Ghost—the failure to understand the joys and sorrows of the imagination.” W: L. Phelps
CHEKHOV, ANTON PAVLOVICH.Party, and other stories.*$1.50 (2c) Macmillan 17-23646
This is the fourth volume in the new series of Chekhov’s tales translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett. Contents: The party; Terror; A woman’s kingdom; A problem; The kiss; “Anna on the neck”; The teacher of literature; Not wanted; Typhus; A misfortune; A trifle from life. Another translation of “Typhus” appears in Chekhov’s “House with the mezzanine, and other stories,” published by Scribner.
“This volume includes eleven tales of a high level of merit. While there is considerable diversity in the subjects and methods of treatment, the general sombre atmosphere and feeling of uneasiness and dissatisfaction make it desirable that the tales should be taken singly in order to be fully appreciated.”
“There are eleven tales in this volume, and in none of them is life found anything better than unintelligible. The sweetness and spirituality have been carefully extracted from life, and there is left a sort of carnival of sordidness and inconsequence which is like a nightmare of the soul. It is nothing to say that these tales are not Christian. They are not even in the nobler tradition of paganism.”
Reviewed by L: S. Friedland
“Chekhov, in ‘The party and other stories,’ shows himself again a master of the art of character drawing. With all its power, however, the book, like so much of Chekhov’s work, is depressing and gloomy. Its keynote is human feebleness, human futility. There is not one instance in it of a man or woman fighting against and overcoming adverse circumstances by force of will.”
“If we really wish to understand Russia, we have much to learn from Chekov. Read ‘The party’ and you will know at least something of the life of the intelligent upper classes of the provinces. ... Chekov is concerned mainly with middle class and aristocratic life, fundamentally in a false position among the benighted and exploited millions. Inevitably there is much that is pathological in life thus artificially limited, much that is corrupt and more that is futile. The effect is sometimes depressing, but no intelligent reader would wish it relieved. Chekov gives us nothing that we do not need to know, if we wish to understand Russia.” Alvin Johnson
“‘The party’ is a terrifying piece of realism, indicting the ordinary artificialities of life with a power which would seem as excessive as that used to break the proverbial butterfly on the wheel, if we were not at the same time made to feel that an existence made up of these artificialities is spiritually and even physically ruinous—a lingering death-in-life. Chekhov is the modern Preacher. An evil hath he seen under the sun.”
“‘The party’ is a powerful, grimly realistic tale.”
CHENEY, SHELDON.Art theatre. il*$1.50 (3c) Knopf 792 17-30697
A study of the art theatre, its ideals, its organization and its promise as a corrective for present playhouse evils. The writer believes that the art theatre must become the corrective first for the shortcomings of the little theatre. His point of view differs from that of some of the writers about little theatres, in that he considers the little theatre only a step towards something better. “In all the excitement about little theatres we are in danger of losing sight of the higher ideal—the art theatre.” Next the art theatre must correct the evils of the commercialized theatre with its destructive practice of creating and exploiting “stars.” The real art of the theatre, he thinks, must be established thru the development of fixed local playhouses with resident companies dedicated to repertory production of the best that dramatic art has to offer.
“As a man of experience and vision, he does not fall into the error of trying to ‘uplift’ the commercial theater. It can’t be done, and he knows it.” L: Gardy
“Deals to a certain extent with the same subject as Mr Dickinson’s book, but views it from so different an angle and discusses it with so different an individuality that the two books admirably supplement each other and should both be read by any one who desires all the illumination of the question it is possible to have. A chapter of bibliography, with running comment upon the books mentioned, will add greatly to the book’s value to the student.”
“What these theaters mean in the process of the democratization in our national life, and in the development of a fresh and vital art impulse, Mr Sheldon Cheney tells us in a stirring and captivating book.”
CHÉRADAME, ANDRÉ.Pangerman plot unmasked; Berlin’s formidable peace-trap of “the drawn war”; with an introd. by Lord Cromer. il*$1.25 (2c) Scribner 327.4 17-1796
“By pan-Germanism Mr Chéradame means ‘the doctrine, of purely Prussian origin, which aims at annexing all the various regions, irrespective of race or language, of which the possession is deemed useful to the power of the Hohenzollerns.’ This doctrine, the author claims, is one of steady growth and accretion, and a realization of it has already been on the verge of achievement. He holds even that acceptance of the German offer of a drawn game would make it real within a decade at the furthest.”—Lit D
“To review the book adequately would be to quote it in its entirety, for every page is of significance. It is by all means the most pregnant volume on the deeper issues of the war that has come under our eyes.”
“Useful for its vigorous handling of the geographical issues involved.” H. J. Laski
“Mr Chéradame has concentrated on this subject for over twenty years, in studies in the very lands now occupied or directed by the Germans.”
“The neutral nations are vitally concerned in this. ... His book is arresting, pertinent, unforgettably challenging to serious thought.”
“It is not surprising that M. Chéradame, an eager student of international politics from his youth up, and a pupil of Albert Sorel, should have derived from these sources a point of view quite different from that of the ordinary French or English official diplomatist. ... Entirely apart from any conclusions that may be thought speculative, there are in this book of M. Chéradame’s certain truths of fundamental importance which ought to be widely appreciated, especially in the United States.”
“We cannot commend to our readers a better collection of facts from which to derive a wise caution at this critical turn of events than is contained in this important work. ... Pan-Germanism, which was the source of the war, aims at creating a great military empire stretching from the North sea to the Persian gulf. ... Even as the situation is, Germany has executed nine-tenths of the pan-German plan of 1911. ... The substance of the whole book is a most impressive political argument, very cogent and extraordinarily opportune.”
“No British writer has so firm a grip as M. Chéradame upon the countless ramifications of the pan-German movement.”
CHESTERTON, CECIL EDWARD.Perils of peace; with an introd. by Hilaire Belloc.*2s T. W. Laurie, London 940.91 (Eng ed 16-20285)
“Mr Chesterton’s book is a warning against any compromise or patched-up peace with the enemy, of which he considers there is danger. Three factors in the politics of this country he regards as mainly concerned in the problem: pacificism, with which he associates the names of Mr Macdonald, Mr Snowden, and others; financiers with cosmopolitan concerns; and our system of government by professional politicians. Mr Chesterton is severe upon the ministers in power. Alluding to their decision to fight Germany, he remarks that ‘they achieved the most popular act of their largely misspent lives.’ He considers that if the war proceeds to exhaustion, the Central powers will be exhausted first, and will therefore be obliged to accept the Allies’ terms. A compromise would, for the Allies and especially Great Britain, be disastrous.”—Ath
“We notice some misprints; everywhere Mr Snowden’s name is spelt ‘Snowdon.’”
“I do not in the least disagree with Mr Cecil Chesterton in the immediate object of his book, which is, to avert a sudden laying down of our arms. But I see no danger of that: we are far more likely to go on fighting long after there is nothing more to be gained by it. For the rest the book is full of the most frightful nonsense.” G. B. S.
CHESTERTON, GILBERT KEITH.Short history of England.*$1.50 (2½c) Lane 942 17-29757
At the start Mr Chesterton challenges the claim of so called popular histories to the word popular. “They are all, nearly without exception, written against the people; and in them the populace is either ignored or elaborately proved to have been wrong.” It is his aim to produce, therefore, a history from the standpoint of the public, one that does not trample upon popular traditions. His book is a small one on a big subject; but as he strides down the centuries of England’s progress he pauses at the epoch-making forces long enough to estimate their power and influence in shaping the nation’s course. He dismisses the detail of transitional happenings with a sentence. He places the crisis in English history at the fall of Richard II where the king and the populace for a moment came together, instead of placing it about the period of the Stuarts. Turning to the present world struggle he sees in defeat nothing before England but the servile state; in success, freedom from a yoke of slavery which is another word for militarism.
“You open his pages—perhaps you distrust him and doubt him—but whether you agree with him or disagree, whether you are pleased or annoyed, you inevitably go on reading.”
“It is a trifle that a book should be sometimes too exuberant. The main thing is that it should be alive. And Mr Chesterton’s history is not only alive, but kicking. It has so much of the truth of imagination that it may be forgiven for having some of its falsehood as well.”
“On the whole, it is one of his best books, the tendency to verbal display and superficial antithesis being balanced by the demands of a sustained argument.”
“This book, a pioneer in historical introspection, must kindle severe criticism for its superficial conclusions, inferentially at least, against the assertion of spirited leadership in transition eras, when the persistence of ‘one good custom should corrupt the world.’ ... However, Mr Chesterton is to be welcomed in this new rôle of political philosopher for the fresh interest he brings.” L. E. Robinson
“But it is true of Chesterton’s ‘History of England,’ as it is true of any work of art, that the sanctities which it violates are not so important as the vision which inspires it.” R. K. Hack
“Finally, Chesterton is unable to make his book wholly impartial; it is a partizan history, as bitter against the aristocracy as Macaulay was against the Stuarts and as pro-Catholic as Froude was anti-Catholic. Chesterton is at his best as a historian when he sums up for us the general ‘atmosphere’ of an age or an institution.”
“Mr Chesterton’s thesis is that the middle ages were the time of true democracy, and that parliamentary government is government by an anti-popular oligarchy. Upon this general theme he has written a strange and fascinating history of England.”
“We love Mr Chesterton—we could ‘hug him’, as Johnson said of a man in whom he discovered his own preference for rhyme—for his real understanding of and sympathy with the rhetoric and the aristocracy of the eighteenth century. Mr Chesterton’s ‘Short history’ is the wittiest, most eloquent, and discerning essay on the history of England which we have ever happened to read.”
“Unsuited, therefore, as Mr Chesterton’s style is to history, it is still less suited to propagandism. ... A paradoxical partisan runs very little chance of winning converts. When we want clear thinking he gives us a jingling antithesis; in the words of Bagehot’s invaluable distinction, he can make a loud argument but not a fine one. ... And yet, when we have counted all the faults of the book, we return to its great outstanding merits: its freshness, its vitality, its interest.”
“Nevertheless the book is a brilliant history of Mr Chesterton’s reactions from English history.”
“It would be vain to review this book as a history of England, for it is interesting only as an expression of Mr Chesterton’s mentality. The historian is well aware that he can only see the past through a glass of many colours, but he knows that the business of his science is to dispel, so far as possible, the distortions of the various media through which historical knowledge is transmitted. But to Mr Chesterton the distortion is the reality.”
CHESTERTON, GILBERT KEITH.Utopia of usurers, and other essays.*$1.25 (4c) Boni & Liveright 304 17-26888
The “Utopia of usurers” is an attack on modern society, with special reference to Great Britain. Mr Chesterton “is up in arms against the terror of a world which shall be ruled—inpolitics and literature and art and all things else—by its ‘captains of industry.’” (N Y Times) He is particularly concerned about “the way in which the capitalists of today use art and the press for their own purposes. His spleen, it seems, is largely directed against the liberal press.” (Springf’d Republican) Some chapters such as: The amnesty for aggression, The servile state again, and The tower of Bebel, deal with the European war. Other chapters are: The mask of socialism; A workman’s history of England; The French revolution and the Irish; The art of missing the point, etc. Two poems are included: A song of swords and The escape.
“The general scope of his latest book, ‘Utopia of usurers,’ is sociological, but it rambles so wildly and discursively through those regions that we doubt if anyone who is diligent enough to read it to the bitter end will have a well-formed idea of his theory of the structure and organization of modern society. ... He gives us the impression of the orator who has a plethora of words and a dearth of ideas and who begins to talk and keeps on talking simply because a multitude of English phrases are at his command and he cannot resist the temptation to use them. ... His wit is not so agile as it once was.” E. F. E.
“The work is an impassioned plea, unmarred by any of the demagogue’s shallow eloquence, for the natural rights of men and the restoration of their earlier liberties. If there is somewhat less than usual of Mr Chesterton’s wit, it is by no means wholly absent; and there is no lack of wisdom, based upon enduring truths and expressed with the clearness of a tocsin.”
Reviewed by E: Sapir
“The average literary critic always says that Chesterton is an amusing, entertaining, attractive concocter of paradoxes but that he is not sincere and must not be taken seriously. Chesterton’s latest volume is neither amusing nor attractive, it is certainly the least enjoyable book which he has ever written, but it has a savage earnestness that puts the charge of insincerity out of court completely.”
“The ‘Utopia of usurers’ is distinctly among the ‘negative’ creations of Chesterton, and it takes high rank among those creations. Like all his iconoclastic works, the ‘Utopia’ is a negation only in an objective sense: it is destruction which is positive in its purpose. Chesterton’s natural weapon is the hammer of Thor—in the service of Christ. And in his latest book he utilizes this ancient weapon against something very modern and vital, indeed—capitalism.” E. J. Mayer
“He sums up the advocacy of eugenics as ‘one of the most strange, simple, and horrible ideas that have ever risen from the deep pit of original sin.’ He is against the ‘social reforms’ of modern government with all the strength of his being. Of the view of English history which is ‘current at public schools and colleges, part of the culture of all the classes that count for much in government,’ he says flatly: ‘There is not one word of truth in it from beginning to end.’ He is the reactionary radical here as elsewhere. Some of his essays are exceedingly dogmatic. With some of his passionate convictions the reader will not agree. But every page of the book is interesting.”
“He who possesses the rhetorical power of Mr Chesterton and uses that power to falsify current history, misinterpret motives, and stir up class hatred is guilty of a crime against humanity.”
“‘Utopia of usurers’ is Chesterton a little grouchy, but Chesterton at his best or very near his best. The object of the satirist’s attack is modern plutocratic society, and, if he is not always at pains to distinguish what is bad from what is good in that society he is always amusing, without being too paradoxical to be pointless.”
CHEVRILLON, ANDRÉ.England and the war (1914-1915).*$1.60 (2c) Doubleday 940.91 17-15314
M. Chevrillon, a nephew of Taine, has lived in England, has many English friends, and has visited outlying parts of the empire. Rudyard Kipling says in his preface to the volume that Chevrillon writes “with the knowledge of the psychologist and the profound sympathy of one long acquainted with our lives, our history, and the expression, formal or idiomatic, of our thoughts.” The book is “a psychological study of the English mind in the first eighteen months of war.” (Dial) It tells how “England awoke from a mood of self-complacency to the consciousness of being engaged in a life and death struggle; how a dead weight of cherished traditions, habits, and prejudices, all connected with much that is best in her life, was cast aside; and how her scattered and incoherent energies were welded into one collective and disciplined will.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) All this is discussed under the captions: Public opinion; The illusion of security; The appeal to conscience; The men; The need of adaptation; Adaptation; To-day and to-morrow. The papers were first published in the Revue de Paris from November, 1915, to January, 1916.
“His book is not history in the technical sense. But it is the raw material of history and of the greatest value. The French quickness of understanding and ability to put oneself in another’s place come here to the advantage of the future historian.” G. B. A.
“The best treatment of that aspect of events [national psychology] that has yet appeared, and much of it is applicable, for one reason or another to life on this side of the Atlantic.” C. H. P. Thurston
“When allowance for the human fact of conviction is made this is the best interim study of the English attitude the war has so far produced.” H. J. Laski
“Tho M. Chevrillon’s study does not surpass or, indeed, nearly equal that revelation of the English mind presented by Mr H. G. Wells, yet skilfully made is his clean cut distinction between the British sporting conception of war and the German vision of its glory.”
“This may be regarded as the thesis of the book, the power of religion and an inborn sense of duty to take the place of intelligent governmental control before a great and sudden emergency. As coming from a clear-eyed Frenchman, this study of a national temperament very different from his own is peculiarly valuable.”
“It ought to be read by Americans as much for the light it throws on our own processes as for the sake of making us understand better our English cousins.”
“M. Chevrillon is, of course, no such theorist as was Taine; but he has a very similar sensitiveness to national character and a like gift of selecting and developing the essential elements. In this there is something more than simple thesis-building or than unambitious description. It is a combination, so to speak, of trenchant analysis with artistic handling, of intellectual and moral honesty with the desire to please. Like Taine, too, M. Chevrillon is perhaps a little prone to exaggerate. But to exaggerate only in the interests of clearness! If M. Chevrillon’s book really expresses in any degree the attitude of France toward England,it is reasonable to expect that there will be not merely a continued alliance between these two peoples, but a true and enduring friendship.”
“Some of this comment has been made obsolete by later developments. But, as a study of the English mind in contrast with the German, the book is interesting and it may also prove useful as a piece of friendly criticism.”
“A piece of contemporary history which has, we think, a permanent value.”
“If there is any one deficiency in a narrative and in comments vivid, pointed, and studiously fair, it is a somewhat insufficient appreciation of the work of the navy in our days of limited military inactivity.”
CHILDS, LESLIE.Legal points for automobile owners. 50c (7c) Ogilvie 629.2 17-14172
“The compiler has endeavored to set out, in a few words, the general rules governing the operation of automobiles, and the liabilities for violations thereof. This is in no sense a text book, is not intended for the use of lawyers, or others learned in the law, but for the man in the street, the farmer, the business or professional man, in fact any owner of a car.” (Preface) Among the points covered are: The employer’s liability for acts of his chauffeur; On turning corners; Frightening horses; When required to stop; Unregistered automobile; Unlicensed chauffeur; Lending your automobile.
CHILDS, W. J.Across Asia Minor on foot. il*$4 (2½c) Dodd 915.6 (Eng ed 17-26394)
The author started from Samsûn on the Black sea and traveled, by a somewhat devious route, to Alexandretta on the Mediterranean. His experiences were pleasant ones and he writes of them entertainingly. He says, “Only in the quality of adventure did realisation fall short of what might have been expected. Brigandage and robbery, fighting between troops and deserters, murder and forcible abductions—affairs of this kind took place before and behind me, but I missed them ever, sometimes by days, sometimes only by hours, and moved always, it seemed, in the peaceful intervals between storms. For this reason no blood-shedding, no hair-breadth escapes will be found in the narrative.” His journey was taken in the days before the war and he met with universal kindness, from American, German, Turk, Armenian and Greek. In his last chapter he touches on the international significance of the undeveloped resources of Asia Minor.
“Incidentally sheds light on the Armenian situation before the war and the German plan for a railway to Bagdad.”
“Not only lovers of travel but those readers desiring to understand as much as possible local conditions in the various fighting areas of the war will find Mr Childs’ book a revelation. ... For on the same battle-scarred terrain where Alexander and Cæsar fought for that world hegemony only the control of the travel route to India and the Far East could give the armies of the Allies are fighting today.” F. B.
“A tale of adventure of never slackening interest from beginning to end.”
“The illustrations are attractive, but we are rather surprised that an obviously competent writer has forgotten the detail of an index.”
“Exceptionally attractive and brilliant book of travel. ... Mr Childs does not devote much space to politics. He has too many other subjects to deal with, and, like Borrow, prefers the wind on the heath or a night in a crowded tavern among alien folk to debating high matters of state. But his shrewd estimates of the native peoples are fresh and valuable.”