H
HAGEDORN, HERMANN.You are the hope of the world!*50c (5½c) Macmillan 172 17-23664
Mr Hagedorn appeals to the boys and girls of America, especially to those between the ages of ten and seventeen, to realize the responsibility laid upon their shoulders by the great war. He asks them to think squarely about their country, to realize that “democracy isn’t a success—yet,” that we are wasteful, materialistic, improvident and indifferent, and then to “create a tradition of alert citizenship, a tradition of public service.” “Your elder brothers will have to fight with guns. ... To you is given a work every bit as grand as dying for your country; and that is, living for the highest interests of your country! Those interests are the interests of democracy. If, therefore, you live for the highest interests of America, you live at the same time for the highest interests of the world. You are the hope of the world!”
“Such a book as this cannot be reviewed. It must be read if its mission is to be understood. And all should read it, all Americans who know, who fear to know, or who are anxious to know what America stands for in this war.” E. F. E.
“Mr Hagedorn has compiled all the patriotic persuasion that he can cram into 100 pages or so, and from a literary point of view, his appeal is well worth reading. It is curious to note how he traverses what ‘teacher’ told the boys and girls in school about the faultless democracy of Uncle Sam ... and how we have always been morally, ethically and spiritually right, and those who opposed us wrong.” J. W.
“This appeal to patriotism is praiseworthy in Its musical simplicity of style, and the wholesome tenor of his arguments. ... If Mr Hagedorn can make this war teach the lesson of obligation and responsibility to our over-fed and under-worked youth, that will be one consolation left us.”
HAGGARD, SIR HENRY RIDER.Finished.il*$1.40 Longmans 17-24205
“That mighty African hunter and adventurer, Allan Quatermain, who has so often filled the roles of hero and narrator of H. Rider Haggard’s romances, is once more pressed into service in ‘Finished.’ ... While this story is complete in itself, it forms the concluding unit of a trilogy, of which ‘Marie’ and ‘Child of storm’ are the preceding numbers ... The story embodies the last episode in the wizard Zikali’s mysterious career; but to give it a proper setting, Mr Haggard recounts the events preceding the Zulu-British war of 1879, together with events in the early stages of the strife. Historical facts are, of course, suitably cloaked in romance, and arranged to the needs of the plot.”—Springf’d Republican
“Our old friend, Allan Quatermain tells this story. And he tells it well, even if some of the old glamour seems to be missing.”
“Thirty years have passed since we first heard of Allan Quatermain and he is as much alive today as ever. ... He is and will remain one of the dominant characters of English romantic fiction.” E. F. E.
“The council at the ‘Valley of bones’ is the most thrilling and picturesque part of a lively, exciting and readable narrative.”
“A fascinating mixture of fact and fiction.”
“This latest volume, with its ominous title, ‘Finished,’ shows us two things clearly: One is that this particular type of romance of adventure, ... with its long-winded periods and utter lack of characterization in dialog needed a rich imagination that provided thrills in plenty and all the action required to sweep the reader along in a fascination that forgot the cumbersome writing; and the second thing is that Rider Haggard’s once so enviably rich and fertile imagination is, if not exactly finished, at least slowing down to an extent that necessitates a change of style to make his books acceptable.” G. I. Colbron
“The author re-creates, as no other novelist can, the mysterious, legendary Africa of exploration days, and his stories, which are the outgrowth of a personal knowledge of African pioneering, convey a thrill and interest shared by few adventure tales of the present.”
HALASI, ÖDÖN.Belgium under the German heel.*$1.50 Funk 940.91 17-21999
“M. Halasi, a well-known Hungarian writer, ‘succeeded in gaining the confidence of the German authorities and was allowed in 1916 to spend a few months in Belgium, being given unusual facilities for travelling and seeing everything within the occupied territory.’ The record of his experiences has been given to the anonymous translator, who has supplemented it by information conveyed by another Magyar, M. Ernö Lovass, who spent eighteen months in Belgium during the war.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“It is evident that Mr Halasi’s sympathies are with the Belgium people. ... He sketches the present condition of Antwerp, Louvain, Namur, Dinant, Liège, and Malines, in the order named, and tells to what extent they have suffered or escaped the horrors of war. He closes his book with a picture of Cardinal Mercier and his efforts on behalf of his fellow-countrymen.”
“The description offers nothing sensational. The author apparently left Belgium before the time of the deportations; we have here nothing of the nature of the harrowing scenes described in M. Passelecq’s book.”
HALDANE, JOHN SCOTT.Organism and environment as illustrated by the physiology of breathing. (Mrs Hepsa Ely Silliman memorial lectures)*$1.25 Yale univ. press 612 17-9380
“Four lectures dealing respectively with the regulation of breathing; the readjustment of regulation in acclimatization and disease; the regulation of the environment, internal and external; organic regulation as the essence of life—inadequacy of mechanistic and vitalistic conceptions.”—Cleveland
“Of interest to biologists, physiologists, philosophers, and physicians.”
“Four addresses of dynamic interest, but from two very distinct points of view. The first three are predominantly physiological and technical rather than popular. ... The fourth lecture is of superlative interest, and is a masterly application of the facts of physiology to the modern theories of life.”
“The special value of the book to students lies in the fact that the function of respiration is treated simply as one aspect of the activities of the organism as a whole, as a chapter in the unending series of adaptations, internal and external, which make up the life of an individual.” F. H. S.
“From its detailed study of the processes connected with breathing under so many diverse conditions, the book will be of interest to physicians and physiologists. From its consideration of the conflicting theories of life from the standpoint primarily of breathing, it deserves a place on the shelf of the biologist and natural philosopher.”
“Dr Haldane was invited by Yale university to give the Silliman lectures in 1915. At that time there were expectations about the duration of the war which made it natural that postponement of one year should be asked and granted. In 1916 it was determined to wait no longer, and the events of 1917 have fully justified the judgment. The lectures (on the ‘Physiology of breathing’) were delivered and are to appear in book form before long. But since they contained much that is technical, Dr Haldane gave also four public lectures on ‘points of more general interest,’ which are printed in the present volume. There is still enough of technicality left to make it hardish reading for the layman in places, but the reading is well worth while.”
HALE, EDWARD EVERETT, jr.[2]Life and letters of Edward Everett Hale. 2v il ea*$5 (2c) Little 17-31921
Not a criticism, neither an estimate of the life of Edward Everett Hale, but a portrayal of his personal character and achievements. Making use of a vast amount of material including letters, diaries, day books, sermons, lectures and various contributions to literature the son of Dr Hale has followed the progress of his father’s career thru its nearly ninety years. After graduation from Harvard he spent a few years making up his mind what he would do; then turned to the ministry. Middle age found him a leading clergyman; a leader and organizer in and out of his especial denomination, full of ideas for public service; a man of letters who had ahead of him long, useful years before the American public. The spirit of the great American has been immortalized in the story that won him continuous fame, “A man without a country.”
“Books of this kind are as rare and as universal in their interest as the characters with which they deal.”
“A word of praise should go to Mr Hale not only for the painstaking care, fine discrimination and judicial mind with which he has done this work, but also for the excellent spirit of literary craftsmanship in which the whole work has been conceived and carried out. For it is what one might call, for lack of a better term, creative biography. He has used his materials as a sculptor would use clay, and out of them has made a clear and luminous figure which stands out from the pages, a real and authentic portrait of the man as he was. He has not even allowed his filial love to obscure or to gild or to make deceptively roseate what he felt to be the true lineaments of his subject or the true estimate of his character, his work, and his influence.”
“We have had to wait eight years for this story of his life. It was worth waiting for. His son has written, or rather we should say edited, this life with reverencing candor—a combination rare in biographers.” Lyman Abbott
“It is good to have this biography of vivid and vivifying life. It will bring closer to the man thousands of readers who have known his books and who may well wish to come, thru this biography, into more direct touch with his personality. The illustrations help toward this end.” R. R. Bowker
HALL, BOLTON.Thrift.*$1 (1½c) Huebsch 304 17-2049
Education, the cooperative movement, intensive cultivation of the land and natural taxation are some of the subjects discussed in this book. The author does not write of thrift in the vein of Samuel Smiles. It is not a system of saving pennies that he advocates, but rather an organization of all one’s resources to the end that life may be enriched. He advocates efficiency, too, but it is not the machine-made efficiency of the experts.
“Evidence of the up-to-date business promoter sticks out on almost every page. His is the clever, incisive, staccato style.” H. S. K.
“It would not be just to imply that there aren’t some good things in this book. These good things might have been condensed into a pamphlet. There is chapter 13, for example, on ‘Institutional garden thrift.’ There is an interesting discussion ofcoöperatives; and another of taxation of land values. Mr Hall’s dissertation on prohibition appears to the reviewer to be partially misleading. Loose thinking characterizes it.” D: Rosenstein
“The best chapter preaches ‘thrift in happiness,’ and points the way to love without possession and to joy that is not dependent upon material success.”
“Addressed to wage earners. A sensible discussion of personal efficiency, waste and extravagance, investments and practical success.” P. B.
“It is full of bright turns, but it is more than bright,—it is sensible and practical. ... The argument [about temperance], as far as it goes, is sound, but it doesn’t get far into the merits of the question. It is the shallowest part of the book.”
“How to become prosperous without petrifying in the process really is Mr Hall’s theme; and, though we may not agree with him in every detail of his plan, no one can read this little book without getting benefit from his warm human counsel.” B. L.
HALL, GERTRUDE.Aurora the magnificent.il*$1.40 (1c) Century 17-10200
Mrs Aurora Hawthorne and her friend Miss Estelle Madison drop on the little Anglo-American colony in Florence, determined to see and to spend and to enjoy. They, in particular Aurora, possess all the failings of the “typical” American abroad, but the Anglo-American colony, led by the American consul and his family, accept Aurora and Estelle without question. The reader can do no less, for there is something about them, particularly Aurora, that is compelling. The Fosses, the American consul’s family, are delightful, and worthy of a book all of themselves, but this story as it develops becomes more and more the story of Aurora and Gerald Fane, poor, over-wrought, artistic Gerald alternately moved by a desire to shake Aurora and an impulse to rest his tired head on her generous shoulder.
“Published in the Century.”
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton
“The story is simple and comprehensible, the mystery untangling itself bit by bit, as mysteries really do. It is natural and not melodramatic; amusing and thoroughly readable.”
“People who frankly enjoy love-mazes will like this story; it is written with grace and simplicity, and an honest insight into the thoughts and experiences with which most folk most of the time are engrossed. Those who yearn for light on the vaster perplexities of the human struggleen masse, might as well pass it by.”
“Aurora is that rare thing in popular fiction, an individual, a new personality.”
“The main thing, and the overwhelming thing, is our faith in Aurora’s greatness as a woman, in her adequacy for life, upon whatever terms it may challenge her. ... Our Aurora’s triumph over us and her Gerald is that we exult in her as she is.”
“The story is a very fine and generous comedy of Americanism abroad. There is no denying Aurora, or the wholesome elemental womanhood, the ripeness of character, that underlies her outrageous bloom.” H. W. Boynton
“The novel is clever and written with a good deal of charm, but the author has spread her slight plot over far too many pages.”
“Reading ‘Aurora the magnificent’ is like taking a railway journey thru pleasant enough but rather uneventful country and all at once getting somewhere.” Doris Webb
HALL, GRANVILLE STANLEY.Jesus, the Christ, in the light of psychology. 2v*$7.50 (2c) Doubleday 232 17-8497
A psychological study of Jesus is regarded by the author as the logical next step following the historical and critical research of recent years. The introduction says, “It is this step that the author attempts to take in this volume. ... He regards himself as a pioneer in a new domain in which he is certain to be followed by many others, and is convinced that the psychological Jesus Christ is the true and living Christ of the present and of the future. He is the spiritual Christ of the resurrection whom alone Paul knew and proclaimed, although he is here described in modern terms, and it is this that now chiefly matters rather than what an historical person was or did in Palestine, two thousand years ago.” It is Dr Hall’s hope that such a study may go far toward the reinterpretation of Christianity which is necessary if it is to remain a vital religion for the modern world. Volume 1 consists of chapters on: Jesus’ physical personality; Jesus in literature; Jesus’ character, negative views; The nativity; Beginnings of the supreme pedagogy. Volume 2 has chapters on: Messianity, sonship, and the kingdom; Jesus’ eschatology, his inner character, purpose, and work; Jesus’ ethics and prayer; The parables of Jesus; The miracles; Death and resurrection of Jesus.
“The title is likely to mislead the general reader; the work is not a contribution to the study of Jesus, but to the study of genetic psychology. Librarians need to note this in cataloguing it. The student who wishes to know what Jesus said and did, or to understand the gospels, will find only incidental benefit here; it is not the psychology of Jesus which is treated, but the psychology of those who have reflected on Jesus. How the human mind has reacted upon this name; above all, how a modern encyclopedic mind, superlatively trained in psychological analysis, reacts upon it, is exhaustively and illuminatingly presented.” C. R. Bowen
“A book for scholars and serious students.”
“That the work will prove valuable will hardly be questioned. ... Dr Hall will not expect all to agree with his conclusions. We think very few will. But hardly any will fail to appreciate the fine spirit of the author; the great mass of material, gathered by the toil of many years; and his introducing them to a method which is sure to throw much light upon him whom the author calls ‘the best of all beings.’” F. W. C.
“A notable contribution to the understanding of Jesus. Probably no other man possesses either the equipment or the sympathy necessary to write this book.”
“In his first chapters Dr Hall treats with notable comprehensiveness the conceptions of Christ’s physical appearance and character that have been set forth in art and literature from earliest times down to the immediate present, discussing and weighing each with care and thoroughness and judicial temper. Among the very recent books thus considered in which Christ or Christian teachings are the theme are, to mention only a very few of the large and diverse list, Kennedy’s ‘The servant in the house,’ Jerome’s ‘Passing of the third floor back,’ Maxwell’s ‘The ragged messenger,’ Moore’s ‘The Brook Kerith,’ Selma Lagerlöf’s ‘Miracles of Anti-Christ,’ Zangwill’s ‘The next religion,’ while discussion at some length is given to the cult of the superman, which Dr Hall calls ‘The chief and most extraordinary literary phenomenon of our time.’”
“Whether God, Jesus Christ, and Christianity are anything more than psychic phenomena according to Dr Hall’s philosophy he does not make clear; but he makes it quite clear that he thinks this a question not important to answer.”
“It is unfortunate that a work containing so much learning and so authentic vision should be expressed in such heavy and difficult English. The style often obscures the ideas it seeks to express. Otherwise, the book is a valuable contribution from one of America’s leading psychologists to the pressing religious problems of the time.”
“The mind of President Hall is singularly unfit for his undertaking. He not only is destitute of historical judgment; he does not even realize that his task requires it.” B. W. Bacon
HALL, JENNIE.Our ancestors in Europe; ed. by J: Montgomery Gambrill and Lida Lee Tall. il*76c Silver 940 16-14054
“Jennie Hall’s book is made up of three main parts, viz.: The ancient world. The newer nations, and Beginnings of our own times. The titles of these parts suggest their contents. One hundred and forty pages are devoted to part 1, one hundred and four to part 2, and eighty-two to part 3. The list of illustrations is a very long one. There is also a considerable number of maps and plans scattered throughout the book. At the end of each chapter one finds a long list of questions. Following the last chapter is a list of important dates.” (School R) “The book is designed to furnish pupils in the sixth grade with a background for their imminent study of American history.” (Nation)
“The author, Miss Jennie Hall, of the Parker school of Chicago, has shown considerable skill both in selecting the incidents and figures on which to dwell and in making the narrative simple without making it dull or childish.”
“Generally speaking the make-up of the text is attractive, and the contents deal with concrete material well in the range of the understanding of the pupils for whom the book was written.” R M Tryon
HALL, JOHN LESSLIE.English usage; studies in the history and uses of English words and phrases.*$1.50 Scott 420.4 17-14826
“A reference book for high school pupils or for teachers. Unlike similar books, it aims to give authorities on both sides, leaving the choice to the reader. It is a protest against the rigid rules of the purists in grammatical form.”—Ind
“As a history of opinion on the chief disputed points of usage the book is valuable. Its value would have been increased if instead of statistical lists we had more often before us the passages in their context.”
“In reading the book, one feels less confident than before as to what ‘good usage’ really is, and also recognizes the danger of concluding that a wrong use of words by a good author makes good usage.”
Reviewed by E. F. Geyer and R. L. Lyman
HALL, MAY EMERY.Roger Williams. il*$1.25 (3c) Pilgrim press 17-24423
The story of Roger Williams forms a chapter in the history of the struggle for personal liberty in America, and the author has told it in a popular style that will be attractive to young people. She has based her account on recognized sources. There are several illustrations to add interest to the book.
“Very brightly is the story written, delightfully fascinating and especially attractive in the naïve manner in which she rushes into the forum as a special pleader in behalf of her client. For Mrs Hall is confessedly an ardent and enthusiastic admirer of the character of Williams, so ardent and so enthusiastic that she fails to discern his undoubted failings.” E. J. C.
“His story is always worth retelling, and Mrs Hall’s volume is, in its way, a public educator. Issued at smaller cost, as one believes it might be, it would be an excellent work for reading in the schools.”
HALLER, WILLIAM.[2]Early life of Robert Southey, 1774-1803. (Columbia univ. studies in English and comparative literature)*$1.50 (1½c) Columbia univ. press 17-25840
The first portion of the life of a poet who has no adequate detailed biography. It covers the first twenty-nine years of Southey’s life: his boyhood at school and university; his reactions to literary and political movements in his youth; his early associations with Coleridge, Lamb, Wordsworth, and others; his share in attempting to establish a communistic society in America; his characteristics as a young man, poet, and man of letters; his connection with the “lake school” of poetry; and his settling down in what became his permanent home in Keswick.
“Southey played so prominent a part in the intellectual and literary generation that sprang from the French revolution that a competent study of him has long been needed. That need is now being supplied. The mere bulk of his writings has frightened scholars. Yet the story of this man is not only worth the telling; it is rich in interest besides.”
HALSEY, FRANCIS WHITING, ed. Balfour, Viviani and Joffre; their speeches and other public utterances in America.*$1.50 (1½c) Funk 940.91 17-24227
Mr Halsey has collected and arranged, with descriptive matter, as compiled from contemporary accounts, the speeches and other public utterances in America of Mr Balfour, M. Viviani and Marshal Joffre, together with those of Italian, Belgian and Russian commissioners during the great war. To these he has added an account of the arrival of the United States warships and soldiers in England and France under Admiral Sims and General Pershing. The period covered is April 21 to July 4, 1917. The material used was first published in the Congressional Record and Canadian parliamentary reports, the great American and Canadian dailies, the London Times and Morning Post, the Paris Temps and La Victoire, the Literary Digest, etc. The book has no index.
“Newspaper ‘clippings,’ it would seem, should hardly be given unedited to posterity. They could not include, in this case, much that was of importance concerning these visits; hence the record is neither complete nor accurate.” A. I. A.
“Mr Halsey’s collection of the speeches of the commissioners is a useful work of reference rather than a readable book, for one must grant that the average of eloquence, despite the frequent ‘lift’ in M. Viviani’s addresses, is low, while the passages that are insignificant and that duplicate one another are very numerous indeed.”
“Even a hasty reading of the book, however, creates two impressions which one ventures to believe will not later be unjustified by the results of complete investigation. The first is that Mr Balfour is a master of the shrewd, weighed phrase, a genius at resolving dangerous difficulties and at allaying any nascent suspicions. M. Viviani, on the other hand, is easily the most eloquent orator that we have heard in America for a generation.”
HAMILTON, CLAYTON MEEKER.Problems of the playwright.*$1.60 (2c) Holt 792 17-29336
A companion volume to “The theory of the theatre and studies in stage-craft” which the writer calls “a sort of suffix” to the earlier work. “In this book, the kaleidoscopic field of the contemporary drama is considered from various points of view,—that of the critic, the dramatist, the stage-director, the scenic artist, the manager, and the theatre-going public.” Among the chapters, a good many of which have had magazine publication, are: Contrast in the drama; Surprise in the drama; The troublesome last act; Strategy and tactics; Harmony in presentation; High comedy in America; The George M. Cohan school of playwrights; Yvette Guilbert; The magic of Mr Chesterton; Criticism and creation in the drama; A kiss for Cinderella; Dramatic talent and theatrical talent; Stevenson on the stage; The plays of Lord Dunsany; The mood of Maeterlinck; Euripides in New York; Romance and realism in the drama; The new stagecraft; The non-commercial drama; A democratic insurrection in the theatre; What is wrong with the American drama?
“Mr Hamilton’s dominant characteristic as a dramatic critic is his desire always to go behind the specific example, often possessing only a fleeting interest, to the law which controlled it. ... His enthusiasm is cautiously controlled; and it is set free only when his head is convinced and his heart is touched. He does not allow his judgment to be unduly influenced by the vagaries of public opinion; and the ardent admirers of Mr Galsworthy’s plays and the uncritical worshippers at the shrine of Mr Shaw will probably be rudely shocked by the chilly analysis of the merits and demerits of these two favourites of the moment. ... MrHamilton’s criticism is consistently interesting because it has the support of knowledge and the savour of individuality.” Brander Matthews
“He isn’t a radical in matters dramatic, and he isn’t a reactionary. He doesn’t champion the newer movements, nor does he evade condemning the older schools. The indecision is largely due to Mr Hamilton’s indefinite opinions, and also to his apparent refusal to trace a theme to his logical end. It is a good book with which to interest those who are not interested at all, but it will not appeal to students who have made some progress.” L: Gardy
“The title of Clayton Hamilton’s ‘Problems of the playwright’ is as unfortunate as it is alliterative, for the idea it suggests of the technical side of writing plays is much too narrow to cover the many and varied and suggestive discussions of the contemporary drama.”
“For sheer power to entertain no other writer on stagecraft excels Clayton Hamilton.”
“The book deals in general observations, but they are observations that are pertinent because they are fortified by knowledge, earnestness and critical sense. They are not, however, co-ordinated into a study. Mr Hamilton’s book has little unity of purpose, though a unity of spirit does pervade it.”
“Of interest to satisfy the reader’s curiosity as to the author’s opinion of certain plays or playwrights, rather than of value as dramatic criticism.”
HAMILTON, COSMO.Joan and the babies and I; being certain chapters from the autobiography of John Mainwaring, the novelist. il*$1 (6c) Little (Eng ed 16-15133)
A story which can be summed up in a few words. An Englishman, suffering from nerves and over-indulgence in self analysis, spends a summer on the Massachusetts coast. He makes friends on the beach with two small children, meets their mother, falls in love with her and marries her. It may be that the reason for existence of the book is explained in this sentence, “Being male I intended to follow the law of nature and be the dominating factor—a law which if adopted by American husbands would save many thoughtless women, over-burdened with freedom, from making epic fools of themselves.”
“There is a certain sentimental intimacy that some authors affect in relation to their characters that is more repulsive than the most outspoken language of your Fieldings or your Smolletts. ... Condemned by his own confession, he stands as an exemplar of that lack of reticence—or lack of frankness, it is hard to say which—that is the besetting sin of American literature.”
“In spite of the domestic title of Mr Hamilton’s story, and the two delightfully natural children who usher in the first chapter, the little book is decidedly upsetting to a normally constituted mind. ... It contains some true sentiment and wise conclusions, but, great as are the faults of the present social system, it is more coherent, and certainly, less offensive to good taste than would be a society made up of Johns and Joans.”
HAMILTON, COSMO.Scandal.il*$1.50 (1½c) Little 17-23982
“Beatrix Vanderdyke was extraordinary rich, extraordinarily beautiful, extraordinarily charming, and extraordinarily foolish. ... Her habit of making night time visits to the studio of a rather vulgar portrait painter ... resulted in scandal. Beatrix’s family threatened her with banishment to a cottage in Maine, and to save herself from losing a New York season she declared that she had been secretly married to one of her acquaintances. This gentleman, being a good sport, accepted the challenge and determined to tame the willful Beatrix for the good of her soul. Follows the course of events to be expected in a novel beginning with this kind of a situation, including the usual bedroom scene and ending with the happy conclusion which the reader has long known was sure to come. In the meanwhile there is plenty of sparring between the hero and the more or less unclad heroine, a lady of doubtful antecedents endeavors to intervene, and an obliging fog undertakes the rôle ofdeus ex machina.”—N Y Times
“There is none of the preaching here which was to be found in ‘The blindness of virtue’ and which the title suggests we may be going to find. It is wholly an entertaining story with those touches of the unconventional with which Mr Hamilton knows so well how to deal.” D. L. M.
“Need be taken no more seriously than the fashion-plates in a popular magazine. ... Those having a taste for the sort of stories usually told over the cigars, after the women have left the room, will enjoy this bit of journalese.”
“The novel has one character, Beatrix’s English companion, who is really quite like a human being.”
“Mr Hamilton fails to make his American characters convincing, but in the case of his heroine’s English duenna from Clapham he is more successful.”
HAMILTON, LORD ERNEST WILLIAM.Soul of Ulster.*$1.25 Dutton 941.5 17-14524
“This volume by the author of ‘The first seven divisions’ is a concise history of Ulster as it affects the Irish question. Lord Ernest Hamilton shows what, in his opinion, is at the back of the demand for Home rule, and what would happen if it were granted.” (Ath) “The book falls into three parts—an historical retrospect, a survey of the situation at the present day, and a forecast of the future possibilities inherent in the Sinn Fein movement. The Ulster question treated historically is, in his view, bound up with the general ethics of colonization. ... Lord Ernest Hamilton writes as the advocate and champion of the Ulster Protestant colonist and the British garrison, and one may search his pages in vain for any indication of the emergence of the type of Young Ulsterman sketched in Mr St John Ervine’s book.” (Spec)
“Lord Ernest possesses the pen of a ready writer, and is able to retain the reader’s interest from cover to cover. ... He writes from the point of view of the Ulster Unionist, and of his sincerity there can be no doubt. But his judgment and better feelings appear to have been warped by fear, so much so that his conception of Irish character is too black to be credited. ... ‘The soul of Ulster’ deserves to be read as a strong presentation of the Unionist case. Before difficulties can be overcome, they must be clearly seen. Lord Ernest Hamilton’s book skilfully indicates the difficulties of the Ulster problem.”
“Of that Irish and Catholic half of Ulster, Mr Hamilton knows nothing—or at best, only the worst! Prejudice and bigotry speak from his every page.”
“Of course ‘The Soul of Ulster’ is no more dispassionate than any Sinn Feiner argument. But it is well for us interested onlookers to see the other side of the perennial Irish question.”
“They do give to the reader who has time to go through them vivid understanding of the difficulties to be encountered by those who would settle Irish affairs. ... It may be also that perusal of such books will do further good in this country. ... It has been to small purpose that some informed neither by Tories abroad nor from newspapers of immigrants in New York have pointed out that England has changed, that whatever the sins of the past she is anxious now to do honorable justice, that of late she has made much amends, and is prevented from settling the whole question partly because of circumstances pertaining to Irishmen and beyond her control. The slight and transient and narrow writings which are appearing more frequently as two Irish parties set forth their cause will make it, no doubt, much easier for people to comprehend what these difficulties are.”
“It is quite likely that a good many people who do not know nearly as much about Ulster as Lord Ernest Hamilton evidently does will suspect him of prejudice. At any rate, his convictions are very definite and downright and they are expressed with simplicity and force.”
“The great surprise of the book is the anticipation that the development of Sinn Feinism, of the origin and organization of which Lord Ernest Hamilton gives a very inadequate and perfunctory account, may provide a solution of the Irish question by its refusal to recognize a standardized religion, and by the consequent fusion of the races by intermarriage. ... His curious book is not conceived or executed in a judicial spirit, though it contains many wholesome truths and much sane criticism.”
“Ordinarily we in the United States hear only one side of the Irish question. The other side of the picture is vividly, yet fairly, presented by Ernest W. Hamilton.”
“Considering the vastness of the literature on Ireland, there is a remarkable dearth of books interpreting the viewpoint of Ulster. Captain Hamilton though he does not perform this service in any scientific spirit and does not assume a judicial attitude which could not be genuine, yet gives us valuable insight into the philosophy of his former constituents by rewriting Irish history as they see it.” Bruno Lasker
“His book should be read by those who wish to get at a true comprehension of the uncompromising Ulsterman. Lord Ernest Hamilton, who was for some years M. P. for North Tyrone, is also the author of ‘The first seven divisions,’ and he writes lucidly and forcibly.”
HAMILTON, LORD GEORGE FRANCIS.Parliamentary reminiscences and reflections, 1868 to 1885.*$4 Dutton (Eng ed 17-12869)
“Lord George Hamilton was of the House of commons from 1868 to 1906. As son of the Duke of Abercorn, at one time lord-lieutenant of Ireland, he was of the governing class, a fact which accounts for the early age at which a place was found for him in the Disraeli administration of 1874-1880. He was then appointed under-secretary for India, with Salisbury as his chief. In 1878-1880 he was vice-president of the committee of council, practically minister for education. In the short-lived Conservative administration of 1885-1886 he was first lord of the admiralty. He resumed this office when the Unionist administration was formed in 1886, and held it until the Liberals came into power in 1892. From 1895 to 1903, when he retired from the cabinet, he was secretary for India. Only the years from 1868 to 1885 are covered by these reminiscences.”—Am Hist R
“For half a dozen reasons they are likely to be of service to students of British politics of the two decades that preceded the realignment of parties after 1886, when Gladstone had committed the Liberal party to Home rule for Ireland. ... Hamilton went to the India office in 1874, and in detailing his work there as under-secretary, he has written one of the best descriptions of the work of the office, and of its organization, that has ever been embodied in English political memoirs. One other value in these reminiscences has yet to be mentioned. There is more than once in these pages the most sweeping and strongly-worded indictment that has been written or uttered of the Manchester school of politics by any man in the front rank of English political life.” E: Porritt
“The author’s attitude is in strong opposition, to the ‘pacificist or Manchester school of politicians’; and conscientious objectors to military service receive small mercy at Lord George Hamilton’s hands. Indeed, there is a good deal of hard hitting in the book.”
“Lord George is of the type of English public men who are dogged hard workers, and, no doubt, useful servants of the state, but who are little gifted with the pen, which they hold in a heavy hand. And these notes of events during twenty years of parliamentary experience contain little that is novel or exhilarating. ... Many personal characterizations occur in his pages, but few of them are penetrating or enlivening.”
“One feature of these pages that calls for comment is that Disraeli appears throughout in a softened and unusually advantageous light, an accessible and kindly figure.”
“This book is disappointing. ... The historical chapters are a languidrechaufféof events which are, perhaps, too near for historical treatment, but which need not be (as they are) dull. ... Of personal anecdotes or intimate descriptions of Lord George Hamilton’s colleagues—Disraeli, Northcote, Hardy, Beach, Salisbury, Churchill—there are none. ... The really valuable chapter in the book is the last but one, in which Lord George Hamilton tells us of his doings at the Admiralty as first lord.”
“The book is just what such a book should be; it is full of a simple and mellow wisdom; there is not an idea in it that is not practical and rational; and the political ideas are reinforced or illustrated by a flow of anecdotes which are in themselves a delightful entertainment.”
HAMILTON, JOSEPH GRÉGOIRE DE ROULHAC, and HAMILTON, MARY THOMPSON (MRS J. G. DE R. HAMILTON).Life of Robert E. Lee; for boys and girls. il*$1.25 (2½c) Houghton 17-28464
“This book is written with the hope that through it the life and character of Lee may become more real to the generation of young Americans growing up.” (Preface) The authors express the further hope that the book may, by making clearer the purity of motive of Lee and those he represented, hasten the day when all sectional bitterness shall have disappeared. Among the books on which the authors have drawn as sources are: Jones’s “Life and letters of General Robert E. Lee”; “Recollections and letters of General Lee,” by R. E. Lee, jr.; and Bradford’s “Lee, the American.” There are four illustrations and an index.
“A wholesome book for reading by northern children.” J: Walcott
“Full of Civil war incidents told from an unbiased standpoint. The character and outlook of the Confederate leader as presented here will appeal to young people.”