C

20–5652

“Sir Geoffrey has presented in skeleton outline the development of the league idea from the day of Grotius to the framing of the Paris covenant, passing over rapidly its earlier history and laying stress on the attempts at international organization represented by the Holy alliance and the Hague conferences. He has throughout emphasized the fact that on a concert and not on a balance of the Powers rested the best hope of realization of the ideals of the statesmen and thinkers who strove for the elimination of war, and he bases his faith in the efficacy of the newly formed league on its conformity to that principle. In addition to general discussion of the provisions of the covenant, Sir Geoffrey has added the text of the document with commentary upon its specific features.”—N Y Evening Post

Reviewed by J. R. Towse

“Sir Geoffrey Butler’s book is of modest scope and plan, but it provides what has until now been lacking—a sober and succinct statement of historic process which we date from Grotius, and of which the covenant is but the latest phase.”

BUTLER, NICHOLAS MURRAY.Is America worth saving? *$2 (3c) Scribner 304

20–5743

These addresses on national problems and party policies have for their common theme the exposition and interpretation of the fundamental principles upon which the American government and American civil society is built. The real difficulty in solving all our present day problems by the light of these fundamental principles, the author claims, lies in their extreme simplicity. He looks upon socialism and similar movements as subversive of these principles, as the real enemies of the people, and as entirely destructive, and places his faith upon a “stalwart and patriotic Americanism.” Among the contents are: Is America worth saving? A programme of constructive progress; The real labor problem; A league of nations; Elihu Root, statesman; Problems of peace and after-peace; The making of a written constitution; Theodore Roosevelt, American; Faith and the war; Is American higher education improving? The colleges and the nation; Index.

Reviewed by Everett Kimball

“Failing entirely to understand the play of actual economic forces in the production and distribution of income, it is natural that Dr Butler should conclude that strikes and industrial wars are simply the result of an ignorance of the true and complete harmony of interests between capital and labor. Dr Butler pleads for ‘cooperative individualism into a moral purpose.’ But we cannot help feeling that he has not got any intelligible grip upon this moral purpose, and therefore shows a feeble hold upon the very principle of individual liberty whose championship he assumes.” O. O.

“There are no compromises of principles in this book, and the author makes no concessions to those demands made through the cries of the herd. To all Americans who need a mental tonic today, and to all who feel that their confidence in law and the application of law to life needs strengthening, and to all who believe that this republic is not to drift at the mercy of every wind of doctrine, this very seminal volume belongs of right.” M. F. Egan

“Read aright, the book is a masterly and no doubt timely defence of American institutions and the principles underlying them.”

BUXTON, NOEL EDWARD, and LEESE, C. LEONARD.Balkan problems and European peace. *$1.75 Scribner 949.6

19–19084

“This book on Balkan political problems falls into three parts: (1) a history of pre-war European politics in the Balkans; (2) the policies pursued during the war by the Entente and Allied powers, with particular reference to Bulgaria; and (3) the probable future of the Balkans.”—Ath

Reviewed by Ferdinand Schevill

“Clear and interesting little book. It displays considerable knowledge and the matter is well arranged.”

Reviewed by B. U. Burke

“Its value depends on the light it sheds on Bulgarian aspirations rather than on any impartial discussion of new material.” H. F. Armstrong

BYNNER, WITTER (EMANUEL MORGAN, pseud.).Canticle of Pan and other poems. *$2 Knopf 811

20–9070

Among the poems of this book are the Canticle of praise, written in celebration of the ending of the war and presented at the Greek theater in Berkeley, California, in December, 1918, and the Canticle of Pan, delivered as the Phi Beta Kappa poem at the University of California in June, 1917, and the Canticle of Bacchus, also presented in California. Among the shorter poems are a number of translations from the Chinese. Titles of others are: Youth sings to the sea; The wild star; Vintage; Gipsying; Pittsburgh; A song in the grass; The swimmer; The desert; On leaving California; Away from California; Rain; Night; News of a soldier.

“Witter Bynner, in his ‘A canticle of Pan,’ is more of a ventriloquist than a poet. He speaks in too many voices, and on too wide a range of topics to have achieved mastery in any manner or distinction in any style. Mr Bynner’s volume is singularly unauthentic: it is an anthology of imitations (none of them particularly effective) of most of the known manners of prosody.” R. M. Weaver

“In these canticles Mr Bynner has evolved a medium admirably suited for community expression, dealing with the large events of the world. In a sense these are experimental, and Mr Bynner, while giving them a certain poetic merit, has not made them distill his finest poetic spirit. His lyric note is, at its best, one of the purest among present-day poets.” W. S. B.

“What one has here in the end is Bynner, the man, rather than Bynner, the poet. He is a delightful man, clever and keen and kind. But he is too full of his message to be truly moving.” E. P.

“Witter Bynner forfeits our respect at the outset by writing a canticle wherein he imagines Pan and the Christ child as friends; he continues to forfeit it by a vein of breezy, Vachel Lindsay-Stephen Graham optimism that runs through his book.” J: G. Fletcher

“These canticles as well as some of the less ambitious poems are marred by an ethical idealism that is too self-conscious. Pan and Bacchus especially must not moralize. Their magic is their waywardness. The best poems in the book are the slighter ones, including the bits of translation from the Chinese, Japanese and Russian and the original poems in their spirit.” C. M. S.

“Mr Bynner’s latest volume proves, among other things, that there are limits beyond which Mr Bynner cannot be said to gain by experimentation. Not that he has a still, small voice; not that he is a little poet; but he is most himself and most happy when he is working in established, or at least in well knit, rhythms and moods. His publisher has produced him in a form that does both American poetry and American publishing handsome credit.” M. V. D.

“Witter Bynner’s new volume, ‘A canticle of Pan’ leaves one disturbed and aggrieved. He is undeniably such a really talented poet that one wonders why so much of his book leaps out of the mind much faster than it leaps in. It is apparent that the community masque idea is not a happy choice for Mr Bynner. It is in the shorter pieces in this book that Mr Bynner is at his best.” H. S. Gorman

“A rather poorly balanced miscellany of poems. The volume is by no means representative of Mr Bynner’s excellence as a lyric poet. In comparatively few pieces in the present collection does he approach his highest standard of workmanship. A number of them are trivial in conception and detract substantially from the merit of the others.”

BYRNE, DONN.Foolish matrons. *$1.90 (2c) Harper

20–18252

The heroines of the story are four: one wise and three foolish. The wise one was a great actress who married the big uncouth surgeon whom she loved, gave up her career and became his guardian angel and mother of his children. Georgia, pretty and frivolous, craved the excitement of gay New York. Married she was a vampire and finally drifted to the underworld. Sheila, the college graduate and newspaper woman, clever and heartless, dreamt of a career, married a poet for the glamor of it and drove him to drink with her coldness. Sappho, the model, frankly married for money, and posed as patroness of amateur artists. She became ashamed of her plain millionaire husband and thought to do better for herself but lost in the game.

“There is enough material in ‘The foolish matrons’ for four novels; any one of the biographies which are told simultaneously would have made a book by itself—a book representing with true artistry a segment of life.”

“The tale has vivid elements: it is overdrawn, but possesses dramatic intensity.”

CABELL, JAMES BRANCH.[2]Domnei; a comedy of woman-worship. *$2 McBride

20–20192

A revised edition of “The soul of Melicent,” published in 1913, with a new introduction by Joseph Hergesheimer. For note on the story see Annual for 1914.

“Cabell has won indisputably the position of being one of our few distinguished men of letters. He is not for every reader, but one can scarcely picture his desiring this doubtful honor. He writes for his own discriminating audience, and for them he cannot write enough. He creates a taste which it is difficult to satisfy with lesser delights. ‘Domnei’ carries a significance and an atmosphere of its own.” D. L. Mann

“It is a subtle story, but not a convincing story.... And ‘Domnei’ is an entertaining story—a story to be read at one sitting—with colour and marvel and high-sounding words. It has the outline of a narrative poem, and I, for one, feel that it is a pity that Mr Cabell did not turn his prose into verse.” Padraic Colum

“The thing that makes ‘Domnei’ stand out above most fables of chivalrous romance is not the clear and sympathetic character portrayal, nor the flowing, beautiful English, nor is it the great wealth of mediaeval lore, which Mr Cabell undoubtedly possesses to an exceptional degree. The greatness of ‘Domnei’ lies in the fact that every detail, historical, narrative, or constructive, falls into place with consummate art, bringing to us of these later and hurried days a spiritual interpretation of the knight’s quest for divine beauty.” H. W. M.

CABOT, WILLIAM BROOKS.[2]Labrador. il *$3 Small 971.9

“‘Labrador’ is an account of half a dozen expeditions into the interior of that country which the author has made since 1904. From it the reader obtains an impression of what life is like in that elemental land, barren and sentineled off its coast by age-old icebergs. The country is one of the oldest primal faces of the globe, and Mr Cabot believes it may have been the cradle of the human race. Its only products are fur and fish, and, as the fur is failing, Labrador will doubtless remain a little-known land. ‘Over this great territory,’ writes the author, ‘the people still wander at will, knowing no alien restraint, no law but their own. The unwritten code of the lodge and open, the ancient beliefs still prevail.”—N Y Times

“The lovers of nature study and of travel and adventure will find much of interest in this carefully written book. Mr Cabot writes with enthusiasm as well as with rare intelligence.” E. J. C.

CADMUS and HARMONIA, pseuds.Island of sheep. *$1.50 (5c) Houghton

20–7649

In an English country house, on the eve of a house party, the host and hostess are much distressed about the future. The party is about equally composed of optimists and pessimists and they are all more or less liberal. It consists of the minister of the parish, a highland landowner, a labor ex-member of Parliament, the wife of a former Liberal minister, a progressive journalist and his wife, an American woman resident in England, a lady given to good works, a conservative, a liberal lawyer, a grenadier of the guards; a lieutenant of the United States army, a labor leader, an imperialist, a French general, a coalition member of parliament, an American politician and a captain of industry. They discuss the future and reconstruction from all points of view, of which the most satisfactory in the end seems to be that of the ex-labor member of Parliament. It at least moves the minister to relate the old saga of Balder, the life-giver, and his expected return to earth after the twilight of Walhalla has made an end to the old gods.

“The quickness of the argument, the mental agility of some of the talkers and the interesting character touches give a delightful lightness to this presentation of serious problems.”

“Rolls the present world unrest up into a cheerful and conservative package, with the strings tied a bit too neatly.”

“As a matter of fact, characterization is the authors’ weakest point. Their style is too fluent, too uniform. Opinions are well contrasted, but the individualities of the speakers are lost in the monotony, in the rhythm and vocabulary of their utterance.” R. F. A. H.

“It is rather hard for an American to account for the admiration which the book is said to have won in England. There is not, as a rule, anything particularly novel in the content or exceptionally striking in the form.”

“When the reader finishes it, he may be inclined to think first, that although done by a master hand, it is a rather slight contribution to the great post-war discussion. But the more he thinks about it the more the reader begins to perceive that ‘The island of sheep’ is a microcosm of the present mental and physical state of the world, certainly of the English-speaking world.”

“The reader will thank us for letting him discover for himself the rare charm of this book. Passion is excluded, though there is plenty of idealism, and an abundance of hard, shrewd wit. National characteristics are exceedingly well portrayed. There is here a fineness akin to a forgotten art.”

“Most of our readers, faced with this list [of characters] in the abstract, will be inclined to turn from the book with a ‘Lord ‘a mercy!’ or ‘Heaven save us!’ If they do they will be quite wrong, for, in spite of the soundness of the argument, the book is a light one, and full of very pleasant relief, which we must not call comic, but which has the same effect as the old stage artifice.”

CAINE, WILLIAM.Strangeness of Noel Carton. *$2 (3c) Putnam

20–11497

This is not exactly a story within a story but rather two stories so interwoven and fused that in the end they are not distinguishable apart. They are both written in the first person by Noel Carton and one is his journal and the other the novel he writes because his wife has said he couldn’t do it. This wife he hates for her crudity and smallness, altho he has sold himself to her for the home and comforts she gives him. In his novel he unconsciously portrays himself and his wife Josephine as his main characters, Nigel and Jocelyn. As he becomes absorbed in his plot, and as he takes more and more powerful drugs in his fight against insomnia, it is increasingly difficult for him to distinguish between the real of his life and the unreal of his fancy. The climax comes when his hallucinations give way to madness, and the tragedy of his novel is carried out in real life.

“The fastidious reader will be inclined to put this volume aside after the first few pages, but if he can persevere he may very quickly realize that the vulgarity of the author’s manner is deliberate, and very effective and moving. It is paying a great compliment to Mr Caine to say that no one who does not read this remarkably plausible tale from cover to cover could believe it.”

“In a unique combination of diary and straight novelistic construction, Mr Caine has done something for the novel which one Reizenstein once did for the stage in ‘On trial’—he has found a new form.”

“The book is original and exceedingly well done.”

“From the moment you meet Noel Carton, his wife, and his situation you are deeply interested in all three. You don’t like him nor yet his wife, but he is a vivid, actual creature, and he makes every one, perhaps we might better say everything, he touches, vivid and compelling.”

Reviewed by E. L. Pearson

“Not every reader is likely to enjoy this grim mixture of realism and fantasy, but it is impossible to deny the power with which it is written.”

CALDWELL, WALLACE EVERETT.Hellenic conceptions of peace. pa *$1.25 Longmans 172.4

19–18236

“An historical study of the subject, beginning with the epic age and coming down to the fourth century B.C. Issued as one of the Columbia university studies in history, economics and public law.” (Brooklyn) “What Mr Caldwell has done is to restate what the Greek poets, historians, orators, and political leaders have said and written about the desirability of peace. For that was their theme, that peace was desirable and war was destructive. He has also traced for us, in the tumultuous course of Greek history, the attempts to preserve the peace and the causes of their failure.” (Nation)

“This is an interesting study written by a man well grounded in Greek history. Our main criticism is that Dr Caldwell has not kept his aim steadily enough in view. In fact, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there has been a certain shifting of aim as the work proceeds. The concluding chapter is the most valuable part of the book.” W. S. Ferguson

“There is much in Dr Caldwell’s record that has special pertinency to these times.”

“Certain problems appear very modern especially the conflict of Athens and Sparta regarding the implications of ‘freedom,’ and the inability of Greece to form a permanent league of free states, in spite of religious and commercial incentives to unity.”

CALKINS, RAYMOND, and PEABODY, FRANCIS GREENWOOD.Substitutes for the saloon. *$1.75 Houghton 178

20–1362

“To the study which he made for the famous Committee of fifty twenty years ago and which has been the standard volume on the subject during that entire period, Dr Calkins now adds a new introduction and a series of appendices supplementing carefully chosen points in a way to bring the whole discussion of the saloon substitute up to date and to make of the volume a handbook for those who wish to engage in this form of social service and to learn something of the body of experience which has been built up for a half century. The book is particularly illuminating in setting up the workingmen’s club or whatever one cares to call it, against the perspective of neighborhood, class, race, religion, politics, age, habits and other factors which condition its success or involve its failure. In the long run, it seems clear, the ‘substitute’ must be almost purely democratic or else commercial in management, and it must be of spontaneous growth or at any rate seem to be.”—Survey

“Interesting to leaders of men and boys of the working class.”

CALLWELL, SIR CHARLES EDWARD.Dardanelles. *$5 (3½c) Houghton 940.42

20–4693

The book belongs to the Campaigns and their lessons series. The author considers the contest in the Dardanelles as a campaign by itself which was affected by events elsewhere only in so far as these diverted much needed military and naval resources. The work is designed to be a study of certain phases of the campaign rather than a formal record of its course, many of the problems discussed admitting of considerable diversity of opinion. Thus the naval attempt to force the Straits without military aid, the famous landing on the shores of the Gallipoli peninsula on the 25th of April, and the successful evacuation of the sea-girt patch of Turkish territory are discussed at length, but some of the principal combats are dismissed briefly because their story suggests no special lessons.

“The book needs an index.”

“It cannot fail to be of the utmost value, as a document of the war, which will increase in value as the years pass.” E. J. C.

“The story is told with the accuracy and straightforward impartiality that might be expected. After the accounts of each main event, whether success or failure, General Callwell adds a passage of ‘Comment,’ criticizing that action and pointing out where the causes of success or failure lay. To all military students and to all who, like myself, are intimately acquainted with the campaign, these comments will naturally be the most valuable and interesting parts of the volume.”

“General Callwell’s valuable study of the Dardanelles campaign, from a military standpoint, appears opportunely as the complement of the Dardanelles commission’s report on the conduct of the operations.”

“This is an excellent addition to the ‘Campaigns and their lessons’ series. The one criticism that we have to make of it is the inadequacy of the maps. There are certain phases of the campaign, notably the attacks at Anzac and Suvla in August, 1915, which it is impossible to follow clearly without large and clear maps.”

CALLWELL, SIR CHARLES EDWARD.Life of Sir Stanley Maude, lieutenant-general. il *$6 Houghton

(Eng ed 20–14053)

“This official biography of the conqueror of Bagdad, who died during the fourth year of the war, was written by the British Director of military operations at the War office. General Maude was one of the small group of commanders brought to the front by the war who appealed to the popular imagination. Fortunately, his biographer is one of the leading military writers of our time. The book is inspiring, not merely as the life of a great soldier, but as a contribution to our knowledge of British military operations in Mesopotamia.” R of Rs

“As clear and sympathetic an account as any friend of General Maude’s could desire.” O. W.

“There is not too much Maude in the book, nor is there too much collateral history, just a happy combination of the two, an achievement which is by no means common in memoirs!”

“Sir Charles Callwell is particularly to be congratulated on the justice and candour with which he has written this book. Eulogy at points where eulogy is undeserved is an offence in biography. It is misleading; it deprives the reader of the opportunities of learning the lessons which he might have learned from the truth; and in the last analysis it is unfair to the subject of the biography himself. Sir Charles Callwell, while making clear his intense admiration of Maude, succeeds in giving point to that admiration by admitting that Maude was not without his intellectual faults as a soldier.”

“In spite of the attraction of his subject the biography is to be read once and no more. One hesitates to think that General Callwell has missed the secret of Maude’s greatness. One searches the book in vain for a generalization, a fruitful idea.”

CAMERON, CHARLOTTE.[2]Cheechako in Alaska and Yukon. il $6 Stokes 917.98

Cheechako is Eskimo for tenderfoot, but this particular tenderfoot turns out to be a hardened traveler. After many other lands the far North beckoned this adventurous Englishwoman and she set out from Seattle in June to travel 2,200 miles on the Yukon to Alaska and back all in a summer season. She sings the praises of the wondrous riches of the country—for which she bespeaks a prosperous future—and of the hospitality of its people. Nome, which had lured her from childhood, was the real objective of the trip and of it the author gives a detailed account. The book is well illustrated.

“Very wisely she is content to write as a sightseer, not as a pioneer; and the result of this renunciation is that we get from her something fresh.”

CAMP, CHARLES WADSWORTH.Gray mask. il *$1.75 (2c) Doubleday

20–2640

An episodic narrative dealing with the solution of various mysteries and taking its name from the first adventure. Garth, a member of the detective force, is asked by his chief to assume the disguise of the Gray Mask, a criminal chemist who goes with face covered to hide the effects of an explosion. The disguise takes him into the heart of a criminal gang, among whom to his horror he finds Nora, his chief’s daughter. But her presence there is satisfactorily explained and the law breakers are brought to justice. The second episode concerns a murder mystery, and there are others, ending with Garth’s engagement to Nora.

“The stories hardly measure up to the author’s previous work.”

CAMP, WALTER CHAUNCEY.Football without a coach. il *$1.25 Appleton 797

20–13870

The object of the book is to supply a perfect pen-and-ink coach for a football team, telling it how to progress from week to week, warning it of the dangers that will crop up and telling it how to surmount each difficulty that arises. It is intended as a text-book for the grammar school boy, the high school student, and the young man from the shop or office. Contents: Building the foundation; Sizing up the candidates; The first scrimmage; Practice without a scrub; The line and the forward pass; The line; The backfield; Building plays; The strategy of football; Things that make or break a team.

“The book comes as near to taking the place of an expert coach as printed words can.”

CAMP, WALTER CHAUNCEY.Handbook on health and how to keep it. *$1.25 (3c) Appleton 613

20–5624

In formulating a “simple, reasonable and practical system of preserving physical fitness” for all ages, the author has had in mind the “simplest, shortest, least exhausting and most exhilarating form of calisthenics” that can be devised. He has concentrated his setup exercises with four groups of three each thus: Hands, Hips, Head; Grind, Grate, Grasp; Crawl, Curl, Crouch; Wave, Weave, Wing. Portions of the book are devoted to practical suggestions as to the value of certain sports at proper periods of life and to cautions as to the general health and the follies of some habits. Contents: Problems of youth and age; Daily dozen set-up; Reviewing follies; Children, schoolboy and collegian; Industrial worker.

“Mr Camp’s latest book should be useful to the instructor of gymnastics and the Boy scout leader. The author’s insistence upon athletics will readily be forgiven on the ground of a specialist’s natural enthusiasm; but the space given to it and other general considerations in the book hardly make it a very practical ‘handbook’ for the individual in need of advice and stimulus.” B. L.

CAMPBELL, HENRY COLIN.How to use cement for concrete construction for town and farm. il $2 Stanton & Van Vliet 693.5

20–6499

This comprehensive book covers such subjects as Farming with concrete; What concrete is, how to make and use it; Making forms for concrete construction; Reinforcement; Concrete foundations and concrete walls; Tanks, troughs, cisterns, and similar containers for liquids; Concrete floors, walks and similar concrete pavements; A concrete garage on the farm; Poultry houses of concrete; Concrete silos, etc. The author writes from the point of view of both engineer and farmer. There is an alphabetical table of contents, and the book is very fully illustrated.

CANBY, HENRY SEIDEL.Everyday Americans. *$1.75 (5½c) Century 917.3

20–16765

The book is a “study of the typical, the everyday American mind, as it is manifested in the American of the old stock. It is a study of what that typical American product, the college and high school graduate, has become in the generation which must carry on after the war.” (Preface) This typical American the author finds to be “the conservative-liberal” in whom the inherited liberal instincts have become petrified and who suffers with a sort of a hardening of the arteries of the mind. There is also a radicalism of a sort but it is a very different thing from European revolutionary radicalism. The soul of America now in which abides the future, is the bourgeoisie and he advises all who wish to speculate in postbellum America to study the younger leaders of the labor parties on the one hand and the college undergraduates on the other. They are the future. Contents: The American mind; Conservative America; Radical America; American idealism; Religion in America; Literature in America; The bourgeois American.

“Written in a clear, rather colorless style.”

“If Mr Canby’s book had been written long ago it would have remedied in large degree the appalling ignorance existing abroad concerning American mind and thought.”

“A timely, undogmatic contribution to an exceedingly lively issue.”

“As far as it goes, Mr Canby’s book is very good and very interesting. On the whole, his analysis appears to be sound; and his candour is admirable.” R: Roberts

“Thoughtful and lucid appraisement of American values. Though the style is simple, it is closely packed; the substance is weighty, and no one will get it all in the first reading.”

“It may be argued that there is no special brillance or insight in these pages, but if one really wishes to convince the average thoughtful American, it is well to be neither too philosophical nor too paradoxical. Mr Canby at least shows us that he has an active mind, capable of searching the underlying issues of the time in which he lives.”

“This study of the American mind is altogether delightful because of its directness, sincerity and penetration.” B. L.

CANFIELD, CHAUNCEY L., ed. Diary of a forty-niner. *$3.50 Houghton 979.4

The book is based on the authentic diary of one Alfred T. Jackson, a pioneer miner who cabined and worked on Rock Creek, Nevada County, California, from 1850 to 1852. It is a “truthful, unadorned, veracious chronicle of the placer mining days of the foothills, a narrative of events as they occurred; told in simple and, at times, ungrammatical sentences, yet vivid and truth compelling in the absence of conscious literary endeavor.... It sets forth graphically the successive steps in gold mining, from the pan and rocker to the ground sluice and flume.... No less fascinating is the romance interwoven in the pages of the diary.” (Preface) The editor states that he has verified many of the incidents and happenings. An edition of the book was published in San Francisco shortly before the earthquake and fire, during which the plates and many of the copies were destroyed.

“This book is well printed in large type but the solid character of the contents, in spite of the chapter headings, will repel some readers.” H. S. K.

“One of the most fascinating features of this remarkable document is the diarist’s self-revelation of his evolution from a Puritanical New Englander, bound and shackled with the prejudices of generations, into a broad-minded man whose mental growth is miraculously stimulated by the freedom of his environment and associations.”

CANNAN, GILBERT.Release of the soul. *$1.75 Boni & Liveright 149.3

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