Chapter 109

21–397

It is the object of the book to ascertain and state, as accurately and impartially and fairly as possible, the facts as to the founder and the faith of Christian science and to discriminate between the truth and error of the system. That it contains both is the author’s conviction. Contents: The subsoil of Christian science; Life of Mrs Mary Baker G. Eddy; Where did Mrs Eddy get her system of healing? “Science and health”: (1) the making of the book; (2) the contents of the book; Christian science teaching; The Christian science church; Mind healing and Christian science cures; The appeal of Christian science; Old truths newly emphasized; Index.

“‘The truth about Christian science’ is for the layman. It may be heartily recommended.”

“He has put together a very readable and useful account of the movement, together with a lucid examination of its doctrines, from the standpoint of an orthodox Christian theologist.”

SNOWDEN, JAMES HENRY.Wonderful night. *$1.25 Macmillan 232

19–18544

“Egyptian history, old Greek and Roman, Persian, Phœnician, early Jewish, historic and prehistoric; all were preparation for the coming of Christ. Then came the first Christmas, the wonderful night. The writer of this version has undertaken to reconcile religion and science, to show that all thinking men could but have expected the thing which came to pass. It is an attempt to correlate the Christian story with ancient and modern history.”—Boston Transcript

“If it must be done it could not be done in a more finished manner, with more attractive illustrations and illuminations.”

SODDY, FREDERICK.Science and life. *$4 Dutton 504

(Eng ed 20–12133)

“Among the investigators of radioactive substances Professor Frederick Soddy shares with possibly half a dozen men a position of preeminence. To the general public he is best known through his readable little book on ‘Matter and energy’ in the Home university library.” (Freeman) ‘Science, and life’ is the outcome of Professor Soddy’s five years’ tenure of the chair of chemistry at Aberdeen; and the addresses, together with articles here collected with them, are devoted to two main themes—the vast significance and importance of radioactivity, and the need of more and better science teaching in school and university. The Evolution of matter is the subject of one of the chapters reprinted from the Aberdeen University Review. In appendices Professor Soddy criticizes the financial operations of the Carnegie trust for the universities of Scotland.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup)

“It is surely a great merit in Mr Soddy’s book that it awakens in us once more the feeling of adventure.... Being brought back to realities, and finding that they are purely ‘material,’ we can discover hope of essential change only in a profound alteration in the material basis of life. Mr Soddy’s book is exciting because this is exactly what he promises.” J. W. N. S.

“The book is of special interest to men of science, because it brings out their immense burden of responsibility. The chapters on radioactivity are beautifully written, and, coming from Prof. Soddy, are authoritative.” Ellwood Hendrick

“Given his lack of metaphysical subtlety, Professor Soddy can not be expected to say anything particularly new or enlightening on the relation of religion and science. Indeed, the essay devoted to that theme is singularly pointless. On the other hand, Dr Soddy is refreshingly clear and sound in his discussions of the relation of science and democracy.” R. H. Lowie

“The whole story [of research in radio-activity] is told in a condensed form in several of the essays in this volume, and it could not be told better. Those who are interested in such subjects should obtain the book and read it.” W. A. T.

“Professor Soddy, in urging the claims of the present and the future, seems unduly contemptuous of the past. He should leave it to undergraduates to make a bonfire of the ancient humanities, and should remember that the study of the past serves to guide the present and interpret the future.”

“Specially interesting to those who wish to know what light has been thrown upon the inmost secrets of matter in the last few years are the three papers entitled ‘Science and life,’ ‘The evolution of matter,’ and ‘The conception of the chemical element as enlarged by the study of radioactive change.’”

SOMEBritish ballads.[2]il *$5 Dodd 821.08

(Eng ed 20–8033)

“Although this charming collection is entitled ‘British ballads,’ most of them are Scotch, but are none the worse for that. Indeed, we suppose it may be truly said that the best ballads are those of Scotland. There are here such old favourites as The lass of Lochroyan, Young Bekie, Chevy Chase, The twa corbies, Binnorie, and Get up and bar the door. There are eleven illustrations in colour by Arthur Rackham.”—Sat R

“Everybody knows the drawings in color with which Mr Rackham is wont to embellish the classics. This new volume is, if possible, more exquisite than those preceding. It is all that heart could wish.” Margaret Ashmun

“It may be that when parents see Rackham’s dramatic picturing of the ballad of ‘The twa corbies,’ they will have some misgivings as to its suitability for young folks. For boys and girls of fourteen there is much to be missed, if ‘Chevy Chase,’ and ‘The duke of Gordon’s daughter,’ and ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ are passed by because of nerves or the difficulties of dialect. Rackham is always decorative, delicate, and dramatic.”

“It is hard to decide which is the more attractive feature of this book—Mr Rackham’s paintings or the ballads themselves.”

SOMERVILLE, EDITH ANNA ŒNONE, and MARTIN, VIOLET FLORENCE (MARTIN ROSS, pseud.).Mount Music. *$2 (*7s 6d) Longmans

20–2644

“‘Mount Music’ is a tale of Ireland in transition, beginning in the late ‘eighties’ and ending early in this century. The years in which the action takes place mark the passing of the old régime, incarnate in the person of Major Richard Talbot-Lowry, a genial, improvident, dashing, and artless sportsman. And the situation is complicated for him by the fact that his estate marches with that of a young kinsman, a Roman Catholic and a home ruler, the playmate, and in time the lover, of Dick’s daughter Christian. Larry Coppinger, the young home ruler, was ‘in tune with all the world’; and if Christian yielded to the wishes of her father when he was broken in health, she had personally no fear of a mixed marriage. They are both attractive and generous young people, but the finest portrait is that of Francis Mangan, the ‘big doctor like an elephant in his hugeness and suppleness, his dangerousness and his gentleness.’ His relations to his father confessor and his family, his social ambitions and real benevolence, make a wonderful amalgam.”—Spec

“An Irish story, charming and wise and hard to classify because it is such a real book.” R. M. Underhill

“Her Irish characters are every whit as entertaining, and presumably as truthful as those of Mr Birmingham himself. There are none of the stereotyped good and evil persons of modern fiction here. Everyone is taken as he or she is, and Miss Somerville wastes no valuable time in moralizing over the foibles of her characters. A good story, excellently told.” G. M. H.

“It is hard—nay, it is impossible—for an alien to write sympathetically or truthfully of things Catholic, especially if there be question of Catholic Ireland.”

“Alike in description, characterization, and dialogue preserves that unerring felicity of phrase, wide range of sympathy, and intrepid humour which were first exhibited in ‘An Irish cousin.’”

“The authors have written many pleasanter books and many that will be more popular, but their genius has never been more unmistakable than in this picture of the ‘big doctor,’ so sordid and vulgar and crafty and with something so big in him.”

SONNICHSEN, ALBERT.Consumers’ coöperation. *$1.75 Macmillan 334

19–16460

“John Graham Brooks gives a brief introduction to this volume. The author gives a brief review of the history and explanation of the cooperative movement, developed extensively throughout Europe during the war and now being adopted to some extent in the United States, especially in the middle western and western sections. He asserts it to be the alternative, not an antidote, to bolshevism. The growing importance of the procedure is illustrated by statistics. Its object, the author shows, is to reorganize industry on a collective basis from the point of view of the consumer; to create a consumers’ industrial democracy. He points out that it proceeds by action, rather than by talk.”—Springf’d Republican

“The value of the book consists in its giving the most adequate exposition of consumers’ coöperation yet given in this country,—a comprehensive story of the movement, the fullest in later years, and interesting suggestions as to future achievement.” E. P. Harris

“The book is well written and is a clear exposition of consumer’s co-operation.” L. E. Hagerty

“Students of the coöperative movement will find some useful information, lucidly set forth.”

“Informing and of general interest.”

“Of singular interest in this book is the full description which it gives of the history of cooperation in the United States and its present status. We cannot, however, agree with the author in his interpretation of success and failure even though we take his statements of fact as accurate.” B. L.

SORLEY, CHARLES HAMILTON.Letters; with a chapter of biography. *$5 Macmillan

(Eng ed 20–13569)

“It has been said that the death, in action, of Charles Hamilton Sorley constituted the greatest loss of the war to English literature. There may be some, perhaps, who will hardly commit themselves to this; but none will be so foolish as to deny that more than sufficient interest in his personality was kindled by the publication, in 1916, of his ‘Marlborough and other poems’ to justify the present appearance of this volume. These letters, edited by his parents with admirable restraint, form an invaluable commentary on the poems themselves. The letters really divide themselves into three groups: those written while at school at Marlborough; those while staying (and studying) in Germany, first at Shwerin in Mecklenburg and then at the University of Jena; and, lastly, those while in the army at home and in France.”—Sat R

“We do not receive many such gifts as this wonderful book; the authentic voice of those lost legions is seldom heard.” J. M. M.

“His published book of poems is not alone evidence of his literary ability. His letters reveal exceptional powers and proclaim the man that might have been.” E. F. E.

“One approaches them prepared to find little beyond promise—a hint of something fine cut down before fulfillment; they turn out to be very much more than mere promise; they are in themselves achievement, the expression of a rarely independent mind, humorous, rich and wise far beyond its years.” R. L.

“Charles Sorley was a born letter-writer. As we read we feel ourselves to be wandering pleasantly among the green places of earth, with a brilliantly discursive boy at our side.”

“They necessarily lose something of freshness and vividness when they are put together in a book, but they are full of amusing phrases and interesting comments.”

“Quite apart from any sentimental associations, it is a more entertaining book than the average, and it has been edited by Professor and Mrs Sorley with a perfect restraint which has been sadly lacking in certain other books of this kind.”

SOTHERN, JOHN WILLIAM MAJOR.[2]Oil fuel burning in marine practice. il *$7.50 Van Nostrand 621.12

“A manual of practical instruction in oil fuel burning: contains full and copiously illustrated descriptions of all modern oil fuel burning systems, together with exhaustive practical information relating to same; intended for the use of naval and mercantile marine engineer officers, etc.” (Sub-title) The book is in six sections; The properties and combustion of fuel oil; Fuel oil tests; Description of oil fuel fittings; Pressure systems of oil fuel burning; Faults in oil fuel burning; General notes on oil fuel burning. There are 102 diagrams and other illustrations. The author is principal of Sothern’s Marine engineering college, Glasgow, and member of the Institute of marine engineers, London, and of other engineering societies.

SOUTHARD, ELMER ERNEST.Shell-shock and other neuropsychiatric problems. (Case history ser. Boston State hospital, Psychopathic dept.) il $10 Leonard 616.8

20–2508

“A comprehensive volume setting forth the conclusions of medical experts in a field which has recently undergone remarkable development is Dr E. E. Southard’s ‘Shell-shock and other neuropsychiatric problems.’ The data are presented in 589 case histories from the war literature—largely French and German—of the years 1914–1918, from these data Dr Southard draws about 70 pages of conclusions. The book has a bibliography by Dr Norman Fenton and an introduction by Prof. Charles K. Mills of the University of Pennsylvania.”—Springf’d Republican

“Primarily of value to physicians and army surgeons, the book is interesting even to the layman in its dramatic accounts of the soldiers who were victims of shell-shock.”

“Dr Southard presents his ideas not only with the thoroughness of the medical expert and scholar but with a certain humor and pungency, general literary culture and full appreciation of the relations of the subject to military service, and, incidentally, to everyday life.”

“The book will stand as a monument to a man of many talents. Southard the scholar would not object to the statement that his book is as much a part of history as of medicine.” A. Myerson, M. D.

SPADONI, ADRIANA.Swing of the pendulum. *$1.90 (1c) Boni & Liveright

20–774

Opening in San Francisco and ending in New York, this long novel tells the story of a woman’s life from youth to the beginning of middle age. The swing of the pendulum carries her from an unfortunate early marriage thru a passionate love affair with a man who is already bound by wife and child, to a safe and settled union based on mutual regard and need. Jean Norris graduates from the University of California, turns her back on teaching as a profession, enters library work, marries Franklin Herrick, follows Journalism, discovers the settlement movement, comes to New York as a social worker, plunges into civic reform, loves and loses Gregory Allen, forsakes her work to return to San Francisco, comes back and takes it up again, and after many emotional reactions marries her co-worker, Jerome Stuart.

“There is a good deal of fine characterization in this book; the dialogue is extraordinarily natural. But the prevailing atmosphere is sultry with sex; the middle-aged reader, at least, may find the performance as a whole both strained and wearisome.” H. W. Boynton

“This novel cannot be commended as a work of art. The story does not grip, several of its chapters are so episodic that they might be suppressed without loss, and the male characters are not men, but marionettes.”

“To hold the serious attention of serious readers through nearly five hundred pages argues at once a kinship with the wealthy mind of the true novelist. And such a kinship Miss Spadoni undoubtedly possesses.”

“Miss Spadoni’s imagination sends forth into a real, three-dimensioned world a troop of pale characters cursed with congenital indistinctness doomed from birth to wander unrecognisably in the fog of a common origin.” R. L.

“It is sincerely conceived and written, it shows grasp of character and its development, and it unfolds its story interestingly. It has also its distinct crudities, technically and ethically. Like others of its numerous kind, its prolonged emphasis upon sex will condemn it for a large body of readers who will feel that it gives a distorted and unhealthy view of life.”

“Any sincere study of ‘the woman alone’—to use Brieux’s phrase—is bound to be interesting, bound, indeed, to have a certain amount of value. In ‘The swing of the pendulum’ there is much that is crude, but there is real thought, real study and some vividness.”

“Miss Spadoni has done some notable work in the past. Some of her short stories were of men and women, futile, and sordid, but she cut down beneath the events of their lives to the poetry of life. She has not, in ‘The swing of the pendulum’ kept the pace which she set herself in those tales.” Lucy Huffaker

“There are evidences of cuts which in places make for uncertainty of delineation—the only blemish of an otherwise almost perfect work of its kind.”

SPARGO, JOHN.“Greatest failure in all history.” *$2.50 (2c) Harper 947

20–14005

In this “critical examination of the actual workings of bolshevism in Russia” (Sub-title) the author claims to have assembled evidence which “must compel every honest believer in freedom and democracy to condemn bolshevism as a vicious and dangerous form of reaction, subversive of every form of progress and every agency of civilization and enlightenment,” and to show it up as “the curse which during less than thirty months has afflicted unhappy Russia with greater ills than fifty years of czarism.” (Preface) Contents: Why have the bolsheviki retained power? The soviets; The soviets under the bolsheviki; The undemocratic soviet state; The peasants and the land; The bolsheviki and the peasants; The red terror; Industry under soviet control; The nationalization of industry (I-II); Freedom of press and assembly: “The dictatorship of the proletariat”; State communism and labor conscription; Let the verdict be rendered; Documents; Index.

“Although most of the evidence carries its own weight the disinterested reader will wish in many cases for some critical evaluation of authorities cited.”

“Mr Spargo is a Socialist, and it is because he considers the doctrines of Lenin and his followers a ‘grotesque travesty of Marx’s teachings,’ and a blow to socialism, and the arch enemy of all democracy, political, and industrial, that he exposes it as it is. This is the great merit of the book. It compels the reader to look at bolshevism as it is.” F. W. C.

“His latest volume attains a level of even greater detachment and cool judgment than its predecessors. The first uprush of hot revulsion of feeling against a false and violent philosophy, masked in the forms of the author’s own cause, has passed. Attacks upon the personal characters of bolshevist leaders are practically absent. The argument gains greatly in strength from this avoidance of personal invective.” M. W. Davis

“Mr Spargo’s book is a stern book, but a just one. It was much needed, and it is especially timely now.” W: C. Redfield

SPARGO, JOHN.Russia as an American problem. *$2.25 (2c) Harper 947

20–3715

The author is a sworn enemy of Bolshevist rule and thinks that Russia is not ready for anything like a socialist state, lacking industrial development as she does. “At present she needs capital and capitalist enterprise.” This makes Russia an American problem and “there should be a very clear recognition, alike by the government and the people of the United States, of the great and far-reaching importance of securing for this country a very large share in the immense volume of trade which Russia’s recovery and economic reconstruction must inevitably produce.” Contents: Russia as an American problem; Russia and western civilization: Russia’s subjection to Germany; Japan as Germany’s successor; Japan and Siberia; Russia’s needs and resources; Postscriptum; extensive appendices and an index.

“The ultimate political advantage for the world of a Russia free from economic vassalage to militaristic neighbors is obvious, but Mr Spargo’s case would be equally strong if he did not magnify the danger of Russia’s position; for whatever may be the reality of Japan’s menace in Siberia the threat from Germany to European Russia or of a German-Japanese alliance belongs for the present in the realm of imagination.” Jacob Zeitlin

“Mr Spargo’s study is vitally interesting and illuminating, and it contains a wealth of precise information which will be priceless to business men in many lines when the time comes for meeting German commercial rivalry in her new Mitteleuropa.” J: Corbin

“Vital and patriotic book.”

Reviewed by Reed Lewis

SPEARS, RAYMOND SMILEY.River prophet. il *$1.50 (1c) Doubleday

20–10310

A story of the “Old Mississip” and of the vagrant population—shanty boaters, pot hunters, river pirates—that lives upon its broad waters. Parson Elijah Rasba, from the mountains, floats down the Tug river to the Big Sandy, down the Big Sandy to the Ohio, down the Ohio and out onto the great river, where he exclaims “If this is the Mississippi what must the Jordan be!” Parson Elijah is seeking a lost soul, Jock Drones, whose mammy wants him back in the mountains, and so he joins the motley throng that goes “dropping down” the lower river. Among the other characters are Nelia Carline, who has left her husband, Gus Carline, the husband in pursuit of her, Lester Terabon, a newspaper man in search of copy, Mame Coape of the many divorces, Buck the river gambler, and Jock Drones, the lost soul who turns back to his mammy.

+ |Booklist17:160 Ja ’21

SPENCE, LEWIS.Legends and romances of Spain. il *$6.50 Stokes 863

20–26986

The literature of the romantic period in Spain treated by a folk-lorist, who says, “Since the days of Southey the romantic literature of Spain has not received from English writers and critics the amount of study and attention it undoubtedly deserves.... I have made an earnest endeavour to provide English readers with a conspectus of Spanish romantic literature as expressed in its cantares de gesta, its chivalric novels, its romanceros or ballads, and some of its lighter aspects. The reader will find full accounts and summaries of all the more important works under each of these heads, many of which have never before been described in English.” (Preface) Among the chapters are: The sources of Spanish romance; “Amadis de Gaul”; Catalonian romances; Moorish romances of Spain; Tales of Spanish magic and sorcery; Humorous romances of Spain. There are illustrations and a brief bibliography.

“It is an honest attempt to interest the general reader in a delightful department of literature. A book of this sort is in special need of an index, especially as there are no detailed ‘Contents,’ only general chapter-headings. But though there is a useful short bibliography, there is no index at all.” G: Saintsbury

“Extremely readable.”

“The attractive page, the good print, the popular treatment, the fine coloured illustrations, render it exactly suitable for a present to an intelligent youth of either sex, while the accounts and summaries of all the important works under the various headings provide a real fund of instructive information.”

“‘Legends and romances of Spain’ is not only a story book. There is a great deal of information in it and some real research. It is not quite up to date, perhaps.”

SPENCE, THOMAS, and others.Pioneers of land reform. *$1.50 Knopf 333

This book is one of the series of economic reprints of the famous Bohn libraries. It contains an introduction by M. Beer, characterizing and comparing the three essays. The essays are: The real rights of man, by Thomas Spence; The right of property in land, by William Ogilive; and Agrarian justice, by Thomas Paine.

SPENDER, HAROLD.Prime minister. il *$4 Doran

20–22843

In writing this biography the author has drawn upon “the memories of twenty-seven years of unbroken friendship” and in summing up the characteristics of his friend he says: “It is this combination of the slow qualities, with the swift—of judgment with daring, of mercy with rigour, of slow reflection with swift attack, of the zeal of the Cambrian with the shrewdness of the Fleming—that marks him off from so many of his race.” The first thirteen chapters are devoted to Lloyd George’s childhood and youth and earlier career up to the beginning of the war and the rest of the contents is: A war man (1914–1915); East or west? (1915); Serbia (1915): Munitions (1915): The new ministry of munitions; Premiership (1916); The saving of Italy; The Versailles council; Victory; The peace conference; The new world; The man; Highways and byways; Through foreign eyes. There are illustrations, appendices and an index.

“This record has the force of an autobiography rather than of a detached appraisal.”

Reviewed by D: J. Hill

“The book is pitched in a high dithyrambic key which is too laboriously sustained to be convincing and at last becomes exasperating. The literary frills are, moreover, a trifle cheap and shabby. Either the whole thing is the most flagrant and therefore self-defeating sort of pamphleteering or Mr Spender’s once robust literary sense is suffering a sad decline.” R: Roberts

“Mr Spender’s portrait of the Prime Minister can claim in one respect only to be a faithful one. It is Mr Lloyd George as he appears to himself—not to his Maker. Not merely by false interpretation of events but by false attribution of qualities and acquirements Mr Spender fabricates his hero.” J. A. Hobson

“It has none of the detached judgment of a historical appraisal of a completed career. Instead it has the militant interest of a brief presented in behalf of one of the most brilliant statesmen of modern times. It is not biography in the highest form of that art nor is it great literature. But Mr Spender’s work is not cheapened or vitiated by unseeing eulogy of his subject.” W: L. Chenery

“Mr Spender knows no discrimination in his eulogy: whatever his hero has done is not only right but so conspicuously right that it needs neither apology nor explanation. The best we can honestly say of ‘The prime minister’ is that it will serve as a quarry from which some future biographer may draw useful materials.”

“Much the most satisfactory part of the book is that which describes Mr Lloyd George’s birth and upbringing, his early political activities, his entry into Parliament, and the brilliant fighting years in which he marked himself out as a certain minister of the crown. The history of his career as a minister down to the outbreak of war is vague and scrappy and generally inadequate.”

SPOFFORD, HARRIET ELIZABETH (PRESCOTT) (MRS RICHARD S. SPOFFORD).Elder’s people. il *$1.75 (2c) Houghton

20–5405

Through these stories of old New England we look into the hearts of the country people, hear their gossip, learn to know their homely religion, their superstitions, see the struggles they have with their baser selves and glimpse their higher natures. We also learn to love the sturdy souls that recur in all the stories and embody the best that is in them all—Elder Perry, Old Steve, Miss Mahala, and others. The stories are: The deacon’s whistle; A change of heart; A rural telephone; The step-father; John-a-dreams; Miss Mahala’s miracle; An old fiddler; The blessing called peace; Father James; The impossible choice; A village dressmaker; Miss Mahala’s will; A life in a night; Miss Mahala and Johnny.

“Undramatic, but interesting.”

“Mrs Spofford is not by any means a great craftsman, her limitations are quite evident, but within her power—and she is never unduly anxious to achieve what is beyond her—she provides some interesting and entertaining bits of fiction.”

“The series of short stories which makes up this chronicle contains nothing particularly new or striking, but the tales have quite a good deal of verisimilitude, and some of the characters are likable.”

“Mrs Spofford has finely and strongly delineated a number of choice spirits here whom one will not easily forget. She has also incorporated much of the quiet humor of this type of people, and, all in all, has presented here not an especially great book but a very interesting one.”

SPRING RICE, SIR CECIL ARTHUR.Poems. *$3 Longmans 821

20–17907

“Mr Bernard Holland reminds us in his preface that the late ambassador to the United States published two books in his lifetime, a book of verse with interludes in poetic prose ‘adapted from the Persian’ and a prose version of a Persian love tale with a veiled mystical meaning. Besides the Persian sonnets this volume contains ‘In memoriam, A. C. M. L.,’ and a number of miscellaneous poems.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup

“His poems are like his personality and please us by some charm which is not quite analysable. They are strangely different from the work of most men of action. There are only a few poems in this book which are absolutely bad, but, on the other hand, there is probably none which is not marked by some flaw.”

“They are true poetry. The volume may not add one to the list of great English sonnets; but the beauty and the sincerity of these claim attention.”

SPYRI, FRAU JOHANNA (HEUSSER).Cornelli; tr. by Elisabeth P. Stork. (Stories all children love ser.) il *$1.50 (3½c) Lippincott

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