Chapter 123

20–21290

This novel follows “Gold” and “The grey dawn” and completes Mr White’s California trilogy. It is a story of the transition period of the eighties when the great ranchos of the cattle era began to give place to irrigation and the small fruit farm, and pictures the land boom that heralded the change. It opens with a fiesta at Corona del Monte, the rancho of Colonel Peyton, an old time Californian, who with his wife, Allie, dispenses hospitality to all comers with the high-handed manners of the old days. Other characters are Brainerd, the easterner who experiments with irrigation on a small scale, foreseeing the future of the country from a scientific point of view, and Patrick Boyd, who recognizes its financial future. The romance of the story develops between Daphne Brainerd and Kenneth Boyd, and the plot turns on the rallying of all the colonel’s friends, including Sing Toy, his cook, to save Corona del Monte. The story ran as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post.

“Mr White has always written good books, but he has never written as good a novel as ‘The rose dawn.’ Incidentally it is by far the best of his California trilogy.” G. M. H.

“The book is written by one who loves to write. We have the leisurely style of the Victorians. The writer goes into byways of description and character drawing, forcing us to his mood. In the art of description he is unusually gifted. One could not imagine this book dramatized, the action is of so little importance. The story, nevertheless, is delightful.”

“In this sequel to ‘Gold’ and ‘The grey dawn,’ there is all the charm, scenic coloring and clean-cut delineation of character which distinguished the earlier works.”

“With much to commend it as narrative and as descriptive of California, ‘The rose dawn’ is an addition to the White novels that many readers will welcome.”

WHITE, WILLIAM ALANSON.Thoughts of a psychiatrist on the war and after. $1.75 Hoeber 940.3

19–15865

“The author sees in the social upheavals incident to the war and after merely a reflection on a huge and unprecedented scale of the phenomena which the psychiatrist encounters daily in frustrated individual lives. It is because of this that he endeavors to apply some of the psychological principles which have been found to be of help in adjusting individual lives for the purpose of a better understanding of the changes that have come with the war and as an aid to their adjustment.”—Survey

“The brevity of the book will make it difficult for readers unacquainted with psychoanalytic literature. If it leads some of these into the more extended discussions of the psychology of war it will accomplish what doubtless was the purpose of the author.” E. R. Groves

Reviewed by A. R. Hale

“The psychiatrist adds his hope to the hopes of the advocates of a league of nations that shall make it possible to outgrow war, as men in socialized communities have outgrown their older, cruder ways. Such a confirmation of our political hopes by scientific analysis is encouraging; and Dr White maintains his thesis with skill and interest.”

“The book is an interesting contribution to individual and social psychology and is written with the lucidity characteristic of the author. It ought to prove of considerable help to those interested in the problems of individual and social maladjustment.” Bernard Glueck

WHITE, WILLIAM PATTERSON.Hidden trails. il *$1.90 (1½c) Doubleday

20–12058

This tale starts merrily with two wild west killings before the twentieth page, and whiskey and shots follow one another briskly thruout the book. Johnny Ramsay, “an impulsive young man of uncertain temper,” is the hero. He undertakes to earn the reward offered for the capture of the bandits who are making the life of Sunset county exciting at the time. He has two pals in partnership with him in his private detective work, Racey Dawson and Telescope Laguerre, but to Johnny belongs most of the credit. The bandits prove to be a large band, and it is no easy job to round them all up, but Johnny very nearly accomplishes it. His life is not always safe; once he comes perilously near being lynched, but thanks to a girl, he is spared. The tale is certainly not lacking in adventure, with a dash of romance added.

“There is a clever, though somewhat involved plot which keeps the reader guessing. The dialect and style seem crude in spots. On the order of ‘The Virginian,’ though not so well done.”

“Though the story possesses a definite human appeal, is entertaining, and contains several suggestive bits of landscape description, it is not done with deftness or a sure touch.” L. B.

“It shows so firm a touch, such sure and skillful handling of materials and so good an eye for local color that it bespeaks for Mr White a cordial welcome to the realms of authorship and gives hopeful promise of his future work.”

WHITE, WILLIAM PATTERSON.Lynch lawyers. il *$1.75 (1½c) Little

20–625

A story of the wild West opening with a stage coach robbery. The occurrence is one of a chain of daring deeds and, much to the discomfort of Red Kane, the evidence seems to point to a recently arrived “nester,” Ben Lorimer. At first sight Red had fallen hopelessly in love with Lorimer’s daughter Dot and he knows that a man who takes a stand against her father will have no chance with the girl. He protects the father from a lynching mob, is shot and nursed back to health by the girl. Eventually after much action and many complications the mystery of Lorimer’s past is cleared away and all ends well.

“The story as a whole is a masterpiece of remarkable conversation, and excellent descriptions.”

“Written along thoroughly familiar lines, the story is considerably longer and very much slower in movement than are the majority of such tales. The book contains a fair amount of bloodshed, and gunplay enough to satisfy the most exacting.”

“A cowboy story with wild excitement in every chapter and a strong touch of romance to offset the sensationalism.”

WHITE, WILLIAM PATTERSON.[2]Paradise Bend. il *$1.90 (2c) Doubleday

20–18297

A story with all the features of the western thriller. Tom Loudon is in love with Kate Saltoun, his employer’s daughter and when he learns that she is engaged to Sam Blakely he throws up his job and leaves. He had long suspected that Blakely is responsible for the frequent disappearances of cattle, but “Old Salt” had refused to believe his neighbor guilty and Kate sides with her father. With Tom’s departure for Paradise Bend Blakely manages to throw the blame on him and he narrowly escapes arrest and lynching. Sudden death lies in wait and is averted in countless other forms before the story closes, with the villains receiving their just deserts and the lovers happy.

“Nothing in this book distinguishes it from the crops of mediocre western novels which glut the market year after year and which all seem to be made according to a standard recipe.”

“What ‘Paradise Bend’ lacks in literary finish and pretensions to intellectual pabulum it replaces with a plenitude of skill in construction and dialogue.”

WHITEHOUSE, VIRA (BOARMAN) (MRS NORMAN DE R. WHITEHOUSE).Year as a government agent. il *$3 (4c) Harper 940.48

20–2700

When our country entered the war Mrs Whitehouse was appointed by George Creel as representative for Switzerland of the Committee on public information. Her duties were to give every possible publicity to American news through the press, through special articles and pamphlets and motion-picture reels. The book is an accurate, honest account of her experiences, throwing interesting sidelights on diplomacy open and otherwise. Not until the difficulties she encountered in the American legation at Berne drove her to abandon her undertaking and return to America, did she in her second attempt succeed in breaking through the diplomatic armor plate and in gaining a foothold for her work. The contents are: My appointment; Diplomatic methods; The vanishing news service; Apparent defeat; To America and back; At work; Success under difficulties; One thing after another; Swiss problems; The approaching end; Grief and adventure; Strife and confusion; The end of the year. There are illustrations and appendices containing the correspondence and cablegrams between Washington and the American legation on the one hand and Mrs Whitehouse on the other.

“She writes of important international work from an agreeably personal angle.”

“Our conviction that her story is essentially true is not only because of her own definiteness and of the evidence the older diplomatic tradition gives about itself in the appendix, but also because of our general experience throughout the reign of war psychology. Mrs Whitehouse has the gift of taking the reader along with her in her adventure.” Edith Borie

“Aside from its historical interest, the book has fascination as a narrative, for Mrs Whitehouse possesses the very great gift of unconsciousness. The story runs as simply as though she were telling it over a table, and there is a delightful, if somewhat caustic, vein of humor that gives color to the whole.” G: Creel

“A reading of her book, interesting as it is, leaves one in doubt as to whether it is an apologia or a suffrage tract. Further, it exposes again the error of creating an extra-legal government department, the Committee on public information, with authority to act abroad in matters of foreign policy independently of the Department of state.”

“Besides being a woman of invincible courage and executive ability, as her work in Switzerland proved, Mrs Whitehouse shows in her book that she has a sense of humor and pleasing ability as a writer.”

“In a delightfully straightforward style Mrs Whitehouse has told the story of her work in Switzerland.”

WHITELEY, OPAL STANLEY.Story of Opal (Eng title, Diary of Opal Whiteley). il $2 (2c) Atlantic monthly press

20–19873

This “Journal of an understanding heart” (Sub-title) is the diary of an orphan, brought up in a lumber camp, and is ascribed to the end of her sixth and to her seventh year. Before her adoption by strange people she evidently had a careful bringing up and careful instruction from a loving mother, as the outpourings of her childish heart and bits of her history reveal. The records are remarkable for the deep and loving insight into nature and the child’s communion with animal and plant life, which they reveal. Parts of the diary have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly.

“We have no space to pursue our analysis into details. An amateur Sherlock Holmes will find much of interest in this volume. For instance, is the vocabulary consistent? Is the idiom consistent? Is the ignorance consistent? For the rest, and in spite of Earl Grey’s ‘sheer delight’ in the book, we find it flat, dreary, utterly uninteresting, a reductio ad absurdum of, as we have hinted, the American sentimental novel.” J. W. N. S.

“Nature lovers and lovers of childhood especially will be delighted by it.”

“The truest thing about the journal to my own mind is its truth of emotion—it is the absolute record of a child’s emotion.” A. C. Moore

“Completely delightful book.” C. H. O.

“That it is a beautiful and touching and piercingly honest revelation of an imaginative child’s spirit seems to me evident beyond cavil.” Christopher Morley

“The question asked with regard to ‘The young visiters’ is being repeated in connection with the present book—‘Could a child really write it?’ Only a child could have written ‘The story of Opal.’ No adult could put into language such innocent and spontaneous grace combined with such freshness of perception.” Marguerite Wilkinson

“If ever the word unique is appropriate to a literary production, certainly it is here. The reader sometimes tires of the singular manner and strange expressions in the diary, but he never fails to feel the genuine fineness and charm of Opal’s love for animals and trees and all of out-of-doors, and her sweetness and affection toward the few human beings who responded to her appeal.”

Reviewed by E. L. Pearson

“The book is so incessantly sentimental as to be very tiresome reading to most English people—Americans seem to have stronger stomachs. Again, the inverted style is tedious—almost perhaps as tedious as the humour.”

“The style of the diary is irresistible. Full of quaint phrases, unconscious humor, the profound philosophies of childhood, the sentences move along in solemn, yet sparkling procession.”

“It is not safe to dogmatize upon the limits of precocity, but the hand at work in many passages is prima facie not that of the six-year-old, but of the more mature professional humorist. Whatever be the solution, the main interest of the book is its vitality of imagination and its pregnancy of issues bearing upon child life remains unaffected.”

“We may say without absurdity that the child has a style. And it reaches, particularly towards the end of the diary, a rare poetic suggestiveness. We hope that Opal Whiteley will write the other books she planned in childhood, but we do not expect them to be like this book; it is one of those inspirations which can seldom be repeated.”

WHITHAM, G. I.St John of Honeylea. *$1.75 (1½c) Lane

20–7526

When Evelyn St John was ten he was left an orphan in the keeping of a hard aunt. Of his father’s family he knew nothing. By force of character and personal charm he holds his own, makes friends and achieves a sheep farm at the Cape, when at the age of thirty he falls heir to the ancestral estate of the St John’s, Honeylea, in the south of England. In reality he had inherited much more: dark mysteries, a curse and the hatred and suspicions of a neighborhood. Honeylea had once been abbey land, had been wrested from the monks, who still haunted the woods where they had been murdered and had cursed the place. What became the banqueting hall of Honeylea had once been a church and all the St Johns had come to grief—the curse and their own pride being their undoing. The modern skepticism and moral courage of the present St John struggles bravely against the atmosphere and hidden malignity of the place which he loves for its beauty. Not until he has learned to pray as a last refuge from despair and the house is burned, is the curse lifted and fortune in love returns to a St John.

“A very good bit of character work, an intensely absorbing story, this will appeal equally to those who love realistic tales of today, and to the fortunate folk who are made happy by medieval legends of days of old. For the book has both.”

“Those who read ‘Mr Manley’ will not need to be told that G. I. Whitham knows how to write an interesting story. And ‘St John of Honeylea’ is an improvement on her earlier book, more convincing and better written, to say nothing of its possession of an unusually romantic and picturesque atmosphere.”

“It is a good book, and many interesting people are to be met in it; not the least of whom are two who live only in the descriptions of the neighbours who have known them, ‘Uncle Charles,’ and his nephew and successor Cecil, the two last owners of the house. They are perhaps more distinctly drawn than any of the actual characters of the story.”

“The subject sounds familiar, but Mr Whitham has treated it in an original way.”

WHITIN, CORA BERRY.Wounded words. *$1 Four seas co. 793

20–1007

A little book of rhymed charades designed by the author for the entertainment of convalescent soldiers. At the end a key is provided by which answers may be tested.

“Mrs Whitin has been more concerned with ingenuity of expression than with Tennysonian polish of her verses.”

WHITING, GERTRUDE.Lace guide for makers and collectors. il *$15 Dutton 746

20–2109

“While this is a book which few people would enjoy for leisure reading, it represents the work of years of careful study of a subject which is nearest and dearest to the author’s heart. The work was produced, with the cooperation of lace experts of the Metropolitan museum for the guidance of students, makers, collectors and classifiers of bobbin laces. The author explains in detail the general rules for making various laces. These rules are expanded to include all variations from the simple grounds to the most complex stitches of many patterns of laces.” (Springf’d Republican) “The book is profusely illustrated with plates giving key designs, with accompanying directions to show students of lace how certain meshes are woven, to aid those planning to produce lace, and to assist classifiers and collectors in identifying laces. The book also contains a bibliography and lace nomenclature in five languages.” (Nation)

“There is an increasing interest in lacemaking and lace collecting in this country, and Miss Whiting’s thorough technical knowledge as imparted in this book will do much to foster the movement.”

“The author has undertaken an arduous task, which she accomplishes with seeming ease. The explanations are made yet more valuable by the excellent photographs.”

WHITING, JOHN D.Practical illustration; a guide for artists. il *$3 Harper 741

20–21999

The book deals with the problems peculiar to the work of the illustrator and the commercial designer and proposes to acquaint him with actual conditions in the publishing world. It is offered as a textbook for the teacher of “applied art” and a guide to the student. It is indexed and profusely illustrated—many of the plates in color—and the contents are: Looking over the field; Pictorial art for reproduction; Concerning illustrations; Concerning cover designs; Concerning commercial designs; Filling “rush orders”; Mechanical reproduction; Processes in color; Some concrete examples; The published art of tomorrow.

WHITLATCH, MARSHALL.Golf; for beginners—and others. il *$2 (4c) Macmillan 796

The author had disdained golf as a mollycoddle game but when he tried it, it hit him hard. He spent much time—wasted it—copying the style of professional experts, till he came to the conclusion that—barring a few fundamentals—it is an individual game for which each player must develop his own method. The object of the book is to call attention to the fundamental principles that must be observed under every form or method. The book is well illustrated and some of the chapter headings are: Balance the foundation of golf; Getting the power into the ball; Accuracy—not distance; Making the swing; Ease rather than effort; The part the body plays; On the putting green.

“There is little advice in it which may not be found in other books of its kind, but Mr Whitlatch has suited his instructions particularly to the man who takes up golf in middle age with the handicap that his years force upon him. The illustrations are rather more radical than the text.”

WHITMAN, ROGER BRADBURY.[2]Tractor principles. il *$2 Appleton 621.14

20–17311

Tractors are far from being as standardized as automobiles and there are almost as many types and designs as there are tractor makers. A man competent to handle and care for one type may be at a loss as to how to handle another. The purpose of the book is to describe and explain all the mechanisms in common use so that anyone may be able to identify and understand the parts of any make. The contents are: Tractor principles; Engine principles; Engine parts; Fuels and carburetion; Carbureters; Ignition; Battery ignition systems; Transmission; Tractor arrangement; Lubrication; Tractor operation; Engine maintenance; Locating trouble; Causes of trouble. The book is indexed and carefully illustrated.

WHITMAN, WALT.[2]Gathering of the forces. il 2v *$15 Putnam 814

The books contain the editorials, essays, literary and dramatic reviews and other material written by Walt Whitman as editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1846 and 1847. The editors of the collection are Cleveland Rodgers and John Black, the latter contributing a foreword, inspired by the spirit of Whitman, and the former a sketch of Whitman’s life and work. The contents fall into seven parts with classification of the articles as follows: Part 1—Democracy: American democracy; Europe and America; Government; Patriotism. Part 2—Humanity: Hanging, prison reform, unfortunates; Education, children; Labor, female labor; Emigrants; England’s oppression of Ireland. Part 3—Slavery and the Mexican war: The extension of slavery; The union of states; War with Mexico; The Oregon boundary dispute. Part 4—Politics; Political controversies; Two local political campaigns; Civic interests; Free trade and the currency system. Part 5—Essays, personalities, short editorials; General essays; Personalities of the time; “The art of health”; Short editorials; Whitman as a paragrapher. Part 6—Literature, book reviews, drama, etc. Part 7—Two short stories not included in Whitman’s published works: The love of Eris; A legend of life and love. The books are illustrated and indexed.

Reviewed by E. F. Edgett

“To those who knew him only by his great and minor poems or by the stories of his vanities and eccentricities, these volumes will be a revelation. They reveal his soul as it grew; and nothing will be more surprising than their conventional form, their respect for the current conventions of morality, and their unforced and clear style.” M. F. Egan

“It is a human document, a great side-light on Whitman’s poems, and incidentally, a mine of information on a host of matters of temporary and local interest.” F: T. Cooper

WHOwas who. *$6.50 Macmillan 920

(Eng ed 20–14622)

“This book fills the gap between the standard biographical dictionaries and the current Who’s who. It contains the notices, reprinted from former volumes of Who’s who, of those more or less well-known persons who died between 1897 and 1916, with the dates of their deaths. It runs to nearly eight hundred pages of small type.”—Spec

“There is no reason why ‘Who was who’ should not be a democratic work instead of what it is now. There is even no reason why it should not be readable. Accidental exclusion must always occur; deliberate ought never. We commend to the editors the ‘Modern English biography’ of Frederic Boase, as a model of hard fact, of brevity, and yet of amplitude. At the same time, we recognize the greatness of their task and the great usefulness (in the right quarter) of their volume.”

Reviewed by Ralph Bergengren

“As a work of reference it will be found exceedingly useful, all the more because many of the persons named will never figure in the ‘Dictionary of national biography’ if, as we hope, that great work should be continued.”

“Apart from its utility as an indispensable book of reference for the man of affairs, ‘Who was who’ will remain as a permanent store house of information about the personalities of one of the most important and critical epochs of British history.”

WIDDEMER, MARGARET (MRS ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER).Boardwalk. *$1.60 (3½c) Harcourt

20–773

Omitting all the rose-garden atmosphere of her novels, Margaret Widdemer has written a series of short stories about boys and girls of high school age. The scene is one of the summer resort towns along the Atlantic coast during the months of the year when the boardwalk belongs to the young people who live there the year round. The titles are: Changeling; Rosabel Paradise; Don Andrews’ girl; Black magic; The congregation; The fairyland heart; Good times; Oh, Mr Dreamman; Devil’s hall.

“Clear cut, interesting little sketches into which the same people step again and again until one knows quite the whole village.”

“We must admit of them all that they piece together with their small tragedies and happinesses into what seems a very truthful representation of an American town. Whether or not these stories meet with the immediate popularity of ‘The rose garden husband,’ it must be conceded that Miss Widdemer has done a more difficult thing and revealed a more mature and a surer art.” D. L. M.

“It is a sordid, tawdry, unwholesome atmosphere, the sort of atmosphere that one would shun if the ideas back of the stories and their psychology, for they are primarily stories of character, were not really interesting. Is the skill with which it is done a sufficient excuse for painting dead fish and tinsel?”

“Her delving into the substrata of inarticulate being is sometimes faltering, and her presentation of the less obvious springs of human emotion is not always convincing, but her distinct penchant for transferring to paper the elusive quality of personality is undeniable.”

“On the whole, it is a strong and searching collection.”

WIDDEMER, MARGARET (MRS ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER), comp. Haunted hour. *$1.75 Harcourt 821.08

20–5609

The little volume presents an anthology of ghost-poems and contains only such poems as treat of the return of spirits to earth. Even so no attempt has been made at inclusiveness, but the selections range from the earliest ballads to the present time. With an opening poem by Nora Hopper Chesson: “The far away country,” the poems are arranged under the headings: “The nicht atween the sancts an’ souls”; “All the little sighing souls”; Shadowy heroes; “Rank on rank of ghostly soldiers”; Sea ghosts; Cheerful spirits; Haunted places; “You know the old, while I know the new”; “My love that was so true”; Shapes of doom; Legends and ballads of the dead. There is an index.

“A most unusual anthology of real merit and charm.”

WIDDEMER, MARGARET (MRS ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER).I’ve married Marjorie. *$1.75 (3c) Harcourt

20–13699

Married in haste, Marjorie Ellison has had ample leisure to repent while her soldier husband has been away in France. Now on the eve of his return she is badly upset at the thought of the reunion. When Francis comes, it is as bad as she had feared. With the best intentions on both sides, he frightens her, and she hurts him. Hot tempers and strained nerves almost complete a tragedy of separation. But Francis is really in love with Marjorie and so he ventures on an experiment before giving her up entirely. In a delightful spot in the Canadian woods, his scheme is tried out, a scheme which leads through storm and stress to final joy and happiness for both.

“This will be liked by young girls and many women, though some readers will find it light and sentimental.”

“Her theme in ‘I’ve married Marjorie’ is cut from the sheerest gossamer material. Also it possesses all the old essential ingredients of cuteness, wistful humor and the necessary serious touch that brings the theme to a sweet conclusion. But there is a sparkling sanity about it.”

“A lively and amusing tale. Not a big book nor a provable story, but agreeable ‘summer reading.’”

WIENER, LEO.Africa and the discovery of America. 2v ea $5 Innes & sons 970

20–7013

The book is archaeological and etymological, showing how many of the plants believed to have been indigenous to America, and how much of the language and customs of the Indians, have an African origin. Besides a long list of the sources quoted, illustrations, a word and a subject index, the book contains: The journal of the first voyage and the first letter of Columbus; The second voyage; Tobacco; The bread roots.

“It is unfortunate that one so well trained in this field of study should not have undertaken to present his material in a more logical and readable manner. He is not always convincing, and is often dogmatic.” E. L. Stevenson

“It is not to be expected that a work like this can pass unchallenged, and the soundest of criticism and the most profound of scholarship should be invoked before an exact estimate can be made of its value. But the erudition displayed in this volume is enough to make us wait with impatience Professor Wiener’s second volume.” G. H. S.

“Worthless as a scholarly contribution, the book provides the psychologist with a valuable example of distorted erudition and methodological incompetence.”

“His book indicates the widest scholarship.” W. E. B. Du Bois

WIGMORE, JOHN HENRY.Problems of law; its past, present, and future. *$1.50 Scribner 340

20–26999

“Professor Wigmore discusses the law’s evolution, its mechanism in America, and its problems as they relate to world legislation and America’s share therein. These lectures constituted one series of the Barbour-Page foundation lectures at the University of Virginia.” (N Y Evening Post) “It is assumed by Dean Wigmore that a new age is at hand, for which a considerable amount of new legislation will be required, and in view of this fact he urges that our legislators must be made experts ‘(1) by reducing their numbers, (2) by giving them longer terms, (3) by paying them enough to justify it [that is, apparently, the work of legislation] as a career for men of talent, (4) by making their sessions continuous.’” (Review)

“Three clarifying lectures for the thoughtful layman.”

“Dean Wigmore demonstrates anew the wide range of his intellectual rummaging and the queer quirks of his marvelous mind. The second lecture on ‘Methods of law making’ is intelligible and sensible.”

Reviewed by E: S. Corwin

WILDE, OSCAR FINGALL O’FLAHERTIE WILLS.Critic in Pall Mall. *$1.50 Putnam 824

(Eng ed A20–616)

A selection from the reviews and miscellaneous writings of Oscar Wilde made by E. V. Lucas. The papers were contributed to the Irish Monthly, Pall Mall Gazette, Woman’s World and other journals and date from 1877 to 1890. At the end under the heading Sententiæ Mr Lucas has grouped a number of briefer extracts from other reviews.

“The extent to which Wilde was a deliberate poseur is made very clear by this book, for here there is very little pose. In these reviews, chiefly from the Pall Mall Gazette, we see Wilde as a critic with strong common sense, general good taste and with an outlook on life and literature sufficiently ordinary to be indistinguishable from that of half-a-hundred other critics of his time and of ours.”

“It has all his delights and all his superficialities and all his faults.”

“There is nothing especially characteristic about the collection except, perhaps, a lightness of touch that distinguishes its contents from the ordinary book-review, and while they reveal the delicacy of Wilde’s taste and the sincerity of his delight in art and letters they reveal his limitations, also, and the shallowness of his intellectual draught.”

“There is certainly no adequate reason why these forgotten writings of Oscar Wilde should be sought out and set in order, and sent forth in a seemly little tome of two hundred pages. Their resurrection does not add anything to his reputation, nor does it detract anything. It does not enlarge our knowledge of the writer or cast any new light upon the character of the man.” Brander Matthews

“These modest criticisms impress one collectively as good-natured, orthodox, and sensible. Its art vibrates between distinction and mediocrity—which is another way of saying that it is undistinguished.”

“Collections of this kind usually do no honour to their author. But in this case the result is a contribution to literature; in the first place, because the selection has been made by Mr E. V. Lucas, and in the second place, because it illustrates not only Wilde’s gift for perverse banter, but also his genuine scholarship and his ability to perform plain, downright work in an honest, craftsmanlike way.”

“These chapters are slight, but they are models of literary criticism of the less formal and serious type. Apart from style their superiority over the contemporary causerie lies chiefly, perhaps, in the cultivated background that they denote in the writer and presuppose in the reader.”

WILDMAN, EDWIN.Famous leaders of industry. il *$2 (3c) Page 926

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