Chapter 34

20–19918

The tragedy of the title, altho the central incident of the book, is by no means its central theme. The tragedy is the death of old James Borrowdale, and the subsequent trial of his young wife Flora and her friend Cecil Twyfold for his murder, of which they are acquitted. The major part of the book, however, is taken up with the love of Cecil and Flora, its development while Flora was still bound and the reaction of the tragedy upon them. The expansion of their characters is along lines contrary to convention, as Cecil expresses it, they have taken the “downward path to salvation,” downward, that is, from the standards of material success that the world sets up. A plea for individual freedom, as opposed to the usages of conventional society, is really the keynote of the book.

“There is an undeniable simplicity in the writer’s style, a genial mellowness that in a tale like this is really extraordinary. There is hardly a writer today that could take the structure of this novel and its strong plea for individualism as opposed to social conventions, with its technically unhappy ending, and not make it despite brilliancy, a hard and cynical book. On the contrary Dr Dawson has written with deep humanness and charm. We have had the fortune to read few novels of the present season with such genuine delight.” S. L. C.

DAY, CLARENCE SHEPARD, jr. This simian world. il *$1.50 Knopf 817.

20–10010

Ours is a simian civilization. If we had not descended from the monkey what would our world be like from the point of view of extraterrestrial beings? If the ant and the bee, or the big cats, or the elephant or any of the other beasts had achieved the hegemony? Such whimsical questions with their conjectures were suggested by a Sunday afternoon Broadway crowd to the author and his friend Potter. The author’s illustrations are as amusing as his fancies.

“It was a good idea, and Mr Day has a real though immature gift of lightness in treating a solid subject. But his theme is really too big for his ninety pages, and although his thinking is honest and courageous it tends to become unsubstantial.”

“Aside from the amusing quality there is a basis of shrewd comment.”

“No less complete and varied than his estimate of man is Mr Day’s expression of it: a natural blend of wisdom with lightness, humour with profundity, hope with art, economy with abundance, kindliness with malice. The quality that makes possible such alliances is the one most infrequently granted to mortals: Mr Day sees things as they are beneath accumulated centuries of appearances; he cannot, he will not be fooled.” Robert Littell

“Mr Clarence Day’s whimsicality is quite virile; it is the expression of a naturally ingenuous mind; ‘innocent’ in the Nietzschean sense and not incapable of a certain gentle philosophic malice.”

“The most amusing little essay of the year.”

“It ought to interest any lively spirit because of its grace and reasonableness. And it ought to entrap and enlighten any slack soul who may pick it up in search for amusement. Amusing it unquestionably is, but a great deal more than amusing, to follow this grim parallel between the ways of apes and men.” R. T.

“While his treatment of the subject is amusingly interesting, it is none the less a serious one. The whole essay is, in fact, a bitter arraignment of our present order of civilization.” Alvin Winston

DAY, HOLMAN FRANCIS.All-wool Morrison. *$1.90 (2c) Harper

20–13700

Stewart Morrison has inherited St Ronan’s mill from his Scotch ancestors and is himself a canny Scotchman. In his absence and against his will he is elected mayor of the city of Marion and then things become lively. Within twenty-four hours and by sheer intimidation he beats the governor, the politicians and vested interests at their game of falsifying election returns and barring duly elected members from the legislature. He prevents the forming of a syndicate for stealing the state’s water-power. He teaches some bloody anarchists, athirst for martyrdom, what’s what by taking one of them across his knee and spanking him lustily before an admiring mob. He diverts a howling mob from the state house thus protecting the conspirators within while teaching them a wholesome lesson. And he wins his bride in the bargain. All within twenty-four hours.

“The fun of the book lies for the most part in this unity of time. A quality of the book is that its characters and happenings possess that delightfully feverish and slightly unreal aspect that things often acquire after dark.”

“Mr Day’s homely, racy humor goes some distance toward minimizing the glaring artificialities to which he resorts in stimulating the action of the narrative.”

+ − |Springf’d Republicanp11a S 5 ’20 380w |Wis Lib Bul16:193 N ’20 60w

DAY, JAMES ROSCOE.[2]My neighbor the workingman. *$2.50 Abingdon press 331.8

20–8266

“This book is an outspoken word for the capitalistic system and against the methods of organized labor. Chancellor Day has been speaking with strong conviction on the somewhat unpopular side of this controversy. He displays the abuses in the trades union. He calls the labor union ‘an artificial and unnaturally and illogically attached institution in our country, working not for the common good but to create conditions altogether possible and profitable to its own members without regard to how its act may bear upon business of construction and manufacture.’ Chancellor Day calls collective bargaining ‘meddling’ and says: ‘It is high time that the country pronounced with unmistakable law against strikes of all kinds. There should be no doubt left that strikes are crimes.’”—Bib World

“Full of ‘ginger’ and worthy of attention by everyone who is ready to consider both sides of the burning question of the day. He does not represent the honorable attitude in the contest that will finally make for peace. He is violent and bitter. He is absolutely unjust to the majority of the immigrants who land on our shores.”

“The readers of this book will find in it much repetition and too much vehemence. It provides in places quite as much heat as light, and is not without a touch here and there of a rather narrow type of politics. There is not great use made in it of the mantle of sweet charity, and small allowance appears for those with whom the author disagrees. Yet with his attacks upon radicalism in its Red form we must sympathize.” W: C. Redfield

“It would be difficult to find a volume more filled with hatred and misunderstanding than this product of the chancellor of Syracuse university.” W. L. C.

DEALEY, JAMES QUAYLE.[2]Sociology: its development and applications. *$3 Appleton 301

20–20107

The book is an enlarged and revised edition of the author’s “Sociology” issued in 1909. It gives a survey of sociological development so that the student may have in fairly brief compass a general view of its rise and its relations to other sciences, a sketch of the development of social institutions, and a short discussion of social problems and of the factors to be considered in social progress. Its contents fall into three parts: Sociology and its kindred sciences; Society and its institutions; and Social progress. Some of the chapters are: The beginnings of social science; Sociology and biology; Sociology and psychology: Social behaviorism; Achievement and civilization; Civilization static and dynamic; Social gradations and genius; Society and the individual; The elimination of social evils; Racial factors in social progress; Economic factors in social progress; Educational factors in social progress. There is a bibliography and an index.

DEAN, BASHFORD.Helmets and body armor in modern warfare. il *$6 Yale univ. press 399

20–17513

“This book is one of the publications of the Committee on education of the Metropolitan museum of art, in which Dr Dean is curator of armour. It is an account of the various types of body protection used or experimented with by the nations engaged in the great war, with a brief historical survey of the development of armour in earlier times. As chairman of the Committee on helmets and body armour of the United States National research council the author had special opportunity for the study of his subject, not only in America but in the allied countries in Europe.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup

“Within his field of special knowledge he has touched and illuminated almost every phase of the art and craft of the armorer ancient or modern. Rarely indeed has such historical erudition as Mr Dean’s been applied to a theme so recent and in most respects so businesslike.”

“This volume is definitive in its field.” C. O. Kilnbusch

“The practical treatment of the question makes the book a valuable contribution to military literature, apart from its historical and antiquarian interest.”

DEARMER, NANCY (KNOWLES) (MRS PERCY DEARMER).Fellowship of the picture. *$1.25 Dutton 134

20–17392

“Professor Dearmer states in an introduction that on July 31, 1919, at their country cottage, his wife felt impelled to sit down, and allow her hand to write automatically; after that she wrote regularly, being quite unaware of what she was writing. On September 10 Professor Dearmer, reading the script aloud to her, found that the book had reached its end. It came as from a man of high academic distinction who was killed in France in 1918, and who had already written contributions to religion and philosophy. ‘The fellowship of the picture’ claims to be a book which he had been anxious to write after the war. It is composed of thirty-six short chapters setting forth a religious philosophy of life and fellowship.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup

“There is no particular exhilaration in reading automatically penned platitudes than there is in the reading of the platitudes penned by ordinary beings.”

DECKER, WILBUR F.Story of the engine; from lever to Liberty motor. il *$2 Scribner 621

20–6990

“This book tells about the first prime movers and traces the early history of the steam-engine. A chapter is devoted to each of the following subjects: Steam-boilers, furnaces and connections; reciprocating engines; the locomotive; the steam-turbine; measurements of power; gas-engines; gasoline engines; and oil-engines. ‘It is the aim of this book to show how man first learned to apply mechanical principles; to trace the gradual development of heat engines; to furnish accurate and reliable information regarding present-day types, and to prepare the way for possible later scientific studies.’ (Preface)”—N Y P L New Tech Bks

“Unusually readable, more accurate than the ordinary book of this type, and well supplied with diagrams.”

DE HAAS, J. ANTON.Business organization and administration. il $1.60 Gregg 658

20–9408

The book is intended for a high school textbook and is limited to a statement of the most essential facts of business practice, including the problems of labor management and payment of wages. At the end of each chapter are references to standard works, a list of study questions, and of test questions. Contents: The elements of business success; Business organization; The proprietorship of a business; Financing an enterprise; Financial institutions; Management; The wage question; The service department; Selecting the site; Planning the building; Purchasing; Marketing; Selling and advertising; Foreign trade; The technic of foreign trade.

“While the volume has some drawbacks in its function, it has nevertheless a broader appeal. Many a professional man or woman ought to have a deeper knowledge of this subject. Professor De Haas’s work is admirably suited for his or her use.”

“The book is written in a pleasing style and is well arranged. Its aim is to aid the teacher in awakening proper attitudes in the minds of the students. Teachers will find it helpful in this respect.”

DE KOVEN, ANNA (FARWELL) (MRS REGINALD DE KOVEN).Cloud of witnesses. *$2.50 Dutton 134

20–4626

“‘A cloud of witnesses’ is the title of a new book by Mrs Anna De Koven (the widow of the musical composer, Reginald De Koven). The messages, which largely constitute the book, are believed by Mrs De Koven to be from her sister, Mrs Chatfield Taylor, whose death occurred some two years since. Between the two sisters there was an unusually intense affection, and this ‘rapport’ is one of the most potent factors in any communication between the seen and the unseen. There is in New York a woman with abounding mediumistic gifts; a woman of society and culture, whose intelligent interest in the work is such that she gives much time to accredited sitters who seek her. She is known as ‘Mrs Vernon,’ which is not her real name. Mrs De Koven went to Mrs Vernon, an entire stranger, and with no possible clew to her identity. Messages from her sister came of such genuineness as to be unmistakable. Dr Hyslop contributes the introduction to this book.”—Springf’d Republican

“Deeply sincere, intimate, and instinct with refinement.”

“Certainly, except to the most determined skeptic, there is much in the book to convince one of the action of supernormal intelligence.”

Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow

“Unfortunately for the sympathy every one must feel with this beautiful record of a sister’s affection, it is impossible to accept Mrs De Koven’s views of what is ‘evidential.’ As propaganda the book is only one more tale of credulity; but it has unusual value in being entirely free from the sordid crime of ghosts for revenue. Mrs Vernon receives no remuneration when she summons Mrs De Koven to hear a message from the dead.”

Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow

DE LA MARE, WALTER JOHN.Collected poems, 1901–1918. 2v *$4 Holt 821

20–21987

Volume 1 contains Poems: 1906; The listeners: 1914; and Motley: 1919. Volume 2 is in two parts: Songs of childhood: 1901, and Peacock pie.

Reviewed by J. M. Murray

“Enough has been said to show Mr de la Mare’s attitude towards poetry and towards life. The question now arises whether this attitude is not somewhat too severely limited to make of him anything more than a delicate craftsman, a painter of miniatures, a carver of cherry-stones.” J: G. Fletcher

“His artistic presence in our modern world is so surprising that we are tempted to doubt the certainty of it when his books are not in our hands. He is a delightful anachronism. Out of our tangle of violent and discordant colors he makes his white magic. Of Mr de la Mare’s poems for children it is difficult to speak moderately.” Marguerite Wilkinson

“The poems are like silk threads which are individually fragile, but which, woven together, make a fabric of unmatched fineness and strength, and are capable of taking on the softest, clearest colours. Some of the poems for children are exceedingly successful.”

“Few of our poets have availed themselves of their privilege of prosodic freedom more delicately than Mr de la Mare. He has a musician’s ear; his rhythms have the clear articulation and unpredictable life-lines of the phrases in a musical theme. The course of his verse reminds us frequently of the fall of a feather launched upon still air and fluttering earthwards, tremulously in dips and eddies.”

DE LA MARE, WALTER JOHN.Rupert Brooke and the intellectual imagination. pa 75c Harcourt

20–1238

“It is the brilliant quality of Rupert Brooke’s passionate interest in life, his restless, exploring, examining intellect, that chiefly concerns Walter de la Mare in a lecture on Brooke first given before Rugby school a year ago, and now issued in booklet form. He suggests that poets are of two kinds: those who are similar to children in dreamy self-communion and absorption; and those who are similar to boys in their curious, restless, analytical interest in the world. Poets of the boyish or matter-of-fact imagination are intellectual, he says: they enjoy experience for itself. Poets of the childish or matter-of-fancy heart are visionary, mystical; they feed on dreams and enjoy experience as a symbol. He thinks that Brooke’s imagination was distinctly of the boyish kind.”—Bookm

“Those many who admire the peculiar mysticism and subtlety of Mr de la Mare’s reaction to the terms of experience will not be surprised that this essay of his seems the most valuable comment that has been made on the poet of the ‘flaming brains,’ the most romantic and appealing figure of youth and song that has crossed the horizon of these riddled years.” Christopher Morley

“An interesting and valuable contribution to poetic interpretation. It is a beautifully written piece of prose woven with subtle analysis and keen perceptions, the kind of spoken meditation which takes one back to the days of Pater and Symonds.” W. S. B.

“Mr de la Mare does him a service by silencing the hysterical plaudits, and presenting with cool and exquisite certainty the more enduring aspects of Brooke’s spirit. Of this little book both Mr de la Mare and Brooke may well be proud.”

DELAND, MARGARET WADE (CAMPBELL) (MRS LORIN FULLER DELAND).Old Chester secret. il *$1.50 (6c) Harper

20–18606

When Miss Lydia Sampson promises to take Mary Smith’s child and keep the truth about his birth secret, she means to keep her word and does so in the face of Old Chester gossip. Later the proud grandfather, whose heart has been won by the boy, wants to adopt him but meek little Miss Lydia agrees only on the ground that he acknowledge the relationship. Still later when the weak parents also wish to go thru the formality of adoption she makes the same condition. When the mother is finally moved to make her confession the son casts her off as once she had cast him, but Dr Lavendar intervenes in her behalf, telling the boy that her soul has just been born.

“An exquisite bit of character work.”

Reviewed by H. W. Boynton

“With what truth and delicate artistry Mrs Deland handles the narrative of what happened to Johnny, his foster mother, and his parents, no one who is at all familiar with the other Old Chester tales will need to be told. Simple as is its plot, the story has the quality of suspense, never permitting the reader’s interest to flag.”

“The story is not entirely convincing, but the reader remains under the spell of the writer’s dramatic skill.”

“It lacks the vitality of the earlier Old Chester stories and suggests that this vein is wearing thin.”

DE LA PASTURE, EDMÉE ELIZABETH MONICA (E. M. DELAFIELD, pseud.).Tension. *$2.25 (3c) Macmillan

20–17523

The story revolves about the faculty and directors of a provincial commercial college. Lady Rossiter, wife of one of the directors, is an officious person who dispenses sweetness and light in theory and in practice spreads malicious gossip. An incident in the early life of Pauline Marchrose, who come to the college as superintendent, is so magnified that the girl is forced to resign her position. She has been greatly attracted to Mark Easter, a man of charming personality without force of character, and her leaving the college has all the elements of defeat with a shattered ideal added, but an unexpected turn is given to the story by Fairfax Fuller, principal of the college, and in Lady Rossiter’s opinion, a misogynist.

“A convincing personality but not a satisfying plot.”

“The interplay between two temperaments is one of the most searching things in recent fiction. But, indeed, Miss Delafield is very rich in creative vigor.”

“The end is abrupt, and may be unsatisfactory to those who read ‘Tension’ for any other reason than to watch Miss Delafield pillory objectionable characters. This she does most competently to Lady Rossiter, to a simpering young authoress, and to two dreadful children, but the nice people, it must be admitted, leave very little impression.” S. T.

“‘Tension’ has got scarcely anything to recommend it. The story may be life, but it is altogether too drab and uninteresting for fiction.”

“Miss Delafield presents her characters through their own words, and their speech is sustained self-revelation. Almost all of them are eccentric, and their eccentricities are expressed with something of Dickens’s inventiveness and humorous exaggeration. We have to smile or laugh whenever they open their mouths.”

DELL, ETHEL MAY.Tidal wave, and other stories. *$1.75 (2c) Putnam

19–5814

The first of this collection of short stories tells of the love of a big red-headed young giant of a fisherman for a lovely vision of a girl whose awakening to womanhood came to her in an overpowering passion for an artist. The latter’s love was for his art to which he would have unscrupulously sacrificed the girl. A catastrophe which would have cost them both their lives but for the timely intervention of the red giant, taught the girl through much sorrow the difference between the love that stands like a rock and the passion that sweeps by like a tidal wave. The stories of the collection are: The tidal wave; The magic circle; The looker-on; The second fiddle; The woman of his dream; The return game.

“Six tales with well drawn characters which rather compensate for the melodramatic features of the book.”

“Of the six short stories contained in this volume, ‘The looker-on’ is perhaps the least stereotyped.”

Reviewed by Christine McAllister

DELL, ETHEL MAY.Top of the world. *$2 (1½c) Putnam

20–13065

Sylvia Ingleton is a very miserable girl when her father brings home a stepmother, who proves so domineering and hard that Sylvia realizes her happiness is ruined unless she gets away. So she goes out to her fiancé in South Africa, a fiancé whom she has known only by correspondence for the last five years. Upon her arrival there, Guy fails her, but his cousin Burke steps into his place, and when Sylvia realizes she cannot count on Guy, she consents to marry Burke. The remainder of the story is taken up with the struggle between her old dying love for Guy, and the new love which springs up in her heart for Burke, which at first she fights against and denies. In the end it conquers her, however, but not before she and Guy and Burke have gone through many bitter waters.

“The amazing thing about the Dell fiction is that it is so good of its kind. There is almost no sensual appeal in it, and very little of anything that is revolting. As full of sob stuff as Florence Barclay’s immortal works, it has still a virile fibre. The South African descriptions are excellent. Much of the subsidiary character work is distinctly good.”

“That’s the kind of a story it is—lingering madness long drawn out—562 pages of mawkishness.”

“Almost alone in a tired world, Miss Dell continues to sound the clarion note of melodrama. Taken by themselves Miss Dell’s heroes are rather tedious.”

DELL, FLOYD.Moon-calf. *$2.25 Knopf

20–19503

A biographical novel relating the childhood, adolescence and young manhood of Felix Fay. He was the youngest of a somewhat misfit family—his father’s early turbulence ending in failure and his brothers’ artistic proclivities in resigned adaptations to the necessities of life. Only in the dreamer Felix, because life was so unreal to him and his dreams so real, was there enough persistence to make some of the dreams materialize—after a fashion. The reader accompanies him through school life with its unquenchable thirst for reading, his religious development, his loneliness and poetic aspirations, his economic struggles and his acquaintance with socialism, his adolescent longings with their culmination in a love episode and his early career as a journalist.

“A subtle character study accomplished by narrated episodes rather than detailed analyses. Some readers will object to this on moral grounds. Probably not for the small library.”

Reviewed by R. C. Benchley

“We realize how very close Floyd Dell has got to the heart and ideals of America in this portrayal of the family glorifying of Felix’s education.” D. L. M.

“‘Moon-calf,’ as it stands, has the importance of showing how serious and how well-composed an American novel can be without losing caste. It is an effective compromise, in manner between the school of observation and the school of technique.” E. P.

“Mr Dell’s first novel, in short, shows us that a well-equipped intelligence and a new perception have been brought to bear on the particular instance of the sensitive soul, the particular instance that lies at the heart of all our questioning, and that the endless circle of sensitive souls and terrifying American towns is broken at last.” Lucian Cary

“Any lover of fine fiction must rejoice in the surfaces of Floyd Dell’s first novel much as a cabinet-maker does when he rubs his fingers along a planed board or an old gardener when he turns a cool, firm, ruddy apple over and over in his hand. The style of ‘Moon-calf’ will arouse despair in the discerning. Colloquial and flexible, it is also dignified as only a natural simplicity can make it.” C. V. D.

“One must have a good deal of fluid romanticism to be able to revel in Felix Fay. In his struggle toward reality there is a good deal of vivid and sympathetic narrative, and one feels that his plight as an imaginative youth is honestly understood. But is it generous or engaging imagination? And is it associated with intelligence? The subsequent development of Felix Fay may say yes, but so far he is mainly an exactingly hungry and under-fed literary ego.” F. H.

“His words develop a dull and unpenetrative edge while his form is not at all illuminative. One is lost in a meandering of incident which has been given no significance by any concerted impulse, any synthetic grasp of the subject, any consistent overtone or generality.” Kenneth Burke

“So skillfully has the author drawn his poignant portrait of a sensitive idealist in conflict with a hostile, workaday world that the reader will soon cease to think of Felix as a character in a novel. Rather, he will think that he is the novelist himself dressed in the incognito of a few imaginary experiences.”

“It is written by a man who thinks for readers who think. It is addressed to those persons who want to know what makes us what we are.” M. A. Hopkins

“A story told with ease and restraint. There is no animated showman in the foreground to divert us with his witticisms. The action, quiet and leisurely though it is, steadily unfolds itself by means of certain persons who are and mean something to us, without our effort.” H. W. Boynton

DELL, ROBERT EDWARD.My second country (France). *$2 Lane 914.4

20–8528

The author’s qualifications for talking about France and the French people rest on the facts that France has been the home of his choice for over twelve years, that he has lived intimately with the people in their own homes, and that his friends are of various classes and opinions, including the proletariat and the rural folk, and that the more he saw of them the more he loved them. The object of the book is to draw attention to certain defects in French institutions and methods, to show that the political situation gives signs of nearing the end of a régime and is full of glaring fundamental inconsistencies; and that in other than political respects, also, France is behind the times and in need of drastic changes. Contents: The French character; Problems of reconstruction; The administrative and political systems; The discredit of parliament and its causes; Results of the revolution; Small property and its results; Socialism, syndicalism and state capitalism; Back to Voltaire; Index.

“When we leave actual people, and come to institutions, the political system, banking, railways, religion, etc., Mr Dell displays all the peculiar excellences of his type. His analysis is acute, modern and thoroughly interesting.” J, W. N. S.

“His book is a bitter attack upon France, her people and her institutions. Where are the ‘fondness’ and the ‘sympathy’ that the author claims in his introduction?”

“A book of real illumination, one wonders whether any one will really like it.”

“I know of no recent book which gives a better picture of the French people as they really are, both of their lovable and unpleasant qualities, nor of the economic and political and intellectual life of present day France than that by Mr Robert Dell, ‘My second country.’” Harold Stearns

“Mr Dell writes of the French people with sympathy and affection, but does not allow those feelings to color his judgment or subdue his criticism.” B. U. Burke

“The book contains a great amount of concrete information, such as we require when trying to understand a foreign country. In fact, the whole book is valuable if the reader allows for the author’s bias. The account of radical political movements is particularly good.”

DENNETT, TYLER.[2]Better world. *$1.50 Doran

20–8457

“In brief the contention of this book is that we must have a better world; that the proposed League of nations is far from the effective agency to produce it, although it is a long step in the direction indicated; that the Christian religion has in it the power to create the convictions and popular demands which alone will guarantee any organization of a better world or bring into being more just and democratic programs than the one now under such discussion.”—Bib World

“Mr Dennett is always worth reading because of the wealth of his personal experience and the freshness with which he presents his facts. In the present case, unfortunately, his endeavor to make out a good case for American mission work has led him to exaggerate certain tendencies and to argue at times illogically.” B. L.

DENSMORE, HIRAM DELOS.General botany for universities and colleges. il *$2.96 Ginn 580

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