dered in a maze of clever conversations. One learns that one is in the midst of a small section of fin de siècle London society, in fact, of a group of decadents who hover around an extremely clever woman, Mrs. Brookenham by name. Their brilliant circle is broken up, however, by the fact that her daughter Nanda can no longer be kept in the nursery, and yet is hardly sophisticated enough to make an unembarrassed inmate of her mother's drawing room. The part of rescuing her from her environment is undertaken by a rejected lover of her grandmother, Mr. Longdon, a delightful representative of bygone days, who is as much puzzled by the oversubtlety of the conversations he hears as we are. He finally succeeds in his philanthropic attempt, and we feel that the attenuated story has at length come to its destined end; but after all we are much more certain that Mr. James is an obscurely brilliant writer than that we have been reading a story at all. We frankly confess that the Brookenham set is too clever for us. If, to be a really fine art, conversation has to be unintelligible to an ordinary mind, and if psychological analysis has to be carried to a point of subtlety considerably beyond any attempted by Shakspere or Balzac, and if conversations and character analysis are the two poles around which the ellipse of modern fiction is to be drawn-we are willing to commend the novels of to-day to the careful attention of students of advanced mathematics, and shall content ourselves hereafter with the simple old novelists who were unsophisticated enough to write straightforward stories.

Mr. Charles F. Dole's "The Theology of Civilization" (T. Y. Crowell & Co.) would probably not be accepted by our readers as a treatise on systematic divinity, nor was it meant to be such by its thoughtful author. It contains some things, however, that we may all ponder, no matter what our creeds. The closing pages which touch upon present "missionary" operations in the Philippines meet with our heartiest approval. "It takes," says Mr. Dole, “arrogance, pride, selfishness, contempt, to make war.

War stands for the moral conditions of barbarism."

It is needless to add that the author has had no occasion to thank the editors of any of the religious newspapers for permission to reprint from their columns his eminently Christian sentiments. The book is dedicated "to thoughtful men and women everywhere, the leaders of public opinion, upon whose earnestness, integrity, and faithfulness the civilization of the coming century must depend."

We are always pleased to observe any evidence that Southern universities and colleges are beginning to recognize the obligations toward the outer world imposed upon them by the fact that they contain many men of undoubted scholarship, and that the South needs to be brought abreast of the culture and scholarly energy of the times. Southern scholars have hitherto been inclined, as a rule, to consider their duty fully accomplished when they have given their classes the best that is in them. They have not realized that it is also their duty to represent the South in the world of culture. But this state of things is beginning to change, as a little volume lying before us will show. It is the first of what is known as the "Vanderbilt Oriental Series," which is edited by Herbert Cushing Tolman and James Henry Stevenson, professors in the well-known Vanderbilt University, at Nashville. It is entitled "Herodotus and the Empires of the East," (American Book Company), and is based on Mikels' "Herodot und die Keilschriftforschung." Other volumes are announced as nearly ready, and the series cannot but serve to promote Oriental studies in the South. In this connection we must also mention the marked activity of a Southern firm of publishers, the B. F. Johnson Co., of Richmond, Va. We understand that this firm intends shortly to issue a series of English classics, the volumes of which will be edited in the main by Southern scholars. No improper sectional bias characterizes either of these undertakings. Could we discover such bias, we should condemn rather than praise them. They are, instead, commendable efforts at self

expression made by the culture of a section that has too long remained silent-so long that it has been deemed by the uninformed not to exist.

Mr. D. D. Wallace, Adjunct Professor of History and Economics in Wofford College, has published as his doctor's thesis (Vanderbilt) a monograph on the "Constitutional History of South Carolina from 1725 to 1775." He intends to carry his work down to 1810, and may in every way be commended for the zeal he displays in his labors to preserve the history of his native State-labors from which the readers of this REVIEW have already profited. Only a specialist is competent to deal minutely with the pamphlet before us; we shall therefore content ourselves with pointing out that it not only reflects credit upon the postgraduate work being done at Vanderbilt University, but also bears witness, along with Gen. McCrady's "History of South Carolina," and with the papers of the State Historical Society, to the fact that the reproach of being indifferent to its history, under which the South has long labored, is being rapidly removed. We trust that every Southern State will profit by the example that South Carolina is setting, and we especially commend for imitation Prof. Wallace's researches into the interesting domain of local constitutional history.

A book from the perusal of which both parents and teachers will derive profit has lately been published by the Macmillan Company, which has been issuing quite a number of important pedagogical books of late. It is entitled "The Physical Nature of the Child, and How to Study It," and is by Dr. Stuart H. Rowe, Supervising Principal of the Lovell District, New Haven, Conn., and formerly Professor of Pedagogy in the State Normal School at Mankato, Minn. The chief value of the book lies in its thorough practicality. It is based on the warranted assumption that the parent or teacher into whose hands it is likely to fall has paid little attention to the physical nature of the children for whose

welfare he is more or less responsible. It devotes chapters to the various defects of sight, hearing, touch, taste, etc., and suggests practical tests by which they may be detected. A chapter is given to the important topic of enunciation, one to nervousness, another to fatigue, and another to disease and the methods of guarding against contagion. Habits of posture and habits of movement are also subjects of important chapters. Naturally, however, most stress is laid on the much-misunderstood and avoided topics of growth and adolescence. The criminal false modesty of many parents and teachers is thoroughly exposed and much sound advice is given. Altogether we have found the book to be well conceived and executed, and we feel that it cannot but do good wherever it is circulated.

Prof. John Lesslie Hall, of William and Mary College, encouraged by the success of his translation of "Beowulf," has just published, through Ginn & Co., a volume of original contributions in alliterative verse entitled "Old English Idyls." He hopes for a "wider audience than before," and we see no reason why he should not have his wish granted. He has caught the spirit and tone of Anglo-Saxon poetry, and his volume might well be used as an introduction to the study of Old English verse as well as for purposes of parallel reading. Nor should the general reader eschew it as beyond his needs and desires. There are eight idyls on such subjects as the calling and landing of Hengist and Horsa, Cerdic and Arthur, Augustine, and Edgar the Peaceable.

Government publications are not wont to be so useful as Mr. Gifford Pinchot's" Primer of Forestry " is likely to prove. It is fully illustrated and is practical as well as theoretical. Hence it is sure to be in great demand in view of the gratifying change of heart, and of mind too, that has of late come over the American people with regard to their magnificent heritage of forests which they have so long been squandering. Mr. Pinchot and his assistants may rest assured that where one soul is now grateful for their labors a thousand will be ere many years have passed.

Messrs. Small, Maynard & Co. have done well in taking over from Copeland & Day, and issuing as a new book, L. Clarkson Whitelock's clever and charming" How Hindsight Met Provincialatis." It is a queer title, but none too queer for the primitive Southern and New England town and village folk whose peculiarities it well describes.

One of the most interesting novels we have read lately is Mr. Eden Phillpotts's "Children of the Mist" (Putnam's). Mr. Phillpotts is the only novelist we know who fairly rivals Mr. Hardy on the latter's own native heath. He is not Mr. Hardy's equal as the creator of characters that fascinate, nor has he the latter's gifts of description; but he has abundant powers of observation, fine sense of humor-Billy Blee almost rivals Joseph Poorgrass-and a distinct faculty for narration. Few of his characters attract, but then charm does not seem to be what most modern realists, especially of the rural school, aim at. The true idyllic note, as we find it in "La Mare au Diable" and in "Under the Greenwood Tree," seems to be rarely attained in these latter days—even Mr. Hardy has not repeated his great success—and in its place we get the note of tragi-comedy, a substitution with which some of us are ill content. When we get something approaching true tragedy, as in "Tess," the wiseacres shake their heads, and the purveyors of tragicomedy are encouraged. We believe, however, that Mr. Phillpotts has it in him to give us true tragedy, and so we look forward to receiving at his hands some day a stronger, more artistic book than "Children of the Mist," interesting and powerful though that be.

A singularly interesting book was published some months. ago by the Harpers, entitled "Lady Louisa Stuart, Selections from Her Manuscripts." The editor is Hon. James Home, who gives us in his introduction some needed points of information about Lady Louisa. She was the youngest daughter of that famous Earl of Bute who seems to have left descendants in office at Washington, D. C. She was born