Books
Walsh, Thomas & Brennecke, Ernest Jr. & Carver, George & Maynard, Theodore & Windle, Bertram C. A. & Zabel, Morton
BOOKS Holism and Evolution, by General, the Right Honorable, J. C. Smuts. New York: The Macmillan Company. ~3.5o. G ENERAL SMUTS tells us that it "has been my lot to have passed many years...
...though, as we have seen, he cannot fully accept the Bergsonian brand...
...and Scholasticism and Vitalism...
...Ne~v York: E. P. Dutton and Company...
...Breaking into Broadway, and Adapting Your Story to the Screen are chapters that will interest many readers of the hand- book...
...The Rebel Bird, by Diana Patrick...
...Exteasive t%,~.ua, field hodmy...
...L75...
...One remembers how the first few pages of Piers Plowman were rearranged with the effect that what had been considered incomprehensible mysticism became straightforward common sense...
...It is not simple duration--on that point the writer is dear...
...In Miss Patrick's novel, a much more skilful hand is at work, but also an imagination whtch, in its romantic leanings, too much sanctions the mglange of ordinary situations and re-lationships which the story turns out to be...
...I have,' he answered, 'and she prays o'ermuch.' 'Ah,' said the Bishop, 'now I understand: She prays for thee: that makes the devil fear...
...Boerd and i modemuL Foc furthes informatim r162 with tim R]SVHI~SND MOTHER, 466 ProspG~ ~ Fall Rive, Mue...
...In fact, time after time whilst reading this book the thought rises to the mind--that it is really matter and form that he is feeling after...
...What Mr...
...He is certainly inclined to underrate Mendel and his work, which cannot be in any way "ruled out," as he puts it...
...There exists no other brief biography as lucidly written nor as complete in its data as this one...
...the conscientiously corrected sheets that are almost illegible...
...If the publication of this book can induce the public to demand a hearing of the Oxford Symphony, it will prove an encouraging sign of the times...
...Index and list of books consulted...
...What exactly this tendency is, or where it comes from, is not easy to discover...
...and greeting-card verses, not to mention advertising jingles like those of Sunny Jim and Pedi- form Shoes, are given their proper place and emphasis in the financial schemes of the free-lance world...
...And I wonder why two of the nineteen essays that W. A. J. Arch- bold has collected together should be by the Reverend C. A. Alington...
...an explanation which again closely resembles the holistic one if we have fol- lowed the General aright...
...The•have Y. TLw...
...I am but an amateur in physics, yet know enough of its later developments to see how well the General is read in it...
...The author declares that: "Our very conception of per-sonality is that it is a unique creative novelty in every human being...
...L ITERATURE in its first subdivision may be classified as living and dead: and the living world of script may be further divided among publishers, editors, and writers...
...This apparency is fast becoming actuality as research after research brings new light to bear upon traditionalized conception with_ the resuh that many of our most cherished biographical and critical ideas must be emended, and occasion- ally discarded altogether...
...While reading his difficult but most interesting book, the wonder often felt is how its author in his busy life has found the time to acquire the vast stores of accurate and up-to-date knowledge of modern physics and biology which his book re-veals in every chapter...
...H^ItRY McGulaE is a poet and playwright, and one of the editors of Pan~ a magazine of vers...
...If we were asked, "What is the best training for successful authorship...
...Then Mr...
...There is a chapter missing from this handbook that would give the editor's reactions to his work and throw light upon many questions that prejudice or confuse the average freelance mind...
...The translation is likewise good, but Sir William Hadow's preface is chiefly concerned with the inconsequential theory that the composer borrowed some of his themes from Croatian folk-songs...
...Humor and the sort of sentiment that goes with the rag-matting and Old Dog Tray are classified with Poetry for Children...
...THEODORE MAYNARD...
...Brenet," the Frenchwoman who has written the present monograph, has fallen into the prevalent error of smiling too lightly and tolerantly at Papa Haydn, but in all other respects she has done an excellent job...
...The truth is, as Professor Manly demon- strates beyond question, that, living among men who considered their age to be as sophisticated and self-sufficing as we consider our own, Chaucer was capable of refining his gifts not only under the influence of the works of antiquity, but also under that of his contemporaries in Italy and France--and to such degree that we find him now, 500 years after his death, occupy- ing a place which is second only to that of Shakespeare in the hierarchy of English verse...
...The overwhelming majority of literary practitioners may be classi- fied as free-lance writers, and for this ever-increasing multitude the present handbook is designed, with "the purpose of bringing the authority of specialists to bear on the practical problems of the writer over a field broad enough to present a true picture of the difficulties and opportunities of writing for publication as a vocation...
...and The Drummer of Fyvi~ Sis BZRT~M C. A. SVxNoLF., professor of anthropology in Saint Michael's College, Toronto, is the author of Life in Early Britain...
...GEoaos CAavza is ass~stantprofe~_sor o~ literature at the Umversity of Pittsburgh, and the author of The Catholic Tradition in English Literature...
...One must remember that authors are authors, for the most part, really, because they are not fit for anything else...
...But it should be included in every one of them, for it is a masterpiece of concentrated and well-digested scholarship...
...The names of Earl Balfour and Earl Haldane rise at once to the mind as those of statesmen who have written on philosophy...
...Cambridge, Massa- chusetts: The tCHter Publishing Company...
...C. C MARTI~DXLE, S.J...
...an .E~bli~m~t in Rme...
...The second research concerned itself with the tradition that the Canterbury Pilgrims were drawn to represent typical English characters of the time...
...The Jesuit Martyrs of NorthAmerica By JOHN J. WYNNE The only complete storyof thesq heroes of our Americaa Origins...
...MAXC, AaeZ B. Dow~Is6 contributes articles on historical and other subjects to current magazines.REV...
...The General is evidently much affected, as so many are today with the notion of creative evolution...
...5.oo...
...MR DOUGLASS' volume is a statistical survey, conducted with the best modern scientific methods, of the Protestant church in the modern American city...
...the emblazoned busine~-headings of syndicating ladies and gentlemen...
...the "challenge against futility" motif is too much insisted upon...
...Sequel to Parkman's "The Jesuits in North America...
...the heavily scented, gilt-edged stationery of the sonnets on my dead poodle--these are some of the "don'ts" that would and should be printed in capital letters...
...writer and lecturer, is the author of a Life of R. H. Benson...
...The existence of a soul is admitted but the Cartesian idea "of the anima dwelling in a corpus, one entity living in close symbiosis with another and the two profoundly influencing one another," does not commend itself to the General nor to us, for Descartes placed the soul in the pineal body as a thing apart which is very different from the close relation which soul and body possess in the scholastic idea...
...given an example of heroic virtue that ought never to be Ima t land to which their spirits gave their brave dust.--N...
...A book of Catholic teaching would show him that whilst the soul may exist as a separate entity, it will always possess an aptitude for joyful heart, He will forgive me for having served Him joy- fully...
...to examine the balance wheel and neglect the watch as a whole...
...M ONICA, the posthumous poem of Samuel Valentine Cole, rises to the highest level of his production...
...The first of these is that Chaucer maintained his position at court through his connection with the royal family and because of his poetic genius...
...GEORGE CARVER...
...Who cares...
...The Road Round Ireland...
...the foolish reminders of cautious authors who write "At your usual rates" on every page...
...THOMAS WALSI-I...
...Duration, he thinks, can create nothing until it is mixed with something else...
...There is no sense in raising the point in the case of American essayists, for they have all been ex-cluded...
...ERNEST BRENNECKE, JR...
...Holism (from the Greek, "holos"--the whole) is the explanation which the General suggests for the cosmos as we know it...
...Nor is this suspicion limited to matters pertaining to minor writers alone...
...HENRY S. WHITEHEAD was formerly pastor of several prominent rishes of the Episcopal Church, and examining chaplain to various hops of the American Anglican communion...
...The purpose is to reveal to what extent and in which ways the church has adapted itself to the transition from rural conditions to urban environment...
...Probable ~,~, It II ,,, ,o,, boo .o,, or II l] THE MACMILLAN COMPANY I! ~l 60 FIFTH AVENUB NEW YORK, N. Y. II means of hitherto undisturbed records viewed in the light of an immense erudition, proves all but conclusively that, among others, the Merchant, the Man of Lawe, the Prioress, the Shipman, and the Reeve were actual persons with whom Chaucer is shown to have had definite relations, and that the lesser figures recall facts and incidents, allusion to which was perfectly dear to the courtiers before whom the Canterbury Tales were read...
...Three valuable maps...
...In cloth, gilt letter, Warren paper, 250 pages...
...A ~ e~t* b~utifullv *ituamd oath* Vm S*lari...
...From the statement, "Flesh and blood may not be as im-portant as the soul in the total human make-up, but they are essential and they bring something into the pool which is most vital and precious," the General proceeds to discuss the possi- bility of the existence of disembodied spirits and cites the great chapter in the First Epistle to the Corinthians...
...and was the first English priest to preach before the assembly of the League of Nations at Geneva...
...The story's "promise" consequently eludes one, even down to the final reconciliation, and one feels that in this writer a sounder conception of experience must come before sure choice and rendering are possible...
...A SCHOOL FOR GIRLS OAK KNOLL School of the Holy Child AN ELI/MENTARY and COLLEGE PREPARATORY SCHOOL IIUMMIT, N.J...
...Some New Light on Chaucer, by J. M. Manly...
...Nineteen Modern Essays, collected by IC...
...Here my work ends...
...Bz~J~g ~dvan~ in M~ic tnd Art...
...in a word, as military commander, prime minister, and philosopher...
...This is a rather cynical conclusion regarding the vocation of poets, novelists and special writers, after a long sequence of visits to literary clubs, ~mnasiums for geniuses, and hot-houses for embryonic Americans with the antiseptic agencies of Ellis Island still upon them...
...This criticism is in no way intended to be disparaging, but is meant as a suggestion that there are other sides to these questions which others might emphasize...
...and holism is a tendency in the universe which presses on to the creation of greater and still greater wholes...
...Archbold has very much to his credit is the fact that he has made his selection, within the narrow limits he has assigned himself, with independence of judgment and has avoided obvious and often-taken things...
...In how many cases may not mutations have taken place in the hedgeside, or in the depths of the woods, with no man to register their birth...
...My son, the devil is great in argument, And great in quoting from the Holy Word, And great in manner when it serves his aim: A mighty gentleman the devil is: But little enough beside an honest life, And weak enough if truth strikes on his path...
...THZOVOmg MAvsaan is a poet, novelist, and critic, and the author of Drums of Defeat...
...Secretawiai Depertment, Eieraentm'y School Spocial advantagel in Muaic and Art...
...There is a ddightPul account taken from Joseph S. C. Clarke's My Life and Memories, telling the fate of the news- paper poet at large...
...MORTON ZABEL...
...She may have written other novels so far as the present revlewer's acquaintance goes, but if she has, she has not overcome certain definite properties of the novice, one being that her very enthusiasm has given to her story's essential dullness a clear driving force...
...I refrain from saying anything which JR II they cannot accept in all sincerity without giving a sign of ]l Christian faith...
...44 Blackburn Road, Phone Summtt 1804 ACADEMY of the SACRED HEARTS FALL RIVEIL MASSACI-IUSvra-a~ Bocrdimg m~i Dry School for Girls Affdiated with the Catholic University, Wuhiagtoa, D. C. Cmtdacted bY the Religiom o[ the Holy Umlon o[ the $acrcd Hm,Is ROME Tt~ P.diai~u tho ~duet...
...Nevertheless, there is much to be thankful for in Mr...
...New York: Lon97nans, Green and Company...
...a Li~e of Bernard Vaughan, S..L...
...And the third inquiry was conducted in connection with the well-established belief that Chaucer wrote during the dawn of artistic consciousness, and that his art was a matter of sheer, uncultivated genius...
...and even the more moderate of their claims have, in the opinion of some excellent authorities, given the coup de grace to Darwinism...
...but neither has had the range of General Smuts...
...Rov~IcK GILL is a contributor o~ poetry and criticism to the magazines...
...If it may be said truly that some novels are conceived in terms of enthusiasm, others in terms of contempt, the case is aided greatly, for Miss Paradise deafly and Miss Patrick still un-mistakably convey the sense of warm emotional vigor in their writing--a vigor which is certainly not robustness but which does keep the lack of real insight and complete skill from be- coming dangerously obvious...
...Hermione's at- tempt to realize for her daughter, Rosamund, a vision beyond the factory town and her husband's infidelities becomes sub- merged by, rather than balanced against, the necessary dramatic complement of war and complications, and the "rebel bird of love" theme must beat strong wings to bear upward, convincing and satisfying the reader...
...This makes his book deserve a place in any library as a supplement to more com-prehensive collections of essays...
...I speak II el to them as a brother...
...And with Darwin, he perhaps attaches too much importance to small variations as the material of evolution, and too little to greater mutations...
...I.5O...
...The inability to transmute these naive elements into significant terms accounts for the confusion of what is, basically, a real idea: the heroine's belief that life's fulness is too easily realized to be interesting...
...Professor Manly, by a reexamination of the statement of Bucidey as set down in Speght's edition of Chaucer's works, published in x598, that Chaucer was of the Inner Temple, has been able to establish that the poet spent some six years in the study of law, and to conclude, therefore, that his success in the service of three kings was directly attributable to his having been trained from the beginning for exactly the sort of career we know him to have followed...
...Nor, as he tells us in a note written after his book went to press, does he find himself in complete agree- ment with Professor Lloyd Morgan whose book appeared after the manuscript of his work was in the printers' hands...
...Archbold, having given his darling so much of his valuable space, leaves out altogether Austin Dobson, Edward Thomas, Alice Meynell, Augustine Birrdl, Richard Jettries, Francis Thompson, and Walter Pater...
...there can be little doubt that much of our in-formation about Chaucer is far from accurate, a condition that is now engaging the thought of some of the most dis-tinguished scholars both in England and America...
...and with that we may feel ourselves quite in agreement...
...Ibsen awakens the girl's awareness of the world...
...Three Portraits...
...New York: Henry Holt and Company...
...Not that the book is in any sense materialistic for, if there is one thing clearer in it than another, it is that its author will have no traffic whatever with mechan- ism or atomism as a final explanation...
...Boston: Marshall Jones...
...And that main- tenance is the function of holism...
...A. J. Archbold...
...MAarHA BANHI~O THOMAS is a contributor of poetry to current maga-zines...
...2.50...
...The Pacer, by Viola Paradise...
...That this should be so need not confuse the issue behind the mastery and discernment achieved by the number of remarkable women who have been enriching recent literature, nor should the critic's line be drawn carelessly between this and the less rigidly fixed masculine attitude which the last two decades have gone to such elaborate trouble to define...
...I should like to suggest with very great respect to the distinguished author of this book that a study of scholastic philosophy, with which it is obvious that he is unacquainted, would greatly aid in clearing up some of the problems which he is attacking and would show him that some of them have been very fully discussed there, and in some cases conclusions not very different from his own have been reached...
...CONTRIBUTORS REv...
...The Free-Lance ICHter's Handbook, edited by William Dorsey Kennedy and Margaret Gordon...
...BRIEFER MENTION Monica, or The Chronicle of Marcus, by Samuel Valentine Cole...
...The point suggested by the present two novels is that a certain psychological feature does exist and that when it is found taking certain conventional (though, of course, always interesting) form, one may for a moment indulge in outworn phraseology and see to what extent the other canons support the first undeniable impression...
...No better way of showing the quality of the poem can be found than in such an extract as the following: " 'Hast thou a mother?' Ambrose asked him once...
...2.oo...
...And what about H. M. Tomlinson, and H. W. Nevinson, and Sir Walter Raleigh...
...the village geniuses who delight in "thru" for "through" and "thor" for "thought...
...The writers represented here are Richard GarneR, John Galsworthy, Hilaire Belloc, Lord Acton, Max Beerbohm, H. G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arnold Bennett, E. V. Lucas, C. A. Alington, G. Macaulay Trevelyan, W. B. Yeats, Edmund Gosse, W. R. Inge and G. K. Chesterton, several of these appearing with two essays...
...I point out to them ]i i[ its plan and beauty...
...and The Book of Modern Catholic Verse...
...Turning to biology, I venture to suggest that the General, with his devotion to Darwin as a man and as a writer, is a little disposed to overrate him and depreciate others---Lamarck, for example, whom many today seem to think has got hold of the right idea...
...gaglim vi~tius Rame am be ~vmi~dr eccommodamd...
...In both novels, un-hampered reading will not betray the discerning reader into a mistake about the viewpoints being basically uncertain, or the reasons for their somehow remaining so...
...Particularly I applaud his selection of Lord Acton's The Heralds of the Revolution...
...And nothing at all against a mother's prayer, I say he will not pluck thee from us yet.' " Looo City Churches: Phases of Jdaptation to Urban En- vironment, by H. Paul Douglass...
...and The Goddess of Ghosts...
...BOOKS Holism and Evolution, by General, the Right Honorable, J. C. Smuts...
...Address Secretary...
...By reasons of the information it offers and the conclusions at which it arrives, the book is worth the while of anybody in- terested in contemporary religious life...
...But the statement is really a definition of the scholastic theory of the unity which Saint Thomas found in the union of the form with materia prima...
...and "purple-edged clouds still held traces of one of Chicago's gorgeous sunsets...
...we should unhesitatingly reply: "About six months or a year's service in some editorial office, to learn that publishers and editors are human beings, not primarily corn-mercia] agents nor secondarily ogres of adamantine hearts, nor steely machines of rapine or lawlessness...
...Of thought, too, there is no lack...
...Art remains art and business is business, when all is said and done...
...Resident ud Day Pupils Comptu of 12 Acre: as 0~ of Summir Hie~st Poist# Rosemont College at Rosemont, Pa...
...A curious instance of infatuation l For though Mr...
...and other books...
...and how the long neglected works of John Cower upon examination cleared up a whole parcel of mys- teries long deemed hopelessly obscure...
...The Catholic reading it will find many opportunities for self-congratulation, but he will recognize also many problems which he shares in common with those who live and work outside his Church...
...Alington, of whom I must confess I had not previously heard, writes gracefully and with ease, he says nothing in his essays that any of a dozen other schoolmaster-parsons of the dean and sentimentally decent cheerio type would not have uttered...
...But the general idea is similar...
...Among the Americans most interested in the Chaucer material is Pro- lessor J. M. Manly of the University of Chicago, whose latest work, the publication of his lectures before the Lowell Institute of Boston in I924...
...MOaTON ZA~s is a member of the.faculty of Loyola College, Chicago, and a contributor of articles and cnticasm to current American periodicals...
...F ~OR some years it has been apparent to scholars that much of the work done in the field of early English literature is in error...
...and the latter, min-ister of war...
...New York: E. P. Dut- ton and Company...
...Problems concerning the heaping up of manuscripts...
...G ENERAL SMUTS tells us that it "has been my lot to have passed many years of my life amid the conflicts of men, in their wars and their council chambers...
...I have never seen it before in a book of this sort...
...In essence, this is the view of Lloyd Morgan and oflaers...
...FAITH VAN VALKENIIURGH VILAS, poet and dramatist, is the author of Wonder Thoughts of Childhood...
...And I, for one, should have preferred to have seen Samuel Buffer's delightfully whimsical A Mediaeval Girl's School, or Basil de Selincourt's The English Secret---certainly two of the most masterly of modern essays--in place of one or two others that do appear...
...CHARLES PHILLIPS, formerly news2aper correspondent in Russia, Po-land, and Mexico, is the author of The New Poland...
...I urge them to visit it...
...basket-ball, tlania, etc...
...The Church and Science...
...the pickle factory background tends toward absurdity...
...There is just as definite a division as there is in the education of today--planned so rarely to make scholars and so often to put the boys on Wall Street, or, if the inevitable must happen, at the head of an advertising concern...
...A genuine certainty of design and execution, smonthly-carried interest, and pages of narrative beauty are here, how- ever, and one only regrets that the motif-driven plot does not gather them into itself more definitely...
...He accepts, as every- one must, the r61e of mechanism in the world and in life, but he is most distinctly a teleologist...
...but can its mix- ture with space effect anything ? The subject is too complicated to discuss here and should be 'studied in the author's pages and in his own words...
...For myself, I con-fees that the phrase by whi~:h he seems to explain the genesis of holism, that "time, integrated with space, is active and creative, and productive of reality," does not carry any in-ternal conviction...
...If the c]alm~ of the ultra-Mendelians today are to be accepted, there is an end of the Darwinian theory...
...Miss Paradise, especially, has enthusiasm and an honest conviction as to the reality of her ideas...
...Faith which may [i some day cast them at, the foot of the altar is a gift of God [i II and not of men...
...the easy assurance of contributors who send heavy quantifies of their works in one covering...
...His treatment of the mother of Saint Augustine is scholarly and reverent, and the intensely human history of the love of this mother and son is handled in an able manner...
...but then the author tells us that the conception has been in his mind for years, and doubtless was often present in his thoughts on the nights when, as again he tells us, he lay awake on the open veldt, gazing at the stars in the clear heavens above the vast areas of South Africa...
...I lead them gently to the entrance of the ]l |~ Catholic Church...
...and The Doctor's Wooing Wn.LIa~t Evzm~rr CrAM is a New Hampshire farmer, and the author of Little Beasts of Field and Wood' and American Animals...
...His complaint is that scientists have been too disposed to look at details---not at the tout ensemble...
...the bad-typewriting machines of English aspirants...
...Kennedy's and Miss Gordon's handbook: elucidations on the sparseness of the publisher's and editor's strong-box: we have not read of bandits, either short or bobbed-h~ired, breaking in upon the sanctums of our leading houses: nor of strings of real lxoarl or hegemmed slave bracelets upon the persons of our metropolitan hack novelists: the fashionable gown photographed on our leading novelist, as often as not, belongs to her trusting sister-in-law in the films, or to some relative in the chorus engaged in butter-and-egg activities...
...New York: George H. Doran Company...
...Frideewide's at Oxford and finishing schools in Paris, Rome and Freibonrg, are also under the supervision of the Sisters of the Holt Child Jesus...
...Again it would seem that he has scarcely appreciated the fundamental character of the conflict over the heredity of acquired conditions, nor its unsettled state today...
...It is like the Bergsonian idea that pure duration produces concrete reality, which, by the way, the Gen- eral affirms it simply cannot do...
...In fact, the book is one more item of evidence that the mechanistic theory of the last century is dead...
...and the only criticism which I make (and with great diffidence) is that he perhaps takes too high a view of the theory of relativity and its immense and wide-spread influence...
...4.oo...
...1.50 The Universal Knowledge Foundation 19 Union Square W. New York, N. Y. One Macmillan Book a Week 1 f A Modern Plea for Christianity I[ II LOUIS De LAUNAY II el li l] "I take the opponents of Christianity by the hand...
...It is true, as he says, that we do not positively know of a great many of these, but then that is exactly what might he expected...
...2.00...
...The former has been a prime minister...
...under the title, Some New Light on Chaucer, goes a long way toward correcting three wide-spread misconceptions...
...the flimsy stationery that calls for abbreviated postage...
...Here again the Catholic teaching is that the soul of each man or woman is a new creation and that soul being the form of the body is certainly the dominant factor in the per- sonality...
...the orchestra plays the New World Symphony...
...T HOSE who have recently chosen to concern themselves over woman's conquests in the narrative field may yet console themselves that there remains in the phrase, "a woman's novel," a good share of its original implication...
...PADaAIC COLUM, the Irish poet and story-teller, is the author of Witd Earth...
...ERNEST BRENNECKE, JR., is a critic of literature and the author of a life of Thomas Hardy...
...He states: "We realize that each individual organism is a unitary system whose inmost nature is its own balanced self- maintenance and self-development as a whole...
...The suggestion looks as pantheistic as most of these philosophies of today are, but the General avoids all theological implications--merely hinting in one place that they are too big for science...
...This investigation, conducted by INSTITUTE OF HOLY ANGELS, Fort Lee, N. J. HIGH SCHOOL Registered by the University of the State of New York and by tlm New Jersey State Board of Education...
...The Maker of Souls...
...how London Lick-Penny was adjudged to be not the work of John Lydgate, but of some unknown writer...
...But there is a patent ingenuousness in her selection and observation: the heroine's name is Judith Hazlitt (thus somehow starting the classroom suggestion which keeps obtruding...
...E VEN more in the ease of an anthology of essays than in the ease of an anthology of prose, a reviewer must at once notice strange omissions and still stranger inclusions...
Vol. 5 • February 1927 • No. 15
