SNAP SHOTS

...The peculiar fascination ot the Signs enables children of five to 'write' music with ease and pleasure...

...Chance is in reality a character study of a very unusual girl, one that haunts us after the book is laid aside, one that is as vivid as any ho has ever portrayed...

...The external qualities of this very erratic though thoroughly lovable lady won for Meredith general attention which had been denied his greater Bichard Fever al and The Egoist...

...To many the name of Joseph Conrad conveys little: he is not a popular writer in the usual acceptance of the term...

...And to tell the truth, the sedate Wu astride his trusty "bike' in all the voluminous glory of flowing Oriental skirts and padded sky-blue trousers that caught in the sprocket every block or two, necessitating a dismount to repair damages, was a sight to gladden the heart of the beholder, and to fan to frenzy every bored Sunday editor in the yellow belt...

...Not plot but development of character is the dominant note of this new tale...

...The earlier Conrad is one of vivid colors, a man who has lighted With his pen the glory of Eastern skies and reflected the effect of environment upon men...

...To what end will their platforms carry the political and economic life of the day...

...The theme is the story of a strange marriage...

...The notes, or time values, are supposed to be birds, which fly from bird houses to trees, and vice versa, each bird leaving a special mark to reserve its place, this,of course, being the appropriate rest Each bird has its own rate of speed in flying...

...Yet his fame is slowly spreading, owing somewhat to the number of enthusiasts who are dinning his merits, but mostly, of course, because work such as his cannot remain long on the shelves of the elect without gradually claiming a large and responsive audience who must bo told a thing is good before they have the courage to sample it...

...In Meredith lay hope, with a firm realization of the facts of life, which did not, however, bid him instill the doctrine of helplessness before the inscrutable...

...For Conrad seldom tells his tales through the direct method utilized by other novelists...

...Brilliant, learned, shrewd, humorous, hold, unconventional, but above all, picturesque, he seized the first page with the talent of a Roosevelt, speedily became one of the most talked-of men in the whole country, and was, in short, a lion, a sensation...

...It will require concentration...

...Conrad also lacks the easy appeal to popularity partly because of his method and mainly because he is caviare to the general...

...Here he is not expounding socialistic doctrines so much as he is forecasting things that are to come and interpreting the things of today...

...Did he but go.for a trolley ride, and the incident was good for a column...

...The question underlying all of his thought may be phrased somewhat as foilows How far will the radical political reform that has been sweeping the world for several years proceed...

...Several valuable teaching accessories are peculiar to this method...

...for Conrad is like Meredith...

...those who bring most to him will take most away...

...He was among the first to sample the delights of 'ping pong,' and caused to spring into fame, by reason of indignantly denying a base slander, a famous newspaper headline phrase which went like this: " 'It is not true, said Wu Ting Fang, I never had the ping pong pang.' Perhaps he never had, but certainly the country was Wu Tingfangy that season," * * * "THE FIRST TIME I saw the method in operation at the Conservatoire in Geneva," says Marian P. Gibb, the author of A Guide to the Chassevant Method of Musical Education (Stokes), "it struck me as altogether unique in its vivid, picturesque and alluring presentation of familiar- truths...

...Here his peculiar method is seen at its best, and if it is involved it at least adds versimilitude to the story...

...There is, though, one novelist whose work measures up into the approaches of these two masters and he is fortunately still with us to grow even greater with the deeping lines of time...

...indicated by taps on the table, and the children soon gain an exact idea of the relative value of tie notes and their corresponding rests...

...Rather does he rely on indirection, telling the fragments as he hears them and leaving to the reader to piece together the impressions into a totality of character...

...The title which he gives to the volume, progressivism-And After, well indicates its scope...

...Literary Notes "FEW DIPLOMATS accredited to Washington daring this generation have ever won in the affections of Americans so secure and permanent a place as that held by Li Hung Chang's able protege, Wu Ting Fang, twice the minister from China to the United States and author of America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat," says the Boston Transcript...

...What will be the results of the moves of the Progressives, the Progressive Republicans...

...He claimed the bicycle for his own—this, be it remembered, was back in the dark ages—and not a space-writer at the capital but called him blessed...

...It seemed unmistakably the production of a great mind, of one steeped in poetic imagery, and in perfect sympathy with the mind of the child...

...WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING has chosen as thei topic of his new book one that is everywhere in the air—progressivism—and not merely progressivism itself but its consequences...

...It is heartily recommended to all who care for what is best in fiction...

...the Progressive Democrats in America, of the Radicals in Great Britain, of the Socialistic Radicals and the Independent So cialists of France...

...Walling is a writer with whom people agree and disagree...

...In Chance, however, there is not the usual amount of scenic description: the emphasis is placed more upon the characters concerned...

...With the passing years Conrad has become more speculative, yet he was ever a philosopher and psychologist, not trying to inflict doctrines and social points of view, but picturing men and women in the meshes of character working out a destiny turned and twisted by environmental influence...

...From the day he first presented his credentials to President McKinley at the White House in 1897 until he took his final departure in 1909 he was easily the most conspicuous figure in the diplomatic corps...

...but neither did Meredith strike a really popular note till his fascinating Diana swept across men's minds...

...Snap Shots Books, Art, Drama By George Middleton NOW THAT Meredith has gone and Hardy has ceased to turn out his brooding novels of a Fate-oppressed humanity, there is no writer in England who stands in that high company which touched life with such divergent visions...

...In the earliest stage, the study of time, which is taken up apart from pitch, is invested with a picturesque aspect which fascinates the child mind...

...That is all one should tell of it, for it must be read...

...Particularly will this be found true in the present volume...

...There is also the old smell of the sea in this story: no Conrad story is complete without this and in his hands it becomes almost a personality, changing, shifting in all moods like a person...

...First and most notable there is the Movable Signs-These are made of metal and are three or ,four times the size of ordinary music type...

...Walling's analyses of such men as President Wilson and Colonel Roosevelt, his trenchant and keen remarks on capital and industry, on the nationalization of railways, his striking judgments of the relative merit of programs and parties, all of which come out in the pursuit of his argument, serve to make his discussion one of the most significant in its field, while its author's very evident desire to he just and fair, his recognition of the value of thoss reforms that have actually accomplished good, give it a calm and logical poise which too infrequently characterize like studies...

...Folk, Youth, and Lord Jim once read are never forgotten, and certain pages like those in that masterpiece in the shortstory form, In the Heart of Darkness have already taken their place in our literature...

...In Hardy life was not to be escaped and what was written on the scroll was ineradicable...

...A new book of Conrad, then, is an event, and in Chance (Doubleday Page & Co,) he has not disappointed us...

...In her hands an abstract idea became a living thing, which seized and held the imagination...

...Whatever may be the personal attitude of a given reader, however, all admit that his thoughts and theories are worthy of the most serjous consideration...

...Long strips of music paper, printed large enough to suit the signs, are pasted on the edge of the table at which the children are seated...

...Progressivism—And After was not written, therefore, primarily for socialists but for these and for all who are interested in the trend of gov-ernment and its reform...