CONDENSED into one of the opening sentences Mr. Arlo Bates gives a good résumé of his new story "The Puritans." The difference' she responded, 'is chiefly a matter of the difference between action and reaction. You and I come of much the same stock ethically. My childhood was oppressed by the weight of the Puritan creed, and the reaction from it has made me what you feel obliged to call heretic; while you, with a saint for a mother, found even Puritanism hardly strict enough, and have taken to semi-monasticism. We are both pushed on by the same original impulse, the stress of Puritanism.""

Briefly outlined the tale is this: a Protestant brotherhood is suddenly dispersed by a fire which renders the Clergy House of St. Mark temporarily uninhabitable. Among them are two young deacons who go to houses of their city relatives and are there introduced to fashionable society. Here they find their cherished beliefs spoken of slightingly or criticised with a candor not always accompanied by kind feeling. They are hurt, dismayed, discouraged, but they struggle with all the passion and fervor of their passionate and perfervid natures through many phases of doubt and temptation. These agonizing experiences bring them at length to totally opposite conclusions, but by ways quite parallel to human feeling.

These religious questions are on lines which suggest Mrs. Humphry Ward's "Helbeck of Bannisdale," but Mr. Bates' style is so agreeable and his touch so graceful without in the least losing earnestness, that the comparison can go no farther. The book is full of pithy things. Pray Heaven no manufacturer of calendars or birthday books seize upon it for his mutilating purposes! (Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Boston. $1.50)

CHARLES B. NEWCOMB is an optimistic philosopher, as indicated by the title of his recently published book, "All's Right with the World." In forty-five brief chapters he discusses some of the foibles and faults of humanity. There is some wisdom, not a little good sense and much criticism which will appeal to the thoughtful. The tenor and disposition of the book is most cheerful. (G. H. Ellis, Boston. $1.50)

est work, is the outcome of this crystallizing process. After passing in review and refuting the most important earlier theories on the subject, he formulates his own definitions in these words: Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings, and also experience them. Having denied that beauty can supply a standard of art, Tolstoy asserts that such a criterion is to be found only in religious perception; the religious perception of our time being the Christian principle of universal union, only such art as promotes this union can be good art. After very severely criticising modern art he concludes that not only has bad art been considered good art, but that the very perception of what art really is has been lost. But in the closing chapters Tolstoy takes a hopeful view of the future when art will be what it should be: "a vehicle wherewith to transmit religious, Christian perception from the realm of reason and intellect into that of feeling and really drawing people in actual life nearer to that perfection and unity indicated to them by their religious perception.'

"What is Art?" is translated by Aylmer Mande. (T. Y. Crowell & Co. Boston. $1.00)

IT seems useless to beseech otherwise intelligent women to try to comprehend their position before the law, but if by a blessed miracle they could be made to read and to ponder Anna Christy Fall's "The Tragedy of a Widow's Third," such a demand for justice, both possible and actual, would arise as to be irresistible. The tenacity with which women hold to their legal subjection while emancipating themselves from other authority, is a problem not to be solved by ordinary mathematics. True men are ashamed, but women, as a sex, are blind to their own interests. Mrs. Fall is a member of the Boston Bar, and has told a pathetic story that might come true to any woman and has verified itself in the experience of many. (Irving P. Fox, Boston. 75 cents.)

"LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF OUR WAR WITH SPAIN," by John R. Musick is a collection of incidents and anecdotes quite well worth preserving. (J. S. Ogilvie Pub. Co., N. Y.)

A Valuable Book.

"INFANT HEALTH" sent out by the N. Y. Condensed Milk Co., New York, proprietors of the Gail Borden Eagle Brand Condensed Milk. It is a valuable book that should be in every home.

WHEN Tolstoy speaks it is always worth while to listen. Every word is born of conviction, every conviction is the result of deep thought and vigorous self-questioning. His ethics and aesthetics are one-inseparably, and it is by the light of his "blinking conscience" that he judges all the great questions of life.

"What is Art?" is one of these vital questions, and he answers that it is, "a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings - and indispensable for the life and progress toward wellbeing of individuals and humanity.'

Tolstoy tells us that the study of the philosophy of art has occupied him for fifteen years, and that this, his lat

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AUSTRIA (VIENNA).

HE city of Vienna is one of the most beautiful and interesting in Europe. It is essentially a city cf music and musicians, having been the home of many of the greatest composers. It also ranks with Paris as the creator of fashions, dress being cultivated as a fine art by the Viennese women.

Thus, Singer Sewing Machines are preferred by Vienna modistes, and the number of Singers used there exceeds all others. Its simplicity of parts, easy operation, great range and excellence of its work specially commend the Singer to the artistic dressmaker.

The population of Vienna is made up of many nationalities, so that the original Viennese type no longer exists.

The two young women pictured were photographed in Vienna by an agent of The Singer Manufacturing Co. They wear their usual holiday dress, similar, in the case of the one seated at a "Singer" Sewing Machine, to the costume worn in Egra.

The dress of the woman beside her is a combination of the Swiss and Austrian (Tyrol) costume. THE SINGER MANUFACTURING CO., Offices in every city in the world.