as

by Elizabeth W. Schermerhorn (Houghton Mifflin Company, $4)-was another troublesome anti-social being. She has always interested as the center of a group of conspicuous personalities, and a novelist whose work, while no longer much read, is of historical importance. That she should begin to appear as the subject of psychological studies is a part of a changing concept of women in the arts. She too went on the weary journey which is the artist's search for perfection; but because she was a woman what she sought was the perfection of love. "The poet it is Me" was her tormented protest. "They admire me, they court me, they listen to me because I am a poet; but when I have recited my verses, they forbid me to feel what I have described." She ceases in these books, and especially in Elizabeth Schermerhorn's temperate and comprehensive interpretation, to be the faintly ridiculous figure that she has been, but she does not become tragic or even touching; entertaining, exasperating, exciting, fascinating, but never deeply moving except perhaps at the end, when she said that she was glad to be old.

And for the poet's song, sung in the American key, we have Will Durant's "Transition" (Simon & Schuster, $3). It is the story of his own life, thinly disguised as the biography of a fictitious John Lemaire. The author of "The Story of Philosophy" is a clever writer, and, since the story that he has to tell is pretty well the common man's story borne through the enriching depths of an able mind, it is of general interest. His spiritual experience, the loss of faith in the simple beliefs of his fathers, is an almost universal one, and his account of it is moving. A life marked by such sharp contrasts as Jesuitism and anarchy, lurid journalism and philosophical study, makes good reading. And Durant's own experience has fortunately enabled him to give his story a happy ending. He is a philosopher particularly acceptable to his public, and as an interpretative biographer he is successful. He has learned.

HE editor of this department will

with ad

vice and suggestions in buying current books, whether noticed on this page or not. If you wish guidance in selecting books for yourself or to give away, we shall do the best we can for you if you will write us, giving some suggestions, preferably with examples, of the taste which is to be satisfied. We shall confine ourselves to books published within the last year or so, so that you will have no trouble in buying them through your own bookshop.

Dick Whittington's cat? How about "Moumette Blanche" and "Moumette Chinoise"?

As for phrases uncomplimentary to felines that you quote as incorporated in our language, I am sure I should rather be catty than a cur. You may recall the insult that good mediæval Christians used lavishly, "Thou dog of a Jew!" Was it not Ruskin who said, "Shameless as a dog"? And delicacy almost forbids me to remind you that two of the figures of opprobrium most hostilely received of any are derived from canine sources. M. W. M.

Since I must protect myself from this very clever onset, I shall not let a sense of delicacy prevent my retorting that the term of opprobrium to which my correspondent alludes refers to "the female of the species, more deadly than the male." The dog ought not to be made to suffer for the feminine frailties of his race.

I confess that I have never seen Carl Van Vechten's "Tiger in the House," Taking my correspondent's advice, I hied me to the New York Public Library in quest of it. But the librarian evidently shares my indifference to cats. He has not taken the trouble to put a copy of "The Tiger in the House" on his shelves. There may be found there, however, a cat book which for literary art is superior to any dog book that I have ever seen. I refer to "Le Chat dans la Literature et dans l'Art," by Jacqueline Conan-Fallex. Perhaps one reason why it interests me is that it gives some support to my own sentiments. It contains, for example, this opinion of cats expressed by Chateaubriand:

THE last letter I shall quote comes

from a lady in California:

the majority of people against cats? Would we think it fair to judge the human race by the poor unfortunates who grow up in slums and squalor, never having a chance in life? Yet thus the cat is judged, by the common alley cat who has probably never known anything but a life of starvation and struggle from the time it opened its eyes on a hard and cruel world. Take a wee, half-wild kitten and bring it into a home (I speak from experience) where it is loved and played with, and it will blossom out and display a personality that cannot be exceeded by any dog.

You say in your article that you remember dog friends of yours whom you recall as distinct personalities; but of the scores of cats you have seen your memory cannot distinguish one from another. Does this not speak for itself? You have known dogs and merely seen cats. Had you known even one cat as they can be known your article would never have been written. . . .

Once I was obliged to be away for three months, and left a pet cat with a friend who was most kind to her. On my return I immediately went to see my cat, though I could not take her home. She saw me coming up the drive and ran to meet me as a dog would have done. At the end of my visit, as I was about to leave, she rushed into the house, brought out her kitten in her mouth, and fought like mad to follow me, until she had to be shut up. And yet one hears that cats have "no attachment to people"! ...

Dogs have so many friends that they need no champions, but why, oh, why, the prejudice in the minds of

For a good, faithful, loving friend give me the cat, as much as the dog. if one is willing to go to the trouble of making friends. G. H. A.

ERE the discussion must end about as it began. Those who prefer cats will continue to find them preferable; those who are dog partisans w continue in their partisanship. I think my California correspondent has most clearly revealed to me my own cat and dog psychology. No cat has ever courted my friendship; several dogs have. I have reached the time of lite when I like the stream of friendship to flow by gravitation and not by pumping I have no doubt that an alley cat, it taken young enough, can be converted into a study companion and be taugh to lie on a rug at my feet as I write But that kind of friendship by conver sion I am inclined to leave to younger and more optimistic reformers.

Though dust, your fingers still can push

The vision Splendid to a birth, Though now they work as grass in the hush

Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.

There are, of course, passages of good erse throughout the book, but there is woeful amount of false writing, imitaion of various schools of poetry, some f which have not been reputable in hemselves.

ESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE contributes her third anthology this year Houghton Mifflin). The jacket claims or this volume that it includes the best ork since 1919 of about one hundred nd fifty outstanding poets, making, ith its companion volumes, a permaent record of the choicest poetry writn in our time. There are, to be sure, any true poems in Miss Rittenhouse's lection, but in numerous instances the ithors have been noticed on their least ippy utterances. Miss Rittenhouse inades a good many examples of the nd of verse which is written because e poets felt like writing something. ost of the well-known contempory poets are included and a healthy ore of names that claim scant emince.

There are new books this season by hn Hall Wheelock, Jean Starr Untereyer, Lola Ridge, and a posthumous llection of Amy Lowell's last verses. om England we have a poetic play by hn Masefield, an offering from Edith well, a book of rhyming by De la are, and a book by Humbert Wolfe. is is an assorted production affording ange but no great sustenance. Of the English books the volume by olfe, "Requiem," published in this antry by Doran, seems the most montous. It is an interweaving of verse an integral design. There is height the writing and there is passion in the ounding of the themes. The poems fer somewhat from a use of overrked phraseology and a rather too demic substance, but there is a subnce and an absence of the barrenness ich makes much formal verse tirene. One may read this book and not

for want of support from the author self. There is an elevation here and ody to the work. Masefield's play is a version of "Tris

tan and Isolt" (Macmillan). It is arresting for its simplicity and tranquil inspection of the characters of the legend. It is not inspired and makes few transmutations of lyric force.

The De la Mare book, "Stuff and Nonsense" (Henry Holt), will probably strike those who are always struck by De la Mare. It is assuredly one of his most casual publications.

Edith Sitwell persists in the attitude she has held since her appearance as a contriver of tenuous diversions. She eschews banality as assiduously as possible, but she repeats her tricks with deadly frequency. Her confections in this volume, "Rustic Elegies" (Knopf), are a succession of airy fabrications woven of unworked words and textile allusions. A sample of the quality may serve for comment:

... hooded belles are seen In the Phoebus and the Suttan pelerine,

All kinds of watered silks those gray sprays wet,

The gros de sidon, foulard pekinet. There is much of this.

John Hall Wheelock in "Bright Doom" (Scribners) valiantly speaks his unmodernized poems. Certainly he is sincere, his feeling is convincing, but his diction is uncompromisingly old-school. The effect of this is to smother his emotion and inspiration in the most unprepossessing kind of rhetoric. He clings to archaic contractions and ejaculations. He is undaunted by a metaphor's age. It is a curious instance in which the poet, paradoxically, is appealing and his manner of speech is unengaging. If he would consent to whittle away the atrophied surfaces of his poems, we should have the reward of a genuinely humanistic singer, moving in his sincere compassion.

Mrs. Untermeyer's book "Steep Ascent" (Macmillan) is simple and unpretentious. Lola Ridge submits "Red Flag" (the Viking Press). There seems to be no revelation in these books. They will be enjoyed by those who are faithful readers of these writers.

Amy Lowell's last collection is called "Ballads for Sale" (Houghton Mifflin). The work in this volume is very like Amy Lowell's previous verse. There has been, perforce, less selection in this book. than in any of her others. Miss Lowell did a version of "The Splendor Falls from Castle Walls" for this collection.

$65

is the annual net income from each $1000 invested in Smith Bonds which carry attractive tax refund features. Compare this yield with that of any investment of a like high standing and you will know why Smith First Mortgage Bonds are universally looked upon ideal investments.

as

Booklet "6-50" gives the History of this House and detailed information concerning the safeguards that protect every Smith Investor.

Ask for it.

Our Mail Service Department

No matter where you may be you
can avail yourself of the Mail Order
Service of our Home Office in Wash-
ington, D. C. Your investments
and inquiries will be given the same
personal, efficient and courteous at-
tention you would receive if you
called at one of our offices,

The F. H.SMITH Ca

Founded 1873 Smith Building, Washington, D.C. 285 Madison Ave., New York City Branch Offices in-Chicago- and Other Cities

Kindly send booklet and information regarding SMITH BONDS.

"6-50"

NAME
ADDRESS

It is an adaptation from Tennyson. It is in Miss Lowell's manner:

The windows of the gallery Are tall, with rounded tops, so high They cramp the ceiling. Through their panes, Fogged and streaked with dust and rains,

An August sunshine slants and veers.

THER

'HERE is, as it will be seen, not much exuberance in the reactions of this witness to the autumn poetry production. It is to be hoped that this is but a hiatus in the progress of modern poetry. There is no reason why before a year were out we might not hope for a book to rouse us and make us tolerant toward all those who have rightly or unwarrantably striven to sustain the promise of the poetic renascence. An essentially magic voice might be heard at any moment. Those who believe that the day is unsympathetic to poetry must be heedless of the fact that never has the audience to English speech been more attentive to its meanings, and so in need of real enchantment.

Cohasset, Massachusetts. HAVE read the article entitled "Fear" in your issue of November 9 and your editorial comment on the same.

I

I view with much apprehension the great number of murders in the United States and the small proportion of these that ever come to trial, and the small proportion of the latter that reach conviction and have the murderers executed or otherwise punished.

I also am aware that the law furnishes a great number of loopholes for the accused, and that our criminal law as a whole favors the criminal altogether too much.

The recent trial referred to in the article exemplifies these delays of the law in favor of the accused in an extreme degree. Every motion, exception, and petition for clemency was entertained in a serious

manner.

To one who followed the legal proceedings it is plain that all investigations and proceedings were for the purpose of ascertaining whether the accused persons were guilty of murder.

Following the slow and careful progress of the case through the courts, the laws of Massachusetts vested in the Governor a further opportunity to pass upon the case. Governor Fuller went into the matter thoroughly and conscientiously and appointed as co-workers a committee of men eminent for character and intelli- . gence, one of whom was the President of Harvard University. The Governor and this committee by independent investigation all found the accused men guilty of murder. I never heard of a criminal case that received so careful and painstaking investigation, and I believe the whole proceedings were impartial. I do not believe the fact that the men were Anarchists was any element in the decision.

OLIVER H. HOWE (M.D.).

See Professor Jastrow's article in this issue and our editorial comment.-The Editors.

assumption on which her whole article is based is not justified by the facts nor by the records of the case.

An English journal this summer published a severe criticism of the Massachusetts courts in the Sacco-Vanzetti case. A week or two later, having read the evidence, they had the grace to publish an apology for their former editorial.

I cannot agree with you that Miss Millay's words are quiet words with no hysteria in them. On the contrary, her baseless accusations, repeated in paragraph after paragraph, directed against all who disagreed with her, calling them ignorant, nervous, cruel, and cowardly, are nothing if they are not hysterical.

EDWARD M. NOYES.

Philadelphia.

I

WISH to congratulate you on the publication of Edna St. Vincent Millay's article "Fear," appearing in the current issue of your worth-while magazine, delivered to my quarters today.

Would it be possible to secure the thoughts of another author, equally as prominent, to express the argument against that type of Greenwich Village personage you so ably reproduced in print? Why not run an article upholding the "pretty concepts" as apparently criticised by this freethinker? W. R. SMITH.

T

Portland, Maine. HE November 9 issue of The Outlook came this morning, but the ironing for this family of four was so colossal that the magazine wrapper was not slipped off until this afternoon, when I dropped down on the nursery floor, at the edge of the patch of sunlight, in the middle of which a glowing three-year-old is fashioning his fancies in blocks.

"FEAR-DEATH-AFRAID-You

will not sleep easy on your pillow," says Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Sprung from the same spray-dashed soil of eastern Maine, sensing the same tang of salt, but lacking in my commonness her sensitiveness of mind, I approach with more than ordinary respect and interest the message which she has for me. For the message is so personally for me, so personally for each of us reading it at this moment. And each of us will answer her. Some in words coinmanding attention in future Outlook pages; some in words futilely written, and as futilely mailed, as this of my own will be; and others will answer on those mental pages of theirs and mail their message in imaginings. But all of us will answer.

I've read it twice-this "Fear" of Edna Millay's. And I've opened that part of my mind again which has been closed in thankfulness these two months. I've taken out my personal ideas and opinions and lined them up against the wall again, and have given them a thorough going over in the shadow of this surging, soul-torn message. But mine is the common mind, the ordinary non-sensitive mind of the majority of people, and, no matter how much I may respect, and countless times in my perplexed non-comprehending searchings I may envy, those who possess the soul immortal, I cannot in all honesty to the only self that my average mind does know believe that, two months ago in Massachusetts, there was committed or carried out anything but justice. And I believe this,

I look at this thing from the standp of selfishness. I admit it. Selfishness fe all the little three-year-olds in Amend The older ones, the spot-lighted young generation, are already bruised by th vagaries of our laws of justice. They re ize, with twisted knowing smiles, that winning case is the one with the smart lawyer, and that the matter of innocen or guilt lies meekly secondary. They wi always remember that hideous crime two of their own generation, that crime warped youth against childhood, and, membering, Joliet prison is but anoth twisted smile and a shrug of the shou to them. This lesson of the business life, which Miss Millay tells us we has been teaching our children is to "have you own way, and get as much as possibl as little as possible," has been splend flourishing in these years since the wa The lesson has shown itself in startin and devious ways. There have been que "twists" of justice. There have bes "cases" and "cases." And then one day Governor of a New England State w through the torturing mental anguish decision that three men should meet de in the electric chair. And then mothers, of tiny lives as yet uncom hending that there is a lack of beauty the world, shed tears for the mothers men, so lately boys, who paid their debt the chair; but coexistent with our te there was born relief in our hearts for Governor who championed justice.

And then this other case. The case the flamed and flared across the world, ar flaring, grew so red that the original ba pening, the murder of a man by men. all but obliterated. And again we moth of three-year-olds stood by and wonder -wondered painfully how the scales 4 justice would swing. For we, in laughing awkward contrast to this flaming brand Edna Millay's, this brand with sincerity soul guaranteeing a literary immortal deserved, we feared that justice lacked bravery to mete out sentence of death the face of anarchy! But a Governor we on the mental wrack again, and beca we firmly believed that the men were ing tried for crime rather than for opt ions, we rejoiced at what we termed tice and bravery.

The terrible sincerity of "Fear" mands a deep respect. The world is "ugh "cruel," and it has, at times, "a lying fac We know these things, we elders. shamefully youth knows them too. But tiny ones, the three-year-olds, what is future for them?

The sun has passed by the window, the patch on the floor is gone. Now a tle child creeps to my side. "Mum. you help me build?"

Will I help him build? Oh, please yes!

Am I right in the stand that I tak Who can tell? A poetess can frame h words, but a common mind knows a sti bling way. I hesitate. But now the comes to me a vision-a vision of an est man pacing his way to victory acr his study floor.

"Mum, will you help me build?"

With the last wee drops of my strer: And to him some day I shall tell, to at some fear, a story of the bravery certain Governor of Massachusetts. A MOTHER IN MAIVE