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The story is filled with British soldiers, explorers, adventurers—men who spent a few months among London drawing-rooms and then a couple of years in jungles, men who wandered about the world, whose friends were scattered across a hemisphere, but who were all joined by their common membership in the British official class. They are not often described with any detail, but the exact atmosphere in which they moved is obvious everywhere in the book. It is an atmosphere unconsciously summed up by Sir Harry's explanation of his dislike for the Boers: "Their policy toward the natives was far more despotic and wilfully stupid than ours had ever been; their lack of interest in native languages, in intelligent natural history, exceeded ours." Sir Harry's is a taciturn account of that combination of exploitation, good government and scientific inquiry which solemnly carried the British flag around the world.
New Books
The following estimates of books much in the public eye were made after careful consideration of the trend of critical opinion:
A CURE OF SOULS—May Sinclair—Macmillan ($2.50). The Reverend Canon Clement Purcell Chamberlain cared really for nothing but the easy comfort of his body and the comfortable ease of his soul. He shrank before the physical vigorousness of Cartwright, his junior curate, who was always suggesting something to do, such as founding a Men's Club or starting a Sunday afternoon service for men alone. He shrank from Jackman also, who came to him with the tortures of his soul. Finally he found a way out. He rid himself of an unpleasant sister by inviting her down when Queningford was at its dullest. He devolved his parish work on Miss Lambert. Jackman left him. He promoted Cartwright away. Then he married Molly Beauchamp, a rich widow, and was able to leave for good. But though everything appeared to be successful, though he himself was content, he brought failure to everybody else. It is an ironic book, not very exciting, ably done.
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHILD—Joseph Hergesheimer—Knopf ($10.00). The book comes in a black box labeled in old rose. Its gorgeous binding is wrapped in oil paper. It contains 66 pages, of which 21 are blank. It is about the author's youth, and is signed by the author. Only 950 copies are supposed to exist. The few printed pages describe Mr. Hergesheimer's Calvinistic grandsires, his Calvinistic upbringing, and what he believes to have been his escape from Calvinism. Said Elmer Davis, critic: "As the first 10,000 words of a full-length autobiography, to sell at $2, it would deserve praise."