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Show ini aat mm.n THE CITIZEN 15 administrators of distant regions, missionaries (both of the higher type and of the mediaeval fanatic type), society people in England, and odds and ends of all sorts of character and experience are combined in the book. It has a plot, but the plot fice-holder- s, coi'Ji'jl reception has been given & o fe; of Leonard the j.::els and stories errick iu the collected edition, each which has an introduction olume Enga -- preciative contemporary lish w i:itr of fiction. This has served delusion. The rea-o- n o dispel a curious g ecognition was slow in wh to Mr. Merrick seems to have been of most unfounded idea on the part fiction that he many Anders of popular Now, as Professor was a highbrow is true that phelps says somewhere, it most novel readers may be divided to into two classes: those who read remember and those who read to for not be super-subtl- e get. But d book need in order to be entertaining. Mr. Merrick is a delicate artist, but he 1 as with works with humor as wel com-,,;Cn- 1 ; M 5 f j -- charming descriptive passages, and its tragedy, while deep, is not harrowing. An Irish maiden is brought up by a drinking and sportive father, with practically no social experience and in absolute ignorance of what life and marriage mean. She is the victim of an error on the part of her father, so that the sudden death of the young man whom she romantically loves ' leads to her being driven into an unsuitable and almost unendurable marriage. Then comes a second tragedy in her life, in which a young man (really a school boy) defective in moral sense, and also cruel and mendacious, is cured through his deep and almost noble passion for the tragic bride. The boys mother shows the young woman the danger impending, and the tragedy of the parting is balanced by the beauty of the sacrifice. Finally, the book ends with a second physical tragedy in the death of the young wifes husband that almost parallel the death of her early over. This brief outline of the story gives an inadequate idea of its character. It is one of those that depend for their value not so much on what is said as how it is said. It is an unusual piece of writing and has that undeflnable thing we call quality. Never was this better illustrated than in the volume of his short finesse. stories which has the general title, just appeared under A Chair on Boulevard. These amusing tales of art and the juor-nalis- m and tales of would-b- e poets and journalists in modern Paris are as gay in their way as Murgers La Vic de Boheme. Indeed, more than once Mr. Merrick himself suggests quietly that he is here following Murgers footsteps. It is delightful to meet the not 4 very responsible but always cheerful j young men and womeii who in these stories dance and sing and make merry with about as much regard for the Many readers will remember the story called Christopher Hibbault, Hoadmaster, which attracted attention ten years ago or more by Its sincerity and force. A Courageous Marriage is a new book by the author of that novel. Its title exactly expresses the problem and mystery of the story. What it was that made this marriage courageous on the part of the girl is a question that perplexes and interests the reader extremely. The girl of the story is unusually attractive In her bravery and strength of purpose. Unfortunately, the solution of the mystery Is not as satisfying as one hopes it will be. To many readers it never seems quite to be playing the game In fiction to explain everything by hypnotism or psychism or supernormal conditions. future as the provermal grasshopper. Naturally, the tales vary not a little but one would hesitate to pass unfavorable judgment on any as being the least clever and entertaining. Thus Mr. A. Neil Lyons, who writes the introduction for this volume (a writer, by the way, whose cockney classics, as they have been called, are less well known than they should be to American readers), considers The Tragedy of a Comic Song the funniest story of this century, and names two or three other stories as among the mo:t engaging of the collection; but he entirely ignores The Doll in the Pink Silk Dress and The Judgment of Paris, which other readers will regard as the choicest bits of writing in the book. Mr. Lyons illustrates the difficulty of disputing as to whether a piece of imaginative work is or is not the outcche of genius when he says tb!l it is useless to put forth arguments to support nis conviction that Mr. Merrick is a gifted man because "to people who have a sense of that which is sincere and fresh in fiction t e facts will be apparent, while to oth r- nothing would render them ob- viivv in quality, ! I I I j I self-respec- Sir Harry Johnson, African administrator, explorer, hunter, and in his later years novelist, takes his own road and does things his own way. The first of his two previous novels dealt with the affairs of the descendants of the characters in Charles Dickens Dombey and Son, the second followed out the life and adventures of the daughter of that Mrs. Warren who gave the name to Bernard Shaws play, Mrs. Warren's Profession. But In his story called The Man Who Did the Right Thing, Sir TTr -- -s j tVl v tb Francis Brett Young Is one of younger group of English novelists se v'ork has been better known to crjtic than to the general reader, new story, The Tragic Bride, is tten with literary grace and has t, . and gives lis his experience In Africa, tberehv. ns ho savs, the hook enables him to live over neain a verv hanpv Diplomats, of-and Interesting life. interest ends long before . old-fashion- the book does. Technically, there is no pretense of following the ordinary rules of fic- tion writing; nevertheless there is so much life, vigor and novelty in the story that it decidedly repays reading. One notes with amusement that among the very minor characters appears Sir Willoughby Patterne, the cultured egoist of Merediths famous novel. On the other hapd, several of Sir Harrys people are said to be recognizable as taken, in part at least, from real life. - A good deal of attention has been paid to Evelyn Scotts The Narrow House. It is truly described by the publishers as a penetrating study of the interrelations of the various members of a family, its members profoundly dominated by cross-currenof desire and fear. The book undoubtedly has ability, but it is so unhappy and so revolting in its realism that neither the reader nor anybody in the book has a happy momend from beginning to end. One might put up with this if anyts thing of real value resulted, but the story leaves precisely the impression indicated in a review of a book by another author, in which the critic remarked that the work in question had no special story to tell; the book can not be said to arrive anywhere in particular and it leaves us with a resentful feeling that we have been very much depressed in spirit to no purpose at all. Analysis of feeling and impression is all. well enough in its way, but it may be carried too far. For instance, what sort of psychological experience would one have who happened to look at a commonplace old painting of Lake Lucerne hanging on the wall? Probably none. Bflt Mr. Farley of the story experiences a voluptuous sense of futility a good example of making something out of nothing. We append a single example of the authors occasional oddity of style. No doubt this means somethnig, but it reads like a bit of exaggerated literary futurism a la Gertrude Stein: What does it come Mistress to? Sheep. Wag. Wag-tail- . Mary. Far away over the hills. Dark. Darkness is one. There are no eyes in the dark. Horace. Gho:t stories, grave and gay, are furnished forth in two attractive volumes edited, with pleasing introductions, by Dorothy Scarborough. It may be, as she says, that wraiths have a greater vitality today than ever before. there are ghostly biographies hero that de'erve to live. If the reader has a taste for the psychically horrible, Mr. W. I Harveys Beast with Five Fingers can be guaranteed to chill the blood; if ho prefers the delicately imaginative spoof, let him turn eCr-tafnl- to Mr. Algernon Blackwoods The Willows or to Poes Ligeia; if he cares for the Christmas ghost wrho diffuses good will and brings lovers together, he will find Wallace Irwins Transplanted Ghost to his taste; and if he wants to be on familiar terms with a whole village of ghosts (household pets, we might call them), let. him enjoy Richard Middletons The Ghost Ship, which has no superior as a gently humorous fantasy. In short, these two collections give room for divergent taste3 and ample material for many winter evenings short readings. y ed HAS EINSTEIN TURNED PHYSICS INTO METAPHYSICS? Scientists have now had some twenty months of acute discussion of Einsteins theory. It has much to its credit. It has accoutned for the observed fact that the orbits of planets are not quite what they ought to be on the Newtonfan theory. It was able to predict a minute but very remarkable alteration in the apparent positions of stars visible only during a total eclipse of the sun. It has been able to fit gravitation into the general scheme instead of leaving it as an isolated fact. It has made the hypothesis of the ether unnecessary. It has explained away a baffling paradox. If ether exists, this world is passing through it at a velocity which must have a measurable relation to the velocity of light. There ought, therefore, to be an appreciable difference in the times taken for a light signal to reach us when we are moving towards its source and when the movement is in the opposite direction or across its path. But no such differences have been detected. The Einstein theory explains much and reduces reality to a very difficult geometry. Those who are not advanced mathematicians, adds the man of science who thus wrties in the London Times, must reconcile themselves to inability to understand Einsteins forpiulae. He says: The older geometry of Euclid was based only on the three dimensions, length, breadth and depth, so that formulae, however elaborate, could be plotted out in the form of models; the furthest recesses of the universe appeared to be only magnified arrangement of what we could measure with scales and compasses. Einstein uses n a geometry of four dimensions, and experience does not contain the materials out of which the imagination can build a picture in more than three. Moreover, one of these four dimensions is time, and the conception that space in three dimensions has no lute reality, but varies with the. time so that there can bo an Indefinitely different number of things, according to the Indefinitely different times in the universe seems more like the dream of a poet than the fact of the physical world. In the second hu.-ma- co-existi- place, the formulae themselves require the use of the very abstract mathemat- - ..a.- - i i |