London triumphs, an outcast among the Nonconformist, yet turning the heads of the elder deacons as well as playing havoc with the younger divines; and last the most complex character of all-a woman living in voluntary poverty in order to do her part in the common work of brotherhood, apart from all Churches, but touching many lives for their good, and too much a student of science to be able to conform to the creed of any Church, and yet the truest Christian character in the book.

THE HELPMATE. By May Sinclair. New York: Henry Holt & Company.

In "The Helpmate," Mr. and Mrs. Majendie have just been married when the book opens, and on the third day of their union, Mrs. Majendie sat on the edge of the bed at four o'clock in the morning, and asked her drowsy husband, "Who is Lady Cayley?" On receiving no satisfactory reply, "she rose slipped from the bed and went to a chair that stood by the open window.

'Anne,' said her husband, 'what are you doing out there?' Anne made no answer.

'Come back to bed; you'll catch cold.'

He waited.

'How long are you going to sit there in that draught?'

She sat on, upright, immovable, in her night gown, racked by the keen air of the dawn." And the wise reader would do well to leave her sitting there for it is nine years later and on the last page of the book before she gets back into that bed.

The whole story is a thumb-nail sketch of the marriage relations between a husband and wife. When one advances the other retreats, when one is up the other is down—and it is rather cleverly done; but the skill is of the kind that delights in engraving the Lord's Prayer on a dime-which is a misuse of both the dime and the prayer. So it is unfair to make a novel out of an abnormal situation, and it is unfair to the marriage state to have this particular study set forth; for it is in no sense typical and could not help anyone, even if people could get themselves into any such position. It is easy to

imagine, however, that many people will read the book and like it, for the author's ability to depict her characters is not to be questioned; she even makes the situations interesting when all hope of making them convincing is lost. There are very few characters and indeed, Mrs. Majendie's conscience is so large and overwhelming that there is little room for anything else when it is around; full justice is done to the few characters, however, for they are well drawn, and the rest of the space is devoted to the analysis of the wife's conscience. Due to the vagaries of this conscience, Mrs. Majendie breaks all of her marriage vows but one, and her husband breaks the one vow which his wife keeps. This results in his maintaining another establishment, and if one were not sure of the conventions one might well ask which of the two women the author had in mind as the "Helpmate;" nothing so interesting as that, however, is in the author's purpose and Majendie finally wins his wife's affections, long after she has forfeited all of the reader's sympathies and the book closes with a reconciliation which is complete, though one is inclined to be skeptical as to its permanence.

THE DANCE OF LOVE. By Dion Clayton Calthrop. New York: Henry Holt & Company.

This is a curious story of a giddy romantic youth in Mediæval times (with very modern atmosphere) who leaves his beloved mother under sad circumstances in "quest of love"-to find the woman of his fate, who will have "the key of his life hung to a chain around her neck." He could have for the asking, the lovely Alice, whom he has known all his life, who has riches and beauty-"cheeks like milk and apple blossoms; straight as a tree, fresh as a leaf," etc., but he calls her dull, not stimulating. He must needs see the world for himself, and find the soul-filling woman-he must carve his fortunes by sword and buckler; he must shield the weak, fight for the right. So turning his back upon his mother, his home and the "cool, calm Alice" he begins his quest of love, and the story bewilders one in the mazes of the Yolandes-Phillipas, Annes, Mayots and Madonnas who all fail in turn to satisfy his quixotic soul, until

at last, after five years wanderings, having found the wide world stimulating but not satisfying, a sadder and a wiser man, he sensibly but tamely returns to his native heath and finds the handsome Alice still waiting for him, and gladly he realizes that after all she is the woman who has "the golden key of his life," and that she alone can fill "his every day's most quiet needs," so like a modern man he settled down to comfort.

THE FLIGHT TO EDEN. By Harrison Rhodes. New York: Henry Holt & Company.

This is a disagreeable story, but interesting and fairly well told. It is always helpful and uplifting to know that a man can once in a while overcome self-and in this hero's flight from his worldly surroundings and the scene of his wrecked life to a new country and primitive environment we see at least the effort to throw off old chains of cloth and sin.

In the sand dunes of Florida he again finds temptation, but there still remains in him some of the English gentleman's clearcut ideas of right and wrong, so that amidst the human driftwood of the region he holds himself aloof and straight. After some tragic and painful scenes in which his brother takes part and is a victim, Basil Forrester flies still further and takes with him a good and loving girl-wife to the everglades where Eden is found at last. But even there pathos comes, and we leave him a good man but with the painful knowledge that he must isolate himself entirely from temptation to keep from lapsing again into the old ways. So when he is recalled to England, he does not dare to go, but sends his young and only son to take his place and title.

THE FRUIT OF THE TREE. By Edith Wharton. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

"The Fruit of the Tree" is disappointing. The book is unorganized, it falls into separate segments on even a superficial analysis, and the author's skill is not sufficient to hold them together. A good novel can stand a good deal of plot- though a novel that depends on plot is of the weaker sort-but whenever the reader is conscious of too much plot while reading the book,

then he may be sure he has a pretty serious indictment against the author.

So with "The Fruit of the Tree:" there is too much plot -the author planned too generously, and tried to put more into the book than the characters and the situation justified, and all of the story that is worth while could have been put into any one of the three segments into which the book divides itself. It is a story of what factory life is, and as a result the factory with all its accessories becomes merely a background, and rather a vague background at that, for the study of a few social conditions among the well-to-do.

Considering what the novel is, the author might have stopped at Amherst's marriage and it would have been a pretty little romance; since the author was more ambitious, she might at least have stopped at the death of his wife; but still to go on and on, until he married again, and then to introduce an entirely new theme and centre of interest, is, to say the least, poor story writing. The reader has one resource, however, and that is to skip pages and pages at a time- granting, of course, that one must read the book-and there is little danger of missing anything worth while in so doing, for the analyses of character are all pretty obvious, and there are no deep notes struck at any time.

On reading the novel the question presented itself several times, "What is it all about?"- that is, was it a problem novel, a novel for the study of social questions, or was it merely intended to be an interesting story to pass away the time?-for it was useless to ask whether it was of any higher type. It has a problem in it, but the problem is not even fairly stated, much less faced. E. H. S.

CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS

THE WORKING OF THE RAILROADS. By Logan G. McPherson. New York: Henry Holt & Company.

This is a very valuable book. Mr. McPherson was for many years actively engaged in the details of the transportation problem in the employ of the railroads, and is now a lecturer in

Johns Hopkins University. Naturally there is a sort of sympathetic touch to be found in the book from old association; but it is fair, and of great worth to the few who can read it. It is full of technical information and many minute details which certainly do not make interesting reading, and yet no other book furnishes quite the same information. To the student who is investigating the difficutlies of the transportation problem; to the congressman or legislator who has to vote on it; to the ambitious writer who wants to talk in print about it, this book should be worth much.

ORTHODOX SOCIALISM. By James Edward Le Rossignol Ph.D. New York: T. Y. Crowell & Company.

The mere title of this book should be very inviting and gratifying to many earnest inquirers, for it gives promise of solution. of a vexed and troubled question as to what is Socialism. Ask a score of scholars to define it for you and you would hardly find the definitions concur altogether. This book practically identifies all socialism worth the name in any scientific sense with the teachings of Karl Marx. Then taking up the fundamental propositions of Marx one by one, the book is the brief of a critic (and in a measure an advocate, as it were, on the other side) attacking the scientific basis of each proposition. It is a strong brief, too, but with excellent criticism we get little that is affirmative. The most striking point made by the author is that Socialism as expounded by its adherents, one and all, is a faith rather than a science that is a religion to them. Without acceptingt hat literally, it may be well said that Socialism belongs to the domain of ethics rather than economics. All of it that will accomplish good must do its work in economics through ethics. No science (or art) of either economics or politics, is, or can be, either good or beautiful or valuable or true, which is not based on ethics (meaning the ethics which has not yet amputated conscience). A. T. M.