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to his lips a slight recurrent smile.

"The bad habit of working late at night was growing on this young man. It is a picturesque habit, and one of the most imbecile, because sound work is done only with a normal mind.

"He made himself some coffee. A rush of genius to the head followed stimulation. He had a grand time, revelling with pen and pad and littering the floor with inked sheets unnumbered and still wet. His was a messy genius. His plot-logic held by the grace of God and a hair-line. Even the Leaning Tower of Pisa can be plumbed; and the lead dangled inside Achilles's tendon when one held the string to the medulla of Annan's stories."

Our young man is undergoing a variety of interesting changes:

"Partly experimental, partly sympathetically responsive, always tenderly curious, this young man drifted gratefully through the inevitable episodes to which all young men are heir.

"And something in him always transmuted into ultimate friendship the sentimental chaos, where comedy and tragedy clashed at the crisis.

"The result was professional knowledge. Which, however, he had employed rather ruthlessly in his work. For he resolutely cut out all that had been agreeable to the generations which had thriven on the various phases of virtue and its rewards. Beauty he replaced with ugliness; dreary squalor was the setting for crippled body and deformed mind. The heavy twilight of Scandinavian insanity touched his pages where sombre shapes born out of Jewish Russia moved like anachronisms through the unpolluted sunshine of the New World.

"His were essays on the enormous meanness of mankind--meaner conditions, mean minds, mean aspirations, and a little mean horizon to encompass all.

There comes a time when Eris Odell says to Barry Annan:--

"'I could neither understand nor play such a character as the woman in your last book.... Nor could I ever believe in her.... Nor in the ugliness of her world--the world you write about, nor in the dreary, hopeless, malformed, starving minds you analyse.... My God, Mr. Annan--are there no wholesome brains in the world you write about?'"

I think these citations interesting. I do not feel especially competent to produce from them inferences regarding Mr. Chambers's own attitude toward his work.

"Ses Corporal Madden to Private McFadden: 'Bedad yer a bad 'un! Now turn out yer toes! Yer belt is unhookit, Yer cap is on crookit, Yer may not be drunk, But, be jabers, ye look it! Wan-two! Wan-two! Ye monkey-faced divil, I'll jolly ye through! Wan-two! Time! Mark! Ye march like the aigle in Cintheral Park!'"

BOOKS BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

IN THE QUARTER THE KING IN YELLOW THE RED REPUBLIC THE KING AND A FEW DUKES THE MAKER OF MOONS WITH THE BAND THE MYSTERY OF CHOICE LORRAINE ASHES OF EMPIRE THE HAUNTS OF MEN THE CAMBRIC MASK OUTSIDERS THE CONSPIRATORS CARDIGAN THE MAID-AT-ARMS OUTDOOR-LAND THE MAIDS OF PARADISE ORCHARD-LAND FOREST LAND IOLE THE FIGHTING CHANCE MOUNTAIN LAND THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS THE TREE OF HEAVEN THE FIRING LINE SOME LADIES IN HASTE THE DANGER MARK THE SPECIAL MESSENGER HIDE AND SEEK IN FORESTLAND THE GREEN MOUSE AILSA PAIGE BLUE-BIRD WEATHER JAPONETTE THE STREETS OF ASCALON ADVENTURES OF A MODEST MAN THE BUSINESS OF LIFE THE COMMON LAW THE GAY REBELLION WHO GOES THERE? THE HIDDEN CHILDREN ATHALIE POLICE!!! THE GIRL PHILIPPA THE BARBARIANS THE RESTLESS SEX THE MOONLIT WAY IN SECRET THE CRIMSON TIDE THE SLAYER OF SOULS THE LITTLE RED FOOT THE FLAMING JEWEL THE TALKERS ERIS

SOURCES ON ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

Hugh Walpole: An Appreciation, by Joseph Hergesheimer, GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY.

English Literature During the Last Half Century, by J. W. Cunliffe, THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

A Hugh Walpole Anthology, selected by the author. LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY.

Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist. Pamphlet published by GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY.

Who's Who .

UNIQUITIES

"Josephus Daniels always was an optimist about navy affairs while he was Secretary of the Navy from 1913 to 1921, and now that he has told what the navy did during the world war he demonstrates in his narrative that he is a good sport. For in spite of the many and bitter attacks that were made on him in that troubled time he does not make a single reference to any of them, nor does he wreak any such revenge as he might have done through this medium. In this respect it may be said that truly does he live up to the description of his character set down in the pages of Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske's autobiography, namely, that 'Secretary Daniels impressed me as being a Christian gentleman.'

"But Mr. Daniels's history has one great merit that these other books lack. This is that it tells in its 374 pages the complete story of the work of the navy in the world war, giving so many details and so much precise information about officers and their commands, ships of all classes and just what they did, the valuable contributions made to the winning of the war by civilians, that it makes a special place for itself, a very special place, in any library or shelf devoted to war books."

"The author writes from personal observation in Russia and discloses much of the life of the day in that country which heretofore has remained undisclosed to the world. He has met and interviewed Lenine and Trotsky themselves, shows us the individuality of these great Bolshevist leaders and tells us much of the life of the people and of the social conditions and tendencies in that distressful country.

"Next he crosses to Poland, another undiscovered country, and shows us the new Poland, its aims and its struggles to emerge from a state almost of anarchy into one of a rational democracy. Very little do we of this country know of the new nation of Tcheko-Slovakia, but Dr. Guest has travelled through it also and shows us the two sections, one cultured, the other more backward, but both working together to form a modern democratic nation.

"The distressful condition of Austria and the Austrians now suffering for the sins of the Hapsburgs, is next shown forth. Vienna, once the capital of a vast empire and the seat of a great imperial court, was suddenly reduced to the level of the capital of a small agricultural, inland state, a condition productive of great suffering. The conditions here are shown to differ much from those in other countries, for the dismemberment of Austria was not brought about by the act of the Allies, but of their own people. The causes of the suffering are fully explained, as are also the causes of similar conditions in Hungary, in Roumania, in Bulgaria and in other countries affected by the economic and political upheavals following the war. That democracy in Europe will finally triumph Dr. Guest feels certain and he gives lucid reasons for the faith that is in him. He gives a broadly intelligent analysis of the entire situation and finds that the essential conditions of success of a democracy are peace, education and adequate nutrition. But he shows that a great problem exists which must be worked out; and he shows how it must be worked out. Dr. Guest is not alone a thinker, but an observer; not a theorist, but a man of practical understanding, who has studied a problem at first hand and shows it forth simply but comprehensively and with an eye single to the needs of humanity."

"Generally, however, especially for the most important periods and the most thrilling events in Melville's life, Mr. Weaver has been compelled to depend upon the books the man wrote.

"The first chapter deals at length with the changes made in the admiralty that the organisation might be logical and smooth working to avoid conflict of authority, to have no necessary service neglected, to provide the necessary corps of investigators of new devices, and above all to free the first Sea Lord and his assistants of a mass of detail that their efforts might be concentrated on the larger questions.

"The appendices are of value and interesting because they show the organisation at different periods and emphasise the fact that the Naval Staff at the end of the war was the result of trial and error, natural growth, and at least one radical change adopted during the war.

"That a campaign against the enemy must be waged with every means at hand; that new weapons must be continually sought; that no 'cure-all' by which the enemy may be defeated without fighting can be expected; that during war is the poorest time to provide the material which should be provided during peace, the Admiral shows in a manner not to be gainsaid.

"'It is no reflection on the personal courage of the Commander-in-Chief that he should be moved by the consideration of saving his ships. The existence of the Grand Fleet was, of course, essential to the Allied cause, and there was a heavy weight of responsibility hanging on its use. But again it is a matter of naval doctrine. Did the British fleet exist merely to maintain a numerical preponderance over its enemy or to crush that enemy--whatever the cost? If the Battle of Jutland receives the stamp of approval as the best that could have been done, then the British or the American officer of the future will know that he is expected primarily to "play safe." But he will never tread the path of Blake, Hawke, or Nelson, the men who made the traditions of the Service and forged the anchors of the British Empire.'

"One factor in the success of the antisubmarine campaign is not mentioned, important as it proved to be. This was the policy adopted by the Allies of not giving out the news that any U-boat was captured or otherwise accounted for. Confronted with this appalling veil of mystery the morale of the German submarine crews became seriously affected; volunteering for this service gradually ceased; arbitrary detail grew necessary; greatly lessened efficiency resulted.

"The authors are to be congratulated on producing a volume which should be in the hands of all naval officers of the coming generation; on the shelves of all who take interest in the development of history; and of statesmen upon whom may eventually rest the responsibility of heeding or not heeding the teachings of Mahan as here sympathetically and cleverly brought up to date."

THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN, STEPHEN MCKENNA

"In this story Lady Ann is playing the social game, and it is a tribute to the skill of Mr. McKenna that at the end we hope that the Princess will be sufficiently curious about her new 'frame and setting' to continue her visits.... We have used the word 'story' because Lady Ann reports her machinations while they are in progress and we are a little nervous about the issue. Her main service, however, lies in the pictures she draws of her own highly placed relatives and of a number of people who at house parties and elsewhere may help ladies of title to make both ends meet. Chief among them is her son Will, who even as seen through her partial eyes, appears a very dishonest, paltry boy. Her blind devotion to him humanises both her shrewdness and her selfishness. It is for his sake that she separates her niece from the fine young soldier she is in love with and that she almost succeeds in providing the King's Proctor with the materials for an intervention that would secure to him the estates and title of his fox-hunting uncle. There is always a plain tale to put her down and always the friend of proved discretion is left with the impression that the tale is the invention of malice; at least we suppose she must be, for Lady Ann is allowed by people to whom she has done one injury to remain in a position to do them another. The difficult medium employed by Mr. McKenna entitles him, however, to count on the co-operation of the reader; and it is to be accorded the more readily that to it we owe the felicity of having her own account of the steps she took to prevent an attractive but expensive widow from running away with her husband, and of the party which she gave, according to plan, to the Princess and, not according to plan, to other guests let loose on her by her scapegrace brother-in-law."

He was a scholar of Westminster and an exhibitioner of Christ Church, Oxford. After he had taken his degree, his father, Leopold McKenna, an elder brother of the Right Honourable Reginald McKenna, K. C., the last Liberal Chancellor of the British Exchequer, made it possible for him to travel desultorily and to try his luck in the great literary adventure.

On the outbreak of the war, as his health, which is delicate to the point of frailness, debarred him from entering the army, Stephen McKenna first volunteered for service at his old school, and, after a year, joined the staff of the War Trade Intelligence Department, where he did valuable war work for three and a half years. He represented his department on the Right Honourable A. J. Balfour's mission in 1917, to the United States, where he enjoyed himself thoroughly and made himself very popular; and he did not sever his connection with the government service until February, 1919, four months after the conclusion of the armistice.

Writing from 11, Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, London, in 1920, Mr. McKenna had this to say about his trilogy:

In person, Stephen McKenna is tall, with a slender figure, Irish blue eyes, fair hair, regular features and a Dante profile. He has an engaging and very courteous address, a sympathetic manner, a ready but always urbane wit and great conversational charm. He possesses the rare accomplishment of "talking like a book." His intimates are legion; and, apart from these, he knows everyone who "counts" in London society. He is known never to lose his temper; and it is doubtful whether he has ever had cause to lose it.

His one recreation is the Opera; and during the London season his delightful chambers in Lincoln's Inn are the almost nightly scene of parties collected then and there from the opera house.

"Lady Ann : You have toiled all the way here again? Do you know, I feel I am only beginning to find out who my true friends are? I am much, much better.... On Friday I am to be allowed on to the sofa and by the end of next week Dr. Richardson promises to let me go back to Mount Street. Of course I should have liked the operation to take place there--it is one's frame and setting, but, truly honestly, Arthur and I have not been in a position to have any painting or papering done for so long.... The surgeon insisted on a nursing home. Apparatus and so on and so forth.... Quite between ourselves I fancy that they make a very good thing out of these homes; but I am so thankful to be well again that I would put up with almost any imposition....

"Everything went off too wonderfully. Perhaps you have seen my brother Brackenbury? Or Ruth? Ah, I am sorry; I should have been vastly entertained to hear what they were saying, what they dared say. Ruth did indeed offer to pay the expenses of the operation--the belated prick of conscience!--and it was on the tip of my tongue to say we are not yet dependent on her spasmodic charity. Also, that I can keep my lips closed about Brackenbury without expecting a--tip? But they know I can't afford to refuse ?500.... If they, if everybody would only leave one alone! Spied on, whispered about....

"Do you know, beyond saying that, I would much rather not talk about it? This very modern frankness.... Not you, of course! But when a man like my brother-in-law Spenworth strides in here a few hours before the anaesthetic is administered and says 'What is the matter with you? Much ado about nothing, I call it.' ... That from Arthur's brother to Arthur's wife, when, for all he knew, he might never see her alive again.... I prefer just to say that everything went off most satisfactorily and that I hope now to be better than I have been for years...."

BOOKS BY STEPHEN MCKENNA

SOURCES ON STEPHEN MCKENNA

Private Information.

POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS

I have to tell about a number of poets and, regarding poets, I agree with a very clever woman I know who declares that poetry is the most personal of the arts and who further says that it is manifestly inadequate to talk about a poet's work without giving a sample of his poetry. So, generally, I shall quote one of the shorter poems or a passage from a longer poem.

Winter in Castile Nights by Bassano Translations from the Spanish of Antonio Machado Vagones de Tercera Quai de la Tournelle Of Foreign Travel Phases of the Moon

I will select for quotation the sixth or final poem dedicated to A. K. McC. from the section entitled "Quai de la Tournelle,"

This is a garden where through the russet mist of clustered trees and strewn November leaves, they crunch with vainglorious heels of ancient vermilion the dry dead of spent summer's greens, and stalk with mincing sceptic steps, and sound of snuffboxes snapping to the capping of an epigram, in fluffy attar-scented wigs ... the exquisite Augustans.

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