Americana, but is exhibited in a case in the library itself. Of especial interest also is A Short Dictionary of the Indian Language used within the Chessiopiock Bay (which forms part of a Bodleian manuscript of Strachey's History of Virginia). R. Cushman's Sermon preached at Plimouth in New England December 9, 1621, London, 1622, is noteworthy as the first sermon preached in North America to be printed. Contemporary with this is G. Mouart's Relation or Journall . . of the English Plantation settled at Plimouth, London, 1622, of which a somewhat torn copy was sold for $700 (£140). Earlier than any of these in point of date is Hariot's Briefe and true report of the Newfound Land of Virginia, Frankfort, 1590, with de Bry's fine engraving.

'Main Street' Through English Eyes

[From the Observer]

It is not a flattering or an heroic picture, but neither is it sordid. It is just a picture of a dull and self-satisfied small community, whose sins were not striking, and whose manners were bad. We could produce such small-town sets here, but we have, perhaps, rather less call it vivacity in commenting on the stranger and in asserting our own excellence. Carol, the city girl who married Dr. Will Kennicott, of Gopher Prairie, has no startling experiences. Hardly ever in fiction has there been a fuller or more candidly ordinary history than hers, as told by Sinclair Lewis. And it is rather long. And much of the language and manners are strange enough to give English readers an alien feeling. So much for the book's drawbacks.

power of presenting persons whom we recognize as real, and know just as well as we know our neighbors, which is certainly not psychologically. And we stand aghast before the lifelikeness of their conversation. 'Oh, do you really think so? Lots of folks jolly me for trying to get up shows and so on. Just yesterday I was saying to Harry Haydock, if he would read poetry like Longfellow, or if he would join the band - I get so much pleasure out of playing the cornet- and our band leader, Del Snafflin, is such a good musician, he could play the clarinet in Minneapolis, or New York, or anywhere.'

Carol had had ideals of improving this town its hideous main street and its self-satisfaction, its parties, where everyone sat in a circle and did 'stunts' (during the winter Carol was to hear Dave Dyer's hen-catching impersonation seven times, 'An Old Sweetheart of Mine' nine times, the Jewish story of the funeral oration twice), its clothes, and its manners, and its menus. But Main Street, Gopher Prairie, says the author's Foreword, is a continuation of Main Streets everywhere. The story would be the same in Ohio or Montana, in Kansas, or Kentucky, or Illinois. Main Street is the climax of civilization. What Ole Jenson, the grocer, says to Ezra Stowbody, the banker, is the new law for London, Prague, and the unprofitable isles of the sea; whatsoever Ezra does not know and sanction, that thing is heresy, worthless for knowing, and wicked to consider.'

It was all those Main Streets that Carol was up against. America, perhaps, has at least a willingness to allow its native born to point out its faults. Certainly, Gopher Prairie must shuffle its feet, restlessly, if it reads 'Main Street.' Or perhaps it would ignore the heresy? At any rate, Carol's conflict

with it is immensely exhilarating to read about. The novel is one of sane humor and shrewd strokes, and its avoidance of the heroic, its use of ordinary motives, and weaknesses, and decencies, are the measure of its quality.

More Fairy Photographs

[From the Times]

So much has been heard of the Yorkshire fairies, and so little has been seen of them, that it was not surprising that the display of their portraits in a hall in London should draw an eager and even an excited audience. The pictures of the 'little people' were shown yesterday with the aid of a magic lanternsurely in this case an instrument well named in the hall of the Theosophical Society at 153 Brompton Road, S.W.3. Mr. E. L. Gardner, himself a firm believer, after long investigation, in the reality of fairies and in the genuineness of these photographs of them, gave a short lecture while the pictures were shown. In the spring, an attempt is to be made to film the fairies and so establish, once and for ever, the hard fact of their existence and visibility. The first photographs shown were taken in 1917, and Mr. Gardner said that the father - Mr. Carpenter- of the children who saw the fairies and photographed them was so astonished, when developing the plates, by what he saw on them that he left them in the dark room for eighteen months. But yesterday, a large audience was able to share in his astonishment. They saw a picture of a gnome hopping on to the knee of a young girl who was sitting on the grass in a Yorkshire dell. The child told Mr. Gardner that the gnome wore black tights and a red jacket; he also had a scarlet cap and had wings like a moth's. In his left hand he carried a

pair of Pan's pipes. All this was shown clearly enough on the screen; and a photograph of the winged gnome many

times enlarged from the original was also exhibited. Inquirers had wanted to know the source and texture of fairy clothing. The lecturer said it was of the substance of themselves.

Later on, one saw a ring of fairies gambolling on a grassy bank where one of the children knelt to watch them. One incredulous spectator dug into his memory and recalled such a band danc ing on a poster round a night light. Another fairy, photographed alone, had excellently bobbed hair and wore a dark gown of stylish cut.

In a further picture there was shown a band of 'little people' playing among flowers. This was a photograph taken last August especially for Mr. Gardner. One of the fairies was half hidden in a cocoon, which the lecturer explained was a sort of health-giving bath used by them after bad weather. Witnesses in Scotland, and the New Forest had testified to seeing the same sight. Mr. Gardner declared that the plates from which the slides were made had been submitted to every test to detect fraud. None had been discovered.

But what are fairies? The actual clear perception of them is claimed to be possible only to people with clairvoyant sight. They can be photographed only if they become, with clairvoyant aid, partially materialized. Their duties are concerned with the color, growth, and shape of flowers. They have a definite task in the scheme of nature, and are subject to evolution. They live on a very humble level, and are about as intelligent as a Newfound land dog. The matter composing a fairy's body is plastic to thought. Cur rents of human thought give fairies the form in which they are seen by the clairvoyant.

That is the definition, in brief, of Mr. A. P. Sinnett, who presided at the lecture. If it satisfies adults, will it not bitterly disappoint children?

1

Mr. George Moore

Ing Heloise and Abelard, privately printed in two volumes, and costing sixty-three shillings, has just been the issued by Mr. George Moore.

CONSIDERABLE attention is being paid to the revelations of Marguerite Volf, who predicts that France will have a king in fifteen years, and that the Divinity will appear in France. M. Clemenceau is a reincarnation of Robespierre, and M. Millerand of Louis XIV. M. Maurice Barrès was once Danton. Debussy was not only Mozart, but also Michael-Angelo and Peter the Great. Paul Adam, the fine French writer who recently died, was, in a former life, Socrates. Regularly, Mlle. Volf summons to her the great men of history - presumably those who are not reincarnated such as Pindar, Homer, and Plutarch. She is compelled to spend twelve thousand francs a year for candles and incense, in order to preserve the right vibratory atmosphere which makes possible these revelations. Sans commentaire.

Anecdote for the Day

SIR HENRY LAYARD had a short way with omniscient youths, who gushed over Cimabue, Giotto, Daniele da Volterra. 'Do you seriously think,' he would ask with his rasping drawl, 'that any of them can compare with Mortadella da Bologna?' Some would fall into the trap and discourse on the chiaroscuro of that great artist; others, more honest, would invite scorn by

confessing ignorance of his work. It was only when they reached home that they discovered that 'mortadella' was

a sausage.

Old Cat Care, Outside the Cottage
By Richard Hughes

May prowl and glare

GREEN-EYED Care

And poke his snub, be-whiskered nose:
But Door fits tight
Against the Night:
Through criss-cross cracks no evil goes.

Window is small: No room at all

For Worry and Money, his shoulderbones: Chimney is wide,

But Smoke's inside,

And happy Smoke would strangle his

moans.

Be-whiskered Care
May prowl out there:
But I never heard

He caught the Blue Bird.

The Blue Guides

READERS of this magazine who intend to visit Europe this summer will find available for their use a new series of International Guide Books known as the Blue Guides. They are printed in England, and have been prepared by Dr. Muirhead, who was long the editor of the English Baedekers. Skilfully planned, up to date, and accurate, the Blue Guides are more than a help; they are a necessity to the intelligent tourist.

I

A GREAT many people are just now discussing psycho-analysis at a disadvantage. Most of the books and even the articles written about this subject pass, the reader will notice, straight to a discussion of some such question as 'Should the Psycho-Analyst tell?' 'Is psycho-analysis to be admitted to our public schools?' 'Domestic peace and psycho-analysis.' Such books and articles, in the absence of any definition of psycho-analysis, or of the technical words employed, leave the reader with, at best, a vague sense of edification from having been a witness of profound discussion between better-informed persons. At worst, he begins to suspect the writers of not being quite as scientifically minded as they would have us believe. The two following articles by a beginner for beginners-are for those who want to read, and still more to discuss, psycho-analysis, but who are, in the first place, not sure if the whole subject is not slightly morbid, and who, in the second place, do not know where to begin.

First of all, what is meant by the word psycho-analysis? The definition of a word should be a report on the facts. The word seems, at present, to be generally loosely used to signify the application of ordinary scientific methods to mental phenomena. After the Dark Ages, people ceased, once more, to think of ordinary mental experience or mental disease as the work of inscrutable supernatural creatures, de

mons, incubi, witches, or, on the other hand, angels and guardian spirits. They then began to wonder what were the causes of the more striking mental oddities such as genius, madness, dreams, prophecies, or even such things as æsthetic pleasures.

Physiologists were the first to take up the work of inquiry from a scientific point of view, and it was hoped that phrenology would result, at least, in the cure of many forms of madness. But the study of bumps and even of brain-cells proved very disappointing, and men of science have now started along another line of inquiry. They have begun, like the poet and the novelist, to ask what are the 'fantastic tricks' which men play before high heaven. The psycho-analyst takes conduct as his data. He regards the facts and circumstances of the hallucination, or the loss of memory, or of the ability to repeat Paradise Lost at first reading as the facts to be studied. He does not measure the patient's head or feel his bumps. And here we must make a further explanation. It is sometimes assumed that psycho-analysis is only concerned with the abnormal. Why has this idea arisen? In the first place, "They that are whole need not a physician.' Again, when we want to study a piece of matter, we put it under a microscope to make it seem larger. When we are studying states of mind, it is often convenient, allowing for probable distortions, to consider cases in which ordinary mental processes are exaggerated, or simplified. It is for this reason

that cases of hysterical or shell-shocked patients are nearly always cited in books on psycho-analysis to illustrate an argument, and not because the science is ultimately concerned most with them.

Psycho-analysts, then, are applying the ordinary methods of science to the facts of behavior. First, that is, they are observing and recording facts of conduct in both normal and abnormal people. Secondly, they are trying to discover which, among these phenomena, are related to one another, and to group them accordingly;-thirdly, to devise a hypothesis to explain as many as possible of the facts that have been found out, and by means of which further facts (that for some reason cannot be demonstrated) can be inferred. Here, again, we find a stumbling-block for the non-scientist. We laymen demand far too much from a scientific hypothesis. We can put up with the complete obvious fiction of the equator, but we distrust such equivocal things as ether waves or inhibitions which may or may not exist, but the assumption of whose existence is practically so useful to the scientist.

But, if we can tell a mineralogist or an entomologist that certain broad conclusions reached by means of psycho-analysis range a great number of apparently isolated facts into a coherent whole; further, that with our hypothesis we can build syllogisms which generally prove to correspond to, as yet, unknown facts, he will be satisfied. And all this we can say of the initial steps which have been taken by psycho-analysis. When the layman wants to be sure that there is such a thing as a 'complex,' or a 'repression,' before he will allow it to be thought of, he is in reality confusing two groups of things points of view and factsdemanding proofs of the first which can only be demanded of the second.

For convenience of dissection, then, psycho-analysts regard the personality as divided, primarily, into consciousness and subconsciousness. They give the name of subconsciousness to that part of the personality which is chiefly concerned with instinct. If the reader wishes to assure himself of the existence of this subconsciousness, let him try the following experiment, which will show him how easily his own conscious mind may be cheated. Take a piece of paper, draw a circle on it, then draw a cross within the circle. Mark the ends of the cross A, B and C, D, then take a long pencil, a piece of stick or a knitting needle and tie on to the end of it a piece of string about eighteen inches long. On the other end of the string tie some small, fairly heavy objectif possible something bright — a small glass lustre off a chandelier, a locket, or a small brass ornament will do very well. Sit down with the piece of paper in front of you on a table, hold the pencil as if it were a fishing-rod, and let the little bright object dangle over the centre of the cross. When he is in position, the experimenter, without making any particular mental effort, must let his eye travel from A to B and from B to A, meanwhile holding the rod quite still. After about a minute, with most people, the little weight begins to swing from A to B and back again. When he is satisfied of this, if the experimenter lets his eye follow the line C, D, the little plumbline will be found also to change its direction; again, if he let his eye travel round the circle it will follow the direction of his eyes again.

There is, of course, nothing occult in the whole affair, but it is a rather striking proof of the way in which a perfectly normal, honest, well-intentioned person can be made to cheat by his subconsciousness, for the experimenter will be ready to swear that he