mander," is a series of twenty sketches, written with vivacity and humor, describing the writer's experiences from his departure for the western front, through the fighting of Aisne, to his return in an ambulance and his days in a hospital. "The Epic of Dixmude" by Charles Le Goffic, translated by Florence Simmonds, and illustrated by a map and a dozen or more full page pictures, tells the thrilling and amazing story of the brigade of six thousand French sailors, turned infantrymen, who, with five thousand Belgians, held three German army corps at bay for over a fortnight, with a courage which took no account of risks. "In the Field (19141915)" by Marcel Dupont, translated by H. W. Hill, gives the impressions of an officer of light cavalry in the early weeks of the war. The story is told in eight chapters, each devoted to a single episode and of independent interest, yet knit together as parts of an individual experience. It would be hard to say which of the three books is the most absorbing. They are all touched with sentiment of the highest character, and breathe a courage which stops at nothing. They differ from the dispatches and books of the war correspondents, because they are written by men who have been, not observers merely, but actors in the scenes described; and their directness and simplicity give them a keen and poignant interest.

The art critics and the music teachers of America should be thankful for the lessons taught in Mr. James Lane Allen's "A Cathedral Singer," for through them both the conscience and the ability of many a careless student will be aroused and his spirit touched to finer issues. The captious reader instantly objects that he does not read stories that his spirit may be touched to

daily troubles, and at the same time enjoy a work of art; but forgetfulness of anything but his work is exactly what Mr. Allen has always been able to effect, and in "A Cathedral Singer," he plays on more than one of the most sensitive heart-strings. The "Singer" is a southern boy, living with his mother in the shadow of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, now rising on Morningside Heights, New York, and hoping some day to become a chorister. He is all boy, but a musician; she is all mother, but a musician also, able to estimate his wonderful voice, and to cultivate it until she can entrust it to a better teacher than herself. The choirmaster of the Cathedral and the great painter for whom she becomes a model discourse brilliantly on their arts, but always the boy and his mother are the central figures in the picture, the chord dominating the theme. Even the two masters are chiefly concerned about them, and the girlish art students worship their model. But after the beautiful little tale is read, one returns to the talk of the two teachers to study its lessons in life and in the arts. Mr. Allen has written a book from which one might make a calendar, with a quotation and a picture for every day in the year, but it has less than 140 pages. The frontispiece by Sigismond de Ivanowski is a sympathetic reproduction of one of the author's best passages. The real Cathedral is pictured on the cover. The Century Co.

To the "Mind and Health Series" Little, Brown & Company add a brief but cheerful treatise on "The Influence of Joy," by George Van Ness Dearborn, M.D., which explains the bodily effects of joy,-its influence on nutrition, on the circulation and on the nervous system; and urges the necessity of joy in work and play, and the elimination of worry.