I'm sure you are as dear as anyone else's husband; but I don't always fuss about it. . . . The men I admire are the ones who do the un-showing jobs, the dirty jobs, the dull jobs, the ill-paid jobs, and such like, with a cheerful face and no complaints. They are the truly noble and their reward comes after."

As we see things, we should be unjust if we did not say that the Government have shown a constant mind. Admit,

if you like, that there has been a want of forethought and a want of imagination, so that there was again and again a failure to perceive how the situation was sure to look a few months ahead and a failure to provide for inevitable needs. Even state the case, if you please, in harsher terms, and say that there was lethargy and an incurable willingness to drift. Still, we assert that there has been real constancy of mind. Mr. Asquith has kept his Cabinets together in a masterly fashion. The Spectator.

He has never encouraged recrimination or given an excuse for internal disloyalty in the blackest days. It might have been easy to find men who had fire and tremendous driving-force and overmastering impulses, but could we have found men on the whole with more constancy of mind than those who have directed the war? Brilliance often undoes itself; energy that is without caution spoils as much as it achieves. Mr. Asquith has never ceased to display the virtues of his defects; he has never for a moment been "rattled," never in a phrase confessed despondency or suggested panic to the minds of others. He has sometimes misread the facts, but he has never puzzled the nation by oscillating between the extremes of complacency and despair. His disparagers have been as numerous as the counts of their indictment but "nor number, nor example with him wrought to swerve from truth."

F. S. Salisbury's "Rambles in the Vaudese Alps" (E. P. Dutton & Company) is an enthusiastic record of Alpine wanderings which differs from most books of the sort in that, while it dwells with delight upon the beauty and grandeur of the scenery, it enters into a minute study of the Alpine flora. The eight illustrations, from photographs by Somerville Hastings, reproduce specimens of rare flowers.

The substance of the volume by John Koren on "Alcohol and Society" (Henry Holt & Company) has appeared in a series of papers in The Atlantic Monthly, calling out a great deal of more or less acrimonious discussion. Mr. Koren is not exactly a special pleader, but he has strong convictions on the subject of the regulation of the liquor

traffic, and he has collected a large amount of information relating to the results of various experiments in different countries. This information, and the conclusions to which it leads him, he presents with clearness and force; and readers who dissent from his conclusions will nevertheless find food for thought in his data.

Professor James H. Morgan's book on "German Atrocities" (E. P. Dutton & Company) presents the fruits of official investigation, and is based on official documents-German, French, Belgian and British-including an analysis of the German Official White Book, and supplemented by a chapter of depositions and statements, here published for the first time. A review and unqualified endorsement of the

book, by Viscount Bryce, published as an appendix, will be to most American readers a sufficient voucher for the accuracy of Professor Morgan's statements. Such acts of brutality as are here recorded would have seemed incredible, two years ago, as an accompaniment of war among civilized nations, and it may be hoped that, a generation hence, they will seem equally incredible. But they are, unhappily, too well attested to be ignored; and, revolting though the story of them is, it is well that it should be recorded as a part of the history of the great war.

Ex-President Taft's discussion of the duties, powers, opportunities and limitations of "The Presidency" (Charles Scribner's Sons) is a book of modest size, which might be read in an hour or two, but it is more illuminating than many volumes of formidable dimensions, for it embodies the fruits of personal experience. It is written, moreover, in that spirit of genial humor which pervades most of Mr. Taft's utterances. He opens with a reference to Mr. Squeers' practice in Dotheboys Hall, of requiring a boy first to spell "winders" and then to go and clean "winders," in order that the subject might be well fixed in his mind; and he explains that he has reversed the process, and, having tried to clean the "winders" he is here making an effort to spell the word. In this effort he has succeeded admirably, and whoever reads his little treatise will gain from it a new idea of all that the Presidency involves its trials, perplexities and possibilities. The substance of the volume was given, in a course of three lectures, at the University of Virginia last year.

In his preface to his latest book, "Under the Apple-Trees" (Houghton Mifflin Company) John Burroughs expresses the conviction that the majority of his readers would have him always stick to natural history themes, and he admits that he sympathizes with them.

He is quite right; for it is as an observer and reporter of what is going on in the natural world that his readers have best known him. They love to walk with him through the fields and woods, and to listen to his talk about the birds and flowers. But they are not averse to following him sometimes in his reflections upon the reason and the relation of things, especially when, as in the present book, they find a pleasant blend of observation and philosophy, of sympathetic studies of life out-of-doors, and of conjectures and speculations as to how life came to be what it is, or how it came to be at all. The contents of this volume abundantly justify the alluring title. It is a book especially to be read under the apple-trees-if one may find such a spot without trespass-and a reader for whom the philosophy is too taxing has only to turn a page or two to find himself again among the birds and squirrels.

Frank H. Spearman's "Whispering Smith" has a worthy companion in its author's latest novel, "Nan of Music Mountain," a wild story in which everybody carries a small armory about his person, and uses it with effective vigor when attacked or when it suits him to force an attack. The heroine begins her acquaintance with the hero by carrying off the shooting prize at a Frontier Day celebration, a feat especially unpleasant to him, because her outlaw kindred are at feud with the railroad employing him, and cherish an active hatred for him, by virtue of having injured his parents, and of having bad intentions toward their son. The action of the story takes place in Sleepy Cat, which has everything handsome about it in the way of fine railway stations and tracks, and tributary stage lines to bring mails, and treasure from the mines to make it a center of interest to the entire region, and the smallest incident in its history, a matter of prolonged and intricate discussions. Gam

bling rooms it has, and they are the haunt of gentlemen supernaturally gifted in reading human nature, and misguiding their simple fellow creatures, and its name belies it in every way. Mr. Spearman, having provided himself with this excellent material, skilfully uses it. His heroine is no imitation of Lorna Doone, and his hero is not borrowed from Bret Harte. So originally has he arranged his characters and incidents that knowledge of earlier writers in similar fields is misleading, and the school girl can solve the riddle of the book more quickly than the seasoned reader, and to him Mr. Spearman gives a closing chapter affording a new thrill of excellent quality. Charles Scribner's Sons.

James Norman Hall's "Kitchener's Mob" (Houghton Mifflin Company) is one of the liveliest and most graphic narratives of personal experiences in the great war. The writer is an American volunteer in the Royal Fusiliers, who not only caught the spirit and shared the perils of Tommy Atkins, but mastered his vernacular, and reproduces it with ease and accuracy. Readers who want to know just what life in the trenches means, under the conditions of modern warfare, cannot do better than to read this narrative, told without any straining after effect, but vividly and intimately, and also with a frankness possible only to a story which did not have to pass the censor. A narrative like this, told not from behind the firing line, but within it, has a personal appeal unattainable by the most expert newspaper correspondent.

Jack London's "The Little Lady of the Big House" adds one more to the many kinds of fiction in which he has successfully made essay, and gives the season one more spirited novel. The hero is a California land owner who vigorously conducts every sort of agricultural enterprise practicable in

his vast possessions; is his own manager and accountant; builds himself a wonderful house; takes a wonderful wife, proceeds to make himself happier than the gods permit, and succeeds for some twelve years. He is the son of Lucky Richard Forrest, speculator in land, mines and ships, and in boyhood is taught not to waste time in class study, but to use schools purely as places wherein to measure himself against other boys. When, at thirteen years of age, he inherits his father's twenty millions, and is endowed with three guardians and a governess housekeeper, he promptly runs away with his favorite playmate and, with less than ten dollars in his pocket, takes the chances of railway and road. A trestle and a car of extra width speedily bereave him of his comrade, and before he is fourteen years old he is an accomplished cowboy. Tramping eastward alone, he consorts with berry-pickers, jungle birds, criminals and farmers and going back to his guardians compels them to allow him to complete his education by purchasing the most costly instructors wherever he can find them. After he marries, he fills his house with friends who are but one remove from parasites, so long do they use his hospitality, but they do not flatter him and they talk of everything under the skies, to the reader's pleasure and their own. Then the predestined other man comes, and both husband and wife plan suicide. Which gains the grisly prize is Mr. London's secret. He succeeds in showing the possibilities of twenty millions, and what Dead Sea apples they are without the pearl of great price, but he does not preach, and contrives to make a story that is both wildly exciting and instructive in the ways of a mad world wherein men think they may outwit their Maker. "The Little Lady of the Big House" is far beyond any of Mr. London's former novels, both in matter and in treatment. The Macmillan Company.

MASSACHUSETTS

A Fine Sail from Boston

G

LOUCESTER-CAPE ANN!

These

are inspiring names to all who know the traditions of our New England coast. Who has not visited Gloucester? It is one of the most charming trips by water from Boston in the summer season. Boston people go again and again with ever increasing enjoyment, and visitors from other parts of the country should not miss it. The excursion is made by the

Boston & Gloucester
Steamship Company

whose fine steel steamers, "Cape Ann" and "City of Gloucester," leave north side Central Wharf, foot of State Street, every day. (For hours see daily papers.)

The

⚫ route lies along the historic North Shore, passing points of great interest, and Gloucester is reached about noon with time for luncheon and sight-seeing before taking the return steamer. There is much in the picturesque old seaport to interest visitors. The great fishing industries, the quaint streets, the wharves, all attract the sight-seer.

By all means, take the sail to Gloucester