Monthly Reviewed by Prof. Walz

The Harvard Monthly for November is a distinctly creditable number. In the opening article on "Cross-Country Running at Harvard," M. S. Crosby points out the advantages of this democratic sport and deplores the fact that in the past comparatively few men have participated in it. With the exception of a few awkward sentences, the language is clear and to the point. L. Grandgent's essay, "The Noble Instinct," is a skillful arraignment of the twentieth century huntsmen, without being controversial in form. It would be difficult to disprove the arguments, though more might be said in favor of the hunter. The style is in keeping with the thought, vigorous and dignified. In a "Letter from a Captain of Industry to his Literary Friend," W. M. E. Perkins makes a strong plea for the life of action as against the life of contemplation. The captain of industry rather overshoots the mark. Few would agree with the assertion that "now, here in America, those who make this nation what it is, the greatest of world powers, turn their energies to commerce." This would exclude men like Roosevelt and several others, to whom posterity will doubtless grant at least a modest share in the making of present day America. The fundamental fallacy of the captain's reasoning is the assumption that the life of action is necessarily dissociated from the life of contemplation, and vice versa. R. Altrocchi's "Western Fable" is impressive. "Old Doc. Barber" has a dramatic way of telling his story and his simple, if uncouth, language adds force to the moral. The point of the story, though not novel, is certainly unusual. It reminds one of Bret Harte, or to compare small things with great, of Goethe's "The God and the Rayadere." L. Simonson's "Death and the Young Man" is a fairly successful attempt at a modern reproduction of the "Dance of Death," a difficult task. There is an atmosphere of weirdness and mystery about the showman and his tent in the great forest; but the author fails to vitalize sufficiently the figure of the young man. "The Inevitable," by E. B. Sheldon, is a pleasing little sketch portraying in symbolic form the passing of childhood. The only fiction in this number is "The Man Who Won," by H. B. Child. The story has a good climax, but the characters do not stand out clearly.¡

V. W. Brook's poem, "Half-Sight," haffles the understanding of the reviewer. The title seems appropriate. H. Hagedorn's "The Confession" is a remarkably well sustained poem, considering the difficulty of the subject. It rises

in places to real pathos; at times, however, the writer is not equal to the tragic situation. E. E. Hunt's little poem, "With a Gift of Shakespeare's Sonnets," is decidedly above the average of undergraduate poetry, while A. W. Murdock's "Hymn to Life" is conventional in subject matter and sometimes obscure in language. J. H. Wheelock's "Sea-Poems" contain some good passages, but there is too much self-consciousness in the poems.

The editorial criticises the habit a few Harvard teachers have of interpolating their lectures "with examples of that variety of facetiousness, which is, to say the least, in questionable taste." Public criticism of teachers on the part of Harvard students has generally been marked by fairness and sincerity. This is eminently true in the present case. The reviewer's own experience as a student at Harvard makes him believe that there is foundation for the censure; but the writer would have strengthened his case and improved his editorial, had he avoided such phrases as "rickety and epileptical morality," "cataclastic convulsion," "temporary tetanus of the entire intellectual functions."

There is an appreciative notice of Barrett Wendell's latest work, "The France of Today," and a bit of severe but just criticism of a volume of poems by the young German-American poet, George Sylvester Viereck. The latter notice is a model of a book review. On barely a page we are given in telling sentences a characterization of the man and his poetry, without the omission of anything really essential