... . Something, surely, besides the state of the liver must be responsible for our recurrent periods of consciousness of the overflowing beauty of the world. The tops of the daffodil leaves, the Italian pictures, a royal sunset, scraps of the Kreutzer Sonata floating from a window and pulsing on through eternity in the ether, the caked mud of paddocks drying on the winter coats of old horses, the ...

... The spate of sequels, answers, imitations and other volumes stimu lated by the Remarque masterpiece seems, as yet, to show no signs of abatement Mr. JAMES LAVER makes his bow Introducing to our readers a new re viewer who takes for the theme of his first article briefly recommended Australia To-day, by Arthur J. Wilson. (Larby. 5s. net.) Which is an invaluable vade mecum to the traveller, ...

... writes on ARISTOCRATS NEGROES with particular reference to Dumas, Mirabeau, and the seventeenth century The French aristocrat is a figure of history. He lives as a character in a novel lives, by a completeness of structural develop ment. The system which he re presented was pushed to its logical extreme, and whether we like it or not, it produced a type which, within its limitations, and ...

... BOOKS MR. JAMES LAVER our new liter ary critic discusses pastorals and a tale of the great city SHEPHERD KINGS AND WAN DERING SHEEP Sheila Kaye-Smith, Ephesian, Jabot- insky and others The New Testament has a per ennial fascination for a certain kind of serious writer, and the story of Jesus has been told many times, without ever adding very much of vividness or anything else to the familiar ...

... By JAMES LAVER TCagner, Casanova, Sand, and an anti- American Satire Casanova was not what is usually meant by an artist and many would deny that he was ever in love, but he put almost his whole life in the pursuit of women, and the fag-end of it in the composition of his memoirs, a masterpiece of lively narrative and skilful arrangement. A new edition of Arthur Machen's English version, ...

... JAMES LAVEK offers BOOKS of tU WEEK Historians of the twentieth century will find much to marvel at in the astonishing effect of the Russian Ballet. It introduced Western Europe to a new world of legend, profoundly modified its conception of the theatre, and even dictated the colour of the cushions in suburban boarding-houses. Even before Diaghileff died it was obvious that the ballet he ...

... MEN WAR WITH GODS Napoleon and Eleven Others Richelieu And Three Literary Jokes By JAMES LAYER After half a century in opposi tion Car lylism-- the wor ship of great men --seems to be com ing into its own again. Hist ori- ans and those who work on the fringe of history are tired of tendencies, mass-movements, and economic interpretations. Even the disciples of Marx bow the knee to Lenin, as if ...

... THE SPHERE of BOOKS By JAMES LAVER Some Victorians and Eleanora Duse Lord Mel bourne is only a Victorian at all because he was the Queen's first Prime Minister. An engaging picture of him was given by Mr. Lytton Strachey, but there was room for the admira ble biography which has just been published --Lord Mel bourne, by Bert ram Newman (Macmillan. 12s. 6d. net). To many the most interesting ...

... and another war book by JAMES LAYER Mr. Mottram is a distinguished writer, and anything that comes from the pen of the author of The Spanish Farm is worth reading. His new novel, Europa's Beast (Chatto and Windus. 7s. 6d. net), is no exception. No one has more sensitive fingers for the texture of English life than Mr. Mottram; no one knows more exactly the position of those who live in the new ...

... Black Bread and Samovars, by Kendall Foss. (Arrow- smith. 7s. 6d.net.) The record of an unconventional journey from Leningrad to the Black Sea. Not for the author and his companion the luxury or quasi-luxury that even a Com munistic State can boast, but the third-class carriage and the bed where it might be found. Mr. Foss has skilfully avoided criticism on the one hand and eulogy on the other ...

... The Mechanism of Nature, by E. N. da C. Andrade. (Bell. 6s. net.)-- It is of great assist ance to the layman if the great physical discoveries can be interpreted to him in terms intelligible to his limitations. This volume performs such signal service for the science of physics. The Genuine in Shakespeare A Con spectus, by M. Robertson. (Routledge. 6s. net.)-- This is a careful effort to ...

... A VENETIAN IDYLL and Some Other Excursions in BOOKS by I thought I knew Venice, not the Venice of Lido Excel sior, Danieli's Bar, Florian's, and the Luna Dancing, but the Venice where you turn a corner and stumble upon the fifteenth century. Mr. Victor Cunard has taken the old Palazzo Vendramini in Carmina, and brought back its splendour as when Henri de Regnier lived on its mezzanine floor ...