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valley. Below, in a wooded glade lighted by many torches, athletic contests were being held. An impulse seized me to challenge my guide who, in spite of his gray hairs, was a powerful, athletic man. He laughingly accepted, and in a moment I found myself lifted into the air and thrown over his shoulder like a ball. Quickly springing to my feet, however, I succeeded in lifting my companion from the ground. Raising him like a bundle in my arms, I ran toward the shore, shouting that I wished to take him with me. He

resisted desperately, and just before I reached the water I set him down, and springing aboard our ship, waved him farewell. The projecting remnants of an old fortress, which in its day had served also as a prison, protruded from the shore like the prow of a huge ship. A group of people gathered on its bastions, laughingly waving farewell to us with their banners and lanterns. Thus we last saw them as our vessel drew slowly out of the harbor, across a glorious silent sea, resplendent in the light of a full moon.

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LIFE, LETTERS, AND THE ARTS

AMERICAN BOOKS IN ENGLAND

LAST winter the United States sent

been expected and probably as was intended is Mr. H. L. Mencken's

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so many musicians to London that 'the volume, Prejudices, devoted mainly to

American invasion' drew comment from almost every critic. With the close of the musical season, the players have folded their instrument cases and silently stolen away from England, but the winter of American music has been

followed, during the spring publishing season, by American books in almost equal numbers.

Several causes have combined to

produce this result. The best account of them is given by Mr. Arthur Waugh, who (displaying the American influence in his own vocabulary) declares in The Daily Telegraph that the literary invasion is 'all to the good.' Mr. Waugh writes:

As a rule, contemporary American literature has taken some time to penetrate into the insular strongholds of Great Britain; but this year, whether it be because it seemed cheaper to import foreign manufactures than to pay the demands of English printers, or because recent political and social relationships have aroused a new interest in the American point of view, it is, at any rate, certain that transatlantic literature has been flooding London bookshops, and that some of the most provocative books of the season have come to us from overseas. An invasion of this kind is all to the good, al

ways; under present conditions it happens to be particularly stimulating. For no one can venture far to meet this fresh, importunate appeal without realizing that the intellectual life of America is very alertly waking up, that changes of mind and taste are developing over there with astonishing rapidity, and that something very like a literary revolution is in the air.

Among these books the most provocative of controversy as might have

criticism of his contemporaries. In the London Morning Post, a conservative journal which gazes with saddened dismay upon the present generation and most of its works, the reviewer bursts into almost lyrical praise of Mr. Mencken. This writer, who is all too evidently uplifted in heart at the American critic's assault upon "The Late Mr. Wells,' and 'The Ulster Polonius' (this being the discourteous appellation bestowed upon Mr. Bernard Shaw), ends his article: 'What a master of the

straight left in appreciation! Everybody who wishes to see how common

sense about books and authors can be made exhilarating should acquire this delightful book.' He entitles his review 'Straight Lefts.'

That is, doubtless, one way of looking at the matter; but Mr. H. C. Minchin, writing in the Sunday Times has quite another. "This book is a deplorable exhibition of bad temper and bad taste. It is a sign of the times.' Mr. Minchin heads his review - 'Prejudiced!'

Mr. A. B. Walkley, in an article on "The American Critic,' characterizes Mr. Mencken's writing on dramatic subjects as 'notable work,' but complains that although 'serious, well-informed, and thoughtful,' he seems to feel bound to indulge in a style which tends to be a trifle too "smart.'

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Perhaps as a sort of antidote to Mr. Mencken, another publisher has brought out Professor William Lyon Phelps's Essays on Modern Dramatists, a book nicely calculated to drive the caustic author of Prejudices into a fine

valley. Below, in a wooded glade lighted by many torches, athletic contests were being held. An impulse seized me to challenge my guide who, in spite of his gray hairs, was a powerful, athletic man. He laughingly accepted, and in a moment I found myself lifted into the air and thrown over his shoulder like a ball. Quickly springing to my feet, however, I succeeded in lifting my companion from the ground. Raising him like a bundle in my arms, I ran toward the shore, shouting that I wished to take him with me. He

resisted desperately, and just before I reached the water I set him down, and springing aboard our ship, waved him farewell. The projecting remnants of an old fortress, which in its day had served also as a prison, protruded from the shore like the prow of a huge ship. A group of people gathered on its bastions, laughingly waving farewell to us with their banners and lanterns. Thus we last saw them as our vessel drew slowly out of the harbor, across a glorious silent sea, resplendent in the light of a full moon.

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Whatever American dramatists are doing [says this writer], there is no doubt that America is interested in modern drama. There are chairs of drama at the universities, book follows book of criticism, and the use by schools of the texts of modern plays is as familiar to an American educationist as it is startling to an Englishman who, at school, never heard of a dramatist later than Sheridan. Professor Phelps has the first quality of a critic, admiration, and it is comforting that of six dramatists selected for his praise three are British.

In the London Bookman, 'F. H.'writes of Edward Bok, an Autobiography:

For its wealth of reminiscence, its sound business advice, its shrewd common-sense philosophy, its revelation of a remarkable personality, and the deep human interest of its narrative, this book of Edward Bok's is at once a source of entertainment and of the best good counsel.

The English edition has an introduction by Lord Northcliffe. The famous publisher writes: 'I cannot think of any book which I should recommend people to read for so many and such different reasons,' and declares it to be 'the autobiography of our time.' One wonders whether his Lordship ever read The Education of Henry Adams.

American fiction of the last year or two is also of great interest to British readers. Mr. F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise has been published in Collins's 'First Novel Library,' and the general tendency among English critics is to regard it as a promising first attempt. The Daily Herald's reviewer observes:

The outstanding quality and defect - of This Side of Paradise is its evident ambition. Ambition in a new writer is healthy, but, so long as it is evident, he has failed. Compared with the majority of novels which the publishers pour out week by week, this (as are others of Collins's first novel series) is a refreshing draught of energy and enthusiasm. Mr. Fitzgerald has something to say; but he has not yet quite learned how to say it.

The Westminster Gazette dubs Mr. Fitzgerald's book another of these clever novels of youth,' and declares that American youth seems to be 'even more self-conscious and egotistical than our own.' The Gazette's critic finds that 'the importance and solemnity with which college conversations and loveaffairs, beginning at thirteen and involving the poems addressed to Amory's various beloveds, are treated, is sometimes a little exhausting, but there is an energy and freshness about all which is as engaging as youth itself.'

Mr. Edgar Lee Masters's new story, Mitch Miller, has succeeded his Domesday Book, a novel in verse modeled on The Ring and the Book, which most English critics declared to be a fairly good novel but very bad poetry. Mitch Miller, in which Mr. Masters imitates Mark Twain, as he previously followed Browning, is being more favorably received. No English critic has yet commented upon the extraordinary catholicity of Mr. Masters's taste in selecting his models. The Daily Telegraph's literary critic finds the book not merely an amusing account of the adventures of the American boys, Skeeters and Mitch, but also a message which echoes Lincoln: -

America is in a bad way; the world is in a bad way. The whole heart is faint, the whole head sick. The waste of young life is lamented; the worship of the almighty dollar is denounced; true and equal justice is demanded. But while agreeing with this necessary new message, which yet is very

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