BRIEFER MENTION
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My American Diary, by Clare Sheridan (illus., 8vo, 359 pages; Boni & Liveright: $3). Aside from its political implications, which of course are very shocking, this book will inspire two reactions. Most of its readers will wish they might be as dashing, debonair, adventurous, well-connected, dined-and-teaed as the author. The others will wonder how in the world she gets away with two books of the sort. But everyone will enjoy reading a magnum opus whose every page bristles with close-ups of people whom we usually see only somewhat remotely figuring in Sunday supplements.
Tahiti, by Tihoti (George Calderon) (illus., 8vo, 260 pages; Harcourt, Brace: $6) begins with that highly coloured surface gaiety which seems to be characteristic of the genre and which can produce such a whimsical description of the lifting of the island out of the sea as; "It was as if the captain were a conjuror and had pulled it out of his pocket." But this mood passes with its illusion of delighted and tender amazement and is imperfectly replaced with the description of a dingy colonial town, an island cluttered by police, and a native population dying to avoid incurring the benefits of civilization. The writing is uneven and the narrative disjointed owing to the fact that George Calderon, who visited the island in 1906 and began his book in 1914, was killed in Gallipoli in 1915 leaving the manuscript to be completed by his wife and friends.
The Laurentians, by T. Morris Longstreth (12mo, 450 pages; Century: $1.90). The Laurentians gives a humorous account of Mr Longstreth's adventures in "discovering" the country of the habitant, and will be an excellent guide book for those planning short trips among the mountains of the Province of Quebec; Canada is singularly devoid of travel books, especially of the eastern and more accessible provinces: it is a joy to find one that is well written and at the same time practical.
The Ruin of Ancient Civilization and The Triumph of Christianty, by Guglielmo Ferrero, translated by the Hon. Lady Whitehead (8vo, 210 pages; Putnam: $2.50) takes for its thesis that a search for authority in government has run through the centuries, testing in every regime, every clique, every claim of religion, the right of a man to govern a state, the right of a state to determine its government. Christianity by teaching that a man, individually, owed his first obedience to God and that temporal power was not worth maintaining, helped to undermine the strength of all Rome had built. The situation to-day, Ferrero thinks, is analogous to the state of affairs after Rome had fallen. The struggle between the monarchical and the democratic systems, beginning in 1789, have brought both parties into doubtful authority. The greatest ruin brought about by the recent war was the destruction of all principles of authority. Its result may be a long anarchy such as followed Rome's fall. There is a hope, if the United States can demonstrate the validity of her principle of existence, and if France can rebuild her democracy. All this and more Ferrero expounds with sincerity, drawing on records of the indisputable past and the unescapable present. If it is prophecy, the United States has good reason to grow up and set about demonstrating.
