BIOGRAPHY HISTORY TRAVEL· OKS·OF · INFORMATION HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANYS Anthony Trollope: A Commentary Michael Sadleir Written gayly, without abstract digressions or technicalities, this authori- Illustrated, $5.00 home reader. Illustrated, $3.00 THE TRUTH The first complete hand- WHAT CHRIST $2.00 Dr. Grenfell shows how a practical $1.25 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY FICTION POETRY · BELLES-LETTRES · CHILDREN'S BOOKS taken suggest a deliberate effort to build up for the author a wholly new reputation - that of a sane and matter-of-fact and even commonplace person, a sort of royal Babbitt. In any case it is clearly evident that the editorial department at Doorn has been greatly strengthened. These early memories begin with the Kaiser's 'earliest distinct recollection' a visit to Osborne in 1861, when he was a child of two and a half. The story of his childhood and the elaborate apparatus of his education occupies almost half the volume; it is told with surprising fullness of precise detail; and one notes later, in the preface, that the material for these 'recollections' is provided by his father's diaries, his own letters and school exercises, and a lengthy manuscript volume by his tutor, Hinzpeter. There is a noticeable similarity of style between the school exercises of the little prince, the quotations from Hinzpeter's notebooks, and the text of the 1926 recollections; and in general this earlier portion of the book has an impersonal, copperplate quality which suggests that the author himself has entirely forgotten the subject matter. The official childhood came to an end at the age of fifteen, when the prince went for three years to school at Cassel, an 'unreformed Prussian gymnasium' where he was crammed from 5 A.M. to 9 P.M. (and where he complains that the curriculum offered 'no adequate basis for Germanism'). There followed several university years at Bonn, still under the eye of Hinzpeter; and at last, at the age of twenty, Prince William was permitted to launch forth into the world on his own, as an officer in a Potsdam regiment. This continued to be his official status for the next ten years, when the death of his father brought him prematurely, and amid general misgivings, to the throne. The book ends, with significant abruptness, at this point-June 1888. It is thus separated by a dead air space of twenty-five years from the more poignant phase opening in 1914. This record of training and preparation is broken constantly by notes of royal visits to England, Vienna, and Petersburg; of the frequent comings and goings of the Court in Germany, and of a constant succession of court functions of every sort the things which really interested the author, and which provided, in his own inner scheme of things, the raison d'être of his existence. His recollection of them, however, is singularly impersonal and barren. The interesting and significant aspects of the matters touched on are avoided altogether; one might say that the author approaches one topic after another only to turn away before actually touching it. One turns with interest to see what he has to say of Bismarck or Waldersee or his friend the Crown Prince Rudolph, but somehow they slip through the text like mere names on an official programme. All the portraits have this unsubstantial quality; and the wide panorama the author surveys is unrelieved by any saving glimpse from a personal perspective. In part this is due to the obvious desire to be discreet and avoid controversial ground; but in part, perhaps, it is due to the author's own vision. Although he keeps turning his eyes to things and people about him, his interest is wholly centred in himself; and the impression left on the reader is one of flat, monotonous, impersonal egotism. Oddly enough, this book which contributes nothing to the subject, which has no personal quality and is unrelieved by any sense of humor, is yet interesting and singularly readable. One thing new, perhaps, the Kaiser does offer. Quite unintentionally, his long catalogue of trivialities connected with his military service on the front at Potsdam indicates clearly and convincingly the exact character of his 'militarism.' Nothing could have been more anodyne, and he himself sets it forth in one revealing paragraph: "Throughout my long military career, and during my reign, I have been able personally to watch with interest the intense preoccupation with which foreign sovereigns followed our parades. The high efficiency of our army continually in evidence at such reviews showed them the value of our friendship - and of our enmity. . . . The underlying meaning of military parades must be remembered in making any criticism of them, and also the importance attached to them as a meeting ground for princes, giving opportunity for many important political discussions. Superbly impressive as demonstrations, highly useful from a military point of view, and most decorative from a Court one, their particular value was the opportunity they afforded for political influences.' Poor old Wilhelm! He never meant to go any further, and this was all he asked for. It is a cruel fate that they cannot go on forever, and for this book of bygone memories the proper title would have been: 'No More Parades.' T. H. THOMAS The Plutocrat: A Novel, by Booth Tarkington. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. 1927. 12mo. vi+543 pp. $2.50. THE Plutocrat, whose name is Earl Tinker, is a millionaire from the Middle West, who, having made his money in paper, is now spending some of it in foreign travel. He is represented as blatant but childlike. He sings 'Old Aunt Mariar' and 'She's My Baby' in the public lounge of an ocean liner, introduces himself cheerfully to everybody and is innocently immune to snubs, wins enormous sums at poker and placates his peevish wife by giving them to her. When he leaves a hotel, it is in the manner of a potentate distributing largess, and when he returns from the desert, whither he has gone souvenir hunting, he rides, draped in a scarlet burnous, on a white camel at the head of a caravan laden with the spoils of the Sahara. Foreign ladies look upon him as a new kind of barbarian, ridiculous but lovable, egregious but superb. And yet he is so afraid of his wife that he resorts to all sorts of fibs, dodges, and infantile deceptions to escape her shrewish tongue. It will be perceived that Tinker is of the race of Babbitt, but he is a super-Babbitt, Babbitt apotheosized, of elemental force, magnificently unself-conscious, simple as a baby and as unsophisticated as girls are supposed to be. The refined Ogle and the over-refined Macklyn and Jones — playwright, poet, and painter from New York cannot endure him; but the cosmopolitan Mme. Momoro sees in him, not merely a victim, but an imposing phenomenon, fresh and new, like a modern incarnation of a Gothic conqueror or of a Carthaginian of the age of Hamilcar. He fascinates her even more than she does him, perhaps because they stand a whole civilization apart. In the end Ogle is inclined to classify him as a Roman of the great period, because he has the Roman's love of the 'home town,' his realism, his megalomania. And we are left with the impression that Tinker embodies the essence of America. It requires some courage to challenge Mr. Tarkington's assumption that Tinker is the essence of America, because in doing so one seems to be siding with Ogle, Macklyn, and Jones, and they are singularly inept young men. Upon analysis Tinker seems to be compounded of three elements: innocence, good nature, and force or power; and his power, as evinced in the story at least, is mainly the power of money. One is oddly reminded of another Titan, the Frank Cowperwood of Mr. Dreiser, who has power, too, but is not especially distinguished for innocence or good nature; and perhaps one picture is as romantic as the other, one being drawn in the spirit of Dickens and the other in the spirit of Zola. Probably the best way to take Tinker, when all is said, is the way one takes Mr. Dombey or Mr. Boffin - as a recognizable and amusing type of which the average specimens in real life are not amusing. The plot of The Plutocrat is natural and freemoving, almost devoid of the somewhat trite theatrical mechanisms that mar many of the earlier novels. In one respect, at least, the story is superior to any of the others, and that is in the painting-in of the Algerian background. Mr. Tarkington is a hardy optimist and romantic who, unlike most of the romantics and optimists of our time, knows how to write. His prime quality is not subtlety, but gusto, and this is a great and rare quality. If one reads the novel, not as a counterblast to Messrs. Mencken and Lewis, but as an entertaining story, one can hardly fail to enjoy it. R. M. GAY The books selected for review in the Atlantic are chosen from lists furnished through the courteous coöperation of such trained judges as the following: American Library Association Booklist, Wisconsin Free Library Commission, and the public-library staffs of Boston, Springfield (Massachusetts), Newark, Cleveland, Kansas City, St. Louis, and the Pratt Institute Free Library of Brooklyn. The following books have received definite commendation from members of the Board: Non-Fiction Murder at Smutty Nose and Other Murders, by E. L. Pearson DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & Co. $3.00 The description and analysis of fourteen notorious murders Cortes the Conqueror, by Henry Dwight Sedgwick Adventurous Religion, by Harry Emerson Fosdick BOBBS-MERRILL Co. $5.00 HARPER & BROS. $2.00 J. H. 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