ably frightful. There will be no non-combatants, the trenches will be the safest shelters, and the latest developments of aviation and chemical warfare will make it possible to blot out a capital city in a few moments. Is there any escape? What of the League of Nations and all those plans we thought of during the war? Kenworthy sweeps them all aside: the League has failed, and its existence is a menace, for it "acts as an opiate on the popular mind of the world," lulling it into a false security; peace plans by Boks and Filenes and the Christian Science Monitor, threats by labour and socialist parties, organised peace propaganda, all are futile. Only one thing remains. Listen! "Let the English and American nations in the most solemn manner draw up the shortest and simplest treaty possible, in the clearest language, understood by the common people, definitely outlawing war, indicting it as a crime, and undertaking to boycott any future breakers of the peace and indulgers in war." And let us invite France, Germany, Italy, and "all other nations of goodwill to join us." In short war must be declared illegal as an institution of public international affairs, for so long as it is a legal way of settling differences it will be resorted to. To be quite frank, we hope for something better than this as we let Mr. Kenworthy fray our nerves with his picture of a world straining at the leash for a chance to "have another go." Does his formal treaty solve anything? Does it lift any fears, reduce the armaments bill one cent, remedy any of those racial, economic, or political sores he has been describing, or satisfy (or curb) a single Russian, Indian, Japanese, or Italian ambition? I fear not. A solemn treaty has been signed; the silk hats of London and Washington have been polished and aired once more, the movie cameras have clicked, and Messrs. McNamee and Carlin have added one more to their announcing achievements. But what else? Wells is right when he says "the ending of war is a far too complex, laborious, and difficult task than such mere ges ticulations" as the parliamentary commander suggests. Still, every little helps, unless it is another opiate, and the joint labours of Kenworthy and Kellogg may not be in vain. But if Commander Kenworthy's plan is the only way to peace, I feel disposed to call at the shipping office and ascertain the cost of a one-way ticket to One Tree Island. just Peter Quince—and haven't any reputation—well, not enough to lose, anyhow-I can say out loud at least threefourths of what I think and that not many people can do. It is always more fun to talk about books I like! Last time when I chatted here there were Thornton Wilder's delicately perfect "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" (A. & C. Boni. $2.50), "Up Eel River" (Macmillan. $2.50), Margaret Montague's delicious book of the wonderful Tony Beaver, Southern twin of Paul Bunyan, and that exquisite fantasy, so real in its humanity and its poetry, "The Door Unlatched" (Minton, Balch and Co. $2.00) by Marie Cher. The publication of another austere masterpiece by Julian Green, "The Closed Garden" (Harpers. $2.50), recalls the success of "Avarice House" (Harpers. $2.50) and again, makes us wonder at this Parisian youth, of Virginian blood and education, who has taken two nations by storm. There was, too, still on the immediate horizon that austerely beautiful masterpiece, "Death Comes for the Archbishop" (Knopf. $2.50), which Willa Cather wrote so differently from “The Bridge of San Luis Rey" but which like it presents side by side a philosophy of a personal providence contrasted with a reasoned interpretation of design in life. Peter Quince has less eager enthusiasms at the moment: but Howard W. Odum has written in his "Rainbow Round My Shoulder" (Bobbs, Merrill. $3.00) an interpretation of the negro which is excitingly "different " It is unlike any of the other recent books on the negro that I have seen. Without the beauty of delicacy that marks Du Bose Hayward's "Porgy," it has more verisimilitude, is broader in the range of negro life that it portrays. The "black Ulysees," speaking in a Carl Sandburg poetic phrasing his own experiences, recaptures so nearly the whole of his emotional wanderings that the pages grow rank with reality. Another enthusiasm is Burton J. Hendrick's "The Training of an American: the Earlier Life and Letters of Walter H. Page" (Houghton Mifflin. $5.00 and worth it!) You can order your books through the Virginia Quarterly Book Service. |