lish nature . . . the tragic sense of elemental forces which dominate efforts of the tillers of the soil." e work is truly epic in its scope, a efully worked, heroic pattern. It sweeping view of Poland, ground. der the imperial heel of Russia. The Author. St. Reymont was n in 1868 in what was then Rusn Poland. His family was large, or, patriotic. His mother and her e brothers took part in the Polish surrection of 1863 against Russia. , too, is a patriot. He has been teleaph operator, actor, railway clerk, mer, even spent months in a Paulmonastery. His complete works mprise 28 volumes of novels and ort stories. he Author of Jurgen STRAWS AND PRAYER-BOOKS-James anch Cabell-McBride ($2.50). All e, Mr. Cabell points out, is a pleasant tion. "No child plays with a straw: brandishes a sword. . . . The young n, exultant, terrified, touches and unvers, not an expanse of epidermis and all hairs and sweat glands, but the dy of a goddess . . . and the aged sp not a prayer-book but the key to ernal bliss." "Reflection finds the -cumstance unfortunate that most of e agreeable actions of life are either rbidden or else deplorably behedged th restrictions." Donn Byrne, author of Messer Marco olo, Anatole France, Joseph Hergeeimer Mr. Cabell enjoys at least in rt because he sees in them "the artist no labors primarily to divert himself." nd that, says Mr. Cabell, is why he d all other artists create beautiful ings beautifully. This book is the Epilog to the Biogphy of which each of his novels, he sists, is a chapter. The Prolog, it ill be recalled, was Beyond Life. Mr. abell's adroit pen and urbane intellience have lost none of their skill in e years intervening between the two olumes. was widely read. The Flower Beneath the Foot has been reprinted for all to read. Ronald Firbank is an exotic petal floating on the tide of contemporary writing. It is a petal with a precious but somewhat rank odor. Ronald Firbank is a decadent of purest breed. He writes with a touch lighter than the breath of pansies, brushing lightly over a world inhabited wholly by Duchesses and the kind of people Duchesses know. Aside from Duchesses, Mr. Firbank has a predilection for water-closets and the more wayward aspects of sex-all treated with the subtlest of subtlety. The Flower Beneath the Foot is about His Weariness the Prince, Her Weariness the Queen, Sir Somebody Something (British Ambassador), Queen Thleeanouhee. Notably it deals with the becoming a Saint of St. Laura de Nazianzi, who was not "born organically good," and whom we leave beating her hands "until they streamed with blood, against the broken glass ends" upon a convent wall, on the occasion of the Prince's marriage. Vanitas Differences Existing Between Authors and Their Creations Next to cats and politicians, artists are probably the most naively conceited of God's creatures. Painters and musicians tend to keep their vanity within the circle of their acquaintances and biographers. Not so the literary artist. Between his inky fingers the pen becomes a hideous means of inflicting his self-estimates on a public compliantly ready to exchange soiled rectangles of engraved green paper for some three hundred printed pages bearing his reflections on himself and his relationship to a dependent world. There are excuses for authorial egotism. It is not at all unnatural that one whose livelihood depends on the willingness of the literate to follow him through successive volumes of carefully fashioned falsehood to regard himself as not the least important of his fictional creations. Such, too, is the fascination of speculation respecting the man behind the pen that someone, biographer or scandal-monger or idolater, is rather more than likely to tell the world about him. Why, is the not extraordinary reflection of the novelist, should it not be himself? Who more qualified, who more enthralled by his theme? So romancer after romancer, turning aside for an instant from the fanciful personalities of his creation, devotes his attention to no less fanciful creation of his own personality. Casual inspection of recent autobiography reveals the man of letters as not uniformly successful at self-portrayal. Nor are his methods in any respect identical. Now he gives his ardent admirer a condescending peep into his intellectual processes; now he restricts his observations to the externals of his career. Now he strips the veil with blatant shamelessness from his secret places; now he takes pains to substitute for the discreet gauze of silence the impenetrable screen of ruthless denial. Dean of them all is, of course, Mr. George Moore, whose popularly priced Conversations in Ebury Street once more places his self-revelations within the reach of the judicious spender. More unexpectedly, Dr. A. Conan Doyle chooses in his Memories and Adventures* to retell the events of an active life in brisk, episodic wise, shedding less light on the adventures of his soul than on his skill with the harpoon. Michael Arlen, helpfully renouncing the intricate appellation thrust upon him by Near-Eastern ancestry, reminisces in leisurely wise about the more fantastic aspects of his early ramblings in London streets, calling the product The London Venture.† James Branch Cabell, in Straws and Prayer-books,** permits his admirers to share with him a reticent heartache at the depressing reflection that a few centuries hence his name may be emblazoned in literary memory only as "the author of Jurgen”— his other works known only to the discriminating. Mark Twain, complacently garrulous, chatters from the grave. Pleasantly confident that anything interesting to himself must be equally so to his public, he talks of many things, not excluding cabbages and kings.‡ Most successful of all auto-creative fiction-mongers is Sherwood Anderson. His Story-Teller's Story is just that. He tells the story of his own life frankly and revealingly, just as honestly and just as skilfully as if he had never existed outside his own fertile imagination. He writes his novels as if they were biography. Now he makes of his own life a novel no whit inferior to those which have won him the right to a hearing. *TIME, Oct. 20. TIME, Nov. 24. J. A. T. **TIME, Nov. 24; see also col. 1, this page. Mr. Clemens' Autobiography was reviewed in TIME, Nov. 3. Mestrovic ART The Brooklyn Museum, founded in 1824, celebrates its centenary, notably with an exhibition of the works of Ivan Mestrovic, Yugo-Slav sculptor. Only 41 years of age, Mestrovic has nevertheless for years been as well known as any contemporary artist on the Continent. Oddly enough, his work has never before reached the U. S. Its arrival has caused no little talk, for Mestrovic is an individualist of power. His themes are highly dramatic-heroic figures, gaining in a sort of grim majesty what they lose in intimacy and, occasionally, in essential nobility. Mestrovic's life is interesting in connection with his art. Born of Croatian parents-farming peasants— as a boy he wandered the fields, tending sheep, carving in wood. The long hours alone with his fleecy flock did much to develop in him the curious individuality which has always been his notable characteristic. At 18, he was apprenticed to a marble worker; and, a few years later, went to Vienna and took up the study of Art. There he fell under the influence of Franz Metzner, Austrian master. From that time on, his suc cess was assured. His reputation gradually swept Europe. The chief characteristics of Mestrovic's work are a rigid simplicity of line; draperies falling in straight close folds; hard, grim faces; heads sunk low or crammed awkwardly into chests; abnormally long noses; cramped postures; elongated forms. Many of these characteristics may be traced to the influence of Metzner. Mestrovic's Madonnas are a distinct type, almost a formula. They are a queer, rigid combination of an almost Eastern tradition with Western realism. Somber, stiff figures, a little wistful, a little pathetic, done with long, simple, vigorous lines. Mestrovic's chief claim to consideration is not intellectual. He is ever emotional. He is conspicuously sculptural. His silhouettes are sharp, simplified. His cuts are deep. He makes the spectator constantly conscious of his medium-wood or stone as the case may be. In Manhattan The Fifth Avenue Association annually awards prizes for the best architectural work in building or restoration in the Fifth Avenue district. The prizes are coveted by famed architects. The first prize this year was won by the new Saks building, 49th to 50th Streets on the East side of Fifth Ave nue. The prize consists of a gold medal and diploma. The building is in the English Renaissance style. The second prize was awarded to the extraordinary new structure of the American Radiator Co. on West 40th Street. It is a great black tower, looking not unlike a pile of coal, culminating in glowing gold and yellow, like the flames of an unbanked fire. One of its most notable features is its display basement, where stokers in uniform show heating appliances in actual operation in an elaborately decorative furnace room with a vaulted ceiling. Strauss MUSIC The resignation of Richard Strauss from the directorship of the Vienna Staatsoper (TIME, Nov. 17) caused no small furor in his native town. His new Intermezzo-described as a "domestic comedy with symphonic interludes"-is the object of further talk. The piece seems to be based on a delicate episode in the composer's private life. During one of his absences, a letter had arrived at his home from a "bar-lady," asking for two tickets he had promised her for the next performance at the opera. Frau Strauss, choleric spouse, promptly entered suit for divorce. It was some time before the Strauss household was brought back to pacific union by the admission of one of the composer's colleagues that the letter had really been intended for him. Jazz Opera? There seems no immediate probability that the sacrosanct wall of the Metropolitan Opera House will echo to the strident syncopations of U. S. jazz. This in spite of the fact that Otto H. Kahn, Chairman of the Metropolitan Opera Company, has invited Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, famed composers of jazz, to submit a jazz opera for production in the very throne room of music. Irving Berlin would "give his right arm to do it," but feels technically unfit. Jerome Kern, who refused to try an opera six years ago, favors the scheme, whether he or another carries it out. George Gershwin, whose orchestral piece. A Rhapsody in Blue, is so far jazz's loftiest flight, is regarded as probably the best-equipped to comply with the demands of operatic composition. Mr. Kahn's interest is said to have been aroused by his son Roger's success as a conductor of jazz. Deliberations followed. It was a cided to give an Academy gold modis Walter Hampden, actor, "for good tion on the stage"; an Institute medal to Edith Wharton, author her achievements in fiction. the Gabrilowitsch, son-in-law of V Twain, late Academician, played a the session. In the absence of Pra sor William Milligan Sloane, Nicholas Murray Butler, charcel presided. The Academy is the Upper House the National Institute of Arts and L ters organized in 1898 for the purs of protecting and furthering A Music, Literature in the U. S. M table achievement in one of these fel is the first qualification for members. Enrollment in the Institute is limite. 1 250. Members of the Academy a chosen from members of the Instit their number cannot exceed 50. E year the Academy awards gold m to such citizens of the U. S. R though not members of the Instr have yet made some important orig contribution to Arts or Letters. Present members of the Academ John S. Sargent, Daniel C. Fre James F. Rhodes, William M. Sh Robert U. Johnson, George W. Ca Henry van Dyke, William C. Brow Arthur T. Hadley, Edwin H. Ba field, Thomas Hastings, Brander Mr thews, George E. Woodberry, Go W. Chadwick, Lockwood De Fores William R. Mead, Bliss Perry. 4 Lawrence Lowell, Nicholas M. B Paul W. Bartlett, Owen Wister, He bert Adams, Augustus Thomas. Tim thy Cole, Cass Gilbert, Robert Gra Frederick MacMonnies, William C lett, Paul E. More, Gari Melcher Elihu Vedder, Brand Whitlock, H.in Garland, Paul Shorey, Charles Platt, Archer M. Huntington, C Hassam, David J. Hill, Lorado Tel Booth Tarkington, Charles D. Gib Joseph Pennell, Stuart Sherman, J C. Van Dyke, George deF. Brush. A bert G. Beveridge, Royal Cortiss Henry K. Hadley, Charles D. Haze Willard L. Metcalf. At Brussels Prince Leopold of Belgium, Fore's Minister Hymans, U. S. Ambassa William Phillips, Burgomaster Max Brussels, Mr. Edgar Rickard of U. S. Belgian Relief Commission, ot officials and dignitaries, doffed hats and made speeches as mortar was applied to the corner-stone of new buildings for the free university in Brussels. At Berkeley At Berkeley, Calif., President W. W. Campbell of California University made it known that Hearst Hall, a building promised by Publisher William R. Hearst to the University in memory of his mother, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, will be a million-dollar structure instead of the $350,000 project announced earlier. At Luncheon Wrote Correspondent Clinton W. Gilbert of the New York Evening Post: "At a luncheon party of the sheep and the goats-that is to say, at a luncheon party where some were New Englanders and some were not-up spoke one of the sheep and said: 'I wonder if President Coolidge will run again in 1928?' "... Up spoke one of the goats: 'Well, you as a New Englander ought to know better than any of us.' Then another New Englander had this to say: 'Right after Mar. 4, 1929, Mr. Coolidge will become President of Amherst College'." In Berlin At Berlin University, students were dismayed, angered, by a statement of the rector, Dr. Roethe. Said he: "We have cleaned the University. Whoever considers studying must possess the necessary funds. Persons without money who wish to study must suffer hunger for the first two semesters." A year ago, reduction of dues for indigent students was promised for this fall. Regardless of whether German money values are now stable enough for the fulfillment of this promise and for the restoration of scholarships for firstyear men, the poorer Berlin students read into the rector's statement an attempt to purge the University of Democratic and Socialist elements. The rector is a "super-patriot" or Nationalist. In Virginia At Williamsburg, Va., the Virginia Lodge of the Sons of Italy last week donated $1,000 to the College of William and Mary. The College is building a new men's dormitory, Monroe Hall; and the Lodge indicated that its money was to endow a memorial room in this hall in honor of one Charles Bellini. And who, pray, was Charles Bellini? Thomas Jefferson once experimented with a vineyard in Albemarle County, from importing skilled husbandmen Italy. With the workmen came Charles Bellini, citizen of Florence. Try as they would, however, Bellini and his men could grow no grapes for Jefferson. The vines sickened, with ered, were abandoned. Whereupon Jefferson, in a gesture at once courteous and resourceful, had Bellini installed as a professor at William and Paul Thompson THOMAS JEFFERSON Bellini and his men could grow no grapes Mary, then a sprightly institution only 86 years old. There Bellini stayed from 1779 to 1803. teaching Italian and Spanish, "first professor of modern languages in the U. S." LAW A New Dean Huger Wilkinson Jervey-to the accompaniment of speeches by Harlan Fiske Stone, Attorney General of the U. S., Benjamin Cardozo, Justice of the New York Court of Appeals, and Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University-was inaugurated last week Dean of the Faculty of the School of Law of Columbia University. Dean Jervey retired a year ago from the Manhattan law firm of Satterlee, Canfield & Stone to become a professor in the Columbia Law School. In charge of the instruction in the courses in Personal Property and Trusts,* he quickly made his alert personality felt by students and faculty. Born in Charleston, S. C., in 1879, he was educated at the Charleston High School (1896), Charleston College (1896-97), the University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn. (B.A. 1900 and M.A. 1901), Johns Hopkins (1902) and (comparatively late in life-at the age of 34) *Trusts is an important course in a law school curriculum. It must not be confused with the popular designation of industrial combinations. It deals with the legal relations arising from holding property under an obligation to employ it as directed by the person from whom it was received. at the Columbia Law School (LL.B. 1913). From 1903 to 1909, he was Professor of Greek at the University of the South. During the World War, he campaigned in France, first as a lieutenant with the 304th Field Artillery and afterwards as a major of the General Staff Corps. He has always kept up his classical interests. He spent last summer with one Will Percy, Mississippi poet, in Greece and Asia Minor. Famed Schools. Columbia and Harvard have always been recognized as leaders in U. S. legal education. The history of the former brings to mind the great names of Kent and Dwight; the history of the latter recalls the impressive personalities of Story and Ames. The Case Book Method. In the 1880's, Harvard, under Langdell, introduced the so-called case book method of legal instruction. Columbia adopted the same system, when, a few years later, Keener was appointed Dean of the Columbia Law School. This change, however, brought about the resignation of practically the whole law faculty. But today, after much warm and widespread opposition, this method of instruction is employed in virtually every large law school in the U. S. and it is beginning to receive a certain approval in England and Canada. The case book system consists of requiring the students to master the facts and legal principles of the leading cases. as actually adjudicated by the courts, of the subjects under discussion. The socalled textbook method consists of studying the works of the recognized legal authorities, such as Blackstone's Commentaries, Minor's Institutes, Kent's Commentaries, Story's Commentaries and Greenleaf's Evidence in their revised editions; and the works of numerous other more modern writers, such as Williston's Contracts, Wigmore's Evidence, Pollock's Torts. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, of the U. S. Supreme Court, formerly a student at Harvard under the textbook system, and a teacher at Harvard under the case book system, is an ardent advocate of the latter method. In an address entitled The Use of Law Schools, he once said: "Under the influence of Germany, science is gradually drawing legal history into its sphere. The facts are being scrutinized by eyes microscopic in intensity and panoramic in scope. . . . I do think that, in the thoroughness of their training, and in the systematic character of their knowledge, the young men of the present day start better equipped when they begin their practical. experience than it was possible for their predecessors to be." Other Deans. Famed law school deans of the present time are Roscoe Pound, of Harvard; John Henry Wigmore, of Northwestern University: William Minor Lile, of the University of Virginia; James Parker Hall, of the University of Chicago; Thomas W. Swan of Yale. RELIGION Kosher When the high priests of Israel made sacrifices to the God of Abraham, they followed a ritual in their slaughter of the beast which was both humane and sanitary. Using a long, smooth blade, twice the width of the animal's throat, they severed with a delicate stroke, scrupulously exact, the fourth ventricle of the trembling sheep, permitting the body to lie undisturbed until the blood had thoroughly drained from its lax veins. The ritual has never changed. Meat that is not fit for a sacrifice is, to the orthodox, not fit to eat. If there is any blemish in the manner of the killing, the meat of that killing is treife, unclean; it taints whatever it touches, and it were better for a man to cut off his right hand than to eat of it. Certain beasts are of themselves unclean-the pig, the camel and the hare; all carnivorous beasts, all birds of prey, all creeping things. Others, when slaughtered according to the law of Shehitah, are kosher. Last week, before the U. S. Supreme Court at Washington, D. C., the law of Moses was cited together with the law of New York State. It is illegal in that State for butchers to represent meats as kosher which are not kosher, thus leading the faithful to defile themselves, albeit unwittingly. Certain packers-the Hygrade Provision Co., E. Greenbaum Co., Guckenheimer & Hess, Lewis & Fox Co., H. Statz-challenged the constitutionality of the law. They said that the term "kosher" was no more than a synonym for clean, that its religious meaning was too speculative to make legal application possible, that the enforcing of a religious definition was not within the power of the state. They pointed out that, according to the ancient law, if there is the least nick in the long smooth blade with which the beast is killed, the meat is not strictly kosher, nor is it if the slaughterer be a deaf mute, an idiot, a minor, or a non-Jew. How can all these things be surely ascertained in regard, say, to a lamb chop? Is unknowing transgression a sin? That was what the packers wanted to know. Countered Samuel H. Hofstadter, Special Deputy Attorney-General for the State: "The cornerstone of the sale of kosher meat products is the belief of hundreds of thousands of people that the word 'kosher' has a meaning. . . . They eat or abstain from meat according to conscientious convictions. Whatever violates these convictions, either by force or fraud, is a matter of public interest and affects the good order of the State." "Old Michael" In October, an aged Cardinal attended the Catholic Truth Society's annual conference in Dublin. He predicted that next October he would be in purgatory.* Last week he died-His Eminence Michael Cardinal Logue, Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of all Ireland, 114th successor of St. Patrick, the International THE LATE PRIMATE He lived simply serpent-killer. He was the only Primate to have been made a Cardinal in Ireland's 1,500 years of Christian history. Cardinal Logue lived simply. He had no secretary, few servants. When guests came to his villa, Ara Coeli, he would show them to their rooms, carry up their bags. Recently he guided an American tourist round his Cathedral. The tourist offered him a tip, asked: "What's your name, my man?" Replied the Primate: "Oh, some call me 'Old Michael,' and then some call me 'The Cardinal.'" Cardinal Logue could laugh heartily. Once, examining a group of tradesmen for confirmation, he asked whether it would not be a sin to conceal the defects of a donkey to a prospective purchaser. "Troth," replied a tradesman, "I am afraid your Eminence would never make a living selling donkeys." The Cardinal was an outstanding theologian. He was a statesmanlabored for Irish peace as well as for Irish freedom. *According to Vincent Pater: "We believe that Purgatory exists, as we believe firmly that Hell and Heaven exist, because God has made known this to us through the Catholic Church. It is a place of detention where the imperfect departed souls are purified before entrance into Heaven by suffering both from deprivation of the vision of God and from some kind of confinement by fire." MEDICINE Transplant Spleen? Theodor Koppanyi, experimental physiologist in the University of Chicago, has just made public the result of attempts to transplant the mysterious organ known as the spleen from on animal to another. The name of Koppanyi is familiar because of his attempts at transplanting a human eye (TIME June 18, 1923, Oct. 20), which have ap parently been successful thus far to a very limited extent, only in the case c: rats. His new experiments indicate that the spleen can be transplanted in the case of certain lower forms of anima life, and perhaps in rats. Since the exact function of this organ in the human being is not yet definitely known. the experiments of Dr. Koppanyi may yield information on this point. For the Middle Class By the will of Mary R. Richardson. of Newport, R. I., $1,000,000 was bequeathed to the Massachusetts General Hospital to be used for the construction of a branch of that institution "in which all of the beds are to be devoted to the care of persons of the middle class." It has been found that under present conditions in medicine the best medical attention is secured by the rich who are able to command the best type of service, and by the poor to whom such service is frequently given gratis. Perfect Man? At a meeting of the Eastern Homeopathic Medical Association, Dr. E. Rodney Fiske of Manhattan stated that it would be possible to produce a "perfect man" by proper regulation of the development of the glands. It was stated at the headquarters of the American Medical Association that this view must be considered Utopian, since the functions of the glands have not been sufficiently worked out to warrant any such belief. Cancer, Jews Cancer is found in nearly all races, affecting the Negro least of all. 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