IN SHORT

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22443, 2 July 1938, Page 18

IN SHORT

ABSTRACTS , AND BRIEF CHRONICLES

Three recent books on marriage may be regarded as complementary. In Marriage: Past and Present (J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd. 306 pp. 7/6 net.) Margaret Cole reviews, historically, changes in the social and individual attitude to marriage and in the status of women in the community; this leads to a particularly interesting account of recent developments in Germany and Russia and-to a brisk but fair analysis of the position in England, “half-way between customary regulation and legal regulation”; and four chapters on “The Pui'poses of Marriage Today,” biological, economic, moral, and self-fulfilling, are thoughtful and constructive, if in no sense conclusive. Dr. Ira S. Wile’s book, The Man Takes a Wife (Allen and Unwin. 277 pp. 10/6 net), is an easy, friendly, practical discourse on the duties a man faces in marriage and on the problems they may give rise to. Dr. Wile ranges from the initial fact that marriage subtly but powerfully changes the whole environment and routine of life through the material and the psychological demands that must be met, if married life is to begin happily and remain happy through middle and old age. Dr. Wile’s special knowledge, common sense, and humour combine to make this a useful book. Sex in Blamed Life (T. Werner Laurie Ltd. 88 pp. 3/6 net.) is a short work by George Ryley Scott, F.Ph.S. (Eng.), F.Z.S., whose purpose of giving elementary but essential, information and advice on the establishment of a healthy physical relationship is well carried through.

Mr R. A. Piddington has written an extraordinary book in The Next British Empire (John Murray. 294 pp. 6/- net.). He will startle all who are dismayed by the falling birth-rate of England and are looking for, or advocating, measures to stimulate it; for he believes that none will serve. He argues the other way: England is degenerating because England is over-crowded, England will and must cease to be the centre of the Empire’s strength, therefore the true Imperial solution lies in the transfer of population, energy, and ambition to the rich, oversea spaces, notably Canada. This is the way to disentangle England from European commitments and dangers, and re-establish the British race and power on the Pacific instead of on the North Sea and the Atlantic. The book is extremely lively—provocative, stimulating, and by no means to be dismissed because some of Mr Piddington’s leaps are headlong.

The Century Omnibuses issued by Hutchinson and Co.—more than a million have been sold—are among the marvels of mass production. Their New Zealand price is a mere 6s; they run to 1000 pages and even more; and. the quality of their literary contents —exemplified in the famous Century of Detective Stories, the Century of Sea Stories, and the Century of Humour —is admirably high. Two new ones will appeal to lovers of historical reading: they are the 'Cavalcade of History arid the Second Cavalcade of History, both written by Mr Claud Golding. Each contains hundreds of scenes, episodes, and characters from history, arrestirigly written, cleverly. varied and arranged, and as enjoyable when the theme is familiar as when it is more out of the way. Johnson once told Boswell to “Give as many anecdotes as you can.” It is advice that Mr Golding might have heard and profited by. These two books are Golcondas of anecdotal reading. —Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd.

Amateur astrologers, those who are beginners equally with others who have made some advance in the study, will welcome. Mr Edward Lyndoe’s Complete Practical Astrology (Putnam. 439 pp. 10/6 net.). Mr Lyndoe sets out to establish the “scientific validity” of astrology and also to aid the reader in its practice. T.he tables, charts, and other apparatus are well organised to simplify the technical processes; moreover, they are so framed as to be serviceable anywhere. Mr Lyndoe quotes an interesting statement once made by Archbishop Whateley of Dublin, who said that, “when young and inexperienced,” he had preached against astrology, of which he knew no more than he had picked up from travelling lecturers, “quite incompetent to deal with it,” but that he had come, to regard it as “far more useful, practical, and successful than any other system of determining the destiny of man.”

Handwriting lives with its owner and dies with him. By a close study of the formation of each letter, the spaces between words, the crossing of the t, and the dot of the i, it is possible to tell in handwriting the vocation, character, and health of the writer. Rafael Schermann, author of Secrets of Handwriting (Rider. 5/- net.) many examples, from the writing of famous men and others, and demonstrates the connexion between the character of the hand and the character of the mail. For instance, nearly every great musician ends his signature with a double flourish, just as he completes the swing of a baton. The bootmaker’s or tailor’s trade is similarly shown in the characteristics of his writing. An asthmatic pauses for breath when writing; this is distinctly shown in his disconnected letters. A person with heart trouble also shows disconnected letters, caused by the irregular beat of the heart. A stutterer or stammerer in writing rests between words. This interesting book well repays study. —Through Whit Combe and Tombs Ltd;

In The Poetry of the Invisible (Allen and Unwin. 8s 6d net) Seyd Mehdi Imam surveys'the work of the major English poets from Keats to Bridges. He writes as an Oriental mystic; but it is doubtful if many English readers will feel that they are helped to a greater appreciation of poetry by having it analysed in terms of astral and monadic planes, the radiant body, the secret cycles, the out-soul, and other Eastern conceptions. It requires a great deal of patience to follow the author’s ideas, and although it may be gratifying to see how seriously English poetry is regarded by an Indian scholar, there cannot be much profit for those who are not already acquainted with such ideas and in sympathy with them.

'_A paragraph which apoeared in the “Observer” one hundred years ago:

Mr Bentley has just published the “Memoirs of Grimaldi, the Clown,” edited by Charles Dickens, Esq. (“Boz”), in.two vols, embellished with twelve characteristic illustrations by George Cruickshank and portrait.