BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12272, 16 May 1903, Page 5 (Supplement)

BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Lady Rose's Datgutkr: By Mrs. Humphrey Ward. Macmil'an and Co., Ltd., London. (Received from Messrs. Upton and Co.).— the days of "Robert Elsmere," his author has never quite succeeded in seizing so forcibly the ear of the public, but that is rather because the topic happened to appeal to the mood of the d&v than. because the hook itself was greater than others which have succeeded it* In "Lady Rose's Daughter" Mrs. Ward's technical skill is altogether maintained, and her perception of hidividualties is not seen to bo dimmed. But it is hard to smypatkise either with the heroine 01 with the hero, so that the following of their romance is an artistic pleasure rather than an emotional treat. Julia Le Breton is very much what one wouldexpect in the daughter of a brilliant but erratic couple who loved not wisely but too well, so well that the lawful nusband of the lady felt himself distinctly injured, while her family tried to forget her existence. Julia become? companion to a bad-tempered widow, whose only apparent happiness lies in getting the select to throng bet drawingroom. Julia capture? the select by her .social grace;-, and pulls wires energetically and successfully to get a good-looking young fellow appointed to lead an important military mission. He rewards her by suggesting an unadvertised i.rip to Paris, but she is captured at the Paris railway station by a prospective duke, who has mystL senses, and has long lover 1 her unhappily, and carried to the bedside or her dying grandfather. Blessed by the grandfather, and protected by rich uncles she falls ill. Invalided to Italy she platonically marries the prospective duke, meets and becomes the friend of the -Betrothed of the good-looking young fellow, hears of and grieves over his death, but finally is conciliated ,» the widow, and falls in love with her husband, when she finds herself a duchess. The moral apparently is that you never really know, not even' when the numbers go up, and that happiness may still be the lot of faithful cavaliers, who watt at Parisian railway stations to take a hand in. the more than doubtful adventures of young ladies they seek to marry.

As a Tree Falls : fly 1.. Parry Truscotfc. T. Fisher Unwin, Paternoster Square, London. (Pseudonym Library).—Thus*, who followed the issue of volumes in Hie Pseudonym Library will be pleased to see it recommenced, after a lapse of some years. The convenient pocket-style of the edition, with its plain print- and relatively wide margin, made the excellent books "thus published pleasurable reading. "As a Tree Falls" is worthy of the best traditions of the series, not the less so because it leaves the hackneyed regions of high-born loves and lovers, and depicts with unpretending simplicity a. tragedy of workaday life. A sen-ant girl. courted in everyday fashion by a jovial grocer's man, and * a reticient," ambitious baker's man, marries the patacake because people say he is above carrying a servant. girl. His love for her is utterly unspiritual, and a child only adds to the "discord. He stints and slaves to get. into business, and rise out of the ruts. She regards him as miserly, and unsympathetic, when he is really trying to be kind. Then the child dies, and her exhausted love turns to hate when he confides to her that he has the money to start, in business. She accuses him of allowing the child to perish, and before an accident reduces him to a helpless paralytic dependent on her toil for bread, he learns that the pursuit of riches is not everything, not even to the poor.

Successful Advertising, How to Ac compmsh It: By J. Angus Mac Donald. The Lincoln Publishing Company, Provident Building, Philadelphia, U.S.A.—The name of the author was erroneously given in our previous notice of this book, which deals vigorously and ably with the whole science of advertising. ,

Wars op the Century .\: n the DeVELOPMENT of MILITARY S'.'IKXCK: By Oscar Browning, M.A. W. and R. Chambers, Limited, Edinburgh. (Nineteenth Century Series.) — That the autho. of thir volume is the Cambridge lecturer on history vouches for its character. The long years of study he has given to the matte. is reflected in every page. The Boer War is not included in the book, presumably from not having been concluded in the century, but every other great war— Napoleonic, the 'Crimea, the American Secession, the Austro-Prussian, the FrancoGerman, the Russo-Turkish, and the Cuban —is given appropriate place. Th- result is the arrangement of a vivid picture oc the tremendous changes in military methods brought about by improved weapons, and by modern transportation and comimmirMtion. The author makes it perfectly clear that the scope for generalship and the need. for individual intelligence on the part of the soldier have both been vastly increased during the century. He says:— i;; humiliating to reflect that after so many' centuries of civilisation war should still hold so large a place in the annals of c, nation, but although war is the cause of incalculable suffering and the product of passion and folly, yet it gives abundant opportunity for endurance and self-devo-tion, and is the parent of many of tin; noblest qualities of man. In the nineteenth century we may af least comfortourselves with the contemplation or long periods of peace. The present work contains the history of no war between 1815 and 1854, and "there is a long stretch of peace between 1878 and 1898. Undoubtedly, also, in the progress of military science wars tend to become short, and m Thirty Years' War, or even a Seven Years' War, is hardly possible in our time."

Progress of British Empire in tub Nineteenth Century: By J. Stanley Little. W. and R. Chambers, Limited,' Edinburgh. (Nineteenth Century Series.)— This broad and impartial summing up of the part played by the British nation during the past 100 years is a most valuable contribution to the book-shelves ot every well-furnished house. The immensity a? the work accomplished during the period has been ably summarised in the graphic manner to which it lends itself, so that we have not merely a valuable book of popular reference, but a most readable and dramatic historical effort. That the writer is intensely patriotic need hardly be said, and it may be well to quote those passage! from his introduction which are the gist of his own impressions as to twentieth century sequencer to nineteenth centuryevents:—"lt has taken the British race some twelve centuries since the first real advance on savagery began, to bring the State to its present eminence. As an, agent making foi the advance of civilisa- ', tion, art agent working for th*. gradualelimination of discord and wai and foi

the foundation of a system of universal ...'f freedom and justice leading up to that perfectability of which poets dream, a federation of mankind speaking common language and governed by a common law, the British Empire could scarcely be supplanted by any other aggregation of kindred peoples. Thus the extinction of the Empire would mean n distinct, and 30 far ! as one can see. an irreparable, check to j the progress of the world, li it should be I argued that in course of time «inothe» i Power would appear, able to carry on Ik | work the British Empire has done and is doing, it is still impossible to ignore the : loss "and delay involved in the transfer of this high misson into other hands. Moreover what other hands? Is the sum total of Anglo-Saxon achievement, in literature, j art, science, in the art of government and I administration to be wiped off the slat j or history by the imitative Slav or the calculating Teuton? or since we ore told that numbers must tell, are we to be obliterated by the Mongolian? or as the late Mr. Pearson feared, by the sable races of the earththe descendant, of Flam? , What is to be. is to be; but to be fore- .■; warned is to be rorearmed: and surely since these dangers are so clearly foreseen, i' 1 - behoves us as a race to gird up oin loins and prepare to do battle with them; ' to meet them indeed before they overtake us. It is because, as it seems to me, there is no patriotism in burying out hauls ; : : ; in the sand, refusing to see the dangers and ;• troubles which threaten us irom without. and from within, tha* in writing this volume, I have refused to be blinded, or to attempt to blind others, by the spectacle, the imposing spectacle oi progress and achievement', the history of this Em-.. pire presents to the world;" especially imposing ac regards the last three-quarters of the expiring century."