Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-20

Canada-the mounted police detachment at
Alberta-from which point she has studied
and enjoyed a little section of the great
northwest territories and she presents a
delightful collection of short stories The
tales are well worth telling, and the reader
is pleasantly conscious of a temperament
susceptible to humOr and to pathoS. 1t is
to be regretted in several instances that
writer as talented as Miss Goodloe should
not recognize that her greatest gift is
charm, and in The Heart of Lamont" the
concluding episode is distinctly crude; only
an absolute master of realistic methods can
make artistic use of anything so revolving,
and here where the atmosphere is not seri-
ously tragic the episode is out of tone
as the artist puts it. But the book is I'M
usually attractive in its general trend,
and well worth reading.
THE YELLOW WAR. By 80" Illus
trated. New York: Mcclure Phillips
q Co. Washington: Woodward &,
Lothrop.
These eighteen short sketches of war,
pages from the note book of an unidentified
field correspondent in Manchuria and
Korea. represent the dramatic phase of the
great struggle now in progress in the far
east. They tell no consecutive story, throw
no light upon the grand strategy of the
commanders on land sea, but they dis
close the personal element, develop the
mantle factors of the conflict 1t is as
though the author. whose anonymity is i'm
penetrablc, had taken the reader by the
hand and led him into the trenches of the
field and upon the bridge of the fighting
ship. glancing into the mouths of cannon,
studying the faces of the fighters, smoke
grimed and determined. Little tales of he
roism, or braVado, of hrewdneSS, of mar
tyrdom are related with simple effective
ness. The brief bits stir the blood and
glorify the trade of war by revealing the
real patriot in the uniform of the Japanese
cold md tlT,. Nat fI,A
partisan. He sees heroes in the Russian
ranks as well. 1t is assured that none has
managed more ably to get in touch with
the actual element of the fight and in con-
sequence. despite it's lack of consecutive in
terest. this is one of the best war books
ever printed.
THE MONKS TREASURE. By George
Horton, author of Like Another
Helen" &c. Frontispiece by c. NJ
Relyea. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-
Merrill Company.
Mr. Horton has not aided his reputation
as a story-teller by this performance, al
though he has employed all the conven-
tional devices for arouslng his readers in
terest and sympathy. He has constructed
most unlikely plot, a young American
stumbling upon a hidden treasure in a
Greek monastery and proceeding to steal it
for the one whom he conceives, upon very
~ oe flSutIul
His tale is a succession of improbabilities
and half-fnished portraits, suggestive of
haSty work and inattention to details He
commits such bits of untrimmed compost
ton as The dreadful sleeper there
beneath the rug upon the floor gradually
became object of dread to Walter" He
fails to make clear to his reader that the
Greek monks generally wear their hair so
long that It was entirely legitimate for the
author to enable n fleeing man to escape
pny htr ha Il
a monks hairpinS come out, so that his
long tresses caught in the iive-oak brush
But in parts the story is attractive 1t Of
fers an excellent bit of character drawing
in the book-learned, hungry Scotchman
and suggests the atmosphere of the Greek
islands wildly.
THE MORTGAGE OF THE BRAIN; Be-
ing the Confessions of the Lale Eth
Gilbert Croft, MD. By Vincent Har-
per. Illustrated by Charles Raymond
Macauley. New York: Doubleday,
Page & Co.
There has just closed in New Jersey
the trial of a man charged with muir
der whose defense was that the crime was
''evil genius acting through his body The
defense was sufficiently novel in its peculiar
terms to attract general attention of
psychologists, and the proceedings were
very closely followed. 1.-The Mortgage on
the Brain" opens with a reference to the
conviction of an English bishop of the
same crime, which he declared had been