The sun., 1918-09-22
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By GEORGE GORDON.

AM the only critic not admitted to
L their columns who will confess to
reading land enjoying) the New Repub-
he. 1 am fascinated by the precise and
reassuring attitude they assume before
all the problems that most vex and aston
ish me. They are so sure of themselves;
/ am everlastingly changing my mind.
They range from Chaldea to Chicago
without need of guide; am lost in the
byways of the world. They march in the
van of progress. l run along beside them,
small boy gaping at the uniforms, soon
to be turned aside by fire in the next
block or a crowd before Punch and Judy.
They are the heralds of tomorrow; love
to idle in the past, walk Bagdad with
Haroun, dream myself into Cleopatra's
arms, fiddle with Nero in Rome.
So when volume of their essays is
announced | invariably look forward to
its appearance. And when Francis Hack
EFT is the author-I have long. considered
him with Mencken, the most interesting
Of book reviewers
And with Charles Lamb, 81 like books
about books'-if not, as Arthur Symons
believes, "the test Of reader" surely the
test of a critic. turn from Christopher
Morley's ingenious .ShdndygaF to write
this note on Horizons. The comparison is
odious, for speak from years at school in
Oxford, where Mr.. Morley was resident
from 1908, and feel peculiarly drawn
to the authors he considers-Conrad,K Kip
notably absent from Mr. Hackett's eollec-
ton, a volume containing no mention of
Dresser, Schnitzler, Hauptmann, Gals
worthy, George Moore, Thomas Hardy,
Mark Twain or Anatole France. a volume
not at all unusual in content-four or five
essays on II. G. Wells, three on Arnold
Bennett whom Hackett understands),
two on Edith Wharton, one on William
Dean Howells, another (excellent) on
Synge, and the best review have read Of
Tolstoy's War and Peace.
And the title is well chosen. They are
formal, correct, like the far line of the
sea touching the sky, distant as the
prairie's end, between the lines the empti-
ness of space. Mr.. Hackett does not tell
lis what he thinks, but what the books he
has read hold of good and bad. He gives
no opinions, but the truth-as he under
stands it. He will not argue with us,
reason with US, wrangle. He stands there
waiting our question, as in The Imitation
Of Christ Zone of his essays), his finger
marking his place in the book he was
reading when we interrupted to know
what was occupying him. He will tell rs
and receive our comments with smile.
When we pass on to play in the garden
or race across the hills In search of adven-
ture he will go back to his book, aloof
from our enthusiasms, free of our banter,
unheeding the songs We sing along the
road. For he is wise beyond his years and
a reader after the editors heart.
And he is a critic of genuine vocation.
When he prises a book you may be sure
ii is worth reading, no waste of time-few
books are. |, for one, have no patience,
only plying contempt, for Robert Wal
pole, standing in his richly chosen library,
surrounded by carefully bound and Sc
lected volumes, complaining of nothing to
read The world is a-litter with forgotten
masterpieces. Pick up Pickuick, enter
The House witb the Green Gable, take A
Tramp AJroad You have not done with
Poe yet, or Balzac. or Thackeray. Do not
be questioning the Librarian for some
thing to kill time with" Choose for your
self-or let Hackctt be your guide; there
are few more experienced.