ALS 1K KAN: NOTES: REVIEWS


dreams of the dead South. I go up the
huge stairway. At every landing a vista
of broad archways reechoes my steps-
archways that once led to rooms worthy
of a prince. But the rooms are now cold
and cheerless and vast with emptiness."
  The second volume, which is devoted
entirely to letters relating to his life in
Japan, gives the history of the philo-
sophical development which found such
wonderful expression in his later works.
His attitude toward Japan is voiced in
his very first letter, one written to the
biographer herself, where he says:
  "I feel indescribably towards Japan.
Of course, Nature here is not the Nature
of the tropics, which is so splendid and
savage and omnipotently beautiful that I
feel in this very moment of writing the
same pain in my heart I felt when
leaving Martinique. This is a domesti-
cated Nature which loves man and makes
itself beautiful for him in a quiet, gray
and blue way like the Japanese women,
and the trees seem to know what the peo-
ple say about them; seem to have little
human souls. What I love in Japan is
the Japanese-the poor, simple human-
ity of the country. It is divine. There
is nothing in this world approaching the
nridive natural charm of them. No book
ever written has reflected it, and I love
their gods, their customs, their dress,
their birdlike quavering   songs, their
houses, their superstitions, their faults."
   It is hard to refrain from speaking
more of Hearn's life and work in Japan,
and of the way he so identified himself
with the best in the Japanese nation that
no Japanese lives who does not love and
venerate his name, but the subject is too
244


large. This is only a glimpse of the
possibilities of delight that lie hidden in
one of the most charming and truthful
biographies that has been written for
many a year. ("The Life and Letters
of Lafeadio Hearn," by Elizabeth Bis-
land. Two volumes. Illustrated. Price,
$6.00, net.   Published by Houghton,
Mifflin & Company, Boston and New
York.)

E NTHUSIASTS for motor vehicles
     will be glad to know of the publica-
tion of a revised, enlarged edition of a
valuable text-book on motoring.  This
volume, which is of convenient size, gives
a short history of the evolution of the
motor car, a comprehensive study of its
construction and operation; a convenient
guidebook to the intricacies that must in-
evitably be encountered, and a summary
of the facts and principles that it is
necessary for both owner and mech-
anician to understand. The presentation
of all branches of the subject has been
determined by consideration of the needs
of the man behind the wheel. This book
is designed to take the place of a whole
library of books of reference and in-
struction, and so specific is it concerning
vexed questions of' operation, that a close
study of it by either the professional or
amateur motorist should tend to lessen
the frequent breakdowns that put so
many motors temporarily out of commis-
sion. ("Self-Propelled Vehicles," by J.
E. Homans.      A  practical illustrated
treatise on the automobile. 598 pages.
Published by Theo. Audel & Company,
New York.)