Afterward, when he had learned the scrolls, Issa went into Nepal and into the Himalaya mountains.

'Well, perform for us a miracle,' demanded the priests of him. Then Issa replied to them: 'Miracles made their appearance from the very day when the world was created. He who cannot behold them is deprived of the greatest gift of life.-But woe to you, enemies of men, woe unto you, if you await that He should attest His power by miracle.'

Issa taught that man should not strive to behold the Eternal spirit with one's own eyes, but to feel Him with the heart, and to become a pure and worthy soul.

'Not only shall you not perform human offerings, but you must not slaughter animals, because all is given for the use of man. Do not steal the goods of others, because that would be usurpation from your near one. Do not cheat, that you may in turn not be wronged.

'Do not worship the sun-it is but a part of the universe.

'As long as the nations were without priests, they were ruled by the natural laws and preserved the purity of their souls.

'And I say: Beware, ye, who divert men from the true path and who fill the people with superstitions and prejudices, who blind the vision of the seeing ones, and who preach subservience to material things.'

Issa had reached his twenty-ninth year when he arrived in the land of Israel.

Both Christ's age and the spirit of his teaching seem to be in accord with the orthodox version. But whatever the historical truth about the journey of Jesus to India, we may appreciate Roerich's joy at these signs of man's spiritual unity. He pays tribute to Asia, the cradle of religions, in a magnificent series of canvases, "Banners of the East," among which are included Moses the Leader, Buddha the Conqueror, Confucius the Just, Lao Tze, Mahomet, Christ, Sergius the Builder (of medieval Russia), and other eastern teachers. Roerich's notes, jotted down on the Himalayan heights, aside from the valuable observations on Tibetan life and lore which they contain, are permeated with a breadth and nobility of sentiment paralleled only by the Hebrew prophets.

As an artist, Roerich has been the despair of those who are wont to classify painters by schools and movements. Though alert and sensitive to new currents in art, he has always remained outside of definitive groups. Practically every movement, from Impressionism to Expressionism, has found an echo in Roerich, but this does not mean that he is eclectic. Rather may it be said that he is synthetic, for he combines in a subtle way the modes and methods of all ages and climes, from the cave-dweller's bison to the geometrical abstractions of our own day. The deep religi

osity which saturates all his work has naturally drawn him to those who regarded their art with reverence, as a sacred performance-whether they were the Byzantines or the early Chinese or the Novgorod iconographers or Gaugin. The kinship with other great world artists which one detects in Roerich's canvases is a case of deep calling unto deep, without involving in the slightest degree the question of originality. But while he may suggest to one's memory now the Chinese masters, now the great Primitives, now the intricate Persians, now the archaic Greeks, and so forth, he stands unique and unmistakable as a wizard of color and composition. His achievements in volume, in silhouette, in color gamuts, in totality of effect, are astounding to the layman and bewildering to the professional. "How does he do it?" is the somewhat vexed question which you frequently hear from painters facing some Roerich tempera (his favorite medium). There is something defying words and analysis in those Himalayan canvases, with their monumental "sanctuaries and citadels," their unheard of lapis lazulis and liquid yellows, their infinite heights and unfathomable depths, their exotic symbolism and withal bewitching simplicity. How does he do it? Ask Roerich, and he will refer you to his flaming faith.

ALEXANDER KAUN.

Four Novelists of the old Régime. By JOHN GARBER PALACHE. New York, the Viking Press.

This book, which deals at large with the lives and works of Crébillon fils, Laclos, Restif de la Bretonne, also includes a critical study of Diderot's fiction. The latter does not seem to be the more original part of M. Palache's contribution to literary history. No doubt many interesting views are expressed in the two chapters which he has devoted to Diderot; all the author's novels, Le Neveu de Rameau, Jacques le Fataliste, La Religieuse, even the "unspeakable" Bijoux indiscrets are clearly summed up and intelligently criticized. Yet, on the whole, these forty odd pages add but little to the information contained in the excellent book of John Morley, Diderot and the Encyclopaedists, or in G. Saintsbury's History of the French Novel.

The real interest of M. Palache's book lies in the presentation of the three other writers, who have been but briefly mentioned by the majority of British and American critics on account of their licentiousness. Without trying to conceal or minimize the

immorality which too often prevails in their works, M. Palache rightly maintains that these authors are not devoid of literary and historical value, because "they give an insight into some aspects of the life of the eighteenth century which are not so clearly brought out in the writings of their more illustrious contemporaries."

The biographical chapters are excellent. The writer is acquainted with the latest French publications on the subject and he often derives complementary information from divers memoirs, letters, and periodicals of the time. Mercier's Tableau de Paris and Grimm's Correspondance have been diligently used and have contributed many an interesting detail or significant anecdote.

The dissolute youth of Crébillon fils, his participation in the gay meetings of the Caveau club, his exile after the publication of the Sofa, his multifarious love affairs, are exposed in a brilliant narrative which gives a vivid picture of the social surroundings as well as of the hero himself. In his examination of Crébillon's novels, M. Palache justly blames the immoral tone and an excess of superfluous details as the chief faults of Le Sofa and Les egarements du coeur et de l'esprit. On the other hand, in the two dialogue stories, La nuit et le moment, and Le hasard de coin de feu, the author appears at his best. Their alert brevity, and abundance of sparkling wit and brilliant repartee make them thoroughly enjoyable even to a modern reader. One may also remember that in his one-act play Le Caprice Alfred de Musset has been influenced by Le hasard du coin de feu. Is it not much to Crébillon's credit that his story can bear comparison with one of the most exquisite gems among the Comédies et Proverbes?

A long chapter is devoted to the adventurous career of Choderlos de Laclos who, after having served for twenty years as an artillery officer, became a political agent of the Duke of Orleans at the time of the Revolution, took part in complicated and unsuccessful intrigues, came near being guillotined but eventually escaped, and later became a general in Napoleon's army. His famous novel Les liaisons dangereuses was published while he was keeping garrison in Grenoble in 1782. The book met with great success among the contemporaries but it has often been severely judged by modern critics. M. Palache rightly protests against the "slating" of the novel by G. Saintsbury, who strangely misjudges Laclos' character as well as the value of his work. For one who has read the memoirs of Richelieu and Tilly, two famous

libertines of that period, it is evident that Valmont, the principal character of Les Liaisons, who appears as an elegant and unscrupulous seducer, is by no means the product of the author's own imagination, but the realistic portrayal of a type for whom models were not lacking in the highest society circles. Indeed, as M. Palache justly remarks, Laclos might have said of his novel as Rousseau said of the Nouvelle Héloise: "I have observed the customs of my time and I published these letters." Laclos' correspondence shows that he was a faithful husband, a devoted brother, and an amiable companion. He no more resembles Valmont than Molière does Harpagon or Tartuffe. Moreover, the alertness and pungency of his style were especially laudable at a time when most novels were overloaded with diffuse pathos and cumbersome digressions by unintelligent imitators of Rousseau. Whatever one may think of the moral value of the characters, Les liaisons dangereuses is a masterpiece of analysis which makes a transition between Marivaux and Stendhal.

By making a critical use of the novelist's autobiography, Monsieur Nicolas, M. Palache retells the strange story of Restif, born and brought up on a farm, afterward a printer's devil, and finally an author who published about 250 volumes, some of them directly printed by himself, without having ever existed in manuscript. Restif appears as a typical illustration of some of Dr. Freud's theories in psychoanalysis: a kind-hearted, clever, and observant fellow, whose life was utterly spoiled by a queer erotomania, for which he does not seem to be entirely responsible. There is something pathetic at times in the conflict between the two opposite tendencies of his nature, but the chief interest of his confessions lies in the realistic picture of the common people with whom he has associated and whom he has faithfully and vividly portrayed in his memoirs. By his description of rural life and his picture of a great many types of Parisian artisans of the time, Restif has his place in the general evolution of the eighteenth century French novel toward realism.

This last point is not sufficiently brought out by M. Palache whose book ends rather abruptly on the quotation of the lines written on Restif's tomb. It might have been better to give as a conclusion the remarks expressed in the introductory chapter where M. Palache tries to assign each of the four novelists his proper place in the evolution of the genre. The absence of an alphabetical index is also to be regretted in a book where much

information has been gathered about a little explored subject. But those are minor details, and on the whole M. Palache's book is a valuable contribution to the history of the French novel in the eighteenth century.

G. D. BONNO.

The Life of William Godwin. By FORD K. BROWN. London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton. 1926. xvi+387 pp.

There is no more striking illustration of the conflict between the older rationalism and the romanticism of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries than the life and personality of William Godwin. Godwin inherited and cherished a humorless enthusiasm for "Reason"; and yet he was one of the chief advocates in his time of the claims of the romantic individual spirit against the trammels of the very political institutions and social uses which had generally been regarded as Reason's most characteristic works. Never was there a man more devoted to both the old bottles of the rationalistic method, and the new wine of the romantic human heart. Godwin saw and denounced the crippling effects of existing institutions upon the lives of men, but he had a perfect confidence in the capacity of "Disinterested Reason" to construct schemes of moral and political activity and personal relations, within which individuals could (and would) be happy and free.

Like so many other social philsophers, Godwin loved humanity in the abstract, but not actual men and women. With the exception of Mary Wollstonecraft, there appears to have been no one whom he had the generosity to love or the sympathy to understand. He was too self-centered and conceited ever to take the trouble to know his friends, except as their opinions touched his personal interests or might affect the reputation of his works. Consequently he never learned from them, as he might have, how largely living is a matter of habits, urges, and affections inherently alien to Reason, as he and his fellow "abstractionists" understood and practiced Reason. It is not necessary to explain to the student of Godwin's life the tragic and ludicrous confusions to which the union of romanticism and such rationalism must lead. He will have seen them concretely in the "philosopher's" unhappy career. Godwin advocated freer views on love and property, and a Platonic disdain of reputation that rested on any opinion but that of the enlightened minority. He ended by persecuting his daughter and Shelley until they were free to undergo the "magical