Notable Books of the Month. 



693 



ending betterment. And this, when all is said, 

 is the vital difference between ancient and 

 modern politics : that for the ancients the fact of 

 eternal mutation was a law of defeat and decay, 

 while for us it is a law of renewal. If but 

 the faith be wedded to the science, there can 

 be no predictable limit to its fruits, however long- 

 be the harvesting. 



lutely. I have lived for myself. True, we have loved 

 each other tenderly; we have been immensely happy. 

 But, all the while, the shadow of the Upas tree was 

 there. My very love was selfish ! " 



[Strangely enough, an American novelist has 

 just published a novel with the same title. Its 

 theme is the abolition of capital punishment, the 

 Upas tree being the gibbet.] 



A TOO UNSELFISH WOMAN,* 



Mrs. Barclay's stories are never written 

 simply as a pastime. They are always the 

 setting for a jewel of some kind, and one of the 

 facets of the jewel here before us is the truth 

 that love, of the most perfect order, must not 

 be provocative of selfishness in the receiver of 

 the love. Her settings are always like some old 

 ornament of the quaintest and most original 

 design, and this story does not fall behind her 

 others in this particular. We have here a young 

 couple passionately attached to one another, the 

 wife belonging to a county family, the husband 

 a writer of great promise, but she, womanlike, 

 has so merged her personality in his that the 

 greatest of her desires is to give him everything 

 he wants. Ronald West thinks that the plot 

 of a new story requires that he should go to 

 Africa in order to obtain local colouring, and so 

 obsessed is he with this idea that he does not 

 notice that his wife has also some great piece of 

 news to share with him. They have always 

 wished for a child, and now the gift is coming 

 to them. The husband leaves in ignorance, and 

 this gives occasion for happenings which only 

 just escape a tragedy of the worst kind, for the 

 traditional enemy is ready to take advantage. 

 A curious psychic impulse is responsible for part 

 of the misunderstanding, but the couple are 

 guided rightly and in the end : — 



" My wife," said Ronnie slowly, " when I called it 

 ' the Upas tree indeed,' I did not mean the one act of 

 going off in ignorance and leaving you alone during the 

 whole of that time, when any man who cared at all 

 would wish to be at hand, to bear, and share, and 

 guard. I do not brand that as selfish ; because you 

 purposely withheld from me the truth, and bid me go 

 But why did you withhold it? Why, after the first 

 shock, did you feel glad to face the prospect of bearing 

 it alone; glad I should be away? Ah, here we find the 

 very roots of the Upas tree ! Was it not because during 

 the whole of our married life I have been cheerfully, 

 complacently selfish? I have calmly accepted as the 

 rule of the home that I should hear of no worries that 

 you could keep from me, tread upon no thorns whi jh 

 you could clear out of my path, bear no burdens which 

 your loving hands could lift and carry out of sight. 

 Your interests, your pleasures, j-our friends, your pur- 

 suits, all have been swept on one side, if they seemed 

 in the smallest degree likely to interfere with my work 

 my desires, my career. You have lived for me — abso- 



* The Upas Tree. By Florence Barclay. 



(Putnam. 3s. 6d. net.) 



CHINA : POLITICAL AND 

 TOPOGRAPHICAL. 



Of two very interesting books on China, one 

 {Sun Vat Sen*) is the delightful story of the 

 friendship of the chief author for the man to 

 whom he is so proud to render hero worship. 

 The book is written in fascinating style, en- 

 riched with maps and photographs, and gives a 

 clear and vivid series of reasons for the present 

 condition of affairs in China. Mr. Cantlie tells 

 a gruesome story by Edgar Allen Poe to illus- 

 trate the conditions into which the Manchu 

 despotism has gradually fallen. It is the one 

 about the sick man who is hypnotised, and dur- 

 ing that state, and sitting erect in his chair, 

 dies. So, he says, it is with the Manchu rulers. 

 The last chapter concerns the future of China. 

 Mr. Cantlie says that the Reform Party in China 

 looks to England for help and encouragement in 

 their task of reconstructing a mighty nation, and 

 he points out the one cloud on the horizon, the 

 extra territorial clause of the Treaty of Nanking. 

 Through Shen-Konf is an account of an expedi- 

 tion which occupied over eighteen months from 

 start to finish, with astronomical observations 

 taken every hundred miles, and of which the 

 zoological and scientific reports have been re- 

 vised by experts before the publication of the 

 book. Over two thousand miles of road were 

 traversed in the provinces of Kansu, Shensi, and 

 Shansi, which lie south of the great wall, with 

 Tibet for one of its borders. It is watered by the 

 Yellow River. The first thing the expedition did 

 was to measure a base. This was don^ in n 

 plain north-west of T'ai-Yuan Fu, and took 

 about seven weeks, during which time all the 

 various preparations for the commissariat were 

 completed. The appendix contains an itinerary of 

 the journey, and, in fact, the explorers desire th-at 

 the work should form a solid basis for future 

 labourers in North China. The photographs, 

 water-colours, and maps are beyond praise. The 

 illustrations are varied as inay well be expected, 

 the rubbing from the tablet in Peiling being as 



* Sun Yat Sen. By James Cantlie and C. S 

 Jones. (Jarold. 6s. net.) 



t Through Shen-Kan. By E. S. Clark and 

 A. and C. Sowerby. (T. Fisher Unwin. 25s. 

 net.) 



