Life and Letters. 



445 



25 Cen 

 ! SO Cen 



Under each is given (i) its grouping; (2) the historical elements 

 of its use ; (3) a brief statement of its principal meanings ; (4) an 

 explanation of its changes in meaning ; (5) representative quota- 

 tions. About 150 critics are represented in the quotations. There 

 is a valuable introduction, and in the appendix 1,400 critical terms 

 are classified into 23 groups, as far as possible according to the 

 groups of the critics themselves. 



< The Development of the English Novel,' by W. L. 



Cross, assistant professor of Enghsh at Yale, published by the 

 Macmillan Company, will attempt to show that the novel, as an art 

 form, has followed specific laws of development, has had an organic 

 evolution less obvious perhaps than the unfolding of the verse epic, 

 certainly less obvious than that of the drama, yet possible to trace. 

 What will probably interest the judicious reader is the author's 

 acuteness in detecting lines of advance in the art of fiction ; in 

 pointing out instances of reversion and survival, of backward and 

 forward reach, and of the incessant give and take between realism 

 and romance ; in separating what is invented from what is inherited, 

 and in showing how the novel has become what it is by selection, 

 rejection, addition, and modification of the type. 



LIFE AND LETTERS. 



If, instead of convening to consider either disarmament or 

 arbitration, the delegates of the World-powers who met at the 

 Huis-ten-bosch could have agreed upon some working definition of 

 what constitutes aggression for big and little powers alike, civiliza- 

 tion would have been nearer peace with justice. As it is, peace 

 with injustice is likelier to be attained. But, as in medicine, the 

 allayment of one disease by artificially inducing another to coun- 

 ter-balance it, was the first step, preceding that wiser expertness 

 of hygienic treatment which builds up health and forestalls disease, 



