-a
Spanish lady who dictates to armies, a French prince of the blood
who has forsaken his birthright for the highroad. But all are
dominated by the immense Sir Richard, who rights wrongs like an
unruly Providence, and then rides away.

THE HISTORY OF MR. POLLY. _H. G. Wells._

If the true aim of romance is to find beauty and laughter and
heroism in odd places, then Mr. Wells is a great romantic. His
heroes are not knights and adventurers, not even members of the
quasi-romantic professions, but the ordinary small tradesmen, whom
the world has hitherto neglected. The hero of the new book, Mr.
Alfred Polly, is of the same school, but he is nearer Hoopdriver
than Kipps. He is in the last resort the master of his fate, and
squares himself defiantly against the Destinies. Unlike the others,
he has a literary sense, and has a strange fantastic culture of his
own. Mr. Wells has never written anything more human or more truly
humorous than the adventures of Mr. Polly as haberdasher's
apprentice, haberdasher, incendiary, and tramp. Mr. Polly discovers
the great truth that, however black things may be, there is always a
way out for a man if he is bold enough to take it, even though that
way leads through fire and revolution. The last part of the book,
where the hero discovers his courage, is a kind of saga. We leave
him in the end at peace with his own soul, wondering dimly about the
hereafter, having proved his manhood, and found his niche in life.

THE OTHER SIDE. _H. A. Vachell._

In this remarkable book Mr. Vachell leaves the beaten highway of
romance, and grapples with the deepest problems of human
personality and the unseen. It is a story of a musical genius,
in whose soul worldliness conquers spirituality. When he is at
the height of his apparent success, there comes an accident, and
for a little soul and body seem to separate. On his return to
ordinary life he sees the world with other eyes, but his
clearness of vision has come too late to save his art. He pays
for his earlier folly in artistic impotence. The book is a
profound moral allegory, and none the less a brilliant romance.

SIR GEORGE'S OBJECTION. _Mrs. W. K. Clifford._

Mrs. Clifford raises the old problem of heredity, and gives it