f what
_The Letter of the Contract_ touches;
So, but that BASIL KING has brain
And uses it when he is writing,
The book (from METHUEN) might contain
Little that's novel or inviting.

Yet it's so good it's doomed to miss,
I rather fear, the approbation
Of folk who hope such books as this
May help the cause of reformation;
For, if divorce in U.S.A.
Inspires such work, it stands to reason
To change the law in any way
Amounts to literary treason.

* * *

In contemplating the present season's output of fiction I have been
impressed by the number of novels that might apparently have been
written with an eye to the conditions that attended their publication.
Which, unless one credits our romancers with much further sight than is
commonly supposed to be their portion, is absurd. The thing is a
coincidence; and of this there is no more striking example than the
story that ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK has prepared for the world this autumn.
She calls it _The Encounter_ (ARNOLD), and it is all about the struggle
between "the Nietzschean attitude of mind in Germany," as exemplified in
an egotistical, crack-brained genius named _Ludwig Wehlitz_, and the
ideals of civilized Christianity exemplified in several other more
agreeable persons. You will own that this is at least _a propos_. The
whole thing is, of course, quite charmingly told. All the characters are
thoroughly alive; most of all perhaps the placid, tolerant and entirely
practical mother of the heroine. _Persis Fennamy_ had been introduced to
the genius as a suitable disciple and possible helpmate by the
_Signorina Zardo_, who worshipped him from afar. _Persis_ met _Ludwig_,
was interested, impressed and even willing to admire. There were two
other men also, attendant upon the great one: _Conrad Sachs_, who was
gentle and deformed, and _Graf von Ludenstein_, who represented another
type of German manhood. He represented it so well, indeed, that, when
_Mrs. Fennamy_ discovered that he had taken _Persis_ off for an intimate
conversation in a wood, even her tolerant placidity was deranged. But it
was all right, and _Persis_ escapes heart-whole from the lot of them,
clay superman and all. She is to be congratulated. So is the author, for
her book is both apt to the moment and interesting in itself.

* * *

There is, for all its gaiety, a certain external quality of pathos (now
that the German is to us so sinister a figur