baffling. A scab, he defines, as "one who gives more value for the same price than another." Obviously this formula is vague enough and general enough to cover both buyers and sellers either of commodities or labour wherever any element of competition enters. Consequently, Mr. London finds it easy to stretch his elastic definition until it enwraps the whole economic universe, barring only Mr. Rockefeller, the King of England, and certain other "non-scabs," royal and otherwise. The amazing part of the whole process is that whereby the opprobrium attached to the scab in the ordinary sense of that word is transferred to all the world excepting the persons above mentioned. It would be quite as easy and rather more obvious from a non-socialistic point of view to employ the same line of argument to whitewash the scab, little as men of that type may deserve the admiration which President Eliot for one seems inclined to lavish upon them. The defects of Mr. London's method of procedure are pretty evident when on the same page (145) he speaks of the good fortune of the United States in possessing conditions which enable her to be the "colossal scab" among nations, and in the next paragraph adds: "It is not good to give most for least, not good to be a scab." In spite of the shifty logic which characterises this part of his book, however, Mr. London is to be praised for the frankness with which he discusses the attitude of employers and labourers toward the use of the machinery of the state in settling strikes, and also the matter of the membership of union men in the militia.

The discussion of the future of industrial society which is taken up under the rather enigmatic title of "The Question of the Maximum," is chiefly significant because of the admission, doubtless suggested by Mr. Ghent, that instead of socialism, some form of industrial oligarchy may be the goal to which certain nations are tending. In the opinion of Mr. London this is particularly liable to occur when an old manufacturing country loses its foreign trade. Why should a commercial oligarchy which has been conquered in the strife for the world's markets be more likely to beat off the attacks of socialism than a dominant com

mercial obligarchy in a dominant commercial country? And finally one may ask: Are the possibilities of social evolution so meagre that these two alternatives exhaust them?

Not the least interesting part of the War of the Classes is Mr. London's personal confession of "How I became a Socialist." The story is frankness itself, with a touch now and then of self-consciousness that comes as a decided surprise from one of so vigorous a character. There is in, too, quite a little of the note of finality, not to say cocksureness, that are so characteristic of Ruskin and Tolstoy. But before the writer's burning social sympathy all criticism ceases and admiration alone speaks.

Robert C. Brooks.

V.

MAURICE HEWLETT'S "THE FOOL ERRANT."*

Mr. Hewlett, deserting his chosen field of mediæval adventure, has laid the scene of his last book in eighteenth-century Italy; and though the period is evidently less familiar to him, and in some ways less adapted as a background to his figure-painting, the novel shows, on the whole, an advance over its predecessors.

This advance is displayed in a greater distinctness of characterisation. The absurdly chivalrous, credulous, charming young Englishman, whose autobiography Mr. Hewlett affects to set down, manages to keep his personality before the reader through the whole succession of seriocomic adventures in which he is involved. The heroine, too, while on the whole less vivid, and certainly less interesting, detaches herself with a semblance of reality from the impersonal phalanx of Mr. Hewlett's earlier leading ladies, of whose carnal charms one has been told in so many more or less similar pages that even these much-emphasised attributes are blurred into a kind of composite portrait, while their moral idiosyncrasies fail to leave any impression at all. Virginia Strozzi, young Francis Strelley's hand

*The Fool Errant. By Maurice Hewlett. New York: The Macmillan Company.

maiden and worshipper, rescued by him from the gutter, and exalted to be a sharer in all the incidents of his chequered career, stands before the reader with a certain definiteness of outline, marred only by an occasional reversion to type. She starts out, for instance, thin to emaciation, and pale to the point of evanescence; but as the novelist warms to his subject (and Mr. Hewlett is nothing if not warm) she grows into the "highbosomed beauty" with whom his pen habitually consorts, and surprises the reader by an unexplained accession of embonpoint and complexion. As she and her companion are subjected to almost continuous hardships, physical and mental, and for a great part of the time are engaged in hard manual labour on an insufficient diet, one can only assume that Mr. Hewlett, bored by the company of a thin girl with no colour, has let his imagination momentarily stray to more congenial society.

This is not a serious charge; but it leads up to one which may be made with more emphasis. It is, precisely, that Mr. Hewlett's own tendency to emphasise makes him bear somewhat too heavily on the brittle surface of eighteenth-century manners. Much commerce with the noisy middle ages has given him a stentorian voice and an earth-shaking tread. He has forgotten that it was characteristic of the sette-cento to roar as gently as any sucking-dove. And this observation leads up to the real defect-as it has appeared to one reader-in his drawing of Virginia Strozzi. He has desired to depict her as a creature with undeveloped powers of expression, consumed by an inner intensity of emotion that occasionally flames out through her impassive exterior. So. far, so good; the type is picturesque, and Goethe has set up an enduring model of it in Mignon. But it has betrayed Mr. Hewlett into greater indulgence of his besetting foible. If Virginia must be quiet and reserved for, say, a dozen pages, then, by the god of noise, she shall make up for it on the thirteenth. And make up for it she does. Mr. Hewlett is there to see that she gets her opportunity. Some of the passages in which she gives way to her feelings read like a realistic description of an attack of hydrophobia:

one longs to hurry off poor Strelley to the nearest Pasteur Institute.

Well, it may be argued, if Mr. Hewlett had such a character in mind, why should he be criticised for daring to give it full expression? Only for the old familiar reason that art is limited, is a compromise, a perpetual process of rejection and elision. In the case of the novelist who lays his scene in a bygone century, this fact is the more insistently present because he is obliged to give his readers a picture of the times as well as of the characters of his story. This widens his canvas, and makes it necessary that every stroke should be subordinated to the effect of the mass. The individual characters become, in this connection, parts of the general composition: each must do duty as a mere line in the general portrait. And it is in conveying this synthesised image of the middle ages that Mr. Hewlett's talent has served him so well. His ranting, roaring personalities have served to build up a general impression of tumult and disorder, which is precisely the effect left on the modern mind. by any reading of mediæval history.

The eighteenth century, on the other hand, was all in nuances. Colours had paled, voices been lowered, convictions subdued in Italy especially, if one may trust the social records of the day, people lived au jour le jour, taking pain and pleasure lightly, and without much sense of the moral issue. Virginia Strozzi might have followed her hero as faithfully, but she would not have stormed at him so loudly. Above all, it may be doubted if she would have sacrificed herself to the extent of going through a mock marriage (which he took for a real one), in order not to be a burden on him when he came into his fortune and estate. Such far-sighted altruism savours of the romantic northern races: beneath a hot sun there is less weighing of remote contingencies.

eighteenth century made their way by adroitness rather than by bluster. Still, Fra Palamone might well stand as a probable exception, if the learned Doctor Lanfranchi's voice were not pitched to the same bellow, and his table-manners of the same carnivorous order. When two persons so divergent speak in the same tone, one suspects that the voice is Mr. Hewlett's. Let the reader, for justification of this criticism, turn to any of the delightful memoirs in which the daily life of the Italy of that period has been so variously depicted. Let him search through the amiable Goldoni, the pungent de Brosses, the peppery Carlo Gozzi, the unqualifiable Casanova, for any signs of extreme vehemence and primitive intensity of feeling. Let him if he can!follow the desultory trail of Venetian love-adventures in Lorenzo da Ponte's introuvable recollections; let him study the family life of the day in Ippolito Nievo's remarkable "Confessioni," or observe the eighteenth century on stilts in the pompous pages of Alfieri's memoirs: the total impression remains one of vivacity, elegance, good-humour, rather than of deep passion and gloomy violence.

Not that Mr. Hewlett's book is gloomy. He is too conscientious an artist not to have "reconstituted" his background with all possible care, and to have got the utmost attainable effect from the familiar properties of the period-strolling players, rhyming abbés, ruffling gallants, village fairs and carouses, the pleasures of the casino and the ridotto. (Even here out of pure pedantry-one might open a parenthesis to ask if, at that period, the Paterini were still heard of, if theart-loving traveller, as he approached Florence, thought first of seeing Brunelleschi's dome and Giotto's tower, and if the cognoscenti discussed the technique of Fra Angelico and Mantagna?)

It is only when Mr. Hewlett sets his characters in motion that they clash with their frivolous background, and seem to have come out of Cellini rather than out of Gozzi or Goldoni. One feels as if there would not have been a bit of Venice glass or of Bologna pottery left whole, after Lanfranchi and Palamone had butted and slashed their way through the land. And this impression is, in the last

analysis, a tribute to Mr. Hewlett's powers of realism. powers of realism. Mr. Henry James once said that the French novelists of the realistic school could render with inimitable vividness any impression received through the so-called "five senses"-anything that could be heard, seen, smelt, touched or tasted. The same may be said of Mr. Hewlett; and it is no light praise. One could not now revert to the psychological novel of the eighteenth century, with its action suspended in the void. Fiction has been enlarged by making the background a part of the action, and it is only when the stage-setting fails to merge with the drama that its details become importunate. This is by no means the case with Mr. Hewlett: he gets admirable effects out of his sensuous impressionability-the chapter called "The Tower of the Flies," in Richard Yea-andNay, is there to prove what he can achieve in this direction. It is on the other side that he pays the penalty: by tending to make his characters too purely physiological, reducing them to bundles of sensation. Civilisation has produced differentiation: human nature is still a bundle of sensations, but of a more complex order. And for this reason one reverts, in the end, to Mr. Hewlett's hero. Young Strelley, with his Quixotism, his gullibility, his courage, gaiety and comic resignation to ill-luck, is certainly the most successful figure in the book; and the series of mischance into which he is plunged show how readily Mr. Hewlett is able, when he chooses, to depart from the somewhat rudimentary psychology of his earlier volumes. Strelley is interesting, in the first place, because the incidents which befall him—and very entertaining some of them are— spring from his own character, and his puzzled contact with another race; and secondly, because, sentimentalist as he is, he sees something in life beyond the loveadventure on which Mr. Hewlett's other heroes have always been persistently bent. He has general ideas, conceptions of conduct, a fine, gallant view of the world; and the inconsistencies tempering his high theories give the requisite touch of charm to his character.

Mr. Hewlett, in short, not satisfied, like most novelists of incident, to set a group

The phenomenon of "double" or "alternating consciousness" has been observed by physicians for many years, and has continued to be more or less a mystery. In 1877, Legrand du Saulle of Paris, in his Étude medico-légale sur les épileptiques, recounted a case of double consciousness in which the mental alienation lasted from several hours, in some attacks, to three days, in others, during which time the patient travelled long distances, often regaining normal consciousness in a prison or on a railroad train, when he found himself in possession of several articles which he had unconsciously stolen. Dr. Morton Prince of Boston reported a case of plural personality in the person of Miss Beauchamp. This woman was a neurasthenic of serious mind, fond of books and of study, possessed of an old-fashioned New England conscience, religious and somewhat morbid, and inclined to sadness and depression. Hypnotic suggestion was of benefit to her. When in the somnambulistic state, Dr. Morton called her "B 2." On one occasion when hypnotised, she did not at all recall her experiences in previous hyp

noses, and the doctor found he had to deal with a third personality, which rapidly developed, and became known as "B 3" or "Sally." "B" knew nothing of the others; "B 2" knew only "B1;" while "B 3" knew both "B 1" and "B 2. Sally proved to be full of fun, taking life as a joke, and devoting herself to

*The Mortgage on the Brain. Being the Confessions of the late Ethelbert Croft, M.D. By Vincent Harper. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co.

amusement, hating church and refusing to worry. She cannot read French nor write shorthand, as does Miss B.; she is never fatigued and never suffers pain.

For a year Miss B. and Sally alternated, during hypnosis, and also in Dr. Morton's absence. At times Sally was in the ascendancy for periods of several days. Sally disliked Miss B., and tormented her in every way: collecting insects and snakes (of which Miss B. has a horror) and sending them to her in a package, unravelling Miss B.'s knitting, hiding her postage stamps and shocking the decorous Miss B. by obliging her to tell falsehoods, as well as to sit with her feet on the mantel.

A number of interesting and curious examples of the kind, authentic and elaborate, have been recorded in medical literature. These cases for the greater part

occurred in individuals who had been in conditions of exhaustion resulting from wasting disease or toxic conditions. A thorough, though intricate, study of such mental states was made by Sidis and Goodhart in their work Multiple Personality,* in which a most interesting case is considered at length.

Why cannot such a condition be induced artificially, by the use of drugs and hypnosis, in a well person? Why cannot a good personality be permanently substituted for an evil one, or why cannot the attractive and happy Sally be permanently substituted for the tearful and soulful Miss B., and then be reformed enough to make her a proper member of society? Such questions have undoubtedly occurred to writers possessed of imagination, as well as to experimental psychologists. Speculation in this realm of fancy has resulted in the novel The Mortgage on the Brain.

The mortgage is supposed to be held by ignorance and superstition. The author invades the fields of metaphysics. and religion, and formulates new theories respecting life, giving to the terms. "mind," "thought" and "spirit" new values. Personality is treated as a chemical compound might be treated in a test tube; for with the aid of mental reagents it is broken up, and new combinations are made. As the author phrases it, *See THE BOOKMAN for April, p. 185.

"Humanity finds a way of escape from the tyrant Personality." The principles underlying the present orthodox teaching with respect to self and moral responsibility are shown to be absolutely false. These startling assertions and hypotheses are stated in the course of an interesting love story of a very novel character, published in narrative form as the posthumous work of Dr. Croft, the London physician who figures prominently therein.

A young English woman, daughter of a clergyman and dignitary of the Church of England, dignified, gentle, refined, possessing great beauty of face and figure, endowed with a rich voice, magnetic, charming and altogether lovely, is the wife of Lord Torbeth. To the horror and anguish of her husband and relatives, the viscountess is subject to periods of supposed mental aberration, during which she escapes from home, and, under an assumed name, has various adventures, not only representing herself as married and misunderstood, and driven from home by unfeeling parents, but also evincing great voluptuousness and attaching herself passionately to certain men, whom she implores to befriend her. Returning home after these intervals, the viscountess, remembering but dimly her escapades, is plunged into excessive remorse. Emerging from the depression, the patient resumes her usual manner and character, and is Lady Torbeth again for a variable period.

un

Other medical advisers having failed, she is placed by father and husband in the hands of Dr. Croft, who is fresh from the study of "psycho-therapy," the new methods of "stimulating the cerebral centres secreting the emotions and thought-images" by means of "radioenergy," as taught by the great savants, Yznaga, de Moulin and Freycinet.

The problem consists in depriving the viscountess of the improper secondary personality which possesses her as a result of auto-hypnotism, and permanently establishing her own noble personality. Such a result can be obtained only after obliterating her memory and then endowing her with a new one. Croft offers himself for preliminary experiment, at the risk of being permanently bereft of mem

ory, or of being permanently transformed into another person. Through repeated hypnotic suggestion by Freycinet, a new and entirely different personality, called "Edward Templeton," is formed for him. In the company of a Mr. and Mrs. Ashburton and their protégée, Gertrude Leighton, Templeton travels in Europe. The Ashburtons are M. and Mme. Freycinet, and Miss Leighton is Lady Torbeth in one of her hypnotic states. A month later, Templeton emerges from his hypnosis and becomes Croft, in possession of his own brain.

Shortly thereafter, Yzanga and his associates, by means of hypnotisation, radio-energy and electricity, reduce Croft mentally to a child. Memory, will, emotion, passion, thought, being mere resultants of functional activity in the cells and centres of the brain, are dethroned and partially abolished. His mind is emptied of correlated ideas and left a blank. Templeton, who had been the hypnotic guest, is made the permanent resident in the brain vacated by Croft, a resident who should no longer act under hypnotic suggestion, but should be a free agent, in thought and action, equipped with a complete set of memories, principles and traits, sufficiently practical to make a man of him.

At this interesting juncture, Templeton wanders away, accidentally meets Gertrude Leighton, and passes two delirious weeks with her. The lovers are recognised by Lady Torbeth's father, and legal proceedings are begun against Croft, who is accused of several crimes while masquerading as Templeton. He is not only arrested, but even confined in an insane asylum. The tangle, however, is unravelled, and Templeton is permanently deprived of Croft's brain, of which its owner resumes control.

In the light of the experiments upon Croft, Lady Torbeth is subjected to treatment, with entire success, Gertrude Leighton and her other alternate personalities being permanently exorcised, and the mortgage on her brain being cancelled.

The story is almost plausible. It is deeply interesting, even thrilling; and through it all the reader's attention is riveted on the actors in many startling