Suggestions
The following recommendations ofbooks about sporting dogs and huntingcome from Sid Hayward '26:
Perhaps there are enough readers of this page whose thoughts are wandering from office and professional duties on fine autumn days to an alder run, a sun drenched swale, or an upland hillside spotted with thornapple trees. By this time, you have guessed that the wandering thoughts are concentrated on the flash of a blue-blooded dog through brush, the scolding of a grouse, the whirr of wings as a bird flushes, and the thrill of a quick shot.
There are plenty of books about sporting dogs but one that any dog owner can read with profit to himself and his dog is "The Basis of Breeding' by Leon F. Whitney, noted New Haven scientist who is spending his life studying dogs.
"My Gun Dogs" by Raymond p. Holland, (Houghton-Mifflin) is recommended reading as an all around treatment of the subject.
"The Cocker Spaniel" by Ella B. Moffitt is an illustrated and practical volume of information for owners of those fine little sporting dogs, Cockers. Don't give any ground to bigger dogs, if you are a Cocker enthusiast. Read Mrs. Moffitt's book, give your dog plenty of practice in the field, and you will have a fine gunning companion and game getter.
"Sporting Dogs" (Gun Dogs) published by American Kennel Club, 221 Fourth Avenue, New York City, is one of six separate volumes in a new dog group series, at per volume.
"Popular Dogs" is the weekly magazine published for sportsmen by the Popular Dogs Publishing Co., 2009 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. It is worthwhile reading for the helpful hints about caring for and handling gun dogs that one constantly finds in its pages.
A final note in these suggestions may appropriately be given to two important factors in hunting trips. "The Camper'sHandbook" by Dillon Wallace is as complete a compendium of information about what to wear, what to eat, (and how to cook it) and a great many other things as one could find. The book is well indexted. Everything about camping from alforjas to woodticks can be found in the index.
"Modern Shot-gun Shooting," a fine little volume, thoroughly illustrated, will help anyone in handling a gun either a beginner or an experienced hunter. It is written by Lawrence B. Smith and is published by Scribners.
Mr. Van Wyck Brooks, one of our best American critics, has written a fine and entertaining book The Flowering of NewEngland, 1815-1865. I am recommending it to my class in American Thought, and it should prove a delight to any reader. The author doesn't throw a great deal of new light on the period, but he does throw some, and he shows clearly the whole movement in its ultimate perspective. George Ticknor, Longfellow, Dana, Emerson, Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Lowell, Prescott, Channing, and others emerge as very human, and in some instances, as very great persons. It is all too easy to smile at the Boston Brahmins. Mr. Van Wyck Brooks does not do so, and the resulting book must be placed on the same shelf with Vernon Parrington's Main Currents inAmerican Thought.
I don't know whether Mr. Lewis Parkhurst has any extra copies of A Catalogueof Books presented by him to the Norfolk State Prison Library, but I do know that it is an excellent guide to any one who is seeking to build up a good, general allaround working library. Helpful, too, is a list of a thousand "interesting and significant books" compiled by the National Council of Teachers of English, copies of which may be ordered from 211 West 68th Street, Chicago.
For those who like short stories I wish to mention Charles J. Finger's little known In Lawless Lands, published by MitchellKennedy in 1924.
Most readers of this magazine have read Alexander Laing's The Sea Witch. If they liked it, they would also revel in Howard I. Chapelle's magnificently printed volume The History of American SailingShips, which came out last year. This volume is full of fascinating data, is well written, and contains many drawings taken from various Marine Museums and private collections.
Siegfried Sassoon has written the last volume of his trilogy which began with the justly famed Memoirs of a Fox-HuntingMan. The title is Sherston's Progress. The story begins at the Slateford Mental Hospital where Sherston had been sent after protesting against the war. Sherston, who is Sassoon, although it must not be understood as pure autobiography, is released, sent to Egypt, and is finally wounded in the head on the Western Front. Sassoon writes, and this is his final word, "It has been a long journey from that moment to this, when I write the last words of my book. And my last words shall be thesethat it is only from the inmost silences of the heart that we know the world for what it is, and ourselves for what the world has made us."
The Method of Freedom, by WallerLippmann. Macmillan, 1934.
The Coming American Revolution, byGeorge Soule. Macmillan, 1934
It might be amusing to see what these gentlemen wrote two years ago in the light of present events.
Mr. Lippmann, who received an honorary degree from Dartmouth in 1933, believes in what he calls a "free collectivism," which is neither Fascism or Communism but "it is collectivist because it acknowledges the obligation of the state for the standard of life and the operation of the economic order as a whole." He continues: "It is free because it preserves within very wide limits the liberty of private transactions. Its object is not to direct individual enterprise and choice according to an official plan but to put them and keep them in a working equilibrium. Its method is to redress the balance of private actions by compensating public actions." This is possible for English speaking countries which have the wealth and knowledge in the art of governing. England and ourselves tend to rely on experience and we have, too, the spirit of concession as the late Lord Morley pointed out in his admirable essay On Compromise. Because of the increasing complexity of the social order "it has become necessary to create collective power, to mobilize collective resources, and to work out technical procedures by means of which the modern state can balance, equalize, offset, correct the private judgements of masses of individuals This is what I mean by Compensated Economy and the Method of Free Collectivism."
Since writing this Mr. Lippmann has come out for the Republican candidate. Does he still believe in some form of collectivism?
Mr. Soule owed most to Lyford P. Edward's much neglected but valuable book The Natural History of Revolutions, when, in the first part of his book, he deals with the nature of revolutions. The thesis is that it is the ruling classes and not the masses which cause revolutions. This would seem to be true in the France of 1789, and the Russia of 1917. People are not naturally revolutionists; they are, in fact, just the opposite, and revolt only after most colossal blunders of the ruling class. Mr. Soule traces the steps of Mr. Hoover and Mellon to stop the depression, and he believes that they failed because their advisers were foolish and shortsighted. Mr. Roosevelt tried to stem the tide without deviating very much from capitalistic theories. Mr. Soule thinks that a revolution will come, or rather, "the process will simply be the adjustment of mankind to a new phase, made necessary by its own evolution." If we do not have socialized planning the author thinks that we are in for "a period of terrible discomfort."
Read in the light of present day events the book is not as convincing as it was two years ago, or is it?
Readers of biography will enjoy H. V.Marrot's The Life and Letters of JohnGalsworthy-, Scribner's, 1936. Mr. Marrot has gathered together many facts, many letters, but it will be some years yet before all the material this book contains can be assimilated and comprehended in a true focus. However, the information is here, and the book is well worth reading.
J. L. Dubreton's Samuel Pepys is a sly book, which in pointing out the human weaknesses of the former diarist, overlooks most of the elements of character which made Samuel one of the really great men of his time.
Robert P. Tristram Coffin, in John,Dawn, (Macmillan, 1936) has written a rather preposterous novel about a Maine family of supermen. It has been praised by Metropolitan reviewers but for reasons which continue to baffle me. For solid truth and fidelity to Maine character I recommend again here the books of my friend Kenneth Roberts, especially Arundel, Rabble in Arms, and The Lively Lady.
Scribner's has recently published a magnificently illustrated war book entitled The War of the Guns, by Aubrey Wade. War books, I suspect will never again be popular, but they at least serve to remind us what the last Great War was like. Knowing that we can scarcely do otherwise than to oppose every war with all our strength and conviction.
