Self-improvement is not much talked of among the cultivated. We seldom hear of an improving book. If we spoke of one, we should mean a book the author of which had a wearisome tendency to improve the occasion. There are certain shynesses which we regard as becoming, and rather foster in ourselves. After a time they become affectations, and in the end shibboleths. But among simpler people nowadays self-improvement is the fashion. They read, and reason, and make rules, and form societies with this object. They talk of it, and write of it, and are not ashamed.

What is it exactly that they want to improve into? if one may ask so ungrammatical a question. What is the standard to which they are striving to attain? A little book has just come out called "Success Secrets" (by O. S. Marden; T. Fisher Unwin, 2s. net)-it ought to have been called "The Art of - Self-Improvement”—which we believe supplies a very clear answer to these questions. It is written primarily, we should imagine, for those in commercial employ, for men and women who have not had every advantage which money can give during their earliest years, but who desire ardently to become prosperous, honest, educated, and well-mannered members of a pleasant society. The attainment of these ends is in the author's belief a matter of equipment, and equipment can be gained by willpower and determination directed by constant obedience to the spur and curb of "Do" and "Don't." First of all, the student of "self-improvement" should believe in God and in himself. Indeed, he must go further than that. He must feel himself "a co-worker with the Creator of the universe"; he must be certain of the worth and dignity of his task, however dull or trivial it may

seem! and he must allow himself no nervous vacillation, he must not “ruin his own judgment by not trusting it." After such counsel as this, the reader can hardly help smiling when his teacher descends to details, and he is told to keep "the man at the other end of the bargain" in his mental eye, and instructed how to comport himself in "a customer's office" or "as the representative of a dignified, reliable house." All the same, how to "take a rebuff good-naturedly" is a thing very well worth learning, and one the importance of which may easily be depreciated.

But money-making is only a side-aim to the self-improver; that is, it is but one means, and not the chief means, to the happiness which is his end. He is to get out of his work a more refined pleasure than that of gain. He is to "go to the bottom of it" and "do it in the spirit of an artist, not an artisan." As to "luck," our instructor has no belief in it. Men "lose their luck," he says, by "making a business of pleasure," or "in dawdling," or "at the race track," or "at cheap, demoralizing shows." Sometimes it "goes down in drink and up in smoke." More often they pitch it away by "refusing positions they could get because they did not know whether they would like the work or not." It is seldom chance, we are told, that loses a man "promotion.” He remains at the bottom of his ladder because "he watched the clock," or "was always grumbling," or "chose his friends among his inferiors," or "did not think it worth while to learn how."

An enthusiasm for education is almost a necessity to any real self-improvement. The man who asks "Is it worth while?" has not the root of the matter in him. "Does it pay," the writer scornfully asks, "to push one's horizon farther out?" "to taste the ex

hilaration of feeling one's powers unfold?" "to acquire a character-wealth, a soul-property?" But our author is never long in the clouds. "Does it

pay," he asks in more practical mood, "to fit oneself for a superior position?" Want of education is to be regarded not as a misfortune but as a disgrace. "It is a disgrace," we read, to live in the midst of museums, picture-galleries, lectures, and “improvement clubs," and "not avail oneself of their advantages." The same thing is true of men and women. A man is a fool if he marries a woman who "does not think it worth while to read for self-improvement." Any one should be ashamed "not to be able to carry on intelligently conversation upon current topics," and even "not to have intelligent knowledge of the general affairs of the world, and the interrelations of nations."

The rules of manners here suggested are many of them put under the heading of popularity. Indeed, bar certain fundamental suggestions about being clean and smart in person, not apologizing for one's parents, correcting their mispronunciations, or appearing in curlpapers, they are excellent suggestions for making oneself liked.

For in

stance, the student is advised to take a genuine interest in his interlocutor; to "force" his own "moods," so as not to let it be seen when he is anxious or in the "blues"; to be ready with praise; to

cease fidgeting and fretting and fault-finding and looking for slights; finally-and this last is rather an odd piece of advice to treat all men on an equality: "Believe in the brotherhood of man, and recognize no class distinctions." We have left out, however, one valuable, if somewhat primly expressed recommendation to those familiar with foreign parts. "Let a refined manner and superior intelligence show that you have travelled, instead of constantly talking of the distant countries you have visited." The end of the

whole course of study is happiness. Given a successful marriage, it is to be found "in friendships," "in friendly letters," "in social intercourse, “in a clean conscience," "in the work we love," "in the companionship of books," and "in doing one's best." This is certainly a very admirable, if not a very original, ideal, and one as far from the decadence we are apt to deplore as the north is from the south.

Why is it that the attitude of sophisticated or highly placed persons towards all open endeavor after self-improvement is almost invariably one of a good-natured or ill-natured satire? We believe that at the bottom of their hearts not a few of them feel that those who are born without what are called advantages had better die without them. They wish all the necessities of existence to all the world; they would put themselves out to a small extent to give them to them; but secretly they think that good manners, delicate feelings, the refinements of life. and all the delights of the mind should remain monopolies. It comforts them to observe little errors of taste, a little lack of perception, a little conceit, a little show of effort better meant than directed, in those who stretch forward to share these goods. They smile and feel secure. But, setting aside these illconditioned gentry, why do so many good people take a supercilious view of the desire for self-improvement,-we mean of the hearty, self-conscious, open effort to better oneself in the best sense which this book represents? Why do they, to put the matter very plainly, look down upon it and feel amused by it? As they are good people, there must be something which is not vulgar at the bottom of their satire and suspicion. We suppose that they are actuated by a firm belief that aspiration is so delicate a substance that exposure will destroy it, while they forget that aspirations are as often fatally smoth

daresay that Lamb is too tidy, a shade too precise; but statuettes have that fault. Rodin, of course, would ruffle his hair and see that his coat did not fit; but Rodin is beyond us, even if in this connection we wanted him. Any sculptor, I fear, is beyond us, for those to whom Lamb's fame is actually dear are few and modest in possessions. That is why the discovery of this little figure seems to be so opportune; for the first, and I hope last, time in my life, I am glad to think that, if it were decided to go further with the scheme I have shadowed, no living artist need be employed. A purely mechanical enlargement would meet the case.

The nearest pictorial thing to the Lamb of the statuette is Wageman's portrait of 1824 or 1825. In that, which is full face, one loses some of the aquilinity of the nose, but it has similar hair (although rougher) and the same cut of clothes (but less perfect). Brook Pulham's etched caricature of 1825 makes the hair unkempt and straightsurely an error-but he gives the nose much of our sculptor's sharpness. Meyer, who painted Lamb in 1826, softens the features. Maclise, who corroborates costume and physical proportions, came later, and he also made the hair much less curly. If the sculptor did not model from life, then I think he probably went to Wageman's drawing for his groundwork, with perhaps hints from a friend. But I see no reason to doubt that he had a sitting. As to who this sculptor was, I have a note from Mr. Read, of the British Museum. "It seems probable," he writes, "that it was modelled (assuming it to be Derby biscuit and not Parian, a later thing) by Samuel Keys [the younger], who worked at Derby modelling figures of theatrical folk until 1830. He then left Derby for the Potteries."

It may be held as an argument against the "life" theory that, had Lamb in his days of leisure towards

The Times.

the end ("circa 1830") given sittings to a modeller, he would have said something about it in his letters; but, on the other hand, he says nothing of his sitting to Joseph, nothing of Wagemau, nothing of Maclise's visit to make the drawing for Fraser's Magazine, nothing of Cary visiting Edmonton to paint that picture of Lamb and his sister which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. Yet a statuette to be reproduced in numbers (as one must suppose this one was) is a different thing-a more special and rarer form of flattery, less within the experience of Lamb and his friends than sitting for their portraitsand the circumstance that the correspondence makes no allusion to it must perhaps be considered a little striking. It has to be remembered, however, that quantities of his letters have been lost.

An interesting question is, who was the statuette made for? Not the market, surely, for there was hardly likely to be a public for the statuette of a man who had failed as a dramatist and whose essays did not reach a second edition in his lifetime. The wholething is a mystery; but the fact that emerges is valuable-a statuette of Charles Lamb, seated at his ease, book in hand, so natural as to persuade us that the likeness is true.

An exact life-size enlargement of this (save perhaps for a homelifying of the chair) would be wholly satisfactory. Could it not be managed? The ideal situation for it is, I think, the Temple Gardens, just through the gate facing Crown Office-row, where Lamb was born. It was through these gates that, as a child, he used to peer at the greenery; through these gates his admirers might now peer at him. The statue would take up only a few square feet: surely the Templars would not grudge that? If one-tenth of the people who habitually say "dear Elia" gave only a shilling each, the thing could be done.

E. V. Lucas.

Holiday book-buyers should lose no time in possessing themselves of the 1909 catalogue of the "Mosher Books," which can be had on request from Thomas B. Mosher, Portland, Me. It contains not only this year's titles, but a description of all the Mosher books published up to date; and its 80 exquisitely printed pages are at once a record and a specimen of Mr. Mosher's achievements in the art of book-mak

ing.

A book that girls will enjoy and mothers approve-happy combination! -is "When She Came Home from College" by Marion Kent Hurd and Jean Bingham Wilson. Beginning with a graphic description of the last chafingdish supper at college, the story follows the domestic vicissitudes by which the bright and bumptious graduate, eager to enlighten brothers, sisters, parents and neighbors-at-large, is made to learn the disagreeable differences between theory and practice. The theme is always timely and the writers have treated it in a fresh and vivacious way. Houghton Mifflin Company.

The "Dudley Grahams," Miss Alice Calhoun Haines's subject in a former story, reappear in the further chronicle of "Cock-a-Doodle Hill," transformed into residents of the country, the subjects of the scandalized observation of their neighbors, and intent upon making their fortune by rearing poultry. Their experience is varied in many ways, ridiculous and pathetic, but all -contributing to the reader's enjoyment. Real misfortune comes near the end of the story, but is bravely met and last of all an unexpected legacy descends upon the chicken farmer and the family is left in the certainty of living happy forever after. Henry Holt &

Co.

Mr. Norman Duncan's "Going down from Jerusalem" is as agreeable a tale of Eastern travel as has appeared for many a year. Sights and sounds of the desert and all the staple topics he touches but slightly. His work is to study the natives about him; to understand, if not their motives at least some of the thoughts under their turbans and behind their impassive faces. How he manages it no man may know, but they tell him tales of their neighbors and themselves, of their happiness and sorrow, even of their roguery and of their personal weaknesses. and his days are as if he were a mediæval monarch with minstrels and bards innumerable, and his book is an innocent Arabian Nights. A colored frontispiece and sixteen full page half tones almost as expressive of tint and shade. illustrate the book, but it needs no pictures to impress itself upon the memory. Harper & Brothers.

At midnight or thereabouts, Mr. Ralph Henry Barbour's latest heroine steps upon the rear platform of a private railway car to ascertain what is delaying the train and finds the hero standing beside the track. He loses no time in making her promise to wait until he has an opportunity to make her acquaintance, and to repeat his assertion that he loves her, and as the train moves away, she tosses back a spray of lilac. Hence the title of the book "Lilac Girl." Mr. Barbour brings the two together five years later in a pair of exactly similar houses in a quiet village, and as neither has anything to do but to think about the other, and as both remember the chance encounter with pleasure the result is obvious. The story makes a pretty square quarto, with five colored pictures by Mr. Clarence F. Underwood, and dec