NOT since Wordsworth and Coleridge published the Lyrical Ballads has any writer been the subject of such heated controversy as has Gertrude Stein. Just now, when literature, in common with the other arts, is passing through a period of transition, someone has aptly observed that the whole English-reading world may be divided into two groups — those who understand and applaud Gertrude Stein, and those who don’t. Whatever the reader’s sympathies on this question, there can be no disputing the fact that she is one of the remarkable women of our time. And it is significant, surely, that the author of Lucy Church Amiably and Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded Friendship Faded was earlier the discoverer of Picasso and Matisse, and that she, though not a painter, has been identified with cubism through her close friendship with the principal artists in the movement. Hers has been an extraordinary life, and under the characteristic title, ' Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,’she records it all in amusing and colorful detail — and in the King’s English. Philip Cabot (‘A Challenge’) is Professor of Public Utility Management at the Harvard Business School. Helen Hall (‘English Dole and American Charity’) went abroad to make a first-hand study of the English dole and the way it works; about American charity she already knew the last word — she is director of University Settlement in Philadelphia and chairman of the Unemployment Division of the National Federation of Settlements. ▵ ‘Lantern in the Storm’ is a heroic page out of Edwin M. Slocombe’s experience. For eight years he was minister of the Unitarian Church in Lexington, Massachusetts; he now resides in Lynchburg, Virginia. ▵ Though his name bears witness to Irish ancestry, Morley Callaghan (‘An Old Quarrel’) was born in Toronto and is several generations removed from Erin, He is a member of the Canadian bar, but is best known as a writer, having issued two novels, Strange Fugitive and It’s Never Over, and a volume of short stories, A Native Argosy. ▵ One of the first people to encourage Morley

Callaghan to forsake the law for letters was Ford Madox Ford (‘Contrasts’). At that time Ford was running the Transatlantic Review in Paris. As editor, author, and citizen of the world, he knows all the writing folk on both sides of the Atlantic. His books are numbered by the score, the most recent being Return to Yesterday and When the Wicked Man. ▵ Your true poet sings because he must — it’s in the blood. Such is William Rose Benét ( Because You Came to Climb’), older brother of Stephen Vincent Benét. He has published numerous volumes of verse, and is contributing editor of the Saturday Review of Literature.

Author of six novels, Philip Curtiss (‘Sunday’) prefers the rôle of country gentleman, which he enacts upon his farm in the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut. ‘If the truth must out,’ he says, ‘my real hobby is sleeping late in the morning. If more people would adopt my habits in this respect, many of the world’s troubles would be solved. For one thing, there would obviously be no wars.’ In his brief waking hours he has found time to take a degree from Trinity College, and also to study at the Sorbonne and the University of Madrid. ▵ There are two James Norman Halls — one who is at peace with himself and the world, and another who regrets that ‘I am not someone other than myself, in some other age than this, in some other place than here.’ The second Hall ran away to the South Sea Islands after the war; the first composes himself in old Tihoti Sage’s barber shop and, as ‘The Voice,’ reads a curtain lecture to his alter ego. ▵ ‘Letters from Manchuria, China, and Japan’ is a sequel to ‘Letters from the Manchurian Border,’ which ran in the Atlantic for April, May, and June of last year. It draws together the thread of world-shaking events which have occurred since Nora Waln left her home in Tientsin. John Barker Waite (‘Is the Law an Ass?’) is Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Michigan and a member of the American Law Institute’s advisory committee on the Model Criminal Code. ▵ Uncle Toby Shandy will stand for all time as the one perfect model of a hobbyhorsical man, but Earnest Elmo Calkins, with his rare collection of ‘ Hobbyhorses,’could teach him a few new tricks, Charlotte Kellogg (‘The Fire in the Bush’), energetic in humanitarian enterprise, is also a poet and biographer. Her most recent book, Jadwiga, Poland’s Great Queen, has gone through three editions. She is the wife of Vernon Kellogg, the well-known zoölogist. Edward Weeks (‘Scribbler’s Luck’) is a member of the Atlantic staff in immediate charge of Atlantic Press books. ▵A After long and distinguished service with the British Government in India, Sir John Campbell (‘ A Gentlemen s Agreement’) is now Financial Adviser to the Colonial Office in London. ▵ Economist and sociologist, H. H. Powers (‘Let’s Be Honest about the Tariff’) lists himself as a ‘free-trade Republican, by no means an isolated case.’ As chairman of the Bureau of University Travel, he is bringing together a group of business men, educators, and journalists who will make a trip through Soviet Russia this spring to study conditions there.

To correct a false assumption.

It has been brought to our attention that some of our readers may have been misled as to the authorship of an article in our January issue entitled ‘The Royal Road to Bankruptcy.’ It so happens that Mr. Clark Belden was Director of Public Relations for National Electric Power Company, which was one of the Insull companies and which had offices in New York and is now in bankruptcy, but which was not mentioned in the article. The article in question was not written by Mr. Belden, nor did it have anything whatsoever to do with him or his opinions.
THE EDITORS

The forgotten man and his President.

Dear Atlantic, —
Wilson Follett’s article in the March issue, ‘The Forgotten Man to His President,’ struck me with some amazement. For several weeks past I had been framing a letter to Mr. Roosevelt so similar in thought to the sentiments expressed by Mr. Folletl as to cause me to wonder whether there could have been any telepathic communication between us. However, it seems more reasonable to presume that Mr. Follett expressed, not merely his individual views, but the feelings of a number of us, people who have been more or less scarred by three years of economic upheaval.

Is it not possible that Mr. Roosevelt may have read this article, and that he had the political instinct to conclude that it represented mass thought? Certainly his courageous assumption of leadership the moment he took office would seem to indicate as much. If he continues to keep in direct touch with the people, he should be enabled not only to function adequately as an executive, but to be intelligently advised, rather than thwarted by an imperfectly informed Congress, always too much occupied with the mending of political fences and too suscept ible to dictation from determined lobbies.
PERCY H. ARDEN
Chicago, Illinois

Democracy’s original sin.

Dear Atlantic, —
A revered voice from your own past, the voice of James Russell Lowell, uttered words which summarize Mr. Sokolsky’s penetrating analysis of American conservatism in your March number: ‘ It is one of the prime weaknesses of a democracy to be satisfied with the second best if it appears to answer the purpose tolerably well, and to be cheaper — as it never is in the long run.’
GEORGE MCLEAN HARPER
Princeton, New Jersey

A religion acceptable to science.

Dear Atlantic, —
In my judgment, the best article in the March Atlantic is the one called ‘A Priest’s Reply to a Scientist.’ Of the religion of the future, Dr. Yerkes says: ‘The motives for the practice of religion will be absolutely devoid of the desire to continue the wishful ego or any other selfish incentive.’ In that case a scientist might be able to go to church — a consummation devoutly to be w ished.
CHARLES D. STEWART
Hartford, Wisconsin

Toby.

Dear Atlantic, —
I don’t suppose it will interest you,— in any case, you won’t believe it, but I’ll tell you about it anyway. It’s about my dog, Toby. I could fill a long letter with instances of Toby’s remarkable intelligence; this evening I have the best example of all.
Times are very bad in California — very, very bad. Even the realtors are looking glum. What with one thing and another, the depression has been a bit tough on me too. A month ago my bank failed. I did not have much in it, but I had enough to have kept me in bacon and corn meal and coffee for quite a while.
Well, to be brief, times have been so poor that yesterday I forgot lo feed Toby. He is a dog that never bithers a man. He leaves things to the boss and lets it. go at that. But in the middle of the night last night I heard him whining, and then I remembered all of a sudden that I had forgotten to feed him. I hurried down. There was no dog food in the house. There were no scraps. All that there was was one small slice of dry bread in my bread jar. I had planned to make johnnycake for my breakfast, so had not bought any bread yesterday.
I gave Toby the slice of bread, and told him, ‘ I ’ll get you a can of dog food in the morning.’ Then we both went back to bed— I upstairs, and Toby in his chair in the dining room. I heard him whining a time or two later, but the whine did not have the same note in it as before. It was a worried rather than a hungry whine.
A few minutes ago Toby came running home from an expedition somewhere or other. I saw through my window that he had something in his mouth, and I supposed it was a bone. I hen I heard him enter the open door of the kitchen, He always has his meals out of doors and never brings any bones into the house, so I was surprised at his misbehavior this time, and was just about to call a reprimand to him when he came rushing into my room. He ran right up to me and laid down something at my feet. He looked up at me with his short tail wagging, as much as to say: ‘There, you are, boss! Now you can have a good time.’
At my feet lay a fresh pig’s foot, a big one with plenty of the leg bone attached to it. And maybe you think I’m not going to have pig’s foot for dinner to-morrow!
Many two-legged persons attribute all that a four-legged person does to instinct. The scientis can say what they please about a dog’s being unable to reason. I know.
BILL ADAMS
Dutch Flat, California

Happy thought for a codicil.

Dear Atlantic, —
Writing the enclosed check for a three-year subscription. I could n’t help thinking that it may be the last I shall ever send you, since I am now in my seventy-fourth year. However, it is comforting to know that, should I ‘shuffle ofl this mortal coil’ prior to March 1936 my children will, if only for a few months, enjoy as a legacy something which has been for many years a great joy to me. In this connection it occurs to me that your circulation manager might create a desire among your subscribers to add a clause to their last wills and testaments making some dear one the recipient of the publication for ten, twenty, or fifty years. What more delightful memento can be imagined?
WILLIAM TELFORD DUNCAN
Brooklyn, New York

A sign of the times.

Dear At lantic, —
The Chicago Tribune has been urging all farmers to try the plan of exchange or barter. Therefore, if it does not seem too ridiculous, 1 should like to make you some real oilers ol this kind.
First offer. I own a city lot at Zion, Illinois, which 1 bought about t wenty years ago for $400. 1 have kept Ihe taxes paid all these years. 1 will gladly give you this lot in exchange for a threeyear subscription to the Atlantic.
Second offer. — T own about thirteen forties of land in Oneidu County, \\ isconsin, which cost me about $400 each less than ten years ago. 1 would gladly give you one of these forties for such a subscript ion.
You had better consider this. If one forty does not seem enough, I w ill make it t wo or more.
ARTHUR W. BROOKS
Monico, Wisconsin

In the north woods.

Dear Atlantic, —
Several recent copies of the Atlantic Monthly were given to me, and they have been a joy to read, from cover to cover.
Living alone, except for my dog, an Alsatian, on a farm of 112 acres in Northern Ontario, in a log house which I planned and which was put up, partially, by a ‘bee’; grinding wheat in a hand grinder for bread and cereal, for my dog and myself; visiting the women and children of the few families hereabouts, mostly Hungarians (I am a registered nurse) — I find ample reason to smile and thank God for such ‘goodness and mercy’ which have helped me to enjoy the beauty and peace of this north country when some nurses are still spending their lives and scanty store of money waiting for ‘cases’ in the towns and cities.
In these isolated places one can find opportunity to use one’s talents and not worry about pay. It costs little to live on the land. A pound of butter made on the farm, a jar of cream, or even a live rooster has been frequently offered to me by grateful patients when money was lacking. My place overlooks a lake teeming with pickerel, and five miles up the creek are speckled trout. In the year of my sojourn here I have lived bountifully on moose and red deer, partridges, spruce-hens, and grouse.
Having a boat in summer and skis in winter, plenty of good tamarack for the fires which are kept going continuously, my dog, and copies of the Atlantic, I ask no more of life in these days. Those copies, incidentally , are passed along from house to house after I have read them. It is 35 below zero as I write, and I think of the Ritters upon their island in the Galapagos.
CECELIA JOWETT
Hunta P. O., Northern Ontario