"Because she'd probably have to go home early!" he answered. Brian Kent, the hero of Harold Bell Wright's new novel, _The Re-Creation of Brian Kent_, is first introduced to us as a defaulting bank clerk. Later he is reformed by the influence of "dear old Auntie Sue" and becomes a novelist. His first book sells so well that in six months he is able to pay back all the money he stole and have something left over. This would seem to prove that Brian was an unusually successful novelist. Or, again, it may merely indicate that he had no real gift for embezzlement. * * * It rather seems to us that the distinct failure of political radicalism in America may be explained in part by its devotion to the concrete as opposed to the abstract. "We are going to make the world over anew at 12:25 o'clock p. m. next Thursday," says the concrete radical. And then Thursday comes and it rains and nothing is done about fixing up the world, and all the followers of the young radical are disappointed, and they go home firmly convinced that the world never will be fixed up. The man who realizes the value of the abstract ideal is shrewder. He says: "The world ought to be scrubbed up a lot, and if we can make a start next Thursday some time after breakfast we will. But if we can't do it then we've just got to keep on plugging away, because the job must be done." In other words, the man with abstract ideals makes the job the important thing. The concrete man is impressed more by the date of the doing. * * * A little abstraction is an excellent thing for the reformer or the revolutionist. It provides, we should say, a sort of reinforced concrete purpose. * * * At the worst, an abstract ideal is pemmican to carry the voyager through the long nights until the ice begins to break. * * * Some writers are hardly fair to women, but not so Julian Street. In his new novel, _After Thirty_, he describes marriage as a canoe trip beginning in the Rapids of Romance, and later he observes: "Presently they come to the first cataract--the birth of their first child--a long, hard portage, with the larger portion of the burden on the wife." Generous, we call it. * * * "Mr. Seton's new book of the outdoors," says the jacket of _Woodland Tales_, "is meant for children of six years and upward. But in the belief that mother or father will be active as leader, those chapters which are devoted to woodcraft are addressed to the parent, who throughout is called 'The Guide.'" So far we have found the business of being a father hard enough without assuming the responsibilities of "The Guide" as well. The only piece of woodcraft within our knowledge which we can pass on to H. 3rd comes from Harvey O'Higgins, who says that he can always find his way about in London by remembering that the moss grows on the north side of an Englishman. * * *