The original obscuring of the works of Grace Ravlin, Grace H. Turnbull, Johansen, and Blum by the hanging committee deserves praise. But I think if they really wanted to do something unusual they might have thought of something better. For instance, hang all the rejected ones in separate rooms, marked “rejected,” and let the visitors see and judge for themselves. This would give the exhibition a bigger meaning. As it is, it means confusion; and confusion asks persistently in this case: are the fine arts anything in particular or just a mixture of craftsmanship, cleverness (the usual companion of emptiness) and some undigested ideas? Life is a learning to die.—_Plato._ Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!—_Dostoevsky._ Book Discussion A Watteauesque Enthusiast _The Enchantment of Art_, by Duncan Phillips. [John Lane Company, New York.] To Mr. Phillips life is a _Fête Galante_ in Watteau’s style. He sees nothing but the elegant, the poetic, the joyous, the enchanting. I picture him in a powdered wig, clad in a gorgeous costume of the Louis XV. period, playfully lorgnetting life and art, and raving ecstatically over everybody and everything. I confess, an all-loving person looks suspicious to me; but Mr. Phillips’ book is so sincere, he adores things so pathetically, that I cannot help enjoying him. He becomes irritating only at such moments when he tries to be very much in earnest and breaks into absurd generalization. His credo is Impressionism—in life and in art—but what an elastic term is Impressionism to our dear enthusiast. Giotto, Titian, Da Vinci, Velasquez, Corot, and Dégas were impressionists, and so were Shakespeare, and Browning, and Keats, and Yeats, and Robert Bridges and who not! He loves them all, loves beautifully, touchingly, but he fails pitifully to define his beliefs. Why should he define? Why not be happy in enjoying good things without giving reasons, without strained endeavors to form classifications and definitions? Oh, those definitions! But we easily forgive the author his absurd statements, we can even sympathize with the pain he gets when contemplating the Futurists, whom he terms “lawless.” We forgive a lover everything, for we feel grateful to him for the moments of bliss that he generously shares with us. Truly, it is a book of religious joy. K. Old Virtues in New Forms _The Age of Mother-Power_, by C. Gasquoine Hartley (Mrs. Walter M. Gallichan). [Dodd, Mead and Company, New York.]