A better artist than Andreyev, keener, more reserved, more subtle, Chekhov to my notion nevertheless lacks the vibrancy which the author of _The Seven Who Were Hanged_ flings into his tales. Andreyev wields the pen of Dostoevsky with a little thinner ink. Chekhov is Turgenev fragmentized. He has left behind him a series of little canvases so finely done, so skilfully passionate ... well, I hurl him at my friend without further ado.... ... It is that consumptive rogue of an Artzibashef who has caused most of the trouble. The devil take him and his erotic suicides. His latest translated book brought out by Huebsch is a tasteless joke. It is called _The Breaking Point_. In it all the characters but one commit suicide, all the women are “ruined.” Whenever two or more of its genial personae come together they forthwith fall into an argument concerning the futility of life, the idiocy of existence and so on and so on. And the trouble is that Artzibashef can write, beautifully, keenly, and sometimes gloriously. In _Sanine_, for instance, in _The Millionaire_, there are passages better than Andreyev, better than Chekhov, better than any writer has written. But the books are distorted, full of puerile moralizings, breathing a diseased lust and a sentimentalized violence—and _The Breaking Point_ is the worst of them to date. Artzibashef’s work stands in the same relation to the Russian realism that Paul De Kock’s work stands to the French sensual finesse. AMERICA’S COMING-OF-AGE _by_ VAN WYCK BROOKS A study of American ideals and reality: aspirations and performance. What is it that prevents the maturity of our literature and life? In our art, our politics, our letters, the torturous trails of the “Highbrow” and of the “Lowbrow” may be traced. They stem from Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin respectively. _At all bookstores $1.00 net._ Whither do they lead? Read the book: it marks a step forward in American criticism. _Published by_ B. W. HUEBSCH, _225 Fifth avenue, New York City_. AMY LOWELL’S NEW BOOK SIX FRENCH POETS Studies in Contemporary Literature _Emile Verhaeren_ _Albert Samain_ _Remy de Gourmont_ _Henri de Régnier_ _Francis Jammes_ _Paul Fort_ _By the author of “Sword Blades and Poppy Seed,” “A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass,” etc._ Written by one of the foremost living American poets, this is the first book in English containing a careful and minute study, with translations, of the famous writers of one of the greatest epochs in French poetry. $2.50 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, Publishers, New York EMMA GOLDMAN