Richard Curle is only thirty years old. If the promise of _Life Is a Dream_ is fulfilled, he should be one of the really significant writers of his day. He has traveled widely and is widely read; he knows not only men and places, but books as well--particularly the works of the great Russian and Frenchmen. Among living writers he admires especially Joseph Conrad, with whose work his own has a certain kinship. Curiously enough he has written the first adequate book on Conrad and it is shortly to be published in America. It will reveal Curle as a critic of sympathy, insight and independence. Meanwhile every lover of good fiction, everyone who cares for skillful craftsmanship in literature, and all those adventurous persons who would see strange lands and people should read _Life Is a Dream_. ALFRED A. KNOPF. A New Study of William Morris _William Morris_, by A. Clutton-Brock. [Henry Holt and Company, New York.] I dislike that method which many historians pursue, treating the past as a matter of death instead of life. For a baggage of rags and a jumble of bleached bones I have no concern. Yesterday is a thing I will not consider. History is a proof of one thing only:--that circumstance is a fraud, and that personality is a durability with eternity. The soul writes its autobiography, and those used for the syllables survive the seasons and the years. Rule and custom and people who are no more than these are for the scrap heap. Night comes and swallows the dead. History is nothing except for its exceptions. Nature's royal men we discover despite their uniforms. We note not their habiliments; they have a natural tongue and true approach and are masters of the seconds. They breathe life lustily still. These are the verities. They are descriptive not of antiquity but of the mind which is now. They show us who we are. We love them because of this. Every time we read them we embark on a new voyage, and discover to ourselves a treasure island of which hitherto we had not the slightest knowledge. Trojans of truth, they lift their spears to the central sun, to proclaim the splendor of the individual, the great reality of the Now. Through them we are made aware how rich we are, we begin to realize somewhat of our depths; they provide a new courage, give a new hope, and inspire us for the struggle ahead with the quality of an unwonted self-reliance. I have probably gone beyond my office in making these remarks, but the temptation provided by the biography of William Morris proved so strong that I could not forego them. Here is a man of whom we cannot know too much. An artist who gave his life for art--what shall we say of him?