Lost Face. By Jack London. (Mills and Boon. 6s.)— Most
of these short stories tell of the adventurous lives of white men and of natives on the Yukon River. Some are tragedies, some comedies; some, and among them the best, are strong, simple dramas of the conflict between the forces of Nature and those of human energy. In " Trust" and in " Lost Face " Mr. London has regained the balance of his earlier work : he writes still of the physical horrors which pervaded and disfigured his last two novels, but he has reduced them to their right proportions and lowered them to their own place—Lie has made them to be faced and overcome by the will of men. Whatever his faults, Mr. London has certainly mastered the art of writing a short story. When criticism succeeded to sheer excitement, we discovered that his success is due to his ability to ignore all but the most vital emotions, wasting no time on outward appearances or on conventional trivialities. He gives us of the strongest quality to atone, as it were, for the very email quantity.
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