The first six volumes of a new series known as
the "Fellowship Books" have recently appeared. (B. T. Batsford. 2s. net each.) —They are described as "a new contribution by various writers toward the expression of the Human Ideal and Artistic Faith of our own day." This description and the titles both of the series and of the individual volumes, together with their somewhat affected print and binding, give a very fair idea of what the reader is to expect from the contents. Each book is a short essay of some fifty pages, and this limit would perhaps have been expected to act as an annoying check upon writers eager to present the world with their "new contribution." But there is very little sign of compression to be found in any of the books. Mrs. Rhys, for instance, in The Quest of the Ideal, finds space to exclaim: "Think of the joy of heart of each child born into the splendour of the new ideal. Everyone with the love of the Unseeable One in his heart, everyone with the love of his fellow men, everyone with a sword of light in his hand to liberate the good spirit of order and grace, to work in the service of this spirit till the earth blooms as a garden "; while Mr. C. J. Tait, in his Springtime, has room to observe more prosaically that "in power and range of imaginative production Shakespeare has probably eclipsed all other artists." Matter, in short, is not what is to be looked for in these books, and we fear that none of these six writers has a style good enough to carry the reader easily with him to the end. But indeed it would require a Lamb to produce a really satisfactory "Fellowship Book." We have mentioned the titles of two of the present series ; the remainder are Friendship, by Mr. Clifford Bax ; The Country, by Mr. Edward Thomas ; The Joy of the Theatre, by Mr. Gilbert Canaan; and Divine Discontent, by Mr. James Guthrie.
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