A New Self - Help. By Ernest A. Bryant. (Cassell and Co.
6s.)— Mr. Bryant describes his book as the "story of worthy success achieved in many paths of life by men and women of yesterday and to-day." It is now about fifty years since Mr. Samuel Smiles published his "Self-Help." But Mr. Bryant does not limit him- self to more recent successes. J. W. M. Turner, the painter, for instance, is one of his examples. Lord Taunton's noble act recorded on p. 199 probably goes back to an earlier date. (The Great Western Railway paid him .230,000 for some land com- pulsorily taken. He put it by, and finding that his estate had been increased in value by the railway, returned it.) This chapter, "Conscience and Fortune," is especially good to read. And the book throughout, if it is, as the author allows, "frankly optimistic," is certainly "on the side of the angels." We venture
to think that if any wise man or men were drawing up a Constitu- tion nowadays, they would scarcely begin it with the phrase, "All men are equal,"—" as splendidly true to-day as when America inscribed it on her charter of liberty." Yes, and with the same very serious modifications.
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