BREAD AND CIRCUSES. By Herbert Agar. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. 7s.
8d.)—Mr. Agar has something to say on a good many subjects, and he knows how to say it without wearying us. At least three quarters of his book consists of conversations that are so natural we can almost hear the American accents of the speakers. His conver-, sationists are a group of people, intelligent enough to realise that living is in itself an art, and that bread and circuses (the ordinary routine and amusements of life) will not satisfy anyone who is a true artist. One of them says to the woman he loves, "I don't really love you at all. I love what you could do for me ; I love my own pleasures, my bread and. circuses. That's why I feel cut off from life. Until I can get out of myself, until I can love an object and not just its effect on me, I'm not fit for love, and least of all for its pleasures." The author does his work well, for just at the time when introspection and clever talk begin to pall on the reader, he produces a chapter of violent and thrilling action, which preludes the solution of one woman's problems. This book is not for everybody but only for those interested in states of mind.
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