page 28 of the Conservator for April, 1912. The extract is from a review of Mr. Archibald Henderson's biography of George Bernard Shaw.

This is primarily an age of love and romance. An age in which love is becoming earth big at last and romance is becoming social at last. An age in which love and romance have become imperative as never before. Yet Henderson speaking of Shaw does not say love. Is that Henderson's fault or Shaw's fault or my fault? Or is it nobody's fault? Is it just the situation? Shaw dont account for the fool. He accounts for the wise men. For the fools. But not for the fool. . . I dont know whether his book takes me any nearer Shaw. But it takes me nearer myself. And that's the chief thing. Nearer the letter and spirit of the space and years I live in. That's the chief thing. No real democrat could be modest. That's why Shaw talks like an ass of himself. That's why Henderson takes the ass seriously. That's why I look the ass in the face and bray.

If the style of Mr. Harold Bell Wright is fairly represented by Their Yesterdays, the most striking characteristic of his pointing is an extravagant use of dashes. The average number of points per sentence (3.2 plus) is not extravagantly high, is in fact lower than the figures shown in Table A for Pater, Mr. James, Carlyle, Mr. Paul Elmer More, and the Christian Science Monitor editorials. Mr. Wright uses a larger percentage of dashes than any writer or periodical listed in the first three tables. In Table D he is exceeded in proportion of dashes only by the dialogue passages from Molly Make-Believe, a book which might fairly be termed the height of extremity in emotional pointing, even for dialogue. A little below Mr. Wright in proportion of dashes is Mr. Henry James. In general Mr. James and Mr. Wright are as far apart as the poles.

The peculiarly sentimental quality of Mr. Wright's style, so far as mechanics are concerned, is in part due to lavish use of capitals, as in this paragraph from page 9 of Their Yesterdays:

Dreams, Occupation, Knowledge, Ignorance, Religion, Tradition, Temptation, Life, Death, Failure, Success, Love, Memories: these are the Thirteen Truly Great Things of Life-found by the man and the woman in their grown up days-found by them in Their Yesterdays—and they found no others.

Molly Make-Believe (1910), a book more widely read than historians of American literature would be glad to admit, is notable for its riotous use of emotional points. In the passages of dialogue here listed the periods are outnumbered by the dashes. Question and exclamation marks run to 5.8 and 10.8 per cent respectively; and there are suspension periods, commas with dashes, and dashes in combination with periods, with question marks, even with exclamation points. The emotional points-dashes alone or in combination, suspension periods, question and exclamation marks-make together 39.8 per cent of the points. Dialogue may be expected to run higher in strong points than narrative matter, but the proportion in Molly MakeBelieve is extreme. One of the dramatis personae is a highly romantic girl; the others in the passages for which figures are taken are men, one of them an old man.

A full account of the mechanics of Molly Make-Believe would have much to say of capitals, italic, dashes within words, hesitation hyphens, and strange hyphened compounds; also of the ever-present em dashes, question and exclamation marks, and a considerable number of double dashes. One cannot help wondering what the compositors thought as they put the book into type.

WORKS LISTED IN TABLES A, B, AND C

BENNETT, ARNOLD. The Author's Craft. George H. Doran Co., New York, 1914. Page 9 to the paragraph break on page 57.

CARLYLE, THOMAS. Heroes, and Hero-Worship. Chapman & Hall, London, 1885. Lecture 5, "The Hero as Man of Letters," page 127 to line 7 from end of page 139.

CHESTERTON, GILBERT K. Heretics, sixth edition. John Lane Co., New York, 1909. Page 11 to line 8 from end of page 50.

The Christian Science Monitor, Boston. Editorials for November 9, 1917, 400 points; February 8, 1918, first two columns, and first 30 points of column 3; May 24, 1918, first three columns.

CROTHERS, SAMUEL MCCHORD. The Pleasures of an Absentee Landlord and Other Essays. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1916. Pages 1-49, 150-159, and the first 2 points on page 160.

EMERSON, RALPH WALDO. Essays: Second Series (vol. III, Riverside Edition of the Complete Works). Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1884. Pages 49-78, and page 79 to the sentence break in line 11.

The Evening Post, New York. Editorials (not including matter with the heading "At a Venture") for January 23, 1918, first 375 points; February 1 and 16; March 26, first 22 points.

GALSWORTHY, JOHN. A Sheaf. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1916. Page 327 to line 4 of page 365.

GIVEN, JOHN L. Making a Newspaper. Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1907. Pages 240-273, and first 19 lines of page 274.

HANCOCK, ALBERT ELMER. John Keats. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1908. Pages 1-36, and page 37 to the sentence break in line 6. JAMES, HENRY. A Small Boy and Others. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1913. Pages 1-36, and the first 16 lines of page 37. MORE, PAUL ELMER. Aristocracy and Justice. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1915. Pages 3-56.

The Nation, New York. Editorials for January, 1918, beginning with "The Week" and ending with the dash following the word Gibraltar in the second column of page 83; for May 18, 1918, beginning with second column of page 585, ending with line 16 of second column on page 588.

The New Republic, New York. Editorials for January 26, 1918, beginning with page 356, to line 6 from end of first column of page 364; February 2, 1918, page 3 from first paragraph break, pages 5-7, and page 8, first column, to line 22 from end.

The New York American. Editorials, 1918: January 30; February 1 and 7; February 8, omitting first paragraph of column 2; March 11, 22, 23; March 30, first 102 points; May 15.

The New York Times. Editorials, 1918: June 3, first 18 points; June 6, 7, 8.

The New York Tribune.

Editorials 1918: February 1, 14, 21;

March 18, to fifth paragraph break in second column.

The North American Review, New York. Editorials by Mr. George Harvey: October, 1917, pages 502-520; January, 1918, pages 2-8, and page 9 to the sentence break in line 9.

NICHOLSON, MEREDITH. The Provincial American and Other Papers. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1912. Pages 117-172, and first 19 points on page 173.

PATER, WALTER. Appreciations, with an Essay on Style. The Macmillan Co., New York, edition with title-page date 1906. Pages 1-27, and page 28 to second comma in line 3 from end.

REPPLIER, AGNES. Counter-Currents. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1916. Pages 1-61, 64, and first 2 points on page 65.

The Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia. Editorials: September 8, 1917, first 200 points; December 1; January 5, 1918, first 200 points; February 2; March 16, first two columns, and first 43 points in third column.

The Sun, New York. Editorials, 1918: March 28; April 1, 20; June 3; June 4, first two columns, and first 23 points in third column.

WELLS, H. G. What Is Coming? The Macmillan Co., New York, 1916. Page 1 to the last sentence break on page 45.

WHITE, WILLIAM ALLEN. The Old Order Changeth. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1910. Page 1 to line 10 from end of page 44.

INDEX

Asterisk, asterisks, 19, 136, 157, Capitalization, capitals,