The A B C of Relativity, by Bertrand Russell. London: Kegan Paul; New York: Harper and Brothers. $2.00.

[Times Literary Supplement]

THERE must be some hundreds of popular expositions of relativity theory already in existence, and they continue to appear. Yet the theory of relativity, in the form given to it by Einstein ten years ago, was practically complete. It is true there have been extensions, additions, and new proofs of certain points; but the theory in all its essentials was complete ten years ago. New popular expositions are not required, as they are, for instance, in electron theory, in order to keep pace with a rapidly growing subject. It is still the old fundamentals with which every expositor concerns himself. The reason for this is that the theory of relativity has proved more recalcitrant to popular exposition than any scientific theory has been before, and successive expositors, taught by past efforts, are in process of working out a method of exposition.

It is now clear that the theory itself cannot be popularly expounded. There is no nonmathematical equivalent for this most mathematical of physical theories. There remain two alternatives - one may describe what the theory is about, or one may describe the results of the theory. That is to say, one may show the reader the nature of the problem Einstein set himself, or one may give an account of the main ways in which the results of the theory alter our outlook on the physical universe. What one cannot do, apparently, is to show how Einstein solved his problem.

Mr. Bertrand Russell has, on the whole, adopted the second of these alternatives. He shows, for instance, what amazing results follow from assuming the paradoxical principle that the velocity of light is the same for all observers, whatever their relative motion. Space and time measurements become relative to the observer. What remains absolute—that is, the same for all observers is a certain combination of space and time measurements. We may speak of spacetime as something objective, but not of any particular observer's space and time.

One of the aims of relativity theory is to discover laws of nature that shall be the same for all observers, whatever their relative motion. The special theory, published in 1905, considered observers in uniform motion with respect to one

another. The general theory, published in 1915, places no restrictions on the relative motions of observers. Thus the general theory succeeds in finding expressions for the laws of nature that are the same for all conceivable observers. The theory might just as well be called the theory of absolutes as the theory of relativity. Mr. Russell does good service by insisting on this point; for uninstructed people have a tendency to consider Einstein's theory as an exemplification of some vague and puerile philosophic principle that 'everything is relative.' As a matter of fact the theory distinguishes very clearly between the relative and the absolute; and its chief aim, as we have said, is to discover relations in the physical world that are the same for all observers that is, relations that are absolute. Various particular results, which come out incidentally, are mentioned by Mr. Russell.

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Poems New and Brief, by William Watson. London: Jonathan Cape. 4s. 6d.

[Westminster Gazette]

THERE is always hope for a writer who feels that, though the world has gone by him, the question of what will abide belongs to the future. Sir William Watson has a passing echo of that note in the epigrams of current criticism in a new sheaf of verse, representing everything he has done in these latest years:

THE ONLY TEST

I've lived into a different day,

And watched the old day flee.
The men I know not arrive each hour;
The men who know not me.

Their world or mine will perish,

But which of them may it be?
Have patience. In less than a hundred
years

'Tis like enough thou 'It see.

But we must confess to regret that a poet whose earlier work was so full of splendid felicity and a grave sense of beauty, sometimes even of resurgence, should chisel so many laments over the politics and poetry of the day. . .

Yet there is sometimes a fine sardonic note:

EPITAPH ON AN OBSCURE PERSON
Stranger, these ashes were a Man
Crushed with a grievous weight,

He had acquired more ignorance than
He could assimilate.

The William Watson of The Purple East sonnets had a blazing warmth of human indignation, but indignation becomes a sterile thing when it evaporates in general disgruntlement at the democratic ferment of the age in which we live. But once a poet always a poet, and we greet the old William Watson who says:

REJUVENESCENCE

The Day is young, the Day is sweet,

And light is her heart as the tread of her feet. The Day is weary, the Day is old:

She has sunk into sleep through a tempest of gold.

Sleep, tired Day! Thou shalt rise made new,
All splendor and wonder and odor and dew.

That is a real escape from the croaker on the withered bough.

Disraeli: The Alien Patriot, by E. T. Raymond. London: Hodder and Stoughton; New York: The Macmillan Company, $2.50.

[Sunday Times]

MR. RAYMOND is to be cordially congratulated on having written a biography of a great statesman which is all that the average political biography is not, a witty and interesting volume that a reader who takes no particular interest in politics can read with as much entertainment as he finds in the pages of a good novel. Some of the credit of this unusual performance must be allotted to the subject with which Mr. Raymond has elected to deal. Benjamin Disraeli was, far and away, the most personally interesting and intriguing figure in the whole of English political history. The mere facts of his life would have to be recited with an almost impossible baldness to make them anything but entrancingly interesting. But, that deduction allowed for, Mr. Raymond earns a liberal meed of praise by the unflagging vivacity of his narrative, the unfailing shrewdness of his comments on men and things, and the level brilliance of his style.

Sicilian Noon: Essays and Sketches of Travel in Sicily, by Louis Golding. London: Chatto and Windus. 7s. 6d.

[Morning Post]

If you would travel abroad without stirring from your sitting-room you can have no better modern guide than Mr. Louis Golding. He has no conventions, and tumbles out his thoughts and feelings in a tumult regulated only by his artistry. How vivid and exciting those thoughts and feelings are. No matter whether he is describing his

unfortunate stand against the excessive charges of a Sicilian driver, his efforts to enjoy the marionette entertainment in Palermo and its successful issue, or again, Easter time in that town, he is bubbling with vivacity.

Mr. Golding showed us in his novel, Day of Atonement, how fine his descriptions could be. Sicilian Noon is its equal in the use of fine imagery, quick phrases like the crossing of rapiers, and a poet's sensibility to the color and vigor of life, coarse thought it may often be.

Sicilian life gives good scope for his observant intellect. Its people have the simplicity that delights in contrasts and sees nothing absurd in incongruity. One is reminded of Cellini, who found murder no antithesis to honest prayer.

Sometimes Mr. Golding plays with ideas, especially in his more abstract reflections on towns and ancient civilizations. But a slice of life seen and felt sets him ablaze, while he communicates its warmth to us. He is no Baedeker, but he may no less wisely be carried in the pocket, or, perhaps, still more enjoyed at home in this November cold. Krakatit, by Karel Čapek. London: Geoffrey Bles; New York: The Macmillan Company. $2.50.

[Times Literary Supplement]

As a story of adventure, Krakatit excites intense interest. The reader is held in sharp and continuous suspense by the sheer ingenuity of the narrative. The intellectual extravagance of the theme is balanced by the variety and dramatic force of the actual events. Čapek's dramatic instinct is unerring; he extracts from every situation an essence of terror, pity, or comedy that gives emotional significance to the smallest episode. But it is chiefly the imaginative beauty of the fantasy that captures the mind. When Prokop is held a prisoner in the arsenal at Balttin he falls under the spell of a more earthly passion than the love of creation. He does not understand his own enchantment; he cannot handle his emotions as if they were chemicals. He feels that his love for the Princess is unclean, that the lure of the castle of Zahur threatens to overcome his resistance to destruction, that the force he has let loose upon the world can bring nothing but evil to human affairs. It is difficult to convey the pride of thought that Prokop incarnates. He is a shy, ungainly creature with a big nose and bloodshot eyes, who cannot even choose between the princess who is a woman and the woman who is a princess, because he owes a more commanding fidelity. Eventually he must forget how to make Krakatit; but not before he has learned to 'sit still and watch the road.'