Letters on the Simple Life. By Marie Corelli and others.
(S. W. Partridge and Co. ls. net.)—We must expect to find not a few differences of opinion among the thirty-odd writers who have contributed to this volume, reprinted, we should say, from the Daily Graphic. Sir A. Conan Doyle says boldly " We are not degenerating," and has a good deal to advance on his side. Sir James Crichton-Browne says in the most emphatic way " We are degenerating," and he too has a series of arguments. It would be rash to decide between the two. Sir J. Crichton-Browne urges that the " fertility of the race is diminishing," yet it is still almost a peril in itself. And then it must be borne in mind that we take all possible pains to know the worst, and that many evils seem to be worse than they were because they are acknowledged. " Spectacles," says Sir J. Crichton-Browne, "are more in evidence than they used to be." The expression is significant. The fact is that astigmatism as a common defect is anew discovery. Thousands of children suffered unrelieved in former days, but they suffered all the same. Nor is it only spectacles that are "more in evidence" than they used to be. The book may be read with interest and profit, but it is a pity that the writers did not keep more to their subject. Sir R. Anderson might have utilised his professional experience to some purpose, and left the " evolutionist and the infidel," " the appreciation of the Church and the depreciation of the Saviour," the " survival of mediaeval superstitions," and "erroneous teaching about the Scriptures" alone.
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