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REVIEWS
can hardly call my study by any other
name; one can take exactly four steps each
way there. From the windows you can
see the gardens and the trees of the Bois
de Vincennes, a fine large horizon, sky
above and below, the still brown and leaf-
less hills.
   The gusts of March show their fury,
interspersed with warm bursts of sun-
shine which make the branches shine like
steel points.
   I was almost afraid to have that im-
mense chair in my cell; but it is a com-
fortable and discreet friend. Being regu-
lar and perpendicular it takes up very little
space, large as it is. It occupies exactly
a square metre, and it fits into a corner
as if it had been measured for it to a
centimetre. With the desk at which I
write standing, the shelves for my books
and a little table, it makes all that is
necessary for writing and thinking. I
have already tried several experiments:
the first is that one can sleep admirably
in the arms of my new friend; the second,
that one naturally meditates there. It is
a chair which induces reflection. For
itself it is full of thoughts. It is not one
of these pieces which can say nothing; it
wants to say something.
  There are ideas of solidity, of character,
of home, of venerated antiquity, of fidelity
in this gigantic frame. It is not a frail
piece of furniture, it is an honest one. It
wants you to be an honest man.
  But for me it is much more than a well-
designed chair, impeccably ornamented
with its own color; an idea of sculptural
simplicity in sturdy oak. As such, it does
honor to the Craftsman who planned and
made it. Certainly much of its value lies
262
in these qualities in my eyes. For me it is
a messenger and a witness. A messen-
ger, yes. In examining it in all its
aspects I found under one of its arms a
note such as carrier pigeons carry under
their wings, a note telling where it came
from and wishing peace and happiness to
the house where it was sent. Then this
chair, by itself, is a message of friendship.
It is also a witness, a witness of far away
America; it is something coming from the
dear big country which I can keep near
me, and it comes just at the right time, for
it is now that I expect to stay indoors to
write my impressions of America. When
I wish to refresh my impressions I shall sit
down in the Craftsman chair, and as if by
magic I shall think myself again in
America. I shall see the country and the
people; all that interested me over there;
all I desire to fix in notes which will leave
something like a trace of the splendid
journey where I met so much friendship.
                  CHARLES WAGNER.
REVIEWS
  "The Business Career in Its Public Re-
lations," by Albert Shaw, Ph. D., is the
first of a series of essays by representative
scholars and men of affairs, dealing with
the various phases of the moral law in its
bearing upon business life under the new
economic order.
  These essays, first delivered at the Uni-
versity of California, are to be published
by Paul Elder and Company of San Fran-
cisco.
  The "Business Career" deals with the