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THE  BOOKMAN 


A     REVIEW     OF 
BOOKS  AND  LIFE 


VOLUME  LI 


March,  1920-Augu8t,  1920 


"/  am  a  Bookman." — James  Russell  Lowell 


GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PUBLISHERS 


I'    .1'  6 


■liU 


IkrtC 


N 


THE 

a)KMAN 


March,  1920 
"A  CLERGYMAN" 

Maic  Becrtmhni 

LORD  FISHER'S  REVELATIONS 

Jumcft  C  Grvy 

SEA  SAND 

Sara  TiiaMlalf! 

BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLn 

Annie  C-oiroU  Moore 

Litrrttry  ^e»'  Ya*k  in  ike  'Etgfttia,  hy  TTw  Marijime  Clara  Lanza — »f 

Eiitor*'  Gallery  afVmtmits,  by  Edwanl  T.  MiKheO—ln  Ptau<  of^^turt 

Faking,  by  Walter  A.  Dyer — o-f  'S^'  York  Bttrrie  l  SimMit  Strumky. 

by  Mam*  JL  It'enier—  The  LonJoncT;  Murray  Hilt;  Cvrrmti 

in Fnmcfi LJlemhiTc :  A SMf  t»f  Recent  Baohi  BaoimMa 

^ianthly  S<arr ;  Goxafi  Sltcp;  Olh^  Fralttm 


THE    BOOKMJiN   A1>VEMTiSCK. 


/ 


istincHve    Spring   Books 


THE  GREAT  IMPERSONATION  suth  Larg,  PHnti«t 

By  E.  PHiLUPS  OPPENHEtM 

This  master  novel  of  international  intrigue  has  already  sold  during  the  first 
four  weekt—a.  total  of  20^000  copies  in  excess  of  the  toti  tale  of  any  previous 
book  by  this  versatile  writer.    A  Book  of  the  Hundred  Thousand  Class.    $1.75  net. 

LYNCH  LAWYERS  ti^^  ^ir.  Fnntin, 

By  WILUAM  PATTERSON  WHITE 

"As  in  The  Owner  of  the  Lazy  D',  Mr.  White  shows  himself  a  master  in  the 
fields  of  Western  Adventure  story.  He  writes  with  more  humor  than  can  usually 
be  found  in  tales  of  this  kind,  and  his  cowboy  hero  possesses  a  quaint  and  definite 
personality.^ — New  York  Tribune.    With  frontispiece.  $I7S  net. 

TO  BE  PUBLISHED  MARCH  20TH 

HIS  FRIEND  AND  HIS  WIFE 

By  COSMO  HAMILTON 

The  story  of  the  effects  upon  the  pleasure-loving  folk  of  the  wealthy  Quaker 
Hill  Colony  in  Connecticut,  which  followed  an  infraction  of  the  social  code  by 
Julian  Osborn  and  Margaret  Meredith.    With  frontispiece.  $1.75  net. 

THE  LA  CHANCE  MINE  MYSTERY 
By  S.  CARLETON 

For  plot  and  action,  for  tenseness  of  interest  and  thrilling  crisis,  "The  La 
Chance  Mine  Mystery"  is  not  easily  equalled,  while  its  love  story,  in  its  setting  of 
frozen  Canadian  forests  with  their  howling  wolf  packs,  is  sweet  and  tender.  With 
frontispiece.  $1.75  net. 

fffi  CHINESE  LABEL 
J,  FRANK  DAVIS 

A  Secret  Service  story  of  an  attempt  to  smuggle  into  America  two  famous 
diamonds  stolen  from  the  Sultan's  sash  and  concealed  in  an  opium  can  bearing  a 
Chinese  label.  Among  those  implicated  are  Chinese,  Mexicans,  a  retired  American 
am»"  -,jScer,  and  an  international  spy.    With  illustrations.  $1-75  net. 

.i£  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  FRANCE 

By  FRANK  W.  CHANDLER 

This  volume  presents  a  survey  and  interpretation  of  French  drama  of  three 
decades,  from  the  opening  of  the  Theatre-Libre  of  Antoine,  to  the  conclusion  of 
the  World  War.  $1.50  net. 


little;  brown  &  company       -      Publishers       -        BOSTON 


PlHite  mention  Thb  Bookmam  In  writing  to  adTertlien. 


-■    *•■    r_ 


Copyright,  1920,  by  George  H.  Doran  Company. 


INDEX  TO  VOLUME  LI 


March,  1920— August,  1920 


"1914",  by  Viscount  French.  (Review.)..  116 
Abbott.  Wilbur  Cortez.     GOtterd&mmerung  286 

The  New  Epics   114 

A  New  History  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution      670 

Acklom,  Moreby.     Chess  Plus  Personality  678 

Collaboration  and  That  Sort  of  Thing     21 

"Acropole,  L'."     (Gossip  Shop.)    610 

Ade  on  Prohibition  and  Other  Things,  Mr. 

Gertrude  M.  Purcell 668 

"Adventures    Among    Birds,"    by    W.    H. 

Hudson.      (Review.) 684 

Adventures  in  Portraiture.  H.  W.  Boynton  76 
"Adventures  of  a  Nature  Guide,  The,"  by 

Enos  A.  Mills.      (Review.)    103 

Aftermath.  (Poem.)  Siegfried  Sassoon . .  460 
Agricultural     Predicaments.       Walter     A. 

Dyer 080 

"All  and  Sundry,"  by  B.  T.  Raymond 499 

(Review) 68a 

"AUegra,"  by  L.  AUen  Harker.     (Review.)  205 
Allen,  James  Lane.     Heaven's  Little  Iron- 
ies    616 

Allen,  Margaret  Pinckney.     The  Martyred 

Towns  of  France 96 

Almanacs,    The    Collecting    of.       (Gossip 

Shop.) 703 

"American     World     Policies,"     by     David 

Jayne   Hill    692 

America's  Greatest  Judge.  Robert  Liv- 
ingston Schuyler 147 

"Ancient  Mappe  of  Fairyland,  An,"  by  Ber- 
nard  Sleigh    816 

Andreyev,  Leonid.     (Gossip  Shop.)    265 

"Anglo-French     Review,     The."       (Gossip 

Shop.)    382 

"Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse  for  1919," 
ed.    by   William   Stanley   Braithwalte. 

(Review.)    212 

"Aristocrats  of  the  Garden,"  by  Ernest  H. 

Wilson.      (Review.)     423 

Armenian  Classics,  The.    W.  D.  P.  Bliss  .    197 
"Art  and  the  Great  War."  by  Albert  Eu- 
gene Gallatin.     (Review.)    480 

Ashford,   Daisy    155 

Asquith,  Memoirs  of  Mrs..     (Gossip  Shop.)   122 
"At  a  Dollar  a  Year."  by  Robert  L.  Ray- 
mond.    (Review.)    224 

Aumonier,  Stacy   421 

Austen.  Jane.     (Gossip  Shop.)    609 

Authors'  Club  Menu,  An.  (Gossip  Shop).  704 
Authors.  Incomes  of  Editors  and   658 

(Gossip   Shop.)    604 

"Bad   Results   of   Good    Habits.   The,"   by 

J.  Edgar  Park.     (Gossip  Shop.)    510 

Bailey,  Margaret  Emerson.  The  Best  Ad- 
vice in  Gardening 422 

A  Chronicle  of  Youth  by  Youth 471 

A   Riley   Biography    98 

Stories  of  Lives  and  of  Life 202 

Baker,  George  Pierce.  (Gossip  Shop.)  . .  606 
"Ballads  of  Old  New  York,"  by  Arthur  Gul- 

terman.     (Review.) 476 

Balzac.  The  Wife  of  Honorfi  de.     Princess 

Catherine  RadzlwlU    639 

"Barnett,  .Canon.     His    Life,    Work,    and 

Friends,"  by  His  Wife.  (Review.)..  99 
Barney,  Natalie  Clifford.     (Gossip  Shop.)   609 


Barr,     Amelia     E. — Some     Reminiscences. 

Hildegarde   Hawthorne    283 

Barrett,   Wilton  A.     Ballads  of  Old  New 

York   476 

Baudelaire,  A  New  Life  of 61 

"Bedouins,"  by  James  Huneker.    (Review.)  281 

Beerbohm,  Max.     "A  Clergyman"   1 

"Bellman   Book  of  Verse,   The."      (Gk>sslp 

Shop.)     126 

Bentit,  WiUiam  Rose.     (Gossip  Shop.)   128,608 

"Ben  Hur."     (Gossip  Shop.)    266 

"Benjy,"  by  George  Stevenson.     (Review.)  443 

Bennett,  William  Cox   333 

Beresford,  J.   D 663 

"Bertram  Cope's  Year,"  by  Henry  B.  Ful- 
ler.     (Review.) 344 

"Best  College  Short  Storles,"The,'" 'W. ' by 

Henry  T.  Schnlttkind.     (Review.)    . .  847 
Best  for  the  Lowest,  The.   Oscar  L.  Joseph    99 

Betham-Edwards,    Matilda    98 

Bible,  A  Hand-Written.     (Gossip  Shop.) . .  251 
Bibliophile,   The   Nouveau-Riche.      (Gossip 

Shop.)    604 

Biographies  of  Modern  Statesmen.    (Gossip 

Shop.)    611 

"Birds  in  a   Village,"   by  W.   H.   Hudson. 

(Gossip   Shop.)    381 

"Birds  of  Heaven,"  by  Vladimir  Korolenko. 

(Review.) 221 

"Birth  Through  Death,"'  by*  Albert  D.*  Wjit- 

son    692 

"Bishop,  The,"  by  Anton  Chekhov.      (Re- 

view.) 2**! 

BJOrkman,  Edwin.  '  Shakespeare? ' .' .  .*  .* .' . .'   677 
Black,  John.    1920  :  The  Minor  Poets'  Cen- 
tenary Year   332 

Walt  Whitman  :    Fiction-Writer  and 

Poets'    Friend    172 

Blair,  Mary.     (Gossip  Shop.)    608 

Blanco-Fombona,   Ruflno    563 

Blasco  IbAfiez  ,VIcente.     (Gossip  Shop.)..   119 

Blind   Mouths.     Stark   Young    347 

Bliss,  W.  D.  P.    The  Armenian  Classics  . .   197 

"Body  and  Soul,"  by  Arnold  Bennett 541 

Bojer,  Johan.      (Gossip  Shop.)    600 

"Bolshevik  Russia,"  by  Etlenne  Antonelli. 

(Review.)    312 

"Bolshevism,    An    International    Danger," 

by  Paul  N.  Millukov    694 

Book  Fairs.   (Gossip  Shop.)    504 

Booking  to  Alaska.    Frank  V.  Morley 27 

Bookman's  Monthly  Score,  The 

117,  245,  372,  502.  596,  694 
"Book  of  Modern  British  Verse,  The,"  ed. 
bv  William  Stanley  Braithwalte.    (Re- 
view.)       212 

Bookreviewing,  The  Long  Lane  of.     Con- 
stance Murray  Greene   337 

"Books    and    Things,"    by    Philip    Littell. 

(Review.)    306 

Book  Selling,  a  Course  in.     (Gossip  Shop.)   120 
Books   for    xoung   People.     Annie   Carroll 

Moore    86 

Books     on     Lonesome     Trail.     Hildegarde 

Hawthorne    134 

Books  Popular  among  Middle- West   Wom- 
en.     (Gossip  Shop.)    383 

Books  Published  in  Britain,  1919.     (Gossip 

Shop.)    255 

Books,  A  Shelf  of  Recent 

93,  231,  851,  471,  565,  682 


INDEX 


Bom  to  Blnih  UDieen.  (Poem.)  Caro- 
lyn Wella   557 

Bostwick.  Arthur  B.    The  Socialisation  of 

the   Library    668 

Botta,  Prof,  and  Mrs 15 

Boynton,  H.  W.  Adyentorea  in  Portrait- 
ure        76 

Good  Noyela  of  Several  Kinda  . .      . .  888 

The  Wonderful  Again    581 

Boya'  BookSp  Two  Liats  of.    (Gossip  Shop.)  608 

Brace,  Alfred  M.    The  Unfurled  Face 272 

Brady,  Cyrus  Townsend.      (Gossip  Shop.)   125 
Braley,  Berton.     Mr.  Herford's  Awful  Er- 
ror       166 

On  Being  an  Essayist   646 

(Goasip  Shop.)    879 

Bray,  Louise  Whitetield.     On  Living  with 

Lncinda 176 

Braail,  A  Notable  Novel  of.  Isaac  Gold- 
berg      282 

Brett   xoung,  Francis.     Compton  Macken- 

sie    635 

Brock,  H.  I.     A  Peevish  Conversation  . . .  334 
"Broken  Soldier  and  the  Maid  of  France, 

The,*'  by  Henry  van  Dyke.     (Review.)  223 
"Brooke,  Rupert,  and  the  intellectual  Im- 
agination,"   by    Walter    de    la    Mare. 

(Review.)    234 

Brooke,  Rupert.     (UosHip  Shop.)    607 

"Broome  Street  Straws,'^  by  Robert  Cortea 

HoUiday.      (Review.)    862 

Bronghton,  Rhoda 418 

(Ctossip    Shop.)     128 

Brownell,  Henry  Howard    832 

Browning,  Robert.     (Gossip  Shop.)   510 

Bugs,    Chiefly    About.      waiter    Prichard 

Eaton   345 

BuUen,  A.  H 822 

Bunker.  John.  Prose  in  the  Great  Tradi- 
tion       474 

Two  Old  Ladies  Show  Their  Medala     97 

Burgess,  Gelett.      (Oossip  Shop.)    704 

Burr,  Amelia  Josephine.     In  a  City  Park. 

(Poem.)    691 

Burroughs,  John.     (Gossip  Shop.)    506 

Burton,  Richard.     English  as  She  Is  Spoke  618 

The  Glorious  Game.      (Poem.)    693 

More  Plays  by  George  Middleton  . . .  472 

"•Busy',  the  Life  of  an  Ant,"  by  Walter 

F.  McCaleb.     (Review.)    846 

Butler,  Boys  and  Ellis  Parker.     Gertrude 

M.   Purceil    478 

Butler,  Ellis  Parker.  A  New  Poet  of  Na- 
ture       196 

(Gossip   Shop.)    506 

"Butler,  Samuel.  Author  of  Erewhon,"  by 

Henry  Festlng  Jones.     (Review.)    ...     88 
Byrne,  Donn.     (Ctossip  Shop.)   126,  258 

Calder6n,  Francisco  Garcia 563 

"Canaan,"  by  Graca  Aranha.     (Review.)..  232 

Cannan,  Gilbert.     (Gossip  Shop.)    249 

Canyon,  Colorful  Impressions  of  the  Grand. 

Le  Roy  Jeffers 860 

Caravan  Bookshop,  The.      (Gossip  Shop.)  377 

Carleton,  W.  N.  C.     (Gossip  Shop.)    254 

Carlyle,  Thomas,      ((jossip  Shop.)    510 

Carrillo,  Enrique  Gdmez   562 

Carv    Alice       . .  882 
Caveil     Edition  *  *  of  * '  the  "  ••imitation '  *  of 

Christ".  An  Edith.     (Gossip  Shop.)..  512 

Charles  Arlington  Smith.    Carl  Glick 545 

Chekhov's  Letters   327 

Chess  Plus  Personality.    Moreby  Acklom . .  578 
Chesterton,    Gilbert    K.       (Gossip    Shop.) 

122  128 
"Children   of  No  Man's  Land,"  by  G.   B.' 

Stern.      (Review.)     48 

Children's    Books,    A    Spring    Review    of. 

Annie  Carroll  Moore    814 

Children's  Books.  Dietary  Laws  of.  Mont- 
rose J.  Moses 687 

Children's  Book  Shop,  The.    (Gossip  Shop.)  128 
Chinese  Coat,  The.     (Poem.)    Richard  But- 
ler Glaenzer  159 


"Chineae  Label,  The,"  by  J.  Frank  Davia. 

(Review.)    582 

Chronicle  of  Youth  by  Youth,  A.    Margaret 

Emeraon  Bailey 471 

"Citiea   and   Sea-Coasts  and   Islands,"   by 

Arthur  Symons.     (Review.)    289 

City  of  Enchantment,  The.     William  Mc- 

Fee   257 

"Clanking   of   Chains,    The,"    by   Brinaley 

MacNamara.      (Review.)    846 

Clarke,  Joseph  I.  C.  (Gossip  Shop.)  ....  602 
Classics,  Effect  of  the  War  on  Greek  and 

Latin.      (Gossip    Shop.)    878 

"Clergyman,  A."     Max  Beerbohm   1 

Cleveland,    Grover,    A    Life    of.       (Gossip 

Shop.)    120 

"ClouKh,  Arthur  Hugh,"  by  J.  I.  Osborne. 

(Review.)    687 

"Cobbler     in     WiUow     Street,     The,"     by 

George  O'Neil.      (Review.)    216 

Coleridge,  Ernest  Hartley.  (Goasip  Shop.)  875 
Collaboration    and    That    Sort    of    Thing. 

Moreby  Acklom   21 

"Collected  Poems."  by  Robert  Underwood 

Johnson.      (Review.)    214 

Collecting,    Reducing    the    High    Cost    of. 

Walter  I>richard  Eaton   532 

Collector,    The    Evolution    of    the    Book. 

Gabriel   Wells    180 

••Collector's  Luck,"  by  Alice  Van  Leer  Car- 
rick.      (Review.)    248 

Collins,  Joseph.     Giovanni  Papini  and  the 

Futuristic  Literary  Movement  in  Italy  160 

Two  Noisy  Roman  Schoolmasters  . .  410 

Collins,    J.    P.      The    Romance   of   Jeffery 

Farnol   518 

••Colonial  Architecture  of  Salem,  The,"  by 

Frank    Cousins    and    Phil    M.    Riley. 

(Review.)    248 

•'Color  Schemes  for  the  Home  and  Model 

Interiors,"    by    Frohne    and    Jackson. 

(Review.)    101 

•'Color  Schemes  in  the  Flower  Garden,"  by 

Gertrude   Jekyll.      (Review.)    426 

Compensation.     (Poem.)     Sara  Teasdale . .   230 

Complaint    Department    175,  334,  426,  665 

"Complete    Poems    of    Francis    Ledwidge, 

The."      (Review.) 215 

"Conquest    of    the    Old    Southwest,    The," 

by    Archibald    Henderson    870 

Conrad  Imitation,  A.      (Gossip  Shop.)    ..   602 

Constant.   Abb6    644 

"Continuous  Bloom  in  America,"  by  Louise 

Shelton.      (Review.)    423 

Contributor     Who     Calls,     The.       Charles 

Hanson   Towne    144 

Conversitm.  (Poem.)  Elizabeth  Ilanly..  18tt 
Courageous  Candor.  Oscar  L.  Joseph  ...  237 
Cowper  Memorial.  A.  (Gossip  Shop.)  ...  703 
Crocker.  Bosworth.     Wishes.      (Poem.)    ..   226 

••Cuba  Contemporflnea"    56O 

Curtis,  George  William   447 

Dadaist  Movement.  The.  (Gossip  Shop.)  704 
Daly.  James  J.    John  Henry  Newman  as  a 

Man  of  Letters   209 

The  I^ntiu  Tongue.     (Poem.)    437 

Memories  of  Meredith    361 

Daly,  Tom.    Two  Genial  Gentlemen  Before 

Us 105 

••Danseuse  do  Shamakha,  La,"  by  Armdn 

Ohanlan.      (Review.)    igj 

Dante    Centennial,    The    Sixth.       (Gossip 

Shop. )     5gg 

••Dardanelles   Campaign,   The,"   by   H."w. 

Nevlnson.     (Review.)    114 

"Dark  Wind,  The,"  by  W.  J.  Turner.     (Re- 

view.)     45Q 

Dauphin,  A  New  Book  on  the 63  448 

Dead  or  Alive.     Theodore  Maynard 682 

De  Casseres.  Benjamin.     James  Iluneker's 

"Bedouins"    231 

The  Poems  of  Herbert  Trench   ..."     94 

Decoration      Books,      Two.        Richardson 

Wright 100 

Dedications  in  Books *     54 


374952 


VI 


INDEX 


Deep  Sea  Shelf,  The.     (Gossip  Shop.)    . . .   507 

"Deep  Waters,"  by  W.  W.  Jacobs.  (Re- 
view.)      223 

de   la    Mare   on    Rupert    Brooke,    Walter. 

Christopher   Morley    234 

Deledda,    Grazia    559 

"Deliverance,"    by    E.    L.    Grant    Watson. 

(Review.)    848 

Dickinson,  Thomas  H.    The  Mother  of  Art 

and  Revolution    492 

"Doctor  of  Pimlico,  The,"  by  William  Le 

Qneuz.     (Review.)    585 

Dogs,  Maeterlinck's  and  Another.     Walter 

A.    Dyer    57 

Doubleday,   Page   Bookshop   in   St.   Louis, 

The  .  (Gossip  Shop.)    505 

"Dover  Patrol,  The,"  by  Admiral  Sir  Regi- 
nald Bacon.     (Review.)    477 

Doyle,  A.  Conan.      (Gossip  Shop.)    699 

Dramas  of  Daily  Life,  Certain.     Montrose 

J.    Moses    495 

"Dressing  Gowns  and  Glue,"  by  L.  de  G. 

Sieveking.      (Ctossip   Shop.)    255 

Dnhamel,  Georges.     (Gossip  Shop.)   600 

Duncan,  Walter  Jack.  A  Battle  of  Pic- 
tures       480 

Dunne,    Mr.    Dooley    Alias    Finley    Peter. 

Morris  R.  Werner 674 

"Dust  and  Light,"  by  John  Hall  Wheelock. 
(Review.)    101 

Dutton,  Edward  P.     (Gossip  Shop.)    121 

Dyer,  Walter  A.  Agricultural  Predica- 
ments        686 

In  Praise  of  Nature  Faking 107 

Maeterlinck's  Dogs  and  Another  . . .   575 

The  New  England  Cult   241 

A  Short  Story  Orgy 217 

"Eastern  Stories  and  Legends,"  by  Marie 

L.  Shedlock.      (Review.)    815 

Baton,    Walter    Prichard.      Chiefly    About 

Bugs 845 

Folk  and  Nature  Vignettes 684 

Reducing  the  High  Cost  of  CoUecting  582 

"Economic    (jon sequences    of    the    Peace, 

The,"  by  John  Maynard  Keynes 161 

(Review.)    226 

"Editor's  Morning  Mail,  An,"  Authorship 

of.      (Gossip  Shop.)    124 

Education  of  Men  of  Mark,  The.     (Gk>ssip 

Shop.)    606 

Egan,  Maurice  Francis.  Loaf,  and  In- 
vite Your  Soul 852 

Negotiating  with  Princes   571 

(Gossip  Shop.)    511 

"Einstein,  Easy  Lessons  In,"  by  Edwin  B. 

Slosson.      (Gossip  Shop.)    126 

Ellsworth,  William  W.  (  Gossip  Shop.)  . .  698 
Ely,  Catherine  Beach.     Are  Our  Novelists 

Fair  to  the  Redheads?   175 

"Encyclopedia   of   Horticulture,    The,"    by 

L.  H.  BaUey.      (Review.)    424 

"Enemigos  de  la  Mujer,  Los,"  by  Vicente 

Blasco  IbAfies.      (Review.)    859 

English  As  She  Is  Spoke.    Richard  Burton  518 
"English    Catholic    Revival    in    the    Nine- 
teenth Century,   The,"   by  Paul  Thu- 

reau-Dangin.     (Review.)    209 

Enriqueta,    Maria    561 

"Entretlens  dans  le  Tumulte,"  by  Georges 

Duhamel.      (Review.)     189 

Epics.  The  New.  Wilbur  Cortes  Abbott  . .  114 
Erskine,  John.  William  Dean  Howells   . . .  885 

Brvine,  St.  John    154,  668 

Essayist,  On  Being  an.  Berton  Braley  . .  646 
Bssays,  and  Three,  About.  Mary  Terrill. .  192 
"Evander,"  by  Eden  PhlUpotts.  (Review.)  840 
Evans,  C.  S.     On  Humor  in  Literature  . .   648 

The  Terrors  of  Tnshery   82 

"Bye  of  Zeitoon,  The,"  by  Talbot  Mundy. 

(Review.)    582 

"Far-Away  Stories,"  by  William  J.  Locke. 

(Review.)    221 

"Far    East    Unveiled,    The,"    by    Frederic 

Coleman.      (Review) 688 


Farnol,   Jeffery,   The  Romance  of.     J.   P. 

Collins 518 

Fashion  Captions.     (Gossip  Shop.)   601 

Fawcett,  Edgar   13 

Female  of  the  Species,  A.  Constance  Mur- 
rav  Greene  565 

Ferdinand  of  Bulgaria,  A  Book  on 68 

Fiction,   Current   Taste   In :    A  Quarterly 

Survey.     John   Walcott   298,  652 

Fiction,  The  Hounds  of  Spring.  Ruth  Mur- 
ray  Underbill    488 

Fiction,  Strange  Times  In    69 

"Fifty  Years  In  the  Royal  Navy,"  by  Ad- 
miral Sir  Percy  Scott.     (Review.)    ..  274 

Finck,  Henry  T.     Humorous  and  Serious 

Books  on  Music 169 

"Fire   of   Youth,"    by    Henry   James    For- 

man.     (Gossip  Shop.)    251 

"First    Piano    in    Camp,    The,"    by    Sam 

Davis.      (Review.)     224 

Fisher's    Revelations,     Lord.      James    C. 

Grey   5 

"Flying  the  Atlantic  in  Sixteen  Hours,"  by 

Sir  Arthur  Whitten  Brown 370 

"Follow  the  Little  Pictures,"  by  Alan  Gra- 
ham       595 

"Foot-Path  Way,  The,"  by  Henry  Milner 

Rideout.     (Review.)    581 

Footprints  on  Piety  Hill.  Agnes  Day  Rob- 
inson      445 

Foreign  Miscellany,  A.     Isaac  Goldberg  . .   557 

Forman,  Henry  James.  Travels  with  Ar- 
thur Symons    239 

"For  Remembrance,"  by  A.  St.  John  Ad- 
cock.      (Review.)     458 

"Fortieth  Door,  The,"  by  Mary  Hastings 

Bradley.      (Review.)    583 

"Founding  of  a  Nation,  The,"  by  Frank  M. 

Gregg   870 

France,  Anatole.     (Gossip  Shop.)    506 

France,  The  Martyred  Towns  of.   Margaret 

Pinckney    Allen     96 

Franklin,  Benjamin.      (Ctosslp  Shop.)    . . .   703 

Franz  Ferdinand  of  Austria,  A  Biography 

of   68 

French  Books,  New.    R.  le  Clerc  Phillips. .  448 

French  Books,  Recent.    A.  G.  H.  Spiers  . .   187 

French  Literature,  Currents  in.     Mrs.  Bel- 

loc  Lowndes   60 

"French    Revolution,    The,"    by    Nesta    H. 

Webster.      (Review.)    570 

"From  Mud  to  Mufti."  by  Bruce  Bairns- 
father.      (Review.)    107 

Futurism   82 

Gald6s,  Don  Benito  P6rez   559 

Gale,  Zona.      (Gossip  Shop.)    701 

Garden,  The.     (Poem.)     Aline  Kilmer  ....     59 
"Garden  Blue  Book,  The,"  by  Leicester  B. 

Holland.     (Review.)    423 

Gardening,  The  Best  Advice  in.  Mar- 
garet Bmerson  Bailey    422 

"Garden-Making,"  by  L.  H.  BaUey.  (Re- 
view.)       424 

"Garden  Month  by  Month,  The,"  by  M.  S. 

Sedgwick.      (Review.)    428 

Garvice,  Charles   822 

"Gate   of   Fulfillment,   The,"   by   Knowles 

Ridsdale.       (Review.)     586 

"Gates  of  Paradise,"  by  Edwin  Markham. 

(Review.)    454 

"Geisha  Girl,  The,"  by  T.  Fujimoto.  (Re- 
view.)      * 630 

George,  W.  L 660 

"Georgian    Poetry"     46 

"German.   Empire,   The,"   by   W.   Harbutt 

Dawson.      (Review.)     114 

"German  General  Staif  and  Its  Decisions, 

The,"  by  General  von  Falkenhayn  . . .  267 
Gill,  C.  C.    Admiral  Scott  and  the  British 

Navy    274 

The  Dover  Patrol   477 

Gissing,  Gkorge.     (Gossip  Shop.)   248 

Glaenzer,    Richard    Butler.      The   Chinese 

Coat.     (Poem.)    159 

Glick,  CarL    Charles  Arlington  Smith  . . .  545 


INDEX 


Vll 


Oloiioni   Game,   The.      (Poem.)      Richard 

Barton   693 

Goldberg,  Isaac.     A  Foreign  Miscellany   .  507 

Nolens   Volens.    (  Poem) 657 

A  Notable  Novel  of  Brasil 232 

"Woman   Haters"    859 

**Golden  Scorpion,  The,"  bj  Sax  Rohmer. 

(Review.)    582 

"Golden    Whales   of   California.   The,*'   by 

Vachel  Lindsay.     (Review.)    455 

Goldring,  Douglas   420,  661 

Ctonconrt  Prize,  The.  (Qossip  Shop.)  . . .  878 
Gossip  Shop,  The  . .  119.  247,  374.  504,  598,  696 
OStterdftmrnerung.  Wilbur  Cortes  Abbott  286 
"Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado,  The,"  by 

John  C.  Van  Dyke.     (Review.)    860 

"Great     American     Short     Stories,     The." 

(Gossip   Shop.)    601 

Great    Editor's    Gallery    of    Portraits,    A. 

Edward  P.  MitcheU   48 

Greene,  Constance  Murray.     A  Bonus  for 

the  Poet    667 

A  Female  of  the  Species 565 

The  Long  Lane  of  Bookrevlewing  . .   837 

Greenwich     Village     in     Paris.       (Ctossip 

Shop.)    249 

Grey,  James  C.     An  Italian  Year 357 

Lord  Fisher's  Revelations 5 

(Gossip    Shop.)     252 

Grudges  for  Old,  New.     Robert  Livingston 

Schuyler    566 

Goiterman,  Arthur.    Frank  L.  Packard  and 

His   Miracle   Men    466 

How  Lyrics  Are  Born.      (Poem.)    . .   278 

"Invincible  Minnie."     (Poem.)    702 

Gonter,  Archibald  Claverlng 17 

"Ebind-Made  Fables,"  by  George  Ade.     (Ite- 

view.) 569 

Hanemann,  Henry  William.  More  Strych- 
nine         72 

The  Regurgitation  of  Almost  Any- 
body         69 

Hanly,  filizabeth.     Conversion.      (Poem.)      186 

Ebinsen,  Harry.     (Gossip  Shop.)    258 

"Happy  House,"  by  Baroness  von  Hutten. 

(Review.)    204 

"Hardy  Flower  Book,  The,"  by  B.  H.  Jen- 
kins.     (Review.)    428 

"Hardy   Plants  for  Cottage   Gardens,"   by 

Helen  R.  Albee.      (Review.)    428 

Hardy,  Thomas   658 

Harris,  Frederick.     Losing  a  Life 110 

Harte,   Bret    445 

Haver  male.  Hazel.     (Gossip  Shop.)    607 

"Have    We    a    Far    Eastern    Policy?"    by 

Charles  H.  Sherrlll.     (Review.)    632 

Hawthorne.  Hildegarde.    Amelia  E.  Barr — 

Some  Reminiscences   288 

Books  on  Lonesome  Trail   134 

Hazlltt.  A  Biography  of 326 

Heaven's  Little  Ironies.  James  Lane  Allen  616 
Hellman,  George  S.  (Gossip  Shop.)  ....  509 
Henderson,  Helen  W.     Has  New  England 

an  Art  Sense  ?  138 

Herford's  Awful  Error,  Mr.  Berton  Braley  156 
Hergeshelmer.  Joseph.  (Gossip  Shop.)  121,879 
"Hermit   of  Far  End.  The,"  by  Margaret 

Pedler.       (Review.)     448 

Herrera  y  Relssig,  Julio   562 

Herschell,   William    627 

"Hesitant      Heart,     The,"     by     Winifred 

Welles.     (Review.)    457 

"Hidden     Creek,"     by     Katharine     Newlln 

Burt    696,  691 

"High  Benton,"  by  William  Heyllger.  (Re- 
view.)          90 

HIU,  Murray.  Murray  Hill  on  His  Trav- 
els     401,  523,  620 

With  Malice  Toward  None 54 

HllUs,  Richard  D.  Inchoate... A  Crav- 
ing      75 

"Hills    of    Han,"    by    Samuel    C.    Merwln. 

(Review.)    588 

Hind,  Lewis   825 

Holt,  Henry.     (Gosalp  Shop.)   120 


"Honourable  Gentleman,  The,"  by  Achmed 

AbdulUh.     (Review.)    222 

Howe,  P.  P 326 

Howells,  William  Dean.     John  Eraklne...   385 

(Gossip   Shop.)    512,  601 

Howland,  Hewitt  Hanson   524 

Howland,    Louis    626 

How  Lyrics  Are  Born.      (Poem.)     Arthur 

Gulterman   278 

How  to  Entertain  an  Author.    Richardson 

Wright  481 

Hubbard,  "Kin" 627 

Hughes,   Rupert.      (Gossip   Shop.y    256 

Humor  In  Literature,  On.     C.  S.  Evans  . .   648 
Huneker,  James  Gibbons.     The  Lesson  of 

the    Master    864 

Huneker's  ''Bedouins",  James.  Benja- 
min De  Casseres   281 

Hungary  and  Social  Books.     (Gossip  Shop.)  376 
Huxley,  Aldous    155 

(Gossip   Shop.)     606,  702 

"I  Choose,"  by  Gertrude  Capen  Whitney. 

(Review.)    .  224 

In  a  City  Park. "(Poem.)  *  Amelia  Joseph- 
ine Burr   591 

In  a  Friend's  Library.     (Poem.)     Charles 

Hanson   Towne    634 

Inchoate. .  .A  Craving.. . .  Richard  D.  Hll- 
Us       75 

"Inmorales,  Los,"  by  Carlos  Ix)velra   560 

International  Garden  Club,  The.     (Gossip 

Shop.)    125 


"International  Pocket  Library,"  ed.  by  Ed- 
mund R.  Brown.     (Gossip  Shop.)    . . .   878 

"In    the   Garret,"    by   Carl    Van    Vechten. 

(Review.)    193 

Introspectlvlst  Anthology,  An 563 

"Invincible  Minnie,"  by  Elisabeth  Sanxay 

Holding.     (Review.)    442,565 

(Gossip  Shop.;    702 

"Invisible   Foe,    The,"    by    Louise   Jordan 

Mlln 695 

Italian  Year,  An.    James  C.  Grey 857 

Italy.  Giovanni  Paplnl  and  the  Futuristic 

Literary  Movement  In.   Joseph  Collins  160 

James,    Henry    864,869,418.538 

James,  Henry,  and  the  Theatre.     Brander 

Matthews    389 

James,  Henry,  Painter.    Louise  R.  Sykes. .   240 

"Jane  Clegg,"  by  St.  John  Ervine.  (Re- 
view.)       406 

Japanese  Girl,  The  Literature  of  a  Mod- 
em.    Hanano  Inagakl  Suglmoto 291 

Japan — Real    and    Imaginary.      Raymond 

M  .Weaver   629 

"Japan  Real  and  Imaginary,"  by  Sydney 

Greenble.      (Review.)    633 

Jeffers,  Le  Roy.     Colorful  Impressions  of 

the  Grand  Canvon 860 

A  Lover  of  Nature  and  the  Moun- 
tains       108 

Jester  with  Genius,  A.  Arthur  Symons  . .  129 
"Jim,"   by   Charles   G.   D.    Roberts.      (Re- 

view.)     108 

"Jlr6n  de  Mun'do,"  by  Marfa  Bnrlque'ta' . .'  561 
"John    Ferguson,"    by    St.    John    Ervine. 

(Review.)    496 

Johnston,      Robert      Matteson.        (Gossip 

Shop.)    254 

"John    Stuyvesant,    Ancestor,"    by    Alvln 

Johnson.      (Review.)    224 

Jones.  Ebenezer 333 

Joseph,  Oscar  L.    The  Best  for  the  Lowest    99 

Courageous   Candor    237 

A  Revealing  Biography   808 

"Journal  of  a  Disappointed  Man,  The,"  by 

W.  N.  P.  Barbelllon.     (Review.)   118 

Joyce,  James   84 

"Joy  In  the  Morning,"  by  Mary  Raymond 

Shlpman   Andrews.      (Review.)    224 

"Judgment    of    Peace,    The,"    by    Andreas 

Latsko.      (Review.)    206 

"Justlcler.  Le,'*  by  Paul  Bourget.  (Re- 
view.)       460 


Keatt  Hemoiiti  Home,  A.  (Ooirip  Shop.)  SOT 
Kilmer,  Allae.  The  Qarden.  (Poem.)...  69 
•■•"--   "' n»"   Playbill,   The.      (Qoralii 


imOTible,"  tr.  by 

Arlitldei  B.  Pbontrldea.     (Sevtew.)..   214 
Smtch,  Joaeph  Wood.    Log  of  ■  Splrltiul 

Toyase  68T 


I    Hint    Hyrtery,    The,"    bj    S. 


■La   Ch«nc_ _.. 

'I^d,"  by  Albert   FayioD  TerhaDe.  '  <Re- 
'Ladlw-lD-WaitliiK,"  by  Kate'  booclaa  Wt«- 


'Lancelot,    by  Sdwln  ArlinatoD  Bobliuon. 

(RevfewJ   4 

'I^ndacape  Painter,  A,"  by  Hearj  lamea. 

(Review.)    S 

YorVin"ur*''BiihtiM~'. 

LapplD,    Henry    A.      Poetry,    Vena,    and 

Potpourri    i 

An  on-Vlctorlan  Victorian   

"Last  of  the  OrenrlllM,  The,"  by  Bennet 


__    _.    _»,  C.  B 668 

Lawrence,  D.  H 42t,  661 

Leaitue    of    American    Pen    Women,    The. 

(Qoulp   Shop.)     2S1 

"Learned  Lady  In  tDoKland,  Tbe,"  by  Uyra 

B.  BeynoldB.      (Review.)    689 

"LeseDd."  by  ClemeDce  Dane.      (Beview.) 

44,208 
(Ooailp    Shop.)    138 

—  •— ■■  —  the  Daupbln,  H es,  446 


LenStre'i  Book  __  ._ 

Leaplnaue,  HUe.  de  

Leason   o(  the  Master,  Tbe.     Jamea  Qlb- 

t>ona   Hnneker    864 

"Letters  from  Cblna  and  Japan,"  by  John 

Dewey   and    Alice    Chapman    Dewey. 

(Review.)    681 

"Letlera  of   Henry   Jamea,   The,"   ed.    by 

Percy  Lubbock.     (Sevkew)    8S4 


JhopJ     , 

Library.  The  SoclallBstlon  of  tbe.     Artbnr 

B.   Boetwlck    B 

Lincoln  ■  ReUglon  Restated. 


.   D4T 


Lindsay.   Vachel    1S4.  466 

(Ooeslp   Shop.)     897 

Literary  Lapses,      (Gossip  Sbop.)    SOT 

Literary  Mew  York  In  tbe  'Blsbtles.     Tbe 

Marqaise  Clara   Lania    11 

"Literary    Portraits,"    by    William    Both- 

enateln    420 


"Uleratare  with  i 


arse  L. 


i."  by  Macbte- 


.   806 


Loaf,    and     Invite     Xonr    BooL       Haarlce 

Prsncls  Bgan   ] 

"Lo    and    Behold    Ye  I"    by    Benmas    Mac- 


Bemember   Yon. 


.  400 


Losne.   Kevin.      When   1 

"Loiterer   In   New  Bniland.  ._,      _. 

W.  Henderson.      (Bevlew.f    , 242 

Londoner,  The.     Simon  Pare 

42. 160,  822.  41fl.  B3B.  OSS 

LoofelnE  Ahead   with   the   Publishers.     S. 

H.  R 88B,  499.  698,  081 

Losing  a  Life.     Frederick  Harrla  110 


Lovelra,  Carlos   681 

"Lover  of  tbe  Chair,  A,"  by  Sherlock  BtoD- 

Bou    GoBH.       (Review.)    198 

Lowi'U.  Amy.    Merely  Statement.    (Poem.)  29T 

(G0Bsl[.     Shopl 609 

Lowniles,  Kirs.  Beltoc.     Cnrrents  In  French 

Literature     60 

Lucas,  E.  V S26 

(GoBBlp   Shop.)    8T6,  006 

Ldi^ub's  Book  on  Abbey   161 

■■LudendorlTB    Own   Story,"    hy   Brlch   von 

Lndendortr.       (Review.)     287 

LuBltanls   Spouks,   Tbe.      (Poem.)      (Qos- 

Blp  Shop.)    260 

Luthvr,  Uurt  Lee.     (GoSklp  Shop.)    690 

LjDde,  Fianols.     Lysandcr  Saws  Wood  . . .   26T 

Lync  Line,  The.     Louis  Untermeyer 101 

Ljaandcr  Sawa  Wood.  Francis  Lynde  . .  28T 
LytloD,  Bulncr.      (Uosslp  Sbop.)    611 

McCoUoeb.  Dr.  CarletOD  B.  .  .40T.  D2S,  029.  e2T 
McFee,  William.   The  City  of  Bnchantment  20T 

The  Bhlntni  Hour    609 

Hclntyre,  Clara  F.      (Qoaaip  Shop.)    000 

Mackenile,  Compton.    Francis  Brett  Yonnc  636 

ISO.  544,  691 

"Uaeterllaek's    Don."    by    Oeorgette   Le- 

blanc-Maeterlinck.      (Bevlew.l    BTS 

Hall,  S.  P,  B 420 

"Making    Advertisements."    by    Roy    Dnr. 

Btlne  681 

MsUock,  W.  H.     (Gossip  Sbop.)   010 

Mann,    Helnrlch.      (Oosslp   Shop.)     600 

"Marbeek  Inn.  The.''  by  Harold  Brlghoosa. 

(Review.)    B« 

"Marie -Claire'',     A     Sequel     to.        (Gossip 

Shop.)    T03 

Markham.  Edwin.     (Gossip  Sbop.)    508 

Harqnls,  Don.      (Qossip  Shop.)    120 

"  'Marse    Henry',      by    Henry    Watterson. 

(Review.)    48 

Ma rBhall.  Archibald.      (OoEsip  Shop.)    708 

"MarshaU, '  John,  The  Uf e  of."   by  Albert 

J.  Beverldge.     (Review.)   14T 

"Martyred    Towdb    of    France.    The."    by 

Clara  B.  LauKblln.     (Review.)   08 

"Marv  Rose,"   by  J.   M.  Barrie    B4I 

"Mask,  Tbe,"  by  John  Conmoa.  (Review.)  78 
Masson,  Tbomsa  L.    On  Skipping 426 

(Oosslp   Shop.)    247 

Mathers.  Hflen   418 

MalhewB.  Albert   828 

"Hating  In  tbe  Wilds,  A/'  by  Otwell  Blnns.  093 
Matthews.    B render.       Henry    James    and 

the  Theatre   889 

Maurice,  Arthur  Bartlett.     (Gossip  Sbop.)  124 

MB*weU,  W.  B.      (Goaslp  Shop.)    884 

Maynard.  Theodore,     Dead  or  Alive 6S2 

HefvlUe,  Herman.      (Gossip  Sbop.)    600 

"Memories  and  Becords,"  by  Ijora  Fisher. 

(Review,)    6 

"Memories  of  George  Meredith,"  by  Lady 

Botcher.       (Review.)     801 

"Memories  of  a  Musical  Career."  by  Clara 

Kathleen   Rogers.      (Review.)    170 

"Mercure  de  France"   65 

Meredith.  Memories  of.  Jsmes  J,  Daly  . .  801 
Merely  Statement.     (Poem.)     Amy  Lowell  20T 

Meynell.  Viola.     (Gossip  Shop.)    600 

"Michael  Forth."  by  Mary  Johnston.    (Oos- 
slp   Shop,)     701 

MIddleton,  More  Plays   by  George.      Rich- 
ard Burton   472 

"Mld-Vlctorlan      Memories,"      by      MatUda 

Betbam-Ed wards.     (Review.)   98 

MlUer,  Joaqnln    BOS 

"Mince  Pie,'"  by  Christopher  Morley.      (Re- 
view.)         106 

-  (Gossip   Sbop.)    249 

"Miser's  Money,"  by  Eden  Pblllpotts.     (Re- 
view.)         839 

MttcheU,    Bdward    P.      A    Great   Bdltor's 

Gallery  of  Portraits  48 

Mitchell,  S.  Weir.     (Gossip  Sbop.)   304 

"Modem   American   Poetry,"  ed.   by  Louis 

Dntermeyer.     (Review.)    212 


INDEX 


ix 


*']Iolifere,  Sons  le  Masque  de."      (Oouip 

81M9.)    879 

Monkhoiise,  Allan  541 

Montfomery.  George  Edgar   18 

Annie  Carroll.     Books  for  Yonng 

People   86 

-  A  Spring  Review  of  Children's  Books  814 

Vacation  Beading   484 

Moore,  George  18 

*^ore  Chapters  of  Opera,"  by  Henry  Bd- 

irmrd  KrehbleL     (RevlewO    171 

*af ore  B.  K.  Means."     (Review.)    222 

More  Strychnine.     Henry   William   Hane- 

nuuin   72 

*^ore  Translations  from  the  Chinese/*  by 

Arthur  Waley.     (Review.)    214 

Morley,     Christopher.       "Tmsty,     Dusky, 

VlTld,   True'*^ 866 

Walter  de  la  Mare  on  Rupert  Brooke  284 

Morley.  Frank.     Booking  to  Alaska 27 

Mondli.  Brcole  Luigi   668 

Mooes,   Montrose   J.     Certain   Dramas   of 

Dally  Life    496 

Dietary  Laws  of  Children's  Books  .   687 

Most    Influential    Publication     Since    the 

Armistice,  The.     Frank  A.  Vanderlip  226 

Mother  Goose.     (Gossip  Shop.)    882 

'Mountain,"  by  (Jlement  Wood 696 

Mr.  Prosser  Upon  Aristotle.   Mary  Bleanor 

Roberts    677 

Mnrray  Hill  on  His  Travels.     Murray  Hill 

401.  628,  620 
Murray's  Guide  Books.  (Gossip  Shop.)  . .  249 
"Musical    Memories."    by    Camille    Saint- 

SaSns.      (Review.)     171 

"Musical  Motley,  A,"  by  Ernest  Newman. 

(Review.)    169 

Music,   Humorous  and   Serious  Books  on. 

Henry   T.    Finck    169 

**My  Campaign  in  Mesopotamia,"  by  Major 

General  Charles  Townshend 601 

"My  Chess  Career,"  by  J.  R.  Capablanca. 

(Review.)    678 

"My    Italian    Year,"    by    Joseph    CoUins. 

(Review.)    857 

"My   Memories."    hv    Grand    Admiral    von 

Tirpitz.      (Review.)    286 

Nature  and    the   Mountains,   A   Lover  of. 

Le  Roy  Jeffers 10.1 

Nature  Faking,   In   Praise  of.     Walter  A. 

Dyer 107 

Nature  VignetteH,  Folk  and.    Walter  Prich- 

ard    Enton    6S4 

Negotiating  with  Princes.  Maurice  Fran- 
cis Bgan    671 

"Nevill,    The    Life    and    lietters    of    I^dy 

Dorothy."  bv  Ralph  Nevill.    (Review.)     07 

"New  Bee.  The,'*^  bv  Vernon  Kellogg 500 

New  England  an  Art  Sense?  Has.     Helen 

W.    Henderson    138 

New  England  Cult.  The.  Walter  A.  Dyer  241 
"New  Frontier,  The,"  by  Guy  Emerson  . .  592 
Newman,  John  Henry,  as  a  Man  of  Letters. 

James  J.  Daly   209 

New  Orleans    257 

*'Ni    Ange    ni    B«ite,"    by    Andrfi    Maurois. 

(Review.)     1S8 

"Nice  Girl"  in  Fiction,  The 48 

Nicholson.   Meredith    405,  524,  626 

(Gossip   Shop.)    ,    121 

"Night  and  Day."  by  Virginia  Woolf.  (Re- 
view. )     44 

Nineteenth  Century  Club.  The 12 

Nlven,  Frederick.     A  Note  Upon  Style  . . .    434 

(Gossip   Shop.)    608 

Nolens  Volens.  (Poem.)  Isaac  Gold- 
berg        657 

"Nomads  of  the  North,"  by  James  Oliver 

Curwood.       (Review.)     108 

Noussanne.    M.    de.    author    of    "We   Must 

Now  Conquer  Ourselves"   60 

"Nouvelle    Allemngne.     La,"     by     Maurice 

Berger.      ( Review. )    191 

Novel    Competitions    543 

Novelists  as  Plajrwrights    640 


Novels  of   Several  Kinds,   Good.     H.   W. 

Boynton 889 

O'Donnell,  Charles  L.    Twilight.     (Poem.)  116 

"Off  Duty,"  comp.  by  Wilheunina  Harper. 

(Review.)    222 

"Of    Human    Bondage,"    by   W.    Somerset 

Maugham.      (Gossip  Shop.)    262 

Ogre,    The    Progress    of    the.      Caroline 

Francis   Richardson    88 

O'Hara,  Theodore   882 

"Oil-Shale   Industry,  The,"   by  Victor  Al- 

derson    692 

"Old  Junk,"  by  H.  M.  Tomlinson.  (Re- 
view.)       474 

Omar  Khayyam  Club,  A  Meeting  of  the  . .     46 

"One  Hundred  Best  Novels  Condensed."  ed. 

by  Edwin  A.  Grosier.     (Gossip  Shop.)  876 

On  Living  with  Lucinda.  Louise  White- 
field  Bray   176 

"On  the  Makaloa  Mat,"  by  Jack  London. 

(Review.)    222 

"On  the  Manner  of  Negotiating  with 
Princes,"  by  M.  de  (TaUiftres.  (Re- 
view.)        671 

"On   the   Manuscripts   of   God,"   by  Bllen 

Bums   Sherman.      (Review.)    846 

"On  the  Trail  of  the  Pioneers,"  by  John  T. 

Faris    870 

"Open,  Sesame !"  by  Mrs.  Baillie  Reynolds. 

(Review.)    228 

"Open   the  Door,"   by   Catherine   Carswell 

151.  601,  698 

"Our  Economic  and  Other  Problems,^'  by 

Otto  H.  Kahn    692 

"Outspoken    Essays,"    by    William    Ralph 

Inge.     (Review.)    287 

Overton,   Grant   M.     The  Title  Is  — 666 

Packard  and  His  Miracle  Men,  Frank  L. 

Arthur   Guiterman    466 

Pale  Bluestockings.     Martha  Plaisted 689 

Panzinl,  Alfredo    410 

Papini,  Giovanni,  and  the  Futuristic  Lit- 
erary Movement  in  Italy.  Joseph  Col- 
lins    160 

"Passage  of  the  Barque  Snppho,  The,"  by 

J.  E.  Patterson.     (Review.)    79 

"Paths  of  June,"  by  Dorothy  Stockbridge. 

(Review.)    689 

Patterson.  Mary.     (GosHip  Shop.)    698 

"Peeps  at  People,"  by  Robert  Cortes  Hol- 

fiday.      (Review.)    352 

Peevish  Conversation,  A.     II.  I.  Brock  . . .   334 

Perez,   Isaac  I^elb    664 

"Perfect  Gentleman.  The,"  by  Ralph  Ber- 

gengren.      (Review.)     306 

"Peter  Kindred,"  by  Robert  Nathan.  (Re- 
view.)        843 

"Petit  Journal,  Le."     (Gossip  Shop.)    509 

Phillips,  R.  le  Clerc.     New  French  Books. .   448 

Women  of  Mark  and  Their  Education  828 

(Gossip   Shop.)    606 

Pictures,  A  Battle  of.  Walter  oack  Dun- 
can      480 

Pirandello.  Luigi   418 

"Place  In  the  World,  A,"  by  John  Hastings 

Turner.      (Review.)    342 

Plain,  Unvarnished  Tale,  A.  John  Sey- 
mour  Wood    861 

Plaisted.  Martha.     Pale  Bluestockings   . .  .    ««f) 

"Plays."  by  Susan  Glaspell 501 

"Plunderer,  The,"  by  Henry  Oycn.  (Re- 
view.)        684 

"Poe,  La  Vie  d'Edgar  A.,"  by  Andr6  Fon- 

»     tainas.      (Gossip   Shop.)    375 

"Poems  by  a  Little  Girl,"  by  Hilda  Conk- 

ling.      (Review.)    314 

(Gossip   Shop.)    600 

"Poems,"  by  Cecil  Roberts.  (Review.)  ..  218 
"Poems."  by  Gladys  Cromwell.  (Review.)  216 
"Poems,"  by  Herbert  Trench.  (Review.)  94 
"I'o^sie    Sclentiiique,    La,"    by    M.    Fusil. 

(Gossip    Shop.)     604 

Poet.  A  Bonus  for  the.    Constance  Murray 

Greene 667 


INDEX 


Poet  of  Nature,  A  New.  BUis  Parker  But- 
ler     196 

Poetry  Society  Prises.     (GoMip  Shop.)   . .   606 
Poetry,  Some  Currents  and  Backwaters  of 

Contemporary.     Raymond   M.   Weaver  463 
Poetry,  Verse,  and  Worse.     Henry  A.  Lap- 
pin    211 

Poets'  Centenary  Year,  1920:    The  Minor. 

John  Black 382 

"Poets  of  the  Future,  The,"  ed.  by  Henry 

T.   Schnittklnd.      ( Review. )    347 

Polar-bear  Yarn,  The.     (Gossip  Shop.) 

253.  606.  608 
Pond  Lyceum  Bureau,  The.  (Gossip  Shop.)  127 
**Pool  of  Stars,  The,"  by  Cornelia  Meigs. 

(Review.)    91 

"Poor  Relations,"  by  Compton  Mackenzie. 

(Review.)    841 

"Portraits  of  American  Women,"  by  Ga- 
maliel Bradford.      (Review.)    806 

"Portraits  of  the  Eighties."  by  Horace  G. 

Hutchinson.      (Review.)     682 

Potpourri.     Henry  A.  Lappin 306 

"Practical  Book  of  Interior  Decoration, 
The,"  by  Bberlein,  McClure,  and  Hoi- 

loway.      (Review.)    100 

"Practical  Flower  Garden,  The,"  by  Helena 

R.  Ely.     (Review.)    428 

"Prairie  Mother,  The,"  by  Arthur  Stringer  601 

Preston,  Margaret 883 

Provost,  Marcel.      (Gossip  Shop.)    881 

•Prime  Jeunesse,"   by   Pierre  Loti.      (Re- 
view.)    ............  449 

"Progressive  Religious  Thought  in  Amer- 
ica," by  John  Wright  Buckham.  (Re- 
view.)        288 

Prose     in     the     Great     Tradition.       John 

Bunker 474 

"Psychical  Review,  The."     (Gossip  Shop.)   128 

I'sychic  Series,  A    -  869 

Publishers'   Readers    663 

Pulitzer  Prizes  in  Ixitters.     (Gossip  Shop.)  600 

"Punch."      (Gossip  Shop.)    377,609 

Purcell,     Gertrude    M.      Boys    and    Ellis 

Parker  Butler    478 

Mr.    Ade  on   Prohibition   and   Other 

Things   668 

Pure,  Simon.     The  Londoner 

42.  150,  322,  416,  536,  668 

"Queen  of  China,  The."  by  Edward  Shanks. 

(Review.)    216 

Radziwlll,   Princess  Catherine.     The  Wife 

of  Honors  de  Balzac 639 

"Ramsey    Milholland"    Contest.       (Gossip 

Shop.)    125 

Randolph.  Anson  D.  F 833 

Rascoe,  Burtou.     (Gossip  Shop.)    126 

"Raymond  Robins*  Own  Story,"  by  Wil- 
liam  Hard.      (Review.)    810 

Reading  Requirements  of  Columbia  Uni- 
versity.     (Gossip   Shop.)     603 

"Real  Diary  of  the  Worst  Farmer,  The," 

by  TIenry  A.  Shute.     (Review.)    686 

"Red    Cow    and    Her    Friends,    The,"    by 

Peter  McArthur.      (Review.)    846 

Redheads,  Are  Our  Novelists  Fair  to  the? 

Catherine  Beach  Ely   176 

"Red  Mark,  The,"  by  John  RusseU.      (Re- 

view.)     228 

Regurgitation    of    Almost    Anybody,  *  The. 

Henry  William  Hancmann    60 

"Reign  of  Pattl.  The."  by  Herman  Klein . .   600 

R6jane.  Memoirs  of  Mme 64 

Renan.  Joseph   Ernest    648 

"Reputations,"  by  Douglas  Goldrlng 661 

"Responsable,  I^."  by  lAon  M.  O.  Gur^klan. 

(Gossip   Shop.)    602 

Revealing  Biography,  A.     Oscar  L.  Joseph  303 
Revolution,     The     Mother     of     Art     and. 

Thomas  H.  Dickinson 492 

Revolution,  A  New  History  of  the  French. 

Wilbur  Cortez  Abbott 670 

Rhys.  Ernest    826 


Rice,  Cale  Young.     (Gossip  Shop.)    699 

Richardson,  Caroline  Francis.  The  Prog- 
ress of  the  Ogre 88 

Riley   Biography,   A.     Margaret   Emerson 

Bailey    98 

Riley,  James  Whitcomb   627 

Rinehart,  Mary  Roberts.      (Gossip  Shoo.) 

264,  511 

Roberts,  Cecil.      (Gossip  Shop.)    262 

Roberts,  Mary  Eleanor.    Mr.  Prosser  Upon 

Aristotle    677 

Robinson,     Agnes     Day.       Footprints     on 

Piety  Hm 446 

Robinson,      Edwin      Arlington.        (Gossip 

Shop.)    699 

Robinson,  Luther  Emerson.  Lincoln's  Re- 
ligion  Restated    547 

Roland,    Mme 329 

Roman  Schoolmasters,  Two  Noisy.    Joseph 

Collins 410 

Roosevelt  Memorial  Association,  Woman's. 

(Gossip  Shop.)    876 

Rothensteln  Brothers,  The   420 

Russian  News  by  Way  of  the  Book-Shelf. 

Oliver   M.   Sayler    810 

"Russian    Theatre   Under   the   Revolution, 

The,"  by  OUver  M.  Sayler.     (Review.)  492 

"Russia  White  or  Red,"  by  Oliver  M.  Say- 
ler.     (Review.)    498 

"Sacred   Beetle  and   Others.   The,"   by   J. 

Henri  Fabre.     (Review.)    846 

"Sailor  Girl,"  by  Frederick  F.  Moore.    (Re- 

view.)     682 

"Sailor's    Home,    A,"    by    Richard    Dehan. 

(Review.)    222 

Salnte-Beuve,  Letters  of 60 

"St.  Paul,  The  Life  and  Letters  of,"  by  the 

Rev.  David  Smith.      (Review.)    803 

Sand,  George   830 

San  Francisco  Bookstores.     (Gossip  Shop.)   598 

Sassoon,  Siegfried   46 

Sayler,  Oliver  M.     Russian  News  by  Way 

of  the  Book-Shelf   310 

(Gossip  Shop.)    127 

"Scenes  from  Italy's  War,"  by  G.  M.  Tre- 

velyan.      (Review.)     116 

"Scepticisms,"  by  Conrad  Aiken.  (Re- 
view.)        194 

Sceva,  Eleanor  Kilmer.     A  Storehouse  of 

Youth   689 

School  Calendar,  A.     (Gossip  Shop.)    383 

Schuyler,    Robert    Livingston.      America's 

Greatest  Judge    147 

New  Grudges  for  Old 666 

Scott  and  the  British  Navy,  Admiral.     C. 

C.    Gill    274 

"Sea  Bride,  The,"  by  Ben  Ames  Williams. 

(Review.)    80 

Sea  Sand.     (Poems.)     Sara  Teasdale 26 

"Secret   Battle,   The,"   by   A.    P.   Herbert. 

(Review) 78 

"Secret    of    Sarek,    The,"    by   Maurice   Le 

Blanc.     (Review.)    584 

"September,"  by  Frank  Swinnerton.  (Re- 
view.)           81 

Serendipity  Shop,  A.     (Gossip  Shop.)    . . .   883 

Shakespeare?     Edwin  B.15rkman    677 

"  'Shakespeare'   Identified,"  by  J.  Thomas 

Looney 499 

(Review.^    679 

Shakespeare  Theories.      (Gossip  Shop.)    . .   696 

Sharp,   WlUlam    19 

Shaw,  George  Bernard.     (Gossip  Shop.)    .   603 
"Sheila  Intervenes,"  by  Stephen  McKenna. 

(Review.)    205 

Shelley    and    the    West    Wind.       (Gossip 

Shop.)    255 

Shelley's  "A  Philosophical  View  of  Re- 
form."    (Gossip  Shop.)    512 

"Shepherd    of    the    Sea,    The,"    by    Henry 

Leverage.      (Review.)     80 

Sherlock    Holmes,   How   Old   Is?     Beverly 

Stark   579 

Sherwood,  Mrs.  John   16 

Shining  Hour,  The.     William  McFee 609 


INDEX 


XI 


Shorter,  Clement  K.     (Gossip  Shop.)   ....   124 
**Short  Stories  from  the  Balkans,^*  tr.  by 
Edna     Worthley     Underwood.        (Re- 
view.)        221 

"Short  Stories  of  the  New  America,"  ed.  by 

Mary  A.  Laselle.     (Review.)   224 

Short-Story  Competition,  A 643 

Short-Story  Instruction  by  MaiL     (Gossip 

Shop.)    882 

Short  Story  Orgy,  A.     Walter  A.  Dyer  ...  217 

Siddall,  John  M.     (Gossip  Shop.)   604 

Sierra   Poet  In   the  Making,   A.     Herbert 

Cooper  Thompson   563 

'*Slgard,^*  by  Katharine  Lee  Bates.  (Re- 
view.)        676 

"Silver  Age,  The,"  by  Temple  Scott.     (Re- 

viewj    224 

Simon,  PauL    The  Unwritten  Things 819 

SitweU.    Osbert     47 

"Skin  Game,  The,"  by  John  Galsworthy  . .   659 

Skipping,  On.     Thomas  L.  Masson 426 

Smedley,  Menella  Bute   833 

"Songs  in  the  Common  Chord,"  by  Amelia 

E.  Barr.     (Review.)   284 

"Songs  of  Cheer,"  by  Bllle  Wemyss  .  (Re- 
view.)       218 

"Sonl  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  The,"  by  Wil- 
liam B.  Barton.     (Review.)    547 

"Space  and  Time  in  Contemporary  Phys- 
ics," by  Morits  Schllnk, 696 

Spanish -American  Masters,  The.     Thomas 

Walsh    236 

Spiers,  A.  G.  H.  Recent  French  Books  . .  187 
Spofford,  Harriet  Prescott.  (Gossip  Shop.)  506 
"Square    Peggy,"    by    Josephine    Daskam 

Bacon.      (Review.)    223 

(Gossip   Shop.)    879 

StaSl,  Mme.  de 830 

Stark,    Beverly.      How    Old    Is    Sherlock 

Holmes?    579 

"Starved   Rock,"   by   Edgar   Lee   Masters. 

(Review.)    216 

Stevenson  Club,  The  Robert  Louis.  (Gos- 
sip  Shop.)    606 

"Stevenson,  The  Life  of  Mrs.  Robert 
Louis,"  by  Nellie  Van  de  Grift  San- 
chez.     (Review.)     356 

Stockholm.  The  Book  World  of.     Frederic 

Whytc    279 

Stockton,   Frank    18 

Storehouse  of  Youth,  A.     Eleanor  Kilmer 

Sceva   689 

Stories  of  Lives  and  of  Life.     Margaret 

Emerson  Bailey 202 

"Straight  Deal  or  the  Ancient  Grudge,  A," 

by  Owen  Wlster.     (Review.)    566 

Strunsky.   Simeon :     A   New  York  Barrie. 

Morris   R.   Werner    65 

"Studies    in    Gardening,"    by    A.    Clutton- 

Brock.      (Review.)    423 

"Studies  in  Spanish -American  Literature," 

by  Isaac  Goldberg.      (Review.)    235 

Style.  A  Note  Upon.     Frederick  Nlven   . .   434 

"Substance  of  a  Dream,  The,"  by  F.   W. 

Bain.      (Review.)    340 

Sugimoto,   Hanano.     The  Literature  of  a 

Modem   Japanese   Girl    291 

Suppression  of  Books,  The.  Henry  Litch- 
field West   460 

"Swatty,"  by  Ellis  Parker  Butler.  (Re- 
view.)        473 

Swinburne  and  Peter  Pan.     Raymond  M. 

Weaver    569 

"Swinburne  as  I  Knew  Him,"  by  Coulson 

Kemahan.      (Review.)    569 

"Swing  of  the  Pendulum,  The,"  by  Advi- 

ana  Spadonl.      (Review.)    343 

Swlnnerton,  Frank.     (Gossip  Shop.)    ..250.374 

Sykes,  Louise  R.     Henry  James.  Painter..   240 

Symons,  Arthur.     A  Jester  with  Genius..   129 

Symons.    Travels    with    Arthur.       Henry 

James   Forman    239 

Talne,  Hlppolyte  Adolphe 644 

"Taking  the  Count."  by  Charles  B.   Van 

Loan.     (Review.)    223 


Tarkington,   Booth    409,525.528,620 

(Gossip   Shop.)    696 

"Tarpaulin    Muster,    A,"    by    John    Mase- 

field.     (Review.)    224 

Tarzan  Novels  in  England.  (Gossip  Shop.)  603 
"Taxi,"    by    George    Aguew    Chamberlain. 

(Review.)    585 

Teasaale.   Sara.     Compensation.      (Poem.)   230 

Sea   Sand.      (Poems.)    26 

**Temperament,"  by  Dolf  Wyllard   595 

TerrlU.  Mary.  About  Essays,  and  Three  192 
Terrors  of  Tushery,  The.  C;.  S.  Evans  . .  82 
Thackeray   Discovery,  A.      (Gossip  Shop.)   700 

"Theatre,   Le"    64 

Thiors,  I^uis  Adolphe   642 

"This    Giddy   Globe,"    by    Oliver   Herford. 

(Review.)    156 

•This  Side  of  Paradise,"  by  F.  Scott  Fitz- 
gerald.     (Review.)    471 

"This  Simian  World,"  by  Clarence  Day  . .  500 
Thompson.  Herbert  Cooper.    A  Sierra  Poet 

in  the  Making 653 

Title  Is  — .  The.     Grant  M.  Overton 665 

Towne.  Charles  Hanson.     The  Contributor 

Who   Calls    144 

In  a  Friend's  Library.      (Poem.)    . . .   634 

••Tradition  and  Change,"  by  Arthur  Waugh. 

(Review.)    807 

"Tragedy  of  Nan,  The,"  by  John  Masefield. 

{Review.)    497 

••Traitd  des  Causes  Physiques  et  Morales 

du  Rire"   272 

••Treacherous    Ground,"    by    Johan    Bojer. 

(Review.)    444 

Tree,  Iris   422 

••Tremaine,   Herbert"    543 

Trench.  The  Poems  of  Herbert.     Benjamin 

De  Casseres    94 

••True  Love."  by  Allan  Monkhouse 542 

••Trusty.  Dusty,  Vivid,  True."    Christopher 

Morley     356 

Twain,    Mark,    The    Home    of.       (Gossip 

Shop.)    ...* 124 

Twilight.  (Poem.)  Charles  L.  O'Donnell  116 
Two   Genial   Gentlemen   Before  Us.     Tom 

Daly   105 

Two  Old  Ladies  Show  Their  Medals.    John 

Bunker 97 


Underbill.  Ruth  Murray.     The  Hounds  of 

Spring  Fiction 438 

A  Voyage  Toward  Reality 685 

Unfurled  Face,  The.     Alfred  M.  Brace  . . .   272 

Untermeyer.  Louis.     The  Lyric  Line 101 

Unwritten  Things,  The.     Paul  Simon    . . .   319 
••Up,   the  Rebels!"  by  G.  A.  Birmingham. 

(Review.)    207 


Vacation  Reading.     Annie  Carroll  Moore. .   484 
Vanderlip,  Prank  A.     The  Most  Influential 

Publication  Since  the  Armistice 226 

van  Dyke.   Henry.      (Gossip  Shop.)    253 

••Vanish lng_  Men,  The."  by  Richard  Wash- 
burn Child.      (Review.)    584 

Velasco.  Carlos  de    5B0 

Verhaeren.  Emile.     (Gossip  Shop.)    876 

Victorian.     An     un-Victorlan    .    Henry    A. 

Lanpin   33 

••Villa  Blsn."  by  Stuart  Henry.     (Review.)   361 
••Violin    Mastery."    by    Frederick    H.    Mar- 
tens.     (Review.)    169 

•*VolcP8."  ed.  by  Thomas  Moult.      (Gossip 

Shop.)    381 

••Voyaffo  Out.  The,"  by  Virginia  Woolf  . . .   500 

(Review.)    6S5 

Voynsre  Toward  Reality.  A.     Ruth  Murray 

Underbill 685 


Wnkemnn.  S.  H.      (Gossip  Shop.)    506 

Walcott.  John.     Current  Taste  in  Fiction  : 

A  Quarterly  Survey   298.  6.'^2 

Waldo.  Harold.     Old  Wests  for  New 396 

Walker,  Amos 627 

Walpole.  Hugh   601 


Xll 


INDEX 


Walsh,    Thomas.      The    SfMuilsh-Amerlcan 

Mastert   285 

(Gossip  Shop.)    128 

"Walt  Whitman,  The  Man  and  His  Work/' 

by  Leon  Basalgette.     (Bevlew.) 178 

"Wanted:     A  Husband,"  by  Samnel  Hop- 
kins Adams.     (Review.)    685 

War,    A    Bibliography    of    the.      (Qossip 

Shop.)    254 

Ward,  Mrs.   Humphry   48,158,416 

(Gossip  Shop.)    874 

War  Literature.     (Gossip  Shop.)   697 

"War  Stories,**  ed.  by  Roy  J,  Holmes  and 

A.  Starbuck.     (Review.)    224 

"War.   the  World   and   Wilson,  The,**  by 

(ieorge  Creel   694 

"Wasp  Studies  Afield,'*  by  PhU  and  NelUe 

Ran.     (Review.)    845 

Weaver,   Raymond   M.     Japan — Real  and 

Imaginary 629 

Some   (currents   and   Backwaters   of 

Contemporary  Poetry 458 

Swinburne  and  Peter  Pan    569 


**Well  Considered   Garden,  The,"  by  Mrs. 

Francis  King.     (Review.)    425 

Wells,   Carolyn.     Bom  to  Blush   Unseen. 

(Poem.)  657 

(Gossip  Shop.)    875 

Wells,  GabrieL    The  Bvolution  of  the  Book 

CoUector   180 

(Gossip  Shop.)    261 

Wells,  H.  G.     (Gossip  Shop.)   882 

Werner,  Morris  R.    Mr.  Dooley  Alias  Peter 

Finley  Dunne 674 

A  New  York  Barrie:    Simeon  Strun- 

sky  65 

West,  ilenry  Litchfield.     The  Suppression 

of  Books 

T'^est    Rebecca 421 

Wests  for  New,  OldV  Harold  Waldo  .* ....  896 


When  I  Remember  You.     (Poem.)     Kevin 

Logue 400 

"Where  Angels  Fear  to  Tread,"  by  B.  M. 

Forster.     (Review.)    842 

"Whistler,  Life  of  James  McNeill,'*  by  Pen- 

neU.     (Gtossip  ShopJ   127 

"White  Moll,  The,**  by  Frank  L.  Packard. 

(Review.)    686 

"White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas,*'  by 

Frederick  0*Brien.  (Gossip  Shop.)  . .  612 
Whitman,  Walt :   Fiction-writer  and  Foets' 

Friend.     John  Black   172 

Whitman,  Walt.     (Gossip  Shop.) 607,611 

Whyte,    Frederic      The    Book    World    of 

Stockholm   279 

WUde,   Oscar   20,129 

"WilUam— an     BngUshman,**     by     Cicely 

Hamilton.      ((}ossip   Shop.)    608 

Wishes.     (Poem.)     Bosworth  Oocker 226 

With  Malice  Toward  None.  Murray  Hill  64 
"With   the   Wits,'*   by   Paul  Blmer   More. 

(Review.)    808 

"Woman  Haters."     Isaac  Goldberg 869 

"Woman  of  Thirty,  A,"  by  Marjorle  Allen 

SeiflTert.     (Review.)    214 

Women  of  Mark  and  Their  Bducation.    R. 

le   Clerc   Phillips    828 

Wonderful  Again,  The.  H.  W.  Boynton . .  681 
Wood,  John  Seymour.  A  Plain  Unvar- 
nished Tale   861 

Woods,  Charles  F.     (Gossip  Shop.) 704 

Woolf,  Virginia.     (Gtossip  Shop.)   700 

Wright,    Richardson.      How   to    Bntertain 

an  Author    431 

Two  Decoration  Books 100 

Young  People,  Books  for.     Annie  Carroll 

Moore 86 

Young,  Stark.    Blind  Mouths 847 

"Youth  of  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  The," 

by  Marcus  Dickey.     (Review.)   98 


MARCH,  1920 


VOL.  LI,  NO.  1 


THE 


BC30KMAN 


**A  CLERGYMAN" 


BY  MAX  BEERBOHM 


F:AGMENTARY,  pale,  momentary 
— almost  nothing — glimpsed  and 
gone — as  it  were,  a  faint  human  hand 
thrust  up,  never  to  reappear,  from  be- 
neath the  rolling  waters  of  Time,  he 
forever  haunts  my  memory  and  so- 
licits my  weak  imagination.  Nothing 
is  told  of  him  but  that  once,  abruptly, 
he  asked  a  question,  and  received  an 
answer. 

This  was  on  the  afternoon  of  April 
7,  1778,  at  Streatham,  in  the  well-ap- 
pointed house  of  Mr.  Thrale.  John- 
son, on  the  morning  of  that  day,  had 
entertained  Boswell  at  breakfast  in 
Bolt  Court,  and  invited  him  to  dine  at 
Thrale  Hall.  The  two  took  coach  and 
arrived  early.  It  seems  that  Sir  John 
Pringle  had  asked  Boswell  to  ask 
Johnson  ''what  were  the  best  English 
sermons  for  style".  In  the  interval 
before  dinner,  accordingly,  Boswell 
reeled  off  the  names  of  several  divines 
whose  prose  might  or  might  not  win 
commendation.  "Atterbury?"  he  sug- 
gested. "Johnson.  Tes,  Sir,  one  of 
the  best.'  Boswell.  'Tillotson?' 
Johnson.    *Why,  not  now.    I  should 


not  advise  anyone  to  imitate  Tillot- 
son's  style;  though  I  don't  know;  I 
should  be  cautious  of  censuring  any- 
thing that  has  been  applauded  by  so 
many  suffrages. — South  is  one  of  the 
best,  if  you  except  his  peculiarities, 
and  his  violence,  and  sometimes 
coarseness  of  language. — Seed  has  a 
very  fine  style;  but  he  is  not  very 
theological.  —  Jortin's  sermons  are 
very  elegant. — Sherlock's  style  too  is 
very  elegant,  though  he  has  not  made  it 
his  principal  study. — And  you  may  add 
Smalridge.'  Boswell.  'I  like  Og- 
den's  Sermons  on  Prayer  very  much, 
both  for  neatness  of  style  and  sub- 
tilty  of  reasoning.'  Johnson.  *I 
should  like  to  read  all  that  Ogden  has 
written.'  Boswell.  What  I  want  to 
know  is,  what  sermons  afford  the  best 
specimen  of  English  pulpit  eloquence.' 
Johnson.  'We  have  no  sermons  ad- 
dressed to  the  passions,  that  are  good 
for  anything;  if  you  mean  that  kind 
of  eloquence.'  A  Clergyman,  whose 
name  I  do  not  recollect.  'Were  not 
Dodd's  sermons  addressed  to  the  pas- 
sions?'   Johnson.    'They  were  noth- 


THE  BOOKMAN 


ing,  Sir,  be  they  addressed  to  what 
they  may/" 

The  suddenness  of  it!  Bang! — and 
the  rabbit  that  had  popped  from  its 
burrow  was  no  more.   • 

I  know  not  which  is  the  more  start- 
ling— ^the  d£but  of  the  unforeseen 
dergsrman,  or  the  instantaneousness 
of  his  end.  Why  hadn't  Boswell  told 
us  there  was  a  clergsrman  present? 
Well,  we  may  be  sure  that  so  careful 
and  delicate  an  artist  had  some  good 
reason.  And  I  suppose  the  clergsrman 
was  left  to  take  us  unawares  because 
just  so  did  he  take  the  company.  Had 
we  been  told  he  was  there,  we  might 
have  expected  that  sooner  or  later  he 
would  join  in  the  conversation.  He 
would  have  had  a  place  in  our  minds. 
We  may  assume  in  the  minds  of  the 
company  around  Johnson  he  had  no 
place.  He  sat  forgotten,  overlooked; 
so  that  his  self-assertion  startled 
everyone  just  as  on  Boswell's  page  it 
startles  us.  In  Johnson's  massive  and 
magnetic  presence  only  some  very  re- 
markable man,  such  as  Mr.  Burke,  was 
sharply  distinguishable  from  the  rest. 
Others  might,  if  they  had  something  in 
them,  stand  out  faintly.  This  unfor- 
tunate clergsrman  may  have  had  some- 
thing in  him,  but  I  judge  that  he 
lacked  the  gift  of  seeming  as  if  he 
had.  This  deficiency,  however,  doesn't 
account  for  the  horrid  fate  that  befell 
him.  One  of  Johnson's  strongest  and 
most  inveterate  feelings  was  his  ven- 
eration for  the  Cloth.  To  any  one  in 
Holy  Orders  he  habitually  listened 
with  a  grave  and  charming  deference. 
Today,  moreover,  he  was  in  excellent 
good  humor.  He  was  at  the  Thrales', 
where  he  so  loved  to  be ;  the  day  was 
fine;  a  fine  dinner  was  in  close  pros- 
pect ;  and  he  had  had  what  he  always 
declared  to  be  the  sum  of  human  fe- 
licity, a  ride  in  a  coach.     Nor  was 


there  in  the  question  put  by  the 
clerg3nnan  anything  likely  to  enrage 
him.  Dodd  was  one  whom  Johnson 
had  befriended  in  adversity;  and  it 
had  always  been  agreed  that  Dodd  in 
his  pulpit  was  very  emotional.  What 
drew  the  blasting  flash  must  have  been 
not  the  question  itself,  but  the  manner 
in  which  it  was  asked.  And  I  think  we 
can  guess  what  that  manner  was. 

Say  the  words  aloud:  "Were  not 
Dodd's  sermons  addressed  to  the  pas- 
sions?" They  are  words  which,  if  you 
have  any  dramatic  and  histrionic 
sense,  cannot  be  said  except  in  a  high 
thin  voice. 

You  may,  from  sheer  perversity, 
utter  them  in  a  rich  and  sonorous  bari- 
tone or  bass.  But  if  you  do  so  they 
sound  utterly  unnatural.  To  make 
them  carry  the  conviction  of  human 
utterance,  you  have  no  choice:  you 
must  pipe  them. 

Remember,  now,  Johnson  was  very 
deaf.  Even  the  people  whom  he  knew 
well,  the  people  to  whose  voices  he 
was  accustomed,  had  to  address  him 
very  loudly.  It  is  probable  that  this 
unregarded,  young,  shy  derygman, 
when  at  length  he  suddenly  mustered 
courage  to  "cut  in",  let  his  high  thin 
voice  soar  too  high,  insomuch  that  it 
was  a  kind  of  scream.  On  no  other 
hypothesis  can  we  account  for  the  fe- 
rocity with  which  Johnson  turned  and 
rended  him.  Johnson  didn't,  we  may 
be  sure,  mean  to  be  cruel.  The  old 
lion,  startled,  just  struck  out  blindly. 
But  the  force  of  paw  and  claws  was 
not  the  less  lethal.  We  have  endless 
testimony  to  the  strength  of  Johnson's 
voice;  and  the  very  cadence  of  those 
words,  "They  were  nothing.  Sir,  be 
they  addressed  to  what  they  may," 
convinces  me  that  the  old  lion's  jaws 
never  gave  forth  a  louder  roar.  Bos- 
well does  not  record  that  there  was 


"A  CLERGYMAN" 


8 


any  further  conversation  before  the 
announcement  of  dinner.  Perhaps  the 
whole  company  had  been  temporarily 
deafened.  But  I  am  not  bothering 
about  them.  My  heart  goes  out  to  the 
poor  dear  clergyman  exclusively. 

I  said  a  moment  ago  that  he  was 
young  and  shy;  and  I  admit  that  I 
slipped  those  epithets  in  without  hav- 
ing justified  them  to  you  by  due  proc- 
ess of  induction.  Your  quick  mind 
will  have  already  supplied  what  I 
omitted.  A  man  with  a  high  thin 
voice,  and  without  power  to  impress 
any  one  with  a  sense  of  his  impor- 
tance, a  man  so  null  in  effect  that  even 
the  retentive  mind  of  Boswell  did  not 
retain  his  very  name,  would  assuredly 
not  be  a  self-confident  man.  Even  if 
he  was  not  naturally  shy,  social  cour- 
age would  soon  have  been  sapped  in 
him,  and  would  in  time  have  been  de- 
stroyed, by  experience.  That  he  had 
not  yet  given  himself  up  as  a  bad 
job,  that  he  still  had  faint  wild  hopes, 
is  proved  by  the  fact  that  he  did 
snatch  the  opportunity  for  asking  that 
question.  He  must,  accordingly,  have 
been  young.  Was  he  the  curate  of  the 
neighboring  church?  I  think  so.  It 
would  account  for  his  having  been  in- 
vited. I  see  him  as  he  sits  there  lis- 
tening to  the  great  Doctor's  pro- 
nouncement on  Atterbury  and  those 
others.  He  sits  on  the  edge  of  a  chair, 
in  the  background.  He  has  colorless 
eyes,  fixed  earnestly,  and  a  face  almost 
as  pale  as  the  clerical  bands  be- 
neath his  somewhat  receding  chin. 
His  forehead  is  high  and  narrow, 
his  hair  mouse-colored.  His  hands 
are  clasped  tight  before  him*  the 
knuckles  standing  out  sharply.  This 
constriction  does  not  mean  that  he 
is  steeling  himself  to  speak.  He 
has  no  positive  intention  of  speaking. 
Very  much,  nevertheless,  is  he  wish- 


ing in  the  back  of  his  mind  that  he 
eoidd  say  something  —  something 
whereat  the  great  Doctor  would  turn 
on  him  and  say,  after  a  pause  for 
thought,  ''Why  yes.  Sir.  That  is  most 
justly  observed,"  or  "Sir,  this  has 
never  occurred  to  me.  I  thank  you" — 
thereby  fixing  the  observer  forever 
high  in  the  esteem  of  all.  And  now, 
in  a  flash,  the  chance  presents  itself. 
"We  have,"  shouts  Johnson,  "no  ser- 
mons addressed  to  the  passions,  that 
are  good  for  anything."  I  see  the 
curate's  frame  quiver  with  sudden  im- 
pulse, and  his  mouth  fly  open,  and — 
no,  I  can't  bear  it,  I  shut  my  eyes  and 
ears.  But  audible,  even  so,  is  some- 
thing shrill,  followed  by  something 
thunderous. 

Presently  I  reopen  my  eyes.  The 
crimson  has  not  yet  faded  from  the 
young  face  yonder,  and  slowly  down 
either  cheek  falls  a  glistening  tear. 
Shades  of  Atterbury  and  Tillotsonl 
Such  weakness  shames  the  Established 
Church.  What  would  Jortin  and 
Smalridge  have  said? — ^what  Seed  and 
South?  And  by  the  way,  who  were 
they,  these  worthies?  It  is  a  solenm 
thought  that  so  little  is  conveyed  to  us 
by  names  which  to  the  palseo-Geor- 
gians  conveyed  so  much.  We  discern 
a  dim  composite  picture  of  a  big  man 
in  a  big  wig  and  a  billowing  black 
gown,  with  a  big  congregation  be- 
neath him.  But  we  are  not  anxious 
to  hear  what  he  is  saying.  We  know 
it  is  all  very  elegant.  We  know  it  will 
be  printed  and  be  bound  in  finely- 
tooled  full  calf,  and  no  palseo-Geor- 
gian  gentleman's  library  will  be  com- 
plete without  it.  Literate  people  in 
those  dayB  were  comparatively  few; 
but,  bating  that,  one  may  say  that  ser- 
mons were  as  much  in  request  as  novels 
are  today.  I  wonder,  will  mankind 
continue  to  be  capricious  ?    It  is  a  very 


THE  BOOKMAN 


solemn  thought  indeed  that  no  more 
than  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  hence 
the  novelists  of  our  time,  with  all  their 
moral  and  sociological  outlook  and  in- 
fluence, will  perhaps  shine  as  indis- 
tinctly as  do  those  old  preachers,  with 
all  their  elegance,  now.  "Yes,  Sir," 
some  great  pundit  may  be  telling  a 
disciple  at  this  moment,  "Wells  is  one 
of  the  best.  Galsworthy  is  one  of 
the  best,  if  you  except  his  concern  for 
delicacy  of  style.  Mrs.  Ward  has  a 
very  firm  grasp  of  problems,  but  is  not 
very  creational^  Caine's  books  are 
very  edifying.  I  should  like  to  read 
all  that  Caine  has  written.  Miss  Co- 
relli,  too,  is  very  edifying.  And  you 
may  add  Upton  Sinclair."  "What  I 
want  to  know,"  says  the  disciple,  "is, 
what  English  novels  may  be  selected 
as  specially  enthralling."  The  pundit 
answers:  "We  have  no  novels  ad- 
dressed to  the  passions,  that  are  good 
for  anjrthing;  if  you  mean  that  kind 
of  enthralment."  And  here  some  poor 
wretch  (whose  name  the  disciple  will 
not  remember)  inquires:  "Are  not 
Mrs.  Glyn's  novels  addressed  to  the 
passions?" — and  is  in  due  form  anni- 
hilated. Can  it  be  that  a  time  will 
come  when  readers  of  this  passage  in 
our  pundit's  Life  will  take  more  in- 
terest in  the  poor  nameless  wretch 
than  in  all  the  bearers  of  those  great 
names  put  together,  being  no  more 
able  or  anxious  to  discriminate  be- 
tween (say)  Mr.  Wells  and  Mrs. 
Ward,  or  Mr.  Galsworthy  and  Mr. 
Caine,  than  we  are  to  set  Ogden  above 
Sherlock,  or  Sherlock  above  Ogden? 
It  seems  impossible.  But  we  must  re- 
member that  things  are  not  always 
what  they  seem. 

Every  man  illustrious  in  his  day, 
however  much  he  may  be  gratified  by 
his  fame,  looks  with  an  eager  eye  to 


posterity  for  a  continuance  of  past 
favors,  and  would  even  live  the  re- 
mainder of  his  life  in  obscurity  if  by 
so  doing  he  could  insure  that  future 
generations  would  preserve  a  correct 
attitude  toward  him  forever.  This  is 
very  natural  and  human,  but,  like  so 
many  very  natural  and  human  things, 
very  silly.  Tillotson  and  the  rest  need 
not,  after  all,  be  pitied  for  our  neglect 
of  them.  They  either  know  nothing 
about  it  or  are  above  such  terrene 
trifles.  Let  us  keep  our  pity  for  the 
seething  mass  of  divines  who  were  not 
elegantly  verbose  and  had  no  fun  or 
glory  while  they  lasted.  And  let  us 
keep  a  specially  large  portion  for  one 
whose  lot  was  so  much  worse  than 
merely  undistinguished.  If  that  name- 
less curate  had  not  been  at  the 
Thrales'  that  day,  or,  being  there,  had 
kept  the  silence  that  so  well  became 
him,  his  life  would  have  been  drab 
enough,  in  all  conscience.  But  at  any 
rate  an  unpromising  career  would  not 
have  been  nipped  in  the  bud.  And 
that  is  what  in  fact  happened,  I'm 
sure  of  it.  A  robust  man  might  have 
rallied  under  the  blow.  Not  so  our 
friend.  Those  who  knew  him  in  in- 
fancy had  not  expected  that  he  would 
be  reared.  Better  for  hira  had  they 
been  right.  It  is  well  to  grow  up  and 
be  ordained,  but  not  if  you  are  frail 
and  sensitive  and  happen  to  annoy  the 
greatest,  the  most  stentorian  and 
roughest  of  contemporary  person- 
ages. "A  Clergyman"  never  held  up 
his  head  or  smiled  again  after  the 
brief  encounter  recorded  for  us  by 
Boswell.  He  sank  into  a  rapid  decline. 
Before  the  next  blossoming  of  Thrale 
Hall's  almond  trees  he  was  no  more. 
I  like  to  think  that  he  died  forgiving 
Doctor  Johnson. 


LORD  FISHER'S  REVELATIONS 


BY  JAMES  C.  GREY 


A  LOVELY  woman  sent  Admiral 
Fisher  the  following  riddle: 

••Why  are  you  like  Holland?"— "Be- 
cause you  lie  low  and  are  dammed  all 
round." 

That  was  before  Armageddon. 
"Jellicoe  will  be  admiral  when  Arma- 
geddon comes  along/'  Fisher  wrote  in 
1912»  "and  everything  that  has  been 
done  revolved  around  that,  and  no  one 
has  seen  it." 

Since  then,  the  stars  of  the  political 
heaven  have  fallen  to  the  earth,  even 
as  a  fig-tree  casteth  her  untimely  figs 
when  she  is  shaken  by  a  mighty  wind; 
and  that  heaven  itself  has  departed  as 
a  scroll  when  it  is  rolled  together,  and 
Admiral  Fisher  has  heard  a  voice  say- 
ing "Speak  1"  and  he  has  lifted  up  his 
voice  like  a  trumpet  in  two  volumes 
of  revelations  (very  soon  to  be  pub- 
lished in  America)  which  he  calls 
"Memories"  and  "Records",  the  out- 
pourings of  a  mind  that  scorns  urban- 
ity and  knocks  its  adversary  down  by 
sheer  force  of  its  genius,  without  re- 
sort to  logic  or  irony.  The  Reforma- 
tion, it  has  been  said,  was  the  in- 
auguration of  free  thought;  but  only 
the  inauguration.  Criticism  was  yet 
unborn.  Fisher  never  criticizes,  but 
like  the  men  of  the  Reformation  and 
the  century  that  followed,  he  has  a 
bull's  ferocity  and  is  a  good  hater. 
Elegance  and  sequence  are  unknown 
to  him.    His  brain  is  a  thorny  thicket 


through  which  the  mind  within  strives 
to  beat  a  path,  and  the  result  is  un- 
usual in  the  world  of  books:  "Better 
the  fragrance  of  the  picked  fiower 
than  trying  to  get  more  scent  out  of 
it  by  adding  hot  water  afterwards," 
he  writes  in  his  preface. 

If  history  is  nature's  drama  and 
the  historian  a  dramatist;  and  if  as 
Froude  tells  us,  there  are  periods — 
and  those  periods  for  the  most  part  of 
greatest  interest  to  mankind — ^the  his- 
tory of  which  may  be  so  written  that 
the  actors  shall  reveal  their  characters 
in  their  own  words;  and  the  great 
passions  of  the  epoch  not  simply  be 
described  as  existing,  but  be  exhibited 
at  white  heat  in  the  souls  and 
hearts  possessed  by  them,  where  the 
power  of  the  man  is  seen  either  stem- 
ming the  stream  till  it  overwhelms 
him,  or  ruling  while  he  seems  to  yield, 
— ^then  these  "Memories"  and  "Rec- 
ords" of  Admiral  Fisher  are  history. 
Fisher  is  conscious  of  all  this  him- 
self, and  he  shows  it  in  his  eagerness 
to  get  face  to  face  with  his  readers. 
"It  is  the  personality  of  the  soul  of 
man  that  has  an  immortal  influence," 
he  says.  "Printed  and  written  stuff 
is  but  an  inanimate  picture.  Fancy 
seeing  the  Queen  of  Sheba  herself,  in- 
stead of  reading  of  her  in  Solomon's 
print  I...  I  compared  this  morning 
early  what  I  said  to  you  yesterday  in 
my  peripatetic  dictation  and  I  can't 


THE  BOOKMAN 


recognize  what  is  in  type  for  the  same 
as  what  I  spoke/' 

Nevertheless,  these  ''Memories"  and 
"Records"  are  fascinating  reading. 
Fascinating  to  the  general  reader  of 
history,  and  instructive  as  well  as 
fascinating  just  now  to  the  American 
who  is  interested  in  the  future  of 
America's  army  and  navy,  in  the  plans 
for  an  army  and  navy  staff,  and  the 
pleas  from  Admiral  Sims  for  construc- 
tive criticism  within  the  navy  itself. 
'What's  wrong  with  the  navy?"  asks 
Admiral  Sims.  Read  Fisher's  "Rec- 
ords", and  see  what  he  found  wrong 
with  the  British  Navy  and  how  he 
nghted  it.  "In  1886  I  became  Di- 
rector of  Ordnance  of  the  Navy,  and 
after  a  time  I  came  to  the  definite  con- 
clusion that  the  ordnance  of  the  Fleet 
was  in  a  very  bad  way,  and  the  only 
remedy  was  to  take  the  whole  business 
from  the  War  Office  who  controlled 
the  Sea  Ordnance  and  the  munitions 
of  war,  A  very  funny  state  of  af- 
fairs." And  again:  "When  are  we 
going  to  have  the  great  Army  and 
Navy  Cooperative  Society  which  I  set 
forth  to  King  Edward  in  190a— that 
the  Army  should  be  a  reserve  for  the 
Navy?  When  shall  we  be  an  amphibi- 
ous nation?"  They  are  talking  that 
way  in  Washington  just  now,  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  Great  War.  If  you  would 
know  what  Fisher  did,  read  his  letters 

to  Lord  Esher. 

*  «  *  * 

John  Fisher's  father  was  a  captain 
of  the  78th  Highlanders,  who  married 
a  London  beauty,  a  Miss  Lambe,  whose 
people  were  in  trade,  and  the  Fishers 
bitterly  resented  the  alliance — ^for 
were  not  the  Fishers  gentlefolk  in 
Warwickshire  in  the  Dark  Ages?  And 
had  not  a  Fisher  been  killed  beside  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  on  the  field  of 
Waterloo?    Young  Fisher  had  a  hard 


time  in  his  youth,  but  wild  horses 
won't  make  him  say  much  about  those 
early  years  when  he  lived  with  his 
maternal  grandfather  who  was  driven 
through  the  artifices  of  a  rogue  to 
take  in  lodgers. 

"I  was  bom  in  1841,  the  same  year 
as  King  Edward  VII.  There  was 
never  such  a  healthy  couple  as  my 
father  and  mother.  They  did  not 
marry  for  money — ^they  married  for 
love.  They  married  very  young,  and 
I  was  their  first  child.  All  the  physical 
advantages  were  in  my  favor,  so  I  con- 
sider I  was  absolutely  right,  when  I 
was  nine  months  old,  in  refusing  to  be 
weaned. 

She  walks  in  beauty  like  the  night 

Of  cloudleas  dimes  and  starry  skies. . . . 

these  lines  were  written  by  Lord 
Byron  of  my  godmother.  Lady  Wilmot 
Horton,  of  Catton  Hall,  Burton-on- 
Trent.  She  was  still  a  very  beautiful 
old  lady  at  seventy-three  years  of  age, 
when  she  died. 

"One  of  her  great  friends  was  Ad- 
miral Sir  William  Parker  (the  last  of 
Nelson's  captains)  and  he,  at  her  re- 
quest, gave  me  his  nomination  for  en- 
tering the  navy.  He  had  two  to  give 
away  on  becoming  Port  Admiral  at 
Plymouth.  He  gave  the  other  to  Lord 
Nelson's  own  niece,  and  she  also  filled 
in  my  name,  so  I  was  doubly  nomi- 
nated by  the  last  of  Nelson's  captains, 
and  my  first  ship  was  the  'Victory', 
and  it  was  my  lastl  In  the  'Victory' 
log  book  it  is  entered :  'July  12,  1854, 
Joined  Mr.  John  Arbuthnot  Fisher' 
and  it  is  also  entered  that  'Sir  John 
Fisher  hauled  down  his  fiag  on  Octo- 
ber 21,  1904,  on  becoming  First  Sea 
Lord.' " 

He  laments  the  changes  that  have 
come  over  the  British  Navy  since  then. 
All  the  entrance  examination  he  had 
was  to  write  out  the  Lord's  Prayer,  do 


LORD  FISHER'S  REVELATIONS 


a  rule  of  three  sum,  and  drink  a  glass 
of  sherry.  "I  remember  so  well,  in 
the  Russian  War  (1854-5,  he  was  then 
thirteen  years  old)  being  sent  with 
the  watering  party  to  the  island  of 
Nargen  to  get  fresh  water,  as  we  were 
running  short  of  it  in  this  old  sailing 
line  of  battleship  I  was  in  (there  was 
no  distilling  apparatus  in  those  days). 
My  youthful  astonishment  was  how 
on  earth  the  Lieutenant  in  charge  of 
the  watering  party  discovered  the 
water.  There  wasn't  a  lake  and  there 
wasn't  a  stream,  but  he  went  and  dug 
a  hole,  and  there  was  the  water.  It 
may  be  that  he  carried  out  the  same 
delightful  plan  as  my  delicious  old 
Admiral  in  China.  This  admiral's 
survey  of  the  China  Seas  is  one  of  the 
most  celebrated  on  record.  He  told 
me  himself  that  this  is  how  he  did  it. 
He  used  to  anchor  in  some  convenient 
place  every  few  miles,  right  up  the 
coast  of  China.  He  had  a  Chinese  in- 
terpreter on  board.  He  sent  this  man 
to  every  fishing  village  and  offered  a 
dollar  for  every  rock  and  shoal.  No 
rock  or  shoal  has  ever  been  discovered 
since  my  beloved  Admiral  finished  his 
survey.  Perhaps  the  Lieutenant  of 
the  watering  party  gave  rubles." 

As  a  young  Lieutenant,  Fisher  was 
sent  to  the  Hythe  School  of  Musketry, 
where,  at  the  viva  voce  examinations, 
"we  had  some  appalling  questions. 
'What  do  you  pour  the  water  with 
into  the  barrel  of  a  rifie  when  you  are 
cleaning  it?'  Both  my  answers  were 
wrong.  I  said,  'With  a  tin  pannikin' 
or  The  palm  of  the  hand'.  The  right 
answer  was,  'With  care'." 

When  he  was  in  the  West  Indies,  a 
French  frigate  came  into  the  harbor 
with  yellow  fever  aboard.  The  Ad- 
miral asked  the  Captain  of  the  Eng- 
lish man-of-war  what  kindness  he  had 
shown  the  Frenchman.    The  Captain 


replied  he  had  sent  him  the  keys  of 
the  cemetery. 

Commander  of  the  China  flagship, 
head  of  the  Torpedo  School  of  the 
Navy,  flag  captain  to  Sir  Leopold 
McClintock  in  the  North  American 
station, — were  steps  to  his  appoint- 
ment to  command  the  "Inflexible", 
which  he  did  in  1882  at  Alexandria, 
where  he  was  struck  down  by  dysen- 
tery and  invalided  home,  to  come 
under  the  notice  of  Queen  Victoria 
who  invited  him  to  Osborne.  There 
he  met  the  Prince  of  Wales,  afterward 
King  Edward  VII,  and  in  the  main 
these  "Memories"  and  "Records"  are 
a  chronicle  of  the  political  events  of 
the  reigns  of  King  Edward  and  King 
George.  Personally  devoted  to  King 
Edward,  whom  he  calls  a  "blessed 
friend",  he  never  mentions  King 
Greorge's  name;  but  there  is  one  pas- 
sage eloquent  by  its  omission:  "The 
only  way  the  masses  of  the  people  can 
act  effectively  is  by  means  of  repub- 
lics. In  a  republic  we  get  government 
of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the 
people."  Is  it  any  wonder  all  England 
is  asking  what  Fisher  will  say  next? 

"Nothing  in  these  volumes  in  the 
least  approaches  the  idea  of  a  biog- 
raphy," he  bluntly  assures  his  reader. 
"Facts  illumined  by  letters,  and  the 
life  divided  into  sections  to  be  filled 
in  with  the  struggles  of  the  ascent, 
seems  the  ideal  sort  of  representation 
of  a  man's  life."  Take  the  headings 
of  some  of  the  chapters  in  these  amaz- 
ing volumes  which  are  assuredly  not 
an  autobiography  but  a  collection  of 
episodes  of  a  "lifelong  war  against 
limpets,  parasites,  sycophants,  and 
jellyfish":  "King  Edward  VII"; 
"Abdul  Hamid  and  the  Pope" ;  "Jolly 
and  Hustle"  (Fisher's  name  for  an 
American  contractor) ;  "The  Darda- 
nelles";   "The  Bible";    "Democracy"; 


8 


THE  BOOKMAN 


«i 


The  Navy  in  the  War";  "Subma- 
rines"; "Notes  on  Oil  Engines"; 
"The  Essentials  of  Sea  Fighting". 
The  impression  left  by  reading  them  is 
bewildering.  It  is  like  witnessing  a 
hand  to  hand  fight  or  a  battle  of  his 
own  dreadnoughts  in  which  every  blow 
is  struck  for  the  efficiency  of  that 
Navy  to  which  his  life  was  dedicated 
and  which  he  was  building  up  against 
the  Armageddon  to  come.  He  sets  it 
all  down  here,  as  he  tells  us»  because 
he  wishes  to 

a)  Avoid  national  bankruptcy, 

b)  Avert  the  insanity  and  wicked- 
ness of  building  a  navy  against  the 
United  States, 

c)  Establish  a  union  with  America, 
as  advocated  by  John  Bright  and  Mr. 
Roosevelt, 

d)  Enable  the  United  States  and 
British  Navies  to  say  to  all  other 
navies,  "If  you  build  more,  we  will 
fight  you,  here  and  now.  We'll  'Co- 
penhagen' you  without  remorse". 

Railing  and  whimsical  by  turns,  he 

assails  the  Departments,  the  public 

men  and  the  politicians,  and  his  letters 

to  Lord  Esher  reveal  a  genius  that 

borders  on  prophecy.    'Touth,  youth, 

youth;    we  must  have  youth!"  is  his 

cry.    "Every  one  of  the  old  gang  must 

be  cleared  out,  lock,  stock  and  barrel, 

bob  and  sinker." 

*  *  *  * 

Here  is  a  letter  written  in  1907  to 
King  Edward: 

". .  .1  don't  mean  to  say  that  we  are 
not  menaced  by  Germany.  Her  di- 
plomacy is,  and  always  has  been,  in- 
finitely superior  to  ours.  Observe  our 
treatment  of  the  Sultan  as  compared 
with  Germany.  The  Sultan  is  the 
most  important  personage  in  the 
whole  world  for  England.  He  lifts  his 
finger,  and  Egypt  and  India  are  in  a 
bliuse  of  religious  disaffection.    That 


great  American,  Mr.  Choate,  swore  to 
me  before  going  to  the  Hague  Con- 
ference, that  he  would  side  with  Eng- 
land over  submarine  mines  and  other 
naval  matters,  but  Germany  has  diplo- 
matically collared  the  United  States 
absolutely  at  The  Hague. 

"The  only  thing  in  the  world  that 
England  has  to  fear  is  Germany ^  and 
none  else, 

"We  have  no  idea  at  the  Foreign 
Office  of  coping  with  the  German 
propaganda  in  America.  Our  Naval 
Attache  in  the  United  States  tells  me 
that  the  German  Emperor  is  unceas- 
ing in  his  efforts  to  win  over  the 
American  official  authorities,  and  that 
the  German  Embassy  at  Washington 
is  far  and  away  in  the  ascendant  with 
the  American  Government." 

And  here  are  passages  from  letters 
to  Lord  Esher  in  1910  and  1911 : 

"...Two  immense  episodes  are  do- 
ing Damocles  over  the  Navy  just  now. 
...  1)  Oil  Engines  and  Internal  Com- 
bustion, about  which  I  so  dilated  at 
our  dinner  and  bored  you.  Since  that 
night  (July  11)  Bloom  and  Voss  in 
Germany  have  received  an  order  to 
build  a  motor  liner  for  the  Atlantic 
Trade.  No  engineers,  no  stokers,  and 
no  funnels,  no  boilers!  Only  a  d.  ..d 
chauffeur!  The  economy  prodigious! 
as  the  Germans  say  'Kolossal  biUig!' 
But  what  will  it  be  for  war?  Why! 
aU  the  past  pedes  before  the  pros- 
pect!!! 

"The  Second  is  that  this  democratic 
country  won't  stand  99  per  cent  at 
least  of  her  Naval  Officers  being 
drawn  from  the  'Upper  Ten'.  It's 
amazing  to  me  that  anyone  should 
persuade  himself  that  an  aristocratic 
Service  can  be  maintained  in  a  demo- 
cratic State.. . ." 

". .  .1  want  you  to  think  over  get- 
ting the  Prime  Minister  to  originate 


LORD  FISHER'S  REVELATIONS 


an  enquiry  for  a  great  British  Gov- 
ernmental Wireless  Monopoly,  or 
rather  I  would  say  'English  Speak- 
ing* Monopoly!  No  one  at  the  Ad- 
miralty or  elsewhere  has  as  yet  any 
the  least  idea  of  the  immense  revolu- 
tion both  for  Peace  and  War  purposes 
which  will  be  brought  about  by  the 
future  development  bf  Wireless  I . . . 
The  point  is  that  this  scheme  wants 
to  be  engineered  by  the  Biggest  Boss, 
i.  e.  the  Prime  Minister. . . .  Believe 
me,  the  wireless  in  the  future  is  the 
soul  and  spirit  of  Peace  and  War,  and 
therefore  must  be  in  the  hands  of  the 
Conmiittee  of  Defense!  You  can't  cut 
the  air!  You  can  cut  a  telegraph 
cable!'' 

All  the  great  political  figures  of  the 
past  twenty  years  are  whirled  before 
the  reader  in  turn  in  these  letters: 
Asquith  and  Balfour  and  Botha 
(Fisher  was  a  pro-Boer)  ;  Campbell- 
Bannerman  and  Churchill;  Lord 
French,  Gladstone,  and  the  German 
Emperor;  Jellicoe  and  Kitchener; 
Labouchere  and  Stead  (Fisher  tells 
some  wonderful  Labouchere  stories ! ) ; 
Lloyd  George  and  Tirpitz  (there  is  an 
amazing  letter  to  Tirpitz  which  the 
English  press  refused  to  print). 

All  the  great  political  events  in  the 
past  twenty  years  are  cast  on  the 
white  screen  of  his  memory  and  il- 
luminated; Agadir  and  the  Battle  of 
Jutland;  the  Dardanelles  and  the 
Dogger  Bank  incident ;  Haldane's  visit 
to  Berlin  and  the  "hush-hush"  ships; 
the  Kiel  Canal  and  diplomacy  on  the 
Grolden  Horn;  the  unreadiness  at 
Scapa  Flow  and  the  massacre  at  Zee- 
brugge,  of  which  he  writes :  "No  such 
folly  was  ever  devised  by  fools  as  that 
operation  divorced  from  military  co- 
operation on  land." 

No  such  footnotes  to  contemporary 
history  have  appeared  in  our  time, 


ti 


u 


and  no  historian  can  afford  to  over- 
look those  episodes  in  which  the  Ad- 
miral tells  of  Gladstone's  resignation 
and  how  the  Great  War  was  carried 
on.  But  beyond  their  value  to  the  his- 
torian, they  are  a  document  teeming 
with  humanity.  Were  ever  such 
frankly  revealing  chapters  penned  as 
The  Bible  and  Other  Refiections", 
Some  Personalities",  and  "Things 
that  Please  Me"?  Here  are  some  of 
the  things  that  please  him : 
"No  one  can  hustle  Providence." 
"Never  fight  a  chimney-sweep :  some 
of  the  soot  comes  off  on  you." 

"Tact  is  insulting  a  man  without 
his  knowing  it" 

"Hit  first,  hit  hard,  keep  on  hit- 
ting." 

"The  best  scale  for  an  experiment  is 
12  inches  to  a  foot." 

"Acknowledge  the  receipt  of  a  book 
from  the  author  at  once:  this  relieves 
you  of  the  necessity  of  saying  whether 
you  have  read  it." 

"You've  got  no  right  to  pray  for 
rain  for  your  turnips  when  it  will  ruin 
somebody  else's  wheat  The  only 
prayer  is  for  Endurance  or  Forti- 
tude." 

"Isn't  it  odd  that  those  three  great 
saints  (John  Wesley,  Bishop  Jeremy 
Taylor  and  Robertson  of  Brighton) 
each  of  them  should  have  a  nagging 
wife  1    Their  home  was  Hell  1" 

Here  is  another  side  of  the  Ad- 
miral: 

"I've  never  known  what  joy  there 
is  in  nature,"  he  writes  in  1910. 
"Even  beauteous  woman  fades  in  com- 
parison. I've  just  seen  the  swans  fly- 
ing over  the  lake."  . . .  "We  have 
no  poets  nowadays  like  Pope,  Gold- 
smith and  Gay — only  damned  mystical 
idiots  like  Browning  and  Tennyson 
that  want  a  dictionary  and  a  differ- 


10 


THE  BOOKMAN 


ential  calculus  tsrpe  of  mind  to  under- 
stand what  they  are  driving  at." 

He  opens  his  eightieth  year  by  say- 
ing: "Thanks  be  to  God,  I  believe  I 
am  now  as  well  as  ever  I  was  in  my 
whole  life,  and  I  can  still  waltz  with 
joy  and  enjoy  champagne  when  I  can 
get  it/' 

King  Edward  was  his  great  hero— 
"a  noble  man  and  every  inch  a  king; 
I  don't  either  say  he  was  a  saint.  I 
know  lots  of  cabbages  that  are  saints 
— ^they  couldn't  sin  if  they  wanted 
to  I" 

On  one  occasion,  Fisher  was  staying 
at  Sandringham  with  a  great  party: 
"I  think  it  was  for  one  of  Blessed 
Queen  Alexandra's  birthdays.  As  I 
was  zero  in  this  grand  party,  I  slunk 
off  to  my  room  to  write  an  important 
letter.  Then  I  took  my  coat  off,  un- 
locked my  portmanteau  and  began  un- 
packing. I  had  a  boot  in  each  hand; 
I  heard  somebody  fumbling  with  the 
door  handle,  and  thinking  it  was  the 
footman,  I  said:  'Come  in,  don't  go 
humbugging  with  that  door  handle,' 
and  in  walked  King  Edward  with  a 
cigar  about  a  yard  long  in  his  mouth. 
He  said  (I  with  a  boot  in  each  hand) : 
'What  on  earth  are  you  doing?' — 
'Unpacking,  Sir !'  —  "Where's  your 
servant?' — 'Haven't  got  one,  Sir.' — 
•Where  is  he?'— 'Never  had  one.  Sir; 
couldn't  afford  it' — 'Put  those  boots 
down.  Sit  in  that  armchair,'  and  he 
went  and  sat  in  the  other  on  the  other 
side  of  the  fire." 

It  was  on  another  of  Queen  Alex- 
andra's   birthdays— her    sixtieth— he 
M|a  her  **tlie  most  beloved  woman  of 

f— 


invited  to  lunch :  "After  lunch,  all  the 
people  said  something  nice  to  Queen 
Alexandra,  and  when  it  came  to  my 
turn,  I  said  to  Her  Majesty:  'Have 
you  seen  that  halfpenny  newspaper 
about  Your  Majesty's  birthday?'  She 
said  she  hadn't.  What  was  it  ?  I  said : 
'These  were  the  words: 

"The  Queen  is  sixty  today — 
"May  she  live  till  she  looks  it! 


f»  9 


Her  Majesty  said :  'Get  me  a  copy  of 
it'  (such  a  thing  didn't  exist).  About 
three  weeks  afterwards  she  said: 
'Where's  that  halfpenny  newspaper?' 
I  was  staggered  for  a  moment  but  re- 
covered myself  and  said:  'Sold  out. 
Ma'am.  Couldn't  get  a  copy  I'  (I  think 
my  second  lie  was  better  than  my 
first.)  But  the  lovely  part  of  the 
story  yet  remains.  A  year  afterwards 
she  sent  me  a  lovely  postcard  which  I 
much  treasure  now.  It  was  a  picture 
of  a  little  girl  bowling  a  hoop,  and 
Her  Majesty's  own  head  stuck  on,  and 
underneath  she  had  written:    'May 

she  live  till  she  looks  it!' " 

♦  ♦  ♦  ♦ 

To  sum  up,  it  is  no  exaggeration  to 
say  that  these  whimsical,  earnest  vol- 
umes reveal  one  of  the  most  fertile 
brains  of  our  generation.  In  naval 
affairs.  Admiral  Fisher  has  proved 
himself  right  so  often  that  it  is  the 
part  of  wisdom  to  listen  to  him  now, 
and  his  predictions  are:  oil  is  the  fu- 
ture fuel  of  the  Navy— battleships 
must  be  submersible — ^the  wars  of  the 
future  will  be  decided  in  and  from  the 
air. 


Memories  and  Records.  Two  volumes.  By 
Admiral  of  the  Fleet,  Lord  Fisher.  George  H. 
Doran  Company. 


LITERARY  NEW  YORK  IN  THE  'EIGHTIES 


BY  THE  MARQUISE  CLARA  LANZA 


FORTY  years  ago,  when  life  was  not 
so  complex  as  it  has  since  become, 
and  when  it  was  inclined  to  the  simple 
and  the  unostentatious,  fostered  by  a 
more  ample  leisure,  New  York  pos- 
sessed a  literary  society  that  has  ap- 
parently vanished  from  the  face  of  the 
earth,  or  else  is  so  scattered  and  dif- 
fused by  modem  conditions  that  it 
may  truthfully  be  said  to  be  as  dead 
as  Pontius  Pilate.  As  I  look  back 
upon  those  colorful  days,  tempered  by 
a  mild  yet  haunting  charm,  something 
akin  to  regret  steals  into  my  con- 
sciousness; for  while  society,  literary 
and  otherwise,  may  not  occupy  a  higher 
plane  in  many  respects,  the  close  fel- 
lowship that  once  was  its  most  at- 
tractive characteristic  has  long  been  a 
thing  of  the  past.  The  city  was  then 
little  more  than  an  overgrown  country 
town,  where  everybody  knew  every- 
body else,  and  formal  evening  func- 
tions began  at  eight-thirty  and  ended 
decorously  at  midnight.  We  absorbed 
our  infantile  pleasures  slowly  and  in 
small  doses,  as  one  sips  a  strong 
liqueur  that  might  go  to  one's  head  if 
indulged  in  too  recklessly. 

Yet  even  so,  progress  was  creeping 
stealthily  onward.  The  old  Academy 
of  Music,  hallowed  by  memories  of 
Patti  and  Nilsson,  Campanini  and  Ca- 
poul,  was  abandoned  for  the  newly 
completed  Metropolitan  Opera  House, 
wher^  bursting  with  pride,  we 
heroically  began  our  Wagnerian  edu- 


cation, dressed  in  the  most  modest  of 
d^ollet^  gowns.  Those  too  were  the 
days  of  Eastlake  furniture  and  heavy 
dinners.  I  shudder  when  I  recall 
those  formidable  festivities — ^a  dozen 
courses,  smothered  in  truffles  and 
mushrooms,  and  washed  down  by  as 
many  kinds  of  wine,  that  in  the  pres- 
ent year  of  grace  would  land  those  of 
us  who  are  still  alive  in  the  hospital. 
How  it  was  possible  to  consume  such 
quantities  of  food  and  survive  is  one 
of  the  mysteries  that  will  never  be 
solved,  but  we  accomplished  the  feat 
and,  what  is  yet  more  astounding, 
seemed  none  the  worse  for  it.  There 
were  no  suffragettes,  bachelor  girls, 
automobiles,  moving-pictures,  caba- 
rets, or  jazz  bands,  in  the  'eighties. 
The  "wireless"  slumbered  tranquilly 
in  space,  a  trip  to  Europe  was  an 
event,  the  telephone  a  new  and  amus- 
ing toy  that  few  people  took  seriously. 
As  for  the  proprieties,  we  shrank  to  a 
degree  that  today  would  be  laughable 
from  doing  anything  calculated  to  ex- 
cite comment,  or  that  might  be  con- 
strued as  bizarre.  A  wholesome  horror 
of  Mrs.  Grundy  was  impressed  upon 
us  from  infancy. 

Provincial?  Oh,  yes,  frankly  and 
distressingly  so,  but  we  rather  gloried 
in  our  shame,  for  as  a  class  we  were 
unique,  romantic,  and  picturesque,  and 
we  certainly  were  happier  in  our  ig- 
norance and  limitations  than  we  ap- 
pear to  be  now,  with  our  motor-cars. 


11 


li 


THE  BOOKMAN 


palatial  hotels  and  apartment  houses, 
mammoth  ships,  Russian  ballets, 
emancipated  women,  and  all  the  rest 
of  it.  Of  course  nobody  pretends  that 
there  are  fewer  really  worth-while 
persons  in  New  York  in  these  ad- 
vanced times.  Doubtless  there  are 
many  more.  We  meet  them  occasion- 
ally and  revel  voluptuously  in  their 
scintillations  and  achievements.  But 
we  do  not  rub  elbows  with  them  as  we 
did  three  or  four  decades  ago.  They 
dazzle  our  senses  for  a  moment,  stimu- 
late our  flagging  brains,  and  pass  on 
to  be  swallowed  up  in  the  labyrinthian 
mazes,  the  intricate  byways,  the  cir- 
cles within  circles,  of  which  Greater 
New  York  is  composed. 

I  remember  as  if  it  were  yesterday 
the  thrill  that  agitated  the  ''intellectu- 
als'' of  Manhattan  when  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  Club  was  founded  by 
the  late  Courtlandt  Palmer,  a  man  of 
wealth  and  a  rabid  disciple  of  Comte, 
whose  spacious  home  in  Gramercy 
Park  speedily  became  the  rendezvous 
for  all  the  clever  and  distinguished 
people  in  town;  and  where,  as  a  wag 
aptly  observed,  "the  literary  lights 
tried  to  be  fashionable  and  the  fash- 
ionable folk  attempted  to  be  literary". 
Later,  when  the  club  membership  out- 
grew the  parlors  of  a  private  resi- 
dence,— ^we  had  parlors,  and  I  blush  to 
confess  it,  even  back-parlors,  at  that 
period, — the  bimonthly  meetings  were 
held  in  the  American  Art  Galleries  in 
East  Twenty-third  Street  There  con- 
gregated for  debate  and  social  inter- 
course some  of  the  most  interesting 
personalities  of  the  day — Jew  and  Gen- 
tile, Catholic  and  Protestant,  infidel, 
free-thinker,  and  agnostic,  the  social- 
ist and  the  dilettante,  the  society 
leader  and  the  east-side  girl  in  a  sec- 
ond-hand evening  frock,  men  and 
women  of  letters  and  the  stage,  artists, 
journalists,  and  the  ubiquitous  hang- 


ers-on whose  sole  object  was  to  bask  in 
the  rays  of  reflected  greatness.  Nat- 
urally, there  was  a  small  contingent  of 
gentlemen  in  business  suits,  heavy 
boots,  and  doubtful  linen,  and  eccen- 
tric ladies  with  blowsy  coiffures  and 
aesthetic  draperies  of  jade-green  and 
sulphurous  yellow.  But  on  the  whole 
it  was  a  well-dressed,  eminently  cor- 
rect assemblage,  and  I  never  saw  any- 
thing in  the  least  out  of  the  way 
except  once;  when  a  certain  much- 
read  novelist,  who  shall  be  nameless, 
not  finding  the  sandwich  he  was  nib- 
bling to  his  liking  and  fancying  him- 
self unobserved,  surreptitiously  cast 
it  to  the  floor  where  it  was  promptly 
stepped  upon  by  a  magnificent  dow- 
ager in  white  satin  and  diamonds,  to 
whose  immaculate  slipper  it  adhered 
for  the  rest  of  the  evening. 

The  platform  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century  was  a  free  one,  the  more  free 
the  better;  and  no  matter  how  radical 
might  be  the  utterances  of  a  speaker, 
nobody  objected.  The  discourses  rip- 
pled along  smoothly,  rarely  with  a  note 
of  venom  or  animosity,  seldom  with 
more  than  a  pardonable  degree  of  ex- 
citement or  sarcasm;  and  it  was  no 
unusual  spectacle  to  see  men  of  such 
widely  divergent  opinions  as  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,  Robert  G.  IngersoU, 
The  Reverend  Dr.  McGlynn — ^the 
priest  who  gained  notoriety  by  openly 
defying  the  Pope, — ^and  Dr.  Felix 
Adler,  the  apostle  of  ethical  culture, 
pitted  one  against  the  other  in  lively 
argument  "Why  didn't  you  come  to 
my  assistance?"  inquired  on  one  such 
occasion  a  Catholic  monsignor  of  the 
rabbi  who  had  also  taken  part  in  the 
discussion.  "You  and  I  are  the  only 
ones  here  who  believe  anything." 

When  the  voices  of  the  debaters 
were  no  longer  audible  on  the  field  of 
battle,  conversation  became  general 
and  we  talked  of  books  and  authors, 


LITERART  NEW  YORK  IN  THE   ^EIGHTIES 


18 


royalties  and  publishers,  how  much 
Jones  got  for  his  short  story  which 
wasn't  much  of  a  story  after  all,  and 
the  weak  points  in  So-and-So's  play — 
as  we  partook  chastely  of  light  re- 
freshments, feeling  from  the  depths 
of  our  souls  that  since  we  were  per- 
mitted this  familiar  communion  with 
giant  intellects,  to  see  them  as  it  were 
stripped  of  all  glamour  and  illusion, 
life  had  indeed  but  little  more  to  offer. 

It  was  at  the  club  that  I  came  in 
contact  for  the  first  time  with  some 
of  the  literary  celebrities  of  the  hour, 
and  others  who  had  not  then  ''arrived'' 
but  were  destined  to  become  famous 
afterward.  Among  the  former  the 
figure  of  Edgar  Fawcett  stands  out 
prominently.  What  a  big  man  we  pen- 
and-ink  fiedglings  thought  him — al- 
most, if  not  quite,  the  peer  of  James 
and  Howellsl  Yet  I  doubt  if  his  real- 
istic studies  of  New  York,  his  charm- 
ing metropolitan  portraitures,  his 
graceful  verses,  are  read  or  even  re- 
called now,  or  if  any  of  his  books  are 
to  be  found  on  the  shelves  of  our 
public  libraries.  Surely,  however,  such 
finished  productions  and  masterpieces 
of  style  as  his  ''An  Ambitious 
Woman",  and  "The  Evil  that  Men 
Do",  deserved  to  live. 

Fawcett  was  short,  stout,  and  stolid 
of  mien,  looking,  as  somebody  re- 
marked, "more  like  a  butcher  boy  than 
a  poet".  He  was  nevertheless  ex- 
tremely witty  and  agreeable,  and  with- 
out being  exactly  snobbish,  prided 
himself  upon  his  social  position,  his 
family  being  one  of  means  and  stand- 
ing. But  his  pet  weakness  was  a  hy- 
persensitiveness  to  criticism;  and 
whenever  an  unfavorable  review  of 
one  of  his  works  appeared,  he  would 
seize  his  pen  and  dash  off  a  savage  re- 
joinder to  the  editor  of  the  offending 
paper  or  magazine,  pouring  out  inky 
torrents  of  vituperation  and  invective 


that,  for  some  crjrptic  reason,  nearly 
always  found  their  way  into  print,  to 
the  unholy  delight  of  his  friends.  "I 
cannot  tell  you",  he  once  said  to  me, 
"the  agony  I  endure  when  my  work, 
which  costs  me  such  labor  and  into 
which  I  put  my  very  heart  and  soul, 
is  belittled  and  misjudged  by  those 
who  are  incapable  of  creating  a  single 
page  of  fiction  or  poetry.  It  makes  me 
see  red,  and  my  one  thought  is  to 
strike  back  and  inflict  if  possible  a 
still  deeper  wound." 

Fawcett's  bosom  companion  was 
George  Edgar  Montgomery,  the  schol- 
arly young  dramatic  critic  of  the 
"Times",  although  two  more  dissimilar 
characters  and  temperaments  it  would 
be  hard  to  find.  There  was  no  hint 
of  aggressiveness  about  Montgomery 
who,  in  fact,  was  shy  and  retiring, 
with  placid  blue  eyes  and  the  pink- 
and-white  complexion  of  a  girl.  No 
one,  however,  could  be  more  vitri- 
olic than  he  when  it  came  to  pass- 
ing judgment  upon  an  inferior  play 
or  an  actor  who  fell  short  of  his  ideal. 
The  close  intimacy  between  this  ill- 
matched  pair  was  at  its  height  when  I 
met  them,  and  continued  unabated 
until  a  quarrel — ^which  a  clairvoyant 
had  predicted  was  inevitable  sooner  or 
later — ^not  merely  separated  them,  but 
engendered  so  bitter  an  animosity  that 
neither  ever  missed  an  opportunity  of 
insulting  and  abusing  the  other.  Both 
died  while  still  comparatively  young, 
and  without  becoming  reconciled.  An 
amusing  incident  connected  with  them 
will,  I  think,  bear  repeating. 

One  evening  the  veteran  poet  and 
editor,  Richard  Henry  Stoddard,  was 
a  guest  of  the  club,  and  hearing  that 
Fawcett  was  present,  expressed  a  de- 
sire to  meet  him,  for  oddly  enough 
they  were  utter  strangers.  Montgom- 
ery volunteered  to  go  in  search  of  his 
friend,  and  I  chanced  to  be  chatting 


14 


THE  BOOKMAN 


with  Fawcett  when  he  approached  and 
announced  his  errand.  "Edgar,  Mr. 
Stoddard  wishes  to  make  your  ac-* 
quaintance.  He's  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  room.    Let  me  take  you  to  him." 

Fawcett  glanced  in  the  direction  in- 
dicated and  into  his  bovine  eyes  crept 
a  glacial  stare.  ''If  Mr.  Stoddard 
wishes  to  know  me",  he  replied  in 
freezing  accents,  "you  may  bring  him 
to  me.  I  certainly  shall  not  cross  the 
floor  for  the  purpose  of  an  introduc- 
tion." 

"But,  my  dear  chap,"  Montgomery 
expostulated,  "I  couldn't  ask  him  to 
do  that.  He  would  consider  it  beneath 
his  dignity,  and  rightly  so.  Why,  he 
is  old  enough  to  be  your  grandfather." 

"It  makes  no  difference,  I  shall  not 
budge." 

"Edgar,  I  implore  you.  He  has  been 
raving  over  your  poems,  comparing 
some  of  them  to  Shelley  and  Keats. 
And  look  at  his  white  hair!" 

"I  am  looking  at  it",  retorted  Faw- 
cett imperturbably,  peering  through 
the  crowd,  "and  it  isn't  the  lovely, 
shinunering  silver  that  inspires  rev- 
erence, not  at  all.  It  is  simply  ordi- 
nary gray  hair,"  and  he  turned  his 
back,  leaving  Montgomery  to  proffer 
what  feeble  excuses  he  was  able  to  in- 
vent. 

Another  habitu^  of  the  club  was 
Julian  Hawthorne,  tall,  muscular,  ath- 
letic, and  bearing  an  absurd  resem- 
blance to  the  portraits  of  his  immortal 
father.  Hawthorne  occupied  a  villa 
on  the  Hudson  that  he  had  bought  or 
rented,  and  which — ^his  large  brood 
of  children  being  then  at  the  noisy  age, 
— ^he  jocosely  referred  to  as  "the  house 
of  the  seven  gabblers".  To  the  club 
came  likewise  George  Parsons  Lathrop, 
the  author,  who  married  Hawthorne's 
sister  Rose,  now  Mother  Alphonsa,  a 
Dominican  nun;  while  Lathrop's 
brother  Francis,  the  artist, — a  very 


small  man  who  painted  such  enormous 
canvases  that  they  had  to  be  set  up  in 
bams  and  lofts,  any  ordinary  studio 
being  entirely  inadequate, — ^was  usu- 
ally to  be  found  in  the  wake  of  his 
relatives.  I  can  see  him  now,  stroking 
his  brown  Vandyke  beard  and  mur- 
muring dreamily:  "I  really  don't  see 
how  I  am  to  begin  my  new  picture — 
dozens  of  figures,  all  heroic  size,  and 
not  a  spot  large  enough  for  my  canvas. 
I  suppose  I  shall  have  to  build  some- 
thing." 

The  Norwegian  novelist,  Hjalmar 
Hjorth  Boyesen,  was  a  regular  attend- 
ant at  the  Nineteenth  Century.  Boye- 
sen has  been  dead  these  many  years, 
and  I  sometimes  wonder  what  has  be- 
come of  his  books;  for  he  was  a  pro- 
lific writer,  and  it  would  not  be  easy 
to  match  his  beautiful  phrasing,  or  his 
ability  to  always  hit  upon  le  mot  juste 
— something  rare  in  one  writing  in  a 
foreign  language.  Then  there  was 
Edgar  Saltus, — a  stripling  in  his  early 
twenties  with  a  white  carnation  al- 
ways in  the  lapel  of  his  faultlessly 
tailored  coat, — ^already  spoken  of  as  a 
young  man  of  extraordinary  talent, 
whose  sparkling  epigrams  were  passed 
from  mouth  to  mouth. 

Among  the  women,  the  gifted  Kate 
Field  was  conspicuous  in  a  Persian 
shawl  of  as  many  colors  as  Joseph's 
coat,  fantastically  looped  over  a  long 
black  silk  train;  and  Ella  Wheeler 
Wilcox,  the  new  "poetess  of  passion", 
slim,  girlish,  and  clothed  in  classic 
garments.  Gertrude  Atherton,  a  re- 
cent arrival  from  California  with  the 
manuscript  of  a  novel  in  her  trunk, 
was  a  personality  that  aroused  instant 
attention.  I  recall  vividly  her  initial 
appearance  at  the  Art  Galleries,  and 
Sidtus  saying  in  his  somewhat  stam- 
mering speech,  "Let  me  present  a  new 
author  from  San  Francisco,"  as  he 
halted  beside  me  with  an  attractive- 


LITERARY   NEW  YORK  IN  THE   'EIGHTIES 


16 


looking  young  woman  on  his  arm — ^a 
smallish  person  in  black  velvet,  cut 
square  in  the  neck,  with  cool  light  eyes 
under  a  fringe  of  pale  yellow  hair. 

Bret  Harte  I  saw  once.  There 
was  nothing  in  the  least  remarkable 
about  him.  My  memory  hovers  around 
a  rather  undersized  man  in  the  middle 
thirties — though  he  may  have  been 
younger  or  older — ^who  had  not  much 
to  say  and  who  might  easily  have  been 
mistaken  for  a  floor-walker  in  a  de- 
partment store.  Henry  George,  florid, 
and  sporting  a  veritable  forest  of  fiery 
hair  and  whiskers,  came  now  and  then, 
and  twice  addressed  the  club.  Andrew 
Carnegie  was  one  of  our  vice-presi- 
dents, and  I  am  reminded  of  a  remark 
I  once  heard  him  make  which  gave 
me  the  key  to  his  character  as  perhaps 
few  other  things  could  have  done.  He 
was  speaking  of  a  forthcoming  jour- 
ney to  England  when  someone  asked 
whether  he  intended  seeking  an  audi- 
ence with  Queen  Victoria.  "No,  sir," 
retorted  the  little  iron-master,  draw- 
ing himself  up  assertively.  "If  I  did, 
I  should  be  compelled  to  walk  back- 
wards and  bend  my  knee,  and  that  is 
a  homage  I  shall  never  pay  to  any 
human  being  alive." 

Courtlandt  Palmer  died  prematurely 
in  '89,  but  the  club,  while  never  quite 
the  same,  flourished  for  some  time 
after  the  loss  of  its  brilliant  founder 
— ^flrst  under  the  leadership  of  Daniel 
Greenleaf  Thompson,  a  man  of  great 
philosophical  and  scientific  attain- 
ments, and  later  under  the  no  less  able 
administration  of  Professor  Brander 
Matthews,  who  had  been  one  of  our 
moving  spirits  from  the  start.  What 
became  of  it  eventually  I  do  not  know, 
for  I  left  New  York  in  the  early  'nine- 
ties to  take  up  my  residence  in  Wash- 
ington, and  when  I  returned  some 
years  later,  the  club  was  no  more. 

But  it  must  not  be  taken  for  granted 


that  the  Nineteenth  Century  was  the 
only  place  where  feasts  of  reason  and 
outflowing  of  soul  predominated. 
There  were  two  noteworthy  salons  be- 
sides: one  presided  over  by  Mrs. 
Botta,  who  prior  to  her  marriage  to 
Professor  Vincenzo  Botta,  an  eminent 
Italian  savant,  had,  under  her  maiden 
name  of  Anne  C.  Lynch,  acquired  a 
reputation  as  a  poet  of  taste  and  orig- 
inality. The  Bottas,  an  elderly  couple 
of  a  type  long  as  extinct  as  that  an* 
cient  bird  the  dodo,  lived  in  a  wide 
English-basement  house  in  West 
Thirty-seventh  Street,  a  stone's  throw 
from  Fifth  Avenue.  And  every  nota- 
bility who  set  foot  in  New  York  came 
armed  with  a  letter  to  them,  for  not  to 
be  seen  at  the  Bottas'  was  to  proclaim 
oneself  either  a  nobody  or  a  pariah. 
Their  quaint  old-fashioned  parlor, 
with  its  early  Victorian  furniture,  dim 
pictures,  faded  hangings,  and  much 
ornate  stucco,  formed  a  pleasant  back- 
ground for  some  of  the  most  delight- 
ful gatherings  it  has  ever  been  my 
privilege  to  attend.  There  I  met  the 
great  tragedian  Salvini,  huge  of 
frame,  with  fiery  eyes  that  burned  be- 
neath beetling  brows  of  gray,  and  lips 
that  seldom  smiled.  Whenever  I 
glanced  at  his  long,  curved,  supple 
hands  and  noted  the  sinister  expres- 
sion of  his  features,  I  was  moved  to 
compassion  for  the  luckless  mummer, 
wretched  actor  though  he  was,  who 
was  fated  to  play  lago  to  his  marvel- 
ous impersonation  of  Othello;  and 
who  nightly,  to  say  nothing  of  two 
matinee  performances  a  week,  was  os- 
tensibly pummeled  to  a  jelly  and  most 
realistically  throttled,  to  the  unmiti- 
gated glee  of  a  discriminating  audi- 
ence. At  the  Bottas'  I  likewise  met 
Paul  du  Chaillu,  the  African  explorer; 
Ellen  Terry  and  Felix  Moscheles;  the 
Kendals,  and  merry  little  Rosina 
Vokes,  with  her  clever  company  of 


16 


THE  BOOKMAN 


London  players.  I  recollect^  too, 
Helena  Modjeska»  and  Adelina  Patti 
with  her  husband,  Ernesto  Nicolini. 

It  was  at  a  dinner,  one  of  those 
sumptuous  banquets  lasting  for  hours, 
that  I  found  myself  next  to  Nicolini. 
All  through  the  interminable  feast  he 
did  not  address  a  syllable  of  conversa- 
tion to  me  or  to  the  lady  on  his  left, 
nor  did  he  appear  to  eat  a  mouthful  of 
food.  He  leaned  back  in  his  chair, 
crumbling  bread  and  munching  olives, 
his  eyes  glued  upon  his  wife  opposite 
who,  gorgeously  gowned  and  blazing 
with  jewds,  was  in  the  most  lively  of 
moods.  Suddenly,  however,  as  she  was 
on  the  point  of  helping  herself  from  a 
dish  of  lobster  that  was  being  passed, 
he  started  forward  with  a  stifled 
shriek.  ''Adelina,  Adelina,  for  the 
love  of  God  do  not  touch  that!  Think 
of  your  voice — ^your  precious  voice." 
The  diva  hesitated,  shrugged,  then 
laughed  and  waved  the  platter  away. 
''Lobster!"  muttered  Nicolini  in  the 
tone  of  one  who  has  just  snatched  a 
cup  of  deadly  poison  from  the  grasp 
of  a  would-be  suicide,  "lobster !*'  And 
he  relapsed  into  his  former  apathy. 

Mrs.  Langtry  was  in  New  York  then 
and  much  discussed  and  paragraphed. 
I  have  forgotten  precisely  where  or 
when  I  met  her,  but  I  cannot  resist 
the  temptation  to  relate  an  anecdote 
with  which  Mrs.  Botta  was  wont  to 
enliven  her  parties  and  add  to  the 
gaiety  of  nations,  and  which  even  at 
this  late  day  is,  I  believe,  worth  tell- 
ing. The  Bottas  had  spent  the  previ- 
ous summer  in  England  where  they 
frequently  saw  Herbert  Spencer  and 
took  tea  in  his  company  at  the  home  of 
Mrs.  Lewes,  better  known  as  George 
Eliot.  On  a  certain  occasion  the  talk 
turned  upon  the  Jersey  Lily,  then  at 
the  zenith  of  her  fame  as  a  "profes- 
sional beaut3r",  and  superlatively  com- 
plimentary  adjectives  were  bandied 


about  concerning  her.  AH  at  once,  Mr. 
Spencer,  who  had  been  fidgeting  in  his 
seat  and  coughing  behind  his  hand, 
bent  toward  Mrs.  Botta.  "Tut,  tut!" 
he  whispered,  in  a  loud  aside,  "what 
arrant  nonsense  to  call  that  Langtry 
creature  beautiful!  Now,  my  idea  of 
a  truly  beautiful  woman  is  that/'  and 
he  pointed  to  George  Eliot,  seated 
some  distance  away  at  the  tea  table, 
who,  if  not  uncompromisingly  ugly 
according  to  our  accepted  standard  of 
looks,  by  no  stretch  of  the  imagination 
could  be  termed  a  beauty. 

The  other  salon  was  held  at  the  resi- 
dence of  Mrs.  John  Sherwood,  the  wife 
of  a  prominent  lawyer,  who  wrote 
light  novels  and  books  on  etiquette, 
and  contributed  papers  on  social  topics 
to  some  of  the  magazines.  Mrs.  Sher- 
wood was  grande  dame  to  her  fingers* 
ends  and  looked  the  part.  She  was 
large  and  imposing,  and  affected  flow- 
ered brocades  and  massive  ornaments. 
Despite  her  advanced  age — for  she 
must  then  have  been  nearly  seventy — 
her  hair  was  of  a  glossy  blackness,  ar- 
ranged in  rows  of  puffs  and  sur- 
mounted by  a  headdress  of  lace  and 
ribbon.  A  thorough  woman  of  the 
world  as  well  as  a  very  worldly  woman, 
her  manners  were  perfect;  and  inas- 
much as  she  had  traveled  extensively 
and  knew  everybody  worth  knowing 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  her  in- 
vitations were  eagerly  sought  after. 
She  had  inaugurated  a  series  of  weekly 
readings,  compiled  from  her  personal 
reminiscences  and  experiences  at  home 
and  abroad,  written  in  a  pleasant  and 
semihumorous  vein;  and  on  Wednes- 
day afternoons  the  two  long  parlors  of 
her  house  in  West  Thirty-second 
Street  were  thronged  with  the  ^lite  of 
society,  the  arts,  and  letters. 

To  "help  out"  and  at  the  same  time 
add  to  the  popular  interest  of  these 
occasions,  recitations  and  music  were 


LITERARY   NEW  YORK  IN   THE   'EIGHTIES 


17 


furnished  by  professional  and  amateur 
talent.  I  well  remember  a  special 
Wednesday  when  Wilson  Barrett  was 
down  for  Mark  Antony's  oration  and  I 
had^  agreed  to  do  my  bit  on  the  man- 
dolin, an  instrument  then  just  coming 
into  vogue  and  but  little  known  in 
America.  The  butler's  pantry  did 
duty  as  green  room,  and  three  or  four 
of  us,  including  Gourtenay  Thorpe  of 
the  Vokes  Gompany  who  was  to  recite 
Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox's  "The  Birth  of 
the  Opal",  were  secreted  among  the 
dishes  and  glasses,  awaiting  the  signal 
for  our  respective  "entrances"  after 
Mrs.  Sherwood  had  finished  her  read- 
ing. Now  I  had  often  played  for  her 
without  suffering  from  anything 
worse  than  a  transient  flutter  of 
stagef  right,  but  on  this  particular  day 
for  some  unaccountable  reason  I  was 
in  a  panic  of  nervousness,  with  icy 
hands  and  shaking  limbs.  Mr.  Thorpe 
was  staring  abstractedly  into  the  back 
yard.  I  looked  at  Barrett.  He  was 
gnawing  his  nether  lip,  and  striding 
up  and  down  the  pantry  like  a  caged 
animal.  "Oh,  Mr.  Barrett",  I  faltered, 
on  the  verge  of  tears,  "I  never  was  so 
frightened  in  my  life.  I  simply  can't 
face  all  those  awful  people."  He 
turned  quickly.  "My  dear  young  lady", 
he  replied,  "you  are  not  half  so  much 
frightened  as  I  am.  And  let  me  tell 
you  this,"  he  supplemented,  wagging 
an  admonitory  forefinger,  "be  thank- 
ful you  are  frightened.  If  the  day 
ever  comes  when  I  cease  to  feel  nerv- 
ous over  an  appearance,  even  at  a 
small  affair  like  this,  I  shall  know  that 
my  art  is  dead,  my  career  at  an  end." 
Among  Mrs.  Sherwood's  intimates 
was  Archibald  Glavering  Gunter, 
whose  novel  "Mr.  Barnes  of  New 
York"  had  achieved  the  distinction  of 
having  been  declined  by  every  pub- 
lisher in  the  United  States :  to  be  finally 
brought  out  by  the  author  himself  who 


awoke  shortly  to  find  fame  knocking  at 
his  door,  for  "Mr.  Barnes"  proved  to 
be  a  best  seller  of  the  first  water. 
Gunter  was  absolutely  devoid  of  mag- 
netism or  attraction  of  any  kind.  He 
was  fat  to  grossness,  and  his  fierce 
black  moustache  made  him  resemble 
the  heavy  villain  of  melodrama.  He 
had  sleepy  eyes,  and  his  conversation 
was  as  weighty  as  his  body.  Of  humor 
he  possessed  not  an  atom.  But  we 
placed  him  aloft  on  a  pedestal,  all  the 
same.  "Mr.  Barnes"  might  not  be  lit- 
erature. Possibly  it  hadn't  even  a 
bowing  acquaintance  with  art.  The 
critics  either  ignored  it  as  unworthy 
of  serious  consideration,  or  awarded  it 
A  few  lines  of  withering  comment. 
But  nevertheless  to  Gunter  must  be 
accorded  the  applause  due  to  one  who 
had  proved  the  fallibility  and  exposed 
the  woeful  absence  of  commercial  in- 
stinct, laid  bare  the  smug  know-it-all- 
ness  of  that  arch-enemy  of  real  merit, 
the  Publisher's  Reader.  For  every- 
body is  aware  that  publishers  are  in 
business  for  the  purpose  of  making 
money,  and  Gunter,  after  being  un- 
mercifully snubbed  by  all  of  them, 
from  Maine  to  Galifomia,  was  coining 
this  commodity  hand  over  fist.  Was  it 
any  wonder  that  he  walked  on  air,  his 
head  among  the  stars;  and  that  we, 
his  comrades  of  the  pen  who  had  often 
been  turned  down  ourselves  without 
tasting  the  compensating  joy  that 
"laughs  last",  strutted  and  crowed 
with  him,  forming  as  it  were  a  sort 
of  aerial  Greek  chorus? 

Louise  Ghandler  Moulton,  the  poet, 
although  living  in  Boston,  came  to 
New  York  sometimes  and  I  got  to 
know  her  pretty  well.  She  had  run 
across  George  Moore  in  Paris  and  on 
learning  that  he  and  I  corresponded, 
spoke  much  of  him,  praising  his  work 
in  extravagant  terms,  and  dwelling  at 
great  length  on  the  extreme  beauty  of 


18 


THE  BOOKMAN 


his  hands — "the  most  beautiful  hands 
in  the  world",  she  averred.  Thinking 
Mr.  Moore  would  be  gratified  at  this 
spontaneous  homage,  I  took  occasion 
in  one'  of  my  letters  to  mention  the 
high  opinion  Mrs.  Moulton  enter- 
tained of  him,  not  omitting  her  ad- 
miration of  his  hands.  His  reply, 
when  it  came,  was  characteristic: 
"Mrs.  Moulton  is  a  nice  comfortable 
old  lady  whose  one  fault  is  that  she 
vnU  talk  about  love."  Needless  to  say 
this  was  not  repeated. 

The  above  reference  to  the  cele- 
brated Irish  writer  brings  to  mind  my 
acquaintance  with  an  English  man  of 
letters  who  came  to  live  in  this  coun- 
try in  the  'eighties  and  who  had 
known  Moore  when  they  had  both  been 
students  in  Julien's  atelier.  In  those 
palmy  days  Moore,  when  he  was  not 
trying  to  paint,  spent  his  time  in  writ- 
ing erotic  verses.  Amply  provided 
with  funds,  he  had  fitted  up  a  large 
flat  of  eleven  rooms  where  he  lived 
in  solitary  state,  and  in  course  of  time 
he  conceived  the  very  natural  idea  of 
having  his  poems  brought  out  in  book 
form.  Consequently  they  were  offered 
to  various  publishing  houses.  But  no 
one  would  undertake  the  work.  Much 
incensed,  he  resolved  to  print  it  at  his 
own  expense,  and  when  the  volume, 
beautifully  gotten  up,  appeared,  copies 
were  sent  to  all  the  editors  and  litt^ra^ 
teurs  in  town.  Then  Moore  shut  him- 
self up  and  waited  to  hear  that  he  had 
been  hailed  as  the  worthy  successor  of 
Baudelaire  and  Verlaine.  One  fine 
morning,  an  Englishman  whom  I  will 
call  B. . .,  was  tranquilly  sipping  his 
coffee  when  he  was  handed  a  note 
which  read  as  follows :  "Come  at  once, 
I  am  dying,  G.  M."  Assailed  by  terri- 
fying visions,  he  rushed  to  the  flat. 
The  front  door  was  ajar,  and  after 
breathlessly  traversing  ten  rooms,  mo- 
mentarily expecting  to  stumble  over 


the  lifeless  form  of  his  friend,  Moore 
was  discovered  in  room  eleven, 
stretched  out  in  bed  and  seemingly  in 
extremis,  yet  arrayed  nevertheless  in 
a  most  bewildering  shirt  of  Tyrian 
purple,  frilled,  fluted,  and  befurbe- 
lowed,  which  B. . .,  being  blessed  with 
keen  intuitive  faculties,  said  he  could 
have  sworn  Moore  had  dashed  out  to 
buy  before  dispatching  his  ante 
mortem  appeak  A  newspaper  was 
grasped  between  a  nerveless  finger 
and  thumb.  Moore  was  beyond  ar- 
ticulate speech,  but  he  managed  to  in- 
dicate that  the  journal  was  responsible 
for  his  semicomatose  condition. 

If  I  remember  correctly,  it  was  at 
Mrs.  Sherwood's  that  I  was  introduced 
to  Frank  Stockton,  and  a  really  com- 
ical episode  in  which  he  played  the 
chief  r61e  now  emerges  from  the  back- 
ground of  my  recollection.  I  hap- 
pened to  be  writing  some  articles  for 
Peter  Collier's  "Once  a  Week",  a 
magazine  that  enjoyed  but  a  brief  life, 
despite  the  fact  of  its  being  most  ably 
edited  by  a  delightful  Irishman  named 
Nugent  Robinson.  Having  a  business 
matter  to  transact  with  Mr.  Collier,  I 
one  day  wended  my  way  to  the  oflice 
where  Robinson  as  usual  was  ruminat- 
ing in  the  outer  room.  As  I  was 
speaking  to  him,  I  noticed  a  masculine 
form  perched  on  a  high  stool  at  a  desk 
in  one  comer,  actively  engaged  in 
scribbling  on  an  immense  sheet  of 
paper,  the  desk  being  cluttered  with 
similar  sheets,  so  that  it  looked  as 
though  a  rain  of  foolscap  had  de- 
scended from  the  ceiling.  I  recog- 
nized Stockton  at  once.  "What  on 
earth  is  he  doing?"  I  inquired,  sotto 
voce.  "Well,  you  see",  Robinson  ex- 
plained, "he  has  been  contributing  a 
lot  of  stuff  to  'Once  a  Week'  for 
which  we  agreed  to  pay  him  so  much 
a  line.  There  are  a  certain  number  of 
lines  to  a  colunm,  and  so  many  columns 


LITERARY   NEW   YORK  IN   THE   'EIGHTIES 


19 


to  a  page.  Looks  easy,  doesn't  it?  But 
Stockton  has  been  sitting  on  that  stool, 
like  Poe's  Raven,  for  the  best  part  of 
an  hour,  trying  to  figure  out  how  much 
we  owe  him.  Every  time  he  adds  or 
multiplies  he  gets  a  different  result." 
1 1  smiled  discreetly,  and  passed  into 
Mr.  Collier's  sanctum.  When  I  emerged 
some  twenty  minutes  later,  Stockton 
was  still  there,  frantically  jotting 
down  numbers.  His  face  wore  a  dis- 
tracted expression,  his  hair  was 
rumpled,  and  beads  of  perspiration 
stood  on  his  brow.  Robinson,  rising 
to  open  the  door  for  me,  rolled  up  his 
eyes  and  thrust  forth  both  hands  as  if 
he  were  beating  off  the  air,  signifying 
that  the  case  was  hopeless.  Meeting 
him  a  few  days  later,  I  asked,  as  a 
matter  of  curiosity,  how  long  the 
author  of  "Rudder  Grange"  had  re- 
mained in  the  office  working  over  his 
account.  "Would  you  believe  it,"  he 
replied,  "the  poor  devil  got  so  des- 
perately mixed  that  in  the  end  I  took 
pity  on  him  and  went  to  his  rescue. 
It  required  less  than  five  minutes  to 
calculate  to  a  penny  the  precise 
amount  due  him,  write  a  check,  and 
send  him  away  happy." 

It  was  in  the  late  'eighties,  the  exact 
year  escapes  me,  that  William  Sharp 
came  to  New  York  as  the  guest  of  Ed- 
mund Clarence  Stedman,  our  "banker 
poet",  as  we  called  him.  Sharp  had 
brought  a  note  of  introduction  to  me 
from  Mrs.  Atherton,  and  my  first 
glimpse  of  him  was  attended  by  cir- 
cumstances 80  ludicrous  that  I  find 
myself  smiling  involuntarily  in  recall- 
ing them.  I  was  reading  quietly  in 
my  room  one  morning  when  I  was 
rudely  interrupted  by  a  furious  ham- 
mering on  the  front  door  below — ^bang, 
bang,  rattle,  rattle,  without  intermis- 
sion,  and  in  a  gradually  increasing 
crescendo.  Wondering  what  could  be 
the  cause  of  this  uproar,  I  fled  hur- 


riedly down  the  stairs,  not  stopping  to 
call  a  servant,  and  threw  the  door  wide 
open,  prepared  to  deal  summarily  with 
the  offender.    In  the  vestibule  stood  a 
big,  blond-bearded  man  who  reminded 
me  so  much  of  "Lohengrin"  that  I 
caught  myself  peering  behind  him  to 
see  if  perchance  a  white  swan  was 
lurking  on  the  stoop.     In  one  hand 
this  splendid  apparition  held  the  stout 
cudgel  with  which  he  had  been  be- 
laboring the  portal,  and  with  the  other 
he  waved  me  a  friendly  greeting.    Not 
having  been  notified  of  Mr.  Sharp's 
advent,  I  hadn't  the  faintest  idea  as 
to  his  identity,  or  why  he  should  adopt 
so    extraordinary   a   method    of   an- 
nouncing his  presence.    Probably  my 
features  betrayed  my  perplexity,  for 
he  broke  into  a  shout  of  merriment. 
"I've   got   a   letter   for   you   in   my 
pocket,"  he  exclaimed  genially.    "I'm 
William  Sharp  from  London,  and  as 
your  electric  bell  is  evidently  out  of 
commission,  and  I  was  bound  to  get  in 
by  hook  or  crook,  I  decided  to  pound 
on  the  door  until  somebody  opened  it." 
Of  course  I  laughed  too  and  gave 
him  a  cordial  welcome,  for  there  are 
few  writers  for  whom  I  cherish  a 
more  profound  veneration  than  Wil- 
liam Sharp  or  "Fiona  Macleod".    And 
what  a  wonderful  talk  we  had,  about 
books,  the  people  we  both  knew,  and 
life  and  matters  in  general !    He  was 
then  editing  the  "Academy",  and  I  ex- 
perienced a  throb  of  elation  when  he 
told  me  that  if  I  would  have  a  copy  of 
my  next  novel  forwarded  to  him,  he 
would  personally  review  it  for  that 
journal.     Unfortutiately,  his  stay  in 
town  was  a  limited  one,  and  every 
available  moment  of  his  time  had  been 
mortgaged  by  the  Stedmans,  so  we  did 
not  meet  again.    After  his  return  to 
England,  however,  I  was  made  happy 
by  the  receipt  of  a  thin,  vellum-bound 
volume^    his    then    newly    published 


20 


THE  BOOKMAN 


''Sospiri  di  Roma",  inscribed  to  me 
with  his  autograph,  which  still  re- 
mains one  of  my  most  precious  pos- 
sessions. 

There  was  a  seductive  quality  in 
William  Sharp,  the  evidence  of  a  na- 
ture singularly  endowed  and  touched 
with  mysticism,  expressive  not  only 
of  the  artist  but  of  a  personality 
wholly  virile,  yet  breathing  a  rare 
spirituality,  at  once  rich,  radiant,  and 
unspoiled  by  affectation  or  self-con- 
sciousness. Among  the  hundreds  of 
fascinating  men  and  women  who  are 
enshrined  in  my  heart  and  mind,  his 
image  stands  forth  clear,  luminous, 
and  imbued  with  a  beauty  all  its  own. 

It  was  in  '88,  I  think,  that  Oscar 
Wilde  burst  like  a  resplendent  meteor 
into  our  charmed  circle.  Yet  it  seems 
but  a  day  since  I  saw  him  for  the  first 
time  at  a  luncheon  given  by  a  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Hayes,  a  young  couple  who  lived 
in  the  East  Twenties,  not  far  from 
Fourth  Avenue,  a  fashionable  resi- 
dential section  at  that  period.  The 
Hayeses  dabbled  in  literature  and 
music;  and  being  rich,  or  what  was 
considered  rich  in  those  times,  liked 
nothing  so  much  as  to  hear  the  roar 
of  a  lion  in  their  drawingroom.  Oscar, 
just  arrived  in  America,  was  quite  the 
most  stupendous  lion  that  had  electri- 
fied New  York  in  years.  He  was 
mobbed  in  the  streets,  people  stood  on 
boxes  and  barrels,  and  fought  like 
demons  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  him,  and 
whole  pages  were  written  about  him  in 
the  daily  press.  He  was  the  man  of 
the  hour. 

When  I  reached  the  Hayeses'  I  found 
all  the  company,  about  a  dozen,  assem- 
bled, with  the  exception  of  the  guest 
of  honor,  and  breathlessly  awaiting 
his  coming.  Too  excited  to  converse 
coherently,  we  sat  keyed  up  to  con- 
cert-pitch, our  eyes  fastened  upon  t>ie 


portieres  that  masked  the  doorway 
and  that  presently  parted  to  admit  the 
most  astonishing  young  man^I  had 
ever  beheld.  His  brown  hair  curled 
on  his  shoulders  and  one  thick  lock 
brushed  an  eyebrow.  He  wore  a  velvet 
jacket,  satin  knee-breeches,  black  silk 
stockings  and  buckled  shoes,  while 
under  his  chin  was  an  immense  bow  of 
apple-green,  with  long  fluttering  ends. 
After  an  instant  of  general  hypnosis, 
presentations  followed,  and  whether  it 
was  because  the  only  vacant  chair  in 
the  room  chanced  to  be  near  mine,  or 
for  some  other  reason,  I  do  not  know, 
but  at  any  rate  Oscar  dropped  into  it 
with  a  thud,  assumed  a  soulful  atti- 
tude,—one  of  his  studied  poses  as  I 
learned  later, — his  clasped  hands  sup- 
porting his  left  cheek,  his  gaze  fixed 
rapturously  upon  space,  and  remarked 
apropos  of  nothing  at  all :  "The  great 
crises  of  our  lives  are  never  events  but 
always  passions."  Then  he  paused, 
evidently  expecting  me  to  say  some- 
thing. But,  at  a  loss  for  a  reply,  all  I 
could  do  was  to  regard  him  in  mysti- 
fied silence.  He  looked  up,  our  eyes 
met,  and  some  subtle  vibration  of 
humor  must  have  passed  between  us 
for  we  burst  simultaneously  into  loud 
and  unrestrained  hilarity.  Luncheon 
was  at  that  moment  announced,  and 
as  he  was  placed  on  the  other  side  of 
the  table,  I  had  no  opportunity  of 
speaking  to  him  again  until  we  re- 
turned to  the  drawingroom.  But 
throughout  the  repast  he  was  con- 
stantly dodging  the  tall  centrepiece 
that  partly  hid  us  from  each  other,  in 
order  to  smile  and  raise  his  glass  to 
me,  and  once,  during  a  sudden  lull  in 
the  chatter,  I  heard  him  discoursing 
glibly  on  the  preface  to  "Mademoiselle 
de  Maupin".  If  I  live  to  be  a  thousand 
I  shall  never  forget  the  look  of  blank 
consternation  on  the  face  of  the  woman 
beside  him,  who  obviously  had  never 


COLLABORATION   AND   THAT  SORT   OF  THING 


21 


even  heard  of  the  book,  and  to  whom 
Oscar's  well-turned  comments  were 
about  as  lucid  as  though  he  had  been 
reciting  passages  from  the  Koran. 

Afterward  I  got  to  know  him  very 
well,  and  the  more  I  saw  of  him  the 
better  I  liked  him.  Shorn  of  his  af- 
fectations, his  mannerisms  that  often 
bordered  on  buffoonery,  but  which 
after  all  were  harmless  enough,  the 
English  gentleman  of  culture  and 
breeding  stood  revealed  in  all  his  won- 
derful brilliancy.  A  greater  adept  in 
epigram  and  repartee  never  existed, 
and  his  wit  flowed  in  an  endlessly  glit- 
tering stream.  Yet  he  had  his  seri- 
ous moods,  and  among  my  varied 
recollections  of  him,  one  is  etched  on 
my  mind  with  peculiar  sharpness.  We 
were  sitting  on  the  veranda  of  my 
country  home  on  a  blue  and  gold  aft- 
ernoon of  the  late  summer,  and  after 
speaking  of  a  lecture  he  was  to  give 
that  evening  in  Newark,  he  let  his  eyes 
roam  over  the  green  valley  below,  and 
said  earnestly :  "My  life  stretches  be- 
fore me  like  that  sunlit,  flower-starred 


meadow  yonder.  I  see  the  beautiful 
books  and  plays  I  mean  to  write,  the 
other  things  I  intend  to  accomplish, 
for  I  know  exactly  what  my  life  will 
be.  I  shall  leave  an  indelible  mark 
upon  my  generation.  The  world  of  art 
will  be  the  richer  for  my  having 
lived."  How  often  have  I  reflected 
upon  those  words,  uttered  in  all  sin- 
cerity, in  view  of  the  grim  tragedy 
that  in  a  few  short  years  stunned  civ- 
ilized society.  His  joyous  youth  and 
glowing  manhood,  his  genius,  the  se- 
rene lovableness  of  his  nature,  rise  up 
like  so  many  jeering  phantoms,  and 
the  pity  of  it  all  saddens  my  spirit. 
In  one  of  his  charming  essays  James 
Huneker  has  stated  that  since  his 
death  Wilde  has  been  tremendously 
overrated.  Perhaps  in  a  strictly  lit- 
erary sense  this  is  true.  But  to  those 
who  knew  and  admired  the  man  rather 
than  the  artist,  his  memory,  cleansed 
by  the  bitterness  of  his  suffering, 
seems  to  have  taken  on  a  deeper  value 
and  an  added  significance.  At  least  it 
pleases  me,  his  friend,  to  think  so. 


COLLABORATION  AND  THAT  SORT  OF  THING 


BY  MOREBY  ACKLOM 


THE  only  reason,  I  suppose,  that  we 
pay  so  little  attention,  as  a  gen- 
eral thing,  to  the  strangeness  and 
mystery  of  literary  collaboration  is 
the  fact  that  we  grow  up  accustomed 
to  such  monuments  of  it  as  the  Erck- 
mann-Chatrian  novels  and  the  series 
of  sound  and  delightful  romances, 
which  nobody  reads  nowadays,  fa- 
thered by  Walter  Besant  and  James 


Rice — ^to  mention  only  the  first  ex- 
amples that  occur. 

If  two  musicians  collaborated  in  a 
tune,  or  two  painters  in  a  picture,  it 
would  be  hailed  as  a  marvel,  no  doubt; 
but  two  writers  can  get  together  and 
produce  a  joint  personality  without 
exciting  even  a  whisper  of  surprise. 
Even  a  good  translation  must  be  a  col- 
laboration if  it  is  to  be  a  real  piece 


22 


THE  BOOKMAN 


of  literature:  witness  Fitzgerald  and 
Omar  Khayyam  in  the  "Rubaiyat". 
Anyone  who  will  take  the  trouble  to 
compare  Fitzgerald's  version  with  a 
literal  rendering  of  the  original  will 
hardly  use  the  word  translatian  in  re- 
gard to  it  again. 

Like  the  rest  of  the  unthinking,  I 
had  calmly  accepted  this  real  marvel 
of  human  ingenuity  as  a  commonplace* 
and  thought  no  more  of  inquiring  into 
its  causes  and  effects  than  I  did  into 
the  inner  meaning  of  a  volcano  or  the 
possibilities  of  infringing  on  the  pre- 
cession of  the  equinoxes.  It  was  a 
very  slight  thing  that  set  me  wonder- 
ing about  it»  merely  the  casual  dis- 
covery that  the  pen-name,  Michael 
Field,  concealed  the  joint  work  of  a 
young  woman  and  her  aunt. 

I  felt  at  first  that  I  had  been  im- 
posed upon,  because  I  happened  to 
have  a  volume  of  Michael  Field's 
poems  in  my  own  private  five-inch 
bedside  bookshelf :  a  testimonial  that, 
in  those  simple  days,  I  thought  them 
pretty  good.  Then,  naturally,  ensued 
a  period  of  persistent  effort  to  disen- 
tangle the  two  authors,  but  I  had  to 
retire  completely  frustrated;  though 
I  had  better  luck  with  "Songs  from 
Vagabondia":  for  after  listing  the 
poems  in  it  which  I  suspected  of  being 
Bliss  Carman's  and  which  Richard 
Hovey's,  and  after  getting  Bliss  Car- 
man to  initial  his  own  contributions,  I 
found  that  I  had  only  made  two  mis- 
takes in  the  volume. 

Of  course,  publishing  in  the  same 
volume  poems  separately  written  by 
different  authors  is  not  the  most  com- 
plete kind  of  collaboration;  but  it 
might  pass  for  a  mild  variety  of  it. 

There  are  many  others — e.  g.  assist- 
ing authors,  dead  and  therefore  un- 
protesting,  to  contribute  to  one's  own 
support  by  means  of  a  ouija  board; 
writing  stimulating  introductions  to 


the  works  of  other  and  less-known 
writers  or  precocious  literary  infants, 
or  even  the  humble  and  often  useful 
parody,  which  we  have  always  with  us. 

In  fact,  the  possibilities  are  infinite. 
Suppose  for  instance  that  Sir  James 
Barrie  really  had  collaborated  with 
Daisy  Ashford,  or  Wells  with  disap- 
pointed Barbellion,  what  books  we 
should  now  have! 

Or  think  what  the  effects  would  be 
of  Elinor  Glyn's  working  hand  in  hand 
with  Henry  James,  or  Walt  Whitman 
revising  Walter  Pater. 

It  will  not  seem  improbable  that 
with  my  mind  taken  up  with  the  de- 
lights of  this  new  game,  I  should  have 
fallen  into  the  snare  myself  and  be- 
come a  collaborator.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  I  did. 

A  certain  lady  who  wrote,  though 
luckily  not  for  a  living,  used  occasion- 
ally to  send  me  short  stories  and 
poems  of  her  own  for  me  to  read  and 
haply  criticize.  I  knew  she  was  not 
averse  to  selling  them;  but  the  edi- 
tors were  generally  not  willing  to  meet 
her  half  way,  and  I  was  not  often  able 
to  indicate  any  selling  possibilities  in 
her  work. 

She  had  a  gift  of  dialogue  and  her 
sense  of  character  and  situation  was, 
though  untrained,  accurate;  but  she 
utterly  failed  in  dramatic  feeling  and 
when  she  had  a  situation  she  never 
did  anything  with  it.  Even  I  could  see 
possibilities  in  some  of  the  stories 
which  the  fair  author  never  seized. 

Finally  one  day  one  of  them  came 
along  which  led  up  very  pleasantly  and 
delightfully  to— absolutely  nothing. 
Piqued  by  this  waste  of  good  material 
and  seeing  what  ought  to  have  hap- 
pened, I  filled  in  the  blank  with  a 
rapid-fire  climax  which  came  to  me 
ready-made,  probably  out  of  some 
French  story,  for  I  was  a  great  ad- 


COLLABORATION  AND  THAT  SORT  OF  THING 


23 


mirer  of  Catulle  Mend&s  and  his  circle 
at  that  period.  Then  I  signed  the  re- 
sult with  a  name  which  was  neither 
mine  nor  hers»  but  which  bore  a  cer- 
tain resemblance  to  both  of  them,  and 
which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  turned  out 
to  be  that  of  a  fairly-well-known  poet 
(in  my  ignorance  I  had  never  then 
heard  of  himl)»  and  on  an  impulse 
sent  the  thing  straight  off  to  the 
editor  of  "Chic  New  York". 

To  my  surprise,  and  almost  embar- 
rassment, an  acceptance  arrived  by  re- 
turn mail,  and  a  check  for  thirty-five 
dollars  at  the  end  of  the  month.  Now 
I  had  to  confess  to  my  totally  uncon- 
scious collaborator  what  had  hap- 
pened, for  you  can  hardly  send  a  lady 
you  know  only  through  correspond- 
ence a  check  for  $17.50,  without  some 
sort  of  explanation.  However,  she  not 
only  took  the  freedom  with  which  I 
had  acted  in  good  part,  but  actually 
proclaimed  herself  delighted  to  con- 
tinue the  arrangement  on  a  fifty-fifty 
basis.  Thus  another  collaboration,  so 
far  undiscovered  by  any  discerning 
critic,  was  bom. 

The  new  firm  actually  flourished 
spasmodically  for  perhaps  a  couple  of 
years,  though  without  any  outcry  aris- 
ing in  the  press  over  the  discovery  of 
a  new  star  in  the  literary  firmament. 
Then,  of  course,  the  to-be-expected 
happened:  the  firm  was  shipwrecked 
on  the  rock  of  invincible  disagree- 
ment. 

The  lady  sent  me  a  pathetic  story 
which  began  very  well  indeed  with  a 
lonely  woman  and  an  eligible  bachelor 
both  spending  their  summer  vacation 
at  a  delightful  out-of-the-way  little 
beach  somewhere  in  the  north  of 
Maine.  Not  unnaturally,  the  young 
man  wanted  the  girl,  who  was  quite 
charming,  to  marry  him,  but  she 
wouldn't.  She  admitted  she  loved  him. 


but  she  simply  refused  to  marry  him; 
and  not  only  so,  but  she  was  deter- 
mined not  to,  to  such  a  pitch  that  she 
went  out  in  her  nightie  next  morning 
just  before  sunrise  in  order  to  drown 
herself  and  convince  him  that  she 
really  meant  no  when  she  said  it. 

Well  now,  that  motif  may  be  all 
right;  but  to  my  base  mechanical 
mind,  it  seemed  (and  still  seems) 
without  coherence  or  cause,  as  there 
was  nothing  developed  in  the  course  of 
the  dialogue  to  show  why  she  should 
be  averse  to  marrying  this  perfectly 
nice  young  man  who  was  well-to-do  as 
well  as  fond,  and  whom  she  herself 
theoretically  loved.  The  only  cause 
that  my  mind  could  suggest  would 
have  been  a  previous  indiscretion  on 
the  lady's  part;  but  this  the  author 
through  the  mouth  of  her  heroine  had 
already  expressly  barred.  I  liked  the 
story  first-rate  as  far  as  it  went.  The 
setting  was  excellent  and  the  dialogue 
revealing,  quick,  and  interesting.  My 
problem  was  to  introduce  some  sort  of 
reasonable  climax  and  explain  the 
lady's  frame  of  mind. 

I  thought  the  thing  over  and  over, 
and  nothing  suggested  itself;  until  I 
got  tired  of  the  problem,  and  in  a  reck- 
less frame  of  mind  sat  down  at  my 
desk  and  dashed  off  the  first  thing  that 
came  into  my  head.  The  cause  which 
under  these  painful  circumstances  I 
provided  for  the  sensitive  heroine's  in- 
vincible distaste  for  matrimony  was 
that  she  had  a  cork  leg. 

The  acute-minded  reader  will  of 
course  see  at  once  that  when  she  flung 
herself  off  the  cliff  into  the  sea  at  the 
witching  hour  of  4  a.  m.  in  order  to 
prove  to  the  young  gentleman  that  he 
would  have  to  do  without  her,  the 
same  cork  leg  kept  her  afloat  and  made 
it  possible  for  him  to  rescue  her,  with 
the  conventional  result,  and  wedding 
bells  indicated  in  the  near  future. 


24 


THE  BOOKMAN 


I  fear  that  my  collaborator  took  vio- 
lent offense  at  what  she  considered  to 
be  my  injudicious  levity  in  dealing 
with  her  sentimental  little  pastoral. 
Anyhow,  she  promptly  and  energet- 
ically demanded  the  elimination  of  the 
cork  leg,  and  the  substitution  of  a 
climax  not  calculated  to  arouse  a  ri- 
bald smile  on  the  face  of  the  reader. 

Personally,  I  thought  the  cork  leg 
a  fairly  ingenious  solution  of  the  two 
difficulties — and  I  may  say  I  still  think 
so.  So  that  was  where  my  collaborator 
and  I — I  was  going  to  say,  "parted"; 
but  as  we  had  never  met  in  the  flesh  it 
would  possibly  be  better  to  substitute, 
"ceased  to  collaborate". 

It  was  not,  however,  the  exact  end 
of  our  endeavors  to  get  together  again. 
After  a  voluminous  correspondence 
spreading  over  a  couple  of  months,  the 
only  way  out  that  we  could  see  was 
that  we  should  meet  to  talk  it  over; 
and  as  the  lady  lived  in  Boston  and  I 
inhabited  the  environs  of  New  York, 
and  as  she  claimed  to  have  a  steady 
job  which  she  couldn't  get  away  from, 
the  only  thing  left  was  for  me  to  go  to 
Boston. 

Of  course  the  simple  and  natural 
thing  would  have  been  for  me  to  call 
at  her  home  and  have  the  interview 
there.  But  no,  emphatically  no!  A 
woman  writer  of  romantic  short 
stories  and  poems  could  hardly  be  ex- 
pected to  consent  to  the  obvious  as 
easily  as  that.  I  must  meet  her  some- 
where. 

Then,  of  course,  there  arose  the 
difficulty  of  mutual  recognition.  As 
far  as  she  knew  I  might  be  anything 
from  a  college  boy  to  a  decrepit  dere- 
lict pushed  about  in  a  wheel  chair. 
She  had  told  me  very  little  about  her 
personal  self  in  her  letters ;  but  I  had 
got  the  idea  that  she  was  dark  and 
slender  and  not  uncomely,  and  had 


even  pictured  the  type  of  face  which 
she  would  be  most  likely  to  reveal. 

We  had  to  arrange  some  means  of 
recognition;  and  of  all  the  unlikely 
things  for  a  romantic  young  woman  to 
pick  out,  she  chose  a  scarlet  poppy  as 
our  mutual  badge. 

It  was  a  little  awkward  for  me  to  ar- 
range to  get  away  from  New  York 
without  incriminating  explanations  at 
home;  and  the  more  so  as  the  lady 
who  commands  my  check-book  and 
manages  my  ice-chest  promptly  vol- 
unteered to  accompany  me,  wanting 
(so  she  averred)  to  visit  a  former 
school  friend  living  in  a  Boston 
suburb. 

When  we  got  there  it  turned  out 
that  I  had  to  make  further  explana- 
tions, which  didn't  seem  to  explain 
anything,  in  order  to  get  out  of  ac- 
companying her  to  the  house  of  the 
said  friend,  and  also  to  account  for  my 
decorating  my  buttonhole  with  large 
scarlet  poppies,  previous  to  starting 
out  to  encounter  my  unknown  fate. 

However  incredible  it  may  appear 
to  those  of  my  readers  who  happen 
to  be  married,  the  get-away  solus  was 
finally  achieved.  I  set  out  to  the  ap- 
pointed meeting  place  which  was,  in 
defiance  of  all  the  canons  of  romance, 
the  Concourse  of  the  South  Station. 

A  quarter  before  noon  on  that  Sat- 
urday morning  a  solitary  pedestrian 
might  have  been  observed  (by  any 
reader  of  the  late  G.  P.  R.  James) 
slowly  wending  his  way  past  the 
Dewey  Column  and  into  the  gloomy 
portals  of  the  Station,  wearing,  not 
one,  but  a  bunch  of  scarlet  poppy  in 
his  buttonhole,  and  looking  apprehen- 
sively, as  it  were,  from  side  to  side  as 
he  entered. 

At  the  far  end  of  that  grimy,  hurry- 
infested  space  an  enormously  stout 
woman  with  saucer-like  blue  eyes  and 


COLLABORATION  AND  THAT  SORT  OF  tHING 


25 


draggled  bunches  of  peroxide  blonde 
hair  bulging  over  the  tops  of  large, 
flat,  fleshy  ears,  grunted  as  she  slowly 
heaved  herself  down  from  the  step  of 
a  weighing-machine  which  had  regis- 
tered her  286  pounds,  and  waddled  mas- 
sively toward  the  entrance  of  the  Con- 
course, followed  by  a  meek,  black-clad, 
bowed,  grey-bearded  male  who  trailed 
wearily  behind  in  charge  of  three  pig- 
tailed  female  children  of  assorted  sizes 
in  starched  white  frocks.  Upon  the 
ample  and  swaying  bosom  rested  about 
half  a  hundred-weight  of  scarlet  pop- 
pies. In  her  one  hand  was  a  dis- 
tended string  shopping  bag,  and  in  the 
other  a  mangy,  sore-eyed  caniche, 
shaved  as  to  his  hinder  parts  and 
decorated  with  a  dirty  blue  ribbon. 

She  rolled  in  the  direction  of  the 
Seeker.  He  saw  her — saw  the  poppies 
— saw  the  bowed  house-slave — saw 
the  sticky,  goggle-eyed  children!  He 
stood  petrified  with  horror  for  a  sec- 
ond, then  he  turned  stealthily  to  flee! 
Alas,  too  late!  Protruding  saucer- 
eyes  had  even  at  that  moment  caught 
the  gleam  of  poppies  in  his  button- 
hole. Casting  the  poodle  into  the  arms 
of  her  long-suffering  male  concomitant, 
she  waved  one  fat  red  arm  violently  at 
the  Searcher.  Upon  her  row  of  bulging 


chins  a  vast  smirk  of  welcome  began 
to  spread.  Her  pendent  cheeks  glis- 
tened with  moisture  and  her  gro- 
tesquely flowered  bonnet  took  a  rakish 
angle,  as  she  began  to  hurl  her  flaccid 
bulk  toward  him. 

Throwing  to  the  winds  all  idea  of 
decency  and  the  last  rags  of  manhood, 
the  Searcher  scrambled  blindly  toward 
the  open  air  and  freedom.  But  even 
then  grinning  Fate  drew  from  her 
quiver  and  loosed  toward  him  a  yet 
deadlier  arrow.  In  his  reckless  and 
unseeing  haste  he  crashed  full  tilt 
into  the  arms  of  a  tall  woman  who  was 
just  hurrying  into  the  station  to  catch 
a  suburban  train.  Her  he  would  prob- 
ably have  spumed  under  foot  without 
apology  or  remorse,  but  that  she 
clutched  him  wildly  with  cries  of  ex- 
citement and  surprise. 

Yes — his  wife,  of  course!  As  one 
cannot  publicly  murder  one's  wife  in 
the  entrance  of  the  South  Station, 
Boston,  there  was  just  one  thing  for 
the  Searcher  to  do.    He  did  it. 

Shall  I  draw  a  nice,  dark,  impene- 
trable, close-fitting  veil  over  what  fol- 
lowed? I  shall.  However,  I  may  add 
that  since  that  unforgettable  moment 
I  have  done  no  collaborating  with  un- 
knowns of  the  opposite  sex. 


SEA  SAND 


BY  SARA  TEASDALE 


I 
JuTie  Night 

O  EARTH,  you  are  too  dear  tonisrht, 
How  can  I  sleep,  while  all  around 
Floats  rainy  fragrance  and  the  far 
Deep  voice  of  the  ocean  that  talks  to  the  ground? 

0  Earth,  you  gave  me  all  I  have, 
I  love  you,  I  love  you,  oh  what  have  I 

That  I  can  jrive  you  in  return — 
Except  my  body  after  I  die? 


II 

'7  Thought  of  You" 

1  thought  of  you  and  how  you  love  this  beauty. 
And  walking  up  the  long  beach  all  alone, 

I  heard  the  waves  breaking  in  measured  thunder 
As  you  and  I  once  heard  their  monotone. 

Around  me  were  the  echoing  dunes,  beyond  me 
The  cold  and  sparkling  silver  of  the  sea — 

We  two  will  pass  through  death  and  ages  lengthen 
Before  you  hear  that  sound  again  with  me. 


Ill 
"Ofc  Day  of  Fire  and  Sun" 

Oh  day  of  fire  and  sun, 

Pure  as  a  naked  flame. 
Blue  sea,  blue  sky  and  dun 

Sands  where  he  spoke  my  name; 

26 


BOOKING    TO    ALASKA 


27 


Laufirhter  and  hearts  so  hiffh 
That  the  spirit  flew  off  free. 

Lifting  into  the  sky. 
Diving  into  the  sea; 

Oh  day  of  fire  and  sun 
Like  a  crystal  burning, 

Slow  days  go  one  by  one. 
But  you  have  no  returning. 


IV 
When  Death  la  Over 

If  there  is  any  life  when  death  is  over, 
These  tawny  beaches  will  know  much  of  me, 

I  shall  come  back,  as  constant  and  as  changeful 
As  the  unchanging,  many-colored  sea. 

If  life  was  small,  if  it  has  made  me  scornful. 
Forgive  me;  I  shall  straighten  like  a  flame 

In  the  great  calm  of  death,  and  if  you  want  me 
Stand  on  the  sun-swept  dunes  and  call  my  name. 


BOOKING  TO  ALASKA 


BY  FRANK  V.  MORLEY 


I  DOUBT  if  many  people  appreciate 
the  possibility  of  traveling  by 
means  of  books.  I  do  not  mean  by 
Stanley's  "Africa"  and  a  reading- 
lamp,  nor  yet  by  Baedeker,  whom 
Charles  Lamb  would  not  have  called  a 
book.  Nor  do  I  mean  Greorge  Bor- 
roVs  system  or  its  modem  Pamassus- 
on-Wheels  equivalent,  of  traveling  to 
distribute  books.  Nor  yet  the  hum- 
blest scheme  of  all,  to  sell  compendi- 
ums  bound  in  costly  karatol  to  pay  the 
expenses  of  the  journey. 


Six  sailors,  of  six  different  nation- 
alities, were  once  laid  up  in  a  Val- 
paraiso calaboose  for  the  trifling  in- 
discretion of  showing  too  much  money. 
Finding  their  company  congenial  and 
Chile  uncomfortable,  they  exchanged 
their  money  for  their  liberty  and  set 
out  to  cross  the  continent  to  Buenos 
Aires.  Their  system  was  not  uninter- 
esting. Arriving  at  the  scattered 
hamlets  they  would  discover  how  many 
persons  of  each  nationality  were  liv- 
ing there.    Each  man  then  visited  the 


28 


THE  BOOKMAN 


representative  of  his  own  language. 
Returning,  they  pooled  the  extractions, 
and  invariably  enough  money  was  se- 
duced to  take  them  to  the  next  vil- 
lage. In  eight  months  they  reached 
Buenos  Aires. 

Without  pressing  the  analogy  too 
far,  the  same  system  will  work,  with 
the  substitution  of  books  for  the  di- 
versity of  languages,  and  with  the 
same  high  disregard  of  morals.  Vide- 
licet the  case  of  Miguel  and  myself. 

I  call  him  Miguel  from  a  resem- 
blance to  the  character  in  Snaith's 
"Fortune" ;  also  because  he  is  a  loyal 
son  of  Britain  and  dislikes  the  mis- 
nomer. 

"Miguel",  I  said,  "let's  go  to 
Alaska." 

"Right,  old  chap",  said  he,  "but  we 
haven't  any  money." 

Although  it  was  perfectly  true,  his 
answer  argued  a  lack  of  faith  in  our 
ability.  We  were  tired  of  San  Fran- 
cisco. In  a  month  we  had  to  be  back 
east  in  college;  there  was  not  time  to 
visit  China,  therefore  Alaska  was  the 
logical  place  to  go.  And  to  this  logic 
Miguel  succumbed. 

We  went  down  to  the  Embarcadero 
to  hunt  for  a  ship  going  north.  For- 
tune favored,  and  we  found  a  dirty, 
blunt-nosed  cargo  tub  outbound  upon 
the  morrow  for  Seattle.  The  captain, 
a  ruddy  Swede,  listened  to  reason  and 
took  pity  on  our  plea.  We  were  al- 
lowed to  sail  on  her  as  workaways. 

The  next  step  was  a  trip  to  Holmes's 
bookshop.  Miguel  was  for  the  mod- 
ems, and  I  had  to  remonstrate. 

"Not  that  I  care  at  all  about  the  ex- 
orbitant prices  of  new  books ;  but  our 
object  is  to  read  what  everybody  has 
and  we  haven't,  and  to  fill  our  school 
hiatuses.  We  can  read  'Java  Head' 
and  Miss  Daisy  Ashford  when  we  get 
back  to  civilized  society  and  have  to 
talk  pink  tea.    Moreover,  a  good  book 


has  to  fit  the  pocket.  There  are  no 
books  like  small  books,  Miguel." 

To  his  credit,  Miguel  sees  reason. 
We  therefore  picked  out  pocket  edi- 
tions of  Marcus  Aurelius,  "The  For- 
tunes of  Nigel",  and  Macaulay  on 
Hastings. 

At  an  Embarcadero  pawnshop  we 
bought  some  "work-pants"  (for  four 
bits)  whose  flavor  was  sufiicient  to 
bear  out  our  tale  of  having  been  to  sea 
before.  Then  we  proceeded  to  embark. 

"My  dear  Miguel",  I  said,  "the  es- 
timable Charlie  Chaplin  playing  in 
'Shanghaied'  will  have  nothing  on  us." 

He  grunted,  for  he  fails  to  see  the 
artistry  of  the  little  man.  But  I  was 
right. 

Our  ship  was  called  the  "Apache", 
and  she  lived  up  to  her  worst  Parisian 
precedent.  She  carried  dynamite  be- 
tween decks,  and  oil  above  in  barrels. 
She  turned  out  to  be  blind  and  halt 
and  lame.  She  stank  abominably  and 
rolled  worse.  She  was  the  epitome 
of  vice  and  the  absence  of  all  virtue. 
Moreover,  I  was  seasick. 

We  were  nominally  workaways,  but 
we  worked  only  four  or  five  hours  a 
day;  washing  paint,  scrubbing  the 
galley,  cleaning  up  the  cabins.  The 
rest  of  the  time  was  ours  to  spend  on 
books  or  with  the  crew,  just  as  we 
pleased.  We  alternated  the  two  pleas- 
ures. 

It  was  a  quaint  sight  to  see  Miguel 
— he  is  only  nineteen,  I  a  year  older — 
flat  on  his  back  digesting  Antoninus. 
Despite  the  praise  of  the  commenta- 
tors, I  fail  to  think  the  Roman  easy 
for  after-dinner  reading.  On  Miguel 
the  effect  was  soporific — ^five  pages  al- 
ways provoked  a  snore.  And  my  case 
was  little  better,  though  an  interest  in 
Cecil  Rhodes  acted  as  a  spur. 

So  it  was  only  natural  that  our  chief 
interest  was  in  the  crew.  The 
Apache"  is  an  American  ship,  but  I 


« 


BOOKING    TO    ALASKA 


29 


found  myself  the  only  American 
aboard.  The  captain  was  a  Swede,  the 
cook  a  Norwegian,  the  mates  a  Finn 
and  Russian  respectively.  The  crew 
was  divided  into  Finns  and  Germans, 
Swedes  and  Danes.  The  cook's  helper 
was  a  Hawaiian  boy.  The  talk  was 
motley  and  hard  to  understand,  but 
full  of  incident.  The  leaders  in  it  were 
a  red-haired  Finn  and  an  enormous 
donkey-man  of  doubtful  nationality, 
and  the  yams  spun  in  competition 
were  the  finest  one  could  hear.  The 
more  the  pity  that  they  cannot  be  told 
to  squeamish  readers  of  the  present 
century. 

One  morning  as  we  came  up  from 
mess  a  Swedish  sailor,  hitherto  rather 
quiet  and  untalkative,  noticed  Aurelius 
on  my  hip  and  asked  to  look  at  it. 
Unlike  the  others,  who  when  they  saw 
us  reading  invariably  asked  two  ques- 
tions,— 1.  Is  that  the  Bible?  2.  Is 
that  a  detective  story? — this  man  re- 
marked that  it  would  be  better  to  read 
the  "Meditations"  in  the  original.  I 
agreed,  and  we  talked  awhile  on  sug- 
gested topics.  He  spoke  of  writers  of 
the  sea,  and  what  rot  they  most  of 
them  were.  Jack  London  in  particular, 
for  whom  he  had  a  pet  aversion.  Ste- 
venson failed  to  stir  him,  he  said, 
though  he  had  read  with  expectations. 
He  had  not  tried  Conrad,  nor,  I  ven- 
ture, would  he  like  to.  It  is  remark- 
able that  one  seaman  should  write.  It 
is  remarkable  that  another  seaman 
shpuld  read.  But  it  would  be  much 
more  than  doubly  remarkable  that  the 
one  should  read  and  like  what  the 
other  had  written.  With  regard  to 
sailors  CutclifTe  Hyne  is  right,  that 
they  are  much  more  interested  in  what 
they  know  nothing  about,  than  in  tales 
of  the  sea  in  which  they  are  expert. 
And  nemo  prapheta,  etc. 

But  this  A.B.'s  tastes  were  scientific 
rather  than  literary.    I  was  frankly 


astonished  at  his  knowledge,  since  he 
admitted  having  gone  to  sea  in  his 
early  'teens.  Chemistry  was  his 
hobby,  though  he  put  in  a  plea  for 
mathematics  which  warmed  my  heart. 
Think  of  going  before  the  mast  for 
commendation  of  pure  research !  And 
finally  he  knocked  our  education.  "The 
youngsters  play  too  much  football,"  he 
reiterated.  I  quailed  and  did  not  even 
have  the  courage  to  recall  how  Sir 
William  Ramsay  turned  to  chemistry 
as  a  result  of  a  leg  broken  in  the  out- 
door sport. 

A  word  should  also  be  devoted  to  the 
Hawaiian  boy.  He  was  a  handsome 
fellow,  tall  and  naturally  slim,  though 
as  cook's  helper  he  had  developed  a 
considerable  embonpoint,  for  which  his 
name  was  more  descriptive  and  less 
elegant.  He  was  distinguished  by 
wearing  bright  blue  underwear  and 
by  an  incurable  curiosity.  He  was 
never  tired  of  interrupting  us  with 
innumerable  questions.  He  had  no 
name  that  we  could  discover,  but  we 
called  him  "Swipe",  after  the  famous 
Hawaiian  knockout  drink,  and  every 
time  we  used  it  his  teeth  would  fiash 
with  an  inimitable  smile.  Unlike  most 
sailors,  he  had  not  lost  at  sea  his  na- 
tive gift  of  good  teeth.  He  was  proud 
of  them,  and  brushed  them  twice  a 
day. 

But  until  we  met  Swipe  it  was  hard 
to  realize  the  advantages  which  educa- 
tion gave  as  a  potential  for  enjoyment. 
Whereas  in  idle  moments  we  were  en- 
tirely happy  with  a  book  or  pencil, 
at  such  times  he  was  reduced  to  rest- 
lessness. So  with  his  travels,  which 
had  been  extensive.  All  that  he  had 
derived  from  them  was — nothing; 
summed  up  in  his  own  words,  "all  over 
looks  the  same  to  me."  Truly  it  is  a 
sound  quotation,  though  I  forget  the 
words,  which  they  have  carved  on  the 
terminal    at    Washington,    that    the 


30 


THE  BOOBMAN 


benefits  of  travel  are  proportional  to 
how  much  one  carries  with  him. 

The  ''Apache"  towed  a  schooner  up 
the  coast,  and  what  with  fog  and  heavy 
weather  it  was  five  days  before  we 
rounded  Tatoosh  Island  and  were  in 
the  sound.  Then  a  slight  explosion — 
"a  terrific  sternutation  of  the  boiler'^ 
Miguel  quaintly  described  it — ^held  us 
back  another  day  and  provided  plenty 
of  excitement  in  consideration  of  our 
cargo.  But  finally  we  landed  in  Se- 
attle in  the  evening,  and  looked  for  a 
job  to  take  us  farther  north.  This  is 
where  the  potency  of  books  first  comes 
into  the  tale. 

"Sweet  Migud",  I  said,  ''we  are  in 
need  of  wherewithal  to  spend  the 
night.  Your  smiling  build  and  fair 
hair  commend  you  as  an  usher  at  a 
playhouse.  While  you  ush  I  shall  go 
down  to  the  dock  and  meet  the  'North- 
eastern' coming  in  tonight.  She  sails 
tomorrow  for  Alaska,  and  may  be  in 
need  of  men." 

So  while  Miguel  was  earning  board 
and  keep  I  wandered  down  to  the 
Alaska  dock.  Unfortunately  there  was 
an  arrogant  inspector  at  the  gate  who 
refused  to  let  the  crowd  through  to 
meet  the  steamer.  But  noticing  a 
venerable  white-haired  gentleman  edg- 
ing his  way  to  the  front,  I  followed 
him.  He  wore  an  air  of  authority  to 
which  the  guard  succumbed,  and  fol- 
lowing as  if  an  obvious  connection 
whose  thoughts  on  no  account  might 
be  disturbed,  I  passed  in  the  shadow 
of  celebrity.  We  were  alone  upon  the 
dock,  the  crowd  without.  Seeking  to 
safeguard  my  position,  I  started  con- 
versation. He  asked  my  name.  In- 
formed, he  spoke  of  meeting  John 
Morley  many  years  ago  at  Bonn.  He 
had  "seen  SheUey  plain"  on  several  oc- 
casions; John  Bigelow  had  visited 
him,   he   had   known   Smerson    and 


Whitman.  Age  and  youth  spent  a 
very  pleasant  half -hour  together.  My 
thanks  to  you,  Mr.  Davies,  bookman 
of  Seattle ! 

And  even  physical  were  the  ad- 
vantages obtained.  For  when  the 
wharf  agent  threatened  my  expulsion 
from  the  premises,  the  old  gentleman 
was  generous  in  my  protection.  Score 
one  to  the  benefits  of  books ! 

But  I  was  less  successful  on  the 
"Northeastern",  and  returned  to  pick 
up  Miguel.  I  had  no  money,  and  his 
show  was  not  yet  half  way  through.  I 
am  ashamed  to  say  I  entered  the  the- 
atre by  the  trick  immortalized  in 
"Handy  Andy",  of  simply  walking 
backward  through  the  door  during  an 
intermission  while  the  crowd  was 
passing  out.  The  faithful  Miguel  then 
led  me  to  the  best  seat  in  the  house. 

When  the  show  was  over  we  spent 
the  night  in  comfort  on  his  handsome 
earnings.  I  told  him  that  there  was  no 
chance  from  Seattle  to  Alaska,  direct. 
We  therefore  shipped  as  porters  on 
the  steamer  for  Vancouver. 

I  shall  not  detail  our  adventures  in 
Vancouver,  nor  how  we  eluded  the  po- 
lice (having  illegally  crossed  the  bor- 
der) and  shipped  on  the  "Queen  Alice" 
for  Skagway.  Sufficient  that  on  the 
second  day,  having  smoothed  the  stew- 
ard's palm,  we  managed  to  get  jobs  as 
dishwashers  in  the  pantry. 

Before  the  "Queen"  left  Vancou- 
ver we  went  up  town  to  that  splen- 
did bookstore — HoUiday's — and  fairly 
reveled  in  the  small  editions  so  cheap 
and  common  to  British  shops,  so  inac- 
cessible to  ours.  Having  stocked  up 
with  a  formidable  list, — 

1.  Shanghaied Norrit 

2.  The  Lady  of  the  Barge W.  W.  Jacobs 

8.  Life  of  Nelson   Sonthey 

4.  Charles  XII Voltaire 

5.  Plays Marlowe 

6.  The  Vicar  of  Walcefield Goldsmith 

7.  Notre  Dfupe    Hugo, — 


BOOKING    TO    ALASKA 


81 


and  a  little  volume  of  selections  from 
George  Eliot»  we  went  aboard.  We 
were  determined  that  no  amount  of 
dishes  would  wash  all  pleasure  from 
our  trip.  But  oh!  it  was  a  wrench  to 
leave  unbought  the  tempting  shelves 
of  Stacpoole  and  Anthony  Hope ! 

We  were  bunking  in  the  steerage, 
and  consequently  made  friends  with 
the  steerage  steward.  He  took  an 
interest  in  Jacobs,  which  we  lent  him. 
In  return  he  insisted  on  our  reading 
that  remarkable  book,  "Maria  Monk". 
He  was  only  too  glad  to  lend  us  "jump- 
ers" in  which  to  work,  and  to  give  us 
the  freedom  of  the  storeroom  and  its 
quantities  of  fruit — in  short,  to  make 
us  comfortable  in  every  way.  Score 
two  to  books  as  an  amenity  to  travel- 
ing! 

Our  work  in  the  pantry  was  neither 
difficult  nor  uninteresting.  We  were 
working  in  close  contact  with  Chinese, 
not  our  first  experience  of  the  kind 
with  that  curiously  incurious  race, 
who  are  yet  very  careful  to  size  you 
up  before  unbending  at  all.  But  we 
passed  muster  with  them,  jabbered 
nonsense  galore,  and  found  them  a 
happy  lot  of  boys,  superior  to  any  of 
that  nation  we  had  seen  before. 

At  meal  times  we  were  very  busy, 
otherwise  quite  free.  Hence  in  be- 
tween we  dianged — ^we  "dressed"  as 
Miguel  insisted, — ^and  mingled  with 
the  passengers.  The  smokeroom  was 
our  habitat,  in  spite  of  the  intrusion 
there  of  women;  and  we  had  not  fre- 
quented it  long  before  Mr.  O'Connor, 
of  San  Francisco,  came  over  to  us. 
He  had,  he  said,  noticed  that  we  were 
reading,  and  it  induced  him  to  speak. 
He  laid  down  his  own  book  on  the 
table.  It  was  "The  Bible  in  Spain", 
and  we  commented  on  it  as  an  old 
friend.  Hearing  us  speak  of  Borrow, 
a  small  and  pleasant-faced  English- 


man left  his  "Atlantic  Monthly"  and 
came  to  join  us.  The  conversation 
shifted  to  other  literary  subjects,  Mr. 
O'Connor  leading  the  way,  ourselves 
merely  listening  and  putting  a  few 
questions.  We  quite  forgot  the  noisy 
feminine  chatter  from  the  next  table, 
and  our  pleasure  only  stopped  when 
lack  of  sleep  prevailed  on  us  to  go  be- 
low. 

But  this  acquaintanceship  that 
sprang  up  through  books  turned  out 
later  to  be  useful  as  well  as  pleasant, 
though  I  blush  to  own  the  way  we 
used  it.  During  the  trip  into  the 
Yukon  and  back  again  we  had  con- 
tinued learning  about  Francis  Thomp- 
son and  Richard  Harding  Davis,  of 
Charles  James  Fox  and  Hugh  Wal- 
pole.  For  the  two  gentlemen  were 
versatile  and  knew  their  Hugh  as  well 
as  Horace.  Yet  in  the  realm  of  gossip 
I  think  we  held  our  own,  with  anec- 
dotes of  doubtful  authenticity  of 
Seeger,  of  Mr.  Massingham  in  Cam- 
den, or  of  Vachel  Lindsay. 

I  repeat  that  this  acquaintanceship 
was  useful,  when  we  were  back  in  Se- 
attle and  could  not  get  passage  down 
to  San  Francisco.  Only  one  boat  was 
leaving  for  the  south  and  it  was  im- 
perative that  we  should  sail  on  her; 
yet  everjrthing  was  sold — Mr.  O'Con- 
nor himself  had  bought  the  last  avail- 
able ticket — and  there  was  no  possi- 
bility of  working  the  passage.  We 
therefore  wandered  over  to  the  New 
Washington  Hotel,  where  Mr.  O'Con- 
nor was  staying,  and  happened  to  meet 
him  in  the  lobby. 

The  situation  was,  however,  a  little 
complicated.  During  our  passage  to 
and  from  Alaska,  in  the  company  of 
these  gentlemen  we  had  posed  as  pas- 
sengers— tourists,  gentlemen  of  leis- 
ure, anything  at  all  but  dishwashers. 
Yet  an  unfortunate  incident  occurred. 


82 


THE  BOOKMAN 


It  was  the  last  day  of  the  trip,  when 
we  had  become  so  expert  as  to  work  in 
shifts.  Miguel  was  off  and  play  incr  cards 
aloft,  I  toilinfiT  in  the  depths  below. 
An  accident  occurred,  and  we  had  to 
send  the  bell-boy  for  Miguel's  assist- 
ance. The  boy,  running  to  the  smoke- 
room  door,  spied  Miguel  playing  in 
the  comer,  and  called  across  the  room 
to  him,  "Hey,  you've  got  to  come  down 
and  wash  dishes."  Perforce  he  came, 
but  Mr.  O'Connor  raised  an  astonished 
eyebrow. 

So  as  we  went  to  the  New  Washing- 
ton in  Seattle,  we  had  of  necessity  to 
frame  an  explanation.  To  Miguel  be- 
longs the  credit  for  the  unveracity. 
We  told  the  generous  Mr.  O'Connor 
that  on  a  bet  we  were  working  our 
passage  to  the  north;  that  by  its 
terms  we  had  to  be  in  San  Francisco 
in  four  days,  and  that  unless  we  could 
sail  upon  that  ship  we  were  lost. 
Miguel's  ready  tongue  weaved  the 
spell  of  mendacity,  and  the  appeal  to 
sporting  nature  met  with  instant  and 
undeserved  success.  The  scheme  was 
to  get  into  porters'  uniforms,  to  cross 


the  gang-plank  in  that  guise  carrying 
Mr.  O'Connor's  luggage,  and  to  stow 
away  in  his  cabin  until  the  ship  sailed, 
at  midnight. 

By  devious  means  we  were  appar- 
eled by  ten  o'clock,  met  Mr.  O'Connor, 
and  went  on  board.  Once  in  the  cabin 
all  was  safe,  with  the  door  locked.  Al- 
though some  fears  were  natural,  two 
hours  was  a  long  time  to  wait,  and 
when  Mr.  O'Connor  came  at  twelve- 
thirty  to  say  the  ship  was  under  way, 
he  found  us,  like  a  pair  of  FalstafT s  in 
the  arras,  fast  asleep. 

The  remainder  of  that  night  we 
spent  in  the  smokeroom,  and  in  the 
morning  interviewed  the  angry  but 
impotent  purser. 

Although  our  Alaskan  trip  was  hard 
on  our  veracity  and  even  of  doubtful 
value  to  our  morals  in  general,  yet 
Miguel  and  I  congratulate  ourselves 
upon  it.  And  certainly  what  made  it 
possible,  not  to  say  pleasant,  was 
the  introduction  to  acquaintanceships 
through  books.  It  was,  in  truth,  book- 
ing to  Alaska. 


AN  UN-VICTORIAN  VICTORIAN 


BY  HENRY  A.  LAPPIN 


SAMUEL  BUTLER  was  born  in 
1836  and  died  eighteen  years  ago. 
His  childhood  was  spent  in  his  fa- 
ther's Anglican  parsonage  in  Notting- 
hamshire and  he  had  for  grandfather 
the  famous  schoolmaster-bishop,  But- 
ler of  Shrewsbury.  Samuel  had  to 
wait  several  months  for  baptism  in 
consequence  of  his  grandpapa's  eleva- 
tion to  the  episcopal  bench,  for  it  was 
not  to  be  thought  of  that  any  lesser 
ecclesiastical  dignitary  should  per- 
form this  initial  rite  for  the  boy.  So 
not  until  the  hurly-burly  of  Dr.  But- 
ler's consecration  and  farewells  and 
greetings  was  done  did  his  Lordship 
of  Lichfield  make  a  Christian  out  of 
Samuel.  His  biographer  records  But- 
ler's sardonic  remark  that  this  post- 
ponement was  a  very  risky  business 
''because  during  all  these  months  the 
devil  had  the  run  of  him".  There 
was  a  christening  dinner  that  must 
have  been  a  colossal  affair.  Butler 
the  bishop  was  something  of  an  epi- 
cure. Into  England  he  had  brought 
water  from  the  Rhone,  the  Rhine,  the 
Danube,  and  the  Po  to  make  "Punch 
aux  quatre  fleuves" ;  he  also  possessed 
a  bottle  of  Jordan  river  water  which 
he  was  wont  to  use  for  less  ungodly 
purposes, — ^the  baptism  of  Samuel, 
for  instance.  A  special  turbot  was 
cooked  in  the  parsonage  kitchen,  and 
at  the  opportune  time,  the  fish  was 
placed  before  the  guests.  When  the 
cover  was  removed  and  the  bishop 


saw  what  had  happened  to  the  turbot, 
he  turned  to  his  hostess  and  ex- 
claimed, "Good  God,  Fanny  I  ifs 
skinned!"  Family  pride,  as  Herbert 
Paul  once  sagely  observed,  cannot  be 
justified  by  reason,  and  the  habitual 
display  of  it  is  an  intolerable  nuisance. 
But  surely  here  was  an  ancestor  to 
brag  about! 

Butler  was  never  tempted  to  in- 
dulge in  what  Gibbon  morosely  calls 
"the  trite  and  lavish  praise  of  the 
happiness  of  our  boyish  years",  and 
indeed  his  early  days  were  not  con- 
spicuously joyful.  It  is  impossible  to 
speak  in  kind  terms  of  his  father, 
who  was  the  most  unpleasant  of  men 
and  clergsrmen.  Ernest  Pontifex's 
childhood  in  "The  Way  of  all  Flesh" 
is  a  faithful  enough  memory  of  the 
author's, — "Theobald  and  Christina 
being  portraits  of  his  own  father  and 
mother  as  accurate  as  he  could  make 
them,  with  no  softening  and  no  ex- 
aggeration." Butler  pdre  was,  first 
and  last,  the  family  bully.  The  whole 
art  of  being  a  father  was  ^or  him 
summed  up  in  this  sweet  prescription 
from  a  brochure  for  parents :  "Break 
your  child's  will  early  or  he  will  break 
yours  later."  Besides  being  narrow, 
ignorant,  and  tyrannical,  the  Reverend 
Thomas  was  subject  to  frequent  fits  of 
passionate  anger,  and  when  the  mood 
was  on  him  he  took  it  out  of  his 
wretched  offspring.  Samuel  knew 
how  it  felt  to  be  flogged  by  a  savagely 


98 


84 


THE  BOOKMAN 


irritated  man,  and  he  had  perforce 
learned  to  read  and  write  by  the  time 
he  was  three;  ''before  he  was  four  he 
was  learning  Latin  and  could  do  rule 
of  three  sums."  When  he  was 
thirteen  he  passed  to  Shrewsbury 
school  and  under  the  ferule  of  a  fa- 
mous teacher  of  the  classics,  Benjamin 
Hall  Kennedy, — ^the  only  man  who 
ever  succeeded  in  composing  a  Latin 
epigram  of  twelve  lines  during  the 
hours  of  sleep.  Butler,  one  cannot 
help  thinking,  was  in  after  years 
hardly  fair  to  Kennedy  who  does  not 
emerge  at  all  agreeably  from  "The 
Way  of  all  Flesh",  or  from  its  author's 
reminiscences  of  his  school  days  as  set 
forth  by  Festing  Jones  in  the  biog- 
raphy under  review.  Butler  very  bit- 
terly calls  Kennedy  an  old  fool  and 
speaks,  absurdly,  of  his  silliness  and 
laziness.  Others  have  testified  far 
differently,  recording  Kennedy's  deep 
love  of  ancient  literature  which  "ani- 
mated and  stirred  and  quickened  every 
pulse  of  his  energetic  nature",  and 
paying  tribute  to  his  contagious  en- 
thusiasm and  to  the  fire  of  his  zeal 
which  communicated  itself  to  every- 
thing that  came  within  its  way.  The 
truth  is  that  Kennedy  was  much  more 
than  a  grammarian, — ^though  he  was 
a  good  granunarian, — ^he  wrote  accu- 
rate and  vigorous  translations  of,  and 
commentaries  upon,  Sophocles  and 
Aristophanes,  and  he  composed  ex- 
quisite Latin  and  Greek  verses ;  he  was 
also  the  most  industrious  of  scholars 
and  a  most  kindly  man.  Jebb,  in  his 
perfect  Greek  inscription  on  the  mar- 
ble bust  of  Kennedy  in  St.  John's,  is 
nearer  the  truth  than  is  Butler  who 
was  temperamentally  unable  to  ap- 
preciate the  very  real  fineness  of  his 
old  headmaster.  To  these  days  dates 
Butler's  love  of  music,  in  particular 
the  music  of  Handel,  of  which  he  was 


in  after  years  to  become  so  expert  an 
interpreter. 

From  Shrewsbury  he  went  to  St. 
John's  College,  Cambridge,  where  he 
sat  under  John  E.  B.  Mayor  whom,  in 
a  letter  to  his  father  written  shortly 
after  his  arrival  in  Cambridge,  he 
describes  without  further  qualifica- 
tion as  "a  brute",  though  it  is  fair  to 
add  that  in  a  later  letter  he  speaks  in 
terms  of  praise  of  one  of  Mayor's  lec- 
tures. It  is  nevertheless  strange  that 
Mayor,  who  was  one  of  the  most  lov- 
able if  most  rugged  of  men,  should 
have  at  first  impressed  so  unfavorably 
our  outspoken  undergraduate.  Much 
as  Butler  disliked  Kennedy,  the  train- 
ing that  eminent  scholar  gave  stood 
him  in  such  good  stead  at  the  univer- 
sity that,  though  during  the  first  two 
years  he  read  for  mathematical  hon- 
ors, when  he  turned  aside  to  work  at 
his  classics  he  had  no  difiiculty  in  se- 
curing a  first-class  in  the  tripos.  The 
beauty  of  the  ancient  buildings  must 
have  powerfully  affected  his  imagina- 
tion at  this  time.  In  an  article  con- 
tributed to  the  college  magazine  there 
occurs  a  passage  which  evokes  the 
spirit  of  Cambridge  in  summer  term 
as  exquisitely  as  anything  in  Fitz- 
gerald's "Euphranor" : 

From  my  window  in  the  cool  of  the  summer 
twilight  I  look  on  the  nmbraflreoas  chestnuts 
that  droop  into  the  river ;  Trinity  library  rears 
its  stately  proportions  on  the  left— -opposite  is 
the  bridge— OTer  that,  on  the  right,  the  thick 
dark  foliage  is  blackening  almost  Into  sombre- 
nees  as  the  night  draws  on.  Immediately  be- 
neath are  the  arched  cloisters  resounding  with 
the  solitary  footfall  of  medltatlTe  student,  and 
suggesting  grateful  retirement.  I  say  to  my- 
self, then,  as  I  sit  in  my  open  window,  that  for 
a  continuance  I  would  rather  have  this  than 
any  scene  I  hare  visited  during  the  whole  of 
our  most  enjoyed  tour — and  fetch  down  a 
Thncydides,  for  I  must  go  to  Shllleto  at  nine 
o'clock  tomorrow. 

After  graduation  Butler  went  down 
to  the  work  of  lay  assistant  in  St. 
James's  parish,  Piccadilly.    If  the  so- 


AN  UN-VICTORIAN  VICTORIAN 


85 


hitioii  he  offered  to  a  troabled  qaes- 
tioner  at  the  church  night-echool  be 
typical  of  his  handling  of  such  difBcul- 
ties,  his  theology  was  certainly  more 
ingenious  than  sound,  but  the  discus- 
sion of  rdigion  and  theology  was 
never  one  of  his  strong  points.  Mr. 
Jones  relates  how  Butler  was  shocked 
to  discover  that  many  of  his  pupils 
here  had  not  received  baptism,  and 
worse  still,  that  the  unbaptized  were 
not  notably  less  upright  than  those 
who  had  been  submitted  to  the  cere- 
mony. His  faith  in  the  eflBcacy  of  in- 
fant baptism  was  thus  sadly  shaken. 
His  life  in  London  at  this  time  differs 
in  important  details  from  that  which 
Ernest  Pontifex  lived  in  Ashpit 
Place:  he  lost  neither  his  money  nor 
his  liberty.  Eventually  he  refused 
ordination  and  returned  to  seek  pupils 
at  Cambridge,  thereby  precipitating  a 
quarrel  with  his  unpacific  parent 
which  ended  in  a  proposal  from  Butler 
junior  that  he  should  emigrate.  This 
after  some  delay  he  did,  betaking  him- 
self to  New  Zealand  and  sheep-farm- 
ing. His  richly  varied  experiences  in 
those  remote  regions  of  the  earth  oc- 
cupy some  forty  of  the  most  interest- 
ing pages  of  Mr.  Jones's  two-volume 
work.  As  a  sheep-farmer  he  was  so 
successful  as  to  accumulate  a  consid- 
erable sum  of  money  in  a  compara- 
tively short  time, — ^money  was  rapidly 
made  in  those  pioneer  days, — and  after 
four  years  returned  to  London  which, 
except  for  occasional  trips  to  the  Alps 
and  Sicily  and  one  long  business  trip 
to  Canada,  he  never  afterward  left. 
The  history  of  his  life  in  London  for 
the  remaining  thirty-seven  years  of 
his  existence  is  in  the  main  the  his- 
tory of  his  books. 

Although  at  no  time  in  his  life  did 
Samuel  Butler  ever  stand  in  the  re- 
motest   danger    of    being    gazetted 


"Emin^it  Victorian**, — ^to  use  the 
term  in  the  clever  Mr.  Strach^*s 
somewhat  invidious  sense, — he  has  as 
sound  a  title  to  biographical  commem- 
oration as  the  best  of  them  and  a 
much  sounder  title  than  most  of  them. 
''The  man*s  life  and  character** — Dr. 
William  Barry  once  wrote — **had  he 
composed  not  a  line,  would  have  de- 
served a  biography.**  Here  at  last, 
wrought  by  the  pious  and  unwear3ring 
hands  of  his  devoted  friend  and  ad- 
mirer, H^iry  Festing  Jones, — a  ver- 
itable Boswcdl  de  noa  jaura, — is  a  bio- 
graphical record,  intimate,  meticulous, 
and  exhaustive,  which  not  merely 
makes  us  ''see  Butler  plain**  and  in 
his  habit  as  he  lived,  but  provides  us 
generously  with  data  upon  which  to 
base  something  like  a  verdict — ^for 
this  generation  at  any  rate — upon  the 
man  and  his  place  in  the  history  of 
English  letters  and  thought 

That  Butler  rightfully  has  such  a 
place  is  no  longer  seriously  disputed. 
During  the  greater  part  of  his  literary 
life  he  was  regarded  as  hardly  more 
than  an  interesting  oddity  by  his  fel- 
low writers  and  by  the  general  public. 
One  reason  for  this  ¥ras  that  he  turned 
his  hand  to  such  a  diversity  of  tasks. 
"Erewhon",  the  first  book  he  pub- 
lished, was  a  Utopia.  A  year  later 
there  came  pseudonymously  from  his 
pen  a  book  sub-entitled :  "A  Work  in 
Defense  of  the  miraculous  element  in 
Our  Lord's  Ministry  upon  Earth,  both 
as  against  Rationalistic  Impugners 
and  certain  Orthodox  Defenders.'* 
This  he  followed  up,  successively,  with 
an  essay  on  Evolution  which  he  called 
"Life  and  Habit" ;  a  book  comparing 
the  theories  of  Buffon,  Erasmus  Dar- 
win, and  Lamarck  with  those  of 
Charles  Darwin;  a  work  on  Uncon- 
scious Memory;  a  travel  book  on  the 
Alps  and  Sanctuaries  of  the  Pied- 


86 


THE  BOOKMAN 


mont;  a  collection — done  in  collabora- 
tion with  his  future  biographer — of 
''Gavottes,  Minuets,  Fugues,  and  other 
short  pieces  for  the  Piano" ;  "Luck  or 
Gunning",  a  study  of  Gharles  Dar- 
win's theory  of  natural  selection;  a 
first-rate  biography  of  his  episcopal 
grandfather;  a  treatise  on  the  au- 
thorship of  the  "Odyssey",  which  cut 
violently  athwart  the  accepted  the- 
ories of  professional  scholars;  prose 
versions  of  the  "Diad"  and  the  "Odys- 
sey"; and,  posthumously,  his  great 
novel  "The  Way  of  all  Flesh".  Nor 
does  this  exhaust  the  list  of  his  pub- 
lications. Since,  however,  nothing 
nowadays  damns  a  writer  so  much  as 
versatility — ^the  refusal  "to  stay  put" 
— it  is  not  at  all  to  be  wondered  at 
that  readers,  professional  and  1^, 
should  long  have  viewed  Butler  with 
vague  perplexity  if  not  with  down- 
right distrust.  Most  of  them  were 
content  to  affirm  him  a  crank,  and 
turn  to  the  work  of  writers  who  did 
not  so  obstinately  and  exuberantly 
blur  the  pigeonholes. 

That  Butler  was  a  crank  is  assur- 
edly not  the  whole  truth,  but  neither 
is  it  wholly  untrue.  Fluttering  dove- 
cotes was  the  breath  of  life  to  him; 
he  loved  a  controversy,  and  was  in  a 
perpetual  simmer  of  revolt  against 
the  conventions  of  morality,  art,  and 
scholarship  of  his  later-Victorian  day. 
For  example,  he  had  read  only  two 
poets,  Homer  and  Shakespeare;  and 
somewhat  late  in  life  the  issue  of  his 
resolve  to  set  the  world  right  upon 
certain  fundamental  questions  con- 
cerning both  was  one  book  in  which 
he  sought  to  demonstrate  that  the 
"Odyssey"  was  written  by  a  woman; 
and  another  book  in  which,  entirely  un- 
biased by  the  results  hitherto  obtained 
by  his  predecessors,  he  accomplished 
a  reconsideration  and  rearrangement 


of  those  dark  and  beautiful  enig- 
mas, the  sonnets  of  Shakespeare, 
which,  if  it  had  no  other  merit,  had  at 
least  the  doubtful  one  of  novelty.  It 
is  highly  probable  that  posterity  will 
refrain  from  paying  undue  attention 
to  these  later  labors  of  his.  His  work 
on  the  sonnets  is  likely  enough  to  re- 
lapse into  the  decent  obscurity  of  a 
bibliographic  reference;  and  the 
Leafs  and  Murrays  of  a  hundred  years 
hence  will  scarcely  venture  to  traverse 
Jebb's  judgment  that  Homer  signally 
failed  to  abide  Butler's  question.  The 
foundations  of  this  writer's  fame 
must  be  sought  elsewhere  in  his 
works. 

But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  present 
as  evidence  of  Butler's  genius  the 
pamphlet  he  wrote  in  1865  not  long 
after  his  return  from  Australasian 
exile:  "The  Evidence  for  the  Resur- 
rection of  Jesus  Christ  as  given  by  the 
four  evangelists,  critically  examined". 
Herein  he  comes  "to  the  conclusion 
that  Christ  did  not  die  upon  the  Gross 
but  that  he  swooned  and  recovered 
consciousness  after  his  body  had 
passed  into  the  keeping  of  Joseph  of 
Arimathea."  Than  the  regretful 
avowal  of  Butler's  biographer  that 
"the  Resurrection  cannot  yet  be  in- 
cluded in  any  category  of  dead 
horses",  nothing  could  be  more  amus- 
ing unless  it  be  his  melancholy  assev- 
eration (apropos  of  the  Bishop  of 
Winchester's  censure  of  Reverend  J. 
M.  Thompson's  "Miracles  in  the  New 
Testament")  that  "the  Church  in 
1911,  was  still  requiring  its  officers  to 
teach  that  which  Butler  had  found 
himself  unable  to  accept."  (Italics 
are  the  reviewer's.)  Butler  frankly 
knew  far  too  little  about  Christian 
apologetics  and  the  principles  of  evi- 
dence to  discuss  profitably  the  evi- 
dence of  the  Resurrection ;  indeed  all 


AN  UN-VICTORIAN  VICTORIAN 


ST 


his  referaices  to  Cairistianity  are 
marred*  ^ere  thej  are  not  totally  in- 
validated, by  his  prejadicea  and  way- 
wardness. He  was  no  more  fitted  to 
discuss  the  basis  of  CSiristianity  than 
he  was  to  write  a  book  on  the  care  and 
feeding  of  babies.  Where  orthodox 
claims  were  involved  he  seemed  to  lose 
all  sense  of  fairness  in  weighing  wit- 
ness. As  Philip  LitteU  has  acutely 
observed:  ''He  has  the  keenest  nose 
for  evidence  that  strengthens  his  case, 
and  in  the  presence  of  any  other  kind 
of  evidence  he  loses  his  sense  of 
smeU."  In  his  chronicling  of  Butler's 
onslan^ts  on  orthodoxy,  the  naXveti 
of  Mr.  Jones  is  immense  and  touching. 

Of  much  greater  value  and  signifi- 
cance is  Butler's  achievement  as  a 
philosophical  biologist  In  this  field 
his  four  fuU-l^igth  worics  are  'Tiife 
and  Habit",  "Evolution  Old  and  NeV, 
''Unconscious  Memorsr",  and  "Luck  or 
Gunning''.  "One  object  of  Life  and 
Habit"— BuUer  himself  noted— "was 
to  place  the  distrust  of  science  upon  a 
scientific  basis."  It  is  impossible  to  do 
more  than  mention  these  contributions 
of  Butler's  to  the  literature  of  philo- 
sophical biology.  Suffice  to  say  that 
among  other  results  achieved  by  him, 
he  demonstrated  abundantly  and  con- 
vincingly that  the  scientists  had  been 
making  altogether  too  much  fuss  over 
Charles  Darwin  and  his  special  the- 
ories. Vixere  fortes  mtUti. . . ,  There 
is  room  only  to  refer  in  passing  to 
Butler's  delightful  Italian  and  Si- 
cilian journeys  and  sojourns  enshrined 
in  "Alps  and  Sanctuaries  of  Piedmont 
and  the  Canton  Ticino"  and  "Ex  Voto : 
an  account  of  the  Sacro  Monte  or  New 
Jerusalem  at  Varallo-Sesia". 

But  the  works  upon  which  Samuel 
Butler's  fame  will  securely  rest  are 
neither  his  biological  nor  his  topo- 
graphical writings,  nor,  certainly,  his 


assaults  upon  the  creeds  of  Christen- 
dom. The  fire  of  his  genius  bums 
with  brightest  and  most  unwavering 
flame  in  "Erewhon"  (and  its  sequel) 
and  in  "The  Way  of  all  Flesh**. 
"Brecon"  describes  an  undiscovered 
countiy  ^ere  ill-health  is  punished 
as  a  crime,  and  those  who  commit 
what  we  should  call  crimes  are  treated 
in  hospitals.  It  is  a  masterpiece  of 
the  satirical  imagination  and  is  un- 
questionably literature  of  the  highest 
order  in  the  direct  succession  of 
Lucian  and  Swift  "The  Way  of  all 
Flesh"  is  a  sort  of  family  history  of 
the  Pontifexes  culminating  in  a  biog^ 
raphy  of  Ernest  Pontifex.  This 
grim  and  massive  novel  of  Victorian 
life,  posthumously  published,  is  the 
subtlest  and  most  scathing  of  invec- 
tives against  certain  aspects  of  the 
English  system  of  education  with  its 
sham  morality  and  evil  reticences.  A 
hatred  of  shams  and  of  social  deceits 
beats  like  a  pulse  throughout  its  pages. 
The  main  weakness  of  the  novel  lies  in 
Butler's  inability  to  handle  effectively 
the  dramatic  situations  in  which  it 
abounds;  but  as  a  psychological  study 
it  is  beyond  praise.  Bernard  Shaw  has 
frequently  confessed  his  indebtedness 
to  the  ideas  of  Butler,  and  the  works  of 
the  novelists  who  have  written  since 
its  publication  testify  to  the  profound 
influence  which  it  has  exercised. 
"The  Way  of  all  Flesh"  set  the  fashion 
of  the  long  biographical  novel,  which 
entered  upon  its  vogue  about  flfteen 
years  ago  and  has  so  far  shown  no 
falling  off  in  public  favor. 

Henry  Festing  Jones's  two  sump- 
tuous volumes  are  sure  of  a  very  high 
place  in  English  biographical  litera- 
ture; they  would  immortalize  Butler 
if  Butler  had  not  already  immortalized 
himself. 


Samuel    Butler,    author    of    Brewhon.      Bj 
Henry  Festing  Jones.    The  MacmUlan  Co. 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  THE  OGRE 


BY  CAROLINE  FRANCIS  RICHARDSON 


A  S  far  as  outward  seeming  is  con- 
ji\  cemed,  the  ogre  has  had  his  day. 
Although  we  m^  suspect  his  pres- 
ence in  modem  stories,  we  are  unable 
to  identify  him.  He  was  not  origi- 
nally, it  must  be  remembered,  merely 
a  wicked  man,  nor  even  a  man  who 
had  specialized  in  some  unique  form 
of  wickedness.  Sinful  he  was  and 
frequently  did  he  specialize  in  sin, 
but  the  quality  that  made  him  not  as 
other  sinners,  that  won  him  his  melo- 
dramatic reputation,  was  his  personal 
appearance. 

In  Bible  and  Homer  stories,  in 
fairy  and  folk  tales,  it  is  quite  pos- 
sible to  know  an  ogre  when  we  see 
one.  Usually  a  giant  (like  Goliath), 
frequently  one-eyed  (like  Polyphe- 
mus), often  deformed  (like  Puss-in- 
Boots's  adversary),  sometimes  a  mon- 
ster (like  Grendel's  mother), — ^the 
ogre  is  self-evident.  Then,  too,  in 
early  narrative,  he  is  fond  of  carry- 
ing a  bludgeon,  and  he  is  much  ad- 
dicted to  slogans :  "Fee,  fi,  fo,  f um !", 
or  "I'll  crack  his  bones  and  suck  his 
blood!"  The  seasoned  reader  of  an- 
cient narrative  is  likewise  well  aware 
that  the  ogre's  entrance  into  a  plot 
always  promises  action  and  his  exit 
always  marks  a  climactic  triumph  for 
the  David,  or  Ulysses,  or  Marquis  of 
Carabas,  or  Beowulf  who  has  played 
the  part  of  hero. 

Recognizable    ogres   also   frequent 

the  mediseval  romances,  but  they  are 


only  property  creatures,  repulsive  in 
appearance,    feeble-minded    in    beha- 
vior.    Their  schemes  are  easily  cir- 
cumvented, and  they  themselves  are 
as  easily  exterminated  by  any  way- 
faring knight  with  a  good  sword  or 
by  any  wandering  damsel  with  a  bit 
of  magic.    But  gradually  fiction  shows 
ogres   less    repellent  physically,   less 
exigent  temperamentally;    evil  is  no 
longer  invariably  depicted  as  objec- 
tive.     It  may  be  insidious,  and  the 
person  who  seeks  to  destroy  others  is 
not  identified  as  soon  as  he  enters  a 
story.      By  the    eighteenth    century, 
indeed,  the  ogre  actually  acquired  a 
pleasing  countenance   and  ingratiat- 
ing manners.     No  one  would,  for  in- 
stance,    immediately    discern    ogre- 
qualities   in    Pamela's   Mr.   B.     Yet 
after  an  acquaintance  with  but  a  few 
of  the  volumes  that  make  up  Richard- 
son's first  novel,  the  reader  compre- 
hends that  Mr.  B.  has  employed  all 
the   stereotyped   devices   of  ogre-be- 
havior:   pursuit,   capture,   imprison- 
ment, recapture  of  escaped  heroine, 
preparation  for  devouring  her.  Final- 
ly, Mr.  B.  succumbs,  like  his  paste- 
board predecessors,  to  an  adversary 
who   is   apparently   weak  but   is   in 
reality  invincible  through  the  posses- 
sion   of    an    unsuspected    source    of 
power.    In  the  later  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, an  ogre  revival  occurred  and,  in 
the  Grothic  novel,  he  disported  himself 
in  almost  his   original  form.     This 


88 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  THE  OGRE 


89 


return  engagement  was,  however,  of 
brief  duration,  but  even  so  the  ogre 
did  not  lose  his  conspicuousness  with- 
out a  struggle.  Emily  Bronte's 
Heathdiffe  was  a  reincarnation  of 
many  of  his  stirring  traits  and,  more- 
over, was  not  unlike  him  in  facial 
expression.  There  is,  too,  little  doubt 
about  the  sinister  ancestry  of  Char- 
lotte Bronte's  Mr.  Rochester, — ^though 
his  complete  reformation  demon- 
strates how  far  removed  he  is  from 
the  day  when  ogres  were  spectacularly 
eaten  by  their  own  lions,  baked  in 
their  own  ovens,  or  reduced  to  pulp 
by  the  collapse  of  their  own  castles. 

But  though  by  the  opening  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  ogre  is  no 
more,  physically,  in  every  other  way 
he  has  gained  enormously.  He  is, 
for  instance,  absolutely  untranuneled 
by  ancient  literary  convention:  he 
walks  and  talks  and  dresses  and  eats 
like  any  innocuous  person.  Though 
inwardly  he  be  a  ravening  wolf,  out- 
wardly he  does  not  differ  from  the 
persecuted  hero  himself.  Further- 
more, he  has  developed  an  extraordi- 
nary and  disconcerting  intelligence. 
These  acquired  characteristics  nat- 
urally make  the  present-day  ogre  far 
more  dangerous  than  he  of  the 
bludgeon  and  slogan,  and  consequent- 
ly the  modem  story  shows  the  villain 
as  often  triumphant  as  is  the  charm- 
ing heroine  or  the  greatly  daring 
hero. 

Frequently,  indeed,  the  ogre  him- 
self becomes  the  leading  character  of 
the  tale:  his  career  is  the  reason  for 
the  story's  being.  To  trace  the  de- 
cline and  fall  of  the  wicked  is  a  task 
always  grateful  to  writer  and  reader 
alike.  Every  modem  literary  device 
is  employed  to  enhance  interest  in  the 
ogre  variety  of  sinner,  and  his  end 
is  usually  planned  for  in  accordance 


with  the  best-selling  theory  of  the 
moment. 

Because  of  his  adaptable  personal- 
ity, the  twentieth-century  ogre  can 
folk)w  literary  fashions  closely.  A 
few  years  ago,  he  was  frequently  a 
department-store  manager  and  re- 
morselessly did  he  pursue  and  devour 
golden-haired  salesgirls;  or  perhaps 
he  impersonated  a  factory  superin- 
tendent and  followed  the  same 
scandalous  course  with  beautiful  girl 
spinners  or  cigarette-makers.  When 
the  taste  of  readers  and,  later,  of 
publishers  became  satiated  with  the 
wicked  employer-defenseless  girl  plot, 
the  ogre  disguised  himself  as  a 
broker,  a  ward  boss,  a  lawyer,  or  a 
trust  magnate  and  continued  on  his 
awful  way,  unrebuked  until  the  con- 
eluding  chapter. 

Then  the  fashion  in  psychological 
vivisection  developed,  and  the  ogre 
promptly  took  advantage  of  the  mode. 
He  began  to  prey  upon  the  tempera- 
ment and  intelligence  of  his  victims 
rather  than  upon  their  fortunes  or 
their  lives.  This  ogre  sapped  the 
ambition  of  the  youth,  the  will  power 
of  the  maid.  He  separated  a  son  or 
daughter  from  a  loving  family,  and 
he  even  absorbed  the  cleverness  or 
sprightliness  of  any  individual  whose 
personality  he  envied.  In  the  fairy 
tales,  we  remember,  an  ogre  or  ogress 
who  had  any  knack  at  magic  did  not 
hesitate  to  walk  abroad  in  the  physi- 
cal form  of  a  prince  or  princess  who 
meanwhile  was  forced  to  live  unrec- 
ognized as  a  bird  or  a  rock  or  a 
flower.  But  when  the  borrowed  form 
reverted  to  the  rightful  owner,  the 
convicted  ogre  was  obliterated  by  a 
mass  of  rock  which  dropped  upon  him 
with  excellent  moral  effect.  The 
same  theme  in  modem  stories  shows 
a  less  definite  conclusion.    In  Henry 


40 


THE  BOOKMAN 


James's  "The  Sacred  Fount",  for  in- 
stance, we  watch  one  person  absorb 
another's  individuality  until  only  a 
shell  of  a  human  being  remains,  but 
nothing  happens  to  the  ogre  who  has 
possessed  himself  of  someone  else's 
charm  and  wit.  The  book  concludes 
with  a  pertinent  inquiry  from  a 
woman  who,  through  eighty  pages, 
has  sought  to  analyze  the  situation: 
"Who  then",  demands  the  lady,  "has 
what?" 

If,  however,  the  writer  of  a  story 
should  belong  to  the  Uplift  school, 
the  ogre  may  on  the  last  page  declare 
his  intention  to  forswear  his  nefari- 
ous pursuits  or  he  may  renounce  his 
well-earned  vengeance  ("there  is 
good  in  everyone").  Again — ^and  this 
theme  is  quite  in  vogue — ^his  life  or 
death  may  illustrate  a  thesis  on 
heredity,  or  germ  behavior,  or  obses- 
sion. But  up-to-date  though  he  may 
be,  yet  his  real  disposition  (until 
artificially  reformed)  and  his  plain 
purpose  (until  artificially  thwarted) 
remain  essentially  unchanged.  He  has 
become  repulsive  morally  and  mental- 
ly instead  of  physically.  A  gleam  of 
the  eye,  a  line  about  the  mouth,  a 
peculiarity  of  the  rim  or  lobe  of  the 
ear  (if  the  author  has  read  up  on 
criminal  physiognomy)  are  all  that  is 
left  of  the  appearance  that  once  a 
wayfaring  man  or  maid  might  read 
and  run  from.  But  whatever  the 
alterations  time  has  brought  to  him 
outwardly  and  inwardly,  he  has  kept 
firm  hold  of  the  plot:  always  has  he 
provided  the  complications,  always 
has  his  success  or  failure  constituted 
the  climax.  The  plot  in  itself  changes 
little.  Still  are  the  youth  and  maiden 
captured,  still  do  they  struggle  to 
escape.  But  the  fight  is  more  evenly 
matched  today.  The  victory  no  long- 
er rests  inevitably  with  the  young  and 


the  beautiful,  the  brave  and  the  good. 
In  his  very  latest  development,  the 
ogre  has  become  an  abstraction:  he 
does  not  condescend  to  human  shape 
at  all  He  is  Conscience,  or  Greed, 
or  Ambition;  he  is  Science,  or  So- 
ciety; he  is  Sorrow,  or  Disease.  He 
is  War.  And  with  the  final  loss  of 
objectivity  has  come  an  incalculable 
gain  in  power.  Never  in  the  heyday 
of  classic  m3rth  or  medieval  romance 
did  he  pursbe  the  weak  and  threaten 
the  strong  as  relentlessly  as  he  does 
now  when  he  can  be  identified  only 
as  a  metaphor. 

In  his  most  terrible  form,  he  is 
Fear.  After  all,  the  ogre  of  the  long- 
ago  stories  was  only  Fear  rationad^ 
ized.  To  that  danger  which  primitive 
folk  felt  but  could  not  see,  saw  but 
could  not  understand,  they  gave  form 
and  voice,  and  called  ogre.  The  same 
fear  of  the  unknown,  of  threatening 
evil,  persists  today,  but  there  are 
many  names  for  the  one  sensation. 
Fiction  writers  realize  the  influence 
of  fear  and  make  good  use  of  it  in 
developing  their  characters,  urging, 
retarding,  strengthening,  weakening, 
by  fear  of  failure.  As  far  back  as 
Charles  Brockden  Brown's  "Wieland" 
we  read  how  a  man,  through  a  skilful 
use  of  ventriloquism,  brought  about 
the  ruin  of  an  entire  family  by  work- 
ing on  their  fears  and  torturing  their 
nerves.  It  may  be  that  many  people 
do  disport  themselves  in  a  secret 
garden,  but  it  is  certainly  true  th^t 
most  people  lash  themselves  in  a  secret 
prison.  And  the  jailer  of  that  prison 
is  an  ogre, — an  ogre  who  personifies 
anxiety,  or  vanity,  or  shame,  or  sense 
of  failure.  Secret  fear  is  a  hideous 
thing.  By  comparison,  the  suffering 
of  which  the  world  is  aware,  is  a 
light  affliction  but  for  an  hour;  it  is 
the  terror  which  a  man  would  not 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  THE  OGRE 


41 


have  others  firuess,  that  becomes   a 
devouring  ogre. 

Advertisers  comprehend  that  haunt- 
ing anxiety  is  an  everyday  matter, 
and  thereby  copy  ahnost  m^es  itself. 
Deftly  the  advertiser  shows  the  read- 
er how  not  to  grow  oId»  or  blind,  or 
deaf;  how  not  to  succumb  to  disease; 
how  not  to  be  fat;  how  not  to  forget; 
how  not  to  fail  socially,  professional- 
ly, or  financially.  And  shrinking 
from  his  very  private  and  personal 
ogre,  the  reader  of  the  advertisement 
fills  in  the  dotted  line  of  the  coupon, 
makes  out  a  check  and  sends  for  the 
book  or  the  instrument  or  the  bottle 
that  he  is  assured  will  prove  an  in- 
vincible deterrent.  It  is  the  old,  old 
story  of  the  magic  word,  the  charmed 
sword,  and  the  fairy  potion. 

The  giants  that  were  on  the  earth 
in  those  days,  are  with  us  in  these 
days.  Tradition  says  that  Og,  king 
of  Bashan,  survived  the  flood  by 
riding  on  top  of  the  ark.  In  the  same 
way,  the  ogre  has  lived  through  the 
chances  and  changes  of  narration. 
Balor  and  Loki  walk  about  incognito 
today;   the  Wandering  Jew,  though 


invisible,  journeys  on,  leaving  devas- 
tation as  usual  in  his  wake.  Evil 
genii  are  still  in  active  practice; 
Giant  Despair  keeps  open  house  at 
Doubting  Castle.  Some  arch-ogres, 
however,  have  lost  much  of  their 
ability  to  terrorize.  There  are  people, 
for  instance,  who  persist  in  looking 
upon  Death  as  a  friend  and  on  the 
Devil  as  a  whimsical  abstraction. 

Certainly,  through  his  centuries  of 
existence  the  ogre  has  assumed  a 
multiplicity  of  names  and  shapes. 
But  in  one  thing  he  has  been  con- 
sistent: he  has  kept  to  the  same  line 
of  conduct.  Single-mindedly  he  has 
pursued  human  beings  and  held  them 
and  tortured  thenL  Sometimes  they 
have  destroyed  him,  sometimes  he  has 
destroyed  them,  sometimes  both  ogre 
and  victim  have  lived  to  fight  another 
day.  At  present,  the  ogre,  stronger 
and  keener  than  ever  before,  is  up 
and  doing.  As  always,  of  course,  he 
preys  upon  human  kind;  but  as  al- 
ways, also  of  course,  the  magic  word 
of  knowledge,  the  charmed  sword  of 
will  power,  and  the  fairy  potion  of 
truth  can  conquer  him. 


THE  LONDONER 


Reaction  of  the  younger  generation  to  the  ivar — the  Nice  Girl  in  fiction  vs. 
the  product  of  the  novelette  mind — a  new  novel  of  episode — common  denomi- 
nator criticism — a  meeting  of  the  Omar  Khayyam  Club — Georgian  poetry — 
more  English  poets  in  America. 


London,  February,  1920. 

I  SUPPOSE  it  would  be  proper  in  me 
to  take  the  opportunity  in  one  of 
the  early  causeries  of  the  year,  of  sur- 
veying the  progress  of  British  letters 
in  the  period  from  January  to  Decem- 
ber 1919.  It  is  a  tempting  opportu- 
nity, but  I  should  say  that  on  the  whole 
the  year  has  been  remarkably  thin  so 
far  as  original  work  has  been  con- 
cerned. Few  striking  new  works  have 
been  issued.  Few  new  reputations 
have  been  observed  to  have  emerged 
from  the  welter  of  books.  And  there 
has  been  none  of  the  ardor  which  the 
wise  folk  prophesied  as  inevitable 
upon  the  conclusion  of  the  war.  The 
truth  is,  I  think,  that  the  younger  gen- 
eration is  too  much  occupied  in  the 
game  of  life  to  take  very  much  of  a 
stand  outside  it,  and  it  is  only  by 
standing  outside  life  that  one  can  pro- 
duce a  creative  work  of  any  quality. 
The  charge  I  have  made  against  the 
younger  generation  was  not  brought 
in  any  spirit  of  bitterness.  It  seems 
to  me  only  natural  that  the  reckless 
spirit  prevailing  throughout  the  war 
should  be  continuing  through  the  first 
months  of  relief.  Of  course,  older 
people  do  not  understand  the  feeling 
among  their  juniors.  They  are  full 
of  gloom  at  the  spectacle  of  infant  de- 


pravity. They  shake  miserable  heads 
over  tiie  horrid  whirl  of  gaiety  that 
continues.  The  children  dance,  they 
say,  while  England  makes  rapid  de- 
scent into  the  inferno  of  disaster.  It 
may  be  so.  I  am  myself  sometimes 
impatient  at  the  shortcomings  of  the 
young.  It  is  difficult  not  to  be.  Mean- 
while the  stalwarts  of  the  older  gen- 
eration are  doing  little  to  retrieve  the 
position.  They  are  wringing  their 
hands. 

Will  the  wildness  pass,  and  will  the 
youth  of  England  come  to  think  of  its 
duty  to  the  imagination?  I  hope  so. 
There  is  any  amount  of  thinking — 
savage,  unhappy  thinking — going  on 
amid  all  the  excitement.  Questions 
are  being  asked,  horrors  are  being  en- 
dured in  all  that  bitter  introspection 
that  accompanies  the  neurotic  indul- 
gence in  noise  and  folly.  When  the 
younger  generation  wakes  up  to  its 
task,  it  will,  I  think,  get  going  with 
a  rapidity  and  a  remorseless,  hectic 
fervor  comparable  only  to  its  present 
state.  Then,  and  then  only,  will  the 
possibilities  of  the  future  be  foreseen 
with  any  accuracy.  I  do  not  know 
what  the  quality  of  the  stuff  will  be. 
But  I  do  think  the  stuff  itself  will  be 
full  of  a  restless  and  terrible  energy. 
I  may  be  wrong.    I  am  no  prophet  by 


42 


THE  LONDONER 


43 


trade.    That,  nevertheless,  is  my  con- 
viction. 

«  «  «  « 

One  of  the  most  shocking  things  I 
have  noticed  in  the  year's  fiction  is 
that  all  sorts  of  writers,  from  Gals- 
worthy and  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  to 
such  younger  scribes  as  Miss  G.  B. 
Stem,  are  trying  to  reproduce  in  fic- 
tion the  type  of  girl  produced  by  the 
war,  or  rather,  developed  by  it.  This 
girl  has  not,  so  far,  been  handled  with 
understanding.  She  defies  it.  Miss 
Stem  gets  nearer  to  her  than  anybody 
else,  because  she  is  nearer  to  her  in 
age.  Galsworthy  and  Mrs.  Ward  make 
horrible  messes  of  her.  I  have  just 
been  reading  Mrs.  Ward's  "Cousin 
Philip",  and  I  can  assure  all  that  Mrs. 
Ward  would  shrink  in  horror  from  the 
reality  of  her  heroine,  Helena.  They 
are  much  worse  than  that.  Mrs.  Ward 
simply  cannot  stay  the  course.  Helena 
has  to  be  very  gentle  and  good  and 
wise  and  womanly,  according  to  the 
Victorian  tradition,  before  Mrs.  Ward 
has  done  with  her.  This  is  a  pity.  I 
am  quite  sure  it  is  all  wrong.  I  am 
perfectly  certain  that  Helena  was 
headstrong,  and  selfish,  and  rude ;  that 
she  endured  great  humiliation  from 
the  wisdom  of  all  Mrs.  Ward's  con- 
temporaries, by  whom  she  is  sur- 
rounded. But  that  she  was  tamed  as 
easily  as  that,  nothing  will  make  me 
believe.  It  isn't  done,  nowadays.  Mrs. 
Ward  cannot  forego  her  illusions.  For 
her,  as  for  the  matrons  who  read  her 
books,  a  heroine  has  got  to  be  a  nice 
girl.  A  "Nice  Girl".  One  day  I  shaU 
write  a  novel  called  "A  Nice  Girl". 
An  the  sentimentalists  will  shriek, 
"She  isn't!"  But  she'll  be  the  modem 
equivalent  for  that  delightful  inven- 
..tion  of  the  marketable  novel. 

I  like  to  think  of  that  novel  about 
the  nice  girl.  It  will  be  a  very  good 
noveL    Very  few  people  could  write 


that  novel.  I  shall  write  it.  Because 
I  know.  Mrs.  Ward  doesn't.  How 
could  she  know?  It  would  be  com- 
pletely contrary  to  nature  that  she 
should.  She  would  suddenly  betray 
genius.  "Cousin  Philip"  doesn't  be- 
tray genius.  It  gets  perilously  near 
betraying  the  novelette  mind.  What  a 
state  of  mind  for  England's  premier 
intellectual  woman  novelist  to  be  in  I 
It  has  become  truly  bad  taste  to  de- 
plore Mrs.  Ward's  later  novels,  and  I 
will  not  take  up  the  cry.  I  will  merely 
repeat  that  she  could  not  bear  to  un- 
derstand the  modem  girl.  Sometimes 
I  can  hardly  bear  it  myself. 

Miss  Stem,  who  has  just  published 
"Children  of  No  Man's  Land",  has 
been  experimenting  with  two  kinds  of 
theme.  She  has  been  tackling  the 
question  of  the  Jews  and  the  war,  and 
she  has  been  tackling  the  question  of 
the  young  people  of  England,  with 
their  amours  and  their  strange  moral 
code.  The  result  is  a  book  which  is 
dull  by  excess  of  vivacity  and  a 
strained  clevem^s.  It  is,  none  the 
less,  a  book  which  one  would  do  ill  to 
ignore.  Compared  with  it,  "Cousin 
Philip"  is  skilly,  thin,  and  bodiless. 
Compared  with  the  skilly  of  "Cousin 
Philip",  "Children  of  No  Man's  Land" 
is  a  nightmare.  It  is  coarse  where 
Mrs.  Ward  is  eminently  tactful,  over- 
bold where  Mrs.  Ward  is  timidly  petti- 
coated.  There  is  a  garish  brightness, 
a  raw  and  horrible  "newness",  without 
any  newness  of  inspiration  or  lucidity 
of  perception.  And  yet  it  is  rather  a 
brave  book.  If  H.  G.  Wells  had  never 
written  his  social  novels,  "Children  of 
No  Man's  Land"  would  never  have 
been  written,  which  is  as  much  as  to 
say  that  it  is  packed  full  of  stuff,  but 
is  entirely  lacking  in  art  and  clarity. 
And  in  spite  of  all  this,  it  is  a  docu- 
ment. It  marks  a  stage.  There  will 
be  other  such  novels  before  we  are 


44 


THG  BOOKMAN 


Ma 


done  with  this  generation.  I  hope  we 
shall  get  through  them  very  quickly. 
Otherwise  there  will  be  no  reading 
novels  for  pleasure  again.  I  must  ad- 
mit that  I  still  cling  to  the  old  de- 
lusion that  one  ought  to  be  able  to  ob- 
tain pleasure  from  the  reading  of  a 
novel.    It  is  a  sensation  I  rarely  enjoy 

nowadays. 

«  «  «  « 

I  wish  I  could  go  on  to  say  that 
some  novel  had  given  me  pleasure  re- 
cently. But  that  would  hardly  be  true. 
I  have  noticed  several  books  getting 
well  reviewed,  and  have  even  reviewed 
some  of  these  myself;  but  of  them  all 
I  cannot  say  that  any  appear  to  me  to 
be  first-rate,  even  in  their  own  kinds 
and  judged  by  their  own  standards. 
Apart  from  the  tales  which  seek  to 
mirror  the  time,  such  as  those  I  have 
been  discussing  so  generally  above, 
there  are  several  which  have  tried  in 
another  way  to  get  over  the  difficulty 
presented  by  the  war.  As  a  well- 
known  novelist  who  was  put  next  to 
me  (for  some  reason)  at  dinner  the 
other  night  expressed  it,  ''There  is 
going  to  be  a  boom  in  the  novel  of  epi- 
sode'' simply  for  the  reason  that  one 
does  not  want  to  repeat  accounts  of 
the  opening  weeks  of  the  war,  and 
does  not  want  to  pile  up  tales  of  the 
horrors  of  war,  and  cannot  ignore  the 
war  in  any  truthful  picture  of  con- 
temporary life.  By  the  novel  of  epi- 
sode, I  take  it,  my  neighbor,  who  had 
just  written  some  such  thing  himself, 
meant  the  novel  which  lays  itself  out 
to  tell  the  events  of  a  night,  or  the 
events  of  a  week,  set  in  a  timeless  spot 
of  time,  when  war  was  not,  and  when 
people  had  old-fashioned  reactions  to 
ordinary  emotions  such  as  those  which 
were  enjoyed  before  the  Kaiser  loosed 
his  legions  upon  the  world.  He  meant, 
presumably,  such  books  as  Miss  "Glem- 
ence   Dane's"   ''Legend",   which   has 


been  having  a  considerable  "press" 
here. 

I  have  read  "Legend",  and  I  am  not 
convinced  that  it  is  the  masterpiece 
about  which  the  reviewers  have  been 
writing.  It  is  an  extremely  clever 
piece  of  work,  and  my  admiration  for 
the  author  is  great;  but  it  is  one  of 
those  elaborately  "literary"  novels 
which  arise  from  time  to  time  and 
take  the  winds  of  opinion  by  storm. 
The  winds  of  literary  opinion,  of 
course,  which  blow  whither  they  list. 
Another  superlatively  "literarjr"  novel 
is  the  new  tale  by  Mrs.  Woolf  called 
"Night  and  Day".  It  was  Clive  BeU 
who  once  startled  me  by  writing  of 
"great  novelists  such  as  Hardy,  Con- 
rad, and  Virginia  Woolf,  and  in  my 
agony  I  cried  aloud,  "Who  is  Virginia 
Woolf  7"  She  was  then  the  author  of 
one  novel,  "The  Voyage  Out",  which  I 
have  never  read.  Now  has  come  this 
fresh  exhibition  of  her  talent.  H.  W. 
Massingham,  the  editor  of  "The  Na- 
tion" (English  version),  refers  to 
the  protagonists  as  "impassioned 
snails",  which  sounds  very  bright  com- 
mentary. He  pretends  that  the  char- 
acters do  nothing  but  drink  tea,  which 
of  course  is  not  strictly  true.  Never- 
theless, the  vitality  of  the  book  is  low, 
and  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  de- 
bility in  it  which  makes  the  pace  seem 
pedestrian,  and  adds  a  kind  of  "thin- 
ness" to  its  literary  charms.  It  is  in- 
cessantly elaborate. 

So,  upon  its  smaller  canvas,  is 
"Legend".  "Legend"  is  ostensibly  the 
tale  of  a  night.  In  reality  it  is  noth- 
ing of  the  kind.  The  action  of  it  takes 
place  in  one  evening,  and  it  consists 
of  one  long  conversation  between  a 
number  of  literary  people.  But  in 
reality  this  is  only  a  part  of  the  lit- 
erary fake.  Long  before  the  book 
opens,  a  young  woman  novelist  has 
had  a  love  affair  with  a  painter.    It 


THE  LONDONER 


46 


has  lasted  a  year.  Then  she  has 
married  respectably.  On  the  night  of 
the  conversation-piece  she  dies  in 
child-bed.  The  story  is  concerned 
with  her  year  and  her  character.  The 
fact  that  it  is  gleaned  through  any 
amount  of  dialogue  is  all  a  part  of  the 
author's  literary  artifice.  And  if  one 
admires  ansrthing  about  the  book  it  is 
the  author^s  literary  artifice.  That 
stamps  the  book.  The  story  is  senti- 
mental. All  the  brainwork  lies  in  the 
technical  method  employed.  That  is 
not  enough  to  make  a  masterpiece. 
The  book  is  terrifically  clever.  But  it 
is  not  important.  It  remains  a  piece 
of  literary  artifice.  Masterpieces  are 
written  quite  otherwise.  If  they  are 
technically  interesting,  that  fact  is 
an  additional  virtue.    Miss  Dane  has 

begun  at  the  wrong  end  of  the  stick. 

*  «  «  * 

A  friend  of  mine  is  writing  an  ar- 
ticle of  some  length  upon  the  novels 
of  the  autumn.  He  tells  me  they  are 
twenty  in  number.  As  far  as  I  can 
remember  they  include  ''Legend", 
Night  and  Dajr",  Galsworthy's 
Saint's  Progress",  Morley  Roberts's 
Hearts  of  Women",  the  new  works 
of  Mackenzie,  Cannan,  and  Swinner- 
ton,  Romer  Wilson's  ''If  All  These 
Young  Men",  Brett-Young's  "The 
Young  Physician",  and  several  others 
that  I  have  not  read.  The  task  seems 
to  me  appalling.  I  suppose  he  will 
compass  it,  for  the  man  is  a  most  able 
fellow.  But  just  imagine  taking  such 
diverse  worin  and  making  anything 
coherent  out  of  an  account  of  them. 
It  reminds  me  of  an  extraordinary 
performance  in  the  Christmas  number 
of  the  English  "Bookman",  where 
Ellis  Roberts  has  tackled  all  the 
younger  novelists — ^he  says,  I  think, 
forty  in  number — and  reduced  them 
to  a  common  denominator.  Mr.  Rob- 
erts has  singular  courage.    His  esti- 


it 


M 


U 


mates  are  original  and  less  perfunc- 
tory than  one  might  expect.  I  am  not 
able  to  check  them  all,  and  several  of 
his  assessments  fill  me  with  amaze; 
but  the  feat  is  performed,  and  with 

gusto. 

«  «  «  « 

The  other  evening  I  found  myself  at 
a  gathering  which  seemed  to  include 
an  almost  startlingly  heterogeneous 
collection  of  young  writers.  Arnold 
Bennett  was  down  upon  the  table  plan, 
but  his  guest,  J.  C.  Squire,  had  to  sit 
alone,  for  Bennett  had  been  prevented 
by  indisposition  from  attending.  At 
the  same  table  was  Aldous  Huxley,  a 
grandson,  I  believe,  of  the  scientist, 
and  a  young  man  of  strikingly  orig- 
inal talent.  A  seat  or  two  away  was 
J.  D.  Symon,  who  is  known  to  novel 
readers  as  "Laurence  North".  "An- 
thony Hope"  was  there,  and  Clement 
Shorter.  Osbert  Sitwell,  whose  first 
book  of  poems  is  arousing  a  good  deal 
of  acrimonious  controversy,  sat  be- 
tween Alec  Waugh  and  another  novel- 
ist, Ralph  Straus;  while  next  to 
Straus,  again,  was  the  extraordinary 
S.  P.  B.  Mais,  who  has  the  enthusiasm 
of  a  prophet  and  a  vitality  which  en- 
ables him  to  throw  off  a  novel  or  a 
review  or  an  "English  Course  for 
Schools",  or  a  lecture,  with  a  facility 
not  otherwise  to  be  matched  in  our 
day.  The  principal  speakers  were  Mr. 
Balfour  and  Mr.  Birrell,  and  the  for- 
mer, especially,  gave  a  most  delightful 
address.  Sir  Robert  Hudson,  in  pro- 
posing the  guests,  had  mentioned  that 
to  know  Mr.  Birrell  or  to  read  his 
books  was  to  love  him.  He  did  not  say 
the  same  of  Mr.  Balfour,  a  fact  which 
seemed  to  weigh  upon  both  of  the 
statesmen.  Mr.  Balfour  said,  in  effect, 
as  a  literary  man  that  nobody  loved 
him;  and  Mr.  Birrell,  in  his  turn,  re- 
pudiated the  love  of  his  readers.  He 
said  he  didn't  care  whether  they  loved 


46 


THE  BOOKMAN 


him  or  not.  He  didn't  want  their  old 
love.  But  then  he  must  have  been 
speaking  as  a  man  tired  of  great 
wealth.  I  should  mention,  perhaps,  that 
the  occasion  was  a  meeting  of  the 
Omar  Ehasryam  Club;  and  Mr.  Bal- 
four roused  some  almost  ribaldly 
guilty  laughter  by  declaring  that  no- 
body in  the  room  knew  anything  about 
the  original  Persian  text  which  Fitz- 
gerald had  converted  into  a  western 
masterpiece.  It  was  left  to  Mr.  Birrell 
to  say  that  the  'Hubaiyat"  had  been 
found  to  be  one  of  the  most  popular 
books,  not  only  in  the  trenches,  but 
also  in  the  camps  of  our  conscientious 

objectors. 

«  *  «  « 

Speaking  just  now  of  the  young 
poets  at  the  Omar  Khayyam  Club  din- 
ner, reminds  me  that  a  new  volume 
of  "Georgian  Poetry"  has  just  been 
published.  The  reception  given  to  this 
book  has  been  decidedly  less  cordial 
than  that  enjoyed  by  its  predecessors. 
Either  the  quality  of  the  verse  is  in- 
ferior or  the  boom  in  poetry  is  defi- 
nitely on  the  wane.  I  thihk  I  gave 
expression  to  this  latter  view  in  an 
earlier  causerie.  Possibly,  both  causes 
have  operated.  I  have  heard  bad  re- 
ports of  the  book,  which  has  produced, 
however,  a  most  fatherly  column  and 
a  half  of  praise  from  Edmund  Gosse 
in  "The  Sunday  Times".  Elsewhere, 
as  for  example,  in  "The  Athenseum", 
there  has  been  almost  no  enthusiasm. 
The  truth  is  that  since  the  establish- 
ment of  "Georgian  Poetrjr"  a  newer 
school  has  arisen,  and  this  has  made 
some  of  the  Georgians  seem  almost 
vieux  jeu.  It  may  or  may  not  be' a 
passing  phase  in  judgment,  but  I  hear 
on  all  hands  that  the  best  verse  in  the 
new  volume  is  that  contributed  by 
Siegfried  Sassoon,  whose  work  is  by 
no  means  similar  to  that  of  the  other 
contributors.     It  is  biting,   entirely 


without  affectation,  and  simple  to  the 
point  of  slanginess.  The  others  are 
described  by  the  editor  of  "The  Ath- 
enseum"  as  pseudo-naive. 

It  is  precisely  to  Sassoon's  verse 
that  Mr.  Gosse  refers  in  terms  of  re- 
buke. He  thinks  it  most  unnecessary 
that  Mr.  Sassoon  should  continue  to 
harp  upon  the  war.  The  other  poets, 
he  says,  have  agreed  to  give  the  war 
the  go-by  and  forget  it.  Why  should 
Mr.  Sassoon  alone  keep  it  to  the  fore- 
front? And  so  on.  I  should  say  that 
the  Georgians  had  lost  their  absolute 
standing,  and  that  their  accomplished 
verses  were  in  danger  of  being  ridi- 
culed as  halfway  to  the  gentlemanly 
rhymings  of  Sir  Owen  Seaman.  One 
of  the  crudest  prophecies  I  have  ever 
heard  is  to  the  effect  that  Squire,  one 
of  the  Georgian  leaders,  will  end  up 
as  a  knight  and  as  editor  of  "Punch". 
This  is  to  ignore  Squire's  very  great 
gifts.  It  is  only  a  sign  of  the  restless- 
ness of  the  times  that  every  idol 
should  be  cast  down  almost  as  soon  as 
he  has  reached  acceptance.  This  is 
not  a  good  thing.  It  is  the  mark  of  a 
period  of  dissatisfaction  and  transi- 
tion. To  Americans  this  may  all  be 
very  hard  to  understand,  but  it  should 
be  reckoned  with  in  dealing  with  all 
estimates  of  English  literary  affairs. 
Standards  are  temporarily  upset,  and 
nobody  is  safe  from  the  spirit  of  de- 
traction. Squire  is  strong  enough  to 
weather  many  more  serious  storms,  as 
the  success  of  his  new  journal,  "The 
London  Mercury",  should  prove. 

The  most  delightful  bloomer  I  recall 
for  a  long  time  has  just  been  made 
here  by  James  Douglas,  the  editor  of 
the  "Star".  It  has  all  along  been  very 
well  known  that  the  initials  of  the 
editor  of  "Georgian  Poetry"  are  those 
of  Edward  Marsh,  the  friend  and 
executor  of  Rupert  Brooke.  This  is  so 
well  known  that  there  has  never  been 


THE  LONDONER 


47 


any  point  in  retaining  the  initials 
upon  the  book's  title  page.  Mr.  Doug- 
las, however,  lost  in  the  backwaters  of 
ordinary  daily  journalism,  has  just 
charmed  literary  London  by  assuming 
"E.  M."  to  be  none  other  than  Gallo- 
way Kyle,  who  uses  the  pseudonym  of 
"Erskine  Macdonald"  for  his  publish- 
ing business.    It  is  a  passing  joke,  of 

course,  but  it  is  quite  delicious. 

«  «  «  « 

By  the  time  this  causerie  appears,  I 
expect  Americans  will  have  had  an  op- 
portunity of  examining  two  of  the 
younger  English  poets  for  themselves. 
Osbert  Sitwell,  who  is  one  of  the  lead- 
ers of  the  anarchist  group,  the  post- 
Georgians,  is  going  to  lecture  in  the 
States,  and  so  is  Siegfried  Sassoon. 
Sitwell  has  a  very  remarkable  person- 
ality. I  personally  find  him  most 
amusing,  and  Americans  should  not  be 
deceived  by  his  restlessness  into  think- 
ing him  a  mere  deliberate  eccentric. 
He  is  far  from  that.  He  may  develop 
into  a  distinguished  satirist  and  a 
genuine  poet.  He  is  young,  full  of 
ideas,  and  a  bom  raconteur  in  a  curi- 
ous, fastidious  manner.  Whether  he 
is  really  as  cold  as  he  sometimes  ap- 
pears I  cannot  tell,  but  I  should  say 
that  he  has  a  mind  of  singular  variety 
and  quality. 


Sassoon  is  much  more  immediately 
approachable.  He  is  patently  candid 
and  modest.  His  little  hesitating  way 
of  speaking  does  not  conceal  his  real 
determination.  He  is  a  sportsman  and 
a  realist.  Where  Osbert  Sitwell  is 
fantastic,  Sassoon  is  almost  unduly 
scrupulous  in  avoiding  any  appearance 
of  being  unusual.  Like  many  of  our 
best  writers  he  hugs  the  illusion  that 
he  is  "just  an  ordinary  sort  of  chap". 
Those  who  have  appreciated  his  poetry 
(and  I  find  that  most  of  the  young  sol- 
diers of  my  acquaintance  think  his 
war  poems  give  the  best  picture  of  the 
horrors  they  endured)  do  not  think 
him  ordinary.  Besides  which,  he  won 
the  military  cross  for  conspicuous  gal- 
lantry, and  it  is  a  part  of  the  simplic- 
ity of  his  nature  that  his  poems  should 
concern  themselves  chiefly  with  his 
hatred  of  warfare.  Both  Sitwell  and 
Sassoon  have  expressed  their  detesta- 
tion of  a  certain  characteristic  of  the 
war  atmosphere  in  England,  but  while 
Sitwell's  is  an  intellectual  contempt 
for  the  selfishness  of  arm-chair  pa- 
triots, Sassoon's  is  a  burning  disgust 
for  the  stupidity  of  human  nature, 
however  displayed.  I  am  quite  sure 
that  he  will  endear  himself  to  the 
Americans  by  his  honesty  and  the 
charm  of  his  nature. 

SIMON  PURE 


A  GREAT  EDITOR'S  GALLERY  OF  PORTRAITS 

"Marse  Henry^a"  Crowded  Story 

BY  EDWARD  P.  MITCHELL 
Editor  of  the  New  York  "Sun" 


FORTY-ODD  years  ago  the  present 
writer  chanced  to  be  sitting  in  the 
press  gallery  of  the  House  at  Wash- 
ington. The  Hayes-Tilden  electoral 
controversy  was  in  its  last  phase.  The 
atmosphere  of  the  Forty-fourth  Con- 
gress was  overcharged  with  excite- 
ment. From  the  crowd  of  members 
standing  back  near  the  door  an  en- 
gaging figure  emerged  and  proceeded 
up  the  middle  aisle  to  claim  the 
Chair's  attention.  A  spectator  more 
sophisticated  than  myself  whispered: 
^Listen  I  Thafs  young  Watterson; 
he's  going  to  fire  off'.  A  moment 
later  the  Speaker's  words  confirmed 
the  identification.  ''The  gentleman 
from  Kentucky/'  said  Sam  Randall. 

The  chosen  of  the  Star  Eyed  God- 
dess and  the  captain  of  Protection 
entrenched  in  Democracy  met  eye  to 
eye. 

I  was  immediately  and  immensely 
interested.  The  snapshot  picture  is  as 
distinct  in  memory  as  if  it  were  taken 
yesterday.  Nevertheless,  in  order  to 
make  sure  of  the  contemporary  im- 
pression, I  am  venturing  to  refer  to 
the  observations  jotted  down  at  the 
time  of  Colonel  Watterson's  single  and 
brief  episode  of  oflScial  statesman- 
ship: 

''He  has  two  peculiarities  which, 
perhaps,  distinguish  him  from  the 
ordinary  run  of  Congressmen :  he  does 


not  begin  to  talk  until  he  has  some- 
thing to  say,  and  when  he  has  said  it 
he  stops  talking.  His  manner  is  a 
curious  mixture  of  modest  self-con- 
sciousness and  bluster.  The  modest 
self -consciousness  is  evidently  natural 
to  the  man.  The  bluster  is  natural  to 
the  man's  circumstances.  It  is  the  at- 
tempt  at  self-assertion  of  one  accus- 
omed  to  think  and  write,  but  not  ac- 
customed to  speak;  who  is  sure  of  his 
thoughts  but  not  quite  sure  of  his 
success  in  giving  them  oratorical  ex- 
pression, and  who  is  therefore  a  little 
defiant. 

"From  a  gallery  point  of  view  Mr. 
Watterson  is  a  blond  young  man,  ap- 
parently thirty-five  but  probably  older, 
with  yellow  moustache  and  imperial, 
brow  and  chin  rather  more  prominent 
than  the  neutral  territory  between, 
eyes  indeterminate,  top  of  head  show- 
ing small  veneration  but  considerable 
hair,  of  medium  stature  and  loose 
gait.  When  he  arises  to  speak  his  in- 
genuous face  wears  the  deprecatory 
smile  of  a  schoolboy  about  to  spout  a 
piece  before  critics  of  whom  he  is  a 
little  afraid.  When  he  finishes  his  re- 
marks, the  deprecatory  smile  reap- 
pears, as  if  to  disarm  criticism,  and 
he  walks  away  from  where  he  has  been 
standing  with  a  slight  swing  or  swag- 
ger which  says  very  plainly:   'There I 


48 


A  GREAT  EDITOR'S  GALLERY  OP  PORTRAITS 


49 


I  suppose  I've  given  myself  away. 
Make  the  most  of  it' 

"His  style  of  speaking  is  declama- 
tory, yet  in  tolerably  good  taste.  His 
gestures  are  an^cward  and  often  inap- 
propriate. He  gives  undue  emphasis 
to  unimportant  words.  Nobody 
would  caU  him  an  orator,  but  nine  per- 
sons out  of  ten  would  hearken  to  him 
with  pleasure,  independently  of  the 
subject-matter,  and  even  the  tenth 
would  find  it  hard  to  go  to  sleep  while 
he  was  speaking. 

''As  printed  in  the  'Record',  Mr. 
Watterson's  longer  speeches  read  like 
vigorous  leaders  and  his  shorter  re- 
marks like  well-constructed  editorial 
paragraphs.  It  is  probable  that  he 
writes  out  what  he  has  to  say  before- 
hand, and,  being  a  good  editor,  uses 
only  the  good  ideas  and  consigns  all 
others  to  the  waste  basket.  His  re- 
marks are  always  to  the  point,  always 
conveyed  in  strong,  square-shouldered 
English,  and  always  manly  and  sen- 
siUe.  I  do  not  recall  a  Representative, 
novice  or  veteran,  who  ever  talked  less 
buncombe  to  the  thousand  words  than 
Henry  Watterson  of  the  'Courier- 
Journal'. 

"Socially  and  personally  Mr.  Wat- 
terson is  said  to  be  a  favorite  on  both 
sides  of  the  House.  He  can  be  par- 
tisan enough  when  duty  seems  to  re- 
quire, but  his  delight  is  to  be  the  good 
fellow;  his  chief  annoyance,  the  ne- 
cessity of  refusing  to  print  in  full  in 
his  newspaper  the  long  speeches  of  all 
his  friends.  Watterson  has  expressly 
declared  that  in  all  the  world  there  is 
only  one  worse  poker  player  than  him- 
self; but  this  opinion  is  far  too  mod- 
est." 

That  was  Colonel  Watterson's  only 
term  in  Congress.  It  had  begun  six 
months  before,  to  fill  a  vacancy;  and 


a  month  later  he  went  back  to  Louis- 
ville and  to  the  "Courier-Journal" 
where  and  wherein  he  has  been  chiefly 
engaged  ever  since  in  stating  the  case 
as  he  understands  it ;  stating  the  case 
about  men  and  women  and  the  wise 
and  the  just  and  the  fools  and  frauds 
of  politics,  and  the  philosophies  and 
humanities  of  Kentucky  and  the  Union 
and  the  globular  outside  world,  with  a 
fertility  of  phrase,  a  mastery  of  anec- 
dote, a  wealth  of  illustrative  resources, 
and — ^merely  from  the  technically  pro- 
fessional point  of  view — ^a  productive 
energy  which  has  had  no  parallel  dur- 
ing the  period  in  question.  The  blend 
is  unique  in  American  journalism. 
There  has  been  no  other  Watterson. 
Until  very  recently  there  has  been  no 
other  "Courier-Journal". 

Looking  either  backward  or  forward 
from  that  midway  station  of  a  most 
remarkable  lifetime,  the  same  win- 
ning personality  appears,  the  continu- 
ous Watterson,  loyal  to  friends,  cour- 
teous to  adversaries,  curious  of  all 
mundane  and  supernal  and  even  in- 
fernal affairs,  intrepid  appraiser  of 
intellectual  and  moral  offerings,  factor 
in  the  largest  events.  It  is  but  honest- 
Injin  to  mention  the  fact  that  in  the 
later  years  he  developed  a  much  more 
finished  oratorical  style  than  was  cred- 
ited to  him  in  February  of  1877,  by  a 
distant  admirer  who  heard  the  young 
spokesman  and  trusted  representative 
of  the  Tilden  cause  declaim  in  Con- 
gress when  the  pebbles  were  still  in 
his  mouth.  Other  addresses  and  lec- 
tures besides  his  surpassing  platform 
tribute  to  the  Lincoln  he  knew  and 
loved,  are  properly  ranked  with  the 
masterpieces  of  American  eloquence. 
Many  audiences  in  quiet  lyceum  hall 
and  in  stormy  political  convention  and 
around  the  mahogany  have  recognized 
the  power  and  charm  of  his  spoken 


50 


THE  BOOKMAN 


utterance.    But  that  is  perhaps  an  in- 
cident. 

II 

There  has  been  in  this  long  and 
varied  experience  material,  and  to 
spare,  charged  with  first-class  activi- 
ties and  densely  populated  with  inter- 
esting friendships  and  acquaintance- 
ships, for  several  more  volumes  such 
as  these  handsome  two  now  presented 
in  type  agreeable  to  old  retinas  or 
young.  The  total  of  the  output  has 
been  measured  by  a  selective  restraint 
which  is  the  last,  best  gift  of  the  gods 
to  the  maker  of  autobiography. 
''Marse  Henrsr*'  describes  his  recol- 
lections as  desultory  and  fragmen- 
tary; but  his  artistic  consciousness 
must  be  aware  that  with  an  efficient 
journalist's  apprehension  of  a  many- 
sided  job,  he  has  instinctively  chosen 
the  one  method  for  the  production  of 
a  living  likeness.  He  has  come  back  at 
himself,  so  to  speak,  at  so  many  angles 
of  approach  that  the  result  is  an  all- 
around  portrait  bust  and  not  merely 
a  picture  of  two  dimensions. 

As  well  as  I  can  remember,  no  per- 
sonal record  that  in  fulness  is  com- 
parable to  this  has  been  added  to  the 
literature  of  journalistic  history  by 
any  other  of  the  foremost  American 
editors.  Thurlow  Weed's  reminis- 
cences, important  in  substance,  are 
dry  as  the  dust  in  a  bin.  Greeley's 
'Recollections  of  a  Busy  Life"  belongs 
to  the  subscription-book  class  and  is 
strangely  inadequate  in  not  a  few  re- 
spects. Dana's  published  recollections 
are  wholly  concerned  with  the  civil- 
military  fraction  of  his  multiform 
achievement.  What  Raymond  could 
have  done  so  well  with  his  own  pen  is 
but  hinted  at  in  Augustus  Maverick's 
poor  and  scrappy  sketch.  There  is  a 
more  intimate  view  of  Joseph  Pul- 
itzer in  Colonel  Watterson's  own  mem- 


oirs than  is  elsewhere  accessible  to 
the  general  public,  except  in  Mr.  Ire- 
land's ''Reminiscences  of  a  Private 
Secretary",  relating  exclusively  to  the 
pathetic  days  of  darkness  and  disease 
when  that  astonishing  soul  was  hold- 
ing on  to  itself  with  unexampled  tenac- 
ity and  pluck.  Neither  the  elder  nor 
the  younger  James  Gordon  Bennett 
left  his  story. 

But  consider  the  thing  that  Watter- 
son  has  done  for  us  in  the  odd  mo- 
ments of  a  happy  senescence  while 
gracefully  dodging  the  scythe  of 
Chronos!  A  man  of  intense  vitality 
will  survive  in  these  volumes.  It  is  a 
man  so  irresistibly  lovable  that  al- 
though "bom  an  insurrecto",  to  admit 
his  own  phrase,  he  has  gone  through 
eighty  years  of  strenuous  existence, 
with  the  chip  on  his  chin  all  the  time, 
accumulating  precious  few  enemies 
worth  mentioning;  a  human  mite  in- 
vested at  the  start  by  the  benevolent 
fairies  with  most  of  the  desirable 
germs  of  equipment  —  conscience, 
courage,  unhesitating  perception,  pic- 
turesque imagination,  humor,  phil- 
osophy, broad  sympathies,  compre- 
hensive artistry  including  all  the  lit- 
erary arts  except  the  art  of  being  dull. 
Perhaps  I  am  exceeding  good  taste  in 
dwelling  so  much  on  the  personality, 
but  in  this  case,  if  ever,  the  personal- 
ity is  the  key  to  the  life  and  the  book. 

The  collection  of  memories  is  all 
that  might  be  expected.  The  series 
of  portraits,  swiftly  drawn,  discerning 
and  always  generous,  astounds  the 
unprepared  reader  by  its  range  and 
volume.  The  Who's  Who  of  Saint- 
Simon  is  scarcely  more  crowded. 

You  are  listening  to  a  veteran  who 
has  been  dandled  in  Old  Hickory's 
arms  at  the  Hermitage.  His  yellow 
curls  have  been  stroked  by  Old  Rough 
and  Ready.    He  has  been  the  pet  and 


A  GREAT  EDITOR'S  GALLERY  OF  PORTRAITS 


51 


playmate  of  General  Lewis  Cass,  a 
snuffy  elder  in  an  ill-fitting  wig.  As 
a  volunteer  page  in  the  House  where 
his  father  sat,  he  has  fetched  library 
books  for  a  little  bald-headed  gentle- 
man named  John  Quincy  Adams.  You 
are  holding  pleasant  intercourse  with 
one  who  sold  programs  for  Jenny 
Lind's  concert;  who  was  the  boy  com- 
panion and  quite  competent  accom- 
panist of  Adelina  Patti  years  before 
her  appearance  on  the  stage,  and  who 
actually  wrote  for  Raymond's  "Times" 
the  musical  criticism  of  her  d^but  at 
the  Academy  of  Music  in  Irving 
Place;  who  has  reveled  at  the  Savage 
Club  in  London  with  Artemus  Ward, 
slowly  dying;  who  has  dined  at  Hux- 
ley's table  with  Tyndall  and  Mill  and 
Herbert  Spencer,  and  that  with  the 
haziest  notion  at  the  time  as  to  who  the 
scientific  gentlemen  (except  Spencer) 
might  be;  who  heard  Bishop  Henry 
Bidleman  Bascom  preach  lively  Meth- 
odism at  Nashville  before  1850;  who 
knew  behind  the  green  baize  most  of 
the  great  actors  of  England  and 
America  from  Wyndham  and  Irving 
to  Edwin  Booth  and  Joseph  Jefferson, 
and  who  enjoyed  for  more  than  fifty 
years  the  rare  possession  of  Jeffer- 
son's unreserved  friendship. 

You  are  also  in  the  company  of  an 
accomplished  and  tolerant  viveur  who 
has  played  the  game  with  Poker 
Schenck  himself  in  an  unexpected  en- 
counter with  an  ancient  but  unidenti- 
fied enemy,  ending  in  a  reconciliation 
probably  to  the  moral  advantage  of 
both.  He  has  listened  to  and  respected 
the  whispered  confidences  of  the  most 
famous  chefs  on  both  sides  of  the 
ocean.  He  has  studied  with  intelli- 
gent interest  through  many  years  the 
system  workers  in  Monsieur  Blanc's 
establishment.  He  began  to  adore  his 
Paris  when  Thackeray's  Street  of  the 


Little  Fields  was  yet  redolent  of  the 
saffron  oil.  He  has  been  more  or  less 
persona  grata  to  an  illustrious  proces- 
sion of  highly  specialized  talent,  from 
Sam  Bugg  of  the  Mississippi  river 
circuit  to  the  steely,  suave  Marcus 
Cicero  Stanley,  gorgeously  fur-coated 
in  the  old  Hoffman  House.  And 
Colonel  Watterson,  if  my  recollection 
is  not  at  fault,  was  one  of  the  earliest 
authorities  on  liquids  in  motion  to 
commend  to  the  attention  of  the 
thirsty  the  virtues  of  the  American 
table  waters,  notwithstanding  the  cir- 
cumstance that  they  were  hatefully 
protected  by  a  robber  tariff. 

You  are  learning,  moreover,  the 
true  inwardness  of  historic  politics 
from  an  inveterate  observer  who  knew 
and  was  fond  of  Franklin  Pierce,  who 
despised  Buchanan,  cared  greatly  for 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  and  stood  in  the 
capacity  of  Associated  Press  reporter 
at  the  side  of  Abraham  Lincoln  when 
he  delivered  his  first  inaugural  in 
1861;  who  has  been  a  central  figure 
in  four  national  conventions  of  his 
party,  and  over  and  over  again  the 
architect  of  its  platform  policies ;  who 
has  seen  and  known  almost  every 
President  of  the  United  States,  if  not 
every  President,  from  Jackson  to 
Wilson,  and  has  been  on  terms  of  per- 
sonal friendship  and  confidential  in- 
timacy with  most  of  them. 

And  you  are  making  the  acquaint- 
ance— if  such  has  never  been  your 
privilege  before — of  a  Southern  gen- 
tleman of  genius  and  sentiment,  op- 
posed to  human  slavery  from  the  heart 
and  from  the  beginning;  who  was  yet 
on  Forrest's  staff,  chief  of  Confed- 
erate scouts  in  the  Sherman-Johnston 
campaign,  aide  to  General  Hood 
through  the  siege  of  Atlanta,  and  the 
best  of  Union  men  when  the  issue  was 
decided.    He  did  as  much  as  any  citi- 


52 


THE  BOOKMAN 


zen  now  living  or  now  dead  to  extir- 
pate the  sectionalism  that  menaced 
the  Republic's  future.  He  has  been 
all- American  all  his  life;  and  for  that 
reason,  the  negligible  errors  of  judg- 
ment and  small  sins  of  omission  and 
commission  so  frankly  by  himself 
avowed  shall  be  wiped  clean  from  the 
slate  if  he  will  only  cause  the  next 
edition  of  this  unmatched  repository, 
which  he  has  dedicated  with  affection 
to  his  friend  Alexander  Konta,  to  be 
provided  with  a  suitable  index. 

Fresh  from  the  two  volumes,  I  have 
been  positively  unable  to  overcome  the 
temptation  to  multiply  semicolons. 
Forgive  the  catalogue.  Infer  from  it 
the  menu,  and  exclaim  with  the  still 
hungry  person  now  writing:  "Gimme 
alir 

III 

How  could  such  a  gamer  of  remi- 
niscence fail  to  fascinate  and  inform? 
Colonel  Watterson's  serious  contribu- 
tions to  the  ever  growing  fund  are 
of  permanent  value.  Nobody  attempt- 
ing in  the  future  a  definitive  version 
can  afford,  for  example,  to  overlook 
his  candid  narrative  of  the  self-de- 
termined Quadrilateral  of  1872,  as 
humorously  immortal,  in  its  way,  as 
that  other  newspaper  quadrilateral  in 
which  figured  the  innumerable  el- 
bows of  the  Mincio,  "formed  by  the 
sympathy  of  youth".  There  is,  in- 
deed, all  the  sympathy  of  youth  for 
the  droller  aspects  of  large  events  in 
the  story  which  the  surviving  member 
of  the  Watterson-Halstead-Bowles- 
Horace  White  sjmdicate  of  political 
reformers  gives  us,  at  eighty,  of  the 
tauric  invasion  of  the  stronghold  by 
Alexander  K.  McClure  of  the  Philadel- 
phia "Times'*,  and  its  final  occupation, 
while  its  custodians  slumbered,  by 
Whitelaw  Reid  with  B.  Gratz  Brown 
in  tow.    And  then,  with  a  quick  trans- 


ition which  might  almost  bring  tears, 
the  comedy  of  blunders  and  crosspur- 
poses  at  Cincinnati  becomes  the  trag- 
edy of  the  baby-faced  editor-philos- 
opher's despair  and  death — surely, 
next  to  the  wanton  assassination  of 
the  three  Presidents,  the  saddest 
chapter  of  our  political  history! 

Even  more  important  are  the  pas- 
sages concerning  the  disputed  succes- 
sion in  1876,  in  relation  to  which 
Colonel  Watterson  sustained  a  part 
of  which  we  had  a  glimpse  near  the 
top  of  this  article.  His  direct  knowl- 
edge of  the  attitude  of  Mr.  Tilden 
throughout  that  unparalleled  contest, 
of  the  undercurrents  determining  the 
result,  of  the  attempted  and  completed 
bargainings,  corrupt  or  merely  po- 
litical, both  in  Washington  and  at  the 
capitals  of  the  doubtful  states,  is  con- 
veyed with  candor  convincing  in  most 
respects,  if  with  proper  reticence  as 
to  some  details.  I  can  note  here  only 
two  features  of  Colonel  Watterson's 
energetic  recital:  first  his  effectual 
disposal  of  the  long  current  yam 
about  a  purpose  on  his  part  to  march 
a  hundred  thousand  heavily  armed 
Kentuckians  to  Washington  to  seize 
the  government  in  Mr.  Tilden's  inter- 
est; and,  secondly,  his  statement  on 
the  authority  of  Stanley  Matthews,  his 
Republican  kinsman  by  marriage,  that 
even  if  Mr.  Justice  David  Davis  had 
not  been  lured  by  the  Illinois  election 
to  the  Senate,  and  had  gone  on  the 
Commission  as  one  of  the  Supreme 
Court  members  as  he  had  been  ex- 
pected to  go,  his  vote  nevertheless 
would  have  made  the  eight  for  Hayes 
precisely  as  Mr.  Justice  Headley's  did. 
This  is  particularly  interesting,  if  true. 
I  can  only  add,  of  knowledge,  that  it 
was  not  the  view  entertained  at  the 
time  by  at  least  one  unusually  observ- 
ant Republican  believer  in  Tilden's 


A  GREAT  EDITOR'S  GALLERY  OP  PORTRAITS 


53 


electoral  majority.  General  Benjamin 
F.  Butler  of  Massachusetts,  like  Wat- 
terson  a  member  of  the  Forty-fourth 
Congress;  to  whose  quite  uncanny  po- 
litical discernment  Colonel  Watterson 
pays  a  deserved  tribute  in  another 
place  in  his  book.  Tilden  shines  in 
these  recollections.  He  is  "the  near- 
est approach  to  the  ideal  statesman  I 
have  known",  says  the  autobiographer. 
The  final  volume  ends  with  a  striking 
and  just  appreciation  of  the  much  mis- 
understood sage  and  leader's  social,  in- 
tellectual, and  moral  qualities. 

I  wish  there  were  space  for  a  full 
transcription  of  some  of  these  broadly 
drawn  and  deeply  etched  character 
sketches.  Sam  Houston,  King  Leo- 
pold of  Belgium,  Carl  Schurz,  Grant, 
Andrew  Johnson,  Blaine,  Mark  Twain, 
Jay  Gould,  Grover  Cleveland,  McEin- 
ley,  John  Hay,  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
and  hundreds  of  others — some  of  them 
at  the  bidding  of  a  single  phrase — 
fairly  jump  from  the  pages  into  re- 
newed being.  So,  too,  do  Dana  and 
the  two  Bennetts,  whose  sharply  indi- 
vidualized and  diversely  conceived 
newspapers  not  many  days  ago  joined 
their  future  fortunes  under  Frank  A. 
Munse/s  competent  control.  Colonel 
Watterson's  authoritative  professional 
judgment  rates  Frank  I.  Cobb  of  the 
''World"  as  on  the  whole  the  strongest 
editorial  writer  on  the  metropolitan 
press  since  Horace  Greeley ;  and  it  is 
worth  noting  that  the  Colonel  has 
come  to  have  some  faith  in  the  educa- 
tional usefulness  of  the  training 
schools  of  journalism. 

In  all  this  record  of  a  rich  and 
varied  experience,  which  has  woven  a 
thousand  threads  into  a  tolerant  and 
knowing  philosophy  of  life,  possibly 


no  other  thing  stands  out  more  dis- 
tinctly than  Henry  Watterson's  intui- 
tive perception,  at  the  very  outset  of 
the  Great  War,  of  its  inevitable  finale. 
Neither  Isaiah  nor  Jeremiah  nor 
again  Ezekiel  nor  any  of  the  sure- 
enough  prophets;  nor,  indeed,  any  of 
the  laymen  and  amateurs  including 
Emulphus,  ever  uttered  a  more  potent 
and  prescient  judgment  and  sentence 
than  that  which  he  reiterated  day 
after  day  in  the  "Courier-Journal"  at 
the  very  beginning  of  the  struggle: 
"To  hell  with  the  Hapsburgs  and  the 
HohenzoUems !"  You  can  no  more  ob- 
ject now  to  the  curse-word  than  to  its 
use  by  Cotton  Mather  or  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards in  the  theological  sense;  and  it 
is  a  matter  for  uncommon  satisfaction 
that  the  prophet  has  lived  to  see  the 
fulfilment. 

But  the  portrait  most  to  be  prized 
by  the  judicious  for  its  color  and  com- 
pleteness is  that  of  the  autobiographer 
himself.  I  confess  that  the  honorary 
title  "Dean  of  American  Journalism" 
does  not  capture  my  fancy  when  ap- 
plied to  "Marse  Henry".  Its  pale  con- 
ventional greyness  lacks  the  least 
touch  of  the  pigments  proper  to  this 
personality,  so  vivid,  so  militant,  so 
humanly  sympathetic,  so  salient 
among  all  his  professional  contempo- 
raries. It  would  never  have  occurred 
to  anybody  to  call  that  other  Henry, 
Henry  of  Navarre,  the  Dean  of  Mon- 
archs,  even  if  he  had  attained  to  the 
age  of  one  of  the  Bible  patriarchs  and 
had  sat  down  in  the  genial  sunshine 
of  late  afternoon  to  write  his  inesti- 
mable reminiscences. 


"Marse  Henry."  An  Autobiography.  By 
Henry  Watterson.  Two  yolumeB.  George  H. 
Doran  Company. 


WITH  MALICE  TOWARD  NONE 


New  York,  February,  1920. 

THEN  there's  the  matter  of  these 
dedications.  Some  time  ago  I 
received  a  communication.  I  think  it 
was  sent  by  Miss  Katharine  Lord,  or 
maybe  it  was  Hamlin  Garland.  Any- 
how, it  was  an  invitation.  The  up- 
shot of  this  invitation  was  that  the 
annual  exhibit  of  the  "best  books  of 
the  year"  held  at  the  National  Arts 
Club,  New  York  City,  under  the  aus- 
pices of  the  Joint  Committee  of  Lit- 
erary Arts,  was  now  going — or  was 
just  about  to  go.  Further,  it  was  con- 
veyed that  the  opening  evening  of  the 
exhibit  would  be  devoted  to  a  reception 
for  the  authors  of  the  books  exhibited. 
Also,  that  on  this  evening  speeches 
would  be  made  by  a  number  of  dis- 
tinguished persons  acquainted  with 
this  matter  on  the  subject  of  the  idio- 
syncrasies of  authors  and  editors. 
Further  than  this,  this  invitation 
made  clear  beyond  all  manner  of  rea- 
sonable doubt  that  the  pleasure  of  the 
evening  would  be  generally  felt  to  be 
sadly  incomplete  without  the  presence 
there  among  the  speakers  of  one  Mur- 
ray Hill. 

The  reasons  why  I  was  (I  am  sorry 
to  say)  unable  to  rise  to  this  occasion 
were  two.  For  one  thing,  I  have 
known  long  and  intimately  a  consid- 
erable number  of  authors  and  editors. 
Also,  I  have  had  the  honor  of  having 
been  several  times  to  the  National 
Arts  Qub.  And  (such  is  my  tact  and 
delicacy)  I  could  not  feel  that  this  was 


any  fit  place  for  me  to  discuss  the  (as 
the  term  is)  idiosyncrasies  with  which 
a  decidedly  checkered  career  has  ac- 
quainted me.  Then,  as  to  one  of  my 
own  idiosyncrasies :  I  am  like  George 
Moore  in  this  which  he  says,  that  he 
is  ''the  only  Irishman  living  or  dead 
who  cannot  make  a  speech"— -except 
that  I  am  not  an  Irishman. 

All  of  this,  however,  is  merely  pick- 
ing up  the  threads  of  ^y  thought 
What  I  have  in  my  eye  is  an  idiossm- 
crasy  of  authors  which  doubtless  I 
could  have  discussed  with  some  pro- 
priety. That  is,  if  I  were  able  to 
discuss  before  an  audience  anything 
at  all.  Though  with  this  subject,  as 
many  of  those  present  were  authors 
(who  had  their  toes  along  with  them) 
I  should  have  had  to  exercise  more 
than  a  little  caution,  and  considerable 
skill  in  maintaining  a  honeyed  amia- 
bility. 'Maybe  this  theme  wouldn't 
have  done  at  all  either. 

You  see,  it's  this  way :  many  people, 
I  believe,  do  not  read  the  introduc- 
tions, prefaces,  forewords  (and  what- 
ever else  such  things  are  called)  to 
books.  I  always  do.  Perhaps  this  is  a 
habit  formed  during  a  number  of 
years  spent  as  a  professional  reviewer. 
If  you  read  the  introduction,  preface 
(or  whatever  it's  called)  to  a  book, 
you  can  generally  pick  up  pretty  much 
what  the  author  thought  he  was 
about  when  he  wrote  it,  the  points  he 
intended  to  make  in  the  work,  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  he  wrote  it,  and 


64 


WITH  MALICE  TOWARD  NONE 


65 


80  on.  This  is  a  great  time  and  labor 
saving  procedure.  All  youVe  got  to 
do  then  is  to  read  a  bit  in  the  volume 
here  and  there  to  taste  the  style,  pick 
up  a  few  errors  of  fact  or  granunar, 
glance  at  the  "conclusion",  where  the 
author  sums  up,  to  see  whether  or  not 
he  got  anywhere — and  as  far  as  you 
are  further  put  out  by  having  this 
book  on  your  hands,  it  might  just  as 
well  never  have  been  written.  But  I 
am  drifting.  That's  one  reason  I 
can't  make  a  speech.  Never  can  recol- 
lect what  it  was  I  set  out  to  say. 

Oh,  yes  I  About  these  dedications. 
Fewer  people  than  read  prefaces,  I 
fancy,  read  the  dedications  of  books. 
I  always  read  'em.  I  read  them  when 
I  have  no  intention  whatever  of  read- 
ing the  volumes  which  they — ^well, 
dedicate.  They  are  fine,  dedications. 
Better,  far  better,  than  old  tomb- 
stones. But  never  judge  a  book  by  its 
dedication. 

I  one  time  knew  a  man,  of  a  most 
decidedly  humorous  cast  of  mind,  who 
was  a  great  spendthrift,  an  A  1 
wastrel  He  ran  through  everything 
his  father  left  him  (a  very  fair  little 
fortune),  and  then  when  he  had  run 
through— in  advance  of  that  gentle- 
man's death— everything  his  wife  was 
to  inherit  from  his  father-in-law,  he 
had  no  means  whatever.  He  had  a 
daughter.  Without,  it  was  clearly  evi- 
dent, the  least  suspicion  of  the  pleas- 
ant humor  of  this,  he  named  her  Hope. 
She  was  a  small  child.  And — if  s  ab- 
surd, I  know;  but  'tis  so;  there  was 
not  a  particle  of  conscious  irony  in  it; 
this  child's  name  was  the  one  blind 
spot  in  her  father's  sense  of  the  ri- 
diculous— ^her  parents  frequently  re- 
ferred to  her  affectionately  as  "litUe 
Hope". 

So,  quite  so,  with  dedications. 
Whenever,  or  perhaps  we  had  better 


say  frequently  when  a  man  writes  a 
particularly  worthless  book,  he  lays 
the  deed  (in  his  dedication  of  it)  onto 
his  wife,  "without  whose  constant  de- 
votion", etc.,  etc.,  etc.,  'this  work 
would  never  have  come  into  being". 
Or  he  says  that  it  is  inscribed,  "To 
— ^my  gentlest  friend — and  severest 
critic — ^my  aged  Grandmother".  Or 
maybe  he  accuses  his  little  daughter, 
"whose  tiny  hands  have  led  me".  Or 
again  he  may  say  benignantly :  "To— 
my  faithful  friend — ^Murray  Hill — 
who  made  possible  this  volume",  or 
"the  illumination  of  whose  personality 
has  lighted  my  way  to  the  truth". 

Doubtless  he  means  well,  this  au- 
thor. And,  in  most  cases,  highly  prob- 
able it  is  that  his  magnanimous  senti- 
ments are  0.  K  all  round.  For  to  the 
minds  of  what  would  probably  be 
called  "right  thinking"  persons,  is  not 
having  a  book  dedicated  to  you  the 
equivalent,  alpaost,  of  having  a  career 
yourself?  I  know  a  very  distinguished 
American  novelist — ^well,  I'll  tell  you 
who  he  is:  Booth  Tarkington — ^who 
has  told  me  this:  time  and  again  he 
has  been  relentlessly  pursued  by  some 
person  unknown  to  him  who  (in  the 
belief  that  did  he  once  hear  it  he 
would  surely  use  it  as  material  for  his 
next  book)  wished  to  tell  him  the 
story  of  his  life.  This  life,  according 
to  the  communications  received  by  the 
novelist,  was  in  every  case  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  ever  lived  by  man. 
It  was,  in  every  case,  most  extraordi- 
nary in,  among  a  variety  of  other 
singular  things,  this:  the  abounding 
in  it  of  the  most  amazing  coincidences. 
And  so  on,  and  so  on,  and  so  on.  One 
of  these  romantic;  personages  nailed 
the  novelist  somewhere  coming  out  of 
a  doorway  one  day,  and  contrived  to 
compel  him  to  sit  down  and  listen  to 
the  life-story.     He  was  an  old,  old 


66 


THE  BOOKMAN 


man,  this  chap,  and  firmly  convinced 
that  the  tale  of  his  many  days  (as 
simple,  conmionplace,  dull,  and  mo- 
notonous an  existence  as  ever  was  con- 
ceived) was  unique.  Now  he  did  not 
want  any  pay  for  telling  his  story; 
he  had  no  design  on  any  royalty  to 
come  from  the  great  book  to  be  made 
out  of  it;  no,  not  at  all.  All  he  asked 
— and  that,  he  thought,  was  fair 
enough — was  that  the  book  be  dedi- 
cated to  him.  And  so  it  was  with 
them  all,  all  of  those  with  the  remark- 
able, obscure,  romantic,  humdrum 
lives.    So  much  for  that. 

Dedications  run  the  whole  gamut  of 
the  emotions.  A  type  of  author  very 
tonic  to  the  spirit  is  that  one  whose 
soul  embraces  not  merely  an  indi- 
vidual but  which  enfolds  in  its  heroic 
sweep  a  nation,  a  people,  or  some 
mighty  idea.  What,  for  instance, 
could  be  more  vast  in  the  grandeur  of 
its  sweep  than  this — ^which  I  came 
upon  the  other  day  in  a  modest  little 
volume?  "To  the  Children  of  Des- 
tiny." The  Great  War,  which  has 
wrought  so  much  evil  and  inspired  so 
much  literature,  is  responsible  for  a 
flood  of  noble,  lofty  dedications.  The 
merest  snooping  through  a  bunch  of 
recent  war  books  turns  up,  among  a 
multitude  more,  the  following:  "To 
the  Mothers  of  America."  "To — ^the 
Loyalty  and  Patriotism— of  the — 
American  People."  "To  the  Hour — 
When  the  Troops  Turn  Home."  "To 
all  the  Men  at  the  Front." 

I  should  not  affirm,  of  course,  that 
there  is  anything  new  under  the  sun. 
And  it  is  very  probable  that  ever  since 
this  psychic  literature  began  (when- 
ever it  began)  authors  resident  be- 
yond the  stars  have,  naturally  enough, 
dedicated  their  manuscripts  submitted 
to  earthly  publishers,  to  folks  back  in 
the  old  home,  so  to  say.    But  with  the 


war,  which  has  so  greatly  stimulated 
literary  activity  on  the  other  side  of 
life,  the  dedications  of  these  (to  put 
it  so)  expatriated  authors  have  per- 
haps become  (in  a  manner  of  speak- 
ing) loftier  in  tone  than  ever  before. 
As  a  sample  of  the  present  state  of 
exalted  feeling  of  authors  of  this  sort 
I  copy  the  following  dedication  from 
the  recently  published  book  of  a  writer 
"gone  West":  "To  the  heroic  women 
of  the  world,  the  mothers,  wives  and 
sweethearts  who  bravely  sent  us  forth 
to  battle  for  a  great  cause: — ^we  who 
have  crossed  the  Great  Divide  salute 
you." 

I  wish,  I  do  wish,  I  had  at  hand  a 
book  which  I  saw  a  number  of  years 
ago....  As  examples  of  persons  to 
whom  books  have  been  dedicated  may 
be  specified  the  Deity,  the  Virgin 
Mary,  Royalty  and  Dignitaries  of 
Church  and  State,  "the  Reader",  and 
the  author  himself.  Many  of  the 
pleasantest  dedications  have  been  to 
children.  Besides  armies  and  navies, 
countries,  states,  cities  and  their  in- 
habitants, books  have  also  been  dedi- 
cated to  institutions  and  societies,  to 
animals,  to  things  spiritual,  and  to 
things  inanimate.  An  attractive  ex- 
ample of  a  dedication  to  Deity  is  fur- 
nished by  one  John  Leycaeter,  who, 
in  1649,  dedicated  his  "Civill  Warres 
of  England,  Briefly  Related  from  his 
Majesties  First  Setting  Up  His  Stand- 
ard, 1641,  to  this  Present  Personall 
Hopefull  Treaty"— "To  the  Honour 
and  Glory  of  the  Inflnite,  Immense, 
and  Incomprehensible  Majesty  of  Je- 
hovah, the  Fountaine  of  all  Excellen- 
cies, the  Lord  of  Hosts,  the  Giver  of 
all  Victories,  and  the  God  of  Peace." 
He  continued  in  a  poem,  "By  J.  0.  Ley, 
a  small  crumme  of  mortality". 

But  about  that  book  I  saw  some 
time  ago.    You,  of  course,  remember 


WITH  MALICE  TOWARD  NONE 


67 


that  prayer  in  "Tom  Sawyer"  (or 
somewhere  else  in  Mark  Twain)  where 
the  great-hearted  minister  called  upon 
the  Lord  to  bless  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  the  President's  Cabi- 
net, the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
the  governors  of  each  of  the  states,  and 
their  legislatures,  the  mayors  of  all 
the  cities,  and  all  the  towns,  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  inhabitants — 
grandmothers  and  grandfathers, 
mothers  and  wives,  husbands  and  fa- 
thers, sons  and  daughters,  bachelors 
and  little  children— of  every  hamlet, 
town  and  city  of  the  United  States, 
also  of  all  the  countryside  thereof. 
Well,  this  book  of  which  I  have  been 
speaking, — ^this  minister  in  the  au- 
gust range  and  compass  of  his  prayer 
had  nothing  on  its  dedication.  It  was 
published,  as  I  recollect,  by  the  au- 
thor; printed  on  very  woody  wood- 
pulp  paper  by  a  job  press,  and  had  a 
coarse  screen,  frontispiece  portrait  of 
the  author,  whose  name  has  long  since 
left  me.  What  it  was  about  I  do  not 
remember.  That  is  a  little  matter. 
It  lives  in  my  mind,  and  should  live 
in  the  memory  of  the  world,  by  its 
dedication;  which,  I  recall,  in  part 
was:  "To  the  Sultan  of  Turkey— the 
Emperor  of  Japan — ^the  Czar  of  Rus- 
sia— ^the  Emperor  of  Germany — ^the 
President  of  France — ^the  King  of 
England — ^the  President  of  the  United 
States— and  to  God." 

But  it  was  in  an  elder  day  that  they 
really  knew  how  to  write  sonorous 
dedications.  If  I  should  write  a  book 
(and  the  idea  of  having  one  to  dedi- 
cate tempts  me  greatly)  I'd  pick  out 
some  important  personage,  such  as 
Benjamin  De  Casseres,  or  Frank 
Crowninshield,  or  Charles  Hanson 
Towne,  or  somebody  like  that.  Then 
I  would  take  as  the  model  for  my 
dedication  that  one,  say,  of  Boswell's 


to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.  I  am  afraid 
you  have  not  read  it  lately.  And  so, 
for  the  joy  the  meeting  of  it  again 
will  give  you,  I  will  copy  it  out.  It 
goes  as  follows: 

Mt  Diab  Sir, — ^Every  liberal  motire  that  can 
actuate  an  Anthour  in  the  dedication  of  hia 
labonra,  concurs  in  directing  me  to  yon,  at  the 
person  to  whom  the  foUowing  Work  should  be 
inscribed. 

If  there  be  a  pleasure  in  celebrating  the 
distinguished  merit  of  a  contemporary,  mixed 
with  a  certain  degree  of  ranity  not  altogether 
inexcusable,  in  appearing  fully  sensible  of  it, 
where  can  I  find  one,  in  complimenting  whom 
I  can  with  more  general  approbation  gratify 
those  feelings  ?  Your  excellence  not  only  in  the 
Art  oyer  which  you  hare  long  presided  with 
unriraUed  fame,  but  also  in  PhUosophy  and 
elegant  Literature,  is  weU  known  to  the  pres- 
ent, and  wiU  continue  to  be  the  admiration  of 
future  ages.  Your  equal  and  placid  temper, 
your  variety  of  conyersation,  your  true  polite- 
ness, by  which  you  are  so  amiable  in  prirate 
society,  and  that  enlarged  hospitality  which 
has  long  made  your  house  a  common  centre 
of  union  for  the  great  and  accomplished,  the 
learned,  and  the  ingenious;  aU  these  qualities 
I  can,  in  perfect  confidence  of  not  being  ac- 
cused of  flattery,  ascribe  to  you. 

If  a  man  may  indulge  an  honest  pride,  in 
having  it  known  to  the  world,  that  he  has 
been  thought  worthy  of  particular  atten- 
tion by  a  person  of  the  first  eminence  in  the 
age  in  which  he  lived,  whose  company  has 
been  uniTersally  courted,  I  am  Justified  in 
avaUing  myself  of  the  usual  priyilege  of  a 
Dedication,  when  I  mention  that  there  has 
been  a  long  and  uninterrupted  friendship  be- 
tween us. 

If  gratitude  should  be  acknowledged  for 
fayours  received  I  have  this  opportunity,  my 
dear  Sir,  most  sincerely  to  thank  you  for  the 
many  happy  hours  which  I  owe  to  your  kind- 
ness,— ^for  the  cordiality  with  which  you  hare 
at  aU  times  been  pleased  to  welcome  me, — 
for  the  number  of  yaluable  acquaintances  to 
whom  you  haye  introduced  me, — for  the  noetet 
oanutque  Deum,  which  I  haye  enjoyed  under 
your  roof. 

U  a  work  should  be  inscribed  to  one  who  is 
master  of  the  subject  of  it,  and  whose  appro- 
bation, therefore,  must  ensure  it  credit  and 
success,  the  Life  of  Dr.  Johnson  is,  with  the 
greatest  propriety,  dedicated  to  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds,  who  was  the  intimate  and  beloyed 
friend  of  that  great  man;  the  friend,  whom 
he  declared  to  be  **the  most  inyulnerable  man 
he  knew,  whom,  if  he  should  quarrel  with  him, 
he  would  find  the  most  difficulty  how  to  abuse". 
You.  my  dear  Sir.  studied  him,  and  knew  him 
well;    yoo  yenerated  and  admired  him.     Yet, 


y 


68 


THE  BOOKMAN 


lumtnouB  M  he  was  upon  the  whole,  yoa  per- 
ceiyed  all  the  shades  which  mingled  in  the 
grand  composition;  all  the  peculiarities  and 
slight  blemishes  which  marked  the  literary 
Colossus.  Your  very  warm  commendation  of 
the  specimen  which  I  gave  in  my  '^Journal  of 
a  Tour  to  the  Hebrides",  of  my  being  able  to 
preserre  his  conversation  in  an  authentiic  and 
llyely  manner,  which  opinion  the  Publick  has 
confirmed,  was  the  best  encouragement  for  me 
to  perseyere  in  my  purpose  of  producing  the 
whole  of  my  stores. . . . 
I  am,  my  dear  Sir, 

Your  much  obliged  friend. 

And  faithful  humble  serrant, 

JAMB8  B08WILL 

London, 

AprU  20,  1701. 

In  a  more  modem  style  of  compo- 
sition the  epistolary  form  of  dedica- 
tion is  still  employed.  I  wish  I  had 
not  (one  time  when  I  was  moving) 
lost  that  copy  I  had,  English  edition, 
of  George  Moore's  book  "The  Lake". 
I  have  a  feeling  that  the  dedicatory 
letter  there,  in  French,  was  an  ad- 
mirable example  of  its  kind  of  thing. 
If  you  happen  to  have  a  copy  of  the 
book,  why  don't  you  look  it  up? 

When  poems  are  written  as  dedica- 
tions an  established  convention  is  fol- 
lowed. You  affect  at  the  beginning 
(in  this  formula)  to  be  very  humble 
in  spirit,  deeply  modest  in  your  con- 
ception of  your  powers.  You  speak, 
if  your  book  is  verse,  of  your  "fragile 
rhyme",  or  (with  Patmore)  you  "drag 
a  rumbling  wain".  Again  perhaps 
you  speak  (in  the  words  of  Bums)  of 
your  "wee  bit  heap  o'  leaves  an'  stib- 
ble",  or  you  call  Southwell  to  witness 
that, — 

He  that  high  growth  on  cedars  did  bestow. 
Gave  also  lowly  mushrumps  leave  to  grow. 

And  SO  on.  At  any  rate,  you  always 
do  this.  Then  you  say  that  his  (or 
her)  eyes  for  whom  the  book  was  writ- 
ten will  change  the  dross  to  gold,  the 
"blind  words"  to  "anth^itic  song",  the 
"mushrump"  to  a  flower,  or  some  such 
thing.    So,  after  all,  you  skilfully  con- 


trive to  leave  your  book  to  the  reader 
on  a  rather  high,  confident  note.  Any 
other  way  of  writing  a  dedicatory 
poem  to  a  book  of  verse  (being  out  of 
the  tradition  altogether)  is,  I  take  it, 
bad,  very  bad  literary  etiquette. 

Numerous  dedications  have  consid- 
erable fame.    There  is  that  enigmat- 
ical one  to  "Mr.  W.  H.",  prefixed  by 
Thomas  Thorpe,  bookseller  of  London, 
to  Shakespeare's  Sonnets.     And  Dr. 
Johnson's    scathing    definition    of    a 
patron   when   Lord  Chesterfield   fell 
short  of  Johnson's  expectations  in  the 
amount  which  he  contributed  to  the 
publication  of  the  famous  dictionary, 
men  will  not  willingly  let  die.  Another 
celebrated  dedication  is  that  of  "The 
(lentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies"— "To 
the  Rare  Few,  who,  early  in  life,  have 
rid  themselves  of  the  Friendship  of 
the  Many."    Laurence  Sterne's  solemn 
"putting  up  fairly  to  public  sale"  to  an 
imaginary  lord  a  dedication  to  "Tris- 
tram Shandy"  is  not  without  merit. 
John  Burroughs  was  felicitous  in  his 
dedication  of  "Bird  and  Bough"— "To 
the  kinglet  that  sang  in  my  evergreens 
in  October  and  made  me  think  it  was 
May."    And  a  very  amiable  dedication 
prefixed  to  "The  Bashful  Earthquake", 
by  Oliver  Herford,  illustrated  by  the 
author,  is  this:    "To  the  Illustrator, 
in  grateful  acknowledgment  of  his 
amiable  condescension  in  lending  his 
exquisite  and  delicate  art  to  the  em- 
bellishment of  these  poor  verses,  from 
his  sincerest  admirer.  The  Author." 
Mr.    Herford's    latest    book,    "This 
Giddy  Globe",  is  dedicated  so:    "To 
President  Wilson.  IWith  aU  his  fatdta 
he  qrwtes  me  8tiU.Y* 

A  clever  dedication,  I  think,  is  that 
of  Christopher  Morley's  "Shandygaff" 
—"To  The  Miehle  Printing  Press- 
More  Sinned  Against  Than  Sinning." 
A  dedication  intended  to  be  clever. 


THE  GARDEN 


69 


and  one  frequently  seen,  is,  in  effect, 
"To  the  Hesitating  Purchaser".  A 
certain  appropriateness  is  presented 
in  a  recent  book  on  advertising,  "Re- 
spectfully dedicated  to  the  men  who 
invest  millions  of  dollars  a  year  in  na- 
tional advertising".  And  some  nim- 
bleness  of  wit  is  attained  in  the  in- 
scription of  the  book  "Why  Worry?" 
— "To  my  long-suffering  family  and 
circle  of  friends,  whose  patience  has 
been  tried  by  my  efforts  to  eliminate 
worry,  this  book  is  affectionately  dedi- 
cated." 

Miss  Annie  Carroll  Moore,  super- 
visor of  work  with  children  at  the  New 
York  Public  Library,  tells  me  that  the 
other  day  a  small  boy  inquired,  "Who 


was  the  first  man  to  write  a  book  to 
another  man?"  Vm  sure  I  donH 
know.  Perhaps  this  is  told  some- 
where. A  number  of  books  and  ar- 
ticles concerning  dedications,  I  have 
heard,  are  to  be  found  in  studious 
places.  I  have  never  read  any  of  them. 
I  remember,  however,  reviewing  for 
a  newspaper  a  number  of  years  ago  (I 
think  it  was  in  1918)  a  book,  then 
just  published,  called  "Dedications: 
An  Anthology  of  the  Forms  Used 
from  the  Earliest  Days  of  Bookmak- 
ing  to  the  Present  Time".  It  was 
compiled  by  Mary  Elizabeth  Brown. 
The  volume  made  handy  to  the  general 
reader  a  fairly  representative  collec- 
tion of  dedications. 

MURRAY   HILL 


THE  GARDEN 


BY  ALINE  KILMER 


AND  now  it  is  all  to  be  done  over  again 
L    And  what  will  come  of  it  only  God  can  know. 
What  has  become  of  the  furrows  ploughed  by  pain 
And  the  hopes  set  row  on  row? 

Where  are  the  lines  of  beautiful  bending  trees? 

The  gracious  springs,  the  depths  of  delicate  shade? 
The  sunny  spaces  loud  with  the  humming  of  bees, 

And  the  grassy  paths  in  the  garden  my  life  had  made? 


Lightning  and  earthquake  now  have  blasted  and  riven, 
Even  the  trees  that  I  trusted  could  not  stand; 

Now  it  lies  here  to  the  bitter  winds  of  Heaven 
A  barren  and  a  desolated  land. 


CURRENTS  IN  FRENCH  LITERATURE 


BY  MRS.  BELLOC  LOWNDES 


The  story  of  Louis  XIV — Sainte-Beuve's  letters — the  Empress  Eug&nie's 
war  apologia — social  self-criticism — a  new  life  of  Bavdelaire — a  Poe  enthusiast 
— new  light  on  the  mystery  of  the  lost  dauphin — two  royal  biographies — an 
actress's  memoirs — the  vexed  question  of  the  First  NoveL 


IT  is  clear  that  there  is  going  to  be 
a  great  literary  swing  back  to  the 
old,  happy,  prewar  France  of  long  ago. 
Every  king  of  France  had  his  war,  and 
as  a  rule  it  was  a  terrible  war.  But 
now  both  historian  and  romantic  look 
at  those  battles  of  long  ago  through 
a  magic  haze.  To  a  certain  extent  this 
attitude  is  justified,  for  in  those  days 
kings  and  princes  at  war  did  things  in 
the  grand  manner.  Compare,  for  in- 
stance, the  strange,  human,  sometimes 
grotesque  story  of  Louis  XIV's  famous 
early  campaign — that  campaign  when 
he  was  accompanied  by  the  queen,  by 
Louise  de  la  Valli^re,  and  by  his  com- 
ing favorite,  Madame  de  Montespan — 
with  the  sordid  story  of  what  went  on 
at  German  Headquarters  in  1916. 
Every  moralist  must  condemn  Louis 
XIV,  but  a  student  of  human  nature 
cannot  but  be  moved  by  the  compli- 
cated drama  of  love,  hatred,  and  jeal- 
ousy which  was  played  out  in  the 
Flanders  of  that  far-off  day.  From  all 
that  occurred  at  Charleville  five  years 
ago,  even  a  coarse  mind  turns  away  in 
disgust.  Yet  the  book  which  tells  the 
story  will  probably  have  the  biggest 
sale  of  all  the  war  books. 

I  am  told  that  before  allowing  the 
volume  wherein  these  revelations  are 
made  to  be  published,  the  French  gov- 
ernment took  great  pains  to  make 


quite  sure  that  the  events  related 
within  had  really  come  to  pass  as  de- 
scribed by  the  Frenchman  who  claims 
to  have  been  an  eye-witness.  The  fact 
that  Maurice  Barr&s  consented  to 
write  the  preface  to  such  a  work  also 
proves  its  absolute  authenticity. 

To  all  true  lovers  of  French  litera- 
ture Sainte-Beuve  remains  a  most  at- 
tractive and  enigmatic  figure.  Not 
only  was  he  acknowledged  as  the 
greatest  of  French  historical  essayists 
— ^and  could  there  be  higher  praise? — 
but  he  had  a  most  curious  personality. 
He  was  on  intimate  terms  with  all  the 
great  minds  of  his  day,  and  he  was 
such  a  delightful  human  being,  his 
conversation  was  so  entrancing,  that 
all  kinds  and  conditions  of  human 
beings  sought  his  friendship  and  in- 
timacy. He  never  allowed  private 
friendship  to  interfere  with  what  he 
thought  his  duty  as  a  writer,  and  he 
broke  what  had  been  for  many  years  a 
kind  of  Platonic  and  yet  rather  more 
than  affectionate  intimacy — that  called 
by  the  French  amitii  amoureuse — 
with  Princess  Mathilde  Bonaparte  be- 
cause he  thought  it  right,  in  one  of 
his  essays,  to  attack  the  memory  of  the 
great  Napoleon. 

I  hear  that  among  forthcoming 
spring  publications  is  a  volume  of  let- 
ters   written    by    Sainte-Beuve    to 


60 


CURRENTS  IN  FRENCH  LITERATURE 


61 


Renan.  In  addition  to  being  a  great 
essayist,  Sainte-Beuve  was  a  brilliant 
letter  writer,  and  this  book  will  cer- 
tainly be  a  very  valuable  addition  to 
the  literary  history  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

Singularly  little  has  been  written, 
of  an  intimate  kind,  on  the  court  of 
Napoleon  III  and  the  Empress  Eu- 
g&nie.  I  am  told  that  several  volumes 
of  letters  and  diaries  are  being  held 
back  owing  to  the  Empress's  pro- 
longed life.  Much  mystery  surrounds 
the  Empress  Eugenie's  own  memoirs. 
There  seems  no  doubt  that  she  has 
prepared  a  very  elaborate  apologia 
witti  regard  to  her  own  conduct  be- 
fore and  during  the  Franco-Prussian 
War.  She  has  always  deeply  resented 
the  legendary  tale  of  how  she  ex- 
claimed to  a  foreign  diplomat,  "This 
is  my  war!''  And  from  what  we  now 
know  of  German  and  especially  of  Bis- 
marckian  propaganda  methods,  it  is 
quite  possible  that  the  phrase  was  in- 
vented, and  put  into  her  mouth,  in 
Berlin. 

II 

There  is  a  strong  current  setting  in 
toward  what  I  may  call,  for  want  of  a 
better  phrase,  social  self-criticism  of 
France  and  of  French  ways.  The 
most  striking  book  of  the  kind  pub- 
lished this  winter  is  called  "We  Must 
Now  Conquer  Ourselves".  The  author, 
M.  de  Noussanne,  is  very  seriously  dis- 
tressed at  the  present  state  of  things 
in  his  beloved  country.  He  belabors 
with  equal  indignation  and  sincerity 
the  leaders  of  modem  French  democ- 
racy, and  the  small,  vigorous  group  of 
Intellectuals,  who,  led  by  Maurice 
Barr&s,  would  like  France  to  become 
once  more  religious,  thrifty,  and,  in 
perhaps  a  narrow  sense,  moral  in  her 
outlook  on  life. 

M.  Noussanne's  quarrel  with  the  In- 
tellectualB  is  that  they  are  more  fond 


of  talking  than  of  acting.  He  says 
that  they  do  not  try  to  get  into  real 
touch  with  the  masses  of  weary  and 
war-M^om  workers;  "they  dine  at  the 
tables  of  the  Pharisees,  not  at  those  of 
the  poor,  the  halt,  the  lame,  and  the 
blind.  They  forget  their  Master,  who 
said,  'None  of  these  guests  who  were 
invited  shall  sit  at  My  table' ".  If  all 
that  this  writer  says  is  true,  then 
France  is  indeed  in  a  parlous  state. 
But,  like  all  Frenchmen  of  his  type, 
he  paints  in  far  blacker  colors  thai^ 
he  need  do,  and  he  is  ready  with  his 
remedy.  He  implores  his  countrymen, 
and  especially  his  countrywomen,  to 
restore  the  old  French  ideal  of  family 
life.  As  is  the  case  with  innumerable 
thoughtful  Frenchmen  who  have  seen 
the  havoc  which  easy  divorce  has 
worked  in  so  peculiarly  conservative 
a  civilization  as  is  that  of  France,  he 
would  now  wish  to  see  divorce  abso- 
lutely abolished.  The  part  of  the  book 
where  he  discusses  this  question  would 
perhaps  make  an  American  or  an  Eng- 
lishman smile,  for  M.  Noussanne  is 
nothing  if  not  thorough,  and  he  even 
goes  out  of  his  way  to  tell  his  young 
countrywomen  how  they  can  retain 
their  husband's  love,  and  prevent  them 
from  running  after  strange  goddesses. 

Baudelaire  is  out  of  fashion,  and  yet 
I  for  one  venture  to  believe  that  his 
name  will  be  famous  as  long  as  French 
literature  endures.  Not  only  was  his 
literary  technique  flawless,  but  he  in- 
vented a  new  literary  genre,  and  he  in- 
troduced Edgar  Allan  Poe  in  a  series 
of  translations  which  are  every  whit 
as  good  as  the  original.  Like  Flau- 
bert, Baudelaire  had  the  mingled 
honor  and  shame  of  having  a  book  at- 
tacked, tried,  and  finally  condenmed, 
by  the  legal  authorities  of  his  country. 
But  whereas  "Madame  Bovary"  tri- 
umphantly survived  the  ordeal,  even 


62 


THE  BOOKMAN 


among  the  writer's  own  contempo- 
raries, Baudelaire's  "Les  Fleurs  du 
Mai"  was  henceforth  branded  as  an 
extraordinarily  wicked  book.  This 
perhaps  was  partly  owing  to  the  fact 
that  Baudelaire  was  not  at  all  popular 
among  his  contemporaries,  and  why 
this  was  so  is  very  clearly  and  even 
amusingly  set  forth  in  a  new  life  of 
him  just  published  by  a  clever  writer 
named  Cr^pet. 

M.  Cr^pet  has  wit  and  humor,  and 
both  are  required  for  dealing  with  the 
eccentric,  fretful,  poet  whose  wonder- 
ful work  influenced  that  of  so  many 
English  and  American  writers.  His 
adoration  of  Poe  is  of  course  well 
known,  but  I  was  not  aware  that  he 
actually  gave  up  what  to  such  a  man 
must  have  been  the  greatest  sacrifice 
of  all — a  life  of  almost  complete  idle- 
ness— in  order  to  begin  and  complete 
his  translation  of  "Tales  of  Mystery 
and  Imagination".  Apropos  of  his  en- 
thusiasm for  Poe,  M.  Cr^pet  tells  the 
following  touching  tale.  A  friend 
came  in  and  told  Baudelaire  one  day 
that  an  American  gentleman  then 
passing  through  Paris,  was  personally 
acquainted  with  Edgar  Allan  Poe.  At 
once  Baudelaire  rushed  off  to  the 
stranger's  hotel.  He  found  the  Amer- 
ican engaged  in  trying  on  a  number  of 
pairs  of  boots  which  had  been  sent 
him  on  approval  by  one  of  the  great 
Paris  bootmakers.  Baudelaire  at  once 
began  to  question  him  about  Poe,  and 
was  much  angered  at  being  coldly  in- 
formed that  Poe  was  a  very  eccentric, 
peculiar  sort  of  fellow;  and,  further, 
that  he  was  fond  of  talking  at  random, 
that  his  conversation  in  a  word  was 
not  consecutive!  Baudelaire  jumped 
up,  put  on  his  hat,  and  exclaiming, 
"After  all,  why  should  I  listen  to  you? 
You  are  only  a  Yankee!"  rushed  out 
of  the  hotel.  The  poet  was  also,  which 
is  rather  strange,  devoted  to  Longfel- 


low. Far  more  natural  was  his  at- 
traction to  De  Quincey  and  his  wild 
enthusiasm  for  "The  Confessions  of 
an  Opium  Eater". 

Ill 

Like  so  many  other  French  writers, 
M.  Lenotre  was  forced  during  the  war 
out  of  his  natural  bent.  He  wrote  two 
books,  but  both  of  them  were  more 
or  less  intended  to  be  topical,  and  they 
were  quite  lacking  in  the  charm  and 
originality  with  which  we  all  associ- 
ate his  name. 

I  am  glad  to  announce  that  he  is 
now  working  on  a  very  close  study  of 
that  enigmatic  figure,  perhaps  the 
most  unhappy  boy  in  all  history,  Louis 
XVII.  All  those  who  are  even  only 
slightly  interested  in  this  great  his- 
torical mystery  are  well  aware  that  a 
vast  literature  has  grown  up  round 
the  possible  survival  of  Marie  An- 
toinette's son.  I  have  personally  dis- 
cussed the  question  with  many  dis- 
tinguished and  erudite  Frenchmen, 
and  on  the  whole  they  are  inclined  to 
believe  that  the  dauphin  did  leave  the 
temple  alive,  and  that  the  half-witted 
boy  who  undoubtedly  died  there,  and 
who  was  buried  under  the  name  and 
with  the  style  of  the  son  of  the  last 
king  of  France,  had  been  substituted. 

During  the  greater  part  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  this  theory  was  re- 
garded as  quite  untenable,  and  indeed 
absurd.  But  this  was  undoubtedly 
owing  in  a  great  part,  as  we  know 
now,  to  the  extraordinarily  astute 
propaganda  which  was  carried  out, 
with  that  object  in  view,  by  those  who 
naturally  desired  the  Bourbon  Resto- 
ration to  be  permanent.  That  Madame 
d'AngoulSme  had  very  grave  doubts  as 
to  her  brother's  death  in  the  temple, 
has  become  known  of  late  years 
through  the  medium  of  private  letters 
and  diaries.     It  is  on  secret  record 


CURRENTS  IN  FRENCH  LITERATURE 


68 


that  she  received  at  least  one  of  ^  the 
Pretenders,  but  he  obviously  did  not 
satisfy  her  as  to  the  authenticity  of 
his  claim.  Her  position  was  an  ago- 
nizing one.  She  was  not  only  niece  to 
the  reigning  sovereign,  but  she  was 
the  wife  of  his  heir  apparent.  The 
survival  of  her  brother  would  have 
meant  the  deposition  of  all  those  who 
had  become  her  nearest  and  dearest. 

I  am  told  that  M.  Lenotre  claims  to 
have  made  some  important  discoveries, 
and  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  these 
will  turn  out  to  be  the  production  of 
some  kind  of  proof  that  the  dauphin 
was  really  smuggled  out  of  the  temple 
by  one  of  his  parents'  innumerable  de- 
voted adherents.  But  what  happened 
to  him  afterward  is  not  likely  ever  to 
be  known.  At  one  time  there  were  six 
Pretenders,  each  of  whom  probably 
sincerely  believed  in  his  claim  to  be 
Louis  XVII. 

Perhaps  the  most  sinister  figure  of 
the  war  was  Ferdinand  of  Bulgaria, 
the  astute  sovereign  concerning  whom 
the  German  emperor,  while  on  a  visit 
to  England,  once  observed  to  an  ac- 
quaintance of  mine,  "Thiis  wily  old  fox 
is  the  cleverest  of  us  all — ^but  what  a 
rogue  I''  In  France  he  is  hated  with 
a  i>eculiar  hatred,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  up  to  1914  he  was  fond  of  boast- 
ing of  his  French  blood,  and  of  recall- 
ing the  fact  that  he  is  own  grandson 
to  Louis  Philippe.  In  this  connection 
I  hear  that  there  will  shortly  be  pub- 
lished a  most  interesting  book  dealing 
with  Ferdinand's  peculiar  and  sinister 
personality.  The  volume  is  being  writ- 
ten by  a  man  named  Necludorff,  who 
was  for  many  years  one  of  the  king  of 
Bulgaria's  most  trusted  familiars. 
Whether  the  volume  will  really  throw 
any  light  on  Ferdinand's  tortuous 
policy  may  be  doubted.  He  is  a  man 
of  few  confidants,  and  it  will  be  re- 
memb^ed  that  he  hesitated  for  a  vexy 


long  time  before  throwing  in  his  lot 
with  the  central  empires.  A  distin- 
guished neutral  observed  to  me  early  in 
the  war,  "We  shall  know  who  is  going 
to  win  when  Ferdinand  of  Bulgaria 
shows  his  hand."  There  are  some  who 
say  that  the  intellectuality  and  the 
power  which  he  showed  through  all  his 
youth  and  middle  age  were  really  those 
of  his  mother,  the  formidable  Princess 
Clementine;  and  that  when  she  died  at 
an  advanced  age,  he  lost  not  only  his 
best  friend,  but  the  counselor  to  whom 
he  owed  his  position  and  success. 

Another  royal  biography — ^which  is 
already  out  in  Germany,  where  it  is 
being  read  with  extraordinary  interest, 
and  which  will  shortly  be  published 
both  in  France  and  England— deals 
with  the  personality  of  the  late  Franz 
Ferdinand,  the  Austrian  heir  presump- 
tive, whose  assassination  precipitated, 
if  it  did  not  cause,  the  war.  The  au- 
thor of  this  book  also  writes  from  in- 
side knowledge,  and  he  gives  a  curious, 
intimate  picture  of  the  violent,  des- 
potic, obstinate,  and  yet  in  a  sense 
high-minded  prince,  whose  marriage  to 
the  Countess  Chotek  was  such  a  nine 
days'  wonder  some  twenty  years  ago. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Franz 
Ferdinand  renounced  all  his  rights  to 
the  Austrian  throne,  thinking  the 
world  well  lost  for  love.  He  remained 
devoted  to  the  Countess  Chotek  and, 
together  with  their  three  children,  they 
led  a  placid,  almost  idyllic  existence. 
She  was,  however,  known  to  be  ex- 
tremely ambitious — desperately  anx- 
ious that  her  eldest  son  should  be,  if 
not  Emperor  of  Austria,  then  King  of 
Hungaiy.  It  is  believed  that  she  and 
William  II  struck  a  kind  of  bargain  to- 
gether, by  which  she  should  persuade 
her  husband  to  promote  a  European 
war— or,  rather,  such  a  European  war 
as  suited  the  German  emperor — and 
that  in  exchange  he  would  in  every  way 


64 


THE  BOOKMAN 


help  her  to  raise  her  boy  to  the  posi- 
tion of  heir  apparent  to  the  Hungarian 
throne. 

IV 

I  hear  that  Madame  R^jane  is  busy 
on  her  memoirs.  Not  only  is  she  a 
very  great  actress — some  would  tell 
you  the  greatest  and  most  versatile  ac- 
tress that  France  has  seen  since  Rachel 
— ^but  she  is  a  very  clever  and  culti- 
vated woman,  interested  in  a  dozen 
things  apart  from  the  theatre.  She 
has  known  all  the  more  noted  French 
writers,  artists  and  i)oliticians  of  her 
day,  and  she  is  also  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  the  high  little  London 
world  which  settles,  for  England  at 
any  rate,  questions  of  taste.  I  once 
had  a  talk  with  her  at  the  moment  of 
her  marvelous  success  as  Madame 
Sans-GSne,  and  she  confided  to  me  her 
intense  desire  to  play  de  Goncourt's 
terrible  Germinie  Lacerteux.  I  felt 
amazed,  for  it  seemed  impossible  that 
the  same  woman  who  could  play  Ma- 
dame Sans-GSne — ^a  part  which  was 
absolutely  created  for  her  by  Sardou, 
could  possibly  act  the  fierce,  unhappy, 
and  at  once  very  human  being  who 
had  been,  as  I  was  well  aware,  drawn 
with  cruel  fidelity  from  the  Brothers 
de  Goncourt's  housekeeper.  And  yet  it 
was  her  acting  Germinie  Lacerteux 
which  ultimately  gave  R^jane  her  place 
among  the  really  great  actresses  of  the 
last  century.  I  fancy  few  people  are 
aware  that  Madame  R^jane's  great- 
grandfather was  court  tailor  to  Na- 
poleon I,  and  that  her  relatives  possess 
various  relics  of  the  great  man.  It  is 
curious  how  few  of  the  more  noted 
French  actors  and  actresses  have  taken 
the  trouble  to  keep  diaries,  or  to  write 
their  memoirs.  Both  Got  and  Goque- 
lin  were  constantly  asked  to  publish  a 
book  of  reminiscences;  but  though 
they  both  wrote  well, — Coquelin  being 


a  delightful  letter  writer, — ^they  always 
refused  to  write  anything  for  publica- 
tion. 

Apropos  of  the  French  drama, 
Messrs.  Goupil  have  published  a  kind 
of  edition  de  luxe  of  their  prewar  re- 
view "Le  Theatre".  In  it  is  told  the 
history  of  the  theatrical  world  during 
the  war.  Among  the  illustrations  are 
some  curious  drawings  of  perform- 
ances which  were  given  for  the  poilus 
only,  at  the  front.  Those  who  have 
formed  anything  in  the  nature  of  a 
war  library  will  find  this  number  of 
"Le  Theatre",  which  only  costs  the 
modest  sum  of  one  dollar,  of  future 
value  and  present  interest. 

The  correspondence  which  lately 
took  place  in  London  on  the  vexed 
question  of  the  First  Novel,  and  which 
was  brilliantly  inaugurated  by  Hugh 
Walpole  in  the  Literary  Supplement  of 
the  "Times"  and  carried  on  by  various 
novelists,  and  publishers  including 
Messrs.  Macmillan  and  Messrs.  Chap- 
man and  Hall,  has  naturally  aroused 
some  interest  in  France.  With  a  very 
few  exceptions,  which  only  prove  the 
rule,  every  French  writer  who  has  at- 
tained fame  or  popularity,  or  both, 
published  his  first  novel  at  his  own  ex- 
pense. Before  the  war,  owing  to  the 
fact  that  all  books  were  first  bound  in 
paper,  and  also  to  the  fact  that  French 
publishers  did  not  advertise,  this  was 
not  so  onerous  a  business  as  might 
first  appear,  but  even  then  it  was  cer- 
tainly an  unfortunate  thing.  Now  and 
again  an  unknown  genius  found  a  way 
to  publication  through  one  of  the  two 
or  three  big  reviews.  Madame  Adam 
was  a  very  kind  friend  to  young  un- 
published authors.  It  was  thanks  to 
her  that  Loti's  first  masterpiece,  which 
he  called  by  the  ugly  name  of  "Ra- 


A  NEW  YORK  BARBIE:     SIMEON  STRUNSKY 


65 


rahu",  first  saw  the  light,  and  I  be- 
lieve it  was  Madame  Adam  who  gave  it 
its  final  name  of  "Le  Mariage  de  Loti". 
The  ''Mercure  de  France"  also  occa- 
sionally publishes  the  work  of  an  un- 
known writer.  This  famous  publica- 
tion is  exactly  thirty  years  old,  for  it 
first  came  out  in  1889.  It  began,  as 
all  those  publications  in  France  always 
do  begin,  in  a  very  small,  quiet  way, 
and  it  owed  a  very  great  deal  to  the 
now  famous  Remy  de  Gourmont.    The 


magazine  has  become  not  only  world 
famous,  but  it  is  now  part  of  a  great 
publishing  business,  and  has  intro- 
duced to  the  French  reading  world  a 
considerable  number  of  German,  Amer- 
ican, and  English  writers.  But  when 
all  is  said  and  done  the  great  work  of 
the  "Mercure"  has  been  to  introduce 
to  French  readers  the  writings  of  cer- 
tain young  men,  who,  but  for  the  exist- 
ence of  such  a  publication,  would  have 
remained  mute  and  inglorious. 


A  NEW  YORK  BARRIE:  SIMEON  STRUNSKY 


BY  MORRIS  R.  WERNER 


IN  connection  with  the  preparation 
of  this  article  Simeon  Strunsky 
wrote  the  following  letter  to  the  editor 
of  The  Bookman  : 

Between  yon  and  me  I  don't  know  what  nae 
a  newspaperman  who  works  where  they  makes 
it  has  for  pnbllcity,  but  I  suppose  I  owe  it  to 
my  descendants.  I  appreciate  your  and  Mr. 
Werner's  feeling  the  thing  worth  whUe ;  only  I 
do  shrink  from  anything  in  the  personal, 
people-in-the-pnblic-eye  and  I-do-my-work-in 
the  -  early  •  moming-with>my-left-hand*resting-on- 
the-head-of-a-favorite-collie  sort  of  thing.  If 
Mr.  Werner  cares  to  write  about  me  as  though 
I  were  dead  or  in  Tanganyika,  aU  right,  and  I 
shaU  be  glad  to  see  him  if  it  does  not  lead  to 
anything  in  the  interriew  or  weltantohauung 
line ;  in  other  words  if  he  wiU  be  good  enough 
to  write  his  piece  as  if  he  nerer  had  seen  me. 

Perhaps  if  Simeon  Strunsky  lived  in 
Tanganyika  instead  of  at  "The  New 
York  Evening  Post'',  and  had  been 
brought  over  to  this  country  heralded 
1^  tiiree  blares  from  the  trumpet  of  a 
competent  publicity  agent,  he  would 
have  been  able  to  return  to  Tangan- 
yika and  spend  the  rest  of  his  life  in 
bed.  He  is  not  in  the  public  eye,  al- 
though a  considerable  part  of  the 
reading  public  has  been  keeping  its 


eyes  on  his  work  for  the  last  ten  years. 
For  more  than  five  of  those  years 
Simeon  Strunsky  was  a  part  of  Satur- 
day for  many  New  Yorkers,  for  every 
Saturday  in  "The  Evening  Post"  there 
appeared  a  delightful  essay  under  the 
caption  first  of  "The  Patient  Ob- 
server" and  later  "Post-Impressions". 
He  was  as  much  a  part  of  Saturday  as 
Zit's  theatrical  vaudeville  chart  is  part 
of  that  day  for  many  more  l^w  York- 
ers. No  attempt  will  be  made  to  com- 
pute the  batting  averages  of  Mr. 
Strunsky  and  Zit. 

Mr.  Strunsky  is  an  excellent  humor- 
ist, whose  work  abounds  in  continuous 
quiet  laughs.  When  Irvin  S.  Cobb 
builds  a  joke,  he  sets  up  scaffolding 
and  then  places  brick  upon  brick  until 
he  attains  solidity,  whereupon  he  hurls 
the  finished  product  briskly  at  the 
reader.  Mr.  Strunsky  prefers  to  allow 
us  to  experience  mental  smiles  over  a 
long  period  of  time  rather  than  get 
from  us  a  good  guffaw.  His  humor  is 
quiet,  subtle,  and  above  all  whimsical. 
Unlike  George  Ade  and  Mr.  Dool^  he 


66 


THE  BOOKMAN 


is  never  boisterous.  In  short,  he  is 
the  only  approach  to  J.  M.  Barrie  that 
we  have  in  this  country  and  in  his 
books,  "Post-Impressions",  "Belshaz- 
zar  Court",  and  "The  Patient  Ob- 
server", he  does  for  our  daily  life  in 
New  York  what  Barrie  did  for  tobacco 
in  "My  Lady  Nicotine". 

Simeon  Strunsky  was  bom  in 
Vitebsk,  Russia,  on  July  23,  1879,  but 
the  reader  is  not  to  infer  from  that 
bald  statement  of  fact  that  he  will 
take  poison  in  a  fit  of  depression  be- 
fore many  years,  or  that  he  has  se- 
cretly hitched  a  printing  press  to  the 
job  of  overthrowing  the  Constitution. 
He  left  Russia  in  time  to  get  his  edu- 
cation at  the  Horace  Mann  School  in 
New  York  and  from  that  school  went 
to  Columbia  College.  To  this  day  at 
Columbia  they  show  you  copies  of 
"The  Columbia  Monthly"  for  1898  or 
thereabouts  to  which  Simeon  Strunsky 
and  Henry  Sydnor  Harrison  were  con- 
tributors, and  the  young  exhibitors 
sigh  with  regret,  saying:  "Ah,  those 
were  the  days  when  'Monthly*  was  a 
magazine.  We  haven't  got  the  men 
now.  Times  have  changed."  Ten 
years  from  now  a  fresh  young  man 
will  be  exhibiting  "The  Columbia 
Monthly"  for  1916  and  1917,  pointing 
out  the  names  of  Irwin  Edman  and 
Robert  A.  Simon.  He  will  sigh  with 
regret  and  say,  "Ah,  those  were  the 
days  when  'Monthly'  was  a  magazine. 
We  haven't  got  the  men  now.  Times 
have  changed." 

Having  been  elected  to  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  fraternity,  it  was  inevitable 
that  Simeon  Strunsky  should  become 
a  member  of  the  editorial  staff  of 
"The  Evening  Post".  But  he  resisted 
the  temptation  for  six  years.  After 
his  graduation  from  Columbia  in  1900, 
Mr.  Strunsky  became  a  department 
editor  of  the  New  International  En- 
cyclopaedia.   At  Columbia  he  had  spe- 


cialized in  foreign  politics,  of  which 
he  has  always  been  a  deep  student. 
Unfortunately,  it  was  not  until  the 
Peace  Conference  of  1919  that  he  was 
able  to  turn  his  attention  to  the  humor 
of  the  situation.  In  1906  armed  with 
his  Phi  Beta  Kappa  key,  Mr.  Strunsky 
became  an  editorial  writer  on  "The 
Evening  Post",  which  has  been  his 
main  position  ever  since  and  still  is 
his  daily  job.  Since  the  affairs  of  the 
world  have  become  so  muddled,  Mr. 
Strunsky  has  found  no  time  for  "Post- 
Impressions".  But  every  once  in 
awhile  in  "The  Evening  Post",  if  you 
know  Simeon  Strunsky's  work  you  can 
detect  a  real,  live  "Post-Impression" 
in  the  disguise  of  a  "second"  editorial, 
which  means  the  more  interesting  edi- 
torial. 

Before  the  less  interesting  but  im- 
portant political  affairs  of  the  world 
took  up  so  much  of  his  time,  Mr. 
Strunsky  was  able  to  contribute  to 
the  Saturday  magazine  of  "The  Eve- 
ning Post"  every  week  a  fine  piece  of 
intellectual  burlesque  with  a  sound 
basis  of  truth.  Some  of  these  are  pub- 
lished in  his  books,  "The  Patient  Ob- 
server" and  "Post-Impressions".  The 
following  is  from  a  supposititious  in- 
terview with  Henri  Bergson : 

The  distinguished  philosopher  turned  in  his 
seat,  struck  a  match  on  the  marble  bust  of 
Immanuel  Kant  Just  behind  him,  and  lit  his 
cigar.  He  gazed  thoughtfuUy  out  of  the  win- 
dow. Before  him  stretched  the  enchanting 
panorama  of  Paris  so  familiar  to  American  eyes 
— NOtre  Dame,  the  Oare  St.  Lazare,  the  Bois 
de  Boulogne,  the  Eiffel  Tower,  the  cypresses 
of  Pftre  Lachaise,  the  tomb  of  Napoleon,  and 
the  offices  of  the  American  Express  Company. 

"Yes**,  he  said,  "one  envies  the  advantages  of 
your  multimillionaires.  The  kings  and  princes 
of  former  times,  when  they  built  themselves  a 
home,  had  to  be  content  with  a  single  school 
of  architecture.  Your  rich  men  on  Fifth  Ave- 
nue may  have  two  styles,  three,  four — ^what  say 
I  ? — a  dozen  !  And  on  their  country  estates, 
where  there  is  a  garage,  a  conservatory,  sta- 
bles, kennels,  the  opportunities  are  unlimited. 

"I  repeat,"  said  M.  Bergson,  "your  sky- 
scrapers stand  for  an  idea,  but  they  also  ex- 


A  NEW  YORK  BARRIE:     SIMEON  STRUNSKY 


67 


preM  beauty.  Not  only  do  they  rereal  the 
restless  energy  of  a  people  which  waits  five 
minutes  to  take  the  elevator  from  the  tenth 
floor  to  the  twelfth,  bat  they  also  embody  the 
most  modem  conception  of  fine  taste.  I  think 
of  them  as  displaying  the  perfection  of  the 
hobble-skirt  in  architecture — tall,  slim,  expen- 
sive, and  never  failing  to  catch  the  eye. . . . 

**When  I  was  in  New  York  I  experienced  no 
difficulty  whatsoever.  When  I  saw  a  Co- 
rinthian temple  I  knew  it  was  a  church.  When 
I  saw  a  Roman  basilica  I  knew  it  was  a  bank. 
When  I  saw  a  Renaissance  palace  I  knew  it 
was  a  public  bath  house.  When  I  saw  an  As- 
syrian palace  I  knew  there  was  a  cabaret  tea 
inside.  When  I  saw  a  barracks  I  knew  it  was 
a  college  laboratory.  When  I  saw  a  fortress 
I  knew  it  was  an  aquarium.  The  soul  of  the 
city  spoke  out  very  dearly  to  me.*' 

Mr.  Strunsky  observes  admirably 
the  interesting  details  of  home  life, 
married  life,  professional  life,  news- 
paper life  and  above  all  of  New  York 
life.  He  is  able  to  analyze  and  present 
the  funny  little  things  which  we  all 
have  in  our  minds.    For  example: 

Incidentally  I  would  remark  that  the  oppor- 
tunities for  consulting  the  Gettysburg  Address 
occur  frequently  in  a  newspaper  office.  Every 
little  while,  in  the  lull  between  editions,  a 
difference  of  opinion  wiU  arise  as  to  what 
Lincoln  said  at  (Gettysburg.  Some  maintain 
that  he  said,  "a  government  of  the  people,  for 
the  people,  by  the  people" ;  some  declare  he 
said,  "a  government  by  the  people,  of  the 
people,  for  the  people*' ;  some  assert  that  he 
said,  "a  government  by  the  people,  for  the 
people,  of  the  people."  Obviously  the  only  way 
out  is  to  make  a  pool  and  look  up  Nicolay 
and  Hay.  When  we  are  not  betting  on  Lin- 
coln's famous  phrase,  we  differ  as  to  whether 
the  first  words  in  Casar  are  "OaUia  omnia  est 
divisa",  or  "Omnia  GaUla  divisa  est".  We  aU 
remember  the  **partes  tres". 

Mr.  Strunsky  uses  a  simplicity  of 
language  which  makes  his  fine  shades 
of  thought  all  the  more  distinctive. 
He  is  capable  of  deep  pathos  as  well  as 
whimsical  humor.  "Romance''  in 
"Post-Impressions"  reveals  the  trag- 
edy and  comedy  of  a  routine  existence 
with  much  charm.  He  is  our  New 
York  Barrie,  also  an  editorial  writer 
and  daily  minister  to  foreign  affairs. 
After  a  leading  editorial  on  Czecho- 
slovakia he  is  able  to  do  such  an  en- 
tertaining and  delicious  piece  of  work 


as  "The  Scandal  of  Euclid'',  which  ap- 
peared in  the  September  issue  of  "The 
Atlantic  Monthly".  In  that  delightful 
essay  he  proves  the  erotic  motive  in 
Proposition  18,  viz.,  "The  greater  side 
of  any  triangle  has  the  greater  angle 
opposite  to  it,"  by  the  use  of  the 
Grandmother  Complex.  The  intimate 
details  of  the  great  geometer's  sub- 
conscious soul  are  revealed  in  this 
manner: 

When  the  boy  was  six  years  old,  his  father 
perished  in  a  raid  upon  the  island  of  Cos  by 
the  Phi  Beta  Kappas,  a  pirate  tribe  Inhabiting 
the  adjoining  mainland.  His  mother  was  car- 
ried off  into  captivity,  but  the  lad  and  his 
grandmother  were  left  behind  as  of  doubtful 
commercial  value.  Thus  the  early  Complex 
between  the  two  was  strengthened  in  the  course 
of  the  next  three  years ;  for  when  the  boy  was 
nine  years  of  age  the  old  lady  died,  but  not 
without  leaving  a  profound  impress  on  the 
future  Proposition  16. 

Newspaper  fathers  are  often  able 
to  make  admirable  copy  out  of  their 
children.  And  Simeon  Strunsky's 
child,  "Harold",  is  a  principal  char- 
acter in  "Belshazzar  Court,  Village 
Life  in  New  York  City".  Readers  of 
"The  New  York  Tribune"  are  becom- 
ing daily  more  interested  in  Heywood 
Broun's  boy,  "H.  third",  but  "Harold" 
has  figured  in  Simeon  Strunsky's  work 
for  many  years.  "Belshazzar  Court" 
contains  some  of  the  best  essays  in 
American  literature.  "The  Street"  in 
that  volume  shows  Strunsky  at  his 
level  best.  It  has  beauty,  humor,  and 
truth.  For  beauty  we  offer  this  quo- 
tation : 

The  only  place  where  I  am  in  the  mood  to 
walk  after  the  prescribed  mUitary  fashion  is  in 
the  open  country.  Just  where  by  aU  accounts  I 
ought  to  be  sauntering  without  heed  to  time, 
studying  the  lovely  texts  which  Nature  has  set 
down  in  the  modest  type-forms  selected  from 
her  inexhaustible  fonts, — in  the  minion  of 
ripening  berries,  in  the  nonpareU  of  crawling 
insect  life,  the  agate  of  tendrU  and  filament, 
and  the  12-point  diamond  of  the  dust, — there 
I  stride  along  with  my  own  thoughts  and  Me 
little. 

For  humor: 


68 


THE  BOOKMAN 


It  is  on  rach  occaBloni  that  Williams  and  I, 
after  shaking  hands  the  way  a  locomotlye  takes 
on  water  on  the  mn,  wheel  aronnd,  halt,  and 
proceed  to  buy  something  at  the  rate  of  two 
for  a  quarter.  U  anyone  Is  Inclined  to  doubt 
the  spirit  of  American  fraternity.  It  is  only 
necessary  to  recall  the  number  of  commodities 
for  men  that  sell  two  for  twenty-five  cents 

When  people  speak  of  the  want  of  real  com- 
radeshlp  among  women,  I  sometimes  wonder  If 
one  of  the  reasons  may  not  be  that  the  prices 
which  women  are  accustomed  to  pay  are  In- 
dividualistic Instead  of  fraternal.  The  soda 
fountains  and  the  street  cars  do  not  dispense 
goods  at  the  rate  of  two  Items  for  a  single  coin. 
It  is  Infinitely  worse  in  the  department  stores. 
Treating  a  friend  to  something  that  costs  $2.70 
Is  Inconceiyable. 

Probably  there  is  nothing  in  American 
literature  that  catches  the  spirit  of 
Broadway  as  does  "The  Street". 

Mr.  Strunsky  did  much  writing 
during  the  war  on  the  war.  First  of 
all  there  was  his  daily  job.  Besides 
the  editorials  in  "The  Evening  Post", 
Mr.  Strunsky  was  the  military  critic 
on  that  paper,  and  he  was  therefore 
intimately  concerned  with  pushing 
pins  on  maps  for  several  years.  But 
his  best  piece  of  work,  and  that  in- 
cludes all  his  writing,  is  his  war  novel, 
"Professor  Latimer's  Progress",  which 
was  first  published  anonymously  in 
"The  Atlantic  Monthly".  Mr.  Strun- 
sky did  not  put  his  name  on  the  first 
edition  of  the  book  because  of  a  whim. 
The  trick  was  not  very  successful. 
The  author  was  spotted  at  once,  and 
a  second  edition  of  the  book  bears  his 
name.  "Professor  Latimer's  Prog- 
ress" is  one  of  the  best  novels  of  the 
war,  dealing  with  war  in  the  abstract. 
It  has  been  called  an  American  Mr. 
Britling,  but  personally  I  found  it  more 
interesting  than  Mr.  Wells's  book. 
Like  "Mr.  Britling  Sees  it  Through", 
it  is  the  mental  adventure  of  a  man 
who  was  too  old  to  fight.  The  quest 
of  Professor  Latimer  for  intellectual 
solace  from  the  strain  of  thinking 
about  the  war,  is  relieved  by  Mr. 
Strunsky'B  keen  humor  with   sound 


basis  of  truth.  For  instance,  the  fol- 
lowing description  of  the  newspaper 
business  by  a  former  managing  editor 
whom  Professor  Latimer  meets : 

"It's  not  so  bad  the  first  two  years",  said 
Manning,  *'untU  you  have  graduated  from  po- 
lice and  the  criminal  courts.  There,  I  admit, 
you  touch  on  what  is  called  life,  though  touch 
it  is  about  aU  you  can  do.  The  only  sincere 
stuif  in  the  business  is  crimes  and  Iccidents. 
A  man  doesn't  usually  shoot  his  wife  for  pub- 
lication, or  fall  under  a  motor-truck  with  his 
photograph  ready  for  64-8creen  reproduction. 
Everything  beyond  that  is  Just  formula  and 
make-believe,  acting  and  speaking  for  publlca* 
tlon — ^politicians  this  way,  and  strike-leaders 
that  way,  and  woman  suffragists  their  own 
way.  We  are  the  family  photographers  of  the 
world,  and  people  come  to  us  in  their  Sunday 
clothes.  If  they  didn't  we'd  retouch  them  any- 
how ;  make  them  every  one, — gangsters,  society 
leaders,  shop-girls,  Secretaries  of  State,— say 
what  we  want  them  to  say;  which  is  what 
they  want  us  to  make  them  say. . . .  When  a 
national  conyention  starts  to  cheer,  the  re- 
porters pull  out  their  watches — and  the  shout- 
ers  know  that  they  are  being  timed  and  act 
accordingly." 

There  is  still  another  war  book  by 
Simeon  Strunsky,  the  outcome  of  too 
much  military  criticism.  "Little  Jour- 
neys Towards  Paris,  A  Guide  Book  for 
Confirmed  Tourists,  By  Kaiser  Bill, 
translated  from  the  orignial  German 
and  adapted  for  the  use  of  unteutored 
minds  by  Simeon  Strunsky,"  is  the 
only  published  writing  by  Mr.  Strun- 
sky which  falls  flat  in  its  humor.  It 
lacks  the  imagination  which  the  au- 
thor displays  in  "Professor  Latimer's 
Progress",  "Belshazzar  Court",  and 
"Post-Impressions".  There  are  some 
funny  things  in  the  book,  but  most  of 
the  humor  is  forced,  and  on  the  whole 
the  book  is  not  worth  while.  How- 
ever, Mr.  Strunsky  can  afford  that  one 
miss. 

In  order  to  satisfy  any  readers  who 
wish  something  "in  the  personal, 
people-in-the-public-eye  sort  of  thing", 
I  can  say  in  conclusion  without  betray- 
ing any  confidences  that  Mr.  Strunsky. 
is  growing  bald  and  wears  spectacles. 


STRANGE  TIMES  IN  FICTION 

The  field  of  psychic  phenomena,  so  marvelously  developed  in  our  day,  is 
ever  rapidly  foidening.  Most  recently  the  capacity  of  the  individual  ego  for 
projecting  itself  has  manifested  itself  in  a  new  and  startling  way.  We  live 
in  strange  times  and  a  wildly  exciting  world.  Any  of  us,  it  now  seems  to  be 
established,  is  liable  at  any  time  to  be  seized  by  the  spirit  of  not  only  a  dead 
but  a  living  author  of  renovm,  and  become  for  a  space,  in  our  heads,  the  idio- 
syneratic  character  of  that  author.  The  first  substantial  and  cumulative  proof 
of  this  extraordinary  fact  has  come  to  THE  BOOKMAN  in  the  incontestable 
form  of  the  three  articles  which  follow,  and  which  this  magazine  has  the  great 
honor  of  presenting  to  the  world.  One  word  more, — there  can  be  no  doubt 
(to  any  reasonable  man)  that  literature  will  henceforward  never  again  be  the 


— IDITOB'B   MOT! 


THE  REGURGITATION  OF  ALMOST  ANYBODY 


BY  H.R.LD  B.LL  WR.GHT 


Chapter  I — Some  Baby 

ALTHOUGH  I  have  never  laid 
^  eyes  upon  her,  I  remember 
Auntie  Mush  as  well  as  though  I  had 
met  her  yesterday. 

She  was  standing  in  the  door  of  her 
little  post-office,  looking  out  over  the 
shimmering  expanse  of  the  broad, 
dirt  road  that  flowed  by  the  simple, 
rustic  edifice.  Her  fine,  clean-chiseled, 
double-beveled,  oil-finished  old  face 
with  its  attractive  egg-and-dart  pat- 
tern of  silver  hair  was  s3rmbolic  of 
the  guiet  strength  that  characterized 
the  sweet  old  gentlewoman.  Her  ten- 
der ^es  were  in  keeping.  They  were 
big  and  brown  and  soft  with  loving 
understanding.  One  of  them  fixed  its 
calm  gaze  upon  me  while  the  other 
wandered  in  its  scrutiny  as  far  as  the 
bend  in  the  road,  as  if  looking  beyond 


the  material  horizon  of  our  little  day 
into  the  spiritual  scenes  of  a  greater 
comprehension. 

Such  was  Auntie  Mush  as  I  remem- 
bered her.  Such  was  Auntie  Mush 
as  everybody  in  the  neighborhood  re- 
membered her. 

"Some  baby!"  was  Art  Jordan's 
crisp  comment  upon  Auntie  Mush. 
Art  had  been  to  the  city  and  liked  to 
talk  as  do  the  city-folks. 

And  so  she  was. 

Chapter  II — The  Man  In  the  Wagon 

Hitting  on  all  four  cylinders,  the 
interurban  police  patrol  rushed  on  its 
dutiful  way. 

Inside  the  wagon  was  a  young  man 
with  a  drawn  face.  It  was  a  badly 
drawn  face.  It  was  so  badly  drawn 
that  it  should  have  been  erased  and 
done  over.  In  a  typical  attitude  of  de- 


69 


70 


THE  BOOKMAN 


jection,  he  sunk  his  head  in  his  hands 
and  gave  himself  over  to  his  gloomy 
thoughts.  His  eyes  held  the  hopeless 
look  of  an  expired  cigar  coupon— of 
one  beyond  redemption.  Ever  and 
anon  he  drank  deeply  from  a  bottle  of 
red  liquor  with  which  he  had  pro- 
vided himself. 

At  this  particular  moment  the  pa- 
trol went  over  a  bump  sufficient  to 
fling  the  wretched  occupant  of  the 
rapidly-traveling  vehicle  out  into  the 
blacky  voiceless  night.  Unheeding, 
the  patrol  went  on  its  sinister  way» 
the  driver  continuing  to  swap  obscene 
observations  with  the  officer  of  the  law 
who  instead  of  guarding  the  prisoner 
was  up  in  the  front  seat,  availing 
himself  of  the  driver's  company. 

Chapter  IV  or  V — Discovery 

Viewing  her  beloved  dirt  road  in 
the  rose-tinted  dawn,  as  she  was  tak- 
ing 4own  the  shutters  of  the  little 
post-office,  Auntie  Mush  beheld  the 
unusual  spectacle  of  the  body  of  a  man 
lying  prone  in  the  dust  With  quick 
and  unswerving  decision,  the  inesti- 
mably estimable  old  lady  approached 
the  body  through  the  miasma  of  red 
liquor  which  surrounded  it,  and  rely- 
ing upon  the  inner  strength  for  which 
she  was  famous,  picked  it  up,  tucked 
it  under  her  arm,  and  carried  it  up- 
stairs to  her  spare  room.  It  was  the 
^  work  of  a  moment  to  put  the  man  be- 
tween clean  sheets,  part  his  hair  in 
the  middle  and  remove  a  week's 
growth  from  his  face,  once  handsome 
but  now  stained  and  lined  with  dissi- 
pation. "What  a  sweet-looking 
man!"  remarked  Auntie  Mush  as  he 
fell  into  a  deep  and  grateful  slumber. 

In  the  afternoon,  as  Auntie  Mush 
had  settled  upon  the  back  porch  to 
practice  upon  her  mail-order  saxo- 
phone, the  sheriff  came  up  with  a 
stranger. 


<i 


"Howdy,  Auntie  Mush,"  said  he. 
I've  got  a  visitor  fur  ye.  This  yere's 
Detekative  Hoss  of  the  Hoss  &  Feffer 
Detekative  Bureau." 

"How  do  you  do.  Detective  Hoss," 
said  Auntie  Mush,  who  was  never 
without  a  kindly  word,  "My,  what 
lovely  flat  feet  you  have!" 

The  great  detective  blushed  with 
pleasure  at  this  unexpected  compli- 
ment. 

"Auntie  Mush,"  volunteered  the 
sheriff,  "we're  a-lookin'  for  this  yere 
Zion  Trent,  th'  stock  swindler.  Last 
night  they  were  a-takin'  him  to  th' 
calaboose  and  they  kinda  lost  him 
outen  th'  wagon  when  she  hit  a  bump. 
Th'  driver  reckons  it  happened  down 
to  th'  bridge  over  th'  quagmire.  We 
deduce  that  he  fell  into  th'  quagmire 
and  was  swallered  up.  But  we  ain't 
a-takin'  no  chances.  Hev  ye  seen  any 
person  or  persons  what  answers  them 
descriptions?" 

"I  have  seen  nobody  that  I  could  not 
vouch  for,"  said  the  darling  old  lady 
with  an  outward  smile  yet  with  an  in- 
ward gasp.  It  was  the  first  time  in 
her  life  that  she  had  ever  told  a  lie. 

"That  settles  it,  Hoss,"  said  the 
sheriff.  "This  old  lady  and  Jarge 
Washington  is  twins."  And  thanking 
Auntie  Mush — after  she  had  helped 
them  to  two  or  three  tunes  on  the 
saxophone — ^they  took  themselves  off. 

In  the  room  above,  Zion  Trent — 
for  it  was  really  he — ^had  heard  all. 
He  trembled  with  relief  and  with 
wonder  at  what  the  glorious  old  aris- 
tocrat had  done  for  him.  As  he  trem- 
bled, there  arose  in  him  the  daybreak 
of  a  new  hope. 

Chapter  XVII  or  XXIII—BehabUitation 

Completely  renovated,  relined,  re- 
modeled, and  repainted,  Zion  Trent 
stood  on  the  back  porch  of  the  little 
post-office  by  the  dirt  road,  reflected 


THE  REGURGITATION  OP  ALMOST  ANYBODY 


71 


in  the  tender  light  that  came  from  the 
beautiful  eyes  of  Auntie  Mush.  Dear 
Auntie  Mush  had  nursed  him  back  to 
health,  strength,  and  happiness.  Dear 
Auntie  Mush  had  heard  his  pitiful 
story  and  had  cheered  and  bolstered 
him  with  her  beautiful  platitudes. 
Darling  Auntie  Mush  had  brought  out 
and  encouraged  his  struggling  desire 
to  invent  and  had  summoned  Tootsie 
Mike,  the  beautiful  lady  civil-engineer, 
to  help  him. 

But  it  was  Tootsie  Mike  who  gave 
him  the  practical  view  of  his  obliga- 
tion to  Auntie  Mush.  "It  is  your 
duty,"  she  said,  'to  invent  something 
that  will  be  successful  and  that  will 
pay  back  the  money  poor  dear  Auntie 
spent  settling  with  the  stockholders  of 
your  fraudulent  stock  company  to  keep 
you  out  of  jail— don't  you  think?" 

And  when  Tootsie  Mike  put  an  idea 
in  that  interrogative  form,  it  was  im- 
possible to  do  other  than  agree  with 
her. 

For  months  and  months  Zion  had 
worked  to  find  a  successful  invention. 
Finally  he  hit  upon  it. 

"Darling  Auntie  Mush,"  he  ex- 
claimed, "Eureka ! ...  or  Mazuma ! . . . 
or  Ronconcoma!. .  .or  something  like 
that.  I  have  found  it.  My  invention 
is  perfected !" 

"Zion  dear!"  The  sweet  old  lady's 
voice  was  tremulous  with  gratifica- 
tion. "Do  you  mean  your  experiment 
to  obtain  condensed  milk  by  the  con- 
centrated and  intensive  planting  of 
milk-weed?" 

"Yes!  yes!  I  have  perfected  it  by 
the  simple  addition  of  a  herd  of  cow- 
slips and  a  nest  of  bullfinches.  It  is 
all,  all  due  to  your  dear,  dear  kind- 
ness." 

"My  dear  Mr.  Itches  (the  name  Zion 
went  under),  I  am  so  glad  to  hear  it 


-rdon't  you  think?"  That  was  Toot- 
sie Mike. 

The  three  rejoiced  in  chorus.  "I 
knew  you  could  do  it,  Zion  dear,"  said 
the  gentle  old  D.  A.  R.,  "I  just  knew 
it." 

"You  must  let  me  get  your  inven- 
tion on  the  market  for  you — isn't  it, 
Mr.  Itches?"  said  Tootsie  Mike. 

"Of  course.  Miss  Walker,"  replied 
Zion  and  he  looked  deeply  into  her 
downcast  eyes.  In  those  few  words 
was  love  bom  between  them. 

Chapter  XXXIX^The  Dirt  Boad 

Needless  to  say  the  invention  was 
an  enormous  success  and  speedily  ac- 
quired all  the  money  that  Auntie 
Mush  had  consumed  upon  the  worth- 
less Zion  Trent.  No  exigency  arose 
(although  there  was  a  small  matter 
of  the  threatened  exposure  of  Zion's 
former  criminality  and  the  fortunate 
demise  of  Zion's  red-liquor-sodden 
wife)  to  disturb  the  gentle  tenor  of 
Auntie  Mush's  dirt  road.  Love  was 
all,  and  all  was  love. 

"Auntie  Mush,  dear,"  said  Zion  as 
they  sat  by  the  open  fire,  "how  noble, 
how  sweet,  how  true  is  your  splendid 
nature.  To  think  you  picked  me,  a 
good-for-nothing  outcast,  from  the 
dirt  road  where  I  fell  and  made  me 
what  I  am  today.  Why  did  you  do 
it?" 

"What  a  wonderful  Auntie  you  are, 
you  are,"  said  Tootsie  Mike.  " — 
shouldn't  you  ?" 

"Hush,  my  dear  children,"  replied 
Auntie  Mush — ^nature's  own  princess. 
"It  is  the  dirt  road  that  flows  cease- 
lessly past  my  door.  Sometimes  it  is 
crooked  and  muddy,  sometimes  it 
is  fair  and  straight.  The  dirt  road  is 
like  life.  We  are  apt  to  find  anything 
on  it.  What  we  find  we  should  accept 
and  make  the  most  of — ^always — as  I 
have  with  Zion,  dear.' 


»» 


72 


THE  BOOKMAN 


"And  now/'  she  concluded,  "I  know 
you  two  darlings  have  something  to 
say  to  each  other/'  and  she  tactfully 
averted  her  sweet  old  eyes. 

Zion  manfully  took  up  his  cue. 
"Miss  Walker,  dear/'  he  said,  "I  love 
you  deeply.    Will  you  be  my  wife?" 

"Oh,  Mr.  Itches,  dear!"  responded 
Tootsie  Mike.  And  their  fresh  young 
lips  met  in  a  long,  long  kiss. 

"Goodie-goodie!"  exclaimed  Auntie 
Mush  peeking  through  her  slender 
fingers  in  docile  rapture. 


Dear  Auntie  Mush,  are  there  any 
like  you,  ever?  You  go  through  life 
serenely  and  joyously,  distilling  hap- 
piness and  creating  content,  smooth- 
ing and  soothing,  comforting  and  ca- 
ressing, lavish  of  your  innate  sweet- 
ness (with  sugar  where  it  is),  achiev- 
ing the  impossible  every  minute. 

God  bless  you,  Auntie  Mush.  If 
there  are  any  others  like  you,  God 
bless  them — and  help  them. 

They  need  it. 

HENRY  WILLIAM   HANEMANN 


MORE  STRYCHNINE 


BY    S.M.RS.T    M..GH.M 


WHEN  I  was  very  young  I  wrote 
a  novel.  By  an  unlucky  chance 
it  was  not  called  "The  Young  Visit- 
ers".   Otherwise... 

I  first  met  Charles  Strychnine  at  his 
home.  He  was  a  conmionplace  man,  I 
thought,  connected  with  insurance  or 
banking  or  bonds  or  something.  His 
wife  I  had  met  before.  She  was  a 
comely,  middle-aged,  motherly  woman 
with  a  fondness  for  parcheesi.  Many 
a  friendly  bout  had  we  had  together 
with  the  dice.  Indeed,  I  knew  her  far 
better  than  I  knew  her  husband.  It's  a 
way  we  writer  chaps  have,  you  know. 

But  stifling  the  temptation  to  ex- 
pand to  eight  or  nine  thousand  words, 
let  me  state  that  I  took  the  Strychnine 
family  to  be  a  happy,  healthy,  normal 
one,  headed  by  an  excellent  if  some- 
what dull  head,  living  a  quiet,  un- 
eventful, thoroughly  middle-class  life. 


Imagine  my  surprise  to  receive  Mrs. 
Strychnine  as  a  visitor,  one  morning 
or  another.  I  judged  something  was 
amiss.  With  that  divination  that 
is  a  gift  to  us  writer  fellows,  I  di- 
vined that  her  cook  had  threatened  to 
leave. 

It  wasn't  cook.  It  was  her  hus- 
band. He  hadn't  threatened  to  leave. 
He  had  left.    She  showed  me  a  letter. 

My  dear  Minnie : 

I  hope  you  wiU  not  De  pot  out  when  I  teU 
yoo  I  have  gone  away  forever.  I  bare  gone  to 
Paris.  You  are  absolutely  unessential  to  me. 
I  hope  I  may  never  see  you  again. 

Yours  always, 

CHARLS8   8TBTCHNINI 


«1 


tf 


4« 


Don't  you  think  it's  very  unkind? 
Unkind?"   I  replied,— "it's  prepos- 
terous !" 

**Would  you  mind",  she  asked,  "go- 
ing over  to  Paris  and  bringing  him 
home?    I  can't  imagine  what's  come 


MORE  STRYCHNINE 


78 


over  him.  Anyway,  I  want  him  back. 
Tell  him  I  forgive  everything.  Do 
go— please." 

'^VoUmtiers;'  I  replied.  Which  is  a 
way  I  have. 

I  found  Strychnine  in  Paris,  in  a 
shabby,  broken-down  little  hotel.  He 
had  changed.  He  was  no  longer  the 
comfortable,  middle-class  dullard.  I 
shall  have  to  eschew  the  pleasure  of 
devoting  pages  and  pages  to  the 
gradations  of  the  difference.  He 
looked  to  me  like  two  or  three  francs 
— or  roughly  speaking,  thirty  cents. 

''What  the  three  em  dash  do  you 
want?"  he  growled. 

I  told  him. 

"Tell  her  to  etaoin  and  shrdlu,"  he 
answered  violently. 

"Will  you  tell  me",  I  asked,  "what 
it  is  aU  about?" 

"Well",  and  though  it  breaks  my 
heart,  I  shall  have  to  condense  his  ut- 
terings,  "for  seventeen  years  I  have 
done  my  duty  toward  Minnie.  She  was 
a  perfect  wife — dog-gone  her.  Now 
I'm  going  to  do  what  I've  always 
wanted  to  do.  I'm  going  to  be  a  taxi- 
dermist." 

"Stuff!"  I  exclaimed. 

"That* s  it  exactly.  I'm  going  to 
stuff.  Like  a  locust,  the  desire  has 
been  growing  for  seventeen  years." 

"But  see  here,  you  can't  run  off 
with  no  provocation  whatever  and 
leave  a  perfect  wife  and  two  perfect 
children — ^and  all  that  sort  of  thing." 

"I  teU  you  I've  got  to  stuff."  He 
looked  at  me  with  a  peculiar  intent- 
ness.  And  because  I  am  quick  at 
catching  on,  I  understood  that  what 
he  said  was  true.  He  had  to  stuff. 
There  was  a  decided  stuffiness  about 
his  eyes. 

"I've  got  to  stuff,"  he  repeated.  "I 
may  start  with  discarded  alley-cats — 


but  some  day,  by  Heaven,  I  shall  do  a 
full-sized  elephant." 

"What  about  Minnie?" 

"!!♦♦*  ♦♦!!  $$$♦!♦#  ##♦♦♦♦♦! 
Minnie,"  he  said. 

"I  think  you  are  an  unmitigated 
doodle-bug,"  I  replied  hotly.  But 
being  unusually  broad-minded,  I 
couldn't  help  liking  this  man.  He 
was  so  confounded  original. 

Mrs.  Strychnine  would  not  believe 
me.  "Stuff?"  she  said,  " — ^nonsense. 
Why  he  hated  the  sight  of  stuffed 
shoulder  of  veal." 

"Exactly,"  said  I.  "That  proves  it. 
He  had  a  complex." 

"No,"  she  moaned,  "it  was  that  jazz 
record.  The  first  time  Junior  brought 
it  home  and  played  it,  Charles  be- 
came restless.    Oh,  the  brute !" 

And  nobody  could  persuade  her  dif- 
ferently. 

Off  and  on  I  saw  Charles  Strychnine 
in  Paris.  His  heart  and  soul,  if  he 
possessed  either,  were  in  his  work. 
His  squalid  room  was  a  constant  litter 
of  crocodiles,  iguanas,  blowfish,  and 
birds  of  paradise.  None  of  us  knew 
then  of  his  genius — ^how  as  a  taxider- 
mist he  would  someday  be  acclaimed 
as  second  to  not  even  the  great 
Phrank  Kambell.  I'm  afraid  we  even 
ragged  him  a  bit.  But  he  was  im- 
perturbable. "Getta  three  em  dash 
out  of  here,"  he  would  roar,  throwing 
the  hind  leg  of  an  ostrich  after  us  as 
we  scampered  down  the  rickety  stairs. 

I  heard  that  he  finally  had  to  leave 
Paris.  In  an  excess  of  zeal,  he  kid- 
napped a  baby  from  a  fond  mother 
and  mounted  it.  It  was  an  artistic 
job  of  the  first  water,  but  the  authori- 
ties were  distinctly  annoyed. 

Years  later  on  a  visit  to  Mauritius 


74 


THE  BOOKMAN 


to  enlarge  my  postage  stamp  collec- 
tion, I  mentioned  the  name  ''Charles 
Strychnine''. 

"Did  you  know  him?**  they  asked 
me.    "He  died  here»  you  know." 

I  didn't  know,  and  asked  for  par- 
ticulars. 

When  he  first  arrived,  Strychnine 
saw  so  many  things  he  wanted  to  stuff, 
he  nearly  went  mad.  He  promptly 
took  to  the  bush,  emerging  for  ma- 
terials only  when  absolutely  neces- 
sary. The  natives  looked  after  him 
and  literally  worshipped  him  for  his 
skill.  When  the  great  chieftainess 
Yamyam  died.  Strychnine  stuffed  her. 
So  lifelike  was  the  result  of  Strych- 
nine's genius  that  P'nut,  the  new 
chief,  existed  in  constant  dread  of  his 
defunct  mother-in-law.  She  had  been 
a  terror  in  her  day.  Out  of  love  or 
respect  for  Strychnine,  he  stood  it  as 
long  as  he  could,  but  one  night  in  a 
bad  attack  of  nerves,  P'nut  sliced 
Strychnine  from  ear  to  ear.  As 
Strychnine  had  gone  native  long  ago, 
the  white  authorities  were  powerless 
to  act.  There  were  a  few  examples  of 
Strychnine's  work  about  Mauritius. 

I  saw  them.    Excuse  me  if  I  do  not 


dilate  upon  their  beauty.    I'd  like  to 
— ^but  you  know  what  editors^  are. 

When  I  returned  from  Mauritius  1 
thought  the  least  I  could  do  would  be 
to  visit  Mrs.  Strychnine.  I  found  he^ 
quite  well  off  in  a  little  stucco  house 
which  she  had  bought  with  the  money 
earned  by  giving  Gilbert  and  Sullivan 
Tuesday  afternoons.  I  found  her  very 
enthusiastic  about  Strychnine. 

'•Yes,"  she  said.  "It  does  give  me 
a  thrill  to  be  the  wife  of  a  recognized 
genius.  Of  course  Charles's  works 
are  entirely  beyond  me,  being  in  mu- 
seums, but  then  I  can  always  visit 
them.  Every  Saturday  morning  I 
take  the  children." 

I  told  her  all  I  had  learned  of 
Strychnine's  last  days — even  of  his 
fateful  finish. 

A  placid  tear  fell  from  her  eye.  "I 
always  told  him  to  take  care  of  his 
throat,"  she  said.  "It  was  very,  very 
sensitive." 

Which  made  me  think  of  an  excel- 
lent quotation  from  Confucius,  but  I 
held  my  tongue. 

What  does  a  woman  like  that  know 
of  Confucius? 

HENRY  WILLIAM  HANEMANN 


INCHOATE  .  .  A  CRAVING  .  . 


BY  OUR  OWN  JO.  .PH  HERG. .  .EIMER 


A  CLOCK  struck  slowly — it  needed 
winding — ten  blurred  notes. 

Howat  uttered  a  vasrue  period,  and 
fingered  the  rim  of  whiskers  framing 
his  lower  face.  He  was  oppressed  by 
a  crawling  hunger,  a  spiritual  empti- 
ness— something  almost  physical 

He  touched  the  bell-cord. 

He  was,  he  felt,  at  least  presentable, 
in  his  dove-colored  balloon  trousers 
over  glazed  boots,  his  quince-yellow 

waistcoat,  his  mob  of  seals He 

bolted  two  insignificant  crab-meat  tim- 
bales,  a  round  steak  smothered  in 
onions,  sauted  quail,  a  barbecued  ham, 
and  some  baked  larded  liver  with 
claret  sauce.  Food . . .  that  was  what 
he  craved. .  .nourishment. . .  He  asked 
for  a  menu,  ordered  ox-joints  en  cas- 
serole, boiled  fowl  with  Bechamel 
sauce,  beef-stew  with  dumpling,  a 
roast  stuffed  capon,  a  dish  of  country 
sausages,  a  small,  planked,  club-steak, 
Maryland  chicken...  Almost  imme- 
diately he  began  to  feel  better.  He 
experienced  a  feeling  of  the  desirabil- 
ity of  life.  He  ate  slowly,  his  eyes 
feeding  hungrily  on  the  line  of  sere 
cabbages  in  the  garden  below  the  win- 
dow. 

A  clock  struck  in  the  hall.  He  was 
still  conscious  of  a  curious  longing — 
a  vague  hunger — something  almost 
physical ...  He  tried  a  Yorkshire 
pudding,  some  pan-broiled  chops,  a 
halibut  steak,  a  loaf  of  chicken-and- 
ham  mousse,  creamed  mushrooms  on 
toast,  with  croustades  of  spinach,  egg- 

75 


plant  and  Brussels  sprouts,  Turkish 
pilaf ,  an  endive  salad,  a  dish  of  pigeon 
pie,  cauliflower  Hongroise,  glazed 
sweet  potatoes,  and  a  bit  of  stuffed 
haddock  with  egg-sauce....  Gradu- 
ally, thank  God,  the  faintness  waned. 
...  He  ate  a  maple  mousse,  a  dish  of 
plum-pudding  with  wine  sauce,  an  in- 
dividual mince-pie. . . . 

His  watch  chimed  the  hour  in  tink- 
ling notes.  He  murmured  a  bored 
period  and  moved  out  to  the  car.  He 
still  experienced  a  vague  craving,  a 
longing. .  .something  almost  physical. 
At  the  caf  ^,  Jannan — ^good  old  Jannan ! 
— ^had  his  order  already  on  the  table 
...a  choice  cut  of  tenderloin  Borde- 
laise,  caviare  canapes,  broiled  trout, 
moulded  figs  on  artichoke  bottoms,  cu- 
cumber ribbons,  coupe  St.  Jacques, 
bar-le-duc  strawberries.. . .  He  found 
himself  breaking  his  third  scarlet 
boiled  lobster  with  a  nut-cracker. . . . 
There  was  a  bomb  of  frozen  coffee,  but 
the  center  was  revealed  as  a  delicious 
creamy    substance    flaked    with    pis- 

tache Momentarily,  he  felt  almost 

himself. ...  He  found  a  grateful  re- 
lief in  the  quiet  restf  ulness  of  his  sur- 
roundings— the  Turkey-red  carpets, 
the  gilt  Chinese  cabinets,  rectangular 
studies  in  oils  by  one  of  the  newer 
futurists,  Kalamazoo  bric-a-brac  in 
bird's-eye  maple,  bright  orange  and 
cerise  banians  hanging  from  cut-glass 
chandeliers. . . . 

Then  the  old  longing  returned. .  .a 
vague  hunger,  a  curious  aching  of  the 


76 


THE  BOOKMAN 


spirit — ^a  craving — something  almost 
physical. ...  He  broke  out  in  a  sharp 
period.  Three  waiters  surged  for- 
ward. "The  menu!"  he  said  thickly, 
and  suddenly  he  had  an  extraordinary 
lightness  of  spirit — ^a  feeling  of  the 
desirability  of  life.  "Just  a  snack — 
almost  anything!"  he  said  lightly. 
"Tenderloin,  perhaps,  with  hubbard 
squash,  a  deep-dish  lamb  pie,  three 
orders  of  Golden  Bantam,  a  small  suet 
pudding,  and  a  slab  of  fruit-cake.  If 
you  haven't  any  of  that,  a  young  roast 
pig — ^provided  ifs  not  too  young — ^a 
plate  of  Boston  baked  beans,  and  a 
pitcher  of  buttermilk!" 


He  was  alone,  once  more. 

He  took  a  sip  of  water,  and  mur- 
mured a  vague  period.  A  clock  struck 
slowly  in  some  distant  part  of  the 
house....     The  springs  were  rusty, 

doubtless In  an  unsparing  flash 

of  comprehension,  he  saw  himsdf  sud- 
denly for  the  thing  he  was — ^a  creature 
of  thin,  attenuated  impulse,  of  form- 
less, inexpressible  desire — ^the  prey  of 
a  subtle  spiritual  hunger,  a  craving 
. .  .something  almost  physical.. . . 

He  uttered  a  stifled  period  and 
closed  his  eyes.  A  clock  on  the  mantel 
struck  loudly. ...     It  needed  winding. 

RICHARD  D.  HILLIS 


ADVENTURES  IN  PORTRAITURE 


BY  H.  W.  BOYNTON 


"The  Ma8W\  a  book  of  remarkable  quality  by  a  new  toriter — Frank  Swinr 
nerton  in  "September^'  pictures  the  impttlae  to  snatch  in  some  desperate  fashion 
at  the  hurrying  skirts  of  beautiful  youth  before  it  passes  from  us  forever — •, 
three  sea  tales. 


WHOEVER  John  Coumos  may  be, 
he  has  written  a  book  of  re- 
markable quality.  "The  Mask"  is  con- 
fessedly less  a  story  than  the  portrait 
of  a  man.  But  it  is  the  portrait  of  a 
man  in  his  natural  setting,  a  man  of 
our  time,  product  and  interpreter  of 
a  vastly  larger  human  world  than  re- 
spectable fiction  dreamed  of  dealing 
with,  a  few  years  ago.  Respectable  is 
a  word  of  ghastly  omen  in  these  days: 
let  me  hasten  to  protest  that  I  mean 
nothing  by  it  but  the  kind  of  fiction 
that  deserves  respect  as  a  product  of 
the  literary  art.    It  wasn't  only  Vic- 


torianism  in  the  now  established  sense 
of  prudery  and  hypocrisy  and  general 
all-round  squeamishness  in  the  face 
of  God  and  man  that  made  such  a 
novel  as  this  inconceivable  a  generar 
tion  ago. 

It  was  not  so  much  the  narrow- 
ness of  our  hearts  as  the  narrow- 
ness of  our  vision.  We  could  not  see 
beyond  our  group,  or  dan,  or  class,  or 
race.  Our  imagination  dwelt  within 
a  fenced  range.  It  is  pleasant  still  to 
find  ourselves  now  and  then  back  in 
that  safe  place  with  the  Mrs. 
Humphry   Wards   or   the   Archibald 


ADVENTURES  IN   PORTRAITURE 


T7 


Marahalls  or  ouf  own  mild  proponents 
of  the  average  American  citizen  at 
work  and  play.  But  we  can't  stay  in 
it.  There  is  a  bigger  world  outside, 
and  it  calls  us  with  a  hundred  voices. 
The  author  names  his  prefatory 
chapter:  "Overture:  A  Promise  and 
a  Warning/'  It  is  a  warning  that  we 
are  not  to  have  a  conventional  novel 
or  even,  strictly  speaking,  a  novel  at 
all;  but  rather  a  series  of  pictures  in 
which  one  John  Gombarov  is  ''more  or 
less  the  central  figure" : 

And  in  this  series  of  pictures  of  life  looked 
back  npon,  GombaroT  saw  each  picture  com- 
plete in  itself,  yet  all  of  them  together  formed 
the  parts  of  a  larger  and  grander  composi- 
tion, which  gare  rise  to  a  mood  akin  to  the 
one  in  which  he  had  many  a  time  stood  before 
a  waU  decoration  by  Veronese  or  Titian,  as, 
eyeing  a  smaU  detail  of  the  panel,  he  had  said 
to  himself :  "Here  is  a  piece  of  colour  so  beau- 
tifnl  that  I  should  be  happy  in  possessing  but  a 
few  square  inches  of  it,  framed,  and  hung  on 
my  walL*'  In  such  a  mood  he  liked  to  think  of 
a  man's  life  not  as  a  play  or  novel  but  as  a  col- 
lection of  short  stories  conceived  by  a  single 
mind  and  dominated  by  a  single  personality, 
which  in  some  latent  unobvious  way  is  the  sole 
hero  of  them  alL 

Here,  then,  is  John  Gombarov's 
world,  with  John  Gombarov  in  the 
middle  of  it,  busily  engaged,  as  each 
of  us  is  engaged,  in  being  himself. 
The  esctraordinary  thing  is  that  this 
world  of  his,  the  narrow  world  of  a 
young  Slav  immigrant  in  America,  is 
so  patently  part  of  our  own  world — or 
ratiier,  like  our  own  world,  a  fragment 
of  some  greater  human  cosmos  which  las 
yet  we  in  our  provincialism  but  vaguely 
apprehend.  The  book  may,  among 
other  things,  be  good  medicine  for 
that  complacency  which  ascribes  un- 
limited capacity  and  power  to  the 
American  melting-pot.  One  or  two  of 
our  story-tellers  have  recently  ven- 
tured to  show  that  we  now  and  then 
actuaDy  gain  something  from  the  pres- 
ence of  the  newcomer  from  Europe, 
with  his  thrift  and  his  ambition — as  a 
spur  to  our  own  sluggishness  if  noth- 


ing else.  This  book  shows  a  Russian 
Jew  of  the  better  class  coming  to 
America,  tasting  her  boasted  freedom, 
her  educational  privileges  and  so  on, 
and  continuing  to  regard  her  quite 
coolly,  her  faults  as  well  as  her  vir- 
tues, till  he  passes  on  to  the  experience 
of  another  and  older  civilization.  John 
Gombarov  spends  his  childhood  in  a 
Russian  village.  The  name  Gombarov 
really  belongs  to  his  stepfather  who 
has  ascended  to  that  post  from  a  tutor- 
ship in  the  family  by  irregular  if  not 
unheard-of  means.  This  stepfather  is 
as  salient  a  figure  in  his  way  as  John ; 
a  man  of  great  talent  and  energy  who 
lacks  the  luck  and  the  common  sense 
to  turn  his  trick  of  "success".  In  vari- 
ous ill-fated  experiments  he  gradually 
scatters  the  money  that  has  been 
settled  on  his  wife.  Being  so  unfor- 
tunate in  Russia,  they  turn,  with  their 
last  pocketful,  to  America,  to  Phila- 
delphia, "city  of  brotherly  love".  But 
they  are  no  better  off  there.  Broth- 
erly love  does  not  notably  embrace 
them  or  even  tolerate  them.  The  nar- 
rative, in  so  far  as  it  may  be  called  a 
narrative,  leaves  them  quite  abruptly 
in  a  new  little  ctd-de-sac  in  a  yet 
poorer  quarter  of  that  hard  American 
town.  "Much  befell  them  there,"  says 
the  chronicler. 

All  this  might  be  commonplace 
enough,  as  a  piece  of  realism.  But  the 
charm  and  power  of  the  book  lie  in  its 
welding  of  substance  and  form, — its 
"style",  in  the  only  sense  that  matters. 
Its  pictures  are  conveyed  as  if  by  in- 
direction, through  a  fragmentary  re- 
port of  Gombarov*s  own  memory  after 
the  passage  of  years.  Yet  they  are  as 
clear-cut  as  the  work  of  a  lapidary. 
One  may  cite  as  applying  to  them  the 
chief  figure  of  speech  in  the  following 
passage, — which  may  be  given  as  an 
example  of  Gombarov's  extraordinar- 
ily eloquent  and  suggestive  discourse. 


78 


THE  BOOKMAN 


"There  is  a  strange  idealism  in  your 
sensuality/'  an  English  friend  has  re- 
marked. Whereupon  Gombarov  ob- 
serves: 

'*The  two  are  inseparable.  All  true  idealism 
proceeds  from  sensuality  and  seeks  its  expres- 
sion in  refined  sensuality.  In  religious  men 
and  artists  this  sensuality  strives  ever  towards 
chastity.  The  monk  in  his  smaU  clean  cell  per- 
forming a  genuflexion  before  a  smaU  image  of 
the  Immaculate  Virgin,  flanked  by  two  large 
candles,  is  one  form  of  this  expression.  Botti- 
celli, drawing  in  his  'Primavera'  his  pregnant 
women  in  chaste  outlines  against  a  background 
of  dream,  is  another.  Again,  yon  find  chastity 
running  to  sensuality,  otherwise  how  can  you 
explain  Christianity  accepting  Solomon's  'Song' 
as  a  tribute  to  itself?  And  yet,  in  spite  of  this 
poem's  sensuality,  its  outlines  are  chaste  and 
austere;  every  expression  is  an  image,  clear, 
hard,  hewn  out.  edged  and  rounded,  there  is  no 
cosmic  froth  in  it,  no  atmosphere,  which  is  an 
abominable  modem  invention,  rather  does  each 
image  give  out  its  own  radiance  and  colour  like 
a  precious  stone.  And  the  curious  thing  is  that 
the  greater  the  love,  the  more  does  it  tend 
toward  abstraction,  the  more  precise  becomes 
the  image  in  which  it  is  expressed.  And  in 
the  measure  that  I  love  London  I  see  her  more 
and  more  clearly  as  the  chastely  outlined 
Queen,  silver-girdled  by  the  Thames,  of  the 
kingdom  of  creative  chaos,  beside  whom  Paris 
is  an  obviously  beautiful  woman,  and  New  York 
a  parvenu  and  a  harlot  ambitious  to  become  a 
courtesan  through  indiscriminate  patronage  of 
art." 

A  book  of  pictures  and  a  book  of 
sad  wisdom,  sceptical,  illuminating, — 
a  light  upon  us  from  an  Eastern  win- 
dow. 

One  needs  more  courage,  on  the 
whole,  to  read  "The  Secret  Battle", 
For  "The  Mask"  is  big  enough  to  offer 
shelter  for  a  sensitive  reader  in  the 
variety  of  its  pictures  and  its  com- 
mentary. If  this  scene  is  unpleasant 
or  that  reflection  uncongenisJ,  there 
is  sure  to  be  something  more  palatable 
on  the  next  page  or  in  the  next  chap- 
ter. We  are  in  a  microcosm  where 
beauty  and  ugliness  each,  as  it  were, 
take  a  chance:  and  why  shouldn't  we 
take  a  chance  there  with  them  too, 
without  undue  misgivings?  "The  Se- 
cret Battle",  on  the  other  hand,  yields 


no  cover.  It  is  the  ruthless  study  of 
the  effects  of  modem  war  on  a  fine  but 
oversensitive  nature.  Whether  it  is 
a  record  of  fact  or  only  based  on  facts 
doesn't  matter  much.  It  has  the  quali- 
ties of  .a  skilfully  told  story.  But  it 
leads  us  back  to  that  recent  nightmare 
of  which  a  great  number  of  readers 
already  resent  being  deliberately  re- 
minded. It's  over,  over  there,  in  a 
general  and  officii  sense:  why  not 
help  us  forget,  instead  of  rubbing  it 
in,  in  all  its  major  and  minor  horrors? 
Moreover,  in  this  case  the  effect  is  not 
of  that  merely  casual  cumulation  of 
items,  heroic  or  comic  or  squalid  or 
tragic  as  chance  might  determine, 
which  made  up  the  early  records  of 
personal  experience  at  "the  front".  It 
is  an  effect  of  deliberate  and  relentless 
pursuit  of  a  single  human  fate  among 
those  millions,  a  tragic  fate  hopelessly 
foreshadowed  from  the  start  from  the 
nature  of  the  man  and  the  character 
of  the  war  and  the  irony  of  special  re- 
lations. There  is  continuous  pressure 
on  certain  exposed  nerves  of  our  sym- 
pathy and  pity. 

The  tale  is  told,  and  beautifully 
told,  by  a  fellow  oflScer  of  young  Harry 
Penrose.  That  gallant  young  English- 
man has  eagerly  enlisted  among  the 
first,  and  served  his  hard  apprentice- 
ship with  credit  and  even  distinction 
in  the  luckless  Gallipoli  campaign.  He 
is  full  of  the  romantic  tradition  of 
war,  he  dreams  of  glorious  deeds  and 
so  on.  The  squalid  reality  slowly  dis- 
enchants him,  and  a  kind  of  stubborn 
zeal  for  "doing  his  bit"  takes  the  place 
of  that  first  glamourous  enthusiasm. 
He  gains  repute  for  bravery,  is  an  ex- 
cellent ofiicer.  But  the  malicious  and 
subtle  enemies  of  the  fighting  man  are 
all  the  time  sapping  his  position — ^a 
too  quick  imagination,  a  too  sensitive 
stomach,  a  nervous  system  too  high- 
pitched.    He  becomes  conscious  of  per- 


ADVENTURES   IN   PORTRAITURE 


79 


8onal  fear  as  a  purely  physical  shrink- 
ing, or  impulse  to  shrink.  This  he 
successfully  conceals  from  others,  and 
for  some  time  it  acts  only  as  a  spur 
upon  his  boldness  in  action.  But  there 
are  other  enemies  to  reenf  orce  this  un- 
seen foe:  two  superior  officers — su- 
perior in  rank  but  inferior  in  every 
other  sense — owe  him  their  several 
grudges.  By  their  malice  he  is  sub- 
jected to  a  prolonged  and  merciless 
strain  which  has  nearly  broken  his 
spirit  when  a  wound  sends  him  home 
safe  to  "Blighty".  Safe,  except  from 
his  own  suspicion.  For  his  fear  of 
fear  becomes  an  obsession.  He  will 
not  endure  it,  refuses  a  safe  job  at 
home,  and  against  the  better  judgment 
of  his  young  wife  and  his  intimate 
friends  goes  back  to  the  front.  There 
his  old  enemies  are  in  wait  for  him. 
Official  malice  at  once  puts  him  in  a 
place  of  peril,  and  the  dreaded  thing 
happens;  his  nerve  wavers,  and  he 
becomes  technically  subject  to  court- 
martial.  Red  tape,  and  again  the  mal- 
ice of  the  official  two,  have  their  way, 
and  he  is  duly  shot.  "This  book,"  says 
the  chronicler  in  conclusion,  "is  not  an 
attack  on  any  person,  on  the  death 
penalty,  or  on  anything  else,  though  if 
it  makes  people  think  about  these 
things,  so  much  the  better.  I  think  I 
believe  in  the  death  penalty — I  don't 
know.    But  I  did  not  believe  in  Harry 

being  shot That  is  the  gist  of  it; 

that  my  friend  Harry  was  shot  for 
cowardice — and  he  was  one  of  the 
bravest  men  I  ever  knew." 


ut 


'The  Passage  of  the  Barque  Sap- 
pho" was  written  during  the  war  by 
a  war-busy  man;  but,  unlike  his 
"War-Time  Voyage",  it  has  nothing  to 
do,  directly  or  indirectly,  with  the  new 
mad  world  of  recent  years.  The  story, 
he  says,  was  nine-tenths  "written  at 
sea,  and  the  remainder  in  certain  open 


harbors".  It  seems  to  have  stood  for 
a  restful  voyage  into  the  past  for  an 
over-worked  servant  of  the  present 
whose  life  was  to  end  before  the  war 
did.  The  last  words  of  the  narrative 
and  the  dedication  to  a  fellow  officer 
were  written  aboard  a  British  trans- 
port in  the  North  Atlantic  in  1917. 
The  dedication,  like  the  "overture"  to 
"The  Mask",  is  a  sort  of  warning: 

This  is  not  a  love-story ;  that  is.  It  contains 
no  sexual  affection,  only  the  love  that  a  man 
may  have  for  a  man,  or  for  a  ship.  My  narra- 
tive concerns  Itself  entirely  with  the  sea,  men, 
ships  and  the  thinirs  and  actions  thereof. . . . 
Is  nothing  more  than  the  record  of  a  crew  of 
individualities  (as  aU  crews  are  at  their  hearts, 
no  matter  how  colourless  they  may  seem  to  be), 
and  of  a  passage  that  was,  up  to  some  ten  years 
ago,  much  frequented,  and  will  always  be  fa- 
mous in  the  annals  of  deep-water  sailing  craft ; 
but  which  is  now  practically  a  thing  of  the 
past. 

It  is  the  passage  round  the  Horn  from 
Frisco  to  the  home  port  of  the  British 
barque  "Sappho". 

The  tale  is  told  fragmentarily,  a 
little  after  Conrad's  fashion,  in  part 
by  the  mate  of  the  "Sappho",  in  part 
by  one  Lionel,  the  son  of  an  "owner", 
who  has  been  roughing  it  about  the 
world  and  is  now  by  whim  of  chance 
and  choice  a  hand  before  the  mast, 
homeward  bound,  on  his  father's  ship. 
At  once  in  the  first  chapter  we  step 
aboard  the  "Sappho",  as  she  lies  at 
Clancy's  wharf,  waiting  for  the  last 
odds  and  ends,  a  hand  or  two,  a  favor- 
ing tide.  A  fine,  fast  vessel  under  a 
well-seasoned  skipper.  Unluckily,  what 
with  age  and  other  matters.  Captain 
Sennett  is  at  the  breaking  point  from 
the  outset  of  the  voyage.  Like  the 
hapless  Harry  of  "The  Secret  Battle", 
he  has  "the  wind-up",  is  obsessed  by 
fear  of  unknown  disasters.  As  Con- 
rad would  handle  this  situation,  we 
should  experience  it  all,  as  it  were,  in 
the  person  of  the  skipper  himself,  and 
the  other  persons  aboard  the  "Sappho" 
would  have  a  purely  secondary  or  com- 


80 


THE  BOOKMAN 


plementary  function.  Here,  you  may 
say,  the  person  we  have  to  deal  with 
i»  the  "Sappho"  herself;  and  not  as  a 
mystical  entity  apart  from  and  per- 
haps antagonistic  to  the  human  beings 
she  has  in  her  hands,  but  as  a  tiny 
State  to  which  all  her  citizens  are  of 
equally  genuine  if  not  equally  intense 
moment. 

Therefore  we  find  ourselves  from 
the  beginning  committed  to  the  study 
of  each  member  of  the  "Sappho's" 
crew.  A  mixed  lot  indeed,  and  thrown 
together  at  apparent  haphazard;  yet 
to  the  effect  of  a  quite  intelligible  joint 
personality.  There  is  cheap  stuff  here, 
and  evil  stuff,  but  somehow  it  is  taken 
care  of,  kept  under  or  sloughed  off,  by 
the  better  and  stronger  elements  in 
the  body  politic;  so  that  the  barque, 
the  little  ship  of  state,  as  we  see  it, 
contrives  to  come  through  her  des- 
perate adventures  without  absolute 
disaster — and  so  lives  to  adventure 
again.  There  is  no  suggesting  the 
quality  of  the  narrative  by  analysis, 
nor  would  quotation  help  much.  Its  ef- 
fect grows  slowly  by  increment  of  the 
least  obvious  sort.  Inch  by  inch  we  make 
our  way  into  intimacy  with  all  aboard 
from  the  ill-fated  skipper  to  the  imp- 
ish cabin-boy.  And  when,  with  their 
escape  from  the  Sargasso  Sea,  the  real 
perils  of  the  voyage  are  over,  there  is 
little  we  do  not  know  about  them  that 
may  be  known  about  neighbors  who 
live  with  their  walls  down — as  they  do 
in  fiction  and  do  not  in  "real  life". 
The  style  of  the  story,  in  so  far  as  it 
may  be  detached  from  its  substance, 
is  (but  for  certain  passages  of  de- 
scription) homely  enough,  lacking  in 
the  ordinary  "literary"  graces;  but 
this  in  the  end  appears  to  be  a  part  of 
virtue.  Beside  Conrad  and  BuUen  my 
copy  shall  take  its  place  with  confix 
denoe* 


"The  Shepherd  of  the  Sea"  is  a  tale 
of  more  popular  robustiousness.  The 
publishers  cannot  be  blamed  for  draw- 
ing the  patent  analogy  between  this 
story-teller  and  the  unforgotten  Jack 
London.  But  the  comparison  doesn't 
go  very  deep.  There  is  less  of  the  pro- 
fessional teller  of  tales  here  than  we 
felt  in  London's  later  work,  at  least. 
The  initial  situation  is  conventional 
enough.  "Buck"  Traheme  of  Seattle 
is  a  rich  man's  son  who  has  just  ceased 
to  be  a  college  athlete  and  "sport"  and 
seems  in  no  hurry  to  settle  down  to 
being  anything  else.  A  dramatic  (or 
melodramatic)  chance  casts  him 
aboard  the  big  schooner  of  an  eccen- 
tric sea  missionary,  bound  for  Arctic 
seas.  There  they  have  a  busy  time 
running  down  rum-traders  among  the 
natives  of  the  Siberian  coast,  and 
otherwise  playing  a  lone  hand  against 
the  Devil  and  his  works  in  the  far 
North.  On  a  quixotic  expedition  in 
search  of  a  missing  explorer,  the 
**Wing  and  Wing"  is  pinched  in  the 
ice  and  has  to  be  abandoned.  Follows 
a  perilous  winter  of  semi-starvation  in 
wild  company  on  a  wild  shore;  with, 
of  course  (for  this  is  undisguisedly  a 
romance),  the  eventual  elimination  of 
the  inconvenient  characters  and  the 
rescue  of  the  elect.  Traheme  is  to  re- 
turn to  civilization  a  hardier  and  bet- 
ter man,  bringing  his  bride  with  him. 
There  we  have  a  point  of  contrast  with 
London,  whose  "heart-interest"  was 
always  a  pretty  lame  affair.  For  in 
this  sea  story  there  is  a  heroine 
strange  and  far-fetched,  yet  with 
enough  interest  and  charm  to  estab- 
lish her  right  on  the  scene.  We  rather 
wonder  what  Traheme  did  with  her 
in  Seattle! 

Among  current  sea  yams  place  must 
be  given  also  to  "The  Sea  Bride"  of 
Ben  Ames  Williams,  whose  "All  the 


ADVENTURES   IN   PORTRAITURE 


81 


Brothers  Were  Valiant"  not  loner  since 
proved  his  quality  as  a  salt-water  ro- 
mancer. He  also  has  been  compared  to 
Jack  London,  and  it  must  be  owned 
that  he  is  not  beyond  suspicion  of  pur- 
suing consciously  the  cult  which  wor- 
ships red  blood  as  something  to  be 
seen  and  smelt.  To  this  school,  for 
all  their  pretensions,  a  barrel  of  red 
blood  in  the  veins  is  not  worth  a  drop 
in  the  bucket.  However,  like  Mr.  Lev- 
erage, this  writer  is  a  very  fair  hand 
at  the  lady  business,  when  he  thinks 
of  it.. . .  In  the  case  of  Captain  Noll 
Wing,  we  have  another  old  skipper 
who  has  reached  the  breaking  point. 
Yet  you  have  only  to  think  of  compar- 
ing his  portrait  with  that  of  Captain 
Sennett  of  the  "Sappho"  in  order  to 
realize  that  any  serious  comparison  is 
impossible.  There  would  be  as  much 
sense  in  comparing  Dick  Deadeye  and 
Lord  Jim. 

And  with  this,  let  us  get  ashore  and 
have  a  square  land  meal  in  the  com- 
pany of  Mr.  Swinnerton.  I  won't  pre- 
tend that  "September"  has  anything 
in  common  with  these  other  books  but 
its  exceptional  quality.  It  is  a  study 
of  the  human  heart  in  its  phase  of  re- 
volt against  approaching  age.  Twenty 
years  ago,  when  6.  B.  S.  was  doing 
the  most  brilliant  and  creative  work  of 
his  life  as  a  dramatic  critic,  he  made 
no  end  of  fun,  in  a  certain  article 
headed  "On  Turning  Forty",  of 
Messrs.  Jones  and  Pinero,  for  under- 
taking, in  "The  Physician"  and  "The 
Princess  and  the  Butterfly",  to  sen- 
timentalize middle  age.  He  is  par- 
ticularly rough  on  his  brother  Pinero, 
for  he  declares: 

"The  Princess  and  the  Butterfly'*  is  a  play 
in  five  acts — ^two  and  a  half  of  them  hideously 
superfluous — all  about  being  over  forty.  The 
heroine  is  forty,  and  can  talk  about  nothing 
else.  The  hero  is  forty,  and  is  blind  to  every 
other  fact  in  the  universe.  Having  this  topic 
of  conversation  in  common,  they  get  engaged 


in  order  that  they  may  save  one  another  from 
being  seduced  by  the  attraction  of  youth  into 
foolish  marriages.  They  then  faU  in  love,  she 
with  a  flery  youth  of  twenty -eight,  he  with  a 
meteoric  girl  of  eighteen.  Up  to  the  last  mo- 
ment I  confess  I  had  sufficient  confidence  in  Mr. 
Pinero's  saving  sense  of  humour  to  believe  that 
he  would  give  the  verdict  against  himself,  and 
admit  that  the  meteoric  girl  was  too  young  for 
the  hero  (twenty-seven  years*  discrepancy)  and 
the  heroine  too  old  for  the  flery  youth  (thir- 
teen years'  discrepancy).  But  no:  he  gravely 
decided  that  the  heart  that  loves  never  ages. . . . 

G.  B.  S.'s  mockery  was  deserved; 
but  it  did  not  refute  the  fact  that 
there  is  a  piteous  moment — and  a  nor- 
mal moment  for  both  men  and  women 
— when  the  impulse  comes  to  snatch  in 
some  desperate  fashion  at  the  hurry- 
ing skirts  of  beautiful  youth  before  it 
passes  from  us  forever.  It  is  easy  to 
laugh  at  this  impulse,  and  it  is  easy 
to  make  a  really  absurd  thing  of  it, 
as  Pinero  did  twenty  years  ago  in 
"The  Princess  and  the  Butterfly",  or 
a  rather  unclean  thing,  as  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy did  much  later  in  "The  Dark 
Flower".  But  there  it  is,  to  be  dealt 
with  in  some  fashion  by  the  middle- 
aging  sufferer  and  by  his  interpre- 
ters. Beside  Pinero's  sentimental  so- 
lution, ignoring  as  it  does  the  truism 
about  youth  and  crabbed  age,  there  is 
the  other  one,  common  in  current  Ac- 
tion, which  throws  the  married  pair, 
reconciled  and,  as  it  were  recharged 
for  good,  back  into  each  other's  im- 
passionecl  arms.  Mr.  Swinnerton  looks 
about  him,  and  observes  that  nature 
often  behaves  herself  more  modestly, 
under  these  conditions.  His  fiery 
youth  and  meteoric  maid  (and  the  epi- 
thets do  not  fit  badly)  find  the  cure  for 


The  Maslc.  By  John  Coumos.  George  H. 
Doran  Company. 

The  Secret  Battle.  By  A.  P.  Herbert.  Al- 
fred A.  Knopf. 

The  Passage  of  the  Barque  Sappho.  By  J.  B. 
Patterson.     B.  P.  Dutton  and  do. 

The  Shepherd  of  the  Sea.  By  Henry  Lever- 
age.   Doubleday,  Page  and  Co. 

The  Sea  Bride.  By  Ben  Ames  Williams. 
The  Macmillan  Co. 

September.  By  Frank  Swinnerton.  George 
H.  Doran  Company. 


82 


THE  BOOKMAN 


their  infantile  infatuations  for  age,  in 
each  other's  eyes;  and  the  hapless 
married  pair  are  left  to  make  the  best 
of  each  other,  not  altogether  unhap- 
pily, but  with  the  roses  and  raptures 
of  love  now  definitely  set  behind  them. 
And  let  us  note  that  Mr.  Swinnerton 
is  not  afraid  to  draw  an  old-fashioned 
moral  from  his  tale.  If  the  young  pair 
have  won  the  happiness,  the  treasure 
of  youth,  from  their  experience,  the 
old  pair  have  won  for  their  part  the 
treasure  of  age — character.  Let  young 
Nigel  and  young  Cherry  go  their  en- 
raptured ways  together;  they  have 
helped  reveal  poor,  jaunty,  philander- 
ing old  Howard  to  himself,  and  they 


have  taught  Marian  how  to  be  herself 
without  being  young.  "If  Marian 
could  have  prayed  for  a  gift,  she 
would  have  demanded  joy  in  her  life. 
Instead,  nature  had  given  her  as  com- 
pensation the  strength  and  courage  to 
endure  her  own  pain  and  the  ability  to 
imagine  and  soften  the  distress  of 
others.  If  it  is  not  the  first  of  gifts  it 
is  among  those  most  rarely  bestowed 
upon  poor  mortals,  and  is  without 
price."  I  for  one  listen  with  grati- 
tude to  this  sort  of  simple  confession 
of  faith  in  human  goodness,  in  charac- 
ter as  opposed  to  temperament,  on  the 
part  of  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and 
subtle  of  our  modem  novelists. 


THE  TERRORS  OF  TUSHERY 


BY  C.  S.  EVANS 


IN  those  incredibly  remote  days  be- 
fore the  war,  there  was  a  thing 
called  Futurism.  It  was  a  "move- 
ment" (or  whatever  the  horrid  word 
is)  in  art,  especially  in  pictorial  art, 
and  a  great  many  worthy  people  took 
it  very  seriously  indeed.  They  went 
to  exhibitions  of  it,  and  read  about  it 
in  their  newspapers,  and  generally 
made  friends  with  it,  for  it  was  new, 
and  novel,  and  revolutionary ;  and  the 
world  was  old  and  very  tired,  so  that 
the  accustomed  traditions  seemed  stale 
and  unprofitable,  and  there  was  a  keen 
delight  in  the  stimulation  of  jaded 
senses. 

But  nobody  knew  exactly  what  Fu- 
turism was.  If  you  asked  an  art  critic 
to  escplain  it,  he  would  murmur  some- 


j» 


ti 


<i 


thing  about  "subjective  vision*',  or 
mystic  spiritual  significance",  or 
synthetic  representation".  If  you 
asked  the  artist  himself  what  it  all 
meant,  he  would  look  at  you  reprov- 
ingly, and  tell  you  that  his  work  car- 
ried its  own  message — ^which,  in  a 
way,  was  true. 

I  once  heard  an  American  lady  talk- 
ing to  Jacob  Epstein  at  an  art  gallery 
in  London  where  his  sculpture  was 
being  exhibited.  She  looked  at  every- 
thing approvingly.  She  looked  at  the 
nude  figure  of  a  kind  of  pithecan- 
thropic  lady;  she  looked  at  the  busts 
of  flat-headed  women  which  seemed  to 
have  come  straight  out  of  the  Cham- 
ber of  Horrors  at  Madame  Tussaud's; 
she  looked  at  the  bit  of  shapeless  rock 


THE   TERRORS  OP  TUSHERY 


83 


which  was  labeled  ''Mother  and 
CShiId'\  and  last  of  all  she  looked  at  the 
famous  Venus.  And  when  she  saw 
fhaty  in  all  its  studied  and  abominable 
ugliness,  she  turned  to  the  artist  and 
said:  "Oh,  Mr.  Epstein,  you  surely 
don't  expect  me  to  like  that!''  And 
Mr.  Epstein,  in  a  cold,  reproving  voice, 
answered:  "No,  Madam,  I  expect  you 
to  try  and  understand  it  I" 

The  fact  of  it  is  that  Futurism  was 
a  cult  which  only  its  devotees  under- 
stood. If  you  pursued  the  matter,  you 
learned  that  it  was  a  sort  of  develop- 
ment of  impressionism.  The  impres- 
sionist painter  put  down  what  he  saw, 
or  what  he  thought  he  saw,  which  was 
the  same  thing.  Then  came  the  neo- 
impressionist,  who  painted  in  little 
blobs  of  pure  color  set  close  together 
— a  perfectly  legitimate  method  by 
which  he  sometimes  attained  exceed- 
ingly beautiful  results.  After  him 
came  the  cubist,  who,  by  taking 
thought,  had  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  all  form  sprang  from  an  arrange- 
ment of  cubes,  and  in  the  attempt  to 
render  the  beauty  of  form  more  com- 
pletely, painted  or  drew  in  cubical 
masses.  AH  of  these  methods,  up  to 
a  point,  were  legitimate.  They  were 
simply  variations  in  technique,  and 
technique  is  always  subordinate  to  the 
result.  The  Futurists,  however,  went 
one  better.  They  decided,  apparently, 
that  the  artist's  job  was  not  to  inter- 
pret life,  or  to  render  the  artist's 
vision  of  certain  aspects  of  it,  but, 
rather,  to  represent,  by  means  of  form 
and  color,  an  analysis  of  the  subjective 
experiences  which  make  up  perception. 

Let  us  take  a  concrete  instance.  An 
artist  who  is  called  upon  to  represent, 
we  will  say,  a  night  scene  in  a  res- 
taurant, will  in  the  ordinary  way 
choose  one  aspect  of  the  scene  he 
wishes  to  depict,  and  render  it  with 


what  truth  and  with  what  ssnnbolism 
he  may.  The  Futurist,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  interested  in  presenting  not 
so  much  what  is  seen,  as  the  sum  total 
of  the  perceptions,  emotions,  and  sen- 
sations arising  in  the  mind  of  the 
artist. 

He  analjrzes  his  sensations  while  sit- 
ting in  a  restaurant.  He  knows  that 
while  he  is  looking  at  his  companion 
across  the  table  many  other  sights 
and  sounds  are  occupying  his  con- 
sciousness at  the  same  time.  There 
is  the  smell  of  cigarette  smoke,  the 
confused  murmur  of  voices,  the  flutter 
of  a  white  apron  as  a  waiter  flits  by. 
Out  of  a  comer  of  his  eye  he  sees  a 
bottle  on  the  next  table,  a  bouquet  of 
flowers,  the  spangle  of  gilt  on  a  bal- 
cony, the  sheen  of  a  woman's  dress. 
His  perceptions,  at  any  one  moment, 
are  multitudinous,  and  in  his  picture 
he  tries  to  render  them  all. 

And  this  is  how  he  does  it.  He  di- 
vides his  canvas  into  a  number  of  tri- 
angular spaces,  variously  and  bril- 
liantly bordered.  In  one  of  these 
places  he  puts  the  crude  representa- 
tion of  a  human  eye,  generally  with 
some  aspect  or  another  grotesquely 
exaggerated,  according  to  the  feature 
that  has  caught  his  fancy — it  may,  for 
instance,  have  enormous  lashes,  or  an 
abnormally  dilated  pupil.  In  another 
triangle  he  paints  the  top  of  a  cham- 
pagne bottle,  in  others  a  bit  of  a  silken 
frill,  the  top  of  a  violin,  a  chair  leg,  a 
rainbow-like  coruscation  from  a  dia- 
mond stud,  and  so  on.  Still  other  tri- 
angles he  fills  with  a  sort  of  symbol- 
istic tracery  to  represent  the  emotions 
which  cannot  be  rendered  by  concrete 
images. 

There  are  modifications  of  this  idea. 
At  a  recent  exhibition,  for  instance,  I 
saw  some  pictures  which  purported  to 
represent   musical   compositions,    or, 


84 


THE  BOOKMAN 


more  precisely  (for  we  must  be  just» 
even  to  Futurists),  the  emotions  which 
those  compositions  were  supposed  to 
evoke.  There  was,  for  example,  a  pic- 
ture entitled  "Mendelssohn's  Spring 
Song".  It  looked  like  a  realistic  paint- 
ing of  a  worm-cast.  There  was  an- 
other labeled  "Beethoven's  Fifth  Sym- 
phony*', which  reminded  me  of  noth- 
ing so  much  as  the  blotch  which  a 
printer  makes  when  he  is  rubbing  his 
inky  roller  on  a  strip  of  proof  paper. 
They  were  very  interesting  pictures; 
but  I  cannot  say  they  elucidated  the 
musical  compositions  very  much.  I 
would  much  rather  have  those  erudite 
expositions  on  orchestral  concert  pro- 
grammes. When  I  am  told  that  the 
"principal  theme  is  given  out  by  the 
wood-wind,  accompanied  by  muted 
violins,  which  give  expression  to  all 
the  agony  of  hopeless  longing,  brought 
to  a  climax  by  the  roll  of  drums  at  the 
end  of  the  first  movement",  I  may  not 
be  helped  to  appreciate  the  music  very 
much,  but  I  have  at  least  a  compre- 
hensible idea  to  work  upon. 

The  idea  of  Futurism,  so  far  as  it 
was  informed  by  anything  compre- 
hensible enough  to  be  called  an  idea, 
was  also  carried  over  into  music  and 
literature.  I  have  listened,  at  the 
concert-hall,  to  a  soul-deadening  ca- 
cophony by  a  Futurist  composer 
named  Schonberg.  It  was  called  a 
sjntnphony,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
was  nothing  but  a  beastly  noise,  and 
I  wished  I  might  have  been  a  dog,  so 
that  I  could  relieve  my  feelings  by 
howling  at  it.  As  it  was,  I  went  out- 
side, and  sat  on  some  very  uncom- 
fortable hot-water  pipes  in  the  pas- 
sage. In  literature,  the  apostle  of  Fu- 
turism before  the  war  was  an  Italian 
named  Marinetti.  He,  so  far  as  I 
know,  is  the  only  artist  of  them  all 
who  attempted  to  justify  his  creed. 


This  he  did  in  a  manifesto  which  was 
even  more  futuristic  than  his  poems. 
Not  to  put  too  fine  a  point  upon  it,  the 
manifesto  was  a  farrago  of  incoherent 
nonsense,  which  the  physician  would 
recognize  instantly  as  the  ravings  of 
egomania.  But  I  daresay  it  took  a 
good  many  people  in. 

I  don't  know  what  has  become  of 
Marinetti,  but  Futurism  in  literature 
is  still  obscurely  alive.  A  magazine 
has  just  come  into  my  hands  which  is 
obviously  inspired  by  the  same  clap- 
trap. This  magazine  is  called  "The 
Little  Review",  and  it  is  published 
both  in  London  and  New  York.  It  is 
described  on  the  cover,  which  is  of  a 
dirty  red,  as  "A  Magazine  of  the  Arts, 
Making  no  Compromise  with  the 
Public  Taste".  Among  its  contribu- 
tors, present,  past,  and  future,  are  H. 
Gaudier-Brzeska  (a  sculptor  of  con- 
siderable powers),  Ben  Hecht,  Ananda 
Coomaraswamy,  and  Else  von  Frey- 
tag  von  Loringhoven  ("Furriners 
they  be,  Bill"),  and  others  whose 
names  one  is  rather  surprised  to  find 
in  such  company — ^W.  B.  Yeats,  Aidous 
Huxley,  and  Dorothy  Richardson. 

But  let  us  look  at  the  magazine 
itself.  The  first  thing  that  attracts 
the  attention  is  a  long  instalment,  run- 
ning to  twenty-four  pages,  of  a  story 
(I  suppose  it  is  a  story)  by  James 
Joyce,  called  "Ulysses".    It  begins : 

Bronze  by  gold  heard  the  hoofirons,  steely  ring- 
ing 
Imperthnthn  thnthnthn 
Chips,  plclLing  chips  off  rocky  thumbnail, 
chips. 

Horrid !     And  gold  flushed  more. 
A  husky  fifenote  blew, 
Blew,  Blue  bloom  is  on  the 
Gold  pinnacled  hair. 

There  are  forty-eight  more  lines  of 
this  kind  of  stuff.    Then  this : 

Big  Benaben.    Big  Benben. 

Last  rose  CastUe  of  summer  left  bloom  I  feel 

BO  sad  alone. 
Fwee.    Littls  wind  piped  wee. 


THE   TERRORS  OF  TUSHERY 


Cov  Dc  and  UoSL 


Aj.  «y.  Bke 
wm  lift  joar 
ni    Oo! 


afar? 


■oc   till 


aaear?     Where  void  from 

9 


Mj    epprlpffcaph.      Be 


Now,  James  Joyce  is  a  joung  Irish 
writer  who  has  given  evidence  of  con- 
sideraMe  literary  power.  His  novel 
called  Tortrait  of  an  Artist  as  a 
Young  Man",  written  in  the  usual  con- 
vention of  grammatical  and  intelli- 
gible En^ish,  was  by  no  means  negli- 
giUe  as  a  work  of  art  I  recognized 
its  power  when  it  was  sent  to  me  for 
review  by  a  literary  periodical  at  the 
time  of  its  appearance;  but  it  was  so 
gratuitously  nasty  that  I  refused  to 
write  anything  about  it,  preferring  to 
keep  silence  rather  than  condenm  a 
young  artist  whose  promise  was  so 
apparent.  When,  therefore,  I  came 
across  this  example  of  his  work  in 
**The  Little  Review",  I  made  up  my 
mind  to  discover  precisely  what  he 
WB8  aiming  at. 

Well,  I  have  found  out.  There  are, 
as  I  have  said,  twenty-four  pages  of 
the  kind  of  stuff  I  have  quoted,  and 
the  aim  of  the  author  is  simply  to  de- 
scribe the  bar  in  a  Dublin  public- 
house.  Stirred  by  the  impulse  which 
I  have  already  explained  as  inspiring 
Futurist  art,  he  has  endeavored  to 
render  all  the  elements  which  make 
up  that  complex  sensation  to  be  la- 
beled "bar".  There  are  the  loafers  in 
fronts — ^vague  impressions  of  them» — 
the  gleam  of  gold  and  bronze  in  the 
two  barmaids'  hair,  the  smell  of  din- 
ners, the  flashing  of  bottles,  the  tink- 
ling of  glasses,  snatches  of  discon- 
nected conversation,  impressions  of 
vague,  fleeting  thoughts  passing 
through  the  brains  of  all  the  people 


present,  a  hint  of  memories  and  emo- 
tions called  up  by  the  various  con- 
crete sights  and  sounds,  the  thud  of 
hoofs  on  the  road  outside,  darting  of 
sunlight  through  the  windows,  a  sud- 
den glimpse  of  a  man  fllling  his  pipe 
or  picking  his  flnger-nails,  the  hurried 
perception  of  little  threads  of  tobacco 
on  a  polished  counter — aU  these  and  a 
thousand  impressions  more,  jumbled 
together  incoherently,  and  connected, 
in  the  parts  where  they  are  connected, 
by  an  idea  which  I  can  only  describe 
as  obscurely  obscene. 

The  fact  of  it  is  that  the  work  of 
these  Futurists,  whether  in  painting, 
music,  or  literature,  simpb'  gives  evi- 
dence of  one  of  the  first  and  strpngest 
symptoms  of  insanity — the  with- 
drawal of  attention.  Attention  is  the 
power  of  the  mind  to  shut  off  all  dis- 
turbing ideas,  all  that  crowd  of  asso- 
ciations which  forever  batter  at  the 
doors  of  consciousness,  and  are  kept 
back  in  sane  minds  during  waking 
hours  by  the  watchful  sentry  at  the 
door.  In  madmen  and  Futurists  this 
sentry  —  inhibition  —  is  withdrawn, 
and  pandemonium  reigns. 

That  is  the  plain  truth  about  Fu- 
turism, and  it  is  so  obvious  that  it 
would  not  be  worth  writing  if  it  were 
not  for  the  fact  that  the  corrupt  thing 
is  again  creeping  into  our  art  A 
week  or  two  ago  I  read  an  article  in  a 
reputable  paper  that  has  a  large  cir^ 
culation  among  the  idle  rich,  dealing 
with  an  exhibition  of  some  of  these 
"Modernists"  (they  are  "Modernists" 
now).  There  were  reproductions  of 
some  of  the  pictures,  all  of  them 
marked  by  the  same  degraded  and 
bestial  ugliness.  Yet  the  writer  of 
these  articles  professed  to  find  in  them 
a  certain  spiritual  significance  and 
other  tushery. 

Let  us  avoid  cant,  and  hold  fast  to 
sanity;  for  sanity  is  the  soul  of  art. 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE 


BY  ANNIE  CARROLL  MOORE 


A  discussion  of  old  favorites  and  new  ranging  through  a  period  of  tioo 
hundred  years,  from  "Robinson  Crusoe"  to  "Jerern/y". 


WHEN  one  writes  a  novel  about 
grown  people  he  knows  exactly 
where  to  stop;  but  when  he  writes  of 
juveniles  he  must  stop  where  best  he 
can/'  So  wrote  Mark  Twain  in  his 
conclusion  to  'The  Adventures  of  Tom 
Sawyer"  in  the  year  1876. 

Forty-four  years  have  brought 
many  changes  to  the  novel  about 
grown  people.  Authors  are  no  longer 
as  sure  of  where  to  stop  or  where  to 
begin.  The  middle-aged  heroine  has 
come  into  her  own.  The  hero  has  too 
often  seen  his  best  days.  Technique 
has  driven  many  a  hard  bargain  with 
imagination.  With  a  few  notable  ex- 
ceptions novels  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury are  being  written  for  a  sophisti- 
cated middle-aged  audience. 

"Is  'Jeremy'  a  book  we  can  discuss 
at  a  club  meeting?''  (The  club,  we 
learn,  is  composed  of  more  or  less  in- 
tellectual women  whose  children  are 
grown  up  or  non-existent.)  "We 
have  just  discussed  Galsworthy's 
'Saint's  Progress',  but  a  child  charac- 
ter would  be  too  simple  for  discussion 
wouldn't  it?  There  would  be  no 
problems.  'Jeremy*  remains  a  child, 
doesn't  he?  We  are  tired  of  discuss- 
ing Wells.  We  had  thought  about 
'Mary  Olivier* — she  does  grow  up,  I 
know;  but  we  hesitate  over  May  Sin- 
clair. So  you  really  think  Booth 
Tarkington's  books  about  boys  are  to 


be  taken  seriously?  I  can't  imagine 
boys  reading  them.  Girls  too.  Why 
'Seventeen'  especially?  I  have  always 
thought  of  them  as  written  merely  for 
the  entertainment  of  grown  people. 
Has  he  written  anything  we  could 
discuss  or  is  everything  from  too 
youthful  and  romantic  a  standpoint? 

"I  had  always  supposed  it  much 
easier  to  write  for  boys  and  girls  in 
their  'teens  than  for  grown  people  or 
children — after  the  author  got  used 
to  it.  You  think  it  isn't.  Yes,  I  know 
boys  and  girls  of  fifteen  and  sixteen 
are  very  critical,  but  they  are  so  ca- 
pricious and  they  have  no  sound  judg- 
ment of  books.  How  can  they  with  no 
experience  of  life? 

"You  think  a  vision  of  life  and  a  pas- 
sion for  reading  may  carry  them  a 
long  way?  Who  knows?  Well,  if 
you  can't  think  of  a  recent  book  for 
our  club  discussion,  won't  you  suggest 
a  subject?  'Back  to  Youth  With  the 
Novel'?  Why,  yes,  I  believe  that 
would  be  different  from  anything 
we've  ever  taken  up  and  it  might  re- 
mind us  of  books  we've  forgotten. 
How  far  back?  Would  you  begin  with 
Defoe  or  Sir  Walter  Scott?  With 
Mark  Twain,  really?  I  never  think 
of  Mark  Twain  as  a  novelist — ^just  a 
humorist.  So  'Tom  Sawyer*  and 
'Huckleberry  Finn'  are  really  histories 
of  boy  life  in  the  eighteen-forties. 


86 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE 


87 


Aldrich's  Tom  Bailey*  always  seemed 
to  me  80  much  safer  for  a  boy  to  read. 
Not  very  popular  with  the  boys  of  to- 
day? Why  not,  I  wonder?  After  all 
you've  said,  I  really  think  we  should 
give  serious  consideration  to  Tenrod' 
and  'Seventeen\ 

"I  don't  know  the  girls'  books  so 
well.  I  can  think  of  only  two  girl 
characters,  Jo  March  in  'Little 
Women'  and  'Rebecca  of  Sunnybrook 
Farm'.  But  I'm  afraid  the  club  would 
seriously  object  to  Miss  Alcott's  Eng- 
lish. I  am  really  surprised  you  don't 
object  to  it.  I  had  supposed  librarians 
were  more  particular  about  English 
than  anything  else.  To  be  sure  I  never 
thought  about  it  when  I  was  reading 
'Little  Women',  but  the  question  has 
been  raised  by  so  many  literary 
critics.  Miss  Alcott  %8  dramatic  and 
human,  of  course.  Rtissian  girls  read 
her  books?    How  singular! 

"Why  doesn't  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin 
write  another  book  for  girls?  She  is 
so  clever  and  original  and  has  all  the 
background  from  which  to  write  for 
the  girl  of  today. 

"I'm  surprised  that  you  can  suggest 
no  other  girl  characters  unless,  as  you 
say,  we  go  back  to  Jane  Eyre  or  Mag- 
gie Tulliver. 

"Has  there  really  never  been  a  fine 
story  of  school  life  for  girls  in  Eng- 
land or  America — ^a  story  correspond- 
ing to  'Tom  Brown's  School  Days'  ?  I 
hadn't  realized  the  significance  of  the 
lack  of  it.  Even  a  book  like  'Joan  and 
Peter*  cam  hardly  make  up  for  it. 
Will  you  promise  to  come  to  the  final 
meeting  and  tell  us  what  books— espe- 
cially novels — ^from  'Robinson  Crusoe' 
to  'Jeremy*  are  popular  with  boys  and 
girls  in  their  'teens?" 

I  promised.  For  next  to  the  chil- 
dren under  ten  years  old  who  are 
forming  their  first  intimate  associa- 


tions with  books,  I  have  always  felt 
nearest  to  these  older  boys  and  girls 
who  are  unconsciously  seeking  in  ro- 
mance, in  mystery,  in  poetry,  in  his- 
tory, in  philosophy,  and  in  reality, 
substitutes  for  the  fairy  and  folk -tales, 
the  legends,  myths,  and  hero  tales,  the 
wild  adventure,  and  the  true  or  fic- 
titious narratives  belonging  to  early 
childhood. 

I  am  inclined  to  place  less  stress  on 
the  choice  of  books  made  by  boys  and 
girls  between  the  ages  of  ten  and 
fourteen  if  they  have  been  naturally 
and  continuously  exposed  to  a  liberal 
selection  of  good  literature  in  their 
earlier  years.  Between  the  ages  of 
eleven  and  thirteen  there  frequently 
occurs  a  reading  craze  which  is  the 
despair  of  many  parents  and  teachers, 
and  full  of  opportunity  for  the  li- 
brarian. It  is  a  time  of  ranging  over 
a  great  variety  of  subjects  to  see  what 
they  are  like — ^pirates,  smugglers,  In- 
dians, treasure-seekers,  boys  of  un- 
failing courage  and  resource,  girls  in 
strange  cities,  girls  at  boarding- 
school,  girls  at  home,  are  all  on  the 
near  horizon.  So,  too,  are,  or  may  be, 
some  of  the  great  characters  in  fiction 
and  in  real  life. 

I  shall  have  more  to  say  of  these 
"middle-aged  children"  and  their  mul- 
titudinous interests  in  reading  in  a 
future  article.  They  were  the  domi- 
nant element  in  the  children's  libraries 
of  the  1890's  and  early  1900's.  It  is 
largely  on  certain  of  their  known  tastes 
and  preferences  and  on  a  tradition  of 
what  has  been  considered  suitable  for 
"youth"  handed  down  from  the  old 
moral  tales  and  the  Sunday  School  li- 
braries of  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  that  the  present 
schemes  for  juvenile  publications,  de- 
signed to  cover  the  period  from  eight 
to  eighteen  years  old,  have  been  based. 


88 


THE  BOOKMAN 


These  schemes  betray  their  origin. 
They  are  built  around  the  series  idea 
with  all  its  limitations  for  author, 
publisher,  and  reader.  I  shall  not  now 
discuss  the  series  in  relation  to  boys 
and  girls  under  fourteen  years  of  age. 
I  do  not  fully  share  the  prejudice 
against  it  that  is  sometimes  expressed, 
provided  the  work  is  well  sustained. 
But  it  is  an  affront  to  the  intelligence 
of  young  people  from  fourteen  to 
eighteen  to  allow  the  series  idea  to  be 
the  determining  factor  in  the  produc- 
tion of  a  literature  designed  for  their 
reading.  It  is  inevitable  that  it  should 
result  in  just  such  a  state  of  arrested 
development  as  we  find  today.  It  has 
been  said  that  childhood  and  poverty 
emerged  at  the  same  time  to  claim 
their  naturalization  papers — in  poetry 
at  the  hands  of  Wordsworth,  in  prose 
in  the  novels  of  Dickens. 

The  discovery  of  adolescence  has 
not  yet  been  declared  in  corresponding 
terms,  but  all  clearly  recollected  ex- 
perience concerning  it  indicates  that 
it  is  a  period  of  greater  expansion, 
of  livelier  interests,  of  deeper  emo- 
tions, of  greater  sensitiveness,  of 
stronger  appreciations,  and  of  keener 
critical  perceptions  than  any  other 
period  of  life.  Thomas  Hughes, 
Louisa  Alcott,  Mark  Twain,  Kate 
Douglas  Wiggin,  Booth  Tarkington, 
Rudyard  Kipling,  E.  F.  Benson,  and 
May  Sinclair  have  given  varied  and 
eloquent  testimony  concerning  life 
at  this  period.  Since  the  Bronte 
there  has  been  no  such  unveiling  of 
the  inner  life  of  a  girl  and  woman  as 
in  "Mary  Olivier".  Writers  of  girls' 
books  and  mothers  of  girls  who  are 
still  growing  up  may  well  look  to  it  for 
the  darifici^ion  of  many  hazy  views 
respecting  the  character  of  girls  and 
women.  Mrs.  Gaskell's  "Life  of 
Charlotte  Bronte"  is  one  of  the  books 


May  Sinclair  read  as  a  child  with 
much  skipping,  she  says.  That  "Mary 
Olivier"  was  not  written  for  children 
nor  for  girls  in  their  'teens  we  may 
feel  confident.  I  think  it  would  have 
interest  only  for  a  very  unusual  young 
girl,  such  as  May  Sinclair  herself 
must  have  been,  but  I  also  think  it 
may  come  to  be  considered  one  of  the 
strongest  forces  for  the  liberation  of 
truer  girl  characters  in  fiction  for 
young  people;  it  bears  so  clear  a 
stamp  that  what  a  girl  really  is — ^not 
what  she  is  made  to  seem  to  be — de- 
termines her  destiny,  whatever  her 
inheritance  or  environment. 

There  have  been  very  few  liberated 
characters  in  fiction  for  young  people 
in  the  forty  odd  years  since  the  pub- 
lication of  "Tom  Sawyer".  Authors 
have  stopped  where  they  have  been 
quite  plainly  told  to  stop  rather  than 
"where  best  they  can".  There  has 
been  too  much  tinkering  of  stories  in 
ofiices.  Old  properties  have  been  re- 
vamped by  somebody  who  remembers 
what  he  liked  at  the  age  of  twelve  and 
"how  mature"  he,  or  his  brother,  was ; 
and  who  decides  the  skeleton  can  be 
set  up  in  a  series  designed  for  boys 
of  fourteen  to  eighteen  if  the  plot  is 
up  to  date  and  scientific,  or  if  me- 
chanical information  is  accurate  and 
abundant. 

The  school  athletic  story,  whose 
most  successful  exponent  is  Ralph 
Henry  Barbour,  was  a  new  type  of 
stoiy  with  considerable  promise.  It 
was  overdone  and  lost  its  first  dis- 
tinction and  originality  of  theme. 
Mr.  Barbour's  earlier  stories,  such  as 
"The  Half-Back"  and  "The  Crimson 
Sweater",  are  the  popular  ones  today. 
His  versatility  has  led  him  into  the  field 
of  the  adventure  story.  It  is  perhaps 
too  soon  to  predict  the  degree  of  suc- 
cess.   It  would  be  possible  to  mention 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE 


89 


a  considerable  number  of  competent 
writers  who  have  either  become  mar- 
tyrs to  the  series  idea  or  have  turned 
completely  away  from  the  juvenile! 
field. 

Books  dealing  with  historical 
periods,  if  the  material  is  ample,  and 
the  author  capable  of  making  dramatic 
use  of  it,  suffer  less  from  the  projec- 
tion into  a  series  than  do  characters 
supposed  to  be  living  their  own  lives. 
This  is  notably  true  of  the  work  of 
Joseph  Altsheler.  Mr.  Altsheler  wrote 
out  of  interest  in  his  subject,  never 
with  a  definite  age  in  mind.  His  books 
are  read  by  many  men  as  well  as  by 
boys  of  different  ages. 

Kirk  Munro's  best  work  was  in  his 
individual  books  rather  than  in  his 
series. 

The  absurdity  of  expecting  an  au- 
thor or  a  group  of  authors  to  produce 
six,  or  eight,  or  a  dozen  books  of  a  de- 
fined species  for  the  reading  of  young 
people  between  the  ages  of  fourteen 
and  eighteen,  has  long  been  apparent 
to  the  young  people  themselves.  The 
series  interest  is  at  its  height  between 
eleven  and  thirteen,  and  by  fourteen 
or  fifteen  has  been  replaced  by  a  very 
persistent  desire  for  romance,  de- 
tective stories,  historical  novels, 
stories  of  the  sea,  authentic  books  of 
exploration  and  discovery,  etc.,  so 
written  as  to  absorb  the  reader. 

This  desire  has  been  met  in  the 
children's  libraries  with  which  I  have 
been  connected  for  many  years  by  a 
liberal  selection  of  novels  written  for 
adults — ^placed  upon  the  shelves  of  the 
children's  rooms.  I  have  always  be- 
lieved in  educating  such  parents  as 
may  be  unthinking,  or  even  unwilling, 
to  allow  their  daughters  to  take  their 
first  impressions  of  love  from  novels 
which  seem  to  follow  naturally  the  old 
fairy  tales,  the  mediaeval  legends  and 


the  classical  tales.  Fortunate  the  girl 
who  passes,  in  her  own  good  time, 
from  'The  Sleeping  Beauty"  to  the 
stories  of  Atalanta,  Brunhilde,  Guin- 
evere, and  ''Aucassin  and  Nicolette"; 
and  from  these  to  "The  Scarlet  Let- 
ter", "The  MiU  on  the  Floss",  "Pride 
and  Prejudice",  or  "Cranford" — as 
Anne  Thackeray  conceived  of  it,  "a 
kind  of  visionary  country  home"; 
"The  Brushwood  Boy",  "Monsieur 
Beaucaire",  and  her  own  free  choice 
of  Scott,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  and 
other  authors. 

The  made-to-order  series  with  its 
girl  bride  and  its  up-to-date  boy  hero 
seems  very  insipid  after  any  such 
vision  and  foreshadowing  of  what  love 
is  going  to  be. 

What  is  true  of  the  love  story  is 
trtie  also  of  the  mystery,  the  detective 
story,  and  the  tale  of  pure  adventure 
for  both  boys  and  girls.  When  the 
interest  is  strongest  they  should  be 
able  to  put  their  hands  on  the  books 
written  by  masters  of  the  art.  Poe 
is  better  known  since  the  boys  dis- 
covered Conan  Doyle's  tribute  to  him 
as  master  of  the  mystery  story. 
Wilkie  Collins,  Quiller-Couch,  Steven- 
son's "New  Arabian  Nights",  "Island 
Nights  Entertainments",  and  "Dr. 
Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde"  are  all  much 
read.  Dumas  is  without  doubt  the 
most  popular  of  the  novelists  read  by 
the  older  boys. 

No  one  who  has  watched  two  gen- 
erations pass  into  their  'teens  and  has 
held  any  large  and  continuous  ob- 
servation of  life  at  earlier  and  later 
periods,  feels  like  minimizing  the 
value  of  impressions  which  may  then 
be  taken  from  books.  But  it  is  a  time, 
not  for  prohibitions  and  restrictions 
hedged  about  with  sentimentality  and 
cheap  optimism;  it  is  a  time  for 
throwing  wide  the  gates  if  any  have 


90 


THE  BOOKMAN 


been  set  up.  Literature — £rreat  lit- 
erature— can  be  trusted  to  do  its  own 
work,  and  one  who  hopes  for  large  re- 
turns should  make  no  unsought  recom- 
mendations. Too  many  books  have 
been  killed  for  young  readers  by  over- 
zealous  reconunendation. 

It  is  plain  that  neither  an  age  limit, 
or  a  series  limit,  will  ever  command 
the  service  of  writers  who  have  the 
imagination,  the  wisdom,  the  sincer- 
ity, the  charm,  and  the  distinction  of 
style   which    are   essential   qualifica- 
tions of  the  successful  writer  of  books 
for  young  people.    One,  if  not  both, 
of  two  things  is  sure  to  happen.    The 
novel  will  recover  its  sense  of  youth, 
— it  is  written  in  the  history  of  the 
novel  that  it  must, — or  the  writer  for 
young  people  must  enlarge  the  bound- 
aries by  escaping  from  the  series  and 
the  age  limit  when  entering  the  com- 
petition to  write  the  "real  thing"  for 
the  'teens.     In  "High  Benton'*,  Wil- 
liam Horliger  has  taken  a  long  step 
forward  in  this  direction.    There  may 
be  a  sequel  to  "High  Benton''  but  the 
book  is  clearly  not  one  of  a  series.    It 
bears  all  the  marks  of  sincerity  and 
intimate  continuous  knowledge  of  boy 
nature.    Moreover,  it  is  a  school  story 
of  a  new  type  dealing  with  the  every- 
day life  of  a  boy  at  High  School  who 
is  tempted  to  leave  school  and  go  to 
work    before    finishing    his    course. 
Never  has  the  village  loafer,  full  of 
superstition   and  unbelief   in  educa- 
tion, been  better  drawn  than  in  the 
character  of  old  Todd,  the  jitney  man, 
in  his  relation  to  a  group  of  boys. 
One  feels  an  integrity  of  background 
in  the  book.    The  author  knows  the 
environment  he   has   re-created   and 
deals  with  actual  problems  of  boy  life 
with  uncommon  freedom  and  natural- 
ness.    Mr.  Heyliger's  earlier  books, 
school  stories  and  scout  stories,  have 


been  very  popular  with  boys  and  are 
characterized  by  their  emphatic  pres- 
entation of  "fair  play".    Prom  a  sec- 
ond reading  of  "High  Benton"  I  went 
back  to  "Tom  Brown's  School  Days" — 
beginning  where  so  many  boys  do, 
with  chapter  five,   and  reading  the 
first  chapters  after  I  had  finished  the 
story.     It  would  be  diflcult  to  pic- 
ture a  sharper  contrast  than  is  pre- 
sented by  the  life  of  an  English  boy 
at  Rugby  in  the  1880's  and  an  Amer- 
ican boy  in  a  New  Jersey  public  school 
in  1919,  but  I  think  I  have  never  read 
'Tom  Brown"  with  so  strong  a  sense 
of  his  kinship  to  the  boy  life  of  all 
time.     "Tom  Brown's  School  Days" 
often  requires  introduction  and  a  ju- 
dicious amount  of  skipping,  but  I  have 
never  known  a  boy  who  really  read  it 
not  to  like  it.    I  often  read  it  in  con- 
junction with  "Huckleberry  Finn" — 
another  sharp  contrast  provocative  of 
many  questions  concerning  the  nature 
of  boys  who  lived  in  the  same  era, 
for  Mark  Twain  places  Huck  on  the 
Mississippi  at  about  the  same  period 
that  Thomas  Hughes  entered  Rugby. 
From  "Tom  Brown"  I  came  back  to 
"Dkvid  Blaize"  and  what  a  fascinat- 
ing, moving  story  of  English  school 
life  it  is,  carrying  David  from  the  age 
of  eleven  to  seventeen.    The  book  is 
perhaps  too  subjective  for  the  Amer- 
ican boy  even  in  his  later  'teens,  but  it 
is  a  revealing  book  to  all  who  know 
much  or  little  about  boys.    The  chap- 
ter descriptive  of  David  "changing  his 
skin"  under  the  yew  tree  in  the  gar- 
den, with  his  sister  Margery  standing 
by,  is  I  think  the  best  account  of  boy 
and  girl  adolescence  I  have  ever  read. 
The  mysterious  attics  and  the  gur- 
gling cistern,  the  dark  comers  and  the 
frightening  games  belong  to  my  own 
childhood  with  a  brother  whose  im- 
agination was  very  like  David's.    The 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE 


91 


visit  of  David's  father — the  Arch- 
deacon— ^to  the  school  is  a  perfect  bit 
out  of  English  family  life.  David  at 
seventeen,  and  in  love  for  the  first 
time,  is  free  from  the  self-conscious- 
ness of  William  Sylvanus  Baxter  at 
seventeen,  but  remember  how  differ- 
ently he  was  situated.  I  turned  to 
"Seventeen"  to  refresh  my  own  mem- 
ory and  also  to  contrast  the  story  of 
WiUie  Baxter  with  "Betty  BeU". 
"Betty  Bell"  is  very  well  written,  but 
the  incident  is  too  circumscribed  and 
the  characters  too  restricted  to  invite 
a  second  reading.  "Betty  Bell  is  a 
regular  little  flirt,  and  that's  all  she 
does  do,"  commented  a  girl  of  fifteen 
who  read  the  book  recently.  Reread- 
ing "Seventeen"  in  the  light  of  its 
growing  popularity  with  girls  of  fif- 
teen and  sixteen,  I  am  struck  by  its 
peculiar  value  for  girls  of  that  age 
and  older.  Life  is  touched  by  per- 
spective as  well  as  tinged  with  humor. 
Where  is  there  such  another  mother  in 
a  book  as  Mrs.  Baxter,  yet  how  well 
one  seems  to  know  her!  While  "Pen- 
rod"  is  the  more  popular  book  in  the 
children's  rooms  of  the  libraries^ — 
and  contrary  to  all  prediction  it  is 
very  popular, — "Seventeen"  is  being 
read  more  and  more  by  both  boys  and 
girls. 

Those  who  have  read  "Master  Si- 
mon's Garden"  know  that  Cornelia 
Meigs  writes  with  charm  and  knowl- 
edge of  "the  long  sea  road"  from  New 
England  to  China.  In  "The  Pool  of 
Stars"  she  has  told  the  story  of  a  girl 
who  gives  up  a  trip  to  Bermuda  with 
a  rich  aunt  in  order  to  get  ready  for 
college.  She  spends  an  interesting 
sununer  and  makes  a  charming  friend- 
ship with  a  boy  of  her  own  age,  and 
an  older  woman  who  is  the  daughter 
of  a  dreamy  old  inventor.  There  is  a 
mystery  and  a  most  successful  story 


within  a  story.  A  chapter  to  which 
boys  would  listen  with  delight  since  it 
gives  color  and  life  to  that  period  of 
our  history  following  the  war  with  the 
Barbary  pirates,  "The  Tree  of  Jade", 
is  so  well  told  as  to  completely  recon- 
cile the  reader  to  the  interruption  of 
the  main  narrative. 


The  Adventures  of  Tom  Sawyer.  By  Mark 
Twain.     Harper  and  Bros. 

The  Adventures  of  Uuckleberry  Finn.  By 
Mark  Twain.    Harper  and  Bros. 

Tbe  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy.  By  Thomas  Bailey 
Aldricta.    Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

Penrod.  By  Booth  Tarkington.  Doubleday, 
Paffe  and  Co. 

Seventeen.  By  Booth  Tarkington.  Donble- 
day,  Page  and  Co. 

Little  Women.  By  Louisa  M.  Alcott.  Little, 
Brown  and  Co. 

Rebecca  of  Sunnybrook  Farm.  By  Kate 
Douglas  Wiggin.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

Jane  Byre.  By  Charlotte  Brontd.  Harper 
and  Bros. 

The  MiU  on  the  Floss.  By  George  Bliot 
Thomas  Y.  Crowell  Co. 

Tom  Brown's  School  Days.  By  Thomas 
Hughes.     The  Macmillan  Co. 

David  BUise.  By  B.  F.  Benson.  George 
H.  Doran  Company. 

*Mary  Olivier.  By  May  Sinclair.  The  Mac- 
millan Co. 

The  Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte.  By  Mrs.  Gas- 
kelL    B.  P.  Dutton  and  Co. 

The  Half-Back.  By  Ralph  Henry  Barbour. 
D.  Appleton  and  Co. 

The  Sleeping  Beauty  and  other  Fairy  Tales. 
Bdited  by  Sir  Arthur  QuiUer-Couch.  George  H. 
Doran  Company. 

Children  of  the  Dawn.  By  B.  F.  Buckley. 
Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co. 

Stories  from  Old  French  Romance.  By  B. 
M.  Wilmot-Buxton.     Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co. 

The  Scarlet  Letter.  By  Nathaniel  Haw- 
thorne.    Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

Pride  and  Prejudice.  By  Jane  Austen.  The 
MacmiUan  Co. 

Cranford.  By  Mrs.  QaskeU.  The  Macmillan 
Co. 

The  Brushwood  Boy.  By  Rudyard  Kipling. 
Doubleday,  Page  and  Co. 

Monsieur  Beaucaire.  By  Booth  Tarkington. 
Doubleday,  Page  and  Co. 

Tales.  By  Bdgar  Allan  Poe.  G.  P.  Putnam's 
Sons. 

Sherlock  Holmes.  By  Conan  Doyle.  Smith, 
Blder  and  Co. 

The  Moonstone.  By  Wilkie  Collins.  Harper 
and  Bros. 

The  Wandering  Heath.  By  Sir  Arthur  Quil- 
ler-Couch.     Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

The  New  Arabian  Nights.  By  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson.     Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

Island  Nights  Bntertalnments.  By  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson.     Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

The  Count  of  Monte  Cristo.  By  Alexander 
Dumas.    The  Walter  Scott  Publishing  Co. 

High  Benton.  By  WiUiam  Heyliger.  D.  Ap- 
pleton and  Co. 

The  Pool  of  Stars.  By  Cornelia  Meigs.  The 
Macmillan  Co. 

Doctor  Danny.  By  Ruth  Sawyer.  Harper 
and  Bros. 

Robinson  Crusoe.  By  Daniel  Defoe.  Harper 
and  Bros. 

Treasure  Island.  By  Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

Ivanhoe.  By  Sir  Walter  Scott.  J.  B.  Lippln- 
cott  Co, 


92 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Ruth  Sawyer  ought  to  be  writing 
for  the  girls  who  enjoyed  "The  Prim- 
rose Ring".  "Doctor  Danny"  is  a  par- 
tial answer  to  this  appeal  since  it  con- 
tains several  stories  which  are  very 
much  liked  by  older  girls,  but  they 
will  not  rest  content  with  short 
stories. 

The  final  meeting  of  the  club  at 
which  the  popular  novels  from  "Rob- 
inson Crusoe"  to  "Jeremy"  are  to  be 
enumerated  has  not  yet  come  off,  but 
I  am  going  to  anticipate  it  in  so  far 
as  to  remind  the  readers  of  The 
Bookman  that  "Robinson  Crusoe", 
after  two  hundred  years,  is  more  read 
than  ever  it  was.  Older  boys  are 
deeply  impressed  when  told  that  it  is 
the  first  humanized  adventure  story. 
Many  of  them  have  read  it  when  they 
were  younger  as  if  it  were  history  or 
biography. 

Between  "Robinson  Crusoe"  and 
"Treasure  Island"  lie  one  hundred  and 
sixty-four  years,  and  the  increasing 
popularity  of  "Treasure  Island"  testi- 
fies to  fresh  delight  in  adventure  for 
its  own  sake  in  a  second  generation  of 
boy  readers.  There  has  been  no  more 
striking  growth  of  the  popularity  of 


an  author  not  accounted  a  juvenile 
than  is  evidenced  by  the  circulation  of 
Stevenson  from  the  children's  rooms 
of  the  libraries  during  the  past  twelve 
years.  Between  Defoe  and  Stevenson 
stands  Sir  Walter  Scott.  "Ivanhoe"  is 
one  hundred  years  old  this  very  year, 
and  wherever  the  schoolboy  reads  it 
in  advance  of  assignment  he  is  still 
held  captive. 

"I  am,  I  own",  wrote  Sir  Walter,  "no 
great  believer  in  the  moral  utility  to 
be  derived  from  fictitious  composi- 
tion." When  we  remember  that  he 
lived  in  an  age  of  moralists,  we  may 
take  heart  for  the  writers  of  our  own 
time.  It  is  clear  that  those  who 
would  write  for  young  people  in  the 
1920's  must  come  to  the  task  with 
more  first-hand  knowledge  of  their 
readers  and  the  books  they  are  actu- 
ally reading;  nor  is  it  far  to  seek.  I 
know  of  no  more  inspiring  or  inspirit- 
ing pageant  than  that  unconsciously 
set  by  hundreds  and  thousands  of  new 
readers  of  fine  books,  whose  authors 
have  passed  on,  but  whose  work  re- 
mains— a  light  to  the  men  and  women 
who  strike  out  new  paths  or  who  fol- 
low in  old  ways. 


A  SHELF  OF  RECENT  BOOKS 


A  RILEY  BIOGRAPHY 
By  Margaret  Emenon  BaUey 

IT  seems  a  pity  that  a  man  who  cares 
so  deeply  for  his  subject  and  who  is 
so  intent  on  giving  to  the  public  a  de- 
tailed and  intimate  account  of  the  man 
he  knew  and  loved»  should  have  been 
so  mistaken  in  his  manner  of  por- 
trayal as  was  Mr.  Dickey  in  ''The 
Youth  of  James  Whitcomb  Riley".  It 
is  indeed  as  though  awed  by  his  task, 
a  false  modesty  and  wrong  estimate  of 
values  had  led  him  to  adopt  a  language 
not  his  own, — certainly  not  the  one  in 
which  the  two  men  must  have  con- 
versed together, — ^and  then  to  con  a 
dictionary  of  quotations  until  he  had 
one  pat  jfor  every  text.  What,  after 
all,  we  want  and  what  he  wants  to  give 
us — ^for  there  is  sincerity  beneath  the 
verbiage — is  quite  simply  Riley  him- 
self, the  circumstances  of  his  life,  the 
influences  that  went  to  make  him  a  poet 
of  the  people,  as  John  McCk)rmack  has 
become  their  singer — a  national  poet 
in  a  sense  in  which  no  American  poet 
is  today. 

Some  such  contribution  is  made  by 
Mr.  Dickey,  who  was  not  merely  the 
intimate  friend  but  the  manager  and 
secretary  of  the  poet,  though  it  is  a 
contribution  made  rather  with  our 
help  and  with  his  hindrance.  For  in 
the  biography  there  are  pictures,  sud- 
den glimpses  when  we  break  through 
the  undergrowth,  that  reward  us  for 
the  trouble  that  it  takes.  There  is,  for 
example,  the  pioneer  village,  undis- 
turbed by  the  great  migrations  that 


moved  through  it  to  the  westward; 
the  log  cabin  whose  cracks  had  to  be 
chinked  in  winter;  the  district  school 
with  its  informal  rewards  and  punish- 
ments; the  swimming  hole  and  mul- 
berry tree — all  of  which  were  to  figure 
later  in  Riley's  works.  But  it  is  in 
dealing  with  this  simple  period  that 
the  writer  uses  least  restraint.  Im- 
aginative Riley  surely  was  and  filled 
with  a  quickening  instinct  for  music 
and  for  poetry;  but  there  is  too  much 
talk  of  the  "Fairy  Heart".  Most  often 
he  appears  as  a  normal  little  boy,  tow- 
headed  and  freckled-faced,  with  a  nor- 
mal instinct  for  truancy  and  freedom 
— ^not  a  wistful  Peter  Pan. 

Otherwise  there  would  never  have 
followed  what  are  the  most  romantic 
chapters  of  the  book,  those  which  deal 
with  his  wanderings  as  sign-painter 
for  an  itinerant  doctor  of  patent  medi- 
cines; and  which  later  deal  with  the 
youths  of  the  Graphic  Company,  an 
irresponsible  lot  who  made  their  va- 
grant business  a  happy  kind  of  sky- 
larking. It  is  to  these  chapters  that 
the  memory  returns:  to  the  doctor 
with  his  "breezy  sidewhiskers"  and 
tolerant  view  of  life;  to  the  nights 
spent  at  chance  farmhouses;  to  the 
sideshows  by  which  they  drew  the  folk 
together,  Riley  playing  the  guitar  or 
acting  the  buffoon;  or  to  the  day 
when,  trade  at  a  low  ebb,  Riley  played 
the  blind  sign-painter,  and  imposed 
at  a  large  profit  on  the  forgiving 
crowd.  There  is,  too,  a  communicable 
humor  in  the  prankishness  that 
prompted  the  dripping  paint-brush  to 
his  first  jingle.    It  is  from  such  ex- 


98 


94 


THE  BOOKMAN 


periences,  undoubtedly,  that  Riley 
gained  his  knowledge  of  simple  people 
and  their  language,  and  the  most  deft 
method  of  approach. 

It  was  later  that  he  was  urged  by 
his  father  to  the  least  profitable  of  his 
ventures,  a  study  of  the  law.  Try  as 
he  would  he  could  not  find  Blackstone 
less  irksome  than  he  had  found  Mc- 
Guffe/s  Reader;  and  much  in  the 
same  manner  that  he  had  taken  fur- 
tive peeks  at  story-books  concealed  by 
sober  covers,  he  began,  while  appar- 
ently more  seriously  engaged,  to  ex- 
ercise his  gift  at  verse.  There  follows, 
once  his  decision  had  been  made,  his 
long  struggle  toward  recognition  as  a 
poet — a  struggle  faced  with  more  than 
ordinary  pluck  and  surely  more  than 
ordinary  humor  in  the  face  of  poverty, 
misunderstanding,  and  scanty  praise. 
Most  interesting  are  the  chapters 
which  present  him  as  editor  for  local 
papers;  scouring  the  coimtryside  for 
news,  endearing  himself  to  the  people 
by  his  interpretation  of  their  simple 
lives,  writing— not  very  weU  perhaps, 
but  always  with  sympathy  and  droll- 
ery— ^while  he  laid  by  the  store  of 
memories  which  he  was  later  so  much 
more  skilfully  to  use.  The  book  closes 
with  the  famous  hoax  of  the  poem, 
"Leonainie'',  supposedly  an  unpub- 
lished poem  of  Edgar  Allan  Foe's,  and 
printed  with  the  connivance  of  the 
editor  of  the  Kokomo  paper.  The  trick 
was  conceived  and  executed  by  Riley 
with  much  the  same  boyish  instinct 
that  led  him  into  mischief  in  earlier 
days;  and  it  was  with  consternation 
and  dismay  that  he  discovered  that 
there  were  many  who  believed  him 
guilty  of  an  intentional  fraud.  From 
the  dark  period  which  followed,  one  in 
which  he  struggled  not  only  with  lone- 
liness and  misinterpretation,  but  with 
his  besetting  weakness,  there  came 
the  first  of  his  best  lyrics. 


The  biography  has  no  pretension  to 
literary  distinction  by  reason  of  its 
grandiloquence;  but  those  who  love 
Riley,  will  find  pleasure  in  the  scat- 
tered poems  placed  with  the  scenes  by 
which  they  were  suggested,  and  still 
more  in  the  drollery,  the  humanity, 
and  individual  character  of  its  sub- 
ject. 


The  Touth  of  James  Wbltcomb  Riley.     By 
Marcus  Dickey.    The  Bobbs-MerrlU  Co. 


THE  POEMS  OF  HERBERT 
TRENCH 

By  Benjamin  Be  Casseres 

Rarely  comest  thon, 
Spirit  of  Delight.... 

wrote  Shelley  in  the  long  ago.  Did  he 
mean  that  no  great  new  poems  were 
being  fabricated?  Probably  not.  But 
it  is  true  today — rarely  comest  thou, 
Spirit  of  Delight;  the  Spirit  of  De- 
light being  to  me  a  book  of  fine  poems. 
Of  versifiers  there  is  never  an  end. 
The  humorist  and  the  sobbing  senti- 
mentalist artf  always  with  us.  Every 
"poef,  no  matter  how  commonplace, 
believes  that  he  is  unique,  just  as 
every  pair  of  lovers  believe  they  are 
unique  and  that  no  one  has  ever  loved 
in  just  that  manner  before.  But  great 
poets  are  rare — ^those  that  spring 
throstle-throated  and  frenzy-smitten 
straight  from  the  forehead  of  Diony- 
sus. Swinburne  and  Hugo  and  Whit- 
man and  Poe  have  had  no  successors. 
Thomas  Hardy  is  sublimely  meta- 
physical at  his  best — ^never  a  singer. 
Only  Gabriele  D'Annunzio  today  car- 
ries out  the  legend  of  the  traditional 
poet.  He  is  a  demigod,  a  superman^ 
the  Red  Vision,  a  spiritual  Bolshevist, 
a  passionate  chanter  of  movement  and 
revolution.    Just  now  he  is  mixed  up 


THE  POEMS  OF  HERBERT  TRENCH 


96 


with  the  international  traffic  cops,  but 
that  is  a  poet's  birthright — ^to  keep  in 
troable. 

Bat  speaking  of  the  Spirit  of  De- 
light. It  came  to  me  when  I  picked 
up  for  review  "Poems"  by  Herbert 
Trench.  As  in  the  case  of  Murray 
Marks,  I  had  never  heard  of  Herbert 
Trench,  so  my  delight  was  doubled — 
something  of  that  feeling  that  an  as- 
tronomer has  when  he  catches  certain 
jolts  and  jostlings  along  the  chalk- 
line  of  old  Neptune  that  tell  him  there 
is  another  planet  in  the  sidereal  sys- 
tem lying  beyond  and  out-there  some- 
where. 

The  poetry  of  Herbert  Trench  is 
done  impeccably.  It  is  not  world-shak- 
ing verse  or  visions  that  will  jolt  Blake 
or  Swinburne  or  Leconte  de  Lisle  out 
of  their  heavens.  They  are  intel- 
lectual products  (we  have  too  little 
intellectual  poetry  in  the  world  today), 
marmoreal,  of  a  poised  and  studied 
sensuousness,  done  by  a  man  who  is 
absolute  master  of  his  vision  and  his 
voice. 

They  are  dedicated  to  the  ''memory 
of  the  two  well-beloved  masters,  Ivan 
Turgenev  and  George  Meredith",  and, 
indeed,  the  influence  of  both  these 
great  writers  is  seen  in  Mr.  Trench's 
work.  There  is  the  impersonal  atti- 
tude and  intellectual  pessimism  of  the 
great  Russian,  but  tempered  by  the 
inescapable  faith  that  all's  well  that 
ends  in  the  slumber  of  God.  Meredith 
would  have  liked  many  of  these  poems, 
so  would  Robert  Browning — and  Fran- 
cis Thompson.  The  latter  is  recalled 
in  Mr.  Trench's  magnificent  "Requiem 
of  the  Archangels  for  the  World",  also 
done  in  Latin  by  E.  Iliff  Robson.  To 
me,  it  is  the  finest  poem,  by  far,  in 
the  book,  although  "Deidre  Wedded", 
a  long  narrative  poem,  should,  like  the 
"Requiem",  be  bound  in  gold  and  jas- 
per and  printed  separately. 


The  theme  of  the  "Requiem"  is  sub- 
lime. The  star  that  has  borne  us  all 
is  dead.  The  streams  are  dumb.  The 
human  heart  had  faded  into  dust.  The 
battle  flags  of  our  wars  against  Na- 
ture and  Evil  and  our  poor  enemies 
are  furled.  The  spouting  craters  of 
ideas — ^the  skull — ^are  silent.  The 
oceans  are  mud.  Gods  and  flowers  and 
little  children  have  passed  like  a  mor- 
phinated  dream. 

Make  ready  thon,  tremendoug  Night, 

Stoop  to  the  Earth  and  shroud  her  scan, 

And  bid  with  chanting  to  the  rite 
The  torches  of  thy  train  of  stars. 

It  is  not  the  vision  of  a  pessimist 
or  a  Schopenhauerian  Nay-sayer.  Our 
legend  has  been  a  glorious  one.  We 
lie  bleeding  on  the  altar  of  Moloch, 
but  we  are  not  tired  or  fatigued.  It 
was  a  sublime  adventure  of  a  spark  of 
God  in  matter. 

Fount  of  the  time-embranching  fire 
O  waneless  One,  that  art  the  core 

Of  every  heart's  unknown  desire, 
Take  back  the  hearts  that  beat  no  more. 

"Apollo  and  the  Seaman"  is  a  beau- 
tiful series  of  studied  images — a 
poet's  poem.  "The  Rock  of  Cloud"  is 
Shelleyan — ethereal  and  wing^.  "The 
Battle  of  the  Mame"  and  "Stanzas  to 
Tolstoi  in  His  Old  Age"  are  majestic 
and  have  the  beat  of  the  heart  in  eveiy 
line.  "An  Ode  to  Beauty"  is  unfor- 
gettable in  its  matchless  house  of 
words.  Mr.  Trench's  Hound  of  Heaven 
is  the  immortal  Helena,  mother  of  the 
sons  of  song. 

Nothing  in  these  poems  reveals  to 
us  what  manner  of  man  Herbert 
Trench  is.  There  are  no  excursions 
into  the  waking  world.  He  is  not  of 
this  day  or  hour,  or  any  particular  day 
or  hour.  I  imagine  him  to  be  seated 
in  a  tower  in  some  lost  English  town 
where,  care-free,  he  carves  his  visions 
into  words. 


Poems.     By  Herbert  Trench.    Two  volumes. 
B.  P.  Dutton  and  Co. 


96 


THE  BOOKMAN 


THE  MARTYRED  TOWNS  OF 
FRANCE 

By  Margaret  Pinclcney  Allen 

IN  one  sense  all  the  towns  of  France 
were  martyred  in  the  Great  War." 
But  the  towns  whose  personality  is  so 
vividly  painted  in  Miss  Clara  E. 
Lausrhlin's  book,  'The  Martyred 
Towns  of  France",  suffered  the  very 
extremity  of  martyrdom, — ^all  the  hor- 
rors which  the  diseased  imagination 
of  man  has  borne  to  the  god  of  war. 
Most  of  these  places  are  heaps  of  dust 
and  rubble,  and  might  conceivably 
never  rise  again  from  their  deso- 
lation. Yet  the  significance  and  the 
value  of  the  book  lies  in  its  attempt — 
a  successful  one — ^to  picture  not  the 
present  tormented  waste  in  which  they 
lie,  but  the  enduring,  indestructible 
vitality  of  the  spirit  which  for  so 
many  hundreds  of  years  slowly  built 
them  into  what  they  were.  Of  each  of 
them  it  might  be  said,  as  it  is  said  of 
Arras  the  Proud: 

For  more  than  two  thonsand  years  men  and 
women  struggled  to  maintain  a  city  in  that 
place — to  build  and  beautify  and  carry  on  com- 
merce and  manufactures,  to  rear  churches  and 
cultivate  the  arts  and  multiply  hospitals  and 
asylums  for  the  sick  and  the  aged,  to  provide 
excellent  education  for  youth.  And  in  a  few 
months,  the  brutish  rage  of  frustrated  sav- 
ages was  able  to  reduce  the  visible  result  of  all 
those  centuries  to  dust. 

Miss  Laughlin  wisely  does  not  dwell 
upon  the  heartbreaking,  all  too  fa- 
miliar pictures  of  ruin  which  the 
names  of  Noyon,  Reims,  Verdun,  Sois- 
sons,  Amiens  revive  in  memory.  In- 
stead, in  each  vivid  chronicle,  the 
spirit  of  each  place  seems  to  assure 
us  that  there  are  qualities  which  the 
most  horrible  destruction  cannot  even 
touch.  Time  and  again,  over  these 
towns  of  hill  and  plain  and  river-side 
has  swept  the  mad  rage  of  the  invader. 
They  have  been  pawns  in  the  hands  of 


terrible  bishops,  dowers  for  duchesses, 
playthings  for  princesses,  bargains 
for  butchers  of  men.  Tortured  on 
that  rack  of  history  which  has  been 
made  out  of  the  curious  and  infinite 
cruelty  of  man  to  man,  they  have 
seemed,  again  and  again,  to  yield  up 
their  bodies  to  dissolution.  Yet  the 
spirit  has  lived  on. 

Miss  Laughlin  writes  out  of  a  deep, 
intimate  knowledge  of  French  history 
and  long  familiarity  with  the  actual 
countryside.  All  these  gorgeous  fig- 
ures, so  much  more  pleasant  to  read 
about  than  to  live  under,  take  their 
way  vividly  through  these  pages, 
bright  with  banners  and  the  gleam  of 
armor.  Bishops,  weighted  down  vnth 
the  glory  of  their  very  earthly  pomp, 
saints  or  rascals  as  the  case  might  be, 
strive  with  dukes  and  kings  for  per- 
sonal and  churchly  ends.  And  through 
it  all  one  feels,  like  the  irresistible 
surge  beneath  a  turbulent  sea,  that 
struggle  of  the  people,  the  everyday 
people  of  these  wonderful  towns,  to 
gain  for  themselves  the  fruits  of  their 
patriotism,  their  skill,  their  love  of 
beauty.  For  it  was  they  who  made 
Noyon,  vnth  its  "mother  of  French 
cathedrals" ;  proud,  ancient  Laon,  with 
its  quaint  claim  that  it  was  founded 
six  hundred  and  eighty  years  after  the 
flood;  Arras,  with  its  splendors  of 
palace  and  abbey,  its  libraries,  its  mu- 
seums, its  sinuous,  picturesque  streets, 
its  gorgeous  Hotel  de  Ville,  its  belfry 
built  in  the  fifteenth  century  to  ex- 
press to  posterity  the  joy  of  its  citi- 
zens in  their  city, — ^that  belfry  which 
soared  two  hundred  and  forty-five  feet 
'Vith  the  grace  of  a  flame  and  like  a 
cry  of  joy  and  liberty  in  the  sky.  (I 
quote  not  from  a  poem  but  from  a  re- 
port of  a  commissioner  of  public 
works!)";  Amiens,  with  its  cathe- 
dral, one  of  the  most  beautiful  build- 
ings in  the  world;    Verdun,  all  its 


TWO    OLD    LADIES   SHOW   THEIR   MEDALS 


97 


former  glory  linked  now  with  its  im- 
mortal phrase  for  more  than  mortal 
endurance;  the  small  towns  of  the 
Mame  Valley,  especially  that  ancient 
Ch&teau-Thierry  which  has  its  special 
place  in  American  hearts.  Names, 
these,  that  are  like  a  trumpet-call,  "re- 
viving the  immortal  spirits  of  old  vic- 
tories". 

But  more  than  these  triumphs  of 
war  is  the  remembrance  that  these 
small  cities  and  towns  of  France  gave 
their  citizens  a  remarkably  complete 
life  with  their  libraries,  their  mu- 
seums of  art,  their  theatres,  caf^s,  and 
public  gardens,  their  fine  promenades, 
and  beautiful  boulevards.  Gone  are 
these,  apparently  forever,  in  half  a 
hundred  towns,  another  enormous  sac- 
rifice on  the  altar  of  Vandal  lust  and 
hate.  But  through  all  these  vital 
pages,  the  spirit  of  France  breathes 
its  promise  of  triumph  and  renewal. 


The  Martyred  Towns  of  Prance.    By  Clara  B. 
Langhlin.     O.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 


TWO  OLD  LADIES  SHOW  THEIR 

MEDALS 

By  John  Bunker 

THERE  are,  as  every  wise  man's 
son  doth  know,  just  two  kinds  of 
books:  those  that  are  readable — ^and 
the  other  kind.  And  for  sheer  read- 
ability commend  us  to  a  good  volume 
of  biography,  of  memoirs,  of  remi- 
niscence. These  are  eminently  the 
fireside  books,  the  companionable  af- 
fairs, so  heartily  approved  of  by  John- 
son— throwing  as  they  do  a  direct 
and  personal  light  on  that  forever 
fascinating  subject,  human  nature. 

Of  such  a  sort  are  the  two  books 
before  us:  "The  Life  and  Letters  of 
Lady   Dorothy   Nevill"   by  her   son 


Ralph  Nevill,  and  "Mid-Victorian 
Memories''  by  Matilda  Betham-Ed- 
wards.  There  are  certaia  resem- 
blances between  them.  In  time  the 
long  lives  of  these  two  women  prac- 
tically coincided,  the  first  living  from 
1826  to  1918,  and  the  second  from 
1887  to  1919.  Each  was  on  a  footing 
of  intimacy  with  many  of  the  great 
personages  of  their  period,  and  each 
possessed  an  alert  intelligence,  lively 
and  undimmed  even  after  the  passage 
of  eighty  years.  This  being  said,  the 
rest  is  a  matter  of  contrasts. 

Lady  Dorothy  Nevill  was  of  the  in- 
most circle  of  the  great  world  of  rank 
and  fashion,  a  descendant  of  Lady 
Dorothy  Townshend,  sister  of  Sir  Rob- 
ert Walpole.  Partly  from  this  cir- 
cumstance and  even  more  from  her 
native  charm  and  gaiety  and  unfail- 
ing zest  for  life,  she  acquired  in  the 
course  of  her  eighty-seven  years  a 
series  of  friends  and  acquaintances 
which  for  number  and  ^variety  was 
really  astounding.  The  list  of  states- 
men and  politicians  alone  is  in  itself 
memorable,  running  from  Lord  Pal- 
merston  (that  tough-minded  old  aris- 
tocrat with  his  "I  have  known  only 
one  woman  who  refused  gold,  and  she 
took  diamonds"),  Gladstone,  Disraeli, 
Chamberlain,  Sir  Henry  Campbell- 
Bannerman,  and  a  host  of  minor 
figures,  down  to  John  Bums,  Asquith, 
and  Winston  Churchill— "that  fretted 
soul  who  cannot  make  up  his  mind 
as  to  whether  he  is  Nelson  or  Napo- 
leon." In  addition  to  these  she  knew 
military  leaders  of  the  standing  of 
Lord  Wolseley  and  Sir  John  French, 
poets  and  litterateurs  like  Tennyson 
and  John  Morley  and  Edmund  Gosse, 
philosophers  like  Frederic  Harrison, 
artists  like  Whistler,  scientists  like 
Darwin,  to  say  nothing  of  earls  and 
dukes  and  personages  of  even  more 


98 


THE  BOOKMAN 


exalted  rank.  And  most  of  these  she 
not  only  knew  but  knew  intimately, 
seeing  them  frequently  or  carrying  on 
a  close  correspondence  with  them. 

Naturally  in  such  a  book  the  requi- 
site number  of  mots  are  recorded,  and 
there  is  a  wealth  of  amusing  stories. 
One  of  these  concerns  Tennyson,  pres- 
ent at  a  country-house  party  when  ^a 
well-known  singer  sang  a  poem  of  his 
which  she  had  set  to  music. 

She  sang  it  beantifnUy.  but  when  it  waa 
over  the  poet  with  asperity  expressed  his  in- 
tense annoyance  that  his  beautifol  lines  should 
have  been  set  to  what  he  caUed  "horrible  third- 
class  music*'  I  The  result  was  general  con- 
sternation—everyone called  for  candles  and 
went  to  bed. 

But  perhaps  the  cleverest  story,  in 
view  of  recent  occurrences,  has  to  do 
with  an  American  named  Silsbee, 
noted  for  his  collection  of  Shelley 
relics,  who  was  once  asked  to  address 
a  temperance  meeting: 

He  duly  appeared  upon  the  platform  amid  a 
crowd  of  rigid  abstainers.  The  audience  were 
much  moved  by  speech  after  speech  depicting 
the  horrors  produced  by  alcohol,  but  Mr.  Sils- 
bee's  oration  produced  a  far  greater  sensation. 
Rising  to  his  feet  he  said :  "I  have  searched 
the  Scriptures  from  Genesis  to  Revelations, 
and  I  have  found  that  there  was  only  one  man 
who  called  for  water  and  he  was  in  heU  as  he 
deserved  to  be.*' 

Turning  to  the  second  of  these  oc- 
togenarian memoirists  we  find  that 
Miss  Betham-Edwards  was  a  writer 
who  at  twenty  succeeded  as  a  novelist 
with  her  first  work  of  fiction  "The 
White  House  by  the  Sea";  and  at 
seventy,  at  the  request  of  her  pub- 
lisher, she  wrote  a  novel  "Hearts  of 
Alsace"  to  celebrate  the  jubilee  of 
her  working  life.  Frederic  Harrison 
mentions  "Kitty",  "Dr.  Jacob",  and 
"John  and  I"  as  among  her  best 
novels,  but  considers  that  "  'A  Suffolk 
Courtship',  'The  Lord  of  the  Harvest', 
and  'Hock  Beggars'  Hall'  have  a  spe- 
cial value,  even  as  historic  records  of 


'Old  England'  in  Com  Law  days,  and 
they  are  worthy  to  st^ind  beside  those 
of  Maria  Edgeworth  and  Mary  Mit- 
ford." 

Herself  a  literary  woman,  most  of 
Miss  Betham-Edwards's  friendships 
were  with  literary  people  or  those 
connected  with  literature,  and  her 
book  is  put  together  on  an  entirely 
different  plan  from  that  of  Lady  Dor- 
othy— ^the  plan,  namely,  of  devoting 
separate  chapters  to  the  person  under 
discussion.  The  first  and  (religious 
prejudice  apart)  the  best  chapter  in 
the  book  has  to  do  with  "my  neighbor 
and  intimate  friend,  Coventry  Pat- 
more.  .  .far  and  away  the  most  orig- 
inal figure  in  these  memorabilia." 
That  Miss  Betham-Edwards  knew  how 
to  strike  off  a  graphic  portrait  the 
following  account  of  Patmore  as  a 
talker  will  show: 

As  the  blue  tobacco  fumes  curled  upwards, 
and  the  strange,  lank,  sardonic  figure  of  the 
speaker  became  partly  obscured,  his  listener 
would  forget  the  man  in  the  potency  of  the 
voice — a  voice  mysterious,  penetrating,  Dan- 
tesque,  belonging  not  to  one  of  ourselves,  but 
to  the  olden  time,  an  echo  of  the  grand  old 

days,  "the  days  that  are  no  more" He  had 

known  Carlyle  well,  and  was  fond  of  talking 
about  him.  "Why",  I  asked  one  evening, 
"should  Carlyle  have  written  his  'Prench  Revo- 
lution' in  the  chaotic,  parenthetic  style  of  Jean 
Paul  Richter,  every  sentence  being  a  Chinese 
puBBle?"  "Why?"  he  replied;  "because  to  put 
aU  that  he  had  to  say  in  clear,  matter-of-fact 
prose  would  have  required  twenty  pages  instead 
of  one.  His  book  suited  the  theme;  it  is  in 
itself  a  revolution!" 

Speaking  of  her  introduction  to 
George  Eliot,  Miss  Betham-Edwards 
writes: 

. .  .and  there  I  was  in  the  presence  of  a  taU, 
prematurely  old  lady  wearing  black,  with  a  ma- 
jestic but  appealing  and  wholly  unforgettable 
face.  A  subdued  yet  penetrating  light — I  am 
tempted  to  say  luminosity — shone  from  large 
dark  eyes  that  looked  all  the  darker  on  account 
of  the  white,  marble-like  complexion.  She 
might  have  sat  for  a  Santa  Teresa. 

Other  chapters  deal  with  Frederic 
Harrison,     Madame    Bodichon,    and 


THE  BEST  FOR  THE  LOWEST 


99 


Herbert  Spencer,  Baron  Tauchnitz, 
Lord  John  Rtlsselly  Henry  James, 
Amelia  Blandford  Edwards,  Miss 
Braddon,  Lord  Kitchener,  John  Mor- 
ley,  "Mark  Rutherford'',  Mudie,  John 
Murray;  and  "a  trio  of  pioneers" — 
Rose  Davenport-Hill,  Frances  Power 
Cobbe,  and  Elizabeth  Blackwell,  M.D. 


The  Life  and  Letteri  of  Lady  Dorothy  NevUL 
By  her  son  Ralph  NevlU.    E.  P.  Dutton  and  Co. 

Mid- Victorian  Memories.  By  Matilda  Betham- 
Bdwards.  With  a  personal  sketch  by  Mrs. 
Sarah  Grand.    The  Macmillan  Co. 


THE  BEST  FOR  THE  LOWEST 

By  Oscar  L,  Joseph 

r[ERE  are  some  lives  which  can  be 
limned  at  full  lencrth  on  a  small 
canvas,  but  other  lives  need  a  large 
canvas  with  a  spacious  background. 
Some  men  leap  into  fame  at  a  bound, 
others  must  industriously  work  their 
way  to  the  pinnacles  of  success.  Bar- 
nett  of  Toynbee  Hall,  whose  "Life", 
written  by  his  wife,  has  just  been 
given  us,  was  of  this  latter  class.  He 
had  neither  the  gifts  nor  the  graces 
that  popular  standards  esteem  as  of 
first  consequence.  But  he  had  the 
glow  which  made  him  grow,  and  at 
fifty  his  talents  were  so  prolific  as  to 
overwhelm  those  who  regarded  him, 
when  twenty  years  of  age,  as  a  youth 
of  mediocre  parts.  He  was  a  constant 
surprise  to  those  who  knew  him  best, 
and  he  proved  the  truth  of  the  saying 
that  "appearances  are  deceptive''.  He 
had  early  formed  his  ideal,  and 
through  evil  report  and  good  report, 
he  pursued  the  devious  paths  which 
enabled  him  to  achieve,  far  beyond  the 
expectations  of  even  the  most  san- 
guine. 

Bamett  was  often  in  ill  health  and 
oftener  depressed,  and  frequently 
slandered,  not  so  much  by  the  ignorant 


as  by  the  educated.  He  was  also  the 
recipient  of  those  curious  missiles  of 
the  black  art,  called  anonymous  letters, 
resorted  to  by  cowards;  but  instead 
of  consigning  them  to  deserved  ob- 
livion, he  preserved  them.  Here  is 
one  of  them: 

You  awful  fraud.  I  wonder  you  are  not 
struck  down  dead  taking  part  in  the  service. 
The  poor  hate  you  like  the  bitterest  poison. 
You  are  no  good  at  aU  and  not  fit  to  be  a 
clergyman.  I  hate  you.  I  hope  you  wiU  drop 
dead  before  long.    Curse  you. 

He,  however,  showed  unusual  cour- 
age in  sticking  to  his  last,  although  he 
lived  between  the  two  fires  of  misun- 
derstanding by  the  poor,  and  of  mis- 
representation by  the  rich  whose  zeal 
for  calumny  was  only  exceeded  by 
their  pharisaic  self-complacency.  He 
held  that  ''it  is  only  the  passion  of 
patience  which  effectually  reforms 
abuses".  For  twenty  years  he  lived 
in  a  tiny  house  in  Whitechapel,  East 
London,  on  a  self-imposed  limited  in- 
come, and  immersed  himself  in  the 
life  of  this  destitute  neighborhood, 
determined  to  make  religion  a  real 
force  for  spiritual  and  social  uplift. 
He  was  splendidly  supported  by  his 
wife,  who  shared  all  his  humanitarian 
aspirations.  The  career  of  such  a 
man,  in  the  face  of  numerous  odds,  is 
a  better  argument  for  the  immortality 
of  life  and  infiuence  than  a  whole  li- 
brary of  philosophy  and  theology. 
When  he  died.  Dean  Ryle  said  from 
the  pulpit  of  Westminster  Abbey: 

He  was  no  visionary,  no  fanatic,  but  from 
his  early  manhood  he  was  moved  with  a  genu* 
ine  love  for  the  people.  He  yearned  to  show 
that  the  Church  of  Christ  belonged  to  the  true 
heart  of  the  nation — beating  in  sympathy  with 
its  sufTerings  and  its  needs,  its  aspirations  and 
its  hopes,  with  its  struggle  for  fairer  condi> 
tions  and  purer  environment.  He  refused  to 
be  discouraged,  and  was  hopeful,  prudent,  and 
fair-minded,  a  lover  of  truth,  a  man  of  intel- 
lectual humility  and  religious  honesty.  He  in- 
sisted  that  if  the  Church  of  Christ  preacheil  re- 
ligion and  virtue  to  the  toiling  millions  of  our 
great  cities,  it  must  contend  for  the  establish- 
ment of  a  Kingdom  of  God  oh  «arth,  and  pro- 


100 


THE  BOOKMAN 


mote  the  removal  of  those  conditions  by  which 
clean  and  vlrtaouB  living  la  rendered  moat  diffl- 
cnlt,  and  which  too  often  are  the  fertile  seed- 
plots  of  vice. 

Canon  Bamett  was  a  pioneer  in 
many  directions  and  it  almost  takes 
one's  breath  away  to  read  about  his 
endeavors  for  housing  reform,  popu- 
lar education,  pension  relief,  univer- 
sity changes,  and  other  movements  for 
human  advancement.  He  showed  an 
unusual  facility  in  enlisting  the  per- 
sonal services  of  eminent  people  for 
the  enrichment  of  the  work  at  White- 
chapel.  Many  of  them  delivered  lec- 
tures and  taught  classes,  impressed  by 
the  guiding  principle  of  Bamett,  "The 
best  for  the  lowest".  A  partial  list  of 
some  of  these  activities  is  given  in 
Volume  I,  page  370.  The  climax  of  his 
labors  was  the  establishment  of  Toyn- 
bee  Hall,  which  was  destined  to  carry 
out  an  extensive  program,  to  become  a 
great  university  center,  to  open  to  the 
poor  "the  great  avenues  of  art,  litera- 
ture and  history  down  which  come  the 
thoughts  and  ideals  of  the  ages".  How 
this  has  been  carried  out  may  be  gath- 
ered from  the  list  of  Toynbee  socie- 
ties, conducted  not  as  mere  classes  but 
as  discussion  groups  under  the  leader- 
ship of  experts.  One  of  the  most 
interesting  parts  of  these  volumes  is 
the  correspondence  of  Bamett,  which 
alone  was  exhaustive  enough  to  en- 
gage all  the  energy  of  one  man.  As 
rector  of  St.  Jude's  Parish,  Canon  of 
Bristol,  Canon  of  Westminster,  and 
Warden  of  Toynbee  Hall,  this  servant 
of  God  fulfilled  a  service  which  has 
given  a  new  complexion  to  the  mili- 
tant mission  of  Christianity.  Well  did 
M.  Clemenceau  declare,  after  a  visit  to 
England  in  1884:  "I  have  met  but 
three  really  great  men  in  England, 
and  one  was  a  little  pale  clergyman  in 
Whitechapel". 


Canon  Bamett.  His  Life,  Work,  and  Friends. 
By  His  Wife.  .Two  Tolomes.  Houghton  Mifltin 
Co.  .  !    : 


TWO  DECORATION  BOOKS 

By  Bichardson  Wright 

WRITERS  on  furniture  history 
have  hitherto  been  content  to 
follow  the  antiquated  system  of 
periods  and  dates.  In  this  volume, 
"The  Practical  Book  of  Interior  Deco- 
ration", furniture  history  is  set  down 
in  the  new  fashion,  according  to  the 
four  great  tides  of  influence  that  have 
affected  furniture  design  and  use — the 
Renaissance,  the  Baroque,  the  Rococo, 
and  the  Neo-classic.  This  treatment 
is  important  because  it  shows  the  his- 
tory of  furniture  as  an  international 
affair,  which  it  was.  The  influences 
that  changed  a  chair  leg  did  not  stop 
at  frontiers.  Interior  architecture  and 
equipment  in  France,  England,  Italy, 
Spain,  and  Portugal  yielded  to  the 
same  general  influences  at  about  the 
same  time.  Furniture  was  even  more 
sensitive  to  stylistic  changes  than 
architecture. 

The  book  is  divided  into  three  gen- 
eral sections.  The  first  outlines  the 
architectural  background  of  the  room 
in  each  era,  beginning  with  the  six- 
teenth century,  and  summarizes  the 
changes  in  that  background  and  in  the 
mobiliary  furniture  and  accessories  as 
the  four  different  infiuences  moulded 
their  contours.  At  the  end  of  each 
chapter  is  a  tabulation  of  all  the  ar- 
ticles used  in  the  furnishing  of  these 
period  rooms.  The  second  division  is 
devoted  to  the  practical  aspects  of 
decoration,  in  which  are  considered 
such  matters  as  color,  furniture  ar- 
rangement, window  and  door  hang- 
ings, fioors,  walls,  fixtures,  etc.  The 
third  division  contains  a  scheme  for 
international,  interperiod  decoration 
by  which  the  authors  attempt  to  cre- 
ate a  distinctive,  livable  style  on  the 
basis  of  scale  and  design  rather  than 
period — ^a  sort  of  democracy  of  tables 


THE   LYRIC   LINE 


101 


and  chairs.  This  combination  of  the 
history,  the  practical  application  of 
decorative  principles,  and  the  sugges- 
tion for  a  new  style  makes  a  presenta- 
tion of  the  subject  far  more  compre- 
hensive and  useful  than  has  been  at- 
tempted in  other  volumes  on  the  sub- 
ject. 

Among  the  especially  commendable 
points  are  the  concise  summaries  of 
the  customs  underlying  furniture  de- 
sign and  usages ;  the  treatment  of  the 
architectural  background  of  the  room 
— a  subject  either  ignored  or  avoided 
by  many  decorators ;  and  the  explana- 
tion of  the  use  of  color.  The  last  is  a 
difficult  subject  at  best;  here  it  is  ex- 
plained in  simple  terms  aided  by  anal- 
ogies that  the  amateur  can  readily 
grasp.  The  authors  are  not  convinced 
of  the  livableness  of  modernist  decora- 
tion— ^the  unrestrained  use  of  strong 
color  and  the  tortuous  contours  of  the 
Viennese  School.  Nor  do  they  take 
seriously  the  ephemeral  styles  created 
by  furniture  manufacturers  who,  dur- 
ing the  last  few  years,  have  attempted 
to  make  styles  in  American  decoration 
change  almost  as  often  as  styles  in 
dress. 

There  are  debatable  points,  how- 
ever, on  which  the  authors  dogmatize. 
They  also  manage  to  use  a  great  many 
words,  an  appalling  number  of  words, 
and  they  have  submitted  to  English- 
isms so  completely  (although  all  three 
are  Americans)  that  the  book  gets  an- 
noying. One  doesn't  mind  color  spelt 
with  a  u,  but  he  does  writhe  when  he 
reads  that  "the  King  8(Ue  upon  the 
throne". 

In  this  large  volume  of  450  pages, 
interspersed  with  several  hundred 
plates  of  half-tone  and  line  illustra- 
tions, the  professional  decorator  and 
student  will  find  an  authoritative 
work.  And  to  the  amateur  it  should 
prove  equally  helpful  because  all  the 


possible  problems  are  touched  on  in  a 
practical  and  sane  fashion. 

"Color  Schemes  For  the  Home  and 
Model  Interiors"  is  a  portfolio  that 
will  prove  of  value  to  the  beginning 
decorator  in  the  selection  of  colors  for 
a  room  and  the  placing  of  color  ac- 
cents. After  stating  the  general  rules 
of  decoration,  there  follow  twenty 
color  plates  of  schemes  for  curtains, 
walls,  upholstery,  etc.,  with  the  photo- 
graph of  the  room  to  which  they  apply 
shown  opposite.  Together  with  these 
is  a  text  explanation  of  the  scheme. 
The  idea  is  excellent,  the  colors  are 
sane  and  practical  but  strangely  lack- 
ing in  vitality.  One  must  protest, 
however,  against  the  obvious  faking 
of  the  photographs — ^the  backgrounds 
of  excellent  rooms  have  been  taken  and 
groups  of  Grand  Rapids  pieces  "bled" 
on  them.  Even  the  untrained  eye  can 
discern  the  mark  of  the  retoucher. 


The  Practical  Book  of  Interior  Decoration. 
By  Harold  Donaldson  Eberleln,  Abbot  McClure 
and  Edward  S.  Holloway.    J.  B.  Lippincott  Co. 

Color  Schemes  For  the  Home  and  Model  In- 
teriors. By  Henry  W.  Prohne  and  Alice  F.  and 
Bettina  Jackson.    J.  B.  Lippincott  Co. 


THE  LYRIC  LINE 

By  Louis  Untermeyer 

IN  1911,  before  the  poetry  produced 
in  America  had  reached  the  propor- 
tions of  a  "renaissance",  there  ap- 
peared one  of  the  most  remarkable 
**first"  books  that  have  ever  roused  my 
dogged  enthusiasm.  It  was  called 
"The  Human  Fantasy"  and  its  author 
was  an  unknown  by  the  name  of  John 
Hall  Wheelock.  What  gave  the  vol- 
ume its  peculiar  distinction  was  the 
way  it  fused  the  spirit  of  Whitman 
with  the  tone  of  Henley  and  the  grace 
of  Heine.  But  what  gave  it  its  au- 
thority was  the  musical  overtone  that 


102 


THE  BOOKMAN 


rose  from  the  strangely  assembled 
chords;  a  singing  buoyance,  an  ath- 
letic loveliness,  a  lyricism  that  was 
both  tender  and  intense.  On  the  first 
page  of  this  arresting  book  one  was 
confronted  by  a  freshness  not  only  of 
idiom  but  of  vision.  "The  Human 
Fantasy"  was  one  of  the  earliest  con- 
temporary contributions  to  our  rapidly 
growing  literature  of  exalted  realism; 
it  celebrated,  with  passionate  vigor, 
"the  glory  of  the  conmionplace'\  The 
two  volumes  that  followed  were  a  rude 
and  rapid  decrescendo;  "The  BelovM 
Adventure"  was  a  weakening  of  the 
first  strain ;  in  "Love  and  Liberation" 
Wheelock  touched  incredible  depths 
of  banality.  And  now  comes  "Dust 
and  Light" — ^an  apotheosis  of  the  pre- 
ceding trio;  a  summary  and,  in  some 
ways,  a  spiritual  synthesis. 

In  spite  of  the  frequent  passages  of 
exaltation,  one  looks  in  vain  for  the 
early  vitality;  the  rich,  human  stuff 
of  such  a  poem  as  "Sunday  Evening  in 
the  Common"  is  strikingly  absent.  It 
would  be  pleasant  to  write  that  what 
Wheelock  has  lost  in  a  realistic  magic 
he  has  gained  in  a  lyric  romanticism. 
But  an  examination  of  "Dust  and 
Light"  forbids  any  such  agreeable 
conclusion.  The  singer  who  gave 
promise  of  being  one  of  our  most 
poetic  interpreters  of  modem  life  has 
become  a  dispenser  of  musical  plati- 
tudes, a  determined  (and  often  genu- 
inely inspired)  chronicler  of  the  tid- 
bits of  poetry.  He  buries  his  best  ef- 
fects in  what  seems  to  be  a  mass  of 
carefully-hoarded  juvenilia;  he  blurs 
his  clean  images  with  a  thick  film 
of  clichis  like  "dizzy  draught",  "rude 
buffet",  "languid  breath",  "wanton 
waste",  "fall  like  dew",  "move  like 
music",  "soimding  shore".  In  addi- 
tion to  these  disappointments,  the 
faults  of  his  early  work  are  intensi- 
fied.    He  is  uncritically  repetitious; 


he  thins  out  his  themes  till  they  seem 
the  merest  trickle  of  ideas;  the  con- 
tinual and  upper-case  "Beauty"  of 
"Love  and  Liberation"  is  replaced  by 
an  overcapitalized  "All"  varied  by  an 
equally  imposing  "Awe". 

These  defects  mar  but  they  cannot 
utterly  destroy  the  power  of  Whee- 
lock's  convictions.  If  "Dust  and 
Light"  contains  some  of  this  poet's 
least  distinctive  efforts,  it  also  in- 
cludes some  of  his  most  successful 
ones.  The  two  long  poems  at  the  end 
of  the  volume  ("The  Man  to  his  Dead 
Poet"  and  "Toward  the  Bright 
Doom")  are  among  the  noblest  verses 
Wheelock  has  achieved.  "Thanks 
from  Earth  to  Heaven"  and  "The  Far 
Land"  vibrate  with  his  old  certainties 
and  a  new  restraint;  "Earth"  is  a 
set  of  dazzling  couplets  that  would  de- 
light Ralph  Hodgson.  I  quote  the  first 
few  lines : 

Grasshopper,  your  fairy  song 

And  my  poem  alike  belong 

To  the  dark  and  silent  earth 

From  which  all  poetry  has  birth ; 

AU  we  say  and  all  we  sing 

Is  but  as  the  murmuring 

Of  that  drowsy  heart  of  hers 

When  from  her  deep  dream  she  stirs : 

If  we  sorrow,  or  rejoice, 

You  and  I  are  but  her  voice. 

The  set  lyrics  are  less  notable.  They 
waver  between  a  rather  lush  mysti- 
cism and  a  too-insistent  plucking  of 
the  amatory  string.  It  is  a  somewhat 
cloying  Love  that  Wheelock  finds  in  all 
things — even  in  Beethoven's  "Moon- 
light" sonata  and  the  opening  bars  of 
Wagner's  "Ring"  I  The  section  "April 
Lightning"  is  a  significant  example. 
It  describes  passion  but  rarely  evokes 
it;  it  is  full  of  an  emotionalism  that 
flashes  but  seldom  bums,  that  flickers 
but  rarely  flames.  If  Wheelock  were 
a  more  ruthless  self-appraiser,  his 
volume  would  have  been  much  smaller 
and  far  more  remarkable.    The  elimi- 


A  LOVER  OP  NATURE  AND  THE  MOUNTAINS 


108 


nation  of  a  score  of  songs  that  he 
seems  to  have  sung  for  the  tenth 
time  would  have  given  the  fresh  lyrics 
a  firmer  authority.  "The  Lonely 
Poet*'  is  one  of  these  arresting  pieces. 
"Revelation"  is  another  facet  of  love- 
linesSy  and  in  several  of  the  sonnets  he 
captures  the  delicate  music  that  often 
evades  him  in  the  more  avowedly  mu- 
sical stanzas : 

Greatly,  undauntedly,  yon  did  endure 

With  brave  abandon  and  supreme  consent 
To  render  up,  in  tbe  accomplishment 

Of  life,  your  holy  body  and  being  pure : 

Great  in  surrender,  in  your  giving  sure 
And  weariless,  still  with  magnificent 
Ardor  of  love,  when  love's  desire  was  spent. 

Laughed  in  your  eyes  the  everlasting  lure. 

And  aU  that  loveliness,  the  loud  world's  pride. 

Mine  in  that  moment,  and  how  dear  I  know ! 
Yet  dearer  was  an  hour,  when  at  my  side 
You  clung  with  eyes  all  blinded,  and  cheeks 
of  snow, — 
And   beauty  broken, — and   quivering  lips  that 
cried 
Against  my  lips  their  piteous  human  woe. 

Although  by  no  means  his  best, 
"Dust  and  Light"  is  a  decided  im- 
provement upon  its  immediate  prede- 
cessor. It  not  only  contains  some  of 
Wheelock's  finest  individual  achieve- 
ments, but  gives  evidence  that  the 
swing  back  to  the  spirit  of  'The  Hu- 
man Fantasy"  will  be  a  hearty  one. 
With  this  promise,  after  the  long 
lapse,  the  new  collection  is  doubly  wel- 
come. 


^  Dust  and  Light.     By  John  HaU  Wheelock. 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


A  LOVER  OP  NATURE  AND  THE 
MOUNTAINS 

By  LeBoy  Jeffers 

LIKE  John  Muir  of  California,  Enos 
Mills  of  Colorado  lived  for  many 
years  alone  with  nature  and  the  moun- 


tains. In  summer  and  winter  he  has 
roamed  over  himdreds  of  miles  of 
mountainous  coimtry,  climbing  many 
peaks  on  the  way.  He  formed  inti- 
mate acquaintance  with  the  flowers 
and  trees,  and  he  studied  and  loved  the 
birds  and  animals  until  they  realized 
his  friendship.  Neither  Muir  nor 
Mills  ever  carried  a  gun,  preferring  to 
win  the  confidence  and  companionship 
of  wild  life  rather  than  to  destroy  it 
for  profit  or  pleasure.  Many  have  felt 
that  a  sympathetic  friendship  for  na- 
ture leads  to  a  deeper  understanding 
of  the  Creator. 

In  his  latest  book,  "The  Adventures 
of  a  Nature  Guide",  Enos  Mills  has 
much  to  tell  about  the  new  profession 
of  nature  guiding.     For  many  years 
enthusiastic  groups  of  children  have 
attended  his  Trail   School,  studying 
with  him  the  beauties  of  the  Rocky 
Mountain  National  Park.     Banishing 
the   foolish   notion   that   altitude   is 
harmful,  he  has  taken  them  far  above 
timber-line  at  11,500  feet,  and  has  fre- 
quently reached  the  summit  of  Long's 
Peak,  which  is  14,255  feet  in  height 
In  seven  miles  they  passed  through 
many  zones  of  tree,  plant,  and  animal 
life.    A  true  nature  guide  is  always 
discovering  life  histories,  and  he  is 
always  encouraging  his  companions  to 
see  and  understand  for  themselves. 
He  is  a  fascinating  interpreter  of  the 
natural  sciences.    There  is  immeasur- 
able difference  between  his  art  and  the 
out-of-date  method  of  text-book  and 
indoor  instruction.     Instead   of  dry 
and  uninteresting  facts  that  are  forced 
upon  one,  against  which  the  mind  re- 
bels, the  spirit  is  awakened  by  the 
voice  of  living  things,  and  it  reaches 
out  in  every  direction  to  learn  the 
meaning  of  life.    We  look  for  the  day 
when  this  wiser  method  of  education 
will  develop  men  and  women  to  be 
alive  to  deeper  realities  and  to  fuller 


104 


THE  BOOKMAN 


and  more  iatisfying  human  relation- 
abipn*  There  is  a  decided  need  for 
leaden  in  our  schools  and  colleges  who 
will  make  possible  these  things  to  the 
jroung;  and  for  adequate  opportuni- 
ties for  teachers  themselves  to  learn 
the  art  of  assisting  their  pupils  to  de- 
velop, without  repressing  their  di- 
vinely creative  impulses. 

An  important  movement  has  re- 
cently been  inaugurated  by  the  Na^ 
tional  Parks  Association  of  Washing- 
ton for  the  intelligent  appreciation  of 
natural  scenery.  Some  of  our  leading 
colleges  are  cooperating,  and  are  of- 
fering courses  of  study  and  summer 
excursions  to  our  National  Parks  under 
the  guidance  of  specialists  in  the  in- 
terpretation of  nature.  Last  summer 
in  Yosemite  Valley,  the  University  of 
Califomia  commenced  an  annual  series 
of  popular  scientific  lectures  descrip- 
tive of  the  scenery  of  the  park.  The 
rapidly  increasing  number  of  visitors 
to  all  our  National  Parks  suggests  an 
excellent  opportunity  for  public  edu- 
cation if  trained  nature  guides  can 
be  provided  by  the  government.  It  is 
certain  that  appreciative  acquaintance 
with  nature  is  more  vital  to  the  growth 
of  true  Americanism  than  is  as  yet 
realized. 

Mr.  Mills  has  long  loved  the  cour- 
ageous trees  that  live  on  the  moim- 
tains  at  timber-line.  Gnarled  and 
stunted  by  winds  and  storms  they 
crouch  behind  the  boulders  and  grow 
thickly  together  for  mutual  protection. 
In  a  lifetime  many  grow  to  be  only  a 
foot  or  two  in  height,  while  their  an- 
nual rings  are  hardly  a  hundredth  of 
an  inch  in  diameter.  The  author  used 
one  of  these  trees  that  was  four  hun- 
dred years  old  for  a  staff;  while  he 
found  a  tree  twelve  feet  in  height  that 
had  lived  for  1,182  years.  As  these 
trees  part  with  their  life  and  warmth 
In  the  campflre*s  flickering  glow,  is  it 


not  easy  to  imagine  they  are  telling  us 
their  age-long  secrets? 

Very  early  one  season  I  ascended 
Long's  Peak  alone,  finding  much  ice 
and  snow,  and  delicate  work  on  the 
final  climb  above  the  Narrows.  Here 
the  rocks  were  icy  and  the  wind 
strong,  threatening  to  sweep  one  in- 
stantly down  the  gulley  and  over  the 
cliffs  into  Wild  Basin.  I  can  readily 
appreciate  Mills's  ascent  of  the  peak 
one  winter  day  when  he  literally 
crawled  up  to  examine  his  air-metre 
in  a  gale  that  reached  170  miles  an 
hour.  He  found  the  buffeting  of  the 
wind  was  like  a  journey  through  a 
dangerous  rapid.  Again  and  again 
he  was  picked  up  and  hurled  about  by 
his  invisible  antagonist.  In  climbing 
the  "Trough"  he  found  it  safest  to  lie 
with  his  head  down  the  slope,  while 
the  terrific  wind  shot  him  up  the 
steep  incline  feet  foremost.  Passing 
the  unprotected  "Narrows"  in  safety, 
he  found  the  "Home  Stretch"  even 
more  dangerous.  The  wind  was  so 
continuously  strong  that  he  trusted 
himself  to  its  arms,  and  he  was  whirled 
up  the  precipitous  gulley  to  the  sum- 
mit in  the  only  way  possible  to  have 
reached  it.  Unless  one  has  encoun- 
tered winds  and  storms  at  high  alti- 
tude upon  the  mountains,  it  is  possible 
to  have  but  little  idea  of  these  condi- 
tions. Avalanches  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  tons  in  weight  tear  down  the 
mountain  sides,  sweeping  a  pathway 
through  the  forest,  and  instantly  kill- 
ing the  sheep  and  bears.  For  miles 
the  flying  mass  of  snow,  trees,  and 
boulders  jumps  the  ravines,  falls  over 
cliffs,  and  comes  at  last  to  rest  in  some 
great  canyon  which  it  fiUs  high  with 
wreckage. 

In  sununer,  electrical  storms  of  great 
intensity  gather  in  the  moimtains.  On 
the  sununits  of  the  Rockies  of  Colo- 
rado and  the  high  Sierras  of  Cali- 


TWO   GENIAL   GENTLEMEN    BEFORE   US 


105 


fomia,  one's  hair  often  stands  upright 
and  his  fingers  crackle,  while  the  rocks 
sing  with  electricity.  On  a  high  peak 
of  the  Canadian  Rockies  which  I  had 
ascended,  I  awaited  the  arrival  of 
other  climbers.  A  severe  blizzard  with 
electrical  conditions  hid  all  from  view; 
but,  just  as  the  leader  reached  the 
summit,  he  was  struck  down  by  a 
blinding  flash  of  lightning.  It  trav- 
eled along  the  ice-axes  of  the  party, 
instantly  throwing  them  over. 

Under  ordinary  circumstances  Enos 
Mills  has  the  keenest  of  eyes,  but  on 
one  of  his  winter  trips  across  the  di- 
vide he  lost  his  snow  glasses  when 
a  spruce  tree  shed  its  snow  upon  him. 
At  12,000  feet  his  eyes  were  blinded 
by  the  dazzling  snow  and  he  was  finally 
unable  to  see  at  all.  It  was  many 
miles  over  the  mountains  to  any  habi- 
tation and  he  was  without  provisions. 
With  staff,  snow  shoes,  matches,  a 
hatchet,  and  his  senses  keenly  awake, 
he  felt  his  way  for  hours  down  to 
timber-line.  Here  he  stood  upon  the 
brink  of  a  cliff  with  the  chill  of  night 
upon  him.  He  shouted  and  the  echoes 
spoke  of  canyon  walls.  He  felt  of  the 
trees  and  rocks  for  mosses  and  lichens 
to  learn  his  direction.  Finally  the 
snow  gave  way  and  he  fell  to  a  ledge 
from  which  he  escaped  by  climbing 
down  a  dead  tree.  Farther  down  the 
canyon  he  heard  the  roar  of  a  great 
avalanche  sweeping  toward  him.  Un- 
able to  tell  in  what  direction  to  move, 
he  was  thrown  down  by  the  force  of 
its  wind  and  smothered  by  its  snow 
dust.  In  attempting  to  climb  over 
its  debris,  he  fell  into  the  icy  stream 
and  narrowly  escaped  drowning.  He 
was  nearly  frozen  in  searching  for  a 
missing  snow  shoe,  but  he  providen- 
tially stumbled  against  the  warm  body 
of  a  mountain  sheep  that  had  been 
killed  by  the  avalanche.  Pressing  on 
he  was  tortured  all  night  long  by  the 


pain  in  his  eyes.  With  daylight  the 
suffering  became  more  acute,  but  he 
struggled  along  until  evening,  when 
he  found  an  abandoned  cabin.  Here 
he  made  a  fire  and  stayed  until  the 
following  day.  Although  he  was  un- 
able to  see,  he  refused  to  become  ex- 
cited, and  toward  the  end  of  the  third 
day  he  found  food  and  shelter  with 
human  beings. 


The  Adventures  of  a  Nature  Guide.    By  Enot 
A.  Mills.    Doubleday,  Page  and  Co. 


TWO    GENIAL    GENTLEMEN 
BEFORE  US 

By  Tom  Daly 

THE  scribbler  of  this  sketch  con- 
fesses to  a  constitutional  weak- 
ness which  makes  it  utterly  impossible 
for  him  ever  to  become  a  perfect  critic. 
He — or  let's  switch  to  the  easier  form 
and  say  we  ourself — can  never  quite 
lose  sight  of  an  author's  personality 
when  we  come  to  consider  his  pub- 
lished work.  It  is  this  self-knowledge 
which  makes  us  sometimes  doubt  the 
justice  of  our  estimate  of  Walt  Whit- 
man. Several  times  we  have  donned 
hip-boots  and  waded  through  the 
muck  of  "Leaves  of  Grass"  looking  for 
four-leaf  clovers,  but  we've  found 
mighty  few.  We  have  ended  by  de- 
ciding that  Walt,  as  a  poet,  is  a  monu- 
mental false  alarm.  Yet  we  are  con- 
scious that  this  judgment  may  be 
biased  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  we 
have  had  a  "close-up"  of  the  man, 
whom  Lincoln  is  alleged  to  have  ad- 
mired (at  a  distance),  and  that  we  set 
him  down  as  a  vainglorious  old  blath- 
erskite. 

Conversely,  we  are,  perhaps,  one  of 
the  last  men  The  Bookman  should 
permit  to  undertake  this  present  little 
task,  if  the  result  is  expected  to  be  an 


106 


tH£:  BOOKMAN 


unprejudiced  appraisal  of  the  two 
genial  gentlemen  before  us.  Take 
Christopher  Morley  to  begin  with; 
there's  a  fine  Elizabethan  monniker 
to  conjure  with,  and  the  long 
given  name  is  steadily  dwindling, 
day  by  day,  into  the  hearty  big- 
ness of  the  diminutive  which  he  wears 
as  jauntily  and  as  rightfully  as  that 
earlier  "Kit",  of  the  similar  soimding 
surname,  with  whom  Will  Shake- 
speare and  Ben  Jonson  frequently 
hobnobbed  within  the  walls  of  the  Mer- 
maid Tavern.  What  but  good  could 
we  say  of  this  wholesome  "camerado''? 

If  you  were  a  late  bird  lingering 
upon  the  lower  slopes  of  Parnassus ;  or, 
to  make  the  figure  plainer,  let  us  say, 
if  you  were  an  ancient  minstrel  dod- 
dering by  the  roadside  and  fumbling 
a  tarnished  harp,  and  to  you  suddenly 
should  appear  a  fresh  new  singer, 
chubby  but  nimble,  who,  pausing  in 
his  eager  journey  to  the  heights  above, 
should  slip  a  friendly  arm  around  you 
and  urge  you  on  and  up,  what  would 
you  be  likely  to  say  of  that  youth 
whenever  an  opportunity  offered? 
Danm  these  senile  tears !  If  you  had 
any  music  left  in  you,  you'd  burst  the 
last  string  of  your  harp  in  praise  of 
him. 

We  fear,  and  at  the  same  time  hope, 
that  we  will  never  be  able  to  find  fault 
with  anything  to  which  Kit  Morley  is 
wiUing  to  sign  his  name.  We  can't 
imagine  him  capable  of  an  unworthy 
piece  of  workmanship,  though  he  al- 
most succeeded  in  achieving  Uiat  dubi- 
ous distinction  with  "In  the  Sweet 
Dry  and  Dry".  But  we  have  nothing 
to  do  with  that  now.  We  have  before 
us  for  discussion  "Mince  Pie".  It  is  a 
wholly  delectable  dish.  For  architec- 
tonic toothsomeness,  plumpness  of  fill- 
ing, variety  of  ingredients,  and  spici- 
ness  of  seasoning,  there  never  was 
another  quite  like  it.    The  only  raisin 


seeds  or  bits  of  grit  in  it  are  a 
few  annoying  typographical  errors, 
chargeable  entirely  to  those  graceless 
striking  printers  who  all  but  kept  it 
from  reaching  the  Christmas  table. 

In  this  space  it  is  impossible  to  dis- 
cuss with  proper  gusto  all  the  several 
savors  of  this  rare  treat.  The  thing 
is  compact  of  humor,  poetry,  divine 
foolery,  sound  and  true  sentiment,  and 
high  thinking.  It  is  the  work  of  a 
man  of  wide  reading  and  wider  sym- 
pathies, who  can  write,  and  who  is 
gifted  not  only  with  fancy  but  with 
imagination.  He  touches  upon  more 
than  fifty  subjects  and  he  adorns  all 
that  he  touches.  These  essays, 
sketches  and  poems  were  done — ^many 
of  them — in  the  feverish  press  of  daily 
journalism,  much  the  same  sort  of 
thing  that  he  is  running  now,  each 
day,  upon  the  editorial  page  of  the 
New  York  "Evening  Post".  Yet  they 
are  literature. 

We  would  not  say  that  he  doesn't 
strain  occasionally,  for  he  does — in 
one  instance  at  least.  Speaking  of 
"Christmas  Cards"  he  makes  a  plea 
"for  an  honest  romanticism. .  .that 
will  express  something  of  the  entranc- 
ing color  and  circumstance  that  sur- 
round us  today",  and  he  asks  us  to  be- 
lieve that  "a  trolley  car  jammed  with 
parcel-laden  passengers  is  just  as  sat- 
isfying a  spectacle  as  any  stage  coach". 
Nonsense!  he  knows  better,  and  so  do 
we.  Kit  Morley  is  built  to  fill  a  chair 
in  a  friendly  inn,  that  throne  of  hu- 
man felicity  that  old  Dr.  Johnson  so 
loved;  the  rich,  sweet  spirit  of  the  old 
ronmnticism  permeates  every  page  of 
his  book.  Why,  else,  was  Walter  Jack 
Duncan  selected,  to  furnish  the  quaint, 
old  -  fashioned  thumb  -  nail  sketches 
which  so  becomingly  ornament  the  de- 
lightful volume? 

And,  speaking  of  pictures,  we  come 
at  once  to  the  end  of  our  tether  and 


IN   PRAISE   OF   NATURE    FAKING 


107 


to  the  name  of  this  other  man  whom 
we  confess  ourself  unable  to  criticize 
because  of  a  personal  prejudice.  We 
know  nothins:  of  art  ''but  we  know 
what  we  like".  Bruce  Baimsfather's 
sketches  have  always  got  to  us  strong. 
We  believe  them  to  be  technically  per- 
fect, but  if  they're  not  we  don't  care. 
They  suit  us  to  a  t.  In  his  new  book, 
"From  Mud  to  Mufti",  he  gives  us 
more  glimpses  of  Old  Bill  and  his  pals, 
and  the  text  he  has  written  around 
them  is  mighty  good  stuff.  We'd  tell 
the  world  it  was,  even  if  it  wasn't, 


perhaps,  for  besides  the  work  Bruce 
Baimsfather  has  done  with  his  pen 
and  pencil,  we  honor  him  for  the  fine, 
cheerful  spirit  he  showed  and  for  the 
things  he  suffered  when  so  many  of  us 
were  taking  our  ease  at  home. 

This  may  not  be  the  sort  of  thing 
authors  and  artists  like  to  have  said 
of  them  when  they  have  new  books  to 
the  fore,  but  we  can't  help  it. 


Mince  Pie.  By  Christopher  Morley.  George 
H.  Doran  Company. 

From  Mud  to  Mufti.  By  Bruce  Bairnafatber. 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 


IN  PRAISE  OF  NATURE  FAKING 


BY  WALTER  A.  DYER 


W7HEN  Rudyard  Kipling:  invented 
W  a  psychology  for  a  ship  and  a 
locomotive,  people  differed  as  to  the 
success  of  his  imaginative  venture; 
but  no  one,  so  far  as  I  know,  accused 
him  of  insincerity.  Indeed,  I  have 
been  told  that  sailors  and  engineers 
responded  with  gratitude  because  he 
had  interpreted  something  that  they 
loved.  But  when  a  man  draws  a  little 
on  his  imagination  in  order  to  in- 
terpret the  lives  of  animals,  if  he  has 
the  hardihood  to  impute  to  them  mo- 
tives and  processes  of  thought  that 
cannot  be  scientifically  demonstrated, 
he  is  branded  as  a  nature  faker  by  the 
naturalists.  Even  Ernest  Thompson 
Seton,  whose  story  of  a  silver  fox 
will  long  remain  in  my  memory,  has 
not  gone  unscathed,  though  as  a  rule 
he  has  watched  his  scientific  step 
most  assiduously. 

Scientific  accuracy,  of  course,  must 
be  reverenced;  but  when  it  comes  to 


literary  criticism,  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  the  naturalists  should  give 
precedence  to  the  sailors  and  the 
engineers — for  what  writer  of  fiction 
was  ever  held  to  strict  accountability 
for  the  psychology  with  which  he  en- 
dowed his  characters?  His  job  is  to 
write  a  convincing  story.  A  lifetime 
spent  in  a  laboratory  of  human  psy- 
chology would  probably  never  justify 
a  d'Artagnan  or  a  Pickwick.  Human 
characters  are  permitted  to  be  aui 
generis.  But  when  an  author  essays 
to  make  his  leading  character  a  dog 
or  a  horse  or  a  gnu  or  an  omitho- 
rhynchus,  the  shocked  professors  of 
natural  history  arise  and  call  him 
faker.  If  they  had  their  way  they 
would  bum  most  of  our  animal  stories 
and  so  make  our  literature  poorer  to 
an  incalculable  degree.  They  would, 
no  doubt,  promptly  put  a  spoke  in  the 
wheel  of  James  Oliver  Curwood,  and 


108 


THE  BOOKMAN 


I  for  one  am  glad  that  they  have  not 
yet  gained  that  privilege. 

In  "Nomads  of  the  North"  Mr. 
Curwood  has  written  an  entertaining, 
convincing,  amusing,  and  sometimes 
thrilling  tale,  not  lacking  in  vividness 
and  beauty  of  style.  The  atmosphere 
of  the  great  north  wilderness  per- 
vades it.  There  is  villainy  in  it,  and 
high-hearted  fighting,  and  touches  of 
genuine  tenderness.  There  is  action, 
there  is  humor,  there  is  sufficient  plot, 
and  there  is  a  satisfying  finish  that 
fulfils  all  the  artistic  requirements. 
What  more  could  the  reader  ask? 

But  Mr.  Curwood  is  a  nature  faker. 
There  are  humans  in  his  book,  but 
they  are  chiefly  for  purposes  of  back- 
ground. The  protagonists  of  his 
wilderness  drama  are  a  cross-bred 
pup  and  a  brown  bear  cub.  They  do 
things  that  no  bear  and  no  dog  have 
ever  been  known  to  do  in  the  records 
of  the  natural  history  societies.  The 
scientists  will  tell  you  that  it  is  con- 
trary to  nature  for  a  bear  and  a  dog 
to  become  pals  and  stick  together 
through  thick  and  thin  far  from  the 
haunts  of  man.  But  that  is  what 
Miki  and  Neewa  did.  If  they  hadn't 
there  would  have  been  no  story,  and 
it's  a  good  story.  The  scientist  will 
gasp  at  many  things  in  the  book — 
that  Miki,  for  instance,  had  a  strange 
premonition  of  the  fact  that  it  was 
time  for  Neewa  to  awaken  from  his 
long  winter  sleep.  Such  things  rather 
strain  the  credulity,  but  what  healthy 
person  has  ever  seriously  objected  to 
having  his  credulity  strained  since 
the  news  went  forth  that  a  whale  had 
swallowed  Jonah?  Such  is  the  prov- 
ince of  fiction.  The  fact  that  Miki 
and  Neewa  did  things  that  no  other 
dog  and  bear  have  ever  been  recorded 
as  doing  is  not  enough,  in  my  mind, 
to  stamp  the  book  as  criminal.  Sher- 
lock Holmes  did  things  beyond  the 


powers  of  any  man  of  my  personal 
acquaintance,  and  yet  I  have  always 
believed  in  him. 

Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  Mr. 
Curwood  has  essayed  to  write  a  story 
about  creatures  of  which  he  knows 
little.  His  setting  and  his  characters 
are  notably  authentic.  He  knows  his 
animals  as  well  as  most  novelists 
know  men  and  women, — perhaps  bet- 
ter,— and  if  he  has  chosen  to  turn 
their  feet  into  somewhat  unusual 
paths,  that  is  no  more  than  the 
novelists  do,  if  they  have  any  gift  of 
imagination.  To  be  consistent  and 
convincing — that  is  the  fiction-writ- 
er's job,  however  fanciful  his  char- 
acters or  his  theme.  That  Mr.  Cur- 
wood has  succeeded  in  this,  that  he 
has  succeeded  in  arousing  our  fullest 
sympathy  and  interest  in  his  four- 
footed  heroes  and  their  doings,  that 
he  has,  in  short,  s^un  a  good  yam  out 
of  it — ^a  yam  which  I  shall  not  spoil 
by  recapitulation — is  surely  a  suffi- 
cient justification  for  any  liberties  he 
may  have  taken  with  the  sacred 
findings  of  science.  And  the  story 
leaves  me,  at  least,  with  the  feeling 
that  Mr.  Curwood  may  be  as  good  a 
naturalist  as  any  of  them. 

Go  to  it,  friend  Curwood,  and  give 
us  some  more.  Let  wise  men  puzzle 
their  highly  convoluted  brains  over 
the  way  of  a  serpent  on  a  rock  or  an 
eagle  in  the  air,  and  study  their 
habits  through  thick  lenses;  it  is  for 
such  as  you  to  make  living  literature 
of  them,  and  that  is  worth  more  to 
most  of  us.  Let  the  naturalists  rage 
and  gnash  their  teeth;  do  you  go 
blithely  on  your  delightful  way,  na- 
ture faking  whenever  it  suits  your 
laudable  purpose,  so  that  you  give  us 
more  stories  as  good  as  "Nomads  of 
the  North". 

Major  Charles  G.  D.  Roberts  is  an- 
other nature  faker  of  deepest  dye.    He 


IN   PRAISE    OP   NATURE    FAKING 


109 


also  is  the  more  culpable  in  that  he 
really  knows  something  about  wild 
animals.  Him  also  have  I  known 
through  the  medium  of  his  books  ever 
since  I  spent  happy  hours  with  'The 
Heart  of  the  Ancient  Wood".  With 
an  unregenerate  grin  in  the  faces  of 
the  professors,  a  toast  to  Major 
Roberts. 

Of  his  latest  book,  "Jim :  the  Story 
of  a  Backwoods  Police  Dog",  I  re- 
gret that  I  cannot  write  in  words  of 
highest  praise.  Remembering  a  hun- 
dred better  tales  of  the  folk  of  the 
wilderness,  I  must  confess  to  a  slight 
feeling  of  disappointment  in  this —  a 
feeling  that  Major  Roberts  can  make 
better  fiction  out  of  a  lone  panther 
than  a  domesticated  dog.  Jim, 
trained  by  Tug  Blackstock  to  help 
him  in  his  duties  as  deputy  sheriff 
in  a  backwoods  community,  is  a  bit 
overworked  in  the  effort  to  make  him 
the  hero  of  enough  tales  to  fill  a 
book.  And,  fortunately,  they  don't 
quite  fill  the  book,  for  following  the 
series  of  six  stories  of  Jim  come 
three  that  are  rather  more  in  the 
author's  old-time  vein — stories  of  an 
eagle,  an  army  mule,  and  a  skunk. 
Indeed,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
"The  Mule"  amply  redeems  the  short- 
comings of  the  Jim  series,  for  here 
we  get  a  genuine  thrill,  something 
of  real  feeling.  This  mule,  trans- 
formed from  a  vicious  brute  by  shell- 
shock,  is  not  like  other  mules.  He  is 
an  individual  transcending  his  type. 
Nature  faking  again.  But  Major 
Roberts  has  woven  a  real  story  around 
him,  a  story  of  permanent  merit. 
Again,  it  seems  to  me,  the  artistic 
result  more  than  justifies  scientific 
elasticity. 

Albert  Payson  Terhune  is  such  a 
prolific  writer  that  I  suppose  it  is  my 
own  fault  that  I  have  not  before  en- 


countered him  in  the  rdle  of  a  nature 
faker.  He  is  a  very  mild  nature  faker 
at  that,  for  the  stories  in  this  book 
are  all  about  thoroughbred  dogs,  and 
dog  stories  have  been  generally  im- 
mune against  the  condemnation  of 
the  naturalists.  These  stories  are  all 
based  on  episodes  and  adventures  in 
the  life  of  Mr.  Terhune's  own  collie. 
I  have  read  better  dog  stories,  and 
worse  ones.  These  are  good  enough 
to  strike  a  sympathetic  chord  in  the 
hearts  of  thousands  of  dog  lovers. 
They  are  of  uneven  merit,  and  one 
cannot  long  remain  unconscious  of  an 
exasperating  habit  on  the  part  of  the 
author  to  repeat  phrases — a  fault 
that  would  be  overlooked  in  magazine 
publication  but  that  might  easily 
have  been  edited  out  of  the  book.  On 
the  whole,  they  are  well  written, 
spirited,  and  sincere.  The  nature 
faking  crops  out  here  and  there  in 
imputing  extraordinary  virtues  and 
too  human  thought  processes  to  the 
hero.  And  one  hesitates  to  accept 
unquestioningly  the  "heart  interest" 
injected  in  the  form  of  a  rather  un- 
canine  love  affair  between  Lad  and 
Lady.  But  the  lover  of  dog  stories 
will  forgive  it  all,  especially  after  en- 
joying the  genuine  thrill  that  resides 
in  "The  Killer". 

None  of  these  three  authors  has 
bluffed  his  way  through  half-mas- 
tered material.  They  all  know  the 
animals  of  which  they  write.  And 
being,  first  of  all,  artists,  they  have 
sinned  with  their  eyes  open.  If  this 
be  nature  faking,  make  the  most  of  it. 

In  the  old  days  I  used  to  associate 


Nomads  of  the  North.  By  James  Oliver  Cur- 
wood.    Doubleday.  Page  and  Co.  ^    _  „      _^^ 

Jim :  the  Story  of  a  Backwoods  PoMce  Dok. 
By  Major  Charles  G.  D.  Roberts.    The  MacmU- 

^  La?:    a  Dog.     By   Albert  Payson  Terhune. 
E.  P.  Button  and  Co. 


110 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Major  Roberts's  books  with  a  unique 
and  masterly  type  of  illustration  by 
Charles  Livingston  Bull.  These  illus- 
trations were  unquestionably  a  dis- 
tinct addition  to  the  stories.  Some  of 
Major  Roberts's  later  books,  including 
"Jim",  have  been  offered  without  the 
embellishment  of  Mr.  Bull's  drawings, 
and  I  for  one  have  missed  them.    But 


Mr.  Bull  has  furnished  pictures  for 
"Nomads  of  the  North",  and  they're 
good.  As  a  nature  faker  with  brush 
and  pencil,  Mr.  Bull  can  make  the 
illustrations  in  the  standard  zoologies 
look  like  the  line  cuts  in  the  Un- 
abridged Dictionary.  How  he  would 
have  enjoyed  doing  Major  Roberts's 
eagle  I 


LOSING  A  LIFE 


BY  FREDERICK  HARRIS 


SIR  JAMES  BARRIE  and  H.  G. 
Wells  are  now  cleared  of  the  heavy 
charges  made  against  them.  It  has 
been  proved  conclusively  that  they  did 
not  take  a  vacation  together  and  spend 
the  time  writing  "The  Young  Visiters" 
and  "The  Journal  of  a  Disappointed 
Man".  Barrie  was  able  to  produce  the 
author  herself;  we  have  been  per- 
mitted the  sight  of  a  portrait  of  Daisy 
Ashf ord  as  she  now  appears ;  and  we 
hear  with  interest  that,  having  made 
the  discovery  that  she  is  or  was  a 
writer,  she  now  proposes  to  under- 
take that  deceivingly  simple-appear- 
ing task  of  editing  a  magazine.  Mr. 
Wells  has  betrayed  a  very  eloquent 
annoyance  over  his  affair.  And  really 
he  is  justified.  For  if  he  had  indeed 
written  the  "Journal",  his  introduc- 
tion would  have  been  an  inexcusable 
piece  of  effrontery.  His  repeated  de- 
nials were  so  slow  in  spreading  over 
America  that  reviewers  kept  discover- 
ing internal  evidence  till  a  few  weeks 
ago.  Then  came  the  complete  infor- 
mation: Barbellion's  real  name  was 
B.  F.  Cummings,  and  the  general 
facts  of  his  life  are  truly  portrayed 


in  the  "Journal" — ^the  only  variation 
from  truth  being  in  the  date  of  his 
death.  In  a  manner  all  its  own,  this 
book  carried  the  witness  of  its  integ- 
rity ;  there  is  nothing  just  like  it  any- 
where else.  If  Mr.  Wells  had  not  com- 
mitted the  original  indiscretion  of 
writing  an  introduction,  probably 
nobody  would  ever  have  thought  of 
raising  a  question. 

The  book  is  of  absorbing  interest. 
Every  few  pages  the  reader  meets  a 
passage  of  the  clearest  insight,  or  the 
most  pleasing  humor,  or  of  passing 
beauty.  The  descriptive  passages  hold 
the  essential  wonder  before  our  eyes, 
and  the  little  caricatures  are  complete 
with  just  a  few  lines.  The  account  of 
the  pile-driving  episode  is  about  as 
perfect  as  a  piece  of  writing  can  be 
made.  The  casual  criticisms  of  books 
and  authors  are  stimulating  to  a  high 
degree.  And  the  woman  in  the  case 
— though  we  have  not  seen  her,  we 
must  love  her. 

But  it  is  a  pitiful  tragedy.  Tenny- 
son said  that  the  "flight  of  Hetty  in 
'Adam  Bede'  and  Thackeray's  gradual 
breaking  down  of  Colonel  Newcome, 


LOSING  A  LIFE 


111 


were  the  two  most  pathetic  things  in 
modem  prose  fiction".  But  neither  of 
these  can  match  the  pathos  of  a  highly 
intelligent  and  sensitive  young  man, 
caught  fast  in  the  toils  of  enemies  he 
cannot  see  or  feel,  sinking  slowly 
toward  the  end.  With  a  manly  cour- 
age that  commands  our  breathless  ad- 
miration, he  faces  "the  wild  beasts"  as 
they  relentlessly  close  in  around  him. 

Of  course,  to  produce  a  really  good 
diary  a  man  must  be  a  thoroughgo- 
ing egotist.  Self-esteem  must  hold 
the  whip  over  delicacy  and  be  ready  to 
lash  back  into  the  comer  any  insur- 
gent sense  of  humor.  And  this  is  the 
one  essential  element:  other  consid- 
erations may  heighten  the  effect,  but 
they  are  adornments.  There  is  the 
case  of  Samuel  Pepys;  he  passes 
among  notable  people  and  participates 
in  great  events,  but  he  sets  it  all  down 
primarily  because  his  supreme  inter- 
est is  in  himself  and  his  own  goings 
forth  and  comings  in.  What  a  man 
he  was — ^he  who  used  to  watch  Charles 
II  play  tennis  "must  buttonhole  pos- 
terity with  the  news  that  his  periwig 
was  once  alive  with  nits".  And  an- 
other one,  quite  as  great  in  his  little- 
ness— James  Boswell :  this  man  shad- 
ows Johnson  day  in,  day  out,  and  is 
willing  to  risk  ansrthing  for  an  extra 
note  or  two  in  his  daily  jottings ;  but 
he  works  himself  in  even  if  he  has  to 
receive  the  negative  end  of  a  care- 
fully-placed kick.  These  two  were  de- 
termined to  shine  even  if  only  by  re- 
flected light ;  nature — ^blessed  forever- 
more — graciously  favored  each  one 
with  "a  place  in  the  sun". 

But  nothing  ever  happened  to  the 
author  of  "The  Journal  of  a  Disap- 
pointed Man".  He  knew  no  great 
scholars,  he  met  no  restored  kings  on 
the  rolling  deep,  he  could  not  see  the 
Great  War  when  it  came  right  upon 


him.  No  distinguished  names  adorn 
his  pages  except  those  of  authors 
whose  books  he  has  read.  There  is  a 
lady — ^and  a  wonderful  one,  surely — 
but  hear  the  lover's  rhapsody:  "If  I 
am  to  admit  the  facts,  they  are  that  I 
eagerly  anticipate  love,  look  every- 
where for  it,  long  for  it,  am  unhappy 
without  it.  She  fascinates  me— ad- 
mitted. I  could,  if  I  would,  surrender 
myself.  Her  affection  makes  me  long 
to  do  it".  These  transports  continue 
through  the  exciting  period  of  court- 
ship. And  the  poor  baby  girl — ^"Pa- 
rental affection  comes  to  me  only  in 
spasms,  and  if  they  hurt,  they  are 
soon  over". 

The  egotism  is  triple-distilled :  Bar- 
bellion  plays  all  the  parts — ^he  is  au- 
thor, subject,  and  to  a  large  extent  tlie 
whole  audience.  All  the  interest  lies 
within  the  limits  of  a  keenly  disap- 
pointed self.  The  title  is  strictly  ac- 
curate; the  persistent  motif  of  the 
book  is  frustration.  It  is  worked  out 
through  the  whole  gamut  from  peev- 
ish complaining  to  passionate  protest. 

Barbellion  was  a  bom  naturalist. 
The  earliest  entries  in  the  diary  show 
that  he  could  almost  forget  himself 
under  the  spell  of  the  sunlight,  wide 
stretches  of  sand,  or  a  still  pool.  With 
no  adequate  direction  and  compara- 
tively little  encouragement,  he  worked 
away  at  his  reading  and  his  dissecting 
till  his  "naturalizing"  actually  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  experts.  In 
spite  of  the  hard  necessities  of  the  life 
of  a  hack  reporter,  he  kept  at  it  till  he 
finally  secured  a  position  in  the  Brit- 
ish Natural  History  Museum.  We  are 
told  by  Mr.  Wells  that  Barbellion's 
final  achievements  in  the  field  of  nat- 
ural science  were  of  no  mean  order. 
But,  as  we  pass  on  through  the  years, 
the  reader's  disappointment  begins  to 
take  definite  shape.    For  it  does  not 


112 


THE  BOOKMAN 


appear  that  the  author  is  worried  pri- 
marily over  his  career  as  a  naturalist. 
Though  he  defies  ill-health  and  ad- 
versity, he  issues  his  defiance  not  in 
the  interest  of  the  accomplishment  of 
a  "great  work".  A  few  months  before 
his  untimely  death  he  does  refer  to 
his  ill-success  in  science ;  but,  though 
he  must  have  known  that  the  inter- 
mittent character  of  his  attention  to 
business  would  tie  the  hands  of  his 
superiors,  his  complaint  is  largely 
about  his  failure  to  secure  preferment 
at  the  Museum. 

Where  then  shall  we  look  for  his 
"disappointments"?      The    record    is 
plain  enough.  The  boy  of  fifteen  asks : 
"What's  the  good  of  studying  so  hard? 
Where  is  it  going  to  end?     Will  it 
lead  anywhere?"    Many  passages  be- 
tray an  acute  sensitiveness  to  lack  of 
personal  consideration,  a  pathetic  de- 
sire for  place  and  distinction.     The 
man  refers  to  his  "vast  capacities  for 
envy".    He  groans  inwardly  over  Gib- 
bon's account  of  that  complacent  his- 
torian's  own   comfort,   success,    and 
prestige.    He  bewails  his  origin:    "I 
started  wrong  from  the  very  begin- 
ning.   At  the  moment  of  my  birth  I 
was  coming  into  the  world  at  the 
wrong    time    in    the   wrong   place." 
Physical  distress  elicits  the  plaint: 
"Instead  of  being  Stevenson  with  tu- 
berculosis, I've  been  only  Jones  with 
dyspepsia";    and  the  idea  is  so  at- 
tractive that  it  is  later  elaborated 
into:    "Everyone  will  concede  that  it 
must  be  a  hard  thing  to  be  conmion- 
place  and  vulgar  even  in  misfortune, 
to  discover  that  the  tragedy  of  your 
own  precious  life  has  been  dramati- 
cally bad,  that  your  life  even  in  its 
ruins  is  but  a  poor  thing,  and  your 
miseries  pathetic  from  their  very  in- 
significance;  that  you  are  only  Jones 
with  chronic  indigestion  rather  than 


Guy  de  Maupassant  mad,  or  Cole- 
ridge with  a  great  intellect  being 
slowly  dismantled  by  opium". 

This  is  the  temper  and  language  of 
the  "daydreamer".  Those  little  flights 
of  fancy  that  we  call  "daydreams"  are 
the  pleasantest  and  perhaps  the  least 
harmful  of  the  recreations  of  early 
youth ;  but  when  they  are  carried  over 
into  manhood  and  nursed  with  care, 
each  petty  conceit  becomes  a  poison 
spot  in  the  soul.    One  suspects  from 
the  early  entries  that  Barbellion  must 
have  been  accused  of  being  conceited 
by  the  time  he  was  fifteen.    That  is  of 
no    particular    significance    because 
every  normal  boy  ought  to  have  a 
strong  grain  of  self-esteem  at  that 
time.     But  you  will  find  Barbellion 
becoming  increasingly  self-conscious 
in  his  relations  with  others.    He  re- 
cords carefully  what  he  considers  to 
be  his  clever  conversation:    some  of 
it  measures  up,  but  some  of  it  is  just 
smart.    He  strove  to  perfect  himself 
in  the  most  delicate  of  all  arts  by 
highly    questionable    means:      "Re- 
hearsed one  joke,  one  witticism  from 
Oscar  Wilde,  and  one  personal  anec- 
dote   (the  latter  for  the  most  part 
false),  none  of  which  came  off,  tho'  I 
succeeded  in  carrying  off  a  nonchalant 
or  even  jaunty  bearing".  As  he  moves 
about  in  a  crowd  he  is  uncomfortable 
because  he  thinks  this  man  is  trying 
to  patronize  him  and  the  other  to  pry 
into  his   secret  heart.     He   is  con- 
stantly beset  by  anxiety  to  know  what 
other  people  think  of  him.    As  a  part 
of  his  campaign  to  achieve  distinction 
he  tried  his  hand  at  every  variety  of 
general  literature,  and  unsuccessful 
contributions  were  sent  to  "every  con- 
ceivable kind  of  journal  from  'Punch' 
to  'The  Hibbert  Journal' ".    Once  an 
article  of  his  in  one  of  the  quarterlies 
was  noticed  at  considerable  length  in 


LOSING  A  LIFE 


lis 


"Public  Opinion".  This  was  a  morsel 
of  success  but  it  turned  bitter  in  his 
mouth ;  his  wife  and  his  brother,  the 
two  people  in  the  world  who  loved 
him  best,  thought  it  wise  not  to  get 
excited  over  the  event. 

There  is  hardly  a  man  of  us  but  has 
a  passing  dream  that  sonie  day  people 
will  whisper  his  name  as  he  passes. 
And  usually  our  little  visions  have  no 
relation  to  our  daily  work;  the  en- 
gineer sees  himself  as  a  superhuman 
baseball  player,  and  the  banker  thinks 
of  the  great  musician  standing  in  a 
shower  of  bouquets.  For  some  reason 
or  other  distinction  in  literature  has  a 
peculiar  charm.  There  is  nothing  out 
of  the  ordinary  in  a  first-rate  natural- 
ist having  dreams  of  distinction  as  a 
literary  man  with  a  charming  though 
eccentric  personality.  But  Barbel- 
lion  took  his  fancies  seriously.  He 
yearned  more  and  more  for  the  mere 
accidentals  of  success.  He  failed  to 
grasp  the  idea  that  character,  influ- 
ence, and  happiness  cannot  be  sought 
directly  but  are  the  byproducts  of 
sound  living  for  sound  ideals.  Such 
ambitions  as  his  are  doomed  to  frus- 
tration. 

These  morbid  habits  of  mind  were 
surely  stimulated  by  the  triple  curse 
of  poverty,  a  monotonous  job,  and  ill- 
health  in  supremely  annoying  forms. 
Then,  hardly  had  his  marriage  been 
consummated  when  there  fell  on  him 
the  final  sentence  of  death.  He  pro- 
tests that  he  had  expected  it,  but  it 
was  a  tremendous  shock  just  the  same. 
On  the  other  side,  there  seems  to  have 
been  no  effective  influence  working 
against  the  morbid  tendency.  The 
healing  influence  of  nature  was  lost 
when  he  went  to  live  in  unattractive 
quarters  in  London.  During  the 
period     immediately     preceding    his 


marriage  his  future  wife  was  her- 
self suffering  complete  nervous  pros- 
tration. The  books  that  he  read  could 
not  have  helped  him  very  much.  He 
professed  agnosticism  and  probably 
never  dreamed  that  he  might  have 
learned  much  from  the  robuster  be- 
lievers. The  war  came,  too.  Shut  out 
the  world  for  the  moment  and  it  is 
possible  to  feel  the  pathos  in  a  young 
man  being  greatly  inconvenienced  by 
this  clash  of  races. 

This  man  was  no  fool.  He  saw  it  all 
— ^fifty  passages  could  be  \  quoted  to 
prove  this.  He  knew  well  enough  that 
Stevenson  went  through  with  his  own 
work  in  spite  of  tuberculosis  and  that 
Jones  could  do  the  same  in  spite  of  in- 
digestion. But  the  evil  spirit  had 
possession  and  mere  words  were  no 
effective  exorcism.  He  probably  con- 
vinced himself  that  if  he  were  a  lit- 
erary man, — Guy  de  Maupassant, 
Coleridge,  or  Robert  Louis, — ^he  could 
write  and  write  in  spite  of  dyspepsia. 
In  his  fading  life,  therefore,  the 
"Journal"  must  have  been  his  one 
solace.  He  was  not  content  merely  to 
set  it  down.  He  edited  it  all  and  re- 
wrote passages  here  and  there.  Parts 
of  it  he  shared  with  a  friend  and  he 
read  practically  all  of  it  to  his  wife. 
It  was  cold  enough  comfort,  perhaps, 
this  odd  chance  of  posthumous  fame, 
but  it  was  the  only  outlet  for  his 
pent-up  ambitions.  For  exhibit  he 
had  to  offer  only  himself.  By  the  na- 
ture of  his  trade  he  was  skilled  in 
preparing  specimens  for  study.  So 
he  has  left  us  his  own  soul,  its  wings 
spread  out  and  pinned  down,  prepared 
as  carefully  as  his  skilful  and  re- 
morseless hand  could  do  it,  for  what 
purpose — God  alone  knows. 


The  Journal  of  a  Disappointed  Man.    By  W. 
N.  P.  Barbellion.     George  H.  Doran  Company. 


THE  NEW  EPICS 


BY  WILBUR  CORTEZ  ABBOTT 


THE  war  is  over,  the  making  of  his- 
tories is  begun.  And  if  there  is 
one  thing  more  striking  than  all 
others  as  the  result  of  the  great  con- 
flict through  which  we  have  just 
passed,  it  is  the  increase  in  the  num- 
ber of  "serious"  books,  to  which  it  and 
the  social  revolution  which  threatens 
us  have  given  rise.  Especially  as  to 
Germany.  Hardly  was  the  last  gun 
fired  on  the  western  front  when  there 
began  to  appear  from  many  pens,  but 
particularly  from  those  of  English- 
men, books  about  Germany.  The  con- 
tinuation of  Sir  A.  W.  Ward's  monu- 
mental monograph  on  Germany  be- 
tween 1815  and  1890  plowed  its  slow, 
ponderous,  irresistible  way  through 
the  entanglements  of  its  subject  like 
a  literary  tank.  J.  Ellis  Barker's 
"Modem  Germany"  achieved  its  sixth 
edition.  Mr.  Robertson's  admirable 
biography  of  Bismarck  has  delighted  a 
world  of  readers.  The  English  trans- 
lation of  "J' Accuse"  has  developed 
into  another  history  of  the  war  under 
the  title  of  "The  Crime",  and  rein- 
forced the  Allied  attack  on  Prussian- 
ism  by  a  diversion  in  the  rear  which 
is  extraordinarily  interesting  and  ef- 
fective. And  now  comes  Mr.  Dawson's 
"German  Empire,  1867-1914",  to  ''mop 
up". 

In  earlier  days  we  read  Bemhardi 
and  Naumann  and  the  imperial  utter- 
ances with,  let  us  say,  a  grain  of  salt. 
Then  we  realized,  with  shocked  sur- 
prise, that  they  meant  what  they  said. 
Now  we  can  read  such  books  as  Mr. 


Dawson's  without  that  mental  reser- 
vation which  many  felt  before,  that  it 
might  be  a  myth  evolved  in  English 
minds.  It  now  has  a  sense  of  great 
realities,  this  splendid,  sordid  saga 
of  Prussia  and  her  kings.  Clear,  read- 
able, informed,  intelligent,  it  is  the 
best  narrative  of  its  subject  in  Eng- 
lish or  in  any  other  tongue.  And  it 
has  one  other  quality,  so  remarkable 
and  so  characteristic  of  the  better 
English  scholarship  that  it  deserves 
notice  as  an  intellectual  phenomenon, 
by  no  means  confined  to  contemporary 
English  historians,  but  notable  as  well 
in  present  English  fiction  relating  to 
the  war.    It  is  dispassionate. 

That  a  people  emerging  from  such 
a  conflict  with  such  losses  and  bur- 
dens as  England  has  today,  can,  in 
these  days  when  war  is  scarcely  done, 
consider  its  bitterest  enemies  with 
such  detachment,  is  proof — if  proof 
were  needed — of  a  greatness  of  spirit 
which  all  men  may  envy.  For  Mr. 
Dawson's  book  is  not  alone  in  this; 
and  if  it  were,  it  would  go  far  to 
prove  the  fundamental  superiority  of 
the  English  mind  to  detach  itself  from 
passion  in  a  passionate  age.  With  all 
of  England's  idealism — ^and  that  is  no 
small  thing — she  proves  by  such  books 
that,  in  a  far  deeper  sense  than  that 
professed  by  the  late  school  of  German 
politics,  she  is,  at  bottom,  a  true 
realist. 

And  that  is  a  great  thing.  No  one 
can  read  the  epic  of  Gallipoli  as  set 
down  by  Mr.  Nevinson  without  a  rec- 


114 


THE  NEW  EPICS 


115 


ognition  of  this  fact.  That  expedi- 
tion failed — and  his  absorbing  narra- 
tive, which  is  not  likely  to  be  excelled 
as  a  story  of  that  great  adventure, 
tells  us  why  and  how.  But  it  ends  on 
a  note  of  the  same  quality  of  realism, 
mingled  with  faith  and  courage  which 
may  hearten  us  all.  Gallipoli,  he  says, 
"will  always  remain  as  a  memorial, 
recording,  it  is  true,  the  disastrous 
and  tragic  disabilities  of  our  race,  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  its  versatility,  its 
fortitude,  and  its  happy  though  silent 
welcome  to  any  free  sacrifice  involving 
great  issues  for  mankind."  Beside  it 
may  well  be  set  Mr.  Trevelyan's  bril- 
liant narrative  of  ''Scenes  from  Italy's 
War",  that  striking  series  of  pictures 
of  Rome,  of  the  Isonzo  front,  of  the 
Italian  offensives,  of  the  disaster  of 
Gaporetto,  the  Rally,  and  the  Final 
Victory,  which,  as  he  says,  ''may  be 
added  to  the  long  list  of  the  'decisive 
battles  of  the  world' ". 

Beside  it,  too,  may  well  be  set  the 
chronicle  of  another  tragedy,  the  vir- 
tual annihilation  of  the  first  British 
Expeditionary  Force,  the  "contempti- 
bles",  as  told  by  their  commander. 
Field  Marshal  Viscount  French,  in  his 
extraordinary  volume  "1914".  This 
"apologia  pro  vita  sua"  is  an  amazing 
book,  a  record  of  blasted  hopes,  uncer- 
tain counsels,  ill-concerted  movements 
— and  sheer  dogged  heroism — such  as 
the  literature  of  the  war  is  not  likely 
to  produce  again.  It  is  too  early  to 
assess  the  German  side — ^that  will 
come  soon,  for  we  are  now  getting  the 
material  —  but  one  thing  emerges 
clearly  from  these  books.  It  is  a  vast 
wonder  that  either  side  could  win. 
And,  as  one  reads,  and  reads  again, 
and  yet  again,  in  the  huge  compilation 
of  Mr.  Halsey's  comprehensive  "His- 
tory of  the  World  War",  another  con- 
sideration forces  itself  upon  our 
minds.  It  is  the  courage  of  these  Eng- 


lishmen, not  only  to  admit,  but  to  elab- 
orate upon  their  own  miscalculations 
and  mistakes.  And  here,  again,  they 
are  the  realists.  Will  we  have  a  like 
courage  when  it  comes  our  turn  to 
write  of  our  exploits? 

Yet,  in  a  sense,  these  are  dead,  far- 
off  things.  Already  they  belong  to  the 
ages,  for,  as  Dr.  Holmes  once  said,  "a 
calamity  is  as  old  as  the  trilobites  an 
hour  after  it  has  happened".  Take 
Mr.  Fletcher's  "The  Problem  of  the 
Pacific" — ^a  fascinating  book;  take 
Mr.  Williams's  glorification  of  Lenin, 
"the  surgeon"  of  politics — ^a  most 
amazing  and  far  from  convincing  per- 
formance; take  Mr.  Bevan's  "German 
Social  Democracy  during  the  War", — 
a  most  illuminating  narrative,— or 
Kellogg  and  Gleason's  "British  Labor 
and  the  War",  which  is  a  still  more  re- 
markable story;  take,  above  all,  Herr 
Erzberger's  complacent  observations 
on  the  "League  of  Nations" — ^whose 
origin  he,  Teutonically,  attributes  to  a 
Reichstag  resolution  of  1917 — ^and  the 
war  seems  almost  a  menpiory.  So  fast 
do  we  move  in  these  convulsive  times. 

And  what  do  we  find?    We  find  a 


The  German  Empire,  1807-1914.  Bj  W.  Har- 
butt  Dawson.  Two  volumes.  The  Macmillan 
Co. 

The  Dardanelles  Campaiim.  By  H.  W.  Ney- 
inson.        Henry  Holt  and  Co. 

Scenes  from  Italy's  War.  By  G.  M.  Trevel- 
yan.    Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

1914.  By  Field  Marshal  Viscount  French. 
With  a  Preface  by  Marshal  Foch.  Houghton 
Mifflin  Co. 

The  Literary  Digest  Histoir  of  the  World 
War.  Ten  volumes.  By  F.  W.  Halsey.  Funk 
and  Wagnalls  Co. 

The  Problem  of  the  Pacific.  By  C.  Brunsdon 
Fletcher.    Henry  Holt  and  Co. 

Lenin.  And  the  Impressions  of  CoL  Raymond 
Robins  and  Arthur  Ransome.  By  Albert  Rhys 
Williams.    Scott  and  Seltzer. 

German  Social  Democracy  During  the  War. 
By  Edwvn  Bevan.    B.  P.  Dutton  and  Co. 

British  Labor  and  the  War.  By  Paul  U. 
Kellogg  and  Arthur  Gleason.  Boni  and  Live- 
right. 

The  League  of  Nations.  By  Mathias  Brz- 
bcrger.  Trans,  by  Bernard  Miall.  Henry  Holt 
and  Co. 

Prussianlsm  and  Pacificism.  By  Poultney 
Bigelow.    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

The  Strategy  of  the  Great  War.  By  WiUiam 
L.  Mcpherson.    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

National  Governments  and  the  World  War. 
Bv  Frederick  A.  Ogg  and  Charles  A.  Beard. 
The  MacmUlian  Cp. 


116 


THE  BOOKMAN 


world  concerned  with  a  complex  of 
problems,  so  numerous,  so  various, 
that  no  man's  mind  can,  for  the  mo- 
ment, even  sense  them  all.  It  is  no 
wonder  men  read  "serious"  books;  it 
is  a  serious  world.  They  turn  to  the 
future  from  the  past;  and,  until  that 
future  takes  on  a  more  substantial 
form,  they  will  be  the  less  concerned 
with  the  sad  stories  of  the  death  of 
kin^rs,  and  the  collapse  of  states.  Na- 
tions learn  little  save  by  experience — 


and  not  much  by  that,  for  men's  po- 
litical memories  are  short,  and  they 
repeat  from  generation  to  generation 
the  same  old  errors  in  the  same  old 
way.  But  publishers  are  helping  us 
— ^we  hope  to  their  advantage,  as  to 
our  own  I  And  from  them,  as  from 
their  multitude  of  books  we  may  de- 
rive at  least  one  lesson,  which  we  must 
take  to  heart  Like  the  English,  with 
all  of  our  idealism,  we  must  be  real- 
ists. 


TWILIGHT 


BY  CHARLES  L.  O'DONNELL 


NO  LONGER  on  the  western  field  contends 
The  stricken  sun,  with  leaguering  clouds  at  bay, 
And  darkness  like  a  silent  rain  descends 
Upon  the  smouldering  ruins  of  the  day. 


THE   BOOKMAN'S  MONTHLY   SCORE 


117 


FICTION  IN  DEMAND  AT  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 

COHPILID     BT     FRANK     PABKIE     STOCKBBIDOI     IX     COOPBRATION     WITH     THB     AKBEICAN 

LIBRARY    ASSOCIATION 

The  following  lists  of  hooks  in  demand  in  Janaury  in  the  puhUe  libraries  of  the  United  States 
have  been  compiled  from  reports  made  by  two  hundred  representative  libraries,  in  every  section 
of  the  country  and  in  cities  of  all  sizes  down  to  ten  thousand  population.  The  order  of  choice 
is  as  stated  by  the  librarians. 


NEW  YORK  AND  NEW  ENGLAND  STATES 


1.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

2.  The  Strong  Hours 

3.  Red  and  Black 

4.  The  Box  with  Broken  Seals 

5.  River's  End 

6.  Sir  Harry 


Ethel  M.  DeU 

Mavd  Diver 

Grace  S.  Richmond 

E.  Phillips  Oppenheim   Little,  Brown 

James  Oliver  Curwood    Cosmopolitan 

Archibald  Marshall  Dodd,  Mead 


Putnam 
Houghton 
doubleday 


SOUTH  ATLANTIC  STATES 


1.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

2.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 

3.  Jeremy 

4.  Mare  Nostrum 

5.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

lypse 

6.  Mrs.  Marden 


Ethel  M.  DeU 
Harold  Bell  Wright 
Hugh  Walpole 
Vicente  Blaaco  Ibdnez 

Vicente  Blaaco  Ibdnez 
Robert  Hichens 


NORTH  CENTRAL  STATES 


1.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 

2.  The  Young  Visiters 

3.  Mare  Nostrum 

4.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

lypse 

5.  The  Great  Hunger 

6.  Red  and  Black 


Harold  BeU  Wright 
Daisy  Ashford 
Vicente  Blasco  Ibdnez 

Vicente  BUisco  Ibdnez 
Johan  Bojer 
Grace  S.  Richmond 


SOUTH  CENTRAL  STATES 


1.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 

2.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

lypse 

3.  Mare  Nostrum 

4.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

5.  The  Moon  and  Sixpence 

6.  The  Young  Visiters 


Harold  BeU  Wright 

Vicente  Blasco  Ibdnez 
Vicente  Blasco  Ibdnez 
Ethel  M.  DeU 
W,  Somerset  Maugham 
Daisy  Ashford 


WESTERN  STATES 


1.  The  Young  Visiters 

2.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 

3.  Mrs.  Marden 

4.  Dangerous  Days 

5.  Mare  Nostrum 

6.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 


Daisy  Ashford 
Harold  BeU  Wright 
Robert  Hichens 
Mary  Roberts  Rinehart 
Vicente  Blasco  Ibdnez 
Ethel  M.  DeU 


FOR  THE  WHOLE  UNITED  STATES 


1.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 

2.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

3.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

lypse 

4.  The  Young  Visiters 

5.  Mare  Nostrum 

6.  River's  End 


Harold  BeU  Wright 
Ethel  M.  DeU 

Vicente  BUisco  Ibdnez 
Daisy  Ashford 
Vicente  Blasco  Ibdfiez 
James  Oliver  Curwood 


PUTNaM 

Book  Supply 

DORAN 
DUTTON 

Dutton 

DORAN 


Book  Supply 

DORAN 

Dutton 

Dutton 

Moffat 

doubleday 


Book  Supply 

Dutton 
Dutton 
Putnam 

DORAN 
DORAN 


DORAN 

Book  Supply 

DORAN 
DORAN 

Dutton 
Putnam 


Book  Supply 
Putnam 

Dutton 

DORAN 

DutroN 
Cosmopolitan 


118 


THE  BOOKMAN 


GENERAL  BOOKS  IN  DEMAND  AT  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 

COMPILED     BT     FRANK     PABKBB     STOCKBBIDOB      IN      COOPBBATION     WITH     THB     AMBBICAN     LIBBABT 

ASSOCIATION 

The  titles  have  been  eoored  by  the  simple  prooeee  of  ffiving  each  a  credit  of  »i9  for  e<toh 
time  it  appears  as  first  choice,  ana  so  down  to  a  score  of  one  for  each  time  it  appears  in  siath 
place.  The  total  score  for  each  section  and  for  the  whole  country  determines  the  order  of  choice 
in  the  table  herewith. 

NEW  YORK  AND  NEW  ENGLAND  STATES 


1. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  BiLcklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

2. 

Theodore  Roosevelt 

WiUiam  Roscoe  Thayer 

Houghton 

8. 

A  Tjabrador  Doctor 

Wilfred  T.  GrenfeU 

Houghton 

4. 

Belgium 

Brand  Whitlock 

Appleton 

5. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

6. 

The  Seven  Purposes 

Margaret  Cameron 

Harper 

SOUTH  ATLANTIC  STATES 

1. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

2. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Biicklin  Bishop 

SCKIBNER 

8. 

The  Seven  Purposes 

Margaret  Cameron 

Harper 

4. 

Analyzing  Character 

Katherine  M.  Blackford 

Alden 

5. 

Raymond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

6. 

The  Life  of  John  Marshall 

Albert  J.  Beveridge 

Houghton 

NORTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1. 

Theodore  Roosevelt 

William  Roscoe  Thayer 

Houghton 

2. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  BiLcklin  Bishop 

Scribner 

8. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

4. 

Analyzing  Character 

Katherine  M.  Blackford 

Alden 

5. 

Contact  with  the  Other  World 

James  H.  Hyslop 

Century 

6. 

An  American  Idyll 

Cornelia  S.  Parker 

Atlantic 

SOUTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

2. 

The  Seven  Purposes 

Margaret  Cameron 

Harper 

8. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Btccklin  Bishop 

Scribner 

4. 

Rasnnond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

5. 

Theodore  Roosevelt 

William  Roscoe  Thayer 

Houghton 

6. 

Bolshevism 

John  Spargo 

Harper 

WESTERN  STATES 

1. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

2. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children . 

Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

Scribner 

8. 

The  Seven  Purposes 

Margaret  Cameron 

Harper 

4. 

Abraham  Lincoln 

John  Drinktvater 

Houghton 

6. 

Contact  with  the  Other  World 

James  H.  Hyslop 

Century 

6. 

Theodore  Roosevelt 

WiUiam  Roscoe  Thayer 

Houghton 

FOR  THE  WHOLE  UNITED  STATES 

1. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

Scribner 

2. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

8. 

The  Seven  Purposes 

Margaret  Cameron 

Harper 

4. 

Theodore  Roosevelt 

WiUiam  Roscoe  Thayer 

Houghton 

6. 

Rasrmond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

6. 

Abraham  Lincoln 

John  Drinktoater 

Houghton 

THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


THERE  is  a  man  (we  know  him 
well)  who  is  a  poet — after  a 
fashion.  Brentano's  bought  six  copies 
of  his  book.  Put  them  in  a  pile  on  a 
table.  The  man  used  to  go  in  day  after 
day  to  count  the  copies  in  this  pile  to 
see  if  any  had  been  sold.  Day  after 
day,  week  after  week — still  the  same 
six  copies  always  there.  Then  one  day 
when  the  man  went  in  he  observed 
something  queer  looking  about  this 
pile.  Counted  the  copies  as  usual. 
There  were  seven.  Somebody,  evi- 
dently, who  had  got  a  copy  somewhere 
else,  and  finding  he  didn't  want  it,  had 
slipped  it  onto  the  pile  to  get  rid  of 

it.  

There  is  a  woman  (we  know  her 
well)  who  writes  stories — ^after  a 
fashion.  She  desired,  for  some  rea- 
son or  other  (probably  for  use  as  ma- 
terial in  her  work),  to  gather  a  fairly 
complete  collection  of  rejection  slips. 
So  she  wrote  a  story,  as  bad  a  one  as 
she  could.  And  she  started  it  off  to 
the  first  magazine  down  on  a  long, 
long  list  of  publications  which  she  had 
made  up.  The  third  publication  to 
which  she  sent  this  unfortunate  story 
accepted  it.  Her  work,  poor  child,  was 
all  for  naught. 


Modeling  Vicente  Blasco  Ib&fiez  is 
described  by  the  sculptor  of  a  relief 
of  the  novelist,  Leila  Usher,  in  a  letter 
which  we  have  permission  to  print: 

"Spending  hours  with  Senor  Ibdfiez 
was  like  watching  a  movie.  There  was 
a  steady  stream  of  callers  at  his  rooms 
in  the  hotel — ^men  and  women  coming 


in  to  beg  him  to  autograph  their  Tour 
Horsemen',  to  invite  him  to  this  or 
that  function,  to  ask  him  every  con- 
ceivable question.  Oh,  the  strenuous 
life  of  a  distinguished  foreigner  vis- 
iting our  country! 

''But  still  more  like  a  motion  pic- 
ture was  it  to  watch  his  face  with  its 
kaleidoscopic  changes.  Even  if  his 
French  and  Italian  were  at  times  too 
rapid  for  me  to  catch  every  word,  even 
when  he  lapsed  excitedly  into  Spanish 
to  his  interpreter,  it  was  always  plain 
enough  what  he  was  thinking  and  feel- 
ing. It  was  like  close-ups  on  the 
screen  and  no  titles  were  needed. 

''Up  and  down  the  scale,  his  face 
expressed  every  emotion  from  amuse- 
ment to  cynicism,  while  Boston  re- 
porters propounded  Boston  questions, 
deep  and  subtle,  about  his  new  book, 
about  the  feminist  movement  in  Spain 
— 'it  does  not  exist  as  in  youiiAmerica, 
our  women  are  ambitious  not  for 
themselves,  but  for  their  men  I' — and 
why  didn't  he  write  for  the  stage — 
'artificial  and  inferior  to  literature', 
came  his  prompt  answer,  'that  is  the 
real  art' — and  was  modem  literary 
Spain  dependent  on  Paris — ^'what? 
imagine!  a  country  that  produced 
Cervantes !' 

"A  most  interesting  person  to  study 
and  to  model,  this  tall  man,  big  all 
over,  with  graying  hair.  His  head 
piles  up  in  front  in  a  wonderful  dome, 
with  well-marked  planes.  He  has  the 
penetrating,  seeing  eye  of  a  wizard; 
and  whatever  use  he  may  intend  to 
make  of  it,  he  knows  what  he  sees. 


119 


120 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Always  he  emanates  vitality  and 
power  so  that  you  are  conscious  of  it. 
"No  photograph  of  recent  years, 
since  the  shaving  of  his  long  beard, 
has  pleased  the  Spanish  novelist.  But 
he  seemed  to  like  this  portrait  relief, 
done  by  an  American  woman,  and 
gave  it  his  hearty  approval." 


"I  have  seldom  used  tobacco  to  ex- 
cess," says  Henry  Holt  in  the  January- 
February  number  of  "The  Unpartizan 
Review".  He  continues:  "I  never 
smoked  before  I  was  six  years  old,  and 
thence  only  at  rare  intervals  until  I 
was  nearly  eleven."  Until  "after  sev- 
enteen" he  smoked  only  in  the  vaca- 
tions, though  when  he  entered  college, 
at  about  the  end  of  that  time,  he  found 
that  in  one  vacation  he  was  "running 
over  twenty  cigars  a  day".  From  that 
time  until  he  was  about  sixty  he  "av- 
eraged perhaps  four  or  five".  And 
"about  then  I  really  did  begin  to 
smoke".  Now  he  seldom  smokes  be- 
fore dinner,  but  after  dinner  smokes 
all  he  wants  to.  He  observes  that  he 
hasn't  yet  found  any  way  to  smoke 
while  brushing  his  teeth.  These  con- 
fidences by  the  veteran  publisher  and 
editor  of  "The  Unpartizan"  appear  in 
his  paper  entitled  "Garrulities  of  an 
Octogenarian  Editor"  in  that  number 
of  his  magazine.  Mr.  Holt  leads  us  to 
hope  that  the  papers  are  to  continue  in 
succeeding  issues.  And  the  pages  he 
has  given  us  promise  about  the  most 
attractive  reminiscences  of  our  time. 


The  Philadelphia  Booksellers*  Asso- 
ciation four  years  ago  requested  the 
Board  of  Education  of  the  Philadel- 
phia Public  Schools  to  add  to  the  cur- 
riculum of  the  evening  schools  a 
course  in  book  selling.  Almost  imme- 
diately the  success  of  the  course  was 
demonstrated.  One  hundred  and  ten 
girls  registered  for  the  course,  most 


of  whom  were  already  booksellers, 
wishing  to  improve  their  efficiency. 
All  of  them  were  high  school  gradu- 
ates or  girls  who  were  such  "book- 
worms" that  they  were  able  to  pass 
an  entrance  examination  on  books. 
Of  this  number,  all  afterward  became 
successful  saleswomen.  Many  of  the 
students  achieved  good  positions  in 
the  libraries  of  Philadelphia.  Some 
became  cataloguers  for  publishing 
firms  or  public  and  private  libraries; 
others  became  the  head  librarians  of 
camp  libraries  during  the  war. 

Since  its  beginning  the  course  has 
increased  in  popularity  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  Opportunity  is  given  the 
class  to  hear  practical  talks  from  book 
buyers  and  salesmen,  librarians,  deal- 
ers in  second-hand  books,  and  from 
others  in  the  trade.  Recently  Joseph 
Pennell  addressed  the  students  on 
"Better  Typography  in  Books".  Miss 
Bessie  Graham  is  instructor. 


Mrs.  Thomas  J.  Preston,  Jr.,  for- 
merly Mrs.  Grover  Cleveland,  has  en- 
trusted to  Professor  Robert  M.  McEl- 
roy  of  Princeton  the  task  of  preparing 
the  authorized  "Life  and  Letters  of 
President  Cleveland".  All  of  Mr. 
Cleveland's  papers,  personal  as  well  as 
public,  including  the  collection  from 
the  Library  of  Congress,  the  letters  to 
Commodore  Benedict,  Mrs.  Preston's 
own  collection,  and  a  vast  assortment 
of  letters  from  personal  friends  and 
political  associates,  have  been  placed 
in  Professor  McElroy's  hands.  He 
would,  however,  welcome  contributions 
from  readers  who  had  correspondence 
with  Mr.  Cleveland,  as  Mr.  Cleveland 
wrote  most  of  his  letters  in  longhand 
and  kept  no  copies. 

The  public  has  long  awaited  the  au- 
thorized life  of  President  Cleveland, 
and  Professor  McElroy  has  already 
arranged  for  its  publication  by  the 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


121 


house  of  Harper  and  Brothers,  New 
York.  Certain  especially  interesting 
portions  of  the  Life  and  Lietters  will 
appear  serially  in  "Harper's  Maga- 
zine" before  publication  in  book  form. 
In  a  letter  which  has  just  been  re- 
ceived by  Professor  McElroy,  Mrs. 
Preston  declares: 

My  dear  Dr.  McElroy : 

I  am  delighted  to  hear  that  you  have  ar- 
ranged with  Harper  and  Brothen  for  the  pab- 
llcation  of  the  authorized  biography  of  Mr. 
Cleveland. 

Your  plan  to  use  Bome  of  the  material  in 
Harper'0  Magazine  before  publizhing  the  book 
seems  to  me  very  wise.  Although  you  are  writ- 
ing a  biography  from  original  and  hitherto  un- 
used sources,  your  aim,  I  know,  is  to  reach  the 
people  as  weU  as  the  special  student  of  his- 
tory, and  I  fully  sympathize  with  that  desire. 
Mr.  Cleveland's  heart  was  always  with  "the 
people" ;  his  thought  was  always  for  "the  peo- 
ple" ;  and  it  is  to  them  that  any  true  picture 
of  his  life  wiU  make  the  strongest  appeal. 

I  have  turned  over  to  you  all  of  his  papers, 
without   reservations  and   without   conditions. 
I  wish  only  a  true  picture  of  his  life. 
Very  sincerely  yours, 

Frances  F.  Cleveland  Preston. 


Somebody  who  went  into  a  well- 
known  New  York  bookshop  not  long 
ago  and  asked  for  a  copy  of  ''After 
Thirty",  by  Julian  Street,  wrote  F.  P. 
A.,  conductor  of  "The  Conning  Tower*' 
of  the  New  York  "Tribune",  about  it. 
He  said :  "  'We  sell  a  lot  of  her  books,' 
the  clerk  remarked  pleasantly,  then 
added,  'She's  one  of  the  most  popular 
authors.' " 


Edward  P.  Dutton,  who  celebrated 
early  in  January  his  eighty-ninth 
birthday,  is  just  entering  upon  his 
sixty-ninth  year  of  publishing  activ- 
ity and  is  still  in  active  control  of  the 
business  of  the  publishing  house 
which  he  founded  and  of  which  he  is 
the  president — ^E.  P.  Dutton  and  Com- 
pany— going  to  his  office  in  their  es- 
tablishment on  Fifth  Avenue,  New 
York  City,  every  working  day.  For 
the  first  time  in  his  life,  he  consented 


to  be  interviewed  in  celebration  of 
that  occasion  and  the  New  York 
''Times  Book  Review"  published  a 
long  and  interesting  interview  with 
him.  It  is  one  of  Mr.  Button's  beliefs 
derived  from  his  publishing  experi- 
ence that  the  public  likes  new  things, 
enjoys  being  introduced  to  good  au- 
thors hitherto  unknown. 


Meredith  Nicholson,  in  a  recent  let- 
ter to  the  author  of  "Broome  Street 
Straws",  complains  that  in  the  essay 
in  that  book  called  "Hoosier  High- 
lights" the  author  "encourages  the 
idea"  that  he  (Mr.  Nicholson)  is  "a 
person  of  infinite  leisure".  Mr.  Nich- 
olson continues: 

This  is  most  unfortunate  for  my  peace  of 
mind.  Nearly  every  one  in  Indiana  has  the 
idea  that  I  have  nothing  on  earth  to  do  but 
write  pubUdty  stuff  for  charities  and  make 
speeches.  Indeed  this  fallacy  as  to  my  in- 
finite leisure  seems  to  pervade  the  whole  United 
States.  As  a  result  I  have  had  to  purchase  an 
ediphone  into  which  to  dictate  letters  declining 
to  do  things  of  this  kind.  I  have  declined 
within  the  last  year  invitations  to  deUver  ora- 
tions in  weU  nigh  every  state  in  the  Union,  in- 
cluding Texas,  if  that  commonwealth  is  reaUy 
a  part  of  the  United  States.  I  know  that  you 
meant  me  no  harm  and  you  never  lived  around 
here  long  enough  to  know  that  there  is  an  im- 
pression abroad  that  writing  folk  reaUy  do  not 
belong  to  the  laboring  class. 


In  the  latest  number  of  "The  Lon- 
don Mercury"  to  reach  us,  the  new 
English  magazine  edited  by  J.  C. 
Squire  (called  "the  most  influential 
man  of  letters  in  England"),  "the 
editorial  notes"  are  devoted  to  a  sur- 
vey of  the  literary  productions,  mainly 
in  England,  of  the  year  just  past.  In 
its  discussion  of  the  novels  of  1919 
the  magazine  says:  "The  book  which 
more  than  any  other  appeared  to  us  to 
be  notable,  both  for  its  workmanship 
and  for  its  imaginative  power,  was 
Mr.  Hergesheimer's  'Java  Head' — and 
Mr.  Hergesheimer  is  an  American." 
In  an  article  on  the  "books  of  the 


122 

I 


THE  BOOKMAN 


month"  in  the  same  issue  of  this 
magazine  there  is,  in  a  review  of 
"Gold  and  Iron",  this  statement:  "In 
Mr.  Joseph  Hergesheimer  discrimi- 
nating English  readers  found  over  a 
year  ago  an  American  novelist  whom, 
alone  of  his  generation,  they  were  able 
to  admire  and  to  consider  seriously." 

The  editorial  pages  of  the  magazine 
rate  Masefield's  "Reynard  the  Fox" 
as  "certainly  his  finest  book". 

The  following  note  appears  in  the 
"literary  intelligence"  department  of 
this  number  of  "The  Mercury": 

Mr.  Chesterton  wlU  shortly  start  for  the 
Holy  Land.  He  Intends  to  write  a  book  about 
it.  The  book  may,  and  probably  wiU,  be  his 
best,  for  obvious  reasons.  It  is  commonly 
remarked  even  by  those  who  think  him  one  of 
the  greatest  natural  geniuses  and,  at  bottom, 
one  of  the  wisest  men  of  our  time  that  he  has 
never  yet  written  the  books  of  which  he  is 
capable.  His  best  books,  such  as  'The  Ballad 
of  the  White  Horse"  and  *'A  Short  History  of 
England",  are,  for  aU  their  fine  qualities,  too 
slight  to  give  his  powers  fuU  room  for  display. 
As  a  rule,  though  he  cannot  be  accused  of  a 
lack  of  energy,  he  has  seemed  never  to  put  into 
a  whole  book  that  last  effort  which  is  necessary 
if  a  work  is  to  be  completely  satisfactory ;  he 
has  bothered  too  little,  content  to  waste  his 
imaginative  largesse  on  hastily-written  ro- 
mances and  polemical  articles.  How  good  'The 
Flying  Inn"  might  have  been  had  a  little  more 
trouble  been  taken  with  it !  In  Palestine,  away 
from  politics  and  Journalism,  with  a  new  and 
romantic  landscape  around  him,  in  the  home 
of  our  religion  and  on  the  fields  of  the  Cru- 
sades, he  may  provide  the  last  answer  to  those 
who  do  not  see  an  artist  in  him. 


We  have  heard  from  professional 
(and  hurried)  reviewers  the  dictum 
that  "the  reviewer  who  reads  the  book 
is  lost".  On  the  other  hand,  there  are, 
it  seems,  some  disadvantages  about 
not  looking  at  the  book  at  all.  Thus, 
in  a  clipping  recently  received  by  the 
publishers  of  Sax  Rohmer's  novel, 
"Dope"  is  referred  to  as  an  "extremely 
thrilling  series  of  tales".  An  equally 
complimentary  review  from  another 
newspaper  refers  to  "The  New  De- 
cameron" (which  is  a  collection  of 
tales    by    different    authors)    as    a 


"charming  novel".  And  a  southern 
critic  writes  of  James  Branch  CabelFs 
new  book,  "The  Face  of  the  World", 
in  the  apparent  belief  that  Johan 
Bojer  is  merely  the  pseudonym  of  the 
author  of  "Jurgen". 


Mrs.  Henry  Mills  Alden  requests 
that  anyone  having  letters  of  interest 
from  Mr.  Alden,  for  so  many  years 
editor  of  "Harper's  Magazine",  send 
them,  or  copies  of  them,  to  her  in  care 
of  Harper  and  Brothers  for  use  in  the 
writing  of  his  biography. 


A  London  booklover  writes: 

"Both  in  the  literary  and  social 
worlds  of  London  the  news  that  Mrs. 
Asquith  is  to  receive  £10,000  for  her 
memoirs  has  created  a  great  sensation. 
That  sensation  has  been  increased  as 
regards  the  few  who  know  the  fact 
that  this  large  sum  is  to  be  paid,  not 
as  might  be  supposed  for  the  whole  of 
her  memoirs,  but  only  for  that  portion 
of  her  recollections  which  end  with  the 
year  1901. 

"Mrs.  Asquith  had,  as  most  of  us 
know,  a  very  brilliant  youth.  Her 
father,  a  man  of  great  wealth  and 
high  character,  possessed  a  beautiful 
country  place  within  a  drive  of  Walter 
Scott's  Abbotshire.  This  delightful 
house  being  called  'The  Glen',  Margot 
Tennant's  father  soon  became  known 
as  'the  Monarch  of  the  Glen',  while 
the  castle  itself  was  christened  by 
some  wit  'Chateau  Margot'. 

"In  the  eighties  and  nineties  of  the 
the  last  century  'The  Glen'  was  the 
scene  of  many  notable  gatherings.  In 
fact  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  all 
famous  men  and  women  of  England 
of  that  day  were  entertained  there. 
No  account  as  yet  has  been  written  of 
these  gatherings,  if  we  except  the 
very  charming  and  moving  chapter  in 
Alfred  Lyttelton's  'Life'  dealing  with 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


128 


his  first  marriage,  for  the  first  Mrs. 
Alfred  Lyttelton  was  Laura  Tennant, 
Mrs.  Asquith's  beloved  sister. 

"To  English  readers  the  portion  of 
the  memoirs  dealing  with  the  writer's 
youth  will  be  full  of  interest,  but  I 
venture  to  think  that  to  Americans 
the  value  of  the  work  will  greatly  in- 
crease when  they  come  to  the  chapters 
dealing  with  her  life  as  a  young  mar- 
ried woman — as  the  wife,  that  is,  of 
the  brilliant  statesman  who  was  al- 
ready Home  Secretary  at  the  time  of 
their  marriage. 

"Mrs.  Asquith  has  kept  almost  from 
childhood  very  full  diaries,  and  no 
doubt  she  will  draw  copiously  on  these. 
She  is  also  one  of  those  people  who 
keep  almost  all  letters,  and  this  again 
should  be  of  great  value  to  her.  But 
it  is  a  curious  fact  that  in  England 
the  copyright  of  a  letter  remains  with 
the  person  who  has  written  it — ^not 
with  its  recipient.  Thus  the  cautious 
writer  of  memoirs  always  obtains 
written  permission  before  printing  a 
scrap  of  anybody's  handwriting.  Cer- 
tain people  very  rarely  give  such  per- 
mission. Lord  Rosebery,  for  in- 
stance, has  a  great  dislike  to  his  pri- 
vate letters  being  printed,  and  he  is 
said  to  have  once  threatened  a  very 
famous  lady  with  an  injunction  should 
she  dare  to  print  even  an  invitation  to 
dinner  from  his  pen." 

"The  most  talked  of  book  in  literary 
circles  is  undoubtedly  'Legend',  Clem- 
ence  Dane's  third  novel.  It  is  a  bril- 
liant piece  of  virtuosity,  and  as  such 
is  delightful  to  the  author's  fellow 
writers.  As  so  often  happens,  however, 
the  ordinary  public  are  puzzled  by  the 
book,  and  one  or  two  very  clever 
people  have  asked  me  whether  writers 
'really  talk  like  that?'  The  scheme  of 
the  book  is  very  simple.  A  person 
bursts  into  a  literary  party  with  the 


news  that  a  famous  woman  writer  is 
dead.  There  follows  a  discussion  on 
her  personality  and  on  her  work. 
From  this  discussion  the  reader  is 
supposed  to  build  up  the  woman  as  she 
really  was.  To  my  mind  by  far  the 
finest  passage  in  the  volume  is  that 
which  describes  the  woman's  ghost  ap- 
pearing for  a  moment  at  the  end  of 
the  evening,  and  being  seen  only  by  a 
man  who  really  loved  her,  and  by  the 
looker-on  who  tells  the  story.' 


»f 


"Apropos  of  women  writers  who  are 
still  happily  with  us  in  the  flesh,  I  am 
pleased  to  hear  that  the  world  is  to 
receive  yet  another  novel  from  Rhoda 
Broughton.  Miss  Broughton  is  spend- 
ing the  winter  in  London,  and  all 
Americans  visiting  this  country  who 
care  for  either  literature,  or  society  in 
its  finer  aspect,  should  try  and  obtain 
an  introduction  to  the  still  vigorous 
and  brilliant  woman  who  wrote  'Com- 
eth Up  as  a  Flower',  'Goodbye  Sweet- 
heart, Goodbye',  in  what  seems  to 
some  of  us  a  lifetime  ago.  Almost 
every  day  in  the  week  there  take  place 
in  the  delightful  house  where  she  is 
now  living — a  house  beautified  by  the 
presence  for  many  years  of  Thack- 
eray's daughter,  Lady  Ritchie — gath- 
erings of  noted  men  and  women,  a 
reconstitution  in  fact  of  what  was 
known  in  old  days  as  a  salon.  Many 
distinguished  Englishwomen  have 
tried  of  late  years  to  run  a  salon — 
Rhoda  Broughton  alone,  during  the 
few  months  she  is  in  London  each 
year,  effortlessly  succeeds  in  doing  so." 


A  venture  new  to  New  York  City  is 
found  in  the  Children's  Book  Shop 
recently  opened  at  2  East  Slst  Street. 
A  librarian  is  in  charge  who  has  spe- 
cialized in  children's  literature.  In 
addition  to  attempting  to  find  the 
right  book  for  the  right  child,  the  shop 


124 


THE  BOOKMAN 


purposes  to  be  a  center  of  study  for 
anyone  interested  in  children's  read- 
ing the  year  round,  and  exhibits  will 
be  planned  from  time  to  time. 


The  article  "An  Editor's  Morning 
Mail",  which  appeared  anonjnnously  in 
the  January  number  of  The  Book- 
man, has  brought  to  the  office  of  the 
magazine  so  many  letters  in  which  it 
was  assumed  that  the  article  was  writ- 
ten by  the  Editor  of  The  Bookman 
that  it  seems  advisable  to  announce 
the  authorship  of  the  article.  The 
paper  was  written  by  Charles  Hanson 
Towne,  who,  perhaps  it  is  quite  un- 
necessary to  say,  has  for  a  number 
of  years  been  guiding  the  destinies  of 
"McClure's  Magazine".  Because  of 
the  actual  reminiscences  in  the  ar- 
ticle Mr.  Towne  preferred  at  the  time 
of  its  publication  that  it  be  not  signed. 
In  order  to  relieve  the  Editor  of  The 
Bookman  from  the  embarrassment  of 
receiving  basketfuls  of  undeserved 
compliments,  he  consents  that  we  here 
publish  his  name  in  connection  with 
his  article. 


Arnold  Bennett  and  Frank  Swin- 
nerton,  a  recent  letter  from  London 
tells  us,  left  England  arm  in  arm  on 
January  20  for  a  trip  to  Portugal.  It 
is  probable  that  The  Bookman  will 
have  an  article  from  Mr.  Swinnerton 
giving  his  literary  adventure  there. 


Arthur  Bartlett  Maurice  was  in  to 
see  the  Gossip  Shop  not  long  ago.  He 
took  from  his  pocket  one  of  those  huge 
diagrams  of  the  various  decks  of  an 
ocean  liner  that  they  have  at  steam- 
ship offices,  and  began  to  study  it  at- 
tentively. It  was  a  plan  of  the  good 
ship  "Philadelphia",  in  which,  it  de- 
veloped, he  is  soon  to  go  to  England 
for  a  stay  of  some  considerable  time. 
While  there  it  is  probable  that  he  will 


write  another  volume  similar  in  de- 
sign to  his  two  books,  "The  New  York 
of  the  Novelists"  and  "The  Paris  of 
the  Novelists",  to  be  called  "The  Eng- 
land of  the  Novelists". 


The  home  of  Mark  Twain,  at  Hart- 
ford, Connecticut,  where  "Tom  Saw- 
yer" and  "Huckleberry  Finn"  were 
written,  was  recently  sold  to  a  Hart- 
ford real  estate  firm.  Until  not  long 
ago  the  building  had  been  used  as  a 
private  school.  Built  by  Mark  Twain 
in  1870,  up  to  the  time  of  his  death 
the  big  house  was  a  magnet  that  drew 
to  Hartford  the  great  of  the  land 
among  statesmen  and  writers.  Here 
Mark  Twain  held  forth  in  his  billiard- 
room  until  all  hours  of  the  night, 
smoking,  talking,  and  playing;  and 
here  he  read  the  chapters  of  "Tom 
Sawyer"  and  "Huck  Finn"  to  his  wife 
and  children,  gathered  around  the  fire- 
side at  night. 


Clement  K.  Shorter  on  his  recent 
visit  to  America  met  with  the  proposal 
from  a  New  York  publishing  house 
that  he  prepare  for  them  editions  de 
luxe  of  the  works  of  Borrow  and  the 
Bronte.  The  sets  are  to  be  published 
similar  in  format  to  the  American  de 
luxe  edition  of  Kipling's  works.  Mr. 
Shorter  says  in  this  work  he  will 
gratify  the  ambition  of  years.  He 
says  ttiAt  his  editing  of  these  sets  is 
under  way.  And  he  adds :  "They  will 
include  much  hitherto  unpublished 
material,  and  still  more  which  the  au- 
thors printed  that  has  never  been  col- 
lected. It  was  one  of  the  ambitions  of 
George  Borrow's  life  to  see  his  trans- 
lations of  Scandinavian  Ballads  in 
book  form.  This  will  now  be  done, 
and  it  is  possible  to  revise  his  'Bible  in 
Spain'  and  'Lavengro'  from  the  orig- 
inal manuscripts  in  my  possession." 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


125 


Some  time  ago  the  publishers  of 
Booth  Tarkington's  books  announced, 
through  circulars  sent  to  the  princi- 
pals of  high  schools  and  by  a  small 
item  in  the  newspapers,  a  contest  for 
the  best  essay  on  "the  meaning  of 
'Ramsey  Milholland* ".  The  contest, 
which  is  open  to  students  of  high 
schools  and  preparatory  schools,  offers 
the  distribution  of  one  hundred  dol- 
lars in  prizes  for  the  best  essay  under 
2,000  words  long.  The  judges  are: 
Professor  William  Lyon  Phelps  of 
Yale;  Robert  Cortes  Holliday,  Editor 
of  The  Bookman;  Arthur  Bartlett 
Maurice,  critic,  author,  college  mate 
of  Tarkington,  and  former  editor  of 
The  Bookman.  The  original  idea  was 
that  the  contest  should  close  on  Feb- 
ruary 12,  Lincoln's  Birthday,  but  ow- 
ing to  the  widespread  interest  the 
closing  date  has  been  advanced  to 
April  1.  Therefore,  if  there  is  any- 
one who  is  interested  in  the  contest 
and  would  like  to  have  some  of  the  cir- 
culars giving  all  the  conditions,  the 
editor  of  the  Ramsey  Milholland  con- 
test will  be  glad  to  forward  them  on 
application.  Communications  should 
be  addressed:  Editor,  Ramsey  Mil- 
holland Contest;  Doubleday,  Page  and 
Company ;  Garden  City,  New  York. 


terly  horticultural  periodical  quite  in 
a  class  by  itself  in  this  country.  These 
papers  are  on  Shakespearian  gardens 
and  flowers,  and  deal  with  the  poetic 
and  legendary  history  of  them,  more 
than  their  culture.  The  International 
Garden  Club,  consisting  of  nearly  six 
hundred  members,  is  active  in  the  hor- 
ticultural world,  and  at  its  annual 
meeting  a  vigorous  af ter-the-war  pro- 
gram was  proposed.  Besides  pub- 
lishing the  '"Journal"  the  club  main- 
tains gardens  and  a  club  house  at  Bar- 
tow Mansion,  Pelham  Bay  Park,  New 
York  City>  and  has  leased  "Nevis"  at 
Irvington-on-Hudson  for  further  de- 
velopment 


The  chief  feature  of  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  International  Garden 
Club,  held  in  New  York,  on  January 
14,  1920,  was  the  lecture  on  the  flow- 
ers and  gardens  of  Shakespeare  by 
Esther  Singleton.  This  was  a  talk  of 
about  forty  minutes,  illustrated  with 
lantern  slides  showing  Tudor  and  / 
Elizabethan  gardens,  some  of  the/ 
flowers  mentioned  by  Shakespeare( 
and  the  plant  lore  and  legend  for 
which  he  is  so  famous. 

Miss  Singleton  is  writing  a  series 
of  articles  for  the  "Journal"  of  the 
International  Garden  Club,  a  quar- 


The  Reverend  Dr.  Cjrrus  Townsend 
Brady,  Episcopalian  minister  and  one 
of  the  most  prolific  and  versatile  of 
contemporary  authors,  died  January 
24  of  pneumonia  at  his  home  in 
Yonkers,  New  York. 

Dr.  Brady  was  bom  in  Allegheny, 
Pennsylvania,  in  1861.  His  first  am- 
bition was  for  a  naval  career,  but  he 
gave  up  the  idea  soon  after  his  gradu- 
ation from  Annapolis  in  1888.  For 
several  years  he  worked  for  the  Mis- 
souri Pacific  and  Union  Pacific  Rail- 
roads. 

It  was  in  1898  that  Dr.  Brady  first 
essayed  to  "supplement  his  clerical  in- 
come" by  writing,  and  from  then  dur- 
ing the  ensuing  twenty  years  he  pro- 
duced about  forty  books,  including 
novels,  boys*  stories,  biographies,  and 
histories.  Considering  the  high  gen- 
^^oral  average  of  these  works,  their 
/.antity  and  variety,  and  the  fact  that 
me  author  was  at  the  same  time  an 
active  clergyman,  this  record  has  prob- 
ably seldom  been  surpassed. 

His  first  book  was  called  "For  Love 
of  Country".  Titles  of  other  works, 
indicating  their  nature  in  most  in- 
stances,   were:     "Stephen    Decatur**, 


126 


THE  BOOKMAN 


"Recollections  of  a  Missionary  in  the 
Great  West",  "When  Blades  Are  Out 
and  Love's  Afield",  "Richard  the 
Brazen",  "Gethsemane  and  After"  (a 
religious  book  which  he  regarded  as 
his  best),  "The  Island  of  Regenera- 
tion", "As  the  Sparks  Fly  Upward", 
"By  the  World  Forgot",  "When  the 
Sun  Stood  Still". 

Recently  he  had  entered  the  moving 
picture  field,  composing  scenarios  and 
altering  his  novels  for  the  screen. 


The  standard  of  the  poetry  which 
appeared  in  "The  Bellman",  the  Min- 
neapolis magazine  which  ended  its  ca- 
reer late  last  year,  was  so  high  as  to 
win  the  commendation  of  the  best 
critics.  Year  after  year  it  was  ac- 
corded flattering  mention  by  Mr. 
Braithwaite,  of  the  Boston  "Tran- 
script", in  his  annual  review  of  Amer- 
ican verse,  and,  during  the  period  of 
its  existence,  "The  Bellman"  in  this 
respect  took  rank  among  the  leading 
American  periodicals. 

In  response  to  request,  and  believ- 
ing that  many  readers  will  desire  to 
possess  such  a  volume.  The  Bellman 
Company  has  published  "The  Bell- 
man Book  of  Verse"  which  contains 
selections,  carefully  chosen  according 
to  the  judgment  of  its  editorial  staff, 
of  the  best  poetry  which  has  been 
printed  in  its  pages.  The  book  is  ty- 
pographically in  "The  Bellman's"  best 
form. 


Burton  Rascoe,  literary  editor  of 
the  Chicago  "Tribune",  recently  wrote 
his  friend  the  author  of  "Broome 
Street  Straws"  and  "Peeps  at  People" 
that  the  reason  he  had  not  written  him 
before  for  such  a  long  time  was  that 
he  had  "failed  to  enjoy"  these  two  new 
books  by  this  writer.  "No  laughs,  no 
point,  no  nothing,"  declared  Mr.  Ras- 
coe ;  "why,  oh  why,  did  you  ever  pub- 


lish them?"  The  Gossip  Shop  is 
deeply  sorry  to  have  its  confidence  in 
the  judgment  of  the  literary  page  of 
the  Chicago  "Tribune"  destroyed  in 
this  way. 


A  good  deal  of  attention  has  re- 
cently been  given  to  Professor  Ein- 
stein's theory  of  the  relativity  of 
space  and  time,  which  has  been  called 
as  epoch-making  a  discovery  as  New- 
ton's theory  of  gravitation ;  and  many 
will  therefore  welcome  Edwin  E.  Slos- 
son's  simple  and  popular  account  of 
this  new  conquest  of  science,  "Easy 
Lessons  in  Einstein",  which  will  be 
published  this  spring.  Dr.  Slosson  has 
been  for  many  years  literary  editor  of 
"The  Independent". 


Donn  Byrne,  author  of  "The  Stran- 
gers' Banquet",  was  early  associated 
with  the  great  literary  revival  in  Ire- 
land, of  which  Yeats  and  Synge  were 
the  central  figures.  In  this  country  he 
became  a  member  of  a  group  of  young 
writers  many  of  whom  have  since  be- 
come famous.  "The  Strangers'  Ban- 
quet" is  the  story  of  Derrith  Keogh 
who  inherited  a  shipyard  from  her  fa- 
ther, an  Irish  master  of  the  seas.  It 
is  a  first  novel,  though  Mr.  Byrne  is 
already  well  known  as  a  short-story 
writer.  Mr.  Byrne's  full  name,  ac- 
cording to  "Who's  Who  in  America", 
is  Bryan  Oswald  Donn  Byrne.  The 
same  authority  states  that  he  is  a 
"patron  of  sport  and  former  interna- 
tional athlete".  His  specialty  seems 
to  be  boxing  and  wrestling. 


We  reprint  the  following  from  the 
"Sun  Dial"  column,  conducted  by  the 
celebrated  Don  Marquis,  in  the  New 
York  "Sun".  And  then  we'll  tell  you 
something. 

A  great  many  persons,  from  time  to  time, 
have   asked   us    what   Benjamin   De   Casseres 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


127 


looks  like.  We  have  never  seen  Mr.  De  Cai- 
seres;  his  contributions,  always  written  on 
cream  colored  paper  with  violet  ink,  are 
brought  to  our  office  by  one  of  his  secretaries. 
But  we  find  in  the  New  York  "Herald"  of  Sun- 
day, January  4,  this  description  of  his  physical 
appearance,  which  we  are  glad  to  make  public : 
"He  is  heavy  set,  very  dark,  has  iron  gray 
hair  and  a  coal  black  goatee.  He  is  a  loud 
dresser. ..." 

Mr.  Christopher  Morley,  who  will  shortly 
make  his  New  York  debut  as  a  column  con- 
ductor on  the  "Bvening  Post",  and  concerning 
whose  appearance  we  have  also  had  many  in- 
quiries, is  of  a  different  physical  type,  more 
spirituellc  and  ethereal.  Like  Mr.  Robert 
Cortes  Holliday,  the  editor  of  Thb  Bookman, 
Mr.  Morley  dresses  with  careful  elegance,  and 
like  Mr.  Holliday  again,  he  does  most  of  his 
writing  while  cruising  about  the  open  country 
in  his  limousine,  having  had  a  typewriter  in- 
stalled in  the  car.  Mr.  Morley  ordinarily  clicks 
off  a  column  every  forty  miles;  but  it  some- 
times takes  Mr.  Holliday  three  or  four  days 
to  write  an  issue  of  Thb  Bookman,  signing 
fictitious  names  to  the  articles.  Once  Mr.  Hol- 
liday's  car  collided  with  Mr.  Morley's  car  in 
New  Jersey ;  they  picked  themselves  up  and 
the  copy  which  they  found  strewn  by  the  road- 
side, and  returned  to  their  respective  offices, 
handing  the  copy  to  the  printers.  It  was  not 
until  later  that  Mr.  Morley  discovered  that  he 
had  written  Tbc  Bookman  for  a  certain  month 
and  Mr.  Holliday  found  that  he  had  composed 
the  editorial  page  of  the  Philadelphia  "Eve- 
ning Ledger". 

Very  well.  There  is,  then,  no  honor 
among  thieves.  Mr.  Marquis  has  not 
hesitated  to  betray  to  the  world  the 
method  by  which  in  the  sweat  of  our 
brow  we  get  up  The  Bookman.  Mr. 
Marquis's  own  "front",  we  have  rea- 
son to  know,  has  long  been  a  matter 
of  suspicion  to  many  people.  We  have 
frequently  been  asked  if  he  is  the  kind 
of  a  person  he  makes  (or  attempts  to 
make)  himself  out  to  be  in  his  column. 
He  would  have  the  public  think  that 
he  is  very  robust.  He  affects  a  hearti- 
ness of  mind,  a  large,  free,  careless- 
ness of  temperament.  He  thinks  it  is 
bright  to  appear  to  be  a  roarer  among 
men.  It  makes  us  laugh.  Mr.  Mar- 
quis is  decidedly  small  in  stature.  He 
is  pale.  Wears  spectacles.  Has  a 
squeaky  voice.  Wears  overshoes  when 
the  weather  is  the  slightest  damp.   He 


talks  (in  his  column)  about  kelly  pool, 
stud  poker,  booze.  Heaven  help  us! 
We  have  known  Mr.  Marquis  since  he 
was  that  high.  Oh  I  well,  let  it  go; 
doubtless  he  doesn't  fool  anybody. 


The  J.  B.  Pond  Lyceum  Bureau, 
New  York,  announces  that  it  has 
broadened  the  scope  of  its  activities  to 
include  the  placing  of  manuscripts  for 
authors,  both  in  this  country  and 
abroad.  This  new  service  wiU  be 
known  as  The  J.  B.  Pond  Bureau  Lit- 
erary Department  and  will  be  conducted 
on  the  same  standards  that  have  been 
maintained  since  the  founding  of  the 
Lyceum  Bureau  by  Major  Pond  in 
1873.  The  Literary  Department  will 
be  under  the  direct  management  of 
Edward  Frank  Allen,  an  editor  and 
author  of  experience.  Exceptional  fa- 
cilities, it  is  said,  will  be  provided  for 
handling  publication  rights  for  the 
British  Empire  through  the  Pond  Bu- 
reau's affiliation  with  Christy  and 
Moore,  Ltd.,  of  London,  the  literary 
department  of  The  Lecture  Agency, 
Ltd. 


Oliver  M.  Sayler,  author  of  the  re- 
cently published  book  "The  Russian 
Theatre  Under  the  Revolution",  is  the 
dramatic  critic  of  the  Indianapolis 
"News".  His  book  on  the  Russian 
Theatre  was  written  after  visiting 
Moscow  and  Petrograd  during  the 
Bolshevik  revolution.  Mr.  Sayler  is 
also  the  author  of  "Russia  White  or 
Red"  published  late  last  year,  and  has 
contributed  a  number  of  articles  to 
The  Bookman. 


The  recent  death  of  Mrs.  A.  J.  Cas- 
satt  recalls  her  possession  of  two 
little-known  paintings  by  Whistler, 
said  to  be  masterpieces.  Reproduc- 
tions of  these  paintings  will  appear  in 
the  new,  sixth  edition  of  Pennell's 


128 


THE  BOOKMAN 


"Life  of  James  McNeill  Whistler", 
which  will  be  brought  out  this  year. 
One  of  these  is  a  portrait  of  Mrs.  Cas- 
satt;  and  the  fact  of  Whistler's  au- 
thorship, assures  for  her  a  place  in 
the  gallery  of  great  paintings. 


be  glad  to  send  a  specimen  copy  of  the 
first  issue  to  any  interested  reader 
upon  request. 


POBTEAIT  OF  WILLIAM  B08B  BBNKT. 
DEAWlf  BT  WILLIAM  B08B  BBNBT. 

Announcement  is  made  of  a  new 
magazine,  "The  Psychical  Review".  It 
will  be  edited  by  Hereward  Carring- 
ton,  long  well  known  as  a  writer  and 
lecturer  in  the  field  of  psychical  re- 
search. The  new  publication,  it  is 
said,  will  have  as  contributors  a  num- 
ber of  men  and  women  of  interna- 
tional repute.  Dodd,  Mead  and  Com- 
pany, New  York,  the  publishers,  will 


Thomas  Walsh,  a  contributor  to 
The  Bookman,  whose  new  book  of 
verse,  "Don  Folquet  and  Other 
Poems",  was  recently  published,  lately 
returned  from  Lithuania.  He  has 
been  making  ofiicial  investigations  of 
conditions  there,  under  the  auspices 
of  the  National  Catholic  War  Council. 
Mr.  Walsh  reported  to  the  Gossip 
Shop  that  there  is  no  butter  in  Lithu- 
ania. 


Said  the  author  of  "This  Giddy 
Globe"  to  the  author  of  "Broome 
Street  Straws"  and  "Peeps  at  Peo- 
ple": "You  brag  about  publishing 
two  books  in  one  day,  one  in  the  fore- 
noon and  one  shortly  after  lunch. 
Now  it  has  been  three  days  since  I 
read  those  books,  and  you  haven't 
brought  out  anything  new  for  me  to 
read." 


In  a  review  in  an  English  news- 
paper of  James  Lane  Allen's  book 
"The  Emblems  of  Fidelity",  we  find 
the  author  referred  to  as  Mr.  Lane 
Allen.  We  suppose,  of  course,  he 
would  be  over  there.  It's  that  Mr. 
Surrey  Sussex  kind  of  thing.  But  in 
our  simple,  democratic  way,  we  have 
always  called  him  just  Mr.  Allen  our- 
selves. 


A  reader  of  The  Bookman  declares 
that  Mr.  Chesterton  in  his  new  book 
"Irish  Impressions"  does  gross  injus- 
tice to  the  Shelboume's  stout.  He 
says :  "Now  he  could  say  whatever  he 
wished  to  about  the  stuff  they  serve  in 
Grafton  Street,  but  as  for  the  Shel- 
boume's— ^well,  let  us  see  that  justice 
is  done  and  the  matter  set  right  be- 
fore the  world." 


April,  1920 
A  JESTER  WITH  GENIUS 

HAS  NEW  ENGLAND  AN  ART  SENSE? 

Helen  W.  Hendermin 

THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  PUBLICATION 
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MAXIM       By  J.  S.Fletcher 

A  NEW,  absofbing  detective  story  by 
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Murder,  the  famous  yam  that  President 
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APRIL,  1920 


VOL.  LI,  NO.  2 


THE 


BGDKMAN 


A  JESTER  WITH  GENIUS 


BY  ARTHUR  SYMONS 


OSCAR  WILDE  was  a  prodigious 
entertainer.  The  whole  pageant 
of  his  pages  is  decorative,  and  passes 
swiftly;  blood  streams  harmlessly 
across  stages  where  a  sphinx  sits,  with 
and  without  a  secret,  repeating  clang- 
ing verse  and  mysterious  prose,  and 
where  Sicilian  shepherds  and  young 
girls  on  English  lawns  pass  and  re- 
turn, and  everywhere  paradox-puppets 
turn  somersaults  like  agile  acrobats 
to  the  sound  of  a  faint  music  which 
sometimes  rises  to  a  wild  clamor. 
Verse  and  prose  are  spoken  by  care- 
fully directed  marionettes ;  songs,  dia- 
logues, and  dramas  are  presented, 
with  changing  scenery  and  bewilder- 
ing lights.  At  times  the  showman 
comes  before  the  curtain,  and,  cutting 
a  caper,  argues,  e3q;K)8tulate8,  and  calls 
the  attention  of  the  audience  to  the 
perfection  of  the  mechanism  by  which 
his  effects  are  produced,  and  his  own 
skill  in  the  handling  of  the  wires. 
Scene  follows  scene,  without  rest  or 
interval,  until  suddenly  the  lights  go 
out,  and  the  play  is  over. 
Such  an  artificial  world  Wilde  cre- 


ated, and  it  is  only  now  beginning  to 
settle  down  into  any  sort  of  known 
order.  In  Germany  he  is  the  writer 
of  ''Salome",  in  France  a  poet  and 
critic,  in  England  the  writer  of  "The 
Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol"  or  perhaps  of 
"De  Profundis".  Nowhere  is  there 
any  agreement  as  to  the  question  of 
relative  merit;  in  fact,  nowhere  is 
there  any  due  acknowledgment  of 
what  that  merit  really  is.  There  is, 
indeed,  so  much  variety  in  Wilde's 
work,  he  has  made  so  many  experi- 
ments in  so  many  directions,  that  it  is 
only  now  that  we  can  trace  the  curious 
movement,  forward  and  backward,  of 
a  mind  never  fully  certain  of  its  di- 
rection. It  was  a  long  time  before 
Wilde  discovered  that  he  was  above  all 
a  wit,  and  that  it  was  through  the 
medium  of  the  comic  stage  that  he 
could  best  express  his  essential  talent. 
His  desire  was  to  write  tragedies, 
above  all  romantic  tragedies  in  verse. 
His  failure  in  the  attempt  was  hope- 
less, because  he  had  got  hold  of  the 
wrong  material  and  the  wrong  manner. 
Wilde's  last  attempt  at  romantic 


129 


130 


THE   BOOKMAN 


drama  is,  if  not  successful,  filled  with 
a  strange  fascination,  not  easy  to  de- 
fine. ''Salome",  which  in  Germany  is 
regarded  as  great  work,  is  difficult  for 
us  to  dissociate  from  Beardsley's  il- 
lustrations, in  which  what  is  icily 
perverse  in  the  dialogue  (it  cannot  be 
designated  drama)  becomes  in  the 
ironical  designs  pictorial,  a  series  of 
poses.  On  the  stage  these  poses  are 
less  decorative  than  on  the  page, 
though  they  have  an  effect  of  their 
own,  not  fine,  but  languid,  and  hor- 
rible, and  frozen.  To  Wilde  passion 
was  a  thing  to  talk  about  with  elab- 
orate and  colored  words.  Salome  is  a 
doll,  as  many  have  imagined  her,  soul- 
less, set  in  motion  by  some  pitiless 
destiny,  personified  fnomentarily  by 
her  mother;  Herod  is  a  nodding  man- 
darin in  a  Chinese  grotesque.  So 
"The  Sphinx"  offers  no  subtlety,  no 
heat  of  an  Egyptian  desert,  no  thrill 
in  anything  but  the  words  and  ca- 
dences ;  the  poem,  like  "Salome",  is  a 
sort  of  celebration  of  dark  rites. 

Wilde  was  not  in  the  highest  sense 
a  poet,  though  his  verse  has  occasion- 
ally a  technical  singularity,  as  in  "The 
Sphinx",  which  can  delude  the  mind 
through  the  ears  to  listen,  when  the 
lines  are  read  out,  to  a  fiowof  loud  and 
bright  words  which  are  as  meaning- 
less as  the  monotonous  eastern  music 
of  drum  and  gong  is  to  the  western 
ear. 

"The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol"  is 
written  in  that  ballad  stanza  of  six 
lines  which  Hood  used  for  "The 
Dream  of  Eugene  Aram" ;  and  the  ac- 
cident of  two  poems  about  a  murderer 
having  been  written  in  the  same  metre 
^as  suggested  comparisons  which  are 
only  interesting  by  way  of  contrast. 
"Eugene  Aram"  is  a  purely  romantic 
poem :  "The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol" 
aims  at  a  realistic  poem.  It  may  more 
properly  be  compared  with  Henley's 


"In  Hospital",  where  a  personal  ex- 
perience, and  personally  observed  sur- 
roundings, are  put  into  verse  as  di- 
rectly, and  with  as  much  precise  de- 
tail, as  possible.  Taken  merely  as  sen- 
sation recorded,  this  poem  is  as  con- 
vincing, holds  yon  as  tightly,  as  Hen- 
ley's; and  it  has,  in  places,  touches 
at  least  as  finely  imaginative;  this, 
for  instance: 

We  have  little  care  of  prison  fare, 
For  what  chills  and  kills  outright 

Is  that  every  stone  one  lifts  by  day 
Becomes  one's  heart  by  night. 

But,  unlike  Henley's,  it  has  not  found 
a  new  form  for  the  record  of  these 
sensations,  so  new  to  poetry;  it  has 
not  entirely  escaped  "poetic  diction" 
in  its  language,  and  it  has  accepted 
what  has  now  become  the  artificial 
structure  of  the  ballad,  without  mak- 
ing any  particular  effort  to  use  the 
special  advantages  of  that  structure. 
But  then  this  is  just  because  a  roman- 
tic artist  is  working  on  realistic  ma- 
terial ;  and  the  curious  interest  of  the 
poem  comes  from  the  struggle  be- 
tween form  and  utterance,  between 
personal  and  dramatic  feeling,  be- 
tween a  genuine  human  emotion  and 
a  style  formed  on  other  lines,  and 
startled  at  finding  itself  used  for  such 
new  purposes. 

We  see  a  great  spectacular  intel- 
lect, to  which,  at  last,  pity  and  terror 
have  come  in  their  own  person,  and 
no  longer  as  puppets  in  a  play.  In  its 
sight,  human  life  has  always  been 
something  acted  on  the  stage;  a 
comedy  in  which  it  is  the  wise  man's 
part  to  sit  aside  and  laugh,  but  in 
which  he  may  also  disdainfully  take 
part,  as  in  a  carnival,  under  any  mask. 
The  unbiased,  scornful  intellect,  to 
which  huma^ ' .  r-  \s  never  been  a  bur- 
den, comes  •'  3  be  unable  to  sit 
aside  and  la  •  ;  \d  it  has  worn  and 
looked  behii-.      •     many  masks  that 


A  JESTER  WITH  GENIUS 


131 


there  is  nothing  left  desirable  in  il- 
lusion. Having  seen,  as  the  artist 
sees,  further  than  morality,  but  with 
so  partial  an  eyesight  as  to  have  over- 
looked it  on  the  way,  it  has  come  at 
length  to  discover  morality,  in  the 
only  way  left  possible  for  itself.  And, 
like  most  of  those  who,  having 
"thought  themselves  weary",  have 
made  the  adventure  of  putting 
thought  into  action,  it  has  had  to  dis- 
cover it  sorrowfully,  at  its  own  incal- 
culable expense.  And  now,  having  so 
newly  become  acquainted  with  what  is 
pitiful,  and  what  seems  most  unjust, 
in  the  arrangement  of  mortal  affairs, 
it  has  gone,  not  unnaturally,  to  an  ex- 
treme, and  taken,  on  the  one  hand,  hu- 
manitarianism,  on  the  other  realism, 
at  more  than  their  just  valuation  in 
matters  of  art.  It  is  that  old  instinct 
of  the  intellect;  the  necessity  to  carry 
things  to  their  furthest  point  of  de- 
velopment, to  be  more  logical  than 
either  life  or  art — ^two  very  wayward 
and  illogical  things,  in  which  con- 
clusions do  not  always  follow  from 
premises. 

This  poem,  then,  is  partly  a  plea  on 
behalf  of  prison  reform;  and,  so  far 
as  it  is  written  with  that  aim,  it  is  not 
art.  It  is  also  to  some  extent  an  en- 
deavor to  do  in  poetry  what  can  only 
be  done  in  prose;  and  thus  such  in- 
tensely impressive  touches  as  the 
quicklime  which  the  prisoners  see  on 
the  boots  of  the  warders  who  have 
been  digging  the  hanged  man's  grave, 
the  "gardener's  gloves"  of  the  hang- 
man, and  his  "little  bag",  are,  strictly 
spealdng,  fine  prose,  not  poetry.  But, 
it  must  not  be  forgotten,  all  these 
things  go  to  the  making  of  a  piece  of 
work,  in  which,  beyond  its  purely  lit- 
erary quality,  there  is  a  real  value  of  a 
personal  kind — ^the  value  of  almost 
raw  fact,  the  value  of  the  document. 
And  here  too  begins  to  come  in,  in  an 


odd,  twisted  way,  the  literary  quality. 
For  the  poem  is  not  really  a  ballad  at 
all,  but  a  sombre,  angry,  interrupted 
reverie;  and. it  is  the  sub-current  of 
meditation,  it  is  the  asides  which 
count — not  the  story,  as  a  story,  of  the 
drunken  soldier  who  was  hanged  for 
killing  a  woman.  The  real  drama  is 
the  drama  of  that  one  of  "the  souls  in 
pain"  who  tramps  round  the  prison- 
yard,  to  whom  the  hanging  of  a  man 
meant  most: 

For  he  who  lives  more  lives  than  one, 
More  deaths  thanjone  must  die. 

It  is  because  they  are  seen  through  his 
at  once  grieved  and  self-pitying  con- 
sciousness that  all  those  sorry  details 
become  significant : 

We  tore  the  tarry  rope  to  shreds 

With  blunt  and  bleeding  nails ; 
We  rubbed  the  doors,  and  scrubbed  the  floors, 

And  cleaned  the  shining  rails ; 
And,  rank  by  rank,  we  soaped  the  plank. 

And  clattered  with  the  pails. 

And  the  glimmerings  of  romance 
which  come  into  these  pages,  like  the 
fiowers  which  may  not  grow  out  of  the 
dead  man's  body  as  he  lies  under  the 
asphalt  of  the  prison-yard,  are  signifi- 
cant because  they  show  us  the  per- 
sistence with  which  temperament  will 
assert  itself: 

It  is  sweet  to  dance  to  violins 
When  Love  and  Life  are  fair ; 

To  dance  to  flutes,  to  dance  to  lutes, 
Is  delicate  and  rare ; 

But  it  is  not  sweet  with  nimble  feet 
To  dance  upon  the  air ! 

Beauty,  one  sees,  claiming  its  own  in 
a  story  meant  to  be  so  sordid,  so  ve- 
racious, so  prosaically  close  to  fact; 
and  having,  indeed,  so  many  of  the 
qualities  at  which  it  aims. 

And  there  is  also  something  else  in 
the  poem:  a  central  idea,  half,  but 
not  more  than  half,  a  paradox: 

And  all  men  kill  the  thing  they  love, 

By  aU  let  this  be  heard. 
Some  do  it  with  a  bitter  look, 

Some  with  a  flattering  word. 


182 


THE   BOOKMAN 


The  coward  does  it  with  a  klM, 
The  brare  man  with  a  sword  I 

This  symbol  of  the  obscure  deaths  of 
the  heart,  the  unseen  violence  upon 
souls,  the  martyrdom  of  hope,  trust 
and  all  the  more  helpless  among  the 
virtues,  is  what  gives  its  unity,  in  a 
certain  philosophic  purpose,  to  a  poem 
not  otherwise  quite  homogeneous. 
Ideas  were  never  what  the  writer  of 
the  poem  was  lacking  in ;  but  an  idea 
so  simple  and  so  human,  developed  out 
of  circumstances  so  actual,  so  close  to 
the  earth,  is  singularly  novel.  And 
whatever  we  may  think  of  the  positive 
value  of  this  very  powerful  piece  of 
writing,  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to 
its  relative  value  in  a  career  which 
might  be  at  a  turning-point. 

Literature,  to  be  of  the  finest  qual- 
ity, must  come  from  the  heart  as  well 
as  the  head,  must  be  emotionally  hu- 
man as  well  as  a  brilliant  thinking 
about  human  problems.  And  for  this 
writer  such  a  return  or  so  startling  a 
first  acquaintance  with  real  things, 
was  precisely  what  was  required  to 
bring  into  relation,  both  with  life  and 
art,  an  extraordinary  talent,  so  little 
in  relation  with  matters  of  common 
experience,  so  fantastically  alone  in  a 
region  of  intellectual  abstractions. 

In  an  enumeration  of  his  gifts  ("the 
gods  have  given  me  almost  every- 
thing"), Wilde  said  with  confidence: 
''Whatever  I  touched  I  made  beauti- 
ful in  a  new  mode  of  beauty."  His 
expression  of  what  he  conceived  by 
beauty  is  developed  from  many  models, 
and  has  no  new  ideas  in  it;  one  can 
trace  it,  almost  verbally,  to  Pater, 
Flaubert,  Gautier,  Baudelaire,  and 
other  writers  from  whom  he  drew  sus- 
tenance. Throughout  a  large  part  of 
his  work  he  is  seen  deliberately  imi- 
tating the  effects  that  these  and  other 
writers  have  achieved  before  him.  All 
through  the  "Intentions"  there  is  a 


99 


far-off  echo  of  Pater;  in  "Salome 
melodrama  is  mixed  with  recollections 
of  "Pell^as  et  M61isande"  and  of  "La 
Tentation  de  Saint  Antoine".  "The 
Picture  of  Dorian  Gray"  owes  much, 
I  think,  to  the  work  of  Huysmans. 
Of  the  writers  named,  all  but  the  last 
had  their  own  sense  of  beauty,  their 
own  imaginative  world  where  they 
were  at  home,  and  could  speak  its 
language  naturally.  Wilde's  style  is 
constantly  changing,  as  made  things 
do  when  one  alters  them,  and  it  is  only 
at  intervals  that  it  ceases  to  be  arti- 
ficial, imitative,  or  pretentious. 

From  the  first,  one  of  Wilde's  lim- 
itations had  been  his  egoism,  his  self- 
absorption,  his  self-admiration.  This 
is  one  of  the  qualities  which  have 
marred  the  delightful  genius  of  the 
Irish  nation,  and  it  can  be  traced  in 
the  three  other  Irishmen  who  may  be 
said  to  have  formed,  with  Wilde,  a 
group  apart  in  the  literature  of  our 
time.  It  is  not  needful  to  name  them : 
one  is  a  dramatist,  one  a  novelist,  one 
a  poet.  All  have  remarkable  quali- 
ties, each  a  completely  different  indi- 
viduality, and  the  desire  of  each  is,  as 
Wilde  admits,  to  "make  people  won- 
der". In  each  there  is  something  not 
human,  which  is  either  the  cause  or 
the  outcome  of  an  ambition  too  con- 
tinually conscious  of  itself.  The  great 
man  is  indifferent  to  his  greatness; 
it  is  an  accident  if  he  is  so  much  as 
conscious  of  it. 

Wilde  wrote  much  that  was  true, 
new,  and  valuable  about  art  and  the 
artist.  But  in  eversrthing  that  he 
wrote,  he  wrote  from  the  outside.  He 
said  nothing  which  had  not  been  said 
before  him,  or  which  was  not  the  mere 
wilful  contrary  of  what  had  been  said 
before  him.  In  his  devotion  to  beauty 
he  seemed  to  have  given  up  the  whole 
world,  and  yet  what  was  most  tragic 
in  the  tragedy  was  that  he  had  never 


A  JESTER  WITH  GENIUS 


188 


recognized  the  true  face  of  beauty. 
He  followed  beauty,  and  beauty  fled 
from  him,  for  his  devotion  was  that  of 
the  lover  proud  of  many  conquests. 
He  was  eager  to  proclaim  the  con- 
quest, and  too  hasty  to  distinguish  be- 
tween beauty  and  beauty's  handmaid. 
His  praise  of  beauty  is  always  a  boast, 
never  an  homage.  When  he  attempted 
to  create  beauty  in  words  he  described 
beautiful  things. 

''Intentions"  is  the  most  amusing 
book  of  criticism  in  England;  it  has 
nothing  to  say  that  has  not  been 
proved  or  disproved  already,  but  never 
was  such  boyish  disrespect  for  ideas, 
such  gaiety  of  paradox.  Its  flaw  is 
that  it  tries  to  be  Paterish  and  pagan 
and  Renaissance  and  Greek,  and  to  be 
clothed  in  Tyrian  robes,  and  to  tread 
''with  tired  feet  the  purple  white- 
starred  fields  of  asphodel".  But  it  is 
possible  to  forget  the  serious,  exas- 
perating pages  in  a  lazy  delight  in  so 
much  pleasant  wit.  "Utterance"  is 
the  Irishman's  need  of  talk  and  in- 
variable talent  for  it;  that  is  there, 
scattering  itself  casually  like  fire- 
works, but  on  its  way  to  become  a 
steady  illumination. 

Wilde's  last  and  greatest  discovery 
was  when,  about  the  year  1891,  the 
idea  came  to  him  that  the  abounding 
wit  which  he  had  kept  till  then  chiefly 
for  the  entertainment  of  his  friends, 
could  be  turned  quite  naturally  into  a 
new  kind  of  play.  Sheridan  was  the 
best  model  at  hand  to  learn  from,  and 
there  were  qualities  of  stage  speech 
and  action  in  which  he  could  surpass 
him.  Then  might  not  Alfred  de  Mus- 
set  show  him  some  of  the  secrets  of 
fine  comedy?  He  had,  to  start  with, 
a  wit  that  was  tjrpically  Irish  in  its 
promptness  and  spontaneity.  His  only 
rival  in  talk  was  Whistler,  whose  wit 
was  unpleasantly  bitter.  The  word 
sprang  from  Wilde's  lips,  some  un- 


sought nonsense,  a  flying  paradox; 
Whistler's  was  a  sharper  shaft,  but  it 
flew  less  readily.  And  now  this  in- 
ventiveness of  speech  found  itself  at 
home  in  the  creation  of  a  form  of  play 
which,  in  "Lady  Windermere's  Fan", 
begins  by  being  seriously  and  trag- 
ically comic,  and  ends  in  "The  Im- 
portance of  Being  Earnest",  which  is 
a  sort  of  sublime  farce  meaningless 
and  delightful. 

"De  Profundis"  (1897),  the  only 
document  that  really  gives  any  expla- 
nation of  Wilde's  extraordinary  be- 
havior, has  never  been  published  in 
full.  It  was  written  in  the  form  of  a 
letter  and  was,  of  course,  addressed  to 
Lord  Alfred  Douglas.  There  is  a  pas- 
sage referring  to  the  death  of  his 
mother,  which  in  the  published  Eng- 
lish text  reads  thus:  "No  one  knew 
how  deeply  I  loved  and  honoured  her. 
Her  death  was  terrible  to  me;  but  I, 
once  a  lord  of  language,  have  no  words 
in  which  to  express  my  anguish  and 
my  shame."  Here  the  "lord  of  lan- 
guage" may  already  seem  a  trifle  self- 
conscious,  but  in  the  original  manu- 
script the  sentence  continues :  "Never 
even  in  the  most  perfect  days  of  my 
development  as  an  artist,  could  I  have 
had  words  fit  to  bear  so  august  a  bur- 
den, or  to  move  with  sufficient  stateli- 
ness  of  music  through  the  purple 
pageant  of  my  inconmiunicable  woe." 

Perhaps  the  most  revealing  passage 
in  the  whole  book  is  a  passage  omitted 
in  the  English  version : 

I  have  said  that  to  speak  the  truth  is  a 
painful  thing.  To  be  forced  to  teU  lies  is 
much  worse.  I  remember  as  I  was  sitting  in 
the  dock  on  the  occasion  of  my  last  trial,  listen- 
ing to  Lockwood's  appalling  denunciations  of 
me — like  a  thing  out  of  Tacitus,  like  a  passage 
in  Dante,  like  one  of  Savonarola's  indictments 
of  the  Popes  at  Rome — and  being  sickened  with 
horror  at  what  I  heard :  suddenly  it  occurred 
to  me,  *'How  splendid  it  would  be,  if  I  was 
saying  all  this  about  myself  I"  I  saw  then  at 
once  that  what  is  said  of  a  man  is  nothing,  the 
point  is.  who  says  it.     A  man's  very  highett 


184 


THE  BOOKMAN 


moment  is,  I  hare  no  doubt  at  all,  when  he 
kneela  in  the  dust  and  beats  hlB  breast,  and 
tells  all  the  sins  of  his  life. 

In  that  passage,  which  speaks 
straight,  and  has  a  fine  eloquence  in  its 
simplicity,  I  seem  to  see  the  whole 
man  summed  up,  and  the  secret  of  his 
life  revealed.  One  sees  that  to  him 
everything  was  drama,  all  the  rest  of 
the  world  and  himself  as  well;  him- 
self indeed  always  at  once  the  protag- 
onist and  the  lonely  king  watching 
the  play  in  the  theatre  emptied  for  his 


pleasure.  After  reading  this  passage 
one  can  understand  that  to  him  sin 
was  a  crisis  in  a  play,  and  punishment 
another  crisis,  and  that  he  was  think- 
ing all  the  time  of  the  fifth  act  and 
the  bow  at  the  fall  of  the  curtain. 
For  he  was  to  be  the  writer  of  the 
play  as  well  as  the  actor  and  the  spec- 
tator. "I  treated  art",  he  says,  "as 
the  supreme  reality,  and  life  as  a  mere 
mode  of  fiction."  A  mode  of  drama, 
he  should  have  said. 


BOOKS  ON  LONESOME  TRAIL 


BY  HILDEGARDE  HAWTHORNE 


TODAY,  as  in  the  days  of  Dumas 
or  Balzac,  you  see  them  lingering 
along  the  little  book-stalls  on  the  quais 
of  Paris,  turning  over  pages  of  books 
old  or  new,  reading  undisturbed  under 
the  shade  of  the  plane  trees — reading 
books  they  are  too  poor  to  buy.  Sol- 
diers in  faded  uniforms,  students  in 
miraculous  hats,  little  midinettes  who 
cling  to  the  arm  of  soldier  or  student 
and  read  too— read  books  they  cannot 
afford  to  buy. 

Of  course  a  book  is  sold  from  these 
stalls  now  and  then,  else  how  would 
the  sellers  live?  But  on  the  whole  the 
quais  along  the  left  bank  are  an  open- 
air  library,  free  to  all  who  choose  to 
stop  and  take  up  a  volume.  Plenty  of 
books,  but  many  readers  without  much 
money.  It  is  like  those  anecdotes  we 
read  of  in  Pepys  or  Johnson,  when  im- 
pecunious young  men,  wishing  to  read 
and  not  being  able  to  buy,  would  haunt 
the  little  bookshops  assiduously,  and 


perched  on  a  ladder  or  a  stool  go 
through  one  work  after  another,  while 
the  owner  of  the  shop  looked  on  in- 
dulgently enough,  or  struck  up  an  un- 
commercial friendship  with  the  young- 
ster. 

Most  of  us  Americans  know  so  little 
about  America  that  we  would  feel  sur- 
prise if  told  that  here  too  the  problem 
of  getting  the  reader  and  the  book 
together  is  a  difficult  one.  Books  are 
not  expensive,  and  most  people  who 
want  to  read  can  easily  afford  to  get 
what  they  want.  Then  there  are  the 
libraries,  established  throughout  the 
country  and  eager  to  serve  the  book- 
lacking  and  book-wanting  public.  Cer- 
tainly there  is  no  one  who  wants  to 
read  and  knows  how  to  read  who  is  de- 
prived of  reading  here  in  these  United 
States. 

So  we  think,  in  our  towns  and  cities, 
in  our  thriving  rural  communities 
with  their  pretty  library  buildings. 


BOOKS  ON  LONESOME  TRAIL 


185 


our  villages  where  the  librarian  is  the 
most  popular  young  woman  of  the 
place.  But  we  think  wrong.  There 
are  thousands  of  people  in  our  coun- 
try who  cannot  get  anything  to  read — 
probably  there  are  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands— and  yet  who  want  to  read. 

Ponder  this  appeal,  which  comes 
from  a  camp  in  the  state  of  Washing- 
ton: 

Will  you  please  inform  me  where  I  can  find 
oat  how  to  get  library  and  reading-room  facili- 
ties for  small  towns,  rural  communities,  and 
mining  and  logging  camps?  It  is  certain  that 
there  is  a  wonderful  opportunity  to  promote 
good  citisenship  in  hundreds  of  communities  re- 
mote from  cities  where  there  is  no  entertain- 
ment and  nothing  to  read.  Glacier  is  a  mining 
and  logging  community.  After  work  the  men 
congregate  in  a  desolate  pool-room  or  Just  sit 
on  the  sidewalk. . . . 

For  those  men,  it  is  a  world  with- 
out books.  Hard  to  realize.  No  books, 
no  magazines,  for  there  is  no  one  to 
start  subscribing.  You  have  to  be 
trained  to  read,  and  the  training  is 
the  having  of  books,  the  seeing  books 
about,  the  comments  of  others  who  are 
reading.  There  is  nothing  of  all  this 
in  Glacier. 

Here  is  another  letter  written  by 
an  ex-soldier  who  had  come  into  con- 
tact with  books  while  in  France,  and 
who  wants  the  American  Library  As- 
sociation to  help  him  and  his  pals : 

A  number  of  us  are  marooned  in  a  small 
mining  town  (Dines,  Wyoming)  with  the  near- 
est library  three  hundred  mUes  away.  Have 
you  any  system  of  sending  books  through  the 
maU?  A  kind  of  correspondence  library  card? 
If  so  wiU  you  kindly  advise  me  of  the  terms 
under  which  books  will  be  sent? 

We  would  be  interested  in  good  fiction  by 
such  writers  as  Harold  Bell  Wright,  Gene  Strat- 
ton-Porter,  Jack  London,  O.  Henry,  and  Mark 
Twain.  Also  classics  such  as  Dickens,  Poe, 
Shakespeare,  Victor  Hugo,  Balzac,  etc. 

Also  we  would  like  to  take  up  some  educa- 
tional work  in  history,  sociology,  economics, 
botany,  geology  and  kindred  sciences,  and  tech- 
nical works  coyering  a  myriad  of  subjects. . . . 

Think  of  having  all  those  desires 
and  being  three  hundred  miles  from 
any  book — even  one  by  Mr.  Wright! 


Many  of  the  letters  that  come  to  the 
A.  L.  A.  asking  for  reading  matter  are 
badly  misspelled.  None  the  less,  each 
represents  a  prospective  reader — a 
man  who,  like  the  readers  along  the 
qtuiis  and  in  the  old  bookshops,  pur- 
sues his  desire  under  difficulties.  Here 
is  a  brief  cry  for  help : 

"Gentlemen: — Will  you  please  send 
me  one  of  them  learning  books  if  you 
still  have  them." 

This  came  from  a  small  place  in 
Pennsylvania.  From  Texas  we  have 
a  more  definite  demand : 

I  wish  to  borrow  three  or  more  books  from 
your  Libary  if  you  have  them  on  hand  namerly 
Auto  repair  text  book  in  arithmetic  Bookeep- 
ing  typewriting  as  I  am  one  of  the  number  that 
served  overseas  and  I  would  like  to  have  your 
best  surport  if  possiable  I  wants  to  fit  my  self 
for  higher  Ideal  in  life,  wUl  you  help  me  to? 

The  war  world  suddenly  revealed 
the  library,  the  book  as  a  possible  pos- 
session and  source  of  interest  and  edu- 
cation to  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
men  who  had  never  conceived  of  it 
from  a  personal  point  of  view  before 
that  time.  And  also  it  revealed  these 
would-be  readers  in  lost  places  to  the 
library.  And  with  that  vision  was 
bom  a  new  library  ideal. 

This  new  ideal  is  very  human.  It  is 
the  latest  development  of  the  library 
which  began  many  years  ago  as  a  re- 
pository of  books  to  which  certain 
privileged  persons  should  have  access. 
It  was  intensely  formal,  the  associa- 
tion between  library  and  reader  in 
that  day.  The  reader  was  supposed 
to  know  what  he  wanted,  and  he 
signed  registers  and  went  through 
various  formulas  before  he  was  al- 
lowed to  get  it.  That  was  his  only 
personal  contact,  the  only  man-to-man 
touch  in  the  transaction. 

Then  came  the  circulating  libraries, 
reaching  out  into  the  homes,  and  the 
reading-rooms  open  to  all,  with  assist- 
ants to  advise  and  help.  Next  the  chil- 


136 


THE   BOOKMAN 


dren's  rooms,  and  the  story  hours. 
But  still,  it  was  the  people  who  came 
to  the  library,  which  waited  to  be 
called  upon. 

And  now  comes  the  final  step  in  the 
progress  of  getting  books  and  readers 
together. 

The  library  goes  forth  to  find  the 
reader.  It  hunts  him  out  at  the  end 
of  many  a  lonesome  trail,  finds  him  in 
remote  and  desolate  spots,  appeals  to 
him  through  his  wish  to  improve  his 
chances  in  life,  to  learn  more  about  his 
job,  and  goes  on  with  the  work  until 
it  has  made  a  true  reader  of  him. 

Far  into  the  southern  mountains, 
where  the  feudists  still  arrange  dis- 
putes without  recourse  to  the  law, 
goes  the  Book  Wagon.  At  first  it 
found  the  men  absent  from  home — 
they  had  no  use  for  strangers — ^and 
the  women  timid  and  suspicious.  But 
it  continued  its  trips,  going  twice  a 
year.  The  children  were  friendly,  and 
the  traveling  librarian  was  what  is 
called  a  good  mixer.  She  gradually 
won  over  the  women,  and  her  visits 
became  events.  The  books  were  taken 
eagerly,  those  who  could  not  read 
learning  from  those  who  could.  On 
one  of  these  routes  a  single  young 
woman  showed  some  response.  Now 
every  door  is  ready  to  open,  and  the 
husband  of  the  young  woman,  once  an 
illiterate,  has  learned  to  read  and  de- 
lights in  the  outdoor  books  of  such 
writers  as  Zane  Grey,  Ralph  Connor, 
Dr.  Grenfell,  Jack  London  and  others. 
He  has  found  a  new  world,  and  so  have 
his  neighbors.  None  of  these  moun- 
tain folk  would  have  had  books,  none 
would  ever  have  found  his  way  to  a 
library.  But  the  library  found  its  way 
to  him. 

From  Wolfpit,  Pike  County,  Ken- 
tucky, a  woman  writes: 

"I  am  working  in  the  interest  of 
child   welfare   here    in   this   mining 


camp.  Many  of  these  homes  'ain't  got 
nary  a  book'.  A  library  would  be  a 
wonderful  advantage^in  this  commu- 
nity." 

It  is  through  devoted  workers  in 
many  of  these  tiny  places,  far  from 
railroads  and  towns,  that  the  first  ap- 
peal comes.  A  young  woman  mission- 
ary 'liigh  up  on  the  Blue  Ridge  Moun- 
tains of  North  Carolina",  writes  to 
ask  if  a  few  hundred  books  from  the 
camp  libraries  now  passing  out  of 
commission  might  be  diverted  to  her 
community: 

We  have  a  small  library  of  abont  three  hun- 
dred books  which  are  in  great  demand — ^many 
coming  for  miles  over  the  mountains  to  get 
books  and  magazines.  There  is  no  fee  charged 
and  I  do  not  require  a  very  strict  time  limit. 
as  it  is  not  always  easy  to  get  them  back  and 
I  do  not  want  to  put  the  slightest  obstacle  in 
the  way  of  their  having  the  greatest  possible 
circulation.  We  are  greatly  isolated  here,  espe- 
cially during  the  long  and  very  cold  winters, 
BO  that  reading  matter  and  social  gatherings 
are  helpful.  * 

Here  is  a  picture  of  how  the  library 
functions  in  Multnomah  County,  Ore- 
gon: 

The  work  of  bringing  the  library's  resources 
to  the  rural  population  of  the  county  has  been 
done  not  by  printed  advertisements  in  the 
newspapers,  nor  by  the  making  of  formal  ad- 
dresses, but  by  going  out  into  the  highways  and 
greeting  the  people  along  the  roads,  learning 
their  names,  listening  to  their  reports  of  crops 
and  stock,  and  telling  in  friendly  fashion  of 
the  books  the  library  is  so  glad  to  supply.  This 
getting  acquainted  leads  the  people  to  write  to 
the  librarian  or  come  fearlessly  to  her  office 
anytime  to  consult  the  books. 

The  use  which  the  public  makes  of 
a  library  once  it  has  been  taught  that 
the  library  wants  to  serve  it,  is  shown 
by  the  quantities  of  letters  that  come 
from  all  sorts  of  people  and  all  sorts 
of  places  to  the  librarian  who  has 
charge  of  the  rural  work  in  Wiscon- 
sin. One  man  writes  asking  for  books 
on  raising  and  marketing  ducks,  and 
wants  a  list  of  agricultural  books. 
From  a  woman  comes  this  request : 


BOOKS  ON   LONESOME   TRAIL 


187 


"Will  you  please  send  any  material 
that  might  be  of  use  in  preparing  a 
paper  on  the  subject  'Woman  in  the 
Financial  World'?" 

Another  woman  wants  a  play  ''with 
a  good  story  or  theme".  She  adds  that 
there  are  about  thirty  people  in  the 
"social  centre"  and  that  the  play  would 
"have  to  include  all".  One  wonders 
what  the  librarian  chose.  Simpler  is 
the  plea  to  send  "two  herb  books  of 
the  different  kinds  of  herbs  and  their 
medicinal  value",  and  there  are  count- 
less requests  for  garden,  fruit,  and 
stock  books. 

To  us,  trying  to  make  time  to  read 
the  latest  book  by  WeUs  or  Maugham 
or  Ib&nez  or  Booth  Tarkington  or 
Willa  Sibert  Gather,  the  mere  thought 
of  no  books  at  all  is  imtenable.  We 
can't  hold  it.  We,  who  rarely  have  a 
long  evening  free  to  read  in,  find  it 
difficult  to  realize  an  unending  series 
of  long  evenings  where  there  is  noth- 
ing to  read.  Books  for  the  Bookless. 
That  is  the  new  job -ahead  of  our 
public  libraries,  and  to  fulfil  it  they 
must  ride  the  long  trails  and  make 
camp  in  many  a  lonely  valley  or  small 
prairie  town  or  mountain  fastness. 
They  followed  our  soldiers  overseas, 
into  hospitals,  aboard  ships.  But  the 
former  soldier  is  now  the  citizen.  He 
is  us.  He  is  no  longer  a  soldier,  and 
he  needs  books  as  much  or  more  than 
ever.  He  is  asking  for  them  from  all 
the  inaccessible  places  on  our  great 


continent,  he  and  his  womenfolk  and 
his  children.  And  the  books  are  find- 
ing their  way  to  him. 

The  A.  L.  A.  is  no  longer  a  collec- 
tion of  books  on  shelves.  It  has  been 
finding  out  for  some  time  it  is  a  hu-  ' 
man  thing,  and  that  its  relation  with 
the  public  is  that  of  friend  to  friend. 
Like  the  old  bookseller  in  the  London 
shops  of  generations  back,  it  has 
begun  to  hobnob  with  those  who  can- 
not buy  books  and  who  have  no  way  to 
get  them  save  through  it.  Soldier  and 
student,  they  look  to  it  for  the  volumes 
that  will  amuse  or  assist  them,  as  the 
students  and  the  soldiers  haunt  the 
stalls  on  the  crowded  qvjois  of  Paris. 
Books  are  friendly  things,  and  those 
who  live  with  them  and  handle  them 
are  friendly  too.  Where  a  man  can- 
not buy,  they  let  him  turn  the  pages 
and  read  as  he  wishes.  Where  he  can- 
not get  to  the  source  and  lay  his  hand 
on  the  book  he  wants,  they  go  forth 
and  take  it  to  him. 

The  habit  of  reading  is  catching. 
One  child  getting  a  book  through  the 
children's  service  often  makes  readers 
of  the  whole  family.  One  family  read- 
ing books  awakens  the  desire  in  the 
rest  of  the  community.  The  men  sit- 
ting on  the  curb  and  waiting  for  night 
and  bed  "with  nary  a  book"  are  a  long 
way  from  us.  But  the  book  will  find 
them,  for  the  book  is  off  on  the  lone- 
some trail,  where  of  all  places  in  the 
world  it  is  most  needed. 


HAS  NEW  ENGLAND  AN  ART  SENSE  ? 


BY  HELEN  W.  HENDERSON 


NEW  ENGLAND'S  reaction  to  art. 
At  first,  offhand,  one  might  be 
tempted  to  dismiss  hastily  and  not 
without  irritation  the  whole  idea  as 
unsubstantial  and  visionary — on  the 
old  grounds  that  art  and  the  Puritan 
temperament  are  incompatible;  that 
art  in  the  New  England  island  was 
strangled  at  its  birth;  that  upon  the 
hardy  granite  soil  and  within  the 
flinty,  Puritan  heart  art  found  no  foot- 
hold, derived  no  nourishment,  and  so 
languished  upon  an  inhospitable 
threshold. 

There  is  a  certain  amount  of  truth, 
of  course,  in  this  exaggerated  state- 
ment— as  much  truth,  I  suppose,  as 
might  be  found  in  the  history  of  the 
founding  of  any  new  country.  Found- 
ers can  deal  only  with  elementary 
things;  their  work  is  in  clearing 
ground,  fixing  boundaries,  mapping 
out  settlements,  laying  foundations, 
establishing  government.  We  have 
hardly  yet  had  time  for  any  spontane- 
ous, native  art  to  germinate  in  this 
new  soil. 

It  is  not,  then,  surprising  that  the 
obvious  facts  and  achievements  of 
New  England's  art  reaction  date  well 
within  the  memory  of  men  still  in 
their  prime.  Before  the  reclamation 
of  the  Back  Bay,  for  instance, — when 
Boston  town  hung  suspended,  like  a 
pear,  from  the  slender  stem  of  land 
which  connected  it  with  the  town  of 

138 


Roxbury, — ^that  vigorous  artist,  Rob- 
ert Vonnoh,  remembers  vividly  learn- 
ing to  swim  in  the  ''Baby  Pond"  in 
the  Fenway,  where  now  stands  Mrs. 
Jack  Gardner's  imported  Italian  villa, 
within  sight  and  sound  of  the  big,  for- 
bidding structure  on  Huntington  Ave- 
nue, now  known  as  the  Museum  of 
Fine  Arts. 

The  bleak  mausoleum  itself,  even 
considered  in  its  first  form  as  the 
Venetian  palace,  which  in  the  centen- 
nial year  burst  forth  upon  Copley 
Square,  was  not  definitely  projected 
until  the  year  1870;  while  Trinity 
Church,  the  Library,  the  Art  Club,  the 
Paint  and  Clay  Club,  and  the  Saint 
Botolph  Club  are  still  more  recent  de- 
velopments of  the  city's  artistic  con- 
sciousness. 

The  museum,  in  this  like  most  or  all 
American  art  museums  as  to  its  local- 
ity, never  in  the  least  reflected  any- 
thing of  Boston  or  New  England — 
nothing,  at  least,  beyond  the  few  local 
portraits  and  the  superb  collection  of 
Copleys.  The  museum  was  merely  a 
storage  warehouse  "for  the  preserva- 
tion and  exhibition  of  works  of  art", 
so  reads  the  oflicial  booklet.  And, 
after  all,  I  have  never  mxich  blamed 
the  Bostonians  for  their  lack  of  real, 
live  interest  in  their  museum — it 
seems,  with  all  its  gorgeousness,  espe- 
cially in  the  matter  of  Oriental  su- 
premacy, too  singularly  unrelated  to 


HAS   NEW  ENGLAND   AN   ART   SENSE? 


1S9 


their  lives  to  stir  real,  live  interest. 

I  recall  with  wicked  pleasure,  as 
more  typical  than  any  true  native 
would  admit,  the  attitude  of  a  woman 
of  whom  a  friend  and  I  once  asked  the 
way  in  Boston.  Passing  through  the 
city  upon  sketching  trips  to  the  coast, 
our  first  thought  always  as  conscien- 
tious art  students  was  to  make  for  the 
museum.  It  had  been  easy  enough  to 
find  in  the  old  days  when  it  formed  the 
logical  feature  of  Copley  Square;  but 
car  lines  in  Boston  are  puzzling  to  the 
stranger,  and  finding  ourselves  there 
soon  after  the  removal  of  the  museum 
to  its  new  location  on  Huntington 
Avenue,  we  were  obliged  to  ask  our 
way. 

One  of  those  pleasant  Boston  women 
of  the  provincial  class  detailed  the  di- 
rections with  characteristic  exactness, 
and  then,  warming  to  her  theme, 
threw  in  the  mention  of  a  few  of  the 
salient  points  of  the  great  repository 
of  art,  with  particular  reference  to  the 
avoidance  of  pay  days — urging  upon 
us  the  prudence  of  deferring  our  visit 
until  the  Saturday  or  Sunday  when 
admission  would  be  free.  "I  guess  it's 
the  finest  museum  in  the  country," 
said  she,  and  she  knew  her  subject. 
"They  have  lots  of  pictures  and 
statues  by  the  great  artists;  they 
have  Stuart's  best  portrait  of  Wash- 
ington, they  have  the  best  Copleys  in 
the  country,  they  have  fine  foreign 
collections  from  China  and  Japan,  and 
all  over  the  world — ^but",  confiden- 
tially, "it  ain't  wuth  a  quarter." 

And,  from  her  point  of  view — the 
point  of  view  of  the  big,  preponderant 
mass  of  intellectual  bourgeoisie  of 
New  England,  I  think  she  was  entirely 
right.  It  "ain't  wuth  a  quarter"  to  a 
person  like  her,  simply  because  with 
all  its  magnificence,  and  it  is  magnifi- 
cent, there  is  almost  nothing  in  these 
vast  halls  that  belongs  there,  nothing 


that  relates  to  the  New  England 
island,  nothing  to  stir  the  sense  of 
kinship,  except,  as  I  have  said,  the 
handful  of  historic  portraits  and  the 
collection  of  the  native  painter,  Cop- 
ley. 

One  cannot  look  at  Stuart's  portrait 
of  Mayor  Josiah  Quincy — ^and  it's  a 
glorious  Stuart — ^without  getting  a 
thrill.  It  must  strike  a  sympathetic 
chord  in  the  breast  of  every  Bostonian, 
for  it  simply  ties  together  in  one  de- 
licious document  the  personality  of 
the  genial  mayor,  his  service  to  Bos- 
ton (in  reclaiming  the  land  upon 
which  that  fat,  substantial,  granite 
temple — the  Quincy  Market — stands 
as  a  monument  to  his  energy),  and  a 
very  graceful  and  beautiful  example 
of  the  art  of  a  contemporary,  resident 
painter.  Mayor  Quincy  holds  the  plans 
of  the  reclaimed  quarter  under  his 
hand,  upon  the  table  before  him,  while 
behind  him  is  a  suggestion  of  the 
Quincy  Market;  and  Stuart  saw  him 
as  one  of  the  builders  of  Boston.  The 
canvas  is  exquisitely  painted ;  its  color 
is  equal  to  any  of  Stuart's  earlier  por- 
traits. 

To  me  an  infinitely  more  interesting 
museum,  because  intimately  associ- 
ated with  the  founders  and  woven  into 
the  lives  and  history  of  the  people,  is 
the  Peabody  Museum,  at  Salem.  This 
museum  founded  by  the  sea  captains 
of  Salem  who  had  been  to  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope  or  made  the  voyage  to 
the  Indies,  was  the  first  conscious  ef- 
fort on  the  part  of  the  New  Engend- 
ers to  bring  foreign  works  of  art  be- 
fore the  home-folks.  Its  collections 
have  personality  and  interest  because 
they  represent  the  personal  choice  of 
Salem's  merchants  and  bring  us  in 
touch  with  the  bizarre  contrasts  of 
their  lives;  just  as  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  eighteenth  century  they  brought 
home  to  the  stationary  population  of 


140 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Salem  some  flavor  of  what  the  cap- 
tains and  merchants,  piling  up  wealth 
in  their  transactions  in  the  Orient, 
saw,  admired  and  coveted  during  the 
long  absences  in  foreign  ports. 

What  more  thrilling  room  in  any 
museum  may  be  found  than  the  Ma- 
rine Room  of  the  Peabody  Museum, 
where  contemporary  portraits  of  the 
captains  look  across  to  contemporary 
portraits  of  the  ships  which  they  com- 
manded, while  between  are  ranged  the 
picturesque  spoils  of  their  adventur- 
ous voyages? 

As  for  any  true  developmeift  or 
original  outcropping  of  art  in  New 
England,  we  find  it  first  and  in  its 
richest  state  in  Salem.  It  was  here 
that  shipwrights  turned  the  perfec- 
tion of  their  skill  upon  the  designing 
and  ornamentation  of  beautiful  homes, 
developing  an  architecture  compara- 
ble, within  its  limited  scope,  to  the 
great  movement  of  the  day  in  Eng- 
land, under  the  brothers  Adam.  It 
was  here  that  was  developed  that 
sporadic  genius,  Samuel  Mclntire, 
who  rivals  Rush  as  the  first  American- 
bom  sculptor — a  man  whose  genius 
the  world  has  hardly  as  yet  recog- 
nized. 

The  history  of  art  in  New  England 
is  like  the  history  of  art  in  any  coun- 
try— it  was  stified  during  the  years  of 
struggle  and  poverty,  it  blossomed  in 
the  train  of  affluence  and  leisure.  As 
soon  as  the  sea  captains  had  made 
their  piles,  their  thoughts  inevitably 
turned  upon  the  embellishment  of 
their  homes.  They  brought  back  what 
they  could  carry  from  the  old  world — 
sometimes  even  entire  houses  to  be  set 
up,  as  the  Winslow  house  in  Plym- 
outh; sometimes  rolls  of  hand-made 
wall-paper  from  Alsace — lots  of  it  is 
still  to  be  seen  in  Salem  and  in  New- 
buryport;  sometimes  furniture,  mir- 
rors made  to  order  in  France  to  fit 


over  mantels  designed  here  by  the 
wood-carvers  that  the  decline  of  ship 
building  had  left  to  work  upon  the 
captains'  homes;  and  always  they 
brought  clocks,  bronzes,  chandeliers, 
curios  of  all  sorts,  to  stand  upon  the 
"what-nots"  in  the  comers  of  the 
drawing-rooms. 

The  desire  for  an  expression  of  the 
beautiful  in  the  home,  spread  from 
Salem  up  and  down  the  New  England 
coast;  Newburyport,  Portsmouth, 
Newport,  and  many  minor  towns  still 
show  how  true  to  something  homo- 
geneous and  honest  ran  the  artistic 
taste  of  the  men  whose  fortunes  were 
made  in  trade  with  foreign  countries. 

The  flower  of  the  whole  movement 
was  Bulfinch — as  has  been  said,  our 
first  and  last  native  architect.  His 
few  original,  unspoiled  rooms  in  the 
original  part  of  the  State  House  in 
Boston,  designed  by  himself,  show 
more  of  New  England's  reaction  to  art 
than  the  whole  of  the  artificial  mu- 
seum or  the  exotics  which  fringe  the 
border  of  Copley  Square.  Bulfinch 
made  a  little  Boston  of  his  own;  and 
though  only  a  few  fragments  of  his 
work  have  escaped  demolition,  the 
beauty  of  those  fragments  is  enough 
to  prove  his  genius.  The  fact  that  the 
architect  himself  was  a  native  of  Bos- 
ton, bom  at  the  northern  base  of 
Beacon  Hill,  upon  his  grandfather's 
estate, — ^now  Bowdoin  Square,  the  site 
opposite  the  Revere  House, — gives  the 
related  touch  that  makes  the  whole 
fabric  of  his  work. 

The  pleasure  I  had  in  the  architec- 
tural mass  of  the  Massachusetts  Gen- 
eral Hospital, — somewhat  altered  from 
the  Bulfinch  design  but  still  a  glorious 
building, — ^the  joy  I  felt  in  wandering 
about  the  Bulfinch  rooms  in  the  State 
House,  it  seemed  to  me  I  had  almost 
to  myself.  During  a  year  spent  on 
Beacon  Hill  I  took  many  Bostonians  to 


HAS   NEW   ENGLAND   AN    ART   SENSE? 


141 


866  the86  works  of  genius — ^to  all  of 
them  it  was  a  first  visit.  It  seemed 
to  me  perfectly  monstrous  that  no 
splendid  photographs  of  these  rooms 
had  been  made,  that  I  was  refused  on 
all  sides  the  privilege  of  making  rec- 
ords of  the  details.  Should  the  build- 
ing be  destroyed  by  fire,  nothing  so 
far  as  I  could  discover,  except  a  book 
of  tiny  snap-shots  made  by  an  official 
in  the  State  House  employ,  would  re- 
main to  show  what  Bulfinch  did  for 
this  building. 

All  the  riches  that  have  poured  into 
the  making  of  the  library  the  splendid 
monument  it  is,  that  have  swept  the 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  a  half  cen- 
tury to  its  present  prodigious  im- 
portance in  various  extraneous  fields, 
do  not  compensate  for  the  neglect  of 
this  adorable  relic  of  the  fruition  of 
Bulfinch^s  mature  period.  I  visited 
them — ^the  old  Senate  Chamber  with 
its  perfect  ceiling  in  caissons,  the  opu- 
lent lotus  bloom  spread  abundantly  as 
the  unit  of  design ;  the  old  Represen- 
tatives' Hall,  where  the  Sacred  Cod 
used  to  hang,  its  elaborate  circular 
ceiling  unsurpassed  by  anything  of  its 
style — ^many  times.  I  found  them  al- 
ways wrapt  in  solitary  silence,  im- 
maculate, impeccable,  but  totally  dis- 
regarded. 

Through  Newport,  Rhode  Island, 
came  many  art  influences  into  New 
England.  Not  far  from  this  city,  in 
the  Narraganset  country,  was  bom 
Gilbert  Stuart,  with  Copley  (bom  in 
Boston)  our  most  famous  portrait 
painter.  The  Redwood  Library  con- 
tains several  priceless  gems  of  his 
most  youthful  period.  Into  Newport 
came  also  from  an  English  port.  Dean 
Berkeley  bringing  Smibert,  the  Scot- 
tish portrait  painter,  and  Peter  Har- 
rison, the  English  architect.  What 
Mclntire  did  for  Salem  and  Bulfinch 
did  for  Boston,  Peter  Harrison  accom- 


plished for  Newport.  His  architectural 
style  was  less  individual  than  either 
of  the  Americans.  His  Redwood  Li- 
brary at  Newport  is  strictly  classic, 
and  his  King's  Chapel  in  Boston  fol- 
lows the  same  general  style,  though 
being  built  of  rough,  unhewn  boulders 
and  never  having  received  the  ter- 
minating grace  of  its  intended  steeple; 
it  has  an  oddity  which  passes  for 
character,  and  its  handsome  interior 
atones  for  much. 

Smibert,  too,  built  the  first  Faneuil 
Hall,  remodeled  by  Bulfinch  after  the 
painter's  design.  Newport's  library 
contains  many  of  the  finest  of  his 
paintings.  The  wealth  of  the  town 
and  its  strategic  importance  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolution,  made  Newport 
a  centre  of  luxury  and  fashion  in  the 
old  days,  and  its  artistic  reaction  was 
in  proportion  to  its  importance.  In 
the  mere  matter  of  grave-stones — in 
the  cemetery  surrounding  Trinity, 
that  most  beautiful  of  New  England 
churches — New  England's  sensitive- 
ness to  beauty  and  grace  of  design 
may  be  judged.  And  when  it  comes  to 
grave-stones,  not  counting  what  have 
been  lost  through  carelessness, — ^for 
many  choice  ones  were  taken  from  the 
Burial  Hill  at  Plymouth,  especially, 
and  used  to  cover  drains  and  cess- 
.  pools, — a  most  delightful  gallery  of 
them  might  be  imagined,  might  indeed 
some  day  be  made  a  feature  of  some 
archseological  museum.  There  are 
stones  at  Plymouth  and  Salem,  in  the 
old  Charter  Street  burying-ground, 
that  would  make  an  exhibition  of 
"modern"  sculpture  look  extremely 
weak  and  foolish. 

After  Copley  outgrew  Boston  and 
went  to  seek  his  fortune  in  England, 
where  he  became  a  famous  portrait 
painter  of  the  eighteenth  century 
school;  after  Stuart's  vogue  declined 
and  he  died  in  poverty  and  was  buried 


142 


THE   BOOKMAN 


in  the  Potter's  Field,  on  the  Common ; 
after  Bulfinch  and  his  ideals  in  archi- 
tecture had  passed  away,  there  was  a 
long  blank  period  in  the  art  life  of 
New  England.  This  blank  period 
lasted  so  long  that  when  Dr.  William 
Rimmer,  William  Morris  Hunt,  and 
George  Fuller  appeared  upon  the 
scene  about  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  as  the  three  dominant 
features  in  the  founding  of  anything 
approaching  a  modem  movement  in 
art  in  New  England,  they  sprang  from 
no  old  roots,  revived  no  spirit  of  what 
had  gone  before;  but  they  were  to 
struggle  against  prejudice  and  in  an 
atmosphere  totally  indifferent  to  their 
aims  and  achievements. 

It  is  curious  that  both  Rimmer  and 
Hunt  found  their  most  fruitful  field 
of  influence  among  women  students,  of 
which  both  artists  had  a  great  many. 
Dr.  Rimmer  was  both  physician  and 
sculptor;  his  classes  in  artistic  anat- 
omy, at  the  Lowell  Institute,  were  well 
attended — ^became,  in  fact,  the  rage. 
That  he  leaned  strongly  to  the  classic 
may  be  seen  in  everything  he  did — 
in  his  statue  of  Alexander  Hamilton, 
at  the  head  of  the  Garden  on  Common- 
wealth Avenue;  in  his  head  of  St. 
Stephen,  cut  in  granite;  and  in  the 
"Gladiator",  "concealed"  in  the  Boston 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts. 

If  Dr.  Rimmer  opened  the  minds 
of  those  with  whom  he  came  in  con- 
tact, to  art,  it  was  for  William  Morris 
Hunt  to  bring  that  gayer  side  of  their 
profession  into  the  lives  of  the  people. 
Hunt,  traveling  and  studying  abroad, 
found  Millet  at  Barbizon,  and  discov- 
ered the  great  French  painter  to  Bos- 
ton and  to  America.  Hunt  was  Mil- 
let's pupil  and  friend,  and  it  was 
through  his  interest  and  enthusiasm 
that  Quincy  Shaw  became  possessed 
of  the  fine  collection  of  Millet's  works 
lately  presented  to  the  Museum. 


Trueman  H.  Bartlett,  who  is  the  only 
old,  intimate  friend  of  Hunt's  now  liv- 
ing, writes  of  him  as  "now  about  for- 
gotten". It  seemed  so  to  me,  indeed, 
when  attending  the  thronged  opening 
of  the  Quincy  Shaw  Collection  in  the 
winter  of  1918,  I  ventured  to  inquire 
of  the  museum  guards  the  directions 
for  finding  the  Hunt  Room,  which  I 
had  once  seen  in  the  building.  It  was 
wartime  and  winter,  but  upon  appli- 
cation an  attendant  was  furnished  to 
run  me  up  in  the  disused  lift  to  the 
little  sanctuary  where  the  Hunt  Col- 
lection is  installed.  Evidently  nobody 
ever  goes  there.  The  place  was  dusty 
and  in  disorder,  pictures  had  been  re- 
moved leaving  blank  spaces,  and  my 
pleasure  was  harried  by  the  heavy 
breathing  of  the  bored  attendant  who 
waited  for  me  in  the  anteroom.  There 
is  no  stairway  by  which  this  room  can 
be  reached,  so  that  one  is  entirely  de- 
pendent upon  the  lift. 

I  could  see  also  that  the  polite  man- 
agement looked  upon  me  as  a  sort  of 
old-fashioned  crank  when  I  asked  to 
be  shown  Rimmer's  "Gladiator";  and 
while  I  was  not  refused  my  odd  re- 
quest, it  was  made  plain  that  so  much 
lumber  would  have  to  be  moved  before 
I  could  gain  access  to  it  in  its  base- 
ment retirement,  that  I  had  pity  and 
gave  it  up. 

It  is  rather  a  nice  question  where  to 
draw  the  line  between  civic  pride  and 
reaction  to  art.  I  feel  pretty  sure  that 
a  genuine  reaction  to  art  would  give 
more  prominence  to  Hunt,  Rimmer, 
and  Fuller  as  the  three  dominant  fac- 
tors in  the  beginnings  of  modem  art 
in  New  England;  and  I  realize  that 
a  just  appreciation  of  what  is  indi- 
genous will  go  further  in  the  long  run 
than  the  present  madness  for  Japanese 
and  Chinese  exploitation. 

Yet  civic  pride  has  led  Boston  miles 
ahead  of  Philadelphia,   for  instance, 


HAS   NEW   ENGLAND   AN    ART   SENSE? 


143 


whose  Academy  of  Fine  Arts  ante- 
dates the  Boston  Museum  by  more 
than  half  a  century.  That  intensely 
Bostonese  wish  to  have  the  best,  to  be 
the  best,  especially  upon  the  intel- 
lectual plane,  has  given  Bostonians  a 
magnificent  public  library  with  its  im- 
portant decorations ;  and  accounts  for 
the  phenomenal  growth  and  develop- 
ment of  the  museum  through  the  ac- 
tion of  its  patrons.  Trustees,  direct- 
ors, citizens  in  general  have  all  come 
forward  handsomely;  and  their  atti- 
tude with  respect  to  foundations, 
gifts,  bequests,  and  annual  support 
has  been  wholly  admirable.  No  sup- 
port from  the  city  or  state  has  ever 
been  received,  the  only  gift  from  a 
public  source  being  the  plot  of  ground 
on  Copley  Square,  occupied  by  the  first 
building. 

Boston  had  been  slow  to  awaken  to 
the  need  for  a  museum.  In  1859  the 
Jarves  Collection  of  Italian  primitives, 
now  in  New  Haven,  had  been  offered 
as  a  nucleus  for  a  public  museum  of 
art  in  Boston,  but  the  city  failed  to 
grasp  the  opportunity  and  the  project 
was  abandoned.  It  was  not  until  ten 
years  later — ^when  the  Boston  Ath- 
enaeum had  received  a  bequest  of 
armor  with  funds  for  its  installation, 
when  the  Social  Science  Association 
had  conceived  the  idea  of  a  public  col- 
lection   of   plaster    reproductions    of 


sculpture,  when  Harvard  College 
sought  an  opportunity  to  make  its  col- 
lections of  engravings  accessible  to  the 
public,  and  the  collection  of  architec- 
tural casts  belonging  to  the  Massa- 
chusetts Institute  of  Technology  had 
outgrown  its  quarters — ^that  the  need 
for  a  museum  became  acute.  These 
organizations,  backed  by  other  inter- 
ested parties,  applied  for  a  charter. 

The  building  grew  in  sections.  In 
1871  sufficient  funds  were  subscribed 
to  build  the  first  wing;  and  the  col- 
lections of  the  museum,  both  gifts 
and  loans,  which  for  four  years  had 
been  shown  in  two  rooms  at  the  Ath- 
enaeum, were  installed.  Popular  sub- 
scriptions furnished  the  funds  with 
which  by  1888  the  building  on  Copley 
Square  was  finished.  The  enlarged 
building,  which  one  remembers  as  an 
unmistakable  art  museum,  with  all  its 
fiorid  accessories,  was  opened  in  1890 ; 
but  within  nine  years  it  had  already 
become  evident  that  much  more  space 
would  soon  be  needed,  and  the  prop- 
erty on  the  Fenway,  where  the  new 
museum  now  stands,  had  been  pur- 
chased. 

If  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts 
may  be  taken  to  express  New  Eng- 
land's reaction  to  art,  then  that  reac- 
tion has  been  sufficient  to  justify  the 
best  ambitions  of  civic  pride. 


THE  CONTRIBUTOR  WHO  CALLS 


BY  CHARLES  HANSON  TOWNE 


I  HAVE  long  noted  it  as  a  curious 
fact  that  the  contributor  who  makes 
it  his  business  to  call  upon  editors — 
with  his  manuscripts  surrounding  him 
80  that  often  he  is  himself  almost  hid- 
den— seldom  has  anything  worth  while 
to  offer.  I  suppose  the  psychology  is 
that  the  man  who  bothers  you  with  re- 
peated visits  is  lacking  in  that  refine- 
ment of  taste  so  necessary  in  the  real 
creative  artist.  People  of  imagina- 
tion let  you  alone — ^whether  you  hap- 
pen to  be  an  editor  or  just  a  friend. 
(Sometimes,  miraculously,  you  may  be 
both!) 

Looking  back  over  fifteen  years  or 
so  of  editorial  work,  I  marvel  at  the 
small  percentage  of  material  found 
through  the  process  of  its  being 
brought  by  hand  to  one's  sanctum.  Of 
course  I  do  not  refer  to  the  call  made 
by  appointment.  Practically  every 
magazine  article  nowadays  is  talked 
over  and  gone  over,  from  every  point 
of  view,  many  times  before  it  gets  into 
shape  for  the  printer.  Necessarily, 
therefore,  certain  contributors  are 
frequently  at  one's  door.  I  am  writ- 
ing of  that  casual  guest  whose  main 
occupation  in  life,  when  he  is  not 
working  assiduously  at  uninspired 
stories  or  poems,  is  to  waste  other 
people's  time.  A  genius  is  generally 
a  modest  soul.  I  picture  Chatterton 
as  unspeakably  afraid  of  editors  and 
publishers — and  even  of  their  under- 


lings; and  we  all  know  how  Francis 
Thompson  ran  away  from  any  contact 
with  those  of  his  craft,  wd  slept 
under  London  Bridge.  The  poet  starv- 
ing in  a  garret  may  not  be  so  imagin- 
ary a  figure  as  we  suppose,  even  in  our 
own  age.  It  is  because  we  editors 
fear  to  lose  the  one  flower  out  of  so 
many  weeds  that  call,  that  we  try  to 
see  everyone  who  knocks  upon  the 
door. 

I  confess  that  visitors  interest  me. 
There  is  a  certain  magic,  a  mystery, 
in  the  card  the  office-boy  brings  in,  on 
which  is  printed,  written  or  engraved 
a  name  I  have  never  heard  before. 
Somebody  has  taken  the  pains  to  look 
me  up;  and  there  is  always  an  ele- 
ment of  fun  in  trying  to  hitch  a 
name  up  with  a  face — ^before  you  have 
seen  the  face.  Will  "Margaret  Sher- 
raton  Brown"  be  short  or  tall,  dark  or 
fair?  And  will  "Montague  Melville" 
live  up  to  his  romantic  name? 

I  remember  a  caller  once  who  wrote 
on  a  slip  of  paper,  "Miss  Barbara  Bod- 
ley,  Philadelphia",  and  I  expected  to 
see  a  funny  little  wisp  of  a  person  trip 
in.  Instead,  there  was  ushered  to  my 
desk  a  very  stately  dark  woman  of 
about  forty-five,  dressed  in  sombre 
black,  with  soulful  eyes  and  a  heavy 
bang — ^not  at  all  the  type  my  mind  had 
conjured  up.  The  first  bit  of  informa- 
tion she  gave  me,  very  solenmly,  was 
that  she  lived  in  a  cellar.    Why,  I  have 


144 


THE   CONTRIBUTOR   WHO    CALLS 


145 


nevf  r  discovered.  She  wrote,  it  seemB, 
under  terrific  pressure  in  this  dark 
place,  and  seemed  to  think  I  would  be 
jgrreatly  interested  in  the  fact  that  she 
always  indited  her  poems  standing. 
(Of  course  she  was  a  poetess.  She 
would  descend  to  cellars,  but  never  to 
prose.)  A  Philadelphia  cellar!  Often 
have  I  pondered  on  the  strange  case 
of  Miss  Barbara  Bodley  in  her  subter- 
ranean den,  and  wondered  if  she  is 
still  living  or  has  been  transported  to 
a  higher  plane  through  the  painful  in- 
roads of  rheumatism. 

Then  there  was  Miss  Angelica  Watts 
Murphy,  of  Virginia — of  one  of  the 
oldest  families,  she  was  quick  to  tell 
me.  She  blew  in  on  a  golden  day,  her 
purple  plumes  waving  from  a  white 
straw  hat — a  lady  of  some  sixty  sum- 
mers, I  should  say,  powdered  too 
much,  wrinkled  too  much — ^yes,  and 
rouged  too  much.  Her  bodice — ^how 
can  I  ever  forget  it?  It  was  of  Scotch 
plaid,  and  down  the  centre  rolled,  as 
on  a  bellbo3r's  uniform,  a  row  of  brass 
buttons,  the  central  design/ of  which 
was  an  anchor  when  it  was  not  a  pas- 
sion-flower. Her  skirt  was  of  black 
and  white  stripes,  and  from  beneath  it 
peeped  two  dainty  feet  encased  in 
what  had  once  been  white  kid  shoes. 
On  one  arm  she  carried  an  enormous 
green  bag,  such  as  they  still  take  about 
with  them  in  Boston,  I  believe;  and 
from  it  protruded  innumerable  manu- 
scripts— oh,  there  must  have  been 
dozens  of  them — so  many  that  my 
tired  editorial  heart  sank  at  the  pros- 
pecv. 

Miss  Murphy  was  a  chatty  indi- 
vidual— ^the  kind  that  snuggled  toward 
you  on  the  publisher's  lounge  in  the 
anteroom,  and  told  you,  in  the  first 
five  minutes  of  your  meeting,  the  most 
personal  things  about  her  family :  how 
her  brother  Geoffrey  was  a  gentleman 
if  ever  there  was  one,  but  he  drank. 


and  his  young  wife  had  to  leave  him ; 
and  how  an  aunt  on  her  father's  side 
had  once  taken  some  kind  of  drug  but 
had  providentially  been  cured  through 
Christian  Science.  There  were  other 
family  skeletons  which  I  have  merci- 
fully forgotten;  and  then,  suddenly, 
came  the  business  talk.  Were  we 
needing  poetry?  She  hoped  Theo- 
dosia  Garrison  hadn't  a  monopoly  on 
the  magazine  market — it  was  all  beau- 
tiful stuff,  she  was  kind  enough  to 
say;  but  then  there  were  many  other 
rising  young  poets  who  deserved  a 
hearing.  She  began  rummaging  in 
her  green  bag,  as  she  talked,  remem- 
bering that  ttiere  was  one  particular 
set  of  verses  which  I  simply  must  see 
— a  poem  from  the  writer's  heart.  If 
ever  a  poem  came  out  of  a  poet's  heart, 
this  was  it.  All  the  time  I  was  trying 
to  get  in  a  cautionary  word  to  the  ef- 
fect that  I  made  it  an  invariable  rule 
never  to  read  manuscripts  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  author — ^particularly 
poetry.  "But  it's  so  short!"  Miss 
Murphy  cried.  "It  won't  take  you  but 
a  few  minutes,  and....  Dear  me!" 
poking  her  mitted  hand  still  further 
into  the  voluminous  bag,  "it  isn't 
here!" 

I  was  beginning  to  praise  God  for 
this  special  deliverance,  when  she 
turned  abruptly  on  me  and  shouted, 
as  though  I  were  deaf,  "But  don't 
worry!  I  know  it  by  heart!"  And 
before  I  could  stop  her,  and  with  peo- 
ple passing  and  repassing  in  that  little 
anteroom,  she  proceeded  to  recite  a 
poem  of  at  least  seventeen  stanzas, 
each  one  ending  with  the  sad  refrain, 
"Mah  love  lies  buried  in  the  dust!" 

Cold  type  cannot  give  that  rich 
Southern  accent,  or  the  melancholy 
tone  of  that  line,  as  the  middle-aged 
poetess  rushed  breathlessly  on.  I 
began  to  feel  terribly  sorry  for  her. 
Evidently  it  had  been  a  most  tragic 


146 


THE   BOOKMAN 


affair.  I  was  so  embarrassed  that  I 
could  not  look  Miss  Murphy  in  the  eye. 
This  self-revelation  of  a  passion  long 
since  dead  yet  so  fresh  in  her  memory, 
laid  away  in  lavender  and  rosemary, 
touched  me  beyond  words — I  literally 
mean  this.  Suddenly  I  found  myself 
counting  the  brass  buttons  on  her  plaid 
bodice — one,  two,  three,  four,  I  mur- 
mured to  myself,  as  one  might  count 
sheep  going  over  a  fence  when  one  is 
wakeful  at  night:  anything  to  forget 
the  stem  reality  of  that  face  before 
me.  And  the  plaid  in  that  waist — 
how  shall  I  ever  forget  it?  It  is  as 
vivid  to  me  now  as  Miss  Murphy's 
love  affair  was  to  her  then.  I  can  see 
it  as  plainly  as  an  invalid  remembers 
the  design  on  the  frieze  of  his  sick- 
room wall  months  after  he  has  re- 
covered. The  squares  were  not  even — 
and  I  recall  how  that  annoyed,  yet  in- 
terested me;  and  there  was  a  tiny  ink 
stain  on  one  of  the  lighter  squares,  as 
though  in  the  haste  of  composition 
Miss  Murphy  had  forgotten  her  pen- 
wiper and  made  sudden  use  of  her 
bodice. 

"Don't  you  think  that's  wonderful  7" 
I  heard  a  voice  saying,  in  quite  an- 
other key,  after  the  last  "Mah  love 
lies  buried  in  the  dust"  had  faded  into 
nothingness. 

"Beautiful,"  I  replied,  weakly ;  "but 
the  fact  is — " 

"Oh,  don'  you  tell  me  you're  goin'  to 
reject  mah  little  flower  tool"  she  ex- 
claimed ;  and  there  were  real  tears  in 
her  voice. 

So  someone  else  had  heard  that 
poem,  and  someone  else  had  had  the 
courage  and  cold-bloodedness  to  de- 
cline it  I  I  never  have  found  out  who 
my  fellow  sufferer  was.  If  he  reads 
this  and  remembers  Miss  Murphy — 
who  could  ever  forget  her? — ^won't  he 
let  me  know,  and  relieve  my  anxious 
mind?    Besides,  I  would  like  to  shake 


hands  with  him  on  the  experience. 

There  was  also  a  quaint  little  man 
who  owned  a  farm  somewhere  up 
along  the  Hudson.  He  used  to  stay  on 
this  farm  about  eleven  months  of  the 
year,  digging  potatoes,  milking  cows, 
and  writing  verses  in  the  evenings. 
He  had  been  told  once  that  he  resem- 
bled Tennyson;  and  I  think  he  pur- 
posely allowed  his  hair  to  grow  as  the 
bard  of  England  liked  to  wear  his; 
and  he  always  wore  a  black  cape  and 
carried  a  thick  cane.  His  hat  was 
large  and  soft,  his  eyes  the  gentlest 
I  have  ever  known;  and  one  month 
each  year,  regularly,  he  would  run 
down  to  New  York  and  make  a  pil- 
grimage to  various  editorial  doors, 
leaving  the  product  of  the  previous 
months  on  your  desk.  He  was  sure 
to  ask  for  a  decision  soon,  as  he  would 
be  going  back  to  the  farm  almost  im- 
mediately. Could  he  call  again  for 
your  reply?  He  didn't  know  which 
modest  hotel  he  could  afford  to  stop  at, 
and  it  would  be  far  more  convenient, 
and  save  him  much  postage,  if  he  could 
drop  around  again.  It  was  difficult  to 
resist  this  little  man ;  moreover,  I  am 
happy  to  say  that  many  of  his  poems 
possessed  genuine  merit,  and  from 
time  to  time  I  bought  dozens  of  them ; 
and  he  would  go  away  beaming.  Once 
he  told  me  that  on  a  certain  trip  he 
had  raked  in  as  much  as  one  hundred 
and  eighty  dollars  on  his  verses — ^no 
untidy  sum;  and  I  shall  never  forget 
his  smile  as  he  broke  the  news  to  me. 
How  little  it  takes  to  make  some  folks 
happy ! 

A  caller  I  have  always  disliked  is 
the  type  of  woman  who  brings  you  a 
yam  with  the  statement  that  it  is 
based  on  fact — a  cousin's  ghost  story, 
or  a  great  uncle's  experience  in 
Alaska,  it  is  sure  to  be;  and  when  you 
explain  that  it  may  be  true  to  fact,  but 
not  true  to  fiction,  she  glares  uncom- 


AMERICA'S  GREATEST  JUDGE 


147 


prehendingly  at  you,  leaves  the  ofSce 
in  high  dudgeon,  and  declares  behind 
your  back  that  all  editors  are  bom 
fools  and  she  can  write  better  than 
Edna  Ferber  and  Booth  Tarkington 
rolled  into  one,  and  she  doesn't  under- 
stand how  half  the  stories  one  sees  in 
the  magazines  get  published  anyhow 
— ^the  authors  must  have  a  pull  or 
something,  and  full  many  a  flower  is 
bom  to  blush  unseen. 

Another  is  the  creature  who  asks 
you,  out  of  the  kindness  of  your 
heart,  to  offer  a  frank  criticism  on 
her  manuscript;  her  feelings  won't 
be  hurt  in  the  least,  if  you  tell  the 
brutal  truth.  And  when,  in  a  mad 
moment,  you  do,  she  flares  up  and 
her  eyes  pierce  you  like  daggers,  and 
you  feel  like  the  worm  you  are  be- 
neath her  feet  She  informs  you  that 
you  never  did  know  anything  about  lit- 


erature, and  that  if  her  story  isn't  a 
good  one,  then  nobody  can  write;  and 
she  wishes  she  had  money  enough  to 
buy  out  a  periodical  and  edit  it  as  it 
should  be  edited.  She*d  show  the 
world ! 

So  they  come  and  go,  these  tragic 
and  comic  figures,  like  forms  on  a 
lantern-slide;  only,  they  are  terribly 
real,  and  some  of  them  break  one's 
heart.  When  you  are  an  editor,  you 
think  that  every  other  person  in  the 
world  is  trying  to  become  an  author; 
but  if  you  walk  along  the  Rialto  some 
morning,  you  decide  that  most  people 
want  to  go  on  the  stage.  The  crowded 
professions !  Yet  there  is  always  that 
niche  at  the  top  waiting  for  someone 
with  real  talent.  But  your  casual 
caller  will  never  believe  that.  That's 
why  he  will  always  be — ^just  a  casual 
caller. 


AMERICA'S  GREATEST  JUDGE 


BY  ROBERT  LIVINGSTON  SCHUYLER 


AMERICAN  politicians  as  a  class 
^are  not  addicted  to  scholarship. 
Even  in  those  branches  of  learning  in 
which  we  must  assume  that  they  are 
interested — ^political  science,  Jurispru- 
dence»  history,  economics — ^few  of 
them  have  made  noteworthy  contribu- 
tions. Mr.  Roosevelt,  Mr.  Lodge,  and 
Mr.  Wilson  are  exceptions,  but  the  list 
at  longest  is  short.  A  comparison  of 
it  with  one  that  could  be  drawn  up  of 
England's  scholarly  politicians  would 
not  prove  gratil^ing  to  our  national 
pride.    It  is,  therefore,  all  the  more 


pleasant  to  an  American  to  greet  the 
publication  of  an  historical  work  of 
merit  by  an  American  politician — 
"The  Life  of  John  MarshaU"  by  for- 
mer Senator  Albert  J.  Beveridge. 

The  last  two  volumes  of  this  biog- 
raphy, which  have  recently  been  pub- 
lished, are  in  form  of  publication  a 
continuation  of  the  first  two  volumes 
which  appeared  in  1916.  They  may, 
however,  properly  be  read  and  dis- 
cussed as  a  whole  and  not  as  a  frag- 
ment. They  possess  unity,  for  they 
cover  the  entire  period  of  Marshall's 


148 


THE  BOOKMAN 


tenure  of  the  oflSce  of  Chief  Justice  of 
the  Supreme  Ck>urt,  and  their  central 
theme  is  the  contribution  which  his 
judicial  opinions  made  to  the  develop- 
ment of  American  nationality.  Sel- 
dom if  ever  will  a  reader  of  these  con- 
cluding volumes  find  himself  embar- 
rassed because  he  is  not  acquainted 
with  the  first  instalment  of  the  work. 

It  should  be  said  at  once  that  Mr. 
Beveridge  gives  us  what  is  by  all  odds 
the  best  historical  account  to  be  had 
of  Marshall's  great  judicial  opinions. 
His  point  of  view  throughout  is  that 
of  the  historian  rather  than  that  of 
the  legal  commentator.  In  conse- 
quence he  pays  little  attention  to  legal 
analysis  and  citation  of  precedents, 
and  much  to  the  political  and  social 
setting  of  the  opinions  and  the  pur- 
poses which  the  judge  desired  to  ac- 
complish. 

A  lengthy  and  illuminating  account 
of  the  debate  in  Congress  on  the  re- 
peal of  the  Judiciary  Act  of  1801» 
which  took  place  in  1802,  fills  in  the 
background  for  Marshall's  opinion  in 
Marbury  vs.  Madison,  delivered  in 
1803.  A  chapter  on  the  Burr  conspir- 
acy serves  as  the  setting  for  his 
opinion  in  the  most  famous  of  all 
American  state  trials.  Another  on 
''Financial  and  Moral  Chaos"  paves 
the  way  for  an  understanding  of  his 
opinions  in  Sturges  vs.  Crowninshield, 
the  Dartmouth  College  case,  and 
M'Culloch  vs.  Maryland.  Beveridge 
deserves  the  thanks  of  all  his  readers 
for  putting  them  en  rapport  with  the 
political  and  social  conditions  under 
which  Marshall's  opinions  were  writ- 
ten, for  the  Chief  Justice  was  not  set- 
ting down  abstract  scholastic  propo- 
sitions but  striving  purposefully  to 
weld  the  United  States  into  a  nation. 
''American  Nationalism",  says  Mr. 
Beveridge,  "was  Marshall's  one  and 
onl7  great  conception,  and  the  foster- 


y* 


ing  of  it  the  purpose  of  his  life. 
Those  who  insist  that  the  "judicial 
mind"  operates  in  the  empyrean,  un- 
affected by  the  winds  of  political  con- 
troversy, will  find  much  food  for  re- 
flection in  these  volumes. 

The  chapter  entitled  "Marbury 
versus  Madison"  shows  Marshall, 
thoroughly  alarmed  by  the  spread  of 
the  doctrine  of  nullification,  as  pro- 
pounded in  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky 
Resolutions  of  1798-99,  seizing  upon 
an  unimportant  piece  of  litigation  to 
write  into  American  constitutional  law 
a  repudiation  of  that  doctrine,  and 
an  assertion  of  the  Federalist  theory 
that  the  national  judiciary  alone  pos- 
sesses the  power  to  declare  acts  of  con- 
gress invalid  on  the  ground  that  they 
are  unconstitutional.  The  chapter, 
"Vitalizing  the  Constitution",  shows 
him,  in  M'CuUoch  vs.  Maryland,  re- 
buking localism  arrayed  on  the  side 
of  social  disorder,  and  buttressing  na- 
tionalism with  the  doctrine  of  implied 
powers.  In  the  Dartmouth  College 
case  he  makes  America  safe  for  busi- 
ness enterprise  in  an  opinion  which,  as 
Mr.  Beveridge  says,  "reassured  in- 
vestors in  corporate  securities  and 
gave  confidence  and  steadiness  to  the 
business  world".  In  Gibbons  vs.  Og- 
den  he  frees  commerce  from  the  fet- 
ters of  local  monopoly  and  welds  the 
American  people  into  a  unit  "by  the 
force  of  their  mutual  interests". 
Taken  as  a  whole  Marshall's  constitu- 
tional opinions  deserve  to  rank  with 
the  formation  of  the  Constitution 
itself  as  a  factor  in  the  upbuilding  of 
American  nationality. 

What  was  the  source  of  Marshall's 
power  and  his  influence  over  his  col- 
leagues on  the  bench?  It  was  not  in- 
tellect, Mr.  Beveridge  thinks,  nor  will 
power  nor  learning;  for  Marshall 
"had  no  learning'  at  all  in  the  aca- 
demic sense".    He  finds  the  answer  in 


AMERICA'S  GREATEST  JUDGE 


149 


'^personality",  and  in  his  esqxisition  of 
the  content  of  this  vague  term  he  tells 
us  something  of  Marshall  the  man. 
The  judge  who  was  the  soul  of  dignity 
on  the  bench  was  in  private  life»  we 
leam»  a  most  unassuming  person  of 
shabby  attire  and  hail-fellow-well-met 
manner,  addicted  to  pitching  quoits, 
gifted  with  a  lively  sense  of  humor, 
fond  of  children  and  fiction  and 
poetry,  reverent  toward  women  in  gen- 
eral and  tender  to  his  wife  in  par- 
ticular. Whatever  the  explanation  of 
it,  Marshall's  influence  over  his  fellow 
judges  was  notorious.  "It  will  be  diffi- 
cult", wrote  Marshall's  bitter  enemy, 
Thomas  Jefferson,  'to  find  a  character 
of  firmness  enough  to  preserve  his  in- 
dependence on  the  same  bench  with 
Marshall." 

Almost  half  of  the  third  volume  is 
devoted  to  the  conspiracy  and  trial  of 
Aaron  Burr.  Burr  is  pictured  as  a 
man  of  winning  personality,  impelled 
to  falsehood  and  intrigue  by  Hamil- 
ton's malignant  enmity  and  Jefferson's 
vindictive  persecution.  Following  in 
the  main  McCaleb's  ''Aaron  Burr  Con- 
spiracy", Mr.  Beveridge  thinks  that 


Burr's  western  enterprises  did  not 
aim  at  the  separation  of  the  West 
from  the  Union  and  were  not  of  a  trea- 
sonable nature.  The  reader  will  de- 
tect several  similarities  between  the 
inflamed  public  opinion  which  Mr. 
Beveridge  describes  at  the  time  of  the 
Burr  trial,  and  that  worked  up  by  the 
"anti-red"  propaganda  of  the  present. 
Nervous  patriots  should  not  fail  to 
read  in  these  pages  how  that  uncon- 
scionable rascal.  General  Wilkinson, 
saved  the  Republic  at  New  Orleans  by 
violating  every  principle  of  liberty  for 
which  it  was  supposed  to  stand. 

Justice  cannot  be  done  in  a  brief  re- 
view to  the  extensive  research  and 
painstaking  scholarship  that  have 
gone  to  produce  these  volumes.  Not 
all  of  his  readers  will  agree  with  the 
author  in  all  matters  of  interpretation. 
The  interpretation  of  Jefferson's  char- 
acter and  career,  for  example,  will  no 
doubt  evoke  dissent.  But  Mr.  Bev- 
eridge's  work  takes  its  place  as  the 
standard  biography  of  America's 
greatest  judge. 


The  Life  of  John  Marshall.  By  Albert  J. 
Beveridffe.  Volames  ill  and  iv.  Houghton 
Mifflin  Co. 


THE  LONDONER 


Exodus  of  authors — unnner  in  the  first-^ovel  competition  to  be  brought  out 
in  America — Keynes* s  portraits  of  the  Big  Four:  our  public  men  scapegoats, 
not  supermen — wanted:  a  novelist  of  high  politics — Ervine  in  America — 
Vachel  Lindsay  awaited — Daisy  Ashford  no  longer  Daisy  Ashford — *'The 
Young  Visiters*'  on  the  boards — **Solomon  Eagle"  extinct  in  **The  New  States- 


man 


99 


London,  March  1,  1920. 

AT  the  moment  of  writing,  literary 
L  London  seems  as  though  it  was 
going  to  be  completely  deserted  for  a 
long  time  to  come,  so  enormous  has 
been  the  recent  exodus.  Mackenzie,  I 
hear,  is  to  go  to  the  South  Seas  on  a 
voyage  which  is  to  take  him  at  least 
six  months.  Presumably  he  will  em- 
ploy his  time,  apart  from  the  neces- 
sary occupation  of  traveling,  in  writ- 
ing a  novel  about  Capri,  where  he  has 
now  been  living  for  some  time;  and 
that  ought  to  be  very  amusing,  both 
for  him  and  for  his  readers,  but  per- 
haps not  so  amusing  for  those  who 
dwell  upon  the  island.  When  he  starts 
I  do  not  know,  but  I  expect  he  will 
gravitate  to  the  United  States,  so  that 
Americans  will  know  all  about  it  for 
themselves.  Several  of  our  young 
writers  are  in  America  already.  Wal- 
pole  and  Cannan  have  been  there  for 
some  time,  and  I  suppose  that  Wal- 
pole,  at  any  rate,  will  be  thinking 
about  returning  to  England  by  the 
date  on  which  these  lines  appear.  St. 
John  Ervine  and  his  wife  left  Eng- 
land for  the  States  some  weeks  ago, 
amid  the  last — not  the  present — stormy 
weather.  Sassoon  is  there  also.  D. 
H.  Lawrence  and  Brett  Young  are 


both  wintering  in  Capri.  Bennett  and 
Swinnerton  have  just  started  together 
for  Portugal.  Galsworthy  is  in  Mal- 
aga. Shaw  is  living  in  the  country. 
Beresford,  who  has  been  staying  in 
a  London  suburb,  for  some  months,  is 
going  back  to  his  beautiful  house  in 
Buckinghamshire.  Hosts  of  other 
writers  are  already  disporting  them- 
selves in  the  South.  Altogether  the 
Peace  is  enabling  everybody  to  go 
abroad  once  more,  and  they  are  all 
taking  advantage  of  the  two  conti- 
nents— I  hope  to  the  benefit  of  their 
health  and  happiness. 

At  the  moment,  the  island  of  Capri 
must  be  rather  amusingly  congested 
with  literary  people.  I  cannot  Imagine 
anything  more  curious  than  the  exist- 
ence within  so  narrow  a  space  of  no 
fewer  than  three  of  our  chief  young 
novelists.  Mackenzie,  no  doubt,  as  a 
regular  resident,  must  be  having  most 
of  the  social  variety,  and  therefore  of 
the  fun;  but  the  gathering  has  its 
amusing  side  for  everybody.  One  an- 
ecdote I  must  relate,  as  it  seems  to 
make  the  island  so  small.  Mackenzie 
orders  books  on  rather  a  lavish  scale, 
for  he  is  a  great  reader  and  cannot  get 
material  except  through  the  post.  A 
short  time  ago  he  ordered  sets  of 


150 


THE    LONDONER 


151 


three  or  four  of  the  classic  novelists — 
I  mean,  Scott,  Dickens,  and  Co. — and 
sat  down  to  await  the  arrival  of  the 
books.  For  a  long  time  nothing  hap- 
pened; and  then  one  day  his  servant 
came  in  a  tremendous  state  of  excite- 
ment to  announce  that  a  large  number 
of  parcels  had  arrived  by  the  post, 
and  the  postman  insisted  that  a  couple 
of  faquini  should  be  hired  to  help 
bring  them  up!  There  were  fifty- 
three  parcels;  and  they  were  too 
much  for  the  postal  resources  of  the 

island ! 

«  «  «  « 

I  am  told  that  Alfred  Harcourt,  late 
of  Messrs.  Henry  Holt  and  Company, 
has  recently  been  in  England  in  his 
own  interests,  and  that  he  has  started 
in  business  under  the  style  of  Har- 
court, Brace,  and  Howe.  Good  luck  to 
him!  Also,  I  hear  that  he  has  ar- 
ranged for  his  firm  to  publish  in 
America  the  winning  novel  in  Andrew 
Melrose's  recent  first-novel  competi- 
tion. If  this  is  so,  and  if  I  am  rightly 
informed  as  to  the  title  of  the  winning 
book,  he  has  secured  a  very  dis- 
tinguished work  with  which  to  inter- 
est American  readers  in  a  new  talent. 
The  book,  which  I  have  read  through 
the  kindness  of  a  friend,  is  entitled 
"Open  the  Door",  by  Catherine  Cars- 
well,  and  is  an  altogether  exceptional 
picture  of  the  life  of  a  girl.  It  is  a 
veiy  original  work,  and  could  not  have 
been  written,  or  published,  in  a  more 
squeamishly  sentimental  age;  for 
while  it  is  perfectly  clean,  and  not 
even  daring  in  its  outlines,  it  gives 
this  picture  with  unusual  candor. 
Young  women  have  always  been 
shown  in  our  fiction  as  saints  or 
sinners,  and  justice  has  been  meted 
out  to  them  accordingly  by  authors 
unaware  of  (or  incapable  of  ren- 
dering) the  reality  of  young  women. 
Young  women,  that  is  to  say,  have 


been  drawn  as  though  they  were 
not  human  beings  at  all,  and  as  though 
marriage  was  either  the  end  of  all 
things  or  the  beginning  of  a  simple 
process  of  getting  another,  more  suit- 
able, husband.  The  author  of  "Open 
the  Door"  has  managed  to  draw  a  real 
young  woman,  who  gets  married,  loses 
her  husband  through  his  violent  death, 
has  an  affair  with  a  married  man,  and 
in  the  end,  remaining  human  and  es- 
sentially pure,  marries  a  second  time, 
her  new  husband  being  the  man  who 
will  safely  pilot  her  through  the  rest 
of  her  days.  It  is  really  good  work, 
an^  I  hope  it  will  have  its  proper 
recognition  both  in  England  and 
America. 

Another  publishing  item  of  interest 
in  both  hemispheres  is  that  E.  V. 
Lucas  is  going  to  publish  a  book  deal- 
ing with  the  life  and  work  of  Edwin 
A.  Abbey.  Personally,  I  always 
thought  Abbey's  work  rather  thin; 
but  I  know  that  many  good  judges 
admire  it,  and  there  must  be  many  in 
England  and  America  to  whom  the 
news  that  Lucas  is  doing  this  book 
will  be  a  source  of  great  pleasure. 
There  could  be  no  happier  choice,  for 
Lucas  has  a  style  exactly  suited  to  this 
kind  of  thing.  He  will  be  urbane  and 
delicate,  and  I  should  say  that  the 
book  will  be  another  triumph  for  him 
in  a  field  which  has  been  made  the 
subject  of  many,  many  efforts,  but  in 

which  few  successes  have  been  scored. 
«  «  «  « 

A  book  which  is  having  a  most  ex- 
traordinary reception  here  is  Keynes's 
"Economic  Consequences  of  the 
Peace".  The  bookselling  trade  was 
caught  badly  napping  over  this  book, 
only  a  few  of  the  booksellers  having 
reidized  before  publication  that  they 
were  being  offered  something  very 
special  indeed.  The  consequence  of 
this  has  been  a  funny  contrast  be- 


162 


THE  BOOKMAN 


tween  the  subscription  orders  given 
by  some  of  them,  and  the  orders  which 
they  were  compelled  to  fire  off  on  the 
day  of  publication.  They  must  be 
kicking  tiiemselves  for  the  loss  of  pre- 
cious extra  discounts  allowed  on  all 
subscription  orders.  It  is  a  short 
book,  priced  high,  and  the  demand  has 
been  something  out  of  the  ordinary. 
Keynes  is  quite  a  young  man  still,  and 
before  the  war  was  a  lecturer  at  the 
London  School  of  Economics.  He  is 
one  of  the  young  Cambridge  men,  and 
those  who  are  capable  of  estimating 
the  value  of  such  work  (which  I  am 
not)  have  always  told  me  of  his  bril- 
liance and  ability  in  the  subject  which 
he  has  made  his  own.  Non-financial 
and  non-economic  readers  are  finding 
their  chief  pleasure  in  the  amazingly 
outspoken  portraits  of  the  so-called 
"Big  Four",  and  these,  if  vitriolic, 
have  a  briUiance  that  not  many  men 
could  out-do. 

Few  writers  could  have  bettered  the 
portraits  of  President  Wilson,  Lloyd 
George,  and  Clemenceau.  They  have 
all  the  sharpness  of  the  brilliant 
sketch,  and,  what  is  more,  a  suggestive 
quality  which  enables  even  those  who 
have  not  been  at  all  behind  the  scenes, 
to  visualize  the  men  who  took  part  in 
the  conference.  I  speak  here  entirely 
as  a  professional  writer,  and  not  at 
all  as  a  politician.  Nevertheless,  the 
account  given  by  Mr.  Keynes  tallies 
remarkably  with  accounts  given  to  me 
in  confidence  by  others  who  were  in 
Paris  and  who  had  exceptional  oppor- 
tunities of  judging  the  progress  of 
events  and  the  personalities  of  the  par- 
ticipants. All  this  business  of  assess- 
ing the  characteristics  of  prominent 
men  fascinates  me.  I  have  in  my  time 
talked  to  a  good  many  people  whose 
names  are  household  words,  and  I  am 
never  tired  of  wondering  in  what  it  is 
that  they  differ  from  more  ordinary 


people.  Some  of  our  English  poli- 
ticians, for  example,  appear  to  me  to 
be  almost  entirely  without  brains  when 
it  comes  to  subjects  outside  the  rou- 
tine of  their  lives.  I  know  one  very 
eminent  man  indeed  who  always  gravi- 
tates in  his  talk  to  the  nature  of  God 
and  the  Christian  mysteries.  His  ig- 
norance of  these  subjects  is  abysmaL 
He  is  more  easily  discountenanced  and 
made  ridiculous  than  any  boy  of  six- 
teen could  be.  Yet  he  insists,  in  spite 
of  many  defeats,  verbal  and  factual, 
on  coming  back,  time  after  time,  to 
the  one  subject,  probably,  upon  which 
he  makes  a  fool  of  himself.  I  have 
asked  others  what  they  think  of  his 
brains,  and  nobody  has  ever  been  en- 
thusiastic about  them.  But  the  man 
is  perfectly  well-known  and  respected 
for  unusual  integrity  and  exceptional 
gifts,  both  in  England  and  America* 

It  is  extraordinary. 

«  «  «  « 

Take  the  case,  again,  of  a  very  able 
editor  whom  I  often  see.  That  man  is 
a  child.  He  asks  the  most  infantile 
questions  about  the  most  obvious 
things.  He  is  capable  of  asking,  ''Who 
is  Marie  Corelli?"  or  of  saying,  "I 
have  never  heard  of  it"  about  some  as- 
toundingly  obvious  thing  which  has 
been  engaging  everybody's  attention 
for  days.  He  is,  however,  far  from  a 
fool.  In  his  own  way  he  is  one  of  the 
best  editors  I  have  encountered.  His 
paper  is  a  model  of  knowledge.  He 
knows  a  good  writer  when  he  sees 
him,  but  has  absolutely  no  critical 
faculty  where  literature  is  concerned. 
He  cares  more  for  politics  than  for 
anything  else,  but  he  can  crumple  up 
the  man  who  talks  about  God  and  the 
Christian  mysteries,  and  he  can  learn- 
edly discourse  upon  such  difficult  mat- 
ters as  the  theory  of  relativity.  I 
have  heard  him  do  this ;  I  have  heard 
him  take  on  a  man  about  this  man's 


THE  LONDONER 


153 


speciality,  and  come  out  with  all  his 
colors  flying.  And  he  still  remains  in- 
corrigibly an  ignoramus  upon  matters 
which  one  would  have  thought  it  es- 
sential that  the  editor  of  a  highly 
critical  journal  should  understand. 

Why  is  it?  I  know  that  I  am  ig- 
norant; but  then  I  don't  claim  either 
to  have  a  world-wide  reputation  for 
intellect  or  a  tremendous  reputation  as 
an  editor.  These  men  are  the  men 
who  sway  our  destinies.  They  are 
those  myterious  beings,  "public  men". 
And  they  are  human,  and  ignorant, 
and  prejudiced,  and  stupid.  And  we 
expect  them  to  be  all-knowing.  How 
ridiculous!  It  is  one  of  the  points  of 
Keynes's  book  that  it  shows  our  lead- 
ers to  be  human,  frail,  erring;  and 
that  he  really  gives  us  reason  to  think 
that  the  burdens  we  lay  upon  them 
must  be  too  heavy.  What  wonder  they 
make  mistakes  I  Should  not  we  do  the 
same,  in  their  circumstances?  There 
ought  to  be  an  end  to  the  legend  that 
our  leaders  are  supermen.  It  is  only 
a  fostered  legend.  It  continues  be- 
cause we  must  abandon  the  sense  of 
responsibility  to  any  one  who  will  take 
upon  himself  the  burden  of  bearing  it, 
and  only  because  of  our  inveterate 
need  of  scapegoats.  I  have  heard 
many  of  our  best  politicians  as  it  were 
"in  undress",  and  they  are  most  of 
them  unmagnetic,  ordinary  people. 
Some  of  them,  of  course,  are  mad; 
some  of  them  are  charlatans ;  but  the 
best  of  them  are  just  moderately  hon- 
est, hard-worked,  puzzled  men  like 
ourselves,  and  when  we  shout  at  them 
and  hate  them  or  extol  them  we  are 
making  gods  in  the  image  of  our  own 

passions. 

♦  ♦  ♦  ♦ 

It  ought  to  be  the  business  of  the 
novelist  to  show  us  these  true  things. 
Who  writes  of  high  politics?  Mrs. 
Humphry  Ward.    She  has  written  al- 


most all  the  political  novels  of  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century,  and  her  books 
have  been  read  by  idl  sorts  of  people 
under  the  impression  that  they  depict 
the  real  life  and  recall  the  real  atmos- 
phere amid  which  these  people  live. 
Nothing  could  be  more  false.  One  has 
only  to  come  in  contact  with  the  real 
thing  to  see  that  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward 
has  never  understood  politics  from  the 
inside,  but  has  all  the  time  been  try- 
ing to  bolster  up  the  conventional  idea 
that  the  newspapers  foster.  Cabinet 
ministers  are  poor  puzzled  men,  beset 
by  personal  antipathies  and  sympa- 
thies, cross  when  they  are  tired,  seek- 
ing diversion,  human  and  faulty.  And 
there  is  room  for  a  good  political 
novel.  Not  the  mush  that  is  served 
out  to  us,  but  a  real  novel  about  poli- 
ticians who  are  also  men.  I  make  a 
present  of  the  notion  to  any  novelist 
who  may  read  these  words.  But  he 
must  be  a  novelist  who  knows  some- 
thing about  politics — ^not  in  the  sense 
of  understanding  programmes  or  in- 
trigues or  caucuses,  but  in  the  sense 
that  he  can  show  us  the  human  ele- 
ments underlying  all  these  efforts  to 
express  the  body  of  personality  and 
aspiration.  I  am  sure  it  can  be  done, 
but  the  man  who  does  it  will  be  some- 
thing of  a  universal  genius,  for  he  will 
have  to  show  a  social  picture  that  con- 
vinces, without  ever  losing  hold  of  the 
original  personal  importance  of  his 
dramatis  persons.  It  is  a  great  op- 
portunity; but  it  will  also  be  a  great 
test,  and  I  cannot  think  of  anybody  at 
the  moment  who  has  the  power  to 
avail  himself  of  it,  coupled  with  the 
necessary  interest  in  the  subject-mat- 
ter. It  is  another  illustration  of  what 
I  have  just  been  talking  about — ^the 

colossal  ignorance  of  the  specialist. 
«  •  *  « 

Mention  just  now  of  Brett  Young 
reminds  me  that  this  young  author 


154 


THE   BOOKMAN 


has  passed  the  proofs  of  a  new  novel, 
which  is  to  be  published  here  in  the 
spring.  It  is  a  short  book — a  conte — 
entitled  "The  Tragic  Bride".  I  am 
told  that  it  is  a  departure  for  Brett 
Young,  who  has  been  experimenting 
with  the  chronicle  novel  and  has  now 
turned  to  the  brief,  passionate  story. 
Mackenzie's  next  book  is  to  be  called 
"The  Vanity  Girl",  and  is  in  the  vein 
of  "Carnival".  I  suppose  that  this  will 
appear  during  the  late  spring.  Before 
leaving  England,  St.  John  Ervine  fin- 
ished a  new  novel,  and  his  play,  "John 
Ferguson",  which  has  been  running 
with  so  much  success  in  New  York,  is 
to  be  brought  out  at  the  Lyric  The- 
atre, Hammersmith,  within  a  few 
days.  It  follows  at  that  theatre  the 
famous  "Lincoln"  of  John  Drinkwater, 
which  has  just  been  withdrawn.  I 
hope  it  will  repeat  in  England  the  suc- 
cess it  has  enjoyed  in  America.  I  need 
not  tell  American  readers  anything 
about  Ervine,  as  they  can  see  for 
themselves  what  he  is  like.  He  is  one 
of  the  young  novelists — ^there  are  not 
many  of  them — ^who  went  on  very  ac- 
tive service  in  one  of  the  Guards  regi- 
ments in  France.  There  he  lost  a  leg; 
but  the  loss  has  not  impaired  his 
cheerfulness.  What  the  new  book  is 
like  I  have  no  idea,  but  as  his  first 
novel  was  so  good,  and  his  third  so 
successful  in  the  States,  I  expect  you 
will  all  by  now  be  looking  impatiently 

for  it. 

*  *  •  • 

As  far  as  I  can  see,  most  of  the 
other  American  tours  planned  by 
young  English  writers  are  unlikely  to 
mature.  Osbert  Sitwell,  for  instance, 
has  postponed  his  trip  to  the  States, 
and  is  probably  going  instead  with  his 
brother  to  Sicily.  Robert  Graves,  an- 
other poet,  is  staying  on  in  England. 
Well,  America's  loss  is  England's  gain, 
and  as  the  only  poetic  visitor  from 


your  side  to  this  is  said  to  be  Vachel 
Lindsay,  it  is  perhaps  hardly  fair  that 
the  exchange  should  in  this  case  as 
well  as  the  other  be  so  unequal.  We 
are  all  looking  forward  very  much  to 
Lindsay's  visit,  because  we  have  been 
told  to  expect  something  wonderful  in 
the  manner  of  his  reading.  I  do  not 
gather  that  English  readers  in  general 
care  very  much  for  what  they  have 
seen  of  his  work,  but  the  enthusiasts 
are  not  few,  and  these  are  all  saying, 
"Wait  till  you've  heard  him  chant!" 

The  whole  point  of  Vachel  Lindsay's 
work  seems  to  lie  in  the  fact  that  it 
partakes  of  the  nature  of  a  religious, 
or  at  any  rate  collective,  rite.  This 
gets  right  away  from  the  ordinaiy  no- 
tion of  poetry  as  something  essentially 
for  the  study,  and  that  may  make  it 
harder  for  Lindsay  to  get  the  ear  of 
the  English  public.  Certain  sections 
of  our  folk  will  go  in  shoals  to  hear 
hymns  and  revivalist  exhortation ;  but 
that  is  not  the  section  that  will  hear 
about  Lindsay  before  he  arrives.  The 
section  upon  which  he  will  burst  is  the 
literary  section,  and  I  foresee  a  great 
vogue  for  him  at  literary  evening  par- 
ties. But  I  rather  gathered  from 
something  I  read  that  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  reciting  out  of  doors,  and  this 
I  cannot  imagine  in  England.  Perhaps 
he  will  clear  away  all  our  prejudices. 
We  are  quite  ready  for  something  new, 
because  it  is  high  time  something  hap- 
pened to  give  us  the  feeling  that  time 

is  not  standing  still. 

•  •  •  • 

And  yet  to  say  that  is  to  give  a 
wrong  impression.  We  are  all  very 
busy,  and  properly  discontented  with 
ourselves  over  here,  and  those  are  both 
good  signs.  All  that  worries  me  is 
that  I  do  not  see  much  talent  coming 
along  of  the  development  of  which  I 
can  feel  truly  confident.  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  of  all  the  young  men  who 


THE  LONDONER 


155 


are  flutterinsr  about  here  Aldous  Hux- 
ley shows  most  signs  of  growing  into 
something  notable.  He  is  very  un- 
equal, and  has  still  a  great  hankering 
after  the  bizarre  at  all  costs ;  but  he  is 
young,  and  there  is  at  times  such  bril- 
liance in  his  work  that  I  pin  my  faith 
to  it.  At  present,  like  so  many  others, 
he  is  doing  too  much  journalism, 
which  can  never  be  a  good  thing  for  a 
young  writer,  but  which  has  to  be 
done  until  success  in  another  field  is 
assured.  I  wish  there  were  some  way 
out  of  this  difficulty,  because  until  one 
is,  so  to  speak,  ''set",  and  so  can  deal 
with  pitch  without  being  smeared  all 
over  and  losing  one's  native  color,  the 
dangers  are  incalculable.  The  men 
here  under  thirty  are  all  doing  jour- 
nalism; and  thirty  is  the  lowest  age 
at  which  it  can  be  made  a  regular 
means  of  livelihood  without  impairing 

gifts  much  more  precious. 

•  «  *  « 

So  Daisy  Ashford  is  no  longer 
Daisy  Ashford  I  She  was  married  on 
the  eighth  of  January  to  a  James  Dev- 
lin. Although  "The  Young  Visiters" 
took  the  world  by  storm  only  last  year, 
the  marriage  was  regarded  by  our 
papers  as  almost  a  national  event.  I 
chuckled  on  the  morning  of  the  ninth 
when  I  saw  on  a  big  contents  bill  the 
words  "Famous  Authoress  Married". 
I  knew  what  that  meant.  I  knew  that 
in  spite  of  every  attempt  to  keep  the 
thing  secret  some  keen  fellow  had  got 
hold  of  the  news.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
I  had  rather  a  success  on  the  eighth, 
when  the  whole  thing  was  over.  In  a 
convenient  pause,  I  said  to  a  tableful 
of  people  with  whom  I  was  working: 
"Well,  Daisy  Ashford  was  married  at 
eleven  o'clodk  this  morning !"  The  ef- 
fect was  electric.  Meanwhile,  prepara- 
tions for  the  dramatic  version  of  "The 
Young  Visiters"  are  so  far  advanced 
that  the  play  will  certainly  be  on  the 


boards  in  a  fortnight.  Miss  Edyth 
Goodall,  who  is  producing  it,  is  one 
of  our  best  young  actresses,  and  as 
this  is  her  first  experiment  in  manage- 
ment everybody  will  have  a  double 
reason  for  wishing  the  play  success. 
Miss  Goodall  herself  will  play  Ethel 
Monticue.  May  I  be  there  to  see  I  It 
will  be  a  jolly  first  night,  whatever 
the  fortune  of  the  play  may  be. 

The  other  Ashford  stories  are  to  be 
published  in  a  single  volume.  Al- 
though this  is  to  be  called  "Daisy  Ash- 
ford: Her  Book",  room  wiD  be  found 
in  it  for  the  novel  by  Angle  Ashford, 
called  "The  Jellous  Governess".  The 
contributions  by  Daisy  herself  include 
"The  Hangman's  Daughter",  "A  Short 
Story  of  Love  and  Marriage",  "Leslie 
Woodcock",  and  "Where  Love  Lies 
Deepest".  "A  Short  Story  of  Love 
and  Marriage",  I  understand,  was  dic- 
tated by  the  juvenile  author  to  her 
father,  so  if  there  are  any  misspell- 
ings in  that,  they  will  show  that  bad 
spelling  ran  in  the  family,  and  not 
that  the  speUing  of  "The  Young  Visit- 
ers" was  adapted.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  I  believe  that  the  later  stories  are 
very  much  better  spelt,  because  Daisy 
Ashford  was  rather  older  when  she 
wrote  them.  This  is  a  pity  for  those 
who  got  so  much  delight  out  of  the 
capricious  versions  of  some  words  in 

the  classic;  but  it  cannot  be  helped. 
«  «  «  « 

My  evening  paper  the  other  day  told 
me  that  J.  C.  Squire  was  going  to 
visit  America.  I  do  not  know.  The 
last  I  heard  was  that  he  could  not  do 
so;  but  Squire's  plans  have  been 
changed  lately  by  events  which  could 
not  be  foreseen.  A  weekly  paper  re- 
cently said  that  the  identity  of  "E.  T. 
Raymond",  the  author  of  "Uncensored 
Celebrities",  was  "an  open  secret".  At 
the  same  time  this  paper  published  a 
portrait  of  "E.  T.  Raymond".    It  was 


156 


THE  BOOKMAN 


the  portrait  of  J.  C.  Squire.  Now  as 
I  knew  that  there  was  no  truth  in  this 
guess,  I  took  no  notice  of  the  sugges- 
tion. All  the  same,  it  has  been  neces- 
sary for  Squire  to  deny  the  charge, 
which  is  amusing  enough.  In  view  of 
this  interesting  attribution,  one  reads 
with  reserve  the  journalistic  state- 
ment that  he  is  to  visit  America.  One 
thing  is  quite  true.  He  is  no  longer 
to  be  literary  editor  of  "The  New 
Statesman",  a  position  which  he  has 
held  since  the  foundation  of  the  paper 
in  1912  or  1913.  This  means  that  the 
familiar  signature  ''Solomon  Eagle" 
will  become  extinct,  so  far  as  "The 
New  Statesman"  is  concerned. 
Squire's  successor  in  the  post  of  lit- 
erary editor  is  Desmond  MacCarthy,  a 
very  popular  journalist  whose  prin- 
cipal work  has  hitherto  been  that  of 


dramatic  criticism.  But  MacCarthy 
has  for  a  number  of  years  contributed 
what  are  called  "middle"  articles  to 
"The  Statesman",  so  he  will  be  able 
to  adapt  himself  to  his  new  post  with- 
out diflSculty. 

No  contrast  could  be  greater  than 
that  between  the  two  men.  Squire 
gives  the  impression,  which  may  be  a 
false  one,  of  being  as  hard  as  nails. 
MacCarthy  is  a  great  good-humored 
fellow  with  a  tremendous  personal 
charm,  incorrigibly  procrastinating, 
always  late  for  appointments,  but  a 
welcome  guest  in  any  company,  and  I 
should  say  one  of  the  best-liked  men  in 
the  literary  world.  It  will  be  interest- 
ing to  see  whether  he  makes  many 
changes  in  the  conduct  of  "The  States- 
man". 

SIMON  PURE 


MR.  HERFORD'S  AWFUL  ERROR 


BY  BERTON  BRALEY 


A  COBBLER  should  stick  to  his  last. 
A  humorist  should  stick  to  hu- 
mor. There  is  no  better  evidence  of 
this  than  Oliver  Herford's  recent  ex- 
cursion into  the  realm  of  geography 
and  science  which  he  calls  "This  Giddy 
Globe".  We  have  read  a  good  deal  of 
Mr.  Herford's  work  in  the  past,  and 
while  we  have  somewhat  deplored  his 
frivolous  treatment  of  many  serious 
subjects,  we  have  occasionally  indulged 
in  cachinnatory  ejaculations  over  cer- 
tain of  his  phrases,  though  we  have 
deprecated  our  mirth.  But  after  all,  we 
have  thought,  we  suppose  a  humorist 


cannot  be  blamed  for  his  foolish  whim- 
sies and  his  illogical  reactions  to  life. 
We  have  felt  that  he  was  wasting  his 
time  on  trivial  things,  but  we  are  suf- 
ficiently catholic  in  our  views  to  allow 
him  that  latitude  and  to  hope  that  he 
might  turn  his  talents  in  time  to  some- 
thing of  a  sterner  and  more  important 
sort. 

However,  upon  perusing  "This 
Giddy  Globe",  which  is  evidently  Mr. 
Herford's  attempt  at  atonement  for 
past  nonsensicalities,  we  are  compelled 
to  realize  that  whatever  talent  for  hu- 
mor Mr.  Herford  possesses,  he  is  not 


MR.   HERFORD'S  AWFUL  ERROR 


167 


an  accurate  or  capable  or  authorita- 
tive writer  of  text^-books.  He  seems 
to  have  rushed  into  print  with  the 
present  work  quite  unaware  that 
books  dealing  with  science,  with  facts, 
with  histoiy  and  geology,  require 
years  of  careful  research  and  corre- 
lated and  collected  data.  Thus  he  has 
produced  a  volume  which  is  the  most 
amazing  hodge  podge  of  misinforma- 
tion and  misstatement  it  has  ever 
been  our  fate  to  encounter. 

The  title  itself  "This  Giddy  Globe" 
is  undignified  and  utterly  unfit  for  a 
work  that  pretends  to  authority. 
"This  Revolving  Oblate  Spheroid" 
would  be  much  more  in  keeping  with 
the  cosmic  subject  which  the  author 
attempts  to  consider.  But  the  title  is 
the  least  of  the  book's  faults.  For 
from  the  very  beginning  the  author 
shows  haste  and  carelessness.  He  puts 
the  "Preface"  heading  in  the  proper 
place  and  then  adds  a  footnote  that  he 
has  located  the  preface  itself  between 
chapters  One  and  Two.  And  there  he 
captions  it  "Strictly  Private — for  the 
Reader  Only".  Could  anything  be 
more  ridiculous?  For  how  can  any- 
thing be  strictly  private  which  every- 
body who  reads  the  book  must  see? 

As  for  the  statements  of  fact  ad- 
duced by  Mr.  Herford — ^they  are  the 
most  astounding  examples  of  igno- 
rance we  have  ever  read.  The  merest 
school  child  would  laugh  at  them.  For 
example,  Mr.  Herford  says  of  our 
planet:  "She" — ^he  insists  on  calling 
the  Globe  she — "is  really  quite  large, 
not  to  say  obese.  Her  waist  measure- 
ment is  no  less  than  twenty-five  thou- 
sand miles.  In  the  hope  of  reducing 
it  the  earth  takes  unceasing  and  vio- 
lent exercise;  but  though  she  spins 
around  on  one  toe  at  the  rate  of  a 
thousand  miles  an  hour  every  day,  and 
round  the  sun  once  a  year,  she  does 
not  succeed  in  taking  off  a  single  mile 


or  keeping  even  comfortably  warm  all 
over." 

"Spinning  round  on  one  toe",  in- 
deed! Where,  pray,  Mr.  Herford,  is 
this  toe  on  which  she  spins?  And 
why  should  the  earth,  even  if  she  were 
a  sentient  being  and  not  an  agglom- 
eration of  elements,  want  to  reduce? 
We  are  as  giddy  as  Mr.  Herford  would 
make  us  think  the  earth  is  when  we 
try  to  understand  these  statements. 

Then  when  the  author  begins  to 
particularize  he  is  guilty  of  such  base- 
less declarations  as  this:  "From  the 
cotton  plant  comes  the  woolen  under- 
garment and  the  soldier's  blanket.". . . 
"From  the  lowly  cabbage  springs  the 
Havana  Perfecto  with  its  gold  and 
crimson  band,  and  from  the  simple 
turnip  is  distilled  the  golden  cham- 
pagne without  which  so  many  lives 
will  now  be  empty."  Speaking  of  the 
United  States  Mr.  Herford  says:  "In 
large  cities  the  sky  is  kept  clean  by 
means  of  sky-scrapers — ^year  in  and 
year  out  scraping  away  the  germ-laden 
dust  and  refuse,  and  imparting  a 
bright  and  cheerful  gloss  to  the  sur- 
face of  the  sky."  Later  he  says: 
"London,  the  capital  of  England,  is 
famous  for  its  fogs.  This  is  due  to 
the  absence  of  sky-scrapers."  And 
Mr.  Herford  would  put  a  text-book 
containing  such  ideas  into  the  hands 
of  those  children  of  today  who  will  be 
the  adults  of  tomorrow.  Perish  the 
thought  I 

The  author  ends  his  chapter  of  mis- 
statements about  the  United  States 
with  the  wholly  sane  and  proper  con- 
clusion that  "the  Inhabitants  of  Amer- 
ica are  the  most  moral  and  patriotic 
people  in  the  world,  and  their  army  is 
second  to  none  in  bravery  and  won  the 
world  war".  And  from  this  one  has 
hopes  that  his  further  chapters  will 
have  more  relation  to  facts  and  reali- 
ties.    But  we  find  that  this  phrase 


158 


THE   BOOKMAN 


seems  to  be  an  obession  from  which 
Mr.  Herford  suffers,  for  it  is  the  con- 
cluding sentence  of  his  chapters  on 
Canada,  England,  France,  Spain,  Per- 
sia, Holland,  Liberia  and  eveiy  other 
nation  he  takes  up  save  Germany. 
Evidently  even  the  persistency  of  this 
idea  of  his  was  not  great  enough  to 
overcome  the  historic  fact  that  Ger- 
many lost  the  world  war. 

Everybody  knows  that  Holland  and 
Norway  and  Sweden  did  not  partici- 
pate in  the  war,  nor  did  Patagonia; 
yet  Mr.  Herford,  who  dares  to  set 
himself  up  as  authority  sufficient  to 
write  a  geographical  text-book,  is  un- 
aware of  this  patent  fact  and  gives 
credit  to  these  countries  for  winning 
the  contest.  This  is  but  another  ex- 
emplification of  the  appalling  igno- 
rance of  a  man  who  attempts  to  write 
about  science  and  history  without 
proper  basic  knowledge. 

It  is  a  wearisome  and  ungrateful 
task  to  point  out  the  errors  which 
crowd  almost  every  page  of  this  book. 
But  we  cannot  in  justice  to  the  pos- 
sible reader  omit  to  quote  such  things 
as  ''Monaco  is  the  center  of  the  spin- 
ning industry  of  the  world".  The  au- 
thor evidently  confused  it  with  Man- 
chester. "The  principal  products  of 
Paris  are  Plaster  of  Paris,  Paris 
Green,  and  Pat^  de  Foie  Gras" — ^a  re- 
mark whose  inaccuracies  it  is  need- 
less to  comment  upon.  Then  there  are 
such  inane  comments  upon  the  world 
as, — "Its  plumbing  system  is  bad... 
the  absence  of  heat  in  winter  when 
there  is  greater  need  of  it  and  the 
paucity  of  moisture  in  the  desert 
places  where  it  never  rains"..., — as 
though  one  could  start  a  popular 
movement  to  change  geological  and 
meteorological  conditions  which  are 
due  to  strict  scientific  causes.  Or 
take  this:  "The  terrestial  globe  is 
pleasingly  tinted  in  blue,  pink,  yellow, 


and  green.  The  blue  portion  is  called 
water — ^the  pink,  yeDow,  and  green 
portions  are  called  land".  Here  is  an 
author  who  puts  forth  a  text-book  on 
geography,  yet  whose  conception  of 
the  world  is  based  upon  the  distin- 
guishing colors  used  by  map-makers 
to  differentiate  countries  and  oceans. 
His  untraveled  mind  fails  utterly  to 
understand  that  the  lands  and  waters 
are  not  actually  the  hues  printed  in  at- 
lases and  on  charts. 

But  enough  of  this — it  is  plain  that 
Mr.  Herford  cannot  be  taken  seriously 
as  a  commentator  or  a  chronicler  of 
science.  His  mind  is  too  naive  and  his 
credulousness  too  vast.  His  text  is 
what  one  might  expect  from  one  who 
has  learned  his  data  from  Marco  Polo 
and  confused  it  with  Grimm's  fairy 
tales. 

The  maps  and  illustrations  accom- 
panying the  text  of  "This  Giddy 
Globe"  are  of  a  piece  with  it.  They 
have  no  connection  whatever  with  fact 
and  very  little  even  with  legend.  Per- 
sisting, for  example,  in  his  illusion 
that  the  Globe  is  a  she,  Mr.  Herford 
appears  to  feel  that  a  depiction  of  her 
in  the  nude,  as  it  were,  would  be  im- 
modest. So  with  a  thoughtfulness 
that  does  credit  to  his  delicacy,  though 
not  to  his  erudition,  he  portrays  the 
earth  as  a  corpulent  lady  in  a  sort  of 
corset  and  combination.  That  the  re- 
sult is  not  wholly  modest  does  not  de- 
tract from  the  author's  excellent  in- 
tentions. But  of  course  the  whole  at- 
tempt is  so  far  removed  from  reason 
or  common  knowledge  that  it  only 
adds  to  the  utter  failure  of  the  volume 
as  a  scientific  handbook.  This  par- 
ticular illustration  is,  of  course,  one 
of  many  that  show  his  absolute  inepti- 
tude as  a  geographer.  It  is  certainly 
to  be  hoped  that  Mr.  Herford  will 
hereafter  confine  himself  to  his  baili- 


THE   CHINESE    COAT 


159 


wick  of  humor,  and  leave  science  to 
scientists.  Indeed,  if  this  present  vol- 
ume were  not  so  likely  to  lead  the 
young  idea  who  might  perchance  read 
it,  astray,  if  it  were  not  so  filled  with 
silly  and  baseless  statements  put  forth 
with  solemn  authority, — and  there- 
fore likely  to  give  the  unscientific 
reader  a  distorted  conception  of  the 


universe, — if  it  were  not  for  these 
dangers  in  its  use,  the  volume  might 
appeal  to  the  educated  mind,  able  to 
estimate  its  naivete  of  ignorance  and 
credulousness  at  their  true  worth — it 
might,  we  repeat,  appeal  to  such  a 
mind  as  extremely  funny. 


This     Giddy    Globe.       By 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 


Oliver    Herftpi. 


THE  CHINESE  COAT 

BY  RICHARD  BUTLER  GLAENZER 

THE  finest  poem  I  ever  wrote 
Was  woven  from  a  Chinese  coat, 
A  magic  coat  of  murrey  brown. 
Prize  of  a  Cantonese  godown ; 
An  old  and  odd  and  rich  brocade 
Whose  dragons  boasted  eyes  of  jade. 
Whose  dragons  bubbled  Indian  pearls 
White  as  the  teeth  of  dancing-girls ; 
Whose  bands  of  many-colored  waves 
Were  gay  as  I-yin's  happy  slaves ; 
Whose  clouds  were  bright  as  coral  suns: 
A  coat  of  red-browns,  cinnamons. 
Blues  like  the  birds  of  Si  Wang  Mu 
And  all  the  greens  that  glow  in  yu. 

The  finest  poem  I  ever  wrote 

Was  woven  from  this  Chinese  coat; 

For  from  its  colors  rose  a  room 

Which  made  the  rainbow  dull  as  gloom, 

A  room  whose  very  colors  sang 

The  songs  of  Ming  and  Sung  and  T'ang. 


GIOVANNI  PAPINI  AND  THE  FUTURISTIC  LITERARY 

MOVEMENT  IN  ITALY 

BY  JOSEPH  COLLINS 


IN  one  of  his  "Appreciations" — de- 
preciations would  be  the  more  fit- 
ting word — Signor  Papini  says  he 
seems  to  have  read  or  to  have  said 
that  in  every  man  there  are  at  least 
four  men:  the  real  man,  the  man  he 
would  like  to  be,  the  man  he  thinks 
he  is,  and  the  man  others  think  he  is. 
He  is  sure  to  have  read  it  for  he  has 
read  widely.  Undoubtedly  he  has  also 
said  it,  for  he  has  made  a  specialty 
of  saying  things  that  have  been  said 
before,  even  that  he  has  said  before. 

As  for  the  man  he  thinks  he  is,  he 
has  written  a  long  autobiography  with 
plentiful  data,  from  which  it  may  be 
deduced  that  he  is  a  man  with  great 
possibilities  and  a  great  mission,  to 
wit:  to  precipitate  in  Italy  a  spiritual 
revolution,  to  bring  to  his  countrymen 
the  gospel  that  it  is  time  to  be  up  and 
doing,  and  that  intoxication  with  past 
successes  will  not  condone  present  in- 
ertness. He  has  been  chosen  to  teach 
men  that  the  best  of  life  is  to  be 
found  in  purposeful  action  regardless 
of  inconsistencies,  contradictions,  and 
imperfections;  that  the  ego  should 
be  guided  peripherally  not  centrically; 
that  introspection  is  the  stepping- 
stone  to  mental  involution.  In  reality 
he  is  but  one  of  many  who  are  pro- 
claiming those  tidings  in  Italy. 

The  distinction  between  what  he 
would  like  to  be  and  what  he  thinks 
he  is,  is  not  so  marked  as  in  more 
timid  and  less  articulate  souls.    Sub- 


stantially, it  is  this  same  calling  of 
prophecy  which  is  his  aim.  As  for 
the  man  he  is,  time  and  his  own  ac- 
complishments alone  will  show.  Now, 
at  the  zenith  of  his  creative  power, 
he  is  still  a  man  of  promise,  a  carrier 
pigeon  freighted  with  an  important 
message  who,  instead  of  delivering  it, 
exhausts  himself  beating  his  wings 
in  a  luminous  void. 

In  Giovanni  Papini  these  four  as- 
pects stand  out  very  distinctly.  Let 
us  take  them  up  in  inverse  order, 
since  what  others  think  of  a  man  is 
soon  stated  and  what  he  really  is,  is  a 
vague  goal  to  be  approached  only  dis- 
tantly, even  at  the  end  of  this  paper. 
Reginald  Turner  says : 

Papini  is  by  far  the  most  interesting  and 
most  important  living  writer  of  Italy. 
"L'Uomo  Finito"  has  become  a  classic  In  Italy ; 
it  is  written  in  the  most  distinguished  Italian ; 
it  can  be  read  again  and  again  with  increasing 
profit  and  interest. .  .its  Italian  is  impeccable 
and  clear. 

J.  S.  Barnes  calls  him  the  most  notable 
personality  on  the  stage  of  Italian  let- 
ters today,  and  G.  Prezzolini  writes: 
"His  mind  is  so  vast,  so  human,  that 
it  will  win  its  way  into  the  intellectual 
patrimony  of  Europe."  I  cannot  go 
all  the  way  with  these  adherents  of 
Papini.  I  have  talked  with  scores  of 
cultured  Italians  about  his  writings 
and  I  have  heard  it  said  'lie  has  ac- 
quired an  enviable  mastery  of  the 
Italian  language",  but  I  have  never 
once  heard  praise  of  his  "impeccable 


160 


THE  FUTURISTIC  LITERARY  MOVEMENT  IN  ITALY         161 


and  clear  Italian" ;  nor  do  I  hold  with 
Mr.  Barnes  that  he  is  unquestionably 
the    most    notable    personality    save 
D'Annunzlo  on  the  stage  of  Italian 
letters  today.    We  would  scarcely  call 
Mr.  Shaw  the  most  notable  personality 
on  the  stage  of  English  letters  today. 
Surely  it  would  be  an  injustice  to  Mr. 
Kipling,  Mr.  Wells,  and  Mr.  Conrad. 
It  might  be  unjust  to  Mr.  Swinnerton. 
Papini    is   an    interesting   literary 
figure  particularly  as  a  sign  of  the 
times.     During  the  past  generation 
there  has  been  in  Italy  a  profound  re- 
volt against  what  may  be  called  satis- 
faction with  and  reverence  for  past 
performances  and  against  slavish  sub- 
scription to  French,  German,  and  Rus- 
sian realism.      It  is  to  a  group  of 
writers  who  call  themselves  Futurists 
and  who  see  in  the  designation  praise 
rather  than  opprobrium  that  this  sal- 
utary,   beneficial,    and    praiseworthy 
movement  is  due.    Papini  has  publicly 
read  himself  out  of  the  party,  but 
apostasy  of  one  kind  or  another  is 
almost  as  necessary  to  him  as  food 
and  most  people  still  regard  him  as  a 
Futurist;    though  he  refuses  to  sub- 
scribe to  the  clause  in  the  constitution 
of  the  literary  Futurists  of  Italy  bear- 
ing on  love,  published  by  their  mon- 
arch Marinetti  in  that  classic  of  Fu- 
turistic literature  "Zang  Tumb  Tumb" 
and  in  ^'Democrazia  Futurista". 

It  is  now  twenty  years  since  there 
appeared  unheralded  in  Florence  a  lit- 
erary journal  called  the  "Leonardo", 
whose  purpose  in  the  main  seemed  to 
be  to  overthrow  certain  philosophic 
and  socialistic  doctrines.  Positivism, 
and  Tolstoian  ethics.  The  particu- 
larly noteworthy  articles  were  signed 
Gian  Falco.  It  soon  became  known 
that  the  writer  was  one  Giovanni  Pa- 
pini, a  contentious,  self-confident 
youth  of  peculiarly  inquisitive  turn  of 
mind,  and  of  sensitiveness  bordering 


on  the  pathological,  an  omnivorous 
reader,  an  aggressive  debater.  He 
was  hailed  by  a  group  of  youthful  lit- 
erary enthusiasts  as  a  man  of  prom- 
ise. 

In  the  twenty  years  that  have 
elapsed  since  then  he  has  written  more 
than  a  score  of  books,  short  stories,  es- 
says, criticisms,  poetry,  polemics, 
some  of  which,  such  as  the  "L'Uomo 
Finito"  (The  Played-out  Man),  'Tenti 
Quattro  Cervelli"  (Twenty-four 
Minds),  and  "Cento  Pagine  di  Poesia" 
(One  hundred  Pages  of  Poetry)  have 
been  widely  read  in  Italy  and  have 
known  several  editions.  Save  for  a 
few  short  stories  he  has  not  appeared 
in  English,  though  there  seems  to  be 
propaganda,  directed  by  himself  and 
by  friends  in  his  publishing  house  in 
Florence,  to  make  him  known  to  for- 
eigners. Like  other  Italian  propa- 
ganda it  has  not  been  very  successful 
and  this  is  to  be  regretted. 

Papini  is  like  Arnold  Bennett  in 
that  they  both  know  the  reading  pub- 
lic are  personally  interested  in  au- 
thors. From  the  beginning  he  and 
his  friends  have  capitalized  his  pov- 
erty of  pulchritude  and  his  pulchri- 
tudinous  poverty.  Giuseppe  Prezzo- 
lini,  in  a  book  entitled  "Discorso  su 
Giovanni  Papini",  has  devoted  several 
pages  to  his  person  which  he  writes 
"is  like  those  pears,  coarse  to  the 
touch  but  sweet  to  the  palate'' ;  yet  I 
am  moved  to  say  that  the  eye  long 
habituated  to  resting  loving]^  upon 
somatic  beauty  does  not  blink  nor  is 
it  pained  when  it  rests  upon  Giovanni 
Papini. 

In  one  of  his  latest  books — it  is 
never  safe  to  say  which  is  really  his 
latest  unless  you  stand  outside  the 
door  of  the  bindery  of  "La  Voce" — 
in  one  of  his  latest  books  entitled 
"Testimonials",  the  third  series  of 
"Twenty-four  Minds",  he  reverts  to 


162 


THE  BOOKMAN 


this  and  says  that  his  person  is  ''so 
repugnant  that  Mirabeau,  world- 
famed  for  his  ugliness,  was  compared 
with  him  an  Apollo." 

He  does  not  get  the  same  exquisite 
pleasure  from  deriding  his  qualities 
of  soul,  but  as  the  face  is  the  mirror 
of  the  soul  no  one  is  astonished  to 
learn  that  "this  same  Papini  is  the 
gangster  of  literature,  the  tough  of 
journalism,  the  Barabbas  of  art,  the 
dwarf  of  philosophy,  the  straddler  of 
politics,  and  the  Apache  of  culture  and 
learning."  Nevertheless  no  prudent, 
sensitive  man  should  permit  himself 
to  say  this  or  anjrthing  approximating 
it  in  Papini's  hearing;  for  not  only 
has  he  a  card  index  of  substantives 
that  convey  derogation,  but  he  has 
perhaps  the  fullest  arsenal  of  adjec- 
tives in  Italy  and  has  habituated  him- 
self to  the  use  of  them,  both  with  and 
without  provocation. 

I  have  been  told  by  his  schoolmates 
and  by  those  whom  he  later  essayed  to 
teach,  that  as  a  youth  he  was  inquisi- 
tive about  the  nature  of  things  and 
objects  susceptible  to  physical  and 
chemical  explanation.  His  writings 
indicate  that  his  real  seduction  was 
conditioned  by  philosophic  questions. 
Early  in  life  he  displayed  a  symptom 
which  is  common  to  many  psycho- 
paths :  an  uncontrollable  desire  to  read 
philosophical  writers  beyond  their 
comprehension.  In  the  twenty  years 
that  he  has  been  publishing  books  he 
has  constantly  returned  to  this  prac- 
tice as  shown  by  his  "Twilight  of  the 
Philosophers",  "The  Other  Half,  and 
"Pragmatism". 

His  first  articles  in  the  "Leonardo", 
which  now  make  up  the  volume  known 
as  "n  Tragico  Quotidiano  e  il  Pilota 
Cieco"  (The  Tragedy  of  Every  Day 
and  the  Blind  Pilot),  are  sketches  and 
fantasies  of  a  personal  kind — some  of 
them   fanciful   and   charming,   some 


with  a  touch  of  inspired  extravagance 
that  recalls  Baudelaire  and  Poe,  and 
faintly  echoes  Oscar  Wilde's  "Bells 
and  Pomegranates",  Dostoyevsky's 
"Poor  People",  and  Leonid  Andreyev's 
"Little  Angel".  Some  of  the  stories 
have  a  weird  touch.  Others  are 
founded  in  obsession  that  form  the 
ancillse  of  psychopathy.  Take,  for  in- 
stance, the  man  with  a  feeling  of  un- 
reality who  did  not  really  exist  in 
flesh  and  blood  but  was  only  a  figure 
in  the  dream  of  someone  else,  and  who 
felt  that  he  would  be  vivified  if  only 
he  could  find  the  sleeper  and  arouse 
him.  This  idea  is  not  of  infrequent 
occurrence  in  that  strange  disorder, 
dementia  prsecox.  Take  again  the  man 
who  found  his  life  dull  and  who  cove- 
nanted with  a  novelist  to  do  his  bid- 
ding in  exchange  for  being  made  an 
interesting  character;  and  the  two 
men  who  changed  souls ;  and  the  talks 
with  the  devil  reinterpreting  scrip- 
ture. All  these  awaken  an  echo  in  the 
reader's  mind  of  having  been  heard 
before  or  else  they  bring  the  hope  that 
they  never  will  be  heard  again. 

Although  his  early  writings  had  an 
arresting  quality,  it  was  not  until  he 
undertook  to  edit  some  Italian  classics 
published  under  the  title  of  "Scrittori 
Nostri"  (Our  Writers)  that  they  be- 
gan to  take  on  the  features  that  have 
since  become  characteristic,  and  that 
have  been  described  by  his  admirers 
as  "rugged,  vigorous,  virile,  rich,  neo- 
logistic"  and  eversrthing  else  the  anti- 
thesis of  pussy-foot.  This  feature,  if 
feature  it  can  be  called,  showed  itself 
first  in  "L'Uomo  Finito",  a  book  which 
is  admitted  to  be  an  autobiography. 
It  introduces  us  to  an  ugly,  sensitive, 
introspective,  mentally  prehensile 
child  of  shut-in  personality  who  is  not 
only  egocentric  at  seven,  but  who  loves 
and  exalts  himself  and  despises  and 
disparages  others. 


THE  FUTURISTIC  LITERARY  MOVEMENT  IN   ITALY 


163 


This  unlovable  child  with  an  in- 
satiate appetite  for  inf ormation,  found 
his  way  to  a  public  library  and  deter- 
mined to  write  an  encyclopsedia  of  all 
knowledge.  His  juvenile  frenzy  came 
its  first  cropper  when  he  reached  the 
letter  "B"  and  he  was  submerged  with 
the  Bible  and  with  God.  The  task 
was  too  big,  he  had  to  admit,  but  his 
ambition  to  complete  some  great  and 
thorough  piece  of  work  was  un- 
daunted. He  began  a  compendium  of 
religion,  then  of  literature,  and  at  last 
of  the  romance  languages. 

These  successive  attempts  at  com- 
pleteness are  typical  of  Papini's  far- 
reaching  ambitions.  'The  Played-out 
Man"  is  a  record  of  his  plunge  into 
one  absorption  after  another.  He  dis- 
covered evil  and  planned  not  only  in- 
dividual suicide,  but  suicide  of  the 
people  en  masse.  Next  came  the  de- 
sire for  love.  His  instincts  were  of  a 
sort  not  to  be  satisfied  by  the  conven- 
tional sweetness  of  "I  Promessi 
Sposi",  but  from  Poe,  Walt  Whitman, 
Baudelaire,  Flaubert,  Dostoyevsky, 
and  Anatole  France,  he  got  a. vicarious 
appeasement  of  the  sentiment  he 
craved.  Then  he  encountered  "dear 
Julian".  **We  never  kissed  each  other 
and  we  never  cried  together,"  but  he 
could  not  forgive  Julian  for  allowing 
his  friend  to  learn  of  his  matrimony 
only  through  the  "Corriere  Delia 
Sera". 

The  brief  emotional  episode  past, 
Papini's  life  interest  swung  back  to 
philosophy.  He  ^discovered  Monism, 
and  believed  it  like  a  religion.  Then 
Kant  became  his  ideal,  then  Berkeley, 
Mill,  Plato,  Locke,  culminating  in  the 
glorified  egotism  of  Max  Stimer. 
After  Stimer,  philosophy  has  no  more 
to  say.  Down  with  it  all.  It  is  neces- 
sary to  liberate  the  world  from  the 
yoke  of  these  mumblers,  just  as  Pa- 
pini  has  liberated  himself.    But  how 


to  do  it!  Ah,  yes.  Found  a  journal 
that  will  purge  the  world  of  its  sins, 
as  the  Great  Revolution  purged 
France  of  royalty. 

Thus  Papini's  literary  work  had  its 
beginning.  It  takes  several  tempestu- 
ous chapters  of  the  autobiography  to 
describe  the  launching  of  the  "Leon- 
ardo" by  himself  and  a  few  congenial 
souls.  Nine  numbers  marked  the  limit 
of  its  really  vigorous  life,  but  it  ran, 
with  Papini  as  its  chief  source  of  ma- 
terial, for  five  years.  Ultimately,  with 
the  dissipation  of  the  author's  youth- 
ful energy,  this  child  of  his  bosom  had 
to  be  interred.  But  Papini  still  goes 
to  its  grave. 

The  tumultuous  introspective  life 
of  the  author  continued.  He  went 
through  a  period  of  self-pity  and  neu- 
rasthenia, then  one  of  intense  hero 
worship  directed  toward  all  radicals, 
including  William  James  whom  he  had 
once  seen  washing  his  neck.  Then 
came  an  immense  desire  for  action, 
hindered,  however,  by  the  fact  that 
the  author  could  not  decide  whether 
to  found  a  school  of  philosophy,  be- 
come the  prophet  of  a  religion,  or  go 
into  politics.  His  only  inherent  con- 
viction concerns  the  stupidity  of  the 
world  and  his  own  calling  to  rise  above 
it.  This  long,  internal  history  ends 
with  a  period  of  sweeping  depression, 
out  of  which  the  author  at  last 
emerges  with  the  intense  conviction 
that  he  is  not,  after  all,  played  out, 
that  there  is  still  matter  in  him  to 
give  the  world.  He  feels  welling  up 
within  him  a  stream  of  arrogance  and 
self-confidence  that  he  is  not  to  be 
damned.  He  has  not  yet  delivered  his 
message,  people  have  not  yet  under- 
stood him: 

They  cannot  grasp  it.  cannot  bear  to  listen. 
The  thing  I  have  to  tell,  unthought  before, 
Demands  another  language. 

So  he  goes  back  to  the  market-place 


164 


THE   BOOKMAN 


of  Florence,  shouting:  "I  have  not 
finished.  I  am  not  played  out.  You 
shall  see."  And  it  is  at  this  stage  that 
Papini's  work  now  stands.  We  wait 
to  see. 

The  "L'Uomo  Finite"  is  Papini's  G. 
P.  No.  2.  It  is  not  fiction  in  the  ordi- 
nary use  of  the  term  but  in  the 
sense  that  Mr.  Wells's  "The  Undying 
Fire"  is  fiction.  In  a  measure  it  is 
fiction  like  "The  Way  of  All  Flesh" 
of  Samuel  Butler.  But  in  point  of  in- 
terest and  workmanship  it  is  far  in- 
ferior to  the  former;  and  in  purpose- 
fulness,  character  delineation,  orienta- 
tion, resurrection,  and  reform  it  is 
not  to  be  compared  with  the  latter. 

Although  it  is  the  book  by  which 
Papini  is  best  known,  it  is  not  his 
love-child.  "The  Twilight  of  the 
Philosophers"  is.  He  is  proud  to  call 
it  his  intellectual  biography,  but  it 
would  be  much  truer  to  call  it  an  index 
of  his  emotional  equation.  "This  is 
not  a  book  of  good  faith.  It  is  a  book 
of  passion,  therefore  of  injustice;  an 
unequal  book,  partisan,  without  scru- 
ples, violent,  contradictory,  unsolid, 
like  all  books  of  those  who  love  and 
hate  and  are  not  ashamed  of  their  love 
or  their  hatred."  This  is  the  intro- 
ductory paragraph  of  the  original 
preface. 

In  reality  it  is  a  cross  between  a 
philosophic  treatise  and  a  popular 
polemic,  with  the  technical  abstruse- 
ness  of  the  one  and  the  passion  of  the 
other,  and  its  purpose  is  to  show  that 
all  philosophy  is  vain  and  should  make 
way  for  action.  Although  it  indicates 
wide  and  attentive  reading  and  a  cer- 
tain erudition,  the  only  indication  of 
constructive  thought  that  it  reveals  is 
a  rudimentary  attempt  to  adjust  the 
philosophic  system  of  each  man  to  the 
temperamental  bias  of  the  author. 
Others,  Santayana  for  instance,  have 
done  this  so  much  better  that  there  is 


scarcely  justification  for  his  pride. 
He  could  have  carried  his  point  quite 
as  successfully  by  stating  it  as  by  la- 
boring it  through  a  whole  volume  de- 
voted largely  to  railing  both  at  the 
philosophers  and  at  their  philosophy. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  phi- 
losopher this  book  is  "popular".  From 
the  standpoint  of  the  people  it  is  "phil- 
osophical". It  is  really  a  testimonial 
to  the  author's  breathless  state  of 
emotional  unrest.  He  is  like  a  bird 
in  a  cage  and  he  feels  that  he  must 
beat  down  the  barriers  in  order  to  ac- 
complish freedom,  but  when  they  are 
fractured  and  he  is  apparently  free 
there  is  no  sense  of  liberation.  He  is 
in  a  far  more  secure  prison  than  he 
was  before,  and  to  make  matters 
worse  he  cannot  now  distinguish  the 
barriers  that  obstacle  his  freedom. 
The  wonder  is  not  that  a  man  of  the 
temperament  and  intellectual  endow- 
ment of  Papini  has  this  feeling,  but 
that  he  can  convince  himself  that  any- 
one else  should  be  interested  in  his 
discovery. 

He  that  hath  knowledge  spareth  his 
words,  and  the  mistake  is  to  consider 
words  linked  up  as  subject,  predicate, 
and  object,  especially  if  the  substan- 
tives are  qualified  by  lurid  adjectives, 
the  equivalent  of  knowledge.  He 
knows  the  "ars  scrivendi"  as  Aspasia 
knew  the  "ars  amandi" ;  Papini  knows 
the  value  of  symbolic,  eye-arresting, 
suggestive  titles.  He  realizes  the  im- 
portance of  overstatement,  and  of  ex- 
aggerated emphasis ;  he  is  cognizant 
of  the  insatiateness  of  the  average 
human  being  for  gossip  and  particu- 
larly gossip  about  the  great;  he  rec- 
ognizes that  there  is  no  more  success- 
ful way  of  flattering  the  mediocre 
than  by  pointing  out  to  him  the  short- 
comings of  the  gods,  for  he  thus 
identifies  their  possessions  with  his 
own  and  convinces  himself  that  he 


THE  FUTURISTIC  LITERARY  MOVEMENT  IN  ITALY 


165 


also  is  a  god.  Papini's  sensitive  soul 
whispers  to  him  that  the  majority  of 
people  are  thinking  him  brave,  cou- 
rageous, valorous,  resolute,  virtuous, 
and  firm  if  he  but  adopt  a  certain 
pose,  a  certain  manner,  a  certain 
swagger  that  will  convey  his  grim  de- 
termination to  carry  his  mission  to 
the  world  though  it  takes  his  last 
breath,  the  last  glow  of  his  mortal 
soul. 

''They  wished  me  to  be  a  poet,  here 
therefore  is  a  little  poetry",  is  the 
opening  line  of  his  book  called  "Cento 
Pagine  di  Poesia".  And  this  though 
not  in  verse  is  characterized  by  such 
imaginative  beauty,  more  in  language 
however  than  in  thought,  that  it  is 
worthy  to  be  called  a  poem.  More 
than  any  other  of  his  books  it  reveals 
the  real  Papini.  Here  he  is  less  trucu- 
lent, less  Nietzschian,  less  self-con- 
scious of  understudying  and  attempt- 
ing to  act  the  part  of  Jove.  He  is 
more  like  the  Papini  that  he  is  by  na- 
ture and  therefore  more  human,  more 
kind  and  gentle, — would  I  could  add 
modest, — ^more  potent  and  convincing 
than  in  any  of  his  other  books.  It  is 
especially  in  the  third  part  under  the 
general  title  of  "Precipitations"  that 
the  author  gives  the  freest  rein  to  his 
fantasy  and  is  not  always  endeavor- 
ing to  explain  or  tell  the  reason  why, 
but  abandons  himself  to  the  produc- 
tion of  words  which  will  present 
rhythmically  the  emotions  that  are 
springing  up  within  him.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  believe  that  the  same  hand 
penned  these  poems  and  the  open 
letter  to  Anatole  France:  "In  these 
days  Anatole  France  is  in  Rome,  and 
perhaps  returning  he  will  stop  in 
Florence,  but  I  beg  him  fervently  not 
to  seek  me  out.  I  could  not  receive 
him".  That  quality  of  delusion  of 
grandeur  I  have  seen  heretofore  only 
in  victims  of  a  terrible  disease. 


Papini  is  never  so  transparent  as  he 
is  in  his  "Stroncatura"  and  in  his  ex- 
cursions into  the  realm  of  philosophy. 
His  attack  on  Nietzsche  is  most  il- 
luminating. In  fact  Giovanni  Papini 
is  Friedrich  Nietzsche  viewed  through 
an  inverted  telescope. 

Nietzsche's  Tolubility  (indication  of  easy  fa- 
tigue) makes  him  prefer  the  fragmentary  and 
aphoristic  style  of  expression ;  his  incapacity 
to  select  from  all  that  which  he  has  thought 
and  written  leads  him  to  publish  a  quantity 
of  useless  and  repeated  thought ;  his  reluctance 
to  synthesize,  to  construct,  to  organize,  which 
gives  to  his  books  an  air  of  oriental  stuff,  a 
mixture  of  old  rags  and  of  precious  drapery. 
Jumbled  up  without  order,  are  the  best  argu- 
ments for  imputing  to  him  a  deficiency  of  im- 
perial mentality,  a  reflex  of  the  general  weak- 
ness of  philosophy.  But  the  most  unexpected 
proof  of  this  weakness  consists  in  his  inca- 
pacity to  be  truly  and  authentically  original. 
The  highest  and  most  difficult  forms  of  orig- 
inality are  certainly  these  two:  to  find  new 
interpretation  and  solution  of  old  problems, 
to  pose  new  problems  and  to  open  streets  ab- 
solutely unknown. 

No  one  can  examine  closely  the 
writings  of  Papini  without  recogniz- 
ing that  he  has  shown  himself  incapa- 
ble of  selecting  from  that  which  he 
has  written  and  thought,  and  setting 
it  forth  as  a  statement  of  his  philoso- 
phy or  as  an  apologia  pro  sua  vita. 
Constant  republication  of  the  same 
statements  and  the  same  ideas  dressed 
up  with  different  synonyms,  is  a 
charge  that  can  be  brought  with  jus- 
tice. It  can  be  substantiated  not  only 
by  his  books,  but  by  "La  Vraie  Italic", 
an  organ  of  intellectual  liaison  be- 
tween Italy  and  other  countries  di- 
rected by  Papini,  which  has  been  in 
existence  now  for  a  year,  a  considera- 
ble portion  of  which  has  been  taken 
up  with  republication  of  the  old  writ- 
ings of  the  director. 

Even  the  most  intemperate  of  his 
admirers  would  scarcely  contend  that 
he  merits  being  called  original  judged 
by  his  own  standards.  At  one  time 
in  his  life  Nietzsche  was  undoubtedly 
his  idol,  and  I  can  think  of  the  juve- 


166 


THE  BOOKMAN 


nile  Papini  No.  3  suggesting  that  he 
model  himself  after  the  Teutonic  de- 
scendant of  Pasiphae  and  the  bull  of 
Poseidon.  Thus  did  he  appease  his 
morbid  sensitiveness  and  soothe  his 
pathological  erethism  by  enveloping 
himself  in  an  armor  made  up  of  rude 
and  uncouth  words,  of  sentiment  and 
of  disparagement ;  of  raillery  against 
piety,  reverence,  and  faith;  of  con- 
tempt for  tradition.  In  fact  he  seemed 
equipped  with  a  special  apparatus  for 
pulling  up  roots  founded  in  the  tender 
emotions.  He  would  pretend  that  he 
is  superior  to  the  ordinary  mortal  to 
whom  love  in  its  various  display,  sen- 
timent in  its  manifold  presentations, 
dependence  upon  others  in  its  count- 
less aspects  are  as  essential  for  happi- 
ness as  the  breath  of  the  nostrils  is 
essential  to  life.  In  secret,  however, 
he  is  not  only  dependent  upon  it,  he  is 
beholden  to  it. 

When  he  assumes  his  most  callous 
and  indifferent  air,  when  he  is  least 
cognizant  of  the  sensitiveness  of 
others,  when  in  brief  he  is  speak- 
ing of  his  fellow  countrymen,  D'An- 
nunzio,  Mazzoni,  Bertacchi,  Croce,  and 
up  until  recently  when  he  speaks  of 
God  or  religion,  he  reminds  me  of 
that  extraordinary  and  inexplicable 
type  of  individual  whom  we  have  had 
"in  our  midst"  since  time  immemorial, 
but  who  had  greater  vogue  in  the  time 
of  Petronius  than  he  has  today. 

Although  the  majority  of  these  peo- 
ple are  au  fond  proud  of  their  endow- 
ment, the  world  at  large  looks  upon  it 
as  a  perversion  and  scoffs  at  them,  and 
in  primitive  countries  such  as  our  own 
it  kicks  at  them.  Therefore  they  are 
quick  to  see  the  advantage  of  assum- 
ing an  air  of  crass  indiftarence,  and 
with  the  swagger  of  the  socMs^corsair 
they  are  quick  to  express  a  brutal  in- 
sensitiveness  to  the  sesthetic  and  the 
hedonistic  to  which  in  reality  they  vi- 


brate. They  never  deceive  themselves. 
Papini  knows  his  limitations  and  the 
greatest  of  them  are  that  he  is  timid, 
lacking  in  imagination,  in  sense  of 
humor  and  in  originality,  and  is  as 
dependent  upon  love  as  a  baby  is  upon 
its  bottle. 

When  writing  about  himself  he 
hopes  that  the  reader  will  identify 
him  only  with  the  characters  whose 
thoughts  and  actions  are  flattering,  but 
the  real  man  is  to  be  identified  with 
some  of  the  characters  whom  he  de- 
sires his  public  to  think  fictitious.  In 
one  of  his  short  stories  he  narrates  a 
visit  to  the  world-famed  literary  man. 
He  describes  his  trip  to  the  remote 
city  that  he  may  lay  the  modest 
wreath  plaited  from  the  pride  of  his 
mind  and  his  heart  at  the  feet  of  his 
idol.  He  finds  the  idol  a  commonplace, 
almost  undifferentiated  lump  of  clay 
with  a  more  commonplace,  slatternly 
wife,  and  even  more  hopelessly  com- 
monplace hostages  to  fortune.  His 
repute  is  dependent  wholly  upon  the 
skill  with  which  he  manipulates  card 
index  and  pigeonholes.  Papini  flees 
to  escape  contemplation  of  himself  and 
the  fragments  of  the  sacred  vessel. 

Papini  has  been  an  omnivorous 
reader  along  certain  lines;  he  has 
been  a  tireless  writer  and  he  is  no- 
torious for  his  neologistic  logorrhoea 
but  the  possession  which  stands  in 
closest  relation  to  his  literary  repu- 
tation is  his  indexed  collection  of 
words,  phrases,  and  sentences.  This, 
plus  knowing  by  heart  the  poetry  of 
Carducci,  and  his  envy  of  Benedetto 
Croce  for  having  obtained  the  repute 
of  being  one  of  the  most  fertile  philo- 
sophic minds  of  his  age,  and  his  ad- 
vocacy of  the  gospel  of  strenuousness, 
is  the  framework  upon  which  he  has 
ensheathed  his  house  of  letters. 

No  study  of  the  man  or  of  his  work 
can  neglect  one  aspect  of  his  career — 


THE  FUTURISTIC  UTERARY  MOVEMENT  IN  ITALY 


167 


his  constant  change  of  position.  He 
knocks  with  breathless  anxiety  at  the 
door  of  some  new  world  and  no  sooner 
does  he  secnre  entrance  and  see  the 
pleasant  vall^  of  Hinnom,  than  he 
feels  the  lore  of  black  Gehenna  and  is 
seized  with  an  uncontrollable  desire 
to  explore  it.  When  he  returns  he 
hastens  to  the  public  forum  and  an- 
nounces his  discoveries,  preferring  to 
tell  of  the  gewgaws  which  he  discov- 
ered rather  than  to  expatiate  on  the 
few  jewels  which  he  has  gathered. 

His  last  production  augurs  well  for 
him  because  it  indicates  that  finally 
he  will  bathe  in  the  pool  of  the  five 
porches  at  Jerusalem,  the  world  war 
having  troubled  its  water  instead  of 
an  angel.  November  30, 1919,  he  pub- 
lished in  the  most  widely  circulated 
and  influential  newspaper  of  Central 
Italy,  the  "Resto  del  Carlino",  an  ar- 
ticle entitled  "Amore  e  Morte"  (Love 
and  Death),  which  sets  forth  that  he 
has  had  that  experience  which  the 
Christian  calls  "seeing  a  great  light, 
knowing  a  spiritual  reincarnation", 
and  which  those  whom  Papini  has 
been  supposed  to  represent  call  a  piti- 
able defalcation,  a  spiritual  bank- 
ruptcy. 

On  February  21,  1913,  he  pro- 
claimed in  the  Costanza  Theatre  of 
Rome,  that  "in  order  to  reach  his 
power  man  must  throw  off  religious 
faith,  not  only  Christianity  or  Catholi- 
cism but  all  mystic,  spiritualistic, 
theosophic  faiths  and  beliefs".  Now 
he  has  discovered  Jesus.  In  his  liter- 
ary ruminations  he  has  come  upon  the 
gospels  of  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and 
John,  which  set  forth  the  purpose  and 
teachings  of  our  Lord  and  which  have 
convinced  countless  living  and  dead 
of  His  divinity.  We  must  forswear 
egocentrism;  we  must  stop  making 
obeisance  to  materialism;  we  must 
cease  striving  for  success,  comfort,  or 


power.  Such  efforts  led  to  the  mas- 
sacre of  yesterday,  to  the  agony  of 
today,  and  are  conditioning  our  eter- 
nal perdition.  Salvation  is  within  our- 
selves; the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is 
within  our  hearts;  he  who  seeks  it 
without  is  a  blind  man  led  by  a  blind 
guide.  The  road  over  which  we  must 
travel  is  bordered  on  either  side  by 
seductive  pastures  from  which  gush 
life-giving  springs  and  which  are  cov- 
ered with  luxurious  trees  of  soul-satis- 
fying color  that  protect  from  the  blaz- 
ing sun  or  the  congealing  wind.  And 
on  either  side  are  pathways  so  softly 
cushioned  that  even  the  most  tender 
feet  may  tread  them  without  fear  of 
wound  or  blister.  The  sign-posts  to 
this  road  are  the  four  little  volumes 
written  two  thousand  years  ago. 

No  one  unfamiliar  with  that 
strange  disorder  of  the  mind  called 
the  manic  depressive  psychosis  can 
fully  understand  Papini.  There  is  no 
one  more  sane  and  businesslike  than 
the  leader  of  the  Futurist  movement, 
yet  the  reactions  of  his  supersensitive 
nature  have  some  similarity  with  this 
mental  condition  present,  in  embryo, 
in  many  people.  In  that  mysterious 
malady  there  is  a  period  of  emotional, 
physical,  and  intellectual  activity  that 
surmounts  every  obstacle,  that  brushes 
aside  every  barrier,  that  leaps  over 
every  hurdle.  During  its  dominancy 
the  victim  respects  neither  law  nor 
convention,  the  goal  is  his  only  ob- 
ject. He  doesn't  always  know  where 
he  is  going  and  he  isn't  concerned 
with  it:  he  is  concerned  only  with 
going.  When  the  spectator  sees  the 
road  over  which  he  has  traveled  on  his 
winged  horse,  he  finds  it  littered  with 
the  debris  that  Pegasus  has  trampled 
upon  and  crushed. 

This  period  of  hyperactivity  is  in- 
variably followed  by  a  time  of  depres- 


168 


THE  BOOKMAN 


sion,  of  inadequacy,  of  emotional  bar- 
rennesSy  of  intellectual  sterility,  of 
physical  impotency,  of  spiritual  frig- 
idity. The  sun  from  which  the  body 
and  soul  has  had  its  warmth  and 
its  glow  falls  below  the  horizon  of  the 
unfortunate's  existence,  and  he  senses 
the  terrors  of  the  dark  and  the  begin- 
ning rigidity  of  congelation.  Then 
when  hope  and  warmth  have  all  but 
gone  and  only  life,  mere  life  without 
color  or  emotion,  remains, — and  the 
necessity  of  living  forever  in  a  world 
perpetually  enshrouded  in  darkness 
with  no  differentiation  in  the  debris 
remaining  after  the  tornado, — ^then 
the  sun  gradually  peeps  up,  illumi- 
nates, warms,  revives,  fructifies  the 
earth,  and  the  sufferer  becomes  nor- 
mal: normal  save  in  the  moments  or 
hours  of  fear  when  he  contemplates 
having  again  to  brave  the  hurricane 
or  to  drown  in  the  deluge.  But  once 
the  wind  begins  to  blow  with  a  ve- 
locity that  bespeaks  the  readvent  of 
the  tornado,  he  throws  off  inhibition 
and  goes  out  in  the  open,  holds  up  the 
torch  that  shall  light  the  whole  world, 
and  with  his  megaphone  from  the  top 
of  Helicon  shouts,  "This  way  to  the 
revolution." 

In  a  very  relative  sense,  this  is  the 
mode  of  Papini.  He  is  fascinated  by 
the  beauty  and  perfections  of  an  in- 
dividual or  of  a  school,  and  he  will 
enroll  himself  a  member.  But  be- 
fore he  gets  thoroughly  initiated  he 
gets  word  of  another  individual  or  an- 
other school  which  must  be  investi- 
gated. In  the  intoxication  he  defames 
and  often  slays  his  previous  mistress. 
Thus  his  whole  life  has  been  given  to 
the  task  of  discovering  a  new  phi- 
losophy, a  new  poetry,  a  new  romance, 
a  new  prophecy,  and  their  makers.  In 
the  ecstasy  of  discovery  he  cannot  re- 
sist smashing  the  idol  of  yesterday 
that  his  pedestal  may  be  free  for  the 


more  worthy  one  of  today,  and  he  can- 
not inhibit  the  impulse  to  rush  off  to 
the  composing  rooms  of  "La  Voce"  to 
register  his  emotions  in  print. 

In  his  desire  to  be  famous  he  re- 
minds one  of  those  individuals  who 
would  be  liked  by  everyone,  and  who 
wiU  do  anything  save  cease  making 
the  effort.  Pretending  that  he  loves 
to  have  people  hate  him,  he  does  not, 
but  he  would  rather  have  hate  and  dis- 
paragement than  indifference  or  neg- 
lect. He  desires  power — that  unat- 
tainable he  will  be  satisfied  with  no- 
toriety. He  does  not  agree  with  a 
fellow-poet  that, — 

On  stepping-stones  we  reach  to  higher  dreams 
And  ever  high  and  higher  must  we  climb 
Casting  aside  our  burdens  as  we  go 
Till  we  have  reached  the  mountain-tops  sub- 
lime 
Where  purged  from   care  and  dross  the  free 
winds  blow. 

Were  he  a  genius  and  at  the  same  time 
had  the  industry  that  he  has  dis- 
played, he  would  be  the  equal  of  H.  G. 
Wells,  possibly  the  peer  of  Bernard 
Shaw,  but  he  is  neither.  He  is  simply 
a  clever,  industrious,  versatile,  sensi- 
tive, emotional  man  of  forty,  whose 
mental  juvenility  tends  to  cling  to 
him.  He  has  so  long  habituated  him- 
self to  overestimation,  and  his  ad- 
miring friends  have  been  so  injudi- 
cious in  praising  his  productions  for 
qualities  which  they  do  not  possess 
and  neglecting  praiseworthy  qualities 
which  they  do  possess,  that  he  is  like 
an  object  under  a  magnifying  glass 
out  of  focus. 

But  as  Papini  himself  says,  he  has 
not  finished.  He  is  still  comparatively 
a  young  man  and  the  world  awaits  his 
accomplishment.  If  the  function  he 
has  chosen  is  that  of  agitation  rather 
than  construction,  of  preparation 
rather  than  of  building,  he  cannot  be 
totally  condemned  for  that.  His  en- 
vironment is   in   a  condition  where 


HUMOROUS  AND  SERIOUS  BOOKS  ON  MUSIC 


169 


much  destruction  is  necessary  before 
anything  real  can  be  evolved.  And  as 
the  apostle  of  this  destruction  Papini 
must  be  accepted.     He  stands  as  a 


prophet,  "the  voice  of  one  crying  in 
the  wilderness,  'Prepare  ye  the  way' ", 
and  the  generations  will  show  whether 
it  is  indeed  a  highway  he  has  opened. 


HUMOROUS  AND  SERIOUS  BOOKS  ON  MUSIC 


BY  HENRY  T.  FINCK 


HUMOROUS  books  on  musical  top- 
ics are  scarce.  While  a  consider- 
able number  of  musical  critics  have  a 
sense  of  fun  and  the  gift  of  wit,  these 
qualities  usually  appear  only  in  their 
newspaper  comments.  William  James 
Henderson,  for  instance,  has  been  for 
years  a  bon  mot  incarnate  in  his  daily 
remarks  on  musical  doings,  but  his 
books  are  as  serious  as  sermons. 

Among  England's  critics  none  is 
better  informed  or  a  greater  literary 
artist  than  Ernest  Newman,  but  no 
one  would  have  guessed  from  his 
books  on  Gluck,  Wagner,  Hugo  Wolf, 
Elgar,  and  Strauss  that  there  was  also 
in  him  a  rich  vein  of  humor.  The 
readers  of  his  short  articles  in  news- 
papers and  magazines  got  the  benefit 
of  this;  and  now  the  best  of  them 
have  been  collected  and  published  in  a 
volume  called  "A  Musical  Motley".  It 
was  surely  unnecessary  for  the  author 
to  apologize  for  including  these  "gay" 
articles  in  a  volume  made  up  largely 
of  papers  that  are  "excessively  grave". 
But  Mr.  Newman  is  never  dull,  even 
when  he  is  grave.  It  was  the  dull  con- 
certs and  operas  he  had  to  hear  that 
made  him  turn  to  humor  for  relief.  In 
these  hours  of  suffering,  he  declares, 
a  critic  "must  either  go  mad  and  deal 


death  all  round  him  or  see  himself  and 
his  sad  profession  humorously". 

Among  the  humorous  articles  in 
this  book  there  are  several  that  Ar- 
temus  Ward  or  Mark  Twain  would 
have  been  glad  to  have  written.  Per- 
haps the  most  amusing  of  them  is  en- 
titled "Composers  and  Obituary  No- 
tices", in  which  the  author  berates 
musicians  for  putting  journalists  to  a 
good  deal  of  inconvenience  by  their  in- 
considerate way  of  dying  just  before 
the  paper  goes  to  press.  In  most  of 
the  forty-four  articles  in  this  book  the 
serious  is  mingled  with  the  jocose. 
The  sketch  (pages  22-33)  of  the  pos- 
sibilities of  the  future,  when  one  vio- 
lin can  be  made  to  do  the  work  of  fifty, 
is  grotesque;  and  yet  it  is  brimful  of 
suggestions  for  musicians  and  also,  in 
particular,  for  the  makers  of  good  ma- 
chine music,  before  which  th^  hand- 
made music  will  have  to  go  down  as 
the  arrow  had  to  go  down  before  the 
gun,  and  the  wooden  ship  before  the 
ironclad. 

The  popular  violinist,  Jascha  Hei- 
fetz,  cordially  agrees  with  Mr.  New- 
man that  enough  is  better  than  a 
feast.  "I  really  cannot  imagine  any- 
thing more  terrible  than  always  to 
hear,  think  and  make  music,"  he  re- 
marked to  Frederick  H.  Martens,  who 


170 


THE  BOOKMAN 


interviewed  him  for  a  chapter  in  his 
book  on  "Violin  Mastery".  Fritz 
Kreisler  told  Mr.  Martens  he  found 
practising  of  secondary  importance  to 
the  necessity  of  keeping  himself  men- 
tally and  physically  fresh  and  in  the 
right  mood  for  his  work.  Ysaye,  the 
Belgian,  in  his  talk  with  Mr.  Martens, 
emphasized  the  patriotic  note,  com- 
plaining that  writers  on  violin  schools 
too  often  confuse  the  Belgian  and 
French.  "Many  of  the  great  violin 
names,  in  fact, — ^Vieuxtemps,  Leonard, 
Marsick,  Remi,  Parent,  de  Bronx,  Mu- 
sin,  Thomson, — are  all  Belgian." 

Interesting  and  important  are 
Ysaye's  remarks  on  the  need  of  a  new 
instruction  book  for  violinists — ^a  book 
including  technical  formulas  for  the 
new  harmonies  discovered  by  Debussy 
and  others.  "There  is  as  yet  no  violin 
method  which  gives  a  fingering  for 
the  whole-tone  scales.  Perhaps  we  will 
have  to  wait  until  Kreisler  or  I  will 
have  written  one  which  makes  plain 
the  new  flowering  of  technical  beauty 
and  aesthetic  development  which  it 
brings  the  violin."  Maybe  some  pub- 
lisher could  persuade  Ysaye  and  Kreis- 
ler to  give  the  world  such  a  book.  It 
certainly  would  go  like  Salvation 
Army  doughnuts  in  the  trenches. 

Italy  used  to  be  a  great  land  for  vio- 
linists, beginning  with  Corelli  and 
Tartini  and  culminating  in  Paganini. 
Today  we  know  of  only  one  distin- 
guished solo  violinist  active  in  that 
country :  Arrigo  Serato,  who  has  also 
toured  America.  But  for  most  persons 
music  in  Italy  means  opera  and  opera 
singers.  For  centuries  students  from 
all  parts  of  the  world  have  been  going 
to  "God's  own  conservatonr"  to  study 
bel  canto — ^the  art  of  singing  beauti- 
fully— and  Milan  has  been  for  genera- 
tions a  factory  for  the  wholesale  pro- 
duction of  opera  companies — for  ex- 
port as  well  as  domestic  use.    We  are 


forcibly  reminded  of  this  on  reading 
the  chapters  on  Italy  in  Clara  Elath- 
leen  Rogers's  "Memories  of  a  Musical 
Career".  Time  was  when  Mrs.  Rogers, 
under  her  stage  name  (Clara  Doria), 
was  among  the  most  popular  opera 
singers  in  this  country  as  well  as 
abroad.  She  was  a  daughter  of  John 
Bamett,  called  "the  father  of  English 
opera",  and  before  going  to  Italy  to 
improve  her  voice  she  went  to  Leipzig 
for  a  general  musical  education.  At 
the  famous  conservatory  in  that  city 
she  associated  with  several  young 
Englishmen  who  subsequently  became 
celebrated;  among  them  Arthur  Sulli^ 
van,  who  seems  to  have  been  a  great 
lady-killer  at  that  time.  Concerning 
him  and  others  who  were  or  became 
famous,  Mrs.  Rogers  has  so  many 
amusing  anecdotes  that  her  memoirs 
may  be  included  among  the  humorous 
books  on  music.  Pedantry  was  ram- 
pant in  the  Conservatory;  the  letter 
of  music  was  held  infinitely  more  im- 
portant than  the  spirit;  Liszt  and 
Wagner  were  abhorred,  Chopin  be- 
littled. To  Clara  herself  (she  was  only 
thirteen  at  that  time)  and  her  father, 
"Tannhauser"  suggested  the  epithet 
"caterwauling".  When  she  left  the 
Conservatory  to  study  with  Hans  von 
Bulow,  son-in-law  of  Liszt  and  friend 
of  Wagner,  he  tartly  informed  her 
that  the  first  thing  for  her  to  do  was 
to  unlearn  most  of  the  academic 
things  its  professors  had  taught. 

When  Miss  Bamett  went  to  Italy, 
with  her  mother  and  sister,  they  tried 
at  first  to  keep  their  German  fresh  in 
mind  by  spewing  it;  but  very  soon 
the^  learned  that  that,  as  well  as  un- 
knowingly wearing  Austrian  colors, 
was  a  dangerous  thing;  they  were 
taken  for  spies,  and  only  by  a  miracle 
escaped  a  lynching.  Adventures  like 
these,  and  gossip  about  life  in  the 
cities  of  Italy  in  which  Miss  Bamett 


HUMOROUS  AND  SERIOUS  BOOKS  ON  MUSIC 


171 


sang,  make  her  book  of  general  inter- 
est. Music  students  will  be  attracted 
by  her  detailed  accounts  of  what  opera 
singers  in  Italy  must  expect.  Her 
colleagues  resented  the  presence  of 
her  mother;  one  basso  frankly  told 
her,  "How  I  pity  you  people  who  do 
not  indulge  in  lovers !" 

Henry  Edward  Krehbiel's  "Chap- 
ters of  Opera",  though  it  has  some 
pages  on  Max  Maretzek,  in  whose  com- 
pany "Clara  Doria"  sang  here  in 
1872-3,  does  not  go  into  sufficient  de- 
tail to  mention  her  doings  in  America. 
That  volume  (a  much  better  title  for 
which  would  have  been  "History  of 
Opera  in  New  York")  is  concerned 
chiefly  with  operatic  events  in  the  me- 
tropolis in  the  years  1880  tOvl908. 
"More  Chapters  of  Opera",  recently 
published,  continues  the  record  up  to 
1918.  Far  from  being  a  mere  dry 
chronology  and  technical  criticism,  it 
is  a  mirror  of  musical  life  in  New 
York,  with  plenty  of  gossip  and  even 
scandal.  Much  has  been  said  about 
New  York  being,  like  the  European 
cities,  music-mad  since  the  end  of  the 
war;  but  this  is  really  not  a  new  turn 
of  affairs ;  the  chapter  discussing  the 
rivalry  between  the  Manhattan  and 
Metropolitan  opera  houses  has  these 
among  its  headings:  "An  Opera-mad 
City"  and  "Over  two  Millions  of  Dol- 
lars  spent  on  the  Entertainment  in 
ten  Months".  Mr.  Krehbiel's  is  the 
only  book  in  which  one  can  find  a  com- 
plete account  of  the  epoch-making  way 
in  which  Oscar  Hammerstein — ^to 
whom  it  is  now  proposed  to  erect  a 
monument — ^put  fresh  life  into  the 
operatic  repertory;  particularly  by 
featuring  French  masterworks  that 
had  been  neglected  at  the  Metropoli- 
tan, particularly  those  of  Massenet. 

"Massenet  is  one  of  the  most  bril- 
liant diamonds  in  our  musical  crown. 
No  musician  has  enjoyed  so  much 


favor  with  the  public  save  Auber. . . 
They  were  alike  in  their  facility,  their 
amazing  fertility,  genius,  graceful- 
ness, and  success."  This  is  the  ver- 
dict of  France's  most  scholarly  com- 
poser, Camille  Saint-Sa^ns.  The  auto- 
biography of  France's  most  scholarly 
composer,  now  appearing  in  an  English 
version,  must  surely  interest  Ameri- 
can opera-goers.  American  critics 
whose  opinions  were  largely  "made  in 
Germany"  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
belittling  Massenet;  but  there  is  more 
depth  to  his  music  than  they  think. 
Whipped  cream  is  no  less  nourishing 
because  it  is  whipped.  Massenet  was 
one  of  the  most  original  of  French- 
men; he  imitated  no  one,  but  many 
imitated  him.  The  list  of  men  who 
studied  under  him  at  the  Conserva- 
toire includes  Bruneau,  Rabaud,  Char- 
pentier,  Savard,  Hahn,  Vidal,  Florent 
Schmitt,  Enesco,  Romberg,  Laparra, 
Ropertz,  Leroux — all  of  them  now 
famous.  Many  others  he  taught  how 
to  compose.  One  of  the  details  in  his 
own  way  of  composing  an  opera  was, 
he  tells  us,  to  learn  the  words  by  heart 
so  that  he  could  work  at  the  score 
mentally,  "away  from  home,  in  the 
streets,  in  society,  at  dinner,  at  the 
theatre,  anywhere  that  I  might  find 
time." 

Saint-Saens's  reference  to  Massenet 
as  one  of  France's  most  brilliant  mu- 
sical diamonds  occurs  in  his  volume 
entitled  "Ecole  Buissonnifere".  Of  this 
splendidly  stimulating  volume,  also, 
an  English  translation  is  now  offered 
under  the  title  of  "Musical  Memories". 


A  Musical  Motiey.  By  Ernest  Newman.  John 
Lane  Co. 

Violin  Mastery.  By  Frederick  H.  Martens. 
Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co. 

Memories  of  a  Musical  Career.  By  Clara 
Kathleen  Rogers  (Clara  Doria).  Little,  Brown 
and  Co. 

More  Chapters  of  Opera  (1908-1918).  By 
Henry  Edward  Krehbiel.     Henir  Holt  and  Co. 

My  RecoUections.  By  Jules  Massenet.  Small, 
Maynard  and  Co. 

Musical  Memories.  By  CamiUe  Saint -SaCns. 
SmaU,  Maynard  and  Co. 


172 


THE  BOOKMAN 


It  should  be  in  every  library.  It  is 
virtually  an  autobiography,  but  the 
story  of  the  author's  life — ^he  is 
France's  "grand  old  man  in  music" 
(now  in  his  eighty-sixth  year) — is  told 
briefly,  so  as  to  leave  room  for  chap- 
ters on  Rossini,  Meyerbeer,  Offenbach, 
Viardot,  Louis  Gallet,  Delsarte,  Victor 
Hugo,  which,  however,  are  also  more 
or  less  autobiographic,  for  these  were 
among  his  friends.  The  English  vol- 
ume omits  some  of  the  chapters  in  the 
original  French  edition  and  changes 
the  order  of  others,  for  no  obvious 


reason;  but  the  translation  is  none 
the  less  to  be  cordially  welcomed.  It 
provides  the  first  opportunity  to  those 
who  do  not  read  French  to  become  ac- 
quainted with  the  literary  side  of 
France's  most  scholarly  composer  who 
at  the  same  time  is  never  for  a  mo- 
ment dull,  at  least  in  his  books.  Noth- 
ing could  be  more  thought-stimulating 
than  the  pages  in  this  volume  on 
Popular  Science  and  Art,  Anarchy  in 
Music,  The  Organ,  Musical  Painters, 
and  The  Liszt  Centenary  at  Heidel- 
berg. 


WALT  WHITMAN:  FICTION- WRITER  AND  POETS' 

FRIEND 

BY  JOHN  BLACK 


WALT  WHITMAN  as  a  friend  of 
poets  is  a  new  light  in  which  to 
treat  of  this  great  figure  in  American 
literature.  We  are  so  accustomed  to 
the  picture  of  Whitman  as  a  genius, 
variously  ridiculed,  denounced,  and 
deprecated  by  his  contemporaries, 
that  the  suggestion  of  his  holding  any 
other  position  in  American  letters  of 
the  mid-nineteenth  century  will  upset 
many  long-established  conceptions  of 
his  status  during  his  own  life. 

Yet  this  is  the  new  light  in  which 
he  is  revealed  to  one  who  has  been  for- 
tunate enough  to  have  access  to  the 
files  of  "The  Brooklyn  Eagle"  of  1846 
and  1847,  during  which  period  Whit- 
man was  editor  of  that  paper.  A 
perusal  of  the  newspaper's  files  of  the 
days  of  his  editorship  brands  as  fal- 
lacious many  of  the  theories  as  to  his 
relations  with  his  fellow  writers.    In 


those  days,  when  Whitman  was  the 
employee  of  Isaac  Van  Anden,  owner 
of  "The  Eagle",  we  find  that  the  poet's 
duties  consisted  of  writing  an  edi- 
torial or  so  a  day  on  civic  and  po- 
litical topics,  and  of  filling  two  col- 
umns with  such  verse  or  prose  as 
might  come  to  his  hand. 

An  announcement  of  the  paper's 
partisanship  to  poetry  was  published 
at  the  head  of  the  first  of  these  two 
columns  when  Whitman  first  became 
editor  of  "The  Eagle".  Immediately 
following  this  announcement,  the  files 
show,  the  poet  began  to  receive  con- 
tributions from  writers  everywhere. 
Fiction,  poetry,  and  essays  came  to 
him  in  the  daily  mail,  from  authors 
destined  to  become  immortal.  That 
the  poet  published  much  of  what  he 
received  is  evident;  that  he  read  it 
all,  is  probable;    that  he  was  often 


WALT  WHITMAN:   FICTION-WRITER  AND  POETS'  FRIEND    173 


enthusiastic  over  the  merits  of  con- 
tributions by  authors,  then  little 
known,  is  made  clear  by  the  ecstatic 
paragraphs  of  laudation  which  would 
often  preface  a  poem  or  a  story. 
Longfellow,  we  find,  was  a  great  fa- 
vorite with  Whitman,  lyrics  from  the 
pen  of  the  New  Englander  being  fre- 
quently printed  in  the  poet's  paper. 
Lowell,  Bryant,  and  Whittier  were 
other  contributors.  Whitman  was 
especially  partial  to  Whittier,  prob- 
ably because  of  the  social  message  in 
the  latter's  writings.  In  some  in- 
stances, the  poetry  published  by  Whit- 
man was  taken  by  him  from  contem- 
porary magazines.  Much  of  it,  how- 
ever, was  original.  A  comparison  of 
the  file  dates  with  Nathaniel  Haw- 
thorne's bibliography  discloses  that 
his  story,  "The  Shaker  Bridal",  saw 
print  for  the  first  time  in  "The 
Eagle".  The  date  of  its  publication 
by  Whitman  was  October  8,  1846, 
while  a  Hawthorne  bibliographer 
states  that  the  original  appearance  of 
the  story  was  in  the  London  "Metro- 
politan", in  1850.  Other  stories  which 
appear  to  have  been  original  contribu- 
tions to  "The  Eagle"  are  Hawthorne's 
"Old  Esther  Dudley",  ultimately  pub- 
lished by  Hawthorne  in  his  "Twice 
Told  Tales",  and  printed  by  Whitman 
in  his  columns,  July  28,  1846;  and 
Poe's  "Tale  of  the  Ragged  Moun- 
tains", printed  by  Whitman  October 
9,  1846,  which  according  to  one  bib- 
liographer never  saw  magazine  publi- 
cation. 

It  is  not  diflacult  to  discern  Whit- 
man's touch  in  many  unsigned  articles 
and  editorials  which  appeared  in  the 
paper  during  the  period  of  his  editor- 
ship; and,  assuming  that  these,  which 
included  numerous  book  reviews,  were 
from  his  pen,  a  view  of  the  poet's  lit- 
erary taste  is  presented  which  con- 
tradicts flatly  the  impression  that  he 


was  as  antagonistic  to  the  current 
school  of  poetry  as  the  current  school 
of  poetry  was  to  him.  Longfellow,  in 
one  of  the  anonymous  book  reviews  of 
1846,  the  occasion  being  the  publica- 
tion of  a  volume  of  his  poems,  was 
hailed  as  "the  greatest  poet  in  the 
English  language".  Other  favorable, 
though  more  temperate  estimates  of  the 
New  Englander  are  scattered  through 
the  issues  of  the  paper  for  the  year. 
Some  are  in  the  form  of  introductions 
to  poems  which  Whitman  printed  in 
his  columns;  others  are  in  the  form 
of  supplementary  paragraphs  to  the 
editorial  columns.  As  it  is  known 
that  Whitman  personally  directed  the 
two  columns  used  for  miscellaneous 
material,  and  as  Longfellow  was  fre- 
quently represented  in  these  columns, 
the  anonymous  compliment  to  his  poetry 
mentioned  above  can  safely  be  taken 
as  the  sentiment,  if  not  the  actual  ex- 
pression, of  Whitman  himself. 

Some  attention  to  the  poet's  news- 
paper career  is  paid  by  Leon  Bazal- 
gette,  in  his  interpretative  biography, 
"Walt  Whitman,  The  Man  and  His 
Work",  which  has  just  been  translated 
into  English  by  Ellen  Fitzgerald.  M. 
Bazalgette's  field,  however,  was  too 
essentially  general  to  permit  of  any 
searching  analysis  of  Whitman's  ca- 
reer. The  Frenchman's  biography, 
sympathetic  and  glowingly  eloquent  as 
it  is,  can  scarcely  rank  as  an  authori- 
tative chronicle  of  the  poet's  life.  It 
possesses,  however,  such  multiple 
values  of  its  own  that  the  absence  of 
detail  with  respect  to  Whitman's  early 
manhood  can  be  excused.  The  book 
tells  little  of  the  poet's  activities  dur- 
ing the  all-important  impressionable 
years  twenty  to  thirty.  It  is  irritat- 
ingly  uninformative  as  to  what  he 
read  and  what  he  wrote  in  this  period. 
Other  stages  of  his  career  are  equally 
slighted.    But  M.  Bazalgette  gives  us 


174 


THE  BOOKMAN 


something  that  we  have  long  wished 
for:  an  estimate  of  Whitman's  influ- 
ence and  rating  in  France.  It  is  as 
sincere  as  it  is  brilliant. 

The  translator  has  taken  the  liberty 
of  abridging  M.  Bazalgette's  book. 
This  is  regrettable  and  not  easily  jus- 
tified. The  day  has  passed  when  any 
revelation  of  Whitman's  personal  life 
could  affect  our  estimate  of  the  poet. 
The  book's  outstanding  value  is  that 
it  is  the  first  notable  Whitman  biog- 
raphy offered  to  the  land  which  has 
felt  the  poet's  influence  to  a  degree 
perhaps  greater  than  any  country  ex- 
cept America. 

Whitman's  days  as  Brooklyn  editor 
were  full  of  interest  and  incident. 
Apart  from  the  relationship  estab- 
lished between  the  poet  and  his  fellow 
authors,  the  most  important  revela- 
tion of  his  term  as  editor  of  "The 
Eagle"  lies  in  his  own  contributions 
to  its  columns.  These  are,  generally 
speaking,  divided  into  two  classes: 
editorials  and  prose  sketches.  The 
editorials,  while  of  purely  current  and 
local  value,  are  significant  as  showing 
his  style  of  prose  writing  while  yet  a 


young  man.  They  are  crisp,  forceful, 
and  vivid  with  that  imaginative  qual- 
ity that  was  later  to  immortalize  him 
in  his  glorious  chants.  The  stories 
are  still  more  interesting.  Most  of 
them  were  signed  "Walter  Whitman", 
dissipating  at  once  all  doubt  as  to  the 
identity  of  their  author.  The  poet 
evidently  used  these  stories  as  "fill- 
ers" for  his  columns:  they  appeared 
on  an  average  of  once  every  eight 
weeks.  The  stories  are  amazing  as 
the  revelation  of  a  side  of  Whitman 
wholly  unknown  to  his  general  read- 
ers. They  may  not  be  found  to  con- 
tribute greatly  to  his  reputation:  he 
took  for  his  theme  the  conventional 
topics  of  the  period,  and  treated  of 
them  in  a  conventional  way.  Through 
them  all,  however,  like  a  thread  of 
gold,  is  traced  the  current  of  his  social 
protest.  Into  even  the  most  common- 
place of  these,  Whitman  weaves  a 
moral.  They  contribute  much  toward 
a  fuller  understanding  of  Whitman's 
literary  development  at  a  stage  when 
the  genius  of  the  "Leaves  of  Grass" 
was  yet  in  process  of  conception. 


Walt  Whitman,  The  Man  and  His  Work.     By 
Leon  Bazalgette.     Doubleday,  Page  and  Co. 


COMPLAINT  DEPARTMENT 


Are  Our 
Novelists  Fair 
to  the  Redheads  ? 


NOT  being  one  myself  I  feel  that  I 
am  qualified  as  an  impartial  ad- 
vocate for  those  who  are.  Years  of 
fiction  reading  convinces  me  that  nov- 
elists have  been  guilty  of  a  great  in- 
justice to  a  very  worthy  class  of  citi- 
zens— the  redheaded. 

It  is  not  that  they  have  denied  them 
beauty — ^when  a  novelist  wishes  to  pro- 
duce a  heroine  of  devastating  charm, 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  he  endows  her 
with  red  hair  and  in  eight  cases  out  of 
ten  he  adds  to  this  green  eyes, — ^but 
what  a  character  he  imposes  upon  this 
Galatea  of  his  brain  who  is  helpless  to 
protest  against  the  injustice  of  her 
creator!  For  instance,  there  is  that 
arch-type  of  redheaded  perversity, — 
Thackeray's  sandyhaired,  greeneyed 
Becky  Sharp,  —  a  malicious  little 
sprite,  unprincipled  and  incapable  of 
idOfection.  She  has  not  even  the  merit 
of  succeeding  in  her  schemes,  for  she 
always  overreaches  herself. 

Many  other  English  novelists  have 
this  prejudice  against  combining  red 
hair  with  a  desirable  character.  Far 
be  it  from  us  to  occupy  space  with  a 
chronological  record  of  redheads  in 
English  fiction,  but  we  can  all  think 
of  conspicuous  examples.  Dickens 
controverted  one  tradition  by  typify- 
ing treachery  as  a  man,  but  conformed 


to  another  by  making  him  redheaded. 
It  is  impossible  to  think  of  Uriah 
Heep  without  making  the  red  in  his 
hair,  eyes,  and  skin  a  symbol  of  the 
diabolical  fiames  confined  beneath  the 
thin  crust  of  his  hjrpocrisy. 

Novelists  like  to  christen  their  red- 
heads Glory — Glory  in  Hall  Gaine's 
"The  Christian",  is  a  robust,  rollicking 
vampire.  Exuberant  in  hair  and  per- 
sonality, she  so  dominates  the  strong 
man  who  loves  her  that  he  is  almost 
crazed  by  his  passion  for  her  as  over 
against  what  he  conceives  to  be  his 
duty. 

One  of  the  most  exasperating  women 
we  have  met  in  fiction  is  the  tawny- 
haired  heroine  of  May  Sinclair's  "The 
Helpmate".  She  torments  her  child 
and  husband,  the  former  into  an  un- 
timely grave,  the  latter  to  the  verge 
of  it. 

The  French  are  as  bad  as  the  Eng- 
lish in  their  attitude  on  this  subject — 
it  was  a  Frenchman  who  said,  "Red- 
headed women  are  either  violent  or 
false  and  usually  they  are  both". 
Medusas  in  novels  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution are  portrayed  with  flaming 
locks.  Even  so  sensible  a  writer  as 
Victor  Cherbuliez  (as  a  psychologist 
and  a  diplomat  he  ought  to  have  known 
better),  devotes  a  three-hundred-page 
novel  to  a  redheaded  renegade.  The 
heroine  in  this  book  ("La  Ferme  du 
Ghoquart")  is  deceitful,  vindictive,  and 
scheming.  Her  towering  pride  bor- 
ders on  insanity  and  the  author  says 


175 


176 


THE  BOOKMAN 


of  her,  "She  lacked  that  grain  of  good 
sense  which  is  the  most  valuable  in- 
gredient in  the  feminine  tempera- 
ment". 

American  novelists  have  also  cher- 
ished the  tradition  of  redheaded  im- 
piety. Howells  approaches  this  type 
as  nearly  as  his  kindly  style  permits. 
In  "The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham"  Irene 
is  very  beautiful  with  her  azure  eyes, 
trailing-arbutus  skin  and  lovely  red 
hair,  but  she  is  a  menace  to  the  happi- 
ness of  her  family. 

From  the  field  of  American  fiction, 
which  fairly  bristles  with  redheaded 
heroines  of  unlovely  character,  we  cull 
a  few  more  examples.  Among  the 
sublimated  heroines  of  Henry  James 
almost  the  only  one  whom  critics  have 
accused  of  innate  vulgarity  is  red- 
headed Verena  Tarrant  in  "The  Bos- 
tonians".  Edith  Wharton  is  unable 
to  resist  associating  red  locks  with  a 
deplorable  personality.  One  of  the 
most  disagreeable  young  American 
women  in  modem  fiction  is  pic- 
tured in  "The  Custom  of  the  Coun- 
try". The  novelist  actually  rubs  it  in 
with  her  persistent  thrusting  of  Un- 
dine's redgold  chevelure  upon  the  read- 
er's attention.  The  ^lat  of  this  hero- 
ine's youthful  beauty  is  not  worth  the 
effort  of  any  honest  human  being,  so 
arid  and  cheap  is  her  personality. 
Marion  Crawford  devotes  his  most 
powerful  novel,  "Casa  Braccio",  to 
the  psychology  of  a  redheaded  woman, 
— ^and  what  a  repellent  character  he 
gives  her  I  She  possesses  a  restive  and 
destructive  brain  beneath  a  mane  of 
redgold  hair.  She  ruins  the  men  who 
love  her  and  dies  herself  of  spleen  and 

ennui. 

But  enough  of  these  disagreeable 
figments  of  author's  brains — Is  it  not 
time  to  cry  halt  to  this  tradition  of 
redheaded  vampires?  Granted  that 
red  in  the  skin  and  hair  indicates  iron 


in  the  blood,  does  not  this  iron  beaten 
to  a  glow  by  life's  vicissitudes  gen- 
erate energy  and  ambition,  instead  of 
baleful  passion? 

Haven't  you  known  many  a  redhead 
of  excellent  moral  fibre,  and  did  you 
ever  know  one  who  was  dull  or  worth- 
less? 

CATHERINE  BEACH  ELY 


On  Living 
With  Lucinda 

LUCINDA  writes.  At  least  so  she 
replies  to  inquirers  as  to  what  she 
"does"  in  these  pragmatic  days  when 
every  unmarried  woman  in  the  thir- 
ties, such  as  Lucinda  and  I,  "does" 
something.  I  do  not  wholly  ^under- 
stand Lucinda's  answer.  "Writing" 
covers  such  a  variety  of — sins,  I  was 
about  to  say — of  forms,  that  I  should 
think  that  Lucinda  would  say  that  she 
does  essays  or  plays  or  stories  or 
poetry,  just  as  I  say  that  I  am  in  in- 
surance instead  of  in  business.  But 
writing  is  not  business,  as  Lucinda 
implies  reproachfully  with  her  shad- 
owy gray  eyes  when  I  fail  to  respond 
delicately  and  appreciatively  to  a  new 
idea.  I  suppose  that  she  can  hardly 
say  she  is  doing  essays  or  poems  or 
plays  or  stories  when  she  is  creating 
an  entirely  new  form.  The  new  form 
is  not  prose  and  not  verse.  Neither  is 
it  free  verse — Lucinda  shudders  at 
this  suggestion  and  says  that  free 
verse  was  bom  with  death  already  at 
its  throat.  I  hesitate  to  tell  you  about 
Lucinda's  new  form  for  fear  you  will 
smile,  and  I  love  Lucinda.  When  she 
has  lived  a  little  harder,  she  will  write 
better.  Just  now  she  sits  down  at 
her  desk  and  lets  the  Creative  Wisk 
tell  her  what  to  write.    I  don't  think 


ON   LIVING  WITH   LUCINDA 


177 


he — or  it — ^tells  her  very  clearly,  be- 
cause her  papers  are  crazily  criss- 
crossed and  I  am  always  brinfiring  her 
home  new  erasers  from  the  office. 

Lucinda  belongs  to  a  ''group**.  The 
boys  in  my  office  speak  of  the  gang  or 
bunch  to  which  they  are  attached,  and 
I  myself  have  been  decoyed  into  clubs, 
but  Lucinda  has  a  share  in  nothing  so 
commonplace.  The  "group*'  is  a  seri- 
ous circle  to  which  I  may  never  refer 
frivolously  without  having  her  hiss 
"Philistine"  at  me — ^whatever  that 
may  mean.  Obviously  I  am  not  a 
member  of  the  group;  I  simply  own 
the  apartment  in  which  Lucinda  and 
I  live  together  and  in  which  the  group 
gathers  for  talk,  as  they  say,  and  for 
refreshments,  as  I  know,  from  the 
number  of  sandwiches  I  make  and 
they  consume.  Talking  does  make  one 
hungry,  and  ye  gods!  how  they  do 
talk!  They  are  all  writers  and  talk 
about  nothing  but  writing.  They  can 
spend  a  whole  evening  and  halfway 
to  dawn  arguing  about  the  faults  of  a 
single  play  or  novel.  It  is  inconceiv- 
able to  me  that  one  piece  of  literature 
can  be  so  bad  as  they  find  it.  I  could 
not  find  a  similar  number  of  defects  in 
a  whole  library.  They  get  positively 
happy  disagreeing  over  the  deficiencies 
in  a  play.  They  Hre  not  content  to 
damn  a  thing  and  let  it  die;  they  dis- 
agree as  thoroughly  as  doctors  at  a 
consultation  as  to  the  reason  for  its 
extinction.  The  more  successful  a 
thing  is,  the  more  dreadful  they  find 
it.  If  I  enjoy  a  book,  I  have  learned 
never  to  tell  them  so.  They  used  to 
smile  comerwise  and  avoid  politely 
any  discussion  of  the  book  while  I 
was  still  in  the  room.  Later  I  would 
catch  murmurs  of  damnation. 

They  have  a  strange  attitude  toward 
success.  Apparently  to  be  successful 
is  to  be  commonplace.  Now  in  my 
business,  the  more  people  we  insure. 


the  more  successful  we  are,  but  the 
converse  seems  to  be  true  of  litera- 
ture. The  group  has  the  notion  that 
if  an  article  is  accepted,  it  cannot  be 
good,  and  yet  they  are  always  trying 
to  get  things  accepted.  When  the  one 
man  among  them  whom  I  considered 
to  have  normal  intelligence,  sold  a 
series  of  stories  to  a  popular  weekly, 
he  soon  stopped  coming  to  the  apart- 
ment. Though  the  others  called  him 
the  "money-changer**  and  sighed  it 
was  "such  a  pity"  whenever  his  name 
was  mentioned,  it  is  my  idea  that  he 
deserted,  and  not  that  they  cast  him 
out,  as  they  claim.  But  then,  I  dpn't, 
as  Lucinda  says,  "understand**. 

They  read  a  great  deal,  their  own 
work,  of  course.  I  do  not  attend  these 
readings,  since  I  know  nothing  about 
literature  as  it  is  made  today  and 
would,  therefore,  disturb  the  circle  of 
sympathy.  The  apartment  is  so  small, 
however,  that  I  am  forced  to  hear 
more  or  less  of  what  is  read.  I  must 
confess  that  I  respect  the  judgment 
of  the  editors  who  reject  what  the 
group  write.  I  think  the  readers 
themselves  do  too,  for  it  is  my  private, 
never-to-be-murmured  opinion  that 
they  read  to  be  encouraged  and  not  to 
be  criticized.  Of  course,  the  theory  of 
the  group  is  that  they  shall  constitute 
a  perfect  forum  of  honest  criticism  by 
which  the  author  shall  abide.  From 
my  observation  the  reader  laps  up  the 
encouragement  and  discards  all  unfa- 
vorable comment  as  unintelligent. 

Perhaps  I  am  too  severe  on  Lu- 
cinda's  group;  I  may  be  a  Philistine- 
whatever-that-may-mean  ;  they  may 
all  be  the  neglected  geniuses  each  se- 
cretly assures  himself  he  is.  I  am  in- 
fluenced, I  admit,  by  a  thoroughly 
reasonable  grudge  I  hold  against  the 
lot, — ^they  use  me  for  copy!  I  am  to 
them  the  Average  Human  Being.  I 
do  not  write  or  know  anything  about 


178 


THE  BOOKMAN 


writing.  The  Creative  Wish  never 
wished  anything  on  me,  as  my  office 
boy  would  put  the  point.  Since  I  am 
entirely  untalented,  the  group  there- 
fore regard  me  as  a  perfect  specimen 
of  the  General  Public.  They  pursue 
my  reactions  on  any  and  all  points 
with  the  zeal  of  a  hunter  for  a  fox. 
They  lay  mental  traps,  springing  ques- 
tions at  me  even  as  I  come  into  the 
room  bringing  them  long  drinks — 
they  talk  so  much  they  are  always  des- 
perately thirsty.  When  I  answer,  they 
cross  glances  triumphantly.  A  week 
later,  they  read  and  I  have  to  over- 
hear articles  in  which  my  opinions, 
usually  distorted  beyond  the  recogni- 
tion of  anyone  not  familiar  with  the 
"creative  process",  have  become  the 
attitude  of  a  large  section  of  the  hu- 
man race.  It  is  hard  for  the  world  in 
general  to  be  blamed  for  my  opinions, 
but  fortunately  the  world  rarely  has 
to  know  it  is  blameworthy,  since  the 
articles  do  not  often  appear  in  print. 

For  example,  the  group  asked  me 
recently  what  I  thought  of  Bodge  in 
his  new  play.  I  replied  that  I  liked 
him ;  he  amused  me  when  I  had  brain- 
fag. Laughter,  all  doctors  agree,  is  a 
better  tonic  than  unnecessary  tears 
and  besides,  the  insurance  business 
uncovers  its  own  tragedies.  Anjrway, 
I  liked  him.  The  silence  after  my  com- 
ment was  so  very  quiet  that  I  am  sure 
I  know  the  quality  of  the  stillness 
while  anarchists  wait  for  the  bomb 
they  have  planted  to  explode.  Nobody 
spoke,  but  the  atmosphere  hissed  with 
the  unuttered  "There!"  Then  Lu- 
cinda,  who  cannot  help  being  a  lady, 
remarked:  "Lydia,  this  is  delicious 
iced  tea." 

Only  last  night,  as  a  corollary  to 
this  incident,  Beekman,  who  is  fat, 
read  a  tirade  on  "The  Extinction  of 
the  Theatre",  in  which  he  deplored  the 
attitude  of  the  public  which  goes  to 


the  theatre  to  be  amused.  I  once  saw 
— ^and  was  not  amused  by — a  play  of 
Beekman's  which  the  group  put  on  at 
a  little  theatre  for  a  choice  circle  of 
sympathizers.  (Beekman,  by  the  way, 
has  not  written  a  play  since.  He  al- 
ways has  something  in  mind,  but  not 
on  paper.)  In  Beekman's  play,  a  man, 
discovering  that  he  has  leprosy,  kills 
himself,  wife,  and  child,  lest  they 
should  all  be  infected.  When  they  are 
in  the  last  throes,  a  doctor,  hastily 
summoned,  says  the  man  hadn't  lep- 
rosy, after  all.  The  group  acclaimed 
the  play  as  a  masterpiece  of  realism. 
Needless  to  say,  I  did  not  enjoy  the 
performance.  "What  chance",  said 
Beekman,  hitting  back  at  me  in  his 
"Extinction",  "has  realism  with  a  mob 
which  turns  down  its  thumbs  on  any- 
thing which  does  not  tickle  its  risi- 
bles?  When  shall  the  true  drama  get 
a  hearing?  Lives  there  no  longer  a 
public  not  too  soft  to  endure  the  tor- 
ments of  a  fellow  man  upon  the 
stage?"  No,  Mr.  Beekman,  the  public 
of  which  I  am  your  sample,  does  not 
any  longer  choose  to  pay  its  cash  for 
the  privilege  of  being  merely  tor- 
mented. If  I  must  be  harrowed,  I 
want  to  get  a  sense  of  righteousness 
in  the  harrowing,  some  fundamental 
principle  which  I  can  store  away  as  a 
bulwark  for  moral  defense  at  later 
crises.  When  I  said  something  of  this 
sort,  Mr.  Beekman  promptly  rapped  in 
his  next  paper  the  Puritan  public 
which  insists  that  a  moral  be  served 
with  eveiy  drama. 

I  have  even  appeared  as  the  heroine 
of  a  very  modem  novel  in  which  the 
leading  woman  is  made  to  choose  be- 
tween domesticity  with  a  husband  and 
business.  In  earlier  days,  I  have  wept 
over  marvelous  voices  sacrificed  in  the 
matrimonial  mausoleum  of  the  Home 
— ^not  my  phrasing  but  that  of  the 
popular  serial — ^and  have  suffered  with 


ON   LIVING   WITH   LUCINDA 


179 


actresses  obliged  to  sacrifice  careers 
to  husbands  who  could  not  endure  the 
thought  of  their  earning  a  copper 
cent;  but  I  have  yet  to  learn  the  lure 
of  business,  though  I  have  earned  my 
living  by  it  for  eleven  years.  In  this 
novel  I  was  aflame  with  ambition.  I 
believe  I  was  made  to  sell  stocks  and 
bonds  instead  of  insurance,  but  I  was 
absorbed  in  buying  and  selling.  I  ate, 
drank,  and  slept  with  stocks  and  bonds 
in  my  mind.  I  dreamed  always  of — 
not  gain,  but  financial  glory.  I  had 
the  lust  for  power  over  other  people's 
bank  accounts.  And  then  a  man  came 
and  asked  me  to  wash  his  dishes  and 
cook  his  dinners  and  be  his  wife.  Of 
course  I  refused  him — ^in  the  novel. 
My  would-be  husband's  love  turned  to 
jealousy  of  his  rival,  my  business;  he 
became  my  enemy  in  a  desperate  war 
on  the  stock  exchange.  Twenty  years 
later,  we  broke  each  other.  I  have  al- 
ways longed  to  steal  the  manuscript  of 
the  novel  to  read  to  my  associates. 
Ada  Millbank  wrote  it,  Ada  who  has 
so  little  business  acumen  that  she  has 
been  known  to  take  her  July  rent  on 
June  30  to  buy  a  muff  for  the  next 
winter.  I  have  never  been  able  to  ac- 
count for  the  overwhelming  ambition 
with  which  Ada  endowed  me,  since  my 
chief  interest  in  my  occupation  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  provides  me  with  tea 
and  toast  and  occasionally  steak.  Just 
before  Ada  evolved  the  story,  I  did 
refuse  Dick  Halliday,  as  I  fear  Lu- 
cinda  may  have  hinted,  but  I  did  so 
for  no  other  reason  than  that  I  did  not 
care  for  him.  He  did  not  want  me, 
either,  as  much  as  he  did  a  wife  and  a 
home — ^it  is  the  men  who  want  the 
homes,  regardless  of  the  writers  who 
write  otherwise. 

Even  Lucinda  uses  me  for  literary 
purposes.  She  thinks  I  do  not  know 
because  she  disguises  my  thoughts 
and  words  in  generalization^.    For  ex- 


ample, she  has  made  capital  of  my 
preference  for  vanilla  ice-cream  in 
chocolate  ice-cream  soda.  In  summer 
I  am  as  devoted  to  ice-cream  soda  as  a 
school  girl  or  a  man  working  off  the 
tobacco  habit.  I  remarked  casually  to 
Lucinda  upon  the  fortunes  squandered 
for  ice-cream  in  a  modem  lifetime. 
Not  long  after  Lucinda  produced  an 
article  on  "Modem  Puritanism'',  in 
which  she  discussed  relics  of  the  Puri- 
tanical attitude  in  contemporary 
thought.  My  preference  for  vanilla 
ice-cream  became  an  inheritance  from 
Puritan  ancestry.  How?  Lucinda  ar- 
gued that  since  human  nature  is  a 
constant,  fundamental  characteristics 
simply  reappear  in  new  aspects.  Puri- 
tanical principles  exist  today,  she  de- 
clared, reacting  to  new  conditions.  To 
the  Puritan,  modem  extravagances 
for  purely  physical  comforts  would  be 
appalling.  "Take  so  simple  a  matter 
as  ice-cream  soda,"  said  she;  "I  have 
a  friend  who  salves  her  conscience  for 
spending  money  on  anything  so  fieshly 
as  ice-cream  soda  by  eating  vanilla  in- 
stead of  chocolate  ice-cream  in  a  choco- 
late drink, — ^a  less  Epicurean  mixture." 

If  Lucinda  went  always  so  far 
astray,  I  should  not  care,  but  the  Cre- 
ative Wish  has  a  habit  of  telling  her 
my  inmost  secrets,  particularly  after 
we  have  had  a  brisk  walk  in  the  winter 
air.  Lucinda  sees  too  clearly,  under- 
stands too  much  at  such  times.  I 
doubt  if  she  realizes  that  it  is  my  soul 
she  is  dissecting  in  the  verses  she  pro- 
duces. She  thinks  she  is  generalizing 
from  her  own  experience,  whereas  she 
is  making  my  self  a  symbol  for  the 
race.  To  her,  even  as  to  the  group,  I 
am  at  these  moments  the  Average  Hu- 
man Being  and  not  her  oldest  friend. 

I  like  to  be  helpful,  but  the  highest 
altruism  could  find  no  joy  in  serving 
as  a  Type. 

UmSR  WHITSFUBU)  BBAY 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BOOK  COLLECTOR 


BY  GABRIEL  WELLS 


COLLECTING  has  come  to  hold  an 
exalted  position  in  the  round  of 
leisure  activities.  The  distinct  recog- 
nition of  its  merits  is  a  most  com- 
mendable feature  in  the  movement  of 
modem  culture.  There  is  no  activity 
which  approaches  the  occupation  of 
collecting  in  the  liberalizing  influence 
which  it  exercises  upon  the  mind  of 
one  engaged  in  it.  Collecting  stands 
midway  between  sport  and  trade.  It 
is  too  serious  for  sport,  and  too  play- 
ful for  trade. 

What  is  a  collector?  If  a  person  ac- 
quires things  without  reference  to 
their  use,  merely  to  satisfy  his  fancy, 
he  is  a  collector.  The  objects  thus  ac- 
quired may  be  paintings,  postage 
stamps,  violins,  pistols,  snuff-boxes, — 
anything  of  human  interest,  with  the 
appeal  to  one's  fancy  conformably  di- 
versified. But  whatever  the  specific 
character  of  the  appeal  may  be,  it 
never  proceeds — and  therein  lies  the 
crux  of  the  matter — from  the  thing  as 
such ;  that  is,  from  its  primary  attri- 
butes. Which  naturally  at  once  raises 
the  question:  "What  then  is  it  that 
stirs  the  fancy,  what  is  it  that  stimu- 
lates the  interest  for  collecting?"  It 
is  the  "fringes"  of  things.  Things 
have  an  entity  which  constitute  their 
identity ;  and  they  have  fringes  which 
constitute  their  differentise.  It  is 
these  fringes  which  fasten  themselves 
upon  the  fancy.     Let  it  be  watches. 


One  does  not  collect  watches  to  be  the 
better  posted  on  the  time.  A  single 
watch  would  fulfil  the  need.  It  is  the 
peculiarities  which  the  different  makes 
of  watches  display  which  clinch  the 
appeal. 

A  man  becomes  charmed  with  the 
"Rubaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam".  He 
afterward  comes  across  another  edi- 
tion of  it,  and  he  acquires  that  as  well. 
Later  he  discovers  that  there  is  still 
another  edition,  and  this  he  also  pro- 
cures, and  then  another,  and  many 
more  yet;  until  he  has  gathered  to- 
gether maybe  a  hundred  different  edi- 
tions. Does  he  read  them  all  ?  Plainly, 
no.  What  he  does  is  to  note  their 
variations  to  th^  delight  of  his  fancy. 
There  are  some  sixty  odd  examples  of 
Corot  in  Ex-Senator  Clark's  collection 
of  paintings.  Were  they  acquired  for 
the  purpose  of  adorning  the  walls  of 
his  living  quarters?  A  famous  Amer- 
ican book  collector  at  a  recent  auction 
in  London,  paid  a  tremendous  price 
for  a  copy  of  "Venus  and  Adonis" — 
a  sum  of  money  large  enough  to  buy  a 
handsome  residence  on  Riverside 
Drive.  Was  his  anxiety  to  capture  at 
any  cost  this  tiny  treasure  of  a  book 
prompted  by  a  desire  to  familiarize 
himself  more  thoroughly  with  Shake- 
speare's immortal  poem? 

No;  it  is,  as  I  submit, — to  collect 
is  to  bow  to  fancy. 

The  highest  form  of  collecting  is 


180 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BOOK  COLLECTOR 


181 


book  collectins^,  for  the  reason  of  its 
greatest  degree  of  complexity.  In 
other  lines  the  appeal  is  largely  emo- 
tional, while  in  the  case  of  books — and 
by  this  I  mean  all  literary  products — 
the  interest  is  chiefly  intellectual.  Not 
that  this  interest  even  in  books  takes 
its  rise  in  the  intellect.  Nor  indeed 
should  it.  In  order  that  the  collector 
should  pass  through  the  proper  evolu- 
tionary stages,  the  interest  is  to  start 
pn  the  emotional  plane.  To  qualify  as 
a  book  collector  one  need  not  be  of  a 
studious  turn  of  mind,  or  even  possess 
an  overf ondness  for  reading.  If  any- 
thing, this  is  apt  to  spoil  one.  Great 
readers  are  no  respecters  of  books. 
Darwin  used  to  tear  a  few  pages  from 
a  book  to  read  on  the  train.  Edward 
Fitzgerald  had  the  habit  of  separating 
the  part  of  a  book  he  liked,  while  dis- 
carding the  rest;  so  that  he  is  said 
to  have  had  few  perfect  books  in  his 
library. 

The  other  day  I  was  shown  a  letter 
written  by  a  young  New  England 
business  man,  in  which  he  writes: 
"Gee,  but  Fd  like  to  get  a  fine  set  of 
Bret  Harte's.  How  much  would  it 
cost,  and  is  it  obtainable?  I  was  al- 
ways stuck  on  that  fellow,  but  I  like 
Kipling  the  best  of  any  fellow  I  ever 
read.  He  appeals  to  me.  I'd  love  to 
read  this  afternoon  again  how  Fuzzy 
Wuzzy  broke  the  British  Square.  Can 
you  send  it  to  me  elegantly  bound?" 
This  young  man  has  the  making  of  a 
collector.  He  has  a  genuine  affection 
for  books.  He  likes  to  fondle  them 
and  would  not  hurt  their  being  on  any 
consideration. 

The  start  in  collecting  in  most  cases 
is  simple.  The  impulse  for  it  arises 
through  an  appreciative,  intimate  con- 
tact with  the  work  of  an  author— a 
sort  of  spontaneous  generation.  The 
incipient  steps  might  be  as  ingenuous 
as  this:  a  man  reads  a  book,  and  en- 


joys it  Perhaps  he  reads  it  again. 
By  and  by  he  feels  a  desire  to  have 
this  book  in  a  more  pretentious  form. 
He  goes  to  a  bookshop  and  asks  the 
salesman,  as  the  case  may  be,  "Have 
you  Stevenson's  'Treasure  Island'?" 
He  is  shown  an  ordinary  copy  with 
linen  covers.  "I  have  that,"  he  says. 
"What  I  want  is  a  more  attractive  edi- 
tion, better  paper,  larger  type,  and  in 
a  more  durable  binding."  He  says  it 
in  a  tone  as  if  he  felt  a  sort  of  grati- 
tude for  pleasures  received.  The 
salesman  then  shows  him  a  copy  of 
what  he  describes  as  a  de  luxe  edition. 
When  told  the  price  he  is  at  first 
rather  startled  at  the  disparity  in 
value,  but  after  it  is  explained  to  him 
that  only  a  limited  number  of  this 
edition  have  been  printed,  and  the 
type  distributed,  and  so  on,  he  feels 
satisfied  and  buys  the  book. 

In  buying  this  book  he  has  made  a 
start  toward  collecting.  He  bought  a 
book  he  has  already  read,  but  bought 
it  for  its  appeal  to  his  fancy.  Next 
time  the  salesman  sees  him  in  the 
store,  knowing  the  man's  foible  for 
Stevenson,  he  calls  his  attention  to 
still  another  edition  of  "Treasure 
Island",  or  maybe  to  some  other  of 
Stevenson's  books.  After  a  while  he 
makes  him  get  interested  in  some  first 
edition  of  this  author,  not  necessarily 
in  the  original  cloth  it  was  issued; 
but  just  an  ordinary  copy  with  edges 
cut,  newly  bound.  That  does  not  mat- 
ter. It  is  just  as  well  that  he  should 
know  nothing  as  yet  about  the  finer 
points.  Let  him  grope  his  way  at 
first,  and  find  out  gradually  for  him- 
self the  intricacies  of  collecting.  One 
who  starts  out  with  a  full-blown  con- 
sciousness of  what  he  wants,  and  be- 
gins to  be  finicky  right  at  the  outset, 
— insisting  that  eversrthing  be  in  the 
original  boards,  uncut,  with  paper 
label,  and  even  so  many  pages  of  ad- 


182 


THE  BOOKMAN 


vertisements  at  the  end, — ^never  will 
have  a  full  share  of  the  thrills  of  col- 
lecting; and  what  is  more,  his  devel- 
opment wiU  be  mechanical,  and  his 
growth  arrested*  He  will  pay  the  pen- 
alty of  the  wide-awakeness  of  the  pre- 
cocious child*  How,  forsooth,  is  one 
to  develop,  if  starting  at  the  top? 

To  love  perfection  is  laudable,  as- 
suredly. To  strive  for  the  best,  is  the 
very  meaning  of  evolution;  so  who  is 
there  to  find  fault  with  such  aspira- 
tion ?  To  strive,  yes ;  but  not  to  out- 
reach. Seldom  any  good  comes  of  a 
premature  desire.  If  one  attains  the 
object,  the  chances  are  one  will  not 
adequately  appreciate  it.  But  the 
more  likely  outcome  is  that  one  may 
never  attain  it,  and  this  for  the  reason 
that,  with  one's  as  yet  chaotic  sense  of 
values,  one  is  apt  to  fail  to  grasp  the 
opportunity  even  when  it  does  present 
itself;  or,  worse  still,  by  way  of  a 
backward  evolution,  one  often  ends 
by  losing  interest  in  the  thing  alto- 
gether. To  wish  for  a  thing  and  have 
its  fulfilment  unduly  protracted  is 
fatal.  The  interest  simply  exhausts 
itself  for  lack  of  sustenance — a  case 
of  devolution.  "I  shaU  wait  until  I  get 
a  copy  such  as  I  have  set  my  mind 
on,"  he  would  protest,  the  novice  who 
has  had  something  put  into  his  head. 
Wait,  indeed.  That  was  not  the  way 
Robert  Hoe  went  about  it,  and  none 
knew  the  right  way  better.  Stickler 
for  "points"  as  he  was,  he  secured 
what  was  available  for  the  time  being, 
and  then  waited.  Simultaneously  with 
his  diligent  search  for  ever-fresh 
items,  he  was  constantly  on  the  look- 
out for  finer  copies  of  items  already 
in  his  collection.  In  this  manner,  not 
only  the  collection  as  a  whole  was  en- 
larging and  developing  continually, 
but  each  individual  item  went  through 
a  progressive  development  of  its  own. 
This  mode  of  procedure  multiplies  the 


pleasures,  moreover;  while  diminish- 
ing the  nervous  strain  of  uncertainty. 
It  is  the  natural,  spontaneous  method, 
and  the  safest. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the 
biggest  collectors  commenced  in  a 
naive,  undefined,  crude  manner.  That 
prince  of  coUectors,  the  late  J.  Pier- 
pont  Morgan,  as  is  known  bought  at 
first  indiscriminately.  He  bought  all 
sorts  of  subscription  sets,  ornate  bind- 
ings, and  what  not.  He  went  on  ac- 
quiring in  this  way  until,  by  degrees, 
he  reached  the  stage  of  differentia- 
tion. With  his  inborn  connoisseur's 
instinct  he  reached  that  stage  in  com- 
paratively short  order;  and  from  it 
soon  rose  to  the  ultimate  stage. 

There  are  three  stages  in  the  evo- 
lution of  a  book  collector.  They  are 
assimilation,  differentiation,  and  in- 
tegration. Some  never  get  beyond  the 
first,  most  get  entangled  in  the  rami- 
fications of  the  second  stage,  and  only 
the  superior  few  ever  ascend  to  the 
point  of  integration. 

To  be  sure,  nearly  all  great  collect- 
ors had  a  primitive,  nebulous  start, 
acquiring  things  promiscuously  with- 
out a  directive  central  thought.  Take 
the  towering  figure  of  Henry  E.  Hunt- 
ington himself ;  or  the  Clarks,  the  two 
highly  evolved  collectors  of  Cali- 
fornia; or  Herschell  V.  Jones,  or  John 
L.  Clawson,  or  W.  T.  Wallace,  all  of 
whom  commenced  their  collecting  in  a 
more  or  less  wabbling  fashion.  They 
used  to  buy  all  kinds  of  "junk" — in 
the  pet  phrase  of  a  class-inspired  con- 
frere— ^and  buy  with  their  usual  gusto. 
And  I  have  ^so  in  mind  one  of  our 
most  intelligent  and  fastidious  col- 
lectors today.  He  would  send  to  the 
binder  hundreds  of  books  and  spend 
thousands  of  dollars  to  have  them  re- 
bound, thereby  incidentally  lessening 
their  value  from  the  higher  stand- 
point.   Not  that  he  is  in  the  least  re- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BOOK  COLLECTOR 


188 


gretf  ul — ^not  he.  Very  likely,  with  his 
fine  sense  of  humor,  part  of  the  ex- 
penditure he  placed  to  the  diversion 
account,  anyway.  Mentioning  diver- 
sion, and  having  made  some  other  re- 
mark a  little  above,  it  may  not  be 
amiss  at  this  juncture  to  put  in  a 
charitable  word  for  the  much-reviled 
book  agent.  He  has  no  doubt  shown 
himself  in  unenviable  lights  more  than 
once,  and  has  killed  many  a  tender 
plant  by  his  forward  methods;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  has  to  his  credit 
the  sowing  in  unexpected  spots  of 
seeds  which  developed  into  robust 
growths.  The  matter  with  the  book 
agent  is  that  he  has  an  insecure  ten- 
ure. 

Some  of  the  full-fledged  collectors 
may  not  possibly  relish  the  idea  of 
being  reminded  of  their  humble  start, 
any  more  than  many  of  us  like  to  look 
squarely  in  the  face  the  evolutionary 
theory  of  the  origin  of  our  being.  But 
all  of  this  is  false  pride.  The  lower 
down  in  the  scale  one  starts,  the  more 
creditable  is  the  ascent.  Give  me  by 
all  means  a  naive,  unsophisticated 
man,  but  one  inspired  with  enthusi- 
asm. Let  him  have  only  a  vague  idea 
in  his  mind  of  something  or  other; 
and  he  will  soon  begin  to  develop,  if 
placed  in  the  right  atmosphere. 

A  man  loves  books.  Well,  let  him 
browse  around  among  the  shelves  of 
a  bookstore,  and  pick  up  this  and  that. 
Let  his  sole  guide  be  his  own  untu- 
tored imagination.  It  is  much  better 
for  him  if  he  has  no  mentor  to  direct 
his  steps  at  first.  If  he  is  under  rigid 
care  in  the  initial  stages,  he  will  miss 
much  of  the  zest  of  the  thing;  nor 
will  he  progress  very  far.  But,  un- 
guided,  he  will  make  blunders  and 
spend  money  foolishly?  Let  him;  so 
long  as  he  has  it  to  spend,  and  is  not 
overcharged.  He  is  entitled  to  his 
fancy— is  he  not?    Besides,  he  needs 


the  experience,  and  the  shopkeeper 
needs  the  business.  This  may  seem 
cynical,  but  it  is  not.  It  is  the  ex- 
pression of  life's  own  logic.  Since 
when  are  we  expected  to  ridicule  the 
vagaries  of  our  childhood  and  criticize 
them  in  the  light  of  our  advanced 
knowledge?  The  crucial  test  of  the 
wisdom  of  a  given  action  is:  "Is  it 
food  for  development,  or  is  it  poison  V* 
A  gentleman  once  asked  my  advice 
as  to  how  he  should  start  collecting. 
I  told  him  to  buy  the  things  which  ap- 
pealed to  him  personally,  those  he 
felt  would  give  him  pleasure  in  pos- 
sessing, not  the  things  which  other 
people  have,  and  which  he  himself  per- 
haps would  not  appreciate.  In  start- 
ing this  way  one  will  derive  satisfac- 
tion right  at  the  beginning,  and  secure 
a  wide  basis  of  assimilation  from 
which  one  may  gradually  rise  to  a 
higher  and  higher  stage  of  differentia- 
tion. Imitation  and  emulation  have 
their  functions,  but  they  must  not  be 
allowed  to  stifle  the  assertion  of  one's 
own  initiative.  There  is  a  highly  in- 
structive instance  which  bears  out 
this  point  almost  to  perfection.  At 
the  instigation  of  a  friend  who  is  a 
seasoned  collector,  an  industrial  mag- 
nate, who  never  before  bought  a  rare 
book,  walked  into  a  well-known  book- 
store in  New  York  one  day;  and,  in  a 
single  purchase,  procured  a  stately 
lot  of  top-notch  items,  spending  about 
$50,000  in  the  process.  That  occurred 
nearly  three  years  ago,  and  the  man 
has  not  bought  another  book  to  add  to 
his  initial  acquisition  since,  although 
he  realizes,  as  he  admitted  to  me  him- 
self, that  he  obtained  good  value  for 
his  money.  Those  acquainted  with  the 
facts  of  the  case  still  keep  wondering 
whether  this  spirited  gentleman  ever 
will  recover  from  the  effects  of  the 
over-dose  he  took  on  that  occasion. 
He  has  ample  means,  and  could  easily 


184 


THE  BOOKMAN 


afford  to  humor  even  an  exacting 
fancy,  but  money  in  itaelf  can  never 
take  the  place  of  a  whole-hearted  en- 
thusiasm. It  is  obvious  that  a  desire, 
to  be  enduring,  must  spring  from  the 
person  himself. 

When  one  has  already  made  a  be- 
ginning in  one's  own  individual  man- 
ner,— ^with  the  line  of  development  as 
yet  inarticulate,  that  is,  before  one 
commences  to  specialize, — and  is  look- 
ing around  for  guidance  and  invites 
suggestions,  I  like  to  recommend,  on 
general  principles,  the  original  edition 
of  Bums's  Poems — a  handy,  compact 
volume.  Even  the  average  reader  is 
more  or  less  conversant  with  this  out- 
standing English  classic;  and  conse- 
quently, the  interest  is  readily  en- 
listed. It  is  a  case  of  linking  a  new 
experience  to  the  old,  which  is  an  im- 
portant educational  principle.  I  show 
him,  as  a  rule,  the  Edinburgh  Edition, 
published  in  1787,  pointing  out  the 
misprints  which  are  the  distinguishing 
marks  of  the  first  issue,  such  as  the  word 
Roxburgh  spelled  Boxburgh  in  the  list 
of  subscribers,  and  the  word  skinking 
spelled  stinking  in  the  "Ode  to  a  Hag- 
gis". The  reason  why  I  single  out 
this  edition  is  on  account  of  these 
amusing  points,  and  the  extreme  low- 
ness  of  price  in  comparison  with  the 
Kilmarnock  Edition,  which  was  issued 
only  a  year  earlier.  Another  book  I 
like  to  recommend  is  "Gulliver's  Trav- 
els", the  issue  with  separate  pagina- 
tion of  each  part.  This  also  is  not  a 
high-priced  book,  the  same  book  with 
portrait  without  inscription  in  the 
oval  being  worth  ten  times  as  much. 
Still  another  of  the  great  books  which 
I  have  found  to  have  a  fascination  for 
the  intelligent  beginner  is  Milton's 
"Paradise  Lost".  There  are  no  less 
than  eight  different  issues  of  the  first 
edition,  all  of  which  agree  in  every 
particular  as  to  the  body  of  the  book 


itself,  differing  chiefly  in  the  varia- 
tions of  the  title-page.  These  differ- 
ent issues  are  spoken  of  as  the  first 
edition  with  the  first  title,  second  title, 
etc,  while  the  price  between  the  issue 
with  the  first  title,  and  that  with  the 
eighth,  is  in  the  ratio  of  about  twenty 
to  one.  The  disclosure  of  these  points 
immediately  arrests  the  attention  and 
produces  a  receptive,  inquiring  mood. 

The  main  thing  always  is  that  the 
curiosity  should  be  aroused.  I  re- 
member a  young  collector  to  whom  I 
had  shown  a  copy  of  the  First  Edition 
of  "Robinson  Crusoe",  but  one  which 
is  not  generally  considered  the  first 
issue,  having  the  word  apply  in  the 
preface  spelled  correctly,  instead  of 
as  the  first  issue  has  it,  apyly.  When 
I  pointed  out  to  him  how  much  less 
the  price  of  that  copy  was  than  the 
one  with  the  word  incorrectly  speUed, 
he  laughed  and  said:  "Is  that  all?  I 
think  I  wiU  take  this  rather  than  pay 
so  much  more  for  the  incorrect  copy." 
Since  then,  however,  he  exchanged  his 
copy  for  the  first  issue,  and  has  gladly 
paid  the  difference,  for  now  he  has 
reached  the  stage  of  differentiation. 

I  spoke  of  enthusiasm  as  being  the 
one  essential  in  the  collector.  There 
are  those  who  are  filled  with  ecstasy 
in  the  presence  of  great  items.  I  had 
a  copy  not  long  ago  of  the  first  com- 
plete edition  of  John  Skelton's  Poems 
in  the  original  binding.  I  showed  it 
to  A.  Edward  Newton,  whose  book 
"The  Amenities  of  Book  Collecting" 
has  done  so  much  to  stir  up  enthusiasm 
in  this  field.  As  soon  as  he  saw  it,  he 
wanted  it.  Unfortunately,  I  was  not 
in  a  position  to  let  him  have  it,  owing 
to  a  prior  claim  upon  it  by  another  col- ' 
lector.  He  submitted  to  the  inevit- 
able for  the  moment,  but  when  he  re- 
turned to  Philadelphia,  he  at  once 
wired  me,  "Shall  not  be  happy  without 
the  Skelton."     Is  not  that  delicious? 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BOOK  COLLECTOR 


185 


Mr.  Newton's  friends,  and  their  name 
is  legion,  will  be  pleased  to  know  that 
he  got  the  Skelton.  Indeed,  Mr.  New- 
ton is  too  intuitive  a  coUector  to  wait 
upon  the  full  maturing  of  his  fancy, 
and  thereby  take  the  contingent  risk 
of  ever  again  meeting  the  prized  item. 
The  late  Winston  H.  Hagen  had  a 
chance  to  buy  the  Van  Antwerp  copy 
of  the  first  folio  Shakespeare,  and  he 
let  the  opportunity  slip  by  him,  with 
the  result  that  his  important  collection 
remained  without  a  first  folio  he  so 
greatly  coveted.  But,  then,  the  fond 
hope  was  ever  his. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  most  vital  aspect  of  the 
question.  Ordinarily  to  have  a  thing 
is  more  gratifying  than  to  look  for  it. 
Not  so  when  one  enters  the  field  of  col- 
lecting. There  the  greater  delight  lies 
in  the  pursuit.  The  reason  is  that  the 
collector  while  searching  for  an  object 
is  already  in  ideal  contact  with  it. 
He  knows  the  thing  is  there,  and  he 
feels  quite  certain  he  will  find  it;  so 
he  harbors  an  anticipatory  sense  of 
its  ownership,  with  the  edge  of  curi- 
osity undulled  by  actual  possession. 
Invariably,  the  sense  of  pursuit  is 
what  provides  the  keenest  pleasure  in 
the  process  of  collecting.  Here  is  a 
collector  who  undertakes  to  extra-il- 
lustrate the  work  of  a  favorite  author. 
He  will  spare  no  time  and  labor  to  as- 
semble the  necessary  material.  He 
roams  all  over  book-creation  to  find 
such  a  woodcut  or  a  steelplate,  or  a 
colored  view  which  he  deems  would 
best  illumine  a  certain  passage.  While 
he  is  at  work  he  goes  through  a  suc- 
cession of  delights,  which  are  height- 
ened by  the  very  difficulties  he  en- 
counters. When  the  task  is  finished 
and  the  tension  is  relaxed,  his  inter- 
est in  it  presently  begins  to  wane.  Of 
course,  this  abatement  of  interest  is 
only  temporary,  a  reaction  from  the 


zeal  and  energy  he  put  in  the  work. 
Still,  this  goes  to  show  that  the  ele- 
ment of  pursuit  is  the  predominating 
factor.  I  wonder,  in  passing,  if  the 
impulse  for  collecting  is  not  but  a 
modification  of  the  hunting  instinct 
imbedded  in  our  nature.  It  has  all  the 
earmarks  of  it.  Hunting  is  essentially 
pursuit  with  possession  as  the  climax. 
That  is  precisely  what  collecting  is. 
'  Often  this  element  of  pursuit  becomes 
over-accentuated.  Who  has  not  met 
with  the  species  of  collector  who 
would  view  an  item  again  and  again, 
play  with  it  like  a  cat  with  a  mouse, 
hesitant  to  arrive  at  a  decision,  and 
yet  all  the  while  wanting  it;  for  fear, 
largely  not  self -realized,  of  losing,  by 
gaining  possession  of  the  thing,  the 
excitement  and  fun  which  he  experi- 
ences in  dallying  with  the  present  ob- 
ject of  his  fancy.  In  some  isolated 
cases  the  sense  of  pursuit  gets  en- 
tirely detached,  a  mental  attitude 
strikingly  exemplified  in  the  story  told 
of  an  Englishman  who  sat  by  a  lake  in 
Belgium  intently  watching  the  be- 
havior of  his  line.  A  native  observing 
his  actions  ventured  the  remark  that 
there  were  no  fish  in  that  lake.  ''No 
matter,  my  lad,  I  am  not  fishing  for 
fish,  I  am  fishing  for  pleasure." 

This  case,  it  goes  without  saying, 
represents  an  abnormal  state  of  mind 
which  must  be  combated.  The  objec- 
tive element  ought  always  to  be  held 
in  balance  with  the  subjective;  else 
the  desire  dominates  the  person,  and 
leads  to  all  sorts  of  eccentricities.  To 
proceed  gradually  on  the  wave  of  al- 
ternation between  pursuit  and  pos- 
session, without  undue  pressure  and 
yet  with  unslackening  tension,  is  what 
insures  a  sane,  well-balanced  progress. 

There  are  various  types  of  collect- 
ors, resulting  from  the  intermixture 
of  three  ingredients:  temperament, 
intellectual    bent,    and    pocket-book. 


186 


THE  BOOKMAN 


They  may  be  divided  into  two  large 
groups — ^the  intensive,  and  the  diffuse. 
An  illustrious  example  of  the  inten- 
sive type  is  afforded  by  Henry  G. 
Folger,  the  noted  Shakespearian  col- 
lector, while  the  majority  of  the  col- 
lectors may  be  classed  under  the  dif- 
fuse type.  But  there  is  still  another 
type,  the  voluminous,  which  is  a  com- 
bination of  the  intensive  and  the  dif- 
fuse, and  of  this  type  we  have  in  Mr. 
Huntington  a  monumental  embodi- 
ment. 

The  present  widespread  tendency  to 
devote  the  margins  of  time  to  the 
pleasurable  and  informative  task  of 
collecting  is  a  wholesome  development. 


It  would  be  a  good  thing  if  people 
would  grow  to  still  better  realize  that 
collecting  is  a  most  effective  instru- 
ment of  intellectual  enrichment  and 
mental  harmony;  and  by  progres- 
sively enlarging  the  sphere  of  our  ac- 
tivities, is  conducive  to  a  broad  and 
serene  outlook  upon  life.  To  coUect 
the  variegated  products  of  human 
achievement  and  ingenuity  is  to  get  in 
touch  with  the  forces  of  civilization, 
is  to  drink  at  the  headsprings  of  his- 
tory, geography,  art,  science,  and  lit- 
erature. It  enables  a  person  to  focal- 
ize the  scattered  rays  of  his  cultural 
interests,  to  gather  himself  together, 
to  see  life  steadily  and  see  it  whole". 


it 


CONVERSION 


BY  ELIZABETH  HANLY 


OH  I  have  felt  a  ship's  deck 
Heave  under  me  and  so 
I  know  what  gods  and  poets 
And  sailormen  must  know: 
Why  shiftless  folk  go  seeking 
What  thrifty  folk  despise; 
How  broken  men  and  cruel 
Have  beauty  in  their  eyes. 


Since  I  have  seen  new  planets 

Pricked  in  a  deeper  blue, 
I  know  what  Drake  and  Frobisher 

And  old  Magellan  knew. 
And  no  smug  folk  in  harbor 

Need  ever  question  me 
Why  men  who  hate  her  thraldom 

Go  back  again  to  sea. 


RECENT  FRENCH  BOOKS 


BY  A.  G.  H.  SPIERS 


An  Oriental  dancer^s  autobiography — a  social  novel  by  the  French  war 
humorist  Maurois — DuhameVs  war  "Conversa^^ion^',  emotional  reactions  of  a 
humanitarian  idealism — an  interviewer^s  symposium  of  German  professional 
men's  ideas  on  their  country's  defeat,  the  treaty  and  its  application. 


SHEMAKHA,  Baku,  Teheran,  Con- 
stantinople, in  the  momentous 
years  just  before  the  war — ^we  should 
welcome  a  well-written  book  upon 
these  cities  of  Caucasia,  Persia  and 
the  near  East,  were  it  nothing  but  the 
impressions  of  a  European  traveler. 
But  Arm^n  Ohanian's  "La  Danseuse 
de  Shamakha"  is  something  far  more 
human.  It  is  no  account  of  things 
seen  from  the  outside  which  any  for- 
eigner, wide-awake  and  industrious, 
might  record.  It  is  the  story  of  the 
author's  own  childhood  and  young 
womanhood  written  by  an  Armenian 
Christian  and  from  an  Armenian  point 
of  view.  Arm^n  Ohanian  is  an  artist 
known  abroad  for  her  interpretation  of 
Caucasian  and  Persian  dances. 

There  was  much  affection  and  joy, 
mingled  with  austerity,  in  the  life  of 
her  family,  dwelling  in  one  of  the  vil- 
lages sheltered  like  eagle's  nests  in  the 
mountains,  with  their  rose-colored 
citadels,  their  churches  and  their  svelt 
minarets  "d'otl  le  chant  nostalgique 
des  meuzzins  saluait  le  Dieu  dans  le 
soleil  et  se  mSlait  au  son  grave  des 
cloches  pour  glorifier  le  m£me  Dieu 
k  la  m§me  heure."  But  evil  days 
came  to  them  when,  an  earthquake 
having  shattered  the  town  of  She- 
makha where  they  spent  their  win- 
ters, they  were  forced  to  remove  to 


Baku  on  the  Caspian  Sea.  Here  the 
children  going  to  school  were  punished 
if  a  single  Armenian  word  fell  from 
their  lips  and  the  girls,  the  boys,  their 
mother  and  their  father  each  suffered 
in  different  ways,  according  to  their 
characters,  from  the  indignities  put 
upon  them  by  an  oppressive  Russian 
government.  Finally,  the  father  hav- 
ing died  as  the  result  of  a  massacre 
connived  in  by  the  Cossacks,  the 
family  was  broken  up  and  Arm^,  our 
author,  went  to  live  in  Persia.  She 
adapted  herself  as  best  she  could  to 
the  customs  of  Resht  and  finally  spent 
some  time  sharing,  although  she  was 
a  Christian,  the  home  life,  occupa- 
tions, and  amusements  of  a  prominent 
Moslem  family  in  Teheran.  It  was 
from  this  town  that  she  at  length  set 
out  upon  her  career  as  a  dancer — a 
career  which  took  her  first  to  Con- 
stantinople and  then  to  Cairo,  bring- 
ing her  into  touch  with  western 
Europe. 

Arm^n  Ohanian  styles  herself  "une 
simple  vagabonde  d'Asie  qui  aime  et 
qui  halt  selon  son  coeur".  She  is  also 
a  woman  of  evident  culture  with  a  gift 
of  simple,  frank,  and  agreeable  ex- 
pression, a  power  to  feel  distinctions 
and  a  strongly  marked  eastern  tem- 
perament. She  was  ready  to  admire 
western  civilization;    but  on  coming 


187 


188 


THE  BOOKMAN 


to  know  it»  she  is  by  no  means  im- 
pressed ;  and  her  book  echoes  more  than 
once  not  only  a  profound  disappoint- 
ment, but  also  the  feeling  that  we 
might  learn  much  from  the  East.  "Je 
ne  comprends  vraiment  pas  d'otl  vient 
Terreur  commune  k  tous  les  Europ6ens 
de  croire  T Asiatique  une  esclave. . . . 
Je  conseillerais  k  des  suffragettes  et 
k  des  f^ministes  d'emprunter  quelques 
pr^ceptes  de  Mahomet  concemant  les 
droits  des  f  emmes.  Perf  ectionn^  par 
ces  pr^eptesy  la  situation  de  TEuro- 
D^enne,  esclave  de  ses  lois  et  de  son 
epoux,  s'am^liorerait  pour  beaucoup." 
Sho  feels  keenly  under  what  handicap 
the  dreamy  Asiatic  lives  in  the  haunts 
of  the  European.  "Moi  aussi  je  n'ai 
pas  £chapp6  au  sort  cruel  des  luna- 
tiques  d'Asie  en  Occident  et  si  je  sais 
m'en  d^barrasser  pour  quelques  rares 
instants,  c'est  k  mes  cymbales  et  k  mon 
tambour  que  je  le  dois."  The  remark 
that  there  is  but  one  law  in  the  world, 
"manger  son  voisin  ou  dtre  mang6  par 
lui",  calls  forth  from  her  the  exclama- 
tion: "Que  Dieu  nous  aide,  nous 
autres,  et  qu'Il  nous  transforme  de 
somnambules  asiatiques  en  anthro- 
pophages  civilis&il'' 

One  of  the  most  interesting  fea- 
tures of  this  book  is  Arm^n  Ohanian's 
picture  of  the  Armenian  Christians, 
the  primitive  inflexibility  of  their  re- 
ligion, and  the  contrast  between  their 
austere  lives  and  the  lives  of  grace 
and  ease  of  the  Mohammedan  Per- 
sians. It  is  only  recently  that  their 
priests  have  understood  that  ''nous 
seuls  parmi  tous  les  Chretiens  du 
monde,  ayant  pris  k  la  lettre  les  sub- 
limes paroles  du  Christ,  en  rest&mes 
les  dupes,  les  dupes  malheureuses  des 
impossibles  reves.  Et,  ayant  mis  de 
cdt6  leurs  soutanes  et  leur  crucifix" 
(through  which,  until  now,  these 
priests  have  exhorted  the  Armenians 
to  nonresistance  during  the  massa- 


cres), "ils  se  mel&rent  aux  insurgte." 
She  makes  a  few  rapid  but  telling  re- 
marks upon  the  concessions  and  com- 
positions of  the  church  of  the  West, 
for  she  has  evidently  suffered  not  a 
little  from  its  insincerity.  But  she 
recognizes  nevertheless  the  disasters 
resulting,  in  her  opinion,  from  the  at- 
titude of  her  own  people:  had  they 
been  less  literal  in  ttieir  Christianity, 
they  would  not  now  be  so  terribly  deci- 
mated. Moreover  Arm&n  Ohanian's 
own  nature,  encouraged  no  doubt  by 
her  stay  in  Persia,  is  somewhat  in  op- 
position to  the  attitude  of  her  race; 
it  was  apparently  the  pressure  of  her 
life-loving  temperament,  with  its  de- 
sire for  beauty,  new  sights  and  new 
sensations,  and  its  delight  in  the  mys- 
tic, the  "irrtel"  (as  she  calls  it)  at- 
mosphere which  surrounds  the  dancer 
in  the  East,  that  made  her  set  out 
upon  her  voyages,  when  forced  to  give 
up  the  easy  life  of  Teheran. 

The  present  book  stops  with  Armte 
Ohanian's  departure  from  Egypt — ^not 
on  her  way  to  India  and  China  where 
she  longs  to  go,  but  to  London  whither 
she  is  forced  by  a  contract  signed  in 
ignorance.  I  am  told  that  she  is  at 
present  in  Madrid  preparing  a  second 
volume  describing  her  progress  in 
western  countries. 

AndrS  Maurois  is  a  public  benefac- 
tor. To  see  his  name  on  the  cover  of 
a  new  book  reminds  us  that  we  owe  to 
him,  as  we  do  to  a  few  others  such  as 
Poulbot  and  Baimsfather,  one  of  the 
few  moments  of  amusement  that  re- 
lieved the  grimness  of  the  war.  It 
will  be  many  months  before  we  forget 
the  delightful  humor  of  his  "Les  Si- 
lences du  Colonel  Bramble",  its  weU- 
told  anecdotes,  its  feeling  for  charac- 
ter, and  its  understanding,  so  rare  in 
the  work  of  a  Frenchman,  of  the  vigor, 
courage  and  almost  apologetic  devo- 


RECENT  FRENCH   BOOKS 


189 


tion  to  high,  traditional  ideals  that  lie 
beneath  the  burly  exterior  of  the  Brit- 
isher. 

Maurois's  ''Ni  Ange  ni  BSte"  is 
unlike  its  predecessor.  Whereas  the 
first  is  an  unpretentious  collection  of 
detached  episodes  or  sketches,  this 
book  is  more  ambitious.  It  consists  of 
a  connected  narrative  with  at  least  a 
suggestion  that  the  author  has  a 
moral  to  point.  It  describes  the  ex- 
periences and  feelings  of  a  political 
progressive  during  the  agitated  years 
of  French  history  1846-1862,  the 
period  of  the  republican  revolution  of 
1848,  the  coup  d'itat  and  the  return  to 
absolutism  under  the  emperorship  of 
Napoleon  le  Petit.  This  democrat  with 
socialist  leanings  is  abandoned  by  his 
friends  and  driven  from  France  by  his 
enemies,  the  rewards  for  his  too  in- 
genious enthusiasm  for  reform  being, 
in  addition  to  his  exile  to  England  and 
a  call  on  Lamartine,  the  possession  of 
a  trustworthy  yet  pretty  wife  and  the 
opportunity  to  meditate  upon  the 
ideas  of  an  easy-going  philosopher 
who  believes  in  the  evident  truth  that 
"pour  qu'une  revolution  soit  utile,  il 
faut  qu'elle  se  borne  k  sanctionner  une 
Evolution  d6j&  accomplie;  et  dans  ce 
cas,  elle  n'a  pas  besoin  de  la  violence." 

This  novel  has  many  qualities.  It  is 
permeated  with  a  graceful  irony,  and 
it  treats  with  affectionate  pity  those 
who  erroneously  believe  that  human 
society  may  be  made  anew  over  night. 
I  recognize  and  enjoy  also  the  ease  of 
Maurois's  style.  These  qualities 
should  and  will,  no  doubt,  appeal  to 
many  readers.  But,  speaking  for  my- 
self, the  book  does  not  impress  me. 
In  spite  of  the  grave  thoughts  upon 
the  nature  of  man,  prefixed  to  each  of 
its  three  divisions,  it  is  little  more 
than  a  pleasantly  written  story  in 
which  the  disappointments  of  humani- 
tarian dreams  are  mitigated  by  the 


comforts  of  requited  affection.  Only 
in  the  most  superficial  way,  can  it  be 
considered  an  exposition  of  Pascal's 
great  thought  which  has  supplied 
Maurois  with  his  title:  ''Lliomme 
n'est  ni  ange  ni  bete,  et  le  malheur 
veut  que  qui  veut  faire  Tange  fait  la 
b^te." 

In  a  former  volume,  as  readers  of 
The  Bookman  know,  Duhamel  plead 
for  what  was  little  short  of  re- 
education of  the  heart  of  modem 
society.  He  desired  to  substitute 
for  our  preoccupation  with  ma- 
terial and  inanimate  things  an  in- 
terest in,  and  a  sympathy  with,  the 
feelings  of  our  fellow  men:  in  no 
other  way,  so  he  maintains,  can  the 
world  recapture  the  happiness  it  has 
lost.  That  Duhamel  has  taken  his 
own  lesson  seriously,  that  he  practises 
what  he  preaches,  there  is  no  doubt; 
and  it  is  this  fact  which  lends  charm 
and  distinction  to  his  most  recent 
book,  "Entretiens  dans  le  Tumulte". 

In  certain  ways  this  is  the  best 
work  yet  produced  by  Duhamel.  At 
the  outset  of  his  literary  career,  he 
was  earnestly  seeking  to  give  form 
and  substance  to  an  impulse  which 
stirred  within  him.  He  had  caught 
sight,  with  some  indistinctness,  of  a 
new  conception  of  what  was  most 
worth  while  in  life,  and  he  was  trying 
to  express  this  conception  in  a  style 
equally  novel.  His  writing  at  that 
time  was  strained,  uncouth  and  even, 
at  times,  unintelligible  to  the  average 
reader.  This  was  particularly  notice- 
able in  the  verse  of  "Les  Compa- 
gnons",  and  was  still  discernible  in  cer- 
tain parts  of  his  prose  "La  Possession 
du  Monde".  "Les  Entretiens"  shows 
a  decided  advance.  Duhamel  is  now 
more  at  home  in  the  attitude  of  his 
choosing,  and  the  question  of  form 
has  settled  itself,  so  true  is  it  that  "Ce 


190 


THE  BOOKMAN 


que  Ton  con^oit  bien  s'6nonce  claire- 
ment".  His  style  was  never  so  simple 
as  in  these  "entretiens" ;  yet  nowhere 
has  he  made  us  feel  so  strongly  those 
subtleties  of  social  intuition  and  hu- 
man communings  which  are  the  dis- 
tinctive feature  of  his  inspiration. 

With  much  skill,  for  instance,  he 
brings  out  the  mutual  mistrust  of  two 
soldiers,  both  profoundly  devoted  to 
France  yet  so  different  in  tempera- 
ment that  the  tender,  solicitous  pa- 
triotism of  the  first  is  incomprehensi- 
ble to  the  robust,  unalarmed  love  of 
country  of  the  second.  Here  he  notes 
the  peculiar  contentment  emanating 
from  the  presence  of  certain  person- 
alities: "Les  choses  vont  ainsi  avec 
Houtelette:  quand  il  est  lit,  on  ne  le 
remarque  point,  mais  son  absence  est 
en  g^nSral  remarqu6e/'  There  he  de- 
scribes the  moumf  ulness,  the  sense  of 
general  oppression  that  sometimes 
comes  upon  a  group  of  men  and  that 
seems  inexplicable  until  finally  traced 
to  the  sadness,  quiet  and  unobtrusive 
though  it  may  be,  of  one  of  their  num- 
ber. And  still  elsewhere  he  makes  us 
share  the  loneliness  of  Cauchois:  dur- 
ing the  night  and  when  dreaming  in 
the  dasrtime,  Cauchois  is  conscious  of 
his  wife  and  child  supporting  him 
with  their  affection;  but  he  misses,  as 
the  years  of  war  drag  on,  'la  grande 
pens6e"  of  his  countrymen  living  away 
from  the  trenches,  '^a  grande  penste 
de  l&-bas  qui  nous  enveloppait,  dans 
les  premiers  temps,  et  qu'on  nous  re- 
tire, maintenant,  comme  un  v§tement 
pr§t6.''  At  times  indeed,  Duhamel's 
sense  of  emotional  atmosphere  tran- 
scends the  individual,  and  then  we 
have  a  striking  description  of  what 
might  be  called  the  soul  of  an  anony- 
mous gathering. 

Such  passages  as  these  represent 
what  is  perhaps  the  most  lasting  and 
what  is  certainly  the  most  individual 


merit  of  "Lee  Entretiens" :  they  sug- 
gest that  we  are  reading  an  author 
who  is  calling  our  attention  to  human 
truths  of  real  value,  which  have  hith- 
erto escaped  our  consideration.  But  it 
is  not  these  passages  which  will  at- 
tract most  attention  at  the  present 
moment.  They  will  be  overshadowed 
by  others  expressing  the  likes  and  dis- 
likes, the  hopes  and  the  fears  of  one 
who,  having  lived  close  to  the  realities 
of  the  war,  speaks  the  mind  of  hun- 
dreds or  thousands  of  the  younger 
men  whose  opinions  will  soon  count  in 
the  direction  of  the  world's  affairs. 
Duhamel  detests  the  war,  and  he  is 
alternately  either  put  out  of  patience 
or  saddened  by  everyone  and  every- 
thing which  may  tend  to  make  its  re- 
currence possible  by  obscuring  its  les- 
sons. Written  immediately  before  the 
armistice  and  in  the  months  that  fol- 
lowed its  declaration,  {hese  "conversa- 
tions" are  mainly  concerned  with  the 
reactions  of  a  broadly  humanitarian 
idealism,  exasperated  by  the  egoism 
and  quibbling  of  politicians,  delighted 
by  the  plain  speaking  and  brotherly 
affection  of  Wilson  (whose  utterances 
Duhamel  comes  near  comparing  to 
those  of  Christ),  and  hoping  against 
•  hope  that  there  will  be  no  return  to 
the  ''morale  us6e",  the  "vieilles  re- 
ligions compromises"  and  the  "insti- 
tutions sociales  et  politiques  condam- 
ntes"  of  1914. 

Certain  of  the  "entretiens"  are 
marred  by  impetuous  irresponsibility 
of  tone  and  expression;  and  others 
repeat  arguments  and  ideas  that  have 
been  more  effectively  and  more  thor- 
oughly put  forward  by  other  writers. 
A  few,  however,  have  a  real  and  pa- 
thetic appeal.  Such  for  instance  is 
that  entitled  "La  L^gende",  in  which 
the  writer  and  a  friend  mark  with 
dismay  the  futility  of  any  attempt  to 
pass  on  to  men  of  future  generations  a 


RECENT   FRENCH   BOOKS 


191 


knowledge  of  the  hideous  experiences 
undergone  by  the  men  of  the  present: 
scarcely  was  the  armistice  declared 
when,  on  the  very  eleventh  of  Novem- 
ber, "rhumanit6  tout  enti^re  contem- 
plait  le  pass6  monstrueux  et  s'ap- 
pretait  k  en  faire  des  souvenirs",  with 
all  the  mendacious  adornment  which 
memory  inevitably  bestows.  Such, 
too,  is  another  "entretien"  which  re- 
calls the  words  with  which  Duhamel 
brought  to  a  close  "La  Possession  du 
Monde".  It  is  a  plea  for  an  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  nations,  and  espe- 
cially of  France,  to  try  a  policy  of 
magnanimous  and  cordial  disinterest- 
edness— a  plea  in  which,  as  a  reply  to 
the  disillusioned  arguments  of  an  ob- 
jector, he  exclaims:  "Ne  discutez 
point;  ouvrez  vos  livres  et  dites-moi 
si  jamais,  au  long  de  soixante  sik;les 
dliistoire,  les  hommes  voute  k  la  di- 
rection des  peuples  ont  eu  Toriginale 
grandeur  de  leur  faire  accomplir  une 
seule  de  ces  actions  majestueuses  et 
dteint6ress6es  qui  ont  fait,  parfois,  la 
gloire  dMndividus  isolte". 

Maurice  Berger's  "La  Nouvelle  Al- 
lemagne"  is  a  timely  book,  consisting 
of  a  set  of  interviews  obtained  since 
the  signing  of  the  armistice  from 
prominent  Germans  of  every  profes- 
sion—diplomats, politicians,  journal- 
ists, manufacturers,  scientists,  finan- 
ciers, artists,  and  writers.  It  shows 
the  ideas  of  these  men  upon  realizing 
that  Germany  had  been  defeated  in 
the  war,  their  hopes  concerning  the 
peace  terms,  and  the  suggestions  they 
wished  to  spread  abroad  in  their  ef- 
forts to  make  these  terms  and  their 
application  as  favorable  as  possible. 
The  interviewer  has  taken  care  to  get. 


as  far  as  conditions  would  permit,  re- 
liable data  upon  the  state  of  public 
opinion  in  Germany.  That  this  state 
is  not  ideal  from  the  Allied  point  of 
view,  may  be  seen  from  the  following 
extracts  of  Berger's  conclusions :  "For 
this  nation  of  seventy  million  people 
the  truth  is  simple  enough :  Germany 
was  carrying  on  a  defensive  war.  She 
had  become  too  powerful  and  too  rich : 
the  envy  of  England  and  the  rancor  of 
France  had  schemed  to  ruin  her". 
The  Germans,  generally,  still  believe 
in  all  the  fanciful  stories  by  which 
they  were  originally  duped:  French 
aviators  dropping  bombs  on  Nurem- 
berg on  the  first  of  August,  1914, 
»  French  doctors  poisoning  the  wells  of 
Metz,  French  officers  preparing  the 
passage  of  French  troops  through 
Luxemburg.  "Today,  it  is  true,  some 
Germans  are  beginning  to  doubt  the 
most  patent  falsehoods  of  earlier  days 
and  to  uphold  the  theory  of  preventive 
war:  the  Allies  had,  according  to  this 
theory,  forged  around  Germany  a 
deadly  ring  which  it  was  time,  if  ever, 
to  break  through. . . .  The  government 
of  the  German  Republic  is  continuing 
to  circulate  the  falsehoods  of  the  for- 
mer government  of  the  Empire.  The 
great  mass  of  the  population  continues 
to  be  deceived  by  these  falsehoods". 
And  the  result  of  all  this  is  a  tragic 
misunderstanding:  "L'Entente  agit 
comme  un  justicier  vis-^-vis  d'un 
criminel  et  ce  criminel  se  croit  un  in- 
nocent puni  par  un  coupable." 


La  Dansense  de  Shamakha.  By  Armdii 
Obanian.     Paris :   Bernard  Qrasaet. 

Ni  Ange  ni  Bfite.  By  Andrti  Manrois.  Paris : 
Bernard  Qrasset. 

Bntretiens  dans  le  Tnmnlte.  By  Georges  Du- 
hamel.   Paris :   Mercure  de  France. 

La  NouTelle  Allemagne.  By  Maurice  Berger. 
Paris:   Bernard  Qrasset. 


ABOUT  ESSAYS,  AND  THREE 


BY  MARY  TERRILL 


nPHE  essay  is  coming  back  again. 
1  About  every  twenty  years  that 
slogan  gets  at  the  top  of  the  editorial 
page  of  a  literary  publication.  How 
far  this  comeback  is  engineered  by  the 
Readers'  Trust  in  the  publishing 
houses,  whether  they  are  pushed  into 
it  by  the  psychic  tugs  of  their  clien- 
tele»  or  whether  it  is  purely  a  mechan- 
ical and  periodic  return  of  an  im- 
mortal art-form»  space  (and  brains) 
lacks  us  to  go  into. 

But  the  essay  is  really  coming  back. 
Who  was  it  started  the  ball  a-rolling 
again?  Not  Maeterlinck,  Havelock 
Ellis,  or  James  Huneker.  They  have 
never  quitted  the  essay.  With  them 
brevity  has  not  only  been  the  soul  of 
wit  but  the  dugs  of  thought.  Is  any- 
thing outside  of  fiction  and  politics 
worth  more  than  ten  thousand  words? 
To  be  brief  is  Latin;  to  be  prolix  is 
German.  We  haven't  enough  time|K)r 
lives  handy  to  read  your  point  of  view 
in  ten  thousand  words.  There  are  too 
many  points  of  view  nowadays.  The 
facets  of  the  brain  multiply  beyond  our 
counting  numerals.  All  life  aspires  to 
condensed  expression.  Say  it  quickly, 
and  say  it  well.  The  pigeonholes  in 
our  brains  are  full  to  bulging.  There's 
a  fellow  waiting  behind  you  who  will 
have  his  say.  And  a  line  in  back  of 
him  that  stretches  around  the  comer 
of  our  consciousness. 

Maybe  it  was  Carl  Van  Vechten,  or 


John  Cowper  Powys,  or  Arnold  Ben- 
nett, or  Robert  Cortes  HoUiday  that 
resurrected  the  delightful  art  of  liter- 
ary   rambling;     or    Chesterton,    or 
Mencken.    The  point  is  moot. 
4    Great  essayists  are  as  rare  as  great 
personalities.      The    mono-rail    mind 
seldom  expresses  itself  in  an  essay.    It 
is  essentially  the  form  of  the  many- 
sided  man.    It  is  the  natural  matrix 
of  the  sensitive,  the  raffini,  the  thou- 
sand-mirrored chronicler.     His  unity 
of  vision  and  reaction  lies  in  his  form. 
His  viewpoint  may  be  just  the  ribbon 
around  the  bouquet.  He  is  generally  a 
decadent,  a  dilettante.     He  is  a  re- 
porter of  nuances.    He  is  a  sampler  of 
all  spiritual  jam-pots.    He  is  a  per- 
petual traveler  without  a  Baedeker  or 
a  Cook's  safe-conduct.    He  may  be  a 
ponderous    old    gossip    like    Samuel 
Johnson,  a  surgeon  of  tendencies  like 
Arthur  Symons,  or  a  bed-prowling  cat 
like  Sainte-Beuve ;    but  they  are  all 
alike  in  this — ^they  are  the  antennse  of 
literature.    This  was  even  true  of  old 
Sam    Johnson;     his    antennae    were 
spikes  and  nails,  but  they  were  often 
highly  magnetized  with  wit  and  epi- 
gram.    Hippopotamus,  his  hide  was 
thick  but  telepathic. 

No  essay  should  ever  be  finished. 
The  perfect  essay  ought  to  repeat  life, 
which  is  a  fragment  of  something  else. 
It  ought  to  suggest  another  essay.  It 
should  have  no  bottom  to  stand  on.    It 

192 


ABOUT  ESSAYS,  AND  THREE 


193 


should  be  a  cocktail,  but  never  a  meal. 
Oscar  Wilde  said  the  great  pleasure 
that  a  cigarette  gave  him  came  from 
the  mamder  in  which  it  left  him  unsat- 
isfied. A  great  essay  is  a  cigarette — 
an  unsatisfactory  promise.  It  is  the 
ash-tray  of  our  emotions  and  visions. 
The  two  finest  essays  in  the  language, 
to  my  way  of  thii^ng,  are  Hamlet's 
soliloquy  on  suicide  and  the  introduc- 
tion to  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence (unexpurgated). 

Here  are  three  books  of  essays,  by 
Carl  Van  Vechten,  Conrad  Aiken,  and 
Sherlock  Bronson  Gass.  Three  essay- 
ists utterly  different — Mr.  Gass,  in 
fact,  not  being  an  essayist  at  all,  but 
a  psychological  novelist.  His  book  is 
called  "A  Lover  of  the  Chair".  An  ex- 
cellent title  for  such  a  philosophic  and 
humorous  rambler  through  life  and 
books  and  art  as  Mr.  Gass.  A  chair  is 
the  real  Seven-Leagued  Boot.  It  is 
the  first  and  last  Time-Machine  of 
thinkers  and  dreamers.  Mr.  Gass  sits 
in  a  very  easy  chair  upholstered  in 
light  blue  with  ivory  casters. 

His  style  is  easy,  Pateresque.  He 
has  many  windows  in  his  room,  but  is 
never  bothered  by  a  telephone.  His 
central  character  has  a  Marius-the- 
Epicurean  proclivity  for  Plato-like 
discussions  and  fencings  on  all  the 
questions  of  the  day  and  some  that  are 
quasi-eternal.  When  he  ventures  from 
his  chair  in  his  room  it  is  to  take  one 
in  an  obscure  restaurant  or  in  a  col- 
lege. He  is  a  poet;  hence  his  musings 
and  spiritual  adventures  have  a  glossy 
atmospheric  haze  about  them.  He  has 
the  gentle,  well-behaved  irony  of  "The 
New  Republic"  school.  Like  all 
healthy  mossbacks,  he  is  a  liberal.  His 
revolts  against  the  aesthetic  and  po- 
litical formulas  of  the  time  seem  icily 
regular  enough.  He  wants  to  be  sure 
he  isn't  wrong,  which  is  always  fatal. 
His  reactions  are  never  violent  enough 


to  cause  a  readjustment  of  his  spine 
in  his  easy  chair. 

This  Socratic  Marius  is  worried  a 
great  deal  over  Beauty,  Soul,  Emotion, 
and  Reason.  He  interviews  many  Tes- 
mans  to  get  at  their  essence.  After 
hearing  a  lecture  on  Christianity  and 
evolution,  it  is  recorded  by  Mr.  Gass 
that  his  poet  "crept  back  to  his  room 
and  meditated".  That  might  be,  ap- 
propriately, the  end  of  every  one  of 
the  essays  in  the  book.  Quite  the  gen- 
tlemanly thing  to  do.  In  fact,  "A 
Lover  of  the  Chair"  is  a  gentleman's 
book  by  a  gentleman.  It  is  a  fine  in- 
stance of  what  the  essay  should  not  be. 

"In  the  Garret",  by  Carl  Van  Vech- 
ten,  is  the  essay  set  to  the  music  of 
dish-rattling  in  a  table  d'hdte  res- 
taurant. Mr.  Van  Vechten,  one  of  the 
most  readable  and  br^ziest  essayists 
of  the  day,  refuses  to  sit  in  any  chair. 
When  he  writes  he  runs.  If  he  does 
sit  for  a  moment,  it  is  on  the  bar  in 
some  old  tavern  or  on  top  of  a  trolley- 
car  at  Forty-seventh  and  Broadway. 
Therefore  he  writes.  He  eats  and  gal- 
livants; therefore  he  lives. 

He  is  a  connoisseur  of  the  vivid  and 
the  odd,  of  the  flashing  and  the  gro- 
tesque. His  essays  are  the  Midnight 
Frolics  of  a  joyous,  pagan  soul.  He  is 
what  Bohemia  ought  to  be — Bur- 
gundy, charlotte  russe  and  cjrmbalum. 
He  has  a  magnificenj;  way  of  being  un- 
important. His  touch  is  light  and  ar- 
tistic. His  culture  is  Hunekeresque. 
His  scholarship  is  musicianly,  some- 
times jazzy.  "In  the  Garret"  is  a  full 
meal — from  soup  to  "nuts". 

There  are  varieties  on  any  old 
theme — Oscar  Hammerstein,  Philip 
Thicknesse  (an  admirable  and  life- 
size  Van  Vechten  of  the  eighteenth 
century),  Mimi  Aguglia,  Holy  Jump- 
ers, Sir  Arthur  Sullivan,  Gluck,  Sa^ 
lome,  and  Darktown.  "La  Tigresse", 
a  "New  York  Night's  Entertainment", 


194 


THE   BOOKMAN 


contains  a  tribute  to  our  city  that 
ought  to  be  read  by  every  Kansan. 
Mr.  Van  Vechten  loves  New  York 
from  the  soles  of  its  subway  to  the 
crown  of  its  Woolworth  Tower.  He 
loves  it  above  all  other  cities  because 
it  is  unique.  It  is  the  whirling  der- 
vish of  the  planet.  Impenitent,  materi- 
alistic, cacophonic,  Babelian  old  New 
York,  ratifying  no  amendments  what- 
soever and  going  to  the  dogs  like  a 
radiant  Jezebel !  Baudelaire  gave  Vic- 
tor Hugo  a  new  thrill  of  horror;  New 
York  has  given  the  world  a  new  and 
magical  diabolism.  We  are  the  Holy 
Jumpers  of  civilization.  "Nothing  in 
New  York  is  incongruous  because 
eversrthing  is,"  says  Mr.  Van  Vechten. 
If  London  is  Handel,  New  York  is  the 
Beethoven  of  discords.  Mr.  Van 
Vechten  himself  ought  to  compose  the 
great  American  opera,  "Tout  Goth- 
am". And  bring  Gabriele  D'Annunzio 
here  to  do  the  singing  words. 

Conrad  Aiken's  "Scepticisms"  is 
academic.  It  concerns  poets — Edgar 
Lee  Masters,  John  Gould  Fletcher, 
Lola  Ridge,  D.  H.  Lawrence,  William 
Stanley  Braithwaite,  Alan  Seeger, 
Ezra  Pound,  Carl  Sandburg,  Vachel 
Lindsay,  Maxwell  Bodenheim,  Amy 
Lowell,  John  Cowper  Powys,  Louis 
Untermeyer  and  others  concerned  in 
interpreting  Americans  through  the 
Muss  of  poetry. .  We  notice,  by  the 
way,  in  looking  through  our  classical 
dictionary,  that  there  is  no  Muse  of 
vers  libre.  Will  Mr.  Aiken  attend  to 
this  matter?  Those  of  us  who  are 
building  the  Parnassus  of  the  West 
must  find  a  muse  that  will  apotheo- 
size Walt  Whitman,  who  was  America 
incarnate  and  the  first  vers  librist  of 
the  western  hemisphere  whose  name  is 
universal. 

In  saying  that  "Scepticisms"  is  aca- 
demic, I  mean  nothing  derogatory. 
There  have  been  great  academicians. 


It  is  possible  for  a  man  to  go  through 
college  without  blanketing  his  fires — 
if  he  have  any.  Real  genius  may  sur- 
vive the  professorial  Gradgrinds  and 
still  have  where  to  lay  its  head.  But 
it  is  noticeable  that  most  collegiates 
run  to  "criticism".  They  lack  en- 
thusiasm. They  never  let  themselves 
go.  They  break  rules  with  a  profound 
and  measured  "Ahem!"  or  an  apologia 
pro  vita  stta,  or  in  the  case  of  Mr. 
Aiken  an  apologia  pro  specie  stm. 
They  part  their  thoughts  precisely  in 
the  middle  and  use  a  mustache  brush 
on  the  subjects  they  are  dealing  with. 
Their  critical  estimates  are  the  prod- 
uct of  their  intellectual  emotions. 
Their  emotions  are  discredited — or 
discreditable,  it  would  seem,  in  their 
own  view.  They  shove  their  brain- 
storms into  their  carefully  prepared 
cyclone  cellars.  They  are,  to  me,  like 
a  man  engaged,  Sisyphus-like,  in  roll- 
ing a  collar-button  to  the  top  of  the 
dome  of  their  intelligence  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  watching  it  fall  back 
into  the  River  of  Tendency.  They  are 
Justice  with  a  pair  of  scales — and 
blinded,  of  course. 

But  Mr.  Aiken,  in  his  apologia,  is 
honest.  After  berating  the  stone- 
throwing  of  Amy  Lowell,  Louis  Unter- 
meyer, and  Ezra  Pound,  he  says  he  is 
going  to  throw  some  stones  himself. 
He  is  going  to  boost  Aiken.  He  con- 
fesses that  "my  sympathies  are,  per- 
haps, just  a  trifie  broader  and  more 
generous  than  the  average".  Of 
course,  of  course.  It's  all  a  game, 
dear  reader.  There  is  really  no  fight 
going  on;  no  professional  jealousy 
among  our  twenty-one  Great  Ameri- 
can Poets.  Every  knock  is  a  boost. 
Each  one  of  them  individually  having 
nothing  to  say — with  a  few  excep- 
tions. They  believe  if  they  all  talk  at 
once  an  editor  will  listen — at  a  dollar 
a  line.    Well,  here  is  Mr.  Aiken's  hat 


A   NEW   POET   OF   NATURE 


196 


in  the  nn^r  to  the  tune  of  thirty  es- 
says. The  fact  that  the  hat  is,  from 
the  standpoint  of  style,  pre- Addisoni- 
an and  the  ring  is  the  Poetry  Society 
— oh,  any  old  poetry  society,  I  mean 
—doesn't  make  any  difference.  It 
makes  good  sedative  reading  after 
yon  have  got  tired  of  Mencken,  Cabell, 
Powys  and  some  few  others  of  the  real 
brains  of  America — in  the  matter  of 
the  essay,  I  mean. 

For  instance,  I  believe  Maxwell  Bo- 
denheim  is  a  great  poet  Well,  why 
not  say  so,  Mr.  Aiken,  if  you  think  so 
— and  say  it  in  adjectives?  Instead, 
we  get  something  like  this : 

"Now,  Bodie  boy,  there  are  great 
things  in  you  unexpressed.    I'm  going 


to  expl^  to  my  public  why  you  are 
not  always  up  to  par.  I'm  going  to 
Freud  out  your  split  infinitives  and 
Jung  out  your  possibilities.  You  are 
at  odds  with  yourself.  You  are,  see, 
a  symbolist.  Now,  do  you  think  thafs 
a  good  thing  for  you?  Think  it  over, 
Bodie  boy — ^the  Poetry  Society  is  look- 
ing at  you !  Now,  why  don't  you  write 
like  me,  and,  further — "  And  so  on 
and  so  on  &  la  Tupper. 

There  are  few  of  our  essayists  who 
have  not  found  the  stable  of  Pegasus 
as  yet. 


A  LoTer  of  the  Chair.  By  Sherlock  Bronson 
Oass.    Marshall  Jones  Co. 

In  the  Garret.  By  Carl  Van  Vechten.  Alfred 
A.  Knopf. 

Scepticisms.  By  Conrad  Atken.  Alfred  A. 
Knopr. 


A  NEW  POET  OF  NATURE 


BY  ELLIS  PARKER  BUTLER 


IT  was  my  good  fortune,  during  a 
recent  journey  to  the  Mississippi 
valley  (July-September,  1919),  to 
discover  a  new  poet — one  of  those 
rare  spirits  who  find  their  inspiration 
in  nature  and  speak,  if  I  may  use  the 
phrase,  from  the  soul  outward.  This 
man  of  undoubted  genius  lives  hum- 
bly and  most  simply  in  a  crude  shanty 
boat  in  the  Second  Slough,  about  four 
miles  above  the  town  of  Riverbank, 
Iowa.  His  name  is  Henry  J.  Plitt 
I  had  rowed  around  the  lower  end  of 
the  island  on  which  I  was  cottaging 
and  discovered  his  shanty  boat  by  ac- 
cident, and  in  the  course  of  a  short 
conversation  I  mentioned  that  I  was  a 
writer  for  the  magazines,  etc.  After 
some   hesitation   he   asked   me   if   I 


would  look  at  some  poems  he  had  writ- 
ten and  tell  him  what  I  thought  of 
them. 

Mr.  Plitt,  whom  I  may  call  a  hither- 
to undiscovered  genius,  is  a  man  of 
over  seventy  and  has,  all  his  life,  lived 
on  or  near  the  majestic  Father  of 
Waters  and,  practically,  in  the  lap  of 
nature.  He  is  a  shy  man,  as  those  in 
close  communion  with  nature  are 
likely  to  be,  and  at  the  time  I  saw  him 
first  was  shy  a  pair  of  socks,  shoes,  a 
haircut,  and  any  kind  of  smoking  to- 
bacco I  was  willing  to  give  him. 

His  best  poem,  and  most  spiritedly 
imaginative,  is  too  long  to  give  here, 
being  almost  epic  in  quality  and 
length.  The  title  he  has  given  it 
should,  I  think,  be  changed  when  the 


196^ 


THE  BOOKMAN 


poem  is  published  in  book  form.  He 
himself  suggested  that  he  was  not 
quite  satisfied  with  the  title,  which  at 
present  is  "Them  Dam  Snaiks".  It 
tells  of  a  certain  horde,  or  cohort,  of 
pink  snakes  with  green  spots  that  in- 
vaded his  shanty  boat  one  summer, 
shortly  after  Iowa  passed  her  first 
Prohibition  Law,  and  Mr.  Plitt,  as  he 
says,  "went  onto  a  three  weeks'  spree 
with  this  here  lemon  extract,  but  you 
couldn't  git  me  to  touch  the  stuff  now 
with  a  ten-foot  pole." 

There  are  parts  of  the  poem,  "Them 
Dam  Snaiks",  that  remind  one  strik- 
ingly of  portions  of  Edgar  Allan  Foe's 
more  imaginative  work  or  the  weird 
concepts  of  Coleridge,  or  however  you 
spell  him,  in  "The  Ancient  Mariner" 
and  "Kubla  Khan",  as  when  Mr.  Plitt 
says: 

I*Te  seen  snaiks  afore,  and  plenty, 

And  I  ain*t  scairt  of  nineteen  or  twenty, 

But  when  yon  go  to  take  a  drink  ont  of  the 

pail 
And  there's  five  or  six  hundred  of  these  here 
Pink  and  green  snaiks  into  it 
It  makes  me  turn  pale. 

And  again: 

This  here  snaik  riz  up  onto  its  hind  lalgs 

And  says,  "Fried  algs!  Fried  aigs!" 

In  a  most  Insulting  kind  of  Toyce 

That  didn't  make  me  for  to  rejoice; 

And   no   matter   what   the   other    snaiks    was 

doing  that  day 
"Fried  aigsl    Fried  algs!"  was  aU  this  here 

one  would  say, 
And  seeing  as  I  hadn't  no  fried  algs  to  serve 
That   "Fried   algs!    Fried   algs!"   got   on   my 

nerres. 

"Them  Dam  Snaiks"  is  a ,  human 
document  of  the  utmost  value,  as  well 
as  a  remarkable  poem,  and  nowhere 
have  I  seen  the  anguish  of  a  human 
soul  in  distress  so  tellingly  and  length- 
ily portrayed,  unless,  indeed,  by  Dante. 
In  a  far  gentler  and  more  idyllic  mood 
is  the  short  poem,  "Oh,  Plant  Me  a 
Garden".  Here  Mr.  Plitt  voices  a 
sentiment  that  will  echo  in  the  hearts 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men— 


and  the  few  women — infatuated  by 
piscatorial  sport.  I  give  the  poem  in 
full,  as  it  is  short,  and  its  beauty 
would  be  marred  by  any  curtailment: 

O  plant  me  a  garden  somewheres  near 

To  where  my  shanty  boat  Is  ankered  here. 

0  plant  me  a  garden,  but  don't  make  no  mis- 
talk, 

1  don't  want  no  flour  garden  like  what  wim< 
menfolks   make. 

Plant  me  a  garden  of  fishing  wurms — 
Big  long  fat  ones  what  wiggcls  and  squrms. 
Plant  me  a  garden  so  that  when  my  spade 
Turns  up  a  shovclfuU  of  dirt  it'll  look  like 
I'd  dug  up  all  the  fishworms  that  was  eyer 

made. 
Sometimes   in   dry    wether   I've   dog   and   dog 

for  mltey  neer  a  day 
And  hardly  dog  up  one  dang  wurm,  and  that 

don't   pay. 
So  plant  me  a  garden  of  fishing  wurms 
Big,  long,  fat  ones  what  wiggels  and  squrms. 

While  the  temptation  to  give  all,  or 
parts  of  all,  of  the  poems  written  by 
Henry  J.  Plitt  is  great,  I  must  not 
take  the  bloom  off  his  work  by  quot- 
ing too  much  before  the  publication  of 
the  book  I  am  assured  he  will  soon 
have  printed.  I  cannot  refrain,  how- 
ever, from  giving  one  more  taste  of 
his  work.  In  this  he,  at  times,  glides 
from  the  more  severe  and  restrained 
rhymed  forms,  affected  by  Tennyson, 
Longfellow,  and  the  elder  poets,  into 
the  newer  verse  form,  unrhymed,  pre- 
ferred by  so  many  of  our  notable 
younger  riders  of  Pegasus.  This  final 
offering  I  give,  also,  in  full.    It  is : 

OAD   TO    A    STIKQING    NETTUL 

O  Stinging  nettul  I've  got  a  nosbun  you  are 
about  the  meanest  kind 

Of  horticulture,  or  whatever  It  is,  anybody 
could  ever  find; 

And  the  wust  of  it  is  there's  about  forty -nine 
akers  and  a  half  of 

You  towards  the  Innards  of  the  Island,  grow- 
ing up  to  a  roan's  waist  or  above. 

You  don't  have  no  froot  or  no  blossum  to 
menshun  much. 

But  just  sting  a  feUcr  on  the  hands  or  lalgs 
or  wherever  you  tutch. 

And  the  wust  of  you  is  you  don't  look  like  no 
stinger 

But  like  a  common  old  weed — 

And  then  you  go  and  sting  like  a  yellow- 
jacket. 


THE    ARMENIAN    CLASSICS 


197 


Toor  a  snalk  In  the  gras,  by  garsh,  and  I 
Don't  cair  who  heers  me  say  It. 

You've  stang  my  hands  and  fais 

And  also  my  laigs  and  nees 

Right  throo  my  pants,  which  aint  thik, 

And  throo  my  B.  V.  Dees 

Or  would  if  I  woar  anny,  but  I  don't. 

Never  having  got  them  luxyourious  babbits. 

The  only  decent  thing  about  you   is  you  are 

brittel 
And  a  feller  can  go  along  and  nock  you  over 

with  a  stick. 
So   the   morrel   is  the  world   is   full   of   dam 

meen   human   stinging  nettuls 


And  all  us  honest  law-abiding  sitizens  would 

be  stang  to  deth 
Only   thair  so  brittel  that  a  feller  can  nock 

them   over  easy 
As  he  goes  along  tending  to  his  own  bizness 
And  not  interfeering  with  annybuddy 
Because  it's  hard  enuf  to  git  along  nowadays 
With  the  hi  cost  of  living  and  everything 
And   I   don't  wonder  sum  of  us  gits  a  little 

soar 
Once  in  a  wile. 

So  mister  stinging  nettul,  all  I  got  to  say 
Is  you  better  keep  out  of  my  way 
Because  you  ain't  no  frend  of  mine 
And  I'm  reddy  to  nock  you  over  anny  time. 


THE  ARMENIAN  CLASSICS 


A  Literature  of  Minstrel-Monks 


BY  W.  D.  P.  BLISS 


r[ERE  have  been  monks  in  every 
country  and  minstrels  in  most; 
but  rarely,  if  ever,  has  there  been 
such  a  combination  of  the  two ;  rarely, 
if  ever,  have  there  been  such  minstrel- 
monks  as  in  ancient  Armenia.  Speak- 
ing generally,  one  may  almost  say  that 
the  Armenian  classics  are  the  product 
of  monks  who  sang  like  minstrels  and 
of  minstrels  who  sing  like  monks.  It 
gives  to  Armenian  literature  a  unique 
and  fascinating  interest.  Its  higher 
reaches  in  poetry,  and  not  seldom  even 
in  prose,  have  the  power,  the  stateli- 
ness,  the  sustained  music  of  a  Gre- 
gorian chant — sad,  sometimes,  almost 
as  a  funeral  dirge,  yet  often  also  with 
the  lilt,  the  tenderness,  the  grace  of  a 
South-land  song.  One  is  never  merry 
when  he  reads  Armenian  verse;  yet 
when  one  has  begim  it,  he  never  stops. 
Byron  surely  felt  its  charm  when, 
studying  Armenian  at  the  Mectharist 


Convent  at  St.  Lazar,  Venice,  he  be- 
came so  interested  in  it  that  he  took 
part  in  the  publication  of  an  Arme- 
nian-English dictionary  and  grammar, 
and  wrote  that  Armenian  "is  a  rich 
language  and  would  amply  repay  any- 
one the  trouble  of  learning  it".  It 
requires  trouble,  it  is  true,  and  some 
going  below  the  surface.  Outwardly, 
Armenian  is,  to  say  the  least,  not  a 
mellifluous  language — it  is  full  of  gut- 
turals, its  charm  is  inward.  It  is  the 
sweet  kernel  of  a  rough  shell.  It 
comes  to  us  a  minnesinger,  disguised 
in  cowl  and  gown.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  most  Armenian  mediseval  litera- 
ture was  written  in  the  cloister  and 
cell,  and  has  the  tone  of  ghostly 
visions  and  midnight  vigils.  But  all 
this  is  on  the  surface.  At  its  heart 
is  the  beat  of  a  living  human  interest 
and  not  seldom  even  the  devotion  of  a 
lover. 


198 


THE   BOOKMAN 


Yet  the  rough  sound  of  the  lan- 
guage and  its  monastic  external  char- 
acteristics have  misled  many.  Few 
in  our  busy  western  world  have  fol- 
lowed Byron's  advice  and  taken  the 
trouble  to  learn  Armenian.  Armenia 
has  seemed  very  far  away — an  ancient 
country,  little  connected  with  our 
modem  life.  Even  the  erudite  author 
of  the  article  on  Armenian  literature 
in  the  latest  edition  of  the  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica, — ^the  Oxford  scholar, 
Dr.  Conybeare, — declares  that  Ar- 
menian literature  is  "purely  monkish" 
and  without  epic  or  romantic  interest. 
/  One  comes  to  wonder  if  Dr.  Conybeare 
can  have  read  Armenian  romances — 
they  are  very  numerous — or  knows  of 
the  Armenian  epics.  It  would  almost 
seem  that  his  very  erudition, — ^he  is 
the  author  of  "The  Ancient  Armenian 
Texts  of  Aristotle" — ,  his  long  lists 
of  Armenian  chroniclers,  have  made 
him  overlook  much  in  both  ancient  and 
modem  Armenian  which  is  anything 
but  monkish,  sometimes  epic  and  al- 
most continually  romantic. 

We  believe  that  a  short  account  of 
Armenian  literature  will  show  this  in- 
terest and  sustain  this  position. 

But  let  us  preface  our  account,  by 
the  statement  that  today  much  knowl- 
edge of  Armenian  lyric  and  romantic 
literature  can  be  had  without  learning 
Armenian.  In  1916  there  was  pub- 
lished in  London  in  aid  of  the  Lord 
Mayor's  Armenian  fund,  a  sumptuous 
volume  in  English — "Armenian  Leg- 
ends and  Poems"  (translations)  com- 
piled by  Zabelle  G.  Boyajian,  and  con- 
taining also  an  illuminating  chapter 
on  "Armenia,  Its  Epics,  Folk-songs 
and  Mediaeval  Poetry",  written  by  the 
Armenian  litterateur,  Aram  Raffi,  son 
of  the  novelist.  The  volume  has  also 
most  artistic  and  interesting  illus- 
trations. 

Right  at  the  beginning,  however,  of 


one's  Armenian  studies  he  finds  a 
genuine  surprise.  Armenian  litera- 
ture is  not  oriental.  And  this  is  so 
because  of  the  fact,  surprising  to 
most,  that  in  truth  the  Armenian  him- 
self by  racial  descent  is  not  oriental, 
but  a  European  in  an  oriental  home. 
Modem  scholars,  from  careful  re- 
searches and  inscriptions  somewhat 
recently  deciphered  in  Cappadocia  and 
at  Van,  are  for  the  most  part  agreed 
that  those  whom  we  call  Armenians 
did  not  originally  inhabit  the  country 
we  call  Armenia,  but  that  they  camie 
there,  perhaps  in  the  seventh  century 
B.C.,  not  from  Asia,  but  from  Europe. 
The  Armenian  is  a  European  for  a 
slight  period  of  twenty-six  hundred 
years  misplaced  in  Asia.  You  will 
find  his  analogue,  therefore,  not  in 
Arabia,  India,  China  or  Turkistan,  but 
perhaps  beside  the  Danube  or  by  some 
European  mountain  range,  since  some 
scholars  trace  his  forbears  to  the  Bal- 
kan peninsula,  while  others  find  them 
of  the  ancient  Alpine  stock  of  Europe. 
This  view  does  not  deny  that  before 
the  Armenians  came  to  Armenia,  there 
were  peoples  around  Mt.  Ararat,  of, 
perhaps,  Assyrian,  Semitic  or  even 
earlier  Hittite  stock;  possibly  of 
races  older  still.  With  these  the  Ar- 
menian newcomers  undoubtedly  more 
or  less  intermarried,  acquiring,  be- 
yond question,  some  Semitic  or  Ira- 
nian characteristics.  Nor  can  twenty- 
six  centuries  of  environment  in  Asia 
have  failed  to  leave  their  impress  upon 
habits  and  customs.  Yet  it  is  marvel- 
ous how  little  Asiatic  is  the  Armenian. 
Asia  is  the  world-mother  of  religions 
and  of  hordes — the  birthland  of  men's 
dreams  of  heaven,  broken  by  wild 
nightmares  of  Mongols  and  Tartars 
shedding  blood.  In  Armenian  litera- 
ture you  will  find  no  Al  Koran,  no 
Zend  Avesta,  nor  epics  singing  of  a 
Tamur  Leng  or  a  Zenghis  Khan.    Ar- 


THE    ARMENIAN    CLASSICS 


199 


menia  belongs  to  Europe,  whence  have 
sprung  the  arts  of  peace  and  of  busy, 
active  life. 

One  passing  indication  of  its  Euro- 
pean kinship  is  that  Armenian  is 
written  from  left  to  right,  not  like 
Oriental  languages,  from  right  to  left. 
It  has  also  a  separate  symbol  for  each 
vowel — ^not,  as  in  so  many  Semitic  or 
other  eastern  languages,  leaving  the 
vowel  sound  to  be  supplied. 

The  Armenian's  first  interest,  how- 
ever, is  action.  Hence,  you  will  find  in 
Armenian  literature  perhaps  more  ac- 
tivities than  great  products.  The  first 
book  printed  in  any  oriental  language 
was  an  Armenian  Ephemeris  printed 
in  Venice  in  1512  by  one  Hagob.  The 
first  newspaper  in  the  Near  East  was 
an  Armenian  journal,  printed  in  Ma- 
dras, India,  in  1794.  The  modem  Ar- 
menian alphabet  is  not  a  growth  from 
the  old,  but  was  invented  characteris- 
tically by  St.  Mesrob  in  404  A.D. ;  it 
ushered  in  the  first  golden  age  of  Ar- 
menian literature.  St.  Sahak,  the  Ar- 
menian Catholicos,  or  Primate,  at  this 
time,  translated  the  Bible  into  Ar- 
menian, a  work  sometimes  called  the 
queen  of  translations.  He  was  a  great 
patron  of  learning,  and  formed  a 
school  of  translators  whom  he  sent  to 
Edessa,  Csesarea  in  Cappadocia,  Con- 
stantinople, Athens,  Antioch,  Alex- 
andria, even  Rome,  to  procure  codices 
and  translate  them.  It  is  said  that 
nearly  every  book  of  importance  writ- 
ten in  Greek  or  Syriac,  with  some  in 
Latin,  was  translated  at  this  time  into 
Armenian.  To  these  translations  the 
world  owes  some  writings  the  orig- 
inals of  which  have  disappeared; 
among  them  being  Homilies  by  John 
Chrysostom,  with  works  by  Philo,  Eu- 
sebius  and  others.  And  these  trans- 
lations were  read.  National  schools 
at  this  time  were  started  all  over  Ar- 
menia.   Education  was  so  general  that 


we  read  of  Armenian  ladies  in  the 
eighth  century  composing  songs  and 
poems — ^another  indication  of  the  non- 
oriental  character  of  Armenia. 

In  more  recent  times,  too,  Armenia 
has  shown  even  more  remarkable  lit- 
erary activities.  Since,  under  Turk- 
ish rule,  Armenians  could  with  diffi- 
culty publish  at  home,  Armenian 
printing-presses  were  established  at 
Venice  in  1566,  Lemberg  1616,  Leg- 
horn 1640,  Amsterdam  1660  (trans- 
ferred to  Marseilles  1672),  Constanti- 
nople 1672,  and  about  the  same  time 
at  Milan,  Paris,  Padua,  Leipzic,  and 
Vienna.  In  our  own  day  Armenian 
literary  centres  have  developed  at 
Constantinople,  Moscow,  Tifiis,  and 
Paris,  with  well-known  Armenian 
writers  both  in  London  and  New  York. 

It  is  probably  this  love  of  action 
that  has  made  Armenian  literature  so 
especially  strong  in  histories  and 
chronicles.  No  less  than  fifty  Ar- 
menian chroniclers  wrote  in  the  an- 
cient Armenian,  known  as  "Grabar", 
before  the  fifth  century.  What  other 
century  has  such  a  record?  Yet  it  is 
just  the  long  list  of  such  writers 
which  has  given  rise,  undoubtedly,  to 
the  idea  that  Armenian  literature  is 
purely  monkish.  But  one  discovers 
that  these  Armenian  historic  ^s, 
though  most  of  them  were  monks  or 
Vartabeds  (priests),  were  by  no 
means  mere  chroniclers.  Their  main 
themes  are  the  vicissitudes,  the  sor- 
rows, and  the  brave  deeds  of  Ar- 
menian history.  It  is  true  that  these 
histories  are  by  no  means  always  crit- 
ically reliable ;  indeed,  from  the  stand- 
point of  sober  industry,  many  of  them 
may  be  said  to  be  too  romantic.  Most 
of  them  are  in  verse  and  not  a  few 
of  them  truly  poetic.  Moses  of  Chorene 
in  the  fifth  century, — the  Moses 
who  led  Armenian  writers  into  the 
Holy  Land  of  Christian  literature, — 


200 


THE   BOOKMAN 


was  anything  but  a  dry-as-dust.  The 
first  volume  of  his  history  and  part  of 
the  second  are  ahnost  wholly  made  up 
of  summaries  and  quotations  from  the 
epics  and  legends  of  pre-Christian  Ar- 
menia. Raffi  calls  his  history  "a  mar- 
velous panorama,  which,  as  it  unfolds, 
fills  us  with  fresh  wonder  and  ad- 
miration." He  says  the  story  of  Tiri- 
dates  is  narrated  in  such  a  way  as  to 
draw  tears  from  every  reader  and — 
to  use  an  Armenian  expression — ^make 
him  feel  "as  if  the  hairs  of  his  head 
have  turned  into  thorns". 

EglishS  (Elias),  a  contemporary  of 
Moses  of  Chorene's,  was  considered  a 
poet,  rather  than  a  historian,  and  his 
histories  were  read  in  Armenia  next 
widely  to  the  Bible.  Saint  Gregory  of 
Narek  of  the  tenth  century  (Grigor 
Narekatzi)  wrote  elegies,  odes,  pane- 
gyrics and  homilies,  but  above  all, 
prayers.  His  "Narek"  is  a  mingling 
of  prose  and  verse,  composed  of  po- 
etical prayers,  and  represents  almost 
the  only  Armenian  mysticism.  The 
Catholicos,  Nerses  of  Shnorkali,  who 
wrote  in  the  twelfth  century,  Rafii 
calls  the  Fenelon  of  Armenia.  He  also 
wrote  his  histories  in  verse.  He  is  the 
author  of  many  beautiful  prayers, 
while  some  of  his  "Sharakans" 
(hymns)  are  still  sung  in  Armenian 
churches. 

For  Armenian  epics  and  legends  we 
have  to  turn  to  pre-Christian  days.  In 
Armenia  as  in  some  other  lands  Chris- 
tianity, while  a  great  civilizer  and  il- 
luminator (Was  not  the  first  great 
Armenian  saint  called  Gregory,  the 
Illuminator?),  acted  also  to  no  little 
extent  as  an  extinguisher  of  this  world 
joyousness  and  life.  Armenia  was  the 
first  Christian  country,  the  first  state 
as  a  state  to  declare  for  Christianity. 
It  took  its  religion  very  seriously  and 
for  long  centuries  knew  little  else. 
Losing    national     independence,     its 


church  became  to  a  large  extent  the 
nation,  and  the  bond  which  through 
centuries  of  sufferings  has  marvel- 
ously  preserved  and  united  the  Ar- 
menian people. 

But  it  did  not  lend  itself  to  epic  and 
romance.  A  modem  Armenian,  writ- 
ing from  Paris,  calls  Christianity 
"that  eternal  scourge  of  humanity 
which  made  all  our  older  literature  the 
privileged  possession  of  decadent  and 
sickly  souls."  Pre-Christian  Armenia 
was  romantic  enough.  The  earliest 
Armenian  legends  and  myths  connect 
themselves  naturally  with  their 
heathen  divinities:  the  Armenian 
Aramagd,  the  architect  of  the  uni- 
verse; Anahit,  the  Armenian  Diana, 
the  Golden  Mother,  the  pure  and  spot- 
less Goddess;  Astghik,  the  Armenian 
Venus,  the  Goddess  of  beauty,  the  per- 
sonification, like  the  Sidonian  Astarte, 
of  the  moon.  There  were  spirits,  some 
of  them  evil,  like  Alk,  a  very  harmful 
devil ;  there  are  nymphs — ^some  called 
Parik  (dancers),  and  some  Hushka 
Parik,  "dancers  to  a  melody  in  the 
minor  key".  Around  these  and  other 
mythical  beings  gathered  innumerable 
legends. 

Armenian  epics  are  based  on  the  na- 
tional history,  though  the  earliest 
ones  have  immortals  in  the  back- 
ground. As  in  the  Hebrew  writings, 
"there  were  giants  in  those  days". 
One  early  Armenian  epic  tells  of  Haik, 
the  famous  archer,  who  becomes  the 
hero  of  Armenia.  From  him  Ar- 
menians derived  the  name  by  which 
they  call  themselves,  "Hai" ;  and  their 
country,  not  Armenia,  but  "Hayastan". 
In  the  epics,  the  son  of  Haik  is  Ar- 
menag,  a  common  Armenian  name  to- 
day, and  a  name  from  which  some 
believe  comes  the  name  Armenia.  The 
grandson  of  Armenag  was  Amasa, 
whence  Masis,  the  Armenian  name  for 
Mt.  Ararat. 


THE    ARMENIAN    CLASSICS 


201 


One  Armenian  epic  concerns  a  king, 
Ara,  the  Beautiful,  romantically  loved 
by  Semiramis.  She  sent  messengers 
to  invite  him  to  Nineveh,  promising 
him  half  her  kingdom  if  he  would  be- 
come her  husband;  and  on  his  declin- 
ing this,  on  the  seemingly  sufficient 
ground  that  he  had  a  wife  already,  she 
sent  an  army  to  bring  him  by  force. 
Even  when  he  died,  and  the  army 
brought  his  corpse,  the  Queen  en- 
deavored to  have  it  restored  to  life  by 
magic.  Other  Armenian  epics  tell  of 
Tigranes  the  Great — in  his  day  the 
mightiest  monarch  in  Asia.  Another 
sings  the  love  story  of  King  Artashes 
II: 

It  rained  showers  of  gold  when  Artashes  be- 
came brldesrroom. 
It  rained  pearls  when  Satemik  became  a  bride. 

Of  Armenian  dances  none  have 
come  down  to  us,  though  we  learn 
from  Greek  and  Latin  writers  that 
King  Artavazd  I,  son  of  Tigranes  the 
Great,  wrote  tragedies,  while  Plutarch 
tells  us  of  theatres  and  actors  in  Ar- 
menia. An  Armenian  Christian  writer 
of  the  fifth  century  writes  a  polemic 
against  them. 

Armenian  literature,  however,  ex- 
cels in  the  short  poem.  "Armenian 
Poems  and  Legends",  above  referred 
to,  gives  many  examples  of  these  in 
charming  translations.  There  were 
lullabies,  charm-verses,  nuptial-songs, 
funeral  dirges — ^the  latter  sung  by 
professional  mourners,  "mothers  of  la- 
mentations". 

These  songs  in  many  cases  con- 
tinued in  use  during  the  Christian 
period,  because,  as  an  Armenian  his- 
torian tells  us,  though  the  Church 
frowned  on  the  songs,  "the  people  lan- 
guished for  them".  In  the  later  cen- 
turies ashoughs  (minstrels)  became 
especially  popular  and  romantic.  They 
sang  at  all  Armenian  weddings  and 
festivities,    on    bridges    and    in    the 


squares,  and  wandering  from  court- 
yard to  courtyard.  One  of  the  most 
notable  of  these  was  Sayat  Nova,  bom 
in  1712.  He  was  a  court-favorite,  and 
in  his  own  words,  "sat  in  the  palaces 
among  the  beauties  and  sang  to  them". 
Several  Armenian  archbishops  or  met- 
ropolitans are  among  the  Armenian 
singers  of  passion  and  love.  One  of 
these  was  Mkrtich  Naghash,  Arch- 
bishop of  Diaebekir,  who  sings  of  the 
loves  of  the  Rose  and  the  Nightingale 
— ^the  theme  also  of  another  arch- 
bishop, Gregoris  of  Aghtamar.  Hev- 
hanis  Tulkourantzi,  Catholicos  of  Sis, 
is  called  a  poet  of  flowers,  beauty,  and 
love.    But  he  could  also  sing  of  death. 

Like  an  eagle  flying  far, 

Forth  on  wide-spread  wings  thou  farest; 

All  the  strong  ones  of  the  earth 

In  thy  wing-tips  rolled  thou  bearest. 

In  modem  times,  there  has  been  a 
veritable  renaissance  of  Armenian 
literature.  The  amount  of  writing 
done  can  be  seen  in  the  fact  that 
there  are  more  than  three  hundred 
Armenian  newspapers  in  the  world. 
This  writing  is  certainly  not  all 
literature,  but  an  unusual  amount 
of  it  is.  Russian  Armenian  writers 
have  been  the  more  scholarly;  others 
have  turned  more  to  the  French  Ro- 
mantic school.  Armenian  novelists 
are  mainly  of  this  typ^,  such  as: 
Abovian,  whose  tales  are  of  rural 
life;  Shirvanzade,  who  pictures  town 
life;  and  Rafii,  whose  tales  concern 
national  episodes.  Aharonian,  how- 
ever, although  telling  of  misery  and 
sadness,  is  considered  by  many  Ar- 
menians the  most  popular  of  their 
modem  writers.^  Poets  and  singers  of 
verse  are  still  more  numerous.  Raphael 
Patkanian  (1830-1892)  is  generally 
considered  the  leading  national  poet, 
but  the  singers  of  lyrics  are  almost  in- 
numerable. Prominent  among  these 
are  Bedros  Tourian,  "the  nightingale 


202 


THE   BOOKMAN 


of  Scutari",  Hovhanness  Hovhannes- 
sian»  Avedis  Isahakian,  Hovhanness 
Thoumanian,  and  Alexander  Dzadou- 
rian.  Much  of  their  verse  is  in  the 
minor  key,  bom  of  the  centuries  of 
Armenia's  unequaled  sufferings,  con- 
tinually making  one  feel  that  these 
modem  minstrels  sing  like  monks. 
One   special   feature  of  Armenian 


poetry,  natural  enough  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, is  the  poem  of  exile.  We 
can  quote  only  a  stanza  by  Hovhanness 
Costaniantz : 

There  comes  no  news  from  far  away ; 
Our  brave  ones  rest  not  from  the  fray. 
'Tis  long  that  sleep  my  eyes  doth  flee, 
Our  foemen  press  unceasingly. 
'Tis  long  for  sleep  I  vainly  pray; 
There  comes  no  news  from  far  away. 


STORIES  OF  LIVES  AND  OF  LIFE 


BY  MARGARET  EMERSON  BAILEY 


THE  way  that  genius  has  with  a 
man  we  all  know.  Strickland,  the 
hero  of  "The  Moon  and  Sixpence",  is 
but  one  in  a  long  line  of  creatures 
half-god  and  half-satyr  who  have 
trampled  the  pages  of  fiction  with  the 
prints  of  their  Pan-hoofs.  It  matters 
not  whether  artist,  musician,  or  au- 
thor, the  tradition  is  set.  Perverse  in 
their  vision,  they  spy  out  beauty  in 
the  commonplace  and  the  trivial,  and 
fail  to  perceive  the  beauty  in  human 
relationships.  They  recreate  the  one 
with  the  divine  frenzy  of  inspiration 
and  demolish  the  other  with  the  ruth- 
lessness  of  a  savage  who  destroys 
what  he  cannot  understand.  They 
have,  moreover,  the  shrewdness  of 
their  insanity.  They  demand  from  us 
a  license  that  frees  them  from  any 
conformity  with  our  codes.  And 
though  we  protest  that  they  might,  at 
least  in  return,  convince  us  that  they 
can  produce  one  masterpiece  that  is 
worth  the  havoc  they  work, — that  if 
not  God  there  must  be  a  generative 
power  in  the  whirlwind, — they  go 
their  way  leaving  us  with  the  feeling 


that  their  genius  has  been  made  ex- 
cuse for  their  actions,  not  as  a  rule 
that  their  actions  have  been  the  result 
of  any  extraordinary  gift. 

It  is  thus  a  matter  of  almost  comic 
perplexity  that  this  same  bewildering 
force  that  sweeps  man  outside  the  law 
should  send  woman,  at  least  in  litera- 
ture, in  eager  quest  of  all  the  ordi- 
nances that  the  law  protects.  Other 
women  are  restive,  but  not  the  woman 
of  genius.  She  alone  has  remained 
Victorian,  a  Griselda  Grantly  in  her 
desires.  Her  gift  she  regards  as  ir- 
relevant. Either  she  accepts  its  vis- 
itation unwillingly,  with  contempt  in 
her  heart,  or  with  a  cynicism  that  lets 
her  perceive  its  practical  use.  The  ir- 
responsible force  that  sets  man  kick- 
ing his  heels,  she  bends  to  her  will. 
Under  her  agency  it  becomes  a  com- 
mon drudge  which  procures  for  her 
the  things  she  may  barter  for  her  de- 
sires; for  chintz  drawing-rooms  and 
large  nurseries  and  not  too  intelligent 
husbands,  for  all  that  goes  to  make  an 
establishment  snug.  In  her  case  we 
are  left  wondering  how  such  a  simple 


STORIES   OF   LIVES   AND    OF   LIFE 


208 


practical  nature,  so  temperate  a  sanity 
could  ever  be  fired  to  the  creation  of 
any  great  work. 

Of  such  women,  though  possessed 
of  unusual  charm»  is  Madala  Grey,  the 
heroine  of  Clemence  Dale's  "Legend", 
a  subtle  and  exquisite  piece  of  work. 
Not  once  does  Madala  herself  appear 
in  the  pages.  Her  radiance  is  gained 
by  a  kind  of  indirect  lighting,  a  re- 
verse inference  from  the  comments 
concerning  her  as  they  fall  on  the 
mind  of  a  girl.  The  story  is  artfully 
contrived.  It  opens  after  the  death 
of  the  heroine.  Her  "Life"  is  being 
fed  to  the  public  which  has  no  under- 
standing of  reticence,  no  real  appre- 
ciation of  the  impersonal  quality  of 
her  work,  but  a  liking  for  gossip-shop 
art.  The  lion-hunters  who  missed 
their  quarry  during  life  are  busy 
snuffing  out  the  remains.  Interpreta- 
tion is,  I  believe,  their  deadly  word  for 
it.  Interpretation  in  this  case  takes 
the  form  of  biography  by  a  woman, 
Anita  Searle,  who  has  intimate  knowl- 
edge and  no  comprehension,  who  is  in- 
capable of  comprehension  by  reason  of 
the  shriveling  bitterness  at  her  heart. 
Nor  does  she  wish  to  understand.  Her 
aim  is  not  to  give  a  biography  which 
shall  keep  the  memory  warm,  but  one 
that  by  her  sheer  cleverness  in  distort- 
ing the  facts  shall  redound  to  her  own 
glory. 

Gradually  we  are  taken  back  to  the 
evening  when  the  legend  took  shape — 
the  evening  of  Madala's  richest  human 
experience,  the  birth  of  her  son  and 
her  death.  In  the  drawing-room  of 
Anita  Searle  are  gathered  a  collection 
of  people  of  flashy  cleverness  and  ster- 
ile emotion,  who  show  where  clever- 
ness leads  when  envy  acts  as  a  guide. 
And  in  the  shallow  consciousness  of 
each  of  these  people  is  Madala,  pay- 
ing the  price  for  her  wicked  sacrifice 
of  her  genius  with  the  penalty  of  her 


life.  Into  this  scene  of  expectancy 
bursts  Kent,  a  man  who  had  reaUy 
loved  her, — ^whose  inspiration,  indeed, 
she  had  been, — with  the  news  of  her 
death:  "Dead  at  twenty-six".  "'In 
child-birth',  finished  Anita,  and  her 
voice  made  it  an  unclean  and  shame- 
ful end." 

Then  slowly  Anita  feels  her  way  to 
her  legend  with  soft  feline  paws. 
There  is  no  protection  now  for  the 
woman  who  had  given  of  her  confi* 
dences  so  gladly.  This  is  the  moment 
for  which  with  an  uncanny  prescience 
Anita  has  been  lying  in  wait.  It  is 
her  own  chance  for  fame  and  she  is 
not  caught  napping.  Hers  is  the  gift 
not  of  creation,  but  of  destruction; 
the  critical  mind  that  demolishes.  At 
once  we  know  what  the  biography  will 
contain;  veiled  suggestions  concern- 
ing the  early  and  unknown  life  of  the 
author, — for  the  public  has  always  the 
keenest  zest  for  the  missing  years, — 
suggestions  that  will  make  clear  the 
warm  understanding  of  bitter  human 
struggles  and  failures  that  is  shown 
in  Madala's  work.  And  her  marriage, 
so  perplexing  to  these  people  by  its 
very  simplicity,  will  be  interpreted  as 
a  way  out  from  the  realized  waning  of 
genius,  or  an  exit  from  some  evilly 
suggested  affair.  The  simplest  facts 
will  be  patterned  and  shaped.  No- 
where will  appear  the  real  Madala  who 
held  these  people  together — ^not  as 
they  thought  by  her  genius,  but  her 
affection.  Nowhere  the  Madala  who 
could  chase  like  a  child  after  cowslips; 
who  was  impatient  of  talk  and  of  sub- 
tleties when  she  had  the  blue  sky 
above  her;  who  had  preserved  despite 
her  awareness  a  kinship  with  fresh 
fields  and  clean  earth.  And  without  her 
there  is  no  explanation  of  the  mar- 
riage that  cost  her  her  life,  or  of  her 
choice  as  a  husband — a  man  of  no 
subtle  perceptions  but  with  an  under- 


204 


THE   BOOKMAN 


standing  that  told  him  how  little  Ma- 
dala  accounted  her  fame  when 
weighed  against  more  human  desires. 

The  book  has  its  faults.  Clemence 
Dane,  as  in  her  earlier  novel,  writes 
with  an  almost  personal  vindictiveness 
against  one  of  her  sex.  In  her  dissec- 
tion she  is  as  merciless  as  Anita  her- 
self. Her  pen  drops  venom  and  as  the 
result  Anita  becomes  too  cruel  in  her 
mental  indecencies  and  just  fails  to 
convince.  She  is  made,  moreover,  so 
entirely  a  creature  of  intellect  that  it 
is  impossible  to  believe  in  her  love  for 
Kent — given  surprisingly  at  the  end 
as  an  additional  turn  of  the  screw,  and 
transforming  the  writing  of  the  biog- 
raphy into  a  fiendish  kind  of  revenge. 
Better,  I  think,  to  have  left  it  the 
greed  of  a  small  mind  for  fame;  a 
shoddy  mind  incapable  of  refusing  to 
make  use  of  the  sanctities  of  intimate 
knowledge  when  their  desecration  led 
to  desire.  But  with  the  exception  of 
Anita  and  of  her  grandmother,  who 
cackles  like  a  parrot  which  has  been 
taught  a  Greek  chorus,  the  characters 
are  very  real.  The  coterie  itself — 
Jasper  who  could  Swinbumize  even  in 
the  moment  of  tragedy,  the  blonde 
lady  who  resents  Madala's  death  as  an 
intrusion  upon  her  flirtation — ^we 
could  find  any  evening  at  the  Bre- 
voort,  talking  to  convince  themselves 
of  their  cleverness,  bandying  not 
thoughts  but  words.  Not  even  before 
in  the'^Regiment  of  Women"  has  Miss 
Dane  found  a  subject  so  suited  to  her 
satirical  powers.  The  book  thus  at- 
tains its  goal  (moreover  it  is  an 
achievement  in  the  matter  of  technical 
skill) :  for  fashioned  out  of  the  carp- 
ing criticisms  and  innuendos  of  jealous 
minds,  Madala  Grey  takes  shape  be- 
fore us, — a  genius  of  course,  but  so 
much  more, — a  woman  of  wholesome 
and  unconscious  beauty,  of  generosity 


and  simple  bigness  of  heart  who  re- 
joices not  in  her  brains  but  in  life. 

A  different  type  is  the  novelist  of 
"Happy  House",  a  far  less  distin- 
guished piece  of  work,  and  a  strangely 
grey  almost  dingy  novel  to  come 
from  the  author  of  "Pam".  But  there 
is  a  whimsical  humor  in  the  selection 
of  a  woman  who  writes  not  of  modem 
problems  but  the  old-fashioned  sob- 
stuff,  "Queenie's  Choice"  and  "One 
Maid's  Word";  tales  of  the  humble 
governess  and  the  lord  of  the 
manor,  of  lawful  ecstasies  and  love  at 
first  sight  and  joy  that  comes  surging 
in  on  a  tidal  wave  at  the  end.  One 
has  thought  of  such  authors  as  leading 
the  romantic  careers  of  a  Ouida  or  as 
hiding  behind  the  skirts  of  the  other 
sex  like  Bertha  M.  Clay.  One  such 
may  be  also,  it  seems,  a  little  middle- 
aged  woman,  disillusioned  and  drab, 
turning  over  the  sentimentalities  of 
her  girlhood  as  she  might  ransack  an 
old  trunk,  but  less  to  pore  over  the 
wistful  beauties  of  memory  than  to 
shape  them  to  practical  use.  Violet 
Walderbridge  to  be  sure,  is  proud  of 
her  public;  and  it  is  her  nearest  ap- 
proach to  a  personal  tragedy  when  her 
popularity  wanes.  But  her  main  care 
is  inexhaustibly  to  provide.  Not  that 
her  family  are  worth  the  "keeping"  in 
their  own  literal  and  extravagant 
sense.  Her  husband  is  one  of  those 
perennial  perky  scalawags.  Her  chil- 
dren are  a  rackety  selfish  brood.  They 
might  well  be  young  cow-birds  of  in- 
satiate maw,  did  their  father  not  ac- 
count for  their  greed.  But  the  moth- 
er's uncomplaining  struggle  to  keep 
them  going  is  after  all  the  theme  of 
the  book.  The  plot  itself  might  well 
have  been  composed  by  its  heroine. 
There  is  the  neglected  and  down- 
trodden little  person,  treated  by  the 
very  people  who  use  her  with  a  com- 
plaisant contempt.    There  is  her  swift 


STORIES   OF   LIVES   AND   OF   LIFE 


205 


and  inconsmious  rise  not  to  popular- 
ity but  to  real  fame.  There  is  in  con- 
sequence the  returning  semblance  of 
youth.  And  above  all  there  is  the  glit- 
tering lord  of  the  manor  who  loved 
her  in  youth,  and  is  instinctively 
drawn  to  the  daughter  only  to  find 
and  remain  true  to  his  lost  love.  To 
be  sure  the  lost  love  will  have  none  of 
him.  Even  though  her  husband  has 
opened  the  way  to  freedom,— a  way 
that  any  ordinary  woman  would  have 
seized, — she  regards  him  as  an  invest- 
ment which  she  has  paid  for  in  heavy 
instalments  until  he  has  acquired  the 
sentimental  value  of  a  costly  mistake. 
Still  the  lord  remains  in  the  offing  and 
the  story  closes,  if  not  with  a  pinky 
dawn,  at  least  with  a  twilight  glow. 
A  readable  story  and  another  illustra- 
tion of  the  submissiveness  of  genius 
when  in  capable  feminine  hands. 

AUegra,  this  time  a  young  actress, 
is  far  from  self-sacrificing.  From  the 
moment  of  her  first  graceful  entrance 
she  is  shown  as  resentful  of  the  in- 
trusions of  human  intercourse  save 
as  they  lead  to  the  advancement  of  her 
desires.  Her  years  of  training  in  the 
Repertory  Theatre  of  a  provincial 
town  have  added  only  to  the  hard  self- 
confidence  of  her  youth,  its  absorption 
and  naive  conceit.  The  world  does  not 
exist  save  in  relation  to  her  ambition. 
The  sky  is  not  worth  watching  save 
for.  the  rise  of  her  star.  Were  she 
not  so  thoroughly  likable,  one  would 
think  of  her  only  as  a  young  woman 
decidedly  on  the  make.  Every  one  is 
pressed  into  her  service.  Paul,  a 
young  playwright,  does  a  play  for  her 
and  conceals  his  own  authorship  for 
the  mere  chance  of  getting  her  "on". 
Majrthome  the  popular  novelist,  who 
quite  unbelievably  for  a  person  of  his 
fatuity  takes  over  Paul's  work  as  the 
dramatization  of  his  own  book,  lends 
her  his  backing  and  name.    Even  the 


Great  Dane,  the  most  delightful  char- 
acter in  the  book,  with  the  patient  po- 
liteness of  animals  listens  meekly  to 
the  outpourings  of  her  egotistical 
mind.  Only  young  Danny  shows  her  a 
lack  of  consideration  by  drawing  Paul 
to  his  side  at  an  inopportune  moment, 
and  thus  delays  the  real  end.  But 
with  Allegra  it  is  merely  a  question 
of  time.  She  already  shows  signs  of 
weakening,  and  should  she  appear 
again  in  a  third  novel,  it  will  be  by 
the  hearth-side,  with  the  world  well 
lost. 

How  far  one  may  go  when  un- 
steadied  by  genius  is  made  obvious  by 
the  heroine  of  "Sheila  Intervenes", 
who  pursues  her  irresponsible  way 
like  a  child  making  patterns  with  life. 
And  not  only  is  there  something  child- 
like in  her  conception  of  what  her  fan- 
tastic pattern  should  be,  but  in  her 
swift  gusts  of  anger  when  her  pieces 
won't  fit,  in  the  illogicality  of  her  per- 
sistence, and  in  her  stuffy  determina- 
tion neither  to  put  up  her  puzzle  nor 
to  be  helped.  And  a  nice  muddle  she 
makes  of  it,  more  than  one  would 
think  could  be  caused  by  ten  imperti- 
nent fingers  and  one  fertile  brain.  In 
the  final  debacle  every  one  is  at  odds 
and  Sheila  herself  in  apparently  hope- 
less disgrace.  Her  impertinence  in  in- 
terfering with  destiny  makes  the 
whole  plot  though  there  is  Mr.  Mc- 
Kenna's  usual  political  background, 
this  time  to  lend  body  to  a  slight 
theme.  But  despite  this  slightness  of 
plot,  the  story  carries  its  own  senti- 
mental interest  and  is  continually  a 
matter  of  touch  and  go.  Moreover  the 
characters  are  delightful — ^particu- 
larly Sheila,  blithe  and  self-willed; 
her  grandfather,  the  amused  and  help- 
less protector  of  youth;  and  Denys 
Playfair,  a  feckless  young  Irishman. 
Among  them  there  is  much  good  con- 
versation,— Sheila's    a    little    rattle- 


206 


THE    BOOKMAN 


pated  at  times,  but  conversation  alive 
with  humor  and  whimsicality.  The 
book  has  none  of  the  ponderous  qual- 
ity of  ."Midas  and  Son";  and  if  it 
lacks  the  serious  purport  of  the  first 
**Sonia"  has  its  own  spontaneous 
charm. 

As  a  sharp  contrast  to  these  books 
which  concern  themselves  entirely 
with  the  development  of  personalities, 
there  are  a  number  of  others  where 
the  interest  lies  less  in  the  leading 
figures  than  in  their  relation  to  life. 
Of  these  the  most  significant  is  "The 
Judgment  of  Peace"  by  Andreas 
Latzko,  an  Austrian  officer  and  the  au- 
thor of  "Men  in  War".  A  comparison 
at  once  suggests  itself  with  the  works 
of  Barbusse.  But  the  horrors  in  the 
former  in  most  cases  were  physical, 
the  nervous  reaction  to  a  nightmare 
of  visualized  suffering.  Here  they  are 
due  to  the  anguish  of  spirit  that  war 
in  all  its  stupid  brutalities  can  inflict 
on  the  civilized  mind.  And  not  merely 
the  war.  Though  the  book  aims  at 
universality  in  its  application,  the  ir- 
reparable injury  done  to  the  sensitive 
personal  dignity  is,  though  the  author 
seems  unaware  of  it,  the  result  of  the 
special  system  which  he  portrays. 
Stupidities  there  must  be  in  every 
army — ^boot-licking,  authority  wrongly 
placed.  But  in  no  other  army,  one 
feels,  could  there  be  the  sheer  terror 
of  rank,  the  cringing  servility  to  the 
man  just  above,  which  robs  these  men 
of  initiative  and  all  personal  pride. 
It  is  the  inability  of  the  leading  char- 
acter to  submit  that  sends  him  shat- 
tering to  his  doom. 

Also  there  is  given,  again  uncon- 
sciously, the  difference  in  psycholog- 
ical effect  of  the  motive  leading  a 
people  to  war,  whether  that  propulsion 
be  the  lust  for  conquest  or  a  call  to 
defense.  For  though  in  the  end  there 
be  weariness  and  a  recoil  from  war- 


fare in  every  nation,  only  the  con- 
sciousness of  an  unworthy  cause  could 
produce  such  a  sense  of  the  futility  of 
the  sacrifice  and  such  indifference  to 
the  final  defeat.  But  otherwise  the 
book  is  the  arraignment  of  an  enlight- 
ened age,  not  of  any  one  people — par- 
ticularly of  the  scientists,  the  econo- 
mists and  the  socialists,  all  the  intel- 
lectual forces  who  not  only  uttered  no 
protest  but  found  in  war  an  exhilara- 
tion despite  its  wreckage  of  skill,  of 
treasure,  of  life.  It  is  in  contrast 
to  their  greater  guilt  that  Latzko 
shows  in  the  hearts  of  the  combatants 
the  loathing  for  their  daily  task — ^a 
loathing  that  got  no  further  than  a 
stolid  resignation  among  the  unedu- 
cated, and  a  feeling  of  helplessness 
among  the  enlightened  who  knew 
themselves  to  be  in  the  grip  of  relent- 
less mechanical  force.  Stokers  all  of 
them,  the  power  of  mutiny  in  their 
hands,  but  doomed  by  their  sheepish- 
ness  unprotestingly  to  go  down  with 
the  ship. 

The  book  has  little  narrative  inter- 
est. It  is  rather  a  succession  of  vivid 
and  terrible  scenes  broken  up  by  dis- 
cussions which  hinder  the  action  but 
which  contribute  to  the  indictment 
against  an  order  leading  directly  to 
war.  It  is  cast  in  story  form,  more- 
over, to  make  more  poignant  the  plea 
against  national  hatreds  and  compe- 
tition by  showing  the  effect  of  the 
business  of  slaughter  upon  different 
types.  There  is  the  schoolmaster 
wrenched  from  the  domesticity  and 
trivial  cares  for  which  he  is  fitted  and 
tossed  to  the  shambles;  the  poet 
whose  sensitive  mind  broods  on  hu- 
man sufferings  until  he  goes  mad; 
the  pianist,  ready  to  make  glad  sacri- 
fice of  his  life,  but  incapable  of  sur- 
rendering his  self.  Having  endured 
the  horrors  himself,  Latzko  has  little 
patience   with   those  who   prefer   to 


STORIES   OF   LIVES   AND   OF   LIFE 


207 


think  of  war  in  terms  of  medals  and 
of  citations,  and  adorn  it  with  a  false 
glamour.  Never  does  he  belittle  per- 
sonal bravery,  but  against  the  few  war 
ennobles,  he  places  with  a  deep  compas- 
sion the  many  whom  it  reduces  to  the 
level  of  beasts  and  the  others  who  by 
reason  or  some  inner  fineness  and  in- 
corruptibility, it  mentally  destroys. 
Were  it  not  for  the  devout  prayer  for 
human  brotherhood  which  is  made 
throughout  the  book,  it  would,  not 
merely  by  its  grimness  and  gloom,  but 
by  its  lightning  flashes  of  revelation, 
leave  the  night  more  black. 

Never,  in  contrast,  was  irony  so 
playful,  so  kindly  an  instrument  as  in 
Birmingham's  "Up,  the  Rebels !"  Even 
those  of  us  the  most  sympathetic  are 
likely  to  think  of  Ireland's  policy  as 
one  of  exasperation.  But  when  Eng- 
land is  represented  by  an  Irish  ofiicial, 
it  is  a  game  at  which  two  can  play. 
For  Sir  Ulick  is  like  a  Gulliver- 
aware  of  the  manoeuvres  directed 
again  his  apparently  somnolent  body, 
and  tolerating  the  pin-pricks  because 
conscious  that  any  moment  he  may 
pick  up  the  combatants  in  a  large  but 
not  ungentle  hand.  His  final  action  is 
not  so  disturbing  as  his  indifference. 
It  is  when  he  treats  the  rebels  as  a 
parcel  of  children  that  he  most  of- 
fends. His  daughter  Mona,  a  melo- 
dramatic young  woman  longing  for 
persecution,  he  infuriates  by  allowing 
to  go  her  own  gait,  even  to  the  extent 
of  leading  political  meetings  and  har- 
boring Sinn  Feiners  in  his  own  house. 
Eibhlin,  her  companion  in  arms,  but 
Ellen  his  stenographer  in  office  hours, 
he  maddens  for  the  very  freedom  with 
which  he  exposes  all  his  political  se- 
crets and  his  knowledge  of  her  own 
plans.  "A  number  of  boys  and  girls — 
chiefiy  girls — want  a  day  out  and  a 
little  excitement,"  Ellen  meekly  takes 
down  this  fiippant  version  of  the  in- 


tended revolt. — "Let  them  have  it," 
Sir  Ulick  writes  to  the  Chief  Secre- 
tary, "and  they  will  go  home  in  the 
evening  tired  and  in  excellent  tem- 
pers". And  undoubtedly  Sir  Ulick  is 
right  in  his  estimate  of  the  Gailini  na 
h'Eirinn,  whose  members  were 
pledged  to  speak  Irish,  and  that  fail- 
ing them  French — a  resource  open, 
however,  to  only  one  member.  But 
unfortunately  he  is  between  the  devil 
and  the  deep  sea.  The  devil  he  knows 
how  to  deal  with  for  he  is  at  heart  still 
a  boy  and  has  pranks  of  his  own.  But 
the  deep  sea  of  British  stupidity  is 
more  difficult  to  control.  He  has,  to 
be  sure,  methods  of  stilling  it,  and  on 
hand  a  number  of  oily  mixtures  ready 
for  use.  But  there  are  moments  when 
the  troubled  waters  are  unduly  stirred 
by  officialdom  and  the  press.  And  at 
such  moments  Sir  Ulick  longs  for  the 
trenches,  for  simple  out  and  out  war- 
fare of  advance  and  retreat. 

A  good  deal  of  shrewd  comedy  is 
apt  to  escape  through  delight  in  the 
characters  whom  it  involves:  Sir 
Ulick  with  his  quizzical  patience  and 
humor;  his  sister,  who  is  no  respecter 
of  persons  and  has  a  destructive  way 
with  red  tape ;  Tom,  who  for  the  life 
of  him  can  not  see  what  a  nice  girl 
like  Mona  is  up  to,  or  why  in  dealing 
with  the  Sinn  Feiners,  his  uncle  does 
not  try  "strafing"  back.  And  best  of 
all  old  Mailla,  the  hostler,  who  even  in 
drunkenness  preserves  his  acuteness 
and  common  sense.  But  there  are 
scenes  which  also  remain  in  the  mind. 


Legend.     By  Clemence  Dane.     The  Macmil 
Ian  Co. 

Happy  Honse.    By  the  Baroness  von  Hutten 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 

Allegra.    By  L.  Allen  Barker.    Charles  Scrlb 
ner's  Sons. 

Sheila    Intervenes.      By    Stephen    McKenna 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 

The  Judgment  of  Peace.    By  Andreas  Latzko 
Boni  and  Llveright. 

Up,    the    Rebels!      By    G.    A.    Birmingham 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 

The    Last    of    The    Grenvilles.      By    Bennet 
Copplestone.     K.  P.  Dntton  Co. 


208 


THE   BOOKMAN 


Among  these  is  the  mass  meeting 
where  Mona  clad  as  a  Celtic  queen 
seeks  to  inflame  the  populace  by  an 
emotional  appeal.  Lifting  aloft  a  half- 
naked  child,  she  cries,  'This  is  Ire- 
land", only  to  have  the  rambunctious 
youngster  retort,  "Leave  go  of  me 
now,  or  I'll  spit  in  your  face."  Very 
like  Ireland,  more  like  it  than  she  had 
intended  or  than  she  perceived. 

Side-splitting,  too,  is  the  scene 
where  Mona  as  proof  of  democracy 
forces  young  Peter  Mailla  to  sup  with 
her  alone.  Her  effort  is  to  put  him 
at  his  ease.  But  Mailla,  a  Puritan  at 
heart,  is  less  embarrassed  than  he  is 
dismayed  at  the  peril  in  which  he  has 
placed  his  immortal  soul.  He  has  a 
feeling  that  temptations  often  take 
the  shape  of  beautiful  girls  who  smoke 
cigarettes.  Moreover  beside  him 
hangs  a  picture  of  Watts's  "Love  and 
Life";  and  Peter,  a  well-brought-up 
young  man,  is  not  accustomed  to  see- 
ing either  love  or  life  without  clothes. 
Only  his  conviction  that  sin  and  vice 
should  be  enjoyable  and  his  acute  con- 
sciousness of  his  misery,  keep  him 
from  making  a  bolt.  These  are  but 
two  of  many  good  scenes  which  pro- 
voke one  to  audible  chuckles. 

What  Mr.  Copplestone  conveys  in 
"The  Last  of  the  Grenvilles"  is  the 
traditions  of  a  sea-loving  people  which 
have  made  it  "a  decent  and  dauntless 
race".  They  are  expressed  in  the  char- 


acters of  two  people,  father  and  son, 
who  run  true  to  type  and  are  of  the 
breed  that  found  sea-faring  a  matter 
of  high  adventure  and  heroic  resolve, 
a  breed  with  a  record  unbroken  for 
five  hundred  years.  To  be  sure  at  the 
time  the  book  opens  these  two  are  out 
of  the  service.  Commander  Grenville 
has  resigned  in  disgust  at  a  navy 
swaddled  in  politics,  and  has  per- 
suaded himself  that  his  son  is  doing 
far  better  in  Lloyd's.  But  neither  can 
do  away  with  what  is  their  imperish- 
able birthright,  a  staunchness  and 
fearlessness  bom  of  the  sea.  The  fa- 
ther still  keeps  up  with  the  navy. 
Each  boat  he  knows  by  sight,  each  he 
looks  on  with  affection,  and  he  regards 
it  as  a  personal  tragedy  when  a  mis- 
hap occurs  to  the  least.  Inconsist- 
ently, too,  with  his  attempt  to  damp 
down  the  naval  fire  in  Dickie's  blood, 
he  still  keeps  his  yacht  and  keeps  it 
as  trim  and  ship-shape  as  any  cruiser 
and  with  the  laws  of  the  service  punc- 
tiliously preserved.  There  is  little 
chance  that  Dickie  will  stick  to  his 
desk  with  the  outbreak  of  war.  When 
then  the  great  struggle  comes,  the  two 
go  forth  to  meet  it — joyously  since 
there  is  no  longer  need  of  pretense, 
and  with  peace  in  their  hearts.  The 
book  ends  with  their  adventures 
aboard  an  auxiliary  cruiser,  their  final 
tussle  with  a  German  destroyer,  and 
the  gallant  old  sea-dog's  last  fight. 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  AS  A  MAN  OF  LETTERS 


BY  JAMES  J.  DALY 


THERE  is  a  lar^re  and  important 
public  which  will  welcome  the  Eng- 
lish version  of  M.  Thureau-Dangin's 
"Histoire  de  la  Renaissance  Catho- 
lique  en  Angleterre".  This  audience 
will  be  thankful  that  the  translation 
reads  like  an  original  work  of  uncom- 
mon brilliance.  The  word  Catholic  in 
the  title  is  employed  in  a  comprehen- 
sive sense  to  include  that  spirit — in- 
troduced into  England  by  Scott, 
Wordsworth,  and  Coleridge — ^which 
created  a  tendency  to  form  a  more 
just  appreciation  of  pre-Reformation 
history  and  ideas  than  the  heated  at- 
mosphere of  religious  controversy  and 
persecution  had  hitherto  been  dis- 
posed to  permit.  We  have  therefore  in 
these  two  volumes  a  connected  narra- 
tive of  three  distinct,  yet  closely  re- 
lated, movements :  namely,  the  Oxford 
Movement;  the  wakening  of  Roman 
Catholic  life  in  England  consequent 
upon  the  Emancipation  Act  and  the  ad- 
vent of  distinguished  converts  into  the 
Catholic  Church  in  England;  and  the 
Ritualistic  Movement  in  the  Anglican 
Church,  a  movement  which  emerged 
gradually  out  of  the  Oxford  Move- 
ment and  is  still  active. 

The  author  of  the  French  work  en- 
joys a  high  reputation  as  an  his- 
torian: he  succeeded  Gaston  Brissier 
as  permanent  secretary  of  the  French 
Academy  in  1908.  In  his  introduction 
to  these  two  volumes  he  deems  it  nec- 


essary to  apologize  for  undertaking  to 
write  the  history  of  an  ecclesiastical 
movement  in  England,  when  he  is 
neither  an  Englishman  nor  an  eccle- 
siastic. One  is  inclined  to  accept  his 
apology  as  a  recommendation.  His 
performance  illustrates  admirably  that 
a  limited  remoteness,  in  time  or  space 
or  manners,  has  obvious  advantages  in 
viewing  the  march  of  historic  events 
and  in  giving  them  orderly  arrange- 
ment and  proper  proportions.  And 
has  not  Matthew  Arnold  pointed  out 
that  in  works  of  intelligence,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  works  of  genius,  no 
writer  is  the  worse  for  being  a 
Frenchman  or  an  Academician? 

I  would  select  as  the  principal  fea- 
ture of  this  work,  giving  it  impor- 
tance, the  immense  assistance  it 
affords  toward  a  comprehensive  un- 
derstanding of  a  great  national  and 
somewhat  intricate  agitation,  and 
toward  the  allotment  of  a  due  measure 
of  importance  to  the  various  actors 
and  episodes  in  it.  We  have  had,  in 
English,  histories  of  the  Oxford  Move- 
ment, of  the  Roman  Catholic  revival, 
of  Ritualism;  besides  innumerable 
memoirs  and  biographies,  from  those 
of  Hurrell  Froude  and  Hope-Scott 
down  to  those  of  Mackonochie  and 
Dolling,  many  of  them  classic  models 
of  literary  biography.  But  there  was 
need  of  a  summing  up  of  this  vast 
and  imperfectly  connected  literature; 


209 


210 


THE   BOOKMAN 


there  was  need  of  a  detached  and  in- 
telligent attempt  to  reduce  and  en- 
large and  adjust  the  claims  upon  our 
attention  of  particular  engagements 
and  personages  according  to  a  scale  of 
values  which  only  a  general  survey 
from  outside  can  determine.  In  this 
respect  M.  Thureau-Dangin's  work 
will  supply  background  and  illumina- 
tion for  a  large  class  of  inspiring 
books  about  the  leaders  of  English  re- 
ligious thought  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. 

The  outstanding  phenomenon  in  this 
widened  horizon  is  the  prominence  of 
John  Henry  Newman.  As  the  coign 
of  vantage  rises,  and  the  sweep  of 
vision  moves  in  larger  circles,  figures 
in  the  landscape  contract  their  out- 
lines. This  is  true  of  most  of  those 
who  surrounded  Newman  either  as 
auxiliaries  or  opponents.  But  it  is 
not  true  of  him.  Towering  above  his 
contemporaries  during  life,  he  seems 
to  add  cubits  to  his  stature  as  the 
inists  of  mortality  and  distance  roll 
across  the  fields  where  he  strode 
among  the  giants.  "Whatever  influ- 
ence I  have  had",  he  used  to  say,  "has 
been  found,  not  sought  after.''  Yet 
he  dominated  his  times ;  and  he  domi- 
nates this  history.  All  eyes  turn  in 
his  direction.  Everyone  waits  breath- 
less for  his  next  word,  his  next  step. 
The  consciousness  of  his  presence  and 
his  i)Ower  is  never  more  alive  than 
when  he  buries  himself  in  congenial 
silence  and  retirement.  The  influence 
which  he  never  sought  remains  with 
curious  persistence  some  thirty  years 
after  his  death,  and  nearly  half  a  cen- 
tury after  his  best  work  was  done. 

The  secret  of  his  permanence  as  a 
great  spiritual  force  lies,  of  course,  to 
a  large  extent  in  his  literary  power. 
M.  Thureau-Dangin  merely  touches  on 
this  side  of  Newman's  excellence. 
Nothing  would  have  been  more  re- 


« 


pugnant  to  him",  says  the  historian, 
"than  to  be  regarded  as  a  literary 
man."  Yet  what  ecclesiastical  writer 
— Jeremy  Taylor,  Hooker,  Whately, 
Pusey,  Manning — has  achieved  any- 
thing like  the  literary  standing  of 
Newman?  He  has  been  hailed  in  re- 
spectable quarters  as  our  greatest 
prose  writer.  Matthew  Arnold  awards 
this  preeminence  to  Edmund  Burke. 
And  it  is  worth  while  stopping  to  note 
the  interesting  fact  that  neither 
Burke  nor  Newman  was  wont  to 
write  with  any  conscious  literary  pur- 
pose. But  from  Arnold,  who  recom- 
mended to  his  countrymen  Newman's 
"urbanity"  of  style  and  referred  to 
him  as  "a  miracle  of  intellectual  deli- 
cacy", down  to  the  present,  Newman's 
superiority  in  English  prose  has 
grown  in  security  although  many  of 
his  fellow  Victorians  find  it  difficult  to 
stand  up  under  the  blows  of  irreverent 
modem  critics.  Cambridge  is  not 
Newman's  university  and  it  was  never 
in  sympathy  with  his  religious  ideals ; 
still  its  Professor  of  English  Litera- 
ture, Sir  Arthur  Quiller-Couch,  urges 
his  class  to  take  Newman  for  a  model, 
as  we  may  read  in  his  book  "On  the 
Art  of  Writing".  Speaking  of  the 
"Idea  of  a  University"  he  says: 

ADd  here  let  me  say  that  of  aU  the  books 
written  in  these  hundred  years  there  is  per- 
haps none  you  can  more  profitably  thumb  and 
ponder  over  than  that  volume  of  his... the 
book  is  so  wise — so  eminently  wise — as  to  de- 
serve being  bound  by  the  young  student  of 
literature  for  a  frontlet  on  his  brow  and  a 
talisman  on  his  writing  wrist. 

This  must  be  a  phenomenon  with- 
out parallel  in  our  literary  history, 
that  an  ecclesiastical  writer,  confining 
himself  for  the  most  part  to  religious 
topics,  should  win  so  high  a  reputa- 
tion in  purely  literary  precincts.  It  is 
not  enough  to  say  by  way  of  explana- 
tion that  Newman  was  a  man  of  very 
extraordinary  moral,  spiritual,  and  in- 
tellectual endowments,  who  stirs  the 


POETRY,  VERSE,  AND  WORSE 


211 


popular  imagination  by  conveying 
through  a  limpid  style  glimpses  of  a 
singularly  lofty  character  in  constant 
communion  with  eternity.  Even 
Lsrtton  Strachey's  corrosive  and  ma- 
levolent irony  does  not  find  it  easy  to 
reach  Newman.  But  literature  seldom 
takes  enthusiastically  to  anything 
merely  because  it  is  spiritual.  It  seeks 
for  the  human  element.  This  truth 
will  prepare  us  to  accept  the  startling, 
but  shrewd,  criticism  of  Lionel  John- 
son: "Newman  was,  emphatically,  a 
man  of  social  habit,  and  his  books  are 
more  full  than  Thackeray's  of  worldly 
knowledge.     And  all  this  wealth  of 


matter  and  thought  is  conveyed  in  a 
style  of  singular  charm,  and  of  most 
strange  and  haunting  beauty.''  I  have 
no  doubt  that  M.  Thureau-Dangin's 
two  portly  volumes  will  prove  as  in- 
teresting and  instructive  to  students 
of  literature  as  they  are  to  students  of 
religion,  if  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  they  furnish  the  stage  and  set- 
ting for  the  intensely  dramatic  career 
of  a  great,  if  not  a  supreme,  artist  in 
English  prose. 


The  English  Catholic  Revival  in  the  Nine- 
teenth Century.  By  Paul  Thureau-Dangln.  Re- 
vised and  Re-edited  from  a  Translation  by  the 
late  Wilfrid  Wilberforce.  Two  volumes.  B.  P. 
Dutton  and  Co. 


POETRY,  VERSE,  AND  WORSE 


BY  HENRY  A.  LAPPIN 


FLESH  from  a  reading  of  the  "Col- 
lected Poems"  of  Thomas  Hardy — 
that  rare  gift  which  came  to  me  the 
other  day  in  two  stout  volumes  from 
across  the  sea — I  turn,  confessedly 
with  no  small  misgiving,  to  contem- 
plate the  two  dozen  and  two  "poetry- 
books"  upon  the  quality  of  which  the 
intelligent  editor  of  this  influential 
organ  of  critical  opinion  awaits  in  an 
agony  of  suspense  my  fixed,  frozen, 
and  final  verdict.  I  am  prepared  of 
course  to  admit  that  I  might  have  ap- 
proached this  task  fortified  by  a  less 
austere  poetic  prophylactic:  the  lithe 
and  limber  "Patines  of  Passion",  let 
us  say,  or  perhaps  the  robustious 
"Runes  of  a  Red-haired  Man", — "those 
rich  and  ruddy  chanties  which  stir 
and  strengthen  every  man  with  hair 
on  his  chest,  and  which  have  made 


their  author  notorious  in  four  con- 
tinents," . . .  But  leave  we  the  com- 
mon crofts,  the  vulgar  thorpes.  Let 
us  turn  our  thoughts  elsewhere. 

For  example,  to  the  first  four  books 
on  our  list,  which  are  anthologies. 
The  plain  truth  about  anthologies  is 
that  hardly  more  than  three  indubita- 
bly first-rate  ones  succeed  in  getting 
into  print  every  quarter  of  a  century 
or  so;  usually  the  other  three  thou- 
sand, with  about  ten  exceptions,  are 
unspeakably  bad.  "The  Golden  Treas- 
ury" is  not  without  its  faults  but  it  re- 
mains unchallengeably  the  best  gen- 
eral anthology  of  English  poetry  that 
we  possess.  "The  Oxford  Book  of 
English  Verse"  enshrines  most  of  the 
great,  and  many  delightful,  poems; 
but  as  an  arrangement  of  English  airs 
it  is  simply  not  to  be  compared  with 


212 


THE   BOOKMAN 


the  earlier  collection,  reflecting  as  that 
collection  does  the  flawless  taste  of 
Tennyson  no  less  than  the  sound  crit- 
ical instinct  of  Palgrave;  and  the  se- 
lection of  recent  poems  in  the  Oxford 
Book  might  have  been  much  better 
done.  At  the  head  of  a  lengthy  caval- 
cade of  Elizabethan  song-gatherings 
rides  "Q's"  "The  Golden  Pomp",  "a 
procession  of  English  lyrics  from  Sur- 
rey to  Shirley".  Nor  must  one  forget 
Alice  Meynell's  "The  Flower  of  the 
Mind" — ^though  her  waywardness  ex- 
cluded the  immortally  pellucid  elegy 
by  Gray. 

None  of  the  four  anthologies  in  my 
bundle  dare  enter  even  remotely  into 
comparison  with  any  of  these,  either 
for  beauty  of  construction  and  con- 
tent, or  harmony  of  note  and  senti- 
ment. In  one  of  them  the  industrious 
and  selecting  William  Stanley  Braith- 
waite  has  brought  together  many  fine 
and  a  few  unforgettable  contemporary 
"British"  lyrics;  and  in  another  he 
has  assembled  an  interesting  group  of 
poems  from  the  American  magazines 
of  last  year.  For  the  former  book  he 
deserves  our  thanks.  It  has  Mase- 
field's  "Biography",  "August,  1914", 
and  "Cargoes" ;  Belloc's  "South  Coun- 
try"; Brooke's  five  splendid  sonnets; 
Julian  Grenfell's  "Into  Battle"— finest 
of  all  the  "war  poems" ;  de  la  Mare's 
"The  Listeners".  And  these  are  only 
a  few  of  the  memorable  things  in- 
cluded. But  we  look  in  vain  (such  is 
our  perversity)  for  anything  by  Yeats, 
or  by  Eugene  Mason,  whose  sonnets, 
original  and  translated  from  the 
French  of  de  Heredia,  have  recently, 
and  without  a  particle  of  exaggera- 
tion, been  acclaimed  "among  the  love- 
liest examples  of  written  art".  And 
why  is  there  nothing  here  by  Arthur 
Shearly  Cripps,  the  latest  and  by  no 
means  the  least  inspired  of  the  "mys- 
tical" poets  of  the  English  Church? 


Or  by  Tom  Kettle,  a  modem  master 
of  satire  in  verse?  Or  by  J.  B.  B. 
Nichols,  a  poet  of  fine  insight  and 
most  delicate  craftsmanship?  Or  by 
at  least  five  other  poets  I  refrain, 
magnanimously,  from  naming?  And 
why — ^to  change  the  ground  of  com- 
plaint—^oes  the  anthologist  let  this 
sort  of  pronouncement  cut  capers  in 
his  Preface:  "The  late  petals  of  the 
Victorian  flower  began  to  droop  under 
the  reign  of  Edward  VII.  They 
dropped  to  the  ground  at  the  first 
touch  of  the  frosty  truth  in  the  sub- 
stance, and  the  converting  concrete- 
ness  in  the  expression  of  'The  Ever- 
lasting Mercy'  and  'The  Widow  in 
the  Bye  Street'."  (The  frosty  truth 
is  that  this  is  fiorid  nonsense.) 

The  "Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse 
for  1919"  is  a  pleasant  book.  It  is 
good  to  have  some  of  Sara  Teasdale's 
new  work,  and  one  must  always  wel- 
come any  poem  from  the  pen  of  Edgar 
Lee  Masters  or  of  Edwin  Arlington 
Robinson.  Thanks  too  for  Francis 
Hacketf  s  glorious  "Harry  Hawker". 
(Is  it  to  be  "Single-Poem  Hackett"?) 
Louis  Untermeyer  with  his  collection 
"Modem  American  Poetry"  is  very 
much  our  creditor.  All  the  best  re- 
cent things  are  here :  Robinson's  "The 
Master",  Stephen  Ben^t's  "Portrait  of 
a  Boy",  John  Gould  Fletcher's  "Lin- 
coln", Vachel  Lindsay's  "Abraham 
Lincoln  Walks  at  Midnight",  and  the 
editor's  own  moving  Lincoln  poem. 
Of  the  two  dozen  and  two,  "Modem 
American  Poetry"  is  certainly  one  vol- 
ume which  I  shall  abstain  from  giving 
to  the  poor.  "Yanks  A.  E.  F.  Verse" 
I  shall  also  keep,  if  only  for  the  sake 
of  Joyce  Kilmer's  "Rouge-Bouquet". 
Fine  fellows  all  those  Yanks  were, — 
but  not  invariably  poets.  Of  the  re- 
maining nineteen  volumes  a  summary 
classification  may  thus  be  adum- 
brated:   poetry,  six;    verse,  more  or 


POETRY,  VERSE,  AND  WORSE 


213 


less  good,  seven;  rank  doggerel,  the 
remaining  six.  The  good  wine  I  pro- 
pose to  reserve  to  the  end,  in  the  pious 
belief  that  such  a  very  modest  and  al- 
together minor  intoxication  as  may 
result  from  the  one-tenth  of  one, 
which  is  the  highest  ascertainable  per- 
centage of  the  intervening  beverage, 
wiU  not  preclude  intelligent  and  im- 
mediate perception  of  the  rosy  flush 
and  kindling  glow  of  the  authentic 
liquor  at  the  last. 

Now  for  the  doggerel.  "Songs  of 
Cheer"  by  EUie  Wemyss,  which  has 
made  the  long  journey  from  Adelaide, 
Australia,  consists  of  forty-eight 
pages  of  this  sort  of  thing: 

The  Mary  Roge  was  convoying  some  merchant 

men  at  dawn 
When    sudden    came    the    flash    of   guns,    and 

through  the  misty  mom 
She  sped  to  fight  a  submarine,  but  found  three 

cruisers  there — 
What  use  one  smaU  destroyer?     She  can  but 

do  and  dare ! 

These  deathless  lines  are  taken 
from  some  verses  entitled  'We're  Not 
Done  Yet".  Neither  are  we.  To  write 
much  worse  than  this  does  not  cost 
our  poetess  the  slightest  effort.  ''Life's 
Mission"  begins :  "Only  a  penny  given 
to  a  little  weeping  child";  and  "Is- 
rael's Race"  starts  out  stentorianly, 
"Shame  on  him  who  oppresses  Israel's 
race!  Who  dares  insult,  offend,  or 
hurt  God's  own".  Indeed  Miss  Wemyss 
is  by  no  means  rabidly  anti-Semitic: 
in  a  later  effusion  the  tale  tells  of  "A 
Gallant  Jew,  an  Anzac  brave".  The 
verses  in  Miss  Lucile  Enlow's  "The 
Heart  of  a  Girl",  according  to  her  pub- 
lishers, "for  the  most  part  represent 
the  moods  of  adolescence  and  as  such 
will  have  the  greatest  appeal  for  those 
young  girls  who  find  themselves  des- 
perate for  some  mode  of  expressing 
their  thronging  thoughts  and  emo- 
tions". For  frontispiece  there  is  a 
portrait  of  the  lady.     Perhaps   the 


poem  "Grandma"  ("Grandma!  saintly 
gentle  soul")  is  as  bad  as  any  in  the 
book.  "Rapids  and  Still  Water"  by 
Rutgers  Remsen  Coles  has  one  num- 
ber beginning,  "The  sun  has  laid  his 
prayer-rug  in  the  West".  "The  Fields 
of  Peace"  by  Emma  Frances  Lee 
Smith  is  not  quite  so  ingeniously  bad 
as — and  therefore  rather  less  exciting 
than — the  last  three.  We  can  well  un- 
derstand the  delicate  perplexity  of 
President  Lynn  Harold  Hough  in  one 
of  the  "poems"  in  his  "Flying  Over 
London":  "I  wonder  if  some  day  I'll 
write  a  song."  ("The  facile  genius  of 
President  Hough  flashes  in  every  line 
of  these  poems  bom  of  the  world 
war."  Yes,  that  is  what  it  says  on 
the  paper  wrapper!)  "In  Conclusion" 
is  what  Carlyle  Mclntyre  calls  his 
book;  I  hope  he  will  keep  his  word. 

Of  immeasurably  better  quality, 
though  hardly  native  to  "the  topmost 
height  of  Helicon  inspired",  are:  E. 
J.  Brady's  "The  House  of  the  Winds", 
a  collection  of  sturdy  sea-songs;  "A 
Whisper  of  Fire"  by  Agnes  Ryan, 
which  has  some  strangely  poignant 
moments;  "Camelot"  by  Benjamin 
Brooks,  which  is  most  attractively 
printed  and  produced,  but  a  little  dis- 
appointing in  its  contents.  In  "Songs 
of  Adoration"  by  Gustav  Davidson 
there  sounds  at  times  a  strain  of 
mournful  and  beautiful  music.  Most 
of  the  poems  in  Angela  Morgan's 
"Hail,  Man!"  were  worth  reprinting, 
and  "The  Word"  deserves  a  place  in 
any  representative  anthology  of  con- 
temporary verse. 

With  "Poems"  by  Cecil  Roberts  we 
decline  upon  a  lower  range.  In  spite 
of  Mr.  Masefield's  friendly  foreword, 
these  labored  verses  move  us  not  at 
all.  The  book  is  full  of  echoes  and 
infelicitous  imitations.  At  one  mo- 
ment we  are  irritatingly  reminded  of 


214 


THE   BOOKMAN 


Mrs.  MeyneU  (in  Mr.  Roberts's  poem 
beginning  "She  moves,  the  lady  of  my 
love,  A  vision  of  delight") ;  at  an- 
other, of  Richard  Le  Gallienne;  yet 
again  of  Lamb  ("They  are  gone  the 
friends  I  had",  with  its  refrain, 
"Friends  of  mine,  of  mine") ;  and 
again  of  Kipling,  or  of  Sir  Henry 
Newbolt  or  of  Tennyson  himself.  The 
book,  in  short,  is  full  of  cliches  of 
thought  and  phrase.  Every  now  and 
then  in  Samuel  Roth's  "Europe,  a 
Book  for  America",  there  is  a  hoarse 
eloquence  that  begins  to  be '  impres- 
sive; but  the  book  is  disfigured  by 
such  querulous  and  grotesque  lines  as 
these: 

Would  you  like  to  know 
How  much  of  you  is  man 
How  much  of  you  is  monkey? 

Aik  your  hands, — 
They  know. 

There  are  two  volumes  of  transla- 
tions in  this  book-pile.  In  "More 
Translations  from  the  Chinese"  Mr. 
Waley  supplies  us  with  a  sequel  to  his 
splendid  "A  Hundred  and  Seventy 
Chinese  "Poems",  by  far  the  best  book 
of  the  kind  that  there  is.  This  time 
he  is  less  prodigal  of  his  good  gifts 
and  we  get  from  him  translations  of 
only  sixty-eight  poems,  fifty-five  of 
which,  however,  have  never  before 
been  Englished.  They  are  all  most  in- 
teresting and  many  of  them  extraor- 
dinarily beautiful  in  their  naive 
sweetness,  simplicity,  and  directness. 
Here  is  Mr.  Waley's  translation  of  a 
Chinese  poem  written  almost  eleven 
hundred  years  ago : 

Since  I  lay  ill,  how  long  has  passed? 

Almost  a  hundred  heavy-hanging  days. 

The  maids  have  learnt  to  gather  my  medicine- 
herbs  ; 

The  dog  no  longer  barks  when  the  doctor 
comes. 

The  jars  in  my  cellar  are  plastered  deep  with 
mould ; 

My  singer's  carpets  are  half  crumbled  to  dust. 

How  can  I  bear  when  the  Earth  renews  her 
light. 


To  watch  from  a  pillow  the  beauty  of  Spring 
unfold  ? 

Another  volume  of  translations  is 
"Life  Immovable",  from  the  modem 
Greek  of  Kostes  Palamas  by  Professor 
Aristides  Phoutrides,  a  former  in- 
structor at  Harvard.  Kostes  Palamas, 
secretary  to  the  university  of  Athens, 
was  one  of  the  first  writers  of  con- 
temporary Greece  to  gain  recognition 
outside  his  own  country,  and  Pro- 
fessor Phoutrides  has  the  courage  to 
call  him  "a  new  world-poet".  A  bold 
claim  to  make,  but,  even  in  transla- 
tion, these  poems  go  no  little  distance 
toward  justifying  it — ^for  one  reader 
anyhow.  There  are  some  lines,  "To  a 
Maiden  Who  Died",  which  even  in 
English  are  profoundly  beautiful  and 
which  in  the  original  must  surely  con- 
stitute a  great  poem  indeed. 

We  arrive  at  last  at  the  very  best  of 
the  original  poetry  under  review.  In 
Mrs.  Seiffert's  "A  Woman  of  Thirty" 
— ^which  is  most  decidedly  a  book  to 
read  and  to  keep — ^there  is  no  lack  of 
authentic  inspiration.  In  her  "Noc- 
turne", for  instance : 

It  is  enough 
To  feel  your  beauty 
With  the  fingers 
Of  my  heart, 

Your  beauty,  like  the  starlight, 
Filling  night  so  gently,  that  it  dreams 
Unawakened. 

I  should  feel  your  beauty  against  my  face 
Though  I  were  blind. 

Lovely,  too,  are  The  Moonlight  So- 
nata" and  "The  Silent  Pool".  In  the 
collected  edition  of  Robert  Underwood 
Johnson's  "Poems"  which  the  Yale 
University  Press  have  most  attrac- 
tively published  there  is  much  sweet- 
ness— which  never  descends  to  mere 
prettiness — ^much  grace  and  a  good 
deal  of  fine  thought  finely  expressed  in 
melodious  verse.  Mr.  Johnson  has 
long  and  deservedly  enjoyed  a  special 


POETRY,  VERSE,  AND  WORSE 


215 


place  of  distinction  in  modem  Amer- 
ican poetry  of  the  conservative  tradi- 
tion. The  author  of  ''The  Queen  of 
China  and  Other  Poems'',  Edward 
Shanks,  is  honored  for  his  art  in  Eng- 
land where  this  book  recently  won  the 
first  Hawthomden  prize  of  one  hun- 
dred pounds  for  the  most  distinguished 
contribution  to  English  letters  pub- 
lished during  the  year  by  an  author 
under  forty.  I  have  long  had  my  eye 
upon  him,  and  I  do  wish  he  would 
stop  writing  uninteresting  "Literary 
Letters"  for  American  journals,  and 
instead  give  us  more  of  these  exqui- 
site poems.  Mr.  Shanks  is,  in  short, 
"the  real  thing", — ^a  name  to  rank  be- 
side those  of  Hodgson,  de  la  Mare,  and 
John  Freeman;  a  true  poet  of  our 
day,  with  power  to  convey  a  magical 
vision  in  magical  words.  There  is  no 
page  in  his  book  without  sincerity  and 
beauty.  That  his  gift  for  narrative 
in  verse  is  greater  than  that  of  any  of 
his  contemporaries,  save  only  John 
Masefield,  "The  Fireless  Town"  read- 
ily demonstrates;  it  is  a  grievance 
that  I  have  not  the  space  to  quote  this 
lovely  poem  in  full.  Here  is  a  shorter 
sample  of  his  performance: 

IN    ABSBNCB 

My  lovely  one,  be  near  to  me  tonight 

For  now  I  need  you  most,  since  I  have  gone 

Through    the   sparse  woodland   in   the  fading 

light 
Where  in  time  past  we  two  have  walked  alone, 
Heard  the  loud  nightjar  spin  his  pleasant  note 
And  seen  the  wild  rose  folded  up  for  sleep 
And  whispered,  though  the  soft  word  choked 

my  throat. 
Tour  dear  name  out  across  the  valley  deep. 
Be  near  to  me,  for  now  I  need  you  most. 
Tonight  I  saw  an  unsubstantial  flame 
Flickering  along  those  shadowy  paths,  a  ghost 
That  turned  to  me  and  answered  to  your  name, 
Mocking  me  with  a  wraith  of  far  delight. 
. . .  My  lovely  one,  be  near  to  me  tonight. 

The  title  piece  "The  Queen  of  China" 
is  a  superb  dramatic  poem  written  out 
of  a  rich  and  fantastic  imagination. 

The  "Complete  Poems"  of  the  late 
Francis  Ledwidge,  with  introductions 


by  Lord  Dunsany,  is  a  book  which 
many  lovers  of  modem  Irish  poetry 
will  rejoice  to  possess.  The  Irish 
earth  and  every  common  sight  and 
sound  and  smell  thereof  are  the  bur- 
den of  most  of  these  charming  songs 
and  lyrics.  In  many  of  them  there  is 
evidence  of  a  delicate  and  fragrant 
talent,  but  one  refuses  to  speak,  as  the 
editor  so  confidently  does,  of  Led- 
widge's  genius,  for  that  is  far  too 
grand  a  word.  "There  are  too  many 
roses."  It  must  be  confessed  that  one 
grows  weary  of  the  cloying  sweetness 
of  these  poetic  meditations  on  black- 
birds, February  evenings,  hills,  Aprils, 
March  twilights.  The  noble  editor  had 


The  Book  of  Modern  British  Verse.  Bdited 
by  WiUiam  Stanley  Braithwaite.  SmaU,  May- 
nard  and  Co. 

Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse  for  1919. 
Edited  by  Wiuiam  Stanley  Braithwaite.  SmaU, 
Maynard  and  Co. 

Modern  American  Poetry.  Edited  by  Louis 
Untermeyer.     H&rcourt,  Brace  and  Howe. 

Yanks  A.  B.  P.  Verse.     G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

Songs  of  Cheer.  By  Ellle  Wemyss.  Adelaide : 
Hasscll  Co 

The  Heart  of  a  Qirl.  By  Lucile  C.  Enlow. 
The  Stratford  Co. 

Rapids  and  Still  Water.  By  Rutgers  Remsen 
Coles.     The  Stratford  Co. 

The  Fields  of  Peace.  By  Emma  Frances 
Lee  Smith.     Richard  Q.  Badger. 

Flying  Over  London.  By  Lynn  Harold 
Hough.     Abingdon  Press. 

In  Conclusion.  By  Carlyle  C.  Mclntyre. 
Published  at  Sierra  Madre.  Calif. 

The  House  of  the  Winds.  By  B.  J.  Brady. 
Dodd.  Mead  and  Co. 

A  Whisper  of  Fire.  By  Agnes  Ryan.  Four 
Seas  Co. 

Camelot.  By  Benjamin  QUbert  Brooks. 
Longmans,  Green  and  Co. 

Songs  of  Adoration.  By  Qustav  Davidson. 
The  MadrigaL 

HaU,  Man  !  By  Angela  Morgan.  John  Lane 
Co. 

Poems.  By  Cecil  Roberts.  Frederick  A. 
Stokes  Co. 

Europe,  a  Book  for  America.  By  Samuel 
Roth.     Boni  and  Liveright. 

More  Translations  from  the  Chinese.  By 
Arthur  Waley.    Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

Kostes  Palamas :  Life  Immovable.  Trans- 
lated by  Aristides  E.  Phoutrides.  Harvard 
University  Press. 

A  Woman  of  Thirty.  By  Marjorie  Allen  Seif- 
fert.     Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

Collected  Poems,  1881-1919.  By  Robert  Un- 
derwood Johnson.     Yale  University  Press. 

The  Queen  of  China.  By  Edward  Shanks. 
Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

The  Complete  Poems  of  Francis  Ledwidge. 
Brentono's. 

The  Cobbler  In  Willow  Street.  By  George 
O'Neil.     Boni  and  Liveright. 

Poems.  By  Gladys  CromwelL  The  Macmil- 
lan  Co. 

Starved  Rock.  By  Edgar  Lee  Masters.  The 
Macmillan  Co. 


216 


THE   BOOKMAN 


done  worthier  service  to  his  prot^g^ 
had  he  published  less  than  a  third  of 
what  is  here,  and  had  he  protested  a 
great  deal  less  in  his  prefaces.  Led- 
widge,  like  John  Clare,  will  survive 
mainly  in  the  anthologies. 

The  last  three  books  I  am  to  con- 
sider are  by  poets  native  to  these 
American  shores,  and  they  unques- 
tionably testify  to  the  vigor,  vitality, 
and  authenticity  of  modern  American 
poetry  at  its  finest.  The  sureness  and 
delicacy  of  perception  of  (^eorge 
O'Neil's  art  in  "The  Cobbler  in  Wil- 
low Street  and  Other  Poems"  is 
vouched  for  by  Professor  John  Lowes, 
soundest  and  most  wisely  sympathetic 
of  living  American  critics  of  poetry, 
and  the  young  poet's  first  volume  is 
engagingly  introduced  to  the  world  by 
Zoe  Akins.  A  slender  volume  it  is, 
but  all  golden  and  as  full  of  lovely 
freshness  and  delight  as  a  breezy 
morning  in  springtime.  To  the 
"Poems"  of  Gladys  Cromwell  Padraic 
Colum  has  written  an  illuminating 
brief  introduction  claiming  for  some 
of  them  that  they  are  "indubitably 
among  the  best  lyrics  written  in  our 
day".  The  perceptions  in  this  poetry 
are  feminine,  as  Mr.  Colum  remarks, 
yet  "the  balance  dips  towards  thought 
rather  than  emotion.  It  is  a  poetry 
that  comes  out  of  impassioned 
thought."  In  the  group  here  entitled 
"Later  Poems" — the  closing  record  of 
two  very  noble  and  fervid  lives 
brought  to  a  tragic  end — ^there  is 
nearly  always  a  stark  and  shining 
strength  in  which  a  certain  calm 
sweetness  is  not  utterly  without  its 
part.  "I  have  had  courage  to  ac- 
cuse", she  sings : 

I  have  had  courage  to  accuse : 
And  a  fine  wit  that  could  upbraid  : 
And  a  nice  cunning  that  could  bruise : 
And  a  shrewd  wisdom,  unafraid 
Of  what  wealc  mortals  fear  to  lose. 


I  have  had  virtue  to  despise 
The  sophistry  of  pious  fools ; 
I  have  had  firmness  to  chastise, 
And  intellect  to  make  me  rules 
To  estimate  and  exorcise. 

I  have  had  knowledge  to  be  true ; 
My  faith  could  obstacles  remove; 
But  now  my  frailty  I  endue. 
I  would  have  courage  now  to  love, 
And  lay  aside  the  strength  I  knew. 

There  is  pain  in  the  thought  that  a 
music  so  fine  and  fearless  was  stilled 
so  soon. 

Last  of  all  there  is  "Starved  Rock", 
Edgar  Lee  Masters's  latest  harvest. 
As  heretofore,  he  sounds  implacably 
the  sombre  monochords  of  irony  and 
disillusionment,  but  there  is  a  pulsing 
passion  of  sincerity  and  a  noble  wist- 
fulness  in  this  utterance  which  pierces 
to  the  very  quick  of  life  and  lights  up 
the  dark  places  of  its  mystery.  He 
is  at  his  ripest  and  surest  in  such 
mordant   and   merciless   analyses   as 

Lord    Byron    to    Doctor    Polidori", 

The  Barber  of  Sepo",  "They'd  Never 
Know  Me  Now",  "Oh  You  Sabbatari- 
ans!"  and  that  profound  disquisition 
on  Poe,  "Washington  Hospital".  It 
is  well  for  the  country  that  possesses 
a  poet  true  enough  and  brave  enough 
to  pour  forth  upon  her  littleness  such 
a  splendid  fiood  of  scorn  as  flows  like 
burning  lava  in  "Oh  You  Sabbatari- 
ans !"  And  the  man  who  wrote  "Saga- 
more Hill",  that  incomparable  portrait 
of  Theodore  Roosevelt;  who  wrote 
"Chicago"  and  "I  Shall  Go  Down  Into 
This  Land",  manifests  an  intimate  un- 
derstanding of  the  American  heart  at 
its  noblest,  an  august  and  prophetic 
vision  of  the  American  destiny,  which 
compel  our  sincerest  homage  and  our 
liveliest  gratitude.  Edgar  Lee  Mas- 
ters is,  I  think,  the  greatest  American 
poet  since  Walt  Whitman. 

And  the  cry  to  Hardy  is  not  so  very 
far  after  all. 


i< 


« 


A  SHORT  STORY  ORGY 


BY  WALTER  A.  DYER 


WITH  m  distinctly  mominir-after 
f  edinff  in  my  he^  and  m  taste 
as  of  mixed  in^iedioits  gone  stale  in 
my  mootli,  I  am  striTing  to  regain 
sanity  and  eqnilibriam  after  an  excess 
of  short-story  reading.  For  overin- 
dolgence  in  the  short  story  is  a  dissi- 
pation which  produces  an  inevitable 
reacti<m;  it  leaves  the  mind  in  a  jerky 
state. 

I  shall  never  acquire  the  short-story 
habit  as  a  form  of  permanoit  deprav- 
ity* I  am  sore.  This  debauch  has 
cured  me  of  any  taidency  in  that  di- 
rection. The  perfect  short  story  is 
like  champagne,  scarcely  to  be  taken 
in  quantity  as  the  sole  article  of  diet. 
The  natural  place  for  the  short  story, 
I  have  concluded,  is  between  two 
novds  or  volumes  of  greater  weight. 

But  my  immediate  reactions  are  of 
no  consequoice.  There  stands  before 
me  a  four-foot  shelf  of  volumes  of 
short  fiction  ranging  all  the  way  from 
a  prose  sketch  by  John  Masefidd,  half 
visible  in  the  spiritual  moonlight,  to 
a  death-in-cold-waters  tale  by  Rex 
Beach,  as  thoroughly  physical  in  its 
tone  as  a  crack  on  the  shin.  They  ac- 
knowledge no  kinship,  these  books; 
they  bear  no  family  resemblance,  no 
resemblance  of  any  kind,  indeed,  be- 
yond the  purely  fortuitous  circum- 
stance of  their  all  being  clothed,  so  to 
say,  in  short  trousers.  How  to  say 
anything  hdpful  about  such  a  coUec- 


tion«  how  to  characteriie^  to  critkiaiw 
to  estimate^  to  compare  such  bocte  bi^ 
comes  a  puixle.  And  yet  the  tint 
difficulty  of  it  suggests  that  it  may  be 
worth  while.  For  the  task  usually 
se^ns  to  have  been  avoided*  and  the 
American  short  stor>*  has  to  a  large 
extent  escaped  intelligent  criticism. 
This  in  the  face  of  the  generally  con* 
ceded  fact  that  the  short  story  is  an 
art  form  worthy  of  the  most  serious 
study,  while  the  average  American 
short  story  has  often  presented  an 
object  for  satire  worthy  of  the  best 
efforts  of  our  most  ironic  and  banter^ 
ing  critics. 

But  the  problem  in  hand  calls  loudly 
for  some  sort  of  common  denominator, 
howe\*er  tenuous,  for  something  in  the 
way  of  a  general  criterion  that  may 
safely  be  applied  to  short  fiction  with- 
out running  the  risk  of  becoming  a 
mere  formula.  One  discovers  how 
vague  is  the  common  standard  for 
short  fiction,  and  in  the  search  for 
something  better  one  is  led  to  reason 
and  meditate  somewhat  thus : 

In  1885  Professor  Brander  Mat- 
thews wrote  as  follows  in  his  little 
treatise  on  "The  Philosophy  of  the 
Short  Story":  "For  fifty  years  the 
American  short  story  has  had  a  su- 
premacy which  any  competent  critic 
could  not  but  acknowledge." 

Twenty  years  later  he  wrote  in  his 


217 


218 


THE   BOOKMAN 


introduction  to  "Ten  Tales"  by  Fran- 
cois Copp4e: 

Fiction  is  more  consciously  an  art  in  France 
than  anywhere  else — perhaps  because  the 
French  are  now  foremost  in  nearly  all  forms 
of  artistic  endeavor.  In  the  short  story  espe- 
cially, in  the  tale,  in  the  conte,  their  supremacy 
is  incontestable:  and  their  skill  is  shown  and 
their  esthetic  instinct  exemplified  partly  in  the 
sense  of  form,  in  the  constructive  method, 
which  underlies  the  best  short  stories,  however 
trifling  these  may  appear  to  be,  and  partly 
in  the  rigorous  suppression  of  non-essentials, 
due  in  a  measure,  it  may  be,  to  the  example  of 
M6rim6e. 

Was  it  Professor  Matthews's  point 
of  view  that  changed  so  radically  in 
the  twenty  years,  or  did  short-story 
supremacy  pass  in  that  period  from 
the  United  States  to  France?  I  can- 
not say  as  to  that.  I  only  know  that 
during  that  period  many  literary  view- 
points underwent  fundamental  re- 
vision and  that  what  were  axioms  in 
1890  had  often  become  outgrown  no- 
tions by  1900. 

Now  we  have  the  vogue  of  the  Rus- 
sian short  story,  and  I  have  seen  it 
positively  stated  more  than  once  that 
Anton  Chekhov  is  the  greatest  artist 
in  the  short  story  now  exftant  in  any 
country.  Thus  does  fame  flash  her 
smile  now  here,  now  there,  while  we 
mortals  make  haste  to  readjust  our 
standards. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  all  this? 
What  indeed  constitutes  greatness  in 
the  short  story?  Where  are  we  to  look 
for  classic  short  sstories?  S)o  Amer- 
icans write  them?  How  is  one  to  pick 
the  wheat  from  the  chaff  in  the  mass 
of  periodical  fiction  that  confronts  us? 
Is  there  any  authoritative  criterion  to 
which  we  can  fly  for  refuge? 

It  is  my  belief  that  infallible  judg- 
ment is  to  be  found  neither  in  the  high- 
brow professor  of  literature,  nor  in 
the  American  magazine  editor,  nor  in 
the  tired  business  man  or  the  summer 
veranda  reader.  We  must  approach 
the  subject  with  a  little  common  sense. 


scorning  neither  the  artistry  of  lit- 
erary style,  the  philosophy  of  the 
thinker,  nor  the  universal  interest  of 
a  plot  story  per  s'e.  As  I  see  it,  the 
greatest  merit  comes  from  a  blending 
of  form  and  manner  and  content, 
mingled  with  the  heaven-bom  quali- 
ties of  sincerity  and  good  taste. 

Now  as  to  this  comparison  between 
European  short  stories  and  the  home- 
grown product,  I'll  tell  you  what  I 
think,  if  you  want  to  know,  and  then 
we'll  get  on  with  our  reviewing. 

I  think,  after  some  two  years  of 
special  reading  along  this  line,  that 
the  French  have  got  the  rest  of  us 
badly  beaten  as  writers  of  short 
stories,  and  that  for  literary  charm 
and  sheer  human  interest  presented  in 
classic  form,  we  have  still  got  to  leave 
the  laurels  on  the  brows  of  de  Mau- 
passant, Daudet,  Balzac,  Copp^e,  and 
the  others  of  that  ilk. 

I  think  the  Russians  are  remarkable 
word  painters  of  a  pre-Raphaelite 
type,  and  steady-handed  soul  surgeons, 
and  that  the  Russian,  Scandinavian, 
and  Gzecho-Slovac  tales  are  all  right 
if  you  don't  mind  having  your  dra- 
matic expectations  left  unsatisfied. 

I  think  that  we  don't  know  half  the 
British  short-story  literature,  apart 
from  Kipling,  and  that  if  we  did  we'd 
have  to  admit  that  they're  beat- 
ing us  at  our  own  game  at  the  present 
time.  (Did  you  know,  for  example, 
that  H.  6.  Wells  wrote  at  least  two 
short  stories  that  outrank  as  literary 
art  anything  he  has  ever  done  in  novel 
form?) 

Finally,  I  have  been  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that,  while  some  of  the  best 
short  stories  in  the  English  language 
have  unquestionably  been  written  by 
Americans — and  I  could  name  a  good 
many  beside  Poe,  Hawthorne,  Bret 
Harte,  and  O.  Henry — the  American 
magazine-reading  public  is  at  present 


A   SHORT   STORY    ORGY 


219 


being  treated  to  about  the  poorest 
short  fiction  ever  written. 

Now  Professor  Matthews  may  not 
agree  with  me,  and  you  may  not  agree 
with  me,  but  I  am  not  abashed.  For 
two  elements  intervene  to  color  hon- 
estly our  judgment  without  either  es- 
tablishing or  discrediting  its  authen- 
ticity. I  mean  differences  in  personal 
taste,  and  differences  in  understand- 
ing as  to  what  a  short  story  is  or 
should  be.  These  must  both  be  taken 
into  consideration  by  the  tolerant 
critic,  and  so  long  as  they  exist,  any 
such  thing  as  an  absolute  and  exact 
criterion  appears  to  be  impossible. 

Still,  it  may  be  possible  to  estab- 
lish some  conmion,  or  at  least  neutral, 
ground  in  our  conception  of  what  a 
short  story  should  be.  I  think  I  know 
what  Professor  Matthews's  conception 
is — or  was.  Professor  J.  Berg  Esen- 
wein  and  the  other  how-to-write-a- 
short-story  experts  have  been  fairly 
explicit  in  stating  their  views,  and  I 
do  not  fully  agree  with  any  of  them. 

Dr.  Esenwein  says  that  "A  short 
story  is  a  brief,  imaginative  narra- 
tive, unfolding  a  single  predominat- 
ing incident  and  a  single  chief  charac- 
ter; it  contains  a  plot,  the  details  of 
which  are  so  compressed  and  the  whole 
treatment  so  organized  as  to  pro- 
duce a  single  impression."  He  makes 
a  distinction  between  the  story  and 
the  tale,  for  "A  tale  is  a  simple  narra- 
tive, usually  short,  having  little  or  no 
plot,  developing  no  essential  change  in 
the  relation  of  the  characters,  and 
depending  for  its  interest  upon  inci- 
dents rather  than  upon  plot  and  the 
revelation  of  character." 

Professor  James  Weber  Linn  is  even 
more  definite  and  concrete.  He  as- 
serts that  "the  short  story  should  be 
a  turning  point  in  the  life  of  a  single 
character." 

It  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  point 


out  the  ctHrde'Sae  to  which  such  for- 
mulas would  inevitably  lead,  or  to 
mention  the  obvious  fact  that  nearly 
all  such  rules  and  regulations  have 
been  repeatedly  broken  in  the  world's 
greatest  short  stories.  "It  is  a  little 
dangerous",  Barry  Pain  cautiously  re- 
marks, "to  lay  down  rules  and  limits 
for  artists."  And  someone  else  has 
noticed  that  "plot  has  never  been  the 
distinguishing  feature  between  good 
literature  and  poor."  The  modem 
editor  and  correspondence  -  school 
teacher  stress  plot,  action,  and  com- 
pactness; above  these,  it  seems  to 
me,  should  be  placed  the  somewhat 
more  imponderable  characteristics  of 
sympathy,  color,  style,  and  fancy. 

I  am  inclined  to  agree  rather  with 
H.  G.  Wells,  who  wrote  as  follows  in 
the  preface  to  one  of  his  volumes  of 
short  stories : 

I  refuse  altogether  to  recognize  any  hard  ana 
fast  type  for  the  short  story,  any  more  than  I 
admit  any  limitation  upon  the  liberties  of  the 
small  picture.  The  short  story  is  a  fiction  that 
may  be  read  in  something  under  an  hour,  and  so 
that  it  is  moving  and  delightful,  it  does  not 
matter  whether  it  is  as  "trivial"  as  a  Japanese 
print  of  insects  seen  closely  between  grass 
stems,  or  as  spacious  as  the  prospect  of  the 
plain  of  Italy  from  Monte  Motterone.  It  does 
not  matter  whether  it  is  human  or  inhuman, 
or  whether  it  leaves  you  thinking  deeply  or 
radiantly  but  superficially  pleased.  Some  things 
are_^more  easily  done  as  short  stories  than 
others  and  more  abundantly  done,  but  ^ne  of 
the  many  pleasures  of  short-story  writing  is  to 
achieve  the  impossible. 

At  any  rate,  that  is  the  present  writer's  con- 
ception of  the  art  of  the  short  story,  as  the 
Jolly  art  of  making  something  very  bright  and 
moving;  it  may  be  horrible  or  pathetic  or 
funny  or  beautiful  or  profoundly  illuminating, 
having  only  this  essential,  that  it  should  take 
from  fifteen  to  fifty  minutes  to  read  aloud. 
All  the  rest  is  Just  whatever  invention  and 
imagination  and  the  mood  can  give — ^a  vision 
of  buttered  slides  on  a  busy  day  or  of  unprece- 
dented worlds. 

And  yet  it  must  be  admitted  as  a 
fairly  patent  fact  that  most  of  us 
American  readers,  while  we  would  be 
pleased  to  accept  something  far  less 
rigid  than  the  sort  of  plot  commonly 


220 


THE   BOOKMAN 


constructed  to  fit  the  editorial  for- 
mula, nevertheless  do  feel  an  instinc- 
tive desire  to  have  something  happen 
in  a  short  story.  "A  sketch",  says 
Professor  Matthews,  "may  be  still- 
life;  in  a  short  story  something  al- 
ways happens."  A  vision  of  buttered 
slides  on  a  busy  day,  whatever  they 
may  be,  might  serve  admirably  as  a 
subject  for  free  verse,  but  it  is  in- 
sufficient for  a  story,  and  Mr.  Wells 
knew  it  when  he  wrote  that,  as  his 
own  stories  plainly  testify.  Those 
buttered  slides  have  got  to  perform  or 
we  feel  that  we  have  been  in  some  way 
misled  and  defrauded.  That  is  why  I 
do  not  believe  that  most  of  the  Rus- 
sians will  ever  attain  to  wide-spread 
popularity  with  American  readers. 

Beyond  that,  I'll  be  as  liberal  as  you 
please  and  accept  a  plot  as  vague  and 
indeterminate  as  that  of  Stevenson's 
"A  Lodging  for  the  Night"  or  some  of 
the  French  cantes,  or  as  mathemat- 
ically complete  and  rounded  out  as 
Poe's  mystery  tales  or  some  of  0. 
Henry's  best.  And  I  do  not  think  we 
need  to  be  bound  by  the  time  and 
place  restrictions  derived  from  Poe 
and  embodied  in  the  usual  American 
formula.  What  most  of  our  magazine 
short  stories  lack  is  not  action  or  plot 
but  a  certain  distinction  of  style  and 
the  sure  handling  of  dramatic  ele- 
ments. 

There  is  no  good  reason  why  the^ 
short  story  should  not  be  one  of  the 
most  exquisite  forms  of  literary  art, 
but  it  all  too  seldom  is.  So  rare  (s 
that  magic  ability  to  create  an  atmos- 
phere, to  sustain  a  mood,  and  to  com- 
municate them  through  the  medium 
of  adequate  expression  in  the  form  of 
a  short  story.  Imagination,  senti- 
ment, the  dramatic  instinct,  the  deft 
portrayal  of  character,  and  above  all 
sincerity — ^these,  it  seems  to  me,  are 
the  qualities  of  the  great  short  story. 


If  that  be  the  ultimate  standard,  let 
us  keep  it  well  in  view,  but  let  us  not 
be  so  lofty  in  our  conceptions  as  to  be 
unfair  to  such  short  stories  as  do  suc- 
ceed in  raising  themselves  above  the 
level  of  the  current  mass,  even  though 
they  may  not  achieve  greatness.  For 
such  are  many  of  the  stories  in  the 
volumes  I  have  been  reading.  Preju- 
diced perhaps  by  the  low  average  of 
the  magazines,  I  must  admit  that  I 
approached  these  stories  in  a  pessi- 
mistic frame  of  mind,  and  I  was 
pleasantly  disappointed.  I  am  more 
hopeful  of  the  American  short  story 
than  I  was  before,  and  not  a  few  of 
these  books  of  short  stories  may  be 
unreservedly  recommended  to  jaded 
novel  readers. 

It  used  to  be  said  that  publishers 
found  volumes  of  short  stories  un- 
profitable. Perhaps  a  change  of  atti- 
tude on  the  part  of  the  reading  public 
has  taken  place  or  perhaps  the  pub- 
lishers have  gained  courage.  At  any 
rate,  there  are  an  unusual  number  of 
such  volumes  this  year.  I  have 
twenty-seven  of  them,  and  I  know  of 
others,  including  0.  Henry's  posthu- 
mous "Waifs  and  Strays".  Let  us 
look  them  over. 

The  Russian  translations  first,  and 
to  begin  with,  Chekhov.  He  has  been 
called  the  greatest  Russian  master  of 
the  short  story,  but  that  is  largely 
a  matter  of  taste  and  of  definition.  To 
my  mind  Gorky  is  a  better  story  teller 
than  Chekhov.  The  latter's  tales  lack 
the  movement  of  Gorky's,  though  they 
are  less  bitterly  unpleasant  to  the 
Anglo-Saxon  mind  in  their  attitude 
toward  human  life.  Through  them 
runs  much  of  the  same  undercurrent 
of  despair,  of  brute  instinct,  of  re- 
ligious fanaticism  and  the  need  for 
money  which  seems  to  characterize 
the  existence  of  Russia's  submerged 
classes.      Chekhov    is    indubitably    a 


A   SHORT   STORY   ORGY 


221 


great  realist  and  word  painter,  whose 
gift  is  to  see  life  in  its  minutise.  His 
tales  are  less  short  stories  than  cross- 
sections  of  Russian  life.  Vivid  and 
enthralling  they  are,  but  inconclusive. 
It  is  as  though  one  stepped  into  a 
theatre  at  the  beginning  of  Act  II  and 
left  before  the  end  of  it. 

The  most  noteworthy  part  of  the 
present  volume,  which  is  called  "The 
Bishop  and  Other  Stories",  is  a  nar- 
rative entitled  "The  Steppe"  which 
takes  up  the  last  half  of  the  book — the 
Kim-like  journey  of  a  Russian  boy 
before  whom  is  unfolded  a  panorama 
of  Russian  life — a  series  of  loosely 
connected  pictures  seen  with  an  al- 
most uncanny  completeness  of  vision. 
Read  Chekhov  for  that,  but  not  for 
plot. 

Vladimir  Korolenko,  though  new 
to  me,  is  announced  as  one  of  the  most 
popular  writers  of  fiction  in  Russia. 
Korolenko,  it  seems  to  me,  lacks  the 
power  to  probe  into  the  roots  of  life 
which  distinguishes  Chekhov  and 
which  is  a  vital  characteristic  of  most 
Russian  fiction.  But  he  is  somewhat 
more  versatile  than  Chekhov,  pos- 
sesses a  rather  better  developed  story 
sense,  and  is  gifted  with  a  less  lugu- 
brious humor.  In  the  original  his 
style  is  said  to  possess  remarkable 
grace.  If  we  miss  something  of  this 
it  is  probably  our  own  fault,  or  per- 
haps partly  ttiat  of  the  translator,  but 
surely  Korolenko  is  not  as  virile  or  as 
vivid  as  Gorky,  and  his  work,  in  our 
eyes,  does  not  compare  in  artistry 
with  Tolstoi's.  But,  with  Dostoyevsky 
and  the  rest,  he  is  not  to  be  overlooked 
by  those  who  desire  a  catholic  knowl- 
edge of  Russian  literature. 

"Short  Stories  from  the  Balkans" 
contains  thirteen  selections  from 
Czech,  Rumanian,  Serbian,  Croatian, 
and  Hungarian  authors.  They  present 
rather  too  great  a  variety  of  mood  and 


type  and  subject  to  be  easily  charac- 
terized together.  We  find  here  the 
morbid  melancholy  of  the  Slav,  the 
rather  humorous  sentiment  of  the 
Serb,  the  lighter  touch  of  the  Magyar. 
There  are  included  two  delightful  bits 
by  Koloman  Mikszath,  who  stands 
with  Maurice  Jokai  as  representing 
the  best  in  Magyar  literature.  Here 
one  is  refreshed  by  a  lighter  fancy,  a 
more  delicate  humor  than  the  Rus- 
sians display — qualities  shown  to  even 
better  advantage,  perhaps,  in  some  of 
his  longer  works,  of  which  a  transla- 
tion of  "St.  Peter's  Umbrella"  re- 
mains with  me  a  pleasant  memory 
after  some  twenty  years.  The  charm 
of  his  style  is  almost  French  in  its 
quality  and  instantly  appealing  to  an 
American. 

Nothing  from  France,  I  regret  to 
say,  appears  in  this  assortment,  but 
there  are  some  worth-while  things 
from  England.  Admiring  readers  of 
the  novels  of  William  J.  Locke  are 
glad  that  he  has  collected  for  publica- 
tion a  number  of  his  best  short 
stories.  These  "Far-Away  Stories", 
more  than  any  of  the  others  in  this 
season's  output,  may  be  confidently 
considered  in  the  light  of  the  most 
exacting  standards.  For  Mr.  Locke 
has  proved  himself  to  be  one  of  the 
masters  of  the  short  story,  displaying 
the  ability  to  develop  a  consistent  emo- 
tional mood  and  produce  a  dramatic 
effect  within  the  shorter  compass 
without  creating  the  too  common 
sense  of  unreality.  The  moving  qual- 
ity of  "The  Song  of  Life",  the  delicate 
sympathy  of  "Ladies  in  Lavender", 
the  dramatic  situation  and  success- 
ful denouement  of  "An  Old-World 
Episode",  one  of  four  ingenious 
"Studies  in  Blindness",  record  the 
touch  of  an  artist's  hand  and  produce 
that  lasting  impression  which  is  one 
of  the  final  tests  of  literary  quality. 


/ 


222 


THE  BOOKMAN 


The  old  tradition  that  the  British 
have  no  sense  of  humor  dies  hard, 
while  the  funniest  things  persistently 
continue  to  come  from  England.  Fun 
tempered  by  good  taste,  too,  and  the 
divine  gift  of  knowing  when  to  stop. 
Here's  Richard  Dehan,  for  instance, 
turning  out  laughs  and  smiles  with 
the  greatest  ease  apparently  and  leav- 
ing the  reader  with  a  grateful  sense 
of  having  achieved  joy  for  a  season. 
Some  of  the  stories  are  in  irresistible 
cockney,  or  Kentish,  or  some  delicious 
brand  of  London  slang  dialect,  but  Mr. 
Dehan  does  not  harp  on  one  string  as 
so  many  humorists  do;  he  has  over- 
worked none  of  his  characters  or  set- 
tings. His  humor  varies  greatly  in 
breadth ;  some  of  it  is  as  dainty  as  an 
old  lady's  cap.  There  is  "The  Oldest 
Inhabitant",  for  example,  a  tale 
worthy  of  Sir  James  Barrie,  in  which 
a  bored  little  girl  tells  a  magnificent 
whopper  and  then,  in  expiation,  walks 
to  Nunbury  Abbey  and  calls,  all 
muddy-kneed,  on  the  King  himself! 
One  makes  haste  to  recommend  the 
book  to  that  friend  whose  appreciation 
of  refined  comedy  is  surely  to  be 
co\inted  on. 

The  most  notable  of  the  books  of 
American  short  stories  is  a  posthu- 
mous collection  of  seven  stories  by 
Jack  London,  an  author  whose  force 
and  skill  in  the  field  of  fiction  are  too 
well  recognized  to  require  special  com- 
ment in  this  connection.  These 
stories,  which  I  feel  sure  will  not  dis- 
appoint Jack  London  fans,  are  all  tales 
of  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  romantic, 
colorful,  and  stirring.  Rich  in  story 
interest,  character  drawing,  and 
graphic  description,  their  peculiar 
dramatic  quality  is  furnished  by  the 
close  juxtaposition  of  pragmatic  mod- 
ernity and  ancient  mysticism  in  the 
life  of  the  picturesque  islands  which 


London,  with  evident  enthusiasm, 
chose  as  his  mise  en  schne. 

Novelty  of  setting  is  a  trick  often 
resorted  to  by  authors  to  cover  a 
paucity  of  creative  originality.  For 
that  and  for  the  fact  that  all-fiction 
magazines  of  the  cheaper  type  have 
featured  some  of  Achmed  Abdullah's 
stories  (I  do  not  know  his  Occidental 
name  if  he  has  one),  this  popular  au- 
thor must  pay  the  inevitable  penalty. 
But  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  he 
deserves  a  loftier  fate.  The  China- 
town of  New  York,  with  its  color  and 
Asiatic  mystery  and  sharp  contrasts, 
supplies  his  scenic  properties,  and  his 
chief  characters  are  Chinamen,  pre- 
sumably true  to  life.  But  he  has  done 
more  than  turn  a  clever  trick.  A  few 
of  his  stories  possess  a  dramatic  con- 
sistency, and  display  a  practised  skill 
in  the  handling  of  situations  in  which 
comedy  and  tragedy  are  blended,  which 
raises  them  at  least  above  the  level  of 
the  surroundings  in  which  they  have 
sometimes  found  themselves. 

E.  K.  Means's  stories  of  Louisiana 
negroes,  with  their  quaint  dialect  and 
emotional  mysticism,  are  freshly  and 
incontestably  funny,  and  the  provoca- 
tion of  laughter  is  an  end  in  itself. 
They  also  form  an  historical  record  of 
a  type  of  life  that  is  rapidly  passing. 
Mr.  Means  has  won  a  place  for  himself 
among  our  leading  humorists  because 
his  humor,  like  all  true  humor,  is 
human  and  sympathetic,  and  not 
estranged  from  its  kinsman,  pathos. 

There  are  other  volumes  before  me 
which  are  doubtless  equally  worthy 
of  special  mention,  but  magazine  space 
has  but  one  dimension,  and  I  will  close 
with  a  sort  of  Confidential  Guide  to 
the  rest  of  these  books. 

"Off  Duty."  A  collection  of  re- 
printed stories  chosen  with  excellent 
judgment  by  a  naval  camp  librarian 


A   SHORT   STORY   ORGY 


228 


for  men  readers,  by  a  dozen  well- 
known  authors  ranging  from  Oscar 
Wilde  to  Zane  Grey.  It  includes  Bret 
Harte's  "The  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat". 
Hamlin  Garland's  "The  Outlaw",  and 
one  or  two  others  of  enduring  quality. 

"Lo,  and  Behold  Ye !"  Seventeen  of 
Seumas  MacManus's  inimitable  Irish 
genre  tales,  rich  of  brogue,  quaint  of 
wit,  illumined  by  a  facile  fancy,  redo- 
lent of  the  land  of  peat  smoke  and 
fairies,  which  best  display  their  in- 
dubitable charm  when  read  aloud  by 
one  possessing  the  gift  of  sympathetic 
mimicry. 

"The  Red  Mark  and  Other  Stories," 
by  John  Russell.  Good  yams  of  the 
red-blooded,  masculine  sort,  not  lack- 
ing in  originality  of  conception,  most 
of  them  cast  in  a  Conrad-like  setting 
but  executed  in  an  un-Conrad-like 
manner,  the  work  of  an  experienced 
hand  in  the  art  of  vivid  exposition. 

"  'Open,  Sesame!' "  Four  readable, 
adventurous  stories  of  novelette 
length,  by  Mrs.  Baillie  Reynolds,  of 
which  well-<?onstructed,  interest-hold- 
ing plots  are  the  outstanding  feature. 

"Deep  Waters."  A  new  volume  by 
W.  W.  Jacobs  in  the  author's  familiar 
semi-nautical  vein  that  maybe  counted 
on  to  induce  abundant  laughter  on  the 
part  of  readers  who  have  not  become 
too  well  acquainted  with  the  Jacobs 
method. 

"Square  Peggy,"  by  Josephine 
Daskam  Bacon.  Vastly  clever  and  for 
the  most  part  amusing  tales  of  "flap- 
pers" and  other  feminine  products  of 
the  present  day,  all  of  them  entertain- 
ing, most  of  them  strong  in  characteri- 
zation, some  of  them  absorbing  in  plot, 
and  a  few  of  them  marred  by  an  over- 
tone of  snobbishness  which  is  just 
what  the  author  did  not  intend. 

"Taking  the  Count,"  by  Charles  E. 
Van  Loan.  Eleven  breezy  stories  of 
the    ringside    by    a    sporting-fiction 


writer  whose  recent  death  brought 
genuine  sorrow  to  a  million  or  more 
American  males  of  healthy  impulses. 

"Ladies-in-Waiting."  The  enviably 
large  following  of  Kate  Douglas  Wig- 
gin  will  doubtless  adore  these  five 
pretty,  if  not  robust,  stories  of  senti- 
ment. 

"The  Broken  Soldier  and  the  Maid 
of  France."  A  small  volume  contain- 
ing a  single  story  of  the  war  by  Henry 
van  Dyke.  A  somewhat  mystic  tale  of 
a  disheartened  and  shell-shocked  poilu 
who   regained  his   manhood  after  a 


The  Bishop  and  Other  Stories.  By  Anton 
Chekhov.  Translated  by  Constance  Qarnett. 
The  MacmiUan  Co. 

Birds  of  Heaven  and  Other  Stories.  By 
Vladimir  Korolenko.  Translated  from  the  Rns- 
sian  by  Clarence  Augustus  Manning.  Duffleld 
and  Co. 

Short  stories  from  the  Balknn.<i.  Translated 
bv  Edna  Worthley  Underwood.  Marshall  Jones 
CTo. 

Far-Away  Stories.  By  William  J.  I<orke. 
John  Lane  Co. 

A  Sailor's  Home  and  Other  Stories.  By  lUch- 
ard  Deban.    George  H.  Doran  Company. 

On  the  Makaloa  Mat.  By  Jack  London.  The 
Macmillan  Co. 

The  Honourable  Gentleman  and  Others.  By 
Achmed  Abdullah.    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

More  B.  K.  Means.     G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

Off  Duty.  Compiled  by  Wilhelmina  Harper. 
The  Century  Co. 

Lo,  and  Behold  Ye!  By  Seumas  MacManus. 
Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co. 

The  Red  Mark  and  Other  Stories.  By  John 
Russell.     Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

"Open,  Sesame!"  By  Mrs.  Baillie  Reynolds. 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 

Deep  Waters.  By  W.  W.  Jacobs.  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons. 

Square  Peggy.  By  Josephine  Daskam  Bacon. 
D.  Appleton  and  Co. 

Taking  the  Count.  By  Charles  B.  Van  Loan. 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 

Ladies-in-Waiting.  By  Kate  Douglas  Wig- 
gin.     Houghton  MiflSin  Co. 

The  Broken  Soldier  and  the  Maid  of  France. 
By  Henry  van  Dyke.     Harper  and  Bros. 

Joy  in  the  Morning.  By  Mary  Raymond 
Shipman  Andrews.    Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

War  Stories.  Selected  and  edited  by  Roy  J. 
Holmes  and  A.  Starbuck.  Thomas  Y.  Crowell 
Co. 

Short  Stories  of  the  New  America.  Selected 
and  edited  by  Mary  A.  Laselle.  Henry  Holt 
and  Co. 

At  a  Dollar  a  Year.  By  Robert  L.  Raymond. 
Marshall  Jones  Co. 

A  Tarpaulin  Muster.  By  John  Masefield. 
Dodd,  Mead  and  Co. 

The  Silver  Age.  By  Temple  Scott.  Scott 
and  Seltzer. 

John  Stuyvesant,  Ancestor,  and  Other  People. 
By  Alvin  Johnson.    Harcourt,  Brace  and  Howe. 

The  First  Piano  in  Camp.  By  Sam  Davis. 
Harper  and  Bros. 

The  Little  Chap.  By  Robert  Gordon  Ander- 
son.    G.  P.   Putnam's  Sons. 

I  Choose.  By  Gertrude  Capen  Whitney.  The 
Four  Seas  Co. 


224 


THE   BOOKMAN 


vision  of  Jeanne  d'Arc,  told  in  a  poetic 
vein  by  a  master  of  English  style. 

"Joy  in  the  Morning,"  by  Mary 
Raymond  Shipman  Andrews.  War- 
time stories  by  one  who  has  learned  to 
tread  the  paths  of  sentiment  without 
missteps  and  who  is  unfortunate  only 
in  having  written  other  stories  even 
better  and  more  spontaneous  than 
these. 

"War  Stories"  and  "Short  Stories 
of  the  New  America."  Two  collections 
of  stories  of  unequal  merit  by  differ- 
ent authors,  of  the  sort  which  held  the 
centre  of  the  stage,  two  years  ago,  in- 
cluding three  or  four  that  are  worthy 
of  preservation. 

"At  a  Dollar  a  Year,"  by  Robert  L. 
Raymond.  Stories,  humorous,  roman- 
tic, and  otherwise,  of  war  workers  in 
Washington,  not  badly  done,  but  some- 
how failing  to  impart  a  sense  of  per- 
manent significance. 

"A  Tarpaulin  Muster."  Brief  deep- 
sea  sketches  of  literary  distinction  by 
John  Masefield,  which  display  the 
gifts  of  a  poet  rather  than  those  of  a 
story-teller. 

"The  Silver  Age."  A  neat  volume 
by  Temple  Scott,  in  which  are  included 
several  smooth-flowing  if  not  vitally 
important  essays  and  several  graceful 
if  not  unforgettable  stories. 

"John    Stuyvesant,    Ancestor,    and 


Other  People."  Tales  of  the  psycho- 
analjrtical  tjrpe  by  Alvin  Johnson, 
editor  of  "The  New  Republic",  which 
will  win  the  admiration  of  those  who 
like  that  sort  of  thing. 

"The  First  Piano  in  Camp."  An  at- 
tractive little  volume  by  Sam  Davis, 
containing  a  single  short-comedy  story 
of  mining  camp  life  in  1858,  written 
in  the  Bret  Harte  manner. 

"The  Little  Chap."  A  pretty  little 
book  containing  a  pretty  little  story 
by  Robert  Gordon  Anderson  that  has 
been  called  a  classic  by  some  who  like 
to  take  their  childhood  sentiment  un- 
diluted. 

"I  Choose,"  by  Gertrude  Capen 
Whitney.  Rather  a  novelette  than  a 
short  story,  the  vehicle  for  certain 
New  Thought  philosophies,  which  has 
apparently  attracted  enough  readers 
to  justify  a  third  edition. 

I  hope  I  have  succeeded  in  indicat- 
ing which  of  these  volumes  to  my  mind 
deserve  recommendation  without  being 
unkind  to  the  others.  Some  of  them 
are  clear  gold,  a  few  are  dross,  while 
many  are  composed  of  an  alloy  of 
which  I  am  not  so  certain.  As  Rich- 
ard Dehan  says  in  one  of  his  stories, 
"Beauty  is  beauty  an'  make-up  is 
make-up,  though  sometimes  the  two 
gets  that  mixed  you  can't  'ardly  tell 
one  from  the  other." 


WISHES 


BY  BOSWORTH  CROCKER 


O 


SWEET  new  moon!    0  wild  spring  weather! 


O  the  lonfiT  walks  tosrether  in  the  sweet  spring  weather ;  we  two  a-Maying.  I 
can  hear  you  saying:  "Get  supper  soon,  hurry  with  the  dishes.  Tonight  there's 
a  new  moon,  let  us  make  wishes;  and  we'll  take  a  walk  together. . .  It's  a  long 
time  till  bedtime." 

0  sweet  new  moon !    0  wild  spring  weather ! 

You  whistled  a  tune  and  I  flung  the  shutters  wide,  flung  the  shutters  open  to 
let  the  little  new  moon  come  and  peer  inside.  And  my  heart  was  glad  and  sang 
a  little  tune.  It  sang  like  a  bird,  sang  in  my  sleep  all  night  long,  a  mad  little 
song. 

O  sweet  new  moon !    0  wild  spring  weather ! 

You  wished  adventure.  All  men  do.  I  wished  the  old  wish.  Your  wish 
came  true.  Spring  is  later.  May  is  colder.  The  new  moon  is  paler.  All  the 
world  is  older.    Leave  the  shutters  open.    It's  a  long  time  till  bedtime. 

O  sweet  new  moon !    O  wild  spring  weather! 

Now  the  shutters  stand  wide  and  a  weazened  old  moon,  grotesque,  blear-eyed, 

grins  at  me,  comes  leering  inside,  and  like  an  old  beldame  seems  to  croon : 

Once — ^there — ^was  a — ^woman — 

You. .  .you. .  .you. . . ! 

Looked  across  her  shoulder — 

You. .  .you. .  .you. . . ! 

Looked — ^at — ^me — when — I — ^was — new, 

Made — ^a — ^wish — ^that — didn't — come — ^true. . . 

Didn't— come — ^true ! 

You. .  .you... you. . .! 

Evil  old  moon ! . . . 

Now  I  never  hurry  to  get  supper  soon.    If  s  no  use  to  worry  about  the  new 
moon.     There  was  a  tune  he  used  to  whistle. . . 

225 


226 


THE  BOOKMAN 


I  foriret  the  tune. . ., 

0  wild  new  moon!  0  sweet  spring  weather! 

Close  the  shutters.    It's  a  long  time — ^a  lifetime. 


THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  PUBLICATION  SINCE 

THE  ARMISTICE 

BY  FRANK  A.  VANDERLIP 


A  BOOK  has  been  printed  which  in 
England  has  led  to  the  coining 
of  a  new  word  and  to  a  political  group- 
ing that  is  making  lines  of  party  cleav- 
age. When  the  debate  came  in  Parlia- 
ment in  mid-February  on  the  speech 
from  the  throne,  Sir  Donald  McLean, 
as  leader  of  the  opposition,  moved  the 
resolution  regretting  that  His  Ma- 
jesty's Ministers  had  not  recognized 
the  impracticability  of  the  fulfilment 
by  the  Central  Powers  of  many  of  the 
terms  of  the  Peace  Treaty,  nor  showed 
any  adequate  apprehension  of  the 
grave  danger  to  England's  economic 
position  at  home  and  abroad  by  the 
continuation  of  the  deli^r  in  resolving 
on  conditions  in  many  parts  of  Europe 
and  the  Near  East.  Mr.  Balfour  re- 
torted by  calling  the  opponents  of  the 
Government  "Keynesites".  Mr.  Bal- 
four called  attention  to  the  rumor  that 
the  opposition  was  going  officially  to 
support  the  book  which,  written  by 
the  young  economist  who  represented 
the  British  Treasury  at  the  Peace 
Conference,  had  more  profoundly  af- 
fected public  opinion  in  England  than 
any  other  publication  since  the  Armis- 
tice. 


John  Masmard  Keynes,  bom  in 
1883,  was  educated  at  Eton  and  Cam- 
bridge, and  became  Assistant  Profes- 
sor of  Political  Economy  at  Cambridge 
and  editor  of  "The  Economic  Jour- 
nal". He  went  to  Paris  with  the 
Peace  Commission  as  the  chief  rep- 
resentative of  the  British  Treasury 
at  the  conference.  He  disagreed  with 
the  decisions  of  the  conference,  deeply 
deplored  the  economic  features  of  the 
treaty,  believed  that  the  "Big  Four" 
were  completely  blind  to  the  economic 
structure  of  European  society  and  to 
the  danger  involved  in  making  a  treaty 
that  failed  to  recognize  economic  facts, 
and  so  he  resigned  his  post. 

He  wrote  a  book  entitled  "The  Eco- 
nomic Consequences  of  the  Peace", 
and  it  has  proved  not  only  a  literary 
sensation  but  a  political  factor  of  the 
first  magnitude.  It  has  created  a 
great  body  of  public  opinion  in  Eng- 
land that  has  been  converted  to 
Keynes's  view.  The  recent  publication 
of  the  book  in  this  country  is  making 
a  profound  impression  here.  From 
different  points  of  view,  Ke3rnes'8  con- 
clusions are  controverted  by  friends 
of  Lloyd  George,  Clemenceau,  and  Wil- 


THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  PUBLICATION  SINCE  THE  ARMISTICE  227 


son;  but  those  who  object  even  the 
most  violently  to  Keynes's  conclusions, 
admit  the  truth  of  much  that  he  has 
written,  and  squirm  in  their  displeas- 
ure over  the  biting  sarcasm  of  his  por- 
trait-etchings. 

The  book  compels  attention.  The 
reading  of  it  can  hardly  be  avoided 
by  anyone  deeply  interested  either  in 
the  economic  chaos  of  Europe  or  in  the 
nature  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace.  There 
may  be  those  who  feel  that  the  per- 
sonal characterizations  are  in  doubt- 
ful taste  and  are  limned  with  a  cruel 
hand.  There  will  be  others  who  will 
believe  that  Keynes  has  seen  only  the 
economic  side,  the  side  very  few  of 
the  people  engaged  in  the  conference 
saw  at  all,  and  has  wholly  neglected 
the  political  significance  of  the  de- 
cisions. There  will  be  many  who  will 
disagree  with  the  remedies  that 
Kesmes  proposes,  but  none  of  these 
critics  can  deny  that  the  book  is  an 
example  of  most  brilliant  economic 
exposition. 

If  the  men  who  made  the  treaty 
could  have  read  and  got  into  their 
very  souls  the  analysis  of  the  eco- 
nomic structure  of  Europe  which  is 
contained  in  the  brief  chapter  of 
eighteen  pages  on  "Europe  Before 
The  War",  if  they  could  have  been 
made  to  comprehend  the  significance 
of  the  economic  principles  there  set 
forth,  the  treaty  would  have  been  a 
different  document  from  the  one  which 
is  resulting  in  the  chaos  that  is  today 
involving  all  Central  Europe,  and 
would  have  been  less  likely  to  have  re- 
sulted in  consequences  dangerous  to 
the  future  of  European  civilization. 

The  makers  of  the  treaty  seemed 
blind  to  the  economics  of  the  Euro- 
pean situation.  Some  were  influenced 
by  the  desire  for  revenge  and  by  quak- 
ing fear  that  contemplated  a  rehabili- 
tated Germany;  some  were  under  the 


disability  of  wild  election  promises, 
and  lent  themselves  to  the  shaping  of 
what  Keynes  calls  a  "Carthaginian 
Peace",  because  British  politicians,  in 
an  excess  of  vote-getting  oratory,  had 
promised  the  reimbursement  of  the 
cost  of  the  war  through  the  German 
indemnity.  A  peace  was  concluded 
with  eyes  shut  to  economic  facts,  and 
now  everyone  concerned  with  it  ad- 
mits at  least  enough  of  Keynes's  criti- 
cism to  declare  that  none  among  the 
Allies  expected  the  treaty  to  be  car- 
ried out  on  the  economic  side  to  the 
letter,  but  that  the  whole  theory  in- 
volved changing  the  economic  terms 
of  the  treaty  by  the  Reparations  Com- 
mission. The  thing  that  has  irritated 
the  adherents  of  Clemenceau,  Lloyd 
George,  and  Wilson  more  than  any- 
thing else  in  the  book  is  the  descrip- 
tion which  this  eye-witness  gives  of 
the  progress  of  the  Conference,  and 
particularly  the  characterizations  of 
the  three  leading  figures.  Only  a  word 
is  devoted  to  Orlando,  but  the  charac- 
terizations of  the  other  three  will  long 
live  as  remarkable  contemporaneous 
pictures  of  the  great  figures  in  the 
drafting  of  the  treaty. 

Clemenceau  is  pictured  as  silent  and 
aloof,  sitting  enthroned  on  a  brocaded 
chair,  wearing  grey  suede  gloves,  and 
surveying  the  scene  with  a  cjmical  and 
almost  impish  air.  "He  had  one  il- 
lusion: France;  one  disillusion:  man- 
kind", and  the  latter  included  his  col- 
leagues. His  view  of  German  psy- 
chology was  that  the  German  under- 
stands nothing  but  intimidation ;  that 
he  is  without  honor,  principle,  or 
mercy.  He  did  not  believe  in  negoti- 
ating with  him,  but  in  dictating  to 
him.  In  his  mind  there  was  no  place 
for  magnanimity  or  fair  play;  he  be- 
lieved that  these  would  only  shorten 
the  period  of  Germany's  recovery  and 
again  hurl  at  France  her  greater  num- 


228 


THE  BOOKMAN 


bers,  resources,  and  technical  skill. 
And  so  the  demand  for  a  "Cartha- 
ginian Peace''  was  inevitable. 

Uoyd  George  was  ignorant  of  facts, 
but  he  had  a  swiftness  of  intellect,  a 
quickness  of  apprehension,  and  an 
agility  in  debate  that  far  out-distanced 
his  associates. 

Wilson  came  with  his  Fourteen 
Points  and  his  dream  of  a  League  of 
Nations.  Neither  was  worked  out  in 
any  practical  detail.  In  Paris,  as  we 
so  many  times  saw  happen  in  Wash- 
ington during  the  war,  Wilson  felt 
that  after  the  statement  of  a  case  had 
been  made,  couched  in  irreproachable 
English,  the  matter  was  finished  so 
far  as  he  was  concerned.  He  is  pic- 
tured as  a  man  profoundly  desirous  of 
doing  right,  but  with  a  mind  that  was 
slow  and  unresourceful,  and  "never 
ready  with  any  alternatives".  He  was 
capable  of  digging  his  toes  in  and  re- 
fusing to  budge,  but  had  no  other 
mode  of  defense.  His  adroit  associ- 
ates, by  assuming  an  appearance  of 
conciliation,  manoeuvred  him  off  his 
ground.  Having  absolutely  no  detailed 
plans  for  putting  into  practice  either 
the  Fourteen  Points  or  the  League  of 
Nations,  the  advantage  all  lay  with 
those  who  worked  out  the  details. 
Keynes  does  not  picture  the  President 
as  Sir  William  Mitchell-Thompson  did 
in  the  Parliamentary  debate  referred 
to,  that  he  was  "as  a  rabbit  mesmer- 
ized by  Lloyd  George's  basilisk  eye", 
but  he  does  draw  a  man  of  high  pur- 
pose, with  a  Presbyterian  tempera- 
ment, with  a  mind  that  was  slow  and 
unadaptable,  and  no  match  at  all  for 
the  Welshman's  sensitive  apprehen- 
sion and  capacity  for  ready  readjust- 
ment. 

This  chapter  on  the  Conference  must 
be  admitted  as  a  brilliant  characteri- 
zation, although  it  will  be  read  with 
satisfaction  or  displeasure  according 


to  one's  personal  estimate  of  the  char- 
acters that  have  been  pictured. 

The  portion  of  the  book  which  has 
been  so  unsettling  to  public  opinion  is 
that  in  which  the  economic  features 
of  the  treaty  are  dissected,  particu- 
larly the  nature  of  the  indenmity  and 
the  ability  of  Germany  to  pay.  There 
is  marshaled  an  array  of  figures  such 
as  is  available  only  to  those  who  were 
close  in  the  councils  of  the  Conference. 
Some  of  these  have  been  challenged. 
To  those  who  would  rather  see  Ger- 
many crushed  than  recover  to  such  a 
degree  that  the  indemnity  could  be 
squeezed  out,  the  views  regarding  the 
Treaty  will  not  be  acceptable.  The 
impression  the  book  leaves  is  one  of 
clearly  indicated  impossibility  in  carry- 
ing out  the  economic  features  of  the 
treaty,  and  the  necessity  for  the  early 
revision  of  the  figures  by  the  Repara- 
tions Conmiission.  The  vast  danger 
to  Europe  lies,  however,  in  the  po- 
litical difficulties  of  early  action  by  the 
Reparations  Commission,  and  in  the 
danger  that  Central  Europe  is  pro- 
gressing toward  social  disintegration 
under  the  influence  of  deprivation  ex- 
tended to  starvation.  Keynes  presents 
an  extremely  gloomy  view  of  the  out- 
look in  that  respect,  but  no  more 
gloomy  than  the  pictures  drawn  by 
Sir  Donald  McLean,  Lord  Robert 
Cecil,  and  Mr.  Balfour  in  the  recent 
Parliamentary  debate.  Lord  Robert 
Cecil  and  Mr.  Balfour  were  now  able 
to  recognize  with  appalling  distinct- 
ness the  economic  chaos  embracing  all 
Central  Europe,  but  neither  would  do 
more  than  disagnose  the  case.  There 
was  no  remedy  proposed,  and  Mr.  Bal- 
four distinctly  emphasized  the  inabil- 
ity of  Great  Britain  to  go  further  than 
she  has  gone.  He  made  much  of  keep- 
ing British  industries  sound,  at  least, 
and  of  the  fact  that  the  burden  in  cur- 
ing the  economic  ills  of  the  old  Central 


THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  PUBLICATION  SINCE  THE  ARMISTICE  229 


Powers  and  the  new  nations  was  one 
immeasurably  beyond  Great  Britain's 
present  strength. 

When  we  come  to  Kesmes's  reme- 
dies, they  are,  like  most  reme- 
dies, distasteful.  To  the  French  public 
and,  to  a  much  less  degree,  to  the 
British  public,  the  proposition  that  the 
total  indemnity  be  reduced  to  ten  bil- 
lions, and  that  a  further  allowance  of 
two  and  a  half  billions  be  made  for 
the  surrender  of  merchant  ships,  sub- 
marine cables,  and  war  materials,  as 
provided  by  the  treaty,  would  be  most 
distasteful.  After  making  this  defi- 
nite statement  of  the  amount  of  in- 
denmity,  the  Reparations  Commission 
should  be  dissolved,  and  Germany 
should  be  allowed  to  pay  in  such  in- 
stalments as  she  would  be  able  to  do. 
He  would  make  the  Coal  Commission, 
established  by  the  Allies,  an  append- 
age of  the  League  of  Nations,  and  re- 
arrange Germany's  obligations  as  to 
coal  deliveries.  He  would  institute  a 
free  trade  union,  established  under 
the  auspices  of  the  League  of  Nations, 
and  embracing  Germany,  Poland,  the 
new  states  formed  from  the  old 
Austro-Hungarian  Empire,  and  the 
mandated  states.  All  tariff  barriers 
between  these  several  nations  should 
be  prohibited  for  ten  years,  after 
which  adherence  to  this  arrangement 
would  be  voluntary. 

The  proposal  that  will  come  as  some- 
what of  a  shock  to  us  is  a  proposition 
in  reference  to  interallied  indebted- 
ness. That  aggregates  twenty  billions. 
The  United  States  has  lent  one  half 
of  this  sum,  the  United  Kingdom  has 
lent  twice  as  much  as  she  has  bor- 
rowed, France  has  borrowed  three 
times  as  much  as  she  has  lent,  and  the 
other  Allies  have  borrowed  only. 
Keynes  recommends  that  all  of  this 
should  be  mutually  forgiven,  the 
major  hardship  thus  falling  on  the 


United  States.  If  that  is  not  done,  he 
sees  the  war  ended  with  a  heavy  net- 
work of  indebtedness  impeding  the 
movements  of  all  of  the  Allies.  The 
amount  is  likely  to  exceed  the  total 
sum  obtainable  from  the  enemy,  and 
''the  war  will  have  ended  with  the  in- 
tolerable result  of  the  Allies  paying 
the  indemnity  to  one  another,  instead 
of  obtaining  it  from  the  enemy".  This 
is  a  juggling  with  the  word  indemnity, 
but  it  presents  a  very  real  picture  of 
the  difficulty. 

Kejmes's  constructive  programme 
concludes  with  the  proposition  of  an 
interallied  loan  to  furnish  food  and 
raw  materials.  He  thinks,  and  I  be- 
lieve he  thinks  correctly,  that  it  will 
be  very  difficult  for  European  produc- 
tion to  get  started  again  without  a 
temporary  measure  of  external  assist- 
ance. He  thinks  much  might  be  done 
with  a  fund  of  a  billion  dollars.  Of 
course,  we  have  loaned  since  the  Ar- 
mistice in  the  neighborhood  of  four 
billion  dollars.  Of  this  $2,750,000,000 
was  advanced  by  our  government,  and 
there  have  been  other  advances  by 
manufacturers,  exporters,  and  specu- 
lators in  exchange,  which,  together 
with  the  remittances  from  our  aliens 
to  their  home  people,  made  possible 
the  settlement  of  four  billions  of  dol- 
lars of  trade  balance  in  our  favor  last 
year. 

That  performance  can  not  be  dupli- 
cated this  year,  and,  unless  some  co- 
ordinated effort  is  made  to  grant 
Europe  further  credits,  we  shall 
merely  sit  by  and  await  the  coming 
crisis  in  Europe's  economic  disease. 
That  crisis  is  approaching  and  will 
reach  its  climax  some  time  between 
now  and  the  next  harvest.  If  the  in- 
ability to  organize  industry,  the  diffi- 
culty to  get  raw  materials  and  food, 
prove  so  great  that  human  nature 
rebels  and  political  revolution  ensues. 


230 


THE   BOOKMAN 


then  another  act  of  the  drama  of  the 
Great  War  will  follow.  If  the  gloomy 
prediction  for  such  an  outlook  prove 
unfounded,  and  Europe  is  able  to 
struggle  through  till  the  next  harvest, 
there  will  then  be  grounds  of  hope  for 
ultimate  economic  recuperation. 

Today  we  are  balanced  between  the 
fear  that  Europe  is  progressing 
toward  economic  disintegration  and 
the  hope  that  economic  pressure  will 
not  become  so  severe  that  political 


revolution  will  follow.  Much  of  the 
danger  would  have  been  averted,  had 
there  been  more  capacity  in  Paris  to 
understand  the  economic  facts  that 
are  the  basis  of  Keynes's  vision.  In 
any  event,  a  reading  of  "The  Eco- 
nomic Consequences  of  the  Peace" 
will  be  of  great  help  in  understanding 
the  present  position  and  outlook  of 
Europe. 


The  Bconomic  Consequences  of  the  Peace. 
By  John  Maynard  Keynes.  Harcourt,  Brace 
and  Howe. 


COMPENSATION 


BY  SARA  TEASDALE 


I  should  be  glad  of  loneliness 

And  hours  that  go  on  broken  wings, 
A  thirsty  body,  a  tired  heart 

And  the  unchanging  ache  of  things. 
If  I  could  make  a  single  song 

As  lovely  and  as  full  of  light. 
As  hushed  and  brief  as  a  falling  star 

On  a  winter  night. 


A  SHELF  OF  RECENT  BOOKS 


JAMES  HUNEKER'S  "BEDOUINS" 
By  Benjamin  De  Casseres 

JAMES     HUNEKER'S     new     book 
"Bedouins"    begins    with    "Mary 
Garden"  and  ends  with  "The  Vision 
Malefic".    Is  there  a  subtle  connection 
between  the  two?    That  is  a  question 
of  personal  psychology.    But  the  two 
apparently  disparate  subjects  give  one 
a  peep  at  the  range  and  depth  of  the 
artistic  sensibility  of  Mr.  Huneker. 
It  is  a  sensibility  that  is  a  conglom- 
erate of  many  pasts.    It  is  exotic  and 
decadent,  electric  and  Olympian.     It 
is,  curiously,  a  great  dawn-wind  that 
sweeps  from  ruins.    He  has  a  marvel- 
ous power  of  suggesting,  of  stimulat- 
ing, of  suddenly  burbanking  widely 
separated  notions  and  as  suddenly  dis- 
sociating them.     As  some  one  said 
about  him,  his  brilliancy  and  versatil- 
ity hide  his  profundity. 

"Bedouins"  is  well-titled.  For  Mr. 
Huneker  himself  is  a  Bedouin,  a  no- 
mad of  the  arts.  He  pitches  his  tent 
wherever  he  finds  a  gleam  of  the  beau- 
tiful, the  rare,  the  exotic,  the  abnor- 
mal. If  he  were  permitted  a  double- 
deck  span  of  man's  allotted  years — 
that  is,  if  he  could  live  to  be  one  hun- 
dred attd  forty — ^there  would  probably 
be  to  his  credit  the  first  authentic  en- 
cyclopaedia of  all  earth-geniuses  sifted 
through  one  of  the  most  magical  tem- 
peraments of  the  time.  He  would  be 
the  Plutarch  of  art,  literature,  and 
philosophy.  But  suflBcient  unto  his 
life  is  the  literary  beauty  thereof.    No 


library  today  is  complete  without  his 
works. 

"Bedouins"    is    divided    into    two 
parts.  Part  I  contains  seventeen  chap- 
ters, five  of  which  at  least  are  de- 
voted to  Mary  Garden.    There  is  in- 
ordinate praise  of  this  elfish  being 
whom  Mr.  Huneker  styles  a  "super- 
woman".    "A  condor,  an  eagle,  a  pea- 
cock,   a    nightingale,    a    panther,    a 
society  dame,  a  gallery  of  moving-pic- 
tures, a  siren,  an  indomitable  fighter, 
a  human  woman  with  a  heart  SfS  big  as 
a  house,  a  lover  of  sports,  an  electric 
personality,  and  a  canny  Scotch  lassie 
who  can  force  from  an  operatic  man- 
ager wails  of  anguish  because  of  her 
close  bargaining  over  a  contract;  in  a 
word,  a  Superwoman."     In  this  psy- 
choanalysis of  the  superwoman  it  will 
be  noticed  that  suffrage  and  birth- 
control  are  not  mentioned.    It  is  also 
much  in  evidence  here  that  Mr.  Hun- 
eker is  as  much  enamored  of  the  re- 
markable personality  of  Mary  Garden 
as  of  her  artistic  powers.     But  the 
two,  it  may  be,  cannot  be  dissevered. 
"Her  rhjrthms",   Mr.   Huneker  says, 
"are  individual;    she  stems  from  the 
Gallic  theatre;  she  has  studied  Sarah 
Bernhardt    and    Yvette    Guilbert . . . , 
but  she  pins  her  faith  to  the  effortless 
art  of  Eleonora  Duse."    He  analyzes, 
in  magnificently  glittering  prose,  her 
various  rdles.    He  seems  to  award  her 
the  laurel  in  M^lisande.  She  has,  how- 
ever, added  Isolde  to  her  rdles.    "Such 
an  Isolde",  says  Mr.  Huneker,  "would 
be  too  bewildering  to  be  true  I"    Per- 
sonally, I  consider  the  prose  of  Mr. 


231 


282 


THE   BOOKMAN 


Huneker  infinitely  greater  art  than 
anything  Mary  Garden  has  ever  done. 
If  I  were  to  write  here  as  ecstatically, 
as  enthusiastically,  as  unrestrainedly 
of  Mr.  Huneker  as  he  has  of  Mary 
Garden,  I  would  be  considerably 
"edited". 

"The  passing  of  Octave  Mirbeau"  is 
journalistic,  and  does  not  seem,  in  my 
opinion,  to  give  to  that  tremendous 
satirist  his  deserts.  Mirbeau  was 
more  terrible  than  Swift.  He  was  a 
more  perfect  and  vitriolic  hater  than 
Nietzsche.  Nowhere  is  there  mention 
of  that  long  interlude  of  Le  P^re  Pam- 
phile  in  "L'Abb6  Jules",  which  is  the 
most  terrible  satire  on  idealism  ever 
written  and  which  makes  "Don 
Quixote"  look  like  a  "movie". 

"Anarchs  and  Ecstasy".  Here  is  a 
plea  for  ecstasy  in  art,  a  quality  in 
criticism  that  Mr.  Huneker  himself 
possesses  to  the  nth  degree.  "Swin- 
burne had  it  from  the  first."  Victor 
Hugo  had  it,  Rodin  had  it,  Tennyson 
and  Browning  had  it  only  occasionally. 
Again  in  this  essay  is  heard  the  Gar- 
den motif.  "All  this  tumultuous  im- 
agery, this  rhapsody  Hunekeresque", 
he  sio^s,  "is  provided  by  a  photograph 
of  Mary  Garden,  whose  enigmatic  eyes 
collide  with  my  gaze  across  the  Time 
and  Space  of  my  writing  desk." 

He  considers  "Anatole  France:  the 
Last  Phase",  the  humanitarian,  so- 
cialistic Anatole,  who  is  now  a  Lu- 
cifer with  the  cowl ;  there  is  a  chapter 
on  George  Luks,  Caruso,  "Chopin  and 
the  Circus" — a  curious  bit  of  frisky 
humor;  on  Poe  and  Chopin — who 
with  Flaubert  are  the  Trinitarian  fa- 
thers of  Mr.  Huneker's  artistic  Olym- 
pus ;  and  "A  Masque  of  Music",  which 
is  a  remarkable  prose  allegory  of 
Sound. 

Part  II  of  "Bedouins"  is  called 
"Idols  and  Ambergris".  There  are 
seven  chapters,  short  stories  in  the 


well-known  manner  of  the  author. 
Their  themes  are  musical,  the  domi- 
nant ecstasy  in  Mr.  Huneker's  make- 
up. The  supreme  sin,  according  to 
one  of  the  characters  in  "The  Supreme 
Sin",  the  first  story,  is  denial  of  the 
devil.  The  Nietzschean  profundities 
gleam  with  merry  irony  through  the 
lines  of  this  tale.  But  Parsifal-Jo- 
sephs are  rare  among  us  these  days. 

In  all  these  tales  it  is  hard  to  tell 
whether  the  author  is  laughing  at  us 
or  not.  Mr.  Huneker  laughs  at  us 
through  many  veils.  His  Isis  uncov- 
ered often  reveals  a  Charlie  Chaplin — 
only  that,  and  nothing  more.  The 
world  is  too  old  to  be  shocked  by  these 
meticulously  literary  blasphemies. 
Baudelaire  and  Guillaume  ApoUinaire 
went  the  limit.  But  Mr.  Huneker 
moves  the  scenes  dexterously.  And  he 
never  acts  without  his  prompt-books 
in  his  palm. 

"Bedouins"  is  a  book  without  a 
desert. 


Bedouins.      By    James    Iluoeker.      Charles 
Scribner's  Sons. 


A  NOTABLE  NOVEL  OF  BRAZIL 
By  Isaac  Goldberg 

AFTER  having  for  some  time  been 
^  known  in  French  and  Spanish 
(and  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  the  mul- 
tifariously enterprising  Germans  have 
not  published  a  German  version  of  a 
noted  novel  that  so  intimately  con- 
cerns their  destiny  in  Brazil),  Gra^ 
Aranha's  "Canaan"  is  introduced  to 
the  English-reading  public.  Belatedly, 
but  none  the  less  welcome,  and  none 
the  less  worthy  of  perusal  by  all  who 
appreciate  novels  that  are  something 
more  than  abortive  "action".    In  fact. 


A  NOTABLE  NOVEL  OF  BRAZIL 


233 


"Canaan"  is  apt  to  prove  an  interest- 
ing puzzle  to  the  fond  literary  cata- 
loguer. This  is  surely  no  novel  in  the 
conventional  sense  of  the  word,  yet 
there  is  a  well-defined  tale  that,  if  it 
be  somewhat  slow  in  getting  under 
way,  holds  the  attention  to  the 
strange,  indecisive  end.  Just  as  truly 
there  is  a  l3rric  sweep  to  much  of  the 
book  that  can  hardly  be  dissociated 
from  genuine  poetry;  and  with  as 
little  doubt,  there  is  an  epic  breath 
that  blows  through  these  pages. 

Brazil  is  "Canaan'',  the  promised 
land.  Thither  comes  Milkau  from  the 
old  world,  imbued  with  a  sort  of 
Christian  socialism  that  seeks  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  Utopia  in  the  virgin 
continent.  Here,  among  others,  he 
meets  the  Nietzschean  Lentz,  and  the 
two  form  a  queer  partnership  amid 
the  solitude  that  inspires  the  one  and 
crushes  the  other.  Here,  too,  they  en- 
counter Mary,  the  abandoned  mistress 
of  one  of  the  German  colonists,  whose 
sorry  plight  enlists  Milkau's  sympathy, 
and  later  his  love.  Yet  this  land  that 
is  pregnant  with  such  promise  is  in- 
fested with  all  the  vile  old-world  con- 
ditions against  which  Milkau  has  re- 
belled and  of  which  he  had  hoped  to 
find  the  new  continent  free.  Schem- 
ing pettifoggers  batten  upon  the  in- 
dustrious colonists;  the  German  col- 
onists themselves  are  capable  of  sid- 
ing with  Mary's  seducer  and  driving 
her  to  despair  and  unmerited  impris- 
onment upon  the  gruesome,  and  false, 
charge  of  having  given  her  own  child 
to  the  pigs  that  attended  its  sudden 
birth  in  the  open  fields.  Milkau's  love, 
like  so  many  of  the  mirages  that  rise 
in  this  exotic  landscape,  turns  to  dis- 
illusionment and  delirium.  We  leave 
him,  at  the  end,  together  with  Mary, 
a  prey  to  oncoming  death.  The  prom- 
ised land,  like  all  good  things,  lies  not 
in  the  present,  but  in  the  future. 


The  real  significance  of  the  work 
lies  in  its  treatment  of  Brazil's  immi- 
grant problem  and  the  birth-pangs  of 
the  new  order  that  grows  from  the 
fusion  of  old  Europe  with  new  Amer- 
ica. The  discussions  that  agitate  Mil- 
kau and  Lentz  touch  vital  problems 
in  the  national  development;  Mary 
might  almost  be  taken  as  a  symbol  of 
the  harassed  nation. 

Ferrero,  in  his  really  pithy  intro- 
duction, notes  the  beauty  of  the  au- 
thor's style  and  his  description,  the 
purity  of  the  psychological  analysis, 
the  depths  of  the  thoughts  and  reflec- 
tions ;  among  the  book's  faults  he  dis- 
covers a  "certain  disproportion  be- 
tween the  different  parts... and  an 
ending  which  is  too  vague,  indefinite 
and  unexpected."  He  is  right,  too,  in 
considering  the  literary  qualities  of 
the  book  of  secondary  importance. 
The  truth  would  seem  to  be  that  Aran- 
ha's  main  purpose  was,  as  it  so  often 
is  in  the  case  of  Spanish  and  Portu- 
guese American  writers,  to  present 
landscapes  and  customs,  dominant 
personalities  that  incarnate  certain 
philosophical  principles  and  attitudes. 
Yet  there  is  a  distinctly  noble  flavor 
to  the  work,  and  certainly  a  large  hu- 
manity that  marks  it  as  something 
more  than  exclusively  Brazilian  in  sig- 
nificance. Indeed,  for  the  thinking 
American  of  the  north,  between  Can- 
ada and  the  Rio  Grande,  the  theme  is 
of  primary  importance.  Millions  have 
sought  their  "Canaan"  here  and  have 
been  no  more  successful  than  Milkau. 
And  for  similar  reasons. 

The  same  words  that  struck  Fer- 
rero, at  the  end  of  the  first  chapter, 
where  Milkau  speaks  of  the  transfor- 
mation that  immigration  will  ulti- 
mately accomplish,  might  with  little 
change  be  applied  to  our  own  nation. 
And  the  labor  and  aspirations  of  the 
Milkaus,  though  in  the  case  of  the  in- 


234 


THE  BOOKMAN 


dividual  they  may  be  frustrated,  fer- 
tilize the  soil  whence  the  civilization 
of  the  future  will  spring. 


Canaan.  By  Graga  Aranha.  Translated  from 
the  Portuguese  by  M.  J.  Lorente.  Four  Seas 
Co. 


WALTER  DE  LA  MARE  ON 
RUPERT  BROOKE 

By  Christopher  Morley 

IN  Rupert  Brooke  that  quickness  to 
see  and  feel  which  is  the  gist  of 
the  poetic  sense  was  happily  geared 
with  an  equal  velocity  of  expression. 
It  was  Wordsworth  (was  it  not?)  who 
said  that  the  poet  works  under  only 
one  necessity — ^that  of  giving  immedi- 
ate pleasure.  And  certainly  it  was 
Shelley  who  said  that  poetry  is  the 
record  of  the  best  and  happiest  mo- 
ments of  the  happiest  and  best  minds. 
Brooke  not  only  had  one  of  the  hap- 
piest and  best  minds  of  our  time;  he 
also,  in  the  radiant  display  of  his  vivid 
senses  and  the  candid  sincerity  and 
exactitude  of  their  interpretation, 
gave  the  world  more  pleasure  than  any 
young  poet  of  recent  years.  It  is  the 
brilliant  quality  of  his  passionate  in- 
terest in  life,  his  restless,  exploring, 
examining  intellect,  that  chiefly  con- 
cerns Walter  de  la  Mare  in  a  lecture 
on  Brooke  first  given  before  Rugby 
School  a  year  ago,  and  now  issued  in 
booklet  form. 

The  world  grants  its  highest  affec- 
tion to  those  creators  who  most 
shrewdly  express  the  painful  inward 
vivacity  of  the  human  mind.  Brooke 
was  a  happy  and  charming  egotist. 
He  foimd  his  own  experience  so  highly 
entertaining  and  diverse  that  it  occu- 
pied the  bulk  of  his  speculation.  The 
speech    of   his    own   brain    sounded 


above  all  other  voices,  as  it  must  in 
any  true  poet — ^just  as  a  man  may 
stand  on  Broadway  and  drown  out  all 
sound  of  traffic  in  his  own  ears  by  eat- 
ing a  piece  of  dry  toast.  When  he 
went  to  America,  to  Tahiti,  it  was  not 
so  much  to  see  those  odd  places,  as  to 
examine  the  reactions  of  his  lively 
heart  in  strange  surroundings.  His 
kingdom  of  poetry  was  within  him. 

Mr.  de  la  Mare's  essay,  which  no 
lover  of  poetry  will  want  to  miss,  ad- 
vances an  interesting  theory.  He  sug- 
gests that  poets  are  of  two  kinds: 
those  who  are  similar  to  children  in 
dreamy  self-communion  and  absorp- 
tion; and  those  who  are  similar  to 
boys  in  their  curious,  restless,  analyt- 
ical interest  in  the  world.  Poets  of 
the  boyish  or  matter-of-fact  imagina- 
tion are  intellectual,  he  says :  they  en- 
joy experience  for  itself.  Poets  of  the 
childish  or  matter-of-fancy  heart  are 
visionary,  mystical;  they  feed  on 
dreams  and  enjoy  experience  as  a  sym- 
bol. He  thinks  that  Brooke's  imagina- 
tion was  distinctly  of  the  boyish  kind. 
His  appetite  for  experience  was  in- 
satiable— "that  tearing  hunger  to  do 
and  do  and  do  things.  I  want  to  walk 
1000  miles,  and  write  1000  plays,  and 
sing  1000  poems,  and  drink  1000  pots 
of  beer,  and  kiss  1000  girls,  and — oh, 
a  million  things ! . . .  The  spring 
makes  me  almost  ill  with  excitement. 
I  go  round  comers  on  the  roads  shiv- 
ering and  nearly  crying  with  sus- 
pense." How  that  reminds  one  of 
Stevenson's  youthful  letters !  And  in- 
cidentally, this  was  a  lively  quotation 
for  Mr.  de  la  Mare  to  spring  on  the 
boys  at  Rugby. 

One  is  not  quite  certain  that  this 
classification  of  poetic  imagination 
into  the  boyish  and  the  childish  is  of 
complete  dividing  validity, — and  in- 
deed Mr.  de  la  Mare  makes  no  ex- 
travagant claim  for  it.    It  is  specially 


THE   SPANISH-AMERICAN   MASTERS 


235 


intereetiiig,  however,  since  it  suggests 
that  much  of  the  fascination  that 
Brooke's  work  and  personality  held 
for  Mr.  de  la  Mare  is  due  to  the  con- 
trast in  these  two  men's  imaginative 
gifts.  Those  many  who  admire  the 
peculiar  mysticism  and  subtlety  of 
Mr.  de  la  Mare's  reaction  to  the  terms 
of  experience  wiU  not  be  surprised 
that  this  essay  of  his  seems  the  most 
valuable  comment  that  has  been  made 
on  the  poet  of  the  "flaming  brains'* 
the  most  romantic  and  appealing 
figure  of  youth  and  song  that  has 
crossed  the  horizon  of  these  riddled 
years. 


Rupert  Brooke  and  the  Intellectual  Imagina- 
tion. By  Walter  de  la  Mare.  Harcoort,  Brace 
and  Howe. 


THE     SPANISH-AMERICAN 
MASTERS 

By  Thomas  WaUh 

TTIE  critical  study  of  modem  South 
1  American  authors  has  been  for 
the  most  part  resolved  into  a  glorifica- 
tion of  the  poetry  of  Rub^n  Dario 
with  an  overflow  of  praise  for  Jos4 
Santos  Ghocano,  the  exponent  of 
Americanism  in  its  most  ardent  form. 
This  is  both  just  and  unjust;  for 
while  we  will  admit  at  once  the  pre- 
ponderating merits  of  Dario,  we  must 
hesitate  before  allowing  all  the  ex- 
traordinary laudation  which  his  fol- 
lowers in  America  have  been  lavishing 
upon  him. 

The  arch-offender  in  this  particular, 
aside  from  the  fantastic  efforts  of 
Vargas  Vila,  has  been  that  elaborate 
personage  Don  Andr6s  Gonz41ez- 
Blanco,  who  in  four  hundred  pages  of 
a  preposterous  book  entitled  "Estudio 
Preliminar"  (Madrid,  1910)  hurls  a 
Niagara    flood    of    erudition    upon 


Rubto  Darlo,  sousing  him  with  Scho- 
penhauer, Emerson,  Mallarmd,  and 
D'Annunzio,  until  the  brain  reels  and 
the  lights  go  out  in  a  fog  of  ceaseless 
rhetoric. 

More  discreet — for  they  could  not 
surpass  the  "Estudio  Preliminar" — 
have  been  the  younger  critics  of 
Buenos  Aires  and  Cuba.  Blanco  Fom- 
bona  and  Max  Henriquez  Urena  have 
done  excellent  service  in  a  sufficiently 
enthusiastic  way  with  the  bibliography 
and  coordination  of  these  critical 
riches.  Tulio  M.  Cestero  has  stood  al- 
most alone  in  his  endeavor  to  state  the 
truth  about  Dario  in  his  "Rubto  Dario 
El  Hombre  y  El  Poeta"  (Habana, 
1916),  where  we  find  gleams  of  the 
true  greatness  of  the  poet  struggling 
through  the  limitations  and  disorders 
of  a  rather  poor  humanity  and  de- 
fective personal  character. 

Dr.  Goldberg,  the  author  of  the  fine 
"Studies  in  Spanish-American  Litera- 
ture", has  had  the  advantage  of  these 
criticisms,  and  the  judgment  to  avoid 
their  faults  and  omissions.  His  study 
of  Dario's  poetry  is  enthusiastic  and 
appreciative;  it  is  marked  with  the 
fairest  critical  spirit.  This  may  also 
be  declared  of  his  entire  treatment  of 
the  "Modernistas" — ^his  delineation  of 
their  sources  in  the  French  Parnas- 
sian and  Symbolist  movements;  his 
statement  of  their  indebtedness  to 
Byron,  Longfellow  and  Poe;  his  dis- 
covery of  the  first  stirrings  of  mod- 
ernism in  Gutierrez  Ndjera,  Diaz 
Mir6n,  and  Asunci6n  Silva. 

There  are  separate  studies  of  Julian 
del  Gasal  and  Gonzdlez  Martinez,  and 
Dr.  Goldberg  remarks  that  "a  fuller 
treatment  of  modernism  should  in- 
clude such  widely  admired  spirits  as 
Leopoldo  Lugones  and  Leopoldo  Diaz 
(Argentina),  Guillermo  Valencia  (Co- 
lombia), Ricardo  Jaimes-Freyre  (Bo- 


286 


THE  BOOKMAN 


liTia),  and  Julio  Herrera-Reissig 
(Uruguay)".  In  the  future  work 
which  Dr.  Goldberg  announces,  it  is 
also  to  be  hoped  that  he  will  include 
such  other  figures  among  the  "Mod- 
emistas"  as  Poveda,  Brull,  and  Cansio 
(Cuba),  Antonio  Gomez  Restrepo 
(Colombia),  and  Bartolom^  Galindez 
(Argentina). 

Reading  Dario,  a  northerner  is  sel- 
dom unaware  that,  for  all  "his  fine 
white  hands  of  a  marquis",  the  poet 
is  really  a  half-breed  "of  the  blood  of 
the  Chorotega  or  Nagrandano  Indians 
and  the  negroes".  One  is  always  in 
the  presence  of  the  glowing  contrasts, 
the  dramatic  hues  and  contours  that 
make  up  what  the  Spanish  critics, 
with  perhaps  overmuch  depreciation, 
denominate  crioUismo.  For  Rub^n 
Darlo  was  truly  a  primitive  of  co- 
lonial type,  influenced  by  the  tradi- 
tions and  superstitions  of  his  native 
Nicaragua,  and  in  all  his  wanderings 
and  vagaries  a  sincere  Catholic 
through  the  early  training  of  his  ma- 
ternal aunt  and  the  Jesuit  mission- 
aries of  Le6n.  It  is  hard  to  bear  with 
the  modem  critics  and  their  pretended 
studies  of  paganism  in  Dario,  when 
we  remember  that  this  quality  in  his 
work  is  but  as  the  flash  of  light  upon 
fish-scales  as  he  swam  between  his  re- 
ligious tenets  and  his  bad  practice  of 
them.  In  his  form  of  Christianity 
there  was  complete  room  for  the  cul- 
ture of  the  Renaissance,  and  he  nat- 
urally availed  himself  of  its  beauty 
and  power  in  all  his  work,  from  the 
most  carnal  to  the  most  religious  of 
his  poems. 


Dr.  Groldberg  continues  his  "Stud- 
ies" with  a  consideration  of  Jos4  En- 
rique Rod6,  the  Uruguayan  philoso- 
pher and  litterateur  who  surpassed, 
says  Gronz&lez-Blanco,  "Valera  in  flexi- 


bility, Perez-Galdos  in  elegance,  Pardo 
Bazan  in  modernity,  Vidle-Inclan  in 
erudition,  Azorin  in  critical  spirit; 
who  could  have  imagined  that  beyond 
the  sea  there  was  to  flourish  at  the 
veiy  close  of  the  nineteenth  century 
the  greatest  prose  writer  of  the  Cas- 
tilian  language?" 

There  would  be  no  need  to  linger 
over  the  discussion  of  his  fine  essay 
"Ariel" — in  which  the  United  States 
figures  in  a  way  as  the  Caliban — were 
it  not  to  take  occasion  to  point  out  how 
much  more  harmful  to  our  interna- 
tional peacef ulness  is  such  heavy,  mis- 
guided idealism  than  all  the  fantastic 
furies  of  our  picturesque  enemy, 
Blanco  Fombona. 

Jos4  Santos  Chocano  at  least  is  our 
friend  and  admirer.  We  may  be  proud 
of  him  for  other  reasons.  He  is  a 
great  poet  of  the  first  order;  he  is 
inspired  with  a  vast  sense  of  beauty, 
freedom,  and  a  truly  American  phi- 
losophy which  are  as  banners  set  be- 
fore the  paths  of  the  younger  writers 
of  all  our  Americas  of  the  future. 
Rub^n  Darlo  recognized  him,  not  as  a 
rival,  but  as  a  true  compeer,  declaring 
that  in  him  "Pegasus  pastures  in  the 
meadows  of  the  Incas".  Chocano  is 
Spanish  and  he  is  American ;  in  both 
phases  he  is  always  a  personal  poet 
in.contrast  to  the  indirectness  of  much 
of  Dario  and  the  other  Spanish  mod- 
ernists. From  the  patriotic  scene  in 
his  "Cronica  Alfonsina" — where  two 
vessels  meet  in  opposite  course  in  mid- 
ocean,  one  bearing  Jimena  the  lady  of 
the  Cid,  the  other,  Dulcinea  of  Don 
Quixote,  and  interchange  courtesies — 
to  the  exquisite  lyric  quality  of  "The 
Magnolia",  we  find  haunting  remi- 
niscences of  the  classic  muse  of 
Heredia  the  Cuban,  and  the  rugged 
power  of  our  own  Walt  Whitman. 
There  is  to  be  added  also  the  strong 
influence  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  which 


COURAGEOUS    CANDOR 


287 


the  Spanish  critics  have  generally 
and  quite  unaccountably  overlooked. 
Wecancongrratulate  ourselves  on  the 
production  in  English  during  these 
recent  years  of  some  really  distin- 
guished books  bearing  upon  Spanish 
and  South  American  letters.  Nat- 
urally the  Spaniard  has  been  very 
busy  himself  in  the  long  delayed  un- 
veiling of  his  native  glories.  But 
such  books  as  Dr.  Coester's  "Literaiy 
History  of  Spanish  America"  (New 
York,  1916),  Dr.  J.  D.  M.  Ford's 
"Main  Currents  of  Spanish  Litera- 
ture" (New  York,  1919),  Fitzmaurice- 
Kelly's  "Oxford  Book  of  Spanish 
Verse"  (Oxford,  1913),  "The  Hispanic 
Anthology  —  Translations  from  the 
Spanish"  (New  York,  1920),  and  Dr. 
Isaac  Goldberg's  "Studies  in  Spanish- 
American  Literature"  mark  an  ad- 
vance in  international  culture  and  per- 
sonal relations  with  Spain  and  Span- 
ish America  such  as  bids  us  hope  for 
a  completer  and  more  brilliant  floria- 
tion  of  our  mutual  arts  and  letters. 

It  is  useless  to  question  whether 
North  or  South  America  has  already 
made  the  greater  contribution  to  lit- 
erature; the  partisans  of  either  side 
will  be  sufficiently  shocked  when  they 
are  asked  to  face  such  a  question  with 
equal  minds,  without  permitting  love 
of  the  native  land  to  blind  them  to  the 
fact  that  it  is  still  an  open  question. 
The  republics  of  the  south  have  their 
own  literature,  their  novelists  and 
poets;  it  is  said  they  have  few  read- 
ers ;  but  must  we  not  also  confess  that 
literature  properly  so-called  is  the  pos- 
session of  very  few  among  ourselves, 
in  spite  of  much  pretense  and  jargon- 
ing.  Our  hands  across  the  southern 
seas,  therefore,  and  a  hearty  greeting 
to  Spanish-American  literature. 


studies  Id  Spanish-Amertcaii  Literature.    By 
Isaac  Goldberg.     Brentano's. 


COURAGEOUS  CANDOR 

By  Oscar  L,  Joseph 

WE  must  take  men  as  we  find 
them  and  make  the  best  or  the 
worst  of  the  bargain.  The  Dean  of 
St.  Paul's,  London,  is  noted  for  his  ex- 
tensive learning  and  fearless  inde- 
pendence. Those  who  try  to  cross 
swords  with  him  may  feel  like  the  car- 
dinal who  was  instructed  to  tackle 
Lord  Acton  and  thought  better  of  it. 
He  is  by  no  means  infallible  but  his 
conclusions  must  be  reckoned  with, 
even  if  we  disagree  with  his  processes. 
What,  however,  makes  his  writing  so 
intolerable  is  his  patronizing  way  and 
his  spirit  of  hauteur,  as  he  stands 
aloof  and  with  the  unction  of  superior- 
ity passes  judgment  on  men  and  things 
in  the  dogmatic  spirit  which  he  cen- 
sures in  others.  In  his  "Outspoken  Es- 
says" he  shows  a  certain  personal 
antipathy  as  he  punctures  traditions, 
criticizes  accepted  positions,  jostles 
and  upturns  beliefs,  gives  rapier 
thrusts  at  prejudices  and  provincial- 
isms, and  offers  scant  respect  to  aris- 
tocrat and  proletariat  with  a  latent 
leaning  toward  the  former. 

He  hesitates  to  recognize  the  virtues 
of  democracy  but  hastens  to  point  out 
its  defects,  while  he  passes  indictment 
against  it  with  an  amazing  cocksure- 
ness,  very  much  after  the  fashion  of 
Gilbert  Chesterton  in  his  rhapsodic 
and  semihumorous  "History  of  the 
United  States".  Had  he  known  more 
he  might  have  said  less  about  us.  We 
prefer  the  more  balanced  exposition  of 
democracy  by  Bryce  in  "The  American 
Commonwealth".  The  essays  on  pa- 
triotism, the  birth-rate,  and  the  future 
of  the  English  race  will  certainly 
shock  some  readers  and  arouse  ani- 
mosity. But  such  plain-speaking  should 
not  be  discouraged,  even  if  it  is  un- 


238 


THE  BOOKMAN 


palatable,  especially  when  we  are  fur- 
nished food  for  serious  thought.  What 
he  writes  about  the  Anglo-Saxon  with 
reference  to  conditions  in  the  United 
States  deserves  consideration. 

Dean  Inge  is  a  spiritual  idealist  and 
he  has  no  sympathy  with  secularized 
idealism  and  its  illusions  of  progress. 
The  modem  issue  is  not  whether  Ca- 
tholicism or  Protestantism  shall  direct 
the  world,  but  "whether  Christianity 
can  come  to  terms  with  the  awakening 
self-consciousness  of  modem  civiliza- 
tion". He  holds  that  Christianity  has 
introduced  "a  standard  of  new  values", 
which  cannot  be  estimated  by  "quan- 
titative standards".  It  was  the  insist- 
ence on  this  latter  test  that  produced 
the  modem  debacle,  and  Inge's  esti- 
mate of  it  is  quite  to  the  point: 

Human  nature  has  not  been  changed  by  civ- 
ilization. It  has  neither  been  levelled  up  nor 
levelled  down  to  an  average  mediocrity.  Be- 
neath the  dingy  uniformity  of  international 
fashions  in  dress,  man  remains  what  he  has 
always  been — a  splendid  fighting  animal,  a  self- 
sacriflcing  hero,  and  a  blood-thirsty  savage. 
Human  nature  is  at  once  sublime  and  horrible, 
holy  and  satnnlc.  Apart  from  the  accumula- 
tion of  knowledge  and  experience,  which  are  ex- 
ternal and  precarious  acquisitions,  there  is  no 
proof  that  we  have  changed  much  since  the 
first  stone  age. 

Over  against  this  sombre  conclusion 
might  be  placed  his  conviction  as  to 
the  Christian  cure : 

Whatever  forms  reconstruction  may  take, 
Christianity  will  have  its  part  to  play  in  mak- 
ing the  new  Europe.  It  wUl  be  able  to  point 
to  the  terrible  vindication  of  its  doctrines  in 
the  misery  and  ruin  overtaking  a  world  which 
has  rejected  its  valuations  and  scorned  Its  pre- 
cepts. It  is  not  Christianity  which  has  been 
Judged  and  condemned  at  the  bar  of  civilisa- 
tion ;  it  is  civilisation  which  has  destroyed 
itself  because  it  has  honored  Christ  with  Its 
lips,  while  its  heart  has  been  far  from  Him. 

The  failure  of  organized  religion  is 
repeatedly  emphasized  with  charac- 
teristic insight  and  fearlessness  in  the 
papers  on  the  position  of  the  Church 
of  England,  the  papal  attitude  toward 
modernism,    Cardinal    Newman,    St. 


Paul,  and  especially  on  institutional- 
ism  and  mysticism.  He  is  on  sure 
ground  when  discussing  these  topics, 
as  might  be  expected  from  the  author 
of  "The  Philosophy  of  Plotinus". 
Whatever  may  be  said  about  his  inter- 
pretations, we  must  recognize  in  him 
a  prophet  of  candor,  who  utters  the 
burden  of  tmth  with  sublime  disre- 
gard to  personal  consequences. 

Another  volume  to  be  noted  in  this 
connection  is  Professor  Buckham's 
clear  appraisal  of  some  of  the  note- 
worthy contributions  by  American  re- 
ligious leaders  of  relatively  recent 
date.  "Progressive  Religious  Thought 
in  America"  will  enable  students  to 
appreciate  the  tercentenary  of  the 
founding  of  Puritan  New  England. 
Those  hardy  pioneers  builded  better 
than  they  knew.  There  is  a  breath  of 
the  springtide  in  the  writings  of  the 
men  honored  in  this  volume,  yet  what 
they  accomplished  was  made  possible 
because  they  applied  the  principles  of 
freedom  with  a  thoroughness  that  the 
men  who  first  formulated  them  could 
hardly  have  done.  Bushnell,  Munger, 
Gordon,  Tucker,  Gladden,  Smyth — 
these  are  memorable  names  in  the  his- 
tory of  American  religious  thought. 
It  is  worth  noting  that  all  these  lib- 
erators of  religion  belong  to  the  pulpit 
and  not  to  the  professorial  chair. 
Buckham  does  well  in  pointing  out  the 
painful  separation  between  literature 
and  theology.  "Much  worthy  theology 
had  gone  a-begging  because  clothed  in 
the  garments  of  heaviness  instead  of 
the  robes  of  praise".  The  eminent  suc- 
cession of  these  seers  has  not  yet  ter- 
minated, and  as  long  as  this  is  so,  the 
day  of  the  pulpit  has  not  set.  At  pres- 
ent it  is  suffering  from  a  temporary 
eclipse,  owing  to  the  reactions  from 
the  war;  but  it  will  recover  itself  and 
its  latter  period  will  be  more  glorious 
than  its  former,  if  its  occupants  fear- 


TRAVELS  WITH  ARTHUR  SYMONS 


239 


lessly  face  the  light  that  comes  from 
science,  philosophy,  psychology,  eco- 
nomics and  literature,  all  of  which  are 
the  manifold  expressions  of  life. 


Outspoken  Essays.  By  William  Ralph  Inge, 
C.V.O.,  D.D.     Longmans,  Green  and  Co. 

Progressiye  Religious  Thought  in  America. 
A  Surrey  of  the  Enlarging  Pilgrim  Faith.  By 
John  Wright  Buckham.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 


TRAVELS   WITH   ARTHUR 
SYMONS 

By  Henry  James  Form  an 

T'TIE  poet  is  the  super-traveler  in 
X  life.  To  say  that  he  invokes  the 
souls  of  cities  is  to  suggest  that  he  is 
"soulful"  and  at  once  to  minimize  such 
a  book,  say,  as  "Cities  and  Sea-Coasts 
and  Islands",  by  Arthur  Symons.  Mr. 
Symons,  I  need  hardly  say,  is  not 
"soulful"  in  the  schoolgirl's  diary 
sense.  But  true  poet  that  he  is,  he 
visits  a  city  or  an  island  and  the  place 
is  astonishingly  revealed  to  him  with 
a  multitude  of  detail  that  the  run  of 
sightseers  simply  would  not  suspect. 
No  tourist  ever  sees  a  place  in  the  way 
the  poet  sees  it.  For  one  thing  the 
poet  is  never  in  a  hurry.  He  gazes  on 
the  scene,  depicts  it,  and  before  you 
know  it  you  not  only  see  a  beach, 
shingle  and  water,  but  the  restless  hu- 
man heart  in  you  is  floating  outward 
over  a  softly  billowing,  tranquil  sea  to 
that  infinity  where  the  soul  is  always 
at  home. 

In  a  few  happy  touches  Mr.  Symons 
brings  before  you  the  city  of  Seville 
so  that  you  will  never  more  forget  it. 
"A  significant  quality  of  the  Andalu- 
sians",  he  observes,  "is  the  profound 
seriousness  which  they  retain,  even 
when  they  abandon  themselves  to  the 
most  violent  emotions.  It  is  the  true 
sensuality,  the  only  way  of  getting 
the  utmost  out  of  one's  sensations,  as 


gaiety,  or  a  facile  voluptuousness, 
never  can."  The  Sevillians  themselves 
would  be  thrilled  and  delighted  by  Mr. 
Symons's  interpretation  of  them,  and 
that  is  the  true  test  of  descriptive 
writing.  In  a  Spanish  music  hall,  in 
the  streets  of  Valencia  or  Toledo,  in 
the  poetry  of  Santa  Teresa  or  St.  John 
of  the  Cross, — in  all  of  these,  he  re- 
veals to  you  the  land  of  Spain  as  few 
travelers  will  ever  see  it  by  them- 
selves. The  fireside  traveler  with  Sy- 
mons has  an  infinitely  better  chance 
than  the  average  tourist  with  Bae- 
deker. 

He  visits  Montserrat,  the  monas- 
tery, the  mediaeval  Castle  of  the  Holy 
Grail,  and  the  picture  becomes  rich 
with  more  than  mere  association — it 
is  a  monument  to  human  devotion. 
True  pilgrim  that  he  is,  the  poet  takes 
up  his  home  there  to  taste  in  full  this 
unusual  morsel  of  life.  He  sings  the 
"Salve"  and  the  "Ave  Maria",  dwells 
in  the  whitewashed  cell  and  "for 
once",  he  says,  "I  was  perfectly  happy, 
and  with  that  element  of  strangeness 
in  my  happiness  without  which  I  can- 
not conceive  happiness". 

In  London  he  has  wandered  about 
with  an  amateur  tramp,  who  has  seen 
humanity  "where  it  has  least  tempta- 
tion to  be  anything  but  itself,  not  out 
of  any  affectation,  but  because  of  his 
absorbing  interest  in  humanity;  be- 
cause,— 

To  live  and  die  under  a  roof 
Drives  the  brood  of  thoughts  aloof; 
To  walk  by  night  under  the  sky 
Lets  the  birds  of  thought  fly. 

There  are  some  twenty-six  pieces  in 
the  book  and  every  one  of  them  is  a 
poem.  They  are  not  the  sort  of 
"travel"  to  be  found  in  the  popular 
guide-books,  but  those  who  choose  to 
read  them  will  visit  portions  of  the 
world  in  the  company  of  one  of  its 
choicest  spirits,  of  one  who  knows  how 


240 


THE  BOOKMAN 


to  write  about  that  which  when  Been 
touches,  perhaps — ^but  usually  escapes 
— ^most  of  us. 


cities  and  Sea-Coasts  and  Islands.  By  Arthur 
Symons.    Brentano's. 


HENRY  JAMES.  PAINTER 
By  Louiae  B,  SyJces 

HERE  are  four  short  stories  that 
redeem  again,  for  a  moment,  the 
term.  Anyone  may  be  glad,  in  much 
recent  litter  and  rubbish,  to  come 
upon  this  earliest  work  of  Henry 
James.  But  for  your  real  lover  the 
collection  is  much  more  than  just 
"something,  at  last,  worth  while  to 
read".  For  him  it  is  what  the  source 
of  the  Nile  was  to  the  explorer,  or 
what  the  early  photograph  of  the  little 
boy  in  the  velvet  suit  is  to  his  fond 
mother.  To  have  it  is  to  hold  the 
documentary  assurance  that  bis  au- 
thor's greatest  qualities  are  all  inher- 
ent, that  nothing  that  he  gave  the 
world  later  was  affectation  or  pose, 
that  even  the  mannerisms  that  he  de- 
veloped were  the  over-emphasis  of  his 
intention,  his  determination  to  the  nth 
degree  to  make  his  meaning  plain. 
These  stories  have  every  resemblance 
to  the  mature  work  of  their  author, 
the  same  features,  the  same  expres- 
sion, and,  allowing  for  some  slight 
awkwardness  of  youth,  the  same  pose. 
Here  is  the  first  segment  of  the  sweep- 
ing curve  that  Henry  James  completed 
before  he  died.  With  this  record  the 
sequence  should  have  been  easy  to 
foretell.  In  this  slight  collection  the 
really  distinctive  qualities  of  the  ar- 
tist are  aU  evident 

Of  all  the  writers  of  fiction  that 
ever  wrote,  not  only  in  English  but  in 
any  modem  tongue  that  speaks  to  us* 


Henry  James  is  the  painter  par  excel- 
lence, the  artist  who  reduces  life's 
chaotic  material  to  the  vision,  to  the 
picture.     If  he  hears  and  smells  and 
feels  things,  it  is  only  secondarily  and 
absent-mindedly,  only  the  better  to  see 
them  withal.     He  seems  sometimes, 
almost  consciously,  to  have  subordi- 
nated the  other  senses,  absorbed  as  he 
is  in  seeing.    He  is  the  painter,  not 
the  nature  lover.     He  has  no  "bank 
whereon  the  wild  thyme  grows",  no 
"Woods  of  Westermain".    One  might 
almost  say  that  the  cock  never  crows 
for  Henry  James,  or,  if  he  does,  he 
sees  him  crow.    He  is  surprisingly  in- 
different to  sounds,  as  sounds,  and  the 
other  appeals  to  the  senses ;  to  all  that 
paraphernalia  of   the   sensuist,   who 
hypnotizes  his  subject  by  steeping  him 
in    his    decoctiohs — a    very    witches' 
brew  of  whatever  is  sense-stirring  and 
emotional.     In  his  best  work  Henry 
James  just  paints  and  paints.    Moving 
back  to  the  artist's  safe  distance  from 
his    subject,    and    reaching    out    his 
long  brush,  he  blocks  out  his  can- 
vas,    gives    form    and    color    with 
rapid,  certain  strokes.     He  tells  his 
tales  with  landscape  and  houses  and 
furniture,    with    clothes    and    move- 
ments, with  gestures  and  facial  ex- 
pression.    He  does  not  smother  his 
story  in  them,  he  tells  his  story  loitk 
them.    What  relief  for  the  fagged  im- 
agination,  over-worked   in   following 
the  labored  details  that  other  authors 
must  use  to  build  up  a  scene ! 

It  is  the  nature  of  the  ordinary  per- 
son, and  especially  of  the  scholar,  un- 
fortunately, to  be  able  to  be  only  one 
thing  at  a  time.  If  philosophers  could 
only  be  kings,  and  being  kings  remain 
philosophers!  If  historians  could  be 
epic  poets  too !  And  scientists,  essay- 
ists! But  no.  What  they  give  us  is  a 
vast  mass  of  chronicle,  commentary, 
thesis.     Now,  it  is  the  good  fortune 


THE    NEW   ENGLAND    CULT 


241 


of  the  artist  to  be  two  persons  in  one, 
sometimes  three.  That  is  what  gives 
him  form  and  dimension.  And  so,  in 
Henry  James,  the  painter  in  him  bred 
with  the  psychologist,  equally  in  him, 
and  together  they  mothered  and  fa- 
thered the  long  line  of  his  creations. 
Sometimes  one  character  seems  more 
active  in  his  work  than  the  other,  but 
at  his  best  he  "tells  his  picture  in" 
with  alternate  brush-strokes  of  color 
and  psychology.  He  paints  with  a 
running  commentary  of  psychological 
interpretation,  which  in  the  later  nov- 
els l^es  the  form  of  vast,  almost 
trackless  parentheses.  The  painter 
sees,  but  he  never  fails  to  invest  his 
vision  with  meaning.  The  psycholo- 
gist analyzes  down  to  the  fundamental 
and  primal,  but  he  never  forgets  to 
clothe,  and  place,  and  set  his  charac- 
ters moving. 

These  examples  of  Henry  James's 
early  work  reveal  also  the  tastes  and 
interests  that  dominated  him  through- 
out. It  is  amusing  to  observe  how  al- 
ready the  old  world  has  laid  hands 
upon  this  devotee  of  arts  and  subtle- 
ties. Some  one  in  his  stories  has  al- 
ways just  come  from,  or  is  about  to 
set  out  for  Europe.  And  notice — it  is 
already  the  American  effects  that  are 
"criarde",  the  European  that  are  iri- 
descent. It  is  with  the  "fine  shades 
and  nice  feelings''  of  overrefined  so- 
ciety that  our  author  is  mainly  con- 
cerned, rather  than  with  the  primaeval 
struggle  of  plain  man ;  with  the  cross- 
currents and  under-currents  of  life, 
rather  than  with  the  main  stream. 
His  are  not  historical  or  political  nov- 
els with  mighty  backgrounds,  proces- 
sional foregrounds,  or  great,  threat- 
ening, enveloping  action.  He  does  not 
propound  or  treat  human  problems, 
except  with  such  curious  individual 
cross-lighting  as  renders  them  useless 
for  general  solution.    If  he  develops 


his  subject  adequately  in  its  isolation, 
he  apparently  does  not  deem  it  neces- 
sary to  place  it  in  the  immense  com- 
plex of  life.  His  characters  live  unto 
themselves  and  unto  one  another. 

And  living  remotely,  they  live 
uniquely.  There  is  a  steady  refusal 
to  allow  the  obvious  to  happen.  If  it 
does  happen,  it  must  not  be  for  obvi- 
ous reasons.  Or,  if  it  does  happen  and 
for  obvious  reasons,  then  it  must  be 
to  one,  whom  the  gods,  wishing  to  de- 
stroy, first  make  blind.  To  such  noth- 
ing is  obvious.  The  stories  are  sat- 
urated with  irony.  With  all  the  pro- 
fessed frankness  of  the  characters, 
they  never  move  in  the  clear  light  of 
day.  The  event  is  in  the  lap  of  the 
gods,  whence  it  must  be  dragged  into 
the  shameless  light.  If  the  story  ul- 
timately does  reach  its  final  situation 
by  elimination  of  the  obvious, — and 
Henry  James  never  paints  "another 
stupid  sunset", — it  is  assuredly  not 
to  impose  the  trick  of  a  gross  surprise, 
but  to  exhibit  the  perverse  irony  and 
double-facedness  of  life,  the  irony  of 
the  flatly  obvious  confronting  the  per- 
sistently blind. 


A    Landscape    Painter.      By    Henry    James. 
Scott  and  Seltzer. 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  CULT 
By  Walter  A.  Dyer 

SOME  one  has  said  that  there  are 
more  Lithuanians  in  the  United 
States  today  than  bona  fide  New  Eng- 
landers  of  Colonial  stock.  That  is 
probably  hyperbole;  at  any  rate  it  is 
beside  the  point.  For  those  of  us  who 
were  bom  within  musket-shot  of 
Faneuil  Hall  and  whose  ancestors  came 
over  in  the  Mayflower  or  some  other 
seventeenth-century  excursion  boat  do 


242 

■  1 


THE   BOOKMAN 


not  reckon  our  importance  in  numbers. 
We  are  the  salt  of  the  earth.  We  know 
it,  if  the  rest  of  the  benighted  world 
does  not.  The  dome  of  the  State 
House  in  Boston  is  still  the  hub  of  the 
universe,  and  the  Sacred  Cod  is  the 
symbol  of  the  only  American  aris- 
tocracy worth  consideration. 

We  are  proudly,  arrogantly  pro- 
vincial. We  know  not  "the  Loop",  but 
we  expect  Chicagoans  to  reverence 
"the  Common".  We  speak  of  "the 
Cape",  and  resent  it  when  New  York- 
ers speak  of  "the  City".  We  have  a 
tradition  that  the  Revolution  was 
fought  and  won  at  Lexington  and 
Bunker  Hill  and  that  Samuel  Adams 
was  the  Father  of  his  Country.  As 
for  literature,  nothing  has  happened 
since  the  dissolution  of  the  Saturday 
Club. 

There  are  indications  a-plenty  that 
we  sometimes  bore  our  fellow  citizens 
of  the  vast,  crude  hinterland,  but, 
speaking  seriously,  I  doubt  whether 
we  greatly  antagonize  them.  I  sus- 
pect that  they  look  upon  us  with 
kindly,  tolerant  eyes,  seeing  New  Eng- 
land somewhat  in  the  aspect  of  a  dear, 
stubborn,  gray  old  lady,  relic  of  an 
outworn  age,  full  of  old-fashioned  no- 
tions, but  to  be  gently  humored  until 
she  passes  quietly  away. 

But  the  old  lady,  like  Charles  II,  is 
an  unconscionable  time  a-dying.  She 
displays  an  amazing  vitality.  And, 
when  all  is  said  and  done,  she  has 
some  interesting  old  keepsakes  in  her 
reticule. 

It  cannot  be  said  of  us  New  Eng- 
landers  that  we  hide  our  light  under 
a  bushel.  We  are  not  inarticulate ;  we 
still  have  a  passion  for  the  printed 
page.  And  it  is  a  poor  season  in  the 
book  publishing  business  that  does  not 
see  new  volumes  setting  forth  in  some 
fresh  form  the  ancient  charm  of  our 
native  land.    Furthermore,  as  a  refu- 


tation of  all  insolent  arguments  with 
their  undercurrent  of  envious  ridicule, 
these  books  appear  to  be  widely  read 
by  the  barbarians  themselves. 

Without  apology,  therefore,  but 
rather  with  a  sense  of  having  acquired 
further  merit,  we  present  to  what  we 
hope  will  prove  an  appreciative  public 
the  latest  grist  of  New  England  lore. 

I  do  not  happen  to  know  whether 
Helen  W.  Henderson  is  a  thorough- 
bred New  Englander  or  not.  With 
true  New  England  caution  we  are  in- 
clined to  suspect  the  pedigree  of  one 
whose  previous  volumes  have  been  en- 
titled "A  Loiterer  in  New  York"  and 
"The  Art  Treasures  of  Washington". 
Why  wander  so  far  from  home?  Still, 
she  writes  like  a  New  Englander.  If 
she  has  the  high  sign  and  the  pass- 
word she  will  be  readily  admitted  to 
the  cult. 

In  "A  Loiterer  in  New  England" 
Miss  Henderson  has  done  all  any  New 
Englander  could  ask,  for  she  has 
glorified  the  past  and  upheld  the  su- 
periority of  the  Yankee.  She  has  told 
us  a  lot  of  things  about  our  native 
land  that  we  did  not  know  before,  with 
the  result  that  she  has  added  not  a 
little  to  the  complacent  sense  of  satis- 
faction that  we  feel  in  having  been 
bom  where  we  were  bom  and  not  in 
some  obscure  elsewhere. 

The  title  of  her  book  is  a  bit  mis- 
leading in  two  ways.  In  the  first  place 
she  has  left  New  Haven  and  Ports- 
mouth, Bennington  and  Deerfield  quite 
untouched.  But  we  will  not  quarrel 
with  her  there;  perhaps  there's  an- 
other volume  coming.  What  she  has 
done  has  been  to  treat  Cape  Cod,  Plym- 
outh, Salem,  and  Boston  so  thoroughly 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  cult  that 
little  remains  to  be  said. 

In  the  second  place,  Miss  Henderson 
is  assuredly  no  loiterer.  She  is  a 
delver,  an  excavator.     Loiterers  get 


THE    NEW   ENGLAND   CULT 


248 


their  history  from  railroad  guide- 
books, not  from  original  sources.  Miss 
Henderson  is  too  modest.  The  scroll 
of  history  she  has  unrolled  with  a 
practised  hand  and  has  rewritten  it 
with  a  rare  gift  for  selection  and  in- 
terpretation, a  sense  of  proportion  and 
significance,  not  lacking  the  saving 
grace  of  humor.  She  has  told  the 
stoiy  of  the  early  settlers,  of  the  Pil- 
grims, of  the  Sidem  sea  captains  and 
the  rest  in  a  manner  that  I  fancy  will 
hold  the  attention  of  readers,  who 
would  quickly  side-step  John  Fiske. 

Not  only  history.  With  quite  as 
sure  a  tread  she  leads  us  among  the 
sand  dunes  of  the  Cape  and  we  find 
local  geology  fascinating.  In  Salem 
we  find  our  eyes  opened  to  unrealized 
or  half-realized  beauties  of  architec- 
ture,— architecture,  to  be  sure,  asso- 
ciated with  romantic  history  and  tra- 
dition,— ^while  in  Boston  Miss  Hen- 
derson becomes  frankly  an  art  critic. 

Domestic  architecture,  indeed,  in- 
variably crops  out  in  most  New  Eng- 
land writings,  for  we  are  inordinately 
proud  of  our  old  houses.  And  in  Sa- 
lem, that  Mecca  of  the  Yankee  anti- 
quarian, we  find  the  very  best  of  it. 
Salem  ship-owners  amassed  wealth, 
and  they  spent  it  on  houses.  In  Salem 
lived  and  worked  that  remarkable 
wood  carver  and  architect,  Samuel  Mc- 
Intire,  the  greatest  American  expo- 
nent of  the  Palladian  and  English 
Georgian  tradition.  And  in  Boston 
there  was  Charles  Bulfinch,  whose 
trail  Miss  Henderson  entertainingly 
follows. 

Of  Mclntire  Miss  Henderson  tells 
us  something,  but  for  fuller  knowl- 
edge one  may  turn  back  to  "The  Wood 
Carver  of  Salem",  a  book  produced  in 
1916  by  two  New  England  collabora- 
tors, Frank  Cousins  and  Phil  M.  Riley. 
From  these  same  two  we  now  have  an- 
other handsome  volume,  in  a  limited 


edition,  entitled  "The  Colonial  Archi- 
tecture of  Salem".  This  book  could 
not  have  been  written  without  a  good 
deal  of  Mclntire  in  it,  but  it  covers  a 
much  wider  field.  The  chapter  head- 
ings will  serve  best  to  indicate  this — 
The  Gable  and  Peaked-Roof  House; 
The  Lean-To  House;  The  Gambrel- 
Roof  House ;  The  Square  Three-Story 
Wood  House;  The  Square  Three-Story 
Brick  House;  Doorways  and  Porches; 
Windows  and  Window  Frames;  In- 
terior Wood  Finish;  Halls  and  Stair- 
ways; Mantels  and  Chinmey  Places; 
Public  Buiklings;  Salem  Architec- 
ture of  To-Day.  The  first  five  chap- 
ters trace  a  definite  development  in 
Salem  architecture  by  periods  in  a 
more  thorough  manner  than  has  be- 
fore been  attempted.  The  last  chapter 
deals  with  modem  houses  designed 
and  built  with  rare  good  taste  along 
historic  lines  since  the  disastrous  Sa- 
lem fire  of  1914.  It  is  not  a  chatty 
book  like  Miss  Henderson's;  it  is 
rather  a  serious,  analytical,  descrip- 
tive, and  semi-technical  study.  The 
volume  is  illustrated  with  nearly  250 
photographs  by  Mr.  Cousins,  a  few  of 
which  one  discovers  in  the  "Loiterer" 
also.  Miss  Henderson's  book,  I  neg- 
lected to  say,  is  beautifully  illustrated, 
largely  with  reproduced  etchings. 

Speaking  of  architectural  loiterings 
in  New  England  tempts  me  to  mention 
a  book  already  noticed  in  these  pages, 
on  "Old  New  England  Doorways".  It 
belongs  in  the  same  family. 

It  really  doesn't  matter  what  the 
New  Englander  goes  out  to  seek, 
whether  it  be  history,  architecture,  or 
natural  scenery.  He  returns  with  the 
conviction  that  it  will  scarcely  be  nec- 
essary for  him  to  stray  beyond  the 
Hudson  River  in  search  of  treasures 
of  any  sort.  Mrs.  Alice  Van  Leer 
Carrick's  quest  (I  think  I  am  correct 
in  the  Mrs.)  has  been  for  antiques,  a 


244 


THE   BOOKMAN 


quest  which,  though  not  confined 
to  New  England,  had  its  beginning 
here  when  Dr.  Irving  Whitall  Lyon  of 
Hartford  started  that  collection  of  old 
furniture  which  later  found  a  resting- 
place  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of 
Art.  And  the  modem  collection  still 
turns  a  fatuously  hopeful  eye  on  the 
now  pretty  thoroughly  exploited  gar- 
rets of  New  England. 

Mrs.  Carrick  calls  her  book  "Col- 
lector's Luck",  and  its  sub-title  is  "A 
Repository  of  Pleasant  and  Profitable 
Discourses  Descriptive  of  the  House- 
hold Furniture  and  Ornaments  of 
Olden  Time".  Sallying  forth  from 
her  New  England  home,  Webster  Cot- 
tage, Hanover,  New  Hampshire  (at- 
tention is  called  to  the  significance  of 
"Webster  Cottage"  and  Dartmouth  as- 
sociations), Mrs.  Carrick  followed  the 
lure  of  her  hobby,  with  another  amia- 
ble addict,  to  New  England  farm- 
houses, country  auctions,  and  city 
shops.  Her  book,  though  full  of  in- 
teresting and  valuable  information  for 
collectors,  is  less  an  analytical  study 
than  a  pleasantly  readable  record  of 
the  loiterings  of  these  twain,  shot 
through  with  that  youthful  enthusi- 
asm which  every  ardent  collector 
knows.    For  the  benefit  of  fellow  an- 


tiquers  I  will  simply  state  that  she  has 
traveled  such  highways  and  byways 
of  collecting  as  stenciled  furniture, 
pressed  glassware,  hand-woven  cover- 
lets, lustre  ware,  lamps  and  candle- 
sticks, old  valentines  and  silhouettes, 
old  white  counterpanes,  and  ancient 
dolls  and  their  furniture.  The  volume 
is  illustrated,  of  course,  with  photo- 
graphs. 

So  much  for  this  season's  New  Eng- 
land books.  Next  season  there  will  be 
others;  •  you  can't  keep  us  silent.  For 
most  absurdly  and  vocally  do  we  love 
our  native  land,  we  New  Englanders. 
We  love  her  old  traditions  and  her  old 
furniture;  we  love  her  historic  cities, 
her  pleasant  farming  country,  her  col- 
leges; we  love  her  white  houses  and 
her  White  Mountains;  we  love  her 
woods  and  templed  hills  and  eke  her 
stem  and  rock-bound  coast  (which,  as 
Miss  Henderson  points  out,  was  not 
stem  and  rock-bound  at  all,  but  a 
sandy  waste  with  one  lone  glacial 
boulder  against  which  the  Mayflower's 
shallop  poked  her  Calvinistic  nose) . 


A  liolterer  In  New  Bngland.  By  Helen  W. 
Henderson.    George  H.  Doran  Company. 

The  Colonial  Architecture  of  Salem.  By 
Frank  Cousins  and  Phil  M.  RUey.  Little, 
Brown  and  Co. 

Collector's  Luck.  By  Alice  Van  Leer  Carrick. 
The  Atlantic  Monthly  Press. 


THE    BOOKMAN'S    MONTHLY    SCORE 


245 


FICTION  IN  DEMAND  AT  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 

(  COMPILED    BY    FBANK     PABKBR    STOCKBBIDOB     IN     COOPBBATION     WITH    THB     AMBBICAN 

LIBRARY    ASSOCIATION 

The  following  lists  of  hooks  in  demand  in  February  in  the  puhlic  libraries  of  the  United  States 
have  been  compiled  from  reports  made  by  two  hundred  representative  libraries,  in  every  section 
of  the  country  and  in  cities  of  all  sizes  down  to  ten  thousand  population.  The  order  of  choice 
is  as  stated  by  the  librarians. 


NEW  YORK  AND  NEW  ENGLAND  STATES 


1.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

2.  Red  and  Black 

8.  The  Strong  Hours 

4.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

lypse 

5.  The  Great  Impersonation 

6.  Sisters 


Ethel  M.  DeU 
Gruce  S.  Richmond 
Mavd  Diver 


Putnam 
doubleday 
Houghton 


Vicente  Blasco  Ibdnez  DUTTON 

E.  PhiUips  Oppenheim    Little,  Brown 
Kathleen  Norris  DOUBLEDAY 


SOUTH  ATLANTIC  STATES 


1.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

2.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 

8.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse 

4.  Red  and  Black 

5.  A  Man  for  the  Ages 

6.  The  Young  Visiters 


Ethel  M.  DeU 
Harold  Bell  Wright 

Vicente  Blasco  Ibdnez 
Grace  S.  Richmond 
Irving  BacheUer 
Daisy  Ashford 


NORTH  CENTRAL  STATES 


1.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 

2.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

lypse 

3.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

4.  A  Man  for  the  Ages 

5.  The  Young  Visiters 

6.  Linda  Condon 


Harold  Bell  Wright 

Vicente  Blasco  Ibdnez 
Ethel  M.  DeU 
Irving  BacheUer 
Daisy  Ashford 
Joseph  Hergesheimer 


SOUTH  CENTRAL  STATES 


1.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

2.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 

3.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

lypse 

4.  The  Great  Desire 

5.  The  Moon  and  Sixpence 

6.  The  River's  End 


Ethel  M.  DeU 
Harold  Bell  Wright 

Vicente  Blasco  Ibdnez 
Alexander  Black 
W.  Somerset  Maugham 
James  Oliver  Curwood 


WESTERN  STATES 


1.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 

2.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

lypse 

3.  The  Young  Visiters 

4.  The  House  of  Baltazar 

5.  The  River's  End 

6.  The  Moon  and  Sixpence 


Harold  Bell  Wright 

Vicente  Blasco  IbdHez 
Daisy  Ashford 
William  J.  Locke 
James  Oliver  Curwood 
W.  Somerset  Maugham 


FOR  THE  WHOLE  UNITED  STATES 


1.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 

2.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

lypse 
8.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

4.  The  Young  Visiters 

5.  Red  and  Black 

6.  The  River's  End 


Harold  BeU  Wright 

Vicente  Blasco  Ibdnez 
Ethel  M.  DeU 
Daisy  Ashford 
Grace  S.  Richmond 
James  Oliver  Curwood 


Putnam 
Book  Supply 

DUTTON 

doubleday 
Bobbs-Merrill 

DOBAN 

Book  Supply 

DUTTON 

Putnam 
Bobbs-Merrill 

DORAN 

Knopf 

Putnam 
Book  Supply 

DUTTON 

Harper 

DORAN 

Cosmopolitan 
Book  Supply 

DUTTON 
DORAN 

Lane 
Cosmopolitan 

DORAN 

Book  Supply 

DUTTON 

Putnam 

DORAN 

doubleday 
Cosmopolitan 


246 


THE  BOOKMAN 


GENERAL  BOOKS  IN  DEMAND  AT  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 

COMPILED     BT     FRANK     PARKBR     8TOCKBRIDGR      IN     COOPRRATION      WITH     THB      AMERICAN      LIBRARY 

ASSOCIATION 

The  titlet  have  been  aeored  hy  the  Hmple  proceBB  of  ffivinQ  each  a  credit  of  six  for  each 
time  it  appeoTB  oa  first  choice,  and  bo  down  to  a  Bcore  of  one  for  each  time  appeara  in  Bisoth 
place.  The  total  BCore  for  each  Bection  and  for  the  whole  country  determines  the  order  of  choice 
in  the  table  herewith. 

NEW  YORK  AND  NEW  ENGLAND  STATES 


1.  Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children                                           Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNEU 

2.  Raymond                                              Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

3.  Theodore  Roosevelt                            WiUiam  Roscoe  Thayer 

Houghton 

4.  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams         Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

5.  A  Labrador  Doctor                             Wilfred  T.  GrenfeU 

Houghton 

6.  Belgium                                               Brand  Whitlock 

Appleton 

SOUTH  ATLANTIC  STATES 

1.  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams         Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

2.  Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children                                            Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCKIBNER 

3.  Raymond                                               Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

4.  "Marse  Henry"                                   Henry  Watterson 

DORAN 

5.  The  Life  of  John  Marshall                 Albert  J.  Beveridge 

Houghton 

6.  The  New  Revelation                           A.  Conan  Doyle 

DORAN 

NORTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1.  An  American  Idyll                              Cornelia  S.  Parker 

Atlantic 

2.  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams         Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

3.  White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas      Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

4.  Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children                                            Joseph  Bticklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

5.  Raymond                                             Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

6.  Belgium                                               Brand  Whitlock 

Appleton 

SOUTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1.  The  Education  of  Heniy  Adams         Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

2.  Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children                                            Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

3.  The  Seven  Purposes                            Margaret  Cameron 

Harper 

4.  Raymond                                               Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

5.  Abraham  Lincoln                                 John  Drinkwater 

Houghton 

6.  A  Tiabrador  Doctor                             Wilfred  T.  Grenfell 

Houghton 

WESTERN  STATES 

1.  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams         Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

2.  Raymond                                              iSir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

3.  Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children                                            Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

4.  Contact  with  the  Other  World          James  H.  Hyslop 

Century 

6.  The  Seven  Purposes                            Margaret  Cameron 

Harper 

6.  Abraham  Lincoln                                John  Drinkwater 

Houghton 

FOR  THE  WHOLE  UNITED  STATES 

1.  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams         Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

2.  Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children                                            Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

Screbner 

3.  Raymond                                              Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

4.  The  Seven  Purposes                           Margaret  Cameron 

Harper 

6.  Abraham  Lincoln                                John  Drinkwater 

Houghton 

6.  Belgium                                               Brand  Whitlock 

Appleton 

THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


IT  was  at  the  celebrated  Mr.  Keoi'a 
Chop  House.  The  hour  was  two» 
afternoon.  The  celebrated  Thomas  L. 
Masson  pushed  back  his  empty  coffee 
cup,  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  lit  a 
large,  fat,  black  cigar.  He  said,  ''I 
will  talk  on  literary  narcissuses'*.  The 
celebrated  Gossip  Shop  pushed  back 
his  empty  coffee  cup,  leaned  back  in 
his  chair,  and  lit  a  large,  fat,  black 
cigar.  Mr.  Masson  half  closed  his 
eyes.  (Occasionally  he  would  open  one 
eye  wide.)  He  spoke,  choosing  his 
words  carefully,  as  follows : 

"The  conceit  of  authors  has  never 
been  tabulated.  When  it  flowers  to  a 
perfect  thing,  the  reasons  ought  to  be 
given  so  that  others  may  get  the  bene- 
fit. When  it  isn't  what  it  should  be, 
there  is  always  a  good  chance  of  deriv- 
ing a  negative  benefit  out  of  its  analy- 
sis. New  York  literary  conceit  dif- 
fers from  Indianapolis  literary  con- 
ceit as  much  as  whiskey  from  bevo. 
The  New  York  variety  is  the  real 
thing.  The  Indianapolis  variety  is  a 
little  too  agile.  It  hasn't  accumulated 
weariness  enough.  It  gets  up  too  early 
in  the  morning.  Boston  literary  con- 
ceit differs  from  either  of  these  as 
the  night  the  day.  It  has  gone  over 
carefully  all  the  literary  conceits  there 
are,  and  extracted  from  each  its  pe- 
culiar excellence.  The  blend  is  Boston 
literary  conceit,  plus  Boston.  Its  high 
merits  are  peculiarly  its  own.  These 
fine  distinctions  are  quite  subtle,  but 
when  one  has  made  a  study  of  them, 
the  high  lights  all  come  out.  I  know 
of   no    intellectual   pleasure    greater 


than  studjring  and  observing  the  con- 
ceits of  Uterary  people,  and  the  de- 
light of  being  able  to  make  one's  way 
along  amid  so  many  nuances  of  con* 
ceit — this,  like  virtue,  is  its  own  re- 
ward. For  example  a  successful  New 
York  author  at  a  dinner  table  always 
pauses  after  making  some  bright  re- 
mark, and  awaits  the  homage  and  ap- 
plause that  follows.  He  knows  that 
his  clever  sayings  are  good  mon^  be- 
cause he  has  passed  them  many  times 
before.  Boston  does  not  do  this.  Bos- 
ton listens  much  better  than  New 
York.  The  value  of  listening — ^just 
the  measure  in  which  you  appear  to 
be  listening  at  a  given  time — is  under- 
stood by  nobody  as  by  Boston.  A  Bos- 
ton autiior  will  listen  to  what  you  tim- 
idly have  to  say,  while  his  look  ex- 
presses a  sort  of  benign  affability. 
Then,  after  a  discreet  pause  he  will 
say  'Ah'.  It  takes  years  to  learn  how 
to  say  'Ah'  the  way  that  Boston  says 
it 

"Of  course,  when  one  gets  away 
from  Boston  and  New  York,  and  cer- 
tain sections  of  Philadelphia,  there  is 
much  more  freedom  in  literary  con- 
ceit. There  is  the  joyousness  of  the 
Middle  West  and  the  sensuous  con- 
ceit of  the  South.  A  Texas  author 
who  has  written  a  successful  first  book 
comes  cavorting  along  to  New  York 
like  a  young  calf  let  loose  in  a  city 
park.  A  primitive  conceit  that,  but 
delightful  in  a  way,  in  spite  of  a  cer- 
tain coarseness.  When  this  author 
has  taken  up  his  residence  in  New 
York,  has  had  his  name  mentioned  in 


247 


248 


THE   BOOKMAN 


a  group  of  authors  written  up  for  the 
benefit  of  'The  Atlantic',  then  he  be- 
gins to  take  on  atmosphere.  He  may 
wobble  a  trifle  at  first,  but  his  admira- 
tion for  himself  soon  becomes  stabil- 
ized. 

"That  there  is  a  kind  of  subcon- 
scious union  of  conceited  authors  is 
not  generally  understood.  These  gen- 
tlemen stand  by  one  another  with  fine 
skill  and  finesse.  A  mutual  admira- 
tion society  that  does  nothing  else  but 
mutually  admire,  never  gets  any- 
where. But  in  the  case  of  our  union, 
one  author  never  loses  an  opportunity 
to  praise  up  another  in  type.  Thus  lit- 
erary people  who  have  never  done  any- 
thing in  particular,  and  do  not  even 
belong  to  the  Society  of  Arts  and  Let- 
ters, have  a  reputation  much  beyond 
their  means. 

"Lady  authors — if  it  can  be  said 
that  there  are  any  more  lady  any- 
things — ^naturally  differ  in  their  con- 
ceit from  men.  I  have  known  certain 
Boston  lady  authors  to  become  more 
modest  after  they  had  published  suc- 
cessfully. Boston  ladies  who  have 
become  educated  regard  the  writing  of 
books  as  a  minor  accomplishment.  Si- 
lence, as  I  have  indicated,  is,  or  can 
be  made,  a  great  power.  In  the  hands 
of  a  Boston  lady  authoress,  it  is  car- 
ried beyond  the  genius  of  a  mere  Bos- 
ton man  author. 

"Almost  all  lady  authoresses  wear 
their  confidence  in  their  own  superior- 
ity much  as  other  more  materialistic 
ladies  wear  clothes.  Literary  makeups 
are  not  uncommon,  especially  on  the 
Pacific  coast. 

"Conceit  in  everyone  is  highly  de- 
sirable, if  not  ridden  too  hard.  Every 
profession  has  its  own  particular  va- 
riety. Indeed,  the  insularity  of  any 
profession  makes  its  own  form  of  con- 
ceit. I  know  a  plumber,  who  deals 
only  in  gold  and  silver  plate,  who  is 


insufferable  among  his  peers.  But  the 
plumber,  like  the  clergyman,  is  re- 
stricted in  his  capacity  to  spread  his 
conceit.  In  both  cases  the  audience  is 
too  limited.  Literary  people  have  no 
such  difficulty.  At  any  time  a  Kansas 
author  may  be  taken  up  by  London. 
Even  a  Philadelphia  author  may  be- 
come known  in  New  York. 

"The  measure  of  literary  conceit 
reaches  its  highest  mark  at  a  public 
dinner  given  to  an  author.  In  no  other 
way  can  the  author  have  such  an  op- 
portunity to  deprecate  himself — ^which 
is  often  the  most  advanced  form  of 
conceit." 


The  Gossip  Shop  notes  with  pleasure 
that  a  new  edition  of  "The  House  of 
Cobwebs",  by  George  Gissing,  has  just 
been  brought  out  in  London.  We  hope 
this  reprint  heralds  a  Gissing  "re- 
vival". We  note  with  much  interest, 
too,  that  the  new  volume  has  an  intro- 
duction by  the  excellent  Thomas  Sec- 
combe.  Mr.  Seccombe  it  was  who 
wrote  the  fine  pages  on  Gissing 
in  "The  Dictionary  of  National  Biog- 
raphy". At  least  we  think  he  did — 
the  Gossip  Shop  never  looks  up  any- 
thing, but  just  writes  straight  on 
right  out  of  its  head.  "A  Man  of 
Kent"  in  "The  British  Weekly"  tells 
us  that  the  book  is  beautifully  printed 
and  sells  over  there  at  four  and  six. 
He  continues : 

Attracted  by  the  clear  type,  and  my  old  love 
for  Gissing,  I  immediately  set  to  reading  it 
once  more.  Alas !  I  f eU  into  a  dangerous 
mood — the  most  dangerous  mood  of  all  for  a 
critic  of  contemporary  literature.  I  found  my- 
self thinking  that  all  the  people  who  knew 
what  writing  might  be  were  dead,  and  as- 
suredly I  should  not  know  where  to  look  for 
a  superior  to  George  Gissing.  He  comes  slowly 
indeed  into  his  own.  He  is  sneered  at  occa- 
sionaUy  by  people  who  cannot  understand  the 
true  proportion  of  things.  But  '*The  House  of 
Cobwebs'*  means  at  least  an  hour  of  pure  Joy 
to  anyone  who  desires  It.  Mr.  Seccombe's  In- 
troduction  is   exceedingly  readable  and   yalu- 


THE    GOSSIP    SHOP 


:^«> 


^   mH  3«<dr2»   I 


B&  lit  an:^  jauAttt 


Uiuted 


rf  c 


t*  kie 


Is  ~: 


Wemtmld 
the  more 
Street*  is  a 
ne  hold,  is  a 


our  si^eat  esteem  fcur 
norrds.  -New  Grab 
book,  and  ^^Demos**, 

y  pomtyful  norel  in- 


Christc^dier    Morky    reeentlj    re- 
a  letter  wldch  began  ao: 

^^oo  may  be  interested  in  tiie  fol- 
lowing: I  salt  a  cc^^  of  'Mince  Pie* 
to  an  invalid  friend  in  northern  New 
York.  Her  attoidant  writes:  *I  read 
two  chapters  from  it  to  Miss  M —  ai^ 
foond  it  drew  her  thoughts  off  from 
herself  and  ended  in  iHitting  her  to 
sleep.  If  her  mind  continues  to  dear 
up  as  it  has  done  during  the  past 
twenty-four  hours,  I  think  she  will 
derive  more  pleasure  from  the  es- 
says.'* 

This  reminds  the  Gossip  Shop  of  Bur- 
ton Rascoe,  literary  editor  of  the  Chi- 
cago 'Tribune'',  and  Henry  Blackman 
Sell,  until  recently  literary  editor  of 
the  Chicago  "Daily  News".  These  gen- 
tlemen doubtless  will  agree  that  the 
book  referred  to  would  put  anybody  to 
sleep,  but,  we  fear,  they  could  not  un- 
derstand how  it  could  clear  up  the 
mind  of  anyone.  They  have,  these 
gentlemen,  compiled  a  list  of  posi- 
tively the  three  worst  books.  These 
books  are :  "Peeps  at  People",  "Mince 
Pie",  and  "Broome  Street  Straws". 
£iut,  apparently,  neither  Mr.  Rascoe 
nor  Mr.  Sell  can  decide  which  of  the 
three  is  quite  the  worst  book  in  the 
world. 


Gilbert  Canaan,  the  English  novelist, 
who  has  been  for  several  months  trav- 


*•     FurEast 


in  an  forts  of  tlie 

States.  Wt  New  Y<«rk  a  f^w 

for  Franc<w  Italr*  ^umI  tinr 


A  friend  of  the  Go$^p  Shop  writes 
OS  from  Paris: 

Gfv«ttvkli  Vinar^  1«*  iJiT^*h«  fW  Latlvi 
«i»*— ^  tB4  Ml  tW  m«  #f  IUT\>)i  «»4  IW  «t^ 
bock  M>t  MickKw  of  OMinfe4  Ail^^  «na  *^TW 

ciwsipiBCAt  t^Mi  t^  Suu«. 


*The  London  Mercury*'  runs  a  vwry 
interesting  department  of  '*Biblio- 
graphical  Notes  and  News'\  In  this 
feature,  in  a  recent  number  of  this  ad* 
mirable  magazine,  mention  is  made  of 
the  book  lately  published  in  London, 
John  Murray's  memoir  of  his  father, 
John  Murray  the  Third— **the  in- 
ventor of  what  was  in  his  day  an  en- 
tirely  new  literary  form,  the  Guide 
Book;  Murray's  first  guide  was  is- 
sued in  1836."  The  note  continues: 
'Three  years  later  Karl  Baedeker  pub- 
lished a  HandbUchleif^  of  the  same  dis- 
tricts. Baedeker,  like  Shakespeare, 
disdained  to  invent  his  oynx  plots* 
Murray's  eighteen  European  guides 
were  the  'Plutarch'  and  'Holinshed'  of 
the  German's  stupendous  creations." 

A  section  of  this  feature  of  "The 
Mercury"  is  devoted  to  "Items  From 
the  Booksellers'  Catalogues".  From 
this  source  we  glean  a  couple  of  facts 
entertaining  to  put  into  juxtaposition. 
A  "beautifully  written"  letter  in  the 
hand  of  Benvenuto  Cellini  has  been 
listed  at  one  hundred  and  five  pounds. 
And  "a  manuscript  by  a  young  con- 
temporary can  command  as  big  a  price 


250 


THE   BOOKMAN 


as  ten  guineas".  This  is  the  sum 
asked  for  the  autograph  manuscript 
of  Robert  Nichols's  "The  Faun's  Holi- 
day", published  in  his  volume  ''Ar- 
dours and  Endurances". 


The  Gossip  Shop  has  been  reading 
another  circular.  The  last  one  we  read, 
you  know,  was  that  one  about  "a  spe- 
cial book  for  women"  called  "The  Art 
of  Pleasing  Men",  which,  it  was  said, 
was  "highly  endorsed  by  ministers  of 
the  Gospel".  Well,  we've  been  at  it 
again.  (This  circular-reading  habit 
is  a  terrible  thing — it  never  lets  you 
go.)  This  time  the  whole  circular  is 
devoted  to  a  poem,  and  a  very  moving 
poem  it  is.  This  poem  is  called  "The 
Lusitania  Speaks,  and  Says  Let  the 
Kaiser  Be  Punished  I"  The  author  is 
Charles  H.  L.  Johnston.  The  circular 
implies  that  Mr.  Johnston  is  known  to 
a  wide  circle  as  "Uncle  Ghas."  We 
had  at  first  thought  of  reprinting  only 
a  few  stanzas  of  this  poem,  the  best 
ones.  But  it  is  a  curious  poem — ^there 
are  no  best  stanzas  in  it.  To  get  it 
right  you've  got  to  have  it  all.  Here 
is  the  poem: 

Keel-hauled  I  held  the  quay,  new-painted  drab 
and  gray, 
All  the  world  heard  my  Siren,  as  it  hooted. 
Stoked  up  with  bunkers  fuU,  choked  up  with 
weU-caulked  hull, 
I  smiled  upon  my  form,  as  whistles  tooted. 

I  knew  my  might  and  power,  I  was  the  mer- 
maid's dower. 
Bvery  sailor  loved  me,  for  I  was  undaunted. 
They   knew   I   sped   and   cut,   they   knew   my 
churning  rut, 
That  I  left  behind  in  inky  fathoms  haunted. 

Two  Bells !    The  sound  came  near,  and  out  the 
call  came :   cliar  ! 
Cliab  up  THi  GANGWAY !  for  We're  bound  for 

BILL!  FEANCli, 

How  the  poor  mortals  hugged  me  !    My !    I  felt 
as  if  they'd  drugged  me. 
Drugged  and  wined  me  in  the  sway  of  cap- 
tivating swell  dance. 

Out  then  I  churned  and  sped;    out  upon  the 
ocean's  bed. 
While  the  little  tuglets  drove  and  towed  me. 


Then  to  Newfoundland's  banks,  I  rushed  with 
oil-fllled  tanks. 
While  the  great  billows  roughed  and  bowed 
me. 

Past  the  Gloucester  fishing  fleet,  where  cod  and 
haddock  greet 
Men  of  sinew — ^facing  death  and  danger. 
On  through  the  fog-banks  dim;    past  the  wild 
whimpering 
Of  seals  and  gulls;    of  kau— old  Neptune's 
Banger. 

On,   on,    I   churned   and   sped ;    on— on — with 
white-capped  head. 
Nearer  and   nearer  came  the  banks  of   Ire- 
land, 
Then  I  was  made  to  slow,  Just  where  the  sea- 
mews  blow. 
Blow  and  strike  with  spuming  grip  the  Jut- 
ting fire-land. 

Soft!  sorr!     The  Captain  cried,  as  past  the 
rocks  we  shied, 
Soft  I  soft  !  beware  the  U  boat's  cunning, 
Crebp!  cbeip!  with  stealthy  course;    criip! 
cribp!  your  giant  force. 
Must  be  curbed,  but  still  be  slowly  running. 

Ha  !     What  was  that  I  saw,  as  from  the  wind- 
swept maw. 
Up     poked     the     tell-tale     top     of     German 

KULTUR, 

A  shiver  swept  along  my  keel,  a  shaking  that 
all  could  feel. 
As  from  the  depths  emerged  the  steel-clad 
vulture. 

Stop! — I  could  not  If  I  would.     My  propeller 
spun,  as  blood 
Spurts  and   flows   through   veins   of   human 
mortals, 
I  could  not  breech  the  blow,  that  was  coming 
swift,  liot  slow, 
Aimed  at  my  side  and  glowing  port-holes. 

Crash!   grind!      It   hit   me  fair,   as   if  some 
polar  bear 
Had  clawed  and  pawed  me  with  his  talons, 
I  careened  to  starboard  then,  I  shook,  as  fran- 
tic men 
Ban  to  the  boats — the  sea  ran  in  by  gallons. 

Down  !  down  !  I  plunged  and  spumed  ;    down  ! 
DOWN  I  I,  too,  was  doomed. 
Doomed  by  the  mailM  fist  of  far-off  Potsdam, 
Oh,  the  awful  shrieks  of  pain  that  rose  upon 
the  main. 
As  the  billows  gray  were  filled  with  oil  and 
flotsam. 

To  their  death  went  babes  and  men,  to  their 
death  within  my  pen, 
I  could  not  stop  the  craven  beak  that  hurt 
us, 
Down  with  me — with  my  tilt;    down  with  me 
Vanderbilt. 
Down  to  the  depths  the  Fra  Elbbrtds. 


THE    GOSSIP    SHOP 


251 


Down   wh«re  the  lobflteri  crawl,  down   wbere 
the  hungry  trawl, 
Dragged  by  tbe  lugger,  skima  and  lettles, 
Down  with  me  actors,  singers;   down  with  me 
wailing  dingers. 
What  conld  I  do  with  such  frail  womanish 
petals? 

And,  from  my  cayem  of  woe,  where  the  fierce 
undertow 
Tide-rips  and  sways  my  sides  I  thunder ; 
"Thank  Odd,  thi  kino  or  hati  has  lost  his 
kulturid  stati, 
Thank  Ood,  and  maki  him  now  disooboi 
HIS  plunder!*' 


With  the  aim  of  aiding  young 
women  writers  and  artists  to  win  rec- 
ognition in  their  work,  a  New  York 
chapter  of  the  League  of  American 
Pen  Women  has  been  organized.  It 
invites  the  membership  of  women  fic- 
tion writers,  journalists,  editors,  pub- 
lishers, dramatic  and  scenario  writers, 
advertising  experts  ''and  other  pro- 
fessional women".  Plans  for  a  mem- 
bership drive  are  being  directed  by 
Mrs.  Ruth  Mason  Rice,  president  of 
the  New  York  Branch. 


Walter  A.  Dyer,  who,  by  the  way, 
is  at  work  on  a  story  of  the  life  and 
times  of  Paul  Revere  and  pre-Revolu- 
tionary  Boston,  sends  the  following  to 
the  Gossip  Shop: 

I  want  to  teU  you  something  about  Henry 
James  Forman,  because  it  is  concelyable  that 
his  new  novel,  *'Fire  of  Touth'*,  may  shortly 
be  attracting  a  good  deal  of  attention.  Ger- 
trude Atherton  got  hold  of  advance  sheets  of 
it  and  said  it  should  be  one  of  the  successful 
books  of  the  season.  Forman,  who  has  had 
a  varied  and  educating  Journalistic  and  edi- 
torial career  in  New  York,  Including  positions 
as  associate  editor  of  *The  North  American 
Review**  and,  for  five  years,  managing  editor 
of  "Collier's",  is  now  working  on  his  own. 
With  the  war  there  came  for  him  a  sort  of 
propaganda-intelligence  Job  that  sent  him 
around  the  earth  from  Peking  to  Switserland. 

"After  the  Armistice'*,  he  says,  '*when  the 
Job  of  America  seemed  done  and  weU  done, 
many  of  us  on  the  other  side,  in  the  reaction 
from  the  strain,  seemed  to  feel  a  wonderful 
vague  kind  of  tenderness  for  our  home  land, 
such  as,  perhaps,  we  had  never  experienced  be- 
fore. Our  people  seemed  so  fine  and  simple 
and  candid,  and  in  the  turmoU  of  intrigue  be- 


fore and  during  the  peace  conference,  our  dis- 
tant America  looked  to  us  like  a  land  of  arch- 
angels.** 

The  plot  and  atmosphere  of  "Fire  of  Youth" 
were  conceived  in  London  during  a  period  of 
homesickness  and  the  book  is  intended  to  voice 
the  longing  of  those  thousands  of  Americans 
for  the  last  of  war  and  home. 

"I  wanted,"  he  says,  "to  express  something 
of  the  inarticulate  love  for  America  that  was 
yearning  in  the  hearts  of  some  two  miUion  of 
us  who  were  marooned  in  Burope." 

Whether  the  sentiment  is  authentic, 
whether  it  will  strike  a  responsive 
chord  in  these  United  States  during  a 
period  of  reaction,  remains  to  be  seen. 
The  experiment  cannot  fail  to  be  of  in- 
terest, at  least  Mr.  Forman  is  the 
author  of  several  books.  He  has  also 
made  a  venture  in  dramatic  writing. 
A  play  entitled  "Prisoner  of  the 
World"  was  produced  in  Boston  last 
summer  and  is  now  on  the  road.  « 


A  Bible  written  by  hand  was  lately 
exhibited  in  connection  with  a  Bible 
crusade  in  England.  This  huge  vol- 
ume, five  feet,  two  inches  in  height, 
and  three  feet,  six  inches  in  width, 
was  compiled  of  verses  hand-written  by 
12,000  contributors.  The  King  and 
Queen  were  among  the  contributors. 


Grant  M.  Overton,  who  put  the  liter- 
ary supplement  of  the  New  York 
"Sun"  on  the  map,  whose  latest  book 
"Mermaid"  was  published  not  long 
ago,  and  who  has  contributed  a  num- 
ber of  papers  to  The  Bookman,  asks 
us:  "Why  is  it  that  they  speak  in- 
variably of  the  backwoods  as  a  'moun- 
tain fastness'  when  anyone  who  has 
been  in  one  knows  it's  a  'mountain 
slowness'?" 


Gabriel  Wells,  who  contributes  to 
this  number  of  The  Bookman  the 
article  called  "The  Evolution  of  a 
Book  Collector",  has  been  for  a  num- 
ber of  years  a  dealer  in  rare  books  in 


252 


THE   BOOKMAN 


New     York     known     to     collectors 
throughout  the  country. 


Cecil  Roberts,  one  of  the  younger 
English  poets  recently  lecturing  in 
this  country,  remarked  shortly  before 
he  sailed  for  home  early  in  March  that 
he  had  never  met  another  English  poet 
until  he  arrived  in  New  York.  His 
publishers  tell  us  that  the  full  name  of 
this  young  Englishman  is  Edric  Cecil 
Wellesley  Momington  Dalrymple  Rob- 
erts. 


Benjamin  De  Gasseres  writes  in  to 
suggest  that  there  should  be  in  The 
Bookman  an  "Ecstasy  Department" 
as  well  as  a  Complaint  Department. 
The  editor  in  the  other  room  has  just 
Opened  another  box  of  fifty  Virginia 
plain  in  order  the  better  to  think  this 
over. 


From  a  recent  number  of  "Punch" : 
"  *The  Drinkwater  Tragedy.' — 
This  comes  from  dry  America,  but  it 
is  not  the  wail  of  a  *wef ; — merely  the 
heading  of  an  article  on  the  drama 
'Abraham  Lincoln'." 


James  C.  Grey  who  wrote  the  article 
in  the  March  Bookman  on  Lord  Fish- 
er's volumes,  "Memories  and  Rec- 
ords", is  an  Englishman  long  resident 
in  this  country.  He  was  foreign  news 
editor  of  the  New  York  "Evening 
Sun"  during  the  war,  and  he  handled 
the  literature  and  history  departments 
of  "The  New  International  Encyclo- 
paedia" during  the  preparation  of 
those  volumes. 


A  thing  which  may  be  of  interest  to 
many  readers  of  the  recently  pub- 
lished novel  "The  Moon  and  Sixpence" 
who  have  not  read  that  very  remark- 
able  earlier   novel   of  W.   Somerset 


Maugham's,  "Of  Human  Bondage", 
published  in  the  United  States  in 
1915,  is  that  at  the  time  of  the  writing 
of  the  earlier  book  Mr.  Maugham  had 
much  in  mind  the  figure  Paul  Gauguin 
whose  career  and  character  he  made 
the  basis  of  the  leading  figure,  Charles 
Strickland,  in  "The  Moon  and  Six- 
pence". On  page  212  of  "Of  Human 
Bondage"  occurs  this: 

In  Brittany  he  bad  come  across  a  painter 
whom  nobody  else  bad  heard  of,  a  queer  fellow 
who  had  been  a  stockbroker  and  had  taken  up 
painting  at  middle-age,  and  be  was  greatly 
influenced  by  his  work.  He  was  turning  his 
back  on  the  impressionists  and  working  out  for 
himself  painfully  an  individual  way  not  only 
of  painting  but  of  seeing.  Philip  felt  in  him 
something  strangely  originaL 

And  on  page  256  of  the  same  book 
we  find  the  following  conversation : 

'*D'you  remember  my  telling  you  about  that 
chap  I  met  in  Brittany?  I  saw  him  the  other 
day  here.  He's  Just  off  to  Tahiti.  He  was 
broke  to  the  world.  He  was  a  hrasaeur  d'af- 
faire$,  a  stockbroker  I  suppose  you  call  it  in 
Bnglish ;  and  he  had  a  wife  and  family,  and 
he  was  earning  a  large  income.  He  chucked  it 
all  to  become  a  painter.  He  Just  went  off  and 
settled  down  in  Brittany  and  began  to  paint. 
He  hadn't  got  any  money  and  did  the  next 
best  thing  to  starving.*' 

"And  what  about  his  wife  and  family?" 
^  asked  Philip. 

"Oh,  he  dropped  them.  He  left  them  to 
starve  on  their  own  account." 

"It  sounds  a  pretty  low-down  thing  to  do." 

"Oh,  my  dear  feUow,  if  you  want  to  be  a 
gentleman  you  must  give  up  being  an  artist. 
They've  got  nothing  to  do  with  one  another. 
Tou  hear  of  men  painting  pot-boilers  to  keep 
an  aged  mother — well,  it  shows  they're  excel- 
lent sons,  but  it's  no  excuse  for  bad  work. 
They're  only  tradesmen.  An  artist  would  let 
his  mother  go  to  the  workhouse.  There's  a 
writer  I  know  over  here  who  told  me  that  his 
wife  died  in  childbirth.  He  was  in  love  with 
her  and  he  was  mad  w^th  grief,  but  as  he 
sat  at  the  bedside  watching  her  die  he  found 
himself  making  mental  notes  of  how  she  looked 
and  what  she  said  and  the  things  he  was  feel- 
ing.   Gentlemanly,  wasn't  it?" 

"But  is  your  friend  a  good  painter?"  asked 
PhiUp. 

"No,  not  yet,  he  paints  Just  like  Plssarro. 
He  hasn't  found  himself,  but  he's  got  a  sense 
of  colour  and  a  sense  of  decoration.  But  that 
isn't  the  question.  It's  the  feeling,  and  that 
he's  got.     He's  behaved  like  a  perfect  cad  to 


THE    GOSSIP    SHOP 


253 


bis  wife  and  children,  he*8  always  behaying  like 
a  perfect  cad ;  the  way  he  treats  the  people 
who've  helped  him — ^and  sometimes  he's  been 
saved  from  starvation  merely  by  the  kindness 
of  his  friends — is  simply  beastly.  He  just  hap- 
pens to  be  a  great  artist." 

Philip  pondered  over  the  man  who  was  will- 
ing to  sacrifice  everything,  comfort,  home, 
money,  love,  honour,  duty,  for  the  sake  of  get- 
ting on  to  canvas  with  paint  the  emotion 
which  the  world  gave  him.  It  was  magnificent, 
and  yet  his  courage  failed  him. 


"Going  out  of  my  office  one  day  I 
met  in  the  doorway  a  French  friend, 
his  face  full  of  eagerness. 

'You  tell  me  vat  is  a  polar-bear?' 

'A  polar-bear!  Why  he's  a  big  bear 
that  lives  up  in  the  polar  regions/ 

'And  vat  does  he  do,  ze  polar-bear?' 

'Not  much  of  anything  I  guess — sits 
on  the  ice  and  eats  fish.' 

'He  sit  on  ze  ice  and  eat  fish?' 

'Yes,  why  not?' 

'Vy  not?  Because  I  have  just  been 
asked  to  be  a  polar-bear  at  a  funeral, 
and  if  I  have  to  sit  on  ze  ice  and  eat 
fish,  I  viU  not  go  I' " 

From  "A  Golden  Age  of  Authors", 
by  William  W.  Ellsworth. 


Bonn  Byrne  has  been  notified  by  the 
Committee  on  O.  Henry  Memorial 
Award  for  1919,  of  the  Society  of  Arts 
and  Sciences,  that  his  story  entitled 
"Bargain  Price"  has  been  selected  as 
one  of  those  to  be  published  in  a  vol- 
ume from  which  the  prize  story  is  to 
be  selected.  Mr.  Byrne's  first  novel 
"The  Strangers'  Banquet"  was  re- 
cently published.  Although  a  popular 
magazine  writer,  Mr.  Byrne  refused 
to  sell  "The  Strangers'  Banquet"  for 
serialization,  and  is  now  at  work  on  a 
new  novel. 


Harry  Hansen,  author  of  "The  Ad- 
ventures of  the  Fourteen  Points",  has 
been  chosen  literary  editor  of  the  Chi- 
cago "Daily  News".  Mr.  Hansen  has 
for  several  years  served  the  "News" 


as  cable  editor.  He  was  in  Paris  dur- 
ing the  Peace  Conference  representing 
the  "News"  and  a  number  of  other 
American  daily  newspapers. 


From  Lagos,  Nigeria,  a  native  gen- 
tleman (evidently  a  bookseller),  re- 
ports the  English  magazine  "M.  A. 
B."  (Mainly  About  Books),  sends  to  a 
London  publisher  the  following  liter- 
ary curiosity : 

To  the  Gentleman. 

Dear  Sir, — With  my  most  respectfully  to 
write  you  this  letter  of  demand  your  catalogue 
of  books  because  I  am  needed  of  order  from 
you  when  you  shaU  allow  me  to  do  so  with 
pleasure  and  I  require  you  to  satisfy  me  by 
your  kindly  good  favourably  and  I  Hope  you 
shaU  not  faU  to  let  me  get  your  quickly  re- 
Joinder  from  you  by  returned  of  mail  to  our 
coast.  Kindly  I  require  you  to  let  me  know 
any  kind  of  books  you  get  for  in  your  bookshop 
or  any  Talismans  for  get  knowledge  or  for 
charms  or  for  learning  and  Eloquence  or  book 
of  Stop-forgetting  or  mind  memory  or  as  six 
or  seyen  book  of  moses  or  key  of  Solomon  the 
king.  Sometimes  you  may  direct  me  to  an- 
other bookseUer  in  London  I  shall  be  very  glad. 
Dear  Sir  Hope  to  hear  from  you  as  Early.  Al- 
ways faithfully  yours. 


The  first  two  volumes  in  the  hand- 
somely printed  uniform  edition  of  the 
works  of  Henry  van  Dyke  to  appear 
are  "Little  Rivers"  and  "Fisherman's 
Luck".  In  a  foreword  to  this,  the 
"Avalon  Edition"  of  his  books,  which 
appears  in  the  volume  "Little  Rivers", 
Dr.  van  Dyke  says : 

This  edition  Is  named  after  the  old  house 
where  I  live, — when  not  on  a  Journey,  or  gone 
a-fishing,  or  foUowlng  up  some  piece  of  work 
that  calls  me  far  away. 

It  is  a  pleasant  camp,  this  Avalon,  with  big, 
friendly  trees  around  it,  and  an  ancient  garden 
behind  it,  and  memories  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution built  into  its  waUs,  and  the  gray  tow- 
ers of  Princeton  University  Just  beyond  the 
treetops. 

Far  have  I  traveled  from  these  walls,  yet 
always  on  the  same  quest,  and  never  forgetting 
"the  rock  whence  I  was  hewn".  Now  I  come 
back  to  gather  up  the  things  that  have  been 
written  in  my  voyages  of  body  and  of  spirit. 

The  realities  of  faith  are  unshaken ;  the 
visions  of  hope  nndimmed ;  the  shrines  of  love 
undefUed.      And   while   I    sit   here  assembling 


254 


THE   BOOKMAN 


theie  pages, — an  adventurous  conseryatiye, — 
I  look  forward  to  farther  Journeys  and  to  com- 
ing back  to  the  same  home. 


nent  physician  and  author,  which  will 
be  published  probably  next  autumn. 


A  writer  in  a  recent  number  of 
"The  English  Journal"  (which  is  not 
published  in  England  but  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago  Press,  and  which  is 
the  official  organ  of  the  National 
Council  of  Teachers  of  English)  has 
an  interesting  article  called  *'  'Stunts' 
in  Language".  From  this  article  we 
quote  the  following: 

When  we  first  read  of  "suffragettes'\  dis- 
ciples of  Mrs.  Pankhurst,  editorial  writers 
pronounced  the  name  as  impossible  as  the 
species  which  it  named.  No  one  anticipated 
the  degree  to  which,  with  the  outbreak  of  the 
war,  the  suffix  -ette  was  to  run  its  course.  It 
has  brought  us,  among  others,  the : 

farmerette  sheriffette 

yeomanette  chauffrette 

huskerette  Tammanette 

ofllcerette  slackerette 

One  eyen  encounters  a  ''white  elephantette",  a 
"hoboette",  a  "kaiserette"  (of  the  kitchen)  ; 
while  one  speaker,  describing  a  stage  scene, 
referred  to  "sorceresses  and  devilettes".  Along- 
side this  popular  feminine  suflix  has  arisen  an- 
other, the  origin  of  which  is  less  clear.  We 
now  hear  occasionally  of  "actorines'*  (usually 
in  moving  pictures),  of  "doctorines**,  of  "knit- 
terlnes",  and  of  "batherines,  who  strlye  for 
war-conscrration  in  their  apparcF'.  Recently 
a  newspaper  paragraph  referred  to  "farmerette* 
soldierines".  What  is  this  new  feminine  affix? 
Probably  it  arises  from  the  ending  found  in 
names  like  Arllne,  Josephine,  Christine.  Since 
it  is  Jocular,  it  may  have  been  helped  to  cur- 
rency by  that  once  popular  term  of  approba- 
tion, "peacherine",  which  in  turn  owed  some- 
thing to  that  select  variety  of  the  peach,  the 
"nectarine'*.  The  ending  -ine,  viewed  as  dis- 
tinctively feminine,  was  perhaps  extended  to 
other  words. 


Those  who  have  letters  from  the 
late  S.  Weir  MitcheU,  author  of  "Hugh 
Wynne,  Free  Quaker"  and  other  books, 
can  do  a  gracious  and  kindly  act  which 
Dr.  Mitchell  would  appreciate,  by 
sending  the  letters  or  copies  of  them 
to  The  Century  Company,  353  Fourth 
Avenue,  New  York  City,  or  to  Mr.  Tal- 
cott  Williams,  423  West  117th  Street, 
New  York  City.  Mr.  Williams  is  at 
work  on  the  authorized  life  of  the  emi- 


W.  N.  C.  Carleton,  formerly  head  of 
the  Newberry  Library  of  Chicago,  has 
entered  the  field  of  bookselling  in  New 
York.  Doubtless  his  experience  will 
be  watched  with  interest  by  many 
other  librarians  who  are  confronted 
by  the  high  cost  of  living,  and  the  se- 
verely consistent  attitude  of  library 
trustees  who  are  determined  to  save 
the  money  of  the  taxpayers  of  cities, 
no  matter  what  becomes  of  library 
workers. 


Advance  rumors  of  the  actual  show- 
ing of  the  picture  are  confirmed  in 
an  unusually  fine  production  for  the 
screen  from  the  novel  of  "Dangerous 
Days"  by  Mary  Roberts  Rinehart. 
Mrs.  Rinehart  herself  spent  a  month 
in  Culver  City  going  over  the  manu- 
script and  the  cast  of  the  players. 


Up  to  July  1,  1919,  the  number  of 
titles  of  books  about  the  war  is  esti- 
mated at  from  60,000  to  70,000,  with 
more  coming  every  day.  The  number 
of  periodical  references  indexed  is 
placed  at  a  million.  A  bibliography  of 
the  Great  War,  therefore,  a  task  on 
which  several  libraries  are  working 
together,  will  be  something  more  than 
a  "handy  volume  for  the  pocket". 


Professor  Robert  Matteson  John- 
ston, who  died  at  his  home  in  Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts,  on  January  28, 
after  an  illness  aggravated  by  two 
years'  service  in  France,  was  the  Chief 
Historian  of  the  American  Expedi- 
tionary Forces  and  the  author  of 
"Arms  and  the  Race",  a  brief  sketch 
of  United  States  military  history. 
Professor  Johnston  was  fifty-two  years 
of  age  at  his  death.  He  was  bom  in 
France,  educated  in  France,  England, 


THE    GOSSIP    SHOP 


255 


Germany,  and  the  United  States,  and 
was  a  member  of  the  English  Bar.  At 
various  times  he  was  a  member  of  the 
faculties  of  Bryn  Mawr,  Mount  Holy- 
oke,  and  Simmons  Colleges,  and  at  the 
time  of  his  illness  he  occupied  the 
Chair  of  Modem  History  at  Harvard 
University.  Two  new  books  by  Pro- 
fessor Johnston  are  about  to  appear. 
They  are:  "First  Reflections  on  the 
Campaign  of  1918",  and  "Twelve 
Months  at  General  Headquarters". 


A  writer  in  a  recent  issue  of  "Mod- 
em Language  Notes"  asks:  Why  did 
Shelley  choose  the  West  Wind,  and  set 
it  apart  from  and  above  all  the  rest 
in  his  great  ode?  "It  is  easy  to  under- 
stand," he  says,  "why  wind  in  the 
abstract, — any  strong,  swift,  master- 
ful wind, — ^must  have  had  an  esi)ecial 
attraction  for  a  poet  of  Shelley's  tem- 
perament. He  recognized  that  there 
was  something  in  his  own  uncontrolled 
nature  originally  akin  to  a  creature  so 
'tameless  and  swift  and  proud'."  And 
so  on.  But  while  this  may  explain 
Shelley's  sense  of  kinship  to  the  wind, 
his  preference  for  the  West  Wind  re- 
mains to  be  accounted  for.  Then, 
after  several  pages  of  argument,  the 
writer  sums  up  this: 

To  Shelley,  then,  the  westem  wind  had  a 
definite  character  and  ofBce.  Tameless,  swift, 
proud,  uncontrollable,  even  fierce — It  was  yet 
above  all  the  spirit  of  power ;  the  spirit  that 
in  sweeping  away  the  old  brought  in  the  new, 
the  wind  that  was  both  radical  and  conserva- 
tive, both  destroyer  and  preserver ;  that 
showed  us  death  as  but  a  transitional  phase  of 
life.  May  we  not  say  that  if  Shelley  had  writ- 
ten an  ode  to  any  other  wind,  while  it  might 
have  been  equaUy  good,  it  would,  of  necessity, 
have  been  utterly  different.  His  words  apply 
to  this  particular  wind  and  to  no  other,  for  in 
this  matter  also, — 

The  east  is  east  and  the  west  is  west, 
And  never  the  twain  shall  meet. 

By  the  way,  have  we  not  caught  this 
Shelley  academician  napping  over  his 
Kipling? 


There  have  been  8,622  books  pub- 
lished in  the  United  Kingdom  in  1919, 
reports  "The  Publishers'  Circular"  of 
London — an  increase  of  906  books 
over  1918.  The  London  "Sphere"  com- 
ments as  follows : 

The  strange  thing  is  that  there  is  a  decrease 
in  the  supply  of  poetry,  drama,  and  history. 
But  perhaps  it  is  not  strange.  The  soldiers 
at  the  front  loved  to  read  poetry,  we  are  told. 
Back  here  in  these  islands,  does  the  world 
seem  too  squalid  for  poetry?  As  for  drama,  it 
is  everywhere — why  ask  for  it  in  books?  His- 
tory also  is  in  the  making.  We  are  waiting 
for  the  new  countries  to  reshape  themselves. 
The  increase  is  in  science,  technology,  soci- 
ology, and  above  aU  in  fiction.  Of  the  8,000 
books,  6.000  are  new  books.  Only  2,000  new 
editions.  One  would  like  to  emulate  one  of 
Max  Beerbohm*s  characters  and  see  the  sur- 
vivals a  century  hence.  Then  probably  there 
will  be  no  books  at  all — only  cinema  films.  I 
am  told  you  wUl  shortly  have  a  cinema  in  every 
house,  and  Shakspere  and  the  latest  novel  wiU 
be  produced  in  pocket  film  form.  The  art  of 
printing  will  disappear — photography  will  be 
aU  in  all. 


The  names  of  G.  K.  Chesterton  and 
Max  Beerbohm  on  one  book  are  enough 
to  give  any  book  a  special  interest. 
They  have  contributed  introduction  to 
a  little  book  of  nonsense  verses  enti- 
tled "Dressing  Gowns  and  Glue"  by 
L.  DeG.  Sievking  with  illustrations 
by  John  Nash,  which,  it  is  said,  has 
been  creating  a  sensation  in  London, 
and  which  will  shortly  be  published 
here. 


The  news  of  the  death  of  Leonid 
Andreyev,  the  Russian  novelist,  on  the 
twelfth  of  September  of  last  year  has 
just  come  to  us  in  this  country.  An- 
dreyev, at  the  age  of  forty-eight,  had 
many  novels  to  his  credit,  and  he  is 
well  known  in  his  own  country  as  a 
short-story  writer  as  well.  One  of  his 
best  short  stories,  "Silence",  is  con- 
tained in  "Modem  Russian  Classics", 
one  of  the  volumes  of  the  Interna- 
tional Pocket  Library,  which  is  now 
being  published. 


256 


THE   BOOKMAN 


Rupert  Hughes's  novel  "What  Will 
People  Say?"  is  to  be  translated  into 
Scandinavian,  for  issuance  by  a  firm 
of  Danish  publishers.  Because  of  his 
enthusiasm  for  Major  Hughes's  work, 
Johan  V.  Jensen,  the  Danish  author, 
asked  to  be  permitted  to  do  the  trans- 
lation, and  he  is  now  working  on  it. 


"Ben  Hur",  which  seems  to  have  a 
fresh  spurt  of  popularity  every  year, 
is  continuing  its  career  on  the  Amer- 
ican stage.  Originally  presented  on 
the  stage  at  the  Broadway  Theatre  in 
1899,  "Ben  Hur"  recently  opened 
again  at  the  Forrest  Theatre  in  Phila- 
delphia. Several  years  ago  the  pub- 
lishers of  the  book  arranged  for  a 
single  edition  of  a  million  copies  of 
the  Lew  Wallace  novel,  and  it  was 
promptly  absorbed. 


With  the  growing  popularity  in 
America  of  the  books  of  Frank  Swin- 
nerton,  particularly  since  the  publica- 
tion of  "Nocturne",  there  has  been 
much  curiosity  as  to  the  life  and  hab- 
its of  this  English  author.  So  the 
publishers  of  his  books  have  compiled 
a  booklet  to  satisfy  the  public's  de- 
mands for  information  about  Mr. 
Swinnerton,  which  they  will  be  glad  to 
supply  while  the  edition  lasts.  This  is 
the  second  in  an  interesting  series  of 
booklets  about  authors,  the  first  of  the 
series  being  about  Hugh  Walpole, 
with  an  appreciation  by  Joseph  Her- 
gesheimer.  Other  of  these  little  vol- 
umes are  to  follow. 

The  Swinnerton  booklet  contains 
"personal  sketches"  by  Arnold  Ben- 
nett, H.  G.  Wells,  and  Grant  Overton, 
together  with  notes  and  comments  on 
the  novels  of  Frank  Swinnerton. 
There  is  a  frontispiece  portrait  from 
a  drawing  by  R.  J.  Swan.  From  Ar- 
nold Bennett's  account  we  learn  that 
"Mr.  Swinnerton  is  in  the  business  of 


publishing,  being  one  of  the  principal 
personages  in  the  ancient  and  well- 
tried  firm  of  Chatto  and  Windus,  the 
English  publishers  of  Swinburne  and 
Mark  Twain.  He  reads  manuscripts, 
including  his  own — and  including 
mine.  He  refuses  manuscripts,  though 
he  did  accept  one  of  mine.  He  tells 
authors  what  they  ought  to  do  and 
ought  not  to  do.  He  is  marvelously 
and  terribly  particular  and  fussy 
about  the  format  of  the  books  issued 
by  his  firm.  And  misprints— espe- 
cially when  he  has  read  the  proofs 
himself — give  him  neuralgia  and  even 
worse  afflictions.  Indeed  he  is  the 
ideal  publisher  for  an  author. 

"Nevertheless,  publishing  is  only 
a  side-line  of  his.  He  still  writes  for 
himself  in  the  evenings  and  at  week- 
ends— ^the  office  never  sees  him  on  Sat- 
urdays. Among  the  chief  literary 
events  of  nineteen  seventeen  was  'Noc- 
turne', which  he  wrote  in  the  evenings 
and  at  week-ends.  It  is  a  short  book, 
but  the  time  in  which  he  wrote  it  was 
even  shorter.  He  had  scarcely  begun 
it  when  it  was  finished." 

Another  descriptive  essay  in  the 
booklet  gives  for  the  first  time  in 
print  a  very  informing  sketch  of  Mr. 
Swinnerton's  early  life,  with  the  little 
known  fact  that  the  author's  story  is 
one  of  "success  wrung  from  poverty, 
serious  ill  health,  and  impropitious 
circumstances.  He  owes  much  to  the 
interest  of  the  friends  whom  his  quiet, 
rather  baffling  personality  never  failed 
to  win  for  him ;  but  more  he  owes  to 
his  own  ordered  will  which  would  al- 
ways concentrate  on  the  good  ahead, 
no  matter  how  distressing  the  details 
of  material  existence  might  be." 


Interesting  thing:  a  number  of 
poems  (not  available  for  The  Book- 
man) written  "To  W.  H.  Hudson" 
have  recently  come  to  this  magazine. 


THE         4 

BGDKMAN 


May,  1920 


THE  LESSON  OF  THE  MASTER 

James  Gibbons  Hunekvr 

LYSA^fDER  SAWS  WOOD 

Francis  Lynde 

THE  LITERATURE  OF  A  MODERN 
JAPANESE  GIRL 

Hatiano  InaKaki  SugimoUi 

A  SPRING  REVIEW  OF  CHILDREN'S  BOOKS 

Annie  Carroll  Mixire 

WOMEN  OF  MARK  AND  THEIR  EDUCATION 

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which  this  book  coiiUins.  I  know  of  no  other  instance  in  which  such  really  beautiful 
poetry  has  been  written  by  a  child." 

It  seems  unfortunate  for  this  young  poet  that  her  book  appears  when  a  flood  of  juvenile- 
prodigy  literature  threatens  ihe  world.  The  work  was  accepted  in  October,  1919,  solely 
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VOL.  LI.  NO.  8 


THE 


BOOKMAN 


THE  CITY  OF  ENCHANTMENT 


BY  WILLIAM  McFEE 


IT  is  a  mystery  to  me",  I  heard  the 
Surgeon  remark  in  his  refined, 
querulous  voice,  "how  many  men  fol- 
low the  sea  all  their  lives,  go  all  over 
the  world,  behold  cities  and  men,  and 
come  home  with  minds  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  an  absolute  blank." 

"Apropos  of  what?"  I  asked.  I  had 
been  sitting  at  the  other  end  of  the 
long  ward-room  table,  and  missed  the 
immediate  application  of  this  remark. 
The  stewards  were  setting  coffee  on  the 
table  and  several  men  rose  to  catch  the 
eight  o'clock  liberty  launch.  I  moved 
up. 

"Well,"  said  the  Surgeon,  lighting  a 
cheroot,  "it  is  apropos  of  nearly  every 
sailor  I've  met  since  I  joined  the  navy, 
and  also  of  the  occasional  few  that 
came  my  way  in  practice  ashore  as 
well.  But  I  was  speaking  of  Barrett, 
the  Second  Watchkeeper.  Jolly  good 
fellow,  as  you  know,  and  has  knocked 
about  a  bit.  But  when  I  asked  him 
today  at  tea  if  he'd  ever  been  in  New 
Orleans,  he  said  yes,  often,  and  it  was 
a  rotten  place.  You  see,  I  had  been 
reading  a  story  which  referred  to  the 


city.  Now  Barrett's  comment  was 
typical  I  admit,  but  it  was  neither  il- 
luminating nor  adequate." 

"It  doesn't  follow",  I  observed,  "that 
his  mind  is  a  blank  nevertheless.  You 
misunderstand  our  mentality  if  you 
imagine  you  will  get  much  local  color 
out  of  any  of  us.  I  don't  suppose,  if 
you  interviewed  a  hundred  men  who 
had  been  there  or  any  other  place,  that 
you  would  get  any  other  answer." 

"I  can  tell  you  why,"  interjected 
suddenly  a  man  seated  beside  the  Sur- 
geon. I  recognized  him  as  the  en- 
gineer-commander of  a  special-service 
ship  lying  near  us  at  the  canal  buoys. 
He  was  a  man  of  middle  age,  and  his 
neatly-trimmed  grey  beard  and  down- 
ward drooping  moustache  gave  him 
an  air  of  settled  maturity  and  estab- 
lished character.  He  was  one  of  those 
men,  I  had  already  commented  to  my- 
self, who  embody  a  generic  type  rather 
than  an  individual  character.  He 
might  have  been  anything,  save  for 
the  distinguishing  gold  lace  on  his 
sleeve — ^navigator,  paymaster,  or  a 
competent  warrant-instructor  of  the 


267 


258 


THE  BOOKMAN 


old  school.  The  Surgeon,  who  was  his 
host  on  this  occasion,  looked  at  him  in- 
quiringly. 

"I  can  tell  you  why,"  repeated  the 
engineer-commander,  taking  out  a 
cigarette  case.  "The  fact  is",  he  went 
on  after  accepting  a  match,  'Voung 
men,  when  they  go  to  sea,  are  ro- 
mantic, but  not  incurably  so.  I  have 
rarely  found  anyone",  he  mused,  smil- 
ing, **who  was  incurably  romantic! 
One  can't  be,  at  sea.  It  is  no  sense  of 
grievance  which  leads  me  to  imagine 
most  of  us  as  having  had  the  romance 
crushed  out  of  us.  A  young  man's 
progress  through  life  in  our  profes- 
sion, so  far  from  resembling  the  old- 
fashioned  educational  grand  tour 
through  Europe,  is  much  more  like 
the  movement  of  a  piece  of  raw  ma- 
terial through  a  factory.  He  is  tor- 
tured and  tested  and  twisted,  sub- 
jected to  all  sorts  of  racking  strains 
to  find  out  if  he  will  stand  up  under 
the  stresses  of  life,  and  finally 
emerges  as  an  article  good  for  one 
specific  purpose  and  nothing  else. 

"All  our  social,  professional,  and 
economic  forces  tend  to  that  consum- 
mation. We  are  not  'educated'  at  all, 
in  the  sense  that  other  professions, 
the  medical  for  instance,  are  edu- 
cated; and  the  consequence  is  we  lack 
the  habits  of  agreeable  self-expres- 
sion. The  bright  romantic  young  fel- 
low, just  out  of  school,  becomes  in  a 
few  years  a  taciturn  and  efficient  of- 
ficer, who  sends  home  monosyllabic 
letters  from  Cairo  or  Bagdad  or  Yoko- 
hama, and  dreams  of  keeping  chickens 
in  Buckinghamshire.  But  don't  im- 
agine his  reticence  is  proof  that  he  is 
a  fellow  of  no  sentiment.  Each  of  us 
cherishes  some  romantic  memory  of 
foreign  parts — a  girl,  a  city,  a  board- 
ing-house, a  ship,  or  even  a  ship-mate 
— ^a  memory  that  tinges  the  fading 
past  with  iridescent  glamour  and  of 


which  we  cannot  be  persuaded  to  talk. 

"I  have  had  experiences  of  that  na- 
ture in  days  gone  by.  Like  some  of 
you,  I  was  at  sea  in  tramps,  and  col- 
lected the  usual  bundle  of  romantic 
memories.  What  I  was  going  to  say 
was,  that  I  knew  New  Orleans.  I 
knew  it  in  what  was  to  me  an  entirely 
novel  way.  It  was  the  first  foreign 
place  I  ever  lived  in  ashore.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  impression  it  made 
on  me. 

"I  had  never  been  even  in  the  United 
States.  There  had  been  a  bad  slump 
in  freights  that  year.  I  had  just  got 
my  chief-engineer's  license,  and  the 
expense  of  living  at  home  had  eaten 
well  into  my  savings.  When  I  got  to 
Liverpool  again  to  get  a  job,  I  found 
myself  along  with  a  good  many  others. 
I  was  like  a  hackney  carriage.  I  had 
a  license  and  I  had  to  crawl  round  and 
round  for  somebody  to  hire  me. 
Sounds  strange  nowadays  when  they 
are  sending  piano-tuners  and  lawyers' 
clerks  and  schoolteachers  to  sea  and 
calling  them  sailors.  I  used  to  call  in 
once  a  day  at  a  little  office  where  a 
sort  of  benevolent  association  had  its 
headquarters.  Most  of  us  were  always 
falling  behind  in  our  subscriptions 
and  the  secretary  would  have  nothing 
to  do  with  us.  He  was  a  big  man  with 
a  bushy  black  beard,  and  I  never 
found  him  doing  anything  else  except 
playing  billiards.  They  had  a  billiard- 
table  in  the  back  room,  and  he  and 
two  or  three  old  chiefs  of  big  Liver- 
pool boats  used  to  monopolize  it.  It 
happened  by  some  chance  that  my  sub- 
scription had  been  paid  up  at  this 
time,  so  he  had  to  give  me  some  atten- 
tion. One  day  when  I  strolled  in  he 
waved  to  me  with  his  cue  and  I  sat 
down  until  he  had  finished  his  stroke. 
He  then  said  he  knew  of  a  billet  which 
would  be  the  very  thing  for  me.  There 
was    a    twin-screw    passenger    boat 


THE  CITY  OF  ENCHANTMENT 


259 


going  out  to  Boston  to  be  taken  over. 
She  was  going  under  the  Cuban  flag, 
he  told  me.  He  had  had  a  letter  from 
a  friend  in  Belfast  who  was  going 
chief  of  her  for  the  trip.  I  could  go 
Fourth,  and  they  would  pay  my  pas- 
sage home. 

'•Well  it  didn't  sound  very  attrac- 
tive, but  I  decided  at  once.  I  would 
go.  My  journey  to  Belfast  took  up  a 
good  deal  of  the  money  I  had  left;  in 
fact  I  broke  my  last  five-pound  note 
when  I  bought  my  ticket.  I  did  not 
regret  that.  The  fact  was,  I  was  af- 
flicted with  a  sudden  desire  to  visit 
America.  I  had  been  to  all  sorts  of 
places  like  South  Africa  and  Australia 
and  India,  but  they  had  not  satisfied 
me.  I  don't  say  I  would  have  dis- 
missed them  all  as  'rotten'  places,  but 
they  had  made  no  appeal.  I  had  never 
really  seen  them,  you  understand.  The 
United  States,  at  that  particular  junc- 
ture in  my  life,  did  make  some  sort  of 
subtle  appeal  to  me.  I  had  heard  of 
men  who  had  made  their  fortunes  out 
there.  I  might  tumble  into  some- 
thing like  that.  I  had  read— oh,  the 
usual  things  boys  read  in  England.  In 
the  Sunday  School  at  home  they  had 
had  'From  Log  Cabin  to  White  House'. 
Mind  you,  it  wasn't  material  success 
I  was  thinking  about  so  much  as  the 
satisfaction  of  a  queer  craving  I  didn't 
half  understand.  You  see  I  was 
brought  up  as  most  of  us  were  then, 
in  an  atmosphere  of  failure.  There 
was  always  about  one  man  in  four  out 
of  work.  The  poor-houses  were  al- 
ways well-stocked  with  sturdy  pau- 
pers for  whom  the  industrial  system 
had  no  use.  We  used  to  go  about  get- 
ting a  job  as  though  it  was  a  criminal 
offense.  We  never  dreamed  of  quit- 
ting. There  were  always  fifty  others 
waiting  to  snatch  it  from  us.  With- 
out knowing  just  why,  I  had  a  restless 
craving  to  get  away  from  all  that.    I 


wanted  to  live  in  some  place  where  one 
could  breathe,  where  the  supply  of 
labor  was  not  so  tremendously  in  ex- 
cess of  the  demand.  So  I  said  I  would 
go.  I  went  over  to  Belfast  and  joined 
that  ship.  It  was  November,  and  we 
took  her  out,  flying  light,  into  winter 
North  Atlantic. 

"It  was  a  terrible  business.  She 
was  new,  and  her  trials,  because  of  the 
bad  weather,  had  been  of  the  sketchi- 
est description.  The  skipper  had  se- 
cured the  contract  to  take  her  over  for 
a  lump  sum,  he  to  find  crew,  food  and 
stores.  He  had  not  been  particularly 
generous  in  any  of  these.  There  were 
just  we  four  engineers  and  two  mates. 
We  had  our  meals  in  the  passenger  sa- 
loon, an  immense  place  that  glittered 
with  mirrors  and  enamel  and  gilding, 
but  with  only  one  table  adrift  on  an 
uncarpeted  floor.  It  was  curious  to 
watch  the  steward  emerge  from  the 
distant  pantry  and  start  on  the  voyage 
toward  us  bearing  a  tureen  of  soup. 
As  the  ship  rolled  he  would  slide  away 
to  starboard  over  the  smooth  surface 
of  the  teak  planking,  holding  the 
tureen  horizontal  as  though  he  were 
carrying  out  some  important  scientific 
experiment.  Then,  just  before  he 
could  bring  up  against  the  paneling, 
she  would  roll  to  port  and  back  he 
would  come  with  knees  bent  and  a 
weather  eye  for  a  grip  of  the  nearest 
chair.  When  she  rolled  her  rails  right 
under,  he  would  have  to  set  the  thing 
on  the  floor  and  kneel  down  with  his 
arms  round  it,  while  we  held  on  to  the 
racks  and  waited.  They  rigged  him  a 
lifeline  later  on,  but  everything  break- 
able was  broken.  One  day  there  was  a 
terrible  crash  upstairs,  and  the  skip- 
per and  mate  jumped  from  their  seats 
and  ran  away  up  the  grand  staircase. 
The  piano  had  been  carried  away  in 
the  music  room  and  had  dashed  into  a 
book-case  end  on.    We  had  to  get  the 


260 


THE  BOOKMAN 


crew  in  to  lash  it  fast  with  ropes. 

^'The  engine-room  was  full  of  leak- 
ing steam  and  water-pipes.  Every 
bearing  ran  hot»  and  the  stem  glands 
had  been  so  badly  packed  that  the 
water  was  squirting  through  in  tor- 
rents. And  she  was  twin-screw  with 
no  oilers  carried.  I  used  to  spend  the 
four  solid  hours  of  my  watch  cruising 
round,  hanging  on  to  hand-rails, 
emptying  oil-feeders  upon  her  smok- 
ing joints.  I  had  field-days  every  day 
down  in  the  bilges,  cleaning  shavings 
and  waste  and  workmen's  caps  out  of 
the  suctions.  She  rolled,  pitched, 
bucked,  and  shivered.  She  did  every- 
thing except  turn  over.  Twice  the 
starboard  engine  broke  down  and  we 
had  to  turn  round  and  go  with  the 
weather  until  we  could  get  it  running 
again.  I  used  to  call  her  the  ship  who 
lost  herself.  She  was  all  wrong.  She 
had  pumps  no  man  could  keep  right, 
tucked  away  in  comers  no  human 
being  above  the  size  of  a  Central 
African  pigmy  could  work  in.  We  had 
no  tools  and  no  tackle.  And  nobody 
cared.  The  one  idea  of  everybody  on 
board  was  to  get  her  into  Boston,  grab 
our  wages  and  passage  money,  and 
run  away  as  hard  as  we  could  go.  I 
must  say  it  was  rather  demoralizing 
for  a  young  chap  with  his  name  to 
make.  Of  course  the  job  itself  was 
demoralizing.  I  pitied  the  chaps  who 
were  going  to  serve  in  her  under  the 
Cuban  flag.  I  carried  away  no  ro- 
mantic memories:  only  a  bad  scald 
on  my  chest,  where  a  steam  joint  had 
blown  out  and  shot  boiling  water  into 
my  open  singlet. 

''And  Boston  made  no  particular 
impression  either.  I  was  paid  off, 
given  a  railroad  ticket  to  New  York, 
and  told  to  apply  at  a  certain  office  for 
a  passage  home.  We  were  shoved 
aboard  a  train  which  was  red-hot  one 
moment  and  ice-cold  a  moment  after. 


We  were  all  in  a  bunch  at  one  end  of 
the  car  and  scarcely  moved  the  whole 
time.  The  skipper,  who  had  gone 
through  the  day  before,  met  us  at  the 
Grand  Central  and  took  us  down  town. 
I  remember  lights,  a  great  noise  of 
traffic,  cries  to  get  out  of  the  road,  and 
a  cross-fire  of  questions  about  bag- 
gage. It  was  late  afternoon.  We 
roared  down  town  in  a  warm  subway. 
I  was  struck  by  the  ceiling  fans  in  the 
cars,  and  the  stem  preoccupation  of  a 
woman  who  sat  next  to  me  reading  a 
book.  When  we  emerged  on  Broad- 
way the  wind  was  driving  the  snow 
horizontally  against  our  faces,  and  we 
became  white  exactly  as  though  some- 
one had  sprayed  us  with  whitewash 
through  a  nozzle. 

"We  fought  our  way  down  into  a 
side-street  and  up  an  elevator  into  an 
office.  I  stood  on  the  edge  of  the  little 
crowd  trying  to  get  some  sort  of  sys- 
tem into  my  impressions.  I  became 
aware  of  words  of  disapproval.  'No! 
that  won't  do !'  'No ;  I  was  promised 
a  passage !'  'You  know  perfectly  well. 
Captain',  and  'What  is  it?  A  skin 
game?'  I  discovered  the  Captain  and 
a  man  in  a  carefully-pressed  broad- 
cloth suit  arguing  with  the  mate  and 
the  chief.  I  gathered  they  wanted 
some  of  us  to  waive  our  right  to  a  pas- 
sage home  and  sign  on  some  other 
ship.  The  Chief  would  have  nothing 
to  do  with  it,  and  the  Second  and 
Third  expressed  their  refusal  in  vio- 
lent language.  You  couldn't  blame 
them,  for  they  were  married.  They 
were  all  married,  I  believe.  I  was  the 
only  single  adventurer  among  them. 
They  looked  at  me.  I  must  have  made 
some  inquiry  for  I  heard  the  words 
'New  Orleans.  Hundred  dollars  a 
month.    Free  ticket.' 

"Well,  I  had  no  idea  where  New 
Orleans  was  at  that  time.  As  far  as 
I  can  recall  I  imagined  it  was  some- 


THE  CITY  OF  ENCHANTMENT 


261 


where  in  South  America.  That  didn't 
matter.  I  wasn't  married  and  I  had 
no  relish  for  going  back  to  Liverpool 
and  beginning  the  same  weary  old 
chase  for  a  job.  I  didn't  have  jobs 
thrown  at  me  in  those  days.  I  aston- 
ished them  all  by  saying  I'd  go.  The 
Second  said  I  must  be  crazy.  The 
man  in  the  broadcloth  suit  beckoned 
me  up  and  asked  for  my  papers.  They 
seemed  to  satisfy  him,  and  he  tele- 
phoned to  another  office  about  my 
ticket.  A  small  boy  appeared  to  take 
me  over  there  and  I  followed  him  out. 
I  never  saw  any  of  the  others  again. 
The  small  boy  led  me  along  Broadway 
and  into  a  big  office  where  I  received 
a  ticket  for  New  Orleans.  Then  I  had 
to  go  back  to  the  station  and  get  my 
baggage.  The  whole  business  went  on 
in  a  sort  of  exciting  and  foggy  dazzle. 
Nothing  remains  clear  in  my  mind 
now  except  that  nobody  regarded  me 
as  in  the  slightest  degree  of  any  im- 
portance. Even  the  small  boy,  chew- 
ing for  all  he  was  worth,  cast  me  off 
as  soon  as  he  had  steered  me  and  my 
baggage  to  another  station,  and  left 
me  to  wait  for  the  train. 

"I  don't  know  even  now  how  I  man- 
aged to  make  the  mistake.  I  dare  say 
such  a  thing  would  be  impossible  now- 
adays. Anyhow  I  discovered  the  next 
morning  I  was  on  the  wrong  train.  I 
believe  we  were  bound  for  Chicago. 
I  was  rushing  across  a  continent  in 
the  wrong  direction.  I  had  never 
done  much  railroad  traveling  any- 
where— a  few  miles  into  Liverpool, 
and  a  night  journey  from  Cardiff  to 
Newcastle  was  about  the  extent  of  it. 
I  was  bewildered.  The  conductor  told 
me  to  go  on,  now  I'd  started,  and  take 
the  Chicago  route.  I  suppose  I  must 
have  done  that.  I  sat  in  a  sort  of 
trance,  hour  after  hour,  watching  the 
train  plough  through  immense  tracts 
of  territory  of  which  I  did  not  know 


even  the  names,  through  great  cities 
that  flashed  and  jangled  before  me, 
over  rivers  and  through  mountain 
passes.  I  had  to  get  out  and  scamper 
over  to  other  trains.  I  went  hungry 
because  I  didn't  know  there  was  any- 
thing to  eat  on  board.  My  razors 
were  in  my  baggage  and  that  was  gone 
South  by  some  other  route.  I  had 
nothing  with  me  except  my  papers  and 
a  box  of  cigarettes.  I  was  in  a  day- 
car  and  my  fellow  travelers  were  con- 
stantly changing.  At  last  I  fell  into 
conversation  with  a  man  about  my 
own  age.  He  it  was  who  told  me  I 
could  get  a  berth  in  the  sleeping  car 
if  I  wanted  one.  He  took  me  out  on 
the  observation  car  at  the  end.  He 
was  a  reporter,  he  said.  Showed  me 
some  wonderful  references  from  edi- 
tors in  California  for  whom  he  had 
worked.  He  had  a  mileage  ticket,  and 
was  going  from  town  to  town  looking 
for  work.  He  said  the  Mississippi 
valley  was  'deader'n  mud  I  No  enter- 
prise'. I  have  often  wondered  what 
he  thought  of  me,  a  tongue-tied  and 
reserved  young  Britisher  wandering 
about  the  United  States. 

"It  came  to  an  end  at  last — some 
time  on  the  third  evening  it  must  have 
been.  The  climate  had  been  getting 
milder,  and  it  struck  me  that  we  must 
be  approaching  the  equator.  I  began 
to  wonder  what  was  in  store  for  me. 
I  felt  as  though  I  had  passed  through 
a  sort  of  tumultuous  and  bewildering 
purgatory.  I  found  myself  in  an  at- 
mosphere so  alien  that  I  had  no  no- 
tion of  where  or  how  to  catch  on.  I 
wandered  about  a  great  bam  of  a  sta- 
tion trying  to  find  somebody  to  attend 
to  me.  English  fashion,  I  wanted  to 
find  my  baggage.  Nobody  knew  any- 
thing. Nobody  cared.  A  big  negro 
on  the  box  of  a  cab  flourished  hie 
whip.  In  desperation  I  got  in,  just 
in  front  of  someone  else.    'Whar  you 


262 


THE  BOOKMAN 


goin',  sah?'  he  exclaimed  dramatically. 
'Take  me  to  a  hotel!'  I  replied.  He 
made  his  whip  crack  like  a  pistol-shot, 
and  we  rattled  off  into  the  darkness. 

"Of  course  I  felt  better  next  day.  I 
had  an  address  which  the  man  in  New 
York  had  given  me.  I  remember  the 
name — Garondelet  Street.  I  remem- 
ber it  because  it  was  the  first  intima- 
tion of  the  enchantment  which  New 
Orleans  has  always  exercised  over  me. 
There  was  a  fantastic  touch  about  it 
which  to  me  was  delightful.  I  re- 
member the  magic  of  that  first  walk 
through  the  city  across  Royal  Street, 
up  Bourbon,  across  Canal  and  so  into 
Garondelet.  There  was  something  bi- 
zarre even  about  the  office  I  visited, 
too.  I  believe  it  had  been  originally 
built  as  the  headquarters  of  some  lot- 
tery, and  it  was  full  of  elaborate  carv- 
ing and  marble  sconces  and  glittering 
mirrors  and  candelabra.  They  wanted 
to  know  where  1  had  got  to.  They 
had  exi)ected  me  the  day  before.  One 
would  have  imagined  from  their  im- 
patience that  I  had  kept  a  ship  wait- 
ing, or  something  equally  terrible. 
Now  that  I  had  come,  they  discovered 
they  might  not  want  me  after  all.  I 
waited  for  something  definite.  After 
some  telephoning,  a  man  with  a  square 
sheet  of  pasteboard  tied  over  his  fore- 
head, to  act  as  an  eye-shade,  told  me 
to  go  down  to  Louisa  Street  and  see 
the  chief  of  a  ship  refitting  down 
there. 

"I  got  on  a  trolley  car  and  rumbled 
down  interminable  streets  of  wooden 
shacks,  coming  out  abruptly  in  front 
of  a  high  bank  over  which  I  could  see 
the  funnel  and  masts  of  a  steamer. 
The  Chief  was  a  benevolent  old  Ger- 
man who  had  spent  twenty  years  in 
the  States.  He  patted  me  on  the  back 
and  made  me  sit  down  on  his  settee 
while  he  filled  a  great  meerschaum 
pipe.     He  had  had  a  great  deal  of 


trouble,  he  told  me.  I  wasn't  sur- 
prised when  I  learned  the  facts.  He 
had  had  a  Swedish  First  Assistant,  a 
very  fine  man  he  affirmed,  very  fine 
man  indeed:  good  machinist  and  en- 
gineer, but  he  could  not  manage  the 
Chinks.  It  was  a  pretty  cosmopolitan 
crowd  on  that  ship,  I  may  tell  you. 
They  had  Chinese  firemen,  Norwegian 
sailors,  and  officers  of  all  nations.  The 
Swedish  First  Assistant  was  now  re- 
placed by  a  Dutchman.  I  inquired 
what  had  become  of  the  Swede,  and 
the  old  gentleman  informed  me  that 
the  Chinks  had  done  for  him.  He  had 
gone  ashore  one  night  and  had  not 
come  back.  A  day  or  two  later,  his 
body  had  been  found  in  the  river. 
'But  dey  haf  not  found  his  head,'  the 
old  chap  told  me,  looking  extremely 
gloomy. 

"It  was  a  startling  beginning.  I 
had  been  shipmates  with  men  who  had 
lost  their  heads,  but  not  with  that  dis- 
astrous finality.  It  appeared  that  I 
was  to  go  Second  Assistant  if  I  shaped 
well.  Mr.  Blum  was  very  anxious  for 
me  to  shape  well.  'You  haf  been  with 
Chinks?' he  asked.  I  had.  More  than 
that,  I  was  able  to  say  I  liked  them. 
'That's  right',  he  assented  heartily; 
'if  you  like  them,  they  are  all  0.  K.' 
And  then,  in  answer  to  a  query  of 
mine,  he  gave  me  an  address  in  La- 
fayette Square,  where  I  could  get 
lodgings.  'They  will  do  you  well 
there,'  he  assured  me. 

"I  went  away  to  explore.  I  felt  I 
was  having  adventures.  This  was  bet- 
ter than  walking  about  Liverpool  in 
the  rain  trying  to  get  a  job.  Here  I 
was  succeeding  to  a  billet  which  had 
become  vacant  owing  to  a  tyrannical 
Swede  getting  himself  decapitated  in 
a  highly  mysterious  fashion.  Mind 
you,  there  were  other  hypotheses 
which  would  account  for  the  Swede's 
tragic  demise.    I  came  to  the  conclu- 


THE  CITY  OF  ENCHANTMENT 


268 


sion  later  that  he  probably  fell  off  a 
ferry  boat  returning  from  Algiers 
over  the  other  side  of  the  river  and 
got  caught  in  the  paddles.  But  at  the 
time  the  Chink  theory  was  popular. 
I  didn't  care.  One  doesn't,  you  know, 
when  one  is  young  and  without  ties. 

"And  I  explored.  That  old  steamer 
which  I  had  been  sent  to  join  was  as 
queer  as  her  crew.  She  had  been  built 
in  Scotland  twenty  years  before  and 
had  sailed  under  half-a-dozen  flags. 
She  had  been  bought  by  her  present 
owners  to  keep  her  oi^;  of  the  hands 
of  competitors,  and  she  only  ran  when 
one  of  the  others  was  laid  up  for 
overhaul.  She  was  always  breaking 
down  herself.  Sometimes  I  was  weeks 
in  New  Orleans  with  her.  Old  Blum 
would  wave  his  meerschaum  and  wag 
his  head  sagely.  'Say  nutting*,  he 
would  remark,  when  any  comment  was 
thrown  out  about  our  indolent  be- 
havior. 

"He  had  a  great  friend  who  would 
come  down  to  see  him,  a  Russian 
named  Isaac.  I  suppose  he  had  an- 
other name  but  I  never  knew  it.  He 
was  a  ridiculously  diminutive  creature 
with  a  stubby  moustache  and  round, 
colored  spectacles.  He  had  escax>ed 
from  Siberia,  they  told  me,  and  after 
many  wanderings  had  settled  in  New 
Orleans.  He  had  a  brother  who  was 
still  in  prison  at  Omsk,  and  he  had 
some  means  of  sending  things  to  him. 
Some  day  he  was  going  to  get  him 
away.  But  the  curious  thing  about 
Isaac  was  his  reputation  for  probity. 
When  we  were  paid  at  the  end  of  the 
month,  we  would  hand  our  rolls  to  him 
and  tell  him  to  put  them  in  the  bank. 
He  had  a  greasy  note  book  in  which 
he  put  down  the  totals  among  a  lot  of 
orders  for  soap  and  matches  and  over- 
alls. He  dealt  in  everything.  You 
could  buy  diamond  rings  and  shoe- 
laces, shirts  and  watches,  from  him. 


Where  he  kept  his  stock,  if  he  had  any, 
was  a  mystery.  He  flitted  about,  smil- 
ing and  rubbing  his  hands,  presenting 
a  perfect  picture  of  rascally  evasion. 
And  everybody  trusted  him.  I  never 
heard,  but  I  have  not  the  slightest 
doubt  he  eventually  rescued  his 
brother  from  Siberia.  He  had  friends 
in  San  Francisco,  Nagasaki,  and 
Vladivostok.    A  queer  character. 

"I  used  to  go  off  on  tours  through 
the  old  quarters  of  the  city  by  myself. 
I  saw  some  astonishing  things.  There 
was  an  old  gentleman  at  our  board- 
ing house,  for  instance,  who  excited 
my  curiosity.  I  used  to  follow  him  up 
St.  Charles  Street  after  dinner.  He 
always  came  to  a  halt  at  Canal  Street 
before  crossing,  and  would  swing 
round  sharply  as  though  he  suspected 
someone  spying  upon  him.  He  never 
took  any  notice  of  me,  however.  Then 
he  would  skip  across  and  down  Royal 
Street,  turning  into  the  Cosmopolitan. 
I  used  to  go  there  myself,  for  a  good 
many  Englishmen  patronized  it.  It 
was  known  among  us  as  the  Monkey- 
wrench  for  some  reason.  This  old 
chap  would  sit  in  a  comer  with  a  tall 
glass  of  Pilsner  before  him  and  read 
'L'Abeille',  that  funny  little  French 
paper  that  used  to  say  hard  things 
about  Lincoln  during  the  Civil  War. 
His  grey  hair  was  brushed  straight 
up  off  his  forehead,  and  he  had  a  trim 
grey  moustache  and  a  Napoleon  tuft 
on  his  chin.  About  ten  o'clock  I 
would  see  him  coming  out  and  march- 
ing down  Royal  Street. 

"One  night  I  followed  him,  and  saw 
him  go  into  one  of  the  old  curio  shops 
that  abound  down  there.  Well,  one 
evening  I  had  been  wandering  about 
near  the  Cathedral  and  was  coming  up 
Royal  Street  toward  the  Cosmopolitan. 
It  was  in  darkness,  for  the  shops  down 
there  were  shut,  but  there  was  a  bril- 
liant glare  of  light  in  front  of  the 


264 


THE  BOOKMAN 


restaurant.  It  was  like  watching  a 
brightly-lit  stage  from  the  darkness 
of  the  auditorium.  People  were  pass- 
ing in  crowds,  and  a  trolley  car  was 
making  a  great  noise  grinding  its  way 
down  the  street.  I  saw  the  old  gentle- 
man come  out  and  pause,  setting  his 
big  soft  hat  firmly  on  his  head.  And 
then,  to  my  astonishment,  a  young  man 
stepped  swiftly  out  of  the  swing  doors 
and  struck  the  old  gentleman  with  a 
dagger  on  the  shoulder.  He  fell  at 
once  and  the  young  man  began  to  walk 
away.  The  old  gentleman  rose  on  his 
elbow,  drew  out  a  revolver  and  fired, 
twice.  It  was  like  a  rehearsal  of  a 
melodrama.  The  young  man  fell 
against  a  passer-by.  And  then  the  in- 
evitable crowd  flew  up  from  all  sides 
and  the  narrow  street  was  blocked 
with  people. 

"I  kept  on  the  outside.  I  had  no  de- 
sire to  be  drawn  into  the  affair,  what- 
ever it  was.  A  reporter  in  the  next 
room  to  mine  told  me  it  was  a  feud, 
and  considered  it  the  most  ordinary 
thing  in  the  world.  The  newspapers 
treated  it  in  the  same  way.  It  was 
this  matter-of-fact  acceptance  of  what 
were  to  me  astounding  adventures 
that  induced  that  curious  impression 
of  being  in  an  enchanted  city.  I  would 
be  strolling  along  taking  my  evening 
walk  in  the  dusk  when  I  would  catch 
sight  of  feminine  forms  on  a  balcony, 
with  mantillas  and  fans,  and  I  would 
hear  the  light  tinkle  of  a  guitar. 
Passers-by  had  a  disconcerting  habit 
of  flitting  into  long  dim  corridors.  I 
saw  aged  and  dried-up  people  behind 
the  counters  of  stores  which  never 
seemed  to  have  any  customers. 

"I  passed  curio  shops  which  ap- 
peared to  be  the  abodes  of  ghosts.  I 
shall  never  forget  my  adventure  in  the 
shop  into  which  the  old  gentleman  had 
been  accustomed  to  vanish.  I  needed 
a  shelf  of  some  sort  for  my  room,  and 


I  had  a  sudden  notion  of  investigating 
this  place.  The  window  was  full  of 
the  bric-a-brac  which  silts  slowly  down 
to  the  city  from  the  old  plantations; 
silver  ware,  crucifixes,  bibelots,  and 
candlesticks.  It  was  away  down  past 
the  Cathedral  and  the  firefiies  were 
flitting  among  the  trees.  I  opened  the 
door.  A  candle  on  a  sconce  was  the 
sole  illumination  of  the  little  shop, 
which  was  full  of  grandfather  clocks. 
There  must  have  been  a  dozen  of  them 
there,  tall,  white-faced  spectres,  and 
all  going.  \  stood  in  astonishment. 
It  was  as  if  I  had  intruded  upon  a  pri- 
vate meeting  of  the  fathers  of  time. 
I  had  an  impression  that  one  of  them, 
turned  slightly  toward  his  neighbor, 
was  about  to  make  a  weighty  remark. 
He  cleared  his  throat  with  a  hoarse 
rasp  and  struck  seven!  And  all  the 
others,  with  the  most  musical  lack  of 
harmony,  joined  in  and  struck  seven 
as  well. 

"I  was  so  preoccupied  with  this  pre- 
posterous congregation  that  I  had 
failed  to  notice  the  entrance  of  a  tall 
thin  person  who  was  regarding  me 
with  austere  disapproval.  I  wondered 
if  she  was  going  to  strike  seven  as 
well.  But  she  didn't.  She  wished  to 
know  what  I  wanted,  and  when  I  told 
her,  she  said  she  hadn't  got  it,  and 
disappeared  among  the  tall  clocks.  I 
went  out  into,  the  summer  evening 
wondering  what  tales  those  venerable 
timepieces  were  whispering  among 
themselves — tales  of  this  strange  old 
city  of  enchantment,  along  whose 
streets  flitted  the  ghosts  of  a  dead 
past,  fleeing  before  the  roar  of  the 
trolley  car  and  the  foot  of  the  questing 
stranger. 

"For  that  is  the  dominating  impres- 
sion of  one  who  dwells  for  a  time  in 
the  city — an  impression  of  intruding 
among  mysteries  of  which  one  has  no 
right  to  the  key.     You  read   Gable 


THE  CITY  OF  ENCHANTMENT 


266 


and  become  aware  of  other  ghosts 
with  which  he  has  peopled  the  fantas- 
tic vistas  of  the  French  Quarter  and 
the  reaches  of  that  enigmatic  water- 
way up  which  sail  the  great  ships 
with  their  cargoes  of  coffee  and  tropic 
fruit.  You  begin  to  wonder  whether 
you  are  the  only  real  live  human  being 
doing  business  in  that  part  of  the 
world, 

''I  found  a  few,  of  course,  as  time 
went  on.  It  so  happened  I  came  across 
one,  a  Scotchman  too,  who  gave  me 
that  phrase — ^a  city  of  enchantment. 
He  kept  a  second-hand  book-store 
along  a  little  stone-flagged  alley  off 
St.  Charles  Street,  an  alley  where 
there  couldn't  possibly  be  any  busi- 
ness. I  suppose  he  had  some  sort  of 
mail-order  trade  with  distant  li- 
braries, but  he  always  seemed  to  part 
with  a  volume  with  intense  reluctance. 
I  had  a  lot  of  time  on  my  hands,  and 
was  fond  of  reading;  and  he  struck  a 
bargain  with  me  to  bring  the  books 
back  and  he  would  make  no  charge  for 
them.  Some  of  his  books  he  wouldn't 
sell  at  all.  I  got  into  the  habit  of 
dropping  in  during  the  evening  for  a 
talk.  It  became  quite  a  club.  There 
was  an  elderly  Yankee  from  Connecti- 
cut, a  lawyer  who  had  been  moving 
gently  about  the  Union  for  years  and 
had  come  to  a  gentle  anchorage  in  the 
Crescent  City.  His  ostensible  occupa- 
tions were  chewing  tobacco  and  com- 
menting upon  the  fluctuating  chalk- 
marks  on  the  board  at  the  Cotton  Ex- 
change. I  gathered  he  had  made  a 
small  fortune  by  promoting  a  com- 
pany for  manufacturing  a  patent  anti- 
septic sawdust  for  use  in  slaughter- 
houses. There  was  a  fat  Irishman 
who  spent  a  good  deal  of  time  writing 
and  printing  ferocious  pamphlets  deal- 
ing with  Home  Rule  and  Holy  Ireland. 
There  was  I,  a  lonely  young  English- 
man becalmed  in  a  foreign  port.    And 


there  was  a  sharp-nosed  little  man 
who  enveloped  himself  in  mystery  and 
took  a  malicious  pleasure  in  evading 
identification. 

"It  was  one  evening  when  the  twi- 
light— ^which  was  half  an  hour  earlier 
in  that  narrow  flagged  passage  than 
in  the  open  street — was  falling,  and 
filling  the  old  shop  with  strange  shad- 
ows, that  I  heard  our  host's  voice  say- 
ing: Tes,  this  is  a  city  of  enchant- 
ment. It  catches  the  imagination. 
As  we  drift  about  the  world  we  grow 
weary  of  the  futility  of  human  life, 
but  we  are  urged  on  to  fresh  voyages 
and  travels.  Always  we  see  a  better 
prospect  ahead.  We  are  deceived,  it 
is  not  so.  We  sigh  for  our  native  vil- 
lages and  dream  of  golden  futures. 
So  it  goes  on,  until  by  chance  we  come 
to  this  strange  city  of  enchantment, 
built  upon  the  drowsy  marshes  of  a 
great  river,  and — ^we  stop !  We  go  no 
further.  We  become  incurious  about 
the  future  and  we  look  back  upon  the 
past  without  regret.  Is  it  not  so? 
We  are  all  like  that.  A  city  of  en- 
chanted transients.  Lotus-eaters  of 
the  Mississippi.  Hobos  of  elevated 
sentiments  who  lack  the  elementary 
effort  to  move  on !' 

"Of  course,  he  was  joking,  but  there 
was  a  certain  acrid  sediment  of  truth 
in  the  stream  of  his  eloquence.  It 
gave  me  a  key  to  the  mystery  which 
seemed  to  brood  over  the  city  during 
the  long  months  of  humid  heat.  It 
directed  my  attention  to  the  bizarre 
contrast  between  this  sombre  melan- 
choly and  the  sharp  crackling  modern 
business-life  that  roared  up  Canal 
Street  and  burst  into  a  thunderous 
clangor  in  the  vast  warehouses  on  the 
levee,  where  the  cotton  and  sugar  and 
coffee  and  fruit  came  and  went,  and 
the  river  spread  its  ooze  among  the 
piles  below.  And  it  evoked  a  potent 
curiosity  in  the  man  himself  and  the 


266 


THE  BOOKMAN 


folks  who  had  come  to  a  stop,  as  he 
put  it,  around  him. 

"The  sharp-nosed  little  man  re- 
marked to  me  as  we  went  away  one 

evening,  that  our  friend  B was 

'well  posted'.  That  was  the  unsophis- 
ticated verdict  of  one  who,  as  I  say, 
took  a  malicious  pleasure  in  shrouding 
himself  in  mystery.  He  compensated 
us  for  this  by  exhibiting  a  startling 
familiarity  with  tl^e  private  lives  of 
everybody  else  we  had  ever  heard  of, 
from  the  President  of  the  Republic  to 
the  old  Chief  of  my  ship.  It  was  his 
pleasure  to  appear  suddenly  before  us 
as  we  sat  in  the  back  of  that  old  book- 
store. He  would  disappear  in  the 
same  enigmatic  fashion.  He  would 
recount  to  us  dark  and  fascinating 
stories  of  the  people  who  passed  the 
window  as  we  sat  within.  He  would 
wait  by  the  door  until  some  stranger 
had  gone,  and  then  with  a  muttered 
excuse,  slink  out  and  be  seen  no  more. 

"He  told  us  what  he  called  the  facts 
of  the  feud  of  which  I  had  seen  the 
dramatic  denouement  in  Royal  Street. 
The  young  chap  was  a  Hungarian,  son 
of  a  count  who  had  sent  him  a  remit- 
tance on  receipt  of  a  letter  every 
month  from  the  old  gentleman,  a  Cre- 
ole connection.  The  letter  was  to  cer- 
tify that  the  son  was  in  America. 
For  some  reason  the  old  gentleman, 
who  owned  enormous  property  but 
had  no  money,  had  declined  to  sign 
the  certificate.  The  young  man  had 
calmly  forged  it.  There  had  been  a 
quarrel.  So  our  mysterious  sharp- 
nosed  little  friend  told  us.    He  knew 


why  the  house  in  Melisande  Street 
had  been  closed,  and  conveyed  the  in- 
formation in  a  thrilling  whisper  be- 
hind a  curved  palm.  He  hinted  at 
desperate  doings  going  on  almost  at 
our  elbows  in  the  dark  comers  of  the 
old  city;  Chinamen  tracked  to  their 
death  by  minions  of  secret  societies 
in  Mongolia,  Italian  x>eanut  vendors 
who  were  in  the  pay  of  Neapolitan 
high-binders.  Englishmen  shadowed 
by  Mexican  assassins.  We  would  sit 
in  the  heavy  dusk  in  our  shirt-sleeves, 
the  occasional  glare  of  a  match  illumi- 
nating our  listening  faces,  while  he 
revealed  to  us  the  secrets  by  which  we 
were  surrounded. 

"Did  we  believe  him?  I  did.  I  was 
young,  and  it  was  as  though  he  fulfilled 
for  me  the  veiled  promise  of  the  old 
city  to  tell  me  its  story  and  envelop 
me  in  the  glamour  of  its  enchantment. 
I  would  like  to  believe  him  still,  but  I 
cannot.  He  is  too  improbable  for  me 
now.  Sometimes  I  wonder  whether  he 
ever  existed,  whether  he  did  not  evolve 
out  of  the  heavy  exhalations  of  that 
swampy  delta  where  so  many  mys- 
teries lie  buried  in  the  dark  mud  be- 
low the  tall  grasses,  a  sort  of  sharp- 
nosed  transient  Puck,  intriguing  our 
souls  with  tales  out  of  a  dime-novel, 
and  tickling  our  imaginations  with  a 
bogus  artistry.  I  would  like  to  be- 
lieve him  still;  but  as  the  years  pass 
I  have  an  uneasy  suspicion  that  he  too 
had  fallen  a  victim  to  the  spirit  of  the 
place,  and  was  evoking,  for  our  delec- 
tation, his  own  pinchbeck  conception 
of  a  city  of  enchantment.' 


tt 


LYSANDER  SAWS  WOOD 


BY  FRANCIS  LYNDE 


IN  the  beginning  Lysander  was  a 
railroad  man.  There  are  volumes 
written  upon  the  young  man's  choice 
of  a  vocation,  and  much  sympathy 
wasted  upon  the  square  peg  fumbling 
to  fit  itself  into  the  round  hole ;  never- 
theless the  fact  remains  that  the  av- 
erage young  man,  arrived  at  the 
working  age,  takes  what  is  offered  in 
the  way  of  a  calling  and  is  duly  thank- 
ful. Lysander,  confessedly  average, 
became  first  a  railroad  mechanic,  then, 
with  the  help  of  some  specializing 
study,  a  draftsman;  later,  a  traffic 
clerk — ^all  these  with  small  thought, 
so  he  says,  for  the  shape  of  the  vari- 
ous holes;  and  but  for  certain  con- 
straining circumstances  he  might  have 
so  continued  to  the  end. 

In  a  sense  the  circumstances  were 
inevitable.  Application  brought  pro- 
motion, and  in  due  course  Lysander 
earned  the  distinction  of  a  roll-top 
desk  in  a  private  office  from  which  he 
dictated  to  a  stenographer  and  signed 
his  name,  neatly  sandwiched  between 
the  "Yours  truly"  and  a  string  of  of- 
ficial initials,  thus  making  authorita- 
tive the  business  correspondence  of  a 
railroad  department. 

So  far,  so  good;  but  the  next  step 
was  crab-wise,  if  not,  indeed,  defi- 
nitely backward.  Railroad  manage- 
ments of  Lysander's  time  were  not 
immortal;  and  when  they  died,  a 
hecatomb  of  lesser  officials  was  likely  to 


be  offered  upon  the  newly-made  grave 
of  the  great  ones.  In  a  cataclysm  of 
this  sort — ^the  third  which  had  over- 
taken him  in  his  railroad  career — Ly- 
sander lost  his  toehold  upon  the  ladder 
of  promotion.  Luckier  than  most,  he 
contrived  to  keep  his  name  on  the  pay- 
roll, but  only  in  a  subsidiary  position 
in  a  field  where  he  had  but  lately  com- 
manded. 

Naturally,  the  net  result  was  a  huge 
discontent.  The  new  field  headquar- 
ters were  in  New  Orleans,  and  though 
he  had  a  fair  business  acquaintance  in 
the  Middle  and  Farther  West,  in  the 
South  Lysander  found  himself  a 
stranger  in  a  strange  land.  Stationed 
a  thousand  miles  from  his  nearest 
home  rail-end,  and  in  territory  only 
theoretically  tributary  to  his  own  line, 
he  saw  his  finish  in  the  near  prospect, 
needing  only  an  object-lesson  for  its 
demonstration. 

The  object-lesson  came  one  warm 
April  day  when  the  Louisiana  roses 
were  in  bloom  and  the  aromatic  fra- 
grance of  the  Gulf  Coast  spring  was 
in  the  air.  Lysander  had  just  lost  his 
minute  fragment  of  a  chance  of  se- 
curing a  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
business  for  his  company,  and  the 
bright  sunshine  had  a  distinctly  blue 
tint  when  he  set  out  from  the  hotel  to 
walk  off  his  disappointment.  The 
aimless  walk  took  him  out  St.  Charles 
Street,  and  so  to  the  small  circular 


267 


268 


THE  BOOKMAN 


park  centred  by  the  monument  to  Gen- 
eral Lee.  The  shade  of  the  great  gran- 
ite shaft  was  inviting,  and  Lysander 
entered  the  park  and  went  to  sit  on 
the  pedestal  of  the  monument. 

It  was  no  more  than  noon,  and  the 
hotel  luncheon  would  not  be  served 
until  one  o'clock.  Lysander  lighted 
his  pipe,  and  with  his  back  against  the 
cool  granite  looked  the  situation  firmly 
in  the  face.  The  tilting  of  the  ladder 
of  promotion  is  always  disconcerting; 
never  more  so  than  when  the  ladder 
stands  in  the  railroad  area.  Lysander 
had  a  dismal  conviction  that  he  was 
down  and  out.  Once  in  a  blue  moon 
the  railroad  department  head  who  has 
been  forced  a  step  to  the  rear  is  able 
to  fight  his  way  back  to  the  firing 
line;  but  Lysander  promptly  dis- 
counted his  own  remote  chance.  What 
then?  He  only  wished  that  some  one 
would  be  good  enough  to  tell  him. 

The  seat  on  the  monument  com- 
manded a  foreshortened  vista  of  St. 
Charles  Street.  There  was  nothing 
intellectually  inspiring  in  the  view, 
but  out  of  it,  in  some  mysterious  man- 
ner, Lysander  evolved  the  saving  Idea. 
That  night,  in  the  poorly  lighted  writ- 
ing-room of  a  Baton  Rouge  hotel,  he 
laboriously  inked  out  his  first  attempt 
at  a  solution  of  his  problem.  The  re- 
sult was  a  story,  crude  enough  to  make 
its  creator  blush  when  he  read  it, 
amateurish,  inadequate,  with  little 
plot  and  still  less  sequence,  but  still  a 
story. 

In  a  world  of  piquant  and  more  or 
less  prying  curiosity  the  question  oft- 
enest  asked  of  the  writing  craftsman 
is,  "How  did  you  break  in?"  Ly- 
sander, still  insisting  that  he  typifies 
the  average,  modestly  asserts  that  he 
broke  in  by  main  strength  and  awk- 
wardness. There  were  two  points  in 
his  favor:  he  was  not  yet  too  old  to 
learn;  and  the  railroad  field  commis- 


sion yielded  bread  and  meat,  and  much 
train-riding  leisure.  The  last-named 
advantage  was  of  incalculable  value, 
since  it  afforded  opportunity  for  read- 
ing, observation,  and  study. 

Lysander  bought  text-books  in  lan- 
guage, and  alternated  the  rules  of  syn- 
tax— ^long  since  buried  for  him  in  a 
deep  grave  of  "business"  English — 
with  much  reading  in  a  pocket  edition 
of  Shakespeare.  There  is  no  school 
of  applied  mechanics  for  the  literary 
tyro — at  least,  there  was  not  in  Ly- 
sander's  time;  and  the  other  school — 
that  of  cut  and  fit  and  try  again — ^has 
long  semesters. 

For  something  better  than  three 
years  after  that  climaxing  April  noon- 
tide at  the  foot  of  the  great  Vir- 
ginian's monument,  Lysander  pa- 
tiently quartered  the  ex-Confederacy 
in  search  of  business  for  his  rail- 
road; this  without  prejudice  to  an 
earnest  pursuit,  in  leisure  moments, 
of  the  elementary  principles  of  story 
building.  At  the  close  of  this  pre- 
paratory period  his  superiors  realized 
— ^what  Lysander  had  known  from  the 
very  beginning — that  the  Southern 
field  was  not  worth  cultivating,  and 
the  territory  was  abandoned.  Ly- 
sander closed  his  business  office,  told 
Mrs.  Lysander  that  it  was  now  litera- 
ture or  nothing,  and  took  the  long 
running  jump  into  the  new  arena. 

Out  of  the  patient  drudgery  of  the 
experimental  writing  period  the  be- 
ginning author  is  likely  to  come  with 
an  entirely  new  set  of  convictions 
touching  his  chosen  calling.  The  first 
of  these  is  that  writing  for  publica- 
tion, as  at  present  practised,  is  not  an 
art;  it  is  rather  a  trade,  to  be  learned 
by  any  ingenious  person  with  a  mod- 
erate education,  a  rudimentary  imag- 
ination, and  a  good  store  of  persist- 
ence. In  his  calmer  moments  he  may 
still  be  willing  to  admit  the  existence 


LYSANDER  SAWS  WOOD 


269 


of  literature  as  an  art;  may  still 
cherish  the  belief  that  genius  is  a  gift 
of  the  gods.  But  the  world  in  which 
he  finds  himself  is  rather  narrowly  a 
craftsman's  world,  in  which  ingenuity 
and  a  certain  cleverness  of  invention 
are  the  prime  factors  of  success. 

Another  convincement  which  bulks 
large  for  the  joumejnnan  writer  casts 
itself  in  the  form  of  a  protest  against 
existing  conditions  as  they  apply  to 
the  learner.  University  literary 
courses  and  schools  of  journalism  offer 
something,  but  at  best  they  can  only 
teach  the  use  of  the  tools  of  the  trade. 
The  diplomaed  beginner,  entering  the 
field  "upon  his  own'',  finds  himself  at 
the  mercy  of  a  cut-and-try  system 
prodigally  destructive  and  wasteful  of 
time  and  effort.  In  this  system  there 
is  little  categorizing  of  demand  and  no 
well-defined  standard  of  requirements. 

A  third  conviction  is  still  more  dis- 
quieting to  the  beginning  author.  It 
is  based  upon  the  painfully  acquired 
and  reluctantly  accepted  conclusion 
that  the  market  for  his  product  is  dis- 
tressingly capricious.  At  one  moment 
it  will  accept  indifferent  work  and  ap- 
parently deem  it  good;  at  another  it 
will  reject  the  good  and  call  it  worth- 
less. For  this  inconsistency  the  be- 
ginning craftsman  is  inclined  to  blame 
the  editor;  to  charge  the  literary  pur- 
veyor with  arrogance  in  giving  the 
reading  public,  not  what  it  wants,  but 
what  he  thinks  it  ought  to  have. 

Possibly  some  periodical  editors  do 
this.  The  names  of  at  least  a  few  who 
do  it  conscientiously  and  with  some 
degree  of  ostentation  will  suggest 
themselves  to  every  writer  of  experi- 
ence. But  in  the  end  the  responsibil- 
ity for  what  is  printed  must  rest  upon 
the  public  which  buys  and  reads 
rather  than  upon  the  editor  who  buys 
and  sells.  Moralizing  upon  this,  Ly- 
sander  does  not  grow  cynical.    Quite 


to  the  contrary,  he  points  to  the 
growth,  during  his  own  experience,  of 
the  public  demand  for  better  stories, 
contrasting  the  standards  of  even  the 
least  literary  of  the  periodicals  of  the 
present  day  with  those  of  a  few  dec- 
ades in  the  past,  and  crediting  the  ad- 
vance to  a  consistent  effort  on  the  part 
of  the  publishers  and  their  editors  to 
create  the  more  intelligent  demand. 

In  a  field  of  wider  significance  ly- 
sander  confesses  that  he  suffered  loss. 
Like  others  of  his  generation  he  had 
been  nurtured  upon  Scott,  Cooper, 
Dickens,  Thackeray — ^the  early  and 
middle  Victorians — and  taught  to  re- 
vere them.  From  the  newer  point  of 
view  the  reverence  was  no  longer  pos- 
sible. Lysander  sought  to  figure  these 
members  of  the  elder  group  writing 
for  the  modem  market :  it  was  beyond 
the  stretch  of  the  most  loyal  imagina- 
tion. Would  the  masterpiece  of  the 
best  of  them,  put  forth  today  as  the 
work  of  an  unknown  writer,  find  a 
publisher  brave  enough  to  print  it? 
Possibly;  but  Lysander  sorrowfully 
doubts  it. 

Joumejnnan  convictions  of  quite  an- 
other sort  concerned  themselves  with 
what  Mr.  Howells  once  printed  about 
'The  Man  of  Letters  as  a  Man  of 
Business".  Planting  himself  firmly 
upon  the  postulate  that  anything  that 
was  good  enough  to  be  printed  was 
good  enough  to  be  paid  for,  Lysander, 
as  a  literary  apprentice,  took  what 
wages  were  offered,  though  ofttimes 
the  honorarium  was  perilously  near 
the  line  which  distinguishes  between 
the  wage  and  the  tip.  But  as  a  jour- 
neyman craftsman  he  found  the  re- 
ward sufficient.  If  it  were  not  the 
country -house -and -motor -car  income 
of  the  great  ones,  neither  was  it  the 
starvation  crust  he  had  been  warned 
to  expect.  The  first  three  years'  in- 
vestment of  leisure  hours  netted  him 


270 


THE  BOOKMAN 


his  working  library:  after  that,  he 
did  better,  though  ten  years  and  more 
had  elapsed  before  the  writing  income 
equaled  the  salary  attachment  of  the 
roll-top  desk  in  the  railroad  office. 

In  this  field  of  economics  Lysander 
soon  learned  that  his  sheet  anchor  was 
the  magazine  story;  fiction  for  the 
periodicals.  For  this  kind  of  work  he 
found  a  fairly  constant  demand,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  market  al- 
ways seemed  to  be  turgidly  flooded 
and  the  competition  correspondingly 
sharp.  Other  discoveries  followed  in 
due  course.  Shutting  his  eyes  reso- 
lutely to  the  editor's  requirements, 
and  merely  striving  to  do  the  best 
there  was  in  him  without  trying  to 
whittle  to  any  one's  model,  he  often 
found  his  manuscripts  frayed  and 
worn  by  many  goings  to  and  fro  be- 
fore he  could  place  them.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  found  that  if  he  tried 
to  whittle  to  some  particular  editorial 
model,  he  reduced  his  chance  of  sell- 
ing; restricted  it  practically  to  the 
one  periodical  he  was  trying  to  fit. 

Against  this  condition  Lysander 
protested — and  still  protests.  "It  is 
a  limitation  which  makes  for  conven- 
tionality and  generalization  in  a  field 
where  originality  is,  or  is  supposed  to 
be,  at  a  premium,"  is  his  phrasing  of 
the  protest.  "Manifestly,  the  prudent 
course  for  the  literary  worker  is  to 
grade  his  output  for  the  average  de- 
mand ;  and  as  a  man  of  business  that 
is  precisely  what  he  does  in  most  in- 
stances— ^to  the  cheapening  of  his 
product." 

Entering  the  crowded  market  of  the 
short  story  only  as  he  was  constrained 
to,  Lysander  found  more  liberal  buy- 
ers— ^and  fewer  sellers — in  the  maga- 
zine "serial"  comer.  Here  he  dis- 
covered that  it  was  possible  to  make 
some  sort  of  prearrangement  for  a 
given  piece  of  work,  to  agree  before- 


hand upon  terms,  and  to  secure  for 
himself  some  modicum  of  freedom  in  a 
choice  of  subjects  and  in  the  treat- 
ment of  them. 

It  is  a  trade  saying  that  everybody 
writes  short  stories,  but  the  "serial" 
or  "novelette"  asks  for  a  somewhat 
higher,  or  at  least  a  different,  grade  of 
workmanship.  There  must  be  a  de- 
cently consistent  plot,  some  little  at- 
tempt at  character-drawing,  a  back- 
ground large  enough  to  hold  the  pic- 
ture, and  an  accelerated  movement  in 
the  action.  These  requirements  imply 
sustained  effort  through  some  fifty  or 
sixty  thousand  words  of  composition, 
and  many  short-story  writers  confess 
that  they  are  not  equal  to  the  extended 
stress  of  the  serial. 

Before  Lysander  had  fully  forgot- 
ten how  to  ticket  intending  tourists 
or  to  make  up  special  train  schedules, 
he  came  in  contact  with  the  literary 
broker;  the  middleman  who  comes  be- 
tween the  literary  worker  and  the  edi- 
torial market  for  his  product.  In 
shop-talk  he  carefully  evades  this  sub- 
ject. Perhaps  his  experience  with  the 
go-between  has  not  been  joyous.  Pos- 
sibly it  has  been  like  that  of  another 
workman  at  the  literary  bench  who 
confidingly  sent  a  sheaf  of  stories  to 
an  agent,  only  to  have  them  all  re- 
turned after  many  weeks  with  a  long 
list  of  the  offices  of  rejection,  and  an 
invitation  to  try  again  with  something 
else.  The  workman  did  try  again, 
though  not  precisely  in  the  way  the 
broker  meant.  He  peddled  the  stories 
out  one  by  one  from  his  own  shop  and 
sold  them;  some  of  them  to  maga- 
zines already  in  the  broker's  list  of 
declinations. 

On  one  occasion  when  Lysander  did 
not  pointedly  change  the  subject  he 
ventured  the  assertion  that  the  broker 
was  not  yet  a  vitally  necessary  factor 
in  the  literary  trade.    The  personal  ap- 


LYSANDER  SAWS  WOOD 


271 


peal,  so  needful  in  other  selling  lines, 
is  less  necessary  in  a  market  where 
the  buyer  must  decide  upon  the  work- 
able quality  of  the  goods  apart  from 
the  representations  of  any  paid  so- 
licitor. Lysander  admits  that  he  has 
been  in  New  York  but  once  since  he 
"began  author",  and  laments  that  of 
all  the  editors  and  publishers  who 
have  used  his  product  he  has  had  the 
pleasure  of  meeting  only  three  or 
four.  Yet  he  asserts  that  he  has  not 
found  distance  or  unacquaintance  in- 
superable obstacles;  and  his  stock 
shelf  remains  comfortably  empty. 

Lysander  had  written  many  short 
stories,  and  a  few  long  ones,  before  he 
ventured  into  the  book-pit.  For  rea- 
sons other  than  a  lack  of  fitness  in  the 
story  itself,  one  of  the  "serials"  was 
rejected  by  the  magazine  editor  who 
had  invited  it;  and  it  was  Mrs.  Ly- 
sander who  suggested  that  it  be  cut 
to  pocket-edition  length  and  tried  with 
the  book  publishers.  The  cutting  was 
done;  a  publisher  was  found ;  and  in 
due  season  the  clipping  bureaus  began 
to  send  circulars  setting  forth  the  ex- 
cellences of  their  service.  Lysander 
did  not  buy  the  clippings,  but  he  did 
buy  a  good  many  copies  of  the  book 
when  it  appeared — copies  to  be  in- 
geniously autographed  and  sent  to  ju- 
dicious friends  who  would  know  a 
really  good  thing  when  they  should 
see  it. 

Some  months  later  the  first  royalty 
check  drifted  in ;  whereupon  Lysander 
was  thankful  that  he  had  been  pride- 
fully  joyous  while  the  joying  was 
good.  The  first  six  months'  sales — 
which  cover  a  period  of  perhaps  twice 
the  remunerative  life  of  the  average 
modem  novel — ^yielded  exactly  $98.15 ; 
which  was  rather  less  than  Lysander 
was  contriving  at  the  time  to  earn 
with  an  ordinary  five-thousand-word 
short  story. 


Of  course,  there  were  other  books  to 
follow.  Every  writer  who  can  frame 
a  book  plot — and  now  and  then  one 
who  can  not — gets  between  covers  as 
often  as  his  self-respect,  or  the  good- 
nature of  his  publishers,  will  permit. 
But  the  experienced  workman  will 
confess,  if  he  is  pushed  to  it,  that  he 
regards  the  book  venture  purely  in  the 
light  of  a  "gamble".  With  a  fair 
magazine  audience  to  help,  and  with 
the  imprint  of  a  good  publishing  house 
to  insure  the  introductory  sale,  the 
booksmith  may  usually  count  upon  a 
skilled  mechanic's  wage  for  the  time 
spent  in  hammering  out  his  three  or 
four  hundred  pages  of  book  copy ;  but 
not  much  more  than  that. 

Why,  then,  does  he  venture?  Chiefly 
for  the  reason  that — all  questions  of 
genius  aside,  and  all  question  of  econ- 
omy as  well — the  Lysanders  now  and 
again  befool  themselves  with  the  no- 
tion that  they  have  something  to  tell 
which  is  really  worth  the  telling; 
something  that  is  worthy  of  a  more 
permanent  setting  than  that  afforded 
by  the  ephemera  of  the  magazine 
columns.  Doubtless  this  is,  in  most 
cases,  a  tragic  hallucination,  but  it 
persists,  as  the  flood  of  bound  volumes 
tumbling  annually  from  the  presses 
sufficiently  attests. 

Lysander  is,  or  was  at  last  accounts, 
still  following  the  Idea  that  loomed 
first  for  him  out  of  the  April  heat 
haze  in  St.  Charles  Street,  New  Or- 
leans, while  he  had  his  back  to  the 
cool  granite  of  the  Lee  monument,  and 
was  despising  himself  cordially  for 
having  made  a  blameless  failure  in 
railroading.  His  first  book  was  speed- 
ily married  to  a  second,  and  the  two 
have  raised  a  family  of  a  goodly  shelf- 
f ul.  Some  of  the  volumes  have  yielded 
the  magazine  price  of  a  good  serial; 
others  have  not.  But  if  he  continues 
to  be  like  the  rest  of  us  he  will  go  on 


272 


THE  BOOKMAN 


gambling  in  the  book-pit  when  he  can 
spare  the  time  and  the  money. 

Twenty-odd  times,  he  asserts,  his 
annual  desk  calendar  has  been  re- 
newed since  he  became  an  entered  ap- 
prentice to  the  writing  craft.  With 
considerable  industry,  faithful  dili- 
gence, and  few  or  no  vacations,  he  has 
contrived  to  feed  and  clothe  a  family 
of  six,  to  own  a  modest  home  in  the 
outskirts  of  an  inland  city,  and  to  edu- 
cate his  children;    all  "by  the  grace 


of  God  and  the  good-nature  of  the 
magazine  editors",  to  use  his  own 
phrase. 

I  have  told  Lysander's  story  because 
I  believe  it  to  be  the  average  story  of 
the  average  writing  artisan  of  today; 
the  story,  not  of  the  few  who  starve, 
or  of  the  still  smaller  few  who  place 
their  motor-car  orders  a  year  in  ad- 
vance, but  of  the  men  and  women  who 
line  the  benches  in  the  literary  work- 
shop of  the  present  time. 


THE  UNFURLED  FACE 


BY  ALFRED  M.  BRACE 


BARGAINS  in  "curious  and  classic'', 
books  are  more  rare  now  than  be- 
fore the  war  in  the  rusty  iron  boxes 
that  line  the  stone  embankments  under 
the  plane-trees  on  the  left  bank  of  the 
Seine.  But  a  Sunday  afternoon's  lit- 
erary ramble  along  the  quais  still  has 
its  surprises  and  rewards  as  I  found 
the  other  day  when  I  uncovered  the 
"Traits  des  Causes  Physiques  et 
Morales  du  Rire  relativement  k  I'Art 
de  I'exciter  (1768)".  Madame  Roques, 
the  bottqiUniate  with  the  tufted  mole 
on  her  cheek,  recognized  my  Ameri- 
canized French  and  made  me  pay  seven 
sous  more  than  her  marked  price; 
but  at  that  the  "Trait6"  was  worth  it. 
For  one  doesn't  find  every  day  a  seri- 
ous discussion  by  learned  French 
Academicians  of  the  laugh  and  its  seat 
in  our  physical  and  moral  anatomy 
and,  as  the  author  points  out,  '1:he 
laugh,  whatever  one  may  think,  is  not 
a  matter  of  small  importance  but  a 
mouvement  singulier  worthy  of  the 


most  serious  researches  and  atten- 
tion". 

The  fall  of  an  apple  revealed  to  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  the  hidden  meaning  of 
the  revolving  spheres,  and  it  was  no 
greater  thing  than  a  laugh  at  nothing 
in  the  garden  of  M.  Titon  du  Tillet 
that  led  to  the  quest  for  the  meaning 
of  the  mysterious  and  universal  titil- 
lation  which  shakes  the  human  frame 
and  causes  upheavals  of  the  dia- 
phragm and  violent  convulsions  of  the 
face. 

According  to  the  author  of  the 
"Trait6"  a  company  of  French  literary 
and  philosophical  folk  including  Des- 
touches,  Fontenelle,  and  Montesquieu, 
were  gathered  one  day  in  their 
friend's  garden  indulging  in  mental 
g3rmnastics.  Of  a  sudden  irrelevantly 
and  irreverently  one  of  the  famous 
company  opened  his  mouth,  closed  his 
eyes  and  laughed  '*sans  aucun  sujet 
apparent".  The  grave  discourse  was 
interrupted  and  the  astonished  atten- 


THE  UNFURLED  FACE 


273 


tion  of  all  turned  upon  the  unfor- 
tunate man.  At  his  inability  to  ex- 
plain why  he  had  laughed  or  why  any- 
one ever  laughed,  the  three  French 
Academicians  took  a  turn  around  the 
garden  and  came  back  to  their  friends 
prepared  to  enlighten  them. 

In  this  modem  age  of  quick  lunches 
and  speedometers  the  discussion  that 
follows  moves  to  its  conclusions  some- 
what leisurely.  For  Destouches,  Fon- 
tenelle,  and  Montesquieu  let  no  an- 
cient and  classical  laugh  escape  them 
as  they  pursued  their  grave  argument 
"supported  by  numbers  of  respectable 
authorities".  There  was  a  spirited 
debate  on  the  laugh  of  the  Golden  Age, 
the  Sardinian  laugh,  Democritus,  the 
laughter  par  excellence,  and  the  laugh 
of  Venus  when  a  busy  but  wicked  bee 
stung  her  only  son.  Destouches, 
though  pointing  out  that  laughing  has 
killed  many,  believed  that  the  laugh 
has  its  secret  source  in  reasoned  joy. 
Animals  can  not  reason;  they  do  not 
laugh;  therefore  the  laugh  must  be 
reasoned.  Thus  runs  his  logic.  Fon- 
tenelle  thought  the  laugh  was  the  off- 
spring of  folly;  and  Montesquieu, 
that  it  was  caused  by  the  tickling  of 
the  amour-propre, 

"Since  sight  is  in  the  eye",  argues 
Fontenelle,  "since  taste  is  in  the  palate 
and  touch  in  the  epidermis,  it  must 
follow  that  the  laugh  has  its  place  also 
somewhere  in  the  human  frame.  That 
place  is  the  diaphragm  which  is  at- 
tached to  the  heart  and  which  is,  when 
tickled,  easily  seized  with  a  convulsion 
more  or  less  violent.  The  diaphragm 
is  connected  with  the  heart  by  muscles 
much  larger  and  shorter  than  those  of 
animals,  a  difference  which  is  alone 
sufficient  to  explain  man's  exclusive 
proprietorship  of  the  laugh.  It  fol- 
lows that  man  laughs  because  he 
stands  and  walks  upright  on  two  feet, 
for  it  is  this  posture  that  arranges 


man's  internal  parts  in  different  posi- 
tions from  those  in  which  one  finds 
them  in  a  quadrux>ed." 

"It  is  to  be  noted",  continues  Fon- 
tenelle, "that  some  birds  imitate  the 
laugh  up  to  a  certain  point.  But  inde- 
pendently of  other  reasons  which  de- 
prive birds  of  the  complete  privilege 
of  laughing,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  a  bird's  feathers  make  it  almost 
inaccessible  to  tickling,  and  that  its 
beak  is  not  at  all  suitable  to  imitate 
the  arrangement  of  the  features  of 
our  face  when  the  laugh  distorts  it." 

The  French  Academicians  pass 
from  birds  and  quadrupeds  to  the 
Italian  astrologer,  the  AbbS  Danas- 
cen,  who  in  1662  wrote  a  brochure  in 
which  he  distinguished  the  tempera- 
ments of  men  by  the  way  they  laughed. 
The  hi,  hi,  hi,  marked  the  melancholy 
man ;  the  he,  he,  he  the  bilious  man ; 
the  ha,  ha,  ha  the  phlegmatic  man,  and 
the  ho,  ho,  ho,  the  full-blooded  man. 
In  conclusion,  as  all  good  philosophers 
and  Academicians  should,  they  left  a 
valuable  classification  of  the  laugh : 

1)  the  laugh  unrestrained  or  the 
laugh  of  the  open,  unfurled  (di- 
ploySe)  face. 

2)  the  laugh  bridled  which  does  not 
pass  the  lips. 

3)  the  laugh  gracious  or  the  smile. 

4)  the  laugh  dignified  or  the  protect- 
ing laugh. 

5)  the  laugh  foolish  or  simple  which 
must  be  distinguished  from  the 
candid  laugh. 

6)  the  laugh  conceited  and  vain. 

7)  the  laugh  disdainful. 

8)  the  laugh  frank  and  sincere  or 
expanding  laugh. 

9)  the  laugh  simulated  or  hypocriti- 
cal which  is  also  called  the  artful 
or  knowing  laugh. 

10)  the  laugh  mechanical  or  auto- 
matic caused  by  tickling  the  dia- 
phragm. 


274 


THE  BOOKMAN 


11)  the  laugh  harsh  caused  by  spite, 
vengeance,  and  indignation.  This 
laugh  is  mixed  with  a  certain 
pleasure. 

12)  the  laugh  inextinguishable  or  the 
laugh  which  can  not  be  stopped 
and  which  excites  in  the  sides, 
throat  and  all  parts  of  the  body  a 
convulsion  of  which  we  lose  the 
mastery. 

I  left  off  reading  the  philosophers' 
classification  of  the  various  laugh  spe- 
cies to  go  to  the  cinema  in  my  Paris 
neighborhood  where  rip-roaring,  wild- 


west  films  from  Los  Angeles  cheer  the 
lonesome  American  and  impress  the 
French  with  the  virility  of  our  race. 
As  luck  would  have  it  America's  great- 
est hero  in  France  was  on  the  pro- 
gram. As  Charlie  Chaplin,  wielding 
a  croquet  mallet  from  the  branch  of  a 
tree,  laid  out  his  pursuers  one  by  one 
cold  on  the  ground,  a  laugh  started  in 
the  audience  which  grew  to  a  roar.  I 
felt  a  great  satisfaction.  F^r  I  im- 
mediately recognized  it  as  the  laugh 
unrestrained  of  the  open,  unfurled 
face. 


ADMIRAL  SCOTT  AND  THE  BRITISH  NAVY 


BY  C.  C.  GILL 


Commander,  United  States  Navy 


AS  time  elapses  and  the  big  things 
^of  the  war  are  seen  in  better  per- 
spective, we  find  on  every  hand  a 
growing  appreciation  of  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  British  Navy.  During 
hostilities  secrecy  had  to  be  observed 
for  reasons  of  strategy.  Terse  ad- 
miralty reports  gave,  at  best,  a  hazy 
idea  of  what  the  navies  were  doing. 
Now,  however,  the  lid  has  been  raised; 
though  many  secrets  were  swallowed 
up  by  the  sea  along  with  the  ships 
that  went  down,  still  there  is  a  wealth 
of  romance  and  adventure  to  be  told, 
and  those  who  seek  it  will  give  en- 
thusiastic welcome  to  "Fifty  Years  in 
the  Royal  Navy"  by  Admiral  Sir 
Percy  Scott. 

Scott's  book  shows  us  the  British 
Navy  in  the  making.    He  himself  took 


a  leading  part;  and  his  truly  fascinat- 
ing reminiscences  carry  us  from  the 
old  navy  of  sailing  ships  and  smooth 
bores  through  an  unprecedented  period 
of  development  to  the  modem  navy  ot 
mighty  dreadnoughts,  speedy  de- 
stroyers and  stealthy  submarines. 
The  author  retired  in  1913  but  was  re- 
called to  active  war  duty  in  1914;  so 
that  the  final  chapters  include  this 
veteran's  observations  on  the  navy  in 
action  as  seen  from  the  angle  of  the 
Admiralty  ofiices  in  London. 

Admiral  Scott  needs  no  introduc- 
tion. His  brilliant  career  is  well  known 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic;  to  the 
American  Navy  he  is  distinguished  as 
the  officer  whose  ship  always  headed 
the  list  in  gunnery,  and  as  the  man 
who  tipped  Sims  off  as  to  how  to  do  it. 


ADMIRAL   SCOTT  AND   THE   BRITISH   NAVY 


275 


It  should  be  added  that  the  develop- 
ment of  gunnery  in  the  two  services 
has  proceeded  along  quite  different 
lines. 

There  are  two  sides  to  Scott's  book: 
one  gives  us  an  intimate  glimpse  of 
the  British  Navy,  its  officers  and  men 
afloat  and  ashore,  at  work  and  at  play, 
in  the  routine  of  peace  and  in  the 
business  of  war;  the  other  is  a  scien- 
tific side^  non-technical  and  dear,  ex- 
plaining the  advance  in  guns,  ships, 
and  organization.  With  force  and 
feeling  the  author  reveals,  as  he  sees 
them,  faults  of  British  naval  admin- 
istration with  their  consequences.  In 
his  preface  he  states :  ''This  book  has 
been  written  in  vain  if  it  does  not 
carry  conviction  that  our  naval  ad- 
ministration is  based  upon  wrong 
principles."  With  this  frank  avowal 
of  purpose  he  proceeds  to  deliver  a 
series  of  broadsides  which  will  surely 
cause  certain  British  officials  to  ponder 
their  methods  of  administration. 

Considering  first  the  less  profes- 
sional side  of  the  book,  we  find  a 
breezy  narrative  of  personal  experi- 
ence such  as  might  be  expected  from 
a  naval  officer  who  has  always  been  a 
man  of  action.  At  the  age  of  eleven 
and  one-half  years  the  author  was 
gazetted  a  naval  cadet  in  H.  M.  Navy, 
and  along  with  sixty-four  other  little 
boys — among  whom  was  a  youngster 
destined  to  become  Field  Marshall 
Viscount  French — ^he  joined  the  old 
three-decker  training  ship  "Britan- 
nia" of  which  he  writes : 

We  each  had  a  sea  chest  and  we  slept  in 
hammocks.  The  decks  were  weU  saturated 
with  salt  water  every  morning,  summer  and 
winter,  and  the  authorities  considered  that 
this  hardened  the  cadets.  Possibly  it  did ;  at 
any  rate  it  weeded  out  those  who  were  not 
strong. 

Shortly  after  I  joined,  it  was  runSoured  that 
the  damp  and  evil-smelling  old  ship  was  not 
a  suitable  home  for  boys  of  between  thirteen 
and  fourteen  years  of  age,  and  that  she  was 


to  be  done  away  with.  The  Commissioners  of 
the  Admiralty  considered  the  question,  and 
tuccessive  Boards  discussed  it,  but  as  the  mat- 
ter was  important  they  did  not  act  hastily — 
their  deliberation,  in  fact,  extended  over  about 
thirty  years.  Finally,  in  1898,  work  was  be- 
gun on  a  college  on  shore  in  place  of  the 
''Britannia'*,  and  the  old  ship  of  many  mem- 
ories  was  doomed. 

On  leaving  the  "Britannia"  Scott 
joined  "H.  M.  S.  Bristol",  a  50-gun 
frigate  outward  bound  for  Bombay 
via  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  On  board 
this  sailing  ship  of  2,864  tons,  manned 
by  a  crew  of  750,  we  are  told  **mast- 
head  for  the  midshipmen  and  the  cat 
for  the  men  was  the  commander's 
motto." 

Midshipman  Scott's  first  active  war 
duty  consisted  in  suppressing  slave 
trade  in  the  Indian  Ocean.  A  Zanzi- 
bar slave  market  in  full  swing  is  de- 
scribed. 

After  a  four-year  cruise  he  re- 
turned to  England  and  shortly  after- 
ward Lieutenant  Scott  saw  service  in 
the  Ashantee  war.  His  memoirs  con- 
tain interesting  accounts  of  campaign- 
ing on  the  rivers  and  ashore  in  Africa, 
chiefly  against  pirates.  For  instance, 
he  takes  us  up  a  creek  of  the  Congo 
in  a  boat  protected  from  ambush  rifle 
fire  by  a  top  of  armor  plating  through 
which  no  fresh  air  could  get  in  or  foul 
air  out.    Of  this  he  says : 

The  total  of  seventy  occupants  Inside,  in- 
cluding thirty  black  men,  worked  out  at  about 
ten  cubic  feet  per  man — a  condition  which  is 
I  understand,  according  to  the  laws  of  hygiene, 
impossible  for  a  human  being  to  live  in.  We 
managed  to  live,  but  it  was  not  pleasant,  and 
I  was  always  glad  when  the  morning  came. 
We  should  have  liked  to  bathe,  but  as  a  croco- 
dUe  rose  to  everything  that  was  thrown  over- 
board, bathing  was  not  permissible.  The  hip- 
popotami during  the  night  were  a  source  of  an- 
noyance ;  they  breathe  so  noisily  through  their 
wide-opened  mouths.  But  though  they  came 
very  near  the  boats  they  did  no  harm. 

Also  throughout  these  pages  are  re- 
vealed the  qualities  in  Scott's  makeup 
which  contributed  so  much  to  his  suc- 
cess.   Quick  to  detect  and  censure  a 


276 


THE  BOOKMAN 


fault,  he  was  generous  with  recogni- 
tion and  praise  of  merit  both  in  su- 
periors and  subordinates.  He  was 
democratic,  and  knew  and  understood 
officers  and  men.  By  economizing 
time,  he  made  drill  periods  more  use- 
ful while  affording  more  opportunity 
for  recreation.  A  keen  lover  of  sport 
himself,  he  realized  its  importance  in 
building  up  a  good  healthy  morale; 
and  one  of  the  points  he  makes  is  that 
the  natural  and  fostered  quality  of 
sportsmanship  is  a  big  factor  in  caus- 
ing Englishmen  to  succeed  where  Ger- 
mans fail  both  as  colonizers  and  as 
fighters. 

The  Admiral's  reminiscences  in- 
clude a  cruise  around  the  world,  an 
Egyptian  campaign,  the  Boer  War  of 
the  Transvaal,  the  Boxer  Rebellion, 
duty  in  home  waters,  visits  to  Ger- 
many and  North  European  ports,  and 
a  cruise  in  command  of  a  special  serv- 
ice squadron.  This  cruiser  squadron 
went  first  to  South  Africa  to  repre- 
sent the  mother  country  during  a  spe- 
cial assembly  for  the  discussion  of  a 
closer  union,  and  thence  to  South 
America  to  bear  a  message  of  amity 
and  good  will  to  Uruguay,  Brazil,  and 
Argentina. 

Besides  being  a  keen  gunnery  man 
and  expert  scientist,  Scott  was  the 
best  sort  of  company  and  popular 
wherever  he  went.  That  he  had  a 
good  sense  of  humor  is  shown  in  many 
passages.  To  mention  one:  on  return- 
ing from  an  Egyptian  campaign  he 
was  selected  to  command  a  detach- 
ment of  men  who  were  to  be  received 
by  Queen  Victoria  for  a  personal  pres- 
entation of  medals.  At  the  last  mo- 
ment an  alteration  was  made  in  the 
etiquette  prescribed  for  the  occasion. 
Of  this  the  Admiral  relates : 


made  Itaelf  heard  throughout  the  hotel :  "Now, 
do  you  'ear  there,  the  etiquette  is  altered; 
when  you  come  opposite  Her  Majesty,  you  don't 
go  down  on  the  knee ;  you  stand  up,  take  your 
*at  oCP,  hold  your  'and  out,  and  her  Majesty 
puts  your  medal  In  the  palm.  When  you  get  it, 
don't  go  examining  it  to  see  if  it  has  got  the 
proper  name  on  it,  walk  on  :  if  it's  not  the 
right  one,  it  wiU  be  put  square  afterwards. 
It's  like  getting  a  pair  of  boots  from  the  ship's 
steward ;  if  you  get  the  wrong  pair,  it's  recti- 
fied afterwards,  you  don't  argue  about  it  at  the 
time." 

Turning  now  to  the  gunnery  side  of 
the  book — this  is  a  subject  on  which 
Scott  writes  as  an  authority.  As  a 
lieutenant  he  made  a  reputation  in 
mounting  and  handling  naval  guns  in 
action  ashore  in  Egypt.  Some  years 
afterward  the  heavy  ordnance,  landed 
from  the  shijl  he  commanded  in  South 
Africa,  took  an  essential  part  in  the 
war  of  the  Transvaal.  A  little  later 
on.  Captain  Scott's  naval  guns  again 
did  good  work — this  time  during  the 
Boxer  Rebellion  in  China.  Finally  in 
the  World  War  he  was  called  upon  to 
provide  long-range  guns  to  operate 
with  the  British  Army  in  Europe. 

From  early  service  right  through 
his  duties  as  an  Admiral,  Scott  worked 
faithfully  for  improvement  in  gun- 
nery, signaling,  and  administration. 
His  success  aroused  jealousy,  but 
neither  this  nor  the  attack  of  con- 
servatism could  discourage  his  efforts 
to  make  the  British  Navy  an  effective 
fighting  machine.  For  progress  in 
peace  and  success  in  war.  Great 
Britain  owes  much  to  his  inventive 
genius  and  energy. 

In  1905  Captain  Scott  was  appointed 
Inspector  of  Target  Practice,  and  at 
the  same  time  Captain  John  Jellicoe 
was  made  Director  of  Ordnance. 
These  two  had  much  the  same  views 
on  gunnery  questions  and  Scott  re- 
cords : 


I  explained  this  alteration  to  a  boatswain's  During  our  time  in  ofBce  we  not  only  man- 

mate,  and  he  conveyed  it  to  the  men  in  the  fol-      aged  to  introduce  many  reforms  in  naval  gun 
lowing  terms,  and  in  a  voice  which  must  have      nery,  but  tried  hard  to  introduce  "director  fir- 


ADMIRAL  SCOTT  AND  THE   BRITISH   NAVY 


277 


ing".  Unfortunately  the  Director  of  Naval 
Ordnance  was  not  a  member  of  the  Board  of 
Admiralty,  and  consequently  carried  no  weight 
as  regards  naval  gunnery,  and  this  very  neces- 
sary method  of  firing  was  not  generally 
adopted  until  seven  years  afterwards,  when 
war  proved  that  the  guns  in  our  ships  were  of 
no  use  without  it — ^a  fact  which  throws  a  very 
heavy  responsibility  upon  the  Board  of  Ad- 
miralty, which  boycotted  its  introduction  in 
former  years. 

In  1907  Jellicoe  was  ordered  to  com- 
mand the  Atlantic  Squadron ;  Scott 
was  assigned  the  Second  Cruiser 
Squadron  of  the  Channel  Fleet  where 
he  did  not  get  along  very  well  with 
the  Commander-in-Chief,  Admiral 
Charles  Beresford.  Gunnery  con- 
tinued to  be  Scott's  chief  study: 

My  attention  was  devoted  to  fitting  my  flag> 
ship,  "H.  M.  S.  Good  Hope",  with  "director 
firing'*,  so  that  if  she  had  to  fight  a  German 
there  would  be  a  chance  of  her  remaining  on 

the   top,    instead   of   going  to   the  bottom 

This  operation  was  difficult,  as  I  could  get  no 
assistance  from  the  Admiralty,  and  was  forced 
to  beg,  borrow,  or  steal  aU  the  necessary  ma- 
terial      I  succeeded  so  weU  that  the  "Good 

Hope"  became,  like  the  "ScyUa"  and  "Terrible" 

in  other  years,  top  ship  of  the  navy But 

when  I  left  the  squadron  on  Feb.  15,  1909, 
the  routine  I  had  instituted,  and  the  "director 
firing"  I  had  installed,  were  put  on  the  scrap- 
heap,  and  the  old  method  reinstalled That 

is  one  way  we  had  in  the  navy — a  determina- 
tion to  fight  against  any  change,  however  de- 
sirable. 

Scott  was  a  sworn  foe  of  the  con- 
servatism in  the  British  Navy  which 
was  due  in  some  degree  to  their  ex- 
treme system  of  specialization.  The 
following  passages  present  an  argu- 
ment for  the  supporters  of  this  sys- 
tem to  answer : 

On  November  1,  1914,  my  old  ship  the  "Good 
Hope",  in  company  with  the  "Monmouth", 
"Glasgow",  and  "Otranto",  engaged  the  Ger- 
man cruisers  "Scharnhorst",  "Gneisnau", 
"Leipzig",  and  "Dresden",  in  the  Pacific.  After 
a  short  action  the  "Good  Hope"  and  "Mon- 
mouth" were  both  sunk  by  the  Germans'  su- 
perior shooting.  These  ships  were  caught  in 
bad  weather,  and  as  neither  of  them  was  fitted 
with  any  efficient  system  of  firing  their  guns  in 
such  weather,  they  were,  as  predicted  in  my 
letter  to  the  Admiralty  of  December  10,  1911, 
annihilated  without  doing  any  appreciable  dam- 
age to  the  enemy. 


These  two  ships  were  sacrificed  because  the 
Admiralty  would  not  fit  them  with  efficient 
means  of  firing  their  guns  in  a  sea-way.  Had 
the  system  with  which  I  had  fitted  the  "Good 
Hope"  been  completed  and  retained  in  her,  I 
dare  say  she  might  have  seen  further  service 
and  saved  the  gallant  Cradock  and  his  men  on 
this  occasion. 

The  chapters  telling  of  Scott's  some- 
what mixed  war  service  in  connection 
with  naval  gunnery,  and  the  defense 
of  London  are  not  the  least  inter- 
esting of  the  book.  In  November, 
1914,  he  paid  an  official  inspection 
visit  to  the  Grand  Fleet  at  Scapa  Flow 
in  the  Orkneys  where  he  had  a  long 
interview  with  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  Admiral  Jellicoe.  As  a  result 
of  this  visit  he  writes : 

I  had  a  conference  with  the  First  Lord  (Mr. 
Winston  ChurchiU)  and  the  First  Sea  Lord 
(Lord  Fisher),  and  pointed  out  to  them  the 
serious  state  of  affairs,  and  how  badly  we 
should  fare  if  the  German  Fleet  came  out. 
They  realized  the  position  and  approved  of 
practically  all  the  ships  being  fitted  with  di- 
rector firing;  and  further,  they  agreed  that  I 
could  arrange  it  without  being  held  up  by  the 
ordinary  Admiralty  red  tape.  Consequently 
the  fitting  of  the  ships  went  on  rapidly,  and 
had  the  "push"  been  maintained,  our  whole 
fieet  would  have  been  equipped  by  the  end  of 
1915. 

In  May,  1915,  unfortunately  for  the  nation. 
Lord  Fisher  left  the  Admiralty  and  all  the 
"push"  ceased.  I  no  longer  had  any  influence; 
the  authorities  went  back  to  their  apathetic 
way  of  doing  things;  time,  even  in  warfare, 
was  not  considered  of  any  importance  by  them. 

In  connection  with  this  indictment 
of  the  Admiralty  for  mismanagement, 
the  below  quoted  observations  are  sig- 
nificant : 

At  the  Battle  of  Jutland,  fought  on  May  31, 
1916,  the  Commander-in-Chief  had  only  six  ships 
of  his  fleet  completely  fitted  with  director  firing — 
that  is,  main  as  well  as  secondary  armament; 
he  had  several  ships  with  their  primary  arma- 
ment not  fitted ;  he  had  not  a  single  cruiser  in 
the  fleet  fitted  for  director  firing;  he  had  no 
Zeppelins  as  eyes  for  his  fieet;  his  guns  were 
out-ranged  by  those  of  the  Germans.  He  had 
to  use  projectiles  inferior  to  those  used  by  the 
Germans ;  and  in  firing  at  night  he  was  utterly 
outclassed  by  the  enemy. 

One  would  have  thought  that,  although  their 
Lordships  paid  no  attention  to  my  warning  In 
1911,   the  moment  war  was  known  to  be  In- 


278 


THC  BOOKMAN 


CTitable  they  would  hare  beitirred  tbemBelyet 
and  ordered  all  the  material  necesBary  to  put 
the  fleet  in  a  state  of  gunnery  efficiency. 

And  before  I  leave  this  subject  of  the  un- 
preparednesB  of  the  Grand  Fleet  in  some  re- 
spects for  war,  I  must  revert  to  the  criticism 
of  Lord  Jellicoe  for  not  pursuing  the  Qerman 
Navy  after  the  battle  of  Jutland  and  fighting 
them  on  the  night  of  May  81-June  1.  Lord 
Jellicoe  had  a  very  good  reason  for  not  doing 
so.  The  British  Fleet  was  not  properly  equipped 
for  fighting  an  action  at  night.  The  German 
Fleet  was.  Consequently,  to  fight  them  at 
night  would  have  only  been  to  court  disaster. 
Lord  Jellicoe's  business  was  to  preserve  the 
Grand  Fleet,  the  main  defense  of  the  Empire, 
as  well  as  of  the  Allied  cause — ^not  to  risk 
its  existence.  I  have  been  asked  why  the 
Grand  Fleet  was  not  so  well  prepared  to  fight 
a  night  action  as  the  German  Navy.  My  an- 
swer is,  "Ask  the  Admiralty". 

In  pointing  out  the  astounding  leth- 
argy and  even  hostility  with  which  he 
and  his  associates  had  to  contend, 
Scott  again  and  again  scores  the  pre- 
war ascendency  of  what  he  calls 
"housemaiding"  over  drill  and  marks- 
manship. "Cleanliness  is  next  to  god- 
liness" and  is  indispensable  to  good 
gunnery,  but  the  latter  cannot  be  sac- 
rificed: 

Training  naval  officers  and  men  as  house- 
maids  is   not   good  for   war;     hrainB   are   re- 


quired. But,  however  faulty  our  training  in 
peace  may  have  been,  it  did  not  affect  the  char- 
acter of  the  British  naval  officer  and  seaman. 
Whether  in  a  ship,  submarine,  baUoon,  aero- 
plane, motorcar,  tank,  or  as  a  soldier,  the  men 
who  bore  an  anchor  on  their  caps,  and  others 
who  wore  a  sou'wester,  fought  with  bravery 
not  surpassed  by  any  men  in  the  world.  Of 
the  many  thousand  who  went  to  the  bottom  of 
the  ocean,  a  large  number  might  be  alive  now 
if  in  peace-time  our  legislators  had  attended 
to  the  war  preparedness  of  ships  instead  of 
chiefly  to  the  housemaidlng  of  them.  I  once 
heard  a  statement  that  "the  blunders  of  our 
politicians  and  legislators  are  paid  for  with 
the  blood  of  our  sailors  and  soldiers".  How 
terribly  the  war  has  demonstrated  the  truth  of 
this  statement ! 

The  author's  sensational  views  on 
submarines  are  well  known.  Of  these 
it  may  be  remarked  that  in  their  en- 
tirety they  are  by  no  means  concurred 
in  by  the  consensus  of  naval  opinion. 
In  the  realm  of  gunnery,  however, 
which  was  more  particularly  Scott's 
own,  his  wisdom  has  been  proved  by 
war  experience.  The  lesson  for  the 
future  is  clear,  and  many  will  share  in 
the  Admiral's  hope  that  his  book  may 
not  have  been  written  in  vain. 


Fifty  Years  in  the  Royal  Navy.    By  Admiral 
Sir  Percy  Scott.    George  H.  Doran  Company. 


HOW  LYRICS  ARE  BORN 


BY  ARTHUR  GUITERMAN 


A  LITTLE  flock  of  singing  words 
Across  the  sky  from  nowhere  flew. 
Like  homing  summer  yellow-birds 
All  caroling  of  you. 


THE  BOOK  WORLD  OF  STOCKHOLM 

Jack  London  and  Others 


BY  FREDERIC  WHYTE 

Home-grovm  fiction  not  in  the  lead — twenty  British  and  American  best 
setters — the  Jack  London-GlynrBarclay  anomaly — Swedish  publishers'  faith  in 
Wells,  Galsworthy,  and  Bennett — McKenna  a  favorite — sympathy  for  **The  New 
Revelation" — a  new  Dickens  edition — LagerWf  and  von  Heidenstam  serious  ivr 
terests. 


Stockholm,  February  1,  1920. 

IT  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that 
Jack  London  is  Sweden's  most 
popular  novelist.  Only  of  quite  recent 
years  have  the  Swedes  taken  to  writ- 
ing novels  to  any  great  extent  for 
themselves — ^no  longer  "as  single 
spies",  that  is  to  say,  like  Selma  Lag- 
erlof  and  her  dozen  or  so  less  famous 
predecessors  and  contemporaries,  but, 
like  our  British  and  American  crafts- 
men, "in  battalions".  The  Christmas 
season  of  1919-1920  produced  a  bigger 
crop  of  the  home-grown  article  than 
ever  before  without  bringing  to  the 
front  any  remarkable  new  talent. 
Here  and  there  a  Swedish  novel  has 
gone  rapidly  into  an  eighth  or  ninth 
or  tenth  edition,  thanks  very  largely 
to  the  effective  cover-designs  in  which 
some  of  the  Stockholm  publishers  ex- 
cel, but  very  few  indeed  have  won  any 
kind  of  recognition  from  the  critics 
who  count.  Our  novelists  still  lead 
the  way.  Jack  London  still  very  con- 
spicuously at  their  head. 

I  have  amused  myself  compiling  a 
list  of  the  twenty  British  and  Ameri- 
can writers  of  fiction  most  popular  in 


Sweden  at  the  present  moment.  Ab- 
solute accuracy  is  out  of  the  question, 
but  I  have  compared  notes  with  a 
leading  Stockholm  publisher  and  a 
very  capable  young  bookseller,  so  the 
list  may  be  taken  as  at  all  events  an 
approximation  to  the  truth.    Here  it 


is: 

1.  Jack  London 

2.  Florence  Barclay 
8.  Elinor  Glyn 

4.  Ethel  Den 

5.  BertaRuck 

6.  Gene  Stratton-Porter 

7.  Eleanor  H.  Porter 

8.  W.J.Locke 

9.  Cosmo  Hamilton 
10.  Jobn  Qalsworthy 


11.  Stephen  McKenna 

12.  H.  O.  WellB 
18.  Arnold  Bennett 

14.  Conan  Doyle 

15.  Marie  CoreUi 

16.  HaUCatne 

17.  Bernard  Shaw 

18.  Rudyard  Kipling 

19.  Jerome  K.  Jerome 

20.  Victor  Bridges 

If  one  were  to  inquire  exhaustively 
into  the  matter,  one  might  have  to 
modify  the  order  in  which  these 
twenty  novelists  are  placed  and  one 
might  have  to  omit  a  few  names,  re- 
placing them  by  others ;  but  the  above 
is  near  enough. 

It  is  an  amusingly  incongruous  col- 
lection, is  it  not?  The  first  three,  in 
particular,  offer  a  quaint  medley,  but 
the  most  curious  thing  about  these  is 
that  they  all  make  their  strongest  ap- 
peal here  to  the  same  class — ^the  not 


279 


280 


THE  BOOKMAN 


very  highly  educated  girl  of  from 
twenty  to  twenty-five.  And  what  is 
more,  it  is  the  same  girl — it  is  not  the 
several  varieties  of  her.  The  very 
first  whom  I  questioned  told  me  that 
her  three  favorite  novelists  were  Jack 
London,  Mrs.  Barclay,  and  Elinor 
Glyn.  If  Mrs.  Glyn  ever  allows  herself 
to  smile  superciliously  at  Mrs.  Bar- 
clay's novels  or  if  Mrs.  Barclay  some- 
times lacks  Christian  charity  in  her 
judgments  of  Mrs.  Glyn,  let  us  hope 
it  may  tend  to  modify  their  mutual 
feelings  to  reflect  that  in  thousands  of 
young  female  hearts  throughout  Swe- 
den their  books  reign  harmoniously 
side  by  side,  and  in  such  good  com- 
pany as  Jack  London's ! 

There  was  an  element  of  chance 
about  Mrs.  Barclay's  vogue  here.  The 
first  Swedish  publisher  who  was  of- 
fered the  translation  rights  of  "The 
Rosary"  would  not  take  them.  His 
literary  adviser,  a  very  clever  critic, 
declared  emphatically  that  the  work 
could  not  possibly  have  any  sale  in 
Sweden.  "Our  women  are  much  too 
modem,"  he  declared;  "Mrs.  Barclay 
is  altogether  too  behind-the-times  for 
them."  Most  people  in  the  Swedish 
book  world  at  that  period — eight  years 
ago— would  probably  have  been  in- 
clined to  agree  with  him,  but  events 
have  proved  him  to  have  been  entirely 
wrong.  Someone  more  responsive 
made  acquaintance  with  "The  Rosary" 
and  drew  another  publisher's  atten- 
tion to  it,  and  since  then  all  Mrs.  Bar- 
clay's books  have  been  translated; 
while  only  a  few  months  ago  her  Lon- 
don publisher  was  given  an  order  from 
Sweden  for  no  fewer  than  a  thousand 
copies  of  selected  volumes  from  the 
new  English  edition  recently  pro- 
duced. It  is  a  noteworthy  thing,  by 
the  way,  that  when  British  or  Ameri- 
can authors  sell  in  Swedish,  there  is 
always  a  proportionately  brisk  demand 


for  their  work  in  the  original. 

Jack  London's  preeminence  in  Swe- 
den over  all  other  novelists,  male  or 
female, — ^more  than  thirty  of  his  books 
have  been  translated, — ^would  make  an 
interesting  study  for  anyone  suf- 
ficiently well  versed  in  his  writings. 
It  is  to  be  attributed  in  part,  of 
course,  to  the  inherent  freshness  and 
vigor  of  his  style  which  have  won  him 
admirers  everywhere;  in  part  to  the 
open-air  atmosphere  of  his  books  and 
to  his  love  for  and  knowledge  of  ani- 
mals and  wild  life  generally — ^these 
things  undoubtedly  count  for  a  good 
deal  with  the  Swedes;  in  part,  per- 
haps, to  efficient  translating  and  to 
clever  publishing. 

Of  Numbers  6  and  7  on  my  list  I 
must  confess  to  knowing  nothing 
whatever,  but  with  Numbers  8-13  I 
am  on  fairly  familiar  ground.  W.  J. 
Locke's  extreme  popularity  is  well  de- 
served and  easily  understood.  Ur- 
bane, humorous,  entertaining,  thor- 
oughly au  fait  with  the  very  attrac- 
tive aspects  of  French  life  which  he  is 
fondest  of  depicting,  he  was  bound  to 
please  the  more  intelligent  Swedish 
novel  readers.  What  puzzles  me,  how- 
ever, is  that  Anthony  Hope,  with 
whom  Mr.  Locke  has  so  much  in  com- 
mon, but  who  to  my  mind  has  far 
higher  gifts  and  far  wider  range,  is 
comparatively  little  known  here.  For 
this  I  can't  help  thinking  that  luck  is 
largely  accountable.  It  is  evident  that 
the  Swedish  publishers  recognized 
that  Anthony  Hope  was  a  writer 
worth  experimenting  with,  for  more 
than  fifteen  of  his  novels  in  Swedish 
form  are  included  in  the  catalogue  of 
the  Royal  Library  of  Stockholm.  But 
many  of  them  were  done  in  condensed 
versions  and  doubtless  with  all  their 
merits  lost,  whereas  the  Swedish 
editions  of  Locke  are  for  the  most 
part  very  good. 


THE  BOOK  WORLD  OF  STOCKHOLM 


281 


And  the  blithe  and  witty  Cosmo 
Hamilton — ^what  of  him?  Well, 
''Scandal's  as  one  would  expect,  has 
been  a  best  seller.  And  it  is  by  right 
of  this  that  he  stands  so  high  in  the 
list,  for  the  only  other  book  of  his  as 
yet  done  in  Swedish  is  "The  Princess 
of  New  York",  issued  quite  recently. 
"Who  Cares?",  "The  Door  that  has 
no  Key",  "The  Miracle  of  Love",  and 
"Adam's  Clay"  will  follow  soon  in 
quick  succession,  and  their  publisher, 
Lars  Hokerberg,  is  very  confident  of 
their  success.  "Who  Cares?",  he 
thinks,  will  do  even  better  than  "Scan- 
dal". 

Of  the  next  four  novelists  it  is  not 
easy  to  say  which  is  really  the  most 
popular;  but  Mr.  Galsworthy  is  cer- 
tainly the  one  most  generally  admired 
and  discussed  in  literary  circles,  and 
of  late  his  writings  have  sold  better 
(so  I  hear  on  good  authority)  than 
those  of  either  Mr.  Wells  or  Mr,  Ben- 
nett. Somehow  or  other,  "Mr.  Brit- 
ling  Sees  It  Through"  has  not  had  a 
large  audience  in  its  Swedish  version 
though  one  meets  a  good  many  people 
who  agree  that  it  is  a  wonderful  book. 
Mr.  Wells's  other  novels  have  so  far 
not  made  a  real  mark  here.  His  pres- 
ent publishers,  however,  the  Svenska 
Andelsforlag  (who  also  publish  for 
Mr.  Galsworthy  and  Mr.  Bennett),  be- 
lieve in  him  thoroughly  and  propose 
to  issue  all  his  more  important  vol- 
umes in  due  course.  Mr.  Bennett  is 
best  known  by  "The  Pretty  Lady",  In 
him,  also,  the  Andelsforlag  believe 
firmly,  and  with  good  reason,  and  the 
Swedes  can  hardly  fail  to  appreciate 
other  aspects  of  his  great  talent  than 
those  shown  in  this  particular  book. 
Stephen  McKenna  so  far  is  known 
only  by  his  "Sonia"  and  "Sonia  Mar- 
ried", but  these  two  volumes  have  at 
once  placed  him  in  the  first  rank  of 
popular  favorites. 


Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  of  course, 
is  chiefly  famous  for  his  "Sherlock 
Holmes";  otherwise  he  has  not  been 
very  much  read  until  last  year  when 
"The  New  Revelation"  introduced  him 
to  quite  a  different  class  of  people. 
Sir  Arthur  can  count  upon  a  sympa- 
thetic hearing  from  a  wide  circle  in 
Sweden  for  the  "message"  which  he 
feels  he  is  called  to  deliver  to  mankind 
and  to  which — so  he  declared  a  few 
months  ago — ^he  intends  to  devote 
all  his  best  energies  throughout  the 
rest  of  his  life.  Marie  Corelli  was 
more  of  a  favorite  with  Swedish  read- 
ers some  years  ago  than  she  is  now, 
and  the  same  may  be  said  of  Hall 
Caine.  Bernard  Shaw,  more  popular 
on  the  Swedish  stage  than  any  Eng- 
lish dramatist  except  Shakespeare, 
does  not  sell  much  in  book  form, 
though  several  of  his  novels  have  been 
translated  and  "Cashel  Byron's  Pro- 
fession" has  just  started  as  a  feuille- 
ton  in  the  leading  conservative  daily 
paper,  the  "Svenska  Dagblad". 

We  have  now  come  nearly  to  the  end 
of  our  list.  Kipling's  "Kim"  was  wel- 
comed by  discriminating  critics  as  a 
veritable  masterpiece  and  continues  to 
be  read  and  talked  about,  as  well  as  a 
few  of  his  other  books.  Jerome  K 
Jerome,  once  very  popular,  was  begin- 
ning to  be  forgotten  when  the  Andels- 
forlag recently  issued  his  pleasant  but 
not  very  remarkable  "They  and  I". 
Victor  Bridges,  one  of  the  most  recent 
successes  in  England,  both  as  a  story- 
teller and  as  a  humorist,  is  finding 
very  appreciative  readers  here,  also  in 
increasing  numbers. 

Besides  these  twenty,  a  number  of 
other  names  call  for  mention,  and  as  I 
have  already  suggested,  some  of  them 
ought  perhaps  by  rights  to  be  substi- 
tuted for  some  of  the  above.  That 
dashing  and  ingenious  romance  of  se- 
cret service,  "Greenmantle",  has  won 


282 


THE  BOOKMAN 


a  prominent  place  for  John  Buchan. 
Mrs.  Belloc  Lowndes  is  winning  an  au- 
dience for  herself.  Rider  Haggard  is 
read  but  not  very  widely;  Barry  Pain 
is  known  by  his  "Eliza" ;  Robert  Hich- 
ens,  George  Birmingham,  and  De 
Vere  Stacpoole  are  making  headway. 
Among  Americans,  Mrs.  Frances 
Hodgson  Burnett,  Mary  Roberts  Rine- 
hart,  and  Charles  G.  D.  Roberts  are 
among  the  most  conspicuous. 

It  will  be  noted  that,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Jack  London,  I  have  spoken 
only  of  living  writers.  Among  the  re- 
cently dead  few  are  better  known  ip 
Sweden  than  Oscar  Wilde,  whose 
works  are  now  being  issued  by  the  big 
firm  of  Bonnier  in  a  uniform  edition. 
His  plays  also  retain  their  popularity, 
more  especially  "An  Ideal  Husband". 
A  large  number  of  Robert  Louis  Stev- 
enson's books  have  been  translated, 
but  I  fear  unworthily  and  in  cheap, 
condensed  editions.  Sir  Walter  Scott 
is  forgotten,  Thackeray  is  little  more 
than  a  strange  name.  Dickens,  how- 
ever, still  flourishes  and  an  entirely 
new  version  of  "Pickwick"  by  Dr.  Au- 
gust Brunius,  one  of  Sweden's  best 


English  scholars,  is  to  be  produced 
for  next  Christmas  with  all  the  orig- 
inal illustrations.  The  first  Swedish 
version  was  quite  good  in  its  way.  Dr. 
Brunius  tells  me,  but  the  translator 
did  not  know  London  and  there  were 
no  dictionaries  of  slang  in  those  days 
to  interpret  to  him  the  colloquialism 
of  Sam  Weller  and  his  like,  so  there 
were  a  number  of  almost  unavoidable 
mistakes.  Wilkie  Collins,  Charles 
Reade,  Miss  Braddon,  Clark  Russell — 
all  these  and  many  others  of  their 
period  still  are  read  by  the  midde-aged 
here.  Bret  Harte  and  Mark  Twain 
also  have  their  faithful  devotees. 

To  conclude  with  a  generalization: 
it  may,  I  think,  be  said  that  on  the 
whole  the  Swedes  look  to  British  and 
American  fiction  chiefly  for  distrac- 
tion and  entertainment.  Even  in  the 
case  of  Mr.  Galsworthy  they  are  more 
interested  in  the  vivid  pictures  he 
gives  of  English  life  than  in  his  re- 
former's zeal  and  humanitarian  ideals. 
For  edification  and  emotion  they  turn 
rather  to  the  best  of  their  own  imagi- 
native writers,  in  particular  to  Selma 
Lagerlof  and  Vemer  von  Heidenstam. 


AMELIAS  E.  BARR— SOME  REMINISCENCES 


BY  HILDEGARDE  HAWTHORNE 


THERE  are  writers  more  interest- 
ing, fuller  of  life's  savor,  than 
any  book  they  ever  wrote.  The  best 
of  them  is  personal.  You  may  read 
their  stories  with  distinct  pleasure, 
but  to  know  them  is  an  experience. 
It  was  to  this  group  that  Amelia  E. 
Barr  belonged.  She  had  a  delightful 
mind  that  retained  a  folk  flavor,  and 
her  talk  was  apt  to  be  of  elemental 
things,  of  love  and  death  and  God. 
The  passing,  day  was  always  a  part  of 
eternity  to  her,  and  the  eternal  quality 
was  the  more  real. 

Her  books  had  the  strong  charm  of 
sincerity,  and  they  were  fresh,  youth- 
ful and  sweet  to  the  last,  and  she  died 
at  close  upon  ninety  years  of  age. 
Mrs.  Barr  did  not  write  complex 
stories,  she  was  not  given  to  analysis ; 
but  she  did  have  the  power  to  create 
character — ^the  character  of  plain, 
forthright  folk  living  in  a  world  of 
usual  things.  And  she  had  a  true  love 
of  nature.  She  told  me  one  day  that 
though  her  life  in  Texas  was  singu- 
larly happy,  and  though  she  loved  the 
climate  and  the  land,  she  always 
missed  the  sound  of  running  water. 

"At  home  I  always  lived  within 
hearing  and  sight  of  some  little  beck. 
And  there  isn't  a  sweeter  sound  in  all 
this  world  than  the  music  of  living 
water." 

She  was  always  a  country  woman. 
Cities  did  not  appeal  to  her,  though 


she  spent  many  months  of  many  years 
in  New  York.  When  she  had  enough 
money  laid  by  to  build  a  home  of  her 
own,  she  went  up  the  Hudson  to  Corn- 
wall, and  lived  in  a  pretty  cottage 
there,  with  roses  in  her  garden.  There 
was  singing  water  nearby,  too. 

Many  an  hour  I  would  spend  with 
her  there,  listening  to  her  wise  speech, 
for  wise  she  was.  She  had  a  great 
and  luminous  trust  in  God,  and  an  im- 
mense friendship  for  Him.  He  was 
always  real  and  impending  in  her  life. 
"I'll  not  be  caring  to  read  many  more 
of  these  books,"  she  remarked  one 
day,  laying  aside  some  novel  of  the 
moment  as  I  came  in.  "These  modem 
men  and  women  have  never  the  name 
of  God  in  the  whole  length  of  their 
story,  and  if  they're  as  far  from  Him 
as  that,  it's  little  true  value  they 
have." 

Yet  she  was  always  reading,  and 
she  was  interested  in  the  world  of  to- 
day as  keenly  as  though  she  were  be- 
ginning her  stay  in  it  rather  than 
ending  the  long  visit.  I  use  these 
terms  because  it  was  so  that  she  re- 
garded her  life  here.  Whatever  came 
to  her  in  life  she  considered  to  be  a 
distinct  part  of  God's  plan,  and  in  re- 
lation to  the  whole  of  her  existence, 
of  which  the  portion  lived  on  this 
earth  was  but  infinitesimal.  It  was 
singularly  exhilarating  to  come  into 
contact  with  this  large  and   simple 


283 


284 


THE  BOOKMAN 


faith.  It  was  no  thing  of  proofs,  no 
subject  for  quibbles;  it  was  a  con- 
viction as  solid  and  sound  as  a  belief 
in  the  warmth  of  the  sun. 

Her  books  all  reflect  this  faith,  and 
march  to  a  measure  whose  rhythm  is 
longer  than  this  world's.  But  to  meet 
it  in  all  its  strength  you  had  either  to 
know  her  well,  or  to  read  the  self- 
revelation  of  her  autobiography,  "All 
the  Days  of  my  Life",  a  beautiful 
book  that  has  any  number  of  so-called 
human  documents  utterly  distanced. 
It  is  better  than  any  of  her  fiction,  and 
should  be  a  book  that  those  who  love 
the  depiction  of  human  character  will 
not  let  die.  The  story  of  her  life  was 
tragic  and  courageous.  At  a  time 
when  women  found  it  harder  to  make 
a  living  than  now,  she  was  left  sud- 
denly without  her  husband,  without 
her  sons — ^all  having  died  in  Texas, 
within  a  brief  space  of  time,  of  yellow 
fever — and  with  very  little  means. 
She  came  to  New  York  and  supported 
herself  and  her  three  daughters  by 
writing,  from  then  on  to  the  time 
when  her  girls  grew  up.  She  was  a 
methodical  worker,  and  to  the  very 
last  sat  herself  down  at  her  desk  and 
turned  off  a  given  amount  during  the 
day.  Two  novels  a  year,  with  poems 
and  short  stories  for  good  measure — 
that  was  her  stint. 

Her  mornings  were  given  to  this 
labor,  a  labor  she  loved.  She  would 
get  up  about  five  in  the  summer  days, 
and  be  at  her  desk  by  six,  and  so  work 
till  noon.    And  then  she  was  done. 

Mixed  with  her  faith  in  God  and  the 
life  of  the  other  world,  was  a  streak 
of  mysticism,  a  respect  for  signs  and 
omens.  She  believed  in  palmistry, 
and  had  some  of  that  fey  quality  in 
her  nature  that  one  finds  in  the  north 
of  England  and  in  Scotland. 

Her  daughters  shared  this  feeling, 
this  attribute,  and  it  was  always  thrill- 


ing to  have  one  of  them  tell  your  for- 
tune by  reading  the  palm.  It  was  this 
mingling  of  the  soundest  common 
sense  with  the  mystic  that  made  Mrs. 
Barr  so  unusual  and  so  interesting. 
She  would  discuss  feminism  in  one 
breath,  with  shrewd  and  homely  com- 
ment on  the  small  vanities  and  subter- 
fuges of  women,  with  kindly  note  of 
their  idealism  and  generosity. 
"Women  are  odd  folk,"  she'd  say. 
"The  same  young  girl  who  will  sur- 
prise you  with  a  brave  stand  for  what 
she  believes  to  be  right,  when  you've 
thought  all  along  that  she  was  only  a 
bit  of  pretty  fluff,  may  do  the  unkind- 
est  act  in  the  world  simply  because 
she's  wearing  a  hat  she  doesn't  like." 
Then  she  would  swing  to  the  intuitivte, 
speak  from  the  folk  quality  in  her; 
and  you  would  feel  that  this  woman 
was  the  inheritor  of  strange  powers, 
that  angels  whispered  their  secrets  to 
her,  and  that  her  spirit  went  on  far 
voyagings,  to  bring  back  treasure 
without  which  the  world  would  be 
poor  indeed. 

Recently  a  small  volume  of  the  col- 
lected poems  written  through  many 
years  by  Mrs.  Barr  has  been  brought 
out,  and  these  verses  witness  gently 
to  her  spirit.  They  are  the  songs  of 
everyday  people,  as  the  title  of  the 
little  book  conveys,  "Songs  in  the 
Common  Chord".  Simple  lines  and 
simple  subjects  conveying  homely 
truths,  and  full  of  a  childlike  thank- 
fulness for  simple  joys.  There  are 
stanzas  to  an  apple  tree  that  are  as 
good  as  a  bite  of  the  fair  fruit;  there 
are  lines  to  autumn  that  hold  some- 
thing of  the  feeling  of  the  peaceful 
fields  and  finished  tasks  of  that  sea- 
son: 

I  sing  the  Autumn  Time, 
A  misty  dawn,  an  amber  noon, 
A  purple  eve,  a  harvest  moon, 
A  perfect  day,  in  Autumn  Time. 


AMELIA   E.  BARR— SOME   REMINISCENCES 


285 


The  peoBlve  days  of  Autumn  Time, 
The  sleepy  peace  o'er  hill  and  dell. 
The  falling  leaves,  the  birds'  farewell, 
The  dropping  nuts  of  Autumn  Time. 


Life's  happy  hopeful  Autumn  Time, 
For  years  to  it  can  only  bring 
The  change  of  Heaven's  Eternal  Spring — 
Heaven's  Spring,  for  Earth's  ripe  Autumn 
Time. 

The  book  holds  many  a  song  to  Har- 
vest, to  the  work  of  the  year  finished 
and  beautiful,  and  thanks  therefor; 
to  the  farmer  and  his  work,  the  cut- 
ting of  wheat,  the  plowing  of  brown 
fields,  the  garnering  of  ripe  fruit. 
The  earth  is  a  good  place,  in  this  book, 
and  honest  work  well  done  is  a  joy.  It 
is  an  index  to  the  emotions  and  the 
thoughts  of  the  plain  folk  all  over  the 
world  to  know  that  these  songs  have 
been  popular  almost  wherever  the 
English  tongue  is  spoken.  Mrs.  Barr 
relates  that  she  has  had  copies  of 
verses  by  her  sent  in  from  far  places, 
from  India  and  Australia  and  from 
Canadian  ranches.  Women  have  sung 
them  at  their  work,  men  have  clipped 
them  from  a  comer  of  their  daily 
paper  and  sent  them  to  a  friend.  The 
good  green  and  gold  earth,  the  fruit 
tree  with  its  autumn  gifts,  the  little 
lane  where  Mary  waits,  the  trust  in 
God,  the  bird  that  sings,  and  sings  not 
notes  alone,  but  a  hint  of  coming  hap- 
piness for  waiting  hearts :  it  is  such 
matters  as  these  which  Mrs.  Barr  puts 
into  easy  and  swinging  rhyme,  and  it 
is  these  that  are  welcomed  by  the  plain 
folk  whom  she  loved,  and  to  whom  she 
always  claimed  to  belong.  She  bids 
them, — 

Pray  at  the  Eastern  gate 

For  all  the  day  can  aslc, 
Pray  at  the  Western  gate 

Holding  thy  finished  taslc. 
It  waxeth  late — so  late 

The  night  falls  cold  and  gray, 
But  through  life's  Western   gate 

Dawns  life's  eternal  day. 


And  what  she  says  strikes  with  their 
own  convictions. 

There  is  a  great  mass  of  people 
whose  minds  may  be  described  as  jazz 
minds.  They  do  not  care  for  anjrthing 
really  true  and  great  in  art  or  litera- 
ture. They  want  cheap  sentiment, 
vulgar  humor,  noisy  reactions.  The 
simplicity  of  the  world  is  not  guessed 
at  by  them.  They  have  nothing  of  the 
peasant  left  in  them,  and  they  have 
not  yet  reached  to  anything  of  culture 
or  insight  or  the  appreciation  of  pure 
beauty.  These  people  are  really  the 
common  people.  They  herd  most  in 
cities,  and  they  support  the  vast  amount 
of  what  is  worthless,  trivial,  and  pass- 
ing in  magazines,  books,  plays  and 
what  not. 

It  is  not  those  who  care  for  or  who 
know  Mrs.  Barr.  Her  common  folk 
are  not  of  this  guild.  Her  plain  people 
are  the  sound  and  sane  population  of 
the  world,  who  believe  in  good  and 
sweet  things,  who  hold  something  of 
the  child  in  their  hearts,  who  give 
good  work  to  the  world  and  find  joy  in 
doing  it.  To  them  faith  is  part  of 
life,  and  life  is  constantly  related  to 
this  faith.  Mrs.  Barr  was  their 
spokesman,  and  it  is  for  this  that  her 
books  have  a  real  value,  an  interpre- 
tive quality.  There  is  in  a  sense 
something  primitive  about  her  work, 
as  there  was  in  her.  Primitive  in  the 
matter  of  belonging  close  to  essentials. 

There  was  an  amazing  refreshment 
of  spirit  to  be  had  from  an  hour  with 
Mrs.  Barr.  It  was  like  an  hour  spent 
in  a  wood  or  by  a  stream,  after  days 
in  crowded  streets.  This  quality  in 
her  she  was  never  able  quite  to  get 
into  her  books.  Something  of  herself 
escaped  her  pen.  Yet  there  are  hints 
and  promises  of  it  in  all  she  wrote, 
here  a  page  and  there  another  that 
have  the  true  folk  gesture. 


286 


THE  BOOKMAN 


She  is  dead.  Her  work  is  done  and, 
beside  the  work  doing  today,  it  is  old- 
fashioned  and  self-effacing  work.  But 
her  books  will  be  cherished  in  many 
homes  all  over  the  world  for  many 
years,  her  stanzas  will  be  memorized 
because   they   are    "in   the   common 


chord".  And  to  those  who  were  her 
friends  Mrs.  Barr  will  remain  a  vital 
part  of  recollection.  To  know  her  well 
was  to  know  her  always.  You  could 
no  more  forget  her  than  you  could 
forget  bread  or  honey  or  the  smell  of 
hay. 


GOTTERDAMMERUNG 


BY  WILBUR  CORTEZ  ABBOTT 


IN  all  the  world  of  serious  affairs 
there  are  no  more  interesting  books 
today  than  the  apologia  of  the  Prus- 
sian leaders,  Tirpitz  and  Ludendorff 
and  Falkenhayn — and  we  are  prom- 
ised Hindenburg.  They  have  been 
read  by  multitudes  in  Germany,  they 
will  be — they  are  being — read  by  mul- 
titudes elsewhere:  not  only  for  the 
details  of  the  war  but  for  their  revela- 
tions of  the  spirit  which  produced  it, 
and  for  the  sentiments  evoked  in  the 
minds  of  its  instigators  as  the  great 
conflict  went  on.  They  are  a  record 
of  the  Prussian  mind  in  action,  and 
they  are  profoundly  interesting,  not 
merely  as  history  but  as  psychology. 
And  they  are  even  more  than  this. 
They  are,  it  is  true,  retrospective,  but 
they  are,  to  some  minds,  provocative, 
and  prophetic.  For  it  is  inconceivable 
that  the  spirit  which  these  men  repre- 
sent will  take  defeat  as  flnal.  They 
will  risk  another  throw. 

The  three  which  have  already  ap- 
peared in  the  United  States  are  curi- 
ously alike  in  some  respects  and  curi- 
ously different  in  others.  Tirpitz — 
who  is  the  liveliest — ^begins  his  story 


with  his  entry  into  the  navy  in  1865, 
and  devotes  his  first  volume  to  an  ac- 
count of  the  birth  and  development  of 
the  German  navy,  an  account  which 
even  the  non-naval  reader  will  find  of 
extraordinary  interest.  The  first  half 
of  his  second  volume  he  devotes  to  the 
war  proper.  Then  he  embarks  on 
what  many  will  find  the  most  enter- 
taining part  of  the  book,  the  publica- 
tion of  his  war-letters.  It  is  a  long 
confession  of  pessimism.  From  the 
opening  words,  "A  whole  world  is  mo- 
bilizing against  us",  to  the  end,  "Fred- 
erick the  Great  and  Bismarck  must 
turn  in  their  graves",  there  is  scarcely 
a  single  cheerful  note.  And  the  bur- 
den of  his  song  is  naturally  England, 
and  still  England  —  England  the 
"cause  of  all  evil",  the  "real  enemy". 
England  who  keeps  her  fleet  "in  be- 
ing", who  will  not  come  out  and  fight 
and  yet  who  controls  the  sea,  makes 
Heligoland  virtually  negligible,  block- 
ades the  Fatherland,  and  so  causes 
such  discontent  that  the  "carrion  vul- 
ture" of  popular  revolt  may  burst 
forth  at  any  time — does,  in  fact,  burst 
forth  in  "needless  and  senseless"  revo- 


GOTTERDAMMERUNG 


287 


lution  before  he  finishes.  "One  ahnost 
loses  his  faith  in  goodness",  he  ob- 
serves; and  unless  the  '*liebe  Herr 
Gott"  intervenes,  all  is  likely  to  be 
lost. 

The  worst  is  the  retreat  from  the 
Mame,  when  "our  troops  must  run 
vigorously,  poor  fellows".  And  in  a 
sense  the  Mame  is  the  motive  of  them 
all — for  they  avoid  it  so  carefully! 
"On  the  evening  of  the  14th  of  Sep- 
tember, 1914",  80  Falkenhayn  begins, 
he  was  made  Chief  of  Staff,  "by  ex- 
traordinary procedure",  in  order  not 
to  "disquiet  any  further  the  popula- 
tion at  home",  or  "give  enemy  propa- 
ganda further  ostensible  proof  of  the 
completeness  of  the  victory  obtained 
on  the  Mame" — and  then  no  more  of 
the  Mame!  Naturally,  perhaps,  for 
that  is  not  his  story,  but  von  Moltke's. 
To  it  Ludendorff  gives  a  scant  two 
lines  and  a  half:  "The  order  to  re- 
treat from  the  Mame  was  issued, 
whether  on  good  grounds  or  not  I 
have  never  been  able  to  ascertain". 
There,  it  is  evident,  Prussia's  great 
hope  broke ;  thereafter  it  was  a  strug- 
gle against  the  inevitable.  For  not 
all  the  successes  against  the  Russians, 
the  Roumanians,  and  the  Serbs,  which 
Ludendorff  relates  in  much  detail; 
not  all  the  desperate  efforts  to  achieve 
a  decision  on  the  western  front — ^help 
the  declining  cause  of  those  who  hoped 
to  win  by  one  great  blow.  Nor  can 
we  omit  to  note  two  things.  The  one 
is  his  elaborate  account  of  the  one 
period,  apparently  the  only  time  in  his 
life,  when  he  saw  actual  service  under 
fire — his  brief  and  inconspicuous  ex- 
perience in  the  "heroic"  attack  on  Bel- 
gium. The  other  is  how  scared  they 
were.  Heavens!  how  scared  they 
were! — when  this  great  blow  so  care- 
fully prepared  by  that  Count  von 
Schlieffen  who  was  their  teacher  and 
their  strategist,  failed  of  its  purpose. 


It  was  as  if  the  "Hebe  Herr  Gott"  him- 
self had  declared  against  them. 

Nor  was  the  struggle  carried  on  by 
a  united  company  nor  by  unanimous 
consent.  Nothing  in  these  volumes  is 
more  surprising  than  the  opinions  so 
freely  expressed  of  the  Great  War 
Lord — unless  it  is  those  relating  to 
one  another — ^by  these  great  command- 
ers. It  is  to  be  expected  that  the 
leaders  of  a  lost  cause  will  fall  out 
among  themselves,  and  endeavor  to 
transfer  the  blame  for  the  disaster  to 
other  shoulders.  It  is  still  more  to  be 
anticipated  that  military  men  will 
differ  among  themselves,  quarrel  with 
the  civil  authorities,  find  fault  with 
their  allies,  and  denounce  the  lack  of 
support  which  they  find  on  every  hand. 
But  we  were  hardly  prepared  for  two 
things  which  these  volumes  reveal. 
The  one  is  the  whole-hearted  contempt 
for  the  late  Emperor;  the  other  the 
serious  differences  between  Falken- 
hayn and  Hindenburg.  The  unpre- 
paredness  of  Turkey,  the  selfishness 
of  Bulgaria,  the  weakness  of  Austria, 
the  dislike  of  Bethmann-Hollweg — 
these  are  natural  enough.  But  to  find 
Lloyd  George  and  Clemenceau  glori- 
fied at  the  expense  of  the  All-Highest, 
this  is  too  much!  And,  finally,  what 
may  be  said  of  the  Prussian  mind  as 
here  revealed ;  of  the  "exploitation  of 
conquered  territories  so  far  as  the 
laws  of  war  permitted",  so  thorough, 
so  methodical,  so  beneficial — and  so 
ruthless !  What  may  be  said  of  what 
is  here  called,  strangely  enough,  "the 
long  and  painful  tale  of  the  subma- 
rine", of  the  "bullying  note"  of  Presi- 
dent Wilson,  which  "raised  him  to  a 
height  such  as  a  president  had  seldom 
occupied  before",  of  "General  Head- 
quarters which,  like  everyone  else,  had 
not  thought  it  possible  that  these 
enormous  numbers  of  American 
troops  could  be  brought  to  Europe", 


288 


THE  BOOKMAN 


and  had,  accordingly,  ''sent  a  million 
men  to  the  East  for  economic  pur- 
poses" and  so  lost  the  war!  Such  are 
the  tales  they  tell.  And  who  will  not 
want  to  read  these  tales?  For  from 
them  we  may  not  only  be  able  as  time 
goes  on  to  untangle  the  mystery  of  the 
war;  we  may  be  able  to  explain  the 
greater  mystery  of  the  peace,  and  its 
great  epilogue  in  German  politics 
which  has  just  now  begun. 

Like  the  rest  of  the  world  I  have 
read  and  I  am  reading  these  books 
with  increasing  interest  as  they  ap- 
pear; nor  is  it  a  slight  task,  for  these 
are  mighty  men  of  the  pen  as  well  as 
of  the  sword,  and  their  words  are 
weighty  and  numerous.  And  as  I  read 
I  dreamed — though  it  was  not  all  a 
dream,  and  in  that  dream  it  seemed 
that  there  was  a  great  hall — though  it 
was  not  perhaps  as  great  as  it  ap- 
peared to  those  that  dwelt  in  it;  and 
that  hall  held  a  mighty  multitude — 
though  it  was  not  perhaps  as  mighty 
as  it  thought.  And  high  above  that 
multitude  sat  great  men  in  council; 
and  though  those  men  may  not  have 
been  as  great  as  they  seemed  to  those 
below,  they  were  acclaimed  as  gods 
and  heroes  of  the  olden  time,  those 
great  dark  ages  ere  the  white  Christ 
came.  The  mightiest  of  them  was 
Hindenburg,  who  was  likened  to  Thor 
with  his  hammer;  and  next  to  him 
sat  Loki  Ludendorff;  and  next  him 
Tirpitz,  the  great  snake  who  would 
drink  up  the  sea.  With  them  were 
Falkenhayn,  and  Zeppelin  the  master 
of  the  air;  and  there  was  Balder  the 
Beautiful,  Bethmann-HoUweg,  whom 
Loki  and  his  fellows  caused  to  be 
slain ;  and  many  more  beside.  And  in 
their  midst  sat  one  who  should  have 
been  Odin,  the  father  of  the  gods ;  but 
whose  bright  sword  and  shining  ar- 
mor  and   wingM   words   proclaimed 


him  Siegfried,  the  god's  plaything.  So 
they  sat,  those  mighty  champions,  and 
held  deep  speech  of  dark  significance. 

At  last  they  spoke;  and  the  crowd 
hung  upon  their  words — ^though  those 
words  seem  now  less  wonderful  than 
they  sounded  then — and  the  great 
multitude  acclaimed  them  with  a 
mighty  shout.  For  they  spoke  like 
the  ancient  gods  and  heroes,  whose 
likeness  they  bore  to  their  followers, 
who  listened  and  obeyed.  They  spoke 
of  war  and  plunder,  of  craft  and  cun- 
ning and  a  sudden  blow;  of  wide  con- 
quest and  new  multitudes  of  thralls; 
of  gold  and  gems,  wide  lands  and  rich 
stores  of  metals  and  of  mines;  of 
wealth  and  power  to  be  had  by  force ; 
of  places  in  the  sun,  and  conquest  of 
the  sea;  of  empires  to  be  won  by  a 
great  stroke  against  men  who  relied 
on  oaths  and  pledges  and  a  common 
faith.  Thus  in  the  great  old  days  had 
their  forefathers  done;  thus  had  the 
plans  been  laid  by  those  who  could  not 
fail;  thus  would  it  fall  out  once  more. 
And  so  the  gods  and  heroes  plotted 
against  the  world,  little  suspecting 
and  still  less  prepared;  and  thus  their 
worshipers  applauded  them  and  made 
haste  secretly  to  carry  out  their  plans 
— only  some  few,  on  whom  the  great 
crowd  fell,  and  thrust  them  out  or 
threw  them  into  chains. 

For  they  were  filled  with  the  fancies 
of  sagas  and  of  myths.  They  dreamed 
of  the  Rhine-hoard  and  the  glory  of 
Siegfried.  They  recalled  the  promise 
of  the  Nibelungenlied,  of  "heroes  rich 
in  glory,  and  of  adventures  bold,  of 
feasts  and  joyous  living".  They  re- 
vived the  memories  of  their  earlier 
triumphs,  of  short  and  successful  war, 
and  rich  spoil,  and  a  great  name  in 
the  world.  And  so  they  armed  them- 
selves, and  so  they  sallied  forth  from 
their  great  hall,  a  mighty  company, 
equipped  at  every  point,  with  shining 


GOTTERDAMMERUNG 


289 


shields  and  swords,  and  smoke  and 
flame,  and  lightning  from  the  clouds — 
new  and  most  terrible  weapons  of  of- 
fense. Their  war-vultures  darkened 
the  sky,  their  scaly  serpents  swam  be- 
neath the  sea,  and  there  were  on  every 
hand  all  the  engines  of  war  with 
which  their  wise  men,  at  the  bidding 
of  the  Great  Ones,  had  secretly  con- 
trived to  make  resistance  vain. 

Thus  they  burst  forth  suddenly  and 
with  no  warning,  nor  heeded  the 
words  of  those  who  would  have  stayed 
them;  but  cried  that  they  were  but 
defending  their  great  hall  from  its 
enemies.  Thus  they  fell  on  their  vic- 
tims and  beat  down  the  weakest  of 
them  ruthlessly.  Those  who  were  left 
in  the  great  hall,  workers  and  women 
and  old  men  and  children,  sang  the  old 
war-songs,  elsewhere  forgotten;  and 
boasted  the  prowess  of  the  warriors; 
and  devised  new  poems  of  hate  against 
those  whom  they  wronged,  and  most 
of  all  against  those  who  came  to  the 
aid  of  them.  They  built  huge  idols 
fashioned  in  the  form  of  the  heroes, 
and  worshiped  them  in  the  old  man- 
ner of  a  darker  time;  and  they  re- 
joiced in  the  plunder  which  poured 
into  the  hall,  and  mocked  their  pris- 
oners, and  drew  thousands  of  thralls 
to  prepare  more  war  material,  and 
still  more  and  more,  to  use  against 
the  fellows  of  those  thralls  who  fought 
against  enslavement  of  their  lands, 
their  wives  and  daughters,  and  their 
sons. 

And  they  demanded  that  the  world 
should  recognize  their  mastery,  and 
that  soon,  or  be  destroyed;  and  for  a 
moment  it  seemed  they  might  prevail. 
But  those  outside  the  hall  refused,  and 
fought  and  died  through  many  bitter 
months;  and  months  drew  on  to 
years,  and  still  they  would  not  yield; 
till  one  by  one  the  nations  of  the  earth 
gathered  against  the  people  of  the 


hall  who  found  but  few  allies  and 
weak,  so  that  in  the  course  of  time 
the  masses  of  mankind  stood  close  ar- 
rayed against  them;  all  but  one  na- 
tion which  fell  before  the  subtle  words 
of  those  who  wrought  secretly  in  be- 
half of  the  hall-dwellers.  But  there 
were  still  enough,  and  presently  the 
people  of  the  hall  felt  fear  come  on 
them  suddenly.  Their  strength  de- 
cayed; and,  as  their  courage  sank, 
their  boasting  turned  to  shrill  com- 
plaints. The  great  snake  found  that 
he  could  not  drink  up  the  sea;  the 
vultures  of  the  air  lost  mastery  of 
that  element;  for  the  sea-eagles  and 
the  eagles  of  the  air  slew  the  sea-ser- 
pents till  their  fellows  feared  to  fight, 
and  the  vultures  were  driven  from  the 
clouds.  And  in  their  turn  the  peoples 
of  the  earth  devised  new  engines  of 
war,  huge  monsters  which  crawled 
across  the  devastated  land,  breathing 
fire  and  breaking  down  the  strong  and 
cunning  defenses  which  the  hall- 
dwellers  built  to  hold  their  conquests 
and  protect  themselves. 

So,  finally,  the  entrances  to  the  hall 
were  blocked,  and  food  and  war  ma- 
terial began  to  fail,  and  with  them  the 
hearts  of  those  who  dwelt  within ;  and 
so  they  cried  for  peace.  Against  their 
heroes  other  and  greater  heroes  rose; 
against  their  hordes  there  stood  a 
world  in  arms;  against  the  gods  the 
giants  raised  their  hands,  and  the  old 
saints  beside  them;  till  presently. 
Saint  George,  Saint  Jeanne  and  Saint 
Michael  knocked  at  the  very  doors  of 
the  great  hall.  And  its  inhabitants, 
like  their  champions  outside,  lost  hold 
on  fortune,  lost  courage,  and  lost  all; 
and  suddenly  gave  way.  Their  leaders 
bowed  to  the  superiority  of  their  an- 
tagonists. Siegfried  exchanged  his 
shining  armor  for  the  mean  habit  of  a 
woodcutter,  his  bright  sword  for  a 
saw;   and  sought  refuge  in  the  little 


290 


THE  BOOKMAN 


house  next  door.  The  Great  Ones  put 
off  their  warlike  gear,  and  were  re- 
vealed as  men,  and  no  gods  at  all.  The 
crowd  threw  down  the  idols  it  had 
raised,  chose  leaders  of  its  own,  and 
some  of  its  members  fell  to  strife 
among  themselves.  There  was  a  great 
rebellion  of  the  thralls,  the  while  the 
serpents  of  the  sea  were  given  up,  the 
plunder  sought  out  and  restored,  and 
the  whole  world,  sick  with  turmoil  and 
slaughter,  and  weary  of  conflict, 
sought  new  bases  of  life.  And  some 
of  the  hall-dwellers  strove  toward  a 
greater  life,  now  that  their  eyes  were 
opened,  and  in  that  met  the  good 
wishes  of  their  recent  enemies;  and 
some  still  thought  to  revive  the  bad 
old  days,  and  in  that  met  small  en- 
couragement. So  the  world  stands, 
and  no  man  knows  the  end. 

For  it  is  evident  that  the  Prussians 
misread  the  German  epics  and  the 
sagas — their  king  most  of  all.  It  was 
the  old  smith  Regin  who  forged  Sieg- 
fried's great  sword,  even  as  Bismarck 
made  Germany  what  it  was;  and 
Siegfried  slew  Regin  on  the  strength 
of  what  the  little  birds  told  him  of  the 
smith's  contemplated  treachery — even 
as  the  Emperor  dismissed  the  Chan- 
cellor. The  Rhine  Treasure  was  the 
hero's  prize — ^and  his  undoing.  It  was 
the  Burgundians  who  triumphed  in 
the  epic,  finally;  it  was  the  giants 
who  conquered  the  gods  in  the  saga. 
And  had  the  Prussians  read  the  story 
of  the  Nibelungen  through,  they  would 
have  found,  with  all  the  glittering 
promise  of  the  opening  lines,  the  story 


ends  in  hopeless  tragedy:  "in  sorrow 
now  was  ended  the  king's  high  holi- 
day". Nor  did  Siegfried  with  all  his 
marvelous  powers,  manage  to  rise 
again — ^nor  did  the  gods  survive. 

Yet  in  one  thing  these  modem  he- 
roes and  divinities  have  an  advantage 
over  their  prototypes.  In  the  ancient 
myths,  after  great  deeds  on  earth,  the 
heroes  spent  an  eternity  in  Valhalla, 
where,  surrounded  by  their  old  serv- 
ants and  followers,  they  told  and  re- 
told the  tales  of  their  earthly  exploits, 
fought  the  old  fights,  listened  to  their 
praises  from  their  faithful  bards,  and 
took  part  in  heroic  drinking-bouts  as 
the  mead-cup  went  round.  But  the 
new  heroes  do  not  need  to  die.  In  the 
Valhalla  of  the  publishers  they  have 
all  the  advantages  and  none  of  the  dis- 
advantages of  those  older  days.  They 
no  longer  sit  in  the  seats  of  the 
mighty,  their  worshipers  have  di- 
minished, their  word  is  no  longer  law. 
But  if  cup-bearers  are  lacking, — and 
we  have  no  reason  to  believe  they  are, 
— if  there  is  now  no  sound  of  harps 
and  voices  of  the  bards,  the  faithful 
amanuensis,  the  diligent  professor,  the 
devoted  secretary  stand,  with  ready 
pen  and  ink,  to  serve  this  feast  of 
reason  and  this  flow  of  memory ;  pub- 
lishers pay  great  sums  to  reproduce 
these  great  stories;  and  the  public 
reads!  What  more  can  even  heroes 
want — save  victory ! 


My  Memoirs.  By  Grand  Admiral  von  Tirpitz. 
2  volumes.     Dodd.  Mead  and  Co. 

LadendorflTs  Own  Story.  By  Erich  von  Lu- 
dendorff.     2  volumes.     Harper  and  Brothers. 

The  German  General  Staff  and  Its  Decisions. 
1014-1916.  By  General  von  Falkenhayn. 
Dodd,  Mead  and  Co. 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  A  MODERN  JAPANESE  GIRL 


BY  HANANO  INAGAKI  SUGIMOTO 


ALTHOUGH  the  brown  thatched 
^  roofs  of  Yedo  have  changed  into 
six-story  concrete  buildings  of  present 
Tokyo — although  my  grandmother 
says  with  a  sigh :  "How  different  the 
world  is  now!  How  barbaric  it  is 
growing  with  European  influence!" — 
nevertheless  the  one  thing  that  has 
not  changed  is  convention,  the  despot 
of  the  Japanese;  for  during  every 
minute  from  birth  to  death,  convention 
is  our  overlord  and  master.  We  bow, 
eat,  talk,  walk,  laugh,  and  even  sleep 
in  accordance  with  certain  fixed  rules 
of  etiquette.  With  our  dressing  it  is 
the  same.  There  is  only  one  shape  of 
kimono  worn  by  Japanese  wome^.  It 
is  made  in  four  different  sizes,  and 
regardless  of  stature,  when  a  girl 
reaches  a  certain  age,  she  dons  the 
next  size.  Like  this  kimono  of  four 
sizes  the  literature  she  reads  is  di- 
vided into  four  periods :  the  period  of 
fairy  tales,  of  primary  school,  of  high 
school,  and  of  progressive  reading  be- 
fore and  after  graduation. 

Well  do  I  remember  those  nights 
when  as  a  little  girl  I  used  to  plead: 

"One  more — ^just  one  more,  Baya!" 
and  by  the  dim  moonlight  melting 
through  the  paper  doors,  I  could  see 
the  kindly  wrinkled  face  of  my  Baya. 

"Little  Mistress,  this  is  the  third 
time  you  have  asked  this  I"  she  would 
say.  "Baya  will  not  tell  you  a  new 
story,  but  close  now  those  eyes,  and  I 


shall  repeat  your  favorite,  Momotaro." 
But  how  could  I  shut  my  eyes  when, 
on  the  white  shoji,  the  shadows  of 
quivering  bamboo  leaves  formed  pic- 
tures of  the  story  she  told.  There  was 
Momotaro— the  boy  bom  from  a 
peach,  who,  with  his  followers,  a  dog, 
a  monkey,  and  a  pheasant,  went  forth 
to  conquer  fierce  red  and  green  demons 
and  finally  forced  them  to  bow  down 
and  weep  in  repentance.  But  alas! 
too  often  the  close  of  the  familiar  tale 
would  be  lost  and  I  would  drift  away 
to  dreamland  fancying  I  heard  the 
rumbling  of  fairy  cart  wheels  bearing 
away  the  rich  trophies  of  the  victori- 
ous Peach  Boy.  But  in  all  probability 
it  was  the  sound  of  the  wooden  doors 
which  Baya  always  pulled  across  the 
shoji  after  I  went  to  sleep. 

So  it  was  every  night.  There  were 
other  times  when  sitting  by  Baya 
while  her  glistening  needle  sped  rap- 
idly in  and  out  of  a  piece  of  sewing,  or 
peering  down  into  the  burning  char- 
coal picturing  the  story  as  it  advanced, 
I  would  listen  to  tales  about  the  greedy 
man  who  was  punished  with  humilia- 
tion, and  the  honest  man  who  was  re- 
warded with  bolts  of  silks  and 
branches  of  coral;  or  of  the  naughty 
badger  who  ate  the  woodcutter's  wife, 
and  of  the  kind  rabbit  who  avenged 
the  wrong;  or  of  the  old  bamboo  cut- 
ter whose  greedy  wife  so  cruelly 
treated    the    little    sparrow;     or    of 


291 


292 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Urashima,  the  Rip  Van  Winkle  of 
Japan.  These  fanciful  tales,  which 
nourish  the  imagination  of  the  Jap- 
anese child  just  as  "Cinderella"  and 
"Red  Riding  Hood"  do  that  of  the 
American  child,  were  my  first  intro- 
duction to  literature,  not  presented  by 
a  literary  professor  but  by  a  humble 
country  nurse.  My  recollections  were 
always  happy  concerning  these  tales, 
for  not  for  a  moment  did  I  ever  doubt 
the  truth  of  my  Baya's  words : 

"Little  Miss,  it  is  always  thus.  The 
bad  are  punished — the  good  reward- 
ed." 

Thus  my  fairy-tale  period  drew  to 
an  end,  leaving  with  me  an  absolute 
faith  that  some  unknown  power  never 
failed  to  right  the  wrong. 

Up  to  the  end  of  my  first  year  in 
primary  school,  fairy  tales  were  still 
my  best  companions.  My  first  volume 
of  literature  was  of  red  leather  with 
the  plump  Peach  Boy  and  his  three 
animal  attendants  emblazoned  in  vivid 
reds  and  blues.  Its  proper  place  was 
on  my  black  lacquer  desk,  but  I  often 
held  it  tight  even  while  I  romped  in 
play,  and  at  night  I  placed  it  by  my 
pillow,  fearing  that  it  might  disap- 
pear. I  always  told  Baya  that  I  loved 
it  next  to  her,  but  alas !  the  time  came 
when  dust  accumulated  upon  the  pre- 
cious red  cover;  for  when  the  cherry 
blossoms  had  once  more  unfolded  their 
petals  in  the  school  yard,  I  stepped 
into  my  second  year  and  considered 
myself  too  old  for  fairy  tales.  And  so, 
though  there  was  yet  a  spark  of 
smothered  loyalty  deep  down  in  my 
heart  for  my  companion,  I  put  it  away 
in  a  dark  closet  with  my  broken  toys 
and  reached  my  hand  upward  toward 
the  next  round  in  the  long  ladder  of 
learning. 

It  was  during  the  next  stage  that 
the  real  spirit  of  Japan  was  incul- 
cated in  my  small  brain — ^the  spirit 


which  later  became  the  foundation  of 
the  unique  characteristics  which  are 
essential  to  all  daughters  of  Japan. 
These  traits  were  undying  loyalty  to 
my  Emperor,  to  my  country,  to  my 
parents — ^the  three  qualities  so  greatly 
respected  by  Japanese  people.  These 
ideals  were  deeply  planted  in  my  mind 
through  historical  literature.  Monday 
and  Friday  mornings  in  school  were 
somewhat  different,  it  seemed  to  me, 
from  other  mornings.  At  eight  o'clock 
the  bell  rang  out  sharply  as  usual,  but 
there  seemed  to  be  a  solemnity  lurking 
in  the  air,  as  the  roomful  of  students, 
all  standing,  listened  for  the  shuffling 
footsteps  of  our  ethics  teacher  as  he 
came  down  the  hall.  When  he  stepped 
upon  the  platform,  we  all  bowed  deeply 
before  seating  ourselves.  This  form 
was  gone  through  with  all  classes,  but 
the  ethics  hour  was  full  of  dignity. 
We  stood  a  little  in  awe  of  this  class. 
Somehow  it  seemed  sacred  to  us. 

Through  the  study  of  ethics  I  be- 
came a  great  hero-worshiper.  All 
the  books  which  I  read  during  those 
days  were  of  warriors  who  had  fought 
and  died  for  their  overlords.  Often 
while  turning  the  pages  of  history,  I 
would  drift  back  into  long  ago  cen- 
turies and  picture  myself  on  a  white 
horse  arrayed  in  gold  and  red  armor, 
plunging  forward  to  sacrifice  my  life 
for  that  of  my  Lord.  Upon  awaken- 
ing, I  never  ceased  to  regret  the  fact 
that  I  was  a  girl  instead  of  a  boy. 
But  my  regrets  were  forgotten  when 
one  day,  my  eyes  caught  this  saying 
in  my  ethics  book:  "Loyalty  to  par- 
ents is  the  beginning  of  a  patriot." 
Then  it  was  that  I  began  to  read 
eagerly  of  the  men  and  women  who 
had  become  famous  on  account  of  loy- 
alty to  their  parents.  Among  many 
other  tales  was  one  of  a  boy  who  threw 
himself  into  a  waterfall,  believing  that 
by  his  sacrifice  his  feeble  father  would 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  A  MODERN  JAPANESE   GIRL 


298 


be  given  health.  I  was  greatly  im- 
pressed, and  if  at  that  time  my  mother 
had  been  taken  ill,  I  doubt  if  I  would 
be  writing  this  day.  There  was  an- 
other story  of  a  girl  who  sold  her  hair 
in  order  to  give  medicine  to  her  sick 
.  mother.  This  seemed  to  me  quite  an 
easy  way  to  prove  gratitude  to  par- 
ents, and  that  evening  I  went  to  my 
grandmother's  room  and  with  a  deep 
bow  said : 

''Honorable  grandmother,  would  it 
not  be  a  most  splendid  deed  if  I  should 
cut  my  hair  and  sell  it?  With  the 
money  I  can  buy  Honorable  Mother 
some  sweetmeats." 

I  remember  my  grandmother's  as- 
tonishment as  she  dropped  her  silver 
pipe  into  the  ashes  of  the  firebox  and 
exclaimed : 

"Foolish  child!  Do  you  not  know 
the  old  saying:  *To  touch  even  one 
hair  is  desecrating  the  body  given  by 
your  parents,  and  is  showing  the 
greatest  disrespect  to  them'?" 

Indeed  that  proverb  I  had  heard 
often  enough  but  alas!  how  contra- 
dictory this  world  seemed.  But  to 
question  my  grandmother,  —  much 
more  to  argue  with  her, — ^never  en- 
tered my  mind.  So  I  merely  bowed 
and  went  away,  a  sadly  puzzled  little 
girl.  On  the  way  to  my  room,  I 
stopped  on  the  garden  porch.  Several 
grey  doves  were  about  to  light  on  a 
pine  tree,  and  I  watched  them  intently 
for  I  had  heard  that  "even  a  dove 
shows  respect  to  its  parents  by  perch- 
ing on  the  third  limb  beneath".  I  saw 
the  birds  alighting  on  different 
branches,  and  so  believed  the  proverb 
to  be  correct. 

Another  memorable  event,  during 
this  time,  was  my  first  introduction  to 
famous  figures  of  the  western  world. 
In  ethics  during  my  six  years  in  pri- 
mary school  I  had  learned  a  great  deal 
about  the  lives  of  George  Washington, 


Benjamin  Franklin,  Abraham  Lincoln, 
Florence  Nightingale  and  many  other 
prominent  characters  in  western  his- 
tory. I  admired  them  all,  but  my  sym- 
pathy lay  deepest  with  little  Washing- 
ton and  his  hatchet,  for  well  I  remem- 
bered how,  with  my  shiny  new  scis- 
sors, I  had  snipped  the  ends  of  my 
long  purple  sleeves.  Florence  Night- 
ingale, however,  had  the  most  prac- 
tical influence  over  me,  for  during  a 
certain  period  our  backyard  was  filled 
with  the  whining  and  whimpering  of 
lean  stray  dogs  which  I  insisted  on 
doctoring.  But  finally  came  a  day 
when  my  mother's  patience  gave  way, 
and  I  had  a  great  problem  to  solve 
between  obedience  to  my  mother  and 
kindness  to  dumb  animals. 

Like  most  Japanese  girls  I  first 
came  in  contact  with  western  litera- 
ture through  translations  of  Ameri- 
can life  which  I  read  in  high  school. 
The  first  I  read  were  "Little  Lord 
Fauntleroy",  called  "The  Little  Peer", 
and  "Sara  Crewe",  translated  as  "The 
Little  Peeress".  I  could  hardly  spare 
time  for  school  studies  so  enthusiastic 
was  I  as,  laughing  and  crying,  I  pored 
over  these  books.  The  writings  were 
so  vivid,  so  real,  so  far  away  from 
convention  and  proverbs,  and  most  of 
all — so  human !  Later  on  I  read  trans- 
lations of  "Monte  Cristo",  "Jean  Val- 
jean",  "Little  Women",  and  "Alice  in 
Wonderland".  I  enjoyed  these  books 
because  they  were  vivid  and  real.  But 
in  books  as  in  food  one  desires  a  va- 
riety, and  so  it  was  that  I  also  found 
charm  in  reading  Japanese  stories — 
both  classic  and  modem.  Most  of  the 
classics  which  we  read  in  high  school 
depicted  the  court  life  of  old  Japan. 
"Pillow  Sketches",  by  Sei  Shonagon, 
and  "Tales  of  Lord  Genji",  a  novel  by 
Murasaki  Shikibu,  were  two  of  the 
most  popular.  Both  of  these  were 
written  by  court  ladies  of  the  Heian 


294 


THE  BOOKMAN 


period,  over  a  thousand  years  ago. 
Of  course  these  writings,  being  very 
old,  were  picturesque,  quaint,  and  most 
fascinating.  But  they  kept  me  busy 
running  to  my  grandmother  to  ask  for 
the  meaning  of  words  that  were  too 
old-fashioned  to  be  found  even  in  a 
dictionary.  For  recreation  I  read  a 
great  many  historical  novels,  which 
gave  me  an  insight  into  the  life  of  old 
Japan.  The  convention  which  governs 
Japan  is  based  on  tradition,  and  with- 
out comprehension  of  Japanese  tradi- 
tions one  cannot  be  a  genuine  Japanese. 
Then  there  were  modem  novels 
which  might  correspond  to  those  of 
Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  or  Mary  Rob- 
erts Rinehart,  which  dealt  with  the 
people  and  situations  of  today.  One 
which  was  particularly  beautiful  and 
minute  in  art  was  by  Koyo  San j  in.  It 
was  called  "The  Demon  of  Gold"  and 
was  one  of  the  most  popular  of  novels. 
It  was  recognized  as  a  pioneer  of  its 
kind  in  the  field  of  fiction  and  will 
probably  be  handed  down  as  a  classic. 
All  these  were  interesting  and  yet  un- 
satisfactory in  many  ways  for,  as  a 
rule,  Japanese  novels  deal  with  pa- 
thetic and  painful  situations.  Invari- 
ably the  heroine  is  subjected  to  heart- 
rending situations,  and  invariably  she 
patiently  submits  to  fate.  She  is  al- 
ways the  one  to  suffer,  for  resigna- 
tion, it  seems,  is  a  unique  character- 
istic of  the  Oriental.  The  popular 
writings — those  which  invariably  find 
their  way  into  the  hearts  of  all  Jap- 
anese— ^are  mostly  tragedies.  In  west- 
em  literature,  even  in  the  most  tragic 
of  tragedies,  there  is  an  occasional  ray 
of  sunshine  to  brighten  the  sorrow, 
but  in  Japan  the  novels  are  under  an 
everlasting  gloom.  My  old-fashioned 
grandmother,  however,  encouraged 
these  books,  as  they  so  beautifully  pic- 
tured the  self-denial  and  self-sacrific- 
ing spirit  of  woman.    She  would  nod 


her  head  thoughtfully  as  she  sipped 
her  tea  and  say  in  her  soft  voice : 

''A  woman  must  be  beautiful  in 
hardship  like  the  plum  in  the  snow — 
and  submissive  like  the  slender  bam- 
boo which  bends  before  the  wind !" 

Once  I  dared  venture  to  say : 

"But  Honorable  Grandmother,  why 
must  women  bear  everything  and 
never  protest?" 

My  grandmother  looked  over  her 
spectacles  very  sternly. 

"What  would  your  ancestors  say  to 
such  an  unwomanly  speech?"  she 
finally  said.  "Sorrow  and  burden  are 
the  glory  of  womanhood." 

I  silently  submitted  to  my  grand- 
mother's ideals  until,  a  few  years 
later,  a  new  type  of  fiction  burst  forth 
under  the  heading  of  "home  novels" 
which  dealt  with  the  domestic  prob- 
lems of  the  day.  One  of  the  most 
famous  authors  of  these  writings  was 
Kenjiro  Tokutomi.  His  first  novel 
called  "The  Nightingale"  was  a  simple 
narration  dealing  with  divorce,  but  it 
created  such  a  sensation  that  within 
one  year  all  classes, — titled  people, 
teachers,  workmen  and  even  children 
of  the  kindergartens, — ^knew  the  tale 
from  beginning  to  end.  Its  popularity 
and  its  influence  was  something  like 
that  of  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin".  It  told 
the  story  from  the  woman's  stand- 
point— ^not  from  a  highly  emotional 
point  of  view,  but  leading  the  reader 
gently  and  mildly  to  a  position  which 
gave  a  clear  perception  of  the  utterly 
inexcusable  conditions  of  divorce  in 
Japan.  Besides  this  book,  the  author 
wrote  "The  Mistletoe",  "The  Black 
Tide",  "Black  Eyes  and  Brown  Eyes" 
and  others  of  the  same  character. 

I  was  greatly  impressed  with  these 
writings  of  Tokutomi.  First,  because 
I,  for  the  first  time,  noticed  that  east- 
em  literature  was  being  influenced  by 
western    ideals.     Second,    I    realized 


THE  LITERATURE   OF  A  MODERN  JAPANESE   GIRL 


295 


that  the  patient,  unquestioning  resig- 
nation in  which  Japanese  women  take 
such  pride  is  unnatural  and  unjust. 
And  so,  trembling  on  the  boundary  of 
a  belief  in  the  individual  right  of 
woman,  I  stepped  into  my  fourth 
period  of  literature. 

This  I  began  by  reading  transla- 
tions of  such  books  as  Tolstoi's  "Res- 
urrection", Dumas's  "The  Lady  of  the 
Camellias'',  and  Ibsen's  "A  DoU's 
House".  Westerners  might  gasp  to 
think  of  the  reaction  this  would  cause 
in  a  Japanese  girl  whose  thoughts 
were  quivering  between  the  old  and 
the  new.  But  no.  For  just  as  the 
love  scenes  are  removed  from  western 
moving-pictures,  the  translations  were 
strictly  censored.  All  problems  were 
handled  with  such  beautiful  delicacy 
that  when  later  on  I  read  the  originals 
I  was  greatly  shocked.  Admirably 
presented  though  they  were,  these 
translations  invariably  lacked  one 
thing.  That  was,  a  correct  interpre- 
tation of  the  women  characters.  In 
all  cases  they  were  depicted  from  an 
external  point  of  view,  and  so  the  im- 
pression given  of  thoughts  and  mo- 
tives was  rarely  true.  This  was  the 
fault  of  the  translator,  for  however 
high  intellect  and  great  power  of  ex- 
pression he  might  possess,  his  stand- 
ard of  womanhood  was  vastly  differ- 
ent from  that  of  an  Occidental,  and 
he  unconsciously  interpreted  his  own 
conception.  In  every  translation  of 
"The  Lady  of  the  Camellias",  the  first 
thought  of  the  translator  is  the  resig- 
nation of  Camille  to  her  fate;  then 
the  dutiful  sacrifice  for  her  lover. 
Japanese  men  fail  to  comprehend  the 
noble  motive  of  her  sacrifice,  and 
when  the  heart  of  the  story  is  left  out, 
what  is  there  but  a  beautiful  empty 
casing? 

These  translations  were  all  read 
widely,  but  the  most  popular  of  all 


was  that  of  "Resurrection".  All  Japan 
was  one  cry  of  enthusiasm.  The  novel 
was  adapted  for  the  stage;  it  was 
shown  in  moving-pictures ;  music  was 
composed  and  dedicated  to  it.  Often 
in  the  stillness  of  night,  I  have  heard 
whistled  strains  of  "Resurrection" 
mingling  with  the  clack!  clack!  of 
wooden  clogs  on  the  hard  ground  as 
the  stray  steps  of  some  unknown  per- 
son passed  by.  These  books  I  read 
with  enthusiasm.  But  freedom  of  ac- 
tion and  speech  on  the  part  of  women 
characters  shocked  me ;  the  manner  in 
which  they  calmly  took  their  place 
side  by  side  with  men  seemed  boister- 
ous and  unwomanly ;  but  after  reread- 
ing the  books  I  frequently  realized 
that  their  attitude  was  a  matter  of 
principle  and  circumstances.  These 
characters  had  very  little  influence 
over  me.  All  foreign  life  in  litera- 
ture was  like  an  unfamiliar  gown, — 
curious  and  interesting,  but  lacking 
in  the  practical  virtue  of  everyday 
garments, — and  only  a  dim  impression 
was  left  in  my  mind  of  western 
women.  The  fiction  which  had  the 
deepest  effect  on  me  was  of  a  type 
dealing  with  problems  with  which  I 
was  familiar.  When  I  say  / — I  mean 
the  average  of  perhaps  five  girls  out 
of  every  ten.  The  other  five  were 
girls  who  went  directly  from  grammar 
school  to  assist  in  solving  domestic 
problems  at  home.  Japanese,  who 
claim  98  per  cent  literacy  among  chil- 
dren of  primary  school  age,  are  stu- 
dious as  a  race.  In  spare  times,  at 
night,  or  on  holidays,  crowds  gather 
at  the  numerous  book  stores  which 
rent  out  books.  And  going  to  a  li- 
brary does  not  mean  the  passing  of  an 
hour,  as  it  frequently  does  in  America, 
but  a  leisurely  excursion,  for  lunches 
are  usually  carried  and  the  library 
provides  a  tray  with  a  small  pot  of 
tea  and  an  earthen  cup  for  two  cents. 


296 


THE  BOOKMAN 


■  I 


.1 


In  these  libraries,  as  in  those  of 
America,  a  great  part  of  the  reading 
is  fiction.  Serious  reading,  as  well, 
is  furnished,  and  women's  magazines 
are  many.  Both  the  magazines  and 
the  novels  are  influenced  more  or  less 
by  de  Maupassant,  Tolstoi,  Ibsen, 
Balzac  and  other  foreign  writers.  In- 
deed, not  only  fiction,  but  all  Japanese 
literature  of  today  is  influenced  by 
Occidental  ideals. 

To  the  girl  whose  mind  was  already 
filled  with  advanced  ideas,  this  new 
type  of  literature  encouraged  all  that 
is  meant  by  the  word  aggressive, 
which  she  interpreted  as  progressive. 
She  was  called  "new  woman".  She 
wore  large  tortoise-shell  glasses;  she 
trod  heavily  upon  the  matting;  she 
slammed  doors  and  boisterously  de- 
bated with  men  on  a  footing  of  equal- 
ity; she  lectured  to  her  grandparents 
on  the  vice  of  superstitions.  In  one 
word  she  was  a  terror  to  others,  but 
to  herself  a  model  for  the  woman  of 
future  Japan.  Such  was  the  new 
woman  who  did  not  realize  that  all 
sane  freedom  is  bound  by  strict  social 
laws  which  punish  too  much  freedom 
of  action.  But  the  life  of  the  new 
woman  was  apparently  short  lived. 
She  was  too  radical,  and  she  paid 
dearly.  Today  she  has  quieted  down 
and  is  each  day  nearing  a  sensible 
medium.  But  like  the  aeroplane  of 
the  war — like  every  new  experiment — 
the  New  Woman  was  a  sacrifice  for 
those  who  are  to  follow.  She  was  an 
example  to  her  other  sisters,  for  "only 
after  seeing  others  can  we  see  our- 
selves". 

On  the  other  hand,  modern  litera- 
ture to  the  very  old-fashioned  and  re- 
tiring girl  was  a  blessing.  The  new 
ideas  threw  a  new  light  upon  her  life. 
Up  to  this  time,  she  had  been  cared 
for  like  a  beautiful  piece  of  art,  but 
had  rarely  been  given  the  credit  of 


having  an  independent  brain.  Her 
position  had  never  troubled  her.  She 
accepted  it  as  a  matter  of  course.  But 
with  western  thoughts  pouring  so 
thickly  about  her,  how  could  she  avoid 
thinking?  Through  magazines  and 
books  she  constantly  came  in  contact 
with  characters  of  her  own  age  and 
temperament,  who  though  in  a  mild 
but  decisive  manner  held  their  own. 
She  could  not  but  be  influenced  to 
timidly  harbor  in  her  mind  a  deter- 
mination to  think — and  to  act — ^with 
somewhat  of  independence. 

Thus  our  literature,  though  far 
from  perfect,  has  been  the  guide  which 
has  gradually  been  leading  woman  to 
the  position  which  awaits  her.  While 
the  restless  grumbling  of  economic, 
social,  and  domestic  problems  is 
threatening  Japan,  how  can  she  sit  on 
silken  cushions  idly  watching  the 
beauty  of  her  garden?  She  must  fol- 
low the  urgent  call  of  heart  and  brain ; 
for  the  feudal  days,  when  man  and 
woman  each  had  their  separate  paths 
of  duty,  have  passed.  The  tide  of 
pro(|:ress  has  risen,  and  man  and 
woman  together  must  meet  new  do- 
mestic conditions.  Whether  or  not 
the  woman  of  coming  Japan  will 
emerge  from  her  over-restrained  en- 
vironment into  a  more  natural  and 
sensible  medium  will  depend,  not  en- 
tirely of  course  but  to  a  great  extent, 
on  the  literature  the  girls  will  read. 
For  in  the  case  of  the  Japanese  girl, 
reading  is  not  mere  recreation  but  a 
real  necessity.  It  has  more  influence 
over  her  in  many  ways  than  even  her 
parents  have,  as  it  is  the  main  means 
by  which  she  becomes  familiar  with 
the  doings  of  the  outside  world.  She 
does  not  have  the  opportunity  of  talk- 
ing freely  with  men  or  older  women, 
nor  does  she  go  out  and  observe  for 
herself,  as  does  the  western  girl.  She 
lives  in  a  sheltered  home,  where  her 


MERELY  STATEMENT  297 

thoughts    are    moulded    by    reading,  life  where  she  must  think  and  plan, 

Picturesque  Japan  with   its  curving  and  in  trying  to  adapt  herself  to  the 

bridges,  its  flowers,  and  its  peaceful-  new    conditions,    her    puzzled    hand 

ness  is  slipping  away.  Out  of  its  quiet  reaches  out  as  its  surest  guide — ^to 

the  Japanese  girl  has  stepped  into  a  good  literature. 


MERELY  STATEMENT 


BY  AMY  LOWELL 


YOU  sent  me  a  sprig  6f  mignonette, 
Cool-colored,  quiet,  and  it  was  wet 
With  green  sea-spray,  and  the  salt  and  the  sweet 
Mingled  to  a  fragrance  weary  and  discreet 
As  a  harp  played  softly  in  a  great  room  at  sunset. 

You  said :  "My  sober  mignonette 

Will  brighten  your  room  and  you  will  not  forget. 


» 


But  I  have  pressed  your  flower  and  laid  it  away 

In  a  letter,  tied  with  a  ribbon  knot. 

I  have  not  forgot. 

But  there  is  a  passion-flower  in  my  vase 

Standing  above  a  close-cleared  space 

In  the  midst  of  a  jumble  of  papers  and  books. 

The  passion-flower  holds  my  eyies. 

And  the  light-under-light  of  its  blue  and  purple  dyes 

Is  a  hot  surprise. 

How  then  can  I  keep  my  looks 

From  the  passion-flower  leaning  sharply  over  the  books? 

When  one  has  seen 

The  difficult  magnificence  of  a  queen 

On  one's  table. 

Is  one  able 

To  observe  any  color  in  a  mignonette? 

I  will  not  think  of  sunset,  I  crave  the  dawn. 

With  its  rose-red  light  on  the  wings  of  a  swan. 

And  a  queen  pacing  slowly  through  the  Parthenon, 

Her  dress  a  stare  of  purple  between  pillars  of  stone. 


CURRENT  TASTE  IN  FICTION:  A  QUARTERLY  SURVEY 


BY  JOHN  WALCOTT 


I  SOMETIMES  find  myself  groping 
for  a  new  word.  I  want  a  word 
with  a  meaning  that  we  don't  get  out 
of  "fiction"  or  "novel"  or  even  "story" 
in  its  common  use.  I  want  a  word  that 
will  mean  beyond  doubt  the  real  story, 
the  "honest-to-God"  story,  the  story 
with  feet  and  bowels.  The  story  that 
is  bom,  not  made;  that  springs  from 
a  true  creative  impulse  instead  of 
being  scamped  up  out  of  the  tag-ends 
of  other  peoples'  work,  or  vamped  up 
out  of  the  shoddy  "whole  cloth"  any 
verbal  mechanic  has  in  his  locker.  I 
don't  care  what  kind  of  story  it  is,  I 
don't  care  whether  it  has  a  recogniza- 
ble plot,  or  merely  jogs  along  between 
two  stations.  I  don't  care  whether  it 
makes  my  spine  curl  or  my  eyes  water 
or  my  brow  lift  with  the  pride  of  com- 
prehension. I  don't  care  whether  it 
reminds  me  of  Jane  Austen  or  Jack 
London  or  Defoe  or  Henry  James  or 
(as  is  conceivable)  nobody  at  all.  But 
I  do  care,  with  all  the  health  that  is 
in  me,  whether  it  is  a  real  story,  or  a 
feeble  bluff  at  one,  or  a  deliberate  imi- 
tation of  one. 

This,  let  me  repeat  with  aU  permis- 
sible passion,  is  what  any  decent  critic 
or  true  booklover  is  really  excited 
about,  whether  he  knows  it  or  not. 
What  his  soul  asks  him  is  not  whether 
the  book  he  has  taken  up  and  spent 
good  time  on  is  the  kind  of  book  he 
likes  best,  or  the  kind  of  book  he  would 


like  to  write,  or  the  kind  of  book  that 
is  best  for  the  beloved  public;  but 
whether  it's  an  honest  job  and  there- 
fore worth  the  trouble  of  any  honest 
and  at  least  rudimentarily  intelligent 
reader.  After  all,  it  is  for  this  fellow 
that  the  books,  even  the  novels,  are 
supposed  to  be  written.  No  story- 
teller calls  out  from  his  booth :  "Look 
you,  my  cheerful  idiots,  come  hither, 
and  I  will  spin  you  the  kind  of  yam 
you  deserve!"  He  gives  quite  the 
other  kind  of  hail,  thanking  his  au- 
ditors in  advance  for  their  well-known 
discrimination  and — taste. 

Taste!  what  crimes  are  committed. 
...  It  is  all  very  well  for  us  to  have 
shaken  off  the  old  connotations  of  the 
word,  the  finicking  exactions  of  its 
use  as  a  vehicle  for  purely  sesthetic 
judgments.  We  don't  want  back  the 
"man  of  taste"  of  Queen  Anne's  day 
or  the  aesthete  of  the  Yellow  Nineties. 
But  we  don't  need  to  flatter  ourselves 
on  the  prospect  of  replacing  him  alto- 
gether with  the  man  in  the  street, 
unless  the  man  in  the  street  can  be 
educated  to  the  point  of  insisting  on 
his  money's  worth  out  of  literature, 
among  other  things.  He  is  fussy 
enough  about  an  honest  article  in 
most  "lines".  He  wants  something 
that  is  soap  or  medicine,  instead  of 
looking  or  smelling  like  it,  or  even 
wearing  a  similar  label.  Now  of 
course  a  novel  isn't  in  the  same  case. 


298 


CURRENT  TASTE  IN  FICTION 


29d 


A  chemist  can  take  your  soap  and  your 
medicine  and  prove  to  you  what  is  the 
matter  with  them.  He  can  show  you 
that  all  you  get  from  your  Purona  is 
the  slight  momentary  kick  of  its  al- 
coholic content.  You  may  keep  on  in- 
dulging in  the  kick,  but  at  least  you 
will  know  what  you  are  about.  But 
the  critic  can't  perform  any  such  of- 
fice for  the  book  public — ^not  because 
he  isn't  capable  of  it,  but  because  the 
public,  speaking  of  the  majority,  won't 
be  shown.  In  an  up-to-date  and  tri- 
umphant democracy  your  critic  has 
no  generally  acknowledged  status. 
Not,  at  least,  when  we  speak  in  mil- 
lions. There  may  be  a  few  thousands 
who  don't  mind  hearing  what  he  has 
to  say  if  he  keeps  pretty  strictly  to 
matters  of  information  and  impres- 
sion, and  doesn't  try  to  "put  anything 
over"  on  them  in  the  way  of  expert 
advice.  Perhaps  the  situation  might 
be  put  a  little  more  optimistically. 
But  not  much.  It  simply  can't  be  de- 
nied that  when  we  give  any  such 
meaning  to  the  word  taste  as  it  had 
in  eighteenth-century  England  or  now 
has  in  distracted  Europe,  it  can  be 
supposed  to  concern  a  tiny  fraction 
of  our  hundred  millions. 

Is  this  remark  obviously  the  com- 
plaint of  a  professional  book-taster 
and  critic?  List  then  to  the  testimony 
of  a  real  story-teller.  Mrs.  Wharton's 
"French  Ways  and  Their  Meaning"  is 
a  little  book,  written  in  wartime, 
which  tries  to  interpret  French  civili- 
zation to  the  too-casual  American  ob- 
server. These  papers  constitute  not  an 
apology  but,  you  might  say  in  the  cur- 
rent slang — "a  propaganda".  Mrs. 
Wharton  sees  in  French  civilization 
an  institution  not  only  vastly  older 
than  ours,  but  vastly  superior  in  vari- 
ous respects — ^notably  in  intellectual 
honesty  and  in  taste. 


I  suppose  it  must  have  been  some 
Frenchman  who  perpetrated  the  Phi- 
listine crack  about  chacun  d  son  goUt 
But  it  must  have  been  almost  exclu- 
sively outside  France  that  the  phrase 
struck  an  answering  chord.  Certainly 
it  represents  the  characteristic  Anglo- 
American  attitude  rather  than  the 
characteristic  French  attitude.  And 
French  taste,  as  Mrs.  Wharton  be- 
lieves and  causes  us  to  believe,  is  a  na- 
tional possession:  "It  is  not  art,  but 
it  is  the  atmosphere  in  which  art  lives, 
and  outside  of  which  it  cannot  live. 
It  is  the  regulating  principle  of  all 
art,  of  the  art  of  dress  and  manners, 
and  of  living  in  general,  as  well  as  of 
sculpture  or  music."  And  this  vital 
sense  of  beauty,  of  the  fitting  thing, 
of  "form",  in  one  aspect  or  another, 
is  very  closely  bound  up  with  the  other 
national  attribute  she  emphasizes — in- 
tellectual honesty.  In  this  connection 
Mrs.  Wharton  says  some  devastating 
and  indisputable  things  about  our 
vaunted  educational  system  and  its 
results.  The  French,  we  are  re- 
minded, are  not  seized  in  masses  by 
the  state  and  hand-fed  with  grummets 
of  information  into  a  conceit  of  learn- 
ing.    Says  our  outspoken  citizeness: 

There  are  more  people  who  can  read  in  the 
United  States,  but  what  do  they  read?  The 
whole  point,  as  far  as  any  real  standard  goes, 
is  there.  If  the  ability  to  read  carries  the 
average  man  no  higher  than  the  gossip  of  his 
neighbors,  if  he  asks  nothing  more  nourishing 
out  of  books  and  the  theatre  than  he  gets  hang- 
ing about  the  store,  the  bar,  and  the  street- 
corner,  then  culture  is  bound  to  be  dragged 
down  to  him  instead  of  his  being  lifted  up  by 
culture. 

Alas,  the  word  culture,  as  I  think 
Mrs.  Wharton  notes  elsewhere,  is  itself 
a  term  of  mockery  to  our  grammar- 
schooled,  Sunday-supplemented  citi- 
zens. And  so  is  taste,  if  you  are  un- 
derstood to  mean  anything  by  it.  In 
these  quarterly  articles  on  current 
taste  I  have  pretty  steadily  refrained 


800 


THE  BOOKMAN 


from  meaning  anything  by  it — any- 
thing actionable  or  uncomfortably 
high-browed,  and  have  mainly  confined 
myself  to  notes  on  the  kind  or  kinds 
of  fiction  most  in  demand,  at  latest 
accounts.  This  is  a  matter  of  inter- 
est, in  itself:  but  especially  to  me, 
after  all,  as  it  relates  to  the  more  im- 
portant matter:  the  condition  of  the 
public  taste  in  the  higher  meaning — 
the  public  sense  of  beauty  in — and  fit- 
ness in — life  and  in  art.  What  do  we 
public-schooled,  Sunday-supplemented 
citizens  need  more  than  that?  And 
how  are  we  going  to  get  it  if  we  don't 
even  suspect  that  it  exists? 

I  notice  that  the  latest  novel  of  Har- 
old Bell  Wright  stands  proudly  at  the 
head  of  The  Bookman's  recent  lists 
of  books  in  demand  at  libraries  the 
country  over.  I  may  be  wrong,  but  I 
have  the  impression  that  this  is  a  ges- 
ture of  some  note  on  the  part  of  The 
Bookman.  Hitherto  there  seems  to 
have  been  something  like  a  gentle- 
man's agreement  (or  shall  we  say  a 
conspiracy  of  silence?)  among  our 
assessors  and  tabulators  of  fiction,  as 
regards  the  work  of  this  writer.  I 
should  say  it  was  based  on  the  feeling 
that,  from  the  critical  or  even  the 
common-sense  point  of  view,  there 
were  two  kinds  of  novels  in  the  mar- 
ket, just  as  there  were  two  kinds  of 
motor-cars.  There  were  real  novels 
and  Wrights,  as  there  were  real  auto- 
mobiles and  Fords.  The  idea  was  that 
Mr.  Wright  reached  an  altogether 
separate  market  or  constituency, 
which  could  properly  be  left  out  of  the 
reckoning  by  critics  if  not  by  statis- 
ticians. I  don't  remember  that  his 
name  used  to  appear  in  the  old  Book- 
man list  of  best  sellers ;  though  there 
has  always  been  a  Wright  book  at  or 
near  the  top  of  the  market,  I  suppose, 
for  a  good  many  years.    Yet  here  he 


now  appears,  leading  the  field  in  the 
public  libraries  of  the  country,  handed 
out  to  the  people  by  the  official  cus- 
todians of  the  printed  word,  and 
eagerly  called  for  by  the  public- 
schooled  patrons  of  canned  music,  get- 
a-move-on  drama,  and  camegied  print. 

I  don't  mean  to  bring  up  the  picture 
of  this  writer  as  creeping  by  night 
into  the  stronghold  of  letters,  while  its 
rightful  guardians  moon-gazed  or 
winked  the  other  eye.  The  authori- 
ties have  long  seen  him  coming,  and 
have  briefly  and  vigorously  expressed 
their  opinion  of  him  from  time  to 
time.  There  is  nothing  miraculous 
about  him  to  criticism.  All  the  mawk- 
ishness  of  popular  religion,  all  the 
claptrap  of  the  movie,  all  the  rot  and 
slither  of  commercial  "heart  interest", 
and  something  of  the  taint  of  sex 
curiosity  are  in  these  books ;  and  mil- 
lions do  them  reverence.  It  must  have 
been  about  five  years  ago  that  Owen 
Wister  made  mincemeat  of  them  (an- 
other real  author  and  not  merely  a 
peevish  professional  critic).  But 
though  he  on  that  occasion  destroyed 
Mr.  Wright  and  his  works  utterly,  to 
the  pleasure  of  a  few,  neither  Mr. 
Wright  nor  his  works  nor  his  readers 
would  appear  to  have  known  anything 
about  it ! 

The  simple  truth  is  that  Mr.  Wright 
and  his  works  are  precisely  what  a 
huge  part  of  "the  people"  want.  They 
express  the  perfect  negation  of  taste, 
yet  (and  this  is  what  any  lover  of 
decency  resents)  they  pretend  to  ap- 
peal to  taste.  Somehow,  with  their 
tawdry  magic,  they  cheat  their  half- 
baked  millions  into  thinking  they  are 
getting  something  real,  something  that 
possesses  elements  of  fitness  and 
worth. . . .  Since  writing  this  sen- 
tence I  have  turned  to  Mr.  Wister's 
old  "Atlantic"  article,  "Quack  Novels 
and   Democracy",   and  find   that  his 


CURRENT  TASTE  IN  FICTION 


801 


chief  grievance  is  the  same  as  mine: 
"The  Quack-novel  is  (mostly)  harm- 
ful; not  always  because  it  is  poison- 
ous (though  this  occurs),  but  because 
it  pretends  to  be  literature  and  is 
taken  for  literature  by  the  millions 
who  swallow  it  year  after  year  as 
their  chief  mental  nourishment,  and 
whose  brains  it  saps  and  dilutes."  Mr. 
Wister  in  that  article  seems  to  have 
taken  a  jaundiced  view  of  all  things 
American.  He  says  we  prefer  quack- 
ery. The  reason  he  gives  is  interest- 
ing in  connection  with  Mrs.  Wharton's 
comment.  He  says  the  reason  we  pre- 
fer shams  is  because  we  have  been 
trained  to  intellectual  dishonesty,  fed 
on  words  and  pretenses  in  our  social 
and  political  as  well  as  our  literary 
life. 

I  hope  Owen  Wister  thinks  a  little 
better  of  us  by  now.  Certainly  if  he 
has  followed  the  trend  of  American 
publishing  during  the  past  two  or 
three  years,  he  must  have  been  a  good 
deal  cheered  by  the  increase  in  sound 
American  fiction  which  has  found  a 
good  hearing.  Mr.  Wright  still 
marches  on;  and  it  is  not  altogether 
true  that  his  following  is  a  separate 
following.  You  will  find  his  readers 
in  strange  places,  among  people  who 
mention  Shakespeare  and  Henry 
James  with  approval  but  secretly  pre- 
fer the  mountebankery  and  the  fakery 
of  Messrs.  Chaplin  and  Wright.  There 
are  always  gaps  in  the  fence  that  of- 
ficially parts  the  sheep  from  the  goats, 
and  those  who  keep  on  their  own  side 
during  the  daytime  do  not  always  stay 
there  of  their  bosom's  choice. 

How  much  of  what  we  commonly 
call  taste  is  really  fad  or  foUow-my- 
leader?  Where  does  the  "have  you 
read  the  latest  So-and-So"  begin  and 
end?  What  is  the  head  and  tail  of 
popularity  in  the  making?  Whereby 
hangs  the  tale  of  bloated  editions  and 


clamoring  customers  for  the  author 
who  yesterday  was  a  drug  in  the  mar- 
ket? What  secret  or  chance  of  adroit 
pushing  has  caused  this  book  to 
"catch  on"  or  speeded  up  that  one  long 
after  its  first  publication?  What  local 
tendency  or  susceptibility  may  have  pre- 
vailed to  carry  a  story  through  a  whole 
segment  of  the  country  while  it  is  ig- 
nored or  idly  hearkened  to  elsewhere? 
Here,  for  example,  are  the  North 
Central  States  reported  as  calling  for 
Bojer's  "The  Great  Hunger",  while 
the  South  Central  States  cling  fatu- 
ously to  "The  Tin  Soldier", — surely  a 
notable  contrast  of  the  real  and  the 
sham,  the  legitimate  and  the  quack 
article,  in  fiction.  Who  knows  what 
slight  incident  may  start  the  ball  of 
fashion  rolling,  gathering  bulk  as  it 
grows;  a  certain  author  has  to  be 
"done",  a  certain  book  "taken"  for 
the  sake  of  one's  standing  at  the  wom- 
an's club  or  (let  us  say  for  the  sake  of 
civility)  in  the  smoking-car.  Even 
climate,  according  tb  a  recent  contrib- 
utor to  The  Bookman,  has  a  good 
deal  to  do  with  the  kind  of  thing 
people  instinctively  turn  toward.  That 
contributor  instanced  the  gladsome 
Califomian's  turning  toward  glad- 
some fiction.  He  mentioned  Polly- 
anna:  how  would  he  (and  stalwart 
Calif omians)  account,  I  wonder,  for 
the  fact  that  "Pollyanna"  is  reported 
to  be  extraordinarily  popular  in  Japan  ? 
An  instance  of  the  cunning  of  the  Ori- 
ental who  loses  no  opportunity  to  "get 
next"  to  his  neighbor's  peculiarities? 
One  might  roughly  generalize  that 
in  the  West  and  the  outdoor  countries 
and  places,  there  is  a  ready  market 
for  the  literature  of  primitive  senti- 
mentalism,  while  among  the  city- 
dwellers  and  the  civilization-bound, 
red  blood  and  active  adventure  have 
on  the  whole  the  preference.  But  it 
is    always    dangerous    to    lay    much 


802 


THE  BOOKMAN 


■| 


■t 


weight  on  this  kind  of  generalization. 
What  one  needs  as  foundation  for  any 
judgment  of  the  state  of  public  taste 
is  a  preliminary  classification  of  the 
public.  If  the  booksellers  and  the  li- 
braries could  tell  us  not  merely  what 
kinds  of  novel  are  most  called  for,  but 
what  kinds  of  client  or  customer  call 
for  them,  we  might  have  one  step 
taken  toward  an  estimate.  And  if  we 
could  then  work  out  the  formula,  de- 
termining the  balancing  point  between 
the  proper  weight  of  the  intelligent 
minority  who  choose  and  in  the  main 
find  the  best,  and  the  unintelligent  ma- 
jority who  suppose  what  they  like  is 
the  best,  we  should  be  a  step  farther. 
Then  indeed  we  might  begin  to  talk 
about  "taste"  with  a  fair  chance  of 
meaning  something  besides  the  bulk  of 
the  librarians'  calls  or  of  the  book- 
sellers' receipts. 

But  the  confusing  fact  rears  its 
head  even  here,  that  constituencies 
cannot  always  be  railed  off  from  each 
other  with  any  cettainty.  The  wisest 
men  relish  a  little  nonsense  now  and 
then,  and  many  fairly  wise  ones  even 
relish  a  little  banality.  Perhaps  the 
main  trouble  with  us  as  a  nation  is  not 
so  much  that  we  are  too  ready  to 
patronize  the  second-rate  or  the  banal 
in  literature  or  the  drama,  as  that  we 
don't  know  that  it  is  second-rate.  Mrs. 
Wharton  makes  an  interesting  dis- 
tinction in  this  connection,  between 
the  American  movie-going  public 
which  finds  its  ideal  of  drama  in  the 
movies,  and  the  French  movie-going 
public  which  does  not  for  a  moment 
deceive  itself  as  to  the  inferior  nature 
of  its  indulgence,  and  looks  for  higher 
enjoyment  to  the  C!om6die  Frangaise. 
Taste  in  America  as  in  England  is 
still  confined  to  that  company  ''fit 
though  few"  which  is  the  best  that 
modem  civilization  can  offer,  outside 
of  France,  in  contrast  with  the  culture 


of  old  Athens.  Old  Boston  had  some- 
thing of  it  a  generation  ago ;  but  her 
glory  is  departed.  Her  sacred  Sym- 
phony Orchestra  is  tottering,  and  her 
theatres  are  given  over  frankly  to  the 
spectacles  of  Broadway.  There  is  a 
literary  Boston  of  today,  as  well  as  a 
literary  New  York, — little  oases  in  a 
vast  desert  of  vulgarity  or  mediocrity. 

Of  the  country  at  large  one  hopeful 
thing  may  be  safely  said.  However 
proportional  numbers  may  record  the 
triumph  of  the  vulgar  or  the  banal  in 
fiction,  in  absolute  numbers  there  is  a 
rapidly  increasing  audience  for  fiction 
of  good  quality,  of  all  kinds.  As  for  the 
kinds  just  now  most  in  demand.  For 
the  sake  of  getting  on,  we  may  dismiss 
sentimental  romance  and  red-blooded 
adventure,  with  the  mention  of  their 
continued  and  perhaps  increasing 
popularity.  The  other  staple  varieties 
of  novel  also  are  holding  their  own 
about  as  usual.  In  one  field,  that  of 
"psychic"  mystery,  there  has  been 
steady  advance  this  year.  That  is  in 
part  a  war  effect,  and  will  probably  be 
in  evidence  for  some  time. 

But  the  most  striking  after-the-war 
phenomenon  in  the  field  of  fiction,  is 
the  continually  expanding  list  of  trans- 
lations from  foreign  sources — Italian, 
Spanish,  French,  Scandinavian,  Dutch, 
Russian,  Polish,  Balkan — ^books  whose 
ready  acceptance  at  the  hands  of  a 
fair  part  of  the  American  reading 
public  proves  our  rapidly  growing 
sense  of  the  kinship  of  races  and  na- 
tions. Thus  indirectly,  at  least,  the 
war  already  has  acted  as  a  powerful 
agent  toward  an  international  under- 
standing, which  might  be  a  good  thing 
to  nibble  at  a  bit  before  we  try  to 
swallow  the  whole  hog  of  universal 
brotherhood.  Here  again  the  tend- 
ency to  follow  the  leader  and  to  move 
in  droves  has  thus  far  been  unfortu- 
nate.   I  suppose  ten  Americans  have 


A  REVEALING   BIOGRAPHY 


808 


read  "The  Four  Horsemen  of  the 
Apocalypse"  to  one  who  has  read  any 
other  of  the  many  foreign  translations 
which  have  been  put  forth  within  the 
past  year.  Yet  Blasco  Ibdnez  is  far 
from  being  the  only  pebble  on  the 
beach  even  of  current  Spanish  letters. 
However,  there  is  evidently  a  growing 
constituency  of  readers  who  are  dis- 
posed to  reach  out  for  themselves  and 
try  their  own  choosing  from  these 
not  so  strange  foreign  dishes.     One 


thing  has  been  revealed  to  us  with  sur- 
prising clearness:  that  the  work  of 
many  of  these  "foreigners",  especially 
the  Spaniards  and  the  Scandinavians, 
is  vastly  more  our  own  sort,  in  humor 
and  in  common  sense  and  all  that  they 
connote,  than  the  work  of  those  Rus- 
sians and  even  those  Frenchmen 
among  whom,  before  the  war,  we 
found  our  only  and  sufficiently  dubi- 
ous doors  of  escape  from  Anglo-Amer- 
ican fiction. 


A  REVEALING  BIOGRAPHY 


BY  OSCAR  L.  JOSEPH 


HE  is  a  bold  man  who  would  add  an- 
other volume  on  the  life  and 
work  of  the  Apostle  Paul  to  the  vast 
library  on  this  subject.  And  yet  as 
we  consider  the  extensive  researches 
and  discoveries  of  scholars  which  have 
thrown  unexpected  light  on  the  his- 
tory of  the  first  century,  we  see  how 
an  author  who  reckons  with  these 
findings  should  be  able  to  present  the 
career  of  the  greatest  pioneer  of  uni- 
versal Christianity  in  a  way  that  com- 
pels attention.  Such  an  interpreta- 
tion is  all  the  more  necessary,  in  view 
of  the  present  confusion  as  to  the  es- 
sential truth  of  Christianity  and  of 
uncertainty  as  to  what  constitutes  real 
leadership. 

The  Apostle  Paul  was  the  central 
and  outstanding  figure  of  the  first  cen- 
tury. During  succeeding  centuries 
the  cliarm  of  his  character,  the  spell 
of  his  influence,  and  the  effects  of  his 
work  have  steadily  increased  in  sig- 
nificance and  worth.    We  think  of  him 


as  a  prophet  of  religion,  as  a  mission- 
ary of  the  Christian  Gospel,  as  a  pas- 
tor of  the  Church.  He  was  distin- 
guished by  unique  originality,  daring 
independence,  exuberant  faith,  cour- 
ageous initiative,  extraordinary  vigor, 
unlimited  enthusiasm,  exquisite  cour- 
tesy, unusual  common  sense,  and  ex- 
ceptional success  in  achievement. 
These  are  exactly  the  qualifications 
demanded  of  our  leaders  in  every  walk 
of  life,  as  we  are  recovering  from  the 
welter  and  desolation  of  the  war,  and 
are  about  to  enter  a  new  day,  whose 
coming  is  delayed  by  the  incompetence 
of  those  who  are  supposed  to  usher  in 
its  dawn. 

For  these  reasons  and  for  many 
more,  we  welcome  this  volume  on  St. 
Paul  by  Professor  David  Smith.  This 
author  is  well  known  by  his  volume  on 
"The  Days  of  His  Flesh",  which  at 
one  stride  took  the  foremost  place 
among  the  many  lives  of  Jesus  Christ 
and  holds  the  field  without  a  peer. 


S04 


THE  BOOKMAN 


The  fact  that  his  latest  book  is  already 
in  its  twelfth  edition  in  England, 
since  November  of  last  year,  is  a  re- 
markable testimony  to  its  value,  espe- 
cially when  it  is  remembered  that  its 
price  is  twenty-one  shillings.  The 
book  is  written  by  an  acknowledged 
scholar,  whose  scholarship  is  of  that 
ripe  sort  that  never  intrudes  itself 
and  does  not  get  lost  in  unbalanced  at- 
tention to  petty  details  or  non-essen-, 
tial  side  issues.  His  point  of  view  is 
well  expressed  in  the  preface: 

Controyersy  is  a  foolish  and  futile  employ- 
ment ;  and  I  have  endeavored  to  portray  St. 
Paul  simply  as  I  have  perceived  him  during 
long  years  of  loving  and  delightful  study  of  the 
sacred  memorials  of  his  life  and  labor,  men- 
tioning the  views  of  others  only  as  they  served 
to  illustrate  and  confirm  my  own.  And  I  would 
fain  hope  that  I  have  written  nothing  discour- 
teous, nothing  hurtful.  This  were  indeed  a 
grievous  offence  in  the  story  of  one  who,  amid 
much  provocation,  continually  bore  himself  as 
the  very  pattern  of  a  Christian  gentleman. 

The  lay  mind,  unfamiliar  with  the 
technicalities  of  learning,  will  find  this 
volume  as  readable  and  refreshing  as 
will  the  professional  mind,  versed 
in  questions  of  theology  and  history. 
Dr.  Smith  has  moreover  produced  a 
work  of  genuine  literature.  He  has  a 
lucid  style,  a  finely  poised  imagina- 
tion, deep  historical  insight,  a  rich  un- 
derstanding of  religious  values,  and  a 
full  grasp  of  the  profoundest  scholar- 
ship. He  has  thus  written  a  volume 
that  unquestionably  takes  rank  with 
the  great  biographies  of  recent  times. 
There  is  not  a  dull  page.  Those  who 
are  interested  in  the  records  of  hero- 
ism, sacrifice,  and  accomplishment 
will  make  a  great  mistake  if  they 
overlook  or  neglect  this  surpassing  re- 
cital of  the  story  of  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  and  versatile  among  the 
makers  of  history. 

The  ancient  world  lives  again  in 
these  vivid  pages.  Its  problems  and 
difficulties,  the  menace  of  underhand 


opposition,  the  emptiness  of  religious 
faith  are  set  forth  as  in  a  spacious 
background.  Into  this  lurid  atmos- 
phere of  a  discordant  world  there  en- 
tered the  Gospel  of  a  new  life.  What 
a  picturesque  panorama  passes  before 
our  vision  as  we  follow  the  activities 
of  the  Apostle,  who  ''addressed  him- 
self, with  a  devotion  which  never 
flagged,  to  the  high  enterprise  of  win- 
ning the  Gentile  world  for  the  Faith 
of  Christ".  Incredible  difficulties 
were  bravely  overcome,  and  St.  Paul 
invariably  wrested  victory  out  of  the 
jaws  of  defeat.  On  the  defection  in 
Galatia,  Dr.  Smith  writes : 

It  is  characteristic  of  impulsive  natures  that 
their  generous  impulses  quickly  flag ;  and  so 
it  was  with  the  Galatians.  They  started  brave- 
ly on  the  Christian  race,  but  they  soon  tired ; 
they  were  lavish  In  their  generosity  to  the 
Apostle,  when  he  first  came  among  them,  but 
their  affection  presently  cooled  and  they  turned 
against  him ;  and  recently  they  had  evinced 
their  disposition  in  a  somewhat  sordid  fashion. 

St.  Paul  encountered  intense  opposi- 
tion from  his  own  countrymen,  who 
were  constantly  on  his  trail  in  a  deter- 
mined effort  to  checkmate  his  mission. 
His  martyrdom  was  at  last  brought 
about  by  these  inveterate  enemies, 
who  succeeded  in  turning  the  tables 
against  him.  But  their  temporary 
success  was  destined  to  react  against 
them,  for  out  of  his  tragic  execution 
there  came  a  renaissance  of  power 
which  gave  to  Christianity  an  exhila- 
ration that  the  checks  and  changes  of 
time  have  not  been  able  to  destroy. 

The  story  is  that,  when  his  head  was  struclc 
off,  it  rebounded  thrice,  and  each  time  it  smote 
the  ground,  a  living  fountain  gushed  forth 
possessing  a  healing  virtue,  -whence  the  name 
Aqu<B  Salvia;,  **the  Healing  Waters".  And 
there  is  a  heart  of  truth  in  the  beautiful  legend. 
Like  the  superscription  on  the  Cross  in  Hebrew 
and  Greek  and  Latin,  the  Three  Fountains 
aptly  symbolise  the  Apostle's  Gospel  of  world- 
wide salvation. 

One  of  the  most  attractive  parts  of 
this  volume  is  the  translation  of  the 


^ 


A   REVEALING   BIOGRAPHY 


805 


epistles  into  modem  English.  The 
text  is  accompanied  by  a  running  ex- 
position which  takes  note  of  the 
thought  and  purpose  of  these  rich 
writings,  and  sets  them  in  their  his- 
torical context  in  a  way  that  the  av- 
erage mind  can  understand.  On  the 
otLer  hand,  the  scholar  will  find  a 
great  deal  of  suggestion  from  the  ex- 
tensive footnotes,  which  discuss  the 
deeper  questions  of  Biblical  learning 
on  subjects  that  are  not  always  fa- 
miliar even  to  the  general  run  of 
scholars.  It  is  well  that  these  matters 
are  relegated  to  the  notes  and  are  not 
allowed  to  interfere  with  the  text. 
The  descriptions  of  the  cities  and  con- 
ditions of  the  Roman  Empire  are  both 
accurate  and  thorough.  A  deep  un- 
derstanding of  the  tumultuous  cur- 
rents of  political,  social,  and  religious 
life  gives  to  this  narrative  the  merit  of 
exceptional  worth.  For  instance,  read 
the  accounts  of  such  places  as  Lystra, 
Troas,  Athens,  Corinth,  Ephesus, 
Rome,  and  you  find  yourself  breathing 
the  very  life  and  atmosphere  of  those 
centres  of  a  bygone  day.  Then  turn 
to  the  sections  on  nautical  matters  and 
you  feel  as  though  an  expert  were  giv- 
ing his  testimony.  And  so  with  all 
other  related  questions. 

Here  is  an  iUustration  of  New  Tes- 
tament Greek  clothed  in  virile  Eng- 
lish: 

Let  your  love  be  unaffected.  Abhor  what  is 
erU ;  cleave  to  what  ia  good.  In  the  matter  of 
brotherly  friendship  have  a  friendly  affection 
for  eaeh  other;  in  the  matter  of  honor  give 
each  other  precedence;    in  earnestness  be  un- 


sladLin^,  in  spirit  fenrent,  the  Lord's  slaves; 
in  your  hope  rejoice,  in  your  distress  endure, 
in  your  prayer  persevere ;  have  fellowship  with 
the  necessities  of  the  saints;  prosecute  hos- 
pitality. Share  one  another's  interests;  har- 
bor no  lofty  ambitions  but  embark  on  the 
stream  of  lowly  duties. ...  Be  not  conquered 
by  erll,  but  conquer  evil  with  good.  (Rowmns, 
chapter  ZII,  9ff.) 

The  discussion  of  the  encyclical  let- 
ter known  as  the  epistle  to  the  Ro- 
mans can  hardly  be  improved.  Ques- 
tions of  doctrine  are  considered  with- 
out logical  technicalities  or  subtleties, 
and  the  unique  message  of  the  Chris- 
tian redemption  is  set  forth  with  a 
conclusiveness  that  gives  to  the  Apos- 
tle's exposition  of  Christianity  quite  a 
modem  accent. 

There  is  no  book  on  the  Apostle 
Paul  which  gives  so  clear  and  full  an 
account  of  his  closing  ministry  and 
martyrdom  as  is  found  here.  This 
period  of  his  life  is  obscure,  but  Dr. 
Smith  gathers  material  from  unfa- 
miliar sources  and  reconstructs  the 
background  and  foreground  with 
singular  ability,  in  harmony  with  his- 
torical facts  and  in  accord  with  the 
character  of  the  man  whose  end  was 
worthy  of  his  militant  career.  We  are 
indeed  happy  to  have  this  literary  por- 
trait of  one  of  the  noblest  men  by  an 
artist  of  vision  and  passion,  who  is 
withal  possessed  of  a  choice  vocabu- 
lary, with  a  delicate  sense  of  the  fine 
shades  of  the  meaning  and  use  of 
words. 


The  Life  and  Letters  of  St.  PauL  By  the 
Rev.  David  Smith,  M.A.,  D.D.  George  H.  Doran 
Company. 


POTPOURRI 


BY  HENRY  A.  LAPPIN 


HERE  are  six  books,  all  classifiable 
from  the  book-vendor's  stand- 
point under  that  blessed  blanket-head- 
ing, "belles-lettres";  four  of  them 
need  not  long  detain  us.  Ralph  Berg- 
engren's  "The  Perfect  Gentleman"  con- 
sists of  ten  short  papers  on  such  topics 
as  To  Bore  or  Not  to  Bore,  As  a  Man 
Dresses,  In  the  Chair  (not  the  electric 
chair),  and  so  forth.  Pleasant 
enough,  to  be  sure,  but,  to  mention 
only  Americans,  one  might  name  at 
least  three  essayists  who  do  this 
sort  of  thing  much  more  capa- 
bly. From  another  press  proceeds 
(if  the  verb  be  not  altogether  too  se- 
date for  such  a  lively  brochure)  Mac- 
Gregor  Jenkins's  "Literature  with  a 
Large  L",  a  sage  yet  merry  little  book 
which  rightly  has  no  bowels  of  mercy 
for  "the  strange  folk  who  seem  to 
spend  an  inordinate  amount  of  time 
and  energy  in  making  up  their  minds 
whether  or  not  a  book  stands  the  test 
of  what  they  somewhat  vaguely  call 
'technical  analysis',  quite  unmindful 
of  the  vastly  more  important  question 
as  to  whether  the  book  gives  inspira- 
tion and  pleasure.  Such  a  person 
seems  to  be  in  the  same  general  class 
with  the  man  who  spends  his  entire 
life  measuring  the  length  of  babies' 
noses."  And  he  cites  the  truly  awful 
case  of  a  solemn  friend  of  his  who  was 
worried  by  the  fact  that  "The  Wind  in 
the   Willows",    as    he    said,    "lacked 


scale".  Mr.  Jenkins  has  the  right 
idea.  This  tiny  tome  of  his  deserves 
a  place  on  the  book-shelf  beside  Ar- 
nold Bennett's  vivacious  treatise  on 
the  acquisition  of  literary  taste.  For 
the  plain  American  man  there  are  no 
better  primers. 

Making  excellent  use  of  the  various 
and  sundry  memoirs,  reminiscences, 
and  letters  dealing  with  the  lives  of 
his  sitters,  that  experienced  painter 
of  souls,  Gamaliel  Bradford,  presents 
us  with  eight  "Portraits  of  American 
Women"  from  Abigail  Adams  to 
Emily  Dickinson.  A  sound  and  work- 
manlike series  of  biographical  inter- 
pretations of  which  that  of  Louisa  M. 
Alcott  is  one  of  the  most  attractive. 
The  future  historian  of  American  cul- 
ture will  find  these  portraits  invalua- 
ble. 

In  "Books  and  Things"  Philip  Lit- 
tell,  of  "The  New  Republic"  editorial 
staff,  has  assembled  a  chosen  thirty- 
six  of  his  contributions  to  that  alert 
and  knowledgeable  weekly.  In  one  of 
the  lighter  of  these  papers  he  wittily 
educes  the  influence  of  G.  K.  G.  upon 
the  President's  prose;  in  another  he 
discourses  with  acumen  on  the  Bond- 
age of  Shaw;  and  in  later  essays  he 
says  some  first-rate  things  about 
Tennyson,  Browning,  Swinburne,  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  and  other  eminent  Vic- 
torians. It  warms  the  cockles  of 
one's  heart  to  hear  Max  Beerbohm  un- 


i 


806 


POTPOURRI 


807 


equivocally  caUed  "an  immortal 
writer"  by  a  critic  whose  pages  indi- 
cate that  he  knows  what  a  classic  is, 
and  has  read  English  books  bom  a 
long  time  before  1890.  For  Max  is  as 
veritably  of  the  true  succession  as 
Horace  Walpole. 

There  remain  two  books  which  in- 
sist upon  somewhat  fuller  notice: 
Arthur  Waugh's  "Tradition  and 
Change",  and  Paul  Elmer  More's  latest 
instalment  of  Shelboume  essays, 
"With  the  Wits"— both  good  speci- 
mens of  the  best  work  of  what  is 
sometimes  loosely  called  "the  conserva- 
tive school"  of  criticism  in  England 
and  America  respectively.  Mr. 
Waugh's  fine  group  of  "studies  in  con- 
temporary literature" — ^for  so  his  book 
is  sub-entitled — includes  essays  on 
Lionel  Johnson,  Stephen  Phillips,  and 
James  Elroy  Flecker;  two  papers  on 
Arthur  Sjrmons  as  poet  and  critic; 
and  shorter  treatments  of  Galsworthy, 
Conrad,  Butler,  John  Freeman,  and 
others.  Every  writer  he  discusses  has 
done  significant  creative  work,  and  in 
all  these  three  hundred  pages  there  is 
hardly  one  without  its  special  in- 
sight and  acuteness.  "Tradition  and 
Change"  is  obviously  the  work  of  one 
who  is  no  longer  young.  Not  that 
time  in  its  course  has  staled  this  crit- 
ic's zest  for  the  fine  things  in  life  and 
in  books,  nor  that,  so  to  speak,  he  has 
hardened  in  a  mould;  but  a  certain 
smoothness  and  mellow  quality  as  of 
the  middle  years  is  discoverable 
throughout,  and  one  may  readily 
perceive  that  Mr.  Waugh  is  a  little 
wistfully  conscious  that  a  generation 
knowing  not  Joseph,  has  risen  up  to 
turn  iconoclast  on  the  gods  of  its 
predecessor's  tradition.  Not  the  least 
palmary  value  of  these  essays  is  that, 
with  urbane  insistence,  they  remind 
the  reader  of  the  necessity  of  a  broad 
perspective  to  any  sound  view  of  lit- 


erature, and  attest  eloquently  to  the 
existence  of  permanent  standards  of 
taste.  "Through  them  all",  writes  the 
author,  "there  will  probably  be  traced 
a  single  prevailing  concept — the  esti- 
mate of  literature  which  Oxford  was 
accustomed  to  instil  into  her  sons  as 
the  very  birthright  of  her  citizenship : 
that  all  sound  literary  expression  must 
maintain  its  loyalty  to  the  high  tra- 
ditions of  the  past,  and  the  very  es- 
sences of  its  being  are  beauty  of  im- 
agination and  dignity  of  utterance." 

Mr.  Waugh  therefore  will  not  be 
lenient  toward  pretentiousness,  ugli- 
ness, or  incompetence.  In  his  essay, 
"The  New  Poetry",  he  analyzes  with 
great  skill  and  sjrmpathy  some  of  the 
work  of  the  chief  "Georgian"  poets,  and 
while  nothing  escapes  him  that  is  mem- 
orable or  beautiful  in  the  performance 
of  such  singers  as  Gibson,  Abercrom- 
bie,  and  Bottomley,  he  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  make  it  quite  clear  that  these 
men  "continually  distract  the  read- 
er's attention  from  the  author's  mean- 
ing by  thrusting  into  the  foreground 
a  sense  of  the  unrestrained  and  even 
violent  fashion  in  which  that  mean- 
ing is  striving  to  get  itself  expressed". 
Abercrombie  he  justly  praises  for  his 
"rich  and  clustered  imagery",  but 
notes  wisely  that  the  poet  "appears  to 
have  hurled  himself  into  the  effort  of 
creation  before  properly  digesting  his 
material,  and  to  be  content  to  accept 
as  finished  work  what  ought  to  have 
been  recognized  as  the  first  rough 
notes  or  'trial  balance'  of  his  composi- 
tion." All  this  is  keen,  and  admirably 
expressed;  indeed  "The  New  Poetrjr", 
besides  being  the  most  penetrating 
piece  of  criticism  in  the  book,  is  also 
the  best  brief  treatment  of  the 
Georgians  that  one  remembers  having 
seen.  There  is  a  well-rounded  study 
of  Stephen  Phillips  which  made  one 
reader  decide  that  the  issue  of  "The 


.  i 


808 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Fortnightly  Review"  in  which  it  orig- 
inally appeared  was  well  worth  pre- 
serving. A  re-perusal  confirms  the 
belief  that  as  a  judicious  critical  sum- 
mary of  that  meteoric  talent,  this  es- 
say— ^with  that  of  Arthur  Sjrmons  in 
"The  Quarterly" — ^will  always  be  in- 
dispensable to  a  thorough  understand- 
ing of  the  author  of  "Marpessa"  and 
"Nero".  In  one  place,  though,  Mr. 
Waugh  loses  his  critical  head.  Per- 
haps there  is  some  truth  in  his  en- 
thusiastic declaration  that  "Paolo  and 
Francesca"  is  "simply  alive  with 
beauty  and  with  beautiful  lines" ;  but 
when  having  quoted  the  well-lmown 
lines  in  the  play  wherein  the  protag- 
onists indulge  in  such  breathless  ex- 
changes as, — 

Franc.     Tby  armour  glimmered  in  a  gloom  of 

green. 
Paolo.     Did  I  not  sing  to  thee  in  Babylon? 
Franc.     Or  did  we  set  a  saU  in  Carthage  bay?. 

he  goes  on  to  asseverate  that  "no  love 
lyric  ever  exceeded  the  intensity  of 
the  duologue,  and  the  beauty  of  the 
language  is  as  deep  and  languorous 
as  the  moonlit  atmosphere  it  fills" — 
we  gasp  "astonied"  and  decide  that 
Padraic  Colum  knew  better  when  in  a 
certain  brief  article  on  Phillips,  he 
expressed  with  no  uncertainty  the  con- 
viction that  "Paolo  and  Francesca 
might  have  learnt  such  sentences  off 
a  drawing-room  calendar".  Yet  in  all 
fairness  this  is  the  only  flaw  in  a  per- 
fect appraisal.  In  an  age  not  notice- 
ably prolific  in  good  literary  criticism, 
a  book  like  "Tradition  and  Change"  is 
a  landmark. 

Very  different  from  Arthur  Waugh's 
critical  work  is  that  of  Paul  Elmer 
More.  For  one  thing  the  Shelboume 
essayist's  range  is  much  wider.  When, 
in  the  general  index  appended  to  this 
volume,  we  scan  the  long  list  of  sub- 
jects upon  which  for  several  years 
past  he  has  been  holding  forth,  we 


cannot  but  marvel  at  Mr.  More's  om- 
niscience, for  omniscience,  indeed,  ap- 
pears to  be  his  fad :  he  has  taken  all 
the  kingdoms  of  literature  for  his 
province.  One  sees  him  always  against 
the  sophisticated  background  of  his  ex- 
clusive shelves, — ^those  exquisitely  ap- 
pointed shelves  with  everything  in  its 
sacred  place  and  all  the  very  latest 
monographs  meetly  arranged  beside 
the  latest  editions.  Mr.  Waugh,  on 
the  contrary,  is  a  much  less  profes- 
sional person  and  is  easily  envisaged 
for  what  he  .is — a  plain  English 
"scholar  and  gentleman"  content, 
doubtless,  with  his  pocket  Pickerings 
and  swearing  by  the  well-thumbed 
Conington  and  Munro  of  his  New  Col- 
lege days.  Quite  likely  he  wrote  these 
essays  and  reviews  under  a  tree  in  his 
Hampstead  garden  with  scribblingr- 
pad  on  knee  and  pipe  in  mouth,  now 
and  then  making  mental  note  of  a 
reference  to  be  verified  upon  his  re- 
turn to  the  bookroom  in  which  his 
more  or  less  ragged  veterans  are 
housed. 

"With  the  Wits"  contains  ten  essays 
dealing  with  the  "wits"  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries.  Be- 
ginning with  a  study  of  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher,  Mr.  More  advances  to 
treat  successively  of  the  writings  of 
George  Savile — First  Marquis  of  Hali- 
fax, Aphra  Behn,  Swift,  Pope,  Lady 
Wortley  Montagu,  Bishop  Berkeley  (to 
the  exceeding  beauty  of  whose  lan- 
guage in  the  "Dialogues  Between  Hy- 
las  and  Philonous"  he  pays  tribute  in 
a  charming  conceit:  "[here]  if  ever 
anywhere  since  Plato  taught  in  the 
Academy,  the  sybil  of  metaphysics 
and  the  muse  of  literature  kissed"), 
Philip — Duke  of  Wharton,  and  the 
Letters  of  Gray.  He  concludes  with 
an  essay  on  the  "wits"  of  the  eighteen- 
nineties,  a  review  of  Holbrook  Jack- 
son's well-known  work  on  the  period. 


POTPOURRI 


809 


The  essays  on  Pope  and  Gray  seem  the 
best,  as  they  are  certainly  the  most  in- 
teresting, of  the  collection.  The  great- 
ness of  the  art  that  produced  'The 
Rape  of  the  Lock"  is  in  need  of  con- 
stant reiteration  in  these  days  when 
so  few  follow  the  example  of  Austin 
Dobson  in  fiinging  ''their  cap  for 
Polish  and  for  Pope !"  Mr.  More  well 
likens  the  finish  of  Pope's  best  verse 
to  that  last  perfection  of  craftsman- 
ship out  of  which  was  wrought  the 
beauty  of  a  Japanese  sword-guard. 
Satire  is  of  course  not  the  highest 
reach  of  poetry,  and  Pope  is  undeni- 
ably at  his  greatest  as  satirist.  Still, 
it  is  salutary  to  realize — as  Mr.  Mack- 
ail  has  lately  reminded  us  in  the  1919 
Leslie  Stephen  lecture  ^probably  the 
final  word  on  Pope  for  this  genera- 
tion)— ^that  it  was  not  the  Horace  of 
the  Odes  but  Horace  the  satirist, 
Oraaio  satire,  whom  Dante  ranked 
among  the  five  great  poets.  Our  critic 
is  right  also  in  stressing  Gray's  beau- 
tiful accessibility  to  all  the  seductions 
of  English  landscape,  though  Mr. 
More  goes  too  far  when  he  affirms 
that  "not  Wordsworth  himself  has  ex- 
pressed the  beauty  of  the  country 
about  Skiddaw  more  lovingly  than 
Gray  has  done  in  his  Journal".  Gray's 
scientific  knowledge  of  nature  was 
more  thorough  than  Wordsworth's — 
though  he  lagged  far  behind  Words- 
worth in  profound  insight — and  he 
could  chronicle  the  changes  of  the  sea- 
sons with  as  exquisite  an  exactitude 
as  even  White  of  Selbome. 


It  is  unfortunately  difficult  to  speak 
with  restraint  of  the  last  essay  in  the 
book.  Toward  the  young  men  of  the 
Yellow  Book  period  Mr.  More  adopts 
an  irritatingly  superior  tone  and — 
though  they  had  their  abundant  fail- 
ings— is  at  moments  brutally  unjust. 
It  is  hardly  less  than  cheap  playing  to 
the  dress-circle  to  write  as  he  does  of 
Dowson  and  Thompson  "mingling 
their  religion  with  the  fumes  of  alco- 
hol and  opium".  Rarely,  too,  we  may 
hope,  have  words  more  foolish  or  more 
cruel  than  these  been  penned:  "It 
may  be  unkind  to  say  it,  but  one  can- 
not study  the  lives  of  these  men  with- 
out feeling  that  the  conversion  of  so 
many  of  them,  including  Aubrey 
Beardsley,  to  Catholicism,  was  only 
another  manifestation  of  the  same  il- 
lusion of  the  decadent  as  that  which 
speaks  in  his  theories  of  art."  Mr. 
More  is,  if  course,  not  alone  in  his 
view  of  Catholicism  as  little  more 
than  a  hospice  for  timid  and  febrile 
spirits,  but  what  right  has  he  to  de- 
cry in  so  knowing  a  tone  that  passion 
of  humility  and  sorrow  out  of  which 
these  errant  ones  sought  the  "Blessed 
Vision  of  Peace"  in  the  dark  lonely 
night  of  their  wayfaring? 


The  Perfect  Gentleman.  By  Ralph  Bergen- 
gren.    The  Atlantic  Monthly  Press. 

Literature  with  a  Large  L.  By  MacGregor 
Jenkins.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

Portraits  of  American  Women.  By  Gamaliel 
Bradford.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

Books  and  Thines.  By  Philip  Littell.  Har- 
court,  Brace  and  Howe.  

Tradition  and  Change.  By  Arthur  Waugh. 
B.  P.  Dutton  and  Co. 

With  the  Wits.  By  Paul  Blmer  More. 
Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 


RUSSIAN  NEWSIIBY  WAY, OF  THE  BOOK-SHELF 


BY  OLIVER  M.  SAYLER 


THE  realist  is  coming  into  his  own 
in  the  case  of  Russia.  Interna- 
tional relations  have  reached  the  point 
where  facts  are  reasserting  their  su- 
preme importance  over  illusions.  For 
almost  six  years,  propaganda  with  its 
sly  devices  and  its  pseudo-patriotic 
sanction  has  smothered  the  news  by 
its  plausible  record  of  what  someone 
wished  the  news  might  be,  and  a  civil- 
ized world  has  known  as  little  of  the 
actual  course  of  events  as  in  the  Dark 
Ages.  The  truth  about  the  enemy  in 
war  and  about  our  allies  in  the  con- 
flict has  been  hedged  about  no  more 
than  the  motives  of  our  own  govern- 
ment, but  the  happy  hunting  ground 
of  the  propagandist  has  been  the  land 
of  forgotten  tsars.  The  truth  about 
Russia  in  press  and  on  platform  has 
been  subordinated  to  the  ulterior  aims 
of  bitterly  conflicting  social  doctrines. 
Fate  and  time,  however,  work 
against  the  propagandist  who  may 
even  be  driven  back  to  the  facts  to 
save  his  face.  In  this  kind  of  a  di- 
lemma all  but  the  most  bigoted  apolo- 
gists in  Russian  illusion  find  them- 
selves today,  and  they  may  seek 
refuge  in  such  realists  and  news 
gatherers  as  Colonel  Rajrmond  Robins 
of  the  American  Red  Gross,  and  Lieu- 
tenant Etienne  Antonelli,  military  at- 
tach6  of  the  French  Embassy  in  Pet- 
rograd — although  they  listened  with 
bad  grace  to  the  earlier  record  of  fact 


of  such  men  as  Professor  Edward  Als- 
worth  Ross  and  Arthur  Ransome. 

There  is  something  ironic  in  our 
return  to  news  by  way  of  the  book- 
shelf. It  is  as  if  the  book  in  its  casual 
character  had  waited  for  its  more 
blatant  journalistic  cousin  to  complete 
a  long  and  fiery  and  careless  speech, 
and  then  had  stepped  quietly  to  the 
rostrum  and  with  calm  assurance  had 
said,  "It  is  my  turn  now." 

There  is  something  equally  discon- 
certing in  finding  the  most  dispassion- 
ate and  accurate  news  vendors  of  Bol- 
shevism among  its  opponents.  Per- 
haps, though,  it  is  in  the  nature  of 
the  case  to  look  for  unbiased  narra- 
tion and  analyses  of  facts  from  confi- 
dent opponents  rather  than  from  the 
most  temperate  cf  defenders.  At  any 
rate.  Colonel  Robins  and  Lieutenant 
Antonelli  do  not  disguise  their  opposi- 
tion to  the  theory  and  the  actuality  of 
the  proletarian  dictatorship  in  Mos- 
cow. 

Many  Americans  are  already  ac- 
quainted with  the  news  contained  in 
Colonel  Robins's  narrative,  as  set 
down  by  William  Hard.  Ofiicial  re- 
pression and  editorial  misrepresenta- 
tion have  not  succeeded  in  stifling  his 
voice  completely,  but  his  story,  already 
published  in  magazine  form,  is  now 
available  for  the  first  time  as  a  whole. 
It  stands  out  in  this  consecutive  form 
as  the  most  vigorous,  the  most  pic- 


810 


RUSSIAN  NEWS  BY  WAY  OF  THE  BOOK-SHELF 


811 


turesque,  as  well  as  the  most  truth- 
ful record  in  English  of  the  birth  of 
Bolshevism  through  the  Soviet.  The 
period  covered  by  Robins's  record, 
from  the  summer  of  1917  until  May, 
1918,  is  unquestionably  the  most  stir- 
ring and  significant  single  epoch  of 
the  Russian  Revolution,  as  far  as  the 
upheaval  has  developed  to  this  time. 
It  was  then  when  motives  were  most 
loudly  proclaimed,  when  personalities 
were  revealed  in  passionate  encounter, 
when  whole  masses  of  humanity  were 
roused  to  action  and  decision  in  the 
intensity  of  a  new  world  in  the  mak- 
ing. To  this  scene  and  this  spectacle, 
Robins  brought  a  mind  mature  and 
eager  to  understand,  and  a  courage 
ready  to  accept  events  whether  they 
developed  as  he  wished  them  to  do  or 
not. 

Robins  labored  against  BolshevlBm  in  Petro- 
grad  itself.  He  labored  against  Bolshevism, 
and  is  publicly  recorded  to  have  labored  against 
it,  all  through  the  period  while  Russia  was 
making  its  choice  between  Kerensky  and  Lenin. 
Robins  has  been  consistently  and  continuously 
anti-Bolshevik,  in  America  and  in  Russia ;  but 
he  saw  the  failure  of  our  diplomacy  in  Russia ; 
and  he  had  a  chance  to  perceive  the  reason,  the 
instructive  reason. 

He  calls  it  the  Indoor  Mind. 

The  Indoor  Mind  goes  to  a  country  like  Rus- 
sia, where  7  per  cent  of  the  population  had 
been  masters  of  everything.  It  finds  the  7  per 
cent  swept  out  of  mastery  and  the  93  per  cent 
in  fuU  control,  with  twelve  million  rifles  in 
their  hands.  But  it  gives  itself  to  the  7  per 
cent.  It  gives  itself  to  drawing-rooms,  dinner- 
parties, tea-tables,  palaces,  boulevard  restau- 
rants. There  it  hears  at  last  about  a  thing 
called  a  Soviet.    But  what  does  it  hear? 

It  hears  that  the  Soviet  is  a  deliberately 
wicked  and  artificial  thing.  It  hears  that  the 
Petrograd  Soviet  of  Workmen's  and  Soldiers' 
Deputies,  and  the  Moscow  Soviet,  and  the  Ir- 
kutsk Soviet,  and  all  the  other  Soviets  spring- 
ing up  at  almost  every  crossroad  aU  over  the 
fifteen  hundred  mUes  from  Archangel  to 
Odessa  and  aU  over  the  six  thousand  miles 
from  Kieff  to  Vladivostok,  are  produced  by  the 
machinations  of  the  agents  of  the  Kaiser.  They 
are  a  German  intrigue.  That  is  what  the  In- 
door Mind  hears,  and  it  believes  it. 

And  what  turns  out  to  be  the  fact?  The 
fact,  as  proved  by  events  subsequent,  soon  sub- 
sequent, turns  out  to  be  that  these  Soviets,  in- 
stead of  being  a  mere  German  intrigue,  were  a 


tidal  wave  of  irresistible  popular  emotion,  as 
spontaneous,  as  Russian,  as  a  folk-song  on  the 
Volga. 

Never,  says  Robins,  never  in  this  age  of 
emotions  of  peoples,  in  this  age  of  movements 
of  populations,  will  diplomacy  be  able  to  deal 
with  foreign  politics  tiU  it  discards  the  Indoor 
for  the  Outdoor  Mind. 

With  this  outdoor  mind,  Raymond 
Robins  watched  Lenin  seize  the  power 
for  the  proletariat  and  consolidate 
that  power  step  by  step;  and  he 
watched  the  process  with  keener  un- 
derstanding and  from  a  surer  vantage 
point  than  any  other  agent  of  official 
America.  Mistakes  of  judgment  he 
made  in  interpreting  some  of  his  ob- 
servations, as  almost  all  of  us  who 
were  correspondents  in  Petrograd  and 
Moscow  at  that  time  agreed.  Such  a 
mistake  was  his  conclusion  that  Russia 
through  the  Bolsheviki  could  be  in- 
duced to  denounce  the  treaty  of  Brest- 
Litovsk  if  the  United  States  would 
promise  aid.  What  he  did  not  see 
was  that  Russia  neither  would  nor 
could  continue  the  active  struggle 
against  Germany  without  a  breathing 
space,  and  that  no  active  struggle 
could  be  effective  until  the  newly-con- 
ceived Red  Army  had  been  recruited 
and  roused  to  action  by  such  an  ap- 
parent attack  on  the  Revolution  as  the 
Allied  Intervention. 

What  he  did  see  and  see  clearly, 
though  against  his  wish,  was  the  sub- 
mission of  the  vast  majority  of  the 
Russian  people  to  the  Bolshevik  will — 
passively  or  actively  it  mattered  not 
as  long  as  there  was  no  formidable 
active  resistance.  What  he  did  see 
was  that  if  Lenin  had  taken  German 
gold,  he  had  taken  it  to  use  against 
German  and  all  other  imperial  and 
capitalist  power  in  his  own  good  time. 
Understanding  Bolshevism  as  a  defi- 
nitely conceived  social  philosophy,  and 
with  faith  that  by  competition  and 
comparison  with  his  own  philosophy 
it  can  not  survive,  he  merely  asks  that 


812 


THE  BOOKMAN 


it  be  permitted  to  prove  or  disprove 
its  claim  to  function  effectively  for  hu- 
manity. 
His  transcriber  paraphrased  him: 

If  the  Soviet  Producers'  Republic  can  out- 
compete  the  American  system  in  the  economic 
world,  it  deserres  to  win.  If  it  gets  outcom- 
peted  by  us.  it  wiU  be  inexorably  obliged  to 
modify  itself  and  remake  itself  on  our  model. 
In  the  competition  of  intercourse  the  American 
Republic,  the  American  system,  has  the  field 
in  which  by  merit  it  can  demonstrably  and 
conclusively  win  and  make  the  Soviet  system 
demonstrably  and  conclusively  lose. 

"Bolshevik  Russia",  Lieutenant  An- 
tonelli's  narrative,  comes  as  a  late  but 
welcome  defender  of  French  logic. 
Somehow,  it  is  not  so  strange  that 
the  wiles  of  propaganda  absorbed  our 
more  emotional  mentality.  The  gold 
brick  probably  has  no  counterpart  in 
any  another  nation's  slang.  To  the 
French,  however,  we  have  always 
looked  for  the  dispassionate  intellect 
in  its  most  severe,  uncompromising 
perfection.  The  loss  of  French  sav- 
ings in  the  repudiated  Russian  bonds, 
on  top  of  the  superhuman  strain  of 
the  war,  was  too  much  for  all  but  the 
most  Spartan  of  Gallic  minds. 

But  in  Antonelli,  French  logic  re- 
gains its  poise.  His  record,  covering 
ahnost  the  same  period  as  that  of 
Robins  in  point  of  experience,  has  a 
much  broader  historic  background 
and  a  more  carefully  scientific  socio- 
logical basis,  a  reflection  of  his  occu- 
pation of  the  chair  of  political  econ- 
omy at  the  University  of  Poitiers  be- 
fore the  war.  He  analyzes  with  his 
incisive  French  mentality  the  Rus- 
sian character  and  finds  in  it  a  strong 
urge  toward  the  "absolute"  quality  of 
mind,  a  love  for  abstractions  in  think- 
ing, an  intellectual  curiosity.  He 
finds,  too,  a  lack  of  regard  for  the 
viewpoint  of  the  individual  which  is 
incredible  to  the  Occidental  nations — 
a  collective  living  and  thinking  which 
is  oriental  in  nature  and  which  ex- 


plains many  phases  of  the  upheaval 

With  the  same  native  realism,  he 
disposes  of  many  of  the  misconcep- 
tions of  the  Revolution  which  propa- 
ganda has  built  up.    He  brushes  away 
the  legend  of  the  patriotic  nature  of 
the  first  revolution.     He  asserts  by 
direction  and  indirection  the  flexibil- 
ity of  Bolshevik  tactics  as  a  counter  to 
the  popular  notion  of  their  doctrinaire 
strictness.    He  shows  again  and  again 
how  Lenin  gains  his  ends  by  "adopt- 
ing a  passive  attitude,  disintegratingr 
the  opposing  force  from  within,  but 
avoiding  as  much  as  possible  open  and 
direct  conflict."    He  bears  witness  to 
the  immunity  of  the  church  in  Bol- 
shevik Russia  except  where  the  church 
persists  in  its  allegiance  to  the  tsarist 
order.     He  makes  clear  the  helpless- 
ness of  the  middle  parties  in  the  na- 
ture of  the  economic  and  social  catas- 
trophe which  opened  the  door  to  the 
birth  of  Bolshevism.    He  explains  the 
military  tyranny  of  Lenin  in  the  face 
of  Bolshevism's   passionate  pacifism 
by  showing  how  class  struggle,   no 
matter    how    violent,     is    conceived 
as    the    only    sure    path    to    an    ul- 
timately    secure     peace.       He     sees 
the  overlapping  of  authority  and  the 
widespread  inefficiency  which  have  ac- 
companied the  Revolution  as  proofs 
to  the  Russian  mind  of  their  new- 
found  freedom.     Instead   of  chafing 
under  the  material  conditions  of  life 
as  so  many  other  guests  of  the  Revo- 
lution have  done,  he  understands  the 
underlying  fact  that  life  goes  on  long 
after   the   normally    conceived   mini- 
mum has  been   reached  and  passed. 
"It  seemed  as  if  each  one  had  agreed 
to  make  just  sufficient  effort  to  pre- 
vent the  whole  from  coming  to  a  com- 
plete    standstill."       And     again     he 
writes,  "It  was  a  case  of  instinctive 
ordered  incoherence." 
In  all  careful  and  accurate  news- 


RUSSIAN  NEWS  BY  WAY  OF  THE  BOOK-SHELF 


313 


gathering,  the  spirit  of  history  is  in- 
nate. At  least,  here  are  the  raw  ma- 
terials of  history.  It  is  interesting, 
therefore,  to  note  the  conclusions  of  so 
conscientious  a  recorder  of  the  con- 
temporary scene  as  Lieutenant  An- 
tonelli. 
He  says  early  in  his  narrative : 

Perhaps,  indeed,  unbiased  history  will  have 
to  recognize  that  by  their  efforts  to  keep  the 
masses  at  least  in  appearance  in  the  path  of  a 
socialistic  ideal,  they  (the  Bolshevilsi)  were  the 
only  ones  who  conld  have  prevented  the  com- 
plete miscarriage  of  democracy  in  Russia  and 
the  dissipation  of  the  revolntionary  movement 
into  a  series  of  ineffectual  peasant  uprisings. 

And  in  summary: 

But  whatever  the  regime  of  the  future  may 
be,  in  its  social  and  economic  structure 
it  will  have  to  take  account  of  the  Bolshevist 
Revolution.  It  will  not  be  able  to  reject  it  all, 
and  either  willingly  or  perforce,  it  will  have  to 
reap  a  part  of  the  burdensome  harvest  of  obli- 
gations sown  by  that  revolution. 

. .  .What  future?  We  know  not.  The  times 
are  troubled.  No  one  is  the  master  of  events. 
We  can  only  guess. 

For  my  part,  I  do  not  believ4  that  Bolshev- 
ism is  a  system  that  can  survive.  You  can  not 
buUd  society  against  culture  and  inteUigence. 

The  task  of  Bolshevism  has  been  and  remains 
purely  negative.  It  has  made  impossible  any 
such  return  to  the  past  as  the  weariness  of  the 
worthy  muzhik  confidently  expected  to  find 
waiting  at  the  door  of  revolution. 

The  ground  is  now  levelled.  But  the  ma- 
terials are  not  ready  and  the  plan  is  barely 
sketched  in  confusion  and  in  blood.  But  what 
of  that!     It   is  a   recognized   truth   that   the 


West  works  in  space,  the  SSast  in  time.  The 
future  works  itself  out  in  the  present. 

I  believe  that  Bolshevist  Russia,  if  it  is  not 
crushed  by  the  "Holy  AUiance"  of  my  diplomat, 
wUl  prepare  for  humanity  the  spectacle  of  a 
singular  democracy,  such  as  the  world  wiU  not 
have  known  untU  then — a  democracy  which 
wiU  not  be  made  up  of  gradual  conquests 
plucked  by  shreds  from  a  plutocratic  hour* 
geoisie,  but  which  will  buUd  itself  up  out  of 
the  very  stuff  of  the  people,  a  democracy  which 
wiU  not  descend  from  the  powerful  ones  of  the 
peiople,  as  in  all  present  forms  of  society,  but 
which  will  rise  voluntarily  and  surely  from  the 
unorganized  and  uncultivated  folk  to  an  or- 
ganizing intelligence. 

And  the  experiment,  perhaps,  will  not  be 
without  interest. 

Both  books  in  style  and  in  intel- 
lectual treatment  of  material  are  true 
to  the  national  character  of  the  au- 
thors. Robins  and  Hard  speak  in  the 
vivid,  feverish,  concrete  staccato  of 
America,  Antonelli  in  the  reserve  and 
the  calm  of  France.  The  latter's 
story,  nevertheless,  despite  a  few  in- 
accuracies in  dates  and  an  unfortunate 
adherence  to  the  French  spelling  of 
Russian  proper  names  on  the  part  of 
the  translator,  Charles  A.  Carroll,  will 
appeal  to  many  Americans  who  are  ir- 
ritated by  the  flash  and  the  flare  of 
our  own  journalism. 


Raymond  Robins'  Own  Story.  By  William 
Hard.     Harper  and  Bros. 

Bolshevik  Russia.  By  Etienne  AntoneUi, 
translated  from  the  French  by  Charles  A.  Car- 
roll.    Alfred  A.  Knopf. 


A  SPRING  REVIEW  OF  CHILDREN'S  BOOKS 


BY  ANNIE  CARROLL  MOORE 


Rosy  plum-tree,  tbink  of  me 

When  Spring  comes  down  the  world ! 

— ^HILDA  CONKLINO 


LITTLE  did  we  think  when  we  were 
daring  enough  to  propose  a  spring 
review  of  books  for  children  that  we 
should  come  upon  anything  so  alto- 
gether charming  and  unusual  as  Hilda 
Conkling's  "Poems  by  a  Little  Girl". 
Only  the  other  day  we  had  said  of 
modem  poetry  that  it  had  little  to  say 
of  childhood  or  to  children.  Yet  here 
is  a  book  of  poems  instinct  with  the 
spirit  of  childhood  and  so  childlike  in 
much  of  its  phrasing  as  to  make  a  di- 
rect and  permanent  appeal  to  children 
and  grown  people.  Moreover,  the 
work  is  unmistakably  that  of  a  child 
whose  nature  is  rarely  understood  by 
the  mother  to  whom  the  little  book  is 
dedicated : 

I  have  a  dream  for  you,  Mother, 

Like  a  soft  thick  fringe  to  hide  your  eyes. 

I  have  a  surprise  for  you.  Mother, 

Shaped  like  a  strange  butterfly. 

I  have  found  a  way  of  thinking 

To  make  you  happy ; 

I  have  made  a  song  and  a  poem 

All  twisted  into  one. 

If  I  sing,  you  listen ; 

If  I  think,  yon  know. 

I   have  a   secret  from   everybody   in   the 

world  full  of  people 
But  I  cannot  always  remember  how  it  goes ; 
It  is  a  song 
For  you,  Mother, 

With  a  curl  of  cloud  and  a  feather  of  blue 
And  a  mist 

Blowing  along  the  sky. 
If  I  sing  it  some  day,  under  my  voice. 
Will  it  make  you  happy? 


Hilda  Conkling  lives  in  Emily  Dick- 
inson's country  and  one  recognizes  the 
flowers  and  grass,  the  birds  and  but- 
terflies, the  trees,  the  sky  and  some- 
thing of  the  star  shine.  Hilda  has 
just  passed  her  ninth  birthday  and 
ever  since  she  was  a  very  little  girl 
she  has  ''told"  her  songs  and  verses  to 
her  mother,  who  wrote  them  down 
without  Hilda's  knowledge.  Those 
who  have  had  intimate  and  continuous 
knowledge  of  children  in  whom  the 
poetic  instinct  and  feeling  for  lan- 
guage were  strong  between  the  ages 
of  four  and  six,  will  feel  the  univer- 
sality of  these  earlier  verses: 

There's  dozens  full  of  dandelions 

Down  in  the  field. 

Little  gold  plates. 

Little  gold  dishes  in  the  grass, 

I  cannot  count  them 

But  the  fairies  know  every  one. 

Sparkle  up,  little  tired  flower 
Leaning  in  the  grass ! 
Did  you  flnd  the  rain  of  night 
Too  heavy  to  hold? 

There  is  going  to  be  the  sound  of  bells 

and  murmuring. 
This  is  the  brook  dance; 
There  is  going  to  be  sound  of  voices. 
And  the  smallest  will  be  the  brook; 
It  is  the  song  of  water 
You  will  hear. 

Fairies  and  the  Sandman  appear 
and  reappear  in  earlier  and  later 
verses.    The  play  spirit  of  music,  art. 


814 


A  SPRING  REVIEW  OF  CHILDREN'S   BOOKS 


815 


and  literature  finds  its  way  out-of- 
doors.  There  is  a  lovely  dream  of 
fairies  on  the  mountain  tops,  remi- 
niscent of  Allingham's  Fairies.  "I 
went  to  sea  in  a  glass-bottomed  boat" 
is  so  perfect  a  description  as  to  make 
one  wonder  whether  it  is  composed 
from  a  dream  or  out  of  a  real  experi- 
ence. Was  ever  geography  made  so 
fascinating? 

OBOGBAPHT 

I  can  tell  balsam  trees 

By  their  grayish  bluish  silverish  look  of  smoke. 
Pine  trees  fringe  out. 
Hemlocks  look  like  Christmas. 
The  spQQce  tree  is  feathered  and  rough 
Like  the  legs  of  the  red  chickens  in  our  poul- 
try yard. 
I  can  study  my  geography  from  chickens 
Named  for  Plymouth  Rock  and  Rhode  Island, 
And  from  trees  out  of  Canada. 
No ;   I  shaU  leave  the  chickens  out. 
I  shaU  make  a  new  geography  of  my  own. 
I  shaU  have  a  hillside  of  spruce  and  hemlock 
Like  a  separate  country. 

And  I  shaU  mark  a  walk  of  spires  on  my  map, 
A  secret  road  of  balsam  trees 
With  blue  buds. 

Trees  that  smeU  like  a  wind  out  of  fairy-land 
Where  little  people  live 
Who  need  no  geography 
But  trees. 

In  her  informing  and  appreciative 
introduction  to  "Poems  by  a  Little 
Girl",  Amy  Lowell  has  paid  warm 
tribute  to  "the  stuff  and  essence  of 
poetry  that  this  book  contains",  to 
Hilda  Conkling's  power  of  observation 
and  gift  of  imagination,  and  to  the 
tact  and  understanding  of  her  mother. 
She  admits  Hilda  goes  to  school,  but 
warns  instructors  to  keep  "hands  off" 
and  gives  thanks  that  Hilda  has  never 
been  "for  hours  at  a  time  in  contact 
with  an  elementary  intelligence". 

We  read  the  introduction  after  we 
had  read  the  poems  because  we  wanted 
to  know  what  we  thought  about  the 
book  and  its  author  from  quite  a  dif- 
ferent standpoint.  We  have  been 
haunted  ever  since  by  persistent  mem- 
ories in  word  or  phrase  of  the  children 
of  an  East  Side  public  school  in  New 
York  City,  a  school  as  rarely  fortunate 


in  its  principal  whose  love  of  beautiful 
English  and  good  music  has  pervaded 
it  for  many  years,  as  Hilda  C3onkling 
in  her  remarkable  mother.  These 
poems  belong  by  every  natural  right 
to  such  children  and  to  all  children, 
but  we  would  like  to  pass  on  the  book 
without  the  portrait  of  Hilda  Conk- 
ling  which  is  to  appear  as  a  frontis- 
piece and  without  other  introduction 
than  a  simple  foreword  written  by 
Hilda's  mother.  Such  treatment,  in 
our  judgment,  would  go  far  toward 
answering  some  of  the  questions  Miss 
Lowell  has  raised  concerning  author- 
ship in  childhood,  and  creating  a  more 
understanding  conception  of  the  dif- 
ference between  teaching  and  edticat- 
ing  children  in  any  environment. 

Miss  Lowell  has  well  said  that  Hilda 
Conkling  is  "subconscious"  rather 
than  "self-conscious".  We  think  the 
chances  are  good  that  she  will  remain 
so  if  the  incentive  to  good  work  is 
held  steadily  behind  the  poetic  endow- 
ment in  her  own  experience  and  in 
that  of  her  less  gifted  contemporaries, 
who  will  be  the  true  appraisers  of  her 
work  in  years  to  come. 

While  we  were  still  lingering  so  de- 
lightedly over  "Poems  by  a  Little 
Girl"  as  not  to  care  who  wrote  them 
or  why,  we  received  proofs  of  an  en- 
larged American  edition  of  Marie  L. 
Shedlock's  "Eastern  Stories  and  Leg- 
ends", which  is  to  be  published  in  the 
late  spring  or  early  summer,  and  read 
with  a  new  sense  of  its  meaning  the 
beautiful  story  of  the  Banyan  Deer. 

In  rearranging  and  expanding  this 
selection  of  stories  from  the  Buddha 
Rebirths,  Miss  Shedlock  has  wisely 
freed  the  book  from  limitations,  which 
in  the  earlier  edition  gave  it  too  much 
the  appearance  of  a  text-book  to  look 
readable.  In  so  doing  she  has  pre- 
served the  classical  rendering  and  the 
eastern  point  of  view  of  one  of  the 


816 


THE  BOOKMAN 


foremost  of  Oriental  scholars — ^Rhys 
Davids — ^who  wrote  the  foreword  to 
the  collection  and  assisted  her  person- 
ally in  getting  the  atmosphere  of  the 
stories. 

The  notes  for  teachers,  which  now 
appear  at  the  back  of  the  book,  are 
charged  with  the  same  wisdom,  clar- 
ity of  expression,  and  recognition  of 
the  power  of  a  dramatic  rather  than  a 
didactic  presentation,  which  charac- 
terize Miss  Shedlock's  treatment  of 
storytelling  in  "The  Art  of  the  Story- 
teller"— a  book  that  May  Sinclair 
says  should  be  on  the  desk  of  every 
writer  of  stories.  It  is,  we  consider, 
the  best  book  on  the  subject  of  story- 
telling and  contains  a  fine  selection  of 
stories  from  authoritative  sources. 
Miss  Shedlock  first  became  known  in 
America  through  her  dramatic  inter- 
pretation of  the  stories  of  Hans  Chris- 
tian Andersen,  some  twenty  years  ago. 
Since  then,  she  has  become  more  fa- 
miliarly known  in  her  own  country, 
the  United  States,  and  Canada,  as 
"The  Fairy  Godmother".  She  has  re- 
cently returned  to  England  after  five 
years  of  storytelling  in  this  country 
and  in  Canada;  and  the  revision  and 
enlargement  of  the  "Eastern  Stories 
and  Legends"  grew  out  of  her  experi- 
ences of  telling  "The  Tree  Spirit", 
"The  True  Spirit  of  a  Festival  Day", 
"The  Earth  is  Falling  In"  and  other 
stories  from  the  collection,  to  audi- 
ences of  children  and  grown  people. 

We  know  of  no  book  we  can  so  con- 
fidently recommend  to  persons  who  in- 
sist upon  stories  with  an  ethical  sig- 
nificance. "These  stories  of  the 
'Buddha  Rebirths'",  says  the  editor, 
"are  not  for  one  age  or  one  country, 
but  for  all  time,  and  for  the  whole 
world.  Their  philosophy  might  be  in- 
corporated into  the  tenets  of  faith  of 
a  League  of  Nations  without  destroy- 
ing any  national  forms  of  religious 
teaching."    In  its  new  and  more  at- 


tractive form  the  book  should  appeal 
to  a  wide  circle  of  readers,  including 
boys  and  girls  in  their  teens. 

From  England  there  has  recently 
come  as  a  gift  from  Ethel  Sidgwick  to 
the  Children's  Room  of  the  New  York 
Public  Library,  an  "Ancient  Mappe  of 
Fairyland",  newly  discovered  and  set 
forth  by  Bernard  Sleigh. 

This  unique  map  is  in  color,  meas- 
uring five  feet  or  more  in  length  by 
about  twenty  inches.  Children  and 
grown  people  are  completely  fasci- 
nated by  it.  "Isn't  it  great?"  ex- 
claimed a  boy  of  twelve.  "There's 
Rockabye  Baby  square  on  the  treetop. 
The  Three  Blind  Mice,  Humpty 
Dumpty  sitting  on  that  long  wall,  and 
down  here  are  King  Arthur's  Knights, 
the  Sea  King's  Palace,  Dreamland 
Harbour,  and  the  Argonauts.  There's 
the  Rainbow  Bridge,  Hansel  and 
Gretel — everything  and  everybody  you 
ever  read  about  in  Mother  Goose, 
Fairy  Tales,  or  Mythology." 

We  are  showing  this  map  on  a  long 
table  covered  with  glass.  It  might,  of 
course,  be  shown  on  the  wall,  although 
not  quite  so  effectively.  A  map  of 
Fairyland  should  prove  of  great  in- 
terest to  schools  as  well  as  to  libraries. 

With  an  advance  set  of  the  beautiful 
color  plates  from  Italian  Primitives, 
illustrating  Mrs.  Richard  Henry 
Dana's  "The  Story  of  Jesus",  reviewed 
in  the  December  Bookman,  comes  as- 
surance that  this  book,  which  is  to  be 
sold  by  subscription,  will  be  available 
in  April.  The  American  edition  of 
Boutet  de  Monvel's  "Joan  of  Arc", 
promised  in  January,  has  not  yet  ap- 
peared, and  no  date  is  now  stated  by 
its  publishers. 

Dorothy  Canfield's  "History  of 
France  for  Young  Folks"  is  again 
postponed.  "Hero  Stories  of  France" 
by  Eva  March  Tappan  is  announced 
as  a  spring  publication,  and  although 
we  have  not  seen  the  text,  we  are  con- 


A  SPRING  REVIEW  OF  CHILDREN'S  BOOKS 


817 


fident  that  Miss  Tappan  has  made  a 
contribution  to  our  limited  resources 
in  the  history  of  France. 

Histories  of  the  Pilgrims  are  mak- 
ing their  way  from  the  presses  of 
more  than  one  publisher,  but  we  have 
not  read  any  of  them.  We  hope  to 
find  one  of  more  lively  interest  to 
children  than  Roland  Usher's  of  last 
year. 

We  may  as  well  make  open  confes- 
sion that  from  this  point  on  we  have 
read  none  of  the  books  we  mention  or 
fail  to  mention,  since  we  have  had  no 
opportunity  to  see  them,  even  in  gal- 
leys. De  Wolfe  Howe,  on  a  recent 
visit,  described  very  graphically  "A 
Little  Gateway  to  Science"  by  Edith 
M.  Patch,  who  is,  he  says,  "a  trained 
entomologist  endowed  with  a  charm- 
ing gift  of  writing  for  children."  The 
twelve  sketches  of  six-footed  insects 
which  make  up  this  book  are  illus- 
trated by  Robert  T.  Sim.  Mr.  Howe 
has  promised  to  send  proofs  of  this 
book  and  of  "Americans  by  Adoption", 
a  volume  of  biographical  sketches  of 
eminent  Americans  by  Joseph  Hus- 
band. The  latter  book  for  "more  ma- 
ture readers,  but  still  young,  is  de- 
signed especially  for  use  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Americanization  work 
now  going  on  throughout  the  coun- 
try." 

James  Willard  Schultz  has  entered 
the  field  of  Boy  Scout  stories  with  "In 
the  Great  Apache  Forest".  The  book 
is  announced  as  an  Indian  story,  a 
Boy  Scout  story,  a  Forest  Service 
story  and  a  war  story  of  today — all  in 
one.  We  shall  be  interested  to  see 
how  Mr.  Schultz  meets  the  demands  of 
the  situation.  We  are  about  to  read 
Ellis  Parker  Butler's  "Swatty;  A 
Story  of  Two  Real  Boys"  and  Forrest 
Reid's  "Pirates  of  the  Spring",  which 
are  not  classified  as  juvenilis  in  the 
spring  bulletin  of  their  publishers, 
but  are  concerned  with  boy  life.    Wil- 


liam Heyliger's  "Don  Strong  Ameri- 
can" is  the  third  and  final  volume  in 
the  series  to  which  it  belongs. 

Edmund  L.  Pearson  has  written  a 
"Life  of  Roosevelt"  to  appear  in  "The 
True  Stories  of  Great  Americans 
Series". 

Margaret  Ashmun  and  Joslyn  Gray 
have  each  written  a  new  story  for 
girls.  We  have  no  clue  as  to  what 
these  books  are  about.  Thornton  Bur- 
gess called  one  day  on  his  way  to  the 
Philadelphia  Book  Fair  and  gave  an 
interesting  forecast  of  his  book  about 
animals,  which  is  to  appear  as  a  com- 
panion volume  to  "The  Burgess  Bird 
Book".  The  illustrations  are  to  be 
made  by  Louis  Agassiz  Fuertes,  and 
the  book  promises  to  fill  an  everyday 
need  not  supplied  to  this  generation 
by  "Wood's  Natural  History".  Mr. 
Burgess  reminded  us  that  as  none  of 
his  animals  ever  come  to  a  tragic  end 
and  his  stories  are  written  without 
effort  or  boredom  on  his  part,  we  may 
expect  them  to  flow  on  and  on.  "Bow- 
ser, the  Hound"  is  the  title  of  a  vol- 
ume announced  for  publication  this 
spring. 

"Why  announce  a  spring  review  of 
children's  books  when  children's  books 
are  published  in  the  fall — ^too  late  very 
often  for  review  before  Christmas?" 
A  critical  reader  of  the  circular  an- 
nouncing the  new  Juvenile  Depart- 
ment of  The  Bookman  asked  this 
question  last  July.  To  which  we  then 
replied  that  we  liked  the  sight  and 
the  sound  and  the  idea  of  a  spring 
review  of  children's  books.  More- 
over, we  had  been  pursued  for  years 
by  constant  and  persistent  inquiries 
for  new  books  for  children  at  Easter 
and  just  before  the  summer  holidays. 
We  had  never  seen  such  a  spring  re- 
view as  we  then  pictured  writing,  but 
we  thought  it  worth  trying,  at  least 
once — just  for  the  fun  of  the  thing. 
"Are  we  down-hearted?"    Not  in  the 


818 


THE  BOOKMAN 


least,  although  our  telephone  has  re- 
sponded like  a  Ouija  board  to  "tradi- 
tions of  the  trade".  Why,  we  have 
asked,  should  we  go  on  treating  chil- 
dren's books  like  Christmas  toys? 
Why  shouldn't  more  of  them  be  pub- 
lished in  the  spring  and  accorded  more 
individual  consideration  as  books, 
then,  and  at  other  seasons  of  the  year? 
We  are  not  in  the  least  convinced  by 
any  of  the  reasons  given  for  sustain- 
ing the  present  system.  It  holds  too 
many  limitations  for  authors,  artists, 
readers,  librarians,  booksellers,  and 
publishers  who  are  interested  in  a 
larger  distribution  and  a  freer,  more 
intelligent  use  of  children's  books  in 
our  own  country  and  in  other  coun- 
tries. 

That  the  holiday  trade  will  continue 
to  hold  its  place  as  a  big  factor  in  the 
production  of  books  for  children  in 
this  country  and  in  England,  we  have 
no  doubt.  That  it  should  continue  to 
dominate  and  restrict  the  field  of  writ- 
ing, illustrating,  and  distribution  of 
books,  for  children  and  young  people 
in  the  twentieth  century,  is  inconceiv- 
able in  the  face  of  new  conditions  and 
relationships  with  other  countries  and 
a  larger  understanding  of  our  own 
needs  and  the  power  of  books — real 
books — ^to  interpret  and  satisfy  them. 
The  expression  of  our  interest  in  for- 
eign affairs  and  in  economics  and  in- 
dustrial problems  has  been  too  ex- 
clusively the  concern  of  text-books, 
with  all  the  limitations  imposed  upon 
the  text-book  from  time  inmiemorial. 
The  bulk  of  publications  for  the  use 
of  children  and  young  people  in  the 
late  winter  and  early  spring  takes  the 
form  of  text-books.  The  reason  for 
this  is  obvious,  but  there  is  a  larger 
interest  at  stake  and  we  would  urge 
its  claim — ^the  inculcation  of  a  love  of 
reading  for  its  own  sake  by  exposure 
to  books  at  all  times  and  seasons. 


A  few  weeks  ago  we  were  asked  by 
the  American  Ambassador  to  Brazil 
to  select  five  or  six  hundred  books  to 
be  used  as  the  nucleus  of  a  library  in 
a  school  in  Rio  de  Janeiro.  The  school 
was  already  supplied  with  text-books; 
the  children  attending  it  were  of 
American  and  English  parentage. 
Real  hooks  were  wanted,  with  an  em- 
phasis on  the  pictorial  in  the  best 
sense  of  the  word.  The  books  chosen 
must  range  in  their  appeal  from  a  lib- 
eral supply  of  picture  books  for  the 
little  children,  to  such  books  as  Cap- 
tain Scott's  "Last  Expedition"  and 
Hudson  Stuck's  "Ten  Thousand  Miles 
With  a  Dog  Sled"  for  boys  of  fifteen. 

Many  of  the  books  we  wanted  to 
recommend  were  out  of  print.  For 
many  countries  and  characters  there 
is  no  illuminating  literature  in  print 
for  children  and  young  people.  When- 
ever we  are  asked  to  evaluate  a  selec- 
tion of  children's  books  to  be  sent  out 
of  the  country,  we  realize  afresh  how 
little  we  have  to  offer  in  travel,  his- 
tory, and  biography ;  how  deadly  dull 
many  of  these  books  are  and  how 
great  is  the  need  of  the  children  of 
our  own  land  for  just  such  books  as 
we  are  trying  to  find  for  children  in 
South  America,  Norway,  Sweden, 
France,  or  Belgium.  These  countries, 
and  still  more  distant  ones,  are  asking 


Poems  by  a  Little  Girl.  By  Hilda  Conkllng. 
Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co. 

Eastern  Stories  and  Legends.  By  Marie  L. 
Shedlock.     E.  P.  Dutton  and  Co. 

The  Art  of  the  Storytollpr.  By  Marie  L. 
Shedlock.     D.  Appleton  and  Co. 

An  Ancient  Mappe  of  Fairyland.  Designed 
by  Bernard  Sleigh.     Sidgwick  and  Jackson. 

The  story  of  Jesus.  By  Mrs.  Richard  Henry 
Dana,  Jr.    Marshall  Jones  Co. 

Hero  Stories  of  France.  By  Eva  March  Tap- 
pan.    Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

A  Little  Gateway  to  Science.  By  Edith  M. 
Patch.    The  Atlantic  Monthly  Press. 

Americans  by  Adoption.  By  Joseph  Hus- 
band.   The  Atlantic  Monthly  Press. 

In  the  Great  Apache  Forest.  By  James  WU- 
lard  Schultz.    Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

Don  Strong  American.  By  William  Heyliger. 
D.  Appleton  and  Co. 

Theodore  Roosevelt.  By  Edmund  L.  Pearson. 
The  Macmillan  Co. 

Bowser,  the  Hound.  By  Thornton  W.  Bur- 
gess.   Little,  Brown  and  Co. 


THE  UNWRITTEN  THINGS 


319 


some  very  important  questions  when 
their  educators  and  ambassadors  take 
time  to  concern  themselves  with  the 
selection  of  books  for  children.  They 
ask  for  books  to  ''enlarge  the  under- 
standing, deepen  the  sympathies  and 
with  a  strong  appeal  to  the  imagina- 
tion of  children".  Such  questions  can- 
not be  answered  by  holiday  announce- 


ments nor  by  primers  of  information. 
It  is  going  to  take  a  long  time  to  an- 
swer them  wisely  and  well.  Hope  lies 
in  the  multiplication  of  such  responses 
as  this  which  has  just  reached  us  from 
a  well-known  publishing  house:  ''You 
may  certainly  count  upon  our  interest 
and  cooperation  in  bringing  out  books 
of  value  to  children  of  all  countries." 


THE  UNWRITTEN  THINGS 


BY  PAUL  SIMON 


A  FEW  days  ago  I  swept  my  garret 
clean.  For  the  revelations  that 
followed  I  was  totally  unprepared,  for 
I  had  forgotten  that  once,  in  those 
days  when  I  was  indifferent  whether 
or  not  my  bread  was  buttered,  I  had 
essayed  to  mark  my  name  in  imperish- 
able ink  on  the  scroll  of  literature. 
There,  in  a  neglected  comer,  covered 
over  with  many  years'  accumulation 
of  dust,  lay  scattered  bits  of  paper,  in 
varied  degrees  of  tatters  and  decay, 
scrawled  over  with  the  attempted  be- 
ginnings of  verses,  synopses  of  plots, 
titles  for  essays,  suggestions  for 
dramas;  a  mass  of  newspaper  clip- 
pings in  which  my  youthful  imagina- 
tion had  seen  the  suggestions  for  sa- 
tires, novels,  and  epics  of  the  first 
magnitude,  but  from  which  all  mean- 
ing had  now  fled.  Indeed,  as  one 
closely-scrawled  sheet  of  paper  testi- 
fied, I  had  already  begun  to  map  my 
autobiography,  so  confident  was  I  that 
the  world  would  accept  me  at  my  own 


glorified  estimate.  These  tattered 
scraps  of  paper  now  presented  them- 
selves to  me  as  unfulfilled  promissory 
notes ;  promises  which  I  had  hoped  to 
fulfil  in  rich  and  rare  moments  of  in- 
tense literary  fecundity  but  that  had 
now  to  be  ignored.  Yet  as  I  looked 
upon  those  unwritten  poems  and  epics 
and  dramas  and  novels  and  the  auto- 
biography, I  seemed  to  be  without  re- 
gret for  that  dead  past,  or  rather,  for 
that  future  which  never  came,  for 
these  dreams  against  which  need  and 
the  death  of  inspiration  and  faith  had 
so  successfully  conspired.  I  began  to 
wonder  if  these  pretentious  aspira- 
tions, as  I  now  regard  them,  had  stood 
in  the  way  to  an  approximation  of 
achievement,  or  whether  they  had  im- 
pelled me  to  go  even  as  far  as  I  had 
already  traversed.  Nevertheless,  the 
rebuke  of  the  unfulfilled  future  was 
heavy  upon  me.. . . 

The  sight  of  these  bits  of  paper  led 
me  to  reflections  which  soothed  me, 


820 


THE  BOOKMAN 


though  they  did  not  flatter  me,  and  in 
these  reflections  the  seeming  contra- 
dictory elements  of  my  life  appeared 
to  be  resolved  into  unity. 

Life  (ever  since  I  had  begun  to 
live  it  on  my  own  account)  had  been 
for  me  a  continuous  and  unbroken 
search  for  hack-work,  sometimes  well 
paid,  sometimes  poorly  paid.  I  was 
not  a  freelance  for  I  could  not  count 
on  enough  literary  assignments  to 
carry  me  on.  So  that,  strange  as  it 
may  be,  these  assignments  by  con- 
trast came  to  be  a  relief  from  the 
drudgery  by  which  I  earned  my  wage 
or  salary.  I  noticed  that  editors  were 
pleased  with  the  promptitude  and  care 
with  which  I  submitted  my  work,  but 
few  and  very  far  between  were  those 
comments  which  noted  my  brilliance, 
or  my  penetration,  or  my  literary 
charm,  or  my  capacity  for  allusion — 
qualities  on  the  possession  of  which 
I  prided  myself.  I  was,  it  appeared, 
a  useful  hack,  to  be  depended  upon 
and  serving  a  purpose  in  these  days  of 
literary  overproduction  and  conse- 
quently easier  accessibility  to  the 
printed  page.  I  was  one  of  the  horde 
of  useful  anonymities  and  the  greater 
part  of  my  task  consisted  in  writing 
down  (or  up)  to  the  level  of  the  pub- 
lications to  which,  as  I  liked  to  ob- 
serve in  company,  I  "contribute".  But 
even  in  these  hack  labors,  I  managed 
to  put  something  of  that  part  of  me 
that  I  had  reserved  for  those  epics 
and  poems  and  novels  and  dramas  and 
that  autobiography.  I  was  not  sorry. 
I  was  a  craftsman  and  nothing  more. 
I  seemed  to  take  a  compensatory  pride 
in  the  fact  that  I  was  a  craftsman 
(even  if  a  minor  one) ;  that  I  was, 
unlike  some  aspiring  acquaintances  of 
mine,  well  fed  and  well  clothed.  I 
recognize  now,  if  I  did  not  before, 
that  I  wrote  out  of  desire,  and  later, 
out  of  need,  rather  than  out  of  im- 


pulse. The  stream  of  my  thought 
stopped  flowing  long  ago,  having  been 
dried  up  in  absorption  in  literary 
hack-work.  So  that,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  I  am  sometimes  forced  to  quote 
from  my  past  work.  But,  having  got 
the  reputation  among  my  friends  of 
being  some  sort  of  a  writer  and  hav- 
ing achieved  several  flashes  in  the  pan, 
I  had  to  continue  in  the  groove  which 
I  had  so  stupidly  dug  for  myself,  and 
I  shall  be  forced  to  walk  in.  it  until  the 
day  of  emancipation  or  until  death, 
perhaps. 

I  know  a  poet  for  whom  envy  and  pity 
contend  within  me.  And  sometimes  I 
feel  that  my  pity  is  assumed  to  save  my 
face  in  the  inevitable  comparison  to 
which  I  subject  myself  when  a  brighter 
literarystarcomeswithinmyken.  Ipity 
this  poet  (or  appear  to  do  so)  because 
of  his  improvidence,  his  unwillingness 
or  inability  to  compromise  with  life  as 
well  (or  as  shamefully)  as  I  have.  He 
has  made  himself  a  pathetic  physical 
wreck  and  yet  I  envy  him  the  posses- 
sion of  that  strong  moral  purpose 
which  sustains  him.  I  envy  him,  I 
think,  because  he  realizes,  though  not 
in  the  originally  conceived  splendor, 
the  person  that  I  had  hoped  to  be.  The 
beautiful  thrill  of  achievement  is  de- 
nied to  me.  It  is  vouchsafed  to  him. 
For  me  there  is  no  higher  thrill  now 
than  the  small  satisfaction  at  observ- 
ing the  increase,  by  $5  and  $10  and 
$20  sums,  of  a  rather  meagre  bank  ac- 
count  

I  well  remember  the  time  when  a 
friend,  reproaching  my  poet-acquaint- 
ance for  his  neglect  of  himself,  sug- 
gested that  he  work  at  some  regular 
employment  for  some  part  of  the  day 
and  then  dream  his  dreams  and  write 
his  poems.  "I  am  an  artist,"  he  an- 
swered, and  his  face  took  on  the 
beauty  of  determination  and  the  glow 
of  a  high  intention.    I  remember  that 


THE  UNWRITTEN  THINGS 


321 


I  smiled  in  a  kind  of  worldly  disdain. 
That  was  proof  certain  (as  I  now  look 
back  upon  the  incident)  that  I  was  no 
longer  the  person  who  once  wrote  sug- 
gestions for  poems  and  epics  and 
novels  and  dramas  with  the  serious  in- 
tention of  fulfilling  those  suggestions. 
And  in  this  connection  I  remember  the 
advice  of  a  friend  who,  as  if  to  re- 
proach me  for  my  bourgeois  sense  of 
satisfaction  and  to  remind  me  of  my 
literary  sterility,  suggested:  "Go  and 
live  in  a  garret  and  maybe,  then,  you 
may  be  able  to  achieve  a  masterpiece." 
Sometimes  in  reflecting  upon  the 
discrepancy  between  my  feeble  accom- 
plishments and  my  hectic  promises, 
and  in  an  effort  to  defend  myself 
against  the  accusations  implicit  in 
suggestions  such  as  the  foregoing,  I 
try  to  find  consolation  in  the  assur- 
ance that,  after  all,  criticism  is  not 
on  a  plane  below  creation  but  is  simply 
an  unrecognized  department  of  crea- 


tion. But  I  know,  at  the  bottom  of 
my  heart,  that  the  consolation  is  cheap 
and  unsatisfying  because,  to  me,  at 
least,  it  is  not  true.  But  still,  even  as 
hope  springs  eternal  in  the  human 
breast,  I  feel  that  not  all  of  my  past 
has  died  in  me.  I  like  to  think  of  a 
passage  in  Stevenson  because  it  offers 
a  consolation  I  cannot  give  myself.  It 
goes  as  follows: 

It  is  said  that  a  poet  died  young  in  the  breast 
of  the  most  stolid.  It  may  be  contended  rather 
that  a  (somewhat  minor)  bard  in  almost  every 
case  sarvlves,  and  is  the  spice  of  life  to  his 
possessor.  Justice  is  not  done  to  the  yersatil- 
ity  and  unplumbed  childishness  of  man's  imagi- 
nation. His  life  from  without  may  seem  but  a 
rude  mound  of  mud ;  there  will  be  some  golden 
chamber  at  the  heart  of  it  in  which  he  dwells 
delighted. 

And  that  golden  chamber  is  my  li- 
brary, most  precious  among  my  pos- 
sessions, in  which  I  see  my  own 
dreams  take  form  and  color  and  in 
which  they  have  achieved  immortality 
even  if  at  other  hands. 


THE  LONDONER 

Charles  Garvice  and  A.  H,  BuUen — Popularity  and  Snobbery — English  lee- 
turers  in  America — Lewis  Hind — Ernest  Rhys — E,  V.  Lttca^ — a  new  biography 
of  Hazlitt — Chekhov's  Letters  and  Plays. 


London,  March  1, 1920. 

THE  past  month  has  seen  the  death 
of  two  literary  men  of  very  differ- 
ent kinds,  both  of  whom,  however, 
were  of  singular  interest  to  the  ob- 
server of  the  curious  tribe.  I  refer  to 
Charles  Garvice  and  A.  H.  BuUen. 
BuUen  was  a  scholar,  who  cared  prin- 
cipally for  old  books  and  old  authors, 
who  knew  about  as  much  about  the 
Elizabethans  as  it  is  possible  for  a 
man  to  know,  and  who  read  their 
works  when  most  of  us  were  worrying 
about  writers  of  a  more  modem 
cast.  His  most  famous  performance 
was,  of  course,  the  discovery  of  Cam- 
pion, whose  lyrics  he  collected  from  all 
sorts  of  song-books  and  made  into  a 
respectable  life-work  for  a  representa- 
tive Elizabethan  poet.  Bullen  also 
delved  further,  as  his  several  antholo- 
gies sufficiently  indicate.  That  is,  he 
went  right  outside  the  accepted 
writers  of  a  great  age,  and  brought 
to  light  the  delicate  masterpieces  of 
others  no  less  notable  who  had  been 
neglected  by  those  who  keep  to  the 
high  road  of  any  period  and  specialize 
without  any  sensitiveness  and  without 
any  enterprise.  I  have  known  only 
one  man  who  was  intimately  acquaint- 
ed with  Bullen,  but  this  man  was  one 
of  the  best  living  critics  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan poets  and  dramatists,  and  to 
hear  him  speak  of  Bullen  was  a  de- 


light. He  spoke  as  one  speaks  of  a 
master  in  the  field  in  which  one  is  la- 
boriously adventuring  as  an  amateur. 
No  testimony  could  be  finer. 

Bullen  resembled  Mark  Twain  in 
personal  appearance,  and  was  a  jolly 
man  with  a  taste  for  his  meals  and  for 
conversation  upon  the  lavish  scale. 
He  was  popular  with  men  who  never 
opened  a  book,  but  he  was  most  popu- 
lar with  those  who  could  relish  his  ex- 
traordinary fund  of  knowledge  and 
anecdote.  He  was,  in  books,  a  "rich" 
man,  who  loved  the  ripe  and  the 
hearty  fruits  of  the  Elizabethan 
genius.  He  was  not  a  Puritan,  but 
was  attracted  to  the  age  he  made  his 
own  by  its  fulness  and  its  rich  color. 
At  its  best,  the  Elizabethan  writing  is 
like  wine,  and  it  was  wine  to  Bullen. 
Nothing  was  dry  to  him,  nothing  tedi- 
ous or  trivial;  because  his  mind  was 
so  well-stored  that  he  could  not  be 
made  dull  by  long  lines  and  long 
words,  but  found  in  all  he  touched 
that  quality  of  wisdom  and  beauty 
which  distinguishes  any  writer  who  is 
first  of  all  a  man,  and  not  a  teetotal 

eunuch. 

«  «  «  « 

The  other  literary  man  who  died 
last  month  is  a  more  popular  figure, 
and  many  would  say  that  he  had  no 
connection  with  literature  at  all.    He 


322 


THE  LONDONER 


323 


resembled  the  late  Nat  Gould  in  the 
fact  that  he  had  a  great  English  pub- 
lic, and  that  the  "high-brows"  pre- 
ferred to  ignore  his  existence.  I  refer 
to  Charles  Garvice.  I  do  not  know  if 
Americans  ever  read  his  works.  I 
have  never  seen  any  reference  to  him 
in  an  American  paper.  But  he  was,  so 
to  speak,  cradled  in  the  United  States, 
for  his  earliest  success  was  as  a  writer 
of  "dime"  novels.  The  story  is  told 
here  that  he  was  for  years  a  poorly- 
paid  contributor  of  serials  to  a  penny 
weekly,  which  bought  his  tales  at  so 
much  per  thousand  words  and  thereby 
became  sole  owner  of  the  copyright. 
Later,  this  paper  fell  into  low  water, 
and  came  on  to  the  market.  Garvice, 
seeing  with  genius  an  opportunity, 
invested  in  the  purchase  of  this  paper 
the  money  he  had  won  in  a  prize  com- 
petition, recovered  the  copyright  in 
all  the  stories  he  had  written  for 
serial  purposes,  and  proceeded  to  put 
them  upon  the  market  as  mental  food 
for  the  servant  girls  of  England.  The 
vogue  these  books  had  was  marvelous. 
They  were  read  by  the  thousand. 
Servant  girls  read  them,  it  is  true,  but 
only  as  human  beings,  and  not  merely 
as  servant  girls.  Human  beings,  in 
fact,  belonging  to  every  class  read 
them  with  gusto.  They  might  pretend 
not  to  read  them — it  became  the  cor- 
rect thing  to  sneer  at  them; — ^but  they 
read  them  all  the  same,  and  this  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  they  were  ex- 
traordinarily simple  and  free  from  the 
sensational  and  erotic  motifs  which 
generally  account  for  large  popular 
success.  Garvice  became  a  rich  man. 
He  became  a  noticeably  rich  man.  His 
books  sold  better,  probably,  than  the 
books  of  any  other  author  that  Eng- 
land has  ever  produced.  The  first 
time  I  ever  saw  him  he  was  pointed 
out  to  me  by  a  successful  author  in 
the   envious   words:    "Look   at   that 


chap.  He's  got  the  biggest  public  in 
England."  I  still  remember  with 
pride  that  my  instant  incredulous  re- 
ply was:  ''Not  CHARLES  GARV- 
ICEr 

Garvice  once  said  to  my  friend:  "I 
know  I  write  slush,  but  I  sell  in  thou- 
sands to  your  hundreds!" — this  with 
simple  pride,  and  without  vainglory 
or  sense  of  superiority,  but  with  the 

dignity  of  ancient  blood. 

«  «  «  « 

Garvice  did  not  look  like  a  novelist. 
He  did  not  look  like  an  old  man.  You 
would  have  thought  his  figure  that  of 
a  farmer  of  fifty  or  so,  in  specially 
good  health,  robust  and  cheery.  There 
is  no  reason  why  an  author,  particu- 
larly a  successful  author,  should  be 
pallid  and  lank,  and  I  do  not  know 
many  of  that  variety;  but  Garvice 
was  altogether  remarkable.  I  leave  it 
to  others  to  say  the  obvious  thing, 
that  he  was  not  an  author  at  all.  In 
point  of  fact,  there  is  a  good  deal  to 
be  said  for  him.  He  wrote  English, 
or  so  I  believe;  and  nobody  could  as- 
sert that  his  nearest  rival  in  sale,  Nat 
Gould,  wrote  anything  approaching 
English.  Nat  Gould  was  a  writer  of 
and  for  the  stable,  and  in  the  stable 
one  does  not  look  for  literary  polish. 
Moreover,  Nat  Gould  looked  an  old 
man,  whereas  Garvice  was  sixty-nine 
and  you  would  never  have  supposed 

him  anything  like  that  age. 

«  «  «  « 

This  question  of  popularity  versus 
quality  is  an  insoluble  one.  There  is 
absolutely  no  reason  for  the  taunts  of 
either  party,  and  yet  one  would  imag- 
ine that  it  was  criminal  to  write  a 
book  which  sells  in  millions  or  a  book 
which  sells  indifferently.  It  is  not 
criminal.  All  writers  who  sell  well 
are  not  Dickenses.  Nor  are  they  nec- 
essarily contemptible.  Similarly,  all 
writers  who  fail  to  sell  are  not  literary 


324 


i 


THE  BOOKMAN 


geniuses  whose  work  is  in  advance  of 
public   taste.     Literary   snobbery   is 
just  as  futile  ai^d  objectionable  as  the 
snobbery  that  judges  by  worldly  suc- 
cess, and  it  should  be  repressed  by  all 
who  have  the  welfare  of  letters  at 
heart.    As  it  is,  every  poor  fool  who 
sells  two  or  three  hundred  copies  of  a 
novel  is  comforted  by  the  belief  that 
he  is  not  appreciated  by  a  bovine  and 
contemptible  public  simply  because  he 
is  "too  good".     I  have  heard  one  of 
the  most  intelligent  persons  of  my  ac- 
quaintance say  of  a  writer,  "He  won't 
succeed.     He's  too  good."     And  that 
writer  has  just  succeeded.     It  is  all 
nonsense.     As  I  may  have  said  be- 
fore, there  are  all  sorts  of  publics,  and 
what  does  not  please  one  of  them  may 
please   another.     Sometimes   it   may 
happen  that  a  man  may  please  several 
publics,   and   then  there   is   what   is 
called  a  furore.    Very  good :  why  pre- 
tend that  there  is  anything  strange 
about  failure  or  success?      Why  ig- 
nore the  fact  that  there  is  a- large  ele- 
ment of  luck  in  all  success,  and  all 
failure?    The  popular  tale  of  the  suc- 
cess of  R.  D.  Blackmore  is  that  the 
stupid  public  thought  the  title  "Loma 
Doone"   had   some   reference  to   the 
Marquis   of   Lome   and   his   popular 
young  bride.    It  may  be  so ;  but  if  the 
stupid  public  had  not  liked  the  book 
the  mistake  regarding  its  title  would 
soon   have  been   found   out — in   two 
minutes'  fingering  at  the  library  coun- 
ter— and  the  novel  would  have  sunk 
to  its  former  oblivion,  and  with  added 

ignominy. 

«  «  «  « 

You  may  take  it  from  me  that  what 
makes  a  book  sell  is  the  fact  that  it 
pleases.  And  you  can  also  take  it 
from  me  that  when  a  book  pleases 
there  is  something  in  it  which  is  orig- 
inal, though  it  may  be  only  sin.  The 
worst  sin  of  all,  of  course,  is  not  orig- 


inal at  all,  but  is  sheeplike;  and  that 
is  the  rush  to  read  a  book  because 
everybody  else  is  reading  it.  This  ac- 
counts for  all  booms,  popular  or  lit- 
erary. When  a  book  has  the  popular 
rush,  one  sees  the  complete  nonsense 
of  it.  When  it  gets  the  snob  rush, 
when  all  the  pretentious  people  in  a 
single  class  go  to  the  libraries  and 
bookshops  and  demand  it  because  it  is 
the  right  thing  to  do,  that  is  the  worst 
thing  of  all.  The  snobs  are  no  more 
sensible,  no  more  full  of  taste  than  the 
others.  They  are  only  better  bred. 
They  have  different  conversational 
gambits,  and  they  say,  as  the  man  did 
in  "She  Stoops  to  Conquer",  "Danm 
anything  that's  low!"  But  there  is  no 
essential  difference  in  the  character  of 
the  success.  The  sole  difference  is  in 
the  class  and  number  of  readers  who 

are  caught  by  the  prevailing  wind. 
«  «  «  « 

All  sorts  of  English  writers  seem  to 
be  in  the  United  States  explaining  ex- 
actly what  literary  principles  should 
be  applied  to  modem  English  writers 
and  artists ;  and  I  am  quite  sure  that 
when  these  lecturers  have  attractive 
personalities  they  are  welcomed  with 
gratitude  wherever  they  go.  But  it 
should  be  easier  to  observe,  in  the  na- 
tive of  another  country,  the  difference 
between  what  is  genuine  and  what  is 
simply  the  carry-over  from  a  prevail- 
ing wind  from  the  man's  mother  coun- 
try. Americans  are  bound  in  the  first 
place  to  take  these  men  at  a  ready- 
made  valuation.  It  is  inevitable.  Be- 
fore long,  however,  the  relentless  tide 
of  personal  judgment  sets  in.  Very 
well,  what  happens?  Personal  judg- 
ment is  the  only  thing  that  counts  in 
the  long  run.  Hence  success  and  fail- 
ure. Hence  the  marvelous  mystery 
which  makes  men  go  on  and  succeed 
where  they  have  earlier  failed  with 
ignominy.    It  is  all  good,  but  the  only 


THE  LONDONER 


325 


thing  that  matters  is  for  a  man  to  do 

what  he  believes  to  be  the  thing  that 

is  nearest  to  his  hand. 

«  «  «  « 

I  did  not  mean  to  get  back  to  the 
moralizing  tack,  but  to  make  a  few 
remarks  upon  the  lecturers  who  are 
now  in  America,  or  who  will  shortly 
be  there.  Some  of  these,  such  as 
Blasco  Ib&iiez,  Walpole,  Ervine,  and 
Sassoon,  I  have  already  mentioned  in 
former  letters;  but  I  am  told  of  sev- 
eral others  who  are  hovering  over  the 
United  States,  and  it  is  just  as  well 
that  American  readers  should  know 
what  these  men  have  done  in  England. 
First  of  all,  then,  I  notice  Lewis  Hind. 
Hind  is  a  strange  fellow  who  has  had 
a  long  and  very  interesting  career. 
He  has  been  for  many  years  a  writer 
upon  art,  but  at  one  time  he  had  a 
vogue  as  the  writer  of  a  couple  of  vol- 
umes of  prose-poetical  impressions 
called,  I  seem  to  remember,  "Things 
Seen"  and  "One  Thing  and  Another". 
The  contents  of  both  these  volumes 
came  out  week  by  week  about  twenty 
years  ago  in  "The  Academy",  which 
at  that  period  Hind  was  editing.  I 
fancy  they  were  a  little  like  Tur- 
genev's  "Dream  Tales",  but  some  of 
them  were  merely  impressions  of  inci- 
dents, and  had  no  allegorical  or  po- 
etical meaning.  It  is  so  long  ago  that 
I  am  inclined  to  forget  the  books. 
Hind  also  wrote  an  extraordinary 
work  which  purported  to  be  a  sort  of 
novel  and  was  in  reality  an  introduc- 
tion to  the  history  and  theory  of  pic- 
torial art. 

«  «  «  « 

His  best  work,  unquestionably,  was 
his  editorship  of  "The  Academy".  On 
the  staff  of  that  paper  he  gathered  a 
number  of  remarkable  young  men  who 
had  "views"  upon  literature.  Lionel 
Johnson,  Wilfred  Whitten,  Charles 
Eennett  Burrow,  and  Arnold  Bennett 


were  among  them.  Bennett  used  to 
deal  with  the  novels,  and  the  first  work 
of  his  I  ever  saw  was  a  review  or  ar- 
ticle signed  "E.  A.  B."  He  contributed 
highly  expert  and  extremely  brilliant 
surveys  of  "The  Year's  Fiction".  The 
others  each  took  their  share  in  what 
was  to  me  a  weekly  critical  journal 
wholly  righteous  in  tone,  however  er- 
ratic may  have  been  some  of  its  judg- 
ments. You  cannot  have  a  team  of 
young  enthusiasts  and  expect  each 
member  of  it  to  speak  exactly  like  all 
the  others.  The  tone  was  always  indi- 
vidual and  I  should  say  fearless,  and 
that  is  a  tremendous  thing  in  literary 
journalism.  Arnold  Bennett's  "The 
Truth  about  an  Author"  was  serial- 
ized, anonymously,  in  "The  Academy". 
Whether  Ernest  Rhys,  another  vis- 
itor to  the  States,  ever  wrote  for  "The 
Academy"  I  do  not  know.  He  has  al- 
ways been  a  good  journalist,  and  did 
some  excellent  work  in  editing  for  J. 
M.  Dent  a  charming  little  series  en- 
titled "The  Lyric  Poets".  This  series 
owed  something  to  its  delightful  for- 
mat; but  Rhys's  editorial  work  was 
altogether  admirable.  And  then,  very 
much  later,  came  "Everyman's  Li- 
brary". This  colossal  enterprise  was 
the  work  practically  of  Rhys  and  Dent 
in  collaboration,  because  while  Dent 
obviously  was  responsible  for  the 
economies  in  production  which  made 
publication  at  such  a  low  price  possi- 
ble, the  wide  range  of  the  volumes 
could  only  have  been  schemed  with  the 
advice  of  a  man  of  such  taste  and 
practical  acquaintance  with  literature 
as  Rhys.  To  him,  therefore,  we  owe 
some  of  the  most  remarkable,  and 
some  of  the  most  valuable  volumes  in 
the  collection — ^those  volumes  which 
give  it  a  distinction  which  mere  cheap- 
ness and  quantity  could  never  impart. 
Besides  doing  all  this  work,  Rhys  is  a 
poet.     He  is  a  poet  distinctively  of 


326 


THE  BOOKMAN 


the  "Celtic"  tradition,  for  he  is  a 
Welshman,  and  the  legends  of  his  na- 
tive country  have  always  had  an  ir- 
resistible attraction  for  him  as  sub- 
ject-matter. In  personality  he  is  ex- 
tremely quiet  and  modest;  but  his 
quietness  must  not  be  mistaken  for 

coldness. 

«  «  «  « 

Another  man  who  has  left  England, 
though  whether  he  will  reach  America 
or  not  I  do  not  yet  know,  is  E.  V. 
Lucas.  I  am  told  that  at  the  present 
moment  he  is  in  India,  where  I  wish 
I  was  with  him,  in  the  warm.  His 
journey  is  described  as  a  tour  of  the 
world.  If  so,  he  can  hardly,  one  would 
think,  omit  the  United  States,  where  I 
know  he  has  very  many  warm  ad- 
mirers. I  always  think  that  the  best 
picture  of  Lucas's  character  is  to  be 
found  in  Bennett's  "Books  and  Per- 
sons", but  I  have  not  the  reference  at 
hand  at  the  moment,  as  all  my  books 
are  in  store.  As  a  writer,  Lucas  has 
delightful  charm.  As  a  personality, 
he  has  a  kind  of  mischievous  cruelty 
in  his  dissection  of  humanity.  And, 
as  Bennett  says,  "dig  a  little  deeper, 
and  you  will  probably  encounter  rock." 
All  which  does  not  prevent  Lucas  from 
being  one  of  the  most  charming 
writers  in  the  world,  and  extremely 
good  company.  He  is  also  the  author 
of  the  authoritative  life  of  Charles 

Lamb. 

«  «  «  « 

Talking  of  Lamb  reminds  me  that 
there  is  to  appear  this  year  a  book  for 
which  there  has  long  been  a  pressing 
need.  I  use  this  term  relatively,  but 
in  earnest.  I  refer  to  a  good  biogra- 
phy of  Hazlitt.  Stevenson  was  going 
to  write  a  biography,  but  one  day,  it 
is  suggested,  he  read  the  "Liber 
Amoris",  and  was  too  disgusted  with 
the  character  of  his  hero  to  proceed. 
The  suggestion  is  made  only  by  Au- 


gustine Birrell,  and  so  I  hope  it  does 
not  represent  the  exact  truth.  Birrell 
wrote  a  volume  on  Hazlitt  for  the 
English  Men  of  Letters  Series,  but 
he  was  all  the  time  hampered  in  his 
work  by  manifest  lack  of  sympathy 
with  Hazlitt.  That  sort  of  thing  does 
not  produce  a  good  study,  and  while 
there  have  been  lives  and  lives  of  all 
sorts  of  other  people  of  that  fascinat- 
ing period,  Hazlitt  has  been  looked  on 
askance.  Any  mud  that  could  be 
thrown  at  him  through  readings  and 
misreadings  of  Crabb  Robinson's 
spiteful  diary,  published  and  unpub- 
lished, through  a  perversion  of  the 
facts  related  in  the  "Liber  Amoris", 
through  the  disgusting  venom  of  the 
contemporary  writers  in  "Blackwood's 
Magazine",  has  been  collected  and 
heaved  with  joy  by  Puritans  who  like 
to  believe  about  a  man  what  they 
hardly  dare  hint.  I  hope  the  new  book 
will  dispel  all  these  nauseating  leg- 
ends, for  which  there  is  no  foundation. 
I  hope  it  will  lead  men  of  this  day  to 
read  Hazlitt  in  greater  strength,  for 
Hazlitt  is  one  of  the  great  writers  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  and  his  criti- 
cism is  full  of  value  for  us.  It  is  a 
great  pity  that  the  big  collected  edi- 
tion of  Waller  and  Glover  is  now  out 
of  print.  A  good  complete  cheap  edi- 
tion of  Hazlitt  would  have  immense 
usefulness  for  the  student  of  our  lit- 
erature. His  life  of  Napoleon  ought 
also  to  be  reprinted.  Perhaps  the  bi- 
ography which  is  coming  will  stimu- 
late publishers  and  readers  to  decent 
activity  in  this  matter.  The  approach 
of  the  Napoleonic  centenary  would 
give  the  book  more  than  usual  mo- 
ment. 

«  «  «  « 

The  author  of  the  new  biography  is 
P.  P.  Howe,  a  young  critic  who  wrote 
before  the  war  critical  studies  of 
Synge  and  Shaw,  and  a  very  distin- 


THE  LONDONER 


S27 


guished  book  of  studies  of  modem 
dramatists  entitled  "Dramatic  Por- 
traits". Howe  will  be  remembered  in 
America,  as  he  visited  the  States  some 
seven  or  eight  years  ago.  During  the 
war  he  saw  a  good  deal  of  service  on 
the  western  front,  and  his  military  ac- 
tivities interrupted  the  progress  of 
the  book  on  Hazlitt,  begun  early  in 
1914.  The  book  is  now  approaching 
completion,  and  I  believe  it  will  be 
published  in  the  autumn  of  this  year. 
I  know  that  the  author  has  put  an 
enormous  amount  of  original  research 
into  the  work,  which  will  be  a  hefty 

affair,  possibly  in  two  volumes. 
«  «  «  « 

I  have  been  reading  Chekhov's  Let- 
ters during  the  last  few  days.  I  ex- 
pect they  are  now  on  the  market  in 
America,  and  if  so  I  commend  them  to 
all  who  care  two  pins  for  literature. 
The  man  who  first  led  me  to  get  hold 
of  the  book  was  H.  W.  Massingham, 
the  editor  of  that  rather  persistently 
gloomy  weekly,  the  (English)  "Na- 
tion". He  said  the  letters  cheered  him 
up.  Well,  they  really  do  much  more. 
They  stimulate  one.  They  make  the 
reader  feel  that  he  is  in  genuinely  per- 
sonal contact  with  a  man  about  ten 
times  more  real  than  are  most  men. 
And  to  other  writers  Chekhov's  words 
about  the  art  he  so  consummately 
practised  will  come  as  utterances  bib- 
lical in  their  authenticity.  It  is  a  very 
remarkable  book,  which  I  am  savor- 
ing (I  believe  that  is  the  right  word) 


with  delight.  I  went  the  other  eve- 
ning to  see  one  of  Chekhov's  plays 
performed.  I  do  not  know  whether 
Americans  are  permitted  to  see  these 
things ;  but  if  so  I  can  only  hope  that 
they  see  them  better  produced  than 
any  Chekhov  play  has  been  produced 
as  yet  in  England.  Lugubriousness  is 
all  very  well;  but  the  actors  and  ac- 
tresses are  always  made  to  hang  their 
heads  and  moan  and  pop  in  the  most 
ludicrous  way.  They  crawl  on  and  off 
the  stage  as  if  Russia  were  the  home 
of  the  type  "Uriah  Heep".  They  re- 
main petrified  at  some  disgusting 
sight  the  nature  of  which  is  never  re- 
vealed to  the  audience.  And  any  at- 
tempt to  give  the  play  homogeneity  is 
abandoned  with  the  first  word  spoken. 
It  is  as  though,  having  undertaken  to 
prepare  a  pudding,  a  cook  were  sud- 
denly to  hate  puddings  and  to  do  all 
she  could  to  make  others  hate  them 
also.  I  cannot  understand  why  it  is 
that  if  one  wants  to  produce  Chekhov, 
one  thereupon  should  undertake  the 
task  as  though  it  were  the  most  dis- 
tasteful duty  in  the  world.  If  it  is 
that,  why  do  it  at  all?  No  wonder 
poor  William  Archer  is  puzzled  to 
know  what  there  is  to  admire  in  Chek- 
hov's drama.  If  I  had  not  read  the 
plays  I  should  wonder  also.  If  Amer- 
ica has  a  producer  who  understands 
Chekhov,  I  wish  he  would  come  to 
England  and  show  us  the  way  to  put 
him  intelligibly  on  the  stage. 

SIMON  PURE 


WOMEN  OF  MARK  AND  THEIR  EDUCATION 


BY  R.  LE  CLERC  PHILLIPS 


SOME  years  ago,  when  present  at  a 
large  woman's-suffrage  meeting  in 
England,  I  was  much  struck  by  an  as- 
sertion made  from  the  platform  by  a 
young  male  enthusiast  of  the  women's 
cause  to  the  effect  that  no  woman  had 
ever  been  a  great  composer  of  music, 
although  for  generations  past  musical 
training  had  been  common  among 
women,  while  on  the  other  hand,  Eng- 
land's two  greatest  rulers  had  both 
been  women.  What  the  young  man, 
carried  away  by  his  enthusiasm  for 
the  political  enfranchisement  of 
women,  was,  I  imagine,  attempting  to 
prove,  was  that,  whereas  no  amount  of 
education  and  training  could  ever 
make  artists  of  women,  their  natural 
political  sagacity  was  so  great  that 
they  were  nothing  less  than  bom 
electors.  In  his  eagerness  to  prove 
women's  fitness  to  vote  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  draw  attention  to  their 
total  lack  of  achievement  in  an  art  in 
which  they  have  been  given  every  op- 
portunity to  excel  and  one  which  has 
always  been  considered  as  peculiarly 
a  woman's  province. 

It  has  always  been  one  of  the  chief 
contentions  of  the  feminists  that 
women,  when  accorded  the  same  edu- 
cational facilities  as  men,  will  present 
to  the  world  achievements  in  all  fields 
equal  to  those  of  men ;  and  the  plea  of 
defective  education  has  been  their  in- 
variable   excuse    when    meeting    the 


charge  of  the  comparative  literary  and 
artistic  ineffectiveness  of  women. 

Speaking  broadly,  the  higher  educa- 
tion has  been  open  to  women  in  Eng- 
land for  almost  fifty  years  or  so.  Two 
generations  of  women  who  have 
availed  themselves  of  its  advantages 
have  come — and  gone.  And  in  the 
field  of  literature  in  England,  there 
has  as  yet  appeared  no  woman  master- 
writer  as  a  product  of  this  higher  edu- 
cation: no  Jane  Austen,  no  Charlotte 
Bronte,  no  Emily  Bronte,  and  no 
George  Eliot — who  all  of  them  lived 
or  did  their  work  before  the  dawn  of 
the  movement.  George  Eliot  was,  of 
course,  a  monument  of  learning,  but 
though  educated  in  passable  schools, 
her  scholarship  was  acquired  after  her 
schooldays  were  over.  It  was  George 
Henry  Lewes  and  no  university,  who 
encouraged,  fostered,  and  developed 
her  brilliant  gifts.  The  pale,  earnest, 
and  bespectacled  young  women  from 
Girton  and  Newnham  would  probably 
smile  derisively  at  both  the  quality 
and  quantity  of  Jane  Austen's  erudi- 
tion, but  nevertheless  the  women's  col- 
leges have  not  by  any  stretch  of  im- 
agination given  to  England  her  equal. 
And  the  unhappy  Brontes,  those  three 
astonishing  sisters,  had  an  education 
which  almost  constituted  a  lack  of  edu- 
cation as  we  commonly  understand  the 
word.  The  pinnacle  of  Charlotte's 
scholastic  training  was  the  short  space 


328 


WOMEN  OF  MARK  AND  THEIR  EDUCATION 


329 


of  time  spent  as  a  pupil-teacher  in  a 
girls'  school  in  Brussels;  was  it,  one 
wonders,  the  erudition  she  absorbed 
while  there  or  her  unhappy  love  for 
her  Belgian  schoolmaster,  married 
and  indifferent  to  it,  which  proved  the 
greater  influence  on  her  work  as  a 
novelist  and  the  greater  incentive  to 
her  genius? 

Turning  to  France,  we  find  a  really 
remarkable  array  of  gifted  women 
who  made  their  mark  on  their  times 
and  two  or  three  who  left  it  on  his- 
tory. France,  indeed,  is  aglow  with 
the  brilliance  of  her  women,  but  none 
are  the  products  of  the  higher  educa- 
tion; it  is  notorious  that  the  demand 
for  the  educational  and  political  equal- 
ity of  the  sexes  has  been  nothing  so 
insistent  there  as  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
countries.  Madame  Curie  is,  of 
course,  a  Frenchwoman  by  marriage 
though  Polish  by  birth,  and  it  is  fair 
to  assume  that  she  largely  owes  her 
scientific  eminence  to  her  training; 
but  apart  from  this  solitary  example, 
it  is  diflicult  to  name  offhand  any 
other  Frenchwoman  of  mark  who  in 
any  degree  owed  her  position  whether 
in  literature,  politics,  or  society  to 
what  would  today  be  considered  as  a 
first-class  education. 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  the 
original  of  the  heroine  of  Mrs.  Hum- 
phry Ward's  novel,  "Lady  Rose's 
Daughter",  and  known  as  the  writer  of 
those  burning  and  tumultuous  love-let- 
ters which  have  made  her  a  figure  in 
the  literary  history  of  France,  was  an 
illegitimate  child,  home-taught  and 
poverty-stricken,  but  she  wrote  the 
famous  letters  to  the  Comte  de  Guil- 
bert  and  became  the  most  popular  and 
certainly  the  most  romantic  of  the 
famous  eighteenth  century  salonidres 
of  Paris.  She  was  the  friend  and  ad- 
viser of  d'Alembert  and  Condorcet 
and  that  host  of  brilliant  Frenchmen 


of  pre-Revolutionary  France;  but  it 
was  no  college  or  university  which  im- 
parted to  her  her  mental  gifts,  for  she 
herself  explicitly  informs  us  how  she 
came  to  be  what  she  was:  "Voyez 
quelle  education  j'ai  regue;  Madame 
du  Deffand — car  pour  I'esprit  elle  doit 
etre  citee — le  president  H^nault, 
I'Abbe  Bon,  I'archeveque  de  Toulouse, 
celui  d'Aix,  M.  Turgot,  M.  d'Alembert, 
I'Abb^  de  Boismont,  M.  de  Mora. 
Voila  les  gens  qui  m'ont  appris  k 
parler,  a  penser  et  qui  ont  daign^  me 
compter  pour  quelque  chose."  ("The 
education  I  have  received  is  as  fol- 
lows :  Madame  du  Deffand — for  as  re- 
gards the  forming  of  my  intelligence 
her  name  must  be  mentioned — Presi- 
dent H^nault,  the  Abb^  Bon,  the 
Archbishops  of  Toulouse  and  Aix,  M. 
Turgot,  M.  d'Alembert,  the  Abb^  de 
Boismont,  M.  de  Mora.  These  are  the 
people  who  have  taught  me  to  speak 
and  think  and  who  were  good  enough 
to  consider  me  as  worth  while.")  Just 
some  half-dozen  men  and  one  woman 
of  her  world ;  no  college,  no  school. 

Moving  onward  a  few  years  we  come 
to  the  heroic  figure  of  a  far  greater 
than  the  broken-hearted  Julie  de  Les- 
pinasse— ^the  famous  Madame  Roland. 
It  is  true  that  like  George  Eliot  she 
was  learned  and  that  as  a  small  child 
the  bourgeois  of  her  neighborhood 
pointed  her  out  to  their  daughters  as 
the  most  studious  little  girl  in  Paris, 
but  a  convent  with  nuns  as  teachers 
and  her  little  bedroom,  where  for 
hours  together  she  read  and  dreamed, 
were  her  only  universities.  Her  li- 
brary consisted  of  a  few  dusty,  dirty 
old  books  that  she  had  unearthed  from 
among  the  possessions  of  her  father, 
an  engraver  and  working-jeweler: 
the  Bible  (which,  she  has  informed 
posterity,  she  enjoyed  "because  it  ex- 
presses itself  as  crudely  as  a  medical 
book")  and  Voltaire's  "Candide"  were 


330 


THfi  BOOKMAN 


among  the  favorite  literary  treasures 
of  this  little  eight-year-old.  But  this 
self-taught  little  girl  became  the 
woman  who,  as  the  wife  of  Roland, 
minister  of  the  Interior,  was  the  in- 
spirer  of  the  Girondin  party,  and  was 
actually  responsible  for  the  drafting 
of  many  of  her  husband's  official  docu- 
ments, while  her  authorship  of  the 
famous  M^moires  entitles  her  to  a 
place  in  the  literary  history  of  her. 
country.  It  is  hardly  possible  that 
any  college-trained  woman  can  ever 
play  a  greater  role  in  history  than  was 
played  right  on  to  the  scaffold  by  this, 
in  our  sense,  uneducated  woman,  and 
it  is  equally  impossible  to  believe  that 
had  Madame  Roland  been  college- 
trained,  she  could  ever  have  been  more 
than  she  was. 

And  that  other  daughter  of  the 
French  Revolution,  though  happily  not 
like  Madame  Roland  its  victim — ^the 
astounding  Madame  de  Stael.  I  am 
not  sure  where  or  how  Madame  de 
Stael  was  educated;  to  have  been  the 
daughter  of  Necker  and  of  Madame 
Necker,  once  the  beloved  of  Gibbon  of 
"The  Decline  and  Fall"  fame,  must 
have  been  a  whole  education  in  itself, 
although  probably  not  of  the  variety 
clamored  for  by  the  feminists.  We 
know  that  as  a  small  child  in  Paris 
she  was  accustomed  to  listening  to  the 
conversation  of  her  father's  brilliant 
guests  and  that  they,  in  turn,  found 
amusement  in  talking  to  the  ugly,  pre- 
cocious, and  intensely  emotional  little 
daughter  of  the  house.  Yet  with  such 
an  irregular  education  as  hers  seems 
to  have  been,  this  woman  achieved  a 
European  reputation  and  without  the 
advantages  that  exist  today  as  aids  to 
the  building  up  of  renown.  She  was  a 
novelist  and  a  wit,  a  philosopher, 
stateswoman  and  patriot;  and  if  a 
higher  education  could  have  made  her 
more,  then  it  is  a  mercy  for  her  con- 


temporaries that  she  escaped  it  and 
consequently  they  its  effects,  for  that 
more  would  frankly  have  made  her  un- 
endurable. Such  an  education  might 
have  had  an  elevating  influence  on  her 
morals,  but  here  it  is  only  proposed 
to  consider  the  influence  of  education 
on  talent  and  not  on  morals.  Her 
novels  "Delphine"  and  "Corinne"  were 
hailed  as  masterpieces,  and  when  she 
paid  her  second  visit  to  England  she 
was  considered  by  some  as  the  great- 
est female  writer  of  any  age  or  coun- 
try. This  opinion  has  not  been  en- 
dorsed by  posterity,  but  her  dazzling 
personality,  which  wrote,  talked,  ar- 
gued, philosophized,  and  screamed 
itself  into  fame,  has  left  an  enduring 
mark  on  the  literary  history  of  her 
country. 

If  Madame  de  Stael's  novels  have 
not  lived,  it  is  certain  that  George 
Sand's  will,  or  at  all  events,  those 
dealing  with  the  rustic  life  of  France, 
such  as  "Francois  le  Ghampi"  land  "La 
Petite  Fadette".  But  according  to  the 
common  meaning  of  the  word,  George 
Sand  had  no  education  at  all.  During 
her  early  childhood  while  living  in  her 
beloved  Berri,  her  chief  occupation 
was  merely  to  run  wild,  and  she  had 
no  more  inclination  for  learning  than 
her  ex-abb6  tutor  had  for  teaching 
her.  The  result  was  that  most  of  the 
days  of  her  scholastic  year  were  high 
days  and  holidays  and  this  state  of  af- 
fairs actually  lasted  until  she  was 
thirteen,  when  she  was  immured  in  a 
Paris  convent  until  she  was  sixteen. 
And  with  this  brief  and  far  from  pro- 
found education  she  became  the  great- 
est woman  novelist  of  France  and  one 
of  the  greatest  figures  in  French  lit- 
erature— ^no  mean  achievement.  If, 
instead  of  her  rambles  in  the  fields 
and  woods  of  Berri,  her  games  with 
the  village  children  and  her  wide  but 
casual  reading  after  her  schooldays 


WOMEN  OF  MARK  AND  THEIR  EDUCATION 


881 


ended,  Destiny  had  chosen  to  give  her 
a  "higher"  education  by  giving  her 
facilities  for  attending  courses  at  the 
Sorbonne  for  two  or  three  years,  one 
wonders  if  anything  better  than  her 
rustic  novels  would  have  come  from 
her  pen.  Would  the  study  of  Greek, 
of  philosophy,  of  history,  or  what  not 
have  given  her  a  greater  insight  into 
the  human  heart  than  did  her  tem- 
pestuous love-affairs  with  de  Musset, 
Chopin,  Merimde  and  others?  Per- 
haps. .  .and  perhaps  not. 

England  and  France  have  both  pro- 
duced a  number  of  competent  women 
writers  during  the  last  generation  or 
so,  some  of  whom  may,  for  all  one 
knows  to  the  contrary,  have  been  the 
products  of  the  "higher"  education  of 
women.  But  it  is  strange  that,  ex- 
traordinarily popular  as  some  of  them 
are,  no  one  dreams  of  ranking  them 
with  the  giantesses  of  the  past  when 
any  sort  of  education  was  thought 
good  enough  for  a  woman.  Will  any 
modem  "higher  educated"  states- 
woman  cut  a  greater  figure  in  history 
than  the  obscure  working-jeweler's 
daughter,  Madame  Roland?  Christa- 
bel  Pankhurst  may  be  quite  as  voluble 
a  politician  as  Madame  de  Stael — or 
nearly  so,  for  judging  from  the  ac- 
counts of  her  contemporaries,  no 
woman  ever  had  before  or  could  have 
again  such  a  tongue  as  Madame  de 
Stael's — but  Miss  Pankhurst's  is  quite 
certainly  not  so  universal  or  arresting 
a  personality. 

The  higher  education  has  not  suc- 
ceeded, at  least  so  far,  in  developing 


originality  in  women  whether  of 
genius  or  of  personality.  Possibly  the 
champions  of  the  higher  education 
would  retort  in  answer  to  this  charge 
that  it  is  not  the  business  of  the 
higher  education  to  encourage  and  de- 
velop two  qualities  that  can  well  be 
left  to  look  after  themselves,  but  to 
render  efficient  those  numerous  ear- 
nest young  women  whose  services  so- 
ciety needs  as  doctors,  teachers,  or- 
ganizers and  so  forth.  There  is  a  very 
great  deal  in  this  argument,  but  if  its 
truth  be  conceded,  what  becomes  of 
the  widespread  contention  that  wom- 
en's achievements  can  and  will  equal 
men's  when  women  are  given  the  same 
educational  facilities?  If  these  facili- 
ties do  not,  cannot,  and  are  not  in- 
tended to  foster  unusual  literary  and 
other  abilities  in  women,  then  the 
feminists  are  on  false  ground  in  as- 
cribing women's  comparative  lack  of 
artistic  and  literary  achievement  to 
defective  education  in  the  past.  Some 
other  reason  must  be  found,  for  the 
higher  education  has  now  been  in  op- 
eration quite  long  enough  to  have  pro- 
duced something  worth  producing  in 
the  way  of  women  of  mark. 

Meanwhile,  those  same  universities 
that  fostered  the  talents  of  a  Julie  de 
Lespinasse  or  a  Charlotte  Bronte,  a 
George  Eliot  or  a  Madam  de  Stael  will 
no  doubt  take  in  hand  the  training  of 
contemporary  women  of  unusual  lit- 
erary merit:  loneliness  and  a  broken 
heart;  spiritual  struggle  and  love; 
the  sympathy  and  encouragement  of 
men ;  nature  and  society. 


1920 :  THE  MINOR  POETS'  CENTENARY  YEAR 


BY  JOHN  BLACK 


FATE  was  so  superabundantly  busy- 
in  the  year  1819,  and  contributed 
to  literary  history  so  notable  an  array 
of  glittering  names — ^Whitman,  Ruskin 
and  George  Eliot  are  only  a  few! — ^that 
she  must  have  felt  her  achievements 
j  ustified  a  twelve  months'  rest.  For  the 
year  1820  was  a  minor  one.  Poetry 
was  not  immortally  glorified,  this  an- 
num,  and  the  array  of  centenaries 
that  propriety  demands  we  celebrate 
is  not  impressive. 

For  those  who  honor  the  minor  poet, 
there  will  be  plenty  to  do.  This  year 
is  the  hundredth  anniversary  of  the 
birth  of  many  poets  who  enjoyed  wide 
popularity  during  their  lives.  Time, 
however,  has  dealt  less  gently  with 
them.  They  are,  for  the  most  part, 
forgotten,  though  it  would  be  reckless 
to  say  that  their  influence  died  with 
them.  Leading  among  the  names  that 
are  presented  for  recognition  this 
year,  is  that  of  Alice  Gary.  This 
gentle  singer  was  bom  on  April  26, 
1820,  she  being  four  years  older  than 
the  other  poet  of  the  family,  her  sister 
Phoebe. 

The  literary  history  of  the  Gary 
sisters  is  a  flat  contradiction  of  the 
claim  that  poetry  readers  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  were  unresponsive. 
Their  works,  while  they  were  yet  com- 
paratively young,  ran  into  numerous 
editions.    They  were  read.  They  were 


discussed.  They  were  quoted.  Their 
poems,  after  the  appearance  of  their 
first  books,  found  a  ready  market. 
The  simplicity  and  warm  humanity 
that  characterized  the  verses  of  these 
two  writers  made  appeal  peculiarily  to 
the  casual  reader.  And,  as  it  is  the 
casual  reader,  rather  than  the  critic 
or  student,  who  makes  for  large  sales, 
the  Gary  collections  of  poems  sold 
prodigiously.  The  sisters  themselves, 
however,  were  more  or  less  indifferent 
to  this  end  of  it.  They  sang,  truly,  be- 
cause song  was  in  their  hearts,  be- 
cause they  loved  to  sing.  And  many 
of  their  finer  lyrics  were  indelibly 
written  in  the  hearts  of  the  stolid,  un- 
expressive  citizenry  who  found  an- 
swer, in  these  poems,  to  their  prob- 
lems. 

Among  the  others  the  year  1820 
brought  forth  is  Theodore  G'Hara, 
whose  voice  reached  its  greatest 
height  in  "The  Bivouac  of  the  Dead". 
G'Hara  was  a  soldier-lawyer,  born  in 
Danville,  Kentucky,  and  it  was  while 
a  soldier  that  he  underwent  the  ex- 
periences ultimately  to  find  expression 
in  this  forceful  poem.  He  died  in 
1867.  Henry  Howard  Brownell  was 
one  of  those  who  enjoyed  very  consid- 
erable recognition  during  his  lifetime. 
Brownell  was  born  February  6,  1820, 
at  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  and  died 
in  1872.    He  served  in  the  Givil  War, 


332 


1920:     THjE  MINOR  POETS'  CENTENARY  YEAR 


388 


*=> 


tr*  T5T" 


at  the  conclusion  oJT,  S^ich  he  pub- 
lished a  book  of  war  verse.  Brownell 
was  the  author  of  three  books  of  verse 
in  all.  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich  recog- 
nized him  as  a  writer  of  strength  and 
merit,  in  a  preface  written  for  one  of 
the  books.  Brownell's  work  was 
widely  published,  and  his  reputation 
at  the  time  caused  Farragut  to  take 
him  on  his  trip  with  the  fleet  to 
Europe. 

The  others  among  the  early  Ameri- 
cans of  whom  this  is  the  centenary 
year  are  still  more  obscure.  Albert 
Mathews,  poet-lawyer,  wrote  fiction 
for  numerous  magazines  under  the 
name  of  "Paul  Siegvolk"  and  pub- 
lished several  books  of  verse.  His 
work  is  represented  in  Stedman's  An- 
thology of  American  Poetry.  Mar- 
garet Preston  (Junkin)  was  another 
poet  bom  in  1820  who  wrote  consid- 
erable fiction.  She  was  the  author  of 
five  volumes  of  poetry  and  numerous 
novels.  Anson  D.  F.  Randolph,  who 
was  bom  at  Woodbridge,  New  Jersey, 
was  a  publisher  who  wrote  exclusively 
in  verse  and  published  often  in  con- 
temporary periodicals.  He,  also,  is 
represented  in  Stedman's  Anthology. 
He  died  at  Westhampton,  Long  Island, 
in  1896. 

Britain's  contributions  to  poetry  in 
1820  were  still  less  enduring.  Only 
three  names  present  themselves  as 
worthy  of  note.    William  Cox  Bennett 


is  the  most  important  of  these.  He 
was  widely  known  as  a  song  writer. 
Bennett  was  bom  in  Greenwich,  Oc- 
tober 14, 1820,  and  died  in  Blackheath, 
March  4,  1895.  He  was  the  author  of 
many  popular  lyrics  and  published 
about  a  dozen  books  of  verse,  as  well 
as  several  anthologies.  A  prolific 
writer,  his  work  was  for  a  time  ex- 
tremely popular  and  much  quoted. 
The  career  of  Ebenezer  Jones,  agi- 
tator-poet, bom  the  same  year,  was 
fraught  with  unhappiness.  He  pub- 
lished a  volume  of  verse,  "Studies  in 
Sensation  and  Event",  in  1843,  which 
excited  the  admiration  and  approval  of 
Robert  Browning  and  D.  G.  Rossetti, 
but  was  flatly  rejected  by  the  public. 
Disheartened,  he  abandoned  literature 
and  devoted  himself  to  social  reform. 
He  wrote  several  poems  of  social  pro- 
test which  were  powerful  and  intense. 
He  was  bom  January  25,  1820,  in  Is- 
lington, England,  and  died  in  Brent- 
wood, September  14,  1860.  Records 
also  mention  the  name  of  Menella 
Bute  Smedley,  poet  and  novelist,  as 
having  been  bom  the  same  year. 

Truly  a  frail  showing,  after  so 
fruitful  a  year  as  1819!  Yet  they 
were  creators  of  beauty,  these — gentle, 
unpretentious  singers,  for  the  most 
part — ^and  who  can  say  that  they  did 
not  fulfil  bravely  the  task  of  the  minor 
poet,  and  stir  to  some  purpose  the  un- 
responsive chords  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people? 


COMPLAINT  DEPARTMENT 


A  Peevish 
Conversation 

WHY,"  said  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  "don't  you  write  some- 
thing for  the  Real  magazines  instead 
of  frivoling  away  your  evenings  the 
way  you  do  going  on  dancing  parties 
with  snips?" 

(I  may  explain  that  in  the  special 
vocabulary  of  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  a  snip  is  a  young  person — usu- 
ally an  attractive  young  person.) 

"Because",  I  answered,  "I  have 
reached  the  age  when  I  have  nothing 
to  communicate — nothing,  certainly, 
that  the  real  magazines  want  to  offer 
to  their  select  public  as  paid-for  read- 
ing matter  next  to  advertising." 

"But,"  persisted  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  "you  know  how  to  write  so  well 
that  it  is  a  shame  you  shouldn't  do  it. 
After  all  these  years — " 

"I  know,"  I  said,  gracefully  accept- 
ing the  compliment,  "I  know.  It  is  a 
fearful  anticlimax.  Here  I  have  been 
thirty-odd  years  mastering  a  complex 
and  laborious  art,  only  to  find  that  I 
have  no  proper  use  for  it.  After 
spending  the  best  part  of  my  life 
learning  how  to  put  words  together 
neatly  so  as  to  make  them  mean  ex- 
actly what  I  want  to  say,  neither 
more  nor  less,  I  suddenly  find  out  that 
I  haven't  anything  to  say.  You  could 
call  it  tragic,  if  you  wanted  to." 

"I  call  it  ridiculous,"  said  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief.    "The  truth  is  you 


are  too  lazy.    All  you  think  of  is  being 
amused." 

"When  I  was  young — ^very  young 
indeed,"  I  said,  "I  had  lots  to  say.  Or 
I  thought  I  had.  And  I  used  to  sit 
up  nights  trying  to  put  on  paper  the 
things  I  thought  were  inside  of  me. 
I  wrote  and  wrote  and  wrote.  A 
frightful  mass  of  words  got  set  down. 
But  the  right  words  were  hard  to  find, 
and  generally  they  were  so  mixed  up 
with  a  multitude  of  wrong  words  that 
it  all  came  to  nothing.  What  is  worse, 
I  was  not  always  able  to  tell  the  dif- 
ference, and  no  end  of  good  postage 
stamps  were  wasted  sending  the  stuff 
away  to  editors  lyho  did  not  want  it." 

"But  you  got  to  be  an  editor  your- 
self,"  said  the   Commander-in-Chief. 

"I  did,"  I  admitted.  "It  took  a  long 
time,  but  it  seemed  the  only  way  to 
get  what  I  wrote  printed.  As  an 
editor  I  always  abused  my  privilege 
shamefully.  I  insisted  on  using  my 
own  stuff,  although  nobody  knew 
better  than  myself  that  no  other  *edi- 
tor  would  buy  it.  In  that  way  I  con- 
trived to  get  a  lot  of  practice. 

"And  after  years  and  years  of  that 
practice,  I  found  that  I  had,  as  you 
say,  learned  to  write.  I  had  got  the 
right  words  trained  so  that  they  came 
to  call  not  quite  inextricably  tangled 
up  with  the  wrong  ones — ^though  an 
unruly  flock  of  the  wrong  ones  came 
too  and  rather  many  of  that  sort 
stayed  mixed  in  always.  That  made 
writing  laborious.    Because  I  had  to 


384 


A  PEEVISH   CONVERSATION 


335 


go  over  things  so  often  to  get  the 
wrong  words  out  and  to  make  sure 
that  the  right  words  were  in. 

"The  result — the  natural  result — 
was  that  by  the  time  I  had  finished 
I  had  usually  forgot  what  it  was  all 
about.  That  rather  spoiled  it.  The 
interest  in  what  I  started  out  to  say 
had  slipped  so  far  into  the  back  of  my 
own  head  that  the  reader  could  not  get 
it  into  his  head  at  all.  And  there  you 
are.  Naturally  when  I  began  to  real- 
ize this  truth,  I  began  to  stop  wanting 
to  write.  It  is  no  manner  of  use  writ- 
ing unless  somebody  reads  your  writ- 
ings. I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  just 
writing  for  a  living.  That  is  different 
— ^like  making  bricks  when  you  are 
paid  for  making  them  by  the  hundred 
and  do  not  care  what  becomes  of  them 
afterward — ^whether  they  go  into 
model  tenements  on  the  East  Side  of 
New  York  or  into  imitation  Georgian 
and  mock-Colonial  palaces  with  gar- 
dens to  lure  simple-minded  city  wom- 
enfolk out  into  the  already  over-popu- 
lated suburban  real  estate  market  that 
goes  by  the  name  of  'the  country'." 

The  Commander-in-Chief  looked  up 
challengingly.  It  is  a  hobby  of  hers 
that  we  are  going  to  move  to  the  coun- 
try some  day,  and  she  spends  hours 
looking  at  pictures  of  small  inexpen- 
sive mansions  set  in  the  midst  of 
lawns  and  shrubbery — ^the  sort  the 
more  unscrupulous  illustrated  maga- 
zines are  full  of. 

**We  were  not  talking  of  houses,"  she 
said.  '*We  were  talking  of  writing. 
Or  rather  of  NOT  writing." 

"Of  writing",  I  said  firmly,  "writ- 
ing for  a  living.  It  is  a  particularly 
low  form  of  manual  labor,  recognized 
as  such  by  all  Soviet  governments. 
And  I  do  it  every  day.  What  is  worse 
I  have  done  it  every  day  for  years  and 
I  suppose  I  shall  do  it  every  day  for 
many  more  years.    The  one  advantage 


is  that  you  do  not  in  the  least  care 
what  you  write  about.  And  no  more 
do  you  care  whether  you  have  any- 
thing to  say.  Because  you  can  say 
what  somebody  else  wants  to  say  and 
does  not  quite  know  how,  or  what 
somebody  else  wants  still  somebody 
else  to  have  said.  Or  even  what  a  lot 
of  people  have  been  saying  over  and 
over  again  since  the  world  began  to 
talk.  After  all  there  has  got  to  be 
somebody  to  do  that  sort  of  thing. 
And  nobody  could  be  better  for  the  job 
than  the  fellow  who  has  learned  how 
to  write  and  has  nothing  to  say  of  his 


own. 


ft 


«T4.>< 


'It's  a  shame,"  said  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, "it's  a  perfect  shame 
to  get  that  way.  And  it  is  still  more 
of  a  shame  to  defend  yourself  for 
getting  that  way.  If  you  would  sit 
down  and  read  once  in  a  while  instead 
of  going  and  dancing  with  snips  at 
your  age — " 

"The  snips",  I  said,  "are  an  anti- 
dote. When  you  have  nothing  to  say, 
you  do  not  have  to  say  it  to  light- 
footed  fillies.  They  require  only  to  be 
danced  with.  At  my  age  what  one 
needs  most  is  to  be  kept  young.  And 
the  company  of  young  persons — " 

"At  your  age,"  said  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  severely,  "you  ought  to  have 
better  sense." 

"Moreover",  I  continued,  "knowing 
how  to  do  a  thing  is  the  only  way  to 
be  sure  it  is  not  worth  doing.  In  those 
youthful  days  of  mine — and  for  quite 
a  long  time  afterward — while  I  was 
struggling  to  learn  to  write,  I  used  to 
regard  authors  with  a  sentiment  sur- 
passing awe.  Now  I  know  how  the 
trick  is  done.  Even  though  I  can't  do 
it.  Having  nothing  to  say  is  the  hitch 
there,  of  course.  It  is  fatal.  But  the 
trick  is  none  the  less  a  trick.  And  the 
cards  of  all  the  tricks  are  spread  out 
under  my  eyes  every  day.     When  I 


336 


THE  BOOKMAN 


first  began  to  meet  authors — real  au- 
thors who  had  their  names  on  the  title- 
pages  of  books — I  was  thrilled  to  the 
bone.  The  very  first  one,  I  remember, 
was  May  Sinclair.  She  was  a  very 
plain  old  maid  to  look  at  with  lots  of 
rings  on  her  hands.  But  I  was  thrilled 
all  the  same.  Afterward,  you  remem- 
ber, there  was  a  regular  galaxy.  You 
went  along  and  met  most  of  'em  too — 
and  we  were  both  thrilled.  Perhaps 
you  can  recall  some  of  their  names?" 

"There  was  Kipling",  she  said 
eagerly,  "and  Locke — and  Conrad — 
and  Henry  James,  and  De  Morgan, 
and  Galsworthy  and  Wells  and  Ches- 
terton,— and  the  Archdeacon  of  Ely, 
and  the  nice  historian  who  was  best 
man  at  Bernard  Shaw's  wedding — and 
Lord  Dunsany,  of  course,  and  the 
other  Chesterton  that  smoked  the  pipe 
in  the  carriage  and  was  so  annoyed 
because  he  couldn't  in  the  subway — 
and — Arnold  Bennett,  only  I  wasn't 
along — and — ** 

"That  sort  of  people,  generally",  I 
put  in,  "the  people  that  have  whole 
rows  of  our  book-shelves  devoted  to 
them.  All  that  you  have  mentioned 
were  ready  made  when  we  met  them. 
And  they  impressed  me  tremendously 
— as  you  know.  But  that  isn't  the 
whole  story.  A  lot  of  other  folks  I  al- 
ready knew  one  way  and  another  be- 
gan to  turn  into  authors  over  night 
under  my  very  nose,  as  it  were.  Some 
of  them  /  made  into  authors — or 
helped  make  'em.  I  could  name  sev- 
eral, that  any  regular  patron  of  the 
circulating  libraries  would  recognize 
at  a  glance. 

"And  they  weren't  any  different  af- 
terward— after  they  turned  into  au- 
thors, I  mean.  Sometimes  they  were 
worse.  They  got  their  stuff  published 
and — ^paid  for.  I  published  their  stuff 
and  paid  for  it  with  my  trusting  em- 


ployers' money  confided  to  me  for  the 
purpose.  Some  of  it  was  good,  some 
of  it  was,  at  least,  fair  to  middlin', — 
and  some  of  it  was  just  plain  bad. 
The  only  really  distinguishing  fact 
about  all  of  it  was  that  it  got  paid  for. 
It  grew  in  my  mind  to  seem  no  more 
worth  while  to  be  an  author — after  all 
the  dreams  of  my  youth — than  to  be 
any  other  sort  of  maker  of  something 
to  sell.  In  a  little  while  I  began  rather 
to  look  down  on  authors,  because  they 
pulled  down  so  little  for  what  they  did 
sell  and  so  particularly  little  for  what 
they  sold  that  wasn't  made  to  order 
for  the  railway  station  and  subway 
news-stand  trade." 

"I  don't  see  why  you  should  turn  up 
your  nose  at  them  for  that,"  said  the 
Commander-in-Chief  tartly. 

"No  more  I  do,"  I  replied,  "or  I 
pretend  to  only  because  I  can't  do  the 
stuff  myself.  But  it  all  comes  to  the 
same  thing  in  the  end.  It  is  not  worth 
doing  except  for  what  you  get  out  of 
it  in  cash,  and  there  is  no  more  reason 
for  wanting  ardently  to  be  an  author 
than  for  wanting  ardently  to  make 
shoes.  I  wish  I  did  make  shoes — a  lot 
of  them.  At  present  prices  I  ought  to 
clean  up  in  a  year  more  than  any  self- 
respecting  author  could  accumulate  in 
a  lifetime  even  with  the  aid  of  relays 
of  stenographers  and  a  tjrpewriter  of 
his  own  at  home  nights." 

"You  are  talking  nonsense,  and  you 
know  it,"  said  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  in  a  manner  which  disposed  of 
the  whole  subject.'  "I  just  saw  the 
plans  of  a  perfectly  dear  inexpensive 
little  house  in  a  magazine  I  picked  up 
in  your  office.  I  borrowed  it  and 
brought  it  home  to  show  you.  Right 
here,  you  see,  is  the  entrance  hall, 
twenty  feet  by  thirty — " 

But  what's  the  use? 

— H.  I.  BROCK 


THE   LONG   LANE   OF   BOOKREVIEWING 


337 


The  Long 
Lane  of 
Bookrevievnng 

I  AM,  as  you  know,  a  writer  by  pro- 
fession— in  fact  a  maker  of  book- 
reviews — ^lately  featured  on  the  staff 
of  "Books  and  the  Book  Worm".  For 
a  long  time  I  have  contemplated  be- 
coming an  author,  a  creative  artist,  or 
whatever  you  wish  to  call  it.  I  crave 
the  two  boons  which  the  long-suffer- 
ing English  middle  class  has  long 
since  craved,  according  to  Matthew 
Arnold — ^the  liberty  of  making  a  fool 
of  myself  and  the  publicity  to  show 
the  world  how  I  am  doing  it.  I  would 
be  willing  to  write  daily  articles  for 
an  evening  paper — ^telling  how  to  keep 
my  husband's  love — ^for,  say  $15,000  a 
year;  I  would  write  headings  and 
entre  remarks  for  movies  for  $75,000 
a  year;  I  would  conduct  a  column  of 
advice  to  lovers  for  even  less,  or  con- 
tribute a  page  of  paragraphs  to  a 
magazine  of  any  calibre  on  what  I  see 
about  town.  But  in  order  to  do  any 
of  these  things  it  is  necessary  to  serve 
an  apprenticeship  —  to  make  one's 
name  Imown  by  a  few  years  at  being  a 
poet,  playwright,  short-story  writer, 
or  some  like  form  of  servitude. 

If  it  had  been  permitted  me  to  serve 
time  as  a  soldier  or  a  movie  actress, 
one  year  would  have  sufficed  to  create 
the  desired  demand.  A  movie  actress 
is  never  at  a  loss  while  she  can  write 
the  little  subway  placards  telling  how 

she  keeps  her  skin  young  and  fair 

A  soldier  can  always  write  a  volume 
on  "How  To  Come  Over  The  Top",  and 
not  only  will  his  royalties  amount  to  a 
living  wage,  but  he  is  constantly  in  re- 
ceipt of  tearful  letters  from  editors 
urging  further  endeavors.  Right 
gladly  would  I  write  a  monthly  contri- 
bution on  "Why  We  Thought  The  War 


Was  Lost  in  1917",  and  bask  in  the 
sunshine  of  the  return  check!  As  it 
is,  how  am  I  situated?  No  editor  will 
more  than  sniff  at  my  article  entitled 
"How  I  Followed  My  Husband  to 
Camp".  And  yet  I  have  been  a  soldier 
in  a  way.  All  through  the  war  I  took 
a  fighting  part. 

It  was  in  the  fall  of  1917  in  a  lonely 
New  England  camp  that  I  took  to  re- 
viewing books  in  self-defense,  and 
since  that  time  I  have  withstood  at- 
tack by  a  band  of  authors  equal  to  a 
Hun  army  in  ferocity  if  not  in  num- 
bers. These  have  included  a  Turk 
with  the  most  terrifying  name  in  the 
world,  a  famous  humorist  whose  let- 
ters are  enough  to  curdle  thicker  blood 
than  mine  for  sheer  cold-hearted  clev- 
erness, and  a  never-to-be-forgotten 
pugilist  whose  fighting  days  are  by  no 
means  over.  In  company  with  many 
another  of  my  profession  I  am  in  re- 
ceipt of  letters  which  no  file  is  strong 
enough  to  subdue.  Surely  I  may  be 
said  to  have  waged  my  war.  And  now 
it  has  come  to  the  point  where  the 
streets  are  no  longer  pleasant  marts 
where  one  may  stroll  nonchalantly,  but 
places  of  overt  buying  where  it  is  only 
vouchsafed  to  run  scuttlingly  from 
shop  to  shop,  and  never  without  a 
false  moustache  or  similar  articles  of 
concealment.  Society  has  become  a 
game  of  carefully  shrouded  identity 
where  pleasure  may  be  had  only  by 
means  of  ignominy  and  deceit.  A 
book  reviewer's  place  is,  for  very 
safety,  in  the  home. 

I  wish  them  to  disarm,  but  I  find 
the  old  armor  clinging  about  me.  It  is 
not  easy  to  become  a  creative  artist 
even  after  the  mind  has  been  made  up 
to  it.  Almost  I  feel  it  would  be  easier 
to  remain  the  destructive  laborer 
which  my  enemies  acclaim  me.  Daily 
I  put  myself  in  plastic  mood,  sitting 
like  Booth  Tarkington  with  dean  pad 


\ 


838 


THE  BOOKMAN 


and  dozens  of  newly  sharpened  pencils 
before  me,  and  nothing  happens.  I 
listen  in  at  classes  of  short-story  in- 
struction and  return  to  the  pad.  Noth- 
ing happens.  I  consult  well-known 
authors  who  tell  me  to  Live. .  .Live. . . 
Live . . .  and  stories  will  come.  Frankly 
I  don't  believe  them.  I  know  that  I 
could. .  .Live. .  .for  a  thousand  years 
and  nothing  would  happen.  Can  it  be 
that  a  blight  has  fallen  upon  me  in 
punishment  for  my  crimes?  Has  the 
Turk  exerted  the  evil  eye  or  the  poi- 
soned ring  by  absent  treatment?  At 
any  rate  I  am  unable  to  write.  All  the 
perfumes  of  Araby  can  never  sweeten 
this  hand  apparently.  Clearly  it  is 
meant  to  destroy.  And  destruction  is 
not  a  profitable  profession.  If  it  were 
possible  to  make  $10,000  a  year  writ- 
ing articles  on  why  Ibn  Mohammed  is 
not  a  good  novelist,  I  might  be  con- 
tent to  pursue  the  dangerous  paths  of 
bookreviewing.    But  it  is  not. 

Supposing  then  that  I  can  do  noth- 
ing in  the  constructive  line.  I  shall 
go  on  destroying,  because  the  act  of 
writing  is  more  insidious  than  poison 
and  more  inexorable  than  death.  Sol- 
diers may  lay  down  the  sword  and  go 
back  to  their  boot-blacking,  street- 
cleaning,  or  legal  practising  with  only 
a  passing  wrench,  but  a  writer,  even 


a  penny-a-liner,  is  doomed  from  the 
moment  he  first  allows  himself  to  be 
wielded  by  the  pen.  That  is  why  they 
say  the  pen  is  mightier  than  the 
sword. 

But  if  ever  I  do  create. .  .if  ever  I 
do. .  .1  warn  all  book  reviewers  to  ex- 
pect no  quarter.  Let  but  a  black  hand 
or  finger  be  raised  against  me  and  I 
shall  turn  and  rend — their  backs 
through  their  editors  and  their  faces 
through  the  mails.  I  shall  say  that  it 
is  clear  that  they  have  not  read  my 
books  before  attempting  to  criticize 
them;  I  shall  become  sarcastic  and 
say  that  it  is  not  politic  or  fitting  for 
the  man  or  woman  who  merely  creates 
to  challenge  the  dictum  of  the  man  or 
woman  whose  superior  mental  or  ar- 
tistic powers  allow  him  or  her  to  de- 
vote himself  or  herself  to  the  writing 
of  learned  critiques  of  what  others 
have  created;  and  I  shall  follow  with 
insults  to  my  heart's  content. . . .  All 
this  in  the  event  that  I  finally  think 
of  something  to  put  on  the  pad.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  destruction  is  all  that 
I  am  capable  of,  I  shall  go  about  it 
more  discreetly.  Heavier  moustaches 
must  be  bought  and  worn  day  and 
night,  for  life  is  sweet  even  to  its  book 
worms. 

— CONSTANCE  MURRAY  GREENE 


GOOD  NOVELS  OF  SEVERAL  KINDS 


BY  H.  W.  BOYNTON 


IT  is  pretty  generally  agreed  (and  al- 
ways has  been)  that  critics  are  a 
race  of  marble-browed  and  horn-spec- 
tacled little  men  whose  pleasure  it  is 
to  goggle  intently  into  the  past  and  to 
turn  a  blind  eye  upon  whatever  is 
going  on  about  them.  Indeed^  if  we 
are  to  go  with  Brander  Matthews,  who 
ought  to  be  able  to  speak  for  himself 
if  anybody  can,  it  would  do  them  no 
good,  as  critics,  to  look  about  them. 
In  that  act  the  critic  would  cease  to  be 
a  critic  and  decline  into  a  mere  re- 
viewer. That  is  a  contention  which  in 
the  light  of  history  might  be  disputed: 
but  far  be  it  from  us  to  dispute  in  this 
place.  You  can't  dispute  and  fry  fish. 
However,  it  is  discouraging  to  have 
spent  a  decade  or  two  frying  fishes, 
the  freshest  to  be  found  in  the  market, 
and  still  to  be  set  down  as  an  im- 
porter of  mummies.  What  is  the  use 
in  being  honestly  absorbed  in  the  spec- 
tacle of  literature  in  the  making,  if 
there  is  something  about  you  that 
smells  of  the  literary  mausoleum? 
Must  you  forget  and  ignore  the  dead 
fellows  altogether  in  order  to  speak 
intelligently  of  the  living  ones?  Is  it 
a  crime  to  have  a  memory  that  goes 
back  of  W.  J.  Locke  and  0.  Henry? 

As  for  irresponsiveness  to  fresh 
merit,  what  reviewer,  however  handi- 
capped by  standards,  wouldn't  rather 
come  on  a  really  fine  new  bit  of  work 
by  an  unknown  than  languidly  inspect 


and  appraise  a  carload  of  So-and-So's 
"latest"?  Here  for  instance  is  Mr. 
Phillpotts's  new  Dartmoor  story.  He 
has  turned  back  from  the  series  of  ro- 
mances of  industry  in  Devon,  Wales, 
and  Cornwall — of  which  "Storm  in  a 
Teacup"  was  the  last — ^wherein  he  in- 
structed readers  open  to  such  teaching 
a  lot  of  things  about  hop-growing,  and 
slate-quarrying,  and  paper-making 
and  what  not,  with  the  familiar  Phill- 
pottsian  accessories  of  rustic  frank- 
ness, cupidity,  passion,  canniness,  gar- 
rulity— above  all  the  last-named,  one 
is  tempted  to  say.  He  has  turned  back 
from  this  to  the  less  encumbered  and 
instructive  theme  of  human  nature  on 
Dartmoor.  The  publishers  are  right 
in  calling  "Miser's  Money"  "a  fine 
specimen  of  Phillpotts's  work".  I 
have,  I  find,  some  dozen  volumes  of 
similar  specimens  on  a  valued  shelf. 
I  welcome,  with  a  luxurious  feeling  of 
certainty,  the  coming  of  each  suc- 
cessor :  but  without  eagerness.  After 
all,  Mr.  Phillpotts  has  said  his  say 
about  human  nature  on  Dartmoor,  and 
he  has  little  new  to  offer  in  type  or 
situation.  It  is  pleasant  and  comforta- 
ble to  meet  some  more  of  his  people 
now  and  then — ^and  that  is  all.  "Miser's 
Money" — ^here,  of  course,  is  one  of  the 
hard,  cunning,  rustic  gradgrinds  who 
with  us  have  their  counterpart  in  the 
New  England  deacon  of  melodrama. 
Here  is  an  ingenuous  and  not  ignoble- 


839 


840 


THE  BOOKMAN 


hearted  youth  to  whom  the  miser  de- 
signs to  leave  his  money  and  his  greed. 
And  here  are  disinterested  love  and 
the  woman  whom  at  last  the  youth  is 
to  choose — ^by  no  means  without 
struggle  or  anguish,  since  he  is  not 
only  of  England,  but  of  Dartmoor.  Is 
there  more  talk  in  these  later  stories 
than  in  the  earlier,  or  do  we  weary  a 
little  of  the  familiar  bases  upon  which 
its  rustic  acuteness  and  loquacity 
seem  always  to  rest? 

But  Mr.  Phillpotts  has  a  delight- 
ful and  comparatively  little  known 
vein  which  deliberately  eschews  the 
advantages  and  disadvantages  of  a 
realistic  setting,  whether  on  Dart- 
moor or  elsewhere.  "Evander"  is 
in  the  line  of  former  fantasies  like 
"The  Girl  and  the  Faun"  and  "De- 
light". It  is  a  kindly  fable  in  which 
modem  types  and  problems  are  de- 
murely represented  by  certain  peas- 
ants and  divinities  of  ancient  Italy. 
The  privilege  of  the  marriage  rite  has 
just  been  extended  from  the  aristoc- 
racy to  the  people.  Festus,  an  honest 
wood-cutter,  and  Livia  his  sweetheart, 
are  the  first  in  their  community  to 
take  the  vows — ^a  curious  and  some- 
what risky  experiment  in  the  eyes  of 
their  friends  and  neighbors.  Festus 
is  the  normal  man, — ^the  man  in  the 
street,  if  you  like, — good  for  hard 
work  and  hearty  living,  and  worshiper 
of  a  god  who  has  no  highbrow  non- 
sense about  him,  the  kindly  Bacchus. 
Livia  is  to  take  over  his  god  as  a 
matter  of  course. 

At  first  she  makes  no  difiiculty.  But 
there  is  in  the  neighborhood  a  dis- 
turbing quantity  in  the  form  of  one 
Evander,  a  worshiper  of  Apollo.  He 
is  a  wordy  and  pretentious  fellow, 
bent  upon  imposing  the  correct  form 
of  Apollonian  enlightenment  upon  this 
unawakened  countryside.  Livia  comes 


under  the  spell  of  his  fine  phrases,  and 
the  result  is  that  Evander,  with  Apol- 
lo's backing,  runs  off  with  the  girl  and 
sets  up  a  free  establishment  on  the 
other  side  of  the  lake  from  deserfed 
and  bewildered  Festus.  Apollo,  god 
of  the  highbrows,  has  conquered — ^for 
the  time.  But  friendly  Bacchus  is  not 
out  of  it  yet,  as  we  presently  see. ...  In 
the  end  he  gets  the  better  of  Apollo  in 
fraternal  argument,  and  protects 
Livia  from  the  god's  vengeance  when, 
wearying  of  the  sonorous  Evander, 
she  has  gone  back  to  the  bosom  of 
trusty  Festus.  The  dialogue  is  full 
of  witty  and  amiable  satire  of  our  own 
times,  the  barb  being  especially  sharp 
for  the  "intelligentzia"  of  all  times. 
It  is  Apollo  himself  who  says  to  the 
over-ofiicious  Evander: 

I  notice  among  certain  of  my  followers  a  dis- 
position to  undue  elation  on  the  subject  of 
their  intelligence.  Consider,  however,  who  call 
you  the  "intellectuals"?  The  rank  and  file  of 
mankind,  who,  being  practically  without  any 
intellect  whatever,  are  prone  to  servile  flattery 
before  those  who  exhibit  even  a  modest  evi- 
dence thereof.  There  is  no  salt  in  the  praise 
of  fools,  or  significance  in  the  applause  of  the 
norm  of  men.  Your  mental  gymnastics  and 
gyrations ;  your  opinions  and  ideas ;  your  ap- 
proval  or  disapproval — these  help  not  eithef 
to  remodel  the  world,  or  alter  the  real  con- 
victions of  anybody.  Remember  that  when  the 
gods  design  a  change  on  earth,  they  do  not 
choose  the  "intellectuals"  as  their  tools  but 
cast  about  for  a  man  of  his  hands,  whose  force 
can  influence  his  kind,  whose  voice  can  make 
a  nation  move  at  his  call,  whose  power  can 
be  felt  in  the  hearts  of  kingdoms.  Those  who 
have  created  the  history  of  the  human  race  ate 
meat,  risked  their  own  lives  daily  and  feared 
nothing.  The  "intellectuals"  are  decorative, 
even  valuable  in  their  way,  and  I  am  the  last 
to  speak  lightly  of  them,  since  one  and  all  are 
mine;  but  if  they  have  a  fault,  it  is  their  un- 
intelligent assumption  that  they  really  matter. 

Gods  and  immortals  are  mingled 
also  in  "The  Substance  of  a  Dream", 
the  latest  romantic  fantasy  of  F.  W. 
Bain,  a  writer  who  for  his  unique 
quality  must  by  this  time  have  won  an 
attentive  if  not  a  large  audience.  He 
is,  says  our  ruddy  old  friend  "Who's 


GOOD   NOVELS  OF   SEVERAL  KINDS 


341 


Who",  Principal  and  Professor  of  His- 
tory and  Political  Economy  in  the  Dec- 
can  Ck)llege,  Poona,  India.  He  has 
written  works  which  the  novel-reader 
may  avoid  under  titles  like  "The  Prin- 
ciple of  Wealth  Creation".  He  reports 
his  recreations,  in  the  intimate  Brit- 
ish fashion,  as  golf  and  philosophy. 
And  he  is  evidently  a  student  of  the 
classics  in  Sanskrit  and  a  romantic 
dreamer.  This  is  the  ninth  of  a  series 
of  Hindu  romances  by  his  hand.  They 
are  supposed  to  be  "translations  from 
the  original  manuscripts" ;  but  though 
that  legend  appears  also  on  the  title- 
page  of  the  present  volume,  the  author 
blandly  discounts  it  in  his  witty  and 
ingenious  introduction.  A  great  many 
people,  he  says,  have  asked  him  about 
the  origin  of  these  tales : 

Where  do  they  come  from?  I  do  not  know. 
I  discovered  only  the  other  day  that  some 
believe  them  to  have  been  written  by  a  woman. 
This  appears  to  be  improbable.  But  who  writes 
them?  I  cannot  tell.  They  come  to  me,  one 
by  one,  suddenly,  like  a  flash  of  lightning,  all 
together :  I  see  them  in  the  air  before  me,  like 
a  little  Bayeux  tapestry,  complete,  from  end 
to  end,  and  write  them  down,  hardly  lifting  the 
pen  from  the  paper,  straight  off  **from  the  MS." 
I  never  know,  the  day  before,  when  one  is 
coming:  it  arrives,  as  if  shot  out  of  a  pistol. 
Who  can  tell?  They  may  be  all  but  so  many 
reminiscences  of  a  former  birth. 

A  straight  claim  of  inspiration,  in 
which  let  us  cheerfully  put  our  faith. 
If  such  things  can  befall  a  professor 
of  political  economy,  surely  there  is  a 
chance  for  any  of  us.  This  is  the  tale 
of  a  prince  who  chose  to  be  a  wander- 
ing lute-player,  and  of  his  fatal  passion 
for  a  wanton  queen.  It  is,  to  tell  the 
truth,  as  much  an  apology  for  the  wan- 
tonness of  the  one  as  for  the  passion 
of  the  other.  A  full  gloss  upon  it  and 
a  spirited  discourse  on  love  and  its  re- 
lation to  life,  strongly  tinctured  with 
eastern  philosophy,  may  be  found  in 
the  leisurely  introduction  which  I  for 
one  think  even  more  interesting  than 
the  beautifully  moulded  narrative. 


"Poor  Relations",  by  Compton  Mac- 
kenzie, might  be  called  the  spree  of  a 
realist.  A  whimsical  sort  of  realist,  it 
is  true,  but  one  who  has  always  main- 
tained the  appearance  of  a  serious  in- 
tention to  get  down  to  the  facts  of  life 
and  character.  Here  he  simply  picks 
up  an  amusing  situation  and  lets  him- 
self play  with  it  at  his  ease.  The  re- 
sult is  a  give-away.  It  gives  away,  at 
least,  the  fact  of  the  far  greater  diffi- 
culty of  pulling  off  a  finished  comedy 
than  of  emitting  what  will  pass  read- 
ily enough  as  a  realistic  novel.  Some 
of  us  have  found  the  heaped  up  casual 
detail  and  the  centrifugal  dialogue  of 
"Plasher's  Mead"  and  "Sylvia  Scar- 
lett" rather  heavy  going,  and  have 
seemed  to  be  not  much  farther  ahead 
with  anything  at  the  end  of  the  jour- 
ney. But  we  might,  after  all,  be  mis- 
taken; it  would  not  be  safe  to  fall 
foul  of  the  ahapelessness  and  inconse- 
quence of  a  narrative  which  (it  may 
be)  has  studiously  refrained  from  ob- 
vious form  or  meaning.  But  a  com- 
edy, even  a  farcical  comedy,  has  got 
to  begin  and  end  somewhere,  and  has 
even  got  to  mean  a  little  something. 
And  it  must  not,  above  all,  be  encum- 
bered with  a  stick  or  a  shred  of  detail 
that  can  be  dispensed  with.  Mr.  Mac- 
kenzie has  here  the  material  for  a 
short  story  or,  let  us  say,  a  well-bal- 
anced novelette.  But  instead  of  se- 
lecting, and  sorting,  and  packing  it 
down,  he  lets  it  take  possession  of  him, 
to  the  end  of  a  long,  rambling,  face- 
tious narrative  about  as  finished  in 
structure  and  subtle  in  tone  as  "Hel- 
en's Babies".  There  is  of  course  a 
lot  of  amusing  stuff  in  it,  no  end  of 
satirical  material,  no  end  of  clever  and 
witty  touches.  But  the  book  as  a  book 
is  without  form  and  void.  I  am  not 
speaking  "academically".  I  don't  mean 
that  it  fails  to  live  up  to  some  "rules" 
or  others  that  have  been  hatched  up 


342 


THE  BOOKMAN 


by  critics.  I  mean  that  it  is  clumsy 
and  therefore  ineffective;  and  that 
the  ordinary  and  unacademic  reader  is 
pretty  sure  to  weary  of  it. 

The  publisher  of  "Where  Angels 
Fear  to  Tread"  refrains  from  compro- 
mising the  book  by  an  original  date, 
and  I  have  just  noticed,  after  putting 
it  among  books  of  the  month  worth 
some  mention,  that  it  was  apparently 
C*Who's  Who"  again)  the  first  novel 
of  a  writer  bom  some  forty  years  ago 
and  author  of  half  a  dozen  novels  to 
date.  However,  it  appears  to  be  now 
first  available  for  American  readers 
and  should  appeal  to  those  who  wel- 
come an  unfamiliar  touch  or  flavor 
above  all  things.  It  is  an  odd  story,  a 
comedy  not  without  its  tragic  shad- 
ows. A  foolish  young  English  widow 
escapes  the  tutelage  of  her  defunct 
husband's  better-bred  family,  and 
marries  offhand  a  handsome  Italian 
peasant.  The  union  turns  out  neither 
better  nor  worse  than  might  be  ex- 
pected. Gino  has  married  Lilia  for 
her  money,  and  while  he  is  kind 
enough  to  her  in  his  peasant  way,  he 
by  no  means  modifies  his  manners  for 
her,  or  even  cleaves  to  her  only.  She 
dies  in  giving  birth  to  a  son,  whom 
the  English  relatives  magnanimously 
determine  to  rescue.  Now  Gino  might 
have  been  bought  off  from  marrying 
Lilia  if  he  had  been  approached  in 
time,  but  will  not  part  with  his  son 
on  any  terms.  The  father-instinct  is 
strong  in  him,  and  his  healthy  peasant 
obstinacy  easily  routs  the  fussy,  con- 
ventional British  advances.  He  is  ir- 
resistible as  the  embodiment  of  the 
Italian  character  and  tradition,  just 
as  Philip,  the  defeated,  is  irrefutable 
as  a  Briton.  Gino  is  worth  studying 
as  a  hint  toward  the  comprehension  of 
our  Italian  cousin,  whether  the  peanut 
man  on  the  comer,  or  a  D'Annunzio. 


"A  Place  in  the  World"  is  more 
lightly  in  the  vein  of  international 
comedy.  It  has  an  adventuress-hero- 
ine. Iris  Iranovna,  who  suddenly  be- 
comes next-door  neighbor  to  the  Cum- 
bers, fit  denizens  of  their  respectable 
middle-class  suburb  of  London.  Scent- 
ing sport,  she  promptly  calls  on  them, 
and  the  interview  begins  thus : 

"Do  you  come  from  Russia?"  hazarded  Mn. 
Cumbers  timidly. 

*'My  father  was  a  Russian,  but  I  doubt  If  my 
mother  would  know  him  by  sight  now.  Ue  was 
one  of  these  here-to-day-and-gone-to-morrow 
fathers.  I  never  saw  him  in  my  life.  And — " 
she  laughed  merrily,  "I  was  divorced  by  a  Rus- 
sian, too,  so  I  suppose  I'm  as  Russian  as  any- 
thing." 

''Charming  people,  Russians,"  murmured  the 
Reverend  John,  wondering  how  long  it  would 
be  before  Henry  Cumbers  exploded.  *'I  knew  a 
most  fascinating  Russian  in  San  Francisco.  A 
most  cultured  man — ^wonderful  manners,  too. 
Unfortunately  he  poisoned  his  mother  and  they 
had  to  get  rid  of  him." 

"What  did  he  poison  her  for?"  asked  Trist- 
ram. 

"Oh,  mqney,  of  course,"  said  Iris.  "I  always 
feel  I  could  respect  a  man  who  poisoned  his 
wife  because  she  was  ugly." 

"Yes,"  said  the  clergyman  quite  seriously,  "it 
is  extraordinary  that  beauty  is  always  con- 
sidered a  luxury. .  .whereas,  of  course,  it's  a 
necessity." 

There  you  have  the  pitch  of  the 
composition,  and  may  accommodate 
yourself  to  it  according  to  your  taste 
and  temper. . . .  Isn't  it  a  little  dull 
of  the  "new  novelists"  of  Britain  to 
make  such  monotonous  use  of  the 
clergy  in  their  work?  It  is  impossible 
to  believe  that  all  English  parsons  are 
either  solemn  and  pompous  asses  on 
the  one  hand  (like  the  Reverend  Law- 
rence in  "Poor  Relations"  and  Mr. 
Galsworthy's  recent  victim,  whatever 
his  name  was),  or  self-consciously 
"human"  flibbertigibbets  like  our  Rev- 
erend John  on  the  other.  There  is 
something  piquant  in  the  clergyman 
who  will  not  stand  on  his  cloth;  but 
what  a  difference  between  recognizing 
the  unhampered  humanity  of  a  Dr. 
Lavendar  and  snickering  at  the  Fa- 


GOOD   NOVELS  OF   SEVERAL  KINDS 


343 


tber  William  gambols  of  a  Reverend 
John.  However,  let  us  not  fail  to  sa- 
lute this  as  an  amusing  comedy  of  its 
somewhat  fantastic  kind. 

Recent  months  have  produced  an 
uncommon  number  of  novels  dealing 
freely  or  cavalierly  with  the  relations 
of  sex.  Here  is  "The  Marbeck  Inn", 
a  book  full  of  clever  detail  but  some- 
how without  any  final  whereabouts. 
After  two  hundred  pages  of  satirical 
realism  about  the  vulgar  and  pros- 
pering Sam,  suddenly  appears  an 
Effie  who  rushes  into  physical  rela- 
ions  with  him  for  the  sake  of  his  soul. 
You  are  called  on  to  admire  Effie  im- 
mensely, at  horribly  short  notice,  and 
at  the  same  moment  you  are  called  on 
to  believe  that  she  conceives  a  grand 
passion  for  the  egregious  Sam.  If 
you  can  manage  this,  the  rest  of  the 
story  may  hold  you.  For  myself,  I 
am  unable  to  like  or  believe  much  in 
either  Sam  or  his  Effie,  and  can't  feel 
that  I  ought  to  have  been  bothered 
with  them,  despite  the  craftsmanship 
of  their  sponsor.  This  also  I  confess 
to  feeling  more  or  less  about  two  first 
novels  of  able  workmanship,  "The 
Swing  of  the  Pendulum"  and  "Peter 
Kindred".  Both  stories  begin  in  the 
atmosphere  of  college  life,  and  go  on 
into  the  years  of  orientation.  Both, 
in  different  ways,  are  somewhat  ex- 
cessively sex-conscious. 

"The  Swing  of  the  Pendulum"  be- 
gins at  the  moment  of  graduation 
from  a  large  western  university  of  a 
clever  and  ambitious  girl,  Jean  Nor- 
ris.  She  is  very  much  the  modem 
product,  contemptuous  of  the  old- 
fashioned  woman,  bent  upon  being  her 
own  mistress  and  making  her  own 
way.  Quite  realistically,  she  marries 
the  first  boimder  that  offers.  Revolt- 
ing at  last  from  his  weakness  and  in- 


fidelity, she  leaves  him  and  goes  East 
to  seek  her  fortune.  East  of  course 
means  New  York.  Jean  develops  an 
effective  personality  and  power  as  or- 
ganizer which  she  applies  to  a  national 
movement  for  women.  Her  public  ca- 
reer is  notable.  Meanwhile  her  pri- 
vate life  proceeds  somewhat  deviously 
along  the  track  of  the  self-determined 
woman  of  modem — ^fiction,  shall  we 
say?  Like  Effie  in  "The  Marbeck  Inn" 
she  becomes  mistress  of  an  unhappily 
married  man  and  has  no  qualms  about 
it.  They  part  not  because  they  can- 
not hope  to  marry,  but  because  he  will 
not  give  his  mistress  a  child.  There- 
after we  attend  Jean  along  some  un- 
heartened  years;  till  at  last  she  finds 
refuge  in  marriage  (at  least  we  sup- 
pose it  is  to  be  marriage)  with  a  very 
nice  fellow  some  years  older  than  she. 
There  is  a  good  deal  of  fine  characteri- 
zation in  this  book ;  the  dialogue  is  ex- 
traordinarily natural.  But  the  pre- 
vailing atmosphere  is  sultry  with  sex; 
the  middle-aged  reader,  at  least,  may 
find  the  performance  as  a  whole  both 
strained  and  wearisome.  So  also  of 
"Peter  Kindred".  Exeter,  Harvard, 
New  York,  is  the  sequence  here.  An 
intense  young  egotist  is  Peter,  with 
his  nose  in  the  clouds  and  scant  civil- 
ity for  inferiors  like  his  parents.  Un- 
luckily there  is  not  quite  enough  *'to 
him"  to  command  and  hold  our  inter- 
est and  concern  at  the  exacted  pitch. 
His  Joan  loves  him,  but  few  others  go 
that  length.  As  for  the  long-drawn 
limbo  of  his  marital  experience,  it  is 
a  conception  as  ingenuous  as  anything 
to  be  found  in  the  sex-lore  of  "The 
Young  Visiters".  Whatever  their  im- 
maturities, these  are  notable  "first 
books",  excellently  "written",  and  full 
of  the  wistful  spirit  of  the  honest 
seeker  after  a  life  worth  living. 

I 
Readers  of  E.  L.  Grant  Watson's 


344 


THE  BOOKMAN 


earlier  books  will  be  prepared  for 
nothing  conventional  in  "Deliverance". 
It  deals  with  the  sex  life  of  a  woman 
from  childhood  to  the  hour  of  her  ul- 
timate deliverance.  For  that  is  the 
"idea"  in  the  story — ^that  the  great 
thing  is  to  prove  oneself  independent 
of  the  body  and  its  claims :  "that  the 
soul  of  a  man  or  woman  might  stand 
alone»  self-respecting  and  tender, 
happy  in  its  rich  desire  to  give,  always 
too  proud  to  make  claims  upon  an- 
other." Susan  the  virginal  shrinks 
from  the  indiscriminate  contacts  of 
youth.  In  due  season  she  gives  her- 
self happily  to  a  mate,  or  to  one  with 
whose  spirit  she  feels  akin.  They 
ratify  their  relation  by  marriage  be- 
cause, says  her  Tom,  it  is  an  unneces- 
sary nuisance  to  do  the  unusual  thing. 
But  both  hold  themselves  theoretically 
free,  and  Tom  presently  acts  upon  the 
theory.  The  situation  is  precisely 
that  upon  which  the  girl  in  "The 
Swing  of  the  Pendulum"  bases  her 
flight  from  her  husband.  For  Susan 
it  is  not  so  vital  a  matter.  The  im- 
portant thing  is  that  she  shall  be  mis- 
tress of  her  own  soul.  It  is  she  and 
not  Tom's  new  mistress  who  reaps 
peace  of  the  episode.  In  motherhood 
and  in  freedom  from  any  bond  of  sex 
she  finds  self-realization.  She  has  won 
clear  of  youth's  obsession:  a  f reed- 
woman  of  love.  However  one  takes  it, 
it  is  a  novel  exposition;  there  is  much 
reality  in  these  persons,  not  least  in 
the  figure  of  Susan's  irresponsible  and 
almost  incorrigible  father. 

"Bertram  Cope's  Year"  is  a  welcome 
addition  to  the  series  of  studies  of 
American  life  and  character  which 
have  come  all  too  intermittently  and 
charily  from  the  hand  of  Henry  B. 
Fuller.  Its  overt  action  is  slight, 
there  is  no  plot.  It  is  exactly  what  its 
title  declares  it:    the  chronicle  of  a 


year  out  of  the  life  of  an  attractive  if 
not  earth-shaking  young  American 
who  happens  to  be  trying  out  his  i)ow- 
ers  as  instructor  in  a  western  univer- 
sity. He  is  not  long  out  of  this  very 
university;  but  returning  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  faculty  after  a  little  experi- 
ence at  teaching  elsewhere,  he  finds 
himself  on  altogether  new  groimd. 
He  becomes  an  object  of  pathetically 
burning  interest  to  two  middle-aged 
people:  a  well-to-do  widow;  and  a 
modest  dilettante  bachelor — ^the  sort 
of  wistful  elderly  parasite  to  be  found 
in  any  college  community.  The  widow 
rather  cultivates  young  men,  on  gen- 
eral principles.  Bertram  Cope  makes 
special  appeal  to  her,  apparently,  by 
reason  of  his  wholesome  physique  and 
downright  nature.  She  keeps  about 
her  also  a  little  coterie  of  her  own  sex 
— "her  girls".  Bertram  becomes  en- 
tangled with  one  of  these,  a  clinging 
vine,  but  escapes  pretty  promptly.  A 
second  appears  to  have  gained  a  sort 
of  lien  on  his  heart  or  his  future 
when,  at  the  year's  end,  he  passes  on 
from  Churchton  to  a  new  post  in  an 
eastern  university.  The  curtain  slips 
quietly  down  on  widow  Medora  and 
wistful  Randolph,  admitting  to  each 
other  in  confidence  that  they  are  out 
of  it.  In  their  little  contest  for  Bert- 
ram's favor  both  have  been  defeated. 
"The  young",  sighs  Medora,  "at  best, 
only  tolerate  us.  We  are  but  the  plat- 
form they  dance  on, — the  ladder  they 
climb  by." . . .  "After  all,  he  was  a 
charming  chap,"  concludes  Randolph. 
. . .  The  kind  of  novel  which  must  be 
enjoyed  not  for  its  matter  so  much  as 
for  its  quality,  its  richness  of  texture 
and  subtlety  of  atmosphere.  It  has 
distinction,  is  as  finely  wrought  in  its 
way  as  a  Howells  novel  or  a  Cable.  It 
would  be  extremely  irritating  to  the 
customer  looking  for  a  rattling  good 
story. 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT  BUGS 


345 


Finally  I  must  make  mention  of  an 
extraordinary  and  tragic  book,  "The 
Clanking  of  Chains";  by  Brinsley  Mac- 
Namara.  Like  his  earlier  story,  "The 
Valley  of  the  Squinting  Windows",  it 
takes  a  gloomy  view  of  the  Irish  char- 
acter and  capabilities.  It  is  a  story  of 
wild  aspiration  smothered  in  sordid 
stupidity.  Michael  Dempsey,  the 
shop-boy  of  Ballycullen,  represents  the 
insurgent  heart  of  an  Ireland  brood- 
ing upon  ancient  wrongs  and  seeking 
to  build  a  glorious  future  upon  re- 
venge against  England.  He  studies 
the  old  stories  of  oppression,  steeps 
himself  in  the  romantic  faith,  the  love 
of  an  Ireland  pure  and  free — "the 
dear  dark  head"  of  the  lovely  Kathleen 
ni  Houlihan.  But  Ballycullen  is  a 
place  of  squalor  and  of  mean  thoughts, 
dominated  by  its  publicans,  suspicious 
of  high  or  even  honest  purpose.  There 
is  nothing  for  him  there  in  the  end. 
He  can  only  prepare  like  legions  of 
predecessors  to  go  forth  from  Bally- 
cullen and  from  Ireland  in  search  of 
some  cleaner  and  higher-souled  dwell- 


ing place.  Even  sorrow  has  left  him ; 
and  as  at  the  last  he  bums  the  me- 
morials of  his  passion  for  Ireland  "he 
felt  somehow  that  this  was  no  doleful 
act  of  renunciation  and  that  none  of 
the  ashes  of  his  soul  commingled  with 
the  dust  of  all  his  dreaming  for  love  of 
Ireland. ..."  A  sorrowful  book,  in 
which  a  devoted  son  seems  condemned 
to  utter  with  flashing  eye  and  a  kind 
of  broken  resonance,  his  despair  of 
the  land  that  bore  him. 


Miser's  Money.  By  Eden  Phillpotts.  The 
Macmillan  Co. 

Evander.  By  Eden  Phillpotts.  The  MacmU- 
lan  Co. 

The  Substance  of  a  Dream.  By  F.  W.  Bain. 
6.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

Poor  Relations.  By  Compton  Mackenzie. 
Harper  and  Bros. 

Where  Angels  Fear  to  Tread.  By  E.  M. 
Forster.     Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

A  Place  in  the  World.  By  John  Hastings 
Turner.     Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

The  Marbeck  Inn.  By  Harold  Brighouse. 
Little,  Brown  and  Co. 

The  Swing  of  the  Pendulum.  By  Adriana 
Spadoni.     Boni  and  Liveright. 

Peter  Kindred.  By  Bobert  Nathan.  Duf- 
field  and  Co. 

Deliverance.  By  E.  L.  Grant  Watson.  Alfred 
A.  Knopf. 

Bertram  Cope's  Year.  By  Henry  B.  Fuller. 
Ralph  Fletcher  Sejmour. 

The  Clanking  of  Chains.  By  Brinsley  Mac- 
Namara.     Brentano's. 


CHIEFLY  ABOUT  BUGS 


BY  WALTER  PRICHARD  EATON 


THE  great  Fabrd  was  endowed  with 
infinite  patience  and  great  liter- 
ary charm,  but  all  save  the  most 
casual  of  his  readers  must  always  be 
aware  that  his  refusal  to  allow  more 
than  intuitive  instinct  to  insects  was 
due  less  to  scientific  caution  than  to 
scientific  preconceptions.  Phil  and 
Nellie  Rau,  of  St.  Louis,  in  their  book, 
''Wasp  Studies  Afield",  cannot  be  said 


to  show  less  patience  than  the  great 
Frenchman  himself,  though  their  lit- 
erary charm  is  less.  But  they  are  also 
less  troubled  by  preconceptions,  more 
attentive  to  the  variations,  and  they 
have  profited  by  the  modern  trend  of 
psychological  investigation.  The  re- 
sults of  their  field  studies  of  both 
solitary  and  social  wasps,  and  of  such 
experiments  as  can  be  conducted  in 


346 


THE  BOOKMAN 


the  field,  or  the  field  laboratory,  dispel 
not  a  little  of  that  mystery  which  was 
always  Fabre's  final  "Solution".  Their 
experiments  with  Polistes  PaUipes, 
for  example  (the  social  wasps  which 
build  their  paper  houses  on  our 
barns),  tend  quite  conclusively  to 
show  that  this  wasp  develops  a  place 
memory  by  experience  in  flying  about; 
and  those  who  are  removed  far  from 
the  nest  without  such  experience  can- 
not get  home,  while  the  experienced 
ones  (especially  the  queens,  who  live 
more  than  one  year),  can  often  find 
their  way  back  from  as  much  as  two 
miles  away.  There  is  no  more  "mys- 
tery" here  than  in  the  education  of  a 
child. 

These  American  authors  are  much 
more  matter  of  fact  in  their  narra- 
tion than  Fabre,  and  seemingly  make 
fewer  human  analogies  (it  is  his  deli- 
cate humanizing  of  the  bugs,  in  a 
quite  legitimate  sense,  which  so  en- 
dears Fabre  to  the  unscientific  read- 
er) ;  yet  they  are  no  less  surely 
adding  their  firm  stone  to  the  slowly 
rising  structure  of  the  great  and  baf- 
fling science  of  psychology,  which  we 
now  know  cannot  house  man  alone. 
Indeed,  at  times  one  is  tempted  to  ex- 
claim, "The  proper  study  of  mankind 
is  bugs". 

Fabre's  chapters  on  "The  Sacred 
Beetle"  and  similar  bugs,  translated 
out  of  the  "Souvenirs"  by  Alexander 
de  Mattos,  have  been  added  to  the 
growing  series  of  English  translations 
from  his  master-work.  One  need 
hardly  say  more  than  that  Fabre 
makes  the  dung  beetles  a  savory  sub- 
ject!   His  was  a  magic  pen. 

Two  bug  books  for  young  folks  are 
before  us.  One  of  them,  "Knowing 
Insects  through  Stories",  by  Floyd 
Bralliar,  is,  in  spite  of  a  clumsy  title, 
a  most  excellent  book,  excellently  illus- 
trated.    It  is  an   introduction  to  a 


study  of  our  American  moths  and  but- 
terflies which  can  both  entertain  a  boy 
and,  at  the  same  time,  gently  inoculate 
him  with  genuine  scientific  classifica- 
tion, without  any  resort  to  the  too 
prevalent  method  of  "fiction" — ^i.e. 
making  the  insects  talk  like  RoUo  and 
his  papa.  The  other  book,  called 
"'Busy',  the  Life  of  an  Ant",  falls 
plump  into  a  perfect  wallow  of  pa- 
thetic fallacy,  even  in  the  illustrations, 
and  we  discover,  to  our  astonishment, 
that  ants  converse  at  great  length  in 
the  English  language,  though  no  evi- 
dence is  presented  that  they  have  as 
yet  discovered  the  art  of  printing. 
The  frontispiece,  showing  two  ants 
viewing  the  world  for  the  first  time, 
might  well  serve  as  an  illustration  for 
Keats's  sonnet,  "On  First  Reading 
Chapman's  Homer".  We  don't  think 
this  is  quite  fair,  either  to  the  chil- 
dren or  the  ants. 

Peter  McArthur,  the  Canadian 
farmer-journalist,  is  a  humorist,  not  a 
man  of  science.  His  collection  of 
little  farm  essays,  "The  Red  Cow", 
however,  is  not  lacking  in  shrewd  ob- 
servation of  animal  behavior,  though 
he  makes  no  deductions  therefrom. 
His  adventures  in  trying  to  feed 
Beatrice,  the  pig,  are  highly  mirthful, 
and  laughter  is  the  end  sought  in  his 
account.  But  nevertheless  his  intimate 
and  laughably  affectionate  records  of 
the  behavior  of  his  farm  animals  have 
such  a  ring  of  veracity  that  they  do 
have  their  actual  value  in  throwing  a 
ray  on  the  problem  of  animal  psychol- 
ogy. It  would  doubtless  please  his 
publishers  better  if  one  should  say 
that  his  book  is  three  hundred  pages 
of  chuckle  (it  is).  But  we  are  scien- 
tifically inclined  just  now. 

Finally,  we  find  and  open  a  book 
with  the  somewhat  too  sentimental 
title,  "On  the  Manuscripts  of  Grod", 
by  Ellen  Bums  Sherman.    Even  here 


BLIND  MOUTHS 


847 


there  is  a  chapter  on  bugs— on  the 
little  beetle  that  etches  pine  branches 
into  wonderful  totem  poles.  But  for 
the  most  part  the  book  is  a  pleasant, 
gently  whimsical  at  times,  and  always 
deftly  and  freshly  observed  record  of 
such  things  as  trees,  brooks,  woodland 
sounds,  the  poetry  and  overtones  of 
nature,  not  her  science.  This  field  has 
been  often  worked — some  will  say 
overworked.  Yet  its  appeal  is  ever 
new,  and  the  worker  is  justified  who 
can  bring  to  the  task  some  definite 
contribution  of  insight  or  charm. 
Miss  Sherman  brings  sensitiveness,  a 
quietly  religious  fervor,  and  a  finely 
wrought  prose.    She  is  not  afraid  to 


be  "old-fashioned",  and  to  write 
rhythmically,  loving  at  times  an  or- 
nate word,  packing  her  sentences  and 
patting  them  down.  We  like  such 
prose.  It  is  a  relief  from  too  much 
journalism.  We  rejoice  to  find  in  Miss 
Sherman's  book  the  whiff  of  an  almost 
forgotten  odor — the  odor  of  the  gar- 
dens of  Hesperides  where  Sir  Thomas 
Browne  once  wandered. 

Wasp  studies  Afield.  By  PhU  and  NeUle 
Bau.     Princeton  University  Press. 

The  Sacred  Beetle  and  Others.  By  J.  Henri 
Fabre.    Dodd,  Mead  and  Co. 

Knowing  Insects  through  Stories.  By  Floyd 
Bralliar.    Funk  and  Wagnalls  Co. 

♦•Busy",  the  Life  of  an  Ant.  By  Walter  F. 
McCaleb.     Harper  and  Bros.    . 

The  Red  Cow  and  Her  Friends.  By  Peter 
McArthur.    John  Lane  Co. 

On  the  Manuscripts  of  God.  By  Bllen  Burns 
Sherman.    The  Abingdon  Press. 


BLIND  MOUTHS 


BY  STARK  YOUNG 


LAST  year  a  professor  well  known 
as  a  teacher  of  a  certain  form  of 
writing:  said  to  me  that  his  worst 
trouble  with  student  writers  was  in 
''getting  them  to  keep  out  their  indi- 
viduality". So  far  this  is  one  of  the 
most  depressing  remarks  I  have  heard 
out  of  the  colleges.  It  must  be  obvi- 
ous that  one  of  the  hopes  of  our  litera- 
ture lies  in  these  young  people.  We 
rest  on  their  help  to  raise  somewhat 
the  present  dead  level  that  reigns  in 
literature,  with  its  little  bit  for  every- 
body. They  revivify  with  wild  youth 
bursting  through  old  ways.  They  dis- 
regard reverence  and  the  established 
methods  and  profitable  formularies; 
they  force  older  writings  to  stand  or 
fall,  as  everything  in  the  world  does, 
by  their  vitality     Keeping  the  indi- 


viduality of  young  writers  out  from 
their  writing  means  keeping  them  out. 
Mr.  Schnittkind's  books  of  selec- 
tions from  college  writings,  especially 
short  stories — ^the  book  of  poems  is 
rather  better,  less  connected  with 
practical  temptations — set  the  ques- 
tion going  in  my  mind  again.  The 
title  of  "the  best  college  short  stories" 
is  obviously  misleading.  If  you  select 
twenty-two  stories  from  almost  as 
many  colleges,  you  are  selecting  partly 
by  a  mere  distribution,  since  a  quarter 
of  the  best  might  actually  be  found  in 
one  college.  But  Mr.  Schnittkind's 
plan  is  better  for  our  purpose.  It 
gives  us  a  better  idea  of  the  field.  The 
stories  are  followed  by  a  group  of 
kindly  letters  from  magazine  editors, 
intended  to  help  bridge  the  gap  be- 


348 


THE  BOOKMAN 


tween  the  editors  and  the  young  au- 
thors. The  last  section  of  all  contains 
"an  autobiographic  symposium  by 
twenty-eight  famous  authors  of  short 
stories,  giving  an  account  of  their 
struggle  for  literary  fame  and  the 
steps  they  took  to  attain  iV* ;  a  ridicu- 
lous mass  of  stuff,  most  of  the  writers 
being  of  no  interest  whatever  and 
most  of  their  remarks  being  appal- 
lingly barren  and  cheap. 

Can  writing  of  any  value  be  taught? 
Certainly  this  collection  of  stories 
puts  edge  on  the  question.  Obviously 
the  common  decencies,  the  etiquette 
of  writing,  can  be  taught  by  drill. 
But  one  wonders  about  literature. 
Van  Dyke  was  taught  by  Rubens, 
Plato  by  Socrates.  But  Rubens  and 
Socrates  were  great  creators;  and 
what  great  creative  figure  teaches 
writing?  It  is  more  likely  that  great 
books  are  the  teachers  for  a  writer; 
reading-classes  in  literature,  if  you 
must  have  classes,  not  those  in  themes 
and  short  stories.  Doubtless  rules 
may  be  observed.  One  may  be  taught 
to  be  a  member  of  a  literary  school 
even,  or  a  literary  factory.  One  may 
become  expert  in  phases  of  a  craft. 
And  for  the  dull  such  a  training  may 
be  good.  It  teaches  them  a  certain 
mechanism  that  may  serve  to  make 
dulness  endurable;  though  the  same 
mechanism  has  the  doubtful  moral 
function  of  preserving  the  unfit. 
Teaching  may  give  great  talents  a 
chance  to  imitate  men  they  will  absorb 
or  free  themselves  from,  as  they  come 
at  length  to  their  own. 

But  between  the  top  and  the  bottom, 
for  the  majority  of  students  that  is, 
the  argument  for  teaching  writing 
grows  weaker.  To  the  commonplace 
it  may  give  a  uniform  mediocrity  that 
at  least  puts  them  in  line,  sometimes 
the  market  line.  But  for  many  gifted 
though  secondary  souls,  this  teaching 


how  to  do  the  trick  merely  sets  up 
hurdles  to  be  taken.  It  often  ends  by 
making  what  might  have  been  a  small 
originality  turn  out  mere  imitation. 
In  writing  more  than  anywhere  else 
Spenser's  saying  that  "soul  is  form 
and  doth  the  body  make"  is  true.  A 
content  that  does  not  write  itself,  does 
not  dictate  its  form,  is  never  written. 
And  yet,  absurdly  enough,  teachers 
with  pretty  much  nothing  to  say  are 
often  strong  on  form  devices.  At  any 
rate,  whatever  we  may  say  about  the 
possibility  of  teaching  a  man  how  to 
write,  we  may  at  least  say,  surely,  that 
after  all  a  man  must  write  his  own 
work.  When  you  show  him  how  to 
write  a  thing,  it  only  means  that  he 
has  written  not  his  own  thing  but 
something  else.  This  thing  may  be 
good,  but  his  own  is  still  unwritten. 

But  say  that  writing  can  be  taught. 
If  writing  can  be  taught,  then,  what 
sort  should  the  teaching  be?  In  the 
twenty-two  stories  brought  together 
by  Mr.  Schnittkind,  Miss  Abraham- 
son  of  the  University  of  Minnesota 
has  a  story,  "The  Tomte  Gubbe",  with 
something  that  hovers  always  over  it 
and  haunts  the  mind.  And  Mr.  Shaw- 
cross  of  Brown  University  has  put 
into  "The  Krotchet  Kid"  some  of  the 
talk,  the  half-light  and  quick  shadows, 
the  poignant  and  reckless  idealism  and 
slap-dash  of  certain  high-souled  and 
splashing  college  boys;  some  of  it 
almost  as  good  as  the  same  kind  of 
thing  in  Mr.  Joyce's  "Portrait  of  the 
Artist  as  a  Young  Man".  And  Miss 
Grossman  of  Hunter  College  has  no 
end  of  promise  in  the  humor  of  "The 
S  in  Fish  Means  Sugar".  But  the  col- 
lection for  the  most  part  is  discourag- 
ing. It  suggests  a  lot  of  teachers 
throughout  the  country  who  are  teach- 
ing students  how  to  play  the  game. 
Consciously  or  not,  many  of  these 
teachers  are  only  pimping  for  com- 


BLIND  MOUTHS 


849 


mercial  journalism.  They  know  some- 
times the  practical  field,  or  use  text- 
books that  seem  to;  they  know  cer- 
tain editors ;  know  what  tricks  are  in 
demand.  Study  the  magazines,  they 
advise,  and  see  what  is  wanted.  They 
may  be  pitied  somewhat,  for  many  of 
them  are  pursued,  like  their  schools, 
by  the  vulgar  pressure  "to  make  good" 
— in  the  vulgar  sense  of  the  phrase. 
And  such  a  volume  as  Mr.  Schnitt- 
kind's  helps  toward  the  same  cause. 

I  may  surmise  that  better  things 
are  done  by  young  writers,  if  we  could 
only  see  them.  But  here  in  this  book 
with  its  even  and  fluent  vacuity  and 
its  account  of  the  ideals  of  our  liter- 
ary salesmen,  here,  as  in  certain 
magazines,  is  the  reward  for  the 
sharp-sighted  among  the  young.  I 
read  through  all  these  pages  of  stories, 
mostly  unreal  and  foolish — and  often 
filled  with  the  exhausting  and  evasive 
and  facile  patter  of  girl  students,  more 
foolish  than  ever — ^with  falling  spir- 
its. If  they  were  even  crude  it  would 
mean  something;  or  if  they  were  ex- 
travagant, or  dumb,  or  excessive  with 
the  promise  of  excessiveness  that  Cole- 
ridge talks  about.  But  they  are  like 
tiresome  and  knowing  children  who 
have  learned  to  make  themselves  ap- 
proved of  their  prosaic  elders.  I  read 
and  read  and  wonder  with  Words-" 
worth  "whither  has  fled  the  glory  and 
the  dream?"  Where  is  passion,  de- 
spair, foolish  longings,  egotism,  aspi- 
rations? Where  are  the  wild  hearts 
or  the  morose,  the  hours  tortured  with 
doubts,  the  growing-pains,  the  resent- 
ment felt  toward  fixed  order,  the  sense 
of  loneliness,  of  inextinguishable  joy? 
And  who  helped  teach  them  to  leave 
out  all  this?  I  want  to  quote  them  Sir 
Anthony:  "Come,  Jack,  you've  been 
lying,  han't  you?  Come,  you  sly  dog! 
I'll  never  forgive  you  if  you  han't  been 
lying!"     I  can  never  forgive  these 


young  story  writers  if  these  smooth 
and  fluent  affairs  they  have  set  down 
have  not  lied  about  their  authors. 

I  know  of  course  that  the  last  and 
hardest  thing  in  art  is  to  express  one's 
self,  to  leave  off  imitation  of  things 
outside;  and  I  know  that  young  peo- 
ple are  reticent  about  themselves,  shy 
of  their  dreams,  secret  of  their  base- 
ness, sometimes  wistful,  sometimes 
brutal,  often  inarticulate.  Let  that 
pass  as  part  of  the  modesty  of  na- 
ture. But  they  should  at  least  be  en- 
couraged to  feel  that  for  them  expres- 
sion in  art  concerns  only  these  reali- 
ties of  their  own.  They  can  at  least 
be  taught  not  to  be  foolish  but  not  to 
be  silent. 

Part  of  the  blame  may  be  put  on 
the  publishing  market;  that  is  an- 
other discussion.  But  teachers  are  not 
bound  by  market  conditions.  They  do 
not  have  to  understudy  the  public  and 
the  editors.  We  get  now  a  melancholy 
picture  of  ladies  with  pince-nez  and 
blue  pencil  and  of  gentle,  fastidious 
men  —  correcting,  fancying  them- 
selves editors  perhaps,  conferring 
with  young  writers,  judging,  criticiz- 
ing, re-arranging  the  life  of  what  has 
been  written,  unable  to  do  anything 
themselves,  but  knowing  how  another 
mind,  steaming  over  with  zest  or 
beauty  or  adventure,  is  to  turn  the 
trick.  Auditors  and  interested  friends 
they  might  be,  Maecenases  giving 
freely  of  their  patient  ears.  But  it  is 
hard  to  keep  one's  self  out  like  that. 
And  now  and  then  the  acceptance  of 
a  story  by  some  magazine  comes  for  a 
reward,  to  be  held  up  as  a  goal  of  en- 
deavors and  a  warning  to  such  as  will 
not  learn  their  trade  properly.  The 
excuse  for  such  teachers  is  slight. 
They  are  not  trying  to  make  literary 
journeymen,  hacks  or  artisans;  such 
as  these  can  learn  their  craft  better 
in  the  regular  channels  of  the  trade; 


850 


THE  BOOKMAN 


which  may  be  after  all  the  better  way 
for  everybody,  either  that  or  solitary 
dream  and  effort. 

The  teacher's  business  is  largely  in 
the  other  direction.  He  needs  to  off- 
set the  temptations  of  an  immediate 
or  mechanical  or  extraneous,  often  a 
prostitutional,  success.  Every  stu- 
dent needs  most  of  all  the  sense  of  the 
possibilities  of  his  own  self.  Among 
teachers  the  sinner  is  the  man  who 
does  not  expand  and  bring  to  some 
sort  of  expression  the  nature  of  each 
individual  man  that  he  teaches. 
Every  student  needs  to  be  taught  Ib- 
sen's remark  when  they  told  him  that 
his  plays  would  never  go  in  his  own 
country:  "If  the  taste  of  Norway 
does  not  like  my  work,  the  taste  of 
Norway  will  have  to  change";  to  be 
told  that  this  may  be  the  losing  game 
but  is  the  only  game  worth  ansrthing. 
If  he  is  not  willing  to  play  it  so,  let 
him  choose  another  business;  there 
is  nothing  the  matter  with  architec- 
ture or  banking  or  the  church  or  in- 
surance. Students  should  be  helped 
toward  their  insolence,  passion,  way- 
ward vision,  enthusiasm,  devotion, 
fury,  toward  their  fire  or  sentiment, 
gentle  affection,  boisterous  humor  or 


idle  nothings ;  that  is  the  business  of 
the  teacher,  if  anything  is  to  come  out 
of  the  teaching  of  those  who  want  to 
write.  For  of  all  the  forms  of  pru- 
dence, of  practical  ways  of  getting  on, 
of  selling  one's  stuff  or  playing  the 
game,  there  are  endless  lessons  on 
every  news-stand.  It  is  only  too  easy 
for  a  gifted  beginner  to  get  the  cue 
for  trying  to  follow  in  the  steps  of  lit- 
erary big  business. 

Meantime  I  read  these  pages  of 
stories  and  wonder  what  Chekhov 
would  think  of  the  teaching  behind  it 
all,  or  what  Dante  would  think,  or 
Shakespeare,  or  Whitman,  or  Thoreau 
or  any  one  who  cares  about  life  and 
knows  what  it  means  secretly  to  every 
man  according  to  his  depth.  I  read 
and  wonder  if  art  exists  in  spite  of  the 
colleges,  as  I  heard  a  great  artist  say 
once.  And  meantime  in  front  of  me 
there  is  the  line  of  these  terribly  ade- 
quate young  people  of  ours,  each  one 
doing  with  disconcerting  expertness 
an  almost  vacant  thing. 


The  Best  College  Short  Stories.  Edited  by 
Henry  T.  Schnittkind.  Introduction  by  Ed- 
ward J.  O'Brien.    The  Stratford  Co. 

The  Poets  of  the  Future.  A  CoUege  Anthol- 
ogy for  1917-1918.  Edited  by  Henry  T.  Schnitt- 
kind.    The  Stratford  Co. 


A  SHELF  OF  RECENT  BOOKS 


MEMORIES  OF  MEREDITH 

By  James  J,  Daly 

WHEN  she  was  still  little  Alice 
Brandrethy  aged  thirteen,  Lady 
Butcher  began  a  friendship  with 
George  Meredith  which  lasted  till  his 
death,  a  period  of  forty-one  years. 
They  were  neighbors  as  well  as 
friends.  Numerous  family  gather- 
ings, private  Shakespearian  recitals  in 
which  both  figured  as  promoters  and 
actors,  picnics,  long  walks  and  drives 
in  the  country,  literary  discussions — 
all  these  would  seem  to  afford  ma- 
terial for  a  large  volume.  There  were, 
moreover,  letters  and  diaries  to  draw 
from.  Lady  Butcher's  book  contains 
a  hundred  and  fifty  pages  and  can  be 
read  in  an  hour  and  a  half.  She  is  to 
be  congratulated  on  her  heroic  self-re- 
straint. The  proud  reserve  of  her  fa- 
mous friend  was  still  potent  to  dis- 
courage talkativeness  at  his  expense. 
Not  that  the  little  book  is  toned 
down  to  colorlessness.  No  space  is 
wasted  on  the  insignificant.  We  enjoy 
here,  we  are  made  to  feel,  the  cream 
of  several  volumes.  If  there  is  noth- 
ing particularly  revealing,  we  obtain 
at  least  interesting  confirmation  of  the 
impressions  made  by  Meredith  him- 
self through  his  novels  and  poems. 
Information  is  sparingly  dispensed 
and  is  not  always  news.  We  are  told 
once  more  that  Meredith  attached  a 
higher  value  to  his  poems  than  to  his 


novels,  that  "Beauchamp's  Career" 
was  his  favorite  novel,  that  Swinburne 
was  the  original  of  Tracy  Running- 
brook  in  "Sandra  Belloni".  It  may 
not  be  so  well  known  that  Ren^e  in 
"Beauchamp's  Career"  was  his  best 
beloved  character,  and  that  Lady 
Butcher  is  Cecilia  Halkett  in  the  same 
novel. 

It  is  interesting  to  discover  that 
Meredith,  whose  pen  was  the  first 
great  English  pen  to  pry  curiously 
among  the  reticences,  was  always 
nervous  about  giving  offense  to  young 
and  innocent  minds.  He  could  not  en- 
joy a  witty  and  wicked  French  play  on 
one  occasion  because  of  the  thought 
that  young  people  were  in  the  audi- 
ence. He  believed  that  the  reading  of 
young  girls  ought  to  be  carefully 
censored,  and  he  disapproved  of  de 
Maupassant  for  general  circulation. 
He  had  no  use  for  women  who  never 
kneeled  in  prayer;  and  he  never 
parted  from  Lady  Butcher  during 
those  forty-one  years  without  a  fer- 
vent "God  bless  you". 

As  the  literary  styles  seem  to  go  at 
present,  perhaps  nothing  so  effectually 
places  Meredith  in  the  "yellow  yester- 
days of  time"  as  the  reverent  serious- 
ness which,  with  questionable  judg- 
ment, he  felt  obliged  to  conceal  par- 
tially under  fantastic  mockeries.  One 
feels  that  Meredith  was  better  than 
his  books.  Lady  Butcher  expresses 
a  profound  criticism  of  Meredith 
when  she  regrets  his  early  association 


351 


852 


THE  BOOKMAN 


with  Thomas  Love  Peacock.  Meredith 
accepted  Lessing's  dislike  of  certain- 
ties, as  a  working  philosophy,  and  re- 
solved to  be  his  own  prophet  in  a  world 
where  one  doubt  was  as  good  or  as  bad 
as  another. 

Ah,  what  a  dusty  answer  gets  the  soul 
When  hot  for  certainties  in  this  our  life! 

It  is  a  compliment  to  his  intellectual 
and  moral  powers  and  habits  that  he 
was  able  to  discover  a  few  of  the  eter- 
nal certainties  for  himself. 

Meredith's  mental  energy  raises 
him  above  his  modernistic  successors 
and  disciples,  at  the  cost  frequently 
of  his  art.  Lady  Butcher  notes  that 
she  preferred  many  of  his  stories,  in 
the  form  in  which  he  told  them  to  her 
before  writing  them  out,  to  the  fin- 
ished product  with  its  heavy  encrusta- 
tions of  wisdom  and  satire.  He  played 
the  sedulous  chorus  to  his  own  crea- 
tions; and  it  was  not  a  chorus  after 
the  Greek  manner,  reflecting  the  reac- 
tions of  ordinary,  everyday  people. 

Wit  that  strives  to  speak  the  popular  voice 
Puts  on   its  nightcap  and  puts  out  the  light. 

And  yet  Lady  Butcher  tells  how  he 
solemnly  warned  her  against  ever 
falling  into  the  ineptitude  of  whisper- 
ing to  herself,  "Not  I  as  common 
men!"  There  are  many  Meredithian 
touches  in  this  little  book.  Once  the 
great  man  turned  on  the  young  Alice 
Brandreth :  "Make  up  your  mind,  did 
you  say?  Make  up  your  mind?  You 
haven't  got  one  yet.  You  are  all 
around  the  clock  in  twenty-four 
hours."  Speaking  of  his  critics  to  her 
son:  "They  are  always  abusing  me. 
I  have  been  observing  them.  It  is  the 
crueller  process."  We  have  to  thank 
Lady  Butcher  for  a  pleasant  little 
book.  She  might  have  made  her  self- 
restraint  perfect,  and  added  a  tone  of 
originality  to  her  work,  if  she  had 
omitted  the  usual  gibe  at  the  crude 


Americans  who  hasten  to  pay  homage 
to  English  idols.  Every  American 
who  visits  an  Englishman  in  his  castle 
must  do  so,  it  seems,  at  the  risk  of  his 
self-respect.  And  in  the  present  in- 
stance the  derision  is  especially  un- 
just. Are  we  not  the  original  discov- 
erers of  George  Meredith? 


Memories  of  George  Meredith,  O.M.  By  Lady 
Butcher.  With  three  iUustratlons.  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons. 


LOAF,  AND  INVITE  YOUR  SOUL* 

By  Maurice  Francis  Egan 

IT  is  rather  distracting  to  receive 
these  two  books  at  the  same  time. 
If  you  have  a  well-developed  sense  of 
order,  you  would  probably  prefer  to 
finish  one  before  beginning  the  other; 
but  that  is  very  difficult;  it  is  even 
more  difficult  to  begin  at  the  begin- 
ning of  either.  You  dip  into  "Peeps  at 
People"  and  find  "As  To  Office  Boys". 
You  chuckle;  but  you  find  that  "As 
To  Office  Boys"  is  only  an  appetizer, 
and  you  long  for  a  pidce  de  resistance 
and  you  put  yoUr  teeth  into  "At  Mrs. 
Wigger's",  in  "Broome  Street  Straws", 
which  is  the  fatter  volume  of  the  two. 
Then  you  do  not  get  back  to  "Peeps 
at  People"  again  until  you  have  ex- 
hausted "Broome  Street  Straws"  and 
feel  that  you  must  have  more  of  the 
delicious  flavor  of  Robert  Cortes  Hol- 
liday's  manner.  It  is  the  fashion  to 
compare  this  unique  American  essay- 
ist with  other  essayists  of  the  past; 


*A  certain  (perhaps  not  unbecoming)  modesty 
made  Mr.  Holliday  frown  upon  the  publication 
in  Tni  Bookman  of  this  review  of  his  two 
books.  His  weakness  in  the  face  of  the  ethical 
problem  involyed  has  been  a  grief  to  his  asso- 
ciates for  several  months.  Now,  however,  that 
he  is  in  the  West  for  an  extended  trip  for  the 
magazine,  the  case  is  surprisingly  simple — to 
us.  Also,  there  is  nothing  he  can  do  about  It. 
That  always  helps. — thi  editors. 


LOAF.  AND  INVITE  YOUR  SOUL 


358 


and,  in  reviewing  his  books,  one  feels 
the  literary  necessity  of  finding  some 
comparison  or  other.  It  is  expected, 
of  course.  Now,  it  seems  to  me  that 
if  "Peeps  at  People"  is  like  any  other 
written  thing  on  earth,  it  resembles 
Miss  Mitford's  series  of  sketches 
caUed  "Our  ViUage".  It  is  true  that 
Miss  Mitford  writes  of  the  country, 
and  a  quiet  country,  while  Mr.  HoUi- 
day  writes  of  the  city,  and  a  tumultu- 
ous city;  but  since  I  must  make  a 
comparison,  owing  to  the  solemn  de- 
mands of  the  exigencies  of  Compara- 
tive Literature,  let  it  be  Miss  Mitford. 
But  "Broome  Street  Straws"  escapes 
comparison;  or,  shall  we, — all  of  us, 
— in  order  to  be  consistent,  measure 
"The  Romance  of  Destiny"  with  Bal- 
zac's "C^sar  Birotteau"  or  "The  Rise 
of  Silas  Lapham"?  This  process  re- 
stores one's  self-respect  and  one  can 
go  on  writing  about  Mr.  Holliday's 
books  without  fear  or  favor. 

Mr.  Holliday  notices  this  necessity 
himself  in  "An  Article  Without  An 
Idea" : 

One  word  more  as  to  essays.  The  mantle  of 
the  illustrious  dead  is  always  descending  upon 
the  peculiar  cove  who  essays  to  write  an  essay. 
For  a  considerable  spell  in  this  country  it  was 
quite  the  thing  to  wrap  any  one  who  an- 
nounced that  that  which  he  had  written  was 
an  essay  in  the  mantle  of  Dr.  Holmes.  Now  he 
is  likely  to  get  into  the  old  clothes  of  Charles 
Lamb  (Oh,  Blia.  of  course!),  of  "R.  L.  S.",  of 
the  author  of  "The  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor", 
etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

And  then,  having  tangled  up  Chris- 
topher Morley  in  the  hose  and  doublet 
of  Montaigne,  he  unwraps  him ! 

The  business  man  of  the  present — 
that  is,  the  real  business  man  of  the 
present — engages  experts  in  efficiency 
who  can  determine  whether  his  em- 
ployees are  psychically  prepared  to 
undertake  the  work  that  suits  them 
best.  The  publishers,  if  they  were 
quite  abreast  of  their  times,  ought  to 
have   a   similar   mental   preparation 


which  could  put  the  reader  into  the 
proper  mood  for  enjoying  each  book. 
Improving  book-shelves,  which  imply 
courses  of  reading,  are  entirely  un- 
modem.  What  we  demand  now  is  such 
a  delicate  arrangement  of  books  that 
each  book  will  put  us  in  the  mood  for 
pleasantly  savoring  the  next.  Mr. 
Holliday,  though  not  a  publisher,  has 
perhaps  unconsciously  applied  this 
truth.  You  may  have  a  vacant  mind 
and  still  delight  in  "Peeps  at  People". 
Any  girl  in  the  subway,  chewing  gum, 
with  her  hair  over  her  ears,  and  very 
high  heels,  is  capable  of  chuckling 
over  "Peeps  at  People".  It  is  not  nec- 
essary that  she  should  know  anything 
to  enjoy  it.  It  is  a  series  of  irides- 
cent bubbles  from  the  pipe  of  a  phi- 
losopher; it  is  as  light  as  air  and 
seemingly  as  easy  in  motion;  but  its 
bubbles  reflect  the  earth  and  air,  and 
have  needed  very  careful  mental, 
chemical  combinations  to  make  them. 
Take  "A  Nice  Taste  in  Murders", 
for  instance ;  it  is  a  little  nocturne  in 
pastel ;  you  can  hear  Caroline  playing 
the  ghostly  flute !  Or  take  "The  For- 
getful Tailor", — who  has  not  known 
him,  but  who  wants  to  know  him? 
And  "A  Nice  Man" !  it  recalls  the  in- 
imitable Dixie,  in  the  old  days  of 
"Adonis"  being  charming  to  all  the 
customers  at  the  village  shop;  and  it 
is  from  life.  For  the  consolation  of 
the  many  it  may  be  safely  asserted 
that  any  reader  may  honestly  confess 
that  he  has  "a  vacant  mind"  by  a 
series  of  loud  laughs  after  reading 
"The  Case  of  Mr.  Woolen",  and  ac- 
quire no  blame ! 

But  with  "Broome  Street  Straws" 
it  is  different.  It  is  not  for  those  who 
run  and  read.  You  must  have  relished 
many  books  to  get  the  full  flavor  of 
"Broome  Street  Straws",  in  which  Mr. 


854 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Holliday  shows  that  he  is  not  only  a 
most  sympathetic  scholar,  but  a  very 
tolerant  gentleman.  He  should  have 
known  Horatius  Flaccus.  He  should 
have  talked  over  the  wine  of  Gascony 
with  Montaigne.  Dr.  Johnson  would 
have  found  him  an  interesting  com- 
panion,  if  the  great  lexicographer 
could  have  been  persuaded  that  many 
of  his  expressions  were  drawn  from 
the  language  of  the  Red  Indians,  and 
not  intended  to  be  the  language  spoken 
at  the  Cheshire  Cheese!  Only  that 
would  have  made  him  forgive  them. 
In  all  this  charming  array  of  what 
may  be  called  "essays",  but  which  are 
unlike  all  other  essays  that  we  have 
read,  there  is  only  one  which  seems 
rather  forced,  and  that  is  "Tarkington- 
apolis".  It  is  no  doubt  good  literary 
appreciation,  but  it  has  neither  the 
atmosphere  nor  the  feeling  that  makes 
so  satisfactory  the  work  of  this  con- 
firmed "loafer  in  literature": 
Mr.  Holliday  remarks: 

It  is  said  that  essays  are  coming  in  again. 
Byery  once  in  a  while  somebody  says  that.  It 
is  like  prophecies  concerning  the  immediate 
end  of  the  world.  However,  It  (either  one  of 
these  prophecies)  may  be  so  this  time.  Still, 
as  to  essays,  In  view  of  the  economy  of  ideas 
now  going,  as  hand  in  hand  we  have  seen  is 
the  case,  that  likelihood  does  not  seem  so 
probable.  Because,  whereas  yon  can  write  an 
excellent  article  about  something  with  only 
one  idea,  and  a  pretty  fair  one  (such  as  this) 
with  no  idea  at  all,  to  write  the  best  sort  of 
essay,  which  is  about  nothing  much,  you  reaUy 
need  any  number  of  ideas. 

Now,  when  Mr.  Holliday  becomes 
logical  or  dogmatic,  he  is  always 
wrong;  and  he  is  particularly  wrong 
in  this  rather  doctrinal  assertion.  The 
kind  of  essay  he  writes  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  ideas.  Its  value, 
its  charm,  its  reason  to  be  delightful, 
is  entirely  due  to  a  certain  tempera- 
mental way  of  looking  at  life,  disci- 
plined by  culture,  inspired  by  love  of 
the  real  beauty  of  living,  and  to  an  ir- 


repressible enjoyment  of  everything 
that  is  normally  human.  You  have 
only  to  read — ^but  you  ought  to  be  in 
the  mood — ^the  paper  called  "As  to 
Visits"  to  understand  the  depth,  the 
fine  feeling,  and  the  subdued  glow  of 
humor  which  is  near  to  that  real 
pathos  which  is  an  integral  part  of 
Mr.  Holliday's  best  work.  One  need 
offer  no  excuse  for  quoting  this  para- 
graph : 

If  birds  of  a  feather  flock  together,  if  a  man 
may  be  known  by  the  company  he  keeps,  if 
anything  represents  an  individual  or  a  house, 
it  is  his  or  its  books.  A  man's  deeds,  even,  do 
not  speak  himself;  they  are  subject  to  the  in- 
firmities of  opportunity,  of  chance,  of  mistake, 
of  his  capacity,  of  adversity,  of  misconstruction 
in  the  minds  of  others ;  his  company  may  not 
at  all  represent  him — by  circumstance  he  may 
be  denied  that  he  would  choose;  but  he  reads 
what  he  likes.  By  his  books  you  may  know 
him! 

Any  volume  on  these  shelves  before  this 
guest  is  one  that,  had  an  astute  man  knowingly 
but  another  week  before  him  in  this  world, 
which  he  would  husband  well,  he  might  pick 
at  random  to  read  before  he  would  go.  He 
would  extend  his  life  as  much  as  possible  In 
one  week. 

Friend,  is  not  what  you  have  left  to  you  of 
life  but  a  kind  of  a  week,  more  or  less?  You 
may  have  to  give  you  good  measure,  say, 
twenty-five  years.  If  you  should  begin  tonight 
and  be  able  to  read  straight  on,  doing  nothing 
else,  in  that  pitiful  time  how  many  books  could 
you  read?  How  many  that  would  a  kingdom 
to  you  be  must  you  leave  unread?  Before,  then, 
all  the  wealth  of  this  world  is,  as  if  by  some 
Juggler's  trick,  snatched  from  you,  be  the  as- 
tute one  who  has  but  another  week  in  which  to 
turn  over  this  world's  treasures.  Do  not  sit 
like  one  simple  eating  peanuts  at  the  greater 
fair.  It  will  soon  be  night,  when  you  must 
go  home.  Take  with  you,  dear  child,  in  your 
spirit  the  best  of  the  big  show. 

Even  so. 

One  who  went  a-visiting  had  never  read 
"The  Virginians".  Death  might  have  taken 
him  thus! 

Mr.  Holliday  puts  his  finger  on  the 
defect  in  modem  literature  when  he 
says  that  subtlety  and  psychology,  in 
the  modem  sense,  and  mere  technique 
can  never  grip  us  as  the  work  of 
Harry  Fielding  and  Oliver  Goldsmith 
and  Lamb,  and  "the  Good  Sir  Walter", 


LOAF,  AND   INVITE  YOUR   SOUL 


855 


and  Dickens,  and  Thackeray  held  us. 
None  of  the  modem  exquisite  pipings, 
like  the  latest  tunes  of  Anatole  France, 
or  Mr.  Bennett,  or  Booth  Tarkington, 
or  Mrs.  Edith  Wharton,  or  even  Mr. 
Swinnerton,  or  Hugh  Walpole,  or  the 
late  Henry  James,  or  the  resurgent 
Mr.  Howells  have  the  depth,  the  ten- 
derness, the  warmth,  the  bigness,  the 
fidelity  of  these  immortal  interpreters 
of  the  heart  of  humanity.  The  finest 
of  our  writers  of  today  lack,  he  says, 
that  greatness  of  heart  of  which  the 
modems,  in  their  curious  sophistica- 
tion and  self-consciousness,  are  afraid ; 
but  they  likewise  lack  faith  in  that 
"far-off,  divine  event  to  which  the 
whole  creation  tends". 

There  are  many  chuckles  and  some 
startling  truths  to  be  got  out  of  hu- 
man beings ;  having  lived  continuous- 
ly for  some  time  in  New  York,  the  es- 
sayist had  almost  forgotten  what  real 
human  beings  are  like.  Everybody  in 
New  York  is  extraordinary ;  if  people 
are  artists  or  actors  or  colossal  million- 
aires or  abject  paupers  or  mighty  edi- 
tors or  fearless  gunmen  or  ansrthing 
amazingly  unusual,  they  at  once  become 
part  of  the  metropolis.  One  can  only 
find  natural,  wholesome  human  beings 
in  "the  provinces",  and  there  it  is  that 
Mr.  Holliday  finds  them.  There  is  one 
peculiarity  he  remarks:  he  notices 
that  in  the  advertisements  male  hu- 
man beings  are  represented  as  always 
attracted  by  clothes  of  a  "distinctive" 
or  "different"  design;  and  yet  when 
one  meets  them  upon  the  street,  they 
all  seem  to  be  dressed  very  much  alike! 
In  fact,  this  very  short  essay  bristles 
with  paradoxes,  founded  on  careful 
observations  yet  unexplained  by  the 
author.  The  object  of  the  human 
being  outside  of  New  York  is,  he 
thinks,  to  forget  his  own  existence: 


« 


I  have  seen,"  he  says,  "a  company  of 
human  beings  successfully  allay  a  per- 
ception of  their  own  existence  for 
hours  by  industriously  cranking  up  a 
Victrola.  The  dance  is  likewise  em- 
ployed." 

Does  anybody  remember  a  story 
called  "Aurelia  in  Arcadia",  written 
about  the  same  time  as  "The  Madness 
of  Philip"?  Then  every  monthly  issue 
of  a  magazine  introduced  to  the  world 
a  new  author  of  value.  The  philoso- 
phy of  this  story  was  that  the  child  of 
the  city,  so  often  pitied  and  patron- 
ized, had  compensations  of  her  own; 
but  Aurelia,  although  she  plead  in 
vain,  was  never  taken  seriously  by 
the  settlement  workers  or  the  uplift- 
ers.  A  few  of  us  felt  the  validity  of 
her  mood  when  she  heard  the  dismal 
croaking  of  the  frogs  in  the  twilight, 
and  turned  to  the  stolid  and  tired 
peasants — who  were  slumbering  the 
evening  hours  away  in  their  dismal 
rooms — and  asked  artlessly,  "Be  yez 
dummies?" 

We  who  sympathized  with  Aurelia 
when  she  returned  to  the  real  Arcadia 
of  New  York,  and  was  permitted  to 
dance  to  the  music  of  the  street-organ 
and  eat  olives  offered  her  by  the 
kindly  bartender,  find  ourselves  justi- 
fied importantly  in  "To  the  Glory  of 
Cities". 

"It's  a  very  pleasant  thing  for  one 
long  in  the  country  pent  to  escape  to 
the  city  for  a  breath  of  fresh  air.  In- 
deed, it's  a  life-saver."  To  be  twenty- 
five  miles  from  New  York  in  the  coun- 
try and  to  be  too  poor  to  go  into  town 
every  day,  is  a  fate  which  many  of  us 
would  sympathetically  deplore.  This 
unwilling  autocthon  had  a  wife,  too, 
in  delicate  health,  and,  in  the  hot 
weather,  he  sometimes  feared  to  lose 
her  before  she  could  be  moved  back 
again  to  the  city.    He,  however,  man- 


866 


THE  BOOKMAN 


aged  to  get  her  into  town  one  Sun- 
day for  "a  square  meal  at  Child's" 
and  "she  has  been  better  ever  since". 
Nothing  but  a  withering,  stifling 
blanket  of  heat  in  the  country;  noth- 
ing to  be  seen  except  trees ;  now  and 
then  a  lonely  walker  drags  his  weary 
length  along.  You  envy  the  happy 
party  of  motorists  from  the  city;  and 
the  insects  of  "more  kind  than  you 
ever  heard  of,  and  the  dust;  "your 
feet  hurt  like  sin" ;  but  oh,  the  happy 
city,  where  people  "may  eat  watermel- 
ons and  other  of  the  earth's  yield  for- 
bidden, until  goodness  knows  when,  in 
the  country".  On  the  golden  urban 
pavement  once  more  this  happy  rustic 
couple  felt  the  cool  breeze  blowing 
across  Manhattan  again,  and  almost 
believed  they  were  in  the  golden 
streets  of  Jerusalem! 

How  true  it  all  is,  and  how  simple  and 
exaggerated  is  Mr.  Holliday's  state- 
ment of  the  truth !  It  is  audacious,  to 
be  sure;  but  who  that  has  been 
doomed  to  live  through  long  July  days 
in  any  rustic  comer  from  which  all 
the  fruits  in  season  are  sent  to 
market,  and  nothing  unseasonable  is 
obtainable,  can  refrain  from  thanking 
this  delicately  perceptive  essayist  for 
interpreting  the  feelings  of  those  who 
for  so  long  have  been  compelled  by 
convention  to  conceal  them? 

Another  subtle  interpretation,  of 
the  average,  but  unexpressed  human 
thought  is  "Riding  in  Cars".  For  a 
short  period  of  unadulterated  delight 
there  are  the  two  pages  on  Omar 
Khajryam  as  a  gift  book.  We  must 
leave  "Broome  Street  Straws"  with 
deep  regret,  grateful — ^yet  somewhat 
irritated,  that  it  does  not  lead  at  once 
to  another  and  succeeding  volume. 


« 


ff 


Broome  Street  Straws.  By  Robert  Cortes 
HolUday.     George  H.  Doran  Company. 

Peeps  at  People.  By  Robert  Cortes  HoUiday. 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 


TRUSTY,  DUSKY,  VIVID,  TRUE 


By  Christopher  Marley 

THERE  is  a  little  village  on  the 
skirts  of  the  Forest  of  Fontaine- 
bleau  (heavenly  region  of  springtime 
and  romance!)  where  the  crystal- 
green  eddies  of  the  Loing  slip  under 
an  old  grey  bridge  with  sharp  angled 
piers  of  stone.  Near  the  bridge  is  a 
quiet  little  inn,  one  of  the  many  happy 
places  in  that  country  long  frequented 
by  artists  for  painting  and  "vUUgior 
ture'\  Behind  the  inn  is  a  garden  be- 
side the  river-bank.  The  saUe  d 
manger,  as  in  so  many  of  those  inns 
at  Barbizon,  Moret,  and  the  other 
Fontainebleau  villages,  is  paneled  and 
frescoed  with  humorous  and  high- 
spirited  impromptus  done  by  visiting 
painters. 

In  the  summer  of  1876  an  anxious 
rumor  passed  among  the  artist  col- 
onies. It  was  said  that  an  American 
lady  and  her  two  children  had  arrived 
at  Grez,  and  the  young  bohemians  who 
regarded  this  region  as  their  own  sa- 
cred retreat  were  startled  and 
alarmed.  Were  their  chosen  haunts  to 
be  invaded  by  tourists — and  tourists 
of  the  disturbing  sex?  Among  three 
happy  irresponsibles  this  humorous 
anxiety  was  particularly  acute.  One 
of  the  trio  was  sent  over  to  Grez  as  a 
scout,  to  spy  out  the  situation  and 
report.  The  emissary  went,  and  failed 
to  return.  A  second  explorer  was  dis- 
patched to  study  the  problem.  He  too 
was  swallowed  up  in  silence.  The 
third,  impatiently  waiting  tidings 
from  his  faithless  friends,  set  out  to 
make  an  end  of  this  mystery.  He 
reached  the  inn  at  dusk:  it  was  a 
gentle  summer  evening;  the  windows 
were  open  to  the  tender  air;  lamps 
were  lit  within,  and  a  merry  party  sat 


"TRUSTY,  DUSKY,  VIVID,  TRUE" 


857 


at  dinner.  Through  the  open  win- 
dow the  suspicious  venturer  saw  the 
recreant  ambassadors,  gay  with  laugh- 
ter. And  there,  sitting  in  the  lamp- 
light, was  the  American  lady — a  slen- 
der, thoughtful  enchantress  with  eyes 
as  dark  and  glowing  as  the  wine. 
Thus  it  was  that  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son first  saw  Fanny  Osboume. 

"The  Life  of  Mrs.  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson",  written  by  her  sister  Mrs. 
Sanchez  (the  mother  of  "little  Louis 
Sanchez  on  the  beach  at  Monterey"  re- 
membered by  all  lovers  of  "A  Child's 
Garden  of  Verses")  is  a  delightful 
book,  and  sets  one  musing  on  the  ap- 
pealing story  of  these  two  stormy  pe- 
trels, so  nobly  fitted  for  one  another 
and  so  happily  mated  in  heart  and 
mind.  The  early  adventures  of  R.  L. 
S.  seem  tame  enough  compared  to  the 
astounding  vicissitudes  of  Fanny  Van 
de  Grift's  career.  She  came  of  old 
Dutch  and  Swedish  blood,  settled  in 
Pennsylvania  since  the  seventeenth 
century.  Her  parents  were  married 
in  Philadelphia  in  1837.  It  seems 
quaint  that  the  two  staidest  cities  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  world — Philadelphia 
and  Edinburgh — should  have  produced 
this  pair  of  romantic  wanderers. 

Married  at  seventeen  (in  1857) 
Fanny  Osboume  early  knew  many  of 
the  surprises  of  life.  Her  husband 
served  as  a  captain  in  what  used  to  be 
known  as  "The  War",  and  afterward 
she  followed  him  across  Panama  to 
California.  She  went  through  the 
hardships  of  a  mining  camp  in  Ne- 
vada. Her  husband  was  unfaithful: 
he  disappeared,  and  she  thought  her- 
self a  widow.  She  worked  for  a  dress- 
maker in  Frisco.  He  returned,  and 
there  was  a  temporary  reconciliation. 
Finally,  seeing  no  possibility  of  do- 
mestic happiness,  with  her  accustomed 
courage  she  made  a  fresh  start.  She 
took   her   children   to    Belgium    and 


France  to  study  art,  in  1875.  R.  L.  S. 
appeared  at  Grez  in  1876.  "There  is 
a  young  Scotchman  here,  a  Mr.  Ste- 
venson," wrote  her  eighteen-year-old 
daughter  Isobel  from  Grez.  "He  is 
such  a  nice-looking  ugly  man,  and  I 
would  rather  listen  to  him  talk  than 
read  the  most  interesting  book. . . . 
Mama  is  ever  so  much  better  and  is 
getting  prettier  every  day." 

To  the  Stevensonian,  this  book  is  a 
mine  of  delight.  It  sets  down  what 
has  never  before  been  sufficiently  made 
clear,  that  Mrs.  Stevenson  was,  in  her 
own  way,  as  remarkable  and  as  gifted 
as  her  husband.  A  woman  of  ex- 
traordinary charm  and  beauty, .  fear- 
less, generous,  and  mistress  of  every 
emergency,  she  saved  Louis's  life  a 
hundred  times  over.  Vivid  and  en- 
chanting as  the  tiger  lily  which  was 
her  favorite  emblem,  she  was  a  noble 
partner  for  the  most  loved  writer  of 
his  age,  and  the  fit  recipient  of  the 
most  perfect  love  poem  of  our  time. 


The  Life  of  Mrs.  Robert  Lonis  Steyenson.  By 
Nellie  Van  de  Grift  Sanchez.  Charles  Scrib- 
ner's  Sons. 


AN   ITALIAN  YEAR 
By  James  C,  Grey 

IT  was  one  of  Charles  Waterton's 
blunt  comments  on  Italy  when  he 
visited  that  country  one  hundred  years 
ago,  that  "the  Italians  would  confer 
a  vast  benefit  on  society  if  they  would 
depose  more  fertilizing  matter  in 
their  fields  and  less  in  their  streets". 
Italy  has  changed  little  since  then  in 
the  opinion  of  Dr.  Joseph  Ck)llins, 
whose  "Jiiy  Italian  Year"  is  a  record 
of  his  observations  while  in  military 
service  in  Italy. 


868 


THE  BOOKMAN 


"I  don't  profess  to  know  the  Italians 
or  to  understand  them,"  he  tells  us, 
but  he  is  what  the  Italians  themselves 
call  "simpatico"  and  he  claims  a 
friend's  right  to  be  candid  and  critical. 
"They  are  not  haughty,  unyielding,  as 
the  English.  They  are  not  assertive, 
boastful,  as  the  Americans.  They  are 
not  predatory,  self-assertive,  as  the 
French.  They  display  a  certain  satis- 
faction with  themselves  and  with  their 
accomplishments,  which  may  best  be 
called  conceit";  a  summary  of  the 
Italian  character  which  may  serve  as 
a  commentary  on  the  young  kingdom's 
political  motto  "L'ltalia  fara  da  se". 

An  excellent  journalist  was  lost 
when  Dr.  (Collins  took  up  the  study  of 
medicine.  The  disjointed  essays  that 
go  to  make  up  this  volume  are  occa- 
sional letters  written  home  during  the 
war,  describing  the  things  his  eyes 
saw  and  his  hands  handled.  He  loves 
Italy,  but  he  would  have  her  wash  her 
face :  "When  I  went  there  the  follow- 
ing day,  I  found  the  customary  thing 
— filth  and  more  filth  and  still  more 
filth",  and  he  is  annoyed  with  an  in- 
telligent woman  who  replied  to  his 
discourse  on  cleanliness:  "The  bath 
only  brings  the  filth  into  relief."  His 
panacea  for  all  this  evil  is  education. 
"Thrust  education  on  it  popolo,  and 
Italians  will  take  a  leading  place 
among  the  successful  nations  of  the 
world."  There  is  the  American  peep- 
ing out :  success  measured  in  terms  of 
business  aggression,  which  he  hides  in 
an  epigram  by  saying  that  after  the 
war  Italy  must  make  a  new  alliance 
with  Hygeia  and  Vulcan.  Yet  Dr. 
Collins  is  not  blind  to  the  light  that 
never  was  on  land  or  sea;  and  while 
he  preaches  the  doctrine  of  cultivating 
one's  garden  in  its  material  sense,  he 
loves  to  stand  on  Monte  Mario  and 
look  out  over  the  Eternal  City  and  the 
mist-blanketed  Campagna  to  Horace's 


snow-capped  Soracte  riding  over  the 
plain  like  a  battleship  at  anchor. 

The  present  volume  will  probably  ir- 
ritate many  friends  of  Italy,  but  it 
brings  a  fresh,  optimistic  mind  to  bear 
on  its  problems  and  it  stimulates 
thought.  Its  most  valuable  chapters 
are  those  that  deal  with  Italian  do- 
mestic policies  and  the  government 
machine,  about  which  so  little  is 
known  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

Melrose  is  seen  best  by  moonlight. 
Italy  is  best  seen  on  foot.  When  the  doc- 
tor visits  Italy  again,  let  him  leave  his 
motor-car  behind,  and  then  write  an- 
other book.  In  the  Platonic  heaven, 
where  the  patterns  of  all  that  is  on 
earth  are  laid  up,  there  must  be  the 
personified  idea  of  Italy — the  Italy 
that  wins  to  her  heart  even  modem 
medical  men  who  see  her  only  through 
the  dust-cloud  of  a  flying  automobile. 
Go  back.  Dr.  Collins,  and  write  an- 
other book.  You  owe  it  to  a  number 
of  us  who  are  not  so  fortunate;  and 
meanwhile,  if  you  bring  out  another 
edition  of  "My  Italian  Year",  ask  the 
proofreader  to  exercise  a  little  more 
care.  Cecilia  Metella  is  spelled  cor- 
rectly on  page  299  only.  Monte  Pincio 
is  not  Monte  Pinciant.  St.  Sebastian's 
Gate  is  San  Sebastino,  and  the  name- 
less column  with  the  buried  base  in  the 
Forum  is  the  Column  of  Phocas,  not 
Phoca's  Column.  Even  though  you 
confess  that  going  to  church  has  a  per- 
nicious influence  on  you,  it  should  not 
so  affect  the  typesetter  as  to  turn  Ite: 
Missa  Est  into  Ita:  Messa  Est;  and 
while  the  Italian  Contadino  may  be 
gullible  in  many  ways,  if  you  told  him, 
as  you  do  on  page  301,  that  he  looks 
on  the  Pope  as  "impeccable",  his  an- 
swer would  be  "Magari !" 

The  Great  War  was  Janus-faced,  or 
double-natured.  It  was  an  event  that 
happened  to  the  world  around  us  and 
it  was  an  event  that  happened  to  the 


«( 


WOMAN  HATERS 


» 


859 


minds  of  the  men  who  went  through 
it.  Not  many  of  those  who  went 
through  it  have  given  us  such  an  in- 
teresting record  as  this.  There  have 
been  many  exhibitions  of  war  pic- 
tures; it  is  time  we  had  an  exhibition 
of  war  books  that  are  worth  while. 
"My  Italian  Year"  will  deserve  a  place 
among  them. 


My  Italian  Year.  By  Joseph  CoUins.   Charles 
Scribner's  Sons. 


»» 


"WOMAN  HATERS 
By  Isaac  Goldberg 


DESPITE  its  title,  the  latest  novel 
by  the  author  of  "The  Four 
Horsemen  of  the  Apocalypse"  is  by 
no  means  a  misogynistic  work.  "Los 
Enemigos  de  la  Mujer",  which  arrived 
upon  these  shores  from  Spain  only  a 
few  days  after  its  author,  continues 
the  style  of  its  two  predecessors ;  since 
this  Spaniard's  novels  are  peculiarly 
contemporary  to  his  own  travels  and 
the  thoughts  inspired  by  the  world 
about  him,  there  is  less  war  in  "The 
Enemies  of  Women"  than  in  "The 
Four  Horsemen"  or  "Mare  Nostrum", 
and  more  of  that  vision  which  seeks  to 
see  beyond  battlefields  into  the  un- 
certain future. 

Why  "The  Enemies  of  Women"? 
That  is  the  name  of  a  small  society  of 
men  who  gather  about  Prince  Lubimoff 
at  his  villa  near  the  Casino  of  Monte 
Carlo ;  the  prince,  with  a  past  that  in- 
cludes every  form  of  sybaritism,  has 
tired  of  women  and  considers  himself 
apart  from  the  world  and  its  problems, 
chief  of  which — ^at  the  time  the  book 
opens — is  the  war.  To  his  men  com- 
panions he  offers  the  hospitality  of  his 


villa  and  grounds — almost  the  only  re- 
mainder of  a  vast  fortune — ^provided 
that  the  fair  sex  be  held  taboo  within 
the  walls  of  this  sanctuary.  Women, 
indeed,  are  to  be  as  alien  to  his 
thoughts  as  the  war  itself. 

But  he  does  not  reckon  with  his 
hostess,  or  rather,  the  impulsive,  pas- 
sionate Alicia,  whose  past  is  not  en- 
tirely unrelated  to  his  own ;  they  have 
both  been  creatures  of  whim  and  pas- 
sion, having  inherited  their  traits 
from  a  mixed  ancestry,  and  they  are 
in  a  manner  related.  Years  before,  as 
children,  they  have  quarreled;  some- 
what later,  she  had  attempted  to  break 
down  his  obstinate  resistance,  and 
failed.  When  the  war  brings  them 
together  they  are  both  financially  em- 
barrassed; he  has  tired  even  of  gam- 
bling, while  she  plunges  into  it  madly. 

The  "woman-haters"  fare  ill;  one 
by  one  they  yield,  and  the  prince  him- 
self succumbs  to  Alicia.  But  too  late. 
A  son  bom  out  of  wedlock  has  died  as 
a  war  prisoner  in  a  German  camp; 
she  finally  confides  her  secret  to  him, 
and  is  led  to  expiation  by  a  self-sacri- 
ficing English  war-nurse.  The  prince 
himself,  through  the  same  nurse, 
comes  to  a  realization  of  his  duty,  vol- 
unteers in  the  Foreign  Legion,  and 
loses  an  arm  in  the  conflict  that  he 
had  thought  to  hold  aloof  from.  In 
short,  a  victory  for  both  woman  and 
the  idealism  symbolized  by  the  war, 
into  which  the  men  are  brought  by  the 
women.  Alicia,  in  the  end,  follows  her 
son. 

The  author  is  rich  in  praise  of 
America's  disinterested  entrance  into 
the  conflict,  even  as  the  book  is  re- 
plete with  the  descriptive  and  inter- 
pretative passages  that  form  a  dis- 
tinguishing feature  of  Blasco  Ibdnez's 
numerous  works.  In  respect  of  char- 
acterization "Los  Enemigos  de  la 
Mujer"  is  an  advance  over  its  imme- 


860 


THE  BOOKMAN 


diate  antecedents;  the  prince  and 
Alicia,  though  queer  creatures  at  best, 
dwelling  in  a  society  that  knows  only 
pleasure  and  the  pursuits  of  a  deca- 
4ent  milieu,  are  far  more  convincing 
than  the  analogous  figures  in  'The 
Four  Horsemen"  or  "Mare  Nostrum" ; 
the  general  theme  of  the  novel  re- 
sembles that  of  these  two  in  its  motif 
of  retribution,  but  it  looks  and  pro- 
gresses beyond  the  strife  into  an  era 
where  man  may  possibly  broaden  his 
conception  of  patriotism  into  an  inter- 
national citizenship.  Not  any  too  op- 
timistically, to  tell  the  truth,  but 
fearlessly  enough.  "Los  Enemigos  de 
la  Mujer"  completes,  as  it  were,  a 
powerful  war  trilogy,  and  maintains 
the  new  prestige  that  has  come  to  this 
sturdy  Valencian  with  the  four  horse- 
men that  have  galloped  around  the 
world. 


Los  Enemigos  de  la  MuJer.  Prometeo  So- 
ciedad  Editorial.  Oermani&s,  33,  Valencia.  By 
Vicente  Blasco  IbAfiez.  English  translation 
published  by  B.  P.  Dutton  and  Co. 


COLORFUL      IMPRESSIONS      OF 
THE  GRAND  CANYON 

By  LeBoy  Jeffers 

IT  is  a  curious  fact  that  exceedingly 
few  travelers  are  more  than  super- 
ficially acquainted  with  our  new  na- 
tional park,  the  Grand  Canyon.  In 
the  interest  of  its  geological  story,  in 
the  wealth  of  its  marvelous  coloring, 
and  in  its  vast  and  silent  grandeur,  it 
immeasurably  surpasses  all  other  can- 
yons known  to  man.  But  as  yet  it  is 
ordinarily  accessible  only  here  and 
there  at  points  along  its  southern  rim, 
while  only  two  or  three  trails  into  its 
depths  are  kept  in  repair.  Many  trails 
should  be  built  that  closely  follow  the 


rim,  and  artistic  chalets  should  be  con- 
structed at  suitable  points. 

At  no  distant  day  the  capes  and  pro- 
montories of  the  northern  rim  will  be- 
come world  famous.  A  few  years  ago 
probably  less  than  a  score  of  adven- 
turers had  visited  some  of  its  points. 
In  the  far  western  section,  Dutton 
Point  and  the  great  north-west  view- 
point on  Powell  Plateau,  to  which 
there  was  no  trail,  are  unique  and  sat- 
isfying in  the  highest  degree.  Point 
Sublime  of  Captain  Dutton  boldly 
reaches  far  into  the  Canyon  with  a 
comprehensive  eastern  outlook;  while 
Bright  Angel  Point,  opposite  El 
Tovar,  is  the  terminus  of  the  only 
road  to  the  northern  rim  in  the  entire 
213  miles  of  the  canyon.  The  Park 
Service  proposes  to  bridge  the  Colo- 
rado at  Bright  Angel,  linking  the 
trails  on  either  side  of  the  river,  and 
making  it  practicable  to  reach  the  re- 
cently established  Wiley  camp,  which 
offers  the  only  accommodation  on  the 
northern  side  for  the  traveler  without 
a  pack  train.  From  this  central  camp 
at  Bright  Angel  Point  one  may  visit 
Cape  Royal  and  Cape  Final,  south- 
eastern points  about  which  the  river 
swings  from  the  north  to  the  west. 
From  the  latter  there  is  a  superb  view 
of  the  rare  Algonkian  strata  near  the 
river.  Continuing  to  the  north  one 
comes  to  Atoko  and  Skiddoo  points, 
the  latter  being  unfortunately  locally 
named,  but  curiously  having  no  bench 
mark  although  it  is  8,500  feet,  the 
highest  at  the  canyon.  In  the  amphi- 
theatre beneath  one  are  magnificently 
colored  temples,  while  no  other  out- 
looks offer  such  superb  sunset  views 
of  the  Painted  Desert.  Down  the  pre- 
cipitous northern  slope  of  Saddle 
Mountain  one  may  descend  to  the 
burning  desert  of  the  Marble  Plat- 
form and  peer  into  the  depths  of  thd 
Marble  Canyon. 


A  PLAIN,  UNVARNISHED  TALE 


861 


The  book  of  the  northern  rim  has 
yet  to  be  written,  but  Professor  Van 
Dyke  has  studied  the  scenery  from  the 
southern  side  and  in  his  recently  pub- 
lished book  "The  Grand  Canyon  of  the 
Colorado",  gives  us  a  popular  account 
of  the  geology  of  the  region.  He  pro- 
tests against  the  naming  of  the  great 
temples  and  buttes  of  the  canyon  after 
the  gods  of  India.  The  views  from  a 
number  of  the  southern  points  are  de- 
scribed and  details  are  given  of  the 
principal  trails  to  the  river.  Refer- 
ence is  made  to  the  animals,  birds,  and 
trees,  and  to  the  discoverers  and  pre- 
historic inhabitants  of  the  canyon. 

In  other  books  of  poetic  beauty  the 
author  has  given  us  colorful  descrip- 
tions of  the  desert,  the  sea,  and  the 
mountains.  In  this  region  of  the 
Grand  Canyon  and  the  Painted  Desert 
there  is  a  more  marvelous  display  of 
color  in  landscape  and  sky  than  I  have 
found  elsewhere.  Perhaps  this  is 
summed  up  to  best  advantage  in  Pro- 
fessor Van  Dyke's  impressions  of  sun- 
set and  sunrise  from  Lincoln  and 
Navaho  Points.  At  Desert  View 
(Navaho  Point)  one  may  conmiune 
with  the  soul  of  the  Canyon  and  the 
desert.  Here  one  may  linger  alone  at 
twilight  watching  the  great  trans- 
figuration. While  the  distant  temples 
are  lit  by  the  holy  alpine  glow,  the 
great  curtain  of  night  rises  slowly 
from  the  purple  depths  of  the  canyon. 
Up  the  wall  of  the  Desert  Palisades 
and  far  across  the  Painted  Desert  the 
shadow  travels,  seeming  to  pause  be- 
fore the  Echo  Cliffs  while  they  turn  to 
a  heavenly  pink,  and  then  it  passes 
over  to  awaken  line  after  line  of  cliffs 
beyond.  Weirdly  white  in  the  distance 
are  the  high  white  mesas.  Over  the 
desert  the  west  is  rich  with  crimson, 
purple,  and  gold. 


The    Grand   Canyon    of   the   Colorado.      By 
John  C.  Van  Dyke.    Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


A  PLAIN,  UNVARNISHED  TALE 
By  John  Seymour  Wood 

WE  may  almost  call  ''Villa  Elsa", 
by  Stuart  Henry,  a  document 
in  the  case — one  of  greater  detail  than 
"Christine"  or  "The  Pastor's  Wife". 
It  is  the  actual,  everyday  family  life 
of  the  middle-class  German  before  the 
war — ^nothing  glossed  over,  nothing 
exaggerated  or  fanciful.  It  is  Mr. 
Henry's  personal  experience  expressed 
in  the  form  of  a  novel,  and  the  chief 
merit  of  the  book  is  that  the  reader  is 
bound  to  feel  its  truth.  There  is  no 
attempt  at  fine  writing  or  that  easy 
familiarity  with  aristocratic  court 
life,  so  often  affected  by  English  nov- 
elists, which,  while  it  adds  a  gloss  to 
the  story,  never  wears  the  features  of 
actual  experience.  It  is  very  easy  to 
write  "My  friend,  von  Ludendorff,  ob- 
served to  me  at  the  Potsdam  Court 
ball,  etc."... or,  "The  Emperor  asked 
von  Tirpitz  to  leave  us  alone,  as  he 
had  some  private  matters  to  communi- 
cate, etc." 

It  is  not  so  easy  to  chronicle  the 
everyday  life  of  the  middle-class  Ger- 
mans as  it  really  occurs.  We  believed 
the  Germans  were  kindly,  gentle,  hon- 
est, and  scrupulous.  We  knew  not  the 
truth.  We  read  and  admired  Gcethe, 
Schiller,  Lessing,  and  Heine.  We 
never  heard  of  Treitschke.  We 
crowded  to  hear  the  sublime  music  of 
Wagner, — and  Beethoven  and  Schu- 
mann were  our  daily  musical  food. 
But  what  William  made  of  his  coim- 
trymen,  the  last  forty  years,  was  not 
even  surmised.  To  that  arch  criminal 
and  his  genius  for  evil  and  misrule 
must  be  attributed  most  of  the  hide- 
ous German  Kultur.  Through  his  nu- 
merous bureaus,  he  kept  his  hand  on 
the  development  of  each  child. 

He  directed  the  system  of  "hate 


»» 


862 


THE  BOOKMAN 


for  every  other  nation,  and  chose  the 
vocation  of  each  individual.  From  the 
old  style  German,  good-natured,  kind- 
ly, and  honest,  he  made  them  over  into 
hateful  and  even  disgusting  Huns.  In 
other  words,  he  made  them  all  Prus- 
sians, and  in  each  family  he  placed  a 
government  spy.  The  evil  that  Wil- 
liam did  to  Germany  is  far  greater 
than  he  accomplished  in  the  war 
against  any  of  the  ''hated"  nations. 

The  Bucher  family  lived  in  Losch- 
witz,  a  suburb  of  Dresden  (while,  we 
remember,  Christine  lived  in  Berlin, 
and  Ingeborg,  the  Pastor's  Wife,  in 
Eokensee,  a  small  village  of  East  Prus- 
sia). In  the  habits  and  activities  of 
Villa  Elsa  will  be  found  the  essence  of 
Prussianism  as  normally  developed  by 
government.  Since  the  war  the  Ger- 
mans have  not  changed,  they  have  not 
exorcised  Kultur.  If  by  any  piece  of 
good  fortune,  Mr.  Henry's  book  should 
be  caused  to  circulate  among  them,  they 
will  see,  as  in  a  mirror,  some  of  the 
reasons  why  they  are  detested  and  de- 
spised by  all  civilized  nations.  They 
themselves  are  Huns  today  in  their 
private  life,  have  more  or  less  aban- 
doned civilization,  and  are  taught  to 
hate  all  advanced  countries.  They 
may  be  honest  among  themselves,  but 
they  are  horribly  dishonest  and  dan- 
gerous to  foreign  visitors  in  their 
midst.  They  have  been  taught  to  be 
jealous,  mean  spirited,  and  full  of  bit- 
terest antipathy.  They  have  not  been 
humbled  by  defeat,  and  Villa  Elsa  and 
its  disagreeable  inmates  are  typical  of 
middle-class  life  in  Germany  today. 

Herr  Bucher,  the  father,  is  a  stolid, 
unwashed,  collarless,  healthy  and  obese 
German  '*Vater";  his  wife,  Frau 
Bucher,  is  coarse,  red-faced,  heavy- 
handed,  snarling  and  shouting,  at  the 
top  of  her  lungs,  her  fierce  hatred  of 
England.  Elsa,  the  only  daughter, 
has  the  usual  tow  hair,  is  stupidly 


healthy,  reads  Heine,  tries  to  be  sen- 
timental, but  is  essentially  matter  of 
fact.  Rudolph,  the  eldest  son,  is  in 
secret  a  government  spy,  reporting 
upon  their  visitor,  Gard  Kirtley,  from 
America.  He  is  a  spruce  young  en- 
gineer, militaristic,  dissolute,  despis- 
ing all  decent  women,  and  continually 
hinting  of  Der  Tag.  Ernst,  a  pale  boy 
of  fifteen,  studies  eighteen  hours  out 
of  the  twenty-four,  quotes  falsified 
history,  and  particularly  discredits  all 
American  institutions. 

The  atrocious  table  manners,  the 
lack  of  bathing  and  cleanliness,  the 
keeping  of  huge  fierce  dogs  who  are 
mercilessly  kicked  about,  the  rows  and 
quarrels — all  indicate  a  state  of  civili- 
zation bordering  closely  on  the  tene- 
ment-house life  of  a  bargee  in  our  own 
country.  Yet  these  Buchers  are  all 
highly  instructed,  if  not  educated. 
Gard  Kirtley  believes  he  has  fallen  in 
love  with  Elsa,  but  her  stolid  indiffer- 
ence and  phlegmatic  stupidity  finally 
overpower  him.  She  does  not  know 
how  to  talk,  or  to  flirt,  and  she  sits 
like  a  fat  sheep  all  day  long  over  her 
studies  and  music  and  worsted  work, 
yearning  to  be  the  mother  of  a  large 
family  of  German  children.  Inci- 
dentally, she  is  supposed  to  be  en- 
gaged to  a  young  musician  who  has 
many  immoral  relations  with  common 
servants,  maids,  and  waitresses,  of 
which  Elsa  apparently  does  not  at  all 
disapprove. 

The  State  and  not  Herr  Bucher,  is 
her  real  father,  directing  her  and  her 
brothers'  vocation  and  hours  of  study. 
This  is  the  reason  they  brag  and  boast 
of  their  beloved  "Vaterland".  The 
State  regulates  everything,  and  sees 
to  it  that  if  its  citizens  will  only  work 
at  whatever  they  are  ordered  to  do, 
they  will  not  suffer  in  their  old  age 
from  lack  of  pensions.    They  are  thus 


A  PLAIN.  UNVARNISHED  TALE 


868 


continually  instructed,  but  never  edu- 
cated. 

They  haven't  the  slightest  qualm 
about  throwing  Card's  Americanism 
in  his  face  or  insulting  him  in  the 
most  indecent  way  in  company.  For 
instance  one  day  the  Herr  Bucher  vo- 
ciferated:— 'What  is  your  country? 
It  is  nichts — ^nichts — it  is  not  a  coim- 
try — it  is  a  ragout — a  potpourri — a 
mess.  We  do  not  recognize  such  a 
country.  It  has  no  beginnings — ^no 
traditions — ^no  unity  of  blood — ^no 
ideals."  He  choked  over  a  huge  saus- 
age, and  the  Frau  flared  forth  with 
terrible  gutturals,  while  attempting  to 
crack  a  nut  between  her  badly-cared- 
for  teeth: — "The  Americans  are  the 
offscourings  of  Europe;  they  were 
criminals,  atheists,  diseased  people, 
failures — who  were  sent  away  from 
Europe.  So  they  go  and  try  to  foimd 
a  new  race — a  new  nation.  They  try, 
but  they  fail  of  course."  When  the 
Frau  got  out  of  breath,  with  her 
mouth  stuffed  full  of  sausage  and  nuts, 
little  Ernst  began  with  a  milder,  more 
judicial  air: — "Don't  you  think,  Herr 
Kirtley,  it  stands  to  reason  that  a 
reigning  family,  which  is  admitted  to 
be  honest  and  has  practised  ruling  for 
centuries,  knows  better  how  to  govern 
a  race  than  the  always  new  and  un- 
tried persons  who  keep  taking  up  the 
reigns  of  government  in  a  democracy? 
Americans  can  never  tell  far  ahead 
who  is  to  rule.  There  are  changes  all 
the  time.  How  can  the  citizen  pre- 
pare for  the  future?  How  can  he  pre- 
pare long  ahead  as  we  do?  This  is  the 
reason  things  are  so  steady  here,  and 
so  uncertain  and  wobbling  in  America. 
This  uncertainty  hanging  over  a  re- 
public unsettles  its  population.  You 
have  panics,  lynchings,  graft — we  are 
free  from  such  scourges.' 


The  young  Ernst  might  truly  say 
that  our  law-makers  in  America  are 
seldom  very  worthy — that  our  legis- 
latures can  be  bought — and  that  we 
sometimes  put  over  very  senseless  laws. 
Nevertheless,  we  believe  that  we  are 
a  free  people  although  we  are  essen- 
tially governed  by  a  certain  class,  not 
always  favorable  to  our  best  interests. 
As  the  author  says,  it  was  thought 
that  "German  discipline  would  have  a 
bracing  effect  on  a  casual  slack  Amer- 
ican youth,  whose  latent  capabilities 
were  never  likely  to  be  called  on  in  the 
comparatively  hit-and-miss  organiza- 
tion of  Yankee  life." 

But  Gard,  the  American,  was  sadly 
disillusioned.  The  "discipline"  of 
German  government  methods  in  home 
life;  the  brutal  "disciplinary"  man- 
gling by  his  officers  of  little  Ernst; 
the  employment  of  Rudolph  as  a  secret 
household  spy,  and  the  final  outrages 
put  upon  the  young  American  in  es- 
caping from  this  barbarous  family 
into  Holland,  must  be  read  to  be  real- 
ized and  appreciated. 

The  Germans  are  not  "square"; 
they  are  even  now  concealing  their 
funds;  hiding  their  ability  to  make 
reparation;  sending  secret  missions 
to  Lenin  and  to  Japan. 

To  all  German  lovers  and  pro-Ger- 
mans, who  are  now  palliating  their 
abominable  Hunnish  methods  of  war- 
fare, or  pitying  them  for  the  "starva- 
tion" and  "penury"  they  allege  they 
are  suffering,  I  urge:  Read  "Villa 
Elsa",  and  be  made  wise. 

Mr.  Henry's  remedy  for  this  out- 
rageous Kultur  may  not  be  accepted 
by  the  reader.  What  it  is — ^let  the 
curious  read  this  excellent  book  and 
discover  for  themselves. 


»9 


Villa  Elsa,  A  Story  of  German  Family  Life. 
By  Stuart  Henry.    B.  P.  Datton  and  Co. 


THE  LESSON  OF  THE  MASTER 


BY   JAMES   GIBBONS   HUNEKER 


WHEN  the  correspondence  of  Gus- 
tave  Flaubert  was  published, 
Henry  James  wrote  of  his  letters  that 
"his  private  style... was  as  unchast- 
ened  as  his  final  form  was  faultless". 
The  style  which  Flaubert  hoped  to  "set 
roaring"  is  missing  in  his  private  epis- 
tles, wherein  he  disports  himself  like  a 
walrus  of  genius ;  splashing,  spouting, 
enjoying  himself  generally;  wherein 
he  is  copious,  extravagant,  formless. 
In  the  newly  published  "Letters  of 
Henry  James",  selected  and  edited  by 
Percy  Lubbock,  we  come  upon  another 
James,  one  whom  the  most  fervent  Ja- 
cobean may  have  dimly  suspected, 
though  could  hardly  realize  as  a  palpa- 
ble image.  A  Henry  James  in  a  mood 
unbuttoned  writing  large,  loose,  lumi- 
nous sentences,  amiable,  responsive  to 
the  remotest  suggestion  of  a  friend: 
a  James  far  removed  from  our  precon- 
ceived picture  of  him  as  an  implacable 
Bonze  of  art,  a  stem  Mandarin  of  let- 
ters inhabiting  his  austere  tower  of 
ivory,  facing  the  setting  sun,  absolute- 
ly impervious  to  the  call  of  the  human 
knocking  at  the  barred  door  beneath. 
Henry  James  had  a  genius  for  friend- 
ship and  the  old  legend  may  be  now 
sent  to  limbo,  together  with  the  legend 
of  the  impassability  of  Flaubert  and 
Anatole  France.  Both  these  French- 
men hurried  from  their  towers  when 
they  were  called  upon;  the  one  when 
his  beloved  niece  Caroline  Conmianville 


was  in  pecuniary  trouble — her  hus- 
band met  with  ill-luck  in  business  and 
the  author  of  "Madame  Bovary"  as- 
signed his  entire  fortune  to  him;  the 
other  went  to  the  rescue  of  Dreyfus, 
went  down  in  the  heat  and  dust  of  the 
arena,  locking  up  his  tower  and  throw- 
ing the  key  away  forever. 

In  the  case  of  Henry  James  the  non- 
sense extant  had  presented  us  with  the 
portrait  of  half  clubman,  half  literary 
dandy  solemnly  sipping  tea  in  the  com- 
pany of  duchesses.  The  real  Henry 
James  is  in  his  art;  the  Henry  James 
of  the  social  scene  in  his  letters.  Make 
no  mistake  about  that.  He  only  lived 
for  the  art  of  fiction.  To  nourish  the 
rich  denseness  of  his  medium  he 
plunged  the  .roots  into  the  warmest, 
fattest  social  soil,  English  life.  These 
letters  fill  in  the  lacuna  between  his 
chiseled  pages  and  the  man  himself.  A 
thousand  shafts  of  light  illumine  his 
characters,  even  more  than  the  pref- 
aces to  the  New  York  edition.  He  per- 
mits himself  the  luxury  of  gossiping 
with  his  correspondents — ^W.  D.  How- 
ells,  Paul  Bourget,  Edith  Wharton, 
Daudet,  Edmund  Gosse,  William  James, 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  H.  G.  Wells, 
Mrs.  Ward  among  the  rest — not  only 
about  his  own  books  but  also  about 
theirs.  The  most  unflinchingly  sincere 
of  critics,  he  is  yet  the  most  lovable.  It 
is  not  difiicult,  after  reading  these  truly 
"human  documents",  to  understand  the 


864 


THE  LESSON  OF  THE  MASTER 


865 


love  he  aroused  in  his  friends  and  rela- 
tives, the  adoration  of  his  brother  and 
sister,  his  niece,  "Polly",  and  nephew, 
young  Henry  James.  He  was  well-nigh 
the  typical  "Uncle"  of  fiction  and  foot- 
lights, expansive,  florid  of  speech,  gen- 
erous to  prodigality.  In  fine,  an  opu- 
lent but  exquisitely  sensitive  nature. 

Another  "legend"  that  goes  by  the 
board  is  the  "New  England  conscience" 
which  still  sits  like  a  nightmare  in  the 
consciousness  of  some  critics.  He  was 
bom  in  New  York  but  his  "Weltan- 
schauung" is  cosmopolitan.  He  is  the 
first  of  American  cosmopolitans.  This 
quality  of  temperament  lent  him  acuity 
when  judging  his  countrymen.  He  did 
live  in  Boston  and  Cambridge,  but  his 
soul  couldn't  tarry  long  in  the  New 
England  atmosphere.  It  was  the  clair- 
voyance of  hatred  that  prompted  his 
New  England  fiction,  which  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  usual  uncritical  lumping 
of  the  writer- with  his  writings,  con- 
founding James  and  the  puritans^ — ^he 
the  least  puritanical  of  men.  The  same 
has  happened  in  the  case  of  Mr.  How- 
ells.  The  driver  of  fat  oxen  must,  of 
necessity,  be  fat,  according  to  this  jum- 
bling of  widely  sundered  substances. 
Antipathies  are,  indeed,  reciprocal. 

Henry  James  belonged  to  the  aris- 
tocracy of  nerves,  but  he  never  cele- 
brated the  solemn  liturgy  of  the  Ego 
as  did  Maurice  Barr^s.  His  technique 
in  that  castle  of  chimeras,  which  is 
great  fiction,  was  essentially  Gallic,  a 
technique  learned  at  Paris  and  in  the 
ateliers  of  writers  whose  art  was  his 
envy,  whose  themes  went  against  his 
finer  grain.  We  see  him  suffering 
from  veritable  seasickness  of  the  soul 
when  he  writes  of  Charles  Baudelaire 
in  that  early  and  rather  immature  vol- 
ume, "French  Poets  and  Novelists"; 
perhaps  Bourget  is  right,  fear  is  a  form 
of  hatred.  As  much  as  he  admired 
Flaubert  his  reservations  were  many 


in  the  three  essays  he  devoted  to  the 
man,  a  writer  to  whom  he  owes  some 
of  his  own  formal  excellences,  sense  of 
style,  and  technical  donn6es.  And  the 
asperity  of  his  criticism  concerning 
Flaubert  grew  with  the  years.  (Read 
"French  Poets  and  Novelists",  "Essays 
in  London  and  Elsewhere",  and  "Notes 
on  Novelists"  for  the  three  Flauberts.) 
For  Zola  and  the  naturalists  he  had 
naught  but  dislike.  One  forgives  him  at 
this  juncture, but  that  he  "missed"  Bau- 
delaire, as  Sainte-Beuve  "missed"  Bal- 
zac and  Flaubert,  must  be  set  down  to 
the  ultra-fastidiousness  of  the  Ameri- 
can. It  had  nothing  to  do  with  New 
England.  The  sewermen  of  French  fic- 
tion jarred  his  nerves,  as  did  the  so- 
called  symbolist  group  that  followed 
the  naturalists,  with  their  cantatas  of 
epileptics  and  visionaries.  He  said  of 
Zola:  "When  you  have  no  taste  you 
have  no  discretion,  which  is  the  con- 
science of  taste,  and  when  you  have  no 
discretion  you  perpetrate  books  like 
'Rome'." 

Physical  love  as  a  theme  is  at  once 
too  primitive,  simple,  and  too  arrest- 
ingly  definite;  a  sensation,  not  a  sen- 
timent. 

Possibly  for  that  reason  there  is  no 
mention  of  Stendhal  either  in  his  books 
or  published  correspondence.  I  dis- 
covered by  a  circuitous  route  what 
James  thought  of  Henri  Beyle,  discov- 
ered that  he  detested  the  genius  from 
Grenoble  because  of  his  coarseness, 
also  because  of  his  lack  of  style — ^which 
was  Flaubert's  chief  ground  for  dislik- 
ing him.  In  a  letter  from  the  late  John 
La  Farge  to  me  he  speaks  of  meeting 
Henry  James  at  Rome  and  of  the  con- 
temptuous manner  in  which  he  alluded 
to  Stendhal,  probably  to  the  "Prome- 
nades". Why  this  arndre-pensie,  which 
is  all  the  more  curious  as  Taine,  Henry 
James,  George  Meredith,  Paul  Bour- 
get,    Fromentin,    M6rim6e,    Tolstoi, 


866 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Maurice  Barr^s,  D'Annunzio,  Edith 
Wharton,  and  other  "modems"  went  to 
the  Beyle  school  of  analysis.  Tolstoi 
acknowledged  it  in  a  memorable  pas- 
sage. So  Bourget,  who  resurrected  this 
exacerbated  and  aggressive  thinker  in 
the  early  'eighties.  The  complete  ef- 
facement  of  Beyle  in  the  writings  of 
Meredith  and  James  is  paralleled  by 
Nietzsche's  avoidance  of  all  reference 
to  Max  Stimer.  You  would  fancy  that 
the  author  of  the  most  perfect  breviary 
of  destruction  ever  penned,  "The  Ego 
and  his  Own",  had  not  been  read  by 
Nietzsche,  when  in  reality  that  book  is 
the  keystone  of  Nietzsche's  house  of 
philosophy.  Without  Stendhal-Beyle 
the  entire  school  of  analytical  fiction 
would  not  have  existed  in  its  present 
flowering,  though  Stendhal  himself 
stenmied  from  Marivaux,  Choderlos  de 
Laclos,  and  Benjamin  Constant. 

II 

The  appreciation  of  "La  Duchesse 
Bleue"  by  James  warms  the  heart 
cockles  of  the  present  reviewer.  The 
author,  Paul  Bourget,  who  was  not  un- 
affected by  James,  has  never  had  his 
due  from  the  English-reading  world. 
The  veiled  hypocrisy  that  permits  us 
to  swallow  the  vulgar  enormities  of 
Zola  because  of  his  humbug  "humani- 
tarianism",  draws  a  taut  line  about 
the  finished  art  of  Bourget,  who  even 
if  he  is  frank  is  always  the  moralist ; 
not  a  preacher  but  a  moralist  whose 
morals  are  implicit.  Need  I  speak  of 
"CJosmopolis",  "La  Duchesse  Bleue", 
"Le  Disciple"  —  a  masterpiece  —  or 
"Physiologie  de  T Amour  modeme"? 
They  were  comrades,  James  and  Bour- 
get. The  attitude  of  the  American  nov- 
elist toward  the  sex-question  may  be 
not  unknown  to  our  readers.  He  is  said 
to  have  remarked  casually  that  he  had 
reached  the  period  in  his  art  when  he 
could  say  everything.    As  a  matter  of 


fact  what  he  did  say  of  love  was  so  trit- 
urated, subtilized  in  his  delicate  ana- 
l3rtical  machine,  and  then  so  painted 
over  with  his  polyphonic  prose,  that 
the  most  audacious,  thrilling,  or  revolu- 
tionary idea  concerning,  not  the  ten- 
der, but  the  "tough"  passion — as  Wil- 
liam James  might  have  said — would 
be,  for  the  average  reader  (if  he  really 
exists),  as  if  written  in  Sanskrit.  His 
adulteries  are  atmospheric.  A  collec- 
tive title  for  the  love-element  in  the  re- 
vised edition  might  be:  "Time,  Space, 
and  the  Other  Woman".  Henry  James 
possessed  the  cosmical  vision  in  com- 
mon with  his  brother  William,  inher- 
ited, if  acquired  traits  can  be  trans- 
mitted, from  their  Swedenborgian  fa- 
ther. The  "two  vanities  exasperated 
by  their  sex",  of  which  Bourget  writes 
in  his  "Physiologie",  is  far  from  the 
James  complex.  The  early  influence  of 
Turgenev  persisted  longer  in  his  femi- 
nine portraits  than  Flaubert's. 

His  cultures  were  richer,  more  ver- 
satile than  those  of  his  contemporaries. 
He  is,  to  use  his  own  telling  phrase, 
one  of  Balzac's  grandsons.  He  wrote 
of  Turgenev  that  "he  had  his  reserva- 
tions and  discriminations,  and  he  had, 
above  all,  the  great  back-garden  of  his 
Slav  imagination,  and  his  Germanic 
culture,  into  which  the  door  stood  open, 
and  the  grandsons  of  Balzac  were  not, 
I  think,  particularly  free  to  accompany 
him."  But  Henry  James  could,  and 
did  accompany  him,  for  he  had  the  Ger- 
manic as  well  as  the  Gallic  culture; 
Gcethe  and  Heine  he  speaks  of  even 
during  the  dark  days  of  1914.  He  fi- 
nally found  the  French  circle  as  nar- 
row, noisy,  doctrinaire  as  Turgenev. 
He  admired  the  art  of  Flaubert,  de 
Goncourt,  Maupassant,  Daudet,  but  re- 
volted at  their  particular  application 
of  this  art  to  sundry  phases  of  life. 
Catholic  as  were  his  sympathies  in  the 
matter  of  literary  art, — the  province 


THE  LESSON  OF  THE  MASTER 


367 


which  to  him  was  all  life,  all  imagina- 
tion,— ^nevertheless  he  was  not  a  virtu- 
oso of  the  ugly,  like  Huysmans  for  ex- 
ample, and  he  instinctively  avoided  the 
crudities  of  his  French  contempora- 
ries. A  question  of  temperament,  of 
tactile  sensibility,  of  sensitive  rejec- 
tions, of  the  tact  of  omission,  as  Wal- 
ter Pater  has  it.  That  is  why  he  finally 
selected  England  as  a  proving-ground 
for  his  observation  and  experimenting 
in  life  and  fiction.  He  was  compact  of 
imagination. 

For  him  the  puritan  temperament 
has  a  "faintly  acrid  perfume".  Life 
itself  is  peopled  by  "parrots  and  mon- 
keys, monkeys  and  parrots".  Toward 
the  last  when  neglected  by  press  and 
public,  his  attempts  at  playwriting  a 
failure,  a  strain  of  gentle  pessimism 
steals  through  his  correspondence.  But 
his  almost  miraculous  sense  of  humor 
— don't  rub  your  eyes ! — and  American 
humor  at  that,  saves  him  from  the 
spiritual  doldrum  of  so  many  artistic 
people.  He  never  posed  as  genius  mis- 
understood. Particularly  in  his  letters 
to  William  James  we  find  him  philo- 
sophically accepting  the  situation,  mak- 
ing artistic  capital  of  it.  His  figure  in 
the  carpet  is  the  leading-motive  that 
flashed  out  at  intervals  throughout  the 
vast  symphony  of  his  fiction.  Else- 
where 1  have  described  it  as  fiction  for 
the  future.  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove", 
"The  Ambassadors",  and  "The  Golden 
Bowl"  are  like  the  faintly  audible  tread 
of  destiny  behind  the  arras  of  life.  The 
reverberations  are  almost  microphonic ; 
it  is  spiritual  string-music,  with  the 
crescendo  and  climax  not  absent.  We 
must  goto  other  novelists  for  the  roast 
beef  and  ale.  The  Jacobean  cuisine  is 
for  cultured  palates,  and  most  precious 
is  the  bouquet  of  his  wine.  But  char- 
acterization and  the  power  of  narra- 
tion inform  his  6very  book.  To  use  his 
own  expression,  he  "never  saved  for 


the  next  book".  And  humor,  his  Ameri- 
can heritage,  the  delicate  and  thrice- 
delicious  humor  we  vainly  look  for  in 
Flaubert,  de  Goncourt  and  the  rest  of 
his  famous  c^nacle — Daudet  alone  ex- 
cepted. An  ironist,  too,  yet  not  a  fe- 
rocious one.  His  is  the  irony  of  a  su- 
persubtle  poet. 

The  editor,  Mr.  Lubbock,  has  com- 
passed a  dangerous  undertaking  in  his 
selection  and,  while  he  offers  many  let- 
ters which  illustrate  the  social  side  of 
his  hero,  he  justly  lays  stress  on  the 
inclusion  of  literary  themes.    James  is 
wholly  preoccupied  with  form.     The 
lack  of  it  is  the  unforgivable  sin  against 
the  Holy  Ghost  of  art.    In  his  letters 
to  Hugh  Walpole  he  emphasizes  the 
magnitude  of  the  offense.  He  banishes 
from  the  pale  of  his  sympathies  two 
such  men  as  Tolstoi  and  Dostoyevsky 
because  of  their  formlessness,  and,  by 
the  same  token,  he  admits  lesser  lights 
because  of  their  devotion  to  the  for- 
mal.   His  limitations  but  proclaim  the 
master.     Thomas  Hardy  annoys  him 
by  reason  of  his  mediocre  prose.    Kip- 
ling at  first  intrigued  his  fancy,  but 
his  admiration  faded  as  the  imperial- 
istic jingo  and  singer  of  barracks  and 
barrooms  came  into  view.  He  achieves 
the  portrait  of  Walter  Pater  in  a  fe- 
licitous phrase — and  the  pages  of  these 
volumes   are   thick   with   felicities — 
"faint,   pale,    embarrassed,    exquisite 
Pater";    and  he  writes  to  Gosse  that 
Pater  "is  not  of  the  little  day — but  of 
the  longer  time".     George  Meredith 
teases,  exasperates  him  with  his  wan- 
ton humors,  his  general  emptiness  in 
the  later  novels.     (Perhaps  the  gossip 
about  the  relations  of  James  and  Mere- 
dith is  founded  on  fact,  "The  Lesson 
of  the  Master"  is  autobiographical.) 
There  was  never  a  genuine  rapproche- 
ment with  Meredith.    For  H.  G.  Wells, 
his  extraordinary  versatility  and  vital- 
ity, James  has  a  liking,  but  when  in 


868 


THE  BOOKMAN 


the  case  of  the  egregious  "Boon"  he 
feels  that  his  friend  is  merely  chatter- 
ingy  he  reminds  him  of  art  and  its  re- 
sponsibilities. His  admiration  for 
George  Eliot,  that  great  fossil  dinosaur 
of  mid-Victorian  fiction,  with  her  ex- 
cess moralic  acid,  is  incomprehensible. 
He  also  experiences  the  "emotion  of 
recognition"  for  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward, 
whose  fiction  is  a  combination  of  pul- 
pit and  petticoats  that  is  dishearten- 
ing. In  the  case  of  Edith  Wharton,  the 
"dear  Edith"  of  his  Letters,  he  is  on 
firmer  ground.  The  exquisite  mosaic 
art  of  this  gifted  woman,  above  all  the 
splendid  soul  that  shines  through  the 
bars  of  her  prose-music,  could  not  but 
attract  Henry  James.  Wise,  witty, 
communicative  is  his  correspondence 
with  the  author  of  "The  Custom  of  the 
Country" — ^to  our  way  of  thinking  her 
masterpiece  of  irony  and  evocation. 

He  saw  through  the  hole  in  the 
American  millstone,  social  and  politi- 
cal. Despite  his  change  of  citizenship 
he  remained  invincibly  American. 
Rage,  horror,  indignation,  fills  the  last 
section  of  these  letters.  The  war  lit- 
erally killed  him.  He  had  gone  through 
the  Franco-American  conflict,  and, 
while  he  was  hopeful  till  his  death, 
there  lurked  in  his  brain  the  unac- 
knowledged fear  of  another  1870  ca- 
tastrophe. He  every  now  and  then 
gives  us  portraits  of  our  alleged  great 
men,  the  political  idols  of  the  hour, 
who  crumble  like  chalk  in  the  blast  of 
his  epigrammatic  prose.  The  tardy 
entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the 


combat  forced  him  to  become  a  British 
subject,  for  he  was  not  the  sort  of  man 
who  compromises  with  his  conscience. 
And  what  a  sturdy,  sincere  conscience 
it  was !  He  conceived  his  fiction-world 
as  a  picture,  as  an  image,  rather  than 
an  idea.  He  was  a  visualist,  not  an  au- 
ditive, as  the  psychiatrists  define  it. 
He  was  tone-deaf.  He  tells  us  so,  but 
he  had  the  inner  ear  for  the  finest  nu- 
ances of  prose.  His  third  manner  is 
polyphonic,  no  doubt  matured  by  his 
habit  of  dictating.  Now,  the  pen  in- 
hibits. In  dictation  the  temptation  to 
digress  is  irresistible;  yet  James,  not- 
withstanding the  multiple  messages  he 
sends  along  the  single  wire  of  prose, 
never  loses  the  thread  of  his  discourse, 
though  I  confess  his  readers  may. 
Like  Robert  Browning  he  made  of  a 
perilous  method  an  unbelievable  tri- 
umph. His  prose  is  literally  many- 
voiced.  It  contains  "second  intentions", 
in  it  may  be  overheard  the  interior  dia- 
logue. In  this  matter  of  polyphony  he 
is  both  a  pioneer  and  the  last  of  his 
kind. 

It  is  not  advisable  to  make  extracts 
here  from  these  Letters,  which  bid  fair 
to  become  a  classic  in  English  litera- 
ture. Their  wealth  for  the  student 
and  amateur  of  literary  art  is  incalcula- 
ble. And  they  best  serve  as  an  intro- 
duction to  the  life  and  work^of  that 
unique  artist  and  mystic,  Henry  James, 
whose  chief  glory  is  his  imagination. 


The  Letters  of  Henry  James.  Selected  and 
edited  by  Percy  Lubbock.  Two  volumes. 
Charles  Scrlbner's  Soqs. 


LOOKING  AHEAD  WITH  THE  PUBLISHERS 


IT  is  remarkable  to  note,  in  the  wave 
of  i)opular  interest  which  has 
placed  Psychic  Phenomena  far  above 
Prohibition  as  the  topic  of  all  discus- 
sion, that  the  "ayes  have  it"  by  an 
overwhelming  majority.  The  great 
demand  is,  quite  apparently,  for  proof 
of  some  life  beyond.  And  no  i)opular 
demand  goes  long  unsatisfied.  What 
opposition  there  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
goes  its  scornful  way,  refusing  even  to 
recognize  the  new  belief  by  the  com- 
pliment of  concerted  attack.  The  re- 
sult is  that  while  the  latest  books  on 
the  subject  hold  a  wealth  of  evidence, 
they  lack  the  strength  which  opposi- 
tion brings.  Henry  Holt  and  Com- 
pany will  publish  shortly  a  Psychic 
Series,  which  taken  as  a  whole  makes 
a  most  authoritative  and  informing 
group  of  facts.  Henry  Holt,  the  head 
of  the  firm,  is  himself  represented  by 
a  volume  of  "Essays  on  Psychical  Re- 
search", a  collection  of  contributions 
to  "The  Unpartisan  Review".  In  ad- 
dition there  will  be  "Researches  in 
Spiritualism"  by  Sir  William  Grookes, 
"The  Ear  of  Dionysius"  by  the  Hon- 
orable Gerald  Balfour,  "After-Death 
Communications"  by  L.  M.  Bazett, 
with  others  added  from  time  to  time. 
Considered  in  conjunction  with  the 
works  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  and  with 
Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle's  advanced 
theories,  they  present  a  formidable  ar- 
ray of  evidence  in  the  case  for  Spir- 
itualism. On  the  side  of  the  opposi- 
tion   "The    Case    Against    Spiritual- 


ism", by  Jane  T.  Stoddart,  is  practi- 
cally the  only  authoritative  attack  of 
the  movement.  No  worthy  cause  is 
ever  injured  by  well-considered  criti- 
cism. It  is  rather  unfortunate  that 
more  writers  have  not  aided  the  ulti- 
mate growth  of  a  theory, — ^that  may, 
one  day,  open  up  entirely  new  vistas 
of  the  universe, — ^by  attacking  the  un- 
derbrush of  charlatan  "spiritualists" 
who  are  springing  up  unchecked 
around  the  few  giants  of  scientific  and 

spiritist  thought. 

«  «  «  « 

What  is  probably  the  most  im- 
portant and  most  eagerly  awaited 
event  of  the  spring  is  the  publication,^ 
in  April,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons, 
of  the  "Letters  of  Henry  James".  It 
is  surprising  to  most  of  us  (who  al- 
ways considered  that  a  man  so  dedi- 
cated to  his  art,  as  was  this  famous 
author,  could  not,  in  the  very  nature 
of  things  keep  contact — at  least  inti- 
mate contact— with  his  fellows)  to 
find  in  these  letters  a  real  "man's 
man",  filled  with  enthusiasm,  buoyant, 
witity,  capable  of  deep  friendship  and 
extraordinary  interest.  They  reveal 
a  man's  struggle  to  adapt  himself  to  an 
alien  life, — ^a  sensitive  man,  somewhat 
embittered  by  the  failure  of.  the  many 
to  recognize  his  very  real  genius, 
somewhat  discouraged  by  his  failure 
as  a  playwright, — ^a  man  who  never- 
theless emerged  triumphant  in  his  last 
years,  confident  that  he  had  finally 
reached  the  goal  which  long  before  he 


369 


370 


THE  BOOKMAN 


had  set  for  himself.  Nor  is  their  in- 
timate nature  the  only  surprise  which 
the  letters  hold  for  those  who  were 
chiefly  familiar  with  the  gravity  and 
crystal-clear  literary  preoccupation  of 
his  later  work.  In  them  Henry  James 
has  raised  the  art  of  letter-writing  to 
a  point  of  excellence  hitherto  un- 
dreamed of.  Indeed,  they  are  not  let- 
ters in  our  sense  of  the  word,  but  bril- 
liant essays,  sketches,  kaleidoscopic 
pictures  of  famous  people  and  events, 
of  places  and  times.  They  are  as  read- 
able as  the  letters  of  Thackeray.  The 
editing  by  Percy  Lubbock  is  most  ad- 
mirably done,  including  as  it  does 
numerous  short  notes  which  very  defi- 
nitely tie  up  the  various  letters  with 
the  various  phases  of  Henry  James's 

career. 

*  •  *  « 

There  was  a  morning,  not  many 
months  ago,  when  the  world,  hasten- 
ing to  its  morning  paper,  searched 
vainly  for  news  of  two  lion-hearted 
adventurers  who  swore  to  leap  the  At- 
lantic "without  a  stop".  I  can  still 
feel  in  reminiscence  the  great  flood  of 
relief  and  wonder  that  accompanied 
the  long-delayed  news  of  their  final 
success.  Sir  Arthur  Whitten  Brown 
and  John  Alcock — ^the  latter  killed 
since  in  an  unimportant  land  flight — 
had  accomplished  the  seemingly  im- 
possible. With  cool  effrontery  they 
faced  the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  reduced 
it  to  an  impotent  pond  sixteen  hours 
in  width.  Sir  Arthur  has  written  the 
story  of  that  great  adventure,  "Flying 
the  Atlantic  in  Sixteen  Hours",  soon 
to  be  published  by  Frederick  A.  Stokes 
Company.  Jules  Verne  at  the  height 
of  his  genius  never  imagined  anjrthing 
half  as  thrilling  as  that  dash  across 
the  black  Atlantic,  sliding,  falling, 
boring  through  hail  and  sleet  and 
dense  masses  of  vapor,  guiding  by 
dead  reckoning  alone,  until  the  ad- 


venturers crashed  at  last  into  an  Irish 
bog,  and  were  taken,  more  dead  than 
alive,  to  receive  in  London  the  reward 

the  world  gives  to  the  brave. 

*  *  *  * 

The  Three  Hundredth  Anniversary 
of  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims  has 
turned  the  nation's  historical  eye 
very  definitely  back  from  questions  of 
treaty  and  trade  to  the  more  ro- 
mantic, if  not  more  dangerous,  days 
of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies. Using  Governor  Bradford's 
long-lost  History  of  the  Plymouth 
Plantation  and  other  authentic  rec- 
ords as  a  basis,  Frank  M.  Gregg  will 
publish  this  month,  through  George 
H.  Doran  Company,  a  graphic  histori- 
cal romance  of  the  Pilgrims.  The  dif- 
ficulties of  sailing  and  the  loss  of  the 
"Speedwell",  the  landing,  the  fire,  the 
great  sickness  and  the  founding  of 
Thanksgiving  day  are  intimately 
woven  around  the  story  of  Cavalier 
Beaumont's  love  for  the  "Separatist" 
maiden.  It  is  a  rare  combination  of 
historical  accuracy  and  literary  art. 

John  T.  Faris  will  publish,  through 
the  same  firm,  a  story  of  the  pioneers 
of  America.  "On  the  Trail  of  the 
Pioneers"  is  a  story  of  America's 
greatest  struggle  to  push  across  the 
Alleghenies,  with  an  historically  accu- 
rate account  of  the  route  which  the 
emigrants  took,  the  sections  to  which 
they  went  and  why,  the  pitched  battles 
with  the  Indians, — ^an  irresistible  tide 
moving  by  flat-boat,  emigrant  wagon 
and  trail  over  the  mountains  and  into 

the  land  of  promise  and  plenty. 

*  *  *  * 

What  John  T.  Faris  is  doing  for  the 
history  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  Mid- 
dle West,  Professor  Archibald  Hen- 
derson, of  the  University  of  North 
Carolina,  is  accomplishing  for  the  ear- 
lier— ^but  no  less  important — ^move- 
ment into  the  regions  farther  south. 


LOOKING  AHEAD  WITH  THE  PUBLISHERS 


371 


Professor  Henderson  has  evidently 
been  deeply  interested  for  a  number 
of  years  in  the  heroic  men  and  women 
who,  early  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
crossed  into  the  trackless  forests  of 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  "The  Con- 
quest of  the  Old  Southwest",  to  be 
published  by  the  Century  Company, 
shows  a  most  unusual  breadth  of  in- 
formation. Daniel  Boone,  Robert 
Wade,  Hugh  Waddell,  John  Perkins, 
Richard  Henderson,  George  Washing- 
ton— ^all  leaders  of  the  pioneer  move- 
ment— as  well  as  Dragging  Canoe,  the 
Cherokee  Chief,  fill  the  story  with  the 
thrill  of  their  struggle  for  existence. 
Of  this  august  company,  Daniel  Boone 
stands  easily  first  as  a  dauntless 
leader.  Many  readers  will  be  as  sur- 
prised as  was  the  writer  of  these 
notes  to  find  that  Boone,  the  man,  even 
outdoes  the  Boone  of  romance.  In  the 
first  move  into  the  Kentucky  wilder- 
ness Daniel  Boone  led  the  advance 
party,  commissioned  to  blaze  the  trail. 
It  was  his  dauntless  courage,  his  un- 
wavering resolve  to  go  forward  in  the 
face  of  all  dangers,  which  carried 
through  the  armed  "trek"  to  a  suc- 
cessful conclusion.  This  historic  let- 
ter   reveals    the    dogged    resolution 


which  held  Boone  and  his  men  to  their 
task  in  the  face  of  black  disaster: 

Dear  Colonel :  After  my  compliments  to  you, 
I  shall  acquaint  you  of  our  misfortunes.  On 
March  the  25  a  party  of  Indians  fired  on  my 
Company  about  half  an  hour  before  day,  and 
killed  Mr.  Twitty  and  his  negro,  and  wounded 
Mr.  Walker  very  deeply,  but  I  hope  he  wiU  re- 
cover. 

On  March  the  28  as  we  were  hunting  for 
provisions,  we  found  Samuel  Tate's  son,  who 
gave  us  an  account  that  the  Indians  fired  on 
their  camp  on  the  27th  day.  My  brother  and  I 
went  down  and  found  two  men  killed  and 
scalped,  Thomas  McDowell  and  Jeremiah  Mc- 
Feters.  I  have  sent  a  man  down  to  all  the 
lower  companies  in  order  to  gather  them  all 
at  the  mouth  of  Otter  Creek. 

My  advice  to  you.  Sir,  is  to  come  or  send  as 
soon  as  possible.  Your  company  is  desired 
greatly,  for  the  people  are  very  uneasy,  but  are 
willing  to  stay  and  venture  their  lives  with 
you,  and  now  is  the  time  to  fiusterate  their 
(the  Indians')  intentions,  and  keep  the  coun- 
try,  whilst  we  are  in  it.  If  we  give  way  to 
them  now,  it  will  ever  be  the  case.  This  day 
we  start  from  the  battle  ground,  for  the  mouth 
of  Otter  Creek,  where  we  shaU  Immediately 
erect  a  Fort,  which  will  be  done  before  you  can 
come  or  send,  then  we  can  send  ten  men  to 
meet  you,  if  you  send  for  them. 

I  am.  Sir,  your  most  obedient. 
Omble  Sarvent, 

DANIEL   BOOM 

These  three  historical  books  hold  a 
wealth  of  romance — ^the  romance  of  a 
time  in  which  the  very  fact  of  exist- 
ence was  a  remarkable — and  often 
abruptly  ended — adventure. 

*^~S.  M.  R. 


872  THE  BOOKMAN 


FICTION  IN  DEMAND  AT  PUBLIC  HBRARIES 

COMPILBD    BT    FRANK    PABKIB    STOCKBBIDOll    IN    COOPBBATION    WITH    THI    AMBBICAN 

LIBBABT   ASSOCIATION 

The  following  li%iB  of  hooks  in  demand  in  March  in  the  public  libraries  of  the  United 
States  have  been  compiled  from  reports  made  by  two  hundred  representative  libraries,  in  every 
section  of  the  country  and  in  cities  of  all  siaes  down  to  ten  thousand  population.  The  order 
of  choice  is  (M  stated  by  the  libraHans. 

NEW  YORK  AND  NEW  ENGLAND  STATES 

1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

2.  Red  and  Black  Crrace  S.  Richmond  Doubleday 

3.  The  House  of  Baltazar  WiUiam  J.  Locke  Lane 

4.  The  Great  Impersonation  E,  PhiUipa  Oppenheim  Little,  Brown 

5.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert  Ethel  M.  Dell  PUTNAM 

6.  The  Strong  Hours  Maud  Diver  Houghton 

SOUTH  ATLANTIC  STATES 


1.  The  River's  End  James  Oliver  Curwood  Cosmopolitan 

2.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert  Ethel  M.  Dell  Putnam 

3.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

4.  A  Man  for  the  Ages  Irving  BacheUer  Bobbs-Merrill 

5.  The  Great  Desire  Alexander  Black  Harper 

6.  Jeremy  Hugh  Walpole  DORAN 

NORTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent  Harold  Bell  Wright  BOOK  Supply 

2.  The  River's  End  James  Oliver  Curwood  Cosmopolitan 

3.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

lypse Vicente  BUisco  Ibdnez  DUTTON 

4.  Red  and  Black  Gra/^e  S.  Richmond  Doubleday 

5.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert  Ethel  M.  Dell  Putnam 

6.  The  House  of  Baltazar  WiUiam  J.  Locke  Lane 

SOUTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert  Ethel  M.  Dell  Putnam 

2.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

3.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent  Harold  Bell  Wright  Book  Supply 

4.  The  River's  End  James  Oliver  Curwood  Cosmopolitan 

5.  The  Great  Impersonation  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim  Little,  Brown 

6.  Jeremy  Hugh  Walpole  DORAN 

WESTERN  STATES 

1.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent  Harold  Bell  Wright  BOOK  Supply 

2.  The  Foiir  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

lypse Vicente  Blasco  Ibdnez  DUTTON 

3.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

4.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert  Ethel  M.  Dell  Putnam 

5.  Mare  Nostrum  Vicente  BUisco  Ibdnez  DUTTON 

6.  Mrs.  Marden  Robert  Hichens  DORAN 

FOR  THE  WHOLE  UNITED  STATES 


1.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent  Harold  Bell  Wright  BOOK  Supply 

2.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

3.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert  Ethel  M.  Dell  Putnam 

4.  The  River's  End  James  Oliver  Curwood  Cosmopolitan 

5.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

lypse   •  Vicente  Blasco  Ibdnez  DuTTON 

6.  Red  and  Black  Grace  S.  Richmond  Doubleday 


THE  BOOKMAN'S  MONTHLY  SCORE 


878 


GENERAL  BOOKS  IN  DEMAND  AT  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 

COMPILBO     BT     FRANK      PABKBB     STOCKBBIDOB      IN      COOPBBATION      WITH      THB     AMBBICAN      LIBBABT 

ASSOCIATION 

The  titles  have  been  scared  by  the  simple  process  of  giving  each  a  credit  of  six  for  ectoh 
time  it  aopcars  as  first  choice,  and  so  doton  to  a  score  of  one  for  each  time  it  appears  in  sixth 
place.  The  total  score  for  each  section  and  for  the  whole  country  determines  the  order  of  choice 
in  the  table  herewith. 

NEW  YORK  AND  NEW  ENGLAND  STATES 


1. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

2. 

A  Labrador  Doctor 

Wilfred  T.  Grenfell 

Houghton 

3. 

"Marse  Henry" 

Henry  Watterson 

DORAN 

4. 

Theodore  Roosevelt 

William  Roscoe  Thayer 

HOUGllTON 

5. 

Raymond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

6. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

SOUTH  ATLANTIC  STATES 

1. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

2. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

3. 

Raymond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

4. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace 

John  Maynard  Keynes 

Hargourt 

5. 

Abraham  Lincoln 

John  Drinkivater 

Houghton 

6. 

A  Tiabrador  Doctor 

Wilfred  T.  Grenfell 

Houghton 

NORTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

2. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

3. 

Raymond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

4. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas 

Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

5. 

"Marse  Henry" 

Henry  Watterson 

DORAN 

6. 

An  American  Idyll 

Cornelia  S.  Parker 

Atlantic 

SOUTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1. 

Abraham  Lincoln 

John  Drinkwater 

Houghton 

2. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

3. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

4. 

The  Seven  Purposes 

Margaret  Cameron 

Harper 

5. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas 

Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

6. 

The  Life  of  John  Marshall 

Albert  J.  Beveridge 

Houghton 

WESTERN  STATES 

1. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

2. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCKIBNER 

3. 

Raymond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

4. 

The  Seven  Purposes 

Margaret  Cameron 

Harper 

5. 

Abraham  Lincoln 

John  Drinkwater 

Houghton 

6. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas 

Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

FOR  THE  WHOLE  UNITED  STATES 

1. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

2. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

3. 

Raymond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

4. 

The  Seven  Purposes 

Margaret  Cameron 

Harper 

5. 

Abraham  Lincoln 

John  Drinkwater 

Houghton 

6. 

A  Labrador  Doctor 

Wilfred  T.  Grenfell 

Houghton 

THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


FRANK  SWINNERTON  in  a  letter 
to  a  friend  visiting  in  the  United 
States  writes  as  follows  of  the  holiday 
which  he  and  Arnold  Bennett  have 
been  taking  in  Portugal : 

"On  January  30  Arnold  and  I  packed 
up  our  traps  and  came  to  Portugal. 
And  here  we  are,  excoriating  the  coun- 
try. The  little  squibs  and  squabbles 
of  London  cliques  are  almost  as  dis- 
tant from  me  as  they  are  from  you.  I 
remind  myself  of  them  every  now  and 
then  with  a  start.  We  have  been  in 
Havre,  in  Lixoes,  in  Oporto,  in  Lisbon, 
in  Cintra,  and  here,  which  is  called 
the  Portuguese  Riviera.  We  walk, 
drive,  read,  talk,  gamble,  etc.  Arnold 
is  in  his  best  form,  and  very  delight- 
ful all  day,  saying  the  most  stuttering 
and  shattering  things  every  hour.  I 
am  not  working  at  all,  but  letting  the 
hours  go  by  in  perfect  tranquillity. 
And  we  go  back  at  the  beginning  of 
March,  I  to  resume  the  strenuous  life 
newly  armed. 

"Portugal  is  a  most  peculiar  place. 
I  can  tell  you  that  much.  Its  ways 
and  doings  are  perpetually  astonish- 
ing. Here,  on  this  'Riviera',  the  plans 
to  sweep  the  South  of  France  bare  of 
its  pleasure  seekers  are  advanced,  but 
not  so  advanced  as  to  make  the  dis- 
trict impossible.  There  are  villas  that 
combine  Moorish  qualities  with  some 
of  the  most  barbarous  impromptu  that 
you  could  imagine.  The  roads  in  and 
outside  Oporto  are  grotesque.  The 
roads  here,  on  the  other  hand,  are  ex- 
cellent.    Wherever  we  go  we  come 


upon  strange  people  who  fall  to  our 
honest  charm  and  frequent  our  society 
when  we  choose.  And  in  fact  we're 
both  enjoying  the  whole  thing,  from 
the  nine  days'  sea  voyage  to  the  pros- 
pect of  another  fortnight  on  land  and 
the  return  journey." 


Death  has  been  very  busy  of  late  in 
the  literary  world  of  England.  Ernest 
Hartley  Coleridge,  grandson  of  the 
famous  poet;  Charles  Garvice,  novel- 
ist, dramatist,  poet,  and  American 
newspaper  correspondent  (who  is  said 
to  have  sold  more  books  during  the 
last  ten  years  than  any  other  English 
author) ;  Arthur  Henry  Bullen,  dis- 
tinguished Shakespeare  editor  and 
publisher;  and  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward, 
I)opular  novelist, — ^have  died  since  we 
last  went  to  press. 

Mrs.  Ward  was  bom  June  11, 
1851,  at  Hobart,  the  chief  town  on 
the  island  of  Tasmania,  which  lies  120 
miles  southeast  of  Australia,  and  was 
once  a  British  penal  colony  known 
then  as  No  Man's  Land.  Her  maiden 
name  was  Mary  Augusta  Arnold.  She 
was  a  niece  of  Matthew  Arnold;  and 
married,  in  1872,  Thomas  Humphry 
Ward,  a  Fellow  of  Brasenose  College, 
London,  and  editor  of  "The  English 
Poets",  a  four  volume  work  that  made 
his  name  known  throughout  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking world.  Their  home  was 
at  61  Russell  square,  London,  not  far 
from  the  house  where  Amelia  Sedley 
once  lived. 


874 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


875 


Mrs.  Ward's  first  published  book 
was  a  story  for  children — "Milly  and 
Oily;  or  A  Holiday  Among  the  Moun- 
tains"— ^which  •  appeared  in  1880. 
"Miss  Bretherton"  appeared  four 
years  later.  Her  first  real  recognition 
as  a  popular  novelist  came  with  the 
publication  of  "Robert  Elsmere",  con- 
sidered by  many  her  ablest  work, 
though  other  talked  of  novels  fol- 
lowed, notably  "The  Marriage  of  Wil- 
liam Ashe". 

Ernest  Hartley  Coleridge  was  bom 
December  8,  1846,  son  of  the  Reverend 
Derwent  CJoleridge,  and  nephew  of  that 
Hartley  to  whom  Wordsworth  wrote 
the  poem  "To  H.  C,  six  years  old": 

Thou  fairy  voyager . . . 

Thou  are  so  exquisitely  wild 

I  think  of  thee  with  many  fears 

For  what  may  be  thy  lot  in  future  years. . . . 

Mr.  Coleridge  was  educated  at  Ox- 
ford. Among  the  volumes  he  edited 
were  the  letters  of  Samuel  Taylor 
CJoleridge  followed  later  by  his  poems 
(illustrated),  and  by  "Animse 
Poetae",  selections  from  his  unpub- 
lished notebooks ;  Lord  Byron's  poems ; 
and  the  life  and  letters  of  John  Duke, 
Lord  Coleridge. 


In  "La  Vie  d'Edgar  A.  Poe",  re- 
cently published  in  France,  Andr6 
Fontainas  has  endeavored,  as  the  re- 
sult of  a  study  of  trustworthy  docu- 
ments, to  restore  "the  true  and  just 
image  of  Poe,  purged  of  the  taint  of 
calumny  and  pure  as  those  works  with 
which  his  life  was  always  closely 
bound  up." 


Carolyn  Wells  is  overcome  by  awful 
Mr.  Braley's  error  in  the  April  issue 
of  The  Bookman.  She  writes  to  the 
Gossip  Shop: 

"A  cobbler  should  stick  to  his  last, 
first  and  all  the  time.     There  is  no 


better  evidence  of  this  than  Berton 
Braley's  recent  excursion  into  the 
realm  of  review  and  criticism.  We 
have  read  quite  a  lot  of  Mr.  Braley's 
work  in  the  past  and  we  have  indulged 
in  cachinnatory  ejaculations,  even 
though  deprecating  our  mirth.  How- 
ever, upon  perusing  his  article  in  The 
Bookman  we  are  compelled  to  realize 
that  whatever  talent  for  theology  Mr. 
Braley  may  possess,  he  is  not  an  ac- 
curate or  capable  reviewer,  and  he  has 
produced  an  essay  which  is  an  amaz- 
ing hodge-podge  of  misguided  and 
misapplied  humor.  As  for  the  jests 
adduced  by  Mr.  Braley,  they  are  the 
most  astonishing  examples  of  misfired 
we  have  ever  read.  The  merest  school 
child  would  not  laugh  at  them. 

"We  are  as  giddy  as  Mr.  Braley 
thinks  that  Mr.  Herford  would  make 
us  think  the  earth  is,  when  we  try  to 
understand  his  satire. 

"Then  when  the  author  begins  to 
particularize  he  is  guilty  of  such  base- 
less declarations  as  this:  'The  chil- 
dren of  today  will  be  the  adults  of  to- 
morrow.' Perish  the  thought !  Every- 
body knows  the  adults  of  today  will 
be  in  their  second  childhood  tomor- 
row. 

"The  author  proceeds  with  his  mis- 
apprehensions in  remarks  about  the 
late  war.  This  is  but  another  exem- 
plification of  the  appalling  ignorance 
of  a  man  who  attempts  to  write  a 
magazine  article  without  proper  basic 
knowledge  of  the  omission  of  the  sub- 
ject of  war.  But  enough  of  this — it  is 
plain  that  Mr.  Braley  cannot  be  taken 
humorously  as  a  commentator  or  as  a 
reviewer  of  art.  His  mind  is  too  ma- 
terial and  his  tongue  too  encheek6d. 

"His  text  is  what  one  might  expect  of 
one  who  had  learned  his  data  from  Ar- 
temus  Ward  and  confused  it  with  the 
Comic  Sunday  Supplements.  But  of 
course  the  whole  attempt  is  so  far  re- 


876 


THE  BOOKMAN 


moved  from  nonsense  or  common  sense 
that  it  is  an  utter  failure  as  a  book  re- 
view. It  is  certainly  to  be  hoped  that 
Mr.  Braley  will  hereafter  confine  him- 
self to  his  bailiwick  of  trisyllabic 
rhymes  and  continue  to  write  of  The 
Prophylactic   Pup'   and   The   Tooter 

who  Tooted  the  Flute' Indeed,  if 

this  present  screed  of  his  were  not  so 
filled  with  silly  and  baseless  state- 
ments put  forth  with  solemn  author- 
ity, the  essay  might  appeal  to  the  edu- 
cated mind  as  something  the  awful 
Mr.   Braley  had  written   but   didn't 


mean. 


»» 


It  appears  that  Hungary  has  taken 
to  burning  all  books  treating  of  social 
and  economic  questions.  Any  work 
which  justifies  the  socialization  of 
government  or  points  the  way  to 
better  living  conditions  for  the  work- 
ing classes,  is  doomed.  "White 
guards"  search  private  dwellings  and 
ransack  libraries,  gathering  up  the 
works  of  Karl  Marx,  Engel,  Bebel,  and 
similar  writers.  Fifteen  thousand 
works  were  recently  removed  from  the 
library  at  Budapest  and  consigned  to 
flames  in  the  courtyard. 


There  has  been  issued  lately  by  a 
New  York  firm  "One  Hundred  Best 
Novels  Condensed",  a  collection  of 
abridged  novels  edited  by  Edwin  A. 
Grozier,  editor  of  the  Boston  "Post". 
The  collection,  which  was  issued  in 
four  volumes,  includes  such  varied 
classics  as  Dickens,  Sienkiewicz,  Tol- 
stoi, and  Defoe,  and,  among  present- 
day  writers.  Booth  Tarkington,  Blasco 
Ib^nez,  Rupert  Hughes,  and  Margaret 
Deland.  A  picture  of  the  author  or  an 
illustration  taken  from  some  phase  of 
his  work  accompanies  each  of  the 
novels,  the  condensations  of  which 
have  been  written  by  various  literary 
men. 


E.  V.  Lucas,  whose  forthcoming 
novel  is  the  whimsical  story  of  "Ve- 
rena  in  the  Midst",  not  long  ago  sent 
greetings  to  his  publishers  from  Cal- 
cutta: 

I  am  jj^aduaUy  advancing  upon  yoa  and  if 
a  boat  can  be  found  I  shall  be  in  San  Fran- 
cisco about  May  1  and  come  right  along. . . . 
My  novel  will  probably  be  awaiting  me  in  proof 
at  your  office.  A  letter  from  Hugh  Walpole 
radiates  prosperity  and  enthusiasm.  Try  and 
keep  him  till  I  come.  Oh,  and  I  want  to  read 
some  of  the  other  work  of  the  author  of  **Su8an 
Lenox".    Some  of  "Tish"  is  damned  funny. 

Mr.  Lucas  will  sail  for  England 
about  June  1. 


Excellent  progress  has  been  made 
by  the  Woman's  Roosevelt  Memorial 
Association  in  the  work  of  restoring, 
and  opening  to  the  public  use,  the 
Roosevelt  birthplace  at  28  East  20th 
Street,  New  York.  "Between  the  spa- 
cious Colonial  mansion  of  George 
Washington  and  the  pioneer  cabin  of 
Lincoln",  comments  "The  Review", 
"there  is  room  in  America  for  such 
a  shrine  as  this;  not  a  place  for  losing 
oneself  in  a  reverent  '0  altitudol' — 
Roosevelt  himself  would  be  the  last  to 
desire  that — ^but  a  place  amid  whose 
books  and  portraits  citizens  of  all  ages 
may  take  heart  of  grace  to  search  yet 
more  deeply  into  what  it  means  to  be 
an  American." 


A  celebration  in  memory  of  Emile 
Verhaeren  was  held  in  Brussels  re- 
cently. The  ceremonies  took  place 
in  the  senate  chamber,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  king  and  queen  and  many 
ministers  and  diplomats.  The  gath- 
ering included  largely  writers  and 
artists.  Henri  de  R^gnier  delivered 
an  address  in  the  name  of  the  French 
Academy  and  Brand  Whitlock  spoke 
in  behalf  of  the  United  States.  H.  G. 
Wells  and  Sem  Benelli,  who  were  to 
have  represented  England  and  Italy, 
were  unable  to  be  present.    Character* 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


877 


istic  selections  from  Verhaeren's  work 
were  recited  by  actors  from  the  Comd- 
die  FranQaise,  as  well  as  a  poem  writ- 
ten in  honor  of  the  poet  by  Gr6goire 
Le  Roy.  On  the  following  day  "Heldne 
de  Sparte",  Verhaeren's  last  dramatic 
work,  was  produced  for  the  first  time 
in  Belfirium. 

"Thus  was  officially  consecrated", 
observes  the  "Mercure  de  France", 
**the  genius  of  Emile  Verhaeren  who, 
scarcely  fifteen  years  ago,  had  not  met 
with  in  his  country  (except  for  the 
admiration  of  the  61ite)  anjrthing  but 
mockery,  insult,  and  sarcasm.' 


»» 


From  Punch : 

"It  is  pleasing  to  note  that  in  spite 
of  the  recent  spring-like  weather,  the 
Poet-Laureate  is  calmly  keeping  his 
head." 

And  this  (being  a  terrible  result  of 
reading  too  much  poetry  in  the  mod- 
em manner) : 

THB    DBAD  TBBB 

Slushy  is  the  highway  between  the  unspeakable 

hedges; 
I  pause 

Irresolute  under  a  telegraph  pole, 
The  fourteenth  telegraph  pole  on  the  way 
Prom  Shere  to  Havering, 
The  twenty-first  from  Havering  to  Shere. 
Crimson  is  the  western  sky ;   upright  it  stands, 
The  solitary  pole. 
Sombre  and  terrible. 
Splitting  the  dying  sun 
Into  two  semi -circular  halves. 
I  do  not  think  I  have  seen,  not  even  in  Yorti- 

cist  pictures. 
Anything  so  solitary. 
So  absolutely  nude; 
Yet  this  was  an  item  once  in  the  uninteresting 

forest, 
With   branches  sticking  out   of  it,  and  crude 

green  leaves. 
And  resinous  sap. 

And  underneath  it  a  litter  of  pine  spindles 
And  ants; 
Birds  fretted  in  the  boughs  and  bees  were  busy 

in  it. 
Squirrels  ran  noisily  up  it ; 
Now  it  is  naked  and  dead. 
Delightfully  naked. 
And  beautifully  dead. 


Delightfully  and  beautifully,  for  across  it 
melodiously, 

stirred  by  the  evening  wind. 

The  wires  where  electric  messages  are  continu- 
ally being  dispatched 

Between  various  postofflces. 

Messages  of  business  and  messages  of  love. 

Rates  of  advertisements  and  all  the  winners 

Are  vibrating  and  thrumming  like  a  thousand 
lutes. 

Is  the  old  gray  heart  of  the  telephone  pole 
stirred  by  those  messages? 

I  fancy  not. 

Yet  it  all  seems  very  strange. 

And  even  stranger  still,  now  that  I  notice  it. 

Is  the  fact  that  the  thing  is  after  all  not  abso- 
lutely naked. 

For  a  short  way  up  it,  half-obliterated  with 
age. 

Discolored  and  torn. 

Fastened  on  by  tin  tacks. 

There  Is  a  paper  ajBUche 

Relating  to  swine  fever. 

The  sun  sinks  lower  and  I  pass  on. 

On  to  the  fifteenth  pole  from  Shere  to  Have- 
ring, 

And  the  twentieth 

From  Havering  to  Shere; 

It  Is  even  more  naked  and  desolate  than  the 
last. 

I  pause  (as  before). 

(Author:  We  can  start  all  over  again  now  if 
you  like.) 

(Editor:    I  don't  like.) 


This  summer  will  see  the  practical 
realization  of  Christopher  Morlejr's 
"Parnassus  on  Wheels"  when  the 
Caravan  Bookshop  tours  New  Eng- 
land. The  Caravan  Bookshop  will  be 
a  Stewart  motor,  gay  and  attractive, 
with  a  bookish  air,  but  neither  "high- 
brow" nor  Greenwich  Villagy.  When 
it  drives  up  to  hotel  or  village  green, 
it  will  spread  out  its  table  of  books 
under  cool  awnings,  where  you  may 
dip  into  the  current  literature  at  your 
leisure,  or  step  inside  the  car  and 
browse  about  the  shelves  filled  with 
nearly  a  thousand  volumes,  specially 
selected  to  make  the  sojourner  in  New 
England  a  book  owner. 

This  original  adventurer  is  being 
sent  out  by  the  Bookshop  for  Boys  and 
Girls  in  Boston,  which  itself  was  a 
pioneer  a  couple  of  years  ago  in  the 


878 


THE  BOOKMAN 


field  of  bookstores  for  children,  under 
the  able  direction  of  Miss  Bertha  E. 
Mahony.  The  Bookshop  is  maintained 
by  the  Women's  Educational  and  In- 
dustrial Union  as  a  branch  of  its  so- 
cial and  educational  activity.  The 
Union  has  considerable  prestige 
among  New  Englanders,  who  of 
course  will  welcome  the  coming  of  a 
bookshop  sent  out  under  its  auspices. 
The  publishing  world  is  watching  the 
venture  with  a  good  deal  of  interest 
and  solid  encouragement.  The  year 
has  been  an  abundant  one  for  the  book 
trade.  Why  should  not  the  summer 
yield  a  golden  harvest? 

While  the  route  is  not  fully  planned, 
the  expectations  are  that  the  Caravan 
will  start  early  in  July  to  do  "The 
Cape",  working  its  way  up  the  coast 
to  Maine  and  probably  covering  the 
Berkshire  tod  White  Mountains. 

The  Caravan  will  be  in  charge  of 
Mary  Frank,  Superintendent  of  the 
Extension  Division  of  the  New  York 
Public  Library,  assisted  by  Genevieve 
Washburn  of  the  Boston  Public  Li- 
brary, who  has  driven  an  ambulance 
in  France  and  is  not  daunted  by  the 
prospect  of  running  a  two-ton  truck 
up  a  mountain  road.  Both  Miss  Frank 
and  Miss  Washburn  have  been  granted 
leaves  of  absence  by  their  respective 
libraries  to  carry  out  this  unique  ex- 
periment in  book  distribution. 

The  Caravan  will  be  equipped  with 
a  couple  of  berths,  so  that  the  Cara- 
vaners  may  camp  out  if  they  wish. 
They  are  planning  however  to  "do" 
the  hotels,  for  while  caravaning  may 
be  a  lark,  it  is  also  a  serious  business. 
As  the  original  stock  is  sold,  a  fresh 
collection  will  be  in  readiness  at  vari- 
ous points  of  the  journey.  Also,  if  a 
purchaser  wishes  some  particular 
book  not  aboard,  his  order  will  be 
taken,   sent  at   once   to  the   Boston 


Bookshop,  and  followed  by  a  prompt 
mail  delivery. 

The  idea  of  a  bookshop  on  wheels  is 
certainly  appealing.  It  offers  practical 
service  and  attractive  diversion  to 
both  natives  and  summer  vacationists 
who  are  fortunate  enough  to  live 
within  its  route. 


The  Prix  Goncourt  for  the  year  past 
was  awarded  to  Marcel  Proust  for  his 
work  "A  rOmbre  des  Jeune  Filles  en 
Fleurs". 

And,  speaking  of  prizes,  the  "Mer- 
cure  de  France"  informs  us  that  the 
"prize  for  the  worst  book  of  the  year" 
was  created  in  France  in  December, 
1919.  The  jury,  consisting  of  a  num- 
ber of  French  writers,  cast  a  unani- 
mous vote  for  the  Peace  Treaty. 


The  effect  in  England  of  the  war 
on  reading  the  Greek  and  Latin  clas- 
sics is  interestingly  presented  in  a 
review  of  about  a  car-load  of  new  edi- 
tions in  a  recent  number  of  "The 
Spectator".    The  article  begins: 

Greek  and  Latin  as  school  subjects  have  been 
roughly  handled  in  recent  controversies,  but  as- 
sailants and  defenders  have  always  agreed  in 
assuming  the  supremacy  of  G reels  and  Latin 
literature.  For  the  scholar's  whole  life  is  built 
on  the  belief  that  they  are  supreme,  and  the 
"modernist's"  whole  case  is  built  on  the  con- 
tention that  he  himself  is  not  a  Philistine. 
The  assumption  is  therefore  made  and  remains 
unchaUenged.  The  man  who  knows  nothing  of 
education  or  of  either  language  is  struck  by  it, 
and  being  eager  for  self-improvement,  as  we  all 
are  since  the  war.  he  has  begun  to  ask  to  see 
these  supreme  literatures  for  himself.  He  has 
begun  to  ask  for  translations,  and  he  is  getting 
them  in  an  endless  stream. 


An  attractive  little  series  comes  to 
us  called  the  "International  Pocket  Li- 
brary", and  edited  by  Edmund  R. 
Brown.  The  volumes  are  probably  de- 
cidedly inexpensive,  though  they  are 
well  printed  on  very  fair  paper.  These 
reprints  are:  "A  Shropshire  Lad,"  by 
A,  E.  Housman,  introduction  by  Wil- 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


379 


liam  Stanley  Braithwaite;  "Two  Wes- 
sex  Tales,"  by  Thomas  Hardy,  fore- 
word by  Conrad  Aiken;  "The  Gold 
Bug,"  and  other  tales  by  Poe ;  "Made- 
moiselle Fifi,"  by  Guy  de  Maupassant, 
translated  by  Mrs.  John  Galsworthy, 
with  a  preface  by  Joseph  Conrad; 
"The  Man  Who  Would  Be  King"  and 
"Without  Benefit  of  Clergy,"  by  Rud- 
yard  Kipling,  introduction  by  Wilson 
Follett,  and  other  volumes. 


The  author  of  "Sous  le  Masque  de 
Molidre"  (a  translation  from  the  orig- 
inal English)  has  set  out  to  prove  that 
Molidre's  plays  were  written  by  none 
other  than  Louis  XIV. 


J.  C.  Squire  in  his  department  "Life 
and  Letters"  in  a  recent  number  of 
"Land  and  Water"  devotes  his  entire 
space  to  an  American  circular  on  the 
English  language  he  has  just  received 
from  "Mr.  Grenville  Kleiser,  Broad- 
way, New  York  City",  addressed  to 
"Editors,  teachers,  authors,  librarians 
and  offering  a  prize  of  $50  to  promote 
deeper  interest  in  the  correct  and  fe- 
licitous use  of  words".  Mr.  Squire 
"feels  himself  entitled  to  howl  at  him 
as  loud  as  he  can"  for  the  divorce  be- 
tween literary  and  popular  English, 
and  for  his  conversion  of  words  of  one 
syllable  "into  a  vocabulary  rich  in  the 
sesquipedalian". 


Berton  Braley  has  sent  the  follow- 
ing letter: 
The  Editor  of  The  Bookman: 

I  have  just  finished  Mr.  Cabell's  de- 
lightful essay  on  Joseph  Herges- 
heimer  and  am  moved  both  to  praise 
its  quality  and  to  quarrel  with  its 
logic.  As  comment,  as  sheer  writing 
it  is  superb,  as  criticism  its  premises 
seem  to  me  largely  wrong. 

For  there  is  nothing  remarkable  or 
new  or  particularly  pertinacious  in  a 


man's  spending  fourteen  years  in  un- 
successful writing  before  he  reached 
salability.  The  list  of  those  who  have 
plugged  away  for  eight,  ten,  and 
twelve  years  despite  constant  rejec- 
tion is  long  and  honorable. 

And  sometimes  when,  after  success 
arrives,  the  rejected  stones  become  a 
part  of  a  man's  literary  temple,  we 
find  that  they  disturb  its  symmetry 
and  beauty  much  as  country  rock 
would  disfigure  a  marble  palace.  I 
don't  know  that  this  is  the  case  with 
Mr.  Hergesheimer,  I  don't  even  be- 
lieve, as  Mr.  Cabell  seems  to  believe, 
that  none  of  that  earlier  work  has 
been  since  published.  And  it  may  de- 
velop that  much  of  his  so-called  later 
work  is  actually  his  earlier. 

But  save  in  a  few  instances,  writing 
is  a  profession  which  calls  for  a  long, 
hard,  and  discouraging  apprentice- 
ship and  I  do  not  see  why  that  period 
in  Mr.  Hergesheimer's  life  should 
have  affected  his  point  of  view  on  life 
any  more  than  it  does  with  other 
writers.  Any  real  artist  in  words,  or 
artisan  for  that  matter,  is  possessed 
by  a  consuming  desire  to  write  or  he 
wouldn't  do  it.  The  financial  rewards 
are  not,  as  a  whole,  so  glittering  that 
they  by  themselves  would  explain  the 
willingness  to  undergo  disappoint- 
ment and  hardship  such  as  most  of  the 
writing  profession  must  suffer,  in 
order  at  length  to  reach  the  goal  of 
more  or  less  regular  publication. 

So  that  Mr.  Hergesheimer's  pen- 
chant for  heroes  who  are  urged  by  an 
overmastering  desire  for  some  one 
form  of  attainment  is  not  necessarily 
due  to  his  own  long  struggle  to  sell  his 
stuff.  It  is  much  more  likely  to  be  due 
— as  the  character  of  his  women  is 
due —  to  the  fact  that  he  allowed  his 
desire  to  write  to  disassociate  him 
from  the  contacts  and  collisions  of 
life.    I  have  the  feeling,  with  Herges- 


880 


THE  BOOKMAN 


heimer,  that  he  deliberately  shut  out 
of  his  world  everything  but  his  liter- 
ary ambition,  that,  though  no  human 
being  can  actually,  over  any  extended 
period,  do  more  than  four  or  five 
hours  of  creative  work  a  day,  Mr. 
Hergesheimer  used  the  rest  of  his 
waking  hours  in  barricading  himself 
against  a  busy  and  interesting  world. 

Now  detachment  is  all  very  well 
during  working  hours,  but  outside  of 
them  it  is  narrowing.  And  I  have  a 
belief  that  the  really  great  writers  are 
men  who  were  very  much  a  part  of  the 
hurly-burly  of  existence,  who  lived 
much  and  vigorously  and  therefore 
could  put  the  feel  and  savor  and  throb 
of  life  into  what  they  set  down  for 
the  world  to  read. 

Good  work  has  been  done  by  Mr. 
Hergesheimer's  method,  he  has  done 
good  work  himself,  and  I  like  it,  but 
the  product  in  nearly  every  instance 
that  I  recall,  including  that  of  Herges- 
heimer, has  about  it  an  atmosphere  of 
unreality — of  a  world  that  is  very 
beautiful,  poignant,  tragic  sometimes, 
but  always  a  little  eerie,  a  little  fan- 
tastic. It  is  an  achievement  of  art  to 
build  such  a  world,  but  nothing  that 
happens  there  can  grip  and  hold  you 
as  romance  or  reality  of  the  actual 
world  does;  and  by  actual  world  I 
mean  the  one  which  is  given  us  by  the 
writers  who  have  lived  as  well  as 
written. 

Now,  as  to  Mr.  Cabell's  suggestion 
that  Mr.  Hergesheimer  has,  subcon- 
sciously or  otherwise,  "written  down" 
to  the  public  in  his  short  stories.  I 
quarrel  not  necessarily  with  this  as- 
sumption, but  with  the  idea  that  this 
is  a  prostitution  of  art. 

On  reading  over  that  paragraph  I 
see  that  I  haven't  said  at  all  what  I 
meant.  I  should  say  that  I  object  to 
Mr.  Cabell's  argument  that  expressing 
yourself  in  a  way  which  your  readers 


can  understand  and  grasp  is  "writing 
down".  Sir  Arthur  Quiller-Couch 
points  out  that  "impression"  is  if  any- 
thing of  more  import  than  "expres- 
sion". If  you  can't  "put  your  idea 
over"  on  those  you  are  addressing, 
you  aren't  really  a  writer  at  all,  you're 
a  pedant.  If  that  isn't  true  then  you 
might  as  well  write  in  Sanskrit  and  be 
done  with  it.  The  later  Henry  James 
and  occasionally  George  Meredith 
have  done  that,  though  using  ap- 
parently the  English  alphabet,  but  it 
doesn't  seem  to  me  to  add  to  the 
world's  important  literature. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  "mob"  is  a 
singularly  catholic  institution.  It 
reads  bushels  of  rot  and  enjoys  it,  but 
its  ability  to  extract  enjoyment  from 
and  to  appreciate  the  flavor  of  the  best 
seems  to  be  unimpaired.  It  is  like  a 
healthy  stomach  which  needs  a  large 
amount  of  roughage  to  digest  the 
highly  caloric  foods. 

And  I  maintain  that  there  is  no 
prostitution  of  art  in  serving  the  best 
in  such  a  way  that  it  is  palatable  to  a 
normal  stomach.  There  is  a  little 
group  of  serious  thinkers  whose  liter- 
ary digestive  apparatus  has  been  so 
disarranged  by  French,  Russian  and 
German  sauces  that  it  refuses  to  ac- 
cept viands  otherwise  served.  But  it 
doesn't  follow  that  this  group  is  the 
true  judge  of  literary  cookery.  Nor 
that  a  chef  like  Hergesheimer  is  low- 
ering his  standards  when  he  prefers 
to  give  the  "mob"  something  it  can 
smack  its  lips  over  instead  of  ruining 
its  natural  flavor  with  curry  or 
caviare. 

I  note  that  Mr.  Cabell  seems  to  ob- 
ject to  what  he  calls  Mr.  Hergesheim- 
er's concessions  to  "morality"  in  some 
of  these  tales.  It  is  quite  true  that 
art  is  not  necessarily  moral,  but  neither 
is  it  necessarily  unmoral.  If  the  logic 
of  a  situation  calls  for  a  "moral  end- 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


381 


infir"  then  that  is  the  artistic  way  to 
end  the  tale;  and  an  unmoral  treat- 
ment of  the  theme  would  be  false  and 
inartistic.  The  reverse  is»  of  course, 
true,  but  I  don't  think  Mr.  Herges- 
heimer  has  been  guilty  of  either  mis- 
take. 

This  letter  has  run  much  longer 
than  I  intended,  but  the  subject  has 
proved  a  little  more  complex  than  I 
had  realized.  Anyhow,  I  enjoyed  Mr. 
Cabell's  essay,  and  except  in  these  par- 
ticulars I  have  examined  at  such 
length,  I  agree  with  his  estimate  of  a 
very  real  artist. 


Apropos  of  the  subject,  James 
Branch  Cabell's  book  "Jurgen"  is 
being  brought  out  in  England  by  Wil- 
liam Heinemann. 


"Voices,"  the  little  magazine  of 
poetry  and  prose  edited  in  London  by 
Thomas  Moult,  the  circulation  of 
which  is  steadily  increasing  not  only 
in  England  but  in  "the  U.  S.  A.  and 
the  Colonies",  follows  the  custom  of 
dedicating  each  issue  to  a  contem- 
porary writer.  A  recent  number  was 
dedicated  to  George  Moore,  "this 
being  the  whole-hearted  desire  of  his 
colleagues  and  subscribers  as  a  tribute 
to  Mr.  Moore's  great  work  in  litera- 
ture, especially  with  reference  to 
'Esther  Waters'."  With  the  January 
number,  1920,  "Voices"  entered  upon 
its  second  year.  "Q"  writes  this  of 
the  publication :  "I  know — I  have  pri- 
vate letters  to  prove — ^that  the  faith 
in  this  Magazine  was  the  faith  of 
many  young  men — in  Flanders,  in 
France,  and  with  the  Army  of  the 
Rhine — who  were  sustained  by  it  in 
their  brief  time  and  have  left  it  to  us 
as  part  and  parcel  of  the  heritage  they 
perished  to  save." 

In  an  early  number  we  will  publish 
a  poem  contributed  to  The  Bookman 


by  Thomas  Moult,  whose  work  has 
very  quickly  given  him  a  very  consid* 
erable  reputation  in  England. 


We  are  much  "intrigued"  by  an  ad- 
vertisement which  appears  in  "The 
Harvard  Crimson".  This  is  an  ad- 
vertisement of  a  house  of  business  in 
Boston  which  is  called  Daddy  and 
Jack's  Joke  Shop.  At  this  most  en- 
tertaining place,  it  seems,  there  are 
for  sale:  "Puzzles,  Balloons,  Masks, 
Noisemakers,  Snapping  Mottoes,  Joke- 
books,  Place  Cards,  Dinner  Favors, 
Paper  Hats,  and  Joker  Novelties. 
Suitable  for  Dinners,  Individuals, 
Dance  and  Stag  Parties.' 


99 


A  most  interesting  case  of  literary 
ambidexterity  is  furnished  by  Marcel 
Provost.  At  the  beginning  of  the  war 
M.  Provost  served  as  commander  of  a 
battery  defending  Paris.  During  this 
period  he  began  his  as  yet  unpublished 
novel,  "Mon  cher  Tommy",  and  an- 
other novel  of  a  very  sombre  charac- 
ter.   According  to  "Les  Annales" : 

When  the  news  of  the  war  was  favorable, 
when  hope  filled  all  hearts,  M.  Marcel  Provost 
would  add,  with  a  pen  alert  and  optimistic, 
several  pages  to  "Mon  cher  Tommy".  Were  the 
reports,  on  the  contrary,  distressing  and  tragic, 
M.  Marcel  Provost  would  then  take  up,  with  a 
sad  pen,  his  second  noveL  If  events  became 
stiil  more  menacing,  the  academician  would 
abandon  both  works  and,  in  order  to  forget 
his  oppression  and  calm  his  nerves,  plunge  into 
the  soothing  study  of  Greek  texts. 


W.  H.  Hudson's  first  book  about 
bird-life,  now  out  of  print  for  many 
years,  was  entitled  "Birds  in  a  Vil- 
lage". 

Such  of  its  chapters  as  still  seem  to 
Mr.  Hudson  to  be  worth  preservation 
have  been  rewritten  and  revised  by 
him  to  form  the  basis  of  a  new  vol- 
ume, "Birds  in  Town  and  Village". 
For  the  rest  he  has  added  much  en- 
tirely fresh   matter,   embodjring  the 


382 


THE  BOOKMAN 


observations  and  experiences  of  his 
maturer  years. 

The  volume  contains  eight  pictures 
in  color  by  E.  J.  Detmold,  an  English 
artist. 


Who  wrote  "Mother  Goose"?  We 
thought  this  was  settled,  but  the 
"Sun"  takes  up  the  bone  of  contention 
on  the  255th  birthday  anniversary  of 
the  Boston  claimant  to  honors — ^Eliza- 
beth Foster  Vergoose,  mother  of  six 
and  stepmother  to  ten.  Although  the 
"Sun"  quotes  the  New  International 
Encyclopsedia  in  favor  of  the  version 
of  a  French  Mother  Goose,  harking 
back  to  the  mother  of  Charlemagne, 
its  column  finds  more  entertainment 
in  the  Boston  mother-in-law  myth: 

Elizabeth  Goose's  second  daughter,  also 
named  Elizabeth,  married  Thomas  Fleet,  a  Jour- 
neyman printer  from  Shropshire,  England,  who 
landed  in  Boston  in  1712,  established  a  printing 
house  in  Pudding  Lane  (now  Devonshire 
Street)  and  prospered.  The  young  couple  set 
up  housekeeping  in  the  building  where  the  Fleet 
printing  office  was  located.  In  due  time  (so 
goes  the  tale)  a  son  and  heir  appeared.  Mother 
Goose,  the  widowed  grandmother  of  the  Fleet 
babe,  was  in  ecstasies.  She  took  care  of  the 
baby,  crooned  to  it  the  songs  of  her  younger 
days,  and  had  Fleet  distracted  by  her  singing. 
Finally  the  son-in-law,  a  man  ''fond  of  quiet", 
decided  to  write  down  the  songs  she  sang,  and 
in  "an  ebullition  of  spite"  named  thom  "Mother 
Goose".     Hence  the  Fleet  version. 

But  Miss  Elmendorf,  in  her  fore- 
word to  an  admirable  Christmas  '20 
edition  of  "Mother  Goose  Melodies" 
(illustrated  by  C.  Boyd  Smith  and 
brought  out  by  a  New  York  house), 
after  citing  a  formidable  array  of  evi- 
dence, says : 

So  until  more  is  known  of  the  bibliography 
of  the  "1719  edition",  I  fear  that  we  must  ac- 
cept the  following  as  facts  :  that  Mother  Goose 
originated  in  France  between  1650  and  1697, 
was  translated  into  English  by  Robert  Sambers 
in  1729,  and  did  not  reach  America  until  1785 
when  Isaiah  Thomas  gave  us  a  reproduction  of 
Newbery.  As  the  different  editions  of  New- 
bery  have  been  added  to  and  changed,  so  has 
the  Thomas  edition.  UntU  today  we  have 
many  different  versions  of  the  same,  including 
some  very  modern  rhymes  that  have  absolutely 


nothing  to  do  with  the  original  American  vol- 
nme  of  Isaiah  Thomas,  which  must  be  acceded 
to  be  the  first  American  publication  of  Mother 
Goose. 


From  London  we  learn  that  Ck>lonel 
John  Buchan  is  putting  the  finishing 
touches  to  a  new  long  novel  which  will 
appear  in  the  autumn.  Also  that  ar- 
rangements have  just  been  completed 
for  the  publication  of  a  uniform  edi- 
tion of  the  novels  of  H.  G.  Wells.  Mr. 
Wells  is  writing  a  special  preface  for 
each  volume. 


HI 


The  Anglo-French  Review",  re- 
cently initiated,  has  for  its  purpose 
the  promotion  of  a  union  between  the 
two  countries  that  shall  be  not  only 
commercial  but  intellectual  and  artis- 
tic. The  articles  and  poems  contained 
in  the  magazine  are  marked  by  great 
diversity  of  character.  And  each  se- 
lection appears  in  the  language  in 
which  it  was  written. 


We  are  glad  to  print  the  following 
communication  to 

The  Editor  of  Tna  Bookm.w  : 

I  wonder  if  it  would  be  permissible  for  me 
to  reply  to  an  article  in  the  February  Bookman 
written  by  Mr.  Henry  L.  West,  entitled  "With 
the  Aid  of  a  Two-Cent  Stamp". 

The  article  is  clever  and  amusing  and  the 
inference  is  undoubtedly  true — ^at  least  as  far 
as  my  own  experience  goes — for  I  am  one  who 
was  lured  by  the  glittering  advertisements  of 
the  schools  who  claim  to  teach  the  untutored 
and  untalented  the  art  of  writing  photoplays, 
stories,  etc.  and  to  set  their  feet  into  the  path 
leading  to  fame  and  fortune.  The  appeal  of 
the  advertisements  was  irresistible  and  I  cheer- 
fully parted  with  my  hard  earned  savings,  in 
order  that  future  savings  would  not  be  hard 
earned,  but  would  be  acquired  with  ease  and  fa- 
culty. 

I  was  a  faithful  student  and  performed  the 
tasks  assigned  to  me  in  so  satisfactory  a  man- 
ner that  all  papers  submitted  were  highly  com- 
mended and  I  had  rosy  visions  of  my  offerings 
to  editorial  departments  of  the  film  companies 
being  accepted  with  alacrity.  But  alas — after 
submitting  scenarios  over  a  hundred  times  I 
have  nothing  to  show  but  rejection  slips. 

I  have  nothing  to  show — ^no  outward  and 
visible  sign  in  the  form  of  a  check,  but  I  have 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


383 


acquired  the  sort  of  compensation  that  "neither 
moth  nor  rust  doth  corrupt  nor  thieves  break 
through  and  steal".  My  mentality  has  been 
stimulated  and  my  literary  knowledge  in- 
creased. The  particular  course  I  indulged  in 
included  lessons  in  grammar  and  rhetoric  and 
necessitated  the  reading  of  many  books  and 
plays  and  required  the  student  to  submit  nu- 
merous plots,  which  greatly  developed  the  fac- 
ulty for  observation. 

In  conclusion,  though  I  was  misled  concern- 
ing the  ease  with  which  I  could  swell  my  bank 
account,  yet  I  bear  the  school  no  ill  will  and  do 
not  regret  the  time  and  money  spent.  For  I 
believe  an  agency  that  increases  one's  knowl- 
edge of  literature  and  benefits  him  mentally  is 
not  entirely  fraudulent,  since  something  is  re- 
ceived in  return  for  the  expenditure.  After  all 
only  an  extraordinarily  stupid  person  would 
expect  to  learn  story-writing  by  mail — and 
none  of  us  likes  to  acknowledge  his  own  stu- 
pidity. 


Richmond,  Virginia,  boasts  a  "se- 
rendipity" shop.  This  strange  name 
appears,  according  to  Horace  Walpole, 
to  denote  "the  art  of  finding  out 
things,  books,  prints,  lost  poets  and 
cryptic  and  obscure  authors".  Curios 
and  Americana  are  a  specialty. 


"The  English  Journal"  for  March 
contains  a  report  of  the  most  popular 
books  among  women  of  the  Middle 
West, — ^both  housekeepers  and  busi- 
ness women.  (School  teachers,  states 
the  "Journal",  were  not  "ap- 
proached".) The  women  interviewed 
varied  from  grammar-school  gradu- 
ates to  university  graduate  students, 
but  the  majority  of  them  had  received 
high-school  education.  The  following 
books,  recommended  five  times  or 
more,  are  arranged  according  to  the 
number  of  votes  received: 

Lea  Mis^rahlea 26 

Freckles     15 

The  Bible   14 

PoUyanna   11 

Over  the  Top  10 

David  Copperfteld   0 

Shakespeare    i) 

Little   Women    8 

The   Criaia    7 

Ivanhoe     7 

A  Tale  of  Two  Citiea  7 


Louisa  Alcott's  stories 6 

Daddy  Long-Lega    6 

The  Oirl  of  the  Limhcrlost 6 

The  Lady  of  the  Lake 6 

Red  Pepper  Bums 6 

Anne  of  Green  Qahlea   5 

Ben  Hur  5 

Dickens's   works    5 

The  Five  Little  Peppers   6 

The  Little  Shepherd  of  Kingdom  Come  ...  5 

Mra.  Wigga  of  the  Cabbage  Patch 5 

Tom  Sawyer 5 


A  Bookman  reader  inquires  of  the 
Gossip  Shop: 

"Has  it  been  your  good  fortune  to 
happen  upon  the  new  School  Calendar 
just  issued  by  a  New  York  book 
house?  ril  believe  not,  that  I  may 
'interpose  a  little  ease'  while  I  intro- 
duce it.  Since  the  advent  of  The 
Young  Visiters'  (the  find  of  a  decade) 
I've  chanced  upon  nothing  so  unique — 
or  delightfully  recreative.  I  quote 
from  the  first  page  as  follows:  'The 
design  of  the  front  of  this  calendar  (a 
schoolroom  with  a  vociferous  moral 
atmosphere)  is  from  the  title  page  of 
the  famous  Webster's  blue-back  spell- 
ing edition  of  1847.  The  pictures 
and  the  quotations  taken  from  the 
well-known  old  text  books  show  how 
great  has  been  the  progress  in  text 
book  making  during  the  past  75 
years.' 

"The  atmosphere  of  this  frontis- 
piece envelops  the  whole  calendar. 
There  is  the  picture  of  'George  and  the 
Hatchet'  with  the  story  underneath, 
published  in  1853.  Another  Victorian 
group  is  a  father  and  two  children ;  le 
pdre  is  in  a  dilemma  because  each 
child  (a  boy  and  a  girl!)  wished  the 
other  to  have  the  better  book.  'Here 
was  a  strange  dispute.'  Yea,  verily. 
Then  comes  the  moral  k  la  Sanford 
and  Merton.  'Such  conduct  among 
children  always  endears  them  to  their 
parents.'  (Else  wherefore  bom.)  An 
attractive  picture — almost  my  favor- 
ite— is    'Learning    to    Read',      The 


884 


THE  BOOKMAN 


spreading  branches  of  an  elm  tree 
shelter  a  serene  group — a  brother 
with  a  sister  on  each  side.  The 
brother  is  holding  the  book,  on  which 
is  fixed  the  interested,  concentrated 
gaze  of  all  three.  (Ages  ranging  from 
12  to  16,  I  should  say.)  We  know 
before  we  are  told  that  'this  boy  and 
his  sisters  love  each  other  very  much, 
and  study  and  learn  very  well.  It  is 
not  so  with  all  children.'  There  fol- 
lows by  contrast  the  story  of  a  little 
boy  in  school,  too  lazy  to  study;  hence 
he  stole  a  pin;  hence  he  stole  other 
things.  He  then  went  from  bad  to 
worse,  'until  he  was  put  in  jail  for 
some  great  crime  and  condemned  to  be 
hung.  And  all  this  came  from  his 
being  idle,  and  his  stealing  a  pin.' 

"Each  month  is  accompanied  by  a 
highly  moral  picture.  'Soap  Bubbles' 
with  December  closes  the  calendar. 
'Bubbles',  interprets  the  moralizer, 
'are  very  pretty  while  they  last,  but 
they  are  gone  in  a  moment.  It's  just 
so  with  most  things  in  this  world.' 
Then  follows  the  cheerful  reflection, 
'If  we  love  others  and  they  love  us,  we 
shall  be  together  when  we  die,  and 
shall  always  live  together  in  heaven. 
Love  is  the  only  pleasant  feeling,  and 
heaven  is  the  only  pleasant  place  that 
will  not  pass  away  like  the  bubbles.' 
Was  it  bliss  in  that  dawn  to  be 
alive?  Surely  to  be  young  was  not 
heaven.  Even  Fido  (see  'The  Little 
Dog  Fido')  cannot  escape  the  moral- 
ist. One  day  when  his  master  stooped 
down  and  patted  him  on  the  head,  and 
spoke  kindly,  Fido  was  ready  to  go  out 
of  his  wits  with  joy.  'He  took  care, 
however,  not  to  be  troublesome  by 
leaping  upon  his  master  with  dirty 
paws,  nor  would  he  follow  him  into 
the  parlor  unless  he  was  asked. 
(Fancy!)  He  also  tried  to  make  him- 
self useful  by  a  number  of  little  serv- 
ices.' 


"My  prime  favorite,  I  think,  is  the 
stolid,  four-square  flower  girl — she  of 
the  pantalettes.  This  prim,  vacuous- 
faced  prig  has  planted  the  seeds  'as 
her  mother  told  her'.  Of  course  virtue 
was  rewarded.  'She  has  now  just  as 
many  flowers  as  she  wants.  See  how 
happy  she  looks.' 

"As  an  antidote  to  this  well-ordered 
world  where  even-handed  justice 
metes  out  reward  and  punishment  ac- 
cording to  desert,  I  am  fain  to  recall 
some  verses  entitled  'Retribution' : 

Her  dear  mamma  called  out  to  her,  "My  dar- 
ling Mary  Ella, 
When  you  go  abroad  today  you  must  take 
your  umbrella." 
That  naughty  girl,  she  paid  no  heed  to  her  dear 
mamma's  call. 
She  walked  at  least  six  miles  away, 
^nd  it  didn't  rain  at  alL" 


W.  B.  Maxwell,  whose  latest  novel 
was  "Glamour",  spends  most  of  his 
time  at  Lichfield  House,  Richmond, 
Surrey.  The  old  Royal  village  of  Rich- 
mond is  now  absorbed  in  the  mass  of 
greater  London,  but  its  ancient  charm 
and  beauty  remain.  There,  within  ten 
miles  of  Charing  Gross,  is  to  be  found 
a  wide  expanse  of  country  with  the 
valley  of  the  Thames  stretching  in 
silver  or  gold  to  dim  distances.  Mr. 
Maxwell's  home  was  built  in  the  days 
of  Queen  Anne, — and  belonged  orig- 
inally to  the  Bishops  of  Lichfield.  It 
was  bought  and  occupied  by  Maxwell's 
mother,  "M.  E.  Braddon",  herself  a 
writer  of  note  during  the  Victorian 
period.  Lichfield  House  has  a  long, 
formal  garden  and  huge,  spacious 
rooms.  Mr.  Maxwell,  however,  does 
his  writing  in  a  building  some  dis- 
tance away,  which  used  to  be  a  stable. 


A  book  of  poems  by  Tertius  van 
Dyke  is  announced.  The  new  author 
is  the  son  of  Henry  van  Dyke.  The 
volume  is  called  "Songs  of  Seeking 
and  Finding". 


THE 


BCDKMAN 


June,  1920 
WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS 

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JUNE,  1920 


VOL.  LI,  NO.  4 


THE 


BOOKMAN 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS 


BY  JOHN  ERSKINE 


WE  may  say  of  Howells  more  truly 
than  of  most  writers  who  re- 
cently have  left  us,  that  it  is  too  early 
to  estimate  his  permanent  fame.  The 
spontaneous  admiration  for  the  man 
which  has  found  utterance  in  the  days 
following  his  death,  made  clear  that  he 
has  a  secure  place  in  our  history,  if 
the  judgment  of  the  ablest  can  be 
trusted;  but  just  what  that  place  will 
be,  this  wave  of  admiration  does  not 
indicate.  His  interests  were  wide  and 
his  abilities  many;  he  wrote  many 
books  and  in  many  kinds ;  he  was  the 
spokesman  among  us  for  European 
realism,  or  at  least  for  an  American 
form  of  it,  yet  he  was  rich  in  the 
gentle  idealism  which  suggests  kin- 
ship with  Longfellow  and  the  Cam- 
bridge circle;  he  was  open  to  new 
ideas  and  strange  appeals,  so  that  the 
record  of  his  S3rmpathies  would  make 
him  appear  the  most  broad-minded 
and  cosmopolitan  of  our  writers, 
everywhere  at  home  in  the  world,  and 
strictly  contemporary  with  each  hour 
of  his  life ;  yet  there  was  an  exquisite- 
ness  in  his  nature,  a  reserve  of  which 


he  was  aware,  which  in  the  end  ren- 
dered his  allegiances,  personal  and 
other,  highly  selective. 

These  complexities  and  cross-cur- 
rents in  his  sympathies  and  therefore 
in  his  work,  make  it  difficult  to  guess 
at  once  how  his  accomplishment  will 
be  remembered  fifty  years  hence.  It 
may  be,  however,  that  these  very  com- 
plexities will  form  the  basis  of  his 
fame.  In  his  unremitting  zeal  to  give 
a  true  account  of  experience,  and  first 
of  all  to  understand  with  sympathy 
the  stream  of  experience  he  desired  to 
portray,  he  gave  himself  up  to  the  di- 
vergent and  often  unreconciled  hopes, 
prejudices,  and  habits  which  from  dec- 
ade to  decade  distinguished  the  Amer- 
ican world  of  his  lifetime.  Even  if  his 
books  had  no  more  pennanent  claim 
for  their  own  sake,  he  might  well  be 
remembered,  along  with  Henry  Adams, 
as  a  fine  nature  conspicuously  agitated 
by  the  boiling  of  the  melting  pot.  But 
Howells  gave  himself  wholeheartedly 
to  American  experience,  as  Adams  did 
not,  and  the  agitations  it  produced  in 
him  emerged  in  the  form  of  paradoxes. 


385 


386 


THE   BOOKMAN 


but  entirely  happy  ones.  He  became 
in  his  total  work,  as  he  wished  to  be  in 
each  of  his  novels,  a  faithful  mirror 
of  his  time  and  place.  He  once  re* 
corded  with  approval  a  Spanish  com- 
ment on  French  realism  as  illustrated 
by  Flaubert,  that  there  was  in  such 
realism,  as  there  was  in  French  life  of 
that  moment,  something  antipathetic 
and  gloomy  and  limited.  But,  he 
added,  ''This  seems  to  me  exactly  the 
best  possible  reason  for  its  being.  The 
expression  of  French  life  will  change 
when  French  life  changes."  He  would 
agree  with  us  now  that  whatever  there 
is  in  his  work  of  shifting,  or  of  con- 
trast, or  of  contradictions,  will  in  the 
end  be  altogether  creditable,  since  he 
was  the  loving  and  sincere  chronicler 
of  a  social  scene  which,  as  we  all  know, 
was  during  his  time  made  up  of  shift- 
ings  and  contrasts  and  contradictions. 
The  impression  of  complexity  which 
he  gives  might  be  variously  illustrated 
by  each  of  his  readers.  The  present 
writer  felt  it  twenty-one  years  ago, 
when  with  other  students  of  literature 
at  Columbia  College  he  heard  Howells 
speak  informally  on  "Novel  Writing 
and  Novel  Reading".  Professor  Wood- 
berry,  then  exercising  his  great  influ- 
ence as  a  teacher  of  poetry,  had  asked 
the  lecturer  to  give  us  just  such  an 
exposition  of  realism  as  we  were  least 
likely  to  hear  in  his  own  classroom, 
and  Howells  answered  the  call  with 
zest.  So  thoroughly  did  he  flay  any 
kind  of  writing  which  did  not  find  its 
true  romance  in  daily  life,  that  there 
seemed  for  the  moment  no  room  in  his 
philosophy  for  Homer  or  Shakespeare, 
certainly  none  for  Shelley,  and  no  room, 
or  very  little,  for  Walter  Scott  or 
Dickens  or  Cooper — ^what  was  worse, 
no  room  for  folk-lore,  nor  for  those 
most  poetic  of  all  truths  that  make  up 
the  literary  world  of  childhood.  He 
had  already  put  the  severe  doctrine  in 


his  fine  essay  on  "Criticism  and  Fic- 
tion". "In  criticism  it  is  his  (the 
realist's)  business  to  break  the  images 
of  false  gods  and  misshapen  heroes,  to 
take  away  the  poor  silly  toys  that  many 
grown  up  people  would  still  like  to 
play  with.  He  cannot  keep  terms  with 
Jade  the  Giant-Killer  or  Puss  in  Boots, 
under  any  name  or  in  any  place." 
Those  sentences,  or  their  equivalent 
in  his  talk,  sounded  to  our  ears  an  un- 
lovely omen.  But  what  of  the  hard 
verdict  on  Scott,  and  the  principle  of 
criticism  which  it  implied — "he  was  a 
great  man,  and  a  very  great  novelist 
as  compared  with  the  novelists  who 
went  before  him.  He  can  still  amuse 
young  people,  but  they  ought  to  be  in- 
structed how  false  and  how  mistaken 
he  often  is,  with  his  mediaeval  ideals, 
his  blind  Jacobitism,  his  intense  de- 
votion to  aristocracy  and  royalty ;  his 
acquiescence  in  the  division  of  men 
into  noble  and  ignoble,  patrician  and 
plebeian,  sovereign  and  subject,  as  if 
it  were  the  law  of  God;  for  all  which, 
indeed,  he  is  not  to  blame  as  he  would 
be  if  he  were  one  of  our  contempo- 
raries." In  this  condemnation  and  the 
forgiving  final  clause  we  detected  some 
confusion  of  principle,  but  we  did  not 
consider  it  closely;  we  were  too  over- 
whelmed at  sight  of  the  honored 
craftsman  disposing  of  our  masters  in 
such  broad  sweeps.  I  confess  that 
Howells's  strong  plea  for  realism  that 
evening  cast  a  sombre  eclipse  upon 
his  genius,  so  far  as  my  youthful  suf- 
frage was  concerned;  for  years  I 
never  heard  or  saw  his  name  without 
feeling  the  fear  of  detection  in  some 
unrealistic  joy  of  life — until  one  hour 
of  immense  relief,  when  I  came  on 
that  page  in  "My  Literary  Passions" 
where  he  confesses  that  "on  a  lower 
plane"  he  liked  the  absolutely  unreal, 
the  purely  fanciful,  in  all  the  arts,  as 
well  as  the  real.     So  we  might  feel 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS 


387 


free»  after  all,  to  enjoy  the  society  of 
Richard  the  Lion  Hearted,  without 
qualms  as  to  the  medisevalism  in  the 
midst  of  which  he  flourished;  and  we 
might  still  amuse  the  children  with 
the  adventures  of  Jack  the  Giant- 
Killer,  yet  omit  the  annotation  that 
the  beanstalk  was  but  flimsy  stage 
property!  It  restored  us  to  still  better 
terms  with  Howells  to  discover  in  his 
delightful  "Literary  Friends  and  Ac- 
quaintances", that  he  had  once  con- 
sidered himself  primarily  a  poet.  The 
discovery  gave  us  hope  that  the 
spokesman  for  realism  had  not  quite 
meant  what  he  said,  or  if  he  did  mean 
it,  that  sometimes  he  had  meant  the 
opposite  too.  We  returned  to  "Criti- 
cism and  Fiction"  and  found  the  quali- 
fication we  had  overlooked — "This  is 
what  I  say  in  my  severer  moods,  but 
at  other  times  I  know  that,  of  course, 
no  one  is  going  to  hold  all  fiction  to 
such  strict  account."  And  even  if  he 
did  continue,  "There  is  a  great  deal  of 
it  which  may  be  very  well  left  to 
amuse  us,  if  it  can,  when  we  are  sick 
or  when  we  are  silly,"  yet  a  little  fur- 
ther on  he  said  right  out,  "Of  the  finer 
kinds  of  romance,  as  distinguished 
from  the  novel,  I  would  even  encour- 
age the  writing".  If  more  proof  were 
needed  that  his  sympathies  in  litera- 
ture were  wider  than  the  doctrines  he 
pronounced,  we  should  need  only  to 
observe,  in  "My  Literary  Passions", 
that  his  favorite  authors  were  of  all 
kinds,  and  of  all  countries,  Italian, 
Russian,  French,  Norwegian,  German, 
Spanish;  and  though  at  one  moment 
one  author  or  one  book  was  his  chief 
admiration,  his  verdict  would  have 
been  given  otherwise  at  another  time. 
He  was  poet  and  novelist,  realist  and 
theorist,  all  at  once,  and  we  shall  learn 
to  appreciate  him  and  his  work  only  as 
a  whole,  even  though  a  more  piecemeal 


kind  of  study  would  embarrass  us 
with  fewer  contradictions. 

Realism  is  a  hypothesis  about  life, 
but  a  hypothesis  imported  to  the 
United  States,  not  evolved  from  a 
study  of  the  people  here.  Howells 
gave  his  allegiance  to  it,  and  phrased 
his  principles  as  happily  as  we  shall 
ever  hope  to  hear  them,  but  when  he 
applied  them  to  the  portrayal  of  Amer- 
ican life,  he  found  an  unusually  stub- 
bom  resistance  in  his  material.  "Let 
fiction  cease  to  lie  about  life;  let  it 
portray  men  and  women  as  they  are." 
What  program  could  be  nobler?  But 
it  is  not  a  sufficient  definition  of  real- 
ism to  say  that  it  portrays  life  as  it  is; 
Scott  portrayed  his  mediseval  world  as 
it  was, — ^at  least,  as  nearly  to  the  life 
as  any  historian  can  come, — ^with  all 
its  emotional  bias,  its  spiritual  eccen- 
tricities, its  wide  differences  from  our 
ways.  But  the  realist  has  a  moral  pur- 
pose, over  and  above  the  faithfulness 
of  portraiture;  he  wishes  to  elevate 
the  conception  of  truth  which  his  most 
realistic  readers  have.  The  romanti- 
cist, as  Howells  conceived  of  him, 
shakes  off  the  encumbrance  of  fact  in 
order  to  picture  the  world  as  he  de- 
sires it  to  be;  the  realist  invites  us 
to  study  the  facts  in  order  to  arrive  at 
the  dream  of  a  better  world  than  we 
now  desire.  It  is  perhaps  inevitable 
that  realism,  unless  it  is  rescued  from 
itself,  should  always  carry  with  it  the 
chilling  effect  of  a  discipline  contrived 
for  our  good.  It  hurts  at  first,  like 
other  kinds  of  spectacles  intended  to 
readjust  our  eyesight.  As  a  method 
of  seeing  life,  it  operates  best  on  those 
forms  of  experience  which  are  sickly 
or  distorted  or  in  some  sense  unhappy; 
in  other  words,  if  the  realist  teaches 
us  to  see  two  miseries  where  we  had 
observed  only  one  before,  we  feel  the 
wholesomeness  of  his  instruction,  how- 
ever depressing — ^at  least  it  is  well  to 


388 


THE   BOOKMAN 


see  things  as  they  are.  But  if  the 
realist  must  portray  a  society  essen- 
tially happy,  incorrigibly  optimistic, 
and  as  devoted  to  day-dreams  as  Jack 
the  Giant-Killer  himself,  there  are  but 
two  courses  open  to  him;  either  he 
will  paint  into  his  picture  some  shad- 
ows which  ought  to  be  there  but  are 
not — in  which  case  he  will  have  failed 
to  render  in  their  natural  state  the  es- 
sential happiness  and  the  incorrigible 
optimism;  or  else  he  will  portray  the 
mad  romantic  scene  as  it  is,  and  be  in 
effect  undistinguishable  from  the  ro- 
manticist. 

Now  the  American  world  upon  which 
Howells  brought  to  bear  the  realistic 
hypothesis  had  large  portions  of  the 
romantic  temperament  in  it,  as  well  as 
many  roughnesses  such  as  often  ap- 
pear under  high  lights  in  the  canvas 
of  realisnL  All  art  selects — ^that  is, 
omits — something,  no  matter  how  em- 
phatically the  artist  promises  to  write 
down  men  and  women  as  they  are. 
The  romanticist  omits  from  his  mem- 
ory of  life  the  rough  facts  he  does  not 
like;  if  pressed  for  a  reason  he  will 
say  they  are  insignificant.  The  realist 
omits  the  romanticist.  Once  in  a  great 
while  appears  an  artist  of  the  first 
order,  who  is  neither  romanticist  nor 
realist  but  simply  clear-sighted.  Such, 
we  begin  to  see,  was  Mark  Twain  in 
his  "Tom  Sawyer"  and  "Huckleberry 
Finn",  satisfying  all  the  hopes  of  real- 
ism, but  including  for  our  eternal  de- 
light the  sentiment,  the  audacity,  that 
particular  "otherworld"  of  miscellane- 
ous superstitions  and  loyalties  which 
compose  the  American  mind.  Writing 
of  the  same  country  at  much  the  same 
time,  Howells  was  perhaps  handi- 
capped by  greater  premeditation  in 
his  art,  and  by  a  certain  hesitation 
after  all  to  accept  his  subject  as  it 
was.  Sensitiveness  of  temperament 
prompted  him  to  avoid  the  rough  de- 


tails of  American  life,  and  his  theory 
of  realism  caused  him  to  look  for  the 
unromantic  type,  or  to  see  the  roman- 
tic t3rpe  somewhat  tragically.  Silas 
Lapham  and  his  household,  Squire 
Gaylord  and  his  daughter,  or  any  other 
group  from  the  best  known  novels,  il- 
lustrate the  extent  to  which  Howells 
selected  special  features  from  the 
whole  portrait  of  his  country.  He 
omitted,  for  one  thing,  that  most 
American  sort  of  temperament  of 
which  he  was  among  the  most  lovable 
examples.  How  often  does  one  find  in 
his  novels  a  gift  for  living,  an  urban- 
ity and  a  happy  success  of  spirit  in 
any  degree  kindred  to  his  own  ?  Know- 
ing the  range  of  types  in  every  section 
of  the  country,  and  observing  so  often 
the  angular  or  deeply  charactered 
physiognomies  that  engage  his  art, 
one  is  reminded  of  the  atelier  students 
who  when  choosing  the  models  reject 
the  comfortable  and  accept  the  thin, 
that  there  may  be  lines  enough  to 
draw. 

But  if  he  omitted  from  his  novels 
his  own  rich  and — shall  we  say  it — ro- 
mantic temperament,  he  was  too  in- 
ventive a  genius  not  to  find  another 
medium  for  it,  untrammeled  by  the- 
ory. If  we  read  his  works  for  a  com- 
plete picture  of  America  in  his  time, 
we  must  read  the  complements  of  the 
novels,  those  incomparable  reminis- 
cences of  his  literary  friends,  of  his 
Italian  and  English  days,  of  his  ram- 
bles and  studies  in  books;  and  we 
must  read  as  part  and  parcel  of  these 
idealizations  of  life,  the  immortal 
"Bo/s  Town".  In  these  and  his  other 
volumes  of  essays  and  sketches,  he 
completes  the  truth  he  set  out  to  tell 
of  American  men  and  women  in  his 
time  and  all  in  a  beauty  of  word  and 
cadence  not  to  be  matched  now  by  any 
living  among  us.  "Let  fiction  speak 
the  language,  the  dialect,  that  most 


HENRY  JAMES  AND  THE  THEATRE 


389 


Americans  know/'  he  once  wrote,  few  of  his  fellow  men  will  ever  use» 
Whether  in  his  fiction  or  in  his  other  though  as  he  used  it,  they  found  it 
work,  he  spoke  a  language  which  too     easy  to  understand. 


HENRY  JAMES  AND  THE  THEATRE 


BY  BRANDER  MATTHEWS 


THE  recent  publication  of  Henry 
James's  Letters,  selected  and  ed- 
ited with  delicate  discrimination  by 
Percy  Lubbock,  must  have  drawn  the 
attention  of  many  readers  to  the  in- 
teresting fact  that  James  took  an  inter- 
est in  the  drama  as  an  art  second  only 
to  his  interest  in  the  novel.  It  has  also 
informed  these  readers  as  to  his  long- 
nursed  ambition  to  make  money  by 
writing  plays, — ^an  ambition  always 
frustrated  by  malign  fate.  Probably 
only  a  few  of  those  who  first  became 
aware  of  his  dramatic  aspirations  by 
the  disclosure  in  this  correspondence 
will  recall  the  evidence  in  his  published 
works  which  testifies  to  his  always  apt 
appreciation  of  the  art  of  acting  and 
his  ever  persistent  inquisitiveness  as 
to  the  principles  of  playmaking.  He 
came  forward  as  a  dramatic  critic 
more  often  than  is  generally  known; 
and  his  dramatic  criticism  is  more  in- 
telligent— ^that  is  to  say,  it  shows  a 
better  understanding  of  the  theatre — 
than  we  had  a  right  to  expect  from 
one  who  gave  himself  up  to  another 
art,  that  of  prose  fiction,  so  closely 
akin  to  the  art  of  the  drama  and  yet  so 
widely  divergent  from  it. 

So  many  were  Henry  James's  excur- 
sions into  dramatic  criticism  that 
there  are  enough  of  them  to  fill  a  vol- 
ume; and  perhaps  the  task  of  making 


the  collection  will  yet  be  undertaken 
by  one  of  his  staunch  admirers.  The 
book  will  be  more  welcome  since  James 
rescued  only  a  few  of  them  from 
magazines  for  which  they  were  orig- 
inally written.  It  may  be  well  to  list 
here  the  major  part  of  the  contents  of 
this  future  gathering,  certain  to  have 
a  cordial  reception  from  all  students 
of  the  stage.  In  1874  Henry  James 
anonymously  contributed  to  "The  At- 
lantic" a  discriminating,  but  some- 
what chilly  consideration  of  the  re- 
vival of  "The  School  for  Scandal"  by 
the  competent  company  of  comedians 
who  were  then  making  brilliant  the 
stage  of  the  Boston  Museum.  In  1875 
he  gave  to  "The  Galaxy"  an  illuminat- 
ing review  of  Tennyson's  "Queen 
Mary",  effectively  contrasting  it  with 
Victor  Hugo's  more  melodramatic 
treatment  of  the  same  enigmatic  hero- 
ine in  "Marie  Tudor".  In  1875  again 
he  included  in  his  "Transatlantic 
Sketches"  an  earlier  letter  on  "The 
Parisian  Stage".  In  1876  he  wrote, 
again  for  "The  Galaxy",  his  enthusi- 
astic appreciation  of  the  actors  and  ac- 
tresses of  the  Ck>m6die  Fran^aise, 
which  he  reprinted  in  1878  in  his  vol- 
ume of  essays  on  the  "French  Poets 
and  Novelists".  In  these  early  days 
he  prepared  for  one  periodical  or  an- 
other articles  on  Ristori  and  Salvini^ 


390 


THE   BOOKMAN 


on  Henry  Irving  as  Macbeth  and  on 
Macready's  Diary — all  duly  catalogued 
in  the  exhaustive  bibliography  of  Mr. 
Phillips. 

For  "The  Galaxy"  again  in  1877  he 
wrote  a  review  of  "The  London  Stage", 
and  in  1887  he  contributed  to  "The 
Century"  his  glowing  tribute  to  that 
most  consummate  comedian,  Coquelin. 
He  seems  to  have  overlooked  both  of 
these  papers  when  he  was  selecting 
material  for  his  successive  volumes  of 
essays  in  criticism;  and  it  is  not  easy 
to  understand  why  it  was  that  he  for- 
got the  study  of  Coquelin.  It  is  one 
of  the  most  luminous  of  theatrical 
portraits,  worthy  to  hang  beside  the 
best  of  the  histrionic  evocations  of  Col- 
ley  Cibber  and  Charles  Lamb.  He  was 
never  more  cordially  enthusiastic 
about  any  artist  than  he  was  about 
the  incomparable  Coquelin,  the  most 
gifted  and  the  most  versatile  comic 
actor  of  the  last  three  decades  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  I  recall  that  when 
I  drew  Coquelin's  attention  to  this 
superb  testimony  to  his  talent,  the 
actor  smiled  with  pleasure.  "Henry 
James",  he  said ;  "yes,  it  appears  that 
I  have  the  privilege  of  throwing  him 
into  an  ecstasy !"  In  1915  Henry  James 
was  kind  enough  to  revise  this  essay, 
so  that  it  might  serve  as  an  introduc- 
tion to  Coquelin's  own  analysis  of 
"Art  and  the  Actor"  when  that  was  re- 
printed in  the  second  series  of  the 
publications  of  the  Dramatic  Museum 
of  Columbia  University. 

It  remains  to  be  recorded  only  that 
Henry  James  included  among  his  "Es- 
says in  London  and  Elsewhere"  two 
papers  on  Ibsen's  plays,  originally 
written  in  1891  and  1893 :  and  that  in 
his  "Notes  on  Novelists"  he  preserved 
a  paper  on  Alexandre  Dumas  fils,  writ- 
ten in  1895.  Quite  probably  there  may 
be  other  articles  on  theatrical  themes 
contributed  to  one  or  another  of  the 


newspapers  for  which  he  served  now 
and  again  as  correspondent  from  Paris 
or  from  London.  And  not  to  be  omit- 
ted from  this  record  is  the  long  story 
called  "The  Tragic  Muse",  one  of  the 
most  veracious  of  theatrical  novels; 
it  was  published  in  1890. 

From  one  or  another  of  his  dra- 
matic criticisms  I  could  borrow  not  a 
few  pregnant  passages,  revelations  of 
his  penetrating  insight  into  the  inex- 
orable conditions  under  which  the 
playwright  must  do  his  work.  Here  is 
an  early  remark,  culled  from  a  letter 
on  the  Parisian  stage,  written  in  1872 : 
"An  acted  play  is  a  novel,  intensified; 
it  realizes  what  the  novel  suggests, 
and  by  paying  a  liberal  tribute  to  the 
senses,  anticipates  your  possible  com- 
plaint that  your  entertainment  is  of 
the  meagre  sort  styled  intellectual". 
This  does  not  pierce  to  the  marrow  of 
the  matter;  it  does  not  detail  all  the 
difference  between  the  acted  play  and 
the  novel;  but  it  has  its  significance, 
none  the  less.  In  the  same  letter 
Henry  James  ventures  to  speak  of  the 
"colossal  fiimsiness"  of  "La  Dame  aux 
Cam^lias".  Now  Dumas's  pathetic 
play  may  be  more  or  less  false,  but  it 
is  not  fiimsy ;  it  must  have  had  a  va- 
lidity of  its  own,  and  even  a  certain 
sincerity  of  a  kind,  for  it  to  have  kept 
the  stage  for  threescore  years  and  ten. 

Here,  however,  is  a  long  paragraph 
from  the  paper  on  Tennyson's  "Queen 
Mary"  (written  in  1875),  which  dis- 
closes an  indisputable  insight  into  the 
difiiculties  of  the  dramatist's  art: 

The  fine  thing  in  a  real  drama,  generally 
speaking,  ia  that,  more  than  any  other  work 
of  literary  art,  it  needs  a  masterly  structure. 
It  needs  to  be  shaped  and  fashioned  and  laid 
together,  and  this  process  makes  a  demand 
upon  an  artist's  rarest  gifts.  He  must  com- 
bine and  arrange,  interpolate  and  eliminate, 
play  the  Joiner  with  the  most  attentive  skill ; 
and  yet  at  the  end  effectually  bury  his  tools 
and  his  sawdust,  and  invest  his  elaborate  skele- 
ton with  the  smoothest  and  most  polished  in- 
tegument.   The  five-act  drama — serious  or  hu- 


HENRY  JAMES  AND  THE  THEATRE 


391 


morous,  poetic  or  prosaic — is  like  a  box  of 
fixed  dimensions  and  inelastic  material,  into 
whicli  a  mass  of  precious  things  are  to  be 
packed  away.  The  precious  things  in  question 
seem  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  compass  of 
the  receptacle;  but  the  artist  has  an  assur- 
ance  that  with  patience  and  skill  a  place  may 
be  made  for  each,  and  that  nothing  need  be 
clipped  or  crumpled,  squeezed  or  damaged.  The 
false  dramatist  either  knocks  out  the  sides  of 
his  box  or  plays  the  deuce  with  the  contents ; 
the  real  one  gets  down  on  his  knees,  disposes 
of  his  goods  tentatively,  this,  that,  and  the 
other  way,  loses  his  temper  but  keeps  his  ideal, 
and  at  last  rises  in  triumph,  having  packed 
his  coffer  in  the  one  way  that  is  mathemat- 
ically right.  It  closes  perfectly,  and  the  lock 
turns  with  a  click ;  between  one  object  and  an- 
other you  cannot  insert  the  point  of  a  pen- 
knife. 

It  will  be  enough  to  risk  only  one 
more  quotation, — this  time  from  the 
paper  evoked  by  the  first  performance 
of  Ibsen's  "Hedda  Gabler"  in  London 
in  1891 : 

The  stage  is  to  the  prose  drama  (and  Ibsen's 
later  manner  is  the  very  prose  of  prose)  what 
the  tune  is  to  the  song  or  the  concrete  case 
to  the  general  law.  It  immediately  becomes 
apparent  that  he  needs  the  test  to  show  his 
strength  and  the  frame  to  show  his  picture. 
An  extraordinary  process  of  vivification  takes 
place ;  the  conditions  seem  essentially  enlarged. 
Those  of  the  stage  in  general  strike  us  for  the 
most  part  as  small  enough,  so  that  the  game 
played  in  them  is  often  not  more  inspiring 
than  a  successful  sack-race.  But  Ibsen  re- 
minds us  that  if  they  did  not  in  themselves 
confer  life  they  can  at  least  receive  it  when 
the  infusion  is  artfully  administered.  Yet  how 
much  of  it  they  were  doomed  to  receive  from 
"Hedda  Qabler"  was  not  to  be  divined  till  we 
had  seen  "Hedda  Qabler"  in  the  frame.  The 
play,  on  perusal,  left  us  comparatively  mud- 
dled and  mystified,  fascinated  but — in  one's  in- 
tellectual sympathy — snubbed.  Acted,  it  leads 
that  sympathy  over  the  stralghtest  of  roads 
with  all  the  exhilaration  of  a  superior  pace. 

Nothing  could  be  better  than  that, 
nothing  could  make  clearer  the  im- 
mitigable fact  that  the  full  measure 
of  the  essential  power  of  any  drama 
can  be  gauged  only  in  the  actual  the- 
atre, to  the  special  conditions  of  which 
it  has  been  scientifically  adjusted. 

II 

In  default  as  yet  of  a  circumstantial 
biography  which  shall  set  before  us 


the  successive  but  perpetually  unsuc- 
cesssful  efforts  which  Henry  James 
made  to  establish  himself  as  a  dram- 
atist, we  must  find  what  materials  we 
may  in  his  letters,  and  in  the  explana- 
tory prefaces  which  Mr.  Lubbock  has 
prefixed  to  the  several  chronological 
sections  into  which  he  has  chosen  to 
distribute  the  correspondence.  First 
and  last  Henry  James  seems  to  have 
composed  eight  plays,  three  of  which 
underwent  the  ordeal  by  fire  before 
the  footlights. 

His  earliest  attempt  was  an  ampli- 
fication of  ''Daisy  Miller*',  a  short 
story  which  had  attained  an  immedi- 
ate vogue.  This  dramatization  was 
made  in  1882  on  commission  from  the 
managers  of  the  Madison  Square  The- 
atre in  New  York.  But  it  was  not 
found  acceptable  to  them,  and  the  au- 
thor took  it  over  to  London  and  read 
it  to  the  managers  of  the  St.  James's 
Theatre  without  winning  a  more  fa- 
vorable opinion.  Unable  to  arrange 
for  performance,  he  resigned  himself 
to  publication;  and  the  book  of  the 
play  appeared  in  1883. 

Half-a-dozen  years  later  he  became 
discouraged  at  his  inability  to  main- 
tain the  popularity  which  he  had 
tasted  earlier  in  his  career  as  a  novel- 
ist; and  he  persuaded  himself  that 
he  might  win  a  wider  audience  as  a 
writer  of  plays  than  as  a  writer  of 
novels.  He  asserted  more  than  once 
that  he  was  persuaded  to  playmaking 
by  the  patent  fact  that  it  was  more 
immediately  remunerative  than  story- 
telling ;  but  this  assertion  seems  to  be 
the  result  of  a  certain  self-deception, 
as  his  letters  prove  that  he  was  con- 
vinced of  his  richer  endowment  for 
the  drama  than  for  prose-fiction. 
"The  strange  thing  is",  so  he  wrote 
to  his  brother  in  1891,  "that  I  have 
always  known  this  (the  drama)  was 
my  more  characteristic  form. ...     As 


S92 


THE   BOOKMAN 


for  the  form  itself  its  honor  and  in- 
spiration are  its  difficulty.  If  it  were 
easy  to  write  a  good  play  I  couldn't 
and  wouldn't  think  of  it;  but  it  is  in 
fact  damnably  hard."  A  little  later, 
in  a  letter  to  Stevenson,  he  said  he  was 
finding  that  the  dramatic  form  opened 
out  before  him  ''as  if  there  were  a 
kingdom  to  conquer. ...  I  feel  as  if 
I  had  at  last  found  my  form — ^my  real 
one — ^that  for  which  pale  fiction  is  an 
ineffectual  substitute". 

When  he  turned  to  the  theatre  he 
was  not  exploring  an  unknown  coun- 
try. He  had  been  a  constant  playgoer, 
ever  inquisitive  about  all  manifesta- 
tions of  the  twin  arts  of  the  stage,  the 
histrionic  and  the  dramaturgic.  When- 
ever he  was  in  Paris  he  sat  night  after 
night  absorbing  the  best  that  the 
Com6die  Fran^aise  could  give  him; 
and  Sunday  he  profited  by  the  sane 
solidity  of  the  dramatic  criticisms  of 
Francisque  Sarcey  from  whom  few 
of  the  secrets  of  the  art  of  the 
player  were  hidden.  As  early  as 
1878  he  had  written  to  his  broth- 
er: "My  inspection  of  the  French 
theatre  will  fructify.  I  have  thor- 
oughly mastered  Dumas,  Augier  and 
Sardou ;  and  I  know  all  they  know  and 
a  great  deal  more  besides".  And  in 
another  letter  also  to  his  brother,  in 
1895,  he  dwelt  on  the  double  difficulty 
of  the  novelist  who  turns  dramatist, 
the  question  of  method  and  the  ques- 
tion of  subject.  "If  he  is  really  in 
earnest,  as  I  have  been,  he  surmounts 
the  former  difficulty  before  he  sur- 
mounts the  latter.  I  have  worked  like 
a  horse — far  harder  than  anyone  will 
ever  know — over  the  whole  stiff  mys- 
tery of  technique — I  have  run  it  to 
earth,  and  I  don't  in  the  least  hesitate 
to  say  that,  for  the  comparatively  poor 
and  meagre,  the  piteously  simplified, 
purposes  of  the  English  stage,  I  have 


made  it  absolutely  my  own,  put  it  in 
my  pocket." 

That  this  was  not  empty  vaunting, 
and  that  his  keen  and  cool  critical  in- 
sight had  led  him  to  grasp  the  chief 
of  the  essential  qualities  of  the  drama, 
as  distinguished  from  prose-fiction,  is 
proved  by  a  passage  in  a  letter  written 
in  1909  to  a  friend  who  had  sent  him 
a  published  piece  of  hers,  which 
seemed  to  him  undramatic  in  that  it 
lacked  "an  action,  a  progression", 
whereby  it  was  deprived  of  the  need- 
ful tenseness.  "A  play  appears  to  me 
of  necessity  to  involve  a  struggle — a 
question  of  whether  and  how,  will  it 
or  won't  it  happen?  and  if  so,  or  not 
so,  how  and  why? — ^which  we  have  the 
suspense,  the  curiosity,  the  anxiety, 
the  tension,  in  a  word,  of  seeing;  and 
which  means  that  the  whole  thing 
shows  an  attack  upon  oppositions — 
with  the  victory  or  the  failure  on  one 
side  or  the  other,  and  each  wavering 
and  shifting  from  point  to  point." 
Here  Henry  James  is  at  one  with 
Ferdinand  Bruneti^re,  when  the 
French  critic  laid  down  what  he  called 
the  Law  of  the  Drama, — that  if  a 
play  is  to  arouse  and  retain  the  inter- 
est of  the  audience  it  must  present  a 
struggle,  a  clash  of  contending  voli- 
tions; it  must  exhibit  the  stark  asser- 
tion of  the  human  will. 

Henry  James's  second  play  was,  like 
his  first,  a  dramatization  of  one  of  his 
own  stories,  a  stage  version  of  "The 
American".  It  was  more  fortunate 
than  the  stage  version  of  "Daisy  Mil- 
ler", in  that  it  did  thrust  itself  into 
the  theatre,  where  it  lived  only  a  brief 
life.  It  was  produced  in  1891,  by  Ed- 
ward (Tompton  in  England,  at  first  in 
the  provinces  and  then  for  a  few  per- 
formances in  London.  When  he  com- 
menced playwrighting  Henry  James 
did  not  appreciate  that  it  is  a  more 
difficult  task  to  dramatize  a  novel  than 


HENRY  JAMES  AND  THE  THEATRE 


393 


to  compose  an  original  play,  because 
the  author  is  necessarily  unable  to 
deal  with  his  material  as  freely  as  he 
could  if  it  were  still  molten  and  had 
not  already  been  run  into  the  mold  of 
a  narrative.  Seemingly  he  made  this 
discovery  in  due  course;  and  he  did 
not  again  attempt  to  turn  any  of  his 
stories  into  plays. 

His  third  effort  was  an  original 
piece,  "Guy  Domville",  brought  out  by 
Greorge  Alexander  at  the  St.  James's 
Theatre  in  1895.  That  it  failed  to  be 
favorably  received  and  that  it  had  to 
be  withdrawn  at  the  end  of  a  month, 
was  a  grievous  disappointment  to  the 
author, — a  disappointment  made  more 
poignant  by  the  gross  discourtesy,  not 
to  call  it  wanton  brutality,  with  which 
he  was  received  by  a  portion  of  the 
audience  when  he  was  called  before 
the  curtain  at  the  end  of  the  first  per- 
formance. It  was  perhaps  due  to  this 
indignity  that  he  did  not  publish  t^e 
play  which  had  failed  on  the  stage  in 
the  natural  expectation  that  it  might 
please  in  the  study,  appealing  from 
the  noisy  verdict  of  its  spectators  to 
the  quieter  judgment  of  its  possible 
readers. 

He  had  already,  the  year  before, 
printed  in  two  volumes,  entitled  "The- 
atricals", four  other  comedies  which 
he  had  vainly  proffered  to  the  man- 
agers, —  "Tenants",  "Disengaged", 
"The  Album",  and  "The  Reprobate". 
One  other  play  he  turned  into  a  tale, 
called  "Covering  End",  published  in 
1898.  Here  he  was  not  contending 
with  any  insuperable  difficulty  in 
transposition,  since  the  novel  may  very 
well  be  dramatic  whereas  the  play 
shrinks  in  abhorrence  from  any  tinc- 
ture of  the  epic.  The  drama  never 
lost  its  attraction  for  Henry  James, 
but  he  was  repelled,  as  well  as  re- 
pulsed, by  the  theatre,  wherein  it  has 
its  domicile.    "The  whole  odiousness 


of  the  thing  lies  in  the  connection  be- 
tween the  drama  and  the  theatre",  so 
he  wrote  to  his  brother  in  1893 ;  "the 
•  one  is  admirable  in  its  interest  and 
its  difficulty,  the  other  loathsome  in 
its  conditions.  If  the  drama  could 
only  be  theoretically  or  hypothetically 
acted,  the  fascination  resident  in  its 
all  but  unconquerable  form  would  be 
unimpaired,  and  one  would  be  able  to 
have  the  exquisite  exercise  without 
the  horrid  sacrifice."  This  was  a  sug- 
gestion natural  enough  in  a  retiring 
and  fastidious  artist  in  letters,  but  in- 
conceivable in  the  mouth  of  any  bom 
playwright,  Shakespeare  or  Moli^re, 
Sheridan  or  Beaumarchais,  in  whom 
the  pain  was  physicked  by  the  labor 
they  delighted  in. 

Notwithstanding  his  distaste  for 
any  other  than  a  theoretic  or  hsrpo- 
thetic  playhouse,  Henry  James  in  1908, 
ten  years  after  the  publication  of 
"Covering  End",  did  not  hesitate  to 
disinter  the  one-act  play  upon  which 
it  had  been  founded  and  to  authorize 
its  performance.  He  even  permitted 
it  to  be  cut  into  three  acts, — just  as 
Scribe  fourscore  years  earlier  had 
made  a  three-act  comedy,  "Val6rie", 
out  of  the  one-act  com^die-vaudeville 
by  the  simple  expedient  of  excising 
the  songs  and  of  dropping  the  curtain 
twice  during  the  course  of  the  action. 
The  new-old  three-act  piece  was  en- 
titled "The  High  Bid";  it  was  per- 
formed a  few  times  in  the  provinces 
and  a  few  times  more  in  London  by 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Forbes-Robertson.  But 
it  did  not  make  any  definite  impres- 
sion on  the  playgoing  public.  It  was 
not  a  disheartening  failure  like  "Guy 
Domville",  yet  it  could  not  be  called  a 
success.  Still  its  milder  reception  en- 
couraged its  author  to  resume  work  on 
two  more  plays,  "The  Other  House" 
and  "The  Outcry".  There  were  even 
negotiations   for   the   production    of 


394 


THE   BOOKMAN 


these  pieces, — ^negotiations  which  came 
to  nothing,  chiefly  because  prolonged 
iUness  forced  him  to  give  up  work  on 
them. 

Ill 

In  the  deprecatory  note  which  he 
prefixed  to  the  second  volume  of  "The- 
atricals", Henry  James  declared  that 
"the  man  who  pretends  to  the  drama 
has  more  to  learn,  in  fine,  than  any 
other  pretender;  and  his  dog's  eared 
grammar  comes  at  last  to  have  the  re- 
markable peculiarity  of  seeming  a 
revelation  he  himself  shall  have 
made".  Plainly  enough  he  had  the 
conviction  that  to  him  the  revelation 
was  complete  and  that  he  had  his  self- 
made  grammar  by  heart.  Why  then 
did  he  fail  after  efforts  so  persistent 
and  so  strenuous?  Why  did  disaster 
follow  fast  and  follow  faster?  It  was 
plainly  not  from  any  lapse  in  pains- 
taking or  any  easy  ignoring  of  the 
difficulties  of  the  dangerous  task.  It 
was  not  because  his  primary  motive 
was  pecuniary,  since  he  was  soon 
seized  with  ardor  in  his  adventures 
into  a  new  art.    What  then  was  it? 

I  think  that  we  can  find  a  key  to  the 
secret  in  his  letters,,  wherein  he  more 
than  once  exhibits  his  detestation  of 
the  audience  he  was  aiming  to  amuse. 
He  wrote  to  his  brother  in  1895,  "... 
the  thing  fills  me  with  horror  for  the 
abysmal  vulgarity  of  the  theatre  and 
its  regular  public,  which  Grod  knows 
I  have  had  intensely,  even  when  work- 
ing (from  motives  as  pure  as  pecuni- 
ary motives  can  be)  against  it".  What 
right  had  any  man  to  hope  that  he 
might  gain  the  suffrages  of  spectators 
he  so  totally  detested  and  despised? 
Henry  James  here  takes  an  attitude, 
he  discloses  a  frame  of  mind,  as  dis- 
similar as  may  be  from  the  mighty 
masters  of  the  drama, — from  Comeil- 
le's  or  Moli^re's,  for  example. 


In  1911  he  wrote  to  a  friend  that 
"the  conditions — ^the  theatre-question 
generally  in  this  country  (England) 
are  horrific  and  unspeakable.  Utter, 
and  as  far  as  I  can  see,  irreclaimable 
barbarism  reigns.  The  anomalous  fact 
is  that  the  theatre,  so  called,  can  flour- 
ish in  barbarism,  but  that  any  drama 
worth  speaking  of  can  develop  but  in 
the  air  of  civilization".  That  asser- 
tion implies  a  belief  that  England  was 
less  civilized  in  the  opening  years  of 
the  twentieth  century  than  it  had  been 
in  the  opening  years  of  the  seven- 
teenth. Many  things  may  be  said 
against  the  present  age,  but  not  that  it 
is  less  civilized  than  that  of  James  I. 

We  may  dismiss  these  two  opinions 
as  the  petulancies  of  a  man  of  delicate 
sensibilities  abraded  to  exacerbation 
by  gross  contacts  with  the  vulgar  herd. 
None  the  less  are  contacts  with  the 
herd  inherent  in  the  playwright's 
tirade.  He  cannot  retire  into  any  ivory 
tower;  he  must  come  down  to  the 
market  place ;  only  at  his  peril  can  he 
shrink  from  meeting  his  fellow  man. 
He  is  disqualified  for  the  drama  which 
appeals,  has  always  appealed,  and  al- 
ways will  appeal,  to  the  mass,  to  the 
common  people  (if  the  term  is  insisted 
upon),  if  he  holds  himself  aloof,  if  his 
sympathy  is  not  sufficient  to  make  him 
for  the  moment  one  of  the  throng,  to 
feel  as  the  mass  feels,  even  if  he  feels 
more  acutely,  to  think  as  the  plain 
people  think,  even  if  he  thinks  more 
wisely.  At  bottom  the  drama  must  be 
fundamentally  democratic,  since  it  de- 
pends upon  the  majority. 

The  great  dramatists  did  not  suc- 
ceed by  writing  down  to  the  mob,  but 
by  writing  broad  to  humanity.  They 
did  not  have  to  deliberate  and  to  quest 
about  for  the  things  to  which  the 
many-headed  public  would  respond; 
they  knew,  for  they  themselves  thrilled 
with  the  same  passions,  the  same  de- 


HENRY  JAMES  AND  THE  THEATRE 


395 


sires,  and  the  same  ideals.  They  had 
a  perfect  solidarity  with  their  fellow 
citizens,  whom  they  faced  on  the  plane 
of  equality  and  whom  they  did  not 
look  down  on  from  any  altitude  of  con- 
scious superiority.  They  never  con- 
descended; they  were  never  even 
tempted  to  condescension.  They  gave 
to  the  throng,  made  up  of  all  manner 
of  men,  literate  and  illiterate,  the  best 
they  had  in  them,  the  very  best.  Nor 
did  they  feel  that  in  so  doing  they 
were  making  any  sacrifice.  They  were 
stout  of  heart  and  strong  of  stomach, 
with  no  drooping  tendrils  of  exquisite 
sensibility  recoiling  from  gross  con- 
tacts. 

Perhaps  it  would  be  unfair  to  sug- 
gest that  when  he  was  engaged  in 
playwrighting  Henry  James  was  un- 
consciously condescending;  but  it  is 
not  unfair  to  assert  that  he  had  no 
solidarity  with  the  spectators  he  was 
hoping  to  attract  and  delight.  What 
he  gave  them — ^the  note  prefixed  to 
"Theatricals"  proves  it  amply — ^was  as 
good  as  he  thought  they  deserved  or 
could  understand ;  it  was  not  his  best. 
And  even  if  he  had  designed  to  give 
them  his  best,  he  could  not  have  done 
it,  because  a  miniaturist  cannot  make 
himself  over  into  a  scene-painter;  the 
two  arts  may  demand  an  equal  ability 
but  the  hand  that  works  in  either,  soon 
subdued  to  what  it  works  in,  is  inca- 
pacitated for  the  other.  The  super- 
subtleties  in  which  Henry  James  ex- 
celled were  impossible  in  the  theatre; 
they  demand  time  to  be  taken  in,  an 
allowance  impossible  to  the  swiftness 
of  the  stage;  they  would  not  get 
across  the  footlights;  and  they  might 
puzzle  even  the  most  enlightened  spec- 
tators. It  takes  an  immense  experi- 
ence and  a  marvelous  skill  "to  paint  in 
broad  strokes,  but  so  artfully  that  at 
a  distance  it  appears  as  if  we  had 
painted  in  miniature", — ^which,  so  the 
Spanish  dramatist  Benavente  tells  us, 


« 


is  at  once  the  problem  and  the  art  of 
the  drama". 

In  his  review  of  "The  School  for 
Scandal",  Henry  James  confessed  that 
he  saw  "no  reason  to  believe  that  the 
mass  of  mankind  will  ever  be  more  ar- 
tistic than  is  strikingly  convenient, 
and  suspect  that  acute  pleasure  or 
pain,  on  this  line,  will  remain  the 
privilege  of  an  initiated  minority". 
The  supreme  leaders  of  the  drama, 
Sophocles,  Shakespeare,  and  Moli^re, 
were  satisfied  to  rely  on  the  "mass  of 
mankind"  of  whose  S3rmpathies  they 
had  an  intuitive  understanding.  Henry 
James,  all  unwittingly  it  may  be,  was 
addressing  himself  only  to  the  "initi- 
ated minorit3r".  Where  they  possessed 
robust  straightforwardness  and  direct 
brevity,  he  was  solitary,  isolated,  deli- 
cately fastidious.  He  must  have  read 
but  he  did  not  take  to  heart  Joubert's 
warning  that  we  ought  "in  writing,  to 
remember  that  men  of  culture  are 
present,  but  it  is  not  to  them  that  we 
should  speak".  Henry  James's  novels 
would  have  been  more  widely  enjoyed 
if  he  had  profited  by  this  precept ;  and 
because  he  did  not  j)rofit  by  it  his 
plays  are  "all  silent  and  all  danmed". 
Like  the  poet  the  playwright  is  bom 
and  not  made ;  but  like  the  poet  again 
he  has  to  be  made  after  he  is  bom, — 
that  is  to  say,  he  has  to  master  the 
mysteries  of  his  trade,  to  become  a 
competent  craftsman,  to  acquire  tech- 
nique. Henry  James  may  liot  have  de- 
ceived himself  when  he  declared  that 
he  had  by  hard  labor  learned  how  to 
employ  the  dramatic  form;  but  the 
most  consummate  dexterity  would 
avail  him  little  if  he  had  not  also  the 
native  gift,  often  possessed  in  abun- 
dance by  men  of  little  intelligence  and 
of  less  culture  and  often  denied  to  men 
of  commanding  minds.  After  all,  in 
any  of  the  arts  inspiration  is  more  im- 
portant than  either  aspiration  or  per- 
spiration—or than  both  combined. 


OLD  WESTS  FOR  NEW 


BY  HAROLD  WALDO 


THE  three  mysterious  horsemen 
that  darkened  the  hill  accommo- 
datingly just  as  evening  fell  and  the 
wary  reader  took  up  his  post,  have 
faded  far  in  English  literature  and 
given  way  to  the  paltry  figure  of  Ed- 
win Clayhanger  swinging  down  Moor- 
thome  Road.  Thus  the  dark  horse- 
man of  the  Golden  West  is  haply  fad« 
ing.  And  with  him  that  ugly  s3rmbol 
of  an  inordinate  era,  the  wideawake — 
or  great  slouch  hat.  Instinctively 
donned  by  bull-necked  men,  by  men  of 
blaring  ego,  such  as  seek  to  cut  a  dom- 
inating figure  among  their  fellows,  the 
Wild  Bill  hat  is  dwindling  out  of  the 
West.  Its  empire  is  shrunk  to  three 
pinchbeck  principalities:  the  movie 
plant,  Missouri,  and  Washington,  D.  C. 
The  Stetson  school  of  fiction  and 
the  Stetson  school  of  ''statesmanship'' 
show  equally  deflated,  and  their  punc- 
turing may  well  be  charged  along  with 
other  items  to  the  new  woman  and  the 
rising  city — ^with  its  vast  insignia  of 
urban  taste — ^built  for  her. 

The  old  West  was  a  man's  country. 
There  he  contrived  a  Gargantuan  so- 
ciety celebrated  by  Mark  Twain  and 
Bret  Harte,  a  cosmos  of  laughable, 
outrageous  figures,  a  preposterous 
epos  that  astonished  and  delighted. . . 
a  faraway  world.  At  close  range,  how- 
ever, it  had  the  same  gross  virtues  and 
rank  vices  that  flourish  in  back-coun- 
try stable,  barber  shop  and  bar,  with  a 


Rabelaisian  bouquet  of  flagrant  viril- 
ity. 

But  the  feminine  arrival  has  changed 
this — as  the  arrival  of  woman  has 
everywhere  altered  the  face  of  affairs. 
Subtle  critic  of  manners  and  morals, 
she  has  increasingly  curbed  the  manly 
cult  of  Mumbo-jumbo.  From  Jane 
Austen  to  Mary  Watts  she  has  poked 
sly  fun  at  those  Gargantuan  exhibi- 
tions that  have  made  man  such  an  un- 
lovely excrescence  on  the  society  he 
haunts.  Under  her  appraising  eye  he 
has  shrunken  commendably.  The  un- 
bridled whiskers  and  broad  hat,  the 
festooning  watch  chain  and  colossal 
"charm"  of  dangling  elephant  and  lo- 
comotive are  wrapt  into  regions  of 
old  unhappy  far-off  things  and  Prince 
Alberts  long  ago.  Man  is  pulling  in 
his  horns,  in  short.  And  so  is  the 
West.  The  old  West  is  gone.  Ro- 
mance is  dead 

Then — long  live  Romance !  The  red- 
blood  brand  is  obsolete.  But  the  ro- 
mance of  selective  realism,  heralded 
by  the  Norrises  and  Willa  Sibert  Ga- 
ther, is  facing  a  glittering  prospect, 
such  as  do  the  tall  windows  of  the 
great  Five  Towns  of  the  West — Oak- 
land, Alameda,  Berkeley,  Richmond, 
and  San  Francisco,  close  linked  on 
San  Francisco  Bay. 

There  where  the  old  Peralta  Rancho 
spread  on  Contra  Costa  hills,  near 
Johnny    Heinbold's    saloon    and    the 


896 


OLD  WESTS  FOR  NEW 


397 


drab,  dead  haunts  of  London,  are 
ranged  the  great  shipyards  that  only 
yesterday  hung  out  fabricating  rec- 
ords to  defy  the  fiercest  efforts  of 
Delaware  and  Fall  River.  While  Oak- 
land sends  down  her  clanging  hulls 
upon  the  Estuary,  Alameda  launches 
the  fluttering  bright  caps  of  girl 
swimmers  who  pit  their  stripling 
strength  against  the  mermaids  of  the 
Antipodes.  Here  Fanny  Durack  of 
Australia  ploughs  a  snowy  quick- 
water  in  the  wake  of  the  newspaper 
boat,  and  Duke  Kahanamoku  illus- 
trates the  startling  vigor  of  his  dying 
South  Seas  race.  At  Richmond  the 
fat  oil  of  Kern  County  fields  rolls  in 
from  the  South.  Down  there  in  the 
country  of  Mary  Austin's  "The  Ford" 
are  the  Four  Towns  of  the  oil  indus- 
try, which  trade  their  fuming  wealth 
for  the  fruit  of  Placer  County's  Four 
Towns:  Auburn,  Newcastle,  Loomis, 
Penryn.  The  huge  flumes  that  water 
the  foothill  orchards  convey  the  "blue 
coal"  of  the  mountain  lakes  through 
power  houses  that  loom  on  piney  spurs 
like  castles  along  the  Moselle.  Here 
high  tension  energy  is  shot  a  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  away  to  turn  the  wheels 
of  San  Francisco.  The  novel  of  to- 
day's West  may  well  dispense  with 
darkling  horsemen  and  moonlight  af- 
frays when  786,  the  Mallet  Compound, 
wheels  out  of  Roseville  round-house  to 
boom  up  the  long  Sierra  grade  with 
its 

Mlshni !  glshni !  stlngal ! 
Ya !     Ya !     Ya ! 

Here  to  cheer  us — in  a  land  where 
preposterous  romance  is  dead — is  a 
Kipling  and  Conradian  nexus  of  high 
tension  interests  that  must  persist  and 
intensify  so  long  as  Mallet  "crabs" 
grind  over  the  Sierras  and  great  ships 
put  out  for  China's  thunderous  dawns. 
With  McAndrews  of  Telegraph  Hill  in 
the  engine  room  and  Vartek  Parichek 


of  Haight  Street  bucking  a  waiter  in 
the  dining-saloon,  the  richly  varied 
consort  of  new  San  Francisco  follows 
a  modem  argosy  to  the  seat  of  ancient 
mornings  and  secret  perfumes  in  the 
East. 

This  interplay  of  racial  forces  no- 
where follows  such  free  and  heroic 
lines  as  in  the  friendly  West.  Touched 
vaguely  though  quaintly  by  Charles 
Caldwell  Dobie  in  his  stories  of  the 
San  Francisco  Czech  quarter,  it  has 
not  yet  been  discovered  for  us  as  Wil- 
bur Daniel  Steele  has  discovered  the 
Portuguese  life  round  Pl3rmouth  Rock. 
The  Italian  in  his  foothill  orchard; 
the  Azores  Islander  fishing  the  Sacra- 
mento for  giant  salmon;  the  Jugo- 
slav in  little  orchard  valleys  that  filter 
to  the  sea:  these  aspects  of  rare  and 
fruitful  color  are  scarcely  explored. 

Of  a  Sunday  morning,  when  off  his 
run,  McAndrews  saunters  down  the 
steep,  bright  streets  to  Golden  Gate 
Park  and  takes  a  hand  wi'  the  bowlin' 
— ^meeting  on  the  open  green  with 
Bates  of  the  Caledonian  Trust  and 
McLaren,  the  famous  master  of  the 
park,  who  hails  from  Dunedin  and  the 
Stevenson  country. 

Meantime  Vartek,  the  merry  Czech 
boy  of  Haight  Street  hill,  in  his  jaunty 
Sokol  uniform  and  falcon-feathered 
cap  is  probably  marching  to  the  ferry 
with  a  parti-colored  crowd  of  Slavic 
picnickers  to  spend  the  day  at  Shell 
Mound,  near  Oakland  Across  the  Bay. 

These  picnics  in  the  furtive,  scrubby 
old  park  sparkle  with  a  naive  color,  all 
too  coarsely  rendered  by  Jack  London 
in  his  "Valley  of  the  Moon".  He 
missed  the  tart  charm  of  pretty  Cro- 
atian girls  dancing  in  great  gloomy 
pavilions,  near  dreary  C3npress  trees 
drawn  gaunt  in  a  bright  wind  which 
clatters  lonesomely  along  their  dusty 
shore.  Tenebrous  blue  gums  guard 
the  massy,  mysterious   shell   mound 


898 


THE   BOOKMAN 


through  a  week  of  desolation,  await- 
ing a  Sunday  of  pomp,  when  the  courts 
of  Camiola  and  Carinthia  assemble  in 
dustier  desolation  of  paper-littered 
grounds  to  celebrate  their  bizarre  folk- 
rites  with  chocolate  soldiery  and  a  pap- 
rika dash  of  music.  One  remembers 
particularly  a  little  twelve-year-old 
Croatian  girl  who  watched  the  danc- 
ing wistfully,  knowing  she  could  never 
hope  to  dance  because  of  a  shortened 
foot.  Perhaps  her  spirit  lingers  there, 
haunting  with  something  of  the  inmie- 
morial  Slavic  sadness  the  weary  cy- 
press trees,  until  next  Sunday  brings 
the  jaunty  cohorts  of  County  Mayo  or 
County  Clare,  and  the  brisk  blue  eye 
and  pert  white  chin  of  Irish  Aileen 
lightens  the  gloom  of  the  melancholy 
old  park.  A  pleasure  ground,  this, 
that  would  scarcely  suit  a  genteel 
taste;  but  somehow,  by  grace  and 
glamour  of  these  birds  of  passage,  a 
realm  of  romance  all  shabby  forlorn. 
Not  far  from  here  is  the  old  Emery- 
ville race-track  which  played  a  sinister 
part  in  Charles  Tenney  Jackson's  mag- 
nificent story  of  "The  Day  of  Souls"— 
a  novel  revealing  the  old  San  Fran- 
cisco in  all  its  rancid,  evil,  and  en- 
thralling beauty.  No  one  has  arisen 
since  Jackson  to  present  that  citsr's 
cruel  enchantment  so  brilliantly  as  he. 
Laboring  in  the  old  San  Francisco 
"Bulletin"  building,  he  forged  the 
style  that  sends  his  sentences  in  silken 
wave  lengths  swishing.  Ominous  be- 
tween the  rollers'  motion  comes  the 
deep  intoning  of  the  lighthouse  bell  on 
a  note  of  insistent  doom.  Strange 
that  just  such  a  style,  of  just  such 
sonorous  Flaubertian  force,  was  being 
forged  in  like  setting  across  the  con- 
tinent's span  by  another  young  Amer- 
ican newspaperman,  Stephen  French 
Whitman,  working  in  the  old  New 
York  "Sun"  rookery.  Between  "The 
Day  of  Souls"  and  Whitman's  magnifi- 


cent "Predestined"  is  a  striking  and 
instructive  kinship.  From  some  simi- 
lar setting  of  newspaper  loft — ^per- 
haps from  such  a  setting  only — ^we 
may  hope  for  other  searching  tran- 
scripts of  life,  blazing  as  do  "The  Day 
of  Souls"  and  "Predestined"  with  the 
unique  glow  and  uncanny  phosphor- 
escence of  crawling  city  life  itself. 

Certain  it  is  that  Jack  London's 
novels  give  us  little  of  this  radiance 
and  color.  A  giant  in  the  white  North, 
he  was  but  a  half-god  in  the  Five 
Towns.  "Martin  Eden"  catches  only 
a  baldly  conventional  setting,  as  void 
of  depth  and  color  as  a  movie  celluloid. 

Poles  apart  from  his  flat,  obvious 
treatment  is  the  peep-show  minutia 
of  Kathleen  Norris's  interiors.  Her 
lower-class  homes  are  fairly  fusty  with 
the  odor  of  domesticity;  while  her 
high-class  folk  actually  distract  us 
with  their  insignificant  social  calcula- 
tions and  steam-heated  emotions. 
Such  defects  as  these  are,  they  are 
those  of  qualities;  and  again  and« 
again  one  yields  to  the  casual  and  clut- 
tered charm  of  her  San  Francisco. 

No  representative  American  short- 
story  collection  should  be  without  her 
precious  tale  of  Alanna,  the  little  San 
Francisco  Irish  girl.  So  fresh  and 
tender  it  is,  so  rarely  humorous.  If 
she  had  but  compressed  her  novels  to 
the  same  classic  mold,  there  had  been 
no  trouble  in  placing  her  alongside 
Willa  Sibert  Cather.  As  it  is,  we  must 
pay  a  wondering  tribute  to  the  small 
group  of  Norris  et  Cie,  whose  marches 
enclose  a  fair  moiety  of  significant 
western  fiction. 

Even  the  level-eyed  clarity  of  Miss 
Cather's  vision  has  not  pierced  deeper 
than  did  Frank  Norris's.  From  his 
splendid  "station  point"  before  the 
panorama  of  western  life,  he  swept 
the  elemental  struggle  of  men  for  soil, 
food,  and  liberty.     He  told  his  tale 


OLD  WESTS  FOR  NEW 


399 


with  the  vehement  rush  of  a  great  ve- 
racious artist,  who  has  seen  largely 
and  exultantly;  and  even  so,  he 
sketched  in  his  humbler  detail  with  a 
masterly  hand. 

Here  it  is,  in  the  matter  of  detail, 
that  Miss  Gather  eludes  us.  She  yields 
us  the  piquant  feature  and  very  per- 
fume of  a  fascinating  alien  life;  yet 
now  and  again  in  "My  Antonia"  this 
fragrance  sifts  out  into  something 
chill  and  thin.  A  precious  pastel 
vagueness  swathes  her  prairies  at 
times.  Nor  does  she  grasp  the  noble 
passion  for  liberty  which  gave  Nor- 
ris*s  "Octopus"  a  Promethean  gran- 
deur unmatched  in  American  fiction. 
But  she  has  brought  within  the  scope 
of  American  novel  writing  a  strange 
racial  beauty  produced  with  a  flowing, 
classic  line  that  overleaps  all  trifling 
genre  painting  in  the  goddess-like  ma- 
jesty of  her  Bohemian  and  Scandi- 
navian maidens. 

In  token  of  their  indigenous  charac- 
ter and  superb  scope  the  works  of 
Norris  and  Jackson  and  Gather  loom 
up  through  modem  western  fiction  as 
guide-posts  to  the  future.  But  the 
half-gods  die  hard.  The  western  im- 
agination is  custom-caked  with  a  banal 
tradition  of  red-shirt  romance.  Ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Chambers  the  West  is 
too  self-conscious  to  produce  the  great 
American  novel.  Not  too  conscious  of 
itself,  Mr.  Chambers,  but  of  a  stereo- 
typed and  unveracious  version  of  it- 
self. Certain  novelists  pandered  to 
the  West's  childish  fancy  for  vainglori- 
ous splurge;  and  whatever  chance  the 
country  had  to  free  itself  from  the 
cattleman  cliche  and  red-blood  bun- 
combe, was  quashed  in  season  by  the 
baneful  genius  of  the  movie.  Two- 
gun  play  and  the  rest  of  the  pitiful 
paraphernalia  is  a  cheap  perversion  of 
the  real  West.    The  West  must  slough 


off  this  incubus  in  order  to  realize  its 
untold  prospects. 

For  in  the  rolling-stock  of  sheer  ro- 
mance there  has  never  been  such  dar- 
ing expansion  as  we  find  here.  Tall 
engines  as  in  Norris's  day  still  scour 
the  long  highways;  but  a  Franco- 
American  genius  named  Mallet  has 
coupled  two  such  engines  into  one — a 
long-barreled  thing  called  the  Mallet 
Compound,  equal  to  three  of  the  mon- 
ster that  crashed  through  Vanamee's 
huddled  animals  before  Presley's  hor- 
rified vision.  Pistol-toting  is  no  longer 
in  vogue  here — except  in  Culver  City. 
But  great  ships  still  stand  in  from  the 
Orient,  and  snappy,  metallic  looking 
yellow  officers  stand  behind  the 
weather  dodgers  awaiting  pratique — 
with  permission  to  discharge  their 
loads  of  flaming  silk.  Anon  this  costly 
freight  is  loaded  on  the  "silk  train" — 
a  solid  cargo  of  well  guarded  treasure, 
and,  with  "rights  through"  that  give 
it  express  train  clearance,  is  snatched 
out  of  the  salt  water  flats  by  a  drum- 
ming Mallet,  that  carries  it  across  the 
great  interior  valley,  up  through  the 
foothills,  thundering  and  drilling  on- 
ward, through  the  black-bellied  python 
of  the  coiling  snow-sheds,  on. .  .toward 
our  own  far  East. 

The  lives  that  go  to  the  making  and 
handling  of  that  silk  train  are  the 
stuff  of  vivid  romance.  Such  romance 
is  not  vain  and  disingenuous.  Yet  a 
regard  for  what  is  most  humanly  ger- 
mane carries  us  back  of  such  overt 
values  to  the  stress  and  posture  of  ra- 
cial elements  here  commingling,  to 
little  Irish  Alanna  and  Shell  Mound 
Park.  It  is  easy  to  fancy  the  old  park 
as  haunted  by  these  colorful  ghosts  of 
dead  holidays,  and  to  picture  Alanna's 
happy  spirit  finding  out  the  wistful- 
eyed  Croatian  girl  and  setting  her 
heart  to  dancing.  And  the  beauty  of 
the  matter  is  that  this  is  not  an  empty 


400  THE   BOOKMAN 


fancy,  but  a  sjrmbol  of  the  very  fact,  of  a  vast  pleasure  ground.    There  is 

For  here  the  ends  of  the  earth  are  no  doubt  that  out  of  these  elements 

meeting  and  mingling  in  such  wide  the  West  is  building  a  finer,  braver 

and  generous  amplitude  of  spirit  as  America,  which  shall  not  despise  the 

the  world  has  never  known,  and  in  a  shabby  but  indigenous  romance  of  old 

country  that  has  about  it  something  Shell  Mound  Park. 


WHEN  I  REMEMBER  YOU 


BY  KEVIN  LOGUE 


WHEN  I  remember  you  there  falls 
A  silence  in  my  mind. 
As  after  gusty  intervals 
Settles  the  weary  wind. 
And  a  far  voice  in  the  stillness  calls, 
Silver,  and  very  kind. 

Then  I  give  over  matching  words 

Against  an  old  despair. 
And  I  know  the  sky  would  fill  with  birds, 

With  song  would  fill  the  air. 
If  you  could  see  the  broken  sherds 

Of  the  life  I  yet  must  bear. 

You  did  not  shatter  it,  but  I 

Broke  it  into  my  hands; 
Wherefore  my  sky  is  a  silent  sky 

And  all  lands  twilight  lands : 
Of  pride  that  towered  as  heaven  high 

There  is  not  one  wall  stands. 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


Indianapolis,  May,  1920. 

YOU  see,  it  is  like  this.  And  a  tale, 
I  promise  you,  you  shall  hear. 

It  was  decided  in  the  office  of  The 
Bookman  that  Murray  Hill  had  lost 
his  kick.  By  over  much  sitting  at  a 
desk  had  he  grown  old.  He  should  go, 
like  one  Conrad,  in  quest  of  his  youth. 
He  should  return  again,  for  a  space,  to 
the  life  to  which  he  was  bred;  be 
again  (for  a  time),  as  of  old,  a  de- 
lighted child  alike  of  great  streets  and 
mean  streets,  a  rover  who  goes  where 
the  wind  follows  after,  a  spirit  with 
no  abiding  city.  His  art  was  not  to  be 
literature,  but  the  supreme  art  of  all 
— to  look  with  entertainment  (and 
with  charity)  upon  the  world,  and  to 
have  frank  speech  with  all  manner  of 
men.  Such  was  the  wisdom  of  The 
Bookman  office;  and  greater  wisdom 
have  I  seldom  seen. 

To  begin,  then,  with  a  tribute  to 
human  honesty:  I  one  time  owned  a 
very  large  kit-bag,  a  very  costly  kit- 
bag,  and  a  very  handsome  one.  The 
very  thing  would  this  have  been  to 
transport  all  that  I  would  have  need 
of  in  my  wanderings.  But,  alas!  on 
an  evil  day  it  was  stolen,  with  many 
things  of  value  to  me  which  it  con- 
tained. Now,  to  run  after  a  trunk  on 
wanderings — one  might  as  well  take 
along  a  wife.  And  it  is  one  of  the 
prime  secrets  of  living  (so  that  one 
may  say  when  he  comes  to  die :  "Well, 
I've  had  an  interesting  life!")  that 
one  should  never  duplicate  what  he 
had  before.    If  a  man  has  owned  an 


Airedale  and  lost  him,  he  should  get 
a  Police  dog,  or  a  Bull;  if  a  man  has 
loved  a  blonde  and  she  has  divorced 
him,  he  should  take  to  himself  a  bru- 
nette. So  it  was  another  kit-bag 
would  never  do. 

What  then?  It  hath  been  said,  seek 
and  ye  shall  find.  As  for  me  it  is  as 
told  in  that  very  fine  poem  of  Hilaire 
Belloc,  "The  South  Country' 


r» 


A  lost  thins  could  I  never  find. 

Nor  a  broken  thins  mend ; 
And  I  fear  I  shall  be  aU  alone. 

When  I  come  toward  the  end. 

Seek  I,  and  I  find  not.  Trouble  your- 
self nowhat  about  the  matter;  go 
jauntily  on  your  way  and  the  gods 
pursue  you  with  their  gifts  in  out- 
stretched hand.  Take  Christmas  pres- 
ents; you  know  not  what  to  give. 
Never  mind,  at  the  eleventh  hour  des- 
peration will  save  you,  and  do  you 
proud;  a  man  is  never  so  nimble  in 
his  mind  as  when  he  is  desperate. 
Take  words;  you  strain  for  the  right 
word  to  turn  a  thought — ^and  continu- 
ally it  eludes  you.  Cease  your  strain- 
ing and  go  to  shaving.  Let  your 
thoughts  be  like  a  rill  of  water,  re- 
flecting in  reminiscence  the  sunlight 
and  shadows  of  your  life.  Suddenly 
you  pause,  your  razor  poised  before 
your  nose.  It  has  come  to  you !  The 
word!  However,  I  did  not  purpose  to 
speak  to  you  of  philosophy.  This  is 
not  a  treatise,  but  a  chronicle. 

I  put  my  mind  at  peace.  I  knew 
that  at  the  time  appointed  I  should  be 
prepared.     "For  all  things  work  to- 


401 


402 


THE   BOOKMAN 


gether  for  good  to  them  that  love 
God."    And  so  (as  ever)  it  was. 

Was  I  not  hurrying  along  Forty- 
second  Street  to  get  that  cane  (the 
one  with  the  stag  handle  and  gold 
band)  which  I  had  left  to  be  repaired? 
And  did  not  Fortune  cause  me  to  turn 
my  head,  inexplicably,  ever  so  little  to 
the  left?  And  did  I  not  see  in  a  win- 
dow that  which  the  Force  that  created 
and  operates  the  universe  had  deter- 
mined seons  and  aeons  ago  I  should 
take  with  me  as  my  carryall  on  my 
travels?    I  did. 

It  was  a  double-barreled  suitcase 
with  an  accordian-like  side  capable  of 
considerable  projection  outward.  I 
went  in  and  I  said  to  the  man  there  in 
charge:  "May  I  look  at  that  suitcase 
in  your  window?"  "Certainly,"  he  re- 
plied. I  said — I  never  quibble  about 
anything  (friend,  do  not  let  Death 
find  you  stalled  somewhere  quibbling, 
but  valiantly  on  your  way) — I  said: 
"I  will  take  this  suitcase,  how  much  is 
it?" 

"That  suitcase.  Sir,"  he  said,  "is 
worth  seventy-five  dollars."  "Good!" 
I  replied.  "Have  my  name  put  on  it 
at  once,  on  both  ends."  For  I  am 
proud  of  my  name  (I  should  like  to 
have  had  it  on  both  sides  of  the  suit- 
case as  well) ;  it  is  a  high-sounding 
name.  To  me,  it  rings  out  like  those 
gorgeous  words  of  Mr.  St.  Ives: — 
"When  I  can't  please  a  woman,  hang 
me  in  my  cravat!" 

"As  evidently  you  are  not  going  to 
give  this  suitcase  as  a  present",  said 
the  man,  "I  can  make  you  a  discount 
on  it.  It  has  been  in  the  window",  he 
said,  "and  you  see  Sir,  it  is  a  bit 
spotted  by  the  sun.  This  discount 
would  bring  the  price  to  sixty-five  dol- 
lars." "Excellent!"  I  exclaimed; 
"most  admirable,  indeed!" 

"Then",  said  the  man,  "I  can  make 
you  a  still  further  discount  on  that 


suitcase.  Five  dollars  more  can  come 
off  on  account  of — " 

"Done!"  I  said,  "whatever  the  rea- 
son— I  won't  let  five  dollars  stand  in 
the  way  of  me  and  the  suitcase." 

It  is  a  splendid  suitcase.  Many  have 

admired  it.    And  it  is  certainly  worth 

as  much  as  forty  dollars. 

«  «  «  « 

I  leaped  out  of  my  cab  at  the  sta- 
tion. Not  many  were  assembled  to  see 
me  off.  I  waved  my  hand  at  the  popu- 
lace as  I  boarded  my  train.  I  sped 
away.  In  my  heart  a  lark  was  sing- 
ing. 

I  dined  with  a  gentleman  whose 
name  I  did  not  catch.  I  talked  in  the 
smoker  with  five  persons  whom  I  had 
never  before  seen.  I  slept — and,  as  al- 
ways with  me  on  trains,  it  seemed  to 
me  in  my  dreams  that  throughout  the 
night  we  rushed  through  a  mighty 
storm.  I  breakfasted  at  seven,  at  a 
table  together  with  three  gentlemen 
who  could  not  be  drawn  into  conversa- 
tion. 

It  was  about  half -past  nine  in  the 
morning :  I  became  decidedly  restless. 
Also  it  began  to  seem  to  me  that  there 
was  some  sort  of  a  bump  in  my  side, 
directly  below  my  lowest  left  rib.  I 
altered  my  position.  The  bump  was 
for  a  moment  apparently  taken  by  sur- 
prise; then  it  returned,  more  pro- 
nounced than  before.  I  shifted  my 
weight  from  side  to  side;  walked 
about,  again  sat  down.  The  bump  ex- 
panded. My  restlessness  steadily  in- 
creased— ^mounted  to  a  feverish  nerv- 
ousness. My  mind  became  centred 
upon  the  idea  of  how  long  it  would  be 
before  we  should  reach  Indianapolis 
and  I  could  get  off  that  train.  Once 
off  and  into  the  air  I  felt  that  I  should 
soon  come  around.  Half  an  hour  be- 
fore the  train  reached  the  station  I 
was  in  the  vestibule  waiting  at  the 
door. 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


403 


I  succeeded  in  holding  myself  suf- 
ficiently in  hand  to  get  the  suitcase 
checked.  I  had  no  immediate  plan 
further  than  to  escape  into  the  open 
air.  I  started  up  Illinois  Street.  I 
felt  that  I  could  retain  consciousness 
only  a  few  moments  longer — if  so 
long.  I  saw  a  dairy-lunch,  staggered 
in,  sank  upon  a  chair.  Perhaps  a  little 
rest — ^maybe  I  should  revive  suffi- 
ciently to  think  out  a  plan.  I  got  a 
passing  waiter  to  bring  me  a  cup  of 
black  coffee.  My  hand  shook  so  the 
liquid  splashed  with  burning  heat 
upon  my  legs.  I  tried  to  attract  the 
attention,  one  after  another,  of  sev- 
eral men  not  far  from  me.  One  gave 
me  a  cold  stare.  Another  nodded  and 
smiled  at  me  pleasantly,  a  third  got 
up,  apparently  with  considerable  re- 
luctance, and  came  slowly  before  me. 
As  well  as  I  could  gasp  it,  I  asked  him 
if  he  would  not  get  a  doctor  for  me. 
He  showed  what  seemed  to  me  amaz- 
ingly little  concern  for  my  situation. 
Indeed,  he  seemed  to  be  more  than  a 
little  annoyed  at  me  for  having  got 
him  in  what  he  appeared  to  regard  as 
a  troublesome  (and  an  embarrassing) 
position.  After  some  hesitation,  how- 
ever, he  did  consent  to  stroll  out  the 
door.  I  don't  know  where  he  went,  he 
was  gone  a  very  short  while — I  knew 
this  even  though  eveiy  moment  seemed 
to  me  half  an  hour.  Upon  his  return 
he  announced,  in  a  manner  which 
clearly  indicated  his  decided  relief  at 
being  so  well  out  of  such  a  nuisance 
of  a  matter,  that  "everyone  seemed 
to  be  out".  He  hastily  added  that 
there  was  a  drugstore  across  the  street 
about  half-way  down  the  block  where 
they  could  probably  fix  me  up,  and 
quickly  made  his  getaway. 

I  grew  no  better  sitting  in  that 
broad-arm  chair.  I  arose  and  tried  to 
steady  myself  on  my  cane.  Again 
(and   it   was   my   only   thought)    it 


seemed  that  I  must  fight  my  way  to 
the  open  air.  When  I  found  it,  it  em- 
braced me  like  a  cooling  bath.  Never- 
theless, tighter  than  ever  was  clutched 
my  heart  and  all  my  inner  organs,  and 
my  legs  and  hands  shook  like  leaves  in 
the  wind.  A  thought  came  to  me :  in 
the  next  block  south,  down  the  way  I 
had  come,  was  a  first-rate  hotel — I 
would  tiy  to  get  there.  Could  I  make 
it?  I  didn't  know.  I  retained  con- 
sciousness now  by  sheer  exercise  of 
will.  In  another  second,  maybe,  I 
would  fall  into  darkness,  and  as  for 
this  world,  it  would  be  with  me  as  my 
club.  The  Players,  (quoting  from 
Will)  says  on  the  obituary  cards  it 
pastes  on  its  wall:  "The  rest  is  si- 
lence." 

That  hour  which  awaits  us  all  I 
knew  had  come  to  me.  Should  I  awake 
to  continue  the  play  upon  another 
stage?  Curious  it  is:  this  thought 
was  hardly  in  my  mind  at  all.  I  am 
afraid  I  shall  seem  a  very  irreverent 
man — and  yet  when,  as  I  well  knew. 
Death  has  been  from  me  far,  I  have 
not  been  wholly  without  reverence:  I 
have  thought  much  and  with  awe  of 
the  Creator  of  all  things.  I  have  wor- 
shiped the  beauty  God  has  made  on 
this  planet;  I  have  tried  not  to  bear 
false  witness;  I  have  paid  my  debts 
(when  I  had,  or  could  get,  the  money) ; 
and  I  have  loved  my  neighbor,  and 
have  coveted  not  his  wife.  Whatever, 
however,  I  have  been,  I  am  here  a  con- 
scientious artist  weaving  a  veracious 
chronicle.  I  am  sorry  to  have  to-  say 
that  in  this  awful  hour  I  repented  not 
a  whit  of  my  sins,  which  have  been 
grievous  and  many. 

Now  there  is  a  popular  idea,  an  idea 
which  has  persisted  for  centuries,  and 
which  is  practically  universal,  that 
when  a  man  knowingly  comes  to  die, 
with  or  without  the  support  of  re- 
ligion, he  is  horribly  afraid.    Speak- 


404 


THE   BOOKMAN 


ing  for  myself  only  (but  I  do  not 
regard  myself  as  braver  than,  if  as 
brave  as,  most  men),  I  have  found  this 
idea  a  fallacy.  I  have  to  say  that  in 
this  dreadful  hour,  the  feeling  in  my 
mind  was  not  fear  but  anger. 

I  was  angered  that,  at  the  very  out- 
set, my  excursion,  the  food  for  growth 
which  in  my  roving  commission  I 
should  have  reaped  from  further 
knowledge  of  the  ways  of  men,  was 
to  be  snatched  from  me;  and  in  the 
back  of  my  head  was  the  strange 
thought:  a  deuce  of  a  character  they 
will  think  you,  back  at  The  Bookman 
office,  to  go  and  die  on  the  first  leg  of 
your  business  journey.  All  this  which 
I  have  told  at  length,  of  course,  flashed 
through  my  mind  in  seconds.  To  the 
end  I  was  quite  resigned.  My  deter- 
mination to  die  under  a  roof,  I  think 
it  was  that  kept  me  up.  My  mind  was 
gone,  almost;  and  my  knees  smote  one 
against  the  other;  but  I  was  nearly 
within  reach  of  the  entrance  to  the 
hotel. 

Now  there  is  a  very  beautiful  ceme- 
tery in  this  city  where  I  was  bom.  In  my 
boyhood  it  was  one  of  the  show  places 
of  the  town.  It  is  called  Crown  Hill. 
And  there  are  gathered  the  bones  of 
my  fathers.  I  was  further  enraged. 
As  I  stumbled  along  I  observed  a 
string  of  street-cars  passing.  My  im- 
pulse was  to  fire  my  stick  through  a 
window  of  one  of  them.  They  were, 
all  of  them,  labeled  "Crown  Hill". 
This,  I  said  to  myself,  is  a  devil  of  a 

way  to  say  to  one,  Welcome  Home ! 
«  «  «  « 

This  hotel  bears  the  beautiful  name 
of  an  English  river — ^though  I  believe 
it  was  named  after  an  old  family  here. 

In  the  lobby  I  sank  into  a  chair  with 
a  tall  back  and  upholstered  in  some 
rich  stuff  resembling  a  tapestry,  and 
of  a  bell-boy  nearby  I  demanded  the 
house  physician.    It  seemed  to  me  a 


lifetime  but  it  was  probably  only  a  few 
minutes,  before  the  doctor  arrived  at 
my  side.  He  was  a  large,  portly  man, 
with  a  hearty,  corn-belt  manner.  I 
struggled  to  my  feet,  swayed  and  tot- 
tered, and  the  pressure  on  my  innards 
was  terrific.  He  said :  "I  can't  exam- 
ine you  here,  we  must  go  upstairs. 
Have  you  a  room?"  I  replied  that  I 
had  not,  but  that  I  was  most  eager  to 
obtain  one.  Then  ensued  a  wrangle  of 
several  minutes  between  the  clerk,  the 
doctor,  and  myself.  Owing  to  the  vio- 
lent shaking  of  my  hands,  I  could  no 
more  register  than  I  could  have  flown 
out  of  the  door,  risen  in  the  air,  with- 
out airplane  or  angel's  wings,  and  cir- 
cled round  the  very  tall  shaft  of  the 
"monument"  which  they  have  here — 
that  is,  the  imposing  monument 
erected  to  the  memory  of  the  Indiana 
Soldiers  and  Sailors  of  the  Civil  War, 
which  stands  at  the  heart  of  the  city 
in  the  centre  of  the  "circle",  a  ring- 
around  affair  which  in  London  would 
be  called  a  "circus",  as  Piccadilly  Cir- 
cus. The  clerk  was  strongly  averse  to 
putting  to  bed  in  this  hotel  a  man  who 
was  not,  in  the  police  term,  on  the 
blotter.  Finally,  I  got  him  with  an 
upper-cut :  I  told  him,  in  weird  gasps, 
that  it  would  be  better  for  the  busi- 
ness interests  of  the  house  if  I  should 
die  obscurely  upstairs  in  bed  than  if  I 
should  die  publicly  here  before  the 
desk  in  the  lobby.  The  doctor  was 
permitted  to  register  for  me. 

He  half  carried  me  up  (my  feet 
shuffled  along  the  floor) ;  I  fell  on  the 
bed  and  he  undressed  me.  I  asked 
him  (with  an  unconcern  in  his  pro- 
nouncement which,  looking  back,  now 
decidedly  amazes  me)  if  this  seizure 
or  whatever  it  was,  was  fatal.  He  re- 
plied, in  a  very  kindly  voice,  that  he 
"hoped  not".  He  denied  my  declara- 
tion that  there  was  within  me  a  huge 
bump  at  the  point  of  my  lowest  left 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


405 


rib.  I  asked  him  then  if  he  would 
please  explain  to  me  why  I  felt,  with 
severe  intensity,  a  huge  bump  there; 
why  my  heart  had  gone  on  a  jam- 
boree ;  why  I  couldn't  get  my  breath ; 
was  a  spectacular  wreck  generally, 
and  couldn't  live  more  than  a  few  mo- 
ments longer. 

He  said  that  what  I  had  was  acute 
indigestion,  gastritis,  or  something 
like  that;  that  further,  though  such 
attacks  occasionally  proved  fatal,  he 
thought  I  had  passed,  or  would  soon 
pass,  the  crisis  of  mine.  I  was  given 
drugs  and  ordered  to  stay  in  bed  until 
the  next  day,  when  this  large  gentle- 
man of  the  hearty,  corn-belt  manner 
thought  I  should  be  all  right  again. 
He  said  he  would  be  within  call 
throughout  the  day,  by  the  telephone 
at  my  bed,  and  after  a  settlement  of 
our  account,  he  withdrew  from  my 
presence,  forever.  I  liked  the  man; 
he  was  a  genuine  home-grown  melon, 
with  the  real  juice  all  there;  and  his 
society  was  the  first  thing  I  had  met 
since  my  arrival  in  my  native  city 
which  restored  in  me  anything  like  re- 
gard for  Indiana. 

After  several  hours  in  bed  I  got  up, 
dressed  and  cautiously  tried  out  walk- 
ing slowly  up  and  down  the  room. 
It  wasn't  easy  going,  but  still  noth- 
ing alarming  happened. ...  In  the 
morning  I  unlocked  my  door  and 
made  my  way  to  the  elevator.  I  pro- 
gressed along  the  lobby  without  dis- 
aster, and  leaving  the  hotel  moved  up 
the  street  at  the  rate  of  an  ill-pre- 
served man  of  ninety.  At  Washington 
Street,  I  came  to  another  good  hotel, 
where  I  entered  the  barber  shop  for  a 
much-needed  shave.  There  is,  of 
course,  that  old  story — which  reflects 
the  sentiments  of  many— of  the  gen- 
tleman who,  when  asked  by  the  barber 
how  he  would  have  his  hair  cut,  thun- 
dered, "In  silence".  That  attitude 
toward  barbers,  however,  has  never 


been  my  notion.  Barbers  have  always 
been  newspapers,  of  an  excellent  kind ; 
and  since  their  greatest  rival  in  this 
role,  the  bartender,  has  gone  out,  a 
man,  I  think,  owes  it  to  himself  to  cul- 
tivate the  conversation  of  barbers  as 
much  as  possible. 

So,  to  put  the  barber  in  a  communi- 
cative frame  of  mind,  I  told  him  the 
story  of  my  death  and  resurrection. 
This  interested  him  greatly.  He  told 
me  in  turn  how  sick  he  himself  had 
been  a  year  ago;  what  an  unhealthy 
winter  they  had  just  had  in  Indian- 
apolis; and,  drifting  off  from  this 
subject,  he  took  up  a  discussion  of 
politics,  and  gave  me  a  general  view 
of  the  local  situation — from  his  point 
of  view.  Indeed,  before  I  was  shaved 
and  massaged  and  shampooed,  I  knew 
more  about  recent  local  conditions 
than  I  should  have  known  had  I  been 
reading  the  home  papers  for  the  past 
month.  I  had  noticed  that  the  bar- 
room at  the  hotel  where  I  was  stop- 
ping, and  the  bar-room  in  this  hotel, 
had  been  converted  into  bright  little 
affairs  labeled  "Coffee  Shops".  I  com- 
mented on  this  fact  to  the  barber. 
Yes,  he  said,  there  was  nothing  doing 
in  the  way  of  "saloons"  in  Indianapolis 
any  more.  But,  he  added,  "the  boot- 
leggers were  so  thick  they  had  to  wear 
badges  to  keep  from  tiying  to  sell  the 
stuff  to  each  other."  Never,  my 
friend,  neglect  the  highly  valuable  con- 
versation of  barbers. 

I  was  but  a  short  way,  as  I  remem- 
bered it,  from  the  ofiice  of  Meredith 
Nicholson;  so  I  thought  that,  exercis- 
ing extreme  caution  in  my  movements, 
I  would  try  to  get  there.  The  things 
which  bothered  me  most  were  the 
street-cars  and  motor-cars:  I  could 
not  well  hurry  in  front  of  one,  and  I 
had  a  distaste  to  collapsing  there. 
However,  I  made  the  building  in 
safety.  There  I  ran  up  against  a  snag. 
This  was  occasioned  by  the  secrecy 


406 


THE   BOOKMAN 


which  Mr.  Nicholson,  in  common  ap- 
parently with  all  other  Indianapolis 
writers,  maintains  about  the  place 
where  he  does  his  writing.  His  name 
is  not  on  the  hall-directory  of  the  bank 
building  where  he  works.  I  knew 
from  former  experience  that  it  was 
not  on  the  door  of  his  office.  The  ele- 
vator "starter"  and  the  elevator  men 
are  so  well  "fixed"  that  they  know  him 
not. 

The  "starter"  suggested  that  I 
might  telephone  him.  But  how  was  I 
to  telephone  him  when  he  has  no  num- 
ber given  in  the  book?  So  I  decided 
to  make  a  try,  as  best  I  could  from 
my  rather  dim  recollection  of  the  loca- 
tion of  his  room.  My  guess,  luckily, 
came  down  heads  the  first  throw. 

I  gave  the  mystic  rap,  which  I  re- 
called. Tall  and  straight,  square- 
shouldered  and  solidly  made,  chest 
held  well  forward,  head  held  firmly 
back,  countenance  sculptured  some- 
what in  the  large  mold  of  the  bust  of 
a  Roman  emperor,  much  dignity  (I 
suspect  unconscious),  much  quiet  self- 
possession,  much  courtesy  (in  which 
are  blended  naturalness  and  formal- 
ity), much  kindliness  of  heart  appar- 
ent, and  much  (subdued)  native 
friendliness  toward  mankind,  modest- 
ly, but  quite  correctly,  dressed  in  dark 
colors — Nick ! 

Replying  to  my  conmfient  on  the  dif- 
ficulties of  finding  him,  he  remarked 
that  the  other  day  he  heard  that  a 
man  had  been  offering  five  dollars  for 
his  office  address — ^though,  he  added, 
he  believed  everybody  in  town  knew 
where  he  was.  Said  he  had  been  ex- 
pecting someone.  Knock  at  the  door: 
reporter.  A  statement  sought  on  the 
local  political  situation.  Given.  "Don't 
quote  me",  said  Nick. 

Telephone  rang:  something  about 
some  motion-picture  stuff  he  was  do- 
ing. As  to  the  pictures :  what  a  pos- 
sibility  they   presented!      And   how 


rawly  they  have  been  developed  as  yet ! 
Suppose  Homer  ("whether  he  was  a 
man  or  a  syndicate")  had  worked  for 
"the  screen",  and  had  been  able  to  pro- 
duce his  tale  as  he  wanted  it,  what  a 
tremendous  live  thing  today  would  be 
"the  greatest  dime  novel  ever  written" 
— ^the  Odyssey!  And  Milton,  if  he 
had  created  "Paradise  Lost"  as  a 
"movie"!  Rather  stunning  notions,  I 
felt. 

But,  of  course,  we  should  not,  then, 
have  these  things  as  the  great  monu- 
ments, that  they  are,  of  literature. 
Indeed,  he  seemed  to  be  rather  on  the 
fence  in  regard  to,  so  to  say,  these  two 
forms  of  art — "movies"  and  letters; 
and  deplored,  wagging  his  head,  the 
passing  of  "reading  times",  when  our 
fathers  and  our  mothers  used  to  sit  at 
home  in  the  evenings  and  read  Dick- 
ens and  Hawthorne  and  Thackeray, 
"aloud  to  one  another". 

As  I  was  suffering  all  this  while  a 
good  deal  inside,  came  up  the  subject 
of  my  dramatic  arrival  in  town.  Nich- 
olson was  decidedly  more  exercised 
about  the  matter  than  I  had  been  at 
any  time  throughout  it,  in  fact,  con- 
siderably excited.  Why  hadn't  I  let 
him  know?  Any  time  of  the  day  or 
night!  And  where  was  it  I  was? 
Why,  man  that  owned  that  place  was 
a  great  friend  of  his.  Immediately 
got  him  on  the  wire.  Gave  him  what 
is  commonly  called  "a  talking  to". 
Told  him,  with  much  vigor,  a  lot  of 
guff:  that  I  (yes,  your  own  Murray 
Hill)  was  "America's  leading  essay- 
ist", and  was  "conferring  a  great  dis- 
tinction" on  his  place  by  "condescend- 
ing to  stop  there".  Couldn't  have  any 
common,  ordinary,  hotel  physician. 
Must  have  everything  best  in  the 
house.  Or,  well,  the  country  would 
rise  up  against  him,  or  something  like 
that.  Scared  the  poor  chap,  I  guess, 
into  believing  all  this  was  so. 

And  now  we  must  get  the  best  ad- 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


407 


vice  obtainable  on  this  matter.  So 
round  we  would  go  to  Dr.  Carleton  B. 
McCulloch.  Now,  this  Dr.  McCuUoch 
may  be  known  as  any  one  of  a  number 
of  highly  distinguished  things.  He 
may  be  known  as  a  physician  to  the 
literati  of  Indiana:  he  was  Riley's 
physician,  and  he  has  long  ''doctored" 
Nicholson  and  Tarkington.  He  may 
be  known  as  Lieutenant-Colonel  Mc- 
Culloch, who  six  weeks  after  war  was 
declared  between  the  United  States 
and  Germany  abandoned  the  ''largest 
practice  in  Indianapolis"  (according 
to  Tarkington)  to  enlist  as  a  captain, 
and  who  after  eighteen  months  of 
service  in  France  was  decorated  by 
the  French  government  with  the  Croix 
de  Guerre  for  evacuating  a  hospital 
under  fire.  Or  as  so  charming  and 
witty  a  gentleman  that  Hugh  Walpole 
declared  him  to  be  "the  most  interest- 
ing man"  he  had  met  in  America.  Or 
(at  the  present  writing)  as  a  candi- 
date for  the  Democratic  nomination 
for  Governor  of  Indiana. 

Now,  I  have  always  been  exceed- 
ingly reluctant  to  butt  in  on  the  sol- 
emn concerns  of  statesmen  to  tell  them 
that  I  was  not  feeling  very  well.  But 
Nick  dragged  me  along.  On  the  way, 
I  learned  that  at  about  the  time  he 
wrote  his  first  novel,  he  had  suffered 
a  seizure  very  similar  to  mine,  then 
had  (as  he  believed)  chummed  with 
the  Reaper  for  a  number  of  years,  but 
as  these  had  now  grown  to  be  twenty 
or  more,  and  he  had  not  died  yet,  he 
had  become  rather  accustomed  to  the 
situation,  and  did  not  mind  it  much 
any  more.  He  declared,  however,  that 
I  had  him  all  wrong  (in  an  account  of 
him  I  one  time  wrote),  as  a  gentleman 
as  cool  (as  we  say)  as  a  cucumber.  He 
was  really  very  nervous,  excitable,  im- 
pulsive, passionate,  and  I  know  not 
what  other  highly  explosive  things, 
and  the  effect  that  I  had  described  was 
merely  his  "front". 


I  think  there  used  to  be  there  on  one 
door  a  neat  inscription  stating  that 
this  was  the  office  of  Dr.  McCulloch. 
Now  on  a  long  transom  extending 
across  two  rooms  was  painted  in  large 
"caps",  "McCulloch  Campaign  Head- 
quarters". And  the  apartments  within 
were  a  scene  of  resounding  activity. 

Dr.  McCulloch  bumped  into  us  amid 
the  throng;  Mr.  Nicholson  stated  the 
case;  I  endeavored  to  excuse  myself 
from  interrupting  the  candidate;  and 
he  declared  that  in  a  matter  of  such 
momentous  concern  to  literature  as 
this,  "the  affairs  of  state  would  have 
to  wait". 

They  did  not,  however,  wait  long. 
Dr.  McCulloch  looked  into  me  with  a 
periscope,  which  he  borrowed  from  a 
physician  hard  by,  and  who  is  to  take 
over  his  practice  in  the  event  of  his 
election;  dashed  into  the  next  room 
for  a  hand  in  the  conference  there; 
dashed  out  again  with  a  prescription 
in  his  hand,  and  the  counsel  that 
"there  is  no  need  for  worry",  and  dis- 
appeared again  in  the  hum. 


At  my  hotel  I  found  awaiting  me  a 
letter  from  the  proprietor,  a  hearty 
young  gentleman,  hereinafter  to  be 
called  Mr.  Gates — 'tis  an  excellent 
name,  and  will  do  as  well  as  another. 
He  said  that  he  was  somewhat  of  a 
man  of  letters  himself,  having  "read 
an  essay  once.  It  was,"  he  continued, 
"one  of  Nick's  own,  and  very  good,  I 
remember — ^all  about  Mr.  Smith  and 
why  he  went  to  church."  And  he 
(Mr.  Gates)  would  present  himself  at 
the  first  opportunity. 

The  next  day,  at  luncheon  with  him 
and  Mr.  Nicholson,  I  began  my  studies 
into  the  life  of  a  proprietor  of  a  first- 
class  city  hotel.  It's  an  interesting 
field  of  investigation,  which  I  am  re- 
solved to  pursue  at  other  stages  in  my 
travels.    The  stealing  that  goes  on  by 


408 


THE   BOOKMAN 


guests  of  hotels,  apparently,  is  fre- 
quently quite  picturesque. 

Know  that  at  this  hotel,  in  the  "Blue 
Room" — the  most  elaborate  dining- 
room,  very  prettily  decorated — ^live 
six  small,  pale  yellow  canaries.  In  six 
enormous  yellow  cages  (each  on  a  tall 
stem)  they  live,  which,  placed  (each 
cage  between  two  tables)  three  on  a 
side  of  the  aisle,  make  a  noble  avenue 
down  the  middle  of  the  room.  Well 
(so  much  for  the  setting),  this  is  the 
story:  one  day  one  of  the  canaries 
was  stolen — sprang  out  of  its  cage  in 
the  dining-room. 

And  another  day,  out  of  this  same 
dining-room,  was  stolen  a  silver  plate, 
forty-two  inches  in  diameter.  Man 
stuck  it  under  his  coat.  Very  tall, 
colored  waiter  (at  our  table  now)  ran 
out  and  after  him.  Plate  recovered. 
The  number  of  ashtrays,  towels, 
sheets,  etc.,  stolen  in  one  year  from 
such  a  hotel  as  this,  I  am  told,  passes 
calculation. 

But  the  most  entertaining  theft  of 
all  of  which  I  heard  was  this:  some 
passing  pilgrim  stole  the  mattress  on 
his  bed.  Had  moved  in  an  empty 
trunk,  or  one  nearly  so,  apparently 
having  this  novel  idea  in  mind.  (A 
box  of  springs  on  the  bed,  clothed  in 
bed  covers,  would  give  nearly  the  ef- 
fect of  the  mattress  being  there.) 
"And  so",  exclaimed  Mr.  Gates,  "he 
got  my  own  help  to  steal  my  own  stuff 
for  him — to  get  his  trunks  down  I" 

But  I  have  overlooked  a  matter — 
you  will  find  many  things  somewhat 
out  of  their  natural  order  in  this  His- 
tory of  the  Life  and  Times  of  Murray 
Hill. 

The  day  before,  on  my  return  to  my 
quarters,  I  found  the  publicity  man  of 
my  hotel  on  the  lookout  for  me.  "Now 
we  must  get,"  he  said,  as  we  began 
work  on  the  interview  with  the  dis- 
tinguished guest  for  the  local  morning 
papers,  "the  name  of  the  hotel  well  up 


at  the  top."  Then  he  dropped  away 
into  reminiscences  of  his  career,  for 
which  I  am  highly  grateful. 

"Several  years  ago",  he  said,  "short- 
ly after  the  hotel  opened,  there  was  a 
circus  coming  to  town,  and  the  people 
were  going  to  put  up  here.  I  saw  a 
chance  for  a  big  story.  And  they 
agreed  to  send  on  in  advance  a  baby 
camel,  for  exhibition  in  the  lobby. 
Well,  when  the  camel  got  here,  there 
wasn't  much  of  the  baby  about  him; 
he  was  the  biggest  camel  I  ever  did 
see,  and  there  was  no  way  at  all  of 
getting  him  through  the  door.  So  we 
marched  him  around  outside,  followed 
by  a  pretty  good-sized  gallery. 

"But",  he  said,  and  indignation  was 
with  him  still,  "when  the  papers  print- 
ed the  story,  they  got  the  camel  in  all 
right,  without  any  mention  at  all  of 
the  name  of  either  the  hotel  or  the 
circus!  And  where  did  I  get  off  as  a 
publicity  man!" 

This  time,  however,  we  got  across  in 
the  morning  papers,  the  name  of  the 
hotel,  as  well  as  an  account  of  the 
camel. 

And  directly  after  breakfast  up 
turns  a  man  from  an  evening  paper. 
Now,  I  had  never  seen  this  young  man 
before  in  my  life.  He  had  never  be- 
fore seen  me.  Nor  had  I  ever  even 
heard  of  him.  Well,  then,  as  sprightly 
ladies  who  write  vivacious  reminis- 
cences of  literary  life  say,  "judge  of 
my  astonishment"  when,  at  the  con- 
clusion of  our  interview,  he  took  from 
his  pocket  and  presented  to  me  a  faded 
daguerreotype  of  a  figure  in  the  uni- 
form of  an  officer  in  the  Union  Army 
of  the  Civil  War.  The  face  had  a  re- 
markably familiar  look.  "Turn  it 
over,"  said  the  young  man.  And,  on 
the  back  of  the  card  I  saw  written  in 
pencil  the  name,  Will  Hill.  "I  think," 
said  the  young  man,  "this  is  a  photo- 
graph of  your  father.  It  was  found 
in  the  old  home  of  my  family  a  few 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


409 


days  before  you  came  to  town.  Per- 
haps you  would  care  to  have  it."  Now, 
my  father's  name  was  Wilbur;  but 
those  who  knew  him  when  he  was 
young  (and  I  was  about  to  say  hand- 
some, but  he  was  that  to  the  last), 
and  at  the  time  of,  as  Riley  says,  'the 
army",  always  called  him  Will.  And  I 
have  no  doubt  that,  in  this  strange 
way,  has  come  into  my  hands  an  au- 
thentic portrait  of  him,  which  I  knew 
not  existed.  (Mr.  Nicholson  claims 
the  exclusive  rights  to  the  use  in  fic- 
tion of  this  story.) 

Nick  stood  the  check  for  the  lunch- 
eon. He  has  a  humorous  trick,  it  ap- 
pears, for  the  education  of  the  wait- 
ers and  the  cashier  here.  After  his 
signature,  he  writes  on  each  meal 
check  a  line  or  so  of  quotation  from 
the  poets.    Today  this  was : 

The  hounds  of  Spring  are  on  Winter's  traces. 

To  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gates  it  was  that 
he  dedicated  a  novel  of  his  called 
"Lady  Larkspur".  In  acknowledgment 
of  this  Mrs.  Gates  sent  him  a  hand- 
some silver  plate,  together  with  a  large 
sheaf  of  larkspur,  which  she  had  taken 
considerable  trouble  to  procure.  Nick 
didn't  know  larkspur  from  a  goat. 
Said  to  Mrs.  Nicholson :  "Put  the  fine 
plate  away,  throw  the  weeds  into  the 

back  yard." 

♦  *  ♦  * 

All  this  time,  you  know,  I  was 
merely  crawling  about,  and  scared  of 
every  step;  for  notwithstanding  Dr. 
McCuUoch's  assurances  there  con- 
tinued to  be  something  dreadfully 
wrong  with  my  inner  machinery.  It 
was  the  next  day,  on  the  street,  when, 
suddenly,  I  became  conscious  that  I 
was  much  better.  Distress  of  mind, 
at  any  rate,  had  mysteriously  quite 
left  me.  I  felt  again  something  of  the 
thrill  of  living.  How  had  this  come 
about?    And  so  quickly! 


An  instant — and  it  suddenly  was 
made  clear  to  me.  I  knew  I  should  not 
die — for  quite  a  while  yet.  I  discov- 
ered that  I  had  regained  possession 
of  a  great  gift;  I  was  viewing  with 
the  pleasure  of  admiration  the  spec- 
tacle of  numbers  of  charming-looking 
women  passing  to  and  fro. 

And  so,  with  a  step  sturdier  than  for 
a  number  of  days,  I  proceeded  (Mr. 
Nicholson  having  once  again  given  me 
a  guest  card  there)  to  the  University 
Club  of  Indiana,  which,  as  one  of  the 
pleasantest  clubs  in  the  land,  I  have 
so  well  described  elsewhere. 

There  is  as  hall-boy  there  a  young 
Japanese.  He  received  my  hat  and 
coat,  erect  and  silent,  with  completely 
disinterested  courtesy,  and  with  that 
absolute  immobility  of  countenance 
which  perhaps  only  a  Jap  can  attain. 
I  had  been  for  a  little  while  writing 
some  letters  in  a  room  to  one  side, 
when  I  heard  Booth  Tarkington's 
hoarse  voice  booming  out  in  the  hall. 
I  hopped  up  and  went  to  meet  him. 
He  greeted  me  in  the  cordial  Tarking- 
ton  way.  Wearing  a  black  derby,  a 
dark  overcoat,  and  his  stick,  he  pre- 
sented a  decidedly  gentlemanly  effect. 
For  several  moments  we  talked.  Then 
he  went  downstairs,  or  upstairs,  or 
somewhere;  and  I  returned  to  my 
writing. 

When  I  was  ready  to  go,  the  Jap  boy 
appeared,  strangely  changed.  His 
beads  of  black  eyes  beamed  upon  me 
approval.  When  he  had  got  me  into 
my  overcoat  and  had  handed  me  my 
hat,  he  bowed  very  low,  very  low,  and 
(like  a  fiunky  on  the  stage)  extending 
toward  me  with  outstretched  arm  my 
stick,  he  pronounced  (the  rascal  must 
have  looked  up  my  name),  with  the 
deference  of  veneration,  these  words: 
"Mr.  Hill". 

MURRAY  HILL 


TWO  NOISY  ROMAN  SCHOOLMASTERS 


BY  JOSEPH  COLLINS 


THE  most  diverting  and  conspicu- 
ous figures  in  the  literary  world 
of  Italy  today  are  two  old  schoolteach- 
ers of  Rome — Alfredo  Panzini,  hu- 
manist, and  Luigi  Pirandello,  satirist. 
Both  of  them  have  earned  a  perma- 
nent fame  and  their  fecundity  seems 
to  be  increasing  with  age. 

Alfredo  Panzini,  a  pedagogue  by 
profession,  is  a  writer  by  dint  of  long 
training.  Bom  in  Sengaglia,  a  small 
town  in  the  Province  of  the  Marches, 
in  1863,  he  called  Garducci  master. 
After  serving  a  long  literary  appren- 
ticeship compiling  grammars,  readers, 
dictionaries,  and  anthologies,  his  name 
began  to  appear  in  magazines;  and 
gradually  he  has  forged  his  way  to  the 
front  rank  as  an  episodist,  an  inter- 
preter of  the  feelings  and  sentiments 
of  the  average  man  and  woman  and 
their  spokesman,  and  as  a  master  of 
prose. 

In  appearance  he  is  a  typical  lower 
middle-class  Italian,  short,  stout,  and 
ruddy ;  a  kindly  benevolent  face,  with 
contented  eyes  that  look  at  you  in- 
quiringly from  behind  gold-rimmed 
spectacles.  One  might  gather  from 
looking  at  him  that  he  had  asked  but 
little  from  the  world,  and  got  more 
than  he  had  asked. 

His  writings  display  an  intimate  fa- 
miliarity with  a  few  classic  writers, 
especially  of  Greece  and  Italy,  which 
he  reveals  by  frequent  and  appropri- 


ate quotations  and  references,  con- 
trasting the  sayings  and  doings  of  the 
venerated  ancients  with  those  of  the 
not  always  deprecated  modem.  He 
knows  the  emotional  desires  and  re- 
actions of  the  average  man ;  he  senses 
his  aspirations  and  his  appeasements ; 
he  has  keen  understanding  of  his  vir- 
tues and  his  infirmities.  He  knows 
his  potential  and  actual  pleasures  and 
he  reveals  this  understanding  of  his 
fellows  to  us  in  a  diverting  and  in- 
structive way;  at  the  same  time  he 
shows  us  idealistic  vistas  of  life  and 
conduct  that  are  most  refreshing.  It 
is  to  be  regretted  that  he  is  not  equally 
enlightened  about  women.  If  he  knows 
their  aspirations  he  denies  the  legit- 
imacy of  these  aspirations ;  if  he  dis- 
cerns their  future  he  refuses  to  fore- 
cast it;  if  he  knows  feminine  psy- 
chology his  writings  do  not  reveal  it. 
He  is  the  traveler  ascending  from  the 
plains  whose  pleasure  is  in  looking 
backward  to  survey  the  paths  over 
which  he  has  traveled,  to  describe  the 
beauty  of  the  country  and  its  associa- 
tions and  to  moralize  about  them.  Ele- 
vations in  front  of  him  from  which 
one  may  legitimately  anticipate  more 
comprehensive  vistas  he  refuses  to 
consider,  or  if  constrained  to  do  so,  he 
denies  that  what  shall  be  seen  from 
them  will  compare  with  what  he  sees 
and  has  seen. 

His  two  most  successful  and  com- 


410 


TWO  NOISY  ROMAN  SCHOOLMASTERS 


411 


mendable  books  are  "La  Lantema  di 
Diogene"  (Diogenes's  Lantern),  and 
"Xantippe".  The  first  is  a  narrative 
of  sentimental  wandering  in  which  he 
describes  the  commonplace  world  and 
the  homely  c(»ifiict  of  those  whom  he 
encounters,  and  in  which  he  displays 
not  only  tolerance  but  love  of  his  fel- 
low men.  He  is  sometimes  playful, 
more  often  ironical,  but  never  dispar- 
aging or  vituperative,  and  his  prose  is 
clear,  limpid,  sometimes  indeed  spark- 
ling. 

His  ''Xantippe"  does  not  deal  par- 
ticularly with  the  virtues  or  infirmi- 
ties of  that  renowned  shrew.  It  re- 
counts many  incidents  in  the  life,  trial, 
and  incarceration  of  Socrates  which, 
while  still  redounding  to  his  fame,  are 
made  to  show  by  contrast  with  man's 
conduct  and  customs  today  the  weak- 
nesses, inconsistencies,  and  fallacies 
of  many  conventions  of  the  twentieth 
century. 

"II  Viaggio  di  un  Povero  Letterato" 
(The  Wanderings  of  a  Poor  Writer) 
shows  the  same  simple-minded,  charm- 
ing vagabondage  as  "Diogenes's  Lan- 
tern". It  was  published  in  1912  and 
many  readers  did  not  share  his  dis- 
trust of  Germany  or  hold  with  him  in 
his  forecasts.  Many  of  his  statements 
are  today  prophesies  fulfilled. 

It  is  not  an  imaginary  man  of  let- 
ters who  starts  on  a  trip  in  obedience 
to  a  doctor's  orders.  It  is  Alfredo 
Panzini  exhausted  from  many  labors. 
He  goes  wherever  his  fancy  takes  him 
— to  Vicenza,  Bologna,  Pisa,  Venice 
— and  it  is  with  the  literary  memories 
of  these  places  that  he  is  chiefly  con- 
cerned. At  Pisa  it  is  Leopardi,  Shel- 
ley, and  Byron;  at  Vicenza,  Fogaz- 
zaro;  but  at  Bologna  the  memories 
become  more  personal.  Here  he  sat  at 
the  feet  of  Carducci  and  learned  to 
love  and  respect  him;  here  his  bud- 
ding fancies  first  showed  indications 


of  blooming;  here  he  first  essaye4 
amatory  flights.  He  chances  upon  an 
old  flame  of  his  student  days  leading 
the  old  life  in  the  old  home,  except 
that  she  has  taken  to  writing  poems 
and  insists  on  having  his  opinion  of 
them.  His  account  of  how  he  suc- 
ceeded in  meeting  her  wishes  and  still 
maintained  his  self-respect  is  a  mas- 
terpiece of  ingenuousness.  The  least 
thing  suffices  to  start  a  train  of 
thought  and  reflection  or  to  decide  his 
next  tarrying  place.  The  volume  ends 
with  an  interesting  account  of  a  visit 
to  the  birthplace  of  Pascoli,  the  social- 
ist and  idealist  poet  of  the  Romagna. 

In  his  "Piccole  Storie  del  Mondo 
Grande"  he  describes  a  pilgrimage  to 
the  country  of  Leopardi,  and  to  Um- 
bria.  It  is  filled  with  little  anecdotes 
of  literary  immortals  who  wandered 
there  and  of  references  that  are  more 
significant  to  Italians  than  to  for- 
eigners; through  it  all  there  is  a 
strange,  melancholy  humor  which  is 
quite  characteristic  of  Panzini. 

The  two  novels  which  he  has  written 
show  that  he  has  the  art  of  the  story- 
teller in  narration,  sequence,  and  con- 
structiveness  but  the  stories  lack  what 
the  dramatists  call  action.  This  is 
particularly  true  of  "lo  Cerco  Moglie" 
(I  Seek  a  Wife). 

Signore  Panzini  is  not  what  is  called 
a  Feminist  fan;  and  he  utilizes  Gi- 
netto  Sconer,  who  is  seeking  the  ideal 
mate,  as  a  mouthpiece  for  his  own 
convictions  and  sentiments  concerning 
women.  Italy  is  likely  to  be  one  of  the 
last  countries  that  will  yield  woman 
the  freedom  for  emotional  and  intel- 
lectual development  to  which  she  is 
entitled;  and  when  it  comes,  as  it  is 
bound  to  do,  it  will  be  despite  the 
kindly  and  sentimental  protests  and 
ironies  of  oppositionists  such  as  Pan- 
zini. 

"La  Madonna  di  Mamma"  (The  Ma- 


412 


THE   BOOKMAN 


donna  of  Mama)  is,  in  addition  to  a 
splendid  character  study,  a  revelation 
of  the  disturbance  caused  in  a  gentle 
and  meditative  soul,  his  own,  by  the 
war.  For  in  reality,  like  so  many 
Italian  writers,  Panzini  is  autobio- 
graphical in  everything  that  he  writes. 
In  this  book  he  has  shown  more  in- 
sight into  feminine  psychology  than 
in  any  of  his  other  writings;  though 
he  is  more  successful  with  Donna  Bar- 
berina,  who  represents  modem  Italian 
emotional  repressions,  than  with  the 
English  governess  Miss  Edith,  who 
forecasts  in  a  timid  way  what  her 
countrywomen  have  obtained.  Never- 
theless the  strength  of  the  story  is  the 
evolution  of  the  moral  and  intellectual 
nature  of  Aquilino,  to  whom  the  reader 
is  partial  from  the  first  page,  and  of 
Count  Hippolyte  who  is  "too  good  to 
be  true".  Aquilino  is  what  Alfredo 
Panzini  would  have  been  had  he  en- 
countered Conte  Ippolito  in  his  early 
youth.  The  reader  who  makes  his  ac- 
quaintance identifies  him  with  the  fu- 
ture glory  of  Italy — ^the  youth  who 
has  no  facilitation  to  success  save 
ideals  and  integrity. 

Many  of  his  short  stories  such  as 
"Novelle  di  Ambi  Sessi"  (Stories  of 
Both  Sexes)  and  "Le  Chicche  di  Ne- 
retta"  (The  Gewgaws  of  Little  Nora) 
have  elicited  great  praise.  Today  Pan- 
zini has  the  reputation  of  being  one 
of  the  most  gifted  writers  of  Italy. 
He  has  come  to  his  patrimony  very 
slowly.  Without  being  in  the  smallest 
way  like  George  Meredith  or  Henry 
James,  his  writings  have  experienced 
a  reception  similar  to  theirs  in  so  far 
as  it  has  been  said  of  them  that  they 
are  hard  to  understand.  It  is  difficult 
for  a  foreigner  to  give  weight  to  this 
accusation.  The  reader  who  once  gets 
a  familiarity  with  them  becomes  an 
enthusiast.  To  him  Panzini  is  one  of 
the    most    readable    of    all    Italian 


writers.  To  be  sure,  if  one  reads 
"Xantippe"  it  is  to  be  expected  that 
more  or  less  will  be  said  about  Soc- 
rates and  about  the  customs  and  habits 
of  Athens  of  that  day.  The  same  is 
true  of  "Diogenes's  Lantern".  It  is 
also  likely  that  when  a  man  of  literary 
training  and  taste  wanders  about  the 
country  writing  of  his  encounters,  he 
will  be  likely  to  write  of  people  and 
things  which  when  others  read  them 
will  presuppose  a  certain  culture;  but 
the  reader  who  has  the  misfortune  to 
lack  it  need  not  hesitate  to  read  the 
books  of  Panzini.  He  will  have  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  it  after  he  has  read 
them,  and  he  will  get  possessed  of  it 
without  effort.  It  is  not  at  all  un- 
likely that  Panzini  writes  his  stories 
and  novels  in  much  the  same  way 
that  he  writes  his  dictionaries — 
namely,  laboriously.  His  later  writ- 
ings have  some  indication  of  hav- 
ing been  thrown  off  in  a  white  heat 
of  creative  passion  without  prepara- 
tion or  conscious  premeditation;  but 
most  of  his  books  bear  the  hallmarks 
of  careful  planning,  methodical  execu- 
tion, painstaking  revision — and  care- 
ful survey  after  completion,  that  the 
writer  may  be  sure  that  his  creation 
exposed  to  the  gaze  and  criticism  of 
his  fellow  beings  shall  be  as  perfect  as 
he  can  make  it,  both  from  his  own 
knowledge  and  from  the  knowledge  of 
others  that  has  been  assimilated  by  him. 
The  position  which  Panzini  holds  in 
the  Italian  world  of  letters  today  is 
the  index  of  the  protest  against  the 
writings  of  D'Annunzio.  Panzini  is 
sane,  normal,  human,  gentle,  kindly. 
He  sees  the  facts  of  life  as  they  are; 
he  fears  the  ascendency  of  material- 
ism; his  hopes  are  that  man's  evolu- 
tionary progress  shall  be  spiritual, 
and  he  does  not  anticipate  the  advent 
of  a  few  supermen  who  shall  admin- 
ister the  affairs  of  the  planet. 


TWO  NOISY  ROMAN  SCHOOLMASTERS 


418 


Alfredo  Panzini  is  likely  finally  to 
get  a  place  in  Italian  letters  compar- 
able to  that  of  Pascoli,  and  should  his 
call  to  permanent  happiness  be  delayed 
until  he  has  achieved  the  days  allotted 
by  the;  Psalmist,  he  is  likely  to  have 
the  position  in  Italian  letters  which 
Joseph  Conrad  has  in  English  letters 
today.  This  statement  is  not  tanta- 
mount to  an  admission  that  it  is  to 
writers  like  Panzini  we  are  to  look  for 
new  developments  in  imaginative  lit- 
erature. They  will  be  found  rather 
among  a  group  of  writers  who  are  the 
very  antithesis  of  him — ^the  Futurists. 

The  successor  to  the  literary  fame 
of  Giacosa  is  Luigi  Pirandello,  an- 
other Roman  schoolmaster.  His  ear- 
lier writings  were  cast  as  romances 
but  latterly  he  has  confined  himself 
largely  to  stage  pieces  which  reflect 
our  moralities,  satirize  our  conven- 
tions, and  lampoon  our  hypocrisies. 
His  diction  is  idiomatic  and  telling. 
It  reminds  one  of  de  Maupassant  and 
of  Bernard  Shaw.  Either  he  inherited 
an  unusual  capacity  for  verbal  expres- 
sion or  he  has  cultivated  it  assidu- 
ously. 

He  is  Panzini's  junior  by  three 
years,  having  been  bom  in  Girgenti, 
June  28,  1867.  His  father  was  an  ex- 
porter of  sulphur  and  his  early  life 
was  spent  among  the  simple,  passion- 
ate, emotional,  tradition-loving  people 
of  Southern  Sicily.  Unlike  his  fellow 
Sicilians,  Verga  and  Capuana,  he  has 
not  utilized  them  to  any  considerable 
degree  as  the  mouthpiece  of  his  satiric 
comments  and  reflections  on  social 
life.  He  has  taken  the  more  sophis- 
ticated if  less  appealing  people  of 
Northern  and  Central  Italy,  and  put 
them  in  situations  from  which  they 
extricate  themselves  or  get  themselves 
more  hopelessly  entangled  for  the 
reader's  amusement  or  edification.    In 


his  last  comedy  ''L'Uomo  la  Bestia  e 
la  Virtu"  (Man,  Beast,  and  Virtue) 
the  scene  is  laid  "in  a  city  on  the  sea, 
it  doesn't  matter  where",  yet  the  char- 
acters are  t3rpically  Sicilian. 

After  graduating  from  the  Univer- 
sity of  Rome,  Pirandello  studied  at 
Bonn  and  made  some  translations  of 
Goethe's  "Roman  Elegies".  Soon  after 
he  returned  to  Rome,  he  published  a 
book  of  verse  and  a  book  of  short 
stories  which  made  no  particular  stir. 
It  was  not  until  he  published  "II  fu 
Mattia  Pascal"  (The  Late  Matthias 
Pascal)  that  he  obtained  any  real  suc- 
cess. Critics  consider  it  still  his  best 
effort  in  the  field  of  romance.  From 
the  standpoint  of  construction  it  de- 
serves the  commendation  that  it  has 
received;  but  both  the  luck  and  the 
plans  of  the  hero  are  too  successful  to 
be  veristic,  and  the  eventuations  of 
his  daily  existence  so  far  transcend 
ordinary  experience  that  the  reader 
feels  the  profound  improbability  of  it 
all,  and  loses  interest.  One  pursues  a 
novel  that  he  may  see  the  revelations 
of  his  own  experiences,  or  what  he 
might  wish  his  experiences  to  be  un- 
der certain  circumstances.  When  these 
circumstances  get  out  of  hand  or  when 
the  events  that  transpire  are  so  im- 
probable, or  so  antipathic,  that  the 
reader  cannot  from  his  experience  or 
imagination  consider  them  likely  or 
probable,  then  the  novel  does  not  in- 
terest him.  Moreover  the  Anglo-Saxon 
reader,  unless  he  has  lived  in  Italy, 
finds  the  flavor  of  many  passages  "too 
high" ;  certain  experiences  are  related 
in  unnecessary  detail.  Like  a  cubist 
picture  the  charm  and  the  beauty  dis- 
appear in  proportion  to  the  nearness 
with  which  it  is  viewed  and  the  close- 
ness with  which  it  is  examined. 

In  reality  Pirandello  did  not  get  his 
stride  until  he  began  to  concern  him- 
self with  social  and  domestic  problems, 


414 


THE   BOOKMAN 


such  as  those  depicted  under  the  title 
of  ''Maschere  Nude"  (Transparent 
Masks).  In  the  play  *H  Piacere  dell' 
Onesta"  (The  Pleasure  of  Honesty) 
he  pictures  a  new  type  of  manage  d 
troia:  the  "unhappy"  husband  in  love 
with  the  mature  daughter  of  an  aris- 
tocratic Philistine  mother,  who,  when 
she  must  needs  have  a  husband  for 
conventional  satisfaction,  appeals  to  a 
facile  male  cousin  who  finds  in  a  ne'er- 
do-well  disciple  of  Descartes  one  who 
is  willing  to  act  the  part  vicariously, 
the  apparent  quid  pro  quo  being  the 
pasonent  of  his  gambling  debts.  The 
hypocritical,  bombastic  lover ;  the  sen- 
timental mother  with  a  "family  com- 
plex"; the  anguishing,  passionate 
daughter;  the  suave,  aristocratic, 
male  procurer,  and  finally  he  who  was 
to  be  the  victim  of  the  machinations 
of  these  experienced  persons,  but  who 
proves  to  be  the  victor  because  he 
plays  the  game  in  a  way  new  to  them, 
that  is,  straight — each  in  turn  de- 
livers himself  of  sentiments  and  con- 
victions that  reveal  the  social  hypocri- 
sies and  conventional  lies  which  form 
the  scaffolding  and  supports  of  what 
is  called  "everyday  life",  and  give  Pi- 
randello an  opportunity  to  display  his 
irony,  his  sarcasm,  and  his  humor. 
The  art  of  Pirandello  is  a  subtle  play 
of  paradoxes  and  analysis  of  motives 
which  are  second-nature  to  persons 
called  complex,  the  result  of  inherited 
and  acquired  artificialities.  To  get  the 
full  effect  of  these  paradoxes  and 
analyses  the  close  attention  of  the 
reader  and  of  the  auditor  is  required, 
and  as  a  matter  of  fact  Pirandello's 
comedies  read  much  better  than  they 
play.  Those  who  know  maintain  that 
he  has  little  capacity  for  stage  tech- 
nique, that  he  knows  nothing  of  the 
art  of  the  stage.  Hence  his  comedies 
have  not  had  the  success  of  those  of 
Giacosa  and  of  Bracco. 


As  human  documents  they  depend 
upon  their  humor  and  veiled  irony 
more  than  upon  any  other  qualities. 
The  humor,  which  seems  to  be  ob- 
tained by  simple  means,  is  nearly  al- 
ways the  result  of  an  analysis  so  fine, 
so  subtle,  that  sometimes  one  loses 
track  of  the  premises  on  which  it  is 
founded.  He  compels  the  attention  of 
his  reader  and  he  makes  him  think. 
Without  such  attention  and  thought 
the  subtleties  of  Pirandello  often  es- 
cape the  reader.  Sometimes  he  labors 
a  point  almost  to  a  tiresome  degree — 
for  instance,  in  the  play  "Cosi  e"  (It's 
so  if  you  think  it's  so).  The  central 
point  is  the  identity  of  a  woman 
which,  it  would  seem  to  the  average 
individual,  could  be  established  read- 
ily beyond  peradventure;  but  the 
point  is,  is  there  anything  that  can  be 
established  beyond  peradventure?  Is 
there  any  such  thing  as  literal  truth? 
Is  not  truth  in  reality  synonymous 
with  belief,  individual  or  collective  or 
both?  Discussion  of  questions  of 
this  sort  may  become  very  tiresome; 
but  Pirandello  has  the  art  of  mixing 
them  up  with  human  weaknesses  and 
human  virtues,  which  makes  the  mix- 
ture not  only  palatable  but  appetizing. 
In  his  last  comedies,  "II  Giuco  delle 
Parti"  (Each  One  Plays  His  Own 
Role)  and  "Ma  non  e  una  Gosa  Seria" 
(But  it  isn't  a  Serious  Matter),  he 
reverts  to  matrimonial  tangles  and  to 
attempts  at  disentanglement:  depict- 
ing in  the  former  comedy  the  "tem- 
peramental" woman — who  gets  what 
she  wants  but  who  finds  when  she  gets 
it  she  does  not  want  it — and  the  long- 
suffering  husband — ^who  is  discerning 
enough  to  know  how  to  handle  her; 
concedes  what  she  demands  that  he 
may  get  what  he  should  have. 

The  man  who  usurps  the  conjugal 
privileges  of  the  husband  must  also 
discharge  his  obligations.    So  it  tran- 


TWO  NOISY  ROMAN  SCHOOLMASTERS 


415 


spires  that  when  his  temperamental 
wife  has  been  insulted  by  some  intoxi- 
cated gilded  youths,  who  by  their  con- 
duct in  her  house  provoke  a  scandal  in 
the  neighborhood,  it  is  necessary  for 
the  de  facto  husband  to  challenge  the 
most  aggressive  of  them  to  a  duel. 
During  the  excitement  of  the  prepara- 
tion, the  happy  thought  comes  to  him 
to  have  the  vicarious  husband  fight 
the  duel.  He  does  so  and  is  killed. 
The  cause  of  all  the  trouble,  the  lady, 
is  quite  ignorant  of  this  arrangement, 
and  thinks  the  de  facto  husband  is 
battling  with  the  most  invincible 
sword  of  the  city  and  that  he  will  get 
killed — which  is  her  desire.  On  re- 
turning to  her  house  she  finds  her 
husband  lunching  as  if  nothing  un- 
usual had  happened.  The  dramatic 
climax  soon  comes  when  she  scorn- 
fully taunts  him  with  having  someone 
fight  a  duel  for  him,  and  he  replies, 
"Not  for  me  but  for  you". 

The  play  gives  Pirandello  the  op- 
portunity to  display  his  knowledge  of 
the  sentiments  and  passions  of  the 
modem  "high  life"  individual.  Al- 
though his  characters  talk  and  act  and 
express  familiar  sentiments  in  a  way 
that  makes  one  think  they  are  real 
people,  in  reality  they  are  unreal. 
They  are  taken  from  the  author's  im- 
agination rather  than  from  real  life. 

The  second  comedy  in  this  volume  is 
much  more  meritorious  than  the  first. 
The  author  portrays  characters  who 
well  might  have  existed  in  the  fiesh. 
Gasparina,  who  has  put  twenty-seven 
years  of  continency  behind  her  and 
has  achieved  the  direction  of  a  second- 
class  boardina:  house,  is  derided  and 
maltreated  by  her  "guests".  The  most 
swagger  of  her  boarders,  who  has  been 
miraculously  saved  in  a  duel  which 
followed  a  broken  engagement,  has  an 
original  idea.  He  will  make  a  mock 
marriage  with  her,  and  thus  establish 


freedom  from  further  love,  and  an- 
noyance, and  duels.  She  sees  in  the 
proposal  escape  from  the  boarding 
house.  In  the  little  villa  in  the  coun- 
try— ^to  which  he  sends  her  under  prom- 
ise that  she  is  not  to  make  herself 
evident  and  where  he  is  not  to  visit 
her — ^she  blooms  like  a  fiower.  In  due 
course  of  time  he  falls  in  love  again, 
and  in  order  that  he  may  accomplish 
matrimony  he  must  free  himself  from 
Gasparina.  This  could  be  accom- 
plished as  it  never  was  consummated; 
but  when  the  messenger,  an  old  as- 
pirant to  her  favor,  is  on  the  point  of 
having  his  aspirations  realized,  the 
husband — in  name  only — sees  in  Gas- 
parina the  woman  he  really  loves.  The 
curtain  falls  at  an  opportune  moment 
before  any  hearts  are  broken  or  any 
blood  is  shed. 

It  is  one  of  the  plays  of  Pirandello 
that  has  had  considerable  success  on 
the  stage. 

He  is  in  reality  a  finished  workman, 
an  accomplished  stylist,  a  happy  color- 
ist,  and  fecund  withal.  His  most  im- 
portant stories  are  "Erma  bifronte 
(Deceitful  Hermes),  "La  Vita  Nuda 
(Naked  Life),  "La  Trappola"  (The 
Snare),  "e  Domani. .  .lunedi"  (And 
Tomorrow  —  Monday) ,  "un  Cavallo 
Nella  Luna"  (A  Horse  in  the  Moon), 
"Quand  ero  Matto"  (When  I  Was 
Crazy),  "Blanche  e  Nere"  (Black  and 
White).  His  romances,  in  addition  to 
the  ones  already  mentioned,  are  "I 
Vecchi  e  I  Giovanni"  (The  Old  and 
the  Young),  and  "Si  Gira"  (One 
Turns) — ^the  most  recent  and  poorest 
of  them. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  convey  the 
impression  that  Pirandello  is  univer- 
sally admired  in  Italy.  His  stories 
and  romances  have  an  adventuresome 
quality  that  transcends  ordinary  ex- 
perience, and  his  plays  attempt  to  dis- 
pense with  theatricalness  and  to  sub- 


** 


9* 


416 


THE   BOOKMAN 


stitute  for  it  a  subtle  analysis  of  life 
with  corrosive  comment.  Both  of 
these  qualities  are  very  much  resented. 
It  is  strange  that  the  Freudians 
have  never  explained  the  popularity 
of  plays  and  novels  concerned  wholly 
or  largely  with  sexual  relations  that 
infract  convention  and  law,  as  a  domi- 
nancy  of  the  unconscious  mind — a 
"wish  fulfilment"  of  the  waking  state. 
It  may  be  assumed  that  three-fourths 
of  those  who  see  and  read  them  never 
have  and  never  contemplate  (with 
their  conscious  minds)  having  similar 
experiences,  and  they  would  be  scan- 
dalized were  anyone  to  assume  that 
they  approved  rfuch  conduct.  Perhaps 
the  explanation  of  the  hold  these  works 
have  upon  the  public  is  the  same  as  that 
of  the  interest  we  have  in  the  accounts 
of  criminals  seeking  to  evade  appre- 
hension. It  is  not  that  we  sjrmpathize 
in  any  way  with  the  malefactor.    We 


are  law-making,  law-abiding,  law-up- 
holding citizens  and  we  know  he  ought 
not  to  escape,  and,  naturally,  we  hope 
he  will  be  caught.  However,  we  can- 
not help  thinking  what  we  would  do» 
confronted  with  his  predicament.  We 
feel  that  in  his  place  we  could  cir- 
cumvent the  sleuths,  and  overcome 
what  would  be  to  the  ordinary  person 
insuperable  obstacles.  Thus  we  divert 
ourselves  imagining  what  we  would  do 
if  we  were  adulterous  husbands,  lech- 
erous wives,  lubricous  wooers,  vicari- 
ous spouses — ^while  assuring  ourselves 
we  are  not  and  could  never  be;  and 
plume  ourselves  that  we  could  con- 
duct ourselves,  even  in  nefariousness, 
in  such  a  way  as  to  escape  detection 
or,  if  detected,  to  disarm  criticism. 
Meanwhile  we  enjoy  being  virtue-re- 
warded and  vice-punished,  for  only 
upon  the  stage  or  in  books  does  it  hap- 
pen, save  in  exceptional  instances. 


THE  LONDONER 


Mrs.  Humphry  Ward — Political  Novels — A  Lampoon  on  Mrs.  Ward — Henry 
James  Letters — Helen  Mathers — Rhoda  Broughton — Reading  for  Pleasure  and 
the  Peculiarities  of  Writers — The  Rothensteins — Douglas  Goldring — Criticism 
of  Contemporaries — D.  H.  Lawrence — Rebecca  West — Stacy  Aumonier — Iris 
Tree. 


London,  AprU  1,  1920. 

THE  death  of  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward 
removes  from  the  literary  arena  a 
figure  which  was  imposing  rather  than 
important.  Mrs.  Ward  had  her  suc- 
cess so  many  years  ago  that  she  un- 
fortunately outlived  the  superstition 
attaching  to  "Robert  Elsmere",  a  fact 
of  which  her  recently  published  Remi- 
niscences showed  her  to  be  unaware. 


Her  relationship  to  Matthew  Arnold 
stood  her  in  good  stead  in  the  early 
days,  as  did  the  admiration  of  Mr. 
Gladstone;  but  of  late  she  had  been 
almost  universally  rated  low  as  an 
original  writer,  and  many  who,  if  she 
had  begun  publishing  later,  would 
have  extolled  the  rather  commonplace 
solemnity  of  her  pseudo-political  nov- 
els found  themselves  perfectly  in  order 


THE  LONDONER 


417 


in  regarding  her  as  a  past  master  in  an 
art  now  practised  by  children  not  yet  in 
their  teens.  It  was  a  sad  fate.  To  start 
off  in  a  sudden  lustre,  and  to  end  as  one 
commonly  ridiculed,  is  a  hard  lot  for 
anybody.  Unfortunately  it  is  true 
that  Mrs.  Ward's  best  work  was  done 
early.  Also,  that  the  huge  novels 
which  impressed  our  fathers  by  their 
slight  intellectual  pretentiousness  be- 
came quickly  stale  and  good  for  noth- 
ing. I  can  remember  the  day  when  I 
read  such  novels  as  "Sir  George  Tres- 
sady"  and  "David  Grieve"  and  be- 
lieved them  to  be  the  genuine  article. 
I  had  never  dreamed  of  novels  which 
so  gave  me  the  sense  of  acquaintance 
with  the  political  world  and  the  world 
of  the  aspiring  youth  who  found  his 
delights  in  the  intellect.  "Robert  Els- 
mere"  I  never  much  cared  for,  but 
that  was  because  I  felt  it  to  be  intel- 
lectually beyond  me.  This  was  simply 
because  I  was  exceedingly  young  when 
it  came  my  way.  And  I  can  still  recall 
solemnly  reading  an  essay  by  Gilbert 
Chesterton  praising  "Helbeck  of  Ban- 
nisdale"  as  a  novel  of  the  highest 
class.  It  is  strange  to  look  back  upon 
those  days. 

*  «  «  •*!• 

It  is  strange,  for  one  reason,  be- 
cause I  long  ago  ceased  to  regard 
Chesterton  as  a  reliable  guide  in  the 
criticism  of  literature  (it  was  his 
work  on  Browning  which  opened  my 
eyes),  and  it  is  not  less  strange  be- 
cause from  the  days  of  "Lady  Rose's 
Daughter"  and  "The  Marriage  of  Wil- 
liam Ashe"  I  have  found  the  novels  of 
Mrs.  Ward  simply  unreadable.  If  it 
were  not  for  the  fact  that  I  recently 
had  occasion  to  read  "Cousin  Philip" 
— ^about  which  I  said  a  few  words  in 
a  recent  causerie — I  should  know 
nothing  whatever  about  the  later  de- 
velopments of  a  talent  which  had  gone 
straight  into  the  conventional  and  me- 


chanical production  of  novels  for  li- 
brary subscribers.  The  vogue  of  Mrs. 
Ward  is  not  hard  to  understand  in 
view  of  what  I  have  said  above.  The 
majority  of  people  know  nothing  at  all 
about  the  inner  life  of  the  political 
world.  Mrs.  Ward  seemed  to  lift  the 
curtain.  We  saw,  as  we  thought, 
straight  into  the  privacy  of  the  Prime 
Ministers'  homes.  It  was  nothing  like 
the  reality,  as  I  am  now  aware;  but 
to  anybody  who  has  not  seen  the  great 
at  close  quarters  it  was  quite  bafflingly 
life-like.  We  all  felt  that  these  men 
and  women  were  really  the  upper 
classes  about  whom  we  speculated. 
We  felt  that  at  last  we  knew  what 
went  on  in  high  political  circles;  and 
we  were  properly  thrilled.  Well,  as 
soon  as  we  suspected  that  Mrs.  Ward 
had  been  "having  us  on",  we  threw  her 
over  as  a  delineator  of  high  life.  We 
threw  her  over  with  contumely.  I  will 
now  reveal  whose  work  it  was  that 
nailed  up  Mrs.  Ward's  coffin.    It  was 

the  work  of  H.  G.  Wells. 

*  *  *  « 

You  will  all  remember  that  Wells 
suddenly  branched  off  into  "Tono 
Bungay"  and  "The  New  Machiavelli". 
Those  two  books  settled  Mrs.  Ward's 
hash.  Wells  was  not  a  politician  in 
the  ordinary  sense,  and  he  has  his  de- 
fects; but  his  books  were  real.  He 
was  obviously  dealing  with  a  kind  of 
life  about  which  he  had  ideas.  Mrs. 
Ward's  books  were,  in  a  manner  of 
speaking,  dead.  Her  characters  were, 
not  so  much  types,  as  sawdust-stuffed 
creatures  of  no  gumption.  Their  stuff 
was  such  as  reams  are  made  of.  All 
the  daring  went  out  of  Mrs.  Ward's 
novels.  They  were  seen  to  be  hum- 
drum. Here  was  something  new  and 
exciting.  The  game  was  up.  From 
that  time,  Mrs.  Ward's  sales  were  no 
longer  mentioned  proudly  by  her  pub- 
lishers in  hundreds  or  even  eighties 


418 


THE   BOOKMAN 


of  thousands.    They  sank  to  discreet 

and  uncommunicative  "impressions'*. 

«  *  *  * 

There  is  a  wicked  lampoon  upon 
Mrs.  Ward  in  Arnold  Bennett's  "Sa- 
cred and  Profane  Love" — ^the  play. 
It  is  not  at  all  malicious,  but  it  repre- 
sents a  somewhat  heightened  lady  nov- 
elist whose  self-satisfaction  is  exces- 
sive. No  doubt  Bennett  had  read  the 
book  of  Reminiscences.  In  that  book 
Mrs.  Ward  was  a  little  restive,  a  little 
subconsciously  uncertain  of  her  posi- 
tion in  the  public  eye,  and  so  she  made 
the  mistake  of  quoting  the  opinions  of 
her  work  expressed  by  famous  friends 
of  a  past  generation.  They  "cut  no 
ice".  Also,  she  made  the  mistake  of 
sizing  up  her  juniors,  rather  patron- 
izingly. Wells  and  Bennett  came  in 
for  it — Bennett  being  praised  at 
Wells's  expense.  This  was  an  error  of 
judgment  on  Mrs.  Ward's  part.  Ben- 
nett's chief  characteristic  as  a  man  is 
his  remarkable  loyalty  to  his  friends. 
Moreover,  one  has  only  to  turn  to  that 
little  book,  "Books  and  Persons", 
which  ought  to  be  in  the  bedroom  of 
every  lover  of  literature,  to  see  what 
Bennett  thinks  of  Wells. 


great  deal  of  his  education  in  his 
craft.  Even  Wells  has  some  passages 
in  the  two  books  of  his  which  I  have 
just  mentioned  which  are  quite  obvi- 
ously influenced  by  the  lessons  of  a 
master.  One  can  say  many  thing^s 
about  James,  but  one  should  not 
lightly  cast  off  recognition  of  his  scru- 
pulousness, and  the  revelations  he 
made  of  the  working  of  the  human 
mind.  We  must  not  confuse  his  work 
with  that  of  some  of  his  disciples.  The 

two  things  are  entirely  distinct. 

«  *  *  « 

Another  old  novelist  to  die  just 
lately  is  Helen  Mathers.  I  must  admit 
that  her  work  is  an  old  tale  with  me. 
That  I  have  read  several  of  her  novels 
I  am  sure;  but  precisely  which  of 
them  it  would  be  impossible  to  say. 
And  yet  they  had  a  curious  freshness 
and  vivacity  in  their  day.  Helen  Ma- 
thers was  not  a  pretentious  novelist: 
she  was  even,  at  times,  rather  a 
naughty  novelist.  But  that  is  all  for- 
gotten, and  I  only  mention  her  death 
through  a  wish  to  record  an  event 
which  may  not  have  stirred  as  much 
attention  as  it  might  have  done  in 
America. 


Of  course,  Henry  James  thought 
very  highly  of  Mrs.  Ward.  He  had 
eulogized  her.  It  counted  in  his  favor 
as  a  friend,  but  not  to  his  credit  as  a 
literary  critic.  Perhaps  we  shall  un- 
derstand the  lapse  better  when  we  are 
able  to  read  James's  letters.  These  are 
to  be  published  in  a  few  weeks  from 
now,  so  we  shall  have  an  opportunity 
of  examining  them.  This  book  is  one 
of  the  things  I  am  genuinely  looking 
forward  to.  I  have  always  thought 
that  those  who  sneered  at  James's 
pomposity  and  his  moral  timidity  and 
his  literary  elaboration  of  the  trivial 
were  horribly  wrong  and  disgustingly 
ungenerous.  Hardly  a  young  novelist 
of  our  day  but  has  owed  to  James  a 


A  contemporary  of  hers — Rhoda 
Broughton — ^was  described  in  a  re- 
cent Bookman  as  having  finished  a 
new  novel.  Now  I  must  admit  to  being 
a  great  admirer  of  Rhoda  Broughton. 
She  seems  to  me  the  nearest  thing  in 
spirit  to  Jane  Austen  that  we  have 
had  in  recent  times.  I  read  a  few 
years  ago  a  novel  called  "Concerning  a 
Vow".  One  would  have  said  that  the 
story — the  "story"  as  distinct  from 
the  author's  manner — was  ridiculous, 
if  one  had  not  recognized  it  as  the 
story  of  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence  and  his 
unhappy  loves ;  but  there  could  not  be 
two  opinions  about  the  way  in  which 
the  characters  talked.  True,  it  was 
old-fashioned,  in  one  sense;    but  the 


THE  LONDONER 


419 


point  of  it,  the  delightful  whimsical- 
ness  and  roguery  of  it,  was  unmistak- 
able. It  was  the  work  of  a  mistress  of 
the  difficult  art  of  conversation.  In 
one  of  her  novels,  "Belinda",  Miss 
Broughton  gave  the  story  of  Mark 
Pattison  and  his  wife,  afterward  Lady 
Dilke.  Here  again,  although  the  book 
has  an  "old-world  air"  (as  they  say  in 
England),  it  retained  all  the  freshness 
of  the  spirit  by  which  it  was  vitalized 
when  the  pen  first  recorded  its  au- 
thor's lively  inventions.  Miss  Brough- 
ton's  novel  is  one  which  I  shall  infidli- 
bly  read — ^for  pleasure.  I  wish  there 
were  more  authors  of  whose  works  I 

could  say  as  much. 

*  «  *  * 

I  know,  of  course,  that  this  will 
strike  readers  as  very  arrogant.  Let 
it.  I  will  repeat  my  remark,  in  a  dif- 
ferent way.  There  are  very  few  nov- 
elists to  the  publication  of  new  books 
by  whom  I  look  forward  with  pleasure. 
With  interest,  yes!  With  apprehen- 
siveness,  yes!  With  the  expectation 
of  being  moved  and  impressed,  yes! 
But  with  pleasure,  no!  A  thousand 
"noes".  And  that  is  a  remarkable 
thing,  for  there  are  few  books  I  am 
unable  to  read.  It  is  true  that  I  have 
said  above  how  impossible  I  found  it 
to  read  Mrs.  Ward's  later  books.  Well, 
I  found  it  impossible.  But  in  general 
there  are  few  novels  which  I  am  above 
reading.  "Shaftesbury  is  not  too  gen- 
teel for  me,  nor  'Jonathan  Wild'  too 
low."  I  do  not  say  I  like  them;  but 
only  that  I  am  not  a  literary  snob. 
And  this  is  a  very  singular  subject, 
for  I  have  heard  of  a  young  woman 
flinging  a  book  by  Robert  Louis  Ste- 
venson across  the  room  in  disgust.  I 
have  never  done  such  a  thing.  I  have 
heard  of  people  cruelly  reading  the 
work  of  a  poor  writer  and  maliciously 
gloating  over  its  deformities.  I  have 
only  twice  gloated  over  books  with  ri- 
bald laughter.    No,  three  times.    And 


I  am  not  going  to  tell  you  the  names 
of  those  three  books.  One  was  a  work 
on  the  English  language.  Another 
was  a  memoir  by  the  brother  of  the 
subject.  One  was  a  hectic  novel  by  a 
young  novelist  who  might  have  known 
better,  but  who  shows  no  signs  of 
learning  anything  at  all  with  increas- 
ing years.  I  cannot  remember  laugh- 
ing cruelly  at  any  other  books.  I  won- 
der if  that  is  a  virtue,  or  merely  an 

unperceptiveness. 

«  «  *  * 

What  is  it  that  makes  a  book  read- 
able or  unreadable?  I  do  not  know. 
Very  likely  there  is  some  subtle  aroma 
from  it,  just  as  there  is  from  humans, 
which  does  the  trick.  Why,  when  one 
sees  a  title,  does  one  sometimes  feel 
disposed  or  indisposed  to  read  a 
book?  That  is  another  question.  I 
cannot  answer  it.  But  you  will  find 
that  we  are  all  sensitive  to  these 
things,  and  that  we  cannot  give,  how- 
ever logical,  reasons  for  our  instinct- 
ive tastes  and  distastes.  If  we  could, 
we  could  reason  ourselves  out  of  them, 
or  into  them.  We  do  not  do  this.  We 
do  not  make  any  attempt  to  do  it. 
Something  ineradicable  in  us  comes 
sharply  into  control,  and  decides.  The 
thing  is  done.  There  is  no  appeal. 
And  we  suffer  from  the  same  injus- 
tices from  others.  I  remember  hear- 
ing once  of  a  woman  who  saw  my  por- 
trait in  an  illustrated  journal.  She 
looked  at  it.  Then  she  said,  coolly: 
"I  don't  like  the  look  of  that  man.  I 
wouldn't  read  one  of  his  books  for 
worlds."  Naturally  the  friend  who 
overheard  wrote  to  me  immediately, 
out  of  the  kindness  of  his  heart.  And 
yet  that  woman  was  obeying  quite  a 
sound  impulse.  If  you  do  not  like  a 
man's  face,  isn't  it  a  fair  presumption 
that  you  will  not  like  what  he  writes? 
I  like  to  feel  that  perhaps  I  should  not 
have  cared  for  that  woman  to  read  my 
books.    You  never  know. 


420 


THE   BOOKMAN 


Among  the  spring  announcements  I 
observe  a  number  of  volumes  which 
should  have  more  than  casual  interest. 
One  of  these  is  a  book  of  "Literary 
Portraits"  by  William  Rothenstein. 
The  word  "literary"  does  not  mean 
that  the  artist  has  been  writing  ac- 
counts of  his  subjects;  but  merely 
that  all  his  subjects  in  this  particular 
book  are  literary  men.  Some  years 
ago  I  met  Rothenstein  pretty  fre- 
quently, and  also  his  brother,  Albert 
(since  the  beginning  of  the  war  called 
Albert  Rutherston).  They  are  both 
small  men,  and  Albert  has  a  more 
vivid  manner  than  his  brother.  Both, 
however,  give  the  impression  of  hav- 
ing a  good  deal  of  practical  energy. 
Will  Rothenstein,  of  course,  has  done 
a  great  deal  of  architectural  work, 
both  in  India  and  in  England.  Albert 
has  had  a  certain  connection  with 
various  of  the  Barker  stage  produc- 
tions. He  is  a  much  younger  man 
than  his  brother,  and  it  may  be  that 
his  change  of  name  early  in  the  war 
was  dictated  quite  as  much  by  a  wish 
to  achieve  distinctness  as  by  his  de- 
sire to  manifest  his  British  allegiance. 
I  cannot  profess  to  be  an  ardent  ad- 
mirer of  the  work  of  either  brother; 
but  that  both  have  rendered  inestima- 
ble service  to  the  branches  of  the  art 
they  have  so  conspicuously  practised 
nobody  would  deny.  Will,  in  his  quiet, 
almost  dry  way,  has  really  influenced, 
not  the  course  of  painting  so  much  as 
the  course  of  teaching  in  England. 
He  has  shown  considerable  versatility, 
and  his  work  has  varied  as  much  in 
quality  as  in  direction.  He  has  a 
shrewd  brain  and  clear  judgment; 
and  he  has  long  been  the  friend  of 
writers  and  other  distinguished  men 
outside  his  own  craft.  He  is  a  man 
of  extraordinary  capacity.  The  book 
of  portraits  should  thus  have,  even  for 
those  who  do  not  care  for  Rothen- 


stein's  style,  an  exceptional  value  and 

interest. 

«  «  «  • 

Two  novels  and  a  book  about  his 
contemporaries  is  the  modest  allow- 
ance this  spring  of  Douglas  Goldring, 
who  has  always  been  prolific,  and  who 
now  threatens  to  take  the  world  by 
storm  in  his  early  thirties.  The  novels 
are  sure  to  be  didactic,  for  Mr.  Gold- 
ring,  as  a  novelist,  belongs  to  the 
school  of  Gilbert  Cannan.  But  the 
book  I  am  really  rather  interested  in 
is  one  called  "Reputations",  in  which 
I  imagine  there  will  be  some  piquant 
criticisms.  Mr.  Goldring  has  known 
a  number  of  the  writers  of  his  own 
age  and  of  somewhat  inflated  reputa- 
tion, and  I  suppose  him  to  intend  some 
candid  talk  about  his  late  friends.  I 
judge  partly  from  a  skit  which  he  re- 
cently contributed  to  a  periodical 
called  "The  Chap  Book",  in  which  the 
young  poets  were  laid  low,  and  some 
of  the  other  young  creatures,  also.  It 
was  very  good-tempered,  but  at  least 
one  poet  succeeded  in  having  the  line 
referring  to  himself  erased,  under  a 
threat  of  hostility  pursued  to  the  ut* 
termost  limit.  It  will  do  no  harm  to 
write  ironically  about  some  of  our 

reputations. 

«  *  *  * 

At  any  rate,  I  would  rather  read 
Mr.  Goldring's  book  than  the  three 
books  announced  as  a  series  by  the 
new  firm  of  publishers,  Leonard  Par- 
sons, Ltd.  These  books  are  "Some 
Contemporary  Poets",  by  Harold 
Monro;  "Some  Contemporary  Novel- 
ists (Men)",  by  R.  Brimley  Johnson; 
and  "Some  Contemporary  Novelists 
(Women)",  by  the  same  author.  To 
me  these  are  fearsome  works,  because 
we  are  having  a  surfeit  of  books  deal- 
ing with  ourselves  and  each  other. 
One  such,  recently  issued  in  England, 
is  by  the  indefatigable  S.  P.  B.  Mais, 


THE  LONDONER 


421 


now  a  master  at  Tonbridge,  lecturer 
to  the  employees  of  W.  H.  Smith  and 
Son  on  the  subject  of  literature,  and 
recently  appointed  Professor  of  Eng- 
lish Literature  to  the  Royal  Air 
Force.  Mr.  Mais's  enthusiasm  is  like 
that  of  the  young  man  in  "Othello". 
He  is  forever  exclaiming,  "Why,  this 
is  a  more  excellent  song  than  the 
other!"  The  result  is  bewildering, 
for  enthusiasm  so  unfailing  is  hard  to 
follow.  Mr.  Mais's  book  has  had  a 
curious  press,  for  even  his  friends 
think  it  necessary,  it  appears,  to  rap 
him  over  the  knuckles.  Thus  we  have 
the  strange  incident  of  an  adverse  re- 
view in  "The  Observer",  a  paper  in 
which  many  of  Mr.  Mais's  most  ardent 
views  have  been  expressed  with  all  his 

customary  exuberance. 

*  «  «  « 

In  an  earlier  causerie  I  made  some 
remarks  about  D.  H.  Lawrence  for 
which  I  was  rated  in  an  American 
paper — ^because,  it  was  said,  I  gave  in- 
accurate information.  As  it  happens, 
I  was  right,  but  let  that  pass.  Law- 
rence, as  I  have  mentioned,  is  now  in 
Italy,  and  he  has  a  new  labor  play  an- 
nounced for  publication.  Also,  I  am 
pleased  to  see  that  more  than  one 
Dramatic  Society  is  producing  his 
"Widowing  of  Mrs.  Holroyd".  If  this 
play  is  seen  among  the  signs  and  por- 
tents of  a  renascent  Drama,  it  will 
make  some  of  the  recent  productions 
of  our  play-producing  societies  look 
pretty  shoddy.  By  the  way,  to  return 
for  a  moment  to  my  American  critic : 
it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  these 
notes  are  written  some  time  before 
they  appear.  It  is  therefore  possible 
that  some  of  them  may  occasionally 
state  facts  which  have,  so  to  speak, 
been  superseded  by  other  facts.  At 
the  time  at  which  they  are  written 
they  represent  information  as  late  as 
I  can  guarantee. 


Among  spring  novels  I  observe  with 
interest  new  books  by  Rebecca  West 
and  Stacy  Aumonier.  In  all  probabil- 
ity Aumonier's  book  is  a  collection  of 
short  stories,  as  it  is  called  "One  After 
Another".  But  as  Aumonier  has  a 
distinct  gift  for  the  writing  of  short 
stories,  this  does  not  matter.  It  may 
not  be  generally  known  in  the  United 
States  that  Aumonier  is  a  man  of  con- 
siderable versatility.  He  began  as  an 
"entertainer",  and  still  gives  in  public 
little  character  sketches,  generally 
written  by  himself.  He  is  a  sort  of 
quick-change  artist,  and  as  this  gift  is 
coupled  with  the  power  to  invent  his 
own  material,  he  has  a  decided  pull 
over  the  ordinary  person  who  labori- 
ously learns  and  interprets  stuff  which 
has  come  from  the  brain  of  another. 
I  observed  with  amusement  the  sug- 
gestion made  recently,  by  one  of  our 
superior,  omniscient  young  critics, 
that  "Mr.  Aumonier  writes  like  a  con- 
jurer or  public  entertainer."  It 
looked  so  much  as  though  the  young 

critic  had  "heard  something". 

*  *  «  « 

Rebecca  West's  novel  will  be  eagerly 
looked  for.  It  is  called  "The  Judge", 
and  if  it  comes  up  to  expectation  it 
will  be  very  good  indeed.  I  question 
whether  Miss  West's  talent  lies  very 
decidedly  in  the  direction  of  what  is 
called  "the  Novel",  because  she  has  an 
analytic  mind  altogether  exceptional 
in  its  precision.  If  that  is  a  good 
thing  for  a  novelist,  well  and  good.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  leads  to  either 
hardness  or  too  extensive  detail,  then 
the  novelist  with  too  much  brain  will 
always  have  a  stiff  struggle  to  infuse 
genuine  emotional  interest  into  his 
work.  Miss  West  is  about  the  clever- 
est young  woman  in  England.  I  do 
not  know  of  another  quite  as  clever. 
Her  brain  is  marvelously  clear.  If 
her  judgment  is  at  times  erratic,  that 


422 


THE   BOOKMAN 


is  a  thing  which  happens  to  all  of  us, 
and  she  is  none  the  worse  for  a  little 
human  weakness.  Whatever  happens, 
I  can  promise  that  the  new  book  will 
be  worth  reading.  Also  that  it  will 
be  read  with  jealous  scrutiny,  both 
by  Miss  West's  rivals  and  her  friends. 
One  set  will  look  for  faults  and  fail- 
ure; the  other  will  look  for  justifica- 
tion of  the  praise  so  lavishly  given  to 
"The  Return  of  the  Soldier".     "The 

Judge"  has  a  stiff  gauntlet  to  run ! 
«  *  «  « 

I  see  that  Iris  Tree's  "Poems"  are 
to  be  published  very  soon  by  Lane. 
Iris  Tree  must  be  well  known  in 
America,  because  she  only  returned  to 
England  in  the  winter.  She  is,  of 
course,  the  daughter  of  Beerbohm 
Tree,  and  has  a  personal  charm  all  her 
own.  What  the  poems  will  be  like  in 
bulk  I  do  not  know.  They  certainly 
vary  a  good  deal  in  quality  as  one 


reads  them  in  the  ordinary  way.  But 
this  is  a  case  where  a  young  author 
will  receive,  not  the  puffs  of  friends, 
but  the  serious  interest  of  those  who 
appreciate  her  personality.  It  some- 
times happens  that  a  young  writer 
will  attain  popularity  quite  apart  from 
intrinsic  excellence  in  his  or  her 
work;  but  Iris  Tree  is  not  of  this 
number.  She  gives  the  impression  of 
being  so  personally  sincere  that  one  is 
not  at  all  anxious  to  like  her  poems, 
but  only  to  make  sure  that  they  con- 
tain the  subtle  essence  which  it  is  per- 
fectly clear  she  has  to  express.  For 
this  reason  I  shall  not  be  surprised  if 
there  are  some  very  searching  criti- 
cisms of  her  work  when  it  is  pub- 
lished. It  is  a  tribute  to  her  that  her 
critics  will  take  her  duty  seriously. 
And  their  own  duty,  of  course.  But 
then  they  always  do  that ! 

SIMON  PUBE 


THE  BEST  ADVICE  IN  GARDENING 


BY  MARGARET  EMERSON   BAILEY 


THOUGH  my  title  is  conferred  less 
by  success  than  by  mistakes,  I  am 
what  Mrs.  Francis  King  has  called  a 
practised  amateur  at  gardening.  My 
plants,  that  is,  are  no  longer  the  an- 
nual response  to  seed-packets  that  on 
a  warm  spring  day  have  enticed  me 
with  their  gailv-colored  promise.  They 
are  no  transi^t  summer  colony  that 
jostle  each  other  light-heartedly  until 
the  approach  of  fall,  but  a  sober  set- 
tlement that  has  struck  root.  Indeed, 
they  have  spread  from  the  first  border 
of  irresponsible  adventure.    And  as  I 


have  watched  them  encroach  upon  each 
quarter  of  my  small  domain,  I  have, 
like  any  ruler  of  an  unwieldy  kingdom, 
sought  advice  in  government ;  seeking 
with  an  eagerness  that  is  the  sign  of 
my  enfeebled  power,  all  precedents 
that  make  for  order  and  restraint. 
Now  that  the  mischief  is  done  I  would 
be  instructed  in  matters  of  immigra- 
tion, know  whom  to  turn  back  from 
my  borders,  whom  to  admit.  I  would 
learn  penal  codes  that  would  restrict 
and  imprison  those  who  are  there; 
rules  of  public  health  and  town  plan- 


THE   BEST  ADVICE   IN  GARDENING 


428 


ning,  in  fact  a  whole  civil  code.  But 
in  my  eagerness  for  expert  knowledge 
I  find  myself  in  a  plight.  Either  I  am 
given  for  guidance  the  record  of  the 
first  years  of  Utopia  with  the  mistakes 
of  practice  left  out.  Or  I  am  fur- 
nished with  the  rules  of  a  kingdom 
that  is  administered  by  a  whole  board 
of  comptrollers,  a  kingdom  that  in  its 
pretentiousness  and  elaborate  formal- 
ity puts  my  small  province  to  shame. 
Few  are  the  books  for  the  gar- 
den which  is  self-administered,  and 
which  presents  itself  as  a  practical 
problem  with  which  the  owner  must 
cope. 

For  the  inexperienced  who  have 
barely  opened  up  territory  and  are  de- 
sirous of  hardy  settlers,  there  are  sev- 
eral books  which  furnish  good  lists. 
Of  these  the  most  practical — ^because 
narrowed  down  to  essentials — ^are  in 
''Continuous  Bloom  in  America"  and 
"The  Practical  Flower  Garden".  Both 
lists  to  be  sure  are  conservative,  but 
as  a  consequence  invite  little  risk. 
They  contain  none  of  the  new  varieties 
which  require  coddling,  and  only  those 
of  the  old  which  by  their  quick  re- 
sponse and  their  lack  of  fastidiousness 
are  fitted  to  be  pioneers.  Such  few  re- 
quirements as  are  necessary  for  their 
well-being  are  furnished  by  cultural 
directions  which  are  clear  and  precise. 
An  excellent  alphabetical  list  is  also 
furnished  by  Mr.  Jenkins  in  "The 
Hardy  Flower  Book",  Part  II— to- 
gether with  the  names  of  the  best  va- 
rieties, descriptions  of  their  appear- 
ance, and  the  best  methods  of  culture 
and  propagation.  This  list  is  less  prac- 
tical because  written  with  English 
gardens  in  mind,  as  is  the  summary 
of  the  fifty  best  perennials  compiled 
by  Mr.  Clutton-Brock.  But  in  both 
cases  the  value  of  the  information  be- 
stowed outweighs  the  danger.  More- 
over, the  few  plants  suggested  which 


will  not  weather  our  climate,  are  un- 
procurable for  the  most  part;  and  the 
inexperienced  gardener  is  saved  per- 
force from  his  mistakes. 

Those  who  have  stock  in  hand  and' 
may  thus  chance  adventure  will  find  a 
wider  field  of  suggestion  in  E.  H.  Wil- 
son's "Aristocrats  of  the  Garden"  and 
Leicester  B.  Holland's  "The  Garden 
Blue  Book".  The  names  to  be  sure 
suggest  a  rigid  exclusiveness.  But 
like  all  social  registers,  they  are  valu- 
able as  address  books;  for  the  num- 
bers come  crowding  in  to  the  extent 
of  some  eight  hundred  in  the  first  vol- 
ume. "The  Garden  Blue  Book"  has 
many  advantages  and  is  not  merely  a 
tabidation  of  the  patricians.  On  each 
page  there  is  an  excellent  illustration 
of  the  growing  plant  with  careful  di- 
rections as  to  its  nurture,  and  on  the 
opposite  page,  a  school  chart  with  a 
monthly  record  of  its  behavior.  An 
unconscionable  liberty  one  would 
think,  to  keep  such  tabs  on  aristocrats 
whose  manners  might  be  taken  for 
granted.  But  possibly  only  a  more 
austere  form  of  "Town  Topics"  in 
which  the  gardener,  to  his  delight  and 
his  profit,  is  made  the  reporter.  More 
democratic  by  far,  indeed  an  open 
swing  of  the  door,  is  the  list  given  by 
Mrs.  Albee  in  "Hardy  Plants  for  Cot- 
tage Gardens".  In  this,  fields  and 
woods  are  transformed  into  seed-beds. 
The  list  is  far  too  inclusive,  but  there 
are  many  suggestions  for  gardeners 
like  me  who  see  nothing  rude  and  un- 
comely in  country  cousins,  and  above 
all  for  those  with  a  limited  purse. 
Those  of  little  faith  and  bitter  experi- 
ence who  wish  "to  be  shown",  will  find 
the  most  satisfactory  illustrations  of 
their  prospective  purchases  in  Mrs. 
Sedgwick's  "The  Garden  Month  by 
Month".  The  photographs,  which  are 
both  beautiful  and  profuse,  show  not 
merely  the  flower  but  the  growing 


424 


THE   BOOKMAN 


plant  and  thus  give  an  idea  of  its 
habits,  its  height,  and  appearance. 

Although  essential  to  the  midsum- 
mer gaiety  of  the  garden  and  a  neces- 
sary adornment  in  its  first  years,  an- 
nuals are  accorded  less  attention  and 
space.  It  is  a  pity,  for  even  the  wary 
are  most  often  misled  by  the  glowing 
accounts  of  their  beauties  as  set  forth 
in  seed-catalogues.  The  mistakes,  of 
course,  need  last  but  a  season,  but  they 
are  mistakes  which  are  apt  to  be  writ- 
ten in  flame.  Mrs.  Albee  gives  a  con- 
venient summary  which  has  the  ad- 
vantage of  being  divided  according  to 
color  and  season,  thus  offering  all  pos- 
sibilities at  a  glance.  It  is,  however, 
too  large  to  be  quite  dependable,  and 
the  best  to  my  way  of  thinking  is  in 
Miss  Shelton's  ''Continuous  Bloom  in 
America".  Here  only  the  most  desir- 
able annuals  are  enumerated,  especial 
stress  being  laid  on  those  of  easy  cul- 
ture, of  length  and  wealth  of  bloom, 
and  adaptability  for  cutting  and  house 
decoration. 

In  this  day  when  the  price  of  plants 
is  prohibitive,  especially  grateful  are 
those  books  which  give  careful  direc- 
tions as  to  "raising  from  seeds".  Few 
of  us  have  escaped  the  snares  of  the 
midsummer  catalogues  which  promise 
from  seed  sown  in  September,  a  wealth 
of  next  season's  bloom.  Nor  do  we 
know,  save  at  the  sacrifice  of  our 
purse  and  our  patience,  which  among 
those  marked  "easily  grown"  will  fail 
to  germinate  or  to  come  true.  A  frank 
account  of  her  many  failures  and  her 
restricted  triumphs  as  well  as  the 
names  of  the  few  on  which  she  feels 
she  may  count,  is  given  by  Mrs.  Albee 
in  the  form  of  a  personal  narrative. 
Mrs.  Ely's  list  in  "The  Practical 
Flower  Garden"  is  more  formal  and 
more  handy,  while  Mr.  Glutton-Brock's 
in  "Studies  in  Gardening",  though 
scattered  is  attended  by  the  best  di- 


rections I  know  as  to  treatment  in  this 
capricious  state. 

Once  the  plants  are  selected  there  is 
no  question  as  to  the  consultant  au- 
thority on  their  welfare  and  care.  No 
gardener  can  afford  to  be  without  the 
standard  "Encyclopedia  of  Horticul- 
ture", by  L.  H.  Bailey.  The  six  vol- 
umes are  expensive  and  bulky,  but 
they  contain  in  a  form  convenient  for 
reference,  articles  written  by  special- 
ists which  record  the  requirements 
and  histories  of  all  available  plants. 
And  not  only  do  these  authorities  put 
their  medical  knowledge  of  horticul- 
ture at  our  disposal  in  a  language  suf- 
ficiently simple  for  amateurs,  but  they 
have  compiled  a  distinctly  American 
book  which  is  written  with  a  careful 
consideration  of  American  climates. 
A  good  supplement  of  household  reme- 
dies and  preventatives  are  the  chap- 
ters of  "General  Advice"  in  "Garden- 
Making",  also  by  Mr.  Bailey.  In  these, 
there  is  sound  counsel  concerning  the 
care  and  the  handling  of  plants,  coun- 
sel which  makes  the  book  valuable  de- 
spite its  antiquated  theories  of  gar- 
dening. Brief  directions  as  to  "First 
Aid"  may  be  found  in  Miss  Shelton's 
chapter  of  "Don'ts"  in  "The  Seasons 
in  a  Flower  Garden",  and  in  Mrs. 
Ely's  chapter  on  "Fertilizers  and  Plant 
Remedies"  in  "The  Practical  Flower 
Garden".  But  unless  the  symptoms 
are  obvious, — and  even  then, — it  is 
wiser  and  more  efficacious  to  "consult 
Bailey".  Other  books  which  deal  ade- 
quately with  sanitation  and  drainage, 
with  all  conditions  necessary  to  public 
health,  are  Mr.  Jenkins's  "The  Hardy 
Flower  Book"  where  the  stress  is  laid 
on  preventative  medicines,  and  Mr. 
Glutton-Brock's  "Studies  in  Garden- 
ing" where  the  emphasis  is  placed 
rather  on  plant  psychology  and  the 
adaptability  of  certain  varieties  to 
special  surroundings. 


THE   BEST  ADVICE   IN  GARDENING 


425 


But  fortunately  £r&i'denin£r  is  not  all 
a  matter  of  immigration  and  hygiene. 
Those  form  but  the  sober  prelimi- 
naries to  gardening  as  a  fine  art,  to 
questions  where  it  is  more  a  matter 
of  cooperation,  of  improving  upon  sug- 
gestions, than  of  blindly  following  the 
lead.  For  the  most  part  the  gardener 
must  be  his  own  architect  and  must 
solve  his  problem  from  a  knowledge  of 
his  own  opportunities  and  limitations, 
profiting  where  he  may  by  happy  acci- 
dents and  more  often  by  his  mistakes. 
Even  such  excellent  charts  as  those 
worked  out  by  Miss  Shelton  in  "Con- 
tinuous Bloom  in  America"  seldom  co- 
incide with  his  needs  and  must  be 
adapted  in  a  manner  more  inspira- 
tional then  it  is  literal.  At  the  same 
time,  written  with  a  sound  under- 
standing of  garden  design  and  an 
eye  keen  for  color  arrangement,  they 
give  simple  rules  as  the  basis  for  all 
safe  experiment.  Much  enlighten- 
ment may  also  be  found,  though  it  is 
apt  to  be  lost  at  first  in  sheer  delight 
at  the  reading,  in  Mr.  Clutton-Brock's 
''Studies  in  Gardening",  random  es- 
says which  deal  largely  with  the  the- 
ory of  design.  Mr.  Clutton-Brock  is  a 
believer  in  formal  planning,  but  also 
in  understanding  on  the  part  of  the 
gardener  of  the  limits  of  formality. 
"It  is  the  business  of  formal  garden- 
ing", he  writes,  "to  make  its  own  de- 
sign and  at  the  same  time  to  obey  the 
laws  of  its  material — ^that  is  to  use 
its  material  so  that  its  characteristic 
beauty  may  be  displayed  to  the  best 
advantage."  Suggestions  as  to  how 
this  maybe  accomplished  will  be  found 
in  the  chapters  "The  Right  Use  of  An- 
nuals", "Common  Sense  in  Garden- 
ing", "The  Problem  of  the  Herbaceous 
Border*',  "The  House  and  Garden", 
and  "Theories  of  Design". 

But  whenever  my  own  enthusiasm 
is  jaded  and  gardening  seems  a  mere 


matter  of  muscle  and  of  routine,  there 
are  two  books  to  which  I  inevitably 
turn  for  stimulus.  One  is  "The  Well 
Considered  Garden",  by  Mrs.  Francis 
King.  She  is  the  garden  "colorist", 
quick  to  discern  and  work  out  an  ef- 
fect of  balanced  beauty  through  har- 
mony or  through  contrast.  Even  in 
writing  of  flowers  and  describing  their 
tones,  whether  it  be  delicate  buff,  a 
vivid  orange  or  a  pale  lavender,  she 
has  the  light-hearted  zest  of  the 
painter  who  takes  joy  in  merely 
spreading  his  paint  on  the  palette. 
And  like  many  a  modem  artist  she 
shows  us  that  no  color  is  really  ugly, 
that  even  magenta  phlox,  the  bane  of 
the  border,  may  be,  if  properly  used, 
transformed  to  a  thing  of  positive 
beauty.  When,  moreover,  she  writes 
of  combinations  dear  to  her  heart — 
preferably  of  those  softened  by  gray- 
blue,  white,  or  lavender — ^her  enthusi- 
asm becomes  infectious.  Before  I 
know  it  I  have  pencil  and  paper  in 
hand  and  am  working  out  a  new  plan, 
one  in  which  there  shall  be  no  garish 
mistakes.  Or  I  am  out  taking  stock  of 
my  failures,  pulling  out  here,  replac- 
ing there,  working  with  renewed 
eagerness  as  I  make  use  of  her  sug- 
gestions. It  is  impossible  to  read  her 
chapters  on  "Color  Harmony",  "Com- 
panion Crops",  and  "Balance  in  the 
Flower  Garden"  without  a  conviction 
of  sin,  or  of  attainment  below  one's 
best  efforts.  From  her  one  learns  to 
paint  in  bold  strokes,  in  broad  washes 
of  color,  with  an  eye  trained  not  to 
meticulous  detail,  but  to  the  general 
effect;  an  effect  gained  by  harmoni- 
ous groupings  and  masses. 

Much  the  same  may  be  said  of  Miss 
Jekyll,  past  mistress  of  gardening  and 
author  of  many  books  of  which  the 
best  is  "Color  Schemes  in  the  Flower 
Garden".  She,  too,  leads  one  to  work 
with  flowers  as  though  with  paints. 


426 


THE   BOOKMAN 


and  to  feel  that  mere  bloom  is  not 
enough  if  it  be  lacking  in  composition 
and  arrangement.  The  tones  she  loves 
are  more  subdued  than  those  preferred 
by  Mrs.  King,  less  gay,  less  daring, 
for  she  has  a  liking  for  mist-like  ef- 
fects and  plants  of  silvery  delicacy. 
But  her  manner  is  that  of  the  artist, 
creating  in  a  medium  which  is  as  beau- 
tiful as  it  is  transient. 

Neither  of  these  two  artists  may 
we  slavishly  imitate.  Copyists  we 
could  not  be  an  we  would.  The 
individual  surroundings  and  soil  are 
stiff  material  for  adaptation.  And 
there  is  at  best  a  world  of  difference 
between  the  work  of  genius  and  of 
craftsman.  But  whatever  our  oppor- 
tunities, we  may  use  these  books  as  an 


inspiration,  and  learn  from  the  ex- 
amples they  offer  that  discontent 
which  is  the  first  step  to  "gardening 
finely". 


Continuous  Bloom  In  America.  By  Loulae 
Shelton.    Charles  Scrlbner's  Sons. 

The  Practical  Flower  Garden.  By  Helena  R. 
Bly.    The  MacmiUan  Co. 

The  Hardy  Flower  Book.  By  B.  H.  Jenkins. 
Charles  Scrlbner's  Sons. 

studies  in  Gardeuinfir.  By  A.  Clutton-Broek. 
Charles  Scrlbner's  Sons. 

Aristocrats  of  the  Garden.  By  Ernest  H. 
Wilson.    Doublcday,  Page  and  Co. 

The  Garden  Blue  Book.  By  Leicester  B.  Hol- 
land.    Doubleday,  Page  and  Co. 

Hardy  Plants  for  Cottage  Gardens.  By 
Helen  R.  Albee.    Henry  Holt  and  Co. 

The  Garden  Month  by  Month.  By  M.  8. 
Sedgwick.     Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co. 

Thf  Encyclopedia  of  Horticulture.  By  I«.  H. 
Bailey.    The  Macmillan  Co. 

Garden-Making.  By  L.  H.  BaUey.  The  Bfae- 
millan  Co. 

The  Seasons  in  a  Flower  Garden.  By  Lonlse 
Shelton.     Charles  Scrlbner's  Sons. 

The  Well  Considered  Garden.  By  Mrs.  Fran- 
cis King.    Charles  Scrlbner's  Sons. 

Color  Schemes  in  the  Flower  Garden.  By 
Gertrude  Jekyll.    Charles  Scrlbner's  Sons. 


COMPLAINT  DEPARTMENT 


On  Skipping 

THE  business  of  skipping  every- 
thing we  read  has  become  so  uni- 
[    versal  and  unconscious  that  few  of  us 
I    have  stopped  to  consider  its  possibili- 
/    ties,  or  the  great  benefits  to  be  derived 
j     by  reducing  it  to  a  scientific  basis.    It 
1     is  a  process  largely  acquired  by  our 
habit  of  reading  the  newspapers.    The 
men  who  write  the  headlines  make  it 
80  easy  for  us,  that  it  is  possible 
merely  by  turning  over  the  pages  and 
glancing  at  these  headlines,  to  get 
what  we  believe  is  a  fair  idea  of  what 
is  going  on  without  reading  anything 
in  the  pages.    We  assume,  with  bland 
confidence,  that  the  men  who  make  the 
headlines  must  themselves  read  the 
articles,  and  that  if  there  is  anything 


in  them  worth  knowing,  the  headlines 
will  convey  it  to  us. 

It  is  quite  remarkable  that  this  sys- 
tem has  not  yet  been  applied  to  books, 
but  that  is  because,  doubtless,  we  have 
been  so  busy  with  other  matters  that 
we  haven't  gotten  around  to  it.  The 
[trouble  with  the  average  index  is  that 
I  it  has  no  developed  plot  And  the  men 
iwho  get  up  tables  of  contents  appear 
to  be  bent  upon  concealing  from  us 
what  we  really  want  to  know.  To  do  the 
thing  properly  of  course,  as  it  really 
ought  to  be  done,  they  might  have 
to  read  the  books  themselves.  That 
is  a  great  deal  to  ask  of  a  man  who 
gets  up  the  contents  and  index.  He 
is  a  busy  man.  He  has  his  responsi- 
bilities. He  ought  not  to  be  pushed 
too  hard.    Besides,  if  he  did  read  the 


ON  SKIPPING 


427 


I 


books  and  were  able  to  make  his  con- 
tents and  index  as  good  as  they  ought 
to  be,  this  would  show  in  him  powers 
and  abilities  that  he  could  use  to  bet- 
ter advantage  in  other  directions.  He 
could  probably  make  more  at  writing 
headlines. 

It  might  be  practical  to  get  the  gen- 
tlemen who  write  the  headlines  and 
"doormats"  to  work  evenings  on 
books,  and  to  give  them  the  space 
which  the  obliging  author  employs  for 
"forewords",  introductions,  and  pref- 
aces. This  would  be  a  great  savng. 
We  should  only  have  to  read  the^rst 
few  pages  of  a  book,  embodied  thus  in 
appropriate  headlines,  to  discourse 
about  it  even  more  intelUgently  than 
we  do  at  present. 

It  would  not  do  to  trust  the  author 
with  this  job.  In  the  first  place,  he 
knows  too  much  about  the  book.  It  is 
a  fair  assumption  that  he  has  read 
it  almost  too  closely.  This  is  a  great 
handicap,  for  he  would  be  sure  to  be 
biased  in  his  view  and  put  in  some- 
thing not  essential.  We  want  a  trained 
skipper — one  who  touches  the  book 
only  on  the  high  spots. 

It  should  be  understood  that  we  are 
not  looking  exactly  for  a  summary,  be- 
cause a  summary  is  generally  dull  and 
la9ks  dramatic  excellence.  We  want^ 
something  which,  in  a  few  words,  con- 
^vWeys  the  author's  idea  better  than  he 
I  himself  has  done  it.  "Hamlet"  is  con- 
sidered by  those  who  have  taken  the 
time  and  trouble  to  read  it  through,  to 
be  one  of  the  best  of  Shakespeare's 
plays.  It  would  be  unfair  to  the  more 
or  less  extinguished  author  to  start  off 
with: 

Hamlet,  a  yoiing|  prince  of  the  honse  of  Den- 
mark, becomes  Ter|^  angry  because  his  father- 
in-law  has  poured  into  his  late  father's  ear 
something  that  caused  his  quietus^  Hamlet  re- 
solves to  get  even,  but  puts  off  the  fatal  mo- 
ment so  long  that  he  himself  also  dies^He  is 
in  love,  by  the  way,  with  a  handsom^young 
woman  named  Oph^  <. 


w  •  • 


This  is  all  very  well  but — so  to  speak 
— it  lacks  pep.  It  doesn't  get  home  to 
the  reader.  Something  has  got  to  be 
done  to  make  the  problem  speak  to  all 
of  us.  We  must  be  made  to  feel  that 
it  is  a  problem  that  really  concerns  us. 
It  is  only  by  making  it  a  personal  af- 
fair that  we  can  get  stirred  up  to  any 
degree  of  literary  curiosity  or  excite- 
ment ;   something  like  this : 

WOULD  YOU  KILL  YOUR  PATHBR-IN-LAW  ?   t 

And  At  the  Same  Time  Qo  Back  On  The  Girl 

You  Love? 

Hamlet  was  confronted  with  this  situation. 
He  did  not  feel  justified  in  waiting  for  the 
court  to  decide.  Besides,  his  mother  had  mar- 
ried the  man  who  killed  his  father  too  soon  to 
make  it  entirely  respectable,  and  Ophelia,  his 
best  girl,  became  mad  by  reciting  too  much 
modern  poetry.  Hamlet,  therefore,  kills  every- 
body, including  himself.  It  was  a  splendid 
thing  for  him  to  do,  because  it  proves  that 
living  with  your  father-in-law  under  these  cir- 
cumstances may  be /easily  more  unendurable 
than  death  itself  and  fully  as  bad  as  living 
with  yoqr  %nother-in-law.  He  also  stabbed 
Polonius,  a  fearful  bore,  thus  establishing  a 
useful  precedent. 

The  object  of  skipping  any  book  in 
these  days  is  to  be  able  to  discuss  it  withy 
anybody  else  and  to  convey  the  unmis- 
takable  impression  that  you  have  read 
it  to  the  bone.  Subjected  to  this  test, 
it  will  easily  be  seen  that  you  already 
know  enough  about  Hamlet  for  the 
purpose.  In  fact,  it  gives  you  a  much 
greater  advantage  than  if  you  had 
neglected  your  business  and  golf  and 
baseball  and  the  ''movies"  to  study  it 
more  carefully.  For  you  can  now  bei/ 
offhand  and  delightfully  humorous.    X 

In  these  favorable  circumstances, 
you  meet  a  clever  lady  whom,  because 
you  do  not  care  to  marry  her,  you  wish 
to  impress  with  your  lofty  intelli- 
gence.   And  she  says : 

•  "Don't  you  think  'Hamlet'  is  a  won- 
derful psychological  study?" 

"Tremendous",  you  say,  flecking  the 
ashes  from  your  cigarette.  "But  it  is 
a  great  pity  that  Ophelia  got  going  on 


^ 


428 


THE  BOOKMAN 


free  verse.  Otherwise  she  might  have 
died  sane." 

''Oh,  you  dreadful  iconoclast",  she 
exclaims,  tapping  you  reproachfully 
with  her  fan.  ''Always  making  fun  of 
the  most  sacred  things.  Will  yeu 
never  be  serious?" 

"I  assure  you  I  am  serious",  you  say 
gravely.  "And  who  would  live  with 
one's  father-in-law  when  he  hasn't 
money  enough  to  support  you  in  the 
*  manner  to  which  you  have  been  accus- 
tomed?" You  remark  this  at  a  ven- 
ture. It  isn't  in  the  headline,  but  you 
know  you  are  safe.  You  can  say  al- 
most anything  when,  with  a  slight 
basis  of  fact,  you  say  it  in  that  way. 
And  your  reputation  for  being  a 
Shakespearian  scholar  and  an  acute 
literary  critic  is  thereby  established 
beyond  peradventure — as  Shakespeare 
might  himself  say. 

A  bond  of  sympathy  is  immediately 
established  between  you.  She  is  flat- 
tered by  the  fact  that  you  have  con- 
sidered her  worthy  of  your  confidence 
to  the  extent  of  being  able  to  under- 
stand the  depth  of  your  real  meaning, 
clothed  as  it  were  in  your  inimitable 
wit.  And  when  she  meets  you  again 
she  says: 

"You  are  such  a  deep  student  of 
Shakespeare,  won't  you  really  tell  me 
sometime — in  one  of  your  sober  mo- 
ments— ^what  you  consider  his  real 
message  to  the  world?"  To  which  you 
retort  suavely : 

"Ah,  my  friend,  life  is  indeed  a  sol- 
emn tangle — let  us  not  be  too  seri- 
ous, or  we  shall  go  mad — like  poor 
Ophelia." 

It  may  be  argued  that  the  author  of 
a  modem  book,  in  his  introduction,  or« 
the  publisher  in  his  description,  gives 
enough  of  an  idea  of  it,  so  that  the 
reading  is  entirely  unnecessary.  The 
author  for  example,  may  begin  with 


the  startling  and  revolutionary  words : 
"In  this  book  I  have  sought  to  con- 
vey— " 

The  only  difficulty  with  this  theory 
is  that  the  author  so  rarely  conveys 
what  he  thinks  he  is  seeking  to — and 
the  publisher,  knowing  the  genuine 
value  of  the  book  if  he  can  only  get  it 
read,  is  rarely  dishonorable  enough* 
or  unbusinesslike  enough,  to  give 
away  the  whole  plot  in  advance.  Be- 
sides, it  is  not  essential  to  know  the 
real  plot  of  a  book  in  order  to  converse 
abou|  it  as  if  you  had  read  it.  If  you 
wanPto  know  the  plot  of  Hall  Caine's 
books  you  have  but  to  read  the  Bible, 
where  he  got  them;  and  as  many  of 
us  have  read  the  Bible  when  very 
young,  it  is  therefore  not  necessary 
to  read  Hall  Gaine's  books  at  all.  That 
is,  unless  you  are  reading  for  style; 
in  which  case  you  will  of  course  read 
Hall  Gaine. 

It  is  often  best,  however,  not  to 
know  the  plot.  '  Mr.  Galsworthy's 
"Saint's  Progress"  might  be  dealt 
with  thus: 

If  jou  love  a  girl  and  her  back-number  father 
objects,  is  it  right  to  keep  a  war  waiting  just 
to  get  married?     May  you  not  do  somethinc 
else? 
N.  B. 

Girl's  name:    Noel  Pierson. 
Lover's  name:    Cyril  Morland. 

Armed  with  this  fundamental  in- 
formation, you  are  approached  once 
more  by  your  literary  lady.  And  she 
says: 

"Don't  you  think  'Saint's  Progress' 
is  a  wonderful  study?" 

"Ah,  but,"  you  soliloquize,  flecking 
the  ashes  from  your  cigarette,  "if  you 
really  want  to  get  married  properly, 
why  not — I  say  why  not? — ^keep  a  war 
waiting  at  least  a  couple  of  days?" 

'Tou  are  quite  impossible",  she  ex- 
claims. "Will  you  never  abandon  your 
fiippai^   manner?      Don't   you    real- 


'"^ 


ON  SKIPPING 


429 


/ 


You  do  realize.  Being  now  an  ac- 
complished skipper  of  books,  you  know 
that  you  mustn't  go  too  far.  And  so 
you  say,  again  gravely: 

"Ah,  yes.  You  are  right.  But 
what,  after  all,  is  marriage?  The  old 
boundaries  are  being  broken  down. 
Galsworthy  is  only  slightly  in  advance 
of  his  age.  He  has  true  vision.  What 
will  the  future  be?  How  can  anyone 
forecast  that?  All  I  know  is  that 
there  is  something  deeper  than  this 
false  civilization — something  hidden 
in  our  souls  that — ** 

She  clasps  your  hand. 

"It  is  indeed  so",  she  whispers, 
looking  wistfully  out  of  the  ninth- 
story  window  toward  Pittsburgh. 
"How  well  you  voice  it!  How  deep 
your  insight!  And  Galsworthy!  Is 
he  not — ^wonderful?" 

It  is  not  improbable  that  there  are 
many  conscientious  people  who  will 
dismiss  this  whole  argument  as  being 
too  flippant  in  itself,  and  unworthy  of 
any  genuine  lover  of  literature.  But 
it  must  be  remembered  that,  as  the 
late  Grover  Cleveland  remarked,  we 
are  confronted  by  a  condition  and  not 
a  theory.  It  is  obvious  that  we  can 
read  only  a  small  portion  of  what  is 
being  written,  no  matter  how  good  it 
is.  jj[/^jau8t  abandon  the  whole  busi- 
ness, thus  sacrificing  the  society  and 
esteem  of  all  literary  people,  or  we 
must  acquire  the  art  of  skipping.  And 
the  question  then  becomes,  Shall  w< 
learn  this  art  ourselves  as  it  oughl 
to  be  learned  or  shall  we  wait  for  th< 
labor-saving  headlines  to  come  along' 
Time  presses.  Ten  books  will  come 
out  next  week  which  not  to  know  about 
is  to  argue  one's  self  unknown. 

Take  Job.  We  had  thought  that  this 
unfortunate  gentleman's  status  was 
fairly  well  established,  that  hii|  stand- 
ing as  a  character  in  fiction  was  fixed 


so  that  we  should  not  have  to  bother 
about  him  any  more.    He  has  served 
us  well  as  a  kind  of  example  in  pa- 
tience and  discipline.    He  made  a  poor 
selection  of  friends  and  undoubtedly 
talked  too  much  to  the  neighbors  about 
his  symptoms  and  personal  troubles. 
And  yet,  until  the  income  tax  and  Bol- 
shevism came  along  and  the  price  of 
clothes  got  so  high  that  it  was  no  ob- 
ject for  a  modest   and   God-fearing 
man  to  wear  them  any  more,  we  were 
inclined  to  sympathize  with  Job.    But 
now  is  H.  G.  Wells,  who  writes  about 
Job;  and  in  order  to  keep  up  with  the 
literary  times  we  must  know  what  Mr. 
Wells  thinks,  or  we  shall  be  termed 
that  ignominious  thing,   a  lowbrow. 
This  is  also  true  of  J.  D.  Beresford. 
We  had  supposed  that  the  general  ob- 
ject that  people  had  in  mind  in  getting 
married,  in  view  of  the  high  rents, 
was  to  save  as  much  floor  space  as  pos- 
sible;   yet  in   "God's   Counterpoint" 
Mr.  Beresford  haskhis  couple,  on  their 
honeymoon,  hire  no  end  of  separate 
apartments,  apparently  regardless  of 
expense,  and  all  because  the  alleged 
hero's  father  refused  to  read  risquS 
books  in  his  early  youth.    It  is  not  my 
intention  to  discuss  matters  of  sex.    I 
am  no  Robert  Chambers  in  disguise, 
And  I  understand  from  members  of  my 
immediate  family  that  the  ground  has 
already  been  covered  by  many  pains- 
taking and  conscientious  people  who 
believe  that  writing  literature  is  above 
any  money  consideration.      But  you 
cannot  possibly  discuss  the  subject  of 
Platonic  matrimonial  friendship — as- 
suming there  is  such  a  thing — ^with 
any  Vassar  graduate  unless  you  have 
read,  or  know  something  about,  Mr. 
Beresford's  book. 

We  must,  therefore,  learn  how  to 
skip  if  we  wish  to  achieve  the  reputa-t 
tion  of  being  even  semi-intelligent/ 
And  being  semi-intelligent  is~atltid3t^ft 


t 


430 


THE   BOOKMAN 


necessity — unless   you    live    in    New 
York. 

The  worst  of  it  is  that  what  you 
may  need  to  know  about  a  book  may 
not  be  at  its  end,  but  concealed  some- 
where inside  of  it»  in  a  pocket,  as  it 
were.  This  means  sharp  lookin£r»  a 
sort  of  instinct  acquired  only  by  prac- 
tice. 

Macaulay  used  to  do  it  by  runnin^r 
his  eye  over  the  opening  of  each  para- 
graph. He  could  usually  track  the  es- 
sential thing  to  its  lair  in  a  short 
time.  His  wonderful  memory  was  a 
great  help.  I  am  aware  that  memories 
are  going  out.  But  you  can  get  one 
for  five  dollars  at  any  correspondence 
school. 

In  addition  to  novels,  however,  there 
are  other  kinds  of  books  which  it  ap- 
pears necessary  to  skip  in  order  to 
appear  as  if  you  knew  something.  No 
one  ought,  certainly  in  these  times,  to 
appear  not  to  know  something  about 
the  Itff-cr^^  nf  Nftfynfl-  A  year  or  so 
ago  a^l^ief  ^kipping  of  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  might  have 
answered  for  this  purpose.  But  in  the 
best  literary — and  I  believe  also  in  the 
best  political — circles,  the  CJonstitu- 
tion  is  no  longer  en  rdgle.  It  is  there- 
fore essential  that  we  should  do  some 
kipping_of  the^jwritings  of  modem 
histoj^ans.  You  will  discover  that  your 
ignorance  of  the  present  League — an 
ignorance  that  you  share  with  most 
good  Americans — depends  upon  how 
little  you  know  of  former  leagues. 
But  after  you  have  judiciously  skipped 
Stephen  Pierce  Duggan's  book  ("The 
League  of  Nations.  The  Principle  and 
Practice")*  you  will  be  entirely  safe  in 
meeting  your  literary  lady.  She  will 
begin  by  saying: 

"Don't  you  think  the  League  of  Na- 
tions is  a  wonderful  psychological 
study?" 


"Poor  old  Mettemich",  you  will  re- 
ply, somewhat  absently  flecking  the 
ashes  from  your  cigarette,  "he  little 
knew — " 

She  will  press  you  for  a  more  defi- 
nite reply. 

"Knew  what?"  she  will  ask,  with 
the  devotional  aspect  of  one  who  seeks 
wisdom  at  its  very  fountainhead.  And 
you  will  then  realize  your  responsibil- 
ity. This  is  no  time  for  cheap  cyni- 
cism, or  brilliant  persiflage.  You  must 
get  down  to  business. 

"He  little  knew",  you  will  go  on, 
"the  basic  principles  of  self-determi- 
nation. Much  as  we  revere  the  Greeks, 
we  have  coiue  to  realize  that,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  Plato,  they  were 
alas!  but  hopeless  seekers  after  the 
light.  And  Rome!  What  is  Rome 
now?  The  Holy  Roman  Empire  has 
been  dissolved.  Do  you  realize  that? 
Nothing  but  Shantung  remains." 

You  will  say  this  after  a  consider- 
able pause,  with  deep  feeling. 

"It  is  as  you  say",  she  will  remark. 
"Ah,  my  friend,  if  I  did  not  feel  that 
there  were  still  minds  like  yours  to 
grapple  with  these  international  prob- 
lems, I  should  despair  of  my  country." 

You  will  then  lay  your  hand  upon 
her  arm ;  not  in  the  Robert  Chambers 
or  John  Galsworthy  or  J.  D.  Beresf  ord, 
or  even  the  H.  G.  Wells  or  HalTXJaine 
manner,  but  more  as  William  Howard 
Taft  or  Robert  Lansing  would  do  it. 

"We  must  work  together,  we  men 
and  women  of  the  higher  mood,  for 
the  ultimate  betterment  of  humanity, 
must  we  not?"  you  will  whisper,  dis- 
creetly. 

And,  as  Hamlet  remarks — at  least 
so  I  am  told  by  an  invaluable  friend 
of  mine  named  Bartlett — "so  runs  the 
world  away." 

—THOMAS  L.  MASSON 


• 


HOW  TO  ENTERTAIN  AN  AUTHOR 


431 


How  to 
Entertain 
An  Author 

ENTERTAINING  an  author  is  so 
highly  specialized  a  form  of  eti- 
quette, one  so  different  from  what  the 
ordinary  run  of  people  consider  it  and 
so  requisite  in  these  days  of  universal 
authorship,  that  a  new  chapter  must 
be  added  to  the  code. 

Time  was  when  authors  were  few 
and  far  between;  today  the  census 
lists  166,947  of  them,  which,  being  di- 
vided among  our  population,  means 
about  1,438  authors  to  every  million 
of  men,  women  and  children  in  these 
United  States,  including  the  Philip- 
pines and  Hawaii.  Of  course,  when 
we  assume  the  mandatory  over  Tur- 
key, Armenia,  Ireland,  and  the  Jew- 
ish pale,  this  percentage  will  be 
slightly  lowered.  However,  there  are 
enough  of  them  within  the  bounds  of 
the  United  States  to  make  quite  a 
showing,  and,  as  the  open  season  for 
authors  fast  approaches,  these  lines  are 
written  to  guide  those  intending  to 
flirt  around  the  fringe  of  the  life  lit- 
erary. 

The  etiquette  divides  itself  into  two 
distinct  parts:  (1)  how  to  cultivate 
an  author;  (2)  what  to  do  with  him 
after  you  get  him. 

You  can  meet  an  author  in  the  or- 
dinary way  by  having  a  friend  who  is 
on  the  inside  of  the  literary  ring  ar- 
range for  you  to  buy  a  luncheon  for 
them  both  at  some  expensive  restau- 
rant. Or  you  can — ^this  is  the  more 
subtle  way — drop  him  a  note  via  his 
publishers.  The  note  should  run  some- 
what in  this  fashion : 

My  dear  Mr.  Hezler  Jones: 

I  am  prefluming  to  write  you  because  for  the 
past  few  days  I  have  been  fervidly  absorbed  by 
your  latest  novel  "Candytufts".  What  an  in- 
spiration must  have  been  given  you  to  write 
so  remarkable  a  cross-section  of  our  modem 


life ! . . .  However,  there  is  one  point  that 
bothers  me — I  do  not  understand  why,  after 
Plashers  has  struck  his  wife  with  the  empty 
milk  bottle  on  page  249,  and  has  wiped  the 
blood  from  his  hands,  he  mutters,  "There,  that 
is  done,  at  last !"  Don't  you  think  the  mere 
act  of  striking  would  produce  sufficient  satis- 
faction? And  doesn't  this  remark  slightly 
lower  the  tone  of  what  he  has  done? 

I  did  not  mean  to  bother  you,  but  this 
thought  has  haunted  me  for  days  and  I  was 
simply  forced  to  appeal  to  you  for  an  explana- 
tion. 

LILT   LOUIS!    80UD1B 

p.  S. — ^Do  you  ever  tea? 

Now  it  may  be  that  this  note  will  never 
reach  the  author.  Publishers  vie  with 
Mr.  Burleson  in  preventing  the  de- 
livery of  mail.  If  you  call  up  a  pub- 
lisher's office  and  ask  for  an  author's 
address,  they  will  summarily  refuse  to 
furnish  it.  However,  should  the  pub- 
lisher be  considerate  enough  to  for- 
ward your  letter,  you  will  doubtless 
receive  a  reply. 

If  the  author  has  published  only  one 
book  he  will  answer  immediately,  ac- 
cepting your  invitation  to  tea;  if  he 
is  an  established  author  it  will  re- 
quire quite  a  lot  more  correspondence 
to  bring  him  around.  Established  au- 
thors are  usually  busy  men  who  run  a 
literary  shop  as  a  side  line  to  practis- 
ing law,  medicine,  or  sales  managing; 
consequently  their  off-hours  are  at  a 
premium. 

Never  make  the  mistake  of  merely 
saying  that  you  have  read  his  book; 
always  pick  out  an  obscure  passage 
about  three-quarters  through  and  ask 
him  about  it.  This  proves  that  you 
have  read  his  book  and  are  genuinely 
interested  in  it.  You  may  not  know 
it — and  in  saying  this  I  reveal  a  great 
literary  secret — ^but  authors  deliber- 
ately put  these  obscure  passages  in 
their  books  in  order  to  arouse  contro- 
versy, hoping,  of  course,  that  the  con- 
troversy will  lead  to  an  invitation. 
The  established  author,  I  might  add, 
can  never  be  attracted  by  a  mere  invi- 
tation to  tea.    In  writing  him  always 


482 


THE   BOOKMAN 


»» 


say:   "P.  S.   Do  you  ever  dine  out? 

In  the  entertainment  of  authors  so- 
ciety is  divided  into  two  opposite 
camps:  those  who  treat  an  author  as 
an  author  and  those  who  treat  him  as 
a  human  bein^r*  I  have  always  con- 
sidered it  questionable  to  treat  an  au- 
thor as  an  author.  Like  a  great  many 
humans  he  dislikes  having  his  busi- 
ness cast  in  his  teeth.  You  don't  ask 
the  minister  when  he  comes  to  tea  how 
soul-saving  is  getting  along.  You 
never  dream  of  asking  a  lawyer  if  he 
is  writing  any  more  of  those  jolly 
little  briefs,  or  consult  the  plumber  on 
the  progress  of  sinks.  Why  then 
should  an  author  be  publicly  reminded 
of  the  fact  that  he  is  an  author? 
Imagine  smacking  the  author  on  the 
back  and  bellowing  heartily,  "Well, 
how  does  the  Underwood  run  these 
days?"  Besides,  he  may  use  a  Co- 
rona, and  you'd  have  made  a  terrible 
faux  pas !  For  authors  are  known  by 
the  typewriters  they  use. 

No,  treat  the  author  as  a  human 
being.  When  he  enters  the  room  in- 
troduce him  as  Mr.  Hexler  Jones  and 
don't  let  your  guests  make  catty  com- 
ments on  his  old-style  dinner  jacket. 
Offer  him  the  same  sort  of  drinks  you 
offer  the  others  and  give  him  the  same 
sort  of  food.  There  are  exceptions,  of 
course.  One  evening  I  was  entertain- 
ing an  author  who  writes  for  over  a 
million  a  week  and  passed  him  the 
usual  sherry  and  bitters,  whereupon 
he  remarked  audibly:  "I  don't  want 
that  rot-gut,  give  me  whiskey."  His 
wife  later  explained  that  he  had  just 
been  obliged  to  sell  a  short  story  for 
much  under  his  usual  price  of  a  thou- 
sand dollars,  so  the  incident  was  for- 
gotten. 

During  the  course  of  the  dinner — 
perhaps  during  salad  and  after  you 
have  said  what  you  think  of  the 
present   administration  —  you   might 


casually  mention  Mr.  Hexler  Jones's 
latest  book.  By  speaking  then,  you 
have  allowed  him  a  period  in  which  to 
enjoy  the  bulk  of  the  dinner.  Had  you 
brought  up  the  subject  with  the  hors 
d'oeuvres,  the  poor  man  would  have 
missed  most  of  the  dinner  as  he  would 
have  been  talking.  During  the  salad, 
then,  is  the  reasonable  time.  From 
that  point  on  you  and  your  guests  can 
enjoy  the  monologue. 

It  has  been  found  that  having  an 
author  in  is  a  much  cheaper  form  of 
evening  amusement  than  paying  Ca- 
ruso for  a  few  songs,  or  hiring  Tony 
Sarg's  marionettes. 

When  the  author  has  apparently  ex- 
hausted what  he  has  to  say  about  him- 
self, have  your  husband  or  some  other 
male  take  him  discreetly  into  the  li- 
brary and  ply  him  with  liquor  and 
cigars.  On  the  library  table  have  his 
books  casually  displayed.  A  great 
many  hostesses  make  the  mistake  of 
displaying  his  books  in  the  beginning 
of  the  evening.  This  is  fatal.  If  the 
author  sees  his  books  when  he  first 
enters  he  is  thereupon  satisfied  and 
will  refuse  to  perform;  but  if  you 
withhold  them  from  him  the  absence 
will  have  the  same  effect  as  hot  irons 
do  on  trained  seals. 

The  other  form  of  entertainment — 
treating  him  as  an  author — requires 
an  entirely  different  setting.  It  should 
be  a  tete-^-tete  and,  presuming  you 
are  a  woman,  you  should  assume  the 
role  of  Cleopatra  or  Theda  Bara. 
Shaded  candles,  tuberoses  on  the  man- 
tel, a  disappearing  maid,  expensive 
Egyptian  cigarettes,  and  the  best  sil- 
ver service  set  up  in  a  comer  of  the 
library  are  the  requisite  properties 
for  entertaining  an  author  as  an  au- 
thor in  your  home.  Make  a  pretense 
of  pouring  tea  and  then  hand  him  the 
carafe  of  Scotch  and  the  cigarette  box. 
Confine  your  conversation  to  Bolshev- 


HOW  TO  ENTERTAIN  AN  AUTHOR 


433 


ism  and  its  little  offspring,  Sex.  Per- 
haps, if  the  repartee  waxes  too  heady, 
you  might  dilute  it  with  a  few  drops 
of  New  Thought  or  some  other  re- 
ligious cordial. 

This  may  seem  indiscreet  but  the 
author  will  appreciate  it.  Most  au- 
thors are  married  and  have  children. 
They  stoke  the  furnace  and  do  the 
marketing  and  wait  on  their  wives  and 
lead  a  very  humdrum  life.  In  their 
heart  of  hearts  they  long  to  be  the 
sort  of  men  they  write  about.  The 
setting  I  have  suggested  gives  them 
all  the  thrills  of  experience  without 
the  headache  of  alimony. 

There  is  just  one  more  word  to  say 
— that  is,  on  entertaining  foreign  au- 
thors. From  all  accounts  it  looks  as 
though  we  would  continue  to  have 
a  flood  of  English  authors  in  America 
this  year.  Taxes  and  living  are  high 
abroad,  and  even  Mr.  Shaw  is  said  to 
be  yielding  to  the  temptation  of  our 
lecture  receipts,  although  he  has 
stoutly  refused  to  consider  this  coun- 
try as  anything  but  a  mental  doormat. 
We  will  have  war  poets  and  military 
authors  and  radical  writers  of  the  bet- 
ter class  coming  over  in  droves.    Con- 


sequently, the  socially  elect  should 
learn  now  the  art  of  entertaining  these 
imported  writers. 

The  first  thing  to  remember  is  that 
all  authors  from  countries  other  than 
the  United  States  are  invariably  great 
authors  and  should  be  treated  as  such. 
In  their  omniscience  they  will  criti- 
cize our  customs  and  our  country.  Al- 
ways agree  with  them.  We  are  a  very 
young  nation  and  have  a  lot  to  learn. 
In  entertaining  them,  accommodate 
yourself  to  their  peculiar  manner  of 
living.  Foreign  authors  always  have 
temperament.  Somehow,  American 
authors  can't  get  away  with  tempera- 
ment. Finally,  remember  that  they 
are  here  for  business  and  their  time 
with  us  is  short.  In  selecting  your 
company,  therefore,  choose  only  those 
who  can  assist  in  the  propaganda.  In- 
sist that  your  social  secretary  put  an 
account  of  the  dinner  party  in  all  the 
society  columns.  And  put  every  facil- 
ity, such  as  motor-cars,  club  credit,  the 
run  of  the  house,  and  the  eligible 
debutantes,  at  their  command.  For- 
eign authors  are  accustomed  to  having 
these  little  comforts  at  home  and  we 
should  not  deny  them  here. 

— ^RICHARDSON  WRIGHT 


A  NOTE  UPON  STYLE 


BY  FREDERICK  NIVEN 


A  NOTE  upon  style,  or  technique, 
may  not  interest  the  average 
reader;  but  it  should  interest  the 
writer  unless  his  private  opinion  of 
his  readers  be :  "Anything  will  do  for 
them.  They  cannot  tell  a  Shepherd's 
Bush  White  City  from  a  city  of  mar- 
ble", and  unless  his  aim  be  the  emolu- 
ments accruing  from  mere  circulat- 
ing-library box-filling. 

Yet  in  this  matter  of  style  it  is  bet- 
ter to  be  a  reader  who  knows  nothing 
of  it,  who  has  never  heard  the  word, 
than  one  to  whom  it  is  ssmonymous 
with  the  saying  of  prunes  and  prisms. 
"The  schoolmaster  has  inevitably  come 
to  be  the  arbiter  of  what  shall  or  shall 
not  be  read,"  wrote  Mr.  Gosse,  in  a 
recent  essay,  protesting  with  his 
wonted  suavity  against  the  fact.  The 
average  exponent  is  omniscient — ^he 
knows ;  the  average  practitioner  goes 
humbly — ^he  is  always  learning.  Mr. 
Gosse's  "schoolmaster"  would  advise 
a  Hardy  to  study  a  Sully,  instead  of  a 
Sully  to  study  a  Hardy.  Practitioners 
are  better  guides  than  exponents.  It 
was  the  practitioners  and  the  lovers 
of  literature  who  discovered  Joseph 
Conrad.  They  discovered  him  when 
he  wrote  "Youth"  and  "Typhoon". 
Now  the  erudite  are  willing  to  name 
him,  carefully — and  they  praise  his 
"Victory"  and  his  "Arrow  of  Gold" 
when  they  receive  these  for  review, 
telling  us  that  at  last  Conrad  has  done 
big  things ! 


But  the  craftsman  must  be  sincere. 
As  in  the  art  of  painting  we  find  those 
who  cannot  draw  filling  frames,  and 
preaching  a  new  gospel  of  paint  to 
cover  their  deficiencies,  so  do  we  find 
authors  ready  to  fill  the  covers  of  a 
book  though  they  have  never  heard  of 
philology,  though  the  history  of  a 
word  is  of  no  account  to  them,  and 
even  the  laws  of  grammar  are  for 
them  made  but  to  be  ignored.  Should 
the  "schoolmaster"  rise  up  and  speak 
vehemently  to  such,  I  am  with  him. 
There  should  be  for  all  writers  some- 
thing sacerdotal,  in  the  finest  sense,  in 
the  craft  of  words.  It  has  survived 
the  menace  that  blighted  other  crafts 
with  the  passing  of  the  guilds.  Love 
and  pride  in  it  may  continue  even  in 
these  days  when,  in  other  activities, 
love  and  pride  cannot  be  expected,  and 
a  man  spends  all  his  life  punching  out 
(let  us  say)  the  holes  in  a  hinge  by 
the  aid  of  a  machine.  It  is  in  vain  for 
that  man  to  rise  to  the  heights  of 
wishing  he  could  make  them  better. 
He  cannot  even  fall  to  the  depths  of 
saying:  "That  will  do."  The  possi- 
bility of  love  and  pride  is  taken  out 
of  his  life. 

"That  will  do"  may  serve  as  a  motto 
for  the  mere  box-fillers  above  men- 
tioned who,  gushing  of  simple  human 
emotions,  have  secret  contempt  for  the 
tastes  of  the  simple  human  beings  for 
whom  they  cater.  But  there  are  in- 
numerable practitioners  of  the  art  of 


484 


A  NOTE   UPON   STYLE 


435 


words  to  whom  that  art  is  of  more 
value  even  than  their  own  comfort.  If 
they  rise  up  at  any  moment  and  vehe- 
mently decry  the  merits  of  some  nom- 
inal fellow-craftsman,  the  implication 
of  jealousy  may  well  be  unfounded. 
They  may  be  rather  as  members  of  a 
guild  decrying  what  they  consider 
meritricious.  The  more  an  artist  is 
devoted  to  his  art,  the  less  he  is  moved 
by  jealousy,  the  more  ready  is  he  to 
extol  a  thing  well  done,  even  though 
Destiny  may  not  have  granted  it  to 
him  to  be  the  doer.  On  the  style,  or 
the  technique  of  the  writing  craft, 
much  has  been  written,  but  too  much 
can  never  be  written  to  fail  to  interest 
these — even  if  to  influence  negatively ! 

There  is  one  view  of  the  word  style 
— "the  style  is  the  man" — ^according 
to  which  all  written  matter  is  stylistic. 
In  that  sense  a  letter  written  from 
Bedlam  is  redolent  of  style.  The  style 
is  the  man — and  the  style  is  also  the 
madman.  Thus  the  letter  in  which  we 
read:  "i  am  wiling  to  come  to  you 
as  cook  tempy  or  peramint",  and  Mil- 
ton's ''Areopagitica"  are  examples  of 
style. 

One  hears  it  said  that  ''no  amount 
of  polishing  can  improve  a  first  draft." 
One  does  also  often  hear  it  said:  "If 
only  I  had  the  time  to  polish  I  could 
be  a  great  writer."  Both  of  these 
speeches  are  somewhat  misleading, 
and  the  latter  is  not  (from  one  point 
of  view)  without  pathos.  Let  us 
glance  at  both  sides  of  the  question. 
I  recently  met,  by  a  whimsical  coin- 
cidence, one  man  after  another,  all 
preaching  the  same  gospel,  with  vary- 
ing expressions.  One  announced: 
"The  great  writers  never  bothered 
about  style!"  Another  said:  "Plato, 
Homer,  Shakespeare,  Milton  just 
wrote  as  it  came."  The  third  de- 
clared: "All  this  searching  for  the 
right  word,  k  la  Flaubert,  is  absurd. 


The  masters  just  coughed  it  up."  I 
listened  to  them  as  I  listen  to  all,  and 
considered  how  they  had  CJobbett  on 
their  side,  who  said :  "Never  think  of 
mending  what  you  write:  let  it  go: 
no  patching."  But  happening  upon 
Buxton  Forman's  Keats  I  wondered  if 
my  informants  (and  Cobbett)  had  the 
truth  of  the  matter  for  all — ^noting 
how  slowly,  with  the  changing  of  a 
word,  the  changing  of  another  word, 
by  a  series  of  obvious  commun- 
ings and  rejections,  many  immortal 
lines  had  been  achieved.  I  mentioned 
the  subject,  which  was  then  engross- 
ing my  thoughts,  to  my  friend  Profes- 
sor Hudson-Williams  (known  outside 
scholastic  circles  chiefly  for  his  edition 
of  the  Elegiacs  of  Theognis),  he  being 
a  "schoolmaster"  of  the  exceptional 
type,  a  type  different  from  that  gently, 
but  surely  rightly,  pilloried  by  Mr. 
CrOsse. 

"Plato!"  he  cried  out  as  I  quoted 
the  assertion  in  which  that  name  had 
been  cited;  and  turning  to  his  shelves 
he  produced  an  annotated  Plato  which 
he  laid  before  me.  There  again  was 
evidence  against  the  contention  of 
these  gentlemen,  ample  evidence  of 
Plato's  dissatisfaction  with  many  a 
first  draft,  with  the  second  attempt, 
even  with  the  third;  and  that  his  ul- 
timate words  far  exceeded  in  merit 
the  first  there  could  be  no  doubt.  I 
have  here  no  axe  to  grind.  I  am 
merely  trying  to  hold  the  balances. 
Assuredly  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
by  rewriting  can  literature  be  at- 
tained. 

Many  writers,  white-hot  with  an 
idea,  can  scarce  make  their  pens  rush 
over  the  paper  fast  enough  to  capture 
it.  On  rereading  what  they  have  writ- 
ten they  often  discover  that  the  cap- 
ture is  in  doubt.  There  are  many 
gaps  in  the  mesh.  The  balances  swing 
again  and  we  withhold  our  9how  of 


486 


THE   BOOKMAN 


hands  from  the  exponents  of  ''cough- 
ing  it  up".  Sentence  after  sentence 
obviously  does  not  express  what  the 
author  meant.  Were  he  to  print  that 
draft  as  it  stood,  we  would  arrive  at 
his  meaning  instead  of  having  the 
meaning  brought  to  us. 

Here  we  come  to  another  point. 
There  are  those  to  whom  the  style  that 
is  easy  is  suspect  of  being  the  vehicle 
of  a  trite  thought;  they  do  not  do 
their  author  the  credit  of  having  taken 
the  trouble  to  express  himself  lucidly. 
Likewise  there  are  those  who  look 
upon  a  tortured  delivery  as  evidence 
of  a  profundity  of  wisdom ;  not  real- 
izing that  the  deep  thought  is  their 
own  while  trying  to  discover  the 
thought  (probably  trifling)  that  their 
author  is  unable  to  express  lucidly.  It 
is  a  stage  in  these  notes  where  must 
be  quoted  and  considered:  "Easy 
writing  makes  damned  hard  reading" 
— a  dictum  which  clashes  with  Cob- 
bett's.  A  reputation  for  profound 
mentality  may  be  made  by  reason  of 
linguistic  laziness,  and  a  trifling  writer 
may  be  hailed,  even  by  the  critics, 
dazzled  a  moment,  as  a  "great  stylist" 
— ^his  tinsel  taken  for  gold — in  the 
same  way  as  many  a  woman  has  been 
called  beautiful  by  reason  of  her  knack 
with  rouge  and  rice  powder.  But  a 
cosmetic  is  not  a  preservative. 

It  may  seem  that  I  write  too  much 
of  the  expression  and  too  little  of  the 
thought  expressed,  but  space  has  to  be 
considered.  I  must  interject,  however, 
that  I  was  greatly  with  Haldane  Mac- 
Fall  in  a  protest  he  made  to  the  press 
a  few  years  ago  against  a  phrase  by 
Thomas  Seccombe.  Mr.  Seccombe  had 
somehow  succumbed  to  a  malady  com- 
mon to  the  yellow-press,  the  malady  of 
superlatives,  and  had  declared  that 
someone  was  "the  greatest  prose  writer" 
of  the  time.  Mr.  MacFall  replied  that 
he  was  weary  of  hearing  of  these 


"greatest" ;  within  a  few  days  he  had 
read  of  more  than  one  "greatest  prose 
writer  of  the  time",  and  as  for  Mr. 
Seccombe's  "greatest"  he  contended 
that  he  could  not  be,  having  written 
no  really  great  book.  The  greatest 
prose  writer,  Mr.  MacFall  remarked, 
must  be  the  writer  of  the  greatest 
work  in  prose.  It  was  a  protest,  from 
one  entirely  alive  to  the  excellencies  of 
diction,  against  two  menaces :  against 
the  menace  of  esteeming  deportment 
more  than  character,  and  against  the 
air  of  omniscience.  Each  of  us  has  a 
view  on  who  is  the  "greatest" — so  far 
as  we  know  books,  that  is ;  for  myself 
I  am  ignorant  of  Eskimo  poems  and  of 
every  single  volume  in  the  libraries  of 
the  scholarly  book-collecting  traders 
of  Jenne,  of  whom  we  read  in  M.  Du- 
bois's book;  but  to  each  of  us  the 
greatest  book  must  have  thought  and 
manner  in  perfect  poise. 

When  words  are  considered  beyond 
what  they  have  to  express,  we  have 
preciosity.  When  the  high  traditions 
of  our  language  are  ignored,  and  the 
capacity  for  taking  pains,  we  get  what 
Stevenson  called  (seeing  as  imminent) 
"the  slap-dash  and  the  disorderly". 
Mention  of  Stevenson  recalls  a  letter 
he  wrote  to  Henry  James :  "May  I  beg 
you,  the  next  time  'Roderick'  [Hudson] 
is  printed  off,  to  go  over  the  sheets  of 
the  last  few  chapters,  and  strike  out 
'immense'  and  'tremendous'.  You  have 
simply  dropped  them  there  like  your 
pocket-handkerchief;  all  you  have  to 
do  is  to  pick  them  up  and  pouch  them, 
and  your  room — what  do  I  say? — ^your 
cathedral! — will  be  swept  and  gar- 
nished." It  is  a  word  of  advice  that 
most  authors  must  everlastingly  be 
giving  to  themselves.  It  is  a  painful 
subject,  for  no  writer  can  note  such 
flaws  in  books  for  which  he  cares  with- 
out a  sense  of  horror,  wondering  what 
is  his  own  dropped  handkerchief. 


THE   LATIN  TONGUE 


437 


Sir  Walter  Raleigh  (of  the  nine- 
teenth, not  the  seventeenth  century) 
speaks  of  Chaucer  as  being  "unable 
in  prose  to  save  his  ear  from  obsession 
by  the  cadences  of  the  pulpit".  Not 
carping  at  this  pronouncement,  but 
using  it  to  lead  me  on  to  a  brief  men- 
tion of  the  voice  in  literature,  it  has  to 
be  said  that  these  "cadences  of  the 
pulpit"  have  helped  to  give  splendor 
to  English  and  have  taught  us  to  bring 
the  voice  upon  the  printed  page.  In 
that  celebrated  passage  by  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh  (of  the  seventeenth,  not  the 
nineteenth  century)  upon  the  stars,  we 
are  most  moved  when,  coming  to  a 
consideration  of  plants  and  herbs,  he 
breaks  out :  "...  for  as  these  were 
not  created  to  beautify  the  earth 
alone,  and  to  cover  and  shadow  her 

dusty  face "     It  is  a  voice  1     The 

dead  man's  voice  is  in  our  ears.    Such 
clerics  as  Jeremy  Taylor  and  John 


Donne  well  repay  the  study  of  those 
who  would  carry  on  something  of  the 
best  tradition  of  English  literature  in 
a  jerky  age.  The  clerics  had  a  care 
for  subject,  predicate,  object,  and  ex- 
tension. 

Whether  we  decide  to  serve  under 
the  banner  of  those  who  (like  Cob- 
bett)  advise  against  revision,  or  of 
those  who  (I  think  I  am  safe  in  say- 
ing like  Shakespeare,  from  much  in- 
trinsic evidence,  and  can  certainly  say 
like  Keats,  from  the  evidence  I  have 
here  given)  were  not  always  content 
with  the  first  phrase  that  came,  must 
depend  on  our  phrases!  There  is  no 
one  rule  of  procedure  for  all.  There 
is  hardly  a  rule  of  procedure  for  any 
single  writer,  because  of  the  ebb  and 
flow  of  nerve  tides,  and  the  varying 
mental  fitness.  The  great  secret  is 
love  of  the  craft  and  reverence  for  our 
mother-tongue. 


THE  LATIN  TONGUE 


BY  JAMES  J.  DALY 


Like  a  loud-booming  bell  shaking  its  tower 
Of  granite  blocks,  the  antique  Latin  tongue 
Shook  the  whole  earth :  over  all  seas  it  flung 

Triremes  of  war,  and  bade  grim  legions  scour 

The  world's  far  verges.  Its  imperial  dower 
Made  Tullius  a  god :  and  Flaccus  strung 
Its  phrases  into  garlands ;  while  among 

The  high  enchanters  it  gave  Maro  power. 


Then  Latin  lost  its  purple  pomp  of  war. 

Its  wine-veined  laughter  and  patrician  tears : 
It  cast  its  fleshly  grossness,  won  a  soul, 
And  trafficked  far  beyond  the  farthest  star 
With  angel-cohorts,  echoing  through  the  years 
In  sacred  Embassies  from  pole  to  pole. 


THE  HOUNDS  OF  SPRING  FICTION 


BY  RUTH  MURRAY  UNDERBILL 


NOW  is  the  winter  of  our  discon- 
tent 
Made  glorious  summer  by  this  sun  of" 
guaranteed,  bombproof  non-war  fic- 
tion. Of  course  we  have  no  right  to  it. 
The  world  is,  apparently,  entering  on 
a  prolonged  series  of  blizzards;  the 
lessons  of  the  past  five  years  stand  out 
gaunt  and  leafiess — the  leaves  having 
been  those  of  propaganda  literature — 
but  we  insist  on  spring.  And  the  keep- 
ers of  the  secret  of  what  the  public 
wants  have  produced  it.  Not  even  in 
the  last  chapter  does  the  trump  sound 
and  do  the  characters  leave  their  soul 
crises  in  mid  air  to  scatter,  with  up- 
lifted faces,  toward  canteens  and 
trenches.  The  year  1914  is  skirted 
with  all  the  prudence  accorded  to  the 
Victorian  unmentionables. 

From  the  author's  point  of  view, 
this  scrapping  of  a  perfectly  good 
detis  ex  machina  is  a  sad  injustice. 
The  grim  fact  is  well  known  that  there 
are  only  a  dozen  or  so  plots  in  all  the 
world.  And  think  how  each  of  these 
can  be  refurbished — as  the  simple- 
hearted  trim  an  old  frock  with  red 
ribbons — ^by  letting  loose  the  dogs  of 
war  at  the  climax ! 

Since  that  high-class  English  expe- 
dient, death  on  the  hunting  field,  has 
fallen  into  disuse,  it  has  been  prac- 
tically impossible  to  kill  off  anybody  in 
a  novel.  People  had  to  keep  on  living 
together  as  they  do  in  real  life  and 


the  result  was,  as  in  real  life,  a  most 
smothering  amount  of  talk.  But  in  a 
war  novel,  if  there  were  not  at  least 
two  or  three  deaths,  the  reader  wanted 
to  know  the  reason  why.  Unwelcome 
relatives  and  extra  members  of  the 
triangle  vanished  like  magic,  the  air 
raids  and  the  fiu  providing  even  for 
ladies.  As  for  regeneration,  that  pain- 
ful and  wordy  process  happened  in  a 
flash  and  one  glimpse  of  the  Glory  of 
the  Trenches  made  the  most  hopeless 
failure  a  fit  mate  for  the  heroine. 

War  is  like  virtue.  It  brings  a  fa- 
vorable result  or  two — if  you  wait 
long  enough.  Our  present  period  of 
catching  our  breath  after  the  struggle 
probably  counts  with  the  gods  as  some- 
thing like  the  first  quarter-minute,  so 
we  need  hardly  expect  the  promised 
widening  of  the  intellectual  horizon 
to  begin  just  yet.  Possibly  it,  like 
democracy,  is  coming  in  its  own  time 
and  in  ways  we  little  expect.  But 
something  is  happening  in  the  field  of 
fiction  this  spring,  some  real  stir  and 
change.  Possibly — one  says  it  with 
caution — ^we  are  thinking  a  little  more. 
Not  about  Bolshevism,  not  about  the 
democratic  system:  the  shadow  of 
those  enormous  things  is  still  flung 
so  high  and  wide  that  only  made-to- 
order  propaganda  on  one  side  or  the 
other  dare  leap  toward  it.  No,  we  are 
thinking  about  something  more  funda- 
mental.   What  are  people  really  like: 


438 


THE   HOUNDS   OF   SPRING   FICTION 


43d 


the  individual  people,  who  have  been 
fighting,  who  are  now  struggling,  who 
must,  sometime,  build  up  a  new  world? 

Realism  has  not  been  very  popular 
in  America.  In  accordance  with  our 
national  optimism,  we  have  preferred 
rather  to  read  about  what  we  would 
like  to  be  than  about  what  we  are. 
There  are  two  national  characteristics 
concerned  in  this:  Puritanism  and 
youth.  Odd  as  it  may  sound,  the 
flimsiest  happy-ending  love  story  in  a 
cheap  magazine  caters  to  Puritanism, 
because  it  is  expected  to  be  read,  not 
only  for  pleasure  but  for  the  moral 
effect.  The  reader,  after  having  seen 
the  poor  young  clerk  rise  to  be  presi- 
dent of  the  company,  will  feel  his  own 
chances  better  and  will  go  forth  heart- 
ened up,  as  did  his  forefathers  after  a 
sermon. 

And  we  will  not  take  our  fiction  im- 
personally. This  is  where  youth  comes 
in.  If  we  were  only  Puritans,  stories 
of  hell  fire  (i.  e.  business  failure)  and 
terrible  examples,  might  be  allowed. 
But  youth  is  interested  in  nothing  but 
itself.  The  hero  must  not  be  some 
other  fellow,  unlike  the  reader  in 
every  respect,  he  must  be  the  reader. 
That  is,  an  ordinary  young  man — or 
woman — ^not  exactly  handsome,  but 
with  great  possibilities.  The  older 
countries  have  laughed  at  us  for  this : 
they  who  had  stomachs  for  suicide  and 
loneliness  and  all  the  myriad  types  of 
unsuccess  which  Nature  permits.  But, 
to  us,  such  things  were  not  merely  a 
part  of  the  truth:  they  were  an  out- 
rage against  our  own  hopes,  our  own 
childlike  faith  in  the  pleasantness  of 
things. 

War,  unfortunately,  is  bad  for  such 
faith.  Yet  people  came  home  from  the 
war  smiling:  most  people,  in  f^t. 
The  usual  effect  on  the  doughboy  was 
that  state  of  cheerful  disillusion  de- 
nominated **hardboiled".    'We've  been 


through  that,"  grinned  they  who  had 
once  been  boys.  "I  guess  we  can  stand 
anything."  Think  of  the  liberating 
result  on  literature!  When  every  sort 
of  life,  no  matter  how  obscure,  may  be 
classed  as  an  interesting  item  in  a 
world  where  we  are  trying  to  live  with 
open  eyes,  the  ''unwholesomeness"  of 
realism  is  gone.  The  people  pictured 
are  not  necessarily  ourselves,  but  they 
are  our  brothers.  And  the  more  we 
know  about  them,  the  better  we  shall 
build  a  new  world. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  the  spring 
fiction  is  an  orgy  of  suicide  and  fail- 
ure. Those  things  enter  not  at  all. 
The  typical  story  is  the  novel  of  suc- 
cess :  but  success  not  of  the  spectacu- 
lar, fairy-tale  variety,  such  as  all  of 
us  know  we  shall  never  achieve  except 
in  dreams.  These  are  humble  suc- 
cesses, successes  of  a  niche  in  the 
world  found,  a  duty  done.  Of  course 
there  are  novels  of  adventure,  which 
are  to  be  assumed  in  every  issue  of 
fiction  as  bread  at  a  meal.  But,  if  one 
were  to  sort  some  fifty  of  the  new 
books  into  piles,  the  adventure  pile 
would  not,  as  just  after  the  war,  be 
the  highest.  The  highest  would  con- 
tain the  homely  annals  of  "just  folks". 

Possibly  as  a  corollary  to  this,  very 
few  stories  of  the  fifty  which  came 
under  the  writer's  eye,  were  set  in 
New  York.  For  the  story  about  real 
things,  we  want  the  small  town,  the 
town  where  people  live  in  wooden 
houses  and  know  their  neighbors.  The 
traditional  Wall  Street  man  with  his 
frivolous  wife,  has  faded  away,  to  give 
place  to  the  butcher,  the  baker,  and 
the  real  estate  man  of  the  South  and 
the  West  and  the  Middle  West. 

That  makes  for  differentiation 
among  the  heroes  and  heroines.  They 
are  not  all  young,  nor  well  dressed. 
Miss  Zona  Gale,  in  "Miss  Lulu  Bett" 
introduces  an  old  maid  who  is  not  an 


440 


THE   BOOKMAN 


old  maid,  but  a  woman;  Lightnin'  in 
the  book  of  that  name  and  Caleb  Cot- 
ton in  "Fireweed",  are  heroes  neither 
young  nor  well  groomed;  "Invincible 
Minnie"  enacts  her  rdle  on  those 
ragged  borders  of  the  middle  class 
where  fiction  seldom  wanders.  Al- 
most all  the  novels,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
dip  back  and  forth  between  the  back- 
woods, the  slums,  and  the  parlor.  Al- 
most nowhere  is  there  a  set  of  pros- 
perous, homogeneous  people,  except 
where  Claude  Washburn  introduces 
dynamite  under  their  chairs  in  "Or- 
der". 

Optimism  need  not  suffer  from 
these  stories.  They  are  suffused  with 
a  sense  of  the  richness  of  everyday 
life,  its  peculiar,  kindly  aroma.  In 
fact,  one  might  almost  feel  that  Puri- 
tanism, driven  from  its  praiseworthy 
desire  to  preach  success,  has  taken 
refuge  in  the  higher  and  more  im- 
pregnable position  of  preaching  good- 
ness. The  stories  are  full  of  unself- 
ishness and  steadfast  courage.  Life 
is  recognized  to  be  a  fight  against  con- 
tinuous small  obstacles,  where  the  vic- 
tory is  not  to  beauty  and  dash,  but  to 
serenity  and  courage.  "Fireweed" 
and  "The  Rose  of  Jericho"  are  studies 
in  character — not  perfect  on  first  view, 
but,  in  these  things,  royal. 

One  feared  it  would  be  a  long  time, 
after  our  debauch  of  German  spies 
and  submarines,  before  we  should  see 
again  the  story  whose  whole  adven- 
ture consisted  in  a  man's  finding  him- 
self. Yet,  during  the  war,  we  became 
unusually  outspoken  about  moral 
things.  Finding  one's  self  was  a  real- 
ity, promised  on  enlistment  platforms 
and  alluded  to  in  War  Savings  booths. 
After  all,  there  is  no  other  plot.  What 
more  absorbing,  more  adventurous, 
and  more  sure  of  a  happy  ending,  than 
the  discovery  of  what  one  wants  and 
how  to  get  it?    War  gave  us  a  taste 


for  that  plot,  whose  progress  is  inde- 
pendent of  peace  treaties :  these  novels 
give  us  its  expression. 

I  have  said  these  stories  strike  me 
as  particularly  moral.  But  th^  show 
a  surprising  lack  of  excitement  about 
conventional  morals.  Unmarried  moth- 
erhood does  not  cause  a  shudder;  di- 
vorce, in  two  of  the  novels,  makes  a 
blameless  entry.  The  heroine  consid- 
ers living,  and  sometimes  does  live, 
with  a  man  to  whom  she  is  not  mar- 
ried— ^but  she  remains  the  heroine. 
Almost  nobody  lives  a  Victorian  life 
unspotted  by  Bohemia.  The  authors 
are  not  truculent  about  this  and  mani- 
fest no  urge  to  shock  us.  Simply,  their 
emphasis  is  not  on  conventions,  but  on 
people — ^the  upright,  sincere  individu- 
als who  mean  well  by  the  world  and  on 
whom  its  new  structure  must  rest. 

There  are  several  American  novels 
which  bring  out  this  point  of  view,  but 
the  most  really  unfettered  stride  is 
taken  by  Jane  Mander  of  New  Zea- 
land. Let  America  withdraw  any  con- 
ceit about  being  the  newest  and  young- 
est of  the  countries!  The  writer  re- 
members, when  overseas,  being  set  in- 
genuously in  her  place  by  an  Aus- 
tralian officer,  who  explained  that  he 
liked  the  people  from  the  States  all 
right,  but  found  them  lacking  in  hustle 
and  slow  to  see  a  joke.  Slow  also,  in 
the  light  of  this  novel,  in  emerging 
from  the  shadow  of  tradition.  Hail  to 
the  new  world,  where  monogamy  is 
alluded  to  as  "the  prehistoric  side  of 
the  marriage  contract"  (inaccurate, 
like  .so  many  inspiring  things); 
Where,  when  a  married  woman  and 
her  lover  have  been  sternly  virtuous 
for  ten  years,  the  husband  expresses 
irritated  amazement,  and  they  are 
obliged  to  conclude  "there  is  an  awful 
lot  of  good  virtue  gone  to  waste  some- 
where". 

This  novel,  one  notes,  is  by  a  woman, 


THE   HOUNDS   OF   SPRING   FICTION 


441 


and  that  brings  us  to  another  interest- 
ing feature  of  the  spring  novels.  Al- 
most all  the  serious  ones,  at  least  in 
America,  are  by  women.  During  the 
war,  we  understood,  the  sex  was  re- 
duced to  its  mediaeval  status.  Tweed 
uniforms  and  heavy  boots  notwith- 
standing, the  ministering  angel  and 
she  who  was  best  qualified  to  keep  the 
home  fires  burning,  were  the  types 
preferred.  Perhaps  this  jogged  the 
militants  to  even  deeper  class  con- 
sciousness; perhaps  the  men  were  all 
busy  at  something  else  and  women 
were  the  only  people  with  time  to 
think.  Certainly  they  have  thought 
and  thought,  according  to  this  spring's 
output,  far  more  than  the  men.  The 
latter,  with  the  brilliant  exception  of 
Claude  Washburn,  are  still  ingenu- 
ously yarning  about  ''valiant  deeds 
centring  around  a  woman's  whim" 
and  "love  stories  as  sweet  and  way- 
ward as  the  heroine  herself",  unaware 
that  whims  and  waywardness  have 
passed  out  of  feminine  fashion. 

"That  singular  phenomenon,  the 
lady  novelist",  at  whom  W.  S.  Gilbert 
cast  the  only  one  of  his  jibes  I  do  not 
love,  is  now  plural.  But  she  has  a 
chance  to  be — ^let  us  save  ourselves 
from  Shakespearian  conceit  and  say, 
not  singular  but — unusual.  In  fact, 
an  unprecedented  chancel  When  Ro- 
main  RoUand  described  the  women  au- 
thors who  bored  Jean  Christophe  in 
"The  Market  Place",  he  said  some- 
thing like  this:  "Women  have  a  real 
contribution  to  make,  if  they  would 
stop  describing  life  from  the  conven- 
tional man's  viewpoint,  and  tell  us  how 
they  really  feel  as  women". 

Some  years  ago  they  began.  Not,  I 
mean,  as  single  spies,  like  Marie  Bash- 
kirtself,  but  in  battalions,  whose  offi- 
cers were  May  Sinclair,  Ethel  Sidg- 
wick,  and  Dorothy  Richardson.  These 
pioneers  were,  as  is  the  rule,  English, 


but  now,  one  by  one,  the  American 
women  are  rising  up  to  tell  us  how  the 
heroine  really  felt  when  she  turned 
her  pure  profile  and  sat  so  silent. 

Ye  gods — or  ye  goddesses — ^what  a 
revelation  I  Very  often,  with  a  man's 
soul  in  the  balance,  she  was  thinking 
about  the  dinner  menu.  Or  she  was 
planning  how  to  foil  some  dodge  of 
her  mother  who,  the  cat,  was  after  the 
same  man.  Or  she  was  day  dreaming 
about  the  peevish  lame  fellow  with  the 
queer  ideas  who  is  the  pathetic  sort 
women  really  like. 

The  public  is  understood  to  want 
something  new  and  the  obliging  male 
author,  having  ransacked  the  wild 
West,  the  South  Seas,  and  the  New 
York  boarding  house,  was  skirting  the 
sex  taboo  with  an  adventurous  eye. 
But  the  woman  author,  without  even 
alluding  to  illegitimate  children  or 
peeping  behind  the  rows  of  asterisks, 
can  shock  society  to  its  foundations. 
She  can,  like  May  Sinclair,  rend  the 
veil  from  the  arcadian  home  life  of 
sisters,  and  show  them  in  internecine 
warfare  over  every  approaching  male. 
Like  Dorothy  Richardson,  she  can  de- 
stroy that  sacred  fetish  the  "wayward 
charm"  and  reveal  young  female  hob- 
bledehoys as  callow  as  any  youth. 
Worst  and  most  unspeakable,  women 
are  the  only  people  alive  who  do  not 
bow  abashed  heads  at  the  name  of 
"mother  machree".  They  are  capable 
of  dashing  from  its  shrine  that  sacred 
white-haired  figure,  and  substituting  a 
nervous  sort  of  person  who  practises 
self-denial  as  an  indoor  sport,  to  the 
inconvenience  of  every  one. 

"It  isn't  so,"  the  editors,  men  all, 
have  been  objecting.  "These  people 
aren't  real !"  Especially — ^heaven  save 
the  mark — ^these  men!  The  men  in  a 
typical  woman's  novel  are,  one  must 
admit,  a  hard  dose.  But  after  cen- 
turies of  the  fluffy  haired  heroines 


442 


THE   BOOKMAN 


who,  as  one  of  the  critics  recently  put 
it,  "keep  a  plot  alive  by  their  heroic 
and  unremitting  idiocy",  why  not,  for 
a  change,  the  "dear  of  a  man"  who  is 
a  ne'er-do-weel,  or  an  invalid,  or  one 
of  those  poetic  types  that  have  to  be 
taken  care  of? 

Watch  the  women  authors  and  see 
if  he  is  not  the  man.  I  will  grant  that 
Stephen  O'Valley,  in  "The  Gorgeous 
Girl",  is  "as  proper  a  man  as"  could 
have  been  created  by  Holworthy  Hall. 
But  look  at  Jim,  in  "This  Marrying", 
and  the  sweet  old  soul  in  "Fireweed", 
and  the  intellectual  cad  of  "The  Rose 
of  Jericho"  and  last  and  most  appal- 
ling, the  poor  devil  who  fell  into  the 
clutches  of  "Invincible  Minnie".  He- 
roes? Those!  The  men  that  women 
love. 

Those  who  can  stomach  revelation 
must  pause  over  "Invincible  Minnie" 
— ^novel  by,  of,  and  for  woman,  the  last 
because  few  "right  minded"  males 
could  endure  it.  It  may  be  that  the 
militants  have  an  animus.  They  would 
have  a  right  to  it,  after  being  stuffed, 
by  virtue  of  their  sex,  into  a  class 
which  does  not  describe  them — nor, 
they  claim,  the  majority  of  their  fel- 
low women.  But  could  any  one  actu- 
ated only  by  a  spirit  of  genial  investi- 
gation perpetrate  the  cruel  and  un- 
believable exposure  of  Minnie,  the  truly 
feminine!  Crash  go  the  ideals.  Bet- 
ter a  hundred  Scenes  of  Sin  than  the 
revelation  that  dowdy  little  Minnie, 
small  and  confiding,  desiring  only  to 
cook  for  a  husband  and  wash  for 
babies, — 

Hath  reaUy  neither  love  nor  hope  nor  light 
Nor  certitude  nor  peace  nor  help  for  pain, — 

but  is  a  primitive  survival,  animated 
by  a  blindly  destructive  instinct  and 
better  exterminated. 

Ah  well,  after  Minnie,  there  is  ro- 
mance— ^though  I  think  there  would  be 
more  elfin  delight  in  taking  them  in 


the  opposite  order.  I  suppose  that 
some  day  we  shall  swing  back  to  ro- 
mance as  the  world  has  swung  before. 
Romance  that  has  nothing  to  do  with 
humble  folk  and  soul  finding,  romance 
which  deals  not  with  homely  difficul- 
ties but  with  obstacles  magically  ter- 
rible and  heroes  magically  brave.  And 
so  that  it  may  be  ready  to  shine  out 
when  we  want  it,  the  light  of  romance 
never  quite  dies.  Two  or  three  of  the 
books  this  spring  concern  that  child 
of  the  fairies  who  rises  from  obscur- 
ity to  all  the  glory  of  wealth  and 
genius,  even  as  you  and  I — ^would  like 
to  do. 

The  most  essentially  romantic  hap- 
pen to  be  English.  "The  Rose  of  Jeri- 
cho" has  the  romantic  seal  upon  it,  but 
that  disregards  the  conventions,  and 
your  real  romance  goes  clothed  in  the 
conventions  as  a  knight  in  his  glit- 
tering armor.  Imagine  fighting  with 
your  fists,  or  without  a  waving  plume! 
Sunny  Ducrow,  in  the  book  called  after 
her,  and  Sally  Tennant  in  "The  Her- 
mit of  Far  End",  are  your  real  hero- 
ines of  romance,  who  feel  all  the  inhi- 
bitions that  a  nice  lady  ought  to  feel, 
thus  removing  cause  for  argument  on 
the  part  of  the  author  and  leaving  the 
stage  free  for  impassioned  action. 

How  loyally  we  return  to  romance, 
just  as  the  East  Side  Italian  audience 
will  watch  the  knights  of  Charle- 
magne slay  Paynim  after  Paynim 
with  three  thrusts  and  a  fiop,  three 
hundred  and  sixty-four  nights  of  the 
year !  We  all  know  its  language,  just 
as,  I  suppose,  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
people  recognized  the  sound  of  Latin. 
We  know  we  do  not  speak  that  lan- 
guage in  our  daily  lives.  Some  of  its 
most  cherished  expressions,  such  as 
the  sense  of  honor  whose  protection 
keeps  people  as  busy  as  earning  a  liv- 
ing, we  regard  as  lacking  in  common 
sense.    Yet  New  York  flocked  to  "D6- 


THE   HOUNDS   OF   SPRING   FICTION 


448 


class^e"  and  felt  as  familiar  with  its 
assumptions  as  did  Athenian  audi- 
ences with  the  Furies  whom  no  one  of 
them  had  ever  seen. 

"The  Hermit  of  Far  End"  is  bona 
fide  romance.  The  strong  man  suffers 
in  silence  for  another's  sin ;  the  high- 
strung  girl  bums  herself  out  because 
she  is  of  those  who  bend  but  do  not 
break;  the  horrible  misunderstanding 
menaces  the  lives  of  people  bound  in 
honor.  I  never  saw  one  of  these  peo- 
ple, I  never  hope  to  see  one,  but,  un- 
like the  author  of  "The  Purple  Cow", 
I  cannot  aver  that  I  would  rather  see 
than  be  one.  If  there  is  to  be  any 
such  person  around,  I  insist  on  being 
the  one,  for  all  onlookers  are  due  to 
be  made  thoroughly  miserable.  It  is 
misery  that  even  the  most  confirmed 
"cheerful  story"  fan  easily  forgives. 
Too  old  is  the  quaintly  cut  panoply  of 
romance  and  too  innocently  loved,  to 
be  yet  utterly  cast  aside  for  common 
sense  and  psychoanalysis. 

Beyond  romance,  there  is,  this 
spring,  an  unusual  ebullition  of  the 
fanciful,  even  the  farcical.  This  is 
another  result  of  the  war,  under  whose 
grim  weight  matter  that  we  used  to 
consider  silly  became  a  necessary 
tonic.  There  are  several  volumes, 
sketchily  poetic,  about  the  sort  of  peo- 
ple who  live  with  the  elves,  touching 
life  lightly,  finding  their  wayward  de- 
light in  clouds  and  trees  and  in  kindly 
laughter  at  human  perplexities.  "Liv- 
ing Alone",  though  with  a  background 
of  sinister  realism,  is  such  a  book; 
"Celia"  is  a  combination  of  elfishness 
and  sermon;  "The  Pagan"  and  "The 
London  Venture"  tread  with  welcome 
lightness. 

Sometimes  the  laughter  swells  to  a 
broad  guffaw.  After  all,  if  we  are 
going  to  talk  about  Bolshevism  and  la- 
bor troubles,  your  motley's  your  only 
wear.     Wallace   Irwin   has   had   his 


laugh,  to  order,  we  suspect,  at  those 
mythical  super-idiots,  the  parlor  Reds. 
George  Agnew  Chamberlain  and  An- 
dr6  Maurois  have  made  life  look 
quaint  in  spite  of  war. 

When  we  have  exhausted  thus  some 
two-thirds  of  the  season's  flowerings, 
there  remains  always  adventure.  Ad- 
venture in  the  wild  West,  in  the  South 
Seas,  on  the  Mississippi,  among  the 
ancient  castles  of  Europe,  even  during 
the  Napoleonic  wars  and  among  the 
splendors  of  ancient  Egypt.  Detect- 
ing is  not  being  done  at  home  this 
spring.  Passports  being  once  more 
available,  it  has  gone  voyaging.  I  like 
the  idea  of  combining  the  detective 
story  and  the  travel  story,  as  the  head 
of  Oliver  Twist's  institution  combined 
the  hot  and  cold  porridge,  "in  one 
bountiful  dish".  People  trail  each 
other,  in  the  latest  tales,  all  over  the 
known  countries  of  the  globe,  the 
nearest  they  come  to  the  old  known 
haunts  being  Gans  Street,  Jersey  City. 

Adventure  in  business  is  another 
field  thrillinglybut  not  extensively  rep- 
resented. Business  adventure,  these 
days,  is  too  likely  to  lead  to  a  tragic 
discussion  of  wages  and  profit  shar- 
ing, leaving  love  and  murder  to  wait 
their  cues  in  vain.  And,  if  you  don't 
know  which  side  is  right,  how  can  you 
tell  where  to  put  your  hero?  But  the 
stories  of  a  railroad  given,  with  up-to- 
date  ethics,  into  the  hands  of  the  local 
inhabitants,  and  of  the  foiling  of 
Florida  land  grabbers,  have  the  old 
pioneer  tang. 

There  are  a  few  books  from  the 
other  side  of  the  ocean,  more  serious 
in  tone  than  the  majority  of  our  own. 
"Benjy"  is  not  too  serious.  In 
"Benjy",  the  current  of  an  English 
family  life  flows  by  for  two  genera- 
tions like  a  quiet,  familiar  river.  It 
has  no  rapids,  only  a  continual  variety 
of  ripples  and  floating  sticks  and  un- 


444 


THE   BOOKMAN 


expected  little  whirlpools,  each  one, 
sad  or  gay,  effaced  smoothly  by  the 
next.  When  the  stage  is  set  in  the 
way  that  all  good  fiction  readers  know 
to  indicate  tragedy,  nothing  happens, 
and,  again,  out  of  a  mild  spring  sky, 
some  sad  and  irrevocable  event  turns 
the  current  of  a  life  in  the  silent,  in- 
consequential way  that  we  know  for 
truth.  Sweet  reality  is  here.  There 
is  more  pleasant  reading  in  ''Mount 
Music",  an  Irish  story,  charming  and 
wise  and  hard  to  classify  because  it  is 
such  a  real  book. 

There  is  another  book  from  the 
"Maupassant  of  the  north" — "Treach- 
erous Ground",  by  Johan  Bojer.  It  is 
a  striking  book,  though  it  deals  with 
that  continental  type  which  is  least 
sympathetic  to  Americans,  the  weary 
and  disillusioned  person,  and  with  that 
form  of  expression  for  which  the 
American  mind  affords  least  standing 
room,  the  parable.  Its  trenchant  clear- 
ness is  almost  frightening,  like  trans- 
parent glass  where  one  expected 
wooden  walls;  its  teaching  is  both 
true  and  tragic.  Doubtless  we  shall 
comfort  ourselves  by  deciding  that  its 


hero  of  the  liquid  name  has  no  parallel 
in  this  country — ex6ept  among  our  op- 
ponents. 

Mi88  Lulu  Bett.  By  Zona  Gale.  D.  Apple- 
ton  and  Co. 

Llghtnin'.  By  Frank  Bacon.  Harper  and 
Bros. 

Fireweed.  By  Joslyn  Qray.  Cliarles  Scrib- 
ner'B  Sons. 

Invincible  Minnie.  By  Bliaabetli  Sanzay 
Holding.    George  H.  Doran  Company. 

Order.  By  Claude  Washburn.  Duffleld  and 
Co. 

The  Rose  of  Jericho.  By  Ruth  Boucicault. 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

The  Story  of  a  New  Zealand  River.  By  Jane 
Mauder.     John  Lane  Co. 

The  Gorgeous  Girl.  By  Nalbro  Hartley. 
Doubleday,  Fage  and  Co. 

This  Marrying.  By  Margaret  Culktn  Ban- 
ning.    George  H.  Doran  Company. 

Sunny  Ducrow.  By  Henry  St.  John  Cooper. 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

The  Hermit  of  Far  End.  By  Margaret  Ped- 
ler.     George  H.  Doran  Company. 

Living  Alone.  By  Stella  Benson.  The  Mac- 
millan  Co. 

Cella  Once  Again.  By  Ethel  Brunner.  The 
MacmiUan  Co. 

The  Pagan.  By  Gordon  Arthur  Smitli. 
Charles  Seribner's  Sons. 

The  London  Venture.  By  Michael  Arlen. 
Dodd.  Mead  and  Co. 

Trimmed  with  Red.  By  Wallace  Irwin. 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 

Taxi.  By  George  Agnew  Chamberlain.  The 
Bobbs-Merrlll  Co. 

The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble.  By  Andr6 
Maurois.    John  Lane  Co. 

The  Wreckers.  By  Francis  Lynde.  Charles 
Seribner's  Sons. 

The  Plunderer.  By  Henry  Oyen.  George  H. 
Doran  Company. 

Benjy.  By  George  Stevenson.  John  Lane 
Co. 

Mount  Music.  By  E.  (E.  SomerviUe  and  Mar- 
tin Ross.     Longmans,  Green  and  Co. 

Treacherous  Ground.  By  Johan  BoJer.  Mof- 
fat. Yard  and  Co. 


FOOTPRINTS  ON  PIETY  HILL 


BY  AGNES  DAY  ROBINSON 


HOME  was  a  rambling  old  house 
with  a  welcoming  hall  through 
the  centre :  on  the  right,  the  parlors ; 
on  the  left,  study,  conservatory,  and 
dining-room,  and  the  sight  of  huge 
fireplaces  to  warm  the  heart.  At  the* 
end  of  this  structure  was  a  typical 
New  England  kitchen  set  up  in  what 
was  then  the  Middle  West ;  and  beyond 
that,  but  connected  with  it,  a  long  shed 
filled  with  cords  on  cords  of  piled 
wood.  It  stood  on  "Piety  Hill",  so 
named  by  the  college  boys  because  of 
the  residence  there,  also,  of  a  deacon 
of  exceedingly  pious  mien.  Ever- 
greens and  firs  closed  the  place  in 
from  observation,  and  a  circular  drive 
led  to  what  many  a  travel-worn  guest 
came  to  call  the  Half-Way  House. 
Here,  on  occasion,  distinguished 
speakers  for  the  Lyceum  Lecture  As- 
sociation of  Ann  Arbor  University 
stayed  over  for  what  is  now  known  as 
"the  week-end". 

I  recall  the  worst  night  of  one  lec- 
ture season.  The  wind  howled  like  a 
beast  of  prey.  The  thickly  falling 
snow  swirled  into  huge  drifts.  Could 
there  be  an  audience  on  such  a  night? 
But  first  there  must  be  a  speaker,  and 
the  train  bearing  Bret  Harte  to  us 
was  three  hours  late.  Nearly  seven 
when  the  sound  of  floundering  horses 
and  sleigh-bells  drew  the  family  to  the 
side  door.  They  had  brought  him 
across  the  lawn  to  spill  into  the  house 
by  the  shortest  way.    Out  he  jumi>ed 


into  the  shelter  of  a  warm  room  with  a 
leaping  fire.  Half-frozen,  teeth  chat- 
tering, feet  like  clogs,  he  thumped 
around  the  room  like  an  irrepressible 
boy.  There  was  something  about  two 
engines  and  drifts — ^we  pulled  off  his 
overcoat  to  find  him  more  effervescent 
than  we  had  ever  known  him. 

"It's  so  good  to  be  here!  Thought 
we'd  never  arrive!" 

He  shook  hands  with  everybody, 
hugged  the  dog,  crinkled  his  nose  at 
the  savory  odors  released  from  the 
region  kitchenward,  and  plumped 
down  on  the  rug  before  the  roaring 
fire.  It  was  like  having  a  member  of 
the  family  arrive  the  night  before 
Thanksgiving.  And  he  was  as  happy 
to  be  there  as  we  were  to  lay  hands 
and  eyes  upon  him  again.  Upon  his 
first  visit  he  had  been  reserved,  but 
reserve  was  not  a  plant  that  bloomed 
long  in  that  house.  Now  he  knew 
every  nook  and  cranny,  upstairs, 
downstairs,  and  bounced  up  to  greet 
black  Jinny  who  tried  to  conceal  her 
delight  with  a  pose  of  relief  that  "the 
dinner  wan't  done  spiled  f  er  Mr.  Harte 
an'  de  hull  fam'ly  I" 

"Suppose  we  cut  that  lecture  to- 
night?" was  his  serious  proposition. 
"There  won't  be  a  dozen  there.  I'd 
rather  cancel  the  fee  than  get  out  into 
that  storm  again !" 

Cancel  the  fee?  Under  contract. 
No  one  reasoned  with  him.  Just 
brought   his   fur-lined   coat,   showed 


445 


446 


THE   BOOKMAN 


ourselves  all  bundled  up,  and  the  fam- 
ily piled  into  a  long  sleigh,  with 
sprawling  runners  that  would  not 
overturn,  and,  in  spite  of  his  com- 
plaints, rushed  him  over  to  face  the 
Ann  Arbor  audience.  The  amphithe- 
atre, built  to  accommodate  nearly 
three  thousand,  was  packed.  Mr.  Harte 
looked  in.  Turning  to  the  President 
of  the  University,  he  exclaimed: 

"I  have  never  received  a  compliment 
like  this !" 

The  President  gleamed  with  amuse- 
ment that  any  weather  could  interfere 
with  an  audience  that  wanted  to  see 
and  hear  the  author  of  "Miggles", 
"Tennessee's  Partner",  and  "The 
Luck".  After  the  lecture  and  the 
cold,  white  ride  home,  and  the  oyster- 
supper  that  always  followed  lectures, 
there  was  a  two-hour  session  of  story- 
telling around  the  fire,  and  another  ar- 
gument to  get  the  man  to  bed.  Owl- 
like in  his  habits,  he  would  sit  up  until 
sunrise  if  he  were  enjoying  himself. 

The  next  day  was  Sunday  and  the 
world  slept  under  a  deep  coverlet  of 
snow  and  silence.  Jinny  was  down 
with  one  of  her  neuralgic  headaches 
she  called  "the  misery".  But  she  was 
a  general;  everything  had  been  mus- 
tered on  the  kitchen-table  for  rapid 
work  in  the  morning.  The  home-made 
sausages  were  baking  in  the  oven  and 
the  waffles  started  when — in  walked 
the  guest!  He  was  informed  by  the 
daughter  of  the  house  that  guests 
were  not  supposed  to  break  into  kitch- 
ens. 

"I  haven't  turned  a  waffle-iron  in  a 
year.    Hand  it  over.  Miss!" 

"You  will  ruin  them.  Cooking  waf- 
fles is  an  art." 

"Known  before  you  were  bom.  I 
have  cooked  griddle-cakes  under  every 
condition ;  waffles  are  merely  glorified 
griddle-cakes !" 

No  cook  could  have  done  better  or 


acquired  a  redder  face.  Seated  on  a 
chair  in  front  of  the  range  he  whirled 
the  iron  earnestly,  anxiously,  and  bore 
to  the  table  a  plate  crowned  with  a 
high  pile  of  his  glorified  flapjacks. 

One  of  the  fascinations  in  knowing 
Bret  Harte,  aside  from  the  fact  that 
he  was  the  maker  of  his  stories,  was 
the  contrast  between  first  and  later 
impressions.  At  the  beginning  of  ac- 
quaintance he  was  very  quiet — ^not 
shy,  but  exceedingly  reserved.  He 
had,  too,  a  slight  touch  of  melancholy. 
He  was  so  full  of  the  melody  of  na- 
ture, so  much  the  artistic  man  of 
genius,  you  marveled  how  he  had  the 
taste  to  draw  those  queer  pathetic 
shapes,  those  brutal  human  deformi- 
ties and  be  able,  at  the  same  time,  to 
illuminate  them  with  the  torch  of  the 
spirit  that  dies  in  order  that  others 
may  live.  As  he  emerged  from  the 
shell  of  the  acquaintance,  the  child- 
like spirit  of  the  truly  great  began  to 
gleam.  He  loved  the  home,  real  peo- 
ple, music,  animals;  and  the  liberty 
that  allowed  him  to  roam  all  over  the 
place  undisturbed  by  zealous  atten- 
tion. He  was  in  the  stable,  the  cellar, 
investigating  every  bin  of  apples, 
vegetables,  barrel  of  meat,  kit  of 
mackerel.  He  never  failed  to  make 
the  round  of  the  cellar  with  my  moth- 
er, bringing  up  her  findings  for  meals 
or  admiring  the  plentiful  stores  of 
relishes,  mince-meat,  and  preserves. 
He  was  like  a  boy  just  home  from 
school,  carrying  the  candle,  wanting 
everything  he  saw,  emerging  at  last 
with  an  eight-quart  pan  piled  high. 

By  that  time  a  dozen  headaches 
would  not  have  kept  Jinny  away  from 
Mr.  Harte's  praise  of  her  Virginia 
cooking,  too  precious  to  be  waived 
even  for  an  acute  ailment.  Accepting 
the  pan  with  a  condescending  air,  she 
would  bundle  both  my  mother  and  Mr. 
Harte  from  the  kitchen  that  she  might 


FOOTPRINTS   ON   PIETY   HILL 


447 


proceed  with  the  "surprises"  in  store 
for  us  all. 

No  visit  would  be  complete  without 
a  ride,  and  the  stable  came  in  for  at- 
tention. Riding  a  good  horse  with 
twinkling  feet  and  airs  of  pretended 
fright  was  a  delight  to  Mr.  Harte.  A 
mare  that  had  not  been  out  for  three 
days  suited  him  perfectly.  She  was 
saddled.  My  horse  was  more  mindful 
of  schooling,  but  so  emulous  of  his  sis- 
ter's frivolity  that  day  that  he  threw 
training  to  the  winds  and  there  was  a 
game  of  tag,  in  and  out  the  trees, 
across  snow-drifts,  under  low-hanging 
boughs,  all  over  the  grounds.  Those 
were  days  when  cross-saddle  for  a 
woman  was  impropriety  itself.  But 
Mr.  Harte  insisted  his  companion  go 
into  the  house  and  don  a  suit  of  her 
brother's  while  he  took  off  the  side- 
saddle. There  followed  a  lesson  in 
riding  k  la  South  American  and  In- 
dian women.  It  was  an  hour  worth 
remembering;  a  floundering  gallop 
through  the  drifts  while  the  snow  still 
sifted  lightly  down;  and  tales  of  the 
Forty-niners,  of  his  own  father,  a 
highly  cultivated  professor  who  car- 
ried the  classics  in  his  pocket  and 
brought  up  his  boy  on  the  myths  of 
Greek  heroes. 

Many  of  our  professors  who  had 
never  seen  a  likeness  of  Bret  Harte 
were  surprised  to  meet,  not  a  vigorous 
and  perhaps  rough  man  of  brawn  as 
they  had  anticipated  from  the  charac- 
ter of  his  work,  but  a  small-boned, 
delicate-featured  being  with  abundant 
wavy  hair  and  the  air  of  one  who  be- 
longs in  a  literary  setting.  The  boy 
was  strong  in  him  but  the  finished 
man  of  letters  sprang  forward  at  the 
word,  and  it  is  easy  to  realize  how  he 
became  one  of  our  most  successful  dip- 
lomats. The  love  of  music,  especially 
of  Beethoven's  sonatas,  was  a  passion. 
He  wouldy  as  soon  as  everyone  had 


gone,  curl  up  on  a  couch,  pillow  his 
head  in  the  crook  of  his  arm,  and  ask 
for  the  Fifth,  then  for  the  Seventh 
Sjrmphony,  winding  up  with  a  plea  for 
the  First. 

After  writing  innumerable  auto- 
graphs in  the  students'  albums,  Mr. 
Harte  went  away.  That  night  came  a 
telegram  to  Mother: 

Arrived.     Everything  P.   D.     Preserve  this 
autograph. 

BRET   HABTB 

"P.  D."  was  a  family  expression  for 
"perfekly  disgustin'"  borrowed  from 
the  idyll  of  Red  Mountain.  Nothing 
was  "horrid".  It  was  "P.  D."  We  aU 
loved  "M'liss". 

It  can  hardly  be  claimed  that  we 
really  knew  George  William  Curtis. 
He  came  once  to  the  Half -Way  House, 
at  which  time  we  gave  a  reception  in 
his  honor,  inviting  the  Faculty.  He 
was  aristocratic  to  a  degree,  but  with- 
out the  suggestion  of  withdrawal  fre- 
quently characteristic  of  the  thorough- 
bred who  has  known  but  one  way  of 
life, — ^his  own.  Plus  this  natural  con- 
dition, which  put  its  unmistakable 
stamp  upon  him,  he  had  great  mag- 
netism and  a  deep-abiding  sincerity. 
Add  to  these  gifts  the  qualities  of 
human  responsiveness  and  flexibility 
that  are  likely  to  make  "interesting" 
such  men  as  editors,  doctors,  journal- 
ists, and  sometimes  ministers,  who 
have  many  daily  and  different  human 
contacts.  He  excited  the  greatest  en- 
thusiasm among  the  members  of  the 
Faculty,  and  during  his  short  stay  a 
steady  stream  of  callers  came  to  pay 
their  compliments.  Part  of  this,  of 
course,  was  due  to  the  Editor's  Easy 
Chair  in  "Harper's  Magazine".  But 
the  name  by  which  he  was  nationally 
known,  "The  Friend  of  the  Republic", 
had  aroused  even  more  interest  in  the 
world    at    large.      His    personality, 


448 


THE   BOOKMAN 


whether  as  author  or  standard-bearer, 
was  that  of  a  familiar  friend  who 
came  closer  than  most  writers.  He 
represented  the  best  in  American 
ideals,  and  for  that  reason  those  who 
met  him  were  fascinated  by  him. 
Then,  too,  there  was  a  style  about  him 
in  appearance,  as  there  was  in  his 
writing,  and  a  more  or  less  constant 
flare  of  wit.  The  youngest  member  of 
the  family  was  made  happy  by  his 


sending  back  an  autographed  likeness 
of  a  strongly-modeled  face,  adorned  by 
side-whiskers  —  the  mode  in  that 
period — ^with  eyes  of  a  kind,  penetrat- 
ing blue. 

So  the  coming  and  the  going,  on 
Piety  Hill,  of  those  who  contributed 
richly  in  books  and  in  other  ways  to 
their  day  and  generation  and  whom 
Youth,  in  its  thoughtlessness,  took 
quite  as  a  matter  of  course! 


NEW  FRENCH  BOOKS 


BY  R.  LE  CLERC  PHILLIPS 


IN  the  March  issue  of  The  Bookman 
it  was  mentioned  that  M.  Lendtre 
will  very  shortly  publish  a  new  book 
dealing  with  what  perhaps  constitutes 
the  most  extraordinary  of  all  histori- 
cal mysteries — ^that  of  the  real  fate  of 
little  Louis  XVII  of  France.  This  and 
the  identity  of  the  Man  with  the  Iron 
Mask  have  probably  excited  more  con- 
troversy and  more  interest  and  cer- 
tainly more  printer's  ink  than  any 
other  mysteries  in  history— with  re- 
gard to  the  little  Dauphin  it  is  said 
that  already  over  one  thousand  vol- 
umes have  been  written  around  him. 
And  now  M.  Lendtre  is  to  write  an- 
other; it  would  seem  as  if  he,  too, 
cannot  resist  the  fascination  of  the 
subject,  for  he  has  already  vnritten 
one  brilliant,  if  all  too  short  study  on 
it;  it  appeared  in  the  second  series 
of  his  "Vieilles  Maiso'ns,  Vieux  Pa- 
piers",  published  as  far  back  as  1903, 
and  is,  I  believe,  entitled  ''Chez  Si- 


mon 


ft 


The  story  M.  Lendtre  there  tells  is 
astounding  and  seems  well  substanti- 
ated by  the  evidence  brought  forward. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  the  shoe- 
maker Simon  and  his  wife  were  ap- 
pointed guardians  of  the  little  Dau- 
phin in  the  Temple  and  that  after 
holding  the  post  for  about  six  months, 
they  resigned  —  apparently  without 
reason.  Simon  some  little  time  after- 
ward was  executed  at  the  same  time, 
as  far  as  I  remember,  as  Robespierre, 
and  the  widow  Simon,  after  many  vi- 
cissitudes, finally  found  a  refuge  in  a 
home  for  incurables.  All  this  is,  of 
course,  well  known,  but  it  is  from  this 
last  point  onward  that  M.  Lendtre's 
narrative  becomes  so  remarkable.  He 
states  that  the  woman  Simon  had  not 
long  been  an  inmate  in  the  home  be- 
fore she  began  to  babble  and  chatter 
about  the  little  Dauphin,  declaring 
that  he  had  never  died  in  the  Temple 
but  that  she  had  effected  his  escape,  on 
quitting  her  post  as  his  guardian,  by 


NEW  FRENCH  BOOKS 


449 


taking  him  away  among  her  house- 
hold effects  and  substituting  another 
child  in  his  place.  These  chatterings 
provoked  much  interest  among  the 
old  women  of  the  home,  but  with  the 
passing  of  years  they  lost  their  nov- 
elty. 

In  1805,  the  old  woman  was  visited 
by  a  mysterious  young  man  whom  she 
declared  she  recognized  as  the  Dau- 
phin. Her  talk  now  aroused  the  curi- 
osity of  the  doctors  attached  to  the 
home  and  from  them  the  interest 
spread  through  the  whole  district. 
The  old  woman  resolutely  refused  to 
give  any  details  of  the  abduction,  al- 
ways declaring,  "Je  parlerai  devant  la 
Justice".  At  the  Restoration  she  was 
visited  by  Royalist  generals,  ambassa- 
dors, and  by  the  Duchesse  d'Angou- 
leme  herself,  the  poor  little  "Madame 
Royale"  of  the  Revolution,  and  sister 
of  the  Dauphin.  Soon  after  this  she 
was  summoned  to  appear  at  the  police 
headquarters,  where  she  still  main- 
tained that  the  Dauphin  did  not  die  in 
the  Temple  and  again  resolutely  re- 
fused to  describe  the  circumstances  of 
the  abduction.  She  said  enough,  how- 
ever, to  cause  the  police  to  forbid  her 
ever  again  to  mention  the  subject  un- 
der pain  of  the  most  severe  penalties. 
Terrified,  the  old  woman  from  this 
time  onward  held  her  peace;  but  on 
her  death-bed  in  1819  she  was  ques- 
tioned by  the  nuns  who  attended  her 
and  she  died  saying,  "I  will  always 
say  what  I  have  said". 

M.  Lendtre  states  it  as  his  personal 
opinion  that  the  widow  Simon  did  not 
lie  in  telling  the  tale  she  did.  It  now 
remains  to  be  seen  whether  M. 
Lendtre  in  his  new  book  on  the  mys- 
tery pursues  his  investigations  along 
the  same  lines  as  those  of  the  study  I 
have  just  quoted  or  whether,  with  the 
new  evidence  which  it  is  said  that  he 
has  unearthed,  he  will  approach  it 


from  an  entirely  different  standpoint. 
His  Revolutionary  studies  are  vnritten 
with  such  charm  and  vivacity  that  all 
those  (and  they  are  no  small  number) 
whom  they  have  fascinated,  will  look 
forward  to  his  further  contribution 
to  the  unraveling  of  the  mystery  of 
Louis  XVIL 

In  "Prime  Jeunesse"  Pierre  Loti 
continues  his  autobiography  begun  in 
"Le  Roman  d'un  Enfant".  In  this  sec- 
ond volume  he  describes  his  early 
youth  from  the  age  of  thirteen  up  to 
the  day  he  enters  the  naval  training 
ship  "Le  Borda"  as  a  cadet  of  the 
French  Navy.  There  is  absolutely 
no  "story"  in  the  autobiography,  but 
there  is — ^Loti.  Loti,  with  ^  his 
wonted  mournful  sadness,  and  the 
same  pure  and  beautiful  literary  style 
that  is  his  alone.  But  somehow,  the 
indescribable  charm  of  such  works  as 
"Pecheur  d'Islande",  "Madame  Chrys- 
anth^me",  and  "Ramuntcho"  is  miss- 
ing; these  tales  of  the  tragic  fisher- 
folk  of  Brittany,  the  exotic  beauties  of 
Japan,  and  the  romantic  loves  of  the 
people  of  the  Basque  country  possess 
an  almost  magic  glamour  which  it  is 
difficult,  and  perhaps  even  impossible 
to  infuse  into  a  mere  autobiography. 
For  this  reason  it  is  perhaps  unfair  to 
draw  a  comparison  between  his  new 
book  and  those  which  made  the  au- 
thor's name  famous  over  the  civilized 
world.  But  nevertheless  it  is  precisely 
this  peculiar  and  matchless  glamour 
that  we  seek  and  expect  in  Loti,  and 
charming  though  his  new  book  is,  the 
world  will  remember  him  by  "P§cheur 
d'Islande"  and  "Madame  Chrysan- 
th^me"  rather  than  by  his  autobiog- 
raphy. Nevertheless,  "Prime  Jeun- 
esse"  contains  passages  exquisite  in 
their  simplicity  and  tender  melancholy, 
and  the  following  one  gives  a  good  idea 
of  the  atmosphere  of  the  book  (Loti's 


450 


THE   BOOKMAN 


sister  has  just  become  engaged  to  be 
married) : 

Mais  cet  avenir  que  lea  deux  flancte  a'^tai- 
ent  Ik  promts  I'nn  ft  I'autre,  a  fui  comme  nn 
flonge;  leur  Jeunesse  a  passis,  lenr  ftge  mftr  a 
pass^,  et  lear  vieillease  cOtd  k  cOtd;  11a  ont 
connu  lea  enfants  de  leara  petita-enfanta,  et 
depuia  quelquea  anndea  lla  dorment  enaemblent 
aona  lea  mdmea  dallea  de  cimeti^re. . . . 

The  most  touching  part  of  the  book 
is  where  Loti  describes  the  reading  of 
his  dead  brother's  letter  of  farewell, 
written  as  he  lay  dying  of  tropical 
ansemia  on  board  the  steamer  which 
was  bringing  him  back  to  France. 
The  family  is  assembled  for  the  read- 
ing of  the  elder  son's  farewell;  the 
father  begins,  but  tears  break  his 
voice  and  he  is  obliged  to  pass  the  let- 
ter to  an  uncle  who  reads  it  through 
in  a  dull  and  monotonous  voice.  Part 
of  the  letter  is  worth  quoting: 

Je  meara  en  Dieu,  dans  la  f oi  et  le  repentir ; 
mea  pfich^a  aont  rougea  comme  le  cramolal,  mala 
11  me  blanchlra;  da  reate  n'a-t-U  paa  dlt: 
Qalconqne  crolt  en  mol  aara  la  vie  ?  O  Dleu  I 
mon  p^re,  oni,  Je  crola  en  tot,  en  ton  Salnt- 
Baprlt,  et  mea  prldrea  ardentea  montent  vera 
ton  flla  afln  qu'U  IntercMe  poor  mbl  et  qn'll 
m'aide  &  traveraer  la  sombre  vall4e  de  I'ombre 
de  la  mort.  O  Dleu,  J'ai  p6ch6;  mala  tn  ea 
nn  p6re  de  pardon  et  d'amonr.  Ale  pltl6,  Seig- 
neur, re$ols-mol  comme  un  de  tea  enfanta,  car 
Je  crola  et  quiconque  crolt  aera  8auv6. 

The  author  makes  use  of  two  chap- 
ters in  which  to  describe  his  first  love- 
affair,  the  heroine  being  a  wandering, 
thieving  gypsy  girl;  we  may  not  ap- 
prove the  morality  of  the  affair,  but 
we  certainly  must  admire  the  art  of 
the  beautiful  writing  that  the  memory 
of  this  episode  inspires. 

We  do  not  look  for  humor  in  Loti, 
but  he  gives  us  an  amusing  descrip- 
tion of  the  weekly  reunions  of  an  aunt 
of  his  in  Paris,  whose  only  fault  was 
"celui  d'etre  po^tesse"  and  whose  de- 
light it  was  to  invite  all  her  singular 
collection  of  "poets"  to  read  aloud 
their  latest  productions.  "A  peine 
achevaient-ils,  que  c'^tait  une  ovation 
bruyante;  tout  le  monde  les  entourait, 
en  criant,  en  se  p&mant  d'extase,  et,  k 


mon  avis,  il  n'y  avait  jamais  de  qaoi 
devenir  6pileptique  comme  ^"  Evi- 
dently Loti  has  small  sympathy  with 
and  scant  respect  for  the  whole  broth- 
erhood of  minor  poets,  for  he  speaks 
of  their  "longs  cheveux  qui  itaient 
encore  k  cette  6poque  le  symptSme  ex- 
t^rieur  de  leur  genre  de  maladie*'. 

The  volume  concludes  with  the  au- 
thor's description  of  his  first  night  on 
"Le  Borda".  He  is  now  a  sailor  and 
as  he  falls  asleep  he  hears  the  voice 
of  the  sea  which  seems  to  say:  ''A 
pr^ent  je  vous  tiens,  et,  vous  verrez, 
c'est  pour  la  vie." 

I  have  just  been  reading  a  volume 
of  recently-published  short  stories  by 
Paul  Bourget  entitled  "Le  Justicier", 
and  have  been  interested  in  contrast- 
ing in  my  mind  the  type  of  short  story 
which  finds  favor  in  France  with  that 
for  which  there  is  apparently  such  an 
insistent  demand  over  here.  The  dif- 
ferences between  the  two  types  are  so 
pronounced  as  to  be  almost  violent. 
That  note  of  somewhat  strident  op- 
timism that  appears  to  be  so  essential 
to  a  successful  short  story  in  America 
is  almost  entirely  lacking  in  the 
French  short  stories;  the  French 
vnriters  do  not  fiinch  before  brutality 
or  pessimism,  sadness  or  failure,  disil- 
lusionment or  regrets,  but  then, 
neither  do  French  readers,  who  desire 
truth  first  and  "uplift"  afterward — a 
long  way  afterward.  In  fact,  they  will 
not  be  displeased  if  the  "uplift"  is 
missing  altogether.  This  readiness 
on  the  part  of  the  French  to  accept 
grim  or  tragic  themes  often  invests 
the  French  short  stories  with  a 
breadth  and  power  that  must,  of  ne- 
cessity, be  lacking  in  those  written 
most  often  only  to  "uplift"  a  public 
unwilling  to  recognize  sorrow  or  fail- 
ure or  even,  it  would  seem,  death  it- 
self. And  then  the  French  short-story 
writer  pays  scrupulous  attention  to 


NEW  FRENCH  BOOKS 


451 


character-drawing;  he  will  sometimes 
use  over  a  thousand  words  to  describe 
the  inherited  tendencies,  early  en- 
vironmenty  and  acquired  habits  of  one 
of  his  characters;  the  American 
writer  will,  on  the  other  hand  (or  so 
it  seems  to  me),  strain  every  nerve  to 
obtain  movement  and,  of  course,  "up- 
lift". Lastly,  the  French  writer  in- 
sists on  a  polished  literary  style,  no 
matter  how  slight  or  small  his  story 
may  be,  while  the  American  writer 
(or  should  I  say  reader?)  evidently 
prefers  plot. 

"Le  Justicier"  contains  five  rather 
long  short  stories,  the  first  giving  its 
name  to  the  volume;  it  is  a  careful 
study  of  the  human  failure  to  read 
aright  the  hearts  and  motives  of 
others.  The  two  Mamat  brothers  hate 
each  other  with  a  deadly  hatred;  the 
elder  regards  the  younger  as  a  thief,  a 
cad,  and  a  profligate  (he  is  indeed  all 
three).  After  succeeding  in  the 
world  as  an  engineer,  the  elder  brother 
returns  to  France  from  South  Amer- 
ica in  order  to  erect  a  monument  to 
the  memory  of  his  two  sons  fallen  in 
the  Great  War.  The  widow  of  his 
brother  (now  dead  five  years)  comes 
to  him  to  implore  his  help  for  her 
son.  Mamat  repulses  her.  But  she 
produces  letters  written  to  her  by 
her  husband  which  give  the  younger 
Mamat's  side  of  the  case.  They  are 
a  revelation  to  the  elder  brother;  he 
is  horrified  by  his  almost  lifelong  fail- 
ure to  understand  his  brother's  char- 
acter. Reparation  is  due  the  dead 
man,  and  the  elder  Mamat  takes  his 
nephew  back  to  South  America  with 
him  in  order  to  establish  him  in  life. 

"La  Cachette"  is  a  rather  bustling 
tale  of  the  finding  of  treasure  and 
jewels  hidden  during  the  French 
Revolution  by  the  &migr6  owner  whose 
sole  descendant  is  a  poor  governess 
teaching  the  children   of  a   French 


parvenu;  the  ancestral  ch&teau,  where 
the  treasure  lay  hidden,  has  been  sold 
by  her  father  to  a  wealthy  Jew.  Years 
after  the  sale,  the  treasure  is  discov- 
ered by  a  young  history  student  who 
finds  the  clue  to  its  hiding  place  in  an 
old  history  book  he  is  studying;  he 
brings  the  jewels  to  the  governess, 
who  refuses  them,  for  in  the  contract 
of  sale  between  her  late  father  and 
the  Jew  now  living  in  her  home,  there 
is  a  fatal  clause  "avec  tout  ce  qu'il 
contiendra,  lors  de  Tentr^e  en  pos- 
session'\  And  so  the  Jew,  already 
wallowing  in  money,  is  offered  and  ac- 
cepts the  ancient  family  heirlooms  of 
an  old  French  family. 

"Le  Carr6  d'Orties"  is  a  French 
Revolution  story  of  the  daughter  of  a 
noble  house  whose  life  is  saved  by  a 
fiery  insurgent,  a  surgeon  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary Army,  who  loves  her.  The 
wide  social  and  political  gulf  between 
them  makes  the  girl  spurn  his  offer 
of  marriage.  But  gratitude  for  his 
devotion  in  saving  her  life  changes 
her  feelings  and,  afraid  of  what  they 
may  lead  to,  she  decides  never  to  see 
the  Revolutionary  again.  Both  die 
unmarried. 

"Le  Fmit  Juge  TArbre"  is  a  study 
of  an  unfrocked  priest,  while 
"L' Apache"  is  a  tragic  tale  of  a  chauf- 
feur, who  once  having  been  a  member 
of  a  band  of  apaches  and  having  es- 
caped from  them  in  an  attempt  to  lead 
an  honest  life,  is  tracked  down  and 
murdered  by  his  former  accomplices. 

Although  none  of  these  tales  can 
be  said  to  have  a  really  happy  ending, 
there  is  movement  in  all  of  them;  in- 
deed, there  is  even  a  definite  plot  in 
one  or  two,  and  this,  coupled  with  the 
admirable  way  in  which  they  are  writ- 
ten, should  more  than  compensate  for 
an  occasional  note  of  sombreness. 

In  his  new  novel,  "Laurence  AI- 


452 


THE   BOOKMAN 


bani",  M.  Bourget  has  struck  what  is 
for  him  a  somewhat  unusual  note.  He 
has  turned  from  the  feverish  atmos- 
phere of  Parisian  society  and  has 
placed  his  scene  in  a  country  district 
near  Hy^res  in  the  South  of  France; 
with  one  exception,  his  characters  do 
not  belong  to  the  haut  monde,  but  to 
the  laboring  classes  of  that  district, 
and  the  story  is  so  puritanical  in  tone 
that  from  this  point  of  view  it  might 
have  been  written  by  an  Anglo-Saxon 
schoolteacher  instead  of  one  of  the 
leading  French  novelists  of  the  day. 
The  book  has  had  such  a  large  sale 
that  it  would  seem  there  is  a  demand 
for  novels  which,  as  the  French  pub- 
lishers put  it,  can  be  placed  ''entre 
toutes  les  mains''  and  yet  be  the  work 
of  master-writers — ^a  combination  rare 
enough  in  France.  To  those  who  know 
Paul  Bourget  mainly  by  his  novels  of 
society  life,  "Laurence  Albani"  will 
come  as  a  surprise. 

The  heroine,  who  gives  her  name  to 
the  title  of  the  novel,  is  the  daughter 
of  a  market  gardener  near  Hy^res. 
Together  with  her  parents,  her  brother 
and  sister,  she  had  before  the  story 
opens  been  employed  in  working  in 
her  father's  garden,  growing  those 
flowers  for  which  the  South  of  France 
is  famous.  A  certain  Lady  Agnes 
Vemham,  whose  villa  was  near  the 
Albani  home,  had  become  attracted  by 
the  beauty  and  amiability  of  Laurence 
and  had  invited  her  to  go  to  England 
as  her  companion.  (Such  invitations 
are  scattered  with  a  generous  profu- 
sion in  novels ;  in  real  life  they  are  all 
but  unknown  and  one  is  faintly  sur- 
prised to  find  a  novelist  of  M.  Bour- 
get's  standing  making  use  of  such  a 
hackneyed  and  at  the  same  time  im- 
probable situation.)  So  Laurence  goes 
to  England  and  becomes  quite  a  fine 
lady.  Lady  Agnes,  however,  is  incon- 
siderate enough  to  die  without  having 


made  a  will,  and  Laurence  is  forced 
to  return  to  France  no  better  ofF  than 
she  left  it  except  for  a  coating  of  so- 
ciety polish. 

When  the  story  opens  we  find  her 
living  with  her  parents,  successfoUy 
earning  her  living  by  making  fancy 
boxes  for  a  shop  in  Hy^res.  She  has 
two  admirers:  the  honest  market- 
gardener  Pascal  Couture  and  an  ex- 
naval  officer,  Pierre  Libertat,  who, 
wealthy  and  of  ancient  race,  lives 
with  his  mother  at  Toulon.  Libertat, 
as  a  man  of  the  world,  makes  advances 
to  Laurence,  who,  of  course,  repulses 
them  (for  the  novel  may  be  placed 
"entre  toutes  les  mains" ) .  Her  rebuffs 
only  serve  to  increase  Libertat's  ardor, 
and  to  such  a  point  that  he  actually 
resolves  to  propose  marriage  to  the 
gardener's  daughter.  All  those  who 
are  acquainted  with  French  family 
life  and  who  are  aware  of  the  enor- 
mous part  that  social  and  financial 
considerations  play  on  either  side  in 
the  question  of  marriage,  will  be  a 
little  taken  aback  by  the  ease  with 
which  the  young  man  embraces  the 
idea  of  marriage  when  he  finds  that 
philandering  will  not  gain  him  what 
he  seeks. 

For  some  time  Laurence  receives 
his  proposal  with  favor,  but  circum- 
stances intervene  which  lead  her  to 
judge  between  him  and  her  humble 
suitor,  Pascal  Couture.  It  is  Pascal 
who  emerges  the  more  triumphantly 
from  the  test,  and  Laurence,  at  last 
realizing  the  nobility  of  his  character 
and  the  strength  of  his  love  for  her, 
informs  him  that  if  he  still  desires 
her  as  his  wife,  she  is  willing  to  ac- 
cept him.  And  on  this  idyllic  note,  so 
rare  in  French  novels,  the  story  ends. 


Prime   Jeuneese.      By   Pierre   Loti. 
Calmann-L^VT. 

Le    JoBtlcler.      By    Paul    Bourget. 
Plon. 

Laurence  Albani.    By  Paul  Bourget. 
Plon. 


Paris: 
Paris: 
Paris: 


SOME  CURRENTS  AND  BACKWATERS  OF 
CONTEMPORARY  POETRY 

BY  RAYMOND  M.  WEAVER 


WERE  a  God  asked  to  recite  his 
life,  he  would  do  so  in  two 
words''  is  an  opinion  expressed  in  "Le 
Centaure"  of  Maurice  de  Gu^rin.  For, 
such  seems  to  be  the  idea  implied,  an 
authentic  Deity  would  be  too  intensely 
employed  in  living,  too  supremely  re- 
joiced in  the  harmony  'and  beauty  of 
the  world,  to  pause  for  self-conscious 
disquisitions  on  the  integrity  of  his 
perfection.  He  would  so  adequately 
realize  in  the  flesh  and  spirit,  the  lofti- 
est dreams  in  marble  and  verse  and 
sound  and  color  of  the  men  we  com- 
monly call  poets,  that  he  would  not  be 
impelled  to  strive  after  vicarious  per- 
fection— ^the  perfection  after  which 
the  artist  strives. 

But  this  conception  of  an  Olympian 
being  to  whom  poetry  is  an  irrele- 
vancy, because  such  a  being  is  in  his 
life  a  poem,  has  no  reality  beyond  the 
dreams  of  poets.  The  human  animal, 
here  for  so  fleeting  a  space,  cast 
among  so  many  hardships,  filled  with 
such  ineffectual  virtues,  with  desires 
so  incommensurate  and  so  inconsis- 
tent,— it  has  been  his  tragic  destiny 
to  differentiate  between  the  serenity 
of  his  imagined  Gods  and  the  animal 
integrity  of  his  Darwinian  forebears. 
"With  stupidity  and  a  good  digestion, 
man  can  endure  much,"  wrote  Carlyle. 
And  such  a  bovine  congregation  of  the 
dully  enduring  would,  with  the  High 

468 


Gods,  be  without  laureates  and  poet- 
asters. Where  there  is  literature, 
there  also  is  imperfection.  There  is 
Dante,  driven  by  defeat  and  exile  into 
a  bitter  immortality;  Milton's  last 
great  poems  are  the  consolation  of  a 
defeated  partisan,  old  and  blind,  and 
cut  off  from  the  active  life  to  which 
the  maturity  of  his  powers  had  been 
passionately  devoted;  Shakespeare 
vnrote  no  more  when  he  could  afford  to 
live  without  writing;  Leopardi  de- 
voted himself  in  despair  to  scholarship 
and  poetry,  because  physical  infirmity 
disabled  him  from  active  life ;  Raleigh 
wrote  his  "History  of  the  World'*, 
Bunyan  his  "Pilgrim's  Progress"  in 
captivity :  they  dreamed  grand  dreams 
in  their  dungeons  because  they  could 
not  live  really  in  the  free  open  air. 
In  illustrious  cases  such  as  these  there 
is  a  failure  on  the  part  of  the  environ- 
ment— ^an  external  imperfection  that 
irritates  superior  souls  to  find  compen- 
sation in  their  dreams,  for  the  faulti- 
ness  of  reality.  "Those  that  the  Lord 
loveth  He  chasteneth"  is  the  first 
canon  of  literary  criticism. 

All  noble  poetry  arises  from  the 
tragic  incompatibility  between  irra- 
tional nature  and  rational  desire. 
"Man  has  henceforth  this  cause  for 
pride,"  writes  Jean  Labor ;  "he  has  be- 
thought himself  of  justice  in  a  uni- 
verse without  justice."     This  is  the 


464 


THE   BOOKMAN 


poetry  of  authentic  inspiration :  genu- 
ine, thoughtful,  and  earnest  poetry 
that  is,  as  Sully  Prudhomme  says,  "the 
dream  by  which  man  aspires  to  a  su- 
perior life".  And  the  value  of  such 
poetry,  in  the  words  of  Bacon,  "hath 
been  to  give  some  shadow  of  satisfac- 
tion to  the  mind  of  man  in  these  points 
wherein  the  nature  of  things  doth 
deny  it ;  the  world  being  in  proportion 
inferior  to  the  soul;  by  reason  thereof 
there  is  agreeable  to  the  spirit  of  man 
a  more  ample  greatness,  a  more  com- 
pact goodness,  and  a  more  absolute  va- 
riety, than  can  be  found  in  the  nature 
of  things."  And  such  poetry  is  writ- 
ten from  an  inner  compulsion,  "some- 
thing separate  from  the  volition  of  the 
author",  as  Scott,  the  sanest  of  poets, 
declared.  All  genuine  poetry  in  the 
world  is  of  this  sort.  And  the  bulk  of 
such  poetry,  poetry  of  seasoned  ex- 
perience and  heavenly  inspiration,  is 
impressively  slight. 

It  would  be  lunacy  to  believe  that 
the  great  bulk  of  printed  matter  that 
passes  under  the  ambiguous  name  of 
poetry,  arises  out  of  any  such  inner 
tragic  compulsion.  I  have  before  me 
no  less  than  thirty-four  volumes  of 
the  "latest  verse".  And  this  impres- 
sive array  of  volumes  eloquently 
proves  that  the  frustration  at  the 
basis  of  book-making  is  not  invariably 
of  the  nature  that  has  provoked  the 
noblest  art:  the  imperfection,  in  most 
cases,  seems  to  have  been  in  the  na- 
ture of  the  poet,  even  more  than  in 
the  failure  of  the  external  world. 
Some  few  of  these  volumes  have  within 
them  some  breath  of  the  really  divine 
afflatus ;  these  merit  more  than  a  pass- 
ing comment.  But  the  great  body  of 
the  collection  has  little  claim  to  con- 
sideration as  genuine  and  competent 
poetry. 

Most  of  this  modem  loquacity  in 
verse — a  loquacity  interpreted  naively 


by  some  as  a  ssrmptom  of  a  Poetry  B^ 
naissance — is  provoked  by  interests 
essentially  foreign  to  the  poetry  of  au- 
thentic inspiration.  Some  of  it — such 
as  Mr.  Markham's  "Gates  of  Parar 
dise" — is,  at  its  best,  rhymed  moral- 
izing: eloquent,  sincere,  restrained, 
but  withal  too  absorbed  in  immediate 
domestic  and  sociological  interests  to 
touch  the  deepest  mysteries  of  the 
heart  of  man.  This  is  essentially  a 
Protestant  poetry — a  poetry,  as  says 
Oliveira  Matino,  "des  soci^t^  senates, 
heureuses,  riches,  libres,  en  ce  qui  con- 
ceme  les  institutions  et  T^conomie  ex- 
teme,  mais  incapables  d'aucune  action 
grandiose."  Besides  this  poetry  of  di- 
dacticism, there  are  books — ^like  F.  P. 
A.'s  "Something  Else  Again"— that 
are  written  frankly  with  a  humorous 
intent,  and  to  censure  these  for  not 
being  something  else  would  be  as  ab- 
surd as  reprobating  a  gargoyle  for  not 
being  one  of  the  cherubim. 

Besides  the  satirical  and  humorous 
verse  on  the  one  hand,  the  didactic 
verse  on  the  other  (two  types  of  rhjrm- 
ing  whose  best  achievements  are  not 
strictly  "nurslings  of  immortality")  t 
there  is  a  third  type  of  verse — a  type 
ranging  in  its  examples  from  the 
pompous  and  hysterical  inanities  of 
the  Della-Cruscans  through  the  aver- 
age efforts  of  the  minor  poets,  and 
graduating  imperceptibly  into  the  po- 
etry of  genuine  inspiration.  These 
are  the  second-hand  poets; — ^they 
mimic  the  gestures  of  the  masters* 
but  "they  have  no  speculation  in  the 
eyes  that  they  do  glare  with",  and 
their  mimicry  is  ever  in  perilous  dan- 
ger of  appearing  ridiculous  caricature. 
Every  crop  of  new  verses  brings  to 
bed  a  litter  of  this  stamp,  some  of 
passing  interest,  others  doomed  to  face 
in  silence  their  own  intrinsic  demerits. 
The  better  of  the  current  poetry  of 
this  type  gives  either  pretty,  or  grace- 


CURRENTS  AND  BACKWATERS  OF  CONTEMPORARY  POETRY  455 


ful,  or  clever,  or  lively  expression  to 
amiable  sentiments,  to  thoughts  not 
too  far  below  the  dead-level  of  the 
best  current  opinion.  Mr.  John  Chip- 
man  Farrar  (in  his  "Forgotten 
Shrines")  and  Miss  Lucile  Vernon  (in 
her  "Mephistopheles  Puffeth  the  Sun 
Out")  are  pleasing  versifiers  of  this 
variety. 

These  thirty-four  volumes  as  a 
whole  are  shot  through  with  the  traits 
of  our  New  Poetry — ^poetry  whose 
chief  novelty  is  its  barbarism :  poetry 
of  aggressive  egotism,  of  promiscuous 
animal  exuberance;  a  poetry  of  shreds 
and  patches,  that  stimulates — ^when  it 
stimulates  at  all — ^by  the  crudity  of  its 
methods  and  the  recklessness  of  its 
emotions. 

The  most  notable  example  of  the 
poetry  of  barbarism  in  this  aggrega- 
tion of  thirty-four  volumes  is  "The 
Golden  Whales  of  California"  of  Va- 
chel  Lindsay.  "There  are  poets  of 
times  and  localities;  but  America 
needs  a  poet  of  all-America",  is  the 
credo  that  adorns  the  jacket  of  Mr. 
Lindsay's  volume.  "With  each  new 
collection  of  his  poems  Vachel  Lindsay 
more  definitely  fills  this  need.  His 
vision  is  constantly  growing  wider  and 
deeper.  From  Massachusetts  Bay  to 
the  Golden  Gate  he  sees  the  ardour 
and  young  confusion  and  burning 
promise  of  our  life."  It  was  the  pa- 
thetic ambition  of  Whitman — ^as  of 
Mr.  Lindsay  after  him — ^to  be  the 
spokesman  of  the  tendencies  of  this 
country ;  and  it  has  been  one  of  life's 
little  ironies  that  Whitman  does  not 
appeal  to  those  whom  he  describes,  but 
rather  to  the  dilettanti  he  despises. 
As  Greorge  Santayana  has  said : 

"The  poet  who  loves  the  picturesque 
aspects  of  labour  and  vagrancy  will 
hardly  be  the  poet  of  the  poor.  He 
may  have  described  their  figure  and 
occupation,  in  neither  of  which  are 


they  much  interested;  he  will  not 
have  read  their  souls.  They  will  pre- 
fer to  him  any  sentimental  story-teller, 
any  sensational  dramatist,  and  moral- 
izing poet ;  for  they  are  hero-worship- 
pers by  temperament,  and  are  too  wise 
or  too  unfortunate  to  be  enamoured  of 
themselves  or  of  the  conditions  of 
their  existence." 

Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox,  Henry  Wads- 
worth  Longfellow,  Edwin  Markham 
might  with  some  justice  be  called  poets 
of  the  people:  Mr.  Lindsay  even  less 
so  than  Whitman.  Both  Whitman  and 
Mr.  Lindsay  in  the  singularity  of 
their  literary  form  throw  a  challenge 
to  the  conventions  of  verse  and  of  lan- 
guage; but  whereas  Whitman's  self- 
avowed  "barbaric  yawp"  has  a  side 
that  is  not  mere  perversity  or  affecta- 
tion, Mr.  Lindsay's  verse  makes  a  bla- 
tantly self-conscious  attempt  to  be 
primitive.  His  is  a  mannered  striving 
to  be  "natural" — and  the  studio  sav- 
agery of  his  method  would  doubtless 
alarm  a  genuinely  primitive  people,  as 
it  entertains  a  jaded  coterie  of  the 
over-refined.  In  its  search  for  pro- 
gressively adequate  stimulation,  a 
highly  elaborated  civilization  migrates 
from  the  sanity  and  sweetness  of  the 
early  Homeric  ideals,  through  the  ter- 
rible, the  horrible,  and  seeks  ultimate 
excitement  either  in  the  vulgar  or  in 
the  corrupt. 

Mr.  Lindsay's  poetry  is  a  glorifica- 
tion of  vulgarity ;  he  proclaims  mighty 
and  mystical  intimations  in  the  com- 
mon, the  sordid,  the  cheap,  and  the  un- 
disciplined. As  for  his  boasted 
"vision",  he  has  a  keen  eye  for  the 
miscellaneous  "young  confusion"  of 
our  intricate  life:  but  to  call  this 
"vision"  is  to  be  guilty  in  earnest  of 
the  sort  of  irony  that  was  at  the  basis 
of  Voltaire's  technique  of  most  ef- 
fective satire.  What  distinguishes 
Mr.  Lindsay  from  the  great  bulk  of 


456 


THE   BOOKMAN 


the  practitioners  of  the  "New  Poetry" 
is  the  genuine  vitality  of  his  work. 
Though  the  defects  of  his  art  are 
patent  enough — ^lack  of  distinction,  ab- 
sence of  beauty,  confusion  of  ideas,  in* 
capacity  permanently  to  please — ,  still, 
if  the  power  to  stimulate  is  the  begin* 
ning  of  greatness,  Mr.  Lindsay's  ebul- 
litions of  lustiness  are  to  be  imputed 
to  him  for  righteousness.  His  manner 
is  "all  his  own". 

"The  Dark  Wind",  the  first  volume 
of  W.  J.  Turner,  a  young  English  poet, 
is  a  volume  of  real  distinction,  inter- 
esting both  for  its  art  and  for  its  ac- 
complished artifice.  Mr.  Turner  writes 
in  two  veins — one,  the  lapidary  ideali- 
zation of  Jos^-Maria  de  H^r^dia ;  the 
other,  the  keen  and  reverent  satirical 
bitterness  of  Rupert  Brooke  and  Doc- 
tor John  Donne.  There  is  no  careless 
rapture  in  any  of  his  verse :  it  has  the 
studious  rigidity  of  a  cultivated  and 
audacious  craftsmanship,  but  with  the 
magic  of  genuine  inspiration.  Mr. 
Turner  attempts  to  avoid  reporting 
experience  as  it  is  distorted  by  our 
analytical  habits  of  speech,  but  rather 
to  report  it  as  it  is  immediately  per- 
ceived by  the  senses. 

When  a  child  attempts  to  draw  a 
cube,  his  conscientious  effort  usually 
expresses  itself  not  in  a  foreshortened 
transcription  of  the  object,  seen  under 
a  peculiar  light  and  from  a  single 
point  of  view;  he  knows  that  the  cube 
has  a  number  of  square  surfaces,  and 
to  eliminate  from  his  representation  a 
single  one  of  these  interesting  rec- 
tangular faces  seems  to  him  a  mis- 
leading simplification  of  reality.  So 
the  child  records,  not  the  retinal  im- 
age, but  a  fianged  aggregation  of  rec- 
tangles. The  child  in  his  drawing  has 
analyzed  experience:  he  reports  the 
residue  of  his  analysis,  not  his  imme- 
diate perception.  It  is  a  curious  para- 
dox that  only  a  very  sophisticated  art 


attempts  to  record  unsophisticated 
perience.  By  the  normal  habits  of 
speech  we  say :  "A  bird  is  singinsr  in 
the  tree",  when  our  unanaljrzed  percep- 
tion is,  "The  tree  sings".  We  8ay» 
"Out  in  the  night  the  rain  came  down 
in  torrents",  when  the  report  of  our 
senses  is,  "The  night  dripped''. 

The  effort  of  the  Imagists  has  been 
to  divest  themselves  of  the  preconcep- 
tions and  distortions  of  naively  ana- 
lytic speech,  and  to  dive  bodi^  into 
the  stream  of  sensation,  catching  the 
passing  phenomenon  in  all  its  novelty 
and  idiosyncrasy.  But  the  moving 
image  that  the  Imagists  attempt  with 
such  sophistication  to  record  as  color, 
sound,  heat,  taste,  etc.,  is  also  impreg- 
nated with  qualities  such  as  pain,  fear, 
joy,  malice,  feebleness,  expectancy — 
qualities  which  in  the  most  naive  per- 
ception are  attributed  to  the  objects 
in  their  fulness  and  just  as  they  are 
felt.  Thus  the  sun  is  not  only  bright 
and  warm  in  the  same  way  that  he  is 
round,  but  by  the  same  right  he  is  also 
happy,  arrogant,  ever-young,  and  all- 
seeing.  "I  assert  for  myself",  said 
William  Blake,  "that  I  do  not  behold 
the  outward  creation,  and  that  it  is  to 
me  hindrance  and  not  action.  'What' , 
it  will  be  questioned,  'when  the  sun 
rises,  do  you  not  see  a  round  disk  of 
fire  something  like  a  guinea?'  Oh! 
no,  no  I  I  see  an  innumerable  com- 
pany of  the  heavenly  host,  crying, 
'Holy,  holy,  holy  is  the  Lord  God  Al- 
mighty !'  I  question  not  my  corporeal 
eye  any  more  than  I  would  question  a 
window  concerning  a  sight.  I  look 
through  it,  and  not  with  it." 

Mr.  Turner  looks  not  only  with  his 
eye — and  with  the  disciplined  vision 
of  the  successful  Imagist — ^but  he 
looks  also,  as  every  true  poet  must, 
through  it.  He  succeeds  in  disengag- 
ing his  perceptions  from  the  algebraic 
and  propositional  language  of  practical 


CURRENTS  AND  BACKWATERS  OF  CONTEMPORARY  POETRY  467 


« 


it 


speech,  and  is  conscious  of  objects  as 
a  projected  aggregation  of  sensations 
and  moods.  A  record  of  this  type  of 
perception  demands,  of  course,  a 
highly  sophisticated  and  analytical 
mind,  an  unusual  sensitiveness  to 
stimuli,  and  a  use  of  language  that 
must  dojjfllAnrp  fn  praaair  hahltfl^f 
speecKTrhe  resulting  poetry  is  at  the 


same  time  beautiful,  powerful,  and 
strange.  And  not  the  least  interesting 
peculiarity  of  Mr.  Turner's  art  is  that 
he  has  made  no  startling  departures 
into  irregular  verse  forms:  he  scans 
like  a  model  Victorian,  and  he  evinces 
no  Miltonic  prejudices  against  the  use 
of  rhyme.  Nor  does  Mr.  Turner  seek 
to  startle  by  the  choice  of  bizarre  sub- 
jects. He  writes  on  ''Haystacks"  and 
Sunflowers"  and  "Hollyhocks"  and 
Aeroplanes"  and  "Recollecting  a 
Visit".  And  when  he  makes  adven- 
tures in  "Ecstasy"  and  "Solitude"  and 
"Sea-Madness",  his  originality  arises 
from  the  directness  and  subtlety  of 
perception,  not  from  an  indulgence  in 
the  corrupt  hankering  after  clinical 
situations:  a  hankering  he  decently 
avoids. 

Winifred  Welles,  in  her  first  volume 
of  poems,  "The  Hesitant  He^",  ex- 
hibits none  of  the  peculiarities  of  Mr. 
Turner  beyond  those  shared  in  com- 
mon by  all  genuine  poets.  Whereas 
Mr.  Turner's  is  the  more  studied  ar- 
tistry— ^a  hard,  frozen,  white,  lumi- 
nous quality,  like  a  petrified  dream — 
Miss  Welles's  is  an  art  at  times  as  in- 
genuous as  Emily  Dickinson's,  though 
always  classical  in  its  impeccable  taste. 
There  are  in  the  book  no  miscellaneous 
rampings  of  the  "spontaneous  Me",  no 
Mid-Victorian  ventures  in  well-be- 
haved hysteria,  no  definitive  justifica- 
tions of  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  no 
valentine  insipidities.  "The  Hesitant 
Heart"  will  be  highly  prized  by  those 
who  find  excellence  in  sweet-blooded 


serenity,  in  piety  that  finds  no  sacri- 
lege in  unembittered  laughter,  in  a 
fine  receptivity  to  loveliness,  and  in 
autobiographical  restraint.  The  scope 
of  experience  covered  by  this  unpre- 
tentious volume  is  hardly  coextensive 
with  life:  but  real  distinction  of 
achievement  is  not  invariably  synony- 
mous with  leaving  nothing  unsaid. 

Edwin  Arlington  Robinson — ^unlike 
Mr.  Turner  and  Miss  Welles — is  no 
new  name  among  accredited  poets.  He 
has  already  won  golden  opinions  from 
the  most  discriminating  critics,  for 
the  nobility  of  his  verse;  for  the  in-  • 
cisive  clarity  of  his  insight — etched  as 
by  acid  on  the  human  heart;  for  the 
maturity  of  his  judgment;  for  the 
economy  of  his  method.  His  latest 
book,  "Lancelot'',  a  narrative  poem  in 
blank  verse,  is  his  second  adventure  in 
the  field  of  the  Arthurian  legend.  Any 
modem  treatment  of  the  Arthur  ma- 
terial challenges  comparison  at  once 
with  some  of  the  illustrious  names  in 
English  literature:  Tennyson,  Swin- 
burne, Arnold,  and  Morris,  to  mention 
only  the  best  known.  Mr.  Robinson's 
"Lancelot"  is  no  misbegotten  change- 
ling in  this  notable  company.  Mr. 
Robinson  significantly  chooses  to  re- 
count the  tragic  end  of  Lancelot's  love 
for  Arthur's  Queen :  the  love  of  Lance- 
lot crucified  in  the  shame  of  disloyalty, 
worn  down  to  a  pitiful  and  enslaving 
tenderness, — ^the  choking  embers  of  a 
passion  that  pales  in  the  haunting 
recollection  of  his  fleeting  vision  of 
the  Gleam. 

Mr.  Robinson's  genius  is  essentially^ 
dramatic;  he  dispenses  with  the 
traditional  paraphernalia  of  mediseval 
romance;  the  pious  and  sentimental 
superstition  of  the  glamour  and  pic- 
turesqueness  of  chivalry  he  does  not 
reverently  avow.  His  interest  is  not, 
with  Tennyson,  to  lavish  epithets  on 
the  trappings  of  sjrmbolic  pageants,  but 


468 


THE  BOOKMAN 


rather  to  search  the  mind  and  blood  of 
a  complex  and  passionately  idealistic 
nature  when  soul  is  at  war  with  soul. 
The  analysis  is  subtle,  unsentimental, 
and  contagiously  sympathetic.    It  is  a  . 
mannerism  of  romantic  poets  to  cele- 
brate the  delicious  pangs  of  amorous 
stirring,  and  to  heighten  the  poign- 
ancy   of    a    biological    eruption    by 
prating  of  passion  and  calling  it  eter- 
nal.   Mr.  Robinson  is  a  heretic  to  this 
confession:   he  shows  us  love  among 
the  ruins  of  itself.     With  Dante  he 
teaches   that   no   other   furniture   is 
needed  for  hell  than  the  literal  ideals 
and  fulfilments  of  romantic  desire. 
Yet,   though  he   is  a  tragic  moral- 
ist, he  is  not  a  poet  of  despairing 
disenchantment.    Through  the  gloom 
that  enshrouds  the  end  of  his  poem 
there  is  the  promise  of  something 
other  than  utter  night.    Gamelot  and 
Arthur's  kingdom,  it  is  true,  go  down. 
Guinevere,  rich  in  the  bitter  memories 
of  Joyous    Card — ^though    interested 
even  in  her  desolation  to  indulge  the 
amorous  casuistry  of  how  different 
her  history  might  have  been  had  she 
been  a  brunette  like  Isold  or  Vivian — 
meets  Lancelot  for  the  last  time  at 
Almesbury.     Guinevere  is  left  a  pa- 
thetically hopeless  creature ;  Mr.  Rob- 
inson seems  not  completely  convinced 
by  the  logic  of  Malory :  "that  while  she 
lived  she  was  a  true  lover,  and  there- 
fore had  a  good  end".    Lancelot  rides 
away,  haunted  by  the  face  of  Guine- 
vere.   But  this  wan  face  recedes  and 
fades,  melts  gradually  into  the  face  of 
Galahad:    then  even  Galahad's  face 
fades, — 

And  there  were  no  more  faces.  There  was  noth- 
ing. 
But  always  in  the  darkness  he  rode  on, 
Alone :   and  in  the  darkness  came  the  Light. 

"Le  dernier  acte  est  sanglant,  quel- 
que  belle  que  soit  la  com^die  en  tout  le 
reste",  wrote  Pascal;   "on  jette  enfln 


de  la  terre  sur  la  tete,  et  en  voUk  pour 
jamais."  This  grim  pronouncement, 
were  it  as  true  in  its  conclusion  as  In 
its  other  parts,  would  reduce  to  an  ir- 
relevancy one  of  the  most  valuable  of 
recent  booka:  "For  Remembrance: 
Soldier  Poets  Who  Have  Fallen  in  the 
War",  by  A.  St.  John  Adcock.  Among 
the  many  atrocities  of  war,  a  majority 
of  the  so-called  "war-poetrsr"  appears 
now  as  not  the  least  terrible.  Loyal 
and  glibly  oratorical  men  and  women 
have  sat  at  home  and  celebrated  with 
Homeric  rhetoric  what  a  fine  thing  it 
is  to  be  a  soldier:  a  conviction  after 
the  best  literary  traditions.  Unham- 
pered by  any  first-hand  taste  of  actual 
modem  warfare,  this  group  of  poets 
sang  to  the  people  at  large,  lilting  mar- 
tial refrains,  and  doubtless  exerted 
some  indeterminate  infiuence  in  facili- 
tating the  progress  of  the  war.  But 
such  works,  though  answering  a  possi- 
ble purpose  once,  bear  about  them  at 
the  present  day  the  inappropriate- 
ness  of  an  anachronism.  The  multipli- 
cation of  volumes  of  this  type  provokes 
some  to  a  sedulous  and  indiscriminat- 
ing  avoidance  of  war-poetry:  a  preju- 
dice that  needs  such  a  book  as  '^For 
Remembrance"  to  be  revolutionized  to 
a  juster  judgment. 

"For  Remembrance"  is  a  series  of 
biographical  accounts,  illustrated  by 


Gates  of  Paradise.  By  Edwin  Markbam. 
Doubleday.  Page  and  Co. 

Something  Else  Again.  By  FrankUn  P. 
Adams.    Doubleday,  Page  and  Co. 

Forgotten  Shrines.  By  John  Chlpman  Far- 
rar.    Tale  University  Press. 

Mephistopheles  Puffeth  the  Sun  Out.  By  Lu- 
cUe  Vernon.    The  Stratford  Co. 

The  Golden  Whales  of  California.  By  Vachel 
Lindsay.    The  Macmillan  Co. 

The  Dark  Wind.  By  W.  J.  Turner.  B.  P. 
Dutton  and  Co. 

The  Hesitant  Heart.  By  Winifred  WeUes. 
B.  W.  Huebsch. 

Lancelot.  By  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson. 
Thomas  Seltzer. 

For  Remembrance.  By  A.  St.  John  Adcock. 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 

Picture-Show.  By  Siegfried  Sassoon.  B.  P. 
Dutton  and  Co. 

Argonaut  and  Juggernaut.  By  Osbert  Sit- 
well.    Alfred  A.  Knopf. 


CURRENTS  AND  BACKWATERS  OF  CONTEMPORARY  POETRY  469 


photographs  and  selections  from  their 
poetry,  of  fifty-four  warrior-poets. 
As  a  record  of  the  lofty  idealism,  the 
noble  self-sacrifice  of  these  essentially 
peace-loving  men,  this  volume  is  a  nec- 
essarily inadequate  tribute.  As  a  com- 
mentary upon  the  relations  between 
war  and  poets,  between  warrior-poets 
and  war-poets,  it  is  a  uniquely  im- 
portant volume.  It  is  an  obvious  fact 
that  under  the  stress  of  actual  war 
conditions,  these  men  did  not  grind 
out  verses  because  of  any  idle  love  of 
art-for-art's  sake;  the  writing  that 
was  done,  was  done  under  abnormal 
stress  of  emotion — ^and  in  a  number  of 
cases,  men  who  had  written  poetry  as 
civilians  wrote  none  as  soldiers,  while 
in  other  cases  unrhyming  civilians 
were  transformed  into  eloquent  poets. 
The  poetry  that  was  written  seems  to 
have  been  almost  entirely  of  one  of 
three  kinds:  1)  the  poetry  of  the  will- 
to-believe;  2)  the  poetry  of  escape; 
3)  satirical  and  denunciatory  verse. 

A  considerable  bulk  of  all  poetry  is 
the  poetry  of  the  will-to-believe.  This 
poetry  is  the  cry  of  the  man  who  sings 
in  the  dark  to  keep  his  courage  high ; 
an  attempt  to  strengthen  our  faith  by 
repeating  the  articles  of  our  creed. 
Such  poetry  says,  "Oh,  Lord,  I  be- 
lieve; help  Thou  my  unbelief."  Much 
of  this  type  of  poetry  seems  to  have 
been  written  by  warrior-poets:  a  re- 
hearsal to  themselves  of  the  ideals 
that  had  forced  them  into  the  war :  a 
rehearsal  that  fortified  the  courage, 
and  like  earnest  prayer  worked  in  the 
heart  its  own  reward.  A  poignant  ex- 
ample of  this  type  of  poetry  is  Joyce 
Kilmer's, — 

My  shoulders  ache  beneath  my  pack 
(Lie  easier,  Cross,  upon  His  back). 

I  march  with  feet  that  burn  and  smart 
(Tread,  Holy  Feet,  upon  my  heart).. . . 

My  rifle  hand  Is  stiU  and  numb 

(From  Thy  pierced  palm  red  rivers  come). 


Lord,  Thou  didst  suffer  more  for  me 
Than  aU  the  hosts  of  land  and  sea. 

So  let  me  render  back  again 
This  millionth  of  Thy  gift.    Amen. 

How  trivial  seem  most  of  the  "war- 
poets"  after  verses  like  these  I 

The  poetry  of  retreat  was  the  poetry 
written  by  soldiers  on  subjects  not 
connected  with  the  war  at  all :  an  es- 
cape in  imagination  from  the  immedi- 
ate intolerable  actualities  to  dreams  of 
the  friendly  scenes  of  normal,  peaceful 
life.  While  our  "war-poets"  at  home 
were  telling  us,  in  the  Ruskin  vein,  of 
the  flaming  joys  of  the  lust  of  battle, 
Francis  Ledwidge,  wounded,  writes 
thus  wistfully  of  his  mother  in  Ire- 
land: 

God  made  my  mother  on  an  April  day 
6*rom  sorrow  and  the  mist  along  the  sea. 
Lost   birds'   and   wanderers'   songs  and   ocean 

spray, 
And  the  moon  loved  her,  wandering  Jealously. . . . 

Kind  heart  she  has  for  aU  on  hiU  and  wave 
Whose  hopes  grew  wings,  like  ants,  to  fly  away. 
I  bless  the  Qod  who  such  a  mother  gave 
This  poor  bird-hearted  singer  of  a  day. 

Such  poets  had  their  hearts  in  the 
war;  but  the  war  was  not  in  their 
hearts, 

"After  the  eager  swiftness  of  the 
first  onset",  says  Mr.  Adcock,  "our  sol- 
diers settled  down  to  a  dogged  endur- 
ance of  the  filth  and  peril  and  tedium 

of  trench  warfare The  songs  of 

those  later  days  no  longer  or  seldom 
reiterate  the  shining  ideals  for  which 
the  singers  were  fighting,  but  take 
these  for  granted,  and,  instead,  expose 
and  denounce  with  stem  outspoken- 
ness the  injustice,  the  madness,  the 
tragic  misery  and  indescribable  beast- 
liness of  war."  Poetry  of  such  satiri- 
cal or  unromantic  treatment  of  war 
appears  in  two  current  volumes :  Sieg- 
fried Sassoon's  "Picture-Show",  and 
Osbert  Sitwell's  "Argonaut  and  Jug- 
gernaut". Mr.  Sassoon's  "Aftermath 
is  a  reminder  to  the  "war-poets" : 


»» 


460 


THE   BOOKMAN 


Have  you  forgotten  yetf, . . 
Look  doum,  and  atoear  by  the  slain  of  the  War 
that  you'll  never  forget. 

Do  you  remember  the  dark  months  yon  held 

the  sector  at  Mamets — 
The  nights  yon  watched  and  wired  and  dug  and 

piled  sandbags  on  parapets? 

Do  yon  remember  the  rats ;   and  the  stench 
Of  corpses  rotting  in  front  of  the  front-line 

trench — 
And  dawn  coming,  dirty-white,  and  chill  with 

a  hopeless  rain? 
Do  you  ever  stop  and  ask,  "Is  It  all  going  to 

happen  again?" 


Do  yon  remember  that  hoar  of  din  tiefore  the 

attack — 
And  the  anger,  the  blind  compassion  that  aelaed 

and  shook  yon  then 
As  yon  peered  at  the  doomed  and  haggard  faeef 

of  your  men? 

Do  you  remember  the  stretcher-cases   lurking 

back 
With  dying  eyes  and  lolling  heads — those  ashen 

grey 
Masks  of  the  lads  who  once  were  keen  and 

kind  and  gay? 

Have  you  forgotten  yett. . . 
Look  up,  and  swear  hy  the  green  of  the  9prim§ 
that  you'll  never  forget. 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  BOOKS 


An  Open  Letter 


BY  HENRY  LITCHFIELD  WEST 


To  the  Editor  of  The  Bookman  : 

It  would  be  a  fine  thing  if  all  the 
material  things  in  the  world  could  be 
utilized  only  for  the  advancement  of 
morals.  Normal  nature  inwardly  re- 
bels, for  instance,  when  the  virgin 
copper  plate,  which  should  be  reserved 
for  a  Whistler  etching,  is  perverted 
by  some  counterfeiter  to  the  produc- 
tion of  spurious  money.  We  want  the 
world  to  be  ideal.  Our  better  in- 
stincts seek  the  development  of  the 
good  and  the  true.  The  trouble  is,  of 
course,  that  this  means  our  personal, 
arbitrary  conception  of  goodness  and 
truth.  As  for  those  who  dispute  our 
standards,  anathema  be  upon  them ! 

From  the  very  beginning  of  the 
world  there  has  been  this  conflict  be- 
tween ideas.  The  rotation  of  the 
earth  around  the  sun,  the  survival  of 
human  personality  after  death,  the  di- 
vinity of  kings,   revealed  religion — 


all  these,  and  a  thousand  othersy  havy 
had  their  proponents  and  antagonist^ 
Over  and  above  every  dispute  ibun^ 
ders  the  voice  of  authority.  Some  f a^ 
vored  personage  —  pope,  president, 
tsar,  priest,  judge  or  selectman  of  the  J 
village — undertakes  to  decide  what  is 
right  and  what  is  wrong.  In  the  olden 
days  Galileo  and  Copernicus  disturbed 
the  current  of  prevailing  thought  and 
were  denounced.  Conditions  and  re- 
straints are  not  always  imposed  by  the 
law.  More  often  they  are  the  outcome 
of  uncontradicted  utterances  of  indi- 
viduals in  high  position.  ''When  I  ope 
my  mouth  let  no  dog  bark";  and  of- 
ficialdom having  pronounced  its  ver- 
dict, the  person  who  protests  is  char- 
acterized as  Bolshevik  and  forthwith 
passes  under  the  ban. 

And  yet  there  are  independent  souls 
in  the  world  who  do  not  think  or  act 
along  conventional  lines.     It  so  hap- 


AN  OPEN  LETTER  ON  THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  BOOKS    461 


pens,  also,  that  these  wanderers  from 
the  beaten  path  are,  in  nearly  every 
case,  the  writers  of  books.  Woe  be 
unto  them  if  they  tread  upon  the  ten- 
der corns  of  conventionality.  Venge- 
ance waits  at  once  upon  each  daring 
author.  The  book  which  he  has  writ- 
ten must  be  suppressed  I 

The  temptation  to  write  upon  the 
suppression  of  books  is  stimulated  by 
two  or  three  recent  episodes  in  the 
New  York  courts.  It  is  not  my  inten- 
tion to  enter  into  a  discussion  of  the 
merits  or  demerits  of  these  cases.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  I  have  never  read  the 
books  in  question;  and  let  me  add, 
lest  I  be  misunderstood,  that  I  do  not 
appear  as  a  personal  complainant.  I 
have  never  written  a  book  which  has 
been  banned;  I  am  no  defender  of  the 
vicious  and  impure;  and  I  am  neither 
a  socialist  nor  an  anarchist.  I  am 
merely  an  average  American  citizen 
who  is  impressed  by  a  situation  which 
leads  a  conservative  newspaper  like 
the  New  York  "Times"  to  inquire  edi- 
torially, "Is  Any  Book  Safe?"  The 
writer  in  the  "Times"  goes  further 
than  merely  asserting  that  one  of  the 
books  against  which  proceedings  have 
been  brought  "is  regarded  by  a  great 
many  lovers  of  literature  as  one  of  the 
most  notable  American  books  of  re- 
cent years".  He  calls  attention  to  the 
existence  of  a  statute  under  which 
when  any  individual  makes  complaint, 
a  magistrate  must  issue  a  warrant  for 
th6  arrest  of  the  publisher  and  for  the 
seizure  of  all  copies  of  the  objection- 
able book  or  picture,  their  sale  being 
also  summarily  stopped.  If  any  mag- 
istrate and  three  judges  of  Special 
Sessions  agtee  with  the  man  who 
makes  the  complaint,  the  book  is  sup- 
pressed for  good.  In  conclusion  the 
editorial  says : 

Fortnnately  the  coarts  hare  generaUy  been 
far  more  reasonable  than  the  statute,  which  de- 
spite inteUigent  judges  goes  a  long  way  to  re- 


stricting the  reading  of  the  public  to  such 
books  as  do  not  seem  objectionable  to  any 
man  who  makes  a  living  by  looking  for  un- 
lawful publications.  The  public  morals  must 
be  preserved,  but  surely  there  is  some  wiser 
way  of  preserving  them  than  this. 

It  may  be  worth  while,  as  briefly  as 
possible,  to  consider  whether  there  is 
a  wiser  way  and  incidentally  to  dis- 
cuss a  few  of  the  many  phases  of  a 
timely  topic. 

The  suppression  of  books  goes  back 
two  hundred  years  before  Christ,  when 
Roman  magistrates  sought  for  and 
burned  "books  of  magic" ;  and  it  has 
continued  with  more  or  less  intensity 
to  the  present  day.  The  most  potent 
factor  in  this  suppression  has  been  the 
church;  and  the  stringent  and  per- 
sistent exercise  of  this  authority 
through  many  centuries  accounts 
largely  for  the  present  attitude  of 
the  world  toward  books.  We  have 
been  accustomed  to  the  habit,  as  it 
were,  of  book  suppression.  It  was  not 
difficult,  when  patient  scribes  labori- 
ously copied  manuscripts,  to  destroy 
"the  falsely  inscribed  books  of  the  im- 
pious", but  with  the  invention  of  the 
printing-press  a  battle  royal  began. 
The  genii  had  escaped  from  the  bottle ; 
and  as  he  could  not  be  enclosed  again, 
it  was  thought  necessary  to  shackle 
him  with  rules  and  decrees.  As  long 
ago  as  1501,  Pope  Alexander  VI  is- 
sued a  bull  forbidding  the  printers  in 
the  provinces  of  Mentz,  Cologne, 
Treves,  and  Magdeburg,  from  publish- 
ing any  books  without  the  license  of 
the  archbishops.  The  movement 
known  as  the  Reformation  brought 
with  it  a  deluge  of  publications  then 
regarded  as  heretical.  The  Sacred  Col- 
lege of  the  Index,  composed  of  car- 
dinals and  consulters,  was  created; 
and  regulations,  many  in  force  today, 
were  promulgated,  dealing  severely 
with  those  who  disregarded  the  dic- 
tates of  the  censorship.    The  "Index 


462 


THE   BOOKMAN 


Librorum  Prohibitorum"  appeared.  In 
1744,  under  Benedict  XIV,  it  contained 
thousands  of  titles. 

It  may  seem  a  far  cry  from  the  time 
when  books  thus  negatived  were  the 
occasion  of  an  auto  da  f4,  with  the 
body  of  the  hapless  author  occasion- 
ally upon  the  pyre,  to  the  present  day, 
and  yet  much  of  the  same  spirit,  if  not 
the  same  practice,  remains.  ''Most 
fiTovemments,  whether  civil  or  eccle- 
siastical", asserts  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica,  "have  at  all  times,  in  one 
way  or  another,  acted  on  the  general 
principle  that  some  control  may  or 
ought  to  exist  over  the  literature  cir- 
culated among  those  under  their  juris- 
diction." The  Catholic  Dictionary 
states  the  case  even  more  categorical- 
ly. "Since  the  dawn  of  civilization", 
it  says,  "the  perception  of  the  influ- 
ence of  good  or  evil  exerted  by  books 
has  induced  the  authorities  of  every 
strongly  constituted  state  to  control 
their  circulation."  It  would  be  both 
profitable  and  instructive,  if  space  al- 
lowed, to  go  into  the  detail  of  the  ex- 
tent to  which  various  governments 
have  attempted  to  exercise  this  con- 
trol. Briefly  it  may  be  said  that 
France  is  the  most  liberal,  little  or  no 
restriction  being  placed  upon  publica- 
tions. England  does  not  seem  to  have 
the  fear  of  free  writing  and  free 
speaking  which  is  becoming  more  and 
more  pronounced  in  this  country.  The 
United  States,  with  a  virtuous  zeal 
which  seems  hjrpercritical  to  our  for- 
eign cousins  and  which  is  the  outward 
evidence  of  the  Puritanism  in  our 
blood,  undertakes  the  guardianship 
not  only  of  our  morals  but  of  our  pa- 
triotism through  the  enactment  of 
prohibitive  laws. 

The  first  question  which  naturally 
arises  is,  "Why  should  a  book  be  sup- 
pressed?" The  answer  that  it  en- 
counters the  objection  of  one  or  more 


individuals  is  not  wholly  satisfactoiy. 
Who  objects,  and  on  what  groimd  and 
by  what  right?  Is  the  objector  falli- 
ble or  infallible,  prejudiced  or  unprej- 
udiced, foolish  or  wise? 

In  the  cases  of  some  volumes  the  ▼»- 
lidity  of  the  objection  is  not  to  be 
questioned.  These  are  the  books  which 
emanate  from  prurient  minds,  and  do 
not  present  a  single  justifiable  reason 
for  their  existence.  They  are  vulgar 
and  coarse  and  crude ;  are  written  with 
lascivious  intent ;  are  more  animal  than 
human  in  their  characterizations;  and 
are  lacking  even  in  the  redeeming 
quality  of  literary  merit.  These  books 
are  the  cocaine  and  heroin  of  litera- 
ture; and,  like  these  deleterious, 
habit-forming  drugs,  are  surrepti- 
tiously produced  and  circulated  be- 
cause they  ought  not  to  exist.  They 
can  be  relegated  outside  the  pale  with- 
out a  moment's  hesitation,  just  as 
Bunyan's  "Pilgrim's  Progress"  can  be 
placed  upon  the  shelves  with  perfect 
propriety.  In  between  these  two  ex- 
tremes, however,  is  a  wide  area  occu- 
pied by  debatable  books.  It  is  a  field 
in  which  the  moralist  flourishes  the 
avenging  sword,  not  realizing  that  even 
the  law  recognizes  many  degrees  of 
homicide  and  imposes  the  death  pen- 
alty only  upon  one.  Curiously  enough, 
there  seems  to  be  much  virtue  in  the 
kindly  mantle  of  the  years.  The  Cath- 
olic church,  which  is  most  rigid  in  its 
attitude  toward  books,  tolerates  the 
classical  authors.  We  countenance 
the  open  sale  of  Rabelais  and  Boccac- 
cio, Fielding  and  Sterne,  Flaubert, 
Balzac  and  Maupassant,  with  all  their 
coarseness,  because  their  literary 
merit  has  defied  suppression  and  has 
been  apparently  sanctified  by  age. 
They  remind  me  of  the  ancient  Pan- 
theon, which  is  universally  admitted 
to  be  a  thing  of  beauty,  despite  the 
fact  that  its  marble  is  full  of  flaws. 


AN  OPEN  LETTER  ON  THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  BOOKS    468 


The  line  of  demarcation  between 
the  acceptable  and  the  objectionable  is 
difficult  to  draw.  The  author  and  the 
publisher  may,  in  the  best  of  faith  and 
without  a  single  ulterior  motive,  pro- 
duce and  submit  their  combined  work 
to  the  judgment  of  the  public.  It 
may,  in  the  minds  of  nine-tenths  of  its 
readers,  be  free  from  any  taint;  and 
yet  it  may  be  excluded  from  a  public 
library.  This  is  because  the  librarian 
is  frequently  the  arbiter  as  to  what 
shall  and  what  shall  not  be  placed  upon 
the  shelves.  Most  librarians  cut  the 
Gordian  knot  of  responsibility  con- 
cerning a  book  against  which  objec- 
tion is  raised  by  one  or  more  persons, 
by  simply  stating  that  their  limited 
funds  do  not  permit  its  inclusion  in 
their  purchase  list.  This  lack  of  funds 
is  actually  a  chronic  condition  with 
the  libraries;  and  being  a  good  and 
sufficient  reason,  closes  the  door 
against  further  discussion,  offers  the 
line  of  least  resistance,  and  is  final. 

Other  librarians  honestly  and  fairly 
seek  to  determine  whether  or  not  a 
book  should  be  given  their  sanction. 
In  the  New  York  Public  Library,  for 
instance,  where  no  fiction  is  purchased 
until  after  it  has  been  read,  the  read- 
ing is  not  entrusted  to  a  single  indi- 
vidual. The  judgment  of  three,  and 
even  five,  qualified  members  of  the 
staff  or  outside  specialists  is  sought 
and  in  the  event  of  a  serious  disagree- 
ment, reference  is  made  to  a  Book 
Conmiittee  as  the  court  of  last  resort. 
This  committee  is  composed  of  a  pub- 
lisher, a  lawyer,  and  a  business  man. 
Even  with  this  broad  treatment  there 
is  no  hard  and  fast  rule  of  determina- 
tion. One  book  may  be  admitted  today 
and  another  excluded  tomorrow,  when 
it  would  seem  as  if  the  rule  of  suppres- 
sion ought  to  be  applied  to  both,  or 
else  both  given  a  clean  bill  of  health. 
In  small  libraries  the  effect  of  the  per- 


sonal equation  is  still  more  pro- 
nounced, because  in  these  institutions 
there  is  no  committee  and  the  decision 
of  the  librarian  is  absolute. 

It  has  already  been  intimated  that 
there  is  an  effort  to  keep  our  patriot- 
ism, like  our  morals,  free  from  con- 
tamination. The  unrest  throughout 
the  world  which  has  followed  the 
world  war  has  resulted  in  the  produc- 
tion of  a  vast  amount  of  literature  cal- 
culated to  inspire  disregard  for  law 
and  to  incite  disorder.  As  a  nation, 
we  are  as  blatantly  patriotic  as  we  are 
moral,  and  the  strong  hand  of  the  gov- 
ernment has  been  lifted  against  the 
books  and  pamphlets  which  seek  to 
undermine  our  institutions.  This  fact 
supplies  another  angle  to  the  discus- 
sion of  the  suppression  of  books. 
These  publications  are  as  heretical, 
from  the  patriotic  point  of  view,  as 
Voltaire's  writings  are  to  the  re- 
ligious. Ergo,  they  must  not  be  read. 
The  guardian  angels  of  our  libraries 
see  to  it  that  authors  who,  for  in- 
stance, preach  force  as  a  remedy  for 
economic  evils,  shall  not  come  into  con- 
tact through  their  works  with  the  fre- 
quenters of  their  institutions.  All 
books,  however,  which  deal  with  gov- 
ernmental, sociological  and  economic 
problems  are  not  so  violent  in  their 
teachings.  They  are  dangerous  only 
in  their  novelty.  Here  again  we  find 
the  librarian  in  a  position  where  he 
must  exercise  his  personal  judgment 
as  to  admission  or  exclusion.  If  his 
opinions  are  dogmatic  and  fixed,  his  de- 
cision must  necessarily  be  partial  and 
arbitrary.  In  some  libraries  the  prob- 
lem is  solved  by  dividing  the  institu- 
tion into  two  parts.  One,  the  refer- 
ence library,  accepts  eversrthing,  even 
the  most  radical  outburst,  on  the 
ground  that  it  has  historical  value. 
Into  the  same  library  will  be  admitted 
the  most  erotic  literature,  for  the 


464 


THE  BOOKMAN 


reason  that  it  represents  a  cer- 
tain type  of  mentality  and  of  civiliza- 
tion. The  reference  library  is  for  the 
student,  who  must  satisfy  the  authori- 
ties that  he  is  really  sincere  in  his 
work.  The  circulating  library,  which 
is  in  intimate  relation  with  Tom,  Dick, 
and  Alice,  is  kept  free  from  an3rthing 
which  has  a  possibly  harmful  slant. 
The  man  who  would  minister  to  a  de- 
praved nature  or  who  would  inflame 
his  heart  with  anarchistic  doctrines 
may  be  able,  in  some  way  or  another, 
to  satisfy  his  desires,  but  the  public 
library  can  proudly  and  truthfully  as- 
sert, "Thou  canst  not  say  I  did  it." 

The  question  naturally  arises  as  to 
the  extent  to  which  the  suppression  of 
books  operates  in  preventing  the 
spread  of  objectionable  publications. 
It  is  often  asserted  that  it  is  only  nec- 
essary to  throw  a  book  into  the  courts 
in  order  to  insure  its  universal  sale. 
This  is  not  true.  There  may  be  a  de- 
mand for  it  from  a  certain  class,  but 
this  class  is  happily  restricted  in  num- 
bers and  few,  if  any,  of  its  members 
belong  to  the  regular  book-buying  pub- 
lic. Besides,  no  self-respecting  pub- 
lisher desires  to  have  his  reputation 
injured  and  his  output  questioned 
through  public  accusation.  The  charge 
is  instantly  exploited,  and  frequently 
tried,  in  the  newspapers,  no  matter 
how  flimsy  may  be  its  foundation; 
while  the  decision  of  the  court,  ren- 
dered after  long  delays,  is  very  fre- 
quently ignored.  No  one  can  mini- 
mize the  splendid  work  which  is  done 
by  the  Society  for  the  Suppression  of 
Vice  in  its  efforts  to  suppress  books 
which  never  ought  to  be  published  and 
which  are  plainly  within  the  scope  and 
meaning  of  the  prohibitive  laws;  and 
there  is  little  basis  for  criticism  save 
a  tendency  to  regard  all  books  which 
are  not  absolutely  innocuous  as  com- 
ing within  its  jurisdiction.   Years  ago 


very  little  was  safe  from  its  prosecu- 
tion. The  broadened  spirit  of  the 
times,  however,  and  the  sane  de- 
cisions of  many  judges  have  inter- 
fered with  its  inquisitorial  program 
and  there  are  less  cases  of  alleged  vio- 
lations brought  before  the  courts. 

The  purist  may  complain  that  this 
indicates  deterioration  of  the  moral 
fibre  of  the  American  people.     The 
assumption  is  not  well-founded.    It  is 
true  that  what  was  heterodox  once  is 
orthodox  now,  due  to  a  point  of  view 
different  from  that  entertained  by  our 
forefathers,  but  no  one  can  doubt  the 
prevalence  of  a  popular  regard  for 
morals.    The  prohibition  amendment 
is  an  evidence  of  advanced  morality; 
but  even  before  that  amendment  had 
been   ratified,   drunkenness,   once   so 
common,  had  come  to  be  regarded  as  a 
degrading     habit,     was     recognized 
everywhere  as  a  bar  to  business  suc- 
cess, and  was  almost  universally  taboo. 
Graft,  which  once  flourished  openly 
and  flagrantly,  must  now  be  practised 
secretly  and  in  constant  fear  of  ex- 
posure and  public  condemnation.    Il- 
licit   intercourse    comes    within    the 
same  category.    The  world  is  growing 
better,  even  if  it  is  becoming  more 
liberal,  and  the  censors  and  suppress- 
ors of  books  are  realizing  that  fact. 
We  need  less  censorship  and  more 
teaching  of  simplicity  and  economy,  as 
opposed  to  the  wave  of  wanton  luxury 
and  extravagance  which  is  sweeping 
over  the  country.     We  must  forbid 
vicious  books,  of  course;    but  even 
more  we  must  impress  upon  parents 
the  necessity  of  keeping  alive  the  con- 
sciences of  their  children. 

If  it  can  be  demonstrated  that  it  is 
best  to  accept  the  judgment  of  a  po- 
liceman as  to  the  merits  or  demerits 
of  a  book,  or  of  some  librarian  as  to 
whether  a  book  should  be  admitted  to 
or  excluded   from   a  library,   or   to 


AN  OPEN  LETTER  ON  THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  BOOKS        465 


trust  the  zeal  of  a  paid  employee  of  a 
vice-hunting  society  as  to  whether  a 
publisher  shall  be  suddenly  haled  into 
court — ^the  present  system  can  con- 
tinue unchanged,  even  though  it  leads 
us  to  smile  when  Oliver  Optic  is  placed 
upon  the  prohibited  list.  We  venture 
to  suggest,  however,  that  there  is  a 
less  autocratic  and  more  democratic 
method  of  procedure.  Would  it  not 
be  possible  for  a  committee  selected 
from  among  the  citizens  of  a  com- 
munity to  decide  what  is  fit  and 
proper  for  that  community  to  read? 
The  consensus  of  such  a  committee, 
representing  all  shades  of  religious, 
moral,  and  civic  views,  would  certainly 
be  more  reliable  and  acceptable  than 
the  judgment  of  an  individual.  One 
objection  may  be  properly  urged.  If 
the  members  of  the  committee  were 
elected  at  the  polls,  politics  might  be 
injected  into  library  control,  a  condi- 
tion which  now  rarely  obtains.  The 
probability  is,  however,  that  as  the  po- 
sitions would  be  purely  honorary  they 
would  not  become  subject  to  party 
politics;  and  it  is  easy  to  imagine 
that  each  community  would  pride  it- 
self upon  securing  personnel  of  the 
highest  type.  If  the  people  can  be 
trusted  to  choose  their  president,  their 
senators  and  representatives,  their 
judges  and  their  city  officials,  they 
certainly  can  be  relied  upon  to  select 
fit  persons  to  supervise  their  litera- 
ture. It  would  be  interesting  to  see 
if  such  a  method  would  secure  a  wider 


interchange  of  views  and  opinions — 
and  a  more  accurate  judgment— on  the 
merits  of  a  book. 

It  might  be  appropriate  to  say  that 
there  is  an  old  proverb  which  is  ap- 
plicable to  this  discussion — Honi  soit 
qui  mal  V  pense.  Evil  which  is  evi- 
dent to  all  eyes  should  and  must  be 
eradicated,  but  moral  astigmatism  is 
prone  to  see  evil  where  none  exists. 
This  point,  however,  is  foreign  to  the 
purpose  of  this  letter.  The  fact  to  be 
emphasized  is  that  we  have  a  censor- 
ship which  is  always  autocratic  and 
frequently  unintelligent  and  which  is 
apt  to  exercise  its  authority  without 
proper  judgment.  Perhaps  the  sug- 
gestion which  I  have  made,  and  which 
I  admit  is  not  ideal,  may  lead  others  to 
express  their  views.  I  can  anticipate 
much  that  will  be  said.  Those  who 
argue  that  popular  government  is  a 
failure  will  oppose  the  committee 
plan;  others,  who  think  that  we  are 
on  the  highroad  to  perdition,  will  ad- 
vocate even  more  drastic  restrictions; 
the  opponents  of  free  speech  will  in- 
sist that  already  there  is  too  much 
latitude  of  expression;  and,  finally, 
many  will  assert  their  honest  belief 
that  the  question  is  not  open  to  dis- 
cussion. The  very  fact  that  these  dif- 
ferences of  opinion  exist,  and  will  un- 
doubtedly be  expressed,  constitutes,  to 
my  mind,  convincing  evidence  that  the 
problem  of  censorship  has  not  yet 
been  rightly  solved. 

HENRY  LrrCHFTELD  WEST  - 


FRANK  L.  PACKARD  AND  HIS  MIRACLE  MEN 


BY  ARTHUR  GUITERMAN 


WAIVING  all  those  superlatives 
that  have  leaped  unbidden  to 
the  tongues  and  pens  of  enraptured 
press  agents,  there  is  still  no  question 
that  the  film  version  of  'The  Miracle 
Man"  has  scored  a  tremendous  suc- 
cess. Those  interested  in  learning  the 
measure  of  its  success  in  terms  of  art 
and  finance,  are  cordially  referred  to 
the  advertising  posters  and  circulars 
of  the  photoplay  company  that  "pre- 
sents" the  picture.  On  these  posters 
and  other  publicity  sheets,  he  that 
runs  may  read  in  huge  display  letters 
the  names  of  the  marvelously  talented 
producer  of  the  film,  and  even  the 
names  of  the  capable  players  in  the 
photoplay.  The  more  curious  and 
painstaking  investigator  may,  with 
the  aid  of  a  powerful  magnifying 
glass,  discover  some  allusion  to  the 
fact  that  the  whole  stupendous  tri- 
umph is  based  on  a  mere  story  by  an 
equally  mere  author  named  Frank  L. 
Packard.  You  see,  all  that  this  Frank 
L.  Packard  did  was  to  conceive  a  strik- 
ing dramatic  idea  and  embody  it  in  a 
narrative,  portraying  its  scenes  with 
a  clarity  that  would  leave  even  a  con- 
tinuity writer  for  the  movies  no  ex- 
cuse for  going  wrong.  Obviously,  the 
unique  genius  who  directed  the  almost 
literal  transference  of  the  tale  to  the 
screen  deserves  practically  all  the 
credit,  just  as  the  marvelously  imag- 
inative stage  manager  who  presents 
''Hamlet"  to  the  senses  of  an  audience, 

466 


is  entitled  to  far  more  glory  than 
Shakespeare  who  did  nothing  but 
make  ink-marks  on  paper.  We  are, 
in  consequence,  fully  prepared  for  such 
suggestions  as  the  following  sent  by 
the  producing  company  to  prospective 
exhibitors  of  the  film : 

Yon  can't  go  too  strong  on  the  name  of 
Qeorge  Loane  Tucker. . . .  For  your  people  are 
going  to  know  the  name  of  George  Loane  Tucker 
after  they  see  *'The  Miracle  Man*',  aa  a  pro- 
ducer whose  work  has  no  exact  equals  on  the 
screen  today.  They  are  going  to  number  him 
among  the  BIO  MBN  of  the  industry.  Don't 
let  them  think  that  you  were  not  alive  to  hit 
true  worth. 

Of  course  mention  should  be  made  of  the 
picture's  source.  The  original  story  was  writ- 
ten  by  Frank  L.  Packard  and  this  was  subse* 
quently  the  basis  of  George  M.  Cohan's  play. 

But  this  only  serres  to  Ulustrate  our  point 
made  above  with  greater  emphasis.  Tucker's 
work,  with  respect  to  "The  Miracle  Man",  out- 
shines that  of  Cohan  and  of  Packard.  And 
when  a  motion-picture  producer  rises  to  these 
heights  certain  it  is  that  his  name  should  be 
used  in  every  bit  of  publicity  and  advertising 
and  exploitation  without  stint. 

So,  permitting  that  characeristic  bit 
of  impudence  to  blow  its  own  brazen 
horn,  let  us, — as  Sir  Thomas  Malory 
would  say, — ^let  us  leave  off  speaking 
of  the  movies,  and  speak  we  awhile  of 
Frank  L.  Packard,  bom  story-weaver 
and  selfmade  writer,  who  never  uses 
his  middle  name  which  happens  to  be 
"Lucius". 

Our  hero  belongs,  in  a  manner,  on 
either  side  of  the  Canadian  line;  for 
while  he  was  bom  in  Montreal,  he 
comes  of  old  New  England  stock, 
transplanted,  in  the  last  generation. 


FRANK  L.  PACKARD  AND  HIS  MIRACLE  MEN 


467 


from  Stoughton,  Massachusetts.  He 
was  instructed  in  French  and  some 
other  things  in  a  French  boarding 
school  in  his  native  city»  and  then 
studied  at  McGill  University,  from 
which  institution  he  was  graduated  in 
1897  with  the  degree  of  B.  S.  in  elec- 
trical engineering.  While  at  the  uni- 
versity he  was  active  in  athletics, 
playing  quarterback  in  football  and 
cover-point  in  hockey.  He  also  was 
accustomed  to  recite,  long  before  their 
appearance  in  book  form,  the  French- 
Canadian  "habitant"  ballads  of  Dr. 
William  Henry  Drummond,  whowashis 
personal  friend.  During  summer  vaca- 
tions he  worked  in  the  shops  of  the 
Canadian  Pacific  Railway,  there  ac- 
quiring material  and  color  for  future 
railroad  stories. 

Having  received  his  degree,  he  went 
to  Belgium  and  took  a  year's  post- 
graduate course  in  electricity  at  the 
University  of  Li^ge,  where  he  im- 
proved his  knowledge  of  French  and 
the  humanities ;  also,  in  the  course  of 
occasional  wanderings  in  Belgium  and 
France,  he  stored  away  more  local 
color  and  valuable  memories.  On  his 
return  from  Europe  he  entered  the 
employ  of  a  company  manufacturing 
conduits  for  electric  wires.  During 
the  two  years  spent  with  this  company 
his  work  took  him  all  over  the  United 
States  with  more  or  less  protracted 
periods  of  residence  in  New  York, 
Providence,  Savannah,  and  New  Or- 
leans, and  gave  him  an  acquaintance 
with  details  of  telegraphy  that  sug- 
gested many  incidents  in  the  stories 
published  in  the  collection  entitled 
"The  Wire  Devils". 

All  this  time  he  was  feeling  the 
creative  urge,  but  it  is  difficult  to  com- 
pose while  on  the  wing.  However,  in 
1902,  he  found  a  temporary  perch  in 
his  ancestral  town  of  Stoughton,  Mas- 
sachusetts, where  he  settled  to  estab- 


lish a  factory  for  the  production  of 
one  of  the  commodities  used  in  his 
father's  business.  Here  he  found 
enough  leisure  to  begin  his  career  as  a 
writer. 

Frank  Packard  is  essentially  a  self- 
made  author.  Although  a  bom  teller 
of  tales  and  full  of  enthusiasm,  he  did 
not  plunge  recklessly  into  the  inkwell 
or  dash  wildly  across  white  paper  as 
most  of  us  do.  He  set  to  work  seri- 
ously to  master  the  principles  of  his 
chosen  craft  in  regular  courses  of 
study  and  practice.  Life  was  not  too 
strenuous  in  Stoughton,  nor  was  busi- 
ness too  engrossing.  He  had  agree- 
able and  quaintly  interesting  sur- 
roundings, a  pleasant  old  farmhouse 
to  potter  about  in, — and  the  stories 
began  to  take  shape.  There  were,  as 
usual,  discouragements.  The  commod- 
ity, previously  referred  to,  that  he  was 
at  this  time  manufacturing,  happened 
to  be  shoe-blacking;  so  certain  of  his 
friends  inevitably  gave  him  the  title 
of  "the  literary  bootblack";  but  he 
bore  up  bravely  even  under  this  afflic- 
tion, especially  as  the  magazines  were 
beginning  to  take  notice. 

The  first  of  his  stories  to  find  its 
way  into  print  was  one  based  on  a 
student  prank  at  the  University  of 
Li^ge.  Then  followed  the  earliest  of 
his  Canadian  railway  tales;  and  he 
was  greatly  encouraged  when  "Col- 
lier's Weekly"  accepted  a  bit  of  inven- 
tion that  reflected  a  Stoughton  town- 
meeting. 

Having  sold  the  Stoughton  factory, 
he  experimented,  briefly,  with  another 
venture  that  took  him  out  to  the  Ca- 
nadian Rockies,  where  he  made  the  ac- 
quaintance (unofficially)  of  the  Royal 
Northwest  Mounted  Police,  so  indis- 
pensable to  the  fiction  of  that  region. 
But  the  call  of  the  ink-bottle  was  too 
strong.  Giving  up  all  business  con- 
nections, he  went  to  New  York,  mar- 


468 


THE   BOOKMAN 


ried,  settled  down  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Washington  Square,  and  spent  a 
year  writing  fiction  under  contract  for 
a  publishing  house  that  issued  a  string 
of  magazines. 

It  was  during  this  Philistine,  but 
from  a  point  of  discipline,  salutary 
period,  that  he  was  wont  to  say,  smack- 
ing his  lips  in  satisfaction:  ''Well,  I 
did  three  thousand  words  today  I" 

At  the  expiration  of  his  year  of  ap- 
prenticeship, feeling  sufficiently  sure 
of  himself  to  set  up  as  a  wholly  inde- 
pendent author,  he  returned  to  Mon- 
treal to  work  in  his  own  chosen  way. 
In  1912,  with  his  wife,  he  started  on  a 
trip  around  the  world,  spending  nearly 
a  year  in  travel,  partly  for  recreation 
and  partly  with  the  idea  of  gathering 
literary  material.  He  visited  South 
Africa,  Australia,  Samoa,  Fiji,  and 
Hawaii,  returning  by  way  of  Cali- 
fornia. In  Samoa  he  was  made  a  chief 
under  the  name  of  "Tamafaiga" — ^but 
it  is  always  possible  that  his  native 
friends  may  have  fooled  him  in  regard 
to  the  real  meaning  of  his  title.  He 
now  lives,  with  his  wife  and  two  boys, 
in  Lachine,  a  suburb  of  Montreal,  on 
the  shore  of  Lake  St.  Louis ;  and  when 
he  is  not  working  may  be  found,  ac- 
cording to  season,  canoeing,  golfing, 
or  curling,  or, — if  Bob  Davis  happens 
to  drop  in  on  him, — ^fishing. 

Too  often  authors  are  either  praised 
for  qualities  that  they  do  not  possess 
or  are  adversely  criticized  for  wanting 
qualities  to  which  they  make  no  claim 
and  that  are  by  no  means  essential  in 
their  chosen  field.  Now  Frank  Pack- 
ard isn't  a  Joseph  Hergesheimer,  nor 
an  Arnold  Bennett,  nor  a  Joseph  Con- 
rad, but  he  is  a  decidedly  effective 
Frank  Packard.  He  is  not — ^nor  does 
he  make  any  pretense  of  being — ^a  pro- 
found psychologist;  he  is  a  bom 
^tor^-teller  with  a  bom  story-teller's 


instinct  for  vivid  incident,  vigoroos 
action,  and  dramatic  or  even  melodra- 
matic climax.  But  he  is  not  merely  a 
weaver  of  plots. 

In  his  detective  stories,  it  is  true, 
he  is  concerned  mainly  to  give  his 
readers  the  indispensable  thrill,  and 
works  to  that  end.  Accordingly  in 
"The  Wire  Devils"  we  find  his  detec- 
tive hero,  as  elusive  and  nearly  as 
bullet-proof  as  a  shadow,  repeatedly 
foiling  the  schemes  of  a  gang  of  wire- 
tappers and  thugs  in  spite  of  all  the 
efforts  of  the  miscreants  and  the 
minions  of  the  law,  both  of  whom  be- 
lieve him  to  be  a  master-criminal.  In 
the  ''Jimmie  Dale"  stories  we  have  es- 
sentially the  same  hero — ^this  time  a 
"millionaire  clubman"  of  New  York, 
known,  in  various  disguises,  to  the 
baffled  police  and  malevolent  under- 
world as  "the  Gray  Seal" — committing 
all  sorts  of  innocuous  and  benevolent 
burglaries  to  the  discomfiture  and  final 
annihilation  of  the  most  desperate 
bands  of  criminals.  Of  course,  as  in 
all  tales  of  the  character,  it  is  borne 
upon  the  reflective  reader  that  both 
police  and  criminals  are  wooden  In- 
dians to  allow  even  a  prodigy  of  in- 
genuity and  invulnerability  to  repeat 
the  same  exploits  with  such  frequency 
and  impunity.  But  detective  stories 
are  not  built  for  reflection.  They  are 
our  modem  fairy  tales  for  adults,  in- 
tended to  engross,  divert,  and  thrill; 
and  "The  Adventures  of  Jimmie  Dale" 
as  well  as  the  adventures  of  that  mys- 
terious detective  "the  Hawk"  in  "The 
Wire  Devils",  amply  fulfil  that  laud- 
able purpose. 

In  his  other  stories  and  novels,  how- 
ever, Frank  Packard  is  dominated  by 
two  themes — ^heroic  self-sacrifice  and 
moral  regeneration. 

Both  of  these  themes  are  evident  in 
his  railroad  stories  of  the  Canadian 
Rockies,  collected  under  the  ti^le  of 


FRANK  L.  PACKARD  AND  HIS  MIRACLE  MEN 


469 


'The  Night  Operator".  Here,  against 
a  scenic  background  of  cliff  and  can- 
yon,  we  have  the  adventures  and  mis- 
adventures of  the  workers  of  the  ''Hill 
Division"— engineer,  wrecking  boss» 
master  mechanic,  superintendent,  te- 
legrapher, aspiring  train-boy,  all- 
round  failure,  and  the  rest,  with 
wrecks  and  near-wrecks  enough  to 
drive  the  most  heedless  traveler  to 
apply  for  an  insurance  policy.  And 
here  are  perils  that  call  forth  unflinch- 
ing courage  and  devotion,  and  emer- 
gencies in  which  the  man  who  is  down 
and  out,  scorned  and  rejected,  rises  to 
splendid  heights. 

Again,  in  the  novel  "Greater  Love 
Hath  No  Man",  the  hero,  Varge,  in 
order  to  save  the  life  of  his  bene- 
factress, takes  upon  himself  the  bur- 
den of  a  murder  committed  by  her 
worthless  son.  This  is  carrying  self- 
sacrifice  to  a  dangerous  extreme;  but 
the  story  is  told  with  characteristic 
sincerity  and  conviction. 

But  in  Packard's  four  other  novels, 
regeneration  is  the  keynote.  In  "The 
Beloved  Traitor"  we  have  for  hero  a 
young  fisherman  of  southern  France 
who  becomes  the  greatest  sculptor  of 
his  time, — ^just  like  that.  Spoiled  by 
sudden  success  and  unbounded  adula- 
tion, he  forgets  the  girl  to  whom  he 
was  solemnly  betrothed;  but  in  the 
end,  abjuring  selfish  triumphs,  he  re- 
turns to  his  first  love  in  renewed  faith 
and  simplicity,  and  to  his  art  with  a 
higher  and  purer  inspiration. 

In  his  latest  book,  "From  Now  On", 
Packard's  hero  serves  a  five-year 
prison  sentence  for  the  theft  of  a  pack- 
age containing  $100,000  in  bank  bills 
which  he  has  securely  hidden  against 
the  day  of  his  release.  On  regaining 
his  liberty,  although  continually  dogged 
and  harassed  by  police  and  criminals, 
he  gets  possession  of  the  booty  for 
which  he  sacrificed  his  freedom;   but 


the  tne  honesty  of  a  friend  and  the 
devotion  of  the  woman  he  loves,  cause 
him  to  see  a  new  light,  and  he  re- 
stores the  money  to  its  rightful  own- 
ers. 

Still  more  ingenious  in  its  plot  is 
"The  Sin  That  Was  His",  in  which  the 
candidate  for  regeneration  is  one  Ray- 
mond Chapelle,  the  highly  educated 
black  sheep  of  a  prominent  French- 
Canadian  family,  known,  when  the 
story  opens,  as  Three-Ace  Artie,  the 
gambler.  Embittered  against  the 
world  and  without  faith  in  God  or 
man,  Raymond,  while  on  the  outskirts 
of  tiie  little  village  of  St  Marleau 
near  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence, 
is  forced  into  an  affray,  the  conse- 
quences of  which  seem  to  make  his 
conviction  on  a  false  accusation  of 
murder  inevitable.  It  happens  that  a 
young  priest,  on  his  way  to  assume  his 
duties  as  cur£  of  St.  Marleau,  has  been 
struck  down  and  apparently  killed  by 
the  falling  bough  of  a  tree.  To  in- 
sure his  own  escape  the  gambler  as- 
sumes the  priest's  robes,  clothing  the 
unconscious  man  in  his  own  garments. 
The  young  priest,  identified  as  the 
supposed  murderer  and  unexpectedly 
restored  to  life  though  with  loss  of 
memory,  is  eventually  convicted  and 
sentenced  to  death.  Raymond,  in  the 
meantime,  compelled  for  his  own 
safety  to  act  as  cur£,  fulfils  the  duties 
of  the  office  with  such  ability  and 
seeming  charity  that  he  is  widely 
known  as  "the  good  young  Father  Au- 
bert".  All  the  circumstances  of  his 
false  position  tend  to  stimulate  his 
better  instincts.  To  save  the  innocent 
priest  he  reveals  the  truth  to  the 
bishop  of  the  diocese,  and  is  himself 
saved  by  the  confession  of  his  false 
accuser.  The  plot  is  developed  with  a 
skill  that  gives  the  necessary  plausi- 
bility to  its  coincidences,  and  a  some- 
what dangerous  situation  is  presented 


470 


THE   BOOKMAN 


without  a  touch  of  irreverence.  The 
dramatic  and  pictorial  qualities  of  the 
story  will  undoubtedly  be  doubly  ap- 
parent in  the  photoplay  version  soon 
to  be  presented. 

But  of  all  the  Packard  stories,  "The 
Miracle  Man"  has  made  the  deepest 
impression.  Appearing  first  in  a 
magazine,  this  tale  was  next  published 
in  book  form,  then  dramatized,  then 
filmed,  and,  according  to  the  latest  re- 
ports, is  to  be  reincarnated  as  an 
opera!  The  leading  character,  a  New 
York  confidence  man,  learns  through 
a  newspaper  paragraph  of  an  old  faith 
healer,  known  as  ''the  Patriarch",  who 
is  reputed  to  have  worked  wonderful 
cures  among  the  people  of  the  little 
Maine  village  of  Needley  where  he  has 
long  lived.  The  confidence  man,  ''Doc." 
Madison,  elaborates  a  plot  to  exploit 
the  Patriarch  and  his  alleged  powers 
for  the  benefit  of  himself  and  his  as- 
sociates. Going  to  Needley,  he  finds 
the  Patriarch  to  be  a  benign  old  man 
of  noble  presence,  deaf  and  dumb  and 
rapidly  becoming  totally  blind.  Madi- 
son then  secretly  summons  his  accom- 
plices to  Needley  and  stages  a  sensa- 
tional "cure"  that  is  calculated  to 
make  the  Maine  village  the  Mecca  of 
the  afflicted,  and  its  "shrine",  the  Pa- 
triarch's home,  a  source  of  incalcula- 
ble revenue  to  the  promoters  of  the 
enterprise.  One  of  the  crooks,  known 
as  "the  Flopper",  is  a  contortionist 
who  has  unusual  powers  of  dislocation 
and  distortion  that  enable  him  to  give 
his  whole  body  the  appearance  of 
frightful  congenital  deformity.  In 
the  presence  of  a  throng  of  believers 
and  skeptics,  the  Flopper  crawls  across 
the  Patriarch's  lawn,  flings  himself  at 
the  old  man's  feet,  and — ^as  the  healer 


stretches  out  his  hands  above  him — 
gradually  drawing  his  limbs  into  their 
proper  positions  slowly  rises,  erect» 
and  normal.  But  then,  to  the  aston- 
ishment and  even  dismay  of  the  con- 
spirators, a  little  boy,  crippled  from 
his  birth,  flings  away  his  crutch  and 
runs  across  the  lawn  to  the  benignant 
Patriarch. '  After  marvels  of  true 
healing  such  as  this,  the  reform  of  the 
crooks,  and  eventually  that  of  their 
cynical,  but  prepossessing  chief,  is 
only  a  matter  of  time  and  plot  develop- 
ment. 

Undoubtedly  a  strong  element  in  the 
appeal  of  Frank  Packard's  stories  lies 
in  their  presentation  of  this  theme  of 
regeneration,  whether  that  regenera- 
tion be  moral  or  physical;  for  there  is 
in  all  human  beings  a  desire  to  be  bet- 
ter and  finer  than  they  are,  so  that  the 
reader  finds  himself  notably  in  sym- 
pathy with  his  fellow  mortal  of  the 
printed  page,  blindly  fighting  his  way 
toward  something  higher.  Besides, 
Packard's  heroes  are  all,  in  a  degree. 
Miracle  Men.  They  are  all  flawlessly 
and  wonderfully  strong,  self-reliant, 
and  humanly  attractive;  and  even  in 
their  unredeemed  state,  though  you 
may  be  given  to  understand  that  they 
are  a  bad  lot,  they  never,  on  their  er- 
rant path,  forfeit  your  interest  and 
good  will  by  consummating  ansrthing 
really  mean  or  injurious  to  the  deserv- 
ing. In  brief,  they  are  proper  heroes 
of  romance.  Their  creator  has  thor- 
oughly convinced  himself  of  their  re- 
ality and  also  of  the  reality  of  their 
picturesque  experiences,  and  their  ad- 
ventures and  triumphs  are  accordingly 
set  forth  with  a  fervor  and  sincerity 
which  is  always  engaging. 


A  SHELF  OF  RECENT  BOOKS 


A  CHRONICLE  OF  YOUTH  BY        aggeration  and  the  very  solemnity  with 


YOUTH 

By  Margaret  Emerson  Bailey 

JUST  as  the  boiling  pot  gives  off  heat, 
80  through  youth  and  adolescence 
we  give  off  calories  of  virtue."  Since 
this,  as  Mr.  Fitzgerald  sees  it,  is  the 
process  of  molten  youth  as  it  takes 
shape  and  hardens,  his  novel  is  less  a 
history  of  its  assumption  of  form  than 
of  its  loss  of  radiance.  Were  this  all, 
"This  Side  of  Paradise"  would  contain 
little  new.  More  tolerantly,  certainly 
more  humorously,  the  same  process 
has  been  set  forth  by  a  score  of  Eng- 
lish novelists.  But  Uiough  referred  to 
still  as  **the  younger  group",  they 
show  by  their  very  tolerance  and 
humor  that  they  have  passed  on,  that 
their  experiences  have  already  become 
recollections.  They  are  reviewing 
youth  with  a  memory — ^not  a  sensation 
— of  its  joy  and  bitterness,  and  are 
looking  back  to  its  problems  with  a 
wistful  patronage.  Mr.  Fitzgerald,  in 
contrast,  gives  the  impression  of  being 
still  in  the  thick  of  the  fight,  and  of 
having  the  fierceness  of  combat.  The 
dust  of  conflict  is  still  in  his  eyes  and 
he  does  not  even  see  very  clearly.  At 
times  he  cannot  distinguish  youth's 
friend  from  its  foe  or  perceive  where 
it  has  met  with  defeat  and  where  con- 
quered. The  battle  is  on  and  the  be- 
setting forces  loom  very  large.  They 
take  shape  allegorically;  it  is  their  ex- 


which  they  are  viewed  that  give  the 
book  value,  for  they  make  it  a  record 
at  the  very  moment  of  the  encounter. 

Amory  Blaine,  the  hero  of  this  tale, 
starts  life  with  a  handicap.  "From  his 
mother  he  inherits  every  trait  except 
the  inexpressible  few  which  make  him 
worth  while."  An  exotic  she  may  no 
longer  be  called,  for  in  novels  her 
species  has  become  indigenous  to  the 
Middle  West  and  is  constantly  culled 
there  whenever  costly  and  poisonous 
beauty  is  needed  to  color  the  page. 
Unfortunately  for  her  son,  whose  com- 
ing she  had  looked  upon  as  a  burden, 
she  finds  him  a  source  of  diversion 
and  takes  delight  in  the  precocity  de- 
veloped by  her  companionship.  Had  it 
not  been  for  his  heritage  from  his 
father,  the  calories  of  his  virtue  must 
have  been  multitudinous  to  have  held 
out.  As  it  is,  the  worst  that  she  does 
for  him  is  to  cut  him  off  from  his  kind 
and  from  a  normal  boy's  "roughing 
it",  to  make  him  acutely  conscious  of 
his  good  looks,  and  to  give  him  a  snob- 
bish belief  in  himself  as  a  personage 
reserved  for  special  adventure.  But 
once  she  has  worked  what  havoc  she 
may,  she  drops  him  with  a  swiftness 
amazing  even  in  a  person  of  her  fleet- 
ing interest,  and  he  is  left  to  the  level- 
ing process  of  school  and  college. 
From  both  as  well  as  from  the  war, 
he  emerges  with  mind  awakened  and 
consequently  with  a  lessened  conceit, 
save  where  it  is  concerned  in  the 


471 


472 


THE   BOOKMAN 


amourettes  which  lead  up  to  the  trag- 
edy, so  splendidly  black,  of  the  lost 
Rosalind.  It  is  in  relation  to  these 
that  the  author  sets  himself  the  task 
of  the  social  historian,  presenting  so- 
ciety in  its  mad  reaction  to  war.  For 
the  hero  does  not  need  to  go  to  the 
underworld  in  his  quest  for  excite- 
ment. The  debutante  of  old  days,  the 
Victorian  "virginal  doll",  has  been 
transformed  to  the  "baby  vamp",  who 
if  she  is  too  hard-headed  to  follow 
in  morals  the  Queens  of  the  Movies, 
has  at  least  adopted  their  manners. 
Against  her,  Amory  hasn't  a  chance. 
And  when  to  disillusionment  is  added 
the  loss  of  money  and  of  his  friends 
who  are  pushed  out  of  the  story  in  a 
way  to  which  no  vigorous  characters 
would  submit,  he  goes  down  like  Brian 
de  Bois  Guilbert,  "the  victim  of  con- 
tending passions".  One  would  think 
in  such  a  moment  that  it  would  be 
small  comfort  to  "know  one's  self", 
though  it  is  with  that  triumphant  if 
unconvincing  protestation  that  the 
book  closes. 

Such  a  summary  is  undoubtedly  too 
hard  on  the  book,  for  it  overstresses 
its  failure  to  arouse  sympathy.  It 
also  fails  to  take  into  account  pas- 
sages, sometimes  whole  chapters,  of 
brilliant  cleverness — ^those  for  example 
where  the  author  takes  a  fling  at  mod- 
em literary  movements  or  satirizes 
the  already  jaded  debutante  as  she 
makes  her  curtsy  to  the  world.  Little, 
moreover,  does  Mr.  Fitzgerald  care 
for  the  conventions  of  form;  and 
there  is  something  very  taking  in  the 
nonchalance  with  which  he  passes 
from  straight  narrative  to  letters, 
poems,  or  dramatic  episodes.  Quite  as 
wilful  is  his  style.  But  in  all  its  af- 
fectations, its  cleverness,  its  occasional 
beauty,  even  its  sometimes  intentioned 
vulgarity  and  ensuing  timidity,  it  so 
unites  with  the  matter  as  to  make  the 


book  a  convincing  chronicle  of  youth 
by  youth. 


This  Side  of  Paradise.    By  F.  Scott  Fitzger^ 
aid.     Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


MORE    PLAYS    BY    GEORGE 
MIDDLETON 

By  Bichard  Burton 

IT  is  one  of  the  significant  and  en- 
couraging things  in  the  modem 
theatre,  that  a  man  like  Mr.  Middle- 
ton  can  do  work  that  is  commercially 
popular,  yet  also  write  plays  that 
plainly  belong  to  the  tendency  toward 
a  serious  theatre, — ^the  theatre  made 
possible  by  an  Ibsen,  a  Brieux,  a  Mae- 
terlinck, and  a  Shaw.  It  is  in  this 
way  that  I  regard  Mr.  Middleton's 
dramatic  writing  as  truly  symptom- 
atic. On  the  one  hand,  he  can  collab- 
orate with  Mr.  Bolton  in  stage  suc- 
cesses like  "Polly  With  A  Past"  and 
"Adam  and  Eva" — to  mention  only 
two  recent  favorites — ^and  on  the 
other,  can  turn  out  his  succession  of 
published  volumes  of  plays  in  one  act 
or  longer,  of  which  "Masks"  is  the 
sixth.  These  volumes  have  doubtless 
assisted  the  vogue  of  this  new  form 
in  the  United  States,  and  won  the  au- 
thor deserved  critical  praise. 

These  plays  may  seem  primarily  to 
appeal  as  reading  drama;  but  for 
years  they  have  been  given  presenta- 
tion in  our  Little  Theatres,  and  in  the 
hands  of  intelligent  amateurs,  and  so 
been  kept  alive  and  had  their  influ- 
ence as  thoughtful  experiments  in  the 
drama  which  desires  to  gain  attention 
as  earnest,  honest  comment  upon  our 
contemporary  social  scene.  They  have 
served  to  make  the  writer's  name  hon- 


BOYS  AND  ELUS  PARKER  BUTLER 


478 


orably  known  in  those  circles  where 
something  besides  commercial  theatre 
tests  obtains;  they  josti^  the  hope 
that  some  day  their  author,  still  a 
young  man,  may  dare  to  say  his  full 
say  in  some  drama  which  shall  at  the 
same  time  hold  general  public  atten- 
tion in  a  theatre  and  yet  illustrate 
serious  psychology. 

The  present  volume  not  only  main- 
tains the  high  level  of  those  preceding, 
but  contains  some  work  that  chal- 
lenges comparison  with  anything  done 
earlier,  while  suggesting  a  new  vein. 
This  is  particularly  true  of  the  title- 
piece,  in  which  it  is  impossible  not  to 
find  a  certain  autobiographical  flavor. 
The  idea  of  the  dramatist  who  first 
writes  to  please  himself  a  biting  sa- 
tiric drama  which  cannot  win  stage 
acceptance  and  then  follows  it  with  a 
modification  of  the  same  play  which  is 
a  box-ofSce  triumph, — ^to  be  confronted 
by  two  of  his  own  characters  who  at- 
tack him  for  dishonestly  warping 
them  in  the  interests  of  success, — 
strikingly  brings  out  the  whole  con- 
flict between  livelihood,  life,  and  ar- 
tistic ideals,  and  has  a  bitter  tang  to 
its  compelling  grip.  The  author's  in- 
stinct in  placing  it  first  is  right. 

Strong,  too,  in  its  subtle  inner  way 
is  ''Jim's  Beast",  with  its  implied  les- 
son on  the  dangers  and  difliculties  of 
the  philander's  path — ^male  or  female. 
The  comment  furnished  by  the  scrub- 
woman is  full  of  an  enjoyable  humor 
relieving  the  tension  of  the  situation. 
Of  the  remaining  four,  "Tides"  is  the 
best:  a  sincere,  penetrating  comment 
upon  the  effect  of  the  war  on  three 
persons  of  a  typical  American  family 
today.  In  sheer  subtlety  of  handling, 
and  richness  of  suggestion  in  the 
study  of  interwoven  sex  relations,  the 
play  called  "The  Reason"  should  also 
be  emphasized.  Its  value  comes  out 
all  the  more  in  a  rereading.    "Among 


The  Lions"  and  'The  House"  are 
slighter,  less  important,  but  the  latter 
is  a  pleasant  pendant  to  the  foregoing 
dramas  in  its  picture  of  seasoned 
married  happiness,  and  here,  as  so 
often  before,  Mr.  Middleton  reveals 
himself  as  the  acute,  fair-minded,  and 
skilful  student  of  modem  psychology 
as  it  is  exhibited  in  the  family. 

In  all  the  six  plays,  the  trained  hand 
of  the  practical  theatre  artist  is  evi- 
denced in  the  stage  directions  and  the 
conductment  of  the  action;  a  feeling 
for  scene,  for  character,  and  for  the 
climax  which  is  the  necessary  evolu- 
tion of  the  development  can  be  de- 
tected in  each  and  all.  One  feels  that 
these  little  cross-sections  of  life  not 
only  read  well,  but  will  also  act  well. 
A  sense  of  "curtain"  is  never  absent 
Mr.  Middleton  has  long  since  acquired 
a  technique  which  gives  one  a  com- 
fortable assurance  of  right  handling 
and  economy  of  resource.  Of  his  work 
it  can  be  said  that  it  is  at  once  liter- 
ary, and  practical  stage  material;  this 
is  as  it  should  be.  Both  by  gift  and 
diligence  he  has  made  himself  an 
homme  du  tMdtre;  he  should  be  wel- 
comed by  readers  of  sound  drama,  and 
acted  by  both  amateurs  and  profes- 
sionals of  the  playhouse. 


Masks,  and  Other  One  Act  Plays.    By  George 
Middleton.     Henry  Holt  and  Co. 


BOYS  AND  ELLIS  PARKER 
BUTLER 

By  Gertrude  M.  PwroeU 

LIFE  was  never  dull  in  Riverbank, 
the  little  town  on  the  Mississippi 
where  lived  and  fought,  fished  and 
swam,  a  glorious  triumvirate :  Swatty, 
the  leader,  who  knew  how  to  "push  a 


474 


THE   BOOKMAN 


feller's  nose  into  his  face  when  he  has 
him  down  and  he  don't  say  what 
Swatty  wants  him  to  say";  Bony,  who 
''was  all  right,  but  never  started  to  do 
things — ^he  just  went  along  when  we 
did  them  and  waited  on  the  outside  of 
the  fence";  and  George,  himself,  the 
chronicler  of  their  Homeric  exploits. 

The  saga  of  "Swatty"  begins  with  a 
hairbreadth  escape  on  the  Mississippi 
when  the  river  was  at  its  height,  and 
recounts  in  bewildering  succession  a 
terrific  sawmill  blaze,  a  near  drown- 
ing, a  siege  in  a  cave  by  the  Graveyard 
Gang,  an  imprisonment  in  a  haunted 
house,  illicit  rifle  practice,  a  feud  with 
Slim  Finnegan,  who  'Vould  just  as 
soon  stab  you  as  not",  and  the  rescue 
of  Bony's  father  on  the  river,  when  a 
thaw  set  in  and  the  ice  began  to  move. 

In  addition  to  this  amazing  list  of 
activities,  Swatty  and  Bony  and 
George,  like  all  boys  in  life  and  in  fic- 
tion, had  a  secret  society.  It  was 
known  as  The  Red  Avengers,  and  its 
aim  was  summary  incendiarism  of  in- 
imical homes  and  property.  Unfor- 
tunately, a  bam  did  bum  down,  with 
their  scribbled  warnings  stuck  on  the 
door,  and  things  would  have  gone  hard 
with  the  desperadoes  had  not  rescue 
come  from  Swatty's  lawyer  brother 
Herb.  This  brings  us  to  the  romance 
that  runs  through  the  book, — Herb's 
somewhat  intermittent  courtship  of 
George's  sister  Fan.  Reports  on  its 
progress  or  temporary  cessation  are 
made  in  true  young  brother  fashion, 
as :  "It  looked  as  if  it  wouldn't  be  long 
before  Herb  and  Fan  got  married,  be- 
cause they  hadn't  fought  for  a  long 
while  and  Fan  was  embroidering  tow- 
els day  and  night." 

A  story  of  boy-life  on  the  Missis- 
sippi brings  the  inevitable  comparison 
with  the  immortal  Huck,  and  were  it 
not  for  a  lamentable  lapse  into  senti- 
mentality out  of  keeping  with  the  rest 


of  the  book,  "Swatty"  would  be  a 
worthy  successor.  A  boy  like  George 
would  never  in  this  wide  world  possess 
a  grandmother  addressed  as  "Lady- 
love", and  if  he  did,  he  would  be  cut 
into  small  pieces  before  he  would  use 
so  soft  an  appellation. 

With  the  exception  of  this  fantastic 
and  utterly  unbelievable  old  lady, 
"Swatty"  is  a  book  to  be  enjoyed 
heartily  by  boys  of  any  age. 


Swatty.    By  BUis  Parker  Butler.    Hooghton 
Mifflin  Cfo. 


PROSE    IN    THE    GREAT 
TRADITION 

By  John  Bunker 

THERE  are  writers,  and  again 
writers.  Some — such  as  police 
reporters,  historians,  book  reviewers, 
compilers  of  text-books,  and  even 
popular  novelists — give  us  facts,  or 
what  they  suppose  to  be  facts,  and 
their  writing  is  full  of  the  spirit  of 
knowledge.  We  come  from  them  laden 
and  informed,  and  if  we  feel  also 
heavy  and  sad  and  old  and  forlorn, 
there  are  few  to  tell  us  the  reason. 
But  there  is  an  older  and  profounder 
spirit,  the  spirit  of  wisdom,  and  oc- 
casionally a  writer  appears  who  gives 
us  not  facts,  not  information,  not 
knowledge,  but  a  moving  interpreta- 
tion of  this  mysterious  world  in  which 
we  find  ourselves.  He  may  write  of 
such  simple  things  as  children  or  the 
hills  or  ships  or  great  cities  or  old 
books  or  the  sea,  and  though  he  may 
tell  us  nothing  new  about  these  mat- 
ters, there  is  something  in  his  words, 
at  once  strange  and  familiar,  that 
speaks  to  us  and  moves  us  and  fills  us 
with  a  great  joy  and  an  abiding  won- 
der. 


PROSE  IN  THE  GREAT  TRADITION 


476 


If  the  reader  should  pick  up  a  book 
called  ''Old  Junk"  by  a  writer  named 
H.  M.  Tomlinson,  it  is  well  to  warn 
him  in  advance  that  it  will  not  tell  him 
the  length  of  the  equator,  nor  the  dis- 
tance of  the  nearest  fixed  star,  nor 
even  the  faults — or  merits — of  the 
Treaty  of  Versailles.  Neither  let  him 
be  disappointed  if  he  finds  therein  no 
blaring  rhetoric  or  feeble  humor  or 
commonplace  moralizing  or  tinsel 
cleverness  or  arbitrary  assertion  or 
shallow  sentiment  or  any  of  the  other 
numerous  evils  of  our  day  that  are  a 
weariness  to  the  flesh  and  a  trial  to 
the  spirit.  Here  is  a  writer  who  would 
as  soon  think  of  discharging  a  pistol 
at  your  ear  as  of  firing  off  a  paradox, 
and  would  no  more  write  a  craggy 
sentence  than  he  would  steal  the 
spoons  from  the  table. 

The  author  of  ''Old  Junk"  has  his 
moods — ^he  can  be  solemn  enough  on 
occasion,  and,  when  he  will,  amusing; 
but  he  is  never  loud  or  common,  never 
trivial  or  flippant  or  mean.  He  ap- 
proaches life  too  reverently — and 
therefore  too  wisely — ^for  that,  and 
his  gentleness  is  the  mark  not  of 
weakness  but  of  strength.  Every- 
where is  a  fluid  music,  a  poised  and 
deliberate  and  yet  flexible  art.  It  all 
comes,  we  suppose,  from  the  fact  that 
Mr.  Tomlinson  is  penetrated  with  the 
old  sense  of  "the  tears  in  things" — 
he  is  sensitive  to  change,  and  has  that 
fine  melancholy  induced  by  the  frail 
beauty  and  wistful  transience  of  earth 
and  man  and  the  works  of  man. 

And  who  is  this  unusual  person? — 
and  what  does  he  write  about?  Well, 
he  is  an  Englishman — ^presumably  be- 
yond forty — ^who  for  the  last  two  dec- 
ades has  been  contributing  occasional 
articles  to  London  newspapers  and 
doing  the  harsh  work  of  daily  journal- 
ism. During  the  war  he  served  as  a 
correspondent  in  France,  but  he  was 


an  extraordinary  sort  of  war  corre- 
spondent, as  a  reference  to  the  several 
war  papers  at  the  end  of  this  book 
will  show.  He  has  published  only  one 
book  previous  to  the  present,  "The 
Sea  and  the  Jungle",  which  he  calls 
merely  "an  honest  book  of  travel"  but 
which  Mr.  S.  K.  Ratcliffe  (who  con- 
tributes the  foreword  to  the  present 
book)  observes  is  such  "in  a  degree  so 
eminent,  one  is  tempted  to  say  that 
an  honest  book  of  travel,  when  so  con- 
ceived and  executed,  must  surely  count 
among  the  noblest  works  of  the  liter- 
ary artist". 

"Old  Junk"  differs  from  its  prede- 
cessor in  that  it  consists  of  a  number 
of  detached  papers,  papers  written  at 
intervals  during  the  last  ten  years  and 
ranging  from  "The  African  Coast"  to 
"Lent,  1918",  with  "Bed-Books  and 
Night  Lights",  "The  Lascar's  Walk- 
ing-Stick", "The  Art  of  Writing", 
"The  Sou'-Wester",  and  others  in  be- 
tween; nor  are  we  to  forget  those 
several  admirable  chapters  devoted  to 
the  sea  and  ships  and  the  men  who 
sail  them.  One  opens  this  book  at  ran- 
dom and  finds  sentences,  paragraphs, 
whole  pages  that  are  at  once  a  delight 
and  a  despair :  a  delight  because  they 
are — ^well,  delightful;  and  a  despair 
because,  peer  as  you  may,  you  cannot 
discover  the  secret  of  their  making. 
To  select  for  quotation  is  a  perplexing 
business,  but  this  is  the  final  para- 
graph of  the  book : 

The  wind  and  rain  have  passed.  There  li 
now  but  the  ley  stillness  and  quiet  of  outer 
space.  The  earth  is  Limbo,  the  penumbra  of 
a  dark  and  partial  recoUection ;  the  shadow, 
vague  and  dawnless,  over  a  vast  stage  from 
which  the  consequential  pageant  has  gone,  and 
is  almost  forgotten,  the  memory  of  many 
events  merged  now  into  formless  night  Itself, 
and  foundered  profoundly  beneath  the  glacial 
brilliance  of  a  clear  heaven  alive  with  stars. 
Only  the  stars  live,  and  only  the  stars  overlook 
the  place  that  was  ours.  The  war — ^was  there 
a  war?  It  must  have  been  long  ago.  Perhaps 
the  shades  are  troubled  with  vestiges  of  an 


476 


THE   BOOKMAN 


old  and  dreadful  sin.  If  once  there  were  men 
who  heard  certain  words  and  became  spell- 
bound, and  in  the  impulse  of  that  madness 
forgot  that  their  earth  was  good,  but  very 
brief,  and  turned  from  their  children  and 
women  and  the  cherished  work  of  their  hands 
to  slay  each  other  and  destroy  their  communi- 
ties, it  all  happened  Just  as  the  leaves  of  an 
autumn  that  is  gone  once  fell  before  the  sudden 
mania  of  a  wind,  and  are  resolved.  What  year 
was  that?  The  leaves  of  an  autumn  that  is 
long  past  are  beyond  time.  The  night  is  their 
place,  and  only  the  unknowing  stars  look  down 
to  the  little  blot  of  midnight  which  was  us, 
and  our  pride,  and  our  wisdom,  and  our  he- 
roics. 

Here  is  a  prose  rich  and  solemn  and 
majestic  and,  we  think,  enduring. 


Old  Junk.    By  H.  M.  Tomlinson.    Alfred  A. 
Knopf. 


BALLADS  OF  OLD  NEW  YORK 

By  Wilton  A.  Barrett 

IN  an  earlier  book,  ''The  Laughing 
Muse",  notably  in  some  verses  hav- 
ing to  do  with  prehistoric  beasts,  Mr. 
Guiterman  made  rhymes  for  the  like 
of  which,  in  their  sportive  ring  and 
virtue  of  parody,  one  might  go  clear 
back  to  Bret  Harte  and  his  'To  the 
Pliocene  SkulF'  and  "A  Geological 
Madrigal".  The  invention  displayed 
in  that  book  cannot  be  repeated  at 
will,  but  in  Mr.  Guiterman's  latest 
coUection,  "Ballads  of  Old  New  York", 
the  skill  is  still  there  and  also  a  gen- 
erous proportion  of  humor  conveyed 
by  a  naivet£  always  in  control.  Aside 
from  the  lyrics  which  appear  as  inter- 
ludes and  a  few  more  serious-natured 
selections,  he  has  provided  the  atmos- 
phere and  characters  for  a  Gilbertian 
opera — ^there  would  be  the  burlesque 
six  of  the  Rattle- Watch,  Manhattan's 
original  police  force,  and  also  those 
forefathers  of  the  town  who,  called 
into  solemn  council  as  to  how  Pearl 


Street  should  be  appropriately  paved, 
a  fortnight  wandered  up  and  down  its 
length  debating  and  eating  oysters 
until  the  shells  they  cast  away  fur- 
nished an  excellent  pavement  along  all 
the  preordained  and  crooked  path  the 
community's  cows  had  already  trodden 
out. 

Appoint  a  committee  to  daUy  and  doubt 

And  somehow  the  matter  wiU  work  itself  oat, — 

the  argument  wisely  concludes. 

As  a  contribution  to  the  Knicker- 
bocker story-chest  the  book  should  be 
welcome;  it  definitely  creates  a  golden 
mid-morning  where  large-paunched 
gentlemen  in  buckled  shoes  sit  before 
tap-room  doors  and  confab  at  length 
upon  sundry  weighty  ways  and  means, 
drawing  the  while  leisurely  clouds 
from  the  black  cavities  of  Dutch 
pipes;  it  is  all  done  to  that  tinkle  of 
rhyme  and  prancing  cadence  that  have 
made  Mr.  Guiterman  notorious  as  a 
gay  rider  in  the  light  lists  of  con- 
temporary verse;  it  must  be  seen  at 
once  that  such  pieces  as  "Dutchman's 
Breeches"  and  "The  Legend  of  the 
Bronx"  are  wholly  adroit  and  amus- 
ing. 

The  book  is  a  happy  book,  done  by  a 
genuine  lover  and  historian  of  the 
greatest  city  in  the  New  World. 
Washington  Irving  would  have  liked 
it,  and  those  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Gramercy  Park  who  read  verse  should 
like  it.  For  the  East  and  West  sides, 
Harlem  and  the  Bronx,  it  should  not 
have  the  same  affiliations,  despite  Mr. 
Guiterman's  professing  to  see  a  con- 
nection, other  than  purely  historical, 
between  our  fair  city's  Knickerbocker 
past  and  its  indecorous  present  in 
which  all  the  blue  stockings  are  boil- 
ing in  the  same  kettle  with  the  other 
socks.  The  truth  is,  the  more  single 
and  genuine  affinity  lurking  in  Mr. 
Guiterman  is  with  the  past;  there  is 
a  certain  regret  in  his  book  that  the 


THE  DOVER  PATROL 


477 


sails  of  the  Dutchman  are  no  longer 
seen  on  the  Tappan  Zee  and  that  the 
burgher's  tread  resounds  no  longer  in 
the  highways  of  New  Amsterdam. 
From  this  feeling  in  him  a  poetic 
image  is  now  and  then  reflected,  some- 
thing is  glimpsed,  that  makes  one  ask 
if  there  is  not  something  more  im- 
portant in  his  book  than  its  clever- 
ness. Hudson's  ship  being  at  anchor 
the  first  time  in  New  York  bay, — 

The  Red  Men  in  their  shallops  came  and 
stroked  her  salty  sides. 

Rambout  Van  Dam  rows  across  the 
Tappan  Zee  to 

The  rhythmic  mUock-dank  and  drip 
Of  eyen-rolling  oars. 

A   moon   is   closed   in   Hudson's   breast 
And  lanterns  gem  the  town. 

One  suspects  that  its  light  is  still  closed 
in  Mr.  Guiterman's  heart  and  that  it 
is  by  it  he  sees  to  hang  these  lanterns 
in  his  verse;  that  in  this  wise,  once 
looking,  perhaps,  at  a  member  of  the 
TrafSic  Squad,  he  did  not  see  a  modem 
policeman,  but  beheld, — 

Musket  on  shoulder  and  dirk  on  thigh, 
Forth  from  the  fort,  with  a  soulful  sigh, 
Wiping  their  lips  of  a  parting  dram, 
Sally  the  Watch  of  New  Amsterdam. 


Ballads  of  Old  New  York.    By  Arthur  Guiter- 
man.     Harper  and  Bros. 


THE  DOVER  PATROL 

By  C,  C.  GUI 
Commander,  U.  8.  Navy 

IN  the  war  on  the  sea.  Admiral  Ba- 
con's Dover  Patrol  was  like  a  first- 
line  trench.  This  force,  moreover, 
stationed  at  the  North  Sea  entrance  to 
the  Channel,  protected  essential  sea 
communications  of  the  Allied  armies 
i^oni^  the  northern  f  ront^  and  at  the 


same  time  sruarded  England's  main 
trade  routes  to  London.  "Ck)mmuni- 
cations"  lie  at  the  root  of  strategy* 
and  control  of  the  Narrow  Seas  was 
the  key  to  the  British  Isles.  Could 
Germany  have  turned  this  key  she 
would  have  won  the  war. 

The  enemy  advance  against  the 
Channel  ports  was  good  strategy.  In 
September,  1914,  had  the  German  Gen- 
eral Staff  but  Imown  it»  the  Channel 
Line  of  Conmiunications  was  the 
Achilles's  heel  of  the  Entente  cause. 
The  occupation  of  Zeebrugge  and  Os- 
tend  by  the  Elaiser's  army  was  the 
Napoleonic  pointing  of  the  pistol  at 
the  head  of  England.  Admiral  Bacon 
in  his  book  emphasizes  this  threat, 
and  at  the  time  many  military  experts 
in  Great  Britain  dwelt  upon  the  grav- 
ity of  the  situation. 

These  are  considerations  that  give 
Admiral  Bacon's  book  a  high  profes- 
sional and  historical  value.  The  au- 
thor writes  from  first-hand  knowl- 
edge; he  conmianded  the  Dover  Patrol 
during  the  three  critical  years  of  1915- 
16-17.  The  book  not  only  tells  deeds 
of  daring  and  achievement,  but  also 
gives  reasons  and  motives;  romance 
and  anecdote  are  interspersed  with 
philosophy.  The  narrative  ranges 
from  hand  to  hand  fighting  in  board- 
ing encounters  between  charging  de- 
stroyers, to  highly  scientific  long- 
range  bombardments  by  heavy  ord- 
nance. 

Admiral  Bacon  was  well  qualified  to 
cope  with  the  naval  conditions  which 
faced  him  at  Dover.  He  entered  the 
navy  in  1877,  commanded  the  first 
dreadnought,  was  first  Chief  of  Staff 
of  the  New  Home  Fleet,  performed 
active  duty  with  the  early  submarines, 
and  was  closely  associated  with  devel- 
opments in  gunnery.  And  now  he  has 
written  a  book  interesting  to  both  sea- 
faring and  shoregoing  readers,  re- 


478 


THE   BOOKMAN 


markable  for  its  clearness  and  read- 
ability. 

The  Dover  Patrol  force  consisted  of 
twentsr-f our  different  types  of  vessels 
totaling  in  all  about  four  hundred,  and 
including  monitors,  cruisers,  destroy- 
ers, submarines,  drifters,  trawlers, 
mine  sweepers,  motor  boats,  motor 
launches,  and  air  craft.  The  Admiral's 
narrative  is  one  of  ceaseless  watch  and 
ward  with  almost  continual  fighting. 
It  covers  a  great  variety  of  naval  ac- 
tivities both  afloat  and  ashore:  "tip 
and  run"  destroyer  engagements; 
"shoot  and  scoot"  raiding  tactics; 
anti-submarine  net  work  of  all  descrip- 
tions; escort  and  convoy  duty;  mine- 
laying  and  mine-sweeping.  Various 
uses  of  submarines  are  described,  such 
as  creeping  along  the  bottom  for  mine 
cables  and  advancing  under  the 
enemy's  nose  to  take  tidal  observations 
or  to  get  other  information.  We  are 
told  how  British  "subs"  fooled  the 
enemy  by  a  camouflage  of  occulting 
lights  to  make  them  resemble  light 
buoys  while  lying  at  moorings  ready 
to  launch  a  torpedo.  There  is  an  ac- 
count of  a  German  scientific  success  in 
exploding  an  electrically  controlled  au- 
tomatic boat  against  the  monitor 
"Erebus".  Also  shooting  a  zareba  of 
explosive  nets  by  drifters  is  explained, 
and  many  other  curious  weapons  and 
tactics. 

Broadly  speaking  the  mission  of  the 
Dover  Patrol  was  threefold — ^first,  to 
protect  the  trade  routes  passing 
through  the  Straits;  second,  to  safe- 
guard the  cross-channel  transport  line; 
and  third,  to  support  the  left  flank  of 
the  Allied  army. 

Admiral  Bacon  says  that  his  chief 
concern  was  the  protection  of  traffic 
in  the  Downs,  a  roadstead  anchorage 
off  the  southeast  end  of  England  which 
was  a  great  terminal  of  shipping.  All 
vessels,   British,   Allied,   or  neutral. 


passing  the  Straits,  whether  bound 
for  England  or  foreign  ports,  were  ex- 
amined here.  This  service  dealt  with 
no  less  than  121,707  vessels.  Being 
only  ninety  miles  from  Ostend,  its  pro- 
tection was  a  heavy  responsibility  on 
the  shoulders  of  the  Admiral  at  Dover. 
It  seems  almost  incredible  that  the 
losses  to  this  shipping  were  only  Ms 
of  1%  by  mines  and  )iooo  of  1%  by 
enemy  night  raids.  This  record  con- 
stitutes a  monument  to  the  genius  of 
the  Commander-in-Chief  and  to  the 
ability  of  those  serving  under  his 
orders. 

The  second  and  no  less  important 
duty  of  the  Dover  Patrol  was  to  safe- 
guard the  cross-channel,  army-trans- 
port service,  and  in  this  even  greater 
success  was  attained  than  in  protect- 
ing merchant  traffic.  By  careful  plan- 
ning and  tireless  devotion  this  naval 
force  up  to  the  end  of  December,  1917, 
transported  5,614,500  troops  without 
the  loss  of  a  single  man.  All  this 
within  three  steaming  hours  of  the 
enemy  advance  submarine  base  at 
Ostend.  In  addition,  during  the  three 
years  1915-16-17,  arrivals  and  depar- 
tures of  store-carriers,  troop  trans- 
ports, and  ambulance  transports  at 
Dover  numbered  over  14,800.  Of  sick 
and  wounded  810,000  were  disem- 
barked. The  only  casualty  was  the 
mining  of  the  hospital  ship  "Anglia" 
while  under  the  Red  Cross. 

And  what  was  the  enemy  doing  all 
this  time?  He  was  not  idle.  The 
Dover  Patrol  did  not  gain  its  record 
without  a  heavy  toll  of  ships  and 
brave  lives.  The  pages  telling  of  these 
are  full  of  adventure.  It  seems  that 
the  Germans  had  open  to  them  five 
general  methods  of  attack.  All  of 
these  were  forestalled  by  the  British 
Navy  with  the  result  that  the  enemy 
attempted  only  three  of  them  and  all 
the  attacks  made  were  defeated.    In 


THE  DOVER  PATROL 


479 


brief  these  five  methods  were:  (1) 
daylight  raids  in  force;  (2)  destroyer 
raids  in  low  visibility  weather  condi- 
tions; (3)  destroyer  raids  at  night; 
(4)  submarine  attacks;  (5)  mine* 
laying. 

In  1916  the  German  submarine 
mine-layers  became  so  active  that  Ad- 
miral Bacon  boldly  decided  to  place  a 
blocking  mine  barrage  off  the  coast  of 
Ostend  and  Zeebrugge.  This  looked 
like  an  extremely  difficult  and  hazard- 
ous operation,  but  it  worked  out  with 
great  success.  It  required  monitors 
on  patrol  by  day  to  keep  the  Germans 
from  sweeping  up  the  mines  and  to 
protect  the  drifters  and  trawlers  en- 
gaged daily  in  repairing  and  perfect- 
ing the  barrage.  Destroyers  were 
necessary  to  assist  and  to  screen  the 
monitors  from  submarine  attack.  The 
guns  of  the  monitors  protected  the 
small  craft  from  cruiser  attack,  while 
the  destroyers  and  the  mine  fields 
safeguarded  the  monitors  from  U-boat 
torpedoes.  At  night  the  monitors  were 
relieved  by  British  submarines  which 
patrolled  and .  guarded  the  barrage 
during  the  dark  hours. 

In  addition  to  safeguarding  the 
trade  routes  and  cross-channel  army 
transports  Admiral  Bacon  was  also 
charged  with  protecting  the  left  flank 
of  the  army  from  a  landing  in  the 
rear.  Long-range  bombardment  by 
the  monitors  against  Zeebrugge,  Os- 
tend, and  the  German  batteries  are 
fully  described.  It  is  not  generally 
appreciated  that  as  a  result  of  these 
bombardments  Ostend  was  made  so 
hot,  the  enemy  finally  had  to  abandon 
it  as  a  permanent  submarine  base. 

Landing  and  mounting  high-power 
naval  guns  to  support  the  army  is  ex- 
plained in  detail.  We  are  also  told 
about  the  plans  made  to  mount  a  giant 
eighteen-inch  gun  camouflaged  by  the 
Palace  Hotel  at  Westend.    This  was  to 


bombard  Bruges.  The  armistice  ar- 
rived, however,  before  this  could  be 
accomplished. 

As  a  question  of  strategy  one  of  the 
most  interesting  parts  of  the  book  is 
that  dealing  with  the  plans  drawn  for 
a  joint  Army  and  Navy  effort  to  turn 
the  enemy  out  of  his  Belgian  bases. 
This  was  to  have  been  an  attack  by 
land  and  sea.  Admiral  Bacon  explains 
that  the  failure  of  the  Flanders  of- 
fensive in  the  fall  of  1917  led  to  the 
abandonment  of  this  surprise  landing 
on  the  Ostend  coast,  which,  in  itself, 
involved  only  one  division  of  troops 
and  was  a  subsidiary  operation.  The 
preparations,  however,  had  been  com- 
pleted to  the  last  detail  even  to  re- 
hearsals. Two  huge  piers  had  been 
rigged  to  be  shoved  by  monitors 
against  the  enemy  sea  wall.  Over 
these  piers,  tanks  followed  by  infan- 
try, machine  guns,  and  artillery  were 
to  make  a  surprise  attack  at  dawn. 
The  author  even  goes  so  far  as  to 
sketch  an  imaginary  battle  carried  out 
in  accordance  with  these  plans. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  war  con- 
trol of  the  Narrow  Seas  was  essential 
to  the  Allies.  It  is  interesting  to 
speculate  what  a  major  operation 
against  the  Belgian  coast  on  the  scale 
of  the  Dardanelles  expedition  might 
have  effected. 

To  naval  men  the  chapter  on  "Op- 
erations" is  a  gold  mine  of  informa- 
tion. Herein  the  author  explains 
clearly  and  at  length  the  underlying 
principles,  the  reasoning,  and  the  ex- 
perimentation followed  in  arriving  at 
practical  methods.  This  is  a  chapter 
of  lessons  evolved  from  study  and  ex- 
perience. The  success  of  the  Dover 
Patrol,  in  a  new  kind  of  naval  war- 
fare, fought  under  unusual  handicaps 
of  wind,  sea,  tides,  currents,  rocks  and 
shoals,  gives  these  lessons  an  authori- 


480 


THE   BOOKMAN 


tative  backing  which  commands  atten- 
tion and  respect. 

At  the  end  of  1917  Admiral  Bacon 
was  suddenly  relieved  of  his  conunand, 
although  by  this  time  plans  for  1918 
had  been  laid  including  those  for  a 
naval  attack  on  Zeebrugge  and  Ostend. 
The  author's  bitter  disappointment  in 
being  deprived  of  the  opportunity  to 
carry  out  these  plans  can  be  under- 
stood. In  reading  this  controversial 
part  of  the  book,  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  there  are  two  sides  to  every 
question  and  in  these  pages  only  one 
side  is  presented.  But  disregarding 
the  issues  raised  as  to  what  might 
have  happened,  the  record  of  the 
Dover  Patrol  as  it  stands  for  1915-16- 
17  is  a  proud  one  of  brilliant  achieve- 
ment. Sailors  the  world  over  will  ren- 
der honor  where  honor  is  due  and  a 
full  measure  will  be  accorded  to  the 
Patrol  and  its  distinguished  command- 
er, Admiral  Sir  Reginald  Bacon. 


The  Dover  Patrol.  By  Admiral  Sir  Reginald 
Bacon.  Two  volumes.  Qeorge  H.  Doran  Com- 
pany. 


A  BATTLE  OF  PICTURES 
By  Walter  Jack  Duncan 

MR.  GALLATIN,  in  "Art  and  the 
Great  War",  offers  the  public 
three  excellent  things,  none  of  which 
his  title  suggests.  They  are,  namely, 
a  digest  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Bu- 
reau of  Pictorial  Publicity,  praise  of 
England,  and  a  personal  grievance. 
The  two  former,  it  must  be  admitted, 
do  not  promise  much  for  the  general 
reader,  but  a  personal  grievance  rouses 
our  interest.  Pain  is  fecund,  it  quick- 
ens genius;  a  sense  of  injury,  of  bit- 
ter wrong,  frequently  discovers  a  voice 
in  the  most  taciturn  of  souls.    But 


here  again,  as  in  his  title,  Mr.  Gallatin 
disappoints  us.  He  is  not  taciturn, 
and  he  is  no  genius.  His  sufferings,  I 
suspect,  are  not  genuine.  If  he  com- 
plains, he  complains  conventionally, 
and  that  is  never  the  way  with  those 
whose  natures  are  deeply  moved. 

To  fuss  and  fume  over  art  and  ar- 
tists, however,  or  to  seem  to  do  so,  is 
an  incident  in  the  growth  of  a  refined 
society;  it  is  a  symptom  of  cultivation 
not  peculiar  to  Mr.  Gallatin  alone.  To 
accuse  artists  and  public  in  turn  of  de- 
plorable ignorance,  and  to  volunteer  to 
correct  them, — ^when  was  this  not  the 
occupation  of  the  idle,  those  precious 
few  who,  not  knowing  how  better  to 
employ  their  leisure,  have  made  the 
artists'  business  their  own? 

Art,  like  the  Church,  is  liberal,  its 
portals  are  always  open.  A  sanctuary 
for  serious  men,  those  with  a  vocation, 
it  also  offers  asylum  to  the  weak  and 
the  destitute,  poor  wretches  who  seek 
refuge  from  the  storm.  Occasionally 
one  of  these,  expanding  in  such  gen- 
erous company,  forgets  he  is  living  on 
the  charity  of  his  brothers ;  he  is  not 
content  with  a  bone  and  a  seat  by  the 
fire.  He  aspires  to  take  over  the  Man- 
agement! Mr.  Gallatin,  I  regret  to 
say,  is  guilty  of  this  presumption. 
Harbored  by  this  amiable  community, 
he  elects  himself  Abbot,  he  would  as- 
sume charge  of  the  order.  As  we  ex- 
amine his  volume,  recently  published, 
we  may  judge  how  well  he  succeeds. 

But  let  us  do  him  no  injustice.  For 
one  thing,  Mr.  Gallatin  served  his 
country  with  distinction  throughout 
the  war.  At  the  first  call  to  arms  he 
enlisted  as  Chairman  of  the  Commit- 
tee on  Exhibitions,  Division  of  Pic- 
torial Publicity,  United  States  Gov- 
ernment Committee  on  Public  Infor- 
mation,— ^a  position  he  maintained  till 
the  close  of  hostilities.  Whatever  his 
duties  may  have  been  as  a  committee- 


A  BATTLE  OF  PICTURES 


481 


man,  no  one  frtio  reads  hie  book  will 
fancy  he  mistodL  hie  celling.  Expert, 
informed,  exact,  hia  atgie — impreaaive 
and  formal — ^reada  for  Uie  moat  part 
indeed  like  the  minotea  of  a  qoarterly 
meetincT-  Yon  recognize  at  <Hice  the 
utterance  of  one  who,  apeakinir  with 
authority,  haa  much  to  record,  and 
nothing  to  say. 

Beginning  with  the  inception  and 
organization  of  the  Division  of  Pic- 
torial Publicity,  Mr.  Gallatin  describes 
its  function,  records  its  meetings,  de- 
tails its  activities,  chronicles  its  suc- 
cesses, laments  its  vicissitudes,  ar- 
raigns the  government,  praises  or 
blames  the  artists,  reviews  their  per- 
formance, inscribes  names  and  dates, 
congratulates  his  confreres,  neglects 
nothing  and  forgets  nobody  with  a 
zeal  and  scrupulosity  which,  in  the 
end,  excites  the  reader's  genuine  in- 
terest and  concern.  Nothing  Mr.  Gal- 
latin's department  haa  done,  no  de- 
tail that  has  occupied  him  so  long,  is 
omitted  from  his  inventory.  Wanting 
the  artist's  intelligence,  and  unable  to 
select  and  arrange  his  material,  he 
seems  to  offer  us  the  documents;  he 
cannot  use  them. 

But  it  is  useless.  It  is  worse, — it  is 
superfluous  in  a  subject  which  relates 
entirely  to  publicity ;  for  what,  I  ask 
you,  is  publicity  good  for  if  it  cannot 
speak  for  itself?  Like  fame,  it  needs 
no  comment,  and  wants  no  monument. 
With  a  genius  for  the  opportime  and 
careless  of  the  future,  publicity  lives 
in  the  present,  it  triumphs  for  an 
hour.  It  leads  a  short  life  but  a  merry 
one.  True,  its  philosophy  may  not  ap- 
peal to  one  like  Mr.  Gallatin  whose 
hopes  are  set  on  immortality,  but  to 
me  it  seems  to  comprehend  life  admir- 
ably. Would  that  he  were  as  full  of 
joy  and  f orgetf  ulness ! 

Now  we  might  forgive  Mr.  Gallatin 


for  introducing  the  subject  of  pi 
publicity  into  a  discuasion  on  art  and 
the  war  if  he  had  done  it  iq[ipropri- 
ately,  and  not  at  the  expense  <tf  iriiat 
reaOy  attracts  us  to  hia  book  and  ia 
deserving  of  so  much  greater  consid- 
eration. Did  not  he  himself  say  in  hia 
preface:  The  purpose  of  this  book 
haa  been  to  chronicle  the  part  played 
in  the  Great  War  by  painters,  illus- 
trators, etchers,  lithograi^ers  and 
sculptors"?  "The  whole  civilized 
worid  owes  thanks  to  the  artists  of 
America",  so  his  book  begins.  *T^i- 
ture  history  would  be  incomplete  with- 
out adequate  recognition  of  the  mighty 
concrete  values  which  the  artists  wrung 
from  the  fabrics  of  their  dreams,  and 
devoted  to  the  rescue  of  humanity 
from  further  bloodshed  and  sacrifice." 
You  see,  in  approaching  his  subject 
even  Mr.  Gallatin  can  become  rhap- 
sodical! But  his  happiness,  like  ours, 
is  brief.  The  cares  of  a  committee- 
man soon  overwhelm  him.  They  are 
indeed  onerous.  Everything  goes 
wrong.  The  government  neglects  his 
advice,  the  artists  heed  not  his  direc- 
tion. It  makes  him  "sad",  as  he 
says.  So  he  writes  to  the  newspapera ; 
he  writes  to  the  President!  Nothing 
results.  Nothing  relieves  the  gloom 
till  he  comes  to  contemplate  England. 
England  shines! 

"The  greatest  possible  credit  is  due 
England  and  her  Colonies",  he  ex- 
claims, "for  the  splendid  manner  in 
which  they  went  about  obtaining  pic- 
torial records  of  the  war.  They  cov- 
ered all  phases  of  the  war  in  a  most 
thoroughgoing  and  masterly  fashion." 
All  that  they  did  was  wise,  able,  ener- 
getic, and  complete.  Compared  with 
England  "France  was  left  far  behind, 
and  the  United  States  is  nowhere  at 
all".  Consequently  they  are  briefly 
dismissed.  Other  countries  pass  un- 
mentioned.     Thus  does  Mr.  Gallatin 


482 


THE   BOOKMAN 


make  short  work  of  "Art  and  the 
Great  War". 

Well,  we  are  astonished  I  We  will 
concede  the  excellence  of  England  and 
her  colonies,  and  we  will  take  no  ex- 
ception to  an  American  disparaging 
America.  This  is  a  free  country.  But 
is  it  indeed  possible,  we  ask  ourselves, 
can  it  be  that  Mr.  Gallatin,  who  sets 
himself  to  write  a  book  on  the  sub- 
ject, knows  nothing  of  the  excellent 
and  abundant  work  the  artists  of 
France  have  done  and  are  doing  as  a 
result  of  the  war?  Except  for  their 
posters,  he  virtually  ignores  them. 
Truly,  this  is  a  sdurvy  way  to  treat  a 
nation  so  civilized  and  courteous,  and 
so  famed  for  art  and  war!  And  in  a 
volume  that  advertises  itself  with  so 
comprehensive  a  title  as  Mr.  Galla- 
tin's, we  might  reasonably  expect  to 
be  enlightened  on  the  efforts  of  the 
enemy  countries  as  well  as  those  of  the 
Allies.  If  this  world  war,  as  Mr.  Gal- 
latin intimates,  was  largely  a  battle  of 
pictures,  just  what  were  the  artists  of 
the  Central  Powers  doing  all  this  time 
to  defend  themselves,  we  would  like  to 
know? 

To  quite  disregard  the  Germans, 
whose  war  pictures  compare  favorably 
with  those  of  any  of  the  nations  at 
war,  only  serves  them  right,  I  suppose. 
But  brave  little  Italy, — ^modest,  unas- 
suming, patient  mother  of  the  Renais- 
sance ! — ^why  should  we  who  refuse  her 
Fiume  deny  her  a  word  on  her  share 
in  war  art?  This  is  no  way,  surely,  to 
consider  the  subject  of  art  and  the 
Great  War.  Again,  just  what  mighty 
concrete  values  the  artists  of  Russia 
"wrung  from  the  fabrics  of  their 
dreams"  (if  indeed  they  wrung  any), 
rescued  humanity  is  left  to  conjecture. 
So  it  is  with  Belgium,  and  Serbia,  and 
Rumania,  to  mention  no  others;  nor 
is  it  otherwise  with  those  countries 
not  involved  in  the  war  but  whose  art 


showed  some  of  its  influence:  on  all 
these  subjects,  proper  to  his  treatise, 
our  historian  remains  mysteriously  si- 
lent. 

I  do  not  say  this  silence  is  due  to  ig- 
norance; I  attribute  it  to  kindness.  I 
firmly  believe  Mr.  Gallatin  knows  thor- 
oughly all  that  has  been  done  in  art 
and  the  Great  War;  I  suspect  he  has 
been  grievously  disappointed  in  the 
general  result,  and  out  of  charity»  is 
disposed  to  say  nothing.  I  am  sure  I 
have  the  secret  of  this  disappoint- 
ment. May  I  offer  it? — ^but  strictly 
between  ourselves? 

As  I  conceive  it,  Mr.  Gallatin  is  of 
an  open,  trusting  nature,  one  that 
hopes  for  the  best.  Out  of  the  inno- 
cence of  his  heart  he  expected  great 
things  of  the  war,  he  thought  it  would 
work  a  wondrous  and  immediate 
change  in  art  and  artists, — ^he  was 
even  prepared  for  miracles  I  One 
might  be  inclined  to  smile  at  his 
naivety  if  all  were  not  concerned  in  it. 
For  all  of  us,  in  a  way,  and  while  the 
war  lasted,  were  victims  of  the  same 
fallacious  hopes.  In  our  misery  we 
flattered  ourselves  that  war  was  the 
chastening  rod,  the  fire  that  purifies; 
the  pains  the  world  suffered  we  con- 
cluded were  labor-pains,  we  fondly  im- 
agined we  were  about  to  bear  witness 
to  the  world's  rebirth.  Henceforth 
men  were  to  reform  their  ways — ^they 
would  be  good  husbands  and  fathers, 
poets  would  be  no  longer  "decadent", 
painters  would  return  to  nature,  au- 
thors would  write  like  Dickens  and 
Thackeray,  and  the  Golden  (or  at  least 
the  Victorian)  Age  would  be  restored 
again.  It  occurred  to  nobody  to  think 
that,  as  before  the  war  human  affairs 
were  a  mixture  of  good  and  bad,  so 
after  the  world  would  pursue  its  or- 
dinary way,  and  remain  mediocre. 

Least  of  all  are  artists  altered  by 
events.     They  live   apart  from   the 


A  BATTLE  OF  PICTURES 


world.  And  thoiifl^  its  ootwmrd  forms 
may  change^  the  q>iiit  of  humanity  re- 
mains the  same;  its  ideal  in  war  is 
tmOk,  and  in  peace  the  beaotifoL  At 
one  with  this  q>iiit  and  permeated  hf 
it»  artists  move  secore  and  undisturbed 
throofi^  trooUoos  ways.  Indeed,  art 
is  the  only  immutable  thing  in  nature. 
That  is  why  we  worship  it.  While 
ordinary  men  waste  their  talents  giv- 
ing expression  to  transient  affairs,  ar- 
tists, true  to  their  nature,  are  merely 
intent  on  expressing  themselves.  See, 
for  Infft^Tiry,  how  Mr.  Pennell,  in  the 
illustrations  Mr.  Gallatin  lays  before 
us,  remains  unaffected  by  the  con- 
fusion about  him,  finding  in  it  only  ex- 
cuse to  continue  picturing  the  '^wonder 
of  work".  Steinlen  is  another  ex- 
ample. Steinlen  replaces  his  chimneys 
of  the  Paris  suburbs  by  some  smoking 
ruins,  before  which  troop  ''refugees'* 
that  were  lately  his  suffering  masses 
of  the  faubourgs,  and  this  is  his  con- 
tribution to  war.  I  do  not  reproach 
him  for  this.  On  the  contrary.  For 
if  he  has  nothing  new  to  offer,  truth  is 
as  old  as  the  hills;  he  discovers  in  war 
what  was  familiar  to  him  in  ordinary 
life,  and  the  justness  of  his  vision  is 
confirmed. 

Even  in  the  army  itself  the  artist 
found  what  was  familiar  to  him, 
where  essentially  life  went  on  as  usual 
though  garbed  in  a  uniform.  Men 
rose  and  went  to  bed,  they  ate  and 
they  drank,  they  worked  and  they 
played,  they  fought  and  made  love, 
complained  and  were  happy.  Whether 
he  inclined  to  "landscape"  or  the  ''fig- 
ure", ''genre"  painting  or  the  histor- 
ical,— even  if  he  were  a  "comic"  artist, 
— ^he  had  ample  material  to  choose 
from,  and  could  work  according  to  his 


custom.  Qiardin  hims^  in  this 
miniature  world,  would  have  found  as 
much  to  do  as  D^aille  or  de  Neuville; 
for  cutting  tiiroats  and  blowing  oat  of 
brains,  I  have  been  told,  is  but  a  small 
part  of  the  life  of  a  soldier.  However, 
as  we  always  associate  the  theatrical 
with  our  idea  of  war,  no^iing  will  ever 
quite  satisfy  us  in  a  war  picture  but 
scenes  of  Uood  and  carnage. 

In  this  respecU  the  work  of  the  ar- 
tists as  represoited  in  Mr.  Gallatin's 
book  does  not  satisfy.  To  tdl  the 
truth,  it  strikes  us  as  "tame", — there 
is  no  other  name  for  it.  Mr.  Gallatin 
complains  of  this.  It  is  not  war  as  he 
imagines  it.  No,  decidedly  not!  And 
there,  I  fancy,  is  the  explanation  of 
the  diflkulty. 

To  the  eternal  credit  of  the  artists 
be  it  spoken,  they  did  not  go  to  France 
to  "imagine"  the  war!  Nor  once 
there,  did  they  pander  to  the  taste  of 
those  at  home  who  craved  sensation. 
Truth  was  their  concern,  not  propa- 
ganda. And  the  truths  they  tell  us, 
the  facts  of  war  as  here  presented, 
should  prove  instructive.  In  a  modest 
and  grateful  spirit  then  let  us  who 
stayed  at  home  receive  them.  Above 
all,  let  us  not  make  ourselves  ridicu- 
lous. For  if  we  send  an  expedition  of 
trained  men,  at  the  peril  of  their  lives, 
into  the  jungle  for  specimens,  what 
would  be  more  absurd  than  to  com- 
plain, when  the  first  shipment  arrives, 
that  the  lion  doesn't  roar  loud  enough, 
that  the  elephant  isn't  big  as  a  house, 
and,  worst  of  all,  that  there  isn't  a 
hippogrif  or  a  unicorn  in  the  collec- 
tion! 


Art  and  the  Great  War.     B7  Albert  Biifene 
QaUatln.    B.  P.  Dutton  and  Co. 


J 


VACATION  READING 


BY  ANNIE  CARROLL  MOORE 


I'M  not  going  to  read  a  single  book 
all  summer!"  The  boy  of  sixteen 
who  made  this  announcement  in  the 
summer  of  1917  was  driving  a  spirited 
horse  over  one  of  those  willow-fringed 
roads  which  lead  back  from  the  New 
Hampshire  coast  through  a  lovely  in- 
land country,  **You  see",  he  con- 
tinued, after  waiting  in  vain  for  ex- 
postulation or  comment,  "I've  already 
read  three  books  from  that  old  list  (a 
long  list  furnished  by  one  of  the  large 
preparatory  schools  of  the  country) 
and  I  don't  have  to  read  more  than 
three." 

"Don't  you  by  any  chance  want  to 
read  a  book  that  is  not  on  the  list?"  I 
inquired.  "No,  I  don't  think  of  any. 
If  I  should  come  across  another  book 
as  good  as  'Ivanhoe'  I'd  read  it.  I 
read  'Ivanhoe'  four  times  before  I 
ever  saw  it  on  a  list.  When  I  called 
for  another,  just  as  good,  father  hand- 
ed me  'Quentin  Durward'  and  'The 
Talisman',  but  I  couldn't  get  inter- 
ested in  either  of  them.  Anyway  I'm 
sick  of  looking  at  print.  Can  you 
stand  a  road  full  of  thank-you- 
ma'ams?"  I  could  and  did.  Books 
were  forgotten  in  the  enchantment  of 
that  wood-road  nor  did  we  speak  of 
them  again  during  a  week  of  perfect 
June  weather,  for  I  too  have  been 
often  "sick  of  looking  at  print",  and 
quite  content  as  child  and  grown-up  to 
go  on  from  one  vacation  day  to  an- 


other without  opening  a  book  until  one 
day  I  chance  to  come  upon  something 
I  can't  resist. 

On  such  a  day — a  morning  in  early 
June — I  had  been  sent  to  dust  a  guest- 
room and  place  some  roses  there. 
Throwing  wide  the  windows,  I  pro- 
ceeded to  my  task  only  as  far  as  a 
table  on  which  lay  a  little  green-cov- 
ered book  I  had  never  noticed  before 
—"The  Vision  of  Sir  Launf  al".  I  read 
it  through  three  times,  and  then  I 
walked  straight  out  into  that  June 
day — dusting  and  flowers  forgotten — 
down  through  the  apple  orchard  and 
on  across  open  fields  to  a  sunny  pas- 
ture, there  to  drop  down  on  a  great 
flat  stone  beside  a  brook  with  the  poem 
in  full  possession  of  me.  The  printed 
book  had  been  left  far  behind — it  so 
often  is — ^nor  did  I  feel  the  desire  to 
repeat  any  of  the  lines.  The  beauty 
of  the  poem  had  shot  through  my  con- 
sciousness and  stirred  a  new  sense  of 
wonder  and  delight  in  a  perfect  June 
day.  I  was  twelve  years  old  that  sum- 
mer and  had  such  an  anthology  as 
"Golden  Numbers"— with  its  "Chant- 
ed Calendar",  "Green  Things  Grow- 
ing", "On  The  Wing"  and  all  its  other 
invitations  to  read  poetry  for  the  pure 
joy  of  the  experience — ^been  in  exist- 
ence, I  might  now  be  looking  back 
upon  it  as  one  of  my  vacation  books. 
But  Elate  Douglas  Wiggin  and  Nora 
Smith  had  not  yet  begun  to  make  sum- 


484 


VACATION  READING 


485 


mer  and  winter  holiday  with  their 
"Posy  Ring",  their  "Tales  of  Laugh- 
ter*', and  "Tales  of  Wonder*'.  Even 
"Timothy's  Quest",  so  true  to  the 
spirit  of  childhood  and  to  the  life  of  a 
near-by  township,  was  still  to  be  writ- 
ten. 

The  visitors  who  came  to  stay  in  the 
guest-room  brought  with  them  copies 
of  Sarah  Ome  Jewett's  "Deephaven" 
and  another  book  of  her  short  stories. 
One  of  these  stories — ^whose  title  I've 
forgotten — I  still  recall  with  a  strong 
sense  of  its  reality;  and  the  impres- 
sion it  left  with  me  that  the  lives  of 
people  who  lived  up  and  down  the 
country  roads  over  which  I  so  often 
drove  with  my  father,  might  have  just 
such  stories  behind  them. 

That  stories  could  be  lived  as  well 
as  dreamed  I  was  now  sure.  Even  as 
a  child  I  felt  this  quality  in  Miss  Jew- 
ett,  the  gift  of  giving  back  "the  very 
life"  as  Kipling  tells  her  in  a  letter 
about  "The  Country  of  the  Pointed 
Firs".  "So  many  people  of  lesser  sym- 
pathy", he  reminds  her,  "have  missed 
the  lovely  New  England  landscape  and 
the  genuine  New  England  nature.  I 
don't  believe  even  you  know  how  good 
that  work  is." 

The  short  story  I  remember  so 
clearly  is  that  of  an  elderly  New  Eng- 
land woman  facing  the  necessity  of 
giving  up  her  old  home.  Surprised  by 
the  visit  of  a  nephew  and  his  family, 
she  conceals  her  distress  of  mind  by  a 
camouflage  of  baking  powder  biscuits 
and  hot  gingerbread.  As  she  puts  the 
tins  into  the  oven,  she  remembers  that 
she  has  given  the  last  drop  of  cream 
she  had  in  the  house  as  well  as  the  last 
bit  of  pound  cake  to  a  little  girl  who 
had  come  early  in  the  afternoon  in  the 
hope  of  finding  some  work  to  do  in  her 
summer  vacation.  Since  she  had  to 
disappoint  the  child  she  must  offer 
consolation  of  some  kind — cream  and 


pound  cake  vanished.  Moreover  she 
expressed  no  regret,  but  cheerfully 
rose  to  meet  the  present  emergency  by 
crossing  the  railway  track  to  fetch  a 
fresh  pitcher  of  cream.  On  her  re- 
turn a  train  stood  in  her  path.  Hast- 
ily mounting  the  steps  to  the  platform 
she  was  about  to  descend  on  the  other 
side  when  the  train  began  to  move; 
and  bareheaded,  holding  her  pitcher 
of  cream,  the  hospitable  soul  present- 
ly finds  herself  inside  a  Pullman  car, 
speeding  on  to  a  distant  station.  Of 
course,  she  finds  someone  in  need  of 
cream.  This  time  it  is  not  a  child  but 
the  invalid  aunt  of  the  young  lady  who 
lends  her  a  "fascinator"  and  money 
for  the  return  ticket.  A  few  days 
later  these  travelers  solve  their  prob- 
lem as  well  as  hers  by  coming  to  stay 
with  her  for  the  sunmier.  The  little 
girl  is  engaged  to  run  errands  and 
wash  dishes,  and  the  reader  is  left 
with  an  all-pervading  sense  of  the 
kindliness  of  the  world  beyond  New 
England,  from  which  the  travelers 
came,  as  well  as  with  a  delightful  pic- 
ture of  that  true  hospitality  which 
takes  no  account  of  age  or  station  in 
life  and  is  to  be  found  alike  in  Old 
England  and  New  England.  Years 
later  I  was  reminded  of  this  story  by 
certain  chapters  in  "Cranford" — ^that 
"visionary  country  home"  of  Anne 
Thackeray  Ritchie  "which",  she  says, 
"I  have  visited  all  my  life  long  (in 
spirit)  for  refreshment  and  change  of 


» 


scene. 

"But  will  the  girl  of  today  read  any- 
thing so  slow  as  'Cranford'  or  those 
charming  stories  of  Miss  Jewett — 
'The  Queen's  Twin',  'A  White  Heron', 
or  'The  Country  of  the  Pointed 
Firs'?"  Not  always,  but  I  have  so 
often  shared  my  delight  in  these 
stories  with  groups  of  girls  who  have 
just  begun  to  connect  "Little  Women" 
with  the  life  of  Louisa  Alcott  as  they 


486 


THE   BOOKMAN 


know  it  in  a  book,  and  "Rebecca  of 
Sunnybrook  Farm"  with  Kate  Doug- 
las Wiggin,  aa  they  have  listened  to 
her  reading  of  her  ''Child's  Journey 
With  Dickens",  that  my  faith  is  very 
strong  in  the  natural  appreciation  of 
the  girl  of  today  provided  she  is  not 
urged  to  read  any  given  book.  Put 
fine  books  in  her  way.  Let  her,  in  so 
far  as  may  be,  discover  for  herself 
those  which  seem  to  belong  to  her  and 
in  her  own  good  time  let  her  give  tes- 
timony concerning  them.  There  will 
be  depths  as  well  as  heights  in  her 
reading  as  in  her  brother's.  The  per- 
fect June  day  on  which  I  discovered 
"The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal"  was  suc- 
ceeded by  several  rainy  ones  in  which 
I  discovered  a  barrelful  of  "The  New 
York  Ledger"  and  "Golden  Days" 
stored  away  in  an  attic,  and  from  the 
village  library  I  read,  surreptitiously, 
"St.  Elmo",  "Barriers  Burned  Away", 
and  "Tempest  and  Sunshine".  The 
latter  was  among  the  first  of  my  "fa- 
vorite novels  of  a  brief  period".  I 
read  most  of  the  books  written  by  Ho- 
ratio Alger,  Oliver  Optic,  Elijah  Kel- 
logg and  other  popular  writers  for 
boys.  That  the  reading  of  all  these 
books  and  many  more  "did  me  no 
harm",  I  can  state  with  no  such  assur- 
ance as  do  the  fathers  of  many  boys 
I  have  known.  Nor  is  such  negative 
testimony  of  much  value  in  the  prepa- 
ration of  lists  of  vacation  reading. 
We  are  slow  to  remember  that  with 
certain  notable  exceptions  the  chil- 
dren's books  loved  by  one  generation 
are  rarely  loved  by  the  next.  Poetry 
and  fairy  tales  and  some  few  stories 
live  on  with  little  change,  but  every 
generation  claims  its  popular  authors 
for  both  boys  and  girls. 

It  is  a  wise  parent,  scout  leader,  or 
camp  counselor  who  reads  books  al- 
ready in  the  hands  of  boys  and  girls 
before  making  a  selection  for  his  sum- 


mer home  or  camp.  Moreover,  he 
must  read  with  a  forward  as  well  as 
a  backward  look,  if  he  would  inspire 
continuous  interest  and  respect  for  his 
judgment  of  books  and  his  discern- 
ment of  their  appeal  to  the  personali- 
ties of  his  prospective  readers.  No 
list,  however  carefully  prepared,  reg- 
isters this  last  all-important  element. 
Nothing  short  of  give-and-take  read- 
ing and  discussion  of  books  with  chil- 
dren and  young  people  will  ever  sup- 
ply it;  and  no  time  is  more  favorable 
for  such  interchange  than  the  rainy 
morning,  the  hot  afternoon,  or  the 
cool  night  of  a  summer  holiday. 

Fortunate  is  the  public  library  that 
stands  at  the  meeting  of  vacation 
ways,  and  receives  on  return  of  its 
books  lent  for  vacation  reading  first- 
hand evidence  to  show  how  these  same 
books  "got  over"  to  boys  and  girls  all 
the  way  from  Maine  to  California — 
from  Canada  to  Florida.  Such  evi- 
dence is  invaluable  in  giving  life  and 
color  to  the  selection  of  books  at  any 
season,  and  there  has  grown  up  in  the 
summer  city  of  New  York  as  a  result 
of  it  a  kind  of  tradition  that  vacation 
reading  is  as  much  fun  as  anjrthing 
else.  That  it  has  taken  a  natural  place 
among  summer  sports  and  amuse- 
ments there  was  convincing  evidence 
in  the  summer  of  1916,  when  children 
under  sixteen  years  old  were  deprived 
of  the  privileges  of  the  public  li- 
brary by  the  Health  Department  for 
a  period  of  nearly  three  months. 
"First  the  movies  closed,  now  the 
library.  Gee!  they'll  be  keeping  us 
out  of  the  river  next!"  exclaimed  a 
boy  on  returning  his  books  to  one  of 
the  branch  libraries  near  the  Harlem 
river.  The  motion-picture  houses  re- 
opened early  in  September  for  the  ad- 
mission of  children  of  twelve  years 
and  older.  No  sooner  did  this  become 
known  than  the  boys  and  girls  flocked 


VACATION  READING 


487 


to  the  libraries  in  all  parts  of  the  city. 
Great  was  their  disappointment  and 
surprise  not  to  be  admitted  there.  Al- 
though it  was  known  that  the  public 
schools  would  not  be  open  until  the  lart 
week  in  September,  it  was  populs 
rumored  "If  the  movies,  why  not  tn. 
libraries?"  "I'm  so  lonesome  for 
books/'  pleaded  a  little  Russian  girl,  to 
be  echoed  by  thousands  of  others  from 
the  Battery  to  the  Bronx.  Even  the 
patrons  of  large  and  popular  private 
collections  of  "Motor  Boys",  "Aviator 
Girls",  "Elsie  books",  and  "Alger 
books"  had  become  bored.  "The  books 
we  had  were  all  alike,"  they  said  as 
they  stretched  out  eager  hands  for  the 
Lang  Fairy  Books,  for  Mark  Twain, 
Howard  Pyle  and  Stevenson,  for  Alt- 
sheler,  Louisa  Alcott,  Kate  Douglaa 
Wiggin,  Paul  Du  Chaillu  and  other 
authors  not  to  be  found  in  second- 
hand shops,  on  push-carts,  or  in  the 
possession  of  their  friends.  The  owner 
of  one  of  these  private  libraries,  who 
had  been  lending  from  it  generously, 
appeared  at  his  branch  library  on  the 
opening  day  to  ask  for  "Men  of  Iron" 
and  for  certain  other  books  which  he 
said  "cost  too  much"  to  buy  for  his 
own  library.  A  boy  who  was  looking 
for  "Hugh  Wynne"  remarked,  with  a 
twinkle  in  his  eye,  that  he  had  had 
nothing  to  read  all  summer  except 
"The  Ladies'  Home  Journal".  Many 
and  intimate  were  the  revelations  con- 
cerning the  reading  of  boys  and  girls 
during  that  long,  oppressive  summer 
vacation,  for  although  denied  admis- 
sion to  the  libraries,  the  children  were 
not  prevented  from  talking  with  the 
children's  librarians  as  they  met  them 
in  the  streets.  No  one  who  spent  any 
part  of  that  summer  in  New  York 
will  ever  forget  it  or  fail  to  give  books 
a  different  place  in  the  vacation  days 
of  those  who  stay  at  home  as  well  as 
of  those  who  "ride  away"  to  the  coun- 


try, the  mountains,  or  the  seashore. 
The  element  of  companionship  in 
books  selected  for  vacation  reading 
was  brought  home  more  vividly  than 
ever  before.  Rows  of  perennial  favor- 
ites stood  unopened  on  library  shelves 
— ^the  very  books  we  had  so  often  rec- 
ognized in  the  hands  of  children  who, 
like  "David  Copperfleld",  might  be 
seen  "reading  for  dear  life"  on  the 
doorsteps  of  crowded  streets,  on  the 
roofs  of  tenement  houses,  on  the  fire 
escapes,  in  shady  comers  of  parks  and 
playgrounds,  on  the  recreation  piers, 
on  ferryboats,  under  the  bridges: — 
wherever  it  is  humanly  possible  for 
children  to  read  library  books,  there 
they  are  read  in  vacation  time. 

"Don't  you  think  John  ought  to  fol- 
low some  special  line  in  his  reading 
this  summer?",  asked  an  anxious 
mother.  By  all  means,  if  he  has  a  spe- 
cial interest  and  a  craving  to  satisfy 
it  with  books,  provide  him  with  a  lib- 
eral supply  of  histories,  books  of  ex- 
ploration, Greek  myths,  Arthurian 
legends,  Norse  stories,  natural  his- 
tories, stories  of  animals,  Indians — 
whatever  may  be  drawing  him  most 
strongly;  but  don't  lay  out  a  special 
course  of  reading  for  John  or  Mary 
if  you  want  them  to  love  books  and 
form  natural  associations  with  them. 
Let  them  choose  for  themselves  from 
a  large  and  varied  collection  the  books 
they  would  like  to  take  away  with 
them,  or  would  like  to  read  to  forget 
that  they  cannot  go  away.  You  would 
have  .liked  to  do  that  at  their  age 
wouldn't  you?  In  the  presence  of 
books  and  children  the  anxious  mother 
succumbed  to  the  reminder  of  her  own 
youth,  and  next  day  came  accompanied 
not  only  by  John  and  Mary  but  by 
Barbara  and  Michael,  to  each  of  whom 
is  accorded  the  vacation  privilege  of 
taking  eight  books  on  a  card.  The 
anxious  mother  is  no  longer  apprehen- 


488 


THE   BOOKMAN 


sive  concerning  John's  future  career, 
but  lends  yeoman's  service  in  testing 
books  from  the  children's  standpoint, 
and  is  rewarded  by  being  told  she  may 
choose  two  of  each  eight  'to  please 
yourself". 

JOHN'S  LIST 

(John  li  just  a  nice  all-round  boy  about  thir- 
teen years  old.) 

The  Boys*  Book  of  Model  Aeroplanes. 

The  American  Boys*  Book  of  Signs,  Signals, 

and  Symbols. 
The  Book  of  a  Naturalist 
The  Cruise  of  the  Cachalot. 
Captains  Courageous. 
The  Three  Musketeers. 
The  Mysterious  Island. 
Kidnapped. 

BARBARA'S    LIST 

(Barbara    is    rather    dreamy — ^wants    to    be 
beautiful  and  popular,  about  twelve  years  old.) 
Golden  Numbers. 
How  to  Swim. 

Andersen's    Fairy    Tales.      (For   The    Snow 
Queen,  The  WUd  Swans  and  The  Little 
Mermaid.) 
Stories  from  Old  French  Romance. 
Kenilworth. 

Cheney's  Life  of  Louisa  Alcott. 
Little  Women  (to  reread). 
Master  Simon's  Garden 

or 
Mary's  Meadow. 

MART'S   LIST 

(Mary  Is  ten  years  old  and  very  practical — 
climbs  trees.) 

When  Mother  Lets  Us  Make  Candy. 
The  Swiss  Family  Robinson  (for  rereading). 
What  Happened  to  Inger  Johanne.     (Delight- 
ful stories  from  the  Norwegian.) 

The  Slowcoach. 

Conundrums,  Riddles,  Puzzles  and  Games. 

Jack  and  JiU. 

The  Peterkin  Papers. 

The  Princess  and  the  Goblin. 

The  Adventures  of  Buffalo  Bill. 

MICHAEL'S   LIST 

(Michael  is  nine  years  old,  with  a  strong  in- 
terest in  natural  history  and  fairy  tales.) 
Grimm's  Fairy  Tales. 
The  Merry  Adventures  of  Robin  Hood. 
The  Children's  Book. 
The  Jungle  Book. 
Alice  in  Wonderland. 
The  Pied  Piper. 
The  Burgess  Bird  Book. 
Pinocchio,    the    Adventures    of    an    Italian 
Marionette. 

Michael  will  welcome  "The  Burgess 
Animal  Book"  when  it  is  published. 


He  pores  over  Homaday's  "American 
Natural  History"  and  every  illustrated 
natural  history  he  can  find. 

"I've  a  shrewd  suspicion",  says  the 
children's  librarian,  who  contributed 

1  selection  of  books  made  by  one 
.mily,  **th8,t  each  child  will  read  the 
other's  books.  In  that  way  the  im- 
practical ones  often  get  the  benefit  of 
the  selection  of  the  practical  minded, 
and  vice  versa.  It  will  be  good  for 
Barbara  to  read  "The  Peterkin  Pa- 
pers", and  it  won't  hurt  Mary  to  read 
"Golden  Numbers"  on  the  sly — up  in 
her  tree." 

There  is  always  much  rereading  of 
old  favorites  in  the  summer  vacation : 
"Mother  Goose",  "The  Nonsense 
Book",  "The  Child's  Garden  of 
Verses",  "Just  So  Stories",  the  "Ara- 
bian Nights",  the  "Fairy  Tales"  of  the 
Grimms  and  Hans  Andersen,  "The 
Home  Book  of  Verse  for  Young 
Folks",  "Little  Women",  "The  Last  of 
the  Mohicans",  "Treasure  Island", 
"Alice  in  Wonderland",  "Through  the 
Looking  Glass",  "The  Princess  and 
Curdie",  "The  Jungle  Books".  And 
from  this  rereading  there  comes  an  in- 
vigoration  of  mind  and  spirit  which  is 
often  reflected  in  the  speech  of  the  re- 
turned vacation  reader. 

"How  do  you  do,  Miss  Elegant 
Fowl",  was  the  gay  salute  of  one  small 
boy  to  the  librarian  who  received  his 
vacation  books,  and  well  it  is  for  her 
prestige  that  she  is  able  to  respond  in 
the  same  vein.  She  must  not  become 
stodged  with  books  or  with  theories  of 
children's  reading  if  she  would  take  a 
natural  place  in  vacation  days  as  'i;he 
lady  who  knows  all  the  books  by  heart 
— ^knows  how  to  skip  the  dull  parts  and 
how  to  substitute  one  book  for  another 
when  the  one  you  really  want  is  being 
read  by  somebody  else." 

"I've  finished  'The  Wonderful  Ad- 
ventures of  Nils'  and  I  want  you  to 


VACATION  READING 


489 


send  me  the  second  volume  right 
away,"  wrote  Edouard  from  the  coun- 
try last  summer;  "I'm  half  way 
through  'Little  Smoke'  but  I  like  'Nils' 
the  best."  Edouard,  whose  devotion  to 
Thornton  Burgess  has  been  chronicled 
in  The  Bookman,  was  ten  years  old 
when  he  discovered  the  Swedish 
classic  in  a  selection  of  eight  books 
chosen  with  a  view  to  relieving  the 
boredom  of  a  summer  vacation  in  a 
country  boarding  house  where  he  was 
stranded  with  his  mother  and  baby 
sister.  The  selection  included  stories 
of  Indians,  pirates,  South  Sea  Island- 
ers, the  "Just  So  Stories",  and 
Thornton  Burgess's  "Danny  Meadow 
Mouse".  The  second  volume  of  "Nils" 
was  promptly  dispatched  by  post.  On 
Edouard's  return  "David  Blaize  and 
the  Blue  Door"  lay  upon  my  desk  to 
be  greeted  with:  "Here's  another  of 
those  books  I  know  aren't  true  but  I 
wish  might  be.  May  I  take  it?"  He 
vanished,  to  return  next  day  with  eyes 
shining  over  the  chapter  on  flying. 
"Something  like  'Nils'  only  a  different 
country  and  a  younger  boy,"  he  said, 
as  he  picked  up  a  copy  of  "Lilliput 
Levee"  which  he  read  on  the  spot, 
chuckling  delightedly.  "May  I  take 
this  to  learn  to  speak  in  school?  It 
would  make  everybody  laugh  except 
our  teacher."  He  decided  that  the  risk 
might  be  too  great  for  an  ordinary 
school  day.  "Lilliput  Levee"  must  be 
read  in  holiday  mood.  This  summer 
Edouard,  at  eleven,  is  still  reading 
Thornton  Burgess  but  is  discovering 
Seton's  "Biography  of  a  Grizzly", 
Wild  Animals  I  Have  Known",  and 
Two  Little  Savages".  "The  Red  Fox" 
of  G.  C.  D.  Roberts  has  given  him 
great  delight.  I  know  that  he  will 
listen  fascinated  to  such  chapters  as 
"Bats",  "The  Toad  as  Traveler",  and 
"A  Sentimentalist  on  Foxes"  from 
Hudson's    "Book    of   a    Naturalist"; 


« 


« 


and  will  read  for  himself  "The  Dis- 
contented Squirrel",  which  is  in  real- 
ity a  veiy  charming  story  for  still 
younger  children  with  its  vivid  pic- 
ture of  the  migration  of  squirrels. 

Edouard  goes  to  a  boys'  camp  this 
summer,  and  it  is  easy  to  picture  him 
vibrating  between  the  groups  of  older 
and  younger  boys  at  story-hour  time. 
If  the  opening  chapters  of  John  Muir's 
"Story  of  My  Boyhood  and  Youth"  are 
read  aloud  he  will  be  held  with  the 
same  interest  he  has  manifested  in  the 
lives  of  Joan  of  Arc,  Mark  Twain,  and 
Cardinal  Mercier.  "I  can  tell  a  great 
man  when  I  see  him — ^nobody  needs  to 
point  him  out  to  me,"  Edouard  said  of 
Cardinal  Mercier  as  that  great  figure 
passed  down  the  stairway  of  the  Li- 
brary and  stopped  at  the  entrance  to 
speak  to  a  little  girl  who  stood  out- 
side. 

This  quick  sensibility  of  childhood 
to  great  things  in  life  or  in  literature 
is  too  often  forgotten  by  those  who 
would  bring  them  together  by  a  pre- 
conceived plan.  Opal  Whiteley*s  "Jour- 
nal of  an  Understanding  Heart"  in 
"The  Atlantic  Monthly",  and  Hilda 
Conkling's  "Poems  by  a  Little  Girl" 
are  stirring  something  deeper  than 
surface  criticism  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  have  not  lost  their  sense  of  won- 
der in  the  presence  of  childhood.  I 
look  upon  their  publication  not  alone 
with  the  joy  of  an  exploring  reader, 
but  as  most  significant  signs  that  we 
are  moving  toward  a  larger  and  freer 
development  of  writing  and  publish- 
ing books  for  children  in  the  twentieth 
century. 

"  'The  CaU  of  the  Wild'  is  the  best 
book  I  ever  read",  said  one  of  a  group 
of  boys,  two  or  three  years  older  than 
Edouard,  who  were  discussing*  dog 
stories  in  a  branch  library  recently. 
"I  read  it  for  the  first  time  in  Alaska", 
he  continued,  "and  I  know  it  is  true  to 


490 


THE  BOOKMAN 


life  there.  When  I  came  home  I  read 
it  again  and  I  liked  it  even  better  here 
in  New  York  than  in  Alaska — I  could 
imagine  myself  back  there." 

This  boy,  who  has  traveled  exten- 
sively in  South  America  and  Europe 
as  well  as  in  the  United  States,  brings 
to  his  reading  at  the  age  of  twelve  a 
background  of  great  interest  to  other 
boys.  Nearly  all  of  the  group  had 
read  "Lad"  and  liked  it  very  much. 
One  boy  had  read  John  Muir's  "Stick- 
een",  a  wonderful  story  to  read  aloud. 
"Pierrot,  Dog  of  Belgium"  was  recom- 
mended by  another.  "The  Dogs  of 
Boytown"  was  characterized  as  a  book 
they  would  have  liked  better  had  the 
boys  and  the  town  been  left  out.  The 
interest  of  this  book  is  in  its  informa- 
tion concerning  different  breeds  of 
dogs  from  the  standpoint  of  a  well- 
known  writer  on  the  subject. 

"Bob.  Son  of  Battle"  and  "Grey- 
friars  Bobby"  would  appeal  to  such  a 
group  of  boys  more  strongly  two  or 
three  years  later. 

There  is  a  librarian  whose  love  of 
dogs  and  keen  interest  in  vacation 
reading  come  strongly  to  mind  as  this 
article  reaches,  not  its  end,  but  its 
space  limits — Caroline  M.  Hewins  of 
the  Hartford  Public  Library.  Long 
before  children's  rooms  were  opened 
in  our  public  libraries  or  nature  study 
had  been  undertaken  by  the  schools 
and  museums.  Miss  Hewins's  Agassiz 
Club  and  Vacation  Reading  Hours 
were  established  features  in  the  sum- 
mer life  of  the  City  of  Hartford,  radi- 
ating to  other  cities  and  country  places 
through  book-lists  and  articles  on  chil- 
dren's reading  of  equal  value  to 
parents,  teachers,  and  librarians.  Miss 
Hewins's  "Books  for  Boys  and  Girls. 
A  Selected  List"  is  the  best  list  I  know 
of.  The  latest  edition,  printed  in  1915, 
the  lineal  descendant  of  a  list  selected 
by  her  in  1882  in  which  Tom  Sawyer 


is  given  his  true  place  among  chil- 
dren's books,  is  characterized  by  the 
same  wide  knowledge  of  books  and 
rich  experience  of  life.  This  list  may 
well  be  supplemented  by  lists  includ- 
ing more  recent  publications  selected 
by  The  Bookshop  for  Boys  and  Girls 
of  the  Women's  Educational  and  In- 
dustrial Union  of  Boston,  and  by  the 
new  Handbook  for  Scout  Masters, 
and  the  lists  of  books  for  Boy  Scouts 
selected  by  Franklin  K  Mathiews  of 
the  Boy  Scouts  of  America.  "Scout- 
ing for  Girls",  the  new  official  Hand- 
book of  Girl  Scouts,  contains  a  read- 
ing-list selected  by  its  editor,  Joseph- 
ine Daskam  Bacon,  in  conference  with 
scout  leaders  and  librarians. 


Ivanhoe.  By  Sir  Walter  Scott.  J.  B.  Lippln- 
cott  Co. 

The  Vision  of  Sir  Lannfal.  By  James  Rus- 
sell Lowell.     HoughtoD  Mifflin  Co. 

Golden  Numbers.  Selected  by  Kate  Douglas 
Wiggln  and  Nora  Archibald  Smith.  Doubleday, 
Page  and  Co. 

Posy  Ring.  Selected  by  Kate  Douglas  Wig- 
1^   and   Nora   Archibald    Smith.     Doubleday, 

uaflfA  And  Co 

Tales  of  Laughter.  Edited  by  Kate  Douglas 
Wiggln  and  Nora  Archibald  Smith.  Doubleday, 
Page  and  Co. 

Tales  of  Wonder.  Edited  by  Kate  Douglas 
Wiggln  and  Nora  Archibald  Smith.  Double- 
da7   Pafire  and  Co 

T'lmothy's  Quest.  By  Kate  Douglas  Wiggln. 
Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

Deephayen.  By  Sarah  Orne  Jewett.  Hough- 
ton Mifflin  Co. 

The  Country  of  the  Pointed  Firs.  By  Sarah 
Orne  Jewett.    Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

^Letters  of  Sarah  Orne  Jewett.  Edited  by 
Mrs.  Annie  Fields.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

Cranford.  By  Mrs.  E.  C.  Oaskell.  The  Mac- 
mlllan  Co. 

The  Queen's  Twin  and  Other  Stories.  By 
Sarah  Orne  Jewett.    Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

A  White  Heron  and  Other  Stories.  By  Sarah 
Orne  Jewett.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

Men  of  Iron.  By  Howard  Pyle.  Harper  and 
Bros. 

Hugh  Wynne.  By  S.  Weir  MltchelL  The 
Century  Co. 

The  Boys'  Book  of  Model  Aeroplanes.  By  F. 
A.  Collins.     The  Century  Co. 

The  American  Boys'  Book  of  Signs,  Signals 
and  Symbols.  By  D.  C.  Beard.  J.  B.  Lippln- 
cott  Co. 

The  Book  of  a  Naturalist.  By.  W.  H.  Hud- 
son.    George  H.  Doran  Company. 

The  Cruise  of  the  Cachalot.  By  Frank  Bul- 
len.    D.  Appleton  and  Co. 

Captains  Courageous.  By  Rudyard  Elipling. 
The  Century  Co. 

The  Three  Musketeers.  By  Alexandre  Du- 
mas.   Thomas  Y.  Crowell  Co. 

The  Mysterious  Island.  By  Jules  Verne. 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

Kidnapped.  By  Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  Il- 
lustrated by  N.  C.  Wyeth.  Charles  Scribner's 
Sons. 

*For  th«  Adult  reader. 


VACATION  READING 


491 


How  to  Swim.  By  Dayis  Dalton.  G.  P.  Put- 
nam's Sons. 

Falrj  Tales.  Bj  Hans  Christian  Andersen. 
B.  P.  Dntton  and  Co. 

Stories  from  Old  French  Romance.  By  E.  M. 
Wilmot-Bnxton.     Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co. 

Kenilworth.  By  Sir  Walter  Scott  J.  B. 
Lippincott  Co. 

liouisa  May  Alcott.  By  Mrs.  B.  D.  L. 
Cheney.    Little,  Brown  and  Co. 

Little  Women.  By  Louisa  M.  Alcott.  Little, 
Brown  and  Co. 

Master  Simon's  Garden.  By  Cornelia  Meigs. 
The  Macmillan  Co. 

Mary's  Meadow.  By  Mrs.  Bwing.  The  Mac- 
millan Co. 

When  Mother  Lets  Us  Make  Candy.  By  B. 
D.  and  L.  F.  Bache.    Moffat.  Yard  and  Co. 

The  Swiss  Family  Robinson.  By  J.  R.  Wyss. 
Harper  and  Bros. 

What  Happened  to  Inger  Johanne.  By  Dik- 
ken  Zwilgmeyer.  Trans,  by  Emilie  Poulsson. 
Lothrop,  Lee  and  Shepard. 

The  Slowcoach.  By  B.  V.  Lucas.  The  Mac- 
millan Co. 

Conundrums,  Riddles,  Pussies  and  Games. 
By  S.  J.  Cutter.  Kegan,  Paul  Trench,  Trub- 
ner  and  Co. 

Jack  and  JilL  By  Louisa  Alcott.  Little, 
Brown  and  Co. 

The  Peterkin  Papers.  By  Lucretia  P.  Hale. 
Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

The  Princess  and  the  Goblin.  By  George 
Macdonald.    Blackie. 

The  Adventures  of  Buffalo  Bill.  By  W.  F. 
Cody.    Harper  and  Bros. 

Fairy  Tales.  By  Jacob  and  Wilhelm  Grimm. 
J.  B.  Lippincott  Co. 

The  Merry  Adventures  of  Robin  Hood.  By 
Howard  I^le.    Harper  and  Bros. 

The  Children's  Book.  Edited  by  Horace  B. 
Scudder.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

The  Jungle  Book.  By  Rudyard  Kipling.  The 
Century  Co. 

Alice's  Adventures  in  Wonderland.  By  Lewis 
CarrolL    The  Macmillan  Co. 

The  Pied  Piper.  By  Robert  Browning.  H- 
lustrated  by  Kate  Greenaway.  Frederick  Warne 
and  Co. 

The  Burgess  Bird  Book.  By  Thornton  Bur- 
gess.    Little,  Brown  and  Co. 

Pinocchio.  By  Carlo  Lorensini.  Ginn  and 
Co. 

The  Old  Nursery  Rhymes.  Illustrated  by 
Arthur  Rackham.    The  Century  Co. 

The  Complete  Nonsense  Book.  By  Edward 
Lear.    Duffleld  and  Co. 

The  Child's  Garden  of  Verses.  By  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson.    Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

Just  So  Stories.  By  Rudyard  Kipling.  Dou- 
bleday.  Page  and  Co. 


The  Arabian  Nights  Entertainments.  Hlus- 
trated  by  Maxfleld  Parrish.  Charles  Scribner's 
Sons. 

The  Home  Book  of  Verse  for  Young  Folks. 
Edited  by  Burton  B.  Stevenson.  Henry  Holt 
and  Co. 

The  Last  of  the  Mohicans.  By  J.  Fenimore 
Cooper.  Illustrated  by  N.  C.  Wyeth.  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons. 

Treasure  Island.  By  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son.   Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

Through  the  Lookinjsr  Glass.  By  Lewis  Car- 
roll.   The  Macmillan  Co. 

The  Princess  and  Curdle.  By  George  Mac- 
donald.    Blackie. 

The  Wonderful  Adventures  of  Nils.  By  Selma 
Lagerl5f .     Doubleday.  Page  and  Co. 

Little  Smoke.  By  W.  O.  Stoddard.  D.  Ap- 
pleton  and  Co. 

Danny  Meadow  Mouse.  By  Thornton  Bur- 
gess.   Little.  Brown  and  Co. 

David  Blaise  and  the  Blue  Door.  By  B.  F. 
Benson.    George  H.  Doran  Company. 

Lilliput  Lvrlcs.  By  William  Brighty  Rand. 
John  Lane  Co. 

The  Biography  of  a  Grissly.  By  Ernest 
Thompson  Seton.     The  Century  Co. 

Wild  Animals  I  Have  Known.  By  Ernest 
Thompson  Seton.    Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

Two  Little  Savages.  By  Ernest  Thompson 
Seton.     Doubleday.  Page  and  Co. 

The  Red  Fox.  By  C.  G.  D.  Roberts.  Double- 
day,  Page  and  Co. 

The  Story  of  My  Bovhood  and  Youth.  By 
John  Muir.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

Joan  of  Arc.  By  Boutet  de  Monvel.  The 
Century  Co. 

Poems  by  a  Little  GirL  By  Hilda  Conkling. 
Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co. 

The  Call  of  the  Wild.  By  Jack  London.  The 
Macmillan  Co. 

Lad :  The  Story  of  a  Dog.  By  Albert  Pay- 
son  Terhune.    E.  P.  Dutton  and  Co. 

Stickeen.  By  John  Muir.  Houghton  Mifflin 
Co. 

Pierrot.  Dog  of  Belgium.  By  Walter  Dyer. 
Doubleday,  Page  and  Co. 

The  Dogs  of  Boytown.  By  Walter  Dyer. 
Henry  Holt  and  Co. 

Bob,  Son  of  Battle.  By  Alfred  Ollivant. 
Doubleday.  Page  and  Co. 

Greyfriars  Bobby.  By  Elinor  Atkinson.  Har- 
per and  Bros. 

Books  for  Boys  and  Girls.  A  selected  list. 
By  Caroline  M.  Hewins.  The  American  Library 
Association. 

Handbook  for  Scout  Masters.  Boy  Scouts 
of  America. 

Scouting  for  Girls.  Edited  by  Josephine 
Daskam  Bacon.    Girl  Scouts  of  America. 


i 


THE  MOTHER  OF  ART  AND  REVOLUTION 


BY  THOMAS  H.  DICKINSON 


WE  have  had  many  books  about 
the  Russian  Revolution,  a  few 
of  which  have  been  good.  Fortunately 
for  the  reviewer,  Oliver  Sayler's  two 
books,  "The  Russian  Theatre  Under 
the  Revolution"  and  "Russia  White  or 
Red",  belong  to  the  good  class.  In- 
dispensable requirements  in  the  treat- 
ment of  an  epoch-making  event  like 
the  Russian  Revolution  are  that  it 
shall  not  be  handled  with  "authority", 
that  the  writer  shall  not  attempt  to 
say  the  "final"  word,  and  that  if  he 
wishes  to  "seek  out  the  heart  of  its 
mystery"  he  shall  handle  his  scalpel 
modestly  and  with  no  flourishes.  "We 
reach  for  the  universe  and  get — 
bathos",  writes  H.  G.  Wells  in  one 
of  his  rare  moments  of  self-criticism. 
In  all  respects  of  the  discretion  that 
an  author  owes  to  a  great  theme,  Mr. 
Sayler's  two  books  are  models  of  ap- 
propriateness. 

Of  these  two  book  I  imagine  that 
the  first,  "The  Russian  Theatre  Under 
the  Revolution",  is  the  one  that  most 
lured  the  author  on  in  his  adventure. 
And  in  spite  of  his  ancient  predilec- 
tion for  the  theatre  and  the  joy  that 
he  had  in  paying  tribute  to  the  mother 
of  modem  theatrical  art,  I  imagine  it 
is  the  second  book  which  gives  him 
his  greatest  satisfaction  as  he  looks 
back  on  it.  Certainly,  in  the  writing 
of  this,  he  discovered  new  powers  in 
his  already  generous  equipment  as 
critic  and  student  of  social  events. 


It  subtracts  nothing  from  the  dig- 
nity of  the  modem  theatre,  which  it- 
self has  its  disciples,  its  devotees,  and 
even  its  martyrs,  that  a  cause  has 
arisen  which  dwarfs  the  achievements 
and  passions  of  that  theatre.  What- 
ever may  have  been  the  author's  first 
intention,  whatever  it  was  that  drove 
him  forth  in  the  summer  of  1917  to 
wander  counter-clockwise  around  the 
world,  it  was  the  Russian  Revolution 
that  in  the  end  justified  his  journey. 
He  would  study  at  its  fountainhead 
the  inspiration  of  modem  theatrical 
art,  its  spiritualized  realism,  its  fan- 
ciful futurism,  its  music  and  dance 
and  color.  He  started  on  a  quest  of 
art  and  found  himself  at  the  heart  of 
intense  reality. 

I  would  not  have  it  thought  that 
there  is  anything  pale  in  the  Russian 
theatre  as  Sayler  saw  it.  Its  persist- 
ence under  the  abnormal  conditions  of 
the  Soviet  Revolution  bears  witness  to 
the  extraordinary  vitality  of  the  thea- 
tre itself  and  to  the  spiritual  quality 
of  the  Russian  social  genius.  Within 
a  few  days  after  the  author  reached 
Moscow,  the  Art  Theatre  opened  again 
after  its  temporary  eclipse.  There- 
after, it  and  the  other  theatres  of 
Moscow  were  open  regularly.  The 
author  was  fortunate  in  making  his 
connections.  He  was  taken  into  the 
charmed  circle  wherever  he  went.  Ap- 
parently, nothing  discouraged  him — 
no  impediments  of  language,  pressure 


492 


THE  MOTHER  OF  ART  AND  REVOLUTION 


493 


of  time,  or  random  bursts  of  mus- 
ketry, hindered  him  from  his  thought- 
ful foregathering  with  the  men  who 
had  made  the  Russian  theatre  and 
quickened  the  theatre  of  the  western 
world.  He  took  with  him  his  best 
gifts  as  critic — ^a  quick  eye,  ready 
critical  discernment,  and  an  easy  pen. 
He  added  to  these  gifts  something  of 
the  historian's  grasp  of  the  unity  of 
events. 

The  result  is  a  quite  unusual  fresh- 
ness and  lucidity  in  the  view  we  get  of 
the  Russian  theatre.  It  is  as  if  the 
study  of  the  theatre  itself  were  lighted 
by  the  fires  of  the  Revolution.  We 
find  the  great  men  of  the  Russian 
theatre  —  Stanislavsky,  Dantchenko, 
Tairoff,  Kommissarzhevsky,  Meyer- 
hold — still  at  work  and  faithful  to  the 
vision  in  the  midst  of  a  world  on  fire. 
The  Moscow  Art  Theatre  is  the 
mother  art  theatre  of  the  world,  the 
one  theatre  which  under  a  democratic 
system  has  done  what  state  theatres 
are  supposed  to  be  able  to  do  and  so 
often  have  failed  in  doing.  Its 
method,  Sayler  well  calls  the  ''method 
of  spiritualized  realism''.  Next  to  it 
is  the  Kamemy  Theatre,  the  head- 
quarters of  futuristic  art.  And  then 
in  highways  and  byways  there  are  the 
theatres  of  newer  growth,  of  more  an- 
archistic trend  in  art,  if  not  in  poli- 
tics. And  after  Moscow  there  is  Pet- 
rograd. 

"The  Russian  Theatre  Under  the 
Revolution"  is  written  by  a  man 
trained  by  years  to  the  task  of  dra- 
matic criticism.  "Russia  White  or 
Red"  is  the  work  of  the  same  man, 
who  turns  his  pen  to  larger  issues 
than  those  with  which  it  is  wont  to 
deal.  How  is  it  then  that  quite  aside 
from  subject-matter,  one  prefers  the 
latter  book,  considers  it  to  be  better 
done,  and  even  to  rise  here  and  there 
to  a  tragic  dignity?    I  confess  that  I 


came  to  this  judgment  in  spite  of  my- 
self, for  (I  humbly  apologize  to  the 
author,  whose  friendship  I  value)  I 
had  expected  simply  another  work  by 
an  ill-informed  excursionist.  This 
book  is  a  better  book  than  the  other 
because,  granted  a  tutored  mind,  a 
writer  will  always  tend  to  rise  to  his 
theme.  To  practise  dramatic  criti- 
cism, which  seems  to  be  the  one  art  in 
which  men  are  permitted  to  express 
judgments  on  things  in  general,  there 
is  needed  clear  sight,  mental  honesty, 
respect  for  humanity,  hatred  of  cant 
and  stereotyped  thinking,  and  a  ready 
pen  not  too  weighted  with  subtleties 
and  high  meanings.  Put  these  quali-i 
ties  to  work  on  a  play  and  they  make 
an  engaging  dramatic  criticism.  Put 
them  to  work  on  a  world  upheaval,  and 
they  are  likely  to  avoid  many  of  the 
faults  of  authoritarianism,  bumptious- 
ness, and  special  pleading  that  have 
disfigured  much  writing  on  the  Rus- 
sian Revolution. 

There  are  many  reasons  why  I  am 
enthusiastic  for  "Russia  White  or 
Red",  but  I  can  refer  to  only  two  or 
three  of  them.  In  the  first  place,  since 
I  cannot  be  in  Russia  myself,  the  book 
helps  me  to  see  what  I  should  want  to 
see  if  I  were  there.  I  see  the  crowded 
railway  stations,  the  disordered  man- 
sions, the  long  queues,  the  home  life 
disordered  by  anxiety  and  a  new  pov- 
erty. I  see  the  hardships  of  the  food 
supply  and  the  petty  inconveniences 
which  go  with  the  changing  of  order 
and  the  law.  I  do  not  see  much  fight- 
ing, nor  are  the  chief  actors  drawn 
frequently  onto  the  scene.  I  should 
not  see  these  if  I  were  a  citizen  of 
Russia  or  a  random  participant. 

And  then,  this  book  helps  me  to 
think,  and  provides  a  canon  of  honesty 
in  thinking.  That  is  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent thing  from  thinking  for  me,  or 
showing  me  what  to  think.    The  Rus- 


494 


THE   BOOKMAN 


sian  Revolution  is  so  confused  in  a 
multitude  of  issues  that  it  is  difficult 
to  maintain  an  even  keel.  He  who 
shows  me  how  to  bring  candor  and 
open-mindedness  to  bear  on  this  great 
problem  has  rendered  no  slight  serv- 
ice. Candor  and  open-mindedness  are 
the  distinguishing  features  of  Mr. 
Sayler's  work.  This  is  shown  even  in 
such  a  minor  matter  as  the  title  of  his 
book.  I  confess  that  the  alternative 
form,  "Russia  White  or  Red",  troubled 
me  until  I  had  read  the  book.  But  the 
book  gives  the  answer.  There  are  not 
two  Russias  today.  There  is  only  one 
Russia.  She  is  confused,  distracted, 
her  transportation  is  broken  down, 
her  money  is  valueless,  her  people  are 
starving.  At  her  borders,  the  Allied 
policy — enlightened  or  selfish — ^has 
thrown  a  fringe  of  little  states  to  keep 
her  from  the  outside  world.  But  Rus- 
sia is  a  unit.  Russia  is  not  indulging 
in  a  debate  in  which  sooner  or  later 
she  will  take  sides.  She  is  blundering 
into  new  paths  with  nothing  to  guide 
her  but  her  own  genius. 

Another  thing  is  clear.  Except  for 
the  economic  features,  which  we  are 
tending  to  overdo  in  these  days,  Rus- 
sia is  sufficient  to  herself.  No  nation 
of  the  western  world  is  so  well 
equipped  to  live  spiritually  upon  her 
own  forces.  This  is  shown  in  the  thea- 
tre as  well  as  in  the  Revolution.  The 
Russian  theatre  has  been  source, 
model,  and  inspiration  to  the  rest  of 
the  world.  It  has  not  received  a  cor- 
responding influence  from  without. 
In  the  repertories  of  the  Russian  thea- 
tre one  finds  a  little  of  Ibsen,  a  little 
of  Hauptmann ;  a  favorite  is  the  "Sa- 
lome" of  Wilde.  But  there  is  no  ar- 
tistic  drang   nach   osten   from   the 


western  world  into  Russia.  The  ten- 
dency is  all  the  other  way.  Even 
Japan  has  shown  more  of  the  effects 
of  the  philosophy  of  the  western  world 
than  has  Russia. 

Two  further  points  demand  a  word 
of  mention.  The  author's  statement 
of  the  position  of  the  Czech  regiments 
in  Russia,  throwing,  as  it  does,  an 
elucidating  light  on  the  loss  of  Ad- 
miral Koltchak,  should  be  read  by 
everyone  interested  in  Allied  policy  in 
Russia.  And  no  less  salutary  would 
it  be  for  many  Americans  to  taste  the 
author's  censure  of  America's  preten- 
sions in  Russia,  our  easy  disposition 
to  take  an  attitude  of  authority  on 
matters  of  which  we  hardy  know  the 
alphabet,  "our  tendency  to  let  benevo- 
lence take  the  place  of  understand- 
ing". 

The  writer  of  these  words  did  not 
get  into  Russia.  But  he  did  stand  in 
her  Baltic  front-yard,  now  broken  into 
kitchen  middens,  and  wait  for  Petro- 
grad  to  fall.  Now  and  then  there 
came  word  from  without  that  Petro- 
grad  was  soon  to  come  into  the  hands 
of  the  opponents  of  Bolshevism. 
While  we  were  waiting  we  heard  a 
crash,  and  learned  that  Odessa  had 
fallen.  But  she  fell  inward.  Denikin 
advanced  from  the  south  and  retreated 
again.  Koltchak  established  a  White 
capital  at  Omsk,  and  was  dispossessed 
and  led  to  his  doom.  There  have  been 
many  crises,  but  Petrograd  has  not 
fallen.  If  you  want  to  know  why  Pet- 
rograd has  not  fallen,  it  may  be  well 
to  read  these  two  books. 


The  Ruulan  Theatre  Under  the  Berolntion. 
By  OUyer  M.  Sayler.    Little,  Brown  and  Co. 

Russia  White  or  Red.  By  OUyer  M.  Sayler. 
Little.  Brown  and  Co. 


CERTAIN  DRAMAS  OF  DAILY  LIFE 


BY  MONTROSE  J.  MOSES 


THE  drama  abhors  a  closed  door. 
There  is  no  form  of  literature 
that  can  penetrate  so  deeply,  so  swiftly 
to  the  very  heart  of  life  lived  by  ac- 
tual i>eople ;  no  form  that  shows  more 
accurately  the  interplay  of  characters. 
You  cannot  fill  up  the  interstices  with 
description;  you  cannot  pause  over 
personal  emotion;  you  cannot  halt 
your  plot  by  side  issues,  however  in- 
teresting. All  these  are  given  to  the 
novelist;  to  the  dramatist  they  are 
denied.  But  he  has  his  compensations ; 
he  omits  circumlocutions.  In  fact,  he 
does  not  have  to  knock  on  the  door  for 
entrance;  he  just  goes  in,  unexpect- 
edly and  unawares;  he  senses  a  social 
problem  at  its  imminent  height;  he 
stands  unseen,  as  referee  between  the 
younger  generation  and  the  older. 
There  are  some  writers  solely  con- 
cerned with  the  social  or  moral  issues ; 
to  them  the  thesis  is  paramount.  But 
there  is  another  type  of  realistic 
drama  much  more  potent — ^the  one 
where  character  is  more  interesting 
than  statement;  where  judicial  poise 
is  subservient  to  faithfulness  of  hu- 
man reaction;  where  sense  is  not 
allowed  to  outweigh  common  sense. 

The  tragical  in  daily  life — ^which  is 
neither  the  old  tragedy  nor  the  thesis 
plea — has  almost  created  a  type  of 
play  peculiarly  its  own.  There  were 
intimations  of  it  long  ago  in  Henry 
Arthur  Jones  and  Pinero;  but  it  soon 
became    conventionalized    in    society 


drama — ^where  the  only  doors  to  open 
were  those  of  the  drawing-room  or  the 
bedroom;  and  where  there  was  no 
wallpaper  design  of  varied  color,  but 
the  same  old  primrose  path  of  dal- 
liance with  whitewashed  heroines  to 
greet  the  eye.  St.  John  Ervine  is 
among  those  who  have  lately,  through 
dexterous  faithfulness,  reached  the 
limit  of  realistic  portrayal  in  the  new 
type  of  play.  It  is  well  to  consider 
him  because  of  the  unusual  perform- 
ance of  his  "John  Ferguson"  by  the 
Theatre  Guild  in  New  York  last  sea- 
son, and  because  of  the  recent  produc- 
tion by  the  same  organization  of  his 
"Jane  Clegg",  while  Mr.  Ervine  was 
visiting  this  country.  No  matter 
whether  you  read  or  see  the  former 
play,  you  instinctively  turn  to  the  rep- 
ertory of  the  Abbey  Theatre  Players 
for  comparison.  An  Irish  drama,  no 
matter  what  its  political  differences, 
its  religious  problems,  its  social  por- 
traiture, is  always  of  the  same  rhythm, 
has  always  the  same  color  for  a  back- 
ground, and  has  always,  criss-crossed 
in  it  like  the  fine  veining  of  marble,  a 
native  humor  of  character, — ^the  spe- 
cial genius  of  the  present  generation 
of  Irish  writers.  Witness  Padraic 
Colum  and  Lennox  Robinson.  In  so 
far  may  Ervine  lay  kinship  to  local  in- 
fiuence. 

Nevertheless,  after  reading  his  plays 
and  novels,  one  places  him  outside  that 
literary  renaissance  so  soulf  ully  cham- 


495 


496 


THE  BOOKMAN 


pioned  by  Yeats,  so  successfully  moth- 
ered by  Lady  Gregory.  This  may  be 
because  his  traditions  are  of  Ulster, 
not  of  the  South.  It  may  be  because 
of  his  Protestantism,  his  unprovin- 
cialism  as  a  London  journalist,  his 
repertorial  observation  rather  than 
poetic  creativeness.  "The  Magnani- 
mous Lover"  and  "Mixed  Marriage'' 
were  produced  during  the  Yeats-Greg- 
ory regime  at  the  Abbey;  their  ac- 
ceptance was  an  indication  that  the 
Irish  theatre  could  not  live  by  dreams 
alone.  "John  Ferguson"  was  seen  at 
the  Abbey  while  Ervine  was  the  man- 
ager, and  this  was,  as  Ernest  Boyd 
has  so  discriminatingly  stated,  when 
the  Irish  Repertory  Theatre  was  on  a 
new  road — ttie  road  of  Irish  realism, 
corresponding  somewhat  to  the  Eng- 
lish realism. 

So,  we  must  not  regard  Ervine  as 
of  the  school  of  Yeats,  nor  of  the  tra- 
dition of  Synge,  nor  of  the  Gaelic 
propagandism  of  Douglas  Hyde.  He 
is  a  journalist,  with  no  idea  of  "re- 
viving" anjrthing;  merely  an  excellent 
writer,  viewing  his  country  as  rich  in 
character, — ^which  is  more  interesting 
by  far  to  him  than  the  fabric  of  legend 
upon  which  Yeats  embroiders  his  po- 
etic designs.  You  cannot  compare  Er- 
vine with  Synge,  whose  pen  was  moved 
by  his  spiritual  nature,  whose  people 
were  shaped  by  the  hidden  force  of 
their  emotions.  Ervine  obtains  move- 
ment in  his  dramas  through  the  skill 
and  dexterity  with  which  they  are  con- 
structed. Their  action  is  consciously 
external,  not  internal.  Yet,  in  none 
of  his  plays  can  one  criticize  St.  John 
Ervine  for  his  lack  of  rich  comprehen- 
sion of  the  strength  and  wealmess  of 
Irish  nature.  He  is  merely  showing 
the  manner  of  his  type — ^the  manner 
of  realistic  treatment  of  the  tragical 
in  daily  life. 

Recall  the  Irish  plays  you  have  read 


or  seen  since  the  visit  of  the  Irish 
players  to  America.  Their  genius  is 
of  the  same  stuff;  poetry  is  bred  in 
their  bone  as  music  is  part  of  their 
speech.  Superstition  and  the  mystic 
and  a  certain  quality  of  humor  are  of 
them,  as  the  color  of  their  hair,  the 
beauty  of  their  skin,  the  flash  of  their 
eye  are  part  of  their  distinctive 
beauty.  It  is  not  the  poet  who  made 
the  idmond  eye  and  the  cherry-blos- 
soms of  Japan.  But  the  poet  can  make 
the  most  of  them  in  art.  That  is  the 
local  influence. 

All  of  Ervine's  important  plays  have 
been  seen  in  America:  "The  Magnani- 
mous Lover",  "Mixed  Marriage", 
"John  Ferguson",  and  "Jane  Clegg". 
They  show  him  interested  in  unyield- 
ing religious  training,  in  conflict  of 
religious  differences,  in  the  younger 
generation  breaking  through  tradi- 
tion and  the  God-fearing  dictates  of 
parents.  Both  "John  Ferguson"  and 
"Jane  Clegg"  are  apparent  pieces  of 
work,  in  the  theatre  and  in  the  book. 
The  whole  vitality  of  the  former  play 
is  dependent  not  on  plot,  but  on  the 
way  John  Ferguson's  character  acts 
as  the  ebb-tide  against  which  the 
young  folk  beat  in  their  efforts  to 
reach  the  stream  of  a  larger  life.  We 
know  everything  that  is  going  to  hap- 
pen, yet  there  is  cumulative  suspense 
notwithstanding.  The  piece  is  ex- 
cellently dramatic,  despite  certain 
prolixity  of  dialogue.  I  can  think  of 
no  recent  play  where  the  dramatist 
more  completely  shows  every  card  in 
his  hand.  Yet  Ferguson's  severe  bib- 
lical piety,  the  son's  young  conscience 
torn  by  law,  and  the  final  crumbling  of 
Protestant  rectitude — ^all  these  are 
absorbing  in  the  acted  play. 

Where  one  feels  Ervine  failing  is  in 
the  conclusion  of  his  story,  which  in- 
dicates his  limitations  as  an  artist.  It 
may  be  true  to  life  for  men  like  Fer- 


CERTAIN  DRAMAS  OF  DAILY  LIFE 


497 


guson,  no  matter  what  bittemesB  over- 
takes them,  to  fall  back  on  religious 
smugness ;  it  may  be  true  for  mothers 
of  a  certain  type  to  be  calculating  with 
the  souls  of  their  children.  But  we 
expect  some  spiritual  reactions  from 
a  girl  who  has  gone  through  dire  ex- 
periences for  which  her  brother  sac- 
rifices himself.  Sympathy  dwindles  in 
"John  Ferguson",  and  there  remain 
the  bare  husks  of  a  Puritan  philos- 
ophy, neither  refreshing  to  contem- 
plate nor  comforting  to  remember. 
We  do  not  care  for  the  future  of  any 
of  these  characters:  the  truism  that 
life  often  hangs  by  the  bare  thread  of 
accident  strikes  us  with  no  poignancy; 
for  it  does  not  touch  the  profundities. 
Blame  this  on  certain  limitations  of 
the  realistic  play,  yet  Ervine  must 
himself  be  judged  for  his  lack  of  in- 
terest in  the  spiritual  outcome. 

"Jane  Clegg"  exhibits  the  same 
mathematical  precision  of  plot  struc- 
ture as  "John  Ferguson";  it  is  even 
more  of  an  external  piece.  It  is  less 
native  and  racy,  because  it  is  more 
English.  If  there  is  a  thesis  to  the 
play,  it  is  to  show  the  falsity  of  the 
marriage  oath  that  a  woman  must 
take  a  man  for  worse.  But  there  is  an 
accumulation  of  circumstances  shap- 
ing the  hardness  of  Jane  Clegg,  the 
worst  of  all  being  old  mother  Clegg, 
who  is  forever  spoiling  her  grand- 
children, and  condoning  the  sins  of 
her  son  by  copybook  morality.  Here 
the  tragical  in  daily  life  is  unillu- 
mined,  despite  the  action  which  drives 
Henry  Clegg  from  his  home.  It's  a 
clever  picture,  but,  as  in  Barker's 
"The  Madras  House",  there  is  no  soft 
tone  to  the  print.  Jane  is  positive  and 
correct  in  what  she  does,  but  her  re- 
volt leaves  her  unresponsive  spiritu- 
ally. Contrast  her  with  Nora,  in  "A 
Doll's  House",  after  the  great  scene 
with  Thorvald. 


I  cannot  rate  Ervine's  dramatic 
workmanship  above  his  ability  as  a 
novelist,  revealed,  for  instance,  in  his 
novel  "Changing  Winds" — one  of  the 
best  of  war  stories  and  studies.  But 
his  plays  are  in  many  ways  an  indica- 
tion of  his  journalistic  development. 
As  a  boy,  we  are  told,  he  feasted  on 
the  Bible,  Fox's  "Book  of  Martyrs",  and 
"Paradise  Lost" — ^a  strong  literary 
diet  for  a  youth !  The  Bible  and  Fox 
crept  into  the  make-up  of  Ferguson, 
but  no  nationalism  has  crept  into  his 
work,  despite  his  coming  from  Belfast. 
It  is  not  as  an  Irishman  that  he  writes 
in  "Mixed  Marriage" :  "Ye  cudden  tell 
the  differs  atween  a  Cathlik  an'  a 
Prodesan  if  ye  met  them  in  the  street 
an'  diddeh  know  what  their  religion 
wus."  Bom  in  Ireland  thirty-six  years 
ago,  there  is  the  London  cut  to  his 
mind.  The  interest  in  his  dramas 
when  projected  on  the  stage  is  de- 
pendent on  the  way  the  characters  are 
played.  Fortunately,  in  the  main,  they 
have  been  well  presented.  But,  as  lit- 
erature, their  literary  flavor  is  jour- 
nalistic— ^not  a  bad  attribute,  but  bad 
in  comparison  with  the  Irish  and  Eng- 
lish writing  of  the  recent  Renaissance. 

And  just  here  is  the  superiority  of 
John  Masefield's  "The  Tragedy  of 
Nan" — that  its  flavor  is  the  richness  of 
the  soil  from  which  it  seems  to  spring 
— ^the  elemental  strain  which  deepens 
situation  and  struggle.  The  moral 
agony  of  Nan — ^the  agony  of  joy  in 
love,  of  pain  in  daily  living,  her  bitter- 
ness out  of  love — all  constitute  a 
tragedy  of  soul  rather  than  a  shaping 
of  plot.  The  style  is  heightened  prose, 
like  Synge's — and  the  poetic  interplay 
of  suggestion  and  response  between 
Gaffer  and  Nan  before  she  finally  kills 
herself — so  different  from  the  scene 
between  Clutie  and  Andrew  in  "John 
Ferguson" — ^yet  both  the  better  for 
pruning  in  the  stage  version — is  writ- 


498 


THE   BOOKMAN 


ten  with  the  feeling  of  the  poet 
rather  than  with  the  eye  of  the  re- 
porter. There  are  two  things  said  by 
Masefield  in  the  foreword  to  the 
printed  play  which  show  the  web  and 
woof  of  "Nan".  "Tragedy  at  its  best", 
he  writes,  "is  a  vision  of  the  heart  of 
life."  It,  therefore,  goes  further  than 
the  realistic  tragedy.  Again,  "Our 
plasrwrights  have  all  the  powers  except 
that  power  of  exultation  which  comes 
from  a  delightful  brooding  on  exces- 
sive, terrible  things."  Andrew,  in 
"John  Ferguson",  might  have  been  the 
vivid  picture  that  Nan  will  always  re- 
main, had  Ervine  what  Masefield  has 
to  a  wonderful  degree — a  "delightful 
brooding  on  excessive,  terrible  things". 
"The  Tragedy  of  Nan"  is  actable, 
but  it  is  not  the  theatrically  effective 
piece  that  either  "John  Ferguson"  or 
"Jane  Clegg"  is.  Yet  its  situations 
are  almost  melodramatic  in  their  sus- 
pense. Its  slowness  may  be  because 
there  is  noble  writing  in  the  dialogue, 
and  noble  writing  is  not  always  mov- 
ing in  the  theatrical,  structural  sense. 
Nan's  brooding  is  a  spiritual  surging 
of  youth — all  warm  and  live  and  pas- 
sionate. Here  is  no  photograph,  but 
a  canvas  rich  in  color.  One  some- 
times, while  witnessing  the  play,  al- 


most wishes  that  Masefield  had  an  eye 
to  those  externals  which  Ervine 
watches  so  closely.  It  would  make  him 
swifter  on  the  stage  whenever  his  fine 
literary  sense  lingers.  As  sheer  act- 
able writing  goes,  Ervine  is  better  in 
both  "Ferguson"  and  "Clegg"  than 
Masefield  in  "Nan".  But  vision 
brought  to  reality  makes  of  "Nan"  the 
superior  play. 

These  three  plays  mentioned  show 
to  me  clearly  the  limitations  of  a  too 
real  reality  in  drama,  and  the  signifi- 
cant beauty  of  exultation  in  character 
portrayal.  We  have  our  choice,  and  I 
believe  we  have  passed  the  point  of 
painting  the  things  as  they  are :  we've 
gone  beyond  Shaw  and  Brieux  in  con- 
tent if  not  in  dexterity.  The  eye  has 
too  long  been  pampered  in  drama 
while  the  spirit  thirsted.  The  era  of 
doors  that  lead  to  conditions  of  time 
and  place  seems  to  be  at  an  end:  doors 
that  open  on  drawing-rooms  and  bed- 
rooms are  giving  place  to  doors  that 
open  on  to  human  souls. 


John  Ferguson.  By  St.  John  Eryine.  The 
Macmillan  Co. 

Jane  Clegg.  By  St.  John  Ervine.  Henry 
Holt  and  Co. 

The  Tragedy  of  Nan.  By  John  Masefield. 
The  Macmillan  Co. 


LOOKING  AHEAD  WITH  THE  PUBLISHERS 


'  I  ^hE  great  majority  of  mortals — I 
X  include  myself — ^have  been  con- 
tent merely  to  think  of  "Shakespeare" 
as  the  greatest  of  English  dramatists, 
and  to  feel  that  the  actual  identity  of 
the  author  was  of  little  consequence 
when  taken  into  consideration  with 
the  importance  of  his  work.  "Shake- 
speare", be  he  William  Shakspere, 
Bacon,  or  another,  having  accom- 
plished the  greatest  achievement  in 
the  history  of  literature,  will  always 
be  secondary  to  that  achievement.  Yet 
there  have  always  been  enough  inquir- 
ing spirits  to  keep  alive  the  question 
of  the  actual  identity  of  "Shake- 
speare". The  weakness  of  the  Strat- 
f ordian  —  or  William  Shakspere  — 
theory  has  long  been  acknowledged. 
Among  those  who  feel  that  tardy  jus- 
tice should  be  done  to  some  person  un- 
known for  the  quite  evidently  mis- 
placed credit  of  the  authorship  is  J. 
Thomas  Looney,  whose  "Shakespeare 
Identified"  will  soon  be  published  by 
Stokes.  His  conclusions  are  as  un- 
usual and  startling  as  his  investiga- 
tions have  been  complete.  "At  the  be- 
ginning", the  author  states  in  his  in- 
troduction, "it  was  mainly  the  fascina- 
tion of  an  interesting  enquiry  that 
held  me,  and  the  matter  was  pursued 
in  the  spirit  of  simple  research.  As 
the  case  developed,  however,  it  has 
tended  increasingly  to  assume  the 
form  of  a  serious  purpose,  aiming  at 
a  long  overdue  act  of  justice  and  repa- 
ration   to    an    unappreciated    genius 


who,  we  believe,  ought  now  to  be  put 
in  possession  of  his  rightful  honours; 
and  to  whose  memory  should  be  ac- 
corded a  gratitude  proportionate  to 
the  benefits  he  has  conferred  upon 
mankind  in  general,  and  the  lustre  he 
has  shed  upon  England  in  particular." 
This  "unappreciated  genius"  is  Ed- 
ward de  Vere,  seventeenth  Earl  of  Ox- 
ford, who  apparently  fits  the  "Shake- 
speare" mold  without  a  flaw.  Mr. 
Looney  has  carried  his  investigations 
to  the  point  where  they  deserve  the 
serious  consideration  of  experts.  How 
many  of  the  premises  stated  in 
"Shakespeare  Identified"  will  be  admit- 
ted by  those  who  hold  the  Stratfordian 

view,  is  a  matter  for  speculation. 
*  *  *  * 

The  author  of  "Uncensored  Celebri- 
ties", E.  T.  Raymond,  will  publish 
through  Henry  Holt  and  Company  a 
new  volume  of  sketches  under  the  title 
of  "All  and  Sundry".  From  the  Amer- 
ican point  of  view  the  accent  should  be 
placed  rather  strongly  on  the  "Sun- 
dry", as  the  subjects  of  the  sketches — 
with  a  few  exceptions — are  English- 
men but  slightly  known  to  our  reading 
public.  Undoubtedly  the  most  inter* 
esting  of  the  exceptions  is  the  charac* 
terization  —  flattering  or  uncompli- 
mentary, as  you  will— of  President 
Wilson.  Of  the  change  in  Europe's 
attitude  toward  Woodrow  Wilson  Mr. 
Raymond  very  honestly  says:  "One 
feels  just  a  little  as  one  does  on  taking 
tea  with  a  Bishop  after  he  has  deliv- 


499 


500 


THE   BOOKMAN 


ered  his  charge.  The  lawn  sleeves  are 
no  longer  there,  and  the  gaiters  are 
very  visible;  one  is  conscious  of  the 
fallible  human  being,  the  more  con- 
scious because  of  the  veneration  lately 
felt  for  him  in  his  pontifical  character. 
Bishops  ought  never  to  take  tea,  or  to 

forsake  splendid  generalities." 

«  «  «  « 

Proceeding  on  the  Darwinian  the- 
ory that  man  has  descended,  or  as- 
cended, from  the  ape,  it  is  easy  to  im- 
agine that  the  civilization  of  man 
might  easily  have  been  instead,  by  a  dif- 
ferent development,  the  civilization  of 
the  lion  or  any  other  animal.  We 
might  have  had,  for  instance,  a  world 
ruled  by  lions,  by  goats,  or  guinea 
pigs.  Clarence  Day  has  compared  the 
world-as-it-is  with  the  world-as-it- 
might-have-been  in  a  rather  amusing 
and  clever  fashion.  "This  Simian 
World"  will  soon  be  published  by 
Knopf.  It  is  one  of  the  few  books  con- 
cerning this  much-harassed  globe, 
which  makes  me  feel  that  things,  bad 
as  they  may  be  at  present,  might  have 
been  worse.  Oliver  Herford  set  an 
admirable  example  in  guying  this  too 
bothersome  universe  in  his  "Giddy 
Globe".  When  he  completed  his  book 
he  said:  "This  globe,  you  know,  is  not 
all  it's  cracked  up  to  be.    It  ought  to 

be  abolished." 

«  «  «  « 

Virginia  Woolf,  latest  addition  to 
that  brightly-shining  constellation  of 
English  realists  which  includes  Wal- 
pole,  Bennett,  Wells,  Beresford,  and 
Swinnerton,  will  soon  publish  her  first 
novel  through  George  H.  Doran  Com- 
pany. "The  Voyage  Out"  is  fearless, 
almost  disconcertingly  so.  Leaning 
somewhat  toward  the  introspection  of 
Swinnerton's  "September",  it  leaves 
the  sense  of  being  more  vital,  more 
powerful,  equally  engrossing.  There 
is  something  greater  than  talent  that 


marks  this  book.  Cleverness  it  un- 
doubtedly has.  But  it  has  a  further 
poignancy  of  emotion  and  an  e3ctent  of 
originality  which  bring  the  conviction 
of  genius.  And  her  humor  is  based 
on  the  fundamental  absurdities  of  or- 
dinary people  brought  together  under 
the  most  commonplace  of  circum- 
stances. It  is  more  than  possible  that 
those  unfortunate  readers  who  prefer 
their  literature  put  up,  like  their  medi- 
cine, in  candy  form,  will  leave  *The 
Voyage  Out"  at  the  first  port  of  call, 
if  they  do  not  indeed  abandon  it  in 

mid-ocean. 

«  «  «  « 

Houghton  Mifflin  announce  as  an 
important  May  publication,  "The  New 
Bee",  by  Vernon  Kellogg  of  Hoover's 
Belgian  staff.  Turning  to  the  realm 
of  natural  history,  like  Mr.  Day  in 
"This  Simian  World",  Mr.  Kellogg 
takes  for  his  heroine  a  lady  of  the  race 
of  bees — one  Nuova  by  name.  Nuova, 
though  a  worker,  finds  time  between 
seasons  to  fall  in  love  (this  I  have  al- 
ways been  led  to  believe  was  the  pre- 
rogative of  the  Queen)  and  goes 
through  adventures  allegorical  and  sa- 
tirical. The  story  as  a  whole  is  a 
rather   clever   caricature    of   certain 

types  of  modern  women. 

«  «  «  « 

Herman  Klein  some  years  ago  began 
with  Adelina  Patti  a  record  of  the 
latter's  extraordinary  career.  Other 
important  matters  prevented  Mme. 
Patti  from  carrying  out  the  original 
plan,  but  Mr.  Klein,  a  musical  critic 
and  scholar  of  eminent  ability,  com- 
pleted the  biography,  writing  in  full 
the  story  of  her  life.  A  generation 
was  born,  grew  to  maturity,  and 
passed  on  to  the  haven  of  "The  Lost 
Chord",  while  Mme.  Patti  sang  her 
glorious  way  around  the  world.  Be- 
ginning at  the  age  of  seven,  for  nearly 
sixty  years  her  fiaming  genius  held 


LOOKING  AHEAD  WITH  THE  PUBLISHERS 


501 


undoubted  supremacy  in  the  world  of 
music.  "The  Reign  of  Patti",  soon  to 
be  published  by  the  Century  Company, 
shows  in  its  meticulous  characteriza- 
tion of  Adelina  Patti  and  in  its  in- 
sight into  the  life  of  so  splendid  a 
genius,  the  worthwhile  results  of  years 
of  labor. 

Those  whose  interest  has  been 
aroused  by  the  rather  unusual  work 
of  the  Provincetown  Players  will  I  am 
sure  be  interested  in  the  publication 
of  eight  one-act  plays,  by  Susan  Glas- 
pell,  which  brought  so  much  fame  to 
the  Little  Theatre  movement.  Susan 
Glaspell  (Mrs.  George  Cram  Cook) 
has  been  one  of  the  mainstays  of  the 
Provincetown  Players.  Her  "Plays" 
are  to  be  published  by  Small,  Maynard 

and  Company. 

«  «  «  « 

Catherine  CarswelFs  "Open  the 
Door'',  which  has  just  won  the  Mel- 
rose £250  first-novel  prize  in  London, 
is  announced  for  June  publication  by 
Harcourt,  Brace  and  Howe.  As  a 
story  of  a  girl's  natural  swing  from 
repression  to  unconventional  freedom, 
it  will  probably  undergo  a  large  meas- 
ure of  discussion  and  criticism. 
«  «  «  « 

A  new  epic  of  maternity  is  to  be 
published  by  the  Bobbs-Merrill  Com- 
pany. It  is  "The  Prairie  Mother", 
written  by  Arthur  Stringer.  The  au- 
thor may  well  claim  to  be  the  Julian 
Eltinge  of  modem  literature ;  indeed, 
it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  he  has  not, 
himself,  borne  twins.  I  find  my  il- 
lusions regarding  the  buoyant,  care- 
free life  on  the  western  plains — of 
Canada — destroyed  by  this  diary  of 
lost  fortunes,  lost  children,  lost  crops, 
and  lost  husbands.  The  heroine 
mother  commands  deep  respect  for  the 


dauntless  courage  and  endurance 
which  allowed  her  to  write  so  copious 
a  diary.  There  are  some  who — ^like 
myself — shy  at  any  diary,  some  who 
may  object  strenuously  upon  folding 
the  principal  characters  named: 
Dinky-Dunk  (father) ;  Pee  Wee  and 
Popsy  (the  twins)  ;  Dinkie  (the  other 
child),  etc.,  etc.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  are  assuredly  quite  a  few  who 
will  say  when  they  reach  the  last  page, 
"Oh,  so  grand  and  sad — ^with  such  a 
happy  ending.' 


9» 


That  part  of  the  late  war  fought  in 
Mesopotamia  has  never  been  credited 
with  its  true  importance,  for  like  our 
own  Revolution,  it  was  secondary  to 
the  great  events  occurring  in  France. 
Much  time  will  probably  elapse  before 
the  record  of  the  Indian  Army  re- 
ceives the  credit  due  its  heroic  action 
against  the  Turks.  Greneral  Town- 
shend,  "the  hero  of  Kut",  has  vrritten 
a  detailed  and  graphic  story  of  that 
hundred-to-one-shot,  disastrous  expe- 
dition. One  of  the  cleverest  strate- 
gists of  that  British  Army,  General 
Townshend  made  a  brilliant  advance 
toward  Bagdad  against  overwhelming 
numbers.  At  last  he  was  besieged  by 
a  great  Turkish  army  at  Kut-el- 
Amara,  where  he  and  his  small  force 
kept  up  a  courageous  resistance  for 
nearly  twenty  weeks.  Then  the  inev- 
itable surrender  came.  Greneral  Town- 
shend has  been  severely  criticized  for 
not  demanding  more  strongly  a  larger 
force;  in  "My  Campaign  in  Mesopo- 
tamia" (to  be  published  by  the  James 
A.  McCann  Company),  he  admits  that 
he  never,  from  the  beginning,  had 
much  hope  of  success.  History  will 
no  doubt  show  more  clearly  the  conse- 
quences of  this  unfortunate  but 
bravely-fought  campaign. 


502 


THE   BOOKMAN 


FICTION  IN  DEMAND  AT  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 

COMPILID    BT    FRANK    PARKIB   STOCKBBIDGH    IN    COOPIRATION    WITH    THB    AMBRICAN 

LIBRARY    ASSOCIATION 

The  foUowinff  U»t»  of  hooka  in  demand  in  April  in  the  puhlio  lihrariea  of  the  United 
Btatee  have  been  compiled  from  reports  made  hy  two  hundred  repreeentative  lihrariee,  in  every 
section  of  the  country  and  in  cities  of  ail  siges  down  to  ten  thousand  population.  The  order  of 
choice  is  as  stated  by  the  lihraricms. 


NEW  YORK  AND  NEW  ENGLAND  STATES 


1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest 

2.  The  Great  Impersonation 

3.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

4.  Red  and  Black 

5.  The  House  of  Baltazar 

6.  The  Man  with  Three  Names 


Zane  Grey 

E.  Phillips  Oppenheim 
Ethel  M.  DeU 
Grace  S.  Richmond 
WiUiam  /.  Locke 
Harold  MacCrrath 


SOUTH  ATLANTIC  STATES 


1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest 

2.  The  River's  End 

3.  The  House  of  Baltazar 

4.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

l3rpse 

.5.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

6.  The  Great  Impersonation 


Zane  Grey 

James  Oliver  Cwnvood 

WiUiam  /.  Locke 

Vicewte  Blasco  Ibdnez 

Ethel  M.  DeU 

E.  Phillips  Oppenheim 


NORTH  CENTRAL  STATES 


1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest 

2.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 

3.  Red  and  Black 

4.  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 

lypse 

5.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

6.  The  River's  End 


Zane  Crrey 
Ha/rold  Bell  Wright 
Grace  S.  Richmond 

Vicente  Blasco  Ibdnez 

Ethel  M.  DeU 

James  Oliver  Cwnvood 


Harper 

Little,  Brown 

Putnam 

doubleday 

Lane 

doubleday 


Harper 

Cosmopolitan 

Lane 

DUTTON 

Putnam 
Little,  Brown 


Harper 

Book  Supply 

doubleday 

DUTTON 

Putnam 
Cosmopolitan 


SOUTH  CENTRAL  STATES 


1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest 

2.  The  River's  End 

3.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 

4.  The  Moon  and  Sixpence 

5.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

6.  Red  and  Black 


Zane  Grey  Harper 

Jam^s  Oliver  Curwood  Cosmopolitan 

Harold  BeU  Wright  BOOK  Supply 

W.  Somerset  Maugham  Doran 

Ethel  M.  DeU  Putnam 

Grace  S.  Richmond  Doubleday 


WESTERN  STATES 


1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest 

2.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 

3.  Jeremy 

4.  Mrs.  Marden 

5.  The  River's  End 

6.  The  Moon  and  Sixpence 


Zane  Grey 
Ha/rold  BeU  Wright 
Hugh  Walpole 
Robert  Hichens 
James  Oliver  Curwood 
W.  Somerset  Maugham 


FOR  THE  WHOLE  UNITED  STATES 


1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest 

2.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent 
8.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert 

4.  The  Great  Impersonation 

5.  The  River's  End 

6.  Red  and  Black 


Zane  Grey 

Harold  BeU  Wright 

Ethel  M.  DeU 

E.  PhiUips  Oppenheim 

James  Oliver  Curvx>od 

Graxie  S»  Richmond 


Harper 

Book  Supply 

Doran 

DORAN 

Cosmopolitan 
Doran 


Harper 

Book  Supply 

Putnam 

Little,  Brown 

Cosmopolitan 

Doubleday 


THE  BOOKMAN'S  MONTHLY  SCORE 


603 


GENERAL  BOOKS  IN  DEMAND  AT  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 

COMPILED     BY     FRANK      PABKIB     STOCKBRIDOB      IN     COOPEBATION     WITH     THE     AMERICAN      LIBRARY 

ASSOCIATION 

The  titles  have  been  scored  by  the  simple  process  of  giving  each  a  credit  of  six  for  each  time 
it  appears  as  first  choice,  and  so  down  to  a  score  of  one  for  each  time  it  appears  in  siwth  place. 
The  total  score  for  each  section  and  for  the  whole  country  determines  the  order  of  choice  in  the 
table  herewith. 

NEW  YORK  AND  NEW  ENGLAND  STATES 


1. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace                                                John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

2. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children                                            Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCKIBNER 

3. 

Abraham  Lincoln                                 John  DHnkwater 

Houghton 

4. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams        Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

5. 

"Marse  Henry"                                   Hen/ry  Watterson 

DORAN 

6. 

Raymond                                               Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

SOUTH  ATLANTIC  STATES 

DORAN 

1. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children                                            Joseph  Bticklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

2. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace                                                John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

3. 

Raymond                                               Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

4. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams        Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

5. 

A  Labrador  Doctor                             Wilfred  T,  Crrenfell 

Houghton 

6. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas      Frederick  O'Brien 

NORTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

Century 

1. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace                                                John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

2. 

Abraham  Lincoln                                 John  Drinkwater 

Houghton 

3. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas      Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

4. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children                                            Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

5. 

Raymond                                               Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

6. 

A  Labrador  Doctor                               Wilfred  T.  Grenfell 

SOUTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

Houghton 

1. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children                                            Joseph  Bticklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

2. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams        Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

3. 

Raymond                                              Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

4. 

Abraham  Lincoln                                 John  Drinkwater 

Houghton 

5. 

"Marse  Henry"                                     Henry  Watterson 

DORAN 

6. 

The  Seven  Purposes                            Margaret  Cameron 

WESTERN  STATES 

Harper 

1. 

Raymond                                               Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

2. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace                                                John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

3. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams        Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

4. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children                                            Joseph  Bticklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

5. 

Raymond                                               Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

6. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas      Frederick  O'Brien 

FOR  THE  WHOLE  UNITED  STATES 

Century 

1. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace                                                John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

2. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children                                           Joseph  Bticklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

3. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams        Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

4. 

A  Labrador  Doctor                             Wilfred  T.  Grenfell 

Houghton 

5. 

Raymond                                              Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

Doran 

6. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas      Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


AN  excellent  idea,  indeed  I  Rapidly 
.developing — since  it  was  lately 
first  put  into  effect — into  an  institution, 
and  into  a  force  of  great  benefit  to  the 
cause  of  the  dissemination  of  books, 
and  to  the  wider  and  at  the  same  time 
more  intimate  enjoyment  of  them. 

Marcella  Bums  (now  Mrs.  George 
M.  Hahner)  it  was  who,  at  any  rate  in 
this  country,  began  the  thing — with 
her  Book  Fair  at  the  Marshall  Field 
and  Company  store  in  Chicago,  some- 
thing less  than  a  year  ago.  (An  inter- 
esting account  of  this  most  successful 
Fair  was  vrritten  for  The  Bookman 
by  Fanny  Butcher,  of  the  Chicago 
"Tribune",  and  appeared  in  the  issue 
of  the  magazine  for  November-Decem- 
ber, 1919.) 

A  somewhat  similar  enterprise, 
though  one  of  a  happy  character  pe- 
culiar to  itself,  was  the  Hoosier  Book 
Exhibit,  recently  given  at  the  depart- 
ment store  of  L.  S.  Ayres  and  Com- 
pany in  Indianapolis,  and  conceived 
and  managed  by  Eleanor  Foster,  head 
of  the  book  department  there.  The 
distinctive  nature  of  this  collection 
and  display  of  the  works  (and  por- 
traits) of  Indiana  novelists,  poets,  and 
humorists  was  in  the  capitalizing  of 
local  sentiment.  It  is  probable  that 
Miss  Foster  will  herself,  for  the  bene- 
fit of  other  communities,  write  for 
The  Bookman  the  story  of  her 
"show".  Its  educational  value,  for  one 
thing,  was  (we  have  been  told  by  many 
Indianians)   a  godsend  to  them,  and 


henceforth  permits  them  to  mingle 
with  much  more  peace  of  mind  than 
before  in  cultivated  society  away  from 
home,  as  they  are  not  now  subject  to 
the  embarrassment  of  being  more  or 
less  "stumped"  when  asked  in  other 
states  to  tell  all  about  the  famous  au- 
thor crop  of  Indiana. 

Still  another  Book  Fair  was  given 
not  long  ago  in  Minneapolis. 

The  latest  venture  of  this  kind  is 
the  only  one  which  the  Gossip  Shop 
has  had  the  luck  to  see,  so  to  say,  "face 
to  face".  And  too  much,  we  feel,  we 
cannot  say  for  the  admirable  way  in 
which  that  one  was  "put  on",  and  also 
"put  over". 

The  large  and  handsome  store  of 
Scruggs-Vandervoort-Bamey,  in  the 
heart  of  St.  Louis,  had  until  recently, 
we  understand,  only  a  small  book  de- 
partment, on  the  first  fioor  of  their 
building.  This  spring,  however,  the 
management  of  "Vandervoort's",  as  it 
is  popularly  called  in  its  own  city, 
quite  changed  this  matter.  The  house 
now  has  an  extensive,  charmingly 
decorated,  and  well  stocked  bookstore 
located  on  the  sixth  floor,  a  floor  which 
it  shares,  most  appropriately,  with  a 
little  (and  not  so  little,  either)  world 
of  pianos,  and  on  which  is  a  delightful 
little  theatre,  referred  to  there  as  the 
auditorium  or  music  hall. 

This  bookstore  was  very  pleasantly 
christened,  as  you  might  say,  by  the 
giving  of  an  "Author's  We^',  April 
12  to  17,  in  which  a  number  of  vrriters 


604 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


606 


of  popularity  and  distinction  delivered 
informal  talks  on  books  in  the  music 
room.  Throughout  the  week,  also,  an 
exhibition  of  original  manuscripts  and 
illustrations  was  presented  in  the 
bookstore. 

William  Marion  Reedy,  a  far-famed 
literary  monument  of  St.  Louis,  and 
Editor  of  "Reedy's  Mirror",  presided 
(in  a  manner  which  in  itself  was 
worth  going  for  to  admire  and  enjoy) 
as  Master  of  Ceremonies  to  each  of 
the  authors. 

Among  the  speakers  announced  in 
the  program,  in  the  order  there  given, 
were :  Robert  Cortes  HoUiday,  Editor 
of  The  Bookman  ;  Mrs.  Jane  A.  Pier- 
son,  an  active  vrriter  for  magazines 
and  newspapers ;  Ellis  Parker  Butler; 
Max  Ehrmann,  an  Indiana  author  of  a 
number  of  books;  Douglas  Malloch, 
well-known  writer  on  outdoor  life; 
Dr.  Arthur  E.  Bostwick,  Editor  of  the 
Scientific  Department  of  "The  Liter- 
ary Digest"  and  Librarian  of  the  St. 
Louis  Public  Library;  Mrs.  Theron 
Colton,  of  Chicago,  public  worker  and 
lecturer  on  nature;  Percival  Chubb — 
twice  President  of  the  Drama  League 
of  America — ^who  has  vrritten  largely 
in  the  field  of  ethics  and  religion; 
Miss  Temple  Bailey,  a  St.  Louisian  by 
adoption,  and  author  of  "The  Tin  Sol- 
dier" ;  Mrs.  Mary  Dillon,  Louis  Dodge, 
Fannie  Hurst,  and  (the  "Week"  closed 
with  a  Children's  Day)  John  Martin, 
known  far  and  wide  as  the  "John  Mar- 
tin Book"  man. 

Murray  Hill,  who  was  observed  in 
the  audience  on  several  days,  may 
later  on  in  some  of  his  Bookman 
papers  have  something  more  intimate 
to  say  concerning  this  opening  of  a 
bookstore  on  which  we  congratulate 
"Vandervoort's",  and  St.  Louis. 


Cisco  to  New  York,  trying  to  buy 
copies  of  the  books  of  Mrs.  Wharton. 
He  has  been  annoyed  at  finding  them 
out  of  stock.  In  a  number  of  instances 
he  has  found  this  the  case,  and  for 
this  reason:  the  shortage  of  paper 
does  not  permit  generous  reprinting  of 
earlier  books  not  now  greatly  in  de- 
mand. "She",  says  Mr.  Lucas,  "is 
about  the  best  there  is,  in  England  or 
America."  A  full  description  of  Mr. 
Lucas's  picturesque  luggage  will  ap- 
pear in  an  early  article  by  Murray 
Hill,  who  assisted  the  Gossip  Shop  in 
putting  Mr.  Lucas  on  his  train  at  Chi- 
cago for  the  East. 


We  (the  Gossip  siiop)  have  been 
under  a  misapprehension — if  that's 
the  word.  At  any  rate,  the  fact  of  the 
matter  is  this:  we  had  somehow  got 
the  hunch  that  the  bookshop  not  long 
ago  opened  by  Doubleday,  Page  and 
Company  in  St.  Louis  was  a  hand-box 
affair,  trim  but  tiny,  like  their  little 
shop  in  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Station,  New  York.  Were  in  there  the 
other  day.  All  wrong.  Big  place. 
Large  stock.  Entrance  at  either  end. 
'Pologize.  Say  we're  sorry.  Our  mis- 
take entirely.  All  kinds  of  books. 
Quick  service.  Capable  people.  Quite 
right.  Sir;  quite  right. 


A  new  book  by  Carl  Sandburg  to  be 
published  this  fall,  and  on  which  he  is 
now  working,  is  to  be  called  (he  told 
the  Gossip  Shop  in  Chicago  the  other 
day)  "Smoke  and  Steel". 


E.  V.  Lucas  has  just  been  traveling 
across  the  continent  from  San  Fran- 


The  Gossip  Shop  learned  from  Booth 
Tarkington  in  Indianapolis  a  short 
time  ago  that  the  novel  he  is  now  vrrit- 
ing  is  to  be  called  "Alice  Adams" ,  the 
name  of  the  heroine,  who  is  "Alys" 
Adams  (as  she  spelled  herself  then) 
when  the  story  opens. 


606 


THE   BOOKMAN 


We  were  strolling  along  Washington 
Street  one  afternoon  a  couple  of  weeks 
(or  something  like  that)  ago,  and  we 
went  into  a  place  where  many  books, 
among  divers  and  sundry  other  things, 
are  sold.  There  we  were  informed 
that  the  book  most  constantly  in  de- 
mand at  that  place  was  Drummond's 
"The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World". 
Washington  Street?  Why,  in  Indian- 
apolis, of  course. 


Here  is  a  letter  just  received  (the 
story  referred  to  is  quoted  from  Wil- 
liam Webster  Ellsworth's  "A  Golden 
Age  of  Authors") : 

Dear  GoBBip  Shop : 

I  have  JoBt  been  looking  over  the  April  Book- 
man which,  by  the  way,  seems  to  interest  me 
more  than  any  other  periodical; — and  that 
Polar  Bear  yarn  won't  do.  David  War  field  used 
it  or  told  it  in  a  show  at  the  Casino  many  years 
ago.  It  yon  don't  believe  it,  ask  him.  It  is 
simply  dreadful  to  have  to  call  you  youngsters 
down. 

Most  cordially  and  sincerely  yours, 

S.   H.   WAKBMAN, 

Oldtimer 


Ellis  Parker  Butler  has  celebrated 
his  fiftieth  birthday  by  writing  "How 
it  Feels  to  be  Fifty",  just  published, 
in  which  he  says: 

At  lAfty  a  man  should  feel  younger  and 
stronger  and  more  fit  than  he  ever  felt  before. 
I  do.  Most  men  do,  I  believe.  Younger  fellows 
do  not  even  play  properly.  They  make  a  sort 
of  work  of  it.  It  is  not  until  a  man  is  fifty 
that  he  knows  that  golf  and  fishing  and  poker 
and  pinochle  are  play,  and  that  work  is  play, 
and  that  life  itself  is  kind  of  an  interesting  big 
game,  too. 

At  twenty  my  life  was  a  feverish  adventure, 
at  thirty  it  was  a  problem,  at  forty  it  was  a 
labor,  at  fifty  it  is  a  Joyful  Journey  well  begun. 

The  Shakespearian  anniversary 
month  is  notable  for  distinguished 
birthdays.  Harriet  Prescott  Spofford 
celebrated  her  eighty-fifth  birthday  on 
the  third  of  April,  two  weeks  after  the 
publication  of  her  book  of  short  stories 
"The  Elder's  People".  On  the  same 
day  in  California  John  Burroughs 
was  celebrating  his  eighty-third.    His 


next  book  is  expected  within  the  year. 
Edwin  Markham's  sixty-eighth  anni- 
versary is  marked  by  the  publication 
of  a  new  book  of  verse,  "Gates  of  Para- 
dise". 


"La  R6tisserie  de  la  Reine  P6dau- 
que"  of  Anatole  France  (who,  by  the 
way,  had  his  seventy-sixth  birthday  in 
April)  has  been  adapted  for  the  comic 
opera  stage.  Apropos  of  which  the 
"Mercure  de  France"  remarks : 

It  has  long  been  evident  that  laws  should  be 
passed  for  the  protection  of  masterpieces 
against  librettists.  But  one  would  never  have 
expected  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  protect 
such  works  against  their  own  authors;  nor 
would  one  have  expected  to  find  among  these 
delinquents  a  very  great  writer,  and  one  of  the 
finest  minds  that  our  country  has  produced. 


Professor  George  Baker  of  the  Har- 
vard "47-Work  Shop"  is  on  leave  of 
absence  in  Holland  and  England,  ob- 
taining material  for  a  pageant  which 
is  to  visualize  the  story  of  the  Pil- 
grims for  the  tercentenary  exercises 
at  Plymouth. 

"In  the  Days  of  the  Pilgrim  Fa- 
thers" by  Mary  Caroline  Crawford, 
just  issued  by  a  Boston  house,  is  among 
the  timely  volumes  of  interest  because 
of  this  approaching  celebration. 


Scotsmen  in  this  country  will  be 
particularly  interested  in  the  project 
of  the  newly-formed  Robert  Louis  Ste- 
venson Club  in  Edinburgh — ^that  city 
which  lacked  the  enthusiasm  several 
years  ago  to  erect  a  memorial  to  one 
of  its  most  brilliant  sons.  The  club  is 
said  to  have  started  with  350  members 
and  to  be  rapidly  growing.  Its  aim  is, 
of  course,  to  buy  the  house  in  which 
Stevenson  was  bom,  and  to  use  it  for 
a  museum  of  Stevensoniana.  Several 
contributions  of  value  have  been 
added  —  notably  some  unpublished 
manuscripts  donated  by  Sir  Sidney 
Colvin. 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


507 


In  anticipation  of  the  celebration, 
next  year,  of  the  centenary  of  Keats's 
death,  a  movement  has  been  started  in 
England  to  save  from  destruction 
''Lawn  Bank",  the  poet's  house  near 
Hampstead  Heath. 

This  house,  in  which  Keats  lived 
during  the  most  fruitful  period  of  his 
literary  career,  is  about  to  be  thrown 
on  the  market  as  an  "eligible  building 
site''.  A  representative  committee, 
which  includes  Sir  James  Barrie,  Dr. 
Robert  Bridges, — ^the  Poet  Laureate, 
— ^Thomas  Hardy,  Viscount  Bryce,  and 
H.  G.  Wells,  has  been  formed  with  the 
object  of  preserving  it  for  the  benefit 
of  the  public,  including  Americans 
who  visit  the  "literary  shrines"  of 
England. 

A  short-time  option  has  been  ob- 
tained to  afford  an  opportunity  of  pro- 
curing the  necessary  funds.  It  is  es- 
timated that  not  less  than  $50,000  will 
be  needed  for  the  purchase  and  main- 
tenance of  "Lawn  Bank"  as  a  Keats  Me- 
morial House.  "Lawn  Bank"  is  the 
house  which  Keats  and  his  circle  knew 
as  Wentworth  Place.  In  December, 
1818,  after  the  death  of  his  brother 
Tom,  Keats  went  to  live  there  with 
Charles  Brown,  and  this  was  his  home 
until  he  left  England  for  good  two 
years  later.  It  was  soon  after  he  went 
to  "Lawn  Bank"  that  he  became  en- 
gaged to  Fanny  Brawne.  Her  mother 
rented  the  cottage  while  Keats  and 
Brown  were  away  on  their  Scottish 
tour. 

Within  its  walls  or  under  the  shelter 
of  the  trees  which  still  flourish  in  its 
old-world  garden,  Keats  planned  and 
wrote.  The  old  mulberry  tree,  under 
which  he  is  said  to  have  written  his 
"Ode  to  a  Nightingale",  is  still  grow- 
ing. 

"The  place  of  his  death  in  Rome", 
state  the  committee  in  their  appeal, 
"is  piously  preserved,  but  England  has 


no  corresponding  memorial.  If  'Lawn 
Bank'  is  destroyed  no  similar  me- 
morial for  him  can  be  found  in  the 
land  of  his  birth.  Such  an  irreparable 
loss  would  be  deeply  and  permanently 
deplored." 


Whitman's  publishers  are  telling  the 
story  that  they  recently  received,  from 
a  Boston  schoolma'am,  a  letter  ad- 
dressed to 

Mr.  Walt  Whitman, 

c|o  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co., 

Garden  City,  Long  Island,  N.  Y. 

^LSASl  rOBWABD 

The  letter  read : 

Will  you  favor  me  by  sending  your  auto- 
graph? I  wish  my  sons  and  pupils  to  be  in- 
terested in  men  who  do  things  and  so  have 
secured  the  signatures  of  many  famous  men 
and  women — Pershing,  Carnegie,  Bell,  Bern- 
hardt, Balfour,  Taft,  etc.  etc. 

Thanking  you  in  advance  for  the  marlced 
courtesy,  I  am. 

Very  gratefully. 


Obviously  this  was  not  a  new  brand 
of  humor  at  the  Hub,  but  an  earnest 
inquiry  which  the  publishers  in  like 
spirit  referred  to  the  dealers  in  rare 
books,  MSS.,  and  autographs. 


Here  is  the  Deep  Sea  Shelf-— the  ten 
most  popular  books  of  the  sea — ^as  se- 
lected by  a  wide  ballot  of  landlubbers 
and  seafarers  alike  throughout  the 
country,  who  were  invited  to  record 
their  choice  at  the  recent  exhibit  in 
New  York  of  the  National  Marine 
League: 

1.  Treasure  IsUmd   Stevenson 

2.  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast,  .Dana 

3.  The  Sea  Wolf London 

4.  Captains  Courageous  Kipling 

6.  Twenty    Thousand    Leagues 

Under  the  Sea Verne 

6.  The  Cruise  of  the  Cachalot . .  Bullen 

7.  Under  Sail Riesenberg 

8.  Mr.  Midshipman  Easy Marryat 

9.  Lord  Jim  Conrad 

10.  The  Nigger  of  the  Narcissus  Conrad 


608 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Besides  the  Perfect  Ten,  the  follow- 
ing titles  received  the  greatest  num- 
ber of  votes : 

11.  Typhoon   Conrad 

12.  RolHnson  Crusoe Defoe 

18.  The  Wreck  of  the  Chroevenor  RasieU 

14.  Weetward  Hoi  Klngsley 

16.  Toilers  of  the  Sea Hugo 

16.  Sailing    Alone    Around    the 

World  Slocum 

17.  The  Pilot  Cooper 

18.  Dauber   Masefleld 

-  19.  Kidnapped   Stevenson 

20.  The  Seven  Seas   Kipling 

21.  Salt  Water  Ballads  Masefleld 

22.  The  Cruise  of  the  Snark  . . .  .London 

28.  Many  Cargoes Jacobs 

24.  Mohy  Dick Melville 

26.  Youth    Conrad 

26.  Tom  Cringle's  Log  Scott 

27.  The  Clipper  Ship  Bra Clark 

28.  Masterman  Ready    Marryat 

29.  The  Oreenhand Copples 

80.  The  Ancient  Mariner Coleridge 

Bl.  The  Mutiny  of  the  Blsinore  .London 

32.  Victory  Conrad 

88.  At  Sunwioh  Port   Jacobs 

84.  Typee    MelvlUe 

86.  Chance    Conrad 

86.  The  Sioiss  Family  Robinson,  .Wyss 

87.  Caleb  West,  Master  Diver  .  .Smith 

88.  The  Phantom  Ship Marryat 

89.  Out  of  Gloucester  Connolly 

40.  Mare  Nostrum    Blasco  Ibftfies 

41.  Casuals  of  the  Sea McFee 

42.  Two  Admirals Cooper 

48.  Peter  Simple Marryat 

44.  The  Mysterious  Island Verne 

45.  The  Brassbounder   Bone 

46.  The  Grain  Ship    Robertson 

47.  The  Influence  of  Sea  Power 

Upon  History   Mahan 

48.  Cappy  Ricks   Kyne 

49.  Sinful  Peck  Robertson 

60.  Sailor's  Log    Evans 

William  McFee  proposed  as  "The 
Seafarer's  Library": 

Tom  Cringle's  Log   Scott 

Two  Tears  Before  the  Mast  ....  Dana 

Mr.  Midshipman  Easy  Marryat 

Captains  Courageous Kipling 

The  Flying  Cloud  Roberts 

The  Cruise  of  the  CaohtOot BuUen 

The  Log  of  a  SeorWaif Bullen 

The  Salving  of  a  Derelict Drake 

The  Grain  Carriers Noble 

Marooned    Russell 

Typhoon    Conrad 

Toilers  of  the  Sea Hugo 

An  Iceland  Fisherman   Lotl 

The  Sea  Surgeon D'Annunslo 

The  Sea  Hawk Sabatlnl 


"Please  note  I  do  not  include  Con- 
rad. He  bores  me,"  said  a  man  who 
listed  his  opinion  of  sea  books  in  the 
"Evening  Post".  And  the  "Line  o* 
Type"  of  the  Chicago  "Tribune"  de- 
fended his  choice  of  "The  Nigger  of 
the  Narcissus"  as  his  favorite  salt-sea 
yam:  "Conrad  is  an  over-praised  in- 
stitution— ^that  is  true  of  eversrthing 
that  is  good.  He  can  vrrite  very  weU 
and  very  badly.  But  he  knows  the  sea 
and  he  communicates  its  mystery  and 
romance  better  than  anybody  since 
Homer."  "Tars:"  wrote  one  "Cy- 
clone" to  the  Deep  Sea  Shelf,  "My  vote 
is  for  Holman  Day's  'Blow  the  Man 
Down'  and  John  Masefield's  'Dauber*." 
"A  literary  expert  has  told  me  that 
Melville  had  vrritten  the  best  sea  story 
known  to  the  world,"  said  one  of  the 
"Times"  staff  as  he  voted  for  Melville 
and  Dana.  "These  books  were  written 
by  Americans — ^both  sailors — concern- 
ing the  American  sailor  and  the  Amer- 
ican Merchant  Marine.  They  are  his- 
tories as  well  as  novels.  Melville's 
writings  synchronized  the  flourishing 
period  of  the  great  whaling  industry 
of  New  England  and  the  supremacy  of 
American  shipping  in  general.  Dana's 
story  of  the  Cape  Horn  route  has  an 
interest  today  because  of  the  linking 
of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  by  the 
Panama  canal."  So  raged  the  opinions 
in  what  the  Deep  Sea  Shelf  called' 
"this  conspiracy  against  the  mothers 
of  the  United  States  to  revive  youth- 
ful interest  in  the  romance-laden 
books  of  the  sea". 


Enthusiastic  support  of  the  fore- 
most men  and  women  in  Paris — 
American,  British,  French — is  secur- 
ing for  the  French  capital  a  model 
American  public  library.  It  will  make 
the  best  literature  of  America  and  im- 
portant facts  about  America  available 
to  the  residents  of  Paris,  and  will  be 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


509 


the  international  outpost  of  the  Ameri- 
can Library  Association — an  out- 
£rrowth  of  the  Paris  Headquarters 
during  the  war.  It  will  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  give  advisory  assistance  and  to 
furnish  a  demonstration.  Informa- 
tion about  libraries  and  other  educa- 
tional affairs  in  Europe  will  be  col- 
lected and  transmitted  to  America  for 
our  good.  Several  hundred  thousand 
francs  have  been  subscribed  and  a 
campaign  is  now  on  in  Paris  for  an 
endowment.  The  American  Library 
Association,  New  York  City,  is  receiv- 
ing contributions  in  America  for  this 
activity. 


« 


Punch"  again : 

''It  is  feared  that  owing  to  the  sud- 
den appearance  of  summer  weather 
last  week,  the  Poet  Laureate  will  once 
again  be  obliged  to  hold  over  his 
spring  poem." 

And  there  is  also  this  comment  on 
American  over-indulgence  of  English- 
men: 

Sir  Oliver's  personality  is  like  that  of  one 
of  the  prophets  of  old.  Venerable,  white  of 
hair  and  what  scanty  locks  of  hair  remain,  a 
dome-like  head,  over  six  feet  in  height. 

Bo8ton  Herald 

"This  must  be  the  result  of  Ameri- 
can atmosphere,  as  we  are  quite  cer- 
tain that  the  last  time  we  saw  Sir 
Oliver,  his  head  was  not  an  inch  over 
three  feet  in  height." 


"Le  petit  Journal"  is  a  new  semi- 
monthly publication  of  a  New  York 
house — ^a  four-page  illustrated  folder 
consisting  of  selections  from  current 
French  papers  and  magazines,  a  liter- 
ary page,  a  sporting  column,  a  column 
of  society  notes,  and  one  devoted  to 
feminine  interests. 


"Those  Americans  who  keep  track  of 
the  women  authors  of  France",  writes 


George  S.  Hellman  (recently  returned 
from  a  year  in  France)  in  a  letter 
to  The  Bookman,  "are  familiar  with 
Jean  de  Gourmont's  volume,  entitled 
'Muses  d'aujourd'hui',  a  book  pref- 
aced by  a  brilliantly  suggestive  essay 
on  physiological  poetry,  and  contain- 
ing some  eleven  papers  radiant  with 
excerpts  from  the  Comtesse  de  Noail- 
les,  R6n6e  Vivien,  HSl^e  Picard,  and 
other  French  poets.  Published  in 
1910,  this  volume  was  too  early  to  in- 
clude among  its  chapters  a  critique  on 
the  work  of  Natalie  Barney,  who  later 
in  that  same  year  appeared  before  the 
public  with  her  first  two  volumes: 
'  Actes  et  Entr'actes',  devoted  largely  to 
dramatic  verse,  and  'Eparpillements', 
a  fascinating  little  volume  of  epi- 
grams. If  a  second  'Muses  d'aujourd- 
'hui'  were  now  to  be  written.  Miss 
Barney  would  probably  be  given  a 
chapter  therein,  despite  her  American 
birth, — so  fully  has  this  woman,  to 
whom  RSmy  de  Gourmont  wrote  his 
'Lettres  k  une  Amazone',  been  accepted 
as  a  stimulating  factor  in  the  literary 
life  of  the  Paris  of  today. 

"For  some  twenty  years,  this  Amer- 
ican has  maintained  one  of  the  few 
real  salons  where  French  statesmen, 
authors,  artists,  scientists,  actors, 
journalists  meet  to  enjoy  her  hospital- 
ity. But  she  has  not  lost  her  sense  of 
kinship  with  her  native  land.  During 
the  period  of  the  armistice  her  enthu- 
siastic cooperation  in  all  matters  relat- 
ing to  the  art  education  of  the  Ameri- 
can soldiers  won  enduring  gratitude. 

"Natalie  Barney's  interest  in  what- 
ever either  practically  or  sentiment- 
ally draws  France  and  America  closer 
together,  is  shown  in  her  newest  book, 
'Poems  et  Po^mes,  Autres  Alliances', 
recently  brought  out  in  New  York,  on 
the  curious  bilingual  title-page  of 
which  appear  the  names  of  both  the 
French  and  the  American  publishers. 


510 


THE  BOOKMAN 


The  book  itself  is  divided  into  two 
parts — ^the  first  given  over  to  verses  in 
English,  the  second  to  lyrics  in  her 
adopted  tongue. 

"In  all  less  than  fourscore  poems, 
this  work  is  intrinsically  the  product 
of  an  American  woman  who  has  ex- 
perienced, during  many  years,  the  in- 
tellectual and  emotional  life  of  the 
French  capital.  There  is  in  America 
no  milieu  where  a  woman  of  Miss  Bar- 
ney's temperament  and  attainments 
could  realize  herself  with  full  freedom. 
Ultra-modem  as  are  these  poems,  they 
are  essentially  pagan  in  their  passion 
for  the  beauty  of  love  and  for  the  love 
of  beauty.  They  are  closely  allied  to 
that  Renaissance  spirit  which  so 
avidly  sought  new  experiences  in  all 
fields  of  man's  emotional  and  intel- 
lectual reactions.  Life  is  a  choice  of 
experiences,  and  for  the  person  of 
strong  will,  individualistic,  of  dual  na- 
ture, passionate,  intellectual,  and  ar- 
tistic, the  choice  is  not  always  condi- 
tioned by  the  usual  f  ormulse  of  society. 
In  the  poem  'Life*  with  which  the 
English  portion  of  the  volumes  con- 
cludes, the  poet  bids  goodby  to  'old 
habits,  old  deaths',  calling  them  'sa- 
cred ground  under  my  on-faring* : 

I  have  shot  my  eyes  long  enough — 

Shnt  eyes  grow  blind ! 

Clinging  to  Just  one  little  human  life!" 


The  publishers  of  William  Roscoe 
Thayer's  biography  of  Theodore 
Roosevelt  have  made  arrangements 
with  a  New  York  house  to  reprint  this 
book  in  a  popular-price  edition. 


A  new  French  monthly,  "L'Acro- 
pole",  is  being  published  in  Athens. 
Its  purpose  is  the  consideration  of  re- 
construction activities  in  Western 
Europe  and  the  Near  East,  embracing 
history,  archseology,  art,  literature, 
drama,  poetry,  politics,  economics,  aii4 


religion.  French  an4  English  publi- 
cations will  also  receive  critical  at- 
tention. Prominent  members  of  the 
staff  of  the  University  of  Athens  and 
of  the  Acad^mie  Fran^aise  have  prom- 
ised their  cooperation  in  the  enter- 
prise. 


»» 


»f 


"The  Bad  Results  of  Good  Habits 
and  Other  Lapses"  is  the  title  of  a  new 
book  by  a  Boston  clergyman.  Perhaps 
the  accident  of  this  author's  being 
bom  and  educated  in  Ireland  accounts 
for  the  racy  quality  of  such  chapters 
as  "Life's  a  Jest",  "In  Praise  of  Eve 
"The  Happiness  of  Being  Grown-up 
and  "A  Trip  Around  My  Soul".  The 
jacket  bears  the  following  pertinent 
inscription : 

It  has  been  noted  that  the  climatic  prospects 
aa  far  as  heaven  is  concerned  are  fine,  but  that 
Judging  from  the  good  people  of  the  present 
day,  there  is  no  similar  promise  there  of  good 
company.  This  book  is  an  attempt  to  seU  a 
few  sites  in  heaven  to  kindred  souls  to  whom 
company  is  of  more  importance  than  climate. 


Breakfasting  with  Browning,  walk- 
ing after  lunch  with  Carlyle,  and  din- 
ing at  Lord  Lytton's  elbow  are  mem- 
orable experiences  of  his  undergradu- 
ate days  which  W.  H.  Mallock,  a 
nephew  of  Froude,  the  historian,  re- 
calls in  the  May  "Harper's".  Brown- 
ing "held  out  both  his  hands  to  me 
with  an  almost  boisterous  cordiality. 
His  eyes  sparkled  with  laughter,  his 
beard  was  carefully  trimmed,  and  an 
air  of  fashion  was  exhaled  from  his 
dazzling  white  waistcoat."  His  talk 
was  "a  constant  flow  of  anecdotes  and 
social  allusions".  While  he  was  hardly 
the  boy's  ideal  of  "the  singer  of  'Lyric 
Love'  as  'a  wonder  and  a  wild  desire' ", 
still  he  left  the  poet's  presence  with  a 
face  "shining  like  Moses  when  he 
came  down  from  the  mount".  Car- 
lyle's  deshabille  impressed  the  boy  so 
unfavorably  that  he  9aid  to  himself; 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


611 


"If  you  represent  fame,  let  me  repre- 
sent obscurity."  And  when  the  philos- 
opher blew  his  nose  in  a  pair  of  old 
woolen  gloves,  the  disenchantment  was 
complete.  "I  here  saw  at  once  an  il- 
lustration of  a  chapter  in  'Sartor  Re- 
sartus',  in  which  the  author  denounced 
what  he  christened  The  Sect  of  the 
Dandies',  as  described  and  glorified  by 
Bulwer  Lytton  in  Telham'."  L3rtton 
represented  to  young  Mallock  every- 
thing Carlyle  hated: 

I  was  indeed,  despite  my  reverence  for  him, 
faintly  conscious  myself  that  his  turquoise 
shirt-stud,  set  with  diamonds,  was  too  large, 
and  that  his  coat  would  have  been  in  better 
taste  had  the  cuffs  not  been  of  velvet.  But  it 
seemed  to  me  that  from  his  eyes,  keen,  authori- 
tative, and  melancholy,  all  the  passions,  aU  the 
intellect,  and  all  the  experiences  of  the  world 
were  peering.  To  have  sat  by  him  was  an  ad- 
venture ;  to  have  been  noticed  by  him  was  not 
far  from  a  sacrament. 


In  Walt  Whitman's  Journal,  July, 
1881,  in  the  prose  "Specimen  Days", 
are  found  quotations  from  severd  of 
Whitman's  favorite  poems  which  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  carrying  around  in 
his  pocket  and  rereading.  Among 
these  is  the  only  quotation  he  ever 
made  from  an  American  poet — ^part  of 
a  sonnet  on  Maurice  de  GuSrin  vrritten 
by  Maurice  Francis  Egan  in  his  early 
twenties  and  brought  out  in  "The  Cen- 
tury" (then  "Scribner's") : 

A  pagan  heart,  a  Christian  soul  had  he. 

He  followed  Christ,  yet  for  dead  Pan  he  sighed, 

Till  earth  and  heaven  met  within  his  breast : 

As  if  Theocritus  in  Sicily 

Had  come  upon  the  figure  crucified 

And  lost  his  gods  in  deep,  Christ-given  rest. 


Budding  playwrights  who  struggle 
with  the  refractory  characters  of  their 
imaginations  should  take  heart  from 
the  precepts  of  Frangois  de  Curel. 
This  member  of  the  Academic  Fran- 
gaise,  whose  new  play  "L'Ame  en 
Folie"  was  recently  produced  at  the 
Th^tre  des  Arts,  has  imparted  to 
readers  of  "Les  Annales"  his  method 


of  composing.     Among  other  confi- 
dences is  this: 

When  I  write,  the  entrance  of  a  person  who 
speaks  to  me  does  not  disturb  me.  I  am.  on 
the  contrary,  delighted  at  having  my  attention 
diverted ;  I  seek  to  retain  the  intruder,  no 
matter  how  insignificant  he  may  be.  Upon  his 
departure  I  find  that  my  characters  have  pro- 
gressed; my  faculties  of  production  are  dou- 
bled. If  I  am  alone  for  a  long  time  I  saunter 
to  the  window  and  amuse  myself  by  gazing  at  the 
peasants  working  in  the  distance,  at  the  hares 
pursuing  one  another,  at  the  clouds,  the  herds, 
etc., — ^this  without  giving  a  thought  in  the 
world  to  my  plays.  At  the  end  of  several 
minutes  my  characters  arise  within  me,  force 
themselves  upon  my  notice,  and  lead  me  back 
invincibly  to  my  manuscript. 

In  conclusion,  the  playwright  ob- 
serves : 

I  have  almost  no  sensation  of  being  the  au- 
thor of  my  plays. . . .  After  a  short  whUe,  I 
completely  forget  my  works.  If,  at  the  end 
of  ten  years.  I  reread  them,  I  have  very  real 
surprises ;  I  am  truly  astonished  at  hearing 
these  personages  express  themselves  as  they  do 
under  such  and  such  circumstances.  I  feel  my- 
self absolutely  free  to  censure  or  to  admire.  I 
am  hindered  neither  by  amour-propre  nor  by 
modesty.    I  am  not  the  author. 


A  new  mystery  play  "The  Bat",  the 
joint  work  of  Mary  Roberts  Rinehart 
and  Avery  Hopwood,  is  soon  to  be  pro- 
duced by  Wagenhals  and  Kemper — 
first  in  Washington  and  later  in  New 
York.  A  successful  farce  of  several 
years  ago  will  be  recalled — "Seven 
Days",  by  the  same  authors  and  under 
the  same  management.  Mrs.  Rine- 
hart's  stories  "Tish"  and  "Bab:  A 
Sub-Deb"  have  recently  been  filmed. 


A  series  of  biographies  of  modem 
statesmen  is  shortly  to  be  brought  out 
by  an  American  firm.  Those  who  have 
played  leading  roles  on  the  diplomatic 
stage  during  and  after  the  war  will  be 
included :  Venizelos,  by  Herbert  Adams 
Gibbons ;  Clemenceau,  by  Norton  Ful- 
lerton;  Woodrow  Wilson,  by  William 
Allen  White;  and  volumes  on  Lloyd 
George,  Viscount  Grey,  and  Baron 
SpnninOt 


512 


THE  BOOKMAN 


William  Dean  Howells,  novelist, 
poet,  and  editor,  died  on  May  11,  in 
New  York,  having  passed  his  eighty- 
third  birthday  on  the  first  of  March. 
His  father — of  Welsh  ancestry — ^was 
an  Ohio  printer  and  editor,  and  the 
boy's  education  and  training  were  ac- 
quired chiefiy  in  his  newspaper  office; 
at  twelve  crying  his  fatiier's  paper 
"The  Transcript"  on  the  streets;  at 
fourteen  a  reporter  on  "The  State 
Journal'';  at  nineteen  correspondent 
for  "The  Cincinnati  Gazette";  at 
twenty-two  an  editor  of  "The  Ohio 
State  Journal";  and  then  assistant 
editor  (to  his  father)  of  "The  Senti- 
nel". His  first  poetry,  in  his  early 
teens,  he  put  into  type  at  the  printer's 
case  without  the  interposition  of 
paper;  some  of  these  verses  were 
printed  by  "The  Atlantic  Monthly". 
Moving  to  Boston,  he  enjoyed  the  pat- 
ronage and  friendship  of  Longfellow. 
A  campaign  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
commended  him  to  the  President's  no- 
tice and  he  was  appointed  consul  to 
Venice,  where  he  wrote  "Venetian 
Life"  and  "Italian  Journeys".  Here 
he  married  Elinor  G.  Mead,  a  sister 
of  the  sculptor.  On  his  return  he  was 
one  of  the  contributing  staff  of  "The 
New  York  Tribune",  and  a  little  later 
became  editor  of  "The  Atlantic  Month- 
ly"— a  position  which  he  resigned 
after  some  years  to  Thomas  Bailey 
Aldrich,  leaving  as  his  legacy  to  the 
magazine  "The  Contributors'  Club" 
which  he  had  created.  After  a  few 
years  of  conducting  "The  Editor's 
Study"  in  "Harper's  Magazine",  he 
for  a  short  time  edited  "The  Cosmo- 
politan". Among  the  honorary  de- 
grees conferred  upon  William  Dean 
Howells  were:  M.A.  from  Harvard, 
M.A.  and  Litt.D.  from  Yale,  Litt.D. 
from  Oxford  and  Columbia,  and  LL.D. 
from  Adelbert.  He  was  also  Presi- 
dent of  the  American  Academy  of 


Arts  and  Letters.  The  catalogue  of 
his  published  works  in  the  fifty-flve 
years  from  1860  to  1915  includes  sev- 
enty-two titles.  His  last  work,  scarcely 
completed,  was  a  series  of  papers 
"Years  of  My  Middle  Life"  for  "Har- 
per's  Magazine" — a  complement  to  the 
earlier  "Years  of  My  Youth". 


An  Edith  Cavell  edition  of  Thomas 
k  Eempis's  "Imitation  of  Christ^ 
comes  from  an  English  press,  and  is 
being  sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  Edith 
Cavell  Homes  of  Rest  for  Nurses.  The 
volume  from  which  the  facsimile  has 
been  made  was  in  the  possession  of 
Miss  Cavell  at  the  time  of  her  death. 
Its  fiy-leaf  has  a  brief  summary  of  her 
arrest,  imprisonment,  and  sentence, 
ending  with  the  words  vrritten  in  an- 
ticipation of  the  event:  "Died  at  7  A. 
M.  on  Dec.  12,  1915.' 


f» 


Frederick  O'Brien's  "White  Shad- 
ows in  the  South  Seas!',  which  has 
been  one  of  the  best-selling  non-fiction 
books  of  the  last  several  months,  has 
been  dramatized  by  the  author  in  col- 
laboration with  Laurence  Langner  of 
the  Theatre  Guild,  and  will  appear 
next  autumn  at  the  Garrick  Theatre 
under  the  title  "White  Shadows".  Mr. 
O'Brien  is  also  helping  to  put  his  story 
on  the  screen. 


Another  swing  of  the  pendulum. 
Shelley's  prose  "A  Philosophical  View 
of  Reform",  written  a  century  ago  but 
never  appearing  in  book  form,  is  about 
to  be  issued  for  the  first  time  in  Eng- 
land and  America,  being  considered 
topical  in  its  discussion  of  social  prob- 
lems. Written  in  a  vellum  notebook,  it 
was  decorated — ^probably  in  the  au- 
thor's intervals  of  seeking  inspiration 
— ^with  drawings,  of  which  we  get  the 
facsimile. 


THE 

BCDKMAN 


July,  1920 


ENGLISH  AS  SHE  IS  SPOKE  I 

lUchard  Burton 

THE  ROMANCE  OF  JEFFERY  FARNOL         ' 

J.  p.  Colliiu  < 

MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS  I 

Murray  Hill 

REDUCING  THE  HIGH  COST  OF  COLLECTING    i 

Walter  Prichard  Eaton  ' 

LINCOLN'S  REUGION  RESTATED 

Luther  Emereon  Robinson  ' 

I 

A  Sierra  Poet  in  the  Making,  by  Herbert  Cooper  Thompson — In  a  City  Park,  by 

Amelia  Josephine  Burr — A  Foreign  Miscellany,  by  Isaac  Goldberg — The 

ffondetfil  Again,  by  H.  W.  Boynton—How  Old  Is  Sherlock  Holmes? 

by  Beverly  Stark — Looking  Ahead  with  the  Publishers,  by 

S.M.R. — The  Londoner;  Bookman  Score;  Gossip  Shop 

GEOR.GE  a  OORAN  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 

35  Cents  $400  Yearly 


THB    VOOKMjtN    AWERTtSEtt. 


THE  BOOKMAN 

(LONDON.  ENGLAND) 

Published  in  Great  Britain  l>y  Hodder  and  Ston^ton  Limited 

£  fMERICAN  readers  are  as  interested  in  EnElisfi  literature  as  English 
^  I  readers  are  in  American,  and  THE  BOOKMAN  is  glad  of  the  hospi- 
talitv  of  these  pages  to  introduce  itself  to  any  of  the  large  reading 
public  of  the  United  States  who  are  not  already  acquainted  with  it 

THE  BOOKMAN  was  founded  by  Sir  William  Robertson  NicoU  in  Octo- 
ber, 1891,  and  has  long  since  established  itself  as  the  leading  literary  monthly  in 
Great  Britain.  The  list  of  its  contributors  includes  the  most  distinguished  critics 
of  its  time,  but  its  appeal  has  always  been  as  much  to  the  book-reading  public  as 
.to  the  literary  student.  THE  BOOKMAN'S  articles  on  literature  and  men  of 
letters  of  the  past  and  present  and  its  reviews  of  new  books  are  well-informed 
.  and  scholarly  without  being  academic,  for  its  guiding  principle  is  that  all  books 
that  matter  are  interesting  and  no  critic  is  efncient  who  cannot  write  about  them 
interestingly. 

The  chief  article  in  each  Number  is  devoted  to  some  famous  author  of  to- 
day or  yesterday,  and  in  this  way  THE  BOOKMAN  deals,  from  time  to 
time,  with  the  great  writers  of  all  countries. 

In  THE  BOOKMAN  GALLERY  special  attention  is  given  to  new  and 
promising  authors. 

The  NEWS  NOTES  contain  book-gossip  of  the  month  Wth  personal  notes 
about  authors  of  die  moment. 

Its  illustrations  ar«  a  distinctive  feature  of  THE  BOOKMAN,  these  includ- 
ing portraits,  caricatures,  fac-similes,  i^otoeraphs  and  drawings  of  authors  and  of 
documents,  persons  and  places  associatea  with  them,  as  well  as  reproductions 
of  illustrations  from  books. 

THE  BOOKMAN'S  monthly  Prize  Competitions,  for  the  best  lyric,  the 
best  review,  etc..  are  extraordinarily  popular  and  draw  competitors  from  all  parts 
of  the  world. 

THE  BOOKMAN  issues  during  the  year  special  S(M-ing,  Autumn  and 
Christmas  Numbers,  these  containing  in  addition  to  all  usual  features,  illustrated 
Supplements  dealing  with  the  new  hooks  of  each  season. 

The  Christmas  BOOKMAN  has  ^own  to  a  handsome  volume  of  over  two 
hundred  pages,  and  in  addition  to  four  illustrated  Supplements  contains  numerous 
presentation  plate  portraits  and  pictures  in  colour  and  black-and-white.  The 
demand  for  it  is  so  increasingly  large  that  it  goes  out  of  print  every  year 
immediately  after  publicaiion,  and  is  admittedly  the  most  artistic  and  the  most 
important  of  the  literary  annuals. 

In  a  word,  THE  BOOKMAN  o0ers  a  full  and  attractive  survey  of  each 
year's  literature  and  does  not  fail  to  give  due  attention  to  the  literature  of  all  time. 


ORDER  FORM 
V*  Mcwt.  HODDER  &  STOUGHTON  Linhrd. 

Sl  "Ptul't  Hoittt,  WanaUk  Squart,  Landon.  E,C.4.  England 


Annuel Siih,crlptltn,£ I   lu  6J. 


Spadaitn  Ccpg,  ft.  3i.  padfnt. 


n  The  Bookw xif  to  wrltlBg  to  adrntiiKS. 


JULY,  1920 


VOL.  LI,  NO.  5 


THE 


BOOKMAN 


ENGLISH  AS  SHE  IS  SPOKE 


BY  RICHARD  BURTON 


WHEN  a  mayor  of  a  large  western 
city  says  **has  went"  twice  in  a 
public  speech,  and  a  governor  of  a  great 
eastern  state  in  public  utterance  de- 
clares that  ''it  ain't  in  my  heart  to 
hurt  any  man",  it  gives  one  a  piquant 
sense  of  the  democracy  of  language  in 
these  United  States.  It  seems  a  re- 
version of  Lowell's  ideal  for  good  Eng- 
lish :  ''the  speech  of  the  i)eople  in  the 
mouth  of  the  scholar".  We  get  a 
charming  picture  of  proletariat  and 
pedants  amiably  exchanging  idiom, 
while  school  "lamin' "  goes  glimmer- 
ing, and  go-as-you-please  is  the  order 
of  the  day.  Why  bother  about  the 
form  of  sentences,  when  vital  ques- 
tions are  for  settling,  and  when  to 
make  others  understand  your  meaning 
is  the  main  purpose  of  words?  That, 
at  least,  appears  to  be  the  general 
view.  No  wonder  Brander  Matthews 
speaks  of  English  as  a  "grammarless 
tongue".  America  has  done  and  is 
doing  her  full  share  to  make  it  so. 

This  popularization  of  the  mother 
tongue— or  democracy  worjcing  out 
and    through    the    daily    speech    of 


men  in  a  vast,  heterogeneous  popula- 
tion like  ours — affords  both  amuse- 
ment and  instruction  to  one  who  wan- 
ders up  and  down  the  land,  listening 
with  both  ears,  and  a  receptive  mind. 
City  locutions,  the  argot  of  the  street, 
the  country  twang,  the  talk  with  a 
burr  to  it  of  twenty  differing  occupa- 
tions, the  sectional  varieties  of  the 
language  inherited  from  England  and 
infinitely  twisted  over  here  to  meet 
our  manifold  necessities, — ^with  these 
in  view,  who  can  doubt  that  Mr. 
Mencken  is  right  in  speaking  of  the 
"American  language"?  And  it  were 
more  accurate  to  say  there  are  a  dozen 
American  languages.  The  shrewd 
Yankee  still  uses  his  quaint  under- 
statement, the  drawl  of  the  South  reg- 
isters the  easygoing  mood  of  the  in- 
habitants, and  the  racy  brag  of  the 
plains  is  by  no  means  absent  from  the 
idiom  of  the  great  West.  Meanwhile, 
grammar  has  a  hard  time  of  it. 
Beecher,  it  may  be  recalled,  once  said 
that  when  grammar  got  in  his  way,  it 
didn't  have  the  ghost  of  a  show:  that 
is  exactly  the  position  of  the  mighty 


518 


614 


THE  BOOKMAN 


multitude  who  today  maltreat  the 
parts  of  speech,  and  seek  a  short  cut 
to  an  idea  by  whatever  word  or  phrase 
seems  handy.  One  recalls  the  cowboy 
who  made  a  trip  to  Paris  ^d  was 
asked  by  his  bunkie  on  returning  to 
the  big  plains,  how  he  had  got  along 
with  French;  to  which  he  answered: 
"I  got  along  fine,  but  French  had  the 
hell  of  a  time".  English  has  that  sort 
of  time  in  the  United  States,  but  the 
people  are  perfectly  happy  about  it. 
Why  worry?  A  few  professors  are 
hired,  at  very  small  pay,  to  do  that, 
and  the  populace  prefers  to  do  its  suf- 
fering vicariously. 

The  pundit,  the  pedant,  and  the 
professor  who  are  fain  to  stem  the 
turbid  tide  of  popular  vernacular  may 
suffer  pain;  but  they  can  have  little 
influence  on  the  situation.  Even  col- 
legebred  folk  revert  to  type  and  use 
people's  speech — ^when  they  are  out 
from  under  the  restraining,  corrective 
monitions  of  academic  haunts — ^in  a 
way  to  shock,  amuse,  or  encourage,  ac- 
cording to  the  point  of  view.  Arti- 
ficial book-speech  is  struggled  for  in 
recitation  halls;  then  forth  issue  the 
vital  young,  and  just  beyond  the  door, 
real  talk  is  heard  once  more:  the 
words  and  sentences  that  come  hot 
from  the  heart,  eagerly  from  emo- 
tional reactions,  spontaneously  repre- 
senting the  feelings  rather  than  a 
state  of  mind  supposed  to  be  proper. 
To  see  a  pupil  who  on  trial  solenuily 
declares  that  two  nouns  call  for  a 
plural  verb,  hasten  out  into  the  happy 
sunshine  and  immediately  begin  to 
do  what  the  race  always  has  done — 
including  truly  idiomatic  writers — 
namely,  use  a  singular  verb  on  all  such 
occasions,  is  only  depressing  to  those 
who  place  the  letter  before  the  spirit 
which  is  life. 

I  happened  to  be  reared  in  Connecti- 
cut, where  Congregationalism  is  very 


strong,  and  my  father  was  a  clergy- 
man of  this  denomination.  Naturally, 
I  grew  up  with  the  idea  that  this  par- 
ticular sect  was  the  true  religious  cen- 
tre of  the  land.  It  was  a  real  shock,  I 
remember,  the  day  I  discovered  that 
among  good  friends  of  the  family 
were  numbered  Episcopalians,  and 
even  Baptists.  But  the  complete  dis- 
illusionment came  when,  by  chance  en- 
countering statistics  in  a  religious 
paper  (I  have  never  believed  in  sta- 
tistics since),  I  learned  that  the  Meth- 
odists far  outnumbered  the  other 
Protestant  denominations,  and  that 
the  Catholics  beat  them  all!  At  that 
moment,  the  ways  of  God  with  men 
seemed  inscrutable  to  my  young  mind. 
And  it  is  exactly  so  about  language. 
Carefully  brought  up  in  New  England, 
one  faces  life  in  the  confirmed  opinion 
that  Boston  is  the  city  of  the  law,  and 
that  nobody  worth  while  would  say, 
"It's  me",  whatever  the  provocation. 
But  after  meeting  that  idiom  in 
writers  like  Stevenson,  Kipling,  and 
many  others  who  truthfully  and  skil- 
fully report  the  uses  of  polite  people 
in  the  British  isles,  one  is  forced  to 
the  terrible  conclusion  that  over  there, 
at  least,  there  has  been  a  fall  from 
grace,  illustrating  the  total  depravity 
of  well-educated  human  beings.  One 
even  finds  so  horrid  a  locution  as  "It's 
them", — ^which  is  a  further  descent, 
that  we  know  is  so  easy,  to  Avemus. 
Or  confine  the  observation  to  our  own 
country:  I  was  reared  where  to  say, 
"like  I  am",  was  to  become  d^lass^ 
at  once.  As  a  student  at  Johns  Hop- 
kins, however,  I  began  to  hear  this 
manner  of  talking  from  college  pro- 
fessors and  Baltimore  belles,  if  they 
chanced  to  be  Southerners.  This  led 
to  reflection,  and,  stimulated  by  wide 
wanderings  in  that  charming  section 
of  the  land,  the  inquirer  came  to  real- 
ize that  there  is  a  pretty  good  argu- 


ENGLISH  AS  SHE  IS  SPOKE 


616 


ment  for  like  in  place  of  as,  thus :  the 
Bible  has  it,  "like  as  a  father  pitieth 
his  children";  the  cultivated  East 
struck  out  the  word  like,  and  said  "as 
a  father" ;  the  cultivated  South  struck 
out  as,  and  said  "like  a  father" — ^and 
there  you  are  I  It  is  a  sectional  differ- 
ence in  idiom,  and  like,  having  a  sort 
of  familiar  charm  about  it,  throve,  and 
spread  all  over  the  West,  and  at  pres- 
ent enjoys  a  lusty  life,  and  will,  de- 
spite all  efforts  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding. Of  course,  being  a  New 
Englander,  I  don't  take  to  it  kindly 
myself;  but  I  do  get  a  naughty  thrill 
of  pleasure  when  it  comes  from  the 
mouths  of  others,— especially  when  ac- 
companied by  the  inimitable  grace  in 
utterance  of  southern  women. 

In  Nashville,  Tennessee,  last  sum- 
mer I  happened  to  run  into  the  expres- 
sion, "We  didn't  get  to  go",  and  at 
once  pricked  up  my  linguistic  ears.  It 
came  from  a  person  of  excellent  edu- 
cational credentials,  too.  My  only 
knowledge  of  it  before  was  in  Clare 
Hummer's  piece,  "A  Successful  Car 
lamity",  where  it  was  put  on  the  lips 
of  a  servant.  But  now  I  heard  it 
from  one  whose  sheepskin  hangs  dec- 
oratively  on  the  wall.  And  was  un- 
regenerate  enough  to  like  it,  and  be 
glad  that  so  happy  a  phrase  lived  to 
add  savor  to  more  conventional  speech. 
When  I  was  a  freshman  in  college,  our 
English  teacher,  beloved  by  all  who 
had  the  good  luck  to  get  his  ministra- 
tions, told  us  one  day  that  by  the  time 
we  were  middle-aged,  all  educated  folk 
would  be  saying,  **you  was".  I  am 
surprised  that  he  did  not  lose  his  job. 
But  he  was  wrong:  having  reached 
middle  age,  or  worse,  I  find  so-called- 
educated  men  and  women  still  favor- 
ing **you  were",  whatever  the  practice 
of  the  impolite.  Yet,  who  shall  say 
that  we  may  not  come  to  even  that? 
It  is  so  natural,  so  easy,  so  logical,  to 


normalize,  "I  was,  you  was,  they 
was"!  It  certainly  sounds  vulgar  in 
the  extreme,  and  personally  I  could 
not  do  it,  not  even  for  a  prize.  Suf- 
ficient unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof. 
Meanwhile,  the  masses  will  say  "you 
was",  if  they  want  to,  and  they  mostly 
do. 

Twenty  years  ago,  on  first  going 
West,  I  was  interested  and  amused  to 
encounter  a  new  idiom  which  seemed 
rather  a  felicitous  one.  Students  at 
a  large  state  university  always  re- 
ferred to  themselves  as  "going  to 
school".  The  word  school  was  used  in 
its  broad,  inclusive  sense  to  take  in 
the  college  part  of  schooling,  instead 
of  confining  the  meaning  to  that  as- 
pect of  training  which  leads  up  to  the 
college  and  university  —  perhaps. 
There  was  a  pleasing  touch  of  quaint- 
ness  about  such  a  term,  and  it  re- 
minded you  that  all  the  world's  a 
school,  and  the  distinctions  between 
this  or  that  subdivision  in  the  prepa- 
ration for  life  merely  arbitrary  and 
shallow — ^a  matter  of  verbal  con- 
venience. 

Or  consider  the  word  them  for  a 
moment.  If  we  make  any  pretense  to 
nice  si)eech  we  are  careful  to  give  the 
four  letters  their  full  vocal  value;  or 
we  do  on  dress  parade.  But  how  many 
of  my  readers  (and  nobody  but  the 
61ite  reads  The  Bookman,  need  I  say) 
dare  look  me  in  the  face  and  declare 
that  in  the  rushing  exigencies  of  hu- 
man intercourse  they  do  not  say  "I 
told  'em  to  go",  and  other  such  short 
cuts  to  the  communication  of  thought? 
In  public  utterance,  in  the  starched 
self-consciousness  of  the  drawing- 
room,  on  for;9fial  occasions  in  general, 
I  grant  you  that  we  all  say  them.  But 
in  the  innumerable  rapid-fire  moments 
of  life,  which  means  about  three- 
fourths  of  it;  in  business,  pleasure, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  I  think 


516 


THE  BOOKMAN 


it  will  be  well  to  own  up  that  *em  is  a 
constant  phenomenon.    This  is  not  to 
defend  it,  but  for  the  pure  joy  of  tell- 
ing  the  truth.    The  Elizabethan  dram- 
atists were  more  honest,  even  in  the 
written  word ;  for  open  their  plays  in 
any  edition  not  doctored  up  for  col- 
lege  consumption,  and  you  shall  find 
their  pages  crowded  with  'ems,  which 
simply  registers  the  contemporary  fact 
that  that  was  the  way  people  really 
spoke.    And  the  philologist  is  aware 
that  of  old  the  sound  represented  by 
the  letters  em  was  the  regular  pro- 
nunciation, and  not  the  sound  them  at 
all ;  so  that  there  is  an  ancient  reason 
for  the  apparent  modem  corruption. 
The   contemporary   person,   however, 
who  says  "I'll  get  'em  right  away", 
doesn't    do    it    for    any    such    kow- 
towing to  the  past,  but  because  it  is 
crisp,  concise,   and   above   all,   easy. 
Economy  has  always  been  a  law  of  lan- 
guage;  the  anxious  pedagogue  has  a 
tendency  to  call  it  slovenliness;    but 
the  vast  company  of  those  who  make 
speech    quite   independent   of   gram- 
marians and  all  their  kind,  will  go 
right    ahead    complacently    violating 
what  is  mentioned  as  proper,  not  even 
making    any    difference    between    a 
proper  and  an  improper  noun,  or  any 
other  parts  of  speech.    It  is  all  very 
sad  and  amusing. 

When,  with  the  United  States  in 
view,  you  come  to  consider  the  on- 
slaught upon  American  English  sus- 
tained by  the  attack  from  the  fifty 
tongues  of  Zangwill's  "Melting  Pot", 
you  fairly  gasp  before  the  situation. 
That  Tower  of  Babel  incident  seems 
like  a  linguistic  tempest  in  an  old- 
fashioned  teapot,  in  comparison.  Who 
shall  inflect  the  verb  of  the  future  or 
parse  the  parts  of  speech,  when  the 
changes  have  wrought  their  full  ef- 
fect? The  cities  with  their  swift  at- 
tritions and  steady  tendency  to  disin- 


tegrate any  speech  that  is  deep  set  in 
grooves,  will  be  always  held  back  and 
modified  by  the  wholesome  archaisms 
of  the  countryside,  which  always  fa- 
vors the  old,  and  as  a  rule  preserves 
the  fine,  full-flavored  effects  once  in 
fashion  but  now  become  rustic.  Out 
of  the  blend,  an  amalgam  must  come. 
The  changes  will  include  the  actual 
choice  of  words  and  the  arrangement 
of  words  in  the  sentence;  and  the 
speech-tune,  or  manner  of  speaking, 
will  be  part  of  the  revolution,  the  re- 
sult of  which  no  man  can  foretell. 
Education  will  have  its  work  cut  out 
for  it  as  never  before,  since  it  has  to 
face  a  polyglot  problem  such  that,  to 
hand  on  English  as  it  has  been  in- 
herited from  the  past,  becomes  a  gi- 
gantic task,  a  task  never  equaled  in 
magnitude  and  difficulty  in  earlier 
days.  English  has  to  be  intelligibly 
spoken,  not  alone  as  a  practical  con- 
venience in  the  interchange  of 
thought,  but  as  a  unifying  power  in 
Americanization. 

And  just  because  of  the  immense 
importance  of  this  ideal,  we  must  not 
be  pettily  linguistic,  but  rather  take  a 
broad,  generous,  human  view  in  re- 
spect of  language  use;  remembering 
that  language  was  made  for  man  and 
not  man  for  language.  Standards 
must  be  maintained,  but  not  to  the 
exclusion  of  human  sympathy,  human 
comprehension,  human  touch.  Lan- 
guage as  it  is  formally  reflected  upon 
by  specialists  is  one  thing;  language 
as  it  is  in  the  making  by  the  people 
at  large  is  another.  Speech,  the  truly 
vital  speech  of  any  nation,  is  a  quick, 
hit-or-miss  product  of  the  emotions. 
It  is  made  on  the  run,  and  can  never 
be  restrained  within  the  careful,  neat 
parterres  of  precise  rules  and  regula- 
tions. It  is  a  wild  flower  growth,  not 
the  artificial  result  of  the  gardener's 


ENGLISH  AS  SHE  IS  SPOKE 


517 


cultivation.  If  the  Creole,  the  Scan- 
dinavian,  the  Pennsylvania  Dutch,  and 
the  East  Side  Hebrew  can  contribute 
an  occasional  felicitous  flavor,  the 
sturdy  English  tongue,  which  has 
weathered  many  a  storm,  may  decide 
to  incorporate  such  additions  or  modi- 
fications, let  the  learned  say  what  they 
will.  A  borrowing  of  this  sort  is  not 
necessarily  vulgar  or  corrupt,  though 
it  may  be,  and  sometimes  is ;  in  which 
case,  it  should  be  strangled. 

The  King  James  version  of  the 
Bible  became  a  people's  book  largely 
because  it  used  the  plain  speech  of 
men,  and  so  freshened  literary  par- 
lance. The  same  was  true  of  Luther's 
translation  of  the  Scriptures.  A  gen- 
eration ago,  certain  great  Norwegian 
writers,  moved  by  the  same  instinct, 
turned  to  the  so-called  Landsmal  or 
folk  speech  in  order  to  reinvigorate 
their  tongue;  and  reading  the  ver- 
nacular of  Ibsen  and  Bjomson  today, 
we  get  the  benefit  of  it.    In  short,  that 


is  the  history  of  all  language  shaping. 
It  comes  from  the  people,  and  the  peo- 
ple keep  it  alive  by  their  unconven- 
tional manipulation,  whenever  it  is  in 
danger  of  becoming  too  dry,  formal, 
literary,  and  hence  dead. 

So  it  is  in  the  United  States.  We 
must  keep  it  respectable,  but  we  must 
also  keep  it  fresh,  changeful,  happily 
sensitive  to  anything  that  is  express- 
ive and  aquiver  with  life.  Nor  need 
we  be  too  much  alarmed  when  we  see 
sectional  English,  warm  on  the  mouths 
of  men,  or  set  upon  the  printed  page 
by  the  more  adventuresome  writers, 
freshening  the  flow  of  speech  as  it  al- 
ways has  done  in  this  world,  and  im- 
proving a  thing  that  might  otherwise 
become  static  and  stodgy,  by  the  in- 
troduction of  picturesque  local  ele- 
ments. The  patois  of  today  may  and 
often  has  become  the  accepted  speech 
of  a  long  tomorrow.  Chaucer  wrote  in 
a  dialect;  but  he  became  the  first 
great  English  poet. 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  JEFFERY  FARNOL 


BY  J.  F.  COLLINS 


SOMETHING  of  the  utter  weari- 
ness of  Faust  must  needs  ensue 
upon  a  surfeit  of  modern  fiction.  Now 
that  Atlas  is  settling  into  his  stride 
again,  we  begin  to  see  that  the  major- 
ity of  the  younger  novelists  have  come 
through  the  war  rather  badly.  They 
were  well  enough  for  a  prewar  public 
accustomed  to  regard  the  printed  word 
as  the  first  and  last  thing  worth  con- 
sidering. They  stuck  to  the  rules  and 
followed  their  models  conscientiously. 
They  strained  their  eyesight  through 
the  spectacles  of  Empire  k  la  Kipling; 
they  dazzled  themselves  with  the  fly- 
ing films  of  science  under  the  rod  of 
Mr.  Wells.  The  world  went  very  well 
then,  in  a  way.  Reviewers  perspired ; 
"libraries"  and  advertising  agents 
flourished ;  but  the  Muses  languished, 
and  no  wonder. 

Then  came  Thor  with  his  hammer, 
as  foretold  by  the  prophet  Heine,  and 
where  is  that  party  now?  There  is 
evidence  that  some  of  these  half- 
budded  fictionists  have  escaped  into 
the  journalistic  haven;  others  mope 
among  the  ruins  of  oflicial  propa- 
ganda; others  again  have  descended 
into  Parliament.  There  is  hope  for 
some,  a  livelihood  for  most,  and  ex- 
perience for  all, — which  is  just  as  it 
should  be,  for  experience  above  every- 
thing is  what  these  paper-wasters 
lacked.  They  had  been  cosseted  and 
dandled  into  literary  articulation,  and 


had  perished  at  the  first  encounter 
with  realities.  It  is  true  that  the  de- 
liverance is  incomplete.  But  the  mis- 
chief is  out,  and  one  hopes  the  public 
has  learned  to  distinguish  at  last  be- 
tween writers  who  have  been  suckled 
upon  print  and  swaddled  into  author- 
ship, and  those  who  have  seen  the 
world  and  found  something  to  say. 

Mr.  Jeffery  Famol  is  a  healthy  ex- 
ample of  the  point  at  stake.  There 
are  few  of  our  novelists  as  independ- 
ent of  place  or  period,  though  some 
admirers  would  territorialize  him  in 
the  county  of  Kent,  and  others  might 
pin  him  to  the  era  of  the  gay  Prince 
Regent.  But  the  characteristics  com- 
mon to  his  work  are  racial  and  perma- 
nent, and  he  would  probably  admit 
that  his  best  asset  has  been  a  knock- 
about experience  of  life.  After  all, 
this  is  no  new  doctrine.  Out  of  the 
strong  Cometh  forth  sweetness,  and 
plenty  of  sound  romancers  have 
learned  in  the  school  of  adversity  how 
to  keep  their  readers  in  good  spirits. 
Worldly  prosperity,  as  William  James 
declared,  lacks  ''the  great  initiation", 
and  what  holds  good  in  the  spiritual 
sphere  holds  equally  true  of  imagina- 
tive writing.  Certain  good  fairies 
round  Mr.  Farnol's  cradle  were  none 
the  worse  for  seeming  otherwise.  Be- 
sides a  father  who  could  infect  the 
household  with  his  love  of  books,  and 
a  mother  who  was  all  affectionate  en- 


618 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  JEPFERY  PARNOL 


619 


couragement,  he  had  this  advantage  in 
disguise,  that  he  was  born  amid  dingy 
surroundings  and  had  to  rough  it. 
Only  a  loyal  Midlander  like  the  pres- 
ent writer,  who  knew  Birmingham  in 
the  'seventies  and  'eighties,  is  likely  to 
strike  the  right  balance  of  allowances 
and  perceive  what  such  an  environ- 
ment meant.  London  caught  our  au- 
thor young,  but  he  was  to  have  an- 
other spell  of  Ironopolis  before  he 
turned  out  into  the  world,  like  the 
younger  Weller,  to  play  at  leapfrog 
with  its  troubles.  He  was  luckier 
than  some  of  us,  for  he  got  a  chance 
of  trying  engineering;  and  luckier 
still,  i)erhaps,  that  he  soon  left  it  be- 
hind. One  of  his  few  successes  Was 
to  scale  a  factory  stack  for  a  wagered 
florin,  and  those  who  know  what 
"Brum"  could  produce  in  the  way  of 
chimneys  will  see  that  here  was  a 
youngster  nothing  could  daunt. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  factory  of 
brass  or  iron  could  hold  a  lad  who  was 
drawing  audiences  with  story-telling 
when  he  was  not  drawing  caricatures. 
Famol's  vein  of  artistry  was  irrepres- 
sible. He  tried  ironwork,  carpenter- 
ing, jewelry,  the  brush,  and  goodness 
knows  what  else.  At  Westminster  Art 
School  he  made  a  lifelong  friend  of 
Yoshio  Markino,  the  Japanese  artist; 
but  he  was  shaping  for  deeper  moor- 
ings still.  He  married  the  daughter 
of  an  American  scene-painter,  Mr. 
Hawley,  and  went  west  with  them  to 
pursue  his  studies  in  comparative  in- 
digence, or  what  would  have  proved  so 
but  for  his  father-in-law.  Through 
him  Famol  obtained  a  post  in  the 
scenic  studios  of  the  Astor  Theatre, 
and  after  a  deal  of  windmill  work, 
proceeded  to  paint  miles  of  chequered 
panorama  as  a  background  to  prevent 
the  fine  aroma  of  the  stage  from  evap- 
orating before  it  crossed  the  foot- 
lights.    In  between  whiles  he  found 


time  to  write  a  tale  which  three  Amer- 
ican firms  refused,  one  on  the  express 
ground  that  it  was  "too  English  and 
too  long".  Time  has  brought  re- 
venges, especially  in  America,  but  not 
before  this  bad  rebuff  was  beaten  by 
a  worse.  An  actor  colleague  took  the 
manuscript  to  Boston  to  try  its  luck 
there,  but  Boston  lost  a  chance  of  join- 
ing the  chorus  of  negation.  For  the 
actor  brought  it  back,  grubbier  than 
ever;  it  had  lain  at  the  bottom  of  his 
trunk,  forgotten  and  undisturbed. 
Not  even  Peter,  its  hero,  ever  had  bet- 
ter occasion  to  rail  against  the  "cus- 
sedness"  of  fate. 

That  tale  was  "The  Broad  High- 
way", and  even  broad  highways  wiU 
sometimes  turn.  Luckily  this  one, 
like  the  bells  in  the  nursery  ditty,  led 
the  author  back  to  London.  His  wife, 
rescuing  the  manuscript  from  perdi- 
tion, sent  it  to  an  old  friend  of  the 
family,  who  in  a  long  and  busy  career 
of  sporting  journalism  had  kept  his 
soul  alive  for  literature.  Beneath  the 
'prentice  hand  he  caught  the  gleam  of 
real  romance,  and  Shirley  Byron  Jev- 
ons  was  never  the  man  to  let  good 
work  or  good  enthusiasm  die.  He  of- 
fered it  to  Mr.  Rymer,  of  Sampson 
Low,  a  kindred  and  discerning  spirit, 
and  thus  the  firm  that  found  "Lorna 
Doone"  had  lit  upon  another  gem  of 
price.  Their  admiration  was  infec- 
tious. Mr.  Jevons  sent  me  an  advance 
copy  when  I  was  in  charge  of  the  lit- 
erary pages  of  a  well-known  daily, 
with  just  a  line  to  say  that  here  was  a 
feather  for  the  cap  of  my  native  town. 
Once  the  first  chapter  was  read,  the 
recommendation  was  needless.  I  flung 
the  bush  away  to  enjoy  the  wine  the 
more,  and  in  real  sincerity  gave  it  all 
the  praise  I  could  on  the  day  of  pub- 
lication. The  worst  to  be  said  of  the 
story  of  Cleone  was  that  she  hardly 
hove  in  sight  until  the  book  was  nearly 


520 


THE  BOOKMAN 


halfway  through.  But  in  launching 
the  reader  upon  chance  adventures  in 
oldtime  taverns  and  the  margins  of 
the  Kentish  roads,  the  author  had  fol- 
lowed the  vogue  of  Fielding  and  Smol- 
lett, and  where  shall  you  find  better 
models?  What  is  more,  he  had  made 
his  tale  a  parable  of  existence,  where 
your  way  winds  through  a  forest  of 
characters  before  you  chance  upon  the 
sunshine  and  the  ordered  landscape  of 
your  choice, — if  ever.  And  the  clos- 
ing chapters  that  go  to  the  winning 
and  deliverance  of  Cleone  mount  as 
near  to  rapture  as  any  reader  well 
may  ask,  short  of  the  eloquence  of 
"perfect  music  married  unto  noble 
words". 

America  was  just  as  instant  to  greet 
the  new  novelist,  and  Mr.  Jenkins,  of 
Little,  Brown  and  Company,  worked 
as  hard  for  the  book  as  Mr.  Jevons 
and  Mr.  Rymer.  The  result  is  that 
Mr.  Famol  has  never  looked  back; 
and  in  a  short  time  he  was  placing 
serial  rights  with  "McClure's"  at 
fabulous  rates  before  title  was  fixed  or 
the  scenario  dry  upon  the  paper.  What 
was  the  reason  for  this  simultaneous 
success  upon  both  sides  of  the  At- 
lantic? America  was  producing  first- 
class  novelists  of  her  own,  and  this 
newcomer  had  never  stirred  a  finger 
to  touch  any  of  the  soft  spots  with 
which  she  is  accredited.  Indeed  there 
is  something  truly  Midland  in  the 
sturdy  independence  with  which  he 
followed  his  bent  from  first  to  last, 
and  studied  neither  markets  nor 
fashions  in  the  framing  of  his  work. 
The  short  cut  is  boldest  and  best  in 
the  long  run.  He  has  had  no  need  to 
make  a  set  bid  for  western  readers, 
because  he  has  gone  to  the  true  source 
of  romance  for  all  his  wizardry  of 
scene  and  character,  of  situation  and 
conceit.  He  has  drawn  upon  the  main 
stops   of    simple   emotion,    and    has 


needed  no  others.  Consciously  or 
otherwise,  he  has  been  guided  by 
Wordsworth's  doctrine, — 

We  Uve  by  admiration,  hope,  and  love, — 

and  the  rest  is  simple.  That  is  why 
the  past  seems  merely  a  backcloth  for 
projecting  his  creations  to  the  focus 
he  requires;  and  if  ever  he  writes  of 
the  future,  he  will  be  well  advised  to 
remain  as  simple  and  as  bold  as  be- 
fore, and  as  true  to  the  primary  colors 
of  good  and  evil. 

There  was  a  time  when  I  used  to 
think  that  Famol  took  his  cue  from  an 
American  book,  ''Monsieur  Beau- 
caire".  The  times  agree,  for  Booth, 
Tarkington's  book  came  first  by  a  dec- 
ade, and  there  is  internal  evidence 
that  "The  Broad  Highway"  was  pre- 
ceded in  the  writing  by  "The  Honour- 
able Mr.  Tawnish",  which  I  take  to  be 
the  slightest  thing  that  Farnol  has 
done,  and  the  most  reminiscent  of  the 
stage.  But  whether  this  conjecture  is 
a  right  one  or  not, — and  there  is  noth- 
ing belittling  about  it,  for  "Beau- 
caire"  is  admirable  feigning, — there 
is  nothing  derivative  about  Farnol 
save  that  he  has  gone,  as  already  said, 
to  the  primal  sources,  where  Spenser 
and  the  Elizabethans  went,  the  idyl- 
ists  from  Theocritus  to  Morris  and 
Maeterlinck,  the  pastoral  players  and 
the  gentler  of  the  minstrels,  and  the 
authors  of  "Roland"  and  "The  Ro- 
maunt  of  the  Rose"  and  "Aucassin  et 
Nicolette". 

Give  an  audience  their  fill  of  love 
and  fighting,  of  injustice  and  sus- 
pense,— of  well-planned  rescue  and 
cunningly-contrived  surprise,  and  they 
will  not  greatly  disturb  themselves 
about  the  rules  of  probability  or  the 
"supercheries"  of  scholarship.  The 
more  he  plunges  into  the  unfathom- 
able wealth  of  the  dark  or  twilight 
ages,  the  more  Mr.  Famol  may  be 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  JEFFERY  FARNOL 


621 


trusted  to  perceive  how  they  have  been 
misdescribed  by  ignorance,  libeled  by 
neo-sectarianism,  and  obscured  by  the 
crude  light  of  the  "revival  of  learn- 
ing". The  ages  that  built  the  cathe- 
drals we  behold  and  the  abbeys  that 
have  perished,  that  built  up  a  peerless 
code  of  chivalry,  that  waged  the  cru- 
sades against  terrific  odds  of  distance 
and  of  nature,  and  crossed  the  known 
world  in  every  direction  with  a  never- 
ending  come-and-go  of  seafarers  and 
merchants  and  craftsmen,  of  pilgrims 
and  gleemen  and  scholars,  could  hardly 
have  been  the  vast  slough  of  barbar- 
ism that  our  present-day  ignorance 
and  pride  pretend.  Mr.  Famol  is  not 
above  crowding  his  chorus  with  the 
self-colored  villain  beyond  redemption 
or  the  pantomime  monk  with  the  veni- 
son pie.  His  Latin  gives  one  the 
shivers.  He  mixes  his  thee'a  and  his 
ye's,  and  precisians  may  murmur  at 
his  forms  of  archaic  diction.  But  he 
never  plays  down  to  modem  compla- 
cency or  bigotry,  and  he  does  not  bur- 
den our  credulity  without  compensa- 
tion. If,  as  Roosevelt  said,  imagina- 
tion in  the  historian  is  quite  compati- 
ble with  minute  accuracy,  most  read- 
ers would  say  that  occasional  inaccu- 
racy in  detail  need  not  disturb  imagi- 
nation in  romance.  If  Famol  makes  a 
slip  in  the  way  of  detail,  or  lapses  into 
excess,  he  preserves  the  most  impor- 
tant thing,  and  that  is  atmosphere. 
Above  all,  he  keeps  a  gentle  undertone 
of  sanity  alive  and  resonant,  whatever 
be  the  key  or  movement.  There  is  al- 
ways a  note  of  gaiety  reigning 
through  his  work,  like  the  glinmier  of 
daylight  through  the  tree-tops,  to  re- 
mind you  that  somewhere  through  his 
favorite  'l^oskage"  the  open  country  is 
awaiting  us  and  the  smiling  sunset  of 
a  happy  ending. 

One  faculty  Mr.  Famol  has  had  in 
his  favor  all  along,  and  without  it  he 


might  have  failed,  charm  he  never  so 
wisely.  The  canakin  may  clink,  and 
the  tucket  resound,  till  the  galled  jade 
wince,  and  all  that;  you  may  em- 
broider your  dialogues  with  time-hon- 
ored proverbs  and  snatches  of  old 
rounds  and  ballads;  and  deck  your 
marginal  characters  with  every  sort 
of  ejaculation  and  eccentricity,  but 
without  a  healthy  sense  of  humor  it  all 
rings  hollow.  The  greatest  addition 
to  the  annals  of  our  time,  Hardy's  "Dy- 
nasts", never  rises  to  its  real  dimen- 
sions on  the  horizon  of  our  admiration 
until  it  brings  into  its  survey  the  ele- 
ment of  wayside  comedy,  and  indulges 
the  play  of  homely  wits  upon  the  cos- 
mic issues  going  forward.  Here, 
thanks  to  his  first-hand  study  of  the 
English  roads,  Mr.  Farnol  has  been 
able  to  enliven  his  canvas  with  genial 
oddities  like  the  Ancient  and  the 
Bos'un  and  Black  George.  They 
sweeten  the  diabolism  of  gentry  like 
Chichester  and  Sir  Maurice  Vibart 
and  Duke  Ivo,  and  persuade  us  that 
even  in  sinister  times  the  good  green- 
wood harbored  simple  souls  pervaded 
by  a  cheerful  and  reckless  equanimity. 
There  is  no  doubt  they  make  enor- 
mously for  Mr.  Famol's  widespread 
popularity.  Mr.  Balfour  a  few  years 
ago  put  in  a  wholesome  plea  for  a 
gayer  note  in  our  romances.  And  this 
power  of  keeping  a  blithe  heart  beat- 
ing through  a  stirring  tale  is  more 
needed  nowadays  than  the  "lovely  and 
immortal  privilege"  Leigh  Hunt  spoke 
about,  "that  can' stretch  its  hand  out 
of  the  wastes  of  time  and  touch  our 
eyelids  with  tears". 

Our  author,  with  a  decade  of  good 
work  to  his  credit,  is  still  a  young  man 
as  writers  go,  and  it  is  idle  to  pontifi- 
cate about  a  man  who  may  yet  sur- 
mount his  own  high-water  mark. 
There  are  Noctes  Famoliane  to  come 


522 


THE  BOOKMAN 


perhaps  which  may  dispense  with  the 
highborn  heroine,  endowed  with  glam- 
ourous beauty  and  a  commanding 
temper  which  beats  itself  away  upon 
the  hero's  constancy  of  purpose.  They 
should  certainly  excel  minor  work 
like  "Mr.  Tawnish",  "The  Chronicles 
of  the  Imp",  and  "The  Geste  of  Duke 
Jocelyn'',  which  are  the  leisure  ram- 
bles of  a  summer  afternoon  compared 
with  the  fortunes  of  Beltane  or  Bar- 
nabas. Only  last  year  "Our  Admira- 
ble Betty"  reassured  us  that  the  au- 
thor's powers  remain  as  fertile  as  ever 
while  his  grip  grows  firmer.  This  suf- 
ficiency appeared  in  the  film  version 
of  "The  Amateur  Gentleman",  re- 
cently produced,  which  showed  with 
all  the  present  imperfections  of  the 
cinema,  what  a  rich  field  for  strife  and 
surprise  the  Famol  novels  are.  He 
has  acquired  unmistakable  skill  in  the 
use  of  what  the  engineer  calls  "baffle- 
plates"  and  artists  call  the  confiict  of 
emotion. 

It  is  rumored  among  the  gossips 
that  Mr.  Farnol  is  at  work  in  a  new 
vein  which  should  suit  him  to  per- 
fection. Should  he  succeed,  he  will  de- 
serve well  of  us  all,  and  if  he  fails,  he 
has  plenty  of  admirers  to  welcome  him 


ashore.  But  he  will  not  fail,  we  may 
depend,  for  want  of  hard  work,  inten- 
sity of  realization,  or  that  vivid  and 
devil-may-care  imagination  which  is 
the  province  where  he  most  excels.  To 
frame  a  tale  of  derring-do  with  splen- 
did seriousness  is  something,  to  call 
up  a  vision  of  womanly  virtue  tried  and 
resurgent,  or  to  interest  us  in  the  com- 
merce and  traffic  of  the  countryside  in 
the  green  heart  of  a  typical  English 
shire.  But  without  the  sure  touch  and 
penetration  of  the  artist,  without  the 
easy  swing  of  a  protean  narrative,  the 
retention  of  the  reader's  interest,  and 
the  atmosphere  that  blends  all  truly, 
toil  is  apt  to  be  thrown  away.  The 
worthy  Sir  Egerton  Brydges  was  just 
such  an  example  of  unattaining  effort. 
His  romances  are  dusty  and  forgotten 
now,  and  hardly  repay  the  turning 
over;  but  he  had  the  root  of  the  mat- 
ter in  him  when  he  wrote  that  "noth- 
ing is  so  happy  to  itself  and  so  attrac- 
tive to  others  as  a  genuine  and  ripened 
imagination  that  knows  its  own  pow- 
ers, and  throws  forth  its  treasures 
with  frankness  and  fearlessness".  And 
if  those  are  not  marks  of  the  Famol 
romances,  then  they  are  beyond  analy- 
sis. 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


Indianapolis,  June,  1920. 

I'VE  been  searchinfir  all  about  and  I 
can't  find  that  thing  to  save  my 
life.  Well,  no  matter.  I  only  thought 
of  ity  anyhow,  because  it  reminded  me 
of  something  else.  You  see,  when  I 
got  into  town  they  were  putting  on 
another  one  of  those  why-Indianapolis- 
is  -  the  -  best  -  city  -  to  -  live  -  and  -  do-busi- 
ness -  in  -  of  -  any  -  place  -  on  -  earth  cam- 
paigns. Nicholson  wrote  a  thingum- 
bob on  the  theme,  which  was  got  up 
into  a  circular.  That  was  what  I  was 
looking  for — ^the  copy  I  had  of  this  cir- 
cular. Perhaps  not  so  good  a  publicity 
circular,  but  certainly  a  more  authen- 
tic piece  of  literature,  is  another  docu- 
ment on  the  same  theme,  which  I  have 
in  my  hand;  It  was  written  by  one 
Martha  Rosalind  Long,  a  very  youth- 
ful person  to  whom  I  have  the  honor 
to  be  a  cousin.  It  was  written  to  fulfil 
an  assignment  given  to  all  the  stu- 
dents in  the  grade  schools  of  the  city. 
It  opens  thus:  ''I  am  going  to  talk 
stem  to  you  just  as  I  would  if  we  were 
eye  to  eye." 

I  wish  I  could  tell  you  all  about 
Christian  Science,  but  (I've  just  been 
glancing  at  my  watch)  I  doubt  whether 
I  have  time.  Anyhow,  this  I  must  say, 
I  have  been  much  strengthened  by  it; 
and  I  recommend,  to  all  young  men, 
the  study  of  its  doctrine — cultivated, 
that  is,  as  it  was  by  me.  Christian 
Science  (as  I  grasp  it)  is  a  tall,  rather 
slender,  firmly-built  young  lady,  with 
abundant  dark  hair,  a  fair  and  honest 
face,  musical  voice,  decidedly  capable. 


somewhat  serious-minded,  born  in  the 
north  of  England,  "translated"  (as 
she  puts  it)  to  this  country  as  a  child, 
and  now  (so  she  declares)  "a 
Hoosier".  Perhaps  there  is  some  con- 
fusion in  my  mind  between  the  charm 
of  my  priestess  and  the  tenets  of  her 
faith.  However  that  may  be,  as  on 
pleasant  afternoons  we  walked  by  the 
sparkling,  rushing  waters  (of  the  ex- 
ceedingly stagnant  and  murky  canal 
which  plies  toward  Indianapolis),  I 
received  (in  what  I  was  told  were 
"elementary"  lessons)  the  knowledge 
that  the  power  was  mine  to  make  and 
to  keep  myself  whole. 

Two  things  about  the  principles 
presented  to  my  mind  somewhat  trou- 
bled me.  For  one  thing,  they  seemed 
to  supply  nothing  beyond  a  working 
philosophy  for  living  this  life;  and 
has  not  man  always  sought  from  any- 
thing like  a  religion  some  answer  to 
the  immemorial  and  eternal  question 
of  (as  Francis  Hackett,  in  one  of  his 
excellent  articles,  puts  it)  "where  do 
we  go  from  here?"  Also,  it  struck  me 
that  "Science"  was  somewhat  lacking 
in  emotional  quality — ^that,  as  a  sub- 
ject of  communion,  it  did  not  alto- 
gether fulfil  the  occasion :  a  man  and 
a  maiden,  newly  acquainted,  strolling 
beneath  budding  trees  along  the  tow- 
path  of  a  quaint  canal. 

It's  a  bright  little  park  (Monet- 
blue  on  misty  days),  the  handsome, 
long,  low  Federal  Building  to  the 
south  of  it,  and  from  the  north,  nestled 
in   a   row   of  other   structures,   the 


523 


524 


THE  BOOKMAN 


pretty  little  building  of  the  Bobbs- 
Merrill  Company  brightly  overlooks 
it.  And  there,  when  fortune  favors 
you,  you  may  find  as  agreeable  a  gen- 
tleman as  you  would  care  to  see.  I 
have  never  "got"  exactly  what  the  of- 
ficial title  is  of  Hewitt  Hanson  How- 
land  in  relation  to  this  company,  but 
as  well  as  I  can  make  out  he  seems  to 
run  the  editorial  end  of  the  business. 

He  is  a  t3rpe  I  greatly  fancy ;  a  bit 
of  a  dandy.  And  much  did  I  relish 
again  the  just-stepped-out-of-a-band- 
box  effect  of  this  young  man  as  we 
made  our  greetings.  I  suppose  some 
who  look  at  the  pleasant  grey  of  his 
neatly-barbered  hair  might  say  that 
now  he  is  not  so  much  a  young  man  as 
he  once  was.  Pooh!  Smart,  slender, 
alert,  flexible,  what  have  a  few  years, 
more  or  less,  done  to  Hewitt,  other 
than  to  add  still  more  lustre  to  an  im- 
peccable polish? 

To  dinner,  then,  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Howland  at  the  University  Club,  and 
afterward  to  an  excellent  amateur  per- 
formance of  "The  Misleading  Ladsr", 
given  by  the  Dramatic  Club  of  the 
city.  A  sister,  Mrs.  Howland,  of  Irvin 
Cobb;  but  an  altogether  different 
type  of  beauty,  quite  dissimilar  in  the 
charm  of  her  very  pronounced  appeal. 

The  club :  one  of  the  oldest  institu- 
tions in  Indianapolis.  Performances 
given  four  times  a  year.  A  dance  af- 
terward. No  admission  charged  to 
members  or  for  guests.  All  affairs 
financed  by  club  dues.  Tarkington 
president  when  he  was  about  twenty- 
four.  There  tonight — ^with  that  beak 
of  his,  shoulders  hooked  up,  in  his 
dress  coat,  standing  a  bit  up  the  stair- 
way (in  the  intermission)  looking  a 
good  deal  like  a  huge  and  curious  bird 
out  of  the  Bronx  zoo. 

"Yes",  said  Nicholson, — ^we  were 
again  at  luncheon, — "they  were  the 
aristocracy  of  Indiana."     He  meant 


the  Protestant  minister  pioneers  (they 
were  generally  Methodists)  and  the 
families  they  reared.  Booth  Tarking- 
ton was  of  this  sturdy  stock.  And  so, 
— ^though  a  gentleman  very  cleverly 
introduced  me  the  other  day  as  one 
"bom  in  Indiana  but  who  had  never 
been  west  of  the  Hudson  River," — 
and  so  can  this  be  a  boast  of  mine. 
Nicholson  cannot,  as  he  should  be  able 
to  do,  claim  a  Hoosier  minister  grand- 
father. But  his  "folks"  (as  he  would 
say)  in  early  days  came  over  the  long 
trail  from  North  Carolina,  through 
Kentucky,  to  Indiana,  a  hardy  and  (as 
was  the  habit  of  strong  men  of  their 
time)  a  God-fearing  lot.  An  Episco- 
palian was  Nick,  first  by  inheritance, 
and  then  by  baptism,  at  about  the  age 
of  two.  I  have  been  at  some  pains  to 
state  this  matter  clearly  in  order  to 
explain  the  measure  of  my  interest  in 
the  discourse  this  day  of  Meredith 
Nicholson,  and  his  curiosity  as  to 
things  spiritual. 

"At  any  rate,"  he  was  saying,  "our 
grandfathers,  yours  and  mine,  believed 
in  something.  They  believed  in  hell, 
for  one  thing.  Nowadays  there  is 
little  in  the  churches,  the  Protestant 
churches,  but  uplift,  social  service  sen- 
timent, and  that  kind  of  thing.  You 
go  to  a  minister  today  and  he  rather 
apologizes  for  his  Faith. 

"You  say  to  him:  Td  like  to  be- 
long to  this  church,  but  there  are  a 
number  of  things  in  Scripture  teach- 
ing which  I  have  great  difiiculty  in  ac- 
cepting.' And  he  replies:  'Oh,  well; 
Grod  does  not  require  us  to  believe 
more  than  we  can.' 

"No,  Protestantism  has  done  its 
work,  has  had  its  liberalizing  influ- 
ence, has  made  its  great  contribution 
to  the  world,  and  can  never  again  be 
anything  like  the  force  in  history  that 
it  was. 

"Indeed,  the  only  church  at  hand 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


625 


which  stubbornly  stands  for  a  definite 
faith  is  the  Roman  Catholic.  Gives 
you  a  great  sense  of  power.  The 
mothering  of  the  world — ^you've  got  to 
admit  there's  something  very  appeal- 
ing in  the  idea." 

Now,  I  will  talk  with  any  man  on 
any  subject  (except  baseball,  which, 
to  my  mind,  ought  to  be  abolished), 
and  if  I  will  walk  a  half-mile  to  talk 
with  a  man  about  painting,  and  a 
mile  to  prove  him  all  wrong  about  lit- 
erature, twain  will  I  walk  (in  the 
rain)  to  hear  him  out  on  the  subject 
of  religion.    So  we  fell  to. 

Mr.  Nicholson,  he  declares,  could  tell 
the  priests  of  America  a  thing  or  two 
about  how  to  take  advantage  of  the 
present  spiritual  unrest.  For  one 
thing  (it  is  his  opinion),  the  church 
over  here  should  technically  be  much 
more  separated  from  its  head  at  Rome, 
as  'it  is  now  practically  an  independ- 
ent institution,  anyway".  He  recited 
the  scenario  of  an  essay  he  said  he 
would  write  if  he  ever  got  time  on 
some  such  subject  as  "How  Much  Can 
Man  Believe?"  Quoted  Newman, 
Matthew  Arnold,  and  Emerson  in  a 
breath. 

Today  he  inscribed  his  check :  "Love 
is  not  love  which  alters  when  it  altera- 
tion finds."  I  observed  the  tall  negro 
who  attended  us  puckering  his  lips 
and  knitting  his  brows  as,  slowly  with- 
drawing, he  earnestly  endeavored  to 
dig  some  meaning  from  this  line.  As 
he  neared  the  cashier's  desk  a  mes- 
sage of  some  kind  from  it  seemed  to 
have  reached  his  mind,  as  he  suddenly 
relaxed  in  a  gesture  of  mirth,  and, 
with  a  gleaming  grin,  slapped  his 
thigh. 

It  was,  indeed,  a  great  pity — a  great 
pity  that  I  should  not  be  able  to  stay 
over  next  week  in  order  to  see  the 
performance  of  "Bubbles",  advertised 
as  "A  Musical  Froth  Benefit  of  the 


Boys'  Club",  and  in  which  Nick  was 
to  be  a  "black-face"  and  do  a  song 
turn.  Rehearsing  for  the  event  now 
he  was  every  day  at  noon  in  a  room 
he  had  obtained  for  this  purpose  at 
my  hotel. 

"You  see  that  lady  going  there,"  he 
suddenly  said ;  "she  teaches  classes  in 
ballet  dancing,  and  has  a  long  wait- 
ing list.  Put  that  in  your  book:  they 
teach  the  ballet  in  Indianapolis — ^long 
waiting  list." 

*  *  *  * 

Startling  I  Stunning !  Elevator 
man  in  this  hotel  looks  exactly  like 
James  Whitcomb  Riley.  "Sure,"  said 
our  publicity  man,  "had  feature  story, 
with  picture,  in  the  papers  when  we 
got  him.    He  never  saw  Riley." 

Had  promised  to  communicate  with 
Tarkington  to  make  an  appointment 
to  have  a  little  visit  with  him.  No 
telephone  number  listed.  "Informa- 
tion" refused  information.  Ran  into 
a  friend  of  his  (he  must  have  been  a 
very  good  friend,  with  a  jealous  re- 
gard for  Tark's  elaborately  fortified 
seclusion)  who  gave  me  a  number. 
"Hello!  This  Mr.  Tarkington's 
house?"  "Naw,  stockyards."  Tried 
another  number  suggested  to  me.  Got 
Fort  Benjamin  Harrison. 

Admirable  journal:  "Annals  of 
Medical  History".  Recommend  it  to 
all  students  of  literature.  Read  in  a 
recent  number  of  it,  while  waiting  in 
his  ofiice  for  him,  several  poems  by 
Dr.  McCuUoch  (fine  one  entitled  "Cam- 
piegne"),  and  an  excellent  article, 
"The  Sterility  of  Catherine  de  Me- 
dici". McCulloch,  when  he  turned  up, 
told  me  he  had  just  put  Tarkington  to 
bed  with  a  severe  attack  of  indiges- 
tion. Had  the  night  before  eaten  some 
lobster,  or  something. 

Most  extraordinary  thing!  I  had 
been  deriving  considerable  entertain- 


626 


THE  BOOKMAN 


ment  from  the  effect  about  me  of  my 
sensational  illness.  It  had  become  the 
literary  event  of  the  season  in  the 
Wabash  valley.  I  remember  an  Eng- 
lish novel  I  one  time  read  in  which 
was  a  little  boy  who  had  never  seen 
the  sea.  This  situation  with  him  had 
become  noised  about  in  the  train  as  he 
was  on  his  way  to  the  coast.  When 
the  spectacle  which  he  had  never  be- 
held came  within  view  excitement  be- 
came general.  The  revelation  of  his 
answer  awaited  with  bated  breath,  he 
was  asked  from  every  side :  "How  do 
you  feel  now?"  So  with  me,  my  inner 
workings  day  by  day  a  subject  of  keen 
and  popular  attention — ^how  did  I  feel 
now?  But,  I  had  no  notion  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  my  starting  an  epidemic,  of 
my  taking  it  up  making  acute  indiges- 
tion the  fashion. 

Yes,  Hewitt  declared  /  had  done  it. 
He  looked  wan.  Had  been  laid  up  for 
a  couple  of  days.  Bad  case  of  indi- 
gestion. 

Easter :  first  thing  I  saw,  in  a  front 
room  of  the  Nicholson  house,  was  an 
extraordinary  collection  of  musical  in- 
struments, conspicuous  among  them 
a  bass-drum,  the  other  engines  of 
sound  unfamiliar  to  me  off  the  vaude- 
ville stage.  Wouldn't  that  flabbergast 
you !  I  thought.  If  he  hasn't,  in  ad- 
dition to  suddenly  taking  to  traveling 
about  with  a  professional  dancing 
partner  (about  which  I  had  been  hear- 
ing much)  and  rehearsing  to  be  a 
"nigger"  minstrel,  gone  and  become 
what  Riley's  poem  calls  a  "little  man 
in  a  tin  shop" ! 

I  was  shown  by  the  maid  into  a 
room  opening  onto  the  opposite  side 
of  the  hall,  and  examined  this  apart- 
ment while  I  waited.  Walls  lined  with 
books;  large  oil  painting  of  Tark, 
overcoat  on,  crouching  in  a  chair  (in 
effect  the  work  of  a  promising  stu- 
dent) ;     among    the    framed    photo- 


graphs two  of  Henry  James,  and  one 
of  a  figure  (that  of  his  father,  pre- 
sumably) in  the  uniform  of  a  Union 
officer  of  the  Civil  War. 

There  is  a  daughter,  Chelsea-china- 
shepherdess  type,  newly  turned 
twenty,  engaged  (though  I  heard  that 
her  father  was  horrified  at  the  idea 
of  anyone  being  engaged  before  at 
least  thirty  or  so),  and  two  sons,  each 
in  the  neighborhood  of  two-thirds 
grown. 

Said  Nick,  as  he  finished  his  soup : 
"Now  a  good  deal  has  been  written 
about  old  tombstones,  and  the  in- 
scriptions on  them,  and  so  on;  but  a 
good  and  a  new  idea  for  an  essay"  (he 
is  all  the  while  throwing  out  to  me 
most  generously  ideas  for  essays) 
"would  be  this:  go  to  a  costly  bridge, 
or  some  other  civic  monument,  read 
on  the  handsome  bronze  tablet  there 
the  names  of  the  honorable  council- 
men  who  caused  it  to  be  erected,  and 
then  look  up  how  many  of  them  are 
now  in  jail." 

About  those  feet.  It  may  be  funny 
that  some  of  our  recent  literary  visit- 
ors from  London  had  such  large  feet 
that  no  shoe  store  over  here  could  fit 
them  with  overshoes.  But  what  hap- 
pened to  Nick?  With  his  long,  nar- 
row feet,  into  a  store  in  Boston,  or 
Philadelphia,  or  some  such  place,  to 
be  told  that  they  did  not  "cater"  to 
"the  Southern  trade". 

Dancing!  Learned  it  at  forty- 
eight.  Didn't  learn  before  because  he 
didn't  believe  he  could.  They  tried  to 
teach  him  in  early  life  by  the  count- 
ing method.  And  he  never  could  learn 
anything  that  went  one,  two,  three. 
Discovered  only  lately  that,  with  the 
right  partner,  you  could  learn  to  dance 
by  just  pitching  in  and  beginning 
right  off  to  dance,  without  any  one- 
two-three  business  at  all.  Highly 
recommends  it  for  one  subject  to  in- 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


527 


digestion,  as  he  is.  And,  by  the  way, 
had  he  told  me  that  he  had  just  had  a 
bad  attack?  Pretty  near  in  bed  with 
it. 

"Meredith,^'  said  Mrs.  Nicholson, 
"you  know  it  is  Easter." 

"Why,  yes,"  said  Nick;  "of  course 
I  know  it  is." 

"Wasn't  it  at  Easter,"  she  asked, 
"that  you  declared  you  were  going  to 
enter  the  Catholic  church?" 

"Well,"  said  Nick,  as  though 
thoughtfully  feeling  about  in  his  mind 
for  an  explanation,  "I  guess  it's  be- 
cause I've  been  so  busy  I  didn't  get 
around  to  it."  Then,  brightening  up : 
"I'll  enter  at  Whitsuntide." 

Well,  I  declare !  Not  Nick,  after  all, 
but  the  younger  son  it  was  who  be- 
longed to  that  layout  of  tom-toms  in 
the  front  room.  And  after  dinner  this 
locally  celebrated  trap-drummer  (as 
I  learned  he  was)  gave  a  very  finished 
performance  in  all  the  high  complex- 
ity of  his  art:  victrola  turned  on, 
leaping  from  place  to  place,  pounding 
with  a  variety  of  sticks  on  this  and 
that,  in  effect  all  at  once. 

Excellent  study — superstitions. 
What's  that  fellow's  name?  Frazer, 
or  something  like  that.  Wrote  that 
enoiTnous  book  in  a  number  of  huge 
volumes,  "The  Golden  Bough,  a  Study 
in  Magic  and  Religion".  Grand  book  I 
Can  be  read  in  for  weeks  at  a  stretch. 
You  never  tire  of  it.  Full  of  fascinat- 
ing stuff  about  the  superstitions  of  all 
sorts  of  primitive  peoples.  Nothing, 
however,  in  the  book  about  two  dollar 
bills. 

I  had  been  in  Indianapolis  only  a 
short  while  when  it  struck  me  that 
there  were  an  extraordinary  number 
of  two  dollar  bills  in  circulation  there. 
When  I  put  across  a  counter,  or  gave 
a  waiter,  a  twenty  dollar  bill  I'd  get 
in  change  maybe  nine  two's.  Because 
I  wasn't  "on",  this  was. 


Nick  (like  a  sensible  man),  won't 
walk  under  ladders;  he  is  depressed 
(and  rightly  enough,  too)  if  he  sees 
the  new  moon  in  the  wrong  way.  In- 
deed, his  spiritual  life,  so  to  say,  is 
rich  in  superstitions.  And  he  won't,  if 
he  can  help  it,  accept  a  two  dollar  bill. 
A  young  woman  cashier  (superior 
sort  of  person)  looked  at  him  pity- 
ingly just  the  other  day,  and  said: 
"Well,  I  should  think  you  would  be 
above  that!" 

But  he  knows  what  all  wise  men 
know  in  Indiana,  that  a  two  dollar 
bill  brings  terribly  bad  luck;  a  truth 
which  was  discovered  on  the  Western 
Circuit,  and,  figuratively  speaking,  is 
graven  on  the  stone  tablets  of  the  law 
of  all  book-makers.  Mr.  Gates,  a  few 
days  later,  imparted  to  me  the  knowl- 
edge of  how  to  take  off  the  curse  of 
having  a  two  dollar  bill.  You  tear  off 
one  comer  as  soon  as  you  receive  one. 
But  I  found  all  comers  already  torn 
off  those  that  came  to  me. 

No  sensitivity  whatever  as  to  edi- 
tions in  books,  has  Nick.  He  enjoys, 
and  values,  those  in  the  fairly  com- 
prehensive collection  he  has  solely  for, 
apparently,  their  substance,  the  litera- 
ture that  is  in  them.  As  to  editions, 
he  says,  he  simply  likes  to  have  a  book 
of  "handy",  comfortable  size.  Inno- 
cent, quite,  of  the  instinct  that  knows 
that  of  every  book  in  the  world  there 
is  only  one  edition  a  copy  of  which  is 
right  to  have  as  one's  own. 

Among  many  other  things,  he  reads 
contemporary  "realism"  a  good  deal. 
And  he  broods  upon  some  "serious" 
things  by  his  hand  to  come.  But  his 
heart  lights  up  most  when  he  beholds 
that  sort  of  "imagination"  which  soars 
above  the  things  that  never  were  on 
land  or  sea.  And,  "my  idea  of  the 
novelist  is  still  pretty  much  the  old 
idea  of  the  story-teller  at  the  bazaar". 


528 


THE  BOOKMAN 


What  he  feels  is  best,  after  all,  'the 

Arabian  Nights  kind  of  thing". 

»  ♦  ♦  ♦ 

This  was  the  night  I  was  to  dine 
with  Tarkington,  at  seven.    I  did  some 
letter-writing,  and  then  went  down- 
stairs to  look  around  there,  at  six. 
And  there  I  found  him,  in  the  billiard- 
room,  hard  at  his  favorite  game  of 
sniff  and  smoking  one  of  those  huge 
cigarettes   of  his   branded   in  large 
"caps"  "B.  T."    He  was  got  up  in  a 
light-colored  suit,  with  a  dappled  ef- 
fect, which,  at  least  in  a  sitting  pos- 
ture, didn't  fit  him  very  well  as  the 
coat  humped  a  good  deal  in  the  back 
between  the  shoulders,  and  buttoned 
in  front  fell  across  his  middle  in  heavy 
creases,  like  the  skin  of  a  hippopot- 
amus.    He  wore  (what  I  do  not  re- 
member to  have  seen  on  him  before) 
glasses — spectacles  with  tortoise-shell 
rims  to  the  large  round  lens,  and  fiat 
gold  shaves  (or  what  the  opticians,  I 
believe,  call  temples)  over  the  ears;  a 
heavy  ring  with  a  dark  fiat  stone  of 
ample  size  set  in  it,  a  gold-faced  stick- 
pin to  his  tie,  very  blue  socks,  and 
grey  spats  which  seemed  rather  large 
for  him.    He  said  he  would  be  up  at 
once.    I  asked  him  not  to  hurry,  as  it 
was  only  a  little  after  six,  and  said 
that  any  time  he  cared  to  come  up,  he 
would  find  me  contentedly  occupied 
with  reading  or  writing.    In  reply  to 
this  he  exclaimed,  "Fine!" 

At  dinner,  he  began  the  conversa- 
tion by  telling  me  that  he  had  found  a 
good  aid  to  keeping  mentally  fit  in 
knocking  off  work  at  about  five  in  the 
afternoon  and  coming  down  to  rest 
his  mind  by  playing  sniff  for  an  hour 
and  a  half  or  so.  He  was  working,  he 
said,  on  some  motion-picture  scenarios, 
boy  stories,  which  his  contract  called 
for  in  the  amount  of  a  certain  number 
of  them  at  a  time,  there  referred  to 
as  a  "lot".     Then  he  fussed  a  good 


deal  about  the  way  the  motion-picture 
people  tampered  with  his  stuff,  writ- 
ing into  it  things  which  they  thought 
he  would  have  put  there  if  he  well 
enough  known  the  game.  For  in- 
stance, incorporating  into  his  story 
scenes  in  which  the  Penrod-like  boy's 
dog  saves  from  death  by  drowning  the 
town  banker's  daughter,  and  so  on. 
When  he  had  got  wind  of  such  action 
on  their  part  he  had  at  once  tele- 
graphed the  picture  men  to  stop,  he 
wouldn't  have  it.  They  thereupon 
suggested  that  they  send  on  from  Los 
Angeles  a  "lady  writer"  to  help  him 
go  at  the  business  in  a  professional 
manner. 

I  noticed  that  Tarkington  ate  rdther 
rapidly.  I  like  to  eat  rapidly  myself, 
largely,  I  think,  because  I  am  impa- 
tient to  come  to  the  smoking  and  real 
talking  part  of  the  meal.  But  as  Dr. 
McGuUoch  had  instructed  me  to  eat 
slowly,  I  had  some  difficulty  in  keep- 
ing my  host  anywhere  in  sight.  He 
drinks  near-beer  with  his  meals,  and 
when  playing  at  sniff. 

After  dinner,  we  went  into  a  sort  of 
lounging-room  upstairs,  that  is  on  the 
same  floor  as  the  dining-room,  and 
away  from  the  general  gathering 
places  below.  Here  we  were  quite 
alone. 

I  told  Tarkington,  now  for  the  first 
time  in  some  detail,  the  story  of  my 
recent  arrival  in  Indianapolis.  And, 
in  turn,  he  related  to  me,  in  greater 
detail  than  I  had  ever  heard  it  before, 
an  account  of  his  own  dramatic  col- 
lapse, a  number  of  years  ago.  He  was, 
it  appears,  out  for  an  automobile  drive 
with  his  sister  and  nephew,  when 
there  came  upon  him  a  mysterious 
tightening  about  the  heart,  and 
he  began  to  have  much  difficulty  in 
getting  his  breath.  He  sat  hooped  up 
in  a  corner  of  the  machine,  and  felt  a 
decided  disinclination  to  talk.    When 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


529 


his  nephew  would  exclaim,  "Oh !  Uncle 
Booth,  look  at  that !"  or,  "Uncle  Booth, 
don't  you  think,"  etc.,  he  would  mum- 
ble something  which  was  not  much  of 
a  reply.  Finally,  so  intense  grew  the 
difficulties  within  him,  he  leaned  over, 
and,  wishing  not  to  excite  his  sister, 
in  a  low  voice  directed  his  chauffeur 
to  turn  and  make  for  home. 

When  he  had  got  well  across  the 
lawn,  he  gave  up,  and  fell,  landing  on 
his  back  close  beside  some  shrubbery. 
He  quite  firmly  believed  that  he  was 
going,  as  the  hotel  people  say,  to 
"check  out".  Still  he  thought  that  if 
only  he  could  get  some  sort  of  stimu- 
lant he  might  have  an  hour  or  so  more. 
Prone  as  he  was,  however,  he  knew 
that  nobody  would  be  likely  to  see  him, 
and  so,  as  he  had  not  the  breath  to 
yell,  he  raised  his  right  arm  and 
waved  it.  A  colored  woman  in  the 
next  yard  caught  the  signal,  and  called 
to  him:  "You  ought  to  tie  a  piece  of 
red  yarn  'bout  yo'  wrist."  I  asked 
him  what  on  earth  was  her  thought  in 
that?  He  said:  "I  haven't  the  slight- 
est idea." 

He  acknowledged  that,  as  with  me 
in  somewhat  similar  case,  he  had  no 
fear  whatever  of  the  death  which  he 
believed  to  be  imminent,  but  that, 
curiously  enough,  like  myself  again, 
the  turn  of  his  thought  was  a  raging 
anger.  Though  (he  immediately 
added),  frequently,  when  there  was  no 
reason  to  believe  that  he  might  not  at- 
tain to  a  hale  old  age,  he  had,  when  re- 
minded of  the  subject  of  the  close  of 
life  by  something  he  was  reading  in  a 
book,  newspaper  or  magazine,  had  a 
horrible  dread  of,  as  he  put  it,  anni- 
hilation. And,  too,  he  reminded  me, 
we  are  all,  when  they  are  seriously  ill, 
fearful  of  the  death  of  those  for  whom 
we  greatly  care. 

His  anger,  at  this  terrific  moment 


was  directed  entirely  against  one  ob- 
ject— ^his  small  nephew.  The  car,  it 
seems,  had  been  turning  about,  and 
had  stopped  again  before  the  Tarking- 
ton  house.  The  child  saw  his  uncle's 
waving  arm,  and  reasoned,  apparently, 
that  he  must  be  endeavoring  to  attract 
someone  to  him.  But — in  the  jumble 
of  lap-robes  on  the  floor  of  the  car  had 
disappeared  this  small  person's  ball, 
which  rummaging  about  himself  he 
had  not  been  able  to  find.  And,  as  he 
desired  it  inunediately,  he  was  afraid 
his  mother  might  see  his  uncle's  ges- 
ture of  distress  and  leave  him  before 
the  ball  was  found.  And  so,  he  clung 
to  her,  and  cried  out  again  and  again: 
"Mother,  you  can't  leave  this  car  until 
I  get  my  ball !" 

Mr.  Tarkington,  hearing  this,  and 
perceiving  the  situation,  stormed 
within:  "And  so  I'm  to  be  let  die  here 
on  the  grass  all  on  account  of  a 
damned  little  ball,  worth  about  fifteen 
cents !" 

Found,  finally;  carried  in,  and  re- 
clined upon  a  couch  in  his  library,  he 
was  there,  flat  out,  for  a  week,  at- 
tended by  Dr.  McGuUoch.  For  about 
a  year  was  scared  of  motor-cars,  and 
never  went  any  distance  in  one,  as  far 
as  forty  miles,  without  an  apothecary 
shop  in  his  pocket. 

Dr.  McGuUoch,  coming  through  the 
room  on  the  way  to  his  own  quarters 
(he  lives  at  the  club) :  "This  looks 
bad  for  literature." 

Mr.  Tarkington:  "We've  only  been 
talking  medicine."  Holding  out  his 
cigarette  case,  especially  designed  to 
accommodate  those  dreadnought-cali- 
bre smokes  of  his :  "Sit  down." 

But  no,  the  doctor  would  not  sit 
down;  he  must  go  in  and  rest  up  in 
preparation  for  a  speaking  tour  to 
begin  tomorrow.  He  had  been  read- 
ing Brand  Whitlock's  volumes  on  Bel- 
gium— "Fine  book!" 


580 


THE  BOOKMAN 


He  did  take  a  chair,  however,  and 
the  conversation  fell  into  bonuses  for 
ex-soldiers,  taxes  and  politics,  political 
events,  European  and  international. 
Of  the  Soviet  government  of  Russia, 
Tarkington  declared  that  it  was  an  au- 
tocracy and  the  least  democratic  gov- 
ernment in  the  world.  Indeed,  on  all 
of  these  subjects,  he  had  an  abundance 
of  ideas,  spoke  copiously  and  with 
much  conviction.  In  the  course  of  this 
talk,  he  said,  concerning  something  or 
other :  "It's  us  that  pay."  That's  ex- 
actly what  he  said :  "It's  us  that  pay" ; 
and  he  said  it  twice. 

McGulloch  left  us  as  another  gentle- 
man passing  through  the  room  paused 
at  Tarkington's  side.  He  had  recently 
returned  from  New  York,  and  spoke 
his  appreciation  of  the  opera  version 
of  "Beaucaire"  then  there  going. 
Tarkington,  evidently,  had  liked  it 
very  much.  Its  strongest  appeal  to 
him  seemed  to  have  been  as  a  series  of 
beautiful  pictures,  "like  Rawlinson's 
prints",  he  said,  "or  Gainsborough 
paintings".  I  didn't  myself  see  the 
Rawlinson  idea,  as  consummate 
draughtsman  though  he  was,  Rawlin- 
son was  Hogarthian  in  his  subjects, 
and  in  his  manner  much  too  burly,  too, 
for  rendering  the  crisp  and  fragrant 
story  of  Monsieur.  The  Gainsborough 
notion  is  an  intelligent  one,  but  (to 
reverse  Whistler's  celebrated  remark, 
"Why  drag  in  Rembrandt?")  in  this 
case,  why  leave  out  Watteau,  and  Fra- 
gonard? 

Speaking  of  the  stage  (the  gentle- 
man had  gone),  Tarkington  got  onto 
the  subject  of  plays,  and  associated 
with  that,  the  matter  of  "teaching" 
short-story  writing.  He  has  a  youth- 
ful friend  or  relative,  who,  as  he  puts 
it,  writes  these  things  "marketably 
well".  She  is  told  by  some  sort  of  an 
instructor  she  has,  that  this  or  that 
story  should  not  go  as  she  has  it;   it 


should  be  "like  Shakespeare — ^as   in 
•Hamlet' ". 

"And  these  people,"  declared  Mr. 
Tarkington,  "who  have  always  got 
Shakespeare  on  the  brain,  don't  know 
any  more  about  him,  what  he  was 
driving  at,  than  a  goat.  If  he  was 
here  now  they  wouldn't  get  him, 
wouldn't  see  what  he  was  up  to.  Take 
'Hamlet' — ^Why  doesn't  the  prince  kill 
the  king?  He's  got  him  there  where 
he  wants  hinu  'No,'  he  says;  'the 
king  is  praying;  he  killed  my  father 
with  all  his  sins  upon  him,  I'll  wait.' 
Well,  why  don't  he  kill  him  afterward? 
The  king  is  still  there,  soused  all  the 
while,  and  around  with  women. 

"Because  Shakespeare  knew  his 
business.  He's  got  a  whole  lot  more 
up  his  sleeve  yet,  and  he  wants  to  pull 
it — two  acts  yet  to  go.  And  he  knows 
his  audience,  down  to  the  ground.  No 
man  ever  knew  that  better.  He's  got 
to  put  something  into  their  minds  to 
make  'em  think  the  king  can't  be  killed 
right  off  the  bat,  so  his  audience  won't 
walk  out  on  him.  And  he  frames  up 
this  praying  business.  Of  course,  later 
on  it  don't  apply  a  bit,  but  he  knows 
that  having  once  got  it  over  they'll 
continue  to  think  of  it  until  he  is 
ready  to  turn  the  big  trick.  Oh!  he 
was  the  Belasco  of  his  time  all  right." 

Then,  the  subject  of  our  diseases 
popping  up  again  for  a  moment,  he 
told  me  the  strange  story  of  the  un- 
written check.  He  declared  that  either 
one  of  us  could  bring  on  another  one 
of  our  seizures  by  overmuch  thinking 
of  the  matter.  The  effect  of  the  mind 
on  the  physical  machinery  of  man  was 
the  moral  which  pointed  the  tale  that 
follows : 

Tarkington  was  in  New  York,  when 
he  got  a  message  from  Washington  in- 
viting him  to  luncheon  with  President 
Roosevelt  the  next  day  but  one.  Roose- 
velt had  just  read  Tarkington's  then 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


581 


newly  published  volume  of  political 
stories,  "In  the  Arena",  and  wished  to 
discuss  the  book  with  the  author  of  it. 
Tarkington  was  suddenly  panicky  to 
discover  that  he  had  not  a  frock  coat 
with  him.  He  beat  it  to  Brooks  Broth- 
ers to  get  one.  And  there  found  he 
didn't  have  "on  him"  the  money  to 
pay  for  it. 

He  asked  for  a  blank  check;  no,  he 
asked  if  they  had  a  Ck)m  Exchange 
Bank  check — :the  bank  where  he  had 
his  account.  That  is,  he  intended  to 
ask  for  such  a  check,  but  in  some  way 
he  got  the  thing  a  bit  twisted,  and 
asked  for  an  Exchange  Com  Bank 
check,  or  something  like  that.  They 
could  only  give  him  an  ordinary  blank 
check.  The  man  who  presented  it  to 
him,  followed  him  to  the  desk  where 
he  was  to  make  it  out,  and  overlooked 
him  as  he  began.  Tark  began  to  feel 
highly  uncomfortable.  The  idea  began 
to  go  round  in  his  head  that  he  had 
balled  up  the  name  of  his  bank.  That 
was  why  this  man  was  observing  him 
so  closely.  He  suspected,  this  man,  as 
Tarkington  put  it,  there  was  "some- 
thing phoney"  about  this  business. 
Tarkington's  hand  began  to  shake 
with  nervousness.  Made  several  at- 
tempts to  fill  out  a  check.  If  the  man 
would  only  go  away,  thought  he  could 
do  it.  Got  worse.  Said  to  himself, 
"Sure  this  man  thinks  I'm  some  kind 
of  a  crook,  or  something."  Gave  up. 
Told  the  man  that  if  he  would  fix  up 


the  check  otherwise,  he'd  sign  it.  But 
when  the  check  was  given  to  him 
ready  to  sign,  couldn't  write  his  name, 
merely  made  wild  scratches.  Fled — 
saying,  "I'll  go  over  to  my  club  and 
send  you  a  check  from  there."  When 
he  got  to  The  Players,  he  was  right 
enough  again.  "But",  with  a  croaking 
laugh,  "bet  that  man  was  mighty  sur- 
prised when  he  saw  a  perfectly  good 
check  come  along!" 

We  have  not  yet,  however,  got  to 
the  real  punch  of  the  story.  A  year 
later,  Tarkington  was  in  Naples,  and, 
as  he  was  about  to  make  out  another 
check,  the  thought  came  to  him, 
strong,  "I  hope  I  don't  make  an  ass 
of  myself  here,  the  way  I  did  that 
time  in  New  York."  And,  by  jinks, 
he  did! 

He  spoke  of  Nick's  taking  to  danc- 
ing, "at  about  the  time  I  quit — too 
old".  He  said:  "/  was  always  the 
dancing  man.  Nick  wouldn't."  Then 
one  night  Tarkington  was  at  a  dance, 
but  no  longer  dancing,  at  a  place  where 
he  had  danced  for  a  long  string  of 
years.  Slowly  it  came  over  him  there 
was  something  queer  about  the  thing. 
He  tried  to  fathom  the  impression. 
The  room  was  the  same;  the  scene 
was  the  same;  many  of  the  people 
were  the  same.  Suddenly  he  realized 
the  cause  of  the  weird  effect.  He  saw 
what  he  had  been  looking  at  without 
knowing  it.  Nick  iiwm  dancing!  "And 
dancing  dam  well." 

MUBRAY  HILL 


REDUCING  THE  HIGH  COST  OF  COLLECTING 


BY  WALTER  PRICHARD  EATON 


WHEN  I  first  joined  the  staff  of 
the  New  York  "Tribune"  as  a 
cub  reporter,  eighteen  years  ago,  that 
ancient  upholder  of  Republicanism  (or 
is  it  upholder  of  ancient  Republican- 
ism?) ran  a  daily  department  called 
"The  Passing  Throng".  This  depart- 
ment consisted  of  three  or  four  brief 
interviews  with  men  or  women  at  the 
moment  registered  at  the  city  hotels. 
I  was  never  sure  just  why  the  depart- 
ment existed,  unless  it  was  to  make 
me  miserable,  for  I  was  almost  inmie- 
diately  assigned  to  the  task  of  gather- 
ing these  "passing  throngs",  as  the  in- 
terviews were  known  in  the  office. 
Presumably  some  massive  editorial 
brain  supposed  that  the  feature  would 
curry  favor  with  the  hotel  men,  please 
the  person  interviewed,  and  interest 
the  city  readers.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  annoyed  the  hotel  clerks,  infre- 
quently did  more  than  surprise  the 
persons  interviewed,  and  interested 
the  city  readers  not  at  all — ^for  if 
there  is  any  one  thing  your  true  New 
Yorker  doesn't  want  to  read  about 
more  than  another,  it  is  news  or 
opinions  from  anywhere  outside  of 
New  York. 

As  for  me,  it  was  my  horrid  task 
daily  to  trot  up  and  down  the  line, 
from  the  old  Everett  House  on  Union 
Square,  to  the  Netherland  at  the  plaza, 
asking  each  haughty  clerk  whom  he 
harbored  of  interest,  and  sending  up 


cards  innumerable  by  disgusted  bell- 
hops who  knew  I  wasn't  good  for  a 
tip.  It  was  seldom  enough  that  any- 
body yielded  me  readable  copy,  and 
after  a  bit  I  woke  up.  Instead  of 
scanning  the  hotel  registers,  I  scanned 
the  local  papers  from  various  parts  of 
the  country,  purloining  them  from  the 
exchange  editor's  basket.  When  some 
snappy  item  caught  my  eye  in  "The 
Westerly  Sun",  for  instance,  it  was 
quite  simple  to  invent  William  Pease» 
of  Matunuck,  Rhode  Island,  to  come 
to  the  Waldorf  and  tell  me  about 
it.  My  "passing  throngs"  began  at 
once  to  grow  more  readable,  and  I  had 
more  time  to  go  to  the  theatre.  The 
managing  editor  complimented  me, 
and  the  night  copy-desk  winked.  In- 
spired by  my  success,  I  boldly  in- 
scribed the  first  page  of  my  copy,  "W. 
P.  E.  Fakeit",  and  the  desk  man  never 
told.  Such  is  newspaper  life  in  the 
great  metropolis. 

But  once,  before  my  bondage  was 
over,  I  saw  a  name  on  the  register  of 
the  old  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel  which 
made  my  pulse  jump — "Bernard  A. 
Quaritch,  London".  (It  may  be  the 
initial  was  not  signed — ^I  don't  ac- 
curately recall.)  For  once  I  blessed 
the  passing  throngs.  Here  was  an  ex- 
cuse to  see  and  talk  with  a  great  man  I 
I  sent  up  my  card.  Yes,  he  was  in. 
Would  I  come  up?  I  went.  Naturally, 
he  was   not  averse  to  being  inter- 


682 


REDUCING  THE   HIGH  COST  OF  COLLECTING 


533 


viewed,  having  come  to  America  with 
a  trunk  full  of  treasure  to  dispose  of. 
As  I  remember  him,  a  shortish,  fat, 
friendly  man,  with  a  bald  forehead, 
shrewd,  twinkling  eyes,  a  dark  mous- 
tache, and  the  hint  of  several  chins. 
He  was  rather  formal  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, but  he  knew  booklovers,  as  well 
as  books,  on  sight ;  and  before  long  a 
big  trunk-like  case  was  opened,  and 
he  was  showing  me  the  treasures 
which,  he  said,  he  had  brought  over 
"to  pry  a  bit  of  cash  out  of  your  Amer- 
ican millionaires  with".  What  were 
they?  Honesty  compels  me  to  admit 
I  have  now  forgotten,  because  one  so 
exceeded  all  the  rest  in  my  interest  at 
that  time.  It  was  a  poor-looking  book, 
too,  thin,  bound  in  paper.  Once  it  had 
lain  in  front  of  the  elder  Quaritch's 
shop  (am  I  right  in  this?)  and  gone 
begging  for  a  buyer  at  a  few  pennies. 
Now  the  son  was  bringing  to  America 
one  copy,  for  which  he  would  get,  he 
said,  $450  (and  that  was  eighteen 
years  ago).  Yes,  of  course  I  might 
hold  it,  and  look  into  it,  too.  So  I  took 
into  my  hand  the  first  edition  of  Fitz- 
gerald's "Rubaiyat",  and  Bernard 
Quaritch  smiled  a  friendly  smile. 

Can  you  imagine  going  back  to  the 
New  York  "Tribune"  office  after  that, 
and  writing  a  "passing  throng"  about 
it?  I  had  to.  After  all,  Quaritch  was 
a  dealer,  and  expected  the  publicity  in 
return. 

"Who  the ever  heard  of  Qua- 
ritch?" said  the  night  city  editor,  toss- 
ing over  my  copy  to  the  desk  with 
orders  to  reduce  it  one-half — "or 
more". 

Iram  indeed  is  gone  with  all  his 
rose,  which  means  the  night  city  editor 
is  dead,  and  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel  is 
an  office  block,  and  that  particular 
copy  of  the  "Rubaiyat"  no  doubt  re- 
poses in  Morgan's  or  Huntington's  li- 
brary, and  I  am  still  too  poor  to  be  the 


owner  of  the  like;  but  the  love  of  first 
editions  persists,  and  the  original  is- 
sues of  great  books  bring  an  ever 
greater  price,  and  the  magic  offspring 
of  genius  and  print  lure  still  their 
lovers  as  of  old. 

Witness — "The  Amenities  of  Book 
Collecting",  by  A.  Edward  Newton. 
Mr.  Newton  confesses  himself  a  minor 
collector,  as  it  were,  because  of  pov- 
erty. He  has  to  think  twice  before 
spending  eight  or  nine  hundred  dol- 
lars for  a  book,  and  he  doesn't  tell  his 
wife  till  he's  spent  it.  At  that,  he  ap- 
pears to  have  amassed  a  considerable 
number  of  rareties,  and  still  to  be 
living  on  most  amicable  terms  with 
his  spouse.  He  appears,  also,  to  read 
his  books,  and  he  has  almost  per- 
suaded me  to  try  again  to  get  inter- 
ested in  Boswell's  "Life  of  Johnson". 
(Yes,  dear  reader,  I  blush  with  shame, 
I  stammer  with  mortification,  I  am 
covered  with  confusion  as  with  a  gar- 
ment, but  the  truth  cannot  be  hid  that 
I  have  never  been  able  to  get  through 
Boswell.  I  feel  toward  that  book 
much  as  F.  P.  Adams  feels  toward 
golf — it  will  be  a  fine  thing  to  take  up 
when  I  am  old.)  But,  for  all  its 
charm,  all  its  wealth  of  anecdote,  all 
its  flavor  of  ancient  calf,  Mr.  Newton's 
book  gets  my  goat, — "to  use  a  vulgar 
expression",  as  Godwin  added  after  he 
had  thoughtlessly  exclaimed  "God 
bless  you".  Not,  let  me  hasten  to  ex- 
plain, because  of  ansrthing  its  delight- 
ful author  has  done  or  written,  but 
because  what  he  has  done — and 
the  consequent  opportunities  it  has 
given  him  to  write— depends,  in  spite 
of  his. modest  affirmations  of  poverty, 
on  the  possession  of  a  considerable,  a 
very  considerable  amount  of  what,  to 
use  another  vulgar  expression,  we 
may  term  this  world's  goods.  The  di- 
rect implication  is  that  to  be  a  book 
collector,  you  must  also  be  a  banker,  a 


684 


THE  BOOKMAN 


manufacturer  of  boots,  a  maker  of 
munitions,  the  great-grandson  of  a 
farmer  on  Fifth  Avenue  at  Forty-sec- 
ond Street,  or  a  New  York  taxicab 
driver.  Now,  the  unfortunate  fact  re- 
mains that  the  great  majority  of  the 
real  lovers  of  books — I  think  I  may 
make  this  statement  without  serious 
challenge — are  none  of  these  things. 
The  great  majority  of  the  real  lovers 
of  books,  like  the  great  majority  of 
men  in  general,  not  only  wouldn't  dare 
to  spend  nine  hundred  dollars  without 
asking  their  wives,  but  they  couldn't 
if  they  had  the  courage.  The  great 
majority  can  never  hope  for  a  First 
Folio  of  Shakespeare,  which,  as  Mr. 
Newton  truthfully  assents,  is  the  bed- 
rock of  every  great  collection.  Neither 
can  they  hope  for  incunabula,  or  New 
England  Primers  or  illuminated  manu- 
scripts or  firsts  of  Blake  or  the  manu- 
script of  "The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes",  or 
some  thousands  of  other  items  of  like 
interest  and  value.  Therefore,  the  im- 
plication is,  they  can  never  be  book 
collectors. 

In  a  sense,  of  course,  they  cannot. 
More  and  more,  as  the  years  go  on,  the 
precious  items  of  the  past — ^the  first 
editions  of  the  great  classics,  the 
known  letters  and  manuscripts — soar 
upward  in  price  till  they  vanish  into 
the  libraries  of  the  very  rich,  where 
skilled  librarians  are  employed  to  tell 
the  Great  Men  what  they  own.  And 
somehow,  in  spite  of  Mr.  Newton's 
loving  absorption  in  his  library,  I  can- 
not myself  visualize  these  Great  Men 
sitting  down  with  their  treasures,  as 
Lowell,  for  instance,  sat  with  his  books 
overlooking  Mt.  Auburn,  or  Norton 
sat  at  Shady  Hill.  More  and  more  the 
rareties  of  literature  are  taking  on  the 
character  of  gems  or  Ming  vases,  and 
becoming  private  museum  possessions, 
which  can  only  be  had  by  the  million- 
aires and  go,  as  it  were,  into  glass 


cases.  Yet  shall  we  say  that  no  man 
can  collect  books  who  cannot  afford  a 
First  Folio,  that  no  man  is  a  collector 
who  hasn't  dealt  with  Quaritch  and 
G.  D.  S.? 

I,  for  one,  will  not  admit  it.  Take 
the  matter  of  association  books,  for 
example.  It  would  be  thrilling  beyond 
words  to  own  Keats's  copy  of  Chap- 
man's "Homer",  no  doubt,  and  there 
be  those  who  would  be  equally  thrilled 
by  Dr.  Johnson's  dictionary,  presented 
by  himself  to  Boswell,  let  us  say.  But 
because  you  cannot  achieve  these 
thrillers  from  the  past,  is  it  less  col- 
lecting, is  it  not,  indeed,  more  collect- 
ing, and  liess  acquiring,  to  achieve  a 
presentation  copy  from  Galsworthy  or 
Harold  Bell  Wright,  or  some  other  liv- 
ing author  whom  you  admire,  or  some 
lesser  luminary  of  the  past,  connected 
with  your  own  interests?  I  have  a 
little  brown  book,  the  poems  of  Fred- 
erick Goddard  Tuckerman,  presented 
by  him  to  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe.  I 
paid  something  like  two  dollars  for  it. 
It  is  precious  to  me,  however,  not  alone 
because  of  the  exceeding  beauty  and 
melancholy  charm  of  some  of  the  po- 
etry of  this  almost  unknown  and  neg- 
lected American,  but  because  he  be- 
longed to  an  old  New  England  family, 
and  gave  this  copy  to  a  far  more 
famous  New  Englander,  who  evidently 
pasted  in  the  back — a  genealogy  of  the 
Beecher  family !  (There  is  something: 
deliciously  New  England  about  that!) 
I  have  an  inordinate  passion  for 
Keats,  I  respectfully  admire  Sam 
Johnson.  But,  please,  may  I  also  be 
interested  in  Frederick  Tuckerman  of 
Amherst,  Massachusetts,  and  in  the 
author  of  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"? 

Once  I  had  to  spend  a  night  in  Chat- 
tanooga, Tennessee,  for  lack  of  a  train 
to  my  ultimate  destination  in  the  Ten- 
nessee mountains.  I  wandered  for- 
lornly   up   and    down    Chattanooga's 


REDUCING  THE   HIGH  COST  OF  COLLECTING 


585 


main  street  till  suddenly  a  second- 
hand bookshop  caught  my  eye.  "Sal- 
vation!" I  cried,  and  rushed  within,  to 
the  astonishment  of  the  proprietor, 
who  was  dozing  in  his  chair.  Here  I 
found  fourteen  volumes  of  the  Vari- 
orum Shakespeare — ^fine,  clean  copies, 
inscribed  by  Dr.  Fumess  to  William 
Everett.  Opening  them,  I  discovered 
scores  of  marginal  notes,  in  pencil, 
made  by  the  recipient,  many  with  his 
well-known  explosive  vividness  of  ex- 
pression. I  bought  the  fourteen  vol- 
umes (which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I 
needed  in  my  library)  for  a  dollar  each 
less  than  the  retail  price.  Now,  when 
I  have  occasion  to  consult  the  wisdom 
of  the  past  regarding  Hamlet's  mental 
state,  let  us  say,  I  have  the  stabilizing 
advice  of  old  Dr.  Everett,  who  trots 
down  the  margin  by  my  side  ever  and 
anon  exclaiming,  "Damned  rot!" 
Usually  I  agree  with  him. 

Working  on  the  same  newspaper  for 
which  William  Winter  wrote  theatrical 
reviews,  I  was  able,  by  connivance 
with  the  proof  room,  to  save  many  of 
that  caustic  old  gentleman's  manu- 
scripts from  the  waste-paper  press. 
He  wrote  a  wonderful  hand,  like 
none  other  I  ever  saw — each  letter 
separate,  and  all  practically  illegible, 
yet  the  whole  looking  as  if  it  were  en- 
graved on  copper.  There  used  to  be 
an  office  legend  that  a  sheet  of  his  copy 
once  blew  out  of  the  window  and 
landed  in  front  of  a  Chinaman,  who 
exclaimed  joyously,  "Me  got  letter 
from  home!"  (Witter  Bynner  makes 
each  letter  separate,  but  they  are  lu- 
minously legible,  even  when  the  poem 
is  not!)  "Es  Lebe  das  Leben"  may 
not  be  a  great  play,  even  in  Mrs. 
Wharton's  English  version— certainly 
W.  W.  said  it  wasn't.  But  it  makes  an 
interesting  item,  with  his  manuscript 
review  inserted.  So  does  his  life  of 
Mansfield,  with  manuscript  reviews  of 


that  actor's  performances  inserted,  as 
well  as  a  letter  from  Mansfield  him- 
self. These  books  and  manuscripVs 
may  never  be  worth  anything,  by  com- 
parison with  the  items  in  Mr.  Mor- 
gan's library,  but  they  are  the  best  I 
could  do  on  $35  a  week,  and,  for  me, 
at  least,  they  have  their  value. 

The  many  scholastic  generations  of 
Harvard  men  who  knew  the  privilege 
of  walking  up  the  wooded  drive  of 
Shady  Hill,  will  remember  the  library 
of  Charles  Eliot  Norton.  Professor 
Norton's  library,  one  gathered,  largely 
consisted  of  association  copies,  but 
Professor  Norton  wasn't  a  collector. 
Rather  he  was  like  the  old  New  Eng- 
lander  who  was  showing  a  New  York- 
er his  mahogany. 

"What  a  fine  collection  of  old  furni- 
ture you  have!"  the  latter  exclaimed. 

"Pardon  me",  said  the  Yankee,  "but 
in  this  part  of  the  world,  we  do  not 
collect  old  furniture — ^we  have  it." 

Professor  Norton  had  books.  They 
came  to  him  naturally,  with  long  and 
loving  inscriptions  from  the  authors, 
who  were  his  friends.  Since  many  of 
those  authors  have  become  more  or 
less  classic, — Lowell,  Ruskin,  Rossetti, 
Holmes,  and  the  like, — ^these  volumes 
they  gave  must  now  be  precious,  in 
the  auction-room  sense,  each  with  its 
rich  association  value.  Others,  no 
doubt,  have  no  intrinsic  value,  and 
no  association  value  except  so  far  as 
they  were  Professor  Norton's.  In 
other  words,  much  of  his  library  was 
the  accumulation  of  contemporary 
product,  and  Time  did  the  weeding. 

It  takes  more  money  to  collect  the 
precious  products  of  the  past,  but, 
after  all,  it  takes  more  taste  and  flair 
for  literary  values  to  collect  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  present,  to  collect  books 
which  are  not  vouched  for  by  the  com- 
forting criticism  of  Time,  but  which 
you  yourself  must  select.     Anybody 


686 


THE  BOOKMAN 


can  realize  the  value  today  of  a  first 
of  Blake  or  Keats.  But  in  their  own 
generation,  when  these  firsts  came 
from  the  press,  how  few  were  the  men 
who  would  have  picked  them  for  im- 
mortality !  Witness,  later,  the  fate  of 
Thoreau  and  of  Fitzgerald's  "Ru- 
baiyat".  I  say  the  man  who  buys 
carefully  from  the  contemporary  book 
lists,  following  chiefly  his  own  literary 
tastes  and  instincts,  and  being  always 
careful,  of  course,  to  secure  the  true 
first  editions  (not  always  simple,  now 
that  books  are  often  issued  almost 
simultaneously  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic),  and  who  further  secures  for 
these  books  when  possible  some  asso- 
ciation value,  even  if  so  slight  a  one 
as  an  author's  inscription  or  auto- 
graph letter  (the  latter  neither  difii- 
cult  nor  expensive  to  buy  from  the 
dealers  in  most  instances),  is  a  true 
book  collector,  and  in  some  ways  a 
more  commendable  book  collector  than 
the  millionaire  cornering  the  dimin- 
ishing supply  of  incunabula.  Much  of 
his  collection,  of  course.  Time  will 
prove  of  inconsiderable  value,  however 
fine  his  taste.  But  a  minimum  of  it 
will  be  a  precious  legacy  to  rejoice  the 
hearts  of  the  auction  fans  of  the  fu- 
ture. 

Authors  are  as  a  rule,  I  think,  poor 
collectors,  lacking  interest  in  the  pos- 
session of  books,  and  understanding  of 
what  makes  a  book  valuable  from  a 
collector's  standpoint.  If  it  were  not 
so,  an  annual  meeting  of  the  Authors' 
League  might  develop  into  a  mutual 
inscription  writing  bee,  and  the  values 
of  some  hundreds  of  books  be  greatly 
enhanced  at  a  sitting.  Yet  it  is  quite 
understandable  why  authors  should 
lack  interest  in  books — ^they  know  too 
well  how  they  are  written!  There  is 
no  reason,  however,  why  authors 
should  lack  interest  in  fine  printing; 
rather  every  reason  why  they  should 


possess  it.  They  should  be  among  the 
first  to  encourage  the  modern  presses 
which  strive  for  a  handcraft  standard 
of  type,  press  work,  paper,  and  bind- 
ing. They  should  be  glad  to  give  of 
their  best  as  a  text  for  the  issues  of 
such  presses,  and  to  collect  the  prod- 
ucts. In  my  own  small  library,  some 
of  the  most  interesting  items  I  have 
are  the  Riverside  Press  books  printed 
by  Bruce  Rogers  a  few  years  ago,  and 
the  books  printed  by  Updike  in  Bos- 
ton, at  the  Merrymount  Press.  Some 
of  Updike's  New  Year's  cards,  too,  is- 
sued to  his  customers,  with  colored 
wood-cuts  by  Rudolph  Ruzicka,  are 
gems,  and  as  an  example  of  American 
printing  at  its  best,  the  prize  certifi- 
cates printed  for  a  certain  golf  tour- 
nament by  Updike,  during  a  war  year 
when  no  cups  were  awarded,  are 
worthy  of  preservation  in  any  library. 
With  the  exception  of  Bruce  Rogers's 
"Song  of  Roland",  which  cost  $30, 
all  of  these  books  were,  when  first  is- 
sued, within  the  means  of  any  man 
who  buys  books  at  all.  Some  of  them 
have  since  risen  considerably,  of 
course — ^but  it  is  part  of  the  game  of 
contemporary  collecting  to  know  what 
to  buy  on  issue. 

Perhaps  the  simplest  of  all  forms  of 
book  collecting,  and  yet  one  in  which 
all  the  elements  of  good  taste — ^love  of 
clean  printing,  passion  of  possession, 
and  good  fellowship  with  literature — 
may  be  employed,  is  the  accumulation 
of  a  working  library  which  satisfies 
one's  practical  demands,  business  or 
esthetic,  and  at  the  same  time  con- 
tains only  good  copies.  For  instance, 
suppose  the  man  assembling  such  a  li- 
brary wishes  the  works  of  Dickens. 
He  can  go  to  any  bookshop  and  buy  a 
set  of  Dickens,  which  will  be  quite 
worthless,  probably,  from  any  decent 
standard.    We  are  supposing  that  he 


REDUCING  THE   HIGH  COST  OF  COLLECTING 


587 


is  not  rich  enough  to  buy  the  novels 
in  their  original  sets,  of  course.  Is 
there  no  middle  ground?  Certainly 
there  is.  Let  him  acquire  his  Dickens 
in  some  Chatto  and  Windus  set  issued 
around  1860,  say,  when  the  plates 
were  still  in  good  condition,  the  paper 
clean  and  strong.  He  wants  Chatter- 
ton,  let  us  suppose — ^because  I  did, 
once.  So  I  went  to  a  dealer  in  Corn- 
hill,  and  he  found  me  a  two-volume 
edition  issued  about  1830,  as  I  recall 
(the  books  are  not  by  me),  which  was 
excellently  printed,  on  fine  paper, 
touched  with  a  flavor  of  the  past,  and 
selling  at  an  extremely  reasonable 
price.  So  with  all  the  classics.  Some- 
where there  exists  an  edition  without 
the  excessive  value  of  the  first,  but 
with  the  merits  of  good  type  and 
paper  and  proper  flavor.  To  achieve 
this  edition  as  a  part  of  your  working 
library  is,  perhaps,  a  minor  form  of 
collecting,  but  it  is  no  less  a  real  one, 
and  can  give  infinite  pleasure  to  the 
booklover  of  humble  means,  enabling 
him,  also,  to  pore  hopefully  over  cata- 
logues and  bring  home  treasures  from 
the  auction  rooms. 

The  collector  of  humble  means !  How 
quaint  and  pathetic  a  person  he  some- 
times is!  You  remember  the  girl,  of 
course,  who  did  not  want  to  give  her 
friend  a  book  for  Christmas,  ''because 
she  has  one  already".  Like  that  friend, 
the  humble  collector  sometimes  has  but 


one  book,  or  maybe  two,  which  by  any 
stretch  of  the  imagination  could  be 
called  valuable.  Yet  the  love  of  biblio- 
philic  treasures  is  in  him,  and  the 
dealers  know  him  well,  as  he  pores 
over  their  cases  out  on  the  sidewalk, 
where  the  books  are  labeled  five  cents 
— ten  cents — twenty-five  cents,  always 
hoping  against  hope  that  a  gem  will 
have  dropped  into  this  ash-heap  by 
mistake.  Stranger  things  have  hap- 
pened, you  know. 

One  such  collector  I  once  knew  well. 
I  think  he  epitomized  all  book  collect- 
ors, rich  or  poor.  Tall  and  thin  and 
shabby,  he  was  a  newspaper  reporter 
in  the  old  days  in  a  provincial  city, 
where  the  salaries  for  such  as  he  were 
fifteen  dollars  a  week.  He  had  a  wife 
and  two  children,  and  you  may  be  sure 
those  fifteen  dollars  were  sorely 
needed  at  home  every  Friday  night. 
Yet  one  Friday  he  took  me  out  to 
watch  him  buy  a  birthday  present  for 
his  spouse.  He  led  me  through  wind- 
ing streets  to  an  old  bookshop,  and  laid 
down  fourteen  dollars  of  his  precious 
fifteen  for  a  thin  little  Elzevir  (then 
more  highly  esteemed  than  now), 
which  he  had  long  coveted.  Carefully 
wrapped  up,  he  took  it  proudly  home 
to  his  mate. 

She  was  the  sort  of  woman,  I  am 
sure,  who  kissed  him  with  a  smile,  be- 
fore she  turned  away  her  worried  face 
and  struggled  with  her  tears. 


THE  LONDONER 


Henry  Jaine8*8  Letters — The  Rewards  of  Esthetic  Epicureanism — Liter- 
ary Snobbery — Novelists  as  Playwrights — Barriers  New  Play — A  New  Play 
from  Bennett  also — AUan  Monkhotise — Novel  Competitions — A  Short-Story 
Competition — A  Psevdonymous  Prize-winner — Save  Us  from  Our  Friends. 


London,  May  1, 1920. 

I  SUPPOSE  that  there  can  be  no 
question  as  to  the  book  which  has 
most  excited  literary  opinion  in  Lon- 
don during  the  last  few  weeks.  The 
newspapers  have  perhaps  devoted  more 
space  to  the  life  of  Kitchener  and  to 
the  various  crimes  which  have  been 
recently  conmiitted;  but  everywhere 
I  have  been  I  have  heard  only  one  book 
discussed,  and  that  book  is  the  "Let- 
ters of  Henry  James".  It  has  given 
the  quidnuncs  something  to  talk  about, 
and  too  many  of  the  letters  are  ad- 
dressed to  living  people  for  any  lack 
of  interest  in  their  immediate  subject- 
matter  to  be  possible.  And  yet  the 
private,  as  opposed  to  the  public,  ver- 
dict has  been  curiously  divided.  Per- 
sonally, I  found  the  letters  something 
of  a  shock.  The  first  thing  which 
struck  me,  on  a  casual  glance,  was  the 
abnormal  and  rather  gross  personal 
"affectionateness"  of  some  of  them. 
Such  subscriptions  as  "Ever  your 
fondest  of  the  fond"  are,  to  our  taste, 
lacking  in  reticence;  and  the  tone  of 
the  letters  is  similarly  florid  and  ver- 
bose. The  correspondence  with  Wells, 
over  the  latter's  pseudonymous  book 
"Boon",  to  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred in  these  causeries,  is  remarkable 
as  revealing  the  sharp  conflict  between 


the  aesthetic  ideals  of  Wells  and  James. 
Those  who  recently  read  Wells's  pref- 
ace to   Sir   Henry   Johnston's   novel 
"The   Gay-Dombeys"   will   remember 
how  our  foremost  literary  surprise- 
packet  expressed  loathing  of  the  pro- 
fessional novelist,  and  they  will  there- 
fore accept  without  question  the  fact 
that  Wells  long  ago  grew  out  of  the 
admiration  which  all  must  at  one  time 
have  felt  for  the  consununate  literary 
skill  of  James's  literary  method.    The 
controversy  over  "Boon"  was  clearly  a 
great  and  horrid  surprise  to  the  older 
writer.    It  need  not  be  so  to  us.    No 
two  men  were  more  unlike  than  James 
and  Wells.    Wells  looks  on  the  novel 
as  a  great  receptacle  for  his  latest  un- 
derstandings; James,  as  his  editor  ad- 
mits, "found  a  livelier  interest  always 
in  the  results  and  effects  and  implica- 
tions of  things  than  in  the  ground- 
work itself;  so  that  the  field  of  study 
he  desired  was  that  in  which  initial 
forces    had    traveled    furthest    from 
their  prime,  passing  step  by  step  from 
their  origin  to  the  level  where,  dif- 
fused and  transformed,  they  were  still 
just  discernible  to  acute  perception." 
♦  ♦  »  » 

No  wonder  that  when  Wells  cruelly 
likened  the  art  of  James  to  the  dex- 
terity of  a  hippopotamus  picking  up 


6S8 


THE   LONDONER 


589 


a  pea  James  was  wounded  to  the  heart. 
It  was  a  dreadful  blow  to  his  self- 
esteem  and  to  the  affection  he  had  al- 
ways felt  for  his  brilliant  young  con- 
temporary. He  had  never  been  popu- 
lar, but  he  had  always  consoled  him- 
self with  belief  in  tiiie  rottenness  of 
popular  taste  and  in  the  sanctity  of 
literary  "art".  He  had  often  enough 
bewailed  Wells's  lack  of  this  "art", 
this  savor  of  the  remote  and  secret 
joys  of  the  epicure.  He  himself  was 
the  epicure.  No  sloven  could  ever  win 
his  approval.  Always  he  sought  the 
hidden  flavor,  the  exquisite  relish 
which  a  fine  taste  alone  could  appreci- 
ate. It  was,  perhaps,  a  kind  of  snob- 
bery, comparable  to  his  distaste  for 
Dostoyevsky,  Tolstoi,  Ibsen.  But  it 
was  sincere  and  loving.  He  really  did 
tremendously  care  for  fine  flavors. 
After  all,  the  controversy  will  persist. 
We  shall  always  have  it  with  us,  as 
long  as  writers  are  not  standard- 
ized. There  will  always  be  among  us 
two  great  schools,  those  who  care  most 
for  what  is  written  about,  and  those 
who  care  most  for  the  manner  in 
which  the  subject  is  treated.  The  pity 
is  that  Wells,  who  is  a  much  better 
artist  than  his  opponents  care  to  ad- 
mit, should  have  been  provoked  into 
ridiculing  a  man  who  so  much  admired 
him  and  who  had  given  so  lavishly  in 
praise  of  all  that  he  could  appreciate 
of  Wells's  work.  The  rights  or  wrongs 
of  the  controversy  do  not  interest  me. 
The  controversy  itself,  illuminated  as 
it  is  by  extracts  in  these  volumes  from 
Wells's  replies  to  James's  pained  let- 
ters, has  immense  personal  interest. 
*  «  «  * 

Letters  to  all  sorts  of  other  people 
make  the  book  full  and  rich  reading. 
One  regrettable  feature  is  James's  dis- 
content with  the  rewards  of  his  own 
care  and  skill.  It  is  clear  that  he  was 
impatient  with  the  public  for  not  lik- 


ing his  work.  He  complained  often  of 
the  lack  of  appreciation,  ignoring  the 
fact  that  whoever  deals  in  the  recon- 
dite must  submit  to  a  popular  indif- 
ference. It  is  the  robust  writer  who, 
among  the  good  writers,  reaps  the  re- 
wards of  popular  support.  There  are 
plenty  of  sentimental  or  salacious  nov- 
elists who  sell  better  than  Wells,  but  I 
never  heard  of  Wells  protesting 
against  their  greater  monetary  rewards. 
His  own  have  been  in  accordance  with 
the  essential  merit  of  his  work,  which, 
whatever  its  faults,  has  always  been 
among  the  most  brilliant,  as  it  has  al- 
ways been  the  most  original,  of  his 
time.  The  prime  fault  of  James  was 
that  he  was  not  in  a  true  sense  orig- 
inal. He  was  a  commentator.  He  did 
not  enjoy  life  as  Wells  enjoys  it.    He 

relished  its  aroma. 

«  «  «  « 

Nowhere  else  in  the  letters  does  his 
dissatisfaction  with  the  earthly  re- 
wards of  his  art  appear  so  clearly  as 
in  those  which  refer  to  his  determina- 
tion to  write  for  the  stage.  He  con- 
ceived the  notion  that  one  had  only  to 
write  bad  plays  in  order  to  enjoy  popu- 
lar favor.  He  set  himself  to  write  bad 
plays.  The  result  was  horrible.  I  have 
seen  only  one  of  his  plays;  but  that 
was  enough.  It  was  called  "The  Rep- 
robate". Anything  more  terrifying  I 
cannot  conceive.  A  hippopotamus 
picking  up  a  pea  was  nothing  to  its  la- 
borious f  acetiousness.  And  James  was 
genuinely  disturbed  at  his  non-suc- 
cess. He  was  puzzled  by  it.  One  would 
suppose  that  he  had  a  complete  inabil- 
ity to  grasp  the  fact  that  for  its  cap- 
ture the  stage  requires  a  kind  of  sin- 
cerity no  less  than  the  novel.  It  is  a 
thing  which  I  am  never  tired  of  say- 
ing, that  writers  are  bad  because  they 
are  bom  so,  and  that  any  writer  who 
deliberately  sets  out  to  give  the  public 
what  it  wants  must  fail  unless  he  him- 


640 


THE  BOOKMAN 


self  likes  what  the  public  wants.  De- 
liberate artistic  prostitution  is  always 
half-hearted.  There  are  more  unpub- 
lished books  and  unproduced  plays  in 
which  a  refined  author  has  attempted 
to  write  "down"  to  a  hjrpothetical 
public  than  there  are  good  books  or 
plays  in  the  same  state.  The  thing  is 
simply  "not  done" — ^with  success. 
James  never  learned  the  lesson.  He 
never  succeeded,  in  spite  of  all  his 
singularly  pertinacious  efforts  to  se- 
cure the  production  of  his  plays,  in 
persuading  anybody  that  his  cumbrous 
manipulations  of  stage  puppets  were 
worth  the  pains  of  rehearsal  and  pres- 
entation, even  by  the  private  socie- 
ties which  exist  for  the  production  of 
plays  disdained  by  commercial  man- 
agers. It  is  a  curious  fate,  that  a  man 
with  so  much  real  insight,  and  with  so 
keen  an  eye  to  the  faults  of  his  con- 
temporaries, should  have  been  so  ob- 
tuse regarding  his  own  shortcomings. 
Perhaps  we  are  all  like  that.    I  should 

not  wonder. 

«  «  «  • 

The  theatre,  of  course,  has  its  fas- 
cinations for  all  writers.  The  thing 
seems  so  simple,  and  the  rewards  are 
always  supposed  to  be  so  enormous, 
that  it  is  not  remarkable  that  so  many 
modern  novelists  and  journalists 
should  try  to  write  plays.  I  suppose  I 
have  seen  as  many  bad  plays  during 
the  last  few  years  as  anybody.  They 
are  legion.  They  pop  up  everywhere, 
and  pop  down  again.  One  recently  es- 
tablished dramatic  company  has 
achieved  peculiar  fame  for  the  celerity 
with  which  it  has  substituted  one  bad 
play  for  another  in  the  theatres  which 
it  controls.  The  thing  became  laugh- 
able, or  would  have  done  so  if  it  had 
not,  at  the  same  time,  been  so  pathetic. 
Bad  plays  abound.  Some  of  them  im- 
pose on  the  public  for  a  time.  But 
only  for  a  time.    And  if  the  plays  are 


not  so  wholly  and  utterly  bad  that  they 
appeal  to  the  lowest  intelligence 
through  being  a  reflex  of  that  intelli- 
gence, they  come  off  with  a  swiftness 
and  secrecy  quite  startling.  The  Lon- 
don public  is  always  supposed  to  be 
very  gullible.  It  may  be.  But  poor 
plays,  even  supported  by  famous  ac- 
tors and  actresses,  fade  away  before 
the  listlessness  which  they  evoke. 
When  even  good  plays  fail,  why  should 
poor  hybrids,  made  by  writers  who  de- 
spise the  people  for  whom  they  are 
writing,  have  any  success?  Just  as 
any  normal  man  resents  patronage  in 
another  man,  so  mankind  in  bulk  re- 
coils from  that  patronage  which  con- 
sists in  imagining  that  it  will  swal- 
low anything  dramatic  if  only  it  is  of 
inferior  quality.  Sanity  dislikes  snob- 
bery in  any  form ;  and  a  kind  of  snob- 
bery was  what  kept  Henry  James  out 

of  the  theatre. 

♦  »  »  » 

Few  novelists  are  good  playwrights. 
There  is  a  lot  of  silly  assumption  in 
the  idea,  but  it  is  fundamentally  true. 
The  suggestion  is  that  the  two  arts 
are  so  different,  and  there  is  some- 
thing to  be  said  for  that  belief.  For 
one  thing,  I  believe  that  in  a  novel 
surprise  may  rightly  be  considered  es- 
sential, that  information  may  be  with- 
held for  many  pages  with  gain  to  the 
structure  of  the  book.  In  plays  the 
audience  must  from  the  outset  learn 
exactly  what  is  going  forward  if  in- 
terest is  to  be  maintained.  The  char- 
acters in  the  play  may  be  as  ignorant 
as  the  author  pleases ;  but  the  audience 
must  not  be  regarded  as  tools.  They 
must  be  aware  of  everything.  They 
must  not  be  played  with.  That  is  one 
thing.  But  what  makes  most  novel- 
ists bad  playwrights  is  that  they  will 
not  take  the  trouble  to  be  good  ones. 
They  despise  the  technique  of  the 
drama,  which  seems  to  them  clumsy 


THE   LONDONER 


541 


and  stupid,  lacking  in  finesse,  and  full 

of  stumbling-blocks.     Nothing  could 

be  more  futile  than  contempt  for  the 

medium  in  which  one  hopes  to  achieve 

success.    If  a  technique  is  not  worth 

mastering,  then  success  in  it  is  not 

worth  expecting.     In  any  craft  the 

same  point  holds  good.    If  we  will  not 

take  the  trouble  to  learn  how  verses 

are  made,  then  we  must  not  expect  to 

be  regarded  as  poets.    After  all,  only 

those  can  override  rules  who  know 

them  inside  out.    Amateurishness  in 

anything  is  the  supreme  hostage  to 

failure. 

«  *  «  * 

Only  two  men  that  I  can  recall  have 
been  equally  successful  in  the  novel 
and  the  play.  They  are  Barrie  and 
Bennett.  I  deliberately  leave  out  Gals- 
worthy, who  has  never  yet  had  a  "run" 
in  the  English  theatre.  I  have  just 
seen  Barrie's  new  play,  "Mary  Rose", 
a  deliberate  "fantasy"  such  as  Barrie 
only  can  write.  It  is  obviously  made 
for  the  theatre,  is  ingenious  rather 
than  poetical,  and  dexterous  rather 
than  profound;  and  yet  it  held  my  at- 
tention throughout.  For  one  thing, 
the  rather  creepy  atmosphere  which  it 
endeavors  to  create  is  certainly  ob- 
tained in  the  theatre,  whether  by 
means  which  one  can  commend  or  not. 
And  for  another  it  deals  with  a  truth, 
sentimentally  and  emotionally,  but 
still  suggestively.  The  "truth"  is  that 
we  all  grow  old,  and  that  we  all  grow 
forgetful,  even  of  those  we  have  loved. 
For  the  purposes  of  his  fable,  Barrie 
shows  us  a  girl  stolen  away  from  her 
kin  by  the  seductions  of  a  fairy  isle, 
kept  enthralled  for  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury, and  then  restored.  She  is  the 
same;  but  her  people  are  all  twenty- 
five  years  older.  The  reunion  is  poign- 
ant in  its  suggestion.  It  is  not  de- 
veloped; but  the  reality  is  there,  and 
one  is  conscious  of  its  force.  I  am  told 


that  the  play  is  shamelessly  senti- 
mental, that  it  is  dull,  that  it  is  bad. 
I  admit  that  it  is  sentimental,  that  it 
is  calculated  rather  than  inspired ;  but 
I  do  not  agree  that  it  is  dull,  and  as 
Barrie,  of  all  living  dramatists,  is  the 
only  one  who  would  have  had  such  a 
play  produced  in  London,  where  man- 
agers are  extremely  doubtful  of  the 
chances  of  anything  which  they  can- 
not understand,  I  feel  that  some  re- 
markable credit  is  due  to  him.  If  the 
play  is  a  success  we  may  presently  see 
a  genuine  "fantasy"  on  the  boards. 
Barrie  may  have  given  a  fillip  to  the 
drama  by  showing  that  the  theatre 
can  be  effectively  used  for  themes  too 

long  banished  from  its  boards. 
«  *  *  * 

By  the  time  this  causerie  is  in  print 
we  shall  probably  have  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  seeing  in  London  a  new  play 
of  Bennett's  called  "Body  and  Soul". 
The  play  is  not,  as  its  title  may  sug- 
gest, another  "Sacred  and  Profane 
Love"  (which  I  understand  is  having 
a  great  success  just  now  in  New 
York),  but  is  more  in  the  vein  of  far- 
cical comedy.  In  fact  it  is  satirical, 
and  I  think  will  provoke  a  good  deal 
of  laughter  here.  It  is  extremely  "up- 
to-date"  in  the  subjects  of  its  satire, 
and  very  daring  in  its  directness.  I 
shall  hope  to  be  present  at  the  first 
performance,  particularly  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  some  of  the  subjects  of 
the  satire  are  bound  to  be  present  on 
that  occasion.  I  hope  no  rumor  as  to 
the  precise  nature  and  personality  of 

its  subjects  will  leak  out  untimely. 
«  «  «  « 

Another  novelist-dramatist  of  whom 
we  ought  to  have  heard  more  in  the 
past  and  of  whom  we  ought  to  hear 
something  in  the  future  is  Allan  Monk- 
house.  Monkhouse  is  or  was  the  lit- 
erary editor  of  "The  Manchester 
Guardian",  a  position  of  great  respon- 


542 


THE  BOOBMAN 


sibility.  He  has  been  seriously  ill  for 
a  long  time,  and  has  only  just  begun 
again  to  contribute  with  any  fre- 
quency to  the  columns  of  the  "Guardi- 
an''. And  he  has  long  been  known  to 
those  with  any  knowledge  of  these 
matters  as  a  dramatist  and  novelist  of 
genuine  distinction.  Unfortunately  he 
is  not  one  who  produces  rapidly,  and 
the  long  intervals  between  the  produc- 
tions of  his  plays  and  the  publication 
of  his  novels  have  prevented  Monk- 
house  from  being  as  generally  known 
as  the  quality  of  his  work  demands. 
He  began  long  ago,  with  a  novel  and 
a  volume  of  essays,  and  his  plays  in- 
clude two,  "Mary  Broome"  and  "The 
Education  of  Mr.  Surrage",  which 
have  for  years  been  familiar  to  all 
who  follow  the  repertory  movement  in 
this  country.  He  belongs  to  what  is 
called  the  "Manchester  school",  al- 
though that  is  a  very  unfair  descrip- 
tion of  Monkhouse  to  those  who  asso- 
ciate that  school  only  with  the  work  of 
Stanley  Houghton  and  Harold  Brig- 
house.  The  truth  is  that  he  is  a  Man- 
chester man,  in  the  sense  that  his 
work  on  the  "Guardian"  has  kept  him 
from  London;  and  his  work  has  al- 
ways, as  far  as  I  know,  made  its  first 
appearance  through  Miss  Horniman's 
seasons  at  the  Gaiety  Theatre,  Man- 
chester. This  is  what  links  him  to  the 
"Manchester  school",  and  not  any  in- 
trinsic resemblance  to  the  characteris- 
tic works  of  other  Manchester  drama- 
tists. He  is  not,  that  is,  the  satiric 
portrayer  of  local  matters  and  foibles. 
He  is  a  psychologist  of  the  James 
t3rpe,  with  a  keen  insight  into  human 
nature;  and  his  work  is  full  of  ex- 
traordinary delicacy  likely  to  make  it 
less  popular  with  the  vulgar  than  with 
those  of  refined  taste.  It  may  lack 
corpuscular  matter — I  think  some- 
times that  it  does ; — but  it  is  far  from 
ansemia,  and  its  quality  is  exceptional. 


A  novel  of  Monkhouse's,  entitled 
"True  Love",  is  shortly  to  be  issued 
in  the  United  States — if  it  has  not  al- 
ready appeared.  This  is  a  really  bril- 
liant story  which  centres  about  the 
staff  of  a  paper  easily  identified  as 
"The  Manchester  Guardian".  The  in- 
trigue does  not  concern  me.  What  I 
should  like  to  emphasize  is  the  pe- 
culiar quality  of  the  love  passages  be- 
tween the  hero  and  a  German  woman, 
an  actress.  The  quietness  of  these 
passages  may  make  them  too  subdued 
for  proper  recognition,  but  in  my 
opinion  they  have  a  quality  which  few 
novelists  of  our  time  can  exceed.  They 
are  lyrical.  The  book  is  not  the  best 
that  Monkhouse  has  written.  I  am 
told,  though  I  have  not  read  it,  that 
one  called  "Love  in  a  Life"  is  the  best ; 
but  of  those  I  know  (and  these  are  all 
except  "Love  in  a  Life")  the  most  no- 
table is  "Dying  Fires".  In  this,  as  in 
the  new  one  and  in  "Men  and  Ghosts", 
the  characters  are  very  few,  and  the 
study  of  these  is  intensive;  but  the 
quality  of  Monkhouse's  work  lies  prin- 
cipally in  the  subtlety  with  which  he 
indicates  the  delicate  movements  of 
the  human  spirit  in  its  gradual  smol- 
dering toward  passion.  The  passion 
is  always  there,  and  apparent ;  but  the 
steady  growth  to  overwhelming  power 
is  slow  and  subtle.  It  is  a  remarkable 
gift,  and  one  which  I  should  much  like 
to  see  appreciated  to  the  full  by  Amer- 
icans. 

«  «  «  * 

As  I  have  indicated,  Monkhouse  is 
not  a  young  man,  and  indeed  I  am  not 
very  cheerful  regarding  the  prospects 
of  the  youngest  writers.  They  may 
come  on,  but  those  of  any  true  promise 
(those,  I  mean,  who  show  any  sign  of 
power  to  stay  the  course  of  a  long  ap- 
prenticeship) can  almost  be  counted 
on  the  fingers.  It  is  amusing  to  watch 
the  desperate  efforts  of  publishers  in 


THE   LONDONER 


543 


England  to  discover  new  talent. 
Everywhere  one  sees  advertisements 
of  "Great  Novel  Competitions",  with 
prizes  of  value  to  aspirants.  Several 
of  such  competitions  are  in  progress. 
One  of  them  I  reported,  with  tiie  prize- 
winner, in  a  recent  letter.  But  there 
are  others.  I  can  imagine  the  onerous 
task  of  the  judges.  Fancy  going 
through  tens  of  manuscripts,  and  even 
hundreds,  in  search  of  a  book  which  is 
not  only  good  according  to  literary 
standards  but  likely  to  repay  publica- 
tion as  a  "prize-winner" !  The  task  is 
Herculean.  I  have  myself  just  re- 
ceived a  bundle  of  short  stories  upon 
which  I  have  to  adjudicate,  and  am 
appalled  by  the  prospect  of  going 
through  the  various  items.  It  is  a 
genuine  task.  Fortunately  I  am  the 
sole  arbiter  of  their  fate.  What  hap- 
pens when  one  has  to  work  in  conjunc- 
tion with  others  I  cannot  imagine. 
You  may  suppose  that  the  duty  is  less 
onerous  if  the  responsibility  is  shared. 
Perhaps  it  is.  But  in  those  cases  one's 
name  is  often  printed,  and  one  has  to 
stand  the  racket  of  subsequent  publi- 
cation. That  is  not  my  case.  The  only 
thing  I  dread  is  having  to  read  the 
manuscripts  and  award  the  prize.  But 
I  can  recall  a  recent  competition  in 
which  two  eminent  novelists  and  tlie 
editor  of  a  weekly  journal  were  judges. 
The  manuscripts  were  first  of  all  sifted 
by  a  subordinate.  The  best  were 
picked  out  by  him  and  sent  to  the  Big 
Three.  The  prize  had  ultimately  to  be 
awarded  to  a  short  story  which  proved 
to  be  not  a  short  story  at  all,  but  the 
mere  clever  creation  of  an  atmosphere. 
And,  as  all  the  entries  were  anony- 
mous, it  was  found  on  research  that 
the  preliminary  survey  had  cast  out 
tales  by  some  of  the  most  highly  re- 
puted authors  of  the  time.  At  least, 
so  I  was  told.  Let  us  hope  the  story 
was  not  true.    I  believe  it  to  have  been 


true*    And  I  am  almost  sure  that  it 

was. 

«  «  «  « 

Another  short-story  competition  has 
recently  been  decided.  It  was  pro- 
moted by  Messrs.  Newnes,  big  maga- 
zine publishers  here,  and  the  judges 
were  Sir  A.  Conan  Doyle,  Sir  H.  Rider 
Haggard,  H.  G.  Wells,  and  three  maga- 
zine editors.  There  were  between  three 
and  four  thousand  entrants.  Doyle 
plumped  for  three.  Haggard  agreed 
with  him  about  two,  but  gave  first 
place  to  one  which  Doyle  did  not  men- 
tion. Wells  gave  first  place  to  Doyle's 
No.  1,  and  second  place  to  Haggard's 
No.  1.  His  third  was  unplaced  by  his 
fellow  novelists.  AH  the  other  judges 
went  straight  for  Haggard's  first 
choice,  two  of  them,  however,  putting 
second  the  one  which  Wells  liked  best. 
The  result  was  that  the  first  prize  of 
£250  went  to  Haggard's  choice,  and 
the  second  of  £100  to  Wells's.  The 
winner  was  Oswald  Wildredge,  with 
whose  name  I  seem  to  be  faintly  fa- 
miliar. The  second  was  "Herbert  Tre- 
maine",  a  very  talented  woman  who 
has  published,  under  this  pseudonym 
and  under  her  own  name,  some  re- 
markable novels.  One  or  two  of  these 
have  certainly  appeared  in  the  United 
States,  but  how  many  of  them  I  do  not 
recaU.  The  book  of  hers  which  at- 
tracted most  attention  here  was  a  paci- 
fist novel  called  "The  Feet  of  the 
Young  Men".  This,  in  spite  of  the 
opinions  to  which  it  gave  voice,  was 
received  with  favor  by  many  who  did 
not  agree  with  its  thesis.  It  was  a 
success,  though  a  second  attempt  in 
the  same  vein  was  a  comparative  fail- 
ure, under  the  title  "Two  Months". 
It  was  less  good  than  some  of  its  more 
distinguished  but  less  provocative 
predecessors.  In  my  opinion,  the  au- 
thor's best  book  was  also  her  first,  and 
it  was  published  by  Holf  s  in  about 


544 


THE  BOOKMAN 


1910  under  the  title  of  "At  the  Sign  of 
the  Burning  Bush".  When  that  book 
came  out  it  was  very  heartily  attacked 
by,  among  others,  "Claudius  Clear"  in 
"The  British  Weekly";  but  Claudius 
Clear  did  not  fail  to  point  out  the  ex- 
ceptional talent  of  its  young  author. 
Unfortunately  the  author  did  not  con- 
tinue the  use  of  her  own  name,  and  it 
is  for  the  reason  that  she  would  hardly 
thank  me  for  mentioning  it  that  I 
have  refrained  from  doing  so.  In 
America  the  identification  will  not 
matter;  but  I  hope  English  journal- 
ists will  oblige  me  by  not  "copying". 
*  «  «  « 

I  gather  that  America  may  be  a 
little  impatient  with  her  literary 
"young  visiters"  from  England.  At 
any  rate,  one  who  was  announced  to  be 
going  to  the  States  told  me  today  that 
he  was  a  little  discouraged  by  a  cut- 
ting from  an  American  paper  asking 
whether  there  was  to  be  nobody  in 
London  this  summer.  Those  who  have 
been  to  America  are  now  returning, 
full  of  health  and  enthusiasm,  and  full 
of  gratitude  for  all  the  kindness  which 
has  been  shown  them.  I  have  already 
seen,  in  order,  Walpole,  Cannan,  and 
Ervine.  All  appeared  rosy  and  well, 
and  all  had  thoroughly  enjoyed  them- 
selves. I  think  I  must  come  to  Amer- 
ica myself.  I  am  not  so  fat  as  I  once 
was,  and  I  could  do  with  some  of  this 


kindness.  In  England  we  are  kind, 
but  not  so  kind.  And  at  the  moment 
we  are  exceedingly  full  of  scrutiny 
of  our  young  writers.  It  is  an  English 
habit,  to  begin  to  decry  anybody  who 
has  made  any  headway.  We  are  very 
kind  to  first  novelists,  to  the  second 
works  of  our  young  authors,  even  to 
the  third  works.  After  that,  we  either 
"find  them  out",  or  ignore  them.  It 
is  a  bad  sign  if  we  keep  on  being  kind. 
It  shows  that  we  have  heard  that  they 
are  unsuccessful,  and  need  encourage- 
ment. Directly  we  understand  that 
success  is  assured  for  them  we  begin 
pulling  to  pieces  the  young  writers  we 
have  made.  It  is  a  pleasing  task.  You 
see,  once  a  man  has  made  a  name  here 
it  takes  years  to  rob  him  of  success. 
Practically  it  can't  be  done.  So  we 
can  attack  a  writer  with  a  clear  con- 
science. Look  at  the  case  of  Compton 
Mackenzie.  We  all  know  that  nothing 
can  injure  him;  and  so  all  our  review- 
ers are  giving  him  fragments  of  their 
minds,  in  the  hope  that  in  this  way 
any  success  he  has  will  not  spoil  him. 
They  have  just  begun  again  with  his 
new  novel,  "The  Vanity  Girl".  There 
is  no  malice  in  it,  and  no  jealousy.  It 
is  all  for  his  own  good.  And  to  the 
onlooker  it  is  extraordinarily  funny. 
I  hope  it  is  as  funny  to  Mackenzie.  I 
do  him  the  justice  of  believing  that 
it  is. 

SIMON  PUBE 


CHARLES  ARLINGTON  SMITH 


(Being  Some  Personal  Recollections) 


BY  CARL  GLICK 


IT  is  impossible  for  me  now  to  say 
when  I  first  saw  Charles  Arlington 
Smith.  I  know  that  I  had  seen  him 
and  talked  with  him  many  times  be- 
fore I  learned  that  he  was  the  Charles 
Arlington  Smith.  .Before  my  acr 
quaintance  with  him  began,  I  had 
known  him  only  as  Mr.  Smith. 

He  is,  as  you  probably  don't  know, 
the  most  prolific  writer  in  the  world. 
And  he  holds,  so  I  have  been  told,  and 
readily  believe,  the  record  for  having 
written  more  than  any  other  living 
writer. 

He  was  in  the  elevator  with  me  one 
evening  as  I  was  on  the  way  to  my 
apartment.  One  of  those  strange,  oc- 
cult desires  to  start  conversation  came 
over  me.    I  turned  to  him. 

"It  seems  to  me,"  I  said,  politely, 
"that  I  have  seen  you  before  some 
place." 

If  I  had  known  who  he  was,  I  would 
not  have  spoken  to  him  in  this  fashion. 

But  he  blushed  modestly,  and  re- 
plied, "I  have  been  elevator  boy  here 
for  the  past  five  years." 

"An  enviable  record,"  I  replied,  as 
we  reached  my  floor. 

He  held  open  the  door  for  me.  "But 
I  may  quit  any  day  now,"  he  went  on. 

"You  have  another  job?"  I  asked. 

"No.  But  you  see,  I'm  a  writer. 
And  any  day  now  I  expect  my  stories 


"1 


«i 


to  begin  to  sell.  And  when  they  do, 
I'll  give  this  up."  He  made  a  gesture 
that  included  the  elevator,  the  apart- 
ment building,  and  myself. 

I  showed  an  interest  in  him.  En- 
couraged, he  went  on  with  his  story. 

"I've  been  writing  now  for  five 
years,"  he  said.  "I  write  a  story  every 
day." 

I  was  awed.  "How  do  you  keep  it 
up?" 

"That's  just  it,"  he  replied,  smiling 
proudly.    "I  have  a  system." 

'But  where  do  you  get  the  plots?" 

'I  have  a  new  plot  each  week.  You 
see  on  Monday  I  do  the  story  as  an 
adventure  tale.  On  Tuesday  the  plot 
is  a  love  story.  On  Wednesday,  it  is 
a  psychological  study.  On  Thursday 
it  is  an  essay.  On  Friday  it  is  a  mys- 
tery story.  On  Saturday  it  is  a  char- 
acter study." 

"But  how  long  are  these  stories?" 

"Five  thousand  words  each." 

"You  mean  to  say  you  have  written 
five  thousand  words  a  day  each  day 
for  the  past  five  years?" 

"Yes.  But  don't  count  Sunday.  I 
rest  then." 

I  added  and  multiplied  on  my  cuff. 
"Why  man,"  I  exclaimed,  "that  makes 
a  total  of  1,560,000  words." 

"I  know." 
'But  have  you  sold  many  of  these 


**^ 


646 


546 


THE  BOOKMAN 


stories?"  I  asked  rather  incredulously. 

For  a  moment  he  looked  rather  sad. 
"Only  one,  once.  That  was  the  first 
one  I  ever  wrote.  It  encouraged  me  to 
keep  on.  It  was  published  in  'Risqu4 
Tales'.    Maybe  you  read  it." 

"No,"  I  replied.  "But  probably  my 
wife  did." 

Just  then  the  bell  began  to  buzz. 

"Somebody  wants  me,"  he  said.  "I'll 
tell  you  more  about  my  stories  later. 
Good  night." 

I  knew  I  was  dismissed.  He  dropped 
from  sight.  I  was  truly  impressed. 
How  such  a  stockily  built,  fat  little 
youth, — ^he  couldn't  have  been  more 
than  twenty  at  the  time, — could  show 
so  much  perseverance,  was  truly  amaz- 
ing to  me. 

Sometime  later  I  saw  him  again. 

"Would  you  like  to  see  my  stories?" 
he  asked. 

I  thought  of  the  1,560,000  words. 

"I'm  afraid  I  couldn't  read  them  all 
now,"  I  answered  rather  dubiously. 

"I'll  show  them  to  you.  They  are  in 
my  room  downstairs." 

I  allowed  myself  to  be  led  into  the 
basement.  It  was  a  new  experience  to 
me.  I  had  never  been  in  the  basement 
of  an  apartment-house  before. 

Charles  Arlmgton  Smith  lived  alone 
in  a  single  room.  In  a  corner  was  a 
huge  pile  of  manuscripts, — ^the  work 
of  five  years. 

"There  they  are,"  he  said  with  a 
wave  of  his  hand.  "And  here  is  my 
typewriter, — my  envelopes, — stamps, 
— dictionary, — and  eraser.  You  see,  I 
have  everything  that  an  author  should 
have." 

I  saw! 

Then  he  handed  me  a  card.  On  it 
was  printed  his  name  in  full,  "Charles 
Arlington  Smith".  And  down  in  one 
corner   above   the    address   was   the 


single  word  "Author",  trimly  inscribed. 

"Pretty  neat,  isn't  it?  The  idea 
was  original  with  me.  The  others 
have  copied  it." 

"What  others?" 

"The  superintendent's  wife.  She 
writes  plays.  But  she  doesn't  write  as 
fast  as  I  do.  She  only  does  a  play  a 
month.  Then  the  postman  writes,  too. 
He  is  doing  essays.  And  the  woman 
who  does  the  scrubbing.  She  writes 
poetry.  That's  all  good.  But  I'm 
going  to  stick  to  stories.  There's  more 
in  it,  if  they  ever  begin  to  sell." 

"Well,  good  luck  to  you,"  I  mur- 
mured. "You  should  win  out  some 
day.  Such  perseverance  as  yours  is 
entitled  to  success." 

"Thanks,"  he  said,  as  he  grasped  my 
hand. 

This  was  fifteen  years  ago.  Charles 
Arlington  Smith  still  runs  the  elevator 
in  our  apartment.  Time  has  dealt 
gently  with  him.  He  has  grown  a 
trifie  more  slender.  It  is  vastly  more 
becoming.  His  eyes  are  dreamy.  He 
seems  lost  in  thought.  Often  he  for- 
gets and  takes  me  beyond  my  floor. 
But  I  am  never  out  of  patience.  He 
still  writes  his  five  thousand  words  a 
day.  He  has  now  written,  so  he  con- 
fesses to  me,  6,240,000  words. 

"Surely  the  editors  ought  to  buy 
something  I  have  written,"  he  said 
rather  pathetically. 

"I  am  afraid",  I  replied,  "that  you 
are  one  of  those  souls  that  will  have  to 
die  to  be  appreciated." 

"I'm  afraid  so.  But  if  anything 
ever  happens  to  me,  you'll  see  that  the 
editors  get  my  stories,  won't  you?" 

"I  surely  will,  Charles  Arlington 
Smith.     But  I  hope  you  live  a  long, 

long  time  yet Careful,  you  are 

taking  me  past  my  floor  again." 


LINCOLN'S  RELIGION  RESTATED 


BY   LUTHER  EMERSON  ROBINSON 


NOT  many  characters  in  history 
have  called  out  so  large  a  body 
of  interpretative  literature  as  has 
grown  up  about  the  name  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  The  stream  of  books  still 
flows,  for  the  definitive  words  have 
not  all  been  written.  No  aspect  of 
his  life  has  excited  more  earnest  con- 
troversy than  his  religion.  Attempts 
to  classify  his  faith  have  stretched  be- 
tween the  most  sharply  contrasting 
poles  of  belief.  Tested  by  the  com- 
monly invoked  New  Testament  stand- 
ard, some  of  those  who  knew  Lincoln 
long  and  "intimately"  have  lustily  con- 
tended to  prove  him  an  "infidel". 
Others  have  as  energetically  insisted 
that  he  was  a  Christian  of  reverent 
and  unmistakable  type.  His  belief  in 
predestination,  which  Hemdon  called 
"fatalism",  is  pretty  generally  con- 
ceded. This  feature  of  his  religion  is 
asserted  to  have  been  lifelong,  and  so 
ultra-orthodox  that  "it  went  the  full 
length  of  current  superstition".  He 
has  been  variously  claimed  by  atheist 
and  Baptist,  by  Roman  Catholic  and 
Methodist,  by  Spiritualist  and  Quaker. 
Universalists  and  Unitarians  have 
thought  that  he  best  fitted  their  tenets. 
The  debate  has  been  wide  enough  to 
maintain  that  Lincoln  must  have  been 
connected  with  the  Freemasons.  It 
is  apparently  one  of  the  benevolent 
penalties  of  his  great  and  engaging 
personality   that    it   was   sufficiently 


latitudinarian  to  embrace  the  possess- 
ory rights  of  almost  any  segment  of 
faith  or  opinion  which  might  profit  by 
the  claim. 

The  subject  is,  of  course,  elusive 
enough  to  warrant  an  argument;  and 
Lincoln's  legacy  is  great  enough  to 
make  it  important  to  know  the  facts 
about  his  belief.  Many  books  and  ar- 
ticles, containing  the  fruits  of  more  or 
less  intelligent  research,  have  endeav- 
ored to  give  a  touch  of  finality  to  the 
dispute.  So  complex  and  devious  is 
the  psychology  of  the  human  mind  in 
its  attitude  toward  religion  that  the 
earlier  findings  were  not  sufficiently 
conclusive.  Gradually  and  more  sci- 
entifically, the  sifting  and  synthesis 
of  external  testimony  and  internal  evi- 
dence from  Lincoln's  authenticated 
works  have  made  possible  a  more  con- 
vincing report  of  the  matter.  By  far 
the  most  satisfactory  study  of  Lin- 
coln's religion  thus  far  published  has 
come  from  the  pen  of  William  E.  Bar- 
ton, under  the  somewhat  too  compre- 
hensive title  of  "The  Soul  of  Abraham 
Lincoln".  This  book  is  so  important 
in  its  field  that  it  must  be  regarded  as 
necessary  to  any  library,  public  or  pri- 
vate, fittingly  equipped  for  the  critical 
consideration  of  Lincoln's  religious 
history.  The  author's  contribution  in 
this  volume  is  one  which  students  of 
Lincoln  have  many  times  felt  was 
needed  toward   a   dispassionate   and 


547 


648 


THE  BOOKMAN 


scholarly  investigation  of  this  side  of 
the  greai  President's  thought  and 
character. 

That  Lincoln  was  in  large  measure 
the  product  of  the  pioneer  conditions 
which   surrounded  his  boyhood   and 
young  manhood  is  a  commonplace  of 
interpretation.     The  educational  lim- 
itations of  his  frontier  environment, 
the  stimuli  of  the  plain  folk  who  made 
up  its  sparse  inhabitants,  the  infre- 
quency    of    communication    between 
points  and  with  the  more  highly  de- 
veloped eastern  states,  the  almost  uni- 
versal resort  to  hard  manual  labor  in 
getting  a  start  in  the  world,  the  check- 
ered social  and  religious  atmosphere 
growing  slowly  out  of  the  diversity  of 
beliefs  and  customs  brought  by  immi- 
grants into  the  western  communities 
— ^these  circumstances  induced  among 
the  settlers  an  attitude  of  free  think- 
ing and  action  in  religion  and  morals 
while  they  were  absorbed  with  the 
more  inmiediate  demands  of  breaking 
up  and  cropping  the  new  lands,  build- 
ing houses,  and  laying  out  towns  and 
villages    as    centres    of    distribution. 
Mr.  Barton  gives  necessary  atteiition 
to  these  stimuli  as  they  molded  the 
soul  of  the  young  Lincoln.     He  pic- 
tures the  light  and  shade  of  the  con- 
ditions   which     impressed    Lincoln's 
childhood  and  youth  in  Kentucky  and 
Indiana  as  well  as  his  facts  will  war- 
rant.    Lincoln's  schooling,  of  course, 
was  so  meagre  that  his  biographers 
have  given  all  the  exposure  possible 
to  the  scanty  opportunities  he  found 
for  self -instruction.    The  social  life  of 
the  frontiersmen  was  somewhat  leav- 
ened by  the  "camp-meetings  and  re- 
vivals" conducted  among  them  at  in- 
tervals by  the  Hardshell  Baptists  and 
the  New  Lights  and  by  the  later  influ- 
ence of  the  Presbyterians.    How  much 
preaching  the  young  Lincoln  heard  in 
Kentucky  and  Indiana  is  uncertain. 


One  general  effect  of  the  pioneer 
preaching  was  to  convict  the  popular 
conscience  of  the  doctrine  of  predes- 
tination and  the  dogma  of  eternal 
punishment.  Lincoln's  faith  was  tinc- 
tured by  the  one,  but  his  skepticism 
rejected  the  notion  of  eternal  punish- 
ment. 

Lincoln's  religious  environment  in 
Illinois  is  not  so  difficult  to  recon- 
struct. His  young  manhood  at  New 
Salem  forms  an  important  chapter  in 
his  career.  Mr.  Barton's  ear^  pro- 
fessional life  as  a  minister  in  rural 
Kentucky  and  Illinois  enabled  him  to 
observe  certain  religious  customs  and 
beliefs,  surviving  from  the  pioneer 
period  when  Lincoln's  mind  was  in  the 
making,  and  his  record  throws  an  in- 
teresting side-light  on  the  social  con- 
ditions prevailing  among  the  poor 
white  class  from  which  Lincoln 
sprung.  An  interesting  custom  was 
that  of  "deferred  funerals".  The  ad- 
vent of  a  preacher  in  the  backwoods 
was  rare,  and  there  were  instances 
where  a  settler  would  have  the  fu- 
nerals of  two  deceased  wives  preached 
"at  once".  The  author  records  the 
fact  that  a  Berea  College  professor,  as 
late  as  1919,  was  engaged  to  preach 
the  funeral  of  a  boy  who  died  ten 
years  before. 

For  the  facts  both  of  his  education 
and  his  religious  reactions,  diligent 
recourse  has  been  made  to  the  testi- 
mony of  those  who  knew  Lincoln  at 
New  Salem.  Here  Mentor  Graham 
came  into  his  life  and  instructed  him 
in  Kirkham's  grammar  as  well  as  in 
the  elements  of  surveying.  Here  he 
continued  to  read  and  reflect  upon  the 
Bible.  Shakespeare,  Bums,  and  Byron 
were  among  the  poets  he  discovered. 
Newspapers  were  an  important  part 
of  his  mental  dietary,  and  by  chance 
Blackstone's  "Commentaries"  was 
made  to  supplement  the  Statutes  of 


LINCOLN'S  RELIGION  RESTATED 


649 


Indiana,  which  he  had  read  before 
moving  to  Illinois.  He  reacted,  too,  to 
religion.  For  him,  as  for  the  average 
family,  there  was  in  his  surroundings 
little  suggestion  of  other-worldliness 
outside  of  the  occasional  camp-meet- 
ing and  its  sequential  public  baptism 
at  the  nearest  creek  or  the  funerals 
of  those  who  died  in  the  neighborhood. 
These  events  and  the  ''occasional  visi- 
tations" of  the  circuit  riders  to  preach 
in  the  school-house  or  in  the  cabin  of 
a  receptive  settler,  contrasted  piously 
with  the  Sunday  hunting  and  fishing, 
"breaking  young  horses,  shooting  at  - 
marks,  horse  and  foot  racing,  and  the 
like". 

As  a  young  man  lusty  of  life  Lin- 
coln shared  in  Indiana  and  Illinois  the 
untutored  freedom  of  acting  and 
thinking  common  to  his  neighborhood. 
His  penchant  for  reading  brought 
him  into  contact  with  Volney's 
"Ruins"  and  Paine's  "Age  of  Reason" 
as  well  as  with  the  Bible  and  the  poets. 
To  reenforce  his  contention  that  Lin- 
coln was  an  infidel,  Hemdon  asserted 
that  while  at  New  Salem  Lincoln 
wrote  an  essay  to  disprove  the  Bible 
as  God's  revelation  and  Jesus  as  the 
Son  of  God;  that  Lincoln's  employer, 
Hill,  snatched  this  little  "book"  and 
threw  it  into  the  stove  to  prevent  its 
publicity  from  injuring  the  young 
man's  political  prospects.  With  the 
keenness  of  a  trained  advocate,  Mr. 
Barton  shows  that  Hemdon  actually 
knew  very  little  of  the  New  Salem 
Lincoln,  that  he  depended  upon  hastily 
gathered  hearsay  evidence,  and  that 
what  Lincoln  actually  wrote  was  a 
"little  manuscript",  which  he  showed 
to  Mentor  Graham,  containing  "a  de- 
fense of  universal  salvation".  As  Gra- 
ham wrote,  Lincoln  "took  the  passage, 
'as  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so  in  Christ 
shall  all  be  made  alive,'  and  followed 
with  the  proposition  that  whatever 


the  breach  or  injury  of  Adam's  trans- 
gression to  the  human  race  was,  which 
no  doubt  was  very  great,  was  made 
right  by  the  atonement  of  Christ." 

But  this  was  not  "the  book",  says 
Mr.  Barton,  which  Hill  burned.  Again, 
upon  Mentor  Graham's  better  testi- 
mony, he  shows  that  Hemdon  did  not 
know  that  the  object  bumed  in  Hill's 
store  was  a  letter  Hill  had  written  to 
McNamur  about  Ann  Rutledge.  This 
letter  was  found  by  some  school  chil- 
dren, who  gave  it  to  Lincoln,  the  post- 
master, in  Hill's  store.  "Some  of  the 
school  children",  wrote  Graham,  "had 
picked  up  the  letter  and  handed  it  to 
Lincoln.  Hill  and  Lincoln  were  talk- 
ing about  it,  when  Hill  snatched  the 
letter  from  Lincoln  and  put  it  into  the 
fire.  The  letter  was  respecting  a 
young  lady.  Miss  Ann  Rutledge,  for 
whom  all  three  of  these  gentlemen 
seemed  to  have  respect." 

Lincoln,  then,  did  not,  like  Shelley, 
write  a  youthful  essay  to  disprove 
traditional  orthodoxy,  but  to  give  it 
as  he  believed  a  more  rational  inter- 
pretation. However,  the  storm  of 
controversy  over  Lincoln's  faith  came, 
soon  after  his  death,  to  centre  upon  a 
point  of  pure  theology.  J.  G.  Holland, 
editor  at  the  time  of  "Scribner's  Maga- 
zine", went  to  Springfield  to  gather 
materials  for  his  biography  of  Lincoln. 
Among  others,  he  interviewed  New- 
ton Bateman,  State  Superintendent  of 
Education,  who  had  known  Lincoln 
long  and  intimately.  Holland  pub- 
lished as  Bateman's  words  a  confiden- 
tial comment  Lincoln  had  made  to  the 
latter  during  the  presidential  canvass 
of  1860,  in  which  he  expressed  deep 
disappointment  that  a  majority  of  the 
ministers  of  Springfield  were  reported 
as  favoring  Douglas  for  president.  In 
this  comment,  Holland  reported  Lin- 
coln as  saying : 

I  know  there  Is  a  Ood.  and  that  He  hates 


650 


THE  BOOKMAN 


injustice  and  slavery I  know  I  am  right 

because  I  know  that  liberty  is  right,  for  Christ 
teaches  it,  and  Christ  is  God.  I  have  told  them 
that  a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand,  and  Christ  and  reason  say  the  same; 
and  they  will  find  it  so.  Douglas  don't  care 
whether  slavery  is  voted  up  or  voted  down,  but 
God  cares,  and  humanity  cares,  and  I  care; 
and  with  God's  help  I  shall  not  fail.  I  may 
not  see  the  end ;  but  it  will  come,  and  I  shall 
be  vindicated:  and  these  men  will  find  that 
they  have  not  read  their  Bibles  aright. 

Then  the  theological  storm  broke 
loose.  Lamon's  "Life  of  Lincoln", 
based  upon  Hemdon's  notes  and  pa- 
pers, soon  followed  and  boldly  chal- 
lenged the  veracity  of  Holland's  re- 
port of  Lincoln's  words.  The  dispute 
focused  upon  the  sentence,  "I  know  I 
am  right  because  I  know  that  liberty 
is  right,  for  Christ  teaches  it,  and 
Christ  is  God."  "Lincoln",  wrote 
Lamon,  "never  in  all  that  time  let  fall 
from  his  tongue  or  his  pen  an  expres- 
sion which  remotely  implied  the 
slightest  faith  in  Jesus  as  the  Son  of 
God  and  the  Savior  of  men."  Hem- 
don,  also,  strongly  condemned  the 
statement  ascribed  to  Lincoln,  and 
called  upon  Dr.  Bateman  to  confirm  or 
deny  Holland's  language.  Hemdon 
did  not  deny  that  Lincoln  was  a  deist, 
but  he  was  certain  Lincoln  had  never 
acknowledged  Jesus  as  the  Christ  of 
God.  Lamon  concluded  that  Bate- 
man's  memory  had  played  him  false 
or  that  he  had  thought  it  no  wrong 
to  employ  a  religious  fraud  to  set  at 
ease  the  public  desire  to  be  assured  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  orthodoxy.  He  main- 
tained that  Lincoln  held  all  truth  to  be 
inspired,  whether  Newton's  discov- 
eries, a  Baconian  essay,  or  one  of  his 
own  speeches. 

Hemdon  wrote  that  his  several  at- 
;tempts  to  get  a  statement  of  the  case 
from  Bateman  for  publication  were 
unavailing,  but  that  he  had  preserved 
notes  of  his  interviews  with  Bateman, 
which  one  day  would  set  the  matter 
right.  Meantime,  the  world  could  take 


his  "word"  for  it  that  Holland  was 
wrong.  "If  Bateman  is  correctly  rep- 
resented by  Holland,  he  is  the  only 
man  who  will  say  Lincoln  believed 
Jesus  was  the  Christ  of  God,  as  the 
Christian  world  represents.  Sometime 
my  notes  will  show  who  is  truthful, 
and  who  is  not.  I  doubt  whether 
Bateman  is  correctly  represented." 

These  notes,  as  Mr.  Barton  remarks, 
have  never  been  found.  Bateman  re- 
fused to  respond  to  Herndon's  inqui- 
sition. Later  on  he  wrote,  confiden- 
tially, that  his  conversation  with  Lin- 
coln had  turned  upon  the  application 
of  "moral  and  religious  truth  to  the 
duties  of  the  hour,  the  conditions  of 
the  country,  and  the  conduct  of  public 
men — ^ministers  of  the  gospel.  Neither 
was  thinking  of  orthodoxy  or  hetero- 
doxy, Unitarianism,  Trinitarianism  or 
any  other  ism."  Subsequently  Bate- 
man said  to  L  N.  Arnold,  who  was 
preparing  a  Life  of  Lincoln,  that  Hol- 
land's report  of  the  conversation  in 
dispute  was  "substantially  correct". 
Mr.  Barton,  however,  concludes  with 
Lamon  and  Herndon  that  Lincoln  did 
not  say,  "I  know  I  am  right  because  I 
know  that  liberty  is  right,  for  Christ 
teaches  it,  and  Christ  is  God."  Lin- 
coln could  not  have  used  such  lan- 
guage, Mr,  Barton  writes,  "with  noth- 
ing to  distinguish  the  view  of  Lincobi 
as  Unitarian  or  Trinitarian".  He  is 
the  more  confident  because  Nicolay 
and  Hay  did  not  mention  the  incident, 
because  Bateman  did  not  refer  to  it  in 
his  subsequent  lecture  on  Lincoln,  and 
did  not  protest  against  the  criticisms 
of  Lamon  and  Herndon.  Bateman  and 
Holland,  he  feels,  each  incurred  his 
"ratio"  of  error:  five  years  had 
elapsed  since  Bateman  had  the  words 
from  Lincoln ;  besides,  he  was  tempted 
"to  enlarge  upon  the  incident"  as  a 
concession  to  the  desire  of  "Christian 
people  for  a  clear  statement"  of  Lin- 


LINCOLN'S  RELIGION  RESTATED 


551 


coin's  faith.  Holland's  discrepancy,  he 
believes,  arose  from  his  being  a  writer 
of  fiction  as  well  as  of  history:  thus, 
naturally,  "he  did  not  fail  to  embellish 
the  story  as  Bateman  told  it  to  him". 
Finally,  Holland,  "probably  did  not 
write  it  down  at  the  time,  but  recalled 
it  afterward  from  memory".  Al- 
though neither  Holland  nor  Bateman 
intentionally  falsified  neither  "cared, 
probably,  to  face  too  searching  inquiry 
as  to  how  the  enlargement  had  come". 
From  our  own  knowledge  of  Lin- 
coln's words  referring  here  and  there 
to  his  confidence  in  the  Bible  and  its 
two  supreme  personalities  which  he 
recognized  as  giving  it  validity,  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how,  as  a  matter  of 
logic,  the  author  finds  it  necessary  to 
conclude  with  Lamon  and  Hemdon 
that  Lincoln  was  not  correctly  quoted 
in  the  phrase,  "Christ  is  God".  It 
would  have  been  obviously  dishonest 
for  Bateman  gratuitously  to  offer  the 
phrase  to  a  biographer  as  Lincoln's 
own  words,  and  just  as  dishonest  for 
the  biographer  to  insert  it  for  the  sake 
of  embellishment.  The  phrase  is 
quite  en  rapport  with  its  context,  par- 
ticularly with,  "I  have  told  them  that 
a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand,  and  Christ  and  reason  say  the 
same" ;  also  with  "Douglas  don't  care 
. .  .but  God  cares,  and  humanity  cares, 
and  I  care."  If  Bateman  felt  that 
neither  he  nor  Lincoln,  in  the  inter- 
view, was  thinking  of  theological  dis- 
tinctions (such  as  Hemdon  was  meta- 
physical enough  to  insist  upon),  but 
only  of  the  application  of  "moral  and 
religious  truth"  to  public  men  and 
questions,  why  not  take  him  at  his 
word?  It  is  more  than  likely  that 
Lincoln  used  the  words  in  question 
without  consciously  distinguishing  his 
view  as  Unitarian  or  Trinitarian. 
Bateman  was  probably  too  self-re- 
specting to  engage  in  controversy  with 


Hemdon.  Like  Dr.  Smith,  whom  Mr. 
Barton  justly  credits  for  influencing 
Lincoln's  religious  convictions,  Bate- 
man simply  did  not  care  to  make 
Hemdon  his  medium  of  communica- 
tion to  the  public.  He  had  confided 
to  Holland  the  substance  of  an  inti- 
mate personal  talk  with  Lincoln,  and 
felt  that  Holland  had  quoted  him  sub- 
stantially as  Lincoln  had  spoken  to 
him.  Hemdon  had  read  the  words 
with  a  metaphysical  coloring  out  of 
character,  as  far  as  he  knew,  with  Lin- 
coln's thinking;  whereas,  Lincoln  had 
only  implied  his  impression  of  the 
practical  identity  of  Christ's  teach- 
ings with  God's  will  and  character. 

John  G.  Nicolay,  Lincoln's  private 
secretary,  stated  that  "Mr.  Lincoln  did 
not,  to  my  knowledge,  in  any  way 
change  his  religious  views,  opinions, 
or  beliefs,  from  the  time  he  left 
Springfield  to  the  day  of  his  death." 
If  this  impression  is  substantially  cor- 
rect, what,  then,  was  Lincoln's  re- 
ligious view? 

On  the  matter  of  Christianity,  Lin- 
coln at  no  time  declared  himself  with 
more  perspicacity,  perhaps,  than  in 
the  letter  he  wrote  to  Reverend  Dr. 
Ide  and  others,  May  SO,  1864: 

I  can  only  tbank  yoa  for  thus  adding  to  the 
effective  and  almost  unanimous  support  which 
the  Christian  communities  are  so  zealously  giv- 
ing to  the  country  and  to  liberty.  Indeed  it  Is 
difficult  to  conceive  how  it  could  be  otherwise 
with  anyone  professing  Christianity,  or  even 
having  ordinary  perception  of  right  and  wrong. 
To  read  the  Bible  as  the  word  of  God  himself, 
that  "in  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat 
bread'*,  and  to  preach  therefrom  that,  "in  the 
sweat  of  other  men'$  faces  thou  shalt  eat 
bread",  to  my  mind  can  scarcely  be  reconcUed 

with  honest  sincerity When,  a  year  or  two 

ago,  those  professedly  holy  men  of  the  South 
met  in  semblance  of  prayer  and  devotion,  and, 
in  the  name  of  Him  who  said,  "As  ye  would 
all  men  should  do  unto  you,  do  ye  even  so  unto 
them,"  appealed  to  the  Christian  world  to  aid 
them  in  doing  to  a  whole  race  of  men  as  they 
would  have  no  man  do  unto  themselves,  to  my 
thinking  they  contemned  and  insulted  God  and 
His  church  far  more  than  did  Satan  when  he 


652 


THE  BOOKMAN 


tempted  the  Savloiir  witb  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth.  The  deyll's  attempt  was  no  more  false, 
and  far  less  hypocriticaL  But  let  me  forbear, 
remembering  it  is  also  written,  "Jadge  not  lest 
je  be  judged." 

Lincoln  was  no  literalist  in  his  in- 
terpretation of  the  Bible.  The  dog- 
mas of  the  virgin  birth  and  eternal 
punishment  did  not  appeal  to  him  as 
fundamental  to  the  validity  of  the 
Bible  as  a  divine  revelation  of  re- 
ligious truth.  In  the  growth  and  com- 
position of  the  book  he  was  disposed 
to  recognize  the  man-made  element, 
but  apparently  this  did  not  destroy  for 
him  its  unique  importance  as  a  spir- 
itual and  ethical  guide  for  humanity. 
In  Chambers's  "Vestiges  of  Creation" 
he  discovered  and  accepted  the  prin- 
ciple of  natural  evolution.  He  did  not 
unite  with  any  church,  but  the  evi- 
dence seems  indisputable  that  he  de- 
clared himself  willing  to  join  any 
church  that  asked  assent  only  to  the 
two  great  commandments.  Like  his 
education  and  his  political  history,  his 
religious  experience  was  a  persistent 
evolution  in  search  of  the  faith  that 
best  satisfied  the  demands  of  unselfish 
reason.  The  impact  of  pioneerism 
left  its  accent  in  his  manners  and 


S3anpathies.  Nature  made  him  a  fi^eat 
gentleman  and  bestowed  upon  him  a 
mind  of  superior  powers.  Emerson 
felicitously  spoke  of  him  as  ''an  en- 
tirely public  man".  As  such,  he  car- 
ried his  unbroken  and  unfinished  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  development 
into  his  practice  of  church  attendance, 
into  his  practice  of  daily  prayer  and 
meditation,  and  into  his  public  policy 
and  utterance.  His  was  the  almost 
perfect  union  of  the  western  mind 
with  the  Hebraic  spirit.  These  ele- 
ments of  his  genius  found  their  high- 
est expression  in  his  Second  In- 
augural, a  state  paper  combining  both 
history  and  religion  into  a  master- 
piece of  pure  literature. 

Mr.  Barton's  volume  is  richly  as 
well  as  carefully  documented.  He  sur- 
passes his  predecessors  both  in  the  as- 
semblage of  external  and  internal  evi- 
dence bearing  with  finality  upon  the 
much  mooted  question  of  Lincoln's  re- 
ligious faith.  His  book  is  so  well  done 
that  it  is  likely  long  to  remain  the 
standard  work  on  the  subject. 


Tbe  Soul  of  Abrabam  Lincoln.     By  WiUUm 
E.  Barton.     George  H.  Doran  Comi>any. 


A  SIERRA  POET  IN  THE  MAKING 


BY  HERBERT  COOPER  THOMPSON 


JOAQUIN  MILLER,  ''poet  of  the  Si- 
erras", has  come  in  for  a  revival  in 
California.  A  magazine  of  San  Fran- 
cisco has  not  long  since  issued  a  me- 
morial number  (it  is  seven  years  since 
his  death),  and  collectors  are  paying 
increasingly  high  premiums  for  his 
manuscripts  and  first  editions.  This 
is,  to  some  extent,  a  tribute  to  his 
unique  personality,  for  it  is  certain 
that  he  has,  in  death,  lost  none  of  his 
grip  on  the  imaginations  of  those  who 
knew  him  or  knew  of  him.  Tourists 
still  make  pilgrimages,  as  in  his  life, 
to  the  strange  collection  of  cabins  in 
the  hills  overlooking  San  Francisco 
Bay,  where  he  made  his  home. 

Miller,  besides  his  magnetism,  ad- 
mirable character,  and  whimsical  orig- 
inality, was  a  picturesque  figure.  Tall, 
powerful,  with  keen  eyes,  strong, 
handsome  face  and  flowing  beard,  he 
made  an  imposing  appearance  on  all 
occasions — a  fact  no  one  appreciated 
better  than  he.  Cowhide  boots,  in 
which  he  stalked  to  fame  in  London's 
drawing-rooms  in  the  early  'seventies, 
soft  shirt,  slouch  hat,  and  corduroy 
clothes  fulfilled  the  popular  notion  of 
the  way  a  "poet  of  the  Sierras"  should 
look.  Yet  he  was  no  mere  "faker". 
He  came  honestly  by  his  far-Western 
garb.  He  crossed  the  plains  to  Oregon 
during  the  gold  rush,  as  a  lad  of  ten; 
and  before  he  finished  his  schooling, 
he  had  worked  in  the  mines,  fought 


Indians,  and  shot  a  deputy  sheriff. 
Charles  Warren  Stoddard  later  wrote 
of  him:  "Never  had  a  breezier  bit  of 
human  nature  dawned  upon  me  this 
side  of  the  South  Seas  than  that  Poet 
of  the  Sierras  when  he  came  to  San 
Francisco  in  1870."  And  a  British  re- 
viewer in  the  days  of  his  early  fame 
correctly  said  that  his  superiority  over 
Byron  in  certain  respects  lay  in  the 
fact  that  his  materials  were  derived 
not  from  a  morbid  imagination,  but 
from  his  own  actual  experience  on  the 
borders  of  civilization. 

An  episode  in  his  early  career  relat- 
ing to  his  fight  wijth  the  deputy  and 
other  early  reminiscences,  hitherto 
unpublished,  have  been  given  to  me  by 
one  of  Miller's  boyhood  companions 
and  newspaper  associates.  Colonel  Wil- 
liam Thompson  of  Alturas,  California. 
And  I  am  also  heir  to  a  number  of 
backless  ledgers  in  which  the  young 
poet  scribbled  at  verse  and  politicsJ 
speeches  and  jotted  persons^  notes 
while  practising  law  in  Canyon  City, 
Oregon.  These  bits  I  here  offer  to  his 
admirers. 

"I  am  a  genius,"  Miller  declared  to 
Thompson  during  his  struggling  years. 
"The  world  does  not  appreciate  me, 
but  it  will  yet  recognize  and  honor  my 
name."  He  did  not  say  this  boast- 
fully. He  said  it  because  of  his  abso- 
lute faith  in  himself,  although  it  well 


558 


554 


THE  BOOKMAN 


illustrates  his  characteristic  simplicity 
and  the  child-like  vanity  of  the  man. 

Miller  was  never  a  boaster  as  a  boy, 
yet  he  allowed  no  one  to  excel  him  in 
feats  of  daring,  whether  swinmiing 
rapids  or  breaking  a  colt.  His  erratic 
moods,  high  spirits  alternating  with 
fits  of  depression,  natural  brilliancy, 
and  love  of  the  spectacular  marked 
him  apart  from  most  of  his  fellows. 
In  the  mines  of  northern  California, 
to  which  his  love  of  adventure  led  him 
as  a  youth,  he  was  known  as  "crazy 
Miller".  There  he  made  a  living  at 
the  menial  tasks  assigned  to  boys, 
wrote  poetry,  preached,  and  finally  got 
into  serious  trouble  with  the  sheriff. 
He  also  did  his  first  Indian  fighting 
there,  when  a  party  of  miners  set  out 
to  punish  a  band  of  raiders.  Despite  a 
painful  wound  in  the  neck  from  an 
arrow  during  this  fight,  he  used  his 
rifie  until  the  Indians  fied  in  a  rout. 
A  miner  who  was  present  said  after- 
ward to  Thompson  that  young  Miller 
was  alike  fearless  and  indifferent  to 
danger. 

Miller  worked  at  the  mines  for  a 
rascally  pair  who  promised  him  in  re- 
ward a  horse  with  bridle  and  saddle; 
but  just  before  the  expiration  of  his 
time,  as  a  ruse  for  escaping  payment, 
they  discharged  him  for  incompetency. 
The  boy,  without  money  to  take  the 
case  to  court,  settled  his  grievance  by 
running  away  with  the  horse  and 
equipment.  Friendly  Indians  gave 
him  a  refuge  in  the  mountains.  But 
his  late  employers  obtained  a  warrant 
for  felony.  He  was  caught,  despite 
the  efforts  of  the  Indians,  and  lodged 
in  jail.  Sympathetic  miners,  feeling 
the  injustice  of  his  treatment,  helped 
him  to  escape.  After  some  months  in 
central  California,  laboring  on  ranches, 
he  attempted  to  return  to  his  Oregon 
home.  Unfortunately,  he  was  recog- 
\      nized  in  the  mountains  near  the  mines. 


The  sheriff  was  notified.  Two  deputies 
left  in  chase.  Miller  saw  them  coming 
as  he  was  crossing  a  bridge  and  hid  in 
the  brush,  from  which  he  opened  fire 
with  a  revolver,  wounding  one  deputy 
and  killing  the  horse  of  the  other.  In 
return,  he  received  a  bullet  in  the 
fieshy  part  of  his  forearm. 

Although  the  two  deputies  gave  up 
the  chase.  Miller  knew  that  a  full  posse 
would  soon  be  on  his  trail.  He  rode 
straight  on  until,  late  at  night,  he  ar- 
rived at  a  toll  bridge,  which  was 
closed.  Breaking  the  padlock,  he 
threw  open  the  gate,  then  doubled 
back  and  followed  the  river  on  the 
rear  side  in  the  hope  of  bafiling  his 
pursuers.  This  brought  him  to  Kla- 
math Lake  in  southern  Oregon,  which 
he  crossed  in  a  canoe  hired  from  an 
Indian,  swimming  his  horse. 

The  sheriff  of  Klamath  had  as 
deputy  a  notorious  gun-fighter  named 
Bradley,  who  undertook  to  capture 
Miller.  He  discovered  the  right  trail, 
and  even  the  Indian  who  paddled  the 
fugitive  across  the  lake.  The  chase 
continued  well  into  southern  Oregon, 
where  Miller  waylaid  the  deputy,  cov- 
ered him  with  a  revolver,  and  forced 
him  to  give  up  arms  and  mule.  The 
man  was  then  left  to  find  his  way  back 
afoot.  As  his  own  horse  had  given 
out.  Miller  shot  him  and  proceeded  on 
his  fresh  mount.  But  the  mule  also 
broke  down  under  the  hardships  of 
mountain  scaling  and  had  to  be  killed. 
Miller  then  pushed  on  toward  Canyon 
City  in  eastern  Oregon,  tramping 
across  mountain  and  desert.  By 
chance  he  met  Thompson,  who  was 
coming  down  from  the  mines  in  a 
wagon.  During  the  ride  to  town,  Mil- 
ler told  his  story  and  showed  the 
wound  in  his  arm,  which  he  had  bound 
with  a  strip  of  shirt.  Thompson  later 
verified  Miller's  story. 

A  sequel  followed  some  years  later 


\ 


A  SIERRA  POET  IN  THE  MAKING 


555 


when  Miller  went  to  Canyon  City  to 
practise  law.  Bradley,  who  was  liv- 
ing there  as  a  miner  by  day  and  gam- 
bler by  night,  hearing  that  his  old  ad- 
versary was  coming,  announced  his  in- 
tention of  shooting  him  at  sight.  Mil- 
ler, warned  of  the  threat,  went  straight 
to  Bradley's  cabin.  When  Bradley 
opened  the  door.  Miller  held  out  a  brace 
of  revolvers  and  said  he  could  take  his 
choice  of  a  weapon,  if  he  had  none  of  his 
own.  Struck  with  admiration  at  Mil- 
ler's audacity,  Bradley  held  out  the 
hand  of  friendship.  It  was  accepted. 
And  when  Miller  ran  for  judge  of  the 
county,  Bradley  was  one  of  his  staunch- 
est  supporters. 

Unfair  and  distorted  versions  of 
this  escapade  in  California  followed 
Miller  to  Oregon.  His  life  among  the 
Indians  also  caused  speculation  among 
the  gossips.  But  he  obtained  the  best 
education  the  country  afforded,  taught 
school,  ran  an  express,  read  law,  be- 
came a  county  judge,  and  established 
himself  as  a  respected  citizen. 

At  this  time,  the  settled  and  orderly 
section  of  Oregon  extended  south  from 
Portland  to  Eugene  City,  at  the  head 
of  the  fertile  Willamette  valley.  Mil- 
ler entered  Columbia  College  at  Eu- 
gene. It  was  housed  in  a  single  build- 
ing of  wood.  One  day  a  fire  broke  out 
during  class.  All  the  students  fied  ex- 
cept Miller,  who  remained  behind, 
throwing  out  books.  He  was  in  the 
second  story  when  the  building  col- 
lapsed, and  he  saved  himself  only  by 
jumping  to  the  ground. 

Miller  obtained  the  money  for  his 
first  journalistic  venture  from  an  ex- 
press business  in  eastern  Washington. 
Preceded  by  a  reputation  as  a  fighter, 
he  was  never  once  molested  by  the  des- 
peradoes in  the  wild  region  through 
which  he  drove,  nor  did  he  ever  lose  a 
dollar  of  the  heavy  remittances  of  bul- 


lion and  gold  dust  that  he  carried  for 
the  miners  at  the  "diggings"  there. 
As  a  Southern  Democrat,  in  the 
heated  days  of  Civil  War,  he  narrowly 
escaped  imprisonment  for  disloyalty 
during  his  newspaper  experience  at 
Eugene.  After  suppression  and  warn- 
ings, he  founded  a  purely  literary 
journal;  but  as  he  could  not  resist 
politics,  this  also  was  suppressed.  Fi- 
nally, he  quit  in  discouragement. 

It  was  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War 
that  Miller  went  to  Canyon  City  to 
practise  law.  There  he  entered  poli- 
tics and  secured  the  county  judgeship. 
Yet,  as  his  journals  of  this  period 
show,  he  practised  steadily  at  poetry. 
Apparently,  poets  were  not  regarded 
highly  at  Canyon  City,  for  I  note  in 
a  "Preface"  to  a  collection  of  manu- 
script poems  in  one  old  ledger:  "These 
pages,  like  their  young  writer,  were 
born  and  raised  on  the  highest  moun- 
tain of  the  frontier;  where  painted 
savages  are  oftener  met  than  savants 
and  where  rhyming  is  considered  a 
mild  type  of  insanity."  The  poet  was 
bom  in  Indiana,  "raised"  in  the  val- 
leys of  Oregon ;  and  in  1869,  the  date 
of  this  preface,  he  was  28  years  old. 

Among  the  manuscript  poems  that 
follow  is  "Loua  EUah",  which  later  ap- 
peared in  his  first  booklet  of  poems, 
"Specimens".  There  is  also  an  ode 
"To  the  Poets  of  California"  begin- 
ning, "I  am  as  one  unlearned,  un- 
couth." This  ode,  under  the  title  of 
"To  the  Bards  of  San  Francisco  Bay", 
excited  ridicule  among  the  men  it  was 
meant  to  compliment  when  its  author 
made  his  disappointing  pilgrimage  to 
the  City  of  the  Golden  Gate. 

In  another  ledger,  we  find  some  of 
his  political  speeches.  "I  ask  for  the 
nomination,  first,  because  I  am  com- 
petent to  fill  the  place;  second,  be- 
cause I  desire  it,"  he  says  of  the  judge- 


566 


THE  BOOKMAN 


\ 


\ 


ship.  Some  of  his  notes  are  biograph- 
ical. For  instance,  he  purposes  to  re- 
side at  Canyon  City  and  strive  to  win 
the  judgeship,  which  pays  $1,200  a 
year.  "I  will  spend  all  the  money  I  can 
raise  at  it,  and  if  I  fail,  will  send  my 
family  away  and  try  another  county.'^ 

"Romance  in  Real  Life"  is  the  head- 
ing to  several  pages  of  bitter  reflec- 
tions written  in  tiie  August  of  1865. 
Once  he  says,  "I  have  no  friend  on 
whose  judgment  I  can  rely  or  in  whose 
secrecy  I  can  trust."  We  find  that  he 
"sincerely  deplored"  but  one  act  of  im- 
portance in  his  life,  and  he  was  "about 
to  undo  that  act".  He  "assumed  a 
duty".  Whatever  his  resolution  was, 
it  is  easy  to  infer  that  the  trouble  was 
domestic. 

"Joaquin  et  al."  is  the  curious  and 
unconsciously  humorous  title  of  his 
second  book  of  poems.  It  was  written 
at  Canyon  City  and  printed  in  Port- 
land, Oregon,  in  1869,  under  the  name 
of  Cincinnatus  H.  Miller;  but  in  an 
autographic  inscription  which  I  have 
in  my  volume,  he  signs  himself 
"Hiner".  He  was  known  to  his  friends 
as  Hiner — a  family  name  he  later 
changed  to  Heine,  in  honor  of  the  Ger- 
man singer.  After  the  success  of  the 
poem  "Joaquin"  he  was  called  "Joa- 
quin" Miller  by  public  and  friends. 

Miller  served  four  years  as  judge  at 
Canyon  City.  During  this  time,  he 
led  a  company  of  irregular  volunteers 
against  the  Snake  Indians.  His  lead- 
ership, on  one  occasion,  saved  his  men, 
who  were  caught  in  an  Indian  trap. 
Under  his  plans,  they  successfully 
broke  through  the  surrounding  lines 
and  escaped. 

Defeated  for  reelection,  he  returned 

to  Eugene.    His  reputation  as  a  poet 

was  still  local,  when  George  Francis 

Train,  a  popular  lecturer  of  the  period 

\    who  was  then  touring  Oregon,  chanced 

\  to  read  one  of  his  poems.    Train  re- 


cited this  from  the  platform  in  Eu- 
gene and  publicly  declared  Miller  a 
genius. 

"You  see,  men  of  genius  appreciate 
me,"  the  poet  remarked  to  Thompson 
after  the  lecture,  in  a  voice  shaken  by 
emotion.  "I  am  going  where  others 
besides  Train  can  and  will  appreciate 
me,  for  I  am  a  genius." 

He  then  laid  plans  for  his  journey 
to  London.  Just  before  he  left  Eu- 
gene, he  spoke  so  extravagantly  of 
what  he  expected  to  accomplish  in 
Europe,  "where  they  appreciated 
genius",  that  even  so  old  and  intimate 
a  friend  as  Colonel  Thompson  feared 
his  wits  had  been  touched. 

Prior  to  his  lionizing  in  London, 
Miller  did  not  in  town  wear  the 
miner's  costume  by  which  he  was  later 
distinguished.  On  the  contrary,  far 
from  being  rough  in  dress,  he  was,  in 
the  slang  of  the  period,  a  "dude".  He 
kept  as  close  to  fashion  as  his  oppor- 
tunities allowed,  affected  the  niceties 
of  the  city  and  wore  kid  gloves. 

The  last  time  I  saw  him,  he  talked 
of  pioneer  days  in  a  way  that  showed 
his  heart  was  sincerely  with  the  old 
West.  This  was  only  a  few  months 
before  his  death,  as  he  lay  helpless  in 
bed  in  one  of  his  hill  cabins.  A  small 
cloth  cap  sat  queerly  on  his  head,  his 
beard  and  long,  thin  locks  were  frosty 
white.  He  complained  of  a  numbness 
of  the  legs,  which  prevented  him  from 
rising,  but  his  mind  was  keen,  and  he 
was  interested  in  a  project  for  increas-  . 
ing  his  "forest".  With  his  own  hands, 
he  told  me,  he  set  out  fifty  thousand 
trees;  this  was  the  first  time  he  had 
passed  this  task  to  others.  His  daugh- 
ter, whom  he  called  "Babe",  now  di- 
rected a  topknotted  Korean  at  the 
task.  As  he  talked  of  the  early  days 
and  his  projects,  he  seemed  to  me  a 
typical  old  pioneer.    Never  did  he  look 


BORN  TO  BLUSH  UNSEEN 


557 


more  the  part  of  the  ''poet  of  the  Si- 
erras". 

I  brought  the  conversation  around 
to  his  days  in  London  and  asked  him 


about  his  friends,  the  pre-Raphaelites. 
"They    are    all   dead,"    Miller    re- 
marked, adding  with  a  solenm  shake 
of  his  head,  '*We  all  die." 


BORN  TO  BLUSH  UNSEEN 

BY  CAROLYN  WELLS 

I  am  a  disappointed  story-teller; 

The  book  I  worked  on  with  such  zeal  and  zest. 
Has  proved  too  good  to  be  a  real  Best  Seller, 

And  yet  not  bad  enough  to  be  suppressed! 


A  FOREIGN  MISCELLANY 


BY  ISAAC  GOLDBERG 


THOSE  who  imagine  that  a  man 
must  pass  a  pretty  inactive  and 
occasionally  dull  time  in  his  library  or 
at  the  bookshop,  are  more  often  mis- 
taken than  they  think.  Of  course, 
only  too  much  of  what's  written  adds 
to  the  gloom  of  the  nations — ^never, 
naturally,  anything  that  you  or  I 
write.  Yet  under  certain  conditions 
there's  almost  as  much  excitement  in 
a  heap  of  books  as  there  is  at  a  foot- 
ball game,  and  I'm  not  so  sure  but  that 
the  excitement  is  not  fairly  the  same 
in  both  instances.  We  assemble  to 
cheer  our  favorites,  but  like  true 
sports  are  ready  to  yell  lustily  for  a 
good  play  from  the  opposite  side.  We 
are  on  the  lookout  for  "discoveries", 


and  produce  candidates  for  the  "great 
American  novel"  with  quite  as  much 
gusto  as  a  sporting  editor  arranges 
his  "all  America"  elevens;  we  watch 
the  advancement  of  a  promising  chap 
from  his  first  good  play  (on  the  foot- 
lights or  the  gridiron,  as  you  like  it) 
and  pride  ourselves  upon  having  pre- 
dicted his  "arrival".  And  though  this 
element  may  be  non-literary,  it  surely 
contributes  its  share  to  making  litera- 
ture safe  for  enjoyment. 

All  of  which  is  preliminary  to  the 
remark  that  this  trying  to  keep  up 
with  several  literatures  at  a  time — 
please  note  that  I  said  trying,  for  no- 
body really  does  it,  or  expects  to  do  it 
— is  a  pursuit  that  makes  the  blood 


558 


THE  BOOKMAN 


run  faster.  Is  this  volume  of  mad 
poems  the  work  of  an  impostor,  or  is 
the  apparent  lunatic  destined  to  be  the 
initiator  of  a  new  and  permanent 
"ism"  in  poesy?  Is  that  thin  little 
brochure  which  you're  tempted  to 
thrust  aside  possibly  the  first  opus  of 
acritic  who  in  a  few  years  will  hold  you 
in  awe  lest  he  comment  adversely  upon 
your  own  work?  Of  course,  you  read 
the  foreign  magazines,  and  every  once 
in  so  often  you  encounter  the  blazon- 
ing-forth  of  a  second  Maeterlinck 
(you,  who  don't  care  a  fig  for  the  first 
one!)  or  an  authentic  descendant  of 
Whitman,  or  a  poet-playwright  who 
with  his  initial  work  dethrones  D'An- 
nunzio,  Sem  Benelli  et  al.  And  when 
these  books  arrive,  you  read  them 
first,  being  but  human.  As  you  read, 
you  make  up  your  mind  that  you're 
going  to  show  these  foreign  critics  a 
thing  or  two  and  teach  them  to  hold 
their  tongues  about  second  Shake- 
speares  and  the  like ;  their  praise  de- 
termines you  to  find  fault,  which  is  so 
much  more  easy  than  finding  virtue. 
Wasn't  it  the  brilliant  Remy  de  Gour- 
mont  who  spoke  of  one  of  Verhaeren's 
critics  in  this  wise:  "An  unnamable 
critic  notes  some  of  the  fiery  errors 
of  Verhaeren ;  a  few  'out  of  a  hundred 
others'.  It  is  thither,  toward  the 
fault,  the  stain,  the  wound,  that  the 
mediocre  spirit  fiies  like  an  insect, 
with  certain  aim;  he  looks  at  neither 
the  eyes  nor  the  hair,  neither  the 
hands  nor  the  throat,  nor  at  the  charm 
of  the  woman  who  passes  by ;  he  sees 
the  mud  with  which  a  churl  has  be- 
spattered her  gown;  he  enjoys  the 
sight;  he  would  like  to  see  the  stain 
grow  until  it  devoured  both  gown  and 
flesh;  he  would  have  everything  as 
ugly,  filthy,  and  despicable  as  him- 
self"? And  then  there  is  the  opposite 
tendency  to  be  on  guard  against:  seeing 
only  good  in  the  literary  universe.   In 


fact,  a  certain  Spaniard  whose  name  I 
can't  recall  said  that  there  was  never 
a  really  and  wholly  bad  book.  Op- 
timist ! 

Wherefore  let  us  approach  rather 
humbly  a  list  of  books  chosen,  from 
various  tongues  and  climes,  not  at  ran- 
dom, but  with  that  sense  of  fallibility 
and  literary  excitement  which  may  be 
gathered   from  the  preceding:   para- 
graphs.    First,  from  Italy,  where  a 
rival  to  Benelli  and  D'Annunzio  seems 
to  have  arisen.  For  Ercole  Lui^  Mor- 
selli,  whose  tragedies  "Glauco"   and 
"Orione"  have  lately  been  published, 
directly  upon  the  marked  success  of 
the  first-named  play  at  both  Rome  and 
Milan,  has  been  called  that  and  more 
by  the   independent,   dynamic   spirit 
Giovanni  Papini,  who  is  himself  fast 
attaining  to  the  intellectual  leadership 
of  Italian  youth.    Morselli  is  a  young 
man,  on  the  sunny  side  of  thirty-five. 
He  has  been  known  for  his  "Storie  da 
Ridere. .  .E  Da  Piangere"  (Tales  Over 
Which  to  Laugh... And  Weep)    and 
for  the  satiric  and  generally  successful 
book   of  contemporary  fables   called 
"Favole  Per  I  Re  D'Oggi"  (Fables  for 
the  Kings  of  Today).    For  an  appre- 
ciation of  his  plays,  a  perusal  of  the 
second-named  book  is  instructive;    it 
reveals  just  that  combination  of  the 
ancient   and   the   contemporary   that 
strikes  the  reader  of  his  tragedies ;  it 
reveals,  too,  a  certain  cynical  outlook 
upon  life,  a  philosophic  scorn  of  man 
the    individual    that    so    often    com- 
panions a  love  of  him  in  the  abstract. 
(Was  it  not  Mephisto,  in  Sir  William 
S.  Gilbert's  little-known  and  not  at  aU 
unsuccessful   adaptation  of   ''Faust", 
entitled    "Gretchen",    who    inveighed 
against  the  holy  tribe 

Who  pray  for  mankind  in  the  aggregate 
And  damn  them  aU  in  detail!) 

Morselli's  tragedies  are  singularly 
free  of  scenic  trappings  and  rhetorical 


A  FOREIGN  MISCELLANY 


559 


inflation.  There  is  a  beautiful  sim- 
plicity to  his  language  which  one  need 
not  be  an  Italian  to  appreciate.  He 
writes  a  prose  that  is  akin  to  poetry 
without  being  of  that  vapory,  deli- 
quescent variety  considered  by  some 
"luetic".  He  knows  the  secret  of  a 
broad,  rhythmic  action  in  which  the 
pictorial,  the  dramatic,  and  the  vocal 
blend  into  a  meaningful  harmony.  Out 
of  two  classic  myths  he  creates  two 
modern  symbols.  Glaucus  is  a  Sicilian, 
in  love  with  Scylla,  and  hears  the  si- 
rens and  tritons  summon  him  to  that 
wealth  and  glory  of  which  he  dreams ; 
to  him  glory  is  even  more  than  Scylla, 
and  so  great  is  her  love  that  she  helps 
him  rob  her  father,  that  the  founda- 
tions of  his  venture  may  be  assured. 
Off  fares  Glaucus  on  his  eager  quest, 
resisting  temptation  on  the  way,  re- 
turning successful  only  to  find  Scylla 
dead.  Just  as  "Glaucus"  symbolizes, 
in  its  beautiful  simplicity,  the  great 
cost  at  which  fame  is  purchased,  so 
"Orion"  reveals  in  similar,  though  less 
effective  fashion,  the  littleness  of  man 
before  the  powers  of  nature  and  of 
death.  Orion,  earth-born,  and  defying 
all  earth's  creatures,  after  slaying  the 
monster  of  the  forest,  dies  from  the 
sting  of  a  scorpion  that  he  deems  be- 
neath his  notice.  Morselli,  in  these 
plays,  has  renewed  eternal  truths  for 
us.  That  is  perhaps  the  essence  of  en- 
during art.  His  possible  importance 
to  the  history  of  Italian  and  European 
drama  may  be  gleaned  from  Papini's 
straightforward  comment  in  a  recent 
issue  of  his  magazine  "La  Vraie 
Italie",  published  in  French: 

Morselli  does  not  follow  pedantically  the 
elaborated  myths  and  the  learned  reconstruc- 
tions of  the  Hellenists.  He  is  not  a  patient 
and  boresome  archnologist  like  D'Annnnsio ;  he 
cares  very  little  for  emdlte  bric-ft-brac,  for 
local  color,  for  the  scenery  and  supemnmer- 
arles  that  serve  to  conceal  the  Impotency  of  the 
impotent.  He  penetrates  to  the  very  core  of 
the    psychological   action    and    into    the   very 


souls  of  his  personages. ...  He  transports  us 
into  a  magic  world  which  is  almost  outside  of 
time,  but  in  that  mythical  and  prehistoric 
world  we  see  men  who  suffer,  love,  who  betray, 
who  take  pleasure  with  the  puissant  frankness 
of  elementary  humanity.  He  uses  the  myth 
so  as  to  obtain  a  superior  lyric  freedom  that 
shall  permit  him  to  depict  life  in  its  very  es- 
sence. He  thus  stands  apart  from  all  the 
makers  of  classic  pastiches  with  which  our 
literature  has  been  infested  from  the  sixteenth 
century  to  D'Annunsio  and  Benelli. 

Of  Grazia  Deledda  there  is  not  much 
to  say  at  this  late  date.  She  is  too  little 
known  in  this  country,  perhaps  be- 
cause of  her  distinct  regionalism, — a 
phase  of  art  that  must  likewise  keep 
more  than  one  good  Spanish  novelist 
from  reaching  a  wide  public  here. 
Her  latest  book,  containing  two  novel- 
ettes, presents  no  new  aspect  of  her 
labors,  but  it  does  suggest  a  Russian 
influence  which  Spaniards  and  Italians 
are  quick  to  deny  on  the  part  of  their 
writers.  This  habit  of  crying  "influ- 
ence" at  authors  is  one  that  is  happily, 
among  the  more  discerning  critics, 
giving  way  to  a  deeper  appreciation  of 
the  creative  impulse  and  its  workings ; 
yet  the  interpenetration  of  national- 
istic strains  as  exhibited  in  outstand- 
ing writers  of  the  various  countries  is 
a  literary  fact  (though  it  be  often 
overstressed)  which  bespeaks  a  grow- 
ing intellectual  internationalism,  ex- 
cept in  those  cases,  of  course,  where 
servile  imitation  betrays  itself. 

From  Spain  we  may  soon  expect  an 
outpouring  of  Gald6s  literature,  owing 
to  the  death  of  that  great  author  in 
the  early  days  of  January.  Gald6s 
was  of  the  race  of  the  giants;  though 
I  could  not  on  the  instant  tell  just 
why,  he  has  always  been  associated  in 
my  mind  with  Thomas  Hardy,  perhaps 
because  of  the  architectural  structure 
of  his  works,  his  intellectual  bravery, 
his  Prometheanism,  his  noble  pes- 
simism. Certain  portraits  of  the  men, 
when  placed  side  by  side,  seem  to  show 


560 


THE  BOOKMAN 


a  spiritual  resemblance,  though  such 
a  fact  would  have  but  a  personal  sig- 
nificance at  best.  Nothing  new  on 
him  has  reached  these  shores  as  yet, 
with  the  exception  of  a  small  pamphlet 
which  is  of  more  than  passing  value 
because  of  the  intimate  notes  it  con- 
tains. 

Volumes  by  Spanish  Americans,  on 
the  other  hand,  though  not  presenting 
many  new  names,  are  as  plentiful  as 
ever.  They  range  all  the  way  from 
selections  of  anthological  excerpts, 
through  the  novel,  poetry,  political  es- 
say, and  biography.  Among  the  most 
interesting,  as  much  for  the  purpose 
behind  them  as  for  their  intrinsic 
merit,  are  the  books  that  come  from 
the  Cuba  Contempordnea  publishing 
house,  Havana,  under  the  directorship 
of  Carlos  de  Velasco,  who  is  not  un- 
known in  New  York  City.  "Cuba  Con- 
tempor&nea"  is  incidentally  the  name 
of  this  firm's  magazine, — an  organ  of 
excellent  appearance  and  of  pithy  con- 
tent which  should  be  known  to  every 
person  interested  in  the  intellectual 
.phase  of  Pan- Americanism.  Recent 
publications  of  the  firm  include:  a 
timely  translation  of  Dumas's  "Ques- 
tion of  Divorce" — ^timely  because  it  is 
only  recently  that  a  divorce  law  has 
been  passed  in  Cuba,  where  certain 
ecclesiastical  influences  are  at  work  to 
nullify  its  full  effects ;  and  an  impor- 
tant collection  of  the  letters  of  Estrada 
Palma,  first  president  of  Cuba,  writ- 
ten from  the  Catalonian  prison  to 
which  he  had  been  sent  during  the 
years  1877  and  1888.  The  letters  at 
times  reveal  that  anti-ecclesiastical 
strain  which  is  fostered  by  the  firm. 
Most  plainly  of  all,  that  strain  comes 
out  in  Carlos  Loveira's  novel  "Los  In- 
morales". 

While  it  is  true  that  a  literal  trans- 
lation of  "Los  Inmorales"  would  bring 
down    upon    the    book    the    fate    of 


"Madeleine"  and  "Jurgen",  perhaps  it 
will  not  be  l&se-Comstock   to   speak 
about  the  book  as  a  whole,  which  is  not 
devoid  of  merit  despite  certain   de- 
ficiencies of  structure  and  movement. 
Spanish    Americans,    when    writing 
novels,  seemingly  find  it  impossible  to 
leave  out  politics  and  social  problems. 
Historically  there  is  ample  justifica- 
tion of  such  an  attitude  toward  the  art 
of  fiction;   but  when  one  reads  novd 
after  novel  in  a  vain  attempt  to  escape, 
the  theme  begins  to  lose  impressive- 
ness  unless  handled  by  such  a  master 
as  Rufino  Blanco-Fombona  or,  to  go 
back  a  generation,  Alberto  Blest  Gana. 
Loveira's  book,  then,  fulfils  the  pur- 
pose of  the  Cuba  Contempor&nea  firm 
at  the  same  time  that  it  provides  a 
readable  piece  of  fiction ;  it  is  an  evi- 
dence of  ardent  Cubanism,  so  to  speak, 
and  launches  a  dart  in  the  direction  of 
those  institutions  upholding  rigid,  in- 
flexible marriage  laws  to  the  point  of 
refusing  divorce  on  any  grounds  what- 
soever.   The  hero,  Jacinto  Est6banez, 
and  the  heroine,  Elena,  are  both  mar- 
ried, but  not  at  first  to  each  other. 
Neither  is  a  model  of  the  Sunday 
school  type,  and  even  in  a  society  that 
freely  admitted  divorce  k  la  Reno,  they 
would    hardly    grow    wings.      What 
Loveira  probably  intends  to  show  is 
that,  in  a  world  that  does  not  counte- 
nance divorce,  they  are  much  worse  off 
than  they  would  otherwise  be. 

As  soon  as  they  are  brought  into 
each  other's  lives  and  are  led  to  unite 
destinies,  they  commence  to  be 
shunned  by  individuals  who  are  no  bet- 
ter than  they,  nor  worse.  If  Loveira's 
depiction  of  social  conditions  in  Chile, 
Panama  and  Peru  is  photographic, 
there  is  altogether  too  much  room  for 
improvement  in  those  countries.  Span- 
ish Americans,  judging  from  the  nov- 
els available,  are  far  more  honest  (and 
harsh)  in  treating  of  their  environ- 


A  FOREIGN  MISCELLANY 


561 


mentSy  than  writers  of  our  own  part  of 
America;  hypocrisy,  indeed,  is  some- 
times forced  upon  us  by  the  censori- 
ous intrusion  of  crabbed  spirits  into 
realms  where  they  are  blind  to  noth- 
ing but  the  scabrous,  the  porno- 
graphic, and  the  lewd.  We  are  fast 
being  forced  into  logophobia,  a  fear 
of  mere  words  in  themselves;  and  it 
is  humiliating  to  think  of  what  laugh- 
ter must  have  greeted  certain  recent 
events  in  the  world  of  letters  here- 
abouts when  the  news  became  known 
in  Paris,  say,  or  even  Madrid. 

At  any  rate,  Loveira  struggles 
against  no  such  external  prohibitions ; 
the  suggestion  of  his  novel  is  one  of 
non-conformity  to  the  tribal  imposi- 
tions of  society.  Not  necessarily  non- 
conformity for  its  own  cantankerous 
sake,  but  for  the  principles  at  stake. 
And  if  this  be  no  great  novel,  it  predi- 
cates a  great  attitude.  Loveira, 
though  seemingly  a  radical,  has  ob- 
served the  proletarian  movement 
closely  and  has  learned  to  distinguish 
between  the  genuine  spirit  and  the 
self-seeking  agitator,  of  whom  his 
hero  early  falls  a  victim.  The  novel  is 
valuable  for  its  first-hand  knowledge 
of  life  among  a  certain  stratum  of  the 
laboring  element,  and  also  for  its 
glimpses  into  the  contradictions  and 
the  incongruities  of  a  social  life  that 
reeks  with  foulness  beneath  its  glit- 
tering exterior.  He  manages  some- 
how to  convey  the  feeling  that  his  pro- 
tagonists' tribulations  are  not  due 
solely  to  their  erroneous  social  or  anti- 
social views;  society's  oppositions  he 
succeeds  in  endowing  with  a  fate-like 
character  of  persecution;  not  often 
does  he  frankly  become  the  preacher, 
using  his  engineer  hero  (he  is  him- 
self, or  was,  an  engineer)  to  voice  the 
author's  antagonism  to  Catholicism 
and  its  views  upon  marriage. 

From  a  Mexican  poetess,  Maria  En- 


riqueta,  comes,  by  way  of  her  first 
novel,  an  almost  opposite  view  of 
things,  written  in  a  charming,  simple, 
appealing  manner  that  engages  one's 
attention  from  the  start.  The  novel, 
indeed,  is  stylistically  just  what  one 
might  have  expected  from  a  knowl- 
edge of  her  poems,  which  I  have  be- 
fore likened  to  those  of  Sara  Teasdale 
in  our  own  tongue.  "Jir6n  de  Mundo" 
(which  may  be  freely  rendered  "A 
Little  Comer  of  the  World")  is  the 
story  of  a  convent-bred  girl  who  can- 
not bear  the  outer  world  when  she  is 
plunged  into  it,  and  who  seeks  the 
bosom  of  the  sanctuary  once  again 
when  life  overcomes  her.  The  plot  of 
the  tale  is  somewhat  strange,  and  for 
that  reason  worth  dwelling  upon  for 
more  than  a  moment ;  its  working  out, 
however,  is  marred  by  an  excessive 
use  of  coincidence,  though  much  can 
be  forgiven  because  of  the  fine  study 
of  the  tender,  simple-hearted  convent- 
girl,  Teresa. 

Teresa  is  an  abandoned  child;  con- 
ventual life  seems  to  hold  little  at- 
traction for  her,  and  has  been  varied 
by  notes  received  from  an  anonymous 
invalid  desirous  of  exclusively  spir- 
itual correspondence  with  a  sympa- 
thetic soul.  At  last,  however,  the  right 
opening  for  escape  presents  itself  in 
the  shape  of  an  offer  of  a  position  as 
governess  to  a  sick  child;  the  em- 
ployer, Dr.  Santiesteban,  lives  near 
the  convent,  a.n,d  has,  besides  the  little 
child,  a  grown-up  daughter  Laura  and 
a  student  son,  Antonio.  Teresa,  being 
beautiful  as  well  as  religious,  works 
havoc  where  she  has  meant  to  spread 
only  cheer  and  restore  health.  She 
seemingly  alienates  the  selfish  Laura's 
"gentlemen"  friends;  wins  the  love 
of  both  widowed  father  and  student 
son,  and  when  at  last  openly  accused 
by  the  daughter  of  having  been  instru- 
mental in  banishing  Laura's  suitor 


562 


THE  BOOKMAN 


and  of  having  designs  upon  the 
wealthy  son,  she  can  bear  it  no  longer; 
and  in  proof  of  the  fact  that  her  af- 
fections are  centred  elsewhere,  she 
throws  upon  the  table  a  bundle  of  let- 
ters from  her  mysterious  correspond- 
ent. And  now  comes  the  great  climax. 
That  correspondent  is  no  other  than 
Dr.  Santiesteban  himself,  under  the 
pseudonym  Mauricio.  This  is  the  cli- 
max not  only  of  the  story  of  Teresa's 
life,  of  the  doctor's  career,  but  of 
Laura's  furor.  Finding  her  father  in 
the  act  of  declaring  his  love  to  Teresa, 
she  at  once  assumes  that  it  is  Teresa 
who,  having  failed  to  catch  the  son, 
has  sought  a  larger  fortune  in  the 
parent.  The  scene  she  creates  proves 
too  much  for  the  father,  who  dies  in 
Teresa's  arms.  This  world  is  too  much 
for  the  girl ;  she  returns  to  the  Sacro 
Puerto. 

The  experienced  novel-reader  may, 
even  from  this  fragmentary  account, 
discern  the  technical  faults  of  the 
tale;  the  poetess-novelist  does,  how- 
ever, produce  a  certain  atmosphere 
and  provide  a  restful,  if  not  convinc- 
ing, tale  for  the  discriminating  fiction 
lover. 

Once  again  the  surroundings  under- 
go a  decided  change  when  we  take  up 
Enrique  Gomez  Carrillo's  autobio- 
graphical account  of  thirty  years  of 
his  life.  An  eventful  thirty  years  in- 
deed, requiring  three  parts  so  far,  the 
third  of  which  is  now  running  in  his 
lively  magazine  "Cosmopolis".  It  is  a 
pity  that  our  own  writers,  when  dis- 
coursing of  themselves  and  their  ex- 
periences, cannot  impart  the  charm 
that  this  veteran  traveler,  journalist, 
and  editor  casts  over  his  pages.  66mez 
Carrillo  is  one  of  the  foremost  names 
in  Spanish- American  letters;  to  the 
average  North  American  he  means 
nothing  at  all.  His  autobiography 
reads  like  a  straight  piece  of  fiction, 


and  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  the  man 
has  not  permitted  his  literary  propen- 
sities to  guide  his  recollections.  Surely 
this  is  one  of  the  most  interesting 
novels  written  by  a  Spanish  American 
in  many  a  moon.  You  may  pick  it  up 
without  any  thought  of  learning  about 
the  author, — with  the  direct  purpose 
of  enjoying  a  well-told  tale, — and  you 
will  not  be  disappointed.  These  men 
are  so  frank  in  their  manner,  so  hu- 
man in  their  attitude,  so  unexpur- 
gated  (yet  by  no  manner  of  means 
vulgar)  in  their  narrative,  that  one 
readily  forgives  the  touch  of  "litera- 
ture" because  the  breath  of  a  greater 
honesty  has  blown  across  the  pages. 
66mez  Carrillo  writes  a  musical,  com- 
pelling prose, — a  prose  which  in  the 
hands  of  the  modernist  Spanish  Amer- 
icans is  quite  as  ductile  as  the  writing 
of  the  leading  French  stylists. 

Among  reprints  or  new  collections 
of  established  writers  are  groups  of 
poems  by  that  strange  Uruguayan 
figure,  Julio  Herrera  y  Reissig,  and 
Blanco-Fombona's  admirable  novel  "El 
Hombre  de  Hierro".  Herrera  y  Reis- 
sig is  even  today,  some  years  after 
his  death,  a  puzzle  to  many  of  his  con- 
tinental readers.  Everything  about 
him, — ^his  career,  his  poetry,  his  prose, 
his  sesthetics,  —  was  touched  with 
rarity,  complexity;  and  he  is  as  a 
writer  difiicult  to  approach  unless  you 
have  something  in  your  personality 
that  vibrates  in  sympathy  to  his  haunt- 
ing note.  He  is  certainly  no  writer 
for  the  crowd,  and  will  never  be  popu- 
lar, though  he  has  been  recognized  as 
having  had  an  important  influence 
upon  the  multifarious  development  of 
Spanish-American  letters  of  the  re- 
cent active  and  ebullient  years.  Some 
day,  perhaps,  a  literary  psychologist 
will  come  along  to  explain  why  epochs 
of  transition  and  of  so-called  deca- 
dence produce  such  strange  figures  as 


A  FOREIGN  MISCELLANY 


563 


the  Baudelaires  and  the  Verlaines  in 
France,  and  such  equally  strange  per- 
sonalities as  the  Silvas,  the  Casals,  the 
Herrera  y  Reissigs  in  southern  Amer- 
ica. 

If  southern  modernism  produced  its 
frail,  psychopathic  geniuses,  it  has 
given  us  on  the  contrary  such  robust 
spirits  as  Chocano  and  Blanco-Fom- 
bona.  This  Parisian  edition  of  "The 
Man  of  Iron"  is  the  third  publication 
of  that  notable  Venezuelan  tale,  in 
which  the  irony  of  a  humble,  honest, 
meek  soul's  existence  is  treated  with 
a  rare  appeal,  a  rigid  economy  of 
words  and  characters,  a  glowing  hu- 
manism and  artistic  independence.  It 
should  be  of  interest  to  readers  of  this 
nation  that  the  same  author's  "The 
Man  of  Gold",  a  novel  with  all  the 
irony  and  artistry  of  its  predecessor, 
is  soon  to  appear  in  English.  Blanco- 
Fombona  is  without  doubt  one  of  the 
great  present  leaders  of  Spanish- 
American  thought;  as  a  man  of  ac- 
tion and  a  man  of  the  pen,  directing 
what  is  perhaps  the  chief  publication 
centre  of  the  standard  works  by  Span- 
ish-American writers,  he  has,  from 
his  present  abode  in  Madrid,  shed  new 
light  upon  almost  every  field  of  the 
new  republic's  activities. 

While  we  here,  just  awakening  to 
the  culture  of  the  southern  continent, 
may  be  inclined  to  rebuke  ourselves 
for  our  negligence,  we  should  not  for- 
get that  Spain  itself  was  quite  as 
much  in  need  of  enlightenment,  and 
that  even  now,  in  that  country,  knowl- 
edge of  Spanish- American  art  and  let- 
ters is  by  no  means  general.  Several 
important  libraries  of  publications 
have  of  late  sprung  up  and  are  per- 
forming valuable  service ;  in  addition 
to  Blanco-Fombona's  enterprise  is  the 
series  headed  by  Ventura  Garcia  Cal- 
der6n,  brother  of  Francisco  Garcia 
Calder6n.   The  latter  is  b^  some  looked 


upon  as  the  present  leader  of  Spanish- 
American  thought  and  the  logical  con- 
tinuator  of  Jos6  Enrique  Rod6.  In  his 
new  book  "Ideas  and  Impressions"  he 
treats  of  several  topics  directly  con- 
cerning our  own  nation;  though  he 
is  here  but  less  harsh  than  many  of 
his  continental  brethren,  I  understand 
that  he  has  changed  his  views  of  late, 
as  a  result  of  the  recent  war,  and  that 
he  looks  with  far  more  favor  than  be- 
fore upon  this  nation.  The  change  of 
attitude  is  of  great  significance;  our 
southern  neighbors  study  us  far  more 
closely  than  we  study  them,  and  it  is 
good  to  see  ourselves  through  the  eyes 
of  others. 

From  Spanish  America  to  the  East 
Side  of  New  York  is  a  far  jump  geo- 
graphically, but  not  quite  so  far  when 
considered  on  the  literary  map.  The 
East  Side  has  always  been  a  hotbed  of 
literature;  "isms"  bubble  here  in  un- 
ending effervescence  and  world-move- 
ments are  quickly  noticed,  discussed, 
assimilated,  fought,  and  settled.  Open 
the  new  1920  Introspectivist  anthol- 
ogy, for  example,  and  read  the  intro- 
ductory statement  of  this  new  group. 
Another  "ism"  ?  Perhaps,  if  you  like 
labels.  But  in  reality  there  is  nothing 
new  in  the  statement,  except  the 
youthful  spirit  of  the  signers.  The 
manifesto,  which  is  moderate  and  tol- 
erant in  tone — surprising  qualities 
from  youth! — is  surely  a  grandchild 
of  the  symbolistic  pronouncements  in 
France,  though  brought  down  to  date 
in  the  matter  of  free  verse  and  the 
rest.  There  is  the  same  assertion  of 
personality,  of  the  individual  seeking 
only  within  for  themes,  of  nuance  in 
art,  of  untrammeled  individuality. 

And  best  of  all,  the  poems  that  fol- 
low upon  the  manifesto  do  not  shame 
the  statement.  There  are  promising 
poets  in  this  collection,  particularly 
Lewis,  Leyeless  and  Glatstein,    That 


564 


THE  BOOKMAN 


they  do  not  deal  high-handedly  with 
their  immediate  predecessors,  and  that 
they  most  sensibly  do  not  draw  up  a 
set  of  iron-clad  rules  to  which  every 
adherent  must  subscribe,  speaks  well 
for  their  progress.  The  literary 
"schools"  of  the  future — if  future  in- 
dividualism will  allow  schools! — ^will 
doubtless  be  a  friendly  association  of 
congenial  spirits,  not  a  close  corpora^ 
tion  of  self-appointed,  dogmatic  apos- 
tles. In  order  to  progress  from  the 
past,  it  is  by  no  means  necessary  to 
deny  that  past;  nor  can  denying  it 
abolish  it  by  fiat.  It  is  only  when  the 
past  tries  to  rule  the  present  that  it 
should  be  taught  its  place ;  and  as  far 
as  art  is  concerned,  it  is  often  possible 
for  past,  present,  and  future  to  be 
coeval.  Indeed,  are  not  past,  present, 
and  future  really  coeval  in  the  indi- 
vidual? 

An  important  collection, — impor- 
tant both  because  of  the  writer  repre- 
sented and  the  distinguished  editor  of 
the  books, — is  the  twelve-volume  edi- 
tion of  the  works  of  Isaac  Leib  Perez, 
— the  greatest  name  in  Yiddish  litera- 
ture and  regarded  as  one  of  the  great- 
est writers  produced  in  any  tongue 
during  the  nineteenth  century.  It  is 
particularly  appropriate  that  David 
Pinski  should  edit  this  collection. 
Pinski  was  associated  with  Perez  in 
the  old  country;  he  was  his  friend 
and  collaborator;  he  is"  today  one  of  the 
Yiddish  authors  revealing  the  finest 
grasp  upon  the  artistic  side  of  his  pro- 
fession; writing,  to  him  (and  no  pun 


intended),  is  almost  a  rite;  it  is  a 
pity  that  his  numerous  activities  as 
man  of  business,  as  editor  and  as 
Zionist  leader,  should  prevent  him 
from  producing  more  original  work. 
Some  day  that  part  of  New  York 
which  has  appreciated  the  production 
of  Benavente's  "Bonds  of  Interest^ 
and  recently  thronged  to  the  same 
genius's  "The  Passion  Flower", — ^which 
applauded  St.  John  6.  Ervine's  ''John 
Ferguson"  and  similar  plays, — will 
discover  the  author  of  "The  Treasure" 
and  a  score  of  one-act  plays  that 
should  long  have  been  known  to  the 
discriminating  playgoers  of  the  me- 
tropolis. Of  the  Perez  volumes,  two 
have  so  far  appeared.  Their  style  does 
justice  to  the  noble  figure  they  com- 
memorate. 


Glanco :  Orione.  By  Ercole  Lnlgi  MorseUL 
Milan :    Fratelli  Treves. 

n  Ritorno  del  Figllo;  La  Bamblna  Rubata. 
By  Orazla  Deledda.    Ibid. 

Don  Benito  P6rez  Galdds.  By  Rafael  de 
Mesa.    Madrid :   Juan  Pueyo. 

La  Cnestidn  del  Divorcio.  TraducclOn  del 
francos.  Havana :  Sociedad  Editorial  Cnlia 
Contemporflnea. 

Cartas  Famillares  y  BiUetes  de  Paris.  Ver- 
sion Castellana  de  la  2a  edlciOn  portuguesa. 
By  Carlos  de  VelaSco.    Ibid. 

Los  Inmorales.    By  Carlos  Loveira.     Ibid. 

Jir6n  de  Mundo.  Novela.  By  Maria  Bnri- 
queta.    Madrid  :   Editorial  America. 

Treinta  Alios  de  mi  Vida.  By  Enrique  Odmes 
Carrillo.    Madrid  :   Juan  Pueyo. 

Los  Parques  Abandonados.  Sonetos.  By 
Julio  Herrera  y  Reissig.  Buenos  Aires : 
Ediciones  Selectas  "America". 

Las  Pascuas  del  Tiempo.  By  JuUo  Herrera 
y  Reissig.    Madrid  :    Editorial  America. 

El  Hombre  de  Hierro.  By  Rufino  Blanco- 
Fombona.    Paris  :    Garnier  Frdres. 

Ideas  6  Impresiones.  By  Francisco  Garcia 
Calder6n.     Madrid  :    Editorial  America. 

In  Sich.  (Yiddish  anthology  of  a  new  **in- 
trospectivist"  group.)     New  York:   MeiseL 

Die  Werk  von  Itskhok  Leibush  Perez.  Za> 
sammengestellt  unter  der  redactzion  yon  David 
Pinski.  (The  Works  of  Isaac  L.  Peres,  edited 
by  David  Pinski.)     New  York  :   Verlag  Yiddish. 


A  SHELF  OF  RECENT  BOOKS 


A  FEMALE  OF  THE  SPECIES 
By  Constance  Murray  Greene 

IF  "Invincible  Minnie"  had  been 
written  by  a  man  instead  of  a 
woman  he  would  probably  have  been 
lynched  before  this.  The  creation  of 
Minnie  equals  if  it  does  not  surpass 
anything  that  our  literature  offers  in 
the  way  of  womanly  viciousness,  and 
would  be  insupportable  coming  from  a 
man.  As  it  is,  however,  these  terrible 
revelations  regarding  womanhood  are 
very  pleasing — a  triumph  of  provoca- 
tive and  thirst-producing  reading  so 
far  as  further  work  by  Elisabeth 
Sanxay  Holding,  whose  first  novel  this 
is,  is  concerned.  It  is  good  to  find 
women  who  are  courageous  enough  to 
lay  bare  the  fullest  horror  of  their  sex, 
and  let  no  one  take  up  the  defense  of 
these  'monsters  whom  they  portray. 
As  a  modem  essayist  has  said,  "some 
of  the  wickedest  women  in  the  world 
have  been  mothers".  Which  being 
true,  prevents  even  Minnie's  mater- 
nity from  touching  the  properly 
minded  person.  This  book  is  not  for 
sentimentalists. 

If  you  admit  that  such  women  as 
Minnie  exist,  the  question  is  immedi- 
ately hurled  at  you,  whether  they  have 
masculine  counterparts;  and  the  next 
thing  is  to  ferret  out  the  man  who  can 
put  one  into  fiction.  It  will  be  difii- 
cult  to  discover  whether  there  actually 
are  such  people  as  Minnie  because 
their  greatest  strength  would  lie  in 


their  ability  to  delude  those  nearest 
them.  And  it  is  this  also  which  makes 
Mrs.  Holding's  book  such  a  firebrand. 
You  may  have  had  a  Minnie  in  your 
home  for  years  without  knowing  it; 
but  having  chanced  upon  this  bool^ 
the  world  will  be  changed.  Death 
would  be  preferable  to  discovering  a 
Minnie  in  your  midst. 

For  this  woman  revealed  to  us  is 
that  most  terrible  of  all, — ^the  cold, 
plodding,  self -deceived  devil: 

Minnie  had,  one  might  say,  no  sex  at  all,  no 
trace  of  passion — she  had  nothing  but  her  in- 
stincts and  her  cool  temperament  to  protect 
her. . . .  Hers  was  a  conscience  which  imperi- 
ously required  satisfaction,  but  as  she  was  al- 
ways certain  that  aU  her  aims  were  beyond  re- 
proach, her  conscience  neyer  refused  to  sane- 
tion  whatever  means  she  employed  in  arriving 
at  them.  She  was  more  than  a  Jesuit.  She 
did  not  so  much  believe  that  bad  means  were 
Justified  by  a  worthy  end ;  she  was  simply  con- 
vinced that  no  means  used  by  her  were,  or 
could  possibly  be,  bad. 

As  a  foil  for  Minnie,  slovenly,  lack- 
ing in  charm,  intellect  and  honor,  we 
have  the  sister  Frankie,  strong,  eager, 
alluring,  and  it  is  in  the  completeness 
of  this  contrast  and  the  preserving  of 
Minnie's  invincibility  in  the  face  of  it, 
that  Mrs.  Holding  has  made  her  tour 
de  force.  Only  a  degree  less  arresting 
than  her  character  building,  however, 
is  the  author's  method  of  telling  the 
story.  After  a  normal  start — ^man 
riding  up  to  the  house  and  confront- 
ing the  girl — ^the  only  normal  thing 
about  the  book  perhaps,  there  follows 
a  series  of  leaps  and  bounds  backward 
and  forward,  a  zigzag  of  results  fol- 
lowed by  causes.  This  makes  it  im- 
possible for  the  most  infinitesimal  bit 


565 


566 


THE  BOOKMAN 


of  boredom  to  attend  the  reader's 
progress  and  offers  him  a  chance  to 
decide  for  himself,  when  he  has  seen 
the  result,  whether  the  cause  is  worth 
following  up. 

With  us  there  was  no  doubt  after 
the  second  page  that  the  book  would 
prove  utterly  captivating,  for  there 
Mr.  Peterson  is  described  as  having  a 
"long  yellow  moustache,  standing  out 
fiercely  like  a  cat's" ;  and  reading  on  a 
matter  of  two  or  three  pages,  we  en- 
countered that  "ridiculously  coy  old 
skeleton",  the  Defoe  horse.  It  is  in- 
conceivable that  a  person  capable  of 
immortalizing  horses  and  moustaches 
at  a  stroke  could  fail  to  do  superla- 
tively well  with  human  beings. 


iDTincible    Minnie.      By    Elisabeth    Sanxaj 
Holding.     Qeorge  H.  Doran  Company. 


NEW  GRUDGES  FOR  OLD 
By  Bohert  Livingston  Schuyler 

DURING  the  dark  days  in  the 
spring  of  1918,  when  we  were 
holding  our  breath  while  Ludendorff 
threw  the  German  dice  for  the  last 
time,  Owen  Wister  made  up  his  mind 
that  we  ought  to  leave  off  hating  Eng- 
land. This  conclusion  he  set  forth  in 
an  article  written  in  May,  1918,  and 
published  the  following  November  in 
"The  American  Magazine".  To  em- 
phasize and  substantiate  it  further  is 
the  purpose  of  his  book,  "A  Straight 
Deal  or  The  Ancient  Grudge",  recently 
published. 

The  same  conclusion  had  already 
been  reached  by  many  other  Americans 
who  had  been  brought  to  a  realization 
of  the  disadvantages  of  continuing  to 
cherish  the  old  national  animosity 
toward  England,  now  that  we  were 


associated  with  her  in  war   asraiiuit 
Grermany.     Even  before  1914   a  few 
Americans  had  come  to  perceive  the 
futility  and  the  danger  of  perpetuat- 
ing the  ancient  grudge  and  were  ex- 
erting themselves  to  improve  relations 
between    the    two    English-speaking 
peoples.    Their  arguments  were  tem- 
perate and  their  intentions  benevolent^ 
but  they  made  little  impression  upon 
American  public  opinion.    Mr.  Wister 
was  not  one  of  them.    A  few  years 
before  the  war,  he  tells  us  (page  205), 
he  declined  an  invitation  to  join  a 
society   for  the  promotion   of    more 
friendly  relations  between  the  United 
States  and  England  because  he   was 
still  thinking  of  George  III  and  the 
"Alabama",  still  nursing  the  ancient 
grievance.    From  this  frame  of  mind 
mere    reason    and   knowledge   would 
probably  never  have  converted  him. 
It  required  the  "Hun"  to  do  that ;  that 
is  to  say,  it  required  a  new  and  over- 
mastering animosity  to  displace   the 
old  one.    It  must  be  admitted  that  Mr. 
Wister  made  a  good  exchange,  for  the 
grudge     against     Germany     is,     as 
grudges  go,  a  very  good  one  indeed, 
since  it  is  to  be  eternal.    Germany  is 
at  heart  "an  untamed,  unchanged  wild 
beast,  never  to  be  trusted  again"  (page 
44).  The  italics  are  mine;  they  throw 
a  flood  of  light  upon  Mr.  Wister's 
point  of  view. 

American  enmity  toward  England, 
we  read  (page  8),  rests  upon  three 
foundations:  our  school  histories  of 
the  American  Revolution,  "certain 
policies  and  actions  of  England  since 
then,  generally  distorted  or  falsified 
by  our  politicians",  and  "certain  na- 
tional traits  in  each  country  that  the 
other  does  not  share  and  which  have 
hitherto  produced  perennial  personal 
friction  between  thousands  of  Eng- 
lish and  American  individuals  of  every 
station  in  life". 


NEW  GRUDGES  FOR  OLD 


667 


The  discussion  of  the  last  of  these 
foundations,  contained  in  the  chapter 
entitled  "Rude  Britannia,  Crude  Co- 
lumbia", is  the  best  thing  in  the  book. 
By  anecdote  and  illustration  Mr.  Wis- 
ter  shows,  in  felicitous  manner,  why 
Englishmen  and  Americans  so  often 
rub  each  other  the  wrong  way.  A 
reading  of  this  chapter  might  save 
Americans  intending  to  visit  England 
some  unpleasantness. 

Unfortunately  Mr.  Wister  is  not  as 
good  at  history  as  he  is  at  anecdote, 
and  he  is,  therefore,  not  so  happy  in 
dealing  with  the  other  two  of  his  three 
foundations.  He  is  quite  right  in 
holding  our  school  histories  responsi- 
ble for  much  of  our  traditional  anti- 
English  bias,  but  his  own  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Revolution  is  as  distorted 
as  theirs.  He  concludes, — ^apparently 
from  a  reading  of  Mr.  Sydney  George 
Fisher  and  Mr.  Charles  Altschul,  who 
are  the  only  authorities  on  the  Revo- 
lution and  the  treatment  of  it  in  our 
text-books  to  whom  he  refers, — ^that 
our  quarrel  with  England  "rested  in 
reality  upon  very  slender  justifica- 
tion" (page  89) ;  and  he  ventures  the 
suggestion  that  the  writers  of  our 
school  text-books  adopted  a  strongly 
anti-English  tone  because  they  "felt 
that  our  case  against  England  was  not 
in  truth  very  strong"  and  "that  they 
needed  to  bolster  our  cause  up  for  the 
benefit  of  the  young"  (pages  88,  89). 
But  if  our  cause  was  indeed  so  weak 
as  to  require  such  Prussian-like  ma- 
nipulation of  history,  Mr.  Wister 
leaves  wholly  unexplained  the  sympa- 
thy felt  for  us  in  England,  which  he 
not  only  mentions  but  exaggerates  and 
exploits  to  show  that  only  George  III 
and  his  friends  and  the  Hessian  hire- 
lings were  against  us. 

In  chapters  X-XIII  the  author  es- 
says the  somewhat  ambitious  task  of 
setting  his  fellow  citizens  right  on 


those  events  in  the  history  of  Anglo- 
American  relations  from  the  Revolu- 
tion to  the  present  which,  "distorted" 
or  "falsified",  have  contributed  to  our 
anti-English  "complex",  Mr.  Wister 
is  too  good  a  writer  of  fiction  to  be 
quite  satisfactory  as  a  historian.  He 
relies  too  much  upon  imagination  and 
invention;  he  deals  with  historic  per- 
sonages as  though  they  were  charac- 
ters in  a  novel,  to  be  managed  as  the 
requirements  of  the  plot  dictate.  Here 
are  a  few  of  the  liberties  which  he 
takes  with  history.  He  makes  Spain 
and  the  United  States  "recent  friends" 
in  1783  (page  109).  He  makes  Eng- 
land's victory  at  Waterloo  "a  threat 
to  all  monarchical  and  dynastic  sys- 
tems of  government"  (page  116).  He 
makes  Mettemich  organize  the  Holy 
Alliance  in  1822  in  order  to  put  an  end 
to  representative  government  (page 
117).  He  implies  that  Canning  pro- 
posed the  Monroe  Doctrine  (pages 
117,  119,  120) ;  and  makes  the  Mon- 
roe Doctrine,  from  the  date  of  its  pro- 
mulgation to  the  present,  rest  "upon 
the  broad  back  of  the  British  Navy" 
(page  120).  He  makes  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States  settle  the  Maine 
boundary  by  arbitration  (page  127). 
He  makes  England  propose  the  com- 
promise by  which  the  Oregon  dispute 
was  adjusted  (page  128).  He  makes 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States 
agree  in  the  Clajrton-Bulwer  Treaty 
"that  both  should  build  and  run  the 
canal"  (page  129).  He  makes  Queen 
Victoria  avert  war  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  over  the 
Trent  affair  (page  160),  though  it  is 
generally  understood  that  it  was 
Prince  Albert  who  softened  the  tone 
of  the  British  dispatch  that  might 
have  precipitated  hostilities.  But 
then  Prince  Albert  was  a  German,  and 
Mr.  Wister  could  not,  for  obvious  rea- 
sons, permit  him  to  have  a  hand  in 


668 


THE  BOOKMAN 


preventing  war  between  our  British 
cousins  and  ourselves.  Queen  Vic- 
toria, too,  was  somewhat  German,  to 
be  sure,  but  not  so  German. 

The  fact  is  that  this  book  of  Mr. 
Wister's,  like  his  earlier  "Pentecost 
of  Calamity",  is  a  product  of  war  psy- 
chology. Passion  and  hate  and  igno- 
rance presided  at  its  birth.  At  the 
same  time  that  he  tries  to  allay  one 
international  animosity  Mr.  Wister 
does  his  best  to  perpetuate  another. 
It  is  a  case  of  off  with  the  old  hate,  on 
with  the  new.  In  pleading  for  better 
relations  with  England  he  urges  his 
readers  "never  to  generalize  the  char- 
acter of  a  whole  nation  by  the  acts  of 
individual  members  of  it"  (page  20), 
after  which  sensible  advice  he  tells 
them  that  "the  eyes  of  the  Hun,  the 
bird  of  prey,  had  been  fixed  upon  us  as 
a  juicy  morsel"  (page  84),  that  "the 
only  sure  thing  is,  that  the  Germany  of 
yesterday  is  the  Grermany  of  to-mor- 
row. She  is  not  changed.  She  will 
not  change"  (page  46).  Gould  gen- 
eralization and  the  personalizing  of  a 
nation  be  carried  further?  One  won- 
ders whether  Mr.  Wister  would  con- 
tinue to  be  pro-English  if  by  a  miracle 
he  should  cease  to  be  anti-Grerman. 


A  straight  Deal  or  The  Ancient  Grudge.    By 
Owen  WlBter.    The  MacmiUan  Co. 


MR.  ADE  ON  PROHIBITION  AND 
OTHER  THINGS 

By  Gertrude  M,  PwrceU 

IF  you  have  to  be  burned  at  the 
stake",  decrees  our  latter-day 
JE80P,  "be  a  good  fellow  and  collect 
your  own  firewood."  Good  advice  for 
the  average  citizen  who  sits  down  to 


make  out  his  income  tax  blanl^ 
Clearly,  the  only  thing  we  are  not  to 
do,  in  this  age  of  governmental  heck- 
ling, is  to  collect  our  own  firewater. 

Which  brings  us  to  Prohibition. 
Somewhat  wearily  we  see  that  this 
threadbare  subject  has  its  quota  of 
''Hand-Made  Fables".  Let  us  an- 
nounce the  unpleasant  truth,  and  get 
it  over, — ^the  fables  on  the  lingering 
thirst  and  the  boundless  Sahara  are, 
to  borrow  one  of  Mr.  Ade's  own  epi- 
thets, distinctly  blah.  The  desire  to 
skip  leaps  upon  us  when  we  encounter 
the  typical  "Old  Soak"  reminiscences. 

Barring  his  treatment  of  this  arid 
topic,  the  rest  of  the  book  is  sheer  de- 
light, from  the  typist  who  was  "more 
of  a  Blonde  than  a  typist",  to  the  lady 
whose  "costume  would  have  been  a 
Siren  Whistle  if  Colours  could  have 
been  converted  into  Sounds". 

The  best  of  these  canny  satires 
are  "The  Man  who  Wanted  His 
Europe"  and  "The  Uplift".  In  the 
latter,  a  man  returns  to  America  after 
twenty  years.  He  finds  that  "th^  Fe- 
male seemed  to  have  come  into  her 
Own  and  then  kept  on  Coming. .  .she 
knew  a  great  many  Things  that  had 
been  Kept  from  her  Grandfather". 

"Many  are  wise  to  Europe,  but  few 
have  the  Manhood  to  speak  out," 
warns  the  moral  of  "The  Man  Who 
Wanted  His  Europe".  "Be  on  the 
level  with  yourself.  If  you  will  not 
walk  across  the  Street  in  your  Native 
Town  to  look  at  real  Specimens  of  Art 
imported  by  some  generous  Million- 
aire, don't  kid  yourself  into  thinking 
that  you  will  blossom  into  a  Ruskin 
fan  when  you  go  abroad.  No  matter 
how  many  Miles  a  Man  may  Travel,  he 
will  never  get  ahead  of  Himself." 

Slang  is  slang,  but  Mr.  Ade  fre- 
quently overreaches  himself.  He  be^ 
comes  neo-Dunsany  in  his  manufac- 
ture of  epithets :  "He  was  a  Flumpie, 


SWINBURNE  AND  PETER  PAN 


669 


which  is  a  Cross  between  a  Gugg  and 
a  Yap." 

Distinctly  blah,  Mr.  Ade,  distinctly 
blah. 


Hand-Made  Fables.     By  George  Ade.     Don- 
bleday,  Page  and  Co. 


SWINBURNE  AND  PETER  PAN 
By  Baymond  M.  Weaver 

QUEEN  VICTORIA  and  the  Red 
^  Queen  that  Alice  found  in  the 
looKing-glass  were  both  great  queens. 
Victoria  would  doubtless  have  found 
the  Red  Queen  a  little  gaudy — ^and 
they  would  doubtless  have  exhibited 
together  the  hostile  amenities  of 
women  with  strong  minds.  But 
Victoria  used  to  indulge  earnest  con- 
versations with  Gladstone — an  in- 
dulgence that  vastly  heightens  her 
comic  charmsJ  It  is  reported  that 
on  one  occasion  when  Victoria  and 
Gladstone  touched  upon  poets-laureate 
as  a  detail  of  state  business,  Victoria 
enriched  the  canons  of  criticism  by 
the  pronouncement:  ''I  am  told  that 
Mr.  Swinburne  is  the  best  poet  in  my 
dominions".  Some  malicious  wit  had 
evidently  been  trying  to  tamper  with 
Victoria's  sense  of  respectability.  No 
"proper"  age,  as  a  matter  of  sober 
fact,  has  ever  left  behind  it  so  much 
that  is  fundamentally  improper  or 
morally  vicious  as  has  the  Victorian: 
and  there  is  adequate  irony  in  the  fact 
that  the  most  courageously  "proper" 
of  queens  should  have  singled  out  for 
second-hand  primacy  among  poets  a 
man  who  so  flagrantly  violated— ex- 
cept in  his  excessive  drinking — all  of 
the  sacred  conventionalities  of  the 
reign.     Gladstone  doubtless  aided  the 


queen  to  a  more  orthodox  evaluation 
of  Swinburne:  perhaps  he  told  her 
which  of  the  "Songs  before  Sunrise" 
she  should  not  read.  And  he  may  have 
reported  by  hearsay  some  of  the  items 
of  Swinburne's  life. 

Swinburne's  "Life"  has  since  been 
written,  with  some  attempt  at  fulness, 
by  Edmund  Gosse;  a  bulk  of  Swin- 
burne's letters  have  been  collected  and 
edited.  Except  to  tickle  the  pruriency 
of  lovers  of  gossip,  or  to  whet  the 
cravings  of  clinical  psychologists,  it 
is  not  obvious  why  further  personal 
details  of  Swinburne's  life  should  be 
printed  and  sold.  Coulson  Kemahan 
— author  of  an  earlier  book  on  Swin- 
burne and  his  group  entitled  "In  Good 
Company" — now  comes  forward  with 
a  second  volume  on  the  same  subject: 
"Swinburne  as  I  Knew  Him".  Thanks 
to  the  admissions  of  Mr.  Gosse's 
"Life",  Mr.  Kemahan  feels  now  jus- 
tified in  dropping  his  earlier  reserve 
for  a  more  contemporary  "wise  frank- 
ness". Those  who  read  into  this  ad- 
mission, however,  a  promise  of  lurid 
revelations,  have  mistaken  either 
Swinburne's  indiscretions  or  Mr.  Ker- 
nahan's  wisdom.  "Though  I  have 
written  frankly  of  Watts-Dunton,  as 
well  as  of  Swinburne,  and  have  not 
sought  to  paint  him  as  other  than  he 
was,  and  so  not  without  human  fail- 
ings", is  Mr.  Kernahan's  amiable  ad- 
mission, "my  affection  for  him,  and 
the  honour  in  which  I  bear  him,  have 
only  deepened  with  the  passing  of 
years." 

The  book  leads  off  with  four  unim- 
portant letters  from  Swinburne  to  his 
cousin,  the  Honorable  Lady  Henniker 
Heaton.  This  flat  introductory  flourish 
heralds  ten  thin  gossipy  essays.  The 
first,  "The  Story  of  a  Dear  Deceit", 
recounts  how  Watts-Dunton,  by  rhet- 
oric and  sentimentality,  reformed 
Swinburne  of  an  ambitious  consump- 


670 


THE  BOOKMAN 


tion  of  brandy  and  left  him  with  a 
taste  for  beer  to  solace  his  final  years. 
And  Swinburne's  later  writings  sug- 
gest the  danger  of  tampering  with  a 
poet's  drinks.  The  second  sketch, 
"Oh,  Those  Poets",  gives  another  ex- 
ample of  Watts-Dunton's  insight  into 
and  patience  with  Swinburne's  petu- 
lant excitability:  on  this  occasion 
Swinburne  having  literally,  in  his 
thin,  reedy,  and  shrill  voice,  "talked 
himself  drunk".  "George  Borrow  in 
a  Frock-coat"  is  Watts-Dunton,  "an 
eminently  respectable  suburban  so- 
licitor, conservative  of  habit  and 
tastes"  who  used  to  bore  his  friends — 
and  Swinburne  in  particular,  with  the 
mild  delusion  that  he  was  at  heart 
"half  a  gypsy  and  all  a  Bohemian". 
The  tenth  and  last  "chapter"  wears 
unabashed  the  caption  "All  miy  mem- 
ories of  him  are  glad  and  gracious 
memories".  Mr.  Kemahan  here  con- 
tumeliously  equates  the  "artistic  tem- 
perament" with  "erratic  mediocrity": 
terms  too  trivial  to  compass  Swin- 
burne's "genius".  Swinburne  is 
pressed  into  the  congregation  of  "the 
great"  and  in  peroration  is  pronounced 
"the  divinest  and  most  majestic  singer 
of  the  Sunrise  and  the  Sea,  yet,  none 
the  less,  an  immortal  youth,  a  Peter 
Pan  of  poetry  who  never  grew  old,  but 
remained  in  love  with  Life,  in  love 
with  Love,  and  in  love  with  Song,  to 
his  own  life's  end".  This  "immortal 
youth" — ^who  in  writing  about  a  harlot 
composed  a  learned  and  ssrmpathetic 
and  indecent  parody  on  the  Litany  of 
the  Blessed  Virgin — ^must  have  been 
a  naughty  and  precocious  child.  Mr. 
Kemahan,  who  finds  Swinburne  and 
Peter  Pan  well-mated  playfellows,  is 
an  original  and  diverting  critic.  But 
poor  Peter  Pan! 


Swinburne  As   I   Knew   Him.     By   Coulaon 
Kernahan.    John  Lane  Co. 


A    NEW    HISTORY    OF    THE 
FRENCH  REVOLUTION 

By  Wilbur  Coriee  Abbott 

WHATEVER     reservations      one 
may  have  as  to  the  completeness 
of  her  account,  however  he  may  dififer 
with  some  of  her  conclusions,  no  one 
can  deny  that  Mrs.  Webster  has  writ- 
ten   an    extraordinarily    interesting 
book  about  the  French  Revolution.    In 
the  main  her  thesis  is  that  this  srreat 
movement  was  not,  in  any  real  sense, 
a  popular  uprising;   that  it  was  pro- 
duced, especially  on  the  side  of   its 
more  terrible  episodes,  by  a  relatively 
small  group,  centring  in  the  king's 
cousin,  the  Duke  of  Orleans ;  and  that 
it  was  a  true  conspiracy,  instigated  by 
him  and  his  followers,  aided  and  abet- 
ted by  Prussian  influence,  and  sympa- 
thized with,  if  not  actually  helped,  by 
certain  radical  elements  in  England. 
And  not  the  least  interesting  of  her 
conclusions  is  that  the  elements  of  un- 
rest in  the  world  today — "the  sub- 
versives", the  "enrages" — are  not  un- 
mindful of  the  same  methods  and  the 
same  support  as  that  given  to  their 
forebears  of  1789. 

Her  thesis  is  not  wholly  new,  but 
nowhere,  perhaps,  has  it  been  worked 
out  in  such  detail,  with  such  complete- 
ness, and  with  such  a  single  eye  to  its 
overwhelming  influence  and  conclu- 
sions. It  may  be — it  is — but  one  side 
of  the  truth,  but  it  is  a  stronger  case 
for  that  and  it  produces  thought. 
There  is  no  one,  looking  on  the  world 
and  its  peculiar  phenomena  today,  who 
will  not  be  interested — and,  it  may  be, 
better  informed — in  reading  this  ter- 
rible story. 

What  remains  to  be  said  is  this.  It 
is  all  but  inconceivable,  even  taking 
into  account  the  political  inertia  of 
the  masses,  that  a  system  so  deeply 


A   NEW  HISTORY  OF  THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION 


671 


rooted  as  French  monarchy  was — ac- 
cording to  her  account — could  have 
been  overthrown  by  such  a  conspiracy 
as  that  of  the  Orleanists,  had  it  pos- 
sessed true  elements  of  strength  and 
direction.  It  was  no  less  the  weakness 
of  monarchy  than  the  strength  of  con- 
spiracy which  brought  about  the  suc- 
cess of  the  French  Revolution,  as  of 
any  such  government  and  any  such 
movement  at  any  time.  It  may  be,  as 
she  declares,  that  it  was  the  humanity 
of  the  king,  refusing  at  the  most  ter- 
rible crises  of  his  career  to  permit  the 
shedding  of  blood,  which  was  the  un- 
derlying reason  for  the  success  of  the 
revolutionaries.  But  that  declaration 
is,  itself,  a  confession  of  weakness  on 
the  part  of  monarchy,  as  well  as  of  a 
monarch,  who,  however  amiable,  was 
not  essentially  a  ruler  of  men,  much 
less  a  statesman.  For  to  meet  a  threat 
of  force  with  even  the  most  amiable 
of  sentiments  and  the  most  humane  of 
dispositions  is  not  only  unkingly,  it  is 
often  less  than  kind. 

Yet  this  is  a  book  to  be  reckoned 
with  by  anyone  who  wishes  to  recog- 
nize and  understand  the  springs  of 
popular  movements,  then  or  now.  It 
is,  quite  frankly,  an  anti-revolution- 
ary work.  It  attacks  the  revolution- 
ary leaders  in  France  more  bitterly, 
and  with  more  substantial  proofs, 
than  any  volumes  since  Burke's  "Re- 
flections on  the  French  Revolution". 
It  is  not  merely  historical,  it  is  at 
times  polemical.  It  overstates  its 
case  in  an  endeavor  to  emphasize  the 
dangers  and  the  downright  wickedness 
of  revolutions  and  revolutionaries.  It 
is,  perhaps,  too  long.  Certainly  it  is 
prejudiced.  But  it  is  a  good  piece  of 
work,  and  good  reading,  for  all  that, 
and  any  account  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution must  reckon  with  it  and  the  ma- 
terial on  which  it  is  based.  That  ma- 
terial is,  for  the  most  part,  not  new. 


It  is  derived  largely  from  one  set  of 
sources,  and  those  least  favorable  to 
the  Revolution.  But  it  is  there;  a 
great  deal  of  it  is  unquestionably 
true;  and  the  facts  which  it  records 
are  hard  to  evade  or  to  explain  away. 
And  the  book  has  a  value  and  a  sig- 
nificance at  this  time  beyond  even  the 
terrible  story  which  it  tells.  It  is  part 
of  a  well-defined,  if  unorganized,  lit- 
erary movement  opposed  to  the  un- 
paralleled revolutionary  propaganda 
which  has  deluged  the  world  with 
books — and  blood — in  the  past  few 
years.  Whatever  good  they  may  ac- 
complish, however  they  may  be  glori- 
fied, the  fact  remains  that  revolutions, 
like  those  of  France  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  of  Russia  in  the  twenti- 
eth, are  terrible  things.  And  there  is 
coming  to  be  a  suspicion  in  many 
minds  that  the  results  of  these  catas- 
trophes might  conceivably  have  been 
attained  without  such  vast  expenditure 
of  life  and  property.  As  Macaulay 
says  of  the  Revolution  of  1688,  blood- 
less as  it  was,  its  chief  praise  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  was  the  last  of  such 
events  which  took  place  in  English 
history.  And  he  was  the  historian  of 
revolution. 


The  French  Revolution.  A  Study  in  Democ- 
racy. By  Ncsta  H.  Webster.  B.  P.  Dutton  and 
Co. 


NEGOTIATING  WITH  PRINCES 
By  Maurice  Francis  Egan 

THIS  book  is  a  jewel.  Among  the 
mass  of  indefijiite  views,  and  in 
the  bewildering  vistas  of  ill-defined 
opinions  on  diplomacy,  de  Calli&res's 
volume  "On  the  Manner  of  Negotiat- 
ing with  Princes",  with  it&  admirable 


672 


THE  BOOKMAN 


preface  by  A.  F.  Whjrte,  is  a  very  pre- 
cious addition  to  the  small  number  of 
books  on  the  management  of  foreign 
negotiations  in  these  days  worth  care- 
ful preservation.  Originally  pub- 
lished in  France  in  1716,  it  is  the  best 
treatise  on  the  principles  of  diplomacy 
that  has  yet  appeared  in  English,  and 
Mr.  Whyte's  preface  not  only  inter- 
prets it  but  adds  new  touches  to  the 
value  of  its  content. 

On  all  sides,  among  intelligent  and 
thinking  people,  there  is  a  demand  for 
the  correction  of  the  faults  in  our  for- 
eign service, — ^a  demand  which  is 
growing  and  which  is  bound  to  be- 
come irresistible — ^but  the  popular 
idea  that  any  man  who  has  served  a 
political  party  with  energy  ought  to 
be  eligible  for  the  foreign  service  is 
still  very  prevalent  among  persons  who 
either  do  not  take  the  trouble  to  think 
or  take  idle  speculation  and  the  ab- 
sorption of  ready-made  opinion  for 
the  processes  of  real  thought. 

To  the  eager  mind  there  is  not  a 
dull  page  in  this  excellently  translated 
volume.  It  is  as  opportune  as  it  is  in- 
teresting. For  example,  let  us  take 
Mr.  Whyte's  lucid  paragraph  on  diplo- 
matic secrecy.  The  manner  in  which 
the  majority  of  our  compatriots  talk 
of  what  is  called  "secret  diplomacy*'  is 
more  than  sufficient  to  make  the  ju- 
dicious grieve  and  the  irritable  curse; 
and  the  number  of  foolish  articles 
written  by  ignorant  idealists, — and 
the  ignorant  and  the  thoughtless  are 
through  their  fluent  vocabularies  in- 
juring the  cause  of  idealism, — ^fill 
many  pages  that  might,  in  this  mo- 
ment of  the  shortage  of  paper,  be  left 
blank  for  better  things. 

In  his  introduction  Mr.  Whyte  says : 

In  the  customary  argrument  against  diplo- 
matlc  secrecy,  however,  there  is  some  confusion 
in  thought.  It  is  against  secret  politicM,  in 
which  the  national  liability  may  be  unlimited, 
that  the  only  genuine  protest  can  be  raised ;  for 


such  policies  are  the  very  negation  of  democ- 
racy, and  the  denial  of  the  most  fundamental 
of  aU  popular  rights,  namely,  that  the  citiBen 
shaU  know  on  what  terms  his  country  may  aak 
him  to  lay  down  his  life.  But  this  Justlflcation 
of  popular  control  does  not  presuppose  the  pub- 
lication of  diplomatic  negotiations.  On  the 
contrary,  it  rests  on  the  assumption  that  the 
People  and  Parliament  wiU  know  where  to 
draw  the  line  between  necessary  control  In 
matters  of  principle  and  the  equally  necessary 
discretionary  freedom  of  the  expert  in  negotia- 
tion. It  foUows,  therefore,  that  the  case  for 
reform  Is  only  weakened  by  those  who  make  In- 
discriminate attacks  against  the  whole  Diplo- 
matic Service — ^how  richly  deserved  in  some 
cases,  how  flagrantly  unjust  in  others — and 
especially  by  those  who  profess  to  believe  that 
the  machinery  of  diplomacy  could  be  made  to 
run  more  smoothly  by  publicity.  The  modem 
Press  is  not  so  happy  a  commentator  as  all 
that;  and  we  may  here  recall  Napoleon's  axH 
posite  reflection  :  "I/C  canon  a  tu6  la  f6odalit4 : 
I'encre  tuera  la  soci6t6  modeme."  If  it  is  nec- 
essary for  the  public  welfare  that  foreign  pol- 
icy should  be  known  and  intelligently  discussed 
by  the  people  whom  it  so  closely  concerns,  it  Is 
just  as  necessary  that  the  people  should  not 
meddle  with  the  actual  process  of  diplomacy, 
but,  having  made  sure  of  getting  the  best  of 
their  public  servants  in  their  Foreign  Service, 
should  confldently  leave  such  transactions  un- 
disturbed in  the  hands  of  the  expert.  In  all 
the  activities  of  government  that  is  clearly  the 
proper  division  of  labour  between  the  common 
people  and  the  expert  adviser;  and  in  no  de- 
partment should  it  be  more  scrupulously  ob- 
served than  in  foreign  affairs. 

We  have  recently  felt  the  truth  of 
this.  The  vacillations  on  the  part  of 
men  who  tried  to  adapt  the  new  and 
unworkable  "democratic"  system  of 
managing  affairs  by  natural  intuition, 
and  by  subservience  to  inexpert 
opinion,  corroborate  the  truth  of  Mr. 
Whyte's  distinctions.  There  is  no 
question  that  diplomacy  is  one  of  the 
highest  of  political  arts;  and  so  im- 
portant is  the  character  of  the  man 
chosen  to  represent  his  country,  that 
the  government  which  sends  him 
abroad  undertakes  the  responsibility 
for  whatever  good  or  evil  may  follow 
his  appointment.  De  Calli^res  em- 
phasizes the  fact  that  wherever  the 
negotiator  is  to  blame,  the  true  re- 
sponsibility for  the  evils  occasioned 
by  his  failure  must  be  borne  by  the 


NEGOTIATING  WITH  PRINCES 


578 


government  that  sent  him.  He  adds 
that  men  of  small  minds  should  con- 
tent themselves  with  employment  at 
home,  where  their  errors  may  be  easily 
repaired,  "for  errors  committed  abroad 
are  too  often  irreparable". 

The  story  of  a  Grand  Duke  of  Tus- 
cany who  complained  that  the  envoy 
sent  to  Rome  by  the  Republic  of  Ven- 
ice had  neither  judgment  nor  knowl- 
edge, nor  even  personal  attractiveness, 
is  well  known.  The  Venetian  to  whom 
the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany  com- 
plained said,  "I  am  not  surprised. 
We  have  many  fools  in  Venice." 
Whereupon  the  Grand  Duke  retorted: 
"We  have  also  fools  in  Florence,  but 
we  take  care  not  to  export  them." 

Some  of  de  Galli^res's  recommenda- 
tions will  hardly  meet  with  popular  ap- 
proval in  our  country.  For  instance, 
he  recommends  that  one  of  the  best 
means  of  gaining  the  good  will  of  a 
prince  is  to  allow  him  to  win  money 
from  the  envoy  at  cards.  It  is  neces- 
sary then  that  the  envoy  should  be 
supplied  with  money  for  losses  in  such 
a  good  cause.  Our  own  State  Depart- 
ment, however,  has  never  permitted 
any  disbursement  of  this  kind  to  be 
set  down  against  a  contingent  fund! 
Still,  however,  in  spite  of  the  growing 
determination  of  the  American  ene- 
mies of  tobacco  to  include  cards  as 
evils  which  they  are  to  exterminate, 
the  game  of  bridge  yet  remains  as  an 
almost  necessary  accomplishment  of 
ambassadors,  even  to  the  most  demo- 
cratic of  nations. 

Of  a  successful  French  diplomatist, 
de  Calli^res  writes:  "My  friend  used 
to  say  in  jest  that  he  bad  played  the 
fool  at  foreign  card-tables  in  order  to 
prove  that  he  was  a  wise  man  at  home. 
His  jest  bore  a  truth  within  it  which  I 
hope  every  negotiator  will  lay  at 
heart  I" 

There  is  scarcely  any  principle  that 
ought  to  govern  a  modem  diplomatist 


which  this  very  prudent  and  experi- 
enced statesman  does  not  inculcate; 
and  at  the  end  of  the  volume,  one  is 
impressed  not  only  by  the  good  faith 
and  the  common  sense  and  experience 
of  de  Calli^res,  but  by  the  good  judg- 
ment of  the  Regent,  the  Duke  of  Or- 
leans, who  encouraged  such  a  min« 
ister. 

In  closing  this  treatise,  which  al* 
ways  ought  to  be  a  part  of  the  prepa^ 
ration  for  every  American  who  in- 
tends to  enter  the  diplomatic  service, 
de  Calli^res  says  that  if  a  diplomatist 
should  lack  due  recognition,  "he  may 
find  his  own  recompense  in  the  satis- 
faction of  having  faithfully  and  ef- 
ficiently discharged  the  duties  laid 
upon  him.  It  has  often  been  said  that 
the  public  service  is  an  ungrateful 
task  in  which  a  man  must  find  his 
chief  recompense  within  himself.  If 
I  am  held  to  agree  to  this,  I  cannot  al- 
low it  to  be  used  as  a  discouragement 
to  young  men  of  good  birth  and  ability 
from  entering  my  own  profession. 
Disappointment  awaits  us  in  all  walks 
of  life,  but  in  no  profession  are  disap- 
pointments so  amply  outweighed  by 
rich  opportunities  as  in  the  practice  of 
diplomacy." 


On  the  Manner  of  Negotiating  with  Princes. 
By  Monalenr  de  Calliftres.  Translated  by  A.  F. 
whyte.    Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 


CHESS  PLUS  PERSONALITY 
By  Morehy  AcJclom 

IT  is  not  everyone  that  can  make  the 
subject  of  chess  interesting  for  the 
uninitiated;  in  fact,  the  only  writer 
than  I  can  recall  who  has  ever  man- 
aged fo  make  the  subject  of  chess  en- 
joyable to  the  general  public  is  H.  6. 
Wells,  who  once  wrote  a  delightful 


574 


THE  BOOKMAN 


little  humoresque  chess  story  in  the 
early  nineties  of  last  centuiy,  when 
he  was  contributing  anonymously  to 
the  now  long  defunct  "Pall  Mall  Bud- 
get". 

Capablanca's  book  is  not  intention- 
ally humorous,  though  it  contains  the 
elements  of  humor.  It  is  primarily 
the  frank,  naive  revelation  of  a  per- 
sonality, and  as  such  is  of  general  in- 
terest to  all  who  are  concerned  with 
the  natures  of  their  fellow  human 
beings. 

Capablanca's  career  has  been  a  me- 
teoric one.  With  the  simplicity  of 
greatness  he  is  quite  willing  to  ad- 
mit that  he  is  out  of  the  ordinary,  and 
I  think  that  no  reader  will  disagree 
with  him.  At  the  age  of  four  he  cor- 
rected his  father  for  a  wrong  move 
when  he  stood  watching  a  game  be- 
tween him  and  a  friend,  with  the  re- 
sult that  he  was  taken  down  a  few 
days  later  to  the  Havana  Chess  Club ; 
there  the  strongest  local  players  found 
it  impossible  to  give  this  infant  the 
odds  of  a  queen.  Under  doctor's  or- 
ders he  gave  up  chess  until  he  was 
eight  years  old,  and  then  again  took 
to  frequenting  the  local  chess  club. 
At  the  age  of  eleven  he  beat  every- 
body in  the  club  except  the  champion, 
Corzo.  However,  some  of  the  ad- 
mirers of  this  juvenile  prodigy 
thought  that  in  a  regular  match  he 
would  beat  Corzo,  so  a  matcli  was  ar- 
ranged, in  which  he  won  the  four 
games  required  to  capture  the  match, 
after  losing  two  and  drawing  six  with 
his  opponent. 

From  then  on  his  career  has  been 
a  long  series  of  triumphs  in  the  chess 
world,  details  of  which  are  to  be  found 
in  this  refreshing  little  book,  which 
probably  contains  more  real  informa- 
tion on  the  science  of  chess  than  a 
dozen  of  the  more  weighty  tomes  put 
together.    Capablanca  has  taken  part 


in    the    following   Masters'    Tourna- 
ments:  New  York,  1911;   San  Sebas- 
tian, 1911;  New  York,  1913 ;  Havana, 
1913;    New  York,  1913;    St.  Peters- 
burg, 1914;    New  York,  1915;     New 
York,  1916;    New  York,  1918;    and 
the  Hastings  Victory  Chess  Confirress 
in  1919.    Out  of  the  139  games  which 
he  has  played  in  these  first-class  tour- 
naments, he  has  won  99,  drawn  82, 
and  lost  8,  finishing  first  in  seven  of 
the  tournaments,  and  second  in  the 
remaining  three,  this  showing  beinfir 
made,  it  must  be  remembered,  afirainst 
men  in  most  cases  old  enough  to  be  his 
father  (and  if  not,  grandfather) ,  who 
have  spent  their  lives  at  the  game  and 
know  by  heart  the  moves  of  every  im- 
portant partie  ever  played. 

It  is  not  much  good  going  into  de- 
tails of  the  various  games  given  in 
his  book,  for  that  would  appeal  solely 
to  the  chess-player,  but  it  may  be  said 
that  Capablanca's  comments  on  his 
own  and  his  adversary's  play  through- 
out the  book  are  of  a  most  original 
and  illuminating  sort.  He  never  hesi- 
tates to  say,  "This  was  wrong",  "This 
was  an  error",  "This  ought  to  have 
been  so-and-so",  even  when  dealing 
with  the  most  world-renowned  of  mas- 
ters. 

The  conclusion  one  draws  as  to  the 
reasons  for  Capablanca's  success  are, 
first,  that  he  has  an  extraordinary 
congenital  facility  for  intricate  com- 
bination of  the  algebraic  sort.  This 
is  what  made  him  find  his  first  tri- 
umphs in  the  end-game,  which  is  a 
matter  of  almost  pure  mathematics. 
Second,  that  he  seems  to  have  an  un- 
canny knowledge  of  what  his  oppo- 
nent intends  to  do  next,  and  also  what 
his  opponent  expects  him  to  do.  The 
only  person  who  seems  to  have  really 
surprised  him  in  the  course  of  a  game 
is  Marshall.  And  this  was  only  fair, 
since    in    1909    Capablanca,    a   mere 


MAETERLINCK'S  DOGS  AND  ANOTHER 


575 


stripling  of  twenty,  had  profoundly 
surprised  Marshall  (talked  of  as  a 
coming  world's  champion)  by  beating 
him  in  a  match  8  to  1,  with  14  draws. 

Perhaps  the  finest  game  given  in 
the  book  is  a  Ruy  Lopez  played  against 
Marshall  in  the  Manhattan  Chess  Club 
Masters'  Tournament  in  1918»  in 
which  one  of  the  most  superb  exhibi- 
tions of  brilliant  attack  on  the  one 
hand,  and  courageous  acceptance  of 
the  attack  and  even  more  brilliant 
counter-attack  on  the  other,  resulted 
in  a  victory  for  Capablanca. 

After  closing  the  book  one  cannot 
help  wondering  with  what  sort  of 
feelings  Capablanca  may  be  watching 
the  career  of  Samuel  Rzeschewski, 
aged  eight,  who  is  at  present  making 
things  warm  for  the  chess  players  of 
Europe. 


My  Chess  Career.    By  J.  R.  Capablanca.   The 
Macmlllan  Co. 


MAETERLINCK'S  DOGS  AND 
ANOTHER 

By  Walter  A,  Dyer 

ONE  is  naturally  moved  first  to 
speak  of  Maurice  Maeterlinck, 
though  he  is  not  the  subject  of  these 
remarks.  About  his  name  is  built  up 
the  publicity  for  a  volume  that  might 
otherwise  pass  unnoticed.  He  has 
been  much  in  the  public  eye  over  here, 
through  his  opera,  "The  Blue  Bird", 
his  not  entirely  successful  lectures,  his 
quoted  views  on  the  all-popular  sub- 
ject of  spiritualism,  and  his  recent  vol- 
ume of  essays,  "Mountain  Paths". 
But  to  many  of  us  his  fame  rests  most 
securely  on  his  classic  essay,  "Our 
Friend,  the  Dog".  Through  a  dog  we 
come  closest  to  the  human  side  of  the 


poet.  For  Maeterlinck  had  a  little 
French  bulldog  named  Pell^as,  and  the 
death  of  that  beloved  animal  was  the 
inspiration  of  one  of  the  loveliest  bits 
of  dog  literature  in  any  language. 

Dogs  have  been  the  companions  of 
man  in  all  ages  and  all  climes,  but  in- 
vestigation and  inquiry  lead  to  the 
somewhat  remarkable  conclusion  that 
the  sentimental  attachment  of  man  to 
dog  is  almost  exclusively  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  trait.  Tell  a  Russian  or  an 
Italian,  or  even  most  Frenchmen, 
about  your  dog  with  that  pardonable 
enthusiasm  of  yours,  and  you  will  note 
a  certain  lack  of  comprehension. 
Search  literature  and  you  will  find  the 
dog  sentiment  expressed  in  its  most 
idealistic  form  on^  in  English.  With 
us  alone  has  the  dog  been  accepted  as 
a  personality. 

Maeterlinck,  a  Belgian,  is  the  one 
noteworthy  exception  that  comes  to 
mind.  And  even  Maeterlinck's  senti- 
ment is  employed  largely  as  the  basis 
of  a  philosophy. 

Madame  Maeterlinck  also  philoso- 
phizes, but  the  soul  of  her  book  is  not 
philosophy.  It  is  sentiment,  not  over- 
drawn except  in  the  eyes  of  those  who 
cannot  comprehend  it,  and,  as  true 
dog  sentiment  always  is,  lighted  by 
the  humorous  smile  and  touched  with 
pathos.    Dogs'  lives  are  so  short! 

Madame  Maeterlinck  tells  of  the 
various  dogs  that  from  time  to  time 
honored  her  household  with  their  pres- 
ence— Louis  the  Debonnaire;  Ray- 
mond the  Clown;  Adh^mar  the  Mis- 
understood; Achille  the  Impulsive; 
Gaston  the  Highwayman;  Delphine 
the  Maternal;  Jules  the  Sponger 
(most  delightful  of  all),  and  Golaud 
the  Superdog,  best  loved  by  his  mis- 
tress. It  must  be  admitted  that  they 
appear  to  have  been  less  the  dogs  of 
Maeterlinck  than  of  Madame.  The 
poet-philosopher  figures  somewhat  re- 


676 


THE  BOOKMAN 


motely  in  the  book,  hovering  vaguely 
in  the  background,  permeating  the  at- 
mosphere somewhat  dilutedly,  and 
alighting  adroitly  on  the  title-page. 

Let  those  who  suppose  that  all  dogs 
are  more  or  less  alike,  that  a  formula 
can  be  devised  to  fit  all  dog  natures, 
read  Madame  Maeterlinck's  sketches  of 
these  various  canine  individuals.  Let 
them  read  also  of  Sigurd,  the  golden 
collie  of  Professor  Katharine  Lee 
Bates  of  Wellesley  College.  Here,  for- 
sooth, is  no  gushing  account  of  the 
charms  of  a  beloved  pet,  but  a  genuine 
character  study.  It  is  a  study  sympa- 
thetic to  the  point  of  favorable  preju- 
dice, to  be  sure.  But  Sigurd's  failings 
are  not  hidden;  it  is  an  honest  deline* 
ation. 

Sigurd  was  a  beautiful  dog  whose 
presence  long  added  life  and  color  to 
the  Wellesley  campus  and  companion- 
ship and  joy  to  the  pedagogic  home  of 
the  author  and  her  friends.  It  is  the 
biography  of  a  dog,  filled  with  amus- 
ing and  pathetic  incidents.  But  it  is 
so  much  more  than  that.  Professor 
Bates  wields  no,  amateur  pen;  she 
writes  with  no  unscientific  half -knowl- 
edge. She  has,  in  short,  made  litera^ 
ture  out  of  a  dog  and  enshrined  one 
lovable  member  of  that  remarkable 
race  in  a  work  as  thoughtful  as  it  is 


delightful.  Sigurd,  I  believe,  will  take 
his  place  among  the  canine  immortals, 
along  with  Greyfriars  Bobby,  John 
Muir's  Stikeen,  and  the  great  do^rs  of 
fiction.  It  is  not  a  book  for  those 
whose  interest  in  dog  literature  is  de- 
rived from  Jack  London,  but  one  is 
conscious  of  an  overwhelming  temp- 
tation to  send  copies  of  it  to  those 
elect  among  his  friends  whose  appre- 
ciation of  graceful  writing  is  second 
only  to  their  sympathetic  understand- 
ing of  dogs. 

Professor  Bates  rounds  out  her  vol- 
ume with  accounts  of  some  of  her 
other  bird  and  animal  acquaintances 
that  are  scarcely  less  entertaining. 
And  the  whole  book  is  lightened  by 
that  quality  without  which  all  such 
writings  are  in  danger  of  descending 
to  the  merely  sentimental — humor. 
Witness  the  moment  when  the  digni- 
fied members  of  the  Wellesley  faculty 
were  confronted  with  the  problem  of 
feeding  a  fastidious  baby  vireo,  grave- 
ly consulted  the  authorities,  and 
learned  that  the  case  called  definitely 
for  "masticated  insects"  I 


Maeterlinck's  Don.  By  Georgette  LieblADC- 
Maeterllnck.  Translated  by  Alexander  Teixeira 
de  Mattos.  Illustrated  with  drawings  by  tlie 
author.     Dodd,  Mead  and  Co. 

Sigurd,  Our  Golden  Collie,  and  Other  Com- 
rades of  the  Road.  By  Katharine  Lee  Bates. 
B.  P.  Dutton  and  Co. 


MR.  PROSSER  UPON  ARISTOTLE 


BY  MARY  ELEANOR  ROBERTS 


I  WAS  sitting  at  my  desk  yesterday 
when  Prosser  breezed  in.  Prosser 
is  a  Successful  Author.  He  makes  a 
mint  of  money  writing  scenarios  for 
the  movies.  He  sat  down  and  an- 
swered my  first  remarks  without  lis- 
tening to  them.  He  had  something  on 
his  mind.  I  waited  for  him  to  unload. 
Prosser  believes  in  direct  methods. 
His  training  has  taught  him  to  go 
straight  to  the  point.  Presently  he 
burst  out: 

"I  know  where  0.  Henry  got  his 
plots." 

I  was  interested.  "No!  Where? 
Are  there  any  more  of  them?  Is  it  a 
mine?" 

"Sure  I"  he  grinned.  "A  gold  mine. 
Anybody  can  get  thenu" 

"Tell  me,"  I  pleaded. 

When  Prosser  talks,  he  always 
walks.  My  apartment  is  not  large. 
The  living-room  is  the  biggest  room 
in  it,  but  even  so,  when  Prosser 
plunged  six  paces  one  way,  hands  un- 
der coat-tails,  eyeglass  string  a-flutter, 
he  had  to  turn  and  plunge  back.  I 
moved  two  chairs  and  a  table  and  let 
him  oscillate. 

"You've  heard  of  Aristotle?"  he  de- 
manded. 

I  admitted  that  I  had.  - 

"He  was  a  dramatic  critic/'  volun- 
teered Prosser.  "I  picked  up  his  book 
at  the  library.  It's  great  stuff.  That's 
where  0.  Henry  got  them.    His  plots 


I  mean.  He  must  have  read  that 
book." 

"What  in  the  world  are  you  talking 
about?"  I  exclaimed,  bewildered. 

"I'm  telling  you,  ain't  I?  It's  all  in 
the  book.  He's  doped  it  all  out.  He 
gives  the  whole  thing  away.  Aristotle 
I  mean.    Anybody  can  do  it." 

I  began  to  see  daylight.  "You  mean 
the  method?  What  Henry  James  calls 
'The  Pattern  in  the  Carpet'  ?" 

"Henry  James  nothing!"  roared 
Prosser.  "You're  barking  up  the 
wrong  tree.  No  wonder  your  stuff — 
Well,  we'U  leave  that.  I'm  talking 
about  action.  Action,  my  good  woman, 
is  what  the  public  wants." 

Prosser  provoked  me.  I  am  a  good 
woman,  but  I  don't  like  to  be  called 
one.  I  said  stiffly  that  I  failed  to  see 
any  connection  between  0.  Henry  and 
Aristotle. 

"Then  you  haven't  read  him,"  said 
Prosser  promptly.  "I  mean  Aristotle. 
Look  here."  He  tugged  a  sheaf  of 
papers  out  of  his  coat-tails.  "I  copied 
down  a  lot  of  it.  Listen  to  this: 
Tragedy  then  is  an  imitation  of  some 
action  that  is  important,  entire,  and 
of  a  proper  magnitude.'  Do  you  get 
that?  He  says  'Tragedy*,  but  he 
means  a  play  or  a  story.  It's  the  same 
thing.  He  says  that  a  play  consists 
of  a  plot,  and  the  manners  or  charac- 
ters of  the  persons,  and  the  senti- 
ments, which  is  what  they  say.    'But 


577 


678 


THE  BOOKMAN 


of  all  these  parts  the  most  important 
is  the  plot.  Because  Tragedy  is  an 
imitation  not  of  men  but  of  actions' — 
(do  you  get  that?) — *of  life,  of  happi- 
ness and  unhappiness,  for  happiness 
consists  in  action,  and  the  supreme 
good  itself,  the  very  end  of  life  is  ac- 
tion of  a  certain  kind — ^not  quality/ 
Do  you  get  that?  *It  is  by  their  ac- 
tions that  men  are  happy  or  the  con- 
trary. So  that  the  action  and  the  plot 
are  the  end  of  Tragedy,  and  in  every- 
thing the  end  is  of  principal  impor- 
tance.' He  goes  right  to  the  heart  of 
the  matter.  He  was  some  writer,  that 
old  bird !"  exulted  Pressor.  "And  lis- 
ten to  this:  'Further — suppose  any- 
one to  string  together  a  number  of 
speeches  in  which  the  manners  are 
strongly  marked,  the  language  and  the 
sentiments  well  turned,  this  will  not 
be  sufficient  to  produce  a  play;  that 
end  will  much  rather  be  answered  by 
a  piece,  defective  in  each  of  these  par- 
ticulars, but  furnished  with  a  proper 
table  and  contexture  of  incidents/ 
What's  that  but  the  movies?" 

"But  where  is  your  0.  Henry?"  said 
I. 


«T», 


«1 


«i 


I'm  coming  to  that.  He  says  then 
that  the  plot  is  the  soul  of  a  play,  and 
that  poor  writers  fall  down  in  the  con- 
struction of  one,  and  that  the  parts  of 
the  plot  which  are  most  interest- 
ing are  revolutions  and  discoveries. 
There's  my  0.  Henry!" 

But  I  don't  see — "  I  objected. 

0  you  don't,  you  won't,"  retorted 
Prosser.  "You  see  well  enough.  Revo- 
lutions. Discoveries.  The  unexpect- 
ed. The  reversal  of  all  that  you 
thought  was  coming.  Charlie  Chaplin  I 
0.  Henry!  The  climax.  The  punch. 
The  real  thing." 

"Perhaps  I  see,"  I  said  meekly. 
"I  looked  up  one  or  two  of  the  plays 
he    tells    about,"    Prosser    went    on. 
"There  was  one,  'CEdipus  Tyrannus'. 


Did  you  ever  read  that?  'CEdipos 
the  Xing',  it  means.  That's  a  dam 
good  title.  You  see  him  first,  prosper- 
ous and  powerful,  and  yet  in  the  end 
he  goes  smash, — smasher  than  the 
Kaiser.  And  it  all  unrolls  backward. 
You'd  think  the  fellow  that  wrote  it 
had  seen  'On  Trial'.  Same  scheme  ex- 
actly. And  there  was  another  I  liked. 
The  villain  at  the  end  is  exulting  over 
the  corpse  of  his  enemy,  and  when  he 
draws  down  the  shroud  it's  the  body 
of  his  own  wife.  Revolutions.  Dis* 
coveries.    That's  what." 

"You  seem  pleased  with  your  dis- 
covery," I  said. 

"I  am,"  said  Prosser.  He  paused  by 
my  desk  and  punctuated  earnestly 
with  a  bediamonded  finger.  "We  fel- 
lows always  knew  that  the  highbrows 
were  dead  wrong;  that  they  were  let- 
ting buckets  into  empty  wells;  we 
just  felt  it  without  a  college  education, 
but  we  couldn't  prove  it  to  them.  And 
now  here's  one  of  the  highest  of  them« 
telling  them  that  they  are  a  pack  of 
fools.  And  I'm  glad  to  know  that  I've 
been  on  the  right  track.  I've  been 
doing  a  little  of  Aristotle's  kind  of 
thing,  myself,  ain't  I?  But  now, 
watch  me!" 

"But  suppose  somebody  else  uses  the 
idea?"  said  I.  "Suppose  I  use  it,  now 
you've  told  me?" 

"0  you  never  would !"  said  Prosser, 
not  unkindly.  "Besides,  I  don't  care 
who  uses  it.  Let  the  best  man  win! 
So  long!" 

A  little  of  his  dynamic  atmosphere 
remained  behind.  What  if  Prosser 
had  really  stumbled  upon  it,  the  essen- 
tial thing,  the  ultimate  result,  brass 
tacks?  And  if  so,  why  shouldn't  I  use 
it?  Why  shouldn't  I  go  ahead  and 
beat  him  to  it?  But  the  impulse  died. 
Prosser  was  right.  I  never  would. 
I  am  passing  the  idea  along  to  the  rest 
of  you, — ^and  may  the  best  man  win! 


HOW  OLD  IS  SHERLOCK  HOLMES? 


BY  BEVERLY  STARK 


IT  was  many  years  ago  that  CSonan 
Doyle,  for  the  moment  grown 
weary  of  his  most  widely  known  crea- 
tion, sent  Sherlock  Holmes  to  apparent 
death  in  an  Alpine  pass,  only  to  bring 
him  back  for  a  series  of  new  adven- 
tures. In  many  cases  the  exact 
period  of  these  adventures  was 
indefinite,  but  "His  Last  Bow" 
established  the  fact  that  Holmes 
was  alive  and  in  the  full  vigor  of  his 
powers  as  late  as  August,  1914.  It 
is  to  be  assumed  that  he  is  still  of 
the  earth  today,  and  that,  as  the  brains 
and  energy  of  the  British  secret  ser- 
vice, he  was  a  conspicuous  factor  in 
bringing  the  Great  War  to  a  victo- 
rious conclusion.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  eventually  the  story  of  these  ex- 
ploits will  be  told.  In  the  meantime 
an  obvious  question  is:  "How  old  is 
Sherlock  Hohnes?" 

Here  and  there  in  the  course  of  the 
forty-odd  tales  involving  the  eminent 
practitioner  of  the  science  of  deduc- 
tion there  is  a  vast  amount  of  per- 
sonal information,  but  on  the  point 
of  his  exact  age  there  is  a  certain 
latitude  for  conjecture.  The  first 
story  written  introducing  him  was  "A 
Study  in  Scarlet".  1880  was  the  ap- 
proximate date  of  the  adventures  of 
that  tale,  for  Dr.  Watson,  falling  in 
with  Holmes  and  sharing  the  apart- 
ment with  him  in  upper  Baker  Street, 
was  recovering  from  the  wound  re- 
ceived in  the  Abyssinian  campaign  of 


1878-79.  But  in  the  course  of  con- 
fidences when  the  association  became 
more  intimate.  Holmes  told  the  story 
of  several  achievements  that  had  an- 
tedated by  some  years  "A  Study  in 
Scarlet":  for  example,  the  "Musgrave 
Ritual"  affair,  and  "The  Adventure 
of  the  Gloria  Scott",  the  latter  the 
first  case  in  which  Holmes  exercised 
professionally  his  unusual  powers. 
Assuming,  as  it  is  reasonable  to  as- 
sume, that  the  year  of  the  "Gloria 
Scott"  episode  was  1875,  and  that 
Holmes,  then  completing  his  course 
in  the  university,  was  in  his  twenty- 
first  year,  the  date  of  his  birth  may 
be  placed  as  about  1855 — ^making  him 
four  years  older  than  his  creator  (who 
was  himself  still  in  his  twenties  when 
he  invented  the  vehicle  by  which  he 
was  to  express  his  entertaining 
theories) — and  his  present  age  as 
five  and  sixty.  No  longer  in  the 
flush  of  youth,  but  still  in  prime  vigor, 
provided  he  has  shaken  off  the  de- 
plorable habits  that  in  the  early  days 
so  irritated  the  obtuse  but  conscien- 
tious Watson. 

Whether  or  not  Sir  Arthur  Ck)nan 
Doyle  sees  fit  to  chronicle  the  activi- 
ties of  Sherlock  Hohnes  during  the 
Great  War  is  a  matter  for  him  to 
decide.    But  his  is  a  definite  respon-  .^ 

sibility  in  the  matter  of  certain  tales        ^ 
to  which  he  made  tantalizing  allusion 
in  former  stories.  Of  one  of  the  titles  \  ^ 
mentioned  he  made  subsequent  use,         ^ 


679 


580 


THE  BOOKMAN 


« 


« 


telling  the  story  of  "The  Adventure 
of  the  Second  Stain",  though  not  liv- 
ing quite  up  to  the  promise  at  which 
he  hinted.  But  readers  have  almost 
the  right  to  insist  that  some  day  he 
clear  away  the  mystery  obscuring  the 
alluring  suggestion  of  "The  Affair  of 
the  Netherland  Sumatra  Company", 
The  Loss  of  the  Sophy  Anderson", 
The  Amsworth  Castle  Affair",  "The 
Darlington  Substitution  Scandal", 
"The  Case  of  Vamberry,  the  Wine 
Merchant",  "The  Adventure  of  the 
Paradol  Chamber",  "Ricoletti  of  the 
Club  Foot  and  his  Abominable  Wife", 
"The  Tankerville  Club  Scandal",  "The 
Affair  of  the  Amateur  Mendicant  So- 
ciety", "The  Adventure  of  the  Grice 
Patersons  in  Uffa^',  "The  Camberwell 
Poisoning  Case",  "The  Dundas  Sepa- 
ration Case",  "The  Affair  of  the  King 
of  Scandinavia",  "The  Trepoff  Mur- 
der", "The  Affair  of  the  Reigning 
Family  of  Holland",  "The  Tragedy  of 
the  Atkinson  Brothers  at  Trincoma- 
lee",  "The  Manor  House  Case",  "The 
Adventure  of  the  Old  Russian  Wo- 
man", "The  Tarleton  Murder",  "The 
Case  of  Mrs.  Etheredge",  "The  Affair 
of  the  Aluminium  Crutch",  and  "The 
Adventure  of  the  Tired  Captain". 
Probably  it  was  in  a  spirit  of  light- 
ness that  Conan  Doyle  flung  out  these 
titles.  But  in  thus  whetting  expecta- 
tion he  assumed  an  obligation  that  he 
can  no  more  dismiss  than  Franken- 
stein could  rid  himself  of  the  monster 
that  he  created. 

Upon  one  occasion  Sherlock  Holmes 
alluded  to  a  strain  of  French  ancestry, 
which  may  account  for  a  popularity 
in  France  as  great  as  his  popularity 
in  England  and  the  United  States. 
But  for  a  full  realization  of  the  hold 
which  the  name  has  taken  upon  the 
imagination  of  the  world,  to  under- 
stand that  never  since  the  beginning 
of  time  has  a  character  of  fiction  had 


such  instant  significance  to  millions 
of  people,  it  is  necessary  to  turn  to 
Spain  and  the  Spanish-American 
countries.  Barcelona  is  the  birth- 
place of  an  Iberian  Sherlock  Holmes, 
the  surname  being  pronounced  in  two 
syllables.  The  fabrication  of  his  ad- 
ventures is  an  industry  of  the  city, 
employing  the  imaginations  of  a  score 
of  hack  writers.  The  paper  books, 
with  gaudily  colored  covers,  are 
printed  by  the  millions,  distributed 
to  news-stands  throughout  the  i>enin- 
sula,  and  sent  overseas  to  Cuba,  and 
Central  and  South  America.  In  the 
crude  portraits  of  Holmes  that  appear 
at  the  top  of  the  cover-pages  there 
are  the  features  familiar  to  English 
readers,  but  somehow  the  artists  have 
twisted  them,  subconsciously  prob- 
ably, until  the  face  is  the  face  of  a 
Spaniard.  The  nature  of  these  lurid 
tales  of  Spanish  fabrication  may  be 
indicated  by  a  translation  of  some  of 
the  titles:  for  example,  "Blackwell, 
the  Pirate  of  the  Thames",  "The 
Seller  of  Corpses",  "Jack  the  Ripper", 
"The  Bloody  Hammer",  "The  Red 
Widow  of  Paris",  "In  the  Pittsburgh 
School  of  Crime",  and  "Sherlock 
Holmes  and  the  Opium  Smugglers". 

Russia,  as  well  as  Spain  and  the 
lands  of  Spanish  influence  and  tradi- 
tion, has  had  its  transplanted,  adopted, 
and  adapted  Sherlock  Holmes.  One 
year  before  the  war  the  empire  of  the 
Czar  saw  the  publication  of  more 
than  a  thousand  sensational  novels, 
classed  as  "Nat -Pinkerton  and  Sher- 
lock Holmes  Literature".  Among  the 
titles  of  the  tales  of  the  Doyle  hero 
told  with  a  Slavonic  twist  were  "The 
Stranglers",  "The  Hanged",  "The  Ex- 
propriators", and  "The  Disinterred 
Corpse".  A  Russian  critic  at  the 
time  found  in  this  taste  the  expres- 
sion of  a  national  sentiment.     Sub- 


THE  WONDERFUL  AGAIN 


581 


sequent  events  have  invested  his 
words  with  all  the  dignity  of  a  proph- 
ecy. The  taste,  he  held»  was  sigificant 
of  a  revolt  against  three  great  ideas 
that  had  at  different  times  dominated 
Russian  literature:  the  quiet  pessi- 
mism of  Turgenev,  the  Christian  non- 
resistance  religion  of  Tolstoi,  and  the 
familiar  Russian  type  of  will-less 
philosophy.  The  then  new  craze  for 
Sherlock  Holmes  stories,  the  critic 
thought,  foreshadowed  a  complete 
change   in   the   Russian   reader,   the 


decay  of  the  literature  of  passivity, 
and  the  rise  of  a  new  literature  of 
action  and  revolt.  It  was  thirty-odd 
years  ago  that  Gonan  Doyle,  a  medical 
practitioner  without  any  practice  to 
speak  of,  and  a  struggling  author 
without  an  audience  or  a  market,  suc- 
ceeded, after  much  peddling,  in  dis- 
posing of  the  manuscript  of  "A  Study 
in  Scarlet"  for  the  sum  of  twenty- 
five  pounds.  How  little  did  he  dream 
that  he  was  building  for  the  down- 
fall of  an  empire  I 


THE  WONDERFUL  AGAIN 


BY  H.  W.  BOYNTON 


AFTER  all,  a  good  yam  is  as  far  as 
.ever  from  being  disqualified  by 
allusions  to  the  tired  business  man  or 
the  silly  season.  Unmeaning  ''real- 
ism" is,  we  know  quite  well,  much  sil- 
lier than  well-reasoned  romance.  Fact 
may  be  stranger  than  fiction;  but  it 
is  also,  left  to  itself,  infinitely  duller. 
The  big  realism  which  arranges  and 
interprets  fact  thereby  embodies  a 
deeper  and  richer  kind  of  truth  (per- 
haps) than  the  best  of  romantic  in- 
ventions. But  that  doesn't  stultify 
our  delight  in  the  kind  of  truth  we 
find  (like  a  quarter  on  the  doorstep) 
in  the  "Monte  Gristos"  and  the  "Treas- 
ure Islands''  of  all  ages.  It  is  one 
thing  to  chaffer  for  our  money's  worth 
at  the  counter  where  the  staples  are 
dispensed,  and  another  to  step  gaily 
up  to  the  booth  where  we  are  promised 
a  prize  in  every  package. 

That  is  a  lively  spot  just  now,  with 
some  very  good  people  taking  in  the 


money.  Mr.  Henry  Milner  Rideout 
was  once  a  Harvard  instructor,  but 
when  he  gave  up  daily-theming  for 
story-telling  and  even  when,  a  little 
later,  he  signed  up  on  the  bark  Ro- 
mance, it  does  not  seem  to  have  oc- 
curred to  him  to  throw  all  his  literary 
breeding  overboard.  The  ditty  of  Au- 
tolycus  beckons  us  to  our  present  jour- 
ney along  the  "foot-path  way"  of  ad- 
venture : 

A  merry  heart  goes  aU  the  day, 
Your  Bad  tires  In  a  mile-a. 

However,  literary  allusion  is  far  more 
rare  with  him  than  with  the  star  Sat- 
urday Evening  Posters,  whose  quaint 
usage  it  is  to  lug  in  bookish  locutions 
and  recondite  names,  especially  names 
from  classical  mjrthology,  to  flatter  if 
not  enlighten  the  million.  Mr.  Ride- 
out's  merit  is  elusive.  I  lay  down 
"Tin  Gowrie  Dass"  or  "The  Foot-Path 
Way", — ^not  so  different  in  matter 
from  the  usual  modem  kind  of  thing : 


682 


THE  BOOKMAN 


foreign  setting,  native  princes,  secret 
service  agents,  lovely  maidens  and  the 
rest, — I  turn  the  last  page  and  lay 
down  the  book  with  the  sense  of  hav- 
ing enjoyed  a  modest  work  of  art  in- 
stead of  having  been  merely  diverted 
by  a  pretentious  bag  of  tricks.  I  like 
his  story,  but  I  like  still  more  his  way 
of  telling  it,  his  freedom  from  the  slip- 
shod smartness  now  fairly  encouraged 
as  normal  by  editors  still  getting  pay- 
ore  from  the  vein  (or  the  tailings)  of 
the  Kipling-0.  Henry  tradition. 

Talbot  Mundy  is,  to  speak  rudely,  a 
from-Kipling  of  exceptional  quality. 
"The  Eye  of  Zeitoon"  has  most  of  the 
Kipling  tricks  and  some  of  the  Kipling 
virtues.  The  writer  has  a  gift  of  his 
own,  a  gift  of  sententious  verse  which 
is  often  more  than  verse.  One  of  the 
intercalary  bits  (mere  verse  this)  ex- 
presses, I  suppose,  his  sense  of  the 
world's  present  need  of  the  spirit  of 
healthy  romance.    It  begins: 

Oh,  all  the  world  is  sick  with  hate, 
And  who  shall  heal  it,  friend  o'  mine? 

And  ends: 

Oh,  for  the  wonderful  again — the  greatly 

daring,  friend  t*  mine! 
The  simply  gallant  blade  nnbought, 
The  soul  compassionate,  unsought, 
With  no  price  but  the  priceless  thought 
Nor  purpose  than  the  brave  design 
Of  giving  that  the  world  may  gain  I 

A  tale  of  four  young  men,  English  and 
American,  whose  joint  adventures  be- 
gin in  a  khan  outside  of  Tarsus,  and 
take  them  within  the  mountain  fast- 
ness of  an  Armenian  hill-people  at  the 
moment  of  a  Turkish  outbresJc  against 
the  ill-fated  race.  The  story  has  a 
timeliness  from  its  championship  of 
the  Armenian  character  and  potenti- 
alities. As  a  yarn,  it  drags  at  times, 
its  briskness  of  style  being  in  odd  con- 
trast with  the  sluggish  action. 

The  heathen  Chinee  seems  to  have 
been  the  favorite  figure  of  mystery  in 
recent  adventure  stories.     The  idea 


seems  to  be  that  East  is  East  and  West 
is  West;  and  that  what  is  xnore^  CSiimi 
is  China.  Be  careful  how  you  ramble 
at  large  in  the  interior  of  the  celestial 
republic;  and  look  out  for  your  laan- 
dryman, — ^he  may  be  the  head  of  a 
Tong,  or  a  sorcerer  or  something. 
'The  Chinese  Label"  and  ''The  Golden 
Scorpion"  are  more  or  less  hair-rais- 
ing tales  of  the  yellow  man  in,  as  the 
phrase  goes,  our  midst.  San  Antonio 
is  the  convenient  scene  of  the  interna- 
tional action  of  "The  Chinese  Label'', 
with  its  Turko-Chino-Mexican  vil- 
lainy, the  Italo-Armenian  adventuress 
(quite  a  nice  one),  the  smusrgled  dia- 
monds, and  the  masterful  American 
secret  agent.  There  is  also  a  charm- 
ing girl  provided  for  the  hero.  The 
whole  affair  is  treated  lightly,  with- 
out pretense  that  it  is  anything  more 
than  an  amusing  yam;  and  this  is  re- 
freshing. In  like  comfortable  key  also 
is  set  the  narrative  of  "Sailor  Girl", 
which  is  a  tale  of  white  rascality  and 
heroism  in  the  China  Seas.  Still  there 
are  plenty  of  Chinks  in  it,  one  in  par- 
ticular who  is  not  to  be  sneezed  at.  A 
satisfactory  adventure  -  comedy  -  ro- 
mance, stirring  enough  but  never  dis- 
tressing. There  are  perilous  moments, 
but  the  reader  feels  himself  in  capable 
hands,  and  "should  worry".  A  jolly 
and  virtuous  gambler  is  the  original 
figure  of  the  piece. 

"The  Golden  Scorpion"  and  "Hills 
of  Han"  are  more  heavy-handed  ro- 
mances of  the  yellow  man  and  the 
white.  The  former  is  a  frank  melo- 
drama of  intrigue.  The  Yellow  Scor- 
pion is  a  Master  Mind  who  plots  sa- 
tanically  for  world-domination  and 
comes  mighty  near  pulling  it  off.  He 
is  a  picturesque  Johnny  Chinaman  in 
a  green  veil.  As  for  his  methods,  let 
no  reviewer  profane  them  by  sum- 
mary. We  may  hint  that  they  are 
super-modem  and  scientific — ^very  hor- 


THE  WONDERFUL  AGAIN 


688 


rible  indeed,  though  duly  frustrated 
by  Scotland  Yard  and  M.  Gaston  Max 
of  Paris  (mon  Dieu!).  There  is  also 
the  adventuress-heroine  Miska  (more 
sinned  against  than  sinning)  and  a 
genuine  thug  from  the  place  where 
they  make  them  {Jey  Bhowanil  Yah 
AUah!)  Also  Le  Balafr^,  a  thor- 
oughly reprehensible  character  who 
only  gets  what  is  coming  to  him,  in 
the  cheerful  end.  "HiUs  of  Han"  is 
modestly  entitled  "a  romantic  inci- 
dent", which  is  a  good  enough  name 
for  the  contraption. 

My  reaction  against  Mr.  Merwin 
and  his  kind  of  work  is  that  it  pre- 
tends '  to  be  going  deeply  into  the 
springs  of  human  character  and  action 
while  its  real  basis  is  the  same  as  that 
of  Sister  Scheherezade  and  Brother 
Dumas,  who  needed  no  springs.  Mr. 
Merwin's  specialty  is  the  humorless 
hero  of  the  single-track  mind,  with  or 
without  genius.  In  the  present  tale 
there  are  a  pair  of  him,  like  the  two 
little  Evas  who  used  to  draw  us  to  the 
village  Opera  House  when  Uncle  Tom 
came  round  again.  There  is  a  strong, 
silent  missionary,  six  foot  five,  and 
there  is  a  strong,  silent,  and  system- 
atically unpleasant  grass  -  widower 
journalist  who  makes  and  unmakes 
love  to  the  missionary's  daughter  ac- 
cording to  the  dictates  of  his  gloomy 
egotism.  Neither  has  the  slightest 
sense  of  humor  or,  to  tell  the  truth, 
much  real  stability  of  character.  Both 
are  fond  of  saying  (to  poor  Betty) 
that  they  don't  care  what  happens  to 
them.  And  it  is  hard  to  forgive  the 
story-teller  for  expecting  us  to  care 
what  happens  to  the  Doane  of  Chapter 
VII  and  thereafter.  ''Real  life",  per- 
haps, that  chapter;  but  at  least  ut- 
terly out  of  place  in  "a  romantic  inci- 
dent". For  in  a  romance  you  have  to 
believe  in  human  dignity  and  decency 
or  there  is  "nothing  in  it".    As  for  the 


Chinese  atmosphere  and  personnel  of 
the  story,  one  may  accept  them  as 
sound — if  that  matters  in  a  story  of 
this  kind,  and  if  atmosphere  and  per- 
sonnel can  be  sound  when  the  action 
is  unsound  or  patently  artificial.  All 
this,  you  may  say,  is  the  breaking  of 
a  butterfly  on  the  clumsy  wheel  of 
criticism.  Mr.  Merwin  has  hatched 
some  delightful  butterflies ;  but  "Hills 
of  Han"  is  not  a  butterfly;  it  is  a  sort 
of  gilded  bat  with  the  butterfly  label. 

Egypt  is  the  scene  of  "The  Fortieth 
Door";  and  here  is  a  "romantic  inci- 
dent" carried  through  from  start  to 
finish  without  a  false  note,  though 
some  of  the  harmony  toward  the  end 
is,  as  it  were,  a  trifle  close.  The  final 
rescue  of  the  heroine  comes  perilously 
near  farce.  The  young  American 
would  seem  to  have  had  his  business 
well  enough  in  hand  by  that  time  to 
conclude  it  in  some  less  sensational 
and  doubt-provoking  way.  Still,  it 
wouldn't  do  for  him,  in  the  interests 
of  romantic  precedent,  to  steal  a  bride 
from  the  harem  (AbdoUiUah!)  with 
too  great  ease  and  simplicity.  Mrs. 
Bradley,  like  Mr.  j^ideout  and  Mr. 
Merwin,  has  done  more  serious  work 
than  this;  and  perhaps  the  trouble 
with  this  story  is  that  we  have  a  sense 
of  Mrs.  Bradley  the  interpreter  more 
or  less  contesting  Mrs.  Bradley  in  her 
present  rdle  of  entertainer.  She  means 
to  spin  a  yam,  but  she  can't  help  mftk- 
ing  her  people  more  than  half  real, — 
which  is  rather  a  nuisance  than  other- 
wise in  romance.  Perhaps  it  is  her 
consciousness  of  this  that  in  the  end 
brings  her  to  overdo  the  business  of 
the  escape — ^to  balance  matters  for  the 
reader  who  may  have  thought  there 
was  not  enough  doing.  A  rattling 
good  story  ought  to  rattle  all  the  time, 
I  suppose. 

The  rest  of  our  yams  depend  less  on 
outlandish    setting    and   atmosphere. 


684 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Most  of  them,  however,  contrive  to  get 
the  effect  of  remoteness.  The  semi- 
tropical  Florida  in  which  the  action  of 
"The  Plunderer"  goes  on  is  as  strange 
to  us  as  if  it  were  not  technically  un- 
der our  flag.  That  action  concerns  the 
fortunes  of  a  pair  of  honest  (and 
husky)  young  Northerners  who  ven- 
ture to  buck  a  bogus  land  company 
which  is  profitably  disposing  of 
Florida  swamp  to  small  customers  who 
are  never  permitted  to  see  what  they 
have  bought.  At  the  head  of  this  un- 
seemliness are  a  United  States  senator 
with  a  beautiful  and  virtuous  daugh- 
ter, and  one  Carman,  a  blond  beast  of 
a  man  who  virtually  rules  that  neck  of 
the  Florida  woods.  Young  Payne,  ro- 
mantic hero,  and  Higgins,  his  pal  and 
comic  relief,  have  their  hands  full, 
satisfactorily,  for  a  proper  length  of 
time ;  whereupon  the  hero  does  up  the 
villain  (lumberjack  style)  and  the  kiss 
curtain  comfortably  falls.  The  tale 
opens  with  a  frank  "come-hither"  ges- 
ture, we  step  gaily  with  our  guide 
over  the  border  of  humdrum  and  real- 
ity, and  there  we  are. 

"The  La  Chance  Mine  Mystery"  in- 
vites us  to  the  other  extreme  of  the 
great  American  outdoors,  the  land  of 
frozen  lakes  and  trading  posts,  and  of 
the  starving  wolf -packs  which  play  no 
small  part  in  this  story.  A  lot  of 
rough  weather  and  beasts  and  men,  of 
violence  and  chicanery,  with  the  one 
girl,  again  the  heroine  under  suspicion 
of  being  the  adventuress,  and  the  one 
noble  youth  who  thinks  he  must  not 
love  her  because  she  is  (maybe) 
pledged  to  another.  Oh,  yes,  and  a  vil- 
lain who  handily  passes  away  of  heart- 
failure  when  his  dirty  work  has  gone 
far  enough:  nothing  here  for  the 
lovers  of  lumberjack  combat.  How- 
ever, a  fight  with  wolves  and  quite  a 
bit  of  gun-play  provide  as  many  thrills 
as  most  readers  will  require.    The  tale 


is  well  told,  skilfully  settinsr  forUi  a 
highly  improbable  action  i^ithout  let- 
ting us  acknowledge  to  ourselveB, 
while  it  is  going  on,  that  it  is  absurd. 

"I'm  glad  to  be  able  to  tell  yoa**, 
says  the  hero  of  "The  Vanishin^r  Men" 
when  he  sets  out  to  solve  the  norsteiy 
upon  which  happiness  for  him  and  the 
ravishing  Brena  dutifully  hans^s,  "thai 
I  am  not  a  Master  Mind,  or  a  great 
Analyst  or  any  other  kind  of  a  red  or 
yellow  bound  sleuth.     I  didn't  even 
look  for  wireless  apparatus  in  Central 
Park  before  I  joined  the  army.    Spies 
and  mysteries  bore  me  to  death.*'    He 
is  only  a  millionaire  who   can   ride» 
shoot,  play  tennis  and  the  cello,  and 
is  a  very  fair  poet  at  odd  moments. 
His  creed  is  to  "live  for  the  sake  of 
living",  and  in  a  general  way  he  is 
looking  out  for  the  right  girl  to  help 
along  the  process,  without  very  much 
hope  of  finding  her.     Enter  Brena, 
surrounded  by  mystery.    A  beautiful 
creature,  half-Greek,  half-Irish,   and 
somehow  reminding  some  people  of  an 
Inca  princess.     The  millionaire  and 
she   promptly   love   each   other,    but 
Brena  doesn't  mean  to  let  matters  go 
beyond  that  first  long  kiss.    There  is 
something  wrong  about  her,  she  doesn't 
know  what.    Two  men  who  have  come 
into  her  life,  one  of  them  a  husband, 
have  suddenly  vanished,  been  wiped 
out.    Whether  she  is,  citizenly  speak- 
ing, a  jinx  or  a  vamp— that  is  the 
question  that  worries  her,  us,  and  the 
millionaire.    The  whole  problem  is  put 
and  solved  in  an  original  way,  and 
some  readers  will  be  grateful  for  a 
mystery  story  without  the  old  proper- 
ties and  machinery.    "The  Vanishing 
Men"  is  a  yarn  without  a  detective  or 
a  secret  service  agent  or  a  murder  or 
a  robbery  or  a  hidden  treasure  or  an 
act  of  violence. 

Many  of  the  familiar  materials  are 
present  in  "The  Secret  of  Sarek",  in- 


THE  WONDERFUL  AGAIN 


586 


eluding  the  Master  Criminal  and  the 
Master  Sleuth.  We  who  recall  the 
earlier  exploits  of  M.  Ars^ne  Lupin 
realize  comfortably  from  the  outset 
that  the  Master  Criminal,  whoever  he 
is,  hasn't  more  than  the  ghost  of  a 
show.  Still,  we  are  sure  that  we  and 
M.  Ars^ne  are  going  to  have  a  fair  run 
for  our  money.  At  the  centre  of  the 
problem  is  the  usual  beautiful  female 
with  a  shadow  upon  her  past.  The 
principal  scene  is  an  island  under  a 
curse,  seat  of  an  ancient  cult  of  which, 
but  for  a  few  persons,  only  a  vague 
legend  remains.  But  there  is  a  tradi- 
tion of  hidden  treasure,  and  in  par- 
ticular of  a  mysterious  talisman,  a 
"God-Stone  which  gives  life  and 
death".  And  there  is  a  prophecy  con- 
necting the  recovery  of  the  treasure 
and  the  God-Stone  with  various  por- 
tents including  "thirty  victims  for 
thirty  coffins"  and  "four  women  cruci- 
fied on  tree".  Clearly  an  unhealthy 
place,  Sarek.  How  everybody  gets  to- 
gether there,  and  how  and  why  the 
prophecy  is  fulfilled  without  too  great 
discomfort  for  the  people  we  care 
about  and  to  the  proper  confusion  of 
the  villain  and  his  minions,  is  the  sub- 
stance of  an  amusing  tale.  Utterly 
preposterous,  thank  heaven ! . . . 

"The  White  Moll"  presents  a  female 
counterpart  or  version  of  Jimmy  Dale, 
by  the  author  of  that  popular  hero  of 
underworld  adventure.  The  setting  is 
the  metropolitan  jungle  which  serves 
as  well  for  romantic  adventure,  under 
the  hands  of  a  deft  story-teller,  as  any 
far-fetched  wilderness.  The  gunmen 
and  gunwomen  who  may  at  any  mo- 
ment be  passing  us  on  our  daily  walk 
have,  as  it  were,  a  more  intimate 
charm  than  the  desperadoes  of  foreign 
parts  or  of  our  own  more  or  less  fabu- 
lous plains  life.  The  White  Moll  and 
her  Adventurer  possess,  as  we  are  to 
discover  in  due  course,  their  own  rea- 


sons for  implication  in  this  melodrama 
of  the  underworld,  which  leads  us 
through  strange  byways  to  the  ap- 
pointed end.  If  a  thrill  on  every  page 
is  any  consideration,  here  you  have  it. 

In  "The  Doctor  of  Pimlico"  we  seem 
to  take  a  step  backward  into  the  near 
past,  when  a  detective  story  was  meas- 
ured frankly  by  the  intricate  construc- 
tion of  its  plot,  and  the  style  might  be 
as  crude  as  you  please.  Once  more,  in 
this  fabrication,  the  ancient  ingredi- 
ents are  trotted  out  and  remixed  to 
taste —  to  somebody's  taste,  I  suppose. 
Ho!  for  the  Master  Criminal  posing 
as  an  honest  citizen,  with  a  gang  of  in- 
ternational outlaws  as  his  tools:  and 
ho!  for  the  Maltwood-Petherston 
sleuth  who  is  also  a  person  of  double 
life.  Why  shouldn't  a  professional 
writer  of  mystery  stories  be  able  on 
occasion  to  make  life  miserable  for  a 
real  criminal  against  whom  the  Pink- 
ertons  or  Scotland  Yard  have  pitted 
themselves  in  vain? 

"Taxi",  "Wanted:  A  Husband", 
and  "The  Gate  of  Fulfillment"  belong 
rather  to  the  order  of  romantic  com- 
edy than  to  the  order  of  mystery-ad- 
venture. But  mystification,  at  least, 
plays  a  considerable  part  in  their  ac- 
tion. Viewed  seriously,  "Taxi"  is  a 
piece  of  sheer  absurdity;  but  it  is  not 
written  for  the  serious  view.  Still, 
merely  as  a  piece  of  deliberate  non- 
sense, I  don't  find  it  remarkably  suc^ 
cessful.  Its  gaiety  is  not  quite  spon- 
taneous; and  if  we  are  once  more  to 
be  amused  by  the  urban  gambols  of  & 
young  aristocrat  in  disguise,  the  trick 
must  be  skilfully  done.  We  imagine 
this  author  saying,  "Come,  I'll  have  a 
try  at  that  kind  of  thing";  and  that 
kind  of  thing  is  all  he  has  succeeded  in 
producing.  "Wanted :  A  Husband"  is 
a  comedy  built  frankly  on  a  novel  situ- 
ation. The  nature  of  it  is  suggested 
in  the  ' Vant-ad"  printed  on  the  book- 


586 


THE  BOOKMAN 


jacket:  ''Unmarried  lady  on  honey- 
moon desires  temporary  husband. 
Must  have  tact,  amiability,  capacity 
for  self-effacement,  and  British  accent. 
Apply  Parlor  Car  13,  G.  C.  Station." 
Thenceforth  the  questions  for  the 
curious  reader  are.  What  led  up  to  the 
printing  of  such  an  advertisement, 
and.  What  came  of  it  ?  And  these  ques- 
tions Mr.  Adams  proceeds  to  answer 
with,  as  it  seems  to  me,  somewhat  la- 
borious sprightliness.  But  it  may  be 
my  mood  or  capacity  that  is  lacking, 
and  not  Mr.  Adams's  pen.  The  situa^ 
tion  in  "The  Gate  of  Fulfillment"  is 
also  precipitated  by  an  advertisement, 
too  long  to  quote,  in  which  an  invalid 
gentleman  of  Boston  or  vicinity  calls 
for  a  lady  of  transcendent  virtues  and 
accomplishments  to  act  as  his  secre- 
tary-companion. A  certain  lonely  and 
cultivated  widow  in  the  Middle  West 
answers  it,  not  to  the  invalid-gentle- 
man's satisfaction.  But  her  acid  re- 
tort to  his  snub  rouses  his  interest, 
and  a  correspondence  begins  which 
presently  grows  warmer  and  yet 
warmer,  till  it  has  become  more  than 
friendly  on  both  sides.  Meanwhile 
the  widow  has  slicked  back  her  hair 
and  taken  the  actual  job  in  the  char- 
acter of  a  prim  spinster.  She  plays 
her  part  so  well,  on  the  surface,  that 
the  invalid-gentleman  doesn't  realize 


that  he  is  presently  half  in  love  with 
the  person  she  really  is:  he  depends 
for  more  than  his  bodily  comfort  on 
"Miss  Pratt",  while  making  ardent 
epistolary  love  to  the  Margaret  Bev- 
ington  who  signs  the  letters.  It  is  a 
great  relief  to  him  in  the  end  when  he 
finds  that  he  loves  one  woman  instead 
of  two,  which  has  been  inconvenient 
and  more  or  less  disturbing.  The 
story  is  told  through  letters :  a  method 
theoretically  discredited,  I  believe,  but 
always  effective  when  it  is  well  done. 
The  style  is  pretty  flowery  in  spots, 
less  acceptable  than  Mr.  Adams's ;  but 
the  "idea"  is  quite  as  good  as  his. 


The  Footh-Path  Way.  By  Henry  MUner 
Rideout.    Duf&eld  and  Co. 

The  Eye  of  Zeitoon.  By  Talbot  Mundy.  The 
BobbB-Merrill  Co. 

The  Chinese  Label.  By  J.  Frank  Dayla. 
Little.  Brown  and  Co. 

The  Golden  Scorpion.  By  Sax  Rohmer. 
Robert  M.  McBride  and  Co. 

Sailor  Olrl.  By  Frederick  F.  Moore.  D.  Ap- 
pleton  and  Co. 

Hills  of  Han.  By  Samuel  C.  Merwin.  The 
Bobbs-Merrill  Co. 

The  Fortieth  Door.  By  Mary  Hastings  Brad- 
ley.    D.  Appleton  and  Co. 

The  Plunderer.  By  Henry  Oyen.  George  H. 
Doran  Company. 

The  La  Chance  Mine  Mystery.  By  S.  Carle- 
ton.     Little,  Brown  and  Co. 

The  Vanishing  Men.  By  Richard  Washburn 
Child.     B.  P.  Dutton  and  Co. 

The  Secret  of  Sarek.  By  Maurice  Le  Blanc. 
The  Macaulay  Co. 

The  White  Moll.  By  Frank  L.  Packard. 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 

The  Doctor  of  Pimlico.  By  William  Le- 
Queux.     The  Macaulay  Co. 

Taxi.  By  George  Agnew  Chamberlain.  The 
Bobbs-Merrill  Co. 

Wanted :  A  Husband.  By  Samuel  Hopkins 
Adams.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

The  Gate  of  Fulfillment.  By  Knowles  Bids- 
dale.     G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 


DIETARY  LAWS  OP  CHILDREN'S  BOOKS 


BY  MONTROSE  J.  MOSES 


HAVE  you  ever  seen  a  child  with 
book  indigestion,  with  a  mental 
rash  due  to  the  reading  of  oversac- 
charine  stories,  with  a  coated  tongue 
caused  by  a  degradation  of  taste? 
Such  ailments  are  found  every  day 
among  boys  and  girls.  Yet  we  are 
blind  to  these  insidious  diseases. 
There  is  no  reason  why  laws  should 
protect  the  food  one  eats,  and  fail  to 
protect  the  books  one  reads.  The 
chemical  action  on  the  brain  of  a  bad 
book  is  just  as  harmful  as  the  disin- 
tegrating force  of  an  ill-smelling  cut 
of  beef  in  the  stomach.  The  only  dif- 
ference is  that  in  the  latter  case  we 
are  quick  to  note  the  danger;  while 
in  the  former  case  we  are  not  clever 
enough  to  measure  the  harm.  Nature, 
strange  to  say,  has  not  protected  the 
brain  with  any  apparent  guardian  at 
its  portals;  whereas,  there  are  an  in- 
finite number  of  fortresses  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  stomach.  There  is  no 
mental  nose  to  cry  "Halt". 

Here,  then,  is  A  new  subject  for  the 
immediate  consideration  of  quantita- 
tive and  qualitative  chemists.  Did 
they  ever  consider  that  a  book  was 
possessed  of  calories  and  proteins  to 
as  pronounced  a  degree  as  food  prod- 
ucts; that  there  are  bacteria  multi- 
plying as  rapidly  in  innocuous  or  in- 
surgent literature  as  in  a  stagnant 
swamp;  that,  in  many  stories  for  the 
young,  the  waste  material  predomi- 
nates so  enormously  as  to  enervate  the 


nervous  system?  The  brain  gets  worn 
out  by  such  dead  weight.  What  a 
parent  reads  naturally  affects  the  first 
literary  reaching-out  of  a  very  young 
child,  just  as  much  as  what  a  mother 
eats  affects  the  mother's  milk.  More 
and  more,  there  is  a  crying  need  for  an 
Institute  of  Bookteriology,  where  a 
parent  may  go  and  see  the  test-tubes 
of  literature,  find  a  record  of  the  tem- 
peratures of  adventure  stories,  and 
other  important  things  pertaining  to 
reading  of  children. 

I  can  imagine  no  better  opportunity 
than  to  be  able  to  say  to  a  Book  Chem- 
ist: "Let  me  see  tube  10,578,  contain- 
ing the  essence  of  'Percy's  Reliques'. 
My  boy's  imagination  is  not  gaining 
strength;  his  blood  is  not  warmed  to 
the  pitch  which  makes  his  courage 
equal  to  the  emergencies  of  life.  The 
doctor  has  prescribed  an  undiluted 
dose  of  'Chevy  Chase',  of  'The  Jew's 
Daughter',  of  'Robin  Hood'.  Please 
tell  me  what  are  the  ingredients  of 
this  ballad  dose?"  Then  you  would 
be  handed  a  card  on  which  would  be 
tabulated  the  percentages  of  solid  mat- 
ter, of  spiritual  reactions.  In  this 
way  you  could  see  for  yourself  the 
kind  of  books  which  are  energy  pro- 
ducers, muscle  formers,  and  you 
would  then  go  to  a  bookstore  with 
more  confidence,  with  an  assured  feel- 
ing that  the  Pure  Book  Law  was  on 
the  road  to  being  an  established  fact. 

What  a  hub-bub  there  is  in  a  family 


687 


688 


THE  BOOKMAN 


when  the  Grade  A  milk,  or  the  whole- 
wheat bread,  or  the  dressed  beef  is  not 
up  to  standard.  The  papers  hear 
about  it,  and  there  is  a  congressional 
investigation !  But  how  about  the  bi- 
chloride of  mercury  stories  swallowed 
by  the  child  without  causing  any  con- 
sternation ;  how  about  the  adulterated 
sweet  romances  the  girl  gorges  herself 
with!  You  really  don't  care  about 
these!  But,  let  me  assure  you,  the 
proper  blend  of  a  juvenile  story  is  of 
as  vital  importance  as  the  proper  blend 
of  adult  tea.  The  science  of  Bookteri- 
ology  is  an  urgent  necessity. 

Let  us  forestall  a  systematic  dietary 
study  of  books  by  a  few  notes  made  in 
the  vital  realm  of  the  nursery.  It  is 
just  as  well  to  follow  closely  the  tried 
science  of  food  analysis.  There  is  very 
little  difference  in  philosophy  between 
the  two.  What  the  child  eats  affects 
his  physical  development;  what  the 
child  reads  either  enlarges  or  stunts 
his  mental  development.  So  there  you 
are. 

It  is  essential  that  parents  familiar- 
ize themselves  with  a  knowledge  of 
what  is  the  proper  brain  nutrition  for 
children  of  different  ages.  They  must 
understand  the  fuel  values  of  books, 
their  building-up  power,  and  the 
amount  of  energy  they  infuse  in  char- 
acter.   Note,  therefore,  the  following: 

The  fuel  value  of  a  book  depends  upon  the 
amount  of  actual  nutrients  in  the  stories. 
Without  too  much  experiment,  but  a  great  deal 
of  observation,  it  is  possible  to  see :  a.  That 
the  warmth  of  the  Bible  unadulterated,  is 
greater  than  any  of  its  retold  forms,  b.  That 
Shakespeare  himself  is  more  easily  understood 
than  the  over-detailed  prosing  of  Shakespeare, 
unless  it  be  Charles  Lamb,  whose  love  for  the 
plays  made  him  desire  to  inculcate  the  same 
love  in  children,  c.  That  the  ballads,  with 
their  spirited  swing,  are  more  energizing  than 
their  bare  story  robbed  of  their  rhyme,  rhythm, 
and  reason. 

If  you  wish  to  test  this  out  yodrself , 
you  only  have  to  place  a  good  copy  of 
collected  Ballads,  one  or  two  of  Shake- 


speare's chronicle  plays  (not  school  edi- 
tions), and  some  of  the  militant  books 
of  the  Bible  in  a  room  with  a  boy  or 
girl,  and,  granting  a  healthy  atmos- 
phere, interest  will  incubate  quickly. 
People  often  say  that  "Pilgrim's  Progr- 
ress"  is  food  caviare  to  the  young. 
This  is  merely  because  the  appetite 
has  been  sated  and  the  imagination 
dulled  by  more  filling  but  less  eflSca- 
cious  food.  Which  brings  us  to  an  im- 
portant fact: 

It  must  be  thoroughly  understood  that  appe- 
tite satisfied  by  quantity  is  not  the  same  as 
appetite  appeased  by  quality.  The  latter  is  tbe 
healthy  condition.  Seven  of  Altsheler's  books, 
read  in  succession — "The  Young  Trailers",  "The 
Texan  Scouts",  "The  Riflemen  of  the  Ohio", 
"The  Free  Rangers",  and  so  on,  are  surpassed  by 
feasting  on  one  boolE  like  Noah  Brooks's  **The 
Boy  Emigrants"  or  "The  Boy  Settlers".  Have 
any  set  of  "Desert  Isle"  stories  ever  surpassed  the 
red  vitality  of  "Robinson  Crusoe"  or  "The  Swiss 
Family  Robinson"?  Has  the  raciness  of  Feni- 
more  Cooper  been  overshadowed  by  any  of  the 
Indian  tales  of  Kirk  Munroe  or  of  W.  O.  Stod- 
dard? We  know  that  there  are  different  de- 
grees of  excellence  in  the  cuts  of  meat,  the 
older  slices,  like  "The  Last  of  the  Mohicans*'  or 
"The  Deerslayer",  being  not  quite  as  succulent 
to  modern  taste  as  Stoddard's  "The  Red  Mus- 
tang", "The  Talking  Leaves",  "Two  Arrows"; 
but  in  the  long  run  Cooper  "keeps"  better  (to 
use  a  refrigerating  term). 

This  matter  of  energy  in  books  is  a 
most  important  consideration.  The 
children's  classics  persist  from  gen- 
eration to  generation  because  of  their 
carrying  power.  But  the  average 
modem  book  for  boys  and  girls  moves 
only  when  it  is  commercially  pushed. 
It  is  worth  while  observing  that: 

The  energy  given  off  by  the  Puritan  mind, 
after  training  in  the  "New  England  Primer", 
could  be  counted  upon  in  the  formation  of  ac- 
tion for  good ;  but  the  lukewarm  morality  of 
the  present  Juvenile  book  does  not  create  suf- 
ficient friction  in  the  mind  to  give  young  read- 
ers any  comprehensive  understanding  of  con- 
duct as  good  or  bad.  The  end  justifies  the 
means  more  often  than  is  healthy. 

In  the  young,  the  delicate  tissues  of 
imagination  should  not  be  allowed  to 
become  threadbare  in  spots,  for  fear  of 
their  being  moth-worn  through  life. 


DIETARY  LAWS  OF  CHILDREN'S  BOOKS 


589 


They  should  be  strengthened  and 
made  humanly  pliable  by  the  calories 
and  proteins  of  real  book  foodstuffs. 
Which  brings  us  to  this  almost  self- 
evident  principle: 

The  waste  of  Juvenile  mind  materials  can  be 
prevented  by  determining  the  proportions  of 
calories  and  proteins  In  such  stories  as  "Rob 
Roy"  and  "Redgauntlet",  for  instance,  by  Wal- 
ter Scott,  as  compared  with  the  same  Ingredi- 
ents in  any  one  of  Henty's  historical  stories. 
In  the  bookstores  the  latter  is  offered  as  "Just 
as  good",  but  don't  you  believe  it ! 

The  question  of  digesting  a  book  is 
one  that  has  not  received  sufficient 
consideration  in  the  nursery.  If  a 
story  is  appetizing  and  wholesome, 
well-flavored  with  a  style  which  is  a 
part  of  its  vigor,  then  there  is  a  rapid 
flow  of  interest  which  will  be  the 
mental  saliva  for  its  immediate  con- 
sumption. Such  literary  food  is  easily 
chewed,  and  is  preferable  to  the  emas- 
culated editions  put  forth  in  packages 
of  "just  as  easy".  Malnutrition  is 
caused  by  the  latter.  Stories  that  are 
boiled  down  are  often  boiled  away; 
stories  that  are  steeped  in  sensation, 
should  be  roasted  by  the  critics  before 
they  get  near  the  nursery.  There  are, 
therefore,  different  ways  of  preparing 
book  food  for  girls  and  boys,  accord- 
ing to  their  ages.  It  is  apparent  to 
any  discriminating  person  that: 

A  baby  does  not  need  as  many  calories  as  a 
boy  of  twelve,  either  in  food  or  in  books. 
Hence,  library  lists  for  different  ages.  But 
even  infants  may  suffer  from  malnutrition  of 
the  mind,  eye,  and  ear.  The  old  time  mother's 
lullaby  is  better  than  the  ragtime  cradle  song 
by  Irving  Berlin ;  "Mother  Goose"  better  than 
"Foxy  Grandpa'*  and  "The  Katsenjammer 
Kids"  ;  the  reticent  coloring  of  Caldecott,  Kate 
Greenaway,  Boutet  de  Monvel  better  than  the 
colored  supplement  of  the  newspaper.  An  in- 
fant read  to.  shown  pictures,  sung  to,  is  storing 
up  experience.  We  ask.  Is  syncopation  psy- 
chologically as  comforting  as  the  old  folk 
songs?  And  reading  through  lK>oks  of  Jingles, 
we  wonder  what  has  become  of  the  recipes  for 
the  verses  our  great-great-great-grandauthors 
use  to  write.  For  bottle  literature  commend  me 
"Mother  Goose"! 

While  we  are  on  the  subject  of 
babies,  it  is  just  as  well  to  remark 


that  habits  of  literary  diet  are  early 
formed  and  easily  formed.  Hence,  it 
is  important  that  book  feeding  be 
early  determined.  Not  many  meals  a 
day  in  the  first  stages,  for  throughout 
the  infant  years  we  believe  it  as  neces- 
sary to  get  away  from  books  as  to  get 
to  them.  We  therefore  recommend 
the  reestablishment  of  the  Children's 
Hour.  This  has  been  wrongly  inter- 
preted by  the  influx  of  Bed  Time 
Stories.  One  might  just  as  well  have 
Ulysses  and  Armada  Stories  for  the 
bath.  Or  perhaps  the  "Water  Babies"  I 
To  put  a  child  to  sleep  by  reading  to 
him  means  that  you  are  feeding  him 
when  his  literary  digestive  organs  are 
at  their  lowest  ebb.  Grownup  selfish- 
ness invented  such  sedatives  for  the 
mind.  But  the  boy  to  whom  Uncle 
Remus  recounted  the  adventures  of 
Brer  Rabbit  and  Brer  Fox  was  alert 
and  on  the  lookout  for  adventure — ^he 
didn't  wish  to  be  soothed  to  rest; 
neither  was  Charles  Perrault's  son 
anxious  to  fall  asleep  just  at  the  ex- 
citing point  in  the  story  of  "Sleeping 
Beauty"  or  "Cinderella",  when  first  told 
to  him  in  the  days  of  Louis  XIV.  It  is  a 
common  dietary  law  that  one  should 
not  be  too  stimulated  before  sleeping. 
But  it  is  a  pernicious  literary  custom 
to  dilute  stories  for  bedtime — ^the 
"pap"  literature  which  our  kindergar- 
tens heretofore  encouraged,  and  which 
our  mothers  are  now  buying  as  so 
much  literary  "dope"  for  the  young. 
Brain  energy  should  be  conserved. 
Which  suggests  the  following: 

To  oxidize  a  book  in  the  mind*  there  is  re- 
quired the  full  development  and  flow  of  appre- 
ciation. Otherwise,  if  a  chUd  feels  forced  to 
read  a  book,  mental  energy  is  wasted.  It  takes 
Just  as  much  physical  exertion  to  read  a  poor 
book  as  to  read  a  good  one,  without  the  stretch- 
ing process  which  the  best  invites.  Any  test 
will  show  that  the  eye  strain,  attention  and 
time  given  to  the  reading  of  the  average  college 
story  by  Pier  or  Barbour  or  Heyliger  are  equal 
to  the  energy  used  up  in  the  reading  of  "Tom 
Brown  at  Rugby"  and  "Tom  Brown  at  Oxford**. 


590 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Bat  there  Is  no  queetion  as  to  which  is  the 
superior  article.  This  same  conservation  is 
imminent  in  the  classics.  The  taste  for  Plu- 
tarch has  been  dulled  by  the  boneless  retelling ; 
the  liquid  Are  of  Homer  has  evaporated,  and 
there  are  the  dregs  of  an  occasionally  simplified 
"Iliad*'  and  "Odyssey" :  the  green  freshness  of 
the  Greek  god  legends  has  become  the  dried 
soreness  of  the  school  leaflet. 

WhUe  it  is  true  that  fever  heat  in 
the  brain  has  landed  many  a  boy  in  the 
Children's  Court,  and  while  educa- 
tional methods  have  advocated  liter- 
ary leeches  to  suck  the  savage  blood 
from  our  racial  legends  and  legendary 
history,  still  the  cause  for  abnormal 
juvenile  temperature  must  be  laid  at 
the  right  door;  for  the  literary  in- 
heritance of  the  race  must  be  pro- 
tected. King  Arthur  has  never  yet 
made  a  thief;  but,  as  told  in  versions 
"just  as  good"  as  the  "Morte  D' Ar- 
thur", he  has  never  inspired  the  boy 
with  chivalry.  It  takes  the  Boy  Scout 
doctrine  to  make  the  modem  knight. 
The  unnatural  caloric  heat  of  the  dime 
novel,  of  the  kinetic  moving-picture, 
has  produced  an  unnatural  tension  on 
juvenile  nerves.  King  Arthur  in 
search  of  the  Grail  must  compete  with 
desperadoes  robbing  a  stage  coach.  In 
other  words,  to  the  modem  child,  the 
force  of  action,  of  external  sugges- 
tion, exceeds  the  force  of  character  in 
his  literature.  What  are  all  the 
winged  beings  of  the  air,  Queen  Mab 
threading  her  way  with  gossamer 
lightness,  Lucifer  in  his  Miltonic  de- 
scent from  heaven,  beside  the  modem 
adventure  of  the  aeroplane?  In  other 
words,  our  literature,  as  it  is  taught 
in  the  schools,  creates  the  idea  that 
there  is  no  "pep"  in  ancient  literature. 
The  question  is,  therefore,  how  can  we 
peptonize  good  books  so  they  will  be 
in  favor  again,  and  win  out  in  this 
competition  with  the  yearly  demo- 
cratic mass  of  juvenile  stories?  The 
safe  road  to  follow  is  to  delete  from 
our  schools  the  deadened  study  of  the 
big  books  of  the  ages,  and  substitute 


instead  appreciation,  as  a  fine,  a  nec- 
essary art.  "Hamlet"  or  ''Julius  C»- 
sar",  with  notes,  means  the  notes  with 
"Hamlet"  and  "Julius  CsBsar^  left 
out;  required  class  reading  produces 
an  unhealthy  mental  sweat  from 
which  the  child  will  have  dire  after- 
effects. 

A  continued  diet  of  one  type  of  book 
is  likely  permanently  to  injure   the 
taste.     Too  many  weepy  stories   de- 
pletes the  tear  duct,  and  blinds  the 
young  reader  to  the  real  tragedies  of 
life,  such  as  one  finds  in  "King  Lear^, 
and  other  essential  book  stuffs  for  a 
later  culture.    It  is  imperative  to  vary 
the  appetite,  to  offset  any  special  ten- 
dencies in  juvenile  readers  by  other 
healthy  books.     The  boy  who  would 
build  flying  machines  all  day,  must  be 
made  to  fly  an  hour  or  two  in  ima^rina- 
tive  literature;  a  girl  who  would  learn 
how  to  sweep  a  room  in  a  manual 
school  of  training  must  be  also  taught 
to  sweep  her  brain  of  cobwebs.     He 
who  dwells  too  much  in  the  realm  of 
make-believe  is  likely  to  have  an  in- 
flamed imagination.    Anyone  can  tell 
without  asking  to  see  his  tongue  what 
was  the  matter  with  the  boy  who  con- 
templated a  primrose  by  the  river's 
brim :  he  was  suffering  from  imagina- 
tive adenoids — a  growth  which  is  lia- 
ble to  take  root  when  the  child  is  given 
his  first  picture-books,  especially  the 
kindergarten  species  of  picture-book. 

How  often  have  you  met  with  the 
statement,  "The  writer  knows  a  boy 
who  is  made  seriously  ill  by  eating 
eggs"?  Why,  I  know  many  boys 
whose  digestions  are  irretrievably  im- 
paired by  the  mere  shell  of  a  story, 
without  any  food  stuff  in  it:  causing 
a  literary  flatulency  which  is  liable  to 
run  its  course  through  old  age.  Such 
books  are  themselves  diseased  and 
should  be  guarded  against. 

The  bacteriology  of  children's  books 


IN  A  CITY  PARK 


is  another  branch  of  the  subject  de- 
manding the  utmost  consideration. 
The  "success"  germ  stimulates  a  false 
flow  of  youthful  enthusiasm  and  emu- 
lation; the  "snob"  virus  circulates 
freely  through  the  plot  of  many  school 
stories;  the  "social  bee"  stings  the 
mind  of  many  a  girl  reader,  resulting 
in  an  exaggerated  point  of  view. 
These  germs  are  due  to  errors  in  writ- 
ing; such  book  errors  may  produce 
mental  gastric  trouble. 

From  this  discussion,  it  will  be  seen 
that,  as  soon  as  experiment  is  carried 
far  enough,  an  exact  science  of  Book- 
teriology  will  be  the  result.  Even 
now,  the  specialist  in  the  children's 
room  of  the  public  library  can  give 
parents  many  simple  home  remedies 


for  such  juvenile  book  ailm 
"abnormal  taste",  "adventur 
ver",  "sensitive  nerves",  "r 
measles",  "practical  restlessnes 
movie  thirst",  "brain  ansemia 
ical  deterioration", — ^all  causec 
parent's  not  attending  to  the 
tary  dietary  laws.  The  best 
medicine-chest  a  mother  can  I 
such  infant  troubles  is  a  book 
the  nursery,  with  a  carefully 
row  of  red-blooded,  energy-: 
sympathy-creating  poems,  stoi 
legends.  Looking  on  the  boo! 
in  the  nurseries  of  many  homi 
their  low  degrees  of  calories  £ 
teins,  I  feel  like  marking  the 
material  found  there,  "Poison, 
poison!" 


IN  A  CITY  PARK 


BY  AMELIA  JOSEPHINE  BURR 


WE  laughed  together  in  the  sunset  glow 
On  the  cool  slope.    Across  the  grassy  flat 
We  saw  him  coming  toward  us,  in  his  hand 
A  bunch  of  late  wild  violets  held  tight. 
Slowly  and  wearily  he  walked  and  fanned 
His  wistful  sallow  face  with  his  straw  hat. 
He  looked  long  at  us — ^then  upon  a  stone 
At  the  hill's  foot,  he  rested  with  his  head 
Bowed  in  the  shelter  of  his  hands,  alone. 
While  the  sky  darkened  and  the  moon  shone  white. 
I  wanted  to  go  down  to  where  he  sat 
And  say  to  him — Brother,  I  know;  I  know! 
I  would  have  gone,  had  I  not  also  known 
That  hidden  face  could  not  be  comforted 
Save  by  God's  patient  ministers,  the  years. 
When  he  went  away  into  the  night 
My  heart  went  with  him  step  for  step ;  I  knew 
That  from  the  same  etemid  springy  Life  drew 
Our  laughter  and  his  tears. 


LOOKING  AHEAD  WITH  THE  PUBLISHERS 


"YY/HILE  the  three  hundredth  anni- 
W  versary  of  the  Pilgrim  landing 
has  brought  forth  many  and  various 
books  on  those  pioneer  days,  thinking 
men  and  women  of  today  are  more  apt 
to  read  with  serious  interest  a  book 
which  applies  our  past  history  to  our 
present  needs,  a  book  like  "The  New 
Frontier",  by  Guy  Emerson.  For,  in 
the  last  analysis,  the  history  of  the 
past  can  be  important  only  in  so  far  as 
it  bears  on  our  present  needs  and  fu- 
ture hopes.  Mr.  Emerson  is,  appar- 
ently, a  very  modem,  hard-working, 
quick  -  thinking  young  man.  The 
youngest  bank  vice-president  in  New 
York  at  the  time  of  his  election  to  the 
National  Bank  of  Commerce  in  1916, 
he  had  already  done  big  things  in  na- 
tional affairs.  He  was  the  founder  of 
the  Roosevelt  Non-Partisan  League 
and  secretary  and  moving  spirit  of  the 
Liberty  Loan  publicity  campaign  in 
the  2nd  Federal  Reserve  District.  His 
first  literary  endeavor,  "The  New 
Frontier",  soon  to  be  published  by 
Henry  Holt  and  Company,  is  quite 
evidently  the  product  of  a  close  study 
of  affairs  governmental  and — ^to  use 
a  clumsy  term — sociological.  In  it  he 
points  out  a  rather  original  analogy 
between  the  wilderness  our  forefa- 
thers had  to  combat  and  the  new  and 
trackless  frontier  of  national  and  in- 
ternational problems  upon  whose  bor- 
ders we  now  stand.  In  their  conquest 
we  will,  he  claims,  need  the  same  im- 
agination  and   originality   of   treat- 


ment, the  same  keenness  of  mind  and 
stoutness  of  heart  that  brou^rht  our 
grandfathers  and  their  grandfatheni 
before  them  through  to  victory.     Un- 
doubtedly   Mr.    Emerson    is    rigrht — 
everyone  will  agree  with  him  there. 
But  unfortunately  the  pioneer's  moc- 
casin will  not  accommodate  the  corns 
and  bunions  of  our  present  woes.    The 
author  is  a  pronounced  liberal  and  sets 
as  his  axiom,  for  both  men  and  gov- 
ernments, "Keep  the  middle  of  the 
road".    He  is  again  undoubtedly  right, 
but  where,  alas,  is  the  middle  of  the 
road?     To  the  liberal  it  is  between 
the  radical  and  the  conservative;  to  the 
conservative,  between  the  liberal  and 
the  reactionary ;  to  the  reactionary,  be- 
tween the  conservative  and — ^let  us  say 
— the  founding  of  Christianity.    This 
new  frontier  has  neither  roads  nor 
trails.     While  there  are  many  who  wiD 
not  concede  to  Mr.  Emerson  his  conclu- 
sions, his  major  premises  are,  praises 
be,  unassailable.     The  United  States 
of  today  has  the  stamina  of  the  old 
pioneers ;  its  hundred  millions  do  still 
seek  the  same  liberty  of  person  and 
spirit  for  which  they  sought ;  we  tinB, 
by  the  grace  of  God  and  much  strug- 
gle,   assure   the   continuance   of   the 
same  high  principles  which  were  their 

goal  in  other,  simpler  days. 

«  «  «  « 

Working  toward  a  solution  of  -the 
same  problems  considered  by  Mr. 
Emerson,  but  more  concretely.  Otto 
H.  Kahn  is  publishing  through  George 


592 


LOOKING  AHEAD  WITH  THE  PUBLISHERS 


598 


H.  Doran  Company  a  book  on  "Our 
Economic  and  Other  Problems",  Mr. 
Kahn  limits  himself  to  a  careful  study 
of  the  nation's  present  ills,  and  goes 
with  characteristic  directness  to  the 
sorest  points.  Speaking  of  the  rail- 
roads he  says,  "When  the  Government 
undertakes  business,  the  result  usually 
is  that  it  does  indeed  become  an  'un- 
dertaker'      The  two  things,  i.  e., 

private  management  and  permanent 
Government  guarantee  of  earnings, 
are  simply  not  reconcilable.  The  rail- 
roads cannot  eat  their  cake  and  have 
it.  You  cannot  rent  your  house  to 
some  one  and  then  expect  to  be  mas- 
ter in  your  house Why  unneces- 
sarily bid  up  the  price  against  our- 
selves by  extending  the  scope  of  gov- 
ernmental activities  beyond  the  field 
which  naturally  belongs  to  them?" 
He  is  no  less  frank  in  his  attitude 
toward  our  present  system  of  taxa- 
tion. "Wrong  economics,  however 
well  intentioned,  have  been  more  fruit- 
ful of  harm  to  the  people  than  almost 
any  other  single  act  of  government. . . . 
Enterprise  is  hampered  by  the  taxa- 
tion now  in  force  and  thereby  pro- 
duction retarded. . . .  The  excess  profit 
tax  and,  by  reason  of  the  kind  and 
manner  of  its  graduation,  the  income 
tax,  instead  of  promoting  restraint  in 
expenditures,  are  rather  breeders  of 
extravagance. ...  It  lays  a  heavy  and 
clumsy  hand  on  successful  business 
activity.  It  is  grossly  inequitable  in 
its  effects.  It  puts  a  fine  on  energy, 
enterprise  and  efficiency.  It  is  bound 
to  operate  unfairly,  freakishly,  and 
unevenly,  and  greatly  enhance  the  cost 
of  things. ...  A  small  committee  of 
well-informed  men  of  different  call- 
ings, approaching  their  task  free  from 
political,  social  and  sectional  bias, 
would  not  find  it  a  formidable  under- 
taking to  evolve  a  measure  which, 
while  fully  responsive  to  the  dictates 


of  equity  and  social  justice,  would  pro- 
duce no  less  revenue  than  the  taxation 
now  in  force,  and  yet  would  be  far  less 
burdensome  upon  the  country,  less 
hampering  to  enterprise  and  less  pro- 
ductive of  economic  disturbance  and 
dislocation."  His  chapters  on  the 
League  of  Nations,  capital  and  labor, 
and  living  costs  are  equally  to  the 
point.  (I  personally  regret  that  a 
eulogy  on  Edward  Henry  Harriman 
and  several  chapters  on  the  Arts 
should  spoil  the  continuity  of  an  other- 
wise right-to-the-spot  book.) 

«  «  «  « 

Two  books  of  fiction  whose  only 
claim  to  conjunctive  consideration  is 
their  "oppositeness"  are  "A  Mating 
in  the  Wilds"  by  Ottwell  Binns 
(Knopf)  and  Catherine  Carswell's 
prize  novel  "Open  the  Door"  (Har- 
court.  Brace  and  Howe).  They  will 
not  both  appeal  to  the  same  class  of 
readers:  indeed,  I  cannot  conceive  of 
any  one  person  enjoying  both.  "A 
Mating  in  the  Wilds"  is  a  romance  of 
the  Hudson  Bay  Country,  a  very  poor 
romance,  combining  all  the  stereo- 
tjrped  thrills  of  all  the  northern  stories 
written  since  the  Glacial  Era.  The 
end  is  obvious,  a  case  of  "the  queen 
to  play  and  mate  in  one  move". 

"Open  the  Door",  as  I  said,  is  the 
opposite  of  Mr.  Binns's  story.  "A 
Mating  in  the  Wilds"  shows  clearly 
the  sugary  influence  of  the  cinema 
Americana,  while  the  other  is  the  un- 
diluted product  of  the  school  of  Eng- 
lish realism.  It  is,  briefly,  the  story  of 
a  girl's  pendulum  swing  from  the  con- 
ventionality of  a  too  narrow  childhood 
to  the  unconventionality  of  a  too 
liberal  womanhood,  with  successive 
swings  from  one  to  the  other  until  she 
finds  at  last  her  "point  of  rest".  As 
a  story  it  is  assuredly  "true  to  life", 
it  is  not  occupied  with  sex  to  the  ex- 
clusion   of   everything   else,    and    it 


594 


THE  BOOKMAN 


opens  up  a  new  line  of  thought — ^that 
the  road  to  true  knowledge  sometimes 
parallels  the  "primrose  path".  For  a 
beginner  Miss  Garswell  has  done  Jo- 
anna well.  She  shows  with  convincing 
logic  her  development  from  a  self -en- 
grossed girl,  through  the  phases  of 
a  strange  marriage  and  a  strange  re- 
lationship to  a  married  man,  to  a  final 
understanding  of  the  world  and  her 
rightful  place  in  it.  Miss  Garswell 
suffers  from  the  error  of  many  begin- 
ners, that  of  becoming  so  interested 
in  her  characters  that  she  cannot  fore- 
go the  pleasure  of  putting  down  on 
paper  every  minute,  dull  or  not,  of 

their  lives. 

«  «  «  « 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons  announce  a 
new  book  on  Bolshevism — ^that  much 
bedraggled  subject — ^by  no  less  a  per- 
son than  Miliukov.  "Bolshevism,  An 
International  Danger"  deserves  spe- 
cial attention  because  of  the  promi- 
nent position  of  the  author  in  Russia's 
struggle  for  liberty.  Miliukov  has 
stood  out  during  these  turbulent  years 
as  one  of  the  few  Russians  with  vision 
enough  to  comprehend  the  true  condi- 
tion of  affairs.  In  the  preface  of  his 
new  book  he  says :  "The  truth  is  that 
Bolshevism  has  two  aspects,  one  inter- 
national, the  other  genuinely  Russian. 
The  international  aspect  of  Bolshevism 
is  due  to  its  origin  in  every  advanced 
European  theory.  Its  purely  Russian 
aspect  is  concerned  with  its  practice, 
which  is  deeply  rooted  in  Russian  real- 
ity and,  far  from  breaking  with  the 
'ancient  regime'  reasserts  Russia's 
part  in  the  present.' 


99 


The  statement  that  "while  it  is  all 
right  to  call  a  spade,  a  spade,  it  isn't 
necessary  to  call  it  a  bloody  shovel", 
applies  to  George  Creel's  story  of 
"The  War,  the  World  and  Wilson",  an- 
nounced  for  publication  by   Harper 


and  Brothers.     Mr.  Creel's  prosrress 

through  life — ^and  literature — ^resem- 
bles  closely   that   of  a  tank   which, 
spouting  fire   and   smoke,    shot   and 
shell,  goes  forward  over  trench  and 
wire,  trees  and  streams  with  a  deadly 
persistency  that  only  complete  anni- 
hilation can  stop.    There  is  nothing 
half-way  in  his  defense  of  Wilson's 
war  and  treaty  policy,  nothing  to  re- 
lieve the  steady  roar  of  his  attack  on 
all  who  are  unfortunate  enough  to  op- 
pose  the   President     A    feelinfir    of 
warm  personal  regard  for  Mr.   Creel 
cannot  prevent  me  from  believinfir  that 
he  would  be  a  better  friend  to  Wilson 
if  he  were  less  of  an  enemy  of  all 
critics    of    the   administration,    both 
within    and    without   the   true    fold. 
Here  is  a  sample  of  his  high  explo- 
sive:   "The  Allies  owe  us  an  amount 
well    above    ten   billions    of    dollars. 
Without  a  League  of  Nations. .  .the 
United  States  will  never  receive  a  cent 
of  interest,  much  less  a  dollar  of  the 

principal The  defeat  of  the  treaty 

was  the  bitter  and  unchanging  resolve 
of  Senator  Lodge  and  his  fellow  par- 
tisans from  the  very  first.  The  ten 
months  of  haggle  had  no  other  pur- 
pose than  the  poisoning  of  the  public 
mind  by  every  variety  of  falsehood, 
every  appeal  to  prejudice  that  could 
be  devised  by  unscrupulous  minds." 
Mr.  Lansing,  he  says,  "was  never  any- 
thing but  a  disappointment.  The 
President  might  have  endured  dull- 
ness, but  Mr.  Lansing's  utter  inability 
to  think  in  terms  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury made  his  elimination  desirable." 
He  damns  General  Wood  in  a  few 
brief  remarks.  "It  is  by  his  uncanny 
ability  to  create  these  exaggerations 
(regarding  his  achievements)  that 
Wood  rose  above  the  average  to  which 
he  seemed  doomed  by  his  mediocrities, 
and  is  today  a  national  figure.  It  is 
doubtful  if  in  all  history  there  is  a 


LOOKING  AHEAD  WITH  THE  PUBLISHERS 


595 


record  of  anjrthing  so  utterly  incredi- 
ble as  the  story  of  Leonard  Wood." 
Keynes's  "The  Economic  Conse- 
quences of  the  Peace"  he  calls  "a 
brutal  attack  on  England's  Allies". 
The  din  of  the  whole  book,  as  I  have 
said,  is  terrific,  numbing  the  brain 
and  leaving  one  with  a  sense  of  mon- 
strous calamity  and  senseless  destruc- 
tion. 

«  «  «  « 

Clement  Wood,  already  well  known 
as  a  poet,  has  written  his  first  novel, 
"Mountain",  soon  to  be  published  by 
E.  P.  Dutton  and  Company.  It  is  a 
powerful  story  of  the  greed  and  ex- 
ploitation, the  futile  effort  and  mis- 
placed courage  incidental  to  a  great 
strike.  Mr.  Wood  writes  well.  He 
knows  his  people  intimately,  particu- 
larly the  colored  men  and  women 
whose  destinies  are  caught  up  in  the 
fate  of  the  "mountain"  of  iron  ore 

that  is  the  basis  of  the  story. 

*  «  «  « 

The  first  detailed  treatment  of  Ein- 
stein's theory  of  relativity  as  applied 
to  space  and  time  is  scheduled  for 
July  publication  by  the  Oxford  Uni- 
versity Press.  It  is  written  by  Moritz 
Schlink,  and  translated  into  English 
by  Henry  L.  Brose.  Of  the  importance 
of  Einstein's  analyses  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  say  that  all  the  fundamentals 
of  Newtonian  physics  as  applied  to 
time  and  space  must  be  retaught;  and 
the  present  work  deals  not  only  with 
the  fundamental  principles  of  the  the- 
ories themselves  but  with  their  effect 
on  our  present  conceptions  and  with 

their  practical  application. 

*  «  *  * 

John  Lane  Company  expect  to  pub- 
lish next  month  a  long  novel  by  Dolf 
Wyllard  entitled  "Temperament". 
The  story  is  very  similar  to  "Open  the 
Door"  by  Catherine  Carswell,  being 
centred  about  a  girl  who  considered 


the  world  well  lost  for  the  sake  of  a 
love  unsanctioned  by  society.  To  my 
mind  it  savors  too  much  of  the  con- 
ventional tragedy  of  unconventional 
love.  Why  should  unmarried  women 
always  die  in  child-birth  in  stories  of 

this  type? 

«  «  «  « 

A  story  of  buried  treasure  called 

rather  misleadingly  "Follow  the  Little 

Pictures"  is  to  be  published  soon  by 

Little,  Brown  and  Company.    The  plot 

is  based  on  the  legend  of  a  large  chest 

of  gold  which,  originally  intended  as 

a  present  to  the  young  Pretender  in 

1745,  was  hidden  by  Hamish  Tanish 

in  Scotland  when  the  plans  of  the 

young  prince   went   awry.     For   an 

hour's  relaxation  "Follow  the  Little 

Pictures"  is  excellent  reading. 
«  «  «  « 

"The  Invisible  Foe"  by  Louise  Jor- 
dan Miln  is  interesting  from  a  pub- 
lishing viewpoint  in  that  it  is  the  ef- 
fort of  a  publisher  to  put  out  new  fic- 
tion at  a  "popular"  price.  Frederick 
A.  Stokes  Company  will  retail  this 
book  at  a  dollar  and  a  quarter. 
Whether  this  innovation  will  be  suc- 
cesssful  from  a  financial  standpoint 
remains  to  be  seen;  as  for  the  book, 
it  is  by  the  author  of  "Mr.  Wu",  and 

concerns  after-death  communication. 
*  *  «  * 

Houghton  Mifflin  Company  will 
publish  next  month  a  new  novel  by  the 
author  of  "The  Branding  Iron".  This 
latest  story  of  Katharine  Newlin 
Burt's,  "Hidden  Creek",  follows  close- 
ly the  lines  of  her  other  book.  Miss 
Burt  has  another  claim  to  fame,  that 
of  having  begun  to  write — ^like  Daisy 
Ashf ord  and  the  young  hopeful  whose 
story  has  been  appearing  in  "The  At- 
lantic Monthly" — ^at  an  age  when 
most  children  were  being  taken  for 
the  first  time  to  kindergarten. 


596  THE  BOOKMAN 


FICTION  IN  DEMAND  AT  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 

COMPILED    BT    FRANK    PARKER    8T0CKBRIDGE    IN    COOPERATION    WITH    THE    AMERICAN 

LIBRARY    ASSOCIATION 

The  following  lUta  o/  hooka  in  demand  in  May  in  the  public  librariea  of  the  United 
States  have  been  compiled  from  reports  made  by  two  hundred  representative  libraries,  in  every 
section  of  the  country  and  in  cities  of  all  sizes  down  to  ten  thousand  population.  The  order  of 
choice  is  as  stated  by  the  librarians. 

NEW  YORK  AND  NEW  ENGLAND  STATES 

1.  The  Portygee  Joseph  C.  Lincoln  Appleton 

2.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harfeb 

3.  The  Great  Impersonation  E.  PhiUips  Oppenheim  Little,  Brown 

4.  The  River's  End  James  Oliver  Curwood  Cosmopolitan 

5.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert  Ethel  M.  Dell  Putnam 

6.  Red  and  Black  Grace  S.  Richmond  Doubleday 

SOUTH  ATLANTIC  STATES 


1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

2.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert  Ethel  M,  Dell  Putnam 

3.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent  Harold  Bell  Wright  Book  Supply 

4.  The  Great  Impersonation  E,  Phillips  Oppenheim  Little,  Brown 
5-  The  River's  End  James  Oliver  Cunvood  Cosmopolitan 
6.  Woman  Triumphant  Vicente  Blasco  Ibdfiez  DUTTON 

NORTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

2.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent  Harold  Bell  Wright  Book  Supply 

3.  September  Frank  Swinnerton  DORAN 

4.  The  Great  Impersonation  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim  Little,  Brown 

5.  Red  and  Black  Grace  S,  Richmond  Doubleday 

6.  The  House  of  Baltazar  William  J.  Locke  Lane 

SOUTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

2.  The  Re-creation  of  Briant  Kent  Harold  Bell  Wright  Book  Supply 

3.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert  Ethel  M.  Dell  Putnam 

4.  A  Man  for  the  Ages  Irving  Bacheller  Bobbs-Merrill 

5.  The  Great  Impersonation  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim  Little,  Brown 

6.  The  Haunted  Bookshop  Christopher  Morley  Doubleday 

WESTERN  STATES 

1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

2.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent  Harold  Bell  Wright  BOOK  Supply 

3.  Red  and  Black  Gra^e  S,  Richmond  Doubleday 

4.  September  Frank  Swinnerton  DoRAN 

5.  A  Man  for  the  Ages  Irving  Bacheller  Bobbs-Merrill 

6.  The  Moon  and  Sixpence  W.  Somerset  Maugham  Doran 

FOR  THE  WHOLE  UNITED  STATES 

1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

2.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent  Harold  Bell  Wright  Book  Supply 

3.  The  Portygee  Joseph  C.  Lincoln  Appleton 

4.  The  Great  Impersonation  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim  Little,  Brown 

5.  Red  and  Black  Grace  S.  Richmond  Doubleday 
Q.  A  Man  for  the  Ages  Irving  Bacheller  Bobbs-Merrill 


THE  BOOKMAN'S  MONTHLY  SCORE 


597 


GENERAL  BOOKS  IN  DEMAND  AT  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 

COMPILID     BT     FRANK      PARKIB     STOCKBRIDGI      IN     COOPIRATION      WITH     THR     AMIRICAN     LIBRARY 

ASSOCIATION 

The  titlet  have  been  scored  by  the  simple  procesa  of  giving  each  a  credit  of  »iw  for  each  time 
it  appears  as  first  choice,  and  so  down  to  a  score  of  one  for  each  time  it  appears  in  sixth  place. 
The  total  score  for  each  section  and  for  the  vfhole  country  determines  the  order  of  choice  in  the 
table  herewith. 

NEW  YORK  AND  NEW  ENGLAND  STATES 


1. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace 

John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

2. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

1 

Children 

Joseph  BiLcklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

3. 

A  liabrador  Doctor 

Wilfred  T.  GrenfeU 

Houghton 

4. 

Father  Duffy's  Story 

Francis  P.  Duffy 

DORAN 

5. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

6. 

Now  It  Can  Be  Told 

Philip  Gibbs 

Harper 

SOUTH  ATLANTIC  STATES 

1. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace 

John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

2. 

Now  It  Can  Be  Told 

Philip  Gibbs 

Harper 

3. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

4. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Bttcklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

5. 

Raymond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

6. 

South 

Sir  Ernest  Shackleton 

Macmillan 

NORTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas 

Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

2. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace 

John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

3. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Biicklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

4. 

Raymond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

5. 

"Marse  Henry" 

Henry  Watterson 

DORAN 

6. 

An  American  Idyll 

Cornelia  S.  Parker 

Atlantic 

SOUTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

2. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace 

John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

3. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas 

Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

4. 

Raymond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

5. 

Father  Duffy's  Story 

Francis  P.  Duffy 

DORAN 

6. 

An  American  Idyll 

Cornelia  S.  Parker 

Atlantic 

WESTERN  STATES 

1. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace 

John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

2. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

3. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas 

Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

4. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  BiLcklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

5. 

Raymond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

6. 

The  Seven  Purposes 

Margaret  Cameron 

Harper 

FOR  THE  WHOLE  UNITED  STATES 

1. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace 

John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

2. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Bu^iklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

3. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

4. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas 

Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

5. 

Raymond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

Doran 

6. 

An  American  Idyll 

Cornelia  S.  Parker 

Atlantic 

THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


RECENTLY  the  Gossip  Shop  has 
been  looking  over  book  affairs  in 
San  Francisco.  We  were  struck  at 
once  by  the  number  of  bookstores  in 
this  place  for  anything  like  a  city  of 
its  size. 

We  wandered  first  by  chance  into 
the  place  of  Paul  Elder  and  Company 
— commonly  called  "Paul  Elder's"  in 
San  Francisco.  It  is  a  shop  of  the 
pleasant  attractiveness  of  design 
which  we  would  expect  to  find  inhab- 
ited by  the  man  who  got  up  the  format 
of  the  Paul  Elder  books — ^though  we 
do  not  mean  to  at  all  imply  that  the 
atmosphere  of  sestheticism  is  here  laid 
on  with  a  trowel.  In  Mr.  Elder's 
guest-book  we  signed  our  name  thus, 
"Murray  Hill,  New  York  City,  In  good 
health",  on  a  page  already  inscribed 
as  follows: 

Tone  Nognchi.  Nakano.  Happy  to  return  to 
California. 

Hugh  Walpole.  Qarrlck  Club,  London.  De- 
lighted to  be  here  at  lattt 

Coningsby  Dawson.    New  York. 

Oliver  Lodge,  Bngland.  FuU  of  admiration  for 
this  great  State. 

We  referred  to  Mr.  Elder's  place  as 
a  shop.  He  has  the  whole  of  a  little 
building.  One  of  the  upper  floors  is 
constructed  as  a  lecture  room.  Here 
have  recently  appeared,  in  Saturday 
afternoon  talks:  Peter  Clark  Macfar- 
lane,  Dr.  Henry  Frank,  and  Frederick 
O'Brien,  among  others.  One  after- 
noon during  our  stay  in  San  Francisco 
Robert  Cortes  Holliday  talked  in  the 
Paul  Elder  gallery  (to  a  capacity 
house)   on  authors  he  has  met,  and 


gave  other  gossip  of  the  publishing  of- 
fices. 

Coningsby  Dawson,  by  the  way,  we 
are  informed,  has  just  bought  a  place 
at  San  Diego,  California. 

Theodore  Dreiser,  we  hear,  is  at  the 
present  writing  in  Los  Angeles. 

To  continue  about  San  Francisco 
bookstores:  we  found  our  way  next 
to  the  place  of  A.  M.  Robertson,  here 
conunonly  called  "Robertson's",  and 
the  proprietor  of  which  is  popularly 
hailed  as  "Alec".  Good  bookstore. 
Mr.  Robertson  is,  to  some  extent,  a 
publisher  as  well  as  a  bookseller,  and 
is  particularly  interested  in  issuing 
books  about  California. 

The  book  division  of  the  excellent 
department  store  here  called  The 
White  House  we  pronounce  upon  in 
the  most  favorable  way.  And  we  also 
highly  approve  of  the  friendliness  and 
good  book-sense  of  its  buyer. 

The  Emporium,  another  large  de- 
partment store,  also  has  a  book  divi- 
sion of  considerable  size.  The  Meth- 
odist Book  Concern  has  extensive 
quarters  out  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  San  Francisco  Public  Library.  A 
startling  feature  of  this  place  is  a 
manunoth  electric  sign,  mounted  on 
the  roof  and  extending  across  the 
length  of  the  building,  which  reads: 
"House  of  Good  Books". 

Across  what  in  London  would  be 
called  a  little  court  from  Paul  Elder's 
(and  what  in  Indianapolis  would  be 
called  a  little  alley)  is  the  Old  Book 
Shop.     A  place  of  really  distinctive 


^98 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


599 


character,  dealing:  mainly  in  collectors' 
volumes.  Then  there  is  Newbegin's, 
new  books  and  old  books;  then  there 
is  John  Howell,  rare  books;  Potter 
Brothers  Company,  wholesale  and  re- 
tail agency  for  several  New  York  pub- 
lishing houses ;  the  Holmes  Book  Com- 
pany, marked-down  bookstore;  the 
sizable  French  Book  Store ;  and  vari- 
ous smaller  dealers  in  foreign  books. 
In  Berkeley  a  gentleman  of  the  name 
of  Mr.  Somers  runs  a  store  several 
rooms  in  size,  dealing  in  both  new 
books  and  rare  books.  And  in  Oak- 
land, we  understand,  are  still  other 
places. 

We  were  much  pleased  to  discover 
the  popularity  in  San  Francisco  of 
several  writers  who  are  personal 
friends  of  ours ;  among  them:  Messrs. 
Walpole,  Morley,  McFee,  and  Holliday. 


Amy  Lowell  has  recently  been  made 
honorary  member  of  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  Chapter  of  Columbia  Uni- 
versity. On  this  interesting  occa- 
sion she  read  before  the  chapter  her 
new  8,000-word  poem  "Many  Swans 
Sun  Myth  of  the  American  In- 
dians" (to  be  printed  soon  in  "The 
North  American  Review") .  This  poem 
is  based  on  an  Indian  legend  in  the 
original  Kathlamet  text,  which  it 
seems  is  very  hard  to  get  at  in  trans- 
lation— for  only  three  people  in  the 
world  speak  Kathlamet  (the  Grossip 
Shop  has  their  addresses).  While  the 
symbolism  of  the  poem  is  Indian,  the 
framework  and  the  incidents  are  the 
poet's.  The  work  has  the  unique  qual- 
ity of  Miss  Lowell's  other  legends :  it 
is  the  work  of  a  sophisticated  poet  but 
at  the  same  time  has  childlike  naYveti 
and  very  real  passion.  When  Miss 
Lowell  was  a  "little  girl",  the  Indians 
sweeping  along  the  streets  of  a  New 
Mexico  town  impressed  her  unforget- 
tably.   Also  she  had  two  sun-strokes 


while  in  the  town — ^and,  altogether, 
she  said  she  loved  that  sort  of  thing. 

Miss  Lowell  has  just  attended  by 
special  invitation  the  Diamond  Anni- 
versary of  Baylor  Universary,  Texas, 
and  has  been  the  recipient  of  its  Lit.D. 
(her  first  degree) .  Moreover  with  her 
were  Harriet  Monroe,  Edwin  Mark- 
ham,  and  Vachel  Lindsay. 

In  a  few  months  Miss  Lowell's  col- 
lected prose  essays  (of  which  "Casual 
Reflections  on  a  Few  of  the  Younger 
English  Novelists"  appeared  in  The 
Bookman  for  April,  1919)  will  be 
published;  also  a  book  of  her  collected 
legends.  Her  "Tendencies  in  Modem 
American  Poetrjr"  is  out  of  print.  An 
English  publisher  is  bringing  out 
"Salmagundi"  with  other  poems  to  fol- 
low. 


Already  news  comes  from  ii'aris  of 
much  ado  over  the  sixth  Dante  cen- 
tennial which  falls  on  September  14, 
1921.  Church  and  state  bestir  them- 
selves to  honor  "Noster  Dantes".  It 
is  said  that  Ravenna,  the  city  of  the 
poet's  death,  will  be  the  centre  of  the 
religious  ceremony,  and  that  Catholics 
throughout  the  world  will  observe  the 
day.  In  a  recent  number  of  the  "Re- 
vue Universelle"  is  a  study  of  Dante 
by  Cardinal  Mercier,  and  other  publi- 
cations are  reported  to  be  forthcom- 
ing— ^notably  "L'edizione  critica  della 
Divinia  Commedia"  which  Giuseppe 
Vandelli  was  working  on  in  1907.  A 
new  translation  of  the  "Divine  Com- 
edy" by  the  scholar  and  poet  Andr6 
P£rat£  has  also  been  announced.  The 
Librairie  de  I'Art  Catholique  expects 
to  issue  shortly  a  bulletin  of  unpub- 
lished works  on  Dante;  and  the  Wil- 
lard  Fiske  Dante  collection  at  Cor- 
nell University  (said  by  a  French  ex- 
pert to  be  the  finest  in  the  world),  is 
already  preparing  to  issue  a  supple- 
ment to  its  first  Dante  catalogue  of 


600 


THE  BOOKMAN 


1900,  anticipating  the  coming  anni- 
versary.   

It  is  said  that  Johan  Bojer's  two 
weeks'  visit  in  New  York  is  to  result 
in  a  novel  of  American  life,  and  in  the 
early  Broadway  production  of  "The 
Power  of  a  Lie",  "The  Eyes  of  Love", 
and  "Sigurd  Braa". 


In  the  current  number  of  "The  Dub- 
lin Review"  (and  reprinted  in  "The 
Living  Age")  is  an  article  on  Herman 
Melville  in  general  and  "Moby  Dick" 
in  particular,  by  Viola  Meynell 
(daughter  of  Wilfrid  and  Alice  Mey- 
nell and  author  of  "Second  Marriage" 
recently  published  in  America).  After 
quoting  freely  from  the  text  of  "Moby 
Dick",  Miss  Meynell  comments: 

What  is  quoted  here  is  but  a  hint  of  the 
Shakespearean  grandeur  of  Ahab. ...  If  these 
quotations  did  not  make  the  reader  tremble 
with  what  is  given  to  him,  it  is  because  in  the 
book  alone  and  not  to  be  pulled  out  by  finger- 
fulls,  that  revelation  awaits  him. . . .  Readers 
of  the  book  will  see  that  this  is  the  greatest 
of  the  sea  writers,  whom  even  Conrad  must 
own  as  master.  Barrie  confessedly  owes  him 
his  Captain  Cook.  Great  isolated  fame  Her* 
man  Melville  must  have  in  many  an  individual 
mind  which,  having  once  known  him,  is  then 
partly  made  of  him  forever.  But  how  little 
'^Moby  Dick"  is  known,  is  exemplified  by  a 
writer  in  the  "Times"  Literary  Supplement 
who,  in  a  clever  article  on  Herman  Melville, 
did  not  even  mention  this  book,  as  if  his  fame 
rested  on  that  better-known  and  comparatively 
how  insignificfint  alone,  "Typee"  and  "Omoo". 
Though  "Moby  Dick"  has  been  published  in 
England  and  has  been  included  in  Everyman 
series,  it  is  at  present  out  of  print. 

Even  a  Melville  fan  must  smile  a 
little  at  such  fever-heat  of  enthusiasm. 


The  first  edition  of  the  much-dis- 
cussed "Poems  of  a  Little  Girl",  by 
the  eight-year-old  daughter  of  Grace 
Hazard  CJonkling,  is  for  grownups. 
The  portrait  on  the  jacket  of  the  book 
is  that  of  a  thoroughly  normal  little 
girl;  but  the  frontispiece  by  James 
Chapin  (who  we  recall  did  the  Robert 
Frost  and  other  frontispieces)  is  an 


attempt  to  follow  the  old  masters,  and 
metamorphoses  Hilda  into  a  patho- 
logical child.  On  looking  at  the  two 
pictures,  one  thinks:  if  this  is  the 
effect  of  writing,  don't  write  1  It  is 
surmised  that  a  second  edition,  for 
children,  minus  the  frontispiece  and 
special  introduction,  and  with  line 
drawings,  would  be  welcome.  It  would 
make  a  charming  book  for  Christmas 
and  birthdays.  Children  love  "Little 
Snail"  and  "Velvets"  and  some  of  the 
others,  we  are  told. 


Two  German  novels  written  before 
the  war  and  at  that  time  suppressed 
by  the  imperial  censor,  have  now  been 
brought  out.  "Der  Untertan"  and 
"Die  Armen"  deal,  respectively,  with 
the  middle  class  and  the  lower  classes 
of  Germany.  They  are  the  work  of 
Heinrich  Mann,  a  delineator  of  Ger- 
man character,  whose  novels  have  a 
widespread  sale  in  his  own  country. 


Readers  of  Georges  DuhameFs  war 
books  will  be  surprised  to  learn  that 
his  latest  work  is  a  satirical  comedy. 
"L'CEuvre  des  Athletes",  recently 
launched  with  success  in  Paris,  has 
provoked  comparison  of  the  author 
with  Moli^re. 

The  play  portrays  the  havoc 
wrought  in  a  placid  middle-class  fam- 
ily by  the  arrival  of  a  cousin  who  pro- 
ceeds to  establish  in  their  midst  a 
salon  of  "serious  thinkers".  One  by 
one  the  family  succumb  to  the  dicta- 
tor, the  only  member  preserving  a 
sane  balance  being  the  son  of  the 
house.  That  luckless  soul,  unable  to 
endure  the  snobbish  atmosphere  en- 
gendered, is  forced  to  flee  to  Pata- 
gonia. 


Announcement  has  been  made  of 
the  Pulitzer  prizes  in  letters,  of 
$1,000  each   (awarded  by  the  School 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


601 


of  Journalism  of  Columbia  Univer- 
sity), for  the  year  past.  Albert  Bev- 
eridge's  "Life  of  John  Marshall"  is 
considered  "the  best  American  biog- 
raphy teaching  patriotic  and  unselfish 
services  to  the  people".  "The  War 
with  Mexico"  by  Justin  H.  Smith 
ranks  as  "the  best  book  upon  the  his- 
tory of  the  United  States".  And  the 
award  for  "the  original  play,  per- 
formed in  New  York,  which  best  rep- 
resents the  educational  value  and 
power  of  the  stage  in  raising  the 
standard  of  good  morals,  good  taste 
and  good  manners"  goes  to  Eugene 
O'Neill's  "Beyond  the  Horizon",  which 
was  brought  out  in  book  form  closely 
following  its  production.  The  prize 
for  the  best  novel  is  this  year  omitted, 
since  in  the  opinion  of  the  judges  none 
of  the  volumes  under  consideration 
merits  this  distinction. 


That  serious-minded  person  who 
writes  page  36  in  "Land  and  Water" 
each  week,  has  been  of  late  reading 
the  fashioir  magazines.  He  devotes 
his  attention  in  a  recent  issue  to  a  bur- 
lesque of  caption  writing  for  fashion- 
plates,  presenting  a  party  of  refugees 
from  bolshevist  Odessa,  all  wearing 
Messrs.  Orange's  spring  fashions. 
"The  little  blocks  of  affected  prose 
underneath  disgusting  pictures  of  in- 
credibly ugly  women  with  no  noses, 
only  one  eye,  attitudinizing,  and  all 
scratching"  are  bad  enough,  he  con- 
cludes, if  they  stick  to  prose.  But 
lately  they  have  blossomed  into  vers 
libre,  like  this : 

On  one  side,  the  tnlle  whisks  and  flares. 
Licked  by  little  plumes  of  flame. 
And  everywhere  groups  of  bead  petals 
Shower  their  fringes  of  flame,  frosted  dull. 

The  writer  is  afraid  males  may  catch 
the  plague,  and  reflects  that  it  would 
be  dreadful  if  one  had  to  read  page- 
f uls  of  poetry  before  one  bought  one's 
trousers.    Like  this: 


Brown,  brown  are  the  dainty  trousers 

With  a  little  stripe 

A  stripe  of  Green, 

Green,  because  of  the  spring, 

Green,  because  it  is  the  time  of  Youth. 

The  bottoms  of  course  are  turned  up. 

And  like  a  necklet  of  lovers'  eyes 

The  braces'  buttons 

Circle  the  top 

In  a  Wistful  ring. 

Messrs.  Thompson  and  Smith 

Have  done  this  thing. 

The  price  is  ten  guineas 

And  they  are  cheap  at  that. 

Who  could  resist  their  lure? 

Sing  hey,  for  Spring,  Ting-a-ling. 

This  page  "More  Atrocities"  elbows  J, 
C.  Squire  on  one  side,  and  Hilaire  Bel- 
loc  on  the  other. 


Though  heralded  two  months  ago 
by  a  reviewer,  the  anthology  of  "The 
Great  Modern  American  Stories" 
edited  with  a  "reminiscent  introduc- 
tion" by  William  Dean  Howells  has 
just  put  in  a  belated  appearance — 
due  to  the  printing  plates  being  side- 
tracked between  Albany  and  New 
York  (doubtless  to  the  chagrin  of  the 
enterprising  publishers).  This  vol- 
ume is  the  third  to  appear  in  the  Great 
Modern  Story  Series  of  French,  Eng- 
lish, American,  German,  and  Russian 
collections. 

Of  freshest  interest  in  the  volume 
is  Mr.  Howells's  chapter  of  introduc- 
tion in  which  he  recalls  the  days,  more 
or  less  distant,  when  he  first  made  ac- 
quaintance with  one  and  another  of 
the  two  dozen  tales  he  has  now 
brought  together.  Hale's  "My  Double 
and  How  He  Undid  Me",  read  at 
twenty,  caused  him,  sick,  to  laugh  him- 
self back  into  health.  H.  J.'s  "A  Pas- 
sionate Pilgrim"  was  a  "young"  work 
proffered  to  the  "Atlantic"  under- 
editor.  Mary  Wilkins's  "The  Revolt  of 
Mother",  Sarah  Orne  Jewett's  "The 
Courting  of  Sister  Wisby",  and  Alice 
Brown's  "Told  in  the  Poorhouse"  he 
groups  together  as  the  work  of  "the 
unrivalled  sisters  three.  ..great  ar- 


602 


THE  BOOKMAN 


lists  working  always  in  simple  and 
native  stuff".  Edith  Wharton's  "The 
Mission  of  Jane"  he  presents  to  "such 
elect  as  could  rejoice  in  the  portrayal 
of  the  perfect  and  entire  dullness  of 
Jane  and  her  equally  dull  admirer". 
Cable's  "Jean-ah  Poquelin"  he  recalls 
in  a  dramatic  reading  by  Mark  Twain, 
— ^the  best  reader  he  ever  heard,  but 
of  "transcendent  bashfulness".  Aid- 
rich's  "Mile.  Olympe  Zabriski"  is  sec- 
ond choice  after  that  author's  "Mar- 
jorie  Daw";  Mr.  Howells  confesses 
that  he  is  not  inmiune  to  the  trials  of 
the  anthologist  to  whom  the  publisher 
refuses  open  sesame  in  the  use  of  copy- 
righted material. 

Opinions,  of  course,  differ  as  to  the 
choice  of  stories  in  the  anthology. 
Brander  Matthews  looks  in  vain  for 
something  by  Irvin  Cobb  in  the  se- 
lection. "Surely",  he  says,  "the  tale 
of  Judge  Priest's  officiating  at  the  fu- 
neral of  the  fallen  woman  is  not  in- 
ferior in  beauty  to  'Aunt  Sanna  Terry' 
or  to  *Mlle.  Olympe  Zabriski',  clever 
as  that  is  and  brilliant  as  it  is  in  its 
metallic  lustre." 


A  letter  from  Joseph  I.  C.  Clarke 
has  just  drifted  into  the  Gossip  Shop, 
in  which  he  tells  of  a  literary  adven- 
ture of  his  in  what  he  calls  "Conrad- 
ese"  or  "volcanoes  and  cigar  ends". 
Mr.  Clark  has  filled  the  shoes  of  both 
editor  and  author: 

DweUlng  temporarily  in  midland  Cuba,  one 
solaces  a  hot  afternoon  with  a  turning  over 
of  the  books  in  the  airy  parlor  of  the  o<ua  de 
vivenda.  Here  I  came  upon  "Lord  Jim"  by 
Conrad,  and  then  "Victory"  by  the  same  ex- 
alted spinner  of  deliberate  yarns.  So,  a  pleas- 
ant time  with  two  old  friends.  The  next  day 
arrived  with  the  mail  a  pile  of  magazines.  I 
opened  "Harper's"  for  March  and  lighted  on 
a  phrase :  "marooning  himtelf  on  that  infernal 
island  and  seemingly  content  to  spend  his  days 
there."  Well,  well,  I  thought,  the  school  has 
loosed  itself  upon  the  world.  Conrad  out  of 
Stevenson  with  Kipling  trimmings.  But  no: 
it  read  on  like  pure  Conrad  of  the  later  type, — 
not  quite  so  deliberate  perhaps.     Who  knows? 


Conrad  gone  a  step  further  backward  toward 
Stevenson?  I  turned  over  the  pages  of  "The 
Judgment  of  Vulcan"  to  the  beginning;  there 
I  found  another  man's  name. 

That  evening  I  was  haunted  by  the  thought 
that  the  "Vulcan"  story  was  more  than  an 
echo  of  Conrad  in  the  tropical  seas,  so  I  took 
it  up  and  read  it  again.  At  its  very  begin- 
ning I  found  this : 

"By  day  the  Pacific  U  a  vast  stretch  of  blue, 
fiat  like  a  fioor,  with  a  hlur  of  distant  islands 
on  the  horizon^— chief  among  them  Mutoa,  with 
its  single  volcanic  cone  tapering  off  into  the 
shy.  At  night  this  smithy  of  Vulcan  becomes 
a  glow  of  red,  throbbing  faintly  against  the 
darkness,  a  capricious  and  sullen  beacon  im- 
measurably  removed  from  the  path  of  men. 
Viewed  from  the  veranda  of  the  Marine  Hotel, 
its  vast  fiare  on  the  horieon  seems  hardly  mi^re 
than  an  insignificant  spark,  like  the  glowing 
cigar-end  of  some  guest  strolling  in  the  garden 
after  dinner." 

My  mind  turned  back  to  that  passage  with 
an  insistence  that  would  have  pleased  Conrad. 
Taking  up  "Victory"  before  smoking  my  own 
last  cigar  for  the  evening,  I  came  suddenly  on 
this: 

*'His  nearest  neighbor — I  am  speaking  now 
of  things  showing  some  sort  of  animation — 
was  an  indolent  volcano  which  smoked  faintly 
all  day,  and  at  night  levelled  at  Mm,  from 
amongst  the  clear  stars,  a  duU  red  glow,  ev- 
panding  and  collapsing  sp<umodically  like  the 
end  of  a  gigantic  cigar  puffed  at  intermittently 
in  the  dark.  Awel  Heyst  was  also  a  smoker; 
and  when  he  lounged  out  on  his  veranda  with 
his  cheroot,  the  last  thing  before  going  to  bed, 
he  made  in  the  night  the  same  sort  of  glow 
and  of  the  same  size  as  that  other  one  so  many 
miles  away." 

I  slept  more  comfortably  for  finding  this. 
How  often  does  the  same  doubt,  the  same 
semi-certainty  assail  the  readers  of  manuscripts 
nowadays.  AU  varieties  of  style  are  pounced 
upon,  and  the  excellence  of  the  imitation  is  apt 
to  be  startling.  It  was  one  of  my  troubles 
years  and  years  ago  when  I  edited  a  literary 
paper;  it  was  one  of  the  great  worries  of  the 
stafT.  Let  an  article  or  story  appear  with  some 
streaks  of  new  light  in  it,  and  in  about  three 
weeks  to  a  month  would  come  a  flood  of  won- 
derful imitations.  What  must  it  be  now? 
My  sympathies  to  the  editor  of  "Harper's".  Let 
the  author  of  the  "Vulcan"  story  consider 
"Lord  Jim". 


A  fable  recounting  the  story  of  the 
war  has  recently  appeared  in  France: 
**Le  Responsable",  by  L^n  M,  O. 
Gurekian.  Herein  England  is  the  ele- 
phant, France  the  bull,  Italy  the  fox, 
Germany  the  wild-boar,  Austria  the 
wolf,  Turkey  the  mule.     Russia  re- 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


603 


mains  the  bear,  but  the  United  States 
becomes  the  pelican.  Serbia  and  Aus- 
tria are  represented  by  the  squirrel 
and  the  ermine. 


G.  B.  S.,  it  seems,  has  spoken  on  the 
ethics  of  the  filming  of  plays,  apropos 
of  his  own  recent  noble  refusal  of  $1,- 
000,000  for  the  motion-picture  rights 
of  all  his  plays: 

I  am  not  yet  conyinced  tbat  a  film  veraion 
of  a  play  does  not  aeriouily  deprecate  the  value 
of  the  acting  version.  It  has  done  so  In  sev- 
eral cases  known  to  me  and  If  I  go  Into  the 
filming  business  at  all  I  shall  possibly  write 
specially  for  the  screen. 


What  will  a  boy  enjoy  reading  be- 
fore his  teens  (not  what  do  his  parents 
and  teachers  think  he  should  read)  7 
An  expert  has  made  out  the  following 
list  of  twenty-five  books,  with  the  note 
that  he  has  omitted  "Robinson  Cru- 
soe" and  other  pedagogical  favorites: 

The  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy Aldrich 

The  Young  Trailers Altsheler 

For  the  Honor  of  the  School  ....  Barbour 

Track's  End   Carruth 

Boys  of  ne  Coffin 

Lincoln  and  the  Sleeping  Sentinel  Chittenden 
The  Boy  Scout,  and  Other  Stories  Davis 

The  Hoosier  Schoolboy Eggleston 

High  Benton    Heyllger 

On  the  Trail  of  Washington HUl 

A  Boy's  Toion   Howells 

Boy  Life  on  the  Prairie Garland 

Tom  Broum's  School  Days Hughes 

The  Jungle  Books Kipling 

The  Boy's  King  Arthur Lanier 

Careers  of  Danger  and  Daring  . .  Moffett 

The  Land  of  Fair  Play Parsons 

Men  of  Iron Pyle 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to 

His  Children    Bishop 

Hero  Tales  from  American  His- 
tory     Roosevelt  and 

Lodge 

Paul  Jones   SeaweU 

Black  Arrow Stevenson 

Penrod   Tarkington 

The  Adventures  of  Tom  Sav>yer  .Twain 
Being  a  Boy Warner 

What  the  boy  will  like  to  read  dur- 
ing his  early  teens  is  suggested  in  an- 
other list  of  twenty-five  titles,  with 


the  same  skilful  eluding  of  the  aca- 
demic: 

The  Perfect  Tribute  Andrews 

The  Sun  of  Saratoga Altsheler 

Cfuynemer,  Knight  of  the  Air  . . .  Bordeaux 

That  Tear  at  Lincoln  High QoUomb 

The  Sign  of  Freedom Goodrich 

Boys'  Life  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  Hagedom 
The  First  Hundred  Thousand  . . .  Hay 

Whirligigs  Henry 

The  Varmint Johnson 

The  Border  Legion Grey 

The  Long  Roll Johnstone 

Captains  Courageous    Kipling 

George  Washington Lodge 

Boys'  Life  of  Edison Meadowcrof t 

Wild  Life  on  the  Rockies Mills 

The  Story  of  My  Boyhood  and 

Youth  Mulr 

Abraham  Lincoln,  Boy  and  Man  Morgan 

Campus  Days Paine 

The  Oregon  Trail Parkman 

An  American  in  the  Making  ....  Ravage 
The  Making  of  an  American  ....  Riis 

Kidnapped Stevenson 

Ramsey  Milholland  Tarkington 

The  Adventures  of  Huckleberry 

Fifm Twain 

The  Forest  White 

What  the  same  boy  will  be  required 
to  read  and  discuss  during  the  last  two 
years  of  his  college  course  (if  he  hap- 
pens to  be  a  candidate  for  general 
honors  at  Columbia  University)  is, 
experimentally,  as  follows: 

Homer  Shakespeare 
Herodotus                        .    Cervantes 

Thucydides  Bacon 

JSschylus  Milton 

Sophocles  Moll^re 

Buripides  Hume 

Aristophanes  Montesquieu 

Plato  Voltaire 

Aristotle  Rousseau 

Lucretius  Adam  Smith 

VirgU  Leasing 

Horace  Kant 

Plutarch  SchiUer 

Marcus  Aurelins  Gcethe 

St.  Augustine  Macaulay 

The  Nlbelungenlied  Victor  Hugo 

The  Song  of  Roland  Hegel 

St.  Thomas  Aquinas  Darwin 

Dante  LyeU 

Petrarch  Tolstoi 

Montaigne  Nietssche 


News  comes  from  England  of  a 
boom  in  the  Tarzan  novels.  It  seems 
that   the    ape-man    went   over   very 


604 


THE  BOOKMAN 


quietly  at  first  but  that  he  soon  caught 
on,  and  is  now  being  shown  around 
the  country  in  films. 


Much  lively  comment  has  been  pro- 
voked in  French  literary  circles  by 
a  discussion  in  "Le  Figaro"  of  the 
nouveau-riche  bibliophile,  by  Eugene 
Montfort.  We  quote  a  portion  of  M. 
Montfort's  lament: 

NothlDg  is  80  depressing  nowadays  as  a 
glance  at  the  catalogue  of  a  rare  book  dealer. 
The  prices  are  absurd,  totally  out  of  proportion 
to  the  value  of  the  books  (1.  e.,  literary  and 
commercial  yalue).  They  produce  in  one  a 
two-fold  melancholy  conylction :  first,  of  the 
materialistic  spirit  of  the  dealer;  second, 
of  the  ignorance  and  stupidity  of  the  pur- 
chaser.... Upon  examining  these  booksellers* 
catalogues,  one  discovers  the  blbllophillc  dis- 
credit into  which  have  sunk  the  great  authors 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  One  can  buy  an 
original  edition  of  the  "Physlologle  du  Mar- 
lage"  or  of  "Les  TravalUeurs  de  la  Mer*'  for 
fifty  francs.  Our  nouveaux-riches  will  have 
nothing  to  do  with  Balzac  and  Victor  Hugo. 
These  authors  are  too  old-fashioned  for  them. 
What  they  want  (and  this  taste  Is  ingeniously 
fostered  in  them  by  the  dealers,  since  it  can 
more  easily  be  satisfied,  and  to  advantage)  is 
the  modem  authors,  the  most  modern,  those 
of  the  day,  even  those  of  the  morrow, — writers 
whom  their  wives  or  their  daughters  may  hear 
discussed  in  the  salons.  Most  amusing  of  all 
is  their  choice  of  authors,  a  proof  of  the  de- 
gree to  which  the  purchasers  are  exploited  by 
the  dealers. 

A  copy  of  the  original  edition  of  "Visage 
6mervelll6"  by  Mme.  de  NoaiUes  may  be  had 
for  the  trifling  sum  of  thirty -five  francs ;  "lies 
Dtiracin^s"  and  "Colette  Baudoche"  by  Barr^s, 
for  twenty-five  francs ;  **La  Terre"  by  Zola,  for 
thirty  francs,  and  "Le  Journal  d'une  Femme 
de  Chambre"  by  Mirbeau,  for  twenty  francs. . . . 
On  the  other  hand.  If  you  are  an  admirer  of 
"Les  Cahlers  d'Andrfi  Walter"  by  Andr6  Olde, 
you  can  secure  a  copy  on  Holland  paper,  but  It 
will  cost  you  six  hundred  francs. . . .  We  do  not 
for  an  Instant  suppose  that  an  author  or  a 
group  of  authors  has  formed  an  alliance  with  a 
syndicate  of  booksellers. ...  It  Is  simply  a 
matter  of  speculation  among  the  dealers. 


A  story  of  how  an  editor  got  rich 
has  been  wafted  to  our  ears,  and  we 
pass  it  on  for  the  edification  of  that 
deserving  profession: 


He  started  poor  as  a  proverbial  church  moaae 
twenty  years  ago.  He  has  now  retired  'with  a 
comfortable  fortune  of  160,000. 

This  money  was  acquired  through  industry, 
economy,  conscientious  effort  to  give  fuU  ralna^ 
indomitable  perseverance,  and  the  death  of  an 
uncle,  who  left  the  editor  149,999.50. 

In  Congress  the  other  day  a  list  was 
submitted  showing  the  vocations  of 
persons  having  the  largest  incomes  in 
the  United  States  prior  to  1918.  Au- 
thors were  not  at  the  top,  but  they 
made  a  fair  showing.  Out  of  fifteen 
authors,  editors,  and  reporters,  one 
earned  $500,000;  one  $300,000;  one, 
$250,000;  two,  $200,000;  and  eight, 
$100,000. 

These  figures  should  interest  polit- 
ical economists  (like  Mr.  Keynes  whose 
"The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 
Peace"  is  said  to  have  broken  all  sales- 
records  for  serious  books,  and  who  is 
now  writing  a  second  volume  dealing 
with  the  financial  problems  of  the 
treaty). 


In  ''La  Po^ie  Scientifique,  de  1750 
k  Nos  Jours"  M.  Fusil  traces  the  reac- 
tion of  poets  to  scientific  discoveries 
and  hypotheses.  The  author  defines 
"scientific  poetry"  as  that  which  pre- 
sents the  "emotional  side"  of  the  facts 
of  science. 


John  M.  Siddall,  the  busy  editor  of 
that  energetic  periodical,  "The  Ameri- 
can Magazine",  was  the  other  day 
waylaid  by  that  dallier,  the  Gossip 
Shop,  to  sound  his  ideas  on  the  moot 
question  as  to  what  opportunities  the 
popular  magazines  offer  to  young 
writers  today.  Whereupon  Mr.  Sid- 
dall vouchsafed  the  following: 

"The  big  thing,  it  seems  to  me,  is 
that  writers  get  through  the  popular 
magazines  a  great  and  inspiring  audi- 
ence. And  in  order  to  appeal  to  that 
audience  they  must  write  live  human 
stuff,  full  of  real  interest.     If  they 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


605 


don't — ^their  contributions  won't  be 
printed.  For  that  reason  the  popular 
magazines  force  writers  to  think 
about  life,  not  about  trivialities  and 
the  small  subtleties  that  receive  only 
academic  interest  from  a  few  readers. 
There  is  no  opportunity  for  a  young 
writer  to  achieve  a  wide  reputation, 
based  on  good  workmanship  and 
knowledge  of  the  real  drama  of  human 
life,  equal  to  that  offered  by  the  maga- 
zine with  a  wide  circulation. 

"This  whole  thing  comes  right  down 
to  the  question — ^what  is  the  use  of 
writing  anyhow?  It  seems  to  me  that 
there  is  little  use  of  writing  unless 
you  make  the  effort  to  get  your  mes- 
sage to  as  many  people  as  possible. 
Here  is  where  some  wiU  differ  with 
me.  They  think  that  certain  ideas 
are  so  wonderful  that  the  'general  run 
of  people'  won't  *get  them'.  I  have 
absolutely  no  sympathy  with  that  no- 
tion. I  believe  that  the  very  best 
ideas  in  the  world  will  reach  the  many 
if  those  ideas  are  clearly  expressed. 
And  when  they  are  clearly  expressed 
I  believe  that  you  have  the  great- 
est writing.  This  does  not  mean 
that  all  the  widely  read  stuff  in  the 
world  is  good  and  worth  while.  Hu- 
man beings  read  all  sorts  of  things — 
just  as  they  eat  all  sorts  of  things — 
some  that  are  substantial,  and  some 
that  are  froth.  But  to  say  that  only 
a  few  enjoy  the  substantial  is  bosh. 

"In  our  egotism  we  continually  ex- 
aggerate the  superiority  of  our  own 
intellects  over  those  of  our  fellows. 
We  think  that  we  know  it  all — and 
particularly  do  we  think  that  we  com- 
prehend things  better  than  our  neigh- 
bors. Yet  the  great  experiences  of 
life  are  common  to  all.  And  the  great 
experiences  of  life  are  what  give  us 
such  understanding  as  we  have.  Does 
anybody  think  he  has  a  patent  on  love, 
hate,    aspiration,    struggle,    courage, 


cowardice,  depression,  exaltation — ^and 
all  the  rest?  Yet  these  are  the  ma- 
terials out  of  which  the  greatest  writ- 
ings are  made. 

"Normal,  healthy  human  beings 
come  nearer  being  equal  in  under- 
standing than  we  realize.  The  great 
difference  between  people  is  in  their 
ambition — not  in  their  intelligence.  I 
see  people  who  are  a  thousand  times 
as  ambitious  as  others — ^people  who 
achieve  ten  thousand  times  as  much 
as  others.  When  it  comes  down  to  un- 
derstanding the  essential  things  of 
life,  however,  I  see  variations,  but  I 
do  not  find  them  overwhelming. 

"Getting  back  to  the  popular  maga- 
zines—every new  generation  of  writ- 
ers reworks  the  same  human  materials 
in  fresh  terms  suitable  to  its  own  day. 
Literature  always  has  a  timely  flavor. 
Even  Dante  in  The  Divine  Comedy'  is 
journalistic;  to  understand  him  you 
have  to  learn  by  hard  study  about 
people  and  events  familiar  to  the  peo- 
ple of  that  time.  The  matter  of  pres- 
ervation for  future  readers  is  always 
in  the  lap  of  the  gods. 

"The  first  test  of  a  writer  is  to  grip 
and  hold  the  people  of  his  own  time — 
the  more  of  them  the  better.  The 
popular  magazine  now  offers  an  op- 
portunity for  this  initial  test  such  as 
never  existed  before  and  with  chances 
of  returns  in  both  money  and  esteem 
undreamed  of  in  the  past.' 


tt 


One  of  the  recent  articles  on  Mrs. 
Humphry  Ward  (and  their  name  is 
legion)  devoted  its  first  several  hun- 
dred words  to  the  prestige  of  the  Ar- 
nold family-tree  in  its  various  and 
sundry  ramifications.  The  most  youth- 
ful scion  of  that  house  to  take  up  its 
famous  tradition  of  letters  is  Aldous 
Huxley,  grand-nephew  of  Matthew  Ar- 
nold and,  logically,  nephew  of  Mrs. 
Ward.    Mr.  Huxley's  first  book  to  be 


606 


THE  BOOKMAN 


published  in  America,  ''Limbo"»  a  col- 
lection of  short  stories  just  out»  indi- 
cates that  he  may  prove  worthy  of  his 
forebears.  It  has  this  provocative 
comment  in  "The  English  Review" : 

The  Varsity  still  lies  across  the  paffcs  of 
these  stories — patent-leather  erudition,  that  is; 
but  there  is  more  than  this ...  he  is  poet  as 
well  as  sociolof^lst.  He  has  perceptions.  He  is 
a  reformer;    plays  curiously  and  effectively  on 

man's  dual  personality Mr.  Huxley  is  the 

new  European.  Like  all  these  young  war 
writers,  he  has  no  iUuslons.  Will  they  create? 
This  writer,  at  least,  opens  with  definite  prom- 
ise. 


That  even  the  mildest  of  feminists, 
on  reading  Le  Clerc  Phillips's  article 
in  the  May  Bookman,  "Women  of 
Mark  and  Their  Education",  feels 
moved  to  rise  and  speak  out  in  meet- 
ing, is  the  declaration  of  Clara  F.  Mc- 
Intyre  of  the  University  of  Wyoming, 
who  has  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  author  is  a  man,  and  demands: 
"What  of  the  men  of  mark?" 

One  may  say  (Miss  Mclntyre  adds)  that  Mr. 
Phillips's  main  conclusion — that  the  higher  edu- 
cation of  women  does  not  produce  literary 
genius — is  so  sound  as  to  be  almost  axiomatic. 
But  what  eludes  me  is  his  excuse  for  pouncing 
upon  this  obvious  truth  and  serenely  ignoring 
another  equally  obvious, — that  the  higher  edu- 
cation of  men.  also,  fails  to  produce  literary 
genius. 

Moreover,  by  his  description  of  the  "pale, 
earnest,  and  bespectacled  young  women  from 
Girton  and  Newnham",  the  writer  gives  his 
paper  the  sound  of  something  distinctly  out  of 
date.  At  least,  it  is  so  by  American  standards. 
If  he  had  the  pleasure  of  attending  a  "formal" 
at  almost  any  college  or  university  in  the 
country,  he  would  find  there  an  array  of 
charming — and  reasonably  plump — ^femininity 
which  would  do  honor  to  a  debutante  ball.  In 
fact,  the  danf^er  in  our  institutions  of  learning 
no  longer  lies — if  it  ever  did  lie  there — in  the 
tendency  of  young  women  to  become  unattrac- 
tive and  neglectful  of  social  duties  in  their 
strenuous  devotion  to  study,  but  rather  in  the 
inclination  to  turn  a  college  career  into  a  sea- 
son of  social  triumphs. 

He  says  we  have  had  no  great  woman  novelist 
since  George  Kliot.  Very  true,  but  have  we 
had  any  man  novelist  whom  we  could  put  side 
by  side  with  Dickens  and  Thackeray?  The 
great  three  of  the  mid-nineteenth  century  are 
still  the  great  three,  although  many  able 
writers,  both  men  and  women,  have  followed. 


Afl  for  education  George  BUot,  probably,  of 
the  three,  knew  the  most  of  books,  tbonsh.  It 
is  true,  she  did  not  read  her  books  In  the 
shelter  of  university  walls.  Thackeray  bad 
the  conventional  university  education,  bat  we 
cannot  help  feeling  that  his  books  show  more 
reflection  of  his  life  as  a  law  student  In  the 
Middle  Temple  and  as  a  student  of  art  in 
Paris.  And  Dickens, — ^we  all  know  the  con- 
ditions from  which  he  pulled  himself  np ;  his 
desultory  reading,  bis  hard  sehoollnir  In  the 
city  streets. 

Go  back  to  the  other  *'big  three** — to  Rich- 
ardson, Fielding,  and  Smollett.  Fielding  was 
the  only  one  who  had  a  university  education, 
'and  that  was  incomplete.  Smollett  was  ap- 
prenticed to  a  medical  practitioner  and  saUed 
as  a  surgeon's  mate.  Richardson  claimed  only 
a  common-school  education,  and  yet,  though  it 
is  old-fashioned  and  almost  forgotten  today, 
"Clarissa  Harlowe*'  is  one  of  the  great  books 
of  the  world.  To  be  sure  Fielding  gives  a 
broader,  sounder,  saner  view  of  the  world  than 
Richardson  or  Smollett ;  but  we  cannot  teU  how 
much  his  academic  experience  had  to  do  with  it. 

The  two  most  important  of  the  later  men, 
Meredith  and  Hardy,  are  not  of  university 
training.  Meredith,  we  are  told,  was  mainly 
self-educated ;  he  attended  for  a  while  a  Ger- 
man school  near  Coblens,  and  was  articled  to 
a  lawyer.  Hardy  had  private  tuition  in  Latin 
and  Greek,  and  attended  some  evening  classes 
at  King's  College,  London.  We  know  that  Ste- 
venson was  his  own  best  teacher;  that  Scott 
received  only  a  small  share  of  his  rich  equip- 
ment of  historical  and  literary  lore  in  univer- 
sity classes. 

Among  the  men  writing  novels  today,  as 
among  those  of  the  past,  we  And  diversity  of 
training.  Arnold  Bennett's  "higher  education" 
consisted  in  the  study  of  law,  a  study  which 
he  abandoned,  however,  to  take  up  editorial 
work.  Galsworthy  was  an  Oxford  man.  Mr. 
Wells  received  a  college  education — ^but  one 
which  was  scientific  rather  than  literary — at 
the  Royal  College  of  Science. 

Mr.  Phillips  quotes  us  many  famous  French 
women  who  reached  literary  distinction  with- 
out education  in  its  formal  sense.  We  can 
quote  him  in  turn  at  least  two  famous  French 
men  whose  distinction  owed  nothing  to  regular 
university  training:  Dumas,  who  was  ap- 
prenticed to  a  notary,  and,  like  the  poor  pren- 
tice of  romance,  went  to  Paris  with  twenty 
francs  in  his  pocket ;  and  Balzac,  who  studied 
law  for  three  years. 


The  Poetry  Society  of  America 
offers  the  William  Lindsey  Prize  of 
$500  for  the  best  unproduced  and  un- 
published full  length  poetic  play  (that 
is,  a  play  that  will  occupy  an  evening) 
written  by  an  American  citizen.    No 


THE  GOSSIP  SfiOP 


607 


restrictions  are  placed  upon  the  num- 
ber of  acts  or  scenes,  or  on  the  nature 
of  the  subject  matter.  The  judges  of 
the  contest  will  be  George  Arliss»  Pro- 
fessor Greorge  Pierce  Baker  of  Har- 
vard, Cla3rton  Hamilton,  Jessie  B.  Rit- 
tenhouse,  and  Stuart  Walker.  The 
contest  closes  July  1, 1921. 

The  prize  of  $500  for  the  best  vol- 
ume of  poems  written  by  an  American 
citizen,  which  the  Poetry  Society  has 
for  the  past  two  seasons  given  through 
Columbia  University,  will  this  year  be 
awarded  directly  by  the  Society.  As 
the  prize  is  not  competitive  but  in  the 
nature  of  an  award,  books  need  not  be 
entered  for  it  as  in  the  ordinary  prize 
competition.  The  judges  for  the  pres- 
ent season  are  Professor  John  Livings- 
ton Lowes  of  Harvard,  author  of 
"Convention  and  Revolt  in  Poetry"; 
Edwin  Arlington  Robinson ;  and  Alice 
Corbin  Henderson,  associate  editor  of 
"Poetry". 


A  sometime  sophomore  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  California,  Hazel  Haver- 
male,  in  a  letter  to  the  Gossip  Shop, 
gives  her  impressions  on  once  seeing 
Rupert  Brooke  plain: 

"It  was  during  1914  that  Rupert 
Brooke  came  through  California  on 
his  way  home  from  the  South  Seas.  I 
was  a  member  of  the  small  sophomore 
class  in  verse  writing.  We  used  to 
meet  in  a  hideous,  little  room  in  rick- 
ety, old  North  Hall  and  used  to  have 
our  'efforts'  read  by  a  patient  and  en- 
thusiastic young  instructor  who  was 
always  appearing  abruptly  with  some 
newly-discovered  poet  under  his  arm. 
Not  usually,  however,  was  the  appear- 
ance of  the  poet  in  more  than  octavo, 
and  so  when  he  walked  in  upon  us  one 
spring  day  with  a  tall  young  man 
under  his  arm,  we  knew  he  had 
brought  us  a  live  poet. 

"The  two  men  walked  down  the 


small  room  to  the  low  platform  and 
Brooke  was  seated  with  his  face  to  the 
light.  I  remember  noting  that  his 
yellow-brown  hair  was  overlong  and 
was  brushed  back  from  a  thin  face 
burned  brown  by  tropical  sunshine,  a 
face  from  which  a  pair  of  eyes — flight 
eyes,  looked  out  calmly.  We  were  all 
a  little  superciliously  conscious  of  his 
soft,  blue  collar  and  general  air  of 
comfort;  I  remember  that  at  that 
time  we  were  absorbed  in  the  theory 
that  a  poet  should  never  be  distin- 
guishable from  the  multitude  by  his 
dress.  I  remember,  too,  that  almost 
none  of  us  had  ever  heard  his  name, 
and  when  the  instructor  presented  Ru- 
pert Brooke  of  England,  it  made  little 
impression  on  our  sensibilities. 

"He  sat  down  at  the  desk,  an  ugly, 
yellow-varnished  affair,  and  opened 
his  small  volume  and  began  to  read. 
At  first  the  English  intonation  struck 
strangely  on  our  western  ears,  but 
soon  the  mellow  tone  became  even  and 
flowing  and  we  listened.  He  read 
'The  Fish',  'The  Great  Lover*,  and  a 
number  of  others ;  he  read  some  lovely 
things  written  while  he  was  in  the 
South  Seas,  poems,  full  of  tiarSs  and 
murmuring  seas,  that  I  have  never 
seen  published.  And  all  the  time  his 
body  slid  lower  and  lower  in  the  cane- 
bottomed  chair  and  his  arms  came 
down  and  down  on  the  desk  until  his 
chin  was  resting  almost  on  his  book 
and  his  head  was  scarcely  visible  above 
the  rim  of  the  desk. 

"It  is  not  within  my  knowledge 
whether  or  not  Rupert  Brooke  was  in 
the  habit  of  reading  his  verse  pub- 
licly, but  certainly  his  manner  that 
time  was  tinged  either  with  a  real  em- 
barrassment or  diffidence.  His  voice 
flowed  on  and  on,  and  sank  to  a  lower 
and  lower  key,  as  we  sat  forward  to 
hear  him.  He  did  not  often  raise  his 
eyes  from  the  pages,  but  occasionally 


THE  BOOKMAN 


a  flickering  smile  played  over  his  face 
when  he  came  to  a  line  one  could  see 
he  thought  either  good  or  humorous. 
When  he  read  'Menelaus  and  Helen' 
he  frankly  grinned.  Certainly  Brooke 
loved  some  of  his  verse,  whether  he 
loved  to  read  it  or  not,  and  'Grantches- 
ter'  was  the  crowning  and  final  per- 
formance. That  he  read  with  a  gusto 
and  feeling  that  had  something  of  the 
homesick  boy  in  it. 

"The  hour  came  sharply  to  a  close; 
our  instructor  thanked  him  and  he 
bowed  in  a  half-ofiiah  and  half-shy 
English  manner.  We  walked  out.  I 
don't  know  why  there  was  an  awkward 
moment  for  us  as  we  left.  It  seemed 
as  if  someone  ought  to  say  something; 
it  seemed  an  abrupt  ending  and  some- 
how ungracious.  Only  one  of  our 
number  had  the  urbanity  to  wait  and 
be  presented  as  our  instructor  and 
Brooke  came  down  the  little  room;  the 
rest  of  us  filed  out  and  scattered  to 
our  various  ways.  I  went  to  the  li- 
brary and  thought  I'd  look  up  his 
book,  but  it  was  already  gone.  In  fact, 
that  small  volume  of  his  was  worn  and 
stamped  many  times  before  I  got  it 
several  weeks  later." 


Frederick  Niven  has  dropped  into 
the  ears  of  Simon  Pure,  who  has 
passed  the  news  on  to  the  Gossip  Shop, 
that  he  is  off  to  Montreal  and  New 
York  on  hid  way  to  the  western  states, 
British  Columbia,  and  Alaska.  Mr. 
Niven,  always  original,  ia  not  lectur- 
ing. He  is  visiting  old  familiar  haunts 
again.  It  is  good  to  think  that  he  does 
not  get  his  material  for  his  American 
books  from  the  London  movie  shows 
or  from  a  Pullman  car  window.  As 
"Who's  Who"  says  of  him,  he  is  a  roll- 
ing stone,  keen  on  all  methods  of 
travel,  and  his  favorite  recreation  is 
seeing  new  places  and  revisiting  re- 
membered ones.    His  life  up  to  this 


time  has  spanned  a  goodly  segment  of  I 
the  globe,  for  he  was  bom  in  Valpa- 
raiso, Chile,  and  educated  in  GlasKow. 
The  scene  of  his  new  novel  "A  Tale 
That  Is  Told"  (to  be  published  in 
America  in  the  fall)  is  not,  like  "The 
Lady  of  the  Crossing",  laid  in  Amer- 
ica ;   it  is  a  story  of  Scotland. 


A  friend  of  the  Gossip  Shop  (Mary  1 
Blair  of  Highlands,  California)  writes  I 
her  idea  of  Mr.  Noah  Webster  at  tiie  | 
ouija  board,  thus  addressing  W.  B.  I 
after  reading  page  4S4  of  the  Janui 
Bookman: 


Do  the  dwarreo  ride  ovei 

r  the  rooTea 
On. 

Dt 

Tlie  diennt  Hie  over  I 

.he  roo;.f 

But  !(  Mr,  Bern 

Elect  to  Buy 

AnrthlDg  that  he  Ub< 

!» in  hia  owi 

■  COOdwv. 

We  never  sban  aak  foi 

So    the    dwnrvBB    In    scnrves    may 

iDfert   tka 

(For    they    never,    no. 

never,    do 

thtuc*   bar 

hafrHveBl) 

Let  ■em  Btamp  tlielr  hoofa 

Wlio  metlcalonaly  demon 

d  aa  troota 

That  dwarf!  ride  over 

the  roofa — 

Onol 

That  dwarrea  ride  ove 

r  the  roovci 

"William— An  Englishman",  which 
a  year  ago  won  the  French  Academy 
prize  of  20,000  francs  as  the  best  novel 
of  the  year  published  in  any  language, 
comes  from  a  New  York  house  (astrike 
delay).  The  author.  Cicely  Hamilton, 
is  a  London  actress,  journalist,  and 
feminist  lecturer.  The  book  is  an  ex- 
quisitely satirical  account  of  a  youns 
nonentity  on  the  way  to  being  a  social- 
ist; of  his  marriage  to  another  non- 
entity, a  young  suffrsgist;  of  their 
honeymoon  into  Belgium  vE4iere  they 
wake  overnight  to  the  cataclysm  on 
their  doorstep.  The  rest  is  war,  and 
the  story  closes  sans  heroine,  sans  hero, 
sans  everything.  But  nothing  is  pain- 
ful.   It  is  told  with  a  beautiful  heart- 


August,  1920 
HEAVEN'S  UTILE  IRONIES 

James  Lane  Allen 

THE  SHINING  HOUR 

William  HcFee 

FRANCIS  BRETT  YOUNG 

Comptcm  Mackenzie 

THE  WIFE  OF  HONORS  DE  BALZAC 

Princess  Catherine  Radziwill 

JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

Ra)rn)ond  M.  Weaver 

Murray  Hill  on  His  Travels — Humor  in  Literature,  by  C  S.  Evans — A  Bonus  for 

the  Poet,  by  Constance  Murray  Greene — The  Socialization  of  the  Library, 

by  Arthur  E,  Bosiwick — Shakespeare?   by  Edwin  Bjorhnan— 

Current  Taste  in  Fiction,  by  John  Walcott—The  Londoner 

—A  Shelf  of  Recent  Booh— Gossip  Sht^ 

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THE    BOOKMAN    AOVEMTISBK 

THE  BOOKMAN 

CLONDON,  ENGLAND) 

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PlMM  menttou  Tna  »«>».»»">  tai  ■wtWto*  to  * 


AUGUST,  1920 


VOL.  LI,  NO.  6 


THE 


BCDKMAN 


THE  SHINING  HOUR 


BY  WILLIAM  McFEE 


rIE  destroyer,  driven  by  her  three 
powerful  turbines,  moves  forward 
in  a  series  of  long  vibrant  lunges.  As 
she  careens  in  each  of  her  rhythmical 
pauses,  there  mingles  with  the  inter- 
minable hum  of  her  revolving  rotors 
the  complaining  sough  and  hiss  of  the 
white  spume  flying  from  her  high- 
flaring  forecastle,  and  overflowing 
with  a  dazzling  commotion  the  opaque 
blue  of  the  heaving  sea.  Far  forward, 
in  the  shadows  beneath  that  same 
forecastle,  screened  from  light  and 
weather,  and  the  flat  white  tops  of 
their  saucy  caps  catching  the  pale  glow 
of  a  dirty  electric  globe,  sit  several 
bluejackets,  the  blue-grey  smoke  of 
their  cigarettes  vanishing  like  strips 
of  impalpable  gauze  overside.  On  the 
bridge  a  solitary  gleaming  figure  in 
oilskins  and  peaked  hat  maintains  it- 
self in  equilibrium  with  the  intelligent 
precision  of  a  motionless  pendulum. 
Nearer,  the  torpedoes  in  the  sinister 
hooded  tubes  strain  slightly  at  their 
lashings  between  the  huge  squat  cowls, 
with  their  wired  orifices,  which  lead  to 
the  forced-draft  fans  of  the  bright, 


clean,  silent  stokeholds.  The  three 
short  and  flattened  funnels  are  raked, 
so  that,  viewed  from  astern  they  have 
an  air  of  haughty  and  indomitable  en- 
durance, like  that  of  a  man  driving  a 
team  at  furious  speed  and  leaning  back 
in  derision.  And  from  their  throats 
pour  torrents  of  hot  gases  visible  only 
by  the  tremulous  agitation  of  the  at- 
mosphere to  leeward.  At  intervals,  as 
the  slim  ovalled  stem  rises  higher 
than  usual,  the  sunlight  glints  on  the 
bronze  hand-wheels  of  the  after  gun 
and  gives  a  delicate  sheen  to  the 
green-painted  depth-charges  in  their 
cradles  by  the  rail  And  there  is  an 
ominous  roar  from  the  white  effer- 
vescence below,  a  roar  which  dies 
away  inunediately  the  stem  subsides, 
and  one  can  see  again  the  emerald  and 
jade  and  cream  of  the  wake  stretching 
like  a  floating  ribbon  to  the  limits  of 
vision. 

And  as  we  proceed,  to  use  a  naval 
euphemism  for  any  adjustment  of  po- 
sition, whether  carried  out  at  one  knot 
or  one  hundred,  the  scene  through 
which  we  are  passing  changes  with 


609 


610 


THE  BOOKMAN 


that  fabulous  disregard  of  rational 
probabilities  which  is  experienced  in 
dreams.  The  islands  of  the  ^gean 
seem  to  be  playing,  as  in  mythological 
times,  some  ponderous  and  mysterious 
game.  They  come  and  go.  They  exe- 
cute protean  transformations  of  out- 
line and  chameleon  changes  of  lustre 
and  hue.  As  we  speed  westward  the 
sun  behind  Olympos  seems,  like  King 
Charles,  an  unconscionable  time  dy- 
ing: and  then,  as  the  course  is 
changed  to  the  northeastward  he  drops 
with  disconcerting  suddenness  and  a 
polychromatic  splash  into  a  trans- 
figured ocean.  And  a  staid  and  re- 
spectable cargo-boat,  doing  her  twelve 
knots  perhaps,  heaves  into  clear  view, 
slides  past,  and  vanishes  with  the  in- 
decent haste  of  a  funeral  reproduced 
on  the  cinematograph. 

Such  is  life  at  thirty-five  knots. 

On  such  an  occasion,  too,  as  has 
been  described,  a  benevolent  and  keen- 
eyed  aviator,  had  he  been  passing  over- 
head, might  have  seen,  huddled  upon 
the  after  deck  of  the  destroyer,  a  fig- 
ure in  naval  uniform  with  his  oilskins 
up  to  his  ears,  keeping  a  watchful  eye 
upon  a  khaki-colored  sea-bag  and  a 
couple  of  battered  suitcases  which 
threatened  at  every  swing  to  come 
adrift  and  slide  over  the  smooth  lino- 
leum-covered deck  into  the  sea.  And 
being  familiar  with  that  part  of  the 
world  and  the  naval  habits  pertaining 
thereto,  this  aviator  would  have  sur- 
mised that  the  figure  would  be,  very 
likely,  a  Lieutenant  of  Reserve  on  his 
way  home,  who  had  been  granted  a 
passage  on  a  destroyer  to  enable  him 
to  join  another  warship  which  would 
consent  to  take  him  to  Malta. 

And  his  surmise  would  have  been 
perfectly  correct. 

But  what  this  benevolent  aviator 
would  not  have  divined  as  he  swept 
over  and  on,  and  ultimately  picked 


up  his  next  landmark,  which  was 
Mount  Athos,  would  be  that  the  Lieu- 
tenant of  Reserve  had  made  a  vow  to 
write  an  article  before  he  got  home, 
and  that  he  was  feeling  depressed  at 
the  extreme  unlikelihood  of  his  ever 
doing  so  if  his  transit  was  to  be  con- 
ducted seated  on  a  bronze  scuttle  and 
holding  on  to  his  worldly  possessions 
as  they  slipped  and  swayed. 

Another  thing  the  aviator  would 
never  have  guessed  was  that  this  Lieu- 
tenant of  Reserve,  addicted  as  he  was 
to  literature,  had  never  been  able  to 
take  it  seriously.  It  was  almost  as  if 
he  and  literature  had  had  a  most  fas- 
cinating intrigue  for  a  good  many 
years  yet  he  had  always  refused  to 
marry  her  I  He  had  never  been  able 
to  settle  down  day  after  day  to  a  hum- 
drum ding-dong  battle  with  a  manu- 
script, every  week  seeing  another 
batch  finished  and  off  to  the  printers : 
a  steady,  working  journeyman  of  let- 
ters. He  had  heard  of  such  people. 
He  had  read  interviews  with  eminent 
votaries  of  this  sort  of  thing  and  had 
taken  their  statements  (uttered  with- 
out the  flicker  of  an  eyelash)  with  a 
grain  of  salt.  He  had  always  been 
ready  with  a  perfectly  valid  reason 
which  excused  his  own  failure  to  do 
such  things.  He  was  a  Lieutenant  of 
Reserve  and  it  was  impossible,  with 
the  daily  duties  and  grave  responsi- 
bilities of  such  a  position,  to  concen- 
trate upon  anything  else. 

All  nonsense,  of  course,  as  anyone 
who  has  seen  a  Lieutenant  of  Reserve 
at  work  could  tell  you.  Besides,  it  is 
well  known  that  men  at  the  front 
wrote  poems  "under  fire",  that  army 
ofiicers  sat  amid  shot  and  shell  and 
calmly  dictated  best  sellers.  It  is 
equally  well  known  that,  with  practice, 
any  naval  ofiicer  of  average  intelli- 
gence can  be  educated  to  fire  a  fifteen- 
inch  gun  with  one  hand  and  write  a 


THE  SHINING  HOUR 


611 


villanelle  with  the  other.  As  for  avi- 
ators, they  may  be  said  not  only  to 
'lisp  in  numbers''  as  was  said  of  Pope, 
but  they  take  as  many  flights  of  fancy 
as  they  do  over  the  lines.  So  there  is 
no  real  reason  for  a  mere  Lieutenant 
of  Reserve  failing  to  turn  out  a  mo- 
notonously regular  ten  thousand  words 
a  day,  let  us  say,  except  his  own  lazi- 
ness and  incapacity.  And  this  par- 
ticular Lieutenant  of  Reserve  felt  this 
in  his  heart;  and  so,  as  soon  as  the 
cares  of  office  fell  from  his  shoulders 
he  vowed  a  vow  that  each  day  he  would 
do  a  regular  whack  at  this  proposed 
article,  that  each  day  he  would  im- 
prove the  shining  hour. 

Moreover,  and  above  all,  there  was 
the  great  example  of  Anthony  Trol- 
lope.  Possibly  the  reader  has  heard 
of  that  eminent  best  seller  of  a  past 
age,  whom  nothing  could  dismay.  For 
TroUope's  chief  claim  to  the  pop-eyed 
reverence  of  posterity  seems  to  be 
that  he  reduced  writing  to  the  method- 
ical precision  of  a  carpenter  planing 
a  board.  His  slogan  was  not  ''art  for 
art's  sake",  or  "quality  not  quantity", 
or  an3rthing  like  that  at  all.  It  was 
not  even  that  ancient  piece  of  twaddle 
"ntdla  dies  sine  linea".  It  was  "a  page 
every  quarter  of  an  hour".  For  years 
the  Lieutenant  of  Reserve  had  been 
haunted  by  the  picture  evoked  by  that 
simple  phrase — the  picture  of  a  big 
beefy  person  with  mutton-chop  whis- 
kers and  a  quill-pen,  sitting  squarely 
at  a  table  with  a  clock  before  him; 
and  four  times  every  hour  would  be 
heard  the  hiss  of  a  sheet  torn  off  and 
flung  aside  and  a  fresh  one  begun.  It 
is  no  good  arguing  that  they  didn't 
use  writing  blocks  in  those  days.  A 
man  who  worked  his  brain  by  the 
clock  would  no  doubt  invent  a  tear-off 
pad  for  his  own  use.  I  have  seen  him, 
in  nightmares,  and  heard  the  hiss. 
And  nothing  could  stop  him.    At  sea 


he  was  just  the  same.  The  ship  might 
roll,  the  waves  run  mountains  high, 
sailors  get  themselves  washed  off  and 
drowned,  engines  break  down,  boiler- 
furnaces  collapse  and  propeller-shafts 
carry  away — n'importe.  Wedged  into 
his  seat  in  the  cabin  Trollope  drove 
steadily  on.  Every  fifteen  minutes, 
click!  another  page  finished.  If  a 
chapter  happened  to  be  completed, 
half-way  down  a  page,  he  did  not  stop. 
On!  on!  not  even  when  a  novel  was 
finished  did  he  waste  any  time.  He 
took  a  fresh  sheet  of  paper  perhaps 
(with  a  steady  glance  at  the  clock) 
and  went  right  on  at  the  next  one. 

There  was  something  heroic  about 
this,  one  feels,  but  there  is  an  uneasy 
feeling  at  the  back  of  one's  mind  that 
the  man  had  mistaken  his  vocation. 
Why  did  he  do  it?  Had  he  a  frightful 
vision  of  a  public  at  its  last  gasp  for 
lack  of  nourishing  fiction,  and  so 
toiled  on  with  undiminished  ardor, 
hour  after  hour,  day  after  day?  Had 
he  conmiitted  some  dark  and  desperate 
crime,  and  so  was  seeking  to  do  pen- 
ance by  thus  immolating  himself  upon 
thealtar  of  unremitting  labor?  Other- 
wise, why  did  he  do  it?  For  the  the- 
ory that  he  liked  doing  it  or  that  it 
was  a  perfectly  natural  thing  for  an 
author  to  do,  is  untenable.  There  is  a 
story  that  he  did  not  believe  very  much 
in  inspiration,  or  rather  that  he  did 
not  believe  in  waiting  for  it;  and  one 
is  bound  to  admit  that  his  novels  seem 
to  prove  it.  But  if  a  man  does  not 
believe  in  waiting  for  inspiration, 
what  is  his  idea  in  writing  at  all?  It 
is  like  a  man  saying  that  he  does  not 
believe  in  waiting  for  love,  that  one 
woman  is  very  much  like  another  as 
far  as  he  is  concerned,  that  those  who 
express  finical  preferences  are  not 
serious  citizens  concerned  only  with 
keeping  up  the  birthrate.. . . 

Nevertheless  it  must  be  admitted 


612 


THE  BOOKMAN 


that  the  Trollopian  tradition  has  its 
fascinations  for  those  whov  having 
some  turn  for  writing,  are  preoccu- 
pied more  with  the  fact  of  achieve- 
ment than  the  fun  of  the  thing.  The 
great  point,  they  feel,  is  to  get  it  done 
(and  paid  for).  They  compose  direct 
onto  a  typewriter,  it  is  rumored,  and 
even  employ  a  secretary  to  take  it 
down.  And  when  the  shift  is  over, 
one  supposes  they  go  away  and  play 
golf.  No  doubt  in  time  the  secretary 
is  able  to  cope  with  the  work  unaided. 
It  is  difficult  to  see  why  not. 

To  the  Lieutenant  of  Reserve,  how- 
ever, these  considerations  were  not  of 
much  importance.  This  humdrum 
method  of  intensive  quantity-produc- 
tion might  destroy  the  soul  if  per- 
sisted in  for  years.  He  had  no  such 
intention.  He  merely  wished  to  see 
whether  it  could  be  carried  on  for  a 
short  while.  And  when  he  and  his 
baggage  were  tumbled  off  the  de- 
stroyer into  a  picket-boat  and  carried 
aboard  of  a  sloop-of-war  bound  for 
Malta,  he  began  to  nerve  himself  for 
the  trial.  The  time  had  come,  he 
felt,  to  improve  the  shining  hour. 

For  of  course,  with  that  curious 
self-deception  that  seems  to  give  an 
air  of  unreality  to  everything  an  au- 
thor says  to  himself,  he  was  quite  sure 
he  knew  what  it  was  he  had  to  write. 
Quite  sure.  It  was  to  be  an  article  of, 
say  three  or  four  thousand  words. 
There  was  to  be  no  nonsense  about 
"getting  stuck"  in  the  middle  of  it,  or 
changing  it  into  something  else  and 
making  it  longer.  He  would  write  it 
in  his  bunk,  pad  propped  up  on  knee, 
for  there  is  always  too  much  noise  in 
these  ward-rooms  with  the  gramo- 
phone in  one  corner,  the  paymaster's 
typewriter  going  in  another,  and  half- 
a-dozen  men  playing  cards  in  between. 
And  smiling  a  little,  he  requested  a 
mess-rating  to  show  him  his  cabin. 


A  sloop,  the  uninitiated  may  be  in- 
formed, is  not  a  vessel  primarily  de- 
signed to  encourage  the  production  of 
literature.    She  is,  on  the  contrary,  a 
slender,    two-funneled,    wasp-waisted 
affair  of  undeniable  usefulness  during 
what   were   known    as    '^hostilities". 
She  is  subdivided  into  minute  spaces 
by  steel  bulkheads  with  dished  and 
battened  rubber-jointed  doors.     The 
ordinary  pathways  of  humanity  are 
encumbered  by   innumerable  wheels, 
plugs,   pipes,   wires,   extension   rods, 
and  screwed  down  hatchways.     And 
when   it  became   necessary   to    send 
home    Lieutenants    of    Reserve    and 
many  other  ranks  and  ratings,  so  that 
a  grateful  country  might  pay   them 
off  and  leave  them  to  shift  for  them- 
selves, the  Navy  found  it  increasingly 
difficult  to  find  passages  for  them,  and 
decided  to  go  into  the  passenger  busi- 
ness itself.     And  the  world  having 
been  made  perfectly  safe  for  democ- 
racy, it  was  felt  that  anything  savor- 
ing  of  comfort  would  be  out  of  place 
in  their  ships.    The  stem,  iron-bound 
and   rock-ribbed  veterans  who  were 
coming  home  would  scorn  the  soft  de- 
lights of  a  wire  mattress  or  shaving 
glass.     These   ammunition-chambers, 
for  example,  are  the  very  thing.    Fix 
'em  up.  And  in  a  few  hours  four  bunks 
would  be  fitted  up  in  a  space  about  the 
size  of  an  ordinary  office  strong-roonu 
There  is  neither  light  nor  ventilation; 
but  no  matter.    Give  'em  a  couple  of 
electrics.  They're  only  here  for  a  few 
days  anyhow. 

And  here  we  are !  There  are  three 
other  Lieutenants  of  Reserve  in  the 
other  three  bunks  and  the  conversa- 
tion is  general.  The  gentleman  be- 
low me,  who  is  smoking  strong  Turk- 
ish cigarettes,  has  just  come  down 
from  the  Black  Sea  where  he  has  been 
employed  resuscitating  a  temporally 
defunct  Russian  cruiser.     Some  job, 


THE  SHINING  HOUR 


618 


he  avers.  The  Russians  may  be  great 
idealists  and  artists;  they  may  even 
have  a  knack  at  the  ballet  and  show 
us  a  thing  or  two  about  novel-writing, 
but  they  are  out  of  their  element  as 
sailormen.  You  cannot  navigate  a 
ship  with  the  wild,  free  movement  of 
the  figures  in  a  Bakst  design.  You 
must  cultivate  a  different  attitude 
toward  material  forces  in  an  engine- 
room  than  is  adumbrated  in  modem 
Russian  fiction.  This  is  corroborated 
by  Mr.  Top-Bunk  on  the  other  side. 
Fine  job  they'd  given  him,  a  respecta- 
ble engineer.  Did  we  know  Novoros- 
siisk  at  all?  Yes,  we  chimed,  we'd 
loaded  grain  there  in  the  old  days.  Up 
the  River  Bug,  wasn't  it?  Yep.  Well, 
a  place  not  so  far  up,  Ekaterin-some- 
thing.  They'd  mussed  up  the  electric- 
power  plant.  We  had  to  get  it  going 
again.  To  begin  with,  these  idealists, 
these  makers  of  a  new  and  happier 
world,  had  let  the  boilers  go  short  of 
water,  had  brought  down  the  furnace- 
crowns  and  started  a  good  many  stays. 
Also  they  had  cut  a  good  deal  of  in- 
dispensable copper  away  from  the 
switchboard  and,  presumably,  sold  it. 
Or  perhaps  they  were  merely  putting 
their  theories  into  practice  and  divid- 
ing up  the  plant  among  the  conunun- 
ity.  However,  it  didn't  signify,  be- 
cause while  we  were  making  up  our 
plans,  on  the  boat,  and  trying  to  figure 
out  how  much  of  the  original  wreck- 
age would  come  in  again,  one  of  the 
local  enthusiasts  felt  he  couldn't  wait 
any  longer  for  the  Millennium  and 
flung  an  armful  of  hand-grenades 
through  the  shattered  windoi^  of  the 
power-house.  We  could  imagine  what 
happened  among  those  dynamos  and 
turbine-cases. 

Mr.  Lower-Bunk  on  the  other  side 
doesn't  say  much  except  that  he'd 
been  mine-sweeping.  He  says  very 
little  all  the  way  to  Malta.    Sweepers 


very  rarely  have  much  to  say.  They 
have  a  habit  of  quiet  reticence,  en- 
gendered by  the  curious  life  they  lead, 
a  life  balanced  on  the  very  knife-edge 
of  disaster.  They  generally  get  grey 
over  the  ears  and  their  movements  are 
deliberate  and  cautious,  after  the  man- 
ner of  men  who  dwell  in  the  presence 
of  high  explosives.  It  occurs  to  me 
suddenly  that  these  men  are  all  about 
to  vanish,  to  disappear  from  public 
view,  and  we  shall  have  no  record  of 
their  spiritual  adventures  during  the 
last  few  years.  In  a  month  or  so  at 
most  they  will  have  doffed  their  naval 
uniforms  and  (much  to  their  relief) 
put  on  civilian  garb  once  more.  I  say 
we  shall  have  no  record  of  their  spir- 
itual adventures.  We  have  tales  of 
their  doings  as  heroes,  no  doubt;  but 
that  is  not  the  same  thing.  I  suppose, 
if  the  truth  be  told,  a  good  many  of 
them  have  had  no  adventures  of  this 
description.  A  surgeon  with  whom  I 
sailed,  a  dry  satirical  person  of  excep- 
tional mental  powers,  once  enunciated 
to  me  a  particularly  brutal  theory  to 
account  for  this  gap  in  our  literature. 
Just  as,  he  asserted,  just  as  below  a 
certain  stage  in  the  animal  kingdom 
the  nervous  system  becomes  so  rudi- 
mentary and  mechanical  that  pain  as 
we  know  it  is  non-existent,  so,  below 
a  certain  social  level  in  civilized  life 
the  emotions  are  largely  an  instinctive 
response  to  unconscious  stimuli  ap- 
plied to  actual  cases. 

This  mine-sweeping  Lieutenant  of 
Reserve  for  example,  who  lives  in  a 
diminutive  brick  subdivision  of  a  long 
edifice  in  a  long  road  a  long  way  out 
of  Cardiff,  and  who  enjoys  having 
his  tea  in  the  kitchen  with  his  coat 
off  and  the  cat  on  his  knee,  according 
to  my  surgical  friend,  is  unable  to 
comprehend  within  himself  the  emo- 
tions inspired  by  the  fine  arts,  by 
great  literature  or  by  great  beauty. 


614 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Now  this  seemed  to  me  unfair,  and  I 
adduced  as  an  argument  the  fact  that 
these  people  often  appreciated  fine  lit- 
erature. Nothing  could  have  been 
more  unfortunate!  I  had  delivered 
myself  into  his  hands.  He  simply 
as^ed  me  how  I  knew.  By  what  method 
of  calibration  were  we  to  gauge  the 
ability  of  these  people  to  appreciate 
anjrthing  of  the  sort?  Did  I  ever 
hear  these  people  talking  about  books, 
or  art  or  beauty?  I  was  silent,  and 
he  went  on  as  though  he  enjoyed  it. 
Reading,  he  informed  me,  was  no  evi- 
dence whatever.  Reading  the  written 
characters  in  a  printed  book  implied 
no  comprehension  of  the  moods  inspir- 
ing the  book.  Universal  education  had 
taught  these  people  to  go  through  the 
various  external  mental  processes,  and 
no  doubt  the  words  did  convey  some 
rough  and  ready  meaning  to  their 
minds,  just  as  a  monkey  who  has  been 
taught  to  ride  a  bicycle  had  some  sort 
of  crude  conception  of  momentum  and 
equilibrium.  But  as  for  actually  en- 
tering into  the  full  intention  of  the 
artist,  why,  look  at  the  books  they  gen- 
erally read,  look  at  the  pictures  they 
preferred,  look  (and  here  I  got  up  and 
walked  away)  at  the  women  they  mar- 
ried! 

I  mention  this  surgeon  because  I 
met  him  again  in  Malta.  After  four 
days  of  ceaseless  and  intolerable  roll- 
ing, pitching,  and  shaking,  during 
which,  I  calculated,  TroUope  would 
have  written  a  novel  and  a  half,  but 
which  added  not  a  word  to  my  article, 
we  raised  Malta,  and  passing  under 
the  great  guns  of  the  fortifications, 
anchored  in  the  Grand  Harbor  of  Val- 
letta. And  I  met  him  in  the  Strada 
Reale.  Sooner  or  later  one  meets  every 
man  one  has  ever  sailed  with  in  the 
Strada  Reale.  The  paymaster  who  was 
so  rude  to  you  about  an  advance  of 
pay  in  Scapa  Flow,  the  airman  who 


cleaned  you  out  at  poker  at 
the  engineer  who  tried  to  borrow  from 
you  in  Bizerta,  the  senior  naval  of- 
ficer who  refused  you  leave  in  Suez, — 
you  will  encounter  them  all  sooner  or 
later  in  the  Strada  Reale.  And  after  I 
had  deposited  my  baggage  in  one  of 
the  vaulted  chambers  which  pass  for 
bedrooms  within  the  enormous  walls 
of  the  Angleterre,  on  the  Strada  St. 
Lucia,  we  adjourned  to  the  great 
square  in  front  of  the  Libreria  and  sat 
at  a  little  table. 

And  the  thought  that  comes  to  me 
as  we  sit  at  the  little  table, — ^just  out 
of  the  stream  of  cheerful  people  who 
pour  up  and  down  the  Strada  Reale 
and  seem  to  have  no  other  occupation, 
and  in  the  shadow  of  the  great  honey- 
colored  walls  of  the  Governor's  Pal- 
ace,— is  that  the  Surgeon  will  not  only 
prevent  my  getting  on  with  my  article 
but  will  probably  adduce  half  a  dozen 
excellent  reasons  why  it  should  not 
be  written.  He  has  a  thin  chilly  smile 
which  is  amusing  enough  in  the  ward- 
room but  which  acts  like  a  blight  upon 
one's  inspiration.  He  is  not  satisfied 
with  proving  that  everything  has  been 
done.  He  goes  on  to  show  conclusively 
that  it  wasn't  worth  doing  anyway. 
The  tender  shoots  of  fancy,  the  deli- 
cate flowers  of  thought,  perish  in  the 
icy  wind  of  his  mentality.  The  fact  is, 
it  is  not  necessary  for  him  to  confess 
that  he  has  never  written  a  line, 
couldn't  write  a  line,  and  never  in- 
tends to  write  a  line.  It  sticks  out  all 
over.  He  lacks  that  naivete,  that  soft 
spot  in  his  brain,  that  shy  simplicity, 
which  brackets  the  artist  with  the 
tramp,  the  child,  and  the  village  idiot. 
He  is  ''all  there"  as  we  say,  and  one 
must  not  be  afraid  to  confess  that  an 
artist  is  very  rarely  "all  there".  I 
do  not  offer  this  explanation  to  him, 
of  course.  His  enjoyment  of  it  would 
be  too  offensive.    And  when  I  tell  him 


THE  SHINING  HOUR 


615 


of  my  misgivings  about  Trollope,  the 
smile  irradiates  his  thin  intellectual 
features.  He  fails  to  see  why  a  man 
shouldn't  work  at  writing  precisely 
the  same  as  he  works  at  anything  else. 
"If  he's  to  get  anything  done^'*  he 
adds. 

"But  don't  you  see",  I  argue  weakly, 
"the  artist  isn't  particularly  keen  on 
getting  a  thing  done,  as  you  call  it? 
He  gets  his  pleasure  out  of  doing  it, 
playing  with  it,  fooling  with  it,  if  you 
like.  The  mere  completion  of  it  is  an 
incident.    Can't  you  see?" 

But  he  couldn't.  These  efScient 
people  never  can  see  a  thing  like  that. 
They  mutter  "amateur",  and  light  a 
fresh  cigar.  They  are  like  first-class 
passengers  on  a  liner, — ^bright,  well- 


dressed,  well-mannered,  and  accom- 
plished people,  being  carried  they 
know  not  how  across  a  dark  and  mys- 
terious world  of  heaving  waters.  They 
can  explain  everything  without  know- 
ing much  about  anything.  They  are 
the  idle  rich  of  the  intellectual  world. 
They— 

"What  did  you  say  was  the  title  of 
that  article  you  were  going  to  write?" 
asked  the  Surgeon. 

"Well",  I  said  slowly,  "I  vxis  going 
to  caU  it  The  Shining  Hour*,  but  I 
don't  know  if  after  all. . ." 

"Well,  why  don't  you  get  on  with  it 
then?"  he  inquired,  and  he  snickered. 
"It  sounds  all  right,"  he  added,  and 
finished  his  Italian  vermouth.  "Have 
another.    It  may  give  you  an  ideal' 


)** 


HEAVEN'S  LITTLE  IRONIES 


BY  JAMES  LANE  ALLEN 


SCENE :  A  pleasant  day  of  unend- 
ing summer  in  Paradise — n^t  what 
we  should  have  caUed  summer,  should 
have  called  a  day.  A  quiet  hour  of 
the  endless  afternoon,  if  it  was  after- 
noon, if  there  were  hours.  A  land- 
scape— not  a^cttuU  land  of  course — 
stretching  away  in  enrapturing  vistas 
of  white  and  rosy  clouds  unaqueous 
and  banks  of  pearl,  so  to  speak: 
mother  of  pearl,  perhaps,  immortal 
mother  of  pearL  Vales  of  eternal  ver- 
dure, certainly  not  grass,  either.  Here 
and  there  crags  and  veins  of  gold,  real 
gold — 08  a  concession  and  everlasting 
appeasement  to  a  goodly  number  of 
the  saints. 

Two  shapes  reclining  on  a  lovely 
knoll  of  the  near  landscape,  enjoying 
their  virtues  and  the  forgiveness  of 
their  sins,  without  which  forgiveness 
they  and  their  virtues  might  have  been 
elsewhere.  Consciousness  of  inde- 
structible safety  enabling  them  to  take 
life — that  is,  take  eternity — easily. 
Their  long  white  pinions  folded  lazily. 

1st  S.    How  peaceful  it  is  I 

2nd  S.  And  yet  a  thought  disturbs 
me! 

1st  S.    What? 

2nd  S.  Dread  of  the  shape  that 
wanders  forever  through  Heaven  with 
its  sorrow. 

1st  S.  Oh,  yes!  The  shape  that 
sooner  or  later  approaches  everyone 
and  pours  out  its  tale  of  woe. 


2nd  S.  Sooner  or  later  it  -will  pour 
out  its  tale  of  woe  for  us — and  all 
over  us.  I  wonder  we  have  escaj^ed  so 
long. 

1st  S.  How  strange  that  any  sor- 
row ever  got  into  Heaven  where  we 
thought  there  should  be  none  I 

2nd  S.  It  ought  to  be  in  Hell  where 
there  must  be  shapes  enough  for  it  to 
torture.  Satan  could  use  it  as  a  slow 
pestilence  worse  than  flame.  Why 
should  it  be  allowed  at  large  here, 
forever  to  bore  us  to  death  where  we 
cannot  die! 

1st  S.  If  it  ever  accosts  us,  we'd 
best  say  little.  Let  it  pour  out  its 
sorrow  and  pass  on. 

2nd  S.  And  we'll  disturb  ourselves 
with  no  sympathy  for  it.  After  all 
the  difficulty  we  had  in  getting  here, 
we  want  to  be  happy.    I  do ! 

1st  S.    How  peaceful  it  is! 

[Around  a  nearby  bend  of  the  land- 
scape of  cloud  and  pearl  and  gold  a 
third  shape  comes  slowly  into  view, 
wandering  solitary,  its  wings  long 
stiffened  with  disuse.  Thus  of  old,  in 
the  brevity  of  the  course  of  time,  Ham- 
let in  sable  was  seen  to  tread  the  stage 
with  memory  surcharged  and  mth  a 
thought  too  great  for  his  frame.  A 
flock  of  snow-white  shapes,  flying  low 
and  catching  sight  of  this  vnng-folded 
solitary  wandering  one,  scatter  in  dif^ 
ferent  directions,  hurrying  each  on 


616 


HEAVEN'S  LITTLE  IRONIES 


617 


quickened  pinions  to  escape  in  the  de- 
lectable roominess  of  the  infinite.^ 

1st  S.  There  it  is  now!  It  has  dis- 
covered us !    It  starts  this  way. 

2ndS.  Heaven  forbid !  No,  Heaven 
allows  it !    Then  let's  be  off ! 

1st  S.  Why  not  suffer  it  to  speak 
now?  Then  we  shall  no  longer  have 
to  dread  it.  We'll  say  little  and  it  will 
not  linger. 

2nd  S.  I  am  not  sure  but  I'll  speak 
my  mind  to  it. 

3rd  S.  lApproaches  and  reclines 
unasked  in  front  of  the  ttooJ]  I  be- 
lieve I  have  not  seen  you  before.  There 
are  so  many,  infinite  and  infinite  num- 
bers. My  memory  is  not  clear  as 
to  all  I  have  met.    I  wish  to  miss  none. 

2nd  S.  You  have  never  seen  us. 
But  we  have  heard  of  you.  Oh,  yes! 
We  have  heard  of  you ! 

1st  S.    You  are  not  unknown  to  us. 

3rd  S.  That  is  not  wonderful. 
How  could  you  not  have  heard  of  one 
whose  sorrow  fills  all  Heaven. 

2nd  S.  There  are  no  sorrows  in 
Heaven!  Through  some  crack,  it 
seems,  a  bore  got  in. 

3rd  S.  I  know  I  am  in  Heaven  and 
I  know  I  have  a  sorrow!  You  shall 
hear  and  judge  for  yourselves. 

2nd  S.  I  heard  enough  of  other 
people's  troubles  when  I  was  on  earth : 
I  am  here  for  a  rest. 

3rd  S.  You  never  on  earth  heard 
of  a  trouble  such  as  mine ! 

2nd  S.  So  they  all  said.  I  take 
your  word  for  it!  Please  withhold 
the  proof! 

1st  S.  Would  it  take  long  for  you 
to  tell  us? 

3rd  S.  Long!  Certainly  there  is 
plenty  of  time  here !  No  one  can  com- 
plain of  lack  of  time,  not  here ! 

2nd  S.    All  our  time  is  taken! 

1st  S.  Tell  us  briefly — so  many  are 
waiting  to  hear! 

3rd  S.    Yes,  they  are  eagerly  wait- 


ing to  hear  me!  I  can  tell  you  in  a 
breath — ^that  old  expression !  Just  as 
I  had  gotten  ready  at  last  to  write  the 
Great  American  Novel,  I  died! 

2nd  S.    You  call  that  a  sorrow? 

3rd  S.  Why,  yes,  I  call  it  a  sorrow! 
What  do  you  call  it? 

2nd  S.  I  am  not  calling  names  in 
Heaven,  but  I'd  never  call  it  a  sorrow! 

3rd  S.  You  were  a  disagreeable 
man  on  earth,  I  can  see  that ! 

2nd  S.  I  certainly  hated  bores,  God 
be  praised! 

1st  S.  You  mean  that  you  are  for- 
ever unhappy  because  you  were 
brought  to  Heaven  on  a  given  date, 
instead  of  being  left  longer  on  earth 
to  write  the  novel  you  speak  of? 

8rd  S.  Why,  of  course!  Could 
Heaven  make  up  to  me  for  a  loss  like 
that — ^leaving  my  great  work  unwrit- 
ten on  earth?  I  should  have  gotten 
to  Heaven  anyhow:  the  work  would 
have  made  me  inmiortal.  I  should  have 
had  Heaven  and  my  masterpiece  both ! 

2nd  S.  Has  it  ever  occurred  to 
you  that  your  death  was  arranged  and 
timed  to  keep  you  from  writing  your 
novel:    God  is  merciful? 

3rd  S.  The  redeemed  sometimes 
drop  curious  remarks!  You  were  a 
bad  man ;  you  had  a  sharp  tongue  and 
a  sour  temper;  you  were  mean, 

1st  S.  Are  you  sure  that  you  would 
have  written  the  Great  American 
Novel,  even  if  you  had  not  been  trans- 
ferred prematurely  to  Eternity  where 
there  is  no  taste  for  fiction? 

3rd  S.  Why,  yes,  I  am  sure!  Did 
I  not  know?  Did  I  not  feel  it  in  me? 
Was  it  not  there  clear  in  my  mind, 
ready  and  waiting  to  be  written? 

1st  S.  But  were  there  not  others, 
many  others,  who  thought  the  same 
thing? 

8rd  S.  Impostors !  Idle  dreamers ! 
Failures!  Taking  advantage  of  the 
sheeplike  simple  people !    You  see  that 


had  been  the  faith  and  the  hope  of  the 
nation — ^that  such  a  great  work  would 
appear  in  the  fulness  of  time.  They 
fed  upon  it;  it  was  their  green  pas- 
ture. So  long  it  had  been  prophe- 
sied! It  had  become  a  vision  in  the 
eyes  of  the  whole  people.  From  time 
to  time  false  prophets  arose,  declar- 
ing that  the  Great  American  Novel 
had  at  last  appeared.  There  were  ly- 
ing publishers  who  proclaimed  this — 
knowing  they  lied.  There  were  lying 
critics  who  announced  that  they  had 
discovered  it»  working  in  collusion 
with  the  publishers  and  knowing  they 
lied!  You  will  find  none  of  them  here 
— ^those  lying  publishers,  those  lying 
critics !  At  last  the  hour  of  fulfilment 
drew  nigh.  I  was  the  chosen  one — 
when  I  died! 

2nd  S.    Who  chose  you?  Yourself  7 

3rd  S.    Hell  will  get  you  yet ! 

1st  S.  Of  what  was  it  you  died — 
prematurely,  as  you  think? 

3rd  S.  I  do  not  know  in  the  very 
end.  The  last  I  remember  was  I  had 
indigestion.  I  do  not  know  how  I  ever 
came  to  have  indigestion.  I  ate  very 
little  and  what  I  did  eat  always  agreed 
with  me.  I  saw  to  that.  I  never  com- 
mitted the  slightest  indiscretion  in 
diet.  I  saw  to  that.  It  was  part 
of  the  care  I  took  to  keep  myself  in 
perfect  condition  to  write  my  great 
book.  I  did  everything,  I  overlooked 
nothing, — 

2nd  S.    Except  the  great  book! 

3rd  S.  Have  I  to  remind  you  that 
in  Heaven  no  one  ever  interrupts  any- 
one? 

1st  S.  It  was  indigestion,  then,  as 
you  were  saying. 

3rd  S.  After  the  indigestion  start- 
ed, I  think  I  remember  there  was  trou- 
ble with  the  circulation — which  was 
blocked  in  the  brain — 

2nd  S.  Don't  you  suppose  it  was 
the  Great  Novel  that  blocked  the  cir- 


culation, filled  up  the  arteries,  split 
their  walls,  cracked  the  skull!  The 
kernel  growing  to  be  too  big  for  the 
shell  of  the  too  small  nut? 

3rd  S.  I  refuse  to  take  further  no- 
tice of  you !  You  do  not  belong  here : 
God  understands  that. 

1st  S.  Aren't  you  afraid  that  in 
time — ^in  eternity,  that  is — ^this  sub- 
ject will  get  on  your  nerves? 

3rd  S.  Do  you  forget  that  I  haven't 
any  nerves? 

2nd  S.  I  do  not  forget  that  you 
have  heavenly  nerve. 

1st  S.  I  mean,  will  you  not  grow 
too  fondly  wedded  to  your  sorrow? 

3rd  S.  I  shouldn't  think  it  exactly 
delicate  to  speak  of  being  fondly 
wedded  to  anything,  not  here!  I  am 
content  to  say  that  I  am  gloriously 
eternalized  with  my  glorious  grief  and 
disappointment. 

2nd  S.  Then  be  gloriously  eternal- 
ized with  it  and  be  gloriously  begone ! 
Fly  away  with  you!  We're  trying  to 
get  a  little  rest. 

3rd  S.  [Rising  and  withdrawing  a 
short  distance,  turns  and  speaks  dry- 
ly J]  You  two  are  the  only  ill-man- 
nered ones  in  all  the  heavenly  host. 
God  is  indeed  merciful — to  let  you  be 
here.  I  leave  you  alone  with  Him 
gladly.  [Walks  away,  the  stiff  edges 
of  its  pinions  cutting  little  furrows 
across  the  cloudy  floor."] 

2nd  S.  [CaJtling  after  it]  Thank 
you!  We  are  glad  to  be  left  alone 
with  Him! 

1st  S.  I  do  not  mind  telling  you 
that  I  was  the  head  of  a  great  pub- 
lishing house.  We  examined  a  num- 
ber of  his  things  which  were  submit- 
ted to  us  from  time  to  time  by  an 
agency  for  unsuccessful  authors. 
There  was  nothing  in  them.  We  finally 
declined  even  to  look  at  any  more. 

2nd  S.  Don't  I  know?  I  do  not 
mind  telling  you  that  I  was  a  great 


HEAVEN'S  LITTLE  IRONIES 


619 


successful  critic.  From  time  to  time 
his  things  came  to  me  from  one  pub- 
lisher after  another  who  had  brought 
them  out  against  hope.  Don't  I  know? 
I  had  to  read  them  and  review  them. 

1st  S.  Here  he  is  now,  making 
Heaven  ring  with  what  he  would  have 
done  if  he  had  not  died ! 

2nd  S.  One  of  those  failures  who 
blamed  others  because  they  failed,  who 
thought  themselves  martyrs  to  every 
circumstance.  He,  after  having  been 
martyr  to  everything  else,  at  last 
thought  he  was  a  martyr  to  the  provi- 
dence of  God  I  Nothing  else  would  let 
him  succeed  and  finally  God  wouldn't  I 

1st  S.  He  got  all  his  happiness  in 
life  out  of  being  miserable;  now  he 
feels  himself  infinitely  blessed  in  the 
possession  of  an  immortal  sorrow  I 

2nd  S.  Heaven  has  its  little  ironies. 
Here  are  you,  a  publisher  who  would- 
n't touch  his  stuff.  Here  am  I  who 
couldn't  read  it  and  wouldn't  praise  it. 
Here  are  we,  a  great  successful  pub- 
lisher, a  great  successful  critic,  and 
we  are  nobodies.  How  could  a  pub- 
lisher be  much  of  anything  in  Heaven? 
How  could  a  critic?  But  he — ^he 
whom  we  despised  and  rejected  will 
plainly  strut  in  Paradise  forever. 

1st  S.  I'll  admit  that  once  or  twice 
I  announced  to  a  waiting  world  that  I 
was  bringing  out  the  Great  American 
Novel!  But  I  don't  like  to  go  into 
that :  it  was  what  made  it  difficult  for 
me  to  get  here. 

2nd  S.  I  might  as  well  admit  I 
gave  out  two  or  three  times  that  I  had 
discovered  the  Great  American  Novel. 
Perhaps  I  wasn't  quite  sure  enough — 
that  was  forgiven  me.     Perhaps  my 


motives  were  not  as  pure  as  pearl: 
that  was  pardoned. 

1st  S.  How  natural  after  all  that 
the  only  country  heard  of  in  Heaven 
should  be  the  United  States!  The 
American  Invasion!  Not  Heaven  it- 
self could  keep  some  American  from 
reaching  here  with  a  boast  of  a  great- 
est thing  he  was  going  to  do ! 

2nd  S.  Yes !  No  matter  when  the 
final  curtain  had  rung  down  on  human 
affairs,  there  would  have  been  many 
people  in  the  United  States  to  com- 
plain that  Judgment  Day  occurred 
just  as  the  greatest  country  in  the 
world  was  about  to  get  into  action: 
that  now  it  would  never  be  known 
what  the  United  States  could  really 
do! 

1st  S.    Shall  we  fly  awhile? 

2nd  S.  I  have  nothing  else  before 
me. 

1st  S.  lAs  they  take  toing,']  Once 
to  have  been  a  publisher  who  was  not 
an  angel;  now  to  be  an  angel  who  is 
not  a  publisher!  I  am  not  dissatis- 
fied. But  it  was  a  pleasant  thing — 
that:  being  lord  of  creation. 

2nd  S.  To  have  had  one  quill  and 
no  wings ;  to  have  a  pair  of  wings  and 
not  a  quill!  I  do  not  complain  that 
here  there  is  nothing  to  complain  of. 
But  as  you  say — it  was  a  pleasant 
thing — that:  being  judge  of  all  the 
earth. 

1st  S.  If  I  could  only  bring  out 
something  here  once  in  a  while — ^just 
to  show  them!...  \_ShaMng  it8 
pinions  a^  the  act  of  a  creature  that 
ie  forbidden  to  crow  hut  retains  the 
gestured] 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


Indianapolis,  Jvly,  1920. 

NOW  I  have  a  theory  of  human  life. 
It  has  been  steadily  growing  on 
me  for  a  number  of  years,  the  convic- 
tion that  there  is  a  truth  in  it.  As  I 
look  back  into  my  own  life  I  cannot 
see  that  I  ever  did  anything  of  my 
own  volition.  Of  course,  at  the  times 
when  I  have  been  confronted  with  two, 
or  more,  courses  of  action,  I  have  al- 
ways believed  that,  weighing  the  mat- 
ter in  my  mind,  I  myself  made  a  de- 
cision, based  on  my  reason  and  experi- 
ence. And  now  when  such  a  situation 
arises  I  continue  to  think  the  same. 
But  curiously  enough,  I  recognize  af- 
terward that  I  did  no  such  thing. 

Anyone  (it  seems  to  me)  can  act 
only  in  one  way,  that  is,  in  accord 
with  his  heredity,  environment,  and 
character.  When  he  chooses  (as  he 
thinks  he  does)  one  way  rather  than 
another,  and  when  the  decision  (so  to 
call  it)  is  a  close  one,  it  is  that  there 
is  within  him  something,  the  weight 
of  a  grain  or  two  of  which  turns  the 
balance.  He  could  not  possibly  have 
acted  other  than  he  did,  as  all  his 
thoughts  and  actions  can  only  be  in 
character.  I  should  think  that  any 
serious  novelist  would  back  me  up  in 
this  idea,  for  having  given  a  figure  in 
his  story  heredity,  environment,  and 
character,  doesn't  he  (the  novelist), 
knowing  his  man,  know  beforehand 
exactly  what  he  will  do  in  any  given 
situation? 

Mr.  Tarkington  (frowning) :  "Y- 
yes ;  of  course." 


Mr.  Hill:  "And  can  the  novelist,  if 
he  has  any  artistic  conscience— can 
y(m  make  a  fictional  character  do  this 
or  that,  as  you  select,  in  order,  say,  to 
lead  the  story  to  some  kind  of  an  end- 
ing you  fancy?" 

Mr.  Tarkington  (frowning  harder)  : 
"Not  now.  I  used  to  write  stories  that 
way.  Used  to  get  stumped,  and" 
(broad  grin)  "try  to  think  up  what 
I'd  have  happen  next.  Now"  (in 
deadly  earnest)  "I  can  only  work  from 
the  inside  out.  The  whole  thing  turns 
on  character.  And  in  that  kind  of 
writing  about  the  only  thing  you  can 
choose  is  your  setting,  the  place  where 
you  are  going  to  lay  your  story. 

"You  follow  the  lead  of  your  char- 
acters," he  said.  "They  drag  you  on, 
and  about  the  only  fun  you  get  out  of 
the  thing  is  the  way  it  is  done — ^now 
and  then  a  paragraph  pleases  you  by 
the  way  you  have  turned  it." 

He  spoke  of  the  novel  he  was  now 
writing,  to  be  called  "Alice  Adams", 
the  name  of  the  heroine,  who  is  Alys 
Adams  when  the  story  opens.  He 
"hated"it,  that  book,  and  all  the  people 
in  it.  And  he  didn't  think  anybody 
would  ever  read  it. 

"But  that",  I  said,  "is  precisely 
what  you  told  me  about  'The  Magnifi- 
cent Ambersons'  when  you  were  writ- 
ing it.    Enough  people  read  that." 

"I  know",  he  said,  "but  this  is  much 
worse.  The  people  are  such  a  rotten, 
insignificant  lot,  and  nothing  ever 
happens  except  a  continual  piling  up 
of  petty  detail.    Nobody  will  want  it." 


620 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


621 


There's  another  idea  of  mine.  The 
young  lady  of  whom  I  have  spoken 
tells  me  that  we  no  longer  say,  "the 
older  I  get",  but  "the  longer  I  live". 
Well,  then,  the  longer  I  live,  the  more 
clearly  do  I  see  that  my  life  has  been 
all  of  a  piece. 

MiBfortunes  and  troubles  a  many  have 

proved  me ; 
One  or  two  women   (God  bless  tbem) 

have  loved  me. 

I  don't  know  where  I  got  that  jingle, 
maybe's  it's  Henley.  And  doubtless, 
I've  got  it  pretty  much  twisted.  Any- 
how, I've  had,  in  full  measure,  my 
share  of  that  hope  deferred  which 
maketh  the  heart  sick,  and  so  also  have 
I  had  many  a  black  eye  given  my  spirit. 
But,  I  see  it  now  as  plain  as  print,  all 
that  has  happened  to  me,  which  fre- 
quently at  the  time  of  its  occurrence 
I  thought  was  lamentable,  has  proved 
to  have  been  a  series  of  most  success- 
ful contributions  to  the  march  of  my 
years.  For,  more  times  than  one, 
when  my  life  has  appeared  to  me  (and 
to  all  observers)  to  have  been  quite 
wrecked,  this  has  but  been  like  (as 
many  believe  of  that)  death  in  this: 
it  was  the  pains  of  birth  into  a  better 
world. 

This  turns  up  in  my  mind  the  sub- 
ject of  jobs,  and  concerning  them  my 
theory.  I  hold,  and  I  hold  it  strongly, 
that  (contrary  to  general  belief)  it  is 
well  for  a  man  (a  man,  that  is,  of  good 
calibre)  frequently  to  be  fired.  Of 
course,  in  the  day  of  the  decline  of  his 
powers,  such  an  incident  might  turn 
out  to  be  a  very  sad  thing.  But  when 
health,  and  lust,  and  envy,  and  pride 
are  yet  strong  within  a  man,  such  a 
happening  is  a  jolt  in  an  upward  di- 
rection. This  belief,  at  any  rate,  is 
the  result  of  my  observation — ^and  ex- 
perience. I  thank  the  mysterious  and 
beautiful  stars  that  I  have  been 
"canned"  from  a  number  of  ''punk*' 


jobs,  where  otherwise  I  might  be  now. 

But  that  is  not  all  that  I  think;  I 
have  yet  other  "thinks"  coming.  My 
life,  as  I  said,  has  been  all  of  a  piece. 
Every  part  has  exactly  dovetailed  into 
the  whole,  like  a  picture  puzzle  rightly 
put  together.  Without  this  there  could 
not  have  been  that.  And  what  is  more, 
everything  that  has  occurred  to  me 
has  occurred  at  the  time  proper  for 
the  best  results  from  it. 

We  frequently  hear  said,  by  persons 
who  have  waited  long  for  it  to  come 
down  heads,  "Now,  why  couldn't  this 
have  come  to  me  ten  (or  something  like 
that)  years  ago?"  Nay!  believe  you 
me,  'twouldn't  have  been  so  well.  They 
would  not  then  have  been  prepared  to 
receive  it  to  the  best  advantage. 

In  fact  this  (whatever  it  was) 
couldn't  have  come  to  them  before  it 
did.  Because,  if  anything  can  be  more 
clearly  seen  than  a  pike-staff  on  a  hill, 
it  is  that  our  lives  are  the  product  of  a 
preordained  design,  in  arrangement 
the  result  of  consummate  art,  and  to 
wise  ends  which  we  wot  not  of.  I 
waved  my  cigarette,  for  (you  will  ad- 
mit) I  had  spoken  remarkably  well. 

"Exactly  the  opposite",  said  Tark- 
ington  knitting  his  brows,  "of  the  Con- 
rad philosophy."  Deep  were  those 
great  perpendicular  lines  in  his  fore- 
head which  speak  of  his  habit  of  in- 
tense concentration.  "Yes,"  he  said, 
"it  does  seem  that  the  palette  is 
scraped,  and  often  the  scraping  is 
harsh,  always  to  make  one  a  better 
workman. 

"And,  perhaps,"  he  added,  "if  C!on- 
rad  would  look  more  into  himself,  in- 
stead of  looking  on  at  the  world 
around  him,  he'd  get  that  idea  more." 

I  clapped  my  heels  against  the  sides 
of  the  hobby-horse  I  had  mounted,  as 
Sterne  would  say,  and  on  I  galloped. 

And  I  knew  that  certain  things 
must  have  been  laid  up  in  store  for 


622 


THE  BOOKMAN 


me,  before  they  happened,  for  of  them 
I  have  had  strange  premonitions.  One 
instance,  this:  one  time,  a  young 
woman  whom  before  I  had  never  seen 
(nor  of  her  had  I  ever  heard)  walked 
rapidly  past  me.  I  hardly  saw  her 
then,  as  toward  her  path  it  happened 
my  back  was  partly  turned.  I  felt, 
rather  than  saw  her,  go  by,  but  within 
me  somewhere  I  got  a  sort  of  electric 
jolt.  I  turned  quickly  then  to  glance 
after  her,  but  she  had  passed  behind  a 
stairway.  For  long,  I  forgot  the  mat- 
ter, and  it  was  only  long  afterward 
that  I  remembered  it — sometime  after, 
a  couple  of  years  later,  this  young 
woman  had  come  as  closely  perhaps  as 
anyone  could  come  into  my  life. 

Then  take  the  matter  of  this  present 
trip  of  mine.  How  do  you  explain 
that?  I  know  not  how  many  months 
before  I  was  suddenly  shot,  so  to  say, 
off  into  space,  an  idea  had  (fathered 
by  I  know  not  what)  taken  birth  in 
my  mind.  Flickering  at  first  was  its 
life,  then  stronger  and  stronger  it 
grew,  until  there  no  longer  remained 
doubt  that  an  event  of  consequence  to 
me  was  approaching.  I  was  only 
slightly  mistaken  in  the  matter  of  the 
time  of  its  occurrence. 

The  idea  was  this :  that  this  coming 
autumn  (though  it  came  in  the  spring) 
something  new  in  my  career  was  to 
happen  to  me  for  my  good.  I  didn't 
know  whether  (as  has  several  times 
happened  to  me  before)  someone  was 
to  come  along  and  handsomely  present 
me  with  a  much  better  job.  Or 
whether  I  should  suddenly  be  moved  to 
strike  out  and  get  one.  Or  what.  But 
I  reckoned  up  my  years  to  my  coming 
birthday  in  July;  and  I  knew,  as  well 
as  you  know  that  you  are  sitting  there, 
that  a  time  was  near  at  hand  when 
whatever  force  it  is  that  controls  my 
life  had  decreed  that  I  must  be  mov- 
ing on. 


A  funny  thing,  too,  this:  oh!  some 
months  ago  it  was,  that  the  thought 
began  to  dawn  on  me  that  it  was  about 
time  for  a  fellow  in  the  fading  of  his 
thirties  to  think  about  unlocking  the 
accumulated  riches  of  his  life  and  to 
write  his  autobiography.  I  deter- 
mined to  begin,  but  the  days,  and  the 
weeks,  went  by,  and  I  never  found 
the  time,  or  in  my  little  leisure  had  I 
the  strength,  to  make  a  start  upon  the 
thing.  But  all  the  while  I  knew  that 
pretty  soon  I  should  write  an  autobi- 
ography. 

Then,  on  a  sudden,  in  pops  this  man 
who  owns  The  Bookman  (along  with 
considerable  other  publishing  property) 
and  says,  in  effect  (though  unless  he's 
a  clairvoyant,  he  couldn't  have  known 
a  bit  of  what  was  in  my  mind),  clear 
out  now,  go  write  your  old  autobiog- 
raphy, and  don't  let  me  see  you  around 
here  for  at  least  three  months.  So 
came  to  pass  that  which  was,  as  my 
friend  James  Huneker  puts  it,  on  the 
laps  of  the  "Gallery  Gods".  And  if, 
after  its  fashion,  this  book  isn't  a 
(spiritual)  autobiography,  what,  I'd 
like  to  know,  is  it? 

This  brings  us  to  another  thing.  I 
am  writing  this  book  because  I've  got 
to,  not  because  I  particularly  want  to ; 
I'd  much  rather  (this  summer  weather) 
be  loafing  around  and  inviting  my 
soul,  or  enjoying  in  greater  number 
the  multitude  of  social  invitations  so 
kindly  extended  to  me.  And  the  force 
pressing  upon  me  which  drives  me  to 
write  the  book,  comes  not  from  with- 
out (I  could  get  by,  doing  scrappier 
stuff,  much  less  in  amount  and  easier 
to  do),  but  from  within.  It  may  be 
a  "punk"  book.  Whether  or  not  it  is 
that,  indeed,  is  little  on  my  mind.  The 
point  is,  that  I  can  have  no  peace  with 
the  world,  or  myself,  or  the  devil  until 
the  durn  thing's  done. 

So  when  we  say  that  heredity  and 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


623 


environment  and  all  that  sort  of  thing 
fixes  up  our  affairs  for  us  ahead  of 
time,  we  do  not  mean  that  we  can  let 
up  striving  any  the  less. 

"Sure",  said  Mr.  Tarkington,  nod- 
ding, **you  don't  just  go  and  lie  down 
on  a  sofa." 

"Get  up !"  said  I,  to  my  hobby-horse, 
and  on  we  cantered. 

Now,  when  my  most  interesting 
young  feminine  friend,  the  Christian 
Scientist,  promulgates  the  doctrine 
that  the  matter  rests  with  us  (as  we 
have  the  power)  to  shape  our  environ- 
ment, rather  than  that  we  must  re- 
main in  the  clutch  of  it — ^how  am  I 
going  to  get  around  that?  'Tis  simple 
enough ! 

Why  does  one  man  bom  in  a  squalid, 
debased,  and  illiterate  environment  re- 
main in  it?  And  why  does  another 
man  entered  in  the  same  sort  of  show 
drive  his  way  out  of  it?  Because  in 
the  one  man  there  was  implanted  a 
mysterious  something  which  drove 
him  to  force  his  way  out,  and  in  the 
other  man  (heaven  alone  knows  why!) 
there  wasn't. 

"Decided  long  before  they  were 
born,"  agreed  Mr.  Tarkington. 

In  the  matter,  however,  of  whether 
your  pain  is  in  your  finger  or  in  your 
mind,  he  was  somewhat  inclined  to 
think  that  "they"  are  pretty  much  in 
the  right  about  it.  For  pain  could 
only  be  a  thing  you  were  conscious  of 
— a  sensation. 

And  so  the  talk  turned  again. 

It  is,  at  any  rate  (to  use  an  excel- 
lent phrase  frequently  employed  by  my 
excellent  friend.  Royal  Gortissoz),  a 
"ponderable  idea".  That  is,  /  covld 
not,  you  see,  have  died  that  April  day 
on  Illinois  Street.  For  no  man  can  die 
until  his  course  is  run,  until  (in  other 
words)  he  has  no  further  need  of  this 
world.  There  was,  presumably,  yet 
much  for  me  to  do  and  to  learn.    Non- 


sense! Why  is  a  tiny  baby  snatched 
away?  Why  the  senseless,  as  it  seems, 
loss  to  us  of  such  brilliant  young 
minds  as  Rupert  Brooke,  Joyce  Kilmer 
(my  more  than  brother),  and  unnum- 
bered others?  Why  does  a  man  at  the 
height  of  his  powers  meet,  as  we  say, 
an  "untimely  death"?  Why  does  an- 
other, never  (as  again  we  say)  "of 
much  account",  linger  on  to  ninety 
years,  a  score  of  them  bedridden? 
Why  disasters,  by.  battle,  by  sea,  star- 
vation, fire  and  flood,  to  wipe  .out  hu- 
man lives  to  the  number  of  the  popu- 
lation of  cities?  Why  does  one  man 
bear,  as  the  term  is,  a  "charmed  life", 
and  walk  all  unscathed  through  a  boil- 
ing furnace?  And  why  does  another 
("fated",  as  we  sometimes  feel)  get 
plugged  at  the  first  shot?  I  hasten  to 
assure  you,  I  do  not  know. 

Tarkington,  who  had  been  rather 
slouching  forward,  quickly  straight- 
ened up  at  the  words,  "I  do  not  know". 
Perhaps  he  was  astonished  that  I  ad- 
mitted there  was  anything  I  could  not 
tell  him. 

A  number  of  years  ago,  I  had  the 
good  fortune  to  be  about  a  good  deal 
with  the  late  John  H.  Twachtman.  I 
remember  one  time,  when  somebody 
said  to  .him  of  such  or  such  a  painter, 
that  he  had  never  done  but  one  good 
thing,  and  that  was  "by  accident". 
"No  beautiful  thing",  was  Twacht- 
man's  reply,  "was  ever  made  by  acci- 
dent." Quite  so!  And  may  it  not 
also  be  that  no  man  ever,  in  the  news- 
paper headline  phrase,  "meets  death 
by  accident"? 

"That  is  my  position  exactly",  said 
Tarkington,  going  back  to  the  con- 
cluding words  of  my  preceding  para- 
graph, "in  all  this  spiritualism  busi- 
ness :  we  don't  know  enough  about  the 
thing  to  know  anything  about  it." 

He  even  startled  me  by  the  extent 
of  his  reading  in  the  more  important 


624 


THE  BOOKMAN 


literature  of  the  subject,  which  (so 
well  has  he  coordinated  it)  he  briefly 
reviewed  in  a  lump.  He  has  seen 
tables  moved  without  any  explainable 
agency.  Asserts  that  because  you  can- 
not explain  why  a  table  should  want 
to  cut  up,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is 
inspired  to  do  so  by  the  dead.  Has 
heard  various  kinds  of  "raps",  coming 
from  no  source  discernible  to  him. 
Regards  that  as  evidence  only  that 
raps  can  come,  or  be  made  to  come,  in 
a  manner  mysterious  to  you  and  me. 
Has  seen  "messages"  "received".  I  do 
not  recall  whether  or  not  he  said  he 
had  ever  seen  any  of  the  filmy  appari- 
tions which  are  taken  to  be  "spirits". 
But  'tis  no  matter  about  that. 

His  conclusion  is  simply  that  there 
is  in  the  world  some  force,  or  power, 
or  what  not,  which  we  do  not  now  un- 
derstand, and  which  "we  are  yet  a  long 
way  off  from  knowing  anjrthing 
about".  As  to  "communications"  he 
made  the  remark,  highly  interesting 
to  me,  that  we  should  not  scoff  at  them 
because  they  may  be,  to  us,  silly,  fool- 
ish, and  without  any  point — ^because 
we  cannot  possibly  know  what  a  plane 
of  intelligence  exists  among  spirits  de- 
parted from  our  sort  of  life;  if  such 
spirits  there  be.  Finally,  he  affirmed 
that  so  far  in  all  our  contact  with  these 
phenomena  there  has  never  been  es- 
tablished a  case  of  "identity" — ^not 
one.  "But",  with  an  upward  flinging 
gesture,  "of  course,  if  we  could  find 
only  one,  it's  all  off — that  would  be 
enough." 

A  clock  struck  twelve. 

And  so,  to  modernize  young  Frank- 
lin P.  Adams's  great  friend  (and  con- 
stant source  of  copy) ,  Pepys,  in  a  cab 
with  my  host  back  again  to  my  lodg- 
ings. 

«  «  «  « 

The  barbers  in  this  shop  (this  is  the 
following  day),  as  is  frequently  the 


case  in  Indianapolis,  are  what  is  gen- 
erally called  "colored"  men.  The  bar- 
ber I  drew  was  a  man  after  my  own 
heart,  that  is,  he  was  (what  Carlyle, 
I  believe  it  was)  called  a  communicat- 
ing animal.  I  told  him,  by  way  of 
starting  the  ball,  that  I  had  recently 
come  from  New  York.  He  said  that 
when  they  used  to  have  excursion 
rates  with  stop-over  privileges,  he  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  spending  a  couple 
of  weeks  in  New  York  every  summer. 
He  added  that  he  didn't  know  whether 
he  would  care  to  go  there  now,  as 
since  the  country  had  gone  dry  he 
probably  would  not  have  so  gay  a  time 
as  formerly. 

He  was  not  averse  to  prohibition, 
he  said,  as  he  thought  it  was  rather 
good  for  him, — at  any  rate  it  caused 
him  to  save  more  money.  For  the  past 
five  years,  he  told  me,  he  had  been 
pretty  straight,  but  there  had  been  a 
time  in  his  life  when  the  situation 
was,  as  he  put  it,  "perilous".  He  was 
the  kind  of  man,  I  say,  that  I  love,  for 
he  talked  (as  I  do)  about  himself, 
open,  frank,  his  life  an  open  book  to 
any  that  would  listen. 

Shaved,  he  asked  me  if  I  would  have 
a  face  massage.  I  did  not  feel  that  I 
stood  much  in  heed  of  such  a  thing, 
but  I  was  not  willing  to  part  quickly 
with  the  society  of  a  fellow  of  such 
golden  talk  as  his.  He  explained  to 
me  the  ritual  of  his  domestic  life  on 
Sundays.  He  and  his  wife — ^there 
were,  he  said,  only  two  of  them — 
went  to  church  in  the  morning.  Then 
they  came  home  and  read  the  papers, 
or  perhaps  took  a  "nap".  They  usually 
had  friends  in  to  dinner,  and  after- 
ward cranked  up  the  victrola.  In  the 
evening  they  usually  started  out  for 
the  "picture  shows",  and  sometimes 
did  three  of  them  before  again  going 
home. 

Now  as  I  sat  in  the  barber  chair  and 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


625 


this  dark-skinned  and  very  real  gentle- 
man attended  me,  I  envied  that  estim- 
able man.  His  life  was  wholesome  and 
fine — ^and  he  was  happy.  Whereas,  I, 
God  help  me!  as  far  back,  nearly,  as 
my  memory  can  reach,  I  have  been 
storm-tossed  and  miserable;  I  have 
found  for  my  soul  no  abiding  city. 
There  was  a  day  (as  George  Moore 
says  of  himself)  when  my  dream  was 
painting.  I  came  to  draw  with  more 
than  passable  art,  but  always  I  hun- 
gered after  perfection;  and  in  this 
world  but  a  very  few  things  done  by 
men  in  a  generation  attain  to  that. 
Then  after  some  years,  it  was  litera- 
ture that  claimed  me.  And  I  came 
to  write,  as  I  believe,  with  more  than 
passable  art.  But  I  was  possessed  by 
an  illusion.  I  thought  that  the  pur- 
suit of  truth  and  beauty,  and  to  seek 
for  the  accomplishment  of  fame,  was 
enough;  certainly  it  is  a  long  and  a 
hard,  a  very  hard  task  for  a  man  to 
set  himself.  And,  indeed,  there  have 
been  men,  great  artists  among  them, 
who  have  lived  by  these  things,  and, 
though  absolute  perfection  has  mostly 
ever  fled  before  them,  have  died  rea- 
sonably content  with  their  achieve- 
ments. 

In  the  delectable  and  enduring  novel 
by  the  Reverend  Laurence  Sterne, 
"Tristram  Shandy,  Gentleman",  when 
the  messenger  arrives  to  announce 
that  Bobby  is  dead,  the  fat  scullion 
exclaims:  "So  am  not  I!"  Well,  as 
to  being  content  with  the  pursuit  of 
literature,  there  came  a  time,  not  so 
long  ago,  when  I  had  to  s^  to  myself, 
so  am  not  I.  I  had  even  attained  to 
(what  for  years  I  had  night  and  day 
burned  to  have)  something  of  a  lit- 
erary reputation.  I  confesss  that  in 
my  heart  this  is  little  to  me  now.  I 
am  ambitious  in  the  sense  that  I  can- 
not write  anything  at  all  without 
doing  it  as  well  as  I  am  able.    And  to 


be  able  to  make  anything  like  litera- 
ture, and  to  read  with  gusto  great  lit- 
erature, is  well  enough,  for  contact 
with  literature  at  its  best  is,  of  course, 
capable  of  a  vastly  ennobling  influ- 
ence on  the  mind.  But  literature, 
books  and  writing,  began  to  fail  me. 
There  was  in  this  world,  I  came  to 
know,  something  else,  something  more, 
of  which  my  spirit  had  need.  As  time 
went  on,  great  need.  So  it  was  I  came 
to  think  much  on  religion.  Perhaps  I 
should  have  turned,  as  a  frustrated 
child  to  its  nurse,  to  the  church.  But 
what  church?  What  could  I  believe? 
Had  I, — ^and  this,  it  seems  to  me,  in 
such  matters  a  very  necessary  thing, 
— the  religious  temperament?  And 
how  would  I  work  in  church  harness? 
To  these  questions  I  have  no  answer 
yet.  But  in  this  I  have  faith :  as  the 
melons  ripen  on  the  vine,  and  fruit 
upon  the  tree,  so  in  due  season  shall 
my  soul  reach  its  destined  maturity. 

In  seeking  for  one  interest  which  I 
had  not,  and  which  might  be  the  thing 
which  would  give  me  the  new  zest 
in  living  that  I  needed,  the  most  curi- 
ous, and  even  comical,  ideas  occurred 
to  me.  One  of  these  ideas,  though  I 
did  not  think  it  comical  at  the  time, 
was  this :  I  have  never  paid  any  par- 
ticular attention  to  how  I  got  myself 
up  in  the  matter  of  dress,  whether  or 
not  my  suit  was  well-pressed,  my 
shoes  newly  polished,  and  so  on.  I 
have  worn  the  same  sort  of  collar, 
and  had  my  hair  cut  and  parted  it  in 
the  same  w^,  for  years  and  years, 
regardless  of  the  changing  fashions  in 
these  things.  And  whenever,  at 
periods  remote  one  from  another,  I 
bought  a  new  necktie,  I  had  been  in 
the  habit  of  saying  to  the  haberdasher 
man,  "Gim'me  a  tie  just  like  the  one 
I  have  on."  Also  I  have  associated 
much  more  with  men  than  with  women. 


626 


THE  BOOKMAN 


and  the  conventions  of  polite  society 
have  been  to  me  of  little  moment. 

Welly  I  got  a  great  notion  that  a 
very  spirited  thing  for  me  to  do  would 
be  suddenly  to  become  very  fashion- 
able. I  never,  I  believe  I  can  say» 
have  done  anything  in  my  life  that  I 
did  not  do  well.  And  my  idea  was  not 
to  become  merely  very  respectable, 
mildly  fashionable.  I  was  to  be  a 
regular  sensation.  I  was  to  out-fop 
Max  Beerbohm.  I  regretted  that  I 
lived  in  America.  I  wished  I  were  a 
Londoner,  so  that  I  could  wear  a  top- 
hat  and  a  cutaway  coat  in  the  day- 
time, on  weekdays  at  business.  I  would 
be  equally  perfect  in  the  art  of  dress 
with  young  Wales.  I  brooded  a  good 
deal  on  this  matter,  and  then  the  mood 
passed.  I  was  afraid  that  here  again 
another  fine  art  would,  and  that  per- 
haps soon,  fail  me.  Indeed,  I  saw, 
written  on  the  wall,  that  the  spirit  of  • 
man  could  not  live  by  art  alone. 

However,  as  in  the  matter  of  my 
double-barreled  suitcase,  FU  take  no 
further  thought  as  to  this.  For  now 
I  know  that  on  a  day  appropriate  to 
the  transaction,  when  I  shall  be,  it 
may  be,  going  along  the  highway  on 
quite  another  errand  bent,  I  shall,  like 
Paul,  suddenly  see  in  a  window  of  my 
mind,  that  which  I  need  to  fulfil  my 
soul's  good. 

But  I  must  return  to  my  friend,  my 
barber.  I  say  "my  friend"  not  lightly, 
for  those  that  one  has  are  taken,  or 
drift  whither  away ;  or  again  by  some 
mischance  of  misunderstanding,  the 
bonds  are  loosened  or  broken;  and  it 
was  the  wise  counsel  of  a  very  wise 
man  when  Samuel  Johnson  cautioned 
us  to  'Tceep  our  friendships  in  good 
repair".  He  told  me,  my  barber,  that 
he  had  been  experimenting  with  mak- 
ing "the  stuff"  at  home  now.  He  had 
produced  several  concoctions,  not  bad; 
but  tiie  teat  of  all  he  Mi  made,  ax^ 


that  was  very  fine,  was  some  apricot 
brandy.  But  this  he  kept  for  himself 
alone;  he  gave  none  of  it  away,  for 
did  he  stand  his  friends  a  treat  from 
his  store  it  would  become  noised  about, 
"Jim  has  something  great  up  at  his 
house,  you'd  better  look  in."  No,  in- 
deed, he  gave  his  friends  "a  little  cake 
or  something",  but  he  kept  his  bottle 
for  his  own  pleasure.  A  good  man, 
and  a  shrewd  one.    I  wish  him  well. 

Then  I  went  out  from  that  barber 
shop  where  so  much  wisdom  had  been 
given  me.  And  all  the  air  was  ringing 
with  the  gay  sounds  of  a  busy,  pros- 
perous, happy,  beautiful  city.  The 
streets  were  filled  with  my  own  kind, 
people,  hurrying  to  and  fro.  Motor- 
cars were  parked  in  battalions  every- 
where. After  several  blocks  of  peer- 
ing into  faces,  I  came  and  stood  before 
the  office  building  of  the  Indianapolis 
"News",  and  read,  amid  a  throng  like- 
wise engaged,  the  bulletins  posted  in 
the  windows  there.  I  read  the  weather 
forecast,  about  what  Marshal  Foch 
was  up  to  now,  the  present  doings  of 
the  Marion  County  Grand  Jury,  and 
the  latest  activities  of  the  Sinn  Fein- 
ers.  Then  I  came  upon  a  sheet  racy 
of  the  soil.  It  said :  "Four  horses  and 
a  cow  bum  to  death  and  auto  de- 
stroyed when  bam  bums  in  Edgemont 
Street  today." 

Well,  I  thought,  being  at  the  gentle- 
man's front  door,  I'd  go  up  and  see  the 
editor  of  the  paper,  Louis  Howland 
(brother  of  Hewitt  Hanson),  whom  I 
had  met  one  time  before.  I  diffidently 
asked  the  office  boy,  following  my  cus- 
tom in  the  East  (where  it  is  no  slight 
trick  to  break  into  the  sanctum  of  the 
editor  of  a  great  newspaper)  if  he 
thought  it  would  be  possible  for  me  in 
time  to  see  Mr.  Howland.  With  a 
large,  open-hearted  gesture  toward  the 
proper  door,  hfi  replipd;   "Walk  righjb 


MURRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS 


627 


I  found  him,  himself  typing  an  edi- 
torial on  yellow  copy  paper.  A  fine 
Johnsonian  figure  of  a  man,  with  a 
graying  shock  of  hair,  not  too  well- 
dressed — ^for  which  (among  other 
things)  I  greatly  liked  him.  I  was 
further  attracted  to  him  when  I  found 
that  he  belonged  to  the  brotherhood: 
had  died  several  times  from  acute  in- 
digestion. A  memorable  figure,  type 
in  the  tradition  of  our  line  of  great 
editors,  and  esteemed  in  his  profes- 
sion, I  believe,  as  one  of  the  best  edi- 
torial writers  in  the  country. 

While  I  was  in  the  shop,  why  not 
look  in  at  what  those  there  call  the 
Idle  Ward  and  see  my  old  friend  "Bill" 
Herschell?  Whose  name  when  print- 
ed, but  never  otherwise,  is  William.  A 
journalist-poet  of  city  life  and  homely 
things,  and  far  from  a  bad  one.  A 
jovial  human  being  somewhat  on  the 
Don  Marquis  order,  only  louder. 

He  made  me  known  to  "Kin"  Hub- 
bard, a  sharer  of  these  quarters,  who 
seventeen  years  ago  created  "Abe  Mar- 
tin", and  has  kept  him  going  strong 
ever  since.  And  here  I  got  quite  a 
shock.  I  suppose  I  had  fancied  there 
would  be  something  at  least  a  shade 
homespun  in  himself  in  the  originator 
of  the  Brown  County  philosopher  with 
the  bark  on.  The  immaculate  gentle- 
man with  the  aristocratic  face,  whom 
I  met,  took  from  his  upper  waistcoat 
pocket  a  pair  of  these  fiy-open  kind  of 
shell-rimmed  glasses,  and  adjusting 
them  to  his  patrician  nose,  conversed 
with  a  sort  of  quiet,  old  world  dignity. 
In  the.  open  air,  and  in  theatre  lobbies, 
he  carries,  according  to  Herschell,  a 

"blonde"  cane. 

«  «  «  « 

The  presence  of  Riley  is  still  strong 
in  the  community  of  his  friends  and 
neighbors.  Tarkington,  Hewitt  How- 
land,  and  numerous  others,  frequently 
interlard  their  talk  with  such  remarl^s 


as,  "As  Riley  would  have  put  it,"  or 
"As  Riley  used  to  say." 

"Speaking  of  'out-fopping*  Beer- 
bohm,"  remarked  Dr.  McGulloch,  as 
he  reclined  on  a  couch  in  an  inner  of- 
fice, "reminds  me.  It  was  many  years 
ago.  Riley  took  it  into  his  head  to 
out-fop  Amos — Amos  Walker,  one  of 
his  early  managers.  He  quarreled 
with  him  later,  as  he  did  with  all  his 
managers.  Well,  Amos  was  the  most 
perfect  ever  seen :  spats  in  season,  tail 
coat,  neatly  striped  grey  trousers,  or- 
namental vest,  with  little  vines  on  trel- 
lises climbing  up,  beautiful  tie,  stick- 
pin with  a  bird's  claw  clasping  a 
stone. 

"Amos  used  to  go  round  to  the  old 
Meridian  Club,  forerunner  here  of  the 
present  University  Club.  There  one 
d^  he  saw  for  the  first  time  some  of 
the  old  boys  playing  dominoes.  He 
stood  for  quite  a  while  behind  one  of 
them." 

(Amos  it  appeared  stuttered  in  his 
speech.  I  cannot  undertake  to  render 
Dr.  McCuUoch's  inimitable  imitation 
of  the  stutter.) 

"Finally  Amos  said:  'Might  I  ask 
what  the  game  is  you're  playing?' 

"The  player  before  him  turned  his 
eyes  slowly  upward.  'Dominoes,'  he 
uttered. 

"  'New  game?'  inquired  Amos. 

"  'Oh !  no,'  replied  the  player,  'very 
old  game,  must  be  fifty,  a  hundred 
years,  maybe  centuries  old.' 

"  'Well,'  said  Amos,  'when  I  was  a 
young  man  I  joined  the  army,  not  so 
much  perhaps  from  patriotism,  as  be- 
cause of  a  love  of  excitement.  But,' 
he  added,  'that  was  before  I  had  ever 
seen  this  game  played.' 

"When  Amos  died",  continued  Mc- 
Gulloch, "several  mutual  friends  went 
to  Riley  and  said  to  him:  'Now  this 
quarrel  between  you  and  Amos  has 
been  a  cause  of  deep  distress  to  ^ 


great  many  of  us — ^to  your  friends  and 
to  Amos's  friends.  But  now  that 
Amos  is  gone  it  should  be  all  over, 
forgotten.  Why  don't  you  go  see 
Amos's  widow,  and  make  peace  with 
her?' 

"Silence  for  a  good  while.  Then  Riley 
said  he  would.  So  he  went  to  Amos's 
house,  up  the  path,  and  knocked. 
Amos's  widow  opened  the  door,  and, 
when  she  saw  her  husband's  old  enemy, 
gave  a  backward  start. 

"Riley  bowed  low,  and  taking  from 
his  buttonhole  a  flower,  one  such  as  he 
always  wore,  with  an  outstretched  arm 
presented  it  to  her,  turned,  and  in  si- 
lence walked  away.' 


» 


At  the  Club  I  was  winding  up  the 
last  of  my  correspondence  from  Indian- 
apolis. Tarkington  entered  the  room, 
and  when  he  saw  me,  dropped  on  4 
seat  nearby.  "Somebody  it  was,"  he 
said,  "I  can't  remember  who  he  was, 
who  said  something  like,  aU  nature 
works  for  the  good  of  a  few  great 
men."  Whether  he  was  ironical,  or 
humorous,  or  serious,  I  cannot  say — 
there  was  nothing  in  his  face  to  show. 
«  «  «  « 

It  is,  as  doubtless  you  know,  bad 
luck  to  leave  a  city  without  dining  at 
your  last  dinner  there  with  a  beautiful 
woman.  And  that,  of  course,  explains 
my  misadventure.  I  had,  indeed,  taken 
the  precaution  to  arrange  for  such  a 


dinner,  but,  at  the  last  moment*  the 
lady  failed  me. 

I  wound  my  watch  the  ni^rht  before 
my  departure  very  thoroug^hly.  So 
thoroughly  indeed  did  I  wind  it»  that 
(though  I  had  not  noticed  this  in  the 
morning  when  I  arose)  when,  at  about 
the  time  I  felt  I  should  be  returning  to 
my  hotel  to  pack  my  bafir,  I  looked  at 
it,  the  thousand  -  times  -  confounded 
thing  had  ceased  to  go. 

It  was  dramatic!  A  taxi  "whirl  to 
my  hoteL  "What  time  do  you  go, 
Sir?"  said  the  bell-boy,  as  we  flunf 
everything  handy  into  my  hag. 
"Twelve  two,"  I  sputtered ;  "strap  it!" 

"It's  nearly  that  now.  Sir/'  said  the 
boy;  "I  don't  think  you  can  make  it" 

Make  it?  Dramatic?  It  was  tragic! 

You  see,  it  was  like  this :  I  "was  not 
this  time  to  ride  (like  Routledge) 
alone.  No :  I  was  to  have  the  society, 
for  something  like  seven  hours,  of  an 
exceedingly  good-looking  and  highly 
intelligent  young  woman.  "The  train", 
I  declared,  "will  be  a  moment  late.  It 
/mis  to  be.    Shoot!"... 

"Three  second  ago,"  said  the  gate- 
man  ;  "next  train  for  St.  Louis  a  quar- 
ter to  midnight." 

Well  (it  took  me  several  hours  to 
come  to  the  philosophic  conclusion) 
perhaps  it  was  better  so.  One  can't 
tell  what  havoc  might  not  be  wrought 
in  the  mind  by  the  society,  for  seven 
hours  at  a  stretch,  of  such  a  young 
woman. 


JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 


BY  RAYMOND  M.  WEAVER 


CONTRITE  and  rigorously  con- 
trolled thinking  is  an  activity 
that  the  human  animal  indulges  only 
upon  compulsion:  Aristotle's  mali- 
cious dictum  that  "all  men  desire  to 
know"  is  too  patent  wit  to  be  deplored 
as  pathetic  fallacy.  Philosophy,  which 
is  but  misery  dissolved  in  thought,  the 
intolerable  concrete  rendered  abstract 
and  vague;  theology,  which  has  treat- 
ed  the  unknowable  with  such  minute 
exactitude;  history,  which  in  its  re- 
cent innovations  has  become  proudly 
unreadable  in  its  best  attempts  to  be 
merely  accurate :  these  bear  elaborate 
witness  to  man's  epicurean  delight  in 
comfortable  absurdity.  But  despite 
the  Pragmatists  and  the  German  His- 
torians, man  still  draws  his  chief  sol- 
ace and  dignity  from  myth.  The  au- 
dacity of  science  would  sweep  the  sky 
of  heavenly  battlements  and  flaming 
angels,  and  the  earth  of  El  Dorado 
and  the  Hesperides.  But  man  will  not 
be  cheated  of  his  dreams.  The  eight- 
eenth century,  with  all  of  its  common 
sense,  made  Cathay  synonymous  with 
its  romantic  and  irresponsible  desires. 
But  within  the  memory  of  living  man, 
a  fabulous  island  kingdom  east  even 
of  Cathay,  blazed  from  without  its 
shadow  on  the  world's  rim  and  made  a 
spectacular  entrance  into  the  comity 
of  nations.  Europe  and  America  at 
once  evinced  an  insatiable  taste  for  the 
marvelous.  The  msrth-making  faculty 
settled  avidly  upon  this  last  outpost 


of  receding  wonder,  and  gave  local 
habitation  to  its  wildest  exercise  in 
the  name  Japan. 

With  a  resolute  disregard  of  blatant 
fact  that  is  one  of  the  prime  glories 
of  the  creative  imagination — when  not 
a  devout  betrayal  of  intellectual  in- 
competence, —  tourists,  missionaries, 
celebrities  on  peregrination,  novelists, 
and  manufacturers  of  verse  began  ful- 
minating on  cherry-blossoms  and  the 
yellow  peril.  The  business  tact  of  the 
printer's  devil  abetted  the  spread  of 
this  profitable  myth.  For  the  edifica- 
tion of  Occidental  credulity,  Japan  was 
allowed  an  infallible  rightness  in  all 
matters  of  art  under  the  sun;  the 
Japanese  were  made  the  non  plus  tdtra 
of  refinement  of  manners,  of  delicacy, 
of  charm,  of  deportment.  Stories  be- 
came current  of  Japan's  unique  line 
of  absolute  monarchs :  a  line  unbroken 
for  over  twenty-five  hundred  years, 
and  conspicuously  divine  in  its  first 
ancestors.  From  the  remotest  ages, 
our  gaping  admiration  has  been  as- 
sured, perfect  concord  has  ever  sub- 
sisted between  beneficent  sovereign 
and  gratefully  ruled  subject.  Never, 
we  are  informed,  has  Japan  known  the 
shame  of  treason,  of  rebellious  acts, 
common  in  less  perfect  lands.  The 
Japanese,  so  goes  the  authentic  ac- 
count, sharing  in  some  degree  the 
supernatural  virtues  of  their  rulers, 
have  ever  been  distinguished  by  a 
high-minded  chivalry  called  Bushido, 


629 


680 


THE  BOOKMAN 


unknown  in  inferior  lands.  As  for  the 
country  itself,  with  its  infinite  variety 
of  natural  beauty,  it  has  exhausted 
the  vocabulary  of  guide-book  superla- 
tives. It  is  the  ''Land  of  Flowers"; 
it  is  the  ''Kingdom  of  the  Gods". 

Such,  in  outline,  is  the  Japanese 
Myth :  a  myth  that  has  established  it- 
self in  popular  English  text-books,  in 
current  literature,  and  even  in  grave 
books  of  reference.  Few  Occidentals, 
it  is  true,  take  this  myth  with  any 
worshipful  seriousness:  except  to 
Japan's  Pacific  neighbors,  Japan  is  of 
no  more  vital  practical  interest  than 
is  the  Land  of  Cockaigne.  If  we 
learned  tomorrow  that  Japan  had  over 
night  sunk  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  it 
is  doubtful  that  many  of  us  would  eat 
a  worse  dinner  for  the  news.  The 
Japanese,  it  is  true,  take  themselves 
a  little  more  seriously.  The  ruling 
bureaucrats  have  found  our  indolent 
credulity  both  pleasing  to  native  van- 
ity and  useful  as  a  diplomatic  engine; 
they  have  caught  the  habit  of  brand- 
ing as  "Anti-Japanese"  any  disquiet- 
ing concern  for  "that  complex,  frag- 
mentary, doubt-provoking  knowledge 
which  we  call  truth". 

Converts  to  the  Japan  Myth  will 
find  little  to  offend  against  orthodoxy 
in  "The  Story  of  the  Geisha  Girl"  by 
T.  Fujimoto.  "Japan  is  the  coun- 
try of  Biishido — ^the  country  of  Mount 
Fuji — ^the  country  of  cherry-blossoms 
and  at  the  same  time  must  be  said  the 
country  of  geisha  girls",  is  Mr.  Fuji- 
moto's  ungrammatical  enumeration  of 
the  verities.  Mr.  Fujimoto  writes  to 
correct  the  libelous  ignorance  of  those 
who  "misunderstand  these  girls  to  be 
equivalent  to  those  in  a  lower  kind  of 
the  female  professions".  Yet  there 
are  no  austerities  in  Mr.  Fujimoto's 
handling  of  these  vestals  of  pleasure. 
Mr.  Fujimoto's  linguistic  atrocities 
would  inspire  Ol3rmpian  mirth  in  a 


country  lawyer's  parlor;  though  there 
are  some  who  may  view  his  cavalier 
contempt  for  the  traditions  of  Eng- 
lish speech  as  epic  and  upstart  insO' 
lence.  It  is  not  a  conspicuous  tribute 
to  Japanese  intelligence  "that  no  for- 
eigner of  any  other  nationality  would 
be  permitted  to  expose  himself  in 
print  on  any  supposedly  serious  topic 
with  Mr.  Fujimoto's  swaggering  lin- 
guistic incompetence.  The  book  is 
sufficiently  inconsequential  in  struc- 
ture not  to  tax  even  the  intelligence  of 
a  Daisy  Ashford.  There  is  a  perfunc- 
tory historical  introduction,  followed 
by  trivial  and  chaotic  details  of  geisha- 
dom,  spliced  in  among  what  purport 
to  be  geisha  autobiographies.  These 
autobiographies  are  in  the  luscious 
vein  of  Bertha  M.  Clay's  "Wife  in 
Name  Only".  "Though  I  despised  men 
of  base  intentions,  I  was  a  young  girl 
of  passions,"  confesses  one  female 
Rousseau  with  a  plurality  of  adven- 
tures in  "holy  love".  The  "holy  love" 
of  the  maiden  was  not  alw^s  without 
effect  upon  the  census.  "I  loved  him 
heartily,"  she  remarks  of  a  student 
she  supported  for  four  years,  "and 
was  so  infatuated  with  him  that  at 
last  I  gave  birth  to  a  girl."  There  is 
a  whimsically  irrelevant  closing  chap- 
ter on  "Double  Suicide",  and  two  ap- 
pendixes. The  first  appendix  gives 
samples  of  the  words  of  geisha  songs. 
These  songs  show  none  of  the  sala- 
cious innuendo  of  over-sophistication, 
but  rather  the  chaste  indecency  of  a 
primitive  folk.  One  song  begins: 
"Don't  mind  her  innocence;  she  will 
soon  arrive  at  puberty."  The  second 
appendix  treats  of  the  geogri^hical 
distribution  of  geisha  in  the  manner 
of  the  "Police  Gazette".  Not  the  least 
astonishing  part  of  the  volume  is  the 
index.    A  specimen  is : 

Assassin,  71,  76 

Backbiter,  116  . 


JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 


631 


Bamboo  blind,  136 
Cake-box,  126 
Callosity,  30 
CanonlcalB,  124 
Caterpillar,  91 
Chambermaid,  11 
Claws,  109 
Crocodile  tears,  183 

The  two  pages  of  index  read  like  a 
stately  parody  of  the  verse  of  T.  S. 
Eliot.  This  volume  as  a  whole  is  al- 
most redeemed  by  the  prodigal  wealth 
of  its  sustained  stupidities:  it  is  a 
book  to  enamor  the  misanthropic  of 
life. 

Such  volumes  as  this  of  Mr.  Fuji- 
moto  work  in  the  end  to  try  the  faith 
of  even  the  most  devout  believers  in 
the  Japan  Myth.  But  the  impact  of 
contemporary  events — ^the  Shantung 
decision  of  the  Peace  Conference,  the 
revolution  in  Korea,  the  boycotts  and 
unrest  in  China,  the  riots  in  Japan, 
and  the  disquieting  conditions  general 
throughout  both  the  east  and  the  west : 
— ^these  are  beginning  to  pain  a  grow- 
ing minority  with  new  ideas.  We  have 
been  brow-beaten  long  enough,  so  says 
the  congregation  of  heretics,  with 
tales  of  the  fabulous  prettiness  and 
unparalleled  morality  of  things  Japan- 
ese: tales  compared  with  which  Gil- 
bert's ''Mikado"  seems  a  good,  solid, 
sensible  picture  of  Japan.  Nor  are 
these  unsentimental  doubters  enemies 
to  the  peace  of  the  world.  In  April, 
1916,  Mr.  J.  W.  Robinson  Scott  said 
in  the  "Taiyo",  the  leading  monthly 
magazine  in  Japan:  ''Experience  of 
the  last  few  years  has  shown  that  the 
best  friends  of  Japan  are  not  those 
who  speak  only  smooth  things  of  her. 
Those  are  her  friends  who  tell  her  that 
Japan  is  at  the  parting  of  the  ways." 
Japan,  in  her  touchy  and  immoderate 
pretentiousness,  is  not  eager  to  be 
told  that  in  her  imitation  of  western 
ways,  she  has  mostly  imitated  the 
worst  western  things  of  our  worst 
period:    the  inhuman  commercialism 


of  Birmingham;    the  inhuman  mili- 
tarism of  Berlin. 

In  the  recently  published  "Letters 
from  China  and  Japan"  of  Professor 
and  Mrs.  John  Dewey,  it  is  the  im- 
pression of  Professor  Dewey,  surely 
one  of  the  most  illustrious  of  living 
thinkers:  "On  the  whole,  America 
ought  to  feel  sorry  for  Japan,  or  at 
least  sympathize  with  it,  and  not 
afraid.  When  we  have  so  many  prob- 
lems it  seems  absurd  to  say  they  have 
more,  but  they  certainly  have  fewer 
resources,  material  and  human,  in 
dealing  with  theirs  than  we  have,  and 
they  have  still  to  take  almost  the  first 
step  in  dealing  with  many  of  them. 
It  is  very  unfortunate  for  them  that 
they  have  become  a  first-class  power 
so  rapidly  and  with  so  little  prepara- 
tion in  many  ways;  it  is  a  terrible 
task  for  them  to  live  up  to  their  i)osi- 
tion  and  reputation  and  they  may 
crack  under  the  strain."  The  woefully 
undeveloped  commercial  ability  and 
industrial  efficiency  of  the  Japanese; 
the  limits  of  their  financial  power; 
the  Prussian  hypocrisy  of  their  des- 
potic government,  representative  and 
parliamentary  only  in  superficial  out- 
ward visible  form;  the  imperfect  con- 
trol which  they  exert  over  an  indus- 
trialism which  may  yet  sap  in  no  small 
measure  the  vitality  of  the  nation; 
the  lessened  degree  to  which  religion 
and  old  codes  of  honor  are  controlling 
the  social  ferment:  these  are  not 
myth,  but  aching  reality.  Baron  Shi- 
basawa,  an  illustrious  financier,  and 
one  of  the  most  universally  respected 
of  Japanese,  in  November,  1916,  in  an 
address  after  a  banker's  dinner  in 
Tokyo,  said:  "I  myself  am  inclined 
to  regard  Japan's  future  with  pes- 
simism. Not  without  great  achieve- 
ments in  the  field  of  material  civiliza- 
tion during  the  Meiji  era,  the  moral 
culture  of  the  Japanese  people  was 


632 


THE  BOOKMAN 


sadly  neglected  during  those  years." 
Such  admissions  are  hardly  usual 
from  scions  of  the  Sun-Goddess.  But 
the  west  is  beginning  not  to  accept 
Japan  on  her  widely-advertised  airy 
and  official  evaluation.  In  the  end, 
the  most  enduring  weary  of  Btishido 
and  cherry-blossoms.  We  have  had 
enough  of  the  Hearns — ^and  the 
friends  of  Japan  must  wish  an  imme- 
diate annihilation  of  the  Fujimoto  ilk. 
There  are  cynics  who  would  say  that 
this  last  extermination  would  consid- 
erably lessen  the  problem  of  Japan's 
over-population.  Japan  is  something 
more  than  a  mood  of  style,  a  manner- 
ism of  art,  an  occasion  for  hysteria. 

"Have  We  a  Far  Eastern  Policy?", 
by  General  Charles  H.  Sherrill,  while 
not  emancipated  from  many  of  the 
established  superstitions,  still  makes 
pious  protestations  of  unbiased  hon- 
esty, and  on  the  basis  of  an  insight 
gained  during  ten  months  spent 
around  the  shores  and  upon  the  islands 
of  the  Pacific,  embarks  upon  an  ami- 
able journalistic  attempt  to  cut  the 
Gordian  knot  of  Oriental  politics. 
General  Sherrill  values  Japan  as  "the 
bulwark  of  decent  civilization  against 
the  Bolsheviki  in  Sibera  and  as  a 
profitable  friend  and  ally  in  the  vast 
field  of  Asian  markets".  General 
Sherrill's  book  is  not  strangled  in  sub- 
tleties, not  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale 
cast  of  thought.  He  is  not  one  whit 
awed  by  the  fable  of  Japanese  in- 
scrutability. "International  politics 
are  but  external  products  of  the  inter- 
nal development  of  a  people,"  he  says, 
and  "cannot  be  properly  understood  by 
foreigners  unwilling  or  unable  to 
learn  of  that  internal  development 
which  reveals  itself  in  the  nation's 
daily  life."  With  jaunty  willingness 
and  no  touch  of  misgiving  as  to  his 
own  ability.  General  Sherrill  then  pro- 


ceeds to  interpret  the  revelations  of 
Japan's  daily  life. 

Forty-three  pages  of  "Leaves  from 
a  Note-Book"  do  not  inspire  a  sublime 
confidence  in  General  Sherrill's  tech- 
nique.   Under  the  spell  of  the  Myth» 
he   says   the   trivial   and   hackneyed 
things  about  lanterns,  and  clogs,  and 
Japanese  umbrellas  and  the  rest.    The 
babies,   in   approved  style,   he   finds 
"dainty  little  creatures,  always  neat 
and  spotlessly  clean".      Mrs.  Dewey 
evidently  fell  in  among  a  lower  lot  of 
young  ones.    "The  children  up  to  the 
age  of  about  thirteen  appear  never  to 
wipe  their  noses,"   is  Mrs.  Dewey's 
report.    Chapters  on  "Some  Old  Kyoto 
Gardens"    and    "Japanese    Pilgrims" 
undertake  prettily  to  exhibit  the  Jap- 
anese manifestations  of  "those   two 
fundamentals    which    in   any    nation 
command   its    finest   minds — ^religion 
and  esthetics".  Chapters  follow  on  the 
White   Peril,   the  Yellow   Peril,   the 
Philippines,    Japanese    military    and 
anti- American   jingoes,    China,   Aus- 
tralia, and  "Some  Conclusions".    The 
conclusions  give  with  benevolent  and 
enviable  self-assurance  "a  Far  East- 
em  Policy  that  is  fair  to  all  because  it 
honestly  takes  into  account  the  view- 
point of  all  concerned".    We  are  coun- 
seled,  with   optimistic  vagueness   to 
study  ourselves  and  our  Pacific  neigh- 
bors, and  to  balance  our  "inequalities 
with  the  same  whole-souled  interest  in 
their   satisfactory    combination    that 
the  Japanese  show  in  their  arrange- 
ment of  flowers";   to  expect  that  the 
"Ladies'   Agreement" — ^the  withhold- 
ing   of    passports    from     "picture- 
brides" — ^will  solve  the  problem  of  im- 
migration in  California;    to   realize 
that  to  wet-nurse  China  is  dangerous 
nonsense  and  bad  business.     General 
Sherrill's  ten  months  in  the  east  seem 
to  have  been  insufficient  to  awaken 
him  to  an  adequate  sense  of  the  in- 


JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 


638 


tricacy  of  problems  that  with  such 
bland  simplicity  he  has  undertaken  to 
solve. 

"Japan — Real  and  Imaginary",  by 
Sydney  Greenbie,   is  less  audacious, 
but  a  far  more  solid  and  valuable  work. 
Mr.  Greenbie's  book  is  an  important 
contribution  toward  a  temperate  and 
unhysterical  understanding  of  the  av- 
erage Japanese.  Mr.  Greenbie  came  to 
Japan  after  a  wide  traveling  in  the 
Pacific,  to  land  upon  the  shores  of 
the   Flowery  Isles   with   seventy-five 
cents  in  his  pocket,  with  no  letters  of 
introduction  to  the  mighty  or  the  au- 
gust,— and   with    the   whole    of   the 
Japanese  Empire  at  his  feet  to  be 
taken  and  enjoyed.     Much  of  Japan 
Mr.  Greenbie  did  not  see.    His  experi- 
ences were  largely  in  Kobe  where  he 
earned   his    living   as   business-man, 
journalist,    and    teacher.      He    was 
graced  with  no  interviews  with  the 
Emperor,    nor    was    he    lionized    by 
prominent  men;   it  is  unfortunate  for 
some  of  his  conclusions  on  feminism 
in  the  east  that  he  failed  to  know  any 
of  the  best  kind  of  Japanese  women. 

In  so  far  as  Mr.  Greenbie  keeps 
safely  within  the  limits  of  his  experi- 
ence— and  Mr.  Greenbie  is  not  prone 
to  affect  omniscience — ^his  observa- 
tions are  painstaking  and  highly  in- 
forming. Mr.  Greenbie  has  too  good 
sense  to  try  to  exhaust  all  possible  dis- 
cussion of  Japan.  His  book  is  of 
conspicuous  value  for  the  shrewdly 
observed  wealth  of  detail  it  gives  of 
the  everyday  life  of  contemporary 
Japan.  The  faults  of  the  book  are 
patent  enough.  With  so  much  matter, 
it  is  to  be  regretted  there  is  not  more 
perfect  art.  The  book  is  made  out  of 
magazine  articles:  a  mode  of  manu- 
facture that  has  resulted  in  unprofita- 
ble repetition.  And  even  within  the 
separate  articles  it  is  Mr.  Greenbie's 
temptation  to  be  wordy.    But  despite 


these  faults,  Mr.  Greenbie's  book  is  to 
be  imputed  to  him  for  righteousness. 
It  is  impossible  to  read  "Japan — Real 
and  Imaginary"  without  growing  to 
the  realization  that  the  everyday  Jap- 
anese, with  a  juster  sense  of  his  rela- 
tive importance  in  the  universe,  might 
say  with  a  truer  humility  than  Pe- 
trarch in  his  "Letter  to  Posterity": 
"I  am  only  a  poor  mortal  like  your- 
self". Mr.  Greenbie  has  gone  far  in 
establishing  the  humiliating  reality 
of  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

"The  Far  East  Unveiled"  by  Fred- 
eric  Coleman,  despite  the  title,  which 
prepares   one  for  something   in  the 
style  of  Mme.  Blavatsky,  is  an  un- 
usually meaty  and  competent  work. 
The  sub-title,  "An  Inner  History  of 
Events  in  Japan  and  China  in  the  Year 
1916",  gives  a  juster  idea  of  the  scope 
of  the  book.     Mr.   Coleman  departs 
from  the  classical  traditions  of  the 
academic  historian  who  in  his  study 
rakes  through  dusty  records  of  the 
past  to  build  up  sweeping  generaliza- 
tions on  his  meagre  findings.    Though 
Mr.  Coleman  writes  with  an  extended 
familiarity  with  the  east,  he  rigor- 
ously confines  his  work  to  the  limited 
space  of  less  than  a  year,  and  to  the 
actual  evidence  of  his  eyes  and  ears. 
In    Japan,    China,    Manchuria,    and 
Korea  Mr.  Coleman  interviewed  all  the 
notables  and  near-notables,  and  no- 
bodies that  promised  game  for  his  in- 
satiable curiosity,   the  President  of 
China  and  the  Japanese  and  Chinese 
Prime  Ministers  being  among  his  big- 
gest game.    He  describes  himself  as 

The  GelBba  GlrL  By  T.  Fujimoto.  J.  B.  Llp- 
pincott  Co. 

Lettere  from  China  and  Japan.  By  John 
Dewey  and  Alice  Chapman  Dewey.  B.  P.  Dut- 
ton  and  Co. 

„  Have  We  a  Par  Eastern  PoUcy?    By  Charles 

H.  SberrUl.     Charles  Scrlbner's  Sons.    ^"""'^ 

Japan — Real    and    Imaginary.      By    Sydney 

Greenbie.    Harper  and  Bros,  j'^'^j^ 

^!F^^  S^^  5?"*  SPJ?"^-  ^y  Frederic  Cole- 
man.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

m  \,^'"i??^y  ®^At®  Japanese  People.  By  Capt. 
t\J^^^^^^l^  ^^^  ***«  coUaboration  of  Baron 
KlKQChi.    George  H.  Doran  Company. 


684 


THE  BOOKMAN 


being  "merely  a  bland,  always  smiling, 
imperturbable,  fat,  certainly  harm- 
less man  with  a  somewhat  annoying 
penchant  for  asking  foolish  ques- 
tions". Surely  his  was  vastly  illumi- 
nating and  profitable  folly.  Mr.  Cole- 
man richly  deserves  the  praise  Mon- 
taigne bestowed  on  "the  good  Frols- 
sart,  who  tells  us  the  diversities  of 
humours  which  were  current,  and  the 
different  accounts  that  were  told  him. 
This  is  history  naked  and  unadorned, 
and  every  one  may  profit  from  it  ac- 


cording to  the  depth  of  his  under- 
standing". Perhaps  there  is  malicious 
irony  in  the  title  of  Mr.  (Coleman's 
book.  "The  Far  East  Unveiled"  is  of 
superlative  importance  for  the  light  it 
throws  on  politics  in  the  east  and 
America's  trade  relations  with  the 
Orient.  Mr.  (Coleman's  book — ^with 
Captain  Brinkley's  "History  of  the 
Japanese  People"  about  to  be  reissued 
— ^belongs  to  that  small  and  distin- 
guished company  of  first-rate  books 
on  Japan. 


IN  A  FRIEND'S  LIBRARY 


(During  Her  Absence) 


BY  CHARLES  HANSON  TOWNE 


ONE  night  I  was  alone  in  a  friend's  room, 
Where  the  lamps  shed  their  soft  and  steady  glow. 
And  all  around  me,  row  on  solemn  row. 
The  words  of  Masters  whispered  in  the  gloom. 
They  spoke,  as  voices  from  a  long-sealed  tomb. 
And  as  I  dipped  into  some  folio. 
To  read  a  page  I  had  loved  long  ago. 
Spirits  came  forth,  their  old  life  to  resume. 


O  sacred  hour  with  these  most-treasured  friends! 

0  moments  of  delight  with  this  great  host! 

How  much  I  loved  each  soft-returning  ghost. 
And  the  white  peace  that  such  an  hour  attends 

But  most  I  loved  the  silence.    Nay,  loved  most 
The  thought  of  You ! . . .     Too  soon  my  evening  ends ! 


FRANCIS  BRETT  YOUNG 


BY  COMPTON  MACKENZIE 


FRANCIS  BRETT  YOUNG  may  be 
called  the  most  fortunate  or  the 
most  unfortunate  of  the  younger  nov- 
elists: it  depends  on  the  point  of 
view.  If  a  general  discussion  of  his 
chance  in  the  great  tontine  of  fame 
really  help  a  novelist  he  must  be  es- 
teemed unfortunate,  for  that  chance 
has  certainly  not  received  anything 
like  the  attention  it  deserves  from  the 
recent  accumulations  of  ephemeral 
criticism  which  now  appear  as  regu- 
larly as  new  magazines.  If,  on  the 
other  hand — and  I  suspect  that  this 
opinion  is  more  justifiable — it  be 
really  a  handicap  for  an  artist  to  find 
himself  taken  too  seriously  at  the  be- 
ginning of  his  career,  then  Mr.  Brett 
Young  must  be  counted  the  most  for- 
tunate. The  present  method  of  ap- 
praising authors  has  more  affinity 
with  racing  gossip  than  with  litera- 
ture, and  the  climax  is  reached  when 
the  appraiser,  not  content  with  esti- 
mating contemporary  values,  indulges 
in  speculations  about  the  values  of 
posterity  that  savor  more  of  spiritual- 
ism than  of  criticism.  I  am  sure  that 
Mr.  Brett  Young  has  lost  nothing  be- 
cause he  has  never  been  pictured 
drinking  in  Elysium,  five  hundred 
years  hence,  the  distilled  nectar  of 
earthly  fame,  or  even,  to  pass  from 
the  trivial  to  the  significant,  because 
Henry  James  did  not  include  him  in 
that  famous  article  on  the  younger 


generation  which  set  a  few  hearts 
beating  and  so  many  burning. 

For  one  thing,  such  neglect  has  al- 
lowed Mr.  Brett  Young  a  free  hand 
to  experiment,  and  so  interesting  has 
been  each  one  of  these  experiments,  at 
any  rate  so  far  as  his  prose  and  verse 
are  concerned — I  cannot  speak  of  his 
plays — ^that  his  varied  production 
might  serve  as  a  text  to  illustrate  the 
tendencies  of  our  time. 

Tendencies  are  as  infectious  as  in- 
fluenza; even  with  rigid  isolation  the 
subject  is  not  immune,  but  he  is  safer 
thus  than  he  would  be  by  frequenting 
various  literary  groups,  which  are  the 
worst  disseminators  of  such  infection. 
Mr.  Brett  Young,  who  was  a  doctor 
before  he  became  a  writer,  probably 
learned  in  the  exercise  of  his  earlier 
profession  the  wisdom  of  avoiding  in- 
fected areas  unless  compelled  to  visit 
them  professionally.  Literature  has 
not  sunmioned  him  professionally  into 
such  infected  areas,  and,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  an  excellent  book  on  Robert 
Bridges,  in  which  he  gave  a  model 
diagnosis  of  a  completely  uninf  ectious 
patient,  he  has  not  been  called  upon 
to  administer  the  consolations  of  criti- 
cism. 

At  the  same  time,  one  feels  that  Mr. 
Brett  Young  has  indulged  in  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  research  among  the 
infectious  tendencies  of  the  present 
day;  so  much  so,  that  occasionally  he 


685 


636 


THE  BOOKMAN 


seems  to  have  felt  that  it  was  his  duty 
to  inoculate  himself,  however  mildly, 
with  each  serum  in  turn.  The  first 
tendency  of  this  kind  was  toward  a 
type  of  Welsh  influenza  which  has  re- 
mained endemic  in  the  Marches,  and 
which,  under  the  influence  of  Mr. 
Arthur  Machen,  almost  grew  into  a 
pandemic.  The  result  was  "Under- 
growth", and  it  is  interesting  to  no- 
tice that,  like  so  many  of  the  maladies 
of  our  early  days,  it  ran  through  the 
household  and  infected  his  brother  si- 
multaneously, so  that  Francis  Brett 
Young's  first  novel  was  really  only 
half  a  first  novel,  the  other  half  be- 
longing to  Eric  Brett  Young.  The 
book  is  concerned  with  "old,  unhappy 
far-off  things"  impinging  upon  the 
present,  and  you  can  get  a  better  thrill 
from  it  than  from  any  book  of  the 
same  kind,  always  excepting  "The 
Three  Impostors".  Incidentally  it  in- 
troduced a  writer  whose  pen  for  land- 
scape was  evidently  going  to  be  one  of 
the  most  accomplished  of  our  time. 

"Undergrowli"  was  followed  by 
"Deep  Sea",  which  is  as  different  from 
"Undergrowth"  as  cheese  from — in 
this  case — Silurian.  "Deep  Sea"  is  a 
story  of  Brixham  and  Brixham  trawl- 
ers, a  simple  and  moving  story,  free 
from  any  hint  of  a  tendency  and 
achieving  what,  with  much  more  elab- 
oration of  effort,  the  next  book  "The 
Dark  Tower"  fails  to  achieve, — ^the  il- 
lumination of  a  minor  tragedy  by  a 
privileged  and  sympathetic  onlooker. 
The  weakness  of  "Deep  Sea"  lies  in 
what  seems  the  author's  lack  of  relish 
for  the  villainy;  and  this  is  a  weak- 
ness which  is  noticeable  right  through 
his  work.  I  do  not  think  that  any 
other  living  writer  can  evoke  a  sinis- 
ter landscape  at  once  so  accurately  and 
so  alarmingly;  but  the  sinister  per- 
sonalities in  these  landscapes  some- 
times  turn   out   on   approach  to   be 


scarecrows.  This  is  not  to  deny  that 
a  scarecrow  well  placed  can  be  as 
frightening  as  Charles  Peace,  if  we 
keep  our  distance.  The  horrible  re- 
quires at  close  quarters  the  natural- 
ism of  the  Chamber  of  Horrors  with 
its  rows  of  glassy  blue  eyes  and  with 
its  waxwork  that  simulates  the  human 
skin. 

Perhaps  Mr.  Brett  Young  was  con- 
scious of  this  weakness,  for  in  "The 
Dark  Tower",  the  theme  of  which  is 
essentially  a  sinister  landscai)e,  he  ex- 
perimented with  some  of  the  Conrad 
serum,  in  order  to  provide  a  human  in- 
terest as  suggestive,  as  complicated, 
and  as  provocatively  obscure  as  his 
wonderful  landscape.  This  is  not  the 
time  to  divagate  into  an  examination 
of  Mr.  Conrad's  method  of  narration, 
and  I  must  take  the  risk  of  appearing 
superficial  by  saying  that,  roughly, 
this  consists  in  viewing  the  dramatis 
persons  through  a  cloud  of  ordinary 
personalities  that  melts  in  a  rain  of 
inverted  conunas,  above  which  can  be 
heard  the  remote  thunder  of  the  tale 
and  through  which  flashes  the  light- 
ning of  the  author's  revelation.  Such 
a  method,  with  all  its  pretense  of  "na- 
turalism", is  for  me  the  least  natural- 
istic that  there  is.  I  believe  neither  in 
Mr.  Conrad's  unending  Marlowe  nor 
in  Mr.  Brett  Young's  more  finite  Mars- 
den:  they  are  no  more  human  than 
unresolved  algebraical  brackets.  If  the 
old  Olympian  method  by  which  the 
novelist  was  allowed  to  know  all  about 
his  puppets  is  no  longer  tolerable  at 
our  present  pitch  of  literary  refine- 
ment, it  will  at  any  rate  never  be 
ousted  by  this  new  contorted  method, 
which  is  like  craning  at  a  football 
match  from  the  middle  of  a  crowd. 
Progress  in  art  is  a  history  of  dis- 
carded conventions.  Marlowes  and 
Marsdens  are  only  fresh  conventions, 
clumsy  or  graceful  according  to  one's 


FRANCIS  BRETT  YOUNG 


637 


taste;  with  the  dens  ex  mcLchina,  the 
servants  at  the  rise  of  the  curtain,  the 
messenger,  the  lonely  horseman  sil- 
houetted against  the  last  rays  of  the 
setting  sun,  the  confidante,  the  solilo- 
quy, the  aside,  and  the  transformation 
scene,  they  too  will,  in  their  day,  pass 
to  the  property-room  of  art.  But  my 
intense  dislike  of  oblique  narrative 
has  made  me  unjust  to  "The  Dark 
Tower*';  the  tale  often  "walks  in 
beauty  like  the  night'*. 

Mr.  Brett  Young's  next  book,  "The 
Iron  Age",  begins  with  a  very  small 
injection  of  the  Arnold  Bennett  serum, 
the  effect  of  which  is  rapidly  thrown 
off  to  show  us  more  of  Mr.  Brett 
Young  than  any  of  the  preceding 
books.  There  is  again  admirable 
scenery  (that  was  to  be  expected) ; 
but  there  is  now  also  visible  a  real 
ability  to  create  human  character,  and 
though  less  pretentious  in  its  psychol- 
ogy than  "The  Dark  Tower",  "The 
Iron  Age"  is  more  convincing.  The 
fault  of  the  book  is  an  abrupt  conclu- 
sion, brought  about  by  the  late  war, 
at  the  very  moment  when  Mr.  Brett 
Young  was  in  full  swing  with  his 
theme.  I  am  not  such  a  fool,  being  a 
novelist  myself,  as  to  suppose  that  the 
war  is  not  going  to  intrude  upon  the 
greater  part  of  the  novels  written  dur- 
ing the  next  twenty  years.  But  Mars 
is  not  the  only  god  emerging  from  a 
machine;  the  great  war  is  not  a  finale 
like  the  general  carnage  of  an  Eliza- 
bethan tragedy,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  novelists  will  remember  the  en- 
trance of  Fortinbras  at  the  close  of 
"Hamlet".  The  flow  of  normal  life, 
be  it  damned  never  so  violently,  will 
gradually  be  restored. 

Mr.  Brett  Young,  having  sent  off 
his  hero  to  the  war,  followed  him  im- 
mediately afterward,  and  was  lucky 
enough  (this  can  be  said  since  he  came 
safely  home)  to  take  part  in  the  Eairt 


African  campaign.  The  result  of  this 
experience  was  "Marching  on  Tanga", 
which  made  a  deep  impression  and 
brought  his  name  into  real  prominence 
for  the  first  time.  Written  under  a 
stress  of  emotion  and  exaltation  in  a 
rhythmical  prose  that  somewhat  too 
frequently  breaks  into  blank  verse,  it 
is  a  remarkable  record  of  a  remark- 
able experience,  and  it  already  beauti- 
fully Ws  in  the  inunense  library  of 
war  books  a  space  which  is  assuredly  a 
permanent  one. 

The  experience  gained  in  East 
Africa  was  now  utilized  less  directly 
in  "The  Crescent  Moon",  which  Mr. 
Brett  Young  in  the  dedication  char- 
acterizes as  a  "shocker".  He  is  un- 
just to  himself,  and  this  display  of 
self -consciousness  extends  to  imperil 
the  whole  story,  for  if  Mr.  Brett 
Young  does  not  believe  in  his  book, 
how  shall  he  preserve  the  illusion  that 
in  so  violent  a  story  is  more  than  ever 
essential?  I  cannot  help  feeling  all 
the  time  that  I  am  reading  it  that  the 
author  is  looking  over  his  shoulder  a 
little  apologetically  and  saying  to  some 
critic  who  during  the  war  kept  the  di- 
vine fires  burning  at  home:  "I'm 
sorry  I  went  away  and  had  so  much 
experience  of  blood  and  thunder;  you 
will  quite  understand  that  I  realize 
how  shocking  all  this  is,  and  I  will  try 
never  to  do  it  again."  But  why  this 
apology?  For  the  good  or  for  the  ill 
of  our  art  some  of  us  have  been 
dragged  through  hell  these  last  years, 
so  that  storms  in  teacups  and  the 
chess-problems  of  adultery  are  less  at- 
tractive than  formerly.  "The  Cres- 
cent Moon"  requires  no  apology;  I 
believe  that  it  may  be  the  apology 
which  has  once  more  taken  the  edge 
off  Mr.  Brett  Young's  villain. 

But  the  effect  of  East  Africa  was 
not  exhausted  by  "Marching  on 
Tanga"  or  "The  Crescent  Moon",    If 


688 


THE  BOOKMAN 


the  description  of  that  emotion  was  in 
prose,  the  expression  of  it  was  in 
verse,  and  in  "Five  Degrees  South*', 
or  more  completely  in  "Poems,  1916- 
1918",  Mr.  Brett  Young  became  defi- 
nitely, even  conspicuously,  one  of  the 
"Georgian"  poets,  to  use  the  muddle- 
headed  jargon  of  the  moment.  There 
is  a  legend  being  sedulously  spread 
that  we  live  in  a  great  age  of  poetry, 
propaganda  for  which  is  conducted  un- 
scrupulously enough  by  the  poets 
themselves.  Was  it  de  Musset  who 
said  that  his  glass  was  not  a  large  one, 
but  that  he  did  drink  out  of  his  own? 
The  "Georgian"  poets  might  add: 
"Our  glass  is  not  very  large  either, 
and  we  all  drink  out  of  it  in  turn,  al- 
though some  of  us  do  possess  small 
liqueur  glasses  of  our  own."  I  think 
that  Mr.  Brett  Young  has  one  of  these 
liqueur  glasses,  and  a  very  beautiful 
little  glass  it  is,  wrought  by  a  cunning 
workman  and  brimming  with  a  liqueur 
that  was  not  bottled  yesterday.  In  the 
latest  volume  of  "Georgian"  poetry 
there  are  several  examples  of  Mr. 
Brett  Young;  and  "Prothalamion", 
with  its  exquisite  dying  fall,  might  al- 
most tempt  one  to  suppose  that  we  do 
live  in  a  renascence  of  poetry,  and  that 
the  four-and-twenty  blackbirds  who 
are  baked  weekly  in  the  printer's  pie 
of  the  literary  press  are  really  a  dainty 
dish  fit  to  set  before  a  Georgian  king. 
But  alas,  the  king  is  indeed  in  his 
counting-house,  for  the  war  is  over; 
the  poets  are  being  driven  like  the 
gods  of  Hellas  to  exercise  their  craft 
less  divinely;  the  blackbirds  have  be- 
come mud-larks,  and  the  mud  that  for- 
merly produced  the  Lily  of  Malud  is 
now  being  used  for  other  purposes, 
medicinally,  no  doubt  some  would  say; 
"but  mud  is  none  the  less  mud,"  as  one 
of  the  group  sings. 

Mr.  Brett  Young  escaped  the  void 
into  which  peace  flung  professional 


soldiers  and  poets.  He  got  back  im- 
mediately to  his  novels,  and  to  such 
purpose  that  with  "The  Young  Physi- 
cian" he  surpassed  easily  all  his  pre- 
vious books.  With  the  exception  of 
the  hurried  end,  obviously  dictated  by 
the  economic  t3rranny  of  publishers 
(themselves  the  prey  of  other  tyran- 
nies), and  of  an  attempt  to  give  the 
book  the  kind  of  form  it  could  have 
dispensed  with  by  stretching  proba- 
bility in  respect  of  the  "villain's"  re- 
appearance, there  is  not  much  to  say 
against  "The  Young  Physician".  The 
episode  of  the  mother's  death  is  as 
good  as  anything  in  contemporary  lit- 
erature; there  are  the  usual  beautiful 
landscapes,  which  are  now  inhabited 
by  real  people;  finally,  there  is  Mr. 
Brett  Young  as  himself  (I  do  not 
mean  autobiographically)  able  and 
willing  to  afiirm  "our  true  intent  is  all 
for  your  delight". 

I  confess  that  I  like  a  book  to  be 
readable;  it  seems  to  me  that  a  ca- 
pacity for  entertaining  a  certain  num- 
ber of  people  is  the  chief  justification 
for  writing  novels.  It  is  a  low-browed 
ambition,  but  I  shall  persevere  in  it 
myself,  and  I  hope  that  Mr.  Brett 
Young  will  persevere  in  it  too.  And 
here  is  "The  Tragic  Bride"  to  encour- 
age such  a  hope.  For  a  moment,  in  the 
first  half-dozen  pages,  I  thought  that  I 
was  going  to  be  disappointed.  I  ex- 
pected to  see  that  fellow  Marsden 
round  the  next  bend  of  the  stream. 
But  he  was  not  fishing  in  Ireland  that 
year,  and  presently  I  was  enraptured 
by  a  hundred  pages  of  Mr.  Brett 
Young  at  his  best,  and  how  good  that 
can  be  readers  must  find  out.  I  should 
like  to  remove  these  hundred  pages 
and  print  them  as  one  of  the  best 
"short  stories"  in  the  English  lan- 
guage, for  though  the  rest  of  the  book 
is  good,  it  is  not  so  good  as  the  earlier 
part,  and  though  my  judgment  is  i^ 


THE  WIFE  OF  HONORE  DE  BALZAC 


689 


sentimental  one  founded  upon  the  in- 
tense pleasure  the  earlier  part  gave 
me,  I  do  feel  that  in  this  case  the  sen- 
timental judfirment  is  supported  by  the 
aesthetic  one. 

Well,  here  is  an  end  of  my  poor  at- 
tempt to  remind  people  that  Mr.  Brett 
Young  is  a  novelist  who  has  shown  by 
his  industry  and  steady  progress,  by 
his  versatility  and  romantic  outlook, 
by  his  technical  accomplishment  and 
by  a  kind  of  graceful  modesty  which 


is  the  very  essence  of  his  individuality 
as  a  writer,  that  he  is  worthy  of  much 
more  attention  than  he  has  received. 
Yet  I  come  back  to  my  opinion  that  he 
is  therein  fortunate,  because,  with- 
drawn from  the  tribal  wars  that  men- 
ace the  health  of  the  body  aesthetic 
and  unencumbered  by  the  scalps  of 
successful  rivals,  he  is  moving  honor- 
ably toward  that  high  place  in  the  lit- 
erature of  the  next  decade  for  which 
he  is  marked  out. 


/ 


THE  WIFE  OF  HONORE  DE  BALZAC 


BY  PRINCESS  CATHERINE  RADZIWILL 


THERE  was  recently  published  in 
Paris  a  new  volume  of  letters 
from  Honors  de  Balzac  to  the  woman 
he  married  after  a  courtship  of  sev- 
enteen years.  Madame  de  Balzac 
(known  in  French  literature  by  that 
name  of  Etrang^re  which  Viscount 
Spoelberch  de  Lovenjoul  gave  her 
when  first  he  brought  her  correspond- 
ence with  Balzac  to  the  notice  of  the 
world)  was  in  her  way  just  as  re- 
markable a  personality  as  her  re- 
nowned husband.  She  was,  however, 
of  such  a  modest  disposition  that  she 
never  during  her  lifetime  allowed  any- 
one to  give  her  the  praise  which  she 
deserved.  After  her  death,  most  un- 
fortunately for  her  memory,  certain 
writers  with  more  spite  than  talent 
tried  to  villify  her,  and  to  represent 
her  as  a  cold,  ambitious  woman  who 
had  married  Balzac  entirely  out  of 
vanity.  The  truth  is  vastly  different, 
j^nd  jt  is  time  to  clea^  her  memory 


from  an  imputation  which  has  been 
strengthened  by  the  spite  of  Victor 
Hugo.  In  a  sketch  far  more  imagina- 
tive than  exact  of  the  last  moments  of 
Balzac,  Hugo  attempted  in  a  veiled, 
sarcastic  manner  to  give  to  the  public 
the  idea  that  the  great  writer  had  died 
alone,  while  his  wife  remained  in  her 
own  apartments.  The  truth  is  less 
romantic  and  far  more  human.  When 
Hugo  called  on  his  dying  friend,  my 
aunt  retired  to  her  room  for  a  few 
moments  in  order  not  to  meet  him. 
She  did  not  like  him,  and  she  pre- 
ferred not  to  encounter  a  man  whom 
she  knew  to  be  antagonistic  to  herself 
at  an  hour  when  she  was  about  to  un- 
dergo the  greatest  trial  in  her  life. 
As  soon  as  the  poet  left  the  house,  she 
resumed  her  place  by  the  bedside  of 
her  husband  and  remained  there  until 
the  last.  And  she  paid  him  the  great- 
est tribute  of  affection  a  woman  could 
give  to  the  man  she  had  loved:  she  as- 


640 


THE  BOOKMAN 


sumed  the  burden  of  his  immense 
debts  and,  though  not  compelled  to  do 
so,  paid  them  down  to  the  last  far- 
thing. She  remained  upon  the  most 
affectionate  terms  with  his  mother  and 
family, — it  was  thanks  to  her  that 
Balzac's  mother  was  able  to  spend  in 
comfort  her  last  years.  These  facts 
speak  for  themselves,  and  I  think  dis- 
pose better  than  volumes  on  the  sub- 
ject could  of  the  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious calumny  cast  by  Victor  Hugo 
on  my  aunt's  memory. 

She  was  a  remarkable  personality, 
this  famous  Etrang^re  about  whom  so 
much  has  been  written,  and  so  little 
really  known.  She  was  truly,  as  Bal- 
zac once  wrote  to  her,  "one  of  those 
great  minds  preserved  by  solitude 
from  the  petty  meannesses  of  this 
world".  She  loved  solitude,  moral  as 
well  as  material ;  the  best  years  of  her 
life  were  spent  by  her  alone,  save  for 
the  affection  of  a  few  people  who 
could  appreciate  and  understand  a 
character  which  perhaps  had  never 
bent,  but  which  had  always  recognized 
the  value  of  others,  even  when  those 
others  differed  in  opinions  and 
thoughts.  Her  life  was  simple  enough, 
in  spite  of  the  immense  love  and  the 
wonderful  romance  that  filled  it.  The 
daughter  of  a  remarkable  man  who 
had  enjoyed  the  friendship  of  most  of 
the  great  writers  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  who  had  been  a  friend  and 
a  correspondent  of  Voltaire,  she  was 
brought  up  in  the  atmosphere  of  the 
eighteenth  century  with  its  touch  of 
skepticism.  The  encyclopedia  re- 
mained for  her  a  kind  of  gospel,  and 
the  principles  of  the  great  French 
Revolution  constantly  inspired  her,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  she  was  brought 
up  in  one  of  the  haughtiest  aristo- 
cratic circles  in  Europe,  and  in  a 
country  where  the  very  mention  of  the 
words  liberty  and  freedom  of  opinion 


was  tabooed.  She  was  eminently  tol- 
erant, a  quality  then  perhaps  more 
rarely  to  be  met  with  than  now.  She 
respected  the  faiths  and  the  convic- 
tions of  others,  and  never  condemned 
what  she  did  not  approve  of.  She 
hated  hypocrisy,  no  matter  in  what 
shape  or  form  it  presented  itself.  This 
fact  explains  better  than  anything  else 
the  courage  she  displayed  when, 
against  the  advice  of  her  family  and 
in  spite  of  all  obstacles,  she  carried 
through  her  determination  to  exchange 
her  great  position  in  Russia  for  that 
of  wife  of  a  novelist  who  was  not  then 
considered  the  great  genius  he  has 
been  proclaimed  since  his  death. 

Madame  de  Balzac  was  brought  up 
almost  entirely  by  her  father,  a  man 
of  great  mind  and  charm,  whose  fa- 
vorite she  was.  She  was  one  of  a 
large  family  of  whom  all  the  men  were 
clever,  handsome,  and  brave,  and  all 
the  women  beautiful,  intelligent,  and 
charming.  At  an  early  age  she  was 
married  to  a  man  much  older  than 
herself,  whose  inmiense  fortune  made 
him  a  conspicuous  personage  in  the 
matrimonial  market  of  his  country. 
Monsieur  Hanski  (who  by  the  way 
never  had  any  right  to  the  title  of 
Count  which  is  generally  given  to 
him,  even  by  Balzac)  was  a  man  of 
unbalanced  mind,  subject  to  attacks  of 
what  we  now  call  neurasthenia.  This 
invalid  shut  up  his  young  wife  in  the 
solitude  of  a  magnificent  country  home 
where  she  had  nothing  to  do  but  read, 
educate  her  children,  and  think  over 
the  miseries  of  a  blighted  existence. 
As  long  as  her  father  lived,  my  aunt 
found  in  his  affection  a  solace  for  her 
disappointments.  When  he  died  she 
was  left,  in  the  full  sense  of  that  word, 
alone, — ^alone  to  suffer,  to  love,  and  to 
struggle. 

Of  her  five  children,  four  died  in  in- 
fancy;   one  daughter  remained^  on 


THE  WIFE  OF  HONORE  DE  BALZAC 


641 


whom  she  concentrated  all  her  affec- 
tion, and  whose  health  was  a  subject 
of  constant  anxiety.  It  was  an  austere 
existence  that  she  led  in  her  lonely 
Ukrainian  castle;  and  it  is  no  wonder 
that  she  caught  at  the  idea  of  entering 
through  the  medium  of  a  newspaper 
into  a  correspondence  with  Balzac, 
whose  early  works  she  had  read.  Her 
first  letter  to  him,  signed  "Une  Etran- 
g^re",  impressed  him  so  much  that  he 
replied ;  this  was  the  beginning  of  the 
long  "love  romance" — as  he  called  it 
in  one  of  his  letters  to  Madame  Zulma 
Carraud— which  ended  only  with  his 
life.  The  correspondents  met  at  last 
at  Neuch&tel  in  Switzerland,  where 
began  in  earnest  the  affection  which 
was  to  remain  the  leitmotif  in  my 
aunt's  subsequent  life. 

Upon  the  death  of  Monsieur  Hanski, 
his  widow  succeeded  to  his  great  for- 
tune. Instead  of  remarrying  immedi- 
ately, however,  she  waited  until  the 
marriage  of  her  daughter,  to  whom 
she  gave  up  this  wealth,  reserving  for 
herself  only  an  annuity.  Then,  though 
she  knew  Balzac  to  be  ill  beyond  the 
hope  of  recovery,  she  did  not  hesitate 
for  a  moment  in  pledging  herself  to 
him.  My  father,  Madame  de  Balzac's 
favorite  brother,  related  to  me  how 
he  tried  to  dissuade  her  from  taking 
this  step  which  meant  a  quasi  exile 
from  her  native  land.  He  could  not 
shake  her  resolution,  and  her  reply 
was  so  essentially  characteristic  that 
I  quote  it  here:  "It  would  be  un- 
worthy of  me  if  I  were  of  so  con- 
temptible a  turn  of  mind  as  to  put  my 
own  happiness  or  comfort  before  the 
possibility  of  soothing  the  last  hours 
of  the  man  whose  heart  has  been  in 
my  keeping  for  seventeen  years."  Bal- 
zac's marriage  was,  as  he  expressed  it 
himself,  the  great  and  supreme  tri- 
umph of  his  life.  Six  months  after  it 
had  taken  place,  he   died  in  Paris, 


whither  he  had  brought  his  wife, — 
died  happy  in  spite  of  all  that  has 
been  told  or  written  to  the  contrary. 
My  aunt  closed  his  eyes  with  pious 
hands;  her  heart  was  broken  and,  as 
she  told  me  once,  "J'ai  v^u  un  enfer 
de  souffrance  ce  jour  Ik"  (I  lived 
through  a  hell  of  suffering  on  that 
day.) 

Madame  de  Balzac  remained  in 
Paris  after  her  husband's  death.  Her 
first  act  was  to  pay  his  debts,  which 
she  did  with  that  care  and  thorough- 
ness she  always  brought  to  bear  on 
eversrthing  she  undertook.  She  re- 
mained in  the  little  house  in  the  rue 
Beaujen,  afterward  rue  Balzac,  which 
the  great  writer  had  bought  for  her; 
there  her  daughter  and  son-in-law 
joined  her,  after  which  existence  for 
her  settled  in  a  grave  but  contented 
channel.  Gradually  all  the  intelligent 
and  remarkable  men  (of  whom  there 
were  so  many  in  the  Paris  of  that 
time)  found  a  meeting-place  in  the 
long  and  narrow  room,  low  of  ceiling, 
with  its  large  fireplace  at  one  end,  and 
a  table  with  the  colossal  bust  of  Balzac 
by  David  D' Angers  at  the  other.  By 
the  middle  window  of  the  three  which 
lighted  the  apartment,  my  aunt  would 
sit  beside  a  small  working-table,  gen- 
erally knitting,  and  from  time  to  time 
putting  in  a  remark  which  immedi- 
ately gave  a  new  turn  to  the  conversa- 
tion. She  possessed  in  a  rare  degree 
the  art  of  listening,  and  that  of  bring- 
ing forward  the  best  points  in  other 
people's  discourses.  To  any  question 
put  to  her,  or  any  fact  submitted  to 
her  judgment,  she  had  an  immediate 
reply,  which  brought  an  illuminating 
light  into  the  discussion.  Her  com- 
ments on  men  and  events  were  some- 
times severe  but  never  hard;  she  ex- 
hibited always  that  great  serenity 
which  was  one  of  her  most  wonderful 
traits ;  her  intelligence  was  constantly 


642 


THE  BOOKMAN 


applied  to  the  task  of  looking  for  the 
best,  never  for  the  worst  side  of  hu- 
man nature. 

One  evening  the  conversation  turned 
on  the  facility  with  which  people  de- 
stroy their  neighbors'  happiness  by 
idle  words  or  ill-natured  remarks.  My 
aunt  lifted  her  head  from  her  ever- 
lasting knitting.  "I  think,"  she  gravely 
said,  "that  this  proceeds  from  a  vice 
in  our  system  of  education.  Children 
ought  to  be  brought  up  to  respect 
other  people's  happiness  just  as  they 
are  reared  in  the  respect  of  religion; 
they  ought  to  be  taught  to  reverence 
it  as  something  holy  if  not  entirely  di- 
vine." This  was  one  of  many  illumi- 
nating remarks  which  constantly  es- 
caped her.  Madame  de  Balzac,  though 
what  the  world  would  perhaps  call  an 
atheist,  was  in  reality  one  of  the 
greatest  believers  it  has  ever  been  my 
fortune  to  meet.  In  one  of  her  letters 
to  my  mother  she  says: 

You  wlU  know  one  day,  my  dear  Mttle  Bister, 
that  what  one  cares  the  most  to  read  over  again 
in  the  book  of  life,  are  those  difficalt  pages  of  the 
past,  when  after  a  hard  struggle  doty  has  re- 
mained the  master  of  the  battleaeld.  It  has 
burled  its  dead,  and  brushed  aside  aU  the  re- 
mains that  were  left  of  them ;  and  Ood  in  His 
Infinite  mercy  allows  flowers  and  grasses  to 
grow  again  on  this  bloody  ground.  Don't  think 
that  by  these  flowers  I  mean  to  say  that  one 
forgets.  No,  on  the  contrary,  I  am  thinking  of 
remembrance :  the  remembrance  of  the  victory 
that  has  been  won,  after  so  many  sacrifices;  I 
am  thinking  of  aU  these  voices  of  the  con- 
science which  come  to  soothe  us  and  to  teU  us 
that  our  Father  In  Heaven  is  satisfied  with 
what  we  have  done. 

The  hdtel  Balzac,  as  it  was  called, 
was  for  many  years  one  of  the  most 
important  centres  of  Parisian  society. 
There  one  could  meet  statesmen  like 
Thiers  and  Guizot  (it  was,  by  the  way, 
the  only  house  where  they  ever  con- 
descended to  meet  after  politics  had 
divided  them  in  an  irreconcilable  man- 
ner); historians  and  thinkers  like 
Taine  and  Renan;  art  critics  like 
Charles  Blanc,  painters  like  Gigoox, 


Carolus  Duran  at  the  beginning  of  his 
fame,  and  Gudin;  authors  like  Sainte- 
Beuve,  and  Paul  Lacroix  or  the  Biblio- 
phile Jacob  as  he  was  called;  great 
ladies  belonging  to  the  aristocracy  of 
the  whole  of  Europe;  politicians  of  all 
parties ;  philosophers  like  the  famous 
Abb£  Constant  (known  in  occult  cir- 
cles by  his  pseudonym  of  Eliphas 
L6vy)  ;  sometimes  even  a  priest  like 
Lacordaire,  or  a  musician  like  Gounod, 
and  a  sprinkling  of  lovely  women  to 
lend  to  this  eclectic  picture  the  help  of 
their  beauty  and  of  their  grace.  No- 
where in  Paris  did  people  of  more  op- 
posed opinions  condescend  to  meet, 
and  to  be  friendly  with  one  another; 
nowhere  did  more  animated  discus- 
sions take  place  without  ever  degener- 
ating into  quarrels. 

My  aunt,  though  essentially  the  type 
of  a  grande  dame  of  the  old  regime, 
was  nevertheless  an  ardent  liberal  by 
conviction.  Her  early  education,  and 
later  on  Balzac's  influence,  would  have 
inclined  her  to  sympathize  with  the 
legitimists  or  monarchists,  had  not 
her  sound  common  sense  absolutely  re- 
coiled. She  refused  to  accept  the  creed 
of  intolerance  professed  by  many  of 
those  who  were  dear  to  her;  she  hated 
Napoleon  III  and  the  whole  Bona- 
partist  program.  Long  before  the  dis- 
asters of  the  Franco-Prussian  War  of 
1870,  she  had  taken  the  standard  of 
the  Emperor  and  of  his  government. 
But  after  the  fall  of  the  Empire,  she 
refrained  from  throwing  stones  at  the 
man  whose  omnipotence  she  had  al- 
ways disputed. 

Thiers  was  her  particular  friend. 
One  of  my  earliest  recollections  (in 
1869,  just  before  the  cataclysm  which 
was  to  culminate  in  the  catastrophe  of 
Sedan)  is  that  of  a  short,  active  little 
man  with  spectacles,  and  an  unmis- 
takable southern  accent,  sitting  on  one 
side  of  the  open  fireplace,  while  oppo- 


THE  WIFE  OF  HONORE  DE  BALZAC 


643 


site  him  reclined  in  a  wide  armchair 
a  tall,  lean  figure  with  stern  features. 
They  were  engaged  in  animated  con- 
versation, and  as  my  govemness  led 
me — a  child  of  six  or  seven — into  the 
room,  my  aunt  made  a  sign  to  me  to 
come  near  her.  Drawing  me  closer  to 
her,  she  whispered  in  my  ear:  ''Re- 
member these  two  men,  my  child ;  the 
short  one  is  Thiers,  and  the  other  is 
Monsieur  Guizot.  Perhaps  later  on 
you  will  be  proud  to  have  seen  them." 
This  friendship  of  Madame  de  Balzac 
for  the  first  President  of  the  third 
French  republic  lasted  until  the  lat- 
ter's  death.  He  admired  her  for  her 
virile  mind,  and  for  the  fearlessness 
with  which  she  often  disagreed  with 
him.  He  liked  to  tease  her  about  her 
''aristocratic  prejudices",  and  took  ma- 
licious pleasure  in  recalling  the  fol- 
lowing incident.  During  the  Com- 
mune a  detachment  of  "F6d6r6s"  in- 
vaded the  hotel  Balzac.  My  aunt,  then 
past  seventy,  immensely  stout,  and 
crippled  by  gout,  faced  them  sitting 
in  her  usual  armchair.  Her  servants 
had  fled  in  terror;  she  was  alone  with 
her  daughter.  The  officer  in  conwnand 
of  the  company  of  soldiers  who  had 
forced  themselves  into  her  presence, 
addressed  her  as  "Citoyenne".  My 
aunt  looked  at  him  quite  unconcern- 
edly, and  said  in  the  most  matter-of- 
fact  voice :  "First  of  all  take  off  your 
hat;  I  am  not  used  to  men  coming 
into  my  room  without  uncovering  their 
heads.  And  then  don't  call  me  'Citoy- 
enne'  but  'Madame', — I  am  too  old  to 
be  addressed  in  such  a  familiar  man- 
ner." The  man  was  so  cowed  by 
this  impassible  courage  that  he  im- 
mediately removed  his  cap,  excused 
himself,  then  left  the  house  without 
having  molested  its  inhabitants. 

I  think  that  of  all  my  aunt's  visitors 
and  friends,  the  one  whom  she  liked 
and  whom  she  certainly  respected  the 


most,  was  Renan.  They  were  in  com- 
plete sympathy  with  each  other  men- 
tally, and  both  were  intensely  re- 
ligious. Few  people  have  understood 
so  fully  as  did  Renan  the  beauties  of 
the  morality  preached  by  Christ,  and 
few  people  have  had  more  reverence 
for  the  sacred  individuality  of  the 
Savior  of  mankind.  Renan  tried  to 
imitate  Christ  in  all  the  actions  of  his 
life,  to  be,  like  Him,  kind  and  indul- 
gent and  compassionate  toward  the 
woes  of  the  world.  This  creed  created 
a  link,  and  a  strong  one,  between  him 
and  Madame  de  Balzac,  who  like  him 
possessed  a  very  clear  insight  into  re- 
ligious matters  and  the  faculty  of  set- 
ting aside  superstition  while  retain- 
ing the  poetry  that  attaches  to  the 
teachings  of  the  different  churches. 
Both  of  them  sought  truth  always; 
but  they  never  gave  out  their  own 
ideas  as  perfect  ones  or  tried  to  im- 
pose them  on  others.  I  remember  a 
discussion  on  religious  tolerance  in 
general  between  a  distant  relative  of 
my  aunt,  the  Princess  Hedwige  de 
Ligne,  who  was  considered  a  power  in 
the  faubourg  St.  Germain,  and  a  few 
men  whose  opinions  were  entirely  dif- 
ferent from  hers.  Renan  was  con- 
sulted and  asked  to  say  what  he 
thought  about  the  theory  of  heaven 
and  hell.  He  smiled  the  sad  little 
smile  which  appealed  so  much  to  those 
who  understood  all  that  it  contained 
of  indulgence  and  kindness,  and  quietly 
replied:  "I  think  that  God  is  far  too 
just  to  punish  with  an  eternity  of  tor- 
ment, the  sins  committed  during  such 
a  short  period  as  the  longest  of  human 
lives."  The  Princess  was  not  satisfied, 
and  continued  amplifying  her  subject. 
"After  all.  Monsieur  Renan",  she  ex- 
claimed, "I  would  really  like  to  know 
whether  you  absolutely  refuse  to  be- 
lieve in  the  divinity  of  Christ."  At 
this  moment  Madame  de  Balzac,  who 


644 


THE  BOOKMAN 


had  followed  the  discussion  with  keen 
interest,  turned  to  her  niece  with  the 
remark  that  she  regretted  that  peo- 
ple "should  always  harp  upon  the 
divinity  of  our  Lord,  because  after  all 
his  sacrifice,  supposing  it  had  been 
made  by  a  man  for  the  good  of  man- 
kind, would  have  been  far  greater 
than  if  accomplished  by  a  god  aware 
of  the  results  it  was  bound  to  have. 
The  uncertainty  as  to  its  usefulness 
must  have  been  the  most  awful  part  of 
the  torments  Christ  had  to  endure,  and 
it  would  most  certainly  have  added  to 
his  greatness  had  he  only  been  a  child 
of  God."  The  remark  at  once  put  an 
end  to  the  discussion. 

Mention  of  Renan  reminds  me  of  an 
amusing  story  connected  with  him, 
the  kindest  and  most  obliging  of  men. 
One  evening  after  dinner,  a  small 
circle  of  people  were  gathered  around 
my  aunt's  armchair.  The  Ck)mtesse 
de  Montalembert,  widow  of  the  great 
Catholic  writer,  with  whom  my  aunt 
was  distantly  connected,  happened  to 
call.  She  had  never  seen  Renan  and, 
not  for  one  moment  supposing  he  could 
be  there,  failed  to  notice  his  name 
when  he  was  presented  to  her.  The 
evening  was  a  rainy  one.  When  the 
Countess  was  about  to  go  home,  she 
discovered  that  she  had  forgotten  to 
take  her  umbrella  and  had  sent  away 
her  carriage.  Renan,  always  amiable, 
offered  to  accompany  her  and  to  give 
her  the  shelter  of  his  huge  and  any- 
thing but  elegant  cotton  umbrella. 
The  Countess  accepted  the  offer  and 
parted  upon  excellent  terms  with  her 
escort.  A  few  days  later  she  was 
asked  by  one  of  her  friends,  who  had 
watched  the  incident  with  considerable 
amusement,  whether  she  knew  who 
had  been  her  companion  on  that  night. 
When  she  heard  that  she  had  actually 
walked  side  by  side  with  the  author  of 
"The  Life  of  Jesus" — ^which  had  so 


profoundly  shocked  the  Catholic  worid 
— she  immediately  rushed  to  her  con- 
fessor to  ask  absolution  for  this  hein- 
ous crime.  She  never  again  set  foot 
in  my  aunt's  house. 

Hippolyte  Taine,the  great  historian, 
used  also  from  time  to  time  when  he 
happened  to  be  in  Paris  to  cross  the 
hospitable  doors  of  the  hdtel  Balzac 
My  aunt  admired  him  exceedingly, 
though  she  did  not  quite  sympathize 
with  all  his  views.  She  was  above 
everything  else  an  ardent  French  pa- 
triot, who  never  would  admit  her 
country  could  be  wrong.  Taine  on 
the  contrary  professed  the  opinion 
that  patriotism  ought  not  to  interfere 
with  the  condenmation  of  what  was 
wrong  in  one's  own  land  and  in  one's 
own  people.  I  remember  his  sasring 
once :  "It  is  a  poor  kind  of  patriotism 
which  imagines  that  one  must  excuse 
the  crimes  of  one's  own  country,  simply 
because  one  is  a  citizen  of  it."  This 
my  aunt  would  not  admit,  especially 
not  as  a  public  confession.  She  held 
the  opinion  that  one's  country  ought 
to  be  considered  as  a  mother  with 
whom  fault  must  never  be  found. 

One  of  the  most  curious  personali- 
ties among  the  many  remarkable  ones 
to  be  found  at  the  h6tel  Balzac,  was 
undoubtedly  the  famous  Abb£  Con- 
stant, better  known  under  his  nom  de 
plume  of  Eliphas  L£vy,  and  one  of  the 
greatest  authorities  in  the  world  on  all 
matters  relating  to  occultism.  He  used 
to  dine  with  my  aunt  every  Wednes- 
day, and  was  treated  with  great  re- 
spect by  all  who  met  him  there.  The 
fact  of  his  being  a  priest  who  had  left 
Holy  Orders  and  taken  a  wife,  made 
him  an  object  of  abomination  to  all 
pious  Catholics ;  but  among  the  circle 
of  deep  thinkers  who  were  in  the  habit 
of  consulting  him  in  regard  to  their 
religious  doubts,  he  was  a  personage 
of  immense  importance.    No  one,  see- 


THE  WIFE  OF  HONORE  DE  BALZAC 


646 


ing  him  seated  next  to  my  aunt»  would 
have  suspected  him  of  practising  black 
magic.  His  venerable  countenance, 
his  flowing  white  beard  reaching  to 
the  chest,  reminded  one  of  the  patri- 
archs of  old,  rather  than  of  an 
evocator  of  the  Evil  One,  with  whom 
he  was  suspected  of  holding  inter- 
course at  times.  He  was  credited  with 
being  able  to  foretell  the  future  of 
those  people  brave  enough  to  ask  him 
to  do  so.  I  must  confess  that  once  or 
twice  he  divined,  in  an  uncanny  way, 
what  was  going  to  happen  to  some  of 
his  friends.  But  he  was  kindness 
itself,  and  his  serenity  was  equaled 
only  by  that  of  my  aunt,  surpassing 
even  sometimes  that  of  Renan,  with 
whom  he  was  on  terms  of  sincere 
friendship.  The  Abb6  Constant  had 
sprung  into  notoriety  upon  the  murder 
of  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  Mon- 
seigneur  Sibour.  When  the  prelate's 
assassin  was  brought  to  trial,  he  ex- 
claimed that  this  disaster  would  not 
have  happened  had  he  listened  to  Eli- 
phas  L£vy.  Police  inquiries  estab- 
lished the  fact  that  the  man  had  con- 
sulted L6vy  a  few  days  before  the 
murder,  when  the  seer  warned  him  to 
leave  Paris  inmiediately  because  he 
was  about  to  commit  a  terrible  deed 
which  would  result  in  his  own  death. 
After  this  the  Abb6  Constant,  as  he 
was  still  called,  became  quite  a  Pa- 
risian celebrity — a  fact  which  did  not 
contribute  in  the  least  to  his  happi- 
ness. 

All  these  things  happened  very  long 


ago;  not  one  of  the  brilliant  and  fa- 
mous people  who  used  to  assemble  at 
the  h6tel  Balzac  is  now  left  in  this 
world.  The  house  where  I  saw  them 
and  listened  to  them  has  been  pulled 
down,  and  in  its  place  has  been  erected 
the  sumptuous  dwelling  of  the  Baron- 
ess de  Rothschild.  My  aunt's  Russian 
home,  with  its  many  remembrances  of 
Balzac,  has  been  destroyed  by  the  Bol- 
sheviks. Madame  de  Balzac  herself 
died  under  particularly  painful  cir- 
cumstances, after  witnessing  the 
squandering  of  her  large  fortune  by 
her  daughter,  who  possessed  none  of 
her  great  gifts  of  heart  or  of  mind.  At 
the  news  of  this  disaster  my  aunt 
bowed  her  head  upon  her  chest,  and 
never  raised  it  again.  But  her  won- 
derful mind  remained  bright  and  un- 
impaired until  the  end.  On  Easter 
Day,  1882,  a  few  hours  before  her 
death,  she  was  asked  whether  she 
would  like  to  see  a  priest.  She  replied 
simply  that  if  he  wished  to  pray  for 
her  she  would  feel  grateful ;  but  that 
she  could  not  lie  to  the  God  she  be- 
lieved in  nor  lend  herself  to  a  comedy 
which  would  dishonor  her  last  hours, 
by  submitting  to  the  rites  of  a  religion 
she  no  longer  pretended  to  profess. 
Her  last  words  were  "Anna",  her 
daughter's  name,  and  "Honor6",  which 
had  been  her  husband's :  the  names  of 
the  one  love  and  the  only  tenderness 
her  life  had  known.  Upon  hearing  of 
her  death,  Renan  exclaimed  that  in 
her  "one  of  the  great  lights  of  the 
world  had  gone  out". 


ON  BEING  AN  ESSAYIST 


BY  BERTON  BRALEY 


ti 


« 


LAMENTING  for  lost  arts  is,  and 
ever  has  been,  one  of  the  favorite 
indoor  sports  of  those  choice  souls — 
self-chosen — who  hold  literature  "a 
precious,  precious  thing"  and  deplore 
any  tendency  on  its  part  to  play  with 
the  rough,  common  boys  of  Popular- 
ity and  Commercialism.  Next  to  fall- 
ing for  everything  misty  and  mystic 
and  bizarre  which  heralds  itself  as 
new  art",  holding  obsequies  over  a 
lost"  one  is  probably  the  most  popu- 
lar amusement  of  this  little  group  of 
serious  thinkers. 

Unquestionably  the  cadaver  over 
which  they  lament  most  regularly  is 
the  "lost  art  of  the  essay".  Every 
gathering  of  the  elect  becomes  auto- 
matically a  funeral  for  this  form  of 
literary  expression,  the  mourners  be- 
gin wailing  as  soon  as  three  or  four 
of  them  have  coalesced,  and  when  the 
wake  gets  into  full  swing  the  very  tea 
they  drink  is  salt  with  their  tears.  If 
there  isn't  any  corpse  present  they 
send  out  for  one,  dress  it  in  the  gar- 
ments of  Lamb,  Addison,  Emerson, 
and  Stevenson,  and  pass  about  the  bier 
waggling  their  heads  sadly  and  say- 
ing, "Doesn't  he  look  unnatural". 

It  makes  no  difference  if  the  corpse 
sits  up  and  becomes  paradoxically  ar- 
ticulate in  the  voice  of  Chesterton ;  or 
whimsically  genial  in  the  tone  of  Mar- 
quis, or  proudly  young-paternal  in  the 
manner  of  Morley;    the  brotherhood 


and  sisterhood  of  wallers  wail  on,  the 
service  for  the  dead  is  intoned,  and 
the  interment  takes  place  as  scheduled, 
with  wax  flowers  and  wired  wreaths. 
Then  back  from  the  cemetery  in  the 
limousine  with  the  job  well  accom- 
plished, while  the  "remains"  climbs 
out,  dusts  itself  off,  and  discusses  poli- 
tics and  the  high  cost  of  living  with 
the  sexton. 

Nothing  is  more  amazing  than  the 
persistence  of  a  reiterated  falsehood. 
And  nothing  is  more  durable  than  a 
tradition  which  is  constantly  asserted. 
"The  essay  is  dead,  is  dead,  is  dead", 
cry  the  professional  and  volunteer 
mourners,  and  so  the  great  bulk  of  us 
who  meet  the  essay  in  the  daily  paper, 
in  the  weekly  magazine,  in  the  popular 
monthly,  in  advertising  pages,  on  cards 
in  the  stationer's  shop,  and  heaped 
high  on  the  best-seller  counter  of  the 
bookstores — repeat  automatically  "the 
essay  is  dead,  is  dead,  is  dead",  even 
while  we  dine  and  play  Kelly  pool  with 
the  men  who  are  keeping  it  most  em- 
phatically alive. 

For  you  can  get  away  with  almost 
any  statement  if  you  don't  argue  about 
it  or  defend  it,  but  proclaim  it  dought- 
ily and  consistently  to  all  and  several 
with  the  ring  of  authority  in  your 
voice.  And  to  attain  that  authorita- 
tive ring  you  merely  need  to  assert 
something,  anything,  with  sufficient 
doughtiness  and  consistency.    So  it  is 


646 


ON  BEING  AN  ESSAYIST 


647 


a  beautiful  circle  which  anyone  who 
doesn't  care  about  facts  can  easily  run 
around  in. 

Of  course  the  basis  for  this  tradi- 
tion of  the  essay's  def unctitude  is  the 
Little  Lord  Fauntleroy  complex  with 
which  many  critics  and  a  certain  self- 
constituted  group,  heretofore  and 
hereinafter  named  the  elect,  are  affect- 
ed. As  I  hinted  a  little  earlier,  these 
folk  regard  literature  as  a  "precious, 
precious  thing" — a  good  deal  as  many 
mothers  in  the  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy 
era  regarded  their  male  offspring  as 
Gedric  Errols  who  must  by  no  means 
scrub  around  with  the  rough  little 
boys  in  the  neighborhood,  but  must 
keep  their  velvet  pants  unmuddied, 
and  their  golden  locks  virgin  to  the 
shears.  \The  Fauntleroy  complex  holds 
literature  as  a  delicately  exclusive 
snob  which  can  endure  association 
only  with  a  strictly  selected  number  of 
other  snobs,  and  as  soon  as  this  Gedric 
Errol  of  culture  shows  tendencies 
toward  romping  around  and  getting 
all  mussed  up  with  the  butcher's  boy 
and  the  rest  of  the  crowd  in  Dugan's 
back  lot,  the  Fauntleroy  neurosis  de- 
clares him  not  of  gentle  blood,  casts 
him  out  to  scrub  through  as  best  he 
may,  and  refuses  to  let  the  nice  little 
boys  and  girls  play  with  him. 

And  it  is  always  and  inevitably  with 
pained  surprise  that  the  Fauntleroy- 
ites  note  that  his  subsequent  career 
leads  him  not  to  a  foundling's  home, 
but  to  an  apartment  on  Riverside 
Drive  and  a  sunmier  shack  in  Maine. 

I  am  willing  to  wager  that  the 
Fauntleroyites  of  Shakespeare's  time 
regarded  his  work  as  commercialized 
pandering  to  the  mob,  and  prophesied 
that  such  perniciously  popular  stuff 
would  perish  miserably  with  the  man 
who  fathered  it.  There  is  no  more 
ageless  tradition  than  that  literature 
is  for  the  few  and  not  for  the  many. 


and  this  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that 
with  scant  exceptions  most  great  and 
enduring  work  has  been  successful  in 
its  own  time. 

This  Fauntleroy  complex  looks  upon 
the  essay  as  a  sacrosanct  possession  of 
Lamb,  Addison,  and  a  few  others  who 
are  dead.  Therefore  it  regards  the  es- 
say as  dead.  In  other  words,  if  it  isn't 
Lamb  it  isn't  an  essay.  Which  is 
logical  enough  if  you  accept  the  prem- 
ise. Most  arguments  in  the  world  are 
logical  if  you  accept  the  premise.  If 
people  could  wholly  agree  on  premises 
to  begin  with,  there  wouldn't  be  di- 
vorces or  world  wars.  But  I  have  no 
use  for  that  particular  premise.  I 
don't  think  I  could  define  an  essay — 
but  I  see  no  reason  why  anybody 
should  be  afraid  to  write  one,  if  he 
has  anything  to  say  worth  essaying. 

I  can  already  hear  the  chorus  of 
well-bred  scorn  which  will  follow  my 
statement — assuming  that  the  elect 
aren't  too  scornful  to  read  it — ^that  Dr. 
Frank  Grane  is  in  some  ways  a  better 
essayist  than  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson, 
and  that  the  writing  of  glorified  com- 
mon sense  in  a  vital  and  trenchant 
fashion  is  literature.  To  sneer  at  the 
obvious  is  easy  enough,  to  answer  it  is 
something  else  again.  And  nowadays, 
when  propaganda  which  ignores  or  de- 
nies the  obvious  is  leading  allwhither 
and  nowhere  at  all,  platitudes  driven 
home  by  a  hanmier  in  the  hands  of  a 
vigorous  and  skilful  literary  crafts- 
man are  emphatically  desirable.  With 
hundreds  of  so-call^  thinkers  pulling 
bolts  and  nails  out  of  the  structure  of 
society  and  hopefully  tying  the  tim- 
bers together  with  pink  string,  the 
need  for  efficient  carpenters  grows. 

However,  that  is  a  digression.  What 
I  wanted  to  prove  is  that  the  es- 
say is  not  dead.  If  you  take  the 
particular  style  of  a  particular  man 
and  maintain,  "Thus  gods  are  made 


648 


THE  BOOKMAN 


and  whoso  makes  them  otherwise 
shall  die",  then  every  form  of  art 
dies  with  the  man  who  first  practises 
it.  On  such  an  assumption  the  novel 
died  with  Richardson,  the  play  with 
the  first  maker  of  drama,  the  essay 
with  the  first  commentator.  But  I  can- 
not bring  myself  to  narrow  down  any 
form  of  art  to  such  limits  as  that.  And 
I  hold  that  the  essay,  therefore,  is 
very  far  from  dead.  Alas,  the  elect 
sigh,  why  does  no  one  write  like 
Lamb?  A  lot  of  people  do  write  like 
Lamb, — so  much  the  worse  for  their 
work.  Not  because  Lamb  wasn't  a  de- 
lightful essayist,  but  because  a  writer 
ought  to  express  himself  and  not 
somebody  else. 

So  I  maintain  that  the  essay  is  a 
live  art  while  there  are  those  alive  who 
practise  it,  and  that  nobody  need  be 


for  a  moment  deterred  from  writing 
essays  because  the  shadow  of  Lamb  or 
Addison  hangs  over  this  craft.  And 
whether  the  essays  be  about  books  or 
vacuum  cleaners,  art  or  artichokes, 
they  have  a  reason  for  being  if  people 
like  them  well  enough  to  read  them, 
or  read  them  well  enough  to  like  them. 
But  if  I  should  write  essays — ^which 
I'm  likely  to  do  any  time — I  should 
feel  that  I  had  done  a  very  bad  job  if 
they  were  the  sort  that  appealed  only 
to  the  elect.  Deliver  me  from  the 
Fauntleroy  complex  and  let  whatever 
I  produce  at  least  be  the  type  of  liter- 
ary offspring  that  comes  back  to  the 
house  a  little  late  for  dinner,  tousled, 
smudged,  a  bit  breathless,  shouting, 
"Oh,  pop,  Fve  been  playing  with  the 
bunch  in  Dugan's  back  lot  and  I've 
had  a  perfectly  gorgeous  time!' 


r»» 


ON  HUMOR  IN  LITERATURE 


BY  C.  S.  EVANS 


SOME  time  ago  a  well-known  firm 
of  publishers  offered  a  prize  for 
the  best  humorous  novel.  Such  enter- 
prise deserves  to  be  rewarded  and  I 
hope  they  got  what  they  wanted.  At 
the  present  time  the  world  needs  a 
really  humorous  novel  very  badly,  and 
there  is  a  fortune  waiting  for  the  per- 
son who  can  make  it  forget  its  trou- 
bles in  a  hearty  laugh. 

But  what  exactly  is  the  definition 
of  a  humorous  novel?  Would  that 
term  be  applied,  for  instance,  to  "Mar- 
tin Chuzzlewit"  or  "The  Old  Curiosity 
Shop"  ?    Both  of  these  books  make  one 


laugh  very  much,  in  parts,  but  in 
others  they  are  the  blackest  tragedy. 
Is  "Huckleberry  Finn"  a  humorous 
book,  or  is  it  an  epic?  Is  Jerome's 
"Three  Men  in  a  Boat",  which  has 
made  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people 
hold  theirsides,  "humorous",  or  merely 
"funny"  (for  there  is  a  difference  be- 
tween the  two)  ?  In  short,  what  is  hu- 
mor, and  what  is  its  relation  to  litera- 
ture? 

Having  thus  complacently  pro- 
pounded a  riddle,  I  suppose  I  must 
try  to  answer  it,  but  this  is  by  no 
means  easy.    To  deal  with  such  a  sub- 


ON  HUMOR  IN  LITERATURE 


649 


ject  satisfactorily  one  must  delve  deep 
into  human  nature  and  answer  a  score 
of  fundamental  questions.  Why,  for 
instance,  do  we  laugh  when  we  are 
amused;  and  why  is  it  that  some 
things  amuse  us  and  not  others?  Such 
questions  as  these  have  aroused  the 
curiosity  of  scientists  and  philoso- 
phers. Darwin  tried  to  answer  them, 
and  told  us  that  the  feeling  of  pleas- 
urable exhilaration  which  causes  us  to 
laugh  had  its  origin  in  a  strictly  utili- 
tarian function.  When  we  were  fishes, 
ten  million  years  ago  or  thereabouts, 
we  pursued  our  prey  with  open 
mouths.  To  eat  was  the  greatest  pleas- 
ure, with  which  all  other  pleasures  be- 
came in  time  associated;  hence  the 
expression  of  physiological  satisfac- 
tion by  the  muscles  of  the  mouth. 
Kissing,  according  to  this  school  of 
philosophy,  originated  in  much  the 
same  way:  the  mother  who  kisses  her 
baby  is  expressing  a  primseval  feeling 
— ^the  baby  is  so  nice  that  she  would 
like  to  eat  it.  Gould  anything  be 
simpler! 

Bergson  and  William  James  and 
Sully,  all  of  them  considerable  psy- 
chologists, have  investigated  the  mean- 
ing of  laughter,  the  first  in  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  (and  least  convincing) 
psychological  essays  ever  written.  His 
argument  is  too  long  and  too  complex 
even  to  outline  here,  but  one  may  sum 
it  up  by  saying  that,  in  Bergson's 
view,  laughter  is  a  social  gesture  in- 
stinctively called  into  play  to  repress 
that  mechanical  inelasticity  which  is 
life's  negation.  Deformities  are  comic 
in  proportion  as  they  can  be  imitated 
by  any  normal  person;  attitudes  and 
movements  call  forth  laughter  in  so 
far  as  they  remind  us  of  a  mere  ma- 
chine. We  laugh  every  time  a  person 
gives  us  the  impression  of  being  a 
thing.  A  red  nose  is  a  painted  nose 
to  the  imagination;   a  negro  a  white 


man  unwashed.  Laughter  is  purely 
corrective  in  function,  and  we  never 
laugh  except  at  the  failings  or  de- 
ficiencies of  others. 

To  anybody  who  wishes  to  pursue 
this  subject,  I  recommend  the  careful 
study,  one  after  the  other,  of  Berg- 
son's  essay  on  "Laughter"  and  Mere- 
dith's essay  on  "The  Uses  of  the  Comic 
Spirit".  These  books  will  not  help  an 
aspirant  to  win  a  publisher's  prize, 
but  they  will  at  least  show  how  ex- 
traordinarily complex  is  the  whole 
subject,  and  how  difficult  it  is  to  ex- 
plain the  appeal  of  so-called  "humor- 
ous" or  comic  situations. 

Meanwhile,  it  is  interesting  to  re- 
flect that  there  is  undoubtedly  some 
remote  connection  between  the  risible 
faculty  and  the  emotion  of  fear.  Why 
does  a  child  laugh  when  you  tickle  it 
in  the  ribs,  or  in  the  neck,  or  under 
the  arms?  Everybody  will  testify 
that  in  laughter  so  provoked  there  is 
considerable  apprehension,  and  in  my 
view  this  is  due  to  the  fact  that  pres- 
sure applied  in  these  places  threatens 
injury  to  a  vital  organ.  The  so-called 
ticklish  regions  of  the  body  are  those 
where  the  big  arteries  approach  the 
surface,  as  for  instance  in  the  neck  or 
axilla,  or  those  covering  the  heart  and 
lungs.  Laughter  in  this  case  is  a 
physiological  expression,  not  of  fear, 
but  of  a  much  more  complex  emotion 
in  which  fear  and  a  certain  relief  that 
fear  is  unjustified  play  a  part. 

There  are  certain  things  and  cer- 
tain actions,  even  certain  words,  which 
seem  almost  intrinsically  funny. 
Every  comedian  knows  that  he  has 
only  to  mention  the  word  sausage, 
even  in  the  most  solenm  of  connec- 
tions, to  provoke  shrieks  of  merri- 
ment. A  red  nose,  also,  is  an  intrin- 
sically funny  thing,  and  if  a  red-nosed 
man  should  be  discovered  eating  a 
sausage  that  would  be  the  very  height 


650 


THE  BOOKMAN 


of  the  laughable.  A  study  of  music- 
hall  humor  would  lead  one  to  suppose, 
also,  that  there  is  something  inher- 
ently funny  in  the  idea  of  (a)  a 
mother-in-law,  (b)  a  kipper,  (c) 
strong-smelling  cheese,  and  (d)  a  man 
or  woman  under  the  influence  of  drink. 
Is  it  too  unwarrantable  an  assumption 
that  a  considerable  though  vague  feel- 
ing of  apprehension  is  at  the  bottom 
of  the  emotion  in  each  case? 

No  one  who  proposes  to  investigate 
the  meaning  and  function  of  laughter 
can  afford  to  neglect  the  manifestation 
of  the  faculty  in  children  and  other 
primitive  beings.  It  was  once  my 
privilege  to  talk  to  a  well-known  pan- 
tomime comedian  just  before  he  was 
going  on,  and  I  asked  him  what  his 
part  was.  "Oh",  said  he,  "it's  very 
simple.  I  just  put  on  a  little  hat  and 
big  boots,  walk  on,  fall  over  my  feet, 
and  come  off  again."  A  minute  later 
he  went  and  did  it,  and,  judging  by 
the  screams  of  laughter  which  echoed 
around  the  hall,  he  did  it  with  great 
effect. 

Now  there  is  nothing  funny  in  fall- 
ing down ;  on  the  contrary,  to  the  per- 
son who  falls  at  least,  it  may  be  an 
exceedingly  painful  experience.  But  the 
professional  comedian  knows  that  a  fall 
is  an  infallible  laugh-getter.  Failing 
a  fall,  he  may  sit  on  a  gentleman's  top- 
hat,  or  inveigle  a  victim  into  sitting 
down  on  a  chair  that  isn't  there.  But 
enough  of  such  instances.  It  is  suf- 
ficient to  remark  that  nothing  less 
than  a  profound  psychology  inspires 
the  performance  of  the  clown  in  the 
harlequinade,  when  he  steals  a  mon- 
strous string  of  sausages  from  the 
Pantaloon's  basket,  and  bums  the  po- 
liceman with  the  end  of  a  red-hot 
poker. 

There  are,  of  course,  degrees  of 
subtlety  in  humor,  and  probably  the 


next  grade  in  order  of  complexity  is 
the  humor  which  is  based  upon  the 
idea  of  confusion.  The  greatest  ex- 
ponent of  this  form  of  humor  was  the 
late  Dan  Leno.  Many  people  will  have 
joyous  memories  of  his  exploits  with 
a  harp  at  the  Drury  Lane  Pantomime 
some  years  ago.  He  had  a  harp,  and 
a  music-stool,  and  a  music-stand.  En- 
cumbered with  the  harp,  he  placed  the 
stool  and  the  stand  in  position,  and 
then  sat  down  to  play.  But  the  stand 
was  too  far  away,  and  in  getting  up 
to  adjust  it  he  fell  over  the  stool. 
While  he  was  picking  the  stool  up  the 
stand  fell  onto  his  head,  and  so  the 
merry  game  went  on,  for  at  least 
twenty  minutes,  until  he  finished  up 
with  the  harp  round  his  neck  while 
the  audience  held  their  sides.  Told 
thus  coldly,  there  is  nothing  funny  in 
the  incident,  but  it  was  excruciatingly 
funny  to  watch.  This  "humor  of  con- 
fusion" and  the  elemental  kind  of  hu- 
mor first  mentioned  have  their  coun- 
terpart in  literature  in  the  exploits  of 
Lever's  Handy  Andy,  and  in  those  two 
books,  once  so  exceedingly  popular  but 
now  long  forgotten,  "Valentine  Vox 
the  Ventriloquist",  and  "Sylvester 
Sound  the  Somnambulist".  Anyone 
can  test  its  efiicacy  for  himself  by 
giving  a  child  "A  Bad  Boy's  Diary". 
These  four  books  and  many  others  of 
a  similar  nature,  were  put  forward  os- 
tensibly as  "humorous"  books,  and 
they  perfectly  justified  their  name. 
Jerome  K.  Jerome's  "Three  Men  in  a 
Boat",  and  even  H.  G.  Wells's  "Beal- 
by"  are,  though  much  more  adequate 
from  the  point  of  view  of  art,  really 
exercises  in  the  same  genre. 

The  fact  that  emerges  is,  that  the 
book  which  deliberately  sets  out  to  be 
humorous  or,  in  other  words,  to  get  a 
laugh,  usually  succeeds  in  so  far  as  it 
makes  its  appeal  to  the  fundamental 
and    primitive    elements    of    humor 


ON  HUMOR  IN  LITERATURE 


651 


which  I  have  noted.  Such  books  usu- 
ally make  one  laugh  uproariously  or 
they  do  not  amuse  one  at  all.  A  case 
in  point  is  Ellis  Parker  Butler's  story 
called  "Pigs  is  Pigs",  which  was  pub- 
lished some  years  ago.  I  always 
thought  that  story  the  funniest  thing 
in  literature,  but  I  have  known  people 
who  could  read  it  without  a  smile. 
The  humor  of  it,  however,  is  ele- 
mental; it  tickles  the  foundations  of 
one's  nature.  It  is*  "comic"  rather 
than  humorous. 

For  by  "humor"  in  literature  we 
have  come  to  mean  not  the  clumsy 
digging  at  the  ribs  which  provokes  an 
outburst  of  uncontrollable  laughter, 
but  the  kindlier,  subtler  pleasure 
which  arises  from  skilful  observation 
or  caricature.  In  this  sense  "Don 
Quixote"  is  a  humorous  novel,  and  so 
are  most  of  Dickens's  books  and 
Thackeray's  "The  Yellowplush  Pa- 
pers" and  "The  Book  of  Snobs",  though 
the  last  is  perhaps  better  described 
as  humorous  satire.  The  great  mas- 
terpiece of  the  world's  literature  in 
this  form  of  art  is,  of  course,  the  great 
work  of  Rabelais.  Gargantua,  Pan- 
tagruel,  and  the  rest  are  humorous 
figures  conceived  by  a  surpassing 
genius,  and  in  our  own  literature  they 
are  equaled  only  by  the  colossal  figure 
of  Falstaff.  Few  episodes  in  such 
masterpieces  as  these  provoke  the  ac- 
tual laugh,  but  they  produce  the  inter- 
nal purr  of  pleased  content  which  is 
the  sign  of  supreme  satisfaction. 

And  how  few  are  these  consunmiate 
creations  of  the  humorist's  art!  You 
may  count  the  masterpieces  of  humor 
on  the  fingers  of  one  hand.  "Don 
Quixote",  Rabelais,  "Pickwick  Pa- 
pers", those  wonderful  scenes  from 
"Henry  VI",  Sterne's  "A  Sentimental 
Journey"  and  "Tristram  Shandy" — 
what  else  is  there  to  compare  with 
these?    Very  near  to  them  I  should  be 


inclined  to  place  Mark  Twain's  "Tom 
Sawyer"  and  "Huckleberry  Finn",  and 
especially  the  latter,  which  is  no  mere 
masterpiece  of  humor  but  a  master- 
piece of  the  world's  literature.  Compare 
the  supreme  art  of  it  with  the  manu- 
factured f  unniosity  of  "The  Innocents 
Abroad"  or  the  works  of  Max  Adeler. 
On  the  lower  plane  of  humor  you  get 
a  laugh  by  the  most  unimaginative 
means — ^merely  conceive  a  recognized 
humorous  situation,  or  bring  several 
things  together  according  to  a  recipe, 
and  the  thing  is  done.  Every  prac- 
tised comedian,  in  literature  or  on  the 
stage,  is  an  adept  at  it.  But  the  cre- 
ation of  character,  the  expression — in 
terms  of  the  words  and  actions  of  men 
and  women— of  that  "social  gesture" 
which  is  laughter's  source,  is  a  much 
greater  thing,  for  there  we  touch  the 
symbolism  which  is  the  soul  of  art. 

I  had  meant,  when  I  began  this 
paper,  to  pass  in  review  the  work  of  a 
few  of  our  professed  literary  humor- 
ists, and  to  examine  the  elements  of 
their  varied  appeal  to  the  risible  fac- 
ulties, but  to  do  that  properly  I  should 
have  to  write  a  book  which  probably 
nobody  would  buy.  Yet  it  would  be  a 
very  interesting  study,  and  I  think  it 
might  possibly  throw  some  light  on  a 
department  of  criticism  that  so  far 
has  been  little  explored.  One  could 
place  W.  W.  Jacobs,  for  instance,  very 
close  to  the  inmiortals,  and  state  the 
reasons  for  so  doing.  One  would  also 
explain  why  Mr.  Jacobs  is  condemned 
to  go  about  like  a  modem  Sindbad, 
carrying  on  his  shoulders  a  night 
watchman  who  at  each  step  grows 
more  ponderous.  "Saki"  (who  created 
that  memorable  otter  which,  kept  in 
a  tank  in  the  garden,  whined  restlessly 
every  time  the  water-rate  became  over- 
due) should  be  classified  at  the  end  of 
the  division  which  had  Thackeray  at 
the  head,  because  of  his  savage  and 


662 


THE  BOOKMAN 


C3mical  satire,  while  Samuel  Butler 
should  have  aplace  all  to  himself.  Then 
there  are  Stephen  Leacock,  and  0. 
Henry,  and  Frank  Richardson, — ^who 
in  a  flash  of  brilliant  genius  saw  the 
intrinsic  humor  of  whiskers,  and  ma- 
terialized it  for  ever  in  the  phrase, 
"face  fungus", — and  Max  Adeler  and 
Artemus  Ward  and  the  other  popular 
humorists  of  America.     Like  a  pro- 


cession of  comedians,  they  waDc 
through  the  halls  of  memory,  each  in 
his  appropriate  makeup,  with  big  feet 
or  red  nose,  or  incredible  whiskers. 

And  above  and  beyond,  brooding 
with  an  awful  melancholy,  are  the 
three  or  four  great  humorous  artists 
of  the  world,  Cervantes  and  Moli^re 
and  Shakespeare,  and  the  apostate 
monk  of  Touraine. 


CURRENT  TASTE  IN  FICTION:  A  QUARTERLY  SURVEY 


BY  JOHN  WALCOTT 


I  WAS  saying  the  other  day  that  we 
should  be  able  to  talk  more  sensibly 
about  current  taste  in  fiction  if  we 
had  any  real  way  of  classifying  book 
buyers  and  borrowers  by  quality  as 
well  as  by  numbers.  And  this  isn't 
mere  "academic"  curiosity,  for  any 
reasonable  person  might  be  interested 
to  know  not  merely  what  relation 
novel-reading  has  to  the  prosperity  of 
publishers  or  the  labors  of  librarians, 
but  what  relation  it  has  to  the  pleas- 
ure and  profit  of  the  nation  as  a  whole. 
We  need,  for  instance,  some  formula, 
however  vague,  to  give  their  due  im- 
portance to  the  more  intelligent  mi- 
nority who  read  actively,  as  against 
the  less  intelligent  majority  who  read 
passively.  It  isn't  a  case  altogether 
of  highbrow  and  lowbrow,  either;  for 
we  have  thousands  of  readers  who  are 
earnest  enough  in  their  ignorance,  and 
in  default  of  education  and  its  stan- 
dards simply  can't  find  or  recognize 
the  good  stuff  they  hanker  for.  They 
chew  their  thistles  with  pathetic  fidel- 


ity, and  try  their  best  to  make  them 
taste  like  figs.  And  we  have,  on  the 
other  hand,  hundreds  if  not  thousands 
of  well-meaning  and  more  or  less  edu- 
cated people  who  dutifully  masticate 
the  alleged  figs  certified  by  "the  best 
authorities",  without  being  able  to  as- 
similate any  nourishment  from  them 
whatever.  It  is  all  very  complex  and 
bafiiing  for  the  modest  investigator. 

One  thing  of  which  the  American 
novel-reading  public  (in  the  lump) 
has  been  frequently  accused,  especially 
by  foreign  observers,  is  that  it  is  pre- 
dominantly female.  Our  novelists  (so 
the  charge  runs)  have  fallen  under 
the  thumb  of  the  sentimental  fair  oh 
the  one  hand,  and  the  aggressive 
women's-clubbers  on  the  other.  And 
so  between  the  devil  of  squashy  ro- 
mance on  the  one  hand  and  the  deep 
sea  of  feministic  document  on  the 
other,  the  novelist's  robust  male  sense, 
common  or  uncommon,  has  feebly 
withdrawn  into  the  background,  mur- 
muring  compliments.      Between    the 


CURRENT  TASTE  IN  FICTION 


653 


Ladies'  Home  Journalists  and 
the  Women's  Federationists  and  the 
Greenwich  Villagers,  what  could  a 
poor  man  do?  The  pathos  of  the  pic- 
ture is  slightly  modified  by  the  fact 
that  the  poor  man  has  for  some  time 
been  largely  if  not  mostly  a  woman 
himself.  But  the  main  question  is 
whether  our  fiction  has  really  been 
feminized.  The  allegation  goes  on  to 
specify  that  this  portent  is  a  sign  of 
the  general  feminization  of  our  cul- 
ture and  our  society. 

Now  I  incline  to  take  a  more  hope- 
ful view  of  this  situation.  I  think 
there  was  getting  to  be  a  good  deal  of 
truth  in  the  charge  before  the  war, 
and  I  see  that,  in  our  period  of  reac- 
tion, there  seems  to  be  hardly  less 
truth  in  it  now.  But  I  believe  the  ten- 
dency is  actually  decreasing,  not  in- 
creasing. Short  of  madness,  I  must 
believe  that. 

But  I  can't  pretend  to  derive  this  be- 
lief from  the  behavior  of  the  majority. 
After  all,  the  war  was  rough  on  the 
majority:  let  me  not  cause  its  head 
to  be  bowed  in  shame!  Let  me  men- 
tion as  a  venial  foible  or  natural  and 
momentary  symptom  that  the  major- 
ity shows  just  now  a  marked  tendency 
to  relax  into  the  easy  arms  of  senti- 
mental romance.  While  the  publish- 
ers are  dutifully  beckoning  us  to  their 
solid  wares,  in  which  American  life, 
they  say,  is  being  more  searchingly 
portrayed  than  ever  before,  the  ma- 
jority finds  its  account  elsewhere.  It 
passes  on  to  the  counters  where  the 
broncos  rear  and  the  lovely  maiden 
hangs  by  a  finger  from  the  edge  of  the 
precipice;  or  to  the  stack  where  So- 
and-so  toweringly  repeats  himself 
about  the  childlike  eccentric  hero  and 
the  rich  damsel  whose  privilege  it  is 
to  adore  him;  or  even  beyond,  to  the 
shelves  where  old-fashioned  heroines 
peep  out  at  us  from  under  lilac  sun- 


bonnets  and  the  dialogue  is  mostly 
cribbed  from  the  language  of  flowers. 
If  our  wives  and  our  daughters  are 
now  fated  to  be  almost  totally  visible 
on  sandy  beach  and  dancing-floor, 
refuge  for  them  and  us  remains  in  the 
memory  of  the  maiden  whose  nature  it 
was  to  blush  when,  in  a  careless  mo- 
ment, her  instep  endured  exposure 
upon  the  rose-walk  of  her  father's  for- 
mal garden. 

But  if  the  old-fashioned  girl  has 
never  ceased  to  be  a  refuge  and  a  de- 
light, it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the 
normal  or  average  heroine,  even  in  ro- 
mance, is  now  pretty  thoroughly  mod- 
ernized. It  is  not  only  her  cigarette 
and  her  camaraderie,  her  frank  speech 
and  vaunted  ability  to  "take  care  of 
herself  that  mark  her  off  from  her 
mother  and  her  aunts.  Her  very 
physique  is  up-to-date.  And  it  is  a 
whimsical  or  ominous  fact,  as  you 
choose  to  take  it,  that  the  finest  thing 
you  can  say  for  her  is  to  pronounce 
her  "more  like  some  slim  boy". . . . 
She  has  no  hips  and  as  little  chest  as 
possible;  and  as  the  hero  views  her 
outlined  against  the  sky  with  the  sea- 
breeze  blowing  back  her  skirts  and  so 
on,  the  thing  that  chiefly  thrills  him, 
by  all  accounts,  is  that  she  has  no  par- 
ticular form  to  outline.  I  really  won- 
der if  this  does  the  hero  justice?  The 
query  brings  us  back  to  an  old  prob- 
lenL  Is  the  physical  woman  of  the 
hour  chiefly  a  product  of  demand  and 
supply?  Does  the  man  of  the  hour 
lift  her,  as  it  were,  from  the  vasty 
deeps  of  his  dream,  and  gloat  upon 
her  eccentric  variations  in  contour 
from  the  female  God  made?  Or  does 
he  good-humoredly  put  up  with  her 
for  the  sake  of  a  quiet  life? 

I  for  one  hope  that  last  thing  is 
true;  for  I  should  hate  to  suspect  the 
current  male  of  being  really  in  love 
with  this  hipless,  brassiered,  up-and- 


664 


THE  BOOKMAN 


down  creature  of  the  moment,  this 
"slim  boy"  with  the  oblique  seductions 
of  somewhat  longer  hair  and  a  voice 
that  will  never  change.  I  want  to 
think  of  her  as  a  silly  fashion  of  the 
dressmakers  rather  than  to  impute  to 
him  what  would  amount  to  a  sort  of 

perversion However,    there    we 

have  her  in  the  fiction  of  our  day  and 
date;  and  only  some  smirking  fellow 
in  a  Paris  ''studio''  knows  how  soon 
she  will  step  out  of  it  in  favor  of  a 
later  and  therefore  more  "correct" 
model.  Even  today  there  are  flounces 
and  things  about,  and  tomorrow  we 
shall  find  the  story-tellers  wrapping 
up  the  heroine  in  them  with  all  the 
zest  in  the  world.  The  present  "she" 
is  at  least  an  improvement  in  some 
ways.  I  like  her  for  giving  up  the 
"crooked  smile"  of  yesterday — a  con- 
tortion out  of  keeping,  to  be  sure,  with 
her  prevailing  straight  lines. 

On  the  whole,  with  her  common-sense 
attitude  and  matter-of-fact  speech,  she 
is  a  sign  of  one  reassuring  tendency  in 
the  current  novel.  Readers  are  after  a 
more  wholesome  "heart  interest"  than 
they  were  in  the  tangled  morbid  years 
that  bred  the  war.  If  you  happen  to 
have  seen  the  Bulletin  of  the  Authors' 
League  at  any  time  during  the  past 
year,  you  must  have  noticed  how  many 
editors  have  been  asking  for  "clean 
love  stories".  Some  of  them  preside 
over  publications  which  have  been 
wont  to  deal  in  rather  sultry  wares. 
What  they  want  now  is  clean  love — 
stories  not  besmeared  with  sex- 
curiosity  or  tainted  with  the  sly  inten- 
tion to  provide  a  sort  of  peepshow 
within  the  law  for  the  unmated  mil- 
lions, from  the  shop-boy  on  Broadway 
to  the  forgotten  spinster  in  West  East- 
able,  Massachusetts.  Some  of  our 
popular  magazines  are  still  rotten 
enough  with  the  old  furtive  appeal; 
but  the  news-stands  are  cleaning  up  a 


little.  It  looks  as  though  a  consider- 
able part  of  the  reading  publics  of 
England  and  America,  having  tasted 
the  joys  of  release  from  Puritanism 
and  Victorianism  and  all,  had  promptly 
discovered  that  the  theme  of  sex  for 
its  own  sake  is  more  a  bore  than  an  in- 
citement to  people  of  the  Anglo-Amer- 
ican strain.  It  isn't  an  object  of  keen 
intellectual  interest  to  us,  as  it  is  to 
the  Latins,  or  a  matter  for  cheerful 
laughter.  For  better  or  worse,  we 
take  it  a  little  heavily.  Like  religion, 
it  is  a  thing  we  really  prefer  not  to 
talk  much  about.  Unluckily  there  is 
no  hard  and  fast  line  to  be  drawn 
between  reticence  and  repression;  and 
here  is  the  literary  pander's  chance. 
There  are  certain  words  he  mustn't 
print.  But  he  may  paint  seduction  or 
mutual  passion  about  as  realistically  as 
he  likes,  so  long  as  those  words  are  not 
used  and  a  perfunctory  moral  is 
tacked  on,  as  it  were  a  stamp  on  a 
parcel.  No  American  newspaper  or 
magazine  will  print  the  word  prosti- 
tute in  one  syllable,  but  any  of  them 
will  describe  the  article  herself  in  full 
detail ;  as  likewise  tolerably  full  items 
of  the  nameless  "statutory  offense" 
from  the  knowledge  of  which  our  vir- 
gins are  theoretically  to  be  guarded. 
. . .  But  the  war,  I  conclude,  has  done 
something  toward  clearing  up  this 
muggy  atmosphere  of  sexual  innu- 
endo and  incitement,  and  to  restore  a 
taste  among  novel-readers  for  clean 
adventure,  including  love. 

And  there  are  other  serious  adven- 
tures to  which  if  not  the  majority,  an 
important  minority  of  our  novel-read- 
ers are  gladly  committing  themselves. 
The  picturesque  localisms  of  our  own 
country  have  been  pretty  thoroughly 
"covered"  by  our  novelists;  but  their 
use  has  just  begun.  No  place  or  type 
has  really  come  into  its  own  until  it 
has  found  embodiment  in  a  story  of 


CURRENT  TASTE  IN  FICTION 


655 


universal  meaning.  Hawthorne's  Sa- 
lem, Howells's  Boston,  Cable's  New 
Orleans,  Masters's  Spoon  River,  are 
all  of  moment  beyond  the  hour  and 
place  because  of  their  fidelity  to  the 
hour  and  place.  Something  of  this 
has  always  been  suspected  by  Ameri- 
can story-tellers ;  but  until  very  lately 
the  larger  fidelity  to  humanity  through 
race  and  place  has  been  more  or  less 
confounded  with  a  worship  of  "local 
color"  for  its  own  sake.  Now  we  are 
getting  a  fiction  with  its  tap-root  in 
the  soil.  The  American  novel  is  less 
and  less  self-conscious  about  its  Amer- 
icanism or  its  localism.  And  in  con- 
sequence it  is  deepening  for  our  own 
uses  and  making  itself  felt  abroad  as 
something  far  more  significant  if  less 
picturesque  than  the  costume-and-ver- 
nacular  stuff  which  was  all  that  the 
world  would  have  from  us  in  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

And,  thanks  largely  to  the  war,  this 
tendency  to  reach  out  and  comprehend 
is  increasingly  reciprocal.  It  is  plain 
that  no  force  now  active  in  America, 
not  even  the  force  of  popular  govern- 
ment as  represented  by  senatorial  ma- 
jorities, can  clamp  down  again  the 
shutters  or  readjust  the  blinders  that 
kept  us  from  seeing  what  an  interest- 
ing place  the  big  world  is.  Amazing 
how  our  idea  of  foreign  parts  has 
changed  already.  Once  we  used  them 
for  touring  purposes,  as  Mark  Twain's 
"Innocents  Abroad"  slily  or  ingenu- 
ously (according  as  you  interpret  the 
author)  set  forth  our  sense  of  every- 
thing outside  America  as  outworn  or 
artificial  or  absurd— outlandish !  It 
was  great  fun  those  days,  to  jog  round 
the  globe  and  chuckle  at  the  silly  ways 
of  foreigners,  safe  in  the  conscious- 
ness that  New  York  or  West  Sarum, 
Illinois,  was  waiting  there,  back  home, 
with  its  sane  ways  and  sensible  lan- 
guage to  fall  back  on  when  the  sights 


and  the  gibberish  elsewhere  got  to  be 
a  bore;  back  home  where  the  frogs 
and  wops  and  chinks  had,  in  the  main 
or  at  least  in  public,  to  toe  the  Ameri- 
can mark. 

Naturally  our  fiction  made  similar 
use  of  regions  "abroad".  The  adven- 
ture romancers  found  what  they  want- 
ed there,  in  the  picturesqueness  and 
remoteness  of  princesses,  pirates,  sa- 
cred jewels,  and  so  on.  The  smells  of 
the  East  were  invaluable,  and  touches 
of  native  jargon,  Paris  or  Hindustan, 
"helped  a  lot"  in  creating  the  desired 
illusion  of  atmosphere.  But  you  took 
none  of  that  seriously — it  was  just 
the  understood  and  necessary  trickery 
of  the  trade.  Once,  some  time  back, 
Kipling  seemed  to  be  opening  a  win- 
dow for  us;  but  Kipling,  after  all, 
while  he  posed  as  an  insider  in  his 
India,  was  really  the  British  outsider 
condescending  to  the  place  and  people 
of  his  momentary  sojourn.  Never  for 
a  moment  does  he  fail  to  think  of  his 
"natives"  as  of  an  inferior  race;  and 
the  thrilling  thing  about  his  most 
popular  poem  is  the  ineffable  generos- 
ity of  the  white  man  who  actually 
gives  the  wall  to  Gunga  Din.  For  a 
moment  we  tolerate  the  surprising 
suspicion  that  even  the  brown  man 
may  be  a  burden-bearer  in  his  way. 
In  his  way — ^that  was  it:  poor  devil, 
it  could  never  be  our  way.  Kipling's 
"East  is  East  and  West  is  West"  put 
another  hasp  on  the  shutter  of  our 
real  vision  of  what  lies  beyond  the 
white  man's  (that  is,  the  Anglo-Amer- 
ican's) easy  apprehension. 

Not  that  our  own  more  serious  fic- 
tion has  failed  to  make  valuable  use 
of,  and  in  some  measure  to  interpret, 
races  and  places  without  our  own 
gates.  We  had  acquired,  for  instance, 
a  by  no  means  trivial  Rome  from  Haw- 
thorne and  Howells  and  Marion  Craw- 
ford.  But  of  the  Rom9  of  Rome's  nov- 


656 


THE  BOOKMAN 


elists  we  knew  nothing  or  next  to 
nothing,  of  the  Italian  as  seen  and  in- 
terpreted by  himself.  Or  this  was 
nearly  true;  for  it  occurs  to  me  that 
ten  or  a  dozen  years  ago  excellent 
English  versions  of  Fogazzaro  and 
one  or  two  others  were  beginning  to 
appear.  They  seem  to  have  found  a 
very  limited  audience,  though.  Of 
Spanish  life  as  interpreted  by  her 
many  brilliant  novelists  we  knew  noth- 
ing. De  Maupassant  was  the  only 
French  writer  a  large  English  public 
really  had  any  acquaintance  with. 
There  were  the  Russians,  of  course, 
whom  the  enthusiasm  of  Howells  and 
others  had  lifted  to  a  kind  of  ardently 
gloomy  following;  and  Ibsen's  vogue 
led  to  the  venture  of  translating  now 
and  then  some  bit  of  Scandinavian  fic- 
tion which  was  fairly  sure  of  critical 
praise  and  popular  neglect.  South 
America,  of  course,  was  not  on  the  lit- 
erary map.  Somehow  we  hadn't  waked 
up  to  the  realization  of  the  inunense 
riches  of  fiction  from  which  we  were 
shut  off  not  by  any  fatal  barrier  of 
racial  character  or  temperament,  but 
by  a  mere  stupid  film  of  language. 

But  now  we  are  discovering  as  a  na- 
tion what  so  many  of  our  boys  and 
girls  discovered  "over  there"  on  a  re- 
cent occasion, — ^that  these  unlucky 
foreigners  have  homes  of  their  own 
worth  admiring,  and  decent  ways,  and 
honest  laughter,  and  even  morals 
above  contempt.  The  French  war 
stories,  and  Couperus,  and  Bojef  and 
other  Scandinavians,  and  Ib&fiez  and  a 
whole  fiock  of  Spaniards,  ai^d  newly 
conveyed  masterpieces  from  South 
America  and  the  Balkans  and  where 
not:  all  these  are  now  a  part  of  the 
regular  fare  of  most  intelligent  and 
(the  real  test  of  a  tendency)  many  un- 
intelligent readers,  in  England  and 
America.  I  don't  think  any  sort  of 
radical  international  tendency  is  re- 


sponsible for  our  aroused  knowledge 
of  and  interest  in  these  new  literary 
possessions.  But  what  "gets"  us  in 
these  books,  from  so  many  different 
quarters  and  racial  stocks,  in  so  many 
different  tongues,  is  that  they  have 
so  patently  a  conmion  denominator. 
For  all  their  differences  of  color  and 
finish,  their  human  texture  is  the 
same.  How  much  like  us,  when  we 
get  them  on  the  basis  of  a  common 
tongue,  these  people  are  or  how  much 
like  them  we  arel  Laughter  and  an- 
guish, greed  and  sacrifice,  love  and 
death:  these,  it  seems,  are  also  the 
great  concerns  of  people  "abroad",  of 
the  foreigners  whose  kinship  we  have 
had  hidden  from  us  by  obstacles  of 
dress  and  manner  and  accent.  Our 
response  to  this  opening  of  the  doors 
to  foreign  fiction  is  fast  growing  more 
general  and  generous.  A  sound  foun- 
dation is  being  laid  for  future  under- 
standing, whether  it  is  to  call  itself 
internationalism  or  a  leaguing  of  na- 
tions or  just  a  broadly  human  entente. 
From  what  the  booksellers  report,  and 
from  the  evidence  of  the  publishers' 
output  and  announcements,  we  Ameri- 
cans are  actually  looking  for  good 
stuff  from  all  points  of  the  compass 
with  some  eagerness,  in  strong  con- 
trast with  the  passive  resistance  we 
offered  "foreign  translations"  before 
the  war. 

I  suspect  that  one  of  our  weaknesses 
as  a  racial  reading  public  is  that  we 
are  so  much  split  up.  We  cannot,  like 
the  Latins,  take  our  religion  humor- 
ously and  our  humor  lightly.  In  a 
way  humor  seems  to  be  our  religion, 
whenever  sentiment  isn't;  our  parti- 
tion between  the  two  is  stout.  In 
other  words  we  resign  ourselves  to 
being  either  that  solenm  ass  Youth, — 
the  fellow  who  wouldn't  be  able  to 
keep  on  loving  and  daring  if  he  ever 
got  a  glimpse  of  himself  in  the  glass. 


NOLENS  VOLENS 


657 


— or  this  professional  funny  man, 
whose  sense  of  the  incongruous  for- 
bids that  he  should  admire  any- 
thing heartily.  In  everyday  life  an 
American  who  cannot  handle  the  hu- 
morous patter  of  the  moment  as  well 
as  his  neighbor  is  sadly  handicapped 
in  the  game  of  social  existence.  A 
few  slang  phrases  will  serve  his  turn; 
but  he  must  seem  to  use  them  with  a 
gusto.  If  this  goes  bitterly  against 
his  grain,  there  is  a  kind  of  sanctuary 
for  him  in  the  solenm-ass  stories  of 
the  sentimentalists:  which  somehow 
have  a  pretty  good  standing  of  their 
own.  Whether  we  like  ourselves  better 
as  solenm  asses  or  as  silly  asses  is  no- 
body's business,  but  it  might  be  better 
if  we  did  not  need  to  settle  ourselves 
deliberately  in  either  comer  of  the  lit- 


erary stable.  Fiction  really  is  capable 
of  gradations  between  ''Dere  Mable" 
and  "The  Re-creation  of  Brian 
Kent" ;  and  it  will  be  a  good  thing  for 
the  world  at  large  when  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  our  fellow  citizens  who  write 
and  read  novels  awake  to  the  fact. 

Let  us  not  end,  however,  upon  this 
self -depreciatory  note.  Without  flap- 
ping her  wings  too  loudly  or  scream- 
ing too  shrilly,  post-bellum  America 
may  fairly  take  comfort  in  her  gen- 
erally respectable  attitude  toward  the 
novel  as  a  serious  form  of  art,  whether 
for  the  delectation  or  the  edification  of 
her  children.  The  pursuit  of  rot  for 
its  own  sake  becomes,  on  the  whole,  a 
less  popular  and  less  generally  toler- 
ated sport  among  both  the  writers  and 
the  readers  of  our  fiction. 


NOLENS  VOLENS 


An  Eccentric  Sonnet,  in  a  New  Farm 


BY  ISAAC  GOLDBERG 


"YY  THY  should  I  pen  a  sonnet  to  a  maid 
W     Whose  cold,  unanswering  look,  like  painted  fire, 

No  warmth  possesses  and  can  none  impart? 
Why  should  I  write   (and  after  all  I've  said 
To  kindle  bright  the  flame  of  her  desire!) 
Mere  words  of  love  that  sting,  like  poisoned  dart, 
Not  her  who  reads,  but — ^ah! — ^the  poet's  heart! 


What  lass,  with  half  the  wooing  I  have  done 
Would  not  with  twice  the  loving  thus  repay 
An  honest  lover  with  an  honest  lot. 
And  glad  herself,  make  still  a  happier  one? 
Why  should  I  pen  a  sonnet,  then,  this  day 
To  her  for  love  of  whom  I  lie  distraught? 
Why  should  I  pen  a  sQnoet? — Nay,  I'll  nqt !  \ 


THE  LONDONER 


Profits  from  Novel-Writing  —  Hardy's  Technique  —  John  Galsworthy — 
Dangers  to  the  London  Book  Trade — Forthcoming  Novels  by  Wells,  George, 
Walpole,  Mackenzie,  D,  H,  Laivrence — "Reputations"  and  Douglas  Goldring — 
Literary  Critics  Love  One  Another — St  John  Ervine's  Adaptation — Publishers' 
Readers  Who  also  Turn  an  Honest  Penny, 


London,  June  1, 1920. 

OF  purely  literary  news  there  is 
very  little  to  record  at  the  mo- 
ment, because,  while  most  of  our  authors 
must  be  busy  upon  one  form  or  an- 
other of  literary  activity,  there  has 
rarely  been  a  time  when  there  has 
been  less  sign  of  their  busyness.  Lon- 
don has  lately  been  occupied  with  two 
principal  events — ^the  will  of  the  late 
Charles  Garvice,  and  its  contrast  with 
that  of  Dickens,  and  with  the  eighti- 
eth birthday  of  Thomas  Hardy.  Garv- 
ice left,  as  the  result  of  his  brilliant 
capture  of  the  cheap  market  for  love 
stories  of  a  popular  character,  no  less 
than  £71,000  (on  the  old  exchange 
$355,000),  and  Dickens  left  £80,000. 
I  doubt  if  many  other  English  authors 
will  leave  as  much.  Hall  Gaine,  with 
so  many  successful  plays  to  his  credit, 
may  do  so.  I  cannot  at  the  moment 
recall  the  name  of  anybody  else  likely 
to  reach  such  an  amount.  Our  nor- 
mally successful  writers  are  good 
spenders,  and  I  suppose  there  is  al- 
ways temptation  in  the  notion  that  as 
much  money  as  a  popular  book  pro- 
duces can  always  be  made  by  a  suc- 
cessor. In  general,  however,  incomes 
from  literature  run  somewhat  lower, 
unless  the  author  has  the  good  for- 
tune to  attain  early  success  in  both 


England  and  America,  and  to  live  long 
thereafter,  with  the  same  success. 
Naturally,  film  rights  will  in  future 
lead  to  the  making  of  larger  sums. 
May  they  be  as  well  husbanded  as  the 
profits  of  Charles  Garvice!  There  is 
nothing  like  pecuniary  rewards  for 
creating  the  assumption  in  the  ordi- 
nary mind  that  literature  is  a  thing  of 
real  importance,  and  a  calling  of  which 
one  ne^  not  be  ashamed. 


Hardy,  I  am  sure,  will  leave  nothing 
like  the  sum  credited  to  Garvice.  For 
one  thing,  he  has  written  fewer  books, 
and,  for  another,  their  total  sales  must 
be  smaller  than  those  of  the  great 
novel  merchant  (I  use  the  term  with- 
out disrespect).  But  Hardy  enjoys 
the  respect  of  almost  all  intelligent 
English  readers.  He  stands  right  at 
the  head  of  living  novelists.  I  remem- 
ber reading,  however,  in  a  critioal 
book  by  Ford  Madox  Hueffer,  the  as- 
sertion that  his  work  is  not  ''tech- 
nically interesting".  This  is  very 
good,  but  not  quite  true.  I  still  think 
that  the  technical  skill  of  the  first  few 
chapters  of  "The  Woodlanders"  is  ex- 
traordinary. Moreover,  the  entire 
technique  of  so  early  a  book  as  "Under 
the    Greenwood    Tree"    has    always 


668 


THE  LONDONER 


659 


struck  me  as  remarkable.  This  to 
mention  no  others.  On  his  eightieth 
birthday  Hardy  is  to  receive  an  ad- 
dress of  congratulation  from  the  Au- 
thors' Society.  It  is  to  be  conveyed 
to  Dorchester  by  Augustine  Birrell, 
John  Galsworthy,  and  Sir  Anthony 
Hope  Hawkins.  I  am  reminded  that 
one  paper,  still  befogged  about  Gals- 
worthy's status,  calls  him  "Sir  John". 
This  is  a  reminder  of  a  lamentable 
mistake  in  a  recent  "Honours  List", 
when  Galsworthy's  acceptance  of  a 
knighthood  was  wrongly  assumed,  and 
the  honor  was  declined.  I  do  not 
know  whether  one  can  really  decline  a 
title  after  it  has  been  bestowed  and 
announced ;  but  the  fact  is  that  Gals- 
worthy remains  plain  "Mr."  to  those 

who  know  him. 

*  «  «  « 

Galsworthy's  new  play,  "The  Skin 
Game",  has  long  passed  the  consecu- 
tive "run"  of  any  other  play  of  his.  It 
is  characteristically  serious  and  sin- 
cere work,  probably  the  best  thing  on 
the  boards  at  the  moment,  and  enthu- 
siastically received  in  some  quarters; 
but  it  suffers  from  the  author's  pref- 
erence for  types  over  humans,  and  is 
not  a  really  great  play,  as  some  would 
have  us  believe.  All  the  same,  I  am 
glad  that  it  is  having  the  success  it 
clearly  enjoys,  for  it  is  a  remarkable 
thing  that  in  the  theatre  Galsworthy 
has  always  been  hitherto  disappointed 
of  any  large  public.  Golden  opinions 
he  has  always  won,  but  not  recom- 
pense in  the  Garvician  sense.  In  the 
novel,  on  the  other  hand,  he  has  really 

reaped  a  full  harvest  of  popularity. 
«  *  «  « 

What  terrifies  me  at  the  moment  is 
not  any  question  concerning  the  in- 
come of  writers  like  Garvice  or  Gals- 
worthy or  Hardy,  but  the  dangers  to 
which  every  kind  of  book  is  now  liable. 
I  can  only  repeat  what  I  hear,  but 


there  seems  to  be  truth  in  the  reports 
which  reach  me  from  several  sources 
as  to  the  alarming  prospects  for  the 
future.  In  order  to  justify  my  fears 
I  must  mention  some  of  the  stories 
which  have  been  told  me.  First  of  all, 
costs  of  production  advance  so  over- 
whelmingly that  it  becomes  increas- 
ingly difficult  to  make  books  pay  upon 
prewar  or  even  wartime  sales  (war- 
time sales  being,  on  the  whole,  larger 
than  sales  were  before  reading  be- 
came a  national  pastime).  In  order 
to  make  a  profit,  publishers  have  been 
driven  to  raise  their  prices.  So  far, 
so  good.  Everything  else,  except  tube 
fares,  park  seats,  and  public  lava- 
tories, has  gone  up,  and  there  seems 
no  logical  reason  why  books  should 
not  cost  more.  But  I  am  told  that  the 
public  is  showing  the  cloven  hoof. 
Not  only  has  it  turned  against  the 
plays  upon  which  it  has  been  feeding 
for  the  last  six  years,  to  the  great 
prosperity  of  the  producers  and  their 
parasites.  It  is  beginning  to  jib  at 
the  prices  of  books.  It  is  refusing  to 
buy  them.  What  with  the  hot  weather 
and  possibly  the  absence  of  any  really 
noteworthy  productions,  the  booksell- 
ers are  receiving  less  than  their  fair 
share  of  patronage.  They  wait  for 
customers  in  relatively  empty  shops. 
Naturally  they  are  cutting  down  their 
orders  for  newer  books.  They  are 
afraid  of  a  serious  slump.  Perhaps  it 
will  not  come;  but  they  are  afraid 
of  it.  Booksellers  are  a  timid  class, 
and  naturally;  for,  if  they  are  not 
careful,  they  can  be  made  to  carry 
heavy  dead  stocks,  and  their  losses 
may  well  be  disastrous  unless  some 
leaven  of  enthusiasm  comes  to  the 
rescue. 

Books,  then,  are  not  booming.  They 
are  "slow".  It  is  quite  true  that  novels 
published  before  ^e  war  at  4s.  6^*^^^^ 
are  now  published  nt  8s.  net  or  fe^-'^^^" 


660 


THE  BOOKMAN 


net  or  9s.  net.  They  cannot  be  pro- 
duced, at  a  profit,  for  less.  But  if  the 
public  will  not  pay  the  price,  some- 
thing will  have  to  be  done.  Already 
there  is  little  enough  in  it,  when  all 
the  manufacturers  and  agents  have 
taken  their  increased  prices.  I  shall 
wait,  therefore,  with  interest  to  see 
what  happens.  But  this  is  not  all. 
You  may  think  that  I  am  too  much  of 
an  alarmist.  Very  well,  perhaps  I  am. 
But  what  comes  after?  I  hear  that  of 
the  big  London  booksellers  two  at  least 
are  in  a  most  unfortunate  position  for 
bookbuyers.  These  two  firms  are 
among  the  largest  there  are  in  the 
West  End.  And  one  of  them  has  had 
his  shop  sold  away  from  him  to  a  firm 
of  cheap  jewelers  (although  he  offered 
a  hefty  price  for  it  himself),  so  that 
he  will  in  a  few  months'  time  be  with- 
out a  place  to  lay  his  stock.  And  the 
other,  an  old-established  firm,  has  re- 
cently been  bought  up  by  a  large  ha- 
berdashery house,  which,  if  the  busi- 
ness does  not  show  a  proper  invest- 
ment return,  will  be  able  at  the  end  of 
a  fixed  term  to  take  over  the  premises 
for  its  ordinary  business.  This  is  in- 
deed a  poor  lookout  for  the  West  End 
of  London,  which  contains  already  too 
few  first-class  shops  in  which  one  can 
buy  anything  but  the  cheapest  kind  of 
book. 

Paper  was  recently  said  to  be  com- 
ing down  in  price ;  but  I  am  told  that 
this,  in  the  cant  phrase,  is  "only  a  ru- 
mor". What  happened  was  that  some 
people  who  had  been  holding  large 
stocks  in  expectation  of  a  further  rise 
in  price  suddenly  took  fright  at  the 
newspaper  tales  of  slumping  prices 
everywhere,  and  began  to  unload  at  a 
slightly  reduced  figure.  The  relief  af- 
fected only  one  or  two  hasty  pur- 
chasers, and  there  is  no  sign  at  the 
moment  of  any  genuine  reduction. 
Therefore  publishers  are  faced  with 


difficulties  no  less  than  they  had  fore- 
seen. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  books 
are  being  held  up  by  these  disquieting 
movements.  Far  from  it.  I  marvel 
at  the  stuff  I  see  advertised  in  the  lit- 
erary papers.  Some  of  it  must  be  ex- 
traordinary rubbish.  Who  buys  it,  I 
cannot  think.  But  then  it  is  always  a 
mystery  to  me  who  buys  anything  in 
the  shape  of  new  books.  That  is  not  a 
luxury  I  allow  myself.  It  is  certain 
that  many  houses  are  galloping  on 
with  huge  lists,  or  if  not  huge  ones  at 
any  rate  lists  containing  books  which 
I  should  personally  regard  as  very 
poor  starters.  It  would  be  invidious 
to  mention  names,  but  I  am  amazed  at 
the  adventurousness  of  some  of  our 
medium  houses.  May  their  confidence 
be  justified!  Or,  rather,  may  the 
books  which  they  are  embarking  upon 
the  troubled  waters  be  better  than 
they  seem  from  their  titles  and  the 

things  I  hear  about  their  contents ! 
«  «  «  « 

One  or  two  items  of  news  suggest 
that  the  autunm  may  see  some  inter- 
esting novels.  Wells  is  at  work  upon 
one,  about  which  I  liave  heard  no  de- 
tails. W.  L.  George,  I  hear,  has  fin- 
ished a  story  of  the  press  and  journal- 
istic experience.  About  the  last  one 
that  was  published  (Philip  Gibbs's 
"The  Street  of  Adventure",  which  was 
rather  too  romantically  named  and 
conceived)  had  a  certain  vogue,  and  of 
course  Courlander's  "Mightier  than 
the  Sword"  attracted  some  attention. 
As  a  rule,  however,  the  newspaper 
novel  does  not  amuse  the  general  pub- 
lic to  any  great  extent.  I  was  long  ago 
warned  of  this  by  a  novelist  who  was 
the  least  "literary"  novelist  I  ever  met. 
He  said,  "Books  about  writers  are  al- 
ways rot,  and  they  never  sell."  I  ex- 
pect that  George's  book  will  disprove 
thi9  assertion.    I  hope  it  wil)  b^  better 


THE  LONDONER 


661 


than  most.  But  I  wonder  how  any 
novelist  can  make  a  journalist  a  ro- 
mantic figure.  I  would  as  soon  under- 
take to  create  romance  out  of  a  novel- 
ist or  a  publisher! 

To  come  to  some  of  the  other  items 
of  the  autumn  fiction  list.  Hugh  Wal- 
pole,  just  back  from  what  seems  to 
have  been  a  remarkably  happy  and 
successful  tour  in  America, — ^where  I 
gather  he  made  many  new  friends  and 
renewed  several  older  relationships, — 
has  revised  and  completed  a  long  story 
which  should  cut  a  great  figure  in  the 
world.  It  is  called,  at  present,  "The 
Captives'',  and  contains  somewhere 
about  a  quarter  of  a  million  words. 
Good  gracious !  What  a  feat  in  these 
days!  However,  Walpole  likes  long 
novels  himself — ^witness  his  enthusi- 
asm for  Trollope — and  where  there 
has  been  such  enjoyment  in  the  writ- 
ing there  must  surely  be  enjoyment 
even  greater  in  the  reading,  for  the 
innumerable  admirers  of  Walpole's 
work,  both  in  America  and  England. 

Mackenzie  has  so  recently  published 
"The  Vanity  Girl"  that  I  should  not 
imagine  his  next  novel  will  be  ready 
before  1921;  but  when  it  comes  it 
ought  to  be,  from  what  I  am  told  about 
its  title,  a  sort  of  companion  piece  to 
"Poor  Relations".  I  will  not  say  more 
about  it  at  present,  in  case  I  betray  a 
confidence;  but  I  hope  it  will  be  a 
better  book  than  "The  Vanity  Girl", 
which  is  being  stoned  into  great  sale 
here. 

There  is  one  excellent  piece  of  news 
which  I  am  glad  to  record.  This  is 
that  D.  H.  Lawrence  has  completed  a 
new  story.  It  is  only  just  finished, 
and  the  author,  who  is  living  now  in 
Sicily,  seems  in  it  to  have  departed 
somewhat  from  the  work  with  which 
his  name  has  latterly  been  associated. 
As  I  have  not  seen  the  book  I  cannot 
say  what  its  theme  is,  but  I  am  told 


that  it  is  humorous,  which  promises  a 

complete  breakaway.    The  title  under 

which  the  book  is  to  appear  delights 

me.    It  is  "The  Bitter  Cherry". 
*  *  *  * 

Many  of  our  young  writers  have  re- 
ceived adulation  this  year  at  the  hands 
of  that  enthusiastic  essayist,  S.  P.  B. 
Mais.  Perhaps  Mr.  Mais's  book  ought 
properly  to  have  been  published  be- 
fore, rather  than  after,  one  that  has 
just  appeared  here.  This  is  Douglas 
Goldring's  "Reputations".  In  the  new 
book  several  of  the  reputations  made 
or  recorded  with  such  glee  by  Mr. 
Mais  are  blasted  untimely  by  a  re- 
morseless young  critic.  Goldring, 
however,  lives  in  a  glass  house,  for 
his  own  activities  in  the  novel  are  not 
few,  and  it  will  be  perfectly  easy  for 
the  writers  attacked  to  turn  up  their 
august  noses  at  this  young  man's  stric- 
tures by  comparing  his  creative  work 
with  their  own.  Of  course  they  will 
do  no  such  thing !  They  never  do !  No 
novelist  ever  thinks  his  own  work  bet- 
ter than  that  of  his  critics.  Yet  I  am 
advised  by  a  sagacious  observer  that 
the  young  novelists  as  a  whole  are  less 
jealous  of  one  another  than  are  the 
young  poets.  It  may  be  that  the  young 
novelists  are  not  capable  of  such  sen- 
sitiveness as  the  young  poets,  or  that 
they  are  better  self -pleased.  I  do  not, 
however,  think  this  is  true.  In  fact  I 
am  surprised  how  humane  our  young 
writers  are  toward  one  another.  And 
how  friendly  are  our  young  poets,  who 
seem  endlessly  to  review  each  Other's 
books  in  the  weekly  press.  The  liter- 
ary life  is  a  strange  one.  When  I 
adopted  it  I  never  guessed  how 
strange. 

Goldring  has  been  abo^ut  in  the  lit- 
erary world  for  a  number  of  years,  but 
during  some  part  of  the  war  he  was 
in  Ireland.  Years  ago,  he  was  in  the 
ofiice  of  'The  English  Review",  when 


662 


THE  BOOKMAN 


it  was  run  by  Ford  Madox  Hueffer.  In 
this  capacity  he  read  the  proofs  and 
seems  to  have  had  considerable  oppor- 
tunities for  meeting  and  appraising 
many  of  the  well-known  writers  who 
made  "The  English  Review"  in  its 
early  days  the  most  distinguished 
thing  of  its  kind  in  the  market.  He 
then,  I  think,  edited  a  monthly  maga- 
zine called  "The  Tramp",  and  pub- 
lished several  travel  books.  Since  that 
time  he  has  written  novels,  one  of 
which  I  have  certainly  seen  advertised 
recently  in  American  papers;  and 
quite  lately  he  has  appeared  in  the  rdle 
of  satirist.  The  objects  of  his  satire 
have  been  his  contemporaries,  the 
poets.  It  was  Goldring  who  invented 
the  phrase  "infant  Sitwells  baying  at 
the  moon"  and  the  name  of  "the  Wuff- 
let"  for  young  Alec  Waugh,  the  author 
(at  some  precocious  age)  of  "The 
Loom  of  Youth".  It  is  amusing  to  see 
that  Alec  Waugh  bears  no  malice 
for  this  disrespectful  nickname,  for 
"Reputations"  is  published  by  Chap- 
man and  Hall,  with  which  firm  the 
name  of  Arthur  Waugh  (Alec's  fa- 
ther) has  long  been  associated.  Alec 
Waugh  is  himself  a  member  of  the 

firm. 

*  *  *  • 

Talking  above  of  the  kindness  of 
our  young  writers  to  each  other  re- 
minds me  to  relate  this  anecdote.  The 
other  evening  I  met  one  of  the  most 
prominent  literary  critics  in  this  coun- 
try. I  was  pleased  with  him.  Later 
I  met  another,  even  more  distinguished 
literary  critic.  The  conversation 
turned  upon  the  first.  (It  should  be 
understood  that  both  these  men  belong 
to  an  older  generation  than  the  one  I 
have  been  discussing.)  The  second 
dismissed  Number  One.  He  said: 
"Oh,  he's  no  good."  I  said,  surprised: 
"Really?  I  thought  he  was  supposed 
to  be  rather  good."    Number  Two  an- 


swered :  "Yes,  he  is.  But,  if  you  know 
what  I  mean,  he's  as  near  beingr  good 
as  a  man  can  be  who  is  no  good !"  The 
anecdote  is  not  without  its  point*    I 
now  wait  for  an  opportunity  of  learn- 
ing the  opinion  of  Number  One  upon 
his  detractor.    It  should  be  very  in- 
teresting.   I  ought  perhaps  to  explain 
that  in  the  comment  as  made  to  me 
there  was  not  the  least  animus.     In- 
deed, there  was  a  special  declaration 
that  Number  One  was  "a  dear  chap". 
I  must  admit  that  this  attitude  of  one 
man  in  the  same  line  toward  another 
who  is  in  no  sense  an  inunediate  rival 
has  immense  interest  for  me.    I  am 
sometimes  accused  of  being  ungener- 
ous to  my  neighbors,  a  charge  which  I 
always  feel  to  be  unjust;  and  I  think 
this  somewhat  expert  judgment  is  as 
good  an  example  of  candid  appraise- 
ment as  I  know.     One  cannot  help 
having  opinions  upon  others  in  the 
same  department  of  work,  and  there 
ought  to  be  some  rule  whereby  one  is 
not  debarred  from  candor  through  a 
fear  of  being  thought  jealous.    I  have 
heard  scientists  speak  with  a  feeling 
which  is  generally  absent  from  even 
the  most  scathing  comments  of  liter- 
ary men.    Strangely  enough,  I  have 
heard  more  praise  of  rivals  from  doc- 
tors than  from  any  other  class;  but  it 
must    be    remembered    that    doctors 
have    a    greater    clannish    justifica- 
tion for  praise  of  each  other  than 
can  be  generally  admitted  by  other 
sections  of  the  community.    They  nec- 
essarily must  preserve  the  prestige 
of  their  craft.     I  am  told  that  the 
greatest  sinners  in  respect  of  inter- 
praise  or  common  feeling — ^what   is 
called  "sticking  together" — are  Jews, 
Scotsmen,    Roman    Catholics,    Cam- 
bridge men,  and  another  class  not  to 
be  mentioned  in  print.    They  "stick 
together".    With  doctors,  as  I  have 
said,  the  reason  is  apparent.   They  are 


THE  LONDONER 


66S 


professionals.  Also,  I  am  a  layman; 
and  naturally  one  is  most  likely  to 
hear  candid  criticism  from  profession- 
als to  professionals. 

Professionalism  is  a  fascinating 
subject.  All  professionals  talk  ''shop", 
and  I  like  shop.  To  invert  the  remark 
of  the  old  lady  who  did  not  like  green 
peas,  I  like  shop,  and  I'm  glad  I  like 
shop,  because  if  I  didn't  like  it  I 
should  never  hear  it,  and  I  like  it. 
Hazlitt  once  wrote  an  essay  on  the 
conversation  of  literary  men,  in  which 
he  said  that  whoever  had  ever  enjoyed 
it  never  wanted  to  listen  to  any  other 
kind  of  conversation.  Personally  I 
agree  with  Hazlitt,  but  I  wonder  if  the 
average  person  would  do  the  same. 
What  I  have  quoted  earlier  about  the 
distaste  of  the  reading  public  for 
novels  about  writers  of  any  kind  would 
seem  to  suggest  the  reply.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  there  has  to  be  recalled 
the  fact  that  such  causeries  as  this  (I 
except  my  own,  of  course,  from  so  fa- 
vorable a  generalization)  are  ex- 
tremely popular,  both  in  England  and 
America.  I  do  not  like  to  hear  ama- 
teurs talking  about  books.  Their  talk 
never  seems  to  me  to  have  any  "body". 
But  I  do  like  to  hear  practitioners  in 
any  craft  talking  about  their  work.  It 
may  be  snobbery,  but  I  feel  that  I  am 
listening  to  something  authentic.  That 
is  why,  although  I  detest  tea-parties 
such  as  the  women  writers  of  all  coun- 
tries enjoy,  I  like  nothing  better  than 
to  hear  several  men  speaking  inti- 
mately about  the  things  they  care 
most  for,  in  the  most  technical  way. 
It  is  a  pleasing  occupation  to  listen  to 
such.  Today  I  heard  three  writers  ex- 
tolling a  novel  called  "La  Chartreuse 
de  Parme"  to  another  writer  who  had 
never  read  that  great  novel.  It  pleased 
me  to  hear  their  expert  conunents. 
The  comments  would  not  have  per- 
suaded a  non-writer.  To  me  they  were 


conclusive.  One  man  said,  with  an  air 
of  finality:  "The  Brothers  Karama- 
zov*,  War  and  Peace',  and  'La  Char- 
treuse de  Parme'  are  the  three  greatest 
novels  ever  written".  That's  the  sort 
of  thing  I  like  to  hear  said.  And  it 
was  not  contradicted.     How  could  it 

be? 

*  *  *  * 

St.  John  Ervine  is  coming  back  to 
the  States  later  on,  I  hear,  to  be  pres- 
ent at  the  production  of  an  extraor- 
dinarily interesting  adaptation  for  the 
stage,  made  by  himself,  of  one  of  the 
earliest  and  most  fascinating  novels 
of  a  writer  often  mentioned  in  this 
causerie.  It  is  a  remarkable  thing 
that  in  the  course  of  the  work  Ervine 
made  an  interesting  discovery.  He 
tried  to  use  as  much  as  possible  of  the 
original  dialogue.  As  stage  dialogue 
it  was  as  ineffective  as  in  the  novel  it 
was  appropriate  and  right.  It  all  had 
to  be  rewritten.  This  serves  to  show 
how  different  are  the  arts  of  the  novel 
and  the  play.  When  the  play  is  pro- 
duced it  will  be  charming  to  make  the 
comparison  for  oneself,  and  see  just 
where  the  difference  lies.  Ervine's 
novel  "The  Foolish  Lovers"  is  not  yet 
out  here ;  but  it  must  be  almost  ready. 
It  is  being  published  by  Collins,  for 
whom  J.  D.  Beresford  (a  friend  of  Er- 
vine's, as  all  who  know  him  must  be) 

acts  as  reader. 

*  *  *  * 

Beresford,  like  some  other  novelists 
who  act  in  a  similar  capacity  for  pub- 
lishers, issues  his  books  through  the 
firm  for  which  he  "reads".  But  there 
are  others,  again,  who  do  the  reverse. 
I  was  interested  the  other  day  to  learn 
of  the  career  of  C.  E.  Lawrence  (no 
relation  to  D.  H.),  who  is  a  novelist, 
and  whose  later  novels  have  all  ap- 
peared with  the  Collins  imprint.  His 
must  be  almost  a  unique  case,  for  he 
started  doing  other  work  in  the  office  of 


664 


THE  BOOKMAN 


John  Murray,  and  only  later  qualified 
as  a  professional  reader  and  writer. 
Naturally,  it  is  of  enormous  import- 
ance to  a  publisher  to  have  as  his  ad- 
viser somebody  who  really  knows 
something  about  contemporary  au- 
thors. Beresford  is  a  case  in  point. 
Nobody  would  deny  him  a  considerable 
acquaintance  with  what  is  valuable  in 
modern  letters.  His  long  experience 
as  a  journalist  has  taught  him  to  "size 
up"  talent  when  it  comes  his  way,  and 
in  that  secondary  branch  of  "reading", 
the  introduction  of  new  books  of  more 
than  common  interest,  he  must  be  in- 
valuable to  his  firm. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  just 
exactly  how  many  professional  writers 
are  also  "readers".  Several,  such  as 
E.  V.  Lucas,  are  well  known  to  exer- 
cise the  double  function;  but  the 
number  is  much  larger  than  is  gen- 
erally supposed.  After  all,  the  task 
of  being  "a  sort  of  a  kind  of  hermaph- 
rodite, soldier  and  sailor  too"  is  an  in- 
vidious one,  because  rejected  authors 
may  misunderstand  the  causes  of  their 
misfortune,  and  attribute  it  to  the 
wrong  motive.  I  do  not  think  there 
can  be  much  of  that.  All  such  men 
are  liable  to  err,  but  they  are  most 
keen  of  all  to  discover  what  is  good, 
as  well  as  what  is  salable.  I  wonder 
how  they  attain  their  position.  Either, 
I  suppose,  they  drift  into  reading  as 
a  side-show,  or  they  write  to  some  ex- 
tent in  self-defense.  And,  in  the  lat- 
ter instance,  do  they  ever  feel  tempted 
to  steal  ideas?  It  would  be  hard  to 
say.  A  novel  I  once  read,  called  "A 
Mariying  Man"  ("readers"  being,  ap- 
parently, amorously  inflammable  crea- 
tures), made  the  hero,  a  reader,  lift 
for  his  own  fell  purposes  the  whole 
notion  of  a  novel  which  he  had  pro- 
fessionally examined.  Other  tales  by 
writers  equally  trustworthy  have 
brought  similar  charges.    I  do  not  be- 


lieve one  of  thenu  The  game  would 
be  too  risky.  All  the  same,  one  would 
rather  rely  upon  a  reader  who  was 
the  dumb  background  figure  which 
one  never  saw.  He,  one  would  think; 
should  be  above  suspicion  of  bias  or 
dishonesty.  I  must  inquire  into  this 
matter. 

As  far  as  I  recollect,  I  have  never 
seen  a  man  who  professionally  "read" 
a  published  book  of  mine.    Strangely 
enough,  I  once  received  from  a  pub- 
lisher a  copy  of  his  reader's  report 
upon  an  early  effort  which  has  been 
long  destroyed.    I  believe  my  notori- 
ous modesty  must  be  due  to  this  early 
contact    with    critical    candor.      One 
phrase  haunts  me  still  (I  am  not  going 
to  quote  it).    It  is  like  an  epitaph,  far 
more  accurate  than  .the  one  that  Keats 
wrote  for  himself  because  I  am  afraid 
it  is  still  the  last  word  in  criticism  of 
my  amiable,  well-intentioned  work.    I 
have    seen    few   publishers'    reports 
since  then,  though  I  have  written  a 
few;  but  I  have  never  seen  any  upon 
my  own  books.    I  sometimes  wonder  if 
all  reports  are  as  compellingly  ruth- 
less in  their  analysis  of  youthful  tal- 
ent as  the  one  I  remember.    Also,  I 
wonder  if  many  publishers  "tell"  what 
their  readers  think.    I  do  not  believe 
they  do,  and  it  is  probably  just  as 
well.     Otherwise,  only  those  writers 
with  overweening  confidence   (or,  of 
course,   insuperable  modesty)    would 
persist  in  writing  books  at  all.    Thus, 
many  a  masterpiece  would  be  lost  to 
the  world,  for  I  find  that  few  authors 
care  for  the  truth  as  it  is  seen  regard- 
ing their  work  by  somebody  else.    I 
am  reminded  of  the  true  story  of  an 
author   who    asked    for    the   candid 
opinion  of  an  expert.   The  opinion  was 
candidly  given.    The  author,  puzzled 
and  chagrined,  said,  disappointedly: 
Oh,  I  thought  you  really  knew!" 

SIMON  PURE 


« 


COMPLAINT  DEPARTMENT 


The  Title  is  — 

MAGNIFICENTLY  simple!  Like 
all  great  ideas.  (That* s  how  you 
know  them  for  the  great  ideas  they 
are,  isn't  it  ?  By  their  magnificent  sim- 
plicity. Yes.  For  of  course  in  prac- 
tice they  never  work  out  just  right. 
. . . )  Well,  I  got  it  from  reading  an 
interview  with  George  Moore,  an  in- 
terview extracted  from  George  Moore 
(with  exquisite  difficulty)  by  George 
Moore.  He  was  defending  his  course 
in  publishing  his  books  at  two  guineas 
apiece,  edition  limited  to  one  thousand 
copies.  And  the  principal  argument 
he  used  was  his  aversion  to  anything 
savoring  of  commercialism  in  litera- 
ture. Convincing,  he  was  I  But  a  mo- 
ment later  I  thought  of  a  point  Moore 
had  overlooked,  a  point  about  titles. 

He  ought  not  to  use  them.  He  ought 
to  number  his  works.  "Opus  7",  by 
George  Moore,  is  sufficient.  The  title 
means  nothing  to  his  readers,  nor  does 
the  ostensible  theme  of  his  work.  For 
them,  it  is  enough  that  a  new  book  by 
George  Moore  offers.  They  will  sub- 
scribe for  it  before  publication,  any- 
way; what  do  they  care  for  the  title? 
They  know  what  it  will  be — Some 
Moore  by  George  Moore.  A  title  is 
bait;  it  has  a  commercial  taint.  An 
artist  should  be  above  such  a  play  to 
the  public. 

This  was  clear,  conclusive — as  all 
aspects  of  art  inevitably  are  the  in- 
stant they  present  themselves.    But,  I 


reflected,  if  this  is  the  case  respecting 
Mr.  Moore,  it  is  the  case  respecting  all 
our  writers  whose  work,  in  the  words 
of  Mr.  Conrad,  "aspires  to  the  condi- 
tion of  art''.  Or  whose  work,  so  as- 
piring, is  generally  conceded  to  attain 
its  artistic  goal.  For  example,  take 
Mr.  Conrad,  whose  new  novel  "The 
Rescue"  is,  I  believe,  his  twenty-third 
volume.  "Opus  23",  by  Joseph  Con- 
rad, is  all  that  /,  for  one,  care  to  know. 
And  that  must  be  true  of  ninety-nine 
per  cent  of  Conrad's  readers.  The  re- 
maining one  per  cent  read  him  by  a 
mistake  on  the  part  of  the  librarian  in 
getting  hold  of  the  wrong  volume. 

Everybody  knows,  anyway,  that 
there  are  not  enough  good  titles  to  go 
around.  The  use  of  opus-numbers 
would  avoid  some  vexing  duplications, 
such  as  occur  yearly.  It  would  avoid 
title  -  misunderstandings,  which  are 
among  the  most  lamentable  misfor- 
tunes of  readers.  The  classic  anec- 
dote, probably,  is  of  the  sheep-grower 
who  asked  for  Ruskin,  misled  by  the 
title  which  suggested  valuable  advice 
about  his  business.  Ruskin  was  no- 
tably misleading  in  his  titles.  On  the 
other  hand,  some  titles  mean  nothing 
until  you  read  the  story — "Nostromo", 
for  instance;  though  if  you  know 
Italian  or  Spanish  you  may  glean  an 
idea  from  hearing  the  name  (and 
scarcely  the  right  one).  After  one 
has  read  a  book,  "Opus  17"  is  as  good 
a  handle  by  which  to  refer  to  it  as 
"Sawdust"  or  "Green  Pomegranates". 


665 


666 


THE  BOOKMAN 


But  perhaps  it  will  be  argued  that 
numbers  are  hard  to  remember.  In 
the  field  of  music,  they  seem  not  to 
be.  I  am  not  in  doubt  when  I  hear 
someone  speak  of  the  "Fifth  Sym- 
phony"; "Beethoven's"  is  assumed 
unless  you  say  you  mean  someone 
else's  fifth.  "His  third  novel"  when 
talking  of  Joseph  Hergesheimer  is 
enough.  Why  bother  with  "The  Three 
Black  Pennys"  7 

It  will  be  adduced,  very  likely,  that 
even  in  music  opus-numbers  are 
scanted  for  titles — ^the  "Pathetic  Sym- 
phony", etc.  My  answer  is  that  these 
titles  are  more  often  than  not  mislead- 
ing, as  in  the  instance  of  the  "Moon- 
light Sonata".  The  best  composers 
use  them  sparingly,  though,  to  be  sure, 
they  are  partly  at  the  mercy  of  persons 
who  "program"  their  compositions, 
telling  what  it  is  all  about  in  the  out- 
rageous fashion  in  which  publishers 
too  frequently  treat  their  authors' 
masterpieces  on  the  paper  jacket. 

But  in  all  this  I  am  reasonable.  I 
do  not  recommend  opus-numbers  for 
short  stories,  remember!  To  open 
"The  Saturday  Evening  Post"  and 
find  spread  across  the  top  of  a  page, 
"Opus  7,932,  by  Ben  Ames  Williams", 
would  be  distinctly  unsatisfactory  be- 
cause one's  attention  would  be  drawn 
to  the  fact  that  Mr.  Williams  had  pror- 
duced  his  7,932nd  piece  of  fiction  and 

a  doubt  might  creep  in No,  only 

for  books.  Then,  except  in  the  case  of 
Carolyn  Wells  whose  books  number 
well  over  a  hundred,  the  size  of  the 
opus-number  could  scarcely  excite  un- 
due attention.  And  think  of  the 
double-stress  the  use  of  opus-numbers 
would  confer  on  the  name  of  the  au- 
thor! Then,  indeed,  would  authors 
come  into  their  full  estate  as  they  can- 
not quite  do  now.  For  even  in  the  case 
of  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim,  the  at- 
traction of  such  a  title  as  "The  Great 


Impersonation"  undoubtedly  sold  some 
copies  of  the  book  and  detracted,  by  a 
trifle,  from  the  glory  that  was  E. 
Phillips  and  the  grandeur  that  was 
Oppenheim. 

Do  you  recall  how,  a  hundred  or 
more  years  ago,  an  author  always  had 
a  title  that  took  up  a  whole  page? 
Like:  "The  Wicked  Wonder;  Being 
an  Account  of  a  Marvellous  but  Thor- 
ough-Attested Circumstance  Occur- 
ring in  the  County  of  Somerset  Where- 
bjr",  etc.,  running  the  reader  breath- 
less before  he  got  to  chapter  I?  Later 
we  got  rid  of  this  habit  and  now  the 
only  survival  of  it  is  introductions  by 
Mr.  Wells  and  title-headings  of  De 
Morgan's  chapters.  Nowadays  the 
ideal  title  is  a  crisp  enigma,  like  "Saw- 
dust". The  next  step  is  to  replace 
"Sawdust"  by  "Opus  17".  There  is  no 
objection  that  I  can  see  to  a  further 
word  or  two  where  the  author's  work 
has  been  in  various  departments.  For 
example,  let  us  suppose  that  Agnes 
Semicolon  has  written  three  books  of 
an  inspirational  character,  called  "Opus 
1",  "Opus  2",  and  "Opus  3"  respec- 
tively. She  now  writes  a  novel. 
"Novel  No.  1  (Opus  4)"  by  Agnes 
Semicolon  seems  to  me  a  perfectly 
proper  formula  to  be  recited  on  the 
title-page.  I  am  not  so  strict,  either, 
as  not  to  allow  occasionally  such  a 
designation  as  "Short  Stories  in  the 
Key  of  Compassion",  by  Joshua  Stand- 
still—entirely analogous  to  "Some- 
body's Songs  in  E-Flat".  Which  re- 
minds me  that  I  wish  when  people 
translate  a  work  from  another  lan- 
guage they  would  not  so  frequently 
think  it  necessary  to  transpose  it,  too. 
Songs  may  be  required  to  be  trans- 
posed for  particular  voices;  but  lit- 
erature scarcely  requires  to  be  trans- 
posed for  a  presumed  different  order 
of  intelligence.  Although. .  .perhaps 
...  if  some  good  American  novels  were 


A  BONUS  FOR  THE  POET 


667 


transposed  a  little,  they  might  get 
across  in  England. 

Another  little  thing:  if  I  write  a 
novel  all  I  can  hope  for  now  is  to  sell 
first  serial,  dramatic,  movie,  second 
serial,  and  reprint  rights  (besides 
what  the  book  brings  in,  and  such 
picayunes  as  translation,  etc.)*  If  I 
come  through  with  "Opus  4",  say,  I  am 
confident  I  can  sell  it,  additionally  and 
enormously,  for  exclusive  reproduc- 
tion on  the  victorgraph. 

— GRANT  M.  OVERTON 


A  Bonus 
for  the  Poet 

T"TIE  very  elegance  and  subjective- 
1  ness  of  the  poetic  mood  allow  the 
gaunt  wolf's  gnawing  such  ample  op- 
portunity of  making  itself  felt,  that 
the  poets'  most  pressing  demand  is  not 
for  amaranth  and  moly, — ^however 
they  may  rave  on  in  verse, — ^but  for 
good  strong  food  and  plenty  of  it. 
And  how  are  we  going  to  satisfy  that 
demand?  It  used  to  be  that  when  a 
poet's  wife  came  bearing  bills  he 
would  simply  say,  "What,  $20  for  the 
butcher?  I'll  have  to  dig  up  another 
dead  love!"  Whereupon  he  would 
seize  his  quill,  and  thousands  of  eyes 
would  shortly  dew  up  over  some  such 
result  as  this : 

Swift  OD  the  primrose's  first  flash 

From  twUight  grasses  where  she  long  has  lain» 

In  some  dim«  gasping,  lark-sweet  hush 

She  will  come  back,  she  wlU  come  back  again. 

And  he  is  right — she  will  come  back, 
whenever  bills  press  at  this  particular 
season.  Her  chances  of  remaining 
buried  more  than  a  year  at  a  stretch 
are  growing  slimmer  all  the  time,  and 
the  worst  of  it  is  that  little  good  will 
come  of  her  sacrifice.  Dead  loves  used 
to  be  good  for  a  week  or  two  but  now 
they  don't  provide  food  for  more  than 


three  or  four  days.  Likewise  with 
shoes  and  armchairs  and  all  the  rest  of 
the  poetic  paraphernalia, — ^while  they 
have  kept  the  modem  pace  in  actual 
cost,  their  buying  power  has  shrunk 
with  the  years  until  the  little  worn 
shoe  in  mother's  hand  is  hardly  worth 
a  cabbage  and  the  empty  armchair 
simmering  by  the  fire  won't  bring  a 
peck  of  potatoes. 

Either  the  market  value  of  poetic 
wares  will  have  to  be  inflated  to  fit 
present-day  conditions  or  some  sort  of 
bonus  will  have  to  be  provided  for  our 
singing  brothers:  for  the  tradition 
that  poets  are  thin  and  eat  but  spar- 
ingly is  like  most  traditions  in  that  it 
won't  bear  investigation.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  poets  are  heavily  cushioned  as 
a  race  (the  ill-advised  exposure  of  a 
young  bard's  photograph  having  been 
known  to  spoil  the  sale  of  an  entire 
edition  of  delicate  verse)  ;  and  if  they 
have  a  hungry  look,  it  does  not  mean 
that  secret^  their  appetites  are  less 
carnal  than  ours — only  more  insatiate. 
Some  of  the  tenderest  lyrics  of  our 
time  have  been  inspired  by  the  rosi- 
ness  of  beef  or  the  delicate  brown  of 
spring  lamb  eaten  incognito,  but  it  is 
only  when  a  poet  has  attained  great 
years  or  reputation  that  he  may  allow 
the  perfect  health  of  his  appetite  to 
be  fully  sensed. 

I  have  seen  a  greybeard  of  the  pro- 
fession at  a  public  dinner,  while  dis- 
coursing of  fauns  and  white  lilies, 
"wrap  himself  around"  as  a  vulgar  ex- 
pression has  it,  not  only  his  own  meal 
but  those  of  his  neighbors  on  either 
side,  holding  his  victims  spellbound 
with  one  hand  and  eating  with  the 
other.  And  it  is  said  that  no  less  a 
person  than  D'Annunzio  serves  him- 
self with  half  a  block  of  ice  cream  and 
divides  the  other  half  among  his  ten 
companions. 

— CONSTANCE  MURRAY  GREENE 


THE  SOCIALIZATION  OF  THE  LIBRARY 


BY  ARTHUR  E.  BOSTWICK 
Librarian,  St  Louis  Public  Library 


WHEN  one  man  lends  another  a 
dollar,  we  may  focus  our  atten- 
tion on  the  dollar,  or  on  the  men.  The 
transaction  remains  the  same  in  either 
case,  but  we  fit  it  differently  into  our 
mental  scheme  of  things,  and  its  reac- 
tion on  what  we  think  and  what  we  do 
is  different  in  the  two  instances.  This 
is  typical  of  much.  The  material  world 
is  made  up  of  persons  and  things; 
both  enter  into  most  of  the  events  that 
interest  us.  We  are  naturally  so  little 
introspective  that  things  first  claim  our 
attention.  After  a  while  we  begin  to 
discover  ourselves  and  others.  Per- 
sons begin  to  interest  us;  we  become 
socialized. 

This  is  what  is  happening  to  the 
public  library.  The  things  and  per- 
sons of  its  world  are  books  and  read- 
ers. Focusing  his  attention  at  first 
solely  on  the  books,  the  early  librarian 
built  strongholds  to  keep  them  safe; 
he  studied  their  material  and  the  ways 
of  putting  it  together.  He  devised 
ways  of  arranging  them  on  the  shelves 
and  catalogues  to  enable  him  to  find 
them.  In  doing  all  this  he  was  think- 
ing of  himself,  as  the  custodian  of  the 
books,  not  of  the  reader — still  less  of 
the  community  as  a  body  of  potential 
readers.  This  was  natural,  of  course. 
The  physical  conditions  of  book  con- 
struction were  such  that  a  book  was  a 
rare  and  precious  thing,  not  to  be  han- 


dled lightly.  The  community  at  large 
neither  cared  for  books  nor  knew  how 
to  read  them. 

The  tale  of  how  these  conditions 
came  to  be  altered  is  the  story  of  the 
progress  of  civilization  since  the  in- 
vention of  printing.  Books  are  now 
easily  duplicated  in  great  quantity: 
the  ability  to  read  and  understand 
them  has  become  the  rule  rather  than 
the  exception;  the  users  of  books,  be- 
ginning as  a  small  and  restricted 
group,  now  embrace,  or  should  em- 
brace, nearly  all  members  of  the  com- 
munity. Why  not  all?  The  very  fact 
that  the  librarian  asks  this  question 
shows  that  he  is  taking  the  social 
viewpoint.  It  is  but  a  step  from  ask- 
ing to  answering,  or  making  the  at- 
tempt. A  step  further  is  to  act,  and 
action  of  this  kind  is  now  being  taken 
by  American  libraries.  It  explains  the 
many  library  activities  in  which,  ac- 
cording to  European  librarians,  we 
have  gone  altogether  beyond  our 
sphere.  They  are  right,  provided  the 
attention  is  focused  on  the  book  alone. 
We  are  right  from  our  own  standpoint, 
because  we  are  thinking  primarily  now 
not  of  the  book  but  of  the  reader,  and 
not  altogether  of  actual  readers  but 
also  of  potential  ones. 

Why  should  a  librarian  inquire  into 
the  characteristics  of  the  residents 
in  his  community — ^their  nationality, 


668 


THE  SOCIALIZATION  OF  THE  LIBRARY 


669 


their  literacy,  their  interests?  Why 
should  he  make  an  effort  to  get  in 
touch  with  their  various  groups;  re- 
ligious, political,  racial,  educational, 
and  social?  Why  should  he  offer  such 
of  these  as  are  organized,  a  meeting- 
place  in  his  buildings?  Why  should 
he  endeavor  to  extend  and  supplement 
the  education  of  those  who  are  inade- 
quately educated?  Why  should  he  be 
interested  in  social  welfare,  in  busi- 
ness and  industry,  in  all  sorts  of  com- 
munity movements,  in  conventions,  in 
churches,  in  political  campaigns?  All 
these  things  seem  far  removed  from 
the  functions  of  a  simple  custodian  of 
books.  And  they  are  so  removed.  But 
they  are  very  near  indeed  to  one  who 
is  on  the  lookout  for  readers,  actual 
and  potential.  They  are  sometimes 
near  when  they  do  not  seem  to  be  so. 
They  are  akin  to  the  so-called  ''general 
advertising"  which  is  a  reflex  of  the 
growing  socialization  of  business.  You 
may  notice  in  the  advertising  pages  of 
magazines  not  only  publicity  intended 
to  direct  your  attention  to  Smith's 
cameras  and  Jones's  tractors,  but  also 
to  the  merits  of  tractors  and  cameras 
in  general.  The  librarian  is  trying  to 
interest  his  community  in  books  in 
general  and  in  the  things  that  will  lead 
them  to  books;  and  this  includes  al- 
most all  forms  of  social  activity — ^re- 
ligious, political,  educational,  and  in- 
dustrial. 

Anyone  who  does  not  understand 
this  viewpoint  should  ponder  the  re- 
lated developments  in  the  business  and 
industrial  world.  Take  modem  sales- 
manship, for  instance,  with  its  insist- 
ence on  psychology.  The  salesman 
deals  with  shoes,  with  hardware,  with 
foodstuffs.  Where  does  psychology 
touch  these?  It  does  not  touch  them 
at  all;  but  he  deals  also  with  buyers, 
and  in  his  relations  with  them  psy- 
chology  is   all   important,   especially 


when  the  buyers  are  only  potential 
and  he  wishes  to  make  them  actual. 
Take  industry,  where  a  large  part  of 
the  employer's  time  is  now  occupied 
with  plans  for  holding  his  men,  for 
maintaining  their  health  and  strength, 
and  for  keeping  them  satisfied  and 
good-natured.  Everywhere  we  see 
signs  that  the  world  is  awaking  to  the 
importance  of  its  human  content ;  the 
socialization  of  the  library  is  only  a 
small  section  of  what  is  happening. 

One  of  the  satisfactory  features  of 
a  policy  that  deals  primarily  with  peo- 
ple instead  of  things  is  that  man  is  a 
self-mover,  physically  and  mentally. 
Mohammed,  as  the  familiar  quip  goes, 
found  it  far  easier  to  go  to  the  moun- 
tain than  to  induce  the  mountain  to 
come  to  him.  All  that  we  have  to  do 
to  man  is  to  start  the  wheels  and  guide 
them;  there  is  no  dead  weight  to  be 
dealt  with.  And  in  most  cases  the 
wheels  are  ready  to  move:  there  is 
steady  pressure  against  the  obstacles 
due  to  our  own  ignorant  and  passive 
attitude.  Modify  that  attitude ;  clear 
away  the  barrier;  there  will  be  in- 
stant results. 

We  have  in  the  St.  Louis  Public  Li- 
brary and  its  branches  about  fifteen 
rooms  that  are  available  for  public 
meetings.  In  the  course  of  the  year 
about  four  thousand  such  gatherings 
are  held  under  our  roofs — all  that  we 
can  accommodate.  Staff-rooms,  work- 
rooms, even  corridors  have  been 
pressed  into  service  upon  occasion. 
We  do  not  have  to  urge  anyone  to  use 
our  facilities.  We  do  not  have  to  go 
out  and  form  clubs  ''under  the  au- 
spices" of  the  library.  The  club  mi- 
crobe is  normally  present  in  the  hu- 
man subject.  Give  it  a  culture-me- 
dium and  it  begins  at  once  to  form 
colonies.  The  corner  saloon  used  to 
be  a  good  place  for  it  to  multiply.  It 
responds    quickly    to    environment; 


670 


THE  BOOKMAN 


what  kind  of  groups  would  you  expect 
to  be  controlled  and  guided  by  that 
particular  kind  of  hospitality?  In  the 
library  they  take  on  a  different  guise. 
They  may  be  political,  educational,  in- 
dustrial, religious,  musical,  or  social. 
They  may  represent  any  one  of  a  thou- 
sand crystallizations  and  recrystalliza- 
tions  of  community  thought  and  effort. 
We  make  but  two  requirements — free- 
dom and  order. 

"But  these  are  not  libraries  at  all, 
they  are  community  clubs !"  This  was 
the  illuminating  comment  of  an  emi- 
nent architect  after  he  had  listened  to 
an  explanation  of  what  would  be  re- 
quired in  a  system  of  branch  library 
buildings.  He  was  quite  right;  the 
socialization  of  the  library  has  natur- 
ally and  inevitably  made  a  club  of  it — ^a 
dub  of  which  all  well-behaved  citizens 
are  members,  with  nominal  dues  pay- 
able yearly  to  the  tax-collector.  This 
has  been  a  perfectly  natural  develop- 
ment. Nobody,  whether  librarians  or 
public,  has  fought  very  hard  for  it; 
certainly  nobody  has  opposed  it.  It 
has  come  about  like  the  growing  of 
plants  in  a  garden;  it  is  the  result 
of  evolution,  not  of  revolution. 

Of  course  the  use  of  the  library's 
buildings  for  community  gatherings 
is  not  the  only  evidence  of  its  sociali- 
zation. The  social  trend  may  now  ap- 
pear almost  an3rwhere  throughout  its 
organization.  In  registering  their 
readers  many  libraries  are  now  group- 
ing them;  the  librarian  can  show  you 
a  separate  card-index  of  children,  of 
negroes,  of  aliens,  of  non-residents. 
This  is  but  a  beginning.  We  may  in 
the  future  be  able  to  turn  to  files  of 
those  who  are  interested  in  numis- 
matics or  of  workers  in  the  various 
local  industries.  As  is  always  the  case, 
the  public,  which  has  no  traditions  of 
technique,  is  continually  demanding, 
in  a  way  that  betrays  recognition  of 


the  socializing  process,  information 
that  is  far  beyond  our  present  power 
to  give.  The  historical  society  wants 
a  mailing-list  of  persons  who  read 
local  history;  an  investigating  cleric 
asks:  'What  do  clergymen  read?" 
These  are  social  questions:  they  are 
about  people.  We  cannot  answer  them 
from  our  records,  because  the  socializ- 
ing process  has  not  yet  modified  this 
part  of  our  machinery. 

Naturally  enough,  personnel  re- 
sponds to  a  socializing  tendency  sooner 
than  machinery,  because  it  is  itself 
social.  But  a  machine,  since  it  is  a 
tool,  is  nothing  but  an  extension  of  per- 
sonality and  will  make  its  belated  re- 
sponse in  time.  I  have  been  curious 
enough,  at  this  point,  to  glance  at  the 
statistical  form  filled  out  by  American 
libraries  at  the  request  of  the  Amer- 
ican Library  Association.  There  are 
in  this  blank  fifty-seven  items,  of 
which  only  seven  refer  to  persons^ 
making  a  liberal  interpretation  of  the 
word.  There  could,  perhaps,  be  no 
more  striking  demonstration  of  the 
fact  that  our  records  are  not  keeping 
pace  with  our  practice.  This  discrep- 
ancy runs  through  all  the  mechanical 
part  of  our  work. 

Not  long  ago,  in  organizing  an  ex- 
hibition of  books  suitable  for  Christ- 
mas presents,  we  concluded  that  the 
primary  objects  of  our  solicitude 
should  be  the  recipients,  and  we  ac- 
cordingly classified  these  and  arranged 
the  books  in  groups  according  to  their 
suitability  for  one  class  of  persons  or 
the  other.  Thus  our  headings  were: 
For  Housewives",  "For  the  Idler", 
For  Shut-Ins",  "For  Reading  Aloud", 
etc.  This  exhibition  has  been  held 
several  times  at  the  holiday  season; 
recently  I  noticed  that  the  assistant  in 
charge  of  making  the  list,  while  re- 
taining the  form,  had  so  worded  the 
headings  that  the  groups  were  again 


tt 


u 


THE  SOCIALIZATION  OF  THE  LIBRARY 


671 


classified  by  the  subject-matter  in- 
stead of  by  reaction  of  that  subject- 
matter  on  probable  readers.  Thus 
they  ran:  "For  Those  Who  Enjoy 
Biographies",  "For  Travelers",  "For 
Art  Lovers" ;  and  they  might  as  well, 
of  course,  have  been  simply  "Biog- 
raphy", "Travel",  "Art",  and  so  on. 
This  shows  that  socialized  machinery, 
if  not  watched,  sometimes  reverts. 

This  recognition  of  groups  in  the 
community,  not  only  of  readers  but  of 
potential  readers,  is  steadily  increas- 
ing and  is  an  important  element  in  the 
socialization  of  the  libraiy.  It  may  be 
said  to  have  begun  with  the  special  at- 
tention paid  to  children.  Within  the 
memory  of  persons  scarcely  past 
middle  life,  little  or  no  regard  was 
paid  in  public  libraries  to  children's 
reading.  Some  included  no  books  for 
them  at  all;  in  others,  where  there 
were  such  books,  they  were  selected 
carelessly  and  there  was  no  one  on  the 
staff  who  understood  children  or  their 
needs.  Special  rooms  or  accommo- 
dations for  children  were  generally 
unheard  of  until  the  late  'nineties. 
And  yet  such  special  recognition  has 
now  been  accorded  to  this  group  of 
readers  that  librarians  specialize  in 
"children's  work",  every  library  has 
its  room  for  children,  with  carefully 
selected  stock  of  books  and  trained  as- 
sistants, and  there  are  training- 
schools  that  devote  themselves  almost 
wholly  to  this  particular  branch  of  li- 
brary education. 

In  the  same  way,  although  not  al- 
ways to  the  same  extent,  recognition 
is  accorded  to  other  groups.  In  the 
case  of  civil  servants  and  legislators, 
for  instance,  we  now  have  special  li- 
braiy accommodations  and  collections, 
often  in  state  capitols  and  city  halls; 
and  a  special  class  for  training  mu- 
nicipal and  legislative  reference  li- 
brarians is  conducted  by  the  Wiscon- 


sin Library  Commission.  Educators 
are  recognized  as  a  group  by  the  pro- 
vision of  "teachers'  rooms",  with  spe- 
cial collections  in  pedagogy,  the  latest 
text-books,  and  all  sorts  of  material 
for  classroom  use.  Each  newly  ar- 
rived immigrant  finds  himself  grouped 
by  the  libraiy  with  others  who  speak 
and  read  his  mother  tongue,  and  pro- 
vided with  books  and  periodicals  in 
that  language,  together  with  material 
for  acquainting  him  with  English  and 
with  the  new  and  strange  conditions 
that  he  must  meet  in  his  new  home — 
social,  political,  religious,  industrial, 
and  educational.  This  is  Americaniza- 
tion work  devoid  of  the  least  shade  of 
propaganda,  unless  that  may  be  so 
called  which  is  merely  an  effort  to  has- 
ten and  ease  an  adjustment  that  would 
otherwise  come  about  slowly  and  pain- 
fully— ^possibly  in  some  cases  not  at 
all. 

The  latest  group  to  receive  inter- 
ested, almost  intensive,  service  from 
the  library  is  that  of  "business  men" 
— a  somewhat  vague  and  loose  assem- 
blage. There  can  be  no  doubt,  how- 
ever, that  business  and  industry  of  all 
kinds  —  commerce,  transportation, 
mining,  manufactures — ^was  neglected 
by  the  older  library.  It  is  now  coming 
into  its  own.  The  large  industrial  or- 
ganizations are  establishing  libraries 
or  research  departments  of  their  own, 
and  these  are  multiplying  with  great 
rapidity.  They  are  forming  connec- 
tions with  the  local  public  libraries 
which  are  fast  learning  that  the 
printed  and  bound  book  is  not  the  only 
item  of  an  up-to-date  public  collection. 
Added  to  this  must  be  pamphlets, 
manuscripts,  folders,  broadsides, — 
eveiything  that  can  serve  as  source 
material  for  the  business  investigator, 
whether  what  he  is  after  is  the  deter- 
mination of  a  policy  involving  mil- 


672 


THE  BOOKMAN 


lions,  or  the  spelling  of  a  local  name  in 
Venezuela  or  Burma. 

The  most  widespread  recosrnition  of 
groups  ever  made  by  libraries  was  in 
connection  with  the  war  work  of  the 
American  Library  Association.  Fi- 
nanced by  the  Association  itself  in  the 
early  part  of  the  war,  this  work  latefr 
became  part  of  that  cared  for  by  the 
united  war  fund,  raised  jointly  by 
seven  welfare  organizations,  of  which 
it  was  one.  While  this  joint  action 
was  primarily  to  avoid  multiplicity  of 
"drives",  by  special  request  of  Presi- 
dent Wilson,  the  recognition  of  the 
American  Library  Association's  work 
as  cognate  with  that  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
or  the  Red  Cross  was  an  unconscious 
admission  of  the  importance  of  the 
community  and  of  community  groups, 
in  its  present  scheme  of  service.  Its 
war  service  was  rendered  to  groups 
and  sub-groups — ^to  the  army,  for  in- 
stance, as  one  great  group,  with  train- 
ing-camps, headquarters,  and  forces 
in  the  field  as  sub-groups ;  to  the  navy 
as  a  whole  and  to  individual  vessels, 
to  the  crews  of  vessels  built  and  op- 
erated by  the  United  States  Shipping 
Board,  and  so  on.  Since  the  end  of 
the  war  this  group  service  has  been 
maintained  as  far  as  necessary;  and 
some  of  it  has  been  taken  over  by  the 
United  States  government.  It  is  the 
desire  of  the  Association  to  extend  it 
to  certain  peace  groups :  for  instance, 
to  industrial  workers,  to  the  mercantile 
marine  in  general,  to  communities  in 
which  there  is  ignorance  of  library 
service  or  indifference  toward  it.  To 
this  end  it  is  formulating  and  pre- 
paring to  carry  out  a  so-called  "en- 
larged program  of  service",  to  be  fi- 
nanced by  general  contributions  from 
the  friends  of  libraries. 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  service 
about  which  we  are  now  speaking  has 
been  and  will  be  rendered  not  by  indi- 


vidual libraries  but  by  associated  li-. 
braries  as  a  body, — ^by  a  group  to 
groups,  which  is  a  further  step  in  so- 
cialization. Libraries  and  library 
workers  have  been  very  fond  of  group- 
ing themselves,  but  such  groups  have 
in  the  past  functioned  largely  as  bodies 
for  comparing  notes  and  discussing 
methods  of  work.  They  have  only  re- 
cently undertaken  constructive  pro- 
grams, although  state  library  associa- 
tions have  been  responsible  in  many 
instances  for  the  adoption  of  advanced 
library  legislation  and  for  the  recog- 
nition by  states  of  the  library  as  an 
important  part  of  their  educational 
machinery. 

Very  recently  the  grouping  process 
has  extended  to  the  workers  in  libraries, 
considered  as  members  of  the  indus- 
trial public,  and  has  resulted  in  the 
formation  of  unions,  staff  associations, 
and  the  like.  The  temper  of  librarians 
is  such  that  the  complete  unionization 
of  library  staffs,  including  afiiliation 
with  labor  organizations,  seems  quite 
unlikely.  The  desire  of  most  librari- 
ans is  for  professional  status.  There 
is,  however,  a  feeling  that  they  must 
get  together  locally  for  betterment  of 
various  kinds,  including  increase  of 
salaries.  All  this  is  a  phase  of  library 
socialization,  working  inward. 

There  is  a  trend,  too,  toward  giving 
library  workers  a  part  of  some  kind  in 
determining  details  of  operation,  and 
to  some  extent  minor  policies,  in  their 
institutions.  We  have  as  yet  no  li- 
brary soviet,  nor  are  we  likely  to  have 
one,  but  the  "shop  committees"  now 
being  tried  in  many  industrial  plants, 
are  being  paralleled  in  libraries — not 
copied,  for  we  have  here  an  independ- 
ent manifestation  of  the  socializing 
tendency.  There  are  "library  coun- 
cils" here,  "staff  meetings"  there,  with 
all  sorts  of  advisory  bodies  and  staff 
co^miittees  to  determine  or  report 


THE  SOCIALIZATION  OF  THE  LIBRARY 


673 


upon  changes  or  improvements  in  li- 
brary methods  and  regulations.  Oc- 
casionally we  find  such  a  body  that  has 
more  than  advisory  powers — that  is 
as  purely  legislative  as  Congress  is» 
restrained  only  by  the  librarian's  veto 
as  the  national  body  is  by  that  of  the 
President.  For  instance,  in  our  own 
library,  the  various  rooms  in  the  cen- 
tral building  devoted  to  the  use  of  the 
staff — the  lunch-room,  the  locker- 
rooms,  the  rest  and  recreation  rooms 
— are  controlled  absolutely  by  a  com- 
mittee of  the  staff.  Theoretically  its 
action  may  be  negatived  by  the  li- 
brarian, but  no  such  veto  is  on  record. 
It  would  be  strange  if  this  interior 
socialization  did  not  spread  to  the  out- 
side also,  and  such  is  the  fact.  In 
other  words  the  users  of  a  library  are 
now  taking  part,  with  members  of  the 
staff,  in  administrative  work.  Of 
course  both  staff  and  readers  are  mem- 
bers of  the  public  and  as  such  are  the 
ultimate  owners  of  the  library,  but 
what  they  do  is  entirely  apart  from 
their  share  in  the  institution  as  public 
property.  For  instance,  the  share 
taken  by  readers  in  book  selection  is 
often  large  and  important.  Books  are 
frequently  purchased  to  meet  a  de- 
mand, and  this  demand  is  that  of  the 
reader,  shown  sometimes  indirectly — 
almost  automatically — ^by  increased 
circulation  or  multiplied  waiting-lists, 
sometimes  by  conversation  at  the 
charging-desk,  sometimes  formally  by 
direct  request.  The  public  does  not 
seem  to  know  its  privileges  and  powers 
in  this  respect,  otherwise  direct  re- 
quests for  purchase  would  be  proffered 
in  far  greater  number.  Neither  does 
it  realize  that  it  is  the  ultimate  maker 


of  library  rules — even  of  those  that 
may  be  looked  on  by  some  as  harsh  or 
strict.  The  library's  business  is  to 
render  the  best  service  to  the  largest 
number ;  it  cannot,  of  course,  improve 
service  to  a  few  at  the  expense  of  the 
many.  Yet  when  rules  are  adopted  to 
protect  the  rights  of  the  many,  the 
few  are  sure  to  regard  them  as  the 
arbitrary  edicts  of  some  library  czar. 
Those  who  object  to  them  have  in 
truth  to  deal  not  with  librarians  but 
with  their  fellow  readers.  The  stroller 
through  a  park  who  would  like  to  pick 
the  flowers  is  restrained  ultimately  by 
the  fact  that  were  he  allowed  to  do  so 
there  would  shortly  be  no  park  at  all 
for  his  fellow  strollers  to  enjoy.  It 
is  the  fact  that  the  sum  total  of  enjoy- 
ment obtainable  from  the  flowers  is 
greater  when  they  stay  on  their  stems 
than  when  they  are  transferred  to  his 
vases,  that  is  responsible  for  the  in- 
hibition laid  upon  him,  harshly  as  it 
may  grate  upon  his  desires. 

It  being  entirely  proper  to  close 
with  a  moral,  we  may  note  here  that 
socialization  and  cooperation  are  very 
closely  allied,  and  that  cooperation  or 
"team  work"  always  means  an  in- 
crease in  the  comforts  and  opportuni- 
ties of  the  many  at  the  expense  of 
those  of  the  individual.  So  it  is  with 
library  socialization.  Libraries,  in 
paying  more  attention  to  their  com- 
munities of  readers  and  potential 
readers,  are  doubtless  curtailing  indi- 
vidual privileges  here  and  there  and 
perhaps  lessening  types  of  individual 
service.  This  moral  is  for  those  who 
consider  themselves  aggrieved  there- 
by; and  if  they  are  good  citizens  they 
will  profit  by  pondering  it. 


MR.  DOOLEY  ALIAS  FINLEY  PETER  DUNNE 


BY  MORRIS  R.  WERNER 


THERE  was  a  saloon-keeper  in  Chi- 
cago who  will  go  down  to  posterity 
under  an  assumed  name,  the  Anti-Sa- 
loon League  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing. The  assumed  name  is  Mr. 
Dooley,  and  the  man  who  assumed  it 
for  him  is  Finley  Peter  Dunne — the 
man  who  created  a  character  for 
America  as  famous  at  home  and  abroad 
as  Theodore  Roosevelt.  Mr.  Dunne 
came  from  Chicago,  like  so  many  other 
American  writers,  and  especially  hu- 
morists. And  like  those  other  humor- 
ists— George  Ade,  Ring  W.  Lardner, 
and  the  others — ^he  was  a  Chicago 
newspaperman.  Finley  Peter  Dunne 
became  a  reporter  as  soon  after  he 
was  graduated  from  the  Chicago  pub- 
lic schools  as  a  Chicago  newspaper 
would  employ  him — at  the  age  of 
eighteen.  He  worked  first  for  the 
Chicago  "Evening  Post",  later  became 
city  editor  of  the  Chicago  "Times", 
and  then  became  managing  editor  of 
the  Chicago  "Journal". 

One  James  McGarry,  a  saloon- 
keeper in  Dearborn  Street,  Chicago, 
near  the  office  of  the  Chicago  "Trib- 
une", had  a  happy  way  of  comment- 
ing on  what  he  read  in  the  newspapers 
concerning  everything  from  politics 
to  society.  One  day  he  had  been  read- 
ing of  Jay  Gould's  funeral,  and  his 
comments  on  that  deceased  celebrity 
were  so  delicious  that  Dunne,  hearing 
them,  thought  of  writing  them  out 


with  slight  alterations  and  additions 
as  the  thoughts  of  a  Colonel  McNeery. 
The  result  appeared  in  the  Chicago 
"Evening  Post",  whereupon  Dunne 
continued  to  write  more  of  Colonel 
McNeery's  observations  without  troub- 
ling the  original,  McGarry,  for  fur- 
ther inspiration.  McGarry  began  to 
feel  irritation  at  the  way  in  which  he 
was  being  used  as  a  medium  of  things 
humorous  under  the  thin  disguise  of 
McNeery,  and  it  is  said  that  he  com- 
plained to  the  editor  of  the  "Evening 
Post".  The  result  was  the  creation  of 
that  far-famed  individual,  Mr.  Dooley. 

Mr.  Dooley  first  came  into  promi- 
nence in  American  life  at  the  time  of 
the  Spanish-American  War,  when  his 
comments  on  the  various  phases  of 
that  expedition  made  the  country  and 
Admirsd  George  Dewey  explode  with 
laughter.  Mr.  Dooley  said  veiy  little 
about  the  World  War,  however,  be- 
cause that  conflict  was  rather  too  im- 
portant and  too  stern  for  him.  Be- 
sides, his  creator,  Mr.  Dunne,  was  too 
busy  directing  the  publicity  of  the 
War  Savings  Stamps  Campaign  to  be 
able  to  act  as  ventriloquist  to  the  old 
man  of  Arr-chey  Road.  In  his  book 
"Mr.  Dooley  on  Making  a  Will  and 
Other  Necessary  Evils"  Mr.  Dunne 
has  one  paper  called  "On  Food  in 
War",  which  was  written  before 
America   entered   the   conflict.      His 


674 


MR.  DOOLEY  ALIAS  FINLEY  PETER  DUNNE 


675 


comments  on  a  war  of  starvation  are 
interesting. 

When  "Mr.  Dooley  in  Peace  and  in 
War" — Dunne's  first  collection  of  his 
newspaper  Dooley  articles  on  the 
Spanish- American  War  and  allied  sub- 
jects— appeared  in  this  country  it  sold 
an  edition  of  ten  thousand  copies  each 
month  for  the  first  six  months.  It 
was  so  popular  that  several  firms  of 
British  publishers  immediately  pirated 
the  booky  and  it  sold  widely  in  Great 
Britain  and  her  colonies,  the  English 
reviewers  acclaiming  its  author  as  a 
new  Artemus  Ward.  In  1899  Dunne 
went  to  London  with  his  American 
publisher,  to  settle  with  the  London 
publishers  of  Mr.  Dooley.  They  were 
able  to  bring  about  a  settlement.  But 
Dunne  had  his  fun  out  of  the  incident. 
In  the  second  Dooley  book,  "Mr.  Doo- 
ley in  the  Hearts  of  His  Countrymen", 
he  dedicates  the  book: 

To 

Sir  George  Newnei,  Bart. 

Messrs.  George  Rontledge  A  Sons 

Limited 

And  Other  Publishers  Who  Uninvited*  Presented 

Mr.   Dooley   to  a   Part  of  the  British   Public 

This  second  book  was  even  more  popu- 
lar than  "Mr.  Dooley  in  Peace  and  in 
War",  for  with  that  first  offering,  Mr. 
Dooley  had  certainly  won  his  way  into 
the  hearts  of  his  countrymen. 

Mr.  Dunne's  art  consists  in  taking  a 
national  trait  which  the  nation  con- 
cerned recognizes  as  such,  and  devel- 
oping the  humor  of  that  trait  to  the 
nth  power — ^but  in  such  a  way  that 
the  reader  never  for  a  moment  loses 
the  impression  that  what  he  is  saying 
is  absolutely  true  fundamentally.  A 
remarkable  feature  of  all  the  Dooley 
books  is  their  lasting  quality.  Read- 
ing everjrthing  that  Mr.  Dunne  makes 
Mr.  Dooley  say  is  an  experience  rather 
like  overeating,  but  the  incidents  after 
many  years  still  retain  their  flavor. 

There  is  so  much  quotable  in  the 


eight  published  volumes  of  Mr.  Dooley 
that  one  cannot  begin  to  select  the 
best.  It  is  easy  to  find  an  illustration 
of  almost  any  phase  of  American  or 
European  life  in  Mr.  Dooley's  talks. 
His  versatility  is  astounding;  he  dis- 
cusses evers^hing  from  Arctic  ex- 
plorations to  criminal  trials. 

Mr.  Dunne  does  not  bite  the  end  of 
a  pencil  with  a  view  to  producing  a 
maxim  and  publishing  it  with  a  capi- 
tal M.  The  wit  rolls  off  quickly,  spon- 
taneously, continuously.  Any  his- 
torian who  is  an  historian  according 
to  the  definitions  in  "Observations  of 
Mr.  Dooley"  will  use  Dooley  as  the 
most  complete  available  background 
of  the  politics  and  affairs  of  the  last 
twenty  years.    Says  Mr.  Dooley: 

"I  know  histhry  isn't  thrue,  Hinnessy,  be* 
cause  it  ain't  like  what  I  see  ivry  day  in 
Halsted  Sthreet.  If  any  wan  comes  along  with 
a  histhry  It  Greece  or  Rome  that'U  show  me 
th'  people  flghtin',  gettln'  dhrunk,  makin*  love, 
gettin'  married,  owin'  th'  grocery  man  an  bein' 
without  hard-coal,  I'll  belieye  they  was  a 
Greece  or  Rome,  but  not  bcfure.  Historyans  it 
like  doctors.  They  are  always  lookin'  f  r  symp- 
toms. Those  iy  them  that  writes  about  their 
own  times  examines  th'  tongue  an'  feels  th' 
pulse  an'  makes  a  wrong  dygnosis.  Th'  other 
kind  iy  histhry  is  a  post-morten  examination. 
It  tells  ye  what  a  counthry  died  Iy.  But  I'd 
like  to  know  what  It  Uyed  iy." 

Mr.  Dooley's  observations  are  valu- 
able because  they  are  as  true  many 
years  after,  applied  to  a  different  set 
of  incidents,  as  they  were  when  Dunne 
wrote  them  for  a  particular  purpose. 
For  example,  in  his  latest  book  he 
talks  "On  the  Power  of  Music"  in  re- 
lation to  William  J.  Biyan's  love  of 
oratory  and  international  peace: 

"Ye  see,  me  boy,  th'  wurruld  is  a  pretty  old 
hunk  of  mud  an*  wickedness,  an'  I'ye  been 
here  a  long  time  an'  I'ye  obseryed  this  sad 
thruth.  Ye  don't  haye  to  lend  a  man  money. 
Ye  don't  haye  to  amuse  him ;  ye  don't  haye  to 
take  care  iy  him  if  he's  sick ;  ye  don't  haye 
to  do  annything  Tr  him  but  wan  thing." 

"An'  what's  that?"  asked  Mr.  Hennessy. 

"If  he  wants  to  fight  ye,  ye'ye  got  to  ac- 
commodate him,"  said  Mr.  Dooley. 


676 


THE  BOOKMAN 


There  is  an  analysis  of  Theodore 
Roosevelt: 

"Whin  he  (Rooaevelt)  does  onny  talkln* — 
which  he  sometimes  does — he  talks  at  th*  man 
in  front  iv  him.  Ye  don*t  hear  him  hollerin* 
at  posterity.  Posterity  don't  begin  to  vote  till 
afther  th'  polls  close." 

Mr.  Dooley  on  Shakespeare  and 
reading  in  general  is  interesting  and 
keen: 

"Hardly  a  day  passes  but  some  lady  frind  \v 
mine  stops  me  on  me  way  to  catch  a  car,  an' 
asks  me  if  I  don't  regard  Morse  Hewlett  as 
th'  gr-reatest  an'  mos'  homicidal  writer  iv  onr 
time,  an'  what  I've  got  to  say  abont  Hinnelly's 
attack  on  Stevenson.  'Madam'  says  I,  *I  wnd 
n't  know  Morse  if  I  was  to  see  him  goin' 
down  th'  sthreet  ax  in  hand,  an*  as  f'r  Hin- 
nelly,  his  name  escapes  me,  though  his  lan- 
guage is  familiar  to  anny  wan  who  iver  helped 
load  a  scow.  Stevenson,'  I  says,  'doesn't  appeal 
to  me,  an'  if  he  shud,  I'll  revarse  th'  decision 
on  th'  ground  iv'  bad  prevyons  charackter  iv 
th'  plaintiff,  while,'  I  says,  'admittin'  th' 
thruth  iv  what  he  said.  But,'  says  I,  'th'  on'y 
books  in  me  libr'y  is  th'  Bible  an'  Shakespeare,' 
says  I.  'I  use  thim  f'r  purposes  iv  deflnse.  I 
have  niver  read  thim,  but  I'll  niver  read  anny- 
thing  else  till  I  have  read  thim,'  I  says.  *They 
shtand  between  me  an'  all  modrhen  lithra- 
choor,'  says  I.  'I've  built  thim  up  into  a  kind 
iv  breakwater,'  I  says,  'an*  I  set  behind  It  ca'm 
an'  contint  while  Hall  Caine  rages  without,* 
says  I." 

Mr.  Dooley  remarks  apropos  of  Car- 
negie's libraries:  **Ye  bet  he  didn't 
larn  how  to  make  steel  billets  out  iv 
'Whin  Knighthood  was  in  Flower'." 
But  his  perfect  observation  on  the  ef- 
fects of  reading  and  the  causes  of  it 
is: 

"Readin',  me  frind,  is  talked  about  be  all 
readin'  people  as  though  it  was  th'  on'y  thing 
that  makes  a  man  better  thin  his  neighbors. 
But  th'  thruth  Is  that  readin'  is  the  nex'  thing 
this  side  iv  goin*  to  bed  f'r  restin'  th'  mind. 
With  mos'  people  it  takes  th'  place  iv  wurruk. 
A  man  doesn't  think  whin  he's  readin',  or,  if 
he  has  to,  th'  book  is  no  fun.  Did  ye  iver 
have  something  to  do  that  ye  ought  to  do,  but 
didn't  want  to,  an'  while  ye  was  wishin'  ye 
was  dead,  did  ye  happen  to  pick  up  a  news- 
paper? Ye  know  what  occurred.  Ye  didn't 
jus'  skim  through  th'  spoortin'  IntUlygince 
an'  th'  crime  news.  Whin  ye  got  through  with 
thim,  ye  read  th'  other  quarther  iv  th'  pa-aper. 
Ye  read  about  people  ye  niver  heerd  iv,  an' 
happenin's  ye  didn't  undershtand — ^th'  fashion 
notes,  th'  theatrical  gossip,  th'  s'ciety  news 
fr'm   Peoria,   th'  quotations  on   oats,  th'  curb 


market,  th*  rale-estate  transfers,  th*  marredge 
licenses,  th*  death  notices,  th'  want  ads,  th* 
dhrygoods  l>argains,  an'  even  th*  iditoryals. 
Thin  ye  r-read  thim  over  again,  with  a  faint 
idee  ye'd  read  thim  befure.  Thin  ye  yawned, 
studied  th  'design  iv  th*  carpet,  an'  settled 
down  to  wurruk.  Was  ye  exercisin*  ye-er  joynt 
inteUeck  while  ye  was  readin'?  No  more  thin 
if  ye'd  been  whistlin'  or  writin'  ye-er  name  on 
a  pa-aper.  If  anny  wan  else  but  me  come 
along  they  might  say :  'What  a  mind  Hin- 
nissy  has !  He's  always  readin*  *.  But  I  wud 
kick  th  'book  or  pa-aper  out  Iv  ye'er  hand,  an* 
grab  ye  be  th'  collar,  an'  cry,  'Up,  Hinnissy,  an' 
to  wurruk !'  f'r  I'd  know  ye  were  loafln'.  Be- 
lieve me,  Hinnissy,  readin'  is  not  thinkln'.  It 
seems  like  it,  an'  whin  it  comes  out  in  talk 
sometimes,  it  sounds  like  it.  It's  a  kind  iv 
nearthought  that  looks  ginooine  to  th'  thought- 
less, but  ye  can't  get  annything  on  it.  Blanny 
a  man  I've  knowed  has  so  doped  hlmsilf  with 
books  that  he'd  stumble  over  a  carpet -tack." 

A  book  of  definitions  compiled  from 
the  observations  of  Mr.  Dooley  would 
be  one  of  the  most  accurate  dictiona- 
ries of  human  relations  ever  published. 
Here  are  two  samples:  'Th'  interest 
iv  capital  an'  labor  is  th'  same,  wan 
thryin'  to  make  capital  out  iv  labor 
an'  th'  other  thryin'  to  make  laborin' 
men  out  iv  capitalists".  Anarchists: 
"They  don't  want  annjrthing,  that's 
what  they  want.  They  want  peace  on 
earth  an'  th'  way  they  propose  to  get 
it  is  be  murdhrin'  ivry  man  that  don't 
agree  with  thim.  They  think  we  all 
shud  do  as  they  please." 

Mr.  Dooley  on  the  Dreyfus  case  is 
so  uniformly  entertaining  that  it  is 
impossible  to  quote  samples.  But  as 
well  as  entertaining  the  reader,  Mr. 
Dunne  knows  how  to  tell  a  real  short 
story,  by  means  of  Mr.  Dooley. 
"Shaughnessy"  in  "Mr.  Dooley  in  the 
Hearts  of  His  Countnnnen"  is  an  ex- 
ample and  there  are  others  through- 
out the  eight  volumes. 

In  conclusion  we  may  take  Mr.  Door 
ley^s  own  estimate  of  his  character. 

"D'ye  know  I'd  Uke  to  be  an  iditor,"  said 
Mr.  Dooley. 

"It  must  be  a  hard  Job,**  said  Mr.  Hennessy. 
"Ye  have  to  know  so  much.*' 

"  'T  is  a  hard  job,"  said  Mr.  Dooley,  "but 't  is 
a  fascinatin'  wan.     They'se  nawthin'  so  hard 


SHAKESPEARE? 


677 


as  mindin*  ye-er  own  business  an*  an  iditor 
nivir  has  to  do  that.  He's  like  mesilf.  I'm 
sick  iv'  th*  perpetchool  round  iv  ezaminin* 
th'  beer  pump  an'  countin*  up  th'  receipts.  I 
want  to  put  on  me  hat  an'  go  out  an'  take  a 
peek  at  th'  neighborhood.  How's  Clancy  get- 
tin'  on  with  his  wife?  Is  it  thrue  she  hates 
him  ?  How's  Schwartzmeister's  business  ?  Whin 
is  Flannigan  goin'  to  paint  his  bam?  Afther 
I  get  through  with  me  investigations  I  come 
back  here  an'  give  ye  me  opinyion  on  th'  topics 
iv  th'  day.  Be  hivens,  I  am  an  iditor  in  me 
way.  All  I  need  is  a  cover  iv  a  yellow  man 
hittin'  a  blue  goluf  ball  with  a  green  shtick 
to  be  wan  iv  th'  gr-reatest  newspapers  th' 
wurruld  iver  see.  An'  if  it  wasn't  f'r  th'  likes 
iv  ye,  I  wudden't  be  alive.     Ye're  me  circula- 


tion. Ye're  small,  Hinnissy,  but  ye're  silict. 
Ye  want  to  know  what's  goin'  on  an'  ye  want 
some  wan  to  make  up  ye'er  mind  about  it  an' 
I  give  ye  th'  ivints  iv  th'  day  an'  tell  ye  what 
they  all  mane." 

The  only  reason  why  Finley  Peter 
Dunne  has  not  gone  down  hill  in  his 
humor  is  because  he  seems  to  take 
periodic  rests  from  the  strenuousness 
of  making  Mr.  Dooley  our  national 
character.  We  have  not  seen  him 
much  in  recent  years.  Let  us  hope 
that  his  creator  is  taking  a  good  rest 
but  a  short  one. 


SHAKESPEARE  ? 


BY  EDWIN  BJORKMAN 


SUPPOSE  you  used  to  know  a  lad 
out  in  Keokuk,  Iowa,  say,  whose 
folks  were  pretty  well  off  as  things 
go  in  a  small  town,  and  of  some  im- 
portance locally.  The  lad  himself  was 
rather  bright,  although  he  never  car- 
ried it  far  enough  to  become  the  vale- 
dictorian at  a  high  school  commence- 
ment. Whatever  chances  he  had  as  a 
scholar,  however,  were  spoiled  by  a 
sudden  marriage  to  a  woman  eight 
years  his  senior,  under  circumstances 
indicating  a  certain  lack  of  free  choice 
on  his  part.  He  was  only  eighteen  at 
the  time,  and  when  the  first  kid  came 
a  few  months  after  the  wedding,  many 
people  did  not  know  whether  to  put 
the  blame  on  him  or  on  the  woman.  A 
couple  of  years  later  he  disappeared 
quietly,  and  there  were  those'  who 
thought  the  place  well  rid  of  him,  par- 
ticularly because  his  exit  was  gener- 
ally connected  with  the  simultaneous 
departure   of  a   traveling  theatrical 


company.  Some  time  afterward  it 
was  whispered  about  that  the  lad  had 
become  head  usher,  or  something  of 
that  kind,  at  one  of  the  leading  New 
York  theatres,  and  that  he  was  send- 
ing home  money  to  his  family. 

Suppose  further  that,  only  four  or 
five  years  later,  you  caught  sight  of 
the  selfsame  lad  on  Broadway,  look- 
ing all  tailor-made  and  grand.  Ques- 
tioning one  who  ought  to  know,  you 
were  told  that  he  was  part  owner  of 
the  Belasco  theatre,  that  his  acting 
compared  favorably  with  that  of  any 
Barrymore,  that  he  had  just  touched 
up  an  old  Clyde  Fitch  play  so  that 
everybody  was  crazy  about  it,  and 
that,  finally,  he  had  had  four  or  five 
big  plays  of  his  own  produced  and 
would  publish  them  as  soon  as  their 
"runs'*  ceased. 

Would  you  quarrel  with  any  one  for 
looking  skeptical  in  the  face  of  such 
a  story?    It  is  the  very  story  we  have 


678 


THE  BOOKMAN 


been   told   about   Shakespeare   these 
last  three  hundred  years. 

Unlike  many  others,  I  am  not  pre- 
pared to  declare  it  intrinsically  impos- 
sible. One  never  knows  what  genius 
may  do.  And  those  were  remarkable 
days,  full  of  remarkable  men  that 
seemed  to  set  at  naught  all  the  rules 
of  ordinary  life.  Think  only  of  Kit 
Marlowe  of  "the  mighty  line".  He 
was  not  yet  twenty-three  when  he 
completed  the  two  parts  of  his  "Tam- 
burlaine  the  Great".  He  died  at 
twenty-nine,  leaving  behind  a  body  of 
work  comparing  favorably  with  what 
is  usually  claimed  as  Shakespeare's  at 
about  the  same  age.  And  he  was  only 
a  shoemaker's  son.  To  be  sure,  he  did 
not  marry  at  eighteen,  and  he  had  a 
university  education,  but  that  is  about 
the  only  difference.  Yet  no  one  has 
ever  questioned  the  authorship  of  the 
plays  published  as  Marlowe's,  though 
only  two  or  three  of  them  seem  to 
have  been  printed  before  his  death. 

The  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  tells 
us  that  we  had  reached  the  middle  of 
the  last  century  before  any  one  dared 
to  suggest  that  Shakespeare  had  not 
written  his  own  plays.  The  fact  is, 
however,  that  some  sort  of  mystery 
has  been  connected  with  the  author- 
ship of  those  plays  ever  since  the  days 
when  Shakespeare  still  lived.  Plays 
now  ascribed  to  him  were  published 
piratically  without  any  known  protest 
on  his  part,  while  other  plays,  not  his 
at  all,  were  wrongfully  published  in 
his  name  with  the  same  negative  re- 
sult. Take  the  books  of  an  orthodox 
Shakespearian  scholar  like  Charles 
Knight,  for  instance,  who  wrote  be- 
fore any  Baconian  cryptogram  or 
acrosticon  had  yet  upset  the  temper  of 
the  learned  world.  Right  through  his 
biography  and  his  "Studies  of  Shake- 
speare", he  takes  up  a  defensive  posi- 
tion  on  behalf  of  the  Bard.     Why 


should  such  a  position  be  required? 
No  one  seems  to  think  it  necessary  to 
assume  a  similar  attitude  when  deal- 
ing with  Marlowe  or  Jonson  or  Fran- 
cis Beaumont.  Yet  Shakespeare  was 
greater  than  all  the  rest,  and  to  prove 
that  his  own  contemporaries  thought 
so,  we  are  told  what  Francis  Meres 
said  about  him  in  his  "Wif  s  Treas- 
ure" in  1598.  But  in  the  very  same 
work  the  same  man  spoke  of  Ben  Jon- 
son as  "one  of  our  best  in  tragedjr",  al- 
though we  are  not  aware  of  any  trag- 
edy completed  by  Jonson  up  to  that 
time. 

Let  us  return  to  the  lad  from  Keo- 
kuk  for   another   minute.     Suppose 
that,  after  you  had  hesitatingly  swal- 
lowed the  wonderful  story  of  his  rise 
and  dramatic  achievements,  some  new 
informer  came  with  a  whispered  tale 
about   a  silent   literary   partnership 
with  an  eccentric  man  of  wealth  and 
high  birth,  whereby  the  lad  got  the 
whole  glory  of  their  conmion  labors, 
while  the  man  behind  was  enabled  to 
work  in  freedom  without  being  an- 
noyed by  his  many  enemies.    Would 
you  not  be  rather  inclined  to  think 
this  latter  story  quite  plausible?    And 
if  someone  should  tell  you  on  hearing 
it,  that  such  a  partnership  could  never 
be  kept  secret  for  any  length  of  time 
— ^well,   do  you   recall   the   story   of 
William  Sharp,  who  kept  the  identity 
of  "Fiona  Macleod"  completely  hidden 
for  eleven  long  years,  or  until  it  was 
revealed    by    his    widow    after    his 
death  in  1905?    Make  one  more  sup- 
position:   that  Mrs.   Sharp  had  not 
given  the  story  of  her  husband's  dual 
authorship  to  the  world,  and  that  some 
literary  student  had  got  fragmentary 
proofs  of  it  years  after  her  death. 
What  do  you  think  would  have  hap- 
pened? Do  you  think  that  the  identity 
of  William  Sharp  and  "Fiona  Mac- 


SHAKESPEARE? 


679 


leod''  had  ever  become  generally  ac- 
cepted under  such  circumstances? 

Applying  this  analogy  to  the  case  of 
Shakespeare,  the  defenders  of  the  or- 
thodox view  will  again  retort  with  a 
volley  of  contemporary  references  to 
Shakespeare,  forgetting  that  in  almost 
every  instance,  as  far  as  I  can  make 
out,  such  references  were  aimed  at  the 
work  rather  than  the  man.  Men  like 
Bamfield  and  Davies  and  Weever  and 
Freeman  spoke  of  the  author  of  the 
poems  and  the  plays  just  as  I  am  likely 
at  any  time  to  speak  of  Anatole 
France,  whom  I  have  never  had  the 
privilege  of  meeting  in  the  flesh,  but 
whose  existence  as  an  author  I  take 
for  granted  on  the  basis  of  the  speci- 
mens of  his  work  found  on  my  shelves. 
If  another  man  of  higher  position 
stood  behind  Shakespeare,  either  as 
collaborator  or  as  sole  author,  and  if 
that  man  earnestly  wished  not  to  be 
known,  then  the  possibility  of  his  un- 
known presence  cannot  be  explained 
away  by  any  number  of  open  mention- 
ings  of  the  man  whose  name  he  was 
deliberately  using.  And  if  you  believe 
it  impossible  for  a  man  to  take  such 
an  attitude  in  regard  to  his  own  work, 
you  have  only  to  turn  about  and  ob-^ 
serve  the  absolute  indifference  dis- 
played by  Shakespeare  himself  toward 
the  work  reputed  to  be  his. 

What  I  have  just  said  implies  no 
conclusion  on  my  part  either  in  regard 
to  the  authorship  of  the  Shakespearian 
plays  or  in  regard  to  the  theory  now 
advanced  by  Mr.  Looney.  What  I  be- 
lieve quite  humbly,  and  have  believed 
for  years,  is  that  certain  mysterious 
circumstances  attach  to  the  reputed 
authorship  of  those  plays,  and  that 
the  problem — or  rather  group  of  prob- 
lems— involved  will  continue  to  chal- 
lenge every  open-minded  student  of 
English  literature  until  it  is  settled 
by  some  discovery  of  documents  or 


facts  hitherto  unknown.  For  this 
reason  I  hold  that  every  sincere  effort 
like  that  of  Mr.  Looney's  must  be  wel- 
comed, not  as  a  proof  of  what  cannot 
be  proved  by  mere  reasoning,  but  as 
a  starting  point  for  new,  and  maybe 
more  fruitful  research.  There  is  noth- 
ing sacrilegious  about  such  an  atti- 
tude. Those  who  protest  in  horror 
are,  as  a  rule,  protesting  unconsciously 
on  behalf  of  the  personality  read  out 
of  the  plays  rather  than  on  behalf  of 
the  man  whose  name  appears  on  the 
title  pages.  There  has  been  far  too 
much  idolatry  practised  in  the  name 
of  Shakespeare,  and  the  problems  con- 
nected with  his  real  or  reputed 
achievements  have  been  additionally 
obscured  by  it.  Generations  of  schol- 
ars have  striven  stubbornly  to  fit  the 
works  into  the  Procrustean  bed  fur- 
nished by  the  miserable  store  of  avail- 
able biographical  and  chronological 
facts.  Texts  have  been  read  and  ref- 
erences construed  with  a  wholly  one- 
sided reference  to  their  favorable  or 
unfavorable  bearing  on  the  estab- 
lished ideas  about  the  man  behind  the 
works.  Yet  innumerable  people  of  the 
highest  critical  acumen  seem,  from 
the  very  start,  to  have  been  troubled 
by  a  sense  of  hopeless  conflict  between 
the  impression  of  stolidity  and  thrift 
conveyed  by  the  Stratford  actor,  and 
the  passionate  aspiration  and  flaming 
fancy  of  the  soul  seen  through  the 
plays  and  the  poems. 

The  effort  of  Mr.  Looney  to  solve 
this  conflict  is  a  little  unfortunate  in 
some  respects,  though  most  interest- 
ing in  many  others.  A  schoolmaster 
by  profession,  he  is  inclined  to  speak 
like  one.  A  discoverer  in  fields  where 
many  have  toiled  in  vain,  he  has  the 
fanaticism  of  a  man  thinking  himself 
possessed  of  a  new  truth.  A  palpable 
sufferer  of  what  the  psychoanalysts 
call    a   "self-assertion    complex",    he 


680 


THE  BOOKMAN 


must  needs  make  enemies  for  his  own 
cause  by  presenting  it  as  aggressively 
as  possible.  Claiming  to  be  a  scientist 
and  deploring  the  absence  of  the  true 
scientific  spirit  in  literary  men,  he 
fails  utterly  to  grasp  the  modest  cau- 
tion that  prevented  a  Darwin  from 
dogmatic  formulation  of  the  theories 
later  named  after  him.  All  this  is  the 
more  to  be  regretted  because  so  much 
of  the  objectionable  matter  appears  at 
the  beginning  of  the  book,  where  it  is 
most  likely  to  repel  a  sensitive  or 
prejudiced  reader.  This  granted,  how- 
ever, there  remains  for  the  more  pa- 
tient a  body  of  documentary  revela- 
tion and  literary  conjecture  that  can- 
not fail  to  set  open  minds  thinking 
very  seriously. 

The  man  on  whom  Mr.  Looney  wants 
to  bestow  the  laurels  so  long  held  by 
Shakespeare  is  Edward  de  Vere,  sev- 
enteenth Earl  of  Oxford.  An  air  of 
romance  and  mystery  has  always  sur- 
rounded the  figure  of  him  who  was 
generally  recognized  as  the  foremost 
noble  of  Elizabeth's  illustrious  court. 
''An  uplifted  shadow  lies  across  his 
memory,"  wrote  Dr.  A.  B.  Grosart 
who,  in  the  seventies,  collected  and 
published  the  small  group  of  poems 
constituting  the  only  work  authorita- 
tively assigned  to  Oxford.  The  bio- 
graphical material  at  our  disposal  is 
extremely  scant  and  generally  discol- 
ored by  open  or  veiled  sneers.  Yet 
this  very  man  was  known  to  his  con- 
temporaries as  a  poet  and  playwright 
of  unusual  gifts.  Mr.  Looney  quotes 
among  others  Puttenham  (one  of  two 
brothers — George  or  Richard — we 
don't  know  which)  as  saying,  in  his 
"The  Arte  of  English  Poesie"  (1589), 
that  the  Earl  of  Oxford  "deserves  the 
highest  praise  for  comedy  and  inter- 
lude". Quoting  him  at  second-hand, 
from  Sir  Sidney  Lee's  article  in  the 
Dictionary    of    National    Biography, 


Mr.  Looney  has  failed  to  discover  an- 
other passage  in  the  same  work  that 
suggests  the  very  policy  of  disguise 
which  forms  a  part  of  his  own  theory : 

"And  in  her  Maiesties  time  that 
now  is  are  sprong  up  an  other  crew 
of  Courtly  makers  Noble  men  and 
Gentlemen  of  her  Maiesties  own  serv- 
antes,  who  have  written  excellently 
well  as  it  would  appeare  if  their  doings 
could  be  found  out  and  made  publicke 
with  the  rest,  of  which  number  is  first 
that  noble  Gentleman  Edward  Earle 
of  Oxford."  (Chapter  XXXI;  page 
75;  English  Reprints  edited  by  Ed- 
ward Arber;   London,  1869.) 

What  put  Mr.  Looney  on  the  track 
of  his  particular  candidate  for  Shake- 
spearian honors  was  the  discovery 
that  out  of  twenty-two  poems  known 
to  be  the  work  of  Oxford,  and  known 
in  most  cases  to  have  been  produced 
before  1576,  not  less  than  seven  are 
made  up  of  stanzas  identical  in  metre 
and  rhyming  scheme  with  those  made 
familiar  to  the  whole  world  by  the 
poem  of  "Venus  and  Adonis".  Start- 
ing from  this  point,  Mr.  Looney  found, 
or  thought  he  found,  an  unmistakable 
correspondence  between  the  style  and 
spirit  of  the  acknowledged  Oxford 
poems  and  the  earlier  works  of  Shake- 
speare. Thus  he  was  led  into  a  de- 
tailed study  of  the  life  of  Oxford,  and 
it  was  in  this  manner  he  brought  to 
light  facts  that  call  for  our  serious  at- 
tention. 

The  life  and  character  of  Oxford, 
as  revealed  not  only  by  the  few  biog- 
raphies, but  also  by  the  "Hatfield 
Manuscripts"  and  the  "Calendars  of 
State  Papers",  fit  most  remarkably 
with  the  image  distilled  out  of  the 
plays.  It  would  seem,  too,  that  not  a 
single  fact  out  of  Oxford's  life  as  now 
known  to  us  has  escaped  use  in  the 
plays.  He  was  an  aristrocrat  to  the 
finger   tips,    a    rather    free-thinking 


SHAKESPEARE? 


681 


sympathizer  with  the  old  religion,  and 
a  Lancastrian  by  heredity — ^and  so  ap- 
pears the  man  who  wrote  the  plays. 
Oxford  worshiped  his  father,  who 
died  when  the  boy  was  twelve.  His 
mother  remarried  not  long  after,  and 
her  new  husband  took  up  his  abode  at 
the  palace  which  had  been  particularly 
dear  to  the  older  Oxford.  Here  we 
have  the  familiar  situation  from 
"Hamlet".  The  young  Oxford  became 
a  ward  of  the  Crown — as  was  Bertram 
in  "All's  Weir*.  As  such  he  was  placed 
in  care  of  Lord  Burghley,  then  still 
Sir  William  Cecil,  whose  portrait  as 
drawn  by  Macaulay  tallies  in  the 
minutest  details  with  that  of  Polonius 
— even  to  the  point  of  sending  spies  to 
watch  his  son  on  a  visit  made  by  the 
latter  to  Paris.  At  twenty-one  Ox- 
ford married  the  daughter  of  Lord 
Burghley,  Anne  Cecil,  who  was  then 
fourteen — ^like  Juliet  (which  facts  have 
already  been  used  on  behalf  of  Bacon, 
who  was  a  nephew  of  Burghley,  who 
liked  him  as  little  as  did  Oxford  and 
who,  by  the  by,  must  have  been  thor- 
oughly familiar  with  Oxford's  private 
life). 

More  striking  coincidences  follow. 
While  abroad,  the  Earl  was  warned  by 
a  retainer — lago — about  the  behavior 
of  his  wife.    When  recalled  by  Lord 
Burghley,  he  suspected  his  wife  of 
being  responsible  for  it,  just  as  Othello 
suspected  Desdemona.    Being  anxious 
to  arrange  a  reconciliation  and  finding 
himself  balked  by  Oxford's  stubborn 
reserve.  Lord  Burghley  finally  cooked 
up  a  plot  by  which  the  Earl  was  lured 
into  sleeping  with  his  own  wife  with- 
out being  aware  of  her  identity — ^just 
as  Bertram  is  reconciled  with  Helena. 
While  in  Italy,  Oxford  wrote  a  letter 
liome  in  which  he  mentions  a  wealthy 
I^aduan,  Baptista  Nigrone,  from  whom 
lie  had  had  to  borrow  five  hundred 


crowns.  In  the  same  letter  he  mentions 
another  Italian,  Benedict  Spinola.  The 
father  of  Katherine  in  "The  Taming  of 
the  Shrew"  is  named  Baptista  Minola, 
and  it  is  practically  the  only  Italian 
play  where  Shakespeare  speaks  of 
crowns  instead  of  ducats.  In  later 
years  Oxford  was  a  close  friend  of  the 
young  Southampton,  to  whom  the 
"Venus  and  Adonis"  and  "The  Rape 
of  Lucrece"  are  dedicated.  It  was 
proposed  that  Southampton  should 
marry  Oxford's  eldest  daughter,  and 
the  Earl  was  very  much  in  favor  of  it 
— ^which  brings  into  our  minds  the 
first  seventeen  of  the  sonnets.  Like 
Hamlet  and  the  Lord  in  the  "Induc- 
tion" to  "The  Taming  of  the  Shrew", 
Oxford  was  intensely  interested  in 
stagecraft.  He  had  a  company  of 
players  named  popularly  the  "Oxford 
Boys".  He  wrote  and  produced  plays 
of  his  own.  He  associated  with  actors 
and  literary  men  on  such  familiar 
terms  that  his  father-in-law  accused 
him  of  having  been  "enticed  away  by 
lewd  persons".  Above  everything 
else,  however,  he  was  proud,  passion- 
ate, generous,  witty,  eccentric,  and 
given  to  melancholy — ^just  as  we  would 
expect  the  writer  of  the  Shakespearian 
plays  and  poems  to  be. 

It  is  impossible  in  an  article  like 
this  to  do  justice  to  the  wealth  of  evi- 
dence collected  by  Mr.  Looney,  or  to 
the  ingenuity  displayed  by  him  in  its 
coordination.  Perhaps  the  most  re- 
markable aspect  of  his  labors  is  that 
they  affect  not  only  the  central  prob- 
lem of  William  Shakespeare's  relation 
to  the  work  named  after  him,  but  a 
whole  series  of  literary  enigmas  that 
have  puzzled  every  painstaking  stu- 
dent of  this  period  for  nearly  two  hun- 
dred years.  There  is  the  problem  of 
the  lyrics  excluded  from  the  plays  of 
John  Lyly,  author  of  "Euphues"  and 
private  secretary  to  Oxford,  on  their 


682 


THE  BOOKMAN 


first  publication — one  of  which  is 
practically  identical  with  one  of  the 
lyrics  in  ''A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream".  There  is  the  problem  of  the 
shepherd  Willie  in  Edmund  Spenser's 
"The  Shepheard's  Calendar"  (1579) 
and  "Teares  of  the  Muses"  (1590). 
And  so  on.  The  peculiar  thing  is  that 
all  these  problems  seem  to  fall  into 
place  and  form  a  consistent  picture 
the  moment  you  accept  the  theory  of 
Oxford's  connection  with  the  Shake- 
spearian plays. 

Mr.  Looney  thinks  he  has  proved 
this  theory.     Of  course,  he  has  not. 


But  he  has  opened  most  promising 
vistas,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  his 
leads  will  be  followed  up.  The  days 
are  past  when  a  new  Shakespearian 
theory  can  be  laughed  out  of  court. 
And  the  days  should  be  past  when  all 
the  facts  bearing  on  such  theories 
are  studied  with  a  single  aim  in 
view.  In  this  as  in  all  other  cases, 
we  should  be  moved  solely  by  a  desire 
for  truth,  and  nothing  that  may  be 
helpful  in  finding  it  should  be  de- 
spised. 


"Shakespeare"  Identified  in  Edward  de  Vere, 
The  Seventeenth  Barl  of  Oxford.  By  J.  Thomas 
Looney.     Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co. 


A  SHELF  OF  RECENT  BOOKS 


DEAD  OR  ALIVE 

By  Theodore  Maynard 

IT  ought  to  be  a  salutary  reminder 
of  mortality  to  every  famous  per- 
sonage to  know  that  every  well-regu- 
lated periodical  has  his  biography  pre- 
pared against  the  day  of  his  death. 
Those  winding-sheets  of  paper  lie 
neatly  folded  in  their  pigeonholes 
ready  for  instant  use.  A  man  is 
valued  according  to  the  amount  of 
copy  that  is  written  about  him.  Gen- 
erally the  biographer  will  allow  a  de- 
cent interval  to  elapse;  but  so  great 
is  our  human  curiosity  that  we  grow 
impatient  at  times  and  seek  to  catch 
our  celebrity  dead  or  alive.  There  is 
a  price  upon  his  head. 

Of  two  recent  books  of  personal 
criticism,  that  written  by  Horace 
G.  Hutchinson  follows  the  older  meth- 
od  of   allowing   a   fair   interim   be- 


tween the  death  and  the  discussion  of 
his  subject;  that  written  by  E.  T. 
Raymond  frankly  professes  to  concern 
itself  only  with  such  people  as  are  of 
present  public  interest.  Many  of  his 
people,  of  course,  will  not  be  remem- 
bered very  long;  but  they  are  being 
talked  about  now.  Ck)nsequently  Mr. 
Raymond  is  willing  to  barter  any  two 
birds  of  permanence  in  the  bush  for 
the  piquant  bird  he  has  in  his  hand. 

Mr.  Hutchinson's  collection  of 
studies  "Portraits  of  the  Eighties"  is 
the  acknowledged  sequel  to  G.  W.  E. 
Russell's  "Portraits  of  the  Seventies", 
just  as  that  volume  was  the  acknowl- 
edged sequel  to  Justin  McCarthy's 
"Portraits  of  the  Sixties".  And  Mr. 
Hutchinson  is  able  to  emphasize  the 
continuity  of  the  series  by  beginning 
with  a  chapter  on  Mr.  Russell,  in  imi- 
tation of  Mr.  Russell  himself  who  be- 
gan his  book  by  a  portrait  of  his  fore- 
runner, Mr.  McCarthy. 


DEAD  OR  ALIVE 


688 


A  certain  amount  of  overlapping  is 
inevitable.  Gladstone  and  Disraeli, 
Chamberlain  and  Pamell,  among 
others,  reappear  several  times;  and 
the  latest  gleaner  in  the  field  has  found  ^ 
that  former  harvesters  have  thinned 
it  considerably.  Nevertheless,  I  can- 
not feel  that  Mr.  Hutchinson  would 
have  done  much  better  under  far  more 
favorable  circumstances.  He  is  sen- 
sible and  he  has  taken  pains.  But  he 
lacks  the  charm  of  Russell  or  Mc- 
Carthy; and  he  writes  (or  gives  the 
reader  the  impression  of  writing) 
from  the  outside  of  his  subject,  where- 
as his  fellow  biographers  wrote  with 
evident  inside  information.  Mr.  Rus- 
sell was  always  exquisitely  discreet. 
He  managed  the  difficult  trick  of  being 
confidential  without  breaking  confi- 
dences. But  Mr.  Hutchinson,  though 
he  announces  his  desire  not  to  "ad- 
minister shocks  to  persons  still  alive", 
has,  I  suspect,  very  little  shocking  ma- 
terial at  his  command. 

I  would  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that 
"Portraits  of  the  Eighties"  are  daubs. 
They  are  pleasing  designs  in  the  con- 
ventional style  quite  competently  exe- 
cuted. The  book  is  full  of  important 
facts  brought  together  in  an  accessible 
form.  But  Mr.  Hutchinson  has  little 
penetration  and  suffers  in  any  com- 
parison that  is  drawn  between  his 
work,  which  may  be  admitted  to  be 
good,  and  the  work  which  is  entitled 
to  be  called  excellent  of  some  recent 
writers. 

To  take  a  definite  point  at  which  it 
may  be  compared  with  the  most  bril- 
liant of  contemporary  biographers, 
Lytton  Strachey,  let  us  select  the 
Gordon  of  "The  Eighties"  and  the 
Gordon  of  "Eminent  Victorians".  In 
Mr.  Strachey's  hands  the  strangest  of 
all  evangelicals,  with  his  open  Bible 
and  his  open  handy  bottle,  becomes 
vividly  alive.    And  the  combined  hesi- 


tation and  intrigue  by  means  of  which 
Gordon  was  sent  to  his  death  are  un- 
raveled with  the  most  masterly  irony. 
Mr.  Hutchinson,  however,  in  touching 
the  same  theme,  fumbles.  On  page  89 
he  tells  us,  correctly  enough,  that  Gor- 
don, being  the  man  he  was,  believed 
that  a  special  intervention  of  Provi- 
dence would  occur.  "It  is  quite  im- 
possible", he  adds,  "to  think  that  the 
British  Government  believed  it;  never- 
theless it  sent  him  out."  But  ten 
pages  later  he  weakly  admits,  "After 
all  it  is  not  wholly  impossible  that 
there  were  those  in  the  Cabinet  who 
believed  that  Gordon  might  be  granted 
a  peculiar  portion  of  the  divine  help." 
Now  this  is  not  ordinary  inconsistency 
— ^which  is  a  perfectly  pardonable 
thing.  It  is  helpless  wavering  on  the 
very  centre  of  his  argument,  and 
serves  not  to  illuminate  Gordon  or 
Gladstone  or  Hartington  or  Cromer 
but  merely  to  show  that  Mr.  Hutchin- 
son is  incapable  of  making  up  his 
mind. 

If  the  author  of  "Portraits  of  the 
Eighties"  is  afraid  of  conclusions  and 
generalizations,  the  author  of  "All  and 
Sundry"  is  afraid  of  neither.  The 
only  fear  he  betrays  is  the  fear  of 
being  dull.  The  only  model  he  fol- 
lows is  that  set  up  in  his  earlier  "Un- 
censored  Celebrities".  He  is  at  all 
times  original,  even  to  the  degree  of 
whimsicality;  and  he  makes  his  ef- 
fects by  means  of  paradox  and  epi- 
grams. Mr.  Raymond's  desire  to  be 
striking  may  have  its  disadvantages; 
it  hardly  leads,  for  instance,  to  his- 
torical impartiality;  but  it  enables 
him  to  make  everything  he  touches  in- 
tensely interesting. 

I  have  said  that  E.  T.  Raymond  is 
"original".  So  he  is  in  the  mode  of 
presenting  his  theme.  Apart  from  his 
amusing  literary  tricks,  however, 
there  is  not  much  in  what  he  has  to 


684 


THE  BOOKMAN 


say.  His  philosophy  is  derived  from 
Carlyle,  his  wit  is  on  the  Chesterton 
model,  and  his  information  is  culled 
from  the  newspapers.  These  elements 
are  fused  together  into  an  alloy  that 
at  first  glance  appears  to  be  a  new 
metal.  There  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  examine  it  more  closely. 

Mr.  Raymond  is  delicately  impu- 
dent in  his  sketches  of  "All  and  Sun- 
dry"; and  it  is  this  light  irreverence 
that  is  his  chief  attraction.  He  never 
says  a  really  bitter  thing,  even  where 
he  should  say  it;  but  on  the  other 
hand  he  never  stints  his  banter.  No- 
body could  be  offended  or  fail  to  be  en- 
tertained by  it — not  even  those  who 
squirm  under  it;  for  Raymond's  hu- 
mor is  invariably  good-humored. 

I  can  best  illustrate  his  method  by 
examples.  Dean  Inge's  face,  he  says, 
is  that  "of  a  quiet  fanatic  whose  main 
trouble  is  that  he  has  nothing  very  ob- 
vious to  be  fanatical  about".  And 
Herbert  Samuel  "moves  towards  his 
object  with  a  sort  of  inexorable  gen- 
tleness, as  of  a  Juggernaut  car  fitted 
with  pneumatic  tyres".  Comments  in 
the  same  vein  are  offered  upon  Presi- 
dent Wilson,  Rudyard  Kipling  (the 
one  man  of  his  group  Mr.  Raymond 
comes  nearest  to  disliking),  Conan 
Doyle,  Harold  Begbie,  and  T.  P.  O'Con- 
nor. Unqualified  or  almost  unquali- 
fied praise  is  reserved  for  the  two 
Frenchmen  in  "All  and  Sundry",  Cle- 
menceau  and  Foch.  But  whether  in 
praise  or  persiflage  the  book  is  highly 
readable. 

It  is  a  pity  that  Neville  Chamber- 
lain was  not  included  as  one  of  Mr. 
Raymond's  subjects.  A  good  deal  of 
fun  could  have  been  extracted  out  of 
the  widely  advertised  and  inefficient 
Minister  of  National  Service.  I  can- 
not refrain  from  retailing  a  mot  that 
a  man  I  knew  went  round  repeating  in 
the  London  clubs.    It  seems  to  me  to 


sum  up  bureaucratic  futility.  "Neville 
Chamberlain",  he  was  wont  to  say 
gravely,  "may  take  a  long  time  before 
he  is  able  to  make  the  wrong  decision 
— ^but  he  makes  it  in  the  end  I" 


Portraite  of  the  Eighties.  By  Horace  Q. 
Hutchinson.    Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

All  and  Sundry.  By  B.  T.  Raymond.  Henry 
Holt  and  Co. 


FOLK  AND  NATURE  VIGNETTES 
By  Walter  Prichard  Eaton 

HUDSON'S  "Adventures  Among 
Birds"  has  been  issued  newly  and 
rather  dubiously  adorned  with  repro- 
ductions of  the  wood-cuts  in  Bewick's 
"British  Birds".  Not  having  been  re- 
cut  by  some  competent  engraver,  and 
being  printed  on  paper  unsuited  to  the 
purpose,  the  effect  is  something  of  a 
libel  on  Bewick.  We  should  best  like  to 
see  this  lovely  and  gentle  book  of  Hud- 
son's illustrated  with  scenes  from  the 
countryside  through  which  he  wan- 
dered, drawn  after  the  manner,  let  us 
say,  of  Edmund  New.  Though  styled 
adventures  among  birds,  the  work  in 
reality  is  a  record  of  adventures 
among  men  and  women,  children  and 
trees,  green  hedgerows  and  sedgy 
marshes,  wild  hills  and  rich  valleys, 
with  a  kind  of  bird-song  obligate. 
Hudson  is  a  trifle  sentimental  about 
bird  music,  to  be  sure ;  or  shall  we  say 
that  he  does  not  quite  possess  the 
sharp,  definite,  apt  phrasing  of  Thor- 
eau  to  relieve  his  praises  from  the 
suggestion  of  sentimentality?  About 
folks,  however,  he  has  more  to  say 
than  Thoreau  ever  did,  and  such  vi- 
gnettes as  that  of  the  workman's  fam- 
ily with  whom  he  boarded  in  Hamp- 
shire have  the  clear  simplicity  and 
profound    human    sympathy    of    the 


A  VOYAGE   TOWARD  REALITY 


685 


finest  art.  Fine,  too,  is  his  indi^n^a- 
tion  at  the  British  game-keepers  (and 
the  game-keepers*  employers)  who 
slaughter  every  kind  of  bird  in  order 
— supposedly — to  "protect"  the  pheas- 
ants. He  even  tells  of  one  keeper  who 
killed  the  nightingales  because  they 
kept  the  pheasants  awake!  We  may 
have  much  to  learn  from  England,  but 
it  certainly  is  not  about  game  laws. 
No  man's  property  is  his  own,  to  kill 
what  he  pleases  upon,  in  America. 
He  has  to  respect  the  general  welfare, 
thank  God. 

But  perhaps  the  most  delightful 
part  of  Hudson's  book — as  it  has  been 
of  other  books  he  has  written — is  that 
in  which  he  gathers  up  various  au- 
thenticated anecdotes  of  bird  and  ani- 
mal behavior.  Done,  to  be  sure,  with 
a  scientific  purpose,  his  literary  art 
and  his  profound  love  for  all  wild 
creatures  make  of  each  anecdote  some- 
thing as  unlike  a  scientific  illustration 
as  a  Rembrandt  etching  is  unlike  an 
engineer's  diagram.  The  chapter  on 
bird  and  animal  friendships  is  as  en- 
tertaining as  it  is  astonishing.  It  is 
here  that  he  tells  of  the  lonesome 
swan,  who  finally  made  a  companion  of 
a  big  trout,  and  flew  out  of  the  pond 
and  savagely  attacked  the  man  who 
caught  the  fish.  With  this  tale  he, 
quite  wisely,  closes  the  chapter.  There 
are  limits  to  a  layman's  belief. 


Adventures  Among  Birds.     By  W.  H.  Hnd- 
8on.    B.  P.  Dutton  and  Co. 


A  VOYAGE  TOWARD  REALITY 
By  Buth  Murray  UnderhUl 

'  I  'HE  term  realism  has  gathered  a 

X    depressing  sense.     Unjustly  our 

minds  connect  it  with  accuracy  about 

the  less  welcome  facts  of  life,  pictures 


of  dulness  or  brutality.  Yet  we  admit 
reality  to  be  miraculous.  To  eyes  not 
so  jaded  as  ours,  the  spectacle  of  hu- 
man beings  against  their  background 
of  aeons  and  planets  would  be  absorb- 
ing, entry  into  the  mind  of  one  such 
being,  even  at  his  dullest  moment,  a 
stupendous  adventure. 

Such  eyes  Virginia  Woolf  has, 
toward  such  an  adventure  she  leads 
us  in  her  two  novels  "The  Voyage 
Out"  and  "Night  and  Day"  (the  latter 
forthcoming).  These  are  stories  of 
pleasant  people,  who  move  quietly 
through  a  quiet  environment.  Yet 
they  are  to  be  read  breathlessly.  The 
curious  fabric  of  minute-by-minute 
daily  life,  compound  of  emotion,  sen- 
sation, thoughts  half  seized,  actions 
half  intended,  becomes  in  these  pages 
almost  tangible.  The  half  uttered 
sentence,  the  impulse  poignant  and  in- 
explicable, go  to  the  very  roots  of  our 
remembrance  and  produce  a  thrill  of 
revelation.    This  is  true. 

The  plot  of  each  story  is  simple,  for 
it  is  not  outward  events  that,  to  Mrs. 
Woolf,  make  history.  In  "The  Voyage 
Out"  a  young  girl  makes  her  entry 
into  the  world  outside  the  secluded 
home  of  her  maiden  aunts.  But  she  is 
not  plunged  straight  into  a  treasure 
mystery  nor  into  the  chase  of  a  crim- 
inal. She  sails  on  her  father's  ship, 
with  some  clever  and  well-bred  people, 
to  South  America  and,  very  slowly, 
through  their  agency  and  that  of  the 
others  she  meets  at  Santa  Marina,  she 
reaches  some  understanding  of  the 
nature  of  human  beings  and  of  love. 
"Night  and  Day"  has  an  even  simpler 
motive.  A  nice  girl  tries  to  find  her 
way,  among  a  group  of  pleasant  and 
cultured  people  containing  two  young 
men,  toward  the  reality  of  love. 

The  very  young  heroine  is,  at  pres- 
ent, regnant  in  fiction.  She  may  be 
seen  every  month,  directing  a  whole 


686 


THE  BOOKMAN 


staff  of  detectives  or  rescuing  the  busi- 
ness of  her  father  or  lover  from  ruin, 
always  with  perfect  self-possession 
and  knowledge  of  what  she  wants. 
Mrs.  Woolf  s  girls  are  not  of  that 
breed:  they  are  people,  in  all  the  ig- 
norance and  fallibility  that  the  term 
implies.  They  do  not  know  what  they 
want,  but  they  go  out  to  look  for  it. 

To  the  reviewer,  the  opportunity  to 
read  about  people  who  are  real,  but 
intelligent,  is  an  unusual  delight. 
These  people  employ  self-control  and 
common  sense,  even  as  you  and  I,  and 
the  plot  proceeds  without  misunder- 
standing or  murder.  It  is  no  psycho- 
logical disquisition;  it  is  profoundly 
moving.  But,  given  Mrs.  Woolf  s  per- 
spective, it  is  not  the  conventionally 
emotional  scenes  by  which  one  is 
stirred, — it  is  rather  those  reminis- 
cent and  elusive  moments  when  both 
heroine  and  reader  palpitate  at  the  ap- 
proach to  truth. 

The  aura  of  magnificence  about  the 
adventure  is  perhaps  greater  in  "The 
Voyage  Out"  than  in  "Night  and 
Day".  The  splendor  of  the  ocean  and 
of  the  clear-cut  southern  scenery  lends 
a  perspective  to  the  faltering  human 
action  which  London  cannot  supply. 
The  half  expressed  thought,  the  inter- 
rupted sentences  by  which  the  action 
of  "Night  and  Day"  proceeds,  are 
baffling.  Carry  this  sort  of  thing  a 
few  steps  further  and  you  have  Mae- 
terlinck. Yet  even  this  intent  study 
of  a  fragmentary  and  delicate  thing 
strikes  one  as  in  the  spirit  of  Tenny- 
son's "flower  in  the  crannied  wall" 
whose  complete  comprehension  means 
comprehension  of  what  God  and  man 
is. 


The  Voyage  Out ;    Night  and  Day.    By  Vlr- 
glnla  Woolf.     George  H-  Doran  Company. 


AGRICULTURAL  PREDICAMENTS 
By  Walter  A,  Dyer 

BEING  an  amateur  farmer  myself, 
I  suspect  Judge  Shute,  the  orig- 
inal Plupy  and  author  of  "The  Real 
Diary  of  a  Real  Boy",  etc.,  of  not 
being  a  farmer  at  all.  He  finds  too 
much  that  is  funny  in  the  occupation. 
He  may  indeed  have  got  him  a  cow 
and  a  sheep  and  a  couple  of  pigs,  but  I 
think  I  perceive  evidence  of  his  hav- 
ing acquired  them  as  much  for  liter- 
ary purposes  as  for  any  more  prac- 
tical end.  If  they  had  cut  up  as  much 
as  he  says  they  did  he  would  have 
ceased  being  an  agriculturist  before 
the  end  of  the  first  month.  There  is 
nothing  intrinsically  funny,  I  submit, 
in  being  a  farmer.  Other  people  may 
think  so,  but  not  the  farmer  himself. 
Hence  the  doubtful  veracity  of  this 
diary. 

I  can  well  remember  the  day  when 
my  old  cow  Matilda  and  her  fastidious 
daughter  Nancy  saw  fit  to  stray  off 
into  the  orchard  instead  of  into  their 
paddock.  It  was  before  mowing  time 
and  the  grass  was  tall.  Also  it  was 
very  wet,  for  we  had  had  rain.  For 
some  reason  which  the  scientists  may 
be  able  to  explain,  cows  are  always 
particularly  wayward  on  wet  days.  I 
had  been  to  town  and  was  not  dressed 
for  the  part  I  was  called  upon  to  play. 
It  was  most  distressing  to  me.  I  could 
not  possibly  write  a  humorous  account 
of  what  followed.  That  it  must  have 
been  very  funny  I  have  no  doubt,  for 
neighbor  Page  nearly  died  of  laughter 
and  still  refers  to  the  occurrence  with 
unseemly  hilarity,  invariably  remark- 
ing, between  gasps,  "And  he  had  his 
white  pants  on !" 

Again  do  I  recall  the  time  when 
said  neighbor  Page's  bees  swarmed  on 
the  crab-apple  tree.    Father  got  a  bee 


LOG  OP  A  SPIRITUAL  VOYAGE 


687 


down  his  neck,  daughter  got  one  else- 
where, son  had  a  lump  as  big  as  an 
egg  under  one  eye,  and  the  dog  had 
convulsions  in  the  flower  bed.  This 
seemed  to  me  at  the  time  and  still 
seems  deliriously  funny,  but  neighbor 
Page  did  not  view  it  in  that  light.  He 
would  not  have  mentioned  it  in  his 
diary,  if  he  had  one — and  real  farm- 
ers never  do — ^with  the  slightest  hint 
of  humor. 

The  predicaments  incident  to  farm- 
ing and  the  raising  of  live  stock  can- 
not possibly  seem  funny  to  the  farmer 
himself,  and  Judge  Shute  has  written 
a  book  that  is  reasonably  funny  all 
through,  and  very  funny  in  spots.  As 
a  jurist  he  must  admit  that  the  evi- 
dence is  against  him. 

I  suspected  that  the  book  would  be 
of  this  sort,  and  I  doubted  whether  I 
should  laugh  very  much  over  it.  When 
the  cow  has  kicked  over  the  milk  pail 
once,  and  the  pigs  have  got  into  the 
cabbages  once,  and  the  sheep  has  butted 
someone  once,  there  seems  little  more 
to  be  said.  But  Judge  Shute  has  kept 
up  that  sort  of  thing  for  277  pages. 
I  don't  see  how  he  did  it.  And  I  don't 
see  why  I  should  have  found  it  so 
funny,  in  view  of  my  prejudices.  But 
I  did,  I  must  candidly  admit.  After 
the  cow  had  led  him  a  chase  through 
the  woods  I  knew  perfectly  well  that 
in  a  day  or  two  the  pigs  would  lead 
him  a  chase  through  the  neighbor- 
hood. And  yet  I  laughed.  And  I  think 
you  will.    Better  try  it  and  see. 

The  book  isn't  all  about  farming.  I 
really  believe  Judge  Shute  is  funnier 
as  a  lawyer  than  as  a  farmer,  or  when 
appearing  in  a  dress  suit  in  Boston, 
or — ^most  delicious  entry  of  all — ^when 
riding  to  business  in  a  hack  the  horses 
of  which  were  destined  to  respond  to  a 
fire  alarm.  And  there  is  a  friendli- 
ness permeating  the  book,  too — ^the 
quiet  atmosphere  of  the  town  of  Exe- 


ter, New  Hampshire,  and  a  nature 
lover's  observations  of  bird  life. 

Professionally  I  am  inclined  to  con- 
demn the  book  as  a  piece  of  deliberate 
manufacture  by  a  man  who  knows  too 
well  that  he  is  expected  to  be  funny; 
personally  I  like  it  very  well  indeed. 
If  this  be  inconsistency,  make  the 
most  of  it. 


The  Real  Diary  of  the  Worst  Farmer.     By 
Henry  A.  Shute.    Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 


LOG  OF  A  SPIRITUAL  VOYAGE 
By  Joseph  Wood  Krutoh 

LEAVING  Oxford  was  the  most 
nearly  dramatic  thing  that  Arthur 
Hugh  Clough  ever  did.  This  fact  ex- 
plains, perhaps,  why  he  has,  up  to  the 
present,  lacked  a  biographer.  But  he 
has  a  story — the  story  of  a  soul  per- 
plexed in  the  extreme  but  faithful  to 
the  end.  His  spirit  was  a  spirit  which, 
if  it  did  not  like  Newton's  voyage 
through  strange  seas  of  thought  alone, 
at  least  groped  its  way  through  the 
fog  banks  which  lay  between  Arnold's 
two  worlds — ^the  one  dead,  the  other 
powerless  to  be  bom.  The  log  of  this 
voyage,  which  ended  in  no  happy  har- 
bor, has  been  written  lucidly  and  in- 
terestingly by  J.  I.  Osborne  in  "Ar- 
thur Hugh  Clough".  He  traces  the 
spiritual  progress  of  the  pilgrim 
through  the  early  insipidity  of  his 
Wordsworthianism,  and  through  the 
disillusion  of  "Dipsychus",  to  the  ste- 
rility of  his  last  years  and  writes  with 
a  touch  of  that  Olympian  aloofness 
which  has  made  Lsrtton  Strachey 
famous. 

From  Rugby,  CHough  once  wrote 
home :  "There  is  a  deal  of  evil  spring- 
ing up  in  the  school,  and  it  is  to  be 
feared  that  the  tares  will  choke  much 


688 


THE  BOOKMAN 


of  the  wheat."  Such  a  boy  was  surely 
in  danger  of  becoming  a  prig.  Indeed, 
he  did  become  one,  for  he  was  nour- 
ished in  an  atmosphere  where  prig- 
gism  was  the  ideal  and  was  taught 
both  through  precept  and  example  by 
the  great  Dr.  Arnold,  who  called  it 
Christian  Character.  But  Clough  re- 
covered. For  he  who  could  so  far 
give  the  devil  his  due  as  to  allow  the 
doubtful  spirit  of  "Dipsychus'  'to  sing 
persuasively : 

How  pleasant  it  is  to  have  money,  Heigh-Ho 
How  pleasant  it  is  to  have  money, — 

who  could  see  that  Duty,  which  he 
wished  to  follow,  was  often  but  an 
easy  assumption  of  convention,  and 
who  could  write  a  new  decalogue  be- 
ginning: 

Tbou  Shalt  have  one  Ood  only,  who 
Would  be  at  the  expense  of  two? 
No  graven  images  shall  be 
Worshipped  except  the  currency, — 

was  no  prig.  There  is  a  sting  in 
Clough's  religious  verse  that  saves  it 
from  the  namby-pamby,  and  it  was 
the  tragedy  of  his  life  that  while  he 
wished  to  pray  with  the  faithful,  his 
keen  intelligence  forced  him  to  scoff 
with  the  scornful. 

The  theme  of  Mr.  Osborne's  book  is 
this  escape  from  priggism,  and  if  he 
fails  at  all,  it  is  in  neglecting  to  pre- 
sent adequately  the  tragic  as  well  as 
the  comic  side  of  Clough's  perplexity. 
He  was  one  of  that  unhappy  band 
which  the  nineteenth  century  swept 
into  unwilling  rationalism.  His  was  a 
spirit  which  longed  for  the  certitude 
of  faith,  but  his  was  also  the  spirit 
that  must  give  the  honest  No.  He 
wished  to  listen  to  the  church  chimes 
with  honest  rapture,  but  they  only 
donged  into  his  ears : 

Ting,  ting.     There  is  no  God,  ting,  ting, 
Dong,  there  is  no  God ;   ding. 
There  is  no  God ;   dong,  dong. 

We  of  this  later  age,  bom  to  the 


fruits  of  a  struggle,  often  fail  to  real- 
ize what  they  cost.  To  us,  it  seems 
ridiculous  that  our  forefathers  should 
have  been  troubled  because  they  felt  a 
growing  conviction  that,  say,  all  our 
difficulties  had  not  been  due  to  Adam's 
prank  in  robbing  an  orchard,  but  their 
heritage  of  faith  was  more  inclusive 
than  our  heritage  of  doubt.  All  that 
men  lived  by,  all  that  gave  meaning  to 
a  perplexing  world,  was  gone.  In 
those  trying  times,  when  some  who 
chose,  first  of  all,  the  pleasure  of  cer- 
titude, drifted  into  Newmanism,  others 
rejoiced  in  a  new-found  freedom;  but 
Clough  was  one  of  the  unhappy  ones 
to  whom  the  abolition  of  dogmatism 
brought  no  joy^  of  freedom  and  left 
only  the  austere  comfort  of  a  resolu- 
tion to  follow  the  white  star  of  truth 
and  say: 

It  fortifies  my  soul  to  know 
That,  though  I  perish,  Truth  is  so. 

For  him  there  was  no  way  out.  He 
was  too  pure  in  heart  to  accept  the 
world's  compromise  and  he  was  too 
little  a  pagan  to  be  satisfied  to  be  a 
mere  poet,  for  only  exceptional  cir- 
cumstances can  make  a  moralist  satis- 
fied to  be  a  verse  writer.  Milton  wrote 
because  he  was  past  more  active  serv- 
ice, Wordsworth  only  because  an  enor- 
mous conceit  convinced  him  of  the  un- 
paralleled importance  of  his  writings. 
With  a  bit  less  of  vanity,  his  moral 
obsession  would  have  driven  him  to 
the  ministry  at  least.  To  Clough  the 
obstinate  questionings  of  his  minor 
Faust,  "Dipsychus'',  and  the  sad  reso- 
lution to  difference  in  "Qua  Cursum 
Ventus'',  seemed  only  a  prelude  to  a 
life  work.  Yet  they  are  nearly  first- 
rate  poems,  and  the  poems  that  are 
nearly  first-rate  are  few.  Modem 
taste  looks  askance  at  poetry  on  God 
and  Duty  and  (vide  the  Hsmmal)  not 
without  reason,  but  Clough's  are  good 
because  they  have  passion.    He  loved 


PALE  BLUESTOCKINGS 


689 


God  with  an  intensity  which  neither 
the  atheist  nor  the  cheap  religionist 
to  whom  God  is  a  sort  of  familiar 
relative  can  understand.  He  loved 
him  with  the  torturing  ardor  of  one 
who  half  believes  that  his  mistress  is 
false.  But  the  fame  of  a  minor  place 
in  anthologies  would  seem  to  him  no 
excuse  for  a  life.  Qui  laborat  orat, 
was  his  creed.  Yet  he  found  no  work 
to  do.  In  the  end  he  relapsed  into  er- 
rand running  for  Florence  Nightin- 
gale. Probably  he  did  not  do  it  well. 
With  more  or  less  faith  he  would  have 
been  saved — in  this  world  at  least — 
but  his  was  the  damnation  of  the 
doubter. 


Arthur    Hugh    Cloiigh.      By   J.    I.    Osborne. 
Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 


A  STOREHOUSE  OF  YOUTH 
By  Eleanor  Kilmer  Sceva 

THERE  is  in  "Paths  of  June"  not 
the  usual  "slender  volume  of 
verse",  by  the  way — ^a  remarkably 
complete  representation  of  many 
moods  and  many  admirations.  Burges 
Johnson,  in  a  paragraph  on  the  jacket 
which  combines  introduction  with 
commendation,  writes:  "A  first  book 
of  poems  has  more  in  its  favor  than 
any  first  novel  could  ever  have,  for  it 
will  bring  together  all  of  those  purely 
spontaneous  expressions  written  in 
the  years  before  exposure  to  life  has 
built  a  shell  of  reserve."  This  is  par- 
ticularly applicable  to  Miss  Stock- 
bridge's  first  book.  The  poems  are  in- 
dicative of  a  youthf  ulness  of  spirit  not 
suggesting  callowness  nor  confusion 
of  mind  on  the  part  of  the  author;  nor 
is  she  ashamed  to  be  gravely  rhap- 
sodic at  times,  "secure  in  a  sense  of 
the    beauty    of    things",    or    equally 


wholesouled   in   denunciation   of  the 
ills  of  the  world. 

"The  Fellowship  of  Poets",  the 
first  poem  in  the  book,  is  written  in  a 
somewhat  grand  style,  a  rather  dan- 
gerous feat  were  it  not  that  Miss 
Stockbridge  possesses  both  dignity 
and  assurance  of  manner.  "Masefield" 
is  also  a  long  poem.  It  is  an  impres- 
sion of  John  Masefield,  and  of  Mase- 
field's  England,  salted  with  a  wind 
from  the  sea  and  with  a  strain  of  bal- 
ladry running  through  it.  In  addition 
to  these  are  "The  Eternal  Exile",  "0 
Centuries",  "The  Song  of  Balder", 
"To  Rupert  Brooke",  "Poseidon  of 
Many  Moods", — each  poem  of  several 
pages'  duration. 

It  is,  however,  in  the  shorter  poems 
full  of  the  fleeting  joys  of  gay  youth 
living  its  brief  hour  among  birds  and 
flowers,  thrilled  into  ecstasy  by  moon- 
light on  a  river  or  an  apple-tree  in 
blossom,  that  the  spirit  of  the  book 
lies  hidden.  The  stray  lines  and 
phrases  which  make  a  poem  and  a 
poet  are  here  in  abundance,  and  in 
their  frequence  and  beauty  there  is 
assurance  of  a  true  gift  of  poesy. 


Paths  of  June.    By  Dorothy  Stockbridge.    E. 
P.  Dutfon  and  Co. 


PALE  BLUESTOCKINGS 
By  Martha  Plaisted 

PEE  Learned  Lady  in  England, 
1650-1760"  is  one  of  the  books 
published  in  honor  of  the  fiftieth  anni- 
versary of  the  founding  of  Vassar  Col- 
lege; and  a  more  fitting  tribute  to  a 
great  modern  institute  of  learning  for 
women  by  one  of  its  own  alumnae  could 
hardly  be  offered.  It  is  a  relic  of  the 
early,  groping  attempts  of  the  pre- 


690 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Bluestocking  to  escape  the  tyranny  of 
sentimental  conventions;  which  no 
one,  hitherto,  has  thought  it  worth 
while  to  bring  together,  and  which 
Myra  B.  Reynolds,  with  incredible  pa- 
tience and  effort,  has  arranged  in  such 
a  way  as  to  show  a  real  development 
from  the  very  occasional  female  prod- 
igy of  the  Stuart  regime — who  ex- 
pended her  literary  talents  entirely 
for  the  pleasure  and  approbation  of 
the  men  of  her  own  family — ^to  the 
Johnsonian  woman  of  acknowledged 
ability,  who  demanded  and  achieved 
an  appreciative  public. 

The  amount  of  reading  which  Miss 
Reynolds  must  have  gone  through  in 
seeking  out  the  personalities  of  these 
so  long  dead  and  forgotten  ladies  is 
frightening  to  think  of.  For  there  is 
no  index  or  catalogue  of  their  names. 
It  was  necessary  to  pursue  them 
through  pages  and  pages  of  hetero- 
geneous print — ^through  ancient  peri- 
odicals, through  manuscripts,  through 
family  records,  through  pamphlets, 
even  through  tombstone  epitaphs. 

It  was  a  discouraging  task,  and 
even  at  the  end,  the  author  admits  no 
great  success.  There  are  no  women 
of  the  century  who  can  in  any  way 
compare  with  the  eminent  men,  such 
as  Dryden,  Milton,  Pope,  Addison, 
Steele.  The  "Matchless  Orinda",  Mary 
Aspell,  Margaret  Blagge — ^who  ever 
heard  their  names?  Even  Susanna 
Wesley  and  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Mon- 
tagu bring  only  faint  flashes  of  recog- 
nition. But  Miss  Reynolds  has  put 
them  all  before  us  in  their  ridiculous 
muddle-headedness,  their  pretentious 
verbosity,  their  pathetic  sincerity. 

And  from  our  contemplation  of  this 
dim,  crowded  gallery  of  ineffective 
shades,  we  turn  away  with  certain 
clear  ideas  forming  in  our  minds.  We 
begin  to  see  that  these  women,  flutter- 
ing and  disparate  as  they  seem,  actu- 


ally moved  with  steady  progress 
toward  the  goal  of  liberty  of  thought 
and  action,  which  the  women  of  today 
congratulate  themselves  on  having  al- 
most reached. 

For  it  was  during  this  period  that  a 
profession  was  first  opened  to  women, 
— ^acting.  And  it  was  at  this  time  too 
that  a  woman  first  earned  her  living 
by  her  pen.  This  was  Mrs.  Aphra 
Behn,  who  discovered  that  the  public 
will  pay  if  you  give  them  what  they 
want.  So  she  forsook  the  pious  paths 
of  her  predecessors  and  began  to  com- 
pete with  the  men  in  writing  com- 
edies. She  was  very  little  behind  them 
in  wit  and  not  at  all  in  vulgarity ;  and 
she  won  success  at  the  sacrifice  of  her 
reputation.  Another  real  achieve- 
ment was  the  awakening  of  women 
to  the  need  of  education.  Schools  were 
established  in  which  it  was  possible 
for  girls  to  learn  something  besides 
water-colors,  japanning,  needlework, 
and  dancing.  It  was  Mary  Aspell  who 
dreamed  of  the  very  college  of  Tenny- 
son's "Princess".  But  perhaps  the 
most  important  thing  which  comes  out 
under  Miss  Reynolds's  development  is 
the  change  in  the  attitude  of  men 
toward  the  achievements  of  women. 
It  is  amusing  to  observe  how  the  con- 
temporary letters  which  the  author 
quotes  very  freely,  from  being  conde- 
scending, effusive,  sultry,  become  sin^ 
cere  and  almost  fraternal. 

In  reading  the  book  we  cannot  help 
missing  the  diverting  gossip,  the  hu- 
morous malice  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  look  for  in  all  discussions  of 
eighteenth-century  subjects.  But  Miss 
Reynolds  has  an  end  in  view.  It  takes 
465  pages  to  cover  the  facts  and  she 
has  no  space  for  parley.  We  suspect 
that  her  strong-mindedness  is  main- 


The   Learned   Lady    in    England,    1650-1760. 
By  Myra  B.  Reynolds.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 


LOOKING  AHEAD  WITH  THE  PUBLISHERS 


691 


tained  at  some  personal  sacrifice  when 
she  refers  without  comment  to  a  book 
of  orations  by  the  youthful  Duchess 
of  Newcastle,  containing  a  "speech  for 
a  half -drunk  gentleman  on  a  convivial 
occasion"  and  when  she  quotes  pas- 


sages about  girls'  "abbominable  swear- 
ynge".  But  the  book  is  quite  long 
enough  without  any  sidetracks.  It  is 
an  interesting  and  original  piece  of 
work  and  covers  ground  that  has 
hardly  been  touched  before. 


LOOKING  AHEAD  WITH  THE  PUBLISHERS 


ONE  of  the  popular  superstitions  is 
that  publishers  stop  publishing 
during  the  summer  and,  like  the  Arab, 
fold  up  their  presses  and  silently  steal 
away  to  the  country.  Such  may  have 
been  the  case  twenty  years  ago  when 
the  public's  vacation  meant  going 
where  neither  news  nor  books  dared 
to  tread.  But,  fortunately,  more  peo- 
ple find  each  year  that  books  will  ac- 
tually fit  into  the  suitcase  and,  barring 
interference  by  the  post  office,  they 
may  even  come  by  mail.  Which  brings 
me  round  to  the  diverse  and  interest- 
ing list  of  books  scheduled  for  late 

July  and  August  publication. 
*  *  *  • 

Katharine  Newlin  Burt's  "Hidden 
Creek"  (Houghton  Mifflin  Company) 
came  to  me  unbound, — capital  shape 
for  a  book  which  three  or  more  people 
want  to  read  at  the  same  time  (only 
matters  became  confused  when  my 
wife  insisted  on  jumping  ahead  to  see 
what  Sylvester's  mysterious  plan 
really  was).  The  story  did  something 
to  my  long-dormant  spirit  of  adven- 
ture, took  it  up,  and  sent  it  flying  west 
to  the  land  where  the  mountains  are 
the  highest,  the  air  the  clearest,  and 
life  the  fullest  of  any  spot  on  this 
earth.    Three  crowded  hours  of  ad- 


venture, and  one  of  them  the  wrong 
side  of  midnight!  Miss  Burt  writes 
western  romance  de  luxe.  Looking 
back,  the  providential  arrival  of  Hil- 
liard  just  as  the  wolves  close  in  on 
Sheila  appears  rather  too  good  to  be 
true,  but  at  the  time  I  was  just  as  glad 
to  hear  his  shots  ring  out  as  was  the 
girl  herself.  And,  while  my  recent 
dip  into  the  school  of  English  realism 
has  taught  me  the  futility  of  such 
procedure,  perhaps  in  this  case  it  isn't 
quite  as  improbable  for  the  hero  and 
heroine  to  fall  in  love  after  all. 
•  «  «  « 

"Making  Advertisements"  by  Roy 
Durstine  (Charles  Scribner's  Sons) 
did  not  at  first  strike  me  as  having 
much  meat  for  general  consumption. 
I  find  it  has,  however,  inasmuch  as  it 
is  a  chatty  review  of  the  good  and  bad 
in  advertising.  There  are  some  sound 
ideas  for  the  man  who  is  interested  in 
this  newest  of  professions — ^and  who 
isn't?    Mr.  Dustine  says: 

A  few  yean  ago  it  was  common  to  hear  a 
man  boast  that  adyertising  had  never  sold  him 
anything.  Inquiry  probably  would  hare  de- 
veloped that  he  was  awakened  by  a  Big  Ben, 
shaved  himself  with  a  Gillette,  brushed  his  hair 
with  a  Prophylactic  tooth  brush,  put  on  his 
B.  v.  D.'s,  his  Holeproofs,  Regal  shoes,  B.  ft  W. 
collar.  Arrow  shirt,  and  had  KeUogg's  com 
flakes.  Beechnut  bacon,  and  Ynban  coffee  sweet- 


692 


THE  BOOKMAN 


ened  with  Domino  sugar  for  breakfast.  And 
then — bat  why  pursue  him  farther  on  his 
trade-marked  way  ?  Of  course  advertising  never 
sold  him  anything ! 

He  is  somewhat  unfair  in  his  criti- 
cism of  publishers'  advertising.  "Don't 
sell  books,  sell  reading,"  he  says.  But 
I  will  wager  my  last  piece  of  "copy" 
against  the  blurb  on  his  book  that  if 
five  months  from  now,  Scribner's  told 
him  that  the  appropriation  set  aside 
for  the  advertising  of  his  book  had 
been  swallowed  up  in  a  "Read  More 
Books"  campaign,  he  would  be  indig- 
nant. In  competition  with  such  cam- 
paigns as  "Keep  Clean — ^with  Ivory 
Soap"  "Keep  Well— with  Grape  Nuts" 
the  publisher  must  run  a  multiplicity 
of  campaigns:  "Understand  Adver- 
tising— Read  Roy  Durstine's  Book"; 
"Get  a  Working  Knowledge  of  the 
Countr/s  Economic  Problems — ^Read 
Otto  Kahn's  Articles",  and  so  on  over 
the  whole  field  of  new  books.  And  as 
for  the  author's  suggestion  to  push  old 
publications  instead  of  continually 
bringing  out  new  ones,  would  he  have 
accepted  that  argument  as  the  basis 
of  a  refusal  to  publish  his?    Mais  non, 

pas  du  tout,  pas  du  tout! 

*  «  «  * 

Here  is  a  book  (published  by  Fred- 
erick A.  Stokes  Company)  that  should 
appeal  to  everyone  who  uses  oil,  from 
the  owners  of  the  oil  burning  "Imper- 
ator"  to  the  housewife  who  puts  "3  in 
1"  on  the  shuttle  of  the  sewing-ma- 
chine (or  is  it  the  shuttle?).  It  is  the 
first  information  of  a  process  by  which 
oil  may  be  obtained  from  oil-shale. 
"The  Oil-Shale  Industry"  by  Dr.  Vic- 
tor Alderson,  President  of  the  Colo- 
rado School  of  Mines,  gives  a  careful 
review  of  the  probable  amount  of 
crude  oil  remaining  in  the  known 
fields,  a  discouraging  lot  of  figures. 
According  to  Dr.  Alderson  the  output 
of  petroleum  is  now  at  its  peak,  with 
an  ever  increasing  demand.     On  the 


other  hand,  the  author  cheers  us  with 
the  news  of  an  almost  unlimited  sup- 
ply of  oil  in  the  surface  oil-shale  which 
covers  many  thousand  square  miles  of 
the  country,  a  shale  which  will  pro- 
duce about  a  barrel  of  oil  to  the  ton. 
Dr.  Alderson  does  not  hold  out  hope 
of  any  material  productivity  from 
these  fields  in  the  near  future,  but  at 
least  the  knowledge  of  such  a  reserve, 
— ^like  the  hidden  last  "quart" — gives 
one  the  feeling  that  all  is  not  yet  lost. 

•  «  •  • 

Unfortunately  "Birth  Through 
Death,  Ethics  of  the  Twentieth  Plane", 
as  reported  by  Dr.  Albert  D.  Watson 
through  Louis  Benjamin  of  Toronto, 
reached  this  office  too  late  to  be  read. 
However,  I  can  say  that  by  all  indica- 
tions it  should  be  read  by  those  who 
know  and  follow  the  work  of  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge,  Conan  Doyle,  and  the  late  Dr. 
Hyslop.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was 
Dr.  Watson  who  received  through  Mr. 
Benjamin,  as  medium,  the  first  Hyslop 
message  a  short  time  ago.  "Birth 
Through  Death"  (James  A.  McCann 
Company)  is  a  departure  from  the 
usual  psychic  book,  being  entirely 
made  up  of  statements  and  long  mes- 
sages from  those  "beyond".  It  will 
bring  down  a  storm  of  criticism,  for  it 
has  little  to  prove  its  authenticity. 

•  «  *  « 

The  statement  by  Governor  Cox  of 
Ohio  that  the  Democratic  campaign 
will  be  fought  on  the  question  of  the 
League  of  Nations,  has  finally  brought 
up  a  definite  line  of  cleavage  between 
the  two  parties,  and  it  has  brought  to 
the  front  again  that  day-by-day  house 
and  office  discussion.  Shall  or  shall  we 
not  accept  the  League?  In  "American 
World  Policies"  Dr.  David  Jayne  Hill 
thinks  emphatically  not.    He  says: 

The  problems  of  onr  national  life  have  been 
solved,  and  successfully  solved  by  onr  institu- 
tions.   We  cannot,  therefore,  wisely  abando|i  or 


THE  GLORIOUS  GAME 


693 


subordinate  them.  Our  whole  value  to  the  rest 
of  the  world  depends  upon  the  unity,  the  ef- 
ficiency, and  the  prestige  which  these  institu- 
tions have  given  us. 

Whether  or  not  the  election  will 
prove  that  the  majority  of  people 
agree  with  Dr.  Hill,  at  least  no  one 
can  deny  his  arguments  are  much  to 
the  point.  My  personal  feeling  is  that 
every  man,  be  he  a  platform  or  a 


breakfast-table  orator,  can  add  to  his 
arguments  or  be  forewarned  of  the  ar- 
guments of  his  opponents  by  a  careful 
investigation  of  Dr.  Hill's  work.  I 
should  suggest  that  George  H.  Doran 
Company,  who  will  publish  the  book 
late  this  month,  send  copies  to  Senator 
Harding  and  Governor  Cox  for  their 
own  information  and  guidance. 

— S.  M.  B. 


THE  GLORIOUS  GAME 


BY  RICHARD  BURTON 


I  GO  about  dumbf oundedly  and  show  a  dullard's  glance, 
But  in  my  mind  are  spangles,  and  music  and  a  danc 
Tra-la,  the  hid  Romance ! 


And  I  suspect,  0,  brothers  and  sisters,  drab  and  prim, 

'Tis  quite  the  same  with  all  of  you,  with  every  Her  and  Him 

That  goes  in  masking  trim. 

The  whole  earth  hides  the  truth,  and,  faith,  it  is  a  parlous  game 
To  make  a  pale-faced  misery  of  such  a  glorious  game, 
With  all  of  us  to  blame. 


So  let  us  be  like  mummers  who  grin  and  lift  their  lays 
And  kick  their  heels  at  heaven  a  hundred  happy  ways. 
Sky-larking  down  the  days! 


694  THE  BOOKMAN 


FICTION  IN  DEMAND  AT  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 

COMPILED    BT    F&ANK    PAEKBE    8TOCKBEIDGI    IN    COOFBEATION    WITH    THB    AMBEICAN 

LIBBAET   ASSOCIATION 

The  following  lista  of  hooka  in  demand  in  June  in  the  public  Wtrctriee  of  the  United 
Statea  have  been  compiled  from  reports  made  by  two  hundred  representative  libraries,  in  every 
section  of  the  country  and  in  cities  of  all  sUfes  down  to  ten  thousand  population.  The  order  of 
choice  is  as  stated  by  the  librarians. 

NEW  YORK  AND  NEW  ENGLAND  STATES 

1.  The  Portygee  Joseph  C.  Lincoln  Afpleton 

2.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Habper 
8.  The  Great  Impersonation                   E.  PhiUipa  Oppenheim    Little,  Brown 

4.  Red  and  Black  Grace  S.  Richmond  Doubleday 

5.  Mary  Marie  Eleanor  H.  Porter  Houghton 

6.  The  River's  End  James  Oliver  Cwrwood    Gosmopoutan 

SOUTH  ATLANTIC  STATES 


1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

2.  The  Portygee  Joseph  C.  Lincoln  Applgton 
8.  Mary  Marie  Eleanor  H.  Porter  Houghton 

4.  The  Ramblin'  Kid  Earl  Wayland  Bovnnan  Bobbs-Merrill 

5.  September  Frank  Swinnerton  Doran 

6.  The  Great  Desire  Alexander  Black  Harper 

NORTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1.  The  Portygee  Joseph  C.  Lincoln  Appleton  . 

2.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

3.  The  Great  Impersonation  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim  Little,  Brown 

4.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert  Ethel  M.  Dell  Putnam 

5.  September  Frank  Swinnerton  Doran 

6.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent  Harold  Bell  Wright  BOOK  Supply 

SOUTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

2.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent  Harold  Bell  Wright  BOOK  Supply 

3.  The  Lamp  in  the  Desert  Ethel  M.  Dell  Putnam 

4.  Mary  Marie  Eleanor  H.  Porter  Houghton 

5.  The  Portygee  Joseph  C.  Lincoln  Appleton 

6.  Bars  of  Iron  Ethel  M.  Dell  Putnam 

WESTERN  STATES 

1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

2.  Red  and  Black  Grace  S.  Richmond  Doubleday 

3.  The  Re-creation  of  Brian  Kent  Harold  Bell  Wright  BOOK  Supply 

4.  September  Frank  Sivinnerton  Doran 

5.  The  Portygee  Joseph  C.  Lincoln  Appleton 

6.  Mary  Marie  Eleanor  H.  Porter  Houghton 

FOR  THE  WHOLE  UNITED  STATES 

1.  The  Man  of  the  Forest  Zane  Grey  Harper 

2.  The  Portygee  Joseph  C.  Lincoln  Appleton 

3.  The  Great  Impersonation  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim  Little,  Brown 

4.  Mary  Marie  Eleanor  H.  Porter  Houghton 

5.  Red  and  Black  Grace  S.  Richmond  Doubleday 

6.  The  Great  Desire  Alexander  Black  Harper 


THE  BOOKMAN'S  MONTHLY  SCORE 


695 


GENERAL  BOOKS  IN  DEMAND  AT  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 

COMPILED     BT     FRANK      PABKIR     8TOCKBRIDOI      IN     COOPBEtATION      WITH     THB     AMBRICAN     LIBEtABT 

ASSOCIATION 

The  titles  have  been  scored  by  the  simple  process  of  giving  each  a  credit  of  six  for  each  time 
it  appears  as  first  choice,  and  so  dovm  to  a  score  of  one  for  each  time  it  appears  in  sixth  place. 
The  total  score  for  each  section  and  for  the  whole  country  determines  the  order  of  choice  in  the 
table  hereioith. 

NEW  YORK  AND  NEW  ENGLAND  STATES 


1. 

Now  It  Can  Be  Told 

Philip  Gibba 

Harper 

2. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas 

Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

3. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

4. 

A  Tiabrador  Doctor 

Wilfred  T.  GrenfeU 

Houghton 

5. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace 

John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

6. 

Theodore  Roosevelt 

William  Roscoe  Thayer 

Houghton 

SOUTH  ATLANTIC  STATES 

1. 

Now  It  Can  Be  Told 

Philip  Gibbs 

Harper 

2. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace 

John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

3. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas 

Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

4. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

5. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

6. 

An  American  Idyll 

Cornelia  S.  Parker 

Atlantic 

NORTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace 

John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

2. 

An  American  Idyll 

Cornelia  S.  Parker 

Atlantic 

3. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas 

Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

4. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

5. 

Life  of  John  Marshall 

Albert  Beveridge 

Houghton 

6. 

"Marse  Henry" 

Henry  Watterson 

DORAN 

SOUTH  CENTRAL  STATES 

1. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas 

Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

2. 

An  American  Idyll 

Cornelia  S.  Parker 

Atlantic 

3. 

Modern  American  Poetry 

Louis  Untermeyer 

Harcourt 

4. 

A  liabrador  Doctor 

Wilfred  T.  GrenfeU 

Houghton 

5. 

Best  Short  Stories  of  1919 

Edward  J.  O'Brien     Small,  Maynard 

6. 

Life  of  John  Marshall 

Albert  Beveridge 

Houghton 

WESTERN  STATES 

1. 

The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace 

John  Maynard  Keynes 

Harcourt 

2. 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

Henry  Adams 

Houghton 

3. 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas 

Frederick  O'Brien 

Century 

4. 

Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 

SCRIBNER 

5. 

The  Inside  Story  of  the  Peace  Con- 

ference 

E.  J.  DHUm 

Harper 

6. 

Raymond 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

DORAN 

FOR  THE  WHOLE  UNITED  STATES 

1.  White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas 

2.  Now  It  Can  Be  Told 

3.  The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace 

4.  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams 

5.  Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His 

Children 

6.  An  American  Idyll 


Frederick  O'Brien 
Philip  Gibbs 

John  Maynard  Keynes 
Henry  Adams 

Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 
Cornelia  S.  Parker 


Century 
Harper 

Harcourt 
Houghton 

scribner 
Atlantic 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


SHADES  of  Shakespeare!    The  epi- 
tapher,  penning  the  lines, — 

Good  friend  for  Jesus  sake  forbeare. 
To  dlgg  the  dust  encloased  heare. 
Blese  be  y«  man  yt  spares  thes  stones. 
And  curst  be  he  y(  moves  my  bones, — 

must  have  felt  a  prophetic  twinge  of 
destiny  as  to  the  multitudinous  seas 
of  ink  that  should  flow  in  the  quarrel 
over  the  authorship  of  his  plays.  Yes- 
terday it  was  Bacon,  today  it  is  the 
earl  of  Oxford,  or  of  Rutland  ("Lord 
Rutland  Est  Shakespeare",  by  Abel 
Lefranc),  or  of  Derby  ("Sous  le 
Masque  de  William  Shakespeare",  by 
Celestin  Demblon) — never  less  than  a 
lord.  The  latter  book,  it  has  been  sug- 
gested, by  the  way,  is  a  delicate  com- 
pliment to  the  present  ambassador  in 
Paris.  The  Stratfordian  must  have 
been  a  various  person;  as  a  literary 
gentleman  whom  "The  New  States- 
man" recalls  in  "Nicholas  Nickleby" 
remarked  concerning  him:  "Bill  was 
an  adapter... so  he  was — and  very 
well  he  adapted,  too,  considering." 


A  complaint  of  speed  is  entered 
against  the  breakneck  pace  of  acting 
in  the  spring  festival  plays  in  Strat- 
ford, April  16-May  8,  according  to  the 
"Manchester  Guardian"  —  a  change 
from  the  Henry  Irving  vogue  satirized 
as  "donkey  racing".  "What  needs  my 
Shakespeare?"  asks  the  outraged  cor- 
respondent. "Why  a  high  velocity 
phonograph,  and  a  3-speed-gear  kine- 


matograph."  Get  the  effect  of  this  at 
180  words  a  minute: 

Not  poppy,  nor  mandragora, 

Nor  aU  the  drowsy  syrups  of  the  world 

ShaU  ever  medicine  thee  to  that  sweet  Bleep 

Which  thou  owedst  yesterday. 

Another  correspondent  argues  that 
such  acting  is  memorable  in  that  "the 
romantic  lay  figures  are  humanized, 
the  great  set  speeches  taken  at  a 
stride  before  the  audience  grows  self- 
conscious;  speech  may  be  nothing  but 
mere  gabble. .  .pace  in  Shakespeare  is 
as  subtle  a  thing  as  in  a  Mozart  so- 
nata. These  plays  are  designed  for 
those  who  have  a  late  train  to  catch." 


Mr.  Tarkington's  famous  good  na- 
ture and  modesty  is  shown  in  his  re- 
ception of  the  somewhat  pungent  criti- 
cisms of  his  friend  Murray  Hill  on 
such  intimate  matters  as  the  shape  of 
his  nose,  the  fit  of  his  coat,  his  gram- 
mar, and  other  points  presumably  sa- 
cred to  himself  and  his  Maker.  In  a 
recent  letter  to  the  Gossip  Shop  from 
Kennebunkport,  Maine,  B.  T.  said: 

"Had  I  seen  the  proofs  of  the  first 
Life  and  Times  of  Murray  Hill  paper, 
I  should  have  changed  my  lioarae  voice 
booming  to  a  rich  contralto.  I  like  a 
colored  cook,  in  a  friend's  house,  bet- 
ter than  I  like  Holliday.  She  asked: 
*Who  wa8  dat  talkin'  in  dat  gran'  gruff 
voice?  I  pay  dollah  any  time  hear  him 
sing.' " 

The  Gossip  Shop  wishing  to  regale 
its  readers  with  this  bit,  Mr.  Tarking- 


696 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


697 


ton  hesitated:  "The  subject  of  cooks 
(to  people  in  the  country  particularly) 
is  so  serious,  that  there  is  dynamite  in 
it.  Our  cook  is  very  peculiar.  Just 
what  did  I  say?" 

And  on  reflection  he  wired:  "All 
right  of  course.  I  feared  I  had  said 
something  about  our  own  who  is  lit- 
erary." We  are  going  to  look  up  her 
name  on  our  list  of  subscribers. 


Other  literary  laurels  are  being 
questioned  in  France.  The  heirs  of 
August  Maquet  are  demanding  that  his 
name  appear  with  that  of  Dumas  on 
those  works  in  which  he  collaborated. 
And  Pierre  Louys,  in  his  latest  book, 
affirms  that  the  greater  number  of 
Moli^re's  plays  were  written  by  Cor- 
neille. 


French  critics,  it  seems,  are  ponder- 
ing that  American  phenomenon,  Va- 
chel  Lindsay.  In  an  article  devoted  to 
the  poet  in  the  "Nouvelle  Revue  Fran- 
Qaise"  Valery  Larbaud  demands: 

What  would  the  aged  Whitman  have  thought, 
had  he  been  able  to  see  this  poetry  alongside 
of  which  hlB  appears  academic  and  pompous? 
Perhaps,  after  frowning  a  bit,  he  would  have 
said,  smiling:  *'Yes,  after  all,  here  la  my  suc- 
cessor." 

Which  causes  a  commentator  in 
"The  Anglo-French  Review"  to  won- 
der "what  sort  of  poetry  it  will  be  that 
will  look  on  M.  Vachel  Lindsay  as  aca- 
demic". By  the  way,  the  time  is  al- 
most here  for  Mr.  Lindsay's  visit  to 
England.    He  sails  in  September. 


To  many  of  us  "war  literature"  has 
signified  either  records  of  adventure 
or  bursts  of  lyricism.  But  recent 
studies  of  the  writing  produced  during 
the  entire  war  period  show  the  wide 
scope  of  this  output.  Such  a  survey 
is  "French  Literature  in  the  Great 


War",  by  Professor  Albert  Schinz  of 
Smith  College.  Germany's  contribu- 
tion is  the  subject  of  a  French  volume 
("La  Litt6rature  Allemande  pendant 
la  Guerre"),  by  Maurice  Muret.  M. 
Muret's  aim,  however,  is  to  present  a 
picture  of  social  and  political  condi- 
tions rather  than  a  book  of  literary 
criticism.  He  devotes  considerable  at- 
tention to  the  metamorphosis  of  Maxi- 
milian Harden. 


Those  literary  sleuths  who  exult  in 
the  discovery  of  mixed  metaphors  and 
similar  lapses  will  welcome  the  com- 
pilation of  Albert  Cim.  Here  are  a 
few  of  the  specimens  in  M.  Cim's  col- 
lection : 

Gustaye  Dro«,  In  "Monsieur,  Madame  et 
Bebd" :   "I  felt  a  tear  mounting  to  my  throat." 

Edmond  About,  In  "Les  Marlages  de  Paris"  : 
"Vlctorlne  continued  to  read  while  closing  her 


ti 


eyes 

Charles  Merouvel,  In  "Jenny  Payelle"  :  "This 
woman  had  a  syelt  and  supple  waist  that  a 
man's  hand  could  have  Imprisoned  In  his  ten 
fingers." 

Alphonse  Daudet  In  "Tartarln  de  Tarascon" : 
"Four  thousand  Arabs  were  running  barefoot, 
gesticulating,  laughing  wildly,  and  causing  to 
shine  In  the  sun  six  hundred  thousand  white 
teeth." 

The  Goncourt  brothers.  In  "Germlnle  Lacer- 
teux" :  "On  the  box  the  coachman's  back  was 
astounded  to  hear  such  loud  weeping." 

Henry  Murger  In  "Scenes  de  la  Vie  de  Jeu- 
nesse":  "In  the  depths  of  her  breast,  floating 
In  an  ocean  of  tears,  her  heart,  assassinated  by 
suiferlng,  struggled  while  crying  for  help." 


But — to  come  nearer  home — ^here  is 
a  letter  from  a  scandalized  friend  of 
the  Gossip  Shop  in  Washington,  D.  C. : 

Dear  Gossip  Shop : 

Is  it  not  amusing  that  a  magazine 
which  displays  as  its  leading  article 
in  the  July  issue  a  splendid  essay  on 
"English  as  She  Is  Spoke",  should  fur- 
nish the  writer  thereof  with  another 
horrible  example  of  the  grammarless 
tongue  in  the  shape  of  a  split  infini- 
tive from  the  Gossip  Shop?. .  ."though 


698 


THE  BOOKMAN 


we  do  not  mean  to  at  all  imply. .  ,*\ 
said  the  man  in  the  Gossip  Shop,  while 
speaking  pleasantly  of  the  atmosphere 
of  Paul  Elder's  book  place. 
Of  course,  it  is  amusing. 
Anyway,  I  laughed. 

Yours  sincerely, 

Mary  Patterson. 


Follows  Mr.  Ellsworth's  apologia  re- 
garding "An  Oldtimer's"  charge  of 
using  a  "chestnut"  in  his  book  of  un- 
impeachable stories  and  reminiscences : 

Dear  Gossip  Shop : 

Every  once  in  a  while  someone  gets 
righteously  excited  over  the  fact  that 
the  "polar-bear"  story  in  my  book  "A 
Golden  Age  of  Authors"  isn't  new. 
Right  they  are — it  is  at  least  thirty 
years  old  and  very  likely  much  older. 
I  don't  tell  it  as  if  it  were  new.  I  am 
speaking  of  how  I  helped  to  entertain 
an  audience  in  an  insane  asylum,  and 
I  say  this : 

I  told  them  the  "polar-bear"  story — It  was 
new  then,  and  the  shout  at  the  denouement 
was  instantaneous.  People  who  have  lost  some 
of  their  wits  certainly  retain  their  sense  of 
humor.  That  "polar-bear*'  story  was  first  told 
In  New  York  by  Mary  Mapes  Dodge's  son, 
"Jamie"  Dodge,  at  the  Barnard  Club.  For  the 
benefit  of  those  who  may  not  have  heard  it  I 
set  It  down  here. 

Then  it  follows. 

There  is  another  story  that  is  not 
new, — the  Sherlock  Holmes  tale  which 
Conan  Doyle  told  at  an  Aldine  Club 
dinner.    In  that  connection  I  say : 

The  stories  that  occur  in  this  book  are,  I 
think,  generally  hitherto  unpublished.  I  know 
this  was  printed  somewhere,  but  I  have  told 
it  many  times  in  a  lecture  and  have  yet  to  meet 
the  first  person  who  has  heard  it  before,  so  it 
is  included  here. 

I  know  now  where  it  was  printed. 
It  was  in  Major  Pond's  "Eccentrici- 
ties of  Genius". 

So  far  only  two  errors  have  cropped 
out.  Richard  Grant  White  wrote  "The 
New  Gospel  of  Peace"  and  not  Park 


Benjamin,  and  "What  hath  God 
wrought"  is  from  the  Book  of  Num- 
bers and  not  from  the  Psalms.  If  any 
of  your  readers  know  of  any  other 
mistakes  I  shall  be  glad  to  correct 
them. 

Cordially  yours, 
WiUiam  W.  Ellsworth. 

We  must  admit  we  had  to  look  up 
the  Sherlock  Holmes  tale,  and  on  the 
toss-up,  here  it  is: 

On  his  arrival  In  Boston  Doyle  told  us  that 
he  had  noticed  a  dog-eared  but  familiar  volume 
peeping  out  of  his  cabman's  pocket.  "You 
may  drive  me  to  Young's  or  the  Parker  House," 
he  said. 

"Pardon  me,"  returned  cabbie,  "you  will  find 
Major  Pond  waiting  for  you  at  the  Parker 
House." 

As  they  parted,  the  cabman  asked  for  a  pass 
to  the  lecture  instead  of  a  fee,  and  Doyle  said : 
"Now,  see  here,  I  am  not  usually  beaten  at  my 
own  game.    How  did  you  know  who  I  am?" 

"WeU,  sir,  of  course  all  members  of  the 
Cabmen's  Literary  GuUd  knew  you  were  coming 
on  this  train,  and,  I  noticed,  sir.  If  you  wm 
excuse  me,  that  your  hair  has  the  cut  of  a 
Quakerish,  Philadelphia  barber;  your  hat 
shows  on  the  brim  in  front  where  you  tightly 
grasped  it  at  a  Chicago  literary  luncheon ; 
your  right  overshoe  has  on  it  what  is  plainly  a 
big  block  of  Buffalo  mud  ;  and  there  are  crumbs 
of  a  doughnut,  which  must  have  been  bought 
at  the  Springfield  station,  on  the  top  of  your 
bag.  And  then,  sir,  to  make  assurance  doubly 
sure,  I  happened  to  see  stenciled  in  plain  let- 
tering on  the  end  of  the  bag  the  name  Conan 
Doyle." 


It  isn't  every  college  class,  even  of 
one  of  the  big  universities,  that  can 
boast  of  two  poets  of  the  rank  of  Ed- 
win Arlington  Robinson  and  Cale 
Young  Rice.  Yet  this  is  the  glory,  or 
better  perhaps,  only  some  of  the  luck 
of  the  class  of  1895  of  Harvard  which 
has  just  been  celebrating  its  twenty- 
fifth  anniversary.  As  a  part  of  the 
celebration,  the  Class  Secretary  pub- 
lished a  huge  crimson  volume  in  which 
each  member  discloses  more  or  less 
what  he  thinks  of  himself  and  what  he 
has  been  doing  since  graduation.    The 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


699 


reader  would  hardly  guess  that  the 
modest  lines  below  were  written  by  one 
described,  on  his  just  past  fiftieth 
birthday,  as  "by  all  odds  the  greatest 
living  American  poet" : 

"I  find  that  I  have  not  much  to  say 
for  myself,  or  of  myself,"  Mr.  Robin- 
son wrote  the  Secretary,  "except  that 
I  have  done  literary  work  since  leav- 
ing Harvard  in  1893.  I  have  written 
from  time  to  time  for  the  magazines, 
and  have  published  several  books  of 
verse.  I  might  add  that  several  super- 
ficial critics  who  have  called  me  a  pes- 
simist have  been  entirely  wrong  in 
their  diagnosis.  In  point  of  fact,  I 
recommend  a  careful  reading  of  my 
books  to  anyone  who  wishes  to  become 
an  incurable  optimist.  My  principal 
hatreds,  or  two  of  them,  are  prohibi- 
tion and  free  verse." 

Gale  Young  Rice — ^as  the  London 
Bookman  said  the  other  day,  "a  great 
poet  because  his  first  and  last  impres- 
sions are  perfections  of  lyrical  beauty" 
— likewise  turns  the  curious  to  his 
books,  but  with  a  shade  more  empha- 
sis: "If  the  class  of  '95  wishes  to 
know  what  I've  thought  during  the 
last  twenty-five  years",  he  says,  "let  it 
go  to  the  books  I've  written — or  be 
damned.  If  it  wishes  to  know  what 
I've  done  besides  write  books  (and 
give  readings  from  them)  let  it  hear 
that  I  had  a  Ghair  of  English  Litera- 
ture for  a  year  after  leaving  college; 
that  I've  travelled  much — ^with  my 
side  partner,  Alice  Hegan  Rice — all 
over  the  world;  that  I've  seen  and 
read  much  of  peoples,  politics,  reli- 
gions, and  literatures;  and  that  I  be- 
lieve particularly,  just  now,  that  a 
League  of  Nations  and  every  other 
sane  way  of  internationalizing  and 
creating  world  opinion  is  the  great 
hope  of  the  future. 

"If  the  said  class  wishes  also-— as 


per  questions — ^to  know  what  I  think 
of  myself  and  my  work,  it  will  have  to 
establish  an  intimacy  with  me  that 
does  not  at  present  exist.  For  why 
should  I  reveal  to  strangers  such  im- 
portant things  as  the  kind  of  socks 
and  toothbrush  I  prefer?" 

Mark  Lee  Luther,  another  member 
of  the  class,  whose  "Presenting  Jane 
McRae"  is  doing  just  now  very  well 
indeed,  seems  to  have  risen  to  the  bait, 
"Would  you  go  into  the  same  business 
if  you  were  twenty-five  tomorrow?" 
He  replies:  "Your  second  bolt  in  the 
air — *Would  you  go  into  the  same 
business  if  you  were  twenty-five  to- 
morrow?'— ought  to  flush  reams  of 
copy.  It  is  an  indoor  sport  that  every 
man  with  gray  hair  or  a  bald  spot  is 
sure  to  play.  It  belongs  in  the  same 
insidious  class  as  solitaire,  and  like 
solitaire  tempts  you  to  cheat  yourself. 
It  is  a  game  for  the  tired  business 
man  when  too  debilitated  for  the  Fol- 
lies or  golf.  Being  a  business  man  he 
is  free  to  fancy  he  had  a  choice.  But 
the  writer  is  barred.  He  knows  that 
his  business  chose  him.  It  attacked 
him  like  a  disease  and,  the  publishers 
failing  to  kill  the  germ,  the  thing  be- 
came chronic.  He  realizes  that  it  was 
in  his  system  at  Harvard  and  that  it 
throve  under  the  elms.  Yet  he  has  no 
regrets.  He  would  cheerfully  go  there 
again  and  run  the  same  risk,  for  he 
likes  his  malady.  He  would  not  know 
what  to  do  without  it  after  all  these 
years." 


A  courageous  publisher  is  bringing 
out  another  Austen  book — "Personal 
Aspects"  this  time,  by  Mary  A.  Aus- 
ten-Leigh. A  French  translation  of 
"Pride  and  Prejudice"  has  just  been 
made  by  Mme.  Bertaux,  who  in  a  re- 
cent number  of  "Les  Annales"  com- 
mends the  author  as  "loved  and  cele- 


700 


THE  BOOKMAN 


brated  in  England,  an  author  whom 
young  girls  and  serious  persons  read 
with  respectful  and  delicate  pleasure". 
Who  do  not  read  "Jane"  and  why, 
Gertrude  Atherton  lately  made  the 
thread  of  a  rapid-fire  discourse  in  the 
"Times"  in  which  Mr.  Firkins's  book 
was  the  bull's-eye.  One  gathers  that 
Mr.  Firkins's  Austen  idiosyncrasy  is 
more  or  less  of  a  Freudian  matter. 
Yet  today  no  higher  praise  can  adorn 
the  publisher's  jacket  than  an  Austen 
similitude,  and  in  Miss  Austen's  day 
she  was  the  mirror  and  the  mold  of 
form  for  women  writers.  As  Virginia 
Woolf,  that  modem  young  English- 
woman, says :  "To  be  a  popular  writer 
in  the  year  1850  it  was  necessary  to 
write  well.  The  women  writers  in 
particular  wrote  very  well.  Presum- 
ably the  ordeal  of  appearing  in  print 
was  then  so  severe  that  no  lady  went 
through  it  without  taking  pains  with 
her  deportment.  Jane  Austen,  more- 
over, had  set  the  fashion. ..." 

Virginia  Woolf  is  the  daughter  of 
the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  editor 
Sir  Leslie  Stephen — ^who  as  everybody 
knows  married  Thackeray's  younger 
daughter — ^and  the  god-daughter  of 
James  Russell  Lowell.  Mrs.  Woolf  s 
private  printing  press,  the  Hogarth, 
has  issued  already  several  books  by 
American  authors. 


A  recent  Thackeray  find  (too  recent 
for  inclusion  in  the  Henry  Van  Duzer 
bibliography  whose  publication  a  little 
while  ago  stirred  even  lukewarm 
Thackeray ans)  is  the  "King  Glumpus" 
playbill.  Here  is  the  little  rarity  that 
created  a  literary  sensation  as  the  ear- 
liest clue  to  the  authorship  of  that 
mysterious  playlet  which  for  more 
than  half  a  century  kept  everybody 
guessing. 

At  Thackeray's  death  in  1863,  illus- 
trations of  the  play  (one  of  the  few 


plays  he  illustrated  for  the  stage  and 
in  which  he  is  said  to  have  acted  apart) 
were  found  among  his  memoranda,  with 
references  to  the  teid:.    But  that  text 


MGUILLC 


ISLAND. 


ThrCmmiuecuri 
clw-irktt  I* 

H.M.S.  RESOLUTE, 

CAFTAIR  U£KRY  KELLBTT,  C  R 
Urn  ToM^By.  iW  1.1  of  PfWwry  l«6a 


TMi^MliM  vfthe  FAinUbbMni.  Uriag 
tfftttMwim^  al  M  u-mi^nrttnvol'SOriBMM, 

Ml  tk«  tinMitf  arcAMoa  to  B^OAaariMi  Ur  vlwrk  ii 


!>•  dianiBtcn  i*  llw  |»p«hr  Mid 


RAISING  THE  WMD, 

YAayooifK        s^rjtiiouBsaiL  Joan.      ikTuuDT.  I 

M^IXWAY.  Mr.  llOlIif..  BlCiUEOk  -    ISIWmDl 

'JEREMY  DIDDLER.    .    WARVB.  SASf.         •   •  lOT. 

WAITKK,  .    .    WALKER.        PfiQOY. 

MtSS  DURAtiL€»    Mr    BLACK WKLL 


AUt-r  tritie't Mnntl  Sa«2*MMd  Qlt«s%j  MmwRilwy. 
ToomJadr  allitJM 


KING  GLUMPUS 


(  Pv  J«lLi  Bwi  Kw  ha^  K  R.  S.  I  Whv  itt  ftm  ptrtt. 
KKfCl^LCMPUtf.    U0m,Pm.  ADMIRaLGRUB  D» 

l/)RDttllATK)r.  OLILIfeDM«ia  Ei^ 
Ql'EEH.  0.  &  H«w  b|  IJIDV  LULLYPOF, 

LADYPOPKnOl    P.J.KllM^■H.    LADT  TOMKIlffl^  Mr 


(RiAaflbc 


IMvifc  Ida  .1  Pnm, 


could  not  be  found.  Imagine  the  ex- 
citement in  1898  when  it  turned  up. 
Even  the  old  Bookman  ran  a  headliner, 
"An  Interesting  Thackeray  Discov- 
ery", with  the  illustrated  play  in  full 
and  with  preface  to  the  effect  that 
''admirers  of  the  author  will  find  both 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


701 


text  and  illustrations  extremely  Thack- 
erayesque'' ;  and  the  publishers  of  the 
magazine  cabled  $1,000  to  a  rare  book 
dealer  in  London  for  it.  One  could 
have  bought  a  small  Philippine  island 
for  the  amount  at  the  time,  a  sarcastic 
contributor  observed  in  a  following 
issue  and  added,  'That  Thackeray 
wrote  a  line  of  the  text  I  don't  one 
moment  believe."  And  he  was  right, 
as  this  little  playbill  in  time  proved. 

In  a  delightful  article  about  Thack- 
eray as  editor  which  George  Sargent 
writes  on  Mr.  Van  Duzer's  peerless 
collection  for  the  Boston  "Transcript", 
Mr.  Sargent,  while  paying  every  trib- 
ute to  the  bibliography  and  the  col- 
lection, makes  this  statement:  'The 
Whitey-Brown  Paper  Magazine,  the 
unique  copy  of  which. .  .brought 
$3800  in  the  Lambert  sale,  is  an  omis- 
sion." The  Gossip  Shop  hears  that  by 
many  Thackeray  collectors  the  Whitey- 
Brown  Paper  Magazine  is  supposed 
not  to  be  an  original  publication,  but 
a  made-up  volume  taken  from  'The 
Autograph  Mirror". 

Of  the  many  tempting  little  items 
listed  in  this  collection,  we  cannot  re- 
sist quoting  a  few  notes.  Here  is  a  bit 
of  advice  written  from  the  Garrick 
Club :  "My  dear  old  B. :  Never  have  a 
literary  man  for  a  correspondent. 
Them's  my  sentiments  to  you.  He's 
like  a  writing-master  at  a  plain  letter 
or  a  professional  dancer  at  a  quadrille. 
Considers  himself  too  grand  for  it." 

Again:  "My  dear  Mrs.  Cole:  I  am 
going  to  confiscate  an  American  rock- 
ing-chair which  has  been  an  eye-  and 
shin-sore  in  my  room  for  years  past 
since  a  Yankee  captain  gave  it  me. ..." 

Beneath  a  pen-and-ink  drawing  of 
a  party  of  seven  at  dinner  are  these 
lines:  "My  Lord:  Dearest  Mrs.  D., 
how    incomparably   lovely   you   are. 


a 


D:  For  this  and  all  thy  other  mercies, 
the  Lord  make  us  truly  thankful." 

On  the  back  of  a  note  declining  an 
invitation  to  dinner,  is  a  pen-and-ink 
sketch  of  a  little  boy  saying  his 
prayers.  A  postscript  is  added  as  fol- 
lows: "On  the  back  of  the  note  I  see 
with  dismay  the  picture  of  a  little  boy 
saying  his  prayers.  As  the  subject  is 
moral  and  edifying,  I  don't  write  a 
new  note  and  economize  a  piece  of 
paper." 

Why  doesn't  someone  make  a  collec- 
tion of  Thackeray  letters,  and  get 
them  published?  An  American,  by 
all  means,  since  this  side  has  always 
been  first  both  in  collecting  and  pub- 
lishing Thackerayana. 


»> 


In  view  of  the  present  fad  of  books 
relating  to  psychic  phenomena,  it  is 
interesting  to  hear  Zona  Gale  say  that 
Mary  Johnston's  Swedenborgian  novel 
"Michael  Forth"  is  in  her  opinion  the 
most  important  book  of  fiction  of  recent 
years — not  so  much  from  the  standpoint 
ot  standards  (whatever that  is)  as  from 
the  standpoint  of  values  transcending 
standards.  "The  psychical  research 
folk,"  Miss  Gale  said  the  other  day, 
"bid  fair  to  be  outdistanced  publicly 
as  they  are  in  reality,  and  left  present- 
ing the  obvious,  the  mere  resultant, 
while  science  flows  back  to  causation 
itself."  Miss  Gale  goes  on  to  say  (for 
the  Gossip  Shop's  private  and  par- 
ticular ear) : 

"Mary  Johnston  has  set  herself  to 
interpret,  through  fiction,  a  tremen- 
dous adventure,  whose  A.  B.  C.  of  in- 
terpretation was  Dr.  Buck's  'Cosmic 
Consciousness'.  The  first  intimation 
of  this  comes  to  Michael  Forth  in  his 
love  story — that  entrance  upon  a  new 
level  of  consciousness  which  is  one  of 
the  reasons  of  the  world's  thraldom 
to  romance^  since  the  enhancement  of 


702 


THE  BOOKMAN 


consciousness  which  comes  with  love 
is  the  chief  enhancement  of  conscious- 
ness which  the  majority  of  the  race 
ever  knows.  Such  a  love  as  Michael's 
which  replies  to  a  lure  to  unfaithful- 
ness, 'No,  the  winged  thing  mustn't  re- 
turn to  the  finned  thing*,  makes  the 
modem  sex  novel  a  mere  record  of  bio- 
logical failures. 

''In  one  of  Michael's  important  ex- 
periences, he  says:  'I  looked  at  the 
lilies  by  the  reeds.  They  were  very 
fair;  they  trembled  on  the  dark 
water;  they  seemed  lit  from  beneath, 
sapphire,  exquisite.  The  reeds  grew 
musical  instruments  and  living  green 
and  of  a  vivid  grace.  It  was  a  flash  of 
transfiguration.'  May  Sinclair  has 
made  note  of  the  same  experience 
in  the  moment  before  the  thorn  tree  in 
'The  Three  Sisters'  and  in  a  measure 
in  the  occasional  'strange  and  secret 
happiness'  of  Mary  Olivier,  in  whose 
last  recorded  experience  the  new  con- 
sciousness is  strongly  present. 

"There  are  in  the  story  suggestions 
of  Einstein's  ideas  of  space  and  time ; 
of  H.  G.  Wells's  'There  is  no  difference 
between  time  and  space,  except  that 
our  consciousness  flows  along  it',  for 
man  at  different  ages  is  'a  three-di- 
mensional representation  of  a  fourth- 
dimensional  being'.  Evelyn  Underbill 
in  her  three  remarkable  books  on  mys- 
ticism gave  a  clear,  intellectual  pre- 
sentment in  London.  A.  E.'s  'Candle 
of  Vision'  is  one  of  the  most  recent 
and  exquisite  expositions." 


Forthcoming  is  another  book  by 
Aldous  Huxley — ^this  time  poetry, 
"Leda".  Mr.  Huxley  is  by  turns  sev- 
eral different  kinds  of  a  poet  in  this 
volume,  so  that  the  following  bit  is  not 
representative — it  is  merely  a  delight- 
fully whimsical  fragment  of  his  re- 
flections on  "the  irony  of  being  two" 
which  we  for  one  cannot  resist: 


Oh,  the  dear  front  page  of  the  Times ! 
Chronicle  of  eiaential  history  : 
Marriage,  birth,  and  the  bIj  myaterioiisnen 
Of  lovers'  greetings,  of  lorera*   meetings. . . . 

•  •  •  • 

The  life  so  short,  so  vast  love's  science  and  art. 

So  many  conditions  of  felicity. 

"Darling,  will  yon  become  a  iMUt 

Of  my  poor  physiology? 

And,  my  beloved,  may  I  have 

The  latchkey  of  yonr  history? 

And  while  this  corpse  is  what  It  Is 

Dear,  we  must  share  geographies.*' 


Arthur  Guiterman,  in  a  rhymed 
characterization  of  that  much-damned 
woman  and  well-praised  book  ^'Invin- 
cible  Minnie",  chivalrously  calls  Min- 
nie a  Libel.  Certainly  she  doesn't  be- 
long to  the  "woman — ^lovely  woman" 
era,  nor  yet  to  the  "be-good-and-let- 
who-will-be-clever"  period.  That  she 
is  dumpy  with  a  ''neat  waist"  takes 
her  out  of  the  Theda  Bara  class.  Oli- 
ver Herford  calls  her  the  "she-bear 
of  fiction".  On  account  of  the  fright- 
ful potentialities  of  the  creature  she 
is  anathema  to  all  readers — a  clinging 
vine  that  may  become  any  minute  a 
parasite  with  strangle  hold.  She  is  a 
modem  Clytemnestra  and  Medea. 

Here  are  Mr.  Guiterman's  verses : 

A  weirder  beast  than  nnicom 

Or  basilisk  described  by  Pliny 
Is  this  receptacle  of  scorn, 

The  truly  admirable  Minnie. 

f 

By  stuffing  straw  in  female  clothes 
The  Author  viciously  creates  her 

With  every  fault  said  Author  loathes. 
And  then  elaborately  hates  her. 

How  Minnie  nursed  her  moral  taint 
Of  stupid  selfishness,  but  hid  it. 

And  seemed  a  sweet,  domestic  saint, 
I  fail  to  see— but  Minnie  did  it. 

By  methods  crude  as  crudest  oU 
She  stole  her  sister's  only  feUow, 

Who  spun  not,  neither  did  he  toil, 
A  pleasant  waster,  tinted  yeUow. 

A  female  of  the  Minnie  kind. 

While  dead  to  loftier  emotion. 
May  show  to  mate  or  child,  we  find, 

A  reckless,  ruinous  devotion. 

So,  since  her  husband  must  be  fed, 
No  matter  what  must  happen  later, 


THE  GOSSIP  SHOP 


708 


Our  Minnie  bigamonsly  wed 
A  wealthy  SwedlBh  real-estater. 

And  Minnie  stole,  and  Minnie  lied. 
And    Minnie  grafted,   wholly  lawless, 

Yet  always  smugly  satisfied 

That  all  her  acts  were  pure  and  flawless. 

'Tis  not  Romance,  the  Author  deems, 

Nor  Realism.     On  the  Bible, 
I'll  say  she's  right  In  that ;    it  seems 

Like  what  they  used  to  call  a  Libel. 

Copyright,  Life  Publishing  Oo.      Beprlnted  from  "Lit*",  by 

pernaiiilon. 


News  of  Benjamin  Franklin's  "gold- 
en snowball" — ^the  accrued  interest  on 
his  thousand-dollar  bequest  to  the  city 
of  Philadelphia — is  reviving  in  Eng- 
land some  old  Franklin  stories.  It 
seems  that  when  he  was  a  compositor 
in  London  he  was  known  as  "the 
American  aquatic",  not  developing  a 
taste  for  wine  until  he  lived  in  Paris 
as  American  Minister.  Abb^  Mouel- 
let  in  "Lettres  k  Lord  Shelbourne" 
quotes  a  letter  in  which  Franklin  says 
that  the  wickedness  of  man  before  the 
flood  was  due  to  there  being  nothing 
but  water  to  drink.  Noah  had  such  a 
sickness  of  water  whilst  in  the  ark 
that  he  invented  wine,  and  thereafter 
— with  the  exception  of  one  lapse  from 
sobriety — ^trod  the  path  of  virtue  till 
death  came.  With  his  letter  Franklin 
sent  the  Abb6  some  drawings  to  prove 
that  whereas  all  other  animals  with 
long  legs  have  long  necks  so  that  they 
can  drink  easily  from  rivers  and 
streams,  man  has  a  short  neck.  He 
evidently  was  meant  to  drink  well  out 
of  a  glass,  but  Providence  intends  that 
the  inferior  animals  shall  drink  water. 


Alexander  J.  Wall  has  done  a  good 
piece  of  work  in  compiling  a  list  of 
New  York  almanacs  1694-1850.  It  in- 
cludes collections  of  fifty-four  libra- 
ries, and  is  a  most  valuable  book  for 
the  collector.     The  collecting  of  al- 


manacs, by  the  way,  is  a  fascinating 
hobby.  To  fully  appreciate  how  much 
of  history,  wit  and  wisdom  lies  be- 
tween the  covers  of  an  old  almanac, 
read  "The  Old  Farmer  and  His  Al- 
manac", by  Professor  George  Lyman 
Kittredge  of  Harvard,  whose  bound- 
less erudition  and  sense  of  humor  have 
made  a  most  readable  book  on  an  ap- 
parently unpromising  subject. 


News  of  the  publication  of  a  sequel 
to  "Marie-Claire"  stirs  memories  of 
the  sensation  caused  by  the  American 
importation,  almost  a  decade  ago,  of 
that  first  literary  attempt  of  a  French 
seamstress.  If  you  read  that  book, 
you  will  recall  that  at  the  end  the  hero- 
ine, in  desperation,  sets  out  for  Paris. 
"L' Atelier  de  Marie-Claire"  describes 
her  experiences  in  Paris  and  furnishes 
a  graphic  picture  of  the  life  of  the 
worker  in  a  dressmaking  establish- 
ment. 


For  twenty  years  the  house  at 
Olney,  Buck,  in  which  the  poet  Wil- 
liam Cowper  lived  from  1767  to  1786, 
has  been  known  as  the  Cowper  and 
Newton  Museum.  This  building,  con- 
taining a  collection  of  Cowper's  works, 
has  long  been  the  object  of  literary 
pilgrimages.  Recently  the  garden  has 
been  purchased  in  which  stands  the 
summer  house  so  frequently  mentioned 
in  Cowper's  charming  letters.  The 
trustees  who  have  bought  and  paid  for 
the  property  must  now  meet  the  cost 
of  restoring  it,  and  for  this  purpose  a 
fund  is  being  raised.  A  second  edition 
of  the  "Life  of  William  Cowper"  by 
Thomas  Wright  is  now  on  the  press. 


News  comes  from  England  that 
Archibald  Marshall's  proposed  visit  to 
America  this  summer  is  off,  on  account 
of  the  ill-health  of  the  novelist 


704 


THE  BOOKMAN 


The  latest  thing  in  poetry  move- 
ments seems  to  be  the  Dadaist — ^a 
Paris  importation.  Here  is  a  sample 
purporting  to  be  by  one  Louis  Aragon 
which  is  said  to  make  the  most  fu- 
turistic futurist  look  like  a  cave  man. 
It  is  called  "Suicide"  and  runs: 

a  b  c  d  e 

f  g  h  i  J 

k  1  m  n  o 

p  q  r  8  t 

u  V  w 

X  7  z 

And  the  last  few  lines  of  another 
which  begins  "Clgr  Grit  Gzdr"  (the 
last  two  lines  mean  "Whistle  of  yellow 
ink  and  slap") : 

Adada 

ibidilzl 

planche 

simiU 

galvanoplastle 

ra 

ga 

ta 

ga 

ribaldl 

coarse 

slfflet   d'encre  Jaune 

et  glfle 


"Few  would  care  to  commit  them- 
selves on  so  peculiar  a  question",  said 
Gelett  Burgess  when  approached  by 
the  American  Library  Association  in 
their  recent  symposium  on  books  most 
helpful  in  reaching  success.  "Suppose 
I  should  say,  for  instance,  that  Sin- 
nett's  'Esoteric  Buddhism'  affected 
me  most?  Yet  it  is  as  near  the  fact  as 
anything  I  could  say.  I  often  get 
more  stimulation  from  a  poor  book 
than  from  a  good  one.  It  drives  me 
to  surpass  it,  and  I  say,  'If  this  fool 
can  dare  express  himself  with  such 
abandon  of  ignorance,  why  should  not 
I,  who  have  better  things  to  say?' " 

Shakespeare  is  the  favorite  of 
Charlie  Chaplin;  Thomas  Edison  has 
read  mostly  technical  books,  hence  is 
too  one-sided  to  give  an  answer.  Sixty 
per  cent  of  the  votes  were  for  the 


Bible,  thirty  per  cent  for  Shakespeare, 
and  the  remaining  ten  per  cent  in- 
cluded Emerson,  Carlyle,  and  Herbert 
Spencer.  This  is  suspiciously  respect- 
able. 


The  recent  practice  of  authors  of 
naming  their  books  for  comestibles 
has  moved  another  friend  of  the  Gos- 
sip Shop  (Charles  F.  Woods,  librarian 
of  the  San  Jose  Free  Public  Liibrary) 
to  suggest  the  following: 

MENU   FOR  THB   NEXT   ANNUALi   DINNER 
OP  THB  AUTHORS*   CLUB 

Cocktail 
Manhattan  d  la  Clarhe 

Hobs  D'CEuvrbs 
Mixed  Pickles  d  la  Field 
Soup 
Red  Pottage  d  la  Oholmondelep 
Fish 
Octopus  d  la  Norris 
Ekteei 
Peacock  Pie  ^  la  de  la  Mare 
Roast 
Roast  Beef  Medium   d   la   Ferber 
Wild  Duck  d  la  Ihsen 
Small  Potatoes  d  la  I  shell 
Carrots  d  la  Molesworth 

Salad 
Cherry  d  la  Tarkington 

Dessbbt 
Mince  Pie  d  la  Morley 
Raspberry  Jam  d  la  WelU 

Ladyflngrers  d  la  Gregory 
Oranges  and  Lemons  d  la  Wem,y 99 
There's  Pippins  and  Cheese  to  Come  d  la  Braok9 

Cup  of  Coffee  d  la  Reynartg 
Something  that  Begins  with  "T"  d  la  Straham 

Smoke  d  la  Turgenev 
Sherry  d  la  McCutcheon    New  Wine  d  la  Ca9tle 


A  film  version  of  "The  Four  Horse- 
men of  the  Apocalypse''  is  now  in  the 
making,  in  which  twelve  hundred  per- 
sons are  to  take  part.  An  important 
scene  in  the  photoplay  will  be  a  re- 
production of  the  first  battle  of  the 
Marne, 


JGUST,  1920 


VOL.  LI,  NO.  6 


THE 


BOOKMAN 


Contents 

IE  SHINING  HOUR WiUiam  McFee  609 

EAVEN'S  LITTLE  IRONIES James  Lane  AUen  616 

URRAY  HILL  ON  HIS  TRAVELS Murray  HiU  620 

IP  AN— REAL  AND   IMAGINARY Raymond  M.  Weaver  629 

r  A  FRIEND'S  LIBRARY.    A  Poem      .    .    .     ,    .  Charles  Hanson  Tovme  634 

ilANCIS  BRETT  YOUNG Compton  Mackenzie  635 

IE  WIFE  OF  HONORE  DE  BALZAC      ....  PHncess  Catherine  RadziwiU  639 

^  BEING  AN   ESSAYIST Berton  Braley  646 

^  HUMOR  IN  LITERATURE C.S.Evans  648 

JRRENT  TASTE  IN  FICTION:     A  QUARTERLY 

SURVEY John  Walcott  652 

3LENS  VOLENS.    A  Poem Isaac  Goldberg  657 

IE  LONDONER Simon  Pure  658 

)MPLAINT  DEPARTMENT 

THE   TITLE   IS—         Grant  M.  Overton  665 

A  BONUS  FOR  THE  POET Constance  Murray  Greene  667 

flE  SOCIALIZATION  OF  THE  LIBRARY    .     .     .  AHhur  E.  Bostwick  668 

R.  DOOLEY  ALIAS  FINLEY  PETER  DUNNE    .  Morris  R.  Werner  674 

iAKESPEARE? Edwin  Bjorkman  677 

)OKING  AHEAD  WITH  THE  PUBLISHERS   .     .  S.  M.  R.  691 

IE  GLORIOUS  GAME.    A  Poem Richard  Burton  693 

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SHELF  OF  RECENT  BOOKS 

Dead  or  Alive Theodore  Maynard  682 

Folk  and  Nature  Vignettes Walter  Prichard  Eaton  684 

A  Voyage  Toward  Reality Ruth  Murray  UnderhiU  685 

Agricultural  Predicaments Walter  A.  Dyer  686 

Log  of  a  Spiritual  Voyage Joseph  Wood  Krutch  687 

A  Storehouse  of  Youth   . Eleanor  Kilmer  Sceva  689 

Pale  Bluestockings Martha  Plaisted  689 


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''Read  it  and  put  laughter  and  good  humor  back  into  your  daily  life.*' 

—CHtCAGO  NEWS 

DAISY  ASHFORD:  HER  BOOK 

A  collection  of  the  remaining  novels  by  the  author  of  *The  Young 
Visiters",  together  with  "The  Jealous  Govemes,**  by  Angela  Ashford 

WITH  A   PREFACE  BY  IRVIN  S.   COBB 


ADVICE  ON  PROPOSING 

Dear  Mr.  Lincarrou 

It  is  with  great  pleasure  that  I  comply  with  your  wishes.  It  is  not  the  first  time  I  have  been  ap- 
pealed to  under  such  circumstances.  There  is  an  art  in  proposing  as  well  as  in  every  thing.  If  you 
are  liable  to  nervousness,  do  not  propose  indoors.  There  is  a  very  nice  little  nook  in  the  back  garden 
by  the  crocus  bed,  where  my  own  romance  took  place.  It  is  quite  unfrequented  from  ii  to  i  and  from 
3  to  6. 

Be  careful  not  to  be  too  sudden  or  you  will  make  the  girl  shy,  but  do  it  by  degrees.  Keep  as  close 
to  her  as  you  can  after  she  has  accepted  (which  if  you  manage  it  with  tact  she  is  sure  to  do)  draw  her 
to  you  and  murmur  soft  words. 

If  you  wish  for  more  details  do  not  hesitate  to  write  to  me.    Wishing  you  every  success. 

1  remain.  Yours  etc.. 

Christina  Beaufort. 

WEDDING  ARRANGEMENTS 

Dear  Rev.  Father  Fanty, 

I  hope  your  kindness  does  not  mind  marrying  Miss  Edith  Plush  and  myself.  We  are  both  capa- 
ble of  receiving  the  Sacrament  of  Matrimony  on  Thursday  next  if  quite  convenient  to  you.  Hoping* 
you  will  excuse  my  craving  for  matrimony,  Yours  sincerely, 

Thomas  Henrick.     (Burke) 

Most  Dear  T.  Henrick, 

On  Thursday  I  am  free  from  all  engagements  and  am  most  willing  to  marry  you,  and  give  a 
charming  wedding  breakfast  in  my  lovely  harmonium  room.  So  with  my  best  congratulations  on  your 
coming  marriage,  I  am 

Your  affectionate  priest. 

Father  Fanty. 

AN  ELOPEMENT 

"At  ^4  to  6  Leslie  slipped  out  by  the  back  door.  He  was  attired  in  a  long  old  fashioned  ulster,  a  deer- 
stalking cap,  large  golosha  boots,  and  a  hunting  suit  as  he  had  gone  to  hunt  for  Sylvia.  On  his  /i?ht 
arm  he  carried  a  bag  containing  clean  under  linen  and  other  odds  and  ends  also  his  money  consistmg 
of  £40  in  ready  gold.  He  found  Sylvia  standing  by  the  table  buttoning  her  jacket  with  nervous  trem- 
bling fingers.  .  ,.,-,, 
•*  'Oh  Leslie  V  she  cried  as  he  entered  the  room,  *I  am  so  glad  you  have  come,  and  saymg  this  she  fell 

back  in  a  chair  and  fainted  dead  away.  ^  ,.r  ji-i_-         j 

"Leslie  caught  hold  of  the  water  jug  and  wetting  a  sponge  applied  it  to  her  white  face,  and  by  this  and 
the  aid  of  smelling  saults,  Sylvia  soon  revived.  ^  ^.      .     .        ,       ^      ., 

"  T  am  ready  now,'  said  Sylvia  in  a  weak  voice  as  she  put  a  packet  of  biscuits  into  her  bundle. 

"  'I'll  carry  your  luggage/  said  Leslie  picking  up  her  bundle  which  was  tied  in  a  white  tablecloth. 
"Sylvia  had  been  more  particular  than  Leslie  as  to  her  luggage.    Besides  all  her  under  linen  she  had 
with  her  two  pairs  of  clean  sheets  and  pillow  cases,  some  bath  towels  and  soap,  likewise  a  sponge  and 
a  yard  of  flannel  (in  case  she  lost  any)  a  flask  of  brandy,  some  new  potatoes  and  a  tooth  brush. 

MARRIED  UFE 


"The  Doctor  had  arrived  with  a  box  under  his  arm.  *0h,  I  say  Mrs.  Hose?*  he  began  taking  off  his 
hat.  'I  have  heard  you  have  been  wishing  for  a  baby,  so  I  have  brought  you  one  and  your  wish  is 
granted.'  'Oh  hurrah/  said  Mr.  Hose,  'is  it  a  boy  or  girl?'  'Well  I  don't  know,'  said  tfic  Doctor,  quite. 
•but  I'll  leave  you  to  f^nd  out  and  settle  matters/  so  saying  Dr.  Pauline  took  his  departure  shuttang  the 
door  with  his  foot,  while  he  held  his  precious  top  hat  in  his  two  hands.  Don  t  you  think  we  had  better 
open  the  box  and  look  at  it?'  said  Ur.  Hose.  'Well  perhaps  we  had/  said  his  wife,  cutting  the  string 
with  a  pair  of  scissors  which  were  lying  on  the  bed.  Directly  the  box  was  opened,  a  dear  little  fat 
baby  rolled  out  on  the  eiderdown.  *0h,  isn't  it  a  darling?'  said  Mrs.  Hose,  sitting  up  m  bed,  and 
placing  it  between  her  and  her  husband,  'What  a  pity  it  hasn't  got  its  eyes  open.  Oh,  but  it  s  asleep^ 
said  Mr.  Hose,  'they  never  have  their  eyes  open  when  they  are  asleep,  except  when  they  are  very  ill. 

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^T  The  interest  of  every  thinking  man  and  woman 
^l^is  increasingly  centered  upon  the  determination 
of  our  national  economic  problems,  our  world  rela- 
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OUR  ECONOMIC  and  Other  PROBLEMS 

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of  finance — in  straight^from-the-'shoulder  fashion,  Mr.  Kahn  analyzes  the  serious 
economic  problems — and  attacks  existing  economic  abuses — the  questions  of 
taxation,  living  cost,  railroads — which  now  confront  America,  A  book  for 
everyone  who  wants  to  think  straight, 

David  Jayne   Hill,    Author  of AmmricanUm—Whath  it?*' mte. 

AMERICAN  WORLD  POLICIES 

What  is  the  sound  course  in  American  world  policy  ? 

Dn  Hill  makes  a  clear  statement  of  the  problem  of  America's  attitude  toward 
the  rest  of  the  world.  In  the  solution  of  these  international  difficulties  he 
advocates  a  course  which  he  believes  to  be  "the  way  out"  of  our  present 
equivocal  position* 

I^%t%w%   ir«»0&tftftt^       Frofms9or  of  EngUmh  in  Colttmbia  Unwmrmity, 
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DEMOCRACY  AND  IDEALS 

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disintegration — her  one  hope  of  escape  through  universal  education. 
In  an  admirably  illuminating  book,  with  the  insight  of  a  scholar 
and  man  of  vision.  Professor  Erskine  analyzes  our  present  cha- 
otic condition  arid  gives  a  clear  definition  of  the  ethical  and 
spiritual  values  of  a  true  democracy* 

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Concerning 

LOUIS  COUPERUS 


"...  in  forty  years  the  academic  critics  will  be 
writing  very  learned  and  appreciative  articles  contrasting 
the  psychology  of  Henry  James'  novels  with  that  exhibited 
in  his  Dutch  peer  and,  in  part,  contemporary,  Louis 
Couperus.  And  those  articles  will  be  justified — even  if  they  are.  a  trifle  late. 
But  the  alert  reader  who  goes  to  novels  for  pleasure  plus  something  else,  for  a 
stimulus  which  shall  be  as  legitimately  given  and  as  rich  as  the  stimulus  of  life, 
that  the  reader  will  begin  today  to  collect  and  read  the  novels  of  Louis  Couperus." 

— Llewellyn  Jones  in  the  Chicago  Evening  Post, 

A  New  Novel 

THE  TOUR 

By  LOUIS  COUPERUS 

LOUIS  COUPERUS  was  born  in  the  year  1863.  He  is  regarded  in  the 
Netherlands  as  the  foremost  living  Dutch  author  and  will  undoubtedly  take 
rank  among  the  greatest  novelists  of  all  countries  and  all  times.  He  knows  and 
wields  his  native  Dutch  as  none  have  known  or  wielded  it  before  or  since.  And 
this  Dutch  is  a  majestic  and  a  plastic  language ;  a  live  language ;  a  manly, 
forcible  tongue  which  lends  itself  readily  to  translation  into  English.  An  English 
critic,  Stephen  McKenna,  sets  Couperus  "side  by  side  with  Balzac,  Flaubert, 
and  Tolstoi — all  at  their  best." 

The  works  of  Louis  Couperus  already  published  in  America  are: 

SMALL  SOULS  THE  LATER  LIFE 

THE  TWILIGHT  OF  THE  SOULS 

DR.  ADRIAAN      ECSTACY         THE  TOUR 

OLD  PEOPLE  AND  THE  THINGS  THAT  PASS 

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MANY  JUNES  By  Archibald  Marshall 

Author  of  "Exton  Manor,"  "The  Honour  of  the  Clintons^"  etc. 

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Readers  of  Archibald  Marshall  "soon  learn  that  to  read  one  of  his  novels  is  like  being 
introduced  into  a  pleasant  home  and  sharing  the  lives  of  its  inmates, — cultured,  sensible, 
right-thinking  people,  who,  while  they  have  their  idiosyncrasies,  their  foibles  and  their 
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best  in  literature  as  a  real  genius.  An  English  critic,  Stephen  McKenna,  sets  him  *'side 
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NEW  NOVELS  OF  UNUSUAL  INTEREST  AND  VARIETY 


Mary- 


A  New  Volume  of  the  OMected  Works  of  LEONARD  MERRICK 

When  Love  Flies  Out  o'  the  Window 

When  you  look  for  a  new  novel  what  do  you  ask  for  first — incident,  the  life  of  action?  or  char 
acter,  tne  life  of  mind  and  heart  X  Leonara  Merrick  is  one  of  the  very  few  who  can  tell  a  thrilling 
story,  and  at  the  same  time  give  you  the  real  stuff  of  life.  Which  is  probably  the  secret  of  the 
steadily  increasing  appreciation  of  his  fiction  so  noticeable  during  the  past  year.  Think  of  how 
he  holds  your  sympathy  through  his  uncompromising  The  Worldlings,  or  the  smiling  irony  of 
Conrad  in  Quest  of  His  Toutli,  the  light-hearted,  happy-'gO'lucky'ness  of  WUIe  Paris  Lan^Md^the 
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The  Young  Physician  By  Dr.  f.  brett  young 

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^-Girl  By  HOPE  MERRICK  (Mrs.  Leonard  Merrick) 

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hold  it  because  of  its  own  charm  and  insight  and  the  character  of  the  fanatic  Quaker  who  so 
nearly  wrecked  his  home  to  build  his  church.  $2.50 

A  Maker  of  Saints  By  Hamilton  drummond 

An  age  in  which  the  ability  to  take  and  hold  gave  fiill  tide  to  any  lordship  in  Italy,  is  the  back* 
ground  of  this  colorful  story  of  unscrupulous  intrigue  and  reckless  violence,  and  true  love.   $2.50 

Tamarisk  Town  By  sheila  kaye-smith 

An  increasing  number  of  critics,  Hugh  Walpole  among  them,  are  inclining  to  rate  this  author 
as  the  ranking  woman  novelist  of  the  day.    It  will  repay  reading.  $2.50 

AVunpOSt  By  DANE  COOLIDGE,  Author  of  "The  Fightinfir  Fool,''  etc. 

Mr.  Coolidge's  Westerners  ring  true.  His  stories  fairly  drip  with  local  color  and  a  humor 
which  is  characteristic  and  his  plots  are  exceedingly  ingenious.  $2.00 

Mountain  By  clement  vitood 

The  old  South  all  novel  readers  know,  but  here  is  the  new,  the  industrial  South ;  its  scenes 
show  the  development  of  a  town  whose  every  interest  centres  in  the  ''Mountain*'  of  iron  ore 
towering  above  it.    Quite  out  of  the  ordinary.  $230 

The  Sword  of  the  Spirit  By  zephine  Humphrey 

A  welUmcaning,  pracrical  husband,  a  brilliant,  temperamental  woman  attracted  by  the  fascina* 
tion  of  emotional  mysticism  in  religion,  and  th^  varied  factors  of  the  life  of  a  church  are  woven 
by  the  author  of  "The  Homestead'*  and  "Grail  Fire**  into  a  novel  of  distincdon.  $2  JO 

The  Wider  Way  By  diana  Patrick 

Introduces  a  new  author  who  by  the  beauty  of  her  descriptions,  the  fullness  and  vigor  of  her 
charactef'drawing  has  put  herself  at  once  in  the  front  rank  of  contemporary  writers  of 
romance.  $2.00 

Our  Peter  By  GEORGE  WODEN,  Author  of  "Uttle  Houses" 

Full  of  the  simple  humanity,  homely  humor,  and  mellow  judgment  which  won  for  his  earlier 
book  instant  recognition  as  a  most  unusual  piece  of  work.  $2.50 

in  ordering  books  for  thm  wk^mnd  or  vacaiion  ask  your  bookamO^r  for  thmBO,  or  onclsr  /ran 

£.  P.  DUTTON  &  CO.,  681  Fifth  Avenue^  New  York 


Pleaso  mention  Ths  Bookman  in  writing  to  adrertlstrs. 


BRIEF   MENTION   OF   NEW   BOOKS 


In  a  lengthy  review  of  contemporary 
American  literature  in  a  recent  num- 
ber of  the  "Mercure  de  France"  the 
writer  conmiends  highly  Sherwood 
Anderson's  "Winesburg,  Ohio".  Fol- 
lowing are  the  five  rules  for  writing 
successfully  for  American  magazines, 
as  set  down  by  the  writer:  First,  bear 
in  mind  that  you  are  not  writing  for  a 
class  that  enjoys  satire  either  at  the 
expense  of  itself  or  of  some  other  class 
of  society.  There  are  no  such  divi- 
sions in  the  American  reading  public 
— you  are  writing  for  an  entire  people. 
Second,  avoid  questions  of  race  or  re- 
ligion. Don't  slight  the  stenographer 
and  shop  girl — give  them  romance, 
not  reality.  Third,  reveal  the  gayer, 
happier  side  of  every  type  of  Amer- 
ican who  might  be  attracted  by  the 
magazine.  Four,  avoid  slighting  ref- 
erences to  Catholics  and  Jews.  Five, 
go  to  any  lengths  in  depicting  the  poli- 
tician— ^you  can  safely  lampoon  him 
for  any  crime,  including  wife-beat- 
ing! 


BRIEF  MENTION  OF  NEW  BOOKS 

Fiction 

The  Tonr,  by  Lonis  Couperus  [Dodd,  Mead].  A 
ttory  of  ancient  Romans  in  Egypt. 

The  Light  Heart,  by  Maurice  Hewlett  [Holt]. 
A  romance  based  on  Norse  legend. 

The  Paradise  Mystery,  by  j.  S.  Fletcher 
[Knopf].     The  tale  of  a  aoctor*s  ward. 

Richard  Kurt,  by  Stephen  Hudson  [Knopf]. 
A  novel  of  a  man  ana  two  women. 

The  Whispering  Dead,  by  Alfred  Ganachilly 
[Knopf].     A  prewar  Chilean  mystery. 

The  Best  Psychic  Stories,  ed.  by  J.  Lewis 
French   [Boni].     An  anthology. 

The  Pathway  of  Adventure,  by  Rof(^  Tyrell 
[Knopf].  A  fiction  writer*s  underworld  ven- 
ture. 

Margot's  Progress,  by  Douglas  Goldring  [Seltz- 
er].   A  Canadian  girl's  social  experiment. 

Czechoslovak  Stories,  trans,  by  Sarka  B. 
Hrbkova   [DuflSeld].     An  anthology.     * 

The  Ivory  Disc,  by  Percy  Brebner  [Duffleld]. 
An  Oriental  love  and  mystery  story. 

The  Lure  of  the  Manor,  by  Gertrude  GriflSths 
[Duffleld].     An  Anglo-American  romance. 

Fiddler's  Luck,  by  Robert  Haven  Schauffler 
[Houghton].     A  musician's  adventures. 

On  a  Passing  Frontier,  by  Frank  B.  Linder- 
man   [Scribner].     Sketshes  of  Montana  life. 

Wine  o'  the  Winds,  by  Keene  Abbott  [Double- 
day].    A  love  story  of  the  early  West. 

The  Light  Out  of  the  East,  by  S.  R.  Crockett 
[Doran].     The  story  of  a  modem  mystic. 

The  Searchers,  by  John  Foster  [Doran].  An 
adventure  yam  of  Scotland  and  Italy. 

The  Girl  on  the  Hilltop,  by  Kenyon  Gambler 
[Doran].     A  romance  of  rural  England. 

Mrs.  Craddock,  by  W.  Somerset  Maugham 
[Doran].    A  psychological  study  of  a  woman. 

Pink  Gods  and  Blue  Demons,  by  Cynthia  Stock- 
ley  [Doran].     An  African  adventure  tale. 

The  Foolish  Lovers,  by  St.  John  G.  Brvine 
[Macmillan].     An  Irish  youth's  romance. 

Lotus  Salad,  by  Mildred  Cram  [Dodd,  Mead]. 
South- American  exploits. 


Excellent  Summer  Reading 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

By  Charles  H.  Haskins  and  Robert  H.  Lord.     ^3.00 

AN  ANSWER  TO  JOHN  ROBINSON  OF  LEYDEN 

Edited  by  Champlin  Burrage.     ^2.00 

OLD  AND  NEW :  SUNDRY  PAPERS 

By  Charles  H.  Grandgent.     <1.50 

THE  OLD  FARMER  AND  HIS  ALMANACK 

By  George  Lyman  Kittredge.     JI3.00 

MYTHICAL  BARDS  and  the  LIFE  of  WILLIAM  WALLACE 

By  William  Henry  Schofield.     $3.00 

KOSTES  PALAMAS :  LIFE  IMMOVABLE 

Translated  by  Aristides  £.  Phoutrides.     {2.00 

^/  ^//  Bookshops  Harvard  University  ^ress 

Cambridge  and  New  York  City 


ii 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Presenting  Jane  McRae,  by  Mark  Lee  Lnther 
[Littlef.    A  country  girVt  romanee. 

The  Mystery  In  the  Ritsmore,  by  William  John- 
ston [Little].    A  atory  of  a  murder. 

Follow  the  Little  Pictures  I  by  Alan  Graham 
[Little].     A  tale  of  buried  treasure. 

Mountain,  by  Clement  Wood  [Dutton].  An  in- 
duatrial  novel  of  a  mine. 

The  Book  of  Susan,  by  Lee  Wilson  Dodd  [Dut* 
ton].     A  alum  girVs  development. 

Windmills,  by  Gilbert  Cannan  [Huebsch].  Sa- 
tirical fahlea. 

John  Silence,  by  Algernon  Blackwood  [Dutton]. 
Five  atoriea  of  the  occult. 

The  Ramblin'  Kid,  by  Barl  Wayland  Bowman 
[Bobbs].    A  cowhou'a  romance. 

When  Love  Flies  Out  o'  the  Window,  by  Leon- 
ard Merrick  [Dutton].  An  Bngliah  singer's 
Paris  ewperienoes. 

Brewhon  Reyisited,  by  Samuel  Butler  [Dut- 
*ton].    A  new  edition  of  the  satire. 

Alf's  Button,  by  W.  A.  Darlington  [Stokes]. 
A  modem  Aladdin's  adventures. 

Love  and  the  Crescent,  by  A.  C.  Inchbold 
[Stokes].     A  romance  of  Turkey. 

Next  Besters,  by  Lulah  Ragsdale  [Scribner]. 
Two  Southern  sisters*  romances. 

Grey  Fish,  by  W.  Victor  Cook  [Stokes].  Medi- 
terranean adventures  with  u -boats. 

Wings,  by  Achmed  Abdullah  [McCann].  It 
tales  of  the  supernatural. 

The  Gofre  Cakes,  by  Edward  Willmore  [Lon- 
don :    Ward].      Psychic  experiences. 

A  Maker  of  Saints,  by  Hamilton  Drummond 
[Dutton].     A  novel  of  ISth-oentury  Italy. 

Wunpost.  by  Dane  Coolidge  [Dutton].  A  west- 
ern tale  of  lost  gold  mines. 

Dais/  Ashford :  Her  Book  [Doran].  Further 
tales  by  the  author  of  **The  Young  Visiters". 

Limbo,  by  Aldous  Huxley  [Doran].  Short 
stories  and  a  modem  society  skit. 

Suffering  Husbands,  by  Wallace  Irwin  [Doran]. 
Ilumorous  domestic  episodes. 

The  House  of  Dreams-Come-True,  by  Margaret 
Pedler  [Doran].  A  romance  of  a  gypsy 
prophecy. 

Helping  Hersey,  by  Baroness  yon  Hutten 
[Doran].    A  collection  of  short  stories. 

In  the  Days  of  the  Comet,  bv  H.  G.  Wells 
[Doran].     The  tale  of  a  world  recreated. 

Growing  Up,  by  Mary  Heaton  Vorse  [Boni]. 
A  story  oj  American  family  life. 

Unseen  Hands,  by  Robert  Orr  Chipperfleld 
[McBride].     A  tale  of  a  stricken  household. 

Open  the  Door,  by  Catherine  Carswell  [Har- 
court].  A  girVs  reaction  from  a  narrow  en- 
vironment. 

The  Cruise  of  the  "Scandal",  by  Victor  Bridges 
[Putnam].     Adventures  tales. 

The  Unknown  Quality;  The  Valley  of  Vision, 
by  Henry  van  D/ke  [Scribner].  Further 
volumes  of  the  collected  edition. 

The  Fur  Bringers,  by  Hulbert  Footner  [Mc- 
Cann].   A  romance  of  northweat  Canada. 


Hiatory  and  Political  Science 

List  of  References  on  the  Treaty-Making  Power, 
compiled  under  the  direction  of  Herman  H. 
B.  Meyer  [Gov.  Print.  Office].  A  bibliog- 
raphy. 

Secrets  of  Dethroned  Royalty,  by  Princess 
Catherine  Radziwill  [Lane].  European  epi- 
aodea. 

The  Seventeenth  Century,  by  Jacques  Bou- 
lenger  [Putnam].    A  aurvey. 

Occasional  Papers  and  Addresses  of  an  Ameri- 
can  Lawyer,  by  .Henry  W.  Taft  [Macmillan]. 
Conaidcrationa  of  preacnt  problema. 

A  History  of  the  Indian  Nationalist  Movement, 
by  Sir  Vornev  Lovett  [Stokes].  A  Civil 
SerxHce   official'a   account. 

Our  Great  War  and  the  (Jreat  War  of  the  An- 
cient Greeks,  by  Gilbert  Murray  [Seltzer]. 
The  atory  of  the  Pcloponneaian  War. 

International  Conflicts,  by  Juan  Ignacio  Gal- 
vez   [Santiago  de  Chile :    Socicdad  Imprenta 


Who's  Who  in  America  for  1920-21, 
has  just  come  from  the  press,  a  better 
volume,  if  possible,  than  any  of  its 
predecessors.  This  is  the  eleventh  bi- 
eimial  issue  of  a  publication  which 
long  since  became  the  recoflrnixed 
standard  biographical  reference  book 
of  the  country. 

It  contains  8,804  padres,  presenting, 
as  only  Who's  Who  in  America  can 
present  them,  nearly  24»000  crisp,  per- 
sonal sketches,  and  2,600  of  these 
sketches  are  entirely  new,  having  ap- 
peared in  no  previous  edition.  As 
usual,  the  latest  address  is  appended 
to  each  sketch,  and  the  index  by  state 
and  post  office  address  is  retained  as  a 
necessary  corollary  to  a  volume  that 
has  become  a  welcome  biennial  visitor 
in  well-equipped  libraries. 

Turn  to  the  index  and  see  how  many 
notable  names  belong  to  your  state. 
It  will  help  you  to  know  the  people  you 
hear  much  about  and  read  about  in 
the  newspapers  and  magazines.  It 
will  help  you  to  know  and  understand 
them  as  school  children  are  coming  to 
understand  them  by  the  constantly 
growing  use  of  Who's  Who  in  Amer- 
ica in  the  schoolroom. 


A  "Revised  Mandarin  Bible''  has 
lately  been  published  in  China.  The 
language  of  the  text  is  "Pu-tung  hwa", 
a  dialect  which,  unlike  those  of  South- 
east China,  can  be  written.  This  vol- 
ume represents  a  quarter-century  of 
work  on  the  part  of  missionary  lin- 
guists in  collaboration  with  Chinese 
scholars.  The  chairman  of  the  trans- 
lation committee,  the  Reverend  Chaun- 
cey  Goodrich,  D.D.,  LittD.,  L.H.D., 
now  in  his  eighty-third  year,  has  had 
a  share  in  this  undertaking  ever  since 
its  inception.  And  one  committee 
member  is  now  at  home  on  furlough 
for  the  first  time  in  twenty  years. 


THE    BOOJTJIf^JV    A»VCMtTISEli. 


y  Litografia  Uniyerso].     A  record  of  South- 
American  conflicts. 
Pan-Americanism :    Its  Beginnings,  by  Joseph 

Byrne  Lockey  [MacmiUan].     A  hUtory. 
The    Story    of    the    Nonpartisan    League,    by 

Charles    Edward    Russell    [Harper].      F€U!t» 

about  the  farmer*8  prohlema. 
Democracy  and  Ideals:    A  Definition,  by  John 

Erslsine  [Doran].     Study  and  tuggettion. 
Chance  and  Change   in  China,   bj  A.   S.   Roe 

[Doran].    Preaent-day  db$ervatUnu. 

Biography 

Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  by  James  Insley  Osborne 
[Houghton].     Critical  and  biographical  data. 

Portraits  of  the  Eighties,  by  Horace  O.  Hutch- 
inson  [Scribner].     19-century  sketches. 

Fredericl£  Locker •Lampson,  by  Augustine  Blr- 
rell  [Scribner].  A  sketch  with  Mbliograph- 
ic<U  notes. 

The  Prime  Minister,  by  Harold  Spender  [Do- 
ran].   A  biography  of  Lloyd  Ocorge* 

Poetry 

Mythical  Bards,  by  William   Henry   Schofleld 

[Harvard].     A  discussion  of  the  authorship 

of  "The  Life  of  William  Wallace", 
Broken    Lights,    by    Glenn    Hughes    [Univ.   of 

Wash.].     Lyrics  and  sketches. 
Chuckles,    by    John    Carver    Alden     [Marshall 

Jones].     Humorous  verse  illustrated. 
A  Canticle  of  Pan,  bv  Witter  Bynner  [Knopf]. 

narrative,  dramatic  and  lyric  verse. 
Country  Sentiment,  by  Robert  Graves  [Knopf]. 

Lyrics  and  narrative  poems. 
Gates  of  Paradise,  by  Edwin  Markham   [Dou- 

bleday].     Philosophical  reflections. 
Paths  of  June,  by  Dorothy  Stockbridge   [Dut- 

ton].     A  volume  of  lyrics. 
War :     An    Ode,    by   Ronald    Campbell   Macfie 

[Dutton].     Odes  and  lyrics. 
Poems,    1916-1918,    by    Francis    Brett    Young 

[Dutton].  Love  9ongs  and  descriptive  poems. 
Some  Soldier  Poets,  by  T.  Sturge  Moore  [Har- 

court] .     Critiques,  with  quotations. 
Moods     and     Memories,     by    Edmund     Leamy 

[Devin-Adairl.     Love  lyrics  and  others. 
The  House  of  Love,  by  Will  D.  Muse   [Corn- 
hill].     Love  poems. 
New   Poems,   by   D.   H.   Lawrence    [Hnebsch]. 

Descriptive  sketches  and  lyrics. 


Drama 


Five 


First  Plays,   by   A.   A.   Milne    [Knopf]. 

comedies. 
Liluli,  by  Romain  Rolland  [Boni].     A  fantasy 

satirizing  war. 
Ben  Jonson's  Every  Man  in  His  Humour,  ed. 

by    Percy    Simpson     [Oxford].      An    edition 

with  introduction  and  notes. 
Touch  and  Go,  by  D.  H.  Lawrence ;   The  Fight 

for  fVeedom,  by  Douglas  Goldring  [Seltser]. 

Two  industrial  "Plays  for  a  People's  Thea- 
tre", 

•Essays  and  Literary  Studies 

The  Real  Mlcawber,  by  T.  P.  Cooper  [London : 
Simpkin:  York:  Edwin  Story].  Part  I  of 
"Dickensrs  Footsteps  Series**, 

By-Paths  in  Hebraic  Bookland,  by  Israel  Abra- 
hams r Jewish  Pub.  Soc.  of  Amer.].  Studiee 
of  little-known  writers. 

International  Minds  and  the  Search  for  the 
Restful,  by  Gustav  PoUak  [Nation].  Studies 
in  comparative  literature. 

A  Study  of  The  Newe  Metamorphosis,  by  John 
Henry  Hobart  Lyon  [Columbia].  Commen- 
tary  on  an  EUzabethan  poem. 

Twentieth  Century  French  Writers,  by  Mary 
Duclaux  [Scribner].     Critical  studies. 

War  and  Reconstruction 

''Barbarous  Soviet  Russia'*,  by  Isaac  McBride 

[Seltzer].     Recent  impressions. 
Germany  After  the  Armistice,  by  Maurice  Ber- 

ger   [Putnam].     A  report  based  on  German 

testimony. 
The   Maintenance   of  Peace,   by    S.    C.    Vestal 

[Putnam].     An  historical  study. 


Literary  Agents 

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Bids..  New  York 


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DO  TOU  NEED  A  CONSULTING  EDITOR 

to  critlciae.  revise  or  place  your  Mas.?    ICy  18  vears* 
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Etc.,  successfully  placed.    Submit  MSS.  or  vrrite  for 
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By  J.  BERG  ESENWEIN 

Authoritative  help  on  all  kinds  of  mi^^azine  writing 

with  reliable  new  data  on  what  the  editors  want  and 

how  they  want  it  written. 

BDWIN  MARKHAM  SAYS  :—"Writiiijg:  for  the  Maga- 
slnes  it  a  fine  epitcmie  of  common  tense  m  literary  pro- 
cedure. It  teemt  to  foretee  every  difficultv  of  the  novice 
and  to  throw  Ught  even  upon  the  path  of  tne  prof easionaL 
It  it  a  anfficient  coefficient  for  tbe  scribe  in  his  scramble 
np  the  tlopea  of  Pamassut.     It  will  help  thousands." 

Cloth,  uniform  with  The  Writer's  Library, 
xvi  +  260  pages.     Postpaid,  $1.75 

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THE  HOME  CORRESPONDENCE  SCHOOL 

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Please  mention  7um  Bqqkman  in  writing  to  adyertlsera. 


THE    ^OOKM^Jf   AOVEttTtSEK. 


LITERARY    AGENTS    AND 
.WRITERS'  AIDS  {Continued) 


FIRST  AID  TO  AUTHORS 


m  1  publijher'a  rtadtr.  For  years  I  n.d  (. 
lor  Doran,  and  then  I  brcinic  cnnsullmi 
.  and  lo  Holt.  Elokes,  Uppincotl.  lUrcour 
last  of  whom  I  taave  also  done  expert  ed 


Canaf 

THE  SUKWISE  TURN 

SI  EAST  44th  STREET 

tiEw  YORK  crrr 


■Ji&lu 


A   ladr   with   preelleil  Bxperlcice  ■■  writer,   ciltle 

■kMt  aUij  conrH  tbnotti  cormpoDdeiic*  to  ■  llmllM 

tmtti^  anj  miiioKTlpU.  Ineiudliii  Tun. 
Short    etsi7,    c«n   Tb*   Bookiun,    Hnr 


training  jor  /fntiiorsliip 

^  HoWloWrite.WhoHoWrtte. 
and  Where  Id  sell. 

I   CuHiAAe  your  mind.  IWelqt 

yonrlitmiry  jijlB.Miialar  the 

arl  of  wtf-ejtpreBsion.MoliB 

^j  jpu"'  spare  time  pro^toble. 

Turn  yont  iH •as  inlo  doUiira. 


THE  WRITER'S  MO^^^HLYJ.B„'J£i,^.l„ 

CAROLYN  WELI.S  •armi  "Thm  baml  matn- 

abtt  of  Hi  kind  baeaum*  U  U  PRACTICAL.' ' 

Sbifla  (ia|d«  20  cxnta  $2.M  ■  ywr 

niE  WRITER'S  MOKTHLT.  D«ft.  11  S»rta|fiUl.  Mia. 


The  Homan  Coala  of  tbe  War,  bj  Homrr  FolU 

[Harper].    A  rainiNiirii- 
Tbe    Irtib    Csae   betan    (be    Court    of   PnUlc 

Opinluii.    br    P.   WbltweU    Wtlwta    [Renlll. 

Ah  ONtlfHC. 
A  SubaUvru  to   the  Field,   by    E.    C.    Mattben 

[  Lull  J  on  :    HMth  Crautoar.      Exprrimeet,  ii- 

iHllratrd. 
■That   DoJiin  T",  by  Katberlne   Mb;o 

lUDl.     A  record  of  V  teork  in  frnHiJi 
Luck    on    tbu    Wlnic.    bf    EInier    llaslpit    [Dut- 

The"  Trace  Co^rV"  '     .      . 

T.    Thumi»uu     [BruDCaiio] . 


RuaalBti-Aiiierlciin  Bi-Iatloua.  ed.   br  t:. 

mine  oinl   IValtpr  W.   PettIt    [ifam 

roIJictloH  of  docamint*. 
SlmaaduB :     Lundou,   bjr   John    L^Dtcilon    Lrleb- 

tuD   [Holt].     An  account  of  our  (xirrf  abror' 
My    A.     E.     F.,    bj    Francea      Nt-wtxild     N«: 

[RtokM].      A  y  girl'i  talk  to    r^-aoUirr: 
What  IlaprennI  to  Eurirpe.   by    Fraiik    Vandtr- 

Up    [Macmlllanl.      A   uric    idltlon. 
ConalontlDi'  I  nnd  the  ttreelt  PihiiiK-.  by  Pbj 

Hlbbrn    [Cenlary).      Wnrilmr    t/birrrallon-. 
Wllb    the   Dle-tlards   In   Siberia,    by    i^'ol.   John 

Waril    [Doranj.     Rmtian   rxpcri,ncrm. 
American  World  Pnllclea.  by  Duvld  Jnyne  nm 


[Doranl.     .* 


Ill  ditc 
Trarrl  and  Dfitrlption 


l>acjiard 


Old    Plfmoulb    Tmlla,    by    Wlntt 

[Small].     Illutlraird  ikrtehea. 
WanderlnRB,  by  Blchard  Curie    [Dutti'ti].      . 

perlcncet  oToand  the  fflobr. 
Fire  Months  In  tbe  Argentine,  by  Knlherlnr 

Drelur   [Sherniflnl.     An   ecanamir  tludv- 
Rval   Euroiie,    bj    William     llarmau    Bkict 


(B 


"]'■.. 


EnKlnnd,    ed.    by    Flndlay    Mnlrht-ad     [Marn 

Ian],     .-In  muntraled  i/Hidrttook. 
The   Shadow   Sbuw.    by   J.    H.    I^urlo     [Donii 

Impreiilont  of  iiirfoua  porta  o/  ttir  teorld. 

EocMogt/  end  Eeonamlct 
Bankins   Prosreia.   by   J.    Laur<-ti<v    Laugblln 


rSe?Sne. 


American  Bualneu  La«T  by  A.   B.  Frey   [Mae- 
The    I'rinclplea   of    Socloloey,  ^by    Eilward    Al»- 


The     SI  I- Hon 


Srtalird  tcil 


Shift,     by     Lord      _. 

trrationt  bated  upon   fart. 
ork  Stale,   by   Pb 


Kluln    [Columbia].     

rhe  Negro  Facea  America,  by  Herbert  J.  Belie- 

niaiin    lilarppr].     A  ntNdp  at  rrrrnt    eimtr. 
Labor   In  a   Basle   Industry,   by    Wllltani    Hani 

and   Paul    R.    Leach    [Chicago    Dally    >>«■]. 


Religion  and  BplrUiuaiam 

lUlde  to  ZlonUm,  ed.  by  Jeaale  E.   ^mplei 
ZlunlBt  Organ,  of  Amcr.].    Ah  hlttorleaf  ex 


Of  tbe  Imitation  of  Chrlat.by  Thomaa  k  Krmpta 
[Oxford].  A  faetimlle  of  £tfllh  Cairtit  npn. 

Neither  Dead  Nor  Sleeping,  by  May  Wright 
Bewail    [Bobba].     Ptpchle  crferlenrra. 

The  Tanlahed  Prlead,  by  Jnlea  Thlfbault  [Dot- 
ton].    A  itiHfy  0/  payelitc  ^raonmo. 

The  Near  Eait,  by  wmUm  H.  Hall  [later- 
churrh].     A  lurrey  ut  prcaent  cuDdlUoDc 


II  The  Buokuan  In  writing  ti 


THE    900KMAJf    ADVERTISEH. 


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Wrlllng  Tbrough   Reading,  by  Robert  M.  Gar 

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Handbook  of  Business  Enellsh,  by  Qi 
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History  ot  Journalism  In  the  United  States,  by 
Ueorge  Henry  Payne  lAppleton).     A  aurreii. 

If  You  Don't  Write  Fiction — .  by  Charles 
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In  a  small-town  church  in  Illinois  a 
youiifr  men's  Bible  class  was  being 
formed  and  one  of  the  books  for  study 
waa  Farrar's  "Seekers  after  God". 
Several  copies  of  the  book  were  needed 
but  could  not  be  obtained  in  the  town. 
A  telegram  was  sent  to  one  of  the  pub- 
lishing houses  in  Chicago  asking  for 
the  required  number.  This  reply  was 
wired  back:  "Very  sorry  but  no  seek- 
ers after  God  in  Chicago". 


Miss  Lowell  would  like  to  have  it 
stated  that  "Tendencies  in  Modem 
American  Poetry"  is  out  of  print  only 
for  the  moment,  and  that  "Can 
Grande's  Castle"  (.not  "Salmagundi") 
is  being  issued  in  England. 

Please  mention  Tarn  Booki 


R.  LEE  HILL 

Authon'  Agent 

SHORT  STORIES,  NOVBI.S,  PLATS  AND  DRAW- 
INGS PLACED.    Writ*  for  Desired  Informitlon. 

Box  4^  Sta.  O.  New  York  City 


THE  BOOKFELLOWS 

CAn  Organized  Demand  for  Better  Books. 
We  publiah  the  sort  of  books  we  demand. 
Dues,  inclading  THE  STEP  LADDER 
and  other  booklj  joys,  one  dotlat.  WiJM 
for  c1tcuUi& 

Flora  WaiT«a  S«yiiiaiir.  CUrk 
aa4?  Dorchaatei  «*«■■ 


THE  GOFRE  CAKES 

■nd  two  other  Uystlc  StoHe*  of  Shoredltch,  br 
Edward  Willmor*.  publlshid  by  W.  H.  ^Vard,  For- 
est Oate,  LondDD,  EncUiiid.  The  "Dally  Telccraph" 
writing  of  Mr.  Wlllmace'm  KrevlouB   book,  "East 

Bvlalonary.but'lt  l>  asatTUK.we  may  even  say  ss 
■  grMt.  vUlonsry."  Remit  75  cents  to  Ut.  Ward  for 
this  book.    Coclei  also  ot  "B»t  London  Vlsk 


CARMEN  AWI2A  'iSElT.' 


Colored  irontlBpieee.  cloih  cover.  S2.50iHt.  Leather 
cover.  S3.S0  net.  (Edition  dc  Laie)  Leather  coiei, 
allEiltedrea.y^OOiwt.    Pottage.  IS ceaia. 

THE   MAESTRO   COMPANY 

Monadnoek  Blook  CHICAOO 


HI66INS' 


SBAwuiG  ms 

ETERHAL  WRTTHIG  UK 
BRGROSSmC  IKE 
TADRDIE  MnCtLAGE 
FBOTO  HOnXTZR  PASTE 
BRA  WHIG  BOARD  FASTS 
UQPIP  PASTE 
OmCE  PASTE 
TZGETABIE  GLDE,  Xtc 
nlbeFlBBlBsd    BeU  Isks  set  AIMfw 

Mi"  and  i:l^>''Snc™.and™h«^ 
..d  iido,,i  the  H.irfi«>'  Inki  amJ  Adkf 
-p«.  1  hfy  n.h  b=  a  rjvtlarion  to  ycm, 
ley  m  10  iweet,  dean,  well  pul  up,  and 
■ildalio  efficient 

AtSealeneeBenUly 
I CHAS.  n.  HIGGinS  &  CO.,  Hfrs. 

P  3n  niTH  ST.,  BROOELTX,  IT.  T. 
" — cHss:  Chiueoi  Lohdom 


H  tn  writing  to  adTertliets. 


collectors' GUIDE 

In  this  section  the  readers  of  THB  BOOKMAN  wUl 
find  the  latest  announcements  of  reliable  dealers  In 
Rare  Books,  Manuscripts,  Autographs  and  Prints.  It 
will  be  well  to  look  over  this  section  fsr^ully  each 
month,  for  the  advertlsemeats  wlU  be  frequeotly 
changed,  and  items  of  Intovst  to  collectors  will  be 
offered  here.  All  these  dealers  Invite  correspondence. 


THE  American  exodua  to  EnKland 
is  now  well  under  way,  and  among 
the  tourists  are  many  whose  principal 
recreation  will  be  found  in  the  London 
bookshops.  Probably  never  before  has 
so  inviting  a  table  been  spread  for  the 
American  guests,  and  even  where  ma- 
terial is  not  for  sale  it  will  be  put  out 
for  the  delectation  of  American  schol- 
ars. Miss  Henrietta  Bartlett,  who 
with  Alfred  W.  Pollard  in  1916  com- 
piled "A  Census  of  Shakespeare's 
Plays  in  Quarto,  1594-1709",  has  al- 
ready feasted  at  the  board  of  Sir 
George  Holford,  where  she  found  six- 
teen undescribed  quartos,  including 
one  unique  item.  This  is  the  only 
large  collection  found  since  the  book 
was  compiled,  although  some  copies 
there  described  have  changed  hands, 
and  an  occasional  unrecorded  copy  has 
turned  up  in  the  auction  room.  The 
Dorchester  House  Library  of  Lord 
Holford  contains  the  first  edition  of 
"Troylus  and  Cresseida",  one  of  the 
four  known  copies  of  the  earlier  issue 
of  1609,  having  the  shorter  title  and 
no  prologue.  Its  chief  interest  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  is  entirely  untrimmed 
by  the  binder's  knife  and  measures 
"^^■/ifl  ^y  5-'Ji  inches.  The  famous 
Perry  copy  of  "Pericles",  1609,  in  the 
original  paper  covers,  owned  by  Dr. 
Rosenbach  of  New  York,  measures 
6''ii;  by  5-'!8  inches.  The  Dorchester 
House  copy,  the  only  uncut  one  known 
ttefore  1623,  therefore  gives  us  a  clue 
to  what  the  Shakespeare  quartos 
looked  like  in  their  original  form. 


Another  remarkable  autograph  sale, 
held  Ust  month  in  Philadelphia  at 
Henkel's  rooms,  was  that  of  the  collec- 
tions of  Sir  Stephen  Coleridge  of  Lon- 
don, who  sent  his  autographs  to  this 
country  for  the  simple  reason  that 
they  were  likely  to  bring  more  here 
than  they  would  abroad.  Sir  Stephen's 
collection  included  fifty  letters  from 
Benjamin  Franklin  to  Miss  Mary  Ste- 
venson of  London;  Charles  Lamb's 
letter  to  Coleridge  in  which  he  writes 
that  he  could  wish  his  sister  Mary 
were  dead;  Robert  Bums's  poem  to 
Miss  Cruikshank ;  the  autograph 
manuscript  of  Byron's  "Don  Juan, 
Canto  8", — but  why  enumerate?  Sir 
Stephen  frankly  says  that  he  is  selling 
his  autographs  because  half  of  his  in- 
come is  taken  in  war  taxes.  He  has 
included  nothing  that  be  has  inherited 
or  been  given,  and  consoles  himself 
with  the  reflection  that  the  sad  sepa- 
ration from  his  treasures  has  been 
forced,  not  by  his  own  profligacy,  but 
as  a  "necessary  consequence  of  a  just 
and  glorious  war  waged  in  a  noble  and 
grave  spirit  to  a  splendid  victory". 


While  the  American  book-auction 
season  has  practically  closed,  only  one 
or  two  minor  sales  being  held  by  the 
smaller  auction  houses,  the  English 
season,  which  always  holds  on  later 
than  ours,  is  notable  for  the  impor- 
tant sales  held  last  month.  The  dis- 
persal of  the  Britwell  Court  treas- 
ures and  the  Lord  Mostyn  library  has 
gone  on,  the  Mostyn  manuscripts  fur- 
nishing a  sale  in  that  line  fairly  com- 


n  Tub  Booeua-n  In  writing  to  adTertlwn. 


THE  COLLECTORS'  GUIDE  (Cmtinued) 


parable  with  the  two  great  Yates 
Thompson  sales,  which  have  reached  a 
total  of  more  than  $750,000.  The 
Duke  of  Marlborough's  collection  of 
undescribed  papers  relating  to  the 
early  Indian  and  French  conflicts  in 
America  caused  a  flutter  among  the 
American  historical  societies  and  col- 
lectors, and  a  great  amount  of  valua- 
ble material  has  come  to  this  country. 
Report  has  it  that  a  great  deal  of  un- 
known American  material  will  find  its 
way  into  the  American  auction  rooms 
next  season. 


While  many  people  are  now  showing 
a  collector's  interest  in  those  modern 
English  writers  like  John  Masefield, 
George  Gissing,  Joseph  Conrad,  John 
Galsworthy,  and  others  of  their  ilk,  it 
might  be  worth  the  consideration  of 
some  far-seeing  American  collector 
whether  the  works  of  H.  L.  Mencken, 
Robert  Cortes  Holliday,  and  some  of 
our  other  American  essayists  are  not 
worth  collecting,  to  be  read  and  then 
put  aside  as  an  asset  in  the  final  settle- 
ment of  the  collector's  estate.  The 
earls  of  Pembroke  did  not  disdain  to 
collect  the  writings  of  their  contem- 
poraries, and  how  we  scramble  to  get 
them  now ! 


The  past  season  has  witnessed  an 
increased  interest  in  everything  re- 
lating to  California.  This  cannot  be 
wholly  attributed  to  recent  political 
events  which  made  San  Francisco  the 
focal  point  of  attention  to  many  who 
are  not  book  collectors.  The  literature 
relating  to  the  "golden  age"  in  Cali- 
fornia is  becoming  scarce,  and  as  it 
deals  with  one  of  the  most  interesting 
periods  in  the  history  of  our  country, 
it  is  worthy  of  preservation.  The  re- 
sult of  this  interest  is  shown  in  re- 
markably high  prices  paid  for  little 
pamphlets  dealing  with  the  gold  dis- 
covery. 


SPURR&  SWIFT 

Dealers  in 

RARE  BOOKS,  AUTOGRAPHS 


First   Edhionsy   Bindingt 

American  Bxport  Aflrenta 

25  Rydar  St.,  St.  Jamas',  London*  S.  W. 


BOOKS ! 


Over  1,000,000  in  stock.  All 
subjects.  Secondhand  and 
New  on  approval.  Rare 
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missions executed.  POYLBS,  121  Charins  Cross 
Road,  Lrondon,  England. 


Charies  F.  Heartman 

129  East  24th  St.,  N.Y. 

Rare  and  fine  books,  important  Americana, 
autographs  of  celebrities,  historical  pamphlets, 
American  Imprints,  Acts  and  Lavirs  of  every 
State,  material  relating  to  the  Indians,  first 
editions  of  English  and  American  authors,  in- 
scribed books,  old  newspapers,  etc.,  bought 
and  sold  at  private  and  public  sales. 


STKEMAN   &   CO. 

BOOKBINDERS 
110-114  WEST  32D  ST.,  NEW  YORK 

FiiM  Bindings  of  every  deseriptioa.  Inlaying, 
Restoring*  Solander  and  Slip  Casoa.  Special 
deoigaingy  etc 


BOOKS  on  pedigrees,  genealogy  and  coat  of  arms ; 
every  Anglo-Saxon  and  Celtic  name.  Pairbairn*s 
Crests,$l5.0*Hart*s  Irish  Pedigrees. 2  vols,  leather ,1120. 
CHAS.  A.  O'CONNOR,  21  Spruce  Street,  New  York. 


Nmw  Cataiognm 

Americana,  Old  Voyages  and  Travals, 

Economics,  Books  on  tiio  Orient,  etc. 

W.  A.  COUGH,  Inc. 

25  West  42nd  St.,  NEW  YORK 

BOOKS.— All  ocit-of-print  books  sup^ied,  no  matter  on 
what  subject.  Write  vm.  Wo  can  get  you  any  book 
ever  published.  Flense  stata  itants.  When  in  Bng- 
1  and  call  and  see  our  50,000  rmrs  books.  BAKER'S 
GREAT  BOOKSHOP.  14-16  John  Bright  Stieet, 
Birmingham,  England. 

FOR    THE     BOOK     LOVER 

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Books  now  cat  <tf  print. 

Lntoet  Gatnlogua  Sent  on  Reqoaet 

G.  GSRHARDT,  25  W.  42d  Street,  New  York 


BOOKS  and  AUTOGRAPHS— Early  Printed  Books. 
First  Editions,  Standard  Authors^c  Catalogues  free. 
R.  Atkinson,  188  Peckham  Rye,  London,  S.  E.  Eng. 

Books,  Science,  Literature,  etc..  Lists,  Higene*8, 
M-2441  Post  St.,  San  Francisco.    (Mention  wants.) 


Please  mention  The  Bookman  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


rL- 


!li^.' 


ERE  TO  BUY  BOOKS 

Th«  booksdbn  uAnrtMmt  la  thk  McttM  hAT*  ■■■• 
dent  belief  in  tha  txeeOmmem  of  Uuir  Mock  ud  abOttr 
to  Benre  ;(nt  that  tixj  placa  their  orgmBiiatitfu  at  tiw 
command  at  book-lorera  avarjwbarm.  Readera  of  THB 
BOOKMAN  naatianiiia  tha  aiaBaziBa  may  fed  aaaund 
that  vet  J  friandly  and  prompt  atteatloii  will  ba  riwg 
bj  all  of  theaa  concenia,  for  whoM  rcapoBalbilltT  TBM 
BOOKMAN  can  Toqeb. 


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In  Quantity 

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and  largest  dealers 
in  books  exclusively 

ICrtta  for  CotatofH 

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8fi4  Fourth  Av&    NEWTORK   AtatthS 


A117  book  mentioned  in  TBI  BOOK- 
MAN, with  few  ezceptions,  ma?  be 
obtained  in  THE  BOOK  SHOP  OF 

JOHN  WANAMAK&R 
NEW  YORK  AND  PHILADELPHIA 

Mail  orderi  promjttly  attmded  to. 
We  buy  rare  hooka  and  tett. 


Marjorie  Benton  Cooke,  whose 
death  occurred  recently,  was  an 
alumna  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 
As  a  student  she  was  prominent  in 
the  work  of  the  Dramatic  Club  and 
she  began  contributing  to  magazines 
the  year  of  her  graduation.  She  won 
early  success  as  a  writer  and  inter- 
preter of  monologues  and  toured  the 
United  States  in  presenting  this  form 
of  entertainment.  She  was  a  member 
of  the  Authors'  X^eague  and  the  So- 
ciety of  American  Dramatists  and  of 
the  Little  Room,  Chicago. 

Her  earliest  publications  were : 
"Modem  Monologues"  and  "Dramatic 
Episodes".  Among  her  later  books 
are  "The  Girl  Who  Lived  in  the 
Woods",  "To  a  Mother",  "The  Twelfth 
Christmas"  (a  dramatic  poem), 
"Bambi",  which  won  popular  approval, 
"The  Threshold",  "The  Cricket",  and 
three  one-act  plays.  Miss  Cooke  had 
started  on  a  tour  of  the  world  when 
she  died  suddenly  in  Hawaii. 


NEW  YORK  BOOK  ROOMS 

aftltm 

BRICK  ROW  BOOK  SHOP,  be 

19  East  47th  Street 

OppotU*  Ihm  RilM-Carllan 

Visitors  will  find  here  good  books,  old  and 
new,  in  unusually  acttactive  surroundings. 


JOSEPH  HOnNE  CO.,  PITT5BCRGH, 
Books  of  the  Day,  Fine  Editioui,  Bibles,  Msgb- 
ilDe  SubicrlptloDs. 

Mall  orders  carefallr  flUed. 


Please  mention  The  Booku*^  In  wrltloi  to  adiertliera. 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Who's  Who  Among  Au  thors 

CiiHRA  HARKIS,  oiieof 
t  h  L'  bi\st -known  a  n  d 
(iiui^t  widely  read  of 
Aint'i-iciui  wonu'ii-authors  is 
;m  illustrious  i'{'])resentative 
nf  tiio  Southland.  Born  in 
Georgia,  "raised"  in  Geor- 
aia,  she  is,  at  the  heipcht  oT 
her  famp,  in  heart  and  in  facl 
a  Georgian  still.  The  prnud 
(»«Tier  of  a  farm  in  the  moun- 
tains of  N'ortii  Goorjjia,  Jlr.s. 
Harris  spends  most  of  hei' 
time  in  agricnlturat  experi- 
ments "which  are  eminently 
suceeRsfuI  but  never  pay  tlie 
costs".  She  lives  alone  in  a 
logr  cabin  built  bv  the  Chero- 
kee Tndlaiis,  Avith  a  black  corra  harris 
■'^fammy"  for  companion.  Mrs.  Harris  clniins  (Init  "lire 
MTi  this  farm  is  desperately  exciting',  full  nf  startling  iiici- 
(Ient.s  dangers,  happiness  aud  hairbreadth  escapes  from 
God,  nature  and  the  weather."  AVhen  the  nervous  strain 
!,'rows  unbearable  she  usually  "comes  to  New  York  for 
rest  and  qniet.  Xothing  new  happens  in  New  York." 
\[rs.  Harris  thinks  of  herself  as  a  "settled  woman".  As 
a  writer  she  would  be  proud  to  feel  that  she  occupied  a 
.small  chair  in  the  doorway  of  all  men's  and  all  women '.s 
hearts,  "thinking  their  thoughts,  seeing  their  faults,  pas- 
sions and  virtues,  observing  the  greatest  scenes  of  life, 
those  laid  not  in  the  open,  but  in  that  secret  place  where 
wo  really  live  and  suffer — and  die — many  times  in  the 
I'onrse  of  our  lives." 

Mrs.  Harris'  great  success  began  with  the  publication  of 
"The  Circuit-Eider's  Wife".  Since  then  she  has  risen 
steadily  on  the  tide  of  popularity.  Her  latest,  "Happily 
^rarried"  has  just  been  published  by 


GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 

Piiblisliers  New  York 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Whos  Who  Among  Authors 


M' 


■RS.     NORRIS,"     explains 

William  Dean  Howells, 
'■puts  the  problem,  or  the 
fact,  or  the  trait  before 
you  by  quick,  vivid  touches  of 
portraiture  or  action.  If  she 
lacks  the  final  touch  of  Frunk 
Norris's'  power,  she  has  the  com- 
pensating gift  of  a  more  con- 
trolled and  concentrated  observa- 
tion. She  has  the  secret  of 
closely  adding  detail  to  detail  in 
a  triumph  of  what  another  Cali- 
fornia author  has  called  Little- 
ism,  but  what  seems  to  be  na- 
ture's way  of  achieving  Large- 


Her  long  journalistic  exp«rience 
may  have  given  her  this  gift, 
may  have  given  her,  too,  that 
I  closeness  to  the  heart  of  life  evi- 
dent in  all  her  work,  which  is  re- 
vealed in  the  tragedies  and  ec- 
stasies which  make  good  newspaper  stories.  On  a  grander,  truer 
scale,  she  is  the  artist  reporting  life,  and  her  reports  have  that 
.'tureness  and  truth  which  has  been  called  realism. 

It  is  not,  however,  the  realism  which  sees  life  all  black.  Her 
stories  are  wholesome,  with  living  men  and  women  for  characters 
drawn  in  the  tenseness  of  a  passion,  a  struggle,  a  revelation, 
which  comes  into  everj-  life,  however  well  ordered. 

The  story  of  Mrs.  Norris's  career  is  an  interesting  one.  Her  first 
striking  success  was  with  a  story  in  "The  Atlantic  Monthly". 
After  its  publication  one  publisher  asked  for  her  work,  and  in  her 
reply  she  gave  the  dates  when  the  same  story  had  been  submitted 
to  that  house  and  returned.  After  that,  her  work  appeared  in 
all  the  magazines,  and  she  has  had  an  almost  unparalleled  success. 
Her  latest  book,  "Sisters,"  adds  another  triumph  to  her  impres- 
Hive  list.  It  is  a  study  of  love,  its  recklessness,  blindness,  and 
.lelfishnees — and  also  its  dignity,  its  beauty  and  self-sacrifice. 

The  following  books  are  published  by  DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  CO. ; 

The  Heart  of  Rachael  Saturday's  Child 

.Iosm;lyn"s  Wife  Sisters 

MARTIE.    the    UNCONQUEREn  THE    STOBY    OF   JlILU    PACE 

Mother  UNnERTOw 


'i^^i^Sf^-SSJ^^S^Si^. 


THE  BOOKMAN 


ACHMED  ABDULLAH 


Whos  Who  Among  Au  thors 

WE  think  to-dav  of  I 
Acliiiied  Abdullah  as 
an  American  wiiter 
so  {<rpat  an  impression  has 
he  (luring  the  last  Hve  years 
made  upon  American  letters. 
It  is  hard  to  realize  that,  in 
reality,  he  writes  iu  a  foreign 
language  and  from  the  view- 
point of  )i  foreign  civiliza- 
tion, sinee  he  is  an  Oriental. 
Xor  has  ho  always  written  iu 
English.  There  is  a  volume 
of  delicate,  almost  Bande- 
lairian  poetry  froin  student 
days  in  Paris ;  a  r  i  o  t  o  u  s 
farce  "La  Oarotte",  written 
and  produced  at  the  s  a  m  a 
time,  and  later  on  contribu- 
tions to  tiic  then  ultva-modem  periodical  "Die  Jugeud". 

It  is  perhaps  the  very  fact  that  he  is  writing  in  a  foreign 
language  which  gives  him  that  peculiar  distinction  not 
only  of  style,  but  also  of  outlook — which  as  the  critic 
Rdward  J,  O'Brien  said,  makes  his  characters  almost  sub- 
jective they  arp  so  real. 

He  knows  intimately  many  lands  and  many  peoples.  He 
can  portray  this  vividly.  "We  see  Europe  and  Asia  in 
"THE  RED  STATX"  and  "THE  BT.UE-EVED  MAN- 
CHU";  our  o^vn  far  West  in  "BUCKIXO  THE  TI- 
OER";  Paris  in  "THE  TRAIL  OP  THE  BEAST"; 
N'ew  York's  ChinatoMii  in  "THE  HONORABLE  GEN- 
TLEMAN"; this  country  and  Berlin  in  "THE  >fAN  ON 
HORSEBACK". 

.Tamos  A.  llcCann,  Abdullah's  publisher,  has  some  new 
novels  by  this  writer  under  way  which  are  said  to  far  sur- 
pass the  very  fine  work  that  he  has  already  done. 

JAMES  A.   McCANN   COMPANY 

192  West  Fourth  Street,  New  York 


^^^^^^ 


THE  BCDKMAN 


Whos  Who  Among  Authors 


TH 


V  DYKE 


story  of  Henry  van 
Dyke  is  the  story  of 
aehievetnent.  When  we 
know  him  we  understand 
I  more  clearly  why  his  books  have 
a  power  that  sets  them  apart. 
He  waa  born  in  Germantown, 
Pennsylvania,  in  1852.  From 
Princeton  he  received  the  degree 
I  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  in  1873.  He 
then  studied  for  the  ministry. 
I  and  in  1879  was  ordained  by  the 
Presbyterian  Church.  He  served 
as  pastor  of  the  United  Congre- 
gational Church  at  Newport, 
1879-1882.  and  the  Brick  Pres- 
byterian Church  in  New  York 
for  about  twenty  years. 
At  various  times  he  has  been 
preacher  at  Harvard.  American 
Lecturer  at  the  University  of 
Paris,  Lyman  Beecher  Lecturer 
at  Yale,  and  in  19IS  President 
Wilson  appointed  him  Minister 
to  the  Netherlands  and  Luxemburg,  where  he  held  office  until  near 
the  close  of  the  war. 

Henry  van  Dyke  has  for  years  occupied  a  position  in  Amer- 
ican literature  as  definite  and  permanent  as  that  he  occupies  in 
the  affection  of  his  readers;  and  edition  after  edition  of  his  sepa- 
rate books  and  of  groups  and  sets  from  them  have  been  published 
to  meet  an  increasing  demand.  But  a  uniform  and  standard  com- 
plete edition  has  waited,  though  long  among  the  plans  of  his 
publishers,  until  the  conditions  have  so  shaped  themselves  that 
Dr.  van  Dyke  could  give  it  careful  personal  editing  and  arrange- 
ment and  could  include  in  it  ail  of  his  writings  that  he  wished  to 
live. 

The  edition  has  been  named  the  "Avalon  Edition,"  after  Dr. 
van  Dyke's  home  in  Princeton.  It  will  contain  16  volumes,  which 
will  be  illustrated  by  famous  artists  and  special  photographs  of 
Dr.  van  Dyke  and  his  home.  Avalon,  The  first  two  volumes, 
"Fisherman's  Luck"  and  "Little  Rivers."  with  frontispieces  by  N. 
C.  Wyeth,  are  now  ready  and  two  additional  volumes  will  be 
brought  out  each  month  until  the  set  is  complete. 

"The  Avalon  Edition"  will  find  a  high  place  in  the  Scribner 
modern  library,  which  already  contains  the  works  of  such  men  as 
Meredith.  Kipling,  Tsben  and  Tolstoi.  The  books  will  be  .sold  by 
subscription  only  and  may  be  procured  from  the  publishers  direct. 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

PUnLlSHEBS  FIFTH  A\-EKl'E  AT  4'^th  STREET.  NF.\f  YORK 


THE  BCDKMAN 


Who's  Who  Among  Authors 

IT  is  not  easy  to  put  my  phil-  I 
os'tphy  into  words.  Probably 
it  cuiiltl  be  done  in  two  words: 
love  and  work.  And  that  after 
all  is  the  foundation  of  every 
normal  life."  Mary  Roberts 
Riiiehart,  it  is  hard  to  realize, 
began  writing  barely  fifteen 
years  ago.  In  the  same  article 
from  which  the  opening  quota- 
tion was  taken,  she  tells  how  she 
came  to  New  York  with  a  MSS 
of  verses — and  took  them  home 
again!  Her  first  novel,  THE  I 
CIRCULAR  STAIRCASE,  wa.s 
accepted  a  little  later  and  then 
began  a  career  wrung  by  indomi- 
table effort  from  the  cares  of  do- 
mestic life  and  a  growing  family. 
As  Mrs.  Rinehart  says :  "I 
learned  to  use  a  typewriter  with 
my  two  forefingers,  with  a  baby 
on  my  knee."  Year  by  year  Mrs,  Rinehart  has  added  to  her  list 
of  novels  and  through  them,  unmistakably,  one  is  conscious  of 
the  growing  accents  of  a  writer  to  whom  life  has  brought  increas- 
ing tolerance,  a  finer  texture  of  faith  in  men  and  women  and  a 
clearer  vision  of  the  real  things.  THE  AMAZING  INTERLUDE, 
underneath  the  iridescence  of  a  fabulous  adventure,  really  put 
into  words  for  the  first  time  the  passionate  response  of  American 
womanhood  to  the  even  more  fabulous  horror  that  agonized 
Europe.  It  was  truth  of  a  triumphant  kind  such  as  the  painter 
expresses  in  an  idealistic  portrait.  In  DANGEROUS  DAYS, 
her  latest  novel,  Mrs.  Rinehart  catches  up  in  a  swiftly -flowing 
narrative  men  and  women  who  face  the  hardest  of  human  prob- 
lems: the  failure  of  sympathy,  spiritually  and  intellectually,  be- 
tween husband  and  wife.  The  bitter  and  the  evil  in  life  damn  it 
for  some,  dominate  it  for  others.  But  surfaces  after  all  are  sur- 
faces; they  photograph  perfectly.  What  makes  Mrs.  Rinehart's 
voice  of  special  interest  in  American  fiction  is  that  she  is  mainly 
concerned  with  what  cannot  be  photographed,  the  stuff  that  is 
beneath  the  top  of  life. 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 

Publishers  New  York 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART 


THF.  BQDICMAM  ws;c=.\^^g3 


Who's  Who  Among  Authors 

IS  MiiigiU-ct  Widdi'iuLT  al 
hm-  best  a«  poot,  iiovuliyt. 
or  wlu'it  sill!  is  KL'lfctiii^ 
Ironi  tho  works  of  othorf;? 
"Factories,"  licr  first  vol 
mill.'  of  verbc,  attructud  in 
staiit  attention  tliroufiliout 
tho  country,  as  first  volunu-s 
rtfldom  do,  by  the  eanu'sl 
passion  of  its  message,  and 
fill.'  singing  qnalitios  of  i\> 
iiiiisic.  Her  second  volunii'. 
•The  Old  Koiul  to  Para 
disc."  which  «!iarod  the  ^oOll 
Pullitzcr  prize  for  the  best 
volume  of  verse  in  1!)1H. 
shows  a  fuirylikc  way  o!' 
writing — all  music,  and  dc 
MARGAitET  wiDDEMER  sire,  and  haunting  dreams. 

I'he  thousuiids  who  have  read  "Tlie  Kose-Gardcn  Hus- 
band," "The  Wishing-Bing  Man"  and  her  other  ligUl- 
hearted  Jiovels  and  pushed  tliem  into  the  rank  of  "best- 
sellers" might  say  she  was  best  as  a  writer  of  pure  rn 
niance.  "The  Boardwalk,"  her  latest  novel,  however, 
shows  how  she  can  combine  romance  and  realism.  It  is 
a  story  of  the  young  married  people  and  tho  younj;  peojilr 
about  to  be  married  who  live  the  year  around  in  a  resoil 
I  own  on  tile  Atlantic  seacoast  and  of  how  the  shadow  ol' 
the  boardwalk  and  the  irresponBiblc  summer  life  is  over 
I  heir  lives. 

As  editor  and  compiler  of  "The  Haunted  Hour"  she  lias 
given  us  a  delightful  and  most  unusual  anthology — it  col 
lection  of  the  most  interesting  poems  on  the  subject  ol 
the  return  of  spirits  to  earth.  Kveryone  who  delights  in 
the  mystery,  the  thrill,  the  wiatfuhiess  and  the  hnnior  o\' 
the  pliantoui  world  will  take  this  book  1o  heart. 

HARCOURT,  BRACE  ANti  HOWE 


^g^^^^^r^^^^i^^^^^l 


THE  BCDKMAN 


Whos  Who  Among  Authors 


\^ 


WITH  the  extraordinary 
success  of  "The  Miracie 
Man"  before  them,  lovers 
of  the  dramatic  in  book,  play  or 
motion  picture,  have  begun  to 
see  the  real  proportions  of  the 
creator  of  Jiramie  Dale  and  his 
breathless  exploits  in  the  un- 
derworld. Year  by  year,  Frank 
Packard  has  been  steadily  ris- 
ing to  head  the  list  as  one  of 
the  most  popular  writers  of  tales 
of  mysteiy,  romance  and  daring. 
His  stories  reflect  his  life — 
hunter,  camper,  fisherman  and 
traveler  — whatever  the  world 
holds  of  sport  and  adventure  is 
pure  joy  to  this  man's  man.  Be- 
fore he  began  to  write,  Mr. 
Packard  studied  civil  engineer- 
ing in  Belgium,  bossed  railroad  frank  cackabd 
gangs  all  over  Canada  and  the 

United  States,  traveled  through  the  prairie  province.-;  of  Canada, 
wandered  over  most  of  Europe  and  made  a  trip  around  the  world, 
visiting  especially  South  Africa,  Samoa,  Fiji  and  Hawaii,  When 
at  home  he  lives  in  a  bungalow  perched  on  the  very  edge  of  Lake 
St.  Louis,  near  Montreal,  and  is  a  hard-working  author  at  his 
desk  every  morning  before  eight-thirty  for  a  day  of  writing.  Of 
his  plots,  he  says,  "I  get  most  of  them  in  the  evenings — in  the  dark, 
down  on  a  couch,  with  the  lights  out."  His  subjects  range  from 
the  romance  of  the  days  of  pioneer  railroading  in  the  Rockies  to 
life  behind  prison  bars  and  the  night-cloaked  mysteries  of  New 
York's  underworld.  As  well-constructed,  plausible  and  exciting 
stories  they  deserve  unstinted  praise.  But  Packard  puts  some- 
thing besides  perfect  technic  and  thrilling  incident  into  his  work 
—a  clear  insight  into  the  perplexities  of  human  nature  and  the 
ability  to  make  each  of  his  characters  a  living  personality,  not  a 
type,  gives  his  books  real  substance  and  lasting  appeal.  First 
among  Packard'.^  early  successes  were  "The  Miracle  Man", 
"Greater  Love  Hath  No  Man"  and  "The  Wire-Devils".  Then  came 
the  famous  "Jimmie  Dale"  stories,  "followed  last  year  by  "The 
Night  Operator".  His  latest  "From  Now  On"  has  just  been  pub- 
lished. 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 

Publishers  Nctt"  York 


m^m 


THE  BCPK.MAN 


Whos  Who  Among  Au  thors 


A^. 


ANNE 


SEDGWICK 


^  N     American     critic     some 
k  years   ago   interpreted   the 
art  of  Anne  Douglas  Sedg- 
wick in  the  phrase,  "She  writes 

from  an  inner  vision;"  and  it  is 
this  fine  distillation  of  life  that 
gives  her  novels  their  peculiar 
distinction.  Though  one  thinks 
of  her  as  an  English  writer.  New 
Jersey  w;is  her  birthplace  and 
America  her  home  until  the  age 
of  nine.  Since  then  she  has  lived 
in  England — except  forfiveyears 
spent  in  the  studios  of  Paris 
studying  painting.  In  1805  she 
wrote  her  first  novel:  in  1908 
she  married  Basil  de  Selincourt ; 
and  in  1913,  with  the  publication 
of  "Xante,"  she  definitely  took 
her  place  as  one  of  the  really  dis- 
tinguished novelists  of  the  pres- 
ent day. 

Then  the  war  came,  and  for  five  years  Mrs.  de  Selincourt 
dedicated  her  entire  time  and  energy  to  her  hospital  in  France. 
A  friend  who  saw  her  at  the  close  of  the  war  described  her  as 
"rejuvenated  by  her  arduous  experiences  and  years  younger  than 
when  I  last  saw  her.  Her  mind,  too,  is  younger!  I  had  decided 
on  my  previous  visit  that  'Tante'  would  remain  her  greatest 
work,  but  merely  to  look  at  her  convinced  me  that  she  was  still 
far  from  the  summit  of  her  art." 

This  prophecy  is  more  than  borne  out  by  Mrs.  de  Selincourt's 
new  novel — "The  Third  Window"  (ready  in  May), — the  story  of 
a  woman's  struggle  between  loyalty  to  her  dead  husband  and  love 
for  her  young  suitor.  There  are  but  four  characters  in  the  book, 
including  the  unseen  dead,  but  these  four— etched  against  a 
mysterious  and  shadowy  background — will  live  forever  in  the 
reader's  memory.  In  subtle  delineation  of  character,  in  distinc- 
tion of  style,  and  above  all  in  the  art  with  which  the  story  is 
steadily  advanced  to  an  almost  unbearable  intensity  of  emotion, 
"The  Third  Window"  marks  a  decided  advance  in  the  author's 
career  and  definitely  places  her  in  the  very  forefront  of  contem- 
porary writers, 

HOUGHTON  MIFRIN  COMPANY 

Boston  New  York 


P 

I 

I 


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'which  some  human  foible  of  ours  is  transfixed.  But  it  is  irony  that  pricks  without  wound- 
ing'. It  proves  again  that  slang  is  a  fine  art,  and  that  humor  distinctly  belongs  to  American 
literature.  With  the  accompaniment  of  the  McCutcheon  pictures,  it  makes  a  gallery  of  por- 
traits and  pictures  of  American  life  that  no  reader  will  want  to  miss.     'Neit  $i.6o. 

By  Joseph  Goricar  and  L,yman  Beecher  Stowe 

THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  AUSTRO-GERMAN 
INTRIGUE 

Dr.  Goricar  spent  fourteen  years  in  the  diplomatic  service  of  Austria-Hungary.  He  witnessed 
the  whole  intrigue  for  a  Mittle-Europa.  His  revelations  are  a  conclusive  record  of  the 
conspiracy,  and  will  rank  with  the  Lichnowsky  Memoirs  in  importance.    Net,  $3.00, 

By  William  Allison 

A  SECRET  OF  THE  SEA 

No  living  thing  was  on  the  ship— no  sign  of  struggle.  But  as  Manners  entered  the  cabin  he 
saw,  looking  at  him  from  the  case  of  a  still  ticking  watch  on  the  dresser,  the  face  of  the 
woman  he  loved — and  who  had  disappeared  on  the  eve  of  their  marriage.  A  stirring  and  dis- 
tinctive mystery  story.    Net,  $1.73. 


By  Ellen  Glasgow  RUDYARD  KIPLING'S 

THE  BUILDERS  VERSE:    Inclusive  Edition 

1885-1918 


By  Grace  S.  Richmond 
RED  AND  BLACK 


By  Lawrence  F.  Abbott 
IMPRESSIONS  OF 
THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

By  Gene  Stratton-Porter 
By  Kathleen  Norris  HOMING  WITH  THE 

SISTERS  BIRDS 

By  Booth  Tarkington  By  Alfred  Ollrvant 

RAMSEY  MILHOLLAND  TWO  MEN 


DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  CO. 


GARDEN  CITY.  N.  Y. 
as  RICHMOND  ST..  \V..  TORONTO 


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11 


THE  BOOKMAN 


BRIEF  MENTION  OF  NEW  BOOKS 

Fiction. 

Madam  Borary,  by  Gustave  Flaubebt  ;  Manon 
Lencaut,  by  the  Abbe  Pbevost  [Knopf]. 
New  edition. 
The  Secret  Battle,  by  A.  P.  Hebbebt  [Knopf]. 

A  British  officer's  experiences. 
The  Oreat  Impersonation,  by  E.  Phillips  Op- 
PBNHEiM  [Little,  Brown]. 
A  German  spy  tale. 
Lynch     Lawyern,     by     William      Pattebsox 
White   [Little.  Brown]. 
A  western  adventure  tale. 
The  Boardwalk,  by  Mabgabet  Widdeiieb  [Har- 
court]. 

Stories  of  a  summer  resort. 
A  Landscape  Painter,  by  Henbt  James  [Scott]. 

Four  hitherto  uncollected  stories. 
The  Historical  Nights  Entertainment:    Second 
Series,  by  Rafael  Sabatini  [Llppincott]. 
Historical  incidents. 
The  Worldings,  by  Leonabd  Mebbick  [Dutton]. 

Two  new  editions  :    limited  and  j;)opular. 
The  Gray  Mask,  by  Wadswoeth  Camp  [Double- 
day]. 

A  detective's  romance. 
Allegra,  by  L.  Allen  Habkeb   [Scribners]. 

An  actress's  romance. 
The  Bite  of  Benin,  by  Robeet  Simpson   [Mc- 
Cann]. 

A  woman's  African  romance. 
The   Barrel   Mystery,   by    William    J.    Flynn 
[  McCann  ] . 
A  true  murder  tale. 
Seldtpyla  Folks,  by  Gottfbibd  Kelleb   [Bren- 
tano]. 

Three  Swiss  stories. 
Outland,  by  Maby  Austin  [Boni] 

A  man  and  woman's  forest  experiences. 
Torchy  and  Vee,  by  Sewell  Foed  [Clode]. 

Continuous  short  stories. 
The  House  of  Baltasar,  by  William  J.  Locke 
[Lane]. 

A  returned  exile's  romance. 
The  Iron  Furrow,  by  Gbobge  C.  Siiedd  [Double- 
day]. 

An  engineer's  desert  venture.  » 

Mermaid,  by  Grant  M.  Overton   [Doubleday]. 

A  sea  waif's  exi)crlenc<»8. 
The  Shepherd  of  the  Sea,  by  IIexby  Leverage 
[Doubleday]. 
Arctic  adventures. 
The  Man  with   Three  Names,  by  IIabold  Mac- 
Gbath   [Doubleday]. 
A  mystery  love  story. 
Old     Colony     Stories,    by     Jane     G.     Austin 
[Iloufrhton]. 

A   uniform   edition   of  "Betty  Alden",    "A 
Nameless    Nobleman",    "Standlsh    of    Stand- 
Ish",  "Dr.  LeBaron  and  His  Daughters",  and 
"David  Alden's  Daughter". 
Where  Dead   Men   Walk,  by   IIbnby    Leverage 
[Moffat]. 
An  underworld  tale. 
Legend,  by  Clemexcb  Dane  [Macmillan]. 

A  woman  writer's  romance. 
An  Honest  Thief  and  Other  Stories,  by  Fyodob 
Dostoevsky   [Macmillan]. 

Translations  of  Mrs.  Garnett. 
The    Rolling    stone,   by    C.    A.    Dawson-Scott 
[Knopf]. 
An  unconventional  man's  experiences. 
The  Transit  of  Vetius,  by  John  Philip  Sousa 
[Small]. 

Romann»  in  an  Alimony  Club. 
In  the  Shadow  of  Lantern  Street,  by  IIebiiebt 
G.  Woodwortii  [Small]. 

A  story  of  Eastern  vs.  Western  ideals. 
September,  by  Frank  Swinnebton   [Doran]. 

A  study  of  married  life. 
From  Place  to  Place,  by  Ibvin  S.  Cobb  [Doran]. 

Stories  of  American  Life. 
The  Farmer  of  Roaring  Run,  by  Maby  Dillon 
[Century]. 
A  youiiK  man's  farming  experience. 


To  create  a  better  citizenship  by 
placing  good  literature  'v^ithin  the 
reach  of  the  adversely  situated  and  the 
afflicted,  the  American  Library  Asso- 
ciation has  embarked  upon  a  move- 
ment which  its  members  consider  the 
most  important  of  its  forty  years  of 
existence. 

To  successf uUy  complete  this  ''Books 
for  Everybody"  programme,  the  asso- 
ciation proposes  to  spend  $2,000,000, 
and  to  raise  the  money  itself.  There 
will  be  no  drive  nor  intensive  cam- 
paign to  enlist  popular  support,  bui 
the  financing  of  this  work  will  be  done 
by  the  4,000  members,  every  one  of 
whom  is  enthusiastic  over  the  project 
and  confident  that  the  aim  of  the  as- 
sociation will  be  realized. 

Not  the  least  of  the  many  features 
of  the  "Books  for  Everybody"  move- 
ment will  be  the  steps  to  provide  more 
books  for  the  75,000  blind  persons  in 
the  United  States.  The  books  avail- 
able at  present  for  the  sightless  are 
said  to  be  inadequate  in  numbers  and 
in  quality.  The  work  of  making  these 
books  for  the  blind  is  to  be  undertaken 
at  once. 

The  circulation  of  books  to  every 
hamlet,  ranch  and  logging  camp  in 
the  country  is  to  be  stimulated  by  the 
association  in  cooperation  with  the 
county  library  system,  and  the  exten- 
sion of  the  industrial  plant  library 
idea,  which  it  is  believed  in  many 
quarters  will  go  a  long  way  toward 
solving  industrial  unrest  through  the 
application  of  the  "books  as  tools"  the- 
ory, will  be  advocated. 

Books  now  being  furnished  by  the 
American  Library  Association  are  cir- 
culating in  the  most  distant  ports  in 
the  world  on  board  ships  of  the  United 
States  Merchant  Marine.  The  asso- 
ciation also  is  meeting  the  book  needs 
of  the  Coast  Guard  and  Lighthouse 
Service  and  hospitals  of  the  United 


THE    ^OOKMjiS    A1>V  ERTISE-K 


NEW  OXFORD  BOOKS 


Donne's  Sermons 

Selected  Passages  with  an  Essay 
By  LOGAN  PEARSALL  SMITH 

Net  $3.00 
Donne's  fame  as  a  preacher  has  long  been 
due  to  liaak  Walton's  (iescripcion  ot  his  ser- 
mons raiher  than  to  acquaintance  with  the 
sermons  themselves,  yet  Donne  whs  not  only 
a  great  divine  but  a  great  writer.  These 
passages  which  show  him  as  a  man,  an  ardsl, 
and  writer  form  ihe  basis  of  Mr.  Smith's 
selection. 


Moslem  Architecture 

Iti  Origins  and  'Deoeiopmenl 
By  G.  T.  RIVOIRA 

Net  $21.00 
An  original  work  of  the  greatest  value  de- 
scribing the  development  of  the  Mosque  in 
Syria,  Egypt,  Armenia  and  Spain  from  its 
birth  down  to  the  twelfth  century.  The 
remarkable  series  of  photographs,  colleaed 
by  the  author,  are  illustrated  on  158  plates. 
Every  student  of  architecture  should  become 
familiar  with  this  work. 


James  Madison's  Notes  of  Debates 

In  the  Federal  Conoention  of  1 787  and  their  Relation  to  a  more  Perfect  Society  of  Nations 

By  JAMES  BROWN  SCOTT 

Net  $2.00 


Tliis  highly  interesting  end  valuable  introduc 
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this  Convention  which  led  the  Thirteen  Stales  __  

union  ot  the  States  in  the  annals  of  history  and  the  value  of  Madi 
the  larger  problem  of  the  Society  of  Natioru 


to  Madison's  Notes  of  Debates  in  the  Fed- 

'nificstice  of  the  processes  and  reasonings  of 

large,  successful  and  enduring 

'"       '    Notes  to  the  student  of 


Ireland  the  Outpost 

By  GRENVILLE  A.  J.  COLE 
Net  $2.50 
This  essay  pictures  Ireland  in  the  new  light 
of  an  outpost  not  only  of  England  but  also 
of  Europe,  which  has  been  profoundly  influ- 
enced litst  by  its  natural  physical  structure 
and  then  by  the  succession  and  overlap- 
i/es  from  which  her  people  and 
ion  have  beeit  drawn. 


Modem  China 

A  Polilical  Sludy 
By  S.  G.  CHENG 
Net  $3.25 
A  valuable  and  timely  volume  throwing  a 
clear  light  on  the  chief  problems  of  modern 
China,    with    constructive   suggestions   for 
their  solution.    The  discussion  U  notably 
free  frotn  political  bias  and  deser 
close  attention  of  all  interested  ii 


At    ail  boohclltrs 
arfram  the  publUhcrs 

Oxford  University  Press 

t^merican  branch. 

35West  32  nd  Street 

NewM>rk 


■ntlOQ  Thi  Bookhan  Id  wrltlnf  to  advertl^era. 


IV 


THE  BOOKMAN 


The     Peculiar     Major,     by     Kbble     Howard 
[Do  ran]. 
A  humorous  story  of  masic. 
The  Last  of  the  Orcnvillea,  by  Bbnnbt  Copplb- 
HTUNE  [DuttouJ. 

A  sailor's  war  adventures. 
Up,  the  Rebels!  by  G.  A.  Bibminoham  [Doran]. 

A  story  of  Ireland. 
The  Mask,  by  John  Cournos  [Doran]. 

A  Russian  immigrant's  autobiofirraphy. 
From  Now  On,  by  F'rank  L.  Packard  [Doran]. 

A  criminal's  redemption.  » 

The  Blower  of  Bubbles,  by  Arthur  Beybrlbt 
Baxter   [Appleton]. 
War  stories. 
The  Judgment  of  Peace,  by   A.vdrbas  Latzko 
[Buni]. 
A  German  war  story. 
The    Swing    of    the    Pendulum,    by    Andbiana 
Spandoni  [Bonl]. 

A  study  of  a  modem  woman. 
The     Man     of     the     Forest,     by     Zanb     Grbt 
[Harper]. 
A  hunter's  romance. 
Duds,  by  Henry  C.  Rowland  [Harper]. 
An  international  mystery  tale. 

Poetry 

Poems,  by  Gladys  Cromwell  [MacmiUan]. 

Lyrics. 
Songs   in    the   Common   Chord,  by   Amelia   E. 
Barr   [AppletunJ. 
Selected  verse. 
Collected    Poems,    by    John    Black    [Knicker- 
bocker] . 

Narrative  and  other  verse. 
Poems,  by  Cecil  Roberts  [Stokes]. 
Verse  prefaced  by  John  Masefleld. 
Europe,  by  Samuel  Roth  [Boni]. 

Personification     of    the    nations,    in    free 
verse. 
The   Coat    Without   a  Scam,   by    Hblbn   Gray 
Cone   [Duttou]. 

War  and  peace  poems. 
The  Book  of  Modem  British  Verse;   Anthology 
of  Magazine  Verse  for  1919,  ed.  by  William 
Stanley  Braithwaitb   [Small]. 
Two  anthologies. 
Lnotzu's    Tao    and     Wu    Wei,    translated    by 
1)wi<;ht    Gopdard    [Brcntauo]. 
Chinese  philosophy. 
Trolley   Lines,   by   Andrea    Hofer   Proudfoot 
[Seymour]. 
Informal  obt    vations. 
The  Queen  of  China  and  Other  Poems,  by  Ed- 
ward Shanks  [Knopf]. 
A  prize  book  of  verse. 
A  Woman  of  Thirty,  by  Marjorie  Allen  Seif- 

FERT    [Knopf]. 

A  volume  including  Elijah  Hay's  verses. 
Modem    American    Poetry,   ed.    by    LouiS    Un- 
termeyer  [Hnrcourt]. 
An  anthology. 
Flying    Over    London    and    Other    Verses,    by 
Lynn   Harold   Hough    [Abingdon]. 
War  verse. 

Biography 

MrmorieH  of  Buffalo  Bill,  by  IjOuisa  Frederic! 
Cody  and  Courtney  Ryley  Cooper  [Apple- 
ton]. 

A  wife's  recollections. 
Bitwevn   You  and  Me,  by  Harry  Lauder   [Mc- 
Cann]. 

Informal  reminiscences. 
.4     Quaker    SUnyvr^s    Recollections,    by    David 
Hi.sPiiAM  [Macmillan]. 
An  autobiography. 
Ifornce  Trnuhel:    His  Life  and  Work,  by  David 
Kausner  [Rgmont  Arens]. 
An  appreciation. 
U'.  B.  Wil»on  and  the  Department  of  Labor,  by 
K(m;er  W.  Babson  [Brentano]. 
An  industrial  survey. 
The  Life  of  Francis  Place,  by  Graham  Wallas 
[Knopf]. 
The  story  of  an  English  reformer. 


States  Public  Health  Service.  Service 
also  is  continued  to  former  soldiers 
and  sailors  who  have  learned  to  ap- 
preciate the  value  of  books  through 
the  A.  L.  A.  efforts  in  the  training 
camps  and  overseas. 


Henry  Blackman  Sell,  widely  known 
as  the  editor  of  the  book  page  of  the 
Chicago  "Daily  News",  has  accepted 
the  position  of  editor  of  "Harper's 
Bazar*'. 


The  publishers  of  James  Branch  Ca- 
bell have  a  curious  kind  of  curiosity. 
Their  "official  statistician"  reports 
that  during  the  past  two  years  review- 
ers have  written  over  three  hundred 
thousand  words  concerning  Mr.  Ca- 
bell. Of  these,  two  and  three-quarters 
per  cent  are  monosyllables,  fourteen 
per  cent  dissyllables,  eighteen  and  one- 
quarter  per  cent  trisyllables,  while  the 
remaining  sixty-live  per  cent  range  in 
length  from  four  to  eleven  syllables. 
Set  in  ten  point  type  and  placed  end 
to  end,  the  entire  critical  output  re- 
garding this  one  writer  would  reach 
from  New  York  to  Chicago  and  thence 
to  Richmond,  Virginia. 


As  a  boy,  Edward  Thatcher,  author 
of '"Tin  Can  Toys",  began  to  make  his 
own  toys  from  tin  cans  and  wire. 
Later,  when  a  man,  searching  in  the 
toy  shops  for  a  certain  type  of  loco- 
motive and  failing  to  find  the  de- 
sired one,  he  went  home  and  made  one 
The  picture  of  the  happy  result  is  pre- 
eented  in  his  book.  Mr.  Thatcher  has 
made  a  scientific  study  of  toy  making 
from  waste  tin;  he  is  an  instructor  at 
Teachers  College,  New  York  City, 
teaching  his  art  to  the  Occupational 
Aides,  who,  in  turn,  have  taught  this 
diverting  work  to  soldiers  in  hospitals, 
particularly  shell  shock  cases,  for 
wl;u>m  the  doctors  especially  indorse  it. 


TH£    SOOKM^If   At^VERTISBn. 


YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


THE  MORAL  BASIS 
OF  DEMOCRACY 

By  Arthur  Twining  Hadle]', 


THREE  POEMS  OF 
THE  WAR 


p^5^ 


POLICEMAN  AND 
PUBLIC 

By  Colonel  t/*rthur  Woods. 

CommiMii^cr  y'wYorJc  dly  has  ever  "hid.    B 
Icclurci  delivered  hi  Yele  Umvenily. 


It  beauUful  that'  the  w'ar  ha"  inspired."  fhe»1tavo 
bablir  done  more  than  attr  of  Claudel'a  other  trorka 


LECTURES  ON  MODERN 
IDEALISM 

Bjr  tbe  late  Josiah  Rojce, 
With  an  Introduction  by  Professot  Loweobucg. 
These  IccturH.  delivered  at  Johnt  Hopkins  Umversily 
and  now  published  ai  ■  posthumoui  work  of  the  Btett 
philosopher,  (ill  a  geniiine  need  in  philosophic  litenture. 
Cloth,    fo.oo 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

It  of  three  engaging  volumes  of  essays  by  Charles  S.  Brooks. 


YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

143  Elm  Street,  New  Haven,  Connecticut.        280  Madison  Avenue,  New  York  City 


No  Armistice  for  This  Army 

\Vith  the  so-called  down-and-outer  all  but  disappearint^  us  a  result  of  high  wages 
and  general  prosperity,  with  the  drunkard  vanishing  as  constitutional  prohibition 
goes  into  effect,  what  is  there  left  for  the  Salvation  Army  to  do  ? 

From  scores  of  unfortunate  mothers  and  nameless  little  children,  from  hundreds 
of  widows  and  orphans,  from  thousands  of  convicts  in  prison  cells,  from  tens  of 
thousands  of  the  homeless  and  friendless  and  from  countless  hordes  of  America's 
sick,  crippled,  unfortunate  and  misfit  men,  women  and  children,  comes  the  answer, 
strong,  clear,  unmistakable :    "Care  for  us  I" 

The  organization  that  won  such  high  place  in 
the  affections  of  the  American  public  by  virtue  of 
its  sterling  war  service  is  now  gaining  that  recc%- 
nition  for  its  customary  peacetime  work.  The 
lassies  who  won  decorations  and  the  doughboys' 
everlasting  gratitude  by  their  heroic  service  in 
France  are  now  helping  to  wage  another  kind  of 
warfare  in  New  York  and  Boston,  San  Francisco 
and  Seattle,  New  Orleans  and  Chicago,  and  several 
hundred  other  cities  in  the  U.  S.  The  enemies 
now  are  the  age-old  foes  of  mankind— wickedness, 
degradation,  poverty,  sickness  and  misfortime. 

The  soldier,  sailor  or  marine  may  be  back  at  desk, 
filow  or  machine,  but  the  Salvation  lad  or  lassie  is 
still  in  the  thick  of  the  fight. 


SALVATION 
ARMY 

^HOMESERVICE\ 
FUND 

1920 


THE    nOOKMAy    AftVERTISEH. 


:  VERVE  :   The  JOURNAL  of  j 
':  ROBERT  DeCAMP  LELAND  : 

The  moat  brilluutt  individualistic 
tnsgaiiae  in  America 

II  tack  qaarttrlj  imt  tirict  of  tK*  fubluh*ri 

THE    POETRY-DRAMA    CO..   Bortoi 


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-* ii  •  Eds  cpltomt  of  common  moat  u  llteruy  pro- 

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o  throw  light  even  upoa  th*  pith  of  thi  pTOfiuiotuL 
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Blocrapb;  with  letters  froiD  prtaon. 
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EsBajs  av  tamaat  wrlten. 
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Problem!  and  rentPdles. 
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An  blHtoTlcal  survey. 
A  LMng  Wagr,  by  iaan  A.  RtAX  IHacmUIan], 

Ethical  and  ecnnomlc  aapecti. 
The   Place    of  Heitner  In   Modem   I7IvIII«iHdh, 
by  THoasTiiN  Vidlix  [Hnebscb}. 
Economic  pssaya. 
BiaMllzIng  the  Dollar,  by  lavixa  Fihhbb  [Hae- 
mlllan]. 

Free  Trade,  the  Tariff  and  ReelpToetfii,  by  F. 
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luns  fr —  — 

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IFiir  and  BeeonttnteHon 


Thv  Bconomie  Contequrn 


a  [HBrcanrtl. 
a  Bohlicvitm,  by  Oi.a  HaH- 


Bctlon 


tudli-a. 


"'2'r«oTd"' 
Rebuilding  Europe  In  tfi<  Face  of  WorUidde 

BoUhri-iem,     by-  Newbll     DwiqBT     Billis 

(IteTelll. 
A  study  of  repopulatlDD. 
home— Then    Whatt   foreword   by  loan   Kix- 

oaiFK  Bakcs  [Doraii]. 
■Siildlen'  essays. 
Up  E»capt  from   Ocrmanif,  by  EbiC  A.  Karaa 

ICeiitury]. 


-J.  [Harper). 

An  Illustrated  record. 
ir  War  Kith  aermany,  by  JOHH  8PBNCIB  Bas- 
aiTT  (Knopf). 

A  h  la  lory  uf  America's  part. 


HMINS' 


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they  m  to  iwect,  clean,  well  put  >■[,  and 

At  IDealera  Geaerallj 
I  CHAS.  n.  HIGGIHS  k  CO.,  Hft*. 

~  WUml  ST..  BKOOELTX,  >.  T. 


n  wrItlDg  to  advertlaera. 


THE    BOOKMAN   A1>VERTISEK 


Drama 

Sacred  and  Profane  Low,  by  Abnold  Bennett 
[DoranJ. 

A    dramatization    of    "The    Book    of    Car- 
lotta". 
Hip  Van  Winkle,  by  Percy  MacKaye  [Knopf]. 

An  opera. 
llvUoguhaluH,  by   II.   L.'  MENrKEN  and  George 
.Iran  Nathan   [Knopf]. 
A    three-act   burlesque. 
The  Craft  of  the  Tortoise,  by  Algernon  Tas- 
81 N   [BonI]. 

A  play  of  woman's  emancipation. 
The    Power    of    Ood,    by    Thaciier    Rowland 
Guild  [Univ.  of  III.]. 
One -act  plays. 
JAitle   Theater  ClasfticH:    Volume   Ttoo.ed.   by 
Samuel    A.     Eliot.    Jr.     [Llttlo,    Brown]. 
Old  French  and  English  plays. 
The  RuHsian  Theatre  Under  the  Revolution,  by 
Oliver  M.  Saylbr  [Little,  Brown]. 
Personal  observations. 
The  Contemporary  Drama  of  Italy,  by  Lkander 
MArCLiXTorK   [Little.  Brown]. 
A  <levelopment  survey. 
A    Book    of    Burlenques,    l)y    H.    L.    MENCKEN 
[Knopf), 
riays,  essays,  and  parnRraphs. 

History  and  Political  Science 

Democracy  and  Oovemment,  by  Samuel  Peter- 
son   [Knopf]. 

A  study  of  principles. 
The   War  with   Mexico,  by  Justin   H.   Smith, 
2  vols.   [Macmillan]. 
History  of  1846-8. 
The  Return  of  the  Democratic  Party  to  Power 
in   i««j,   by    Harrison    Cook    Thomas    [Co- 
lumbia J. 

A  study  of  Issues. 
The     Czechs      (Bohemians)     in     America,     by 
Thomas  Czapek  [Houghton]. 
A  political,  social  study. 
Korea's  Fight  for  Freedom,  by  F.  A.  McKenzie 
[Revell]. 
A  study  of  Japanese  methmls. 
A   Year  as   a   Oovemment   Agent,  by  Vira  B. 
Whitbhouse  [Harper]. 
Diplomatic  experiences. 
The    fioul    of   Ireland,    by    W.    J.    Lockinoton 
[Macmillan]. 
A  study  of  national  character. 
Irish  Impressions,  by  Gilbert  K.  Chesterton 
[Lane]. 

Political  observations. 

Travel  and  Description 

South  I  by  Ernest  Shackleton    [Macmillan]. 

An  account  of  the  1014-17  expedition. 
Hither  and  Thither  in  Germany,  by   William 
Dean  Howells  [Harper]. 
Prewar  Impressions. 
The  Adrentures  of  a  Nature  Guide,  by  Enos  A. 
Mills   [Doubleday]. 

An  illustrated  narrative. 
The  Turnpikes  of  New  England,  by  Frederic 
J.  Wooi>  [Marshall  Jones]. 
An  exposition  illustrated. 
Things  Seen  in  London,  by  A.  H.  Blake  [Dut- 
ton]. 

Illustrated  impressions. 

Essays    and    Literary    Studies 

Studies    in    Spanish-American    Literature,    by 
Isaac  (Ioldberg    [BrentanoJ. 

Studies  of  modernists. 
Look  Up,  by  Randolph  Lewis  [McCann], 

Inspirational  essays. 
In  the  Garret,  by  Carl  Van  Vechten  [Knopf]. 

Dramatic  and  musical  papers. 

Religion   and    Spiritualism 

Between  Scarlet   Thrones,  bv   Florence   Wil- 
LiNOHAM   Packard    [Stratford]. 
A  tale  of  Elijah. 
'Come    Ye   Apart,"   by   John    Henrt   Jowett 
[Revell]. 
Dally  exercises  in  prayer. 


Literary  Agents 

and 

Writers'  Aids 


FIRST  AID  TO  AUTHORS— i 

Yon  are  a  writer.  Do  you  never  need  the  im- 
partial opinion  of  an  expert  on  something  you 
have  written  f 

I  am  a  publishers*  reader.  For  years  I  read 
for  Macmillan,  then  for  Doran.  and  then  I  be- 
came consulting  specialist  ^o  them  and  to  Holt, 
Stokes,  Lippincott,  Harcourt,  and  others,  for  most 
of  whom  I  have  also  done  expert  editing,  helping 
authors  to  reconstruct  their  books. 

Send  me  your  manuscript.  I  will  criticize  it 
frankly  from  the  publisher's  point  of  view,  and 
advise  you  how  best  to  market  it.  My  fee  is 
$10.00.  and  must  be  sent  at  the  same  time.  If  I 
think  editing  worth  while.  I  will  give  you  an  esti- 
mate, based  on  the  time  required. 

Care  of 

THE  SUNWISB  TURN 
6t  BAST  4Mh  STREET 
NEW  YORK  CITY 


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WRITING  STORIES 


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Previous  Acceptance  Not 
Special  Free  Offer. 

NEW  YORK  LITERARY  BUREAU, 
Dept.  R.  145  W.  36th  Street,  NEW  YORK  CITY 

A  lady  with  practical  enperleace  as  writer,  cHtie 
and  instractor  will  give  a  complete  technique  of  the 
short  story  coarse  through  correepondenoe  to  a  limited 
nomber  of  serloos  stodents;  also  will  read  and  criti- 
cise constructive  any  niaBiiaerlpta,  Inclodlng  verse. 
Addrees  Short  Story,  care  Tbb  Bookman,  New 
York  City. 

F.   M.   HOLLY 

Established    1905 

Authors*  and  Publishers*  RepresentatlTe 

156  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 

Rat9s  and  full  information  sent  upon  appUcoHon 


LOUISE  E.  DEW 

W  «»  B  m.  —M* 

lA€€rary  K€pT99€nE€KW€ 

DO  TOU  NEED  A  CONSULTING  EDITOR 

to  criticise,  revise  or  place  your  Mas.?    My  18  vears* 
editorial  experience  at  your  service.    Circulars 

AEOLIAN  HALL  NEW  YORK 


MSS.  EDITED.  TYPED,  AND  PLACED  WITH  THE 
PUBLISHER.    EXPERT  CRITICISM. 
B.  H.  GROVES,  M.  A. 
Aotfaora*  end  FubUslMra*  Ag«it  v 

ISHevileiidStrMt  ,,  Botton 

Terms  upon  applicalum 


siesT  sTOiiES.  NOVELS,  ^t;;^',;:::^ 

fun  putlciitess.  WM.  LABBE&TON.  Ut.  Agt..  s«9^W.  isBSt..N.  Y. 


Please  mention  Thi  Bookman  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


The    ^OOkMAji    41>vEktlSEH. 


LITERARY    AGENTS    AND 
WRITERS'  AIDS  ^Continued) 


PiBiMiBigimiMihiihdiidmmiMi^ 
[raining  jor  ^ntliorship 

and  Where  io  sell. 

CuHi^M^  your  mind.  Dewlap 

Short- S  lory  Wril- 

Pfay   WtLiioE,    Photoplay 
_,    _  ,    ,  WrilinB,  etc,  taught  pmon- 

Ur.bSenwein  alLy  by  Dt,  J.  Bere  Esanwein. 
for  many  years  editoc  ot  l-ippincotl'B  Magmine.  and 
a  staff  oi  literary  experts.  Constructive  criticlsfn. 
Praak,  hoaest.  helpful  aivica.  Jfea/ teoching. 


DiVESTNENT 


Is  a  inagaiine  that  is  teaching  thou* 
saada  of  people  how  to  make  a  profit 

llatcd  •tocka  and  bonds. ,  Write  for  thia 


COritlC*  tbat  cam  b«  boonht  now  to.yield 
a  liberal  rctoni.  INVESTMENT  IS  FREE. 
WEITE  TODAY. 

KRIEBELACCX 

INVsn-MENT  BANKIRy 
151T  South  La  SaUcSt^Chica^ 


THE  WRITER'S  MONTHLYj.B.;?£iJS.rfn 

k  MAOAZINE  or  REAL  BEU>  FOB  ILL  WHO  nBITI 

CAROLYN  WELI^H7t.-  "Tk,bul  maga- 

■fru  of  Hi  Und  h»eaaw  II  Im  PRACTICAL." 

Slntl*  eo^»  15  BHiti  fl.Hl  arw 

THE  WRITER'S  MONTHLT,  Dafi-  H  SrrloffiiU.Mu*. 

Please  mentliin  Tin  Bookh. 


Henry  van  Dyke's  very  large  audi- 
ence will  be  Klad  to  know  that  his  pub- 
lishers announce  a  uniform  and  stand- 
ard edition  of  his  woika.  Dr.  van 
Dyke  has  had  personal  charge  of  the 
editing  and  arrangement  and  has  in- 
cluded in  the  set,  from  their  many 
forms,  all  of  his  urritings  that  he 
wishes  to  live.  The  edition  has  been 
named  the  "Avalon  Edition",  after 
Dr.  van  Dyke's  home  in  Princeton.  It 
will  contain  sixteen  volumes,  illus- 
trated by  various  artists — special 
photographs  of  Dr.  van  Dyke  and  his 
home  will  be  included.  The  first  two 
volumes,  "Fisherman's  Luck"  and 
"Little  Rivers",  with  frontispieces  by 
N.  C.  Wyeth,  will  be  ready  immedi- 
ately, and  two  additional  volumes  will 
be  brought  out  each  month  until  the 
set  is  complete.  The  "Avalon  Edi- 
tion" will  be  in  the  same  "library" 
that  already  contains  the  works  of 
Meredith,  Kipling,  Ibsen,  and  Tolstoi. 
The  books  will  be  sold  by  subscription 
only,  and  may  be  procured  direct  from 
the  publishers,  Charles  Scribner'a 
Sons. 


"Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to 
His  Children"  has  been  considered 
such  a  contribution  to  lasting  Amer- 
ican literature  that  the  society  inter- 
ested In  the  blind  in  Philadelphia  have 
made  arrangements  to  have  the  book 
reprinted  in  the  Braille  type. 


At  an  Americanization  meeting  in 
Milwaukee,  the  leader  followed  a  read- 
ing of  Robert  Haven  Sehauffler's 
poem  "Scum  o'  the  Earth"  with  a  few 
words  of  regret  for  his  untimely  end. 
While  the  listeners  were  feeling  for 
their  handkerchiefs  and  the  thought 
— "so  young— ao  gifted"  was  in  every 
mind,  his  aunt  rose  up  in  the  hall  to 
contradict  the  statement.  Mr,  SchauE- 
fler  did  something  in  France,  but  got 
through  with  only  a  wound.  His  new 
book  "Fiddler's  Luck"  will  soon  ap- 
pear. 


m  collectors' GUIDE 


In  this  section  the  readers  of  THE,  BOOKMAN  will 
find  the  latest  announcements  of  reliable  dealers  in 
Rare  Books,  Manuscripts,  Autc^raphs  and  Prints.  It 
will  be  well  to  look  over  this  section  carefully  each 
month,  for  the  advertisements  will  be  frequently 
changed,  and  items  of  interest  to  collectors  will  be 
offered  here.  All  these  dealers  invite  correspondoice. 


NATUKALLY  the  moat-talked- 
about  event  in  the  book-auction 
world  this  seafion  was  the  dispersal  of 
a  portion  of  the  famous  Britwell  Court 
library  at  Sotheby's  in  December,  when 
George  D,  Smith  purchased  for  Henry 
S.  Huntington  a  little  volume  contain- 
ing the  unique  copy  of  Shakespeare's 
'TenuB  and  Adonis"  of  1599  for  ?75,- 
500 — the  highest  price  ever  paid  at 
auction  for  a  book.  The  story  has 
been  told  at  length  in  the  public  press, 
with  some  additions  and  subject  to 
some  corrections.  Many  of  the  papers 
spoke  of  the  sale  as  though  the  whole 
Britwell  Court  library  had  been  sold, 
although  there  were  only  108  lots  in 
the  sale.  While  in  this  sale  of  Eng- 
lish literature  there  were  no  less  than 
twenty-four  items  of  which  no  other 
perfect  copy  is  known  to  exist,  there 
still  remain  In  the  library  duplicates 
of  some  of  the  other  most  important 
items;  and  while  the  Americana  was 
sold  en  bloc  to  Mr.  Huntington  and 
collections  of  early  voyages  and  trav- 
els, music  and  early  English  literature 
have  been  dispersed,  it  is  reported  on 
good  authority  that  the  major  portion 
of  the  library  will  be  kept  intact  for 
the  descendants  of  C.  J.  Christie  Mil- 
ler, the  owner.  In  the  music  collec- 
tion, for  instance,  there  was  a  copy  of 
the  very  rare  "Songs  of  Three  Fower 
and  Five  Voycea",  by  Thomas  Why- 
thome,  1571 ;  but  imperfect,  like  that 
In  the  British  Museum.  Yet  Robert 
Steele,  in  his  monograph  on  "The 
Earliest    English    Music    Printing", 

rlcaup  mcnllim  Tni  BooKU 


1903,  states  that  "there  is  a  complete 
copy  in  the  Britwell  library",  so  that 
the  one  sold  was  probably  only  the 
duplicate,  which  may  have  been  ac- 
quired from  Dr.  E.  F.  Rimbault,  who 
wrote  a  paper  about  this  book. 


William  Henry  Miller,  who  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  present  Britwell 
Court  library,  was  the  great  grand- 
father of  the  present  owner,  and  was 
an  antiquary  interested  only  in  early 
English  printing.  He  died  in  1848, 
and  the  library  came  into  the  posses- 
sion of  Wakefield  Miller,  father  of  0. 
3.  Christie  Miller,  Esq.  of  Bumham, 
Bucks.  Under  the  present  owner  the 
library  has  been  augmented  as  well 
as  diminished,  and  there  still  remains 
a  splendid  collection  of  early  English 
literature  which  will  not  go  under  the 
hammer,  although  there  may  be  still 
more  sales  of  selections  from  it. 


The  acquisition  of  the  unique  fourth 
edition  of  "Venus  and  Adonis"  by 
Henry  E.  Huntington  of  this  city, 
gives  additional  distinction  to  what 
was  an  unsurpassed  collection  of 
Shakespeare's  writit.gs.  It  lacks  but 
one  of  the  quartos,  the  unique  "Titua 
Andronicus"  which  H.  C.  Folger  of 
Brooklyn  acquired  soon  after  its  dis- 
covery in  a  library  in  Sweden.  But  in 
the  matter  of  Shakespeare  Folios  the 
Huntington  library  has  every  known 
variation  and  imprint,  and  other  edi- 
tions of  the  quartos  innumerable.  The 
"Venus  and  Adonis"  which  Mr.  Hunt- 

M  In  writing  to  aaTprtlners. 


THE  COLLECTORS'  GUIDE  (Ckmtinued) 


SPURR  &  SWIFT 

Dealers  in 

RARE  BOOKS,  AUTOGRAPHS 

FirtI   E«litioiM9   Bindings 

American  Export  Agents 

25  Ryder  St.,  St.  James',  London,  S.  W. 


ANTIQUARIAN   BOOK  CO. 

Efeshin  Read,  Stratford-eo-Afen,  England 
Dealers  in  Rare  Bookk  and  First  Editions: 
DiclcenSf  Tliaclceray,  SteTenson,  Kipling. 
Conrad,  Masefldd,  Wells,  Noyes,  Dun- 
sany,  etc.,  etc. 

Catalof  a««  tnmUmd  trmm  on  rf — tf 


Catalogue  of 

OLD  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  Etc 

(Including  an  Important  Collection  on  the  Drama) 
Smnt  on  rmqummt 

W.  A.  GOUGH,  Inc, 

25  West  42nd  Street  NEW  YORK 

STIKEMAN   &  CO. 

BOOKBINDERS 

110-114  WEST  32D  ST.,  NEW  YORK 

FIbo  BlndiBf •  of  every  deserlptfoa.     lalaylttff; 
RestoriBf,    Solaader    aad 
desifninct  otc. 


Slip    Cases.     Special 


A  BOOK  BARGAIN 

THE  HEART  OP  GAMBETTA 

The  story  of  the  great  Republican's  love  for  Madame 
L^onie  Leon  and  her  influence  over  him  as  a  States- 
man, by  Fracis  Latr,  translated  by  V.  M.  Montagu. 
With  an  introduction  by  John  Macdonald. 

Six  illus.   Svo,  270  pp.,  4s.  6d.  pott  free.   Pub.  1908. 

L.  CHAUNDT  OF  OXFORD  LTD..  2,  AlWmkSt.  ImimJWA 

BOOKS. — All  out-of-print  books  supplied,  no  matter  on 
what  subject.  Write  tts.  We  can  get  you  any  book 
ever  published.  Please  state  wants.  When  in  Bug- 
land  call  and  see  our  50.000  rare  books.  BAKER'S 
GREAT  BOOKSHOP,  14-16  John  Bright  Street. 
Birmingham.  England. 

Di^OlTQ  —Over  1,000,OM  volumes  in  stock  on  every 
DKJKJW^^  conceivable  subject.  A  large  stock  of  Rare 
Books  and  first  editions,  second>hand  and  new.  Cata- 
ogue  No.  436  Free.  State  wants.  W.  AO.Foxui,  I/td., 
121-126  Charing  Gross  Road,  London,  Kngland. 

FOR    THE     BOOK     LOVER 

Bare  books — First  editions. 

Books  BOW  oat  of  prlat. 

Lateat  Catalogue  Sent  oa  Reqoett 

G.  GERHARDT,  25  W.  42d  Street.  New  York 

BOOKS  and  AUTOGRAPHS-Early  Printed  Books 
First  Editions, Standard  Authors,etc  Cataloguesfree. 
R.  Atkinson,  188  Peckham  Rye,  London.  S.  E.  Eng. 

USED  BOOKS.  Big  Bargains.  Catak>gs.  Higene't 
M-244 1  Pbet,  San  Frandeco.    (Books  Bought.) 


ington  acquired  at  such  a  high  price ' 
is  not,  as  some  newspapers  stated,  the 
first  edition,  but  the  fourth.  Of  the 
first  three  editions  altogether  there 
are  only  six  known  copies,  and  these 
are  in  public  libraries,  safely  out  of 
reach  of  the  collector.  Mt.  Hunting- 
ton has  therefore  the  only  known  copy 
of  the  first  procurable  edition  of 
Shakespeare's  first  printed  play. 


The  book  auction  season  of  1919-20 
opened  with  no  diminution  of  interest 
among  collectors,  and  the  prices  paid 
at  the  sales  of  the  S.  P.  Avery,  Henry 
F.  DePuy,  Loren  G.  DuBois  and  other 
sales  at  the  opening  of  the  season, 
were  a  continuation  of  those  paid  last 
season.  One  of  the  most  remarkable 
sales  was  that  of  the  bibliographical 
library  of  C.  F.  Libbie  and  Company, 
the  Boston  book  auctioneers  who  are 
retiring  from  business.  The  prices 
paid  at  this  sale  for  rare,  privately 
printed  bibliographies  were  high,  as 
was  to  be  expected,  in  view  of  the  in- 
creasing number  of  collectors.  But 
the  astonishingly  high  prices  paid  for 
old-book  auction  catalogues,  priced 
and  unpriced,  made  the  collectors 
gasp.  In  practice  an  old  book-auction 
catalogue  is  a  good  deal  like  a  re- 
volver— one  does  not  need  it  often,  but 
when  he  wants  it  he  wants  it  badly. 


First  Editions  of  Modem  Authors 

Books  on  Art 

French  Literature 

Modem  Etchings  and  Lithographs 

Cmialogues  Free 

F.  R  NEUMAYER 

70  Charing  Cross  Road.  London.  W.  C.  2.  Eng. 

D^irA  RAAlctt  Fine  examples  of  Early 
Wartg  PUUIt8l  Printed    and    Rare 

Books   from   the   15th   century   onwards    our 
specialty.     Our  assistance  is  offered  in  forming 
collections  on  out  of  the  way  subjects. 
Correspondence  Invited.  Catalog  ues  post  fret, 

SHORT  LIST   OP   FIRST  AND   RARB   EDITIONS 
OP  MODKRN   AUTHORS  ISSUBD 

J.  I.  DAVIS  (B.  A.  Cantab)  &  G.  M.  ORIOLI 
24  Mosmim  St..  London.  W.  C.  1,  England 


Please  mention  Thb  Bookman  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


i^ji^r. 


fiSiHERE  TO  BUY  BOOKS 


The  boobsdlen  KdvertiBing  in  this  Kctton  Iut*  Buffl- 
dent  belief  in  the  excellence  of  their  stock  nnd  KbUity 
to  serve  70U  thnt  they  place  their  orsKniznticAu  at  the 
command  of  book-ioTers  ovrywben.  Readers  of  THE 
BOOKMAN  mentioiiinE  the  msguiBe  msr  feel  assured 
that  very  friendly  snd  prompt  sttentlon  will  J»e  gTtm 


Harold  Brighouse,  the  English 
dramatist,  after  a  dozen  successful 
plays  to  his  credit,  including  "Hob- 
son's  Choice",  "Garside's  Career",  and 
"The  Odd  Man  Out",  has  again  taken 
up  fiction  writing.  A  new  novel  from 
his  pen  with  a  Manchester  background 
is  entitled  "The  Marbeck  Inn". 


E.  Phillips  pppenheim,  at  fifty-four, 
with  sixty  novels  to  his  credit,  has 
written  his  most  popular  book  in  "The 
Great  Impersonation",  now  one  of  the 
best-selling  novels  In  the  United 
States.  Mr.  Oppenheim  was  attached 
to  the  British  military  intelligence 
service  during  the  war. 


"The  Book  Monthly",  of  London,  re- 
cently published  an  interesting  article 
on  General  William  vBooth  as  his  bi- 
ographer Harold  Begble  sees  him. 
The  Booth  biography  is  announced  for 
publication  over  here  by  the  first  of 
March.  It  is  to  be  in  two  volumes, 
elaborately  illustrated. 


F.  P.  A.,  the  much  admired  column- 
ist of  the  New  York  "Tribune",  thinks 
William  W.  Ellsworth  in  his  "A 
Golden  Age  of  Authors"  exaggerates 
the  harm  done  by  the  dime  novel. 
"Probably  the  worst  influence  in  our 
young  life",  he  writes,  "was  Horatio 
Alger,  Jr.  It  was  strange  that  we 
never  have  been  able  to  exparge  the 
conviction  that  fortune,  success,  and 
happiness  are  the  inevitable  reward 
of  honesty,  chivalry,  and  industry." 

Ploase  meollon  Tna  BooiuiIN 


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Any  book  mentioned  in  Thb  BOOK- 
MAN, with  few  exceptions,  may  be 
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Ii()(»k8  of  the  Day,  Fine  Editions,  Bibles,  Maga- 
zine  Subscriptions. 

Mail  orders  carefully  fliled. 


"The  Life  of  J.  Henri  Fabre", 
translated  by  Bernard  Miall,  is  an- 
nounced for  early  publication.  While 
this  volume,  it  is  said,  cannot  exactly 
be  called  an  autobiosrraphy,  yet  it  is 
almost  that.  The  author,  a  fellow 
scientist  and  a  relative  of  Fabre, 
wrote  the  book  under  the  intimate  di- 
rection of  the  great  naturalist.  The 
volume  is  described  as  his  method  of 
linking  together  Fabre's  own  story  of 
his  life,  aspirations  and  work. 


The  following  note  is  taken  from 
one  of  Clement  K  Shorter's  recent 
"literary  letters"  to  the  London 
"Sphere" : 

Lord  Ernie,  better  known  to  most  of  ns  as 
Mr.  Rowland  Prothero,  addressed  the  Writers* 
Club  the  other  evening,  and  told  his  aadience  that 
hearing  his  father  and  mother  speak  of  **Jane 
Eyre",  he  purchased  with  his  scanty  pocket 
money  a  copy  of  the  book  on  his  way  to  bis 
first  school.  lie  was  told  by  the  schoolmaster 
that  if  he  had  not  been  a  new  boy  he  would 
hare  been  flogged  for  bringing  such  a  book  into 
the  school.  And  yet  there  are  people  who  re- 
fuse to  acknowledge  that  the  mid-Victorian 
epoch  was  a  horrible  time. 

But  this  is  not  the  best  part  of  the  story. 
While  Ix>rd  Ernie  was  8i>eaking,  one  of  the  re- 
porters said  to  his  neighbour,  "Who  was  this 
Jane  Eyre?  Did ''she  write  novels?**  When 
told  that  it  was  a  popular  work  of  fiction,  be 
replied  that  he  had  never  heard  of  it. 


The  firm  of  W.  &  G.  Foyle,  booksell- 
ers, London,  has  been  converted  into 
a  Limited  Company  with  W.  A.  Foyle 
and  G.  S.  Foyle,  the  original  partners, 
as  directors.  By  this  conversion  the 
firm  hopes  to  extend  its  business  and 
to  give  even  better  book  service. 
Twelve  years  ago,  the  brothers  Foyle 
started  operations  with  a  few  short- 
hand books.  Now  they  have  a  stock 
of  over  1,000,000  volumes.  They  claim 
to  buy  over  10,000  volumes  weekly, 
and  as  these  have  to  be  shelved,  priced, 
and  catalogued  before  they  can  be  of- 
fered to  prospective  buyers,  the  firm 
of  necessity  employs  a  staff  of  over 
one  hundred. 


Please  mention  Thb  Bookman  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


BRIEF  MENTION  OF  NEW  BOOKS 


Meredith  Nicholson  called  on  the 
Gossip  Shop  the  other  day.  He  wished 
to  present  to  our  Murray  Hill  the  idea 
of  an  essay  to  be  called  "Snobs  I  Have 
Snubbed".    He  said  he  was  fairly  well. 


The  English  literary  invasion  prom- 
ises to  continue.  Among  our  visitors 
scheduled  for  this  summer  is  Archi- 
bald Marshall.  He  writes  his  Ameri- 
can publishers,  however,  that  he  pre- 
fers to  come  as  "a  private  citizen" 
rather  than  as  a  lecturer,  as  he  feels 
that  in  that  way  he  can  "get  more  at 
the  heart  of  things"  here. 


Numerous  characteristic  whimsi- 
calities appear  in  the  recently  pub- 
lished volume  "Memories  of  George 
Meredith",  by  Lady  Butcher,  whom 
all  good  Meredithians  will  remember 
as  Alice  Brandreth  of  his  letters.  Fol- 
lows the  Meredith  comment  on  motor- 
ing: "Three  toots  of  a  horn,  and  a 
harem  of  veiled  ladies  dashes  by  leav- 
ing a  stench  of  petrol  behind,  that 
lasts  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour." 


James  Whitcomb  Riley  manuscripts 
are  valuable.  At  a  recent  sale  of  au- 
tograph letters,  manuscripts,  etc.,  in 
Philadelphia,  an  autograph  poem  of 
his  "Another  Acrostic"  brought  $13. 
At  the  same  sale  $70  was  paid  for  his 
typewritten  manuscript  of  "The  Name 
of  Old  Glory".  Riley  had  made  cor- 
rections  in  his  own  hand  on  the  manu- 
script pages,  and  had  signed  his  name, 
with  a  pen  scratch  through  the  signa- 
ture. A  number  of  original  Riley 
manuscripts  were  displayed  at  the 
book  Fair  in  Indianapolis  recently. 
They  were  loaned  by  publishers. 


Frank  Bacon,  author  of  "Lightnin'  " 
and  star  of  the  production,  has  put  the 
story  of  the  play  into  a  novel.    "Light- 


BRIEF  MENTION  OF  NEW  BOOKS 

Fiction 

Possessed,  by  Cleveland  Moffett  [McCann].  A 
tooman'8  emotional  experience. 

My  Rest  Cure,  by  George  Robey  [Stokes].  A 
humorous  ntnrative. 

Peter  Kindred,  by  Robert  Nathan  [Dnffleld].  A 
youth's  school  life  and  marriage. 

A  Jewel  in  the  Sand,  by  Alma  Newton  [Duf- 
field].     A  ffirVs  city  experiences. 

Evander,  by  Eden  Phillpotts  [Macmillan].  A 
romance  of  ancient  Rome. 

The  Strange  Case  of  Mortimer  Fenley,  by  Louis 
Tracy  [Clode].     A  murder  mystery. 

"The  Line's  Busy",  by  Albert  Edward  Ullman 
[Stokes].    A  telephone  girVs  letters. 

The  Enchanted  Qolf  Clubs,  by  Robert  Marshall 
[Stokes].    A  golf  romance. 

Where  Angels  Fear  to  Tread,  by  E.  M.  Forster 
[Knopf].    A  story  of  misalliance. 

In  the  Shadow  bf  Great  Peril,  by  Horace  A. 
Wade  [Reilly  and  Lee].     A  hoy's  adventure. 

The  Fortieth  Door,  by  Mary  Hastings  Bradley 
[Appleton].     An  American-Turkish  romance. 

Deliverance,  by  E.  L.  Grant  Watson  [Knopf]. 
The  love  story  of  two  women  and  a  man. 

Wyndbam's  Pal,  by  Harold  Bindloss  [Stokes]. 
Adventures  in  the  Caribbean  lagoons. 

Sara  Videbeck,  by  C.  J.  L.  Almquist;  Neils 
Lyhne,  by  J.  P.  Jacobsen  [Amer.-Scand. 
Foundation].  Novels  in  the  "Scandinavian 
Classics''  series. 

A  Thin  Ghost  and  Others,  by  Montague  Rhodes 
James  [Longmans].     Five  mystery  stories. 

The  Splendid  Outcast,  by  George  Gibbs  [Apple- 
ton].    A  tale  of  twin  brothers. 

The  Mystery  at  the  Blue  Villa,  by  Melville  Da- 
visson  Post   [Appleton].     Seventeen  tales. 

Pirates  of  the  Spring,  by  Forrest  Reld  [Hough- 
ton].    A  study  of  an  Irish  schoolboy. 

Robin  Linnet,  by  E.  F.  Benson  [Doran].  A 
novel  of  English  society  life. 

Happily  Married,  by  Corra  Harris  [Doran]. 
A  small-town  story. 

Fire  of  Youth,  by  Henry  James  Forman  [Lit- 
tle] .    A  youth's  search  for  romance. 

Sweethearts  Unmet,  by  Bertha  Ruck  [Dodd, 
Mead].     The  story  of  a  lonely  girl  and  boy. 

Cathy  Rossiter,  by  Mrs.  Victor  Rickard 
[Doran].     A  story  of  English  lunacy  laws. 

Sheila  Intervenes,  by  Stephen  McKenna 
[Doran].     A  spirited  English  girl's  romance. 

Happy  House,  by  The  Baroness  von  Hutten 
[Doran].     A  woman  novelist's  experience. 

Villa  Elsa,  by  Stuart  Henry  [Dutton].  An 
American's  observations  of  German  life. 

Poor  Relations,  by  Compton  Mackenzie  [Har- 
per].   A  successful  playwright's  romance. 

Glamour,  by  W.  B.  Maxwell  [Bobbs-Merril].  An 
English  playwright's  love  affairs. 

What  Outfit  Buddy?  by  T.  Howard  Kelly  [Har- 
per].    A  colloquial  war  narrative. 

A  Place  in  the  World,  by  John  Hastings  Tur- 
ner [Scribner].  A  Russian  woman's  Eng- 
lish experiences.  . 

Poetry 

Ballads  of  Old  New  York,  by  Arthur  Guitermnn 

[Harper].    Historic  legends. 
The  Dark   Wind,   by   W.  J.   Turner    [Dutton]. 

Imaginative  poems. 
There  and   Here,   by  Allen   Tucker    [Duffleld]. 

War  impressions. 
Arcades    Ambo,    by    Lily    Dougall   and    Gilbert 

Sheldon    [Longmans].     Lyrics  and  sketches. 
The  Foundations  and  Nature  of  Verse,  by  Cary 

F.  Jacob  [Columbia].    A  technique  study. 
Argonaut   and   Juggernaut,    by   Osbert    Sitwcll 

[Knopf].     Impressions  and  fantasies. 
The    Golden    Whiles   of   California,   by   Vachel 

Lindsay  [Macmillan].    American  impressions 

and  others. 


11 


THE  BOOKMAN 


The  Tempering,  by  Howard  Buck  [Yale].    War 

poem%  and  otherM. 
The   Singing   Cararan,    by    Robert   Vanalttart 

[Doran].    A  %twry  0/  pUgrirM. 

Biography 

Days  and  Events,  1860-1866,  by  Thomas  L.  Llv- 

ermore  [Houghton].    A  Civil  War  journal. 
Foch,  the  Winner  of  the  War,  by  Raymond  Re- 

coul/  [Scrlbner].  A  9tudy  of  personality  and 

methods. 
Some  Personal  Impressions,  by  Take  Joneacu 

[Stokes].     Records   of  Rumania's   ew-Prime 

Minister. 
Life  of  Walter  Qulntln   Gresham,   by   Matilda 

Gresham,  2  vols..  [Rand  McNally].    A  study 

of  American  poUtios  from  the  40*s  to  the  90's. 
George  von  Lengerke  Meyer,  by  M.  A.  DeWolfe 

Howe    [Dodd,    Mead].      A    biography  from 

diary  and  letters. 
The  Life  of  Mrs.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  by 

Nellie  Van  de  Grift  Sanches  [Scrlbner].     A 

sister's  story. 
Jacopone  da  Todl,  by  Evelyn  Underbill  [But- 
ton].   A  study  of  a  ISth-century  poet. 
Leonard   Wood,   Conservator   of   Americanism, 

by  Eric  Fisher  Wood  [Doran].    A  biography. 
Vanished  Pomps  of  Yesterday,  by  Lord  S^ed- 

erlc  Hamilton  [Doran].    A  diplomat's  reooU 

lections. 
The  Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  William  E. 

Barton  [Doran].    A  religious  study. 

Sociology  and  Economies 

Patrons  of  Democracy,  by  Dallas  Lore  Sharp 

[Atlantic].    A  paper  on  American  schooy. 
The  Young  Man  and  Teaching,  by  Henry  Parks 

Wright    [Macmlllan].      Suggestions  for   the 

future  teacher. 
Education    for    Democracy,    by    Alice    Davla 

[Knickerbocker].     An  essay. 
Habits  That  Handicap,  by  Charles  B.  Towns 

[Funk   and   Wagnalls].     Facts   about   drug 

evils. 

National  Evolution,  by  George  R.  Davis  [Mc- 
Clurg].     A  sociologioal  interpretation. 

Housing  and  the  Housing  Problem,  by  Carol 
Aronovlcl  [McClurg].  Principles  for  a  no- 
tional  program. 


War  and  Reconstruction 

Fishermen  In  War  Time,  by  Walter  Wood 
[Stokes].  Achievements  of  North  Sea  traw- 
lers. 

The  Enemy  Within,  by  Severance  Johnson  [Mc- 

Cann].     Treasonous  conspiracies  in  France. 
Raymond  Robins'  Own  Story,  by  William  Hard 

[Harper].     Russian  observations. 
Readjustment  and  Reconstruction  Activities  In 

the  States  [Gov.  Print.  Office].    A  report  of 

the  Council  of  Nation<a  Defense. 
A  Handbook  to  the  League  of  Nations,  by  Sir 

Geoffrey  Butler   [Longmans].     An  historical 

survey. 

Paris  Sees  It  Through,  by  H.  Pearl  Adam 
[Doran].    A  resident's  diary. 

An  Irishman  Looks  at  His  World,  by  G.  A.  Bir- 
mingham   [Doran].     A  survey  of  conditions. 

British  Campaigns  In  the  Nearer  East ;  British 
Campaigns  In  Africa  and  the  Pacific,  by  Ed- 
mund Dane  [Doran].  Two  volumes  of  rec- 
ords. 

Mens,  Anxac,  and  Kut,  by  an  M.  P.  [Long- 
mans].   An  Intelligence  Officers'  diary. 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  and  the  Great  War,  by 
Arnold  Bennett  Hall  [McClurg].  An  ac- 
count of  origin  and  development. 

Ireland  a  Nation,  by  Robert  Lynd  [Dodd, 
Mead].    A  study  of  the  Irish  question. 


>»  »» 


nin' "  tells  the  story  of  old  Lightnin' 
Bill  Jones,  so  called  because  he  was  as 
slow  as  lightning  is  fast;  how  he  ran 
his  hotel,  mostly  for  folks  about  to  be 
divorced,  on  the  border  between  Cali- 
fornia and  Nevada. 


Owing  to  the  great  expansion  of 
their  business  recently,  Harper  and 
Brothers  have  taken  seven  floors  of  a 
loft  building  —  near  the  Franklin 
Square  Building  in  New  York  which 
they  have  occupied  for  more  than  half 
a  century — to  be  used  as  a  business 
annex.  One  entire  floor  will  be  used 
as  a  shipping  room  for  the  "Bubble 
Books'',  which  have  become  a  business 
in  themselves.  The  sale  of  these  juve- 
niles— ^known  as  "the  books  that  sing" 
— each  of  which  contains  three  Ck>- 
lumbia  records,  now  exceeds  a  million 
copies  a  year.  The  remaining  floors 
of  the  new  building  will  be  used  for 
stock  rooms. 


In  the  spring  and  summer  of  1791 
President  Washington  made  a  tour  of 
the  South,  visiting  the  states  of  North 
Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  and 
Virginia.  This  was  perhaps  the  first 
presidential  "swing  around  the  circle". 
Archibald  Henderson,  author  of  "The 
Conquest  of  the  Old  Southwest",  soon 
to  be  published,  has  just  completed  a 
detailed  investigation  of  this  trip.  He 
retraced  Washington's  steps  and  re- 
ports that  he  unearthed  a  wealth  of 
generally  unknown  and  forgotten  facts 
and  incidents  concerning  his  life. 
During  these  investigations  Dr.  Hen- 
derson made  an  interesting  and  valua- 
ble collection  of  old  prints,  rare  en- 
gravings, portraits,  and  facsimiles  of 
letters  and  documents. 


A  few  days  ago,  Thomas  A.  Daly, 
whose  books  of  dialect  verse,  "Madri- 


BRIEF  MENTION  OP  NEW  BOOKS 


111 


gali",  "McAroni  Ballads",  etc.,  have 
been  recently  collected  in  a  uniform 
edition,  received  the  following  letter 
from  a  lady  in  Toledo : 

TO  T.   A.  DALT 

For  monny  weeks  I  gotta  weesh 

To  writa  you.  Signor. 
Dose  "McAroni  Ballads"  oh 

Dey  mak'  me  weesh  for  more. 
Dey  maka  me  lov'  Angela, 

Dey  mak'  me  lov'  Carlott, 
An*   Ireesh   Padre  Tommeechkbrlde — 

He's  bests  one  you  got ! 

But  Meester  Signor  Tom  Dalee, 

No  matta  we'en  I  start 
To  read  da  pretta  songs  out  loud, 

A  sigh,  eet  chok'  my  heart. 
I  can  no  say  da  funna  words — 

Like  speak  Eyetalian, 
An'  so  I'm  sad.  but  prouda.  too, 

'Cause  I'm  good  'Merlcan. 

Oh,  Signor,  eef  you'd  only  do 

Jus'  like  da  gran'  Cams' 
(Wit  voice  so  like  a  singin'  bird) 

It  pleass'  me  like  da  deuce. 
An  'eef  you  wanta  breeng  me  Joy, 

An'  mak'  me  sing  an'  laugh. 
Oh,  pleass'  go  hav'  a  record  made 

To  play  on  f ona  graph ! 


A  London  publisher  is  about  to  re- 
issue a  new  edition  of  a  novel  orig- 
inally published  in  1854.  Its  title  is 
"A  Lost  Love",  and  the  author  Ash- 
ford  Owen.  It  will  be  interesting  to 
see  how  far  the  present-day  public  en- 
dorses the  opinion  of  Browning  and 
Swinburne  and  others  of  those  who 
expressed  enjoyment  of  this  novel 
when  first  it  was  printed. 


Under  the  title  "0.  Henry  Memorial 
Stories,  1919,  as  chosen  by  the  Society 
of  Arts  and  Sciences  for  the  0.  Henry 
Memorial  Prize  Award",  will  be  pub- 
lished the  collection  of  stories  from 
which  the  0.  Henry  award  will  be 
made. 

This  memorial  to  the  distinguished 
American  writer  of  short  stories  takes 
the  form  of  two  prizes,  the  first  of 
$500  and  the  other  of  $250  to  the  best 


Russia    as    an    American    Problem,    by    John 

Spargo  [Harper].    A  survey  of  the  eituation. 
The  Inside  Storr  of  the  Peace  Conference,  by 

Edward  J.  Dillon  [Harper].    A  atory  which 

aims  at  impartialitV' 
The  Paravane  Adventure,  by  L.  Cope  Comford 

[Doran].     The  etory  of  an  invention.    ■ 
Responsibilities  of  the  League,  by  Lord  Eustace 

Percy  [Doran].     An  Anglo-Ameroian  dieeua- 

Hon. 
The  Battle  of  Jutland,  by  Commander  Bellairs 

[Doran].    An  historical  survey. 

Drama 

The  Genius  of  the  Mame,  by  John  L.  Balder- 

ston  [Nicholas  L.  Brown].     A  study  of  Jof- 

fre's  plan. 
Snow,  by  Stanislaw  Przybyszewski  [Nicholas  L. 

Brown].    A  Polish  drama  of  love. 
Three  Plays,  by  J.  Hartley  Manners  [Doran]. 

War  plays. 

Essays  and  Literary  Studies 

Rupert  Brooke  and  the  Intellectual  Imagina- 
tion, by  Walter  de  la  Mare  [Harcourt].  An 
essay. 

Ruskin  Centenary  Addresses,  ed.  by  J.  Howard 
Whitehouse  [Oxford].  Papers  by  Viscount 
Bryce  and  others. 

Modes  and  Morals,  by  Katharine  Pullerton  Ge- 
rould  [Scribner].  Reflections  on  present-day 
life. 

Flaubert  and  Maupassant :  A  Literary  Rela- 
tionship, by  Agnes  Rutherford  RiddeU  [Univ. 
of  Chicago].    A  study  with  hihUography. 

"Oh,  Well,  You  Know  How  Women  Are!"  by 
Irvin  S.  Cobb:  "Isn't  That  Just  Like  a 
Man!"  by  Mary  Roberts  Rinehart  [Doran]. 
Two  complementary  papers. 

History  and  PoUtiedl  Science 

Papers  on  the  Legal  History  of  Government,  by 
Melville  M.  Bigelow    [Little].     Five  essays. 

The  French  Revolution,  by  Nesta  H.  Webster 
[Dutton].    A  new  interpretation. 

Travel  and  Description 

A  Sportsmans  Wanderings,  by  J.  G.  Millais 
[Houghton].     An  illustrated  narrative. 

Old  Junk,  by  H.  M.  Tomlinson  [Knopf]. 
Sketches  of  various  lands. 

Art 

Twenty  Drawings  by  Kahlil  Gibran  [Knopf]. 
Reproductions  with  introduction. 

Religion  and  Spiritualism 

The   Spirit   of   the   New   Philosophy,  by  John 

Herman    Randall    [Brentano].      Sociological 

studies. 
Fear  Not  the  Crossing,  "written  down"  by  Gail 

Williams  [Clode].     Spirit  messages. 
The    Road     to.   Unity    among    the    Christian 

Churches,  by  Charles  W.  Eliot  [Beacon].    An 

address. 
If  Jesus  Did  Not  Die  Upon  the  Cross,  by  Ernest 

Brougham  Docker   [London:    Robert  Scott]. 

An  argument. 
The  Army  and  Religion,  with  preface  by  The 

Bishop  of  Winchester   [Association].     A  re- 
port based  on  questionnaires. 
Ghosts    I     Have    Seen,    by    Violet    Tweedale 

[Stokes].    Psychic  experiences. 
Our     Unseen     Guest,     Anonymous     [Harper]. 

Communications  from  a  dead  soldier. 


IV 


THE   BOOKMAN 


The  Social  Evolution  of  Religion,  by  George 
Willis  Coolce  [Stratford].     A  auney. 

The  Solar  Bmpyrean,  by  John  M.  Russell 
[Plynn].    A  study  of  science  and  theology. 

The  Case  Against  Spiritualism,  by  Jane  T. 
Stoddart  [Doran].     An  argument. 

Miscellaneous 

"The  World"  Almanac  and  Bncyel(»p»dia  :  1S)20 

[N.  Y.  World].     A  compendium  of  facts. 
Opportunities  in  Aviation,  by  Arthur  Sweetser 

and  Gordon   Lamont    [Harper].     A  forecast. 
Wedding  Customs  Then  and  Now,  by  Carl  Hol- 

liday    [Stratford].     An  historical  survey. 
The  Ground  and  Goal  of  Life,  by  Charles  Gray 

Shaw    [N.   Y.  Univ.].     Individualism  vs.  so- 
cialisation. 
Every   Step  in   Canning,   by   Grace  Viall   Gray 

[Forbes].     Cold-pack  methods. 
Success      with      Hogs,      by      Charles      Dawson 

[Forbes].    A  farmer's  handbook. 
The    Woman    of    Forty,    by    Edith    B.    I^wry 

[Forbes].  Suggested  mental  and  physical  hy- 
giene. 
Russian   Fairy  Tales,   by  A.   Brylinslca  and   P. 

Smith   [Dutton].     A   Ruttsinn  reader. 
Food  for  the  Sick  and  the  Well,  by  Margaret 

J.  Thompson    [World  Book  Co.].     Recipes. 
The    Book    of    the    Damned,    by    Charles    Fort 

[Boni].     Data  repudiated  hy'seie.nc^ 
The  Wisdom  of  Woodrow  Wilson,  ed.  by  Charles 

J.  Herold  [Brentano].     Quotations.' 
French-English  Practical  Phrase-Book  for  Eng- 
lish-Speaking Tourists,  by  Eugene  F.  Malou- 

bler  [Brentano].     A  handbook. 
Betttr  Letters  [Herbert  S.  Browne].   A  manual 

of  business  correspondence. 
Animated  Cartoons,  by  E.  G.  Lutz   [Scribner]. 

A  history  and  exposition. 
Biids  in  Town  and  Village,  by  W.  H.  Hudson 

[Dutton].     Observations  illustrated  in  color. 
The  American   Credo,   l»y   George  Jean   Nathan 

and    H.    L.    Mencken    [Knopf],      A    study   of 

national  character. 
Scientific    Handwriting,    by    Charles    T.    Luthy 

[pub.  at  Peoria,  HI.].     A  manual. 
Negro  Year  Book,  lOlS-Uno.  ed.  by  Monroe  N. 

Work  [Tuskegee].     An  ahnnnnc. 
The  Key  of  Destiny,  by  Harriet  to  Augusta  Cur- 

tiss   and   F.    Homer   Curtiss    [Dnttonl.      The 

science  of  nos.   12-2t. 
Basket    Ball   and    Indoor   BuReball   for   Women, 

by  Helen  Frost  and  Charles  Digby  Wardlaw 

[Scribner].     A  handbook. 
Marcotone,    by    Edward    Mnryon    [Marcotone]. 

An  exposition  of  tone-color  in  music. 
Terry's    Short    Cut    to    Spanish,    by    T.    Philip 

Terry   [Houghton].     A  grammar  and  phrase 

book. 
List  of  References  on  Shipping  and  Shipbuild- 
ing, cq^ipiled  by  Herman  H.  B.  Mever   [Gov. 

Print.  Office).     A  bibliography. 

Juvenile 

The  Ragged  Inlet  Guards,  by  Dillon  Wallace 
[Revell].     Adventures  in  Labrador. 

The  Cockpit  of  Santiago  Key,  by  David  S. 
Greenberg   [Boni].     A    Porto   Rico  tale. 

Catty  Atkins,  by  Clarencp  Budington  Kelland 
[Harper].     .A   ?>o|/  tramp's  regeneration. 

The  Child's  Own  Art  Book,  by  Helen  Strong 
and  Maurice  Le  Corq  [Brentano].  Reproduc- 
tions explained. 

The  Three  Mulla-Mulgars.  by  Wnlter  de  la  Mare 
[Knopf].     A  story  of  monkeijs. 

First  Steps  in  the  EnJoynKMit  of  Pictures,  by 
Maude  I.  G.  Oliver  [Holt].  An  illustrated 
study. 

More  Magic  Pictures  of  the  L(mg  Ago,  by  Anna 
Curtis  Chandler  [Holt].  Historical  stories 
based  on  pictures. 

Puppies  and  Kittens,  by  Cariup  Cndby  [Dut- 
ton].    Jlluslratfff  ntihnal  Htories. 


and  second  best  stories  written  by  an 
American  and  published  in  America 
during  the  year  1919.  The  members 
of  the  Committee  of  Award  are 
Blanche  Colton  Williams,  Edward  J. 
Wheeler,  Robert  Wilson  Neal,  Ethel 
Watts  Mumford,  and  Merle  St.  Croix 
Wright.  These  are  assisted  by  an  ad- 
visory committee  of  twenty-three  au- 
thors, editors  of  large  publishing 
houses,  and  literary  critics  including 
Gertrude  Atherton,  James  Branch  Ca- 
bell, Hamlin  Garland,  Rupert  Hughes, 
Stephen  Leacock,  Charles  G.  Norris, 
and  William  Allen  White. 

One  of  the  best  known  short  story 
writers  who  will  be  represented  is 
Edna  Ferber.  "April  the  25th  as 
Usual"  which  will  be  published  this 
spring  in  a  book  of  her  collected  short 
stories,  has  been  chosen  as  her  best 
work.  Margaret  Prescott  Montague's 
"England  to  America"  will  also  be  one 
of  the  number. 


With  the  -presidential  campaign 
looming  large,  everyone  who  likes  to 
follow  politics  intelligently,  will  be  in- 
terested in  the  news  of  a  hoojn  by 
Nicholas  Murray  Butler — "Is  America 
Worth  Saving?" — in  which  President 
Butler  is  said  to  discuss,  among  other 
things,  progress  in  politics  and  the 
Republican  party — its  duty  and  oppor- 
tunity. 


In  "Within  My  Horizon",  Mrs. 
Helen  Bartlett  Bridgman  gives  the 
following  appreciation  of  the  human 
side  of  the  late  Admiral  Peary : 

I  only  wish  the  world  could  see  Peary  in  his 
home ;  how  soon  then  would  the  conception  of 
him  as  forbidding,  lacliing  all  the  gentler  quali- 
ties, vanish.  Dignity  is  his,  of  course,  but  n 
man  of  simpler  tastes,  of  more  frank,  almost 
boyish,  pleasure  in  all  real  things — the  woods, 
the  water,  the  sun.  the  storm,  birds,  animals, 
stones,  flowers — never  lived.  Children  love  him 
and  that  aUuie  is  a  sign,  while  he  will  foed  n 
faitlirul  iM'jist    before  !iiiMs<'If.'" 


THE    SOOKM^  N    A  V  V  E  »  T I  <S  E  li. 


People  of  Literary  Impulse 

now  offered  a  new  and  lucrative  opportunity 


I  lliDHc  wbo  ippTcclntL-  thp  ikillfii]  hindllng  of  plata  Are  ufluplly  pmpte  wbo  im 


SOOO  GOOD  MOTION  PICTURE 
STORIES  WANTED  THIS  YEAR 

Special  Contributors 


1  jiood  L»LvlDp]ny!4 


bplciil  pb*«e'ot  mg't'on  pl^tl 


The  Palmer  Plan 

The  rolnuT  ri»n  of  PiiDtnpl>r-i"l[- 
hiK   warn   ilFVlwd    li>    li-ai'h    1>cd|)Is    with 

lilo^nrlRlits    It   hB«  deiislop*d   tbrongli 

ptnl^  nCor;   ldB»  run  wrltr  ptHflnpUyM 
KiK'r  he  Inmn  Ihp  tnulninrntil  prlnrl- 

The  Pnlnier  Pl«n  la  not 


aidK*f,     OoldwiB     til 


Said  for  FREE  Book 

PbdtDtiliij    Wrttluga."    wlilfh    Jajt    br- 
Hprncnilicr      lliat     Dianr     photaplnT- 


For  KPTOtnup.   fill.  Trliuiilr,  mid  Unl-  whs' 

rt  to  tmlld  ttii'  lilun  thnt  Is  I'lulnnnl  tlirl! 

IcDillntf  pnntnrrni   nnd   maw.      <iur  wltt 

_;.„. —     I ii.._i_     (nniWhed  Ma  II 


Wfifii 


$2000  a  Slor;  Not  Uncommon 

wrlttJn^bf    P»1nm  ''•ti"lpnli"'!"^'jiiiiipil 
Keadrlrk.  or  Thui.  hi*  wtil  nix  Hloriei 


PALMER  PHOTOPLAY 
CORPORATION 

Daparlmenl  of  Edacation 

572  I.  W.  HeDman  BiuldinB 

La*  Angelci,  Cal. 

PiIbct  Pbolspdcf  CoiporatioB, 

STS  L  V.  Hsllmin  BoOdlBf , 

Lei  Aotelsi.  CilifBtola. 

L.ftw  -I'nd   inc,    "llh.inl  oWlg.- 


vrlting  to  Bdvertlser*. 


VI 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Jules  Castier,  the  young  Frenchman 
who  beguiled  nearly  four  years  of  cap- 
tivity to  the  Hun  by  writing  parodies 
on  famous  English  authors,  has  under 
way  a  French  translation  of  Kipling's 
"The  Seven  Seas"  and  "The  Five  Na- 
tions''. Even  the  most  facile  style  is 
taxed  in  translating  Kipling.  "It  is 
no  easy  job,"  says  Castier,  "and  I'm 
glad  that  Mr.  Kipling  approves  of  it." 


General  Grant's  granddaughter, 
Julia  Dent  Grant,  who  married  the 
Prince  Cantacuzene  and  lived  in  Rus- 
sia for  more  than  twenty  years,  is 
back  in  America  and  has  written  a 
book  "Russian  People" :  making  clear, 
it  is  said,  the  position  of  the  great 
population  outside  the  cities,  the  ten- 
antry of  the  great  estates,  and  the  til- 
lers of  the  soil. 


ANewNoDelhythe  Author  of  Nocturne 

SEPTEMBER 

By  FRANK  SWINNERTON 

Q  '^A  remarkably  fine  and  subtle 
study  of  two  women  of  contrast- 
temperaments.  '  The  velvety, 
delicate  struggle  between  Marian 
and  Cherry  is  described  with  a 
finesse  worthy  of  Henry  James. 
Mr.  Swinnerton  displays  literary 
art  of  a  very  high  type.  He  never 
lapses  into  the  banal  and  the 
obvious;  never  helps  himself  out 
of  a  difficult  situation  by  resort- 
ing to  clumsy  melodramatic  de- 
vices. The  author's  even,  finely 
tempered,  firmly  disciplined 
prose  is  a  delight  in  these  dasrs 
of  so  much  uncouth  and  barba- 
rous writing.  He  demonstrates 
that  depth  of  vision  and  clarity 
of  expression  can  be  reconciled.'' 
—New  York  Tribune.    Net,  $1.90 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


In  an  interesting  chapter  on  the 
question  of  whether  or  not  many  spe- 
cies of  birds  pair  for  life,  W.  H.  Hud- 
son in  his  new  book  "Birds  of  Town 
and  Village"  tells  a  curious  story  of  a 
pair  of  thrushes  that  were  true  to 
their  first  love.  He  quotes  the  inci- 
dent from  a  bird  observer  of  Win- 
chester, England— Miss  Ethel  Wil- 
liams : 

She  had  among  the  bird  pentionen  in  the 
garden  of  her  house  adjoining  the  Cathedral 
green  a  female  thrush  that  grew  tame  enough 
to  fly  into  the  house  and  feed  on  the  dining- 
room  table.  Her  thrush  paired  and  bred  for 
several  seasons  in  the  garden,  and  the  young 
too  were  tame  and  would  follow  their  mother 
into  the  house  to  be  fed.  The  male  was  wild 
and  too  shy  ever  to  venture  in.  She  noticed 
the  first  year  that  he  bad  a  wing-feather  which 
stuck  out,  owing  probably  to  a  malformation  of 
the  socket.  Bach  year  after  the  breeding  sea- 
son the  male  vanished,  the  female  remaining 
alone  through  the  winter  months,  but  in  the 
spring  the  male  came  back — the  same  bird  with 
the  same  unmistakable  projecting  wing-father. 
7et  it  was  certain  that  this  bird  had  gone  quite 
away,  otherwise  he  would  have  returned  to  the 
garden,  where  there  was  food  in  abundance 
during  the  spells  of  frosty  weather.  As  he  did 
not  appear  it  is  probable  that  he  migrated  each 
autumn  to  some  warmer  climate  beyond  the 
sea. 


In  that  department  of  "The  Book 
Monthly",  of  London,  called  Grub 
Street  Gossip,  a  feature  which  cor- 
responds somewhat  to  the  Gossip  Shop 
of  The  Bookman,  there  are,  in  the 
latest  number  of  this  magazine  to 
reach  us,  fifty-five  notes.  Thirty-one 
of  these  relate  to  American  literary 
matters. 


Johan  Bojer,  the  Norwegian  author 
whose  novels  "The  Great  Hunger"  and 
"The  Face  of  the  World"  have  gained 
him  a  considerable  following  in  the 
United  States,  is  now  in  London.  The 
"Manchester  Guardian"  relates  that: 

He  is  the  director  of  the  new  Norwegian 
journal  ''Atlantic**,  which  has  for  one  of  its  ob- 
Jects  the  enlargement  of  English  culture  in 
Norway.  Norway,  as  everyone  knows,  strained 
her  neutrality  on  the  side  of  the  Allies  during 


THE    ^OOKMJiff    Af>V  ERTISEK. 


Fairfax  and  His  Pride 

By 

MARIE  VAN  VORST 

AUTHOR  OF  "BIG  TREMAINE;*  Etc. 

/TT  A  serious  novel  of  real  literary  importance.  A 
^^vigorous  romance,  deep  and  penetrating  in  ex- 
pression of  American  life  and  spirit. 

SMALL,  MAYNARD  &  COMPANY 


POLICEMAN  AND  PUBLIC 

By  COLONEL  ARTHUR  W^OODS 

Formerly  Police  Commissioner  of  New  York  City. 

^'Expert  books  are  not  rare  and  human  books  are  not  unknown, 
but  this  is  that  extremely  scarce  product,  a  combination  of  the  two. 

— New  York  Post, 


t» 


An  interesting  and  highly  readable  discussion  of  the  police  problem  based  on  talks  given 
by  Mr.  Woods  at  Yale  University. 

Clotb.    $1,35 


SOCIETY   AND 
PRISONS 

By  THOMAS  MOTT  OSBORNE, 
Formerly  Warden  of  Sing  Sing  Prison. 

This  book,  now  in  its  fourth  printing,  gives 
a  most  readable  account  of  the  experiments 
made  by  Mr.  Osborne  in  prison  management. 

"A  very  human  book." — Ncxv  York  Times, 

Cloth,    ti.50 


THE  MORAL  BASIS 
OF  DEMOCRACY 

By  ARTHUR  TWINING  HADLEY, 
President  of  Yale  University. 

A  collection  of  addresses  to  the  students 
of  Yale  University  touching  the  salient  facts 
in  our  social  order  and  pointing  out  the  du- 
ties and  responsibilities  of  the  individual 
citizen. 

Clotb.    $i.7S 


YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

143  Elm  Street,  New  Haven,  Connecticut.  280  Madison  Avenue,  New  York  City. 


lUease  mention  Thb  Bookman  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


THE    "BOOKMJtN    A1>VERTISEK 


The  nttark  of  a  book 
written  to  meet  a  need 


Constructive  and  ChcJlenging 

Publications 
of  Religious  Leaders  of  Today 

The  Army  and  Religion    ^^'"^^/^Ti 

Edited  by  D.  S.  CAIRNS.  D.D. 

Preface  oy  the  Bishop  of  Winchester 
PffbapH,  as  never  before,  the  British  Army  during 
the  Great  War  represented  a  sort  of  erosu-sectlon  of 
the  nation's  life.  Here,  then,  was  an  exceptional 
opportunity  for  an  enlightenin]?  analysis  of  an  army 
that  represented  the  life  of  the  men  of  the  nation 
itself. 

"It  would  be  difllcult  to  present  the  relijfiouR  reve- 
lation and  resultH  of  the  war  more  skillfully  and 
Judiciously  than  they  are  presented  in  this  report." 
— Bobert  E.  Speer.  Cloth.  fS.OO 

God  and  the  Struggle  for 
Existence  '"^"^i^iP^'i 

B.  H.  STREETER  ^^"'  '* 

A  simple,  HtraiRlitforwnrd  assertion.  l>aHe<l  on  both 
biolofry  and  history,  of  the  solid  grounds  we  have 
for  **the  larger  hope*>— n  reaflirmaflon  in  the«<e  days 
of  persistent  questioning,  of  the  fundamental  rela- 
tion of  God  to  the  universe  and  to  the  individual 
life.  Cloth.  11.50 

That  One  Face  a  notable 

RICHARD  ROBERTS  1919  BOOK 

A  series  of  reading  studies  for  twelve  weeks 
marke<l  by  spiritual  Insight,  intellectual  keenness, 
and  literary  skill,  which  show  the  distinctive  im- 
pression made  by  Jesus  on  ton  of  the  world's  great 
poets  and  prophets  and  thus  *'help  men  and  women 
to  reach  a  true  Judgment  about  Jesus'*  for  them- 
selves. Cloth,  $1.26 


HAS  COMMANDED 
MARKED  ATTENTION 


Between 
Two  Worlds 

JOHN  HESTON  WILLEY 

"The  Great  Adventure"  has  called  millions  of 
young  men  in  tlie  past  few  years,  giving  new  em- 
phasis to  the  old  questions  of  death  and  the  here- 
after. This  fearless  and  unconventional  discussion 
throws  a  renewed  light  from  the  Bible  on  some  of 
the  eternal  mysteries.  Cloth,  $1.25 


Religion  Among 
American  Men 


PUBUSHED 
FEB,  IS 


As  revenlejl  by  a  sean-hlng  study  of  conditions  iu 
the  American  army. 

First-hand  Information  on  the  r«*nl  attitude  of  the 
American  soldier  to  (Christian  life  and  organized 
Christianity.     A  challenge  to  the  Church. 

Cloth.  SI. 50 

The  material  for  this  book  was  gathered  under  di- 
rection of  the  "Committee  on  the  War  and  the  £e- 
ligious  Outlook"— consisting  of  such  men  ai: 

WILLIAM  ADAMS  BROWN 

GEOKGfc}  W.  COLKMAN 

W.  H.  P.  FAUNCK 

HARRY  EMERSON  FOSDICK 

HENRY  CHURCHILL  KING 

FRANCIS  J.   McCONNELL 

CHARLES  S.  MACFARLAND. 

WILLIAM    Ixn'GLAS  MACKENZIE 

SHAILER  MATHEWS 

ROBERT  E.  SPEER 

ANSON  PHELPS  STOKES 

Missionary  Outlook  in  the 

Light  of  the  War  0^«J&fiJ?fS 

Also  prepared  by  the  Committee  on  the  War  and 
the  Beligious  Outlook. 

A  presentntlou,  by  recognized  experts,  of  the  mis- 
slonary  enterprise  as  the  fullest  expression  of  noblest 
Ideals  in  the  World  War.  the  changed  outUtok  In  prac- 
tically every  mission  field,  and  the  new  light  thrown 
on  missionary  principles  and  iMdlcies.       Cloth.  $2.00 

Adc^Msf.*    ASSOCIATION  PRESS 

•"^'•"         347  MaaitoB  ATenw,    NEW  YORK 


the  war,  and  her  losses  in  seamen  were  more 
cruel  than  that  of  many  of  the  actual  bellig- 
erents. But  German  culture  has  always  played 
a  large  part  in  Norway,  mainly  through  prox- 
imity and  nearness  of  language,  and  partly  be- 
cause no  efforts  were  made  by  England  to  popu- 
larize her  own  literature  and  ideas  there.  Even 
today  the  field  has  been  left  largely  to  Ger- 
many and  German  sympathisers.  Mr.  Bojer 
told  me  today  that  he  hoped  to  interest  Nor- 
wegians through  his  magazine  in  the  most  lir- 
ing  literature  that  has  been  produced  in  Eng- 
land. 

The  success  of  Johan  Bojer's  novel 
"The  Great  Hunger",  which  in  leas 
than  a  year  has  gone  into  ten  editions, 
has  persuaded  the  publishers  of  the 
book  that  two  new  translations  of 
other  novels  by  the  popular  Nor- 
wegian author,  together  with  a  biog- 
raphy, will  be  welcomed  in  this  coun- 
try. They  therefore  have  just  issued 
"Treacherous  Ground"  and  'The 
Power  of  a  Lie",  with  an  introduction 
by  Hall  Caine.  The  latter  has  been 
dramatized  and  will  be  produced  in 
New  York  this  year.  Karl  Gad's  bi- 
ography of  Johan  Bojer  will  soon  ap- 
pear, translated  from  the  Norwegian 
by  Elizabeth  Jelliffe  Macintire.  The 
lecture  tour  of  Mr.  Bojer  promised  for 
this  year  has  been  postponed  until 
1921. 


"A  Book  of  R.  L.  S.",  by  George  E. 
Brown,  recently  published,  lists  in  al- 
phabetical order  the  names  of  the 
people  and  the  places — mentioned  in 
Stevenson's  books  and  letters — that 
played  a  romantic  part  in  his  career, 
giving  the  important  facts  about  each 
one. 


Robert  J.  Roe,  of  Maricopa  County, 
Arizona,  sends,  and  the  Gossip  Shop 
is  glad  to  print,  the  following  letter: 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Bookmax  ; 

Could  you  find  space  in  The  Bookman  to 
lodge  an  Idea  that  is  perhaps  better  fitted  for 
"Popular  Mi'fhanlcs*',  and  sent  to  you  only 
because  it  may  be  of  groat  Interest  to  persons 
who  write  a  great  deal  on  the  typewriter? 

A  person  composing  directly  on  the  type- 
writer has  his  flow  of  thought  disturbed.  If 
infinlteslmally,  by  the  constant  necessity  of 
putting  a  fresh  sheet  of  paper  in  the  machine. 
It  seems  to  me  that  someone  with  a  little  me- 


Please  mention  Tub  Bookman  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


THE    ^OOKMAff    ADVERTISER 


chanical  ingenuity  ought  to  come  to  the  as- 
sistance of  the  struggling  author  with  a  roll 
of  paper  (such  as  is  used  In  adding  machines) 
manuscript  width,  and  perforated  to  manu- 
script length.  For  first  copy  this  would  make 
a  wonderful  difference  in  the  quality  as  well 
as  quantity  of  material  turned  out. 

For  aught  I  know  I  may  be  telling  you  of 
something  which  you  have  already  seen  in  prac- 
tice ;  but  it  hasn't  yet  reached  the  Arizona 
desert. 


For  the  first  time  in  many  years  a 
novel  makes  its  first  appearance  in 
paper  covers.  "Pollyooly  Dances"  by 
Edgar  Jepson  is  announced  for  spring 
publication  "in  a  most  attractive  paper 
cover  of  the  old-fashioned  kind".  It 
remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  H.  C. 
L.  has  hit  the  novel-reading  public 
hard  enough  to  make  them  give  up  the 
tradition  of  cloth  bindings  for  light 
fiction,  and  accept  this  cheaper  form. 
This  is  the  love  story  of  "Pollyooly", 
the  girl  about  whom  Mr.  Jepson  has 
already  written  a  novel. 


We  bow  and  print  following  letter: 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Bookman  : 

Don't  you  think  it  is  time  that  "Jack'*  hgd  a 
rest?  Is  it  not  time  to  suggest  to  writers  of 
American  fiction  that  Jack  be  left  out  of  their 
list  of  names?  Hasn't  "Jack"  been  pulled  and 
hauled,  and  puttied  and  wax-worked  until  he  is 
just  about  beside  himself?  Nearly  every  day 
some  book  comes  out  with  Jack  popping  into 
the  scenes  again.  There's  Hamlin  Garland, 
and  Ralph  Connor,  and  no  end.  What  excuse 
is  there  for  H.  S.  Harrison  to  use  such  names 
as  Meacham  and  Plonny  as  important  charac- 
ters? I'm  about  resolved  to  avoid  all  such 
books.     Why  don't  you  say  something? 


The  question  of  why  Lincoln  never 
joined  a  church  is  one  which  has  been 
debated  very  frequently.  Dr.  William 
E.  Barton,  author  of  a  study  of  the 
spiritual  evolution  of  Lincoln,  "The 
Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln",  recently 
published,  offers  the  following  inter- 
pretation. He  writes:  "The  best 
statement,  and  one  that  has  been  ac- 
cepted as  truly  representative  of  Lin- 
coln's feeling  with  regard  to  church 
membership,  is  one  that  comes  to  us 
on  thoroughly  good  authority  and 
from  the  period  immediately  follow- 
ing Lincoln's  death. 


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THE    VOOKMA/f    AOVERTISEH. 


■  VERVE  :   The  JOURNAL  of  f 
ROBERT  DeCAMP  LELAND  : 

The  most  brilliant   individual  iatic 
migazine  in  America 

I  Mcft  luarttrh  tmt  dirtcl  ef  tht  pnbliiktri 

POETRY-DRAMA    CO.,    Boiton 


Writing  for  the  Magazines 

BylBERCESENWEIN 
Authoritativehelpoii&ll  Icindsof  magazine  writine 
with  reliable  new  data  on  what  the  editors  want  and 
how  they  want  it  written. 

BDWIM  KARKKAH  SAYS  :—"WH)loi  for  tb*  II>i» 

tfUn  i*  ■  fine  cpitone  of  conuson  Mnic  in  Uttncr  pro- 

im&att.     Il  lecmi  to  forcMC  tvctr  difficulty  oi  the  novic* 

ud  to  throw  lifht  crca  upon  the  pith  of  the  profcnienaL 

It  It  >  nifficicnt  coefficient  for  the  acribe  io  hii  wcunble 

np  the  ilopei   et   PanuMUi.      It  v|jll   help   thouuuuli." 

CloUi,  unilorm  with  The  Writsr'*  Librmry, 

xvi-f  260  pigei.     Poitpaid,  %\.&2 

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FlMMB  mention  Taa  BooocAit 


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Tbe  mosl  pavcrful  nD>el  oi  leligiouB  and  polUical 


CoLoied  frontispiece,  cloth  coieT,S2.50D(t.  Lcalhei 
cover.  $3.10  art.  (Fdilion  de  Luxe)  Leather  coicr. 
■n  Etlt  tit^B.  H  00  Bcc.    Poslaic.  15  cents. 

THE   MAESTRO   COMPANY 

Monadnook  Blook  CHICAGO 


HIGGINS' 


@ 


M  nTclaiion  to  jrou, 
AD,  well  put  up.  Hud 


Emanclpaie  vourHlf  i 
rDilTCud  iir-inxllInK 
uid  adopf  (be  ///«/- 
jiwi.  They  will  Ge  i 
Ihev  .re  h>  iwe. 
-ith.l  to  efficii._ 

At  Beilert  eenerallT 
CUS.  N.  BIGGIHS  ft  CO.,  HftS. 
m  hutb  St.,  brookltv,  h.  t. 

BuHCKU :  Chicago,  I^hdom 

Fleaw  mentloD  Tub  Bookuj 


"Honorable  Henry  C.  Deming,  mem- 
ber of  CongTCBs  from  Connecticut,  in 
a  memorial  address  given  before  the 
Legislature  of  Connecticut,  June  S, 
1865,  related  that  he  had  asked  Mr. 
Lincoln'why  he  never  united  with  a 
church,  and  Ur.  Lincoln  answered : 

"  'I  have  never  united  myself  to  any 
church,  because  J  have  found  difficulty 
in  giving  my  aasent,  without  mental 
reservation,  to  the  long,  complicated 
statements  of  Christian  doctrine  which 
characterize  their  articles  of  belief 
and  confessions  of  faith.  When  any 
church  will  inscribe  over  its  altars,  as 
its  sole  qualification  for  membership, 
the  Saviour's  condensed  statement  of 
tiie  substance  of  both  law  and  gospel, 
"Thou  ahalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God 
with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy 
soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself,"  that  church  will 
.1  join  with  all  my  heart  and  all  my 
Boul'  (p.  42). 

"To  his  Washington  pastor.  Rev- 
erend Phineas  D.  Gurley,  he  said  that 
he  could  not  accept,  perhaps,  all  the 
doctrines  of  hia  Confession  of  Faith, 
'but*,  said  he,  'if  all  that  I  am  asked 
to  respond  to  is  what  our  Lord  said 
v/ere  the  two  great  commandments,  to 
love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart  and  mind  and  soul  and  strength, 
and  thy  neighbor  as  myself,  why,  I 
aim  to  do  that.' " 


"The  Wide,  Wide  World",  of  the 
same  era  and  class  as  the  famous  Elsie 
books,  is  one  of  the  six  best  sellers  in 
China  today.  Why  this  book,  designed 
for  American  "flappers"  of  a  genera- 
tion ago,  should  make  an  appeal  to 


THE  BOOKFELLOWS 

^lAn  TnternMlonal  cAnoclaliOB  of  Readoi 
Writeta. 

^tA  LeaEue  f 


P  LADDER.*  Ilvajes 


40ne  dollar  opeai  the  gate  t 
Flora  Warren  S«ym 
S320  ElMbarii  Avaaa* 

r  to  irritlne  to  advertlwrt. 


THE    BOOKMAN   Af>VERTISE1K. 


dignified  Chinese  mandarins  is  a  mys- 
tery to  visitors  in  China.  There  also 
seems  to  be  strong  preference  among 
the  men  readers  of  China  for  Ameri- 
can girls'  books  dealing  with  board- 
ing-school life.  It  is  not  uncommon, 
according  to  missionaries  stationed 
there,  to  see  a  stately  citizen  of  Shang- 
hai or  Pekin  reading  a  Chinese  trans- 
lation of  a  Betty  Wales  book  or  a  simi- 
lar school  novel,  as  he  rides  through 
the  streets  in  his  sedan  chair. 

A  Christian  Literature  Commission 
made  up  of  American  women  has  been 
sent  to  the  Orient  by  the  Federation 
of  Woman's  Boards  of  Foreign  Mis- 
sions of  North  America  in  an  effort  to 
create  a  desire  for  wholesome  litera- 
ture for  men,  women,  and  children  of 
the  Far  East.  The  findings  are  to  be 
used  by  the  Interchurch  World  Move- 
ment in  the  formulation  of  its  world 
program. 

The  Commission  plans  to  translate 
popular  American  books  into  Chinese 
and  Japanese,  and  to  train  young  girls 
of  both  countries  for  magazine  writ- 
ing. By  introducing  the  best  of  our 
fiction  into  the  Orient,  missionaries 
hope  to  counteract  the  popularity  of 
novels  which  are  detrimental  to  the 
morals  of  the  reading  public,  and  at 
the  same  time  offer  inspiration  to  the 
writers  of  China  and  Nippon. 


"In  the  old  days  lived  a  pawnbroker 
named  Jurgen:  but  what  his  wife 
called)  him  was  often  very  much  worse 
than  that.  She  was  a  high-spirited 
woman,  with  no  especial  gift  for  si- 
lence." So  begins  "Jurgen",  by  James 
Branch  Cabell. 


Dr.  Siegmund  Freud's  latest  contri- 
bution to  the  science  with  which  his 
name  is  synonymous  is  entitled  "A 
General  Introduction  to  Psychoanaly- 
sis". The  volume  consists  of  a  series 
ot  twenty-eight  lectures  delivered  re- 
cently by  Dr.  Freud.    This  is  the  first 


Literary  Agents 

and 

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of  an  expert  on  somethinK  you  have  written  ? 

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then  for  Dorrn,  and  then  I  became  consulting  specialist  to 
them  and  to  Holt,  Stokes.  Lippincott.  Harcourt,  and  others, 
for  most  of  whom  I  have  also  done  expert  editing,  helping 
authors  to  reconstruct  their  books. 

Send  me  your  manuscript.  I  will  criticize  it  frankly  from  the 
publisher's  point  of  view,  and  advise  you  how  best  to  market 
It.    My  fee  is  $10.00,  and,  must  be  sent  with  the  manuscript. 

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THE    KOOKMAff    AD  VEKTtSEK. 


LITERARY    AGENTS    AND 
WRITERS'  AIDS  {Continued) 


■  mmnm»im«diuimoyTjTwn 


Tuining  jor  ^nf liorship 

HoW  to  Wr  ite ,  Who!- to  Wr  ile, 
and  Wkere  to  sell . 

GiHiibte  ;fOiir  TniiuL  Deilelop 
wnrlUcrory  oifVi^Md^r  the 
0^  of  Hlf-expre«sion.Mdke 

Cr  Sparc  Jimflprojilable. 
I  yoar  iJms  into  ilolliics. 
Courses  in  Stiart-Glory 
Ing.VeraillcaliQn.  Journ 
Play  Wriline,  PholopUy 
Writing,  etc..  laught  pa 
Vr.  tsenWein  ally  by  Dt.  J.  Berg  Eseni 
lot  many  years  edilorof  Lippin  coil's  Ma  farina 
a  Blaff  of  liletaty  eiperts.  Coniitnictive  critii. 
Frank,  honesl,  bslpful  aivite.  fteatleoc/iing. 


KRJDBBCL&CO. 

iNVej-TMENT  BANKER/- 

I5IT  South  la  Salle  St..Clricago 


THE  WRITER'S  MONTHLYj.Bj;'gtl;;-,.„ 


•■Th,b*ttrnaf, 
ii  PRACTICAL. 
SInsIa  eoplai  IE  ants  tl.tO  ■  jt, 

THE  WUTER'S  MOimiLT,  D.H.  II 


time,  it  is  said,  that  Dr.  Freud  hfts,  aa 
is  were,  come  out  of  the  laboratory 
and,  in  simple  lan^age,  addreseln? 
an  audience  of  men  and  women,  lay- 
men and  studenta,  given  a  comprehen- 
sive picture  of  the  whole  field  of  psy- 
ch oariBly  9  is. 


"If  I  were  to  he  asked  in  which  of 
Mr.  Conrad's  writings  his  genius 
shows  itself  at  its  highest  power,  I 
should  answer  without  hesitation,  in 
this,  the  latest  of  them."  Thus  Sir 
Sidney  Colvin  on  "The  Arrow  of 
Gold".  He  adds  that  we  should  thank 
"the  master  for  a  study  of  a  woman's 
heart  and  mystery  scarcely  to  be  sur- 
passed in  literature". 


George  D.  Smith,  the  most  cele- 
brated American  dealer  in  rare  books 
of  our  time,  died  in  New  York  early  in 
March  shortly  after  his  return  from 
his  triumphal  visit  to  England  where 
he  earned  the  distinction  of  h^vingpaid 
the  highest  price  ever  given  at  auction 
for  a  single  book.  The  purchase  of  the 
Britwell  Court  "Venus  and  Adonis"  of 
15S9  for  £15,100  has  been  the  most- 
talked-about  event  of  the  year  in  book- 
collecting  circles.  A  London  editor 
declares  that  this  price  is  preposter- 
ous, and  only  shows  to  what  lengths 
American  e.\travagance  will  carry  one 
with  a  hobby.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  are  collectors  who  declare  that 
the  price  is  not  excessive  for  tfeis 
unique  g^^akespearian  treesure,  and 
that  the  only  possible  copy  procurable 
of  the  immortal  bard's  first  published 
work  is  worth  any  price.  Dollars  are 
relative,  nowadays,  while  books  have  a 
value  not  to  be  determined  in  money. 
With  the  rate  of  exchange  existing  be- 
tween England  and  the  United  States, 
however,  Mr.  Smith's  purchase  hardly 
reaches  the  price  of  $75,500,  although 
it  still  stands  as  the  highest  price  ever 
paid  at  auction  for  any  book  or  manu- 
script. 


Plea*e  mention  Tub  Booku, 


E  COLLECTORS' GUIDE 


In  this  section  the  read^^  of  THE  BOOKMAN  will 
find  the  latest  announcements  of  reliable  dealers  In 
Rare  Books,  Manuscripts,  Autographs  and  Prints.  It 
will  be  well  to  look  over  this  section  carefully  each 
month,  for  the  advertisements  will  be  frequently 
changed,  and  items  of  Interest  to  collectors  will  be 
offered  hexe.  All  these  dealers  Invite  correspondence. 


FEBRUARY  was  an  exceptional 
month  in  book-auction  s&les  in 
this  country.  Many  important  books 
changed  hands,  but  considerable  of 
the  material  offered  in  the  February 
sales  had  &  familiar  look  to  New  York 
and  Boston  dealers  and  collectors.  The 
most  important  sale  of  the  month  was 
that  which  occupied  three  sessions  on 
February  17  at  the  American  Art  Gal- 
leries. The  first  sale,  consisting  of  as- 
sociation boolcs,  was  made  up  of  books 
belonging  to  Francis  W.  Fabyan,  a 
wealthy  Boston  bookbuyer,  and  selec- 
tions from  the  stock  of  P.  K.  Foley,  a 
Boston  dealer  who  supplied  Mr.  Fab- 
yan with  many  of  his  rarities.  The 
second  sale  consisted  of  notable  items 
of  Americana  which  were  all  the  prop- 
erty of  Mr.  Fabyan  and  which  com- 
prised no  less  than  four  unique  Ma- 
ther items.  The  third  sale  was  of 
historical  broadsides,  books  and  tracts 
from  the  Massachusetts  Historical  So- 
ciety, Mr.  Foley's  stock  and  several 
other  consignments.  The  Massachu- 
setts Historical  Society  contribution 
was  notable  from  the  fact  that  of 
many  of  the  broadsides  offered,  relat- 
ing to  Colonial  matters  and  the  Revo- 
lution, the  only  other  known  copies 
still  remain  in  the  possession  of  the 
Historical  Society.  As  was  to  be  ex- 
pected, in  view  of  the  rarity  of  these 
items,  they  brought  high  prices. 


The  dispersal  of  the  Heniy  F.  De- 
Puy  collection  of  Americana  is  one  of 
the  important  events  ot  the  pres- 
ent book-auction  season  in  this  coun- 


try. Mr.  DePuy,  who  has  been  a  well- 
known  New  York  collector  for  many 
years,  has  removed  to  Maryland  and 
decided  to  put  his  special  collections  of 
books  on  the  market  rather  than  to 
remove  them  to  his  new  home.  Mr. 
DePuy  was  assiduous  in  gathering 
material  relating  to  New  York  and 
the  Indians  of  that  state  and  Canada, 
and  bis  work  on  early  colonial  treaties 
with  the  Indians  is  a  standard.  Un- 
like some  other  collectors,  Mr.  DePuy 
used  his  material  in  making  contribu- 
tions to  history,  and  a  bibliographical 
list  of  his  own  writings  would  be  of 
respectable  length.  In  the  second  of 
the  DePuy  sales,  held  at  Anderson's 
in  New  York,  appeared  the  most  ex- 
tensive collection  of  Jesuit  Relations 
ever  offered  for  sale,  most  of  them 
being  in  the  original  vellum  binding. 
Of  one,  the  Avignon  edition  of  1636, 
the  DePuy  copy  was  probably  the  only 
perfect  copy  known.  Of  the  forty-one 
years  in  which  the  Relations  were  is- 
sued, the  DePuy  collection  contained 
thirty-seven,  lacking  only  the  exces- 
sively rare  first,  the  twenty-fourth, 
twenty-eighth,  and  thirty-fifth.  This 
collection  was  sold  as  one  lot,  and 
brought  $19,000,  or  an  average  of 
more  than  $500  per  lot,  which  is  con- 
siderably above  the  average  of  the  Re- 
lations when  sold  separately. 


Mr.  DePuy  possessed  the  largest 
and  finest  collection  of  English  co- 
lonial treaties  with  the  Indians  ever 
offered  for  sale,  and  these  brought 
high  prices.    The  rare  Bradford  im- 

IN  In  wrttinR  (<>  ndrprilien. 


THE  COLLECTORS'  GUIDE  {Cmtinued) 


SPURR  &  SWIFT 

Dealers  in 

RARE  BOOKS,  AUTOGRAPHS 

First   Editioiis,   Bindiiivs 

American  ESxport  Agrenta 
25  Rjdar  St,  St.  Jamas',  London,  S.  W. 

ANTIQUARIAN   BOOK  CO. 

EfMfaam  Raid,  SinitisnI-ao-Afan,  Englind 
Dealers  in  Rare  Books  and  First  Editions: 
Dickens,  Thackeray,  Stevenson,  Kipling, 
Conrad,  Masefleld,  WeUs,  Noyes,  Dun- 
sany,  etc.,  etc. 

Cstalof  a«s  mmttmd  trmm  on  rmquoMi 

B^M^  Dtf^tf^lrtt  Fine  examples  of  Early 
!?eL?_S22!l?  Printed  and  Rare 
Books  from  the  1 5th  century  onwards  our 
specialty.  Our  assistance  is  offered  in  forming^ 
collections  on  out  of  the  way  subjects. 
ComsPondence  Invited.  Catalog  ues  past  free, 

SHORT   LIST   OF  FIRST  AND    RARR   RU1TION8 
OF  MODRRN  AUTHORS  ISSUED  « 

J.  I.  DAVIS  (B.  A.  Cantab)  St  G.  M.  ORIOLI 
24  MoMiim  St.,  London.  W.  C.  1,  Easiaaa 


STIKEMAN   &   CO. 

BOOKBINDERS 

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Flno  BlndlBfS  of  ovsry  dossrIptUm.  Inlaylas. 
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dosifiiiacv  stc. 

BOOKS  on  pedigrees,  genealogy  and  coat  of  arms; 
every  Anglo-Saxon  and  Celtic  name.  Pairbairn's 
Crest8.$lS.  0*Hart*s Irish  Pedigrees.2  vols. leather,$20. 
CHAS.  A.  O'CONNOR,  21  Spruce  Street,  New  York. 

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First  Editions, Standard  Authors,etc  Catalogues  free 
R.  Atkinson,  188  Peckham  Rye.  London,  S.  E.  Eng. 

USED  BOOKS,   Big  Bargains.    Cstak>g8.     Higene's 
M-3441  Post,  San  Francisco.    (Books  Bought.) 


print  of  1721,  the  earliest  treaty  with 
the  Five  Nations  in  English,  the  only 
other  copy  of  which  is  owned  by 
Henry  E.  Huntington,  was  sold  for 
$2,050,  and  twenty-four  other  treaties 
brought  a  total  of  $16,505.  Mr.  De- 
Pu/s  copy  of  Hakluyfs  "Divers  Voy- 
ages", 1582,  noted  as  "the  first  book  in 
English  on  what  is  now  the  United 
States",  was  the  only  copy  ever  sold 
with  a  map.  A  perfect  copy  contains 
two  maps,  by  Thome  and  Lok.  Only 
three  of  these  are  known.  The  DePuy 
copy  had  the  Thome  map  but  lacked 
the  other.  Of  the  eleven  copies  known 
only  six  have  any  map.  This  im- 
portant volume  brought  $5,000. 


The  first  edition  of  "Joe  Miller's 
Jests"  now  brings  $300.  It  was  orig- 
inally published  in  1739  at  the  price  of 
one  shilling.  Considering  the  use 
which  has  been  made  of  the  jests  by 
comedians,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that 
most  of  the  copies  issued  then  have 
been  worn  out 


Whistler's  "Nocturne",  printed  in 
brown  by  himself,  was  sold  for  $2,900 
at  the  Flanagan  auction  sale  in  De- 
cember. Whistler  appears  as  success- 
ful a  printer  as  an  etcher. 


Charles  £.  Goodspeed  of  Boston  is 
compiling  a  bibliography  of  the  writ- 
ings of  Thomas  W.  Parsons,  trans- 
lator of  the  first  ten  cantos  of  Dante's 
"Inferno",  published  in  1843.  Mr. 
Goodspeed  says  he  knows  of  one  other 
person  besides  himself  who  collects 
the  writings  of  Parsons. 


First  Editions  of  Modem  Authors 

Books  on  Art 

French  Literature 

Modern  Etchings  and  Lithographs 

catalogues  Free 

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ERETOBUYBGDKS 

Th«  boiAMUen  KdT«rtUing  la  tUa  BeetlOB  have  nd- 
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to  aerre  yon  that  they  placa  their  organlxatioBa  at  Uw 
lommaiid  of  bmA-lorera  evarywhere.    Readers  of  THE 


The  home  offices  of  the  Yale  Uni- 
■venity  Press  have  just  accomplished 
a  somewhat  delayed  occupation  of 
their  new  quarters.  The  present  build- 
ing, made  available  through  a  gift 
from  Hn.  Harriet  Trumbull  Williams 
in  memory  of  her  son,  Lieutenant  Earl 
Trumbull  Williams,  affords  the  Yale 
Press  a  much  needed  opportunity  for 
expansion.  The  house,  formerly  the 
residrace  of  Governor  Charles  R.  In- 
gersoU,  and  overlooking  the  historic 
Green,  has  been  remodeled  but  its  co- 
lonial character  is  retained.  A  com- 
plete printing  office  is  installed  in  the 
basement,  and  the  Williams  Memorial 
Room  is  maintained  on  the  first  floor 
as  a  reception  and  reading  room  for 
the  convenience  of  guests. 

A  uniform  edition  of  the  worics  of 
Jack  London  and  also  a  uniform  edi- 
tion of  F.  Marion  Crawford's  novels 
are  being  issued.  The  first  volumes  of 
the  London  series,  which  is  called  "The 
Sonoma  Edition",  are  now  ready  and 
include  "The  Valley  of  the  Moon", 
"The  Sea  Wolf,  "South  Sea  Tales", 
"The  Call  of  the  Wild".  "The  Scarlet 
Plague",  "Before  Adam",  "The  Game", 
"The  Faith  of  Men",  "Tales  of  the 
Fish  Patrol",  "Children  of  the  Frost", 
"The  House  of  Pride",  "The  Turtles 
of  Tasman",  "Moon  Face",  "The 
Strength  of  the  Strong",  "The  Red 
One",  and  "The  Love  of  Life".  The 
set  will  number  twenty  volumes.  This 
publication  will  make  available  once 
more  a  number  of  Mr.  London's  books 
which  have  been  out  of  print. 

PlMCr  ni«ntlDD  Tut  BOOKU. 


t^NNUAL  CATALOGUE  ^ 

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A    moat    notable    firat    novel 

HERITAGE 

By  V.  SACKVIIXE  WEST 

Miss  Amy  Lowell  writes: 

Q  'M  who  care  very  little  for 
novels  read  HERITAGE  from 
cover  to  cover.  It  has  power , 
imagination,  and  originality.  It 
is  excellently  done  and  carries 
one's  interest  from  the  first  to 
last.  I  think  that  V.  Sackville 
West  has  a  career  before  her, 
and  I  shall  watch  eagerly  for  her 
next  book.'* 

The  Chicago  News: 

Q  *'  If  you  like  a  tale  full  of  action 
and  character  study,  told  in  an 
exquisite  style,  don't  miss 
HERITAGE."  Net,  $1.75 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 

Publiahera  New  York 


A  gentleman,  writer  of  fiction  by 
profession,  whose  name  is  a  "house- 
hold word"  in  every  home  in  the  land, 
and  who  lives  not  far  from  the  most 
celebrated  "soldiers'  monument*'  in 
the  United  States,  writes  the  Gossip 
Shop  as  follows : 

Who  in  the  name  of  frensy  is  Charles  Fort? 
Author  of  'The  Book  of  the  Damned".  I*m 
just  pulling  up  from  influenia  and  this  blamed 
boolc  Icept  me  all  night  when  I  certainly  should 
hare  slept — and  then,  in  the  morning,  what  is 
a  fevered  head  to  do  with  assemblies  of  worlds, 
some  shaped  like  wheels,  some  connected  by 
streaming  filaments,  and  one  spindle  shaped 
with  an  axis  100,000  miles  long? 

A  clergyman,  old  brilliant  friend  of  mine, 
"went  insane'*  one  summer — got  over  it  when 
his  wife  came  home  from  Europe  but  that 
summer  he  was  gone.  I  remember  when  I 
caught  him :  he  spent  all  of  a  hot  afternoon 
telling  me,  at  the  University  Club,  about  a  se- 
cret society  of  the  elect — adepts — who  had 
since  days  immemorial  welcomed  (and  kept 
hidden)  messages  from  other  planets.  That's 
where  this  alleged  Charles  Fort  shows  his 
huUiest  dementia — but  he's  "colossal" — a  mag- 
nificent nut,  with  Poe  and  Blake  and  Cagliostro 
and  St.  John  trailing  way  behind  him.  And 
with  a  gorgeous  madman's  humor !  What  do 
you  know  of  him?  And  doesn't  he  deserve  some 
Bookman  attention?  (I  never  heard  of  the 
demoniac  cuss.)  People  must  turn  to  look  at 
hlH  hcnd  AR  ho  walks  down  the  street ;  I  think 
it'R  n  head  that  would  emit  noises  and  ex- 
I)loHi<»nH,  with  copper  flames  playing  out  from 
the  ears. 


The  following  letter  is  from  Senator 
Lodge  to  Oliver  Herford,  author  of 
"This  Giddy  Globe" : 

Tour  little  geographical  work  came  to  me 
last  evening.  I  took  it  home,  and  having  run 
over  the  table  of  contents  and  made  sure  there 
was  nothing  in  it  that  concerned  the  League  of 
Nations,  I  8nt  down  and  read  it  at  once,  of 
course  with  instruction,  but  also  with  a  great 
deal  of  enjoyment  and  amusement.  In  past 
dn.vH  your  writings  and  drawings  have  given 
me  a  great  deal  5f  pleasure,  for  one  always 
likes  to  be  transported  to  the  land  of  wit  and 
humor,  of  laughter  and  smiles,  and  never  more 
so  than  at  this  moment,  when  the  world  looks 
Bo  chaotic  and  full  of  unknown  perils.  I  am 
grateful  to  you,  therefore,  for  some  very  pleas- 
ant moments  and  also  for  your  kindness  in 
sending  me  the  book.  I  felt  much  flattered 
that  you  should  have  thought  of  me  and  have 
written  your  name  in  the  volume. 


Please  mention  The  Bookman  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


THE    SOOK  MAN    A  S>  V  E  S  T I S  EII^ 


entlan  Taa  Bookhah  In  writing  to  adverttiert. 


ii 


THE  BOOKMAN 


BRIEF  MENTION  OF  NEW  BOOKS 


Fiction 

PoUyooly  Dances,  by  Edgar  Jepson  [Doffleld]. 
A  love  8tory  oj  secret  eervice. 

Poor  Dear  Theodora  !  by  Florence  Irwin  [Put- 
nam].   A  oirVe  attempt  at  independence. 

The  Matrix,  oy  Maria  Thompson  Daviess  [Cen- 
tury] .     The  romance  of  Lincoln'M  father. 

Luca  Sarto,  by  Charles  S.  Brooks  [Century]. 
Adventure  in  16th-century  France. 

The  Marbeck  Inn,  by  Harold  Brighouse 
[Little].  An  ambitious  Lancashire  boy's 
story. 

The  Single  Track,  by  Douglas  Grant  [Watt]. 
A  society  glrVs  Alaskan  venture. 

The  Substance  of  a  Dream,  by  F.  W.  Bain 
[Putnam].     A  Hindu  tale  translated. 

Sorrows  of  Noma,  trans,  by  Joseph  Marymont 
[Natl.  Book  Pud.].    A  tale  of  ancient  Judah. 

The  Burning  Glass,  by  Marjorie  Bowen  [Dut- 
ton].    An  18th-century  French  romance. 

Hand -Made  Fables,  by  George  Ade  [Double- 
day].    More  fables  in  slang,  illustrated. 

Fairfax  and  His  Pride,  by  Marie  Van  Vorst 
[Small].  A  southerner's  northern  ewperi- 
ences. 

Miser's  Money,  by  Eden  PhUlpotts  [Macmil- 
lan].    A  misanthrope's  conflict  with  youth. 

Souls  Divided,  by  MatUde  Serao  [Brentano]. 
An  Italian  love  story  in  diary  form. 

The  Clanking  of  Chains,  by  Brinsley  MacNa- 
mara  [Brentano] .    A  story  of  Ireland. 

Paris  Through  an  Attic,  by  A.  Herbage  Ed- 
wards [Dutton].     A  young  couple's  venture. 

A  Lithuanian  Village,  by  Leon  Kobrin  [Bren- 
tano].   A  t€ile  of  Jewish  life. 

Mr.  Wu,  by  Louise  Jordan  Miln  [Stokes].  The 
tale  of  a  mandarin  educated  in  Europe. 

Lightnin',  by  Frank  Bacon  [Harper].  A  nov- 
elieation  of  the  play. 

The  Rose  of  Jericho,  by  Ruth  Holt  Boucicault 
[Putnam].     A  young  actress's  romance. 

The  Gold  Girl,  by  James  B.  Hendryx  [Put- 
nam].    The  tale  of  a  lost  mine. 

The  Wreckers,  by  Francis  Lynde  [Scribner]. 
A  western  railroad  man's  venture. 

The  Pagan,  by  Gordon  Arthur  Smith  [Scrib- 
ner].    atories  of  French  life  and  others. 

Fireweed,  by  Joslyn  Gray  [Scribner].  A  di- 
vorce-court romance. 

My  Neighbors,  by  Caradoc  Evans  [Harcourt]. 
Welsh  stories. 

The  Cross  Pull,  by  Hal  G.  Evarts  [Knopf].  A 
western  tale  of  a  wolf  dog. 

Order,  by  Claude  C.  Washburne  [Duffleld].  An 
Englishman's  American  experiment. 

Chill  Hours,  by  Helen  Mackay  [Duffleld]. 
Sketches  of  wartime  France. 

The  Anchor,  by  Michael  Sadler  [McBride].  An 
English  journalist's  love  story. 

The  Republic  of  the  Southern  Cross,  by  Valery 
Brussof   [McBrlde].     Russian  tales. 

The  Gorgeous  Girl,  by  Nalbro  Bartley  [Double 
day].     A  business  girl's  romance. 

The  Tempering,  by  Charles  Neville  Buck  [Dou 
bleday].    A  Kentucky  mountain  love  story. 

Talcs  of  My  Native  Town,  by  Gabriele  D'An 
nunzio  [Doubleday].     Twelve  stories. 

Kathleen,  by  Christopher  Morley  [Doubleday] 
Romance  in  an  undergraduate  club. 

The  Dark  Mirror,  by  Louis  Joseph  Vance  [Dou 
bleday].     Mystertous  dream  adventures. 

Diana  of  the  Epheslans,  by  Mrs.  Desmond 
Humphreys  [Stokes].  A  Qreek  girl's  social 
struggle. 

The  Chorus  Girl  and  Other  Stories,  by  Anton 
Chekhov  [Macmlllan].     Twelve  tales. 

Treacherous  Ground,  by  Johan  Bojer  [Moffat]. 
A  landowner's  altruistic  scheme. 

The  Red  Seal,  by  Natalie  Sumner  Lincoln  [Ap- 
pleton].     A  tale  of  robbery  and  death. 

The  Girl  from  Four  Corners,  by  Rebecca  N. 
Porter  [Holt].     A  California  girl's  story. 


"I  think  I  shall  Jmow  your  rattle  of 
the  telephone  as  soon  as  ever  I  shall 
hear  it.  Heaven  speed  it,  and  keep  me 
all  fondestly  yours,  H.  J."  is  the  con- 
clusion of  one  of  Henry  James's  letters 
to  Hugh  Walpole.  Another  of  the  let- 
ters from  the  old  to  the  young  novelist 
follows,  in  which  he  talks  about  law 
and  order  in  the  art  of  writing: 

—  I  rejoice  in  the  getting  on  of  your  work — 
how  splendidly  copious  your  flow;  and  am 
much  interested  in  what  you  tell  me  of  your 
readings  and  your  literary  emotions.  These 
latter  indeed — or  some  of  them,  as  you  express 
them,  I  don*t  think  I  fully  share.  At  least 
when  you  ask  me  if  I  don't  feel  Dostoieffsky's 
"mad  jumble,  that  flings  things  down  in  a  heap*', 
nearer  truth  and  beauty  than  the  picking  and 
composing  that  you  instance  in  Stevenson,  I 
reply  with  emphasis  that  I  feel  nothing  of  the 
sort,  and  that  the  older  I  grow  and  the  more 
I  go,  the  more  sacred  to  me  do  picking  and 
composing  become — though  I  naturally  don't 
limit  myself  to  Stevenson's  kind  of  the  same. 
Don't  let  any  one  persuade  you — there  are 
plenty  of  ignorant  and  fatuous  duffers  to  try  to 
do  it — ^that  strenuous  selection  and  comparison 
are  not  the  very  essence  of  art,  and  Form  is 
[not]  substance  to  that  degree  that  there  is 
absolutely  no  substance  without  it.  Form  alone 
takes,  and  holds  and  preserves,  substance — 
saves  it  from  the  welter  of  helpless  verbiage 
that  we  swim  in  as  in  a  sea  of  tasteless  tepid 
pudding,  and  that  makes  one  ashamed  of  an 
art  capable  of  such  degradations.  Tolstoi  and 
D.  are  fluid  puddings,  though  not  tasteless,  be- 
cause the  amount  of  their  own  minds  and  souls 
in  solution  in  the  broth  gives  it  savour  |ind 
flavour,  thanks  to  the  strong,  rank  quality  of 
their  genius  and  their  experience.  But  there 
are  nil  sorts  of  things  to  be  said  of  them,  and 
in  particular  that  we  see  how  great  a  vice  is 
their  lack  of  composition,  their  defiance  of 
economy  and  architecture,  directly  they  are 
emulated  and  imitated ;  then,  as  subjects  of 
emulation,  models,  they  quite  give  themselves 
away.  There  is  nothing  so  deplorable  as  a 
work  of  art  with  a  leak  in  its  interest ;  and 
there  is  no  such  leak  of  interest  as  through 
commonness  of  form.  Its  opposite,  the  found 
(because  the  sought-for)  form  is  the  absolute 
citadel  and  tabernacle  of  interest.  But  what 
a  lecture  I  am  reading  you — though  a  very 
imperfect  one — which  you  have  drawn  upon 
yourself  (as  moreover  It  was  quite  right  you 
should).  But  no  matter — I  shall  go  for  you 
again — as  soon  as  I  find  you  in  a  lone 
corner. . . . 

Wen,  dearest  Hugh,  love  me  a  little  better 
(If  you  can)  for  this  letter,  for  I  am  ever  so 
faithfully  yours, 

(lENBT    JAMB8 


tHE    I^OOKMJiS    A1>VERT1SEK 


New  Spring  ^ooks 

Everyday  Adventures 

By  SAMUEL  SCOVnXE,  Jr. 

Readers  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  and  similar  magazines  need  no  introduction 
to  the  author  of  these  delightful  nature  stories.  Many  of  the  sketches  have 
already  met  with  wide  approval,  and  their  charm  is  not  a  litde  enhanced  by 
Mr.  Howard  Taylor  Middleton's  unusual  nature  photographs. 

To  be  published  in  June,     $3. 00  postpaid 


A  Little  Gateway  to  Science 

Hexapod  Stories 
By  EDITH  M.  PATCH 

Irresistible  stories  about  six»footed  in^ 
sects,  written  with  special  attention  to 
the  interest  of  chilclren  from  seven  to 
nine  years  of  age.  Profusely  illus- 
trated. $1. 00  postpaid 


Americans  by  Adoption 

By  JOSEPH  HUSBAND 

Nine  biographical  sketches  of  famous 
foreign-born  Americans,which  are  sure 
to  fulfill  their  purpose  of  stimulating 
the  best  citizenship.  Each  chapter  is 
illustrated  by  a  portrait  of  its  subject. 

$1.50  postpaid 


THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS,  Inc. 

41  Mount  Vernon  Street,  Boston 


A  new  American  novel  of 
exceptional  distinction 

INVINCIBLE 
MINNIE 

ELISABETH  SANXAY  HOLDING 

''Minnie  is  ^ui  achievement, 
the  most  extraordinary 
woman  in  American  fiction. 
Mrs.  Holding's  first  book 
has  indubitable  power  and 
art — ^thoroughly  American, 
thoroughly  modem,  thor- 
oughly human,  at  once  piti- 
able, charming,  inexplica- 
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Net,  $1.75 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


APRIL  PUBUCATIONS 
The  Joke  About  Housing 

By  CHARLES  HARRIS  WHTTAKER, 

E<Utor  The  Journal  The  Amcricui  Institute  of  Axcfaitects 

Are  Yfe  to  continue  to  live  in  houses? 
Is  it  a  joke  or  a  tragedy?  The  problem- 
is  vital  and  the  fate  of  our  nation  de- 
pends upon  our  answer.  $a.oo 

Lindy  Loyd 

By  MARIE  C  HOFFMAN 

A  romance  of  the  moonshiner  moun- 
taineers of  Tennessee,  written  by  a 
woman  who  has  lived  among  and  taught 
these  people.  She  writes  simply,  sym- 
pathetically and  impressively.  $i>75 

The  School  of  Sympathy 

By  JULIAN  B.  ARNOLD 

Son  of  Sir  Edwin  Anx>ld 

Reminiscences  in  essay  and  verse  by  a 
versatile  scholar,  wide  traveler  and 
graceful  writer.  $i.6o 

Marshall  Jones  Co.,  Publishers 

212  Slimmer  Street,  Boston 


Please  mention  Tni  Bookman  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


IV 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Mount  Music,  by  E.  (E.  Somerville  and  Martin 
R088   [Longmans].     An  Anglo-Iriah  tnle. 

Benjy,  by  George  Stevenson  [Lane].  A  story 
of  Victorian  family  life. 

The  Story  of  a  New  Zealand  River,  by  Jane 
Mander  [I<ane].     A  lumber  camp  romance. 

This  Side  of  Paradise,  by  F.  Scott  Fitzgerald 
[Scribner].  A  romantic  undergraduate's  evo- 
lution. 

The    Island    of    Sheep,    by    Cadmus    and    Har- 
monia    [Houghton].     A   political   discussion. 
,    Trailin' !  by  Max  Brand  [Putnam],     A  western 
tale  of  revenge. 

The  London  Venture,  by  Michael  Aden  [Dodd, 
Mead].     An  Armenian's  reflections. 

Tatterdemalion,  by  John  Galsworthy  [Scril)- 
ner].     War  and  peacetime  stories. 

Celia  Once  Again,  by  Ethel  Brunner  [Mac- 
niillan].     English  slcetches. 

The  Elder's  People,  by  Harriet  Prescott  Spof- 
ford  [Houghton].     New  England  stories. 

The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble,  by  Andr6 
Maurois  [Lane].  A  Frenchman's  impres- 
sions of  the  English  soldier. 

Barry  Leroy,  by  H.  C.  Bailey  [Dutton].  A  Na- 
poleonic tale  of  an  Irish  spy. 

The  Shadow,  by  Mary  White  Ovington  [Har- 
court].     A  southern  waif's  romance. 

The  Forging  of  the  Pikes,  by  Anison  North 
[Doran].     A  Canadian  adventure  story. 

His  Majesty's  Well-Beloved,  by  Baroness  Orcay 
[Doran].     A  17th-century  tale. 

The  Plunderer,  by  Henry  Oyen  [Doran].  The 
story  of  a  Florida  land  corporation. 

The  Boole  of  Marjorie  [Knopf].  The  personal 
record  of  a  man's  romance. 

Taxi,  by  George  Agnew  Chamberlain  [Bobbs]. 
A  society  man's  adventures. 

The  Toll  of  the  Sands,  by  Paul  De  Laney  [Den- 
ver:    Smith-Brooks].     A  western  yarn. 

The  Man  on  Horseback,  by  Achmed  Abdullah 
[McCann].     A   cowboy's   German  experience. 

Their  Son ;  The  Necklace,  by  Eduardo  Zama- 
cols  [Boni].     Two  Spanish  tales. 

The  Taming  of  Nan,  by  Ethel  Holdsworth 
[Dutton].     A  Lancashire  millgirl's  story. 

Vivian  Grey  •  Endymion,  by  the  JCarl  of  Bea- 
consfleld    [Longsmans].     Two  reprints. 

The  Tall  Villa,  by  Lucas  Malet  [Doran J.  A 
tale  of  a  ghostly  lover. 

CoggJn,  by  Ernest  Ohlmeadow  [Contury].  The 
Htory  of  a  rector  and  a  poor  boy. 

Invincible  Minnie.  l)y  Elisabeth  Sauxay  Holding 
[Doran].     A  study  of  a  "womanly"  woman. 

Trimmed  with  Red,  by  Walluco  Irwin  [Doran]. 
A  satire  on  parlor  Bolshevism. 

Miss  Lulu  Bett,  by  Zona  Gale  [Appleton].  The 
story  of  a  family  drudge. 

Sunny  Ducrow,  by  Henry  St.  John  Cooper 
[Putnam].     A  cockney  actress's  career. 

This  Marrying,  by  Margaret  Banning  [Doran]. 
A  modem  girl's  romance. 

The  Skeleton  Key,  by  Bernard  Capes  [Doran]. 
A  detective  story. 

The  Ancient  Allan,  by  H,  Rider  Haggard 
[Longmans].     A  tale  of  the  supernatural. 

Living  Alone,  by  Stella  Benson  [Maomillan]. 
A  whimsical  witch  story. 

The  Mystery  of  the  Silver  Dagger,  by  Randall 
Parrish  [Doran].  A  tale  of  murder  and  in- 
trigue. 

The  Hermit  of  Far  End,  by  Margaret  IVdIer 
[Doran].     An  English   mystery  romance. 

The  Secret  of  the  Silver  Car,  by  Wyndham 
Mortyn  [Moffat].  A  tale  of  political  in- 
trigue. 

Isle  o'  Dreams,  by  Frederick  Ferdinand  Moore 
[DoubledayJ.     Adventure  in   the  China  Seas. 

Diamond  Tolls,  by  Raymond  S.  Spears  [Double- 
day],     A   tale  of  stolen  diamonds. 

Turquoise  Canon,  by  J.  Allan  Dunn  [Double- 
day].     A  western  myntcry  love  story. 

Poetry 

Poems  of  Tennyson,  ed.  by  Henry  van  Dyke 
[Scribner].     Selections  with  introduction. 


"All  through  the  centuries  the 
wraith  has  survived  in  literature,  has 
flitted  pallidly  across  the  pages  of 
poetry,  story,  and  play,  with  a  sad 
wistfulness,  a  forlorn  dignity,"  says 
Dorothy  Scarborough  (author  of  "The 
Supernatural  in  English  Fiction")  in 
her  preface  to  "The  Best  Psychic 
Stories",  edited  by  Joseph  Lewis 
French  and  brought  out  this  month. 
Another  new  ghost-book  is  "The 
Haunted  Hour",  a  poetry  anthology  by 
Margaret  Widdemer. 


Pierre  Loti  has  recently  turned  his 
attention  away  from  foreign  lands. 
His  latest  book,  "Prime  Jeunesse",  is 
an  autobiographical  account  of  his 
early  life  at  Rochefort  which  forms  a 
sequel  to  his  "Roman  d'un  Enfant". 


A  contributor  to  a  current  maga- 
zine decides  that  movie  scenarios  lack 
cultural  background,  and  so  he  ar- 
ranges a  pretty  film-version  of  "The 
Education  of  Henry  Adams".  "This 
volume  has  had  remarkable  success — 
public  records  show  that  more  people 
have  lied  about  having  read  it  than 
about  any  other  book  ih  a  decad^." 
His  cultural  movie  is  to  be  called  "The 
Education  of  Henry  Adams,  or.  Why 
Minds  Go  Wrong".  Here  is  The  Big 
Roman  Scene  :  Caption,  "Here,  after 
a  year's  wandering  through  the  happy, 
smiling  lands  of  Europe,  comes  young 
Henry  Adams  in  search  for  educa- 
tion." (He  is  discovered  sitting  on  a 
rock  among  the  ruins  of  the  Capitol, 
thinking:  The  shadows  deepen,  and 
he  rises,  passing  his  hand  across  his 
brow.)  —  (Flash-back  showing  the 
Latin  verbs  which  govern  the  dative 
case.)  Pianist  plays  "The  March  of 
the  Jolly  Granadiers". . .  .  This  is  the 
climax  and  the  end?  Caption,  "God 
have  mercy  on  me !  I  can  see  it  all — I 
have  never  been  educated!" 


ITHE    BOOKMAN   Af>VERTISEK 


studies  In  Tennyson,  by  Henry  van  Dyke 
fScribner].     Analyses,  with  biblioffraphy. 

A  Miscellany  of  British  Poetry,  ed.  by  W.  Kean 
Seymour  [Harcourt].  A  contemporary  an- 
thology. 

War  Voices  and  Memories,  by  Clinton  ScoUard 
[White].     Poems  of  America  and  Europe, 

Picture-Show,  by  Siegfried  Sassoon  [Dutton]. 
War  verse  and  lyrics. 

Rhymes  of  a  Homesteader,  by  Elliott  C.  Lin- 
coln [Houghton].     Western  poems, 

For^tten  Shrines,  by  John  Chipman  Farrar 
[Yale].     Sonnets,  lyrics,  and  sketches. 

The  Haunted  Hour,  bv  Margaret  Widdemer 
[Harcourt].     An  anthology   of  ghost-poems. 

Wind  and  Blue  Water,  by  Laura  Armistead 
Carter  [CornhiU].    Lyrics  and  war  poems. 

Songs  and  Sonnets  by  Alida  Chanler  [Com- 
hill].    Descriptive  and  love  verse. 

The  Hesitant  Heart,  by  Winifred  Welles 
[Huebseh].     A  collection  of  lyrics. 

Poems,  by  T.  S.  Eliot  [Knopf].  Whimsical 
verse. 

Outdoors  and  In,  by  Joshua  F.  Crowell  [Four 
Seas],     nature  poems  and  lurics. 

Chords  from  Albireo,  by  Danford  Barney 
[Lane].    Poems  of  Beauty  and  of  God. 

Don  Folquet,  by  Thomas  Walsh  [Lane].  Nar- 
rative and  descriptive  verse.  I 

Songs  of  Seelcing  and  Finding,  by  Tertius  van 
Dyke  [Scribner].     2Jature  poems  and  others. 

Mephistopheles  Puffeth  the  Sun  Out.  by  Lucile 
Vernon  [Stratford].     A  volume  of  lyrics. 

Hall,  Man!  by  Angela  Morgan  [Lane].  Imag- 
inative poems. 

Songs  of  Cheer,  by  EUie  Wemyss  [Adelaide: 
Uassell].    Australian  verse. 

Collected  Poems,  1881-1019,  by  Robert  Under- 
wood Johnson  [Yale].  Five  volumes  com- 
bined. 

The  Superhuman  Antagonists  and  Other  Poems, 
by  Sir  William  Watson  [Doran].  A  fan- 
tasy and  short  poems. 

The  Guards  Came  Through,  by  Sir  Arthur 
Conan  Doyle  [Doran].  War  poems  and 
others. 

Songs  from  the  Journey,  by  Wilton  Agnew  Bar- 
rett [Doran].     Sketches  and  lyrics. 

Worms  and  Epitaphs,  by  H.  W.  Garrod  [Long- 
mans].   Personal  reflections. 

Many,  Many  Moons,  by  Lew  Sarett  [Holt]. 
Poems  of  the  Indians. 

Zoar,  by  Helen  and  Bernard  Bosanquet  [Long- 
mans].    Translations  and  original  poems. 

Poems  in  Captivity,  by  John  Still  [Lane].  Re- 
flections of  a  war  prisoner  in  Turkey. 

Drama 

Sophie,  by  Philip  Moeller  [Knopf].  A  comedy 
of  a  French  siinger. 

The  Army  with  Banners,  by  Charles  Rann  Ken- 
nedy  [Huebseh].     A  drama  of  Christianity. 

Three  Plays  of  the  Argentine,  ed.  by  Edward 
Hale  Bierstadt  [Duffleld].     Translations. 

A  Night's  Lodging,  by  Maxim  Gorki  [Four 
Seas].    A  Russian  underworld  play. 

Four  Mystery  Plays,  by  Rudolph  Stelner.  2 
vols.  [Putnam].  Dramas  of  soul-develop- 
ment. 

The  Inward  Light,  by  Allan  Davis  and  Anna  R. 
Stratton   [Knopf].     A  Civil  War  play. 

The  Development  of  Soenic  Art  and  Stage  Ma- 
chinery, compiled  by  William  Burt  Gamble 
[N.  Y.  Pub.  Lib.].     A  bibliography. 

How  to  Stage  a  Play,  by  Harry  Osborne  [Denl- 
Bon].     Hints  for  amateurs. 

The  Birth  of  God,  by  Vomer  von  Heidenstam 
[Four  Seas].     A  fantasy  of  Egyptian  gods. 

Biography 

Memories  of  George  Meredith,  by  Lady  Butcher 

[Scribner].     Personal  recollections. 
Within  My  Horizon,  by  Helen  Bartlett  Brldg- 

man  [Small].     Reminiscences. 
The  Life  and  Times  of  Henry  (tassaway  Davis, 

by  Charles  M.  Popper  [Century].    A  railroad 

builder's  biography. 
Leonard    Wood,    by    William    Herbert    Hobbs 

[Putnam].     A  record  of  achievements. 
A   Lone   Star   Cowboy,   by   Charles   A.    Siringo 

[pub.  at  Santa  Fe].    An  autobiography. 


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Ihef  an  loiiveet,  dean,  well  put  np,ud 


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V  sn  HIRTH  ST..  BSOOKLTR,  M.  T. 

Bkahcuu  I  Cricaco,  Lohdok 


Itea*. 

I«tttri  of  Anton  CbekhoT,  tnaa.  bT 
Qarnett  [Maemlllao].  a  eoUeetion 
araBkieai  MktitBk. 


,     _.     _ .     Roekwtll 
'■  autobioampkp. 
Rlcbarda  [Appletohl. 


loan  of  Arc,  b7  l*v 

A  itarratlva. 
Impreuloni  That  Kemalned,  bj  Btbd  Smfth,  1 

VQla.    [LoDfmani).     UiuIcqI  memoir: 
Walt   Wbllman,    Tbe   Han  and    Hla   Work,  bi 

Leon    Baaalgette    [DaDbl«d«r].      A    Fraui- 

Charlottev  hj  Grace  Warren  lAndmm  [Dariii]. 

A  memoir  of  a  fonng  oirt. 
HemoTtea      and      KecdMi.      br      Lord      PUhrr 

[Deran],    A  Brltith  natttl  ini<  peliMeal  tar- 

A (taiw  nod  Lfferory  Btuiin 

Bedoului.  bj  Jamea  Haopker  [Bcrihner].    lit- 

ritnJ  and  Ifterorv  ttniia. 
Jane  Auiten.  bj  O.  W.  Firkin*  [Holt].    A  erlU- 

col  and  bcoirrapfifeal  aiirTiev. 
Flaabm  of  London,  b7  Cbarlca  luga   ILondon: 

Alien   and    UnwlD].      Oantemporvry    fmiirei- 


Becreatlon.    br 


Brie!    >rT«- 

Tlaeount     Ore;     of     PaUodcm 

dn  addrcM. 

h7   Sbprlook   Bronami 
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A  Hiatorj  ot  American  Literal _,    .  . 

Boynton   [GIdd].     A  college  trrl-boot. 
Beujamln  Franklin  and  Jonathan  Edwards,  rd. 
'     bj  Carl  Van  Dorea   [Scrlbner].     Beteetiom. 

Hfilory  and  PoUllaal  aHenee 

Atmenia  and  the  Armealana,  trans,  bj  Tienr 

Crablt»a  [MicmlllBu].     A  Miiory  to  I9H. 
Modern   Chrna.    b;    81h  Oqiik   Cheng    lOitord). 

^  and  sorilfcar  tludv. 

of  America,  bj  Lf>i 
Innea].     A  Itudt  ol 


ima,  bj  Philippe 


Wiener,  ToL  I  [Phlla 

African  Injhience. 
Law    In    the    Uodern    Htate,    by    Leon    Dugull 

[HuebBch).     An  analyafa. 
Tbe  Great  Adventure  of  Pana 

Bunau-VarlUa    [DoubledajJ.      _..    _. 

German  Intrigue. 
East  b;  WeaC,  b;  A.  J.  Morrison   [Four  Seaal. 

An  Matorical  eurireg  of  commrrnf. 
la   America   Worth   Saving?   b;   NlcboUa   Mur 

ra;  Butler  [Scrlbner].     Addrcttc: 
Hellenism,  b?  Norman   Bentwicb    [Jewish  Pnb. 

Sm.j.     a  ttudu  of  Belleniatie  Jtidafnn. 
Tbe    Moral    Baali    of    Democracy,    bv    Arthur 

Twining  Hadler   [Yale).     Paptr»   on  eillicm- 

The  Wladom  ot  Woodrow  Wilson,  compiled  by 
Charles  J.   Uerold    [Breulanu].      QaolaHon: 

Llbersllgm    In    America,    by    f-— "    ■■ 

IBonl].     An  M»tor1cal  ■lady. 

The  Nonparllaan  League,  b;  lie 


America,     by^  Harold     Slea 

Gaston 


IHarcDurt].     An  orpanfValian  hlitori/.' 

BocioJogy  and  EconomloM 

Socialism    r».    CiTlIliatlon,    br    Borla    Braaiil 


THE  BOOKFELLOWS 

4LA11  thosa  who  deplore  the  preaent  deb«aed 
atate  of  th«  publishing  trade,  ardently 
long  for  better  booka  and  deajre  to  an- 
courage  their  production,  should  affiliate. 
One  dollar  par  annam. 
Flora  Warrea  Seymonr,  Clark 
8320  ■ 


D  The  Booeuan  In  writing  to  adTertlaera. 


THE    I^OOKMAS   Al>VERtI^fEli, 


T,  by  W.  E.  Burghardt  Du  Bote  [Har- 

Papers  on  the  negro. 
1  In  War  and  Peace,  by  Stewart  Faton 
r].     A   consideration  of  the  Mooially 

b^-Dub-Dub,  by  Theodore  Dreiser 
Refections  on  social  problems. 

Social  and   Industrial  Forces,  ed.   by 

D.  Edie  [Boni].    A  symposium. 

Remaking  or  Peace  Finance,  by  Clar- 

.  Barron   [Harper].     Observations. 

nd  Past  Banking  In  Mexico,  by  Wal- 

v\uB  McCaleb  [Harper].    A  history. 

r  Market,  by  Don  I>.  Lescobier  [Mac- 
An  employment  study. 

lal   Laborer,   by   Carleton   H.   Parker 

art].    Essays  on  labor. 

War  and  Reeonstruetion 

id  Zeebrugge,  ed.  by  C.  Sanford  Terry 
1].     Reports, 

1  of  the  Tide,  by  Jennings  C.  Wise 
A  record  of  American  operations, 

Irl  in  France,  by  Katherine  Shortall 

r].     Letters  toritten  in  service, 

e  War,  by  Viscount  Haldane  [Funk]. 

Britain's  policy  outlined. 

le  Story  of  Austro-Oerman   Intrigue, 

ph  Ooricar  and  Lyman  Beecber  Stowe 

iday].      An    Austrian    diplomat's    ac- 

Without  a  War,  by  Ralph  Albertson 
irt].     Events  at  Archangel. 
h   About   th6   Lusk    Committee    [Na- 
A  People's  Freedom  Union  report. 
People,     by     Princess     Cantacus^ne 
er].     Revolutionary  impressions. 
ih  Campaign  in  France  and  Flanders, 
•art   I,    by   Sir   Arthur   Conan   Doyle 
].     The  next  to  last  volume  of  the 
tory. 

31ory,  by  Frederick  Villiers  [Doran]. 
spondent's  sketch  book. 

Corps,  by  Clough  and  A.  Williams- 
>oran].    An  historical  survey. 
t  of  Selective  Service,  by  Maj.-Oen. 
!rowder  [Century].     A  study  of  mili- 
lining. 

id  Ourselves,  by  Herbert  Adams  Oib- 
>ntury].     A  study. 
lers    Kusses,    by   -Maurice    Verstraete 

Cr^s].     A  Russian  government  sur- 

lology  of  Bolshevism,  by  John  Spargo 
r].     Analysis  and  suagestion. 

Russia,      bv      Etienne      Antonelli 
|.     A  political  and  social  survey. 
rs  in  the  Royal  Navy,  by  Admiral  Sir 
Icott   [Doran].     A  record  of  gunnery 

T   Patrol,    by   Admiral   Sir   Reginald 

2  vols.    [Doran].     An  account,  1915- 

es  to  Russia,  by  Malcolm   W.  Davis 
•].     A  reconstruction  survey. 

Sir  Albert  Stern   [Doran].     A  story 
lopment. 

Side     Shows,     by     Wedgwood     Benn 
.     A  flyer's  experiences, 
ee  in  the  British  Zone,  by  Ewen  C. 
Sh  and  Lee  D.  Brown  [Putnam].    An 
meHcan  study, 

Mercler's    Own    Story,    by    Cardinal 
[Doran].     War  recollections. 
All,     by     Joseph     Cummings     Chase 
.     Soldier  portraits  and  sketches, 
in  Republic,  by  Colonel  Malone  [Har- 

Personal  observations. 


Travel  and  Description 

I  Canyon  of  the  Colorado,  by  John 

Dyke  [Scribner].     A  study, 

I,  by  Rockwell  Kent  [Putnam].     An 

ed  Alaskan  journal. 

Nord,   by   Anne    Grenfell   and    Katie 

r  [Houghton].    Labrador  experiences. 

la  Byways  of  Cincinnati,  by  James 

:}reen    [Cincinnati:    St.   James].     A 

Ion, 


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THE  OLD  FARMER  AND  HIS  AL- 
MANACK. By  George  Lyman  Kxtt- 
REDGE.  A  second  edition  of  a  most  charm- 
ing series  of  essays  on  New  England  cus- 
toms and  Colonial  life. 

xiv-f  403  pages.    $2.50 

CHAUCER  AND  HIS  POETRY.  By 
George  Lyman  Kittredge.  Chaucer  is 
here  treated  xs  a  lover  of  mankind  who 
sees  human  nature  in  all  its  variety,  as  a 
novelist  sees  it  230  pages.    $1.50 

GAWAIN  AND  THE  GREEN 
KNIGHT.  By  George  Lyman  Kitt- 
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ments  of  folk-lore  investigation. 

viii  -j-  232  pages.    $2.75 

SHAKSPERE.  By  George  Lyman  Kitt- 
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54  pages.    65  cents 

COURTLY  LOVE  IN  CHAUCER 
AND  GOWER.  By  Wiixiam  George 
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minating treatment  of  a  large  field. 

viii  -f  257  pages.    $2.50 

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THE  FIRST  DUCHESS  OF  NEW- 
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SONNETS  AND  OTHER  LYRICS. 

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An  oriirln  stud 


AflHgton   and   eplrifiiaUMt 

FTantlleDnlallim,    by    George    Pceaton    Milni 

[AblDBdon].    A  ntaative  argument. 
A   China   of   Wttnewea.    "-     ' 

[DDtton],    Record*  0/ (., 

Kulflon  Amoag  Amertcan  MeD    [Aiaoclatlan]. 

A  eommltttt  rtport. 
Storiea  for   Tslka  to  Bofs,  b;   F. 

(Animcliitltm!.     IXtM'tT^tiv'  telpct'on*. 
Tb»    Worst    Buys    1q   Toku,    by   Ji 

[Strutfurct].     Aidmirt  UH  filbl.    ,<»... 
Pagui  anil   Cbrlsllaii   ('FiM^ds,   by   Eilward  Cat' 

penter  fHan™       ■        '  "    '- 

Su     Thniophlc 

tSnopd.     A    tlth-eenturv  ..."..-o. 
The  AntlchrlBt.   by  F.   W.   Nietsachc    [KnopfJ. 

A  tTunilatlon  bv  H.  V.  Menrkn. 
Tout   Pajchlc   Powers   and    How    to   Develop 

Tlipin,      by      Ilereward      Carrlngtou      [Dodd. 

Mrad  1 .     Suirif  rstf  ona. 
Hamanlsm    In     New    BoKland    Thcilofiy,    by 

Oeorice  A.  Gordon  [Hounhton].  An  e»»aK. 
Qold.  FrnnklncenBe  and  Myrrb.  by  Balpb  Adami 

Cram  [Morshall  Jnneai.     A  pleajor  ntie  Ufe. 
From     Bondaee     lo     Liberty    In     Rellgloil,    by 

Georttf    T.    Aabl(^y    [Beacon).      PerioniU    ex 

ptrienet. 
A  Natlooal  SyBtem   of  Bdacstlon.   by   Walter 


.  Cheley 
HIU 


BDhme 


JP»"°l-„ 


PTMbyterlBIi    Handbook,    1920    [Prea] 


cation 


Pub.).      Facta  abtml  chunk    

BnlUtlDB  for  Chrlat  and  tbe  Church    by  How 
-     '^  -  .       .         [Aaaoclatlon]       Sfoil- 


nw¥rl( 


%.':: 


if  Peace,  by  Erneet  i 


A   Commentary   < 


,   Paul's   Epistle  to  the 


LiTtng 


cation 


r    William 


d  and  tbe  Siruegle  for  Bilstenee.  ed.  by  B. 

.    H.  Streeter  [Association].     Fivr  papcrt. 
Fmm   the   CfohiicI   to   the  Creeds,  by   ""' 

I^nrence  Runivan    [Beacon],     A  ninrir. 
Oatspoken    Eitaays.    hv    WUtlam    Ralpb    Inge 

[umKniansl.     Social  and  rflialoua  papers. 
The  Cbrjsllan  Year  In   Hlinian  Slory.  by  Jane 

T.  StoddarC   [DoranJ.     Krrmon  mateHal. 
The  Lord   of    l.ltB   and    Dpath,    by    Rev,    J,    D, 

JoDea  [Doran].     Sermons  on  Chrlit'i  Hie. 

Mlicellaneoui 

Financial  Independence  at  Fifty,  by  Victor  de 
Timers:  The  A  B  C  ot  Bond  BnylDR.  by 
G.  a.  Rplden  [The  Hag.  ot  WaU  St.]  Tmo 
handlxioki. 


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PURPOSE 


Noteworthy 
Publications 


Religion  Among  American  Men 

As  revealed  by  a  searching  study  of  con- 
ditions in  the  American  army. 

.  First-hand  information  on  the  real  attitude 
of  the  American  soldier  to  Christian  life  and 
organized  Christianity.  A  challenge  to  the 
Church.  Cloth,  $1.50 

The  material  for  this  book  was  gathered 
under  direction  of  the  "Committee  on  the 
War  and  the  Religious  Outlook". 

The  Army  and  Religion 

Edited  by  D.  S.  C  AIRNS»  D.D. 

Preface  by  the  Bishop  of  Winchester 

Perhaps,  as  never  before,  the  British  Army 
during  the  Great  War  represented  a  sort  of 
cross-section  of  the  nation's  life.  Here,  then, 
was  an  exceptional  opportunity  for  an  en- 
lightening analysis  of  an  army  that  repre- 
sented the  life  of  the  men  of  the  nation  it- 
self. 

"It  would  be  difficult  to  present  the  re- 
ligious revelation  and  result  of  the  war  more 
skillfully  and  judiciously  than  they  are  pre- 
sented in   this  report."  —  Robert   E.  Speer. 

Cloth,  $2.00 

God  and  the  Struggle  for 
Existence  B.  H.  streeter 

A  simple,  straightforward  assertion,  based 
on  both  biology  and  history,  of  the  solid 
grounds  we  have  for  "the  larger  hope** — a 
reaffirmation  in  these  days  of  persistent  ques- 
tioning, of  the  fundamental  relation  of  God 
to  the  universe  and  to  the  individual  life. 

Cloth,  $1.50 

That  One  Face,  Richard  Roberts 

A  series  of  reading  studies  for  twelve  weeks 
marked  by  spiritual  insight,  intellectual  keen- 
ness and  literary  skill,  which  show  the  dis- 
tinctive impressions  made  by  Jesus  on  ten  of 
the  world's  great  poets  and  prophets  and  thus 
"help  men  and  women  to  reach  a  true  judg- 
ment   about   Jesus"    for    themselves. 

Cloth,  $1.25 

Between  Two  Worlds 

JOHN  HESTON  WILLEY 

"The  Great  Adventure"  has  called  millions 
of  young  men  in  the  past  few  years,  giving 
new  emphasis  to  the  old  questions  of  death 
and  the  hereafter.  This  fearless  and  uncon- 
ventional discussion  throws  a  renewed  light 
from  the  Bible  on  some  of  the  eternal  mvs- 
teries.  Cloth,  $L25 

Ask  your  bookstore  or  write  to  us 


Association  Press 

347  Madison  Avenue,  NEW  YORK 


Liberty  and  the  News,  by  Walter  Lippan 
[Harcourt].     Papers  on  the  tree  press. 

Natural  Food  and  Care  for  Child  and  MoCte, 
by  Susan  Harding  Uummler  [Kand  McNiUly]. 
Detailed  suggestions. 

The  Human  Form  Divine,  by  GenevieTe  Bn^ 
[Four  Seas].  Facts  about  tnental  imfs- 
ence. 

The  Binstein  Theory  of  Relativity,  by  H.  A. 
Lorenta    FBrentanol.     An  explanatiom. 

Report  of  toe  Librarian  of  Coni^ess  for  Ifll 
[Gov.  Print.  Office].    A  tabulation. 

Morning  Knowledge,  by  Alastair  SkauMS 
[Longmans].    Philosophical  reflections. 

Lectures  on  Modern  Idealism,  by  Joslah  Rofee 
[Yale].    Studies  of  Kant  and  others. 

Palmer  Plan  Handboolc  [Palmer  Photopkr 
Corp.].     A  manual  of  photoplay  ioritiuo. 

An  Bthical  System  Based  on  the  Laws  of  Ni* 
ture,  by  M.  Deshumbert  [Open  Court],  i 
translation  from  the  French. 

The  Lure  of  the  Pen,  by  Flora  KUckmasa 
[Putnam].     Suggestions  for  the   writer. 

International  Waterways,  by  Paul  Morgis 
Ogilvie  [Macmillan].     A  reference  book. 

Bobbins  of  Belgium,  by  Charlotte  Kellogf 
[Funk].    An  account  of  the  lace  industrif. 

Psychoanalysis,  by  Andr4  Tridon  [Huebecb]. 
An  exposition  for  the  layman. 

Selling  Your  Services,  by  George  Conover  P«a^  i 
son    [Jordan-Goodwin].     Helpful   hints. 

How  to  Speak  Without  Notes ;  Somethlni?  to 
Say:  How  to  Say  It;  Successful  Methodf 
of  Public  Speaking;  Model  Speeches  for 
Practise;  The  Training  of  a  Public  Speak- 
er ;  How  to  Sell  Through  Speech ;  Im- 
promptu Speeches;  How  to  Make  Them: 
Word-Power :  How  to  Develop  It ;  Christ : 
The  Master  Speaker;  Vital  English  for 
Speakers  and  Writers,  by  Glenville  Kleiser 
[Funk].     Ten  handbooks. 

The  Natural  History  of  the  Child,  by  Courte- 
nay  Dunn   [Lane].     An  historical  survey. 

Handbook  for  Comrades ;  Manual  for  Leaders 
[Association].     Boys*  recreational  program*. 

The  Model  T  Ford  Car,  by  Victor  W.  Vs^ 
[Henley].     An  illustrated  1920  manual. 

Juvenile 

The  Garnet  Story  Bo(»k,  o<!.  by  Ada  and  Eleanor 

Skinner   [Duffiold].     An  anthology. 
Carlta's    New    World,    by    Lucy    M.    BlanchaH 

[PaRe].     A   Mexican  girl's   V.   S.   exprrienet. 
Swatty,    by    Ellis    Parker    Butler    [Iluughtoo]. 

Boys*  adventures  on  the  Mississippi. 
The  Cart  of  Many  Colors,  by  Nannine  LaVilU 

Meiklejohn   [DuttonJ.     An  Italian  tale. 
A  Staircase  of  Stories,  ed.  by  Louey  Chisholm 

and  Amy  Steednian  [Putnam].     Graded  tale*. 


Referring  to  the  World's  Classics 
edition  of  "The  Life  of  Charlotte 
Bronte",  which  completes  Mrs.  Gas- 
kell's  works  in  this  form,  "The  Athe- 
naeum" commends  the  "admirable  in- 
troduction by  Clement  Shorter,  doubly 
valuable  because  it  contains  the  text 
of  an  unpublished  letter  by  Mrs.  Gas- 
kell  which  gives  an  even  more  vivid 
picture  of  the  tragic  household  of  the 
Brontes  than  any  to  be  found  in  her 
book.  The  letter  is  a  masterpiece  of 
quick  and  passionate  apprehension, 
and,  if  only  for  the  reason  that  the 
letter  is  contained  in  it,  the  new  edi- 
tion of  the  book  is  bound  to  supersede 
the  old." 


Please  mention  Tub  Bookman  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


'ttE  collectors' GUIDE 


In  this  section  the  readers  of  THE  BOOKMAN  will 
find  the  latest  announcements  of  reliable  dealers  In 
Rare  Books,  Manuscripts,  Autographs  and  Prints.  It 
will  be  well  to  look  over  this  section  careful'y  each 
month,  for  the  adTertlsements  will  be  frequently, 
changed,  and  items  of  interest  to  collectors  will  be 
offered  here.  All  these  dealers  Invite  correspondence. 


The  sale  of  the  second  portion  of 
the  collection  of  illuminated  manu- 
scripts and  fifteenth-century  books 
printed  on  vellum,  the  property  of 
Henry  Yates  Thompson,  editor  of 
"The  London  Daily  Mail",  was  the 
outstanding  event  of  the  book  auction 
world  in  the  month  of  March.  This 
sale  included  only  twenty-six  illumi- 
nated manuscripts  and  eight  fifteenth- 
century  books,  fourteen  lots  consisting 
of  English  manuscripts  several  of 
which  are  of  distinguished  ownership. 
A  volume  containing  various  works  of 
Cassiodorus  and  Seneca,  written  about 
A.  D.  1200,  was  once  Uie  property  of 
Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  Lord  Keeper  of  the 
Great  Seal  under  Queen  Elizabeth.  A 
Psalter  of  John  of  Gaunt,  about  1360, 
subsequently  belonged  to  Henry  VI  or 
his  wife,  Margaret  of  Anjou,  and  af- 
terward to  John  Stafford,  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury  and  the  first  "Lord 
Chancellor",  Many  of  the  manuscripts 
come  from  great  collections,  like  those 
of  the  Due  de  Berri  and  the  scarcely 
less  famous  collector,  Prigent  de  Coe- 
tivy.  Admiral  of  France,  (1400-1450). 
A  Book  of  Hours  made  for  Dionora, 
Duchess  of  Urbino,  in  the  early  six- 
teenth century,  is  a  beautiful  memento 
of  that  paragon  of  all  the  virtues  who 
was  described  by  Castiglione  as  unit- 
ing "wisdom,  grace,  beauty,  genius, 
courtesy,  gentleness,  and  refined  man- 
ners". A  manuscript  that  belonged  to 
such  a  person  is  worth  having. 


light  and  the  appearance  of  copies 
which  heretofore  have  been  known 
only  through  references  aid  materially 
to  the  straightening  out  of  the  bibli- 
ography of  this  oft-printed  little 
"Bible  of  New  England".  The  latest 
"find"  is  of  a  copy  of  "The  Royal 
Primer  Improved :  Being  an  easy  and 
pleasant  Guide  to  the  Art  of  Heading", 
printed  at  Philadelphia  and  sold  by 
James  Chattin,  in  Church  Alley,  1753. 
A  second  edition  of  this  is  mentioned 
by  bibliographers  who  had  evidently 
never  seen  a  copy,  their  quotation  of 
the  title  being  taken  from  a  newspaper 
advertisement.  This  copy  was  sold  at 
Anderson's  recently. 


New  issues  of  "The  New  England 
Primer"    are    constantly    coming    to 


George  Watson  Cole,  librarian  of 
the  Henry  E.  Huntington  private  li- 
brary, has  laid  a  ghost,  that  has  trou- 
bled bibliographers  for  more  than  two 
hundred  years.  The  old  play  of  "The 
Bloody  Banquet",  by  "T,  B,",  is  cred- 
ited with  the  date  1620  by  many  bib- 
liographers since  the  days  of  Lang- 
baine  (1681).  But  the  title-page  was 
larger  than  the  work  itself,  and  in 
binding  many  of  the  copies  have  had 
the  lower  line,  which  reads :  "Printed 
for  Thomas  Cotes,  1639",  cut  off.  In 
the  British  Museum  copy  reprinted  in 
the  "Tudor  Facsimile  Texts",  the 
binder  has  trimmed  the  bottom  so 
close  that  only  the  upper  part  of  the 
Old  English  3  and  the  circle  of  the  9 
remain.  As  in  all  copies  in  which  the 
imprint  remains  intact,  the  date  is 
1639,  Mr.  Cole  concludes  that  this  was 
the  only  edition  of  this  work,  and  that 


u  Till  BooKUAN  In  wrli 


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the  1620  edition  is  a  msrth.  The  mat- 
ter is  interesting  as  showing  the  pit- 
falls which  are  constitntly  in  the  path 
of  the  bibliographer. 


The  purchase  of  the  Shakespearian 
library  of  Marsden  J.  Perry  of  Provi- 
dence by  the  Rosenbach  Company  of 
Philadelphia  resulted  in  another  rec- 
ord price — in  this  case  the  highest 
price  ever  paid  for  a  printed  book. 
This  was  a  sum  approaching  one  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  for  what  is 
known  as  the  "Edward  Gwynn  Shake- 
speare''. This  is  the  first  collected  edi- 
tion of  the  great  dramatist's  plays, 
issued  in  quarto  four  years  before  the 
First  Folio  of  1623.  It  contains  ten 
of  the  quarto  plays,  with  varying 
dates  on  the  title-pages,  but  there  is 
strong  evidence  that  these  were 
printed  at  the  same  time  and  issued 
as  a  collected  edition  in  1619.  It  is 
believed  that  several  volumes  of  this 
kind  were  in  existence  a  century  ago, 
but  that  they  were  broken  up,  the  only 
surviving  example  being  the  Marsden 
J.  Perry  copy,  which  once  belonged 
to  Edward  Gwynn,  an  English  col- 
lector. The  volume,  within  a  few 
days  after  the  library  was  bought  en 
bloc,  passed  into  the  possession  of  H. 
C.  Folger,  the  Shakespearian  collector. 
It  now  ranks  as  the  highest-priced 
book  ever  sold,  but  if  a  vellum  copy  of 
the  Gutenberg  Bible  were  to  come  into 
the  market  tomorrow  there  might  be 
another  new  record.  It  is  noticeable, 
however,  that  Shakespeare,  both  in 
the  auction  room  and  the  bookstore,  is 
now  the  world's  **best  seller". 

First  Editions  of  Modem  Authors 

Books  on  Art 

French  Literature 

Modem  Etchings  and  Lithographs 

Gs/alognes  Fre» 

F.  R  NEUMAYER 

70  Charing  Cross  Road,  Loodoo.  W.  C  2,  Etag. 


Ploase  moutiun  The  Bookman  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


BRIEF   MENTION   OF   NEW   BOOKS 


Two  books  about  the  late  Sir  Her- 
bert Tree,  are  reported  to  be  forth- 
coming. One  is  said  to  be  the  "of- 
ficial" life  of  Sir  Herbert  written 
by  his  renowned  brother,  Max  Beer- 
bohm,  with  contributions  by  George 
Bernard  Shaw  and  others  who  knew 
the  many-sided  actor  knight;  the 
other,  a  book  or  reminiscences  of  him 
by  G.  Dickson  Kenwin,  one  of  his 
closest  friends.  A  collected  edition  of 
Max  Beerbohm's  works  will  soon  be 
issued  by  a  New  York  firm. 


An  English  book  reviewer  of  Mr. 
Wells's  "Outlines  of  History"  which 
has  been  appearing  in  parts  in  Eng- 
land, cannot  understand  why  this  form 
of  book  publication  has  never  been 
adopted  in  America.  Why  not,  he 
says,  when  the  subscription  book  and 
all  sorts  of  instalment-plan  payments 
are  in  vogue  in  America?  The  ex- 
planation is  that  it  is  entirely  a  mat- 
ter of  temperament.  An  American  re- 
fuses to  take  care  of  infinitesimal  pa- 
per-bound sections  of  a  work  later  to 
be  bound.  On  the  other  hand  the  com- 
plete set,  bound  and  delivered  to  his 
order,  appeals  to  his  common  sense. 
By  the  way,  "Outlines  of  History"  will 
be  brought  out  in  two  volumes  next 
autumn  by  a  New  York  firm. 


A  recent  marconigram  from  Gilbert 
Frankau  to  his  American  publishers 
retailing  the  London  success  of  his 
novel  "Peter  Jameson",  read: 

Potor  in  fifth  printiiiK-  Sw  Luke,  chapter 
ten,  verse  thirty-seven.  (Go  thou  and  do  like- 
wise.) 

To  which  a  reply  was  promptly  cabled : 

See  Helirews.  chapter  six.  verse  three.  (And 
this  wiJI  we  do  if  Ood  permit.) 


BRIEF  MENTION  OF  NEW  BOOKS 


Fiction 

The  Eye  <»f  Zeitoon.  i»y  Talhot  Mundy  IBobbsJ. 
An  Atmcninn  mystery  talv. 

t'ome-on  ('harley,  by  Thomas  Addison  [Bobbs]. 
A   reputed   millionnire's  adventures. 

Some  of  Us  Are  Married.  Iiy  Mary  Stewart  Cut- 
ting [Doubleday].     J^ove  stories. 

The  La  Chance  Mine  Mystery,  by  S.  Carletou 
1  Little).     A  Canadian  miner's  romance. 

The  Chinese  Laliel.  by  .1.  Frank  Davis  [Little]. 
.1  tale  of  stolen  diamonds. 

Tutt  and  Mr.  Tiitt,  l»y  Arthur  Train  [ScribuerJ. 
Kxperienees  o/  a  law  firm. 

At  Kame's  (Gateway,  by  Jennie  Irene  Mix 
I  Holt].     A  pianist's  New  York  romance. 

The  Cresting  Wave,  by  Ed^win  Batcman  Morris 
[Penn].     A  youth's  business  career. 

Skinner  Makes  It  Fashionable,  by  Henry  Irving 
Dodge  [Harper].     A  suburban  tale. 

The  Komantic  Woman,  by  Mary  Borden 
[Knopf].  A  story  of  an  Anglo-American 
marritiye. 

Peter  .Jameson,  by  (Mlbert  Frankau  [Knopf]. 
A  study  of  modem  English  married  life. 

Paddie,  by  Emily  Dudley  Wright  [Stratford]. 
A  young  governess's  love  affairs. 

Two  Bubbles,  by  John  Temple  Graves,  Jr. 
[Stratford].     A  wartime  romance. 

Sailor  Girl,  by  Frederick  F.  Moore  [Appleton]. 
Adventures  of  a  girl  steamship  owner. 

Woman  Triumphant,  by  Vicente  Blasco  Ib&fiez 
[Dutton].     A   tipanish  artist's  story. 

The  Golden  Scorpion,  by  Sax  Rohmcr  [Mc- 
Brlde].     Machinations  of  a  criminal  band. 

Marqueray's  Duel,  by  Anthony  Pryde  [Mc- 
Bride].     Am  aftencar  political  English  novel. 

The  Portygee.  by  Joseph  C.  Lincoln  [Appleton]. 
A  Cape  Cod  romance. 

A  Cry  of  Youth,  by  Cynthia  Lombardi  [Apple- 
ton].     An  American  girl's  Italian  love  story. 

The  Duke  of  Chimney  Butte,  by  G.   W.  Ogd^n 
[McClurg].      A    tenderfoot's    western   adveu 
tures. 

In  Lincoln's  Chair,  by  Ida  M.  Tarliell  [Mac- 
millan].     A  colloquial  sketch  of  Lincoln. 

Sheepskins  and  (irey  Kusset,  by  B.  Temple 
Thurston   [Putnam].     A  farming  experiment. 

Scrambled  Eggs,  by  Lawton  Mackall  [Stewart 
and  Kidd].     A  barnyard  allegory. 

The  Great  Accident  ,l)y  Ben  Ames  Williams 
[Macmillan].  A  political  reformer's  experi- 
ences. 

Hills  of  Han,  by  Samuel  Merwin  [Bobbs].  Ro- 
mantic adventures  in  China. 

Outside  Inn.  by  Ethel  M.  Kelley  [Bobbs].  A 
girl's  experiment  with  a  teashop. 

The  Gate  of  Fulfillment.  I)y  Knowles  Uidsdale 
[Putnam].     A  secretary's  romance. 

Time  and  Eternity,  by  (iilbert  Cannan  [Doran]. 
A  story  of  exiles  in  bohemian  London. 

The  Explorer,  by  W.  Somerset  Maugham 
[Doran].     A  tale  of  love  and  family  pride. 

The  Loom  of  Youth,  by  Alec  Waugh  [Doran]. 
An  Englinh  schoolboy's  narrative. 

Love  and  Mr.  Lewisham,  by  H.  G.  Wells 
[Doran].     A  youthful  scholar's  story. 

Blacksheep !  Blacksheep !  by  Meredith  Nichol- 
son [Scribner].  A  society  man's  underworld 
experiences. 

One  Hundred  Best  Novels  Condensed,  ed.  by 
Edwin  A.  (Jrozier,  4  vols.  [Harper].  An  il- 
lustrated collection  with  biographical  sketches. 

Claudio  Grazlnnl.  by  Silvio  Villa  [Brentano]. 
A  short  war  sketch. 

Ships  Across  the  Sea,  l>y  Ralph  D.  Paine 
[Houghton].     American  navy  tales. 

The  Doctor  of  Pimlico.  by  William  I^Quex 
[Macaulay].     A   tale  of  double  personalities. 

Glory  Rides  the  Range,  by  Ethel  and  James 
Dorrance  [Macaulay].  A  western  girl's  ad- 
ventures. 

The  Secret  of  Sarek,  by  Mauric  LeBIanc  [Ma- 
caulay).    An  Arsene  Lupin  mystery. 


11 


THE  BOOKMAN 


A   Son   of  Courage,   by   Archie   P.    McKlshnie 

[Reilly   &   Lee].      Canadian    oil-field   adven- 
tures. 
The   Bride   in   Black,   by   Lillia   Shaw    Hii8tc<1 

[Pour  Seas].     A  story  of  forced  marriage. 
Wanted :     A     Husband,    by    Samuel     Hopkins 

Adams  [Houghton].     A  plain  girVs  romance. 
The  Cream  of  the  Jest,  by  James  Branch  Cabell 

[McBride].     The  story  of  a  novelist. 
Many  Junes,  by  Archibald  Marshall  [Dodd].   A 

novel  of  English  family  life. 
Harvest,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  [Dodd].     An 

English  tooman  farmer's  experiences. 
Visions  and  Beliefs  in  the  West  of  Ireland,  by 

Lady  Gregory,  2  vols.    [Putnam].     Folklore. 
Jane,    by    Anna    Alice    Chapin    [Putnam].      A 

young  actress's  romance. 
His  Priend  and  His  Wife^  by  Cosmo  Hamilton 

[Little].    A  tale  of  society  scandals. 
The   Voice   of   the   Pack,   by   Edison    Marshall 

[Little].     Oregon  adventures. 
Passion,    by    Shaw    Desmond    [Scribner].      An 

English  novel  of  love  and  business. 
The  Real  Diary  of  the  Worst  Farmer,  by  Henry 

A.  Shute  [Houghton].     Rural  experiments. 
The     Nut     Cracker,     by     Frederic     S.     Isham 

[Bobbs].     A  venture  in  impersonation. 
Iron  Cousins,  by  Mrs.  Alfred  Sidgwick  [Watt]. 

An   English   governess's   German   experience. 
The  Passon  for  Life,  by  Joseph  Hocking   [Re- 

vcll].    A  supposedly  dying  man's  romance. 
Sarah    and    Her    Daughter,    by    Bertha    Pearl 

[Seltser].     A  story  of  Neto  York's  Ghetto. 

Poetry 

Something  Else  Again,  by  Franklin   P.  Adams 

[Doubleday].     Humorous  verse. 
Poems  of  John   R.  Thompson,  ed.   by  John  S. 

Patton  [Scribner].     Civil  War  time  poems. 
Nowadays,  by  I^rd  Dunsany  [Pour  Seas].     An 

essay  on  the  poet. 
The  Bomber  Gypsy,  by  A.  P.  Herbert  [Knopf]. 

Wartime  songs. 
The    Roamer.    by    George    Kdward    Woodberry 

[Harcourt].     Narrative,  lyrics  and  sonnets. 
A    Prisoner    of    Pentonviilo,    by    "Red    Band" 

[Putnam].     Introspective  prison  poems. 
Dlnntha  Goes  the  Primrose  Way,  by  Adelaide 

Manola  Hughes  [Harper).     Free-verse  lyrics. 
Others    for    1919,    od.    by    Alfred    Kreymborg 

[Nicholas  L.  Brown].     A  recent  anthology. 
DroBsing  Gowns  and  Glue,  by  L.  deQ.  Sievelcing 

[Harcourt J.     Humorous  verse  illustrated. 
Songs    and    Portraits,    by    Maxwell    Stnithors 

Burt  [Scribner].     Lyrics  and  sketches. 
Lancelot,  by  Edwin   Arlington   Robinson    [Selt- 
zer].    An  Arthurian  legend. 
Tho   Five   Books   of   Youth,   by   Robert    Hillyer 

[Brentano].      i^k'rlehes,   lyrics,   and   sonnets. 
Fleurs-de-lys,   trans,  and  od.   by   Wilfred   Thor- 

ley  [Houghton].     A  French  anthology. 
My  Commonplace   Book.  col.   by  J.   T.    Hackett 

[London:    Fisher   Unwin].      Quotations. 
For    Reraenibranco :     Soldier    Poets   Who    Have 

Fallen   in   the   War.   by   A.   St.   John   Adcock 

[Doran].     An  enlarged  illustrated  edition  of 

the  anthology. 
The  Well  of  Being,   by   Herbert  Jones    [Lane]. 

-4  narrative  and  love  sonnets. 
The  Spacious  Times,  by  Francis  Coutts  [Lune]. 

Wartime  reflections. 

Biography 

Mrs.   (iladstone,   by  Mary  Drew    [Putnam].     A 

daughter's  memoir. 
From  Friend  to  Friend,  by  Ijidy  Ritchie  [Dut- 

tonj.      lieminiseenceH   of   Thackeray's  daugh- 
ter. 
Mercier.  Iiy  Charl<»tte  Kellogg   [.\ppleton].     An 

aeeouiit  of  the  CardinaVn  life  and  work. 
'J'he  Life  of  I^f^onard  Wood,  by  John  G.   Holme 

I  Doubleday] .     A  record  of  activities. 
The  Life  <»f  General  Williom  Booth,  by  Harold 

Begbie,   2   vols.    [Macmillan].      The  story   of 

the  Snlration  .Army's  founder. 


A  contributor  to  an  English  maga- 
zine finds  food  for  speculation  as  to 
what  a  novelist  should  read,  and  quotes 
Meredith  Nicholson  as  thinking  that 
reading  of  fiction  is  unprofitable  for 
professional  writers  of  it:  "I  only 
read  three  novels  a  year,  chosen  for 
me  by  my  wife.  I  prefer  to  read  social 
and  political  discussion,  biography, 
and  poetry." 


Something  of  a  departure  in  a  book- 
store is  the  Brick  Row  Bookshop,  a 
New  Haven  store  which  is  just  open- 
ing a  branch  in  New  York.  All  kinds 
of  books,  old  and  new,  rare  and  popu- 
lar, are  offered  for  sale  in  rooms  that 
aim  to  achieve  the  atmosphere  of  an 
exclusive  club  library.  Booklovers  are 
always  welcome  to  drop  in  and  browse 
in  the  well-stored  alcoves  without  feel- 
ing that  anyone  will  try  to  force  them 
to  buy  anything.  It  will  offer  a  pleas- 
ant place  to  drop  into  before  or  after  a 
matinee  or  at  any  leisure  hour,  and  is 
conveniently  accessible  in  its  new 
quarters  in  the  centre  of  the  city. 


An  English  newspaper  finds  ma- 
terial for  a  sensational  literary  scan- 
dal in  the  breach  between  Henry 
James  and  H.  G.  Wells  as  recorded  in 
the  H.  J.  letters — the  only  occasion  in 
this  voluminous  letter  writing  when 
James  shows  himself  wounded  by  the 
act  of  another.  James  had  praised 
Wells's  work — an  admiration  casually 
recorded  by  Rebecca  West  in  her  not- 
able study  "Henry  James"  in  the 
Writers  of  the  Day  series — in  letter 
after  letter,  calling  him  "the  most  in- 
teresting and  masterful  prose  painter 

of  your  English  generation Your 

big  feeling  for  life,  your  capacity  for 
chewing  up  the  thickness  of  the  world 
in  such  enormous  mouthf uls . . .  this 
constitutes  for  me  a  rare  and  admira- 
ble exhibition  on  your  part.. . .     Your 


BRIEF  MENTION   OF  NEW  BOOKS 


111 


temper  and  your  hand  form  one  of  the 
choicest  treasures  of  our  time."  After 
years  of  such  intercourse,  imagine 
James  in  his  last  failing  days  receiv- 
ing as  a  gift  from  Wells  his  novel 
"Boon"  and  finding  here  a  parody  of 
his  own  style  which  struck  him  like  a 
blow  in  the  face.  Wells  ignored  the 
hurt  and  merely  wrote :  "Writing  that 
stuff  about  you  was  the  first  escape  I 
had  from  the  obsession  of  this  war." 
"Boon"  was  "just  a  waste-paper  bas- 
ket". 

The  London  "Daily  News"  regrets 
that  James  let  "Boon"  make  him  so 
very  cross  and  throw  him  into  such  an 
unforgiving  mood : 

We  wiMh  for  hiH  own  sake  that  he  had 
laughed  at  the  hlHtory  of  "Mutineer",  the  once 
perfect  hutler  whose  tray  is  carried  at  a  more 
and  more  precarious  angle  as  "the  plot  thiclc- 
ens".  The  skit  is  rather  a  dangerous  extension 
of  private  Joys  into  iful)llc  life ;  but  Henry 
James  need  not  have  turned  quite  such  an 
awful  face  upon  Mr.  Wells's  gamlneries.  There 
is  a  touch  of  the  convert's  «eal  in  this  concep- 
tion of  courtliness....  The  truth  Is  Henry 
James  felt  the  art  of  literature  to  be  assailed  in 
his  person....  That  is  the  chief  cause  of  his 
quarrel  with  "Boon"  and  with  Mr.  Kipling's 
"Stalky  and  Co."  They  were  disrespectful. 
They  did  not  remove  their  hats  in  the  presence 
of  the  Muse. 


"The  most  inveterate  player  is  the 
beaver  (says  Enos  Mills  in  his  re- 
cently published  "Adventures  of  a  Na- 
ture Guide"),  who,  we  have  been  led 
to  believe,  is  always  very  busy.  Every 
summer  he  has  a  vacation  of  three 
months  or  more,  and  loafs  most  of  any 
animal  in  the  woods.  He  plays  much 
and  often  and  is  the  master  of  the  fine 
art  of  rest." 


An  interesting  instance  of  literary 
activity  in  one  family  in  two  distinct 
fields,  is  found  in  the  case  of  Dr.  E.  Y. 
Mullins,  President  of  the  Southern 
Baptist  Theological  Seminary,  and  his 
wife,  Isla  May  Mullins.     Dr.  Mullins 


Woodrow  Wilson  and  His  Work,  by  William  E. 
Dodd  [Doubleday].     A  study  of  policif. 

Reminiscences  of  a  Boy  in  Blue,  1862-1865,  by 
Henry  Murray  Calvert  [Putnam].  A  narra- 
tive. 

Presidents  and  Pies,  by  Isabel  Anderson 
.[Houghton J.  Incidt'Uta  of  Washington  so- 
ciety. 

Alexander  Hamilton,  by  Hetiry  Jones  Ford ; 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  by  Louis  How  land 
[Scribner].  Two  volumes  in  the  ^'Figures 
from  American  History"  series. 

That  Human  Being,  Leonard  Wood,  by  Her- 
mann Hagedorn  [Harcourt].  A  personality 
study. 

History  and  Political  Science 

A  Short  History  of  the  Italian  People,  by  Janet 
Penrose  Trevelyan  [Putnam].  A  narrative 
to  1870. 

The  Rebirth  of  Korea,  by  Hugh  Heung-Wo 
Oynn  [Abingdon].     A  history  of  recent  events. 

Parliament  and  Revolution,  by  J.  Ramsay  Mac- 
donald  [Scott].     A  study  of  democracy. 

The  Story  of  a  Common  Soldier  of  Army  Life 
in  the  Civil  War.  by  Leander  Stillwell  [pub. 
at  Erie,  Kan.].     An  illustrated  narrative. 

The  Mailing  of  a  Nation,  by  Wentworth  Stew- 
art  [Stratford].     An  Americanization  study. 

Have  We  a  Far  Eastern  Policy?  by  ("harles  II. 
SherriU    [Scribner].      Personal   observations. 

Phases  of  Corruption  in  Roman  Administration 
in  the  Last  Half-Century  of  the  Roman  Re- 
public, by  Richard  Orlando  Jolliffe  [Menasha, 
Wis.:    Banta].     A  dissertation. 

Primitive  Society,  by  Robert  II.  liowie  [Bonil. 
An  economic  and  social  study. 

On  the  Trail  of  the  Pioneers,  by  John  T.  Farls 
[Doran].  An  account  of  settlements  west  of 
the  Alleghenics. 

Intervention  in  Mexico,  by  Samuel  Guy  Inman 
[Doran].     Interpretation  and  suggestion. 

The  Conquest  of  the  Old  Southwest,  by  Archi- 
bald Henderson  [Century].  A  narrative  of 
American  pioneers. 

The  Art  of  Fighting,  by  Rear- Admiral  Bradley 
A.  Fislce  [Century].     A  history. 

Drama 

The  Passing  of  the  Kings,  by  Nina  B.  I>amlcin 
[Denison].     An  historical  pageant. 

The  One-Act  Play  in  Colleges  and  High  Schools, 
by  B.  Roland  Lewis  [Univ.  of  Utah].  A 
paper  with  bibliography. 

A  Book  of  Marionettes,  by  Helen  Haiman  Jo- 
seph  [Huebsch].     An  illustrated  history. 

The  Death  of  Titian,  by  Hugo  Von  Hofmanns- 
thal  [Four  Seas].     An  incident  in  verse. 

Ten  Plays,  by  David  Pinski  [Huebsch].  Yid- 
dish one-act  plays  translated. 

Masks,  by  George  Middleton  [Holt].  One-act 
plays  of  modem  American  life. 

The  Contemporarv  Drama  of  France,  by  Frank 
W.  Chandler  [Little].     1000  plays  analyzed. 

Beyond  the  Horizon,  by  Eugene  O'Neill  [BoniJ. 
A  romantic  youth's  disillusionment. 

Essays  and  Literary  Studies 

An  Essay  Toward  a  History  of  Shakespeare  in 
Denmark,  by  Martin  B.  Rudd  [Univ.  of 
Minn.].     A  monograph. 

The  Way  of  My  Heart  ahd  Mind,  by  T.  Carl 
Whitmer  [Pittsburgh  Print  Co.].  Musical 
comments  and  others. 

We  Moderns,  by  Edwin  Muir  [Knopf].  A  criti- 
cism of  the  modem  arts. 

The  Bad  Results  of  Good  Habits  and  Other 
Lapses,  by  J.  Edgar  Park  [Houghton].  Kv- 
ftections  on  so-called  good  people. 

In  Winter  Quarters,  by  Alvin  Howard  San- 
ders [Chicago :  Breeder's  Gazette] .  Thoughts 
on  nature  and  other  themes. 

Early  Theories  of  Translation,  by  Flora  Ross 
Amos  [Columb.  Univ.].  A  study  of  English 
writers. 


IV 


THE  BOOKMAN 


Common 


Moments  with  Mark  Twain,  selected  by  Albert 
Bigelow  Paine   [Harper].     Brief  excerpts. 

Leader  of  Men,  by  Robert  Gordon  Anderson 
[Putnam].     An  appreciation  of  Roosevelt. 

The  Old  Humanities  and  the  New  Science,  by 
Sir  William  Osier  [Houghton].     An  address. 

Sociology  and  Economics 

The  Joke  About  Housing,  by  Charles  Harris 
Whitaker  [Marshall  Jones].     An  inquiry. 

The  Paris  Bourse  and  French  Finance,  by  Wil 
liam   Parker    [Columb.   Univ.].     A   compara- 
tii^e  study. 

Agricultural  Prices,  by  Henry  A.  Wallace  [pub. 
at  Des  Moines].    A  statistical  survey. 

Opportunites  in  Engineering,  by  Charles  M. 
Horton  [Harper].     Suggestive  facts. 

A  Short  History  of  the  American  Labor  Move- 
ment, by  Mary. Bears  [Harcourt].     A  surrey. 
ense  and  Labour,   by  Samuel   Crow- 
ther  [Doubleday].    An  outline  of  methods. 

The  American  Bra,  by  H.  H.  Powders  [Macmil- 
lan].     A  consideration  of  present  problems. 

Personal  Beauty  and  Racial  Betterment,  by 
Knight  Dunlap  [St.  Louis:  Mosby].  A  eu- 
genic study. 

Sex  Attraction,  by  Victor  C.  Vaughan  [St. 
Louis:    Mosby].     A  physiological  talk. 

The  Superstition  of  Divorce,  by  Gibert  K.  Ches- 
terton [Lane].     Five  essays. 

War  and  Reconstruction 

A  Short  History  of  the  Great  War.  by  William 
L.  Mcpherson  [Putnam].  A  non-technical 
account. 

The  Descent  of  Bolshevism,  by  Ameen  Rihani 
[Stratford].     A  history  of  early  revolutions. 

How  the  War  Came,  by  The  Earl  of  Loreburn 
[Knopf].     A  British  statesman's  account. 

A  History  of  the  Great  War,  Vol.  II.  by  Ber- 
tram Benedict  [Bureau  of  Natl.  Lit.].  A  nar- 
rative including  the  Peace  Conference. 

In  the  World  War.  by  Count  Ottokar  Czernin 
[Harper].     An  Austrian  minister's  record. 

First  Reflections  on  the  Campaign  of  1018,  by 
R.  M.  Johnston  [Holt].  Observations  on 
America's  military  organization. 

Now  It  Can  Be  Told,  by  Philip  Gibbs  [Harper]. 
Tt^flf*  sketchett 

Alsace  in  Rust  and  Gold,  by  Edith  O'Shaugh- 
nessy  [Harper].     Armistice  events. 

From  Serbia  to  Jugoslavia,  by  Gordon  Gordon- 
Smith   [Putnam].     A  history^  19H-8. 

Bolshevism  at  W^ork,  by  William  T.  Goode 
[Harcourt],     Personal  investigations. 

The  New^  Frontiers  of  Freedom,  by  E.  Alex- 
ander Powell  [Scribner].  Recent  European 
observations. 

A  History  of  the  Great  War,  Vol.  VI.  by  Sir 
Arthur  Conau  Doyle  [Doran].  The  final 
volume. 

Travel 

Further  Incidents  in  the  Life  of  a  Mining  En- 
gineer, by  E.  T.  McCarthy  [DuttonJ.  Ejp- 
periences  in  Asia,  Africa  and  other  regions. 

South  Sea  Foam,  by  A.  Safroni-Middleton 
[Doran].     Polynesian  adventures. 

Religion  and  Spiritualism 

The  Newton  Chapel  [Phila. :  Judson].  Newton 
Theological  Institution  addresses. 

To  Walk  with  God.  by  Anne  W.  Lnne  and  Har- 
riet Blaine  Beale  [Dodd].  Spiritual  com- 
munications. 

Christian  ITiiity,  by  John  B.  Gough  Pidge 
[Anier.  BnptiHt  Pub.  Soc]      A  sermon. 

Psychical  Miscellanea,  by  J.  Arthur  Hill  I  Har- 
court].    Eleven  essayH. 

The  Open  Vision,  by  Horatio  W.  Dresser  [Crow- 
ell].     ,4  study  of  psychic  phenomena. 

A  Better  World,  by  Tyler  Dennett  [Doran].  A 
Hurvey  of  religious  resources  for  pence. 

How  to  Advert isp  n  Church,  by  K.  E.  Elliott 
(Doran J.     Publicity  suggestions. 

Things  Eternal,  by  Rev.  John  Kelman  [Doran]. 
A   collection  of  sermons. 


has  contributed  a  number  of  impor- 
tant books  on  the  subject  of  philos- 
ophy and  theology,  several  of  which 
have  been  translated  into  Chinese, 
Japanese,  Italian,  Spanish,  and  Portu- 
guese. He  is  a  native  of  Mississippi. 
His  wife  is  of  New  England  stock,  al- 
though bom  in  Alabama.  She  is  a 
writer  of  books  for  young  people  and 
is  probably  best  known  through  her 
"Blossom  Shop"  series.  Her  last  vol- 
ume, entitled  'Tweedie'*,  brings  her 
total  of  published  volumes  up  to  eight, 
while  Dr.  Mullins  is  credited  with 
nine — altogether  a  very  sizable  book- 
shelf for  one  writing  family. 


Another  interesting  case  of  literary 
activity  in  a  family  is  that  of  Rupert 
Hughes  and  his  wife,  Adelaide  Manola 
Hughes,  whose  first  book  of  poems 
"Diantha  Goes  the  Primrose  Way"  is 
a  spring  publication.  Mr.  Hughes's 
new  novel  inquires  "What's  the  World 
Coming  To?" 


With  due  acknowledgment  of  inter- 
est, we  print  the  following  letter : 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Bookman  : 

In  The  Bookman  for  April,  an  article  en- 
titled "Walt  Whitman:  Piction  Writer  and 
Poet's  Friend"  contains  several  statements 
which,  while  unimportant  in  themselves,  are  so 
employed  as  to  convey  an  erroneous  impres- 
sion of  Whitman's  relation  to  Hawthorne  and 
Poe.  The  writer  of  the  article  giveH  the 
impression  that  Hawthorne's  "The  Shaker 
Bridal"  and  "Old  Esther  Dudley"  and  Poe's  "A 
Tale  of  the  Ragged  Mountains"  all  first  ap- 
peared in  print  in  *'The  Brooklyn  Dally  Eagle" 
(1846),  of  which  Whitman  was  then  edit<ir. 
As  a  matter  of  fact.  "The  Shalcer  Bridal"  had 
appearwl  in  "The  Tolten"  in  1838,  "Old  Esther 
Dudley"  in  "The  Democratic  Review"  for  Janu- 
ary. 1831),  and  "A  Tale  of  the  RaKge<l 
Mountains"  in  "(iodey's  Lady's  Bool("  (Phila- 
delphia) for  April,  1844.  It  would  be  more 
nearly  accurate  to  say  that  Whitman  Iearne<1 
some  of  his  own  limited  slcill  in  story  writiuK 
from  both  Poe  and  Hawthorne.  He  even  con- 
tributed a  sketch  to  Poe*«  "Broadway  Journal" 
in  1845. 

Very  truly  yours, 

EMORY    hollow  AY 


THE    900KM-^rf    A1>VE»TISEH. 


THE  FUR  BRINGERS 

Br 
HULBERT  FOOTNER 

Juth.>r  of  -riu-  Suhslilule  .UiY/m-rj.V,-,"  ■■77iiV7,-,t  If".*/."  ,■/,;. 

A  Spirited  Adveniure  Story  <■[  tlie 

Canadian  Northwest 

IT'S  A  CORKER  $1.90 


WINGS 

TALES  OF  THE  PSYCHIC 

By 

ACHMED  ABDULLAH 

Author  of  "The  Trail  of  the  Bean."  "The  Man  on 
Horseback,"  "A"  Hunorablt  Gentleman,"  etc. 

Stories  of  supernatural  things — by  a  man  who  be- 
lieves that  the  "supernatural"  is  quite  natural. 

"Al  limes  a  soul  is  neither  dead  nor  alive.  It  is  then 
a  fluttering,  harrowed  thing,  whirling  about  on  the  outer 
rim  of  creation." 

"He  did  not  fear  death.  He  feared  that  fraction  of 
a  second  when  his  body  would  step  from  life  to  death. 
He"wondered  what  that  fraction  was.  what  it  consisted 
$1.90 


I,  what  it  fell  like' 


DAWN  OF  THE 
AWAKENED  MIND 


JOHN  S.  KING,  M.D. 

Poundir  and  president  <ij  the  Canadian  Society  for 
Physical  Research  for  the  eiyht  years  of  its  existence. 
Dr.  King  is  a  physician,  a  man  scienti  Really  trained  of 
naturally  and  apostic  viewpoint,  one  to  whom  facts  and 
the  truth  are  all  that  matter.  A  life  spent  in  research,  in 
question  and  counter -quest  ion  has  convinced  him  of  the 
actuality  of  the  existence  of  the  spiritual  life.  His  book 
contains  convincing  evidence  which  would  appear  to  es- 
tablish the  truth  of  what  he  claims.  He  slates:  "I  have 
been  a  party  to  some  most  exacting  tests  when  1  had 
reason  for  feehng  skeptical  in  important  demonstra- 
tions, yes,  and  quite  as  often  has  my  skepticism  been 
blown  to  the  winds  by  the  succeeding  c 
io  illustrations 


The  best  selHag  aon- 
Sction  bocik  ia  London 

My 
Campaign 

By 

Major  General 
Charles  Townshend 

K.C.B..  D.S.O. 
(Townshend  of  Kut> 

This  brilliant  record  of 
one  of  the  great  campaigns 
of  the  war  appeals  alike  to 
the  military  student  and  the 
general  reader. 

■This  book  is  one  of  the 
most  candid  of  war  books, 
alike  in  its  revelation  of  the 
writer's  personality  and  in 
its  discussion  of  military 
problems."— n.'   Times. 

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New  l^urrows  In  ( 
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Spiriliullam,    bf    CuulBuiI    Kernalun     [Bevelll. 

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The  BdUlun  o(  a  Doclor,  b;  T.  Bodlef  Scott 

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nelt    [Stofaes).     A   ttady  0/  Iti  nlalfon   t» 

/aim. 
Tbe  Ueoace  of  ImmuralllT  In  Cbnreb  and  8tat<-. 

by  Rev.  Jubn  Koacb  Straton   [Doran].     An 

Tbe  lAfe  and  Letters  ol  St.  Paul,  bj  Eev.  Daviil 

Smith  IDuraii].     A  »tudy. 
Apt  Illuatratluna  for   Public  Addreuea.   \tj    A. 

Bernard    Webber    [Doran].      Cliuiifed   »tl>r- 


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expoHUun. 
Eleclriplan'a  WIrlns  Manual,  bj  Prank  F.  Seng- 

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Book    Rerli-w    Dlgptt.    1016    (Wllnm].      FoIho- 

(Joiia  0/  current  llttratHrt. 
How  10  Uae  Cement  for  Concrete  Conitrurtliin. 

br  H.  Colin  Cantiibell   [ChleaKo :    Stanton  & 

Van  Vlletl,     An  lUuitratei  guide. 
Uaefnl   Wild   Planta  of   the  UoTlpd  Statea  and 

CaiiadH.   b;   l.'hnrlea   Francla   Saundera    [Me- 

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Suprfni—,,     _„ 

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CTollege  Teacbliig.  mI. 

Book  Co.].     Pnncr* 


[Ser 
I  Klapper   [World 


An  American  firm  announces  the 
publication  of  a  history,  with  the  in- 
formation that  the  historian's  cruel 
labors  included  the  consumption  of 
eighty-four  huge  volumes — ^besides 
French,  -Austrian,  and  Russian  books, 
and  sixty-six  large  tomes  of  personal 
papers  and  correspondence — and  "with 
others  the  number  of  which  he  does 
not  give,  he  must  have  had  to  go 
through  well  over  a  hundred".  Avo- 
cational  writing  has  its  seamy  side. 

THE  BOOKFELLOWS 

C'lf  it  keeps  on  as  jt  has  begun,"  aays 
Eugene  Manlove  Rhodes  of  oar  Sactional 
Book,  Chronicles  of  Bagdad,  "it  vHIl  be- 

CMembership,  one  dollar  per  ■□Dum. 

Flora  Warren  Seymour.  Clerk 

aS47  DotcheatH  Avua*  Cbl«^.  III. 


THE    BOOKM-^N    AWERTISEK 


A  New  York  bookseller  comes  back 
at  the  Gossip  Shop  with  the  follow- 
ing: 

In  your  March  number  I  find  you  poking  fun 
at  the  poor  bookseller  who  called  Julian  Street 
**she".  But  the  laugh  is  not  always  on  the 
poor  bookseller.  A  few  days  ago  a  crotchety 
old  man  stamped  into  a  down  town  book  shop 
and  demanded  a  copy  of  "Claud"  of  the  young 
woman  who  came  towards  him.  **  'Claud'  ",  she 
repeated,  smiling  doubtfully.  *'Tes,  'Claud',  by 
this  Englishman  who  is  over  here  now."  And 
he  went  away  content,  with  a  copy  of  "Ray- 
mond" under  his  arm. 


Not  long  ago  an  English  firm  an- 
nounced a  'Who  was  Who,  1897-1916", 
containing  the  biographies  taken  from 
"Who's  Who"  of  those  people  who 
have  died  during  the  twenty  inclusive 
years.  This  work  was  doubtless  not 
conceived  in  the  spirit  of  levity  which 
characterized  an  American  "Who  Was 
Who,  5000  B.  C.  to  date.  Biographical 
dictionary  of  the  famous  and  those 
who  wanted  to  be",  edited  by  one  Ir- 
win L.  Gordon  and  published  by  a 
Philadelphia  house  in  1914. 


"What's  your  oldest  newspaper?" 
asked  an  inquisitive  visitor  of  an  at- 
tendant in  the  newspaper  room  of  the 
New  York  Public  Library. 

"We  go  pretty  far  back  in  news- 
paper history,"  replied  the  attendant. 
"We  have  a  copy  of  one  of  the  first 
newspapers  known  to  have  been  pub- 
lished in  English,  the  *Corant  or 
Weekly  Newes  from  Italy,  Ger- 
many, Hungaria,  Polonia,  Bohemia, 
France  and  the  Low  Countries'.  That 
was  printed  in  London  in  1621.  Be- 
sides that,  we  have  another  London 
newspaper  printed  in  the  same  year. 
That  one  is  known  as  the  *Corant  or 
Newes  from  Italia,  Germania,  France 
and  other  places'." 


F.  Britten  Austin,  whose  most  re- 
cent collection  of  short  stories  about 
the  war  "According  to  Orders"  has 
just  been  brought  out  in  New  York, 
visited  the  United  States  during 
April. 


Literary  Agents 

and 

Writers'  Aids 


F.   M.   HOLLY 

EsUbliibed    1905 

Authors*  and  Publiahers*  Repreaentative 

154  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 

Rates  and  full  information  sent  upon  aPpKcoHon 


Your  Story 


May  Bring  Real  Money  after 
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Fees  Moderate. 
Write  roe  to-dav  for  particulars.    Please  enclose  a  self- 
addressed  stamped  envelope  with  letter  of  inquiry. 

LAURA  D.  WILCK,  Broker  in  Mss. 
Room  922X,  Lonvacro  Bids.,  Now  York 


F.  M.  HOLLY 

156  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 

Announces  that  translations  can  be  made  from  French, 

Italian.  German  into  English  by  C.  R.  Cams. 

MSS  typed  and  edited. 


LOUISE  E.  DEW 

Litmrary  RepresmnitUive 

DO  YOU  NEED  A  CONSULTING  EDITOR 

to  criticise,  revise  or  place  your  Mat.?    My  18  years* 
editorial  experience  at  your  service.    Cireufars 

AEOLIAN  HALL  NEW  YORK 

MSS.  EDITED,  TYPED.  AND  PLACED  WITH  THE 

PUBLISHER.    EXPERT  CRITICISM. 

E.  H.  GROVES.  M.  A. 

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^es  is  a  fine  epitome  of  common  sense  m  literary  pro- 
eedure.  It  seems  to  foresee  every  difficulty  of  the  novice 
nnd  to  throw  lif  ht  even  upon  the  path  of  the  professionaL 
It  is  a  sufficient  coefficient  for  tiie  scribe  in  his  scramble 
up  the  slopes  of  Parnassus.     It  will  help  thousands." 

Cloth,  uniform  with  The  Writer's  Library, 
xvi  +  260  pages.     Postpaid.  $1.75 

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Please  mention  Thi  Bookman  in  writing  to  advertisera. 


THE    BOOJCJif^Vtf    yjD  y  EXTISEH. 


LITERARY    AGE^^TS    AND 
WRITERS'  AIDS  (Continued) 


FIRST  AID  TO  AUTHORS 

Vdu  aic  a  writer.    Da  you  never  need  the  iniM'itUl  □pinion 

°  I'sm Vpub?isbefVreider^'*Fo? Jea"s'l  "ad  for  Macmillan. 
then  fur  Doran.  and  then  T  bcFime  cn-sullin(  ipecialiti  to 
them  and  In  Halt.  Stakes.  Lippiticoll,  tlircouii.  and  others. 


fl"   MyYee  K'lVo.m.  a'nd'nmsi 
Cart  of 

THE  SUNWISE  TURN 
et  EAST44tk  STREET 
NEW  YORK  CITY 


JljStiu 


wrttK,   critic 


THE  WRITER'S  MONTHLYj.B-'i^'S. 

CAR(X.YN  WEU^  HTii  "Thmbmtt  mama- 
tint  ot  lit  Und  bmcautm  II  Im  PRACTICAL.' 


THE  WRITO-S  MONTHLT,  Dtft.  11 


S2.00  •  rw' 


Brieux'a  new  play,  "Lea  Am^ricainB 
chez  Nous",  recently  produced  in 
Paris,  has  a  wartime  setting.  This 
story  cf  the  love  affair  of  an  American 
nurse  and  a  French  physician  fur- 
nishes a  contrasting  study  of  ideals 
and  traditions  in  the  two  nations. 


"From  Friend  to  Friend",  a  little 
volume  of  recollections  by  Thackeray's 
daughter.  Lady  Ritchie,  edited  by  her 
sister-in-law,  Emily  Ritchie,  has  just 
been  published  by  a  New  York  firm. 
Lady  Ritchie  met  many  of  the  moat  in- 
teresting people  in  England  in  the 
course  of  her  long  life,  which  covered 
the  pericd  from  1838  to  1919,  and  in 
this  little  book  she  has  given  charm- 
ing, intimate  and  significant  glimpses 
of  her  father,  of  Tennyson  and  his 
wife,  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Browning,  of 
Adelaide  Kemble,  and  of  many  others 
who,  to  readers  of  today,  are  just 
names  and  fames.  There  are  anec- 
dotes of  Thackeray  in  his  younger 
days,  when  he  was  beginning  to  write 
and  wishing  rather  to  paint,  and  later 
on  when  he  was  in  the  full  tide  of  lit- 
erary production;  and  there  are  mem- 
ories of  the  Rome  that  was  in  the  days 
when  the  Brownings  made  it  their 
home.  The  book  has  a  frontispiece 
portrait  of  Lady  Ritchie. 


"To  find  fcr  all  he  had  to  say  words 
of  vital  aptness  and  animation — to 
communicate  as  much  as  possible  of 
what  he  has  somewhere  called  'the  in- 
communicable thrill  of  things' — was 
from  the  first  his  endeavor — nay  more, 
it  was  the  main  passion  of  his  life," 
says  Sidn<gr  Colvin,  writing  of  his 
friend  Stevenson.  Such  a  passion  on 
Stevenson's  part  led  him  to  plan  a 
technical  book,  to  be  called  'The  Art 
of  Literature",  which  he  never  devel- 
oped. But  some  of  the  "loose  ends" 
have  been  selected  from  his  scattered 
essays  and  collected,  at  the  discretion 
of  John  William  Rogers,  in  a  book 
called  "Learning  to  Write",  recently 
brought  out  by  a  New  York  firm, 

III  writing  t«  adTprtlaiTB. 


£  collectors' Guide 


In  this  section  the  readers  of  THE  BOOKMAN  will 
find  the  latest  announcements  of  reliable  dealers  in 
Rare  Books,  Manuscripts,  Autographs  and  Prints.  It 
will  be  well  to  look  over  this  section  careful'y  each 
numth,  for  the  advertisements  will  be  frequently 
changed,  and  Items  of  Interest  to  collectors  will  be 
offered  here.  All  these  dealers  Invite  correspondence. 


THE  sudden  death  of  George  D. 
Smitb,  the  famous  dealer  in  rare 
books,  has  been  the  principal  topic  of 
conversation  in  book  circles  for  some 
time,  and  pages  of  newspaper  space 
have  beep  devoted  to  all  kinds  of 
aketclies  of  the  man  who  has  been  the 
dominant  fi^re  in  the  book-auction 
world  for  the  last  few  years.  Nat- 
urally a  large  part  of  the  comment, 
both  American  and  foreign,  was  de- 
voted to  the  probable  consequences  of 
the  elmination  of  this  powerful  factor 
in  the  determination  of  auction  prices. 
Since  his  death  there  have  been  some 
notable  sales  in  both  hemispheres,  in 
which  Mr.  Smith,  had  he  lived,  would 
doubtless  have  been  the  most  im- 
portant bidder.  The  prices  realized 
at  these  sales  generally  show  that  rare 
books  will  be  sought  by  collectors  re- 
gardless of  the  presence  or  absence  of 
any  particular  person.  Probably  the 
prices  at  the  Wallace  and  some 
other  sales  would  have  been  higher 
had  Mr.  Smith  remained  a  factor,  yet 
the  unique  examples  in  the  Buxton 
Forman  sales  will  command  their  own 
prices  and  the  desirable  books  in  the 
Wallace  collection  brought  good  prices. 
There  has  been  nothing  like  a  panic  in 
the  book-auction  market.  Possibly 
this  is  in  part  due  to  the  reappearance 
in  the  auction  room  of  some  buyers 
who  have  not  been  seen  there  for  some 
years  and  who  were  frightened  away 
by  the  fearless  bidding  of  Mr.  Smith. 
On  one  point  all  commentators  agree 
— that  in  the  death  of  Mr.  Smith  the 
rare  book  world  lost  a  unique  and  lov- 

Plcaiv  mentlun  Tilt  BooKH: 


able  character  and  the  most  forceful 
personality  in  the  book-auction  market. 

Two  of  the  most  important  of  the 
Charles  Lamb  items  in  the  Walter 
Thomas  Wallace  sale  are  now  in  the 
library  of  a  private  collector  in  Bos- 
ton. The  Locker-Lam pson  copy  of 
"Poetry  for  Children",  of  which  the 
Augustin  Daly  copy  is  the  only  other 
one  sold  in  this  country,  brought  ?3,- 
300.  This  is  not  an  excessive  price, 
considering  the  remote  chance  of  the 
collector  of  securing  another  copy,  as 
this  is  the  first  that  has  been  brought 
to  light  in  modem  times,  having 
turned  up  in  Australia  in  1877.  The 
copy  of  "Blank  Verse"  by  Charles 
Lloyd  and  Charles  Lamb,  which  the 
same  Boston  collector  secured  for 
$900,  was  a  real  bargain,  as  this 
copy  was  presented  by  Lamb  to  his 
old  East  Indian  House  associate, 
Henry  Hedges.  The  three  works 
composing  this  lot  were  bound  in 
two  volumes.  The  third  work,  con- 
taining "A  Tale  of  Rosamund  Gray 
and  Old  Blind  Margaret",  has  the  Bir- 
mingham imprint  of  Thomas  Pearson, 
1798.  In  this  issue  the  Lamb  collector 
has  one  of  the  rarest  items  procurable, 
the  fopy  in  Henry  E.  Huntington's  li- 
brary being  the  only  other  one  known 
in  this  country.  The  copies  unsold 
were  sent  to  London  and  have  a  re- 
printed title  page,  the  old  page  being 
removed  and  the  new  one  inserted  on 
the  stub.  For  this  particular  copy 
three  times  the  price  paid  would  not 
have  been  excessive. 

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The  original  manuscript  of  Charles 
Lamb's  "Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig", 
which  was  sold  by  Stan  V.  Henkels  in 
Philadelphia  for  the  remarkable  price 
of  $12,600  ai\d  was  bought  by  the  Ro- 
senbach  Company,  is  now  in  the  li- 
brary of  J.  P.  Morgan.  From  one  of 
Lamb's  letters  we  learn  that  he  re- 
ceived twenty  guineas  a  sheet  for  his 
contributions  to  "The  London  Maga- 
zine", in  which  the  "Dissertation" 
originally  appeared.  As  a  sheet  was 
sixteen  pages,  it  is  presumable  that 
the  gentle  Elia  received  five  guineas 
for  the  manuscript  which  brings  $12,- 
600  a  century  later. 


Wordsworth  is  perhaps  less  of  a  col- 
lector's author  than  Tennyson  and 
other  of  his  contemporaries,  but  there 
are  some  notable  collections  of  Words- 
worthiana,  the  most  important  of 
which  in  this  country  is  that  formed 
by  the  late  Mrs.  Cynthia  Morgan  St. 
John  of  Ithaca,  New  York.  It  contains 
not  only  practically  all  the  first  and 
later  editions  of  Wordsworth's  writ- 
ings, but  original  manuscripts  and  a 
large  collection  of  letters  to  or  from 
Wordsworth  and  members  of  his  fam- 
ily, in  addition  to  a  bust,  the  portrait 
by  Shuter,  and  numerous  memorabilia 
of  the  poet.  The  manuscripts  include 
such  rare  items  as  twenty-seven  of  the 
"Itinerary  Poems"  of  1833,  one  of  the 
"Poems  of  Fancy",  and  poems  and 
parts  of  poems  from  "Yarrow  Revis- 
ited" and  other  writings.  Since  the 
death  of  Mrs.  St.  John  it  has  been  de- 
cided to  break  up  this  collection  of  many 
years*  growth,  which  it  would  now  be 
impcssible  to  assemble. 


Charies  F.  Heartman 

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American  Imprints,  Acts  and  Laws  of  every 
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editions  of  English  and  American  authors,  in- 
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PlpRBe  uioiition  Tub  Bookman  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


ERETOBUYBGDKS 

Tht  bookMDen  ftdvcrtisbif  In  this  MctloB  hav*  ndl* 
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to  ierre  70D  that  they  place  their  orsaniaatiflna  at  w 
cammand  of  book-toTera  everrwhere.    Readera  of  THE 


Kermit  Roosevelt  in  his  book,  "War 
in  the  Garden  of  Eden",  gives  the  fol- 
lowing example  of  Turkish  chivalry 
for  women : 

"When  I  was  at  Samarra  an  amus- 
ing incident  took  place  in  connection 
with  a  number  of  offieera'  wives  who 
were  captured  at  Ramadie.  The  army 
commander  didn't  wish  to  ship  them 
off  to  India  and  Burma  with  their  hus- 
bands, so  he  sent  them  up  to  Samarra 
with  instructions  that  they  be  re- 
turned across  the  lines  to  the  Turks. 
After  many  aeroplane  messages  were 
exchanged  it  was  agreed  that  we 
should  leave  them  at  a  designated  hill 
and  that  the  Turks  would  later  come 
for  them.  Meanwhile  we  had  ar- 
ranged quarters  for  them,  trying  to 
do  everything  in  a  manner  that  would 
be  in  harmony  with  the  Turkish  con- 
venances. When  the  wives  were  es- 
corted forth  to  be  turned  back  to  their 
countrymen,  they  were  all  weeping  bit- 
terly. Whether  it  was  that  the  Turk 
in  his  casual  manner  decided  that  one 
day  was  as  good  as  another,  or 
whether  he  felt  that  he  had  no  par- 
ticular use  for  these  particular  women, 
we  never  knew,  but  at  all  events 
twenty-four  hours  later  one  of  our 
patrols  came  upon  the  prisoners  still 
forlornly  waiting.  We  shipped  them 
back  to  Baghdad." 


IIORNE  CO.,  PITTS 
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STATEMENT     OF    THE     OWNERSHIP,     MANAGE- 
MENT,   CIRCULATION,    ETC.,    REQUIRED 
BY   TIIK   ACT   OP  CONGRESS   OP 
AUGUST    24,    1912, 

Of  The  Bookman,   publiKlied   monthly  ut    Harrlsburg, 
Pa.,  for  April  1,  1920. 

State  of  New  York     >    „ 
County  of  New  York   j"*'' 

Before  me,  a  notary  public.  In  and  for  the  State  and 
county  aforesaid,  pemonnlly  uppcaretl  (ieorge  H. 
Doran.  who.  havini?  been  duly  sworn  according  to  law, 
deposes  and  says  that  he  is  the  president  of  George  II. 
Doran  Company,  pnldishers  of  The  Bookman,  aud 
that  the  following;  is.  to  the  best  of  his  knowledge  and 
belief,  a  true  statement  <»f  the  ownership,  management 
(and  If  a  daily  paper,  the  circulation),  etc.,  of  the 
aforesaid  publication  for  the  date  shown  in  the  above 
caption,  rwiuired  l>y  the  Act  of  August  24,  1912,  em- 
liodied  In  S(H?tion  443.  Postal  Laws  and  Regulations, 
printed  on  the  reverse  of  this  form,  to  wit : 

1.  That  the  names  and  addresses  of  the  publisher, 
editor,  managing  editor,  and  business  managers  are : 

Publisher,  George  II.  Doran  Company,  244  Madison 
Avenue. 

Editc»r.  Robert  Cortes  Ilolllday.  244  Madison  Ave- 
nue. 

Managing  editor,  none. 

Business  Managers,  George  II.  Doran  Company. 

2.  That  the  owners  are:  George  II.  Doran  Com- 
pany, 244  Madis(m  Avenue :  George  II.  Doran,  244 
Madlmm  Avenue :  R.  P.  Hodder  Williams.  London. 
England  :  J.  E.  Hodder  Williams,  London,  England  ; 
Messmore  Kendall,  120  Broadway ;  Stanley  M.  Rine- 
hart,  Jr.,  244  Madison  Avenue. 

3.  That  the  known  bondholders,  mortgagees,  and 
other  security  holders  owning  or  holding  1  per  cent 
or  more  of  total  amount  of  bonds,  mortgages  or  other 
securities  are :    None. 

4.  That  the  two  paragraphs  next  above,  giving  the 
names  of  the  owners,  stockholders,  and  security  hold- 
ers, if  any.  contain  not  only  the  list  of  stockholders 
and  security  holders  as  they  appear  upon  the  books  of 
the  company  Init  also,  in  cases  where  the  stockholder 
or  security  holder  appears  upon  the  books  of  the  com- 
pany as  trustee  or  in  any  other  fiduciary  relation,  the 
name  of  the  person  or  corporation  for  whom  such 
trustee  is  acting,  is  given :  also  that  the  said  two 
paragraphs  contain  statements  embracing  affiant's  full 
knowledge  and  belief  as  to  the  circumstances  and  con- 
ditions under  which  stockholders  and  security  holders 
who  do  not  appear  upon  the  Imoks  of  the  company 
as  trustees,  hold  stock  and  securities  in  a  capacity 
other  than  that  of  a  bona  fide  owner ;  and  this  affiant 
has  no  reason  to  belii've  that  any  other  person,  asso- 
ciation, or  corporation  has  any  interest  direct  or  indi- 
rect in  the  said  stock,  bonds,  or  other  securities  than 
as  so  stated  by  him. 

5.  That  the  average  number  of  copies  of  each  issue 
of  this  publication  sold  or  distributed  through  the 
mails  or  otherwise,  to  paid  subscribers  during  the  six 

months  preceding  the  date  shown  al»ove  is  . 

(This  information  is  required  from  daily  pui>lications 
only.) 

(SIgntMi)    (iEORGE  H.  Doran   (President). 

(fKORr.E  H.  DoRA.x  Company  (Publishers). 
Sworn   to  and   subscribed   before  me  this  27th  day 
of  March,  1920. 

I**BAi.J  Lori.sR    E.    Kribg, 

Notary    Public    Nt).    2575,    Queens   Co. 
Certificate  tiled   in    N.  Y.  Co.   No.  443. 
(My  coniniiHsloii  i>x]iireH  March  30.  1921.) 

Pb'.'isc  mention  Thk  Boormw 


Elizabeth  Wordsworth,  the  vener- 
able grandniece  of  the  Rydal  Mount 
poet,  in  one  of  her  recent  ''Essays  Old 
and  New"  brought  out  in  England,  en- 
ters the  ranks  for  women's  rights  in  a 
short  anaylsis  of  ''Andrea  del  Sarto": 

To  Judge  from  the  whole  tone  of  the  poem, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  he  implies  his  inferiority 
as  man  and  artist  to  be  greatly  his  wife's  fault. 
Now  here  I  must  say  I  think  Andrea  del  Sarto, 
and  Mr.  Browning  speaking  through  his  moutk. 
are  Just  as  unfair  on  women  as  most  other  buuk 
of  Adam. 


John  Drinkwater,  in  his  preface  to 
Margaret  Prescott  Montague's  prize 
O.  Henry  Memorial  story  "England  to 
America",  just  brought  out  by  a  New 
York  house,  is  not  quite  sure  whether 
Miss  Montague's  analysis  of  English 
character  is  at  all  points  exact,  "but 
since  she  is  an  artist,  she  happily 
makes  this  of  no  consequence".  He 
goes  on  to  say  that  the  test  of  all  nar- 
rative art  is  "not  whether  a  general- 
ized idea  drawn  from  the  particular 
narrative  tallies  with  our  own  conclu- 
sions. It  is,  rather,  whether  the  char- 
acters in  the  narrative  have  their  own 
reality,  and  so  convince  us  of  their 
own  actions."  This  is  a  broad  and  al- 
together admirable  criterion  of  criti- 
cism. 


Lovers  of  Mark  Twain  who  have 
been  trying  to  secure  his  home  at 
Hartford,  Connecticut,  where  "Inno- 
cents Abroad"  and  other  books  were 
written,  have  given  it  up,  at  least  fcr 
the  time  being.  It  is  said  that  two 
men  have  recently  bought  the  place  for 
$55,000  and  now  hold  it  for  $300,000. 
It  is  thought  the  state  may  condemn 
the  property  for  a  park. 


The  two  best-selling  books  in  Eng- 
land according  to  a  late  report  were 
"The  House  of  Baltazar"  by  William 
J.  Locke,  and  "The  Superstition  of  Di- 
vorce" by  G.  K.  Chesterton — ^both  re- 
cent American  publications. 


in  writini;  to  advertisers. 


BRIEF  MENTION  OF  NEW  BOOKS 


BRIEF  MENTION  OF  NEW  BOOKS 

Fiction 

Lindy  Loyd,  by  Marie  E.  Hoffman  [Marshall 
J  ones  J.     A  tale  of  a  moonahiner'a  daughter. 

Storm  Country  Polly,  by  Grace  Miller  White 
[Little].    Adventures  in  a  squatter  colony. 

Gold  out  of  Celebes,  by  Capt.  A.  B.  Dingle 
[Little].     An  East  India  mystery  romance. 

Efficiency  Edgar,  by  Clarence  Budington  Kel- 
land  [Harper].  A  tale  of  courtship  and  mar- 
riage. 

The  root-Path  Way,  by  Henry  Milner  Rideout 
[Duffleld].     An  American's  eastern  romance. 

The  Road  to  En-Dor,  by  E.  H.  Jones  [Lane J. 
Turkish  prison  camp  experiences. 

Bmce,  by  Albert  Payson  Terhune  [Dutton]. 
The  story  of  a  collie. 

Tamarisk  Town,  by  Sheila  Kaye-Smith  [Dut- 
ton]. A  man's  struggle  between  love  and 
amoitUm. 

The  Pointing  Man,  by  Marjorie  Douie  [Dut- 
ton].    The  tale  of  a  Burmese  feud. 

That  Aifoir  at  St.  Peter's,  by  Edna  A.  Brown 
[Lothrop].     A  church  theft  mystery. 

Hannah  Bye,  by  Harrison  S.  Morris  [Penn].  A 
prtsent-day  Quakeress's  story. 

England  to  America,  by  Margaret  Prescott  Mon- 
tague [Doubleday].  A  short  story  of  an 
American's  English  reactions. 

Short  Stories  from  the  Spanish,  tr.  by  Charles 
B.  McMichael  [Boni].     7  tales. 

William — An  EniEHshman,  by  Cicely  Hamilton 
[Stokes].     Wartime  honeymoon  experiences. 

Pierre  and  Joseph,  by  Ren6  Bazin  [Harper]. 
A  icar  story  of  Alsatian  brothers. 

No.  26  Jayne  Street,  by  Mary  Austin  [Ilough- 
t  •/].     A  girl's  Greenwich  village  venture. 

Maureen,  by  Patrick  MacGill  [McBride].  A 
present-day  story  of  Irish  peasantry. 

The  Vanishing  Men,  by  Richard  Washburn 
Child  [Dutton].  A  tale  of  a  mysterious 
woman. 

Best  American  Humorous  Short  Stories,  ed.  by 
Alexander  Jessup  [Boni].  A  **Modem  IJ- 
hrary"  volume. 

When  the  King  Loses  His  Head,  by  Leonid  An- 
dreyev [Internatl.  Book  Pub.j.     7  tnle^. 

A  Pawn  in  Pawn,  by  Hilda  M.  Sharp  [Putuam]. 
The  story  of  a  poet  and  his  ward. 

Responsibility,  by  James  E.  Agate  [I>oran]. 
An  English  novel  of  misalliance. 

Painted  Meadows,  by  Soi>hie  Kerr  [Doran].  A 
romance  of  southern  life. 

Hiker  Joy,  by  James  B.  Connolly  [Scribner]. 
Naval  adirenturvs  in  colloquial  style. 

Tarzan  the  Untamed,  by  Edgnr  Rice  Bur- 
roughs   [McClurgj.     A   wartime  fungle  ttUe. 

The  White  Moll,  by  Frank  L.  Packard  [Doran]. 
A  young  girl's  underworld  adventures. 

Whitewash,  by  Horace  Annesley  Vachell 
[Doran].  A  love  story  of  modem  rural  Eng- 
land. 

The  Slayer  of  Souls,  by  Robert  W.  Chambers 
[Doran].  An  American  girl's  Chinese  ex- 
periences. 

The  Rescue,  by  Joseph  Conrad  [Doubleday]. 
The  story  of  an  Englishman's  Malayan  in- 
trigue. 

O.  Henry  Memorial  Award  Prize  Stories,  1019 
[Doubleday].     15  storivn. 

The  Killer,  by  Stewart  Edward  White  [Double- 
day].     Adventure  tales. 

Half  Portions,  by  Edna  Ferber  [Doubleday]. 
9  short  stories. 

The  First  Valley,  by  Mary  Farley  Sanborn 
[Four  Seas].    A  romance  of  after-life. 

Kindred  of  the  Dust,  by  Peter  B.  Kvne  [Cos- 
mopolitan].   A  novel  of  family  pride. 

Whars  the  World  Coming  To?  by  Rupert 
Hughes  [Harper].    An  afterwar  romance. 

Kain  Before  Seven,  by  Eric  Leadbitter  [Ja- 
cobs].    The  life  story  of  an  English  boy. 

An  Imperfect  Mother,  by  J.  D.  Bei»esford  [Mac- 
millan].      A  study  of  influence  on  a  son. 

Mrs.  Warren's  Daughter,  by  Sir  Harry  Johns- 
ton [Macmillan].    A  modem  Englishwoman's 

*    achievement. 

The  Stranger,  by  Arthur  Bullard  [Macmillan]. 
An  Oriental-American  love  story. 

The  Blue  Flower;  The  Ruling  Passion,  by 
Henry  van  Dyke  [Scribner].  Further  **Ava- 
lon"  t>olumes. 


The  Novel  of  the  Nen>  Woman 

WOMAN 

By  MAGDELEINE  MARX 

The  record  this  novel  has  made  for 
itself  in  a  few  weeks  is  unique  in  the 
history  of  French  literature.  The 
author  has  received  letters  full  of  en^ 
thusiasm  from  the  greatest  writers 
everywhere — Anatole  France,  Georg 
Brandes,  Israel  Zangwill,  Romain  Rol^ 
land,  Bertrand  Russell,  and  others. 
Lectures  are  being  delivered  on  the 
work.  Henri  Barbusse  says:  **This 
book  has  created  a  sensation  in 
France,  ...  It  is  a  novel  of  brilliant 
originality  and  unusual  importance.  It 
expresses — that  which  has  never  been 
exactly  expressed  before.  It  expresses 
WOMAN."  $1.90 

Sarah  and  Her  Daughter 

By  BERTHA  PEARL 

"It  is  a  work  that  is  noteworthy  in 
American  literature,  suggesting  Dick- 
ens and  De  Morgan  modernized  and 
Americanized.  One  of  the  most  al> 
sorbing  tales  we  have  read  for  some 
time."— M  r.  Times.  .  $2.25 

The  Thunderbolt 

By  G.  COLMORE 


"An  outstanding  novel." — Fan  fVyck 
Brooks  in  the  N,  Y,  Eveninj^  Post, 

**It  places  the  author  with  the  fore- 
most of  English  novelists." — Rebecca 
Druecker  in  the  N.  Y,  Tribune,  $1.90 

Margot's  Progress 

By  DOUGLAS  GOLDRING 

"Highly  enjoyable  reading  without 
a  dull  moment  from  cover  to  cover." 
— A^.  Y.  Times. 

"Goldring*s  triumph." — IVesiminsier 
Gazette.  $1.90 

At  All  B€}oksellers 

THOMAS  SELTZER 

Publisher 
5  West  50th  Street  New  York 


Please  mention  Thi  Bookman  in  writing  to  advert lni^x%. 


11 


THE  BOOKMAN 


The  Blood  Red  Dawn,  by  Cbarlcs  Caldwell 
Dobie  [Harper].     A  novel  of  social  intrigue. 

The  Third  Window,  by  Anne  Douglas  Sedg- 
wick [Houghton].  A  story  of  a  dead  hus- 
band's influence. 

The  Quirt,  by  B.  M.  Bower  [Little].  A  tale 
of  a  western  ranch  feud. 

The  Unlatched  Door,  by  Lee  Thayer  [Century]. 
A  New  York  murder  mystery. 

The  Other  Woman,  by  Norah  Davis  [Century]. 
A  dual  personality  romance. 

The  Young  Physician,  by  Francis  Brett  Young 
[Dutton].    A  study  of  boyhood  and  youth. 

Suspected,  by  George  Dilnot  [Clode].  A  mur- 
der mystery  tale. 

The  Ivory  Ball,  by  Chauncey  C.  Hotchlciss 
[Watt].  An  American's  adventures  with 
Chinese. 

The  Roaring  Road,  by  Byron  Morgan  [Doran]. 
Automobiling  stories. 

Affinities,  by  Mary  Roberts  Rinchart  [Doran]. 
A  volume  of  short  love  stories. 

The  Autobiography  of  a  Race  Horse,  by  L.  B. 
Yates  [Doran].    A  tale  of  the  turf. 

The  Voyage  Out,  by  Virginia  Woolf  [Doran]. 
A  study  of  the  awakening  of  love. 

The  Masked  Woman,  by  Johnston  McCulIey 
[Watt].  A  romance  of  New  York's  under- 
world. 

Holy  Fire,  by  Ida  A.  R.  Wylie  [Lane].  9  short 
stories. 

Poetry 

Sonnets  from  a  Prison  Camp,  by  Archibald 
Allan  Bowman  [Lane].  Wartime  reflec- 
tions. 

Jehovah,  by  Clement  W^ood  [Dutton].  A  nar- 
rative of  the  days  of  David. 

Early  Persian  Poetry,  by  A.  V.  Williams  Jack- 
son   [Macmillan].     A  study  with  selections. 

Wilderness  Songs,   by  Grace  Hazard   Conkling 

SHolt].     Sketches,  lyrics  and  war  verse. 
our  and  Vision,  ed.  by  Jacqueline  T.  Trotter 

[Longmans].     A  war  anthology. 
The  Cairn  of  Stars,  by  Francis  Carlin   [Holt]. 

Irish  songs. 
Blue  and  Purple,  by  Francis  Xeilson  [Huebsch]. 

Love  poems. 
Verse,  by  William  Cary  Sanger,  Jr.   [Putnam]. 

Railroad  poems,  war  poems  and  lyrics. 
Songs  of  the  Irish  Revolution,  by  WMlIiani   A. 

Aiillen    [Stratford].     Present-day  thoughts. 
Lights  and  Shadows,  bv  Mary  Gertrude  Ham- 
ilton [Stratford].     Short  love  poems. 
After  the  Day,  by  Rainc  Bennett    [Stratford]. 

War  sketches. 
Kossovo,  trans,  by  Helen  Rootham  [Houghton]. 

Serbian  epic  poems. 

Drama 

Hearts  Enduring,  by  John  Erskine  [Dufflcld]. 
A  one-act  play  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Salomd :  The  Importance  of  Being  Earnest : 
Lady  Windermere's  Fan,  by  Oscar  Wilde 
[Boni].     A  ''Modem  Library"  edition. 

The  Modern  Book  of  French  Verse,  ed.  by  Al- 
bert Boni  [Boni].  An  anthology  of  trans- 
lations. 

♦•The  Gloss  of  Youth",  by  Horace  Howard  Fur- 
ness,  Jr.  [Lippincott].  A  play  introducing 
Shakespeare. 

The  Life  and  Death  of  King  John,  ed.  by  Hor- 
ace Howard  Furness,  Jr.  [Lippincott].  A 
new  variorum  edition. 

Biography 

Lord  Grey  of  the  Reform  Bill,  by  George  Mao- 

aulay   Trevelyan    [Longmans].     An   account 

of  early  19th-century  politics. 
Swinburne  as  I  Knew  Him,  by  Coulson  Kerna- 

han   [Lane].     Recollections  and  letters. 
Talks    with    T.    R.,    by    John    J.     Leary.    Jr. 

[Houghton].     A  journalist's  notes. 
Finding  a   Way  Out,  by   Robert   Russa   Moton 

IDoubledayJ.     An  autobiography. 
Herbert  Hoover :    The  Man  and  His  Work,  by 

Vernon   Kellogg    [Appleton].     An  associate's 

ticcount. 
Buffalo  Bill's  Life  Story    [Cosmopolitan].     An 

illustrated  autobiography. 
The    Ordeal    of    Mark    Twain,    by    Van    Wvck 

Brooks  [Dutton].     A  character  study. 
Americans    by    Adoption,    by    Joseph    Husl)and 

[Atlantic].     Accounts  of  noted  men. 
All    and    Sundry,    l)v    E.    t.    Raymond    [Holt]. 

Sketches  of  political  and  Uternry  figures. 


Boston  had  better  look  to  its  laurels, 
for  William  MArion  Reedy's  town,  ac- 
cording to  recent  figures  compiled  by 
the  Arcade  Book  Shop  of  St.  Louis,  is 
in  the  lead  as  a  home  of  serious  read- 
ers. It  seems  that  forty-three  per 
cent  of  the  book  buyers  of  Boston 
read  fiction,  as  compared  with  twenty- 
three  per  cent  for  St.  Louis,  and  that 
in  every  other  of  the  ten  classifications 
of  books  enumerated  except  one — ^that 
of  autobiography — St.  Louis  leads 
Boston.  This,  to  the  compiler's  mind, 
is  conclusive  proof  in  itself  of  a  more 
serious  and  discriminating  trend  of 
thought  and  taste  on  the  part  of  the 
book  readers  of  St.  Louis.  The  popu- 
lations of  both  cities — ^according  to 
the  1910  census — were  about  equal, 
670,585  for  Boston  as  compared  with 
687,029  for  St.  Louis  and  the  figures 
compiled  indicate  the  approximate  per- 
centage of  the  body  of  the  book  buyers 
and  the  kind  of  books  they  buy : 

Boston  St.  Louis 

Fiction     43  23 

Biof^raphy 6  9 

Autobiography    5  3 

Essays    6  7 

History    5  8 

Literary  criticism    5  6 

Poetry    8  9 

Drama    7  12 

Business    10  15 

Allied  arts    5  8 


100         lop 

It  would  be  interesting  to  have  simi- 
lar statistics  regarding  the  book  tastes 
of  other  cities — New  York,  Philadel- 
phia or  Chicago,  for  example. 


A  new  edition  of  Dr.  Anna  Howard 
Shaw's  "The  Story  of  a  Pioneer"  is 
synchronous  with  the  completion  of 
the  organization  of  the  Anna  Howard 
Shaw  Memorial  Committee.  At  a  re- 
cent meeting  it  was  voted  to  estab- 
lish headquarters  in  Philadelphia  for 
the  fund  of  half  a  million  dollars  with 
which  a  foundation  of  politics  is  to  be 
established  at  Bryn  Mawr  College,  and 
one  of  preventive  medicine  in  the 
Women's  Medical  College  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. 


THE    nOOKMAJV    AOVE RTISEH. 


■"  Jtfvenile 

Harr  Marl?,  b;  Bleaoor  H.  Porter  [HongbtoDl. 

A  jS-vear-aU  girt'i  narrallvt. 
Bowsec,  the  Hound,  by  TbDrnlan  VT.  Burgeis 

[Little],     i  dog'i  adrer' 

-  ■■-    --'   "5  BU   Road 
iropj.       ■     "-     "- 

'^en  I  Woa  a  Bor  In  Scotlnnd,  bj  Georee  Mp- 
PherBon  Hunt« ;  Wl.™  I  WuB  a  Boj  In 
Perali,  by   Yonel  B.  Mlria   JLothrop].      Twu 


"OhiUirc 


tb*  1 


o/  C 


3    of    t 


V  taU. 


Twaedle.    bv    lala   May    UuUIdb    [Page].      The 

tote  i]  a  girt  who  bringi  cheer. 
Conaenrntlun  Readrr,  by  Unrold  W.  F^atrbanka 

[World  BiioWl.    A  itudy  o/  rrsoumn. 
looDg   I-eoniBi   uiatarj   of   tbe   Pllgtuna.   by 

Wiaiam   Elliott   Qriafa    (Houghton}.      An    ll- 

tiMtratfd  occount. 
A    Little    Gateway    ID    Bclenee,    by    Bdlth    U. 

Patch   [Atlantic].      Storfct  oboui  tnjecf*. 
Tb*  Story  of   tbe  Pilgrim   Fathm,   by   H.   O. 

TaaDlcllff   [ReTdU.     A  narratlvt  iHuttrated. 
Don    StroDR,    American,    by    WlllUm    Heyllger 

[Appletun].     Bov  flco»t  advcnturti. 
Dick  Arnold  of  Rarltan  ColI«e,  by  Earl  Keed 

Sllrerg   [Appletonl.     A   collegt  ttory. 
Paiil   and   the   Prlntlns   Preaa,    by    Sara    Ware 

Baaaett  [Little).     A  atory  o/  a  ichoolpaptr. 
The   BIng-Necked   Grlazly,  by   Warren   H.   Mil- 
ler [Appletonl.     Rocky  Mo»nlat»  aivttiture; 
Th«   Loat  Dirigible,   by   Ralph    Henry  Barbonr 

[Appleton].     A  naval  avtatOT't  txplolti. 


An  EDglish  critic  revives  the  more 
or  less  well-known  controversy  of  the 
authorship  of  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox's 
famous  epigram  by  which,  he  says,  she 
will  live  in  literature: 


One  recalls  that  in  "The  World's 
and  I"  (published  a  year  ago  before 
her  death)  the  author  declares  that 
she  first  published  the  poem  in  the 
New  York  "Sun"  in  1883,  and  that 
two  years  later  a  John  Joyce  claimed 
the  authorship.  She  describes  him  as 
the  writer  of  "very  trashy  verses", 
and  states  that  he  wrote  the  poem  ia 
an  utter  falsehood;  that  she  offered 
repeatedly  to  give  50,000  dollars  to  a 
charity  if  anyone  could  produce  a  copy 
of  these  verses  published  before  Feb- 
ruary, 1883. 


THE  BOOKFELLOWS 

C^   LaoKoe  for  Beltar   Booka.     All   who 
want  to  see  the  qualily  of  booka  go  up 
and  the   price  go  down  should  affiliate. 
One  dollar  per  annum. 
Flora  Warran  Saymonr,  Clark 
SS4?  Dorckaalar  Avem>.  Chicane.  III. 

Please  mentlou  Tarn  Booku 


Most  War  BooliM  Are  Staffy 

bat,  the  readere  of 

Posies  That  Grew  at  G.  H.  Q. 

agree  that  It  ia  a  book  of  lively  fun  with  an 
absence  of  unnecsBsary  mod.  Some  people 
show  their  democracy  by  walking  on  your 
beat  rug  with  muddy  boots.  This  book 
treats  with  all  the  sentiments  of  the  time, 
written  at  the  time.  A  little  pathos,  and  a 
little  love,  and  IS  illuatiations.  Bound  In 
Red,  White  and  Blue,  o^uthor's  Auto- 
graphed Edition.  Price  $3.  Club  price  for 
two  books,  one  address,  $5. 
Lawmica  F.  Dautzaiaii      Yookara,  N.  Y. 


CARMEN  ARIZA  'Hfg 


the  SpsDish  Main  to  Wasbioston  and  New  York.  Carmeo 
Ariiiii  the  final  answer  to  the  reliEioutqaealion  aod 
ia  Iheonlr  noicl  that  hai  handled  It  iD  B  itrictlr  iclen- 
tllic  war  and  worked  It  outloa  demonetrabteiolntion. 
Colored  [ronliapiece.  clolh  cover.  $2.50bm.  Leather 
coTer.  $3.10  arc  (Edition  de  Luiel  Leather  coirer, 
■lTEiltedEe).«400iiR.    Poalace.  IScenli. 

THE   MAESTRO   COMPANY 

Manadnock  Blook  CHICAGO 


HMINS' 


ZnCROSSUIG  HIK 
TAnmHE  MirCtLAGE 
PHOTO  HOnHTER  PASTE 
DKAWniG  BOARD  PASTE 
UQOn>  PASTE 
OmCE  PASTE 
VEGETABLE  GLITE,  Etc 


lopt  iha  HInim'  Ink,  and  AMf 

They  vlU  &e  ■  nrelatlon  u  yon, 
et,  clean,  well  put  up,  and 


m  mXTB  STm  BBOOELnsV.^. 


N  Vn  wi\<.Viii  Vo  a.aiwvvwi" 


i  collectors' Guide 


In  this  section  the  readers  of  THE  BOOKMAN  wfll 
find  the  latest  announcemoits  of  reliable  dealen  In 
Rare  Books,  Manuscripts,  Autographs  and  Prlnta.  It 
will  be  well  to  look  over  this  section  carefully  eadt 
month,  for  the  advertisements  will  be  frequentlj 
changed,  and  items  of  interest  to  collectors  will  bs 
ofEer«l  here.  All  these  dealers  Invite  correspondence. 


THE  dispersal  of  the  famous  li- 
brary of  S.  R.  Chriatie-Miller, 
formerly  at  Britwell  Court,  Burnham, 
Bucks,  England,  has  gone  on  the  past 
season  uninterruptedly,  but  the  end  is 
not  yet,  for  the  first  portion  only  has 
'  been  sold  of  the  works  on  theology,  di- 
vinity, etc.,  among  which  are  some  of 
the  rarest  early  English  imprints. 
The  first  portion  of  this  library,  con- 
sisting of  Americana,  after  being 
catalogued  for  sale  at  Sotheby's,  was 
disposed  of  privately  to  the  late 
George  D.  Smith  in  August,  1916,  and 
was  bought  by  Henry  E.  Huntington. 
In  June,  and  July,  1919,  a  collection 
of  voyages  and  travels  from  this  li- 
brary was  sold  at  auction.  This  was 
followed  by  a  sale  of  "rare  books"  in 
December,  1919,  at  which  Mr.  Smith 
bought  the  famous  "Venus  and 
Adonis"  for  $75,000,  the  highest  price 
ever  paid  for  a  book  at  auction.  The 
books  of  airs,  ballads,  catches,  mad- 
rigals, songs,  and  other  music  from 
Britwell  Court  were  also  sold  in  De- 
cember last  year.  The  first  portion  of 
the  theological  works  from  Britwell 
Court  was  dispersed  last  May  and  fol- 
lowed immediately  after  the  sale  by 
auction  of  the  464  lots  in  the  Britwell 
library  of  books  from  the  library  of 
the  celebrated  French  bibliophile,  his- 
torian and  statesman,  Jacques  Au- 
guste  De  Thou  (1553-1617).  The  last 
sale  from  this  great  English  library 
was  in  June,  1920,  consisting  of  early 
English  tales,  novels  -  and  romances. 
To  disperse  the  entire  collection  will 
require  several  more  sales. 

Plpase  mentloii  Thi  Bookuin 


One  of  the  remarkable  autograph 
sales  of  the  last  season  was  that  of  the  , 
collection  made  by  Dr.  Jesse  C.  Green, 
of  West  Cheater,  Pennsylvania,  at  the* 
Philadelphia  auction  rooms  of  Staa 
V.  Henkels.  Dr.  Green  had  been  col- 
lecting autographs  for  some  eighty 
years,  and  although  only  102  years  of 
age,  yielded  to  the  temptation  which 
has  beset  many  other  collectors  and 
decided  to  have  his  treasures  dis- 
persed in  his  lifetime.  Since  the  col- 
lection was  a  judiciously  chosen  one, 
not  being  loaded  down  with  signatures 
of  people  once  considered  distin- 
guished but  now  forgotten,  the  results 
of  the  sale  were  satisfactory.  One 
wonders,  however,  whether  the  cen- 
tenarian really  intended  to  give  up 
collecting  when  his  material  was  dis- 
persed. A  habit  of  eighty  years  is  not 
easily  shaken  off. 


The  sale  of  Dr.  Frank  P.  O'Brien's 
collection  of  dime  novels  last  season 
doubtless  will  start  many  people  to 
hunting  up  those  treasures  of  their 
boyhood  in  the  hope  that  they  may, 
like  Dr.  O'Brien,  dispose  of  them  at 
from  ten  to  625  times  their  original 
price.  Such  a  hope  is  likely  to  prove 
illusive,  for  there  are  plenty  of  old 
dime  novels  in  existence,  and  the  high 
prices  paid  for  the  O'Brien  collection 
are  not  likely  to  be  repeated.  More 
than  one  seeker  after  hidden  treasure 
has  found,  after  reading  of  the  high 
price  paid  for  an  old  book,  that  his 
possessions  "in  which  the  s's  are  like 
fs"  are  merely  worthless  junk.     By 


THE  COLLECTORS*  GUIDE  {Cmtinued) 


the  way,  a  merely  cursory  examination 
of  old  typography  will  disclose  that 
the  long  8  in  old  books  is  not  like  an  / 
as  the  bar  is  not  carried  across  the  up- 
right. 


The  death  of  Frank  Karslake,  for 
many  years  editor  and  publisher  of 
the  English  quarterly,  "Book  Auction 
Records",  will  not  put  an  end  to  that 
publication.  Messrs.  Henry  Stevens, 
Son  and  Stiles  of  Great  Russell  Street, 
London,  will  continue  the  publication 
on  behalf  of  Mr.  Karslake's  widow. 


Herschell  V.  Jones,  the  sale  of  whose 
library  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  this 
generation,  has  by  no  means  given  up 
collecting.  He  is  now  engaged  in  bring- 
ing together  a  collection  of  one  hun- 
dred books  relating  to  the  formative 
period  of  the  drama  before  Shake- 
speare, and  has  succeeded  in  securing 
about  forty  volumes  which  have  not 
appeared  but  once  in  an  auction  sale  in 
the  last  half-century  or  more.  His 
latest  acquisition  was  the  "Amorettie" 
of  Edmund  Spenser,  the  Christie-Mil- 
ler copy  and  the  only  one  known  that 
will  ever  be  offered  for  sale.  Mr. 
Jones,  following  the  example  of  Yates 
Thompson,  another  editor,  in  limiting 
his  library  to  one  hundred  books,  is 
likely  to  secure  one  that  will  rival  his 
previous  collection  of  about  2,000  vol- 
umes in  its  interest  to  collectors. 


The  Blackstone  Memorial  Library 
of  Branford,  Connecticut,  has  a  copy 
of  a  Eulogy  on  the  death  of  George 
Washington,  delivered  in  Guilford, 
Connecticut,  on  February  22,  1800,  by 
Doctor  David  S.  Brooks,  but  not 
printed  until  1823  in  New  York.  This 
seems  to  be  the  only  known  copy.  If 
no  other  copies  can  be  located,  a  fac- 
simile reproduction  will  be  made. 


SPURR  &  SWIFT 

Dealers  in 

RARE  BOOKS,  AUTOCRJ 

First   Eclitioiis,   Bindings 

American  Bxport  AgenU 

25  Ryder  St.,  St.  Jamas',  Londout 


ANTIQUARIAN   BOOK 

ETasfaam  Road,  Stratford-«o-A?on,  En| 
Dealers  In  Rare  Books  and  First  Ed 
Dickens,  Thackeray,  Stevenson,  K 
Conrad,  Masefleld,  Wells,  Noyes, 
sany,  etc.,  etc. 

Caiuioguma  ntaUmd  trmm  on  rogue* 


Charies  F.  Heartmar 

129  East  24thSt.,  N.Y. 

Rare  and  fine  books,  Important  Amer 
autographs  of  celetfrities,  historical  pami 
American  Imprints,  Acts  and  Laws  of 
State,  material  relating  to  the  Indians 
editions  of  English  and  American  autho 
scribed  books,  old  newspapers,  etc^  b 
and  sold  at  private  and  public  sales. 


STIKEMAN   &   CO. 

BOOKBINDERS 

110-114  WEST  32D  ST.,  NEW  YO 

1 


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Restoriac* 
dosicnlacv  otc. 


ifs   of  ovory  dosoriptloa. 
solandor    and    Slip    ' 


BOOKS  on  pedigrees,  genealogy  and  coat 
every  Anglo-Saxon  and   Celtic  name.    Fa 
Crests,$l5.0*Hart*s  Irish  Pedigrees.2  vols,  lei 
CHAS.  A.  O'CONNOR,  21  Spruce  Street,  Ni 


Nmw  Catalogum 

Americana,  Old  Voyages  and  Ti 
Economics^  Books  on  the  Orien 
W.  A.  GOUGH,  Inc. 
26  West  42nd  St^  NEW  YORK 

BOOKS. — ^All  out-of-print  books  tttppUod,  no  i 
wluit  subject.  Wiit«  as.  We  can  get  you  i 
ever  published.  Please  state  wants.  When 
1  and  call  and  see  our  50,000  rare  books.  B 
GRBAT  BOOKSHOP,  li-16  John  Brigfa 
Birmingham ,  England. 

FOR    THE     BOOK     LOl 

Bare  booke — First  editions. 
Books  BOW  oat  of  print. 
Lateet  Catalogue  Senf  on  Raqueet 
G.  <»RHARI>T,  25  W.  42d  Straet.New 

BOOKS  and  AUTOGRAPHS—Barly  Printe 
First  Editions  .Standard  Authors,etc.  Catalci 
R.  Atkinson,  188  Peckham  Rye, London,  S.  E 

Books,  Science,  Literature,  etc..  Lists,  1 
M-2441  Po<it  St.,  San  Francisco.    (Mention  yv 


!!**•'  y»*  •'  *  .  '<^ 


Plesae  moitloii  Tbb  Boq«u»  tDnnVdnitt^  mfi^miiHiMMca. 


ERE  TO  Buy  Books 

The  bookaellers  adTcrtisiiiK  in  thia  section  hav*  nfr 
ci«nt  belief  in  the  excellence  of  their  stock  and  aUBt; 
to  eerTe  you  that  the;  place  their  oreBnisationa  at  IW 
command  of  book-lovers  everywhere.  Readers  of  THE 
BOOKMAN  mentioning  the  maKazlne  maj  feel  asMutd 
that  Tcr;  friendly  and  prompt  attention  will  be  giy 
br  all  of  these  concerns,  for  whose  respotiBibilitr  THK 
BOOKMAN  can  voach. 


BOOKS 

In  Quantity 

The  longest  established 
and  largest  dealers 
in  books  exclusively 

Wrif  for  Calahgat 

THE  BAKER  &  TAYLOR  CO. 

WHOLESALE  DEALeRSlNTHB 
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354  Fourth  Ave.    NEW  YORK    At  2Mh  St. 


Any  book  mentioned  in  T&E  BOOK- 
MAN, with  few  exceptions,  may  be 
obtained  in  the  book  SHOP  OF 

JOHN  WANAMAKER 

NEW  Y(»K  AND  PHILADEUHIA 
g 
sa 

wtJVstZ  ordera  promptly  attsndtd  to. 
En    We  buy  rare  books  and  aat». 
To 

^_^_  "'■'"'■  ■" ■•""""  Tn»  BiM.i-" 

Plcaae  mention  The  Booiua 


An  American  anniversary  edition  of 
Hardy's  novels,  in  twenty  volumes, 
commemorates  the  eightieth  birthday 
of  the  novelist.  On  this  occasion  Mr. 
Hardy  received  this  birthday  cable: 
"The  following  American  writers  con- 
gratulate you  on  your  living  contribu- 
tions to  our  literature:  (Signed) 
Sherwood  Anderson,  James  Branch 
Cabell,  Van  Wyck  Brooks,  Theodore 
Dreiser,  Robert  Frost,  Joseph  Herges- 
heimer,  Vachel  Lindsay,  Amy  Lowell, 
H.  L.  Mencken,  E.  A.  Robinson,  James 
Oppenheim,  Carl  Sandburg,  Sara  Teas- 
dale,  and  Louis  Untermeyer," 

A  New  York  correspondent  to  the 
London  "Times"  deplores  the  screen- 
ing of  Hardy's  novels  "out  here"; 

Lllerarj-   vmidnllBio   Is  rast 


rociu™ 


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whlpb  mil'  iif  llariJy'a  imivcI*  hns  tiprn  scrpfopd 
nut  Her-'.  One  arvnp  In  laid  Iti  Boston :  An  ri- 
triumiiH  loTG  alTalr  la  iDtrndDcm.  Tbpj  aii- 
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