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BP^C2j.^

OCT 9 Tjas

l^arbartr College l/tbrarg

FKOM THE BSCU-'KS'T OK

MRS. ANNE E. P. SEVER,
OF BOSTON,

Widow of Col. James Wakken Sever,
(OlA«« Of ISIT^

THB LAMP

NEW SERIES OF THE BOOK BUYER

A REVIEW AND RECORD
OF CURRENT LITERATURE

VOLUME XXVI

[NEW SERIES]

FEBRUARY-JULY, 1003

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

153-157 FIFTH AVENUE

ConrucKT, 1903, by Charlbs Sgubmu's Sons

INDEX

PAGB

Announcement 1 1

Barrie, James M. — Mr. Barrie as a Dramatist J. M. Bulloch 28

Bernhardt, Sarah — Sarah Bernhardt, Playwright. Illustrated. .Arsene Alexandre 191

Du Chaillu, Paul — His Last Letters from Russia. With a

Portrait 392

ESSAYS :

Macaulay's First Essay Prof. Wilbur L. Cross . . 11

The Unactable Drama Brander Matthews 99

Tendencies of the American Novel. An English point

of view J. M. Bulloch no

ILLUSTRATED ARTICLES :

Mrs. Humphry Ward Roland Phillips 17

Mr. Barrie as a Dramatis: J- M. Bulloch 28

Vagaries of Book- collectors William Loring Andrews 102

A Literary Love Marguerite Mermgton . . 136

Typography and Bookmaking Frederic Sherman 1 64

Notes upcn recent examples of artistic bookmaking.

Sarah Bernhardt, Playwright Arsene Alexandre 191

With Drawings by M. Clairin, in collaboration with Mme. Bernhardt.

In the Grisons Alice Crossette Hall .... 207

Reminiscences of Stevenson and Symonds.

The Illustrated Weekly Newspaper J. M. Bulloch 220

Timely Interviews Gustav Kobbe and Charles Hall Garrett 225

With Hcnr\' Harland, Anthony Hope, and Bernard Quaritch.

« The Red Rose ' Mary Tracy Earle 275

An Interview with James Whitcomb Riley M. C. Chomel 289

A New England Singer — Nora Perry Caroline Ticknor 363

Samuel Rogers's * Italy ' and ' Poems ' W^illiam Loring Andrews 375

An Old * Book of Friends ' . . , Edith Rickert 455

Literary Querist, The. Conducted by Rossiter Johnson . . .75, 166, 255, 337, 433, 514

Lee, Sidney Portrait, 274 ; Note, 314

Life Is a Lamp. A Poem John Finley 285

Nev»r Books and New Editions. Brief notices of new publications .... 73, 168, 338, 515

Perry, Nora — A New England Singer. Illustrated Caroline Ticknor 363

INDEX

PORTRAITS .

Abbott, Lyman, 362 Miller, William, 104

Baker, Samuel, 106 Muller, Max, 201

Brookfield, Charles, 309 Mitchell, Donald G., 146

Bernhardt, Sarah, 191 McMaster, John Bach, 149

Chamberlain, Joseph, 157 Mositz of Orange, Prince, 461

Carlyle, Thomas, 387 Pancoast, Henry S., 330

Du Chaillu, Paul B., 393 Perry, Nora, 367

Daskam, Josephine, 236 Riley, J. W., 291, 450

Dibbin, Rev. Thos. F., 103 Roosevelt, President, 155

Duse, Eleanora, 156 Rostand, Edmond, 494, 500

Darwin, Charles, 399 Rogers, Samuel, 375

Emerson, R. W., 317, 319 Spencer, Earl, 105

Fletcher, Grace, 117 Stone, Andrew J., 151

Ford, Sewell, 507 Stothard, Thomas, 379

Giffin, Miss Etta J., 152 Smith, Pamela Coleman, 418

Hapgood, Hutchins, 423 Stoddard, R. H., 403, 407, 485, 487

Harland, Henry, 227 Stoddard, Lorimer, 407, 486

Hawkins, Anthony Hope, 186 Turner, J. M. W., 380

Higginson, Col. F. W., 98 Victoria, Queen, 203

Ingram, Herbert, 221 William, Prince of Orange, 457

James, Henry, 312 Welsh, Miss Jane, 391

Lawrence, William (Bishop), 248 Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 18, 19

Lee, Sidney, 274 Weismann, August, 10

Leroy, Caroline, 119 Wharton, Edith, 416

REVIEWS : page.

Letters and Life. Reviews of books of special importance. Fiske's * Essays,
Historical and Critical' ; 'Memoirs of Paul Kruger' ; de Wet's 'Three

Years' War.' With Portraits Prof. John Finley 41-84.

Riis's 'Battle with the Slum,' Williams's 'New York Sketches,' Zeublm's
'American Municipal Progress,' Woods's ' Americans in Process,' Father
McCabe's ' St. Augustine,' Van Tyne's * Life and Letters of Daniel Web-
ster,' McMaster' s ' Daniel Webster.' With Portraits 1 13-12 1

* Life and Letters of Max Miillcr,' Lee's * Queen Victoria ' 199—206

Brooks's ' The "Social Unrest,' Ortrogorski's « Democracy ' 301-306

Holden's 'Mogul Emperors of Hindustan,' Channing's ' Thoreau, the Poet-
Naturalist,' Bryce's ' Studies in Contemporary Biography' and ' More Let-
ters of Charles Darwin ' 395-402.

McCarthy's 'British Political Portraits,' 'The Philippines,' Foster's 'Di-
plomacy in the Orient,' O. W. Holmes's ' Speeches,' and Sanborn's « Per-
sonality of Thoreau ' 478-484

Mr. Henley and Romantic Painting W. C. Brownell 49.

A Review of the last volume of Henley's * Views and Reviews.'

INDEX

Reviews : — Continued, pack

Mr, Paul on the Poetry of Matthew Arnold Edith Wharton 51

Second Canto of the Eric of the Wheat A. Schadc van Wcstrun. 54

A Review of Norris's * The Pit,' with a Portnit.

Three English Women Novelists W. C. Brownell 1 21

A Review of Bonneirt * Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Jane Austen : Studies in their Works.*

The Latin Quarter of England John Corbin 123

A Review of Bourget's ' Impressions of Oxford.* Illustrated.

Lady Rose's Daughter Lionel Strachey 142

A Review of Mrs. Humphry Ward's new novel.

Saintsbury's * History of Criticism ' 286

A Book of Charm by a Man of Science Henry van Dyke 299

A Review of King's * Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada.*

A Few Current Novels :

Reviews of Bagot's « Donna Diana/ Clouston's 'Adventures of D'Haricot,'
Remington's *John Ermine,' Trowbridge's * Eglee,' Williamson's 'Light-
ning Conductor,' Wells's * The Sea-Lady,' and Dye's « The Conquest '
Mary Gay Humphreys 5 J— 6 1

In Lighter Vein. Reviews of the new novels and short stories. .Eleanor Hoyt
Francis's * A Son of Destiny,' Williams's * The Captain,* Eggleston's * Master
of Warlock,' Mrs. Ishara's * Under the Rose,' Kenton's 'What Manner of
Man,' Peake's * Pride of Telfair,' Bingham's ' The Philadelphians '. . . 1 59-163

Mrs. Rice's < Lovey Mary,' Forman's 'Journey's End,' Swift's ' In Picca-
dilly,' Agnes and Egerton Castle's ' Star Dreamer,' Oxenham's ' Flowers of
the Dust,' Altsheler's ' Before the Dawn,' Mrs. Wilkins's « Six Trees,'
Mrs. Dudeney's < Pobin Brilliant ' 250-254

Mrs. Wilkins- Freeman's ' Wind in the Rose Bush,' Mrs. Green's ' Filigree
Ball,' Jean Webster's ' When Patty Went to College,' M. Imlay Taylor's
'The Rebellion of the Princess,' Elliott Flower's ' The Spoilsmen,' Nor-
man Maclean's ' Dwellers in the Mist,' Max Pemberton's • The Gold
Wolf 332-336

Phillips's ' Golden Fleece,' Barbour's ' Land of Joy,' Hornung's ' No Hero,'
Hay den's ' From a Thatched Cottage,' McCarthy's * Marjorie,' Cotton's
Tioba,' and Davenport's ' Ramparts of Jezreel ' 429—432

Richardson and Hazlitt W. C. Brownell 216

Reviews of the new * Lives ' in the English Men of Letters Series.

Henry James's Short Stories Montgomery Schuyler. . 231

A Review of * The Better Sort.'

New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlylc .... Carolyn Shipman 386

The Books of Emil Zola Lionel Strachey 409

Reviewing his last novel, * Truth.'

INDEX

Rambler, The. Literary news and comment. With Portraits p^^b

and other illustrations 63, 147, 237, 313, 417, 495

Riley, James Whitcomb — An Interview with. Illustrated . . . . M. C. Chomel 289

— Sargent's Portrait of 454

SPECIAL ARTICLES:

Weismann, An Autobiographical Sketch. Introduction by Prof. Josiah Royce. ... 21

John Adams and Mary Wollstonecroft Elisabeth Luther Cary . . 35

Quotations Misquoted R. L. C. White 128

A Weakness in the American College Charles F. Thwing .... 187

Some of the Differences between Scottish and English

Writers J. M. Bulloch 295

Reminiscences of an Actor 307

With a Portrait of Charles H. E. Brodcfield.

The Chances for Americans in English Journalism J. M. Bulloch 382

Matthew Arnold on George Sand and Balzac, Introduction by Brander Matthews 464

Is * Extra-Illustrating ' Played Out ? J. M. Bulloch 467

Early English Criticism of Emerson T. C. Evans 470

The Sonnet of Arvers Walter Littlefield 488

Some Really Historical Novels Herbert Croly 509

Stoddard, Richard Hem^'. Some Personal Notes, Illustrated . . Ripley Hitchcock 403

New Pictures of the Stoddards. From Photographs by Lorimer Stoddard . 485-487

Smith, Pamela Coleman Note, 417; Portrait, 418

Ward, Mrs. Humphry — A Sketch of. Illustrated Roland Phillips 17

VOLXJCVI NUHBER f PUBLISHED BIONTHLY IIJO A YEAR. « CENTS A COPY"

;.^ s,.'» • '--.u

^v^^^.V

LAMP

NefT Series of llie Book Birper

A REVIEW AND RECOED
OF CITRJLBJVT XiTERATURB

CHARLES SCSSSSmS SONS

NEWITOKK MCMn^

T H \ .V^-^^-T UTERA'^'^

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For his Autobiography^ sec page 21.

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'BRIDGE, MN^

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A Review and Record of Current Literature

APrLICATIOM MADE FOR BNTRY AT THE POST-OPFICB, KBW YORK, H. Y., AS 8BC01in>-Cl.AS8 MATTBR

Vol. XXVI

NEW YORK, FEBRUARY, 1903

No. I

ANNO UNCEMENT

T£/^!TH. this number the Book Buyer becomes The LaMP, the former title no
^^ longer expressing its purpose under the changed conditions of to-day. The origin
cf the new title is found in the cover device^ the traditions of which also add materi-
ally to its propriety and significance.

The Lamp is not^ therefore^ a new magazine. It is rather the ripening of the
elder magazine^ an inevitable development^ normally^ along inviting and sympathetic
lines. To make this the clearer^ the old name will also appear in connection with it^
at least for a time ; and the former sub-title^ "7/ Review and Record of Current
Literature^'' will^ with a free interpretation^ be retained. The field of The Lamp is
therefore in nowise enlarged^ but this field^ the importance of which in our own land
is vastly more significant now than ever before^ offers it a fertile soil for sound growths

MACAULAY'S FIRST ESSAY

By Wilbur L. Cross
Professor of English in Yale University

SEVERAL incidents of the last year
emphasize the fact that we are now
taking the novel with very great serious-
ness. The genial editor of the Atlantic
has just published a study in which it is
assumed that "prose fiction is an art"
with principles which may be formulated
in a manner similar to what was done for
poetry by Aristotle. Of the six addresses
from the graduating class at the last
Harvard Commencement two were on
themes connected with the novel. And
Edward the Seventh began his reign by
knighting Conan Doyle and Gilbert
Parker.

Respect so marked as this for the novel
IS very modern. There were no decora-

tions for Dickens and. Thackeray. As
viewed by their contemporaries, they
were the authors of "light volumes," to
be read and cast aside, not to be studied
as specimens of a literary form. Go back
a generation or two farther and you
come quickly to the time when Jane
Austen, speaking for her guild, could
say: "Although our productions have af-
forded more extensive and unaffected
pleasure than those of any other literary
corporation in the world, no species of
composition has been so much decried.
From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our
foes are almost as many as our readers."
This observation, all evidence goes to
show, was perfectly true. No one then.

THE LAMP

except a kindly little Strotclune^ named
Dunlop, had ever seriously treated of fic-
tion as an art. The novelists since
Fielding, to be sure, had talked much
about themselves ; but they invariably set
up the claim that they were writing
something better than a novel — an ex-
panded essay or moral treatise, or in the
case of the great master it was a comic
epic. For the novel as a genre and for
their public they expressed the utmost
contempt. The author of "Rasselas,"
for example, described novels as books
"written chiefly to the young, the igno-
rant, and the idle." Frances Burney
thought that "young ladies in general
and boarding-school damsels in particu-
lar" would greatly profit by "the total
extirpation of novels." The once popu-
lar Charlotte Smith was inclined to take
exception to the views of Miss Burney;
and this is the way in which she ex-
pressed herself: "There is a chance that
those who read nothing if they do not
read novels, may collect from them some
few ideas that a£e not either fallacious
or absurd to add to the very scanty stock
which the usual insipidity of life has af-
forded them." Again, Sir Walter Scott,
as is well known, never permitted his
name to appear on a volume of the
Waverley series. And in no instance, I
think, where he explained his course, did
he fail to iterate the opinion that ro-
mance-writing is a frivolous occupation.
With the novelists writing after this
manner, even in their prefaces, what
could be expected of the critics ? Diderot
lamented that the works of Richardson
should be called novels. Rousseau de-
nounced the novel as a kind of writing
permissible only to a corrupt people.
^'Would to heaven," he exclaims in the
preface to the "Nouvelle Heloise," "I
had lived in an age when I ought to have
thrown these sheets into the fire! No
chaste young woman ever read a ro-
mance." At a little later period it be-
came the custom of the more formal crit-

ics — college professors and rhetoricians —
to piece out their lectures and treatises
with a few rare remarks on "a very in-
significant class of writings, known by
the .name of romances and novels."
James Beattie, to cite a notable example
— for he was the author of the "Min-
strel" as well as professor of moral phi-
losophy and logic in Marischal College
— concluded an address with thoe
words: "Let not the usefulness of ro-
mance-writing be estimated by the length
of my discourse upon it. Romances arc
a dangerous recreation. ... A habit
of reading them breeds a dislike to his-
tory and all the substantial parts of
knowledge . . . and fills the mind
with extravagant thoughts, and too often
with criminal propensities. I would
therefore caution my young reader
against them ; or, if he must ... in-
dulge himself in this way now and then,
let it be sparingly and seldom." There
is nothing unusual in the style of this
passage ; on the contrary, when compared
with what might be quoted from Sir
John Hawkins, the biographer of Dr.
Johnson, the language is exceedingly
feeble. And even so late as 1837,
"kind, wise, and good Dr. Arnold," says
Thackeray, "deplored the fatal sympa-
thy which the Tickwick Papers' had
created in his school."

Pass from the novelists and the critics
to the public at large and you find two
prevailing attitudes toward novel-read-
ing. According to half-England it was
an amusement like steeplechasing, inno-
cent no doubt in the abstract, but not
without its risks. Among this class
Thackeray passed his youth. In the
school library at the Charterhouse were
the "glorious cycles" of Scott and Coo-
per, with much else that the boys could
read on half-holidays, but woe to the
youngster who dared look into them at
ill-appointed hours. "Do I forget,"
writes Thackeray in a Roundabout pa-
per, "Do I forget one night after prayers

THE LAMP

(when we under boys were sent to bed)
lingering at my cupboard to read one
little half-page more of my dear Walter
Scott— and down came the monitor's
dictionary upon my head?" According
to other half-England, consisting of all
upon whom the moral welfare of the
country hung heavily, it was a disgrace
to be caught reading a novel. To this
class belonged Zachary Macaulay, father
of the essayist and historian. In his view
there was no distinction between novel-
reading and "drinking drams."

For many years Zachary Macaulay
was the editor of the Christian Observer,
the popular organ of an Evangelical
body within the Established Church.
From time to time he inserted letters and
reviews from members of his sect, who
came close to exhausting the resources of
the English language in their search for
epithets opprobrious enough to stigmatize
every species of fiction. These denuncia-
tions for a long time passed unchallenged.
At length a correspondent signing him-
self A. A. contributed to the issue of
August, 181 5, a violent article on "the
bad effects of the present universal and
most ruinous practice of novel-reading,"
which met with a different fate. The
time and the place are of very great in-
terest, marking, as they do, a division of
opinion within the camp of the fiercest
opponents of the novel, and introducing
into the controversy the schoolboy whose
name was to become one of the most hon-
orable in the literature and politics of
his time.

Appealing to the hearts of his "fair
countr>'women," "I would ask," says the
unknown A. A., "what moral sentiment
has been strengthened, what duty better
performed, what object of their life has
been favorably influenced by these pro-
ductions? On the contrary, have not
even those finer sensibilities, which yet
linger in fallen humanity, been perverted
from their moral tendency. . . . Novel-
reading connects as naturally with dissi-

pation, vice, and want of conduct as good
principles and a sober course of reading
with exemplary habits, and all the better
affections. . . . Were I called upon to
name at once the most fruitful source
both of individual and national vice, and
the most convincing evidence of both, I
should name novels as at once cause and
effect." Not content with this reproba-
tion of the novel, A. A. threw in a few
sentences roundly castigating the con-
temporary poets, who under the influence
of the novelists were degrading their art
"to mere love-tales, mere delineations of
nature, holding no rank, diffusing no
influence in the moral world." And
throughout the amusing communication
there comes to the surface at frequent
intervals the notion that the imagination
is necessarily corrupt. Of all the facul-
ties (so rang the current phrase) with
which the Almighty endowed man at the
creation, this alone seems to have under-
gone no process of restoration through
the ages since the utter perversion of
man's nature by the sin of our first
parents. If the imagination cannot be
extirpated, it certainly can be suppressed.
And the first step to this desired end is
the utter annihilation of novels.

This invective against the novel by an
author "whose zeal seems to have out-
stripped his judgment" was read with
"great concern" by Tom Macaulay, then
a precocious boy who had not come to
the use of his full name. In spite of all
protests from his father, Tom had al-
ready got through the best novels, from
Richardson to Maria Edgeworth, and
knew some of them, it is said, by heart.
At the age of five he shocked Hannah
More by offering to bring her "a glass
of old spirits," saying, when met with a
stare, that it was the drink of Robinson
Crusoe. Signing himself Candidus, the
clever boy sent to the Christian Observer
for December, 181 6, a spirited reply to
A. A. He was then only sixteen years
old, and this is Macaulay 's first printed

THE LAMP

a subject is given [by the college] that
admits of none, the man who writes
without a moral is scarcely censurable."
And then, after defending once more
"books of amusement," he shows what
would have been his point of attack had
he been permitted to reply to Excubitor
in his father's periodical. "At all
events," he writes, "let us be consistent.
I was amused in turning over an old
volume of the Christian Observer to find
a gentleman signing himself Excubitor,
. . . after a very pious argument on the
hostility of novels to a religious frame of
mind, proceeding to observe that he was
shocked to hear a young lady, who had
displayed extraordinary knowledge of
modern ephemeral literature, own her-
self ignorant of Dryden's fables! Con-
sistency with a vengeance ! The reading
of modern poetry and novels excites a
worldly disposition and prevents ladies
from reading Dryden's fables ! There is
a general disposition among the more lit-
erary part of the religious world to cry
down the elegant literature of our own
time, while they are not in the slightest
degree shocked at atrocious profaneness
or gross indelicacy when a hundred years
have stamped them with the title of
classical. I say, *If you read Dryden
you can have no reasonable objection to
reading Scott.* The strict antagonist of
ephemeral reading exclaims, *Not so.
Scott's poems are very pernicious. They
call away the mind from spiritual relig-
ion and from Tancred and Sigismunda.' "
It is not recorded with what emotion
Zachary Macaulay read this letter. But
he was greatly disturbed a few months
later by a report from Cambridge that
his son was known there as "the novel-
reader," a designation as opprobrious as
"blackguard." After informing his anx-
ious father that so far as he can learn
from his friends "the elegant agnomen"
has never been applied to him, he ex-
plains that it is "a commodious name,
invented by ignorance, and applied by
envy" to anyone well-versed in modern

literature, "in the same manner as men
without learning call a scholar a pedant,
and men without principle call a Chris-
tian a Methodist."

The troubles of Zachary Macaulay
were not yet at an end. He had yet to
endure the distinction, says Trevelyan,
of being at "the head of a family in
which novels were more read and better
remembered than in any household of
the United Kingdom." On returning
from Cambridge young Macaulay lived
at home for a period of years, and it was
then that, to the amazement of his father,
he devoured voraciously all kinds of
novels, and with especial delight the
trashiest. His example now contami-
nated his sister Hannah, afterward Lady
Trevelyan. "On matters of the street
or of the household they would use the
very language" of Jane Austen's charac-
ters; "the love-affairs and the social re-
lations of their own circle" they debated
in "quotations from *Sir Charles Grandi-
son' and *Evelina' ;" and Tom learned by
heart long passages from the preposter-
ous romances of Mrs. Meeke and Mrs.
Kitty Cuthbertson, computing for his
own amusement "the number of faint-
ing-fits that occur in the course of five
volumes." We may imagine the dis-
tress of the father of this family, who
could not withstand the spirit of the
age. But the time had now arrived
when Zachary Macaulay was to listen to
his son's eloquent speech in Freemason's
Hall against slavery. Then, we may
suppose, he must have been convinced
that in Tom's case at least the head and
heart had been in no wise corrupted by
"idle reading."

The hard experiences of Macaulay,
which have doubtless been repeated with
variation in the lives of men not yet old,
are no longer possible. The very books
which would have been kept from him
could his father have had his way it is
now an accomplishment to have read.
To be sure, no one would advise that
we read novels all t-he time; and there

THE LAMP

are at hand specimens of the art that
may be well eyed askance. But the
judicious public has come to precisely the
same conclusion that was reached by this
schoolboy nearly a century ago: There
are good novels and there are bad novels,

in just the same way as there are good
plays and bad plays. In neither case is
the species to be condemned. Common-
place now, the conclusion seemed quite
otherwise to the enraged readers of the
Christian Observer.

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
By Roland Phillips

SHORTLY after the publication of
" Robert Elsmere," Mr. Gladstone
found time to praise it in a flattering
review, and to emphasize the author's
idea of the brotherhood of rich and poor.
The result was, directly, a decided in-
crease in the sales of the book ; indirectly,
the foundation of the Passmore Edwards
Settlement in London — an institution
similar in plan to the People's Palace.
This was more than ten years ago.
Since that time Mrs. Ward has won the
most generous recognition both in Eng-
land and abroad. Tolstoy, when asked
whom he considered the greatest living
English novelist, replied at once, " Mrs.
Humphry Ward, undoubtedly." The

praise of critics like Gladstone and Tol-
stoy is frankly that of students and ex-
ponents of social reform for the success-
ful writer of the novel with a moraL
But Mrs. Ward has done more than
build a social settlement with her pen.
In choosing for many of her novels
the quiet scenes of old country life in
England, Mrs. Ward depicts the sur-
roundings — " the broad, level lawns
smoothed by the care of centuries,
flanked on either side by groups of old
trees — groups where the slow, selective
hand of time has been at work for gen-
erations " — that take their color from
her own country estate in Hertfordshire.
Here, for example, one first meets Mar-

" STOCKS," MRS. HUMPHRY WARD's COUNTRY RKSIDKNCK, HERTS, KNC.LAND.

THE LAMP

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD AT THE BEGINNING OF HER LITERARY
CAREER.

(By permission of Harper & Brothers.)

cella. It IS the rapturous exclamation,
" beautiful, beautiful," as she looks
across the " wide uplands of the falling
valleys," that gives the first hint of her
character and its " passionate intensity
of pleasure." Indeed, the whole neigh-
borhood and surrounding countrj' of
Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire are

full of interest and literary
association. Mrs. Ward's
country home, " Stocks," is
situated on the line be-
tween the two counties. It
is one of the old English
estates, within easy reach
of London, and one of the
few remaining estates of
its size still mentioned in
Domesday Book. The old
house itself used to be the
home of that delightful old
seventeenth - century poet,
Waller. His " Poet's Seat"
is still to be seen in a rude
niche hewn in the side of
an enormous tree on the
grounds. Sir Walter Scott
was also a tenant— or own-
er — and is reported to have
" spent many happy days
in the quaint high rooms
where the author of * Rob-
ert Elsmere ' now dispenses
kindly hospitality to her
friends and neighbors." It
is now more than local tra-
dition that the little vil-
lage of Ivinghoe near by
suggested the name for
Scott's famous novel. An-
other picturesque, old-
world village in the neigh-
borhood is Aldbury, which
still has its village green
with the old-fashioned
wooden stocks and whip-
ping-post, and where one
may still see the pond in
which the village scolds
used to get their regular duckings. A
writer in a recent number of London
Sketch J who is evidently familiar with
the local traditions, says that in the old
church of Aldbury, which is filled with
the quaint memorials of the Verney and
Harcourt families, took place the funeral
service of the two game-keepers whose

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murder in a neighboring
wood created a sensation
through the country — an
incident of which Mrs.
Ward makes dramatic use
in her " Bessie Costrell."
An attractive feature of
*' Stocks " itself that dis-
tinguishes it from many of
the old manor-houses of its
kind is the lightness and
spaciousness of its living
rooms, many of which open
directly upon a wide en-
trance hall, which is fur-
nished with fine pictures
and quaint, old-fashioned
heirlooms. In addition, all
the principal windows of
the house look out upon
^* old -world gardens and
stately lawns," giving the
effect of an estate and park
of old baronial times.

From the beginning of
her recognition as a nov-
elist and student of social
questions Mrs. Ward,
more, perhaps, than any
other modern writer, has
kept her home and public
life distinct. In London it
is said that George Mere-
dith is the only other prom-
inent writer of fiction who
has never been interviewed.
The story is told of a well-
known journalist to the ef-
fect that one evening, on the
occasion of a meeting and
an address by Mrs. Ward in the East
End of London, an appointment was
made for an interview a day or two later.
It appears that Mrs. Ward had said to
him that she "wouldn't, perhaps, mind
making a few remarks about * Eleanor '
to the American public, which has been
so extremely kind to me." This was
taken to mean that these remarks would

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD, TO-DAY.
(By [>erinission of Harper & Brothers.)

be made on the occasion mentioned. On
the morning of the day appointed, how-
ever, the interviewer received a note
regretting that Mrs. Humphry Ward
would be unable to receive the represen-
tative of The Times at the hour set.
That was the end of the interview. In-
deed, the nearest Mrs. Ward ever comes
to public mention of her own work is in

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an occasional address before some literary
society like the Authors' Club. At a re-
cent dinner of this club in London, in
responding to the toast of " The Ladies,"
Mrs. Ward claimed that there is much
to be said for the novel with a purpose,
and professed to belong to the class of
writers who are in their fiction expo-
nents of this style of writing. She held
that the artist is no worse, but better,
for stepping outside the limitations of
his art occasionally for the sake of social
service. For many years Mrs. Ward has
been an active worker among the poor
of London, whose cause has been the
point of departure of the philosophy in
these purpose novels.

It is now generally known, I think,
that before marriage Mrs. Ward was an
Arnold — of the " literary house of Ar-
nold " — whose associations and tradi-
tions in letter* have meant much in her
choice of a litersLry career and in her suc-
cess. Her husband is also a writer of
no mean ability. His edition of " The
English Poets," published about twenty
years ago, is still a standard work of its
kind, and is generally used in the uni-
versities. At the time of his marriage he
was one of the most popular dons at Ox-
ford.

Mrs. Ward's first h'terary work was
the contribution of a number of critical
essays to the London reviews, which were
followed by her first work of fiction —
an unpretentious story for children, pub-
lished under the title of " Milly and
Oily." Then came the love-story of
" Miss Bretherton," that is now rarely
read and that never had more than a
" success of promise." The author's
translation of Amiel's " Journal Intime,"
published soon after, is a delightful bit
of work which is now, unfortunately, too
little known. It was in the preface of
the " Journal Intime " that the sugges-
tion of Mrs. Ward's interest in social
questions was first made known. At that
time the manuscript for an essay treat-

ing of the social relations of rich and
poor was ready and awaiting a publisher.
In this essay, reworked in fiction form,
was the germ of " Robert Elsmere,"
which was published in 1888. Four
years later appeared " David Grieve ;"
then " Marcella " and its sequel, " Sir
George Tressady;" a shorter novel,
" The Story of Bessie Costrell," men-
tioned above; then the love-story, " Hel-
beck of Bannisdale;" and soon after-
ward, " Eleanor." At the present time
a new novel from her pen, " Lady Rose's
Daughter," is appearing in serial form
in one of our leading magazines.

To those who have followed the trend
and development of Mrs. Ward's philos-
ophy as shown in these novels it has been
evident, in spite of her own contention
that " the artist is no worse, but better,
for stepping outside the limitations of his
art occasionally for the sake of social
service," that since " Robert Elsmere "
the tendency of her work has been to
minimize the importance J the, discus-
sion of social problems as a fictional
theme. According to her own statement
she wishes to be classed among the " pur-
pose " novelists. But since " Robert Els-
mere," " Marcella " and its sequel that
purpose has sensibly changed. If the
novels like " Helbeck of Bannisdale "
and " Eleanor " are meant to convey a
moral it is the moral, not of religious
duty nor of the brotherhood of classes,
but that of the philosophy which preaches
the freedom of the individual and eman-
cipation from dogma. Since the warn-
ing has been given one should, perhaps,
read into even the later novels some such
serious underlying thought. But for
those who admire Mrs. Ward as a nov-
elist as well as a " preacher of doctrine,"
there is still the satisfaction of seeing in
" Helbeck of Bannisdale" merely a love-
story, and in her novels like " Eleanor "
and " Lady Rose's Daughter " some of
the most effective delineations of complex
character yet written in fiction.

WEISMANN

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
With an Introduction by Professor Josiah Royce

I HAVE been asked to say a word by
way of introduction to the autobio-
graphical sketch of Professor Weismann
which follows. The task is one that
might much more naturally fall to a
biologist. I have no right to speak with
authority upon the topics with which
Professor Weismann's life-work is di-
rectly associated. But what I can do is
to bear witness to the vast importance
of our author's work, viewed even in its
decidedly indirect relations to other
fields of study and to other human in-
terests than those to which he has im-
mediately devoted himself. How far
Professor Weismann's various theoreti-
cal views concerning the problems of
heredity are correct, I must leave to
time and to the biologists to determine.
What is certain is that in the history of
discussion his name will always remain
associated with an important crisis in
the theory of heredity. And the theory
of heredity, both in its pre-scientific and
its scientific stages, has always repre-
sented, and in future will always repre-
sent, a group of ideas of central im-
portance for the human mind.

What is heredity ? What is inherited ?
These have always been among man's
fundamental problems. Superstition has
undertaken to give answers to these
problems; religion, as in the doctrine of
original sin, has made them matters of
formulated faith; hereditary monarchy
and aristocracy, family pride and indi-
vidual fancy have given these problems
a central social importance long before
science existed. In the age of science
and of the contact and conflict of
the various races and civilizations of
humanity, in the age of revolutionary,
educational, and social ideals the same

problems become only the more obvious-
ly issues upon whose solution the whole
social and physical future of the race
depends. The doctrine of evolution,
with its vast cosmical suggestions, has,
in addition, given to these same issues so
universal a significance that our entire
understanding of the meaning and the
history of organic life will obviously be
determined by whatever answer to these
questions science in the end makes pos-
sible. Nor are the problems of heredity
in any wise pure problems of speculation.
They relate to matters of constant ex-
perience ; they are prima facie within the
range of empirical investigation; they
concern matters which we have every
right to hope some day to understand as
well as physical science now understands
the tides. No current scientific discus-
sion deserves, therefore, to be more close-
ly followed by a well-cultivated popular
interest than does the modern biological
discussion of the nature, the causes, and
the effects of heredity. The technical
details of the discussion must, indeed,
often escape us who stand without, and
our judgment as to the central matters
must long hang in suspense. But by the
way, as we follow the leaders, we shall
have much to learn that, even in ad-
vance of the final decision, will prove
not only of interest, but also of frequent
and direct practical importance. For
many significant practical problems as
to heredity will be solved, from time to
time, long before the central issues are
settled.

The work of Professor Weismann in
dealing with these problems of heredity
has, apart from the special significance
of his individual researches, two great
and by no means identical features. For

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the first our author has gradually been
led to formulate a general theory of the
process of heredity. This theory has
assumed its present shape in his book
on the "Germplasm." It has passed
through several stages on the way to its
present form. It is a theory which
meets with much authoritative opposi-
tion, as well as with some decided sup-
port. Of its ultimate fortunes I have
no idea. But in the history of the sub-
ject it will always retain, I suppose, a
prominent place as a stage on the way
to the attainment of the truth. But, on
the other hand, our author's significance
for the progress of the science of hered-
ity by no means stands or falls with this
general theory itself. Qi even far more
extended popular interest is the second
feature of his work, namely, his series
of studies regarding the evidences for
the "Heredity of Acquired Characters,"
and his rejection of the traditional views
upon that question. Our author's views
upon this topic are connected, in his own
mind, with his theory of heredity; but
the two sets of views are not identical.
There are not a few biologists of the
highest rank who would not accept Pro-
fessor Weismann's positive views as to
the general theory of heredity, but who
do agree with him in rejecting as un-
proved, as improbable, or even as dis-
proved, the traditional doctrine, com-
mon to folk-lore, to theology, and to all
but decidedly recent biological science,
that all or most "acquired characters"
tend in a greater or less degree to be
inherited, be these characters the prod-
uct of accident or of the habitual use
or disuse of organs and of functions.
To the discussion of this problem Pro-
fessor Weismann has contributed an un-
sparing criticism of tradition — a criti-
cism which seems to have seriously
altered, even if it has not revolutionized,
the way in which the evidence as to
what can be inherited is analyzed, is
estimated, and is employed for the study

of evolution in general and for the de-
cision of the practical problems of he-
redity in particular.

An organism inherits the tempera-
ment, the original character, the predis-
positions of its ancestors — the inheritance
being so determined that the organism
gets not all the traits of all its ancestors^
but a selection from a large total of pos-
sible traits. But during life the organ-
ism, like the ancestral organisms before
it, is subject to fortune, lives in a cer-
tain environment, is modified by count-
less outer influences. If it is an animal
organism, it responds to these outer in-
fluences by forming habits which involve
the use and disuse of its various organs
in various ways. Now the question
arises: Can these effects of use and dis-
use, can the chance influences due to
the modification of the organism, in any
part or in any function that you please,
by the environment — can all such "ac-
quired characters," viewed merely as
such, get a chance to be passed on by
heredity to later generations? And, on
the other hand, did the individual or-
ganism inherit, not only the original
traits of its ancestors, not only their
temperament and their predispositions,
but also some selection from among
their "acquired characters" — their hab-
its, their various bodily modifications,
due to their environment? To such
questions folk-lore long ago answered,
in special cases, "yes." Theology later
accepted some similar answers. A chief,
a king, a hero, a priest, was very fre-
quently supposed to transmit to his de-
scendants not only his original character,
but his acquired prowess, skill, or good-
fortune. A malefactor was often sup-
posed to transmit the results of his evil
deeds. The fathers ate sour grapes and
the children's teeth were set on edge.
Adam's sin, which his posterity inher-
ited, was an "acquired character."
Moreover, until recently science itself,
while altering the nature of the special

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characters supposed to be inherited, ac-
cepted affirmative answers to many ques-
tions relating to acquired habits and to
various results of use, of disuse, and of
bodily fortune, in the cases of organisms
of numerous grades. In the early his-
tory of the doctrine of evolution theories
which implied the heredity of very nu-
merous sorts of acquired traits were
accepted and were used — ^very promi-
nently by Spencer — in a less important,
but still very real sense, namely, as
auxiliary doctrines, by Darwin him-
self.

The practical importance of all such
questions, and of their answers, is known
to everybody. What can be more inter-
esting than to learn whether our race is
now carrying and will carry the bur-
dens and the treasures due to the bad
habits and to the good habits, to the ill-
fortune and to the good-fortune, to the
training and to the environment of an-
cestors? Now, it is indeed the case that
various students of heredity (notably
Gal ton) were some time since inde-
pendently led to doubt the extent of the
validity, or even to question the entire
validity, of the traditional, popular, and
scientific lore as to the foregoing ques-
tions. But it has been Professor Weis-

mann's fortune to put the whole subject
into the foreground of general interest,
and by his spirited attack upon the whole
mass of the traditional evidences for the
heredity of acquired characters to intro-
duce a new examination of the entire
subject. This service to science is
wholly independent of the future fate of
Professor Weismann's positive theory of
heredity; and, as mentioned above, this
service is cordially recognized, and is
even accepted as implying substantially
valid views regarding the non-heredity
of acquired characters on the part of
many biologists who do not accept Pro-
fessor Weismann's central and positive
theory of the process of heredity.

We who are not biologists have a
right to prize and to study a man who
has done so much for the interests of
humanity. Professor Weismann has
written, for the use of an American
public, this autobiographical sketch,
which he has put into the hands of my
friend and pupil, Dr. Cushman, whose
translation of the sketch follows. I am
glad to read the sketch, and am grateful
for the data which it contains. My task
here is merely to remind the reader of
the debt that we all owe to Professor
Weismann.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PROFESSOR AUGUST WEISMANN
[Translated by Herbert Ernest Cushman, P/r.D.]

NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR

During my stay in Freiburg, in Baden, I took
the liberty that my letter of introduction to Pro-
fessor Weismann offered, to ask him for the data
of his life. I had in mind in my request some
dry chronological facts such as a cyclopaedia
could use ; for a prominent American biologist,
a friend of mine, had complained that scarcely
anything about Professor Weismann 's life had
been published in English. Two letters passed
between us, and in November, 1896, after I had
been home two months, the following valuable
statement was* delivered to me by post. As I
had no such detailed statement in mind, I have

felt a good deal of responsibility about deliver-
ing it correctly to the public ; and Dr. G. H.
Parker and others have materially assisted me to
this end.

There are a few facts that an outsider could
add to the following autobiography of Professor
Weismann. He is one of the most popular
lecturers in the University at Freiburg. His
lecture-room is always full, and his popularity
among the students fully equals his fame among
scientists. He does not mention the favor he
has at the court at Karlsruhe, Baden's capital ;
but there is more than mere loyalty in his en-
thusiasm over the resuscitation of his country.
He speaks, in a word, about playing "a good

THE LAMP

deal of music " during his ten years of inactivity.
He himself is a very fine musician, and his son
is already a professional musician, having re-
ceived no other training. The reader will note
that Professor Weismann speaks of proposing the
thought that certain animals live on indefinitely,
and therefore do not suffer death. In another
place he has spoken of the fact "as a funeral
without a corpse. " The continuous eye trouble
he has had must have been a terrible obstacle ;
but it may have been the prime cause of turning
him to the theories with which his name is
coupled.

AUGUST WEISMANN

I WAS born January 17, 1834, at
Frankfort-am-Main ; and my parents
were Joh. Conrad Weismann, Professor
of the Classics and German Literature
in the Gymnasium at Frankfort, and
Elise Eleanore Lubbren, of Hanover.
In my youth I received instruction in the
gymnasium at Frankfort, from which I
went in the fall of 1852 to the Univer-
sity at Gottingen, where I remained
from 1852 to 1856. There I studied
medicine under Professors Henle, Wag-
ner, Lotze, von Siebold, Baum, Wohler,
and Wilh. Weber. After my studies I
essayed the practice of medicine — at one
time as hospital assistant to Professor
Thierfelder, in Rostock, at another as
physician in Frankfort. During this
period I visited the universities in Vien-
na and Paris and made some other Con-
tinental tours.

Since medicine satisfied me little as a
profession, I turned to some histological
*work and to the study of morphology,
as well as to that of embryology. Pro-
fessor Rudolph Leuckart, then still at
Giessen, introduced me in a most hos-
pitable way into his science and encour-
aged me to undertake the study of the
development of the diptera. This hap-
pened in the years 1860-62, while I was
staying in the country at the Castle
Schaumburg, on the River Lahn, the
property of the Archduke Stephan of
Austria.

In the early part of the year 1863 I
habilitated at the University of Frei-
burg, in Baden, as prlvat-docent, and
have remained faithful to that institu-
tion since that time. I finished my
"Entwickelungsgeschichte der Dipteren"
in that place, and my Habilitations-
thesis was entitled "Ueber die Enste-
hung des voUendeten Insects in Larve
und Puppe." I purposed to proceed on
the newly discovered ways of embryol-
ogy among other groups of insects and
then among other classes of animals.
Many new aspects came to view in my
studies of the diptera, and it appeared
very well worth while to study other
departments with these in mind. So I
beheld an interesting and profitable field
of work spreading out before me, and I
tried with much pains to get its fruits.

Unfortunately, it was not granted me
to perform much more in this line. Sev-
eral small investigations concerning in-
sects were, however, completed, and es-
pecially the embryology of the Corcthra
plumicornis, one of the Tipulidae larvae,
which on account of its transparency
was particularly favorable for such un-
dertakings, for at that time there was no
method of making sections of little soft
bodies. In the middle of the summer
term of 1864, however, my work was
brought to an end by an eye trouble,
which being of a purely nervous char-
acter made the eyes so sensitive that I
not only had to give up all microscopic
work, but also I had to reduce my read-
ing and writing to the minimum.

At first one hoped that this over-sen-
sitiveness would pass away in a few
weeks ; but weeks and months passed by,
and I was obliged to confine myself only
to my lecturing and still to omit my
scientific investigations. The trouble
lasted fully ten years — until 1874 — ^be-
fore I could look for any length of time
into a microscope.

I used this period to study the Dar-
winian theory, whose leading ideas had

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for some time, of course, been known to
me. I could use the theory to raise new
questions and then to answer them by
experiment or by further observations.
My article, "Ueber den Saison Dimor-
phismus der Schmetterlinge," w^as the
first result of this new work, after there
had already preceded it, in 1868, a kind
of confession of faith entitled "Ueber
die Berechtigung der Darwin'schen
Theorie."

During the ten years of my enforced
inactivity and rest occurred my marriage
with Fraulein Marie Gruber, who be-
came the mother of my children and was
my true companion for twenty years,
until her death : of her now I think only
with love and gratitude. She was the
one who, more than anyone else, helped
me through the gloom of this period.
She read much to me at this time — for
she read aloud excellently — and she not
only took an interest in my theoretical
and experimental work, but she also
gave practical assistance to it. I must
also mention my father, who had then
retired from active life; for he made
the time pass pleasantly and usefully to
me. We read the best of the ancient
and modern German literature quite
thoroughly in this way. We played a
good deal of music. We planned besides
a small collection of art, which con-
sisted of photographic reproductions of
the best masters and of their best works.
During these ten years of my inactivity
my country was born anew, and its re-
suscitation helped not a little to make
those years less unbearable to me.
Then, withal, occasional tours into the
Alps, a winter sojourn in Naples and
Rome and frequent summer rests in the
beautiful country about Lake Constance
were sources of great enjoyment.

In the summer of 1874, for the first
time, could I return to my original
work, which return was occasioned by
my finding an animal in Lake Constance
which I at first thought to be entirely

new. For a long time I had wondered
that in the clear water of the lake no
small swimming animals could be ob-
served; while, on the other hand, very
many fish lived in its waters. Could
these fish support themselves only upon
the shore life, I asked. I fished the sur-
face of the lake with a fine net, at first
by day. Then I tried it by night, and
I observed large numbers of Crustacea,
Daphnidae, and Copepods. Among
these, too, there was what was to me
and to most zoologists, an entirely new
and gigantic Daphnid. I wanted to
name this Daphnid Leydigia, in honor
of Leydig; but later, upon looking
through the Scandinavian works con-
cerning Entomostraca, I found it al-
ready described by Liljeborg as the
Leptodora hyalina. The perfect trans-
parency of the animal induced me to
undertake the study of its structure.
Since upon trial I found that my eyes,
now so long rested, could do one or two
hours' microscopic work each day, I
ventured on a more exact study of the
structure of this Daphnid, and this led
to further study of the entire group of
these Crustacea. In the course of the
years 1874-79 many of the physiological
processes of these interesting small ani-
mals in succession were specially studied
by me. I paid most attention to the
formation of the egg, the nourishment
of the 'embryos from the blood of the
mother, the showy coloring, the forma-
tion of the germ, the copulation, includ-
ing the conditions of development, both
from summer and winter eggs. Besides
this, I showed the entire process of the
propagation in cycles, with reference to
the dependence of successive generations
on internal and external conditions.
Thus there grew into shape, concerning
the Daphnidae, seven discussions, which
were finally published in one book in

1879.

'Moreover, since the work stood in in-
timate relationship to the theory of he-

THE LAMP

redity, I could constantly keep in touch
in other territories with my earlier stud-
ies about heredity, especially with refer-
ence to insects and amphibians. My
investigations, in a second book, were
published in 1876, under the title of
"Uber die letzten Ursachen der Trans-
mutationen."

My eyes grew better continually un-
til the year 1880, although not fully
healthy then. A high irritability and a
susceptibility to fatigue always remained
with them; and when I worked with
the microscope I was limited in my
writing and reading, so, of course, I
could with difficulty follow the increas-
ing scientific literature of the time.

But this affliction did not prevent me
from beginning new investigations on
new lines. The study of the formation
of the egg of the Daphnidae led me to
study the formation of the eggs of other
groups of animals. When I had found
that in many hydropolyps the egg-cells
do not originate in the individuals in
which they have ripened, this fact im-
pelled me for some time to make a spe-
cial study of this group. These investi-
gations began during a long stay in the
Riviera, in the early part of 1878, and
the first results were communicated to
the public in 1880, although I did not
finish my monograph on the work before
1883. The monograph was called *'Die
Entstehung der Sexualzellen bei den
Hydromedusen." I was indebted for
the greater part of my material in this
work to the Zoological Station at Na-
ples, where I spent the winter of 1881-
82, and later from the same station
many consignments were sent me.

Just at this time my observations
proved so exhausting to my eyes as to
thwart my future work. Although at
first it appeared as if my eyes were in no
wise injured by the strain they had un-
dergone, yet in a few weeks after the
completion of the correction of the
above-named monograph there appeared

startling symptoms in that eye with
which I had exclusively done my micro-
scopic work. These symptoms obliged
me to renounce my personal observa-
tions, for the immediately succeeding
time at least. Fortunately, years pre-
viously I had begun a work of another
kind, that did not depend so much on
new observations as upon the classifica-
tion and systematization of already dis-
covered facts — at least in the beginning.

Responding to an invitation from the
committee of the Deutsche Naturfor-
scher Versammlung, held at Salzburg,
in 1 88 1, I delivered a paper entitled,
"Uber die Dauer des Lcbcns." It was
a discussion of the causes of the great
difference in the length of life of dif-
ferent animals; and it pointed out that
length of life is a phenomenon of adap-
tation. This led further to the opinion
that physiological death is not an abso-
lutely universal phenomenon; that uni-
cellular organisms do not die, but that
they can live on by constantly dividing
for an unlimited time. Since germ-cells
of multicellular animals can be viewed
as similar, I became convinced of the
continuity of the germ-cells— or, as I
later and better stated it, of the germ-
plasm. Since this representation must
have a transforming influence upon all
previous views of heredity, there was
here the beginnings of a wider and more
fruitful discussion. From that time on
I have sought to bring this to some sat-
isfactory conclusion.

So I published in 1883 the article
"Uber Vererbung;" in 1884, that en-
titled "Leben und Tod;" in 1885,
"Uber die Continuitat des Keimplasma's
als Grundlage einer Theorie der Verer-
bung;" in 1886 another, entitled "Die
Bedeutung der sexuellen Fortpfanzung
fiir die Selections-theorie," etc. Twelve
such articles were collected and pub-
lished in one volume, in 1892, and en-
titled "Aufsatze iiber Vererbung und
verwandte biologische Fragen." There

THE LAMP

arc results of new observations in this
collection (over what appeared in the
single treatises), for my sight had grad-
ually improved and I could begin — ^al-
though very circumspectly — my micro-
scopic work again.

In the autumn of 1886 my true wife,
my life companion and helper, died.
Directly or indirectly from this cause
my eye trouble again was aggravated,
so that soon I could not read in artificial
light, nor use the microscope for my
own work, but on occasions for a mo-
ment to direct and help my pupils. My
second winter sojourn in Naples was
only made profitable with the help of
my Japanese pupil, Ischikawa, in making
observations. I myself could not for
many successive moments use the micro-
scope. For this reason I spent several
weeks at Capri, and there began to de-
velop the thoughts that had constrained
me so long. I wanted to formulate the
views that for eight years I had been
getting — I mean those about heredity.
It was then I arranged a manuscript of
several hundred pages, although, long
before it was completed, I knew that I
did not have the method by which I
could accomplish my purpose. I had
placed the hypothesis of epigenesis as
the point of departure, but I found my-
self becoming involved in such difficul-
ties that I resolved to turn directly to
the opposite way, Le,j to evolution.*
This happened on my return to Ger-
many, and the greater part of the book,
"Das Keimplasma, eine Theorie der
Vererbung," was written during the
years 1891-92, especially during my
wintering in Munich, which I was then
able to take with my family. In 1893

♦The tenn evolution, as here used, does not mean the
doctrine of development. Evolution refers to the state of
the formation of the^ animal in the germ ; to wit, it means
that the animal existed in minute form in the ^rm.
Epigenesis means, on the other hand, that there is no
preformation of the animal in the germ, but the animal was
later formed by diflereniiation.

Two points are thus especially emphasized by the Weis-
manntans: (x) the constitution of the germs, and (a) the
factor* in their development. See Introduction to transla-
tion of Germ-plasm.

appeared the above-mentioned book.
Even if it has occasioned more adverse
than favorable comment, yet the flood
of critical expressions, of great theoreti-
cal works, and of new observations that
it has called forth, shows me that the
thoughts in it will not remain entirely
unfruitful.

After three of my daughters had mar-
ried, and my two other children — ^my
remaining daughter and my son — ap-
proached the age when they would nat-
urally leave home, I kept my home by
concluding a second marriage. My sec-
ond wife is a Holland woman, by name
Willemina Tesse.

The works of my latter years — those
appearing partly before the "Keimplas-
ma" and partly after, have been con-
cerned in further carrying out the theory
of heredity.

The writings have been in part po-
lemical, in answer to the attacks of the
English philosopher, Herbert Spencer.
Yet this has only been the form they
have taken. The contents have con-
sisted of new work; and I should think
that the new conceptions these writings
contain would be sufficient to place the
selection theory upon a new and firm
basis.

Many people seemed to believe that
the first of these works, viz., "Die
Allmacht der Naturzuchtung" (Jena,
1893), was as much a proof of the
weakness as of the sufficiency of the fac-
tor of natural selection. Indeed, I my-
self have not been timid about pointing:
to the weaknesses of the full efficiency
of the proof. Only it is well at the
same time to remember that in this
article it has been insisted on more
clearly than before, that selection, in
spite of all deficiencies in proof, is the
directing factor in development. In 1894
I published the lecture, "Aussere Ein-
fliisse als Entwickelungsreize," which
was first delivered at Oxford, as the
Romanes Lecture of that year. Finally,

THE LAMP

there appeared two more theses, both of
which expressed the thought that not
only a selection of the individual and of
the tissues of the body ( functional adap-
tation) but also a selection of "an-
lages*** included in the germ-substance
must be accepted. Through this germi-
nal selection, a determinate variation is
called forth.

It is obvious that these latter state-
ments are consistent with my former
view of descent. Were the germ-sub-
stance actually not compounded out of
the "anlages," then no germinal selec-
tion could take place. The one falls
with the other. The next problem,
then, is to make certain which of the
two great parties is right — the evolu-
tionist or epigenetic philosopher. How
far soever it will be permitted me still
further to work upon the solution of

♦ Professor Weismann, in the preface to Keimplasina,
defines "Aniage" as "a primary constituent."

this problem will depend upon the
length of my life, and especially upon
the strength of my eyes.

There are still further data which have
some importance in my life. These I
forgot to mention in their proper places.
In 1867 I became Professor of Zoology'
at Freiburg, and I have occupied that
chair since that time. From time to time
I have had calls to different universities,
to Bonn, Breslau, and to Munich, with
the possibilities of entering into larger
scientific organizations. It was a temp-
tation, too, when the call came from
Munich, to think of living in a great
art centre — for there is only one Mu-
nich. Yet the many attachments I have
had for beautiful Freiburg have held me
to it, and I have had in its surroundings
the satisfactions that nature has offered,
although those of art have been with-
held.

MR. BARRIE AS A DRAMATIST

By J. M. Bulloch

London, January, 1903.

THE vogue of Mr. J. M. Barrie is
the most interesting feature of the
moment in the world of English creative
literature. The success is as unexpected
as it is splendid, for he has conquered
the fireside and triumphed at the foot-
lights at one and the same moment. To
write the novel of the year is a great
feat, though one is bound to confess it
does not always require the talent of a
Barrie to do so. To produce the most
successful play of the season is a feat of
a different kind, but Mr. Barrie is actu-
ally responsible, not only for " The Lit-
tle White Bird," but also for the two
most successful and delightful plays of
the season, to wit, " Quality Street " and
the " Admirable Crichton," which stand
at the very poles of appeal.

I say advisedly that Mr. Barriers suc-
cess is unexpected. In the first place he
is first and foremost a man of letters,
and until comparatively recent times our
stage has had no use for literature.
When Matthew Arnold scoffed at the
theatre as a place where no intelligent
person need go, he was well within the
truth. Since that time, however, drama-
tists have come from the ranks of the
best bookmen, including Arnold's own
niece, Mrs. Humphry Ward. To name
but a few, we have had great successes
by Mr. Anthony Hope, John Oliver
Hobbes, Sir Conan Doyle, Mr. Hall
Caine, and Mr. Hichens. George Flem-
ing and Mrs. Clifford have given us
good work, while of the poets the out-
standing figure is Mr. Stephen Phillips,
who has actuallv made a modern audi-

o g

^ X

5 5

< o

THE LAMP

cnce listen to blank verse. Less success
has attended Mr. W. B. Yeats, but it is
remarkable that such a writer should
have found a place on the stage at all.
The success, however, of Mr. Barrie is
doubly unexpected, in that he is a Scots-
man. True, nobody has done more to
prepare the public for the reception of a
spirit like Mr. Barrie's on the stage
than his countryman, Mr. William

atrical manager, in ninety cases out of a
hundred as commercial as a green-grocer,
can scarcely be imagined. I am told that
when he rehearses a play he is perfectly
quiet and unobtrusive. I also know that
his unmistakable leanings toward stage
work were viewed anxiously by some of
his literary admirers. A priori, there-
fore, his success on the stage is, as I think,
unexpected, and yet the fact remains that

Duke of York's Theatre.

Solo Lessee and Manager

ST. MARTIN'S LANS, W.O.

CHARLES FROHMAN

■VERT XVSNIMO at 6.16.
CHARLIES PROHJkSAN

The Admirable Crichton

A Fantasy in Four Acts, by J. M. BARRIE.

The Eari of Loam
Hon. Ernest WooUey
Rev. John Treherne
Lord Brbcklehurst ...
A Naval Officer
Mr. Crichton
Tompsett

Lady Mary Lasenby i
Lady Catherine Lasenby [
Lady Agatha Lasenby )
Countess of BroCklehurst
Fisher
Tweeny ...

Daughters of the Earl of Loam

Mr. HENRY KEMBLE

Mr. GERALD DU MAURIER

Mr. CLARENCE BLAKISTON

Mr. CARTER PICKFORD

Mr. J. C. BUCKSTONE

Mr. H. B. IRVING

... Mr. COMFTON COUTTS

Miss IRENE VANBRUGH

Miss SYBIL CARLISLE

Miss MURIEL BEAUMONT

Miss FANNY COLEMAN

Miss MARGARET ERASER

Miss PATTIB BROWNE

Aots I. A IV.
A«t II. ..
Act III.

At Lord'Loam** In Msiyflalr. Mr W. Htum.
... Tha Island. Mr. T. E. RyM,
The Hut. Mr. W. Hmmm.

THE CAST, REPRODUCED FROM THE PLAY BILl

Archer; but the hard fact remains that
among his many distinctions that of play-
writing can scarcely be credited to the
Scot. I do not forget the contributions
of Stevenson, but after all they are suited
for the study more than for the stage.
The plain fact is that the national im-
pulses of Scotland are absolutely antag-
onistic to " play-acting." Mr. Barrie
understands better than anybody else the
feeling, amounting almost to hatred,
against the playhouse still existing in the
minds of many Scots, especially in that
old-fashioned religious section of it which
he has portrayed so faithfully as a stu-
dent of Auld Lichtism. Mr. Barrie him-
self is peculiarly non-theatrical. Any-
thing more different from the noisy the-

of all the bookmen who have approached
the footlights, he is more popular than
any of them, having conquered an audi-
ence that probably never darkens a the-
atre door on any other occasion.

If it is not too great a paradox, I
should say that Mr. Barrie succeeds in a
theatre because he is non-theatrical. His
very ignorance of conventional stage-
craft helps him to get effects that a pro-
fessional playwright would not dare to
attempt; and he has the supreme power
of being able to say the thing that the
average man thinks, but which, on com-
ing to write, he never dreams of record-
ing, for he makes the sense of feeling and
the art of writing a complete bivalve.
When the critics speak of Mr. Barrie's

THE LAMP

** touches " they are trying to explain
this quality — the quality of recording the
remembered thing which the ordinary
man either has not noticed at all or has
passed over long before he came to the
point of expression. Mr. Barrie, in fact,
has succeeded because he is himself. Un-
like Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, he has
favored us with no theories about play-
writing. He has simply done it, and
has produced a school of work which is
as individual in its way as Mr. Gilbert's
librettos.

Mr. Barrie has been writing for the
stage for ten years. He began with a
little piece on Richard Savage, written
in conjunction with Mr. Marriott Wat-
son. This was followed by a skit called
" Ibsen's Ghost," in which Miss Irene
Vanbrugh, who remains faithful to his
work, figures as Heddacabler and Mr.
J. L. Toole as Ibsen. Mr. Barriers first
popular success, however, came in 1892,
when he gave us " Walker London " (in
which he found his wife. Miss Mary
Ansell). Everybody was surprised by
the play. It seemed at once perfectly
obvious, and yet extremely difficult to
imitate. In it Miss Vanbrugh, who is
now playing in " The Admirable Crich-
ton," and Mr. Seymour Hicks, who .is
acting in " Quality Street," both ap-
peared. In 1893 Mr. Barrie tried his
hand with Sir Conan Doyle in a libretto
for the Savoy Theatre, called "Jane
Annie," and the text of the "Admira-
ble Crichton " suggests opera as much
as comedy. " Jane Annie " did not
linger with us long. Mr. Barrie, how-
ever, quickly made up lost ground in the
following year with "The Professor's
Love Story"; and even greater success
attended "The Little Minister," for
there Mr. Barrie had already his book-
audience ready made. The adroitness
with which he harnessed the two publics
was extremely amusing, and practically
decided that he had come to stay as a
playwright. In " The Wedding Guest,"

a play which interested me intensely, I
feel sure Mr. Barrie was doing a thing
which interested him far more deeply
than any of his previous plays. Probably
every Scot is a doctrinaire; at any rate,
Mr. Barrie stated a problem which at
once fascinated and defied him, and al-
though one or two figures in the play
were charming, the general effect was
scarcely fortunate.

" The Admirable Crichton " to my
mind is the greatest thing Mr. Barrie
has ever done in the art of creation. In-
deed, it is so essentially brainy, a thing
that a man of intellect can genuinely
congratulate himself upon, that I greatly
admire the courage of Mr. Frohman in
producing it. If Mr. Barrie had been
less well known, or if his manager had
been less audacious, I have little hesita-
tion in saying that " The Admirable
Crichton" would
not have got a
chance. It would be
difficult to conceive
anything more men-
acing to a prosaic
public than this de-
lightful comedy. I
do not forget the
audacity of the au-
thor of **Lady
Windermere's Fan,"
or the eccentricities
of Mr. Bernard
Shaw in such a play
as "Arms and the
Man"; but the ap-
peal of both these
writers is to a much
more limited public
than that which
Mr. Barrie has gath-
ered into the Duke
of York's Theatre.
He at once bewil- '^"'^ '^'"^''- ^^^'^»»^^^'» ^s

Axu en. v/iiv,^ 1/twix j^^^Y MARY LASENBY IN

ders and fascinates. mr. barrik's nkw play.

The conventional From a copyrighted photograph

stallite feels vaguely £^„Ir"- ''" ' * ^''"''

THE LAMP

SCENK FROM MR. BARRIK S NEW PLAY — THK KARL OF LOAM MAKLNC. LOVE TO TWEENY,
WHO HAD BEEN HIS KITCHEN WENCH IN MAYFAIR.

From a copyrighted photograph by Messrs. Ellis & Walcry, London.

that he is being had " on toast," and
yet, ever>^ now and again, the romantic
sentiment of the play, which has hith-
erto been the main ingredient of Mr.
Barrie's work, keeps him chained to his
seat. For the more critical mind, Mr.
Barrie's outlook is equally puzzling, and
some critics have gone the length of re-
ducing the play to a cynical depreciation
of caste in this country.

** The Admirable Crichton " is in
four acts, and is worked out by thirteen
characters. We open in the Earl of
Loam's drawing-room in Mayfair, the
Earl being represented to the life by Mr.
Henry Kemble, who is the grand-nephew
of the great Mrs. Siddons. The Earl,
whose family name is Lasenby, has spe-
cious theories on caste. He still w^'shes
to retain his place in Burke and Debrett,

but he also believes that the kitchen can
rise to the rank of a Kitchener. Thus,
in the first act, he summons from the
basement the entire troop of servants and
gives them afternoon tea, making his
three daughters, Lady Mar>% Lady
Catherine, and Lady Agatha, wait on
the coachman, the footman, the lady's
maid, and the " odds and ends " of scul-
ler>'dom. There is a code of caste in the
basement as severe as in the boudoir, but
the Earl strongly deprecates it beneath
the sheltering wing of his philosophy.
When the kitchen wench. Tweeny, a
sad-looking little guy, is given tea by
Lord Brocklehurst, who is looking after
one of the Ladies Lasenby, the lady's-
maid so strongly resents the elevation of
Tweeny that she will not have tea at
all, and ultimately goes on strike. The

THE LAMP

Earl has at once a warm admirer and a
strenuous critic in his butler, Mr. Crich-
ton, the great figure in the play, most
brilliantly acted by Sir Henry Irving s
elder son. In a country which believes
that " a man's a man for a* that," and
which (theoretically at any rate) turns
its back on caste, the attitude of Mr.
Crichton would scarcely be credible.
Mr. Crichton believes that the social
code of Mayfair is a heaven-sent law,
against which the individual man or
woman struggles in vain. For him, in-
dividual worth, as regulated by character
or by brains, is simply unthinkable. A
pre-ordained law arranged society into
sections, w^hich live in atmospheres of
their own, and the inhabitant of one
strays into the region of another at his
peril. So strong is Mr. Crich ton's belief
in this doctrine that he practically sends
the Earl right about by waving the ser-
vants back to the basement in order to
save his lordship from himself. It would
be quite a mistake to consider that the
attitude of Mr. Crichton is either a bur-
lesque or a piece of snobbishness. The
belief in caste which is practically en-
joined in the English Prayer-Book is one
of the most curious aspects of life in this
country', for side by side with the remark-
able growth of democratic opinions and
opportunities we have never had greater
devotion to the throne as a principle,
and, if the power of the peers as hered-
itary legislators has been theoretically
whittled down, their place in every-day
life — to the disgust of the socialistic
politician — is as secure as ever it has
been. I may say that this feeling is far
more English than Scotch, and it may
be that Mr. Barrie approaches the sub-
ject as a spectator, if not as a mordant
critic.

Mr. Crich ton's theory of the divine-
ness of caste is borne out by his defiance
of it — paradoxical as that may seem —
when the Earl of Loam and his family
are shipwrecked on a desert island. The

butler believes that caste is not so much
the effluence of a particular man, but
that it is a law apart, which the peer has
to recognize as rigidly as the pauper.
Nor is it an unvarying law% but one con-
ditioned almost entirely by environment.
Thus the environment on the desert isl-
and, when everyone has to Robinson-
Crusoe it, calls forth the peer of the
moment unerringly, and ennobles him
who has the intellect to understand what
is demanded of him. In these circum-
stances Mr. Crichton inevitably becomes
the head of the party.

Having stated his theorem, if one can
break the butterfly on the wheel by using
such a word, Mr. Barrie takes us for
two acts (and two years) to the desert
island of his topsy-turvy world, which is
distinguished from Mr. Gilbert's by the
immense humanity of Mr. Barrie's whole
mode of mind. The whimsicality of it
is delicious. The butler ceases to wash
his hands in the invisible soap of May-
fair; he automatically becomes king.
Some of the party at first try to question
his authority, but they soon have to give
in, and the Hon. Ernest Woolley, who
will make mots, desists when Mr. Crich-
ton dabs his aristocratic head in a bucket
whenever the youth — capitally played by
Mr. George du Maurier, the son of the
author of " Trilby " — tries an epigram.
In a very short time Mr. Crichton is the
" Guv " to everybody. I have said that
the theory of the play makes environment
really a pre-ordained law of caste, and
this is borne out in the two acts on the
island where the removal of the May-
fair environment immediately acts as a.
deteriorating force on the peer and as an
elevating influence on his brainy butler.
Thus we find the preposterous situation
of the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Loam's
being turned into a swineherd, like some
prince in an old fairy tale, because that
is precisely the limit of his capacity in
the circumstances. Furthermore, ab-
stracting the concertina of Captain Ket-

THE LAMP

tie, he serenades the gauche kitchen-
maid, whom the lady's-maid turned up
her nose at. Per contra. Lady Mary
Lasenby, dressed like her two sisters, and
like the three girls in Mr. Pinero*s
" Amazons," in boys' clothes, waits hand
and foot on the " Guv," who dines in
solitary state. Lady Mary, as a matter
of fact, falls violently in love with the
butler, and this is the one point in the
programme which gives him a qualm, for
he sees the possibilities of repudiation on
her part should ever the conditions be
changed.

Mr. Crich ton's intuitions are indeed
wonderful ; for, one day, a minute-gun is
heard, and a party lands from a man-of-
war — it might be H.M.S. Pinafore, so
fantastic is its arrival — and the fourth
act takes us back to Mayfair, where
everybody returns to the old conditions.
Mr. Crichton is once again the butler.
He never once questions the rightness of
that and he presumes on nothing. In-
deed, he listens without a qualm to the
preposterous book which Mr. WooUey
has written, assigning Crichton to a foot-
note. Lady Mary, of course, throws
him over, and Mr. Crichton contents
himself with the hand of Tweeny and
the public-house in the Harrow Road,
which is known (in real life) as " The
Case is Altered."

I confess that there is just a touch of
cynicism in relegating the capable man
to a limbo of love and liquor. One critic
has gone the length of suggesting that
Mr. Barrie has written the play, and es-
pecially that part of it, as a sardonic com-
mentary on the conditions of life in this
country. For my own part I think he
has set down naught in malice, but that
he has simply given play to his whimsy,
which in execution has probably led him
further afield than his original inten-
tions. The phantasy is a typical Barrie
from start to finish, and to attempt to
indicate its drolleries, its innumerable
and indefinable touches of humor, would

be to turn out the dreariest inventory of
a work of genius. The touches are so
swift and so unexpected, and in the end
are often so patent (when once we know
how it is done), that we laugh almost
before we know why. For instance (al-
though I know the example loses much
in the telling) , when the Ladies Lasenby
fall quarrelling in the hut, as sisters
sometimes do, an electric bell and a text
stands out in the electric light on the
wall bearing the legend, " Let dogs de-
light to bark and fight." The " Guv "
has heard the noise, and dominates the
scene even in his absence. Again, when
we get back to Mayfair, Mr. WooUey
rises automatically, anticipating a duck-
ing, when he sees William handling the
bucket, which has been brought home
from the hut as a relic of life on the
desert island. There are simply hun-
dreds of touches like this, touches that
the average play-maker could not give us
to save his life. They are the work of
a man of supreme genius in his own way ;
a man who not only feels, but also
thinks; who has a wonderful knowledge
of what IS really actable, and of exactly
how much sentiment will be able to get
across the footlights without getting
singed in the passage. Mr. Pinero can
give us a much stronger play; he could
even give us a more humorous play; but
only Mr. Barrie himself can give us such
a charming play. I think it is centuries
in advance of " Quality Street," although
it may not probably last so long. Some
parts of it are as clever as anything Mr.
Meredith has done, but none of it is so
tediously brilliant as much of the work
of the greatest living English exponent
of the comic spirit.

Mr. Barrie, as I have said, gets great
assistance from his players, but that I
take it is not so much an accident as his
instinctive knowledge of their capacities.
Mr. H. B. Irving has made the triumph
of his career in the part of the butler,
for he has just that amount of brains

THE LAMP

and humor which always keeps him free
from the belief which makes many play-
ers think that theirs is the only art in
the world. That is to say, his intellect-
ual appreciation of Mr. Barrie's work
transcends his practical exposition of it,
and in that he really scores. If Mr.
Barrie gives us such another play as
" The Admirable Crichton," leaving be-
hind him some of the prettiness of his
early efforts, he will have justified his
instinct to give the theatre a share of
his great talent.

Mr. Barriers success has given rise to
the wildest legends as to his takings at
the box-office, but nobody except Mr.
Barrie himself could give anything like
the approximate figures. A very well-
known novelist estimates Mr. Barrie's
earnings out of " The Little Minister "
alone at £6o,cxx), and his income for
1902 at £50,000. Personally I think
these inquiries are impertinent, and I
feel sure that Mr. Barrie would resent
the assessment of his talent in the terms
of so many shekels.

JOHN ADAMS AND MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT

By Elisabeth Luther Cary

WE may count upon John Adams
for one unfailing delight — an
interesting point of view. The irritable
passions of his mind made him an un-
certain counsellor, his childish egotism
overshadowed his brighter qualities, his
unsubmissive temper led him into dan-
ger as a public servant. But in every-
thing his hand wrote he left traces of
his own pungent vivacious personality,
and we find him — to use an old-fashioned
phrase—" good company " in even his
most slippered and fireside mood. It is
thus we see him about the time he left
what he termed " the respectable situa-
tion " of the vice-presidency of the
United States for the more ardently
esteemed situation of the presidency,
poring in his study over the recently
published " History of the French Revo-
lution," by Mary Wollstonecraft, and
recording on the margin of its pages the
emotions roused in him by her " unlady-
like " opinions.

The book is now in the Boston Public
Library, whither, with its companions of
the John Adams Collection, it was trans-
ported about ten years ago from the
town of Quincy, to which Adams, in his

eighty-seventh year, presented — to quote
his own wording: " the fragments of my
Library which still remain in my posses-
sion, excepting a few that I shall reserve
for my consolation in the few days that
remain to me." Many of the volumes of
this collection are annotated in Adams's
fine and legible hand, none more copious-
ly than poor Mary Wollstonecraft*s in-
effectual History. On the page facing
the preface he gives a brief analysis of
the book as a whole :

" This is a Lady of a masculine mas-
terly Understanding. Her Style is ner-
vous and clear, often elegant, though
sometimes too verbose. With a little
Experience in Public affairs and the
Reading and Reflection which would
result from it, She would have produced
a History without the Defects and
Blemishes pointed out with too much
Severity perhaps and too little Gallan-
try in the Notes.

" The Improvement, the Exaltation of
the human Character, the Perfectibility
of Man, the Perfection of the human
Faculties are the divine Objects which
her Enthusiasm beholds in beatification.
Alas how airy and baseless a fabrick!

THE LAMP

" Yet she will not admit of the only-
means that can accomplish any Part of
her ardent Prophecies, Forms of Gov-
ernment so mixed, combined and bal-
lanced as to restrain the Passions of all
orders of Men."

In her preface Mary writes of the
arduous and melancholy character of her
task, remarking that, " with a heart
trembling to the touches of nature, it
becomes necessary to guard against the
erroneous inferences of sensibility, and
reason, beaming on the grand theatre of
political changes, can prove the only sure
guide to direct us to a favourable or just
conclusion." Certainly no heart ever
trembled more constantly to the touches
of nature than her own, but she xlid not
succeed in bringing reason to her aid
sufficiently to impress Adams. Many of
his notes consist of mere amazed ex-
clamations over the weakness of her
ratiocinating powers. Where she refers
rebukingly to " jargon of crude senti-
ments," he retorts, in a spicy aside,
" This Jargon you have adopted in all its
Energy." A couple of pages of soaring
eloquence are characterized as "Juvenile
and Female Rant." Mary calls atten-
tion to " the atrocious vices and gigantic
crimes that sullied the polish of ancient
manners," and Adams replies: " No age
has produced more than those commited
by the female Reformers." Where she
uses a simile doubtless suggested by her
various unhappy experiences, he impa-
tiently protests : " This woman's head
runs forever on Lx)ve." He finds much
of her wording " too luscious " and the
edge on her phrases " too sharp to be
strong." Nevertheless he judges many
of her arguments worthy of his steel in
this single combat between margin and
text.

" Paper," Mary affirms, cautiously,
" is a dangerous expedient except under
a well-established government, and even
then the business ought to be conducted
with great moderation and sagacity."

To this Adams replies, running between
the lines of the text and filling the mar-
gin to its utmost limit in his eagerness
to express his contradiction;

" Paper is always a dangerous expedi-
ent. It will soon make a well-established
Government an ill-established Govern-
ment. Paper Money never was and
never will be conducted with any Mod-
eration or Sagacity, Neither the Mon-
archy nor the Democracy of France, nor
the limited Monarchy of England, nor
the Representative Democracy of the
U. S. have ever discovered either Mod-
eration or Sagacity on this subject."

Mary continues, learnedly, after de-
veloping the dangers of paper money:
" These are considerations which ought
to have occurred to the French minister,
and have led him to take decided meas-
ures." The interest of the national debt,
the income and expenses, are then quoted
and conclusions drawn. Adams, irri-
tated, perhaps, by the memory of his ex-
perience with de Vergennes, when pa-
per money was the brand that lighted
the French powder, passes beyond the
narrow limits of his customary courtesy :

" Did this silly Woman think it pos-
sible for any Minister or any King or
any National Assembly to take decided
measures? No! They had ignorantly
and madly introduced the Despotism of
old Anarch and old Chaos, and must
leave it to Fate, Fortune or Providence
to create order out of this Confusion.
If there had been moderation or Sa-
gacity among them they must have seen
that a Military Power alone could
effect it." Re-reading the book after a
lapse of years, and finding in it appar-
ently the same disputatious charm, he
adds: " 1812: A Military Power has
effected it. But how? Not much to
the satisfaction, I suspect, of the mod-
erate and Sagacious Miss Wollstone-
craft."

Mar>'^ goes mildly on to say : " The
credit of every government greatly de-

THE LAMP

pends on the regularity of its finances "
("Why not wholly?" snaps Adams),
'* and the most certain way to have given
stability to the new system would have
been by making such arrangements as
would have insured promptitude of pay-
ment."

" And who could make such arrange-
ments ? " demands her critic. " The
Angel Gabriel could not have taken such
Measures in such an Assembly with such
a Court, Clergy, Nobility and Mob
about it."

Mr. Morse has pointed out in answer
to the accusations brought against Adams
on the ground of his aristocratic tenden-
cies, that he was no aristocrat in the
common sense of the word, but that his
theor>' of equality between men " was
limited to an equality of rights before
the law," and also that he was no more
a democrat than he was an aristocrat,
believing as he did in the masses not as
governors, but at best only as electors of
governors. It is interesting to find him
supporting this point of view in the
monologue he addresses to Mary on the
subject of aristocracies and rank in gen-
eral. In response to her assertion that
" to prevent confusion absolute govern-
ments have been tolerated by the most
enlightened part of the people," he re-
plies: "If Confusion cannot be other-
wise overcome absolute Govts will al-
ways be resorted to for Confusion is the
more intoUerable, let Sam Adams say
what he will." And at the end of a
chapter regarding the reformation in
France of an aristocracy, he argues:
" And does this foolish Woman expect
to get rid of an Aristocracy? God Al-
mighty' has decreed in the creation of
human Nature an eternal Aristocracy
among Men. The World is, always has
been, and ever will be governed by it.
All that Policy and Legislation can do,
is to check it Force by Force. Arm a
Powder above it and another below it ; or,
if you will, one on the right hand and

the other on its left ; both able to say to
it when it goes mad: Maniac! Keep
within your Limits."

Mary, on page 398, contemplates
" with complacent serenity the approxi-
mation of the glorious era when the
appellations of fool and tyrant will be
synonymous," and Adams, underlining
this sentiment, bursts out again : " Amen
and Amen ! Glorious era come quickly !
This era must be the Millenium. Men
must search their own hearts and confess
the emulation that is there and provide
Checks to it. The Gentlemen must be
compelled to agree. They never will
from Reason and free will. Nothing
short of an independent Power above
them able to check their Majorities, ever
can keep them within bounds. It is the
interest and true Policy of the People
for their own safety always to erect and
maintain such a Power over the Gentle-
men, and such another under them.
Power must be opposed to Power, Force
to Force, Strength to Strength, Interest
to Interest, as well as Reason to Reason,
Eloquence to Eloquence, and Passion to
Passion."

A couple of pages farther on Mary
moralizes as follows: "The nation has
already ascertained certain and the most
important political truths; it ought,
therefore, to have been the next consid-
eration, how these were to be preserved,
and the liberty of the empire consolidated
on a basis that time would only render
more firm." Adams brushes these sen-
tences aside with impatient contradic-
tion, in, apparently, the mood that in-
spired his persistent reiterated arguments
over the Peace Treat>\

" How wxre these Truths ascer-
tained ? " he says. " Forty-nine fiftieths
of the Nation knew no more about them
than the King's Menagerie. Among the
remaining Fiftieth Part there were Ten
thousand different opinions about the
meaning. Limitations, Restrictions and
Exceptions with which they were to be

THE LAMP

understood. Besides, very few of them
appear to have had any Idea of one of
the most essential Truths of all: The
Drunkenness of absolute Power in any
Assembly of Nobles, Commons or Mixt-
ure of both as well as in an Emperor or
King. The National Assembly had to
contend against the Prejudice of Nine
Tenths of the Nation, their own People,
their own Constituents."

Mary, calling attention to the affecta-
tion of the National Assembly in claim-
ing to be directed " by a magnanimous
disinterestedness," draws from Adams
this happy reflection:

" None but an Idiot or Madman ever
built a Government upon a disinterested
Principle. Such Pretentions arc false
and hollow : all Hypocrisy. Like Frank-
lin's will and his Article in the Pensil-
vania Bill of Rights." Her assertion
that " after the wreck of a government
the plan of a new constitution ought to
be immediately formed — that is, as soon
as circumstances will possibly admit,"
meets with an unusually cordial recep-
tion, chiming as it does with Adams's
own theories. " I had preached this doc-
trine," he writes, amiably, " a whole
year in Congress in 1775 and 1776 be-
fore I could prevail upon that Body to
pass my Resolution of the 15th of May
1776 recommending that Measure to the
People of the States." Almost at once,
however, he is hammering her again.
" Did this Lady think three Months
time enough to form a free Constitution
for twenty-five Millions of Frenchmen ?
300 Years would be well spent in pro-
curing so great a Blessing, but I doubt
whether it will be accomplished in 3000.
Not one of the Projects of the Sage of
La Mancha was more absurd ridiculous
or delirious than this of a Revolution in
France per Saltum from a Monarchy to
a Democracy. I thought so in 1785
when it was first talked of, I thought so
in all the intermediate Time, and I think
so in 1 81 2." A little flight of innocent

eloquence on Mary's part stimulates her
critic to continue in similar vein. She
refers to a constitution as " a standard
for the people to rally round," the " pil-
lar of a government, the bond of all
social unity and order."

" How was it possible," queries Ad-
ams, " to bring twenty-five Millions of
Frenchmen Who had never known or
thought of any Law but the King's Will
to rally round any free Constitution at
all? A Constitution is a Standard, a
Pillar and a Bond when it is understood
approved and beloved. But without this
Intelligence and attachment it might as
well be a Kite or a Balloon, flying in the
air."

Mary had a fondness for her meta-
phors, and we find her presently refer-
ring anew to the pillars of a building,
which indicate, she says, its durability,
pointing her moral as follows:

*' The natural, civil, and political
rights of man are the main pillars of all
social happiness; and by the firm estab-
lishment of them the freedom of men
will be eternally secured."

Adams cannot let this pass, and sug-
gests, " I would rather call the Natural,
civil and political Rights of Man the
foundations than the Pillars. If they
are Pillars they must stand upon a firm
foundation. Is a Declaration then a
Foundation? No more than a heap of
Sand or a Pool of Water. They stand
as firmly without a Declaration as with
it if nothing more is done. Laws and
Guardians of Laws must be made and
Guardians to watch one another."

On the next page Mary gives utter-
ance to a sentiment which affords Adams
an opportunity to repeat one of his favor-
ite contentions. ** When kings are con-
sidered by the government of a country
merely as ciphers," says Mary, " it is
very just and proper that their ministers
should be responsible for their political
conduct." " The Supreme Head of the
Executive of a great Nation," Adams

THE LAMP

replies, " must be inviolable or the Laws
will never be executed. While heads are
liable to civil actions and criminal Prose-
cutions and Impeachments the Govt will
easily be—?" (word illegible). "The
absurdity consisted in establishing an he-
reditary Executive as a Ballance to a
vast Legislature in one National Assem-
bly. You might as well constitute an
army to determine every Movement by
a Vote of over i(X),ooo Men and give
the General a veto upon each vote. A
Gladiator in a Pit without arms to de-
fend himself against an hundred drag-
ons." And when Mary, later, declares
that " this sovereignty of the people con-
sisted in making them tyrants," he seizes
the chance to emphasize his point of view
by a further word against majorities :

" Tyrants they will ever be made and
be, while they exert their Sovereignty by
Simple Majorities, whether collectively
or by Representation."

It is not difficult to imagine the satis-
faction taken by Adams in the free and
intimate expression of his feelings and
opinions with, for the opposing counsel,
a weak woman whose errors in reason-
ing and statement afford a fair mark for
his acute wit. As he never shrank from
personalities in more dangerous arenas,
so he occasionally indulged himself in a
marginal slur upon his unbeloved con-
temporaries. Mary's assertion that " lib-
erty was the constant watchword, though
few knew in what it consisted," forms an
admirable text for the following com-
forting confession of lack of faith :

" * Few knew * — ^There was not one
of the Poissonieres, not one of the Mob
of Women who did not know in what
Liberty consisted as well as Miss Woll-
stonecraft, Mr. Condorcet, the Duke de
la Rochefoucault, Mr. Turgot or Dr.
Franklin ! This is said Ore rotundo ! I
know it. But the Mask must be torn
off from these imposing visages. And I
am stark mad or every one of these was
an Idiot in the Science of Government."

Whether this note was written in 1796
or in 1 8 12 its author's sense of Frank-
lin's failings was vivid, and one could
hardly grudge him the harmless pleasure
of such pin pricks on the edge of the
" History's " reticent page, had he but
confined himself to these secluded ef-
forts at salving his injured self-esteem.
Despite his disagreeable experiences in
France, he was not, however, inclined to
be unjust to the national qualities. "It
would require a Volume," he says in one
place, no doubt wishing he could fill one,
" to make a comparison between the
Moral Characters of the two Nations,
the French and the English. And, after
all, which to choose would be difficult
for me to decide. If there is any inferi-
ority of Morals in France has it not
Sprung from the Power of pardon and
Absolution in the Priests? Religion has
corrupted France more than England."
Nor does he hesitate to curb Mary's zeal
against monarchs and monarchical gov-
ernments at every turn. When she calls
attention to the " Machiavelian cun-
ning " that was directing the movements
of all the courts of Europe, he assures her
that " All the Ages of the World and
all the History of Courts cannot show
more important and more bloody and
cruel and perfidious examples of Machia-
velian Cunning than the successive Lead-
ers of the French Conventions and As-
semblies for the last Seven years." When
she speaks of " the insincerity which has
so long disgraced the courts of Europe,"
he remarks: " I saw no more sincerity in
any Class of People than at Courts."
Presently he exclaims, with impatience:
"All this Reproach upon all the Gov-
ernments of Europe: in what has it
ended? Are the People ameliorated in
their condition? Is Napoleon milder
than the Bourbons? " For the unfortu-
nate King of France he has more than
one kindly word. He finds Mary " too
severe " upon him, and where she quotes
the King's declaration to the effect that

4°

THE LAMP

he " would rather perish than see the
blood of Frenchmen streaming in his
quarrel " with the comment, *' So easy is
it for a man versed in the language of
duplicity to impose on the credulous,"
Adams responds, gravely, " His whole
Life was a Proof of his Sincerity in this
Declaration."

Adams's own life had not been w^ith-
out bitterness caused by the disbelief of
others in his impregnable sincerity, and
it is not altogether surprising that Mary's
reflections on the slow improvements
made in the science of politics lead him
to a somewhat pessimistic conclusion.

" Improvements in Physical and Meta-
physical Philosophy have made none in
the science of Politicks. This is still the
Sport of Passions and Prejudices, of Am-
bition, Avarice, Intrigue, Faction, Ca-
price and Gallantry as much as ever.
Jealousy, Envy and Revenge govern
with as absolute a Sway as ever. En-
thusiasm and Superstition have lost but
little of their Power."

Mary was in her middle thirties when
this " historical and moral view of the
origin and progress of the French Revo-
lution " was published — not far from the
end of her short and stormy career. It
is surely no mean compliment to her
gifts that a statesman whose ability to
construct a government stands out in
bold relief against the background of his
petty failings, was sufficiently interested

in what she had to say concerning a gov-
ernment's destruction to read and read
again her ambitious volume. It is, more-
over, an instructive commentary on the
art of reading as it was practised in
Adams's time that even the building of
a Republic was not an occupation exact-
ing enough to preclude annotating a
clever woman's foolish history with as
much apparent ardor as he gave to his
labors on the Constitution. As we turn
the strong yellow pages of the stout calf-
bound volume, with its uneven tooling,
clumsy head-bands, and rough end-pa-
pers, the sight of the copious notes, alive
with scorn, amusement, and impatient in-
terest as when they were crowded on the
ample margins a century ago, revives the
memory of poor Mary's startling philos-
ophies as no printed words could possibly
revive them now. On page 401 we find
the key to the difference between not
only the French and the American Revo-
lutionists, but between the school to
w^hich Mary and that to which Adams
belonged.

" The leading men of America,"
Mar>' writes, '* knew that there w-as
a necessity of having some kind of gov-
ernment and seem to have perceived the
ease with which any subsequent altera-
tions could be effected." To this Adams
subscribes : " They were Men of experi-
ence in popular assemblies as w^ell as
Theorists."

LETTERS AND LIFE

By John Finley

THE clergy speak always of life
from the Book. Their advice or
consolation for the living is gathered al-
ways from or about some chapter or
verse. Their ritual for the ended life
is also drawn from the written word.
The prayers even by which the present
life holds communication with the un-
seen world are learned of letters. And
so far as the past of man speaks directly
to us (our inherited customs, our per-
verse inclinations, and the like, except-
ed), it is chiefly, if not solely, through
letters; not only the past, but whatever
lies beyond the immediate reach of our
senses. If it have no written speech or
language its voice is not heard — at any
rate, by most of us; moreover, it must
be printed in good type, and we have to
read slowly. There are some who
might be called intuitional readers.
John Fiske says that Herbert Spencer
seemed never to read books. Of his-
torical and literary knowledge, such as
one usually gets from books, he had a
great deal, and of an accurate and well-
digested sort; but he had some incom-
prehensible way of absorbing it through
the pores of his skin. But the most of
us have to put our pores to the conven-
tional service to which they were cursed
when man was driven out of Eden.
Huxley, that spotless Sir Galahad for
intellectual integrity, is, with all his
genius and wisdom, a more satisfying
example of the dependence of life upon
letters, or, rather, of their interdepend-
ence. He was an omnivorous reader,
and seemed to read everything worth
reading — history, politics, metaphysics,
poetry, novels, and even books of science,
though he had a wholesome contempt of
mere bookishness in matters of science.
The dissection of a cockroach was his
curt prescription to a desultory reader

in science who ventured once to attack
his theories. "He was keenly alive in
all directions, and would have enjoyed
mastering all branches of knowledge —
if only the days had been long enough."
He studied Russian in order to become
familiar with the work of a great Rus-
sian anatomist, and he began Greek
when he was past middle life in order
to read at first hand Aristotle and the
New Testament. After a long day's
work in science, says Fiske, he would
read SybeFs "French Revolution" or
Lange's "History of Materialism," or
the last new novel at the witching hour
of midnight. One cannot well imagine
more delightful converse, in kind, be-
tween life and letters, between the in-
dividual life in the first person, indic-
ative, present tense, and the collective
life of other tenses and moods and per-
sons. But it is to be remembered that
this collective life, whether of the pret-
erite or of the future, of past achieve-
ment or prophecy, shut up in a volume,
wrapped up in a napkin, has no utility
or vitality until it gets itself translated
into the individual and the present. It
is the disembodied spirit awaiting rein-
carnation. The conjunctive "and" is a
vital part of speech.

I have been quoting John Fiske, to
my purpose, as if I had just been hear-
ing him speak of his friends, Spencer and
Huxley. You have but to look yourself
into the second volume of his posthu-
mous essays,* published a few weeks
ago, to see him sitting in Huxley's over-
crowded library before a blazing fire,
discussing all manner of themes, smok-
ing, he his large, full-flavored Havanas,
and Huxley his small brierwood pipe.
And you have only to turn to the last

* Essays, Historical and Literary. Ky John Kiskc. New
York, The Macmillan Company, 1902.

THE LAMP

page of the first volume to see him a
lad, somewhere up in New England,
back in the autumn of 1852, the day
that Webster died, feeling that life was
"smaller, lonelier, and meaner" now
that the great statesman had gone, won-
dering "how the ^un could rise and the
daily events of life go on without Daniel
Webster," and vowing that he could not
forget that day though he were to live
a thousand years. Barely fifty years
have gone, and Fiske*s memory is be-
yond keeping impressions in our finite
way. He and Huxley have both gone
beyond the boundaries of the agnosticism
of terrestrial experience.

But it can in a sense be said that
Fiske, like one in the Old Testament,
has been "translated" merely. His per-
sonality, his thought, he got incorpo-
rated in an enduring body of letters.
His death was not to the great country
that nourished him, rather scantily for
some years, as was Webster's to the boy
Fiske, the passing of a "godlike pres-
ence ;" nor were there sobs and tears of a
people mingled with threats and oaths, as
when Hamilton died ; nor will his influ-
ence survive in any Barbarossa legend.
His departure gave a shock to many
thousands and a poignant regret that he
should be going before the work he had
planned was done; but his going sent
no flags to half-mast, though he has
done his country an immeasurable ser-
vice. The feeling was rather that which
comes over the business world when it
hears of the death of the president of a
great corporation — only his world was
that of the readers. He had acquired,
through the incorporation of his life in
his letters, some of the characteristics of
corporations — a potential immortality, a
persistence of name and of memory (for
Fiske in his book will go on remember-
ing Webster, perhaps even the thousand
years of his vow), and, unfortunately,
liability to suit, which is in letters criti-
cism. His illuminating, expository gen-

ius has ceased its creative work, but
what he has already done has assured to
him the long if not permanent posses-
sion of certain fields.

There is at first something not quite
satisfactory in the monkish proverb
which is written in English on the lintel
of the first volume, and in Latin, I am
told, over Mr. Fiske's study fireplace:
"Study as if life were eternal, live pre-
pared to die to-morrow;" for it carries
the suggestion in its subjunctive that
one is to seek truth under the lure of
a constant pretence — "as if life were
eternal." It has not the appearance of
real blood upon the doorposts. I like
better the motto of the ofd Swedish
botanist Linnaeus, who had written over
the door of his workroom, "Live blame-
less, a divinity is near." Numen adest!
But the angel that smites the children
of the bloodless lintels is more discern-
ing. And even we have but to see this
great scholar eating the Passover, shod
for the journey, to know that his sub-
junctive was after all that of desire and
hope, and not of despair. Else how
could he have written with such sweet-
ness and optimism and cheer?

The days and the years of our peo-
ple's life of which Fiske has written are
those of the exodus, the wilderness, the
struggles with hostile occupants of the
promised land, their conquest, and the
beginnings of a new nation. He was not
permitted to build the great temple of
which he had dreamed. The ark of the
people's covenant still dwelt in curtains.
The period of material prosperity is left
to pens that were not lifted in the
civil strife. Of what Fiske dreamed,
the fragments gathered in these posthu-
mous volumes suggest, yet even they
belong rather to the period of prophecy
than of realization. They are but
sketches for the ceiling which he wished
to paint over our nation's life, to look
up to when the natural lights are out.
But though they are not finished and in

JOHN FISKE.

From •* Essays. Historical and Literary."
Copyrighted, 1902, by The Macroillan Company.

THE LAMP

place, and though he would perhaps not
have exhibited some of them himself,
they are quite worth preserving along
with his completed chapters in Ameri-
can history.

The political sketches and portraits
of the first volume are done, all of them,
with the skill of the master, even though,
as I have just intimated, some of them
were not quite ready for exhibition.
This fact gives them a certain sentiment-
al value which covers all loss of finish.
Governor Hutchinson, the last royal
governor of Massachusetts ; Charles Lee,
the soldier of fortune; Alexander Ham-
ilton and the Federalist Party; Thomas
Jefferson, the conservative reformer;
James Madison, the constructive states-
man; Andrew Jackson, frontiersman
and soldier, and Andrew Jackson in his
relation to American democracy seventy
years ago; Harrison and Tyler and the
Whig coalition; and Webster and the
sentiment of Union, these are the sub-
jects which he has painted, and painted
with the historical accuracy of the new
school, but withal with a kindliness that
has given every face and every character
the benefit of the better motive when
the worse cannot be established, and
with a generosity that has courageously
painted every man up to his best, and
not down to his worst. At any rate, as
I look at these faces with which I have
long been familiar, they seem all to show
a more benignant expression — all except
that of Charles Lee, whose perfidy is
even blacker than it was for many gen-
erations guessed — that "caitiff soul,"
who was too wicked for heaven and too
weak for hell. Thomas Hutchinson,
the much hated and maligned Tor\^ gov-
ernor of Massachusetts, is at last given
release from the obloquy which unjustly
drove him into exile and is restored to
his rightful honor and respect. Hamil-
ton is as he is usually painted ; his char-
acter, opinions, and service have always
been less difficult of estimate than those

, of his great contemporaries. It is Jef-
ferson who is most changed. Fiske has
made him a tall, lithe, placid, conserva-
tive English squire, deliberate, intro-
spective, of broad and tender sympathies,
of disinterested and lofty motives, and
of wholesome, pure, and refining tastes
— not the French iconoclast. Jacobin,
and atheist, at whose election old ladies
in Connecticut hid their family Bibles
from fear of seizure. He is painted a
Walpole, and not a Danton; a man of
sympathetic insight into the popular
mind, who was not a rare constructive
genius, but "just the man to carry the
government along quietly and smoothly
until its success passed into a tradition
and was thus assured." Madison, the
modest scholar and profound thinker, is
for one moment thrust even above
Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and
Marshall, and at that moment is por-
trayed the author of the "path-breaking
idea" which was presented to the federal
convention in the shape of the Virginia
plan — the idea of a twofold government.
But it is unfair to the memory of Fiske
to attempt in my own few strokes to
suggest these portraits. It is an exhibi-
tion which every man interested in
American politics should see for himself.
In the second volume Fiske has fol-
lowed his varied whims, and if he walks
in earth still, doubtless he is to be en-
countered in one of these many fields of
his interest and intimate knowledge.
Poetry, science, religion, mythology, and
unfrequented fields of history — into all
these he has in the three hundred pages
of this volume made excursions and
brought back from each a suggestive
fragment, some flower or bug or moral
or fable or lesson. His last excursion
is along the shore of the sea of deathless
myths, and I can but think that Efreet,
whom the fisherman releases from the
bottle and who grows instantly into a
gigantic form that towers among the
clouds, is prophetic of his own fame.

THE LAMP

In one of these essays (that on "The
Fall of New France") Fiske says that
England might fitly celebrate the loth
of February, 1763, the date of the
Treaty of Paris, as the proudest day in
her history, for from that day she was
destined to become the mother of many
nations, all speaking the matchless lan-
guage which the English Bible has for-
ever consecrated ; and he predicts that in
the days to come the lesson of this vic-
tory will be repeated in Africa, Aus-
tralia, and the islands of the Pacific,
"until barbarous sacerdotalism and des-
potic privilege shall Have vanished from
the face of the earth." It would be a
great relief to many consciences if their
intellects could but convince them that
it is only this lesson that has been re-
peated in South Africa; but the two
Boer books that have recently been pub-
lished do not give much aid or balm.

The first of these is Paul Kruger's
"Memoirs,"* which, according to the
title, are "told by himself," but which,
according to the preface, have reached
American readers only through elucida-
tion, collation, and a double translation.
One has some reason to think that the
same thing has happened to his original
"memoirs" as happened to the raisins
which the young Paul Kruger's mother
sent to him by hand of a Kaffir — they've
lost in weight if not in flavor. And we
have not only the tell-tale preface, but
the Latinized text itself to support the
suspicion. One can readily believe that
the story of early adventures with rhi-
noceroses, elephants, and lions runs much
as it must have been told by the stolid
old man who looks sorrowfully through
his diseased, unblinking eyes from the
frontispiece, out across the English pages
of this book — this old pioneer of the
veldt who never had any instruction of
books outside the Bible except that
which extended through the period of

" •••The Memoirs of Paul Kruger, Told by Himself."
New VoTk,'Th€ CeDtury'Company, 190a. j;

the long trek in his boyhood beyond the
Vaal. But one can't quite imagine him
speaking (in the Dutch equivalent) of
England as "perfidious Albion" or re-
ferring to "Earl Roberts of Waterford,.
Kandahar, and Pretoria, as rescuing a
contemptible calumny from oblivion."

Yet through the academic, official lan-
guage, in which most of his narrative
comes to us, the old Boer President does
occasionally break in blunt speech or
homely illustration. It is the fearless,
stubborn leader of a chosen people who
begins his speech: "People of the Lord,
you old people of the country, you for-
eigners, you new-comers, yes, even you
thieves and murderers." It is Kruger
himself, who has experienced something
of the ingratitude of republics, who says
to Sir Henry Loch: "These Johannes-
burghers remind me of a baboon I once
had who was so fond of me that he
would not let anyone touch me. But
one day we were sitting round the fire,
and, unfortunately, the beast's tail got
caught in the fire. He now flew fiercely
at me, thinking I was the cause of his
accident." It is Kruger, too, who tells
his fellow-burghers that England's offer
of self-government means: "First put
your head quietly in the noose so that
I can hang you up; then you may kick
your legs about as much as you please."
It is this same independent, obstinate
Paul Kruger who a few days later,
when invited to confer with Sir Bartle
Frere, asked which of the four Bartle
Freres it was who wished to see him —
one of the Bartle Freres who had spoken
so graciously to them at their former
meetings or one of the Bartle Freres
who wrote home of them as a "handful
of rebels." And it is the gruff, pious,
puritanic Commandant who refused to
lead his commando against the blacks if
the President (Burgers) accompanied
him, protesting that, "with your merry
evenings in laager and your Sunday
dances, the enemy will shoot me even

THE LAMP

From " The Memoirs of Paul Kruger." Copyright, 1902, by The Century Co,

behind a wall; for God's blessing will
not rest on the expedition."

With such brusque and sometimes al-
most brutal interruptions the story of
the Boer President is told. It is rather
an official, half-impersonal relation than
a vivid personal memoir; I suppose it is
all the more valuable as historical ma-

terial for that, but it has not the same
human interest.

There is, however, one incident that
rises in picturesqueness and in signifi-
cance to that of the Boston Tea Party
which Mr. Fiske describes with vivid-
ness in his essays. It is the incident
with which the Boer war of independ-

THE LAMP

ence began back in 1880. The British
Government had begun to collect taxes
and to take proceedings against those
who refused to pay them. Among these
was Piet Bezuidenhout. The Govern-
ment levied distress on his wagon and
sent it to public auction at Potchef-
stroom. To this auction came Piet
Cronje (afterward "General," who was
surrounded at Paardeberg, taken pris-
oner, and sent to St. Helena) with a
number of armed Boers, who flung the
bailiflE from the wagon and drew it
back in triumph to Bezuidenhout's farm.
This was the beginning of the resistance.
There were no crimson velvet sleeves
and point-lace ruffles beneath the rough
coats of these burghers; but if the Boer
war had come out the other way, pos-
sibly this incident of the veldt might be
seen to have as much of the "majestic
and sublime" in it as Mr. Fiske found
in the self-restraint and intrepidity of
the men who flung the tea into the icy
w-aters of the Boston harbor.

I have been told by one w^ho saw
them that there are publicly exhibited in
England, among the rather scant tro-
phies of the Boer war, Dutch Bibles
taken from the bodies of burghers upon
kop or veldt. This unfeeling vanity,
which must certainly lack the intent of
blasphemy, seems incredible, but the at-
titude of mind which can tolerate such
a spectacle makes it less difficult to be-
lieve some other things which happened
in South Africa, and notably the at first
seemingly miraculous exploits which are
recounted in General de Wet's "Three
Years' War."* As I read this book I
found myself more than once turning
back to the Sargent portrait of the
author, which appears as frontispiece,
and to the preface, to reassure my faith
in the story. The face is of a man un-
yielding, unsparing, incapable of fiction.
Moreover, in the preface he is of his

♦ »* Three Years' War.»' By Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902.

own motion sworn: "Although it [this
story] does not contain the whole truth
as regards this wondrous war, yet it
contains nothing but the truth " — even
to the recipe for bout span, which he in-
terrupts the simple, graceless, lean nar-
rative to arrange on an improvised spit
of wood or fencing wire.

But endurance is taxed by this book
no less than faith. It is "off-saddle"
and "up-saddle," "out-span" and "in-
span," all night without closing an eye
and all day without a bite of food, wad-
ing through swamp, climbing mountains
which only baboons have dared cross be-
fore, fording spruits and rivers innumer-
able, hiding in pathless kloofs, fighting
and running, to fight another day, till
all is a confusion of names and places
which no geography can locate. The
Anabasis was but a sauntering compared
with it.

I suppose that to a military mind it
is all easily explicable, but to one who
does not know the ways of war it seems
indeed, what General de Wet has called
it, "a wondrous war." Certainly it has
been, even in other than its military
aspects, such a war — a war which at
first staggered humanity, but which has
since lifted humanity to a higher level,
we must believe.' Mr. Justice Holmes
says that war is horrible and dull while
you are at it, but that when time has
passed you see that its message was
divine. Horrible the ' Boer war was
(though not dull at this distance), but
ennobling its message is. It was prob-
ably worth all it cost. It emptied Sir
Michael Hicks-Beach's treasury and has
made Cobden turn in his grave for the
peril in which free trade has been put,
but it has so enriched history that the
rest of the world is less poor and Eng-
land even richer by its tuition. But the
publication of de Wet's book has been
for her and for him an expensive mat-
ter. It can hardly be a metaphor to
say that the blood caught in the spruits

THE LAMP

that run to the Vaal and the Modder
and the Orange rivers gave the author
his ink. And Christiaan de Wet's farm
had to go untitled for three years vi^hile
he, "no book-writer," as he says, devoted
his days and nights to one of the most
simple, stirring, incredible narratives
written and published since the Book of
Joshua.

On the second of October in 1899 the
Veldt-cornets visited every farm in the
district of Heilbron and commandeered
the men. "Among the commandeered
was I, and with me were my three sons,
Kootie, Isaac, and Christiaan." , So the
story of the private burgher, who soon
became commandant, began.

It is a brave record, and refutes all
imputations that the ancient type of
heroism has gone out of the earth. If
it could have had other ending it might
have made an epic. As it is it has much
Homeric stuff in it. And with all its
fighting against hopeless odds it has a
gleam of unquenched humor shining
through it and a fine faith that keeps
you hoping (whatever your historical
convictions about the other people, whose
"Bible has forever consecrated their
matchless language") till the "bitter
moment" of the "never-to-be-forgotten
evening" when, as the grim, still in-
wardly unyielding de Wet said, "that
was done which could never be undone."
When you first come upon that humor
it is as if you had in your thirst found
a stream of sweet water running across
your path. It was at Roodewal. The
English troops, who were going to the
front with supplies of clothing, etc., had
hoisted the white flag. They asked de
Wet that they might keep their per-
sonal belongings and the two English
mails of which they were in charge.
The first request was granted, but the
English officers were informed by the

quiet General that their letters would
not reach their destination — "unless they
were directed to a bonfire." General
Knox was "my dear old friend," who
was against my going into Cape Colony,
and "had the best of the argument, for
the river was unfordable." A little
later he is deprived for the space of two
whole days of the "endearments" of the
English, who were so "passionately de-
voted to President Steyn and myself."

But the simple and possessing faith of
this great leader in the guidance of a
Higher Power is that which lifts the
whole story above the ordinary. Again
and again is a marvellous escape at-
tributed to the "providence and irre-
sistible protection of Almighty God, who
kept His hands graciously over us."
And there does indeed seem to be no
military or earthly reason that de Wet
and his handful of men should have
come unscathed through it all. Coupled
with his superb faith was an unchari-
table, unsparing condemnation of those
who did not do their duty, but also a
beautiful tenderness toward many . of
those who suffered and endured with
him the trials which would not "sit in
the clothes of one man." You should
read oi his love of Danie Theron to
know the heart of the man.

There is one battle of this sturdy
warrior which is not recounted. In the
appendix are printed the proceedings of
a meeting of the representative Boers
who assembled at Vereeniging to discuss
matters "touching the independence of
their country" — that is, touching its
surrender. At the last session of this
assembly the minutes show that the
"Chairman first called upon Chief Com-
mandant de Wet to offer prayer." Vd
rather have heard that prayer than
witnessed even the victory of Sanna*s
Post.

MR. HENLEY AND ROMANTIC PAINTING
By W. C. Brownell

THERE is an extraordinary amount
of piquant and suggestive criti-
cism packed into the 174 small pages of
Mr. William Ernest Henley's " Views
and Reviews " — a volume largely com-
posed of notes and essays written at
various times during many years, and
constituting his " baggage " as an art
critic. He himself characterizes his con-
clusions, in a prefatory note, as " fairly
well purged of sentiment," and as dis-
tinguished in this respect from those of
Ruskin and Hazlitt. The remark is
not prevented from being quite just by
betraying its provenience from a milieu
in which, evidently, if a man does not
stand up for himself no one will for him.
And not only are the essays void of sen-
timent — done in dry point, one may say
— but they are positively, as well as thus
negatively, admirable far beyond most
current writing on the topics they treat.
They have, in a measure, what is called
" the painter's point of view," expressed,
however, in terms and modified to suit
the appreciation of those for whom, in-
stead of by whom, pictures are painted.
"A Note on Romanticism" begins the
book, and then follow " Profiles Ro-
man tiques" (from Michel to Bastien-
Lepage) ; "Five Dutchmen" (Bos-
boom, Israels, Mauve, and the two
Marises) ; " Some Landscape Painters "
(English); "Four Portrait Painters"
(Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, and
Raehurn) ; "Artists and Amateurs"
(Morland, Wilkie, Rossetti, and oth-
ers) ; " Two Moderns " (Keene and
Rodin); and "A Critic of Art" — the
last a generous appreciation of R. A. M.
Stevenson. The gist of the book is its
treatment of the Romantic movement,
which is thoroughly sympathetic, but

VfKw^ AND Reviews. Essays in* Appreciation. By
W. E. Henley. New Vork, Charles Scribner's Sons.

less complete, probably, than it would
have been had these essays been freshly
written.

The " men of 1830 " in painting have
not yet settled into the place they are
probably destined to occupy, and it
would have been interesting if Mr. Hen-
ley had contributed something toward
the assignment that time has yet to make
in their case. He could have done so,
but he has attempted nothing of the
kind. Nothing of the kind has, indeed,
been attempted by anyone, at least in
English, and nothing formally, so far as
we know, in French. Their successors
have been celebrated in a way that by
implication of course involves inference
of their own limitations. But directly,
and so far as they constitute the theme
of any express consideration, they still
enjoy the esteem that was so long denied
them as to have been bestowed, finally,
in perhaps extravagant measure. The
popular opinion of their works is still
carried on the momentum of the vogue
they ended by winning — a momentum
that shows hardly any signs of abatement
as yet. Here and there a collector who
used to collect them now collects the
current product instead. But they seem
all the more solidly established as classics
for the fact that they have ceased to re-
ceive the acme of consideration and com-
ment.

The contrast they present in this re-
spect to the " men of 1830 " in letters is
striking enough to be a shade suspicious.
The latter no longer enjoy the undis-
puted primacy that followed the fierce
struggle and tempestuous polemic of the
epoch during which it was overcoming
obstacles in getting itself established.
The slack- water period that followed
the triumph of Hugo and Gautier, of
Antony and Hernani was comparatively

THE LAMP

brief. No one nowadays is imposed
upon by their fame any more than blind
to their merits. They are estimated
with the cool candor of critical discrim-
ination. They receive the same atten-
tion that masterpieces and master spirits
of any age the dust of whose controver-
sies is laid receive, and are judged by
the same standards. How they will at
length issue from this dispassionate ex-
amination and impartial study remains
no doubt yet to be definitely decided.
But at least they no longer impose their
own criteria and performance with abso-
lute autocracy. This situation must yet
arrive for the painters of 1830, as it has
done for the writers. It is in the highest
degree unlikely that the former consti-
tute a class by themselves, immune from
relativity and illustrating the end rather
than the stages of aesthetic evolution.
It would have been interesting accord-
ingly, as we say, had Mr. Henley, with
his intelligence and his equipment, con-
tributed to the consideration for which
the time ought to be ripe, instead of con-
fining himself to the celebration which
begins to seem a little antiquated.

When this time does arrive, at all
events, the current judgments of Dela-
croix and Decamps, of Rousseau and
Millet, of Diaz and Dupre, of Corot,
Daubigny, and Troyon, are pretty sure
to suffer some revision. They triumphed
most legitimately over an opposition and
an immediate tradition to which they
were greatly superior. But their quali-
ties are bound some day to be considered
apart from their cause and that of their
opponents. And in such consideration
certain limitations and certain qualifica-
tions of their greatness are bound to be
noted, instead of as now completely ig-
nored because, unthinkingly, their "case"
is supposed to have been " proved." If
Mr. Henley had chosen to reopen it he
might (for instance) have remarked on
a certain narrowness involved in their
admirable concentration. This shows it-

self in many ways, and it would be worth
while to trace it. Their predilection for
landscape is an evidence of it. Thcjr
excelled in landscape as no painter, save
Claude, has ever excelled, and triumph-
antly justified their preference; though
with their French tradition they natu-
rally did not devote themselves exclu-
sively to it after the manner of many of
our own painters, for example, notably
perhaps those who, lacking the poetic
temperament, have least business with it.
They one and all had an incontestable
poetic strain which thus gave them this
lij^ne directrice. And in varying degrees
they had an intimate feeling for color.
Sentiment and color were their salient
qualities, and qualities therefore particu-
larly pertinent to their chosen field of
activity. On the other hand it is obvious
that concentration upon color involves a
neglect of some of the possibilities of
form — of which, considered in a large
sense, color is merely one of the mani-
festations — as concentration upon senti-
ment implies a neglect of allied interests
in the larger intellectual field.

Moreover, considerations of substance
aside, in expression they exhibited in
common a remarkable degree of experi-
mentation. Not to attack new problems,
to paint merely to show what you can
do, was very properly stigmatized by
such an interiesting painter as Bastien-
Lepage. But the contrary attitude in
excess means a lack of that certainty
which lends the authority, that poise
which gives the perfection, to an ac-
knowledged masterpiece. Never were
works so experimental, in a sense that
imph'es groping as well as inspiration, as
s^me of the star pictures of the "men of
1830." Some of Delacroix's most dis-
tinguished canvases, for example, betray
the amateur — the very distinguished and
refined amateur to be sure, but still from
the metier standpoint the amateur — as
distinctly as they exhibit the poet. If
things that relate to the metier are neg-

THE LAMP

ligible, let them then not be so ill done
as to be forced on the attention as imper-
fections. No other painters have pro-
duced more works which, if they showed
an individuality that was easy to iden-
tify, showed also a result that was easy
to imitate. Romanticism, in a word, ex
hypothesi, lacks some of the qualities as
it avoids the defects of the classic, the
academic. The fact is familiar enough
in letters. Why has it remained so long

unnoticed in art? After the undisputed
victory of the romantic painters in the
great contest for which the year 1830
serves as a label, why is it that in 1902
the terms of the treaty of peace are yet
to draw up?

An essay in this direction from the
competent pen of Mr. Henley would
have augmented the edification to be ob-
tained from his already very attractive
book.

MR. PAUL ON THE POETRY OF MATTHEW

ARNOLD

By Edith Wharton

BIOGRAPHY makes strange bed-
fellows, and none stranger than
some to be found in the English Men of
Letters series. Since Trollope produced
that astounding volume on Thackeray
from which an hour's innocent mirth
may still be extracted, the appearance of
the little volumes has coqtinued to reveal
a succession of surprising propinquities;
indeed, some of the couples thus literally
bound together suggest the grim hazard
of a noyade rather than a deliberate se-
lection of affinities.

Never, perhaps, has this system of
grouping more curiously exemplified it-
self than in the choice of Mr. Herbert
Paul as the biographer and critic of
Matthew Arnold. One is assailed by
Landseerian images of dignity and im-
pudence at the mere collocation of such
names. To have chosen as the critic of
the great critic one who, whatever ir-
relevant gifts he may possess, is, so to
speak, aggressively destitute of those in
which Arnold declared the critical equip-
ment to consist — to have made such a
choice seems almost a slight upon one of
our purest glories.

The public has felt it as such, and
there has been a general murmur of re-

sentment, an audible clamor for revenge.
Matthew Arnold needs no avenging: he
can no more be patronized than he can
be snubbed. But his readers feel the dis-
tinct need of some balm to their feelings;
and their opportunity, their revenge, has
been provided for them by Mr. Paul
himself. For, however much his axi-
omatic flippancies about Arnold's prose
may confuse the judgment of susceptible
readers, the most inexperienced critic
feels safe when Mr. Paul touches the
subject of poetry. Here he rises from
exasperating cleverness to a consoling
density ; here he has provided his readers
with an arsenal of arms against himself.
The most accomplished critic may not
be able to write with equal discrimina-
tion of prose and poetry, of critical, his-
torical, and imaginative work; but Mr.
Paul attacks his author's verse with the
same cheerful dogmatism as his prose.
Mr. Paul, however, is at heart a kindly
ogre, and before proceeding to cut up his
victim he announces that every poem in
the latter's first volume " now forms a
permanent part of English literature.*'
This statemeiit leads the thoughtful to
speculate upon Mr. Paul's powers of
divination, or upon his definition of per-

THE LAMP

manency; but perhaps it was merely in-
tended to show that Mr. Paul is a new
Prometheus, who is not afraid of defying
the immortals. Mr. Paul next proceeds
to an analysis of the different poems;
and here we have him at his best. It is,
indeed, hard to say whether he is more
felicitous in the framing of general rules
or in their special application. " The
Strayed Reveller," we learn, " opens
well," but, alas, " full many a sovran
morning have I seen," etc. For it ap-
pears that the author almost immediately
falls into cacophany; and he is duly ad-
vised by his monitor that " poets, from
the least to the greatest, have to reckon
with the necessit)' of external forms."
This striking admonition calls attention
to the fact that the average* English critic
is still afraid of vers litres, still in bond-
age to the superstition of the Latin foot.
In blank verse even any marked depart-
ure from the iambic pentameter is viewed
with apprehension. The richness of Mr.
Stephen Phillips's rhythms fills his ad-
mirers with a touching alarm, and Mr.
Clement Scott, in a memorable page,
went so far as to show him by actual
example how some of his most Eliza-
bethan measures might be rewritten in
pentameters as smooth as those of Lord
Derby's Iliad. But it is not only the
Mr. Clement Scotts who are afraid of
accentual complexities. Mr. Paul, who
believes that he regards English rhythms
as accentual, really judges them as quan-
titative ; or rather, he has substituted for
the tyranny of the Latin scansion a con-
vention equally alien to the spirit of
English verse: the law of the regular
accentual beat. This is to create a
" foot " as definite as the Latin, though
measured by stress and not by quantity.
It rules out the noblest rhythms of
Shakespeare and all the later Elizabeth-
ans, and makes many of Milton's lines
tremble on the verge of cacophany. It
would be interesting to see Mr. Paul
apply his foot-rule to the spondees of

Lycidas! It is curious, in this connec-
tion, to note how little Sidney Lanier's
" Science of English Verse " — the most
illuminating book ever written on the
subject — ^has enlightened current criti-
cism of metres. In England especially,
in spite of some admirable pages on
metre in the second volume of Mr.
Robertson's " Essays Toward a Critical
Method," the critics are still frightened
when poetry ventures out of sight of
rhyme, and even rhymed irregular verse
is looked upon as a hazardous experi-
ment.

Mr. Paul next raises the question of
where Arnold's sonnets should rank, and
immediately settles it by saying, " No
one, I suppose, would class them with
Keats's or Wordsworth's. They might
fairly be put on a level with Rossetti's."
This pronouncement is perhaps the most
original in the book. Mr. Paul selects
with apparent deliberation the worst
writer of sonnets among the great Eng-
lish poets, and after declaring his pro-
ductions to be superior to Arnold's, adds
that the latter's sonnets may, however,
be put on a level with those of the one
English poet of the second flight who
surpasses all others in the use of this
particular form of verse. Keats wrote
one great sonnet, and one great line in
a poor sonnet. With these exceptions,
it would be difficult to find among his
sonnets one which, in idea or execution,
rises above the keepsake level. To clas-
sify Arnold's sonnets in this way is like
saying that his blank verse is profoundly
inferior to Byron's, but may fairly be
ranked with Milton's. As a matter of
fact, lovers of Arnold's poetry do not
lay great stress on his sonnets. They all
abound in fine ideas, and here and there
a fine line occurs ; but, excepting " Im-
mortality " and "Written in Butler's
Sermons," there is no satisfying whale,
and even these two, in that which q^kes
the peculiar structural beauty of ^'a son-
net — the simultaneous rise and bj'vcak of

THE LAMP

the wave of thought and rhythm — are
far below Rossetti's best. But Mr.
Paul's most interesting comment is that
which he makes on the last line of the
sonnet " Written in Emerson's Essays : "

Dumb judges, answer, truth or mockery ?

The line is bad enough, certainly;
that Arnold had no natural gift for son-
net-writing is shown by the fact that
almost all his last lines are inadequate.
But it is not of this that Mr. Paul com-
plains. " What is the use," he inquires,
^* of asking dumb judges to answer?"
A few pages farther on he speaks of
" a forgotten poet, remembered, if at all,
as Wordsworth's son-in-law." How, as
Mr. Paul would say, can he be remem-
bered if he is forgotten? Mr. Paul's
meaning is intelligible enough; but so,
surely, is Arnold's, to readers aware that,
in poetry at least, dumbness does not
always mean a congenital atrophy of the
vocal cords.

It will not surprise the discerning
reader to find that in his judgment of
the earlier poems, Mr. Paul's chief
praise is given to " Mycerinus." It is
always more instructive to study a critic
in his preferences than in his dislikes.
" Mycerinus " is exactly to Mr. Paul's
taste and he has an excellent reason for
it. " Wordsworth," he says, " could
hardly have done better." Certainly he
could hardly have done more like him-
self; but when a poet is past his first
volume it is not for his resemblances that
one cherishes him.

Most readers of Arnold will probably
agree that, although all his later poetry
has an individual note, his unrhymed
vers litres are his most original contri-
bution to English verse. But it is these
that Mr. Paul especially deplores, and
no wonder, since in his opinion some of
the unrhymed lyrics " lead one to ask
whether he (Arnold) had any ear at
all." May not some readers turn this
interrogation upon the critic? They

will certainly be tempted to do so when
he adds that, though "The Future"
has " one beautiful line ... it is not
by these metrical or unmetrical experi-
ments that Matthew Arnold lives."
This being Mr. Paul's feeling, it is not
surprising to find that he avoids all men-
tion of " Growing Old " and " Philo-
mela," rushes by " Rugby Chapel " as it
were with averted head, and shudder-
ingly alludes to " Heine's Grave " as
containing " some grotesque instances of
metrical eccentricity." So mistrustful
of vers litres (even rhymed) is Mr.
Paul, that in praising certain passages of
" Empedocles " he omits all mention of
the- exquisite lyric by virtue of which it
survives in the minds of most readers —
the song of Cadmus and Harmonia.

Judging from these instances one
might have supposed that Mr. Paul's
taste would have found complete satis-
faction in the severely heroic couplets
of "The Church at Brou," but, alas,
this otherwise commendable poem sins
against the canons of accuracy — " the
church," Mr. Paul assures us, " is not
in the mountains, but in the treeless,
waterless Burgundian plains." One is
reminded of the fact that Mrs. Barbauld
" pronounced the Ancient Mariner im-
probable." Mr. Paul finds some com-
pensation in the jingling lyrics of " Tris-
tram and Iseult " (" Raise the light, my
page, that I may see her "), though here
again he feels it his dut>^ to point out
that, in the first edition, Arnold made
another topographical error — he thought
Tyntagel was a dact>4 ! No such blem-
ishes, however, disturb Mr. Paul's en-
joyment of " the pretty lines,"

Eyes too expressive to be blue,
Too lovely to be grey.

Why, he seems to ask, should a poet with
such evident aptitude for the valentine
waste himself on less congenial themes?
But Mr. Paul, in his analysis of the
successive volumes of poetrj^ goes from

THE LAMP

felicity to felicity. Perhaps he culmi-
nates in his remarks on " Thyrsis " and
" The Scholar-Gipsy." This at least is
the point at which all lovers of poetry
are sure to await him, and here he will
not disappoint them. " Fine as they
are," he says, " the last two stanzas of
* The Scholar-Gipsy ' are a little out of
place." This is Mr. Paul's verdict on
the analogy of the Tyrian trader — Ar-
nold's most sustained imaginative flight,
clothed in some of his loftiest and most
musical verse! The comments on
" Thyrsis " are equally instructive. Mr.
Paul admires "Thyrsis;" and to justify
his admiration he cites the first stanza,
which, he thinks, " is unsurpassed in the
whole poem." There are some lovers

of Arnold's verse who would willingly
strike out the whole first stanza of
" Thyrsis " in order to eliminate the
fatal second line — " In the two Hink-
seys nothing keeps the same." And in-
deed the sacrifice would not be great:
the stanza is insignificant in itself, and
doubly so when compared with the
splendors which follow it — with the
" tempestuous morn in early June," and
" When Dorian shepherds sang to Pros-
erpine." Indeed in this comment Mr.
Paul has given his final measure, has
summed up with singular completeness
all that his readers would like to say
about his capacity for judging poetry.
After this, they are content to watch the
boomerang speed home.

SECOND CANTO OF THE EPIC OF THE WHEAT

By a. Schade van Westrum

WHEN "Moran of the Lady Let-
ty" appeared it was singled out
by the discerning critics as a decidedly
clever "minor novel." The public
agreed to some extent with the review-
ers, then the story passed the way of
much current fiction, and its author dis-
covered that, while he had made a be-
ginning, he had his spurs still to win.
He wrote "McTeague," and with it
took the deciding step. Frank Norris
began to be talked about more seriously
as a coming man. "Blix" came and
went, an experiment in another field
and in another manner. Norris did not
return to it. His "Man's Woman"
closed the first period of his career, ended
all too soon by death. In this story of
an arctic explorer he carried to its ex-
treme limit his conception of the man
who achieves, of the strenuous life
stripped of all the safeguards that civ-

Thk Pit : A Story of Chicago. By Frank Xorris.
Doubleday, Page & Co., i2mo, 9i>5o«

ilization has put around it, of the mas-
ter who must be brutal for his own sake
and that of his followers.

The transition from the first to the
second and last period of Norris's activ-
ity is striking. His view broadened, his
insight deepened, his grasp strengthened.
Social unrest we have always had with
us — religious, political, or economic. In
our day the discontent takes the eco-
nomic form. Norris saw the wheat-
fields of California and the struggle be-
tween the agriculturist and the railroad
magnate. Then his glance travelled
midway across the continent to the Chi-
cago wheat pit, another stage of the
progress from the producer to the con-
sumer ; and, last of all, he saw the staple
of man's food nourishing the masses of
Europe. The trilogy may well have
suggested itself without the aid of Zola's
series of three, which deals, strangely
enough, with the oldest social unrest,
the religious as well as with the indus-

> ^^^ ^ ^

wm cS .^

BEF^ ^LT^^ ^-^^^H' ^^^^^^1

B'ii^^^ ^^^^ ' -^

><:- jH^._

THE LATE FRANK NORRIS

WHOSE LAST NOVEL, "THE PIT," THE SECOND OF HIS PROPOSED

TRILOGY, HAS JUST BEEN PUBLISHED.

THE LAMP

trial one. Norris began to plan the
Epic of the Wheat, which was to be
told in three prose narratives — "The
Octopus," dealing with the war between
the wheat-grower and the railroad trust ;
"The Pit," a narrative ol a corner in
wheat in the Chicago wheat pit; and,
last of all, "The Wolf," a story of the
relief of a European famine by the
American grain, which now will never
be written.

Norris found his own material; for
his method of treatment of it he went
direct to Zola, whose influence had been
traceable in his earlier work. "The
Octopus" is -saturated with the Zola-
esque manner, its symbolism, its repeti-
tions of attributes and phrases. And,
truth to tell, no better model could have
been found for the handling of so vast
a subject than the Titanic French natu-
ralist. "The Octopus" grew into an
epic, forcing attention.

"The Pit" is now added to it, the
last work of Frank Norris. The trace
of Zola is still perceptible in it here and
there, but it is the trace of the school,
rather than of the Master; in meaning
and atmosphere this story, like "The
Octopus," is strikingly American. The
descriptions of the neighborhood of the
Chicago Board of Trade, in the early
part of the book, may be insisted upon
a little too much, but later on one learns
to value the technical meaning of this
appeal to the memory. When Norris
comes to the excitement and rush of the
"corner," his picture is all life and ac-
tion in scenes now perfectly familiar.
Here is the strenuous life in its most
modern form told dispassionately, with
all the impartiality, the minuteness of

observation of the realist, yet with a
force that carries the reader along.

The story is remarkably well bal-
anced. Its women are as interesting, as
well seen, as its men. Laura Dearborn,
who becomes the speculator's wife, and
her younger sister Page are types of the
present-day American young woman,
while yet remaining individuals. The
American woman's rival, as Paul Bour-
get came to see when he visited us, is
business on an enormous scale, before
whose allurement the attractions of
women pale into insignificance. Laura
Dearborn, self-centred, thrown upon her
own resources by her husband's pursuit
lOf the golden glamour, finds herself; her
sister is dealt with in a lighter vein,
not unworthy of Mr. Howells in its
humor and gentle sympathy; the cult-
ure, which is still an exotic among the
mass of our busy men, who look upon
its votaries not without suspicion, is
cleverly represented by an artist in
stained glass. The magnificently true
proportions of the story will lead many
of its readers at first into a misconcep-
tion of its vast scale. But its true
values will gradually disclose them-
selves, for it is one of the finest, strong-
est pictures yet penned of our present-
day life, with its strong, if hidden,
distinction between the male and the
female element. And the very excel-
lence of the story makes more poignant
the regret over our loss of the most
promising of our younger men-of-letters.
Norris made his indelible mark upon
our literature before he died. He might
have served it so much longer in the
maturity of his great and studiously cul-
tivated talent.

A FEW CURRENT NOVELS
Reviewed by Mary Gay Humphreys

DONNA DIANA

The Roman novel is to many writers
what the play of "Camille" is to the
actress. There are few satisfied until
they have attempted it. The spirit of
the Eternal City has laid upon Marion
Crawford, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Rich-
ard Bagot, Zola, Hall Caine, Marie
Corelli, and all within a brief space.
Some nibble at Roman life as at a piece
of cheese. Others attempt to swallow
it whole. Richard Bagot is one of those
who nibble. After the "Roman Mys-
tery" came "Casting of Nets," portray-
ing the proselyting spirit of that part of
foreign society which coquets with the
Church over the tea-cups. "Donna
Diana" deals with Roman family life
as it is involved in the meshes of the
Church. She is a beautiful and rich
young Roman girl destined to a nun-
nery. Her belief in her vocation is en-
couraged by her family, and especially
by her Cardinal uncle who has appro-
priated part of her fortune, for which
he must account when she comes of age
or if she should marry.

An Englishman, who represents the
Catholic religion under another aspect,
having saved the life of her soldier
cousin, is admitted to the house, and by
chance sees her. He promptly falls in
love, and feels that her belief in her
vocation is a family suggestion which a
love affair would counteract. In his
love he is openly helped by the cousin,
and unwittingly aided by a German
spinster, to whom Mr. Bagot, it seems
with some malice, has given a particu-
larly odious part. His most substantial
ally, however, is a timely attack of ty-

phoid fever. This carries the story,
which, it must be admitted, has hitherto
been somewhat slow-footed, at a pace it
nowhere else attains. For, in Diana's
ravings, she reveals her love, her hatred
of her vocation, the part the German
has played, as that of the bad cousin,
Marco. To all of this her remorseful
Cardinal uncle listens, and before she
is fairly off her milk diet the happy end
is in view.

The love story is the vehicle of much
more that the author has evidently in
his mind. There are clerical discus-
sions indicating the English Catholic
view, a series of mercenary intrigues,
which one may accept as a revelation of
clerical abuses; there is a villanous
brother, Marco, the product of clerical
education. Socially we have a Countess
Varini, a suspected portrait, which any
attempt to verify might take one into
the courts, and a brief view of d'An-
nunzio, as Carusio, which the author of
"El Fuoco" will have to stand and take.
While "Donna Diana" is more care-
fully elaborated, the matter seems more
unwieldy, less well in hand, than in that
clever work "Casting of Nets," Mr.
Bagot having in it certainly profited
by his attendance at the foreign "five-
o'clocks."

ADVENTURES OF M.
D'HARICOT

The author of "The Adventures of
M. d'Haricot" is doubtless an amiable
man, as he is a writer of genial imagina-
tion. Otherwise that concealed war-
fare, which too frequently rages in the
breast of the writer toward the illus-

DoNNA Diana. By Richard Bagot. Longmans, Green.
& Co., lamo, ii.50.

Thb Advknturfs of M. d'Haricot. By. J. Storer
Clouston. Harper & Brothers. III., z2mo, $1-50.

THE LAMP

trator, would plead its justification. A
more obvious lack of sympathy between
pen and brush it would be difficult to
point out. Unhappily the pictures, as
always, capture the eye before the slow-
er processes of the type. The more
attractive and ingenious they are, the
greater the task of the author to come
into his own. The general proposition
is that illustration should illustrate. In
M. d'Haricot the artist sets up, as it
were, in business for himself. Mr.
Clouston's hero is a genial young French-
man with a talent for getting into
scrapes and an equal talent for getting
out of them. He is a lovable young
fellow, and his success with the fair
altogether forbids that he resemble in
any way the grotesque, elderly frog-
eating bouVvardier that the artist de-
picts. One might think of a dozen
types to represent him, but never of that
rendered, which seems to have been in-
spired by the wildest caricatures in "La
Vie Parisienne," or the most mad essays
of Caron d'Ache. The indictment is
not idle. There were many people who
confessed to not reading Dickens for
years owing to the prejudice aroused by
Cruikshank illustrations. There are
readers who would be equally misled by
the portrayal of M. d'Haricot, who de-
serves a better fate. The idea of a
Frenchman with his taste for intrigue
and the ladies endeavoring to live the
life of an Englishman with his love of
sport offers many opportunities, and
Mr. Clouston carries the manifest in-
consistencies, from adventure to advent-
ure, with unflagging gayety and humor,
exciting our sympathies as readily as our
laughter.

JOHN ERMINE OF THE
YELLOWSTONE

To Mr. Remington's intentions be-
yond relating the adventures of "John

Ermine of the Yellowstone" he gives no
clew. The story, however, stimulates
further inquiry. The novelist in gen-
eral would have wrought out his de-
nouement by trusting to the influences
of heredity, a popular method at present
of circumventing events. For a time it
seemed that this was to be the author's
plan. John Ermine is a white child
brought up by the Indians. When at a
crucial period he comes under the influ-
ence of a mysterious hermit, who works
purposely upon the white nature of his
pupil, one hastily concludes that the
situation is being reasonably unfolded
and that the all-conquering Anglo-Sax-
on blood will assume its place. He is
sent by the hermit to the army on the
plains, to which he is attached as a scout.
Here he inevitably meets his fate in the
person of the Colonel's daughter. John
Ermine's romantic beauty, his pictu-
resque clothing, and chivalrous attitude
attract the young woman's attention.
Now the whole affair seems simple.
Here is the chance to efface early asso-
ciation and allow innate nobility, hero-
ism, and devotion a walkover, as one
may say, to the goal of the young wom-
an's affections. But Mr. Remington is
of sterner stuff. The girl receives John
Ermine's homage as impertinence. In
his humiliation white blood and heredity
do not count. John Ermine is Indian,
all Indian. He shoots her lover, as he
regrets, only in the arm, and escapes.
Later he returns to kill him and is him-
self shot by a "fool" Indian, and dies
practically a savage. His early training
has won. It is an interesting variant
of the frontier novel, and in it Mr.
Remington manages to convey much of
the detailed information he has acquired
of the Indian and of soldiering on the
plains. His own sketches assist the
book with sketches of army and Indian
types.

John Ermink of the Yellowstone. By Frederic
Remington. The Macmillan Co. III., i2mo, $1.50.

ONE OF FREDKRIC REMINGTON'S ll.Ll'STRATIONS I-nR HIS NEW
NOVEL, "JOHN ERMINE OF THE YELLOWSTONE."

EGLEE, A GIRL OF THE
PEOPLE

From the "Letters of Elizabeth to
her Mother" to "Eglee, a Girl of the
People" is a long step. Mr. W. R. H.
Trowbridge has successfully taken it,
and it was a step worth taking, even at
the moment when the historical novel
is expected to fully justify its continued
appearance. It is rather strange that
under the searchlight for romantic

Eglee, a Girl of the PsoriK. By. W. R. H. Trow-
bridge. A. Wessels Co. xamo, 9i.oo net.

heroes and heroines it has not hitherto
fallen on the girl who at the height
of the French Revolution shouted "Vive
la Reine" throughout the streets of
Paris, since interest in that period will
almost carry anything. Pardonably, the
story is freighted with historical impedi-
menta, but it is well presented, and one
may care to refresh the mind with such
thrilling details. The bare skeleton of
Eglee*s existence, as revealed by de
Beugniot, Mr. Trowbridge has skilfully
clothed. He has interwoven this with
pretty and entirely plausible passages

THE LAMP

between Eglee and the young aristocrat,
Due d'Amboise. He has done this,
moreover, without sacrificing in any way
the consistency of their entirely different
characters of aristocrat and girl of the
Faubourg Antoine. The scenes in the
conciergerie are finely conceived and
vividly rendered. The dramatic con-
trasts suggest valuable possibilities for
the stage, except that one begs from
events so harrowing in an age which
presents troubles of its own.

THE LIGHTNING
CONDUCTOR

It was inevitable that the automobile
should soon supersede the bicycle in fic-
tion. It is interesting to observe with
what ingenuity each new machine pre-
sents fresh and valuable complications
with which it is peculiarly and insepa-
rably connected, to the harassed, weary-
worn art of the novelist. With every
new method of getting over the ground
the wTiter rises Antaeus-like with an-
other hope, and plucks a fresh goose-
quill. It is the good fortune of the
automobile to make a first appearance in
"The Lightning Conductor." As a
story of great highways it ranks with
the best of its kind, and will doubtless
serve as guide-book to many who will
envy its exhilarating spirits and, it is to
be hoped, emulate the good temper it
inculcates under similar untoward cir-
cumstances. The story is told in a series
of letters. On the one hand these are
addressed by Miss Molly Randolph to
"Dear Shiny-headed Angel," "Darling
Dad," "You Blessed Old Thing," and
are received by a competent person on
Wall Street, who sends prompt and
ample checks to his equally competent
daughter. The others are mailed by
Mr. Jack Winston, otherwise Chauffeur

Thr Lightning Conductor. By C. N. and A. M.
Williamson. Henry Holt Si Co., lamo, $x.;o.

Brown, to Montie, Lord Lane, at Da-
vos-Platz. The young woman, having
bought a collection of iron-mongery as
an automobile, speedily comes to grief
not far from Paris, and her chauffeur
runs off with the money for repairs.
Here she is rescued by a young English-
man driving his Napier, who engages
with her as Chauffeur Brown. Thus
Molly Randolph and her chaperon.
Aunt Mary, are enabled to visit the
chateaux in the valley of the Loire;
thence to Biarritz, crossing the Pyrenees,
they at length reach the Riviera, extend
their trip to Italy, finally fetching up in
Sicily, where the situation finds itself
handsomely.

It will be seen that this is something
of a journey, and that it involves a large
amount of interesting historical infor-
mation. It is truthful to say that this
is incorporated not only without vio-
lence, but is made an integral part of
the story. The progress of the love
affair between Molly and Chauffeur
Brown to its inevitable happy conse-
quence is told with gayety and spirit,
and makes sure of the sympathy of
every reader in the ultimate and mutual
happiness of two such wholesome and
charming people. The situation is not
a new one, but it is fair to say that Mr.
and Mrs. Williamson, who are joint au-
thors, have made it as good as new in
"The Lightning Conductor." Incident-
ally, the ways of the automobile, its
temper, moods, its whims, its faithful
response and its moments of self-asser-
tion accompany the story as one of the
principal sentient characters.

THE SEA LADY

It is worth observing that pure imag-
ination rarely goes forth nowadays ex-
cept well accompanied. "The Sea

Thb Sea Lady. By H. G. Wdls. D. Appkton &
Co. 111., z2mo, $1.50.

THE LAMP

Lady" as a story is as fantastic as that
of "Ulysses"; the author indeed, in es-
sentials, keeps reasonably close to the
classic. But for the poetic mystery of
the ancient tale he fortifies himself with
humor, simulates realism, and adds a
touch of science. The sea lady gets her
footing, as one may say, in the blazing
sunshine of a sandy beach at a common-
place watering-place amid a group of
everyday people. As an immortal she
knows their weaknesses and plays upon
them to secure her own ends. The fun,
of course, is uppermost, beginning with
the violin-case invented by the discreet
maid for her tail before she can be pre-
sented to society by the kind-hearted
Mrs. Bunting. The effort to keep the
secret, the warding off of the newspaper
men, the conversations on affairs above
and below the surface of the earth, are
hilariously funny. But Mr. Wells has
done more.. The disciplinary effect upon
the character of life, death, and the
future as against the unmoral attitude
of the immortal amid this travesty of
truth and falsehood however lightly, is
still reflected. The tragedy at the close,
after the humorous exaggeration of the
story, is -unexpected and somewhat
forced. This is not the first time Mr.
Wells has shown how plausibly he can
manage glaring improbabilities. But

none has been more consistently amus-
ing.

THE CONQUEST

Otherwise "The True Story of Lewis
and Clark" is the tale of the winning
of the Middle West. Although thrown
into the form of a novel the book is
scarcely a story. Even the conversations
seem to have been taken from letters
and state archives. This makes them
very brief, for the writer seems scarcely
to draw on her imagination to fill them
out. The book is indeed so packed that
one goes from Richmond to Louisville,
from Chillicothe to St. Louis, from Vin-
cennes to Cincinnati, with such haste
that the uninformed reader can hardly
keep pace. At the same time every
reader must feel in the possession of
truthful and interesting data, which,
however unwieldy for the moment,'
makes "The Conquest" a book for the
library shelves where it may furnish
facts of the period when wanted. It
was an empire that these men gave to
the country, and their story can never
be wanting in value. The portraits of
Clark, Lewis, Boone, and Kenton one
accepts without question.

The Conqurst. By Eva Emery Dye. A. C. McCIurg
& Co., i2mo, $1.50.

KATHARINE HOOKER'S GARDEN AT LOS ANGELES SHOWING MISS MARION ^HOOKER."

THE ENTRANCE TO KATHARINE HOOKER S HOUSE AT LOS ANGELES.

THE RAMBLER

WITH this number Professor John
Finley, of Princeton University,
begins a series of talks about books un-
der the title of "Letters and Life."

The beautiful California home of
Katharine Hooker, here pictured, sug-
gests the possibility that the inspiration
of her "Wayfarers in Italy" began in
"our Italy," where she, though of old
New England stock, has lived most of
her life and where the other Wayfarer,
her daughter, Marian Hooker, was born.
At least one can infer from such a home
in such a land the preparation of mind
and spirit for the sympathetic apprecia-
tion of "the sources of literature in life"
which Mr. W. D. Howells notes in her
book. The book is the result of nearly
two years' leisurely journey ings through
the Italy which is not of the beaten
tourist's track — pilgrimages chiefly to
out-of-the-way villages, castles and pict-
ures that so often figure in the "next-
time" journeys of loving but less leisurely
travellers.

During her long residence in San
Francisco and later in Los Angeles, Mrs.
Hooker has ever been the centre of a
group of people whose very isolation
tended to develop appreciation and taste.
Italy had laid its charm upon her during
an early visit, and for a number of years
there went on, among the scenes here
pictured, the quiet preparation for the
more serious study and longer sojourn.
To this end her library became crowded
with books and photographs, while her
garden, with its wealth of ever-blooming
flowers and its climate and sky of Italian
quality, constituted a constant reminder
of the gardens of the far-away land of
her desire.

Mrs. Hooker's love of books extends
to their externals, for she has learned the
art of bookbinding; her study is her
workshop also, and in the great room on
the top of the house, with her friend and
co-worker, the late Miss Evelyn Nord-
hofl, she spent many hours designing
and binding treasured books.

Here is an episode of some interest.

THE LAMP

Mrs. Hooker had long been an ardent
admirer and champion of the novels of
Mrs. Stoddard, and frequently had
bound copies of "The Morgesons,"
"Two Men," and "Temple House" for
friends. While in New York, before one
of her wayfaring trips, she endeavored
to secure some copies, only to be told
that they were out of print and the plates
about to be sold for old metal. Such a
fate was not to be thought of, and Mrs.
Hooker spent the day
before sailing in arrang-
ing for the purchase of
the plates. On her re-
turn from Italy, nearly
a year later, Mrs. Stod-
dard and Mrs. Hooker
met for the first time.
Mrs. Stoddard hugely
enjoyed telling the story
of her "California ad-
mirer," and declared she
discerned hitherto unsus-
pected merit in her nov-
els since Mrs. Hooker
evinced so much interest
in their preservation.
Mrs. Stoddard dedicated
the new edition to Mrs.
Hooker, and, shortly before her death,
had the pleasure of seeing her novels
once more in print.

Both Mrs. Hooker and her daughter
are expert photographers, and the illus-
trations in her book, made by Miss
Hooker, are only a few of the manj^
beautiful and altogether unusual remind-
ers of their wayfaring. The book's head
and tail pieces and initial-letters are the
work of Mr. Morgan Shepard, of San
Francisco, who has in many cases used
the quaint coat-of-arms of the old Italian
cities for initial designs, while through-
out there are many artistic adaptations
of the emblems adopted by Mrs. Hooker
for a binding mark — symbols of the two
Italys, the wing of the California wood-
dove, and the cistus or rock-rose which

KATHARINE HO<JKKR,

grows wild in so many parts of Italy and
which, while driving leisurely along, the
Wayfarers would often descend from
their carriage to gather.

Mr. Henry Norman's reoccupation of
an editorial chair has set London again
talking of literary men in journalism and
of literary journalism. Mr. Robert
Barr has also returned to the fold, for
he has again bought the
Idler^ which the orig-
inal publishers, Chatto
& Windus, have taken
iip again. The Idler
has had a curious career.
By far its most impor-
tant period was under
the guidance of Mr. S.
H. Sime, the artist, who
put into it some of the
best designs he has ever
given us. Mr. Sime's
art, however, appeals
only to a small part of
the British public, and
all his cleverness could
not arrest the decay of
the Idler. Mr. Barr's
talent is altogether more popular, and he
may succeed.

Journalists with a true literary in-
stinct frequently grow disheartened at
the output of undistinguished fiction
which absorbs such an enormous section
of the English, as of the American, book-
market. The statistics of public free
libraries display the fact — ^which libra-
rians sedulously attempt to obscure —
that fiction is the thing that is mainly
read. When this is so it is not to be
wondered at that literary criticism ap-
peals only to the few. Even the British
dailies run it mainly on the principle of
exploiting fiction boomsters. There are
whole classes of books of more serious
import that are either not noticed at all
or are slumped together in a slovenly

THE LAMP

manner by writers with the knowledge
of the traditional office-boy.

Therefore any attempt to float a new
literary journal is of interest, and it is
encouraging. At the present moment,
with some forty millions of a population.
Great Britain has only four literary jour-
nals — the Athenaum^ which remains the
best of all; the Academy^ very brightly
conducted by Mr. Lewis Hind ; the Lit-
erary World, which has not given itself
up bodily to fads and fashions (though
it costs a penny) ; and the Times Lit-
erary Supplement, which is excellently
done. Mr. T. P. O'Connor, who has
long been interested in book-reviewing
on a popular scale, is not without hope
in the literary instinct of the public.
When he started the Radical Star some
years ago he started the literary causerie
which was first written by Mr. Clement
Shorter and then by Mr. Le Gallienne.
It was far above the heads of the aver-

age reader of the journal, but it had a
ver>' interested, if small, special audience.
Mr. O'Connor has, since then, made the
" book of the week " a feature of several
journals with which he has been con-
nected. His new paper, which will deal
with the literary news of the day at a
penny, will be worth watching.

Speaking of literary matters on the
other side, " The Unspeakable Scot " is
likely to create a little literature of self-
criticism round it. Already there has
appeared on both sides of the sea a vol-
ume entitled "The Egregious English,"
by one Angus McNeill, of which this
extract may serve as a sample:

" An Englishman, you know, can
learn anything when he makes up his
mind to it. And he has learned this
South African lesson thoroughly well.
To judge by appearances, he must rea-

THE \'ERANDA OF MRS. HOOKER's HOL'SK WHERE MUCH OF "THE WAYFARERS " WAS WRITTEN.

THE LAMP

son this way: *I was not prepared for
this South African business. It was a
new thing to me. It gave me a new
notion of the whole art and practice of
war. The old authorities were clean
out of it. Therefore I solemnly abjure
the old authorities. For the future I
wear slouch hats and khaki and puttees
and a jacket full of pockets, and I drill
for the express notion that I may some
day meet a Boer farmer.* It does not
seem to occur to the poor body that his
next great trial is not in the least likely
to overtake him in South Africa* He
has had to fight on the Continent of
Europe before to-day, and I shall not
be surprised if he has to do it again be-
fore many years have passed over his
head. Yet, wherever his next large
fighting has to be done, you will find
that he will sail into it in his good old
infantile, stupid English way, armed
cap-a-pie for the special destruction of
Boers."

Meantime the late Speaker's son, the
Hon. George Peel, has written a book
dealing with the causes of the hatred felt
for England by the peoples of Europe.
Mr. Peel is the grandson of the great
Sir Robert Peel, who certainly did not
make Ireland less of an enemy to Eng-
land.

Until "The Joy of Living" made its
appearance last fall simultaneously on
the boards and between covers Hermann
Sudermann had been known to the many
in this country chiefly as the author of
"Magda," a portion of the repertoire of
such actresses as Eleanor Duse, Agnes
Soma, and Mrs. Campbell. At home,
however, he has long been one of the
most prominent figures in literature,
sharing fame with Gerhardt Haupt-
mann; his reputation as novelist is al-
most as great as his reputation as
dramatist, although of late years he has
produced little or nothing in the way
of fiction.

Sudermann is striking in appearance,
being tall and of distinguished carriage.
Success has brought him comparative
wealth, but apparently it has not oblit-
erated recollection of the hardships of
his early youth, which is supposed to
be pictured, with more or less fidelity,
in "Dame Care" and to which he feel-
ingly refers in the prefatory poem ad-
dressed to his parents.

He is about forty-five years of age.
Of recent years he has lived in Berlin
in an upper apartment-house on Tauen-
zien Strasse. His dwelling is com-
fortable and beautifully situated in
the most desirable part of the German
capital, but it makes little claim to
luxury.

A small balcony overlooks the square
in the direction of the nearby zoologi-
cal garden, and here, among the flowers
which arc inseparable from the bal-
conies of Germany, he may be seen al-
most any late afternoon in fair weather.
A number of years ago he married a
widow with several children.

By a strange coincidence Sudermann
and Hauptmann made their dramatic
debuts on the same evening in 1889, the
former with "Honor" and the latter with
the appropriately styled drama "Before
Sunrise." Nothing that Herr Suder-
mann has since written, with the possible
exception of "Magda," has achieved
greater success than this early play,
which still holds its own in the repertoire
of the stock companies throughout Ger-
many, whereas, by his later work,
Hauptmann has caused his immature
youthful effort to be almost forgotten.
One of Herr Sudermann's earlier dra-
mas, "Sodom's End," fell under the ban
of the censor, and for some time was
prohibited. Of late the two have again
acted together in outspoken condemna-
tion of the rabid methods of the Berlin
dramatic critics, declaring it to be their
intention to produce their future plays
in Vienna.

THE LAMP

DR. DANIEL COIT OILMAN,
General Editor of the New International Encyclopedia.

The "New International Encyclo-
pedia," the three first volumes of which
have been issued by Dodd, Mead & Co.,
is, in the best sense, what the adjective
declares; it is new not only in point of
recentness, but especially in its use of
the latest developments in scholarship
and method of presentation. It must
not be confused with the old "Interna-
tional Cyclopedia," which is not even
the basis of the new work. The editors,
Daniel Coit Gilman, recently Presi-
dent of Johns Hopkins ; Harry Thurston
Peck, of Columbia; and Frank Moore
Colby, late of New York University,
have, they tell us in their preface, made
exhaustive study of the science of the
encyclopedia and have produced what
they believe to be a close approximation
to the ideal. It is planned on the lines
of the great German works rather than

on the familiar British lines, but aims
to embody the controlling advantages of
both and to eliminate their errors.

In respect of scope, even a first glance
is sufficient to make glad the heart of
one accustomed to the limitations of the
great encyclopedias of the past. Surely
no other is in this wise quite in its class.
Late developments of science in many
fields, new inventions and discoveries,
late political and social changes, and a
multitude of absolutely new interests in
many departments of activity find place
in these pages. As a biographical refer-
ence book it is astonishingly complete
for a work, even in seventeen volumes,
which covers so vast a field, and will
serve most purposes. Opening the first
volume at random we find, for exanrple,
under the prosaic name Allen, thirty-
six biographies. Geography is treated

THE LAMP

in similar fulness. Maps of sufficient
size for common reference make the or-
dinary home atlas almost superfluous,
and the multiplicity of description to
about the same extent eliminates the
gazetteer. Biology, Education, Military
and Naval Science, and Sociology are
among the subjects whose modern de-
velopments are treated with special ful-
ness.

Another department of great inter-
est and value, to quote the preface, is
that which has to do with what may be
called miscellaneous information, and
which covers a range of topics not here-
tofore included in a general encyclopedia.
Under this head will be found, for in-
stance, the titles of famous books, com-
prising works of fiction, the names of
the important characters in imaginative
literature, the explanations of political
nicknames and popular allusions, and, in
fact, all that class of subjects which has
ordinarily been found only in readers'
handbooks and similar special compila-
tions. It should be added that every
important article is accompanied by a
bibliography.

This interesting and important under-
taking, the size of which fully warrants
the adjective "formidable" of the pref-
ace, is, in point of scholarship, what
might be expected of its editors. It is
quite in keeping with its spirit that the
signed work of specialists has no part
in it. "It represents instead," write the
editors, "the collective knowledge and
different viewpoints of a number of
trained and able men, w^hile it usually
receives, as well, a finishing touch from
the general editor, who bears constantly
in mind the inestimable value of sim-
plicity, proportion, and clearness. No
signed article can ever have the com-
pleteness, the authority, and the practi-
cal value of an article prepared in such
a way as this." A further reason given
for dispensing with signed articles is
that they must, in succeeding editions.

either fall behind progress or involve a
deception, for it is impracticable always
to employ the original writer when it
is wished to bring an article up to date.

Mr. W. D. Howells may have stored
up no end of trouble by a statement
in his recent article on Henry James in
the North American Review anent the
meaning of "The Sacred Fount." "That
troubled source," he says, "I will own
*is of a profundity,' and in its depths
darkles the solution which the author
makes it no part of his business to pull
to the top; if the reader wants it, let
him dive." So far so good, but some
lines down the page he says, "I do not
hesitate to say I have mastered the secret,
though, for the present, I am not going
to divulge it." What a challenge to
curiosity! Think of his mails!

Mr. Walter Littlefield's interesting
introduction to the "Early Prose Writ-
ings of James Russell Lowell" makes
impossible all misconception of the sig-
nificance, all distorted idea of the mean-
ing of these youthful efforts. He does
not pretend that he has found the cor-
ner-stone on which was reared the
edifice of Lowell's fame; quite the con-
tTSLTy. He admits readily that the
"early writings of a man of genius are
usually unimportant" by reason of their
sophomoric didacticism, the "concrete
knowledge of youth that greatly out-
weighs experience." But in the writ-
ings of Lowell at twenty-three there is
nothing sophomoric or didactic. "His
first verses may halt, his poetic imagery
may be trivial, but his prose is always
sure-footed, although his step be light."
This happy figure of speech i>, indeed,
the best criticism that can be passed
upon the quality of these early writings
of Lowell, notably upon those constitut-

THE LAMP

ing the second section, which consists of
papers on the Elizabethan dramatists,
Chapman, Webster, Ford, Massinger,
and Middleton. Years later Lowell re-
traced many of the footsteps there taken,
but the long road between them and

The interesting and unusual book-
plate here shown has just been designed
by Daniel C. Beard and presented by
him to Andrew Jackson Stone, whose
studies and discoveries in Arctic and sub-
Arctic American zoology are well known

A NKW BOOK-PLATE OF UNUSUAL LNTKREST.

the lasting highway constructed in the
Lowell lectures on "The Old English
Dramatists" is worth following. The
papers on "Married Men" and "Get-
ting Up," the "Disquisition on Fore-
heads," and the essay on "Song Writ-
ing," which complete the first of the two
sections of these early prose writings,
are decidedly youthful, and not without
traces of tradition, but the more inter-
esting for that very reason. Dr. Ed-
ward Everett Hale furnishes a short
prefatory note on Lowell at Harvard,
on "Harvardiana," on their contempo-
raries at college, and on the birth of the
"Boston Miscellany," from which all
but two of the papers in this collection
have been taken.

to students and workers in science. The
field shows the upper edge of the con-
tinent, the region of Mr. Stone's explo-
rations. The sheep pictured in the crest
is named Ovis Stonei, after its discoverer,
while the caribou supporting the sides
bears the name, for similar reason, of
Rangifer Stonei. The motto, which Mr.
Stone translates freely "A labor of
love," represents the spirit and the fact
of his chosen life work.

Mr. Beard chose these particular ani-
mals for the book-plate because they
were named for their discoverer. Mr.
Stone has, however, the discovery of
many other important animals to his
credit. Another of his caribou was
named the Rangifer Granti in honor of

THE LAMP

Madison Grant, the secretary of the
New York Zoological Society, one of the
notable zoological workers of America;
still another, the Rangifer Osborni, after
Henry Fairfield Osborn, of the Ameri-
can Museum of Natural History; a huge
brown bear, one of the largest in the
world, Ursus Merriami, after Dr. C.
Hart Merriam, of the Smithsonian.

Mr. Stone, by the way, broke all
records for continuous sledge journeys in
1898, a fact never before published ex-
cept as a mere statement in the journal
of his society. He covered 3,2C» miles
in 155 days; the next largest similar
journey on record has little more than
half this distance.

Why should not children also have
their lists of most popular books? There
IS no reason, of course, and last fall 5/.
Nicholas started in to supply this grave
need. It invited the opinion of children
of all ages upon the best books for chil-
dren under ten years old, and in De-
cember awarded the prize to the child
who sent in this list:

Alice in Wonderland — Lewis Carroll.

A Child's Garden of Verses — Robert
Louis Stevenson,

The Birds' Christmas Carol — Kate
Douglas JViggin.

Greek Heroes — Charles Kingsley,

Hans Brinker — Mary Alapes Dodge,

King of the Golden River — John Rus-
kin.

Little Lord Fauntleroy — Frances Hodg-
son Burnett,

The Prince and the Pauper — Mark
Twain,

Water Babies — Charles Kingsley,

The Wonder Book — Nathaniel Haw-
thorne,

It is a good list, of course, but one
far more interesting appeared in the
January number, compiled from the
multitude of replies sent in for the com-

petition. The difference is just this:
the first list is the one St. Nicholas
thinks is the best of all those submitted,
while the second list represents the opin-
ions of the children themselves. Here
are the first ten, arranged in the order
of preference:

Little Lord Fauntleroy — Frances Hodg-
son Burnett.

Alice in Wonderland — Lewis Carroll.

The Wonder Book — Nathaniel Haw-
thorne.

The Birds' Christmas C^.vo\ — Kate
Douglas Wiggin.

Wild Animals I Have Known — Ernest
Thompson Seton.

Water Babies — Charles Kingsley.

The Jungle Books — Rudyard Kipling,

Black Beauty — Anna Sewell.

Nights with Uncle Remus — Joel Chan-
dler Harris.

Child's Garden of Verses — Robert Louis
Stevenson.

Mr. Richard Whiteing's social study
of rural England in the manner of his
"No. 5 John Street" is attracting some
attention in the Century. He views the
old English land system with very mod-
ern eyes, sparing nothing in the trench-
ant discussion of its evils. He is, in
fact, as clear cut as the cameos he used
to engrave when, as a young man, he
was a pupil of the chief engraver of
the Queen's Seals. Working on bits of
stone through a magnifying-glass was
not sufficient outlook for the ambitious,
energetic man of twenty-five who want-
ed to see the world and be of it, and
when his first article, written for the
London Evening Star^ was kindly re-
ceived, he dropped his magnifying-glass
and took to journalism.

Mr. Whiteing is now in his sixtieth
year, and most of his working hours
have been spent in the newspaper office.
With the near view of the seamy side

THE LAMP

RICHARD WHITEING.

of life that a journalist must needs get
it seems quite natural that the big-
hearted Englishman should have made
a study of sociology from a benevolent
standpoint.

Certain newspaper prophets now have
it that the great vogue of the novel is
over, that the day of "big sellers'* is
done, that, in short, "the public" has
sickened of its gorging of fiction and has
turned, penitently, to "serious" books,
meaning thereby books of every sort
other than fiction. But have the "seri-
ous" books been neglected during this
"popular fiction craze"? By no means,
and the inference follows that people
must have done vastly more reading

than usual to consume this enormous in-
crease of fiction, or there must have
suddenly developed vastly more readers.
Possibly it was the new readers that
purchased the new fiction. It may be
that the late enormous popularity of
some kinds of fiction has something of
the nature of a "craze," and, if so, a re-
action may momentarily carry the fash-
ion somewhat the other way, though it
is not conceivable that its effect on "seri-
ous" books will be what these prophets
imagine. But there is no denying fic-
tion, especially in this land and this age,
and there will be extremely popular
novels again, at once and in plenty,
though popularity may not be expressed
in figures so picturesque. We maj^ never
see the exact like of the few years in

THE LAMP

G. P. R. JAMES.
From a photograph in the collection of Robert Coster.

fiction now said to be closing, but their
successors are likely to be healthier for
past experiences and to express them-
selves in higher and more enduring
terms.

Our London correspondent notes a
disposition to republish the books of
writers who fell into disrepute after the
mid-Victorian era. Thus, the Routledges
start their new career by reissuing the
novels of G. P. R. James. So recently
as 1892 the " Dictionary of National
Biography '* practically put James in
the past tense, and made him out as a
sort of back number, for the critic de-
clares that, " flimsy and melodramatic as
Jameses romances are, they were highly
popular." It seems strange, therefore,
that a firm which is beginning life again
should seek to do so with such a writer ;
but the fact is that James has always had
a big public of his own — the public, in

fact, that does consult the " Dictionary
of National Biography." James w^as
born just one hundred and one years
ago. He was the son of a doctor whose
father invented a famous medicine called
" James's Powder," which had a great
vogue as a cure for fever, but it is said
to have killed poor Goldsmith. The nov-
elist, who died in i860, was British Con-
sul in turn for Massachusetts and Vir-
ginia, and he married an American who
died so recently as 1891.

In an account of the recent celebra-
tion of Bjornson's seventieth birthday,
taken largely from Scandinavian re-
views, the mid-January Dial quotes
Grieg, the composer, in the following
anecdote :

"It was Christmas eve of 1868 at the
Bjornsons* in Christiania. They lived
then in the Rosenkrantzgade. My wife
and I were, as far as I can remember,
the only guests. The children were
very boisterous in their glee. In the
middle of the floor an immense Christ-
mas tree was enthroned and brightly
lighted. All the servant-folk came in,
and Bjornson spoke, beautifully and
warmly, as he well knows how to do.
'Now you shall play a hymn, Grieg,'
he said, and although I did not quite
like the notion of doing organist's work,
I naturally complied without a mur-
mur. It was one of Grundtvig's hymns
in 32 — thirty-two verses. I resigned
myself to my fate with stoidsm. At
the beginning I kept myself awake, but
the endless repetitions had a soporific
effect. Little by little I became as
stupid as a medium. When we had at
last got through with all the verses,
Bjornson said: * Isn't that fine! Now I
will read it for you!' And so we got
all thirty-two verses once more. I was
completely overawed."

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NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS

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Literature and Dogma. Matthew Arnold.
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A handy-volume edition of Arnold's latter-day

classic.

Right Reading. Selections. A. C. McClurg
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Elements of English Composition, Book
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The Future of War. I. S. Bloch. Ginn &

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Addresses Delivered by Henry Lee Hig-
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Practical Forestry. John Gifford. D. Ap-

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The Standard Light Operas. George P.
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The Musical Basis of Verse. J. B. Dabney.

Longmans, (ireen & Co. i2mo.
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History of the Roman People. Chades
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Works and Days. Hamilton W. Mabie.

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Political History of the United States,
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The Red-Shirts. Herbert E. Hamblen.

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Nature and the Camera. A. Radclyflfe Dug-
more. Doubleday, Page & Co. III., 410,
$1.25 net.
An account of the writer's methods of photo-
graphing birds and animals in their native
haunts.

On an Irish Jaunting-Car. Samuel G.

Bayne. Harpers. III., 4to, $1.25 m^/.
The account of an amusing and interesting
journey through Donegal and Connemara on a
jaunting-car.

Roger Wolcott. William Lawrence. Hough-
ton, Mifflin & Co. III., i6mo, $1.00 net.
A life of the late Governor of Massachusetts by
Bishop Lawrence, in which the official side of
Roger Wolcott's life is subordinate to the human
side.

The Papal Monarchy. William Barry, D.D.

G. P. Putnam's Sons. III., i2mo, $1.35

net.
A popular history of the Papal Monarchy from
St. Gregor>' the Great to Boniface VIII. (5<p to
1303), the new volume in the series of "Stories
of the Nations."

Animals Before Man in North America.
Frederic A. Lucas. D. Appleton & Co.
111., i6mo, $1.25 net.

A popular record of facts concerning prehistoric
animal life in North America, based upon the
revelations of advanced scientific inquiry.

THE LITERARY QUERIST

EDITED BY ROSSITER JOHNSON

[TO CONTRIBUTORS:— (?»rr/« must be brief, must relate to lUerature or authors, and must t>e of some i

interest. Aus^vers are solicited, and must be prefaced with the numbers of the questions referred to. Queries'
and answers, written on one side only of the faper, should be sent to the Editor of THE LAMP, Charleff
Scribner's.Sons, JS3-'57 Eifth Avenue, Nrtv } ork.]

714. — I should like to find a little book en-
titled ** The Twenty-five Best Poems of the
Nineteenth Century." I never saw but the one
copy, and have been unable to get the book be-
cause I did not remember the publishers.

£. K. H.

We do not remember seeing the book, but any
intelligent clerk in a good book store should be
able to find it for you. We doubt its value,
however, since in any case it can be only the
judgment of some one person as to the merit of
the poems, and it is not likely that any two
readers or critics would agree as to all the
twenty-five. If you wish for such a book that
will really satisfy you, use your own taste.
Mr.ke the selection yourself, and copy the poems
into a neat blank book. There is no such thing
as an authoritative selection.

715. — Will you kindly tell me what are the
best books that have been written on the sub-
ject of woman ? c. F.

Probably there are more than we ever have
heard of ; but we will mention the best that we
know about. Margaret Fuller's *' Woman in
the Nineteenth Century " was considered a brill-
iant essay in its day, and it is not yet out of print.
Quite as able, and more easily readable, is Gail
Hamilton's volume entitled "Woman's Worth
and Worthlessness." Mrs. Johnson's ** Woman
and the Republic" is a discursive essay on
woman suffrage in all its aspects and connec-
tions. These three books are all American.
Among the latest and best of those published in
Europe is ** The Emancipation of Women," by
Adele Crepaz, written originally in German, of
which an English translation has appeared in
London. Among older books is '* The History
of Woman, and Her Connexion with Religion,
Civilization, and Domestic Manners, from the
Earliest Period," by S. W. Fullom, published in
London. Miss Kavanagh's " Woman in France
During the Eighteenth Century " is interesting,
and has been republished in this country.
GeoTgiana Hill's *' Woman in English Life,
from Mediaeval to Modern Times," is the result
of a vast deal of historical research} and is full
of interesting facts.

716. — I should be glad if you or any reader
-would answer these questions for me :

(i) Have any of the books of Levin Schuck-

ing, the German novelist, appeared in English
translations ?

(2) Were the amazing feats of mountain-
climbing described in Clarence King's " Moun-
taineering in the Sierra Nevada" really per-
formed by him, or are they creations of his
imagination ?

(3) Who said ** Nothing is so surely believed
as the things we know least about " ?

(4) Who wrote the once popular college song
entitled *' The Lone Fishball"? c. u d.

(i) A translation of his *' Fire and Flame " was
published in New York some years ago, but it is
out of print. We do not think that any of his
other books have been translated.

(2) We believe that Mr. King's stories are all
true.

(3) It has been said many times, with slight
variations. Montaigne says it in several places
in his essays, and possibly he is the originator
of it.

717. — I should be glad if I could discover the
authorship of a very fine poem on '* Autumn,"
which was published anonymously several years
ago. Here is one stanza :

*' The mighty sheaf that never is unbound.
The reaper whom our souls beseech in vain.
The loved, lost year that never may be found
Or loved again.'*

J. T.

718. — I have a few queries that come up oc-
casionally in reading or conversation, and would
like to submit them to you or your readers.

(i) Who said, and of whom did he say it,
" He has written more absurdities than any other
author of our century " ?

(2) Is it true that the letter "i" has not al-
ways been written and printed with a dot over it ?

(3) Who was the Great Cham of Literature ?

(4) Where can I find the poem of which this
is one verse :

The world is old and the world is cold.

And never a day is fair, I said.
Out of the heaven's the sunlight rolled.

The green leaves rustled overhead.
And the sea was a sea of gold.

D. K. R.

(i) Cowper said it of Sir Richard Klackmore
(1650-1729), but he confined it to absurdities in
verse. Pope attacked Blackmore in his " Dun-
ciad," but Addison and other critics praised some
of his poems. Dryden said Blackmore " wrote
his poetr)' to the rumbling of his chariot wheels,"
which needs a little explanation. Blackmore was
a physician, and Dryden probably had in mind
the irregular and unmusical noise of his carriage

THE LAMP

wheels on the rough pavements of London. It
was said that his most-admired poem," Creation,"
was submitted to the members of a literary club,
who altered and amended it to such an extent as
to leave little of the original.

^2) The letter '* i " was written without a dot
before the eleventh century, but we think it
never was printed so.

(3) That was one of the names given to I )r.
Samuel Johnson — by Smollett, it is said.

(4) This is from a poem entitled *' Rebuke,"
by Ina Coolbrith, the California poet. It may
be found in her volume, published by Houghton,
Mifflin & Co.

7 19. — I have seen a book entitled ' * How to
Judge of a Picture," and one entitled " How to
Listen to Music," and one entitled " How and
What to Read," and I have heard of one (but
have not seen it) entitled "How not to be
Cheated in a Horse- trade." But what I want
is a disinterested book entitled " How to Judge
of a Cyclopaedia." I have grown tired of taking
the recommendations of eminent men, for I have
discovered that many of them are themselves no
judges of the works they praise in glowing words.
Can you or any reader help me? j. v. t.

We doubt that anybody can help you, but per-
haps we can tell you how to help yourself. Take

no one's recommendation. Examine the work
with reference to your own needs and the scope
of such a work. If you take no interest in as-
tronomy, do not find fault with it because some
one tells you its astronomical articles are not as
full as they should be. If you are interested in
biography, do not complain because the article
on Walter Scott is not as long as Lockhart's life
of him. Test it by subjects you understand and
statistics to which you have access. Above all,
pay no attention to a critic who criticises with a
tape-measure, calling attention to the fact that
such a subject has so many lines or pages, and
such another only so many. For it is often the
case that a very important stor)' may be told in
comparatively few words, while one not so im-
portant requires more.

ANSWERS
713.— (I) The Funk & Wagnalls Co. publish,
at a moderate price, a photographed fac-simile
of the first folio of Shakespeare.

(2) There is a good concordance of Shelley's
poems, and an Index to Scott that is practically
a concordance. There is also an index to Haw-
thorne which is better than a concordance.

J. T.

_ ^Olllt JftttJJ iBoOltSJ to be issued during the Spring of 1903
by the iJetU amjJtCrDam T5006 Compant^ 1 56 Fifth Avenue, New York

Joe Miller's Complete Jest Book

Being a Complete Collection of the Wittiest Sayinj^s, the
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A Book of Curious Facts of Qeneral interest
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Compiled by Don Lemon. Edited by Henry Williams. With
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The stranv^e historv of the natiifator and astronomer who gave his n^^me
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.XXVI NUMBfiR

LAMP,

Nofr Series of The Book Buyer

A REVTEWAND RECORD
OF CURRENT LITERATURE,

PHARLES SCMBNER'S SONS

TmHATE NEW YORK M cMin

VoLmtS XXVI X H P T AMP ^UUBMR 2 I

A REVIEW AND RECORD OF CURRENT LITERATURE *

CONTENTS FOR MARCH, 1903 ,a«

Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson • « • . • Frontispiece

The Unactable Drama Brandir Maiihiw 99

Vagaries of Book Collectors ......... WilHam L&ring Andrews zoa

The Tendencies of the American Novel ..... y. J/. Bulloch ixo

An Engrluih point of view.

Letters and Life Prof, Jokm FinUy '. "3

Reviews of seven! new books of importance.

Three English Women Novelists W. C. BrowneU .•....••. Z2i

The Latin Quarter of England John CorHn • • 123 !

QuoUtions Misquoted R. L, C, WhiU • . xa8 »

A Literary Love ' . . Marguerite Merington . • 156 \

Lady Rose's Daughter . . . . , Lionel StracTUy • 142 ^

A Review of Mrs. Humpliiy Ward's new novel.

The Rambler • 147 >

Literary news and comment, illostrated

In tighter Vein , . Eleanor ffoyt • • t59 ,

A Review of the newest fiction ■

Typography and Booknyiking Frederic Sherman • . Z64 J

The Literary Querist Rossiter Johnson . , ^ X66 ■

New Books and New Editions 168 |

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Vol. XXVI NEW YORK, MARCH, 1903 No. 2

THE UNACTABLE DRAMA
By Brander Matthews

NO epoch in all the long history of
the drama is emblazoned with
more glorious names than the Eliza-
bethan — not even that which was made
resplendent by iEschylus, Sophocles,
and Euripides, by Aristophanes and Me-
nander. In sheer force, even the Greek
drama might be held inferior to the Eng-
lish. Where the Athenians regained
their superiority over the Elizabethans
was in art, in the conscious purpose held
steadily until its accomplishment, in the
subordination of parts to the w^hole, in
the subduing of the individual freedom
to a larger symmetry. Some of Shake-
speare's plays, but only too few of them,
were wrought with consummate care;
and so were mariy of Ben Jonson's; but
for the rest, what is often most evident
now is the waste and misdirection of
energ\% the unwillingness to husband
genius, the wilfulness that is almost
freakish ness.

Behind these wanton defects there is
to be seen throughout the Elizabethan
drama, as a whole, a mediaeval uncer-
tainty' of form; and this was the chief
cause of the deficiency of the English
drama at the moment of its most splendid
expansion. Its form was inadequate,
largely because the Elizabethan theatre
had advanced so little beyond the theatre

of the Middle Ages. The English drama
was less mediaeval than the Spanish
drama, which was its brilliant contempo-
rary ; for it had freed its spirit, at least,
and it had an open mind. It had even
been aided in its development by the in-
fluence of the Greek masters, although
mainly through their Roman imitators —
an influence far less felt in Spain. None
the less was the presentation of a play of
Shakespeare's quite as mediaeval as the
presentation of a play of Lope de Vega's ;
it was almost as primitive as the presen-
tation of a mystery just before the Re-
nascence. The performance took place
on a mere platform, in the open air, with
most of the turbulent spectators standing
on three sides ; and the large majority of
these spectators were likely always to be
men of low breeding and of coarse tastes.
Although a dramatist must needs appeal
to the plain people, to his contemporaries
as a whole, and not to any upper class
or cultivated caste alone, yet he is un-
fortunate if there is not among the spec-
tators enough education to leaven the
mass. It was a misfortune that the Eliz-
abethan theatre was so rude a thing ; it is
to be regretted that public opinion al-
lowed the dramatist not merely a need-
ful liberty of form, but also unlimited
license of structure; and it was doubly

lOO

THE LAMP

unfortunate that the audience could
bring to bear no restraining influence.

In the past three centuries the theatre
has been greatly modified; and the cir-
cumstances of the playhouse itself have
so materially changed that an Elizabeth-
an play is now almost as remote from us
as an Athenian. No one of Shakespeare's
tragedies or comedies can be acted on the
modem stage without a thorough read-
justment to suit the later conditions of
representation — a readjustment which is
sometimes destructive of Shakespeare's
artful preparation in his earlier acts for
what is to be brought about in the later.
The "CEdipus the King" of Sophocles is
now occasionally acted in Paris, just as
the "Hamlet" of Shakespeare is often
acted in London and in New York ; and
so straightforward and simple is the
form of the Greek tragedy that the re-
arrangement of its episodes to suit the
exigencies of the stage of to-day is far
less than the transposition to which the
English tragedy has to be subjected be-
fore it can be represented in our theatres.
This is one reason why all the efforts of
later poets to model themselves upon
Shakespeare have resulted in immediate
and inevitable disaster. His form they
could imitate ; and often his form is care-
less enough. His genius was incom-
municable — the genius which made him
the foremost dramatist of all time,
equally great as poet and as playwright.

That Shakespeare's form was the re-
sult of the theatrical conditions of his
own time, just as the form of Sophocles
had been the result of the theatrical con-
ditions of his day — this was something
that few of the Englishmen of letters in
the nineteenth century seem to have ap-
prehended. And probably this is the ex-
planation of the unfortunate breach be-
tween the theatre and literature which is
so obvious during the middle years of the
century. By the ill-advised action of
certain English poets, the gulf between
the stage and the men of letters was
made to appear wider than it ought to

have been. These poets fell victims to
the heresy of the so-called "closet-
drama," which all who apprehend the
true principles of the dramaturgic art
cannot but hold to be only bon a mettre
au cabinet, as Molierc phrased it.
Averting their countenances from the
actual theatre of their own time, these
misguided British poets followed out
Lamb's whimsical suggestion and tried
to write for antiquity. Instead of letting
the dead past bury its dead, Matthew
Arnold and Swinburne put forth alleged
dramas composed in painful imitation of
the Greek plays, which had been origi-
nally planned in complete accord with
all the circumstances of the actual The-
atre of Dionysus at Athens. In like
manner, Tennyson and Browning spent
their time in copying the formlessness of
Shakespeare's chronicle-plays, which had
been exactly suited to the conditions of
the Elizabethan stage and which were
wholly unsuited to the conditions of
the Victorian theatre of three centuries
later.

This writing of plays which were not
intended to be played, and which had no
relation to the expectations of contem-
porary spectators, was an aberration for
which there is no warrant in the works
of any truly dramatic poet. It was just
as absurd for Tennyson to take as his
model the semi-mediaeval form of Shake-
speare, regardless of all the changes in
the circumstances of actual performance
in the theatre, as it would have been for
Shakespeare himself to have slavishly fol-
lowed the traditions of the Attic stage.
It was still more absurd for Arnold to
suppose that he could really get a Greek
spirit into a play written by a British
poet in the nineteenth century. And we
may go farther and assert frankly that
even if it had been possible for a man to
thus step off his own shadow, there was
no profit in venturing on a vain rivalry
with the noble Greek dramas which have
happily survived for our delight.

These unactable dramatic poems, with

THE LAMP

lOI

no bold collision of will to serve as a
backbone, with few of the necessary
scenes, the scenes a faire, as the late
Francisque Sarcey used to term them,
without the actuality of the real play in-
tended to be performed by actors, in a
theatre and before an audience, these
mistakes of judgment may have their im-
portance in a history of English litera-
ture; but they need not even be men-
tioned in a history of English drama —
any more than "Sampson Agonistes"
will need to be mentioned there. Proba-
bly even those who admire the poetry
which has put on the garb of the drama
without having possessed itself of the
spirit are not sorry that Milton finally
chose the epic form for "Paradise Lost"
rather than the dramatic. There is a
taint of unreality about all these mis-
guided efforts, whatever the genius of
the poets themselves; there is a lack of
vitality, due wholly to the fact that
these English poets scorned the actual
theatre. They yearned to reap the re-
ward of the dramatic poet without tak-
ing the trouble to learn the trade of the
playwright and without being willing to
submit to the conditions he must perforce
labor under.

Only in Great Britain and in the
United States did the poets go astray in
this manner, although there was also
some little wandering to be observed
among the Germans, now and again.
But the French poets, with their strong
interest in the theatre and with strangely
modern plays of Moliere to serve as ex-
amples, carefully avoided the blunder the
English poets had made again and again.
Victor Hugo, for example, had perhaps
no larger share of the native dramatic
gift than had Robert Browning; but
whereas the British poet chose to borrow
an outgrown garment from the past, the
French poet put his mind to a mastery of
the principles of the dramaturgic art,
taking a model in the actual theatre of
his own time. The French had the
double advantage over the English ; first,

that their men-of-letters thus kept in
contact with the actual theatre ; and sec-
ond, that the acknowledged masterpieces
of the French drama had been delayed
until their stage had become almost
modern in its lighting and in its use of
scenery. Moliere and Racine supply
excellent examples from whose form
there is now no need to vary. Shake-
speare unfortunately planned his great
plays for a stage still more or less medi-
aeval; and his masterpieces have to be
modified and rearranged before they con-
form to the conditions of the modern
theatre. It was easy enough to borrow
from him the loose framework of the
chronicle-play; but it was impossible to
steal the fire and force of his swifter and
more compact tragedies. It is to be re-
marked also that we who speak English
have rarely revealed the instinctive feel-
ing for form which the French seem to
have inherited through the Latin from
the Greek.

Quite significant of the French in-
herent regard for structural beauty is
the fact that the gracefully lyric ro-
mantic-comedies of Alfred de Musset,
published as "closet-dramas," needed
only slight readjustment to fit them for
performance. Quite unconsciously, the
author of "On ne Badine pas avec
TAmour" had conceived his plot and
constructed his story so that it was
easy to prepare the play for the use of
the actors.

Fortunately, the poets of the English
language seem at last to have seen the
error of their ways ; and at the beginning
of the twentieth century we find Mr.
Stephen Phillips, for example, prepar-
ing his "Herod," his "Ulysses," and his
"Paolo and Francesca," in accordance
with the conditions of the modern the-
atre, not feeling these conditions to be
burdensome or cramping to his muse, but
working freely within them, as Hugo
and Alfred de Vigny worked freely
within the conditions of the French the-
atre, three-quarters of a century ago.

I02

THE LAMP

No doubt there will come forward in
due season other poets to join in rivalry
with Mr. Phillips.

Y'et it may be questioned whether the
instrument of the drama of the future is
not more likely to be prose than verse.
Despite the triple success of Mr. Phillips
in English, and the double triumph of
M. Rostand in French, there is a proba-
bility that prose may prove to be a better
tool for the dramatist than verse. Cer-

tainly if the plays of the immediate
future are to deal seriously with the
problems of life, then prose will be
chosen instead of verse ; and this has been
the choice of Ibsen, of M. Paul Hervieu,
of Mr. Pinero, and of Herr Sudermann.
But the success of Mr. Phillips and of
M. Rostand abides as an encouragement
to the poets of every tongue to put the
poetic drama back on the stage where it
belongs.

From DibditCs Decameron.

VAGARIES OF BOOK-COLLECTORS

By William Loring Andrews

HE following four
paragraphs are a
free translation of
a portion of an ar-
ticle on "Le Gout
et la manie des
livres,'* which
lately appeared in
a Paris journal

From BtbUotheca Sf^enceri. ^j^^^ deVOteS a

goodly proportion
of its columns to politics and literature.

"The bibliophile and his twin brother,
the bibliomaniac, are the most change-
able of men, and the most extreme in
the manifestations of their preferences
and tastes, consequently book values are
constantly being overturned. At first
the collector sought the incunables or
cradle books, and books from the famous
presses of the Aldine and Stephens fam-

ilies. Later the dainty little volumes of
the Elzevirs became the rage.

"The Greek authors in which these
t>'pographers delighted were found by
their patrons too severe, the Latin too
dull and tedious, and they turned to the
original editions of the classics of the
seventeenth century.

"The illustrated books of the eigh-
teenth century banished the libraries of
the classics, Eisen took the place of Cor-
neille, Boucher of Racine, Gravelot of
Moliere, Oudry of La Fontaine, Mon-
taigne was replaced by Crebillon fils,
Rabelais by Nerciat. These passed like
the rest, and the original editions of the
"Romantiques," and books embellished
with the lithographs of Tony Johannot,
Delacroix, Gavarni, Meissonier, and
Daumier took the lead. From these the
fashion changed to cotemporary authors

THE LAMP

103

REV. THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN.

printed in limited num-
bers upon choice papers,
Holland, Japanese, and
'Chinese. This was the
heyday of books of small
editions when I'Assom-
moir of M. Zola, upon
Holland paper, published
at seven francs, presently
appeared in the second-
hand bookseller's cata-
logues priced as high as
fifteen Louis.

"At present we are wit-
nessing a revival of the
taste for books of noted
"provenance," in their ancient artistic
morocco bindings, and a comedy of Mo-
liere or the receipts of a cook (the fa-
mous Elzevir "Le Pastissier Francois,"
Amsterdam, 1655) are equally accept-
able to the collector if the covers bear
the arms of a great and famous family.

DIBDIN S BOOK-PLATK.

Certain bibliomaniacs,
however, prefer to these
chef d'ceuvres of the old
master binders and gilders
the bindings covered with
the massive and heavy
tooling of the First Em-
pire. It is the rage of
the moment; it will pass
away."

Here we have, from a
Frenchman's usual circum-
scribed point of view (for
it will be observed that
with the exception of the
Aldines and Elzevirs all
the references are to books of French
manufacture), another of those flings at
the book-mania in which waiters of all
ages have with great gusto indulged.
Like all philippics against this folly, this
humorous and clever satire contains, with
much that the bibliomaniac may ponder

I04

THE LAMP

WILLIAM MILLER.

with profit, a sprinkling of half-truths
which convey an erroneous impression
and will lead the neophyte in book-
collecting altogether astray.

It is not to be denied that with the
majority of those who busy themselves
"books assembling," fashions are as capri-
cious as modes in dress, and there are
leaders of fashion in books as well as in
raiment. A couple of energetic biblio-
maniacs can at any time create a furore
for, and a famine in, a certain fardel of
books. The one thing needful in order
to accomplish this result is that the
atmosphere of the book-auction room
should be thoroughly charged with the
wild enthusiasm of the devotees of that
particular book-cult.

Mr. Andrew Lang in his entertaining
and instructive book, "The Library,"
advises the young collector not to be too
catholic in his tastes. We contrariwise
would advocate a rather wide eclecticism
in the matter. He who collects in a
single narrow line — goes "a-fishing with

an angle" in one small brook — ^will, if
his life be sufficiently prolonged, almost
surely end by parting with his treasures,
be they paintings, porcelains, bric-a-brac,
autographs, books, or what not The
monotony finally becomes unendurable.
It is a manifestation of sound common
sense in any form of collecting to be "off
with the old love and on with the new"
for a season and so add to one's hobby
the variety that gives it flavor and ren-
ders one's acquisitions a source of pleas-
ure and instruction to a wider and still
wider circle of friends and connoisseurs.
A model bibliophile's library, in our
opinion, is one which includes examples
of the art of book-making in all its
branches and of all periods. A "Biblio-
theque variee," such for example as the
Beckford and Hamilton Palace Library
in England (now dispersed) and those
formed in France by Le baron Pichon,
president of the Societe des Bibliophiles
fran^ais, and in New York by Mr.
Robert Hoe.

io6

THE LAMP

That one kind or class of books should
exercise a more potent spell over the
mind of the collector than another at
certain times and seasons, is to be ex-
pected. Nevertheless no rare and fine
books, from the Gutenberg Bible down,
once of interest to the bibliophile, are
in danger of losing permanently their
rightful place in
the affections of a
true book-lover, the
one "born so, not
made." The in-
cunables and the
first Aldine and
Elzevir editions of
the Greek, Latin,
and later classics,
which the writer '
we have quoted
claims have to a
great extent lost
their popularity,
are cherished by ^
those really pos-
sessed of that "con-
templative virtue," the love of old books,
with much the same ardor as of yore. If
with more discrimination as to size, con-
dition, etc., so much the better, for —
aside from the cradle-books — not all the
books of any age or any printer are de-
sirable acquisitions. There are Aldines,
Elzevirs, and Plantins of great price, and
others that are valueless. Good judg-
ment derived from knowledge and ex-
perience, and a cultivated taste must be
exercised in this as in any other form of
collecting. There must be a method in
your book-madness.

The fortuneless bibliophile who, un-
able to withstand temptation, buys what
he knows he can't afford and indulges
in a luxury which, as Edmund Gosse
points out, the rich can never enjoy, may
regard with more than mere compla-
cency the eccentricities of his millionaire
neighbor, seized with a sudden fancy for
books, who with owlish gravity and wis-

dom pronounces out of date exemplars of
the art of book-making that have been
"talismans and spells" to whole genera-
tions of lovers of books. Exulting in his
good fortune, and smiling a little in his
sleeve, the collector of modest preten-
sions proceeds straightway to take ad-
vantage of opportunities thus afforded,
especially in our
own home book-
market, to secure
for a fair and rea-
sonable considera-
'^ ^^ tion not onl}*^ the

^^ "Aldines, Bodinis,

Elzevirs" of An-
drew Lang's
smooth verse, but
the desirable books
of a less remote
date, the Picker-
ings, Majors and
I Murrays, Cadells
— ^ and M o X o n s ,
which are also suf-
fering a partial
eclipse, in the blinding light shed by those
lately risen stars of the order of "Fan-
shawe" and "Tamerlane," now in the
zenith of that portion of the biblioma-
niacal firmament which overarches the
United States.

Books, like men, eventually find their
level, and so we feel assured that many
of the now neglected books of the eigh-
teenth and early nineteenth centuries
will come to the forefront again, for
they are books in the fullest meaning of
the word, such indeed as a publisher with
the best intentions in the world could not
produce in this age of "huddle and un-
rest" which prides itself, and justly we
admit, upon the wonderful machinery it
has invented to save money, time, and
labor. One must be a reckless spend-
thrift of all these three if he would create
a "dear worthy" of a book, and revert to
the quiet, methodical, painstaking, and
deliberative practices of the early typog-

SAMLEl BAKER.

THE LAMP

107

raphers, when, as Percy Fitzgerald
writes, "The printer's life was some-
thing of an art, for the workman brought
with his strong arms and delicate touch
a certain individual feeling." Many a
compositor, as in the case of Franklin,
would "set" the t>'pe of a book entirely
by himself or aided by a companion ; the
pressman as he "pulled" the sheets made
the task an individual or separate art,
carefully scanning and correcting de-
fects for the next effort." He therefore
strictly "printed" the book. So the work
went on tranquilly and leisurely in the
sober and comparatively silent buildings.
"What a curious contrast to the modern
Babel of a printing room."

Conspicuous among the books of the
last century which some of the rising
generation of bookbuyers pass by with a
careless toss of the head are the works of
the Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin, D.D.
The enthusiasm with which these books
w^ere received by the collectors of their
day and for years thereafter appears lat-
terly to have evaporated into thin air and
almost entirely died away. The best ot
paper, faultless typography, and the
wood, steel, and copperplate engravings
of a period when these arts were in
their prime mark the sixteen volumes in
which are included Dibdin's "Biblioma-
nia," "The Bibliographical Decameron,"
"The Northern," and "The Antiquarian
Tours," and the Catalogue of Earl Spen-
cer's Library, with its supplements, the
"Aedes Althorpianae" and "The Cassano
Catalogue" — all out of the fifty or so
volumes of Dibdin's complete published
works which are specially needful to a
book-collector, although perhaps we
should add to this list Dibdin and Ames's
Typographical Antiquities.

These books are a delight to the eye
and a solace to the mind of the biblio-
phile — the most sumptuous books upon
books that have ever seen the light of
day, but some wiseacre among our mod-
ern bookbuyers suddenly discovered that

Dibdin was a garrulous old author, of
scant bibliographical knowledge, and
that the text of his books had become
obsolete and valueless to quidnuncs such
as he. O, lago ! the pity of it, lago !

We do not claim that Dr. Dibdin is
an infallible guide through all the be-
wildering mazes of bibliomania, but we
do venture the opinion that he possessed
more general information about fine,
rare, and curious books, gained by actual
contact with, and patient plodding study
and collation of them, than any half
dozen bibliographers now living, with all
their patented library appliances to facil-
itate the study of bibliography. An af-
fected style and unnecessary prolixity
may be laid to his charge, but, be this as
it may, Thomas Frognall Dibdin re-
mains the most entertaining and in-
structive chronicler we have of the books
and book-lovers of a period which has
been denominated the golden age of
British book-collecting. His sensational
accounts of the battles in the book-sales
room, and the acute and feverish rivalry
of his brother book-collectors, and his
"divers and singular anecdotes" and
other "not incurious matter" anent the
printers, bibliopoles, and bibliomaniacs
of his day may be found occasionally a
trifle tedious, but the bibliophile will
gently bear in mind the fact that, in
common with the personages of whom he
writes, Dibdin was the victim of the
"cureless ill" of bibliomania in an aggra-
vated form (his very bookish book-plate
here reproduced alone testifies to this
fact*), and therefore overlook defects
which are heralded so widely, while he
recognizes the merit in his writings, of
which just now we hear so very little.

To no better source than the biblio-
graphical works of Dr. Dibdin can we
turn for an "honest pennyworth'* of
minute and various information concern-
ing the "noble lords and distinguished

♦Opied from one in a lilUc book by the Abbd Rive,
bound in blue morocco by C Smith (another of the *• Payno-
Lewisian School ** ), witn his ticket.

io8

THE LAMP

commoners" of England who formed the
remarkable libraries of a century ago, in
which some of us, by the way, have a
personal interest, being the present pos-
sessors of some of their former com-
ponent parts, for there are a few of these
beautiful books that, to our gain and the
Englishman's irretrievable loss, escaped

scriptive Catalogue of the Bibliotheca
Spenceriana," that monument to Dib-
din's care and industry as a compiler,
and to the typographical and pictorial
resources of W. Bulmer & Co.'s "Shake-
speare Press." Colonel Stanley, Rev. T.
Gaisford, Cracherode, Grenville, Sir
Mark Masterman Sykes, Towneley,

^sst^

Limj ^ "**^l*^BPH|lfiiJ

' - -^^^gS^^nH^S

:,.^-lC4i

t.^r/'^

FROM COLONEL STANLEY'S LIBRARY. BOUND BY ROGER PAYNE.

his outstretched hands and the vortex of
the British Museum, and crossed the
barrier of the broad Atlantic.

Far and away the most striking figure
among this distinguished company of
English book-men, "a leader in the great
army of lovers of books," in which it
is honorable enough, declares Andrew
Lang, "to be a private soldier," was that
of George John Earl Spencer, K.G.,
etc., etc., etc., a very important portion
of whose great library* — namely, the fif-
teenth and early sixteenth century books
it contained — is included in the "De-

* This library, pronounced by so ^ood an authority as
Renouard to be the finest private one in Europe, was pur-
chased en bloc about the year 1895 by Mrs. Rylands for the
library founded by her at Manchester, England.

Richard Heber — names which are house-
hold words to every bibliophile of Anglo-
Saxon descent — ^with others less known
to fame, pass before us in Dibdin's copi-
ously illustrated and abundantly anno-
tated pages; while the book-sellers, pub-
lishers, and book-binders, without whose
assistance these bibliophiles could not
have brought together their wonderful
collections, follow in their train. Honest
Tom Paine of the Mews Gate, James
Edwards, the "exotic book-seller" (so
called because he dealt principally in
foreign books), and William Miller, the
"courteous bibliopole and dealer in
sumptuous books in lovely bindings," are
all of these estimable and in a way his-

THE LAMP

109

toric characters wc have limit here to
notice before we come to the door in
York Street of Samuel Baker (whose
benignant countenance confronts you
here), the founder of the tribe of book-
auctioneers, and of the firm still promi-
nently in evidence in the City of London,
under the name of Sotheby, Wilkinson
& Hodge, the walls of whose auction
rooms have probably resounded with
more high and clamorous bidding than
any other book-mart in the world,
not excepting the Hotel Drouot, in
Paris.

Dibdin's Decameron, Nicholas Liter-
ary Anecdotes, and Beloe's Sexagenarian
constitute our library of reference for
the study of bibliopegism, in the days
when "up rose Roger Payne like a star
diffusing lustre on all sides, and rejoic-
ing the hearts of all true sons of Biblio-
mania." To this erratic genius and his
able assistant, worthy Mrs. Wier, as
noted if not more so than John Whitta-
ker* for skill in cleaning, repairing, and
restoring old books — a prerequisite to the

* Whittaker's tedious and painstaking method with his
Caxton restorations is thus described by himself : " A
tracing being taken with the greatest precision from the
original leaf, on white badng paper, it is then laid on the
leal (first prepared to match the book it is intended forX
with a piece of blacked paper between the two. Then, by
a p<wat passing round the sides of each letter, a true im-
pression IS given firom the black paper upon the leaf beneath.
The types (which he had engraved or cut to correspond
with the four fonts of Caxton letter) are next stamped on
singly, being charged with old printing ink, prepared in

binding of them, Dibdin devotes thirteen
pages before he continues the story of
that group of bibliopegists which in-
cludes names so familiar to our ears as
those of Mackinlay, Kalthoeber, Stag-
gemier and Walther, "rival heroes of
blind tooling and gilt edging," and
Lewis, Clarke, and Hering, whom Dib-
din declares to be worthy, industrious,
and skilful binders and "true disciples
of Roger Payne" — the last and highest
praise he could bestow.

Dibdin was the Boswell of his gene-
ration of bibliophiles. It was a remark-
able coterie, and no other group of book-
collectors has had or deserved to have
so enthusiastic and well-equipped a bi-
ographer. His books are now neglected
simply through ignorance of their beauty
of form, and the important niche they
occupy in the history of English book-
collecting. There can be no reasonable
doubt in the minds of those who know
them best that in due time they will re-
gain all their former well-deserved popu-
larity.

color exactly to match each distinct book. The type being
then set on the marks made by tracing, in all the rude
manner^ and at the same unequal distances observable in
the original. They will bear the strictest scrutinvand com-
parison with their prototype ; it being impossible to make
a fac-simile of Caxton's printing in any other way, as his
letters are generally set up irregularly, and at unequal dis-
tances, leaning vanous ways, and altogether so rude and
barbarous that no printer of our time could set up a page,
or even a line, to correspond with the original by any other
means."

From Dibdtrfs Decameron.

TENDENCIES OF THE AMERICAN NOVEL

FROM AN ENGLISH POINT OF VIEW

By J. M. Bulloch

" I should say that the dominant fact of American literature to-day is its grad-
ual, but sure, emancipation from purely English influences. It stands quite by
itself already, and is English only in so far as it is pleased to be so, and not
from any sense of filial duty or of literary homage. American style, with its
extreme precision, with its highly cultivated sense of the value of the phrase, is
anything but English. It aims at delicacy, and not at the rugged vigor of our
best men. Henry James is as un-English as he can be. Mr. Harland himself
is French rather than English in the admirable little story by which he won his
fame." — Richard IVhiteing in a recent Address in London,

London, February, 1903.

THE recent opinion on the future
and tendencies of American fiction
vouchsafed by Mr. Richard Whiteing
suggests a more extended inquiry into
the subject than was possible in an after-
dinner speech; besides which, Mr.
Whiteing's view is only an individual
opinion. The significant point, how-
ever, is that the novel produced by Amer-
ican writers should have reached a posi-
tion in which its differentiations from
fiction by English writers are so marked
as to suggest that, beyond the basis of a
common language, the two countries
will develop on separating lines.

There can be no doubt whatever that
the American novel has come to stay in
England. The question arises, first,
whether it is going to assume a complete
individuality of its own; and secondly,
whether it will seriously menace the
English novel in England itself.

The theory that the literature of a
people is ultimately and inevitably the
exact expression of its temperament is so
axiomatic, that one is surprised at the
criticism which seeks to detach it and
treat it as purely episodical. Now, the
fiction produced in the United States
strikes English readers as particularly
characteristic of a people for whom they
have an enormous admiration, amid all

trade rivalries and political differences.
The popularity of the American novel is
not an isolated incident. It is only part
of that interassimilation in every aspect
of human activity which is going on be-
tween the two countries, although Eng-
land is possibly borrowing more than she
gives in return.

To evaluate the qualities in American
fiction would be to deal exhaustively
with the American character as we un-
derstand it. We see a people speaking
our language, and speaking it with a di-
rectness which we have rather left be-
hind; who are made up of a variety of
races from Europe — just that adventur-
ous residue which has the courage to
cross the sea and set out on the new
life, combating all sorts of difficulties
with extraordinary wit and tenacity.
This people have reached that point
where, having conquered their own con-
tinent, they have begun giving back to
the world some of the qualities, and
much of the experience, which they have
gained in the struggle. The fiction of
America has, therefore, been the mirror
of Its progress. In its earlier stages it
has in its most characteristic moments
struck root on its own soil, but now that
it has gone farther afield, intellectually
as well as geographically, it has taken
the whole world into its survey.

THE LAMP

III

Time was when we regarded the
American novel rather as a picture of
American life than as an exposition of
the abstract art of fiction. One thought
of the American novel as illustrated say
by "The Luck of Roaring Camp," or
"Marjory Daw." That an American
writer should approach a subject of uni-
versal interest was almost unthought of.
But that has completely changed. We
find the American travelling to the utter-
most ends of the earth, and seeing life
and history from the vantage ground of
his own intense individuality. The art
of stor>'-telling knows no geographical
boundaries. Thus it is that the Amer-
ican is able to tell all the old stories over
again, not as a dull, recurring decimal,
but from the point of view of the keen
observer who comes to the art of letters
from the energizing spring-board of the
world of affairs. I take it that this is
the explanation of the success in this
country of the novel written by Ameri-
cans.

1 think Mr. Richard Whiteing is right
when he suggests that the influence of
France will continue to be great on the
art of fiction in America, but the influ-
ence will be no mere imitation, but an
assimilation by which the American will
make a selection suitable to his own indi-
viduality. In this respect the American
novel will be no mere copy, as the litera-
tures of some countries on the continent
of Europe have been, an undeveloping
echo of the school of Scott. Indeed, the
development of the American writer,
while differentiating him from his Eng-
lish brother, is so undefined as yet in
point of its destination that I have found
great difficulty in "drawing" English
writers to express an opinion on the mat-
ter. Some great names have declined al-
together to say yea or nay, while others
decline to be dogmatic.

Mr. Barrie would rather leave the
task to others. Mr. Anthony Hope un-
derlines his rule of never entering such

discussions. Mr. Austin Dobson, a man
of letters in another sphere, writes: "^
rnon age on ne lit plus, on re-lit: conse-
quently I am absolutely ignorant of
modern American fiction" — ^which is of
course the whole point at issue. The
most interesting opinion I have been
able to elicit is from Mr. Thomas
Hardy, who writes: "I am sorry to say
that I do not know enough about Ameri-
can fiction to express any view on its ten-
dencies, so that I cannot contribute to
the sum of opinions desired. In truth,
since the dead set on English fiction by
the press some years ago, which para-
lyzed it to its present condition, I have
taken little interest in new novels at
home or in America." This opinion,
though expressed by the individual, and
not, so far as I know, limited by the
critics, at least in public, may help to ex-
plain why the American novel, less tram-
melled, as becomes the work of a younger
and freer people, has gained some of its
popularity on this side.

An interesting opinion is oflfered by
Mr. Pinero. He writes:

"What little, however, I know of the
American novel inclines me to say, in all
modesty, that I do think it owes much
of its science to Continental influences,
while its matter is purely American. As
an instance of this I would cite that fine
work, The Octopus,* by the — how sad
it is to have to write the word! — late
Frank Norris. Here is a tale apparently
treating a certain aspect of American life
with the closest fidelity, which yet be-
longs to the school of Zola.

"I would pass a similar criticism upon
those two clever books by Edith Whar-
ton, called A Gift from the Grave' and
'Crucial Instances' — here again we seem
to have American life most carefully ob-
served but written upon paper bearing a
French water-mark. In The Valley of
Decision' this talented lady appears to be
shaping a new course, and one which
promises a more distinct individuality.

112

THE LAMP

"As to the future of American fiction,
I would rather hazard no view. But I
cannot help expressing the hope that it
may come to be composed with a pen less
fine and under the stress of somewhat
warmer circumstances."

From the author*s point of view, the
attitude of several English writers to
whom I have spoken, but who obviously
do not wish their names to be associated
with the criticism, is very significant.
One of them, who has very big sales in
England, bluntly put it that the Amer-
ican novel is going to give the English
writer "beans." He does not anticipate
that the American novel will oust the
home-made article from its own domin-
ions; but he feels convinced that days
when American rights will be of any
great value are drawing to a close. In
this category, of course, he does not in-
clude the book of genius, which will al-
ways demand, and will as readily get, its
hearing. What he refers to is the book
of average and transitory merit. And I
believe he is absolutely right.

In one sphere, I think the American
novel will hold its own to the detriment
of English fiction — I mean the historical
story. The reason is obvious : the Amer-
ican is looking on the past with new eyes
and a new method. For the man from
the new country the old regime is, theo-
retically at least, full of fascination
which is practically lost upon observers
living actually within its influence. By
way of illustration, one has only to think
of our attitudes as two peoples to our
heroes. In England, we have only one
historical character. Nelson, who has the
slightest magnetism for the man in the
street; the rest are myths. Compare
with this the attitude of the American
toward even the minor figures in the war
between North and South. The differ-
ence, is largely one between the people ;
in this respect alone the American strikes
one as a man hungering for a history;
and this attitude has formed a vast asset
for him as a writer of fiction.

No feature of American fiction strikes
the English reader so conspicuously as
the methods of its wit and humor. As
a matter of fact, American wit is abso-
lutely different from English humor.
George Eliot once said that a difference
of taste in himior forms one of the
greatest barriers between people. Fort-
unately for the American writer, the
differences, while complete, are not an-
tagonistic. It is exceedingly difficult to
define what constitutes the essential dif-
ference between forms of humor; one
can only think of concrete cases. There
is, for example, a great gulf between
Lowell and Dickens, two men who were
intensely characteristic of their own
countries. In the intervening years the
two countries have learned a very great
deal from one another, and American
humor has taken on some of the wider
qualities which have come to distinguish
the political outlook of its people. Amer-
ican humor has very much more in com-
mon with Scotch wit than with the hu-
mor identified with the geographical area
called England. It is intellectual rather
than emotional, and it relies for its effect
on hiatuses and the consequent demand
on the imagination which has always
made the slow-thinking Englishman de-
clare that the Scot never sees a joke.

Another feature in the case is the
purely mechanical one of simultaneous,
or at least identical, issue. Despite the
many differences, and, as English writers
believe, the unfairness of the American
copyright law, the interests of publishers
on both sides of the Atlantic have in-
creased so much of recent years that the
interchange of books has become second
nature.

As a whole, Mr. Whiteing's theory,
though most tentatively put forward,
bears the impress of the truth about it.
The fact would seem to be that the liter-
atures of the world are being levelled up,
and that America, with the quickness of
a young country, is taking advantage of
this more quickly than England.

LETTERS AND LIFE
By John Finley

IT must seem not a little strange to
a lover of the fields, pent up in
a dark, vile-smelling, noisy tenement-
house, that sacred literature, which dis-
covers man in a garden, should in its last
glowing chapters have destined him, if
he led a religious life here, to an eternity
within walls. It must seem not less
strange to the reformer who is trying to
persuade man back to the country, that
his final paradise should be visualized,
not as a tropical or sub-tropical forest
where one might live without labor and
without anxiety for the morrow, not as
a land flowing with milk and honey, nor
even as that varied place which fills his
vacation dreams, but as a city — a city
with paved streets and substantial walls,
a city whose height is as its length and
breadth. Yet, as we must all know, the
sacred record has but anticipated and
idealized the actual story which with
infinite anguish the centuries since have
had to write — this story of the migra-
tion of man from the garden to the town.
The Christian world has come not only
to live in a municipal umbra or penum-
bra, but to look forward to an urban
heaven.

I have no doubt that the attractive-
ness of the city was mightily enhanced
to the author of the Apocalypse by the
barrenness and loneliness of the little
iEgean island from one of whose grot-
toes he had his celestial vision ; that what
he saw borrowed outline and color from
the longing of his heart; that the new
Jerusalem which came down out of
heaven was but the amiable counterpart
of the unlovely streets and courts from
which he had been banished by order of
the Emperor Domitian. And I have no
doubt that the great majority of people
who are set down as civilized would,
after all, if heaven were of their own

imagining and longing, prefer some such
place as the Book of Revelation describes,
to prairie, mountain, or sea-shore — a
place of splendor and everlasting socia-
bility. Thoreau and John Burroughs
and a few others of their kind, whom
Plato would have banished from his Re-
public, would doubtless elect a rural en-
vironment — ^we can't imagine them bliss-
ful in urbe — ^but the multitude, though
miserably and narrowly housed in tene-
ments here, still cherish a hope of a
place hereafter of many mansions. They
only desire better ones than they have.
Mr. Jacob Riis tells of the despair of
a philanthropist who, having carefully
picked a hundred New York Jewish
families to go into the country, where
homes and work awaited them, found
when it came to the actual departure
that only seven were willing to go.
"They wanted," says Riis, "the crowds,
the bands, the kosher butcher-shops,
the fake auction stores, and the syna-
gogues they were used to." The tene-
ment-dwellers' heaven is not a "Home-
wood." They long for the throng.
"The grass and the trees and the birds
and the salt breath of the sea do not
speak to them in a language they under-
stand. The brass bands and the hand-
organs and street cries and the rush and
roar of the city have made them forget
their childhood's tongue." And yet Mr.
Riis protests against the inference that
New York is always to be a tenement-
house city and that we have got to reckon
with and plan for that only. He has
an unyielding faith that things "will
come right yet," that they are not right
as they are, that man is not made to live
all his life in a box, that he is here in
this world for something that is not at-

The Battlk with the Sli'M. by Jacob A. Riis. New
Vork, The Macmillan Company, 190a.

114

THE LAMP

tained in this way — "that is, if not at-
tained, at least perceived when the daisies
and the robins come in."

But even if Mr. Riis's dreams smell
of flowers and the fields and the salt sea,
his book of revelation is of the city — of
the tenement-house city — of Manhattan
( though it has messages in it for churches
of other cities). It is of a city, if you
have his vision to see it, where streets, if
not paved with gold or shining as glass,
are yet clean ; a city through which flows
a river of water clear as crystal (for
which this one-time police reporter, who
set about purging the sources, is much to
be thanked) ; a city in the midst of
whose streets grow trees which are in-
deed trees of life, with leaves for the
healing of the men, women, and chil-
dren of all nations who have gathered
about (a feature of the municipal land-
scape for which this man*s vision and
prevision are in good measure responsible
too). And with all its wretchedness it
is a city of hope. You have but to put
beside it the sullen discontent of White-
chapel to be more hopeful yourself; or
to read the description by that lovable
pilgrim and surveyor of the literary land-
marks of most of our terrestrial cities,
Mr. Laurence Hutton — to read his brief
characterization of the cheerless proto-
type of St. John's celestial cit\', to be as-
sured that we are progressing toward the
ideal ; for in the old Jerusalem not only
are there no newspapers, no printing-
presses, no book-stores, no elections, no
mayor, no aldermen, but there is no
cheerfulness, no life. "No one sings, no
one dances, no one laughs in Jerusalem ;
even the children do not play." But
here play-grounds multiply, even in the
densest parts of the city. You will
hear singing all the way through Mr.
Riis's book at the end of the chapters.
You will see the children dancing, lit-
erally upon the house-tops, and you
will hear their laughter at all manner of
play.

But the most satisfactory measure-
ment is of ourselves with ourselves, an J
in this case it is the most encouraging.
Thirteen years ago Mr. Riis* let all who
cared to read know how life was lived
in the tenement-house districts of New
York. It was a dark enough picture.
His "Children of the Poor" lightened
and brightened it somewhat with its
realistic, concrete, dramatic stories of
the heroisms of poor and rich alike as
they struggled together to make things
a little better for the child whose homely
nurse seems ever bent upon making it
forget the glories it had known in that
"imperial palace ^y hence it came," for,
as Mr. Riis somewhere says, it does re-
member, "even in the gutter." Then
this great war-correspondent, who all
but lived on the battle-field, who sent in
his despatches every day to his paper and
then went himself to succor those whom
he could help, or even threw himself into
the front ranks of those who fought,
wrote his brief history of the war. He
called it "The Ten Years* War"— but
it was only ten years of the war. It was
ended by no protocol or peace; it kept
going on as fiercely as ever.

It was in those ten years that I came
to know this brave American, then in
the making. I had myself enlisted, and
was one day, as aide-de-camp, gathering,
under orders, what forces I could to
overcome the opposition of Mayor Grant
and the Board of Estimate and Appor-
tionment to the lodging-house bill. I
had gotten into communication with this
sharp-shooter, and he appeared at the
Mayor's office in the midst of the battle.
I notified the general in charge. Dr.
Charles F. Chandler; Riis was brought
into action, and I thought the walls of
all the lodging-rooms in the station-
houses would go down immediately. It
was some years later that they did go
down, and Riis never quit fighting in all
that time. It is well known to those

• How the Other Half Lives.

THE LAMP

who have read his books how Roosevelt
came to his assistance and completely de-
molished these iniquitous resorts.

One other instance will illustrate his
alertness and his indefatigable, unselfish
activity. One winter's evening (after
his despatches were in) he rushed into
my office, many blocks away, with news
that the legislature had attacked the only
fortification which the tenement-house
dweller had for his legal protection, and
that if something was not done immedi-
ately five hundred of the worst tenement-
houses in New York City would be
again opened to all manner of sanitary,
or rather unsanitary, evils. A bill had
slipped through both branches of the
Legislature, under the guidance of some
interested tenement property owners no
doubt, exempting, by a slight change in
the definition of the word "tenemefit-
house," some of the very worst tenements
in the city from sanitary regulations.
The bill needed only the Governor's sig-
nature to make it law. Again I went
out after reinforcements, this time for
the support of this volunteer leader, who
next morning rallied the Health De-
partment, and by securing the Gover-
nor's veto, repelled the attack upon the
law.

Three years have passed since the his-
tory of "The Ten Years' War" was
published. To the veteran, who now,
under his gray brows, looks back over
the memories of its campaigns and skir-
mishes, they have run together into a
continuous battle, fought over a wide
field. This must account for the title of
the new book, which embraces the old,
yet supplements it and brings down to
yesterday the report of what is now
called "The Battle with the Slum."
The "war correspondent," who was so
constantly active in the earlier engage-
ments, has now furlough of his increas-
ing vears to visit the ground over which
those combats were waged ; and it must
delight his heart beyond measure to recite

that every vestige of some of the old
fortresses and fastnesses of the city's sin
has been swept away. "Bottle Alley and
Bandit's Roost are gone. Bone Alley,
Thieves' Alley, and Kerosene Row are
gone too. Hell's Kitchen and Poverty
Gap have acquired standards of decency.
Poverty Gap has risen even to the height
of neckties."

But it isn't so much what has been
swept away as what has come in its place
that gives the greatest reason for grati-
fication and for hope. It must be the
peculiar joy of the author of "The Battle
with the Slum" not that these hellish
places are wiped from the city's map, but
that something positively wholesome has
come in their stead. If you have read
Jesse Lynch Williams's delightful and
beautiful "New York Sketches," you
know with what pleasure he found the
landmarks of an old New York road em-
bodied in the greater and more benefi-
cent, if less picturesque, structures which
now front the straightened streets. And
Riis must find a like pleasure, only in-
tenser, in marking where some disrepu-
table block of slums has, in the outlines
of its old self, given boundaries to a small
park or served to identify as its successor
some decent improved tenement-house.

You have but to look at the photo-
graphs of the field of some of the fiercest
struggles and victories to know how
glorious those victories have been ; school-
buildings, beautiful inside and outside,
with yards that are converted into "ball-
rooms" for the girls and roofs that are
playgrounds for the children by day and
amusement and music-halls for the fami-
lies of the communities of a hot summer's
night ; recreation piers reaching out over
the cooling waters of the rivers on either
side of the great teeming island; baths,
swimming pools, g\^mnasiums, play-
grounds among the trees; decent lodg-
ings for the homeless and wayfaring, and

Nrw VoR»f Sketchks, by Jesse Lynch Williams.
Chas. Scnhner's Sons. iQoa.

ii6

THE LAMP

so on — a series of views in the valleys
and hills amid the towering ''mountains
of Mammon" — that with the wholesome,
optimistic text which wanders through
them will lead the most pessimistic out of
despair.

But it has not been for these things
objectively that Riis and those who have
been iiis comrades in these campaigns
have fought; they have fought for "Jim"
and "Pietro" and "Mrs. Ben Wah" and
such as they ; and these things have "been
added." It is all a very human story,
with human frailties in plain sight, and
a very wholesome story even for one who
has never seen a slum. Last month I
spoke of Christiaan de Wet's gallant,
hopeless "Three Years' War" in South
Africa. Riis's thirteen years' war has
not been less brave. No one can be sure
that the Boers' surrender was not, after
all, the best as well as the inevitable re-
sult; but in the war with the slum, says
Riis, "we win or we perish ; there is no
middle way." And he adds, "We shall
win, for we are not letting things be the
way our fathers did. . . . It will be a
running fight, and it is not going to be
won in two years or in ten or in twenty'."
Yet, for all that, we must keep on fight-
ing, "content if in our time we avert the
punishment that waits upon the third
and fourth generation of those who for-
get the brotherhood."

There are two other books recently
published which gather reports from
other cities and which give much statis-
tical basis for a hope of municipal salva-
tion. One of them is Charles Zeublin's
"Municipal Progress," a very small vol-
ume, but large enough to carry a very
considerable amount of encouraging in-
formation as to what has actually been
achieved objectively. It is only the
"minutes of the last meeting," but they
are gratifying, not only as records of the
past perfect, but also as prophecies of the

American Municipal Progress, Charles Zcublin. New
York/rhe Macmiilan Company, 1902.

future perfect. And they have been ap-
proved.

The other is a collection of studies
made in Boston by residents and associ-
ates of the South End House and edited
by Mr. Robert A. Woods. Collectively
it is the story of the invasion of Boston
and the assimilation of the over-sea in-
vaders. It is given as title, "Americans
in Process," and doubtless has much in-
forming material, but its pictures are all
maps or charts, and its individuals are
all represented either in impersonal num-
bers in the text or by colored lines on
the charts. No human face looked out
at me from all its pages of slum and fac-
tory and charities as I walked hastily
through them. Yet I know that "Pie-
tro" and "Jim" and "Mrs. Ben Wah"
must be here too. They are somewhere
in those red and blue or green patches,
and are as tenderly and wisely ministered
unto by the impersonal bureaus and so-
cieties whose many capital letters stand
like rather frigid mountains upon the
lines which tell of their active goodness.
I fear it is, with all its probable value,
too much such a book as those of us who
are accustomed to academic and didactic
ways would write.

It was by seeming chance that, just
after reading these books about the mod-
ern city — ^which sets the most perplexing
as well as fascinating problems in poli-
tics, sociology, and economics — I came
upon the new Life of a very ancient and
famous saint, whose most celebrated work
(aside from his autobiographical "Con-
fessions") was concerned with a com-
parison between the City of Man and
the City of God. I suppose that if Jacob
Riis, who has in our day been knighted
by a European king and specially hon-
ored by the President of his adopted
country, had lived in St. Augustine's
time he might, too, have been canonized,

Americans in Pbocess, edited by Robert A. Woods.
Bo«ton and New York, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1902.
St. Ai'GUStine, by Joseph McCabe. New York, Put-

THE LAMP

GRACK FLETCHER (DANIEL WEBSTER'S FIRST WIFE).
From the painting by C. Harding in the collection of Mri. Abbott Lawrence.

in spite of any theological deficiencies.
The most radical difference between
these two saints, historical and potential,
is that while Riis finds reason for opti-
mism in what he sees and feels in human
nature about him, Augustine's optimism
was transferred to the other world, and
after that "the earth and all the children
of men could be freely handed over to
the damnation of original sin." But,
practically, they agree in the thesis that
it is only when we appreciate "that the
members of the City of Man are also
members of the City of God that we can
follow their fortunes correctly." Riis
has not put it so abstractly, but he means

the same thing when he dates tenement-
house reform from the day when light
and air began to find their way into the
tenements and "we began to count the
tenants as souls." The modern saint
seems to us, too, to have gone about the
salvation of souls in a rather more sen-
sible way than that employed by the
"Punic wrangler." When we read of
the volumes of disputatious sermons and
philosophical essays and the long and
innumerable doctrinal and disciplinary
letters which he wrote, we are filled with
admiration for his genius, but we sympa-
thize with the Christians of North
Africa.

ii8

THE LAMP

This saint, who once walked and
preached in cities dead long before ours
were born, and who, from a continent
recaptured and partitioned now among
European peoples,, himself captivated
Calvin and Boccaccio, Newman and By-
ron, has come in new robes into our own
streets. How different he appears I can-
not know; but he is one with whom it
is quite worth the sacrifice of a dinner
or two, an opera and a play — and pos-
sibly also a Sunday sermon — to spend a
while. This I am saying to one who
does not already know the Bishop of
Hippo. To those who have followed the
youth back and forth from Thagaste to
Carthage, from Carthage to Rome, from
Rome to Milan, and then back to Africa
again, the forfeit of these will not even
seem a sacrifice.

The "Life" which Mr. McCabe pre-
sents is quite as striking in its depiction
of the urban landscape of the fourth cen-
tury as of the figure that walks in its
foreground. First are the large and
beautiful towns, copies of Rome in Afri-
can marble, strung by an imperishable
Roman road through that strip of Afri-
can coast which is shut in between the
Mediterranean Sea and the Atlas Moun-
tains — towns that were imitations of
Rome and Constantinople in all except
that here there was more labor, and
strong men had not yet come to hold out
a shameless hand for public rations. The
legend found carved on an exhumed
gaming-table was here as elsewhere the
sum of existence : "To hunt, to bathe, to
gamble, to bugh — this is to live." This
was the world to which the youth Augus-
tine was admitted.

Next was Carthage, a city whose har-
bors were lit up with color and echoed
with the life of merchant galleys and
Roman triremes, whose forum rang with
the jokes of idlers and the swift rush of
chariots, whose "street of bankers" was
a sight of the world in its glory of marble
and gold — a city devoted to its sensuous

and sensual religion, its games, and its
spectacles; a city into which the chaste
Puritan Vandals but a few decades later
strode, sword in hand, and purified its
long-sullied streets. This was the whirl-
pool into which the prospective saint is
next thrown.

Thence to Rome, its genius already
departed, the Huns, Goths, and Vandals
already swelling their irresistible floods
against its weakening barriers, the vult-
ures gathering thick upon the mountain
fringe of the empire — a city morally re-
pulsive, yet doomed not less by her politi-
cal and economic system than by her
morals (though with some clean, cult-
ured, temperate life in her midst), and
with hardly a trait which has not its
counterpart in modern city life, with the
exception of "a quarter of a million of
stout frames that were rotting in idle-
ness and sensuality." It was a time, too,
when the final struggle between the old
gods and the new was on. The Temple
of Jupiter still crowned the Capitol;
marble images of gods and goddesses
were ever5rvvhere enthroned, and over
every door was a tutelary image, before
which even the Christians lighted their
lamps. The Romans still had a god for
every leaf and for every muscle; religion
was co-existent with life, and some of
these pagan religions were earnest and
strenuous. But the fires were soon to go
out, the smoke of the sacrifices to cease,
and the festivals of prolonged dissipation
to be transformed into Christian and
more temperate feast-days.

This will give some, if but scanty,
suggestion of the color and character of
environment through which the youth
Augustine passed to his conversion and
his sainthood. It was in Carthage at
nineteen that he found one day a copy
of Cicero's "Hortensius," a work no
longer known, which changed the whole
color of his thought and aspiration. "A
strange light fell on his mind, and grad-
ually there came into his vision the lines

THE LAMP

119

CAROLINE LEROY (DANIEL WEBSTER'sJsECOND WIFE).
From a crayon portrait owned by Mrs. Abbott Lawrence

and peaks of the eternal hills beyond, the
irresistible splendor of the intellectual
ideal far outshining the glitter of his
ambition. And the poor pilgrim of truth
set out on the eternal quest." He is
tempted from Carthage to Rome by the
prospect of larger fees and better pupils
(for at Carthage "the youth would rush
into the lecture-room in the middle of
the lecture and bear their companions
away with an intolerable turmoil"). But

in Rome the pupils plotted together and
went to other teachers when pay-day ap-
proached, so the rhetorician migrated to
Milan. There, under the preaching of
St. Ambrose, his conversion to Christian-
ity occurs ; the "hills of his vision were
reached," and he turns his back on the
schools and the court, returns td Africa,
converts the house, which his father had
left him in the outskirts of Thagaste,
into a monastery, and begins the busy.

120

THE LAMP

disputatious, religio-administrative life
that burned out with a fever forty-two
years later in Hippo while the Vandals
were thundering at its walls.

The author of this "Life" treats the
Saint^s "Confessions" (which he, or
someone, has remarked were addressed,
not as Rousseau's to man, but to God)
none too reverently or credulously. He
refuses to believe this pious subject as
wicked a youth as he writes himself
down or to credit him with all the lofty
Christian conceptions with which his
later standards illumined the ground of
his earlier cafeer. But that does not so
much matter to us now, nor does his
theology, his notion of the sin of our
first parents, and all that. It is of
greater consequence that in the midst of
a world of deep corruption this saint,
with all the passions of a man, devoted
his great ability "strenuously to the un-
selfish prosecution of a high ideal."
Devilish doctrines have had their root
in his theology, but there remains in the
land where he lived and wrought a
"strangely persistent memory of a 'great
Christian,' in whose honor the Arabs
hold a quaint celebration over the ruins
of Hippo."

But I can't quit him without recall-
ing the very wholesome legend which he
had carved on the table of his episcopal
house — a couplet which reminded the
dinirs continually that "whoever loves
to carp at the lives of the absent must
know that this table is no place for him."

Mr. McCabe, having St. Augustine
especially in mind, remarks "that a man
is most easily recognized in his letters."
I have not the space to illustrate its
truth from the prolific epistles of Augus-
tine, but I make this observation serve to
introduce a few sentences about another
collection of letters hitherto unpublished
which has just come to my desk. These
are fragments of the correspondence of

The Life anv Letters ok Daniel Wfbstkr, edited
by C. H. Van Tyne, Ph.D. New York, McClure, Phillips
& Co., 190a.

Daniel Webster which have for the most
part been omitted from the earlier col-
lections of his letters and speeches. The
patient student has now the privilege of
fitting these shards where they belong
chronologically, and so of piecing out
the likeness of the great statesman,
sportsman, farmer, and friend. I have
attempted this task for myself — perhaps
without sufficient patience — ^but I do not
find that the restoration of these new-
found pieces appreciably changes the out-
line of his features. There is lent, how-
ever, a rather kindlier expression; and
when the homely and unstately letters to
and from his old neighbors, his farmers,
and the companions of his fishing trips
are read one cannot help thinking him a
little less awesome than he has been
hitherto painted.

Of what new light these letters throw
upon his life and service as a statesman
Mr. McMaster has availed himself in
his brief and very readable "Life of
Webster." One can trust his. historical
sense to discover any such enlighten-
ments. My impression is that whatever
is new in these letters illumines rather
the character and service of Webster's
contemporaries than his own. The com-
ments of his confidential letters, be-
fore sealed, many of them, to the public,
reflect Webster's opinions of Madison,
Adams, Jackson, Clay, Calhoun, Tyler,
Fillmore, Taylor, and Scott. Yet there
is, too, some unconscious revelation of
himself and his ambitions. What one
finds accentuated by these letters — many
of them intimate and confidential — is his
devotion to his family and his neighbors.
Indeed, in his anxiety to help his son to
position and fortune he seems more than
once to have made questionable use of his
own high office and to have kept himself
in constant worry over debts. The let-
ters of the first Mrs. Webster are a pain-
ful exhibit, but it is very probable that
had his own in answer been put beside

Dan'bl Wkb«;tew. by John Bach McMaster. New
York, ITie Ccnturj' Co., 190a.

THE LAMP

121

them they would have excused him from
the neglect of which these pitiful appeals
of a lonely woman, feeling her inferior-
ity, now rise up to accuse him. It is with
a certain unchristian satisfaction that
one notes the humble air of some of his
own letters to his demanding second
wife.

Nowhere is he more human and less
the Jovian defender of the Constitution
than when he writes to his farmer that
he has ordered a "Biddell's Scarifier & a
Garrett's Horse Hoe" and recommends
to his attention a book which he is send-
ing him, on white mustard-seed, or in-
quires when the new hen-house will be
ready.

But nowhere does he appeal more deep-

ly to our sympathies and our affections
than in his letter to his son shortly after
his last great disappointment: "I confess
I grow inclined to cross the seas. I
meet here so many causes of vexation and
humiliation." It was not long after that
he sent a secret message from his sick-
room to his servant Hatch, the compan-
ion of his fishing voyages, "to light a
lamp on the 'Home Squadron' " to burn
as long as his life lasted.

As a lover of books I fear I shall re-
member longer, however, the postscript
of a letter to his son Fletcher in which
he said: "I am reading Lord Campbell's
'Lives of the Lord Chancellors.' If you
have credit enough, run in debt for the
Book and read it the first thing you do."

THREE ENGLISH WOMEN NOVELISTS
By W. C. Brownell

MR. BONNELL is fond of citation
and introduces his study of Char-
lotte Bronte — after getting a running
start with a sentence from Renan — with
one from Henry James excusing his un-
critical attitude in writing on Lowell, as,
in Mr. Bonnell's words, "a pathetic illus-
tration of this essential inability to seize
with a full sense of ownership the fin-
ished idea of a life whose activities have
but just ceased." Anyone who can find in
Mr. James's writing a pathetic illustra-
tion of essential inability of any kind is,
we think, bound to cite it for the benefit
of a sceptical world. But we can direct
Mr. Bonnell's attention to some observa-
tions by Mr, James that would serve his
own purpose much better. Writing of
Venice twenty years ago Mr. James re-
marked: "I write these lines with the
full consciousness of having no informa-
tion whatever to offer. I do not pretend

Charlottb Bronte. Geobgb Eliot, Jane Austen :
Studies in their Works. By Henry H. Bonnell.
Longmans, Green, & Co., 1909.

to enlighten the reader; I pretend only
to give a fillip to his memory ; and I hold
any writer sufficiently justified who is
himself in love with his topic." This is
Mr. Bonnell's justification, rather than
his suggestion that the time has at last
come for dealing with Charlotte Bronte.
And we think it is a sufficient justifica-
tion. He is very much in love with his
topic. You get a pleasant impression
that he could go on for hours about it.
He does go on for at least two. And he
proceeds in a leisurely fashion that is
rather agreeable from its novelty nowa-
days. You are assumed to have, like
himself, plenty of time — which, consider-
ing how much one wastes, is probably
true ; and it is pleasant in desultory mood
to follow him in his desultory wander-
ings around his theme.

His main contention that Charlotte
Bronte is "the greatest writer of pure
passion in the English tongue," is at first
sight calculated to make one bondir, as

122

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the French say. But it is explained by
the sense he gives to the word "passion,"
which is a little peculiar. He affirms
that the word passion means, "in its sim-
plicity, passivity as opposed to activity —
hence, susceptibility, receptivity; which
implies, when the active force at work is
painful, suffering/^ The agony of Christ
thus, he says, is "termed for all time"
the passion "with an immediately recog-
nized perfect appropriateness." Char-
lotte Bronte "suffered and was still" —
except for her books "not meant to be
discovered as hers," and these he com-
pares to the cry of Jesus on the cross, the
"mystery" of which he calls upon "those
who impugn Charlotte Bronte for crying
out in her pain" to solve. Her books
he regards as not "a pleading for passion,
as the critics vainly imagined, but the
pleading of passion." This is all some-
what fine-spun. We follow Mr. Bon-
nell more easily when he says of his
heroine: "We do not sit at her feet to
learn the wisdoms of philosophy; rather
stand we by her side and hold her hand,
as we would the hand of a stricken sis-
ter," though we need to remember his
definition of "passion" in order not to feel
this a proceeding of some familiarity.
But his theorizing is gratefully padded in
great abundance, and if the padding con-
tains such "undisputed things" as "the
unruffled genius of a Leonardo is not
given to everyone," it contains also such
interesting statements as the one that
ten thousand pilgrims visited the Bronte
Museum at Haworth in 1895, an infinite
deal of chat about the characters of
Currer Bell, who to Mr. Bonnell are
very real people, and all sorts of personal
anecdotes and gossip in text and notes
that every reader who is himself in love
with Mr. Bonneirs topic — as who is
not? — must find entertaining, whether
they are new to him or whether they
only "give a fillip to his memory."

Perhaps where George Eliot is con-
cerned the aforesaid excuse of Mr. James

has somewhat less validity. Credentials
of critical as well as of emotional com-
petence are more in order in the consid-
eration of the more commanding figure.
And here, indeed, Mr. Bonnell is perhaps
a shade less satisfactory. He seems
rather inclined to hold George Eliot's
hand, too, though he does sit at her feet
to learn "the wisdoms of philosophy;"
and this has the advantage of keeping
him in touch, so to speak, with his sub-
ject, whom he treats with a great deal
of sympathy. He finds her, in fact, ex-
tremely sjrmpathetic. "Every zealous
and well-directed effort to sound the
deep stream of George Eliot's work," he
says, "must result in the discovery that
the bed-rock is Sympathy ; and," he adds,
"ever>'^ faithful searcher for its source
will find it arising from the springs of
Altruism." This is the way anyone
might write who should push sympathy
to the point of reflecting George Eliot's
own use of metaphor, which often
seemed to plume itself upon being
striking mainly because it was not
"mixed." He says it is wrong to think
of her chiefly as a radical, which we
can follow more easily than the next
sentence : "She is an artist, and therefore
primarily conservative." We should
have liked this to read: "She is a con-
servative, and therefore primarily an
artist," because we should like to see the
fact that she was an artist demonstrated,
however briefly, rather than merely as-
serted. The essay is very thoroughgoing
in organization, and, treating of George
Eliot's "religion and philosophy," as well
as of her "art" and her "sympathy,"
naturally is more profound than that on
Charlotte Bronte — though, profundity
not being always a matter to be judged
by superficial tests, we do not mean to
be summary in thus distinguishing them.
While not shrinking from some positive
statements himself, such as: "The past
may be irreversible, but it is not perforce
supreme, and, if really dead, let it, in

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123

God's name, bury its dead," he places the
responsibility of others where it belongs ;
for example, in saying, "Christianity, as
Mr. Mallock has pointed out, has so
permeated the thought of man that it has
become 'mixed' with that thought." It
is certainly "mixed" with Mr. Bon-
nell's thought. He says of George
Eliot's union with Lewes: "We cannot
justify her course, because we are Chris-
tians; we must account for it for the
same reason," which is finely said and
quite borne out by his discerning and
generously indignant remark that "it is
high time to say that the emphasis she
lays upon the wrong done to others by
the careless assumption of unauthorized
relations between the sexes is not the re-
sult of remorse at any false step of her
own." When, however, he lugs in an-
other great writer as a foil and says, "It
is not presumable that the Rector of Lin-
coln and his wife, Mr. Goschen, Jowett
of Balliol, the Hollands, would have re-
ceived George Sand into their homes,"
his thought, if not less "mixed," seems
less "mixed" with Christianity.

The conception of "the Hollands"
sporting their oak against George Sand
shows a lack of humor, too — except per-
haps considered as an historical picture.
However, as Mr. Bonnell observes:
"Humor calls for reflective rather than
purely sentimental characteristics," and
the latter are his strong point. Of them-
selves they make his book a genuine and
genuinely agreeable contribution to cur-
rent belles lettres, which, though rather
wordy, as will have been remarked, is
saved from dulness and ponderousness
by its sincerity and its unaffected pleas-
ure in everything connected with the
trinity of its worship. In the way of
appreciation not saturated with eulogy
the "study" on Jane Austen is perhaps
the most nearly critical of the three,
though we are sure that it is a "senti-
mental" rather than a "reflective char-
acteristic" which leads him to say:
"As for me, when I first read these
novels, I wanted to marry each of the
heroines as she was presented — except
Emma, of whom I am still a little
afraid."

THE LATIN QUARTER OF ENGLAND

By John Corbin

CHEUX3NIAN THEAntE

AS it a flight
of literary
genius or the all-per-
vading spirit of bathos
that led Paul Bourget
to dub Oxford "The
Latin Quarter of
England"? Certainly
the phrase suggests
what eternal irony at-
tends the effort to give
life its literary expres-
sion. Style is the
man in this series
of delightful "Impres-

sions"; and by the most natural of se-
quences the impressions one receives are
often of the French Bourget rather than
of the British Oxford.

Meredith somewhere represents a
party of conventional English folk going
into the usual raptures over a sunset,
and in one of his happiest moods of hu-
mor conjectures what the impressions of
the sun would be if he were to pause to
contemplate the party of rapturous Eng-
lish folk. I once asked a young Oxford
don what he thought of these impressions

Imprkssions of Oxford. By Paul Bourget. A Trans-
lation. Bell.

124

THE LAMP

Oriel (pdi

of Bourget's. He smiled with a fine scorn,
such as many a time since I have fancied
I detected in the face of the setting sun,
and referred me to the description of
the Oxford college gardens. "What
places they are to which to escort a beau-
tiful woman! . . . These learned men,
shut up in their old studies, did not learn
more concerning the duplicity of human
nature and universal vanity than can be
learned in a few moments by him who
loves this pretty woman and who listens
to her, in the stillness of the evening,
murmuring words as devoid of soul as
her face is beautiful. . . . Oh ! a woman
who would not speak, and who would be
satisfied to embody in herself the imper-
ishable, the divine beautiful; a woman

who would be silent, but who would
love, and whose eyes would be flooded
with tenderness and innocence, as those
of the gazelle seem human — this woman,
the inimitable, how one could be free to
love her, either in these gardens of New
College or in those of Magdalen !" And
much more in the same strain.

If the college gardens were the scene
of this sort of dalliance they would in-
deed be the Latin Quarter of England.
The Oxford undergraduate is athleti-

S^MAPaTTfrHICH STRELT

cally primitive; his love-making is as
without imaginative attenuation as it is
ingenuous and wholesome. In May
eights' week he rejoices in the beauty of
New College gardens — and he especially

THE LAMP

125

commends the walk in the shrubbery,
where the turns in the path are so fre-
quent that several pairs of loiterers may
snatch many sauntering moments alone.
To him Magdalen Tower is superbly
beautiful — and when you have got your
Commemoration party to the top of it,
you can take a girl with a sense of humor,
and, racing down the stairs, enjoy a quar-
ter of an hour of laughing solitude in
the tower, while the weary chaperon
toils heavily downward to greet you at
last with her dignified look of reproach,
or perhaps her air of holiday tolerance.
This is the Oxford of England.

If such observations as these have ever
come to M. Bourget's ears, no doubt
he, too, has had a gentle smile of scorn
for the Oxonian. What has the rosy-

cheeked, laughing, chaperoned English
girl to do with such a mystery of beauty
as that of these mediaeval walls and
flowering gardens! There is a sort of
spirit in this peerless, ancient town that
college or garden Englishman has seldom
or never apprehended, at least in written
phrases. He has smoked to it and has

. .«. -:3-:.^?^«^'^2:^=^^^^S^''- ■

MAGDALEN COLL^TO^WER.

sipped port to it through long summer
evenings; but it has escaped his more
spiritual muse. Only the traveller feels
it in images of cosmic simplicity. To a
Frenchman, no doubt, it is to be em-
bodied in the elusive, the delusive femi-
nine. Others may prefer to see in
Oxford the spirit of the elusive and
perhaps delusive beauty of manly youth

126

THE LAMP

— ^what does it matter ? An Oxford gar-
den is a chronicle of wasted time, in
which the chance sojourner sees the de-
scription of the wight which to him
seems best to fit the spirit of the place.
It is for the use of the traveller that
these "Impressions" of Bourget's were

engender, is a masterpiece of recorded
observation, in which the temperamental
bias of the observer fuses perfectly with
the thing observed. It is possible to
quote only a fragment of it.

"I have gained a fellowship in a col-
lege founded by King Edward II. to the

translated, and they will give him what
he might look for elsewhere in vain.
And for the most part the spirit of the
little book is cosmopolitan. There are
admirable bits describing the life in the
Oxford Union, the life on the twain
rivers of Oxford, the life in the streets
at sunset — what not? The picture of
the life of the non- teaching fellow, with
its luxurious ease, its quiet, and the subtle
corrosion of despair which these things

one end that prayers should be said
regularly for the repose of the souls of
the knights killed in an expedition against
Scotland. To repeat prayers were rather
a difficult task for me, as I had arrived
at that stage in my reflections when I no
longer believed in a personal God, and
had strong doubts as to the immortality
of the human soul.

"My fellowship is worth about £280
($1,400) a year for the rest of my

THE LAMP

127

life. With this and the sum I make
by my research work I am assured of
absolute independence. I have three
delightful rooms in my college. The
largest, filled to overflowing with books
which have come to me from all parts
of Europe, is my study. Next to
this is my drawing-room, then my bed-
room.

"Whilst I am studying, seated in
my favorite arm-chair, on the arm of
which is fixed a small revolving desk, I
have only to raise my eyes to see, through
my pointed window, convent-like sur-
roundings, whose very silence is a pleas-
ure to me. . . .

"I gaze at the old stones and begin
to think of the fellow who occupied
these rooms before me. He passed fifty
years of his life here. I go back in
thought, and beguile the time by count-
ing the number of people who have en-
joyed my fellowship since the founding
of the college. Here in 1326 the king
installed a provost — this is the name
given to our head — and ten fellows.
Between those first ten fellows and those
of to-day there has not been room for
more than sixteen nominations. Sixteen

persons only have grown old in this
peaceful corner of which chance has
made me a master. . . .

**I recall the smile of her who is now
in India, and say to myself, repeating no
doubt some famous saying, that she might
have had much hair and few ideas, she
might have meddled with my papers, in-
terfered with my work, busied herself
with my concerns ... in short, I feel
supremely happy in the thought that my
good genius has shielded me from this
danger, and that my joyous life will con-
tinue to my last hour. . . .

" *Have you read Schopenhauer?* I
asked a fellow, one of my friends, whose
whole life, much as I have told it you,
I had just been living through in imag-
ination without his ever suspecting it.

" 'What would be the good of it ?' he
replied, with a bitter smile; *it is all
read!' — meaning by that that his own
experience had been sufficient to show
him the world as a wretchedly con-
structed machine and the fact of living
a disease difficult to bear.

" 'We must be contented with our
lot,* one of the simple examples in our
Latin grammar used to tell us."

QUOTATIONS MISQUOTED
By R. L. C. White

WHEN "the Jew that Shakespeare
drew" cunningly attempted to
justify his usurious practices by reference
to the famous physiological experiment
of his ancestor Jacob with the "pilled
rods," Antonio, who was disgusted alike
with the sophistry and the avarice of
Shylock, reminded his friend Bassanio
that even "the devil can cite scripture
for his purpose." His sulphuric maj-
esty, in fact, is on record as having, on
more than one occasion, made quotations
from the holy writings to subserve his
own designs; but, not to paint him
blacker than he is, it must be admitted
that he has generally made his citations
correctly. Quotations from well-known
writings are both useful and popular;
and nothing is easier or more natural
for an author or a speaker who desires
to "point a moral or adorn a tale" than
to round a period with a pregnant line
from the Bible or a timely apothegm
from Shakespeare. It is to be regretted
that, of those who find quotations con-
venient and useful, the sciolists who
have "just enough of learning to mis-
quote" form so large a proportion. The
object of the present paper is to point
out some of the more popular and fa-
miliar quotations which are constantly
used, and almost as constantly used in-
correctly. If its perusal shall tend, in
some slight degree, to stem the torrent
of misquotation with which the journals
of the day are overwhelmed, and which
is not altogether absent from the more
careful magazine and even from printed
books, its purpose will have been accom-
plished. To those who wilfully mis-
quote — ^who fondly imagine that they
can improve the language of Shakespeare,
and that Byron and John Milton knew
less of elegant diction than they — there

is nothing to be said. They are "joined
to their idols," doubtless: it is the part
of wisdom to "let them alone."

Naturally enough, the book which has
for more than two and a half centuries
been the volume best known to the Eng-
lish-speaking masses — King James's ver-
sion of the Bible — ^has furnished a large
proportion of what in the course of time
have become our most familiar quota-
tions. It is, possibly, an indication of
the general diffusion of religious intelli-
gence that very few of these arc habitu-
ally misquoted; but, singularly enough,
one of the most important passages in
the Old Testament is one of those which
is most frequently quoted incorrectly.
The primal curse pronounced against
Adam — "in the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread" — is very rarely given as
it occurs in the third chapter of Genesis.
Most secular public speakers, and many
clergymen, have a habit of substituting
"brow" for "face" when they cite or re-
fer to the passage — why, I am at a loss
to understand, unless it originates from
a knowledge of the physiological fact
that the perspiration of labor is visible
first and most copiously on that part of
the human countenance. Another pas-
sage from Genesis — "there were giants
in the earth in those days" — is ordinarily
abbreviated by the omission of the words
"in the earth," although this can scarce-
ly be termed a misquotation. An in-
stance not only of misquotation, but of
perversion of meaning, is found in the
ordinar}' rendering of the hypocritical
exclamation of that Syrian lago, Hazael,
who, when the prophet foretold the
wonderful deeds which he would per-
form, inquired, "Is thy servant a dog,
that he should do this great thing?" In
common use the adjective "great" is al-

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129

ways omitted, and thus what Hazael, in
his mock humility', intended as a dis-
claimer of the ability of so insignificant
an individual to accomplish "great
things," serves as a reply to a request to
perform some menial office, or to an
intimation that the person addressed is
capable of an ignoble action. Even the
scholarly Lowell has been guilty of this
blunder.

Solomon's apothegm, "The way of
transgressors is hard," is usually altered
by substituting "the transgressor" for
"transgressors ;" his assertion that "pride
goeth before destruction, and an haughty
spirit before a fall," is almost always
condensed into "pride goeth before a
fall;" and his pessimistic exclamation,
"There is no new thing under the sun,"
is frequently heard as, "There is noth-
ing new," etc. Job's monody, "Neither
shall his place know him any more," is
one of those unfortunate quotations that
always get twisted — every^body, includ-
ing the preachers, preferring to say,
"The place that has known him shall
know him no more;" and his wish, "O
, . . that mine adversary had written a
book!" is equally unlucky, "enemy" fre-
quently taking the place of "adversary,"
and "had written" usually giving place
to ** would write." I have heard a
United States Senator so quote it, in a
public speech, since I began to prepare
this article. Other common errors are:
"Weighed in the balance and found
wanting," instead of "balances," accord-
ing to Daniel ; and "a drop in the buck-
et," instead of "a drop of a bucket," as
Isaiah hath it. The college orator al-
ways alters the Magna est Veritas et
prevalet of the Vulgate into prevalebit,
although it is doubtful if many of him
know where the quotation comes from.

The familiar lines from the New Tes-
tament which are ordinarily misquoted
arc: "The burden and heat of the day,"
in which common usage transposes "bur-
den" and "heat;" "Go and do thou

likewise," which is usually rendered,
"Go thou and do likewise;" "The poor
always ye have with you," which becomes
"The poor ye have always," etc.; and
"Charity shall cover the multitude of
sins," which everybody quotes, "Charity
covers a multitude of sins." Probably
not one in twenty of the wives who are
continually being reminded that "the
tongue is an unruly member" are aware
that the assertion is a misquotation of
James's expression of opinion that the
organ in question is "an unruly evil;"
and very few, doubtless, of those who
are flippantly advised "not to be wise
above what is written" know that Paul's
injunction was "not to think of men
above what is written."

Shakespeare, on whose every page we
find some pungent apothegm or tender
sentiment which embodies our own
thought more tersely than we ourselves
could give it expression, furnishes a
large portion of our "familiar quota-
tions." Many of these are habitually
misquoted. In the line from "The
Merchant of Venice" given above, the
word "quote" is generally used instead
of "cite," and "purpose" is given the
plural form. Two lines from "The
Tempest" — "Misery acquaints a man
with strange bedfellows," and "We are
such stuff as dreams are made on" —
are almost alwajs rendered, especially in
the newspapers, "Misery makes a man
acquainted with strange bedfellows,"
and "such stuff as dreams are made of."
So,

Suffer a sea chanjje
Into something rich and strange

usually itself suffers a change into "new
and strange," whenever a newspaper
writer gets hold of it. The aspiration
of that male Malaprop, Slender, in
"The Merry Wives of Windsor," that,
when he is married to Anne Page, of
his present affection for whom he is not
altogether certain, "upon familiarity^ will

I30

THE LAMP

grow more contempt," is condensed by
popular usage into the brief axiom,
"Familiarity breeds contempt;" while
what Falstaff's "she Mercury" summed
up as "the short and the long of it" is
transposed into "the long and the short
of it." Another of Shakespeare's famil-
iar lines is especially unfortunate cho-
rographically, and the disguised duke
whose pretended "business" made him
"a looker-on here in Vienna" is located,
as the popular whim may dictate, in that
city as well as in Verona or Venice.
Dogberry asserted that "comparisons are
odorous," but he meant "odious," and
the latter, which is the popular render-
ing, scarcely can be called a misquota-
tion, especially as it has the countenance
of Burton, George Herbert, and Dr.
Donne. There is no authority, however
— not even that of euphony — for chang-
ing "himself" into "his soul," in the line,
"The man that hath no music in him-
self," as most people insist on doing.
The customary conversion of the definite
into the indefinite article, in the simile,
"bearded like the pard," is not particu-
uarly objectionable, except to those who,
like the writer, insist rigidly on quoting
Shakespeare as Shakespeare wrote, to
the dotting of i's and the crossing of t's.
The tendency to condensation is again
exhibited in the usual adagizing (if I
may so call it) of "He needs must go
that the devil drives" into "Needs must
when the devil drives," and of "Smooth
runs the water where the brook is deep"
into "Still waters run deep," the latter
of which has been taken as the title of
a well-known comedy. The common
saying, "There is luck in odd numbers,"
is the popular form of Falstaff's "Good
luck lies in odd numbers." The popular
mind also revolts at the great master's
grammatical solecisms, and so insists on
the elision of the superfluous "most"
from the well-known line in "Julius
Caesar," "This was the most unkindest
cut of all," and on giving the modern

adverbial form to the adjective in the
assertion of Macbeth's resolve to "make
assurance double sure." The truculent
Sir John's judicious maxim, "The better
part of valor is discretion," becomes, in
the popular rendering, "Discretion is
the better part of valor ;" and he is fre-
quently made to say that, besides being
witty himself, he is "the cause of wit in
others," instead of "the cause that wit
is in others," as Shakespeare wrote. To
"have his labor for his pains" is derived
from the line in "Troilus and Cressida,"
"I have had my labor for my travail."
The perjuria ridet amantum Jupiter of
TibuUus, translated almost literally by
Shakespeare into "At lovers' perjuries,
they say, Jove laughs," is transposed by
common consent, the latter half of the
sentence taking the place of the first,
and the qualifying "they say" being
omitted. Dryden has a similar line in
his "Palamon and Arcite." Other popu-
lar verbal changes are: "Point" for
"place" in Lady Macbeth's adjuration
to her irresolute husband, "Screw your
courage to the sticking place;" the sub-
stitution of "and" for the latter "the,"
in "the sere, the yellow leaf;" the change
of "glisters" into the smoother "glitters,"
in "All that glitters is not gold," or, as
we frequently hear it, "All is not gold
that glitters;" the interpolation of "the"
after the first word, in "Tell truth and
shame the devil;" and, in the familiar
bravado of Macbeth —

Hang out our banners on the outward ^"alls ;
The cry is still, They come! —

the alteration of "outward walls" to
"outer wall," and the removal of the
comma after "still," placing it just after
the preceding word. Macbeth's famous

Thou canst not say I did it : never shake
Thy gory locks at me,

is quoted in a great variety of ways, but
scarcely ever accurately. In "Damn'd
be him that first cries, *Hold, enough!' "

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131

the phrase "him that" is usually changed
to "he who." Similarly, but for some
reason utterly inexplicable, newspaper-
lings are fond of writing "to the manor
born," instead of "to the manner born."
"Pale his unefiEectual fires" is also im-
proved ( ?) by changing the adjective to
"ineffectual ;" and the injunction of that
sanest of madmen, Hamlet, to "assume
a virtue if you have it not," by substitut-
ing "though" for "if;" while most peo-
ple who agree with him that "one may
smile, and smile, and be a villain," think
to intensify the assertion by the addition
of "still." Two other misquotations of
"Hamlet" are, "set the table in a roar,"
for "on a roar," and

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them as we will,

instead of the correct "how we will."
"It is an ill wind that blows good to
nobody" is the popular proverbial form
of the "wise saw" of the nameless par-
ricide in "King Henry VI.," "lU blows
the wind that profits nobody." The
same idea, which Shakespeare repeats
elsewhere — "the ill wind which blows
good to none" ("King Henry IV.")—
he probably borrowed from Tusser, who
wrote, "It is an ill wind that turns none
to good." Finally, as if to compensate
for the unceremonious condensation of
so many of Shakespeare's golden lines,
Othello's sardonic axiom, "They laugh
fhat win," is amplified by the mass into
"Let those laugh who win."

Rare Ben Jonson furnishes but few
familiar quotations, only^ two of which,
so far as I have observed, are generally
quoted incorrectly. Singularly enough,
both are from the same piece — his noble
tribute "To the Memory of Shake-
speare." They are, "small Latin and
less Greek," in which the first adjective
is usually given as "little;" and "He
was not of an age, but for all time," in
which it is customary to replace "of"
with "for."

Writers preceding Shakespeare in
point of time need occupy but little
space in this article. They have not
given us many familiar quotations.
Spenser's line, "Made a sunshine in the
shady place," is almost always rendered
with the substitution of "a" for "the."
The injunction of Thomas a Kempis,
"Of two evils the less is always to be
chosen," percolates through Prior's "Of
two evils I have chose the least," and
finally emerges in the popular form,
"Of two evils, choose the least." Old
Thomas Tusser, to whom reference has
been made as having probably furnished
the germ of one of Shakespeare's prov-
erbs, supplies us with a number of not-
able sayings, which are entitled to the
appellation of "familiar quotations," but
which, unfortunately, are scarcely ever
given as he wrote them. "The stone
that is rolling can gather no moss" comes
out of the omnivorous hopper of the hoi
poiloi as "A rolling stone gathers no
moss." So, when we say of a man who
is not over-particular as to the manner
in which gain comes to his coffers, "All's
fish that comes to his net," we are in-
debted to Tusser's

All's fish they get
That Cometh to net ;

while our common saying, "Like mas-
ter, like man," is the modern form of
"Such master, such man." Tusser's
"Look ere thou leap, see ere thou go,"
was borrowed by that unblushing old
plagiarist, Sam Butler, and transmogri-
fied into "Look before you ere you leap ;"
and the modern misquoting herd has
still further condensed it into "Look be-
fore you leap." In Tusser's "Naught
venture, naught have," "naught" is in-
variably replaced by "nothing."

Between Shakespeare and Milton the
lesser lights furnish us only a few "quo-
tations misquoted." Beaumont and
Fletcher's distich.

132

THE LAMP

What's one man's poison, signor,
Is another's meat or drink,

is simplified, by the popular condensa-
tion of which I have spoken, into "One
man's meat is another man's poison.''
Herbert's "The lion is not so fierce as
they paint him," seems to have supplied
the germ for the popular proverb, "The
devil is not as black as he is painted;"
and his query, "Wouldst thou both eat
thy cake and have it?" has been emplia-
sized into the assertion, "You cannot eat
your cake and have it." Richard Tarl-
ton's couplet.

The king of France, with forty thousand men,
Went up a hill, and so came down again,

is generally misquoted by changing
"went" and "came" into "marched,"
and substituting "then" for "so," in the
second line. The first line usually fares
better, although the monarch referred to
is not always made to rule over France,
Spain being frequently preferred, and
his army is depleted or reinforced as
fancy may suggest, almost any numeral
adjective which chances to be a trochee
being as likely to be used as "forty."
George Wither supplies us with "Little
said is soonest mended," and we straight-
way change "little" into "least;" while
the epigrammatic tendency of the popu-
lar mind alters John Selden's assertion
that, if you "take a straw and throw it
up into the air, you may see by that
which way the wind is," into the briefer
"Straws show which way the wind
blows."

Coming to "the sightless demigod,"
we find many familiar lines, several of
which are habitually misquoted. Un-
warranted elision cuts down the resound-
ing syllables.

Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa,

into "thick as autumn leaves in Vallom-
brosa," and the last word is usuallv mis-

spelled "Vallambrosa." Writers for the
political papers, who are nothing if not
partisan, and who cannot rid their minds
and pens of modern party nomenclature,
refer habitually, when they wish to be
rhetorical, to the "fierce democracy:"
Milton wrote, "that fierce democratie."
In "Peace. hath her victories no less re-
nowned than war," I have frequently
seen the "no" changed to "not." "That
last infirmity of noble mind" usually be-
comes "the last infirmity of noble
minds," when a public speaker gets hold
of it; and "the cynosure of neighboring
eyes" is almost invariably viewed with
"wondering eyes." One line of Mil-
ton's, however, has been especially un-
fortunate. I am confident that I have
never seen it quoted correctly in book or
newspaper — ^assuredly never in the lat-
ter. I refer to the line from "Lycidas,"

To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new,

in which, when it is quoted, the word
"woods" is always replaced by "fields."
Why this should be so persistently done
I cannot imagine, since the alteration
greatly weakens the sense — "woods" and
"pastures" meaning entirely different
things, while "fields" and "pastures" are
almost identical in signification.

Milton's contemporary, Samuel But-
ler, has been more fortunate — probably
because the terse, epigrammatic lines of
"Hudibras" w^ere of such nature as to
fit themselves aptly in the memory. Two
misquotations from this author occur to
me. One is in the line,

Count their chickens ere they're hatched,

in which "before" is usually substituted
for "ere ;" and the other is in the couplet.

He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still,

where "he that complies" sometimes
gives place to "he that believes," and,
more frequently, to "a man convinced."

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^33

In the latter case "the same" is usually
substituted for **his own." Another
couplet from "Hudibras,"

For those that fly may fight again,
\Vhich he can never do that's slain,

appears in the productions of other au-
thors in varying forms — first of all in
an old English translation of Erasmus,
of the sixteenth century, thus:

That same man that runnith awaie
May again fight another daie ;

and after\vard, in "The Art of Poetry
on a New Plan" (London, 1761), as,

He who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day ;
But he who is in battle slain
Can never rise to fight again,

which is the version usually quoted.
The line which Butler borrowed from
Tusser —

Look before you ere you leap —

has already been referred to.
Dryden's line,

None but the brave deserves the fair,

is customarily quoted with the verb in
the plural, while his "everything by
starts and nothing long" usually be-
comes "everything by turns," etc.

The epigrammatic verse of Pope has
furnished us almost as many familiar
quotations as we have adopted from
Shakespeare; but, because his lines are
epigrams, they are usually quoted cor-
rectly. I recall only two instances of
habitual misquotation. One is the line.

Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,

in which "rival" is always substituted
for "brother;" and the other.

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,

which is almost never quoted correctly.

Other cases of constant misquotation

arc furnished in Prior's "fine by degrees

and beautifully less," in which every-

body insists on substituting "small" for
"fine;" Garrick's

A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind,

where "us" ordinarily takes the place of
"one;" and Nat Lee's "When Greeks
joined Greeks, then was the tug of war,"
the popular misuse of which has very
recently been illustrated by the issuance
of a novel by no less an author than
Joseph Hatton, bearing the title, "When
Greek Meets Greek."

Two remarkable cases of misquotation
are furnished by two eminent historians :
Mahon, who, in his history of England,
mutilates Pitt's famous "something be-
hind the throne greater than the king
himself," by substituting "throne itself"
for the last two words; and our own
Bancroft, who has adopted as the epi-
graph of his history of the United States
Bishop Berkeley's well-known line.

Westward the course of empire takes its way,
but, curiously enough, makes it read,
"star of empire."

Two other instances of common mis-
quotation are Thomson's

Loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,

the first word being frequently changed
to "beauty;" and Gray's "the noiseless
tenor of their way," which almost al-
ways appears in print as "even tenor."
From Goldsmith's line.
Winter, lingering, chills the lap of May,

doubtless is derived the trite allusion to
"Winter lingering in the lap of Spring,"
with which the country newspaper man
ordinarily bewails the tardy appearance
of the bluebirds. Two other lines from
"The Deserted Village" are hardly en-
treated, ordinarily — the village preacher
is represented as having "pointed to
brighter worlds and led the way," in-
stead of having "allured" his flock heav-
enward ; and "the varnished clock that
clicked behind the door" nearly always
"ticks."

134

THE LAMP

Two minor misquotations from Ad-
dison's "Cato" may be noted here: in
**the post of honor is a private station,"
**the" is usually substituted for "a;" and
in "the wrecks of matter and the crush
of worlds," "wrecks" generally becomes
"wreck." And two from Cowper : "Va-
riety's the very spice of life," from
which the word "very" is always omit-
ted; and "the cups that cheer but not
inebriate," instead of which a tea-drink-
ing public, curiously enough, insists on
having only one cup— "the cup that
cheers." The encomium, however, while
first applied to tea by Cowper, was not
original with him; Bishop Berkeley had
previously referred to tar-water as being
so "mild and benign" as "to cheer but
not inebriate."

The motto on the great seal of the
commonwealth of Kentucky is probably
a condensation of Dickinson's

By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.

The wise sayings of statesmen have
not always been preserved in their orig-
inal integrity. Washington's assertion
that "to be prepared for war is one of
the most effectual means of preserving
peace," is condensed into the popular
axiom, "In time of peace prepare for
war;" Jefferson's "Vacancies by death
are few, by resignation none," is invari-
ably applied to the office-holding con-
tingent in the shape of the mot^ "Few
die and none resign;" and I have seen
two newspapers which have as their
motto, "Error ceases to be dangerous
when truth is left free to combat it,"
although President Jefferson asserted in
his inaugural address that "error of opin-
ion may be tolerated where reason is left
free to combat it." The frequently
used expression, "A delusion and a
snare," is a compression of Lord Den-
man's phrase, "A delusion, a mockery,
and a snare." Thomas Paine's "one
step above the sublime make the ridicu-
lous" has been modernized into "there

is but one step from the sublime to
the ridiculous;" Fouche's "It is more
than a crime, it is a political fault," has
become, "It is worse than a crime — ^it
is a blunder;" Jackson's famous toast,
"Our federal union: it must be pre-
served," has been amplified into "must
and shall be;" Josiah Quincy's threat of
the secession of some of the States,
"amicably if they can, violently if they
must," was so effectually misquoted by
Henry Clay that his rendering — "peace-
ably if they can, forcibly if they must" —
has been generally accepted; while
Chief- Justice Chase's eloquent charac-
terization of "an indestructible union
composed of indestructible States" be-
comes, in the mouth of the average
Fourth-of-July orator, "an indissoluble
union of indestructible States." In this
connection it may be remarked that
many well-meaning people are positive
in the belief that the Declaration of In-
dependence asserts that "all men are
created free and equal."

There are certain stock quotations
which the penny-a-liners never fail to
work in whenever possible, and which
they usually succeed in misquoting. A
few specimens will suffice. A notable
example is Bums's well-known line,
"some wee short hour ayont the twal,"
which is made to do duty for every pro-
tracted nocturnal festivity, and is always
used in the plural form, representing in
the most indefinite way the time from
midnight to daybreak. The advent of
autumn is hailed with "the melancholy
days have come," instead of "are come,"
as Bryant wrote, and the assertion is
continually made that "the mills of the
gods grind slowly," although Longfel-
low, in translating Von Logau, pre-
ferred "the mills of God." The natural
intensity of the average newspaper man
prompts him frequently to remind a po-
litical opponent that

No rogue e'er felt the halter draw
With good opinion of the law —

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135

and he sometimes substitutes the word
"thief," although the milder Trumbull
wrote "man." The distich from "The
Ancient Mariner,"

Water, water ever}* where,
Nor any drop to drink,

invariably gets into the newspapers with
the second line twisted into

And not a drop to drink ;
and the reporters always "tell the tale
as 'twas told" to them, although Sir
Walter hath it,

I say the tale as 'twas said to me.

Finally, when an "esteemed contempo-
rary" says something nice, it is reprinted
with the remark that "praise from Sir
Hubert Stanley is praise indeed," which
probably sounds better than "approba-
tion from Sir Hubert Stanley," although
Morton did not think so.

Two pet misquotations of the cloth
may be noticed. Pulpit orators usually
cite Moore as saying.

This world is all a fleeting show,
For man's delusion given,

although he said "illusion ;" and PoUok's
lines.

Stole the livery of the court of heaven
To serve the devil in,

are frequently emasculated by the eli-
sion of "the court of."

Other common errors are the making
of Bob Acres's "courage" ooze out "at
the tips of his fingers," although, accord-
ing to that truculent worthy, as recorded
by Sheridan, his "valor" oozed out "at
the palm of his hand ;" changing "man"
into "bard," in Byron's fine line.

The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle,

and improving another line of his from

Whispering, '* I will ne'er consent," consented,

Whispering she would ne'er consent, consented.

Still others are the mutilation of
Wolfe's splendid line,

We left him alone with his glory,

by substituting "in" for "with," and
making Emerson assert that "all the
world loves a lover," notwithstanding
his expressed preference for "all man-
kind love a lover."

A LITERARY LOVE

By Marguerite Merington

AN old friend of early childhood
has just come again to my shelves,
and with eagerness I reopen it to assure
myself of what never for one instant was
in doubt: that the perennial charm of
its faded pages is an inherent quality,
fixed high above the disillusionments of
modernity's iconoclastick hand. Its seven
volumes of romantick outpourings are
embellished with copper-plate engrav-
ings of admirable detail and finish, in-
stinct with the true spirit of illustration,
as if in some picturesque crisis or char-
acteristick mood the figures had leaped
bodily from the text. What manner of

binding does it boast? Indeed I do not
know; its first ow^ner of a bygone cen-
tury gave the covers outside coats of
dark green linen damasked, whose stitch-
ing one would as soon pawn an ances-
tor's mummy as undo !

Present appreciations or depreciations
of this early literary love exist, but I
have never read them. Recent editions
of it marshalled alphabetically in a vast
publick library I have seen — and shud-
dered. And the one book of reference
in w^hich I sought to learn how modem
definition sums up these dear quaint-
nesses misses the mark so amazingly as

THE LAMP

137

to convict the definer of ignorance or
libel. My mind reminiscent of such
phrases as "angelick simplicity . . . no-
ble frankness ... I adore, madam, the
goodness, the greatness of your soul!''
in the Century Dictionary of names I
look for the heroine. "Byron, Harriet,
an affected orphan attached to Sir
Charles Grandison, and the principal
writer of the letters in Richardson's
novel of that name." Oh, Lud, Lud!
Would that the case might be tried in
open court and the offender brought
literally and literarily to book! A long
line of ghostly authors, from Richardson
to Macaulay, who delighted in him,
would of course be present, but above
all the court-room would be thronged
with indignant copperplates, lords and
ladies all, or, as the prologue tabulates
them, "Men, Women, and Italians,"
come to insist on justice to "the beloved
of a hundred hearts — the loveliest wom-
an in all England!" Then, had I the
passing of sentence, the culprit would
be ignominiously cast back into the sev-
enteen hundreds to acquire a polite and
liberal education!

Our orphan Byron has been tenderly
reared by "that ornament of advancing
years," Grandmother Shirley, of whom
it is stated, "she has one foot among the
stars." Grandmother's views of wom-
en's upbringing are radical. "There is
a degree of knowledge very compatible
with their duties," she observes. Thus
encouraged, Harriet has been trained
"never impertinently to start subjects,
though frankness and complaisance re-
quire that we women should unlock our
bosoms when called upon to give our
sentiments on any topick!"

"The family live in a genteel way,"
writes a visitor. ' "Miss Byron is one of
the best economists as well as one of the
finest ladies in the county. Such har-
mony, such observance! She is wor-
shipped by the servants ... the servants
have generally time for themselves, an

hour or two a day ! They are never put
out by company: if guests come unex-
pectedly, the poor have less of the rem-
nants, in which case they fare better
another day. Young and old, rich and
poor, doat on Miss Byron. Such beauty,
a character so benevolent, frank, pious,
chearful and unaffected . . ."

Her uncle speaks of Harriet as "the
sweetest, most obliging creature, with
good sense, good nature, a bewitching
face, agreeable vivacity, modesty, and a
chearful wit."

For a description of her person we
must go to her lovers: "Let me die if I
know where to begin! She is all over
loveliness ! Her eyes ! Ay, madam, her
eyes. Good Heavens, what a lustre! I
mentioned her neck. Here I dare not
trust myself! Mind and person, she is
all harmony!"

And another : "The countenance of an
angel, her eyes sparkling with good hu-
mour ; blooming as a May morning . . .
her voice music, as harmonious as the
rest of her !"

The story opens with our Byron's
first visit to London under the care of
Cousin Reeves. When a rejected swain
bows low to her passing coach with an
air of disconsolateness, the kind maid ex-
claims, "How affecting are the visible
emotions of a manly heart !" Two other
suitors "attended us to our first baiting
and had a genteel dinner ready provided
for us." In town her conquests are
countless. "Devil pick his bones," cries
the shocking Greville when a rival bar-
onet is announced. "Devil fetch him,"
swears that Ranelagh fop. Sir Hargrave
Pollexfen, "if he has one moment's rest
after seeing her!" And "Devil fly away
with the tea-kettle," he shouts, when
Cousin Reeves interrupts his wooing
with the chearing cup. But Harriet
turns a deaf ear to all this, for, as she
says, "I both despise and fear a high
complimenter !"

After this ribald language it is not

138

THE LAMP

surprising that Sir Hargrave should
carry off Miss Byron from a masquerade,
which she attended as an Arcadian prin-
cess (though without the prevailing
hoops), and try to force her into a mar-
riage with him. When at Hounslow
their road is disputed by another chariot
and six, Harriet, managing to free her-
self from the handkerchief with which
the wicked baronet has gagged her, cries
piteously to the newcomer for help.
After a spirited encounter between the
two gentlemen, Sir Hargrave is cast un-
der the wheels of his own coach, while,
"like a frighted bird pursued by a
hawk," Miss Byron throws herself into
her preserver's arms. "How irresistibly
welcome to me," she writes home, "was
his supporting arm thrown round me as
we flew back compared to that of the
vile Sir Hargrave!"

Yes, the "flower of the British world,"
who, up to this, her twentieth year, has
never seen "the man I could wish to
marry," falls in love in volume one with
Sir Charles Grandison !

"Majesty and sweetness mingle in his
every feature," we gather of Sir Charles
from different witnesses. "He is a fine
figure in the bloom of youth ... I
don't know that I have ever seen a
handsomer or genteeler man! . . . His
face a fine oval overspread with a manly
sunniness • . . sparkling with vivacity
... I wonder what business a man has
for such fine teeth, so fine a mouth!
. . . Were kings to be chosen for beauty
and majesty of person . . . ! Dresses to
the fashion, rather richly than gaudily;
his equipage perfectly in taste! . . .
Not depriving his cattle of a defence
which nature gave them his horses are
not docked!" (Ah, would there were
more Grandisons to-day!) "His model
servants are instructed not to receive
gratuities. He is his own steward to
vast estates ... a sunbeam not more
penetrating than his intelligence! . . .
A man of spirit; no qualifier, sir, when

he stakes his honour; a tilting bout is
no more to him than a game of push-
pin! . . . yet he will not draw sword
in a private quarrel, preferring to cane
an insulter or convert an adversary.
His heart the book of Heaven! . . .
The glory of his sex and of human nat-
ure! . . . The domestick man, chearful
friend, kind master, enlivening compan-
ion, polite neighbour, and" (in the
seventh volume) "the tender husband.
But Sir Charles, madam, is a Christian !"

Such being the hero, "my brother can
never marry but he must break half a
score of hearts," remarks the sprightly
Charlotte. "The ladies, the deuce is in
them! they will not stay to be asked!"
And truly Lady Anne S has prof-
fered him her vast fortune and agreeable
person; Emily, his ward, "gushes into
tears and faints away" as she embraces
her guardian's knees; the titled Floren-
tine Olivia pursues him to England with
a poignard in her stays! As he himself
writes the venerable Dr. Bartlett, "Sure-
ly no man was ever involved in so many
difficulties as your Grandison, and yet
who never by enterprize or rashness was
led out of the plain path!" Worst di-
lemma, the only daughter of the haughty
family della Poretta has become vio-
lently attached to her brother's friend,
Sir Charles, while he is on a visit to
them at their palace in Bologna, but the
admirable Clementina "is a lady of strict
piety, though a Roman Catholick," and
her parents, in proposing an alliance to
the heretick young Englishman, demand
his instant conversion. This Sir Charles
positively refuses, though, his chivalrous
compassion engaged for Clementina, he
promises her the free exercise of her own
religion in the event of the marriage
being arranged. While the matter is in
debate family affairs recall Grandison to
England, where he meets his fate on
Hounslow road.

"The moment I saw you first I loved
you," he tells Harriet, in the seventh

THE LAMP

^39

volume, though at the time honour for-
bids him to speak, and for many pages
his feelings have to content themselves
with the language of esteem in address-
ing her. "Condescending goodness!
... A mind great and noble! ... A
sincerity beyond that of women! . . .
A w^it lively and inoffensive! . . . An
understanding solid and useful! . . .
And she has one excellence that I never
before met with in a beauty; she is not
proud of it!" Also he endeavours to
protect his heart by begging Miss Byron
to regard him as a brother, whereat
Harriet naively confides to her cousin.

"Brother! I thought he was not at that
time quite so handsome a man as when
he entered the room!"

Epistolary relations on both sides are
urgent for the match. Miss Grandison
pronounces Harriet "the most charming
woman I ever saw ... the only wom-
an in the world worthy of the best man
in it. . . . Pardon the fondness of a
sister who speaks from sensible effects!*'

Soon the exalted Clementina's strug-
gle between love and conscience induce
an attack of madness, which takes the
form of "talking fits and silent ones,"
and her parents, now willing to accede

140

THE LAMP

to any terms, summon Sir Charles.
Gracefully pocketing his undeclared pas-
sion for Miss Byron, Grandison obeys
the call of honour and hastens to Bo-
logna, where scenes of a transcendent
sensibility ensue. "I kneeled to her as
she kneeled to me," Sir Charles writes
home to Dr. Bartlett. "Inimitable
Clementina! More than woman!"
Meanwhile Clementina's maid invokes
the presence of the maternal marchioness,
"Oh, madam! Such a scene! Hasten
up! They will faint in each other's
arms! Virtuous love, how great is thy
glory!" Finally, after many tears and
much lofty sentiment, the admirable
Clementina's religious scruples win the
day, and Grandison, a dismissed, but far
from unhappy man, returns post-haste
to England to prosecute his suit with
Harriet, whom he finds driven by the
worm i' the bud to the verge of a de-
cline, from which his presence speedily
rescues her. The situation now resolves
itself into a matter of feminine punctilio.
Harriet generously suggests delay, lest
the exalted Clementina again should
change her mind, but Sir Charles is an
ardent wooer, and brooks not delay.
"Indeed when he called me his lovely
love . . . and downright kissed me
. . . my lips and not my cheek ... in
so fervent a way ... I could have been
angry, had I known how, from sur-
prize!" Their marriage is an occasion
for the angels, but the tale does not end
with marriage. Clementina, over-im-
portuned by her people to marr\^ a co-
religionist compatriot, flees to England
to claim protection from Grandison.
This is a crisis for archangels. Harriet
takes the unhappy fugitive to her bosom,
while the atmosphere is rich with inter-
jections of "Twin souls! Sister excel-
lences! Generous expansion of heart!
Check not the kindly gush! Oh, why
should minds thus paired be sundered!"
from Sir Charles. In the end the Italian
contingent is invited over to England,

and reconciliations all round effected by
the Grandisons, the admirable Clemen-
tina even compleating the general love-
feast by holding out hopes to her parents'
candidate for her favour, the noble^
long-suffering Count Belvidere.

The seven volumes of sensibility and
good deeds close with the hero and
heroine settling down to domestick joys
with a sublime interchange of sentiments
such as these: "Instruct me, sir, to de-
serve your love by improving the mind
you have the goodness to prefer, and na
creature was ever on earth so happy as
I!" . . . "The man whose love is fixed
on such a mind as my Harriet's, all love-
liness as is the admirable person that
thus I again press to my fond bosom,
must be as happy as mortal can be!"

One closes with the effect of having:
mingled with society polite, chearful, ex-
alted. The most earthly note is struck
by the vivacious Charlotte. True, she
has been brought up "according to the
genteelest and most laudable modem
education by a master who taught her
history and geography." But Charlotte
loves to teaze and throws everyone
into a perfect panick by causing her
husband, the habitually virtuous and

prudent Lord G , to mutter the

harsh exclamation, "Oons!" For the
rest the ladies stand up at weddings for
minuets, or with sweet finger give les-
sons on the harpsichord designed to show
off a fine hand, while some gentleman
with low, mellow, manly voice accom-
panies in "Softly sweet in Lydian meas-
ures," which that popular Mr. Haendel
has just set to musick!

Fortunately we have done away with
preciosity. Telephones and telegrams
limit our romantick overflowings to five
minutes or ten words. But do we not
need to hark back to some of the old-
time courtesies! Do we not still need
the man of fashion who is willing to
"savour of singularity" that his cattle
may not suffer? Have we gone so very

THE LAMP

141

far beyond Grandmother Shirley's pat-
ronizing view that "the honest poor are
a very valuable part of creation"? I
protest there are occasions when I have
thought not — notably when once I had
the honour of helping serve at the tables
where the Salvation Army were giving
a Christmas feast, and a bevy of gay folk,

whose names should stand for gentle
breeding, using lorgnette and opera-
glass, made audible comments on the
poor guests of a high beneficence. The
age is rife with good deeds. But of en-
veloping good manners we have some-
thing still to learn from old-time ex-
quisiteness.

LADY ROSE S DAUGHTER

A REVIEW OF MRS. HUMPHRY WARD'S NEW NOVEL
By Lionel Strachey

DUKES, duchesses, lords and ladies,
" sirs," heirs to titles, generals,
bishops; a cabinet minister, a minister
plenipotentiary to an Eastern country, a
captain home on furlough from India;
an eldest son in Canada with his regi-
ment, the second a young parson " over-
working himself in the East End," whose
father has "persuaded him to take one of
the Duke of Crowborough's Shropshire
livings;" "an extremely vigorous person,
more than adequately aware of his own
importance, tanned and seasoned by the
life of his class, by the yachting, hunting,
and shooting in which his own existence
was largely spent, slow in perception, and
of a sulky temper " ; "a pair of well-set-
up, well-bred " middle-aged brothers,
who were " surprised at nothing, and
quite incapable of showing any emotion
in public — ^yet just and kindly men " ; a
stern dowager, " brought up with people
who lunched on a biscuit and a glass of
sherry," and a steadfast client of the Sun-
day Observer; red tunics, knee breeches,
pastry-cooks' hand-carts, mew's, brevet-
majorities, and tea, tea, tea!

Who knows them not all, or thinks he
does, through manifold description in
books, through hearsay, through gossip,
through Burke or Debrett, Covent Gar-
den, Ascot, Hurlingham, Lord's, Rotten
Row, the Royal Academy, or through
Truth and imagination? It is among
them — those people — arrayed in printed
legions by Mrs. Ward, that Lady Rose's
daughter lives, moves, and has her being.
This — the duchesses and the captains,
the Observer and the tea — is the hero-
ine's, that is to say, Julie Le Breton's,
that is to say. Lady Rose's daughter's
"social milieu" Its personal elements

are generally classified above, and shall
be partly specified below. But before
proceeding to that analysis, we must give
room — for a mere moment — to the au-
thoress's well-spoken opinion of the per-
sons in England "in command of the
power of birth" :

"A certain appareil de vie was neces-
sary, taken for granted. So much income
— so many servants — such and such
habits: these things imposed themselves.
Life became a soft and cushioned busi-
ness, with an infinity of layers between it
and hard reality — a round pea in a silky
pod."

And now let us call out some single
characters from Mrs. Ward's Belgravian
legions.

To begin with : Julie Le Breton. She is
the daughter of a most accomplished man,
"traveller, painter, dreamer," and of his
intellectual affinity, whom he had carried
off from a cross-grained Philistine of a
husband. Julie is a marvel of cleverness,
social and cerebral. She has usurped —
being dame de compagnie to Lady Henry
— that frowning dowager's supremacy of
her own salon, where the fascinating
young person is always "the leader of the
most animated circle in the room ;" "with
perfect tact she guided the conversation,"
when, one day, "the talk glided into a
general discussion of the Egyptian posi-
tion;" according to Dr. Meredith, "the
famous editor," she has the ability to earn
four hundred pounds a year by her pen.
Dr. Meredith, so one is instructed, "was
a man in whom politics assumed a tinge
of sombre poetry; a man of hatreds,
ideals, indignations." Then there are
the Duke and Duchess of Crowborough :
his Grace active in the pursuit of politics

From "Lady Rose's Daughter."

and in some degree aspiring to statesman-
ship, the Duchess — friend of Julie's ever-
agitated bosom — all in the fashion, own-
ing a house in town, roaming Scottish
moors, sailing Italian lakes, liking Italian
pictures, knowing Italian history. Lord
Lackington, Miss Le Breton's grand-
father, is another on this luminous list.
He was once a sailor, and in his seafar-
ing days had bestridden — besides the
masthead — Pegasus. Now, at seventy-
four, he is a young old beau, said, by the
authoress, to be forever talking about

"his music and his water-colors." His
friend, Montresor, the Secretary of State
for War, is likewise touched a little with
madness for the muses: "He lets the
Army go to ruin, I understand, while he
joins Dante societies," sniffs Lady Henry.
Of Delafield, Julie's pertinacious suitor,
a future duke, one learns that he is "the
ascetic, the mystic . . . with the most
critical instincts. . . . He read much
poetry ; and the New Testament spoke to
him imperatively, though in no orthodox
or accustomed way. Ruskin and the

144

THE LAMP

earlier work of Tolstoy . . . had affect-
ed his thought and imagination." But at
the same time this prayerful paragon of
culture is "a robust, healthy Etonian,
who could ride, shoot, and golf like the
rest of his kind, who used the terse,
slangy ways of speech of the ordinary'
Englishman" (not those of Ruskin or
the poets). And last, among the chief
figures of Miss Le Breton's "social mi-
lieUy*^ may be mentioned Captain Wark-
worth, a man of letters — that is to say,
the author of copious billets doux to
ladies and of a military novel. Wark-
worth has a dash of Lovelace about him
— about his reputation especially — and
the authoress shows knowledge of her
sex in crowning as easy conqueror over
female hearts — Julie's included — this
handsome, inconstant warrior, owning
mixed qualities of knight and black-
guard. But, in the end, Mrs. Ward
whitewashes the martial philanderer and
then kills him, to make smooth the path
of faithful, deserving Delafield. She
also consigns to the great Tea-Without-
End-Amen two persons barring his way
to a grand title, so that, on the last page
of the book, the heroine bids farewell to
her troubles, a rich and happy English
duchess.

But will the critical reader believe the
existence of such a society? Has he ever
been acquainted with a lovely maiden
who led discussions on Egyptian politics,
with a nautical peer who painted and
poetized, with a cavalry captain who
wrote novels between the intervals of
tiger and fortune hunting, with a mystic,
slang>', evangelical, golfing duke? And
can anyone conceive a company of Bel-
gravians, living, like these, on Tolstoy,
Dante, Ruskin, Venetian masters, music,
verse, history — even with the aid of tea?
Mrs. Ward conjures us a set of Brit-
ish patricians wedded to high concerns
of literature and art; neglecting court
gossip, balls, Hyde Park, the opera,
cricket; indifferent to house parties,

grouse shooting, fox hunting, betting,
whist, billiards, the play of the season;
thoughtless of the next "drawing-room,"
the latest "fad," the worst divorce case;
forgetting tenants' rents, bye-elections,
Henley, the Derby, walking tours on the
Continent, charity concerts, bazaars. The
Morning Post, and Punch. It would be
untrue to say that none of these subjects
are alluded to in "Lady Rose's Daugh-
ter," but they — and others germane —
are all treated as unvital. To say that
is to say enough.

Besides — a salon in Mayfair under
the sceptre of a "lady's companion" ! A
gathering of gifted, clever people — as the
authoress reports them — whose conver-
sation is dull and mostly confined to
family affairs! 'Tis a peculiarity of this
book: at Lady Henrj^'s house the talk
is alleged notable for "brilliance;" there
is "a thrill in the air," as well there
might be if Mrs. Ward's personages — of
whom was omitted above Sir Wilfrid
Bury, an elegant man-of- the- world dip-
lomat — kept Mrs. Ward's promises. But
they do not. Their reputed erudition,
their knowledge of the insides of books,
their understanding for art, their experi-
ences of travel, their acquaintance with
important events, their brains, their
tastes, their temperaments, their tongues
would presumably demand vent. Yet
they keep all their wisdom and wit locked
up in their bosoms. Though Mrs. Ward
would persuade us that her people think
like Chesterfield and Madame de Stael,
we discover that they talk like poor Poll.
Montresor's few bright sallies near the
beginning of the book. Lord Lackington's
brief observations on pictures at Burling-
ton House, and the two dozen lines
about Shelley in Chapter XH, are ex-
ceptions proving the rule. In fact, the
people in "Lady Rose's Daughter" are
much more serious and solemn, given
far less to pleasant raillery and playful
repartee, than the real inhabitants of
Park Lane, Eaton Square, or "the de-

THE- LA M P

mesnes that there adjacent lie." This
novel wants editing by Anthony Hope.

The gentleman who has drawn the
pictures for "Lady Rose's Daughter" is
but a collaborator in misrepresentation.
For example, the picture, "Lady Henry
gasped. She fell back into a chair" : the
lady in question has not the appearance
"which stamps the caste of Vere de
Vere," but that of a clergywoman from
Ohio. Or the illustration, "I have
brought the sheets of the new Shelley
book, Miss Le Breton": two of the six
persons portrayed look American and one
is an evident Continental. Or, "The
Duchess perched on the arm of Julie's
chair": no such young women, frocks,
or hats were to be seen in Regent Street
twenty-five years ago — the time of the
story — but their like may now be met
with of a morning in Twenty-third
Street. The style of Warkworth's white
waistcoat exhibited in Chapter XVH
was unknown in England "before the
days of Arabi."

But Mrs. Ward, although she gives
us a "mystic" and "slangy" duke, whose
talk is never either, and a lady's compan-
ion whose "lightest but wisest" sayings,
on phases of Egyptian politics "known
only to the initiated," are left for the
reader to fancy, Mrs. Ward neverthe-
less presents some conditions of English
life with sharp veracity — besides the tea-
drinking.

Among those denizens of the British
Isles who begin the day shivering in a
flat tin tub by an open window, and who
cannot enjoy dinner at eight without
being more or less uncovered as to the
chest, among such a certain kind of con-
versation is often heard: Prospects are
debated ; names of people who might do
something, or who have interest, are

cited. So-and-So is pretty sure of his
appointment, and So-and-So-Else has just
been given a good post. On the other
hand. Miss So-and-So-Other has not
made a good match, though her brother
has a chance of getting something, espe-
cially if his uncle will speak to Lord So-
and-So-Nobody, whose first cousin is
married to an Under Secretary, who will
mention the subject, though perhaps it
would be better to try someone with
more interest, in order that the poor
chap may get a good berth while he is
waiting to come into his money — unless,
in the meantime, he should marry money.
Of this idyllic philosophy, adorning so
many simple homes of quaint old Eng-
land, Mrs!' "Ward is amply cognizant.
And we are glad to record that one
Englishman in the book, Delafield, dis-
approves the system. So, too, the au-
thoress, a woman with a noble heart
thirsting to find lofty ideals in men, re-
belling at the mean spirit of a world car-
ing for cash and trash more than for the
sublime and the beautiful, desiring with
fervent soul a better state of things — in
England and in all the earth. Thus, her
wishes fathering her thoughts, the writer
of "Lady Rose's Daughter" allots to
London's fashionable society — as she
would to Madrid's, St. Petersburg's, or
New York's — greater earnest and less
frivolity than it really does possess. Still
she soars with Elsmere and Grieve.
Though she dips to earth sometimes and
skims it for a while, yet is she loth to
come quite down and stay. A moral
teacher she surely is, but the supreme
novelist — a Balzac, a Turgenev, a
Thackeray — considers with judicial mind
both highest holiness and sorest sin, and
all that intervenes, all grades and shades
of human thought and action.

Photographed October 3, 1902. Copyright, 1902, by I. W. Blake.

DONALD G. MITCHELL AT EDGEWOOD.

THE RAMBLER

We recommend a careful perusal of
the article in this number entitled, "Quo-
tations Misquoted." Even in this golden
age of the short cut the most accurate
of us cannot fail of amazement at Mr.
White's revelations of our daily and
hourly sinnings.

The appearance of "Matthew Ar-
nold's Notebook" fills the London Jthe-
naum with shudders. "For the work
we have nothing but praise," it declares,
"but we trust it will not become a prece-
dent. It is in Matthew Arnold's unique
personality that the value of this collec-
tion lies. We shudder to think of the
deluge of superfluous print it may fore-
shadow should some pious follower in
future days attempt to publish the com-
monplace book of some other literary
'eminence' — if any have time in these
busy days to keep notebooks without a
strict eye to 'copy.' "

Several contributors to the Critics
symposium of opinion on the alleged de-
cay of the novel hold views similar to
those expressed in the February Lamp
about the enormous recent output of
middling (and worse) fiction, namely,
that it is the sign, not of decay, but of
the existence of a new reading public of
vast size and uncultivated taste. "I
agree with Mr. Swift," writes Mr.
Richard Whiteing, "that a good deal of
literature of the day is extremely super-
ficial, and that it ministers to the needs
of a public that insists on being fed on
scraps. It is deplorable, but it is still
better than nothing. Remember this
huge public has, till now, hardly had any
kind of appetite for anything, and the

everlasting snack is one way, though of
course not the best one, to give it the
beginnings of a longing for the intellect-
ual feast of life. The public is a huge
infant, and its appetites follow the in-
fant's law. It reads at first, and neces-
sarily, as a child reads, from picture-
books and stories of the marvellous and
what not, and it is only at a much later
stage of the business that it feels the im-
perious need of analyzing these impres-
sions into processes of thought."

The same belief is found in these
words by Mr. W. E. Norris: "Person-
ally, I do not think that the vast stream
of novels with which we are flooded to-
day is bringing about any decay in the
branch of literature which it nominally
represents, nor, indeed, that it has much
to do with literature at all. What has
happened is, I take it, that the spread of
education has brought into existence a
largely increased number of readers who
cannot be expected to have a great deal
of taste or discrimination, and whose de-
mands are met in a manner satisfactory
to themselves. This does not prevent
good work from being produced, and in
the long run good work is always recog-
nized."

Mr. Eden Phillpotts expresses in the
main a gloomy view of the situation, but
with an underlying optimism discover-
able in his conclusion, "As for the future
of English fiction, look after education
and fiction will look after itself."

It must be admitted, however, that
deep gloom pervades the Critics sympo-
sium, the reflection, be it observed, of a
pessimism which seems to be a fashion of
the moment. But only a fashion; at
bottom the times are, and for good rea-
sons, healthily optimistic.

148

THE LAMP

It was of course to be expected that
Christian Science would get into fiction.
A novel on the subject appeared last
fall, and was a study from an outside
point of view. We have not heard of
its extraordinary success; perhaps the
author's attitude as an interpreting ob-
server, however sincere, was not suffi-
ciently sympathetic to win favor with the
elect. But now we have a novel from
the inner sanctuary, as its title, "The
Life Within," would sufficiently indicate
without the announcement that the
anonymous author is — shall we say her-
self — of the elect. Certainly the author
is more than an interpreter; she is the
warmest of advocates as well. The hero-
ine in the story is a healer; so, we vent-
ure to guess, is the author. Christian
Scientists will buy the book.

Mr. George C. Williamson, in his
sketch of Sir Frederic Leigh ton, just
added to Bell's Miniature Series, de-
scribes the painter's invariable method in
these words :

"He first prepared a careful sketch in
black and white chalk on brown paper
of the general idea of the picture. This
was followed by an accurate posing of
the nude model in the position which was
intended, and then another sketch was
made of the figure in its position draped,
for the artist fully understood that by
the exigencies of life and climate un-
draped models did not assume the same
attitude as they would have assumed in
similar position when draped.

"These were followed by a third
sketch, this time in colours, that the effect
of the colour scheme might be adequately
presented, and then upon the actual can-
vas the nude form was painted from these
sketches ^highly finished in monochrome
from the life.'

"The next stage in the work was with
reference to the draperies, and now the

artist returned again to his first brown-
paper study, from which he arranged the
draperies fold by fold upon the living
model, and then transferred them in the
same monochrome colour to the canvas as
they actually appear over the nude figure
which was already upon it.

"When all this was done there re-
mained the question of colour, and that
was applied over the monochrome, and
the same deliberate work took place with
regard to every figure which appeared
upon the canvas."

No wonder indeed, as Spielmann has
pointed out, that Leighton's inspiration
"was practically passed when he took
the crayon in hand." Mr. Williamson
strongly urges that a great sculptor was
lost in Leighton's devotion to paint.
"The striking lack in his work was that
of life, and the desire so often comes over
the student when he gazes at a fine work
by Leighton to call for a Prometheus,
with his stolen divine fire, to give life
to those ivory, wax-like creations." Yet
Mr. Williamson ranks him immortal for
his lofty conceptions, his superb design,
his decorative eminence. His drawing is
fine and his coloring at times magnificent,
but none of these qualities, nor all of
them, w^ould have sufficed to make him
great, were it not for the boldness with
which he used his powers.

Some easily tongued form of the verb
"to addicks," its exact lineaments still
shrouded in the future, is fairly thunder-
ing at the outer gate of our language,
well grown, able, and thoroughly ready
for the hard colloquial work that may
or may not finally win its admission to
a place beside its sister "gerrymander"
just within the inner door. There lacks
only the opportunity to throw open the
gate, an opportunity which, in our poli-
tics, is likely to offer only too soon.

THE LAMP

149

We show here the latest portrait of
John Bach McMaster, whose "Daniel
Webster" is reviewed in this number by
John Finley.

The morality of raking up for publi-

executor to ignore them is beside the
point. No one has the right to dictate to
posterity, and as a matter of fact poster-
ity will not be dictated to."

All of which differs not overmuch in
tone from the comment on the same book
the same day by another London author-

A NEW PORTRAIT OF JOHN BACH MCMASTER.

cation the early and perhaps discarded
work of dead and therefore helpless
authors is energetically affirmed by so
honorable a literary judge as The Acad-
emy and Literature, of London, in the
case of a book here noticed last month,
"Early Prose Writings of James Russell
Lowell," edited by Walter Littlefield
and prefaced by Edward Everett Hale.

"There are a hundred and fifty pages
in this book," says the London reviewer,
at the close of an enthusiastic page and
more of comment, "which certainly ought
to be published with Lowell's formal
*Works.* That Lowell ignored them is
beside the point. That he wished his

ity, The Athenaum, which disposes of
the point in these words :

"It is always a nice question whether
the early work of a famous man of let-
ters ought to be reprinted. Theoretical-
ly, indeed, there is something to be said
on both sides; one rather leans to the
view of those who think that it should
be allowed gently to die in the obscurity
of dusty bookshelves, though there is a
good deal to be said for those who main-
tain that the development of genius is
worth studying even in stuff like the
novels which Balzac wrote before he
conceived the idea of the *Human Com-
edy,' or the poems which drew down on

I50

THE LAMP

MAP OF THE REGION COVERED BY MR. STONE S EXPLORATIONS.

Tennyson the not wholly undeserved
satire of Lytton, with his *schoolmiss
Alfred;

"As a matter of fact, whenever a man
has really impressed his mark on litera-
ture some one will be found to disinter
his juvenilia and hack-work from the
quiet repose to which their author is
himself inclined to leave them. We do
not say that this is a bad thing for litera-
ture on the whole, though it often gives
us books in which a great name vouches
for material of little or no absolute
value."

We republish here, from the columns
of The American Museum Journal, of
May, 1900, the only account ever print-
ed anywhere of Mr. Andrew Jackson
Stone's record-breaking sledge journey
referred to in the last number of The
Lamp. It is another illustration of the
absence of all knowledge, on the pub-
lic's part, of a vast amount of arduous
and invaluable accomplishment, in the
cause of progress, by innumerable ear-
nest workers who might appropriately
adopt Mr. Stone's motto, "A labor of

love." The report, which was written
by Mr. J. A. Allen, is as follows:

"Mr. A. J. Stone's expedition to
northern British Columbia, Alaska, and
the Arctic Coast, supported by Mr.
James M. Constable, has yielded scien-
tific results which amply repay the cost
of this praiseworthy undertaking. Mr.
Stone entered northern British Colum-
bia by way of Fort Wrangel and the
Stickine River, thence to the head of
Dease Lake and the Cassiar Mountains,
where very important collections of
mammals were made ; he then descended
the Dease River to the Liard River,
gathering on the way many valuable
specimens, and making from Fort Liard
a trip into the Nahanna Mountains.
Afterward he continued down the Liard
River to the Mackenzie, stopping at
Forts Simpson and Norman, from which
latter point a trip was made into the
main range of the Rocky Mountains.
Later another trip was made into the
Rockies to the westward of Fort Mc-
Pherson, and also across the McKenzie
Delta and westward along the Arctic
Coast to Herschel Island. Then fol-
lowed a long sled journey of over one
thousand miles eastward along the Arc-

152

THE LAMP

tic Coast to beyond Cape Lyon. Re-
turning again to Fort McPherson, he
crossed the Rockies to Bell River, which
he descended to the Porcupine, and
thence continued down the Yukon to St.
Michaels, where he took a steamer to
Seattle, reaching this point September
I3> 1899, twenty-six months and four
days from the date of starting.

"His successful sled journey, aggre-
gating over three thousand miles, is with-
out a parallel in the annals of Arctic
travel. Although unsuccessful in his
special quest for wood bison and musk-
ox, and although the intense cold of an
Arctic winter precluded the preparation
of many specimens, the results of his trip
include, besides a valuable collection of

MISS El^A JOSSLYN GIFFIN.

"On this long and arduous trip Mr.
Stone discovered and brought home six
or eight new species of mammals, includ-
ing a fine new caribou, and obtained a
large amount of information respecting
the habits and distribution of all the
larger Arctic mammals. He clso made
important geographical discoveries, in-
cluding several new rivers which flow
into the Arctic Ocean; he accurately
located other important points, and cor-
rected our latest hydrographic charts of
this region in several important particu-
lars, establishing the fact that the so-
called 'Eskimo Lake* is, in reality, dry
land, traversed by a number of narrow
lake-like channels.

mammals, a rich store of wholly new
zoological, geographical, and archaeolog-
ical information, which will form the
basis of a series of papers in the current
volume of the Museum Bulletin/*

Probably no librarian in America
touches humanity so elementally and in-
timately as Miss Etta Josselyn Giflin,
whose portrait appears on this page. Her
field is the blind pavilion of the Library
of Congress, where she is the medium
between sightless seekers of knowledge
and the books they explore with such
eagerness and patience. There are thir-

THE LAMP

153

teen other institutions in the country
with reading-rooms and circulating li-
braries for the blind, but the Congres-
sional Library alone makes a feature ot
the very personal work which is Miss
Giffin's special province and which makes
her opportunity, as well as her duties,
unique.

The sketch of Thomas Wentworth
Higginson, by Th. Bentzon, printed a
year and a half ago in the Revue des
Deux MondeSi has appeared in transla-
tion, betw-een neat covers, with the im-
print of a London publisher. The little
book has the title "A Typical Ameri-
can," a phrase embodying its outlook
from a point of view essentially and de-
lightfully French.

"I had the good fortune," he writes,
"to meet at Boston and Cambridge,
1 893- 1 897, the survivors of that group
of noted men to which Emerson and
Hawthorne, Longfellow and Lowell
belonged. The chief figures had gone,
but Oliver Wendell Holmes and Col-
onel Higginson remained. The former^
a brilliant talker and a delicate hu-
morist, w'hom M. Forgues introduced,
forty years ago, to the readers of the
Revue des Deux Mondes, as a rival of
Sterne and Xavier de Maistre, in speak-
ing of his most celebrated work. The
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,* was of
advanced age and very near his end.
The Little Doctor' was pointed out as
an extremely precious relic by the men
and women devotees (especially the lat-
ter) who worshipped at his shrine; or,
in other words, crowded his admirable
library. It felt like taking part in the
raising of a spirit to be in his presence;
the trembling laugh, the feeble voice, his
good sayings 'put under glass' at once,
all seemed as though they came from
the other side of the grave. So Dejazet
represented 'Monsieur Garat' at an age
which permitted but the shadow of the

former self. But with Dr. Holmes, as
with Dejazet, the mind still scintillated,
and I was glad to have seen the novelist-
theologian, the physiological poet, the
delightful and inexhaustible talker. No
function was held in Boston without Dr.
Holmes; his presence was demanded at
every public gathering and banquet; he
had supremely the gift of ready speech,
brilliant and easy.

"For some years now the honours
which he held have devolved upon
Colonel Higginson, who has remained to
fulfil the role of Master of Ceremonies
in academic circles and toward distin-
guished strangers, his fine bearing and
splendid presence aiding him perfectly.
There is a kind of coquetry, on his part,
in the w'ay he frankly owns the year of
his birth, 1823. Look at him under three
different aspects in the frontispieces of
the three principal volumes of his com-
plete works: first, with beardless face
and long abundant hair, looking like
George Sand in her youthful days, a
young man of singular beauty; then, in
the uniform of a colonel, with martial
air and full beard ; lastly, as he is to-day,
erect and thin, with a decoration in his
, buttonhole, probably the one which in
this country of equality attests the blue
blood of an American of the colonial
days, eye-glass in hand, observing men
and things with a somewhat haughty
dignity. It is a pity that he is not also
represented in the fantastic ecclesiastical
dress which he wore at the time of his
first sermon at Newburyport: a grey
overcoat, quite new-fashioned, with cap
to match, edged with fur. Someone
pointed out to him that it was not a cler-
ical dress, and he took steps to effect a
compromise. 'Let it alone,' said his
mother, who, like her son, had plent\' of
humour; 'if the dress does not please,
they will pardon still less the wearer of
it.' "

He first met Colonel Higginson at a
fete in celebration of the battles of Lex«

154

THE LAMP

ington and Concord, and with him "a
dark girl with pearls in her black hair,
charming in the garb of light white silk,
which fastened almost under her arms."

" *She is my daughter,' he added, *in
the very same dress that her great-grand-
mother wore, which we have carefully
treasured/

"And he began to talk to me of a time
when certain Europeans, who do not see
anything in the American nation beyond
a crowd of adventurers, of skilful me-
chanics, and of rough workmen, had
great need of being better informed, a
time which provided Colonel Higginson
with the most delightful pages of his
'Cheerful Yesterdays/

"In the veins of this charming girl, of
whom he became the happy father in
green old age, and who was the subject
of his dainty verses *Six and Sixty Years,'
courses the blood of the Wentworths,
who gave three vice-regal governors to
America, and who were accused by the
spiteful tongues of Portsmouth of desig-
nating, in a retrospective sense. Queen
Elizabeth as Cousin Betsy Tudor. Her
grandmother was that dauntless lover
Anne Appleton, who, in spite of the dif-
ficulties that were raised between the two
nations because of war, and in spite of
domestic feud which well-nigh equalled
that between the Montagues and the
Capulets, married an English officer,
Captain Storrow, a prisoner at Ports-
mouth, at the beginning of the Revolu-
tion. Later, after a series of strange
vicissitudes, their orphan daughter mar-
ried a rich shipowner, Higginson, whose
adopted child she had at first been. Who
can say after this that America is not the
land of romance?"

This sprightly little book concludes
with some advice to America. Summing
up Colonel Higginson's hopes for his
country, Bentzon says: "He did not
labour under any illusions; for many
long years to come, America will be in
bondage to Europe; for yet a longer

number of years she will go there to find,
as did Robinson Crusoe on his ship-
wrecked voyage, that which she needs for
her existence; but the shipwrecked voy-
age would have been long since effaced
from men's memories if it had not hap-
pened to Robinson. Be yourself ; rely on
your character.

"*Be bold!' This will be the last
word that Thomas Wentworth Higgin-
son will utter to the country whose
judgment he has endeavoured all his life
to direct and enlighten.

"There should not be any rest, either
in this world or in the other, until the
shadow of England, which always
weighs so heavily on America, is at last
lifted. Emancipation will then be com-
plete, and the reformer may sleep in
peace, whispering, perhaps, to himself at
length, we may guess, the supreme coun-
sel given by the old poet, Spenser, to his
Britomart. When she entered the en-
chanted palace, Britomart found in-
scribed over four successive doors: *Be
bolde, be bolde, and everywhere be
bolde.' Over the fifth alone she read:
*Be not too bolde.'

"A useful warning, said Wentworth
Higginson, but secondary, and inferior
to the other."

It is not often given to a preface to
hold in less than thirty pages something
of the real spirit, the very perfume, of a
delicate personality. Mrs. Richmond
Ritchie has merely suggested Adelaide
Sartoris in her preface to the new edi-
tion of "A Week in a French Country
House"; she is tantalizing in her scorn
of biographical essentials, sending the
unfamiliar reader scurrying to other
fountains of knowledge, and she even
fails to satisfy one's natural desire for
personal appearance. Yet Fanny Kem-
ble's talented sister lives in these few
pages, nevertheless; her intimate per-

ROOSEVELT.
By William Nicholson.

sonal charm pervades them; they ring
with her laughter; they echo her singing;
they contain, elusively, herself. You fin-
ish them piqued, dissatisfied; you have
brushed Adelaide Sartoris in passing,
that is all — ^>'et her eyes met yours v^^ith
revelation and the perfume of her pres-
ence lingers vv^here she passed.

We reproduce here, by courtesy of his
publisher, R. H. Russell, several of Mr.
Nicholson's nevi^ series of prints. There
are a dozen in the portfolio, all of a spirit
and execution that make selection diffi-
cult. Mr. Nicholson's new drawings
show no developments in manner such as
have characterized several recent port-

iS8

THE LAMP

We have received the following inter-
esting letter from Eau Claire, Wis. :

"Editor Lamp :

"Your recent notice of my father's
novels (G. P. R. James's) does justice to
the Dictionary of National Biography;
but it contains a few misstatements, for
which you are perhaps indebted to that
high authority.

"My father was born more than a
hundred and one years ago (in 1799).
He never was British consul in Massa-
chusetts, though he lived there about
two years; but he was in Virginia, and
afterward at Venice, where he died.
The portrait you published is from a
photograph by Brady, taken in 1858,
when we were leaving the United States
for Italy. My mother {nee Frances
Thomas), who died here, in 1891 as you
state, was not an American, but a native
of London, where her father, Honoratus
Leigh Thomas, was a physician, cele-
brated about the beginning of the last
century. Her family was of Welsh
origin.

"Notwithstanding the dicta of the
Dictionary of National Biography and
other self-constituted regulators of lit-
erary orthodoxy, the reputation of my
father's works, between the mid-Vic-
torian era and the present, was not alto-
gether confined to those who did not
know that they were heretics; nor was
it given only to his novels. His historical
works were considered of more impor-
tance. Both are referred to a great deal,
either as authority on historical subjects
or as illustrative matter, in Barnes's
series of school histories, which have
been very generally used throughout the
United States during the last thirty
years. Yours truly,

"C. L. James."

The item in the Lamp to which the
letter refers quoted the Dictionary of
National Biography as its authority.

"Popular interest in the homes of au-
thors belongs indeed to quite modern
days," writes Mr. Francis Whiting Hal-
sey, in the preface of his forthcoming
"Women Authors of Our Day in Their
Homes," "at least in as far as we may
judge from books that have been written
about them. Ben Jonson wrote an ac-
count of his visit to Hawthornden and
the chronicle has become more interest-
ing in our day than anything Drum-
mond himself ever wrote. Erasmus was
not unmindful of the interest which lay
in his stay with Sir Thomas More, while
Voltaire's journey to England bore fruit
of the reminiscent order. But it remains
true that for the widespread attention
now paid to authors' homes we are in-
debted to the taste of our times.

"To Washington Irving more per-
haps than to any other person is this
growth to be ascribed. To the impulse
created by his writings we must ascribe
the success of such later publications as
The Knickerbocker Gallery* and The
Homes and Haunts of Our Elder
Poets.'

"Within the walls of houses where
books grew into life nothing more than
memories may remain, but men and
women will not pass them by unheeded.
They haunt such homes. Imagination
comes to their aid and they readily re-
store the former scenes until the very at-
mosphere seems still to breathe of minds
which dwelt there. Be the place simple
or be it grand, the interest is ever the
same. No resplendent dwelling-place,
neither Stowe nor Cliveden, neither
Lyndhurst nor Biltmore, can hope to be-
come familiar to one person where
Shakespeare's birthplace, Sunnyside, or
the cottage of Wordsworth is known to
a thousand. Thus does time accomplish
for the writers of books poetic revenges,
and thus do we see vindicated the re-
mark of Emerson that 'that country is
fairest which is inhabited by noblest
minds.' "

IN LIGHTER VEIN
By Eleanor Hoyt

THE novelists have discovered our
great men. Ever since the his-
torical novel became epidemic our na-
tional heroes have been allowed to make
desultory exits and entrances in novels
dealing with the Revolutionary and Civil
wars; but they were only a part of the
stage setting, dashes of local color, con-
tributions to "atmosphere."

That .was one thing. The novel be-
longing to what one might call our
National Hero Series is quite another
proposition. Here we have a character-
study. The writer attempts to paint a
great man, in his habit as he lived. Inci-
dentally he tells a story, but the stream
of narrative frequently runs underground
or is choked by historic fact and docu-
ment.

If the portrait has graphic truth and
dramatic interest, the experiment is jus-
tified. If not, a literary hybrid is pro-
duced which is neither good fiction nor
good biography.

Gertrude Atherton opened the ball
with Alexander Hamilton, but the "Con-
queror" has had many successors, and
several of the new novels fairly bristle
with well-known names.

A SON OF DESTINY

Mary Francis has paid tribute to An-
drew Jackson in "A Son of Destiny"
(The Federal Book Company), and has
accomplished a singularly uneven piece of
work.

Unfortunately the Prologue embodies
all of the worst features of the book. It
is given over to turgid "fine writing"
and melodrama. Even the spring buds
"explode," and when the reader recovers
from the pyrotechnical suggestion of this
opening sentence, he reads that these buds
had "hurled their fragrance broadcast

from the tender bosoms of many mysteri-
ous spheres, until the land lay perfumed
and palpitating like a beauty blushing at
her own loveliness."

Small wonder that the land palpitated.
Even a callous reader is moved to palpi-
tation by the picture of manifold explo-
sions in tender bosoms.

But the Prologue does the book rank
injustice. Occasionally throughout the
volume, especially in the chapters devoted
to the love-story, the same lamentable
style that played havoc with the spring-
time and with the duel of the Prologue
is in evidence; but there is strong and
conscientious work to offset this fault.
The author has studied and understood
her chosen period, has sketched its issues
and events faithfully and at times dra-
matically, and has given a convincing
realism to her glowing portrait of Jack-
son, "a man popular and unpopular, pro-
fane, chivalrous; a man to hang traitors
and sign bills, hot-headed and prudent;
a man who owned slaves, race-horses, and
fighting-cocks, a fighter and duellist;
loved, feared, hated, traduced, eulogized,
superb in his virtues and magnificent in
his faults, favorite of opportunity and
son of destiny."

THE CAPTAIN

There are those who, while reading
"The Captain" (Lothrop), will remem-
ber "J. Devlin, Boss," and sigh regret-
fully. He had so many friends, that ir-
repressible Jimmy.

One could find it in his heart to wish
that Churchill Williams had stuck to
living issues and allowed the dead past
to bury its dead, and other novelists to
disinter them.

Yet "The Captain" is a good story of
its kind. The quarrel, if quarrel there
be, must be with the kind, not with the

i6o

THE LAMP

quality. Grant was the Captain, and
Mr. Williams puts him vividly before us,
simple, unflinching, great-souled through
failure and success. The picture is not
idealized, and it is the more powerful for
that reason. Mr. Williams has had the
courage to paint his hero as he found
him, plain, middle aged, shabby, a failure
as farmer, real estate man, leather dealer ;
"a back number," as they called him in
Galena.

Even when the war had begun and he
had found his niche he was not impres-
sive. As he faced his raw regiment "he
was very unlike a soldier. His coat was
rusty, and buttons were missing from its
front. His hat was stained and crum-
pled. There was neither fire nor stern-
ness in his face as he ran his eyes over the
ranks before him.

"McClellan and Logan had made
great speeches. The men were stirred,
but they looked contemptuously at their
new colonel who had said no word.
Finally he spoke:

" *Men, go to your quarters.* The
words had the snap of a gun-lock. There
was silence. Smiles vanished, heads came
erect, figures stiffened. Here was the
master."

It is the same man one sees as the
story advances, unimposing, patient, self-
contained, determined, unconquerable, si-
lent save when he had something to say,
and then seldom speaking about himself.
One follows him step by step through
the days of discouragement, of criticism,
of censure, to the vindication at Vicks-
burg, and one learns to understand why,
when word passed along the ranks, "The
old man is coming," men straightway for-
got that they were standing knee-deep in
mud and that their shoulders ached and
that smallpox and fever had cut them
down, and that there was hardly a dry
spot to lay a coffin in. One finds it easy
to love this grave, shabby man whom
Mr. Williams has pictured — impossible
not to trust him — and the conviction that

the novelist has done a remarkably clever
thing dawns in the reader's mind and
checks the sighs for "J. Devlin, Boss."

The Captain is not the whole book,
though he holds the foreground. Here,
as in "A Son of Destiny," a love-story is
introduced through a young friend and
protege of the famous man, and the love-
story is well handled, though never al-
lowed to obscure the book's central fig-
ure. It is a wholesome little love-stor>%
with a man and a soldier for hero and
a heroine who is a great-hearted little
woman as well as an arrant coquette.
Through the book circles a host of char-
acters, most of whom are drawn with
such skill that they add to the strength
of the story; but in the end one forgets
them, turns carelessly even from the
lovers, to ride out of Vicksburg with the
Captain, to stop beside him as he draws
rein on the top of the ridge and looks
down over the wide plain and the great
muddy river, to go with him in thought
as he lifts the reins and speaks to his
horse :

"Come, Jeff; there's plent>'^ ahead of
us to do."

THE MASTER OF WARLOCK

It is a far cry from "The Captain" to
"The Master of Warlock" (Lothrop),
although both deal with the period of the
Civil War.

Mr. Williams has written a big book
— an unusual book.

George Cary Eggleston has given us
a charming story, made according to a
familiar recipe.

"The Master of Warlock" is written
entirely from a Southern view-point, al-
though it holds no sectional bitterness,
touches no sore spots roughly. It gives
us the Southern gentleman at his best,
the Virginian of tradition, handsome,
courtly, brave, a daring soldier, a chival-
rous lover, a model of gentlehood.

It shows us, too, the Southern woman

THE LAMP

i6i

whom novelists have long delighted to
honor, beautiful, audacious, bewitching.

One spends a few hours pleasantly in
such good company, and one meets other
gentlefolk; and, in the end, the Master
of Warlock marries the sweetheart who
sent him away disconsolate, wore her
heart out with longing for him, and
risked all things to rescue him from the
Northern prison where he lay dying.

If the heroine's adventures are hardly
plausible, if the story is so full of high
lights that one sighs for a shady South-
erner and would even welcome a bona
fide villain — still the book is a readable

one.

UNDER THE ROSE

Another historical novel, but Mrs.
Isham has taken us far from America
with her heroes and her wars. "Under
the Rose" (The Bowen-Merrill Corti-
pany) has a French setting, and its hap-
penings took place in the court of Fran-
cis I. and the camp of Charles VI., with
a woodland flight to connect the two.

On the whole, French history lends
itself more readily to the novelist's pur-
pose than American history, despite the
latter-day fad for the domestic article.
A good novel dealing with American his-
tory is an uncommonly good thing —
witness "The Captain" — ^but it is ex-
ceeding difficult to make the novel a good
one. Our spectacular epochs are few
and far between. One wearies of fight-
ing Bull Run and Bunker Hill even with
the choicest assortment of heroes, but
there is so much of French history, and it
is all so spectacular! A novelist may
shut his eyes and jump. Wherever he
comes to the surface he need but look
about him. Voila son affaire!

Probably Mr. Isham did not shut his
eyes, but he found his affair.

It is an improbable story he tells — a
most entertaining story. The court of
Francis is brilliant, dissolute, picturesque.
Its doors are open to us. From Charles

VI. comes the Duke of Friedwald in guise
of a jester sent by the Duke to Princess
Louise, his betrothed, whom he has never
seen. The romantic Duke has visions of
winning the beautiful Princess through
love's magic, and then, when he has her
heart, throwing off his disguise and
claiming the promised hand. But prin-
cesses are not made upon heroic lines.
Louis of Hochfels, bandit baron, comes
to the French court masquerading as the
Duke of Friedwald, and the real Duke,
intent upon his own poetic game, does
not denounce him.

The fair Princess smiles upon her
jester, and lends an ear to the Duke's
suit, and when, too late, the jester would
denounce the impostor \i^ho has usurped
his place, Louis of Hochfels closes his
mouth by force.

It is Jacqueline who rescues the un-
lucky lover — ^Jacqueline '7j /o//e" — ^who
sets her wits at rest against the shrewd-
est of the court jesters, who joins the
merry rout in Fools' Hall, who is lady-in-
waiting to Princess Louise, and who
flouts the love-sick jester from the first,
yet watches him always. Together they
escape from the court and find their way
to Charles and his army — ^but it would
be a thankless task to tell the story of
their adventures. Mr. Isham tells it de-
lightfully, as he tells all of his fanciful,
romantic tales ; and the reader who loves
romance, intrigue, and adventure, love-
seasoned, will find *'son affaire/* as did
the author, in "Under the Rose."

WHAT MANNER OF MAN

Two new names, both feminine, ap-
pear as signatures to t\^^o new books.

There is nothing surprising in that,
for women novelists appear, in this day
and generation, to be fresh every hour;
but both of these new books are distinctly
unusual. Both of these feminine names,
hitherto unknown to the reading public,
are bound to become fairly well known.

l62

THE LAMP

One of them will be linked with un-
complimentary criticism. That is a fore-
gone conclusion. When Edna Kenton —
whoever she may be — wrote "What
Manner of Man" ( Bowen-Merrill Com-
pany) she invited moralists to have a
bout with her, and the invitation will
doubtless be accepted.

The book is unpleasant, so unpleasant
that even were it clumsily written it
would attract a certain amount of com-
ment ; and, as a matter of fact, it is sur-
prisingly good in workmanship for a first
book — ^so good that one queries whether
it really is a first book.

There is much that is reminiscent in
the matter. We have had primitive isl-
and heroines before, and Sheila of Thule
was quite as charming as Clodah, daugh-
ter of the Rohan; but Kirk Thayer is
the vital principle of the story.

He is an artist — this man whom one
does not dub "hero" — an artist and a
genius. Lombroso would add the word
insane to the description, and the word
would be a kindly one. Here is the man
of whom we hear much nowadays — the
man who feels two natures struggling
within him — but his better nature ap-
pears to have been an incompetent strug-
gles When the fire of genius flamed
there was no struggle at all. Then the
man was merged into the artist, ruthless,
brutal, insatiate in his demand for what-
ever would help him to realize his artistic
ideal.

He needed a model for an ambitious
picture — his masterpiece, a picture which
showed the Roman world of Nero's day
looking on while a beautiful Christian
girl, nude, chained, w^as handed over to
the soldier who had won her by a lucky
throw.

The artist found his ideal in the island
maiden. He married her to secure her
aid. He persuaded her to pose for him
in "the altogether," and then because she
did it innocently, trustingly, and com-
prehended the meaning of his picture not

at all, he told her its meaning, told her
why he married her, painted the out-
raged purity, the agony of her face, per-
fected his picture.

The woman died. The man suffered
— so the author suggests.

Mrs. Davenport, an American wom-
an who "understood" him, exulted in a
wakening nobility that she discerned in
his tortured soul. It is hard for the
reader to share her optimism and her
sympathy.

Yes ; the story is distinctly unpleasant.
It is also distinctly powerful. Both
characteristics will win readers for it.

THE CIRCLE

Catherine Cecil Thurston is another
unfamiliar name attached to a book
which contains surprisingly little that
suggests the literary novice.

"The Circle" (Dodd, Mead & Co.)
is fortunately not another "What Man-
ner of Man." It is a clever and coherent
story, whose problem will not try a read-
er's nerves and optimism. It isn't even
so appallingly profound as the motif
printed as a foreword would suggest.

"In youth we dream that life is a
straight line; later we know it to be a
circle, in which the present presses on the
future, the future on the past."

That sounds portentous, but the story
is a simple one and owes its strength not
to its profundity or subtlety, but to its
vitality. It is full of action, force, en-
ergy. From first to last it moves.

A woman's struggle between ambition
and duty is the theme. Anna, daughter
of Solney, a Russian Jew, who keeps a
curio-shop in the East End of London,
comes in contact with a wealthy woman
whose fad is the exploitation of genius
and who recognizes in the Jewess the
making of a great actress. She offers the
girl a career, and in time ambition moves
the embryonic genius to forsake home,
father, and the German lover who gives

THE LAMP

163

her a dog-like devotion. The father's
mind gives way before the shock; the
German cares for him, toils, and believes
in the girl who has forsaken them.

The girl achieves fame, forgets the
past, returns to London famous, and finds
a man she can love, but with love comes
a view of her conduct through her lover's
€yes, and conscience drives her back to
the old associations, the old duties, where
she finds heart's ease, and her lover, at
last, finds her.

There is no remarkable originality in
the story, but it rings true, it never drags,
it holds one's interest, its values are well
sustained; and these things, we repeat,
are not usually the characteristics of a
novel by a 'prentice hand.

THE PRIDE OF TELFAIR

"The Pride of Telfair" (Harpers) is
a story of "love, law, and politics." The
prospectus says so, and the programme
seems sufficiently comprehensive. Fort-
unately the scene is laid in a small Illinois
town. Presumably, love can have as
broad a sweep in a small town as in a
city, but law and politics have their lim-
itations under such conditions, and the
chance of a novelist handling the two
successfully appears to be greater than
if he had chosen a metropolitan setting.

Jesting aside, Elmore Elliott Peake's
new novel will not disappoint those
friendly critics who saw much merit and
more promise in his earlier novel, "The
Darlingtons."

He has not tried an epic theme. The
affairs of a little Middle West town are
rarely set to epic measure ; but Mr. Peake
has caught the genius of the place, such
as it is, and has crystallized it carefully,
cleverly, in his story.

Morris Davenport, the successful
young lawyer whose love-affair is the
thread upon which the narrative is
strung, is an American type easily recog-
nized — energetic, level-headed, good-nat-

ured, masterful — a man whom men like,
women trust, and horses obey. He is
drifting into a love-affair with his stenog-
rapher when the story opens — with Ber-
tha of the blond hair, the dainty gown,
the well-manicured hands, and the some-
what too evident white-rose scent. It is
natural for him to be agreeable to wom-
en, and a stenographer has the advantage
of propinquity.

When the Priestleys come back to the
town, love bites his thumb at the rela-
tions brought about by mere daily asso-
ciation, and the young lawyer loses his
heart unreservedly — but cannot lose the
stenographer. Hence mild complication,
which, mingled with town gossip, town
happenings, makes up the simple plot of a
natural, human story that has its crudity
and its glaring faults, yet deserves well
at the hands of critics and readers.

THE PHILADELPHIANS

"The Philadelphians" (L. C. Page &
Co.) comes very near belonging to the
group of historical novels; but the
present-day conditions which Katherine
Bingham has described, though fast be-
coming traditional, have not yet merged
into history.

"The Philadelphians" will appeal to
Philadelphians with a sense of humor.
To Philadelphians not so blessed by
Providence it will seem dangerously near
the border-line of sacrilege. Katherine
Bingham's bump of reverence is not
what it would have been had she been
born and reared in the Quaker City, yet
it is a kindly picture she draws — a picture
without malice. She laughs at Phila-
delphian conventions and social tradi-
tions, but there is a world of good-nature
in the laugh.

As a story the book could hardly be
taken seriously. As a light and amusing
study of a society, more individual per-
haps than any other in this country, it is
undeniably clever and successful.

TYPOGRAPHY AND BOOKMAKING

By Frederic Sherman

AS an example of fine bookmaking
the Riverside edition of Spenser's
"Prothalamion and Epithalamion" ranks
among the few very nearly perfect books
of recent years. The two poems are
set in a face of italic of unusual beauty,
and Mr. Blashfield's very successful il-
lustrations and decorative devices are
printed in a rich red that gives to the
setting a warmth that is in harmony
with the glow of youth the poet im-
parted to these bridal verses. The
format of the volume is rather too im-
posing for the text, though considering
the attractiveness of the page with its
large type and generous margins, the
inappropriateness of the size seems rela-
tively a matter of less importance 'than
in reality it is. The composition and
presswork are admirable, the register
and the paper good, and the binding ex-
cellent. The lettering of the title on
the cover, though but a detail, is as
good as anything of the kind we have
seen. Taken altogether this volume is
by far the best of Mr. Rogers's recent
creations.

Two hand-lettered volumes of consid-
erable merit are Arthur Upson's "Oc-
taves in an Oxford Garden," lettered by
Margarethe E. Hessier, and "Fulbeck:
A Pastoral," by J. Walter West, the let-
tering of which is the work of the author.
In the former of these volumes the let-
tering is a vertical black-face, and in
the latter script. The only similarity
about the lettering in the two books is
in the formation of the "a," and, inas-
much as it is the written instead of the
printed "a" which both use, Mr. West's
is the more consistent and his work the

PROTHALAMION AND Epithalamion. By Edmund
Spenser. The Riverside Press. Houghton, Mifflin &
Co. Imperial 4to, ill., 419 copies, $10.00 net.

Octaves in an Oxford Garden. By Arthur Upson.
Hahn & Harmon Press. Edmond D. Brooks. Hand-let-
tered. 4to, ill., 350 copies, $3.50 net.

more effective. Each of these volumes
has a certain distinction of its own besides
the lettering, however, to recommend it»
The "Octaves" is bound in Japanese
wood, and "Fulbeck" is illustrated as
well as hand-lettered by the author.

The last book to come to us from the
Merrymount Press is so excellent in
every other detail that its one fault pro-
vokes us perhaps unduly. As an object-
lesson in what not to do with an open
page of poetry, we print, greatly reduced,
a single page from this volume where the
very obvious mistake of setting headlines
and titles in the same type is further
exaggerated by the setting of sub-titles
also in the same face.

From the Blue Sky Press, Chicago,
comes a book of poems entitled "The
Morning Road" which deserves a word
of praise. This volume, which is stitched
in silk in the binding, at least in this one
important detail excels most present-day
examples of fine bookmaking. The deco-
rative border for the double title is very
happy. The abbreviation of two words
on the second page of the title, though,
is in bad taste. The great mistake
in planning this book was the choice of
a format with a page so narrow as to
necessitate the breaking of almost every
line of the verse within.

The latest volume of angling sketches
by Edward Marston, the English pub-
lisher, entitled "Dovedale Revisited," is
a handsome little sixteenmo from the
Chiswick Press. The decorative devices
of this press, headbands, initials, and tail-
pieces, are admirably adapted for use in

Fulbeck : A Pastoral. By J. Walter West. Press of
Bradbur>-, Aenew & Co., London. Howard Wilford Bell.
Hand-lettered, narrow 8vo, ill., $z.oo.

Flovers op Song from Many Lands. Translated by
Frederic R. Marvin. The Merrymount Press. ImperiiJ
4to, x,ooo copies, f 3.00.

The Morning Road. By T. W. Stevens and A. C
Noble. The Blue Sky Press. lAngworthy.& Stevens.
Narrow i2mo, J09 copies, $1.50.

Tvwecz

/^^ gevUyJlowLvg beSk^
^ SLDg (Jx)ujbr me/
Iv jo/Uy TLppUvg aOevce
stifecC tsr'Low,
Scvg t£oti t£e sovg of
Ufc's sweet melo^,
^ccSoipg falvUy
oiUoflovgagD:

CJvd Lz? Lby silver pods
^^ r^lect offUD,

Us iv tbecryStaC, to our
g-LaddeDed ^e
Tbejdmxf cf those tudo
bevt aiove tJxe thev,
5Hirrored vf>ov aJlectLr^g
JUldof^s^

FLOWEBS OF SONG

TRANSLATIONS FROM THE HEBREW

THE Wia)OM OF A CHILDLIKE SPIRIT

The woiU it tvttA from fUend and ht
By what the Uttk chiMreD knofv.

"GLITTERING CROWNS DECEIVE"

The Mldien fight and brardy die.

Their blood the crimaon fields itcdve:
**The kings are heroesP lo, the people cry;

Thus jittering crowns deoeivc«

SECRECY

Thy (Kend hath stin another frieod.

And he a friend as wdl;
Be silent, lest to aD the world

Their lips the secret teU.

HANDLETTERED PAGE BY J. WALTER WEST.

AN EXAMPLE OF BAD COMPOSITION.

«tenotowrof1he
©eau?ho(08®

muxin6eriM.
[6b«rol6n)do6V

ihiounAl)im.v7{n6n4! mm-
_ »ocTerliccnooec&.-
ffln6aoroiflVmnK,rhvl)itilc
„ lift refuses
^ ai)V oilier pulse ff)(tn felnr
_ foewlno.
liar from Ihv frientehipB
_ ocean Uioucfiaslna
^T>ere Uw hilte tire onAfiic
n)UfliiDQfl)uxn?i?rutoe&

A GOOD DECORATIVE BORDER.

HANDLETTERED PAGE BY MARGARETHE HESSIER.

i66

THE LAMP

connection with Roman faces of type.
They add very appreciably to the artistic
effect of this particular volume. The one
noticeable fault of the book is the texture
of the Japan paper used for the full-page
illustrations. It is altogether too stiff
and heavy for so small a page.

"Some Letters by Robert Louis Ste-
venson" is the title of the first book
printed by the Cheltenham Press in its
new type, a specimen line of which we
reproduced in January. In this type that
eccentricity of form which is the chief
characteristic of almost every new face
modelled after Morris's is very notice-
able. It is rather too uncompromising in
its uprightness for steady company, we
should say, though one may find a certain
pleasure in it for so short a time as the
reading of this handful of letters re-
quires.

The edition of Leigh Hunt's "Paulo
and Francesca," designed by Ralph

DovBDALR Revibiteo. Edward Marston. The Chis-
wick Press. Imported by Charles Scribner's Sons. 111.,
i6mo, 350 copies, 93.00 net.

Some Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson. The
Cheltenham Press. Ingalls Kimball. x3mo, 500 copies,
$1.35.

Fletcher Seymour, of Chicago, is spe-
cially noteworthy for a very handsome
and effective binding. The decorative
treatment of the book itself is not so
pleasing. The division of the pages of
verse by the device printed in red which
is used as a headline for the pages of the
preface in the fore part of the volume is
unfortunate. The design, 2^2 x 3V2
inches, which appears upon the title page
and looks as if it might be Mr. Seymour's
book-plate, is out of place there, and, fur-
thermore, unnecessary. Another of Mr.
Seymour's publications, "Twelve Songs
by Maeterlinck," though not nearly so
pretentious in its makeup, is a far more
satisfactory piece of work. In this vol-
ume, printed in a good, open face of Cas-
lon type, nicely spaced and leaded, and
illustrated with cuts that have something
of the strength as well as the beauty of
the early woodcuts, he has produced a
book that is really an admirable example
of the beauty of simplicity in book-
making.

Paulo and Francb«ca. Leigh Hunt Ralph Fletcher
Seymour. Narrow 8vo, 350 copies. $3.50.

Twelve Songs. Maurice Maeterlinck. Ralph Fletcher
Seymour. III., 8vo, 400 copies, %i.y>.

THE LITERARY QUERIST

EDITED BY ROSSITER JOHNSON

[TO CONTRIBUTORS:— ^««rrr>j ntust be briefs w«*/ relate to UteratHre or authors, and must be 0/ some genera*
interest. A nsrvers are solicited, and must be prefaced with the numbers of the questions referred to. Queries
and answers, written on one side only of the ^a^er, should be sent to the Edttor of THE LAMP, Charles
Scribner's Sons, lS3-'57 Fifth Avenue, New } orh.]

720. — Can you tell me where the following
odd lines are from ? They seem like a transla-
tion worked out by a foreigner with a dictionary.
They are set to music by Handel :
Pious orgies, pious airs,
Decent sorrow, decent prayers,
Will to the Lord ascend and move
his pity and regain his love.

E. U. O.

72l.~At the beginning of the Civil War there
was a mysterious correspondent at Charleston,
S. C, who wrote for New York papers under
the signature of "Jasper," suggested, of course,
by the name of Sergeant Jasper of Fort Moul-

trie fame^in the Revolution. Was it ever dis-
covered who he was ? c. s.

We believe his name was Robinson, but are
not certain.

722. — On page 318 of the December number
of the Bookman occurs the following : ** Zang-
will, perhaps, deserves to head the list of rapid
writers. He was seventeen when he wrote his
first book in only four evenings. It was pub-
lished anonymously." Will you kindly tell me
the title and printers of this, the first-fruits of
the genius of the Ghetto ? j. L.

THE LAMP

167

723. — I should be glad of some information
regarding William Butler, a character who ap-
pears in all of Robert W. Chambers's works,
especially in his ''Cardigan*' and ''The Maid
at Arms.*' F. j. P.

724. — Will someone supply the missing word
and tell me where to find the following :

Glad souls without — or blot
Who do His will and know it not.

O. M.

725. — I have read somewhere a story, or anec-
dote, to this effect : Certain Oriental nobles
were invited to a banquet by a prince of another
country. Finding the seats uncushioned, they
rolled up their cloaks and sat on them. When
they departed a messenger was sent after them
to remind them that they had forgotten to take
their cloaks with them ; but they sent back the
answer, " When we dine with ajriend we never
carry off the cushions," Can you tell me where
this is related, or who the diners were ? I am
not sure that I have told it with absolute cor-

rectness.

E. R.

726. — (i) In Longfellow's " Hyperion," chap-
ter VII., giving an account of Paul Flemming's
visit to a little chapel, where he reads on a mar-
ble tablet this inscription : " Look not mourn-
fully into the Past. It comes not back again.
Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go
forth to meet the shadowy Future without fear
and with a manly heart ; " in describing the ef-
fect upon Flemming, the author uses several al-
lusions, which are easily explained. The follow-
ing I cannot find, although I have been told that
its source is in Dante's "Divina Commedia":
"And thus, far-sounding, he heard the great
gate of the Past shut behind him, as the Divine
Poet did the gate of Paradise, when the angel
pointed him the way up the Holy Mountain ;
and to him likewise was it forbidden to look
back."

(2) What is the meaning of the word " tale "
in the following stanza from Longfellow's " Skele-
ton in Armor " ?

Many a wassail-bout
Wore the lone winter out :
Often our midnight shout

Set the cocks crowing.
As we die Berserk's tale,
Measured in cups of ale ;
Draining the oaken pail,

Filled to overflowing.

Has the word "tale" the same meaning as in
Milton's lines :

And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

D. T. S.

(2) We have always supposed that the berserk
was telling the story of his exploits, to which his
boon companions listened as they drank, the
" midnight shout," mentioned in the same stan-
za, being their applause at the most exciting
passages. But we can see that the word " tale "
might have the other meaning — stipulated quan-

tity — referring to the whole amount of ale fur-
nished by the host. But this is less picturesque
and much less probable.

727. — I have come across a short poem ' ' Out-
ward Bound " which I admire. It is credited to
Henry Newbolt's " The Sailing of the Ships."
Can you tell me anything of the book or the
author? F. c.

728. — {i) Can you tell me who is the author
of a striking poem of which this is the refrain ? —

It is well we cannot see
What the end shall be.

(2) From what poem or hymn is the line —

Give to the winds thy fears.

(3) Disraeli, in one of his essays, speaks of
" our admirable Whistlecraft." Who was Whis-
tlecraft ?

(4) Where can I find an article or chapter that
deals with proverbial sayings misunderstood or
misapplied? There are many such. For in-
stance, there is a common expression ' ' As handy
as a pocket in a shirt," which is neither wit nor
sense. But when we get to the original, and
find that the last word is not " shirt," but
"shroud," we see the gloomy irony of the
simile. g. l. A.

(r) It is supposed, but with some uncertainty,
to be by Frances Browne, who was born in Ire-
land in 1 8 16, and wrote many books.

(3) John Hookham Frere (1769-1846), an
Englishman, author and diplomatist, published
a notable poem under the pen-name of " Will-
iam and Robert Whistlecraft."

(4) We do not remember seeing any such arti-
cle or chapter.

729. — I should like to be informed of the au-
thorship of a song that was popular when I was
young, but which I have not heard for years.
It contains this line —

There^s a sigh in the heart, though the lips may be gay.

J. L. C.

ANSWERS

712. — J. R. quotes from Hamlet :

Enterprises of great pith and rudiment
With this regard their currents turn away^ etc.

- The writer has a copy of Chalmers's and of the
Temple Shakespeare, and is himself "puzzled*'
to know in what edition J. R. finds the two un-
derlined words. w, A. B.

• * Rudiment " is of course a misprint for
" moment," chargeable to careless proof-read-
ing. As for the other word, the folio edition has
"away," as we printed it, while most of the
modem editions have ''awry.'* Either word
makes sense, though "awry" is perhaps some-
what the stronger.

vX.

NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS

Ohio and Her Western Reserve. Alfred
Mathews. D. Appleton & Co. III., i2mo,
$1.25 net.
The second volume of the new *' Expansion of
the Republic Series," with a story of three States
leading to the Western Reserve, from Connecti-
cut, by way of Wyoming, its Indian wars and
massacres.

The Romance of My Childhood and Youth.

Mme. Edmond Adam (Juliette Lamber).

D. Appleton & Co. With portrait. i2mo,

$1.40 net.
An interesting and vivacious autobiography.
Tolstoi as Man and Artist. Dmitri Merej-

kowski. G. P. Putnam's Sons. i6mo,

$1.50.

The first complete story of the Great Russian
by a fellow-countryman. The volume includes
also an essay on Dostoievski.

Religious Life in America. Ernest H. Ab-
bott. Outlook Co. i2mo, $1.00 net.

A record of personal observations in every
quarter of the United States and among all
classes of the population, from the New Eng-
land Yankee to the Southern negro.

The Modern Conjurer. C. Lang Niel. J.
B. Lippincott Co. 111., 8vo, $2.00 net.

The illusions of parlor magic explained in the
simplest manners for the general public. A
practical handbook explaining many of the most
notable tricks performed to-day.

LETfERS OF Dorothea, Princess Lieven.
Edited by Lionel G. Robinson. Longmans,
Green & Co. With two portraits. 8vo,
$5.00 net.

These letters are mostly addressed to the Prin-
cess Lieven's brother. General Alexander Benck-
endorff , and cover the whole period of the Count
(afterwards Prince) Lieven's embassy in London,
from 1812 to 1834.

The HENCHM>ftr. Mark Lee Luther. Mac-
millan Co. i2mo, $1.50.

A story of New York State politics.

The Ascent of the Soul. Amory H. Brad-
ford. Outlook Co. i2mo, $1.25 net.

An endeavor to read the human soul with some-
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ing a message which he believes of importance.

SECOND EDITION

SOLTAIRE

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By GEORGE FRANKLYN WILLEY

A BOOK FOR BV^RYO^E TO R£;AD

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** Mr. Willey has artistic ability of unusual strength and sweetness, as well as the
happy faculty of depicting vividly scenes and incidents in such a charming manner as
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I A beautifully ftfinted volume. • . . All
; is real Stevenson. — London AcaJetn}^.
Q A few drops of tbe real Stevensonian essence itself,
undoubted and unadulterated. — Chicago Eifening Post
QOne of die most admirable examples of American
bookmaking published for several yean. — ^ffalo Times.

PRINTED FOR INGALL5 KIMBALU PUBLISHER

at The Cheltenham Pren b the new Cheltenham type on Handmade paper. Small
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T^HE subject is even more unusual than the dress. It is the only
book ever written in any language on Colophons and represents
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key in the -great libraries of Europe. Does the average reader know the
meaning of the word Colophon ? Yet these Colophons to the early printed
books, whether written in Latin, Italian, Greek, French or, rarely, in En-
glish, contain a world of personalia about those early printers and their books.

AS we read we live among them, "get behind the scenes," number
them among our friends. Their vanities, their blunders, their
delightful contempt for rival printers bring a smile to our lips ; while now
and then the pathos in these Colophons brings tears to our eyes.

T^O the collector of rare books, to the student of early printing, and to
public and private libraries, this book, with its first-hand information,
will be invaluable. To the lover of beautiful printing, paper and binding,
it will be a treasure to be kept under lock *nd key. As the edition is so
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TROW PilMT. r (

VOL.XXVI NUMBERS PUBLISHED MONTHLY |1^ A YZAB, 15 (ZNTS A (

LAM

N etr S cries of The Book Bu^

jL review and RECOJUy
OF CURRENT LITERATURE^

APRIL

i'«»:

CHARLES SCR[BN£R*S SONSi

l^ZnXHA^ NErWYOBS MCMIII

ntnaxi^vi

THE LAMP

A REVIEW AND RECORD OF CURRENT LITERATURE

CONTENTS FOR APRIL, 1903 fa«

Anthony Hope . . • Frontltpiece

AncwponimH.

A Weakness In the American Coflege CAarks F. Tkwing .187

PretidcBi W«Bteni XeMnrt Uahrcnitj.
Sarah Bernhardt, Playwright ^ . . • . . . Arshu Akxemdrt •••••.••• 191

niMtimwl wita dnwiust ^ at. CMxin In colfaibofSllaB vMl

. • • . Prof. Johm PMn
•ttrfSidiicy

icmfaardt.
XJfe
ftcvieiHw the <« Life and LdlHseniiMi VLxMm ** and Sidney
UABiosntphyofQactaVkterte. WiMipactnlto.

te QdMtts AUii Croum BmU

Remialictaceg of Stevenion sad Symoadi. WKh pfctnret
ibytbtaannr.

ft«ai photosnpba I

Richardson and HaxUtt W. C.

B«vMws«rthc new ** Lives" latiM "EngUili Men ofl

I9»

•07

1x6

The Illustrated Weekly Newspaper J. M. Bulloch • • • . MO

With Ulustrmtione.

TIMELY INTBRVIEWB

With Anthony Hope (Hawkins) CkarUs ffall Garreti 19$

With Henry Harland Gustav KoW • • •..••• . aa8

With Benwsd Qnariteh GumvXtHi 099

Hanty Jaaes*^ Stert Slories Mon tg o mu} Sekt^kr •..,.•.. .^ix

JotepMne Paska m 336

Anew pQftiSn*
TIM Rambler ^.......^.nsi

LlMmry note and toumi ei rt , with ten ITtutinUoos.
In Lighter Vein EUanor ffoyt 950

Reviews of the newest novels and short stories.
The Literaiy Querist Jfmnier Johnsm • • • . • 956

IMMNI^

A NEWSPAPER
FOR THE LITERARY

VJir^nc } New York

A MEDIUM

FOR THE PUBLISHER

>M»

Spring Announcements on Saturday, April 4.

FleiM mention Tna Lahp In writina to advertiserSi

UIH

ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS.

From a copyrighted photograph just taken by Davis & Sanford.
{See page 2 JO.)

Li.

A.- r' 4 V^'O'

v N

A Reviefw and Record of Current L/ii>erat>ure

ENTERED, FEBRUARY 2, 1903, AT NEW YORK, N. Y., AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER, UNDER ACT OF CONGRESS OF MARCH 3, 1879

Vol. XXVI

NEW YORK, APRIL, 1903

No. 3

A WEAKNESS IN THE AMERICAN COLLEGE
By Charles F. Thwing

President of Western Reserve University and Adclbcrt College

THAT part in our academic wall
which is most open to assault is
not the lack of scholarship. To be sure
this part is not so strong as most believe
it is, despite the strength added in the
last thirty years. In any large collec-
tion of a society of scholars German and
English names easily precede American.
Neither is the point most accessible to
the enemy what may be known as equip-
ment. Laboratories of chemistry^ and
physics are well furnished. For the
ordinary student the laboratories of biol-
ogy, geology, and even of psychology are
becoming well furnished. The labora-
tories are, on the whole, better than the
students who work in them. Professors
for their investigations, be it said, do
lack equipment ; but they lack equipment
less than opportunity. The libraries,
too, are fairly adequate in the better
colleges for the needs of the ordinary
student. They are not adequate to the
needs of the abler students. Neither
are they at all adequate to the demands
of professors who try to do more than
teach. Neither, moreover, should one
care to affirm that the primary need of
the American college lies in the field of
the general endowment. In most col-
leges four-fifths of the entire income is
devoted to the payment of salaries of

instructors. These salaries are low — in
many colleges shamelessly low. The
salary of the college teacher should be
sufficient for him to maintain a type of
living which shall correspond to the type
maintained by one's neighbors. It should
promote economy without necessitat-
ing niggardliness, and allow freedom
without tempting to ostentation. Col-
lege professors have a pretty hard time
to make ends meet from year to year, and
a harder time to put aside savings for
use when they shall no longer be able
to serve. But, despite this condition, the
need of further endowment for causing
salaries to be less low is not the most
urgent need. Nor, further, do I appre-
hend that the weak point in the Ameri-
can college lies in the charge of remote-
ness from life, or in the indolence of the
students. The college is less remote
from life than it w^as. It is ceasing to
be a preparation for life and becoming
life itself. The students, too, are,
on the whole, fairly good workers. They
like to boast over their not working, as
business men like to boast over their
working, and both are about equally
false and equally true in their interpre-
tation of the laboriousness of their labors.
I believe the point in our academic
armor that is most open to the arrow of

i88

THE LAMP

our antagonist is the simple point of
teaching. This point, be it at once said,
is weak, exceedingly weak. The teach-
ing power of the man occupying the or-
dinary professorship is far inferior to his
scholarship. The teaching power is less
adequate to its labors than are the labo-
ratories and the libraries adequate for
meeting the demands made upon them.
The quality of the teaching, as teaching,
which is done in the schools of the world,
and in the American college in particu-
lar, is on the whole poor. But in the
college the qualit>^ is the poorest, and
the number of those who represent this
quality the largest.

For, what is good teaching? Good
teaching is the proper use of truth, or
of what seems to be truth, for the de-
velopment of the student. In good
teaching the instructor uses his interpre-
tation of truth as a tool or agent. Truth
is one thing, most noble. Let us never
forget Milton's panegyric. But the
having of truth is only a condition of the
power of the teacher. Without truth
he cannot be a teacher; but with truth
he may not be a teacher. Often the one
having the richest stores of knowledge
is the poorest teacher. His knowledge
congests his utterance ; his learning dulls
his impressiveness. Wrapped up in his
heavy, elaborately wrought garment of
knowledge, not a few college professors
remind one of the slight Hebrew youth
wearing the armor of the gigantic Philis-
tine. The teacher would do better with
a simple equipment. Simple knowledge
well used by the teacher gives better re-
sults in and for the student than much
knowledge unfittingly employed. The
knowledge which the teacher has, be it
great or be it small, is to be used for
the education of the student. The stu-
dent represents the final cause. On the
side of teaching all is to be made sub-
servient to his needs.

There have been great teachers in the
American college, and there are great

teachers. Some of them have been great
scholars, and some have not. It would
usually be confessed that Mark Hop-
kins was a great teacher. His power of
using his conceptions of truth in train-
ing mind was, perhaps, unrivalled.
Mark Hopkins was not a great scholar.
His limitations of knowledge, even in
his own field, were significantly and
singularly marked. Francis Bowen, of
Harvard College, was a great teacher.
He used the lecture and the text-book
to awaken the power of thinking in the
man before him. I believe that the late
Professor Park was a great teacher. He
trained one to discriminate. I know
that over certain men neither Hopkins,
Bowen, nor Park had influence. To
some Hopkins seemed logically unjust.
To some Bowen seemed superficial, and
to some Park seemed formal and me-
chanical. The personal equation, the
relations of quality, of equality the rela-
tions of inequality, both to the mind of
the teacher and the mind of the taught,
are ever to be considered.

The cause of the poor teaching found
in the American college, or indeed in
America, lies in one condition. The
college teacher has a far livelier interest
in truth than he has in the student.
The discovery, the interpretation, the
promulgation of truth is far more at-
tractive to him than is the use of truth
as a propaedeutic. As a German pro-
fessor said a little while ago, through
the Flie gender Blatter, to whom his wife
had remarked, "My husband, to-morrow
the university opens." "My dear," he
said, "it will interrupt all my studies."
In his studies both the German and
American professor is more interested
than in his students.

At this point is need of careful dis-
crimination. The teacher who does not
love the search for truth, or who fails
to embrace truth when found with a
lover's delight, has no right to be a
teacher. He should be expelled, if he

THE LAMP

189

declines to resign, from the sacred call-
ing. The teacher who is content to con-
vey year after year the same modicum
in the same vessels to successive genera-
tions of students finds the daily and an-
nual potion, or portion, becoming, not
better, like new wine, but stale and
staler. He may still drone and hum
away, but he is really asleep. He is an
object at once of pathos and ridicule.
The college which obliges its instructors
to give instruction so many hours a week
that they have neither time nor strength
left for personal studies has fallen into
a process of slow intellectual stagnation
and of administrative atrophy. Too
many of our colleges are in this state.
Colleges are becoming known as teach-
ing colleges and investigating colleges.
The merely teaching college, whose pro-
fessors fail to study in large and new
relations, becomes weak through a lack
of sustenance. The merely investigat-
ing college, whose teachers are not teach-
ers, but merely scholars making rich
contributions to the stores of knowledge,
becomes weak through a lack of exer-
cise. Both colleges kill out and prevent
the growth of the noblest manhood in
the student. The student in both cases
asks for the richest life. In the former
he gets life, indeed, but it is thin and
emasculated; in the latter he gets only
a book.

I suppose the better and the best
method is embodied in the college and
the teacher who becomes an expert in the
knowledge of his department, and who
uses the stores of acquired knowledge to
invigorate his teaching. Such teachers
are not unknown. They still live, but
they are indeed few, lamentably few.
The teacher who is rich in knowledge
and loves his students and who delights
to pour out his knowledge to enrich and
to form, and not simply to inform his
students, represents the inspiring type.

Possibly one may say that it is not the
relatively unjust love for truth over

love for the student which results in poor
teaching. But rather it is the relatively
unjust love that the teacher has for his
own fame. For the fame of the college
teacher is born rather of the book which
he writes, or the investigation which he
makes, than of the men whom he trains.
Such remarks are not altogether foreign
to my ears. But I dismiss them at once.
For they are, if occasionally true in the
case of the individual, not so true in
either their qualitative or quantitative
relations as they are made to appear.
Yet it is to be said that the promotion of
teachers in the American college depends
far less upon their power as teachers
than upon their power as investigators
and writers. Too great emphasis is, by
the body of trustees, given to the mere
qualities of scholarship in advancing their
professional associates.

I do not doubt that the presence of
the lecture system in the college con-
tributes to the poverty of our teaching.
The lecture system has many advan-
tages. It offers an opportunity for the
teacher rapidly to survey and lay out
the field and to point out its significant
parts. It gives a condensation of the
book, or of many books, through the voice
and personality of the professor with, it
is to be hoped, impressiveness and inter-
pretativeness. The lecture ought to be
more impressive, as well as more justly
informing, than the text-book. The
lecture also lays upon the student the
duty of taking notes. Taking notes is
first-rate intellectual discipline. It
trains to discrimination, obliging the
student to separate the essential from
the accidental, the necessary from the
irrelevant; compelling him to judge be-
tween what is to be elaborated and what
deserves slight consideration. But, not-
withstanding these advantages, lectur-
ing is not teaching. The college lecture
has for its immediate and primary pur-
pose the conveying of knowledge. Col-
lege teaching has for its immediate and

190

THE LAMP

primary purpose the training of the stu-
dent. The one fixes its eye on truth, or
possibly on truthfulness, the other on the
man. I suppose one may say in passing
that the proper method is for the college
teacher to have two eyes, the one for
truth, and the other for the student.
Socrates had two, if we may believe
Xenophon and Plato. It is certainly
significant that in recent years the rela-
tive relationship in German universities
of the lecture and of the seminar has
changed. The lecture has become less,
and the seminar, more important. This
change apparently means that German
professors are having a higher regard
for truth in relation to their students
than they once had.

We compare the old education and
the new; we contrast the old and small
college without laboratories or libraries
with the rich and large college nobly
equipped. I am sure we are giving a
better education to-day in the colleges
and schools than we were giving twenty
or fifty years ago. I am sure we shall
give a better education in the future de-
cades. But let it always be said that the
college of our fathers and grandfathers,
poor in purse, slight in equipment, weak
in scholarship, had a tremendous influ-
ence in making our fathers and grand-
fathers greater men than the modern
college makes some of our sons. It made
them greater by the devotion of the
teachers to their students. Much love
for the student plus little knowledge
was, and is, more effective than little
love for the student plus great knowl-
edge. In certain ways the same condi-
tion, in kind, holds between the small
and aggressive denominational college
and the large and noble university. The
large and noble universit}^ is far better,
of course. But no one would think of
denying that very strong men, even if
narrow and prejudiced, do come forth
from what we may call the ultra-relig-
ious college. In the college, as in the
home, piety often helps mightily toward

the formation of strong intellectual
character.

What is to be done? What method
can the college adopt to relieve the weak
point in our system of education? Let
me say that I believe the best teaching
done in the world in the higher educa-
tion for the ordinary student is done in
the American college. For, though the
American college teacher is far more in-
terested in truth than he is in humanity,
his interest in humanity is greater than
is the similar interest of the professor at
Oxford or Berlin. The American stu-
dent, too, has a certain keenness and re-
sponsiveness which are unique among
the students of the world. But despite
the relative value of the pedagogical re-
sults secured, these results should be-
come absolutely far greater. In answer,
however, to the question. What should
te done? I am sure that the method
does not lie in the depreciation of scholar-
ship. Veritas shall always remain on
the college shield. The fire on the altar
of scholarship shall not be suffered to
flicker. The strengthening lies simply
in the selection of men who, being great
lovers of truth, shall also be great lovers
of men. Mere methods of teaching
have, of course, their value in aiding the
college teacher in the beginning of his
career. The normal school helps one
to know his tools, and to adjust his tools
to the materials in which he works. It
saves necessity of experience. The reme-
dy, therefore, lies simply in the selection
of men who are really shepherds of the
class. The pastoral instinct is impor-
tant for the teacher. The best teacher
kindles before his class as an orator be-
fore his audience. But his kindling is
not the burning of tinder, for the hour.
It is at once a cause and a result of a
burning, but not consuming, affection
for the student. Truth fused with love
for the man to whom truth is taught
makes truth the noblest tool in the con-
trol of the teacher for the education of
man. But the truth must be fused.

MME. SARAH BERNHARDT IN THE COSTUME OF THEROIGNE DE MERICOURT

SARAH BERNHARDT, PLAYWRIGHT

By Arsene Alexandre

With drawings by M. Clairin in collaboration with Mmc. Bernhardt

AN innovation has found a place in
the French theatrical world dur-
ing the last few years.

French actors, not content with in-
terpreting plays, have taken to writing
plays. The literary spirit has wakened
in their breasts, and they have turned

out, in abundance, plays which have
found ready production, even if the
presentation has not always resulted in
success. The striking thing about this
movement is the number of the actors
who have caught the literary contagion.
At the Comedie Frangaise alone — ap-

CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE DUCHESS AND HER INTIMATE FRIEND.

propriately enough, for is it not the
house of Moliere? — there are three or
four of the actor playwrights. Another
surprising feature of the situation is that,
without exception, the authors leave the
principal roles of their plays in the hands
of fellow-actors.

This latter fact at once differentiates
the present dramatic evolution from that
of the days of Moliere and Shakespeare,
when the great men, in whose footsteps
their descendants are modestly essaying
to tread, wrote the leading roles of their
dramas for their own use, and trusted
only the lesser parts to the rest of the
company.

France has no monopoly of the actor-
pi ay WTight to-day,
but France hampers
her literary actors
wM*th restrictions
w^hich are certainly
unique, and it is of
these restrictions, as
illustrated in one
particularly notable
case, that I intend

THE OLD ABBE. ^^ WTlte.

Professional jeal-
ousy is at the bottom of the whole im-
broglio. The spirit of jealousy and of
personal interest burns so fiercely in
our theatrical world that the actors
in one of our companies would never

consent to interpret a play written by
one of their number. On the other
hand, the manager, who has difficulty
enough in keeping the peace under the
most favorable conditions, would never
voluntarily court trouble by imposing
upon his company a play by one of his
actors. He decidedly prefers leaving
the experiment to one of his fellow-
managers. He knows his people — and,
moreover, he hasn't absolute confidence
in the literary genius of even his most
able actor. It is quite on the cards that
he may, to-morrow, accept a play writ-
ten by an actor who treads the boards
of some neighboring theatre, but that is
altogether a different proposition.

Why doesn't the actor-dramatist take
another hint from the time of Moliere
and Shakespeare and act as his own
impresariof

The question seems a logical one, but
logic is not the distinguishing character-
istic of the theatrical world in general
or of the French theatrical world in par-
ticular. The answer to the question is
prompt and simple. The French actor
doesn't put his own play upon the stage
for the very sufficient reason that he
can't do it. It is forbidden!

This statement will, I fancy, surprise
more than one American reader who
harbors the notion that France, no less
than her sister republic, America, is a

THE LAMP

193

land of the free. It may even surprise a
certain number of Frenchmen, and it
not only surprises but enrages one noted
Frenchwoman — Madame Sarah Bern-
hardt.

Let me explain the exasperating and
difficult situation in which this famous
artist finds herself placed.

She told me all about it when I called,
in the interests of The Lamp, to ask
her for information about her much-
discussed play, "The Duchess Cath-
erine," which has not yet been produced
and possibly may not have a production
as long as the present absurd conditions
exist in the French theatre.

"When I think," cried Madame
Bernhardt, vehemently, "that if Moliere
could come back to us to-day, he would
not have the right to play his 'Misan-
thrope' or his *Avare* in his own theatre
— the rules of the Societe des Auteurs
Dramatiques would not permit it. He
would never die on the stage, now, in
pronouncing the *juro* of his 'Malade
Imaginaire.' The Societe des Auteurs
Dramatiques would see to it that he
had no opportunity for anything so ir-
regular. They would stand with their
list of rules and forbid him to act in
his own play, on his own stage, in his
own theatre! Evidently other countries
are more liberal than our France. One
must admit it, since, in more than one
country actors and authors buy theatres
for the express purpose of being able to
produce their own plays as they want
them produced."

"But why do you submit to the tyran-
ny?" I asked. "Why not defy the So-
ciety? It isn't so all-powerful that you
could not break with it. If you should
set aside all its pretensions, there is no
law that can prevent your producing
your play in your own theatre."

"That is all very well; but, when I
do that, I give up the right to produce
the plays of the members of the Society ;
and all the successful dramatists, the men

whose plays swell box-office receipts, are
among those members. I couldn't give
the plays of Sardou — of Rostand. When
one has the responsibility of a theatre on
her shoulders one cannot scorn such con-
siderations as those. Mon Dieu, I am
willing to throw away money — any
amount of money — in order to achieve a

^.,00

JEAN DE MAUPRE S MOTHKR.

triumph for art — I have always revelled
in the battle for art ideals; but then>
when I have had my dance, I must pay
the piper, must have some way of mak-
ing money for the payment, find a play
sure of popular success. I dare not rely
upon unwritten plays and upon un-
known and gifted playwrights who pos-
sibly do not exist at all."

"Why couldn't dramatists like Sar-
dou and Rostand found a rival society
based upon liberal principles?"

"They do not care to plunge into a
battle in which they would be the glori-
ous conquered — glorious, but conquered
all the same."

It was in the loge of the actress that
I had this talk with her; and, in all
Paris, there is no nook more exquisite
than this loge in Bernhardt's own the-
atre, on the Place de Chatelet. The
salon upon which it opens is a marvel of
good taste and harmony, all in white
and pale yellow, furnished in Empire
fashion, strewn with amusing and valu-
able bibelots, with rare books in beauti-

194

THE LAMP

ful bindings, and, above all, with flow-
ers — masses of flowers.

"There are never too many flowers
around me," says the actress. "I am
insatiate of their color and their per-
fume."

On the evening of my interview,
"Theroigne de Mericourt," Paul Her-
vieus*s charming play, was on the boards.
From time to time an actor in eigh-
teenth-century costume, a grande dame
of Marie Antoinette's court, in powder,
patches, panniers, or a farouche trico-
teuse joined the group in the yellow
salon; and as Madame Bernhardt,
piquant in the Revolutionary
costume of Theroigne, hurled
her dramatic and revolution-
ary denunciation against the
tyrannical society of dramatic
authors, one imagined that
the rattle of musketry and
the sounds of the "Marseil-
laise" were in the air.

The atmosphere of Ma-
dame Bernhardt's theatre is
unique in Paris. One finds
there a refinement, a polish,
an elegance, a courtesy which
would be possible only in a theatre con-
trolled by a woman — and by such a
woman as this remarkable Bernhardt.
Her personality dominates the place.
Her associates would allow themselves
to be cut into small pieces at her com-
mand. They speak of her with the re-
spectful devotion due a queen. There
is a world of homage and of affection
even in the manner in which the least
important of the theatre folk presents to
the reigning sovereign a bunch of violets
worth two sous.

But it is Bernhardt the writer of
plays, not Bernhardt the woman, the
artist, the manager, whom I have come
to interview, and I once more bring the
conversation around to "The Duchess
Catherine," of whose literary birth
America has already heard.

PHILIP, JEAN S INTI-
MATE FRIEND.

"Yes," says the author in reply to my
question, "it is, as you say, my first seri-
ous play. My first dramatic experiment
was TAveu,' a one-act play, which was
put on successfully at the Odeon — and,
by the way, it is to that little play that
I owe the honor of belonging to this fa-
mous Societe des Auteurs Dramatiques.
*L'Aveu' had only one act, but it was
too ruthlessly condensed. There was
enough material in it to have made four
good acts.

"In *The Duchess Catherine,* on the
contrary, I have fully developed my
theme, and I have put into the play —
or at least I have tried to put
into it — every shade of pas-
sion — all that my experience
of the theatre has taught
me in the management of
sentiment and action and in
the production of dramatic
effect."

"When and where did you
write the play?" I asked.
She smiled.

"At all times — every-
where. When I travel, what
can I do with the hours if
I do not write? It is when I am on the
wing that I write my memoirs; and
*The Duchess Catherine' can claim
various salon cars and steamboats as her
birthplaces."

"And, now that the play is finished,
why don't you have it produced in some
Parisian theatre other than your own,
since you are not allowed to present it
on your stage?"

"Ah, but one must find someone to
interpret it, and that is no easy matter.
There is Rejane, of course. She is an
admirable artist; but would this role of
mine suit her perfectly? Would it be
adapted to her particular form of talent
and her physique? I doubt it.

"The Duchess Catherine is a descend-
ant of one of the oldest of the great
Florentine families. At the time of her

JEAN DE MAUPRE, THE DUCHESJ CATHERINE (mADAME SARAH BP:RNHARDT), AND GIULIETTA.

^ I

196

THE LAMP

JEAN.

marriage she was the most aristocratic
and the most impoverished representa-
tive of Tuscan no-
bility. She is thirty-
four years old when
the action of the
play takes place, and
is in the perfection
of a splendid and
passionate beauty.

"You want a gen-
eral outline of my
play? Well, you
shall have it, and I will authorize you
to give it to your American readers —
always provided you do not
make your revelation too
complete, for I shall cer-
tainly end by producing that
play myself on one of my
foreign tours, and it must
not be robbed of interest.

"*The Duchess Cath-
erine* has been read to cer-
tain theatrical managers
here in Paris, so it cannot
be called an absolutely un-
known work; but it is cer-
tainly by a mere coincidence that the
situation from which the play is evolved
offers a certain analogy with the 'L' Au-
tre Danger,' by Maurice Donnay, re-
cently given at the Comedie Fran<;aise.
Both plays have for motif a rivalr>' be-
tween mother and daughter — although,
in my plot, the mother is only a step-
mother."

It is natural enough that Madame
Bernhardt should not be able to find
for her "Duchess Catherine" the inter-
preter of whom she dreams. That in-
terpreter could, in truth, be no one save
Sarah Bernhardt herself; for, in the
smallest detail, as in the greatest lines,
this role is written so closely around her
personality and genius that even in read-
ing the manuscript one imagines one sees
Bernhardt, breathing, moving, speaking,
loving, suffering, dying.

juliette smelling
jean's flowers.

And now a description of the forms
under which the tragedy develops.

The action passes in the palace and
gardens of the Duchess at Florence.

"I chose Italy," explained Madame
Bernhardt, "because I adore that coun-
try, and because, in my eyes, it is the
country where all the great romantic
sentiments find their natural atmosphere,
their proper setting — ^because it is the
country, par excellence, of beauty, volup-
tuousness, passion. And then the Flo-
rentine nights! They are so beautiful.
They form such a wonderful setting for
certain scenes in my drama."

The Duchess Catherine
was early widowed. She
had married a man, old,
jealous, and superlatively
rich. He had brought to
her, with his name, an im-
mense fortune and a young
daughter by a former mar-
riage. He left to her when
he died the care of the
daughter, but not the fort-
une. That is to say, he
discriminated so emphatical-
ly in favor of his daughter Giulietta,
when it came to bestowing his money,
that the wife was left comparatively
poor once more.

However, the feeling between the
Duchess and her step-daughter was most
tender, and even the will did not aflect
it. All would have gone well if a
storm-cloud had not formed upon the
horizon.

There had been a certain method in
the old Duke's madness. He had not
been moved solely by aflEection for his
daughter in making his will. An idea
of vengeance had guided him, of ven-
geance whose subtlety should not sur-
prise us, since we are now in a country
and in a society where the traditions of
Machiavelli are kept intact.

The Duke had discovered that his
Duchess loved a young Frenchman, Jean

THE LAMP

197

de Maupre, and, as much with the idea
of punishing this fault directly, as of
preparing a punishment still more se-
vere for the future, he had disinherited
the wife in favor of the daughter.

Now let us understand, at once, that
Monsieur Jean de Maupre is not worthy
of the ardent and noble passion which
he has inspired in the beautiful and sen-
timental Duchess.

In his conversations with friends of
the Duchess he shows himself to be a
man irresolute, sensual, leading the ir-
regular and unprincipled life of the class,
rich and prosperous in outward seeming,
adventurers in fact, for whom modern
slang has appropriated the word "aquili-
briste."

He is in no haste to marry the ardent
Duchess who has been his mistress, and
who confesses to her woman confidant

THE DUCHESS PREPARING THE VIALS OF POISON
FOR HER SUICIDE.

that she loves him madly without re-
specting him greatly. Here is the old
incurable weakness of womankind, and
Jean's coldness and indifference seem to
stimulate the woman's passion rather
than to cure it.

Moreover, Jean is not altogether cold.
Though not enthusiastic, he agrees to
marry his mistress — but here the plot

thickens. The reader will already have
divined the coming complication; but,
lest there should be any
misunderstanding, Jean
makes open confession
to one of the conven-
ient friends who exist
dramatically for such
purposes. He is still
in love with the Duch-
ess, but at the same a guest.
time he has become ex-
ceedingly interested in Giulietta. Hardly
an admirable character, this Jean; but
beauty, elegance, and youth are given
him to gloss his failings.

The charming Giulietta, all this time,
has not been blind to the advances of
Jean; and when her amorous step-
mother announces to her that M. de
Maupre is to become a member of the
family, she supposes, naturally enough,
that he has asked for her hand and that
her step-mother has consented to the
match.

She confesses ingenuously that M. de
Maupre has been making love to her,
sending her flowers ever>^ day.

The Duchess, infuriated, rages against
her step-daughter, whose innocence pre-
vents her from understanding the sud-
den violence.

Scene follows scene, each with its own
interest, but I must confine myself to
the mere framework of the drama.

Jean de Maupre, despite the beautiful
and touching pleading of his mother,
despite the indignation of his confiden-
tial friend who tries to interfere with
his infamous plans, persuades Giulietta
to grant him a rendezvous in the con-
servatories of the park on an evening
when the ducal palace is en fete.

The Duchess learns of the rendez-
vous, and goes to the trysting-place,
where she finds Giulietta alone. The
daughter at last comprehends the fatal
secret; but here the play holds a surprise.

Instead of hate, the situation rouses

198

THE LAMP

only nobility and generosity. Each
woman is willing to sacrifice herself for
the other; but, for the moment, Giuli-
etta abandons the scene to the Duchess,
who has a stormy explanation with her
faithless lover.

Driven into a corner, Jean unmasks,
shows himself as he is; but, oddly
enough, the frank and selfish cynicism
he displays, without rehabilitating him,
gives him a certain dignity and attrac-
tiveness. He vows that his real passion
is, as it has always been, for the Duchess
Catherine, and that, though he has been
attracted by the grace and tenderness of
Giulietta, it is the desire of her immense
fortune which has become a veritable
obsession with him.

He is hopelessly ruined. He is used
to luxury. It is a part of his life.
Giulietta*s millions are necessary to him.
Moreover, he has ruined his mother;
has, unknown to her, pledged the family
estates to his creditors. He must avert
total disaster, and in Giulietta's fortune
lies his only chance. His avowal to
Catherine almost takes the form of a
defiance.

The Duchess resolves to die. An old
priest tries in vain to save her by argu-
ment, beautiful, human, eloquent. He
shows her that there are on earth myri-
ad beings whose sufferings are greater
than hers and bravely endured; but her
decision is made. She will die, although
the priest has persuaded her that by so
doing she will incur the supreme curse.

The rest of the play is given up to
this death, the most powerful, the most
beautiful scene of the drama. The
Duchess poisons herself and dies at a
ball — dies in dancing. I must omit the
details here. To give them would dis-
count the effect of the scene; but of
one thing I am sure — when Sarah plays
that scene there will be wet eyes in the
house.

Each phrase, each word, are written
for Sarah Bernhardt by Sarah Bern-
hardt herself, and are written with
amazing skill and sensibility. The play's
finale offers a superb opportunity for the
display of its author's own remarkable
histrionic genius.

The sketches which illustrate this ar-
ticle are due to the collaboration of Ma-
dame Bernhardt and her good friend
M. Clairin, the eminent artist. They
have shown us their conceptions of the
three principal characters in the drama
and of several minor personages. I
have also included in the illustrations
the latest portrait of Madame Bern-
hardt in the costume which she wore
when she gave me my interview in the
flower-decked salon of the Place de
Chatelet — the costume of Theroigne de
Mericourt. Here is the Bernhardt
whom all the world knows — Bernhardt
of the brilliant intellect, of the youthful
face and personality, preserved as by
miracle, of the extraordinary vitality, of
the unfailing charm — Bernhardt, the
fascinating woman, the great artist.

LETTERS AND LIFE
By John Finley

CARLYLE has added to the Beati-
tudes: "Blessed is he who has

found his work." And to this he has
appended an injunction not as barring
other felicities, but rather as suggestive
of the stretch and scope of this one:
"Let him ask no other blessedness."
The solaces and rewards which are
promised the meek, the mourning, the
merciful, the peace-makers, and the per-
secuted are here embraced in an omni-
bus clause; for he who has found his
work has, by implication, found the
Kingdom, and "all these things shall be
added."

The life which is resurrect in the re-
cently published letters of Max Miiller
seems out of the multitude to have
caught this blessing of Carlyle, this
beatitude which is so characteristic of
the gruflf-tempered Scotchman who had
difficulty in saying even amiable things
amiably, for it has, after all, an im-
precatory air. A man upon whom this
beatitude falls is, with all its blessing,
ver}' much in the plight of Adam when
the gates were shut behind him. Find-
ing one's work is finding a compelling
ideal or ambition which stands over one
not less mercilessly than a curse, day and
night, and neither lets one mourn nor
perish of reviling. It is losing an ely-
sian, irresponsible idleness, a wandering
from tree to tree for livelihood, but it is
finding one's life. And if to live is to
work, as Max Miiller himself asks at
the death of Mendelssohn, only to an-
swer by imputing him longer life than to
many who had lived twice his years, then
to find one's work and find it early is
to find a blessedness which needs not
to be augmented by supplication. In-
deed, a man's best prayer, once he has
found his work, is that he may keep

the last clause of the tenth command-
ment.

This does not compel one to a nar-
row life. It means concentration; that
is necessary. There will be greater or
more economical production, but there
will be by-products also. As everybody
knows, combination and concentration
in the industrial world have indirectly
added much to human happiness by the
creation of satisfactions which are only
incidental to the kerosene or steel bars
they set out to make. Indeed these in-
cidental satisfactions are sometimes the
chief source of profit to producer and
consumer alike. All of which brings one
to say, by way of much enticing ana-
logue, that though Max Miiller's philo-
logical work — which was peculiarly his
work — has undoubtedly contributed
something of inestimable value to the
world's riches, the by-product which we
have in these letters* ministers more im-
mediately and widely to the wants of
the humanity of Christendom. Had he
set out consciously to create these for
the world's market he would have failed.
Like happiness, character, and a few
other things most sought and prized,
they can exist, in the nature of things,
only as side products. Smaller lives
might have saved the "Vedas" from de-
struction, might have builded the great
language-bridge across the centuries
from 1900 A.D. back to 1900 B.c.^ but
no one of them with his little capital
could profitably have filled these pages,
nor all of them together, except under
the genius of such a master and or-
ganizer.

There must be no waste of time, no
idling, no dawdling. This is the iterate

* Life and letters of ihe Ru Hon. Friedrich Max MulUr.
Edited by hi» Wife. In two volumes. Longmans, Green,
& Co., New York, 1902.

200

THE LAMP

Strain which weaves itself through the
varied themes of the letters of the youth
and man. It is in Paris, after his re-
university preparation in Germany, that
he sets his face toward the goal which
he was a quarter of a century in reach-
ing — in Paris, with only a half dozen
acquaintances, newly made, with most
meagre means, living alone, often not
speaking to a soul for twenty-four hours
round, yet never regretting his choice.
He is just beginning the collection of
materials and their copying for an edi-
tion of the Rig-Veda, He works all
day, with only two dry rolls, till even-
ing; one night all night, the next sleeps
but two hours, goes to bed the third
night, and then begins again. But he
has found his work, and fleas, which
swarm in his room, and rheumatism,
and all else do not much disturb him.
When he is in Paris again, a few years
later, after his settlement in Oxford,
the revolution of 1848 is on, but even
the turmoil of these days cannot divert
him. Once he narrowly escapes the
mob, but he writes his mother that, "in
spite of the great excitement, he is able
to collect himself enough to work hard
— and that quiets one." Nearing thirty-
one, he finds a quarter of a year as im-
portant as a year formerly, and decides
that "one must be more economical of
time and give up many things that are
a pleasure, but for which one's time is
too precious." At thirty-five his amuse-
ments are "giving lectures and correct-
ing proof-sheets," and at forty- four he
IS feeling that he might have done a
great deal more if only he had kept the
one object of his life more steadily in
view. Of that object (the editing of
the Rig-Veda and Commentary) he says
that he feels convinced it will tell on
the fate of India and the growth of
millions of souls. It is the root of their
religion, and to show them what the
root is, is the only way of uprooting what
has sprung from it. "If these thoughts

pass through one's mind one does not
grudge the hours and days and weeks
spent in staying in people's houses, and
one feels that with the many blessings
showered upon one, one ought to be up
and doing w^hat may be God's work."
This smells strongly of the lamp and
sounds of the pulpit ; but if you had been
passing his Oxford house about this time
you might have seen him jumping out of
his window to smell of the roses, and
then back at his work again. The letters
of the first volume (of which alone I
can here speak) have no melancholy or
gloom in them, despite this pervasive
"strenuousness," as we should call it to-
day. He did not sit, as his old fellow-
student under Brunouf in Paris, Bar-
thelemy St. Hilaire, was wont in his
later years, always by lamp-light, with
the daylight carefully excluded. Till
fifty certainly, his windows were never
shut against the world in which he lived.
With all his devotion to his great work,
he used to say that "man ought not to
live by Sanskrit alone." Fortunately he
failed of election to the Sanskrit pro-
fessorship in Oxford in i860. Had he
been chosen to that chair he might have
speciah'zed so intensely as to have put
himself beyond the competition of all
other interests and to have become in-
different to things of more general con-
cern. As it was, he was driven into the
field of comparative philology, where he
became not a listener, merely, to the
chorus of innumerable voices, but a con-
ductor, a director, through whose lead-
ing all discords melt away into higher
harmonies, till at last we hear but one
majestic trichord, or mighty unison, as
at the end of a sacred symphony. It was
such a vision that came into the heart
of this grammarian, a true lover of
words, in the midst of his toilsome re-
search, feeling the conviction that men
are brethren in the simplest sense of the
word, whatever their country, color,
language, or faith.

MAX MULLER AT THE AGE OF 78.

And as it was in helping to develop
this harmony that he found his work, so
it was in music that he found his recrea-
tion. It was his most inspiriting com-
panion through many years; it intro-
duced him in many a foreign place and
smoothed many rough ways. He had
always (except in the days of his great-
est penury) a piano. "Poetry," he said,
in one of his letters, "is like poverty,
because both the true poet and the truly
poor are ashamed to show what they
suffer and what they are longing for;
but it is not so with music, for you find

men ashamed to indulge in poetical sen-
timent plunging with their whole soul
into the Unknown, the Infinite, the
Beautiful and the Divine when it ap-
peals to their hardened hearts with the
sound of music."

"But after all the greatest of all arts
is the art of life, and the best of all
music the harmony of spirits." It is of
this art and in this music that his letters
are most instructive — and especially the
letters to his mother, the widow of the
poet and philologist, Wilhelm Miiller,
who remained in Germany the greater

ao2

THE LAMP

part of her life, and, so, separated from
her son. These simple, homely, and, for
the most part, brief messages as honor-
ably distinguish the soul of the man as
the numerous degrees and orders which
he received from the universities and
learned societies of the world mark his
service to learning. What is most no-
ticeable in many of them is the honest
faith, which his profound studies do not
in the least disturb, and the serenity of
spirit which bends a hopeful sky, though
not always cloudless, over his troubles.
*'We are not here on earth for reward,"
he writes his mother, mourning the death
of a grandchild, "for the enjoyment of
undisturbed peace, or from mere ac-
cident, but for trial, for improvement,
perhaps for punishment" ; for the only
union which can insure the happiness of
men is broken or obscured in birth, and
the highest object of our life is to find
this bond again, to remain ever conscious
of it, and hold fast to it in life and
death. 'This rediscovery of the eternal
union between God and man consti-
tutes true religion among all people.
Religion means binding together again."

No doubt, he writes again, "the soul
must find it difficult in childhood to ac-
custom itself to the human body, and it
takes many years before it is quite at
home. Then for a time all goes well,
till the body becomes weakly and can no
longer do what the soul wishes, and
presses against it ever>'where."

When his mother shows undue thrift
he urges her not to be always thinking
how she can save a few shillings, but to
enjoy the years with constant gratitude,
to "recollect every moment what is
eternal, and never lose one's self in the
small or even in the large cares of life."
When new troubles come, he heartens
one with: "One look up to heaven, and
all the dust of the highroad of life van-
ishes. Even that dark shadow of death
vanishes." Impatience, gloom, murmurs,
and tears do not help, do not alter any-

thing, and make the road longer, not
shorter. So he is constantly writing,
"Let us occupy ourselves with the 'do-
ing' " and "let us never lose faith in the
ideal life."

These filial letters, full of sentiment,
are but as holy water sprinkled through
the pages of politics, philolog>', mythol-
og\% natural science, and divers other
subjects, which are all to him as sacred
utensils. One needs no acquaintance
with Sanskrit to follow the ser\'ice. He
is lucid always; indeed he contends that
"nothing is true which is not clear." He
is not infected with the "aristocratic
arrogance of scholars," but prefers one
small intelligible volum.e to five unread-
able volum.cs, even though the latter
would get him more fame and money.
"What I have worked out," he says,
"may be good or bad, but every culti-
vated man, be he Englishman or Kaffir*
knows what I am driving at and how
matters stand." What he once wrote a
friend about the reading of the Greek
classics might be well put in preface
to these compendious volumes: "They
ought not to be read as if they were
very wise and learned and unintelligible
books, but as if they were written by a
nan whcm we know and like." "If
Plato and Aristotle came to stay at our
house most of our young ladies . . .
would converse with them as they do
with Maurice or Kingsley," as, indeed.
Princess Beatrice did with Max Miiller
hinise'f when he went to Osborne to
lecture. "He did not inspire one with
fear," she said, "as some very learned
people do."

What is best in these letters, how-
ever, is not their informational quality,
not the glim*pses they give of the dim,
half-revealed, m.ysterious world to which
his studies have cut vistas here and there,
but the acquaintanceships and friend-
ships which they, page after page, give
to him who cares for such association.
A partial list of the names of those with

'w '*Ui»r &-6oiA4fM /tA-^H.

^^ice^V KtcforiO/ ett^Ae^ctn^ of!A€/U€>j'i/y-€<<^/U}

InadomJuliliabed by Smith.Eldor fcCo 15 Wa'erloo Pjire.

204

THE LAMP

whom Max Miiller had correspondence
and social and learned intercourse must
suffice to show to what a circle he is
admitted who reads even the first vol-
ume. In the second the circle must be
even larger. Many crowned heads asked
him to their tables, and, though one is
sometimes debarred from the converse
there, one may sit a welcome guest with
Prince Leopold when he comes to Parks
End (Max Miiller's Oxford home) to
meet Emerson, or find that there is a
place for one beside the undecorated
young scholar when he goes with Hum-
boldt to dine with the King of Prussia.
One may hear Mendelssohn play and
Jenny Lind sing; but, better still, one
may come to know, or to know better, a
host of public men and scholars having
a common acquaintance or friend in the
Oxford professor who had expatriated
himself to do his life work, though he
would have forced circumstances to help
him do it wherever he had lived we can-
not doubt. Among these were: Macau-
lay and Gladstone; Stanley, Farrar, and
Milman; Huxley, Darwin, and Tyn-
dall; Bunsen and Burnouf; Palgrave,
Freeman, Renan, Schliemann, the Duke
of Argyll, and, dearest among them all,
Charles Kingsley — stammering, breath-
less, helpless, but with "eyes soaring
above the present to the Hereafter.**

Among Max Miiller's letters are two
which tell of visits to Osborne and
Windsor at the command of the Queen ;
once in 1864, when he spent three-quar-
ters of an hour with Her Majesty, she
talking in a "most brilliant and interest-
ing way," speaking German "better than
I do," asking "me to tell her about my
work," and speaking a great deal about
Bunsen, about Prince Albert, and about
Schleswig-Holstein ; again, a few weeks
later, when he gave two lectures at
Osborne, the Queen, who had not at-
tended a lecture in ten years, listening
attentively, and not knitting, though
her work was brought; and again, in

1875, when he was summoned to Wind-
sor to present his last volume of the
Rig-veda to her. At this last visit she
spoke with deep feeling of Kingsley,
who had just died, talked of the schools
in Germany and England and of Ten-
nyson's new play, "Queen Mary."
"You cannot imagine the dignity and
graciousness of the Queen when she
spoke with composure of Prince Albert,"
he wrote in 1864. "Nothing could be
kinder than the Queen," he added in
1875.

When one turns to Sidney Lee's Life
of Queen Victoria* for the political con-
text of his domesticity-, dignity, calm,
and kindliness in which Max Miiller's
letters discover her, one finds her, in
those first days of 1864, deeply con-
cerned about the Schleswig-Holstein af-
fair, sympathizing herself with the Ger-
mans, but confronted by popular feeling
for Denmark and by a ministry endeav-
oring to commit England to active in-
terference in Denmark's behalf; and, in
1875, offering mediation against a pos-
sible renewal of the Franco- Prussian
War. So that, with all her tranquil
interest in homely matters and in per-
sonal achievement of her subjects, she
sits through Max Miiller's lectures with
political affairs heavy on her mind, or
rather her heart, for her policies were
shaped of sentiment and not devised of
economic counsel or dictated of political
theory. And she who walks through
Mr. Lee's attractive pages, though ver>'
human, is, even when travelling incog-
nito on the Continent or leading her
quiet life in the humble mode of her
Scottish home, where of an evening, in
the cramped quarters of Balmoral, she
had constantly to move to give the play-
ers at billiards elbow space, or by day
ran carelessly in and out, visiting neigh-
boring cottages and chatting unreserved-
ly with their occupants — is even in these

•Queen Vicioria. A Kiography by Sidney I.ee. New
York, The Macmillan Company.

THE LAMP

205

simple ways ever Her Majesty, jealously
guarding her office and with a certain
obstinacy maintaining the dignity of
which democracy threatened to rob it.

Mr. Lee has sought, as he says, to
subordinate the scenery to the royal
actor, to keep out politics in greater de-
tail than is needful to make the actor's
experiences and opinions intelligible.
But it is inevitable under England's
form of government that the Prime
Minister should also and always be on
the stage with Her Majesty, and in the
foreground when the lines touch upon
politics. The other conspicuous figure
during the first acts of her reign is, of
course, Prince Albert. The remaining
characters are unobtrusive.

It is, with all its imperial splendor,
a rather pathetic story. And yet Mr.
Lee has given the royal influence its full
value and has portrayed the Queen with
a tactful fidelity and a courtesy which
would have done credit to Lord Bea-
consfield himself. It is remembered
that Disraeli once remarked with apt-
ness, "Gladstone treats the Queen like
a public department; I treat her like a
Queen." Mr. Lee has emulated Dis-
raeli. He is not discourteously eager to
remind the reader of the constitutional
limitations by which the Crown is
hedged about, nor does he fail ever
promptly to credit the Queen and the
Prince Consort with whatever their per-
sonal efforts have achieved for the
Crown, whose real power seemed grad-
ually slipping away. Note especially the
"Trent affair," in which the Prince's
intervention on behalf of the Queen for
a "gentler phraseology^" permitted a
peaceful issue of the American quarrel ;
the Schleswig-Holstein trouble, in which
the credit of upholding in England a
neutral policy is laid at the door of the
Queen, and her mediation with the
Lords in behalf of the Irish Disestab-
lishment Bill.

And yet, again and again, with all his

courtesy, the position of the Queen is
that which is known in chess as stale-
mate, the position in which the "king"
when required to move, though appar-
ently not in check, cannot move without
being placed in check. Palmerston was
heartless, if not brutal, when the game
reached this stage; Gladstone was in-
different, but constitutionally correct;
Disraeli was tactful and astute, and
managed his move with such felicity as
not to leave a wound. The Queen her-
self acquiesced always with outward
grace, but keeping with persistency her
own opinion. She complied always with
the constitutional obligation of giving
formal assent to every final decision of
her advisers, however obnoxious, yet
never without exerting in advance what
influence she could upon the machinery
of government to prevent what she at
heart opposed, or to secure what she at
heart wanted.

But despite her "imperious will," her
"great physical and mental energy," and
her "exceptional breadth of sympathy,"
the positive force of such prerogatives as
the Crown possessed at the beginning of
her reign diminished rather than in-
creased; and, as Mr. Lee observes, ex-
cept for the identification of British
sovereignty with the unifying spirit of
imperialism, it is doubtful if she would
have died in unchallenged possession of
such wide popular regard and venera-
tion. Royal influence did increase, and
that through the force and appeal of her
character and homely virtues, but the
royal power was diminished. This loss
is attributed partly to her respect for the
constitution, partly to the growth of
democratic principles. But, whatever
the cause, the Crown in her reign lost
its personal authority over the army, its
prerogatives of mercy, and much of its
old appointive power; and it lost, too,
through failure to comply with the old
forms, the "semblance of hold on the
central force of government."

2o6

THE LAMP

I can give here but slight suggestions
of the theme and color of Mr. Lee's nar-
rative. I find that I am even now
wandering from the personal Queen to
the impersonal Crown; from her char-
acter to its prerogative. The book has
two excellent portraits of the Queen,
but, good as these are, there is a better
in Mr. Lee's last chapter, which I can
reproduce only in barest sketch, hoping
it may send the reader to the original :

The Queen disliked war, yet she
treated it as a dread necessit}^ under cer-
tain conditions, and deemed it wrong
to purchase peace at the expense of na-
tional rights and dignity; she had a
wealth of donnestic affection, which was
allied to a tenderness of feeling and
breadth of sympathy with mankind gen-
erally; she was not altogether free from
that morbid tendency of mind springing
from excessive contemplation of sorrow,
yet it was held in check by an innate
cheerfulness; the ingenuousness of youth
was never extinguished ; she was easily
amused and never at a loss for recrea-
tion; she sketched, played the piano,
sang, did needlework, etc. ; the attrac-
tion of golf was incomprehensible; her
artistic sense was not strong; she pre-
ferred, in dress and furniture, the fash-
ions of her early married days; she was
not a good judge of painting; in music
she showed greater taste and had far
greater knowledge; there, too, she was
stanch to the heroes of her youth ; she
was devoted to the theatre ; she was not

well read ; probably she derived as much
satisfaction from Marion Crawford's
books as from those of any contemporary
writer of fiction; she dressed simply and
without much taste; in talk she appre-
ciated homely wit of a quiet kind; her
own conversation had often the charm
of naivete; always frank and absolutely
truthful, she desired to be addressed in
the same spirit; her religion was sim-
ple, sincere, and undogmatic; theology
did not interest her; on moral questions
her views were direct; to the greater
emancipation of women she was thor-
oughly and almost blindly antipathetic;
she regarded Queen Elizabeth with
aversion (because she lacked feminine
modesty) ; she sympathized with the
Stuarts and Jacobites (because of their
fall from high estate to manifold mis-
fortune) ; her whole life was guided by
personal sentiment, and in her capacity
both as monarch and woman this proved
a safer guide than the best desired sys-
tems of moral or political philosophy.

The Appendix contains the names of
the Queen's descendants, a list of the
Queen's portraits, and a bibliography
of the published sources of information
concerning the Queen, besides a brief
account of the growth of the British
Errpire from 1837 ^o 1901, and a map
showing the extent of the Empire at her
death. The work has all the marks of
scholarly accuracy with the tempering of
a sympathetic treatment.

DAVOS SEKN FROM TIIK HILLSIDK WHERK STEVENSON S CHALET STOOD.

IN THE GRISONS.— A REMINISCENCE

By Alice Crossette Hall

IS it the allurinjj^ characteristics of a
rare winter's day, the whiteness be-
low, the blueness above, the sparkle, the
chair.pagne-like quality of the air, and
above all the strange stillness, which is
taking me back in fancy to days long
past spent amid the winter beauty of
what are called the " higher Alps " — to
the little valley nestling among them in
the very heart of the Grisons — to that
famous winter resort, in fact, known as
Davos Platz?

Be this as it may, heart and soul are
surcharged with memories of a region
which holds almost in perpetuity that
which, in less favored climate, is but the
evanescent charm of a day. Again I am

wandering along the Alpine slopes, en-
joying the warmth of the sunshine and
the deep silence of the fir forests, broken
only by the sounds coming up from the
valley below, the laughter of the skaters
on the rink, and the sleigh-riders on
mountain and valley roads. Most char-
acteristic of all is the cheery " Achtung!'*
of the tobogganers, and almost by force
of habit, my feet are taking me to the
famous Buol Run to join the group of
spectators eagerly watching the gay
cavalcade of tobogganers, perhaps in the
midst of an exciting race. This Buol
Run, the most famous among the Alps,
unless it be that of the Cresta at St.
Moritz, in the neighboring valley of the

208

THE LAMP

Engadine, starts well up on the side of
the Schatzalp, and in its long sweeping
curve to the valley below, runs directly
in the rear of what used to be Steven-
son's chalet.

The long procession of those who in
the passing years have sped down that
run, or glided over the surface of yon-
der rink, include many a name well
known in the titled, social, and literary
world. Rank has there had its highest
exponents both in military and civil life,
while the social world has been repre-
sented by many a belle, some from the
new, as well as the old world. I once
saw a ladies* race won there by Miss W.,
now the wife of our own popular "Jack"
Astor, while memorj' still holds a vision
of the gracious presence on the rink, and
in the ballroom, of Miss Dorothy Ten-
nant, then at the height of her maiden
popularity and her friendship with the
Prince of Wales, Gladstone, Tennyson,
and other notables among her country-
men, and who now, as the wife of Mr.
Asquith, is one of the most eminent
women of England. As for literature,
would not such names as Robert Louis
Stevenson, and John Addington Sy-
monds, be sufficient to immortalize any
toboggan " run " of lesser pretensions
and less lordly surroundings than the
Alps? Dr. Conan Doyle essayed these
Alpine slopes with his beloved skis, and
most inimitable are his descriptions of
these exploits; but Stevenson and Mr.
Symonds preferred tobogganing over
them; and to me as I stand in imagina-
tion by those mountain runs, the thought
that most absorbs me is that they have
been the playground of those two men,
whose literature has made its mark upon
the whole world.

I have been told by those who knew
him at that time that Stevenson in-
dulged but moderately in the winter
sports, which were then in an embryonic
condition as compared with their present
unique status, and that he preferred to

remain in his chalet writing — w-riting —
the outcome being the greater part of
*' Treasure Island *' and other notable
works, interspersed with the engraving
of those quaint blocks for his *' Moral
Emblems " which are now the property
of the Boston Public Library. When>
however, he did play, it was with whole
heart and soul. In one of his letters he
speaks of having " tobogganed furiously
all the morning." Both he and Mr.
Symonds were fond of taking that pas-
time at night. Stevenson says that
" perhaps the true way to toboggan is
alone and at night," while Mr. Symonds
writes: " I have been tobogganing alone
in the clear moonlight from the w^ood."
The following descriptions of their to-
bogganing experiences well represent the
difference in their literary style. Steven-
son says: "Then you push off; the tobog-
gan fetches away ; she begins to feel the
hill, to glide, to swim, to gallop. In a
breath you are out from under the pine-
trees and a whole heaven full of stars
reels and flashes overhead. Then comes
a vicious effort, for by this time your
wooden steed is speeding like the wind,
and you are speeding round a corner, and
the whole glittering valley and all the
lights of all the great hotels lie for a
moment at your feet, and the next you
are racing once more in the shadow of
the night with close shut teeth and beat-
ing heart. Yet in a little while and you
will be landed on the high road by the
door of your hotel." Mr. Symonds, in
one of his many descriptions of the sport,
writes: "It was solemn and beautiful
upon the run. The sun had set, but all
the heavens were rosy with its after-
glow, and the peaks and snow-fields
which surrounded us shone in every tone
of crimson and saffron. Then from be-
hind the vast bulk of a mountain mass,
the rising full moon swam upon our
sight, a huge transpicuous dew-pearl of
in tensest green, bathed in the warm
colors of the burning skies. People who

2IO

THE LAMP

summer in the Arctic Circle describe
these luminous effects. Our rapid mo-
tion through the celestial wonders and
over the myriad-tinted snow-path added
an intoxicating glor>' to the vision, until
as we descended from the upper height,
the splendors of the path we sped upon
were swallowed up in vast caverns of
primeval pine forests, whence we
emerged again into the flooding silver of
the moon, which at a lower level strove
victoriously with the sunset incandes-
cence we had left behind."

Stevenson seems to have appreciated
the beauty of an Alpine winter, ** the
enchanted landscape," the " wonderful
climate where it is never cold," the
^* odd, stirring silence, more stirring
than a tumult;" he talks of being *' sting-
ingly alive," of the " airy titillation of
the nerves," questions if it is a ** return
of youth, or a congestion of the brain ;"
yet I doubt if his was a temperament
which could readily attune itself to the
austerities of an Alpine winter, even at
Davos, where they are softened and em-
bellished to a degree unusual elsewhere,
or that he was as thoroughly en rapport
with this " winter witchery," as his
friend Mr. Symonds, whose poetic and
artistic nature responded to every phase
of it, and whose descriptions of it can-
not fail to stir the soul of one who has
€ver been under its compelling influence.

In one respect these two friends were
alike — their capacity for work. The
former talks of " orgies " of work, and
the latter of " debauches of brain work."
Doubtless the climate, " the giddy air,"
as Stevenson calls it, was in part respon-
sible for this mental activity, for Mr. "
Symonds says: "The bracing climate
and the altitude of the mountains helped
me to acquire a more forcible style, en-
abled me to be as active as I liked
without damage to my health, and
added to the vigor of my brain."
Miss Harraden in her clever book,
*' Ships that Pass in the Night," states

that " the air has the invariable effect of
getting into the head, and upsetting the
balance of those who drink deep of it."
" Getting into the head " had quite other
results with these two brain- workers.

Despite the wide difference in their
temperaments, they were the warmest of
friends, Stevenson declaring that Mr.
Symonds's presence was the most signifi-
cant fact of his residence in Davos, and
that his society was his ** stand-by."
Between his home on the hillside, and
that of Mr. Symonds's at the foot of it,
the only villas which then disputed that
part of the territor\^ with the big hotels,
there must have been a strong current of
sympathy which brought them often
together.

At the time I took up my residence in
Davos, Stevenson's sojourn there had be-
come but a memor\', while "Chalet am
Stein," or " Villa Buol," as it was in-
terchangeably called, his " House
Beautiful " on the " Hill Difficulty," as
he himself named it, had evolved into a
comely mansion, which has a bright,
breezy look on the hillside where it com-
mands a wide outlook over the animated
doings of the valley. Mr. Symonds was,
on the contrary, a dominant force
throughout the whole valley, as well as
in the sanitarium. I could wish that
others might see him as we, the tempo-
rary residents of the valley saw him, the
life and soul of every enterprise, giving
valuable time to the entertainment of
the Kur-guests, as well as to the natives
and peasantry far and near. Notwith-
standing his ill-health, and the sadden-
ing effects of his daughter's death, he
seems to have fought successfully against
the self-absorption natural to invalids,
keeping his sympathies alive by cultivat-
ing an interest in others.

He took an active part in the found-
ing of the Davos Literary Society, con-
tributing to it some charming essays —
one I well remember, " Lyrics from
Elizabethan Song-books." An enthu-

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON'S CHALET, **AM STEIN." ON THE HHX ABOVE THE ENGLISH CHAPEL,
DAVOS PLATZ AS IT APPEARS AT PRESENT.

siastic ethnologist, he was greatly inter-
ested in our Romansch neighbors, and
talked to us about their language and
literature, bringing to the club a culti-
vated Romansch woman who read and
translated characteristic poems of that
language. At the theatre of the Kur-
haus he gave his entertaining essay,
" Davos in the Olden Days," describing
that ancient town at the time when it

saw the envoys of France and Venice,
Milan, Spain, and the German courts
seated in her Rathaus, and ambassadors
went forth in their turn to the crowned
heads of Europe. We had known that
Davos was historical, but were not pre-
pared for the imposing array of facts he
had gathered for us. He told us of the
Davos tradition of the walk of the dead
at night, and speculated as to how these

212

THE LAMP

ghostly survivors from an antique past
must feel to see mixed up with their
familiar moonlight and gas-lamps and
electric illuminations, the big hotels
overtopping their once humble homes,
all the unusual sights, in fact, of a
modern watering-place. When he de-
scribed this ghostly procession as taking
for its usual route the road across the
Landwasser, I cast a furtive glance out
of the window, half expecting to see it
myself wending its way across the mead-
ows, only to have my view of the road
intercepted by the flying figures of the
merry skaters, and to see, over valley and
mountain, such a flood of sunlight as to
dissipate all ghostly suggestions. When,
however, the lecturer startled us with
the quer>% " Do the foreigners who die
here walk also at night ? *' I think that
we all shuddered, and made a mental
resolve to leave the town at the earliest
possible moment.

As member of the Alpine Club he
would go off on what he called " splen-
did days on the hills," and Mr. Brown,
his biographer, says that he breasted
those hills with apparent ease, and left
many a sounder man behind him. An
enthusiastic member of the toboggan
club, he spent many hours in the tobog-
gan saddle. He threw interest into the
sport by constituting as prizes, the Sy-
monds Cup and the Symonds Shield,
still eagerly contested for. For many
years he was president of this club, no
sinecure, for he writes to a friend that,
known alike to English and Swiss,
ever>'thing fell upon his shoulders and
he was held responsible for whatever
might go wrong. Describing one race
he says: " I was standing all that while
upon the snow, helping to record the
time, identify the racers, and keep the
coast clear. I did not get home until
seven, having started at nine in the
morning, and then I had to entertain
here until midnight. Such a day ! "
How well I remember that race, the

beauty of the day, the wild scramble of
the sleighs and sledges to Clavadel Run,
the excitement caused by the first intro-
duction of the American sled into the
competition, the luncheon eaten al
fresco, the gay groups, the picturesque-
ness of it all, and the lively dash home
again.

Notwithstanding Mr. Symonds*s love
of play, his love of work was still strong-
er, as is shown by the long list of his
publications, the excellence of which has
made him, in some lines, an authority in
our colleges. He was most himself in
his library at Am Hof, surrounded by
his books. In the frontispiece of " Our
Life in the Swiss Highlands," one can
see him there as natural as life. I, at
least, have just such a mental picture of
him, seated at that identical table, as we
discussed certain phases of American
literature, and certain authors in whom
he was interested. He was thoroughly
in sympathy with Walt Whitman, as is
well known. Indeed, is it not true that
through his poetic insight he has been
able to interpret to some of us of duller,
more material perceptions, much that
seems obscure in the good gray poet?
Just then the latest work of Donnelly
on the Bacon and Shakespere controversy
was attracting attention. He declared
that so great was his love of justice, if
Bacon was the real author of the plays,
he hoped it would be proved, and he
would at once willingly accept the fact.
He hoped, however, that it was not true^
and as yet saw no reason to believe it.
The moderation of his sentiments on this
subject was something of a surprise to
me, as I had supposed him to be easily
carried away by his enthusiasms. What
different mental attitudes different peo-
ple will assume toward the same subject.
Not long after this conversation I was
in Mr. W. W. Story *s studio in Rome,
and found that sculptor intent upon the
rrodelling of a bust of Shakespere, into
whose eyes he had put a wonderful ex-

MR. JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS S VILLA " AM HOF."

pression such as I had never seen before
in any representation of the poet, the
very fire of genius. I could not help re-
marking upon it, whereupon the sculptor
turned upon me with the fire of genius
fairly blazing in his own eyes: "They
would dethrone my idol ! " he exclaimed
excitedly; " what could I do to vent my
feelings but enthrone him again for my
own satisfaction at least, by representing
him all that he is to me — the dear old
hero!"

Mr. Symonds seemed fully to appre-
ciate the admiration which his writings
elicited in America. In a letter written
to me since his death, his daughter Mar-
garet, collaborator with him in some of
his work, says : " My father always said
that some of his truest friends lived in
America. He valued their admiration,
and I also am always proud and pleased
to hear of it." I can readily endorse
what Stevenson, speaking of his writings
says, " but the man is far more interest-
ing."

He became deeply attached to Davos,
where he lived for years in a villa built
by himself. He speaks of an ever-grow-
ing and abiding love for it, and his en-
joyment of a society singularly congenial
to his peculiar nature, and that he " liked
it quite as much as Venice inasmuch as it
has a far more enjoyable climate." A
man of moods, he would write furiously
for hours, then rush oflE for some glee-
ful escapade, coming home with a
" thrill of quickened life." " Life here
is funny," he wrote, after some outdoor
frolic, " that one can so easily turn out
of his home for a four hours' madness of
that sort." " I sit out and bask," he
once wrote, " when I do not write, and
I walk at night." Many of the walks
by his favorite lake were taken at that
time. Stevenson w rites to him, " The
glittering frosty solitudes in which your
days are cast arose before me. I seemed
to see you walking in the late night un-
der the pine-trees and the stars."

Often would follow the reaction, and

THK DAVOS lake; MR. SYMONDS S KAVORITK WALK.

he would become discouraged in his bat-
tle with ill-health. " I do not think,"
he records at one time, " that it will ever
come to me again to feel the elasticity of
the mountain turf or the crisp edge of
the high rocks, or to gather the moun-
tain flowers in solitary, breezy places."
No doubt it was at such times that he
wrote those letters, since published, so
full of introspection, of " excessive self-
scrutiny," as he called it, yet so delight-
ful to read. They show that his was
the sensitive temperament of genius, a
deep nature vexing itself, as all such
natures must, with the hard problems
of life.

Mr. Symonds was an authority' on the
subject of avalanches, and one wishing
frr information on the subject has only
to read his thrilling book, ** Snow, Frost,
Storm, and Avalanche." My last sea-
son in Davos was known as the great
avalanche winter. Wishing to go into
Italy over one of the high passes, at that
time seriously threatened with one of

these dread visitations, I consulted with
him in regard to the undertaking. He
advised against the Spliigen as too dan-
gerous, recommending rather the Malo-
ja, but only in case there should be no
change in weather conditions. The Staub
lawine (dust avalanche) had already
fallen, a warm rain or Fohn wind
would bring down the Schlag, or stroke,
avalanche — then beware, no pass would
be safe. Alas, on the eve of our depart-
ure the Fohn wind did sweep dow^n,
brewing no end of mischief, .and sending
us into Italy over the more conventional
St. Gothard route. Two weeks later
Mr. Symonds and his daughter took that
identical route into Italy which had been
abandoned by us, over the wrecks of the
avalanches we had escaped. Later, Mr.
Symonds published a description of this
journey, and the awful " nature forces "
that had been at work, and were still so
threatening that, to avoid further
inundations of the avalanche fiend they
removed their sleigh-bells, and fared

THE LAMP

215

onward in a silence broken only by the
telegraph ** banshees " which seemed to
shriek to them : " Come, come away to
us, come and be buried as we have been,
come and be damned in this prison of
frost and snow with us. The wind that
makes us croon our weird song shall
wind the snow-wreaths above you."
When I read his long and thrilling ac-
count of that journey I shuddered to
think of what might have been our fate
had the Fohn w^ind delayed its coming
even by a single day.

When some weeks later I visited
Venice, Mr. Symonds was comfortably
settled in his Venetian apartment, these
spring outings being a part of his yearly
programme. Indeed this Swiss-Italian
phase of his life was most pleasant. Of-
ten tiring of what he called ** the nar-
rowing nunnerj^ walls of Davos," he
would drop down into Italy, generally to
find some new material to delight his
readers. Yet Italy did not always agree
with him, for he once makes this plaint,
" I find that Italy now, alas, more than
ever, devours the soul and body of me.
I can hardly stand it, and I lose my
health at a ruinously rapid rate." Again,
" Davos is safer than Venice, and I have
had ,a sharp warning;" but Italy con-
tinued to draw him to the last, where
we find him bemoaning ** a soul so un-
tamably young in its old ruined body,
consuming its last drops of vital oil with

the flame of beauty." When, however,
the end came, the body did not seem old,
for his daughter records of him that the
nearer he came to death the younger he
seemed to grow.

I read with moistened eyes the ac-
count of that last hour, his pathetic death
in the arms of that devoted daughter,
amid the scenes of his beloved Rome,
and his burial beside the grave of Shel-
ley, the poet he so loved and honored in
his writings. The inscription on his
tomb is his own poetical version of
Cleanthes's Hymn, a great favorite of his.

Lead thou me (lod, Law, Reason, Motion, Lijjht,
All names for thee alike are vain and hollow ;

Lead me for I will follow without strife.
Or if I strive, still must I blindly follow.

As I read this inscription I was struck
with a sense of familiarity, a conscious
link between the sentiment expressed
and something associated with my own
past. With an almost feverish haste I
searched through the contents of my
writing-desk, and there I found, care-
fully preserved, a slip of paper with his
own literal translation of the portion of
the same hymn, written and signed for
me by his own hand. (See below.)

How doubly valuable will be to me
hereafter this autograph and this trans-
lation from the Greek poet of the senti-
ment which seems so to have taken his
fancy.

RICHARDSON AND HAZLITT
By W. C. Brownell

IN his commission to write the Life of
Richardson for the English Men of
Letters Series Mr. Dobson had a less con-
genial task than he had in his volume on
Fielding for the same series. It is im-
possible to make a hero of his subject,
even in the extended sense in which the
subject is, ex hypothesi, the hero of a
biography. Richardson awakens no in-
terest as a man, and next to none as an
author. His books monopolize it all.
They are far from being objective per-
formances, and though Johnson's opinion
that they were to be read for the senti-
ment and could not be read for the story,
is certainly no longer held, their art is
clearly not of the detached order now so
generally commended to wTiters of fiction
by the taste of a time satiated with com-
monplaces. But personal as they are in
this respect, they absorb all their author's
personality that has any concern or savor
for his readers. No great artist was ever
of so slight personal importance, consid-
ered apart from his productions. His
biography accordingly reduces itself quite
normally to a kind of gossip. And if in
Mr. Dobson's hands it is not made more
of, this is doubtless because to make much
of it was not very feasible.

Still one cannot help thinking that it
might have proved a little more enter-
taining if Mr. Dobson himself were not
so completely in harmony with the sort
of material he has had here to deal with.
There is probably nothing connected
with the literary side of the eighteenth
century that bores him personally. He
sets down its occurrences and notes its
data of all kinds with an almost indis-
criminately affectionate zest because they
belong to it. For him the period trans-
figures the phenomena. He never says

Samuel Richardson. By Austin Dobson. (English
Men of Letters.) New York, The Macmiilan Company.

to himself, "Sed hac nugae sunt." When
he can correlate a story or a letter with a
print, or record a contemporary criticism
at the same time that he describes the
subject criticised, when he can increase
the rushlight illumination of his main
chronicle by adding a few farthing can-
dles of similar power, he is, one feels,
agreeably and amusedly occupied. It is
difficult to communicate this sort of
pleasure to one's readers, however, by
merely experiencing it one's self. And
in spite of the competence of Mr. Dobson
in the circumstances, and, as we say,
probably by virtue of his "complete mas-
ter>' of his subject," as the phrase is, the
result here is that the attention of the
reader for whom the details here re-
corded possess less interest than evidently
they do for the recorder of them, is apt to
wander. You feel rather as if you wTre
listening to a lecturer upon his hobby.
Less fond of his eighteenth century liter-
ary bric-a-brac, Mr. Dobson would have
presented it in less desultory fashion. He
has told us nothing that is not pertinent,
but he has not arranged his record with
any reference to the organic effect nec-
essar>' to the communication of his own
interest, which, however placid, is per-
vading and persistent to the point of
blending all light and shade accent in an
equable monotone. The air of the whole
is therefore desultory, though the proced-
ure is relentlessly systematic. More de-
tachment on the author's part would
have resulted in more definiteness of
presentation. There is an astonishing
assemblage of facts relating to Richard-
son, but to feel their significance would
require an enthusiast, and to bear them
in mind till the book is finished, the mem-
ory of a mathematician. The index im-
plies an extremely entertaining book, but
the book itself is a shade too much like an

THE LAMP

217

index, one may say, for the sake of con-
veying an impression if not of making an
exact statement.

On the other hand, Mr. Dobson's en-
thusiasm for "ana" is quite compatible
with the most languid feeling for the
productions of Richardson, which are all
that for others give the "ana" such in-
terest as it may possess. To have made
Richardson's personality dominate the
book would be demanding the impos-
sible, no doubt; and it is not to be
forgotten that the book is a biography
and not an essay on the novels. But,
like the rest of the series to which it
belongs, it is a critical biography, and
the case is one where, if ever, the claims
of criticism exceed those of chronicle.
We could have spared some of the
correspondence to which Mr. Dobson
gives so much space, and of which the
letters from Mrs. Pilkington and Mrs.
Klopstock ought to be specially men-
tioned, in exchange for a longer account
in both exposition and disquisition of
"Pamela," "Clarissa," and "Sir Charles
Grandison." And in tone the account of
these might be many degrees higher with-
out fatiguing us by any excess. The judg-
ments expressed are just enough. They
are certainly thoroughly judicial. But
now^here does the writer warm to his
work. His criticism distinctly lacks char-
acter of its own apart from its subject.
Leaving the other novels aside and taking
"Clarissa" alone, it is hard to see how a
critical biographer of Richardson could
content himself with saying so little about
the theme itself as well as of its treat-
ment. Mr. Dobson would doubtless
shrug his shoulders at the complaint and
allege very truly that it was all an old
story. It seems to be considered by a cer-
tain class of miscellaneous writers in
England at the present day an indispens-
able mark of literary good breeding to
consider what they write about an old
story. Any particular zeal in its discus-
sion seems to them an evidence of crud-

ity. Hence the eclecticism which perhaps
good taste suggests and the insipidity
which at least it does not interdict. The
most pungent thing in this review of the
Richardson novels, accordingly, is Taine's
suggestion that Sir Charles Grandison
should be "canonized and stuffed," and
the most interesting, Diderot's statement
that "if all the Books in England were to
be burnt, this book ["Pamela"], next the
Bible, ought to be preserved." In short,
what we most miss in the volume is any
theory, or even theme, of Mr. Dobson's
own. But there is material provided in
plenty perhaps for the reader to con-
struct one for himself, and we must find
room for a part of one delicious sentence
in which Richardson's nature is described
as finding "its fitting atmosphere and
temperature in the society of women re-
fined enough to be appreciative, fastidious
enough to be judiciously critical, but
above all ready and willing to supply
him, as occasion required, with that fer-
tilizing medium of caressing and respect-
ful commendation without which it was
impossible for him to make any satisfac-
tory progress with his work."

Mr. Birrell's "William Hazlitt," in
the same series, is a considerably more
entertaining volume than the "Richard-
son." Mr. Birrell's own literary tem-
perament has more vivacity than Mr.
Dobson's; its first characteristic is not
so markedly decorum. He is, to be sure,
a lawyer and has a lawyer's attitude
toward illusions; and his native spon-
taneity is kept under watchful control.
He has the air of having suffered from
the boredom of naivete in others, and is
correspondingly careful about wearying
in his turn by giving his readers too
much of himself. And a barrister with
an inclination for causerie is perhaps
naturally on his guard against levity.

WiLUAM Hazlitt. By Augustine Rirrell. (English
Men of Letters.) New York, The Macmillan Company.

2l8

THE LAMP

But his narrative is spiced with a per-
sonal turn now and then, and occasion-
ally we are permitted to enjoy the treat-
ment as well as the substance. Mainly,
however, the superior interest of the book
over the "Richardson" is due to the
greater intrinsic interest of the subject.
Richardson was a thoroughly common-
place man, whereas Hazlitt was an ex-
tremely picturesque one. Moreover, we
suspect he is to a majority of readers,
who nevertheless are fairly familiar with
English letters, practically an unknown
one. Hence the volume has the addi-
tional attraction of novelty. Indeed, if
it be found not wholly satisfactory it
will be because Mr. Birrell has not taken
complete advantage of the opportunity
thus afforded him, and has given us the
ship-shape performance of a measurably
congenial task instead of a biography
which should exhibit in relief and sug-
gest the significance of a really remark-
able and reasonably novel subject.

As it is, one may say that he contrives
to show Hazlitt to us just adequately
enough to make us reflect what Hazlitt
himself would hive made — even at his
laziest — of such a theme. He would not
have been content with an orderly narra-
tive, somewhat relieved by mainly judi-
cial and occasionally sprightly but always
brief comment, and a generally impec-
cable rather than a salient and stimulat-
ing result. He would not have been
afraid of les redites and terrified at the
trite, but would have been confident in
his ability- to make evident the reason of
his interest in the familiar as too vital to
be dependent on the mere accident of
novelty. Nor would he have been so
careful to exhibit the courtesy to his
readers — which just now seems as cur-
rent as it is essentially absurd — of assum-
ing that they really know about as much
as the author of the matter in hand. In
Hazlitt's day the current phenomenon of
culture nervous about being mistaken
for crudit\' if its tone does not imply

that its environment is as expert as itself
was unknown. No one was anxious to
be recognized as associating with "the
Fellows of Balliol." No one so cared if
someone else existed who also had had
his thoughts as to feel obliged to elimi-
nate all color from their expression by
evincing a consciousness that they were
not wholly original. In consequence a
task of this kind performed by Hazlitt
would have had far more life in it than
this has, and, in a word, Mr. Birrell —
in whose native equipment are capacities
of all kinds — might himself have given
us something with more point if he had
not been so scrupulous to give us some-
thing so impeccable.

Meantime one asks one's self what is
his view of his interesting subject. Did
Hazlitt make any real contribution to
English letters? In common with most
other writers, we gather, his genius was
far inferior to that of Lamb, and we
read that he had a decided "gift of ex-
pression." The same thing might be
said of Mr. Birrell., There is an un-
usually large quantity of the subject's
own writing cited, and we are safe in
saying no mistake has been made in
this.

The passages, even when many pages
long, are the most interesting portions of
the book. Hazlitt took an extremely
personal view of everything he wrote
about, made it his own, that is to say,
and consequently in turn endued it with
the interest of his own temperament,
which was a highly individual one. He
always thought for himself, and there-
fore what he wrote has at least the value
that he had. There is hardly a page of
his writings that has not this element of
pungency. Of Nonconformist parent-
age, training, and disposition, passing his
life, nevertheless, except for a few ex-
cursions, in the midst of a society ver>'
characteristically conventional, his mind
naturally acquired the critical bent, and
his life exhibited a natural inclination to.

THE LAMP

219

crystallize whim and wilfulness in con-
duct. He died exclaiming, "I have had
a happy life," and he could say so sin-
cerely (never having said anything other-
wise), probably because his irresponsi-
bility was so largely qualified by his
intellectual integrity, which was marked.
He left a score of volumes, but no com-
plete work, save his "Life of Napoleon,"
of his mature period. His literature is
for this reason essentially "journalism" of
a high order. Its stuff is solid enough,
but in form it is not enough rounded out
to escape the effect of the unfinished and
the desultor>^ He had a decided aptness
for metaphysics, his performances in
which amuse rather than interest Mr.
Birrell, but to his disposition for them
was doubtless due the taking and illu-
minating way he had of referring things
— his own predilections and prejudices
among others — to principles, and thus
giving them coherence and a convincing-

ness they would otherwise have lacked.
In fine, anyone who makes his acquaint-
ance for the first time, even in Mr. Bir-
rell's volume, will feel that he was an
extraordinary personality and a writer
of extremely attractive quality, measured
by a high standard. Such a reader, how-
ever, will be the first to regret that Mr»
Birrell has not squared his elbows and
given us of set purpose a portrait of such
a subject — a sketch like that of Pitt by
Hazlitt himself, for example, which is
here quoted. And if this criticism pro-
ceed mainly from the general impression
left by the book, it is at least easy to sig-
nalize one important specific instance of
avoidance on the biographer's part : Next
to Ruskin, Hazlitt is admittedly the most
considerable of English writers upon the
fine arts; yet his work as an art critic
figures very inadequately in these pages,
and of its value no intimation whatever
is given.

IN THE TIME OF THE ROSE
By Clinton Scollard

From " Lyrics of the Dawn," by permission.

Now that the crimson rose is queen once more,
There stirs within my heart the keen desire
To see the morning touch with golden fire

The slender minarets by the Pharpar shore;

To tread the byways that I trod of yore

Amid the chaffering merchants come from Tyre,
Beyrout and Bagdad, and to hear the choir

Of passionate bulbuls at the night's dim door.

Thus doth the rose impel me, being kin

To blooms I plucked in gardens Damascene

In bygone days when all the world seemed fair;
And through the dreams that I am tangled in
Glides one with her bewitching orient mien.
The rose of love red-woven in her hair!

THE ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY NEWSPAPER
By J. M. Bulloch

London, March, 1903.

TO the most casual English observer
it has often seemed strange that
illustrated weekly journalism does not
hold a higher place in America than it
has yet attained. You have at one end
of the scale a unique daily press, which
is vitalized by an energy and an inge-
nuity not only unknown in this country,
but exceedingly difficult under our sea-
girt geographical conditions. But you
also have a highly developed form of art
magazine which on our side would ap-
peal mainly to the experts. I am think-
ing on the one hand of any of your better
known daily papers, not only in New
York, but in the smaller towns; and on
the other of your admirable illustrated
monthlies. Hence it seems strange that
the swift intelligence of the daily news-
paper organizer has not commandeered
the artistic excellence of the monthlies
in order to produce a great weekly
journal like the Graphic in London, or
U Illustration in Paris, both of them
somewhat more of the heavy dragoon
order in the week's budget than any-
thing of the kind you possess. What
precisely is the reason for this? I have
heard it argued that the weekly illus-
trated journal of news could have no
place in a country which produces such
a luxurious Sunday edition as yours.
There is probably a good deal in the
argument, and yet we are confronted in
your monthly magazines with the
draughtsman's art, applied not only to
fiction and to history, but to a certain
form of news more or less topical.

Illustrated journalism undoubtedly
takes Its rise from the occasional broad-
sheets which were published dealing
with events that stirred the people,
notably catastrophes and crimes. Any

number of these broadsides were issued
during the seventeenth century. But
the real pioneer of illustrated journal-
ism undoubtedly was William Clements,
who started the (London) Observer in
1 79 1, and who sought from time to
time to give pictures of the great events
of the day. The Observer published an
emblematic engraving of the birth of the
Prince of Wales in 1841. The date was
almost symbolic, for illustrated journal-
ism as we know it to-day is coincident
with the life of King Edward VIL, for
it was in the spring of the following year
that Herbert Ingram started The Illus-
trated London News, the parent of all
weekly illustrated journals. Ingram,
who was born at Boston, Lincolnshire,
and who curiously enough was drowned
near Chicago when the steamer Lady
Elgin sank, approached illustrated jour-
nalism from a commercial standpoint, a
fact that is of importance in consider-
ing this type of journalism. Ingram in-
vented " Parr's Pills," and in search of
a pictorial advertisement he met Sir John
Gilbert. That was a notable meeting,
for Gilbert had a freedom and facility as
a quick sketcher which were essential for
this art. The first number of The Illus-
trated London News appeared on May
14, 1842, from Crane Court, an alley in
Fleet Street, which might well be in-
cluded in the guide books as a pilgrimage
for travellers, at least as interesting as
the Cheshire Cheese. In the sixty odd
years that have elapsed, several rivals to
the News have been started, but only
three of them survive, to wit : the Graph-
ic in 1869, Black and White in 1 891,
and The Sphere in 1900. There has, of
course, been an enormous specialization
in sixpenny papers dealing with fashions,
with sport, with the drama, and other

IHE LATE HEKLERT INGRAM
The Founder of Mo iem Illustrated Journal'sm.

222

THE LAMP

activities. I am thinking, however, not
so much of these lighter sides (the illus-
tration of which became possible with
the introduction of cheap methods of
making pictures), but of journals deal-
ing with the serious news of the day from
all parts of the world. Indeed this cos-
mopolitanism seems to me a very essen-
tial part of the success of illustrated
journalism in this country. As a matter
of fact I have always associated illus-
trated journalism with the possession of
a great Empire, and I look forward to
the development of something of the
same kind in America with the extension
of its world influence, such as we have
seen on so remarkable a scale within the
last few years.

The pageant of many peoples cannot
possibly be told adequately in photo-
graphs, however clear. The camera may
adequately deal with one's own country,
but the diversity of the color of life
which one encounters on going farther
afield must be pictured by something far
less mechanical and monotonous than
the photograph. I think this is particu-
larly true of the war picture — especially
of war under modern conditions when
the range of the most wonderful camera
in the hands of the most expert manipu-
lator gives a very inadequate idea of
what a battle means. Here, if any-
where, the selecting mind of the
draughtsman is absolutely essential ; and
that is why he inevitably triumphs over
mechanisms, however adroit they may
be.

And yet there can be no doubt that
the advances of photography have made
the position of the older illustrated jour-
nals not quite so unique as it once was.
Everybody carries a camera, and any-
body can make a block, whereas in the
old days the illustrated journal depended
very largely upon the crudest sketches
sent home from different parts of the
world to be redrawn in London. And yet,
the very plethora of photographs has cre-

ated a nausea which has really strength-
ened the position of the black-and-
white draughtsman. The position has
not been without its curious irony. With
the first blush of photography there was
a strong tendency to disparage his art
and discourage his existence. It did not
seem real and the older school of artists
were crushed out, while the younger ones
scarcely considered news work suffi-
ciently encouraging. But the tide was
turned. The absolute telltaleness of
mechanical reproduction has had a most
beneficial effect on the artist. In the
old days of wood engraving he simply
scratched his impression on the block,
leaving the engraver to make the picture.
If the result was bad, the artist blamed
the engraver, and the engraver in turn
would blame the artist, and no verdict
could be given ; but now the artist's work
is photographed, and nothing really can
hide his inadequate draughtsmanship.

I have said that the commercial point
of view which Herbert Ingram started
from must be considered in any survey
of illustrated journalism as a paying
product. This remark is specially ap-
plicable to-day in considering the adver-
tiser — the real power in so many news-
papers, despite the airs and graces of the
editorial pilot. In this country an adver-
tiser will pay a bigger price for admission
into a journal w^ith drawings than into
one which relies solely on photographs.
The latter may be bulkier and more
varied ; but it lacks the " richness "
which appertains to the draughtsman's
art; and in point of fact the care, and
forethought necessary for the production
of a journal made up chiefly of drawings
gives it (at least on this side) a per-
manency that the photographic paper,
however clever, can never possess.

But photography itself has not been
content to stand still. If America has not
taught us the art of illustrating news by
pencil and brush, it has unquestionably
been responsible for a more skilful

A CHARACTKRISTIC HIT OF EARLY JOURNALISTIC WOOD ENc;RAVINGS — EDWARD VII AS A BABY.

method of manipulating the photograph
pure and simple. The manipulation of
the photograph has become an absolute
necessity from the fact that the camera
has made its product too common. It is
almost a physical impossibility for an
artist to supply a representation of any
particular scene to more than one paper
at a time ; but a photographer can supply
a hundred prints without the slightest
difficulty. Thus it came to pass that dif-
ferent newspapers were publishing pic-
tures identically the same, differing in
size perhaps, or in the quality of the
engraver's art, but otherwise quite un-
distinguishable from their neighbors*.
The consequence has been that the more
vital illustrated journals have had to
manipulate the photograph for them-
selves. They have painted out this or

that. They have cut out this spot and
done something with the next. In fact,
the camera is being used only as a basis
for the work of a brain. In Paris, for ex-
ample, the draughtsman is not above past-
ing a piece of photograph here or there
on his drawing, and incorporating it in
such a way that it looks like part of his
own work when reproduced. The Eng-
lish artist is slow to avail himself of this
method, as indeed he is slow to learn
everything; but I am convinced that the
day is fast approaching when the news
artist will have to make far more use of.
a photograph and perhaps carry a cam-
era as well as a pencil. Personally I can-
not see any objection to that, for some
of the French artists, notably M. Saba-
tier, exhibit as much freedom and im-
agination in dealing with a photographic

224

THE LAMP

base as if they were working from one
of their own sketches. Many fine studies
in the French illustrated journals are
nothing but snapshots forced up by en-
largements and worked on to such an
extent that they become as much the
product of the draughtsman as if they
were the product of his sketch-book co-
ordinated by his imagination.

Another notable improvement in the
illustrated journals is the improved
format, which is only a part of the
general art movement from books down-
wards. In the case of newspapers this
improvement has taken place, less in
obedience to an artistic impulse, than to
the necessity of conveying information
to the reader quickly. The day has ab-
solutely gone past when people will
wade through column after column of
matter, and even the Times is now
inserting cross-headings into political
speeches. In the illustrated journal
there is, of course, far more scope for
artistic type-setting, and the most inter-
esting development of this has been the
use of the brass, which has turned its
back on its old script tendencies and be-
come more or less decorative. When
one looks back even ten years the change
has been enormous, led mainly by The
Sphere, which was started as a rival to
the Illustrated London News and
Graphic in the beginning of 1900. I
am sure we are only at the beginning of
a period of skilful work in this direc-
tion — the work of an individual brain
as well as of a deft hand, so that the dead
level of work engendered by the mechan-

ical methods of type-setting have been
partly equalized for the craftsman by
the greater demand made on his techni-
cal ingenuity.

I believe that the next great advance
in illustrated journalism is to come from
color-printing. One or two pioneers
have lost heavily in the attempt, and
there are those who will tell you that we
shall never be able to produce color-
pictures quickly. That, however, is to
deny the very essence of progress, for
when one remembers that it took the
Gentleman's Magazine four solid
months to prepare a picture of Edward
Bright, the fat man who died in 1750,
and when to-day you can get a photo-
graph, and a block of it, well within four
hours, the possibilities of color-illustra-
tion seem great. It will, of course, be
photographic and mechanical; and de-
spite the many difficulties which now
face the reproducer I believe implicitly
that the time will come when we shall
be able to produce a journal as quickly
in colors as we now do in black and
white. Another advance is certain to
be made in printing from a rotary in-
stead of a ver>'' flat machine as at pres-
ent — a slow, tedious process, which cuts
at the very root of ultimate up-to-
dateness. For fine picture work the
rotary has not really proved a success so
far, but here again an enormous progress
in the immediate past argues much for
the near future. With both these prob-
lems in view, one cannot help looking to
America, so potent in mechanical in-
genuity, for a solution.

TIMELY INTERVIEWS

WITH HENRY HARLAND, ANTHONY HOPE, AND BERNARD QUARITCH

" T WRITE novels because it's more
X sport than fox-hunting," said
Henry Harland, just before his return
to his English home. "I never could
shoot a bird, but fox-hunting is great
sport. Novel-writing, however, is even
finer. Besides you yourself always are
*in at the death' and, if you are lucky,
get the 'brush.' "

Mr. Harland had been living fifteen
years abroad before his recent visit.
When I asked him what struck him most
here after so long an absence, he did not
answer, like most people, "the skyscrap-
ers," but "the gray squirrels in Central
Park. They are so tame and pretty,"
he said. "I go to the park to feed them
and let them eat out of my hand and run
over my arms, whenever I find a chance.
There is nothing like them in London
or in any other foreign city I know of.
I have come to know them so well, they
let me stroke them. I shall miss the
pretty things when I go away." He did
not say that he should miss the sky-
scrapers. In fact he did not mention
them. He did not come over here on
business, "but just to see Norwich
again." He begins to glow at the mere
mention of the place. Was he born
there? "By the merest accident, not.
But I won't tell you where I was born,
because I've made up my mind that I
was born in Norwich. At all events I
wanted to be born there and it's an ag-
gravation to me to think that I wasn't.
So I don't think it. I've simply made
up my mind that I was, and that's an end
to the matter. Any biographer of mine
who says that I was born elsewhere than
in Norwich, Conn., makes a mistake —
though technically he may be correct.
Norw^'ch is the Rose of New England.

In fact it is the Rose of the World. Of
course there are London and Paris and
Vienna and Rome and other large cities,
but they are mere satellites of Norwich.
Over in London, where the literary
world won't admit that I'm an Ameri-
can at all, they laugh at my enthusiasm
over Norwich. They think I am talking
about Norwich, England. No wonder
they laugh!

"Dear old Norwich! On Sentry Hill
stands the old house, which has been my
people's for two hundred years. They
bought it from the Indians. (I can hear
my London friends laugh, when I tell
them that Norwich is a greater town
than London ! But it is.) Do you won-
der that I am Norwich from the top of
my head to the soles of my feet, and from
the soles of my feet to the top of my
head?

"I was born March i, 1861, in Nor-
wich, mind you, where my father was
a lawyer. Edmund Clarence Stedman,
who was my father's chum at Yale, was
my godfather. My father enjoyed go-
ing abroad, and since very young I have
been, off and on, in England, Italy, and
France. I should not call my father a
traveller, he simply liked to go abroad,
and just went, and I went with him.
For this reason, probably, I did not go
to school, but had a tutor till I was ready
for Harvard. After a year there, I went
over to Italy. I was here again in 1884
for two years, and again in 1887 for two
years. Since then I have lived abroad,
chiefly in London, and there, chiefly, be-
cause it is the best place in the world to
work. One must have that blessed thing
called 'tin,' so one might as well live in
the place where one can get most of it.

"The day in London is thirty-six

^26

THE LAMP

hours long instead of only twentj^-four
as dsewhere, everything moves so de-
lightfully leisurely and slowly. I think
that every now^ and then during the day
in London some giant hand turns all the
clocks back. At all events you can ac-
complish more writing there from nine
to one than you could here from nine to
six. I had done some writing here and
had it published, but I put that behind
me as mere boyish stuff and went to
work in England writing leaders for
newspapers and doing magazine work,
and, among other things, editing the
'Yellow Book' with Aubrey Beardsley.
You see I found my first public in Eng-
land and made my first popular success
there with *The Cardinal's Snuffbox.'
I am at work on another novel now —
yes, I tell you it is the only sport for
which I would give up fox-hunting —
and I expect it to appear first as a serial.

"I know my Italy well. In fact I
know it better than the Italians them-
selves do. A sympathetic outside ob-
server always does know a country better
than the natives. I go to Italy every
spring, and either take a furnished villa
somewhere or visit friends. My wife
maintains a definite Italian microbe. It
asserts itself with recurring regularity.
Whoever maintains the Italian microbe
pines at certain times for the sight of an
olive-tree or for the blue sky-line of the
Mediterranean. The only way to cure
them temporarily — ^you don't want to
cure them permanently, since secretly
you maintain the microbe yourself — is to
take them where they (and you, too,) can
see the olive-tree and the blue skyline."

Mr. Harland would not talk about
American books because he had not read
enough of them to warrant an opinion.
"In fact, having been a leader writer, I
have no views about anything, except
that I am a bigoted Papist. Everybody
else is, however, because we all are born
so — only many of us don't know it."
Gustave Kobbe,

ANTHONY HOPE

"I have only to put the finishing
touches to a novel of what in England
is called the upper-middle class — to
which, by way of definition, I belong,"
said Anthony Hope. "The scene is laid
principally in London."

You know Mr. Hope never planned
to write the "Dolly Dialogues." One
day he scratched off one and sent it to
the Westminster Gazette, Many of the
readers liked it. "So," in his own
words, "I wrote them until the vein
grew thin. Dolly and the other char-
acters are combination hints I stole from
different people, but from what people,
you know, I don't care to say."

It is nine years now since the publi-
cation of "The Prisoner of Zenda";
Mr. Hope then was still practising law,
with chambers at i Brick Court, Middle
Temple.

"After its success I had to choose,"
he said, "on account of the amount of
literary work I was oflered, between law
and writing, and I went over to the
latter. I was a little past thirty years
old, so there was no family interference.
No, none of us had run to literature up
to that time, except Mr. Kenneth Gra-
hame, a relative of mine on my mother's
side, who wrote The Golden Age' ; but
I think we had run to a tolerable amount
of brains. I had, during my six years
practice of law, much leisure time,
which I occupied in wTiting. In Eng-
land, you know, a man builds up a busi-
ness or a practice slowly. It was in
1889 or 1890, shortly after I was ad-
mitted to the bar, that I began to con-
tribute to the papers. At first most of
my sketches came back, w^hen I often,
after a second reading, agreed with the
editors, and either buried them in the
back of a drawer or rewrote them."

How few remember his first book,
"A Man of Mark"! It had no sale

HKNKY HARLAM).
From a photograph taken during his recent visit to America.

228

THE LAMP

worth speaking of, and his subsequent
writings were judged mediocre till he
made his "hit." Mr. Hope graduated
a "first class" man at Oxford. He was
born in Clapton, a suburb of London, in
1863, where his father had a school.
On his moving with his school away
from Clapton he thought it best for his
son to be under others' instruction, and
accordingly sent him to Marlborough in
Wiltshire, in the west country, from
which he went to Balliol College, Ox-
ford. When he had chambers in the
Middle Temple he lived with his father,
who had abandoned teaching and, after
ministering in one or two communities,
became rector of St. Bride's Parish,
Fleet Street. About ten years ago Mr.
Hope contested a seat in Parliament and
lost. It may be because so many nov-
elists in England, lately, affect states-
craft that he does not re-enter the lists.
At any rate, he says he never again in-
tends to contest a seat.

It is impossible to imagine Mr. Hope
having done a hurried piece of writing;
with all his affability and enjoyment of
manner he is a man of poise; he looks
much like his photographs. His sallow
complexion might be quickened into
English ruddiness by a little athletic ac-
tivity, but he never has been athletic,
beyond caring for a turn on the links.
All his life he has been a voluminous
reader.

"I make it a rule," he said, "to go
into my library about ten o'clock in the
morning. I may not sit down and write,
but I am there to do so when I am in
the humor. I never work after four
o'clock in the afternoon, and four hours,
I think, is a fairly good day's work. I
find, after that, any inventiveness I may
possess stops automatically and fresh
ideas refuse to come. There is just one
thing I try to do in writing, and that is
always my best.

"Do I write a book with the idea in

mind of its being dramatized? Oh, no,
the writing of a novel is engrossing
enough without my considering a dual
purpose. It is as much as I am capable
of at one time. Some writers bear the
stage in mind; Charles Reade always
did ; but it seems to me to be folly, for
no matter how dramatic and satisfactory
a story may be, it must be cut and ma-
terially altered to conform to the time
and artistic requirements of the stage. It
is much easier after you have written a
book, if it is of a nature to be drama-
tized, to write a play from it. I do not
think the alterations in adapting it to
the stage are damaging. The play,
which undoubtedly increases the sales,
is but a passing episode, while the novel
of any consequence sells for a number
of years. My new book will hardly
permit of dramatization.

"Am I working on a play? Well,
now, I must answer no more questions
as to the future; I am not allowed to,
you know^, being only an author."

Formerly, Mr. Hope did not outline
or plan a novel; "I do not now," he
said. "By outlining, I suppose you mean
elaborate planning. I only make two
or three pages of notes. I have a gen-
eral idea in mind, and, becoming en-
grossed, work it out. I simply sat down
and wrote The Prisoner of Zenda,' and
so was surprised at its success." It and
its sequel, "Rupert of Hentzau," have
to his knowledge been translated into
French, German, Italian, Spanish, and
Japanese. "I do not think the 'Dolly
Dialogues' have been translated," he
continued; "surely not into French, for
the French language lends itself better
than English to such stories, and French
writers have peculiar ability for telling
them happily. Besides, they would not
bear translating; the wording would
lose its point, and they hang upon
that."

Charles Hall Garrett.

THE LAMP

229

BERNARD QUARITCH

One of the lines in Clyde Fitch's
" Stubbornness of Geraldine," which
never failed to raise a laugh during
the run of the play at the Gar rick in
this city, related to a certain famous
hyphenated hostlery. " Vi " Thomp-
son and her mother urged Mr. Thomp-
son to engage rooms there; but the solid
man of Butte, Montana, protested that
he did not want to put up at a " dam-
phool hotel." Nevertheless " Vi" and her
mother prevailed, and to the hyphenated
hostlery the Thompsons went. So did
Mr. Quaritch — Bernard Quaritch, son
of the late famous London collector of
rare books and manuscripts of the same
name, and, like his father, known
throughout the world of bibliophiles
and collectors.

A few days after Mr. Quaritch's ar-
rival I called to see him. When I
asked for him at the hotel office, the clerk
pondered on the name a few moments.
"Oh, yes," he finally exclaimed. "You
mean that book-agent? He's gone."
That "book-agent!" Involuntarily I
harked back to Mr. Fitch's " line."

When I found Mr. Quaritch in his
new quarters and he rose to greet me,
he stood by a table — not a very large
one — on which lay some hundred thou-
sand dollars' worth of books and manu-
scripts. A casual glance showed a
Shakesperc quarto; a large, ancient-
looking illuminated manuscript; a
" Book of Hours ;" and a volume of
manuscript letters. For the moment,
however, Mr. Quaritch's thoughts were
not on books. Like a true Briton he
was intent on exercise and wanted to
know how one could best get out into
the country for a good walk. It was
not until I had satisfied him on this point
that he turned to his treasures.

Mr. Quaritch believes that, as in
picture-collecting, the United States is

destined to become internationally im-
portant in rare books and manuscripts.
The Marquand sale, which attracted
distinguished foreign buyers to New
York to bid for their customers, and as
investments in their own business on
paintings, mezzo-tints, rare rugs and
objets d'art generally, gave this city a
standing in foreign countries as an art
centre. Similarly, in Mr. Quaritch's
belief, it would receive recognition now
as a rare book centre if any of the well-
known bibliophiles were to put up his
collection at public vendue. This as-
suredly would be the case some years
hence, because book and manuscript
treasures are being bought by American
collectors in steadily growing number.
Mr. Quaritch's observations on the con-
dition of the market for such things are
summed up in his phrase that " the good
things steadily have been going up."
What has lost ground has lacked real
merit — and he illustrated his point by
citing such things as catch-dollar edi-
tions de luxe. He considers that the
growing wealth of this country and the
entry of the American collector into the
lists in competition with the English
and European collector of rare books
and manuscripts is one reason why the
" good things " steadily are rising in
value. It has been his experience that
two factors operate in the American col-
lector's favor. " In the first place," to
quote Mr. Quaritch's words, " the
American collector has the money; in
the second place he has the taste. They
talk of the American millionnaire sail-
ing in and buying anything. Some peo-
ple may have found American million-
naires of that kind. I have yet to dis-
cover one."

In many respects this London dealer
considers the interest in collecting as
great here as in England, and as regards
Americana and early English manu-
scripts even keener. He places at the
present time rare manuscripts as among

230

THE LAMP

the best of the " good things " that are
increasing in value. A printed book, no
matter how rare, may exist somewhere
in duplicate, and the duplicate may turn
up at some unexpected moment and in-
juriously affect the value of what was
thought to be the one and only copy. A
manuscript is, however, from its very
nature, unique. What is possibly the
printed book most highly prized by
English collectors — a First Folio in good
condition — is worth $15,000. Any
early English manuscript would be
cheap at $10,000; and Mr. Quaritch
showed me a large illuminated fifteenth
century manuscript of Gower's " Con-
fessio Mentis " which he values at
$40,000. An art collector wmII not hesi-
tate to spend $5,000 for a mediaeval objet
iVart; but, in spite of the high price, an
illuminated manuscript, because of its
many pictures, is in the end the least ex-
pensive form of mediaeval art. To il-
lustrate his point Mr. Quaritch showed
me a small " Book of Hours " from the
latter part of the fifteenth century. Its
price was $3,500; but it had ninety il-
luminations. " Better than pictures on
the wall," was the way Mr. Quaritch
put it. Moreover a manuscript is a text
for the student.

It is this dealer's experience that
manuscripts of the standard English
poets steadily are growing more valu-
able. Things thought but little of sixty
years ago now rank high. The same is
true of manuscript letters. Mr. Quar-
itch has with him a volume of letters
by Mme. dArblay (Fannie Burney) to
her brother; letters of Captain Cook;
and letters of Samuel Johnson. Fifteen
years ago a volume of manuscript letters
such as these could have been bought for
$300. Now the collection is held at
$1,500. In general it may be said that
all rare things — the small product of
Chaucer, Spencer, Shakespere, Milton,
and even De Foe, for example — ^which

are of interest to the English-speaking
world (America, Australia, South Af-
rica and England itself) are rising in
value very rapidly.

The growing interest in this country
in outdoor sports has sent the early nine-
teenth century sporting books with
large colored prints, like Aiken's " Na-
tional Sports" (published about 1827),
some 200 per cent, above their value of
ten years ago. Care must be exercised
in buying books of this class because the
old copper plates still exist and can be
and, in point of fact, in some cases still
are printed from, but without the refine-
ment of coloring that distinguished the
work of the colorists in the early edi-
tions. Mr. Quaritch told a joke on the
famous Badminton series that never
seems to come to an end. When they
got out their latest volume, and it was
seen to be on automobiling, people said:
" I suppose they'll give us ping-pong
next!" Mr. Quaritch laughed softly
over this as if enjoying it inwardly all
over again.

He showed me in a collection of tracts
about the Quakers, " An Account of the
Province of Pennsylvania," by William
Penn, printed in England in 1685. If^
it Philadelphia is spoken of as " our in-
tended metropolis," and Vine, Chestnut,
Walnut, and Mulberry Streets, still
familiar thoroughfares, are referred to
as being named after " things that spon-
taneously grow from the city."

Mr. Quaritch tells me there is a new
phase of collecting in England which
has not yet reached here. English col-
lectors are giving more and more atten-
tion to books illustrated with early
Italian woodcuts. Often these are
theological tracts and w^re printed
chiefly in Venice and Florence from
1480 to 1520. Doubtless American col-
lectors will not be slow to enter the lists
for these.

Gustav Kobbe,

HENRY JAMES'S SHORT STORIES
By Montgomery Schuyler

TO those readers to whom the an-
nouncement of a new book by
Henry James is precisely the most wel-
come that a publisher can make, the ac-
ceptability of it is heightened when it is
of a sheaf of short stories, and not of a
novel. It sounds absurd to say of such
a master of expression that he is an
undisciplined writer. But a w-riter in
revolt against the conditions imposed on
him by the existence of readers he clearly
often is. It is not only "the," it is "his"
public that he frequently seems to flout.
Often Mr. James's writing, like Cole-
ridge's talk, according to Carlyle, "loves
to wander at its ow^n sweet will, and
make its auditor and his claims and hum-
ble wishes a mere passive bucket for it-
self." Of course the public has its own
method of self -protect ion, not less effec-
tive for being negative, and can not only
"think of," but do, something else as he
"goes on refining." The more is the
pity on both sides. But the stricter the
limitations of mere space, the less danger
on this score. So, while the experienced
reader of Mr. James takes up a new
novel of his with "a certain fearful look-
ing for" hovering over and somewhat
beclouding his confident expectation of
instruction and delight, his confidence
in the new volume of short stories is
implicit, and the shorter they are the
higher it is. The new novel may be a
failure, however interesting a failure.
Some of the short stories, his experience
assures him, are quite certain to be suc-
cesses. Compare Mr. Swinburne's verse
with Mr. Swinburne's prose, and see
how the dikes of the metrical form re-
strain and direct to its advantage the
flood that would otherwise spread into

The Bettfr Sort. By Henry James. New York,
Charles Scribner*s Sons, 1903.

a weltering lake. A like service is per-
formed for our present "prosateur" by
the Procrustean conditions of magazine
publication, the hard-and-fast-ness of the
limitation which may be good for a
writer almost in proportion as it irks
him. When Mr. James manages to
transcend it, and the short story is writ
large, the results are apt to justify the
limitation, when, for example, he takes
three hundred pages to the events, if
they may be called so, of twenty-four
hours in a country house in order to de-
velop the manifestly fantastic thesis that
there may be such a thing as a physical
vampire which feeds upon and absorbs
another's beauty, and such a thing as an
intellectual vampire which assimilates
another's brains. Such and no other is
the theme of "The Sacred Fount." Like
unto it is that other fantasy, "The Pri-
vate Life," in which one character is
simply a public function, and does not
exist in private, and another is a se-
cluded intelligence that vanishes at cock-
crowing; or, rather, is represented in
daylight by an evidently inadequate un-
derstudy. To be sure this is only of
seventy-five pages against three hundred.
But the method of the two is quite the
same. It is an amplification by innu-
merable new touches, a process of docu-
mentation by which it is sought to render
these palpable incredibilities what cur-
rent criticism calls "convincing," w-ith
the result of making the incredibility
still more hopelessly palpable.

"These are our failures." But the
same tendency is to be traced in some of
Mr. James's high successes. And,
though the range of his interest is im-
mense, the method is always the same,
the method which aims not at selection,
but at reproduction, which builds up a

232

THE LAMP

total impression by the accumulation of
details. In these there is of course se-
lection, or the work, given the work-
man's power of observation, would lit-
erally find no end, as it threatened not
to do in "The Sacred Fount." The
details are always significant. But he
sees so many that the scene, the portrait,
the situation, is always a synthesis, has
never the summariness of an "impres-
sion." And Mr. James rejoices in the
arduous. If his readers do not, so much
the worse for them. "To the general"
the result cannot but be "caviare."
"Who does not regret," asks Emerson
somewhere, "that his page is not solid
with that right materialistic treatment
which delights everybody?" Here evi-
dently is a writer of whose regrets that
is the least, and who sometimes goes
dangerously near to intimating that the
popular cannot be the . meritorious, that
a good speech must be over the heads of
any but a very special jury. Such a
writer "proves" his readers by sifting
them. Well, at least, by this time they
are all "his" readers, however many or
few of them there may be. As Mr.
Lafarge keeps insisting, in his "Letters
from Japan," "it is the work of art
which judges us." Especially, Mr.
James is a writer's writer. The world
of his psychology, a world of theorems
and problems, is as far as may be from
the world in which the common novel-
reader aspires to lose himself. No nov-
elist less than he, to adopt Mr. Kipling's
delightful image, is "taking tired people
to the Islands of the Blest." On the
contrary, his first requirement, from the
candidate for a James readership, whose
examination paper the book is so apt to
be, is that the candidate shall keep his
eyes open and have his wits about him.
His technique is wonderful. So expert
a witness as Stevenson has borne gen-
erous witness to his envy of it. But it is
a means to a very special end, and, to
admire it, you have to regard the end of

a total impression and the method of
accumulation and synthesis. What is
one who takes passage on "the old three-
decker" of romance for the port of a
"happy ending" going to do in this gal-
ley, of which the haven is oftener than
not a point of interrogation, and of
which the passengers are all expected to
be on deck and verifying the observation
when the skipper "takes the sun"? To
get the good of the cruise you must be
a navigator yourself. The learned
Winckelmann observes of Greek sculpt-
ure, "Don't trust too much to the judg-
ment of the artists. They look more to
what is difficult than to what is beauti-
ful." The learned Winckelmann was
not without reason.

That the tours de force are tours de
force there is no denying. We have
cited two failures, two cases in which,
allured by the very difficulty of the per-
formance, the novelist has taken two
fantastic incredibilities and failed in try-
ing to make them credible. But is the
thesis propounded in "The Sacred
Fount" or in "The Private Life" any
more untenable than that propounded in
the "Turn of the Screw"? And is not
this latter success a complete vindication
of the author's method, the method of
slow and patient accumulation of detail
and circumstance to make that credible
which, stated baldly and crudely, would
be incredible? Nay, what could be
more flatly incredible than that a mother
should let her child perish rather than
grow up to be contaminated with its
father's poetry ("The Author of Bel-
traffio"), or that a bride should commit
suicide because she foresaw the wrath
that would be aroused in the breast of
her American brother by her British
husband's book on the United States
("The Modern Warning"), or that
the characters should be so built up be-
fore us under the increasing stress of the
situation that it becomes not only natu-
ral but inevitable that an English young

THE LAMP

^33

lady shall detestably murder a harmless
child, and that the witnesses of her
crime shall combine to shield her from
its punishment ("The Other House") ?
To the present reviewer's apprehension,
these four are all high successes. And
evidently they are extreme instances of
the art of making credible incredibilities
palpable and monstrous. Kate Croye,
in "The Wings of the Dove," is no more
tractable to the novelist's art; and to
convince readers of Kate Croye is what
would be called in the West a tolerably
tough proposition. Doubtless none of
these instances, whether of success or of
failure, is an instance of "the right
materialistic treatment which delights
everybody," at least in the donnee, in
the choice of subject and motive, and
the choice of subject is as characteristic
as anything else. There is not one of
them of which the reader is not tempted
to say, when he returns from the world
of the novelist's illusion into the light of
common day, " Twere to consider too
curiously, to consider so." Mr. James
often, in his tales, assumes the character
of a portrait painter, very appropriately,
for he "sits down before" his subjects in
the attitude of a limner, as well as in
that of a besieger. It is in that char-
acter that, in one of these present tales,
he says of himself:

I may as well say at once, however, that I
never luas out of it ; for a man ridden by the
twin demons of imagination and observation is
never — enough for his peace — out of anything.

That is manifestly true, but it is true
of every romancer who has a real voca-
tion. Mr. Kipling might say it of him-
self as convincingly as Mr. James of
himself, in spite of the abysmal differ-
•ences fixed between them. But there is
something distinctive and individual in •
the stroke of self-portraiture, attributed,
in another of these stories, "The Bel-
donald Holbein," to another portrait
painter :

It is not my fault if I am so put together as
often to find more life in situations obscure and
subject to interpretation than in the gross rattle
of the foreground.

"The gross rattle of the foreground"
is evidently as much Mr. Kipling's ele-
ment as that of Mr. James in the cryptic
twilight of the background into which
his candle throws its beams.

But now suppose that a writer so
gifted and so accomplished should for
once, confining himself to the limitations
which so beneficently restrain him, ab-
jure all the things that hinder the ap-
preciation of him, that he should al-
ways "have tidings," and that he should
always deliver them like a rarely com-
petent "man of this world," that he
should, as it were, "highly resolve"
that he would write a dozen stories
(arithmetically eleven) within the com-
pass of 428 i2mo pages, and that he
would not, in the language of litera-
ture, attempt one tour de force, or, in
that of the street, "do a single stunt."
We should expect a collection of master-
pieces. Well, we very nearly have them.
The last collection, comparable with
this, that its author put forth, four or
five years ago, was "The Soft Side." It
would be absurd and minifying to com-
pare Mr. James as a teller of tales with
anybody now writing English but him-
self. As the title imports, "The Soft
Side" was a collection of "light" and
amiable stories, a relaxation from the
more strenuous psychology to which
their author had been devoting himself.
Very clever and entertaining most of
them were. But, so exacting is the
standard raised by "The Better Sort,"
that there is scarcely one of them that
could be let into this collection without
a perceptible derogation from that stand-
ard. These things are transcripts from
life, undistorted by any preconception
or by any object less worthy than the
rendering of things observed or, if one -

234

THE LAMP

may say so, experimentally imagined.
There is scarcely one that has not enough
of "subject" to be apprehensible and
interesting when told by a fairly intelli-
gent recounter, in outline and from his
recollection of, according to the title of
one, "The Story in It." And, although
every subject is a problem, there is not
one that can fairly be dismissed as a
puzzle, in which the interest lies too
largely in the mere difficulty of the
thesis or the mere ingenuity of the solu-
tion. But it is quite of course that
there is not one that does not gain im-
mensely from the ripe art of the actual
recounter, an art which has very sel-
dom seemed to be so loyally and ten-
derly subdued to the purpose of pure
presentation. There is tragedy here
("The Beast in the Jungle") ; there is
farce, or at least "refined vaudeville,"
in such presentations as "Mrs. Med-
win" and "The Two Faces." There is
ostensibly and superficially the tone of
polite comedy in almost all. And yet
quite all

Do take a sober coloring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality

Indeed, that is the thing that these
aspects of life, superficially so various,
have in common and that forms their
nexus — that they are so philosophically,
and so philosophically because so geni-
ally observed. I was just now tempted
to call them eleven masterpieces. And
why not, if they all show that? One
may have his favorites, but his choice
does not depend upon the skill with
which they are respectively presented,
nor yet upon the temper. One cannot
always quite make it out, although his
confidence in his cicerone in these dusky
labyrinths inclines him to throw the
blame of that upon himself. Why, for
example, should Frank Granger, in
"Flickerbridge," have been jealous lest
his American betrothed should share his
appreciation of the most un-American

thing he or she could ever have dreamed
of, the old maid, her own aunt, a relic
and survival in the English backwater
in which she had been spared for him.
The description of the survival is neither
better nor worse than twenty others in
the volume, but is more than most cita-
ble without injustice to the context:

Miss Wenham, fifty-five years of age, and un-
appeasably timid, unaccountably strange, had,
on her reduced scale, an almost Gothic grotesquc-
ness ; but the final effect of one's sense of it was an
amenity that accompanied one's steps like wafted
gratitude. More flurried, more spasmodic, more
apologetic, more completely at a loss at one
moment and more precipitately abounding at
another, he had never before in all his days seen
any maiden lady ; yet for no maiden lady he had
ever seen had he so promptly conceived a private
enthusiasm. Her eyes protruded, her chin re-
ceded, and her nose carried on in conversation a
queer little independent motion. She wore on
the top of her head an upright circular cap that
made her resemble a carj-atid disburdened, and
on other parts of her person strange combina-
tions of colors, stuffs, shapes of metal, mineral
and plant. The tones of her voice rose and fell,
her facial convulsions, whether tending — one
could scarce make out — to expression or r<rpres-
sion, succeeded each other by a law^ of their own.
She was embarrassed at nothing and at every-
thing, frightened at ever>-thing and at nothing,
and she approached objects, subjects, the simplest
questions and answers and the whole material of
intercourse, either with the indirectness of terror
or with the violence of despair.

But, if one were fairly to begin quot-
ing from these delightful and suggestive
pages, one would never have done, just
as if one were to begin asking questions
about these transcripts from life, which
are like their original in that they pro-
voke questions — questions like the dis-
cussions of Hamlet's sanity. That scep-
tical curator, for example, in "The
Birthplace," who reasoned himself out
of belief in the Shakespeare mythus and
then cudgelled himself back into it — is
he or is he not a parable of the young
man in holy orders who is exposed too
late to the ravages of the higher criti-

THE LAMP

^35

cism, and finds himself suddenly sum-
moned to choose between his intellectual
honest}' and his livelihood? Mr. James
never gives him away, not by so much
as the flicker of an eyelash, unless such
a flicker is detectable in the capitaliza-
tion of the pronoun in the "He" and
"His" and "Him." The question,
which cannot help arising, is, all the
same, of so much less importance than
the geniality with which the doubter is
presented, a geniality, indeed, including
a sympathy which is gratefully conspicu-
ous throughout the volume, and quite
equally conspicuous in the portraits of
the two cockney Bohemians, notably in
that of Maud Blandly, in "The Papers,"
in which the exploitation of the London
phase of the universal notoriety-hunt is
so clearly made to cover the sins of those
who are engaged in it. Nor is the
geniality wanting, even to so stern a
tragedy as that of "The Beast of the
Jungle," a kind of externization and em-
bodiment of morals and psychology in

which Mr. James challenges, we are
sure without the intention of challeng-
ing, Stevenson on Stevenson's own van-
tage ground of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde," and of other things scarcely less
noteworthy. The discovery that the
shadow wherein a man has walked from
childhood, the fear that has frightened
him out of his share of life, should turn
out, after all, to be a shadow of the
Nemesis of his own fabrication, the reflex
of his own lovelessness — this automatic
punishment is tremendously more im-
pressive than any phantasy of mechanical
retribution could possibly be. Tragedy,
comedy, farce, how largely human these
things are. In no book of his has Mr.
James interposed fewer obstacles to the
appreciation of himself than in this. In
none has he vindicated more completely
the position which all readers of English
should be glad to accord him as a master
of English letters, and which his own
born countrymen, one would say, ought
to be eager to claim for him.

SONG
By Robert Loveman

From •* The Gates of Silence." By permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons.

The Dawn is a wild, fair woman,

With sunrise in her hair;
Look where she stands, with pleading hands.

To lure me there.

The Dusk is dark and glorious,

A star upon her brow;
With sunset blushes in her cheeks.

She beckons now.

I, ever fickle, stand between,
Upon my lips a rune.

And in my summer-singing soul —
The hoiden happy Noon.

A NEW PORTRAIT OF JOSEPHINE DASKAM.

THE RAMBLER

This is from the New York Sun:
INSPIRED BY THEIR PICTURES

I want to be an author —

My hand up to my face,
A thought upon my forehead —

An air of studied grace !
I want to be an author.

With genius on my brow ;
I want to be an author,

And I want to be It now !

Droch.
J'

We puWish on this page a photograph,
actual size, of what is probably the
smallest printed and
bound book in the world.
It measures ^^ by ^\ of
an inch. It is Fitzger-
ald's "Rubaiyat," and
has forty-eight pages. It
is bound in green cloth.
The edition is limited to
fift>'-seven copies, and is
published by Charles
Hardy Meigs, of Cleve-
land. The price asked
for these toys is $65 each.
Photography has made the making of
miniature books easier than in the days
when expert engravers, with powerful
glasses, laboriously worked over plates,
the print from which could be read only
by good eyes in the best of light or with
the aid of magnifj'ing-glasses. To pro-
duce this tiny "Rubiayat" Mr. Meigs first
made a book about 7 14 by (>V2 inches in
size, printed from special type peculiar-
ly adapted for a great reduction. From
this the tiny plates were made by the
usual photographic process, and de-
stroyed after the fifty-seven copies were
printed. A glance at the cut makes it
unnecessary to say that the type lines are
so small that the eye merely sees them
as lines. Yet they can be read with a
strong enough glass. The book is dedi-

THE SMALLEST BOOK IN
THE WORLD.

(Actual size.)

cated to Mr. John Hay, "lover of Omar
and beloved of Omarians."

" The First Folio Shakespeare,"
pocket size, cloth bound, of good type
and paper and priced at half a dollar a
volume, produces, for its introductory
play, "A Midsommer Nights Dreame."
The editors are Charlotte Porter and
Helen A. Clarke, who have proved them-
selves with the " Camberwell Brown-
ing."

" Chaucer and Spenser," they say
in their preface, "have
been privileged to reach
the modern reader in the
forms of speech befitting
them and belonging to
their time. Shakespeare^
as it happens, has not
hitherto been permitted
to become familiar in the-
quaint Elizabethan set-
ting befitting him and
betraying the conditions
belonging to the first
publication of the Plays.

" Yet Chaucer is, of course, far more
archaic and Spenser is, though so little
earlier, much more affected and remote
in style, than Shakespeare. Without so
much need for it, Shakespeare has been
modernized to suit each succeeding
epoch. Yet, barring only the long s for
s, the interchangeable 1 and jj u and v^
an occasional y for th, there is practically
nothing in the form of the first complete
text of the Plays published in 1623, and
commonly called the First Folio, par-
ticularly if these few changes be made,
which should cause the present day
reader to stumble in reading it.

" The advantage of typographical
fidelity to the first edition, so long with-
held from the public, is obvious, and with

238

THE LAMP

no other changes whatever beyond those
mentioned, either in wording, spelling,
punctuation, or in general style of capi-
talizing and italicizing, that edition is
here reproduced."

That, in brief, is the apology for the
new edition. The editors go on, inter-
estingly, after some history of the
Quartos :

" With all proper deduction made,
then, for the earlier appearance of four-
teen of the Plays in Quarto, and for the
defects of the reissue in the Folio of the
same Plays, still the First Folio remains,
as a matter of fact, the text nearest to
Shakespeare's stage, to Shakespeare's
ownership, to Shakespeare's authority.

" Curiously enough, although so neces-
sarily the origin of all later editions of
Shakespeare, the First Folio was contin-
uously passed over by the English editors
as the legitimate basis from which to
print their later texts. Rowe, commonly
called the first editor, printed from a
copy of a copy of a copy of it — that is,
from the Fourth Folio, 1685, which was
printed from the second impression of
the Third, 1664, which was printed from
the Second, 1632, which was printed
from the First. Some of the obvious
misprints of the First were corrected in
the other Folios, but, naturally, many
new ones were made, especially in the
Fourth, in which the spelling was thor-
oughly modernized to suit the epoch, and
which was both the most changed and
the worst printed of the four.

" Yet that worst and least authorita-
tive of the four Folios is the historic
basis of all English texts. Rowe printed
from it with changes of his own, Pope
from Rowe, Theobald and Hanmer from
Pope, Warburton from Theobald, John-
son from Warburton, Steevens from
Johnson, and so on, each new editor us-
ing the nearest convenient text to mod-
ernize and emend, incorporating indis-
tinguishably with the original all the
changes he thought good to make in it.

" An illustration of Rowe's initiation
of a method in which the editors follow-
ing him have all in some degree con-
curred, an interesting example in ' The
Comedy of Errors,' V. i. 149 (138 in
the Globe), is cited by the Cambridge
editors. The First Folio gave this * at
your important letters.' The Second
Folio misprinted * important ' * impo-
teant;' the Third and Fourth mis-cor-
rected to * impotent,' and Rowe, printing
from the Fourth Folio, emended to * all-
potent,' disregarding the First Folio and
ignorant of the Heedlessness of any
emendation whatever. . . .

" In a word, the English editors of
Shakespeare have continuously groped
backward from the most modern toward
the most ancient text. And it was re-
served for the American editor. Dr.
Horace Howard Furness, to be the first
to adopt the rational and scientific meth-
od which alone makes it possible to catch
all preceding slips and to forestall new
causes of error by printing the First
Folio as it stands, and noting variations
from that in chronological order. Even
he did not venture so to depart from the
traditional method until he brought out
the fifth Play in his supremely thor-
ough Variorum series, the twelfth Play
in which was recently issued. Other
modern editors, either in England or in
America, almost without exception, have
followed in the beaten track, adopting
usually the Cambridge text and incor-
porating in it here and there emendations
that seem to them good — whenever they
collate at all, groping backward through
the wilderness, as Capell says he did,
toward the light of the original.

" The present editors have chosen in-
stead to begin with the light of the origi-
nal. The nearest way to * that fair
country, the Poet's real habitation,' they
have sought to throw open to the general
reader by setting before him, just as it
stands, the only text that can lay any
claim to be the author's. "

REPRODUCED FOR THE SAKE OF THE COSTUME,
FROM ROWE'S EDITION. 1709.

(This is, possibly, Macklin, as he was acting Macbeth about this time.)

>'RONTISPIECE OF THE NEW EDITION OF MR. FURNESS'S VARIORUM ''MACKEIH.
REVISED BY HIS SON AND JUST PUBLISHED.

DRAWN BY ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAV.

This very praiseworthy object is
carried out with great diligence in the
initial volume. In addition to a preface,
a critical introduction and an explana-
tory table of text signs, the volume car-
ries some eighty-four pages of notes on
the play (the list of editions showing that
forty-three have been consulted) ; a
glossary of words, grammatical usage
and pronunciation; a list of variorum
readings and two dozen pages of se-
lected criticism. The very enumeration
argues ponderosity and one has to look
again to make sure that the light pocket
volume actually carries it all. The edi-
tors acknowledge themselves " deeply
conscious of the large legacies bequeathed
them by their predecessors," and express
special indebtedness to Halliwell-Phil-
lipps, the Cambridge editors, Dr. Rolfe
and Dr. Furness, " whose new and thor-
oughly American lead they have followed

in adopting for this edition the First
Folio text."

The work has interest and distinct
popular value. The indebtedness to Dr.
Furness is very great..

Here is an extract from a letter from
Edward Everett Hale to George T.
Tobin, whose bas-relief of Mr. Hale
we pictured in January:

"I put it (the bas-relief) to the best
use I could by making it my Christmas
present to Helen Keller. She is a rela-
tion of mine and my very dear friend.
And, as you see, she never knew my face
till she felt it out from your portrait,
for etiquette does not yet permit a charm-
ing young woman to feel all over the
muscles and bones even of an octogena-
rian cousin."

THE LAMP

241

The half-dozen sketches by Mr. Wal-
ter Jack Duncan and Mr. Robert
Cortes Holliday here pubh'shed are
excellent examples of one of the new
fashions in poster art developing in this
country, a fashion strongly under the
influence of William Nicholson, but
showing a freedom, a grace,
and a spirit which are thor-
oughly and characteristical-
ly American. As was from
the beginning with posters,
Its inspiration is commer-
cial; the directness, the al-
most bluntness, the invari-
able vigor underlying the
Nicholson manner is popu-
lar; it tells Its story as the
people like their stories —
simply, emphatically, pictu-
resquely. Hence its adver-
tising value. Hence its
steady development in an
advertising land. But a>
all art forms in America, no
matter of what origin, show
the French influence, so does
our newest poster mingle
English and French with
that mysterious something
which is ours. Cheret's in-
imitable touch, however ad-
mirable, being French, of
itself leaves the average
American cold (it is the av-
erage American the adver-
tiser wants), while Nich-
olson's most telling prints lie
unsold, almost untouched,
on our counters. But, of
each, take part and, of na-
tive genius, the generous
balance, and the recipe
yields the successful Ameri-
can poster of the moment.

We have met English-
men who do not understand
why Nicholson is not more
popular in America. It is

easier for an American to understand.
Nicholson has a certain grimness that is^
after all, verj' British. He is cast in
hard lines. Immensely clever, his very
cleverness suggests Gibraltar. We wish
he had a French ancestor. We are com-
pelled, ourselves, to infuse him with

DRAWN BY WALTER JACK DUNCAN.

241

THE LAMP

beauty, grace, fluency. The influence of
Beardsley, whose work, says Mr. Spiel-
mann, shows "elements so suggestively
opposite as his distorted echoes of Chi-
nese or Annamite execution and Rosset-
tian feeling, seen with a squinting eye,
imagined with a Mephistophelian brain,
and executed with a vampire hand," is no
longer prominent in either the English
or the American poster. Mr. Bunner
found Will H. Bradley doing the same
sort of work in America at the same time
— but with what grace, beauty, and taste !
The Beardsley cult hung on long in
England, but in the end it has yielded,
perforce, to the growing power of Nich-
olson. It was inevitable, of course.

DRAWN BY W. J. Dl NCAN.

Beardsley was the afterglow of the aes-
thetic fad of a few years before, and
Nicholson was the reaction. Beardsley
was exotic, Nicholson sturdily British.
Nicholson came to stay; his mark is
deep ; he has solved vital problems. But
in America we take of him what we
need to work out our own destiny. It
is the American way, which is the way
of progress.

Eight years ago H. C. Bunner prophe-
sied a distinctly American school of
poster art. With Penfield, Edwards,
Rhead, McCarter, Bradley, and a host
of others already enthusiastically at
work, looking back we may well con-
clude that Mr. Bunner saw its begin-
nings then.

" In .all forms of art," wTites Arthur
Symonds of Tolstoi in the Saturday
Review of London, "the point of view
is of more importance than the subject-
matter. It is as essential for the novel-
ist to get the right focus as it is for the
painter. In a page of Zola and in a page
of Tolstoi you might find the same gut-
ter described with the same minuteness;
and yet in reading the one you might see
only the filth, while in reading the other
you might feel only some fine human
impulse. Tolstoi * sees life steadily ' be-
cause he sees it under a divine light; he
has a saintly patience with evil, and so
becomes a casuist through sympathy, a
psychologist out of that pity w^hich is
understanding. And then, it is as a di-
rect consequence of this point of view,
in the mere process of unravelling things,
that his greatest skill is shown as a
novelist. He does not exactly write
well; he is satisfied if his w^ords express
their meaning, and no more; his words
have neither beauty nor subtlety^ in
themselves. But, if you will only give
him time, for he needs time, he will creep
closer and closer up to some doubtful
and remote truth, not knowing itself for

■

♦1

•• —

DRAWN BY W. J. DUNCAN.

what it is: he will reveal the soul to it-
self, like * God's spy/

" If you want to know how daily life
goes on among people who know as little
about themselves as you know about
your neighbors in a street or drawing-
room, read Jane Austen, and, on that
level, you will be perfectly satisfied. I
never read Tolstoi without a certain
suspense, sometimes a certain terror. An
accusing spirit seems to peer between
every line; I can never tell what new
disease of the soul those pitying and un-
swerving eyes may not have dis-
covered."

The death of the author of " The
House with the Green Shutters " has
caused more commotion in London than
the death of any man of the same age
for quite a long time. When a man of
promise dies there seems always to be
some friction in dealing with his biog-
raphy, probably because of the different

degrees of appreciation of his friends.
Thus there has been some difficulty with
regard to the life of Mr. Lionel John-
son, for his Irish friends think that his
Celticism is scarcely safe in the hands of
a mere Englishman. Similarly in the
case of Mr. Brown. His great personal
friends feel dissatisfied w^ith the sketch
which has been written by Mr. "Cuth-
bert Lennox.'* They lay great store by
some of Mr. Brown's posthumous work,
notably the "Essay on Hamlet" and the
Blackwood edition of "Gait." The
Hamlet will be prefaced by a sketch
from the pen of Mr. D. S. Meld rum,
the novelist, who represents the Black-
woods in London. Mr. Meld rum is a
Scot, a native of the "Lang Toun" of
Kirkcaldy in the kingdom of Fife, fa-
mous as the birthplace of Adam Smith.
Mr. Brown, even to those who met him
casually, seemed a peculiarly robust per-
son in mind and body, and intimate
friends (and contemporaries) wish to
place on record his essential braveness in

244

THE LAMP

the face of many difficulties, without
underlining too particularly its source.

An interesting reprint, for whose call-
ing back into life the coming celebration
of the Louisiana Purchase is responsible,
IS Gayarre's "History of Louisiana." It
reappears in four volumes, with the im-
print of the Hansells of New Orleans;
the critical and biographical sketch is by
Grace King.

Reviewing Mr. Bowyer Nichol's
" Little Book of English Sonnets," the
Academy and Literature interestingly
says : —

" With native-born poets the rhyme
is often prominent, and one has a general
sense of difficulty overcome which one
should not have. The English muse does
not breathe freely in the form. It has too
much whalebone for her large move-
ments. The Shakespearean form, with-
out the Italian's crafty completion for
its chosen aims, is simpler, native, ca-
pable both of sweetness and majesty; a
better instrument, we think, for our
English muse. As Mr. Nichol observes,
Keats ended by using it, though he began
with the Petrarchan model; and Keats
had instinct.

" Throughout the greater portion of
her career, indeed (until, that is, the Vic-
torian period), the English muse has not
taken kindly to the sonnet. That is the
reflection which comes to one in glancing
through this little book. There is a dis-
appointingly small proportion of first-
rate merit, apart from its interest as ex-
periment in an originally foreign form.
A selection of lyric, or narrative, or any
other manner of poems, during the like
period would pan out far richer in pure
gold. Wyat (speaking always from the
austere poetic standpoint) is nothing,
and Surrey not much; Raleigh's son-
net IS somewhat overrated ; Spenser never

so little found himself as in this medium;
we cannot share Mr. Nicholas admira-
tion for most of Henry Constable's sa-
cred sonnets; Daniel is surely an ambler
with fine lines (though it be treason to
say so) ; vigorous Drayton has yet (like
Daniel) but one quite fine sonnet, though
others have partial power; Jonson, and
Herrick, and Herbert fail in this who-
do not fail in other things; Habington
is naught ; the eighteenth century all but
barren : and so we reach Wordsworth.

" The great names (apart from writ-
ers of an odd good sonnet or so) can be
reckoned on the fingers: Sidney,
Shakespeare, Drummond of Hawthorn-
den, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats. Add
to these Mrs. Browning and Rossetti in
our day, and you exhaust the list — not
a long one for our opulently poetical
England."

The cry raised over Mrs. Humphry
Ward's "Lady Rose's Daughter" has
reached a pitch which makes desirable
the re-statement of a few facts. The
charge (but not of plagiarism — that
ugly and uncalled for word was injected
into the affair later on) was originally
made by the New York Tribune, on
January 25th, in these words:

" In the fifteenth chapter of ' Lady
Rose's Daughter,' the serial story by
Mrs. Humphry Ward which is now
drawing to a close, the attitude of the
heroine toward her lover at a critical
point in their relations is stated in the
following passage:

" She never dreamt for a moment of blaming
Wark worth for placing money foremost in his
plans of matrimony. She resembled one of the
famous amoureuses of the eighteenth centur}*,
who, in writing to the man she loved but could
not marry, advises him to take a wife to mend
his fortunes, and proposes to him various tempt-
ing morsels : * une jeunt ptrsonne* sixteen,
with neither father nor mother — only a brother.
* They will give her, on her marriage, 13,000
francs a year, and the aunt will be quite content

DRAWN KY R. C. HoLLlDAV.

to keep her and look after her for some time.'
And if that won't do — * I know a man who would
be only too happy to have you for a son-in-law ;
but his daughter is only eleven ; she is an only
<:hild, however, and she will be very rich. You
know, ffiofi ami, I desire your happiness above
all things ; how to procure it — there lies the
chief interest of my life."

** The words quoted by Mrs. Ward
were written by Mile, de Lespinasse, in
one of those letters to M. de Guibert
which constitute a monument to as ro-
mantic and as extraordinary a passion as
any recorded in that division of litera-
ture dedicated to the great lovers of
history. There are other resemblances

between the famous Frenchwoman and
Mile. Julie Le Breton, the heroine of
* Lady Rose's Daughter,' resemblances
so numerous and so striking that they
form a curiously interesting subject for
inquiry and reflection."

Then followed the story of Mile, de
Lespinasse, culled from her published
letters and Sainte-Beuve's essay, which
might also well be, with changes of
scene, period, names, and a few circum-
stances, a synopsis of much of Mrs.
Ward's novel. This started the outcry,
which has echoed through the press ever
since. Meantime the Tribune's article
cam.e to Mrs. Ward's attention, and she

246

THE LAMP

cabled this reply, which was published
February 25th:

" To the Editor of The Tribune.

" Sir: I am delighted to find from a
stray newspaper paragraph which has
reached me. that some of your literary
readers have discovered the relation be-
tween my new story, * Lady Rosens
Daughter,* and * The Life and Letters
of Mile, de Lespinasse/ I have, of
course, made it sufficiently plain, both
by calling my heroine Julie and by sev-
eral references and passages in the book
itself, which will have appealed at once
to those acquainted with that treasure-
house of human psychology, the world of
French memoirs. Some years ago, when
reading the French letters of Mile, de
Lespinasse, I was struck with the dramat-
ic possibilities of the situation between
her and Mme. du Deffand. Certain
figures and incidents of modern English
life rushed into my mind at the same
time, and a modem Julie seemed to
stand and move before me. Alack, it
was not possible for me to follow the sad,
and, I fear, shameful, story of the old
Julie very far; not for me, at any rate,
who prefer to believe in and paint the
kindlier issues and possibilities of human
fate. Otherwise, like the master of us
all, George Meredith, in a famous book,
I might have tried to reclothe and re-
vitalize the whole story; and if your
readers had been able to trace my sources
throughout — supposing they had cared
enough about the tale to do so — that, I
submit, should only have been an addi-
tional pleasure to them, and no discredit
to me."

Appended to this letter appeared the
following comment by the editor:

" We are glad to print Mrs. Ward's
letter, just received by cable, and fully
appreciate the candid admission it con-
tains of her indebtedness to the history
of Mile, de Lespinasse in writing * Lady
Rose's Daughter,' an indebtedness which
was pointed out in detail in our literary

columns on January 25 th. We trust,
however, that she and her publishers will
see the necessity for giving with the
novel, when it appears in book form,
some acknowledgment to the famous
Frenchwoman more explicit than that
indicated above. We cannot agree with
Mrs. Ward that by calling her heroine
Julie, and by the * references and pas-
sages ' to which she alludes, she has made
her debt to Mile, de Lespinasse * suffi-
ciently plain.* The debt is too great,
too comprehensive, to be disposed of in
this summary fashion; and a prefatory
note, containing the fullest explanation
of the source of her plot and characters,
is the least which Mrs. Ward's readers
have a right to .demand."

Thus it appears that the question is
simply one of paralleling, in fiction,
something of the character and the vital
circumstance of the life of an actual
person, as disclosed in that person's pub-
lished letters, without specifically ac-
knowledging the debt. Surely literature
is full of precedents. But why not take
Mrs. Ward at her word? Her only
statement, here reprinted, seems to have
been lost sight of in the clamor. But
"ill blows the wind that profits nobody,'^
and the American publishers of Julie de
Lespinasse's letters have rushed to press
with a new edition.

Babies without number have been
named after President Roosevelt, but
so far only two books, as far as we can
learn, have been dedicated to him, a fact
possibly singular in this age of innumer-
able books. The two are Owen Wis-
ter's " The Virginian," and Brander
]VIatthews's " Vignettes of Manhattan."
Mr. Wister's dedication is so recent as
to be familiar to most of us:

'* Some of these pages you have seen,
some you have praised, one stands new
written because you blamed it; and all,
my dear critic, beg leave to remind you
of their author's changeless admiration.""

DRAWN BY J. C. HOLLIDAV,

Mr. Matthews wrote his dedication
in 1894, loi^g before the boldest prophet
would have ventured to suggest, even
had he conceived, Mr. Roosevelt's pres-
ent elevation. Read to-day, when Mr.
Roosevelt has ceased to be identified, in
the common mind, with Manhattan, it
has a new interest.

" My Dear Theodore : You know —
for we have talked it over often enough
— that I do not hold you to be a typical
New Yorker, since you come of Dutch
stock, and first saw the light here on
Manhattan Island, whereas the tj^pical
New Yorker is born of New England
parents, perhaps somewhere west of the
Alleghanies. You know, also, that often
the typical New Yorker is not proud of
the city of his choice, and not so loyal to

it as we could wish. He has no abiding
concern for this maligned and misunder-
stood town of ours; he does not thrill
with pride at the sight of its powerful
and irregular profile as he comes back
to it across the broad rivers; nor is his
heart lifted up with joy at the sound of
its increasing roar, so suggestive and so
stimulating. But we have a firm affec-
tion for New York, you and I, and a few
besides ; we like it for what it is ; and we
love it for what we hope to see it.

" It is because of this common regard
for our strange and many-sided city that
I am giving myself the pleasure of prof-
fering to you this little volume of
vignettes. They are not stories really, I
am afraid — not sketches even, nor stud-
ies; they are, I think, just what I have

-WILLIAM LAWKENCK, lilSHUP OF MASSACHUSETTS, WHOSE ''PHILLIPS BROOKS " IS JUST PUBLISHED.

called them — vignettes. And there are
a dozen of them, one for every month in
the year, an urban calendar of times and
seasons. Such as they are, I beg that you
will accept them in token of my friend-
ship and esteem ; and that you will be-
lieve me, always."

The growing importance of American
literature in trans-Atlantic eyes is pleas-
antly evident to those who have followed
English literary journalism. Only a feu-

years ago American books, with a few
exceptions, received the scantiest of Brit-
ish notice ; it was enough that they were
American — the adjective was made to
express vast literary depreciation. The
reader was made to feel that we were
synonym.ous, in English minds, with
good intentions and half-culture. To-
day little of this spirit remains outside
the columns of a review or two and a
few minor periodicals. To one who
knows which books talked about in a
given London *'literar>'" are of Ameri-

THE LAMP

249

can origin, it is evident that the Ameri-
can author is at last fully at home in
London. Most significant of all, the
nationality of the author is not often
mentioned nowadays except to explain a
point of view.

Yet our English brother would not
have us make too much of his recogni-
tion of us, and to that end he publishes,
now and then, rare and wonderful
specimens of American bad taste. These
are usually quoted from book advertise-
ments, and he does not explain that the
firms fathering them are not representa-
tive; he leaves you to infer that this is
the usual thing in America. Similarly
he gleefully quotes astonishing bits of
"literary criticism" from newspapers
that the New Yorker of even high-school
education does not so much as see, per-
mitting the inference that they represent
the cultivation of the American metrop-
olis. Our journals might easily retal-
iate — ^nothing, in fact, would be easier —
but the attempt would be as useless as
silly; no one would be deceived. Simi-
larly, we may be quite sure, these sportive
misrepresentations of ourselves have
long since ceased to be taken seriously.

If excuse were needed for a new sin-
gle volume of Keats, the Hampstead
Edition has it to show in ample measure
in its large, clear type and excellent
plain page, a comfortable relief from
the close typography of the "Golden
Treasury" books.

Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. an-
nounce that a great deal of unpublished
material of marked interest, the result
of a fresh examination of the Emerson
manuscripts, will be embodied in the
Centenary Edition of Emerson's com-
plete works, which will be ready some
time before the anniversary of May 25th.
This publication will be one of much

importance. The introduction and notes
are by Edward Waldo Emerson; there
has never before been an annotated edi-
tion. There will naturally be a limited
edition of the work, each set of which,
it is announced, will carry an original
(not a facsimile) sheet of Emerson
manuscript.

We hear from London that Mr.
William Prideaux Courtney is hard at
work on a bibliography of bibliogra-
phies, a most useful compilation. Mr.
Courtney is one of three distinguished
brothers, all of whom have rendered
the State patient service. The eldest,
Mr. Leonard Courtney, born in 1832,
was deputy speaker of the House of
Commons 1 886-1 892 and is well known
to readers of the Nineteenth Century.
A second, Mr. John Mortimer, has
had a distinguished career in Canada.
Mr. W. P. Courtney spent over a
quarter of a century in the office of
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, retir-
ing in 1892. He contributed to all
the volumes of the " Dictionary of Na-
tional Biography." They are Cornish.
They belong to a different family from
Mr. W. L. Courtney, who after a
learned career at Oxford took to the
gentle art of journalism at the age of
forty and is now on the staff of the Daily
Telegraph, where he practically con-
ducts the literary and dramatic sections
of the paper. Mr. Courtney has been
credited with the authorship of the
description of Mr. Hall Caine as the
Manx man, and Miss Corelli as the
Minx woman. But that distinction lies
at the door of Mr. Charles Graves, the
author of " Hawarden Horace " and
brother of the author of the well known
song " Father O'Flyn." Mr. Graves is
understood to be responsible for the
badinage in Hatchard's amusing cata-
logue " The Books of To-day and the
Books of To-morrow."

IN LIGHTER VEIN
By Eleanor Hoyt

THE flood-gates are open and the
swelling waters of spring fiction
are upon us. Publishers' announcements
bristle with well-known names and
chronicle a host of literary debuts, and
the merry game of guess-which-way-the-
public- taste-will-jump is in full swing.

For a limited numfier of the new
novels financial success is a thing accom-
plished even before publication. Serial
popularity or the author's previous rec-
ord assures good sales ; but as for success
in the higher acceptation of the term —
that's altogether another matter.

There, for example, is "Lovey Mary"
(The Century Company). She is a nice
girl, and any friend of Mrs. Wiggs
would find a kindly public; but "Lovey
Mary" - illustrates, most emphatically,
the value of a social sponsor. Brought
out under the protection of the most
popular matron in recent fiction, vouched
for by Cabbage Patch society, she has
soared to fame; but, if she had dawned,
unheralded, upon the literary horizon,
if the irrepressible optimism of Mrs.
Wiggs were not floating her, would she
have made a stir?

There is ample room for doubt.

The story is amusing enough in its
sketchy, inconsequential fashion. It
gives us a few deliciously characteristic
Cabbage Patch episodes and a very lim-
ited amount of Cabbage Patch philos-
ophy. Occasionally it strikes the note
of buoyant humor and good cheer which
made Mrs. Wiggs famous; but the
freshness, the spontaneity of the earlier
book are altogether lacking.

The thing was inevitable. One can-
not expect even the most conscientious
clock to strike twelve twice in rapid suc-
cession ; and, having made a remarkable
success of one Cabbage Patch story, it

would have been a marvel if Alice
Hegan Rice had repeated the perform-
ance in another story with the same set-
ting. She is her own unsuccessful rival ;
but "Lovey Mary" has its merits, and
an author must find a certain pleasure
in the fact that critics compare her un-
favorably with herself, rather than with
other works in her chosen field.

JOURNEYS END

Justus Miles Forman has reversed
Mrs. Rice's programme. His first novel
was not a successful bid for popular
favor, but in "Journeys End" he has
been more fortunate. The story is
light, amusing, cleverly handled, written
with no purpose more formidable than
the entertainment of its readers, and ac-
complishing that purpose.

Young Calthorp, impoverished heir to
an English dukedom, has come to Amer-
ica to make a living. He loves two
women in the course of the story — the
Molly who belongs to his English life,
and Evelyn Berkeley, the American ac-
tress who makes a success of the play
which he has written through the in-
spiration of her beaux yeux. Both
women love him, and there is a third
victim to his charms — a plain, red-haired
young woman, who works with him in
the Broadway photograph shop, and to
whom the reader's heart warms. Mr.
Forman hasn't been quite fair to that
young woman. He made her plain, red-
haired, susceptible, big-hearted — and he
snuffed her out of his story without
comment. Mr. Forman has also been a
trifle unfair to his readers. One heroine
is a strain upon sympathy, and three —
No: let us have someone to hate. The

THE LAMP

251

modern novel without villain or advent-
uress and with a superfluity of hero or
heroine is too harrowing. It leaves the
reader a prey to mixed emotions.

When Calthorp came into his fortune
•and his dukedom, he also indulged in
mixed emotions. Molly held him by all
the ties of early association. £vel3m
Berkeley belonged to the full new life,
to his individual achievement. Mr.
Forman's hero might easily have been a
cad. That he wasn't speaks volumes for
his creator's cleverness. One's sympathy
rests with the imperfectly monogamous
young man to the last, when he goes out
to mail the decisive letter, whose address
the reader is not permitted to see.

The chances are that it went to Molly
— that letter with whose mailing the
story ends. With the messenger service
in good working order and with cab
money in his pocket, so alert a hero as
Calthorp would never have relieved the
fair Evelyn's suspense through the slow
processes of the Government mail ser-
vice. Yes, it went to Molly ; but, if he
had asked our advice about the address,
we would unhesitatingly have advised
sending that letter to the plain, red-
haired girl. She would have made an
admirable wife.

The Evelyn Berkeley of Mr. For-
man's story is unmistakably a portrait,
and one deplores the lack of taste which
led the author to mar a delightful story
by the introduction of thinly disguised
personalities.

IN PICCADILLY

A novel by Benjamin Swift, follow-
ing hard upon the heels of his essay upon
"The Decay of the Novel," was sure to
call forth comment, even if the merit of
the author's earlier work were not, as it
is, a sure title to consideration.

The sequence between essay and novel
is quite clear, when one has read both.

Mr. Swift has merely adopted the sys-
tem, employed with «uch admirable re-
sults by one Squeers, of immortal mem-
ory. "First he spells it. Then he goes
and does it." First he writes about the
decay of the novel. Then he illustrates
his point.

It is the fashion to call all unpleasant
stories strong. There have been un-
pleasant books whose strength was great
enough to give them immortality, or, at
least, absolution. "In Piccadilly" is not
in this class.

It is, presumably, intended for a satiri-
cal and realistic study of London life;
but the writer has confused realism and
melodrama, has stepped across the line
between satire and farce.

The book hasn't originality, force, nor
wit. It is crudely, incoherently spec-
tacular. We have heard Mr. Swift's
story before, have seen all of his pictures
before. The story was better told. The
piqtures were painted with a more mas-
terly touch.

The old Scotch father descending into
the modern Babylon to guard the son
he loves would have been an admirable
Balzac motif, but in Mr. Swift's hands
it is merely hysterical. The episode of
J. C. Dalbiac, valet, is an idea long ago
worn threadbare, and as handled here is
crude, extravagant, absolutely uncon-
vincing. The Scotch housekeeper, with
her dialect, Henriette, Sleipner, are
commonplace in conception and por-
traiture. Between the book's covers
there is no single picture that strikes
home and lingers in the mind.

The author has evolved a note of
originality in the honeymoon couple
haunted by the jilted lover, but has
made little of his opportunity ; and when
the jealous husband, in true traditional
style, goes out on the moors with the
reinstated lover, shoots at him under
cover of the hunt, kills the villain in-
stead of Debrisay, and then considerately
allows his gun to explode and blow his

252

THE LAMP

own brains out, one closes the book with
a sigh of profound-fatigue.

Surely the man who set reading-folk
agog with the forceful brutality of
"Nancy Noon" owes us better things
than "In Piccadilly."

THE STAR DREAMER

"The Star Dreamer" is a tale of love
and mysticism, set in the days when
Bath was at its gayest and George the
Third lay dying. The period is a fa-
vorite one with Agnes and Egerton
Castle, and neither in this period nor in
any other have they located an uninter-
esting tale.

"The Star Dreamer" has a most ro-
mantic flavor. Old Simon, gatherer of
simples, dabbler in potions, may be
rather too mediaeval for his setting;
David, embittered by false love and false
friendship, given over to solitude and
star-study, may be a too romantic figure ;
Lady Lochore may be too spectacular in
her role of evil genius — and yet the book
is entertaining.

One smiles at the exaggerated ro-
mance, but reads on to the end.

These two collaborators have learned
how to tell a stor>^ They will never
write a great book; but, in all probabil-
ity, they will never write a dull one, and
for that reason a long-suffering public
should call them friends.

FLOWERS OF THE DUST

John Oxenham is another author who
has a habit of writing interesting stories,
and in order to accomplish his purpose
he sometimes ladles out romantic and
startling details with, lavish hand. His
"Flowers of the Dust" contains enough
exciting episodes to furnish a thrifty
writer with material for at least four
novels. The hero encounters a mad-

man in the first chapter, and is not al-
lowed to travel through any succeeding
chapter without adventure by the way.

He is an English doctor, this Charles
Glynn ; but, after his father's death, his
French mother goes back to live in Brit-
tany, and there the son meets and loves
Marie de Kerhucl. A tide of Jesuit in-
trigue swirls round the de Kerhuel fam-
ily, and the young Englishman, follow-
ing the fortunes of his sweetheart and
her family, leads a strenuous life.

The principal scenes are laid in and
around Paris during the period of 1866-
187 1, and, whenever love and priestcraft
flag for a moment, the Franco-Prussian
War provides excitement. There are
stirring scenes in camp, hospital, and
battle-field, and the horrors of the siege
and the Commune are graphically por-
trayed.

No one of the characters, save the two
old ladies in Brittany, is allowed to go
scot free of physical disaster. The au-
thor follows the principle in vogue at
Donnybrook Fair. Wherever he sees a
head he hits it.

Marie's father is brained with a toma-
hawk, her brother Jean is shot for mili-
tary insubordination, the other brother,
George, loses an arm, the hated suitor
is shot by his own regiment, the old
nurse is killed by a stray ball, the wily
priest, who is the evil genius of the
Kerhuel family, is killed by a bomb.
Good old Madame, of the Lion d'Or,
and pretty Lotte are struck by a shell
which bursts into the room where the
hero and heroine, after many vicissitudes,
are trying to struggle through the mar-
riage service. The same shell lacerates
the hero's back, and the marriage is de-
ferred. Later, Marie is stabbed with a
bread-knife — but, in the end, the human
fragments that survive the story find
their way back to Brittany and live
happily ever afterward.

In their proper environment the casu-
alties seem more natural and less melo-

THE LAMP

253

dramatic than they do in the bald
enumeration. The story is what our old
friend Toddie would call "bluggy," but
those were "bluggy times."

BEFORE THE DAWN

The characters in Joseph Altsheler's
"Before the Dawn" have also fallen up-
on "bluggy" times; but, compared with
John Oxenham, Mr. Altsheler is evi-
dently a man of peace. He has added
another to the grist of Civil War stories,
but he has gone a little aside from the
beaten path, and has given us a story of
the fall of Richmond, of the wreck of
the old regime, of the death-struggle of
the Confederacy.

There is no violent sectional feeling
in the book, and though the heroine is a
Northern woman and the hero a Vir-
ginian, even that complication rouses
little bitterness. Mr. Altsheler has not
pictured all Southern women fair and
all Southern men chivalrous, but he has
done full justice to the honor an^ cour-
age that supported a lost cause, has been
just to Lee, the gallant and brave, as to
Grant, the grim and tenacious; and,
when the two great men lock forces in
the Battle of the Wilderness, one for-
gets the' cause in the magnitude of the
struggle, feels only the pity of it all, the
tragedy of the sacrifice upon the Union's
altar.

Mr. Altsheler has accomplished a re-
markably good piece of work in the
chapters through which the Wilderness
conflict rages — work which compensates
for the commonplaces of many another
chapter. For the story proper is more
or less commonplace in plot. Even a
friendly critic cannot deny that fact. A
Northern woman within Southern lines
and suspected of being a spy, a Southern
soldier-lover, divided 'twixt love and
duty — this is well-worn material; but
the picture of Richmond society in ex-
tremis, the clever sketches of Southern

types, the vivid strength of the battle-
scenes redeem the story and make it well
worth reading.

SIX TREES

When one lays aside Mary E. Wil-
kins Freeman's latest volume it is with
a retrospective glance and a certain re-
gret. The sketches contained in "Six
Trees" are sympathetically written, with
a delicate grace of technique and flashes
of subtle insight, and yet — and yet, one
remembers "The New England Nun,"
and sighs for more of that "first fine
careless rapture." The quotation is in-
apt. Miss Wilkins's early manner was
not "careless." It was careful to the
last degree, but it was "fine," and it
gave the author a rank which she would
never have won by such work as that
embodied in the tree stories.

The symbolism of environment, the
interrelation between the human and its
surroundings are Miss Wilkins's themes
in the new stories, and an idea suggestive
and artistic in one embodiment becomes
sadly attenuated when strung out into a
thread sufficiently long to hold six stories.

With all deference to the admirable
technique of the author, one feels that
there is too much tree in her landscape —
the studies become too obvious.

The elm, the white birch, the balsam,
the Lombardy poplar, and the apple-tree
are made the symbols of human char-
acter, lightly, surely sketched, and one
harbors a suspicion that little is added
to the essential worth of the stories by
dragging the trees into the foreground.
One sees the working of the wires, the
motif is too insistent; not for a moment
does one lose sight of the literary proc-
esses. There have been stories by Miss
Wilkins which made one forget the au-
thor and the ink-well.

In "The Apple Tree" one finds a
wave of the old subtle force, a certain
fine suggestive coherence. It is the last

254

THE LAMP

and best of the stories. "The Elm Tree"
is the first and worst.

The reader who needs encouragement
at the start is advised to read the book
backward.

ROBIN BRILLIANT

"The Maternity of Harriott Wicken"
was a gray book, but its grayness laid
hold upon the imagination like a cling-
ing fog and assured a hearing for Mrs.
Henry Dudeney whenever she should
choose to break silence again.

"Spindle and Plough" deepened the
impression; and now, in "Robin Brill-
iant," the author has once more demon-
strated her ability to write a story of
more than ordinary merit.

Mrs. Dudeney knows rural life and
rural types and has a rare talent for
putting her knowledge into genre word-
pictures. Her strokes are light, firm,
and sure. She doesn't caricature. She
doesn't wallow in brutal realism, in
tragedy, in sentiment. She has a good-
natured smile for the pettiness of village
interests and the narrowness of village
vision, and no one of her rural folk is
allowed to assume undue prominence
and bore the reader, as rural folk are
prone to do in the average novel of
country life.

The Wetherford villagers are amus-
ing, but the story is the story of two
women and the one man they love.
The man, after all, is but an incidental
figure, though Mrs. Dudeney has made
him pure masculine. It is in unerr-
ing analysis of woman's mental and
emotional processes that this author's
strength lies, and it is with Robin Brill-
iant and Celia Haylock that the reader's
interest rests.

Robin, alert, strong, whimsical, wom-
anly, heritor of the hot blood and in-
domitable pride of the Brilliants of
Greater Fanne; Celia, petty-souled.

dainty, weak, clinging, caressing, com-
mon to the bottom of that small soul,
but loving unreservedly, after her own
pitiful fashion — there they stand, the
two women, and Loten Faigeance stands
between them, loving Robin, moved by
the love of Celia.

Robin Brilliant has played with love,
clung to the delicious suspense of court-
ship, postponed love's fulfilment from
month to month, until the other woman
has gained her hold, and the man's al-
legiance has faltered.

Then the old reckless spirit of the
Brilliants rises in her blood, and she
fights for the love she has trifled with,
crushes the weak, frivolous thing that
dares to come between her and her
heart's desire — ^and eats her heart out
with remorse over the hurt she has given
to the woman she despises.

The man loves her, in a man's way,
but he would be content with the other
woman; Robin realizes that — and the
foolish, shallow little creature has no
life oi^side of him, while she — has her
pride.

She sends the man away in the end,
and he turns to the other woman, "as
he would have turned to any cosiness."
After all, a woman too alert often sharp-
ens as she ages, and Celia will always
be comfortable, docile.

There is no hysteria in the final chap-
ter. That is not Mrs. Dudeney 's way.
The married couple have gone to Paris
to live — to Paris, Celia's paradise — ^but
Robin has Greater Fanne, the home of
her ancestors, the home she loves. She
drives a new horse down the village
street, while the gossips peer at her from
behind the curtains. "The fresh red
paint on the wheels of the smart dog-
cart contradicts the sadness of the short
December day and the loneliness of the
upright figure that holds the reins."

And there we leave Robin Brilliant.
Mrs. Dudeney has a leaning toward the
grays of life.

THE LITERARY QUERIST

EDITED BY ROSSITER JOHNSON

ITO CONTRIBUTORS :-^Jwr7« must be Me/, must reiaU to literature or emtkcrs, and must be of some j
interest Answers are solicited, and must be prefaced with the numbers of the Questions ^p^'t U. '
and answers, written on one side only of the pafer, should be sent to the Editor of THE LAMP,
> Fifth Avenue, New York,]

Scribnet^s Sons, IJS-AS? -

730. — I am very desirous of tracing to its au-
thor a story of which I have heard the outline,
and which some of my acquaintances think they
have seen in print within a few years. Its title
is "By a Society Belle." The story is told in
the first person. It is of a young woman who
as a girl had ideals, but who lost them early in
life in the midst of social excitement and gayety.
She was married quite young to an old man,
who died two years afterward, leaving her his
millions. From this time she entered upon a
career of heart-breaking, being herself quite cold
and heartless. One summer at Lake Bluff, a
society resort on Lake Michigan, as she was
walking near the edge of the bluff, she saw on
the beach below a gentleman of fine form and
bearing, whom she did not recognize. She
dropped her hat or sunshade over the cliff, so
that it fell at his feet. He of course brought it
up to her, and a conversation followed, the re-
sult of which was, that he asked permission to
call. The acquaintance became friendship and
finally love on his side, while she encouraged
him as. amusement to herself. He was a doctor
of divinity, a man of eminence. When at last
he declared his love, she told him scornfully that
it had been only a flirtation with her. He was
almost stunned at first, but rallied, told her he
saw he had been mistaken in thinking she was
worthy of his love, and turned to leave her.
Just as he was going, the realization came to
her that at last she had met her ideal, that she
loved him. She called after him to come back ;
but although he wavered an instant, he did not
turn, and he left her without a word.

73l« — Can you or any of your readers inform
me to whom the following anecdote refers, or
where I may find it related ? The substance is
this : One of Napoleon's marshals (or at least
someone in high military command in France)
was having a review just outside of a French vil-
lage or town. The staff officers were surprised to
see an old white-haired peasant approach them
inquiring if anyone could tell him what had ever
become of his son who, years before, had run
away to join the army. The marshal, recogniz-
ing his father, dismounted and embraced the old
man ; then turning to his soldiers, said : " .Ves
ettfants — mon phrCy' thus inviting a salute from
the whole command. p. j. m.

732. — One of Sydney Dobell's poems bears
the title " She Touches a Sad String of Soft Re-
call," and he puts it in quotation marks. Can
you or any reader tell me from what it is quoted ?

D. L. C.

733.— (i) Who is the author of ** Black
Beauty?" Also, of the poem, "Curfew Must
Not Ring To-night ? "

(2) What have the Indian authors, ** Bright
Eyes " and " Angel de Cota " written ?

(3) Is the poet. Dr. John Williamson Palmer,
author of "Albemarle Cushing," still alive, and
where ?

(4) Have pictures of the following appeared
in print? If so, where? Maria S. Cummins,
Tobias Smollett, Catherine M. Sedgwick, Will-
iam Gilmore Simms, Daniel P. Thompson,
" Fanny Fern," Thomas Dixon, Sophie Damon,
and Royal Tyler.

(5) Who is " the sweet singer of Michigan?"

(6) Will you kindly give me the addresses of
the following : Algernon Charles Swinburne,
Alfred Austin, Owen Meredith, Evangeline Cis-
neros. President Kruger, General DeWet, Agui-
naldo, Olive Schreiner, Henry James, and
Thomas Hardy. H. g. r.

(i) "Black Beauty" was written by Anna
Sewell. "Curfew Must Not Ring To-night"
was written by Rose Hartwick Thorpe, who lives
in California.

(3) Dr. Palmer lives in New York, and may
be addressed in care of his publishers, Funk &
Wagnalls Co., Lafayette Place, but we do not
recall any poem of his bearing the title you quote.

(4) We believe no portrait of Miss Cummins,
author of "The Lamplighter," ever has been
published. Nor have we ever seen one of Daniel
P. Thompson, author of " The Green-Mountain
Boys." Those of Smollett and Simms may be
found prefixed to their works ; Miss Sedgwick's,
in her biography (Harpers); '* Fanny Fern's,"
in various books — the " Cyclopredia of American
Biography," for instance.

(6) Mr. Swinburne's address is Putney, Eng-
land. Mr. Austin's is Swinford Old Manor,
Ashford, Kent, England. Owen Meredith (Earl
of Lytton) died in 1891. Olive Schreiner (Mrs.
Cronwright) lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
Henry James and Thomas Hardy may be ad-
dressed at the Athenoeum Club, London.

734. — (i) What is the origin of the quotation
" The mimic music of a marble god,"
and what was the occasion when a famous orator
in Boston created a furor of applause by a sen-
tence that closed with this line ?

(2) Where was Coleridge when he composed a
poem in a dream, and was it a natural dream ?

1^6

THE LAMP

(3) Have any of the books of Dr. Thomas
Holley Chi vers ever been reprinted, and what is
the value of the originals ? D. K. r.

(2) He was in a farmhouse in Exmoor, Devon-
shire. He was out of health, and had taken a
sleeping-potion, from the effects of which he fell
asleep in his chair. He had just been reading,
in ** Purchas," an account of Kubla Khan's pal-
ace, which became the subject of his dream poem.

(3) None of them has been reprinted. Re-
prints would not have much value, though the
originals command a price as curiosities.

735. — (i) Can you tell me whence comes this
quotation :

" A face to lose youth for,
To occupy age with the dreams of,
To meet death with."

(2) And also this :

" The stars are with the voyager,
Wherever he may sail."

F. O.

(2) We think it is from one of Barry Corn-
wall's lyrics.

714.

ANSWERS

-The little Book entitled '* Best Short

Poems of the Nineteenth Century " is published
by William S. Lord, Evanston, 111. The com-

piler writes : ** Please note that I did not have
the temerity to make the selections but they are
the result of a ballot." This is honest, but it is
hardly conclusive. Who balloted ? Was every
person who cast a ballot familiar with all the
good short poems of the nineteenth century ? or
did he merely express his preference among the
few with which he happened to be acquainted ?
Such ballotings are usually fallacious and value-
less.

720. — The lines quoted are from Handel's
Oratorio, ** Judas Maccabaeus." Grove's ** Dic-
tionary of Music and Musicians " says the libretto
was written by Dr. Morell, an Englishman.

A. M. K.

724. — The fifth and sixth lines of the second
stanza of Wordsworth's ** Ode to Duty" read :
Glad hearts ! without reproach or blot ;
Who do Thy work, and know it not :

S. W. G.

728. — (2) The hymn referred to by G. L. A.
is John Wesley's translation from the German of
Paul Gerhardt (16 16-1 676) ; as commonly given
in the hymn-books the first stanza is :
Give to the winds thy fears,

Hope, and be undismayed.
God hears thy sighs : God counts thy tears,
God shall lift up thy head.

J. T.
Answered also by G. F. H.

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CONTENTS FOR MAY, tgps
8ldn^ Let Ftontispfoca

MTheRedRoM** Mary Tracy Bark 275

Illustrated from PboCognphs

Life Is a Lamp. (APoam) John FinUy 285

BaintBbuxT's Hittoiy of CriticisiB ...... IV. C Browmell ......... 986

An Intendow witfajAines Whitcomb ROey . . . Af. C Ckomel 189

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Reminiscences of an Actor ••.... S07

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The Rambler 3x3

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In Lighter Vein Eleanor Hoyt 33s

Reviews of the Newest Fiction

The Literaiy Querist Rossiter Johnson •••••.••.. 337

New Books and New Editions 338

To be Published About Me^y 1

The PERSONALITY o/EMERSON

By F. B. SANBORN

MR. SANBORN'S recollections of Emenon, with hit account of Emerson's individu-
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rrom a copyrighted photograph by J. £. Piirdy, Boston.

{See />agf j/4.)

A Review and Record of Curre]

ESTESEO, FEURUARV 2^ IQOJ, AT tifLW VRBK, N- V-j AS SlCOWD-CtASS HAT

THK SOUTH TERRACE.
Photo by D. F. Jamison, Cincinnati, O.

-THE RED ROSE"
By Mary Tracy Earle

"HE RED ROSE," once an inn
and now the home of Miss Jes-
sie Wilcox Smith, Miss Violet Oakley,
and Miss Elizabeth Shippen Green, is
situated near Villanova, on the outskirts
of Philadelphia. It must not be confused
with the Rose-tree Inn, a fox-hunters'
hostelry not many miles distant, nor is
it in any way the flowering of the Green-
tree Inn which dne passes on the way
out from the station. The original stone
building, dating back to 1786, was a
farm-house which was gradually ex-
tended until its rambling form became a
not incongruous architectural record of
the growing needs of its inmates. The
last of these additions was made about

ten years ago, when the place was re-
modelled for use as an inn or road-house.
At this time a small formal garden was
laid oflF, the lawn was terraced, and the
hedges were planted which now set
apart the garden, the quadrangle, the
outer and inner court, and which also
border the lawn and the meadow. At
this time, too, the place was given its
present name. The proprietor who did
all this hoped, it is said, that artists
would find it out and that it would be-
come the centre of a settlement of artists
over the adjacent farms. But for some
reason this never occurred. The gen-
tlemen with the color boxes had set their
faces toward Europe, and it was at the

276

THE LAMP

inn of le pere Sir on that they congre-
gated, not at The Red Rose. "Between
the name of Cameron and that of Camp-
bell/' wrote Stevenson, "the muse will
never hesitate,*' and, if a colony of poets
had been called for, the name of Red
Rose would surely have triumphed over
that of Siron. But the painters either
never heard of the inn or turned a pur-
posely deaf ear, and it was not until the
estate had passed into new hands that
easels and camp-stools, brushes and char-
coal became the most necessar>' part of

the nick of time, too" — and the three
artists of the old inn might paraphrase
him, congratulating themselves upon
having found the exact surroundings to
foster their enthusiasms. "In my kind
of life," a certain Russian doctor of a
village near Paris said to one of the
four friends whose summer "In an Old
French Garden" Mr. Will H. Low has
told — "in my kind of life I have never
encountered such industry combined with
such evident pleasure, and, if I do not
intrude, I would like to come in occa-

ENTRANCE TO OLD TAP-ROOM OF THE INN.
Photo by D. F. Jamison, Cincinnati, O.

its furnishings. The name of inn still
clings to it, and, although the sign of a
red rose which once solicited the atten-
tion of passers has been taken down, the
present occupants are plied with ques-
tions as to their rates for lodging and
board, as well as with the applications
of art students who feel that so exten-
sive an Arcady must have been intended
for paint-spattered "Ardelias" to encamp
upon — not unwillingly, but with de-
light. Art students as well as "regu-
lars" and "transients," however, have
been excluded up to date.

It was Thoreau who congratulated
himself upon having been born in ex-
actly that portion of the universe which
was most pleasing to him — "and in just

sionally as I pass by." It is with a simi-
lar spirit of enjoyment of their work
and their surroundings that Miss Green,
Miss Smith, and Miss Oakley have taken
possession of this emeritus road-house,
and it seems to me that such a success-
ful removal to the country should be
recorded as a message to those of the
younger artists who fear to "drop out"
if they leave their city studios.

In the older days, when the best men
in the profession could scarcely hope to
support themselves except by portraiture,
they had to stay closely in the cities, save
for an occasional "tour," during which,
like the foreign artists who now come
so frequently to America, they painted
portraits all along their line of travel;

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STUDIO FROM THE FORMAL GARDEN.
Photo by Henry Troth, Philadelphia, Pa.

it would have been as impossible for
those among them who were dependent
on their work to live permanently out-
side of some large town as it would be
for a dealer in cut flowers, or in some
other characteristically urban luxury,
and this old necessity, acted upon by the
traditional tendency of birds of a feather,
has crystallized into something very like
a superstition. Conditions have changed.
Much of the work they seek could be as
well done at a distance, yet as a rule the
young artist who makes enough money
to live charmingly in the country fancies
that he will lose his hold if he leaves
town. He coops himself up in cramped
quarters, sometimes winning out to a
success which makes him comfortable,
even at city rates, but oftener yielding
to the dry-rot of discouragement, which
infests some studio buildings like a veri-
table disease.

Their present experiment was not

needed to show the ladies of The Red
Rose that good work will command at-
tention as well when sent from a dis-
tance as when brought in from next
door. Living in Philadelphia, they had
worked constantly for New York and
Boston firms, and consequently could
move away from the city's uninspiring
brick and mortar without fear of get-
ting "out of touch," while increasing
their number of uninterrupted hours —
their opportunity for testing their ideas
of interpretative, decorative illustration,
and of decoration, per se, in contrast
with the mere pictorial space-filling
which so often passes for art.

There was a time a good many years
ago when an illustration was an illus-
tration, and worth a certain amount of
respect on that account, just as all wom-
en were to be spoken to with uncovered
heads. An illustrated article was a re-
source not to be exhausted by a single

VISTA OF SrrDiO SKKN IN A MIRROR.
Photo by D. F. Jamison, Cincinnati, O.

hasty glance, and magazines which con-
tained these occasional oases for the eye,
views of well-known buildings or bits of
landscape breaking the monotony of their
closely printed columns, were treasures
to be guarded and brought out on rainy
days as picture books. But now we have
been surfeited with the redundant, the
inaccurate, and the matter-of-fact in il-
lustration, and we begin to demand that
our artists shall illustrate in the literal
sense of in some way casting light.
This keenly desired illuminative qualr

ity marks the work of a group of young
illustrators sent out by Philadelphia, and
it owes its development largely, I must
think, to the influence of Mr. Howard
Pyle, whose work it has always charac-
terized. The three artists o£ The Red
Rose were all pupils of Mr. Pyle's after
profiting by the excellent teaching of the
Pennsylvania Academy, and Miss Smith
declares that, under the strong propul-
sion of his teaching, it was impossible not
to imitate him for a time, adding that
his classes were filled w^ith rows of tern-

ENTRANCE TO THE STUDIO.
Photo by D. F. Jamison, Cincinnati, O.

porary Howard Pyles in miniature. But
imitation, as we heartily agreed, is one
of the best of all trainings, and is often
the shortest road to that ultimate find-
ing of one's self which must occur before
entering one's real career. Taken col-
lectively, the accomplishment of these
three exemplifies Mr. Pyle's capacity for
strengthening whatever imaginative and
decorative tendencies there may be in the
natural endowments of his pupils, but
this is shown rather by their diversity
one from another than by their similari-

ties. In Miss Smith's case the self-dis-
covery consisted, I should say, in finding
in herself the power of giving rather
more of a sympathetically human feeling
to her illustrations than is usual to Mr.
Pyle's work. She touches the simple,
homely sides of life with a loving hand,
yet with a degree of 'fine insight which
keeps the sentiment of her work far from
the banal, just as her decorative sense
saves her composition from any possibil-
ity of the ungraceful in its appeal to the
eye. Miss Green, on the other hand,

28o

THE LAMP

leans more and more toward the mystical
in her interpretation of a situation, and
delights in picturing the mediaeval, or
those more subtly removed epochs, the
visible hours of fairies and ghosts, while
Miss Oakley's brilliant use of color and
her successes in purely decorative art
have taken her completely out of the
field of illustration into that of mural
painting and stained glass. For the pres-
ent Miss Oakley's decorations for the
capitol at Harrisburg absorb her, and.

Bending constantly toward the level of
infantile pupils had hot only proved
wearisome, but was beginning to affect
her health, when by the merest chance
she discovered her real vocation. A
young man, who wished some slight
knowledge of drawing to help him in his
work as a teacher, asked a girl artist, a
cousin of Miss Smith's, to give him a
few lessons, but this was an arrangement
to which the young lady's mother only
consented with the proviso, "Jessie Smith

THB SPRING HOUSE.
Photo by D. F. Jamison, Cinrinnati, O.

accompanied by many bulky volumes of
Pennsylvania history, she is spending her
simimer in Italy as a preparation for
executing them.

The story of Miss Smith's entrance
into her profession is oddly different
from that of most artists, for she came
to the very door of it blindfold. As a
child she showed no special proclivity
toward art, never "drawing on her
cuffs," or in any similar way forewarn-
ing her friends of what was to be ex-
pected later on, and, even when the time
came for her to choose a calling, the
possibility of art as a profession did not
occur . to her. She decided on kinder-
garten work, and went far enough in it
to discover that it was not the best em-
ployment for a very tall young woman.

must be in the class, too." The result of
these first lessons, undertaken out of
sheer good-nature, was a set of drawings
so good as to advise the necessary third
person of the class that she had an utterly
ignored talent which was worthy of
serious training.

Miss Green and Miss Oakley ap-
proached their work in a very different
way. Miss Green's early inclinations
were guided by a father devotedly fond
of art, and Miss Oakley had been pre-
ceded by several generations of artists,
so that family tradition had doubtless
pointed out her desire to her even when
she was a child.

It was not my good fortune to meet
Miss Oakley, who was away from home
when I saw Miss Green and Miss Smith;

THE PERdOLA, LOOKING TOWARD THE FORMAL GARDEN.
Photo by D. F. Jamison, Cincinnati, O.

-282

THE LAMP

but, following the example of a visitor
who astonished me when I was a child
by saying that he could "build up" my
absent brother from the shoes he had
left in a closet, I have taken the mental
liberty of building up Miss Oakley, not
from her shoes, nor even solely from her
work, but in part from the fact that she
uses the sonnet, read aloud while walk-
ing at twilight, as a unit of linear
measure — finding, for instance, that the
meadow near the house is just four son-
nets from the Portuguese in length.
From this I conclude not only that she
is fond of sonnets, but that she is fond
of the meadow, and filled with as en-
thusiastic an appreciation of The Red
Rose as are her two friends, who con-
fess to calling the southern aspect of the
house "The Divine South Front" — ^with
acknowledgments to Henry James and
the rapturous "Mrs. Gracedew" in
''Covering End."

The zest with which all of these three
enjoy their environment is still further
shown by the humorous punctiliousness
with which they apply the proper tech-
nical terms to its various features. Miss
Green, who claims to have obtained her
whole general education by sitting on
the lawn at Bryn Mawr one summer
vacation and breathing in such knowl-
edge as was left unabsorbed by the col-
lege girls during the year, seems to be
particularly well versed in the goodly
words of architecture and landscape gar-
dening, and, in an article which I hope
that she may read, I take great pleasure
in assuring her that I have not forgotten
how to spell "Gazebo," nor that it is just
as likely to mean "garden house" —
which naturally is a place for idling —
as it is to mean "loafer" or "artful
knave."

The gazebo in its earlier days was a
substantial two-story stone smoke-house,
its upper story reached by a "bonny out-
side stair" of small stone steps. In the
days of the inn its two little rooms were

used as tea-rooms, while stronger bev-
erages were sold in the tap-room, and
weaker — cold "soft drinks," that is —
were served in the vine-covered portico
of the thick-walled stone spring-house at
the lower corner of the lawn. The tap-
room, which does duty now as a side
entrance hall, is still finished as it was
when it played a more prominent part
in the economy of the house. A bright-
green settle and a green wainscoting run
across one wall and to the window of
another, and the panels of the wainscot-
ing, just under the plate-board, are
blazoned with a row of coats-of-arms.
On the plate-board and the mantel is
much old pewter ware, some of it bear-
ing the imprint of a rose. The design
of the wall-paper is also a rose, red, of
course.

The whole effort in furnishing the
inn evidently was to achieve a cheerful
quaintness. The library, or reading-
room, which is also unaltered since its
semi-public days, is most gayly hung with
a wall-paper of the "Ningpo" pattern, a
registered English design dating back to
the seventeenth century. On a light
ground it reiterates pairs of pheasants —
or perhaps a pheasant and a dove, for
definitely and naively as it is worked out
in line and color, ornithologjcally it does
not quite commit itself. In this library
Miss Green's father spends much of his
time, for the family at The Red Rose
does not consist of the three artists alone.
Miss Green's father and mother. Miss
Oakley's mother, and Miss Couzens, a
friend of all three young ladies, Com-
bine to keep the household properly
balanced — that is, with artists in the
minority.

The studios are to the north of the
living-rooms and are reached by an out-
side path. They are large, simply fur-
nished working-rooms, with such facili-
ties for giving right of way to summer
breezes that great difficulty from cold in
winter was prophesied, but has not been

MISS GREEN AT WORK : MISS OAKLEY IN BACKGROUND.
Photo by D. F. Jamison, Cincinnati, O.

experienced, although they have a two-
story height, thus giving room for Miss
Oakley's enormous canvases ; but in win-
ter the beautiful arched doorway by
which they are entered from the outer
court is closed.

The outer court lies between the
studios and the formal garden, while the
inner court separates the main body of
the house from the "white wing." The
name of the inn is recognized again in
the garden, which centres on a great
crimson rambler rose; while the fact
that it was an inn, a resting-place for
wayfarers, is symbolized by the wonder-
ful vines of small white clematis, Trav-
eller's Joy, which, spreading over a trel-
lis, fairly roofs in a part of the inner
court.

Beyond the courts, the garden, and a
space called the quadrangle, is the grape
arbor — no ordinary arbor, but a snow-
white pergola with thick stuccoed walls
of masonry and a row of great round
masonry pillars, also stuccoed. Back of

this, reached by a green door in the
wall of the pergola, are empty green-
houses, once a part of the equipment of
the Stoke Pogis nurseries, which were
carried on by the same management as
that of the inn, but are now abandoned.
Still farther away is a small lake, reached
from the lawn by "the evergreen walk,"
while across the lawn and beyond it on
the other side is the meadow, and, above
that, the road leading to the woods. As
a background to all, with the buildings
nestled against it, is a low but abrupt
hillside, planted in part as a vineyard,
the rows of vines on the sharp slope giv-
ing a distinctly European finishing touch
to the view.

The material which such a place ofifers
to an illustrator, and the suggestions
which nature, modified or unmodified,
gives constantly to a decorator, must be
evident to the veriest outsider, but only
a fellow-craftsman or a worker in some
more or less similar profession can un-
derstand the mental tonic of such sur-

THE STUDIO.
Photo by Henry Troth, Philadelphia, Pa.

Foundings. Every creative worker who
has gone beyond the blush of untried
enthusiasm for his art finds himself to
some degree subject to attacks of disil-
lusionment when his picture shows to
him merely as a collection of brush
strokes — guided at the best by an over-
knowing and tricky mind — his story an
assemblage of words which any page
of a dictionary could surpass for hu-
man interest. These attacks teach him
the value of environment. In cities it is
a familiar experience for the people who
live where an open square greets them
as they go outdoors to find that a glimpse
of sky and trees will often dispel the

sorriest tangle of thoughts; the mind is
suddenly left free for sane judgment or
open to that inspirational clearing of
blurred images which makes it possible
to go on with a task which, perhaps, one
has just abandoned as hopeless. A diver-
sion of any sort is good for a tired brain,,
but there probably is no diversion that
works so quickly in so many cases, and
leaves so soothing an after effect, as that
of seeing something beautiful in the
open air. Realizing this, it is all the
more pleasant to think that three ear-
nest workers have had the opportunity
of abandoning their city studios for a
place h'ke The Red Rose.

LIFE IS A LAMP

By John Finley

Life is a lamp! So, oft I fancy it

Amid the myriad metaphors by which,

In semblances of what we see and touch,

This mystery we image to ourselves; —

A lamp, of gentle, thoughtful fashioning,

As god-designed to carry flame, to bear

Through Earth's brief dark some share of that true Light

Which lighteth every man his hither way.

Behold how these strange-shapen shells, by time
Deep-marked with its unceasing tide of strife.
Do furnish forth the bowls, or fair or ill,
(In pristine mould of their Creator's face)
Surmounting pedestal of gold or bronze,
Of alabaster or of ebony.
As He who made them of the dust doth please
To give them hue of His alchemic brush;

And into them for their one night of glow-
On solitary plain or starless sea,
In some black cellar of a city's shame.
Or in some sleepless, wide-horizoned tower.
Is poured the oil — the fuel of the past.
Of those long yesterdays which feed to-day,
Refined from out the race's age of stone.
Distilled of savage dregs in lucid truth,
And new decanted in these fragile bowls —
Celestial ichor in clay cisterns stored.

Eons have wrought the wick — the filaments
Which logic spins with its mechanic hand,
And calm philosophy doth brooding weave
On meditation's loom, of what it kens
Or what it dreams of that which ought and is —
And memory dips it in the limpid depths.

Yet vain the oil, the wick — the lamp itself, —
If there be lacking fire to light it with:
Some spark of flint of hard experience.
Some burning lens's kindling from the skies,
Some coals from off a neighbor's friendly hearth.
Some lingering embers of that natal fire;

But touched of these, the oil is quick transmute;

In Earth's free air the buried past flames forth;

The unbreathed thought is translate into speech —

The speech of eye and hand and tongue; the truth

Is luminant in poem, picture, deed.

In glance, in shining countenance, that makes

A brightness for a little space about,

And all transfigures where its radiance falls.

SAINTSBURY'S HISTORY OF CRITICISM

THE second volume of Professor
Saintsbury's monumental "History
of Criticism" is not less maddening than
the first, because though the matter —
from the Renaissance to the decline of
eighteenth century " orthodoxy " — is less
unfamiliar, the manner is for that rea-
son more irritating in its dogmatism
and wilfulness. Never wbs a great
subject so unfortunately treated, owing
to the infirmities of the writer's temper
and attitude. Probably no one is, so
far as equipment goes, better qualified
to write the history of criticism. Mr.
Churton Collins, himself one of the
most learned of pedants, finds plenty
of flaws in Professor Saintsbury*s
scholarship, and in very much the spirit
of Professor Saintsbury himself — the
spirit of arrogance and peremptory sum-
mariness, the spirit in a word most op-
posed to the critical spirit. But his dog-
matism is no more convincing than his
victim's, and in spite of it, the fact of the
latter's erudition remains unimpeachably
evident and its extent remarkable. He
is indeed saturated with erudition —
mired in it, one may say, as a fly in
molasses — with the result of clogged ef-
fort in the endeavor to function other-
wise than eccentrically. The vice of the
book, however, is the author's apparent
contentment with eccentric functioning.
So long as he is in motion, as he is very
much, he seems unconcerned about ad-
vancement. Ever>^ movement, nearly
every turn of phrase, displays erudition.
But, except in the skeleton, it is not or-
ganized for exposition; and its spirit is
one of extreme exclusiveness. The au-
thor seems not in the least anxious to
communicate any of it. He exhibits it so

A History* of Criticism and Literary Ta«te in Europe.
From the Earliest Texts to the Present Day. In three vol-
umes. Vol. II, From the Renaissance to the Decline of
Eighteenth Century Orthodoxy. By (}eorge Saintsbury.
New York, Dodd, Mead & Co. $3.50 net special.

esoterically as to make it fair to say that
no reader can profit much by his book
except one who could have written it.
There are accordingly few readers, it is
due to Professor Saintsbury 's erudition
to admit, who are qualified to extract
material benefit from a study of his ex-
haustive work.

The volume continues, of course, the
elaborate and very satisfactorily systemat-
ic plan of its predecessor through three
more "books" with an "interchapter"
between each two, beginning with Book
IV and a consideration of Erasmus.
Early Italian critics are next taken up,
then Scaliger, Castelveltro and their
successors, the Pleiadey and Elizabethan
criticism conclude the Renaissance period.
Book V, "The Crystallizing of the Neo-
Classic Creed," treats of French criticism
from Malherbe to Boileau, the Italian
decadence and the Spaniards, German
and Dutch criticism, and Dryden and
his contemporaries. Book VI is devoted
to "Eighteenth Century Orthodoxy,"
and includes the chapters: "From Ad-
dison to Johnson," "The Contemporaries
of Voltaire," and "Classicism in the
Other Nations." What a writer of sim-
plicity and directness, with Professor
Saintsbury's enormous reading, might
have made of this scenario, it is exas-
perating to reflect, when what is here
made of it is considered. Professor
Saintsbury treats it wholly after the
dictates of his own sweet will, and these
are of a complicated perversity wholly
extraordinary in a writer who has passed
so much of his life with models of style
and amid classic formulations of the laws
of sobriety and self-control. He is the
defenceless sport of his slightest whim.
In dealing with his material what is
above all needed is catholic appreciation,
and it is accordingly particularly unfort-
unate that the scholar who in the way

THE LAMP

287

t
►

of acquisition is perhaps of all writers
best fitted to deal with it, should be of
all writers the one fullest of preposses-
sions and caprices — in other words, the
one least fitted by mental constitution.
However the various positions taken
may be sustained, or however sound they
may be in themselves, it remains unhap-
pily true that the manner of their pre-
sentation is such as to leave the general
impression of paradox and idiosyncrasy
even when the statements made have the
substantialit}' of platitude.

Taken in the large sense the technic
of the book is thus thoroughly discon-
certing. Of what use is it, i 1 view of
this capriciousness of presentation, to
adopt a general scheme of "giving the
gist of particular books and the opinions
of particular authors together and leav-
ing bird*s-eye views to the interchap-
ters," if the whole is covered with a
reticulation of confusing comment ex-
pressive mainly of the writer's singulari-
ties. It has been remarked of certain
writers, embarrassed by a desire to put
more into expression than it will hold,
that they put their foot-notes into the
text. Of Professor Saintsbury we may
affirm that a good deal the most il-
luminating portion of his text is to
be found in the foot-notes. In cer-
tain other cases the foot-note is a
jeu d'esprit that the author has found
irresistible. And in general the treat-
ment is so eccentric and has so little
rhythm that you must read a great deal
at a time — preferably the entire volume
— in order to be able to see the forest
rather than the trees. Open a book
quite at random and you come upon
nothing that is more, and often upon
much that is less, informative than such
a sentence as this :

"When we remember the Philistine
anti-poetics of Locke much more than a
century after Minturno's time — nay, the
still existing, if lurking, idea that 'great
poet' must be (as somebody asserts that

it is, or was, in Irish slang) synonym
for 'utter fool' — ^wc shall not bear too
hardly on our author."

To this there is the following foot-
note:

"Perhaps if this be true, the Irish got
it from their French friends of the seven-
teenth century, among whom, accord-
ing to the Menagiana, poeta regius was
the correct title of the King's Fool."

A history of " literary taste " written
in this vein carries its own " literary
criticism " with it.

Professor Saintsbury has been re-
proached with writing a history of
taste without defining the tern?, and of
literary criticism without having any
philosophic conception of his own about
it. This is perhaps legitimate criticism,
but it is not very drastic. It would have
been easy enough for him to give a defini-
tion of taste, and to have no philosophy
of criticism need not disqualify an his-
torian of its philosophy. A similar ob-
jection used to be made to the late
George Henry Lewes's "History of Phil-
osophy," namely, that it was a large book
written to show that there was no such
thing as the subject of it. But this was
rather a sportive than a logical objection,
since to have no philosophy is itself a
philosophy, as Aristotle "pointed out;"
and a fortiori a historian of criticism may
be permitted to obtrude no formula of his
own.

The fundamental objection to Pro-
fessor Saintsbury's book is not that
he is not a systematic critic himself,
though certainly if he were it would
have the advantage of furnishing him
with a standard of comparison by which
to admeasure his comment and thus
make it seem to the reader less irrespon-
sible. The fundamental objection is
that for such a standard of comparison
he substitutes his own preferences, and
that his preferences are as autocratic
and dogmatic as the strictest and
straitest of the " ambitious theories "

288

THE LAMP

he denounces. We have thus a tempera-
mental rather than a theoretic standard.

Now in this case, of course, every-
thing depends on the kind of tempera-
ment that a writer possesses. It is there-
fore unfortunate that Professor Saints-
bury 's should be so acutely hostile to the
subject-matter with which he has chosen
to deal. This is necessarily almost alto-
gether composed of theory, and theory he
will have none of. Anything like aca-
demic canons he scouts, and yet it is pre-
cisely of these and their evolution that he
is the historian. His book accordingly
for long stretches reads like a prolonged
philippic. We do, it is true, miss that
sense of co-ordination and organization
in his work which gives life to a work
of monumental proportions, which saves
its effect from dissipation among the de-
tails of haphazard, however orderly may
be the succession of the narrative divis-
ions. But what is capital is that we get a
thoroughly polemic account from an un-
sympathetic hand of a subject of great
importance.

Moreover, every kind of bias is to
be found in Professor Saintsbury ex-
cept that proceeding from a lack of
personal candor. His national is as
patent as his personal prejudice. Better
acquainted with French literature than
almost any English scholar, his bias
against its cardinal qualities is such as
to bring him almost invariable ill-luck
whenever he touches it. The period of
the present volume brings into inevitable
prominence his discussion of French
criticism. Naturally, therefore, his
treatment is here conspicuously unsatis-
factory. Against Boileau in particular
he seems to feel a personal grievance.
The reader is tempted to fancy himself
back in the days of Swift and Bentley,
of Gibber and Collier. His general po-
sition may be seen from a single sentence
from the preface, referring to French
criticism: "As for that general su-
periority of which we have heard so

much, the unerring voice of actual his-
tory will tell us that it never existed at
all, except, perhaps, for a generation be-
fore 1660 and a generation before i860,
the latter being the period which called
forth, but misled, Mr. Arnold's admira-
tion." History as he writes it. Professor
Saintsbury means. "In everything but
superficial consistency Dryden," he says,
"is a head and shoulders above Boileau."
Hazlitt showed a genius for criticism
" long before Sainte-Beuve," and so on.
This sort of " French and English "
game can be played indefinitely. As
well say: "In spite of his masculine
but unequal powers Dryden lacked the
faculty for synthesis that made Boileau
a European force," or " Though some-
thing of Sainte-Beuve's genius for
divination, though unfortified by his
immense culture, had already appeared
in the picturesque writing of the now
forgotten Hazlitt, yet, etc., etc."

But the value of criticism, from the
standpoint of the historian, is largely to
be judged by its results. The result, in
part at least, of French formulary —
as in part also the result of those traits
in the French genius to which its fond-
ness for formulary is itself due — has been
the critical perfection of French litera-
ture. The result of English criticism
has been, one might say, Professor
Saintsbury. At least until very recently,
and with the notable exception of
Arnold's own — which also has appar-
ently not influenced Professor Saints-
bury^ — it has been very slight. Thirty
years ago it was certainly true that,
as Arnold wrote, " almost the last
thing for which one would come to
English literature is just that very thing
which now Europe most desires — criti-
cism." Arnold's critics then called the
importance he assigned to criticism exces-
sive, and asserted the superiority of crea-
tion, so-called. But Professor Saintsbury
has discovered that he was simply " mis-
led," and that in criticism as elsewhere

THE LAMP

289

Britannia rules supreme. The senti-
ments of his book, it is to be feared, are
of too primitive a nature and origin to
appeal to readers sufficiently informed to
benefit by his monumental work — the

work itself being written as already in-
timated in a way to prevent its being
very useful to nine out of ten readers
ordinarily cultivated and already inter-
ested in the subject.

AN INTERVIEW WITH JAMES WHITCOMB

RILEY

By M. C. Chomel

**^\/OUNG writers want to achieve
X success all at once," said James
Whitcomb Riley. "They are not willing
to spend years and years at work, and the
hardest kind of work at that. There
must be unceasing toil, and an eternal
striving after success. Good writing is
always hard work, just as everything ex-
cellent is hard work."

"Do you not find it easier work now to
write a poem than it was when you first
began?"

"It is just as difficult for me to write
to-day as it was in the old days, when I
was experimenting before country audi-
ences, trying to make money, and, at the
same time, striving to learn what the
people wanted; and it was many, many
weary years before I began to really find
out. The same with the editorial audi-
ence. I never became angry until a poem
was sent back to me a great number of
times. Then I was angrier at myself
than at the editors. It is patient, un-
ceasing toil that counts. I did not learn
to write legibly until I was a grown man.
An accident to my right hand rendered
penmanship very difficult. But by dint
of constant practice, after months and
years of patient effort, I finally mastered
the art of writing legibly. It is the same
with composition. A line does not please
me. I say, *ril make you come out as I
want you to !* But it won't do it. And
I say, 111 make you do it !' And I keep
at it until I get what I want. Anybody
can, with that selfsame recipe.

"I remember, when I was a young fel-
low, I used to picture how delightful it
would be, when I wanted an extra fine
book of some favorite author, to sit down
and 'dash off' a poem and then wait com-
placently for a check. But I have learned
that real poems are not 'dashed off.' Nor
do great writers become famous in a day.
When you wake up some morning and
hear that somebody or other has been dis-
covered, you can put it down as a fact
that he discovered himself years ago —
since which time he has been working
and toiling and striving to fit and make
himself worthy of general discovery.

"You can't possibly hide good worL
If you were to send it out on a rainy day
under a mackintosh someone would be
sure to find it and exclaim: 'Hello!
By George! There is a poem under
here!'"

Mr. Riley speaks in a slow and almost
monotonous tone of voice, unless the sub-
ject is one that specially interests him.
Then his whole manner changes; his eyes
sparkle and he gesticulates freely. His
humor is always strikingly original, and
it crops out in his most casual conversa-
tion as well as in his writings. If litera-
ture is the subject, he is sure to say some-
thing interesting. At times there is a
very perceptible nervousness in his man-
ner. This is particularly noticeable when
he is interrupted at work at his desk. I
have seen him take his penknife from his
pocket and toy idly with it while talking;
again, he will cut all the pages of a new

290

THE LAMP

magazine while carrying on an animated
conversation.

There is nothing suggestive of the poet
in Mr. Riley's workroom, which is the
only name by which the office where his
desk stands can be called. It consists
merely of a very plainly furnished room
in the Union Trust Company building.
For several years the desk stood in a cor-
ner of the long, bare, dusty room over the
salesroom at his publisher's. Two win-
dows open on an unsightly alley in the
rear. The desk was of plain oak. The
only other piece of furniture was a long
table on which stood a very small
globe. The furnishings of the small
office room that now serves are equally
unpretentious. Here the poet works for
a few hours each day; here he receives
and answers, as best he can, his over-
whelming mail.

In the editorial rooms of the Indian-
apolis Journal Mr. Riley also works at
times. Years ago he formed the habit of
stopping there in the morning before
the editor's arrival and sometimes work-
ing an hour or two at any unoccupied
desk.

"I like to stray in wherever I can find
a really neat, trim, orderly desk," he said.
"The littered condition of my own desk,
with stacks of mail matter demanding at-
tention, irritates, and work flows better
some place else. I write only when in
the mood, and could not possibly write
anything when not so inclined. I erase
much that I write, and do more work
with the rubber end of the pencil than
the other. In fact that is my very best
work."

"Do you observe regular working
hours, Mr. Riley?"

"Yes; when I can," he replied, glanc-
ing at his watch, "and I must get back to
work in a few minutes now."

Mr. Riley spends the hours from ten
to four at his desk. If not in the mood
for composition, he answers as many
letters as possible. He is not a ready

writer. Demands for poems are a
source of much worry to him. He says
that if publishers and editors would only
let him write undirected and then take
what he has finished, it would be far
more gratifying to him, and his prod-
uct, too, would be the better. It has
been asserted that Mr. Riley possesses no
library. One of his literary friends once
said that he did not own a single book
except the volumes bearing his name upon
the title page ; that if he were asked for
a book, he would be obliged to request
the inquirer to wait until he went to
the booksellers' for it. While this
statement is an exaggeration, it is a fact
that the poet's library is not an extensive
one. He himself says upon this subject:
"My library might be called a constantly
changing one. Having been a nomad
almost all my life, there has been no
opportunity for laying the foundation of
a large library. My reading is done in .a
desultory fashion — reading for amuse-
ment, and if a book is wise and seems to
age me, I dodge it. It is my aim to
avoid all study, because one is constantly
studying while at work. Therefore,
apart from work, life should as far as pos-
sible be filled with pleasant things. I do
not seek out the unpleasant in books nor
in anything else. Nor, when I read, do
I want to be going to school again.
Somewhere we are wisely told to avoid
*the deadly upas tree.' That fatal tree
exists for me in the theatre and in books.
I like tragedy neither in drama nor in
books."

Mr. Riley would see only the bright
side of things, and tries to persuade him-
self that all things are bright and beau-
tiful. "We are all impressionable," he
said to me, "and it is wise to spare our
sensibilities, or, if we must impress them,
let us do it with pleasant things, with
all that up-lifts.

"As I said awhile ago, I have, in a
manner, been a wanderer ; circumstances
so compelled. But I have tried to accept

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.

it all in good spirit. We must all be
philosophers. All the happenings of life
are meant for our ultimate good, and
must not be accepted in a spirit of com-
plaint. He who arranged the programme
of life has done it far better than could
we who are the mere actors in its lists.
This fact we should see and accept with
appropriate thanks and gratitude."
The poet has a fondness for watching

the crowds pass along the downtown
streets on bright afternoons. About four
o'clock he drifts out into Washington
Street, the main thoroughfare of Indi-
ana's capital, and saunters easily along
to Pennsylvania Street. He never walks
rapidly, never seems to be in a hurry.
On a recent stormy afternoon he walked
down the street in the rain and, although
he had no umbrella, he moved along with

a<)Q.

THE LAMP

the same slow gait as on bright, sun-
shiny afternoons when the streets are
filled with the people he delights to ob-
serve in his nearsighted way. He is ex-
ceedingly democratic, and will always
stop to chat with any friend he may
chance to meet during his saunterings,
in which he attracts little or no atten-
tion from the hurrying crowds.

Mr. Riley has always proved himself

those to which replies had been written ;
on the left was a larger bundle, contain-
ing probably a dozen letters, and to these
latter he was giving his attention. A
bulky envelope was brought to the desk.
The postman had just left it. Taking
it up and holding it out in his hand he
said:

"Now I know what this is. There is
a manuscript and a letter enclosed asking

THE BIRTHPLACE AND CHILDHOOD HOME OF
MR. RILEY AT GREENFIELD, IND.

a friend of his kind and is ever ready
to assist young writers who appeal to
him for encouragement. The number
of these appeals is very large. Scarcely
a post but brings one or more manu-
scripts with the request that he read it
and tell the author frankly whether he
can offer encouragement or not. A large
part of his time is spent answering letters
of this description. One day I found
him engaged in the arduous task of writ-
ing replies to letters from young writers.
On either side of the desk was a bundle
of assorted letters. On the right were

me to read it and write my real opinion
of it. Yes," he said, running a knife
slowly along the edge of the envelope,
"here is the letter and the manuscript.
Its writer says that *many of the facts in
his story are true.' That may be; but
the story may not be well told, or it may
be badly punctuated, or there may be a
dozen other things that will tell against
it." The letter was returned to the en-
velope and added to a third bundle of
letters. "Here are more and more and
more of the same kind," he said, "and
God knows I wish I could answer them

WHERE MR. RILEY NOW I.IVES, ON LOCKERBIE STREET, INDIANAPOLIS.

all just exactly in the way the writers
want them answered."

"Do you send personal replies to all
those letters?"

"To as many of them as I possibly can.
The pressure of my correspondence is so
great that were I to do nothing else I
could not reply to all the letters received.
If I were to dictate typewritten replies
the recipients would resent it. That is
not what they want. So I answer as
many as I can, possibly. Then there
are the letters from the children. They
are compensating. Little ones often write
without the knowledge of their parents,
that they may have the pleasure of carry-
ing the replies to them as a surprise. Old
people write, too, and many of them send
suggestions for poems. And here are
numerous requests for lectures."

James Whitcomb Riley, son of Reuben
A. and Elizabeth Riley, was born twenty

miles east of his present Indianapolis
home, at the little town of Greenfield,
Indiana. His parents' home — the old
homestead of his book — ^was

Set just one side the centre of a small
But very hopeful Indiana town —
The upper-story looking squarely down
Upon the main street and the main highway
From east to west — historic in its day,
Known as the National Road.

His father was a lawyer of fair practice,
who, to quote from one of Mr. Riley's
own sketches, "used, in moments of deep
thought, to regard this boy as the worst
case he ever had." The old house, on the
quiet village street, where the poet was
born, is still standing. After his father's
death, it passed into the hands of stran-
gers, but is now in the possession of the
son. His summers are partly spent there.
The old home is associated with the ten-
derest and most lasting recollections

294

THE LAMP

treasured by the poet, and he has written
touchingly of the childhood years passed
under the shelter of its roof. The old
kitchen is also a subject of tender mem-
ory. It filled a large place in his boyish
heart, and it has not proved too homely
to be glorified in song.

The National Road was the highway
that led "away out West." It was con-
structed by the Government, starting
from Cumberland, Maryland ; and in the
early days the settlers traversed it on the
overland journey to the then far West of
Illinois. The caravans of canvas-top
wagons were wonderful sights to young
Riley. The famous "noted Traveler"
of the "Child World" came out from
the Maryland end of the National Road
at the time of the anti-slavery agitation.
It was called, too, "The Old Plank
Road"—

Old-timers all
Who linger yet, will happily recall
It as the scheme and handiwork, as well
As property of '* Uncle Sam," and tell
Of its importance, '* long and long afore
Railroads wiiz ever dreamt of ! "

It was the ambition of the future
Hoosier poet's father that the son should
study law at his maturity. Young Riley
did try to read law for a few months,
but signally failed. He fell into persist-
ent ill-health, and was disheartened.

"I could not pay for medical attention
and travel too — ^both of which I needed,
and it just seemed as if Td have to die,
when one day a patent medicine man
drove into town, and then it seemed that
I would never get a better opportunity
to travel and have medical attention at
the same time. The doctor was willing
to take me along with him, and by the
time we arrived at his home at the end
of the season I was strong and healthy.
The doctor's son and myself became
great friends. He has since served as
the mayor of a prosperous city — capital
of a neighboring State.

It was a much-debated question among

the friends of young Riley as to whether
he was a born poet or a born actor. It
seemed to be the general opinion that he
could make a success of either calling.
Every old resident of Greenfield remem-
bers his youthful dramatic efforts. It
was while writing poetry for a country
paper that he devised a Poe poem fraud
that was his rather embarrassing intro-
duction to the world of letters. Be-
lieving that his poems would be well
received if they bore the name of an
author already famous, he proceeded to
test his belief by writing a poem in
imitation of Edgar A. Poe. "Leonainie,"
signed with the initials E. A. P.,
was written upon the fly leaf of an old
and worn copy of Ainsworth's Diction-
ary and the poem was published as a re-
cently discovered manuscript of Poe. It
was printed in the Kokomo Dispatch, the
proprietor, J. O. Henderson, later audi-
tor of the State of Indiana, having a full
knowledge of the literary hoax. The
poem was extensively copied in this coun-
try and England, and was accepted by
many without question.

One of the most interesting events in
Mr. Riley's life was the public reading
he gave in Greenfield. It was the first
time he had appeared on a stage in his
native town since his boyhood days. Mr.
Riley received an enthusiastic welcome;
never had such joy been manifested over
the return of a citizen of Greenfield.
When he appeared on the streets he was
greeted with the unaffected salutation,
"Howdy, Jim." Many of the old people
could not reconcile the harum scarum
boy they remembered with this poet who
had come to visit them, and over whom
so much ado was being made. They
could not understand the evolution of the
countr}' boy into the poet of the people.

"Why," said one, "I remember Jim
when he ust to run around barefoot."
Said another: "Jim painted that sign
over there, and I remember when he
done it."

THE LAMP

295

Mr. Riley's home in Indianapolis is on
the quiet little street of Lockerbie —
named for its old Scotch founder. It
is but two squares in length and not
far removed from the bustle of city
life. He is a member of the family
of an old friend, with whom he has lived
many years. The old-fashioned house is
a fine example of the substantially built
and well-furnished home of the period
that preceded the strictly modem house.
The furnishings belong to the period of
its building. Mr. Riley's own apart-
ments are simple and modest. The large
drawing-room and family library occupy
the main portion of the lower front
floor.

Mr. Riley is well endowed with this
world's goods, all acquired through his
public readings and literar>^ labors. He

is unmarried. He confesses to a fondness
for social life, but says he feels at a disad-
vantage at social gatherings; that people
are disappointed in him. "I don't sec
well, or remember names. Therefore
I'm an ungainly member of society. I
have been catching the next train for so
many years that I have had but little time
to devote to the social side of life, and
am, in consequence, a confirmed novice in
all the gentler graces. Only a few even-
ings since, somewhere, I pronounced
*don't you' with the *ch' sound to it, and
— Well ! You must imagine, for I can't
describe, the overwhelming, suffocating
sense of my humiliation when my atten-
tion was drawn to it. And horror on
horror's head! the same evening I was
detected in the act of pronouncing pro-
gramme just as the word is spelled !"

SOME OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SCOT-
TISH AND ENGLISH WRITERS

By J. M. Bulloch

London, April, 1903.

WHEN you come to think of it,
the position of the Scots who
write books (for the moment I do not
say literature) is remarkable when con-
trasted with the output of England, in
view of the difference of populations,
for Scotland has but 4,500,000 to the
32,500,000 of England and Wales. I
need only remind you, on the one hand,
of the position of Mr. Barrie and of the
prominent place which the "Kailyard"
school has occupied in the book market ;
and, on the other, of such a stylist as
Robert Louis Stevenson, and of a scholar
like Mr. Lang.

The subject is of peculiar interest at
the present moment by reason of the
commanding success of Mr. Barrie, who
owes his position, I venture to think, as
much to certain well-marked character-

istics of his country as to those inimita-
ble idiosyncrasies which have put him in
the forefront. The national quality
which distinguishes the Scot from the
English writer has never been sufficient-
ly emphasized, for the very term, the
"Kailyard," invented in Scotland itself,
show^ a curious lack of perception.
Taking the word in its broadest sense
to signify the extreme simplicity and
humbleness of the vegetable kingdom, I
suggest that all the most characteristic
literature by Scotsmen has belonged to
the "Kailyard." England has had its
Kailyard also; but it has remained an
unmistakable Kailyard, for English
belles lettres must be assigned to the
rose-garden. Let me take a concrete ex-
ample. Robert Burns, a man of the
people, and expressing the thoughts of
the people in the language of the people.

296

THE LAMP

not only stands at the head of the poetry
of his own country, but is pedestalled by
universal consent (Mr. Henley dissent-
ing) as one of the great poets of the
world. William Barnes, on the other
hand, remains the poet of Dorsetshire,
beyond the boundaries of which he is
practically unknown, except to the lit-
erary expert. The contrast is the in-
herent difference between the literatures
of the two countries.

Literature is, after all, only the reflex
of a national life; and to this day the
national life of Scotland differs essen-
tially from that of England. The the-
ory of society in the geographical area
called England remains, among many
changes, dominantly one of caste. Scot-
land, on the other hand, is essentially a
democracy. The difference seems to be
a point of great interest to many Amer-
icans, for I was very much struck in
reading Mr. Hanna's laborious compila-
tion, "The Scotch-Irish," to find how
keenly an American of to-day can feel
on the subject. The intense democracy
of Scotland need not be demonstrated by
any wire-drawn argument. I need only
cite its main religious system of Presby-
terianism, with its co-operation of pulpit
and pew, as against Anglicanism with its
semi-retention of the old idea of a priest-
hood, thoroughly graded in itself and
clearly marked off from the laity. Or
again, take the educational methods of
the two countries. Scotland possessed
four distinct universities at a time when
its rich neighbor had but two; and to
this day these two, Oxford and Cam-
bridge, are so well founded in the caste
system that, while a clever lad can gain
scholarships in them, the difficulty of his
academic success being able to obliterate
his social origin is still very consider-
able. It would be easy to multiply illus-
trations; and much might be said of the
democratizing effect which resulted from
the Scot's being compelled in early times
to scour the Continent of Europe in

search of fortune in the field or the fain
Suffice it to say that the caste system
still obtains in England, but makes no
progress in Scotland, where every chance
(greatly increased by Mr. Carnegie's
munificence — a strange contrast to the
fine old crusty creed of Mr. Rhodes) is
given to let the best man win. The
consequence is that the classes in Scot-
land are being perpetually kept in a
state of solution and sediment; whereas
in England they tend to assume the
character of a hard crust. In Scotland
the strong, generating impulses are come
from the bottom. In England the influ-
ence is mainly from the top downward.
This shifting of the social centre of
gravity has had a remarkable influence
on the literature of Scotland, for, with
a few exceptions, notably that of Scott,
the producers of that literature have
come from the people. There has been
no parallel to the class which we call
English Men of Letters. True, there
were, and there are, coteries of "literary
men" in Edinburgh, recruited mainly
from the professional classes, but they
have had no real hold on the imagination
of the country. They have produced
philosophy in various shades, including
the art of criticism, rather than creative
literature ; they have been analytic rather
than synthetic. The characteristic cre-
ative literature of Scotland has in the
main come from the soil or from the
wage-earning class — from Bums, the
ploughman; Hogg, the shepherd; Car-
lyle, the stone-mason's son; and even
the universities, democratic as they al-
ways have been, cannot boast of the
literary lineage of the simple, but thor-
ough, parish school. In England, on
the other hand, it is "the classes" who
have produced the best writers, on the
w^hole, from the days of Chaucer, the
professional courtier. No doubt Shake-
speare may be cited against me, but
surely the play-actor, vagabond though
he was reckoned, was more in the way

THE LAMP

297

of the power of expression than those
who had to toil laboriously at the plough,
at shepherding, and the humbler crafts.
Literature has been a personal impulse
in Scotland, almost invariably exhausted
in its first exponent. Across the border
it has tended to become a profession, or
at any rate it has been practised by those
following other professions.

I think it is to this fact that we owe
the distinctive feature of the most char-
acteristic Scots literature — the quality
of intimateness. It is unnecessary to
describe to a generation which has read
"Margaret Ogilvy" and "The Little
White Bird" exactly what is meant by
intimateness in literature. It is, for in-
stance, the quality that distinguishes the
vast song literature which Scotland has
given us, and which marks on the side
of romance the products of the Kailyard
School as well as the work of such a
strenuous opponent as the author of
"The House with the Green Shutters."
The force against intimateness, bred by
professionalism and caste in letters, is
precisely of the same quality as the re-
ticence which characterizes a society liv-
ing in the glare of the world. It is the
quality which keeps you from wearing
your heart on your sleeve, and from
being afraid to exhibit the impulse which
is not shared by your contemporaries.
The curious thing about Scots literature
is that in real life the Scots are extraor-
dinarily reticent in the matter of their
emotions, almost to the point that they
seem at times to have no emotions at
all to express. The attitude of a Scots
father and mother to a child is not so
much an emotional affection of the mo-
ment, as an intellectual desire to provide
the means for the child's entering a
higher social sphere than that in which
he was born. That is why Scots uni-
versities have always been crowded by
the poorest boys. And yet I know no
nursery literature which is so tender as
that written in the Scots vernacular.

The feeling of tenderness is doubly em-
phasized by the curious use of diminu-
tives and of diminutionized diminutives,
as, for example, in the famous song
written by a Catholic priest, "There
was a wee bit wiffockie," where you
have four diminutives to describe the old
lady. As an example of the intense
sympathy with young life I would draw
attention to Thom*s poignant verses,
"The Mitherless Bairn" — a phrase
which in itself carries so much more
than its English equivalent. Take, for
example, the verse with its diminutives
and its alliterativeness :

The mitherless baimie creeps to his lane bed ;
Nane covers his cauld back or haps his bare

head,
His wee hackit heelies are hard as the aim,
An' lithless the lair o' the mitherless bairn.

This song literature is one made up very
largely by the singers of but one song,
and it is further noticeable that in the
case of that outburst of song which
made the Jacobite movement immortal,
the aristocratic sympathizers of Prince
Charlie took instinctively to the ver-
nacular when expressing themselves in
verse.

The intimateness of the Scot as a
writer is not confined to his use of the
Doric, although in many cases he is at
his best in that form. The moment that
he begins to write he seems to be able
to express his feeling freely, and with a
directness which has puzzled his critics.
The classic example is Boswell in his
"Life of Johnson" — surely the most in-
timate piece of biography the world has
ever seen. This national characteristic
obtains even when the writer has be-
come quite professional. I have already
pointed out in these pages that the most
striking feature of Mr. Barrie's work
(and I take him as the greatest type of
the characteristic Scots writer) is his
knack of expressing the remembered
young impression, which in most of us.

298

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however powerfully felt at one time,
becomes effaced by the blunting process
of time, or by the deliberate reticence
which the social code forces upon men
and women. It is easy to understand
how this art tends to become puerile and
mawkish, and how many opportunities
it offers for ridicule, such as Mr. Cros-
land has bestowed upon it. But inti-
mateness has done this for Scotland: it
has made its literature part of the aver-
age man's life in a manner which has
no parallel in England, with perhaps
the sole exception of Dickens, who illus-
trates my proposition of the great value
to a writer of coming freshly from the
people without the intervention of that
intellectual caste feeling which makes a
man be sparing in his emotional means.
The enormous popularity of Dickens is
to be found in the fact that he described
with the utmost S5m[ipathy, although
with a certain extravagance, the joys
and the sorrows of the Cockney tempera-
ment, which IS the most emotional to be
found in England. I heed hardly point
•out that his artistry was entirely differ-
ent from Mr. Barrie's, but it was pe-
culiarly suitable for his own countrymen,
and the consequence has been that he is
probably better known than any other
writer in English. You find, for exam-
ple, in Scotland that men know their
Burns who are in no sense bookmen, for
Burns has got into their very skins.
Dickens has something of the same place
in England, although you will find in
Yorkshire that the Brontes have laid
hold of the imagination of the people in
a remarkable way. Everywhere you
will find people who know their "Jane
Eyre," for example, and who may never
have read another novel. In fact, Burns
and the Brontes and Dickens have be-
come folklore.

It is difficult to make Scott fit in with
any theory. He could, but he would
not be intimate. I suggest that the curb

on him is to be traced partly to his social
caste (which was higher than that of
most Scots writers) and to the profes-
sionalism of letters which has always
marked the coteries in the capital. One
shudders to think of the disaster that
would have overtaken Burns had he been
subjected to the domination of those
coteries (almost always associated as
they were with the practice of law)
which have formed the literary society
of Edinburgh and which have had so
small an effect on posterity. It is pre-
cisely from this quarter that the destruc-
tive criticism of the "Kailyard" has
come, and it is natural that this should
be the case.

By a curious contradictory process the
intimateness of the Scot — when he is not
writing in the vernacular — ^has always
been checked by the fact that the written
word in English remains for him rather
like a foreign language. A Scot rarely
writes as he speaks. In writing he be-
gins to use a separate vocabulary, and
the consequence is that much of the
writing becomes stilted. Occasionally
the stilt merges into a style, as in the
case of Stevenson, who, in the process
of learning to write English, took a keen
delight in mastering the difficulties of
the subject, with the result we know.
For the average man, however, the re-
straint necessary for translating his emo-
tions into the written word tends to
harden his impressions in a way that an
Englishman would scarcely understand.
Taking all things into consideration,
there is a marked difference between the
literature of Scotland and England.
You cannot justly take sides in the dif-
ference. Each literature is characteris-
tic of its people and the outcome of the
national impulse of its prophets. There
may be a difference of opinion as to what
these impulses consist of. I have vent-
ured to suggest only a few of them, and
that in the most tentative wav.

A BOOK OF CHARM BY A MAN OF SCIENCE

By Hevry van Dyke

HERE is a book that deserves a place
of its own in American literature,
and a company of readers that will not
fall away. Three things make " Moun-
taineering in the Sierra Nevada " fit and
likely to stand the test of time. First,
an interesting subject: the earliest scien-
tific exploration of the most picturesque
of American mountain-ranges. Second,
a rare charm of style: lucid, fluent, sin-
cere, free from false ornaments, yet at
times luminous with real beauty. Third,
a genuine sympathy with nature and
with human nature, alike in lighter and
in deeper moods. It is not often that
one finds a book in which these things
are combined. But when it is found, old
or new, it is good to read, good to keep,
good to read again. It seems to me that
this little volume need not fear com-
parison with Irving's "Astoria " or
" Captain Bonneville," or Parkman's
"Oregon Trail." Indeed to my taste
it is more attractive than any of the
others.

Those who had the pleasure of know-
ing Mr. Clarence King know how
much of his personality has gone into this
work of his. A man of science by nature
and by training, he was also a man of
letters, sensitive to impressions of all
kinds, a lover of art, a refined and deli-
cate intelligence, fearless and advent-
urous, a most human spirit. His
knowledge was at the service of his wit.
He had an extraordinar}' vividness of
observation and a power of describing
the real significance of important things
in very simple words. To hear him talk
was to appreciate the value of the almost

Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada. By Clarence
King. Fifth edition.^ Charles Scribner's Sons, New
York, 1902. 8vo, pp. xiii, 378.

lost art of conversation. In these pages
he seems to speak, and " the style is the
man."

He was born at Newport, Rhode
Island, in 1842; graduated from the
Sheffield School at Yale in 1862; crossed
the continent on horseback in 1863 and
joined the Geological Survey of Califor-
nia. The plan for the exploration of the
40th parallel, under the direction of
the engineer corps of the United States
Army, came from him, and he com-
manded the expedition whiph worked
it out from 1867 to 1872. From 1878
to 1 88 1 he was director of the National
Geological Survey, the organization of
which was largely due to his suggestion
and efforts. In his chosen department
he was not only a close and patient in-
vestigator, but also a brilliant and
illuminating interpreter of the results
of investigation. To him, more than to
anyone else, were due. the discoveries
which fixed the age of the gold-bearing
rocks. Apart from the present book,
which was published in 187 1 and re-
issued in 1874, his work must be looked
for among the publications of the Geo-
logical Survey and the Engineering De-
partment, U. S. A. Yet there can be no
doubt that, if he had chosen to seek
literary rewards and fame, they would
have been easily within his reach. He
died in 1901, greatly regretted by a
large circle of friends, among whom
were many of the most distinguished
men in America.

"Mountaineering in the Sierra Ne-
vada" is not intended to be a scien-
tific treatise. It belongs to the literature
of power rather than to the literature of
knowledge. Yet there is plenty of in-
formation in it, imparted with delightful

300

THE LAMP

clearness, precision, and naturalness.
How much substantial knowledge, ac-
curate and easy to remember, is conveyed
in the unpretending sentences with
which the book begins :

" The western margin of this conti-
m'ent is built of a succession of mountain-
chains folded in broad corrugations, like
waves of stone, upon whose seaward
base beat the mild, small breakers of the
Pacific. By far the grandest of all these
ranges is the Sierra Nevada, a long and
massive uplift lying between the arid
deserts of the Great Basin and the Cali-
fornian exuberance of grain-field and
orchard ; its eastern slope, a defiant wall
of rock plunging abruptly down to the
plain ; the western, a long, grand sweep,
well watered and overgrown with cool,
stately forests; its crest, a line of sharp,
snowy peaks springing into the sky and
catching the alpenglow long after the
sun has set for all the rest of Amer-
ica."

Every word is carefully chosen to tell
the truth and clarify the impression.
This is the style of a man who knows
his subject thoroughly, makes no display
of learning, describes things simply and
significantly, and gives you a pictur*;
which is quite as truthful as a diagram
and much more interesting.

If you will follow on from this good
beginning, the author will lead you into
many places that are worth seeing — the
groves of gigantic Sequoia, the icy sum-
mit of Mount Tyndall, the Yosemite
Valley, the Canon of the Merced,
Mount Shasta and Mount Whitney —
giving you, by the way, a lot of knowl-
edge about rocks and fossils and trees and
the causes which influence climate, and
instructing you just as thoroughly as if
his method were dry and fatiguing. He
will make you acquainted also with the
irrepressible frontiersman and the irre-
sponsible miner and the inexplicable In-
dian. His descriptions are not chromatic.
His humor is not forced. He does the

thing with a touch. He confesses his
" opinion that the Quakers will have to
work a great reformation in the Indian
before he is really fit to be extermi-
nated." He records the diplomatic man-
ner in which Mr. Newty, of Pike, the
hog-raiser, proposed an alliance with his
daughter, the massive Susan: "Thet
man what gits Susan has half the hogs!"

There is just enough of mountaineer's
adventure in the book to give one a real
sense of the peril and hardship of the
explorer's life. There are some de-
scriptions of fine scenery, done without
the slightest trace of " tall writing."
How perfect, in its restraint and in its
health, is this picture of the view from
Mount Whitney :

" It was the absolute reverse of the
effect on Mount Tyndall, where an un-
relenting clearness discovered every ob-
ject in all its power and realit>\ There
we saw only unburied wreck of geologic
struggles, black with sudden shadow or
white under searching focus, as if the
sun were a great burning-glass, gather-
ing light from all space, and hurling its
fierce shafts on spire and wall. Now it
was like an opal world, submerged in a
sea of dreamy light, down through whose
motionless, transparent depths I became
conscious of sunken ranges, great hol-
lows of undiscernible depth, reefs of
granite as clear and delicate as the coral
banks in a tropical ocean. It was not
like a haze in the lower world, which
veils away distance in softly vanishing
perspective; there was no mist, no
vagueness, no loss of form or fading of
outline — only a strange harmonizing of
earth and air."

The joy of out-of-doors runs all
through the book. It is vital, cheerful,
liberating. There is no pose about it.
It is the genuine utterance of a man who
loved to sleep on the ground, under the
stars. It is full of the breath of that
large, free, glad life which belongs to
the explorer, the camper-out. If there

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301

fEwN

kz:
if :

has been a better book of familiar travel
in unfamiliar places written in America,
I have never seen it.

Here and there are little glimpses, like
liftings of the corner of the veil, that

unconsciously reveal the reverent faith
of the heart, the considerate tenderness
of the feelings, which made Clarence
King most beloved by those who knew
him best.

LETTERS AND LIFE
By John Finlev

IT is not a far-fetched conceit to
think of the ideal social scientist as
a "civic engineer," as one who, with un-
erring judgment, establishes the right-
ful bounds of the individual's freedom
within the State and in human society.
President Roosevelt, speaking to the
people out in some Dakota town a few
days ago, intimated the need of the ser-
vices of such a public surveyor, of one
who could run the line between meddle-
some, over-anxious, paternal State inter-
ference on the one hand, and cowardly
or indifferent laissez-faire on the other.
No public service is more needed. Once
these bounds of freedom and of duty
were fixed with some accuracy, the work
of preacher and teacher would be less
difficult.

. But the President, very wisely and
pertinently, further intimated that such
a line is not to be determined by the
stars alone. It is necessary that some
account should be taken of the topogra-
phy of the earth upon which it lies, that
local conditions should not be ignored.
In other words, the theorizer who gen-
eralizes some hard straight and fast line
from an a priori reasoning or from a
narrow interest is not to be too implic-
itly trusted. That the State should not
interfere to protect the individual citi-
zen from the wiles of the huckster, the
carelessness of the barber, the imposition
of the plumber, or the punishment of his
own thriftlessness, and "paternalize"
him with countless anxious provisions for

his physical and moral health, is neither
to be asserted off-hand nor denied. The
Governor of New Jersey last year vetoed
a bill requiring the marking of boxes
containing "scooped huckleberries," on
the implied ground that it and such
measures would lead to the deterioration
of the discriminating mind ; but up in a
logging camp in Michigan last summer
I was unable to eat the butter placed
before me, because, by placard on every
wall, I was repeatedly and legally
warned that it was not butter. New
Jersey declines to label "scooped" huc-
kleberries as such, but Michigan extends
its considerate governmental functions
to prevent the palates of its citizens
from deception by an imitation butter.
The State of Missouri is, at this writ-
ing, astir over alleged corruption in pro-
moting legislation to discriminate against
alum-made baking-powder, while many
other States have had much and stren-
uous debate over similar paternalistic
measures. One has but to look through
the session laws pf a single year to dis-
cover how truant the real line of legis-
lative establishing is to the theoretic line
of the earlier days of our republic. Who
did not as a boy have very clear vision
of the division of the earth's surface and
atmosphere by the tropics and other
imaginary lines into climatic zones as
distinct as the compartments of a Pull-
man car? And who that has sailed
toward the Equator is not a bit disap-
pointed, in spite of his maturer knowl-

302

THE LAMP

edge, to find that the Tropic of Cancer
IS not a visible reality and that it does
not even indicate a change of tempera-
ture? Tortuous isotherms have suc-
ceeded to the straight lines of latitude —
conforming to the local demands of
altitude, wind, or current. Even-tem-
pered, crooked, compromising though
they are, they are more reliable climatic
guides (established of experience and
much observation) than the unswerving
solstitial boundaries which imagination
had projected for the instruction of our
tenderer minds. The analogy is self-
evident. The line between State and
individual, between individual and in-
dividual, is one that can be established
only with infinite pains and by patient
observation all along its length.

Singularly enough, there have been
published within the last few months
two notable works in which this very
service has been performed. The first
of these is John Graham Brooks's "So-
cial Unrest." For nearly twenty years
he has been travelling up and down
that disputed borderland which lies be-
tween public and private endeavor, and
through that valley within the territory
of the latter where labor and capital
have been in conflict, studying the con-
ditions first-hand. He has not accepted
as final the conclusions of the theorists
or the academic geographers, nor has he
based his line upon the statements of
local and prejudiced guide-books; he has
seen with his own trained eyes and heard
with his own trained ears. "During the
last eighteen years," he says, in his chap-
ter of personal introduction, "I have
visited every important strike in these
(the anthracite) regions." He has been
able, moreover, through his special and
thorough study of certain industrial and
social conditions abroad, among them
the compulsory insurance system of Ger-

The Social Unrest. Studies in Labor and Sociaist
Movements. Ky John Graham Brooks. New Vurk : I'he
Macroillan Company, 1903.

many, to give comparative value to some
of our efforts here and to show what
results are likely to be obtained.

He began, however, as he regrets in
his introductory note, "with a too ex-
clusive study of books" — a mistake
which "most students of social and eco-
nomic questions make." It was several
years before he learned that very few
books existed, relating to strikes, trade-
unions, the influence of machinery, etc.,
which had more than a slight value.
Their treatment was too general, and
the phenomena of these struggles were
of such extraordinary mobility as soon to
put the best of this literature out of date.
He discovered, in his six years of weekly
lecturing before a trade-union audience^
that any accessible trade-union literature
was upon the whole misleading, and that
"an academic student, who has read
never so faithfully all the books, has to
learn his entire lesson over again by con-
tact with the actual concrete struggles."
Of this he gives discouraging illustra-
tion — discouraging, I mean, to one who
must depend largely or solely upon books.
He adds that it was "another inexcusably
slow discovery that most men do not put
their deepest opinions into print or state
them before the public." This is true
of men on both sides of the struggle.
There is a lurking vanity for what will
excite academic or conventional approval,
and this devitalizes many books. He
speaks of a trust organizer who had pub-
lished valuable opinions on the subject
of the trust, but who in private analyzed
its actual dangers with a searching skill
unequalled — saying things "which a
wise man does not say in public." It is
this evidence he has sought; not exclud-
ing the soberer or more cautious public
or printed view, but supplementing it
with the open and unreserved opinions
which men express "when free from the
shadow of an audience or when not ex-
pected to stand by the temporary stock
interests of their class."

THE LAMP

303

Mr. Brooks is not an alarmist. In-
deed, his later chapters concerning the
achievement of a mild and temperate
socialism compose what disquietude the
earlier chapters may with existing condi-
tions (which they reflect) tend to arouse.
This is not a piece of color-work in which
his own opinions are obtruded. It is
rather a printing upon a tint-block. The
service of Mr. Brooks's mind has been
to soften the asperities of light and shade,
to tone the hard black lines into amiable
harmonies with their neighbors.

To individualists, and especially to
those economic individualists who say,
"I will manage my own as I like," who
have invited for themselves and their
interests the fenced security of paternal
laws (the "realists of paternalism," as
Mr. Brooks calls them), the testimony
must seem to support the plaintiff — that
is, the laborer as opposed to the capital-
ist, the coUectivist as opposed to the in-
dividualist. Yet he is not less critical
in the opinions which he presents of the
laborer and the coUectivist in their folly.
The appeal of his testimony is, however,
for a reasonable, sympathetic attitude
toward the industrial organization, and
it is nowhere more strongly put than in
the words of a railroad president, who
said "that the organization of labor has
got to be recognized as such and dealt
with as such, and that the problem now
is to get men with the qualities and
capacities to do this." And Mr. Brooks
urges just this as a safeguard against
socialism, and a violent socialism. The
refusal of quasi-public corporations "to
accept proper social control strengthens
socialistic sentiment," and that which
"teaches a trade-union that it cannot
succeed as a trade-union turns it toward
sodalism." Yet in the later chapters of
the book, as I have already intimated, he
shows that socialism itself in practice has
become mild and temperate, a political
and industrial opportunism — no longer
the flawless economic doctrine demand-

ing revolutionary and heroic remedies.
"Twenty years of hard work under re-
sponsibilities has brought socialism," in
Belgium, "to the point where it may be
co-operated with in ways that educate
and at the same time furnish the very
evidence we need as to the superiority or
inferiority of its methods." And Mr.
Brooks, citing this experience, adds that
we who are as a people so fearless and
careless of tradition, and who have made
poor work in managing our cities, should
welcome the occasion to invite the social-
ists, who condemn our profit-making
regime, to put to the test their promises
to improve upon this, and to let the
lower expense or the excellence of their
service be the proof of the superiority of
their methods. From such a confidence
as this, European experience allows us
to believe, "no social interest can suffer."
Mr. Brooks would undoubtedly locate
the line, of which President Roosevelt
spoke, somewhere farther out upon the
territory of individual effort and free-
dom than most of us would, from our
inherited, or acquired, political geo-
graphical knowledge and notions, put it
and keep it. Yet this our nescience, in-
formed of abstract reasoning and of
predilection, must not sit recluse in such
times. The days of the haruspex, who
divined merely from introspection, are
past. The "taboo" must be concretely,
popularly reasonable. The political and
social isotherm can be no more accurate-
ly located by speculation or by fond im-
agining than the physical. It is estab-
lished of experience and must change
from year to year to meet the new con-
ditions of life and of character which
press upon it. The remark of the Bos-
ton lawyer is pertinent: "My college in-
structors were very dogmatic about the
work which the city, State, and govern-
ment could undertake. Experience has,
I think, turned every one of their reasons
topsy-turvy. Somewhere in the world I
see the community is doing satisfactorily

304

THE LAMP

what my teachers proved to us boys could
not possibly be done without confusion
and catastrophe." The zone of tempe-
rate activity is pushing farther and far-
ther into the tropics, and what was once
the heated zone of "revolution" has
become in spots tempered, through "re-
form" and through compromise, to the
similitude of our own climate. The
socialistic methods have, under the re-
sponsibility and discipline of practice,
become so like those of the intelligent,
well-meaning individualist that it is dif-
ficult to distinguish them. Meanwhile
we must preserve our ancient lines of
latitude, our Tropic of Cancer, our
Arctic Circle, and our meridians as bases
of reckoning.

It will no doubt be of special interest
to the reader who has ventured so far
(if anyone has) to know what Mr.
Brooks thinks of the influence of social-
ism upon art. He makes a socialist char-
acter in one of Henry James's stories
voice the popular notion. This man
who goes to Italy becomes disturbed by
the thought that socialism would cut the
noble canvases of the great masters into
tiny bits for common distribution, and
is thus driven back into the beaten path
of respectable opinion. This conception
of socialistic views about art is, says
Brooks, even more naively untrue than
that other current philistinism that "so-
cialists want to make everybody equal."
No one, he contends, can yet know
whether a collectivist society would give
the world again a great art, "but the
effort to create the impulse and the con-
ditions under which such an art would
have its inspiration is very real." Of
such efforts several instances are given,
but from a single field, that of Belgium.

The best justification of the book is
his own sentence that "we may save
ourselves a world of trouble by trying
... to bring to bear upon socialism
enough intellectual sympathy to under-
stand it." We have now an opportunity,

he adds, "to be wiser with the coming
socialism than we have proved ourselves
with the trade-unions." And one i$ not
likely, I think, to find better instruction,
or, at any rate, information, of books
than this modest volume presents out of
the years of observation by this patient,
intelligent, and practical, yet scholarly,
surveyor of human struggles.

I have to-day a very vivid, grateful
recollection of a lecture-room out in a
prairie town, and of this calm, unper-
turbed man discussing before a large
audience some of the phenomena of "so-
cial unrest," with which his book deals.
I have been disappointed not to find in
the book the quieting illustration with
which he closed that address years ago.
It was of children in a country road, un-
protected, while a threatening storm is
coming on. But some shelter unexpect-
edly shows itself ; the storm is soon over ;
the dust is laid ; the air is a bit sweeter j
the grass is a bit greener, and the sky is
a bit brighter than it was before the
storm threatened. Yet the closing para-
graph of the book is not less appealing,
not less hopeful of the brighter skies and
the greener fields and the purer air :

"To work slowly and painfully tow-
ard this end [of a consciousness of
mutual aid] is a possibility that need not
be deferred. The sacrifices that it re-
quires are a surrender of many things
that are now our vexation and our curse.
Some abandonment there would have to
be of a stiff and contemptible class pride ;
much yielding of domineering temper;
some shattering of idols where doting
worshippers pay homage to the meanest
symbols of social inequality. We shall
survive even these deprivations. They
are losses which make no man poorer,
but rather add to the riches of us all."

This paragraph in itself also suggests
how admirably fitted Mr. Brooks is for
his self-made office of "civic engineer."

In discussing, in one of his chapters,
Man in his relation to Machinery, Mr.

THE LAMP

305

Brooks remarks that the first of all ques-
tions about machinery is as to how far we
shall allow the by-product of our think-
ing (the mechanical enginery which is
the creation of a man's mind) to be-
come our master. The evil is, of course,
not primarily in the machine, but in the
way in which we allow it to be used and
in the way we allow it to use us — in the
nature of its ownership and control. In
the industrial field the machinery has
long since slipped from the hands of the
workman who once owned his tools —
that is, before they were joined and
fitted into more elaborate instruments.
It is thi^-^this alienation of the machine
from the man who once owned its parts,
which makes the problem so perplexing,
so obdurate, so full of bitterness.

And when one turns from Brooks's
book to Ostrogorski's "Democracy and
Political Parties" (the second work
which I had in mind) one is impressed
anew by the close similarity between the
situation in industry and in politics.
Production in the industrial world is
controlled largely by those who own the
machines, as everybody knows; and the
results in the political world are very
generally the output of those who con-
trol the machines there, as everybody
also knows. If one had time to trace
the history of these two giant mech-
anisms one could prove their noble line-
age, though they have grown into such
monsters. M. Ostrogorski, in the first
volume of his work, shows with what
beneficent purpose the "caucus," the first
extra-constitutional "machine," was or-
ganized in England. It was to incite
the new-made voter to exercise his pre-
rogative and honestly to inform his dark-
ened mind. In the United States, as
the second volume relates, the parentage
of extra-constitutional organization has
been as worthy, and claims Boston as its

Dkmockacy and the Organization of Political
Paxties, by M. Ostrogorski, translated by Fredrick Clarke,
M.A., with a Preface by the Right Hon. James Brj'ce, M.P.
New York, The Macmtllan Company, 1902.

birthplace. "Triumphant democracy"
later gave it, when it came of age, the
double function of upholding the para-
mount power of the citizen and of en-
suring the daily working of the govern-
mental machinery. In the first, says
Ostrogorski, "it has failed miserably";
in the second it has achieved a relative
success. The story of how it has failed
in the one and partially succeeded in the
other is not an agreeable story for Amer-
icans to read through 700 pages of un-
dramatic, unheroic misdoing, misman-
agement, and shortcoming. It is a pro-
tracted Evening Post editorial. This
will define both its stylistic qualities and
its point of view, and will give intima-
tion, too, of the nature of its interest.
It is full of incident, abounds in keen
criticism, and has occasional apt meta-
phor or illustration, while a slender
stream of anecdote and statistic runs in
and out at the foot of its tall pages.

I associate it with Mr. Brooks's book
because it is the same sort of a work — a
first-hand study of conditions; in this
case political rather than social or in-
dustrial, only it lacks the amiable temper
of the former. M. Ostrogorski gave
fifteen years to his study. Most of these
were, however, given to England, and
comparatively little time to actual resi-
dential study in America. The result of
it all is a voluminous work of some
1,500 pages, the first volume relating to
English party history, the second to that
of the United States. It is of the second
only that I can speak here.

The faithful reader, unless he be an
invulnerable optimist, will come to its
"summary" (if he come) quite prepared
for funereal paragraphs. It is, indeed,
a tragedy. The caucus, which appears
now as the "machine" and now as the
"organization," and in every guise of
patriotism, incapable itself of governing,
has in this story weakened or poisoned
every constitutional agency of govern-^
ment, executive, legislative, judicial, na-

3o6

THE LAMP

tional, State and local, and kept them
under its timorous power. It is not
without its good deeds: it has amalga-
mated incongruous elements; it has re-
strained ebulliency and exuberance; it
has "kept together the populations of the
New World with a power even greater
than that of the brute force which found-
ed the empires of the Old World," but
it has an overwhelming surplus of sins.
It has "repressed the individual," it has
"shackled the public mind," and it has
fostered that type of inveterate conserva-
tive "who would, on the day of crea-
tion, have besought the Creator to pre-
serve chaos." These are its generic sins ;
the particular transgressions are legion,
and mar every page of the book. The
result to democracy in America is that
"popular government has slipped away
from the people" (just as the industrial
machine has slipped out of the hand of
the laborer), and that "commercialism in
its most sordid aspect has laid hands on
the government." And the explanation
is that the people, a people "of a creative
force, of an indomitable energy, and of
a tenacious will that has no parallel,"
have expended all their moral strength
in the material building-up of the com-
monwealth, have not taken the time or
the trouble to get rid of this "political
formalism and machinism."

This is M. Ostrogorski's diagnosis of
our ailment here in America. The ill
is confessedly mitigated by the feeling of

the citizen that he can put things to
rights when he chooses, that when the
American people "rise in their miglit and
majesty" abuses will be abolished and
all will be well. Yet it is quite serious
enough, according to the foreign doc-
tor's opinion, more serious than we are
willing to admit.

He advises, by way of specific rem-
edy, the substitution of "temporary or-
ganizations with limited objects" for
"stereotyped parties"; but of course this
remedy can be applied only after there
has been a change in the mental attitude
of the electors and the old conventional
notions have been eradicated. And so
his initial prescription is "reason and
liberty and a double dose of reason and
liberty," always a safe prescription.

This, I am aware, gives little, and
possibly erroneous, because inadequate,
suggestion of the content, character, and
value of this very noteworthy work.
Perhaps I can best strike its key by quot-
ing a brave but hopeless sentence or two
of the author's conclusion: "Even if it
were demonstrated," he says, "that all
the efforts made for this object are
doomed to failure, that there is nothing
left but to sound the knell of democracy
with all the hopes that humanity has
placed upon it, we should have to act
precisely as if the final triumph of demo-
cratic government were a mathematical
certainty. . . . To die fighting is better
than a living death."

REMINISCENCES OF AN ACTOR

CHARLES BROOKFIELD tells
this good story of Tennyson: —
"Tennyson invited my great-uncle, Hen-
ry Hallam, to be godfather to his first
boy, to which he readily consented. As
they were walking up the church-yard
side by side, the historian inquired of
Tennyson, * What name do you mean
to give him ?' * We thought of calling
him Hallam,' said the poet. * Oh, had
you not better call him Alfred ?' modest-
ly suggested my great-uncle. * Aye ! '
replied the naive bard, * but what if he
should turn out a fool ?' "

And this : —

" My father was dining one night at
the Oxford and Cambridge Club with
George Venables, Frank Lushington,
Tennyson, and two or three others. Af-
ter dinner the poet insisted upon putting
his feet on the table, tilting back his chair
more Americano, There were strangers
in the room, and he was expostulated
with for his uncouthness, but in vain.

* Do put down your feet ! ' pleaded his
host. * Why should I ? ' retorted Ten-
nyson. * Tm very comfortable as I am.*

* Everyone's staring at you,' said another.

* Let 'em stare,' replied the poet placidly.

* Alfred,' said my father, * people will
think you're Longfellow.' Down went
the feet."

And this, of Thackeray: —
" Early in their married life, my
father and mother lived in lodgings in

Jermyn Street (he was curate at St.
James's Church at the time). One
evening he unexpectdly brought Thack-
eray home for dinner, and introduced
him to my mother. She was rather over-
whelmed by the knowledge that there
was nothing in the house but a cold
shoulder of mutton. It was too late to
contrive anything more elaborate, so, to

* give an air ' to the table, she sent her
maid to a neighboring pastrycook's for
a dozen tartlets of various kinds.
' Which of these may I give you ?' she
inquired in due course of Thackeray.

* Thank you, Mrs. Brookfield,' said he,

* I'll have a two-penny one!' "

These anecdotes are characteristic of
the whole of his "Random Recollections."
Mr. Brookfield is known to many Amer-
icans, but not to America. There are few
actors, however, better known at home
than he is throughout England. His book
follows his retirement from the stage,
through ill-health. Its three hundred
and more pages are little more than a
succession of anecdotes, most of them
delightfully worth while and all of them
rarely told. Probably no other volume
of personal reminiscence so holds the
writer in the background; it is not
Brookfield the author writes about, but
the people Brookfield met, the advent-
ures he witnessed and had part of, and
the fun he found on every corner, even
arm in arm with misfortune. But

3o8

THE LAMP

through it all, the reader gradually dis-
covers the man and finds him genuine
and lovable, the ideal companion.

" I remember," he writes, " the first
time I saw Robert Louis Stevenson at
the Savile; his * get-up' was perfectly
astounding. His hair was smooth and
parted in the middle and fell beyond the
collar of his coat; he wore a black flan-
nel shirt, with a curious, knitted tie
twisted in a knot; he had Wellington
boots, rather tight, dark trousers, a pea-
jacket and a white sombrero hat (in imi-
tation, perhaps, of his eminent literary
friend, Mr. W. E. Henley). But the
most astounding item of all in his cos-
tiune was a lady's sealskin cape, which
he wore about his shoulders, fastened at
the neck by a fancy brooch, which also
held together a bunch of half a dozen
dafiFodils. I cannot but think these final
touches to his toilet must have been added
by loving hands without his knowledge
or consent.

" He and I soon became friends. He
was a most charming companion, for, in
addition to all his marvellous endow-
ments of imagination and humor, he had
a gift of ready sympathy, which enabled
him to enter with extraordinary thor-
oughness into whatever you might dis-
close to him. I am sure, too, that he
could have written delightful and
dramatic plays had he chosen to give his
undivided attention to such work.

"He had also a very fascinating, child-
ish side to his character. He described
to me how, on one occasion, out in the
Far West, in the land of miners and
gamblers and cow-punchers, the whim
seized him to impersonate a desperado.
So, in an absolutely foolhardy manner,
this frail, slight young Scot swaggered
down the middle of the principal street
with as fierce an air as he could assume,
and when anyone approached on the
' side-walk ' he would make a start and
place his hand sharply behind his right
hip as if about to draw a revolver

(though he didn't possess such a thing
in the world), whereat the stranger
would turn deadly pale and hold up both
hands over his head; upon which Ste-
venson would mutter incoherently and
reel on. It was by the mercy of God he
was not shot dead."

This anecdote of Stevenson has his-
toric interest:

" I was in his company at the moment
that he conceived the germ of the idea of
* Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.' He was
inveighing against a man with whom he
had done business and with whose meth-
ods he was dissatisfied. The man's name
was Samuel Creggan, or something like
it. * He's a man who trades on the
Samuel,' Stevenson declared in his rather
finikin, musical Scot's voice. ' He re-
ceives you with Samuel's smile on his
face; with the gesture of Samuel he in-
vites you into a chair ; with Samuel's eyes
cast down in self-depreciation he tells
you how well satisfied his clients have
always been with his dealings ; but every
now and again you catch a glimpse of the
Creggan peeping out like a white ferret.
Creggan 's the real man; Samuel's only
superficial.' "

Soon after leaving Oxford, while he
was still dallying on the borderland of
a literary career, he wrote a series of
stories for the country newspapers.

" I remember one of the stories — * A
Superior Animal ' — which was ' syndi-
cated ' by Besant's able friend, Mr.
Watt; that is to say, it appeared in a
number of local papers in different parts
of the country, so that I received about
four times as much for it as I should
have been paid by any solitary editor."

" I was correcting a proof of this effort
in the solitude of the card-room one af-
ternoon, when Rudyard Kipling came in
and asked to look at it. He spoke most
kindly of the tale, but had many sug-
gestions to make with regard to the tell-
ing. * Don't you see how much stronger
that would be?' he asked, after suggest-

(Xj^.ttJh

ing an excision and a transposition.
'D'you mind if I alter it?' And, so
saying, he whipped out a pencil and set
to work; and having once put his hand
to the plough, so to speak, he persevered,
and in a few minutes the whole virgin
expanse of proof was furrowed and hoed
and harrowed and manured and top-
dressed by the master. I packed up and
despatched the corrected sheet there and
then.

"The result was unexpected. I re-
ceived a most abusive letter from the edi-
tor, saying that if I imagined his com-

positors had nothing better to do than
to try and decipher Chinese puzzles I
was gravely mistaken; that they had
been put to great inconvenience to fill in
at the last moment the space my story
should have occupied ; that they certainly
shouldn't use it now, and were extremely
sorry they had paid for it; and that they
were writing to Mr. Watt to complain."

He began his stage career in the late
seventies, and one catches interesting
glimpses of stage-life before the advent
of the syndicates.

" And the theatre of those dajrs was

3IO

THE LAMP

an essentially different institution to the
theatre of to-day. Most of the man-
agers of those days were actors who had
made their names, who had got over the
first zeal for personal prominence. The
money they invested in the business was
generally money they had earned by act-
ing. And while some were extraordi-
narily kind to their employes and solici-
tous for their comfort, and others less
so, there was always a certain sympathy
between actor and manager which there
can never be between actor and syndi-
cate. . . .

"It was an evil day for actors when
the city * gents ' realized that theatres
offer similar possibilities for gambling to
those afforded by mines and stocks ; that
theatrical venture presents all kinds of
opportunities for minature variations of
the bigger game ; that when the gamester
dares no longer show his nose in Broad
Street, he is welcomed and hailed with
deference and delight by the ingenuous
young actor who wants to play Othello
and by the infatuated young peer who
wants to find a candle-stick in which to
place the candle at which he is singeing
his whiskers. The outlawed financier
finds in theatrical speculation what the
weather-bound lawn-tennis player finds
in * ping-pong.* Ce nest pas absolument
la guerre, mais cest magnifique tout de
mernef The novice imagines that the
smallness of the table will hamper the
expert and balance the difference of ex-
perience, but the more knowing player
never comes off second best. It is always
' vantage ' to him and then game.

" The syndicate manager cares no
more for the feelings or comfort of the
actors in his employ than for those of the
miners who are engaged in a Missing
Diamond Competition in one of his
mines. He knows no more about art
than the pavement bookmaker knows
about a race-horse. . . .

" I started on tour in the autumn of
1879 with Charles Kelly and Ellen

Terry. They were invariably charming
and kind to me, and so was my faithful
old friend Kemble, who came with us;
but the rest of the troupe were less sym-
pathetic. My disillusions began carly.
The bulk of the company had to travel
third-class. Our * leading man * wore
a frock-coat and a battered straw-hat,
and travelled in carpet slippers; another
of my new friends donned a green em-
broidered smoking-cap with a yellow^
tassel, another a purple knitted Tam-o'-
Shanter.

" As soon as the train started they
spread an imitation leopard-skin rug over
their knees and commenced playing
penny * nap * — and quarrelling over it.
At stations where we stopped for more
time than was necessary for a run to the
bar and back they became appallingly
playful ; they would hurl old jests at the
porters, and pelt passing passengers with
a shower of stale pleasantries from last
year's Nuneaton pantomime. And I
have never seen any theatrical company
cross the border into Scotland without
one of the comedians performing an im-
itation Scotch reel on the platform, gen-
erally with a railway-rug twisted round
him, and exclaiming, ' Hoo's a' wi' ye?*
to the nearest station official."

Here is an interesting glimpse of Ellen
Terry in her barn-storming days : —

" I remember one day, at a rehearsal
of the ' Merchant of Venice,* the Bos-
sanio advanced at the end of his casket
scene with outstretched arms, prepared,
according to the stage directions, to em-
brace the Lady of Belmont. Poor Miss
Terry started back with a look of terror ;
then, recovering herself, said, with great
presence of mind : * No, Mr. Sykes, we
don't do that business ; you-er-you merely
kiss my hand. It's more Venetian.*

* Oh, come. Miss Terry,* expostulated
Mr. Sykes, with an engaging leer;

* you*re cuttin' all the " fat ** out of my
part.* **

But Mr. Brookfield's stories are bv

THE LAMP

no means confined to reminiscence of
writers and the stage. Wherever .he
went. every day had its measure of in-
cident and entertainment. Life was
very real to him and very picturesque,

" One day 1 was walking in the
neighborhood of St. Martin's Church,
when a crossing-sweeper, a ragged youth
of about eighteen, attracted my attention
in the usual manner by brushing little
besomfuls of dust on to my boots. * Spare
us a copper, sir,* he pleaded. * 'Ave a
feelin* 'earti I 'aven't tasted food this
day, sir, as Gawd is my judge.' * Get
out!' said I, brutally. 'I've a sick wife
at 'ome,' the fellow went on, ' an ' a lit-
tle bibey pinin' awigh. You'll never miss
it, kind gentleman — on'y a copper, to
buy berread.' "

" Then, I am sorr>' to say, I lost pa-
tience with him and uttered an oath.
Upon which he snatched off his cap,
raised his eyes, and, with the seraphic
smile of a mart>T, burst into prayer.
* Ho Lord !' he cried, * forgive 'im this

hidle word. Thou 'oo in wrath remem-
berest mercy, pardon this pore sinner!'
I was so amused that I am afraid I gave
the blasphemous scoundrel twopence."

The provinces panned as much fun as
London, and the continent was a rea.L
El Dorado. A night in a-r^iw York
police-station, the result of an ill-timed
joke played by his tipsy guide on a hu-
morless policeman, yields several racy
pages. He even makes amusing his en-
forced sojourns at Bordighera and Nord-
rach among the consumptives, and we all
rejoice with him over his substantial gain
in weight announced in the last para-
graph of the book. It is not given to
many to read their own obituary notices,
but a false report gave Mr. Brookfield
that privilege, and he gleefully quotes
two of them :

" *Never a great actor, he was invalu-
able in small parts,' said one; while the
other remarked, in conclusion : * But
after all, it is at his club that he will be
most missed.' "

INSPIRATION

By Paul Laurence Dunbar

From '* Lyrics of Love and Laughter," by permission of Dodd, Mead & Co.

At the golden gate of song
Stood I, knocking all day long,
But the Angel, calm and cold,
Still refused and bade me "Hold."

Then a breath of soft perfume,
Then a light within the gloom ;
Thou, Love, camest to my side,
And the gates flew open wide.

<*^

A NEW PORTRAIT OF HENRY JAMES.

THE RAMBLER

TO LAURENCE HUTTON

By a neighbor, on the appearance of his
new book

Here's to you again, Laurence Hutton!
A kindlier soul did ne'er "put" on

The "green" of this blessed old earth.
I thank the Almighty for givin'
Me leave to be lovin' and Hvin*

Not far from the "tee" of your hearth.

Sir James Crichton Browne, the edi-
tor of the "New Letters and Memorials
of Mrs. Carlyle," is a very interesting
personality in London life. He is a
lunacy expert by profession, occupying
the highest state position in Great Brit-
ain in lunacy, and is a Fellow of the
Academy of Medicine, New York. He
was bom in Dumfriesshire in 1840, and
named after Sir Alexander Crichton,
member of a very old Scots family, who
became famous as physician to Alexan-
der I of Russia. Sir James's brother,
Mr. Balfour Browne, is a distinguished
barrister. Sir James is one of the few
Englishmen you can now see wearing
Dundreary whiskers.

The Princeton University Library has
issued the first of three volumes of "The
Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the
American Revolution." The edition is
limited to 1,250 copies. The first edi-
tion of his works bears the date of 1786,
but Freneau is chiefly known from the
collection of sixty of his more notable
Revolutionary songs and satires pub-
lished by E. A. Duyckinck in 1865. The
new edition contains much material
practically extinct, as far as the public
is concerned. Freneau had ruthlessly
cut down many of his poems for his first

edition, in one instance, at least, reduc-
ing the original version by half. But for
the historian the earlier forms are by far
tlie more valuable, and these the present
editors have succeeded in restoring. For
many of them, the more important ones,
variorum readings of all the author's
editions have been indicated. No writer
has sufFered more than Freneau from
distortion and misconception. His im-
portance as a side light on the spirit of
his times and a creative power in early
American literature is more and more
fully recognized, and this edition, which
also contains an adequate account of his
life and influence, will doubtless be the
authority for long, if not for all time.

At Susa, last January, was disinterred
a block of black diorite, nearly eight feet
long, containing, on the obverse, a repre-
sentation of King Hammurabi receiving
the laws from the sun god, Samas.
Then follow sixteen columns of writing.
On the reverse are twenty-eight columns
of writing. Hammurabi, King of Baby-
lon, 2285-2242 B.C., has been identified
with Amraphael of Genesis xiv., and
these writings are his laws.

"For many years," writes C. H. W.
Johns, in his introduction to the little
volume containing the translation of
these laws, "fragments have been known,
have been studied, and from internal
evidence ascribed to the period of the
first dynasty of Babylon, even called by
the name Code Hammurabi. It is just
cause for pride that Assyriology, so
young a science as only this year to have
celebrated the centenary of its birth, is
able to emulate astronomy and predict
the discovery of such bright stars as this.
But while we certainly should have di-
rected our telescopes to Babylonia for

THE LAMP

the rising of this light from the East, it
was really in Elam, at Susa, the old
PersepoHs, that the find was made. The
Elamites were the great rivals of Baby-
lonia for centuries, and it seems likely
that some Elamite conqueror carried off
the stone from a temple at Sippara, in
Babylonia."

Thfc general interest in this remark-
able discovery lies in the fact that this
Code is believed to be the basis of the
Law of Moses, and is hence one of the
most important monuments in the his-
tory of the human race. The book is
published by T. and T. Clark, of Edin-
burgh.

The first visit to this country of Mr.
Sidney Lee, the biographer of Shake-
speare and Victoria, and the editor of
the later volumes of the "Dictionary of
National Biography," will come to an
end on the sixteenth of this month, when
he will sail for home. It has been a
busy visit— exceedingly so, for Mr. Lee
came to lecture, and lecture he did, at
more than a score of American universi-
ties, east and west, north and south,
from Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Brown,
Princeton, and Cornell, to Chicago Uni-
versity, Northwestern University, and
the University of Madison, Wis., to
Johns Hopkins, the University of North
Carolina, and, at the farthest north, the
University of Toronto. Of course, the
tour included the leading educational
institutions for women — Vassar, Bryn
Mawr, Wellesley, and Wells College.

The lectures delivered by Mr. Lee
were fourteen in number, the most im-
portant of them being the eight on the
great Englishmen of the Sixteenth Cen-
tur>% which constitute the Lowell lect-
ures for 1903. Another set, of four, on
Foreign Influences in Elizabethan Lit-
erature, forms the Donovan lectures for
this year at Johns Hopkins University.

In these lectures Mr. Lee dealt only
with the French and Italian influences
of the period, without reference to those
of Spanish literature, which he consid-
ers, of course, of great importance, and
may deal with separately at some future
date. The remaining two lectures were
a general one on Shakespeare biography,
a subject on which Mr. Lee has proved
himself an authority entitled to a re-
spectful hearing, and another one on the
study of English, a branch of education
in which the distinguished Englishman
considers our institutions of learning far
in advance of those of his own country.

Mr. Lee visited a goodly portion of
our country, and met many people of
light and leading, from President Roose-
velt downward; but, as he observed
when asked for his opinion of us as a
people — the inevitable question which
none of us ever attempts to leave un-
spoken — they were all of one class,
scholars, educators, and men-of-letters.
That he should have found among them
resemblances between the two branches
of the English-speaking world, rather
than divergences, is hardly to be won-
dered at. He has no intention to add
to the growing library of foreign books
on America and the Americans.

This association with men essentially
of his own stamp and vocation led Mr.
Lee also to form the opinion that the
difference between the English spoken
here and that of his own country is but
a slight one. He observed a certain
precision of pronunciation in cases where
the English are apt to slur — in such
words as military and laboratory, for in-
stance — but, on the other hand, a ten-
dency to clip where Englishmen give
each syllable its full value. Such con-
tractions as "lemme" and "gimme,"
which, according to Mr. Booth Tark-
ington, are the rule in the Middle West,
apparently did not fall under his notice,
nor did American slang in its robust
picturesqueness. Though he met Mr.

'41

i) ' — ^

1 ' Mii.)j,W>.ft.i 1' '

WALTER APPLETON CLARK S STUDIO FIRKPLACE.

Brander Matthews, our leading expert
on "Americanisms" and "Briticisms,"
Mr. Lee apparently attaches but little
importance to the burning question,
probably considering its development as
inexorable as fate. On the subject of
spelling he is conservative, but without
the rabid violence of the London Times
and its Constant Readers. "I want my
honor with a u" he says, and he clung
to his conviction even when an American
telegraph operator misread his message,
"thanks for the honour," "thanks for the
however," and insisted that it was mean-
ingless.

A problem that interested Mr. Lee
far more was that of the standard of
American university degrees; it also
puzzled him not a little. It is a subject
on which the native finds it difficult to
be lucid to the visiting foreigner.

Mr. Lee visited our two veteran
Shakespeare scholars, Dr. W. J. Rolfe
at Cambridge and Horace Howard
Furness in Philadelphia. The famous
Shakespeare club of this city gave a din-

ner in his honor, at which the editor of
the Variorum edition presided.'

Mr. Lee adheres more firmly than
ever to his theory of the origin of
Shakespeare's Sonnets, the only problem
of real importance still occupying the
attention of Shakesperian students. Mr.
Lee, it will be remembered, holds that
the Sonnets are little more than pro-
fessional trials of skill, often of super-
lative merit, to which the poet deemed
himself challenged by the efforts of con-
temporary practitioners, the Dark Lady
being, consequently, little more than a
poetic fancy. This theory was the cause
of what remains undoubtedly the most
interesting of all recent Shakespeare dis-
cussions. Mr. Lee declares that the
enormous correspondence which fol-
lowed in its wake gave him ample rea-
son to consider himself justified. Letters
of agreement, congratulation, and thanks
reached him from Shakespeare students
the world over, while no arguments on
the other side were strong enough to
shake his conviction.

3^6

THE LAMP

The fact that the new volumes of
"English Men of Letters" are selling
better than they have ever done in Eng-
land is extremely encouraging to those
who have come to believe that the read-
ing taste of the public has been lowered
by cheap fiction and cheaper journalism.
The pessimists, however, are always too
despondent, for, if the reading taste of
the public has degenerated, it seems very
difficult to explain the enormous popu-
larity of the reissue of the masterpieces
of literature, such as the Dents have
given us for several years. A great suc-
cess has been scored throughout England
by Mr. Grant Richards in his very cheap
series called "The World's Classics."
The fact probably is that more people
are reading serious literature to-day than
has ever been the case in England before.
The "Men of Letters" series will be
enhanced by a volume on Mrs. Gaskell,
written by Mr. Clement Shorter, who
has made himself a master of her period.

Mary Allen Moore writes us that
"The Story of a Great Grandfather,"
which George Hibbard contributed to
the January Scribners, is much more
than fiction. Mr. Hibbard pictures a
clergyman, during the Revolution, a Mr.
Muhlenberg, preaching a stirring ser-
mon in the Episcopal church at Wood-
stock, Va., and, at its close, throwing
off his surplice, disclosing a colonel's
uniform, and soliciting volunteers for
the American army. Minister and con-
gregation went to the war, and the
church was closed.

"Mr. Muhlenberg was an Episcopal
clergyman," says Mrs. Moore, "and the
pulpit Bible and prayer-book used by
him on the occasion mentioned in the
*story' were taken for safe-keeping to
the home of my great-grandfather. The
church was burned, and never reopened.
My great-grandfather (Judge James
Allen) moved to Botetourt, a county

about one hundred miles distant, taking
with him the books, which were looked
at with reverence and awe, not unmixed
with patriotism, by several generations
of children, as they heard the story of
Mr. Muhlenberg's call to arms ; but al-
ways with the knowledge, handed down
from father to son, that whenever an
Episcopal church was built in Wood-
stock, those books were to go back. The
books were probably published in Eng-
land (although of that I am uncertain).
They are quite large, bound in leather
and printed on very rough paper, and,
of course, with the long *s.' A few years
ago an Episcopal church was built in
Woodstock, and the old books were sent
to it to be used at its dedication."

The wonderfully active period in
American literature through which we
are passing, remarkable not so much,
even, for its deluge of fiction as for the
revelation of reserved power, the hint of
a rapidly evolving and perhaps wonder-
ful future this deluge discloses, is ac-
companied by various developments on
the book-selling side as extravagant in
their "way, and as humorous for their
unconsciousness of extravagance, as are
some of its literary phenomena. It is as
emphatically a period of log-rolling as it
is of fiction, a practice as old as publish-
ing, but now, surely, become a science.
The new meaning of "publicity" will be
recognized in the dictionaries of the near
future.

It is, above all things, the heyday of
the "literary note," and here, more than
elsewhere, does folly flourish. This is
the way of it. A new and great public
suddenly clamors for books, above all
things, of course, fiction, and lively fic-
tion, if you please, "something with red
blood in it, not too literary." Behold I
the crop to meet the demand. Out of
these conditions is born modern book
advertising. Newspapers, thousands of

AN UNPUBLISHED PHOTOGRAPH OF EMERSON.
From the forthcoming Centenary Edition of Emerson's Works, by permission of Houghton, MifBin & Co.

318

THE LAMP

them, great and small, scrambling for
spoils, throw in columns of "book news"
free. Publishers, losing no chances, pour
"notes" into the editorial lap. Out of
the deluge somebody in each newspaper
office, the devil sometimes, makes selec-
tions. Result — the modern "literary
page." Of course this is not the invari-
able. Our better newspapers handle
their literary news with the discrimina-
tion and enterprise of other departments.
But even here there are sometimes cer-
tain columns open to whatever comes
easy, and wonderful is the news. We
read of one publisher sending a certain
novel to the printer months before its
time in order to save the copy from being
worn out by passing from hand to hand
among the eager clerks in his office.
That must surely have been an absorb-
ing novel ! As a fact it was. The "lit-
erary note" said so. Again we read that
"a royal child," unnamed, never goes to
bed w^ithout a certain book clasped in
its little arms. Of course that must be
a good book, too. Again — but we do
not need to multiply proofs (you have
them in your newspaper every Saturday)
that this is the golden age when every
book published is the best book.

England, too, has her deluge. "The
average novel," complains the Academy
and Literature y "is concerned neither
with real ideas nor with real life; it is
a comment — ^jaunt>' or sentimental or
frivolous — upon what never existed ; it is
a kind of ineffectual phantasm, blurred,
inchoate, remote." Is ours as bad as
that?

But is fiction, after all, produced in
such overwhelming proportion as we
hear? Is it really the dominant note
of the period? Is the reading of "seri-
ous" books really, as the alarmists have
it, on the decline ? Let the timid hearted
glance at the following summary of the

current spring's output, compiled from
the list recently published in the Times
Saturday Review:

History 54

Biography 40

Poetry, Drama, Art, and Music. . . 76

Essays and General Literature. ... 52

Letters and Memoirs 21

Travel and Adventure 40

Philosophy and Science 46

Nature Books 35

Social, Political, and Domestic

Economy 33

Fiction 219

616

Surely a season that produces fift>'-
four histories, for example, in the same
period as two hundred odd novels is a
rather substantial one. The proportion
of fiction to other kinds is about thirty-
five per cent. ; this percentage would be,
of course, greatly lessened had we in-
cluded religious, theological, and text-
books in the enumeration.

What first strikes one about Carl
Hilty's volume on "Happiness" (Mac-
millan), to which American readers are
introduced in translation by Professor
Peabody of Harvard, is the remarkable
activity of this Swiss professor of consti-
tutional law, who finds time, in addition
to his studies, his lectures, his public
duties, his editorship of a journal of
jurisprudence, and his writing of many
weighty works on politics, to set forth,
also, in numerous "essays on the mean-
ing of life," his theory of right living.
Professor Hilty's philosophy of life is as
simple as his scientific works, judging
from their titles, are abstruse. Its cor-
ner-stone is work; not work for the ac-
cumulation of wealth or purely worldly
success (though he does not despise suc-
cess), but work for the fullest develop-

AN UNPUBI.ISHKI) PHOTOCiRAPH OF EMERSON.
From the fji-ihcotning Centenary Edition of Emerson's Works, by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

320

THE LAMP

ment of one's highest, nature. He
preaches the brave heart, the simple
life, the uplifting of the spirit. There
is nothing in these essays that has not
been said ten thousand times; nothing
that, as a theory of every-day philosophy,
is not as old as the human soul. One
cannot imagine Professor Hilty's fame
increased by these writings, but it is easy
to understand their very great popularity
among his countrymen. They will not
have the same vogue here, but the book
is one which needs no defence. It has
the persuasive quality of good preaching.

One scarcely gets his bearings in the
first ten minutes with "Sally Wister's
Journal." Is it the latest development
of historical fiction, a new device of the
"letters" sort, to provoke curiosity and
circulation ? The vividly colored frontis-
piece and a generally festive appearance,
together with an italicized insistence on
its "truth," arouse suspicion after re-
cently abused confidence. Surely history
does not deck herself so gaudily. But,
convinced at last of the genuineness of
the journal, there is a new doubt. If
Sally Wister be not herself a person of
prominence (we rack our memory in
vain for her name), her journal must be
a "find" of some importance. This por-
tentous introduction, these voluminous
foot-notes in small type on every page,
these many facsimiles of manuscript,
these reproductions of signatures, these
photographs of exteriors and interiors,
of historic spots, of relatives and fore-
bears, of the sword used in the fight at
such a place — all this machinery points
to a document of marked historic value.
In this mood one reads, at first with ex-
pectant interest, then impatience, lastly
with the conviction of being fooled.
There is the atmosphere of stirring
times, of the nation's birth, and that is
all. Not a new fact, nor a new light
on an old one. It is all too bad, for

when, later, in different mood, one re-
views the simple record of this Quaker
girl's daily life near the American out-
posts during the British occupation of
Philadelphia, her hopes, her fears, her
emotions, her harmless flirtations with
chance officers, one finds a story of genu-
ine beauty and simple worth. It is really
a sad fate that has overtaken Sally Wis-
ter in this volume, comparable only to
that of Henry James's heroine, whose
rival killed her socially by overdressing
her for her introduction.

Colonel W. F. Prideaux, who has
compiled the bibliography of Robert
Louis Stevenson for Mr. Frank Hol-
lings, is well known to the readers of
Notes and Queries for his admirable
bibliographical work. Colonel Prideaux
is an excellent example of a type of Eng-
lish civil servants who, while performing
their duties most capably, also managed
to do good work in literature. One need
only recall the names of Mr. Gosse, Mr.
Austin Dobson, Mr. Sidney Colvin, and
any number of others. Colonel Pri-
deaux was nearly half a century' in
Indian civil service. He was once Po-
litical Agent at Aden; he accompanied
the Mission to King Theodore of Abys-
sinia, and he was kept in captivity at
Magdala for two years. He ultimately
rose to be Resident in Jeypur, and was
made a Companion of the Star of India
( C.S.I. ). He is well known by his col-
lections and bibliography of Edward
FitzGerald. Mr. Frank HoUings, the
English publisher of the Stevenson bib-
liography, is the bookseller in that quaint
little tunnel known as the Great Turn-
stile, which leads from Holborn to Lin-
coln's Inn Fields.

We reproduce here four posters and
sketches drawn and engraved by James
Britton, of the Connecticut League of

A POSTER.
Drawn and engraved on wood by Jannes Hrittou.

Art Students. They are especially in-
teresting from the fact that, aside from
their being a first attempt at engraving,
they are results obtained with the tools
used on the old-fashioned wood-cut pos-
ter, namely, graver's tools ground ddwn
to the length of a boxwood graver, with
the blade grooved to prevent splitting.
The wood used is very soft basswood.
With these old-fashioned materials Mr.

Britton has found a new medium of
artistic expression, another instance of
the truth that the material is subordinate
to the man.

Books about Stevenson follow in end-
less sequence. When every other possi-
bility seems exhausted we are now asked
to consider his religious beliefs. John

322

THE LAMP

Kelman, of Edinburgh, described as one
of the ablest of the new generation of
Scottish preachers, calls his book "The
Faith of Robert Louis Stevenson." He
begins this way :

"It is not the purpose of this volume
to attempt to force words or actions of
Robert Louis Stevenson beyond their
real significance, or to clothe him wuth
religious garments not his own. A large
collection of extracts might be made
which, if taken apart from his other
work, would seem irreligious enough.
At the sectarian side of Scottish church
life, and at the conventional respectabili-
ties of some common types of religion, he
sneers openly. These, however, are but
local matters. The question becomes
more serious when he tells us that he
has been a 'youthful atheist' ; when he

DRAWN AM) ENGRAVKD ON WOOD BY JAMKS BRITTON.

sees behind the King of Apemama, busy
at his futile devil-work, *all the fathers
of the church*; or when he makes us
shudder at the bitter sarcasm of his
Fable of the yellow paint which was to
set men free from the dangers of life,
and the bondage of sin, and the fear of
death forever. All this, and much else
more pointed still, are, let it be confessed,
disconcerting in a man who is also the
friend of missionaries and the humble
and devout worshipper, and who holds
that all freethinkers *are much under the
influence of superstition.'

"Here, certainly, it will be necessary
to avoid the preponderance of single ele-
ments, and to consider the wide stretch
and whole purpose of the man. It must
be again confessed that at the outset this
task seems a sufficiently perplexing one.
The numberless apparent incongruities
Lind cf inflicting aspects of Stevenson's
life ml^ht tempt one to take a cynical
view nf the situation, and to count him
amon^r those who smile at faith. Yet
notliirij: could be more unjust to his
tiiemory. Whatever else he may have
been, he was a sincere man, and we are
thrown back on the necessit>' for finding
same other theory."

This theory IVIr. Kelman deduces
from Stevenson's complexity. "There is
no pc!=.sibility of defining him in a sen-
tence or of expressing his faith in any
^ct of articles." He refuses to be cata-
logued. ^* He is never
bound by creeds or
forms."

"And indeed," he
continues, " it were the
worst sort of folly to
demand them of such
a man. To present to
him the blunderbuss
of conformity, and bid
him stand and deliver,
were an attempt at in-
tellectual highway rob-
bery. Nor, supposing

A PORTRAIT.
Drawn and engraved on wood by James Briitoii.

him to yield and state his convictions
in formal terms to the best of his ability,
would we have gained anything. It is
a transparent fallacy that the creed a
man may find it possible to formulate
will embody adequately his real religious
thought and life. * Almost every per-
son/ says Stevenson, *if you will believe
himself, holds a quite different theory
of life from the one on which he is
patently acting.*

**In dealing, at least, with the literary
men of our time — such men as Carlyle,
Matthew Arnold, and certainly also
with Stevenson — it may be taken as an
axiom that they will invariably under-
state their faith. In their formulations
there will always be expressed less than
they are actually working from. That
deeper, inner, inexpressible faith may at
times find words in a poem or in a sudden
outburst of poetic prose ; but the moment

324

THE LAMP

it tries for exact expression its light fails,
the mystery closes in once more, and
words ring cheerless and inadequate."

So Mr. Kelman proceeds to a study, of
Stevenson's life. "If we can build up
for ourselves the image of his manhood,
from the physical powers and character-
istics up to the inmost spiritual aspira-
tions, we shall need nothing more."
Mr. Kelman finds what he is looking
for; but such a book from the pen of a
Scottish divine would not have been pos-
sible a generation ago.

Another, "Some Letters by Robert
Louis Stevenson," is published by Ingalls
Kimball, with an introduction by Hor-
ace Townsend. These letters are only
five in number, all written to Mr. Tre-
vor Haddon, now a portrait painter of
some repute, then a young art student
personally unknown to him. It was one
of thosQ correspondences that Stevenson
found the time and inclination for, mys-
teriously, out of his marvellous fertility.
He put little into these letters that adds
to our knowledge of him. The boy's
letters entertained him and, from Edin-
burgh and later from the South of
France, he writes him, always undated,
chat and comment and, principally, ad-
vice. This, from the fourth of the
series, written in 1883, is worth much:

"Notes for the student of any art.

"i. Keep an intelligent eye upon all
the others. It is only by doing so that
you come to see what Art is: Art is the
end common to them all, it is none of
the points by which they differ.

"2. In this age, beware of realism.
. "3. In your own art, bow your head
over technique. Think of technique
when you rise and when you go to bed.
Forget purposes in the meanwhile; get
to love technical processes, to glory in
technical successes; get to see the world
entirely through technical spectacles, to
see it entirely in terms of what you

can do. Then when you have anything
to say, the language will be apt and
copious.

"I have no photograph just now; but
when I get one you shall have a copy.
It will not be like me; sometimes I turn
out a capital, fresh bank clerk; once I
came out the image of Runjeet Singh;
again the treacherous sun has fixed me
in the character of a travelling evangel-
ist. It's quite a lottery; but whatever
the next venture proves to be, soldier,
sailor, tinker, tailor, you shall have a
proof. Reciprocate. The truth is I
have no appearance ; a certain air of dis-
reputability is the one constant character
that my face presents: the rest change
like water. But still I am lean, and still
disreputable.

"Cling to your youth. It is an artistic
stock in trade. Don't give in that you
are aging and you won't age. I have
exactly the same faults and qualities
still; only a little duller, greedier, and
better tempered ; a little less tolerant of
pain and more tolerant of tedium. The
last is a great thing for life but — query ?
— a bad endowment for art?

"Another note for the art student.

"4. See the good in other people's
work; it will never be yours. Sec the
bad in your own, and don't cry about it ;
it will be there always. Try to use your
faults; at any rate use your knowledge
of them, and don't run your head against
stone walls. Art is not like theology;
nothing is forced. You have not to rep-
resent the world. You have to represent
only what you can represent with pleas-
ure and effect, and the only way to find
out what that is is by technical exercise."

The photographs here shown of Mc-
dan, Zola's home at Villennes on the
Seine, were taken soon after his death.
From a Paris newspaper we quote:

"The house has two wings. In 1878,
when Zola bought it, with the little

ORPHKUS — A POSTER.
Drawn and engraved on wood by James Hritton.

ZOLA S FAMOUS HOME, MEDAN.

garden belonging to it, the central por-
tion alone was standing. It was a
very modest building of one story, with
three front windows. A fine fragment
of Renaissance bas-relief, which the mas-
ter has placed at one side of the front
door, seems to suggest, in its timid atti-
tude of kneeling, the figure of some sin-
ful queen, of a Catherine de Medicis,
who would repent.

"The two wings, of different height,
in the form of an octagonal prism and
a square, were built, one in 1882, the
other in 1885. Each of them ends in a
terrace, and their red bricks make a
contrast with the cream color of the
original building. The rooms are large,
with the high ceilings which the master
loved.

"We enter. The antechamber and
the little oak stairway — the very stair-
way of a Swiss chalet — are still covered
with screens, fans, and other Japanese
knick-knacks of gaudy colors dear to the

Goncourts brothers. But the rooms are
empty. The furniture has gone to the
auction-room, taking with it a little of
the soul of things.

"The gardener, who accompanies us
and opens the shutters, has been seven-
teen years in Emile Zola*s service. He
knew all the intimates of the house.
But he is not loquacious, and he has to
be pressed with questions to get any in-
formation.

"Next the large billiard-room, which
was used as a salon. Zola liked it but
little, and went there only when he had
guests. He did not like billiards. His
favorite recreation to the end of his life
was photography, for which he had a
passion. Empty, the room seemed larger
still. The great chimney-piece, in pure
classic style, alone remained, upheld by
two caryatides which Zola discovered in
a village of Beauce when he was gather-
ing the material for 'La Terre.'

"In the dining-room there is a col lee-

THE LAMP

327

I
t

tion of the most incongruous objects:
the great secretary where the master
kept his correspondence, next to two or
three tables and the long green garden
chair. Through the windows a soft and
quiet half-light is shed.

"On the first floor, after having
glanced into Zola's sleeping-room, we
enter his workroom, magnificent, high,
and roomy, where the light enters in
floods. There, behind the desk
which has left on the inlaid
floor its rectangular trace, the
master worked in his great arm-
chair, facing the Seine, which
he could see through the large
bay-window. On the monu-
mental chimney-piece is still
inscribed the device : ^ Nulla
dies sine linea.' * Monsieur
worked every morning,' said
the gardener. ^ In the after-
noon he took a great deal of
exercise, bicycle - riding espe-
cially, and sometimes a little
rowing.'

" Some portraits still hang on
the wall in the neighboring
rooms — Zola and Edmond de
Goncourts. r3S5S5

" We descend to the garden.
Toto, Zola's favorite New-
foundland, with his thick black and
white coat, comes to smell us out ami-
cably, while Fido, the faithful old shep-
herd dog, like his name, sleeps on a
rustic table.

"'Ah! Monsieur loved dogs well.
He tried often to photograph them, but
he did not often succeed — they would
not keep still. He had also two black
cats of which he was very fond. Lulu
and Noiraud. He had a liking also for
his dove-cot. All the animals here were
very lucky. But Monsieur did not care
for working in the garden. He pruned
his trees as little as possible. He wished
to let nature '

"There below, between the two arms

of the Seine on the edge of a wood, you
could see the rose-colored island chalet.
It was in this rustic place that Emile
Zola offered his guests in summer those
sylvan dinners so appreciated by Paris-
ians.

"Memories already old ! And it seemed
as if a cloud of melancholy passed over
the gray country which the pale March
sun illumined."

ZOLA S FAVUKlIJi rtUUK A 1" mkDAN.

"Everyman" was a dignified choice
for the initial publication of the new
firm of Fox, Duffield & Co.; appearing
during the Frohman presentation at the
Garden Theatre, it had also the merit
of timeliness. This play was first Jjub-
lished in London by John Scott, or Skot,
in 1529. A second edition by Skot and
two by Pynson appeared during the
sixteenth century. "Since then," says
the preface, "it has been not more than
two or three times reprinted, most no-
tably by Hawkins and by Hazlitt. The
copy of the play in Hawkins's 'Origin
of the English Drama* was taken from a
black-letter copy preserved in the library
of 'the church of Lincoln,* sold after-

328

THE LAMP

ward, it is said, with others, to Dibdin,
the bibliographer, for five hundred guin-
eas. A German scholar, Goedeke,
traces the development of the theme of
the morality in his *Every-man, Hom-
ulas and Hekastus,' published in Han-
over in 1865; and W. Carew Hazlitt
added ^Everyman' to his edition of Dods-
ley's *01d Plays,* published in London
in 1874. The text here used is that of
Hazlitt*s version, which was based upon
a collation of the two editions of Pynson
with one of Scott."

The play, unquestionably the best of
the Morality Plays, was written much
earlier, probably in the reign of Edward
IV. It had great vogue, and was trans-
lated into Dutch, German, and Latin.
Its present revival originated with the
Elizabethan Stage Society of London.

The publishers have shown excep-
tional taste in the preparation of this
new edition, which is printed, by the
University Press, in appropriate black-
faced type on a heavy cream paper. It
is embellished by reproductions of the

title-page and four figures of the Scott
edition.

Mr. Rector K. Fox, of the new firm>
is a brother of John Fox, the novelist.
Both he and his partner, Mr. Pitts Duf-
field, have had long and valuable ex-
perience in publishing houses in this city.
Both are Harvard graduates.

Under the title "The Poets of
Transcendentalism" ( Houghton, Mif-
flin), Mr. George Willis Cooke gives
us an interesting and valuable anthol-
ogy. He has searched the by-ways and
hedges, as well as the highways, of
American verse for what has to do
vitally with this movement, so important
to American letters, and has brought to-
gether 186 poems, the work of forty-
tvi^o writers. The selection by no means
lays stress on the work of the famous
central group, but includes poems of
many quite unidentified, in the popular
mind to-day, with this philosophy. He
cites Christopher P. Cranch's "Gnosis**"

ZOLA S DOGS.

THE LAMP

3^9

as the completest expression of the indi-
vidualism of transcendentalism found in
any one poem, particularly these lines:

"We are spirits clad in veils ;

Man by man was never seen ;
All our deep communing fails

To remove the shadowy screen.

Heart to heart was never known ;

Mind with mind did never meet ;
We are columns left alone

Of a temple once complete.

Like the stars that gem the sky,
Far apart though seeming near,

In our light we scattered lie ;
All is thus but starlight here.

"The transcendentalist maintained,"
he says, by way of definition, "that the
one reality is spirit. Spirit is unity, but
It is also universal. In the deepest sense
spirit is one, though it may have many
manifestations. God is the heart of all
creation, said Emerson, and the heart
of every creature. The one spirit shines
in every human soul, which is nothing
apart from that through which it lives.
For the individual soul the universe has
existence only through the Universal
Spirit, which is the essence of the being
of both the individual and the universal.

"The transcendentalists often appear
to deny the personality of man, to make
him only a manifestation of God. In
reality, they laid the greatest emphasis
upon personality and made of each in-
dividual man a distinct and unique ex-
pression of the Infinite Spirit. The
Over Soul is one in all men, and yet its
manifestation in each is positive and
radical. That which makes man to be
man, to have a character and personality
of his own, to be diflEerent from all
other creatures and men, is his immedi-
ate connection with the Universal Spirit,
which manifests itself in him in a unique
manner. The Spirit blossoms out in a
new form in each individual man, in-
deed, as a fresh and distinct creation.

The connection of the individual soul
with the Over Soul is continuous. When
the individual so wishes, when he keeps
his mind clear and his heart pure, and
when his soul is freely open to the life
of the Spirit, inspiration will come to
him according to his need. He may
shut out this light because he refuses to
accept it, or because he does not make
himself fit for the inflowing of this high-
er life; but when his soul is open and
his life pure he can always have the in-
dwelling of the Spirit."

But the poetry of transcendentalism
is philosophical rather than artistic.
"Beauty is not its chief inspiration, but
thought. It is not written to please,
but to convince. It contains a gospel,
and not an appeal to emotion and imag-
ination. That this defect always pre-
sents itself it would not be just to say,
and yet it is too often present. These
poets are more concerned as to what
they say than as to how they say it.
They are not singers, but teachers. The
problems of life much concern them,
and how to reform the world is to them
of great importance. The charm of
their poetry is in the beauty of the
thought, and not in the delight of the
song they 'sing. The form is often
rugged, the verse is halting and defec-
tive. Their metres stumble, and their
rhymes are not correct. They are too
metaphysical, subtle, and complicated in
their thought to sing themselves clearly
and strongly out into beautiful words.

The movement and the literature it
inspired belong wholly to the past. Its
intuitions, to-day, find a saner interpre-
tation in the subtle laws of heredity.
"We may give the transcendentalist a
generous recognition for what it was to
the men and women who accepted it;
but we must see in it a passing phase of
American thought. It may be that
there are a larger number of persons
who accept this faith to-day than in the
prime of the movement as it affected

HENRY S. PANCOAST,
Author of "Rcpresentntive English Literature,** "Introduction to American Literature," etc.

American literature; but it is now an
echo. To no great men is it inspiration,
and it develops no creative literary
movement. The charm of it has passed
away as a vital force. It is a beautiful
memory that is precious and glorious,
and that still charms and delights us.

"That it will revive again we may be
convinced. It represents one of the per-
sistent types of human thought. To
some minds it is always true, because
there are always individuals who see the
w^orld in this manner. It rarely hap-
pens, however, that this form of thought
is widely enough accepted to constitute
a 'movement* or to create a literature.
When this occurs the legacy is precious,
and we may well cherish it with care
and with joy. We can delight in what
it is and in what it accomplishes without
accepting its philosophy."

In our April number we credited
three drawings by Mr. Robert Cortes

HoUiday to Mr. Walter Jack Duncan,
at the same time ascribing Mr. Dun-
can's three drawings to Mr. HoUiday.
In a way, however, it was "all in the
family," for the two young artists, who
are of the same age, were both born in
Indianapolis, came East together four
years ago, and live together here. They
studied together under Otto Stark and
John Twachtman, and are now work-
ing together like a pair of young Beggar-
staflEs.

At the close of a long and apprecia-
tive review of W. D. Howells's "Life
and Literature" the London Athenaum
swings a lash which may have a sting
for others besides Mr. Howells:

"He is the kind of well-equipped, and
in various ways ready and accomplished
man of important letters — a t>^pe con-
tinental and American rather than Brit-
ish — that may afiford, even in the eyes
of the purists of expression, an occasional

THE LAMP

33^

justification for the use, in English writ-
ing, of the French word Litterateur.
But in spite of this, or because of it, Mr.
Howells is prone to take a somewhat
easy line, what we have" called an inex-
pensive line, and practises an economy
of thinking which is not quite hospitable
to the faithful reader. This economy is
not dictated by any real lack of resource,
but seems partly practised in the inter-
ests of the autonymous accepted writer's
pose — the pose of negligence, the affec-
tation of the light touch — and partly
seems a habit of making complaisant
surrender in the last clause to the exact-
ing genius of the cheaper humor. More
often than becomes a writer of his genu-
ine quality is Mr. Howells content to
round off his paragraph with a little
turn of slickness which permits the
writer to appear knowing and yet saves
the discussion from non-superficialit}^
"No doubt Mr. Howells also could

say, *My people love to have it so* ; and,
indeed, he observes that when the Amer-
ican man (not literary man, however)
is not making money, or trying to make
it, he is making a joke, or trying to make
one. But then he also tells us that the
American literarj^ man writes exclusive-
ly for the American woman — who, we
should suppose, could get all the little
jokes she wanted by hearkening to her
husband in the intervals when he is not
making money.

"And yet we have also heard other
things; and it may be that the Ameri-
can man's wife is the only person in
whose presence the American husband
restrains his gayety. We must leave
this question where we found it, after
all, but remain doggedly of opinion
that Mr. Howells, w^ho is very good
with the flaws of an unfortunate clever-
ness or a silly convention, would be bet-
ter still without them."

0^^.

IN LIGHTER VEIN
By Eleanor Hoyt

NOT long ago a young man, with
chivalry in his soul and a bulky
manuscript under his arm, sat in the
outer darkness of a publisher's ante-
room and counted the women who filed
past him and were, one by one, admitted
to interviews wnth the powers that be
in the private office. To twelve of them
he granted precedence; then the instinct
of self-preservation asserted itself, and
he clamored stoutly for the rights of
man.

All of which is merely by way of
commentary upon the feminine invasion
of fiction's province.

There was a time when the woman
novelist took unto herself a masculine
nom de plume, so that she might win a
hearing from the reading public ; but, in
this year of grace, the story sounds like
pure fable.

Masculine nom de plumes, forsooth!
Men's names are but stray flotsam on
the swelling tide of publishers' fiction
lists to-day. New women authors make
their courtesies every week, and the liter-
ary debutantes of earlier seasons are al-
ways with us.

Moreover, the quality of the feminine
work is better than its quantity would
lead one to infer ; and a study of any list
of the best selling books of the past year
is calculated to supply mere man with
food for chastening meditation.

Recent novels written by women
range over a wide area of subject.

THE WIND IN THE ROSE
BUSH

Mary E. Wilkins follows her "Six
Trees" with another collection of short
stories originally published in serial
form ; but here we have work of a char-

acter vastly different from that in the
tree book, work that proves the author
of "A New England Nun" has not lost
her fine force, her subtle reserve, the
power of dramatic suggestion which
gave her early stories their grip and
made her homeliest tale a human docu-
ment.

These are psychical tales — ghost sto-
ries, if you will; and the supernatural
struck hard upon New England flint
gives strange lights.

The stories are creepy. They hold
real shivers. Mrs. Freeman has taken
the typical New England character that
she knows so well, with its hard-headed
common-sense, its sturdy courage, its
indomitable will, and has opposed to
it awesome supernatural manifestation.
She has not made the mistake of attempt-
ing explanations, solutions of the mys-
teries. The reader sees the phenomena
as the characters in the stories saw
them. There is no piled up agony, no
wild hysteria, no tragic stage setting.
The things happen in prim New Eng-
land parlors, or at noonday, in populous
neighborhoods. The men and women
who are affected by them are not super-
stitious. They are plain matter-of-fact
folk, prone to incredulous investigation
and distrust of their own senses.

Comparatively little is told. Much is
suggested; and in this power of sugges-
tion, this reserve, full of inferential hor-
ror, lies much of the power of the stories,,
much of the merit of the author's tech-
nique.

"The Wind in the Rose Bush" has
little incident, yet it takes strong hold
upon one's imagination. Mrs. Dent's
broad, pink face, with its impenetrable
china-blue eyes is fascinating in its im-
passiveness. One beats against its secret
as Rebecca does. The waving of the

THE LAMP

333

rose-bush in the still air, the scent of
roses in the prosaic room, the childish
shadow flitting past the window get
upon nerves that the piled-up horrors of
the conventional ghost story would not
stir.

The shadow figure hanging out shad-
ow clothes in "The Vacant Lot" is more
convincing than clanking chains and
hollow groans. The grim old face look-
ing out of the mirror in "The Southwest
Chamber" gives one a distaste for all
mirrors; and "The Lost Ghost," the
poor, hard-working, lonely little child-
spook, is as pitiful a figure as ever wan-
dered through a haunted house and kept
God-fearing folk awake o' nights.

With the author's propensity for al-
lowing her immaterial beings to do ma-
terial deeds, leave material evidence of
their presence, one may perhaps quarrel.
The intangible presence that drops an
entirely tangible black crepe veil upon
the floor, the vicious ghost that sews up
the dress-sleeves of intrusive mortals,
the ghost that carries cloaks and hats
upstairs are robbed of some degree of
their supernatural interest, lose their
hold upon the reader's imagination. The
vague uncanniness of the waving rose-
bush, the fluttering shadows of the in-
visible washings, the vindictive face in
the depths of the mirror are better art,
more conducive to the vague uneasiness
and apprehension which are a sane read-
er's tribute to the skill of the teller of
ghost stories. (Doubleday, Page & Co.)

THE FILIGREE BALL

From ghost stories to detective stories
is not a record leap, yet there is a wide
gulf fixed between the literary quality of
Mary E. Wilkins's work and that of
Anna Katherine Green. As literature,
even "The Leavenworth Case" left
much to be desired ; but if the object of
a novel is to entertain readers, then

Anna Katherine Green has the counter-
sign and may join the elect. She writes
an uncommonly good detective story,
and a good detective story appeals to the
taste of a large contingent of readers.

"The Filigree Ball" is far from being
the best of its kind. Even a credulity
nurtured upon detective stories must
balk at some features of the tale. Plaus-
ibility goes to the wall in the interests
of mystery. The author insists upon
surprising us in the last chapter, no mat-
ter what it costs her.

An old house in a good quarter of
Washington is the scene of the tragic
death which forms a basis for the story,
and is fitted out with a murderous
mechanism that suggests the Middle
Ages and the gentle Borgias rather than
the twentieth century and Theodore
Roosevelt. The device by which the
secret is handed down through the elder
branch of the family is far-fetched and
unacceptable, the dialogue is, in places,
hopelessly bad — ^yet the fact remains that
the tale is an interesting one, and that
the lover of detective stories who takes
it up will not lay it down until he has
finished it. (Bobbs, Merrill & Co.)

WHEN PATTY WENT TO
COLLEGE

Vassar College and the modern col-
lege girl do not follow the Princess Dana
and the court of Peter the Great by
direct order of sequence, but the wide
latitude merely serves to emphasize our
original proposition — woman's appro-
priation of all fiction's province.

"When Patty Went to College" is
not an epoch-making volume, but it will
add somewhat to the gayety of the read-
ing public, and that should be a claim
to immortality. We take most of our
fiction so sadly in this latter day that
the smallest gleam of humor is treasure-
trove, and there is more than a little

334

THE LAMP

humor of an inconsequential kind in this
collection of college stories.

The woman's college is prone to take
itself very seriously, and the public has
accepted it at its own estimate. In fic-
tion or in fact one approaches woman's
higher education reverently, solemnly,
and discusses it in polysyllables.

Jean Webster's bump of reverence is
evidently not developed to an abnormal
degree, but it is a refreshing, a reassur-
ing picture of girl's college life that she
draws. Patty isn't the ideal student.
She hasn't the educational ideals which
are supposed to seethe in the soul of the
young person foreordained to higher
mathematics and philosophy. She cribs
and cuts and crams. In fact, she appears
to take her college career much as the
average boy does his. She is warm-
hearted, wholesome, jolly, generous,
clever. She goes through many classes
on a minimum of study, but some of the
learning undoubtedly sticks. She isn't
fitted for a pyrotechnical career when
she graduates, but she will be an enter-
taining member of society and, in all
human probability, a delightful wife and
mother.

One couldn't conscientiously hold
Patty up as a model for girls entering
college; but, on the other hand, one fer-
vently hopes that she is a college possi-
bility and believes that she would be a
more satisfactory element in family life
at the end of her college course than the
ordinary exponent of the strenuous edu-
cation for girls.

Some of the stories in the volume are
thin — distressingly thin, and fail to pro-
voke a smile; but others — for instance,
*'The Impressionable Mr. Todhunter,"
"The Deceased Robert," "Patty the
Comforter," and "The Shadowed Soph-
omore" — are distinct refutations of the
thread-worn libel that woman has no
sense of humor. The stories are light
and volatile to the point of evaporation,
but they are frankly so. They make no

pretence of being anything else. They
are breezily handled. Most of them are
amusing, and Patty herself is distinctly-
lovable, if not an intellectual star.
(Century Co.)

THE REBELLION OF THE
PRINCESS

M. Imlay Taylor is not the first
woman to write a swashbuckle historic
novel, but few women have written a
story of the kind as readable as "The
Rebellion of the Princess." Miss Tay-
lor's choice of period and setting for her
story gives it a note of originality.
There has been a surfeit of heroes slash-
ing their way through French history,
of Cromwell's own, and of fighting
Jacobites; but Russia and the time of
Peter the Great's childhood oflfer un-
usual local color and conditions, and
Miss Taylor has worked the vein with
reckless prodigality. Startling incidents
tread upon one another's heels from the
first chapter to the last. The French
hero, exiled from the court of le Grand
Monarque, is a concession to popular
taste ; but, viewed through his eyes, Rus-
sian scenes, Russian characteristics, Rus-
sian customs are translated into form to
interest a reader who might not read
them aright at first hand. We have the
hero whom we know and understand, yet
we have, too, the barbaric splendor, the
crude brutality, the insolent power, the
ignorant ferocity of the Russian classes';
and the combination is a clever one.
The author knows Russia, and has been
able to paint her pictures in vivid colors,
while avoiding the temptation that be-
sets every novelist dealing with condi-
tions and times little known — the ten-
dency to over-elaboration of detail, to
piling up of description, to painstaking
introduction of historic characters and
episodes. Miss Taylor has used historic
figures, but only as they were necessary
to the development of her tale. One

THE LAMP

33S

meets the child Peter casually in the
corridor, and pays little attention to him
because at the moment the hero is in one
of his innumerable scrapes. A less
canny author would have made the story
stand still for at least a chapter in that
corridor. Duels, street fights, arrests,
hair-breadth escapes, riot, massacre, mar-
riage in disguise to save the heroine from
a worse fate, the real winning of the
Princess — all these incidents crowd
thickly in the chapters, yet the narrative
is unusually clever and direct. Miss
Taylor has a creditable love for good,
terse Anglo-Saxon words, and to these
crisp words of one or two syllables is
due, to a great extent, the virile force of
her style. (McCIure, Phillips & Co.)

THE VOICE IN THE DESERT

power of the desert she hates ; Lispenard,
poet and idealist, with the desert passion
in his blood; Cozzens, bluff plainsman
and miner; Trent, practical Eastern
business man, caught in the desert
charm — they are all desert bound, desert
thralls, and the author has sketched
them with exceeding skill in their desert
setting — in the "land of fading blue and
gray, of infinite distances . . . remote
and indescribably solitary in the un-
broken sweep of its wide desolation."

The story moves lazily on through
desert moods of moonlight, sunlight,
storm. It is written with a pen dipped
in vivid color, yet its action is not vigor-
ous. The desert has stilled it. The
novel is not a great one, but is unde-
niably an interesting one and has unusual
charm. (McClure, Phillips & Co.)

The spell of the Northland — the
country of the White Silence, the spell
of the lotos-eating East, the spell of the
desert — these have been tempting themes
ever since fiction found birth ; and,
whenever a writer has felt the grip of
one of these, and has been able to trans-
late it even lamely into words, the thing
has spelled success.

Pauline Bradford Mackie has written
a rather remarkable book in "A Voice
in the Desert" — a book far and away
beyond her earlier literary achievement.
Beyond question she has at some time
lived in the western desert, known its
maddening monotony and its mysterious
charm. The whole story is saturated in
the light, the air, the color of the desert.
The characters are shaped by the desert,
dominated by the desert, made or marred
by the desert.

Yucca, elusive, mysterious, feminine
incarnation of the desert she loves;
Adele, pretty, impulsive, born for a
homely countr>'-side of orchards and
clover meadows and running streams
and conventional life, yet yielding to the

THE SPOILSMEN

Women are not wTiting all the new
novels, and this spring has a host of
books signed by well-known masculine
names. Public and present conditions
are reflected more often in the man's
novel than in the woman's novel, and the
thing counts for vigor and virility, but
as a rule detracts from literary quality
and value. The political novel, the nov-
el dealing with labor troubles, with cor-
porations, with yellow journalism, with
all the vexed problems of the day, is
distinctly a masculine creation. When
the woman tries to work that field she
fails — but, for that matter, so do most
of the men. Only phenomenal force and
brilliancy can give to such a novel liter-
a,ry importance. The issues are so close,
so glaringly in evidence that the writer
generally fails to get them in perspective.
He achieves a certain amount of first-
class journalism, but no smallest contri-
bution to literature.

Elliott Flower's "The Spoilsmen" is a
case in point. It is a lucid and interest-

336

THE LAMP

ing analysis of ward politics, of machine
methods. Its theme has been exploited
so often and so ably in newspapers and
magazines that there was little that is
surprising or new left for telling.

The thread of story running through
the book is too unimportant to give lit-
erary coherence to the election returns
and the committee meetings; and no one
of the characters is sufficiently striking
to be the novel's justification.

A political novel of absorbing and
thrilling interest is quite within the pos-
sibilities, but Mr. Flower has not writ-
ten it in "The Spoilsmen." He has done
some exceedingly clever reporting, has
given a dismally pessimistic picture of
the chances for a decent man in munici-
pal politics, and his book has the interest
that always attaches to problems of pres-
ent and weighty import; but judged by
the canons of fiction it falls far short of
success. (L. C. Page & Co.)

quarry. They leave the church to the
minister, William McLeod. They will
not turn him out, but they will not glis-
ten to the preaching of a man who is
tainted with heterodoxy. If there are
errors in the Book, then all may be error,
and their one anchor is gone.

Mr. Maclean tells the story of this
William McLeod and his deserted
church, of Dr. McQueen, the parish
church minister, whose congregation left
him for McLeod, of the elders and their
women folk, of the squalid poverty, the
starved lives, the sturdy courage of the
mist-dwellers.

The stories are too gray to win popu-
larity. Some of them do not deserve
consideration, but others have a note of
insight and strength that lifts them
above the level and should gain them a
hearing from those readers who have
sympathy and understanding for spiritual
travail. (Fleming H. Revell Co.)

DWELLERS IN THE MIST

The stories of the Hebrides whigh
Norman Maclean has gathered together
in "Dwellers in the Mist" are rugged,
sombre tales — how could they be any-
thing else, picturing the life and char-
acter of such a folk? — ^but there is con-
vincing truth in the gray pictures.

The author makes one understand
these children of the fogs and mists and
barren rocks whose one comfort is in the
Book. They worship in the little hill
church whose walls are green with
lichen, whose flooring is the damp clay,
in which narrow, moth-eaten pews are
fixed. They cling to the doctrines of
election and eternal punishment, they
set their faces against the liberality of
creed that is creeping into the church.
When the minister they have loved is
found wanting in orthodoxy, as they un-
derstand orthodoxy, the congregation
goes out in a body to worship in the

THE GOLD WOLF

Max Pemberton, in "The Gold
Wolf," tells the story of a man and his
money, and tells it in entertaining fash-
ion, with the facile ease of a practised
story-writer, but with no hint of orig-
inality or great power. He gives the
reader exciting incident in good measure
— the death of Dudley Hatton's wife,
under suspicious circumstances, after he
had quarrelled with her, attempted
blackmail, a fight with French criminals
in a thieves' den in Paris, stock-market
panic, railroad strikes and riots.

Through suffering and love the multi-
millionaire learns the real uses of money,
the meaning of a rich man's opportuni-
ties. The gold wolf is killed, and all
the virtuous poor and rich live happily
ever afterward.

Not a book to revolutionize litera-
ture, but a book that finds a justification
in being cleverly constructed and read-
able. (Dodd, Mead & Co.)

THE LITERARY QUERIST

EDITED BY ROSSITER JOHNSON

CTO CONTRIBUTORS:— ^**/7Vj must be Met, must relait to literature or authors, and must be of some general
futerest. Answers are solicited^ and must he prefaced with the numbers of the ouestioms referred to, Qutries
and answers, written on one side only of the /a>rr. shouid be sent to the Editor of THE LAMP, Charles
Scribntt's Sons, /JJ-iJ? Fifth Avenue, New VorM.]

736. — ( I ) Can you inform me who is the a uthor
of the following poem ? The subject is Perkin
Warbeck :

" In Tournay of Flanders I wa« born ;
Foredoomed to splendor and sorrow.
For I was a kins; when tbey cut the com,
And they strangle me to-morrow.

** I will dress me all in silk and scarlet,
And the hangman shall have my ring.
For though I be hanged like a low-bom varlet.
They snail know I was once a king.*'

(2) I should also like to know who is the pub-
lisher of a book entitled *' Blown Away,* by
Richard Mansfield. c. E.

(2) It was published bw L.
Boston.

C. Page & Co.,

737, — Will you or any reader kindly tell me
by whom the following poem was written ? As
I have arranged a little song, and used these
words, I am anxious for a second verse. I have
had the lines in my scrap-book many years :

'* Who wouldnU take a day oflf,

When the fleecy clouds in view
Are trailing, sailing 'way oflf,

Down a breezy sea of blue t
Who wouldn't fly and stay oflf^
Who wouldn't lie and lay off.
And get away — away off.

In the daisies and the dew?
Who wouldn't fall to wishing.
When they hear the trees a-swiihing.
And the whole world's gone a-fishing.

And is beckoning to you ? " w. s.

738. — Some years ago I read very promising
short stories that appeared under the signature
of "Florence McLandburgh." I do not know
whether it was a pen-name. Can you tell me
whether it was a real name, and whether the
author is still living? I have not met it in cur-
rent literature for twenty years. k. r.

The name was real. She was a native of
Ohio. We do not know whether she is still liv-
ing.

739. — Could you tell me the name of the au-
thor, and in what collection the poem " Ken-
tucky Belle " can be found. The first line is :

** Summer of '63, sir.
And Comrade had gone away." m. m.

740. — Referring to BooJd Buyer's ** Literary
Querist," I find that in 1897 you told some ques-
tioner that all you had ever learned in regard to
the quotation **I shall pass through this world
but once," etc., was given in July, 1892, and Feb-

ruary, 1893. Will you please repeat this infor-
mation, as I am unable to find either of these
magazines ? A. F. j.

That quotation was brought to popular atten-
tion a few years ago by its appearance in Henry
Drummond's "Greatest Thing in the World."
There has been a great deal of inquiry for its
source, and much searching has brought to light
several slightly different versions, some in prose
and some in verse. The prose version that is
most perfectly written, and has therefore the pre-
sumption of originality, is this: *'I expect to
pass through this world but once. If, therefore,
there be any kindness I can show, or any good
thing I can do, to any fellow being, let me do it
now. Let me not defer it nor neglect it, for I
shall not pass this way again." One of the
searchers has traced it to Stephen Grellet, a Qua-
ker ; another, to Sir Rowland Hill, the originator
of cheap postage in Great Britain ; and stiP
another says it is from the epitaph on the tomb
of Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire. The
Courtenaysare Earls of Devon (not Devonshire),
and the last one that was named Edward died
in the sixteenth century. The discussion has
brought to light this little poem by Joseph Tor-
rey:

** Through this toilsonie world, alas !
Once and only once I pass.
If a kindness I may show,
If a good deed I may do.
To my suffering fellow men,
I/Ctme do it while I can,"
Nor delay it, for *iis plam
I shall nut pass this way again.**

741. — I was once familiar with a little stor}'
or fable in verse, in which a bird or a squirrel that
had a nest in a high tree warned her young
ones not to leave it. But one persisted in leav-
ing, with a disastrous result. I remember but
two of the lines :

" I am tired to death of this himidnim tree,
I'll go if 'tis only the world to see,"

Can any reader furnish the whole, or tell me who
wrote it, or where it is to be found ?

c. L. D.

• 742. — (i) In which, if any, of Gail Hamilton's
books does she discuss the subject of woman suf-
frage ?

(2) What is the best book on proverbs, or any
good one ? I mean popular proverbs, not those
of Solomon.

33^

THE LAMP

(3) I should like to find again a short story
that I once read, or to learn the author's name.
It represented a blind man led by a little g^irl,
travelling to a German city in a mysterious way.
When they arrived there they made their way (he
giving the girl minute directions) to the cathe-
dral, or the town hall. They entered it at night,
and he groped his way to the wonderful great
clock, went behind it, and cut a wire, whereupon
the clock stopped, and he declared it never could
be made to go ag^in. He was its maker, and
when he had finished it the town authorities had
put out his eyes to prevent his making one for a
rival city. I should like to know whether there
is any historical foundation for the story.

J. T.

(i) It is in *' Woman's Worth and Worthless-
ness "

(2) The best we know of is Kelly's ** Prov-
erbs of all Nations, Compared, Explained, and
Illustrated. " But there are others, some of which
are more extensive.

743. — I have seen a copy of tlie original edi-
tion of *' Tristram Shandy," in which the fifth,
seventh and ninth volumes bore the autograph
signature of Sterne, and I learn that there are
many others. Can you or any reader give me
the explanation of this singular circumstance ?

E. c.

The book was published at intervals, two vol-
umes at a time. The copyright laws were not
well settled at that time, and when four volumes
had appeared, someone published a spurious
continuation of the story. Sterne was not alone
in this experience. The same thing was done
with the second part of ** Don Quixote," for
instance. When the fifth and sixth volumes
were published, Sterne put his autograph inta
every copy of the fifth, to attest their genuine-
ness ; so also ^nth the seventh and the ninth.

744. — Can you tell me the source of the quota*
tion :

" *Tis the cause makes all.
Degrades or hallows courage in iu fall? **

I think it is somewhere in Byron, but have not
been able to find it. £. a

ANSWERS

733.— (5) The *' Sweet Singer of Michigan"
was Mrs. Julia A. Moore, who published her
** Sentimental Song- Book " in Cleveland, 0.»
and her later poems in Grand Rapids, Mich.»
both in 1878.

NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS

Spain and Her People. Jeremiah Zimmer-
man. Geo. W. Jacobs & Co. III., 8vo,
$2.00 nt(.

Impressions of the country and the people by an
appreciative observer.

Rhode Island. In-nng B. Richman. G. P.
Putnam's Sons. 2 vols. 8vo, $4. 50 ne^.

A survey of the annals of the commonwealth
from its settlement to the death of Roger Will-
iams, with an introduction by James Bryce.

Every Day in the Year. Edited by James L.
and Mary K. Ford. Dodd, Mead & Co.
Svo. $1.60 //«r/.

A collection of nearly eight hundred poems, ar-
ranged according to the days of the year, and
intended to commemorate the great events in
history. A poetical epitome of the world's his-
tory.

The Writings of John James Ingalls. Hud-
son- Kimberly Pub. Co. Svo, $2.50.

A collection of the Essays, Addresses, and Ora-
tions of the late Senator Ingalls.

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A REVIEW AND RECORD OF CURRENT LITERATURE

CONTENTS FOR JUNE. 1903 ,,^

A New Portrait of Lymwti Abbott Firontispiece

A New BngUftd Singer. CaroUnt Tickmr 363

K Sketch of Nom Perry ; the Wonum and Her Work. lUustnited.

Samuel Rogere'8« Italy" and *«Poeme" .... IVilHam Laring Amdrtwt 375

With many reproductions, portraits, and fiicHiimiles.

The Cbancee for Americans in Bngiiah JoumaUam J. M^ Bulloch • sSa

New Letlara and Memoriale of Jane Welsh Carlyle Carolyn Ski^wum 386

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Letters and Life John Finley . • • . 59$

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gaviewhiK his last novel, " TmOu**

A New Portrait of Bdith Wharton 416

The Rambler 417

Literary Notes and Comments. With many illnttrations.

In Lighter Vein Eleanor Hoyi ........... 499

Reviews of the newest novels and short stories.

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The Nation

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management has been unchanged from tlie first. It is conducted in a spirit of complete independ-
ence. The list of more than two hundred contributors includes most of the leading names in
literature, science, art; philosophy and law in ttiis country, and many of corresponding eminence
abroad. The Nation presents a complete and acciu-ate record of the world's current history,
with impartial comments on questions which should occupy the attention of intelligent men. To
the scholar, the student, the thinker, and to all professional men, it is confident^ recommended
as an aid to sound thinking.

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inent political and social topics.

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A Review and Record of Current Lit^erat^ure

ENTBRED, FEBRUARY a, I903, AT NEW YORK, N. Y., AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER, UNDER ACT OP CONGRESS OP MARCH 3, 1879

Vol. XXVI

NEW YORK, JUNE, 1903

No. 5

A NEW ENGLAND SIN
By Caroline Ticknor

^EVEN years have elapsed since the
v3 passing of Nora Perry, one of the
sweetest of our New England singers,
and yet no pen has been busied with
even a brief appreciation of one whose
literary work, as well as her original
and emphatic personality, surely entitled
her to some fitting tribute beyond the
perfunctory offerings of the obituary
columns.

Miss Perry possessed the lyrical qual-
ity in a high degree, and her verse was
ever musical and flowed with a delight-
ful spontaneity and freedom. Her grace-
ful, airy touch won for her a prompt
response from a widespread and appre-
ciative audience from the time when she
captured her public by her early successes,
"After the Ball" and "Tying her Bon-
net under her Chin," up to the date of
her death.

While it is with the singer that this
sketch would concern itself, and not
with the song, yet in the case of Nora
Perry it is very difficult to make the dis-
tinction between the two, so truly was
the latter the genuine expression of the
former. Her ballads and lyrics sung
themselves straight from her heart as
spontaneously as her stories for young
people emanated from her own youthful
spirit, which was one of her ruling char-

acteristics and which made her juvenile
work the lively and natural outpouring
of her own point-of-view. She did not
have to remember how she once felt, for
she still felt so.

What may be termed Miss Perry's
"girlish" point-of-view never forsook
her. It was her habitual mental atti-
tude, and not an undue youthfulness
that she affected; it required no effort
for her to see things and feel them as a
young person saw and felt them. In-
deed, the effort often seemed to come
when she recalled herself to the mature
middle-aged standpoint. Here a cynical
note^was invariably sounded, which had
no part in her enthusiastic outlook upon
the world of youth. She would answer
age in the sombre key-note of middle
life, but her soul was young; her songs
and lyrics voiced the quick pulse of
youth, as did her stories for young peo-
ple, and for this reason she had few
rivals in the field of successful school-
girl literature.

Miss Perry expresses her own recog-
nition of her inability to feel properly
old when she writes, "I have too much
youth for the rest of the world at my
age. Life never seems old to me, al-
ways fresh." She possessed a very vivid
consciousness of the reality and absolute

364

THE LAMP

value of the small and trivial things
which impress themselves so deeply upon
the youthful mind, and one finds her
penning the words of that Roman prel-
ate who said, "Give me the first ten
years of a child's life, and you may have
him afterwards."

This responsibility toward her young
readers she felt keenly, and her books
for young people are, above all things,
wholesome and helpful, setting forth
higher ideals in a normal, healthful way,
merciless toward all pretentious affecta-
tion, but ever free from any touch of
hardness or cynicism, such as may be
traced in such stray bits as:

"I am constant to nothing but coffee.
It's the one thing I never get tired of."

Or again:

"Keeping a secret is a matter of brains
rather than of morality."

The pleasure and inspiration which
many poets draw from the contempla-
tion of nature Miss Perry derived from
the picture of a young girl just blos-
soming into womanhood, endowed with
physical and spiritual graces and em-
bodying immeasurable possibilities.

She loves to sing:

Here's a girl of girls,
Teeth as white as pearls,
Breath of balm and rose
When her lips unclose.

Sweet words set to deeds
Sweeter still, are seeds
Flowering day by day
All along her way.

Till to follow where
She doth lightly fare,
Is to set one's feet
In a garden sweet.

The young people, themselves perhaps
the severest of all critics, distinguishing
as they do so readily the essence of truth
and sincerity, responded cordially to her
straightforward and sympathetic touch.

The note of sincerity was perhaps,
above all others, the dominant one with

Miss Perry, and rings throughout all
her work, even as it pervaded her per-
sonal relations with all with whom she
came in contact. She possessed, or rather
was possessed by, a wholesale contempt
for all shams and hypocrites, and, while
in many respects indulgent and apprecia-
tive of points-of-view vastly different
from her own, she was sternly intolerant
of all pretenders.

Her keen glance penetrated flimsy
masks and perceived the genuine values
below the surface. She hated affected
women and effeminate men, and pitied
those who had not the courage to search
their hearts, not only to discover their
convictions, but to unearth their lack of
the same, and, having done this, to ac-
knowledge the deficit boldly.

She recognized her own inability to
believe much that might have comforted
and cheered her, but she refused to be
cheered or comforted by that which her
own questioning spirit could not accept
as the truth. She never strove to con-
ceal her lack of conviction regarding
religious doctrine, yet her scepticism
seemed rather the outcome of a desire
for what was actually best and highest,
a revolt not against things spiritual so
much as against the unspiritual people
who assumed that they possessed the
highest revelation of truth and then
failed utterly to live up to a standard of
wide charity and universal brotherhood.

The following extract from a letter
written in 1887 perhaps best voices her
own point of view in this respect. She
writes :

"A pleasant and unexpected thing

happened last night. Mr. A , a

young Episcopal clergyman, came to see
me. He was introduced by Whittier.
He wanted, he said, to thank me for
what my book had been to him, and said
that it must be a great help to any
thoughtful person — the religious poems,
as he called them. I was stunned into
silence. I felt like a fraud. Presently

THE LAMP

365

I told him that I wrote from hope sim-
ply, not from belief or faith, that I was
agnostic — the agnosticism of don't know.
He said that Whittier had told him that,
but that he shouldn't have guessed it.
Then I called his attention to the 'Hid-
den Way,' with its despairing ending.
He at once replied that the poems were
more valuable for that indication of de-
spairing sympathy with the general mind,
and the fine fight against it, with the
conclusive hope as the result.

"Don't tell me after this that authors
know much about their work or what
they are doing. They are only instru-
ments after all. I positively had a guilty
sort of feeling when I let some of those
things go into the book — I thought they
were almost bitter in their despair, and
lo, a parson applauds me and thanks
me. . . . Who was the old woman in
Mother Goose who didn't know herself
after some accident, and who said her
little dog would know her? I feel like
that old woman."

While Miss Perry is disposed to speak
lightly of what she terms the "religious
poems," they present, nevertheless, per-
haps more than she herself realized, her
longings and aspirations together with
her own vision of spiritual truth.

A few brief quotations may be of in-
terest here:

A PRAYER.

Anoint my eyes that T may see
Through all this sad obscurity,
This worldly mist that dims my sight,
These crowding clouds that hide the light.

Full vision, as perhaps have they
Who walk beyond the boundary way,
I do not seek, I do not ask.
But only this, — that through the mask

Which centuries of soil and sin
Have fashioned for us, I may win
A clearer sight to show me where
Truth walks with faith divine and fair.

The opening lines from her poem.

"Unattained," breathe her own mental
attitude :

Tired, tired and spent, the day is almost run.

And oh, so little done !
Above, and far beyond, far out of sight,

Height over height,
I know the distant hills I should have trod.

The hills of God,—
Lift up their airy peaks, crest over crest,

Where I had prest
My faltering, weary feet, had strength been given.

And found my Heaven.
Yet once, ah, once the place where now I stand

The promised land
Seemed to my young, rapt vision, from afar.

The morning star
Shone for my guidance, beckoned me along,

As, fresh and strong,
And all untried, untired I took my way

At break of day.

And her poem, "The Cry of the
Doubter," while in its thought some-
what suggestive of Mr. Stedman's "Un-
discovered Country,"

" Did we but know, who would not go?"

also calls, with all the intensity of the
writer's nature, for a solution of the
problem of human suffering:

Why should we wait like this
In darkness and in doubt ; why miss
So much of life in wasting pain ?
O mystery of loss and gain.
Behind your veil what answer lies ?
Is it some splendor of surprise
That consciousness might here defeat, —
Some joy too high for us to meet
One moment even, face to face.
While thus within earth's dull embrace.
The fetters of the flesh we stand ?

If one desires a glimpse of the inner
life, the real personality of any man or
woman, it must be obtained when he or
she is not "on guard," arrayed to meet
the public eye, equipped to answer ques-
tions. From a few fragmentary, un-
guarded bits of thought, expressed by the
true self in the solitude of its own sanc-
tum, one may construct a better likeness
of the original than from a lengthy con-

366

THE LAMP

sideration of the sum total of all external
aims, attributes, and accomplishments.
Such a glimpse of the vigorous, decisive
personality of Miss Perry may be had
from the pages of various little note-
books in which she jotted down many
chance thoughts and intimate reflections,
or still oftener a quotation from some
favorite author whose words expressed
her mood or train of thought.

Her "agnosticism of don't know"
never lessened her desire for the realiza-
tion of the highest ideals. If she failed
to perceive a certain light which shone
for others, it was not that she had any
less fondness for light, simply that she
insisted upon a light stronger and clearer
than any her vision could compass. It
was with her never the agnosticism of
"don't care," but rather that voiced by
Tennyson's couplet:

There lives more faith in honest doubt
Believe me, than in half your creeds.

In the little extracts from her note-
hooks she reiterates her belief in a re-
ligion of practical service to humanity.

She frequently dwelt upon her belief
that the charity of "helping the higher"
was overlooked in the aiding of the
dwellers in the slums. She declared that
the "survival of the fittest" would be
better accomplished by the much harder
task of true helpfulness toward those
very near us in the social fabric. "The
old traditional way of helping the beg-
gars is so much easier," she exclaims.
She herself practised this more difficult
method of helpfulness, extending a
friendly hand toward many who were in
need of the charity of appreciative sym-
pathy, frank criticism, or encouragement
to renewed effort. Let one who asso-
ciates with the word "charity" the mur-
mured thanks of some degenerate tramp,
replace the mental picture with a thought
of the inspiration derived by some dis-
couraged young writer, from a few per-
sonal lines penned by an author who has

already won a place in the inhospitable
world of letters, and yet who pauses to
say, "That was well done; you can do
better still. Go on."

Miss Perry possessed a very strong
conviction regarding the general influ-
ence of imaginative literature and the
strengthening of ideals through its me-
dium. One finds her quoting:

"Nothing is so practical as the ideal
which is ever at hand to uphold and bet-
ter the real."

"Culture is half way up to Heaven."
And again, a brief summary of Leigh
Hunt by his son:

"The leading ideas of his mind were:
first, earnest duty to his country at any
cost to himself; next, the sacrifices of
any ordinary consideration to personal
affection and friendship; and, lastly, the
cultivation of *the ideal,' especially as it
is developed in imaginative literature."

She placed great stress upon "those
records of human history contemptuously
called ^fiction,' " and quotes from Hig-
ginson :

"It was the supremely practical Na-
poleon Bonaparte who placed literature
above science as containing above all
things the essence of human intellect."

She realized that truth could be
reached as readily through the channel
of the imagination as through the con-
sideration of facts, and avers: "For the
things we know best of all are precisely
the things which no one has told us."

Love of simplicity and a belief in the
efficacy of work formed important items
in her creed of living. She subscribes to
the charming little description by the
Vicomte de Broc relative to the elimina-
tion of that which is really trivial in life :

"By dint of privation they had become
detached in spirit from the riches which
they no longer possessed. They found
enjoyment in trifles and were satisfied
with little, since they had learnt to do
without everything. The stern necessi-
ties of life forced them to submit to the

NORA PERRY

368

THE LAMP

great law of work, which neither classes
nor individuals can transgress with im-
punity. In their new simplicity they had
acquired a moral dignity which is un-
known in times when men bow before
money, and material enjoyment has
taken the place of the pleasures of the
mind and the delicate feelings of the
heart."

Miss Perry possessed a wholesome dis-
like for "little people," "people who
make you remember that your dress is
cotton and wool." She cared only for
"those who tune you up, not down, who
bring to your mind higher thoughts."

It was perhaps her desire for a larger,
broader outlook, and her impatience at
hampering social distinctions and ameni-
ties that made her choose men, rather
than women, for her friends. She
seemed keenly conscious of, and particu-
larly antagonistic to, the characteristical-
ly feminine foibles, and voiced her dis-
pleasure at them. One may discern
between the lines of some of the cynical
remarks which she ventures regarding
her own sex various disappointments at
her failure to find there a certain re-
sponse which she craved.

She asserts:

"Women believe what they want to
believe. If they want to believe badly
of a person, they will ; if good, it is the
same. All the facts in the world won't
move them."

"As a rule never select a woman for
a confidante; sooner or later you will
repent of it."

"I think as a usual thing that women
h'ke power, or seek power rather than
love in their relation with the other sex.
Men, on the contrary, seek love."

Despite the casting of such occasional
aspersions upon her sex, Miss Perry pos-
sessed many warm and loyal friends
among women, although she frankly ac-
knowledged that she was more in sym-
pathy with the masculine point-of-view.
She liked the masculine mind and found

as a usual thing more satisfactory com-
panionship with it.

Her friendship was a very live and
potent factor to those intimately ac-
quainted with her, to whom she brought
the inspiration which springs from a keen
grasp of truth and beauty and a broad
appreciation of the relative values in life.
She formed her own opinions and ut-
tered them fearlessly, relying less than
do most people upon those of others.
Intensely loyal to her friends, she was
tireless in her endeavors to be of service
to them, and her quickness of tempera-
ment tolerated no slights or derogatory
statements which might be directed tow^-
ard them. In common with most per-
sons animated by strong and intense
likings, she was keen in her dislikes.

She quotes:

"There are elective affinities, as read-
ers of Goethe know. There are likewise
elective antipathies: very strong ones;
and, as Dr. Wallace beautifully re-
marked, *we are told to love our enemies,
but we are not told to like them.' "

And again she remarks, feelingly, of
some friends:

"They had one great bond of union —
they disliked the same people."

"So few people are companionable,"
she muses, regretfully. "People who
have only imagined life are so tiresome
to those who have drunk great draughts
of it."

Miss Perry was incap2d)le of feigning
an interest she did not feel, that which
she did experience was so genuine and
vital that it was something she never
dreamed of simulating; she had no mind
to belong to either of those classes into
which that spokesman of the cynics has
divided society — namely, the "bores and
the bored." She would have voiced the
sentiment of still a third division — those
that refuse to be bored. Her deep ap-
preciation of the meaning of the words
friendship and companionship made her
impatient of precious hours spent with

THE LAMP

369

uncongenial minds. She far preferred
complete loneliness, for was not loneli-
ness after all the portion of every soul,
only lessened somewhat in degree by the
closest companionship? Boredom was,
on the contrary, an unnecessary evil.
One reads among her jottings :
'*It is among the hard tasks life gives
us to learn, that of the fruitlessness of
the hunt we all undertake for the one
who will sympathize with and under-
stand and rightly judge us. It is not
only death which every one of us must
meet alone, but every temptation, every
agony that assails us throughout our
mortal career."
She quotes:

Why should we faint and fear to live alone
Since all alone so Heaven has willed we die
Not e'en the tenderest heart and next our own
Knows half the reason why we smile or sigh.

While possessing an intense desire for
companionship, she did not lose con-
sciousness of its limitations, especially in
relation to her own extremely indepen-
dent nature. This same independence
of spirit probably had much to do with
the fact of her remaining unmarried.

Judging from the testimony of those
who knew Miss Perry in early years,
she had many ardent admirers, none of
whom, however, satisfied her long, or,
perhaps, ever really touched her heart.
She acknowledged that her peculiar mer-
curial temperament had much to do with
her inability to concentrate long on one
particular admirer. She was considered
a good deal of a coquette in her youth,
but she herself denies the accusation,
protesting it was merely that she thought
the lover a hero for a while, but soon
found out that he was not, and then
grew tired of him, which, she adds,
"may be only another way of saying that
the right one was never found."

Although not favored with any spe-
cial beauty of feature, Miss Perry in her
youth possessed undoubtedly many per-

sonal attractions. Her figure was fine,
her complexion marvellous, her eyes a
deep blue, and her golden hair, which
was her particular glory, was long and
wavy and very beautiful.

Perhaps the little characteristic vani-
ties contribute as much as do anything
to the absolute pleasure which life vouch-
safes, and for this reason should rather
be numbered among the blessings than
classified as sins; at all events they are
both near and dear to every heart and
quite inseparable from any realistic like-
ness of an individual. Miss Perry's
hair was her pet vanity; its possession
was a lifelong satisfaction to her, and to
have it admired by others gave her the
keenest pleasure. It appealed to her own
poetical imagination, and throughout her
verse one constantly catches glimpses of
glimmering tresses, preferably golden,
and she seldom misses an opportunity to
introduce into her work this favorite
mark of feminine beauty. As, for ex-
ample :

Tying her bonnet under her chin,
She tied her raven ringlets in ;
Hut not alone in the silken snare
Did she catch her lovely floating hair.
For. tying her bonnet under her chin.
She tied a young man's heart within.

Or again, in "Cressid," which was one
of two poems which she pronounced her
favorites, and of which Whittier thought
ver>^ highly:

Has any one seen my Fair,
Has any one seen my Dear,
Could any one tell me where
And whither she went from here ?

The road is winding and long,
With many a turn and twist.
And one could easy go wrong.
Or ever one thought or list.

How should one know my Fair,
And how should one know my Dear?
By the dazzle of sunlight hair
That smites like a golden spear.

37°

THE LAMP

By the eyes that say"! " Beware,"
By the smile that beckons you near,
This is to know my Fair,
This is to know my Dear.

AFTER THE BALL.
They sat and combed their beautiful hair,
Their long bright tresses, one by one,
As they laughed and talked in the chamber there,
After the revel was done.

Idly they talked of waltz and quadrille ;
Idly they laughed, like other girls,
Who over the fire, when all is still,
Comb out their braids and curls.

Miss Perry was born in Dudley,
Mass., but her childhood and youth were
spent in Providence, R. L, where she
was one of the leading spirits in the
artistic and literary coterie that grouped
itself about the charming Mrs. Whit-
man. Bright and vivacious, and always
clever at repartee, the young writer was
hailed as an acquisition to any gather-
ing. In later years Miss Perry made
her home in Boston, where she drew
about her many warm and appreciative
friends.

At the famous literary receptions of
Mrs. Sargent she was ever conspicuous
for her wit and vivacity and the fearless
expression of her convictions.

She numbered among her intimate
friends Whittier, Wendell Phillips,
George William Curtis, and many other
eminent men who appreciated her unique
personality and her unusual gifts. Her
friendship with Whittier may be par-
ticularly emphasized, for she possessed
his love and confidence to a rare degree,
and the bond of intimacy, which extend-
ed over many years, was a very strong
one. The serious poet thoroughly en-
joyed her sparkling vivacity, which awa-
kened his own lighter vein of thought.
He told her stories, exchanged jests with
her, and delighted in the gay and auda-
cious speeches which she alone among his
friends would have dared venture. It
is doubtful if any of Whittier's friends

were vouchsafed quite the same ingenu-
ous good-comradeship as that bestowed
upon the flippant "Nora," beneath whose
flippancy he discerned the same direct-
ness and sincerity which characterized
his own mental standpoint. She often
appealed to him for advice and good
counsel, bringing him in return the intel-
lectual recreation and relaxation which
he most needed.

One may cite, as an example of his
quiet and helpful suggestions, Miss
Perry's description of a time when she
consulted him regarding a suitable book-
title:

"What shall I name my new book,
Mr. Whittier?"

"What kind of a book is it, Nora?"

"A book of short stories."

"What kind of stories?"

"Love stories, Mr. Whittier."

"Then why does thee not name it *A
Book of Love Stories,' Nora?" Which
title was promptly accepted as the best
which could have been chosen.

With Wendell Phillips also, who was
a warm friend, she enjoyed the same
spontaneity of intercourse, and their
frank good-fellowship was only cement-
ed the more closely by such startling
remarks as, "I hate reformers," which
exclamation only called forth from Phil-
lips's amusing accounts of the many re-
formatory bores which he himself had
encountered. Though not always in
sympathy with Phillips's methods of
thought and action, and not fearing to
express her convictions regarding the
same. Miss Perry nevertheless cherished
a particular admiration for the great
orator, and her feeling and deep affec-
tion for him is embodied in her beautiful
tribute wTitten after his death. This
poem is one of the two previously men-
tioned as the writer's own favorites
among her verses. In referring to them
she once said: "In these two poems are
the two halves, so to speak, of my mind.
'Cressid' being the outcome of pure

THE LAMP

371

fancy, the other of personal feeling and
reflection. I think that in these two I
touch my best and highest mark. Of
the girls' stories I like best 'The Cottage
Neighbors/ the first story in the *Rose-
>ud Garden of Girls.' "

The following extracts are from her
poem on Wendell Phillips:

Born on the heig^hts and in the purple bred
He chose to walk the lowly ways instead,
That he might lift the wretched and defend
The rights of those who languished for a friend.

No hate of persons winged his fiery shaft ;
He had no hatred but for cruel craft
And selfish measurements, where human Might
Bore down upon the immemorial Right.

How at the last this great heart conquered all,
We know who watched above his sacred pall, —
One day a living king he faced a crowd
Of critic foes ; over the dead king bowed
A throng of friends who yesterday were those
Who thought themselves, and whom the world
thought foes.

Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofiord was
among her warm and lifelong friends,
and in various letters, written in later
years. Miss Perry expresses her affection
for that congenial sister-writer.

She writes, in May, 1893, from Lex-
ington, Mass.:

"Where do you suppose I am going?
To Newbury port to see Harriet Pres-
cott Spofford. I was to go to Chicago
first, but my influenza has left me so out
of sorts that Tm going to Mrs. Spofford
to rest before I go anywhere else. We
are old friends, you know, and her de-
sire to have me with her has been like
an elixir to me. I didn't know as there
was anybody left in the world that felt
toward me as she seems to by her letters.
I think we starve mentally as well as
physically, and pleasant and dry and
healthy as Lexington is, I feel like an
exhausted reservoir mentally. It is give,
give, give, with little or nothing in re-
turn, and to be with one of my own
kind, a person who knows how to think

and to read — and how many do? — ^will
be a breath of Heaven — and with all
this, one who is *simpatica,* whose at-
mosphere is yours! Just think of it! I
have been getting fearfully homesick
and with a feeling that I hadn't a friend
in the world when I got Harriet's letter.
I may stay with her — indeed, I intend
to, if the place agrees with me — all sum-
mer and go to Chicago — if I go, but I
don't want to go— in the fall."

A fortnight later she writes from
Newburyport :

"I wish that you would come here to
see us. Mrs. Spofiord would like so
much to have you, and it would be so
good to show you over this enchanting
place, which Mr. and Mrs. Spofford's
united taste has made into an earthly
paradise. Think of it — a step to the
electric-car takes you from a sylvan
solitude of rock and stream and wood
and meadow to the heart of the old city
of Newburyport, and in fifteen or twenty
minutes you can buy anything from an
ulster to a pocket-handkerchief. This
suits me to a T, for I'm a regular cock-
ney and love the town when I'm in the
country."

Miss Perry found little inspiration in
country life, and the contemplation of
nature did not specially appeal to her,
except in its association with human
nature. Nature was with her a means,
but never an end, so entirely was her
interest concentrated upon the human
element.

Probably the one overwhelming grief
of her life was the loss of her mother,
whose support and stay she was up to the
time of her death, and who had called
forth most ardent devotion from the
daughter to whom she had been friend,
sympathizer, audience, and adorer.

One may divine the many hours of
grief and loneliness which express them-
selves in no intense pouring out of sor-
row to friendly ears, but rather condense
themselves into such inadequate, frag-

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THE LAMP

373

mentary words as the following, penned
in her note-book:

"Do you suppose it is a happiness to
have no one to work for, to think for,
to be uneasy about?"

And a vision of what this loss meant
to her is revealed as one glances at the
couplet written below:

They have not loved, who have not known
What meaning lies in those two words, alone
Together llnd alone.

Miss Perry's desire for real values
made her oftentimes extremely impatient
at the so-called conventionalities. In
a letter of protest to her publishers
regarding a novel by a friend, the
conclusion of which had been altered
in order to popularize the book, she
writes:

"All great books have been indepen-
dent of conventionalities." After citing
several popular novels which she claims
were "weakened by conventional cow-
ardice," she continues: "I don't know
but it is well I haven't written a long
novel before. Such examples as I have
seen of weakening upon the conventional
point has suggested something to me,
and now I should have the courage of
my convictions. Earlier, I think I may
have flatted out just like these examples.
OflEer up your prayers, if you please, for
my health that I may have time to write
my novel."

Again she pens her impatience against
conventional standards after describing
an interview with Bernhardt, for whose
art she had a tremendous admiration,
and who was anxious to recite some of
her verses. She exclaims: "Oh, what a
little world the world of women is!
Why, in Heaven's name, can't women
meet women as men meet men? It is
anything but a compliment to character
to treat it like an invalid, that by any
chance contact may take cold."

In a letter dated April, 1886, she ex-
presses her intense sympathy for her

friend, Rose Terry Cooke, who had
struggled to eke out a living with her
pen against such overwhelming odds,
and whose charming stories of New Eng-
land life, though unsurpassed by any
since produced upon the same lines, failed
to awaken the response which was, a few
years later, accorded Mary E. Wilkins
and others.

"Here is Mrs. Cooke's reply to my
letter. It went to my very soul as I read
it. This is the way that real genius is
hampered oftentimes and waits and waits
and hopes against hope, knowing all the
time that, if opportunity were given, it
could produce what the world would
applaud and what would from that mo-
ment make further opportunity and
smoothe the way. I suppose the limited
little souls who are so quick to prate
glibly of 'discipline' would come bab-
bling in with their little chorus here.
. . . There is no glib way of getting at
the inner meaning, the why of all this
hampering and hindering, etc. The only
thing is to endure. That I can under-
stand. Resignation I can't, and gen-
erally resignation is a maudlin sort of
giving up. You see I'm full of fire-
works this morning. Mrs. Cooke's let-
ter was the touch that brought them out
Don't you think I'm right in urging her
to write a novel dealing with the higher
class? We have had so much of — and
all that dialect that it's no new thing,
and there is a vast number of people like
myself who are tired of associating with
such people. I don't quite understand
Mrs. Cooke's experience with 'fraud
and oppression' of publishers. I don't
know, but it seems to me that magazines
and publishers pay for what they want
regardless of sex. Perhaps she's had an
experience with the 'religious' papers.
. . . There are things in (Mrs. Cooke's)
book of poems that are incomparable.
Dialect poems far beyond Bret Harte's,
and those of a higher class. I sha'n't let
Mrs. Cooke drop out of my reach now.

374

THE LAMP

I shall give her a little punch now and
then."

Little helps, little suggestions, little
words of appreciative encouragement!
How many of these were freely bestowed
in a quiet, unostentatious way by one
who made no pretence of giving at all,
and whose note-book bears a cynical
statement regarding "giving to people
according to the recipient's means," a
form of generosity for which she felt a
deep-rooted scorn.

Her reference to her weariness at the
inundation of dialect stories and her
pleasure at all efforts directed toward
the embodiment in the novel of a class
of people one delights to meet were char-
acteristic of her attitude in that direc-
tion. She deplored the over-supply of
the prosaic and commonplace which was
offered under the head of "realism."

She quotes from a description of a
certain German story: "It is as real as
a photograph of a high fence of gray
'matched boards' and as uninteresting."

Also a remark concerning Henry
James :

"He is a master in the school of fic-
tion which tells in three volumes how
Hiram K. Wilding trod on the skirt of
Alice M. Sparkins without anything
coming of it."

She writes:

"It is impossible to predict with any
exactness what the novel of the future
will be, but I think it is safe to say that
the age of exaggerated realism, of mere
photography of external commonplace-
ness, is on the decline, and that a new
and fresher life of idealism is before us."

During the last few years of Miss
Perry's life she spent much of her time
at the quaint old Russell House in the
historic town of Lexington, where she
escaped the harsh east winds which were
too severe for her sensitive organization.
There in her artistic little study, sur-
rounded by her books and pictures, and
enjoying her pleasing outlook through

the trees over a sweeping meadow be-
yond, she finished her latest pieces of
work, never losing her responsiveness or
enthusiasm, despite the poor health
against which she constantly struggled.

In the spring of 1896 she revisited her
birthplace, Dudley, where, after a brief
and sudden illness, she passed away. It
was a curious coincidence that, after
many years, she should have returned to
her old home to die.

To the friends who had loved her, and
would gladly have ministered to her in
her last hours, it was a deep grief that
she should have died alone and almost
unattended in a boarding-house. And
yet her solitary passing seemed somehow
in harmony with her own independent,
self-contained mode of living.

She shrank from dependence upon
others and from the thought that her pen
might fail or the hand which guided it
lose its cunning while she yet lingered
helpless to provide for her own needs as
she had always done.

If at the end no dear friend's hand
ministered to her physical wants, who
shall say that her own brave spirit found
not sufficient inspiration and support in
the realization of such a vision as she
paints in her own poem, entitled "Ne-
cessity" :

Gaunt-faced and hungr)'-eyed she waits,
This sombre warder of our fates,
Forever sleepless while we sleep,
And silent while we moan and weep.

Always she waits with whip and spur
To urge us on if we demur ;
With bitter breath we call her *'foe,"
As driven thus we rise and go.

The roads we follow wind and twist.
Our eyes grow blind with blinding mist.
Blown down to us as we ascend
The upland heip^hts that near the end.

And at the end — '* Where is our foe ?
" Where hideth she ? ** we cry ; and lo I
Through breaking mist, an angel's face
Looks out upon us from her place !

SAMUEL ROGERS.

SAMUEL ROGERS'S " ITAL V AND -POEMS"

By William Lojiing Andrews

A LIFE of "cultured ease and social-
enjoyment extending far beyond
the ordinary span of human existence"
was the earthly portion vouchsafed by a
kind Providence to Samuel Rogers — the
"banker-poet," author of "Italy" and
the "Pleasures of Memory," a lover of
art and literature, and a friend to the
struggling and aspiring poets, writers,
and artists of his day. For half a cen-

tury' — that is, from the year 1 803, when
he retired from active participation in
the affairs of his father's banking-house,
until 1855 — ^Ir. Rogers was "the most
noted entertainer of celebrities in all the
city of London," and made his "classic
little mansion" in St. James Place — so
named by one of our own noted authors*

• Washington Irving.

376

THE LAMP

who had enjoyed its hospitality — the
''centre of all that was most distin-
guished and agreeable" in the society of
the World's Metropolis.

Upon Wordsworth's death, in 1850,
Rogers was oflEered the laureateship,
which he declined, ostensibly on account
of ill-health and advanced age (eighty-
seven years), but it may well be that,
like Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Gray,
he did not covet the dubious honor of
being enrolled in a company which, al-
though it w^as headed by "rare Ben
Jonson," and had Dryden and Tenny-
son* in its ranks, has for the most part
been composed of such poetasters as
Shadwell, Colley Cibber, James Pye,

* Feiinyson accepted ihe laurel declined b)- Rogers.

and Alfred Austin, while Pope, Prior,
Goldsmith, and Cowper were excluded.
Verily, with a few shining exceptions,
mediocrity has marked the poet laureate-
ship of England peculiarly for its own.

In 1856, the year after the poet's
death, his collection of pictures, engrav-
ings, Greek vases, miniatures, and other
objects of art were sold by Christie &
Manson, the London auctioneers of
world-wide reputation. The sale oc-
cupied twenty-one days and realized
£50,000. Some conception of the rich-
ness of the treasures of art with which
Mr. Rogers's house was filled from top
to bottom may be formed by recalling
to mind the fact that the twenty-four
days' sale of the "classic contents" of
Strawberry Hill— collected by Horace

VILLA MADAMA BY TURNER.
The moonlight in 7vhich^ says Ruskin, is the finest of all Turnn^s work.

*^'

MUNT ST. BERNARD.
The landscape by Turner^ the figures by Stothartf^ and the dogs by Landseer.

Walpole (a bare perusal of the cata-
logue of which causes the modern an-
tiquary to lament that he was born so
late in the centuries) — produced only
^33>450. Ah ! those were the collectors'
palmy days, gone never to return, when
works of art of undoubted genuineness
and high quality were procurable, and at
prices not utterly ruinous to all but
multi-millionaires, as is unfortunately
now the case.

With his cultivated taste and abun-
dant means for its gratification, it is not
surprising that Mr. Rogers should have
costumed the children of his brain in
the beautiful robes in which we find
them arrayed. The most expensively
made English eighteenth or nineteenth
century books of octavo size are un-
doubtedly the Cadell editions, Lon-
don, 1830 — 34, of "Rogers's Poems" and

his "Italy," the last, longest, and most
interesting, so say the critics, of his pub-
lished works. Not even that flower of
French eighteenth-century illustrated
books, the "Fermiers generaux" edition
of the Contes de la Fontaine, adorned
with figures by the master designer,
Eisen, and the graceful fleurons of Chof-
fard, could have taxed the purse of its
projectors to any greater extent than did
this charming edition* of the "Poems"
and "Italy" of Samuel Rogers.

The Royal Academicians, J. M. W.
Turner and Thomas Stothard, the fore-

• Claydcn, in his voluminous " Rogers and his Contem-
poraries," states that ihe cost of producing the whole edi-
tion uf ten thousand c«H)ies of the '* Italy,"' including some
separate proofs of the illustrations, was ;C7.335« although
Rogers did not buy the pictuies of Turner and Stothard,
but paid those artists only for the right to engrave their
drawings. The prices paid the engravers, among whom
are such we'l-known names as (loodall. Wallis, Finden,
Robinson and Pye, were from twenty to forty pounds each.

The corresponding edition of the " Poems" cost, accord-
ing to the same authority. ;^7.755, 4s. lod.

378

THE LAMP

most artists of their time, were selected
by the poet to illustrate and animate
his verse. His own assertion that the
illustrations in these volumes require
no praise from him, and that the two
artists who contributed so much to give
value to his poetical effusions would have
done honor to any age or country, will
find an echo in the heart of every lover
of the beautiful in book-making. Truly
has it been said that in these books

as the last blaze of the poetic diction of
the eighteenth century before its final ex-
tinction. "We here see carried to its
extremest pitch the theory of elevating
and refining familiar themes by abstract
treatment and noble imagery, known as
the art of 'raising the subject.' A half-
forgotten fact is elaborately compared to
the search of an impatient mother for a
child lost in the forest. A common or-
gan-grinder becomes *the blithe son of

ILLUSTRATION BY STOTHARD FOR THE " PUKMS."

Rogers associated his name with Tur-
ner's in the most beautifully illustrated
volumes that have ever appeared, and it
is remarkable, writes Turner's biogra-
pher, Thornbury, that "the poet (Rog-
ers) was equally the friend of Stothard
and Flaxman, whom he also wisely sum-
moned to his aid, while the titled and
wealthy of the countr>^ neglected a gold-
en opportunity and lost the honor of
connecting themselves with names that
will probably outlive their own."

Like many another author of equal or
greater contemporar>^ renown, Rogers's
name has been kept in remembrance
principally by the magic touch of the
painter and engraver, for his poetry, the
critics tell us, is no longer read except
by the student. It is rejrarded, say they.

Savoy,' and a tear is described in these
sonorous lines:

** Sweet drop of pure and pearly light I
In thee the rays of virtue shine ;
More calmly clear, more mildly bright.
Than any gem that gilds the mine."

Rogers's poetry was enjoyed and
praised without stint by his contempo-
raries, Lord Byron among the number,
whom one would take to be a competent
judge of the art of poesy, seeing what a
master hand he was at it himself, and
William Howitt cannot sing too loudly
the praises of the "melodious Rogers."
In the "Pleasures of Memory" we are
undoubtedly, as Mr. Howitt points out,
reminded, by a similarity of style and
imagerjs of Goldsmith's "Deserted Vil-

THOMAS STOTHARD.

lage," but the first has passed into the
nimbus of forgotten things, while the
poem which Oliver Goldsmith "looked
into his heart and wrote" is read with as
much or more eagerness and pleasure
now as when it was first printed in 1769.
How wide and impassable is the gulf
fixed between talent of even a very high
order and that indefinable something we
call genius!

Apparently Mr. Rogers regarded
Turner and Stothard as artists of equal
merit; if so, time has shown him to
have been mistaken in his judgment.
The beautiful engraving after Stot-
hard's "Chaucer's Canterbury' Pil-
grims," begun by the Italian Schiavo-
netti and completed by the Englishman

Heath, must always remain an appro-
priate and attractive picture for the
library wall. It is "a thing of beauty"
and "will never pass into nothing-
ness." Its companion, the "Flitch of
Bacon," and "John Gilpin's Ride" will
also long retain their popularity with
print collectors, but, taken by and large,
the soft, dainty and rather monotonous
art of this very prolific painter has al-
ready lost much of its former charm,
and the zeal of the Stothard collector,
which burned so brightly a quarter of a
century ago, has sensibly waned. The
star of Joseph Mallord William Turner,
on the contrary, is still mightily in the
ascendant. His drawings for these two
books of Rogers's are pronounced by

J. M. W. TURNER, FROM A RARE AND CURIOUS PRINT.

Thornbury, the biographer of the great
and eccentric painter, to be the most
charming work he did for the engravers ;
Ruskin declares the moonh'ght in the
"Villa Madama" in Rogers's "Italy"
the finest in all Turner's work, and
Rogers's biographer, Clayden, does not
hesitate to say that there can be little
doubt that the illustrations to Rogers's
"Italy" and Rogers's "Poems" first made
Turner know^n to a vast multitude of
the English people. They are, there-
fore, although not of equal importance,
as essential to the completeness of a
Turner collection as the "Liber Studio-
rium" or the "Rivers of France and
England."

In the "Poems" the plates are all

signed by both Turner and Stothard.
In the "Italy" none are signed, but they
are, of course, readily distinguishable.

The "Poems" contains thirty-three
drawings by Turner, the "Italy" twenty-
five. The plate of the "Mont St. Ber-
nard" in the latter is particularly inter-
esting as the joint composition of three
renowned English artists, for the ^'land-
skip" is by Turner, the figures by Stot-
hard, and the dogs by E. Landseer..

The first of Turner's pictures to come
to this country was the oil-painting
"StaflEa, Fingal's Cave," now in the pict-
ure gallery of the Lenox Library, a
pendant to another Turner, "A Scene
on the French Coast, with an English
Ship-of-War stranded," bought at

THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS — THOMAS STOTHARD.

Christie's, London, in 1850. Sir Joshua
Reynolds's beautiful "Mrs. Billington
as Saint Cecilia" hangs between them,
and the three form a group of paintings
worth going miles to see. The "Staffa '
was bought from the artist by Mr. Les-
lie for Mr. Lenox in 1845 for £500,
about one-twentieth of its present value.
In 1 85 1 the price of a Turner water-
color was about 120 guineas. Two have
recently been sold in this country for, it
is reported, $10,000 each, but it is fair
to add that they were exceptionally
beautiful and important examples, and

consequently these high prices exagger-
ate a little the great advance in the
value of the products of Turner's brush
that the last half century has witnessed.
It was fortunate for all lovers of
finely illustrated books that an artist
such as Turner crossed the path of a
man of taste and feeling, wealth and
culture, who was also an author and a
virtuoso. The same conjunction of cir-
cumstances must occur again before we
can expect to see a book produced that
can compare in beauty with the Cadell
edition of Rogers's "Poems" and "Italy."

THE APPRECIATION OF GREAT DRAMA

" ]\ /T O^E^N society," says the
IVi Academy and Literature, "does
not love great drama of any kind. Why
are the great Greek dramas never staged
to-day? Why is Moliere never inter-
preted on the English stage by English
actors? Why is Calderon an unknown
name to a European audience? Why is
Shakespeare represented by perhaps three
or four plays at irregular intervals an-
nually in London? Why are the other
Elizabethan dramatists a dead letter to
actors? Simply for the same reason that
Tolstoy's *The Power of Darkness'
will not be acted in our day, in Eng-
land, or if acted, will be burlesqued.

And that reason is not that Sophocles,
Euripides, Moliere, Calderon, Shake-
speare, Ben Jonson, Ibsen, Ostravsky, or
Tolstoy are not worthy of our modern
audiences, but that a modern audience is
not cultured enough, is too fettered and
local in its aesthetic sympathies, to ap-
preciate great drama.

"The truth is no doubt disconcerting,
but why plaster it up with fallacious ex-
cuses? Great drama presupposes in the
spirit of its audience something that has
a certain fineness or loftiness to which it
can appeal. And so our mixed audi-
ences of to-day get the drama they de-
serve."

THE CHANCES FOR AMERICANS IN ENGLISH

JOURNALISM

By J. M. Bulloch

London, May, 1903.

WE have been wanderers to the
ends of the earth, and (prob-
ably from a certain Viking origin)
adventurers on many seas; but no geo-
graphical discovery has given English-
men so much contemporary interest as
the discovery by the United States
toward the beginning of the twentieth
century that there is a little island called
England. In brief, the American in-
vasion has roused the attention of all
classes of English people by reason of its
ubiquitousness. American boot shops
spring into being in the principal streets
of the capital. American machinery'
catches your eye as you board the passing
car. Belles of New York and comedians
from the Far West, have monopolized
the attention of all play-goers. Ameri-
can novels with prodigious circulation
are offered by all our publishers; and
men talk and men wonder what new
Argosy is to cross the leagues of the
Atlantic.

It would be strange indeed if so char-
acteristic a product of the United States
as the daily newspaper did not take
some part in the invasion, for of all
modern institutions it seems, at first
sight, most capable of development. As
a matter of fact, however, there are
many reasons against the transplantation
of a newspaper or its methods. Although
we know very well that a newspaper is
ultimately as much a private product as
a boot shop or a bacon establishment, it
assumes, from the very nature of its art,
the adventitious and the fictitious ap-
pearance of a public institution, and it is

for that reason I think that a people arc
less ready to give as much support to a
foreign newspaper, however clever it
may be, as they are to any other class of
goods made in a foreign country.

The point which I have underlined,
and which was very strikingly illustrated
a few years ago by the failure of the
New York Herald to find a home in
London, is of particular interest at this
moment, because I note a disposition
among some journalists in America to
regard the English newspaper as a great
gold mine. I think I shall clear the way
by explaining some of the inherent dif-
ferences between our English journals
and those of America, for in that will
be found an answer to some aspects of
the question as to whether England is as
fine a field for the American journalist
and the American magazine writer as it
is for the American's electric plant, his
agricultural implements, or his other in-
genuities of ordinary commerce.

I take it that the essential difference be-
tween English and American journalism
is this — that with us the Fourth Estate
is an afterthought ; with you it is almost
coincident with your life as a country.
England had settled down to a great
many institutions before journalism was
dreamt of, and being (from our geo-
graphical position) a slow-moving peo-
ple, we have fashioned journalism to our
national mode rather than allowed it to
affect that mode. Our newspapers,
then, until lately have been reporters of
the ascertained fact and not investiga-
tors on their own behalf, and I do not
think, much as we are forced to admit
the possible obliteration of the Atlantic,

THE LAMP

383

that we are going to change to any
great extent. In the first place, the
word "story," as -applied to a newspaper
report, is quite unknown in this country,
except as introduced by American jour-
nalists themselves, and rightly so, for our
news is mainly a matter-of-fact report of
some incident that has been unfolded at
other sources — in Parliament, in the Law
Courts, and so on.

The result is evidenced in a great va-
riety of ways. For instance, an enor-
mous mass of news which the American
journal can print can never hope to ap-
pear in England, first, on account of the
law of libel, and secondly, because the
people do not want to read it ; for I take
it that the public is the ultimate decider.
A case in point occurs to me. A beauti-
ful American actress, who made a great
hit in this country', was once biographed
at great length in a New York news-
paper as being the daughter of a saloon-
keeper in the Bowery. I have read in
other journals of her native town all
about her emotional history, including
two alliances. It was interesting, and yet
none of these items has ever appeared, so
far as I know, even in the cheapest Lon-
don journal, simply because there is a
feeling that such items, while possibly
true, are not quite fair to the lady and
have nothing to do whatever with her
artistic career. No London paper, then,
would have use for the services of a
writer who could give us a "story" of
such a character. Another notable in-
stance is to be found in the news that
could emanate from our Civil Service in
any of its branches. Where you have
got a permanent State Service the indi-
vidual servant is absolutely independent
of the good-will of any political part}' or
its newspaper echo, and no amount of
threatening or pestering will make an
official disclose the secrets of his office if
he is disinclined to do so ; and even if he
did very few newspapers would print the
story thus procured. This was seen over

and over again in the case of the recent
war, where I should say three-fourths of
the scandals that were the common prop-
erty of Fleet Street never found their
way into print at all. I am not here de-
fending this system. I am merely point-
ing out its existence as the inevitable part
of an old civilization, and as indicating
that the American journalist will have
but small scope for his ingenuity in this
direction.

There is, however, a tendency of
change in our journals, as unmistakable
as it is mischievous, and that is the grow-
ing habit of opinionating news, particu-
larly that which comes from a distance
where it is difficult for the reader to test
its veracity. This process has risen al-
most concurrently with the decay of the
influence of the old-fashioned "leader."
Instead of an expert in the editorial
office sitting down calmly to write a
criticism of the reports before him, tlicsc
reports show a tendency' to be colored i>^
a special policy which the paper pursues.
I do not suggest deliberate cooking, but
journals, very humanly, are prepared to
omit certain facts that damage their
cause. The general result will be that
newspapers will lose much of their old
leadership and will become only an echo
of the passing hour. By way of post-
script I think that, when the history of the
tendency of our daily journalism comes
to be written, it will be seen that the cor-
rupting influence of Richard Pigott did
much more than affect the journal which
was primarily involved. It set in mo-
tion a suspicion of the "press" in general,
which has been increasing steadily ever
since.

As a proof of the absolute unmarket-
ableness of certain aspects of exclusive
information I cannot do better than cite
the case of the news of the late Queen's
illness. For many weeks before the final
illness, reports had appeared in at least
one New York journal more plainly stat-
ing that the end was not far off. These

384

THE LAMP

facts, if from no other source than this
American one, were well known in Fleet
Street, and yet, with the exception of one
radical organ, which appeals to the work-
ing-classes and which appears on Sun-
days, not a single newspaper hinted that
anything was wrong with her Majesty,
and no amount of exclusive information
on the point would have been worth a
cent to the journalist in possession of it.
I do not attribute this to any particular
high-mindedness on th£ part of our news-
paper conductors (for as business men
they are the puppets of the law of com-
petition). I cite the fact only to show
one of the very curious conditions gov-
erning the news-getter.

It follows from what I have said thai
the enormous mass of the work in Eng-
lish daily newspapers, even allowing that
their pace has been somewhat quickened,
is still done by laborious and safe hacks,
who have very little use for individual-
ism. A change, it is true, has come over
one or two London newspapers, notably
the Daily Mail, although it is noticeable
that even here there is a tendency to
fall back into thoroughly English tradi-
tions. The Daily Mail, however, has
seen clearly that the real development of
journalism for the great morning paper
h'es almost entirely in the thinking out
for itself every day a large portion of its
contents. We are coming to see — as the
American saw long ago — that the busi-
ness of a newspaper is to give news, and
not merely to devote itself to that small
section of it which deals with either do-
mestic or international professional
politics. It has been the habit in Eng-
land, almost without exception, to choose
for an editor of a newspaper a gentleman
who is an expert on politics (chiefly do-
mestic), and whose function it has been
to write a commentary, in the shape of a
leading article, on the political situation.
This gentleman in many cases has had
no knowledge whatever of newspaper
business, of how news is got, and still less

how news ought to be manipulated and
displayed. All that aspect of a news-
paper — and it occupies ninety-nine of the
one hundred parts of a journal — has been
relegated to subordinates who have had
no guiding spirit to insure unity of pur-
pose or any sense of proportion. The
consequence has been that most of the
older London newspapers edit themselves
day by day. They have excellent repre-
sentatives in different parts of the world,
whose matter comes in automatically, and
beyond being punctuated and scanned in
Fleet Street for libel or the like, it goes
in just as it comes. Mr. Harmsworth,
with his eye across the ocean, saw very
clearly that this system is inherently
wrong, for under it one paper practically
duplicates its neighbor, scoring off it per-
haps at times by getting its news a little
in advance. The special correspondent
for big occasions is, of course, no
stranger, but it was left for Mr. Harms-
worth in this country to start a scheme
for a morning paper by w^hich he re-
moved the news-getter from the position
of the automatic hack, and elevated one
master brain to think out more or less
definitely ever>' day what type of news
the paper was to deal with for the next
issue.

Now what place has an American in
the scheme which I have pictured ? Tak-
ing ever>'thing into consideration and ex-
cluding the special correspondent, I vent-
ure to think that in the particular ap-
plication of his art to which he has been
accustomed at home there is at present a
limited field for the American, especially
on the actual inside staff of any of our
newspapers. It would be a mistake, I
think, for an American journalist to
pounce on London with the idea that it
was waiting with open arms for him.
Where the American does score un-
doubtedly is in his general quickness, his
idea of a good market, his adaptabilit>%
and in his capacity for work. Indeed the
inherent demands of journalism seem to

THE LAMP

385

fit in with the capacity of the American
better than most businesses. But be-
yond a proprietor's appreciation of a
quick man, I think it is a mistake to sup-
pose that there is a special market for
Americans, qua Americans, in London,
although it is an undoubted fact that the
experience of an English journalist who
has been in America stands him in good
stead. The day will probably come
when we shall move quicker and some-
what on more American lines than at
present, but by that time the English
journalist himself will probably be as
prepared to make the pace as his fellow-
artist from the States.

Very much the same considerations
apply to magazine journalism, which has
of recent years opened a wide field. The
lion in the path of the English magazine
is unquestionably the post-office. In the
first place we have less than half your
population; and in the second place we
cannot mail our magazines as news-
papers. They are carried at book-post
rates, and that increases the cost so much
that the circulations and prices are cor-
respondingly affected.

Finally I do not think that prices to
the journalist rule so high with us as in
America. As a matter of fact, for the
reasons which I have suggested, the jour-
nalist qua journalist does not rank so
highly in any way as with you. Our
civil service for instance is blocked to
him, and even when he has got a good
official position it has nearly always been
on some other basis, such, for example, as
being a member of the bar. And yet
despite the lesser remuneration, I note a
keen desire among American journalists,
even when only passing through London,
to get an article into a London news-
paper or magazine: why, I cannot pre-
cisely say. One can understand the de-
sire to be on the staff of a journal here,
for there is probably greater security of
tenure.

Taking all in all, then, I think that the
view of London as a Golconda for the
American journalist is somewhat of a
mistake, but it is also certain that our
journalism as a whole, while retaining
many of our national characteristics, is
being affected by the methods of the
States.

THE PINE TREE

By Richard Burton

From *' Message and Melody," by p)ermission of the Lothrop Publishing Co.

The sombre pine is a Norseman grave.

Brooding some saga old,
Calmly chanting a solemn stave,

Scorning the winter's cold.
There's a Norland soul in this ancient tree.

And he ne'er forgets his ancestr}\

NEW LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE
WELSH CARLYLE

By Carolyn Shipman

THE publication of these new let-
ters of Mrs. Carlyle is one of the
most important literary events of many
a year, not only because of their intrinsic
interest, but because, as edited by Alex-
ander Carlyle, they throw the proper
light upon the relations of Carlyle and
his wife in revealing the indiscretions
and distorted judgments of Froude. For
the first time since Carlyle's death, the
documentary evidence is presented as it
stands in the originals, ungarbled by the
editor's particular point of view. The
pity is that the entire mass of correspond-
ence cannot be re-edited by the present
able editor, assisted by his wife, who
was Miss Mary Aitken, Carlyle's niece,
and who lived with him until his death.
The choice of Sir James Crichton-
Browne to prepare the Introduction to
the two volumes, was a sheer stroke of
genius. All her life long, Mrs. Carlyle
was neurotic, and only a neurologist can
properly estimate the condition of a
woman "hereditarily disposed to nervous
disease," whose mother is said to have
been in fifteen different humors during
one evening, and whose husband was a
dyspeptic and a hypochondriac. In a
masterly essay, Sir James Crichton-
Browne presents the entire situation in
the light of modern science, and puts his
finger on the vital point when he says
that Mrs. Carlyle's attitude toward life
and her actions were the result of her
state of health; that she showed patho-
logical tendencies w^hen she was still a
girl ; that before her marriage the head-

Nrw Letters and Mkmoriais ok Ja^'k Wel«h
Caklylit. Annotated by Thomas Carlyle and edited by
Alexander Carlyle, with an Introduction by Sir James
Crichion- Browne, M.D., LL.D.. F.R.S., with sixteen illus-
trations. In two volumes. John I.ane, 8vo, $6.

aches of which she constantly complains
in her letters, had become confirmed;
and that during a period of ten years,
from 1846, when she was forty-five years
old, to 1856, she was at times the vic-
tim of cerebral neurasthenia, technically
called in its psychical aspect, climacteric
melancholia. Three years before her
death in 1866, an attack of violent neu-
ralgia incapacitated her left hand and
arm, two years later her right side was
affected and the muscles of her jaw par-
tially paralyzed. Her mental depression
was so great that she feared insanity and
contemplated suicide. These physical
and mental conditions must be clearly
understood if a just estimate of her let-
ters is to be formed.

Sir James Crichton-Browne believes
that part of her unhappiness was the
result of her childlessness. There was
a void in her existence, he says, and she
lavished her affection on horses, dogs,
cats, canaries, hedgehogs, and even a
leech. "An infant crying in the night"
at Cheyne Row, he further adds, would
not have been "cheap," might have vexed
Carlyle's soul worse than his neighbor's
cocks and hens, and would not have been
so easily got rid of; but it would, in all
likelihood, have brought peace and con-
tentment to the household, paradoxical
as such a statement may sound.

There is probably much ground for
such a theory. It may also be said, how-
ever, that, although the Carlyles* do-
mestic life was, on the whole, far from
unhappy, and although the>' were men-
tally most congenial, temperamentally
they were as ill-matched a pair as one
could well find. Both nervous and high-
strung, neither found in the other the

Strong vitality necessary to well-being,
the buoyancy of spirit which comes from
splendid physical vigor. Two passages
in Mrs. Carlyle's Journal show her rec-
ognition of this lack. She writes on
April 20, 1856: "This weakness is in-
comprehensible; if I had any person or
thing to take hold of and lean my weight
on." And again, on April 25 : —

"While talking philosophy with Mr.
Barlow to-day, there drove up a car-
riage, and I heard a voice enquiring if I
were at home, which I knew tho' I had
not heard it for ten years! — Mr. Bar-
low I can see is trying to 'make Mrs.
Carlyle out' (don't he wish he may get

it?). What he witnessed to-day must
have thrown all his previous observations
into the wildest confusion. *The fact
of her being descended from Knox had
explained much in Mrs. Carlyle he (Mr.
Barlow) hadn't (he said to Geraldine)
been able to make out.' Did it explain
for him my sudden change to-day, when
flinging my accustomed indifference and
*the three thousand punctualities' to the
winds, I sprang into the arms of George
Rennie, [one of her early lovers] and
kissed him a great many times. Oh,
what a happy meeting! For he was as
glad to see me as I was to see him. Oh,
it has done me so much good this meet-

388

THE LAMP

ing! My bright, whole hearted, impul-
sive youth seemed conjured back by his
hearty embrace. For certain, my late
deadly weakness was conjured away! A
spell on my nerves it had been, which
dissolved in the unwonted feeling of
gladness. I am a different woman this
evening. I am well ! I am in an atmos-
phere of home and long ago! . . .
Dear me ! I shouldn't wonder if I were
too excited to sleep, however.

"26 April. — ^All right! I slept all the
better for my little bit of happiness ; and
I really am strengthened body and soul.
I have walked more to-day than any day
these two months."

Hers was a mercurial temperament
which needed the tonic of a strong vital-
ity, and this Carlyle had not. "Last
week I was all for dying; this week, all
for Ball dresses," she writes later. A
man of physical buoyancy would have
made the Ball-dress humor predominate
in her life, for she was by nature spark-
ling, vivacious, and responsive.

Sir James Crich ton-Browne's Intro-
duction, although judicial in tone, is a
glowing tribute to the noble characteris-
tics of Carlyle. Instead of being the
selfish, unloving man whom Froude
pictures, he was, on the contrary, unable
to recall any specific act of unkindness to
his wife more serious than his refusal one
day to alight from the brougham, and go
into Madame Elise's shop to shake hands
with the dressmaker. Having just fin-
ished his thirteen years' task on "Fred-
erick the Great," he was nervously ex-
hausted and wearied of hand-shaking
with tuft-hunters; yet even under these
conditions, he wrote of that little inci-
dent, "Oh, cruel, cruel ! . . . I have
thought of that Elise cruelty more than
once."

Our essayist attributes much of
Froude 's suppressio veri and suggestio
falsi to his lack of humor. He exag-
gerated the Carlyles' little asperities and

their repartee into real dissensions aris-
ing from fundamental unhappiness.
Hence the result of his "disordered im-
agination." Moreover, Froude miscon-
strues Carlyle's use of the word "re-
morse," which with him was peculiar,
and connoted not "black immensity,"
but "gnawing sorrow and sometimes
merely chagrin." When interrupted in
his work, "with remorse" he put it away ;
so that when her journals and letters
revealed what had been the true state of
his wife's mind, his "remorse" was mere-
ly deep sorrow that he did not realize it
at the time. His wife knew that he was
self-accusatory, and tried to laugh him
out of this trait. "He remains under
applause that would turn the head of
most lecturers, haunted by the pale
ghost of last day's lecture, 'shaking its
gor>' locks at him,' " she writes, "till
next day's arrives to take its place
and torment him in its turn. Very
absurd."

Our essayist complains that like the
letters published in 1883, these are over-
loaded with domestic details about
spring-cleanings and other housewiferies,
trivial incidents of travel, intricate itin-
erary arrangements and complaints of
postal irregularities, and that because of
the sick-room atmosphere pervading
them, they are possibly too bulletinish for
the general taste. To my mind, it is
just this attention to details described in
a spontaneous, conversational style, that
gives the letters their chiefest charm. It
lends picturesqueness to the narrative.
How graphic is the following episode,
for example, when Kitty Kirkpatrick
(who believed herself to be the proto-
type of Blumine) called during house-
cleaning time with two fine ladies.

"She told me that two friends of hers,
a Mrs. Hermitage and a Mrs. Daniel
('Wife of the great East India mer-
chant') were dying to know me ( ?) :
they had seen, I think she said, some of

■4LAi;*r^i

CKAKiENPrTTOCK.

my Letters! (ach Gottf) and had heard
of me from so many people, and lastly
from our Rector, Mr. Kingsley (wolf in
sheep's clothing that I am ! ) that I was
'quite an angel.* And of course the
thing to be done with an angel was to
ask her to a seven o'clock dinner at Ful-
ham, — ^where Kitty was staying with
Mrs. Daniel, — and for this day. Im-
possible, I said ; too late, too far, and you

absent, etc., etc. 'But,' said Kitty, 'what
can I say to them? They will take no
refusal and I promised they should make
your acquaintance — in fact, they are now
in the carriage at the door!' A shudder
ran through my veins : the fine ladies, the
dismantled house, the wet paint; good
heavens, what should I do? A sudden
thought struck me; my courage rose
superior to the horrors of my situation:

390

THE LAMP

'Well/ I said, 'I will go if you wish it
and make their acquaintance, in the car-
riagef *Oh, how obliging of you! If
you would be so good!*

"I jumped up instantly, lest my en-
thusiasm of desperation should evapo-
rate, walked along the passage under the
fire of all the enemies' eyes ; peremptorily
signalled to a blue-and-silver footman to
let down the steps, and, to the astonish-
ment of the four fine ladies inside, and
my own, mounted into their coach and
told them here I was, to be made ac-
quaintance with in such manner as the
sad circumstances would admit of ! , . .
I should not know any of these women
again; I saw nothing but a profusion of
blond and flowers and feathers. . . .
Mercifully (as it happened) I had
dressed myself just half an hour before,
and rather elegantly, from a feeling of
reaction against the untidy state in which
I had been Cinderella-ing all the day;
it was, as Grace McDonald [their first
Craigenputtock servant] said, when she
broke her arm and did not break the
glass of her watch, 'There has been some
mercy shown, for a wonder.' "

It is true that Mrs. Carlyle merely
touches on many important events of
public interest, as when she writes to
Dr. Carlyle, "Meantime the Duke of
Wellington is dead. I shall not meet
him at Balls any more, nor kiss his shoul-
der, poor old man." But by her power
of characterization, she gives a vivid
picture of the literary world of her day
as she knew it, which is of more historical
value than discussions of events with
which she did not come into direct con-
tact. Carlyle called them "the cleverest
letters ever written," — graceful, sport-
ive, witty. Mrs. Montagu once said to
her, "Jane, ever>^body is born with a vo-
cation, and yours is to write little notes."

Mr. Alexander Carlyle finds the ex-
cuse for Mrs. Carlyle's "occasional fits
of pettishness and spleen against Lady

Harriet Baring" not in jealousy of Car-
lyle's admiration for her, but in envy of
the brilliant conversational powers of
"out of sight the cleverest woman she
had ever met in her life." He goes on
to say that Mrs. Carlyle's ruling passion
throughout life was to be thought clever^
that she was spoiled from the time she
left boarding-school, that Carlyle had
helped to complete the process by his
"little well-timed flatteries," and that
she was pained to observe in any woman
a brilliancy superior to her own.

There is no doubt that Mrs. Carlyle
cared most for the intellectual side of
life, but her letters give no evidence, as
far as I have been able to see, that she
was unduly anxious to impress or fas-
cinate by her conversation, or that her
ruling passion was to be thought
clever. She had a proper knowledge of
her ability, but I doubt if she ever had a
"ruling passion." She felt keenly her
own physical shortcomings, for she wrote
at one time, "If I have to lead another
life in any of the planets, I shall take
precious good care not to hang myself
round any man's neck, either as a locket
or a millstone!" and again, "I am not
fit for living in the world with this or-
ganization"; and she often wondered
how Carlyle could persistently love any-
one so out of harmony with the world
as she was at times. It is more than
possible that she envied Lady Harriet's
physical vigor w^hich gave her the poise
that Carlyle so much admired. A letter
written to Dr. Carlyle would seem to
bear out the idea that the desire to be
clever was not uppermost in her mind.

"What on earth puts it in people's
heads to call me formidable? There is
not a creature alive that is more unwill-
ing to hurt the feelings of others, and I
grow more compatible every year that I
live. I can't count the people who have
said to me first and last, *I was so afraid
of you! I had been told you were so

MISS JANE WELSH
From the miniature, by K. Macleay, R.S.A.

sarcastic!* And really I am perfectly
unconscious of dealing in that sort of
thing at all."

The sixteen illustrations in the vol-
umes include four of Mrs. Carlyle, one
of them in color, one of Carlyle, also
in color, portraits of Lord and Lady
Ashburton, Dr. and Mrs. Welsh, and
Kitty Kirkpatrick, and views of Temp-
land, Haddington, Comley Bank, Edin-
burgh, Craigenputtock and Cheyne Row.
The process employed for reproduction
is, in several instances, lithography, quite

satisfactory except in the miniature of
Mrs. Carlyle by Macleay, painted just
before her marriage. There is a heavi-
ness about the lines which is entirely
lacking in the beautifully executed etch-
ing from the same original which was
published in the "Letters and Memo-
rials" of 1883.

The volumes are an excellent speci-
men of book-making, light in weight in
spite of their bulkiness, with good paper
and clear print, — a fitting memorial to
the writer of some of the most charming
hitters in the English language.

PAUL DU CHAILLU'S LAST LETTERS FROiM

RUSSIA

RECENT letters from the late Paul
Du Chaillu to his publishers are
full of the characteristic enthusiasm that
marked all his undertakings. He was as
keenly interested in his project of produc-
ing an important work on Russia, based
on prolonged and intimate study of the
people, as he had formerly been in the
somewhat similar enterprise which re-
sulted in "The Land of the Midnight
Sun." Advancing years had no whit
dulled the vivacity and alertness, the zest
and industry, of his prime. In fact it
may quite exactly be said that his prime
remained as perennial as it had been
precocious. He had drunk of the foun-
tain of youth, and as he was a famous
explorer when but a boy, he stayed a
boy even after he had reached the period
when the young in heart sometimes be-
come sensitive about their age. This
enthusiasm of his was singularly con-
tagious. If it was sometimes a little dif-
ficult to share his feeling that the thing
he was immediately concerned in was the
most interesting thing in the world at
that moment, his exuberance was none
the less exhilarating, because it was so
genuine, so sound, essentially, and so full
of kindliness and fraternal feeling. His
unusual good sense formed with even his
liveliest enthusiasms an unusual and un-
usually attractive combination that
made him friends ever>^where and of all
kinds of people. He will be much
missed by a wonderfully varied circle,
and nowhere more than in these offices
into which he came almost daily when in
town and where, as elsewhere, he at-
tached everj'one to him.

The following extremely characteris-
tic extracts from the letters just referred
to show what high expectations his
death has suddenly brought low.

"You have no idea how hard I have
worked since my arrival in Russia. I
found in a short time that it was impos-
sible for me to write such a work on
Russia as I intend to do without speak-
ing Russian. I know from experience
that nothing can be accomplished with-
out energy, tenacity of purpose, and pa-
tience. So I have gone to work with a
will — ^many a time during the long win-
ter nights have studied more than twelve
hours a day — seldom less than seven
hours. Of course I did not feel like
writing letters afterward — but I gave
myself the satisfaction of thinking of my
dear friends.

"Perseverance has had its reward. I
have made good progress in Russian. I
have not, either, lost my time otherwise.
I have been studying the Russian people
— I like them very much. One of their
characteristics is that of exceeding kind-
ness. I think that when the time comes
I shall be able to give you an exceedingly
interesting social account, etc., etc., of
St. Petersburg alone. Yes, I hope that
I will put in your hands for publication
an interesting manuscript upon Russia
— full of illustration. I shall go back
once to America and then return here be-
fore I have finished my travels through
this enormous empire — perhaps t\^-ice,
and then put part of the manuscript in
your hands. . .

"Some days ago I wrote you a letter
telling you that I had asked to see the
Emperor. Mr. John Wallace Riddle,
cur Charge d'Affaires, asked an audi-
ence for me, and the audience was
granted, in the following words on a
large Card of Invitation, upon which
was written:

" *Le Grand Maitre des Ceremonies a

THE LATE PAUL DU CHAILLU.

394

THE LAMP

rhonneur d*informer Mr. John Wal-
lace Riddle, Charge d'AflPaires des Etats
Unis d'Amerique, que M. Paul Du
Chaillu aura Thonneur d'etre presente a
Sa Majeste TEmpereur Mercredi le 19
Juin (our 2d of July) a midi, au Palais
de Peterhof.

" 'Depart du train pour Peterhof a
I oh. du matin, train de retour a i heure
49 minutes.

"*i6 Juin (Russian) 1902.*

"When I arrived at the station an im-
perial carriage was waiting for me
which took me to the palace. In due
time I found myself before the most
powerful man in the world. Words
fail me to describe just now my impres-
sions. I was received in the most
friendly manner. Seldom have I met in
my life a kinder face — I ought to say I
never met a kinder face, or sweeter or
gentler manners, so simple. In an in-
stant, thanks to his wonderful magnet-

ism, I found myself at home. I felt I
could talk to his Majesty as if I were
talking to a friend. I forgot that I was
before the ruler of the largest and most
powerful Empire of the earth. I was
filled at the same time with admiration
and a feeling of indescribable enthusi-
asm, of love for the man. I told his
Majesty what I wanted to do — that I
came to study the good side of Russia.
Then the conversation drifted to other
subjects, and I finished by saying, 'I
came to ask your Majesty leave to travel
under your high protection.' 'Cer-
tainly,' he replied, with a kindness of
voice that I will never forget. To travel
under the high protection of the Tz^ir
means a great deal in Russia. As I lef t^
I turned toward the Emperor and said,
'May I feel that I shall travel under
your high protection?' *Yes,' he an-
swered, adding, 'In the meantime, every
time you come to St. Petersburg come ta
see me.' "

LETTERS AND LIFE
By John Finley

THE metaphor which I set forth
last month, under the legend "Life
is a Lamp," has elicited several interest-
ing and suggestive comments. One of
these comes from a well-known scholar
and author who has written extensively
upon Oriental subjects. And what he
says makes it clear that the ancients have
anticipated me in this metaphor (as, ac-
cording to tradition, President McCosh
used to say of Aristotle or some other
philosopher who had announced a the-
ory or conclusion at which he had him-
self, centuries later, arrived).

My metaphor visualized man as a
bowl of clay carrying a flame that was
fed of the past. How accurately and
fully I have been anticipated, the ety-
mology of the Japanese word for "man"
reveals. I am informed that it is com-
pounded of the two words hi, a light or
fire, and to, a bearer. So man is a light-
bearer and by synecdoche his life is a.
lamp.

The same scholar writes that the tall
sculptured stone lanterns standing be-
fore the Japanese temples bear an in-
scription which speaks their design and
their duty: "To give cheerful light dur-
ing the long, dark night." We of the
utilitarian West, we who toil and spin,
who sail our "black ships" against the
winds, and uproot the forests in our way
— we picture life as a loom weaving its
variant fabrics, as a vessel bound to un-
known port, as another writing upon the
palimpsest which weVe made of the bark
of these trees. But is there not room
for this figure which is more reverent
of the Source, more worshipful of what
is above, and more thoughtful of those
about? For the savage it is the flam-

beau (such as I not long ago saw a Carib
making, sitting speechless in his shack
on a Porto Rican mountain-side with his
naked bronze children about him) ; for
some pure life it is, as the Buddhists
have it, a candle — "a candle in the
wind" — and for others, a plain, ordinary,
useful, but patient, unselfish lamp.

I cannot leave this, to me attractive,
figure without calling the reader's at-
tention to the Tartars' custom of kin-
dling the fire. In Dr. Holden's story of
the Mogul Emperors, which was pub-
lished several years ago, and which the
recent durbar at Delhi brings within the
field of immediate interest again, it is re-
lated that once a year at a certain time
the lights and the fires were all extin-
guished, that new fire was then brought
down from heaven by a crystal lens, and
that from this new-caught fire not only
all the altars but all the hearths were
lighted afresh.

But I have recently come upon an-
other definition of life which here has a
special pertinences* not a definition by
metaphor, however, but by measurement
of values. Poured from the Latin, in
which I found it, into the mould of
English words, it reads: "Life without
letters is death" — an equation, it will
be observed, of two unknown quantities,
the value of neither of which can be
determined without help of some other
equation not yet revealed. All that this
proposition, so pertinent to the subject
under which I am writing, states, is that
life is not life without letters or, to put
it in another way, that the difference be-
tween life and death is "letters," that is,

* The Mogul Emp«rors of Hindustan. Kdward F.
Hulden. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895.

396

THE LAMP

letters in the broadest sense, human in-
tercourse, whether written or spoken,
painted, sung, or printed.

If we transpose the terms of this
equation, we get : life = death + let-
ters; a proposition demonstrable to this
extent, that letters (even in the straiter
sense) do give immortality to many
thinkers who would otherwise have died,
and do often restore the dead readers,
so far as human interest is concerned,
to life again, just as the Moabite of old
was revived when his dead body but
touched the bones of the prophet into
whose sepulchre he was thrust when his
companions were fleeing from the en-
emy. A potent book is like these bones.
And it is conceivable that its virtue is as
indestructible as matter in which it has
been incorporated, that it is imperishable
even if it is not immutable. Some essay-
ist has said, indeed, that "the only in-
vincible thing is a good book."

I cannot forbear mentioning a pict-
uresque incident which brings some sup-
port both to my borrowed proposition and
to the corollary of the essayist who adds
that "if a man were to write a good
sonnet and drop it in the middle of the
Sahara, the fate that has watched over
good poetry through so many centuries
would catch it up and carry it somehow
into common repute." The incident is
the recovery, five or more years ago, from
a tomb in Luxor, Egypt, of a parchment
containing twenty or more poems by
Bacchylides, a contemporary of Pindar
and Simonides. When the royal occu-
pant of the Luxor tomb was laid there,
his friends, unwilling that he should
spend his eternity without some compan-
ionship of the letters he loved in the
body, entombed with him this Greek
poet, who should sing to him his verses
and make his death as life. And there
the archaeologists found them, the mum-
my and with him the poet, whose verses
had been dropped on the verge of the
Sahara to be found again after many cen-

turies. We do not know if the Luxor
prince heard his songs, but we have this
intimation from those of the far past
that to them even immortal life were
not complete without the letters they
learned here. And there is the testimony
of one nearer our own day, of Thoreau,
into whose biography by Channing* I
have been dipping occasionally in the
last few weeks: "No man is rich enough
to keep a poet in his pay [though the
Luxor prince did keep Bacchylides to
himself for centuries] , yet what a signifi-
cant comment on our life is the least
strain of music." "When I hear it," he
adds, "I fear no danger; I am invulner-
able; I see no foe; I am related to the
earliest times and to the latest. . . .
The field of my life becomes a boundless
plain, glorious to tread, with no death
or disappointment at the end of it." A
mathematician would not accept this as
proof, unless he were also a poet. But,
adequate or not, certain it is for many
that life is only life when to it are added
letters.

I suppose that if a plebiscite were
taken as to those things which, aside
from the most sacred relations of the
family, we most value, the result in
votes would be-as follows: first, friends;
second, books; third, fields; and fourth,
music. I am not so certain as to the
third and fourth, but letters in the nar-
rower sense, of books, we should most
of us let go only when we had to
choose between them and the friends.
It is especially fortunate, then, to come
upon books which we can keep without
losing friends, but with prospect of
making still others. I have somewhere
read that certain Indians believe that
the spirits of those they slay in battle
are added to their own — an earned in-
crement of courage and of fortitude.
This certainly should be true of the

♦Thorcau, ihe Poet-Naturalist. By William Ellery
Chacning. New edition, edited by F. B. Sanborn. Bos-
tjn. Gcodspeed, 1903.

THE LAMP

397

lives we conquer, make our prisoners,
in reading. We should add to our own
spirit of every worthy friendship we win
as well as of every obstacle we over-
come. I have not lately come upon a
book which gives its reader more agree-
able acquaintances or promises him bet-
ter friendships than Mr. James Bryce's
^'Studies in Contemporary Biography."*
And lest I forget it at the end, I will
say now that I hope he may outlive
many more of his friends to write of
them, too, when they are gone; for he
has written only of the dead; yet these
letters keep alive some who will now
live at any rate through the days of
those who read these biographical essays.

To attempt to reproduce these "stud-
ies" here would be to make "half-tones"
of portraits in oils. The color values
cannot be suggested even, much less, ac-
curately presented. I might, as a half-
tone does, show the features, but what
looks through them and what they look
out from, the reader must himself see
the original "studies" to know. I can,
however, speak of these portraits, and
especially of those which have interested
me ; and I can reproduce some of the les-
sons or laws of life which the artist
makes these his friends speak through
these their transcripts in letters — these
obiter dicta which are beside the case,
but much more vital to the reader than
the defendant's or plaintiff's place in
history.

The first portrait is of one who, of
all the eighteen, was not personally
known to Mr. Bryce. I need not write
his name under it, for every reader must
recognize his lineaments in the sentence
which describes him as "an adventurer,
foreign in race, in ideas, in temper,"
who, "without money or family connec-
tions, climbs, by patient and unaided ef-
forts, to lead a great party, master a pow-
erful aristocracy, sway a vast empire,

♦ Studies in Contemporary Biography. By James
Brj'cc. New York. The Macmillan Company, 1903.

and make himself one of the four or five
greatest personal forces in the world."
It is a face to magnetize, with its "im-
passive calmness," those who look at it
even from the Opposition benches. And
the artist has not dealt unkindly with it.
He has, however, drawn in one hard
line which all the acknowledged virtues
and admirable fascinating qualities can-
not efface: "If he had loved truth or
mankind, he might quickly have worked
through his youthful cynicism. But
pride and ambition, the pride of race
and the pride of genius, left no room for
these sentiments." Yet age and success
did not make him morose or supercili-
ous ; they but "softened the asperities of
his character and developed the affec-
tionate side of it;" and so little did he
remember personal affronts that when
asked, shortly before his death, whether
there was anyone in London with whom
he would not shake hands, he answered,
after a moment's reflection, "Only one."
— But I am not desiring to criticise, if I
could, the accuracy of the portrait. It
is more profitable to apply what is actu-
ally there.
The first admonishing suggestion re-
lates to education. It is apropos of
Disraeli's unsystematic, wild browsings
among books that Mr. Bryce observes:
"There are worse kinds of education for
an active intelligence than to let it have
the run of a large library." Such brows-
ings of youth when curiosity is strong as
hunger, "stir the mind and give the
memory some of the best food it ever
gets."

Resolute concentration of purpose
and undaunted courage are two qualities
which sit most conspicuous in this por-
trait, gifts rarer than mere intellectual
powers, and with them "fortitude, pa-
tience, constancy under defeat, unwaver-
ing self-confidence." These are its con-
tribution to the spirit of the man who
studies it intently, who "overcomes" it.
"Nothing so fascinates mankind as to

398

THE LAMP

see a man equal to every fortune, un-
shaken by abuses, maintaining a long
combat against apparently hopeless odds
with the sharpest weapons and a smiling
face." Of such brave qualities is the
spell of Beaconsfield's biography com-
pounded.

It is disheartening or it is not, accord-
ing as circumstance hinders or helps us,
to have our attention withdrawn from
this valiant foreground to the figure of
Fortune in the background, that "gen-
eral minister and leader set over worldly
splendors," who was true ever to Dis-
raeli, "her nursling," and suffered not
the conspiracies hatched against him to
prosper. What he might have been,
with all his gifts and without her favor,
is foolish conjecture except as it makes
us shudder or laugh at Circumstance.

And Beaconsfield's place in history is
of consequence only, or chiefly, as it helps
to establish the true test of greatness.
Of this Mr. Bryce takes occasion to re-
mark: "Posterity fixes a man's place in
history by asking, not how many tongues
buzzed about him in his lifetime, but
how great a factor he was, in the
changes of the world, that is, how far
different things would have been twenty
or fifty years after his death if he had
never lived." ''There is nothing in
Beaconsfield's career," Mr. Bryce adds,
"to set the example of a lofty soul or a
noble purpose," and yet History will
not leave him, whose greatness stood the
test of a long life, "without a meed of
admiration and, whatever judgment she
may ultimately pass, will find in the an-
nals of English Parliament no more
striking figure."

Mr. Bryce puts next to this portrait
that of Dean Stanley, with the opening
sentence, that in the England of his time,
"there was no personality more attract-
ive, nor any more characteristic of
the country." "None more striking,"
"none more attractive" — these are the
phrases by which the two are contrasted.

But the closing sentences of the brief
analysis of Dean Stanley's life and work
are the best characterization — ^most cor-
dially recommend him to our liking and
relate him to us through his own cordial
friendship. Moreover, they support my
thesis of the relative values of things.
These sentences which give epitaph to
the life they close are: "The art of
friendship is the greatest art in life.
To enjov his was to be educated in that
art."

The next is Thomas Green, Professor.
His features are clearly, strongly, al-
most severely, drawn. There is a ca-
pacity for affection, however, we are
assured, behind the reserve, a tenacious-
ness in his friendships ; and qualities that
made him an attractive companion.
What interests me most in all that is
said of him and around him is that his
influence declined when he rose from
the post of college tutor to that of a uni-
versity professor (a fact which should
give us who teach pause) ; "not that his
powers or his earnestness waned, but
because as a professor he had fewer audi-
tors and less personal relation."

And while I am speaking of the teach-
er, let me point to a portrait farther
along, which is to me one of the most
attractive in the collection. You will
perhaps be as ignorant of the original
as I, for he was only an "assistant
master" (and never cared to be any-,
thing else) in one of the great Eng-
lish schools: Edward Bowen, of Har-*
row, "generally recognized by the
teaching profession as the most brill-
iant, and, in his own peculiar line, the
most successful man among the school-
masters of Britain." He was no grave,
serious, awe-inspiring schoolmaster of
the Arnoldine type; but was light,
cheerful, vivacious, humorous, familiar,
and above all, ingenious and full of va-
riety ; fond of two maxims, "Take sweet
and bitter as sweet and bitter come," and
"Always play the game" ; and guided by

CHARLES DARWIN
From "More Lctiers of Charles Darwin," by pel'Inis^ion.

the two principles — that the boy should
be interested in his subject and at ease
with his teacher.

If all my readers were teachers, I
should not omit his views on pedagogics
and athletic sports. As it is, I may only
remark in passing that he conceived it
the function of a master in a large public
school to be chiefly a moral and a social
force. And I shall have to refer you to
the book for what this light, swift-
footed, tireless man, who, as an under-
graduate, had walked from Oxford to
Cambridge (nearly ninety miles) in
twent>'-four hours, has to say about ath-
letics.

But for those who cannot go to the
book let me quote this appeal for the
"simple life*' : "When such a man prefers
to live his life in his own way and do the
plain duties that lie near him, with no

thought of anything further, they [his
friends] feel, though they may try to
repress, a kind of disappointment, as
though greatness or virtue had missed
its mark because known to few besides
themselves. Yet there is a sense in
which that friend is most our own who
has least belonged to the world, who has
least cared for what the world has to
offer, who has chosen the simplest, pur-
est pleasures, who has rendered the ser-
vice that his way of life required with no
longing for any wider theatre or any ap-
plause to be won." And what more can
we desire for our friends than this, Mr.
Br>'ce asks, "that in remembering them
there should be nothing to regret, that
all who came under their influence
should feel themselves forever thereafter
the better for that influence, that a
happy and peaceful life should be

400

THE LAMP

crowned [as was Bowen's] by a sudden
and painless death."

This thought is again the dominant
one in the life of Henry Sidgwick,
which stands next to Bowen's, and in
that of Lord Acton, who is near by on
the other side. **In the modern world,"
says Mr. Bryce, "the two types of ex-
cellence which we are chiefly bidden to
admire are the active philanthropist and
the saint. The ancient world produced
another type, which in its softer and
more benignant aspects, Sidgwick [and
Bo wen, too] presented." There is the
indifference to wealth and fame, and the
other familiar objects of human desire;
almost ascetic simplicity of life, pursuit
of none but the purest pleasures, im-
pulse subject to reason, and will braced
to patience; but with the gravity of the
Stoic relieved by humor and vivacity,
and the severity of the Stoic softened by
tenderness and sympathy. Such was
Sidgwick's, a "life of single-minded de-
votion to truth and friendship," and to
know such a life and love it is better
than to know its actual tangible achieve-
ment.

The friends of Lord Acton had a
regret similar to that of Bowen's friends
— that his influence was not as widely
diffused as it should or might have been,
and in an enduring form. "It was as
when a plant unknown elsewhere grows
on some remote isle where ships seldom
touch. Few see the beauty of the flower,
and here death came before the seed
could be gathered to be scattered in re-
ceptive soil." Yet with how little confi-
dence are we able to say that his influ-
ence is not as widely scattered as if he
had made the deliberate effort to gather
and sow it. I have just been reading the
newly published collection of Charles
Darwin's letters,* and I am impressed
by his theory of distribution, so subtle

• More Letters of Charles Darwin. Edited by Francis
Darwin. 2 vols., illustrated. New York : D. Applcion &
Co., 1903.

are the germs of life in their modes
of travel. "The more I think of it,"
says Darwin, "the more evident it is to
me how utterly ignorant we are of the
thousand contingencies on which range,
frequency, and extinction of each species
depend." And w'e are infinitely more
ignorant (if that is not a paradox) of
the ways in which the geographical dis-
tribution of thought takes place. The
germ of the "history of liberty" which
Lord Acton, twenty years ago, late one
night in his library in Cannes, implanted
in Mr.Bryce's memor>% may yet bear its
harvest, even though Lord Acton's high
literary ideal (the Better which was the
enemy of the Good) prevented his put-
ting his history into a book. The seed
of his thought was never gathered, but
perhaps for all that it has been as widely
scattered by the seemingly chance wands
which blew across his fields, by the thou-
sands of influences which are, who can
say, as eflScient servants as the gardener-
publishers who plant their thoughts for
them in regular rows in the pages of
books.

Among the other sketches which hang
in this gallery, or rather in this dining-
room, for it is a collection to live with
and not merely to visit occasionally or
look upon as mere works of art, is that
of John Richard Green, the historian.
And when I look at it, it seems the most
attractive, which is not to be wondered
at when we hear Mr. Bryce say that
one had to forbid one's self to call upon
the original in the evening because it
was impossible to get away before two
o'clock in the morning — a man who
made one "feel better than his ordinary
self." And here again the regret is that
what he accomplished, great as it was
in both quality and quantity, seemed to
those who used to listen to him, little in
comparison with what he might have
done in a longer life and with a more
robust body.

Another is Professor Robertson

THE LAMP

401

Smith; and when he and Green were
brought together at Mr. Bryce's table,
as they are under the lids of his book,
it was not easy, remarks their host, "to
say which lamp burned the brighter."
The passion for knowledge made Pro-
fessor Smith prefer the life of a scholar,
but he carried his learning lightly, as a
man should. "It is commonly thought of
as a weight to be carried which makes
men dull, heavy, or pedantic," but "be-
cause he [Robertson Smith] knew so
much, he was interested in everything,
and threw himself with a joyous fresh-
ness and keenness into talk alike upon
the most serious and the lightest topics."
Mr. Bryce imagines him, had Fortune
placed him among the scholars of the
Italian Renaissance in its glorious prime,
as filling half Europe with his fame,
this man who spurned a name that he
might study and teach.

And I would speak of Freeman, the
historian, if there were space, for it was
under his motto, "History is past poli-
tics and politics present history," that I
sat for many months in the University,
though now I have come to find my sym-
pathies with Green, to whom Freeman
used to say, affectionately, "You may
bring in [to history] all that social and
religious kind of thing, Johnny, but I
can't."

The other "studies" which I can
but name, are of Archbishop Tait, An-
thony Trollope, Sir George Jessel, Earl
Cairns, Bishop Eraser, Sir Stafford
Northcote, Charles Stewart Parnell (a
brilliant portrait). Cardinal Manning,
Robert Lowe, E. L. Godkin (the only
American included in the collection),
and last of all, under the other lid from
Beaconsfield, Gladstone, of whom Mr.
Bryce says, in shutting the lid, what
Fiske said of Webster: "When he de-
parted, the h'ght seemed to have died out
of the sky,"

But before I leave this book, I must
call attention to another name which

stands at the door, to join the author in
giving welcome to the hospitality of these
pages: it is that of President Eliot, to
whom the book is dedicated in commem-
oration of a long and a valued friend-
ship. There is perhaps no contemporary
American life which in its simplicity,
courage, strength, and service, so fully
relates us to the group of Englishmen
of whom Mr. Bryce writes; no life
which is more valiantly helping us to
realize the aptness of the epithet which
a college student, I once knew, used,
when, directed by his instructor to read
Bryce's "Holy Roman Empire" (his own
knowledge of this estimable scholar's
writings being confined to his better-
know^n work about our country), he
asked for Bryce's "Holy American Com-
monwealth."

In one of these studies which I have
just been quoting, Mr. Bryce remarks
that men and women — such of them as
have characteristics pronounced enough
to make them classifiable — "may be di-
vided into those whose primary interests
are in nature and what relates to nature,
and those whose primary interests are
in and for man." Of the latter class
are all these men of whom we have just
been speaking, as for example, Green,
who seemed not to care for or seek to
know any of the sciences of nature "ex-
cept in so far as they bore directly upon
man's life and were capable of explain-
ing it or serving it." To intercourse
and even friendship with a distinguished
group of the first class, the Letters of
Darwin, to which I have already re-
ferred, transports one. It is embarrass-
ing for a layman, especially if he must
say something, to come into the pres-
ence of such men, Darwin himself was
evidently very much awed by an ap-
proaching visit of Gladstone, for he ex-
pressed to Mr. Bryce both surprise and
pleasure that he (Mr. Gladstone)
"talked just as if he had been an ordi-
nary person like ourselves." And so,

402

THE LAMP

doubtless, you would speak of Darwin
and his friends, Wallace, Huxley, Hook-
er, Lyell, and the rest, and would have
braved, as I, Hawarden, rather than the
less pretentious house at Down, in whose
door\\^ay the figure of Darwin stands, in
the frontispiece of the second volume.
They write and talk to each other quite
as if they were ordinary persons like our-
selves; only their conversation runs from
apes to zebras, and does not concern it-
self with politics or pedagogics, or ver>'
much with theolog\'. In one of Dar-
win's letters, where he speaks of his dis-
tress about "protection," I thought for
a moment that I had found a common
interest, but, before I reached the end of
the sentence, I discovered that the pro-
tection he referred to was not of the sort
political economists are concerned about.
Again, he speaks of St. Helena, but it is
not to make reference to its neo-historic
interest. "If I knew anyone there," he
writes, "I would supplicate him to send
me a cask or two of earth . . . and
thence I should receive, as sure as I'm a
wriggler, a multitude of lost plants."
And once there were high words of
primroses, but they were not of Beacons-
field's sort, nor of Wordsworth's, as I
soon learned: "I will fight you," said
Darwin to his dearest friend, Hooker,
"to the death that the primrose and the
cowslip must be called as good species as
man and a gorilla."

It is worth while to read these letters,
even if you do not know a Chthamalus
from any other genus of the Cirripedia,
and are ignorant of the aberrancy of the
Ornithorhynchus or the Echidna; for
they tell you with what patience these
great simple men came at their ends,
with what honesty and straightforward-
ness they treated each other, and with
what enthusiasm they discussed their
progress toward the ultimate truth. I
can give but one example of this patience

and enthusiasm — a letter in the body of
which Darwin tells Falconer of reading
his elephant paper and not getting to
sleep till three; in the first postscript of
which he makes some inquiries about
some sort of a plant, remembers for a
moment his eczema "which has taken
the epidermis a dozen times clean off";
then forgets his pain in the desire to hear
about some wondrous bird, and ends
with remarking that he cannot work
above a couple of hours daily (which
"plays the deuce with me") ; only to add
another postscript in which he says that
he has counted 9,000 seeds, one by one,
from artificially fertilized pods and is
"as yet beaten," which means that he
has not as yet given up.

I cannot forbear quoting before I
stop two very comforting fragments em-
bedded, the one in a note to Francis Gal-
ton, and the other in the scientific strata
of a letter to Alfred Wallace. In the
first he says: "You have made a convert
of an opponent in one sense, for I have
always maintained that, except fools,
men do not differ much in intellect, only
in zeal and hard work ; and I still think
this is an eminently important differ-
ence;" and to Wallace: "But we shall
never convince each other. I sometimes
marvel how truth progresses, so difficult
is it for one man to convince another,
unless his mind is vacant."

I have not attempted, as is patent, to
review or even to give deserved notice
of these "Letters." I have only tried to
tell the reader that there is much of
human interest in them, even to one who
cares, as did Green, for the sciences of
nature only as they bear directly upon
man's life and are capable of explaining
or serving it ; for he comes into compan-
ionship with these virile minds; and then
there are occasionally sentences or para-
graphs which carry one to the very
heart of politics, pedagogics, or religion.

^^HHV^

! ^

71 . ^to^o^

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD

SOME PERSONAL NOTES

By Ripley Hitchcock

THE difference between the old
Friends' Seminar>% in Stuyvesant
Square, and the garish Waldorf-Astoria
indicates measurably the difference be-
tween the daily life of Richard Henry
Stoddard and the life of the great New
York thoroughfares and marts. For
nearly half a century he had been a

tenant of Peter Stuyvesant's Bowery
farm, and the grace and beauty of the
nature which had once clothed a pas-
toral landscape were subtly preserved in
his verse. In the early sixties he was a
tent-mate of his friend Bayard Taylor
on East Thirteenth Street near the
Peter Stuyvesant pear-tree. From 1866

404

THE LAMP

to 1870 the home of the Stoddards was
at "The Deanery," the name waggishly
given to the boarding-house of Miss
Anne Swift, at No. 75 East Tenth
Street. "The Deanery" was the tempo-
rary camping-place of many literary
folk, among them Taylor, and Edmund
Clarence Stedman. At "The Deanery"
there were nights made ambrosial by
the gatherings and informal feasts of
brilliant men and women of letters, but
there were also gloomy days. One of
them must have been February 8, 1870,
when Mrs. Stoddard wrote in her diary,
"Stoddard was turned out of the Cus-
tom-house yesterday without warning,"

It was not long after this that the
Stoddards removed to Fifteenth Street,
east of Stuyvesant Square, and took pos-
session of the first of a long line of little
brick houses, whose sternly conventional,
impossible iron balconies represent an
early effort which was conscious of fail-
ure. There they lived and died, the
brilliant son, the mother, with her in-
tense individuality and illuminating gen-
ius, and, finally, only the other day, the
poet, full of years and weariness and
longing for the end.

In the last ten years it has been my
privilege to see much of Richard Henry
Stoddard. To one who belonged to a
younger generation it was the opening
of a volume of literary history to enter
that second-floor study where nearly all
the poet's time was passed. There he
sat at his desk, with Thackeray's por-
trait and verses on the wall above, labo-
riously writing, with the strongest lights
and glasses aiding his failing eyesight,
or more often seated at the corner of
the hearth, with books heaped on the
floor about him, he dropped the volume
in his hands to give the visitor a greeting
which rarely lacked a note of cheeriness
even in his darker hours. Books lined
the walls. There were rare editions,
autograph copies, all manner of literar\'
treasures which have been made known

through his magnificent gift to the Au-
thors' Club. There were rare manu-
scripts and letters also: Petrarch, Poe,
Tennyson, Browning, as the case might
be, and despite the apparent disorder,
Mr. Stoddard's persistent memory usu-
ally held all their stories and their rest-
ing-place as well. In these surround-
ings there was abundant invitation to
reminiscence and comment. A box be-
hind his chair contains letters from Poe,
and perhaps the box was opened, and
the opening meant a vivid story of his
meetings with Poe, and descriptions,
told with dry chuckles, of certain curi-
ous members of the Poe environment.

Again, the mention of Hawthorne
led him back to the Concord of Haw-
thorne's time, and perhaps to a tale
of Hawthorne's kindly aid in secur-
ing an oflSce in the Custom-house.
Among his letters there was one from
Hawthorne which later will appear in
Mr. Stoddard's Recollections,* and from
this I am permitted to quote some sage
advice regarding the quest for office.
"Are you fond of brandy?" Hawthorne
asked. "Your strength of head (which
you tell me you possess) may stand you
in good stead at Washington; for most
of these public men are inveterate guz-
zlers, and love a man that can stand up
to them in that particular. . . . But
I must leave you to find your own way
among them. If you have never asso-
ciated with them heretofore, you will
find them a new class, very unlike
poets."

In a postscript Hawthorne added this
pithy counsel, written, let us remember,
in 1853, but unhappily not wholly with-
out pertinence to-day: "When applying
for an office, if you are conscious of any
deficiencies (moral, intellectual, or edu-
cational, or whatever else), keep them
to yourself, and let those find them out

♦ This volume, "Recollections, Literary and Personal," by
Richard Henry Stoddard, was on its way to the printer at
Mr. Stoddard's death, and will be published by A. S.
Barnes ^ Co. in the autumn.

t/cwi ikr 'u-vvK^A- <L-VV««*-<jk a^«tA-M. .
5 Gil. 1.^ J^ iiZ^^fa-^s^l^i^ ^-coT

FACSIMILE OF A COPY BY MR. STODDARD, IN 1SS5, OF HIS WELL-KNOWN POEM
"the flight of YOUTH."

4o6

THE LAMP

whose business it may be. For example,
supposing the office of Translator to the
State Department be tendered to you,
accept it boldly, without hinting that
your acquaintance with foreign lan-
guages may not be the most familiar.
If this important fact be discovered af-
terward, you can be transferred to some
more suitable post. The business is to
establish yourself somehow and any-
how."

It was of Poe, and Bayard Taylor,
however, that Mr. Stoddard spoke most
frequently when the reminiscent mood
was on him. No one who ever heard the
stories of his meetings with Poe will for-
get his relation of their abrupt ending,
when Poe, irresponsible and angered,
threatened to help the rejected contrib-
utor down the stairs. "And so," with
a chuckle, "I went." But there was
a sequel which was always told and
should be told here, since a legend grew
that Mr. Stoddard's severe criticisms of
Poe were biassed by a personal animus
due to the commonplace incident of a
rejected poem. There was always a
sudden change to genuine pathos in Mr.
Stoddard's manner when he told of his
last glimpse of Poe standing in the rain
of a gloomy night on a Broadway cor-
ner, while young Stoddard lingered tim-
idly across the street, wishing to offer
protection but deterred by a shyness and
constraint which left him with a lasting
regret. It was a similar sensitive shy-
ness, and perhaps a touch of New Eng-
land thrift as well, which kept him from
ever joining the coterie at Pfaff's. Only
a few weeks before his death, Pfaff's
was mentioned, and he described his
nearest approach. He descended the
basement steps and looked through the
glass doors, seeing Walt Whitman and
others of that company, but — "I sup-
pose I was afraid to enter" — and he
turned away.

Among his nearest friends, Bayard
Taylor held a place of peculiar inti-

macy in his life and memory, and he
dwelt often and lovingly on those years
of close-knit association. "I recall many
nights," Mr. Stoddard has written,
''which Bayard Taylor passed in our
rooms, and especially one when he made
me proud and happy by reading me a
poem about our poetic friendship, writ-
ten in Greece, and inspired, I assured
him, by a warmer and richer draught
than the Homeric beverage! Fitz
James O'Brien was a frequent guest and
an eager partaker of our merriment,
which somehow resolved itself into the
writing of burlesque poems. We sat
around a table, and whenever the whim
seized us, which was often enough, we
each wrote down themes on little pieces
of paper, and putting them into a hat or
box, we drew out one at random and
then scribbled away for dear life. We
put no restriction upon ourselves. We
could be grave or gay or idiotic even,
but we must be rapid, for half the fun
was in noting who first sang out Tin-
ished!'"

As the years went on, Mr. Stoddard
saw the passing of one after another of
his group until but one of that choir
was left, one whose infinite tenderness
to his friend w^as of the company of
David's affection for Jonathan, and
Charles Lamb's love for his stricken
sister. Yet in those last years there
were certain constant visitors to the po-
et's home, — the brother poet who cared
for him so jealously, the physician and
friend who guarded him, the lawyer
whose eminence and countless responsi-
bilities were thrown aside when a sum-
mons came from "Dick," a representa-
tive of the newspaper, the Mail and Ex-
press, which honored itself in maintain-
ing its recognition of Mr. Stoddard and
a few other friends. To these visitors it
was given to see the dauntless courage
of a sorely stricken old age. Weighted
by failing eyesight and grievous bodily
afflictions, he made a jest of his misfor-

A RECKNT PHOTOGRAPH OF MR. AND MRS. STODDARD AND THEIR SON.

4o8

THE LAMP

tunes. It was in tliis vein that he wrote
a friend, a few years since:

"I go to the hospital to-morrow to
have my second cataract removed, and
I hope to be out in three or four weeks ;
at least I have the doctor*s opinion to
that effect. It*s lucky, isn't it, that I
am not Argus? Think of not seeing
anything as it should be seen, and of a
hundred eyes, and the calamity of having
each one of them peeled at one time or
another !"

• There were certain subjects which re-
mained wholly foreign to the atmos-
phere of the poet's library. He lived in
New York, but the omnipotent name of
the stock market was never heard, nor
mention of the talismanic word, society,
and few of the passing topics which
serve the idle hours of drawing-rooms
and clubs. Chaucer and Spenser, Keats
and Shelley, and later comers whom he
had known himself, like Thackeray,
Poe, Hawthorne, and Lowell, were
often of the company to which the mag-
nate of money or commerce, pure and
simple, or the "social leader," found no
admission.

His social interests, outside the close-
knit circle of his friends, were cen-
tred in his beloved Century and in the
Authors' Club. A member of the Cen-
tury since 1863, he followed the affairs
of the club with an affectionate interest
unabated by the passage of forty years.
After the infirmities of age forbade his
presence, there was never a monthly
meeting of which he failed to ask a full
account. It was with sincere feeling
that he said in his poem at the fiftieth
anniversary :

" . . . The Century

Has been, and is, so much to me,
So much that when I come to die,
I think 'twould ease my parting sigh,
If I could know that someone here

Would think of me when all was done,
And say, betwixt a smile and tear,
He was a good Centurion ! "

With the sensitive modesty which was
so real a part of Mr. Stoddard's true
character, he shrank at first from the
public honor implied in the Authors'
Club dinner of 1897, and his apprecia-
tion of that testimonial can hardly be
indicated in words. "What is there in
this battered old hulk that you care for
it so kindly, so generously, so lovingly,"
he wrote to a friend who was a member
of the club. "I will try to think there is
something since you think so." Those
who recall that dinner, in which the
Century as wtII as the Authors' Club
took so conspicuous a part, will not for-
get the ovation which followed the close
of the touching poem spoken by the ven-
erable poet — the central figure of the
most memorable literary occasion in
New York since the celebration of Bry-
ant's birthday.

After this dinner it seemed peculiarly
difficult for Mr. Stoddard to express the
appreciation which he felt so deeply. It
was his frequent theme — this recogni-
tion which he felt to be the crowning
honor of his life, and it was this feeling .
which was expressed in his desire that •
his priceless literary treasures should be
presented to the Authors' Club. He
made known his generous plan to a few
friends, and one of them w^as asked to
convey his purpose to the club. And so,
after a time, these rare volumes, manu-
scripts, and letters were arranged and
catalogued with the aid of the wonder-
ful memory which Mr. Stoddard kept
almost to the last. It was within less
than a year before his death that the
Authors' Club received from him the
gift which, with the possible exception
of the Lorimer Graham Library at the
Century, is probably the rarest single
literary offering that has been made to
an American club library.

Like every sturdy, uncompromising
individuality, Mr. Stoddard roused an-
tagonisms, sometimes by the spoken,
sometimes by the written word. His

THE LAMP

409

standards were high for letters and for
men, and he hated smug literary affecta-
tion, or moral cowardice, with all the
force of a singularly vigorous nature.
If he was frank in denouncing shams,
however, he was equally prompt to point
out promise or performance, and all that
he said was sure to be infused with a
spirit due to long and reverent associa-
tion with the masters of English letters.
But these imperfect notes are not in-
tended to touch the poet's purely literary
side save as this is inevitable in the case
of one whose love of letters was his life.
How bravely Mr. Stoddard bore him-
self in those closing years is known only
to a few. The premature death of his
brilliant son left the aged poet and his
wife, "that woman of strange, impas-
sioned genius," sitting beside a hearth
where the fire had gone out forever.
But there was no self-pity or despair.

"Baffled, not beaten!" was his answer
to a friend who came to him soon after
Lorimer's death, and this was the key-
note of the mood in which he waited
death after the passing of his wife.
The courage inherited from a race of
New England sailors, and shown in his
steadfast allegiance to his ideals, re-
mained with him to the end, and he
met death without question and without
a trace of fear. And now there comes
home to us the significance of the lines
given with a touch of wistful pathos in
"The Curtain Call":

'* When this life-play of mine is ended.
And the black curtain has descended,
Think kindly as you can of me.
And say, for you may truly say,

* This dead player, living, loved his part,
And made it noble as he could.
Not for his own poor, personal good.
But for the glorj- of his art ! '"

THE BOOKS OF EMILE ZOLA
By Lionel Strachey

IN the last chapter of Zola's last book*
there is prophesied the existence of
a new France, liberated from caste privi-
lege, rid of class barriers, emancipated
from priestly superstitions, enlightened
by universal education, and in every man-
ner blessed. Very Utopian, surely, and
echoing Jean Jacques. He too composed
some very fat books, did Jean Jacques, but
fewer than the namesake of his "Emile,"
Who knows but what, had this other
Emile continued longer among the living
and the writing, he might have published
a new, naturalistic, epic "Social Con-
tract," outvoluming the whole Rougon-
Macquart librar>'. But let us waive
speculation, which is the thief of money,
spending a little of its equivalent on the
actual instead of the imaginary Zola. A

•Truth [Veritfe]. By Emile Zola. Translated by
Ernest A. Vizeteliy. New York. John Lane. Price, $1.50.

contradiction seems involved, for litera-
ture is but actuality reproduced by the
imagination. And it is the literary Zola
who is to be dissected. This operation,
however, will be business enough without
carving from his remains ornamental
paradoxes of our own device. We come
to study Zola, not to praise him. The
man needs no scribbler's eulogizing; it
is his books we are now criticising.

Emile Zola was born at the metropolis
of Omnia Gallia in April, 1840, being
the son of an Italian engineer and a
French woman. After school at Aix
he attempted academic rank, but at exam-
ination for the baccalaureate of arts he
failed, especially in literature. He was
pitiably poor, and must at some moment
have lost all his mental resources besides,
for he became a dock laborer. This he
found unpleasant. He therefore reached

4IO

THE LAMP

the bold resolution to starve. But hunger
got the better of heroism, so that, a year
after his first encounter with literature,
he essayed another branch of it. At the
age of twenty-one he took a place in the
publishing house of Hachette. Hence he
graduated — or derogated, if you like — to
journalism. The first book to appear with
his name on the title-page was a volume
of short tales entitled **Contes a Ninon."
The "Nouveaux Contes a Ninon" fol-
lowed, and then some longer stories, chief
among them "La Confession de Claude,"
"Le Vceu d'une Morte," and "Made-
leine Ferat," this last a study of heredi-
tary influences. With a plunge into the
drama, young Zola brought out "Therese
Raquin," which is still known to the
world, and two other plays, which are
not. Aided by collaborators, he in later
years converted into pieces for acting a
small number of his Rougon-Macquart
series, the best received of these dramas
being "LAssommoir." The said succes-
sion of novels, purporting to be "the nat-
ural history of a family under the Second
Empire," and to be based upon scientific
laws, formed an epical exposition of the
author's theories of heredity. At the
same time this collection of twenty tales
was to set forth in ultimate perfection
the new art of "naturalism," that is, the
true portrayal of life according to nature.
The set began in 1870 with "La Fortune
des Rougon," and was concluded by "Le
Docteur Pascal," issued during the year
1893. The subjects were manifold in
kind. "La Fortune des Rougon" and
"Son Excellence Eugene Rougon" con-
cerned themselves with French politics,
"LArgent" and "La Bete Humaine"
with finance and railways. "La Curee"
pictured the vices of fashionable, "Pot-
Bouille" those of middle-class France,
while "La Terre" and "Germinal" pre-
sented the miseries of her tillers of the
soil and miners. "Le Ventre de Paris"
gave an account of the metropolis's cen-
tral markets, "LAssommoir" of the sor-

did lot falling to its mechanics. Provin-
cial scenery was allotted to "La Faute de
LAbbe Mouret" and "Le Reve." "La
Debacle" had to do with the Franco-
German war of 1870. "Nana" was the
story of a prostitute.

Zola's early works had acquired no
great vogue, but "LAssommoir" and
"Nana" each circulated in editions of
300,000. By the end of the nineteenth
century Zola's name had, through its lit-
erary prestige and through its signature
to the resounding "J'accuse" — in cham-
pionship of the unfortunate Dreyfus —
become far better known to his con-
temporaries than Chateaubriand's or Bc-
ranger's or Taine's had ever been to
theirs. In the last decade of his life Zola
wrote of "The Three Cities," namely
"Lourdes," "Rome," and "Paris," and
was engaged upon "Justice," the last of
the "Four Gospels," of which "Travail"
and "Fecondite" had preceded "Verite"
— recently published by John Lane as
"Truth" — when he was clutched by the
claw of death. In forty years his labor
and fecundity had produced nigh half a
hundred volumes, which included col-
lected criticisms and essays, dramatic, lit-
erary, and sundry.

Of these miscellanea some sprang from
a mind needing imperious self-assertion,
pressed to pour itself out in a whelming
torrent that should bear down all oppo-
sition. Like Wagner, Zola was his own
commentator, defender, and approver, in
pamphlets, epistles, and screeds of all
kinds. There could exist but one proper
sort of opera. Every novel must be done
according to one device, by one patent.
And Zola, not content to let his Ring of
the Rougons stand for itself, published
columns, pages, chapters, volumes, ex-
plaining and exalting the "naturalism"
he professed to practise. In the advocacy
of this cause he berated all methods of
all authors — living or dead — not con-
forming with his, using language un-
measuredly intemperate — contemptuous

THE LAMP

411

and abusive in turn. He went beyond
the boundary of reason. In a French
newspaper issued at Moscow he held up
his doctrine as one of political signifi-
cance, concluding the article: "The Re-
public must be naturalist or cannot be at
all." These words betray Monsieur
Zola's worst literary quality, one that by
his compatriotic critics has, however, gen-
erally been misnamed. For they have
said that his pretended "naturalism," in
its falseness to fact, is misrepresentation ;
they have said it is tergiversation; they
have said it is exaggerated, fanciful,
romantic — all which criticism is inade-
quate, as will immediately appear.

Chapter VI. of "La Curee" aflFords
an example appropriate to the point. A
fashionable company is assembled in the
drawing-room of Saccard, the opulent
banker. Allegorical scenes of classic
mythology are enacted, in the form of
living pictures, with Renee, the banker's
wife, representing the nymph Echo. She
has on a floating, filmy garment reveal-
ing flesh-colored tights. This provokes
visible manifestations of concupiscence
among the well-bred spectators; the
women sigh, the men nudge one another ;
lewd whispers are exchanged, and lasciv-
ious leers pass between the sexes. The
living pictures done with, the lady of the
house retires to change her dress. She
reappears, disguised, or rather undis-
guised, as a native of Otahiti, with
naught covering her tights but "a short
muslin tunic; in her hair a wreath of
field flowers; on her ankles and wrists
circlets of gold. And nothing else. She
was naked." Madame Saccard — the ele-
gant, fashionable Madame Saccard —
flirts about the room, exposing her private
charms just as some vulgar, brassy bag-
gage of a painter's model, in quest of a
worse reputation, w^ould do at the Bal
des Quat'z' Arts. Presently the dining-
room is opened. At once there is a savage
rush for the food: "They hurled them-
selves upon the pastry and the stuflEed

fowls, thrusting their elbows into each
other's sides, brutally. It was a scene of
pillage; hands met in the middle of the
meats." Two of the cannibals — or gen-
tlemen — then go aside: "They did not
even remove their gloves, putting the
loose slices of roast on their bread, keep-
ing the bottles under their arms." And,
while these two types of correct French
society — the politest in the world — stand
thus together, "they talked with their
mouths full, holding out their chins be-
yond their waistcoats, so that the juice
might fall on the carpet." Meantime
Renee takes her stepson Maxime to her
sleeping apartment, where she attempts
to change his mind from marrying to
eloping — with herself. Maxime, being
deadly tired of all that Renee can offer
him — namely, nothing new — prevari-
cates, then temporizes. In final appeal
the gentle lady seizes his arms and twists
them behind his back. The banker
breaks in upon this schoolboy bullying,
and a triangular contest of vilification
ensues. Father and son departed, Renee
beguiles the idle hour with six pages of
reflections on her nudity, casting an occa-
sional admiring glance at the mirror.

All that is not merely overdrawn or
imaginary. It is grotesque, incompara-
bly, monstrously grotesque.

Now see how the author does with an-
other social class.

Open at random "L'Assommoir."
Page 244: Gervaise Coupeau, reaching
home, finds her laundrywomen in high
excitement about a disturbance proceed-
ing at an upper story. Female screams
are heard. Gervaise hastens upstairs to
discover who is in distress. She sees
Madame Bijard prostrate on the floor,
Monsieur Bijard diverting himself in his
cups. One is apprised that "He had first
knocked her down with his two fists, and
was now stamping on her with his heels."
Bijard is, however, becoming short of
breath from the hard exertion and the
emphatic swearing interspersed. Then

412

THE LAMP

"his voice failed him, but he continued to
kick her, dumbly, furiously, his face blue
under his filthy beard, his bald head
splotched with great dabs of red." The
wife of his bed and bosom is now squirm-
ing on the floor, "with her skirts, still
soaked by the dirty water from the [over-
turned] washtub, clinging to her thighs,
her hair torn out ; she was bleeding, and
her throat was rattling." The genial
Bijard had sold most of their possessions,
the bedclothes included, to quench his
thirst for adulterated spirits; as for the
furniture remaining, in the affray "the
table had rolled to the window, and the
two chairs had fallen over, their legs
sticking up in the air." And the cause
of the murderous assailment ? Madame's
denial that morning, to Monsieur, of the
sum of twenty sous. Such is the infor-
mation obtained from the neighbors by
Gervaise, who, on returning from her er-
rand of intervention, meets with Cou-
peau, likewise drunk. The sodden zinc-
worker immediately menaces his wife, for
no reason at all — not even the refusal of
twenty sous. He raises his fist at her,
but, too foolishly befuddled, lets it drop
and staggers to his couch. That the
Coupeau woman limps, and why she
limps, is presently divulged by Monsieur
Zola in exemplification of his scientific
doctrines concerning heredity. Gervaise
had in fact come into the world anatom-
ically askew. Her father, old Macquart,
had been an habitual drunkard and wife-
beater, but had ingeniously combined his
ferocity and ebriety to make his uxorious
pleasures the more delightful: "The
nights when he came home drunk he dis-
played such brutal gallantry that he
would smash her [his wife's] limbs ; and
certainly she [Gervaise] must have been
conceived in one of those nights, with
her leg foreshortened."

Sufficient unto the matter is the gro-
tesquery thereof.

Nevertheless, we must reconsider Zo-
la's incongruous bent, since another mo-

ment's contemplation of it will enable
us to fix our finger on his loudest literary
chord. At the same time it will be ob-
served that this prime trait, yet to be
specified, is remarkably often associated
with the sexual instinct. So, in bestial
rut, de Beauville "seized Nana by the
body, in an access of brutality, and threw
her down on the carpet." So, too, is
Therese Raquin thrown to the ground by
Laurent on the night of their wedding.
In "Lf'Argent," as in "L'Assommoir,"
sex-passion gone mad is the cause of a
broken limb. In "Verite," a fiendish as-
sault upon a little girl results in the frac-
ture of her arm. But in one of the
"Contes a Ninon" unreined desire runs
to its farthest limit; here a wild battle
of lust between Colombel and his para-
mour ends in homicide. All these in-
stances, no less barbarous than grotesque,
must together with the preceding cita-
tions plainly declare the guiding temper
of Emile Zola's muse : violence.

The preface to "La Fortune des Rou-
gon," briefly setting forth the purpose of
the series, announces the main hereditary'
taint afflicting the Rougon-Macquarts :
"le debordement des appetits" — "the
overflow of the appetites." The author
might as well have said "the violence of
the appetites." And it is plain how that
violence coincides with the violence of the
author: Those fierce, intolerant diatribes
vaingloriously damning his literary ri-
vals; the virulent title "Mes Haines"
("My Hatreds") prefixed to a volume
of collected critical essays ; that presump-
tuous, egregious "naturalist Republic";
Zola's brusque, uncouth spoken retorts,
casting the shadow of the outrageous ex-
pletives running all through the Rougon-
Macquart epic. Yet in that very vio-
lence, that un res trainable overflow, lies a
tremendous power of eloquence. His
impetuous rush of words, forming into
glowing pictures, is at times intoxicating.
What French prosaist, present or past,
is there to excel certain masterly passages

THE LAMP

413

contained in "Rome," portraying the
Vicar of Christ, the papal celebration of
Mass under the black and gold balda-
quin, the vast Vatican and the whole
Eternal City seen from atop the proudest
dome in all the world? Most vividly
and truly is the burning of the Tuileries
depicted (see "La Debacle") ; for that
page we would take none in exchange
from Victor Hugo. Graphically splen-
did is the piece describing the contest
about Beaumont and Raucourt, the pil-
laging by the Germans, their artillery's
pursuit of the fleeing foe. And it is not
to be imagined how any French pen —
Balzac's, or Flaubert's, or de Maupas-
sant's — could have rendered Coupeau's
death with more telling, poignant horror.

Certainly it must not be thought that
Zola's "naturalism" is at all times occu-
pied with the brutal or the obscene,
though that is far too often its employ-
ment. Sketching the Coliseum from the
near-by Palatine Hill, this gloriously
gifted writer in a hundred words achieves
a picture that is boldly imaginative and
still excellently real:

"That colossus, of which time has cut
only one half away, as with the sweep of
a gigantic scythe — there it stands, in its
vastness, in its majesty, like a piece of
stone lace-work with hundreds of empty
bays agape against the blue of the sky!
It is a world of halls, stairways, landings,
corridors, a world where you lose your
way, in midst a solitude and silence as of
death. And inside, the furrowed tiers of
seats, gnawed by the atmosphere, liken
shapeless steps into some burnt out crater,
some sort of natural circus hewn by the
elements' might in solid, monumental
rock. But the hot suns of eighteen hun-
dred years have baked and browned this
ruin, which has returned to the state of
nature, its face bare and blazing as a
mountain side stripped of vegetation, of
all the blooming growth that once made
it part of a virgin forest."

And the following sort of "natural-

ism" makes one at the instant forget, if
one cannot forgive, those passages from
"La Curee" and "L'Assommoir" :

"On the gestatorial chair, shaded by
the flabelli with their tall triumphal
plumes, and carried on high by bearers
clad in red, silk-worked tunics, sat His
Holiness, garbed in the sacred vestments,
which he had donned in the chapel of the
Holy Sacrament : the amict, the alb, the
stole, the white chasuble and white mitre
enriched with gold — two gifts of extra-
ordinary sumptuousness coming from
France. ... He was the Sovereign
Pontiff, the Master all-powerful, the
Deity before whom Christianity bowed
down. As if encased in a jewelled reli-
quary, his slender waxen form seemed
stiffened under his white garment, heavy
with gold embroideries. He maintained
a haughty, hieratic immobility, like a
gilded idol desiccated by the sacrificial
fumes of many centuries. In the rigid,
death-like face lived only the eyes, eyes
like sparkling black diamonds, gazing out
afar, beyond the earth, into the infinite.
He had not a glance for the crowd, he
lowered his eyes neither to right nor left,
but soared aloft, ignoring what happened
at his feet. And this idol, thus borne —
as if embalmed and deaf, and blind de-
spite the lustre of her eyes — through the
frantic crowd which it appeared to
neither hear nor see, took on an awful
majesty, a terrifying grandeur, the whole
inflexibility of dogma, the whole fixity of
tradition, exhumed to the fillets, which
alone kept it standing."

Zola is not only an effective word-
monger, like the gorgeous Gautier — re-
splendent, dazzling, rhapsodically poetic,
and very shallow. Read, for instance,
if you yet need conviction, Pierre Fro-
ment's soliloquy held on the dome of
St. Peter's, in which he meditates the
pomp and power and prestige of the
Roman Church, and argues the downfall
of that potent hierarchy were it once to
renounce temporal dominion. Or take

414

THE LAMP

"La Terre" to hand: an historical ac-
count tells the oppression of the French
peasantry by hard masters; its suffering
endurance is represented, its struggle
with the soil, its love and conquest of that
soil, won "after centuries of tormenting
concupiscence," this love for the earth
being compared to man's desire for
woman, his passion to possess her and
make her bring forth.

And thus we come to another large
joint in this writer's literary backbone.
It is fecundity. Did he not conceive, and,
after great labor, bring forth, a big,
abounding book, calling it "Fecondite,"
in which he preached the duty of fruit-
fulness to French parents? France,
Heaven knows, sorely needs the admoni-
tion, if — which is unproved — the contin-
uance of the human race be advantageous
or membership therein agreeable. New
England, more hostile even than France
to babies, should also take the lesson to
heart, if — which requires confirmation —
- man's joy at being overpass his fear of
ceasing. Zola, at any rate, extols fecun-
dity. His very pen is tempestuously pro-
lific in its overflowing violence — similar
to the appetites of the Rougon-Mac-
quarts. Progeny! let all earthly creat-
ures have progeny! Says the childless
Hubertine, in "Le Reve": "No, I am
not happy. ... A woman who has
no children is not happy. . . . To
love is nothing. The love must be
blessed." With the exclamation, "The
cow has had a calf !" little Desiree, glee-
fully clapping her hands together, runs
up a dunghill to call the glad tidings over
a fence dividing the farmyard from the
place where Albine's burial is going
forward. (See "La Faute de L'Abbe
Mouret," last page.) And other ex-
amples could be quoted, though none
more grotesque than this last. In fact,
most of the tussling and bone-breaking
and manslaughter above referred to is
nothing else than the human instinct of
propagation manifested in a very prim-

itive form. But in lieu of the Second
Empire Monsieur Zola had better chosen
the ante-figleaf period of history. Then
could he have kept still closer to nature.
Imagine Eve coyly caressing Adam's
cranium with a stout young oak, jerked
out by the roots from the Garden of
Eden!

The list of Emile Zola's literary of-
fences is long and weary — like some of his
books. His violent verbosity running
riot in feverish fecundity conduce to the
reader's utter fatigue. Zola's novels are
desperately diffuse; they are ill-propor-
tioned and unsystematic; they contain
endless repetitions in phrase and action,
together with numerous misstatements
and linguistic lapses ; they are totally de-
void of wit, but, on the contrar>', full of
the most malodorous language that ever
flowed from pen. It seems as if "La
Terre" and "L'Assommoir" had been
written, not in common black ink, but in
some choice distillation of garlic, assa-
fetida, and rotten eggs. Psychology there
is none, physiology more than enough.
Bad taste there is plenty, worthily ri-
valling that exhibited by the vermilion
press of America. Indeed, the copious
allusions, in Zola's later novels, to po-
litical events of recent happening, the
vociferous phraseology, and the untamed
jumble of matter, liken said writings
to those fantastic sheets that come out of
Park Row. "Verite," a commentary on
the Dreyfus case and the expulsion of the
religious orders from France, is a sort of
allegorical newspaper. When it conven-
iences him, the author mentions promi-
nent people by name. Thus in "Rome"
we read the diverting news that "It was
particularly in the United States of
America that Catholic socialism proved
triumphant, in a sphere of democracy,
where the bishops, like Monsignor Ire-
land, were forced to set themselves at the
head of the working-class agitation." In
"Rome," again, — a grand, fascinating
piece of prose, despite its faults — ^we find

THE LAMP

415

the leading chapter embodying the au-
thor's vexed, perplexed, disorderly meth-
od: three various, important themes, each
highly engrossing in itself, are forced to-
gether where there is but room for one,
the consequence being the impressment
of only the last theme on the reader's
mind, or else a foggy confusion of all
three. The "immorality" so freely and
frequently charged against Zola is ficti-
tious quite. No man ever painted the
vices more hideously abhorrible. As for
Zola's pessimism — no man ever bene-
fited the human race by praising it. No
man whose influence outlived him ever
did praise it, from Moses to Carlyle.

Will Emile Zola's works stand against
decaying time? Why should they
so? What qualities are theirs to pre-
serve them from falling to dust and
ashes? Enough has been said in this
article to show in general why Zola's
novels are entitled to no lofty place in
literature. Future generations will not
cherish the twenty- volumed Rougon-
Macquart either for the pseudo science
or the sham sociology. The succeeding
books are more strongly polemic, journal-
istic, and thus yet more ephemeral. Per-
haps, however, "Lourdes" may be saved
for a little, since the cure of bodily ail-
ments through faith — devoutly accepted
by some as a divine dispensation, curi-
ously regarded by others as a strange psy-
chic phenomenon, explained by others
still in the light of pathologic lore, by
others yet again ascribed to imposture —
to most minds possesses a mysterious,
hence conjectural, and therefore recur-
rently magnetic interest. "Lourdes" af-
fords speculation. "La Debacle," too,
may float awhile on the inconstant sea of

public approval; it is a thrilling picture
perpetuating dramatic phases proper to
a stupendous historical catastrophe that
changed the destinies of seventy-seven
million human beings. "La Debacle"
offers information. The "Contes a
Ninon," variously qualified, from the
prettily idyllic to the ruefully grewsome,
are mostly done with admirable artistic
skill ; but their present neglect forebodes
proximate oblivion. "Therese Raquin,"
crude but strong, is likewise advancing
to the result of all human striving, ex-
pressible mathematically in the form of
a cumulating "progression," called a
"series," viz., 04-0 + . . .

But considering with the small, vain,
ink-and-paper view the Rougon-Mac-
quart series, and the whole of Emile
Zola's endeavors in the small, vain, ink-
and-paper o termed "literature," let us
conclude :

Fame depends not in the least on merit.
Fame is of diflEerent stuff. Fame fol-
lows — ^justly or unjustly, for long or for
little — any furious, incessant, abounding
gush of human effort. Men may call
this emotion, or call it will, or work, or
genius, or whatever they please. But in
its final expression, good or evil, they
recognize it — this violent overflow — as
force. And in the measure of his force
does the individual conquer attention and
so get talked about by other individuals.
Fame has indeed nothing at all to do
with merit. "Fame," said Milton, "not
in broad rumor lies." He was mistaken.
His own fame, or Zola's, or any-
body's, consists of nothing else than be-
ing talked about very much by a great
many people in "words, words, words,"
i.e., + + . . .

AN UNPUIJLISHEI) I'HOTOGRXPH OF EDITH WirARTON.

THE RAMBLER

FEW writers could be more safely
intrusted with writing the life of
Beaconsfield than Mr. Wilfrid Meynell,
for he knows the inner history of our
time as very few Englishmen do. Con-
sidering the fascination of Disraeli, it is
quite remarkable that he has so far found
no real biographer. For many years it
has been expected that his life would be
written by his old secretary, Montagu
Lowry-Corry, who was created Lord
Rowton, but his lordship has devoted his
leisure to the founding of "Doss" houses,
those splendid castles for the poor which
have risen over London. It was then
thought that Mrs. Craigie might take up
the task, for she showed in "Robert Or-
ange" an extraordinary understanding of
Disraeli's nature and the spirit of his
contemporaries. And yet, for sheer hard
work and wide knowledge it may be
questioned if anybody could do the work
better than Mr. Meynell. Mr. Meynell
is a Yorkshireman by birth, and is a de-
scendant of the great reformer of that
county, William Tuke, who put the
laws of lunacy in England on a better
basis. He is a Roman Catholic. Six-
and-twenty years ago Mr. Meynell mar-
ried Alice Thompson, whose verse has
gathered round her a circle of devoted
admirers. The Meynells are the most
generous hosts, and their house is nearer
a salon than anything in London.

When Pamela Coleman Smith lived
in New York a few years ago we were
accustomed to see such old-time ballads
as "Widdicombe Fair," "The Green
Bed," and "The Golden Vanity" pict*
ured in a manner appreciative of their
old-time quality. These drawings, with
others, like the drawings made for
"Macbeth," for W. B. Yeats's "Land

of Heart's Desire," and the charming
play-time pictures of children, won their
way to the appreciative for their vivacity
and quaintness in the telling as well as
for the freshness of color and directness
of design of which this young artist pos-
sessed the secret in a notable degree.
When she moved to London it became
a question whether the new environment
would develop or destroy the freshness,
the spontaneity, the naive charm that
owed everything to nature and little or
nothing to the schools.

Fortunately she seems to have found
in London the environment that even
better conserves her inherent tendencies ;
and it is with the peculiar pleasure of
finding something unique that one picks
up the little publications of which she
has been for a year or more the inspira-
tion. Last year "The Broad Sheet" was
published in association with Jack B.
Yeats, brother of the Irish poet. It con-
sisted of a single sheet showing two or
more drawings, colored by hand; the
accompanying verses were as brief as
possible, scarcely more than captions.

This year Miss Smith brings out alone
a folio of a few pages called "The Green
Sheaf," and the prospectus sets forth
thus the modest and alluring purposes
of the editor :

"My Sheaf is small . . . but it is
green. I will gather into my Sheaf all
the young, fresh things I can — pictures,
verses, ballads of love and war; tales of
pirates and the sea.

"You will find the ballads of the old
world in my Sheaf. Are they not green
forever.

"Ripe ears are good for bread, but
green ears are good for pleasure.

"I hope you will have my Sheaf in
your house and like it.

"It will stay fresh and green then."

Among the contributors to **The
Green Sheaf" are names known on this
side as associated with the new Irish lit-
erary movement, such as Lady Gregory
and W. B. Yeats. Besides these there
will be verse and prose by Alex Egerton,
Christopher St. John, Cecil French,
John Masefield, and pictures by Gordon
Craig, the Monsells, W. T. Horton,
and Dorothy P. Ward.

But the largest contributor is Miss
Smith herself.

The first unabridged English dic-
tionary in raised point has just been
completed at the Maryland School for
the Blind in Baltimore. It is the great-
est feat in printing for the blind ever
accomplished in the world, not excepting
the Bible. The dictionary is printed in
"New York point," and covers eighteen
volumes, averaging one hundred and fif-

teen pages to a volume. The bound
volumes are about three inches in thick-
ness, only one side of a page being
printed.

The text used is the Standard Inter-
mediate School Dictionary, containing
over 38,000 words and phrases in com-
mon use, together with instructions for
compounding words, a list of degrees
conferred by universities and colleges, a
list of abbreviations and contractions,
with their meaning, and some hints
about capitalization. Difficulties en-
countered in printing the dictionary not
met in other publications for the blind
were occasioned by accentuation and dia-
critical marks, and the impossibility of
placing them above or below the letters
to be affected. Unlike any dictionary
ever before published, the accent mark
is placed after the syllable to be affected,
and the diacritical mark before the vowel
it affects.

A BEOAD SHEET

MARCH, ie02

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PUBU5HED AND SOLD BY ELKIN AUTHEWS. VIQO STREET. LONDON. W.

N*. B «n BItf

ONE OF PAMELA SMITH*5 HAND- COLORED SHEETS.

More than two and a half years were stereograph are 12 by 13I/0 inches. The

occupied in stereographing the plates, omission of a letter or word necessitates

It is the work of the pupils and faculty hammering down the raised point until

of the institution. The brass plates on the surface is again perfectly smooth be-

which the embossing was done with the fore a correction can be made in the

420

THE LAMP

plate. To fully appreciate the delicacy
and care required in stereographing
raised-point plates the machine must be
seen in operation.

This vast and costly work was printed
at the American Printing House for the
Blind, established some twenty-five or
thirty years ago at Louisville, Ky., to
print text-books for the blind of that
State. Fifteen years later Congress ap-
propriated $io,(XX) a year to this State
printing house for the publication of
pedagogical works. The number of
books printed for the blind that can be
sold is very small. The price of the
Unabridged Dictionary is $50, practi-
cally the cost of publication. The best
dictionary in use by the blind previous
to this new publication was a small
abridged four-volume edition.

The success of this unique enterprise
emphasizes the rapid stride made in this
country in printing raised point since
1842, when the American Bible Society
published free the Bible in eleven vol-
umes. It was printed in "Boston line
letter," an invention of Dr. Howe. For
more than ten years before twenty dif-
ferent styles of printing in relief had
been tried, and five had obtained recog-
nition. Dr. Howe seems not to have
known of the Breille method in general
use in France, Italy, and England, when
he introduced through the Bible the
Boston lower-case type.

Dr. Howe's Boston long line re-
mained in pretty general use in this
country until 1863, when William B.
Wait became principal of the New York
Institute for the Blind. Mr. Wait was
struck by the fact that many of the
pupils did not read and that text-books
were not used in class work. He began
to experiment with the Breille point,
from w^hich, by the inversion of the
Frenchman's invention from the rectan-
gular to the horizontal, the waste space
of the former was economically utilized
in the latter, developing into what is

now known as the New York point.
Mr. Wait is also the inventor of the
machine upon which the plates for the
dictionary were stereographed, a ma-
chine which has made possible the pub-
lication in New York point of more
than two thousand pieces of the choicest
classic music. Twenty-four of these
machines have been constructed to date
in the New York Institute for the Blind.
Two pow^erful factors in popularizing
the New York point are the Society for
the Publication of Evangelical Religious
Literature, which has its head-quarters
in Philadelphia, and the Xavier Free
Publication Society for the Blind. The
publications of both societies are gratu-
itously distributed. The board of the
former is composed of bishops of vari-
ous Protestant denominations. The
only layman is Mr. Wait, at whose sug-
gestion the Society's first publication
was extracts from the "Imitation."
The Evangelical Society, whose publi-
cations are printed by the American
Printing House for the Blind, issues
weekly a Sunday-school Lesson, which
circulates throughout the United States.
Until four years ago there was not a
single Roman Catholic work outside the
"Imitation" within the reach of the
Catholic blind. There are 75,000 Ro-
man Catholic blind in the United States.
This fact greatly disturbed the pious
soul of Madeline Gertrude Wallace, a
blind, deaf and dumb girl, w'hose intel-
lectual awakening is scarcely less mar-
vellous than that of Helen Keller, and
whose achievements are scarcely less
known to educators of defective chil-
dren. Indirectly Miss Wallace was the
inspiration of the Xavier Society, whose
work began with a handful of women
under the direction of Rev. Joseph \L
Stadelman, a professor in St. Xavier's
College, New York. Without funds
and by the aid of an old-fashioned hand-
press, worked by a treadle, not unlike a
sewing-machine, these women of leisure,

The Green Sheaf.

THE HILL OF HEARTS DESIRE.

Translated by Lady Gregory from the Irish of Raferty, a Peasant Poet

of seventy years ago.

AFTER the Christmas, with the help of Christ, I will never stop if I
am alive, I will go to the sharp-edged little hill. For it is a fine
place, without fog falling, a blessed place that the sun shines on,
and the wind does not rise there, or anything of the sort.

And if you were a year there you would get no rest, only sitting up
at night and eternally drinking.

The lamb and the sheep are there, the cow and the calf are there, hne
land is there without heath and without bog. Ploughing and seed-
sowing in the right month, and plough and harrow prepared and ready ;
the rent that is called for there, they have means to pay it ; oats and tiax
there, and large eared barley ; beautiful valleys with good growth in them,
and hay. Rods grow there, and bushes and tufts, white fields are there
and respect for trees ; shade and shelter from wind and rain ; priests and
friars reading their book ; spending and getting is there, and ncnhing scarce.

A PACK OF '* THE GREEN SHEAF, MISS SMITH S PRESENT PUBLICAIlON.

but varied social duties, set to work to
learn to read New York point, to set it
up, and to print it. By hand they
sewed and bound the volumes. This
labor of love, the first of its kind ever
started in this country, has prospered,
until to-day the Xavier Society has a

Wait stereographing machine and a
press that throws off fifty impressions a
minute, all run by electricity. By sub-
stituting zinc for copper plates, and
economic experiment with paper, Father
Stadelman has greatly reduced the cost.
From its foundation iri 1903 the Xavier

422

THE LAMP

Society, at a cost of $4,500, has printed
and stereographed some fifty-two vol-
umes of best Catholic literature, includ-
ing the entire "Imitation." Its publica-
tions circulate through the following
libraries :

Congressional Library, Washington,

D. C.
State Library of Albany, N. Y.
Public Library of New York City, N.Y.

" Baltimore, Md.

" Boston, Mass.

" Philadelphia, Pa.

" Cincinnati, O.

" Detroit, Mich.

" Louisville, Ky.

" Cleveland, O.

" Chicago, 111.

" New Orleans, La.

" Hoboken, N. J.

" Knottsville, Ky.

" Fall River, Mass.

" Milwaukee, Wis.

" St. Louis, Mo.

" Jefferson, Tex.
The Library of the Perkins Institution
for the Blind, Boston, Mass.

The only revenue save voluntary con-
tributions that the Society receives comes
through a monthly magazine for the
blind, of which Father Stadelman is the
editor. It is the only magazine of the
kind in the United States, if not in the
world.

Fox, Duffield & Co. follow their ini-
tial publication, "Everyman," with a
unique character study, "The Autobi-
ography of a Thief," by Hutchins Hap-
good. Advance sheets, just at hand as
we go to press, show this a sincere at-
tempt, of ability and much interest, to
show the development of an actual crim-
inal. Mr. Hapgood met his man soon
after his release from a third term in the
penitentiar}\ "As I continued to see

more of him, and learned much about his
life," he explains, "my interest grew; for
I soon perceived that he not only had led
a typical thief's life, but was also a man
of more than common natural intelli-
gence, with a gift of vigorous expres-
sion." So he interviewed him, reporter
fashion, not once but scores of times, the
acquaintance covering months. He en-
tered into the minutest details of his life,
and environment, and motive, until he
felt himself master, not only of the inci-
dents of his thief's career but of his very
character, so that, as he writes the story
in the first person, he makes it the veri-
table autobiography of a veritable per-
son; the thief himself, long since deeply
interested in the project, assisting with
promptings and advice and correction,
and even with occasional bits of copy.
The book is therefore a first-handed
study of unusual opportunity and un-
questionable interest.

The first thing to be noted about the
"Bookman Biographies," published by
Hodder & Stoughton, in London, and
James Pott & Son, here, is that they are
not biographies. The first two at hand,
"Thomas Carlyle" and "Robert Louis
Stevenson," presumably the type of all to
follow, consist each of a brief critical es-
say or two originally published in the
London Bookman, more pictures than
there are total pages, and four or five
pages of "Biographical Note" in smaller
type at the end. The illustrations
are distinctly worth while in interest,
though indifferently reproduced. For
instance, there are eight portraits of
Carlyle — the Maclise, Whistler, Watts,
and Millais paintings, the sketches by
Count d'Orsay and E. J. Sullivan, and
the Boehm medallion and statue. There
are also numerous photographs at differ-
ent ages and other interesting pictures
to a total of forty-three in a book of

HUTCHINS HAPGOOD, AUTHOR OF "THE AUTOBIOGRAI'HY OF A THIEF.'

forty pages. Mr. Chesterton's essay has
a note of waggishness in its beginning,
suggestive more of a spoken than a pub-
lished utterance. He presents Carlyle
as the "inevitable Irrationalist" follow-
ing "the great movement of the Eigh-
teenth and Nineteenth Centuries which
rose to its height in the French Revolu-
tion and the Positivist philosophy, which

was the last great Rationalistic Synthe-
sis."

The Stevenson book, precisely similar
in the interest, quality and number of its
illustrations, as well as its size, contains
a very brief estimate of the personality
and style of Stevenson by W. Robertson
Nicoll and a short essay on his "Charac-
teristics" by G. K. Chesterton.

424

THE LAMP

WALTKR APPLE-
TON CLARK BY
HIMSKLF.

Mr. Sargent's por-
trait of William M.
Chase was so much a
feature of the spring
exhibition of the
American Artists that
it naturally became the
main feature of the
frolicsome student ex-
hibition by the Society
of American Fakirs,
that followed it, as al-
ways, like mocking
Fate. There were no
less than twelve
"fakes" of this picture,
of which we show the
prize-winner. It should be explained
that the camera did its best with the shoe-
strings glued to the canvas to answer for
a spectacle-guard, with the indifferent
result shown.

Now we meant to show here two or
three of the best fakes, together with re-
productions of the original paintings, so
as to accurately gauge the quality and
nature of the caricatures. But on asking
permission to reproduce the paintings,
the artists refused with such regularity
to risk their serious efforts in* such trivial
company, that the scheme was perforce
abandoned. We confess to some sym-
pathy with the artists. The fun in most
of the fakes is altogether too — subtile, let
us say — to be evident except by compari-
son, but we reproduce from the cata-
logue a few amusing self portraits by
the instructors.

"Four-fifths of his time Wordsworth
was but a piddling poetaster." . With
these words, quoted from an article in
the Pall Mall Magazine, Mr. Henley
appears to have made another, this time
a mild, sensation. Yet the comment,
apart from the manner of its expression,
is by no means new. "Half his pieces
are childish, almost foolish," wrote

Taine. "In his seven volumes," said
Matthew Arnold, "the pieces of high
merit are mingled with a mass of pieces
very inferior to them; so inferior to
them that it seems wonderful how the
same poet should have produced both."
Twenty others might be cited to the
same effect. In general, Mr. Henley
differs from the best criticism chiefly in
his picturesque phraseology, more of
which, by the way, appears presently in
his statement that Wordsworth handled
metre "with the touch of the pedant, or
— still better! — of the bumpkin, the
yokel, the lout."

Mr. Henley thinks that the world at
large, "still scarce conscious of his fate-
ful and enormous presence," has now,
after all these years, "but begun to con-
cern itself blindly and fumblingly" with
Wordsworth's true meaning. There
may be much truth in this. Anything
approaching general recognition did not
come to him till after 1830, when the
lake home began to be an object of pil-
grimage. Then came Tennyson. "One
cannot say," wrote Mr. Arnold, in
1879, "that he effaced Wordsworth as
Scott and Byron
had effaced him.
The poetry of
Wordsworth had
been so long be-
fore the public,
the suffrage of
good judges was
so steady and so
strong in its fa-
vor, that by 1843
the verdict of pos-
terity, one may
almost say, had
been already pro-
nounced, and
Wordsworth's
English fame was
secure. But the
vogue, the ear and
applause of the The ChCWPLL

[

THE PRIZE-WINNING *'FAKK" OF SARC.F.NT'S PAINTING OF MR. WILLIAM M. CHASE.

great body of poetry readers, never quite
thoroughly, perhaps, his, he gradually
lost more and more, and Mr. Tennyson
gained them. Mr. Tennyson drew to
himself, and away from Wordsworth,
the poetry reading public and the new
generations. . . . The diminution
has continued. The influence of Cole-
ridge has waned, and Wordsworth's
poetry can no longer dr^w succor from

this ally. The poetry has not, however,
wanted eulogists; and it may be said to
have brought its eulogists luck, for al-
most everyone who has praised Words-
worth's poetr\' has praised it well. But
the public has remained cold, or at least
undetermined."

Mr. Arnold did not think Words-
worth had, up to that time, at all his
deserts; naturally, when, in the same

426

THE LAMP

essay, he ranks him, barring the ancients,
next in order after Dante, Shakespeare,
Moliere, Milton, and Goethe. Since
this was written, Wordsworth has, per-
haps, approached perceptibly nearer his
own, notwithstanding the dawning of
an impatient era, following, restlessly,
strange gods, given to habits of mind as
far as conceivable from contemplation
and repose, expressing itself hurriedly,
jerkily more often than not, in forms
farthest possible from poetry. Yet in
this age, and the last of it, we have
heard much of Wordsworth.

The last book about
Wordsworth, by Walter
Raleigh, bears this year's
date. It is a study of the
most intimate, most appre-
ciative kind, written out of
a deep insight, and present-
ing, in its whole, a picture
of this giant in all his in-
fantile weakness and colos-
sal strength, that leaves the
conviction of fair, naked
truth. If for nothing else
than to be rid forever of
the long-cultivated bugaboo
that one must fathom a
philosophy to comprehend
Wordsworth; if for noth-
ing else than to learn, once for all, that
he has no "secret," that we may calmly
discard much of his work without
searching it for hidden meanings, and
rest calmly in the self-evident genius
that remains, this book is worth while.

Of his vogue Professor Raleigh also
has something to say. "When a great
poet appears," he writes, "the history of
the process whereby his work comes to
be appreciated and accepted is singu-
larly like the early history of any one of
the religions of mankind that sprang
from single Founders. The prophet at
first is reviled, or despised, or merely
neglected. Then he finds disciples who,
though they understand his teaching

F. V. DU MOND BY HIMSELF.

but imperfectly and see his vision but
obscurely, yet in their partial under-
standing and partial insight are strong
enough to move the world. But the
original impulse weakens as it spreads;
the living passion is petrified in codes
and creeds; the revelation becomes a
commonplace; and so the religion that
began in vision ends in orthodoxy.
When once it has reached this stage,
new dangers beset it, for now its general
acceptance attracts men to profess it for
ends of their own, which, whether they
be laudable or base, bear
little or no resemblance to
the aims of the Founder.
Much of his startling doc-
trine is explained away, or
pared down, or assimilated
to the verdicts of common
sense. The cry of revolt
under the old order becomes
the new order which in all
essential respects differs but
little from the old. The
history of the appreciation
of any great poet exhibits
itself, therefore, like the
history of religion, in a
series of revivals."

"He failed," says Pro-
fessor Raleigh, in conclu-
sion (and here is the root of his posi-
tion), "in many of the things that he
attempted; failed more signally and
obviously than other great poets who
have made a more prudent estimate of
human powers and have chosen a task
to match their strength. He pressed
onward to a point where speech fails
and drops into silence, where thought is
baffled, and turns back upon its own foot-
steps. But it is good discipline to follow
that intense and fervid spirit, as far as
may be, to the heights that denied him
access. There is a certain degradation
and pallor which falls on the soul amid
the dreary intercourse of daily life; the
heat that is generated by small differ-

THE LAMP

427

ences, the poison that is brewed by small
suspicions, the burden that is imposed
by small cares. To escape from these
things into a world of romance is to flee
them, and to be defeated by them. San-
ity holds hard by the fact, and knows
that to turn away from it is to play the
recreant. Here was a poet who faced
the fact and against whom the fact did
not prevail. To know him is to learn
courage; to walk with him is to feel the
visitings of a larger, purer air, and the
peace of an unfathomable sky."

The first half of the first volume of
John Boyd Thacher*s new history of
Columbus, now ready, is given up to
Peter Martyr, instructor to the Royal
children at the Court of Ferdinand and
Isabella, and Bartholome de las Casas,
one of the very first missionaries to the
American Indians. From the records of
these two he quotes freely and to good
purpose, as they were the earliest his-
torians of the great discoverer. Happily
these records, which Mr. Thacher has
very properly made the basis and author-
ity for his exhaustive study, furnish also
a contemporary estimate of Columbus
the man, without which his work would
have been at the best, incomplete. With
the second half of the book, Mr. Thach-
er's own story begins. This is divided
into three parts, and treats successively of
the man, his purpose and its first accom-
plishment, ending with the discovery of
the Canary Islands.

Mr. W. M. Lightbody asks, in the
IVestrninster Review, "Is English liter-
ature dying?" He asks the question se-
riously, and the Academy and Litera-
ture, in a late number, discusses it seri-
ously; another illustration of the strain
of pessimism in a period marked, on this
side of the sea, at least, by a suggestive
enterprise and vigor. Mr. Lightbody

II. MAC NEIL BY HIMSELF.

GEORGK W. BRECK BY HIMSELF.

F. C. YOHN BY HIMSELF.

428

THE LAMP

complains chiefly that too many are
writing, a most hopeful condition, one
would think, a condition naturally be-
getting quality, quantity being satisfied.

**Mr. Lightbody," says the Academy
and Literature, "is surely right when he
recognizes a main cause of our declen-
sion in the democratizing (if we may
use the phrase) of modern literature.
The small but educated audience of pre-
vious ages is replaced by a great scarce-
educated audience. Mr. Lightbody
hopes that the education of this democ-
racy will gradually broaden and deepen,
till they replace the old select audience.
This is one of those pathetic beliefs
which fill us with despairing pity.
When we shall have attained universal
perfectibility; when we shall have ac-
climatized Heaven in England; when
men cross-breed with angels, evolving a
progeny that has lost its wrings, but is
yet capable of passing through brick
walls and living on theories supple-
mented by mild ginger-ale ; then we look
for this enlightened democracy which
shall trifle with Meredith and toy — be-
tween working-shifts — with the novels
of Mr. Henry James.

"Undoubtedly, as things stand, the
majority of writers drift toward the
best-paid market, and write for the
democracy which is our new patron of
letters. And undoubtedly this does
much to sap the integrity of literature.
But this is not all. The small but culti-
vated circle of readers which made the
audience of former writers is ceasing to
exist. The aristocracy formed an influ-
ential element in that audience. It was
part of a nobleman's character to have a
taste for and patronage of letters, in the
days of our ancestors: now, the aris-
tocracy is the last quarter to which one
looks for literary cultivation. And the
circle of those who love letters grows
smaller year by year. That, at least,
cannot be ascribed to the advent of the
democracy. If every year adds to the

readers of scraps and snippets, while it
takes away from the narrowing number
of intellectual readers, if an unlettered
democracy is balanced by an unlettered
aristocracy, the cause lies in the deepen-
ing materialism of the age, the race for
wealth, the struggle to live. Men who
will not take time to digest their food
are not likely to take time to digest their
books. Quick-lunching and hasty read-
ing go together. To read properly is to
think; and to think requires leisure.

"Something, again, is perhaps due to
declining energj'. Numbers find leisure
for foolish reading, who would faint at
the notion of concentrating their minds
on a book. A tired and blase generation
has lost the sap for mental effort. Fi-
nally, the thirst for gold and pleasure is
contagious, more contagious than the
thirst for knowledge. It must increase,
while the other decreases."

Not many, even of those seriously
concerned about our literature because
of the enormous popularity of indiffer-
ent fiction, will agree with this extreme
\\t\\. It is impossible to believe that
"the small but cultivated circle of read-
ers which made the audience of former
writers is ceasing to exist," especially in
view of the undoubted increased circu-
lation to-day of this very class of books,
to say nothing of the enormous increase
in the sales of reprints of the so-called
classics, sales which put to the blush
those of the "former years" referred to.
That there is a still greater increase in
the sale of books of less worth is nothing
to the point.

Of more interest is the writer's ad-
mission of a change of times, which
means, inevitably, some alteration of
standards. Doubtless many of the pres-
ent-day pessimists are incapable of see-
ing good in standards differing in any-
wise from their own. The daw^n of our
own age, and of every new phase of it,
was greeted by many such utterances as
this.

IN LIGHTER VEIN

By Eleanor Hoyt

RECENT fiction, conscientiously
read, leads one far afield. There
is the usual supply of Civil War stories
and swashbuckle tales of foreign lands;
but, for the moment, the calcium light
seems to have deserted these dramatic
favorites and to be wandering impartially
over a large and crowded stage. A
few fiction stars have triumphantly trod-
den the boards this spring ; but the make-
up of the chorus is, after all, the thing
that affects the public. One cannot go
on indefinitely reading "Youth," and
"Lady Rose's Daughter," and "The
Better Sort," and their few peers. Hav-
ing read them, one is reduced to the atti-
tude of the child who, even after the
bed-time story has come to an end, ques-
tions, breathlessly, "And what happened
then?"

Thanks to the industry and talent of
a host of writing folk, a large and varied
assortment of things happened then.
Some of the things are exceedingly enter-
taining. Others are — different.

GOLDEN FLEECE

David Graham Phillips's "Golden
Fleece" belongs to the former group. It
is distinctly entertaining and indisputably
clever. Incidentally, it is light — light as
froth. Mr. Phillips would probably be
the first to nod assent to that proposi-
tion. He had no intention of writing an
epoch-making novel, but he took up his
pen to write a light, amusing satire upon
certain American social conditions and he
accomplished his purpose, putting into
his smiling arraignment an amount of
keen observation and clever characteriza-
tion that might well have equipped a

much weightier and more important
novel, had Mr. Phillips not chosen to toss
the material gayly into a readable and
ephemeral story.

A fortune-hunting English nobleman
is no new figure in fact or fiction; but
Mr. Phillips has had the wisdom to make
his Englishman neither a hopeless cad
nor a double-dyed villain. He is unre-
servedly in search of a rich wife, but he
looks at the matter from his English
view-point and considers himself justi-
fied — compelled by conditions. He isn't
a bad sort, as decayed nobility goes, yet
he isn't whitewashed.

The English attitude toward the mon-
eyed American is sketched in the first
chapter. The author intends devoting
his satirical darts to his own countrymen,
but he pays his respects to the British
social system in passing. The Earl of
Frothingham hunts his wife and his mill-
ions in New York, in Boston, in Wash-
ington, in Chicago. In each city he fails
in his purpose. Mr. Phillips does not.
The Earl's matrimonial quest furnishes
a motif for clever sketches of the social
conditions in each of the four cities ; or,
to be more accurate, of the society com-
posed of the exceedingly wealthy set in
each city. Mr. Phillips does not advance
the idea that he is picturing American
society as a whole. He devotes himself
to the little coteries where millions run
riot, and where foreign titles presumably
have high market value. He has chosen
from the ranks of the very rich and
socially ambitious certain types of the
American girl, the American mother,
and the American father, and has made
them representative not only of our
nouveaux riches, but of our nouveaux
riches as differentiated by the social con-

430

THE LAMP

ditions peculiar to each of four Amer-
ican cities.

The satire is good-humored but un-
sparing and the story is told in crisp, vig-
orous stj'le that is an advance upon the
author's earlier technique. Mr. Phillips
is that rara avis, a newspaper man who
seems to be escaping from the bonds of
journalistic habit while retaining the ben-
efits of journalistic training, and who can
write a novel which is not a collection of
reportorial experiences, but has perspec-
tive and coherence. (McClure, Phil-
lips.)

THE LAND OF JOY

Ralph Henry Barbour belongs, as does
David Graham Phillips, to the newspa-
per-trained writers of books, but there
the resemblance between the two ends,
and it is a far cry from "Golden Fleece"
to "The Land of Joy."

Mr. Barbour has been well known
through his school and college stories
written for boys, but now he has essayed
a novel, a love-story with Harvard and
an old Virginian plantation as alternat-
ing stage-setting.

Under the book name on the title-page,
one finds

"Youth with swift feet, walks onward in the way,
The land of joy lies all before his eyes."

And there one has the motif for the story.
The book is saturated in youthfulness.
Reading folk soberly treading the thirties
— even those who are wandering down
the slope of the late twenties — will read
it with a "where are the snows of yester
year" sensation and wonder vaguely
whether they were ever so young as these
young folk. Everyone between the cov-
ers is young, insolently young. Even the
little old chatelaine of the Virginia home
is not allowed to be old in heart, and she
falls in love with the hero long before
her daughter does.

Yet those aged, aged men who gradu-
ated from college at least five years ago.

those fading spinsters of twenty-five who
look back through the mists of years to
undergraduate teas, will like Mr. Bar-
bourns story. It is buoyant, fresh, whole-
some. The light and amusing side of
college life is sketched, but there is a
breezy and sturdy manliness about these
freshmen and sophomores, even in their
follies, and John North, a reverend
senior and hero of the tale, is as fine a
fellow as ever coached a 'Varsity team.
There is delightful love-making in the
book — youthful, absurdly youthful — ^but
all the more charming for that, and emi-
nently refreshing in this day of sophisti-
cated heroes and heroines who go in for
psychological subtleties and Vesuvian
emotions. (Doubleday, Page.)

NO HERO

Apropos of youthful good fellows —
who throng Mr. Barbour's pages — there
is an extraordinarily likable English
translation of the type in Mr. Hor-
nung's "No Hero."

Robin Evers isn't a college "man."
He is only an Eton boy; but Mr. Hor-
nung has made him a credit to old Eton,
and he is calculated to restore a faith in
the British aristocracy — a faith sadly
shaken by the pessimistic pictures of re-
cent fiction. If Eton is still turning out
such lads as this, possibly English society
may yet be saved, though Elizabeths go
a-visiting, and Ambrosines reflect, and
Picadilly be crowded with Benjamin
Swift creatures.

He is a nice boy, this Robin. To be
sure, he falls in love with a fascinating
widow, but a student in the Princeton
Theological Seminary might do that.
What is an Eton lad that he should be
immune ? Moreover, Robin Evers shows
a discriminating taste. Mrs. Lascelles
has a fascinating present as well as a
shadowy past.

Captain Clephane, crippled hero of
the African war, and old admirer of Rob-

THE LAMP

431

in's mother, goes forth at this mother's
suggestion to find the youthful Etonian
in his Swiss hotel and rescue him from
the wily enchantress whose wiliness the
mother takes for granted in the eternal
fashion of mothers with only sons.

The Captain fulfils his mission, but the
story of that fulfilment is an interesting
one, and Mr. Hornung has told it in de-
lightful fashion. The man who wrote
"Raffles" and "The Amateur Cracks-
man" might be confidently expected to do
extraordinarily clever work along the
Raffles line, but here is a novel of a sort
totally different — a man and woman
story, a social story, a love story, set in
the gossiping littleness of a Swiss hotel,
under the awesome bigness of the Matter-
horn; and the creator of Raffles has
proved his versatility by telling a story
quite as good in its way as the cracks-
men stories were in theirs.

The tale is vigorous, convincing. It
contains no hysteria, despite that East
Indian past.

No one of the characters takes himself
too seriously, and the author has told his
story with a light, sure touch, a glinting
humor, a human sympathy that make it
uncommonly good reading. (Scribners.)

FROxM A THATCHED COTTAGE

The title of "From a Thatched Cot-
tage" suggests a sylvan tale of the
sweetly sentimental kale-yard type, but
the reader who takes up the book with
any such expectation is doomed to speedy
disillusion. The thatched cottage doesn't
stand for rural sentiment and simplicity.
Sorrow and tragedy cling round it, and
though a love-story, honest and whole-
some, runs through the book, it is over-
shadowed by crime and retribution.

Eleanor Hayden knows rustic life and
simple country folk, and pictures both
with keen sympathy and a saving sense of
humor; but the humor is subordinate to
the tragedy in this story of two neighbor-

ing families and the sombre shadow that
overhangs them.

Even the dialect, awesome dialect, can-
not mar the interest of the book, and at
times the author attains genuine power
through sheer simplicit}^

With all its gloom, the story is not a
morbid one, and the dark background
throws into bold relief the sincerity and
faith of the lover and lass between whom
the sin of an earlier generation stands in
grim protest.

The author has had the wisdom to al-
low the cloud to lighten before the clos-
ing chapter, but the happy ending comes
logically and effectively, without marring
the quiet realism which is the novel's
chief claim to consideration. (Crowell.)

MARJORIE

When one lays aside Justin Huntly
McCarthy's "Marjorie," it is with an
inward query, How much of "If I were
King" was McCarthy; how much was
Sothern ?

The wonder framed in words sounds
a trifle ill-natured and doubtless does
Mr. McCarthy rank injustice, for he
has proved that he can write, and write
entertainingly.

Possibly, however, an ill-natured pro-
test may be permitted to a reader sadly
disappointed. "If I were King" was so
full of poetr>', sentiment, humor, origi-
nalit>', along with its extravagant ro-
mance. "Marjorie" is so — yes ; common-
place is the word.

There are gleams of the expected spirit
and picturesqueness in the opening chap-
ters ; but, all too soon, one sets sail for a
western land, on a ship whose rascally
crew is bent on mutiny and piracy. From
that point the story is weakly reminis-
cent, an oft-told tale that is, this time,
not very well told. The reader's
thoughts go roaming to other and more
thrilling stories of mutiny and adventure
on the high seas, to pirate captains and

432

THE LAMP

crews more awesome than these puppets,
to heroines more humanly lovable than
this Marjorie, w^ho is never for a moment
a living, breathing, love-commanding
young woman.

The story lacks red corpuscles in spite
of all the blood that is shed in its chap-
ters, and the love-story is as anaemic as
the pirac>\ Not a thrill lurks between
the covers. Things happen, but one
sees the wires pulled, and, too, one has
seen the same things happen so often that
one has ceased to find them exciting un-
less they are presented with consummate
skill.

There was once a writer body whose
initials were R. L. S., and who wrote of
adventure on land and sea — but that's
another story. Yes; it's quite another
story.

One has a right to expect from Justin
McCarthy something far better than his
latest novel. (Russell.)

TIOBA

. Magazine readers have learned to as-
sociate Arthur Col ton's name with short
stories of uncommon merit in point of
conception and of style. Here is a man
— one of the younger men — who has
originality, feeling, humor, and a re-
markable sense of proportion. He has
faults, but little crudity. He has already
learned how to handle his tools with a
certain sure, incisive force, yet with a re-
serve that usually comes later in literary
development.

In the volume called "Tioba" the best
of Mr. Col ton's stories are collected, and
that means that here is a book of stories
all of which have much to commend
them, though they vary widely in quality.

The title story, "Tioba," dealing with
one Jim Hawks, who, according to sur-
face evidence, dodged a mountain and
the Almight\% is, perhaps, the best of the
group, but "The Enemies," "The Green
Grasshopper," and "A Man's a Man for

a' That," are good stories, and in "The
Spiral Stone" Mr. Colton has fixed a
weird little supernatural story on the
ver}^ verge of the ridiculous, and yet,
through sheer skill of technique, has held
it within the realm of myster>^ and of
charm. (Holt.)

BY THE RAMPARTS OF
JEZREEL

The biblical novel still has its read-
ers, although the field has of late been
somewhat overworked, and the Old Tes-
tament is a treasure-house of suggestion
for the writer of stirring fiction. There
is but one handicap laid upon the nov-
elist who seeks his characters and plot in
Jewish history. Certain Hebrew scribes
of antiquity anticipated him, and the
man whose book courts comparison with
Old Testament narrative must reconcile
himself to inferiority.

Arnold Davenport has chosen the
days of Elisha for the period of "By the
Ramparts of Jezreel," and once more
Jezebel is the central figure of a novel,
but Mr. Davenport's Jezebel is not the
whitewashed queen who gave her name
to one of last season's novels. That was
a Jezebel who upset cherished traditions ;
a Jezebel, beautiful, cruel, but moved,
even in her most relentless cruelt\% by
passionate devotion to Ahab, her hus-
band.

Mr. Davenport's heroine is not what
might be called a family Jezebel. She is
Jezebel the wicked, the wanton, the ac-
cursed — though still Jezebel the beauti-
ful, the brave, the might>\

The love of Jehu for Idalia, the
daughter of Elijah, stolen in infancy by
Jezebel and brought up at the queen's
court for purposes of vengeance, fur-
nishes a love 7notif which ends tragically.

Mr. Davenport has done his work
carefully, with an almost too conscien-
tious attention to detail, and has written
an effective story.

THE LITERARY QUERIST

EDITED BY ROSSITER JOHNSON

[TO CONTRIBUTORS:— ^»/f7« wust be briefs must relate to literature or authors, and tnust be o/ some general
interest. Ansiveis are solicited, and must be prefaced xvith thf numbers of the questions referred to. Qutries
and answers, tivitten »n one side only of the ^a per, should be sent to the Editor of THE LAAfPy Charles
Scribner's Sons, 153-137 Fifth Avenue, New I orh.]

745* — Can you or any reader tell me who is
the author of the following lines :

Not spilt like water on the ground.
Not wrapped in dreamless sleep profound,
Not wandering in unknown despair
Heyond Thy voice, Thy arm. Thy care,
Not left to die like fallen tree :
Not dead, but living unto Thee.

J. T.

746. — (t) Can you tell me the address of Mr.
Archer M. Huntington, the collector of Spanish
books ?

(2) Is **An Attache' in Madrid "a trans-
lation from the (lerman, as stated on the title-
page, or really written by Mme. Calderon de la
Harca ? • A. H. K.

(i) Mr. Huntington's address is Baychester,
New York C"ity.

(2) The book was undoubtedly written by
Madame Calderon de la Barca, who, after she
became a widow, was attached to the household
of the Queen of Spain ; but there may have been
a German edition and a translation from it.

747. — Have you any knowledge of a poem,
entitled " Since That Boy of Mine Came Home,"
or a title similar to that, relative to the Spanish-
American war? If so, won't you be kind enou>>h
to let me know where it appeared or where I can
get it. K. s. N.

748. — Many readers interested in Kenyon
West's description of the great fight inside the
Chew House at the battle of Germantown are
wondering how the name of his story is pro-
nounced. Is it Cliveden, or is it pronounced
as if it were spelled Cleveden. Some who are
reading the book say the former, others the
latter. Which is right ? I. R.

Probably the latter.

749. — Kindly tell me the names of some of
the authors who figure in their own literature.

D. H.

Probably there are many more than we know
of. The first one that comes to mind is Byron,
in "Childe Harold." Dickens portrays a large
part of his own early life in '* David Copper-
field." Charles Reade, in *'A Terrible Temp-
tation," pictures himself as " Rolfe the Writer,"
who keeps innumerable scrap-books, all in-
dexed, and uses them in his literary work.
Charlotte Bronte is believed to have modelled

the character of Jane Eyre on her own, and it is

probable also that much of her experience is

set forth in "The Professor." Albion W.

Tourgee, in " A Fool's Errand," records his own

life in North Carolina, where his wife's hair

turned white in a single night when their house

was besieged by Ku Klu.x — an illustration of the

opening lines of '*The Prisoner of Chillon."

Robert Waters wrote a thick volume to prove

that Shakespeare set forth his own character in

that of Prince Hal (afterward Henry V.). He

says he received the hint of this idea from the

Archbishop's characterization of the King in the

first act of " Henry the Fifth" :

•' Hear him but reason in divinity.
And. alladmirinji:, with an inward wish
V'oii would desire the king were made a prelate :
Hear him debate' of commonwealth afTjirs,
You would say it hath been all-in-all his study :
List his discourse of war, and you sh ill hear
A fearful battle rendered you in music :
Turn him to any cause of policy.
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose.
Familiar as his ganer : that, when he speaks,
The air, a chartered libertine, is still.
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears.
To steal away his sweet and honcyetl sentences."

We presume the query does not contemplate
books that are professedly autobiographical and
are partly or wholly true, like Herman Mel-
ville's " Typee," nor the fact that many of the
poets have occasionally put some portion of their
real lives into their work, as in Motherwell's
"Jeanie Morrison" and Tennyson's "Daisy."

750. — Can any reader tell me where to find a
poem of which this is one stanza :

I walk in the valley of silence,
Down the dim. voiceless valley alone.

And I hear not the fall of a footstep
Around me. save God's and my own.

And the hush of my heart is as holy
As houses where angels have flown.

S. R.

y^l. — ii) I have heard that the largest book
store in the world is in Melbourne, Australia.
Is this true ?

(2) What is the shortest title ever given to a
novel ?

(3) Is there any complete edition of Richard
Rcalf's poems? K. H.

(i) We believe it is true. The proprietor's
name is Cole, and he is said to have a million
volumes in stock. Not more than half a dozen
of the world's greatest libraries exceed this,

434

THE LAMP

though, of course, the book store has many copies
of one book.

(2) Perhaps (I eorge H. Hepworth's, published
in 1SS5, which was simply three exclamation
marks, **!!!" Other short ones are Mrs. Oli-
phant's "May," Kipling's "Kim," Dutton
Cook's " Leo," Rider Haggard's " She," Mrs.
Edwards's "Jet," Whyte-Melville's " M or N,"
and Dyne Denton's "P.."

(3) The late Col. Richard J. Hinton collected
Realf's ix)ems and edited them with an elaborate
biography. The volume was published by F'unk
& Wagnalls in 1898. But it does not include all
the poems known to be Realf's. Two years
later Crane & Co., Topeka, Kan., published a
volume containing Realf's Free State poems
(also edited by Hinton), some of which are dif-
ferent versions of poems included in the earlier
volume.

752. — Will you or any of your readers kindly
tell me the author or authors of the following
quotations? I have been told they are by
Robert Browning, but cannot find them in the
Cambridge edition of his poems :

(1) *' Heaven's gate is shut to him who comes alone ;
Save thou a soul, and it sh.nll save thy own.

(2) "They only the victory win

Who have fought the good fight and have

Nanquishrd
I'hc demon that tempts us within."

(3) *' We should join hands in frantic sympathy.

If once you taught me the unteachable."

(4) *' May-flowers bloom before May comes.

To cheer a little April's sadness.*'

(5) '• The sweetest lives are those to duty wed.

Whose deeds, both ^reat and small.
Are close knit strands of an unbroken thread.
Where love ennobles all."

(6) *' I believe the poets : it is they

Who utter wisdom from the central deep, " etc,

753. — Are there not such words as " pre-
ciosity " and " indiscipline " ? R. p.

There are, but they belong to a class that
should be used sparingly. This is more es-
pecially true of the first, because frequent and
careless use would rob it of the extremely nice
distinction in its signification that is its only
reason for being.

ANSWERS
742. — (2) Wood's " Dictionarv- of Quota-
tions " (F. Warne & Co., $2.50) is peculiarly
rich in proverbs. w.

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A REVIEW AND RECORD OF CURRENT LITERATURE

CONTENTS FOR JULY, 1903 pxcm

James Whitcomb Riley Frontispiece

From the painting by John S. Sargent.

An Old "Book of Friends" . ....... Edith Rickert 455

With facsimiles and portnits.

Matthew Arnold on Georg^e Sand and Balzac Introductory note by Brander Matthews . . . 464

Is « Extra- Illustrating" Played Out? .... J, M, Bulloch 4^7

Early English Criticism of Emerson .... T, G, Evans 470

Letters and Life John Finley 478

New Pictures of the Stoddards 485

From Photographs by Lorimer Stoddard

The Sonnet of Arvers Walter Utile field 488

The interesting story of a famous poem.

A New Portrait of M. Edmond Rostand , 494

The Rambler 495

Literary Notes and Comments, with many portraits and other illustrations.

A Recent Portrait of Sewell Ford 507

Some Really Historical Novels Herbert Croly 509

The Literary Querist Rossi ter Johnson 514

New Books and New Editions 516

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JOHN S. SARGENT'S PORTRAIT OF JAMES WHITCOMH RILEV.
Reproduced by permission ot the Herron Art Society, Indianapolis.

A Revienv and Record of Current Lii^erat/ure

BNTERED, FEBRUARY 2, I903, AT NEW YORK, N. Y., AS SBCOND-CLASS MATTER, UKDER ACT OF CONGRESS OF MARCH 3, 1897

Vol. XXVI

NEW YORK, JULY. 1903

No. 6

AN OLD "BOOK OF FRIENDBtJ?, o jo .,
By Edith Rickert " ^r, ,. ^^^

IN 1579, in the city of Antwerp,
Marie, the eldest daughter of
Philip de Marnix, Sieur de Sainte Alde-
gonde, began to keep her Album Ami-
cor urn; and to-day, the little brown
book, with her initials stamped in gold
on its cover, lies forgotten in the British
Museum. Turning its pages idly, one
would perhaps only smile at first over
its scrawled mottoes and verses and
amateur sketches, thinking how little
human nature has altered within the
past three centuries; but if he stopped
to spell out crabbed, often nearly illeg-
ible names, and searched through the
vast archives of the Orange-Nassau
family and dusty old records, sometimes
with their leaves still uncut, he would
see many a meaningless jumble of letters
grow familiar, and many a dim person-
ality grow^ sharply defined, until he
could almost claim Marie's friends for
his own.

Pious little fair-haired Marie — we
can guess at something of her life-story.
It is probable that she spent her baby-
hood in exile, for, in 1567, Philip de
Marnix and his young wife were ban-
ished for furthering the Protestant
cause. She was a little girl, probably
safe at her father's castle of West Sou-
burg on the island of Walcheren, when
the Spaniards rioted and robbed and
massacred in Antwerp, in the terrible

fury of 1576. From 1579-82, while she
was collecting her autographs, it would
seem that she lived for the most part
within sound of the cathedral chimes of
the old city on the Scheldt. She herself,
on the first page of her little book, in-
serted the motto:

Sage j>tlA ciM^irK j>i i\ok Si-e.v

which is an anagram of her name:

MARIE DE SAINCTE AULDE-
GONDE.

She wrote also a little French verse
that seems almost prophetic of her short
life. Translated, it reads:

Remember death and live from day to day.
As then thou canst, both happily and well ;
For he that puts not temporal things away,
May not the joy of his salvation tell.

At the end of her three years* gayety
among the great folk, her father's
friends, she married Louis de Flandres,
Sieur de Praet, who under several im-
pressive mottoes in Greek, Latin, and
French, in her little book, signs himself:

On another page is a French poem
called :

456

THE LAMP

Sonnet in Favour of the Honourable
Marriage of the Seigneur de P — / and
Dame M — de M — (the names have
been blotted out, but are still distin-
guishable) by Way of Dialogue between
V. and M.

M. Whither goest by thy Graces led.

Gentle Venus, with thy little son ?
V. I go like Juno to find whom Love hath won

To be with hymeneal service wed.
M. By all the charms which thee I see adorn.

Tell me their names, O goddess justly famed.
V. The one is L — , the other M — is named,

In lineage the virtue nobly bom.
M. O gentle Venus, I know them very well !
V. Only to know them — that indeed is well !
M. Vet more of honor shineth on their way.
V. Shall you be found among this gentle throng ?
M. Thither I go, Venus, with you along.
V. Together with thee, the Muses I'll convey.

It is written in two hands, one much
finer than the other, apparently as an
exercise in capping verses, by way of
compliment to the betrothed. Louis de
Flandres was a soldier, hence appropri-
ately enough V(enus) and M(ars?)
conduct the dialogue and promise to
bring both Graces and Muses — all po-
lite Antwerp — to the wedding.

In 1583, Marie had gone to live at
West Souburg, and there, in the castle
that nearly thirty years before had shel-
tered the emperor Charles the Fifth, im-
mediately after his abdication, she, in
another way, saw the end of her little
world, among the sand dunes near
Flushing, by the side of the gray sea.

Great folk I had mentioned and just-
ly, for the first three names are of
princes. There is Frangois, known by
his motto: Fovet et discutit (He nour-
ishes and scatters), and some feeble rays
of a rising sun, to be the Duke of Anjou.

^mm

This evil-minded, pock-marked little
man, treacherous and cowardly enough
even for Catherine de Medici's son, was
hoping for great things when he pleased
Sainte Aldegonde by writing in his
daughter's album. He was to be sover-
eign of the Netherlands; he had all but
won Queen Elizabeth as a bride; he
was next in succession to the French
throne; and in 1584 — his life-days were
ended.

On the second page is:

A^^l^tSfoynAd*^

Here is another would-be sovereign,
rival to the Duke of Anjou. In 1579
he wrote A mat Victoria Curam, the
motto he assumed when he went to the
Netherlands. He fled in disguise by
night from his brother's palace in Vien-
na to win, as he thought, the Nether-
lands. Like Anjou, he was young, the
next in succession to a throne, but ambi-
tious of more. In the Netherlands, only
two years after he wrote in the album,
he had to yield his claims to Anjou —
and surely Franqois gloated when he
wrote his name on the page facing and
before his rival's — but the wheel turned
again, and, in 161 2, Francois had been
dead nearly thirty years and Matthias
was Emperor of Austria.

P d n7atnhc7ii/ra\i

..^

S C s

(pn\»/se. 'f'^'^s

PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM, PKLNCE OF ORANGE.
From a photograph by Hanfstaengl of the painting by M. J. Mierevelt

458

THE LAMP

These names are followed by the au-
tograph of William of Orange himself
— the rival princelings by the patriot
who refused the honor coveted by both.
Je maintiendray , he wrote; and, at the
close of his life, this motto was as a vow
fulfilled. He had maintained Protes-
tantism and liberty in the oppressive
days of Alva and Margaret of Parma;
he had maintained the republic that he
helped to free from Spanish tyranny;
and, in his last days when Marie knew
him, though surrounded by wrangling
sects, baited by fanatics, wounded by as-
sassins, this man, who long before had
kept Silence when Silence alone could
save, now maintained an invincible
cheerfulness, more, a steady nobility and
power of character that upheld, as noth-
ing else could have done, the fortunes
of his people.

There is one romance in the life of
this hard-working, patient man, and
that concerns Charlotte de Bourbon,
who wrote her name below his in the
little book. Twice he married for polit-
ical reasons, and, after fifteen years of
unhappiness with his second wife, the
depraved and finally insane Anne of
Saxony, he divorced her and took an-
other to please himself. There was an
outcry through Europe that he was mad.
The Roman Catholics were horrified
because the princess had been a nun —
an abbess even — and had broken her
vows; the Protestants saw no reason in
William's putting away Anne of Saxony
to marry a penniless woman, without
special beauty or influence, a mere de-
pendent at the Court of the Elector-
Palatine. Courage enough had Char-
lotte de Bourbon to flee from the nun-
nery that she had been forced into
before she was of age or knew her re-
ligion; and courage enough she needed
to be the wife of the brave man who
wooed her. He proceeded in this as
serenely indifferent to the opposition of
his family and of foreign princes, as in

all other matters that he deemed right.
He sent his friend Sainte Aldegonde to
Heidelberg to bring her to Holland;
and, for some years after, her blended
happiness and anxiety for his safety
shows plainly in her letters. But,
in 1582, came the nearly successful at-
tempt upon her husband's life, and the
terror and strain of watching (for
nearly three weeks she scarcely left his
bedside) brought on her own fatal ill-
ness. Three days after the Thanksgiv-
ing service for the Prince's recovery,
died the wife who was so "inexpressibly
dear" to him.

Maurice and Philip of Nassau were
associated in their lives as their names
are on the page of Marie's book :

-i

^ ^ ^>-n /•

Though they were boys at this time,
the mottoes they chose are singularly
suggestive of their careers. Maurice
had need to be *'shod among thorns";
and, indeed, only five years later, the
Earl of Leicester — one of the prickliest
of these "thorns" — alluded to his "sol-
emn sly wit," and admitted that he
could not make out the young stadt-
holder at all. But the young captain
became indeed a "dolphin" — a strange,
fantastic beast — "in courage." More
than once, being in an after-dinner
mood, he insisted upon attacking the
enemy alone and unarmed, and only
with extreme diflficulty • and peril was

41
4

THE LAMP

459

dragged back to safety and bed. Yet
he was of true heroic stuflE, and "car-
ried the name of Nassau with honor
into the grave." Fifteen years after
the date of his autograph, he, in a reck-
less foray, was entrapped by Spaniards
in ambush at the end of a narrow lane.
He was shot by an arquebus at such
close range that his clothes were set on
fire; his men rolled him in sand and
heather (there was no water near) and,
mortally wounded as he was, he yet
struggled to escape. When the Spanish
officers came to visit their prisoner, he
suppressed every mark of agony and
talked courteously with them, and, when
among them appeared young Fried rich
van der Berg, his traitorous cousin, and
taunted him, he only "turned away and
bade him hold his peace, and at mid-
night he died." And, as Philip fell a
victim to his own rashness, so Maurice,
on the other hand, at once more prudent
and more patient, lived to fulfil his des-
tiny in carrying out the work his father
had begun.

It would seem almost too dramatic to
be true that the treacherous, taunting
Fried rich van der Berg should have
written in Marie's book, yet here is his
name:

In 1 579, he and his brothers, Hermann
and Oswald, wrote a joint letter, indig-
nantly denying that they were friendly
to Spain; in 1582, all wrote in the album
of a patriot's daughter; a little later,
all went over to Spain and fought
against the house of Nassau.

There was yet another traitor among
Marie's friends — Lamoral the younger,
son of the patriot Egmont. In 1581,
he inscribed for her four lines of halting-

French doggerel, no doubt his own, to
this effect:

I write myself in this place,
That I may gain your good grace,
And to assure you as I may,
That I would serve you fain alway.

A year later, he was discovered in a
plot to murder William the Silent and
the Duke of Anjou. It was also said
that there was found in his lodgings a
poisoned ring that he intended for
Sainte Aldegonde, the father of his
little friend. By the intercession of the
Prince of Orange, he escaped death, but
had to go into exile.

On the same page wrote three of his
sisters: Leonore, Franchoyse, and Sa-
bine. We can scarcely to-day imagine
the tragedy of lives like theirs: a father,
though innocent, executed as a traitor;
two brothers living disgracefully, trai-
tors to the cause for which he died ; their
mother reduced from wealth to beggary;
themselves dependent upon the charity
of the Prince of Orange. Little Sabine,
who was to be one of the brides at the
famous triple wedding of 1595, wrote
with a curious pathos, as it seems to-
day: ALD.N.D., which means Mon
Dueil Ne Dis (Tell not my sorrow).

Princess Mary of Nassau was another
of these brides, marrying after an ac-
quaintance of more than fifteen years,
one of the handsomest, bravest, most
profligate and reprehensible swashbuck-
lers in the Dutch army — Count Hohen-
loe.

-^f/if* ^^•» ^A^

460

THE LAMP

In a letter written by her in 1580,
there is the suggestion of a romance.
She is certainly much interested in
"Graf Philips," and says that she doubts
not of his love (there was talk of his
resigning at that time), but, indeed, he
has so much to do (he had recently suf-
fered several galling defeats) that it
would be no wonder if his hair turned
gray (he was only thirty) ; she would
be glad from her very heart if he were
honorably out of the whole affair and
might live in peace and quiet. She con-
cludes: "But that must be when it shall
please God {der liben Gott will), and
until then we must be patient."

Undoubtedly both William and Mau-
rice tolerated the dissipated Hohenloe
only because no better general was to
be had; and, undoubtedly, even though
the Princess Mary favored him so early,
there must have been great and contin-
uous opposition to their love.

The records of the time are full of
his personality — and a stranger com-
bination of devil and gentleman has sel-
dom been created — and of his curious
relations with the other heroes of the
day: Roger Williams, who thoroughly
disapproved, yet sometimes seems forced
into a reluctant admiration of him;
Edward Norris, whose head he broke at
a supper of his own giving; Sir Philip
Sidney, with whom he quarrelled, and
to whom dying, he sent his own sur-
geon, though himself at the time se-
verely wounded; the Sieur de Villiers,
whom he threatened to throw into the
canal for his French sympathies; the
Earl of Leicester, who tried hard to buy
him for the English, and could make
nothing of him.

"Honor — prayer — God," he wrote
in Marie's album. Prayer and God
must have been mere polite forms to one
for whom life was a revelry and a jest;
but honor at least was a reality. He
gained Bois-le-Duc by a brilliant dash,
and lost it by sheer folly. And yet,
while an old chronicler might describe

the discomfiture of Hohenloe and his
men in the quaint terms, "their noses
grew a hundred feet long with sur-
prise," Davison, no friend to the Count,
had to admit that his grief "hath for
the time greatly altered him." His life
was one long gamble with fortune — a
desperate drinking and desperate adven-
turing that wore him out in his prime.
But of all that is told about him, his
Ehre is most conspicuous in his gen-
erous self-denial at the time of Sidney's
greater need.

Among other Nassaus now almost
forgotten is Catherine, the dearly be-
loved sister of the Prince of Orange,
who shared the long watching of Char-
lotte de Bourbon, and, a year later, was
at Delft to hold her dying brother in
her arms. On the same page with her
name, are the autographs of Gunther,.
Count Schwaitzburg, her husband, and
Count Johann of Nassau-Catzepelubo-
gen, her brother, William's best friend
and a second father to his children, who
a year later wrote sarcastically of this
same Gunther: that he was enjoying
good health, drink, and society, and
lacked only to be well paid by the States
for these services. Devotion, sorrow,
satire — what other phases of life lie
hidden behind these few blurred scrawls
on a yellow page?

Justin de Nassau needs a word ta
himself. As the Admiral of the Dutch
fleet, he is a bulky figure in the history
of the times; but he is more interesting
as a man of many adventures — witness,
his escape from the trap of Bois-le-Duc
by leaping from the walls and swim-
ming the moat. But Justin, as the scribe
(perhaps the author) of some pretty,
sentimental verses in a young girl's al-
bum, stands revealed from a fresh point
of view. The lines are worth transla-
tion, and read:

The blossomy meadows have their times and

hours,
To ripen to perfection their fair flowers ;
IJut when the harvest season draweth nigh,

Si
S

< a
7- '-t

w 6

3 M
< 5

462

THE LAMP

The reaper with his crooked scythe stands by.
No sooner hath it touched their stems and crossed,
Than all their beauty exquisite is lost.
Ye young and fair, this bids you meditate
Your own fragility ere't be too late.

^ f'^litiMiide I^aJ^A

€Ui^-

Among other great names in these
pages, is that of the Marquis de Chatil-
lon, the eldest son of the great Admiral
Coligny. Eight years after his father
was murdered on St. Bartholomew's
Day, 1572, he wrote an epigram which
shows, perhaps, a touch of his father's
austerity :

None save the dancer goes to the ball, in sooth ;
And none save he would eat, at a feasi appears ;
He goeth not to sea who danger fears :
Nor he to court who speaketh only truth.

^StL'ffot .

With his name goes naturally that of
Henry de Bourbon, the son of the great
Conde who, with Coligny, had upheld
the cause of the Huguenots, himself as-
sociated both with Henry of Navarre
and with Chatillon — it is surely not
without significance that he wrote the
unusual motto:

Pro Christo et patria dulce periculum.

Here, too, is to be found the name of
the clever diplomatist who tried to bring
the Netherlands under the rule of
Henry the Third — Roche de Sorbies
des Pruneaux. And here is the name
of his far greater contemporary, Phi-
lippe de Mornay du Plessis, Sieur de
Marly. His friendly esteem for Sainte

Aldegonde is shown in a letter written
years later, in which, to assurances of
love and requests for a letter, he adds:
"Among the good I hold you one of the
best."

A name of more interesting associa-
tions is:

The fortunes of Odet De la Noue
show a curious parallel to those of his
father, the veteran Bras-de-Fer. In
1580, the latter was captured and, for
fiwe years, kept by King Philip in a dun-
geon at Mons; the year before he was
exchanged, Odet was taken prisoner and
confined for seven years at Tournay.
In his case there is a genuine relation-
ship between his motto, "Patience re-
joices in trials," and his character, for,
when he had been in prison some thirty
months, he wrote a poem on this very
subject. This was soon after done into
English under the title, A Paradox
against Libertie, addressed to his "Fa-
ther deere," in which he proves that his
misfortune was a "sharpe sweet Pil"
sent by God, his "cunning kind Phisi-
tion." The son, like the father (whose
sobriquet came from an iron-arm), was
severely wounded; but took the inflic-
tion as a sign of God's grace, saying:

*' Wounding with musket-shot my feeble arm,
he cured
The festring sores of sinne» the which my
soule endured."

To his father's imprisonment he alludes
touchingly in speaking of God's mer-
cies:

*' Whereof your self (ycr while) so sweet sure
proof haue tasted,
In cruell bitterness of bands that longer lasted."

In 1591, he was at length exchanged,
unequally enough, for Philip Egmont,

RUINS OF HREDERODE CASTLK.
From a photopaph by HanfstaengI of the painting by Mcindert Hobbema.

Lamorars brother — and hastened to his
father, only to find that he had a few
days before been killed at the siege of
Lamballe.

Both father and son were closely con-
nected with Sainte Aldegonde. The
latter was in a way responsible for
Odet*s imprisonment, for, as Burgomas-
ter of Antwerp, during the siege, he had
employed him on a perilous night-mis-
sion when a lesser man would have
done; and De la Noue was tracked by
the sound of his oars and, after a hard
fight, captured. But Bras-de-Fer bore
no malice, for, years after the siege,
when Sainte Aldegonde was accused,
unjustly It seems now, of being tam-
pered with by the Spaniards, he wrote
warmly: "His hands and his heart are
clean."

In Marie's service were enrolled the

names of younger members of most of
the old Dutch and Flemish nobility:
Lamoys, Boetzelaers, Brederodes. These
last are perhaps especially interesting as
being the children of the patriot Count
de B rede rode, who, with an old castle

dating back to early feudal times, a
lineage even older, and the best claim
of anyone to the throne of Holland, was
yet hottest among the hot in the cause
of the "Beggars"; and died in exile, of
hard living and disappointment, while
Marie's parents too were yet under the
bap.

(To be Concluded.)

MATTHEW ARNOLD ON GEORGE SAND AND

BALZAC

With an Introductory Note by Brander Matthews

THERE can be no dispute in regard
to the right of every author to
classify his own writings and to reject
such as may fail to attain his own stand-
ard. He may have published in a maga-
zine an article that he does not care to
reprint in a volume; and he may even
have included in an earlier book papers
which he finds himself at last excluding
from the definitive edition of his works.
There is more than one short story of
Mr. Kipling's not to be found in the col-
lection of his prose and verse for which
he himself is responsible. There are
hundreds of pages of Whittier's earlier
work which he excluded from the final
Riverside edition.

But while an author can control his
work during his lifetime, his ardent ad-
mirers will not rest satisfied in the years
that follow after his death. They are
certain to insist on disinterring much
that might have been included in the
best edition, and often they persist in
resurrecting not a little that had better
have reposed in the oblivion of the
back-number. The bulk of Lamb's
writing appears now to be nearly twice
what it was half a centurj^ ago, and at
least half a dozen portly tomes have
been added to the later editions of
Thackeray, by the revival of the ne-
glected journey-work of his youth. Sev-
eral volumes could as easily be adjoined
to the set of Lowell, if all his contribu-
tions to the Pioneer, to Putnam's Maga-
zine, to the Atlantic, and to the Nation
were to be collected diligently. Sooner
or later, no doubt, the pious zeal of those
who keenly relish the flavor of Lowell's
prose \vi\\ rescue most of these papers,
which are well worthy of resuscitation,
-even though unequal to his best work.

It is announced that the final volume
of the new edition de luxe of the works
of Matthew Arnold will contain a bib-
liography ; and it is to be hoped that this
last will be more nearly complete than
the only bibliography now available —
for this, for instance, fails to catalogue
the three or four interesting letters on
the contemporary' drama which Arnold
contributed to the Pall Mall Gazette
when that newspaper was edited by
Mr. Frederick Greenwood and by Mr.
John Morley. Other scattered essays
of his there are well worthy of collec-
tion, ' although their author seems to
have held them in little esteem. One of
them, a letter contributed to the same
journal in 1884, when the statue to
George Sand w^as unveiled at La
Chatre, might well be appended to the
longer criticism of George Sand which
has been preserved in "Mixed Essays."

In this longer criticism, written in
1877, just a year after George Sand's
death, Arnold narrated the circum-
stances of his meeting with her in Au-
gust, 1846, at Nohant — a meeting
which was the result of a "desire to see
the country and the places of which the
books that so charmed us were full."
He ended by declaring that, even though
her books fade away as time rolls on,
"there will remain of her to mankind
the sense of benefit and stimulus from
the passage upon earth of that large and
frank nature, of that large and pure
utterance — the large utterance of the
early gods. There will remain an ad-
miring and ever-widening report of that
great and ingenuous soul, simple, aflfcc-
tionate, without vanity, without pedan-
try, human, equitable, patient, kind."

Matthew Arnold did not often dis-

THE LAMP

465

cuss the modern novel. One of his later
papers deals with Tolstoy, it is true,
but although appreciative, his criticism
can scarcely be called sympathetic. In
this essay on George Sand, from which
quotation has already been made, he
turned aside to declare that the pictures
of life which Zola had given in "L'As-
sommoir" were of a kind long ago la-
belled by George Sand as "the literature
of mysteries of iniquity, which men of
talent and imagination try to bring into
fashion." And it is interesting to re-
member that the Zola thus characterized
held the novels of George Sand to be
profoundly demoralizing — and, in his
"Pot-Bouille," he set forth their emol-
lient influence upon a feminine weak-
ling.

What gives special interest to Ar-
nold's later letter to the Pall Mall Ga-
zette is the formal comparison he makes
between George Sand and Balzac. As
might be expected, he sets the woman
who improvised tales far above the man
who built his splendid series of novels
with so Cyclopean an industr>'. George
Sand has been dead more than a quarter
of a century, and very few of her many
stories now reveal any signs of vitality.
Balzac has been dead half a century,
and his influence seems to be broadening
and enduring. All the more reason is
there that we should give heed to the
opinion of these two discordant influ-
ences expressed by a critic as wise and
as full of true insight as was Matthew
Arnold.

MR. ARNOLD'S LETTER ON GEORGE SAND

To-day a statue of George Sand is
unveiled at La Chatre, a little town of
Berry, not far from Nohant, where she
lived. She could hardly escape a statue,
but the present is not her hour, and the
excuses for taking part in to-day's cere-
mony prove it. Now is the hour of the
naturalists and realists, of the great
w'ork, as it is called, and solid art of
Balzac, which M. Daudet and other
disciples are continuing; not of the work
of humanitarians and idealists like
George Sand and her master, Rousseau.
The work, whether of idealists or of
realists, must stand for what it is worth,
and must pay the penalty of its defects.
George Sand has admirably stated the
conditions under which Rousseau's work
was produced: "Rousseau had within
him the love of goodness and the enthu-
siasm for beauty — and he knew nothing
of them to start with. The absence of
moral education had prolonged the
childhood of his spirit beyond the ordi-
nary' term. The reigning philosophy of
his time was not moralist; in its hatred

of unjust restraints, it left out the chap-
ter of duty altogether. Rousseau, more
logical and more serious than the rest,
came then to perceive that liberty was
not all, and that philosophy must be a
virtue, a religion, a social law."

Of George Sand herself, too, we may
say that she suffered from the absence
of moral education, and had to find out
for herself that liberty is not all, and
that philosophy must be a virtue, a re-
ligion, a social law. Her w^ork, like
Rousseau's, has faults due to the condi-
tions under which it arose — faults of
declamation, faults of repetition, faults
of extravagance. But do not let us de-
ceive ourselves. Do not let us suppose
that the work of Rousseau and George
Sand is defective because those writers
are inspired by the love of goodness and
the desire for beauty, and not, accord-
ing to the approved recipe at present, by
a disinterested curiosity. Do not let us
assume that the work of the realists is
solid — that the work of Balzac, for in-
stance, will stand, that the work of M.

466

THE LAMP

Daudet will stand, because it is inspired
by a disinterested curiosity.

The best work, the work which en-
dures, has not been thus inspired. M.
Taine is a profound believer in the mo-
tive of disinterested curiosity, a fervent
admirer of the work of Balzac. He
even puts his name in connection with
that of Shakespeare, and appears to
think that the two men work with the
same motive. He is mistaken. The
motive of Shakespeare, the master-
thought at the bottom of Shakespeare's
production, is the same as the master-
thought at the bottom of the production
of Homer and Sophocles, Dante and
Moliere, Rousseau and George Sand.
With all the differences of manner,
power, and performance between these
makers, the governing thought and mo-
tive is the same. It is the motive enun-
ciated in the burden to the famous
chorus in the "Agamemnon" — to S ^ev
vt/cdra), "Let the good prevail." Un-
til this is recognized, Shakespeare's
work is not understood. We connect
the word morality with preachers and
bores, and no one is so little of a preacher
and bore as Shakespeare ; but yet, to un-
derstand Shakespeare aright, the clew to
seize is the morality of Shakespeare. The
same with the work of the older French
writers, Moliere, Montaigne, Rabelais.
The master-pressure upon their spirit is
the pressure exercised by this same
thought: "Let the good prevail." And
the result is that they deal with the life
of all of us — the life of man in its ful-
ness and greatness.

The motive of Balzac is curiosity.
The result is that the matter on which
he operates bounds him, and he deline-
ates not the life of man, but the life of
the Frenchman, and of the Frenchman
of these our times, the homme sensuel
moyen,

Balzac deals with this life, delineates
it with splendid ability, loves it, and
is bounded by it. He has for his pub-

lic the lovers and seekers of this life
everywhere. His imitators follow ea-
gerly in his track, are more and more
subdued by the material in which they
work, more and more imprisoned within
the life of the average sensual man, until
at last we can hardly say that the motive
of their work is the sheer motive of curi-
osity, it has become a mingled motive of
curiosity, cupidity, lubricity. And these
followers of Balzac, in their turn, have
some of them high ability, and they
are eagerly read by whosoever loves and
seeks the life they believe in.

Rousseau, with all his faults, yet with
the love of goodness and the enthusi-
asm for beaut>' moving in him, is even
to-day more truly alive than Balzac, his
work is more than Balzac's a real part
of French literature. A hundred years
hence, this will be far more apparent
than it is now. And a hundred years
hence George Sand, the disciple of Rous-
seau, with much of Rousseau's faults,
but yet with Rousseau's great motive in-
spiring her — George Sand, to whom the
French literature of to-day is backward
to do honor — George Sand will have es-
tablished her superiority to Balzac as
incontestably as Rousseau. In that
strenuous and mixed work of hers, con-
tinuing from "Indiana," in 1832, to her
death in 1876, we may take "Mauprat,"
"La Petite Fadette," "Jean de la Roche,"
"Valvedre," as characteristic and repre-
sentative points; and re-reading these
novels, we shall feel her power. The
novel is a more superficial form of liter-
ature than poetry, but on that very ac-
count more attractive. In the literature
of our century, if the work of Goethe is
the greatest and wisest influence, if the
work of Wordsworth is the purest and
most poetic, the most varied and attrac-
tive influence is, perhaps, the work of
George Sand. "5/>;i dire, cest bien sen-
tirT and her ample and noble style rests
upon large and lofty qualities. To-day,
with half-hearted regard, her country-

THE LAMP

467

men will unveil her statue in the little
town by the meadows of the poplar-bor-
dered Indre, the river which she has im-
mortalized —

Still glides the stream, and shall not cease to
glide-

while she, like so many of "the great, the
mighty, and the wise," seems to have had
her hour and to have passed away. But
in her case we shall not err if we adopt
the poet's faith,

And feel that she is greater than we know.

IS -EXTRA-ILLUSTRATING" PLAYED OUT.?
By J. M. Bulloch

London, June, 1903.

QUITE recently, for reasons which
are not quite obvious, the art of
Grangerizing, or Extra-illustrating, as
it is more commonly called nowadays,
has been discussed from various points
of view. We have had several articles
upon it; a booklet has been published in
an Arts and Crafts series, showing how
the amateur may become a grangerite
(mechanically) ; and another book has
been announced upon the same subject.
A somewhat tortuous explanation might
be found in the appearance of Granger's
Medallion, under the portico of the Na-
tional Portrait Gallery, for some inquisi-
tive spirit is surely to be found in the
thousands of people who pass the spot
every day, and who have failed to un-
derstand why the bewigged and stately
looking old parson should occupy so
prominent a position. In any case, the
subject has been canvassed.

Grangerizing has been pilloried by
the purists, and it has been pursued by
the plodding with indomitable indus-
try, but increasing difficulty. The diffi-
culty has arisen from the growing
scarcity of loose prints. When the first
edition of Granger's book appeared in
1769, five shillings was considered a
liberal price for any English portrait.
Within a few years the price had arisen
to five times that amount, and the fig-
ures have gone on increasing, largely

owing to the enthusiasm of American
collectors to whom money is not a con-
sideration, until, even within the last ten
years, prices have advanced for certain
types of print quite a hundred per cent.
Perhaps the greatest advance has taken
place in the case of mezzotints, for it is
generally allowed that the magnificent
collection w^hich the late Lord Cheyles-
more presented to the nation, could not
be duplicated at anything like the price
he paid.

Has the art of grangerizing become
played out? I think not. What has
happened is that it has of recent years
changed its venue, and I venture to pre-
dict that, under the new conditions, it
will, not only survive, but increase, when
practised on certain common-sense lines.

The mere fact that the term extra-
illustrating should have taken the place
of the original word "grangerizing," goes
far to prove my point. As practised in
its early years, the art reached a per-
fectly ridiculous point by becoming a
hobby to be pursued for its own end, in-
stead of a means of elucidating a text.
It needs no bibliophile of refined tastes
to sympathize with the scorn which
John Hill Burton poured on the Gran-
gerites in his "Book-hunter," with the
vigorous denunciations of Mr. Lang,
and with the condemnation meted out
by the late Mr. Blades in his delightful
essay on the "Enemies of Books." No

468

THE LAMP

words can be too strong for those col-
lectors who remove the plates from a
book in order to enhance some granger-
ized volume which they have under
preparation. It is not merely that the
volume loses this or that plate, but that
the book as an entity becomes depre-
ciated, and quickly finds its way to a
lower class of bookshop, and thus les-
sens the distance between its career and
the paper-mill. What can be said, for
instance, of the collector who will not
be satisfied with a portrait or a print
until he amasses all the known impres-
sions of the very same engraving? It is
true that there is in circulation an enor-
mous number of loose prints which have
been torn from books, the text of which
has vanished (a firm of booksellers in
High Holborn have just issued a cata-
logue of 15,000 prints for which seven
shillings and sixpence is charged) ; but
it may be argued that, but for the Gran-
gerite, these books would never have
been mutilated at all.

Another complication that makes for
the vanishing of the art has arisen out
of its purely financial side. In nine
cases out of ten it may be asserted safely
that the completed work fetches nothing
like its cost in construction, for, though
big prices are being constantly asked for
grangerized books in the second-hand
catalogues, we have no means of know-
ing what the collector originally paid.
This fact has been recognized for half a
century at least, so that one is rather
surprised that anybody should criticise
grangerizing on the basis of being a fi-
nancial fool's paradise. Joseph Willis,
the bookseller, expanded Granger's well-
known "Biographical Histor}" into
nineteen volumes, at a cost of £200, and
all it fetched was £38. 10. In our own
time, we have seen the comparatively
small price paid for such laborious com-
pilations as the late Mr. Daly's Douai
Bible. Indeed, it may be questioned
whether the Grange rite ever makes

money, unless he comes at the beginning
of a boom, and is contemporarj' with the
rise in the value of an author, as was
the case in Mr. William Wright's mag-
nificent collection of Dickens material,
more especially that illustrating Fors-
ter's life of Boz.

The modern Grangerite has adopted
a common-sense line, by producing an
extra-illustrated book either as a pleas-
urable hobby or as a working tool. As
a matter of fact, the modern pursuit of
specialism has proved the saving of the
Grangerite, who has enlarged the scope
of his operations. It is no longer thought
necessary for the collector to utilize a
printed book as the unit of his endeav-
ors. He makes his own unit when he
chooses his subject, and builds up round
that. Take as an example the increas-
ing interest in topographical literature.
Here the collector will soon discover
that the greater mass of his material
must come, so far as the progressive part
of the subject is concerned, from the
newspapers and current periodical litera-
true, for the older fashioned method of
"gutting" a series of volumes to increase
the pictorial side of another in no way
adds to one's knowledge; it is a mere
robbing of Peter to pay Paul.

Taking newspaper and periodical
literature as a whole, the Grangerite
plays an exceedingly useful part, by pre-
serving a great mass of interesting ma-
terial which is extremely unlikely to find
its way to such permanence as book form
can give it. Nothing is so common as
the cheap newspaper, and nothing be-
comes so difficult to procure even with-
in a few weeks of its publication, for the
day when people took care of things has
long since gone by. Here, then, is a
splendid field for the Grangerite to cul-
tivate. I need hardly say that he will
create not a mere collection of scraps.
He selects a subject in which he is par-
ticularly interested, and he collects
everything touching that subject from

THE LAMP

469

the current periodical literature of the
day. Such collections may not be valu-
able from a monetary point of view, but
their usefulness, specially in libraries, is
appreciated by all students. The process
of making such a collection may be a
little laborious, but it unquestionably
adds to one's practice of methodicalness
and keeps one alive to all the possibili-
ties of topic. While the mere mechani-
cal side of it, namely, the cutting, the
pasting, and indexing, is a great relief
after the nerve-destroying tendencies of
so much of our modern life.

I have recently had an opportunity of
examining a very interesting library of
grangerized books built up on this prin-
ciple. One was the history of a class in
a Scots university. The collector had
preserved from all sorts of sources cut-
ings, details about the careers of his
comrades during a particular curriculum,
and I was struck by the enormous
amount of sentimental satisfaction that
he managed to extract from his nicely
bound volumes. I may say, in parenthe-
sis, that the best method is to build up
the book exactly as the printer does ; that
is to say, paste it up section by section
and then get it bound ; do not paste into
a volume which is already bound.
When I think of the fascinating class
histories which your universities turn
out w^ith so much enthusiasm, and which
are practically unknown in this coun-
try, I could not help feeling how valu-
able was the principle which grew out
of the laborious "Biographical History"
which the industrious Vicar of Shiplake,
in the County of Oxford, produced
nearly a century and a half ago. Gran-
ger had certainly no idea that his in-
ventory' of the engraved portrait was to
lead to the practice of illustrating his
text with actual specimens of the prints
he enumerated ; and the early collectors
who took so much trouble, unconsciously
of course, to destroy what his work was
intended to preserve, had no premonition

of the wide possibilities of their hobby,
including, as it has come to do, every con-
ceivable form of print, and, even in the
hands of some Philistines, like the no-
torious Bagford, title-pages!

A curious side light on the old print
business has been shown in the gradual
elimination from the illustrated papers
of the reproductions of old-fashioned en-
gravings. The introduction of photo-
graphic processes resulted in the repro-
duction of an enormous number of such
prints, which, as illustrating the journal-
ism of another day, sought to show its
quality to readers of our own time.
Thus, the pictorial history of most of
our big tow-ns and buildings was told in
these reproductions, and there was an out-
burst of antiquarianism which has prob-
ably never been equalled in this country.
Two or three dealers managed to make
little fortunes in the heyday of this
strange resurrection. But our public,
which has practically no sense of history
— least of all its own history — soon got
tired, and the old print business, so far
as illustrated newspapers are concerned,
may be said to have ceased to exist.

Another interesting point is this : that
as the market has become exhausted so
far as concerns one type of illustration,
collectors have immediately laid hands
on the next process of illustration, and
duly created a sort of corner in it.
When steel engravings, mezzotints, and
the like became rare, wood-cuts got a
chance. These in turn were followed
by lithographs, while the most recent
mine is the art of the photographer. It
is strange to think that there should be
any rarity in a photograph, and yet
probably no form of illustration runs
such risk of destruction, for in most cases
the artist's set of negatives is destroyed,
and the prints so often fade that it is
impossible to reproduce them satisfac-
torily. I recently had the opportunity
of looking through the album of an
elderly Frenchman, M. Adolphe Beau,

470

THE LAMP

one of the pioneers of photographic
portraiture in London, who, with char-
acteristic carefulness, had managed to
preserve nearly every portrait that he
had ever taken. They deal mostly with
early Victorian celebrities, and it is in-
teresting to see how much less ridiculous
the fashions of that time appear in photo-
graphs than they do in the wood-cut or
lithographic period.

It may be pointed out that Granger-
ites have nearly always been amateurs,
men with artistic tastes, who were en-
gaged, however, in occupations more or
less removed from art or letters. Verj^
few of them have been writers, and fewer
still have been pictorial artists. Mr.
Daly was immersed in the business of

theatrical management, which has rarely
produced a cultivated bibliophile taste.
Mr. William Wright, of Paris, whose
splendidly extra-illustrated collection
was brought to the hammer at Sothely's,
in June, 1899, is connected with the
turf. At the present moment, a diamond
dealer of Hatton Garden finds an ab-
sorbing recreation in grangerizing Mas-
son's Milton; and scores of other ex-
amples might be cited. Grangerizing has
been practised now for a century and a
half — ^much longer than postage-stamp
collecting; but I do not think it is on
the wane. It has passed through its
ridiculous period, and has come to stay
as a useful and common-sense adjunct to
the printed book.

EARLY ENGLISH CRITICISM OF EMERSON

By T. C. Kvans

ENGLISH criticism began to take
notice of Emerson about 1840,
following the publication there of a
small volume of his essays, with an in-
troduction by Carlyle. It was not at
first very copious in its attentions; and
did by no means harp on a single string,
either of approbation or censure. In-
stead it represented the most diverse
critical sentiments concerning the new
literary apostle who had appeared be-
yond the Atlantic, and the somewhat
obscure and enigmatical gospel, from the
current British point of view, which he
had set himself to promulgate.

In the main, it was very civil, and in
some cases, generously patronizing; in
but few did there appear, at first, the note
of true appreciation, which later was not
wanting in England or elsewhere. But
it was not without an intermittent ac-
companiment of the other kind of esti-
mation which expressed itself in ridicule
and satire and frank rejection of the en-
tire message of which the composed

and amicable and wholly undisturbed
New England seer was the bearer.
The English Review, in 1849, taking up
for consideration his little volume en-
titled "Nature: An Essay, Orations,
etc.," then first presented to the English
public, says that the reputation which
"that transatlantic thinker" enjoys "sug-
gests matter for grave reflection." The
writer goes on to say that "when we
find an essayist of this description who
seems to be a setter forth of new gods,
belauded alike by Tory and Radical
organs, by Blackwood and the West-
minster, by the friends of order and dis-
order;" when his works are published
edition after edition, cheap and dear, and
all snapped up by eager readers of all
classes as soon as printed ; when the uni-
versity students read him and like him,
and think or pretend they think that
they understand his sibylline and sub-
verting doctrines, it is time to call a halt
and invite the philosopher to come into
the court of serious criticism for ex-

THE LAMP

471

amination. The writer says that he
may hurt the feelings of some of the
idolaters of "this transatlantic star,"
but that truth is a matter so important
that **in this instance" he "holds himself
bound to speak out plainly." But he
does not do this at all. His rhetorical
voluntaries are wheezy as the drone of
a Lincolnshire bagpipe. He fumbles
around for his meanings without finding
them. In short, he writes like an arch-
bishop, is pious, moral, and authoritative,
but awakens little interest and carries no
conviction. The men and women of
that time, he says, grow weary of truth
and reason; they tire of the wholesome
old orthodox formularies, they want
novelty. "A new cook comes and
mingles poison with his sauces. What
then? The flavor is pungent, and a
moral evil may often be an intellectual
pleasure." He calls Emerson a "Para-
dox master," and a "mighty phrase-
monger," and "a treacherous marsh-
light," too evidently not the big star
he thinks he is, with benign influences as
of Pleiades, or flame-girdled as Orion to
kindle the universal arch ; rather, to use
Emerson's own somewhat eccentric astro-
nomical terms, a "supplemental asteroid
or compensatory spark shooting along the
central dark." In the interest of morals
and the intellectual and spiritual well-
being of the generation, he deserves
rigorous critical treatment, but what
shall it be? Shall we ridicule him?
Really he is too deucedly clever ; no prog-
ress to be made in that way. He would
look clean over our heads and wouldn't
even stoop to scorn us. No! We are
obliged to admit that he has merits, and
striking ones ; happy audacities of phrase
^*that madness often hits on," which rea-
son and sanity (like ours) could not so
prosperously be delivered of. The only
way which the reviewer sees clear before
him is to go on in the plodding way of
a literary dumdrudge for twenty or
thirty pages, saying nothing whatever

worth remembering, except what he
quotes from the author whom he is re-
viewing. His work is of pious intention.
He thinks society is imperilled by the
doctrines of which Emerson makes him-
self the apostle, and he would like to
defend it, but he only succeeds in spread-
ing a cloud of dulness around the
brightness of his theme. Set off with
his borderings and embroideries of com-
ment, even the fine thought of Emerson
looks rather commonplace and paltry,
like some precious thing that had been
soiled in the handling.

In considering "The Conduct of
Life" a dozen years later, in 1861, the
Saturday Review takes up and prolongs
the note of unhesitating detraction and
assumes the moral attitude of one who is
unmasking an impostor. It is incon-
ceivable, the writer says, how Mr.
Emerson could have won his reputation.
"His works are nothing, mean nothing,
and say nothing." The one under con-
sideration is like the rest of them — no
better and no worse; the pieces dealing
with Fate, Power, Wealth, Culture, Be-
havior, etc., have nothing in them, "with
the exception of occasional jets of non-
sense, not altogether destitute of a sort
of liveliness;" they are the weakest sort
of commonplace elaborately thrown into
unintelligible shapes. For instance,
twenty-eight pages are devoted to the
subject of Behavior, the gist of which is
as follows: Manners are the ways of
doing things. They are very influential.
Everybody notices this. They arc of
great social importance. Bad manners
are very unpleasant. American manners
are often coarse. The manners of differ-
ent classes diflEer. Sometimes manners
mislead those who observe them. They
depend, to some extent, on character.
People's bodies are very expressive.
The eye is very expressive. (This origi-
nal remark fills four pages.) The nose
is expressive. The gait is expressive, and
so on through the score and a hsdf of

472

THE LAMP

pages. The writer declares that the
abstract given sets forth all the meaning
which the fuller discourse contains. How
anybody can read such whimpering
platitudes goes beyond his comprehen-
sion. He hears that in America the
discourses were delivered as lectures.
"What," he asks, "must the dulness
have been which such an entertainment
relieved." How could anybody in his
right senses get up and put on his hat
and coat and take his walking-stick and
sally forth into the night to pursue such
a phantom and caricature of wisdom as
this? "The style in which Mr. Emer-
son lectures his countrymen is even more
remarkable than the matter which he
considers appropriate. It is like that of
a spasmodic writing-master cr\'ing over
his own copy slips."

Emerson quotes Jacobi as saying that
when a man has fully expressed his
thought he has somewhat less possession
of it. He also observes that "There is a
whisper out of the ages to him who can
understand it. ^Whatever is known to
thyself alone has very great value.' "
Whereon the reviewer says that a man
who quotes Jacobi for the purpose of de-
nouncing ostentation, and describes as a
whisper out of the ages the proposition
that "the knowledge of the fact that a
man has in his pocket two half-crowns,
a four-penny piece, and a Russia leather
purse must be of very great value be-
cause it is known to himself alone, needs
reminding that, if it is wrong to work up
nobilities into poems and orations, it can
hardly be right to use platitudes for the
purpose."

The writer goes on in this key with
unfaltering consistency. He cannot dis-
cern any kind of merit in Emerson what-
ever. It seems to him a national calamity
that such a writer should be admitted to
classical rank among American authors,
and he thinks that the nonsense he writes
is not worthy to be admitted to the
pages of a fourth-rate English magazine.

His whole book from beginning to end
is a continuous stream of twaddle re-
lieved by nonsense. There is here and
there a sort of cleverness about it, but
generally speaking, it is pervaded by an
impotence and inaccuracy of mind which
is only matched by the ostentation in
which it is clothed. A particularly fla-
grant form of this ostentation, the re-
viewer thinks, is afforded by "the strings
of classical names" w^hich Emerson
sometimes introduces: Thales, Anaxi-
menes, Hipparchus, Empedocles, Aris-
tarchus, Pythagoras and CEnipodes.
"They give one an earnest desire to have
the right of cross-examination. It would
be really delightful to see Mr. Emerson
be made to show what he really knows.
Who was CEnipodes ? When and where
did he live? Give an account of his
principal opinions and show in what
particulars they agreed with and differed
from those of Anaximenes, Empedocles,
and Aristarchus." In fine, he did not
think that the New England gnostic,
mystic, and arch-verbal juggler knew
much about these celebrated philoso-
phers except their names, which he
brought into his discourse to give it a
tone of omniscience, and mitigate its
austerity with a touch of classical orna-
mentation.

The whole tone of his writings, he
says in conclusion, "is that of a classi-
cal philosophical educational institution
where the young gentlemen are in-
structed without corporal punishment
on physiological principles and can
neither write, construe, nor know a hum-
bug when tl.ey see him."

This reviewing knight, so shining in
his armored braveries and panoplies half
a century ago, probably with little
doubt that if there was ever a star of
the critical tournament he was one — for
didn't he write for the all-seeing and
all-knowing Saturday Reviewf — this
knight aforesaid is, ere this, quite likely,
dust; his sword is rust, and his per-

THE LAMP

473

forrr.ances in the lists forgotten. But
the Emersonian discourse which oper-
ated on his mind like a red banner on
the imagination of Taurus, high-tailed in
the arena spread and decorated for his
destruction, still holds together the wax-
ing band of Emersonian disciples now
distributed throughout the world. It

turns out that the words fitly spoken,
like apples of gold in pictures of silver,
were not in this and some other cases
of kindred sort those of the reviewers,
but those of the author whom they so
laboriously and systematically and at the
same time so fruitlessly set out to dis-
parage and discredit.

ROBERT F. BLUM.

ROBERT FREDERICK BLUM
By Robert Bridges

ROBERT FREDERICK BLUM,
the illustrator and painter, who
died at his home in New York City on
June 8th, was a man of remarkable tal-
ent and recognized achievement. He
was only forty^-seven years of age, and,
with his untiring methods of work and
ambition for still higher accomplish-

ments, it is fair to suppose that he would
have added a great deal to his reputation
by works that he had so far only con-
ceived. Blum covered in his career al-
most the entire development of modern
magazine illustration. He was encour-
aged by A. W. Drake, the art editor of
Scribners Monthly, to come to New

474

THE LAMP

York from Cincinnati, his birth-place,
in 1879. Although he had had little
artistic instruction, his sketches showed
decided aptitude, and his first efforts
were published in St, Nicholas. In one
of his printed articles, Mr. Blum told
how his earliest artistic awakening
seemed to come from Japanese fans that
he purchased during a music festival in
Cincinnati in 1872. Later, at the Cen-
tennial Exposition, the Japanese display

done up to that time. Many of them
were in water-color, and the coloring
was superb. He stayed in Japan for
more than two years, and when he re-
turned he wTote three articles, entitled
"An Artist in Japan," describing in an
unconventional and vivacious way the
life and the impressions which he had re-
ceived, illustrating them fully w'ith his
own beautiful sketches. One of these,
"A Daughter of Japan," was reproduced

r-^^

IN A LETTER FROM TOLEDO, SPAIN.
This and the other pen drawings are reproduced from sketches in Mr. Blum's letters.

gave further direction to his talent, and
these early sketches for 5/. Nicholas had
something to do with Japanese jugglers.
From 1880 he was accustomed to go
abroad almost every year and sketch in
Venice, Toledo, Madrid, and Holland.
In those days he w^as most expert in pen-
and-ink drawing, but many of his water-
color sketches had great beauty.

The chance for which he had long
waited came in 1890, when he went to
Japan to illustrate a series of articles by
Sir Edwin Arnold for Scribner's Maga-
zine, which were published under the
title "Japonica." The drawings which
resulted were the best that Blum had

in color as the frontispiece of Scribners
for May, 1893, and is probably the first
color-printing in any of the larger Amer-
ican magazines. It was drawn on stone
by Mr. Blum himself and his friend,
W. J. Baer. Only a few months ago
Blum told a friend that he still received
copies of this picture with requests that
he would sign it. The Japanese experi-
ence gave a still further impetus to his
talent as a decorative painter, and he
was offered the opportunity to make the
wall paintings for the Mendelssohn Glee
Club Hall in New York. The first one,
"Music," was finished in 1895, and is a
huge frieze 50 feet long and 1 2 feet high,

^ 1 1; > r "

-**— W^

^ *?

ROBERT F. BLUM.

From an early etching by
himselt.

»UJ^

{^^—

IN A LETTP:R from HAARI.KM, HOLLAND.

THE LAMP

477

filled with exquisitely drawn figures. A
writer in Scribners for January, 1896,
says :

"The sense of dainty motion, of pul-
sating life, is so expressed that they
seem poised there for an instant only;
indeed, in looking from one to another,
the rhythm of the attitude gives a sensa-
tion of movement." A few years later
he completed the companion piece, a
similar canvas on the opposite wall, en-
titled "The Feast of Bacchus." In this
picture the drawing is stronger and the
color more pronounced, and, seen from
the audience hall, it is more effective as
a decoration, but near at hand the first
picture is more delicate in color and con-
ception. The semi-dome back of the
stage was also to be decorated by Mr.
Blum, but he found great difficulty, he
said, in planning a scheme of decoration

that would fit the curved surface, and it
was never completed. At the time of
his death he was at work, with A. B.
Wenzell, on a large decoration for a
new theatre in New York.

Among the honors which came to him
were his election, first as an associate,
and then as a member of the National
Academy of Design, and his election as
President of the Painters in Pastel. He
was also a member of the American
Artists* Society and of the Water-Color
Society. He received a gold medal at
the Paris Exposition for his painting
"The Lace-Makers."

While Blum's reputation as an illus-
trator was well established, it is prob-
able that he will be longest remembered
by his work as a colorist, particularly as
exemplified in the large canvases in the
Mendelssohn Hall.

IN A LETTER FROM HAARLEM.

LETTERS AND LIFE
By John Finley

IT is a corollary of the fickleness of
fame, and the forgetfulness of re-
publics, that a child should not be chris-
tened for a living celebrity — especially
a political celebrity. Another corollary
which is derived from this same ob-
servation is that a man's biography
should not be written until he is dead.
Exception must, for physical reasons, be
made of autobiography, through which,
since the days of St. Augustine, many
have made ante mortem confession to
their Maker or sought post mortem
good-will of their neighbors. But there
is a species of objective biography which
should also be excepted, biography so
little analytical of motive and desire and
so purely extrinsic in what it portrays as
to be related less to biology (with its
vivisection) than to photography. In-
deed, there has been lately coined a
word in the field of photography that
might very well be employed to define
this species. It is the "biograph," which
is but a series of pictures of living, mov-
ing objects.

Last month, attention was called to a
collection of studies in biography by
Mr. Bryce. They were portraits, not
of the features nor of the activities of
his friends, but of the selves which had
lived within the walls of these features
and prompted these activities. I have
now to speak of Mr. Justin McCarthy's
collection of "British Political Por-
traits." * They are of the species which
I have just been defining; being photo-
graphic and of living, moving men. For
it is of feature, voice, political affiliations
— the externals — that he writes. There

♦ British Political Portraits, by Justin McCarthy. New
York : The Outlook Company. 1903.

is no philosophy here, no "applied sci-
ence" of living, except occasionally such
a remark as that Lord Roseber>% in his
wide acquaintance with, not only poli-
tics, but letters, travel, art, life of great
cities, and commerce, "must surely have
got out of life all the best that it has to
give." There is no painful vivisection.
Political friends and foes are subjected
to no greater discomfort than sitting be-
fore the kindly lens of Mr. McCarthy
for the length of a short chapter.

The subjects are the men who are
to-day politically prominent in England,
the successors to those of whom Mr.
Bryce wrote. They are Arthur Balfour,
Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery, Joseph
Chamberlain, Henry Labouchere, John
Morley, Lord Aberdeen, John Burns,
Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, John Red-
mond, Sir William Harcourt, Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, and James Bryce.
The background is usually the same —
an interior of Westminster Palace;
though occasionally it is shifted and the
environment of a Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland thrust in its place. And there
is much the same use of screens and
shades, of lights and shadows through-
out, so that these "portraits" are all
easily recognized as the work of the
same photographer.

For an example of this uniformity of
treatment, take the portraits of Balfour,
Morley, Aberdeen, Hicks-Beach, and
Campbell-Bannerman, who all gave
some service to the government as
Lord Lieutenant or as Chief Secretary
for Ireland. Of Balfour Mr. Mc-
Carthy says: "He had to attempt a dif-
ficult, or rather, it should be said, an
impossible task, and he got through it

THE LAMP

479

about as well as, or as badly as, any
other man could have done whose ap-
pointed mission was to govern Ireland
on Tory principles." Of Morley, that
he entered "bravely on an enterprise the
immediate success of which was under
the conditions absolutely impossible,"
though he does not doubt that Morley
would have been successful (as Secre-
tary for Ireland) if he had been allowed
his own way. Of Sir Michael Hicks-
Beach: "I have no doubt that Hicks-
Beach did all in his power to see that
the business of the department was ef-
ficiently and honestly conducted in Dub-
lin Castle, but under the conditions
imposed upon him by Conservative prin-
ciples it was impossible for him to
accomplish any success in the adminis-
tration of Irish affairs." Of Aberdeen:
"There was not much that the most
liberal Lord Lieutenant could do in the
way of positive administration for the
benefit of the island. . . . Lord Aber-
deen fulfilled this part of his public duty
with a brave heart and with all the suc-
cess possible to the task." And finally,
of Bannerman-Campbell : "He governed
the country about as well as any Eng-
lish Minister could have done under
such conditions."

There is much this same lack of par-
ticularizing in the characterization of
the parliamentary service of these and
the other men described in this book,
much the same monotony of phrase in
the delineation of their personalities.
But there is one paragraph in the bio-
graphical sketch of Mr. Balfour which
is worth quoting because it presents, with
rather unusual clearness and in striking
contrasts, the endowments and interests
of two men to-day most conspicuous
in English politics, associated in the
same Cabinet, yet supporting policies
some of which are hostile to each other
— Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain.
"It would be hard," says Mr. McCar-
thy, "to find two men in the House of

Commons more unlike each other in
characteristic qualities and in training
than these two. They are both endowed
with remarkable capacity for political
life and for parliamentary debate, but
there . . . 'all likeness ends between the
pair.' Balfour is an aristocrat; Cham-
berlain is essentially a man of the Brit-
ish middle class — even what is called the
lower middle class. Balfour has gone
through all the regular course of uni-
versit}' education ; Chamberlain was for
a short time at University College School
in London, a popular institution of mod-
ern origin which does most valuable
educational work, but is not largely
patronized by the classes who claim
aristocratic position. Balfour is a con-
stant reader and a student of many
literatures and languages. *Mr. Cham-
berlain,* according to a leading article
in a London daily newspaper, *to put it
mildly, is not a bookworm.' Balfour
loves open-air sports and is a votary of
athleticism; Chamberlain, never takes
any exercise, even w^alking exercise,
when he can possibly avoid the trouble.
Balfour is an aesthetic lover of all the
arts; Chamberlain has never, so far as
I know, given the slightest indication
of interest in any artistic subject. Bal-
four is by nature a modest and retiring
man; Chamberlain is always Tushful
Joe.' The stamp and character of a
successful municipal politician are al-
ways evident in Chamberlain, while Bal-
four seems to be above all other things
the university scholar and member of
high societ>'."

This extract supports what I have al-
ready said, that the writer deals chiefly
with externals. But he has also em-
ployed the photographer's art in retouch-
ing with a kindly prophecy (some might
call it Hibernian blarney) the features
of his subjects who have been already
presented with a favoring disposition of
light and shadow. Nearly every chapter
has a "finishing touch," which softens all

48o

THE LAMP

lines of partisanship and gives even to
the most aged the similitude of youth in
the wish for their long-continued service
or their return to power. Mr. Morley,
with all thalt he has already won of dis-
tinction in politics and letters, "has still
[at sixty-five], we may well hope, a
long political career before him;" the
Earl of Aberdeen, in a hoped-for coming
of a better time for the statesmen of
England, "will renew his active career
for the benefit of the people whom he
has served so faithfully and so well;"
John Burns has a "good and a great
work yet to do"; "Black xVIichael" will,
it is strongly opined, "before long begin
a new administrative career" ; John Red-
mond is "still young enough to have a
career before him," and strong enough
to invite the "fullest confidence in his
future;" Sir William Harcourt, at sev-
enty-six, has, it is believed, his best work
to do; James Brvxe will be needed in
the re-creation of a true Liberal party;
and Campbell-Bannerman "is destined
to do great service yet to the Liberal
cause and to win an honorable place in
British history." These, to be sure, are
all Liberals, and McCarthy's estimate
of them borrows something, no doubt,
from his hope of their future service;
but he is hardly less charitable of his
Conservative subjects, for his closing
paragraph to Balfour is quite as praise-
ful, even if it does not anticipate for
him a long administration "against the
rising force of a Liberal reaction" ; he
echoes the regret of the world if Lord
Salisbur\''s "voluntary retirement from
the position of Prime Minister should
mean also his retirement from the field
of political life," and he even permits Mr.
Chjimberlain "to feel proud in the con-
sciousness that the close attention of the
political world will follow with ea^er
curiosity his further career."

These biographies cannot have a per-
manent value because their originals are
constantly being revised ; but they have

a special interest and value at the pres-
ent moment in introducing one to a more
intimate acquaintance with the men who
are now guiding England's political pol-
icies and making her present history.
They are as entertaining as a "biograph,"
and, though they are ephemeral in their
accuracy, they are yet very stimulating
in the cumulative example which such
a series of clean, high-purposed lives of
political service gives. Practical politics
cannot be a mean occupation with such
men as most of these are for leading and
successful active practitioners of arts.

My only personal recollection of Mr.
Justin McCarthy is of a little man with
a long beard and spectacles giving a
rather brief, quiet lecture (which, I re-
gret to say, I have entirely forgotten)
after a fervid, eloquent introduction
(which about equalled in length, as 1
remember, the lecture itself) by a local
Irish-Am.erican prominent citizen. I
have a fear to offend (in length) as he
did in his enthusiasm and to tire you,
the would-be auditor, before you come
to the book; so let me, without further
words, leave you to the guidance of this
genial journalist, with the wish that,
despite his years, he may yet realize
for himself what he has in his kindliness
wished for these who have been his asso-
ciates and even his opponents in the
parliamentary struggles of the last quar-
ter-century.

In another of the books with which
The Outlook Company begins the foun-
dation of its edifice of letters whose win-
dows are to give upon life, is a brief
appreciation of the character and work
af one who is dignifying our own poli-
tics by a peculiarly devoted and high-
minded service — William H. Taft, the
first Civil Governor of the Philippines.
The book* is only a brochure, and its
brief content is already a familiar story,
tut it is worth rereading and keeping

♦The Philippines. New York. TTic Outlook Company,

1907.

THE LAMP

481

that we may not forget, in the midst of
the overwhelming literature of political
venality in some of our cities and com-
Jiionwealths, that there is political ser-
vice unsullied of sordidness or even of
selfishness. The book contains, besides
President (Vice-President when the ar-
ticle was written) Roosevelt's tribute to
<jovernor Taft, the latter's account of
the beginning of American supremacy
■and guardianship in these islands of the
Orient.

Another book to refresh political
-optimism is John W. Foster's story of
•our relations with the peoples of the
East,* a story which begins with the
-entrance in August, 1784, of the Ameri-
<:an ship. The Empress of China, of
New York, commanded by Captain
John Green, with Samuel Shaw as
supercargo, into the port of Canton,
^nd ends where Governor Taft's story
and service take up the narrative and
the task. The author says in his preface
that he has the more cheerfully under-
taken to write this history because of a
-conviction that a "narrative of that in-
tercourse would reflect great credit upon
Tiis country," and because of "the hope
that it might stimulate the patriotism of
its citizens and lead them to a more
ready support of their government in the
■discharge of its difficult and enlarged
responsibilities." And certainly there is
good reason for his conviction, and, it is
believed, as good ground for his hope.

The heroes of these chapters are, for
the most part, unknown to the pages of
American histor\\ It is to these forgot-
ten servants of the State a generous ser-
vice on the part of Mr. Foster that he
has rewritten their faded names where
they can be seen of this generation at
least; and a service to us that we may
know what heroism is buried in the dust
of our diplomatic records, as well as in
the ashes of missionary martyrdom. It

♦ Diplomacy in the Orient, by John VV. Foster. Boston
-and New York. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1903. J

is not a tiresome stor>', though it has
little to recite of action and much to
tell of disappointing delay and of pa-
tient waiting. The account of the ne-
gotiation by Mr. Townsend Harris of
the first commercial treaty with Japan
is illustrative of the nature and impor-
tance of the service which these exiles
gave their own country, but which they
gave, in even larger measure, to those
whose harbors were so inimically barred
against the vessels which, with no sails
set and in the face of the wind, sought
to enter them. Mr. Townsend Harris
went out in 1856, the first recognized
agent from a civilized power to reside
in Japan. Two years later the treaty
(providing for diplomatic agents to re-
side at the capital and consuls at the
port, authorizing commerce, making
trade regulations, giving Americans per-
mission to reside at the capital or open
ports, and guaranteeing the free exer-
cise of religion) was signed. Thus, this
one American, "without the aid of ships
of war, had fought his diplomatic battle
single-handed and won." Mr. Foster,
in speaking of his great service, remarks
that "he who first enters a new field
which gives promise of extensive trade
is remembered and honored by future
generations, while the man who comes
after him and by persistent effort, un-
adorned with adventure or novelty,
makes possible the development of a
profitable commerce, receives but slight
commendation or recompense for faith-
ful service." Commodore Perry had
"unbarred the gate of the island empire
and left it ajar; but it was the skill of
Harris which threw it open to the com-
mercial enterprise of the world."

These individual stories, deserving, as
they are, to be remembered, are, how-
ever, but incidental to the great and
the inevitable merging in the East,
where the Pacific has been gathering
upon its shores during the last century
material for a new world-epic, such as

482

THE LAMP

no poet has ever had in the past, an epic
whose adventurers are merchants, whose
soldiers are missionaries, and whose cap-
tains are diplomats. What varied and
picturesque incident is furnished by this
meeting of the Orient and the Occident,
the latter coming up now on the other
side of the world from that by which
the West approached the East in the
past! Mr. Foster has travelled along
these shores in China, Korea, Japan,
Siam, and the islands of the Pacific, and
noted fact and incident for this epic.
Some day, perhaps, a poet will put them
into abiding letters, but they are full of
interest even in this didactic form.

There is still another and a very thin
volume* to be mentioned in connection
with these books of political biography
and patriotic service. It is a volume
unpretentiously printed and bearing as
preface and dedication in one: **These
chance utterances of faith and doubt are
printed for a few friends who will care
to keep them." And I can promise
those who read them that they will
"care to keep them," for they are a very
unusual collection of very brief speeches,
with a delectable literary flavor. They
bear the title '^Speeches," and were made
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, not the
poet, but the sometime soldier and law-
yer, and now justice of the United
States Supreme Court. An edition of
those addresses was printed more than a
decade ago, I infer from the date of
copyright, but the edition of 1900 con-
tains some of his later speeches — and I
hope there will soon be another edition
with at least two addresses which I have
heard the author make since then.

These speeches, so far as they are per-
sonal, are in tribute to the members of
the bench and bar and to soldiers, two
other classes of public and semi-political
servants. And rare tributes they are,
rich in figure and discriminating adjec-

♦ Speeches, by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Boston. Little,
Brown & Co., 1900.

tive. They are not wTitten in the con-
secrated or conventional phrases which
the intellectually lazy or unobserving or
sterile use, but in the language of one
who makes his own phrases to express
his own thought, the "naked though t^
uns wad died in pompous commonplaces."
Yet he is himself charitable of the ready-
made platitudes with which our speech
is so full, for, as he intimates, they keep
the truth which we have ahvays ad-
mitted and shall some day come in our
experience to realize. "The careless
boy," he says, in his address at the death
cf Chief Justice Field of the Massachu-
setts Supreme Court, "admits that life-
is short, but he feels that a term in col-
lege, a summer vacation, a day, is long.
We gray-haired men hear in our ears
the roar of the cataract and know that
we are very near. The cr\' of personal
anguish is almost drowned by the re-
sounding echo of universal fate." There
is a suggestion of the aging judge here^
but, before he finishes these words in
memory of his friend and associate, he is
the young undaunted soldier again : "At
the grave of a hero who has done these
things we end not with sorrow at the
inevitable loss, but w^ith the contagion
of his courage; and with a kind of des-
perate joy we go back to the fight.""
"Desperate joy!" I remember hearing
him speak once of one's delight to get
praise that one hoped one deserved, but
"the fiercest joy," he added, "is in the
doing." To him who was satisfied with
himself he accorded the "thin delight of
reading his own obituary." These are
some of the few phrases which show the
temper of the man as wtII as the poetic
quality of his speech.

I think I have never been more
charmed by a speaker; and his printed
speeches, few of them more than ten or
fifteen minutes in length, have no less of
charm — perhaps because invested with
the memory of his voice and manner.
They are "occasional" addresses, made

THE LAMP

483

at the death of a friend, the anniversary
of an event, or some pubh'c dinner. The
best of these is "The Soldier's Faith," de-
livered on Memorial Day in 1895 at a
meeting called by the Graduating Class
of Harvard University. I can give but
a sentence or two from its ringing, sen-
tient paragraphs. It is perhaps "not
vain for us," he says, "to tell the new
generation what we learned in our day,
and what we still believe — that the
joy of life is living, is to put out all one's
powers as far as they will go; that the
measure of power is obstacles overcome;
to ride boldly at what is in front of you,
be it fence or enemy; to pray not for
comfort, but for combat; to keep the
soldier's faith against the doubts of civil
life, more besetting and harder to over-
come than all the misgivings of the bat-
tle-field ; ... to love glory more than
temptations of wallowing ease, but to
know that one's final judge and only
rival is one's self."

One may not always be willing to
fight in support of his philosophy, but if
one must oppose him, then one has a
valiant foe, who has had discipline in the
school of w^ar and who holds that in this
snug over-safe corner of the world we
need some such teacher as he had, "that
we may realize that our comfortable
routine is no eternal necessity of things,
but merely a little space of calm in the
midst of the tempestuous, untamed
streaming of the world, and in order
that we may be ready for danger."
"For," he adds, "high and dangerous
action teaches us to believe as right be-
yond dispute things for which our doubt-
ing minds are slow to find words of
proof. Out of heroism grows faith in
the worth of heroism." It is this stren-
uous doctrine which leads this tall, re-
fined, chivalrous judge with many
wounds of war upon him, to "rejoice at
every dangerous sport" and to feel it no
waste if in our rough riding a neck is
broken, but "a price well paid for the

breeding of a race fit for headship and
command."

I must content myself with one more
quotation from his philosophy of life, as
put in an illustration from the field of
the sportsman. After expressing his be-
lief that it is infinitely more important
to do with one's might what one finds to
do than to make the vain attempt to
love one's neighbor as one's self, he gives
this advice: "If you want to hit a bird
on the wing you must have all your will
in a focus, you must not be thinking
about yourself, and, equally, you must
not be thinking about your neighbor;
you must be living in your eye on that
bird. Every achievement is a bird on
the wing."

It is said in praise of Justice Holmes,
that he has had the courage to stand
by his convictions, and "to take a step
forward where a step was needed," de-
spite precedent or the admonition of
"consecrated phrases." And what he
brings to his cases be>^ond a keen, cou-
rageous, discriminating sense of justice,
is a rare poetic sense of values, and with
it a rare gift of expression. I have never
read any of his decisions, but from what
I have seen and heard of his writings I
am certain that they must be not only
courageous, equitable, and sound in the
intent of their justice, but also eloquent
in their utterance of it.

This little book of speeches is a val-
iant contribution to the life that now is.
If it be full of martial figures for these
peaceful days, let it be remembered that
it is from the heart of one who has
fought a brave fight and has kept "the
soldier's faith."

No circle of men sitting in their new-
made book-lids the last two months
would be complete into which Emerson
did not come. His spirit has been much
abroad in lettered company in these his
centenary days. One of the books which
has sought to catch and hold that spirit
is Mr. F. B. Sanborn's "The Personal-

484

THE LAMP

ity of Emerson." * It is a spare, stately
book, but too much of a spendthrift of
material, I fear, to give comfortable
garb to that personality. The margins
are both wide and deep, too much the
mode for one who would hardly have
tolerated in the body, such padding as
often fills out the scant proportions of
others. But the tailor is to be blamed
or praised for the clothes. The Emer-
son who wears them is the same familiar
spirit, and even more intimate for the
conversation which Mr. Sanborn elicits.
Indeed, there is almost as much infor-
mation about the personality of Mr.
Sanborn, who is very agreeably ob-
trusive.

Years ago I was giving one day, out
near where the Pilgrim Fathers landed,
a lecture on a subject about which I had
had some controversy with this interest-
ing friend of Emerson's. In my youth-
ful diffidence I had wished that he of all
men might not appear at my lecture,
and I had no reason, beyond my fear, to
suppose that he would; but, just as I
was about to begin, his tall figure, in
striking habit, came in and took the
front seat. After the lecture was over

" ♦The Personality of Emerson, by F. B. Sanborn.
Boston. Goodspeed, 1903.

he came to me, and in a very cordial
manner congratulated me — upon my
youth and the consequent fact that I
probably had years before me in which to
learn and to correct the errors to which
I had given utterance that morning.

I have not yet been led to see the
error of my views on that subject (per-
haps for the reason to which Darwin
attributes the slow progress of truth —
the want of a vacant mind), but I have
found much pleasure during the years
since in the companionship which Mr,
Sanborn's observing, discriminating, and
unsparing pen has given. I cannot in-
timate to the reader what revisions he
must make in his own mental "proof"
of Emerson after reading this contribu-
tion by Mr. Sanborn — for no two proofs
are alike — ^but I can promise him a de-
lightful hour or two if he is able to get
one of these five hundred impressions of
Mr. Sanborn's "revise." I should add
that this slim book is to be one of four in
which Mr. Sanborn seeks to bring back
his transmigrant friends, Emerson, Tho-
reau, Ellery Channing, and Bronson
Alcott, to their earthly habits and domi-
cile again. He is fortunate who is ad-
mitted to the intimate circle to which
the meagre edition limits membership.

^o^n^

THE STODDARDS

Reproductions from Photographs by Lorimer Stoddard,

hitherto unpublished

LOKIMER STODDARD IN HIS PASTORAL PLAY, "THE KING's HRIDE," PRODUCED AT SAG
HARKOR AND SOUTHAMPTON IN THE OPEN AIR.

I.ORIMKR STODDARD.

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